Sermon for Maundy Thursday - Participation in the Life of God

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

One of the themes we have been developing in our journey together through Lent and now Holy Week has been that of participation. In Lent we explored Christian practices of Generosity and Hospitality, of Love and Forgiveness, of Truthfulness and Openness one to another, but what I was at pains to point out was not that we should sit around and come up with Our ideas of what these were - asking ‘how might We be hospitable or Generous?’ Rather that we were called to enter into the very Life of God’s Generosity and Hospitality. That Forgiveness can only be understood Christianly in terms of God’s forgiveness  - and that to Live the Christian Life was no more and no less than to live ever more fully into and Participate in the Very life of God in the Life of God. This is the invitation of The Last Supper, an invitation to Participation

As the disciples are gathered together, Jesus revealed the full extent of His Love. He shows them what Love is when it is Enacted. (there is no such thing as Love that is Not Performed). And he does it by washing the feet of his disciples and only then inviting them to participate. ‘So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.’ It is our Lord’s Gracious Invitation at His table to enter in, to Participate in His Life which He first reveals. To Simon Peter he says ‘You do not now understand what I am doing’ - he is a Stranger to Love at this point only having his own ideas to go on. And of course that footwashing is a reminder of forgiveness - Perhaps Peter does not understand, because he doesn’t yet understand how much he will need Jesus’ forgiveness. Perhaps this is why we all find it so hard to Participate in the lIfe of God, because we don’t yet understand how much we need it ourselves? That we need God’s hospitality before we can be hospitable and that that hospitality is expressed in forgiveness. If we would come in, we needs must accept his Love

As it would be unthinkable for the guests to eat without their feet being washed - and so we see one part of this Participation, that we cannot approach the table of the Lord, unless we have been forgiven. Peter of course doesn’t get this - Poor Peter :) It seems to be his Role. ‘‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’’ Jesus invites us into Participation by first serving us - be One with me is his invitation and He serves us. In so doing he reveals the Nature of the LIfe of His Life that we are called to participate in.

Peter of course has a Big problem with Participating fully in the Life of JEsus. It is He who said ‘this shall never happen to you!’, and perhaps in a fit of remorse - in a very short while he will gird his loins and try to enter the Life for himself Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterwards.’ Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times. We are so quick thinking we can do things for HIm, not understanding that we cannot, unless we first encounter and accept his Hospitality. FAce up to our Utter Need of Him.

Will You lay down Your Life for Me?? ‘No you will not - I Will lay down My Life for You!’ is Jesus unspoken response. Of course Peter was not alone in this bravado, It had been the same with those two Sons of Thunder, James and John. "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?". “You don’t know what you are asking? You will lay down your life for me??

Can you drink the cup? Of course we have been thinking much over the last hour about cups, the four cups of the Jewish Passover. But there is something odd. Try as we might we cannot perfectly match the Jewish Passover meal with the Last Supper. It seems clear it Is a Passover meal - but . . . it seems to be strangely unfinished. We rehearse the story in our Eucharistic liturgy. ‘After Supper he took the cup and when he had given thanks he gave it to them’ The Cup after Supper is the third cup . . . we read that after drinking this they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. ‘You do not yet understand what I am doing for you - this Passover is not yet complete’

This is an unfinished Passover - there is as yet, no fourth cup . . .

Can you drink the cup? our minds wander forwards an hour or so, into the Garden of Gethsemane, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’ Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ Again he went away for the second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.’

‘My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me’ There is yet another cup - and the lack of the fourth cup is not the only odd thing about this meal. A Passover meal is presided over by the Father of the house - He is the one who rehearses the story and blesses the cups - But the Father has not been visible in the story until now. Jesus is continuing the Passover meal out in the garden but now it is not Jesus with the disciples, it is Jesus with his Father. If this cannot pass unless I drink it . . .The Fourth Cup signifies the end of the meal, the Passover cannot be completed unless the fourth cup is drunk, and that lies ahead of Him.

