​SERMON & PRAYER

SERMON TEXT

​Enneagram Type 2 – The Helper / Carer – The Need to be needed. 

Over the past two weeks we have been exploring the Enneagram as a tool for personal and spiritual growth. It is personality tool that presents 9 basic personality types. Each week, we are invited to learn more about ourselves and those around us. And each week, we are invited to see the best qualities of each personality type reflected in the person of Jesus, as well as in Scripture. 

As we explore Type 2, the Helper or the Carer, I begin with a fictional story about a person we shall call Debbie: 

Debbie lives her life for others. Almost all her energy is spent seeing to the needs to others, whether these are the needs of her children, her husband, her parents, her parents-in-law, her friends, her neighbours or helping out at the local Care Home. 

In many ways, Debbie comes across as being an example of selflessness. 

These tendencies of caring and meeting the needs of others began very early on in her life. For whatever reason, very early on, Debbie felt that she somehow needed to win the love of those most significant in her life. The way she coped with this was to constantly do things to help out her parents, caring for them as well as her siblings.  At the root of these tendencies was the unconscious need to be needed, accepted and loved, thereby ensuring that she would be loved in return. 

In many ways it often brings her great joy to help others out. And as an adult, these caring, helping, generous, sympathetic and self-sacrificing tendencies have in many ways become a real asset to her, especially in her work first as a carer, and then as she trained to become a nurse.  Many of those who are under her care in the hospital are very lucky to have her on their ward, and love to see her when she comes on duty. 

While, at her best, Debbie can be described as caring, considerate, generous, sympathetic, supportive, self-sacrificing, helpful, adaptable and loving, Debbie’s personality also has its dark side.  As I have already said, underlying all these wonderful qualities, is a deep need to be needed and loved in return. And this need to be needed is the source of many of her flaws. When she is stressed, or feels that her love and care are not being acknowledged and returned, Debbie can very easily become dependent, needy, possessive, flattering, interfering, manipulative, seductive, self-important and at her worst, a little hysterical. She takes great pride in giving so much of herself to others. It makes her feel important, and sometimes even a little superior to others. 

One of the greatest dangers of Debbie’s caring tendencies, is that she never makes time for her own needs.  She is often utterly exhausted giving so much of her energy to others. Probably Debbie’s biggest struggle is learning to say ‘No!” She is afraid that if she says no, she will lose the love of others. As a result, sometimes she can also feel quite resentful towards those she is helping, because often it feels like she is running on empty and that people are taking advantage of her. 

Debbie’s greatest need is to realise that she is lovable, just for who she is, and not for what she can do for others. 

In her Christian faith, it is such a relief to hear from the Apostle Paul that we are saved by grace, and not because of our works, but it is also a truth that hasn’t quite sunk in yet. She carries with her an underlying fear that if she is caught napping, and not caring for others, she will not be acceptable to God. 

Today we are onto our 3rd week in our Preaching Series on the Enneagram. The first week we did an overview of the Enneagram and the 9 personality types. Last week we explored Type Ones who are motivated by a deep need to be good and so have a deep tendency to self-police. This week, we explore Type Twos who are motivated to do actions of love and caring, out of a deep need to be needed. On the surface, the impression is given of great acts of selflessness, but if truth be told such acts are not quite as selfless as they seem because they are motivated by the very strong need of the self for the reward of people’s love. 

Like all of us, Debbie has her good days and her bad days.  But she is in good company. A lot of famous and successful people have been Twos. These include: Mother Teresa, Dolly Parton, Lewis Carroll, Princess Diana, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Luciano Pavarotti, Florence Nightingale, Jimmy Carter.  The culture of Italy, typified by the Italian Mama expresses something of the personality of the Two. 

As we consider the life of Jesus, we can see many of the best qualities of the Two in the life and teachings of Jesus.  At the heart of Jesus teaching is the greatest commandment, which is to love others as your love yourself. Love and caring for others is at the heart of the Christian life, but what the Two on the Enneagram can often lose sight of is the second part of the statement, “Love your neighbour, as yourself”.  A Two can be so busy trying to win other people’s love with the need to be needed, that they can so easily lose sight of properly caring for themselves in a balanced and wholesome way. 

Twos love being rescuers, and we see these rescue tendencies at work in Jesus in the story of the wedding at Cana. Despite saying to his mother that his time had not yet come, Jesus does not say no to her requests for help, as he gives of himself to help them out of a predicament.  The Two in Jesus is also seen, when, in a healthy way, he seeks to take time out alone with his disciples to rest and recuperate, but when he sees how a crowd has come looking for him, he is moved with compassion, because they are like sheep without a shepherd.  And perhaps that is where Jesus shows the balance of a healthy two on the Enneagram. He regularly takes time out to rest and pray in order to be rejuvenated in order that he can give of himself again. Sometimes these plans for time out get hi-jacked, but taking time out is enough of a priority for Jesus, that it seems he is never completely overwhelmed by the needs of others. He balances self-care for his own inner world with active caring and service towards others. 

