(Bible readings: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 and Luke 13:1-9)

 I remember a few years ago Radio 4 carried the news story that employees of the Health and safety executive were just as likely to have accidents at work as everybody else, and rather gleefully retold stories of some of the accidents. One person slipped on a raisin dropped from a packed lunch. This led a listener to e-mail in asking whether they had heard about the man who drowned in a vat of muesli – he had been pulled down by a strong current!

 The Health and Safety Executive have become one of the great targets for those who like myself sometimes despair of the nanny state. I remember another story when 23 members of the HSE were taken to hospital with minor injuries because they’d all crammed into a room for a meeting and the floor had collapsed. I had to repent of the fact that I laughed when I heard the news but I dare say many reacted in the same way thinking ‘they should have known better’. That can be a very common attitude in the face of disaster followed closely perhaps by the search for someone to blame. It must be somebody’s fault we say and in these days of ‘no win no fee’ litigation the next question is who can we sue?

 Cast your minds back to the Hatfield rail disaster in the late 1990s, the blame game was huge after that accident. Was it the contractors who didn’t do the work well enough, was it Network Rail who didn’t supervise the work properly, was the Government who’d set up the system then under resourced it? A similar scenario is playing played out at the moment over the North Staffordshire Hospital scandal. We love to have someone to blame. Our Gospel reading tells of a different sort of blame game. The crowd ask Jesus whether the Galileans whom Pilate the Governor had killed along with their sacrifices had brought it on themselves? And likewise the eighteen people killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. The crowd were suggesting this was in some sense Divine justice because these people had been sinful and God was punishing them for their wickedness. Even today there are people willing to think like that, in the 1980s some people suggested Aids was God’s punishment for an immoral lifestyle.

Jesus replies in effect ‘do you think they were any worse sinners than the rest of you?’ The truth is most people do not choose to become victims and endure horrendous suffering, even if their own actions may have contributed in part to their condition. They do not set out to be blamed for their foolish, or even sinful, behaviour. It is often the outworking of events that create victims, regardless of who instigated the chain of events in the first place. If people are suffering, whether or not it is their own fault, they are victims and as Christians our first concern should be to minister to their pain, not to point to their inadequacies however dramatically they may be manifested.

It is also misguided to assume that God sees and punishes in this way. There are passages in the Old Testament that speak of God punishing his people for their sins. But as we grow in our understanding of Scripture and God’s action in the world, so does our sense of God’s compassion, forgiveness and mercy. And if God is so lovingly inclined towards his people then this should be our model for our response to the tragedies of others because Jesus teaches us that those who suffer are no more guilty than anyone else, but rather, we are all, simply as human beings, equally in need of repentance and pardon.

This insight brings me to another side of the blame game (which balances the previous point) – we love having someone to blame if things go wrong because then we don’t have to take any responsibility for it. We can wash our hands of the matter just like Pilate did when he handed Jesus over to be crucified. In Pilate’s mind Jesus and the Jewish leaders were responsible for what happened, between them they had incited the crowd, Pilate just did what was politically expedient to keep the peace. How many times have we dodged responsibility with similar reasoning? “It wasn’t my fault I told them not to play in the road” – “yes but you were supposed to be supervising them not watching the football”. “How was I to know we weren’t insured for that?” – “well you should have read the small print”. We do it all the time don’t we – anything to avoid taking responsibility? But things will only change when we do start to take greater responsibility for ourselves and our actions, when we own our problems. The first step to recovery from any addiction is admitting to the problem, admitting that this substance or habit has got a hold on us. Then we can seek help. Likewise the first step to deepening our relationship with God is admitting to the things which get in the way. The excessive hours at work, the lounging in bed in the morning instead of starting the day in prayer, the hours watching television much of which is fairly vacuous. Owning the problem, being willing to change and then seeking God’s help to make the change is the way to make things happen.

The other thing we have to be aware of as St. Paul tells us in our Epistle reading is that we will face temptations to do the opposite. St. Paul helpfully reminds us of the people who left Egypt with Moses, they had that miraculous delivery from the plagues and crossing the Red Sea but despite all those manifestations of God’s power they still fell prey to idolatry and sexual immorality. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We will be tested, but we will not face any temptation that somebody else has not faced in the past, and God is faithful, and as St. Paul tells us He will not test us beyond our strength and He will provide the way out so we can endure the time of trial.

Finally Jesus also teaches us that God is always willing to give us one last chance. A life lived without an awareness of God will not bear fruit. It is sterile, spiritually barren, frequently empty of good works, a life only half-lived, so he completes his teaching with the parable of the fig tree which is given another chance to bear fruit. It is reprieved by the divine gardener who offers fertiliser to enable further growth and renewed fertility. From this we learn that it is never too late to renounce evil, repent and turn to Christ offering ourselves in relationship with the God who made us, so we can flourish into fruitful fig trees. During winter this barren time of year Lent gives us the opportunity to do just that so come the Spring the signs of new life will evident in our spiritual lives as well as the world around. Let us pray….

Readings:      Romans 10 v 8b-13  We are all the same to God 

                          Luke 4 v 1-13  The temptation of Christ

Prayer:

Almighty God,

Speak to us through your word

That we might know your will and purpose for our lives.

In the name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

The news this week has been dominated by one headline – The horsemeat scandal.

It would appear that a number of products labelled as beef have, through testing analysis, been found to contain horsemeat. Not that our health is threatened but that we have been deceived. The culprits in the food delivery process and their reasons for their actions has yet to be defined.