it was not permitted to drink wine between the third and fourth cups - it was not permitted to drink wine until the end. Jesus does not actually drink of the Third cup  - for this is his self offering to his disciples - This is my blood of the New covenant - and he will not drink of the final Cup until the Father ends the PAssover meal. Jesus in the self offering to His Father waits in obedience until the end - At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, . . . the final cup is drunk . . . Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

‘It is finished’ - Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. ‘You will lay down your life for me?’ Jesus asks Peter - No, I will lay down my life for You

Yes there is a Passover meal, but it begins with the Last Supper and ends on the cross and in so doing the Whole focus is shifted , entirely away from remembering the Exodus, to Remembering Christ Himself - but it is no mere memorial. This is Participation in a Way that we could scarcely begin to imagine -  a Huge new dimension is opened up - for the cup is not of wine, but of Blood. ‘drink this all of you, this is My blood of the New Covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins’. Do this as often a you drink it in remembrance of Me.

This is My blood. Do this In remembrance of Me

The Passover meal was meant to be a remembrance of the great saving act of God in bringing his people out of Egypt - Do this in Remembrance of Me? And as for drinking Blood!! Whatever else you did with the Passover Lamb - you did Not drink it’s blood, For its Life was in its Blood

Which begins to make sense of John’s Lack of a Last Supper - it's actually there in shocking clarity ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’ Drink the blood, the Life is in the blood. It is a great promise of Participation in the Life of God

To participate in the Old Passover - it was imperative - you had to eat the lamb! Five times the scriptures commanded that the whole lamb Must be eaten - None was to be left. But you were Not to drink the blood for the Life was in the blood -  To participate in the New Creation life of God - you must eat the Lamb, the Lamb of God - you must eat his flesh and drink his Blood - that His Life might be in you.

Christ invites us into Participation in life - His Life - He gives his life For us  - He washes us that we might have a part with him  - and then gives his life TO us. His eternal life, in Bread and Wine.

James and John - they thought they could drink the cup - they thought they were up to it.  but they didn’t know what they were asking. They didn’t realise that the life they were called to was God’s Life to only do what they saw the Father doing.  Peter, desperate to get it right Just once wanted to Go where Jesus went - but he couldn’t - he couldn’t - not yet. For this was God Work and Life For the PAssover was not complete - the eternal life of Christ that is His own self offering had not yet been made. The Life was not yet available - not set free and wild in the world - His Spirit not poured out on all flesh - No Peter, not yet - you will not lay down your life for me - but when at last the work was finished,when God’s Life was released into the world -  he would say to him

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

If you drink the Third cup - the cup of my blood - when it is poured out - THEN Peter you can participate and drink the Fourth in costly self sacrifice - then it will be no act of bravado - no girding up the loins of our will is required for it is His life in us, to will and to act according to the impulses of the Love of the Father

Eat my flesh, drink my blood - now you can follow for it is no longer you who live, but I who live in you - now you can  participate in this Life of God - for when you eat the bread and drink the wine - my Life is in you

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

Lent Meditation - Following

Why do we do Lent? We do Lent for any number of reasons. From a devotional angle we do Lent to prepare our hearts for Holy Week and Easter. But in essence we do Lent for exactly the same reason we do anything in the Christian Life - to follow Jesus. In this case we follow Him into the Wilderness, judging that if it was necessary for Jesus in his humanity to learn Faith, perhaps we might also need this lesson.

Over the last few years, the metaphor of Journey has become the dominant one when we speak of the Christian life, or better, 'Walk'. Of course this ties quite neatly at first sight with the idea of following Jesus, except first sight can be deceptive. Talk of 'My Journey', gives the game away. As we explored yesterday, this Life of Faith isn't about us - it's about God. It is only Our journey insofar as it is the journey we make, but Nothing else is Ours. If we are to be faithful to Christ, then it is His journey. He sets the direction, he determines the days itinerary, he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end - indeed His Life is the Meaning of the journey.

As we explored yesterday, when the comfortable 'me' shaped 'god' is discovered - often through Trial - to be no more than the echo of ourSelves, it can feel as if we have lost our bearings. Our lives were Self referential and now they can no longer be if we are to have Faith. But what now is Faith in this strange new world to which we wake from the sleep of death? It is to follow Jesus - and is so doing give up our life.

