Acts 9:1-22 and Matthew 19:27-30. This sermon was preached at our Church Patronal Festival on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day. At the beginning of the service, we lit a candle to remember all those who had died in the Holocaust and used prayer and a confession written by the Council of Christians and Jews UK to lead us into our worship.

Our reading from Acts is one we have read hundreds of times.  It is the reading for our patronal festival.  For those who do not speak fluent church jargon, that means that it is the Bible reading used at the feast of our patron saint.  The patron saint of St Paul’s Church is St Paul and the feast of St Paul’s conversion is the 25^th January.  So, every year, on the Sunday closest to the 25^th January, we tend to read this passage.  It was also the passage for the day on the day I was interviewed to be your vicar.  I had to give a short homily – I am not sure I have ever prepared so hard for a sermon in my life.  My point is that this is a Bible passage many of us know all too well.  But sometimes things happen and the way we read Bible passages changes.  That is something that has happened to me.

But first a story. Five years ago, a few days before my installation as your vicar, we had a dress rehearsal for the service.  Ann Pipe and Paul West walked around with their churchwardens’ staffs, Anne Murray laughed herself silly at my attempts to pour water in the font without causing a flood over the carpet and the servers choreographed their processions up and down the aisle.  Meanwhile, my mother, who for the benefit of those who don’t know her is Scottish, had agreed to read this Bible reading and so she stepped up to practise at the lectern.  She was very nervous and was somewhat taken aback when, before she had read more than a few lines, the Area Dean guffawed loudly.

“Murrrrrder!” he rejoiced, “you sound like someone from Taggart. Excellent. Carry on…”

My mother has never entirely forgiven him.

Our familiarity with the story sometimes makes us forget that this story begins with murder.  We gloss over the horror of Saul’s behaviour and intentions, rushing on to the more acceptable parts of the story – conversion, transformation, reconciliation and redemption.  And I have done that myself many, many times.  However, as I come to read this story this year, I do it from a different place.  Many of you will know that last October, I was privileged to go on a pilgrimage to Bosnia with a group of clergy from the Church of England.  We went to learn about life after conflict, indeed life after atrocity.  We went to explore what peace and reconciliation look like in places which have experienced the very worst of humanity.  I haven’t spoken too much about that trip, because to be honest much of it is hard to put into words – even for someone like me where words are my daily business.  

I don’t know how much you remember of the Bosnian conflict.  In a nutshell, as the former Yugoslavia broke into its constituent nations after the fall of communism, there was disagreement about how this should happen.  The Bosnian Serbs wanted to keep Bosnia united with Serbia and other Yugoslav states, but the Bosnian Croats (who had seen Croatia gain its independence) and Bosniaks (Bosnians who tended to be Muslim by background) wanted independence.  There was a referendum which voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, but only because the Serbs boycotted it. They called it illegal.  Bosnia declared itself independent and civil war broke out.  

Prior to the conflict, Bosnia was an incredibly integrated society.  Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks lived side by side, worked together, went to each other’s festivals and family celebrations.  Now the three communities were in conflict, and there wasn’t an equal distribution of firepower.  The Serbs had the old Yugoslav army’s tanks and guns.  The Croats had some light artillery.  The Bosniaks – as one official I met puts it – had the cutlery.  And as the outside world imposed an arms embargo, it wasn’t in any sense a fair fight.  Soon, in the predominantly Serb and Bosniak east of the country, the Serbs were eating up huge chunks of territory while Bosniaks fled for their lives. Finally, to stop the unilateral destruction, the UN declared safe havens – places Bosniaks could go for sanctuary.  The most famous of these was Srebrenica.

I visited Srebrenica. It is a pretty little town snuggled in a steep valley in the Dinaric Alps.  Its current population is about 3-4 thousand but during the conflict ten times as many people tried to survive there.  They ran out of buildings.  They ran out of food.  The resident doctor – a young man who had gone for community medicine because he didn’t like surgery – ended up running a war zone field hospital doing his first amputation on a friend on a hillside. The siege lasted a couple of years and then in July 1995, the Serbs drove their tanks into the enclave.  The Dutch UN peacekeepers, tasked with protecting the residents, messaged frantically for back up air strikes, but world leaders prevaricated and delayed.  Meanwhile the occupants of the enclave fled on foot two miles to the UN base – a campus the size of a large secondary school.  The women, children and elderly were left there while most of the men went with a small battalion of guerrilla fighters who had been defending the town to try and march 60 miles across a war zone to safety in Tuzla.

At the UN base, the UN peacekeepers could offer no resistance and the Serbian leaders were soon in charge. They arranged for buses to arrive.  Women and children were loaded on some of the buses and many were taken to camps. Most were eventually taken to Bosniak-Croatian territory.  The men were separated, put on different buses and never seen by their loved ones again.  