One key factor that does appear to have some relevance is the fact that horsemeat is about a fifth of the price of beef. I suspect that the price differential is the motivation behind this deception. Companies of every shade are constantly seeking new ways of making bigger and better profits. Even companies that are already successful profit makers strive to improve their margins motivated by the hope of better dividends for shareholders and improved salaries and bonuses for the bosses. Those on the supply side would say it is consumer pressure the desire to find cheaper food products at a time when household budgets are being squeezed but I suspect that is just a way of shifting the blame, having been caught out, point the finger at someone else.

It’s back to the time of Adam Eve and the snake. This fiasco is motivated by greed. Greed is a deadly sin that can lead any of us astray if we do not control our base instincts. Greed is one of the devils weapons which he uses to try to bring about our downfall. And there is no end to the ways he will use to tempt us away from the path that we know to be right.

In our Gospel reading this morning we heard again the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil. Jesus has been in the desert for 40 days, He has been fasting and is extremely hungry. At this juncture I’m tempted to say that the expression we often used when we’re very hungry is “ I could eat a horse” but perhaps we might not say that in future.

Anyway back to Jesus in the desert. The devil always picks on us in our most vulnerable moments and he sees Jesus in a vulnerable place and decides to tempt him. He invites Jesus to use his powers to resolve all his problems. Turn stones into bread invites Satan. Then you will have something to eat. Throw yourself off this building and prove you are indestructible, God has promised to protect you. Worship me says Satan and the world will be yours. Look at what I’m prepared to give you.

Despite his physical weakness from lack of food Jesus recalls his scriptural teaching to deflect all the devils wily tempting. In the end the devil gives up, hoping there will be a better opportunity at some time in the future. And immediately the angels come to Jesus to provide for his needs.

During our lives we are all subjected to the devils temptations. Sometimes those temptations are dressed up so that we can excuse our failings. but no matter how well you dress up a sin, it still remains a sin. We can point to others and blame them. We can blame our circumstances. We can point to a difficult upbringing. We can do all manner of things, but we cannot escape from the fact that we are responsible for our own actions and if we fall to temptation, we are guilty.

Now I would have to be the first to confess to many failings in the temptation department. But, in addition I can also confess that Jesus is my benchmark against whom I measure all my thoughts and actions, which is why I know I have often failed. But when we fail that is not the finish of us because we can also know that we can come before a loving and forgiving God and he will wash us clean. HE WILL FORGIVE US. And he has done that through Jesus, the one without sin.

 Whilst we have breath in our bodies Satan will find cunning ways of tempting us. If, like Jesus, we remember our teaching from scripture and above all use him as our benchmark then we will be more able to withstand those temptations. There is no doubt that the horsemeat scandal will teach a lot of people in the food business some salutary lessons. Especially where the temptation of greed can lead. It is my hope that the lessons we learn from scripture and the standards displayed by Jesus will help us walk a pure path of enlightenment and hope.

As Paul says in his letter to the Romans “No one who believes in Jesus will be put to shame”.

 Closing Prayer:

Almighty God,

We thank you for the shining example of Jesus.

Strengthen us in our resolve to resist temptation in whatever form it comes.

In His name we pray. Amen.

Last month saw the first vote on the Government’s bill to legislate for Gay Marriage. For me this proposal is crossing a Rubicon. The Rubicon was a river north of Rome beyond which returning Roman generals were supposed to leave their legions and travel onto Rome as an ordinary citizen so they could not use their army to impose their will on the Senate in Rome. Julius Ceasar, returning victorious from his lengthy wars in Gaul (modern day France), ignored the convention and used his army to make himself a consul for life, paving the way for one of his followers, Octavian, to become the first Emperor. In the process Roman Society and indeed the course of human history was changed forever.

The issue of homosexuality rumbles on in the Church. I have two narratives playing in my mind. One says homosexuality has always existed, it is a fact of life for a minority. Previous ages ruthlessly persecuted gays and lesbians for being different. Our current more progressive and understanding society has realised the fundamental error of this response and seeks to be more humane and accepting of the right of all people to live and flourish. To my mind there is evident truth in that narrative. I appreciate that departs from a literal understanding of some biblical passages but bear with me. If the Church is ever to find some peace over this issue then there will need to be some synthesis between this first narrative and the next one which I am about to elucidate.

This other narrative equally contains evident truth. It starts with the question ‘why is homosexuality so prevalent in Western Society compared to other cultures and can that be explained purely by the greater permissiveness or is it but one symptom of something deeper going on’? This narrative notes the crisis in personal relations, particularly the institution of marriage. A high court judge in the family division recently referred to it as ‘carnage’. The consequences are becoming apparent in the statistics, Britain has the highest rate of divorce in Europe, the highest number of children born out of wedlock and the highest rate of teenage pregnancy. Surveys have shown our children are the most miserable in Europe and our teenagers are most likely to engage in harmful behaviours. These facts should wake us up to the fact that something is seriously amiss and the next generation is bearing the brunt of it. Society is profoundly disordered. Whilst feminism has achieved equality for women (except in the Church) society has yet to reach a new understanding of the complementarity of the sexes commensurate with that equality. Increasingly men are struggling to find their role in society. I was talking to a pensioner just this week about his National Service, he said “I left a boy and came back a man”, a sentiment I’ve heard a number of times – but our society today lacks rites of passage like that. Young people (particularly young men) lack positive role models in their nurture and lack experience of stable family life and this is fuelling gender confusion and undermining their capacity to form stable relationships in the future.