We have all too easily divorced believing in Jesus from following Him. Some years ago I was part of a small group studying 'discipleship'. One lady member of the group, a Christian of many years standing who knew her Scriptures better than any of us, was not at all happy with the title of the course. 'I do not believe that we are all called to be disciples'. Although this statement sounded  and sounds outrageous, it was in effect the voicing of the attitude most of us have to our faith. That we can have faith, but not follow. We make Our Journey and Jesus accompanies us. This is in the end a death dealing deceit. It is the deceit of a faith that is about Us and not about God.

In the Wilderness the people of God are meant to learn that this is All about following, that the life of faith is one of dependence upon God. Realising that He is the Source of our Life, we can do nothing more than chase after Him. Like a small child who instinctively knows that their security is in the company of their parents - we Must follow.

But that following is disorientating to us - we feel at sea.

Faith is no comfort blanket - it is an insistent Knowledge that we Must follow

That we Must be with Jesus

It is All about Him

Mark in his gospel makes very little of the forty days - his account is sparse 'He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him' - and then Immediately the action moves on. Mark is Always using the word 'Immediately' - he reveals to us that we cannot settle. The disciples find themselves at times confused, at times (literally) all at sea in a great storm, at times in conflict with Jesus - but all the time with Him. And indeed this continues through Jesus' death and resurrection. 'you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.' Mark wants Us to know, this is how it is to follow the Risen Lord too.

Adele Calhoun in her deceptively lovely book 'Invitations from God', puts this aspect of following - that it decenters us, and in a very real sense 'Saves us from ourSelves' - very well.

Following is a huge deal to Jesus, because following builds character, sands away the ego and shapes the heart. Followers can't barge ahead or simply do the next thing that pops into their head. they can't set cruise control or autopilot and zone out on what's happening. Followers must be alert attentive and ready to turn on someone else's dime. Jesus followers take up the challenge of turning where He turns, stopping where he stops, detouring where he detours, loving whom He loves an serving whom He serves.

To Follow is to lay down Our Life and indeed Our version of faith.

It is to learn to be at Sea on the Vast Ocean of God's Love

With Jesus our Only security

Lenten Meditation - The Temptation to be Powerful

Henri Nouwen lists the temptations Jesus faces in the wilderness as: - 'to Relevance' - "you're hungry? Turn the stones into bread!"; 'to Spectacle' - "Throw yourself from the Temple"; and 'to Power' - "Worship me and all this will be yours".

Lent challenges all three of these head on - there is nothing more irrelevant than withdrawal from the world and aspects of our life we feel to be so significant - there is nothing spectacular about the hidden work of the Spirit as exemplified in Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6 - and when you're  so hungry you cannot lift a finger, all your 'power' is gone from you'.

All three speak to deep anxiety within us, Fear - the root and fruit of all sin. But of the three it is perhaps the Temptation to Power which speaks most seductively. We are surrounded by Fear of being powerless, just think for a moment how we fear poverty, or old age, or debilitating illness - all those things which in no way good in themselves, are doubly damned in our eyes as they rob us of Power, of Self determination.

And the temptation to Power is itself doubly seductive in that it both conceals and feeds The Cardinal Sin - Pride. 'Look at what I can do!' - 'Look at what I have Done!' - 'Consider this fine Life I have made for myself!'. With Power we can have life the way we want it, or so we would like to think. Fear desires Power and thus is the root of Pride - the self made life.

And so Satan comes to Jesus to tempt him - 'you can have Everything you want . . .'

'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven'

Now we all know that Satan fell because of his Pride - but reading these words from Jesus in their context in the tenth chapter of Luke's gospel, we might be blinded to the fact that that is what he is talking about to his disciples. Jesus has just sent them out to go ahead of him, labourers into the harvest field, and  - 'The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" ' Jesus responds immediately with the words about the fall of Satan - and it is too easy to think he is referring to Satan's defeat. So schooled are we in the dualism of cosmic warfare - (yes there is a warfare but it is far far more subtle than we allow) - that we imagine this is about Christ's Victory - yet is it not rather a warning to the disciples about Pride?? 