Meanwhile the mainly civilian column of men trying to reach Tuzla was under attack.  Men who had been there – and I met two – describe frantic attempts to survive in the forest, existing on little food and less sleep, traumatised by watching friends and family falling around them.  Many men and boys were killed in the forest.  Utterly overwhelmed, two thirds of the column gave themselves up less than 10 miles from Srebrenica.  They were promised clemency.  They got on buses.  They were never seen again.  Over 8000 men and boys were systematically executed in the week after the fall of Srebrenica.

The United Nations defines genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.  The International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague ruled that what happened at Srebrenica was genocide.  In my lifetime and yours. In Europe.

The thing about genocide is its premeditation.  Its organisation.  Like Saul with the authorisation from his bosses, his plans and his paperwork, heading off to another city with the sole intention of stamping out these pesky followers of Jesus.  Some of Serbian leaders made an appalling choice. I say some, because this is no more a Serbian issue than the Holocaust was a German one – there were and are good and bad Serbs and there were and are good and bad Germans. This is not an ethnic or religious issue. Hate and violence are a human problem. So some Serbian leaders decided that they needed to win their war, win their country back, and if that meant getting rid of some pesky civilian Bosniaks in the chaos of war, well, so be it.  There were orders and organisation and someone to charter the buses.  In fact, one of the things which helped uncover this crime was the testimony of civilian bus drivers.

Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Holocaust Memorial Day is when we remember the Holocaust – the determined, merciless and industrial attempt to wipe out the entire Jewish race in Europe by the Nazis – but also when we remember other victims of genocide – like the people of Srebrenica. It is so important that we remember. Sadly, there are people despite overwhelming evidence who deny that the Holocaust, Srebrenica and other atrocities happened. While they might be the extreme end of a spectrum, there are plenty more who would like to forget they ever happened. It is deeply uncomfortable to remember what humans can do to one another while others do too little to help. Yet, painful though it is we must remember. We must remember to honour those lives, precious in God’s sight, and we must remember to do our very best to make sure such things do not happen on our watch. For sadly, history shows us that groups within humanity are all too prone to trying to eliminate communities and groups that are different to themselves.

It is the overwhelming grace of God which interrupts Saul in his zealous and violent desire to stamp out the tiny Christian Jewish community. Not only does God protect innocent victims, God protects Saul from himself, before using Ananias to turn him around on to a new life and ministry. Reading from this new perspective, I think it is really important that God does not whitewash Saul’s behaviour. When Ananias points out Saul’s reputation, God doesn’t say “Oh don’t worry about that, Saul’s changed”. God says “Saul will know what he must suffer”. And Paul never forgot who he had been and what God had saved him from. To the end of his days, he described himself as the worst of sinners, and his gratitude to God for redeeming him from what he could have been was, in part, the energy behind his incredible work establishing the Church, dedicating his whole life to the movement he had once sought to destroy.

To me, Ananias is the hero of this tale. At great personal risk, and with an empathy for Saul he did not deserve, he helps Saul see again – not just literally in curing his blindness, but in seeing a better way to live. As our hymn earlier put it – Saul, Paul chose instead the way of love. And I believe the church is still called to be Ananias – not simply to care for those communities who experience persecution and hate, although we must MUST do this, but to change the hearts of those who persecute them and help them see God’s way.

Genocide is not something that springs out of nowhere. Many of you will know the quote from German pastor, Martin Niemoller, who was a vocal opponent of Hitler:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

When we spot oppression and hate, we need to speak out early. Because genocides don’t just happen. From looking at what happened in the Holocaust and Darfur and Rwanda and Bosnia, experts in these tragedies have spotted ten stages of genocide. They don’t all happen in order – several of them can happen at the same time – but they give us and idea of what to notice, and if we intervene at the early stages, there is hope we can prevent tragedy.  I am not going to go through all ten stages here, but some of the early warning signs are classification, where differences are no longer respected and celebrated, but used to divide communities and stereotype negatively those who are different. Symbolisation finds a way to identify people from the oppressed group. Many of us are familiar with the yellow star which had to be worn by Jews, but in Bosnia, Muslims were forced to wear white armbands in some towns and in ISIS atrocities, Christians had “N” for Nazarene painted on the doors of their homes. Soon there is discrimination and the dominant powerful groups start to strip the less powerful group of their rights and sometimes even their citizenship. Then there is dehumanisation, where people from the oppressed group are described as being subhuman – so Nazis spoke of Jews as being vermin and Tutsis were called cockroaches during the Rwandan genocide.

As we remember Holocaust Memorial Day, as we honour every precious life lost in the Holocaust and in other genocides, we face up to the reality that the humanity of which we are a part can do terrible things to one another. In the light of this, we commit to watching over our behaviour and the behaviour of our society to ensure that it is never a place where such ideas can take root and grow.

So, as Christians, will you respect differences in belief, politics, race and culture and try to celebrate the diversity of our society? Will you be watchful for any attempts to divide us and put us in different boxes? Will you defend the rights of all people in our country, not just those who are like you? Will you call out language that is derogatory of people who are different?