May be some of the attitudes of previous generations and the framework in which they lived was more conducive to the health and well being of society as a whole, particularly for the nurture of the next generation? I remember talking to a retired priest who said, when he got married just after the War, sex was seen as a reward for making the commitment of marriage and children were accepted as a likely consequence. Raising those children well was seen as part of one’s duty to society. This was only 65 years ago but my goodness haven’t attitudes changed profoundly since then? Few people ever think of their ‘duty to society’, instead most people see society as a convenient vehicle to ensure ‘their rights’ – life has become ‘all about ME, my wants and desires’, with no thought of self-restraint. It is the cry of the perpetual teenager and our politicians, unable to think longer than the next election, pander to society’s collective immaturity.

Five developments since WW2 have changed perceptions and reduced the ‘moral hazard’ associated with irresponsible sexual behaviour, these are; reliable contraceptive, abortion (effectively) on demand, antibiotic treatment of STDs, easier divorce and State Benefits. The first two have severed the link between sex and procreation and created an environment where sex is something to be enjoyed by the couple for its own sake as part of nurturing their relationship. This has been beneficial for many relationships but as ever with human behaviour it has been a two-edged sword. Increasingly sex has become for many people a consumer experience to be consumed like many other leisure activities. Our young people now talk about having ‘Friends with benefits’ which apparently means you have friends with whom you have no committed relationship but you have a mutual understanding to ‘scratch each other’s sexual itch when desired’. It is a far cry from God’s intention of committed relationships enhanced by mutual sexual pleasure but with the potential for children to result. Further evidence is emerging that having multiple sexual partners is decreasing people’s chances of forming stable committed long-term relationships because the grass is always seems ‘greener on the other side of the fence’.

Jesus didn’t say a great deal about personal morality, but it is worth recalling that he was much stricter than the religious leaders of his day about divorce and adultery, and this teaching became the basis of the radical sexual discipline preached by the early church to a Roman world whose sexual mores closely resembled those of 21^st century Britain. Of marriage Jesus said ‘a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined with his wife and the two shall become one flesh’. The most obvious and permanent way they become one flesh is when 50% of the genes of one and 50% of the genes of the other are joined in a unique individual – a child born from the union. British laws on marriage and divorce were based on Jesus’ teaching until relatively recently. Then, for the best of motives pastorally, society (followed in time by the Church) became less literal in its’ interpretation of Jesus’ words and liberalised its attitude to contraception, abortion, adultery and divorce (all of which affected the heterosexual population). What is sauce for the goose is of course sauce for the gander, given the license afforded to itself by the heterosexual population, I think it is illogical and unjust to object to same sex relationships being put on a proper footing with legal rights and that is what a civil partnership does. I have seen in the life of a gay person I know well just how life enhancing forming such a stable committed relationship can be, and it has changed my views but calling that marriage is a step too far.

Listening to a radio program recently I heard a gay activist saying ‘marriage is all about commitment and should be open equally to gay and straight people’. I found myself responding this is equality gone mad and anyway marriage is not ‘all about commitment’ it is equally (as we have noted above) about procreation. We worship the God who is creator, redeemer and sanctifier and He invites us to participate with him in all three of those processes. There is no more profound way to participate in creation than procreation and if you are going to raise children well, you cannot be selfish, you cannot be constantly thinking of your right to self-fulfillment.

Furthermore (and this is my greatest concern about these proposals), a healthy society seeks to ensure the future of humanity by striking a balance between the needs of the current generation and the needs of future generations. Previous generations, used to the fragility of life due to war and disease, instinctively understood this. Our selfish generation of ‘perpetual teenagers’ thinks only of itself with not a care for the future. What sort of life are we passing on to our children and grandchildren, many of whom will be entering adulthood with little experience of a stable family life as children? A nation burdened with unprecedented level of debt, a world in which antibiotics are no longer effective, a world denuded of natural resources, in which bio-diversity is collapsing and in which climate change will make everyday life increasingly difficult not to say impossible in some parts of the world. In this context it strikes me as incredibly totemic of the way we are living that we are proposing to call a relationship with no prospect of normal biological procreation ‘marriage’. It is as if deep down, subliminally we know we have blown it, humanity has little future so let’s not bother with procreation. If we don’t seek urgently a better balance between the needs of this current generation versus those of future generations then I suspect that when future historians come to write about the decline and fall of Western Civilisation they will pinpoint this moment as the time when we finally and completely lost the plot – we crossed the Rubicon.

Readings: Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17,21,22

There was a woman who spent some months serving God in Kenya. On her final visit to a remote township she attended a medical clinic.  As the Maasai women there began to sing together, she found herself deeply moved by their hauntingly beautiful harmonies.  She wanted to always remember this moment and try to share it with friends when she arrived home. With tears flowing down her cheeks, she turned to her friend and asked, “Can you please tell me the translation of the words to this song?”Her friend looked at her and solemnly replied, “If you boil the water, you won’t get dysentery.”

Thinking of water today we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus whose baptism was the model for our own, so it is a good day to ask what does our baptism mean? I’m sure you all remember the four basic things:

1. Firstly an act of commitment to follow Christ, often subsequently confirmed at Confirmation, in which we repent of our sins and we are washed clean of them.
2. Secondly the receipt of the Holy Spirit.
3. Thirdly the rite of entry into the Church – joining the people of God.
4. Fourthly an ongoing commitment to the process of participating in the death and resurrection of Christ, as we die to our old selves and rise again new people in Him – it is a process and doesn’t happen overnight.