Jesus goes on 'See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ Do not rejoice in what you can do!! Remember I have seen the consequences of Pride - I saw the great angel Satan Fall. 
The fundamental call is to Faith in the Love of God, that drives out Fear and thus can never be a fuel for Pride. When we fall into the Sin of Pride of what we have done and can do - we then Need Power for nothing else will sustain the life we choose to make for ourself, that we now have no choice but to make having rejected the free gift of Life. Thus we are always at root Afraid. The Proud Person is Afraid.

'Satan is Afraid!' many tub thumping preachers have said - whipping up the cosmic conflict. 'Satan is afraid because he knows his final defeat in imminent!!'. This is not so. Not that Satan is not defeated. But his fear is not caused by his defeat, rather he is defeated because he is afraid. He has been defeated from the first. The most oft repeated command in scripture is precisely Do Not Be Afraid. It is as if it is the root of everything. As John says, the one who fears has not been made perfect in Love, for Love casts out Fear.

The temptation to power is very subtle - it seems to promise us everything and it works on our weakest point, that is our lack of faith in the Goodness of God. It whispers in our ear, 'You Are Responsible' - God will not come through with the goods - why not do it yourself?? And we listen and are afraid and cast around for that which will build us up and having found it we become full of Pride.

Power and 'Success' in Ministry

Recently I've noted a disturbing video. In it two prominent church leaders in the USA criticize one of their fellow ministers for relinquishing his very 'successful' pastorate. It is well critiqued on the excellent blog 'Lost in the North' and also in the journal 'Out of Ur', but what I cannot get away from  is the strong suspicion that these powerful leaders cannot bless this other minister in his bold move because they are at root afraid. What would they look like if all the trappings of big church were removed?

Fear does this - it entraps us - it entombs us.

Dante in his Inferno finds Satan in the seventh circle of hell, literally entombed in ice.

Satan rejected the gift of Life - Afraid of Love, thus sought Power in and of himself and so fell

This Fall is the Universal fall

Fear seeks Power which feeds Pride

It is a deadly trap - it is why we Must go out into the Wilderness - casting those those things aside upon which we have come to depend, that we might learn not to be afraid, but there to freely bear the beams of Divine Love.

Lent - the buried Treasure

One of the difficulties of writing as a discipline, is running dry. But this is in itself perhaps the Essential teaching of the Lenten season. The stripping away of Everything, to reveal that which we cannot imagine, buried as it is under the life we have built for ourselves.

One of the difficulties for us in understanding Christ is that we understand him to be both fully human and also fully divine, and we understand neither. Our perception of what it is to be fully human is distorted by so much of our own life stories, the people amongst whom we live and have been brought up and Sin. We fail to understand that we see 'human' as through a glass darkly, so when we think of Jesus in his humanity, we tend to interpret him poorly and when he does or says something which seems to us extraordinary, we assume he must as it were have switched over to Divine power, say in the stilling of the sea, or the many healings, or indeed perhaps in his Temptations in the wilderness.

 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

It is all too easy to understand Jesus' passing the test of the temptations either humanly but erroneously, or divinely. So we may think that Jesus in his humanity acts as we would in his temptation. He heroically summons up something within himself, as if it was the very last shred of his strength. Or we allow that after 40 days, humanly speaking there is no strength and thus he switches on the Superhero (Divine) Jesus to deal with Satan. Much preaching on the temptations seems to come across in this 'Jesus, the superhero' vein, be it human or Divine.

But this is to misunderstand both the humanity of Jesus and his Divinity, because it misunderstands what is human (and thus have little conception of what is 'the Image of God' - our Clue to  Divinity).

Jesus in the Desert is stripped back til in and of himself he has nothing

All he has is the Gift of the truly human life, the life which is pure Act, pure response to God's call. This testing comes at the start of his ministry to ensure that in his life he is Pure Life. Truly Human. That the identity which he has just Heard at his Baptism is fully revealed. 