It won’t be easy and there is risk involved. But the call of Jesus is to give up everything, as Jesus first disciples did, to build the Kingdom of God. To recognise that nothing, nothing is as important as loving God and expressing that love through our love of neighbour: our Jewish neighbour, our Muslim neighbour, our Roma neighbour, our neighbour from a different race or political persuasion. We will only be able to live these lives of love, self sacrifice and truth if we are faithful in prayer and so I will finish this sermon with a prayer written by the Council of Christians and Jews in the UK for Holocaust Memorial Day…

God of justice and of peace,

You call your people to stand together, in solidarity with those who suffer; We remember before you in sorrow:

all who perished in the horror of the Holocaust,

all who were persecuted,

and all whose suffering continues;

Turn the hearts of all who persecute and oppress,

and of all who seek to divide;

Open our own hearts and minds, when they are closed in fear and hatred, So that all your peoples may stand together and reflect your image.

Amen.

Isaiah 49:1-7 and John 1:29-42

The beginning of a new year, and in our case a new decade, is always a good time to stop and take stock. It is a good thing to do individually, but also as a church family. As we look forward to the coming year and the coming decade, what are our hopes and plans? As many of you will be aware, we are at the beginning of a rather ambitious adventure.  We have committed to try and grow our church, from about 115 people who worship here on average each week to about 200 people. And to focus our minds, we have given ourselves a deadline – our church’s 200^th anniversary in 2024.

It is an ambitious adventure for two huge reasons. Firstly, despite all sorts of initiatives and projects, the Church of England nationally is shrinking – mainly because the generations who were brought up to attend church as a weekly duty are being promoted to glory, but also because of societal changes which means more people have work and family obligations during the usual Sunday morning worship time. So in trying to grow, we are trying to buck a rather established trend.

Also, secondly, research consistently shows that churches struggle to grow from 100 members to 200 members, because a 200 member church has different structures and ways of working to a 100 member church. We don’t just add people, we need to change some of the ways we do things and think about things – without, of course, losing the love, faith and worship that makes us, us. Breaking through the 150 barrier, as it is sometimes known, is not an easy task. And so to overcome these two rather formidable obstacles, it is going to take commitment, love and prayer not just from myself and Jo, not just from the management group focusing on this challenge, not just from our fab PCC but from everyone in the church family.

Daunting, isn’t it? But, before you get too freaked out, we have some things in our favour. The first thing is that we have a lot of people to work with. Our parish population is over 13,000 and I cannot help but think that more than 100 of them would like to know God’s love better and to follow Jesus.

Furthermore, because of your two decades of faithful loving service to our parish, lots of people have a good attitude towards their parish church. They value what we do and what we bring to our community. We are their church – they just don’t worship with us yet. And that is a good place to start.

Thirdly, you are a church which doesn’t mind an ambitious project. In the last three decades you have built a parish centre and completely reordered the Church leaving us with phenomenal facilities for the work we do now. You are a church building congregation – this is just the next phase.

And lastly, and by far the most importantly, we believe we are doing this not for ourselves, but for the love of God and the love of our friends and neighbours, and so God is in this. The work of church building is ultimately God’s, we are just to be faithful and do our part.

And so, it is the doing our part – all doing our part – that I want us to think about as we look at our readings today. Our gospel is like a row of dominoes falling as one person after another realises who Jesus is and passes it on. Of course they all do it in slightly different ways. John the Baptist has a vision revealing Jesus true identity to him and points Jesus out to his disciples. Andrew, on John pointing Jesus out, goes and asks if he can spend a bit of time with Jesus, before realising who Jesus is and going home to tell his brother. Peter is dragged along by a family member and has an encounter with Jesus and receives a new name. Philip gets an invitation from Jesus himself and goes to tell his friend, Nathanael. Nathanael is rude and sceptical, but still takes up his friend’s invitation and ends up completely convinced. Five different people, five different ways of coming to Jesus, but they all have two key things in common: an invitation and an encounter. The invitation to know Jesus came from God in John the Baptist’s case, from Jesus himself for Philip, from a mentor for Andrew, from a family member for Peter and from a friend for Nathanael. The encounter was always with Jesus.

A little over five years ago, I was interviewed to be Vicar here at St Paul’s. During the interview, I was asked this question: “Tell the story of two people you have brought to faith in the last two years.” I deeply objected to this question, and so I replied “None, because Jesus brings people to faith – but I have been around when it happens!” Our task in evangelism is not to make anyone believe anything. We do not have the responsibility for whether people do or do not come to faith. Faith is a gift of God. What we are called to do is point people towards God, invite people to encounter Jesus and create spaces for that encounter to happen. It is then down to God and the person to work out the rest!

