These prayers are from the Church of England website
https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches

A prayer about the Coronavirus outbreak

Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy
in this time of uncertainty and distress.
Sustain and support the anxious and fearful,
and lift up all who are brought low;
that we may rejoice in your comfort
knowing that nothing can separate us from your love
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.

For those in isolation

God of compassion,
be close to those who are ill, afraid or in isolation.
In their loneliness, be their consolation;
in their anxiety, be their hope;
in their darkness, be their light;
through him who suffered alone on the cross,
but reigns with you in glory,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

For those who are worried/social cohesion

Loving Jesus, you are compassionate to those in need
and heal the sick in body and mind.
Look kindly on those who are fearful at this time.
Help us all to put away all thoughts and actions
that separate us from you and from one another.
Give us grace to live our lives
confident in your promise that you are with us always.
Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ,
you taught us to love our neighbour,
and to care for those in need
as if we were caring for you.
In this time of anxiety, give us strength
to comfort the fearful, to care for the sick, 
and to assure the isolated 
of our love, and your love,
for your name’s sake.
Amen.

For those who are ill

Merciful God,
we entrust to your unfailing and tender care,
those who are ill or in pain,
knowing that whenever danger threatens
your everlasting arms are there to hold us safe.
Comfort and heal them,
and restore them to health and strength;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

For hospital staff and medical researchers

Gracious God,
give skill, sympathy and resilience
to all who are caring for the sick,
and your wisdom to those searching for a cure.
Strengthen them with your Spirit,
that through their work many will be restored to health;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

From one who is ill or isolated

O God,
help me to trust you,
help me to know that you are with me,
help me to believe that nothing can separate me 
from your love
revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Prayers for when you can’t get to church

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your disciples, ‘I am with you always’.
Be with me today, as I offer myself to you.
Hear my prayers for others and for myself,
and keep me in your care.
Amen.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

From St Patrick’s Breastplate

I am giving you worship with all my life,
I am giving you obedience with all my power,
I am giving you praise with all my strength,
I am giving you honour with all my speech.
I am giving you love with all my heart,
I am giving you affection with all my sense,
I am giving you my being with all my mind,
I am giving you my soul, O most high and holy God.     
Praise to the Father,
Praise to the Son,
Praise to the Spirit,
The Three in One. 

adapted from Alexander Carmichael,
Carmina Gadelica (1900)

Lord Jesus Christ,
son of the living God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

The ‘Jesus Prayer’

After a time of prayer:
Be with us, Lord, in all our prayers,
and direct our way toward the attainment of salvation,
that among the changes and chances of this mortal life,
we may always be defended by your gracious help,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Main Volume: Endings for Intercession

O gracious and holy Father,
give us wisdom to perceive you,
diligence to seek you,
patience to wait for you,
eyes to behold you,
a heart to meditate upon you,
and a life to proclaim you,
through the power of the spirit
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

St Benedict

Soul of Christ, sanctify me,
body of Christ, save me,
blood of Christ, inebriate me,
water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me:
hide me within your wounds
and never let me be separated from you.
From the wicked enemy defend me,
in the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to you,
so that with your saints I may praise you
for ever and ever.

Anima Christi

Short passages of Scripture for reading and contemplation

• Psalm 27 The Lord is my light and my salvation
• Psalm 46 Be still, and know that I am God.
• Psalm 91 He shall cover you with his wings
• Psalm 139 O Lord, you have searched me out and known me
• Isaiah 43 (esp vv.1-7) Do not fear, for I am with you
• John 14 Do not let your hearts be troubled

A prayer for when a friend is ill

Dear God, (name of friend) is ill.
They are not allowed to go to school or come over to play.
I’m sad because I miss them.
They must be feeling miserable and lonely as well.
Please be close to them.
Please be with the people who are looking after them.
Please help them to get better and to know that you love them.
Amen.

A prayer for the world

God of love and hope,
You made the world and care for all creation.
But the world feels strange right now.
The news is full of stories about Coronavirus.
Many people are anxious because of it.
Many people are anxious that they might get ill.
Many people are anxious about their family and friends.
Be with them in their worries and help them to find some peace.
We pray for the doctors and nurses and scientists who are working to discover the right medicines to give hope to those who are ill.
Thank you that even in these strange and worrying times, you are with us.
Help us to look for the signs of your goodness and love towards us.
Amen.