Our passage today is a typical example of the tendencies of the Two at work, as Jesus takes off his outer garment, puts a towel around his waist and begins to wash his disciples' feet.  But in this passage, we see that Jesus is not motivated by a need to be needed.  He is not acting as a servant in order to win over the love and affection of his disciples. He is not trying to fill an empty hole in his ego. In the passage we read the following words:  “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.” Jesus acts not out of of an empty neediness, but out of a deep self-knowledge that he is loved by God. 

By contrast, the story of Mary and Martha show Martha to be an unhealthy Two on the Enneagram. She is serving and working in the kitchen out of a need to be needed, and when her efforts don’t seem to be acknowledged, and Mary does not come to her aid, she becomes resentful.  The need of the Two, is to learn from Jesus teaching to give with no strings attached, “don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing”, don’t serve out of a desire for recognition or to try and get people to love you, and when serving, caring and helping cause resentment, it is time, like Jesus, to take time out. 

Just as it is possible to be a healthy One on the Enneagram, so Jesus shows us that it is possible to be a healthy Two on the Enneagram, and for those caring and self-giving tendencies to be an asset and a gift rather than a burden.  

Helpful coping cues for a two would be: 
    • I am loved by God just for who I am, and not for my service.
    • I have a right to say no. 
    • I need to take care of myself first, just like in the aeroplane flight instructions to put on your own mask first, before you start helping those around you. 
    • When you see your love becoming needy or clingy, remember the words of that Sting song: “If you love someone, set them free”. 
    • “Love your neighbour as yourself”

​

WELCOME, ANNOUNCEMENTS & OPENING PRAYER

​

CHILDREN'S STORY

SERMON TEXT 
ENNEAGRAM Type One: The Reformer, Idealist, Moralist or Perfectionist

Gillian’s home is always neat and tidy. Her motto is “everything has its place and every place has its thing.” Gillian has an amazing ability to keep her home in tip top shape, even with three busy children. She can get quite angry and irritable with them when they leave things lying around, but she inevitably tidies it all up quickly because her world would feel out of control if she didn’t. 

This tendency in her started very young, when things in her family and home life felt somehow out of control. Her way of coping was to keep her room absolutely tidy. The more she tidied her room, the more in control she felt.  For whatever reason, she felt the need to be the “hero” child who did everything right to help her parents out. She hoped that being good would hold her family together or simply win over their affection and so she started policing herself quite strictly.

As an adult, some of these perfectionist traits came in quite handy.  Gillian has a close attention to detail. In her earliest job she worked as a personal assistant. Her boss was amazed by her filing ability and even when the office became extremely busy, Gillian’s desk was always miraculously free of clutter. 

Later she trained as an accountant, a job that she was supremely competent at because of her fine attention to detail.  A favourite saying of hers is: “If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well!”

Gillian also has high ideals for the world she lives in. She is very concerned about the problem of injustice and corruption. She tries to live a highly ethical life, making sure she is doing her bit for the world she is living in, as well as being a campaigner for change.

Gillian is often admired as a person who seems to have her life together. Always well presented, she is  honest, dependable, ethical, conscientious, diligent, orderly and fair. 

But Gillian also has her flaws that are apparent to those who know her, love her and work for her. Especially when she is stressed, Gillian can very quickly become uptight, impatient, critical, moralistic, inflexible and emotional. At times she can come across as constantly angry, but it is something she doesn't like to admit especially to herself. She lives by high standards and expects others to do likewise. But she is also very vulnerable when people criticise her because she tries so hard to be as perfect and blameless as she knows how to be.

As she grew older, Gillian began to discover that her perfectionism could be a little over-bearing and difficult for those around her. Unconsciously, she began to expand the repertoire of her personality as on the one hand she tried to give her energy in helping others, and on the other hand, working to keep the peace at home and at work.  She discovered when she does these things, people find it a little easier to be around her as her caring and peace-making help to bring out something of the softer side to her personality, which can otherwise sometimes feel a little cold, and a little too perfect. 