How do we point people towards God? Well we do that in three main ways: in who we are, in what we do and in what we say. I think at St Paul’s we are pretty good at two out of the three of these. By who we are, I mean by showing our friends and family that ordinary people choose to be Christians. Christians aren’t super spiritual, weird or judgemental. We haven’t got life sussed. We face struggles and joys like everyone around us. Ordinary people can be Christians. But in the things we do – my second point – we try to live out God’s love. In the way we speak to people, treat people, use our time and talents and resources, we don’t just look after ourselves, but care for others and for our world. Again, we are not perfect, but we are trying, and I think some people notice and respect that. And as I said, I think the congregation here are pretty good at both these things.

The third one we could do with a bit more practice, a little more confidence, but if we give it a go, I am sure we will get the hang of it. It is simply telling a little of our story and how our faith, how God’s love, how following Jesus makes a difference. It doesn’t need to be fancy theology. It doesn’t need to be exciting. Just what you think or feel, have noticed or experienced. Often people are more interested than we realise and it is good to be able, when someone asks about church or our faith, to be able to say a little bit about what it means to us. It is not our job to make anyone believe anything, but we can point them towards the God who loves them by what we are, what we do and what we say, so keep giving it your best shot.

How do we invite people? Well, that is easy. We invite people! Again, it is not our job to make them say yes. We just say “Would you like to come and see?” Would you like to come along to a church social and see that the church – building and people – is quite a friendly place? The roof won’t fall in if you walk through the door! Would you like to come along to a small group or a lent group or Alpha and see what you think about some of the things we believe? We are open to chat and laugh and question and discuss stuff – you don’t have to have all the answers! Would you like to come along to a church service and see why I find it special? We are so lucky that as a church we have lots of things happening throughout the year, so why not ask God to point out a couple of people you could invite to something over the next few months. We are trying to create a lot more leaflets and social media posts for things, so it is really easy for you to take one, pop it in a friend’s hand or share it by messenger and say “I wondered if you would like to go to this?”

Lastly, we just create the spaces and trust God to do the rest. So as a church we offer a range of community and social events suitable for those who just want to dip a toe in the water, we offer a range of groups for people who want to chat things through a bit more and a range of services where people can encounter God in worship. We offer them with love, welcome and a healthy side portion of prayer, and trust that God who loves our friends, family and community will do what God will do.

We are embarking on an ambitious adventure and it is going to take love, commitment and effort from every single one of us. So as I draw this sermon to a close, I want to encourage us by thinking a little about our reading from Isaiah. Verse 4 reminds us to leave our work in God’s hands. There will be times on this adventure when we are tired and discouraged. Maybe something we organised was poorly attended. Maybe we invited a friend and they said no. Maybe we have been faithfully doing something for months or years and are wondering if it is worth it. Don’t despair. Leave it in God’s hand and trust God for your reward.

And then verse 6 reminds us that God’s plans are often far more ambitious than our wildest dreams. For the exiles, the restoration of their homeland was a distant dream, yet God says to his servants, “you will do even more than that – you will be a blessing to the ends of the earth”. 200 by 200 might seem like a crazy dream to us today, but we serve a God whose purpose is for the whole of creation to know God’s love. Maybe 200 by 200 isn’t ambitious enough?

However, it is a start, and an important one. So in love, and always with prayer, I encourage you all to point the people around you towards God, by your life, your actions and sometimes your words, and to invite them to places where they might encounter Jesus. The rest we can leave in God’s hands. Amen.

Isaiah 63:7-9 and Matthew 2:13-end

I think that in eight years of ordained ministry, this is only the second year when I have worked the Sunday after Christmas.  I don’t think that I have ever preached on the Holy Innocents.  I am pretty sure that the last time I was on duty at this time of year I changed the readings to Anna and Simeon in the Temple or something more encouraging.  Who would want to spend the first Sunday of this season of celebration recalling an atrocity?

Some people argue that perhaps it didn’t even happen.  Surely the killing of a village-worth of infants would have been recorded by someone, somewhere – but Matthew is the only text from that time which mentions it.  Maybe this was Matthew being fanciful, but then that begs the question, who would make this sort of stuff up?!

The reality is that a few dozen deaths in a small backwater town of the Roman Empire might well have not made the news.  We only have to look at our world today where children still perish in the Mediterranean Sea as their families desperately seek a better future.  Children still die of preventable illnesses because of poverty and lack of access to healthcare.  Children are still killed by gunshot wounds in the USA because of opposition to gun regulation.  Children still work in sweatshops and rubbish dumps around the world to service our consumerist culture.  These tragedies rarely make the news.  Even the most kind-hearted person gets used to it in the end. It is just the way the world is…

Herod too, along with his servants and followers, were a pragmatic lot.  True, Herod was quite a scary individual.  He ordered the execution of his wife and at least two of his sons.  He wasn’t the sort of person you wanted to upset or offend.  But if you managed to stay on the right side of him, like many despots and dictators throughout history, he brought a degree of stability and prosperity. It wasn’t too bad, unless you – like those poor families in Bethlehem – were the ones paying the price.