That little snippet we heard from the Book of Acts this morning is intriguing. It suggests that baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit are separate events. Pope Innocent 1 (406 – 417AD) used this passage to portray confirmation as the transmission of the Spirit, reserved for Bishops alone. And this custom of Bishops conducting confirmations has continued to this day. Next month we have a Confirmation service at Christ Church, Creekmoor with possibly 15 people being confirmed which is great news. We will let you know names in due course so you can pray for them. But back to the Book of Acts, a little later in Acts Chapter 10 we have the incident where Cornelius and his household receive the Holy Spirit first, consequently Peter realises they can and should be baptised. These passages gave rise to speculation that receipt of the Holy Spirit and Baptism are two distinct events and Christian theology is wrong to say they are one and the same event, all part of the rite of passage we call baptism. This line of thinking has re-surfaced in recent years with the advent of the Charismatic movement, when people have had dramatic experiences of the Holy Spirit often accompanied by signs and wonders such as healing and speaking in tongues. This has led people to talk of being bathed or baptised in the Spirit. My view is that we experience the Holy Spirit all through our Christian lives, but sometimes it is a more dramatic experience than others. Equally many people can have made a Christian commitment before the public act of Baptism or Confirmation so we shouldn’t get too hung up about what exactly happens and when.

St Luke, the writer of the Acts of the Apostles was trying to make different theological points in the two stories I mentioned. In Acts 8 the point is that the Church was united under the authority of the Apostles in Jerusalem. Philip had gone and converted the Samaritans and then Peter and John went from Jerusalem to complete the process and show the leadership of the Church endorsed Philip’s mission. In Acts 10 the story is about the condition of entry of Gentiles into the new People of God. St Peter had had those dreams of different foods descending on blankets and it all being declared clean, backed up by the fact Cornelius and his household had already received the Holy Spirit. For Peter this clearly showed that Gentiles could belong to the people of God without complying with the old Jewish food laws. The food laws and male circumcision were big problems for Gentiles wanting to convert to old style Judaism, which is why there were so many so called ‘Gentile Godfearers’ men who were unwilling to go through the painful process of becoming fully Jewish and even worse – give up bacon sandwiches!

As Christianity spread this become a burning issue for the Church. Paul’s letters (particularly Galatians) are full of this controversy with the radical wing led by Paul saying the evidence of the Spirit working in people’s lives clearly shows observance of the Jewish food laws and circumcision were unnecessary whilst the traditionalists were saying these are necessary preconditions for entry into the people of God. In many ways this is a debate that rumbles on through the Church right down the ages. It’s the age-old discussion of content over form, of spiritual religious observance over rule keeping and tradition. We see it periodically today when it is suggested that pews should be removed from the nave of Churches. I remember in my last parish that the idea was floated about re-ordering the medieval Church of St. Andrew’s, Preston including removing some pews. At the following local elections one of the councillors told me he had more comments on that issue when campaigning on doorsteps than on anything else!

So we have this dilemma of content versus form in religious observance, and in a way it is something we are grappling with at the moment with our revised worship pattern and the less formal All Age Worship service in the Hall. Well let me say first that structure and form can be very important. In our journeys with God it would be lovely to be on a constant high, deeply conscious of God’s presence infusing our lives. It is that feeling which many people have when they talk about feeling baptised in the Spirit. For a period God feels so near, so loving and so tangible that life is lived on a different plain, but that can be sustained only rarely by mere mortals. Some of those we call Saints have done so that is why they are Saints, they radiate the presence of God. Most of us find our journeys are like waves in the sea, a series of highs and lows, highs when we feel very close to God and low points when we doubt God exists at all. It is precisely in those low points that we need structure and form in our religious practice. It is the structure that means we keep on with the discipline of prayer and coming to services even though we doubt that anybody is listening, and gradually we come out of that dark, desert experience, that void, and the voice of God starts to be heard again like bird song in Spring and his presence is sensed again like the green buds on the trees and plants in Spring.

Structure and form then, rule keeping if you like, have their place in our religious lives. What we must be careful to avoid is letting structure and form take over and become the sum total of our faith. We’ve all met people who say words to the effect: “I say my prayers, I go to church ergo I am a Christian and I’ve booked my place in heaven when I die”. Some men even tell me words to the effect that they get their wife to do that for them! For such people what place have those words which Jesus heard at his baptism and which God says to each of us at our baptisms: “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased”. Where does that intimate God who wants to love and cradle us and share our lives, fit into the life of the arid rule-keeping version of religion? To let the intimate God into our lives is of course a risky business. That God may prod us where we are nurturing a cold and unforgiving heart, that God may want us to expose some of our hurts to receive his healing. That God may want to enlarge our vision of Christian worship and may want to see the joyful dancing and praising which King David went in for as part of his worship. That God may want to shake our notion of Christian service and dare I say, our giving. Giving is something we shall have to address later this year as a church.

It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God says the Bible, and its true, the living God can be a profoundly unsettling experience which brings me onto another phenomenon I see in churches. Very often you get a movement of God’s Spirit, something really creative takes place and there is a powerful sense of God’s presence, so we try to capture that by freezing the practice. The saddest example I’ve come across is a church in Cambridge that only has services from the Book of Common Prayer, using the English of the 17^th Century. Outside it has a notice proudly proclaiming it was the first Church in England to hold services in the vernacular, in English rather than in Latin! The living God cannot be contained, captured and boxed. The Exodus from Egypt and 40 years in the Wilderness was such a powerful event in the life of the people of God precisely because it was a movement, a pilgrimage, God did not live in a box, a Temple, but in a tent which moved with the people. In journeying with God the people learned slowly and painfully that they could trust God for their every need and that God wanted only the best for his people – all he asked in return was for faithfulness.