Over-time, Gillian has had to learn to become a little more tolerant of imperfection. Sometimes she deliberately doesn't pick up the children’s socks as a way of reminding her that the world won't fall apart if they remain there for a few hours.  She is also trying to be more honest with herself when she is angry so that she doesn't become passive aggressive. It is so hard to admit when she is angry, but much better for herself and others when she does. She has also realised that to bring more balance to her extremely disciplined life, she needs to make room once a week for a bit of joy, fun or adventure.

Last week I did an introduction to the Enneagram, a personality tool that is designed to promote self-knowledge of one’s tendencies, strengths and weaknesses and thereby helping to create personal & spiritual growth. 

Ennea means 9 and Gram means Picture and so the Enneagram portrays 9 basic personality types, from which multiple variations can be found. 

In today's sermon, I would like to look at Type One on the Enneagram which is sometimes called the Reformer, Idealist, Moralist or Perfectionist.  The story of Gillian that I have just told gives a portrait of the One on the Enneagram.  It is clear that Gillian has some wonderful and admirable qualities that I have already named: At her best she can be idealistic, principled, orderly, self-disciplined, diligent, honest, conscientious, fair, dependable and ethical.  But Gillian also has some difficult aspects of her personality. At her worst she can be uptight, critical, impatient, judgemental, inflexible, controlling, moralistic, puritanical and dogmatic. 

Like all of us some days she has good days, and some days she had bad days. But she is in good company. A lot of famous and successful people have been Ones. These include:  Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, Michelle Obama, C.S. Lewis, Julie Andrews, Mahatma Ghandi, Confucius, Anne Frank, Margaret Thatcher, as well as the cultural ethos of Switzerland. Sometimes she thinks that she would be very happy moving to Switzerland.  

Some of the best qualities of Gillian’s life as a One can also be found in the person of Jesus.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reveals himself to be a very exacting ethical teacher. Living an ethical and principled life was clearly very important to Jesus. “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” He also had high ideals for his disciples that their righteousness and their conduct should exceed the righteousness and conduct of the Pharisees and teachers of the law.  But the saving grace in the personality of Jesus was that perfection for Jesus was always ultimately about the perfection of love and compassion. 

We see this reflected in two parallel sayings of Jesus: 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. 
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: Be compassionate, as your heavenly father is compassionate. 

For Jesus, to be perfect was ultimately to be perfectly compassionate.  And that is the paradox. Compassion and mercy clearly makes room for imperfection because compassion and mercy only become necessary in the presence of imperfection. Despite the fact that Jesus lived a supremely ethical and principled life, it is clear that ordinary sinful people did not feel his judgement. Somehow sinners, imperfect people were attracted to him. And in his presence, without him even saying a word, except a word of love,  a desire was stirred within them to become their best selves.

Jesus, the highly principled, fair and ethical person overcame the dark side of perfectionism by creating a space of unconditional love and acceptance for those who knew themselves to be imperfect.  The story of Jesus and Simon the Pharisee is a story of a whole ‘One’ and an un-whole, or un-redeemed One, or Perfectionist. When the woman of ill-repute gate crashes the dinner party, Simon is revealed as an un-redeemed One on the Enneagram.  He has high ideals and principals, and he is very critical of those who seemingly fail to live up to his high ideals. He is critical and judgemental of the women who makes such an undignified spectacle of her self. Critical and judgemental of her morally dubious background. Simon the Pharisee is even critical and judgemental of Jesus. Surely if Jesus was a prophet, he would know what kind of person she is and he would not tolerate this undignified display of emotion. 

By contrast, Jesus shows perfect love, not just to the women who sits at his feet weeping and wiping his feet with her, but he also shows perfect love even to Simon in his self-righteous idealism and moralism. He tells Simon a parable that will help Simon grow beyond his narrow judgementalism and become a more whole, forgiving and compassionate person himself, without losing his own principles in the process. 

Simon needs to learn that the highest perfection is the perfection of love and that there is something perfect, even in imperfection. 

There is a One in each of us.  For some of us the One in us, the Perfectionist, Idealist and Reformer is hidden and sometimes even disowned.  Maybe you lived under what felt like the tyranny of a perfectionist growing up and vowed never to be like that yourself. But the One in each of us is revealed whenever we become angry, uptight, critical, impatient, judgemental, inflexible, controlling, moralistic, puritanical and dogmatic.  And when these tendencies arise in us, they become an invitation to remember the way of Jesus, the way of perfect love and compassion.  And this way of perfect love and compassion can begin to open up to us, when we become honest about our own imperfections and allow them to be embraced and held within the unconditional love and grace of God, that has been shown us in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

TO LEARN MORE GO TO
​https://enneagramworldwide.com/types/the-perfectionist/

CHILDREN'S INTRODUCTORY VIDEO - 

SERMON TEXT - Introduction to the Enneagram

Over the next 2-3 months, I would like to embark on a Preaching Series on what is called the Enneagram.  The Enneagram is an approach to exploring personality, how they are formed and what shape our personalities take.  The word Enneagram comes from two words: Ennea meaning 9, and gram meaning picture. The Enneagram suggests that there are nine basic personality types or portraits that all of us fall into, with multiple variations in between those 9 basic types. 