And the reality is that Herod didn’t commit an atrocity in Bethlehem – he gave the orders and other hands did the deed.  People like Herod don’t get very far without people willing to act for them, to defend them and to support them.  Nowadays, we might include buy from them or vote for them!  What today looks like a heinous crime, back then may have passed for statesmanship.  Herod was just the one man, but he presided over a kingdom of people who bought into his view of the way the world needed to be.  It was just the way the world was. And if the cost was a few peasant children, well…

Many of you will have seen the catchy phrase, Jesus is the reason for the season.  But Herod is the reason for the season too.  Because there is a bit of Herod in all of us.  At a time of year when we celebrate the birth of that one tiny vulnerable scrap of human life, the child who was God, the hope of creation; we remember too that we live in a world where life – even children’s lives – can be held very cheap indeed. God came to a world that desperately needed him.

A few weeks ago, I was reading The Last Girl – a memoir by Nadia Murad.  Nadia was a young Iraqi Yazidi woman whose village was invaded by ISIS.  As Yazidi, according to the warped ISIS ideology, her family were “other”, infidels and almost subhuman. Her mother and six brothers were killed.  She and her younger female relatives were taken and sold as slaves.  They were driven through the city of Mosul in coaches to be sold at a slave market.  As they drove past, she watched a city of ordinary Iraqi people getting on with their ordinary lives and simply couldn’t understand why they weren’t doing something to rescue her and her friends.  When she did escape and was hidden by a brave local family, part of her still resented that even they hadn’t proactively helped her before.  I was really challenged by this.  How often do I say, “oh but there is nothing I can do about it,” when I am aware of injustice and suffering when maybe what is wanted is a bit of imagination or courage or resolution on my part?

All of us are a little bit like Herod.  All of us sometimes live as citizens of his Kingdom of fear and self-preservation and despair.  I am now concerned that I have achieved the near impossible and am preaching a sermon even more depressing than the original reading.  But, of course, we don’t end here.  American writer, Ann Lamott has a saying I love: “Grace bats last”.  There is always hope because there is always grace to come.

However, truly appreciating the grace we are offered means being clearsighted about how much we need it.  If, as a doctor, I offered you, as a perfectly healthy person, a major operation where they would slit open your stomach, attach another person’s kidney to your blood supply and sew you back up again, before spending a week in hospital recovering and taking medication for the rest of your life.  Well, I doubt any of you would find that an attractive or generous prospect.  However, if you knew your own kidneys were failing, and that you faced spending the rest of your, possibly shortened, life on dialysis – well, all of a sudden, what you were being offered would feel like the most incredible gift, and you would be grateful not just to the medical team caring for you, but even more so to the person who offered you the kidney.

When we recognise our own sinfulness – the times when we live as people of self-preservation and fear, the times when we live as citizens of Herod’s kingdom – then the grace of God is suddenly all the more precious.  Because despite everything, despite our unworthiness and failures, God still came.  God still came to live among us to share our struggles and forgive our sins.  God decided to rescue us from ourselves. God still came.

What is more, God gave us a glimpse of another sort of Kingdom. A Kingdom where vulnerability is more powerful than might, where a tiny flicker of light will overcome all the darkness of the world, where the ordinary goodness of which humanity is capable will win through in the end.
And at their best our Christmas celebrations give us a glimpse of what that Kingdom might look like – strangers showing kindness, people helping those in need.  At Christmas time, people donate to their local foodbank through a sincere desire that every neighbour should have enough to eat.  They smile at the weary cashiers in Aldi, or leave out a card for the postie, or thank the bus driver on the number 10 because they see them afresh as fellow human beings, full of divine dignity, and want them to know their work is appreciated.  They visit their lonely neighbours and encourage friends who are ill in hospital. 

American essayist Hamilton Wright Mabie once wrote “Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” Meanwhile, the author who in some ways is Mr Christmas himself, Charles Dickens, wrote this in his novella, A Christmas Carol “But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time… as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”  A conspiracy of love, a time when humankind open their hearts to one another.  Christmas, in all its imperfections, gives us a glimpse of that other Kingdom – and we love it!

We love it, because we were not made to live as citizens of Herod’s kingdom.  We were made to be children of God.  And each Christmas is another invitation to refuse to believe the lie that this is the way the world is, to refuse to believe that a few less children here and there is just the price we have to pay, a few atrocities are just part of the deal.  It is a chance to remind ourselves and others that love is worth working for, worth sacrificing for and that ordinary people – with God’s help – can do extraordinary things.  This week, we begin a new year and a new decade, let us not leave Christmas behind as we pack away the tinsel and lights; let us not forget Christmas as we begin the January health kick and spring clean.  Let us remember the home we find in the Christmas story, when God indeed made God’s home with us – this is our Kingdom, this is the King we serve.  May we have the courage and imagination to live the conspiracy of love every season of the year.  To the glory of God, Amen!

Isaiah 35:1-10 and Matthew 11:2-11

³ With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
    and encourage those who have weak knees.
⁴ Say to those with fearful hearts,
    “Be strong, and do not fear.