A prayer at bedtime

Before the ending of the day,
Creator of the World, we pray
That you, with steadfast love, would keep
Your watch around us while we sleep.
Tonight we pray especially for (names family or friends who are affected by Coronavirus) and the people of (country or place which is affected by Coronavirus).
Give skill and wisdom to all who are caring for them.
Amen.

A prayer remembering God is with us

Lord God, you are always with me.
You are with me in the day and in the night.
You are with me when I’m happy and when I’m sad.
You are with me when I’m healthy and when I am ill.
You are with me when I am peaceful and when I am anxious.
Today I am feeling (name how you are feeling) because (reasons you are feeling this way).
Help me to remember that you love me and are with me in everything today.
Amen.

A sermon by Rev’d Jo Joyce

Matthew 6:25-34

Any one here ever worry about things? I know I do – sometimes, if I don’t keep a check on it, I can worry about all sorts of things, and I know it doesn’t do me any good, so lets look at what Jesus says about it.

Our Gospel reading today comes from the sermon on the mount. Jesus’s teaching about worry is part of a whole set of teaching. I think its really important to start out by saying Jesus is not condemning people who do worry or are anxious (which would be a better translation of the Greek word). We know that, because the sermon begins with the beatitudes, one of which you will remember is; ³ ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Being poor in spirit, anxious or worried is not sinful, God is with you at those times and this passage is not about setting a standard to never worry.

This passage comes in a whole set of teaching about how God’s people are to live and includes things about loving your enemies and not judging others or storing up treasures on earth. This teaching then is about what we should aim for – like loving our enemies, it’s not easy – we may not always achieve it, but we can try and work towards it.

So, where do we start? Well Jesus starts with two types of worry – about life, the big things, and worry about stuff and envy. So, let’s begin with them.

This is person 1

They have lots of worries about their life. It’s really hard, their universal credit hasn’t come through, and they worry about where the food will come from when their money runs out. They are waiting for some test results from the hospital, life is really hard.

And Jesus comes in and says; ‘do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink.’ Now that seems a bit harsh, because on the face of it they have lots of genuine reasons to worry – these are things which we would all be anxious about to some extent. Some of us are naturally more anxious than others, but I reckon most people would find this hard. So, what might Jesus mean? Well I think there are several things we can read from this.

Firstly, do not worry about things you cannot change. With the best will in the world an individual is never going to speed up the systems of state that organise the benefits payments or the NHS consultant working on their test results. There will come a day when both of these things will be resolved one way or the other, but worrying will not change either of them, nor will it change other big things, war, politics, roadworks. Jesus is clear; do not worry about things you cannot change, take each day one day at a time and deal with that day’s difficult things – the more we let worry carry over to the next day and the day after, the harder it is, we spend 2 weeks worrying over a test result that comes back clear, we worry about our money but we can’t make it come any quicker. It is time and energy and stress that was unnecessary.

Secondly, I think it’s also important to remember this was general teaching Jesus was giving and it comes in a context. He is not saying this to an individual. In the context of the sermon on the mount – we (collectively) are not to worry about our life, to focus on ourselves, but we (collectively) are expected to give alms to the poor, to strive for justice and to do to others as we would have them do to us. In other words we have as a community a call to support those who have genuine worries in this life, we are to feed the hungry, to pray with those who are sick, to work for a more just benefits system – we are to be part of the solution to their worries. Individuals cannot resolve these problems alone, all they can do is seek help and live one day at a time; we as church can come alongside them and support them and work for justice and, in that way, we help them not to worry about the things they cannot change.

We are not as a community to harbour a collective anxiety about things. It’s so easy to spread – I am worried about this, I pass it on, they become worried and pass it on and it blows out of proportion.

The second sort of worry Jesus tells us about is worries about what you will wear. This I think is worry about our status, about comparing ourselves with others – about envy, just general worrying about things.