Faithfulness to God means a daily commitment to journey, a willingness to let go of security and to trust for our daily needs. It means entering willingly on a daily basis that baptismal process of dying to the old and rising again a new person in Jesus Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives bringing that transformation, that process of sanctification. Only then will we truly experience life in all its fullness, which is God’s promise to us. “You are my beloved child; with whom I am well pleased” are the words God says to each and everyone of us at baptism, but he gives us the choice of whether to let that blessing take root in our lives. The extent to which we see the fruit in our lives will be determined by how much we are prepared to journey with God and let the Holy Spirit work in our lives. God offers us blessing but never takes away our freedom to accept or reject it. Amen.

The opening sentence of our Gospel reading is quite extraordinary…(In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee…)  Because it is referring to rulers long since dead and largely forgotten the sentence has lost some of its force. If I were to say ‘In the 60th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Barack Obama was President of the United States, and David Cameron in his third year as Prime Minister, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah, we get a sense of its force. This was a major event to be set and measured against the important historical figures of the day. Something new was happening and Luke wanted us to be absolutely sure we could date the event precisely. Don’t forget this marked the end of a long period when prophecy had been silent. The prophetic voice had been heard very rarely since Isaiah and Ezekiel during the exile, but there was an expectation this would all change with the coming of the Messiah. So when John started to prophecy in the desert people knew something was up. The air became rife with expectation and John did not disappoint them…. (as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled in,…”) John consciously quotes Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Israel but the wilderness is the land between Jericho in the Jordan valley and Jerusalem on the Judaean highlands. It’s a distance as the crow flies of about 12 miles, but the height difference is about 4000ft and it’s in rain-shadow so it is very dry and desert like. The area is wild hilly desert with deep valleys and shear cliff faces. The old Roman road from Jericho twists and turns up the valleys such that it is about 25 miles to Jerusalem. The prophet is envisaging a straight road with a smooth gradient built from Jericho to Jerusalem because the Messiah was expected to come from the East, and John himself was in the East, in the Jordan proclaiming his message. Imagine the scale of the engineering project. It would be possible now with modern equipment to make such a road, but then it would have been well nigh impossible, akin perhaps to building a road bridge across the Irish Sea or even the Atlantic. But this image of building a smooth straight road across the wilderness is given to put across to us the earth shattering implications of whose coming – God’s Messiah. It’s time to get excited, time too to get on our knees and start repenting. Time is short, the Messiah is coming but as Malachi says ‘he will appear suddenly in his Temple’ but then ‘who can endure the day of his coming, who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap’ and Malachi goes onto say he will be like this until we ‘present our offerings in righteousness’.

So there are two emotions around for us this Advent, in this period of preparation. Firstly excitement, something great and uplifting is about to happen. Secondly fear and trembling are we going to be worthy to receive him? Let’s look at these. What springs to mind initially is ‘do we have time to feel either of these emotions?’ By the time we’ve posted Christmas cards, bought presents, attended works parties or lunches and gone to carol services for the children or grandchildren do we actually have time to sit and ponder the coming of the Christ-child and what it means for us personally in our walk with God? Most of us if we are honest find that our already hectic lives accelerate beyond all proportion in December and like it as not we arrive at Boxing Day exhausted and even perhaps a bit dis-satisfied. And we say to ourselves ‘That’s it for another year, was it worth it, why did I put myself through all that again?’

The mass frenzy so common in our society in the run up to Christmas has its origins in many things. Firstly we are all sick and tired of the dark nights and this Autumn the endless rain as well, we are in the mood for a good party to forget it all, and why not. But then I think it can tip into something else.

St. Augustine of Hippo picked up on something very profound when he said ‘our souls are restless till they find their rest in thee’. There is that basic human restlessness that yearning for our Creator. Deep in our subconscious lies the memory of intimacy glimpsed but soon forgot. It’s the pain of human existence, that sense of alienation from the God of love, the most complete and accepting love any of us can experience, we want it yet we shrink from it – fearing disappointment. And because we shrink from it we are disappointed and so we seek the anaesthetic of ‘commercial Christmas’ the endless round of parties and spending and we tell ourselves ‘that’s all there is’ but its not, that’s the lie and year after year we fall for it.

So how do we change things? How do we re-capture the prophet’s excitement, that sense of lets build a bridge across the Irish Sea because the Messiah is coming. Partly it’s by being prepared to own those feelings of something missing, owning our desire for God and then laying our fears before him in prayer. The fear of disappointment, the feeling that I daren’t really trust this – I’ve trusted love before in various guises and I’ve been disappointed I’m not prepared to take that risk again, I’m not prepared to risk rejection. We need to lay that fear before God in prayer.

It also requires an effort of will, a decision to opt out of the excesses of ‘commercial Christmas’ and give time to God, being prepared to spend extra time each day with God. As we do so, so we discover it’s not so difficult after all. We discover too ‘that it’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ for God keeps his word. When we are serious about giving God time so God will do business with us but it won’t necessarily be comfortable. As Malachi says ‘he will be like a refiner’s fire and like fullers soap’. When we are drawn into the presence of the living God as we become aware of his love we also encounter that sense of holiness, that sense of a Being that is so pure that we cannot help but feel some of the grubbiness of our own lives. But as we confess those sins, as we lay before God in prayer those areas where we are not worthy, so God’s love and mercy and forgiveness flows in – for we will have been giving ‘our offering of righteousness’ which the prophet Malachi says is required. We in turn will be revitalised, the world will look different it’s like putting on rose tinted spectacles, there’s a lift in our step, the Prophet’s excitement becomes infectious. The Messiah is coming, the saviour of the world!

