Smooth Sailing Saints

Short Commentary and Sunday Sermon on Romans 7:15-25 and Matthew 11.16-30

With lots of conference space the seminary held a weekly AA meeting to which some students went along as part of their pastoral placement. In the introductions one member talked about his struggles to keep to his work - he was a guitarist. A new member, a rather goofy local vicar, invited him to come and play at their church and join the choir "We'd love to see you for the family service!" This quiet humble man gently mumbled that he might just do that. The group went silent. People began to roar with laughter. The vicar had invited to his Sunday liturgy - Eric Clapton. Probably the world's most celebrated guitarist.

Listening to chapter seven of Paul's letter to Romans much of it seems foreign to our modern ears. "I do not do the thing I want to but I do the thing I hate." We might think that Paul had a problem with self-esteem and that he really needed to go on a course to build himself up? It is a shame that we did not begin with verse 14; it reads, "We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am un-spiritual, sold as a slave to sin. " Again, I cannot imagine that if one went to a New Age practitioner, we would get that, since the Mind, Body and Spirit philosophy, is that we are all somehow "spiritual".

If you have ever read Cold Comfort Farm, or seen the TV adaption, you may think I am about to deliver an impression of the fiery preacher of the Quivering Brethren, "Are you quivering yet brothers? Do ye not feel the scorching flames of hell licking?" I don't think I would pull this off with much authority since even my toddler son giggles when I tell him off. But I think the gentler wisdom of Dickens would be good to reflect on. "Know your debts!" The words of advice given to David Copperfield at the beginning of his adventures. The debts here, are more than just money, but about knowing ourselves as we really are - not kidding ourselves. The Proverbs say, "A wise man knows himself". In Scotland, people say in the Our Father, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us."

So within Paul is a spiritual warfare. Not because he is a doom and gloom preacher or self-tortured but because he has come to know the glory of God. The difference between Paul and the modern man, is that Paul measures goodness by Jesus Christ alone. We tend to think of ourselves as good on a scale of averages. "I'm as good as the next bloke" But what if the bar was not some statistical average but Jesus Christ? Then as Paul says, we realise that "All have fallen short".

The AA programme I mentioned at the beginning starts its 12 steps with step 1 as "We admit we are powerless over alcohol (or whatever)—that our lives have become unmanageable." You could replace the word alcohol with any addiction and even with the word 'sin'. And let us not imagine sin as an unhelpful word but as about understanding ourselves as we are. Sin surely then means the separation between God and neighbour? "Am I my brother's keeper?" said Cain of Abel who he secretly murdered. Sin then describes a compulsion we all have to pull ourselves away from communion with God and our fellow human beings.

Many alcoholics never get to step 1 because they cannot admit that they are powerless. In doing so , they never receive power. This I believe is a key to living a grace filled life. In my last parish George (I have changed his name) was a chronic alcoholic. He drank litre bottles of cheap cider every day, his liver was barely functioning, he lost his wife and his employment. He looked like a skeleton and an old man. Yet he was younger than me. It took him years to hit rock bottom. It happened one night, when he rang our door at 11pm in floods of tears, scared witless because he was booked in for an intense AA residential programme. Thank God. Months later we met him again. He was a changed man when he walked through the doors of the church. He still retained the scars but he had stopped drinking. It was only by admitting that he was powerless had be been able to receive power. He isn't morose, he's full of joy, yet he understands his addiction, his sin. George took me to his house and up in his bedroom he showed me a poster that had helped me survive. It was the famous footsteps dream.

Jesus harshest words are for the smooth-sailing saints. We missed verses 19 to 24 in Matthew which listed the towns and villages. But they rejected any thing that rocked the boat; John the Baptist - too gritty pious - Jesus Christ - a drunk and a glutton who mixes with sinners. They were the sinners and it was people like them who stitched him up on Good Friday. We also missed verse 14, one of my favourites, which tells us that the kingdom of Heaven is being stormed by violent men and violent men are seizing it. Who are the violent men?

The Greek for violent can also be interpreted as enthusiastic. So what Jesus is probably saying is the ultimate insult to the religious self-righteous. They are being taken out of God's plan and are no longer in the front-line. The front-line of God's revolution is these new enthusiasts, people in other words, who have become spiritually powerful by acknowledging that they are powerless. They have experienced rock bottom and been lifted up.

Your Hired

The latest series of the Apprentice remains compelling viewing as the show approaches its end. Who will win - who will be fired? I find myself watching it and wondering what would I do in such and such task? How would I personally rise to the challenge without hopefully becoming a thug in the boardroom? The scary part of the show is that when you are fired then that is that and you take your bags and go home then and there. No time is lost.

Do I believe that God has hired me? Yes, I do. A few weeks a go I recalled the story of being 17 when a friend knocked on the door and said "I'm going to be a priest!" and I replied out of blue I replied "So am I?" It was as sudden as that. Yet I don't feel that God hired me at that point, as extreme as that was. I hold that God hired me on June 10Th 1972; the date of my baptism. And the task? The challenge? The task is the task God gives to every Christian, to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and to co-operate with the Holy Spirit in making earth Heaven.

Levi, or Matthew, was hired very suddenly. Jesus said "follow me" and he did, leaving his controversial employment. We can only speculate why Matthew responded so specularly? Could it be that in his profession he had little else to lose? Or maybe, if any of us came into the presence of Jesus Christ our hearts would feel moved to do something then and there, a snap decision.

