Promises, promises - Sunday 28th August 2016

I wonder how many promises I have made which I have never fulfilled, and long forgotten. Plenty, I’m sure.
Some time after David became king of Israel, he remembered a promise he had made years earlier. The promise had been made in private to someone who had long since died. He could easily have set the memory aside. But he didn’t. Also, to keep this promise was likely to cost David a vast amount and could significantly benefit his political enemies. Nonetheless, he went out of his way to fulfil the obligation he had made.
The promise had been made to Jonathan, son of the then king of Israel. David had become locked in a deadly rivalry with Jonathan’s father as it became clear that David, not Jonathan, would be the next king of Israel. Facing the prospect of his own death in that process, Jonathan asked David to care for his family. David promised that he would.
However, when Jonathan and his father, Saul, died in battle, David’s political supporters were quick to assassinate all King Saul’s immediate heirs. The family was wiped out and the new king, David, took over all their land and property.
Some 15 years later, David remembered his promise to Jonathan. He could easily have dismissed the memory. Instead he searched for any remaining relative of Saul and Jonathan to whom he could show kindness for Jonathan’s sake. He discovered a crippled grandson of the former king, who had been rescued from the slaughter by his nurse, though permanently injured in the process.
David met the disabled young man and restored to him all the land and property that had belonged to King Saul. David kept his promise, not to an acceptable minimum, but to the maximum. That is the kind of man David was.
St Paul described David as a man after God’s heart. David was honourable, generous and forgiving. That’s what God is like.

Passionate People - Sunday 21st August 2016

Some of us are practical, some are spiritual, some intellectual, and some of us are passionate. King David was a passionate man. His passions got him into trouble at times (more of that in two weeks time) but his passions were also a great asset. Among David’s great passions, he was passionate about God.
When David finally brought the symbol of Israel’s God (the Arc of the Covenant) into his new capital, Jerusalem, he danced with all his might and all the people danced with him. We don’t often see our national leaders behaving like that!
Not long after, David looked up the hill from his new palace to the old and shabby tent which housed the Arc of God, and his heart stirred again. He wanted to build God a fantastic new home, at least as magnificent as his own.
And here’s the significant bit: God declined David’s offer. He didn’t want a magnificent Temple and was content with the tent. However, David was not criticised for making an inappropriate suggestions. His passion for God was acknowledged, appreciated, and gently redirected.
We need passionate people. We need people to be passionate. But passion requires freedom, and freedom requires a generous supply of forgiveness. David could be passionate because he knew that God was forgiving.
If we - as society - are not able to be forgiving, passion will be stifled, caution take over, and life will lose its dynamic edge.
We need passionate people, and we need to be quick to forgive them.

Fear & Hope - Sunday 31st July 2016

Fear is a powerful thing. Many of us are constrained or defined by our fears in one way or another. In the story of David and Goliath, the giant Philistine’s most potent weapon was neither his sword nor his hefty spear, but the intense fear that he stirred up in his enemies. Every day Goliath taunted the Israelites, demanding that they send someone to meet him in single combat. The Israelites were lured into Goliath’s trap. They looked at the 8 foot tall warrior and believed what he wanted them to believe: that he would cut them to pieces before their short sword-arms could get anywhere near him.
Goliath’s fear offensive was winning the war effortlessly, until the teenage shepherd, David, turned up. David had two weapons of his own. The first, an even stronger weapon than fear, was hope. David believed that God had a bright future for himself and the Israelite people, and therefore they would not be defeated. Alongside this hope, David had a highly potent long range weapon with which he was highly skilled - a sling-shot. He knew he could floor Goliath long before he came within the range of the Philistine’s sword or spear.
The sling-shot was a common military weapon at the time. The Israelite army would have had a whole battalion of sling shooters, and any of them could have defeated Goliath if only they hadn’t been paralysed by their fear of the huge warrior.
Fear is a powerful thing. Many of us are constrained or defined by our fears in one way or another. We don’t need a sling-shot to defeat our own personal Goliaths; we need hope. We need to remember that God wants the best for us and for our world. We need to remember that love and forgiveness are much stronger than selfishness and revenge. We need to remember that though fear may afflict us, it will not overcome us - unless we let it.
(This blog will be taking a break for a couple of weeks. Bye for now.)