Gaudete!

I wonder how many of you are weary?  Some of you will simply be weary as a result of the endless Christmas preparations.  Advent began two weeks ago, but the festive hype has been going on for months.  But for some the sense of weariness is more profound. Some of you will be weary for personal reasons: relentless work pressures, heart-aching family troubles, worry about your health or money situation.  All these things take a huge toll. 

And then there is a political weariness.  As a country, we have lived through nine years of austerity following the financial crash, with devastating consequences for the most vulnerable in our society, and almost four years of conflict over Brexit.  Depending on how you voted on Thursday, you can choose the beginning to my next sentence: In spite of – or perhaps because of – the General Election result, I don’t see an end to any of this soon.  It is a wearying, worrying time for so many people on so many levels.  How do we find the energy to keep on caring, keep on helping, keep on hoping?

And so, in the bleak midwinter, I turn for solace to our old friend, Isaiah.  Isaiah too wrote in difficult and testing times.  His community had been in the spiritual wilderness, drifting far from the values and laws of God; and now they were in a political wilderness: their country invaded, their temple destroyed, many of their people carried off into exile.  Isaiah is no romantic – elsewhere in his prophecies there are searing descriptions of the pain and violence and evil of this time.  He knows just how hard things are.  But it is into this wilderness, spiritual and practical, that Isaiah proclaims the words of hope from our first reading: the wilderness will be glad, life will be restored and there will be joy again.

He goes on with the words I want any who are weary today to hear:

³ With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
    and encourage those who have weak knees.
⁴ Say to those with fearful hearts,
    “Be strong, and do not fear.

It is not always going to be like this.  To those who are facing grief or heartache, there will be comfort. To those who work and pray for justice and healing and peace in our society, have hope, keep going.  One day it WILL be different.  We may have to work for a future we will not live to see but it matters that we try.  Those who will build on any good we achieve need us to try and not give up.  So, hear God’s word to you, those who have tired hands and weak knees, those with fearful hearts: Be strong and do not fear.  The good you do matters.  What you value may not always be valued by those in power, or even some of those neighbours around you, but it is valued by God.  Keep going, keep hoping, keep caring…

In our Gospel, John, like many of us, was weary.  He had played his part – bravely and with searing honesty, he had pointed his community back to God.  His clear-sighted faith meant that when others saw another non-descript Galilean pilgrim coming to join his movement on the banks of the Jordan, he saw the Messiah, the promise of God.  He proclaimed the hope and then – well, nothing much happened.  The Romans were still oppressing them, the religious elites were still completely missing the point, the powerful like Herod were still throwing their weight around with no regard for justice and truth – and as a consequence, John was now languishing in prison.  If ever someone was allowed to be weary, if ever someone was allowed to ask “Was I even on the right track?  Was any of my effort worth it?”  It was John.

Jesus gets his message, and doesn’t tell him off for his doubts and fears. He just sends back a message – it is happening, John.  It is happening. Maybe not quite as you expected, or quite as you hope, but God is at work.  You weren’t wrong.  It is worth it.

And perhaps one way of managing the weariness of these times is to stop and notice where God is at work, where human beings are being kind, being selfless, being noble and hopeful and kind.  Inspired by the Spirit of God, they in glimpses and small actions are proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

³ With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
    and encourage those who have weak knees.
⁴ Say to those with fearful hearts,
    “Be strong, and do not fear.

It will not always be this hard.  Keep trying, keep hoping, keep loving.  Love your neighbour as a political act. God is with you.

Isaiah 2:1-5 and Matthew 24:36-44

Today is both the first day of Advent and the first day of December.  I wonder how many Christmas trees you have seen up already?  We counted quite a number just in Church Road two weeks ago when we delivered the Christmas Bazaar leaflets.  Maybe you even have yours up in your living room.  And if so, I don’t blame you.  The weather has been vile, the politics depressing, the state of the country uninspiring and so why not have a little colour and bling and sparkle to escape from a dismal and despairing world?  I don’t blame any premature Christmas tree decorators at all.  But, I want to suggest to you that Advent is not a season when we try to escape reality, grim as it sometimes can be, into dreams of tinsel and gifts, but a time when we stay awake, look at reality face on, but with hope.  Hold that thought for a bit while I try to unpack our readings for the day…

Our gospel begins: However, no one knows that day or hour when these things will happen.

The first question to ask therefore is what exactly are “these things” – the things that Jesus says will happen with no warning?  Our reading today comes from a much longer section of Matthew 24 in which Jesus talks about the future.  We heard some of that two weeks ago when Jo explained to us how these predictions were to do with the destruction of the temple, which to the people Jesus was talking to at the time would have felt like the end of the world.  Jesus then continues warning people not to be distracted by new Messiahs who will claim to be the answer to times of tribulation – it will happen (both the false messiahs and the tribulation) but they are to be steadfast in following him.  When I return he says, it will be blindingly obvious – like lightning that lights up the whole sky.  Trust me, you won’t miss it.  There will be clues and signs that the end of the world is nigh, but no one knows exactly when the end will be.  And it will happen before their generation passes away.