So whatever else you do this Advent give time to God. Delia Smith more known for her culinary skills wrote once that when she decided to set aside an extra 15 minutes a day in prayer one Advent she started it thinking it would be impossible to keep up. She can be quite busy in the lead up to Christmas as you might imagine. But she said the more she did it, the more she found she wanted to do it, furthermore she found the days went more smoothly as a result such that on days when she had a mountain of work to do it was nevertheless always easier if she had first given time to God. I have found the same to be true in my own experience. So this year don’t me seduced by ‘Commercial Christmas’ give time first to God so that on Christmas Day you can experience some that love, peace and joy which are God’s Christmas gifts to us.  Amen.

I was intending to go on from that story to an interactive exercise such as we have often done at these services in the past but occasionally something happens which is of such importance that it would be wrong to ignore it. I refer of course to the news from General Synod this week, which left me, and many others, in stunned disbelief. It is ironic and not inappropriate that the collect for this Sunday contains the phrase ‘keep the church in the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace’ for that will be a difficult task. There is further irony that on the day we celebrate Christ the King we find ourselves rueing the wonders or rather shortcomings of democracy. 42 out of 44 Diocesan Synods voted for this measure in all three houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity. 72% of the membership of General Synod voted for this measure but our General Synod Lay representatives (representatives not delegates – a crucial distinction) voted it down. It poses huge problems for the church not least for our women clergy without whom the Church could not function today. The Synodical system was designed with checks and balances to prevent precipitous and unwise changes but this issue has been debated in great detail and over a long period. We must now question whether General Synod, in particular the system for electing Lay representatives from Deanery Synod members, is fit for purpose. It seems to enable those with a cause to get elected over the apathy of those with no particular axe to grind. It has now left the Church with a huge headache in terms of its ability to relate to society, in terms of Church/State relations and in terms of the morale of a large section of its clergy both female and male. It is particularly sad for Archbishop Rowan who bows out after 10 difficult years having both failed to carry his Anglican Covenant – an attempt to give the Anglican Communion a means of negotiating its differences, and has now failed in his bid to see women bishops in the Church of England.

What does it mean to talk about Christ the King on a day like this, was he in charge as General Synod voted? Ironically Archbishop Rowan has demonstrated a very Christ like form of leadership. It has not been monarchic as the world would understand it. In his own way he has carried the pains of the Anglican Communion and the pains of the Church of England much as Christ carried the pain of the world as he hung on the Cross. There on the cross we saw the obvious contrast being made between most human understandings of power and the model demonstrated by Jesus. There can have been few more pathetic sights than Jesus hanging on the Cross being taunted by his enemies. ‘If you really are the Son of God come down off the Cross and save yourself’, they shouted. This was the sort of Kingship and power they understood, the miraculous sign, the dramatic gesture, the use of physical force. But Jesus despite his powers refused to take the easy way out. He continued on the path his Father had mapped, the path which took the weight of the world’s pain and sin on his shoulders.

I have often thought that General Synod was a cross the Church of England had to bear and yet again this vote leaves the women weeping at the foot of that cross. I could never see the point of gathering all our extremists together and giving them a platform to parade our differences to the nation and in the process give the country a totally unrepresentative view of the Church. People ask me where do we go from here? Well I think for the opponents of Women bishops this will prove to be a pyrrhic victory. It will lead to two things, firstly reform of General Synod to ensure it will be much more difficult for minorities to gain a stranglehold over it. Secondly the issue of women bishops will be back in a few years time and this time there will be many fewer institutional safeguards for the opponents (compared to what was on offer this time). Instead they will have to rely on the goodwill of those they have so grievously wronged in this week’s vote. They will have to trust that the proponents of women bishops, far from being vengeful, are able to exercise Christ-like leadership marked by humility, servant-hood and a concern for the whole flock.

In the meantime our new Archbishop faces an enormous task. He will need to remind us that we are God’s people and we belong together. He will need to help us sort this issue of women bishops as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can turn outwards and focus on the mission of the Church. For too long we have concentrated on our internal story, be it women in ministry, liturgical reform or human sexuality. All the time the gulf between church culture and popular society has been growing. I do not believe that the Church should merely conform to the mores of society around it, but it has to get some of the simpler issues sorted if it is not to appear a complete dinosaur. Our society is growing ever more fragmented, people have lost touch with their deepest needs and desires and behaving in all sorts of self destructive ways, be it binge drinking, obesity, materialism, sexual promiscuity and broken relationships. The Church has Good News to share, it needs to get its act together and reach out to this society sharing God’s love in word but more importantly in deed, for actions always speak louder than words.

As the dust settles from this General Synod vote let us pray for our new Archbishop, pray that we may have realistic expectations of him and pray that God will help him in his herculean task, so let’s start now…

Scientists tell us we have just 48 months, 4 years to reduce carbon emissions before a 2% rise in global temperature is inevitable and irreversible. Why should we care? Well the warmer the temperature the more energy there will be in weather systems and so the more violent will be the extreme weather events. Hurricane Sandy looks to have tipped the election in America towards Obama and finally some politicians in the States are making connections and being bold enough to say so, although there are still plenty of flat-earthers on both sides of the Atlantic ready to deny there is any such thing as climate change. We in Britain have had an extraordinary year from drought to flood almost overnight and having had the wettest April to June on record. The climate is changing around us – there has never been a storm like Sandy that far north and so late in the season beforehand. The rise in temperature will cause a melting of the polar ice and a rise in sea levels causing many areas to become uninhabitable so population will be on the move. Deforestation and rising temperatures is also causing desertification – the deserts of the world are growing larger. In the next 40 years we face a situation of the earth’s population growing from 7bn to 9bn and having to live and feed itself on a smaller amount of habitable land surface than ever before. Why should we care – well you don’t have to be a genius to see that that is a recipe for massive global conflict.

