Tag: jesus

Epiphany 2: Hearing God’s Call

Image by Joe from Pixabay

Readings

1 Samuel 3:1-10

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ 5 and ran to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call; lie down again.’ So he went and lay down. 6 The Lord called again, ‘Samuel!’ Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call, my son; lie down again.’ 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’

John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46 Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48 Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49 Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50 Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51 And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

Sermon

God is a God who calls. Sometimes God calls us directly – like Samuel and Philip. Sometimes God calls us through a friend. But God is a God who calls us to join in God’s adventure of love, grace, healing and hope. Like Samuel, Philip and Nathanael, are you ready to answer that call?

The trouble however can sometimes be hearing God in a very noisy world. So many things demand our attention: the news, advertisements, the joys and sorrows of the world, of our family and friends, the tasks that need done, the alarms, the pings on our phone, the letters and emails asking us to do more, more, more…

It is overwhelming to just list these things. How on earth are we to hear God’s calling voice above all of that?

One of my birthday gifts this week was a biography of a young woman called Etty Hillesum. Etty grew up in the Netherlands in the years before the war. She had led a very emotionally chaotic early life, but in 1941 she meets a psychotherapist who helps her unravel that chaos. As part of her therapy, he advises her to keep a diary. Etty was of Jewish heritage, although not in any sense religious as her diary opens – in her early entries, God is an embarrassing word she will only write in quote marks. But her Jewish background means that under Nazi occupation, she experienced a double horror – the horror of the occupation of her homeland and the horror of persecution for her identity. Over two and half years, she writes many diary entries and letters, which initially chronicle her journey from chaos to wholeness, but then go on to tell of her attempts to stay human, to resist hatred and to find joy in a rapidly deteriorating situation.

How does she do it? Well, without knowing entirely what she was about Etty became a contemplative – that is, someone who listens to and notices the things of God. She describes how one day, without knowing how to explain it, she finds herself kneeling on the matting in her bathroom and just listening to the truest part of herself – a still centre in her heart. It takes her while to call it prayer. Over time she does this kneeling down more and more, and finds that in this stilling, in this listening, she finds a strength to truly live in the stormy broken world that surrounds her.

Another thing that sustains her is paying attention to the realities. She doesn’t try to deny the reality of the horror that surrounds her – she is too honest and clear-sighted to entertain that. But she makes time to notice and be nourished by other realities too. For her the realities that nourish her are beauty and, in particular, nature. If she sees a particularly beautiful flower or tree, she will pause to fully appreciate it, she will store up its glorious reality in her heart to offset the ugly realities she is forced to experience day after day.

In time, Etty ends up working for the Council of Jews at the Westerbork internment and transit camp, and her innate life and joy in that place of bleakness and fear brought encouragement to many. Towards the end of the summer in 1943, the Council of Jews was disbanded and Etty became a camp resident. She was transported to Auschwitz in September 1943 and died in the November, just a few weeks before her 30th birthday. Incidentally, her birthday is 15th January – tomorrow. Etty had been preparing herself for this outcome for months, and didn’t quail in the face of her transportation to the death camp. In her last postcard, thrown out of the train that took her from Westerbork, she wrote “we left singing…”. The Holocaust might kill this young woman but it could not defeat her.

Our world isn’t quite a bleak and as brutal as the one Etty experienced, and yet to live well in it, to hear God’s call to love, to life, to justice, generosity and hope, we too could do well to follow her example. How might we make space to be still and listen; not talk, not present God with a to-do list, but just listen to what God – who loves us so dearly – wants to say to us? We may not find that kneeling down works for us. We might sit in the sunshine in a favourite chair, light a candle, go for a walk. And also, like Etty, how might we make space for the other realities in our world – the things that are beautiful and true and kind. How might we notice them, dwell on them, store them in our heart and allow them to nourish us in a world which is too often bleak, selfish and violent. Sitting in silence or noticing a flower might seem like a pretty poor effort against the problems of the world, but as Etty found, they might give us the inner spiritual resources to be people of love and encouragement, people of hope, people of change.

And I cannot end this sermon without mentioning one of my favourite lines in scripture. Nathanael’s response when Philip tells him about Jesus: Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth?! It reminds us that the good things of God can very much be found in unexpected places. So we might not hold out much hope of finding God in a place or a situation or a person, but God frequently surprises us. Some of us, like Nathanael, are natural cynics, but like him, let us hold it lightly and be open to goodness we can’t predict.

