Acceptance

There is a huge difference between acceptance and giving in.  Giving in takes you to a place of inaction and paralysis. Acceptance takes you to a place of choice…it is a place you consciously journey towards.

In Gethsemane, Jesus didn’t give in. He came to that place of acceptance. He made that choice to lay aside his majesty and drink from the cup. He had to do that. He had to go into the place of pain and brokenness so that it too might be transformed and redeemed.

It is in that place of acceptance that the things that hold us back are robbed of their power and hold over us. It allows us to no longer pour out all our energy on the things that we cannot change, the things that at the end of the day no longer concern us. It is in that place where the things that clamoured for our energy and attention are silenced.

It is in that place where we can say “Lord, may your will be done. May your Kingdom come.” It is in that place that we begin at last to listen. It is in that place where, free from distractions, we might listen to God. Job came to that place too. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

There are truths that help us to come that place of acceptance and these truths are the ones we need to tell ourselves again and again until they become written on the tablet of our hearts.

Three of these truths are:

• We are precious in God’s sight

Nouwen said we must believe in the yes that comes back when we ask of God “Do you love me?”  We are created in God’s image and likeness and destined for adoption as his children; we are chosen by God.  We find our dignity, our esteem and our humanity in Him.  We must choose the yes of God’s love even when we do not experience it because his love endures forever; we need to know that whatever we come through in life, Jesus’ blood covers even that…His grace is sufficient.  It has to be sufficient because otherwise Jesus’ death was for naught.   It is an answer that does not lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame – those are symptoms of leaving the place of acceptance.  All of those make us dissipate our self and leave the rock on which our house is built.  It’s not simply a case of positive thinking and thinking the right thoughts, important as they may be…it comes down to belief…do we believe it when we are told that God loves us?  Do we hear Jesus when he says “walk with me”?  Do we believe it when we are told to cast our cares upon the Lord for he will sustain us? Do we believe that we are precious in God’s sight?

• We are not alone

In coming to that place of acceptance, we need to remind ourselves that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  So we need to try and come to that place of knowing – that deep inner knowing – that actually we are not alone.  God is with us, that ever present help in a time of trouble.  Our Wonderful Counsellor and Prince of Peace.  If we have the courage to keep returning to the foot of the cross and look around us we will find that we are not alone.  We always need to keep coming back to the foot of the cross.  And should we ever have the courage to really look carefully, we will see that the cross is empty and the risen Christ is right beside us, journeying with us.

• God understands

Sometimes we may feel like God is far off or that God doesn’t understand, and yet when the prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah, of Christ our Lord, Saviour and Redeemer we are told:

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

When Jesus was resurrected and appeared before his disciples he was known by his wounds; he still bears them and he bears them for you and I.  He knows when we sit and when we rise; He perceives our thoughts from afar.  He discerns our going out and our lying down; He is familiar with all our ways.  Before a word is on our tongue He knows it completely. God understands…he really understands.

All Saints Day / Time to Remember

There are many mysteries that we encounter in life which we find hard to fathom.  Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries is the relationship between love and loss.  There is a price to being loved, a price to being able to savour and rejoice in that deep connection we might have with someone. The price is feeling wounded when that connection is broken. This morning at this Time to Remember service we come before God so deeply aware of the many broken connections that each of us endures.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they have had something to lose. Blessed are those who dare to risk loss—only they can possibly know love.  Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

We know full well the extent that we have received the incredibly precious gift that that relationship to another has given us. I often say at funeral services that we are different people through having known that person who has passed away; such is the legacy that they leave behind and it is a truly incredible and priceless legacy.

When we pray for “those whom we love but see no more,” we are entering another mystery, the ability to love what is not physically present. That ability is the essence of spirituality. Each of us had to learn early on as children to endure the absence of our mothers by learning to hold a mental image of mother in our minds until we were with her again, and by learning to believe that she loved us even when we couldn’t see her. As adults gathered in a very intimate kind of prayer today, the image we hold in the silence of our hearts is the image of those who have gone before us. On the simplest level, they are gone but they remain, because knowing them shaped our very personalities. More profoundly, they are gone but they remain in unbroken relationship to us through the eternal love of God, a realization that is a balm to our sense of loss.  When we receive love from someone, and share love with them, it is a glimpse or a foretaste of the love that God has for us, that love that endures forever.