Lent is a time of stripping back, and it feels dry and empty. the life we have chosen for ourselves seems so Good and Full - why Deny ourselves?? And so very often we do not stick with it well or long. The truth is that our lives are given to us as one long Lent, in which the lives we have built for ourselves might be stripped away to reveal at base what we are, not the life we made, but the Life that is Gift - the Life that is Response to God, the Life that Knows its true Home.

A friend of mine has in a sense made a Lenten journey over several years. Everything has been stripped away and she speaks of a sense of having Lost everything, but then . . . wonder of wonders a Vocation. She is perturbed. How can this be, given all that I have gone through?? Yet is it all this strange? For how can we hear clearly the call of the Father, how can we respond to that Voice whilst our lives are so full of what we have made for ourselves. The desert is a place of often painful stripping away of what seems like everything - but then the everything is revealed for what it is, a thing of horror - a lie, a false life. Following the stripping away the buried Life of pure response to God is revealed. Vocation.

So it is with Jesus. When all is stripped away - what he is at base is revealed, the Obedient Human.

True human - under all the falsity - 'This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond - Is immortal diamond'

May we do Lent, and do it thoroughly

Lenten Disciplines - Almsgiving (4)

Finally we need to give alms because doing so, cheerfully ( as God does ), dethrones Money from it's exalted position in our hearts and lives. Just giving it away - Giving the poor their rights, as we are required by Scripture to do - puts an axe to the idolatrous tree of money. Refusing to try and control it, knowing that any attempt to control an idol is naive at best, simply getting rid of it. Just throwing it away.

And if we think for a moment that money hasn't got a hook on our hearts, then meditate for a while on literally throwing money away - listen to the voice saying 'Don't do that!! Put it to good use!! Spend it on the poor!!' and remember who it was that first counseled against such Wastefulness saying that the money should have been spent on the poor . . .

More than ever in the history of the world, with world wide instant communication, never before has economic chaos had so many in fear. We are terrified of what will happen if The Economy collapses - because we believe that it is The Economy that preserves us and keeps us and if we play our part in the Economy, It will look after us. Never before has there been such anger at politicians and bankers - never before - as Pensions look increasingly vulnerable and national economies tremble on the brink. Of course there are those who counsel to take cover - by investing in precious metals :) In other words take cover from Money, by  . . .   :)
The Economy is such a huge idol, we cannot see anything else, and talk of trusting in God INSTEAD OF Money (as opposed to as well as - which is of course an oxymoron) is seen as hopelessly naive.

This is the hook it has on us.

Jesus had no money in the wilderness, indeed we are given to understand he wouldn't even touch the stuff. He had little time for some of the purity laws, and understood that money contaminated you in a  way that hanging around with prostitutes and tax collectors never could. The Pharisees however wouldn't be seen dead in that sort of company, but were well versed in handling money.

I return to a post I made earlier in this respect - the TV evangelist - the point is that I was flabbergasted at his saying he had no idea Jesus said so much about money, and yet given the power of it, I shouldn't have been. It grips us. the one thing it cries out for us not to do, is cut its power off at the root by taking no concern for the morrow and getting rid of it.

Lenten Almsgiving can be our teacher if we will

Lenten Disciplines - Almsgiving (1)

 Give Alms!
(A Lengthy Preamble)

The three disciplines which the church enjoins for Lent are Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. The latter two are those in many regards most counter to the Western culture of which I am part. But while fasting is Obviously Hard for us - [who has not read about fasting and also read a note to go and talk to your Doctor first before doing it?] - Almsgiving seems very straightforward. Indeed given that it requires no time of us, or very little, it may well be thought to be the simplest.

(You may like to ask yourself at this point 

whether Almsgiving feels the easiest of the disciplines to you)

Such thinking about Simplicity betrays us immediately, for where the disciplines are concerned, nothing is simple, and it is no less so with regard to Money (at least for us). It was plain enough for Jesus, but not in a way we might perhaps ascribe to. We talk too glibly of 'money management'. We feel we are Experts perhaps, in personal finance, or conversely, we know we are incapable of keeping track of Money - but the very fact we even think that we ought to be able to 'manage money', shows how far we are from knowing Jesus' counsel in our hearts which, after all, is where it matters.