So, make time to listen, make space to hear, take time to notice the call of God even in this world of noise and violence. May that call enable us to be people of peace, of love and of generosity whose tiny acts of kindness may yet transform everything.

Epiphany Journeys…

Image by sebastiano iervolino from Pixabay

Readings

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

6 “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who is to shepherd my people Israel.”’

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Sermon

I wonder what memorable journeys you have taken in your life? Some journeys are memorable because they take us to exotic places – I will never forget my journeys to Ghana, India or Nepal. Some are memorable because of their beauty – for me a coach trip through the Alps and a hair-raising trip over the Bealach Na Ba to Applecross on the West Coast of Scotland. Some journeys are memorable for different reasons. One that I will never forget was the quarter of a mile walk I took on a sunshiny September day 21 years ago. I walked to Warwick hospital for a check-up, fully expecting to be sent home. I left four days later with a baby. Then there was the journey I took in an ambulance ten months later to that aforementioned hospital when that aforementioned baby had a febrile convulsion in a shop in Solihull. Not a journey to be easily forgotten!

But we don’t just take physical journeys – we also take journeys of the heart, mind, spirit and soul. Journeys of learning and we gain experience and are better able to be who we are meant to be. Journeys of healing from hurts or traumas, journeys of forgiveness – these are some of the hardest journeys, but the most freeing. We sometimes journey through illness, bereavement and all of us will someday journey through the valley of death. Thankfully, we never make such journeys alone.

Our God is a God of journeys. God calls Abraham on a journey to Canaan, then takes his family on a journey into Egypt. Four centuries later, this family – now a nation – journeys with God out of their slavery towards a land of promise, but they have things to learn on this journey and so don’t take the direct route. Later, against their will, the people of Israel and Judah journey into exile, but a few generations later they begin their journey home.

Jesus is always journeying. If you read the Gospel of Mark, he barely seems to sit still – he is forever on his way to somewhere else. His first instruction to his disciples is to follow him, his last is to go to the ends of the earth sharing his good news and baptising people to signal the start of their journeys. His dear friend Peter he tells will be taken on a journey he doesn’t wish to make. His apostle, Paul, after whom our church is named, is probably the most famous journeyer ever as his zeal for telling people about Jesus took him to and fro across the Roman Empire.

And today, we have a very famous journey as some Magi, some rather dodgy and exotic astronomers from eastern lands are so captivated by a new star, they are compelled to explore. It is a classic spiritual story – they see something they don’t quite understand and know means something, they have to find out more, they are not quite sure where they are going, they take a few wrong turnings, land themselves in trouble, are lucky to escape it, but finally find what they were looking for in Jesus. They return home by a different way, not just geographically, but in all senses – different people for what they have seen and done.

In life, change is one of the few certainties. We are all journeying whether we like it or not. What we can choose is the direction our journey takes. If we weren’t celebrating Epiphany today, we would be celebrating the baptism of Christ, and that reminds me of the baptism liturgy. When I invite the baptism candidate – or more commonly their parents and godparents – to make the baptism promises, they are simply, at the start of a journey of faith, choosing the direction that journey will take. They turn away from sin and evil. They turn towards Jesus, their Saviour and Lord. To turn, the Greek work metanoia, is the word that our Bibles translate as repent. Both John and Jesus would cry repent for the Kingdom of God is near. Repent, turn around, choose the direction your journeying will take.

All our journeying, whether external or internal, can draw us either towards or away from God. We need to choose which it will be, and then ask God for a star to guide us. Our stars are the things we keep in sight, check on regularly, to ensure we are on course. It might be a habit of prayer, or bible reading, committing to regular worship, attending a small group. It might be fellowship we share with other wise and faithful people. It might be times of quiet or times spent in nature. It might be listening to music that inspires, comforts or encourages us. These things, though good, are not the point of the exercise – they are the things that keep our journeys on course as we journey towards Jesus.

So as we come to the start of a new year – as our planet begins its travel once more around the sun – what are your stars? What keeps you on track as you seek to follow Jesus, and you journey into God’s love?

Because the journeys we make are not for ourselves alone. By God’s grace and goodness, as we follow Jesus, as we grow in his likeness and share his love, we reflect God’s light, drawing others to know God’s love.

This year is our 200th birthday – I promise you will be sick of me saying this by December. But amongst all the events and plans – truly wonderful as they are, and I am really looking forward to them – may the light of Christ that dwells in us draw others to journey towards him. And may we – whether we are the vicar or the youngest child in Sunday Squad – be ready to encourage and accompany them on their journey too. Amen.