Month: February 2021

Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16, Mark 8.27-38*

The Second Sunday of Lent, 28th February 2021 – online

You’d think we’d have given up on messiahs by now. For they always fail us. But we do persist in looking to these people to save us.

We thought the banks could save us, investing our wealth in them – we ended up bailing them out.

We thought the internet would save us, bringing the world to our homes, speeding up business, opening up new realms of leisure – it ended up enslaving us in new addictive habits and harmfully distancing us from those with whom we differ.

We thought the celebrities would save us, filling our hearts with laughter and song – they ended up hiding from us behind high-security fences, and withdrawing from public life.

We thought our priests could save us, offering us words of comfort to assuage our grief and pain – they ended up abusing our young ones and covering up the evidence.

Have you ever noticed how in the gospels the only people who called Jesus the Messiah were devils?

In Luke 4.41 Jesus performs a series of exorcisms and ‘Demons … came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.’

In Luke 23.39 the unrepentant criminal hanging beside Jesus at Calvary kept devilishly deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’

And here in Mark’s gospel today, his most devoted disciple Peter calls Jesus the Messiah – and shockingly, to Peter and to our ears, Jesus says, ‘Get behind me, Satan!’

Those who call Jesus the Messiah are devils, speaking Satanically.  Jesus’ rebuke of Peter makes clear that those who follow Messiahs ‘are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

This is an argument between two different views of what a Messiah is and does. Peter was expressing the common view of the time that the Messiah was one powerful to save Israel from its Roman oppressor by force. By contrast, Jesus viewed himself as the Human One – the one whose power would be revealed through weakness, whose victory over the forces of evil would come through his suffering. Peter couldn’t countenance a Messiah who would suffer and die at the hands of others. Jesus couldn’t countenance a follower who wanted him to rule through force; because in Jesus’ worldview the Messiah comes in vulnerable love and forgiving grace. 

Jesus warned his followers against false Messiahs who would lead them astray. [2] But Peter had swallowed the lie put out by Satan the father of lies, that there is no alternative to the competitive forces of the world, with their aggressive and power-grabbing Messiahs. Jesus wanted his disciples to see that following him means ceasing searching for salvation among those who wield such powers, and to find salvation in him who spent all his time serving those who suffer at the hands of such powers, the One who carries another kind of power altogether, a gentle, gracious power fostered by the pure force of nonviolent love. The power of life over death.

Let us be clear – that as far as Mark is concerned there is total opposition between these two powers, there is no accommodation to be made, no compromise to be had between the power of death in the world of Satan and the power of life in the love of Jesus. To follow Jesus means to oppose the Messiahs of this world. And so the expression, ‘Take up your cross and follow me’; as a statement of what Jesus requires of his followers it cannot be clearer. [3]

‘Take up your cross’ offended Peter’s view of who his Messiah was, and of how he should live as a disciple. Jesus’ opposition to the bankers of his day – the moneychangers in the Temple; Jesus’ critical questioning of the celebrities of his day – the king and the highly-regarded religious leaders; Jesus’ devoting most of his time and energy to the little ones, the struggling ones of society – this offended Peter as it wasn’t what a leader did, and it required Jesus’ followers to act the same.

The late Billy Graham often preached a sermon entitled The Offence of the Cross. He would say, 

This expression “the offence of the cross” sounds strange to our modern ears. Because, you see, we have a beautiful cross on our churches. We have crosses in the lapels of our coats. We have crosses around our necks. We have crosses embossed on our Bibles. We never think of it as a scandal and as an offence. And yet the Bible says it’s a stumbling block. It’s an offence. It’s a scandal among men. It’s a base and despised thing.

The cross was a place to execute criminals. It was a place where the vilest died. And when I see Christ hanging on the cross, I say with Isaiah, “There is no beauty that I should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2). Paul says that in his day it was an offence.