A few years ago I attended a three day conference on "Christians in the Work Place". As such major conferences often are nowadays, the evening session was 'something different' by way of relaxation from the arduous seminar attending, book buying, 'Worship', and Networking that took place.
            This 'something different' was an interview with someone who had got into trouble with money, so much so, that he had been imprisoned. The person, a well known 'famous TV evangelist', had been convicted of fraud, (which is of course nowadays always a matter of Money - we can be fraudulent in many areas of life, but only fraudulence regarding Money seems to warrant a gaol term), and he was now recounting his story as I suppose a salutary warning. (The more I think about that evening the more I question what was really going on . . .).
           But he said one thing which completely blew my fuses, something I just couldn't believe. He said that prison had given him a Long Time to think, and that he had committed himself to reading the Gospels afresh, and what struck him was 'how much Jesus talks about Money! I had never noticed it!'.

(I was and indeed am tempted to say 'Wise up! It's as plain on the nose on your face!!', but the fact that this man who in all probability had read the Scriptures more than I could miss Jesus' teaching, ought to suggest a degree of humility in this area in myself. After what is the difference between someone who is confident in handling Money, and someone who thinks he has a handle on Jesus' teaching about Money . . . and thus is 'safe to handle Money'??)

The song says, "Money makes the world go round" - we say we don't believe it, but we deceive ourselves, or rather we are deceived by Money. If someone who had no prior knowledge of Money was to examine us individually or indeed as a global entity, and I think say without a shadow of doubt that Money is a Dominant power. And this is as true of the Church as it is of the World.

Recently a former Diocese of my acquaintance passed a lengthy response to a discussion on its boundaries. Hidden away in the amendments was a phrase that caught my eye


'[Synod] requests the Preparation Group to prepare fully costed proposals about how the Area system proposed will benefit mission' 

Costed? Mission? Why? What does the (presumably financial) cost have to do with Mission?? Why can't we think about Mission without thinking about Money? (And Yes, the fact that I automatically read 'costed' in terms of Money Does reveal how much I too am prey to this :) )

All of the Disciplines unmask us - if we think that they are simple and straightforward we are either Saints - or we are deceiving ourselves, or rather in this case we are deceived (just like my fellow struggler with Money, the TV evangelist)

In the next three days we will take time to consider Jesus brief teaching about 'Giving Alms' - about how it is utterly radical and goes against most if not all our embedded ways of managing money - and about how the Church itself has fallen prey to 'the deceitfulness of wealth'

Living with Nothing to lose

"Dust you are and to dust you shall return

Turn from your sin and be faithful to Christ" 

In the liturgy of the church, there is perhaps little to match the seriousness of this declaration, made as a cross is marked in ash on the forehead of a fellow Christian. Echoing the words of God to the Man and the Woman, it reminds us of the most obvious fact about us, that we will die. 

A fact that we hide from at our peril and yet one which our contemporary society seems hell bent on ignoring. Perhaps it is the sign of the end of yet another age, but we seem to pour more and more energy into "Amusing ourselves to death" (to borrow Neil Postman's memorable phrase), which is another way of saying 'ignoring it altogether.

It was not so very long ago that evangelists would appeal to The Fact with regard to conversion - "choose for Christ now - before it is too late, then when you face death you will face it with confidence".  But more and more the emphasis with regard to faith and death has been, "we believe in life before death", to borrow the slogan of the charity, Christian Aid.

Both in their own way miss the point - both are right and both are wrong. Lent sharpens the issue up for us. 

In the Wilderness Jesus learns total trust in God, his Father. In turning down Satan's offer of three easy ways out, ways of avoiding the Cross, Jesus faces that which we must all face. He begins to live as one who has already died - for in death where else will we place our trust and our hope??

But what a life he Lives, as though dead.

The Evangelist gets it right, for we must all die and face God. But he gets it wrong with regard to timing, for we are called to die before our bodies do it for us. Turning to Christ and following Him is not about what will happen some years down the line, it is the decision to die to ourselves and thus enter Life, Now. Life before death, as the charity says correctly, but That Life is only found through the death of self denial and following Christ, in losing everything that we might find Life. It is a Life that is before our physical death but not apart from death. It is not the stuff of simple slogans. 