Inside out - Sunday 24th July 2016

We all make judgements based on outward appearance. It’s inevitable. Whether we are simply choosing who to sit next to on a bus, or appointing an employee, or even selecting a potential lover - we base much of our judgement on what we can see.
When God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint a new king for Israel, he instructed the old man which town and family to visit, but did not advise him on which of Jesse’s sons to choose. Samuel took one look at the eldest son, Eliab, and quickly concluded that he had found his man: a tall, dignified, mature warrior - obvious king material! But God gave Eliab the ‘thumbs down’. “You humans look on the outward appearance,” God told Samuel. “I look at the heart.”
Samuel worked through all seven sons present and God rejected them all, leaving Samuel to ask Jesse if he, by any chance, had any more sons. Jesse responded, “There’s the youngest, but he’s only a shepherd.” (Clearly not king material!)
David was brought. He was young and inexperienced, but it was his heart that God was looking at. He was the man.
When it comes to yourself - God doesn’t love you because of your skin colour, your age, your choice of clothes, your height, or your weight - of course he doesn’t. But we still follow Samuel’s error and judge other people by such things.
Next time you meet a stranger, do your best to look beyond the obvious externals and try to perceive what they are like inside. Look at them as God looks at them. You may be surprised.

Tender & Humble - Sunday 10th July 2016

Middle-Eastern emigration into Europe (via Turkey) is nothing new. It was happening in the 1st Century as many Jewish people sought a new life in the established Roman cities of western Turkey. Among those migrating Jews were many who embraced the teaching of Jesus.
These migrants, like others before and after them, held firmly onto the customs of their homeland, in particular to their God-given law. This determined difference caused suspicion and tension, and there were repeated attacks on the migrant communities. (This is an all too familiar story!)
St Peter wrote a letter to the oppressed migrants, which is as remarkable for what it does not say as for what it does say. He said nothing at all about maintaining the Law of Moses, which was so important to his fellow Jews. He did not advise the Jewish-Christians to stand out in either their Jewishness or their Christianness. Instead, he simply advised them to accept and respect their new surroundings, and live well and honourably.
Peter was applying the message and example of Jesus into this situation. For Jesus, the measure of godliness was not in explicit religion but in ordinary, practical love. Peter summed up his advice to the unhappy migrants saying: “finally, all of you, have: sympathy; love for each other; a tender heart; and a humble mind.”
This is a glorious gem of practical advice. Whenever we find ourselves in stress or conflict, we need these words to echo in our minds: “have a tender heart and a humble mind”. That will mark out the path that Jesus trod before us.

Common Hypocrisy - Sunday 3rd July 2016

Hypocrisy is common. When St Peter visited the Christians in Antioch (Galatians 2), he was keen to endorse the multicultural community of Jesus’ followers there. He ate and drank with them without showing any concern for the strict food laws that he personally valued. Well done Peter!
However, when a group of strictly-observant Jewish disciples arrived from Jerusalem - representing Peter’s co-leader, James - Peter did a sudden U-turn. He didn’t want these influential visitors to see him eating with ‘Gentiles’. St Paul was furious at Peter’s hypocrisy, and publicly criticised him for his shallowness.
Needless to say, Christianity survived Peter’s hypocrisy. The teaching of Jesus continued to spread around the world, even though - sadly - the Jesus movement eventually separated from mainstream Judaism.
The root cause of Peter’s hypocrisy was simply that he wanted to be liked by the people on both sides of the current dispute, but he couldn’t please both groups at the same time. We all fall down that gap on occasion.
Hypocrisy is common, particularly among people who hold strongly to a certain set of values. It is very hard to promote the challenging values of Jesus’ teaching, and not fall into hypocrisy. If we tried to purge all the hypocrites from our churches, we would soon have no-one left. It is better that we be gentle with our criticism and quick with our forgiveness.
Hypocrisy is common. Gracious forgiveness must be even more abundant.

Holy Muddle - Sunday 26th June 2016

Life does not always go to plan. We all know that. When Herod Antipas started arresting and executing Jesus’ disciples, we can only imagine the thoughts and feelings of those early Christians. Acts 12 gives an account of how Peter was miraculously sprung from prison by an angel. At first reading, it is a positive story, but - given a bit more thought - it raises some questions.
It is wonderful that God sent an angel to rescue Peter. But what about James? James was also one of Jesus’ inner group of three favoured disciples. But he was executed. Why didn’t God rescue him?
Why did God wait until the night before Peter’s scheduled execution before he effected the rescue? Peter had been in prison for at least a week. But then, this isn’t the only incident of God leaving things to the last moment. What does that show us about God?
And then, having successfully rescued Peter, the angel might have given him some instructions or advice. But it didn’t. It simply vanished, leaving Peter alone and confused in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night. What does that show us about God’s way of dealing with us?
This is not a neat and tidy story. And the muddle continued when Peter arrived at his chosen destination, only to be left in the street while those praying for his release failed to believe that their prayers could have been answered.
What we discover is that working within God’s plan can be a confusing experience from the human perspective. What God may see as perfect order, might well look and feel a lot like muddle to us. Be prepared!