The task for the baptised in this century is monumental. Believe you me, the challenges of secularisation and climate change are going to rock our societies like never before. How will the Christian children of this century help the spreading of the Gospel and the work of making earth into heaven? We cannot just leave the faith formation of our children to someone else. The Church cannot shrug and say it is the parents and the parents cannot shrug and say it is the Church? There has to be a creative partnership. This means that the Church values the creative input of young people and their leadership. It also means that parents need to buy into the concept of children being spiritual. I quite frankly believe that if we dont do this the Church of England, and other denominations like it, will CEASE to exist in twenty odd years time. Cease to exist!

Ephesians 6, is my favourite Bible reading. "Put on the armour of God." Its about making a conscious effort to be a Christian and not just drifting. I want to give you an example here. The EU directive on employment was put into force in the UK under the Employment Regulations Directive December 2003 for Religion or Belief Discrimination. It states that Employers need to make provision for prayer rooms. I told my last congregatin this. A gentleman and new convert in my last church took up saying daily prayers of Morning, Midday, Evening and Compline prayers. He went to his employer, Cine World and asked for a prayer room. Why not! Guess what, he got a space allocated. Not the best, but he got one. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to start knitting our own prayer mats and showing our employers our prayer books. Once they know we are praying at work, they'll know we Christians, they may start to be a bit more ethical, and they will know we are serious.

The wonderful thing about being hired by the Almighty is that he his a far better employer that Alan Sugar, even though he does like us to be equally candid in the boardroom. The rewards are eternal. However, we should be careful, and take the work of God seriously, lest we find ourselves at some future date at the pearly gates, duly, fired.

A Sermon on the Sermon on the Mount

Mark Twain's tells a story of an encounter with a man who managed to combine the veneer of being highly religious with a ruthless business career. "Before I die," he boasted, "I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud." "I have a better idea," answered Mark Twain. "Why don't you stay right at home and keep them?"

In addition to the pew sheet this Sunday I have included today the complete text of the Sermon on the Mount with headings breaking it down. It has turned around many people’s lives and remains the most famous sermon in history. Sometimes it is good to take a piece of scripture like this and read it afresh, as if you had never heard it. The paper sheet hopefully makes it more accessible and can be folded up and read at work or leisure. It is not a lengthy text, and for those who take pleasure in mints during my weekly offerings may find something still left.

You will notice that today’s extract, (chapter 7 verse 21 onwards) is the end of the sermon. It is the most challenging section for us, religious people, and if it does not make you and I uncomfortable then we are not reading it properly.

Religious people have tried to drown the message of Jesus in two ways, the first is crucify the Lord himself while the second is to mere pay lip service to the Gospel. We do this because with all our baggage of pride and faults we tend to pigeon hole our faith as one part, and only one part, of our whole life. That was the point that Mark Twain was make. Pride makes us ostentatious and hypocritical.

One of my favourite philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard is quoted as saying "The Christianity of the New Testament simply does not exist. Instead, millions of people through the centuries have cunningly sought little by little to cheat God out of Christianity, and have succeeded in making Christianity exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament."

Similarly, Gandhi famously said that Christianity was a good idea and would have a wonderful effect on the world when put into practice.

In Britain we are not helped by the common mentality of seeing religion incorrectly as something purely individual and private. The message seems to be from some quarters that bringing your faith into the public sphere is almost vulgar and bad taste. Alisdair Campbell, famously said ‘We don’t do God’ in an attempt to divert attention away from Tony Blair’s religious convictions. The fear was that voters might be put off. Remember as well in 2006, Nadia Eweida, a British Airways worker who was sacked for wearing a small Christian cross. BA bosses argued that the wearing of a cross was not an intrinsic part of her faith in the same way a Muslim woman might wear a veil or a Sikh man, a turban.

This culture of keep faith private I would suggest encourages us to think we can live Monday to Saturday with one set of values while keeping Gospel on Sundays. At work we walk all over people, hire and firing like Sir Alan Sugar but offer the kiss of peace at church. We can do the will of the Father but only in some areas of our lives.
This privatisation of Christianity impacts on the way nations work. If the Gospel has to stay out of politics then can we surprised when justice falters, the vulnerable are marginalized, and human life is measured by its quality rather than its sanctity?
Thomas Hardy once wrote:
"Peace upon earth!" was said, We sing it,And pay a million priests to bring it.After two thousand years of massWe've got as far as poison-gas.
What should we do then?

Living Sermon on the Mount is a mountainous task. Look at the kind of holiness that Jesus calls us to. To be salt and light to the world, to love enemies, to rely on God rather than things, to be religious without being showy, not to judge, to go beyond the ten commandments and not just to slavishly follow them.

Can I ask for a show of hands from anyone who thinks they have achieved all of these? To be honest, we are stuffed. Jesus was able to do this because he followed perfectly the will of the Father. He taught with authority, he taught with his life.

A lawyer friend of mine went to court in a new suit. The judge refused to address him. He kept barking “I do not see you!” Bewildered the lawyer turned to a colleague who whispered “You’re wearing a brown suit.” Court was adjourned while he changed to black.

Our worst nightmare must being rejected by gentle Jesus meek and mild. Imagine the Lord saying “I do not see you!” or “You are not part of my work on earth!” But if we are stuffed then we are also blessed. And this why that first chapter of Romans we heard is not simply in the lectionary by chance. Saint Paul reminds us that we are put right not by efforts in keeping even the Gospel commandments, but by faith in Jesus Christ and his offering himself on the Cross.