Rather it is Life through death, before death and overcoming death.

Putting off heaven 'til you die misinterprets eternal life in terms of chronology, that we enter the Kingdom when our bodies expire. The reality is that in Christ the Eternal has stepped into time, that we might in time step into the Kingdom Now, by getting the dying stuff over and done with.

Dust you are and to dust you shall return - we are confronted with the seriousness of death, as were the man and the woman. But a new and glorious way has opened that we might get our dying over and done with, so that we might truly Live - Turn from your sin and be faithful to Christ. 

It is in dying that we Live. In letting go of the small, petty things we think so Significant that we 'Could Not Possibly Live' without them, we discover that we weren't living at all. We are asked through disciplines of self denial to discover that if we stop living for ourselves and start living in and thru and for God, we enter Life.

In a sense we already know something of this in our world - for there are those who are faced with death who suddenly find new life in that they have nothing to lose.

This points us to the Truth - that in losing everything for his sake, we literally have nothing to lose, not even our life - and thus we are set Free to Live.

The Risk of Faith

Yesterday's meditation, based on the writing of Ruth Burrows spoke of the Risky nature of faith.
That Lent calls us to understand faith in a Naked and perhaps terrifying Rawness. So Sharp is the challenge we might almost call it 'the Wound that is faith'.

She spoke of the Stinging rebuke of Jesus to the disciples in the storm - ' "Why the panic? Where is your faith?" Is he not saying, [she asks] "Does it matter if you go down if I am with you?"'

Will we risk all on Him and His Love for us? 

After Jesus has been driven by the Spirit into the wilderness where he fasted for forty days and nights - he is tested by Satan. And each challenge, like his successful tempting of the man and the woman in the garden is based on a subtle shift in the Truth. It is one which we perhaps miss, so enamoured and misunderstanding are we of Jesus' miracles.

'If you are the Son of God' - the Accuser begins - 'change these stones into bread.'

We miss the non-sequitur. Being the Son of God has Nothing to do with being a miracle worker. Satan tries to wrong foot Jesus as he had tried to wrong foot the children of God once before, by questioning their very nature as those whose Life comes not from within themselves, but from above (unless you are born from above you cannot see the Kingdom of God).

"Change these stones into bread?" - "throw yourself off the Temple?" - "bow down and worship me?".

At once these are things that Jesus can do and cannot do. He cannot because he is a child of God, he can because he in his true humanity he can do anything, just as the man and the woman could take the apple and eat. So he was open to temptation, tempted as we are in Every way.

And these challenges are very tempting because they suggest, like that primeval temptation, that they will deliver the goods. [The Ends Justify the Means is The Prevailing Way of thought however much we deny it] But the man and the woman lost sight of the Ends and so lost sight of the Means, the only Means given in Creation, the Life of God - 'Apart from me you can do nothing'.

In so doing they reap Death for they deny the Life that is given that they might Live. Exchanging the Truth of God, for a lie.

Perhaps more than ever we live in a world where the Lies of Pragmatism and Utilitarianism are writ large. We live in a world where we are told that, in order to succeed you Must . . . well we can all fill in our own pet 'Rules for Life' here - our own understandings of what makes for 'the good life'. And blindly we follow them, and then wonder why it doesn't work. 'There must be a way to make it all work!', and if we are religiously inclined we will of course co-opt our puny faith in the god [sic] who makes our lives work for us, and will surely make the world work is we only ask him to bless our plans, our work and our lives. Reaching out for the next Snake oil seller with his "Hundred Proven ways to Succeed" And in so doing we reveal that we do not know who we are, consumed as we are in the lies that turning stones into bread, throwing ourselves off temples or indeed worshiping the Adversary in one of his many guises will do it for us. So desperate are we to live by anything, rather than admit we are not masters of our own destiny and take the risk of  faith.

One of the great gifts of Lent is the stripping away of the illusory powers that are in our hands, 

the revealing of our own perception that in some ways we Are miracle workers 

rather than Children of God. 

It is in coming face to face with our utter powerlessness that we might perhaps be saved if we dare keep in that path and not turn back

Perhaps this is why we do not fast, pray or give alms much if at all?