The end of the world doesn’t sound like an attractive prospect does it?   But this is God we are talking about.  Our first reading tells us what that day – the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, Judgement Day or the day of the Lord – will be like.  People will stream back to God, gathering from all nations of the world, wars and conflicts will be resolved and everyone will walk in the light of God.  How amazing does that sound?

I started by saying that I didn’t blame those who put up their Christmas trees early for wanting a bit of light and joy and hope in their lives.  And, I don’t know if you can relate to this, but I think many of us are weary and longing for the day of the Lord. How many of you long for a day when families in Syria and Yemen and the Congo can live in peace, when families are not torn apart by war?  How many of you long for a fairer world, where we can buy goods without worrying about who made them and how they were treated? How many of you long for a day when you can walk around the town without seeing people begging, homeless and caught in the throes of addiction?  How many of you long for the day when children will be safe from abuse and harm from those who should be protecting them?  How many of you long for a day when we close our Foodbanks because people have enough to feed themselves and their children? How many of you long for the day when leadership is about duty and integrity not power and lies? 

Judgement Day is not a day out of a Bruce Willis blockbuster action film, but a day when justice will be restored to God’s world.  Yes, we may have to face up to our sins and wrong-doing, and that will have its pain, but we will do it in the company of the God we trust has forgiven us in Jesus.  It will be a day when all Creation is as God intended it to be, when all is restored to right relationships with God, each other and the world around us.

The Second Coming, the return of Jesus, the Last Judgement, when put in that light sounds something we should be hoping and praying for. Jesus using picture language of burglars and sudden disappearances doesn’t sound so positive, but I would argue that Jesus is emphasizing the need to be ready for this day when it arrives.  Jesus isn’t interested in people living exactly as they choose, selfishly, greedily, dreamily unconcerned for others, then tidying up their act when the deadline approaches.  Of course, Jesus being Jesus, there is still hope even then as our thief discovered last week.  But Jesus wants his followers to be living as children of the Gospel now, awake to the needs of the world, awake to God’s purposes and presence already in the world, awake and ready to work for peace and justice and reconciliation.

So the question for us is, whether we die an earthly death or are there when the sky splits open and we see Jesus in glory, will we be ready to meet Jesus? Will we be preparing ourselves and those around us for Jesus’ return?  Will we, as much as we are able, be clear-sighted about the reality of the world’s brokenness and sin and, as much as we are able, be doing our part to work for peace, for justice, for reconciliation?

If we are, if we can, it will be because we are people of hope, that great advent theme. People who will not just accept that “this is the way the world is”. People who dare to live differently, like kindness and justice and love and truth mean something, and are willing to work for a different future. People who face up to the hard realities of the world as it is, but dare to live as the world might be.  People who know that God works in topsy turvey ways and things the world regards as insiginificant can change everything.  Things like a tiny baby, born to nobodies who had nothing in a nondescript corner of the Roman Empire – a baby who was to be the answer to the brokenness of us all.

So, if Jesus were to return tomorrow, if he were to interrupt our ordinary lives as he vividly describes in our reading today, would you be ready to welcome him and to live in the world of justice and peace he will bring?  Or do you need a bit more practice, a bit of time to sort out a few last things?  Advent is a hopeful invitation to get ready for another visit from our God of justice and peace and love.  Don’t ignore the world’s troubles this Advent, don’t get lost in festive dreams, but stay awake to the presence and purposes of God and in all things have hope – the sort of hope that begins to change the world into what it will one day be, by the grace of God. Amen.

Matthew 25:31-45

This week is the final week of the gifts and gratitude season we have built around Harvest.

Over the last few weeks, we have thought about:

• God’s love for us, the source of all good in our lives and the inspiration for our own gratitude and generosity. We respond to God’s generosity with our own.
• The fact that God gives us gifts – some for all God’s children (love, forgiveness, the Holy Spirit) some just for us as individuals (spiritual and practical) These gifts are given that we might play our part in serving God’s world and it delights God when we use them.
• We spent Café church thinking about how our community is enriched by the different gifts we bring. No one is unimportant. Many good things could not happen or would be less if everyone didn’t play their part. However, we also recognised that it is important not to be pigeon-holed as the person who always does and limited from doing other things. Depending on the circumstances, some of us can do all sort of things.
• Jo then helped us think about how we might have a generous and healthy attitude to money. This was important as it can be hard to talk about money, but Jesus talks about it a lot. He wants us to use money for good not be scared or enslaved by it.
• Lastly we celebrated Harvest with a festival of gratitude and of gifts: financial and practical.

So this final week, I want to encourage you to make gratitude and gifts part of your every day life. A puppy is not just for Christmas and Gratitude and gifts are not just for Harvest! And to help you take these principles forward into your life – where from time to time situations change and you have to change what you can offer – I am offering this simple tool. A couple of questions

Where am I most blessed: time, talents or treasure?