(Graham said that) I’ve found in my ministry that I can preach anything else, and it’s called popular. It pleases the ear. But when I come to the heart of Christianity, when I come to the cross and the blood and the resurrection, that is the stumbling block. That’s the thing people do not want to hear. That’s the thing that is an offence, and yet it’s that very thing that is the heart of the Gospel. Without the cross, there is no salvation, there is no forgiveness. [4]

We can imagine the pressure Billy Graham must have felt to become Messianic, to save his followers by wielding his substantial power. But he is a fine example of one who carried his cross. By deliberately not founding his own church; by avoiding getting involved in controversial public issues, but working quietly to challenge injustice in society; by imposing strict discipline and rules of accountability on himself and his employees in matters of finance and relationships – this was Graham carrying his cross, fighting hard to avoid the Messiah Complex to which so many other leaders in all walks of life, have succumbed. To do otherwise would have been Satanic. He worked tirelessly to deflect attention from himself and direct his audiences’ attention onto Jesus – this Jesus being the One whose leadership model was and is to meet aggression with gentleness, to defy violence with peace, to renounce wealth for generosity and to repay hatred with love. [5]

This is the way of the wilderness; to resist the temptation to be seen as the one who can save  other people.  This is the way of Lent; to nurture a spirit which gives a gracious and generous God space to work through us.  This commitment to a life of humble, faithful service to the poor and the outcast and opposing those forces who exploit and oppress them: all of this will lead us to Easter; all of this is what it means to carry our cross. 

Notes

*NB The Lectionary gospel passage is Mark 8.31-38 but this longer extract includes Peter’s crucial ‘Messiah’ confession.

[1] This talk draws on previous sermons on this gospel passage, including The Scandal of the Cross and What it Means to Carry Ours (Somerset, 2018), On calling God names (Somerset, 2015) and What’s in a name? (Devon, 2012).

[2] Mark 13.5-6; 21-22.

[3] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. p.244

[4] Billy Graham, Why Does The Cross Offend People? Decision Magazine, March 3, 2016.

[5] Sources for Billy Graham biographical details: Obituary: William Franklin Graham, Church Times, 22 February 2018; Harriet Sherwood, Billy Graham, famed Christian evangelist, dies aged 99, Guardian, 21 February 2018; John Sharman, What is the Billy Graham rule?, Independent, 21 February 2018; Bob Smietana, The Other Billy Graham Rules: They have nothing to do with sex,  Christianity today, 31 March 2017.

Genesis 9.8-17, Mark 1.9-15

The First Sunday of Lent, 21 February 2021 – online

Sometimes we choose aloneness; and sometimes aloneness is thrust upon us. 

At the end of World War Two, the liberated prisoner of war Jozef Stawinoga emigrated to Britain, securing a job at the steelworks in Bilston, Wolverhampton. In 1953 his wife of just one year left him, and Jozef had a nervous breakdown that brought on his withdrawal from society. He took to wandering the streets of Wolverhampton in an increasingly bedraggled state, sporting a long beard and pushing his possessions in a pram. In the 1970s he set up a tent on the central reservation of the Wolverhampton ring road where he remained a virtual hermit until his death in 2007. The council let him stay there and, in return, he would sweep up leaves. Local Hindus regularly brought Jozef gifts of clothes, blankets and freshly cooked delicacies because they saw him as a holy man. One said: ‘This man doesn’t want any relation with the world, he is connected with God and so we believe he is a saintly person.’ Writer Rowena Macdonald remembers Stawinoga from her childhood.’He looked like a Biblical character. Someone out of time, or timeless,’ she says. ‘Really he was more like a mendicant’. [1]

People who set out alone might come to carry an aura of holiness about them…. even when that’s unjustified. For sometimes we choose to pursue holiness by taking time alone; and sometimes aloneness is thrust upon us. 

Mark is the briefest of the gospels but what it lacks in detail it makes up for with its breathless pace and stark imagery. After his baptism in the Jordan, Mark tells us, ‘the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness.’ This naked sentence of scripture provokes us to ask, did Jesus choose to pursue this way of holiness; or was this journey into aloneness thrust upon him by the driving force of the Holy Spirit? 