The purpose of the Enneagram is to help people to better understand ourselves so that we can grow to greater wholeness. 

It is a long held notion in many different spiritual traditions, that the more we understand ourselves, the more we can grow spiritually.  

    • In ancient Greece this was expressed in the aphorism: Know thyself (sometimes attributed to Plato and Heraclitus) 
    • In Zen –Master Dogen said “To study the Enlightened Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualised by the ten thousand things. Which I believe is another way of saying, to forget the self is to come to know God.  The way of selflessness. 
    • Within our own Biblical tradition, on a number of occasions, the Apostle Paul encourages us to self-introspection.  2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.  1 Corinthians 11:31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 

And so the Enneagram has been used for a long time as a tool for self-understanding as a means to spiritual self-knowledge leading to growth towards greater wholeness. And that I believe is the point of any true religion.  Our Christian faith is not simply to get a ticket to heaven so that we can sit on clouds for all eternity playing our harps. That is not true salvation. True salvation is coming to greater and greater wholeness so that we have greater and greater capacity within ourselves to express the fullness of God’s life. 

The more whole we are, the greater God’s ability to express God’s Life through us.  For myself then, holiness and wholeness are two words that belong together.  To grow in holiness is to grow in wholeness. 

And so the Enneagram has been used as a tool for spiritual growth towards greater and greater wholeness, just as Jesus was whole.  For me that’s what it means to say that Jesus was without sin: he was whole. 

The theory of the Enneagram is when we are born into this world, our early life experiences, struggles and difficulties cause our personalities to be shaped in certain ways. And it would seem that some of that already begins to take place in the womb.  In that process of early personality formation, each of us begins to gravitate to one of the 9 basic personality types as a way of coping and navigating our way through life.  But each of the 9 personality types is incomplete on their own. 

To be truly whole, as Jesus was whole, we need to grow more and more to be able to express the characteristics of all 9 personality types.  We become dysfunctional, when we refuse to grow, like an adult whose emotional development has got stuck at the age of a 2 or 3 year old or a 13 or 14 year old. Thomas Keating says that the essence of sin is the refusal to grow. 

Each week, as we explore each of the 9 personality types, I will be inviting us to see how each of these personality types is expressed in and through the person of Jesus, who is for us a model of wholeness. I will also be inviting us into a journey of self-reflection and growth as we come to know ourselves better in both our strengths and our weaknesses, as well as identify in what ways we can grow towards greater wholeness. 

For the remainder of today’s sermon, I would like to very briefly describe each of the 9 personality types on the Enneagram. Hopefully over the next few weeks, each of us will be able to begin to see something of ourselves in each of these portraits.

TYPE ONE is most often known as the Reformer and sometimes as the Perfectionist.  Reformers or Perfectionists have some wonderful qualities: diligent, principled, orderly, neat and dependable.  But just as all personalities have a shadow, a One has a tendency towards anger and being critical. 

TYPE TWO is most often called the Helper, Giver, or Caregiver who has some wonderful qualities of being warm, caring, helpful and giving. But a Two also has a tendency of being needy, and at times interfering. 

TYPE THREE is the Achiever who has some wonderful qualities of being successful, optimistic, energetic, efficient and productive. But a Three can also have the tendency to be image conscious and at times a little devious. 

TYPE FOUR is the Artist, sometimes also called the Romantic. The Artist or Romantic has some wonderful qualities: Creative, sensitive , expressive, intuitive and original. But Fours can also have a tendency to be moody and at times a little depressive. 

TYPE FIVE: The Thinker, Observer, or Investigator. Fives have some wonderful qualities. They are observant, analytical, perceptive, wise and reflective.  But a Five can also have a tendency to live in their heads and become detached and withdrawn. 

TYPE SIX: The Loyalist, is also known as the Institutionalist, Loyal Guardian, the Loyal Skeptic or the Security Expert. The Six on the Enneagram has some wonderful qualities: loyal, dutiful, committed, practical and courageous. But Sixes can also tend to be anxious and worst-case-scenario thinkers.

TYPE SEVEN is the Enthusiast or Adventurer, also called the Joker. Sevens have some wonderful qualities. They can often be fun-loving, child-like, spontaneous, and adventurous. But they can also sometimes have a tendency to seem superficial and not always dependable.