The First World War, as we all know, was known at the time and in the years immediately afterwards as the War to end all wars and it gave rise to Remembrance Day. Such was the country’s horror once the soldiers had returned home and told of their experiences, those who did return that is, that people said it must never happen again. In reality the last century proved to be the bloodiest in human history, more people died in war during that century than all previous centuries put together. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Remembrance Day gives us the opportunity to honour the memory of those whose lives were cut off in their prime, to salute their sacrifice, and their belief in the better world they died to secure. Then we need in turn and look at ourselves and ask have we honoured their memory by doing all we can to realise that better world they bequeathed to us? Have we used the peace like the parable of the servant who was given five talents, used it to make five more, or have we used it like the servant given one talent, buried it in the ground and done nothing with it? Well we in England have enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace so we have much to be thankful for, I was part of a privileged generation that never had to don a uniform and fight but what about the wider world?

That wider world has probably never been more dangerous. In the days of the Cold War, although we lived under the threat of massive nuclear arsenals, at least the world had a degree of stability, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) had a certain sinister logic. These days Russia is humbled but it controls a vast amount of the world’s reserves of natural gas and has shown itself capable of using that as a bargaining counter. Since 9/11 we have seen the conflict between the West, and parts of the Muslim world deeply unhappy with Western values and materialism and ever more desperate for justice for the Palestinians. We have also seen the rise of conflict between indigenous populations of Christians and Muslims in countries like the Sudan and most brutally recently in Nigeria. Beyond that there is the potential as we have noted already for Global warming to spurn huge conflict. Currently we in the West are the primary causers of global warming but the consequences are falling disproportionately on the pooper nations. Meanwhile China is industrialising and polluting at a vast rate determined that its’ population should enjoy similar standards of living as we do, but the earth is a finite resource. It has been estimated that if we continue consuming those resources at the current rate we shall need two earths by 2050. Patently that is absurd – minerals such as copper are already reaching absurd prices, and a barrel of Brent crude oil now costs in excess of $100, which is reflected in the prices we are paying at the pumps (as I am sure I don’t have to remind you).

But that is as nothing compared with the problem of that most basic resource – fresh water. The most precious resource in a few years time will be fresh water and military analysts are predicting future wars will be fought over access to it. If you think that is fanciful the reason Israel and Syria have never made peace is because Israel refuses to hand back to Syria the Golan Heights and access to the Sea of Galilee because that is Israel’s primary source of fresh water. The world is a dangerous place and set only to get more dangerous. The failure of Western Democracies to rein in their excesses is not helping.

So what is our hope for the future what can be the Christian response to this dangerous world? Here I think the generation that fought and endured the Second World War have much to teach us. They were a generation brought up within a strongly Christian Culture, it was very much part of their schooling (no comparative religion in those days) and the Church played a prominent role in public life. Sunday was a Sabbath day which meant Church going was much more prevalent. That doesn’t mean the nation was any more full of committed Christians than it is now and in any case Church attendance had been declining ever since the First World War but it does mean the Christian narrative was part of the fabric of every day life. People knew about Jesus having died on the Cross to save us from our sins, they were familiar with the notion of self-sacrifice for the good of whole that we heard about in that reading from Hebrews. This meant that when it came to the situation of total war, which the country faced in the early 1940s, people were prepared to put their own hopes and aspirations for life to one side. There were prepared to accept sacrifices in order that the wider society survived, for some this meant risking their very lives. It is no surprise to me that the generation who were children in the war, learned this way of being, they are the generation who in retirement are active running charities and voluntary organisations. Contributing to the wider good of society is second nature to that generation, but not so to those who have come after them.

My generation is the first to have been brought up in comparative affluence, my children’s generation even more so. As is so often the case when so much is handed you on a plate you don’t really appreciate it. It is no accident that our culture have become obsessed with its’ rights. What previous generations regarded as privileges this generation sees as its’ rights. Anybody who suggests individual rights need to be curtailed by the needs of the wider society is shouted down. Global warming means we are living on borrowed time, as the pain of events like this summer’s extreme weather increases so people will cast around for a different way to live. As they realise the extent of the blind alley up which materialism has led them, they will seek a different narrative by which to live their lives. Only by individual sacrifice for the sake of the wider good can we hope to surmount the challenges posed by global warming. It will require a massive change of heart by billions of people. The story at the heart of Christianity will quite literally be the saving grace of humanity. It will be essential if the challenges of the future are to be settled peacefully.

Remembrance Day reminds of the horrors of war. We will sing a hymn shortly that reminds us of the mothers left grieving by war – there is nothing romantic about the death and destruction wrought by war as Syria is discovering. We need to thank God for the peace we have enjoyed as a result of the sacrifice of those who died. If we want to be faithful to their memory by safeguarding that peace and by offering ourselves to work for peace in the wider world then we need to start by repenting, and deeply repent of the materialism that is driving humanity to the brink of destruction. As Christians we can and should take the lead in that. Having repented we need then to work actively for peace, by modelling a different lifestyle and by promoting every opportunity to dialogue with those with whom we disagree in order to understand where they are coming from. Finally we need to be faithful and constant in praying for peace, the long and tortuous path to peace in Northern Ireland was undergirded throughout by prayer. It is the means by which we both admit we can’t do it in our own strength and elicit God’s help for the future. Amen.