Let’s meet person 2

This person is really worried about the fact that their trainers are old and unfashionable, their tablet is rubbish and doesn’t work properly, they spent loads of money on the credit card on chocolate at the fair trade stall to try and feel better but now they just feel worse and have a massive debt as well, and so it all spirals on. Life isn’t quite how we hoped, the bloke over the road has a flash new car, I have to go to a wedding and can’t afford a new dress – then no one will like me or speak to me and I will be miserable for ever! Poor person 2, life for them feels a bit rubbish!

But Jesus says; ‘do not worry about your life, …^j] or about your body, what you will wear…. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.’

Here we go again, it’s hard isn’t it? How do we live a life that’s not focussed on feeling left out, how do we not worry about these things? There will always be people who are richer than we are, with a nicer house, who go one better holidays and wear cooler clothes. Whatever stage we are at in life there is always a temptation to be envious, to look to those around us and wish for more, or worry that we won’t be accepted because we don’t fit in, we don’t have enough. There is always a temptation to work ourselves into the ground too, perhaps because we feel maybe somehow we can earn these things, earn the approval of others, earn God’s approval even.

But as Jesus says – look at the beautiful flowers, they don’t strive to be better, but they are stunning. We cannot by striving, catch up with the Joneses, be the coolest kid in town, be liked more, be happier or be more loved by God. There will never come a point when we will have enough if our attitude is always one of envy, of not enough. I think this may have something to do with a lack of self-confidence. With never feeling quite good enough. When we are feeling like this it is because we don’t see ourselves as God sees us, as fearfully and wonderfully made. We compare ourselves with others and fear we are falling short, God compares us with others and sees us as unique and beautiful; as the work of his hands, he sees us and dances with Joy over us – who are we then to look to the next person and say we are not enough, or we do not have enough, or to look to what we have done and say it’s not enough. Jesus says; ‘do not worry… about your body, what you will wear….’

Into both these worries, our worries about life and our worries about stuff, Jesus says our heavenly Father knows what we need. In other words, in all of our worries we are to look to God.

Now of course there are things I can do to help myself, I can seek help to manage my chocolate credit debt through some debt advice, and maybe work out why I seek chocolate to make me happy in the first place. I can tell a friend I am worried about universal credit, go to my MP or ask a friend for prayer about the test results. I can be innovative in finding new clothes in the charity shop, or resolve that life is not a competition and I will not try to compare everything I have with my next-door neighbour.

But ultimately I cannot do these things in my own strength, because just as I rely on God to provide food to eat and clothes to wear, so I also rely on God to provide the energy to help me not to worry about these things in the first place. I know that I can’t ever succeed on my own, But I can succeed with God’s help.

Jesus says; ‘why do you worry about these things, Your heavenly Father knows what you need.’

So why do I worry? Maybe I don’t think God’s big enough, maybe I struggle to trust, maybe I struggle to see the hand of God in life, in provision of food or shelter, or maybe I don’t think any of these things, maybe I don’t really think God cares about me. But of course God cares, because if God cares about sparrows and lillies then God cares about me.

So, what is the solution? Well I think it’s to lift our focus, up from the things that are dragging us down, up to God. To practice those things that help us to connect with God and understand God’s provision. To be thankful, to remember the things we do have, at times when we struggle with the things we don’t have. To recognise there are no easy answers. Sometimes we will be tempted by worry, and sometimes it will be the legitimate things of life that cause this. That is when we need to reach out to others and that is when as a community we need to work together to support those in need.

As we lift our hopes and our fears and bring them to God lets also remember to keep things in perspective.  “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’ This last part of our passage on worry is as tricky as the rest of it, yet it remains really wise.

Many years ago when I was struggling with some of this I was given the advice to just allow a small portion of the day to be worried and the rest of the time to be disciplined and not allow myself to think about it, and surprisingly it worked, and often by the time it came round to it I had forgotten what it was I was concerned about earlier. Living one day at a time as Jesus teaches is the same. By trying to be disciplined in the way that we think about our worries, by taking them one day at a time, they become easier to tackle and less overwhelming.

It’s so easy to store up worries so that grow into something bigger, into stresses we can’t quite understand how we will handle, we all know how easy it is for lots of small worries to build into one big feeling of anxiousness, but if we can be disciplined and take one day at a time, we can be released into a new freedom from anxiety. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t sometimes genuine reasons to worry about or plan for tomorrow, and as someone who likes to know what’s in store, I would struggle if I didn’t think about tomorrow at all, but equally, this teaching to live in the moment can be a real blessing. If I live for today rather than with half an eye on tomorrow I will notice and appreciate new things. If my mind is calmer because I am trusting God one day at a time, it will be easier than trying to solve all of the year’s problems in my head, before I know how any of them will pan out.