TYPE EIGHT is often called the Leader. An Eight has some wonderful qualities: Just/Fair, Self-confident, earthy, resourceful and fearless. But they can also have a tendency towards being domineering and confrontational. 

TYPE NINE is often called the Peacemaker or Mediator. Nines have some wonderful qualities:  most often pleasant, peaceful, tolerant, calm and accommodating. But they can also become lazy and unassertive, or apathetic. 

When comparing personality types, each of us naturally think that our dominant personality type is the best, just as we often think of our race, or nationality, or religion, or our gender is the best. But each personality type has its strengths and weaknesses. Often the danger in life is that we tend to compare our strengths with other people’s weaknesses. And the danger is that we can all become judge-bugs, judging those personalities that we don’t like or don’t identify with.  But the truth is every personality has qualities that we need to access.  If you begin judging the qualities of another personality type, it is a signal that you have disowned those qualities in yourself and are therefore not yet as whole as you might like to think.  If you are judging others, then it is probably a sign that you have something that you need to learn from them in order to help you become more balanced and whole. 

Hopefully a journey into self-knowledge brings with it humility. We come to know our weaknesses and our strengths, our virtues and our flaws and we come to acknowledge not just the weaknesses of those personalities we don't identify with, but also come to acknowledge their strengths as well.  No-one in life is a complete demon. There are demons in each of us (and I say that figuratively). But there are also strengths within each of us too. 

And in all this, our goal to to become more Christlike, to become more whole so that more and more of God’s Life, Grace and Love can be expressed through us. 

SONG FOR REFLECTION:
​LOST & FOUND BY ROBIN MARK
(LYRICS BELOW)

​Lost and Found, Robin Mark
When the rain falls
And it some days will
And the pavement under my feet
Sparkles silver in gold
In reflective light
That I otherwise wouldn't have seen

When the storm comes
And the strong wind blows
I will bow my head to push through
And every step that I take
I will watch and pray
And be sure my foothold is true

Jesus, don't you keep me from that storm
I want to walk that sacred ground

For You are Master of it all
And I am but a lost and found

And in the dry place
In the wilderness
When Your words seem so far away
I will think of my life and I will
Bless Your name
For Your promises never have failed

And when the night falls
At the end of days
I will lift my eyes to the Heavens
And we will shine like the stars
For eternal days
In Your presence forever and ever

Luke 15:8-10 / John 12:23-33
Never Lost to God

I recently saw two stories in the news about people who were reunited with family members after years of separation. 

On the 19th July the BBC ran the story of Tony May, who was abandoned by his parents on the Victoria Embankment by the River Thames in London in the middle of world war II.  With the help of a DNA detective Julia Bell, eventually the mystery of his abandonment was solved and he became united with a half sister on his mom’s side who lived not far from him here in the UK as well as a half sister on his Dad’s side living in Australia. 

And then a few days later, I came across an article dated from May last year about a young man in China who had been abducted from his parents at around the age of 2 and a half when the toddler asked for water, and his father stopped at the entrance of a hotel to get some. For three decades, his Mom kept up the search for him. 

Eventually after more than three decades, a tip-off in late April of 2019 finally led to the long-awaited and hoped for reunion.  Authorities had utilised facial recognition technology to to match baby photo’s with an adult photo on the national database and then confirming with a DNA test. 

Both of these stories are heart-rending stories of being lost and found. Stories of separation and being re-united.  They show the power of human determination to search and never give up. 

It raises the question: If human beings can be this determined, why do we think less of God.  If a mother would spend 32 years searching for a lost son, why do we think less of God. Why do we think that God, the Most High, the Eternal One, who Jesus called Abba, would ever give up on us?  If a DNA detective like Julia Bell can be so determined to help Tony May, why do human beings have such a low view of God to believe that God could ever abandon or forsake us? 

Another question comes to mind? If God is all-knowing, and all-loving, then surely, we are never ever truly lost. Because God knows where we are and has the ability to bring us back home in the end. 

Even when we feel lost, no-one is ever lost to God.  Even when a friend or loved one feels lost to us, no-one is lost to God, the Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Compassion in which all things exist. 

But many Christians live with this frightening possibility that we will be lost and separated from God forever.  At the root of many a Christian faith is a terrible fear of Eternal Hell and Damnation. 

But the Scriptures are filled with passages that speak of the Divine intention to bring all of us home no matter how far we stray. 

This is the sense that one gets reading the prophets. Even when the people of Israel feel lost in exile,   the voice of God is heard to say again and again, “Do not fear! I will bring you home.” In Ezekiel, “I will search for my sheep. I will save them and bring them back from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day.” (Ez 34:12).