In the history of his people Jesus was by no means the first to be driven out into the desert. Remember Hagar, Abram’s servant-girl, who, made pregnant by her master, was ill-treated by Abram’s wife Sara and so ran away into the wilderness, where the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water and gave her confidence to return home. [2] 

Think of the people of Jacob, once enslaved in Egypt and now being led by Moses through the wilderness towards a promised land. [3] Recall the words of Deuteronomy, “[God] sustained [Jacob] in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye.” [4] 

Some in Israel saw the wilderness as a place to escape from their enemies: like the troubled author of Psalm 55 who, turning on his heels, sang, “truly, I would flee far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; I would hurry to find a shelter for myself from the raging wind and tempest.” [5] 

And some chose to take themselves away into the wild to nurture a more devout way of life – notably the ascetic sect the Essenes, some of whom settled in the desert near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, to live lives of poverty, piety, and celibacy. [6]

When Jesus was driven by the Spirit out into the wilderness he was entering into experiences which others before him had also had. And interestingly, according to Mark, he wasn’t alone. For he completes his description of this season of Jesus’ life by telling us that ‘He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.’ 

Were the wild beasts friendly or unfriendly? How did the angels show themselves to Jesus? – perhaps in ways similar to how Satan appeared? And what about this driving Spirit which projected Jesus into that desolate place?

One thing we can be fairly sure of, is that those who are driven by the Spirit of God have spent a great deal of time and devotion nurturing the presence of that Spirit in their lives. The Spirit driving Jesus to aloneness does not appear from nowhere; this is the Spirit who was with Jesus in the very beginning, a co-creator of all things with the Father, and this is the Spirit who was present with Jesus at his baptism, descending like a dove as the Father’s voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ 

The Spirit may be driving Jesus into an unknown place where he would have to struggle alone. But Jesus knew who that Spirit was. For all the years up to that moment, by his practice of prayer and learning and devotion Jesus had nurtured the Spirit’s presence in his life; this was how he could recognise that the drive which would propel him into the desert and beyond was the power and presence of God.

Sometimes we choose to pursue holiness by taking time alone; but even those other times when aloneness is thrust upon us, we can accept as opportunities to learn, reflect and grow. To get to know the Spirit who might drive us deeper into holiness.

We can experience the wilderness as a place of discomfort as the wandering Israelites did when they complained to Moses about their lot. [7] Or we can embrace it as a place where visions of a new and better life can emerge, as the prophet Isaiah did when looking out over a tired, corrupted society in its last throes, and announcing the moment when “a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.” [8]

This has been our wilderness year – and as we now approach the second year of this pandemic we also enter Lent.  In this time, let not the Satan lead us into temptation, let us not be paralysed by fear of the wild place we find ourselves in. Rather, let us keep watch and every day ask,  Where is the Spirit who can drive us through? Where are the angels who will attend us?

Józef Stawinoga (15 December 1920 – 28 October 2007), also known as Fred, was a homeless Polish man who lived in a tent on the Wolverhampton Ring Road for nearly 40 years

Notes

[1] Gareth E. Rees, Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Unexpected Places, p.38-39. Altered.

[2] Genesis 16.

[3] Exodus 20.

[4] Deuteronomy 32.10.

[5] Psalm 55.

[6] Wikipedia: Essenes.

[7] Numbers 11.

[8] Isaiah 32.14-17.

[9] Wikipedia: Józef Stawinoga

Screenshots from a conversation delivered by Powerpoint on Zoom.

Notes and References

[1] Click here to link to a complete PDF version of this presentation.

[2] Click here to download the complete Powerpoint presentation.

[3] Eric V. Copage, ‘Searching for a Jesus Who Looks More Like Me’, New York Times, 10 April 2020

[4] Joan Taylor, What did Jesus really look like? BBC News website, 24 December 2015

[5] Time Magazine cover, Aug. 15, 1988; Time Magazine cover story: “Who Was Jesus?”

Colossians 1:15-20, John 1.1-14

Second Sunday before Lent, 7 February 2021

What’s the story of creation? There’s a question to chew over today. You’ll probably say straightaway, well it’s obvious, it’s the one where God made the world and everything in it out of nothing, in seven days, taking the last day off for a rest. It’s right there in Genesis. We say that  because we Christians are ‘people of the book’, a book which begins with that very tale. 

It’s worth asking the question, though, because if we’d been born, say, into a Native American culture then our story of creation would be the Earth Mother giving birth; or if we came from Northern Europe then we’d recount those Norse myths about the world emerging through an act of primal violence when the Sky and the Earth got ripped apart. Wow. It makes ‘our’ creation story seem quite gentle by comparison. Some, of course, believe in a ‘big bang’ and the evolution of nature and humankind, or in a mixture of these tales.

