Monday, 2 April 2018
Easter 2018 sermon
Sermon for Easter 2018
It is to the gospel of John which we turn for the Easter
proclamation this year, or should we perhaps say the Easter unveiling.
A few weeks ago, just after Christmas, we had a run of John’s
gospel but in reverse order and you may remember I commented on this and on how
important it was to see John’s account very differently than the other gospels,
especially Luke and Matthew.
John as we know does not have a birth narrative, and starts very
differently seeing Jesus as a cosmic character, the one through who the
creative word of God spoke. Life was found in him and without him not anything has
come into being. The Word became flesh in Jesus and we have seen his glory full
of grace and truth.
Having started his gospel stating the case, we are then taken on a
journey of guesses puzzles and concealment.
We the reader know who this person of Jesus is, but time and time
again the characters of the gospel do not seem to recognize what we already
know.
John takes us through seven signs as he calls them, signs of God’s
activity in Christ, starting with the wine at Cana and ending with the moment
Jesus is raised on the cross… John’s seventh and completing sign… when I am
lifted up I will draw the whole world to myself.
Time and time again in John we are told in Joh that the hour has
not yet come… but as the cross looms on the horizon it is declared by Jesus
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
The business of concealment and gradual realization on the part of
the characters in the story, comes to a dramatic racy conclusion in today’s
gospel reading, when John masterly takes three “seeings” before the truth of
the matter finally dawns.
Three different word in Greek for seeing are used, each one
intended to unpick the idea that seeing what has happened here means more than
just a casual notice, or even a closer look…. Until the penny drops and
literally seeing becomes believing.
As we read this we are also invited to ask ourselves how indeed do
we see Jesus, how deep does our seeing actually go?
John began his unveiling, quite literally by giving us the full
image as clear as you like… In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
God……The Light shines on in the dark and all that was brought into being is
filled with this light and life.
Now as his gospel ends, and Easter has dawned it is for us to see
that life even in ourselves. The life of God indeed even in us… don’t forget he
has already told us nothing has come into being without this life this Word
being active… and that also means even us.
Easter for John then becomes much more than Jesus being raised
from the dead…. It becomes the moment that believers can see for themselves the
promise of this life. That moment when we “see and believe.”
This search and realization of this “Life” is often described as a
life of Faith. The Christian Church also describes this discovery as a journey
or even a pilgrimage.
Other gospels describe this journey as one of loosing and finding…
Loosing your life for my sake and finding it again, were words we heard
recently as Jesus prepared his disciples for the journey to Jerusalem and the
cross.
Most Christians, it seems to me, would describe moments of loosing
in order to find, and this may even be described as dying in order to live.
Baptism for the Christian literally maps this process out as we
are buried with Christ in Baptism so that we may live with Christ in our world.
Who would ever say this was easy…. I wouldn’t.
Barbara Brown Taylor has wonderfully written,
“I thought that being faithful was
about becoming someone other than who I was”
She had experienced huge setbacks and challenges which some might have
described or experiences as failure……she speaks about how exhausting it had
been to try to be good and realised that her human wholeness was actually more
useful to God.. .
She continues.
“Committing myself to the task of
becoming fully human is saving my life now. This is not the same as the job of
being human, which came with my birth certificate. To become fully human is
something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes.”
Jesus asks Mary why she is weeping. She herself has not yet
realized what we know Peter and the other disciple has seen.
She appears to speak with Jesus without realizing who he is…
thinking him to be a stranger…
But for Mary and perhaps for us that moment of realization who it
is that stands before us comes when we hear our own name … Mary, Neil, John,
Margaret etc being used as he calls us to fully recognize who it is that invite
us to share his life, the life of the Easter gospel.
Mary too is then able to say “I have seen the Lord”
And we are brought back to the opening words of the gospel and see
that life surging, in even us.
Sunday, 26 November 2017
Christ the King 2017
Sermon for Christ the King 2017
Perhaps today more of a meditation or collection of thoughts
instead of Sermon!
Last week I shyed away from the Gospel reading because I felt I
was that slave who had buried the treasure without even gaining interest on it
before handing it back. I was the slave cast out into the place of gnashing
teeth. This was a scary pace to be in, so I avoided going there.
This week I am faced with the decision whether I am a sheep or a
goat? Needless to say if I am found to be a goat I head once again to the place
of gnashing teeth and torment.
Yet I am also aware that Jesus always calls and always accepts us
as who we are.
We have got so used to thinking and behaving as if God was
somewhere else… out there… beyond, and have forgotten the image of God we all
carry within us. As Richard Rohr said this week our best access to God is to realize
that he is a lot closer than we had given credit for.. he is within. Our
transformation comes from realizing our union with God is right before our
eyes… God is right here right now.
The king stands before all the nations (all the world) he stands
before us and we look around and recognize that there are people alongside us
who we think do not belong before the king…. (Not of our club) He then tells us
“come you are blessed”
Behaving in simple human terms to one another, if you like
reacting to the image of God in others, means we are blessed.
When we think of God as “beyond”, when we put God “out there” it
is all too easy to see “failure “ in ourselves. We do not meet the mark, we do
not make the grade, …. The sad thing is we never will because we are measuring
in human terms.
The parable of the talents last week was not about money or investment, nor was it in human
terms about reward and punishment. The two slaves were received equally, the
growth in talents were given back to the master, the slaves enjoyed the success
of the master. They remained slave and master.
Today is the feast of Christ the King.
We see this portrayed more often than not as Jesus reigning from
the cross. Our crucified Lord is our King. The one who came alongside us
through incarnation, becomes our King. We hail him as king.
The king before whom we stand pronounces a blessing on us as we
become accepted.
In order to more successfully illustrate this point we need to
head to Golgotha. The place of the cross.
What do we see as we gaze on the “Green hill”
Three crosses, not one. Jesus our King is there, the one we have
followed and listened to despite our weak humanity.
What do we hear as we gaze on the crosses?
We hear Jesus talking to that good for nothing thief, that
criminal, the scum we did not even think was worthy of anything… and we hear
Jesus our King saying…. To him of all people….
Today you will be with me in paradise.
No gnashing of teeth here, just wonderful love and blessings.
Christ is our King… O friends rejoice!
Tuesday, 7 November 2017
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