In the parable of the lost coin, we have to admit that lost coins cannot find themselves.  There are many in this world who feel they have strayed so far from God, and are so lost, that like a lost coin, they will never be able to find themselves again. But just as the lost coin was valuable to the woman in the parable, so the suggestion in the parable is that we are valuable to God, and even when, unlike the prodigal son, cannot turn and come home God will make sure that we are found in the end. 

One of my favourite quotes from Huston Smith is: It is impossible to fall out of the Infinite… The full quote reads as follows: “The ...Infinite’s inclusiveness is an all-encompassing circle that encompasses our finite universe and out of which it is impossible to fall, for “In Him we live and move and have our being”.  (Soul of Christianity page 3). In other words, we can never fall out of God. You can never be utterly lost to God. 

In the 2nd letter to Timothy, we read an interesting line that says, “God desires all people to be saved...” Another way of putting this is that God desires all people to come home to God. As Rob Bell puts it…  are we really to believe that God cannot accomplish that which God desires.  As Jesus says of the rich young man who is lost in his attachment to his wealth, and unable to let go of it in order to follow Jesus, “What is impossible for human beings is not impossible for God”. Even the Rich Young Man who chooses his wealth over God will in the end be brought home. 

In John’s Gospel we hear of the universal love of Christ that will bring salvation and wholeness to all people: John 12:32: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”  Not just some, but all. No matter how far they have strayed, all people will be brought home again.  In the end, all people will be drawn back by the irresistible love of God. Love will break through even the hardest of defences. As the Tao Te Ching put’s it: “The softest thing in the world overcomes the hardest.”

And so, like the love of that Chinese mother searching for her kidnapped child, or even the DNA detective, searching for Tony May’s lost family, no-one in the end is ever so lost, that God's irresistible love expressed in Christ Jesus will not be able to draw us back to God's Self. 

And so, when you feel lost or that you have strayed far away, or perhaps when you worry about a friend or family member who feels lost in some way, or who it feels like they are straying far away, may we never doubt the love of God made known in Jesus, and that no-one ever is or ever can be truly lost, for no-one is ever lost to God. You can never fall out of the infinite.  

I close with two passages of Scripture: 

Psalm 27:10 Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close.

Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

SERMON TEXT: Romans 8:18-19 & 28 

During the week, BBC news told the story of Maria Barnard who did a parachute jump on the birthday of her son, Morgan Barnard, who had died in the Greenvale Hotel tragedy a year ago.  It was a way for her to remember and celebrate her son’s life as well as to raise funds for charity so that the pain of her grief for her son might begin to find some kind of positive expression in the world. 

On Sunday evening and Monday I had a number of sermon idea’s swirling around my head. But on Tuesday morning as I was sitting in quiet meditation, a line from last weeks reading from Genesis 32 began ruminating on. 

“I will not let you go until you bless me.”

I have decided that for today, we will not let go of the Jacob story until we receive another insight or blessing from it. 

As one reads the series of Jacob stories, it becomes apparent that Jacob is a character who is hungry for blessings. In fact his hunger for blessings gets him into trouble in the first place when he steals his father’s blessing that was supposed to be reserved for Esau as the first-born.  Jacob is like us. We all long for the blessed life. 

But what happens when bad or difficult things happen to us in life? Jacob’s hunger for blessings makes him determined to receive a blessing even in what might be described as a difficult or traumatic experience. In the story, wrestling all night long with a stranger in the dark one can imagine that the character of Jacob must feel like he is in fact fighting for his life. 

And if the stranger had to slipped away in the dark, one can imagine the possibility of Jacob fearing, for the rest of his life, that this dangerous adversary might return.

But in the story, Jacob does something unexpected. He asks his adversary for a blessing.  In fact he refuses to let go of his opponent until he has received a blessing from him. 

What could it mean to refuse to let go of one’s opponent until we have received a blessing from them?

What could it mean, like Jacob, to seek a blessing out of one of the most difficult experiences in one’s life? 

The story of Jacob is not alone in communicating the idea that one might be able to receive blessings even in our most difficult of experiences.  Jesus points to this as well in the beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel.  The beatitudes come to us unexpectedly as they turn our own systems of expectation upside down. 

There’s a blessing to be found in mourning according to Jesus.
There’s a blessing to be found in being poor in spirit
There’s a blessing to be found in being meek and humble
There’s a blessing to be found even in being persecuted

What could Jesus mean when he tells us that we can find a blessing even in these negative places?
The apostle Paul also concluded that God has the ability to turn negative experiences into good. That does not mean that God willed it to happen but that God can turn it into good, like an alchemist turning base metal into gold. 