It’s good to stop and think about the story of creation from time to time, because our life story is part of the life story of creation itself. Yes, wake up to this wonderful notion – that your humble life story is an integral and essential part of the life story of creation which we comprehend through the Word of God in the bible and the life of Jesus Christ. 

You know, the suffering we’re all feeling in this pandemic crisis, we could call it existential suffering – the isolation is compounded by that sense that we are created to live in relationship with one another, and social distancing prevents those relationships flourishing; the fear of the virus is tied in with our fear of the forces of nature to which we are bound, and which our human behaviour affects, but which are beyond our understanding and out of our control. So we need some assurance, to help re-set ourselves in these days. And meditating on our creation story may just help.

Here’s a different perspective on creation for you – straight from the letter of Paul to the Colossians. That as Christians our creation story begins not with that formless void and darkness over the deep; rather, Paul teaches that for us, creation begins with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Yes, the earliest Christians understood creation through the resurrection. For them, that event, above all other events in history, was the pivotal one, the one through which everything else came together. The Resurrection of Jesus, his defeat of death itself, made sense of everything that had so far happened, and shaped everything which was to follow.The letter to the Colossians is one of the earliest pieces of Christian writing we have, written sixty years after the resurrection, before the gospels, so it gives us great insight into what the very first believers believed. Let us listen again to how they saw Christ: as ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation’; 

for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. [2]

This is the central point of the first Christians’ belief: that creation begins with Jesus.

This changes our understanding of God as Creator from someone who once did something long long ago and then left us to get on with it, to someone who is doing something through Jesus. With the Father he was in on Creation from the beginning, but Creation only fully begins after Jesus dies, in a completely new way, in the garden on the first day of the week. 

Creation starts from and through Jesus. Where God, through his graciousness brought existence out of nothing, Jesus’ gracious self-giving out of love enabled him to break the human culture of death, and bring into being a radiantly living and exuberant culture. From this we learn that creation and salvation aren’t two different things, but rather that the salvation which Jesus was working was, at the same time, the fulfilment of creation. 

Through Jesus’ works and words and signs the Creator brings his work to completion. The act of creation was revealed for what it really is: the bringing to existence and the making possible of all things living together on this earth in ways which do not know death; and Jesus was in on this from the beginning: creating by the overcoming of death. [3]

Now you might justifiably ask, but where is this overcoming of death? Our world is full of death; creation itself is dying, we are told. Many ask the hard question which Stephen Fry recently voiced, “Why should I respect a God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” [4]. 

Our Colossians reading today tells us that ‘in Jesus all things hold together’. It explains that  ‘through Jesus, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’ 

As a result of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, Creation is in the process of leaving death behind. Creation is in the process of being reconciled. Note that Creation is not changed instantly by the Resurrection. It is a work in progress. So death is in the process of being defeated; the principalities and powers of this world are in the process of being reconciled to God. Can you see that in the way that the world’s industrial corporations are slowly turning away from destructive fossil-fuel use to sustainable energy? In just the same way, we are created and being re-created constantly – becoming a good person is the slow work of a lifetime.

When we embrace the meaning of the Cross and accept the power of the Resurrection into our lives, we become part of God’s work of reconciling Creation. If we pray each day to play our part in this work we’ll discover ways to live it out. Whether by tending the garden or helping the grandchildren with their schoolwork, whether by phoning the partner of the hospitalised or by making ethical investments, we play our part in reconciling Creation in the Resurrection way.

This is what it means to become God’s children. The moment of our creation is the moment we decide to embrace Jesus Christ, as John put it sometime after Paul,

To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. [5]

Notes

[1] This is a rewrite (in the time of the coronavirus) of my Reconciling Creation, preached in Somerset, 2015.

[2] Colossians 1:15-20.

[3] James Alison, Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination, pp.55-56. Altered. Referenced in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary: Creation in Christ. See also Girardian Lectionary, Resources on Colossians 1:15-28, PROPER 11C.

[4] Samuel Osborne, Stephen Fry was asked what he would say to God if they met. His answer is being investigated by police. Independent, 7 May 2017

[5] John 1.12-13.