On the morning after our elder daughter has departed to Australia for a year I find myself drawn to talking about change. In my head I’m delighted she is going for what I hope will be a wonderful experience. My heart feels entirely different as you can probably imagine. Change is never easy and it is very human to have that mind/heart split and to want to resist change but it is the harbinger of growth in all sorts of ways. Religion is often seen as the guardian of tradition so churches can be particularly prone to resist change. The story is told of a vicar, new to a parish, who noticed it would be much better if the church piano was on the other end of the nave wall. When he mentioned this to the Churchwarden she threw up her hands in horror; ‘Mrs Jones gave that to the Church and she would never consent to it being moved. It has always been where it is’. The vicar had been around the block and knew the score so decided on a strategy, every week he moved it one inch towards its’ new destination. After two years it had duly arrived. We can be full of quaint customs and practices, we do things because they have always been done that way. An event is started and is initially an outstanding success, then it is repeated every year because it has become part of the practice of that church. It can be a long time before someone questions ‘why are we doing this and is it still worthwhile’?

Today’s readings bring us face to face with what I call the ‘God in a box’ syndrome. It occurs where people say or think to themselves “this is how we experienced God in the past and this experience must be captured and preserved for all time”. The assumption is that if we experienced God this way in the past it goes without saying we can always experience God in this way. So the actions are enshrined in religious ritual and practice, God is put in a box, the trouble is that all too often when the box is opened, we find it empty – God has long since departed.

First Century Judaism had become a very ritualistic religion. People had become obsessed with the notion of holiness and purity. God was holy therefore it followed people had to be pure and holy in order to enter his presence and experience Him. It had it origins back in an earlier time when people had ignored God’s Laws and become very lax. Then they had had a religious revival in which following God’s Laws and purity were very important – it was a reaction to the laxity which had preceded it. Initially it had been a very real experience of God, but overtime ritualism had taken hold. The form – doing the right thing – was more important than the content. The Pharisees tend to get a hard press, in the Gospels they are presented as ritual legalists who were hypocrites. In some ways this was undeserved. At their best they took their faith seriously and earnestly sought God in their life of faith. They were partly responsible for the high degree of religious fervour in Jesus’ day. But at their worst they were hypocrites who imposed huge burdens on the ordinary people insisting as we heard in today’s readings that people wash scrupulously before meals and only eat from vessels which have been washed in the prescribed manner.

Jesus railed against this form of religious legalism (read Mark 7:6-8).

James in his Epistle has a slightly different take on the issue, ‘be doers of the word and not merely hearers’. He highlights the opposite danger to the Pharisees. They after all were saying that if you sign up to follow God then it must make a difference to the way you live. Some early Christians hearing the words of St. Paul “It is by faith not by works that we are justified” seized on them with alacrity and were thinking to themselves “this means we just have to believe in God and then we can do as we like”. James was writing to dispel this myth. (Read James 1:22-25)

Our faith in Jesus has to be integrated. It is no good doing all the right things if inwardly we are empty and have no real relationship with God, that sort of life can become one long guilt trip. Let’s be honest Christianity can be one long guilt trip, full of ‘oughts’ and ‘should do’s’. Such a life misses the point that Jesus died once for all for our sins we don’t need to feel guilty. Instead he gave us life in all its fullness and that should be our joy. The penitent sinner who knows they are forgiven has that joy and lightness of spirit. Conversely, it is no good believing all the right things and doing nothing about it. Research shows that the main reason people don’t become Christians and join church is that they don’t see any difference in the lives of those profess the faith. It is that age old quote – “If you were accused of being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?” When I look at myself I think on a good day I might be convicted but it is not a foregone conclusion – especially when I’m on the golf course. St. James challenges us to live our lives for Christ, treating others as we would like to be treated and serving him in the poor the sick and the needy so that our lifestyle screams out that we are followers of Jesus.

That’s easier said than done. First we need to be filled with our love for God and filled with his Holy Spirit, then we find ourselves naturally wanting to live a Godly life. For as Jesus says it is what is within that can defile us, equally what is within can mean we shine as lights for God. That is why regular worship is important – over time we come to resemble that which we worship and we won’t absorb God and come to resemble Him if we don’t make worship a priority and worship him regularly.

Just as individuals can go astray so too can a church community. It does no harm for a church to stop and reflect what is the quality of our faith? Are we still living with a charism from God or has the box been gradually emptying and do we need to return to God in fear and trembling seeking a new vision for the future? That looking at ourselves can mean starting with our services and the quality of our worship. It is all very well me exhorting people to regular worship but if the services leave them cold and unmoved by God then something is wrong. We have experimented with an evening all age worship service in the Hall in recent months and that seems to be helping some people to worship better than at our main Sunday morning services so the Worship Committee will be looking at that later this month to see if we should do two evening all age worship services a month. Times are changing and we cannot like King Canute sit on the sea-shore trying to command the tide not to flow in. Instead we need to be seeking God’s will for now and the future, whilst being faithful to our past inheritance of faith but not hidebound by it.

Having looked at our worship it follows we should look at how we are serving our community and the PCC are going to be looking at that in the Autumn, starting with a process of asking volunteers to walk sections of the Parish. We might think we know Oakdale very well, but parishes that have done this exercise have been amazed how it has helped them see their parish and community through fresh eyes and this has refreshed and reshaped their vision, leading to change and growth.

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father we are conscious that change can be difficult. May our hearts be true to you and may your love infuse us to follow you in leading lives of humble obedience and loving service, which scream to the world that we are your disciples. Amen.