He seems to have come to this conclusion based on his understanding of the death of Jesus. The death of Jesus represents a moment of darkness, cruelty and torture. It represents a moment in which humanity choose darkness over light and in which violence appears to triumph over goodness. And yet Paul is utterly convinced that God has turned this most terrible act of cruelty, darkness and violence into a supreme good, and that somehow in the death of Jesus, God has used it as a moment to bring reconciliation to the world, reconciliation between enemy people, and reconciliation between people and God, and in fact in his mind, the renewal of the whole universe. 

Life out of death. Hope out of hopelessness. Light out of darkness. Love out of hatred. Peace and reconciliation out of violence and torture. 

For Paul there was an even more personal element to this truth of God’s ability to bring blessing out of negative experiences, for God had somehow brought good out of his own life as one who he regarded as the chief of sinners. Having sought out and murdered Christians in his narrow-minded religious zeal, God had somehow been able to bring light out of the darkness of his own life and use him as a means of spreading God’s love made known in Jesus across the then known world. 

And so Paul comes to the profound conclusion that God can work through all things for good in the lives of those who love him… and even ultimately in the lives who do not yet love God, for it was for sinners that Paul believed Christ died, not for the righteous. 

After a night of wrestling for his life, Jacob will not let his adversary go until he receives a blessing.   Like Jesus, and Paul, the character of Jacob believes blessings can come even from unexpected places. Jacob is willing and open to finding God’s blessing even in an experience which didn't feel like a blessing at the time. 

What could it mean for us to say: “I will not let you go until I receive a blessing from you?”

I get the sense that Maria Barnard, as she parachuted from a plane this week in memory of her son, in her own way was saying: “I will not let go of this grief and trauma until it becomes transformed into a blessing for others.”

I would like to end with two quotes: 

“God wastes nothing – not even sin. The soul that has struggled and come through is enriched by it’s experiences, and Grace does not merely blot out the evil past but in the most literal sense “makes it good.””— Dorothy L. Sayers

“You must learn, you must let God teach you, that the only way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste nothing.” Philip Brooks. 

Genesis 32:22-32

Last week, we reflected on a moment in the life of Jacob that could be described as a moment of Spiritual Awakening in Genesis 28. 

On the run from his brother who had intentions of murdering him after he stole his brother's birthright and his father’s blessing, Jacob sleeps out in the open on his first night. 


With a rock for a pillow, he has a dream of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven with angels ascending and descending. He wakes up and declares, surely God is in this place and I was unaware of it. This is the gate of heaven. 

In this moment, he becomes aware of God’s presence in the temple or cathedral of creation. It is a wonderfully symbolic story that can invite us to wake up to the omnipresence of God for ourselves.  The spirit of God who is everywhere present. 

Today, I would like to explore a second significant story in Jacob’s life that I believe can also be a pointer to us on our own spiritual journey. 

Jacob has been away from home for the past 20 years. During that time he has built up a large family with two wives, Leah and Rachael. He also has amassed quite a sizeable amount of wealth in the form of livestock. 

But he is nervous of being reunited with his brother Esau.  He had fled in haste after he had deceived his brother, and his brother had intention of murdering him.  The night before meeting his brother, he sends his family and flocks across the river Jabbok ahead of him, and he spends the night alone. 

We are often afraid of spending time alone. But time alone can often be extremely beneficial. It can give space to bring a clarity of mind and heart that we can often miss in the company of other people.  We can be so busy playing roles in the presence of others that we don’t always truly know ourselves. 

The English word alone could be extrapolated into two words “all-one”. When we are alone, there is the possibility of discovering a greater sense of inner one-ness, inner unity that we can lose through the many fragmented roles that we play. 

So Jacob spends the night alone out in the open, just like he had done 20 years before when he laid his head on a stone to sleep at the place that became known as Bethel.  

This time it happens at the ford of the River Jabbok. As Davis Marshall says, rivers represent boundaries and moments of transition.  The river in this story represents a moment of transition in Jacob’s life, a crossing over from a former life to a new one. From an old identity to a new one. 

In the story, during the night, Jacob wrestles with a mysterious character who is at first spoken of as being a man, and then later is identified as being God. So Jacob wrestles with this unknown figure in the dark all night long. 

It is a wonderfully vivid description. I think many of us have had this experience of wrestling on our beds during the night at difficult moments of transition. 