Now what do I mean by that? Well, too often we worry about where we are poor, but why not think about where we are rich. In our first reading, Peter and John didn’t have even a few coins to throw in a beggar’s bowl. But they had time: they stopped and made the beggar look at them. They were available for an encounter, recognising each other as human beings, and then Peter used the gift or talent God had given him, to heal in Jesus’ name. Peter could have worried that he didn’t have the thing the beggar was asking for, but instead he said “I don’t have that, I will give you something better!”

At different times of our lives, we will have time, or talents – that is opportunities to use the things we are particularly good at – or treasure – our money and resources.

When the children were small and I was training part time at college for ministry, we had very little cash to play with. Almost zero treasure. But actually I was rich in time and availability. If someone needed a cup of tea and a bit of cheering up, I was your girl. If there was an event on that needed some supporting, so long as I could bring a buggy I was there. There wasn’t much opportunity to use my talents with three ankle-biters in tow and I had little financial treasure, but I had time, and actually time is a great gift to share. So if you are rich in time, how might you use it for God’s Kingdom. Could you have a cuppa with someone who is lonely? Could you turn up and swell the numbers at a coffee morning or concert or protest? Could you pray? Could you fold Christmas leaflets for the social committee? Could you man a stall or keep the church open for an event? Time is a valuable gift.

Now I am in the lovely position where I get to use the talents or gifts I have been given to serve the church and the parish. And I love it. But my free available time is much less. After the time I give to the parish, Diocese and my immediate family, there isn’t the same space to be available to a friend in a crisis or to mosey up at a community event. It is just a different season of life with its joys and drawbacks. So if you are working doing something where you get to use the gifts God has given you for good, but it means you can’t volunteer for a church rota right now, don’t beat yourself up. It is just a season in life. Give what you have – your talents to God’s service.

But not everyone has time or talents to offer. I once had a friend who was a high powered business man. He wanted to do more for the church, and he would volunteer for things that weren’t really his skill set, then get so frustrated if whatever he worked on didn’t go perfectly because he had very little time and felt it had been wasted or unappreciated. I tried to suggest to him that perhaps he could donate some of the money he earned when he was working so hard to help the church pay someone to do some of these things, then they would be done well and he wouldn’t be frazzled. He was poor in time and rich in treasure but wanted to act as if it were the other way round.

Now in reality you will probably find life frustrating if you are not giving to God in all three spheres, sharing your time, talents and treasure. It is certainly a good discipline to try to include a little of all three in what we offer to God. A bit like a healthy meal should include vegetables, carbs and protein and a healthy giving attitude will include something of our time, our talents and our treasure. But there may be times when you can offer more of one than another and that is okay. It can be useful to do a bit of a life audit every so often and ask ourselves. Where am I rich? Where have I less to offer? How can I make sure I am being generous with what I have in this season of life?

The final point I want to make as we draw this series of service to a close is to just to encourage you to do your part. Our gospel reading is not the most encouraging on the surface, but actually, I think there is much to help us. It reminds us that all of our kind acts towards others are seen by God and valued as if done for Christ himself. You can almost hear the bemusement in those on the right’s voices – really, me, righteous? I just helped where I could. Unlike those on the left who refused to do their bit.

Recently, I found this on the internet.

What the world needs is not a few people doing everything perfectly, but lots and lots of people doing a few things imperfectly. It continued…

‘To the person who uses metal straws to save fish but consumes animals, I’d like to say thank you. To the vegan who isn’t aware of our homelessness problem, thank you. To the climate change activists who aren’t attentive to fast fashion, thank you. To the girl who gives her old clothes to the disadvantaged but isn’t educated on sex trafficking, thank you. To the guy who picks up rubbish on his way home from a surf but isn’t well-informed about male suicide rates, thank you. To the people who stand up for horse racing concerns but are uninformed of the cruelty of the dairy industry, thank you. To the positive Instagram influencer who hasn’t cultivated a plastic-free lifestyle, thank you. To the grandparents who knit for sick children but aren’t up to date with current race and homophobic issues, thank you. To the students that stand up for bullying but are unaware of the constant domestic violence epidemic, thank you. To the peace activists, feminists, stray dog adopters, teachers, volunteers, foster carers, recyclers, givers, doers and believers, I say thank you. We are all on a different path and we all see through different eyes. Current world issues that you are passionate about, aren’t always what other people are trying to change… and that’s okay. It’s not everyone’s job to save every part of the world but it is everyone’s responsibility to thank every person who is doing THEIR part to save the world. Don’t critique, just appreciate. Don’t judge, just educate. We’re all trying our best. Thank you.’ Carla Borthwick.

Sharing God’s love and grace with the world is not a job a few of us can do all of. What we can all do is use our time, our talents and our treasure in the strength and equipping of God to care for God’s world and work for His Kingdom.