So how might we sum this up;

• Remember who you are made to be special and unique in God sight and dearly loved,
• Seek help and support when you need it,
• Look out for others with genuine worries,
• Keep things in perspective

And pray that with God’s strength we will be able to walk more in Jesus teaching and be free from worry.

Malachi 3:1-5 and Luke 2:22-40

So today we come to the end of our Christmas celebrations. The long awaited Messiah has arrived, to judge and purify God’s world, but not with wrath and blood red skies as some Old Testament prophets imagined, but quietly, gently as a scrap of a child. And over the last few weeks, we have watched people begin to recognise who this child is – having their epiphanies, their “A-ha, I get it” moments, of recognition. And so we finish with one last moment of recognition. Simeon and Anna, those faithful servants, who had waited and prayed for decades, and suddenly they see what they have longed for all those years. Just another couple bringing another baby to the Temple, yet with eyes and hearts trained by a lifetime of devotion they recognise the promised Christ.

There is so much that can be said about this encounter, but I want to think about Simeon’s words that this child would be salvation for all peoples, a light to reveal God to the nations. Anna rushed about the Temple to tell the good news to those who had been waiting for God to rescue Jerusalem. But the reality was that, in Jesus, God had bigger plans than just one city in one century – God was coming to rescue all God’s children in all centuries. This was good news not for a city or even a nation but for the whole world.

Luke, Matthew and John are all clear in their different ways that Jesus’ arrival was for everyone. John’s gospel begins with the amazing prologue. In the beginning was the Word… It is an account that begins with the cosmos and again talks of this child being a light to all the world, revealing God the Father. Matthew’s account has the wise men, people who were not people of the covenant, but people of a different race, religion and culture. In Matthew’s narrative, they too were drawn from the ends of the earth to worship. This baby is for everyone.

Friday was a momentous day for our country. People deeply disagree whether it was the right thing to do and will continue to do so. Some of us feel very British and felt that our national freedoms were compromised by EU membership. Some of us really valued being European Union citizens, valued working with others across our continent and deeply mourn that loss. 

The last few years have been difficult ones and there has been a lot of debate. I have a friend who works in peace and reconciliation and loves all things political. Like myself, he was pro-remain and from time to time we would chew over the latest developments in the news. A few months ago, we were having such a conversation when he said to me quite bluntly “Of course, God doesn’t care whether we leave the EU of not…” It felt like someone had dunked a bucket of ice cold water over my head, but I knew that he had a point. God has no particular loyalty to Britain or the European Union. God is neither a Leaver nor a Remainer. God is for everyone, and God’s concern is not whether I am Scottish, British or European, but whether I am, as a follower of Jesus, working for God’s purposes of love in the world. 

Now in saying this, I am not saying that politics doesn’t matter, that how we vote, the leaders we choose or the decisions they make don’t matter. Rather that it is all caught up in God’s bigger perspectives of love, justice, hope and redemption. And in our Old Testament reading we get a glimpse of what that might look like, as God sets out what it is not! Instead of deceptive sorcerers and those who speak falsely, we must work for truth. Instead of adultery, we build faithful relationships. Instead of exploiting the labours of others, we will pay fair wages. Instead of oppressing the widow and orphan, we will defend the right of the vulnerable in our society. Instead of denying justice to the foreigner in our midst, we will treat others as we would be treated ourselves.

We woke up yesterday morning out of the European Union, and who knows quite how that will work out. But whether we were for Leave of Remain, whether we rejoiced or were despondent, our task as citizens of the Kingdom of God is the same. It is, as we have received the light of Christ ourselves, to share that light with all people. ALL people. No exceptions. All humanity is our neighbour whom we are called to love. The world is our parish whom we are called to serve. Today, we bring our Christmas celebrations to a close, but Christmas never ends. As African American theologian and poet Howard Thurman once wrote:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the people,

to make music in the heart.

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.