And so we remember ‘the faithful departed’, ‘those whose faith is known to God alone’, those whose lives have had such an impact on us, and likely will continue to have an impact on us.  But it’s also about you and me too, because death, far from dissolving the relationships that have formed us in this life, exposes, sometimes with merciless clarity, their true nature and meaning.  We often find ourselves at our most real, our most vulnerable and as in the words of that first reading we may find that we have been deprived of peace or literally our soul is bereft of peace; and we forget what happiness or prosperity looks like.

The thing is though we have to remember; this isn’t because we believe that God’s mercy can only be triggered by our action and prayers, but because it is our life task to hold in our mind and heart those who are given to us through kindred and affinity, whether as family, friends, colleagues or neighbours.  This task transcends the boundaries of life and death.  If we are honest with ourselves, it matters to us that we should know that we shall not be forgotten, that we leave behind some trace of ourselves in the memories and experiences of those with whom we have shared our lives.  So it matters that we do what the poet Rilke called ‘heart-work’ for the dead whom we remember in love and truth.  It matters to the dead.  It matters to the living.

We have to remember because there is another mystery – in that hope and remembering are joined together; it is almost as if you can’t have on without the other.  So we have to remember that we might have hope.  No matter where we might be in our faith, in this shifting uncertain world, it is through hope that we might become are of God’s enduring presence and comfort.  Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.  For people are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to any human being.  God weeps as you weep.  God gives us strength to prevail and grace and mercy when we fail.

Our dying is a part of our living, and the dead whom we remember today are as known to God and precious to him as we are – because in faith we hope that death is not the end.  To love in the truth is always to try to love from God’s eternal perspective.  So to remember the dead truly is to hope that they might be enfolded in God’s everlasting love, to know that in him all the fragments of human life are gathered up: nothing is lost and all in the end is harvest.

To look death in the face, as we do on this day of resurrection is both to find comfort in our grieving, and renewal for ourselves to go on living and blessing God for the gift of being alive, the gift of having known love and loving.

Jesus said “my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”  We must have the courage to hope that when our time comes it may be with thankfulness that in our faltering way we were faithful unto death, that we touched the lives of a few others, that we were blessed to know love and to give it; and that our goodbyes were bathed in the light of Easter faith, as we in faith are welcomed to our eternal home.  So today when you light a candle remember these words:

We light a tender candle / as fragile as a friend,

A flame against the darkness, / a love without an end;

And pray his resurrection / unquenchable will blaze,

Sustaining human frailty / in Love’s eternal gaze.

Amen

Teach us to Pray!

Many people struggle with prayer.  We may feel inadequate and clumsy, and even perhaps unworthy.  We may think that prayer is something that others do and we simply go along with them or that we don’t really understand prayer, or why we need to pray.  We are not alone in that.  In Luke’s gospel, we are told how the disciples encountered Jesus in prayer and when he had finished praying “one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray.”” (Luke 11:1)  The disciples had a growing awareness of the need to pray, and of their own inadequacy at prayer.  They realised that prayer was central to Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, and they knew they needed to learn how to pray to grow in their relationship with God.  Jesus’ wonderful response was to teach them the Lord’s prayer.

Prayer may be many things: a declaration of truth, the heart of relationship and intimacy with God, knowing God’s heart, a lifeline to the Lord, a vehicle for confession, worship & praise, a journey into humility, an opportunity to draw close to the Lord, a request for God to act from an open hand of need and hope, a time of intercession and joyful and continuous (1 Thessalonians 5:17)!   Prayer may be personal and intimate (“go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:5-8)) or corporate (“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you one earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.”  (Matthew 18:19-20)).

Eugene Peterson shares a helpful insight in telling us that “Prayer has to be a response to what God has said.  The worshipping congregation—hearing the Word read and preached, and celebrating it in the sacraments—is the place where we may learn how to pray and where we may practice prayer.  It is the centre from which we might pray.  From it, we go to our ‘closet’ or mountains and continue to pray.”

I think that God rejoices when we come before him in prayer; he yearns that we, the pinnacle of his creation, might be in intimate fellowship with him.  We can come before our heavenly father, Abba father, daddy, knowing that we are loved as we are because in Christ we are children of God.  And so I invite you to ask God with me, just as the disciples asked Jesus…“Teach us to pray.”