"Does it matter if you go down if I am with you?"

Praying together with Jesus, through Lent

Having said that Jesus is enough, then it follows that we must be with Him at all times and in all places.

Much in contemporary spirituality, majors on His presence with us, but as usually expressed it suggests that he tags along with us as we live our lives - a sort of spiritual first aider, always there for us to comfort and guide us as we live our lives. But in Baptism we make a fearful and glorious exchange - Our life for His. As St Paul says "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me".

As I suggested in a sermon a couple of weeks ago, Mark's gospel reveals very clearly how there is no way that Jesus can be with us except we follow him. Jesus is always on the move - they have a choice, stay put or be with him. Jesus appoints the Apostles, the seed bed of the church, to be with Him. Peter realizes that a life centered on the self, even a Christian faith centered on the self is of no avail as, when others are drifting away to find a more convenient 'god' who will be with them), "to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal Life!" We have to be with You!

So in Lent, we have to be with Him. Where is He? Out in the wilderness, praying. And what is He praying? As the One who embodies "The people of God", both past and future, he is praying the prayers of the people of God, the Psalms. These have been our prayers these past three thousand years, but they are ours because they are His.

Lent in the West, and especially in the protestant churches and parts of the Anglican church, has largely become an individualised experience. The question from the pulpit, "what will You do for Lent?" is voiced and heard in the singular, not the plural. We are presented with a plethora of courses and books and ideas for a Creative Lent, but there is little sense that we should 'do Lent together' - little by way of opportunity to gather and pray and share our joys in fasting and almsgiving.

It is of course a little late to 'put something on' as the horse has already bolted and is fast approaching the first furlong marker, but there is one thing we might do together, and with Jesus, and that is to pray through the Psalms. The Orthodox church does this every Lent and with determination, reading through the whole corpus together, twice a week. Assuming though that perhaps such strong meat may be somewhat indigestible for our presently weakened constitutions, might I suggest we apply ourselves to read them through in their entirety over the next five weeks?

Doing this we would be together with Him. Where else might we find Life?

Jesus + Nothing = Everything

"Jesus + Nothing = Everything" is the title of a book I have recently enjoyed reading. An extended meditation on the book of Colossians, written in the midst of huge personal challenges to the author, I was drawn to it by the title. At once a statement, but also a question. Is this true for me??

Lent is a season which is Given to us to test the truth of this Reality of our Faith. We follow Jesus into the Wilderness to discover whether it is yet true of us, that He is Our Sufficiency.

Through Disciplines of fasting, prayer, almsgiving and the like we are opened up to our Inner reality. The person we are when no-one is looking and our dependence or otherwise on the things of the world. Lent tests the reality of Faith. In a world where we have such an abundance Lent is Given, to reveal how much or how little that abundance is that which in reality we lean on. Would we happ'ly sell our possessions, give alms and follow him if he asked? Do we trust his promise of Heavenly treasure?

By letting go of things that we are so familiar with, that shape our world and view of it we are asked The Fundamental Question, 'Am I Enough?'

We have grown accustomed to reading the book of Job as if it is a treatise on suffering, in particular the question of Theodicy 'How can a God of Love allow suffering?'. But that reading and indeed the question itself reveal immediately how far we are from faith, that God is for us in our comfortable worlds, Not Enough. We need comfort, we need freedom from hardship strife and pain, we need good relationships and happy marriages, we need, we need . . . He is not enough for us. We don't believe that only when we have surrendered ourselves to him do we find the life we crave - we don't believe that our reality is but a shadow. For us it is still heaven and the Life of God in Christ that is the shadow. We ignore the first Word of Life, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength - the All is too much for us and we have to share our love around and we love other things more and better - He is not enough.

In reality the book of Job is much more about the reality of our faith - Job is like Jesus in the desert - everything stripped away and then the mocking questions - Does God really care? If you only pull your moral socks up!! If you are the Son of God . . .

The Life of God in Christ is Everything - substituting Anything for this Life is Death

Lent is a Vital gift in which we learn to see more clearly the truth of this