Ascension Day

Some people think life is a lottery, or live their life like a lottery taking chances on all sorts of things with no guarantee of a return.  It is incredible what people place their trust in – you know how people get can so caught up in superstitions, like throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill any, or making sure your cutlery is not crossed at the end of a meal?

I am not a betting person.  I have never bought a lottery ticket, never played the pools, and never placed a bet on a horse in the Grand National.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not making a moral judgement on people who do and we ourselves know from personal experience how this community has been able to benefit from the lottery with a significant proportion of our funding for the Community Centre coming from the Big Lottery.

For people who have bought a lottery ticket, I am sure they really hope to win…that jackpot of millions of pounds.  That’s the thing about superstitions and taking a chance on things like the lottery…they sometimes believe that such things can somehow give us hope, a sense of security, that everything will be ok.  Yet deep down, I am also sure they don’t really expect to win the lottery; and certainly not the jackpot.  They live with echoes of “It could be you!” going through their mind.  But when really pushed I don’t think they believe that following empty superstitions makes one jot of a difference.  And you can tell that quite easily.  How many people do you know who after having bought a lottery ticket, tend to live their life any differently – life simply goes on?  They don’t place an order for an exotic sports car, or a luxury yacht, a trip around the world or a nice large detached house somewhere.

Now imagine if someone came along who they really trusted and said to them “I know the winning numbers.”  It is likely they would laugh and say “pull the other one!”  But what if that person responded by saying “No, seriously…I really do know the winning numbers.”  And something in the way that they said it to them won them over and they believed them.  So they go out as usual and got a lottery ticket – but this time they used the numbers that person had given them.  Imagine approaching that evening when the numbers are drawn, and the emotions they might be feeling.  Doubt, disbelief, cynicism?  Probably other emotions too.  You see something like this would never ever happen.

But if they were really really convinced that they were going to win, what impact would it make?  Would they then place an order for an exotic sports car, or a luxury yacht, a trip around the world or a nice large detached house somewhere?  What difference would knowing they were definitely going to win the lottery make to their life?

I wanted to share this example with you because I think as a church we live like people in the first part of that example – we never really expect to win.  It’s too easy for us to have a lottery mentality and approach to life.  It’s too easy for us to follow empty superstition.  But the thing is I believe that life isn’t a lottery.  I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for our life.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  And even if the journey gets rocky from time to time, God never ever leaves us.  With God it isn’t a case of “It could be you!”, it is a case of “It WILL be you!”  We are chosen by God, and loved by God.

We all probably agree that we would never believe someone who promised us that they knew what the winning lottery numbers would be.  It has never happened and it never will.  But when God makes promises, we are talking about something completely different.  We are called to live as people with a sure and certain hope that Jesus has given us.  And that is something that should…no, MUST…have an impact on our lives.  The church seems to spend so much time making an apology for its existence when we should be secure in knowing that this is God’s church and He is perfectly capable of bringing His will about with and despite us!  Do we live with that sure and certain hope, that faith, that certainty?  Do we trust God and his promises?

In our Ascension reading, Jesus speaks of the “promise of the Father.”  I like promises that God makes.  Because unlike us he doesn’t break them!  He delivers, even if not when we want!  And what a promise He made…“you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  And I want us to remember that Jesus was talking to a group of disciples who abandoned him at his crucifixion, who fled in terror, and who had blown it big time.  The disciples were not some superhumans – they were folks just like us, folks who at the end of the day try, who care, who want to make a difference, and folks who sometimes stumble and fall.  Yet they loved Jesus.

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit just as his Father had promised.  And the Holy Spirit came upon the church as a downpayment, seal or sign that everything would happen according to God’s plan – to equip the church to bring glory to God.  And the disciples were transformed.  Now that promise would have been enough but Jesus also wanted the disciples to be witnesses of the fulfilment of other promises Jesus had made.  Jesus had said he would be put to death – and he was.  Jesus had said that after 3 days he would be resurrected – and he was.  Jesus had said that we would ascend into heaven to be with his Father – and he was.  It is like a whole sequence of events which declare “I am speaking the truth to you…believe…believe…believe.”  And when it came for that time for Jesus to depart in the vicinity of Bethany “he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”  I don’t know about you, but I love how the disciples were filled with joy…they had come from that place of doubt and uncertainty to that place of belief and certainty.  They were secure in the knowledge that God’s plan would be accomplished.  And they went on from there to “be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Their lives had been and would be transformed.

May we too be filled with that resurrection hope, that sure and certain hope, living our lives in the light of Christ.  Amen

Eating the crumbs

If you ever read a book in bed at night, or the Sunday paper on a Sunday afternoon after lunch, it isn’t that unusual for our eyes to get heavy and we may find ourselves reading and rereading the same bit of text over and over again and we simply can’t take it in.  Reading the Bible can be a bit like that sometimes.  We can read something and miss the subtle and even not so subtle points that a passage contains.  Our reading today is no exception.

Initially, when Jesus sent the twelve disciples out he said “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  (Matthew 10:5-6)  At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the focus was clearly on the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the people of God. Today’s gospel reading is one of several that serve as a stepping stone in the way in which Jesus’ ministry subsequently unfolds.  It points to the outreach of the gospel beyond Judaism; God’s people had had an opportunity to hear the Good News.  The reading provides us with a glimpse of the Gentile mission which would soon prove so widespread and so successful – a mission which ultimately would be summarised by ““All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” (Matthew 28:18-20)

In the reading, Jesus and his disciples were miles away from Jewish land – in Tyre and Sidon – a gentile area.  It would have been unlikely that Jesus would even have been heard of in this area, and that was one of the reasons why he went.  And then a Canaanite woman approaches him and begins to cry out.  To do this she had to overcome three barriers that would have very much placed her on the fringe or even beyond the society in which Jesus lived.  These barriers were:

a)    She was a Gentile, someone who coming into contact with would make an Israelite unclean or defiled

b)    She was a Canaanite, a people who led God’s people astray who the Israelites had been told to wipe out

c)     She was a woman

Her motivation was simple – that of the deep love a mother has for a child, and a heartfelt desire of a mother yearning to see her daughter healed  – in this case her daughter who was “tormented by a demon.”  There are few other motivations that can be more powerful than the love a parent knows for a child.

She overcame these barriers in three ways – probably without consciously thinking of how:

a)    She acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah

b)    She acknowledged Jesus as her King and Master by calling him Lord

c)     She poured out her heart and threw herself upon Jesus’ mercy

What she said was very specific “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.”  It is incredible that anyone in that region would recognise Jesus, never mind acknowledging him by calling him the Son of David which was a title reserved for the Messiah.

The surprises don’t end here though.  The passage goes on to tell us that initially Jesus “did not answer her at all.”  People can say a lot by simply not replying can’t they?  What was Jesus trying to achieve by his lack of a reply?  I wonder who it was that had to come to faith – the woman, or Jesus’ disciples?  Jesus broke through the Jew/Gentile wall of hatred and separation. Jesus dealt with Jews and Gentiles alike, shattering the caste system of His day—and shocking His Jewish brothers.  What Jesus was about to do would be as an anathema to them…they had to be in a place where they could accept what he was about to do.

Despite Jesus’ lack of a reply, the woman persisted.  She “kept crying out after them.”  I wonder what were the disciples expecting Jesus to do when they said to him “Send her away”?  So Jesus is presented with two conflicting requests – have mercy on me, and send her away.  He is pulled in two different directions, and yet he initially ignores both.  Then, and only then, does he answer by saying “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)  It is likely that this was a half question rather than a statement of closure, along the lines of ‘Was I sent only to the lost sheep of Israel?’  His statement invites further dialogue rather than closes it.

And then something incredible happens.  We are told that the woman “came and knelt before him.”  (Matthew 15:25).  This literally means she ‘began to worship’…and what a dialogue unfolds.

It reminds me of the prayer of humble access from our communion services:

We do not presume

to come to this your table, merciful Lord,

trusting in our own righteousness,

but in your manifold and great mercies.

We are not worthy

so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.

But you are the same Lord

whose nature is always to have mercy.

Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,

so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ

and to drink his blood,

that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body

and our souls washed through his most precious blood,

and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.

Amen.

“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Jesus’ heart was moved, and he responded with love and grace.  ““Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”

We KNOW Jesus is the Messiah, we KNOW he is the Lord; let us come before the Lord just as that woman did; with hope and expectancy, with persistence and faith and with all that we are.  Let us pour out our heart in silent prayer and throw ourselves on his mercy.

Let us take a few moments in silence to offer up our own prayers to the Lord now.  Come just as you are, and share with him what is on your heart.