As the sun rises on Jacob,  the unknown assailant begins to leave him and Jacob refuses to let go of him until he receives a blessing from him.  The unknown shadowy figure then gives Jacob a new name.  It is a symbolic echo of the creation story where God names everything and then later Adam names everything. This is a moment of new birth and new creation in Jacob’s life.  The shadowy figure renames Jacob as “Israel” which means “one who wrestles with God”.  “Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel because you have struggled, or wrestled with God and with human beings and have overcome.” 

Jacob asks his opponent's name, but the opponent refuses to give to him.  It comes as a reminder to us of the unnameable nature of God.  As soon as we name God, we have reduced God to a human conception and a human understanding and so in the story, the mysterious opponent, who turns out to be God, remains nameless. 

Byron Katie, like Michael Dowd, believes that God is synonymous with Reality itself. When we wrestle with God or Reality, she says we will always lose unless we accept Reality as it is. Reality is always what is and therefore is unchangeable. When we wrestle with that which cannot be changed, we will always end up the loser, unless we come to accept Reality as it is. 

I wonder if in this story, we see Jacob wrestling with the reality of his own deceitful nature. Before he can meet his brother Esau, he has to come to a new honesty about himself. This feels like he is wrestling with none other than God.  Until Jacob can become honest with himself about his own past , he is not ready to meet his brother. He is not ready to be reconciled to him. 

As Marshall Davis puts it: We wrestle in the dark with the Unknown, but if we persevere, we will be transformed so dramatically that we will need a new name, just as Jacob received a new name to reflect his new identity.  But as Marshall Davis says, we will not come out of this struggle unscathed. In the story, Jacob is wounded in this fight. His hip is put out of joint and he walks with a limp for the rest of his life. 

I wonder if it is a symbol of Jacob’s overconfident ego and pride which are now dented.  He is no longer as confident as before and this is a good thing.  It is often the case, that moments of spiritual awakening are accompanied by a greater degree of humility and not-knowing. Coming to terms with a deeper awareness of our human fragility, weakness and limitation invite us to become a little more humble and grateful than we were before.  Jacob has overcome, not as a superman who defeats his enemies, but maybe as someone who has come to know and accept himself a little more than before.  Jacob’s freedom comes as he learns to walk with a limp.

So, as you wrestle with God, with Reality, with life, as you seek to become your truest, most authentic self, may there come a moment when you receive a new name, as one who has wrestled and come out the other side a new person, even if it feels that you walk with a limp, with a little more humility, gratitude and grace. 

SERMON TEXT - The Spiritual Awakening of Jacob

Over the next two weeks I would like to reflect on two moments of spiritual awakening in the life of Jacob in the book of Genesis.

Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel might be regarded as the father of the nation of Israel. According to the story of Israel, his son’s offspring became the twelve tribes of Israel.

Now when one talks about having a spiritual awakening, one normally thinks of people who are in some way holy or saintly. But if truth be told, Jacob is described as something of a scoundrel in his early life.

Even his name itself suggests this. The name Jacob has two possible meanings in Hebrew. The first possible meaning is ‘heel-grabber’. And the second possible meaning is ‘supplanter’. In the first shade of meaning, Jacob is described as holding onto his twin brother’s heel as he came out of the womb. This is undoubtedly a legendary detail that was intended to describe in story form, something of the character and personality of Jacob. To grab onto some-one’s heel would be to trip them up. In the second possible meaning for his name “supplanter” this rather aptly describes his relationship with his twin brother, Esau. Esau as the older of the two twins, having come into this world just moments before Jacob, had all the rights of the firstborn son, which in ancient Hebrew culture were significant. But as the story unfolds, we see how Jacob first takes advantage of his brother in a vulnerable moment and tricks his brother Esau out of his birthright, and then, with the help of his mother, he steals his father’s blessing, which in Hebrew culture should have been reserved for Esau as the firstborn.

Jacob is no saint. He is a ‘heel-grabber’ ready to trip his brother up and take advantage of him. And he is a supplanter, being willing to use manipulation and deception to take from his brother what is not rightfully his.

Jacob is symbol of the heel-grabber and the supplanter in each of us. That part of us that is willing to use subtle and not-so-subtle manipulation and deception to get our way. That part of us that is willing to step over others if necessary in order to ensure our own success.

As can be expected, Jacob’s deception and manipulation alienates him from his brother Esau. And as Esau’s resentment and anger towards Jacob smoulders and then ignites, he vows to kill Jacob after their father has died.

Again with the help of his mother, who was clearly playing favourites in the family, Jacob runs away north to the country of his uncle Laban to escape his brother’s murderous anger.

What Marshall Davis says about the story is that it is very reminiscent of the story of the prodigal son. They both leave their father’s house for a far away country. Both eventually return home, and both have stories of spiritual awakening.

It is on his first night on the run that Jacob has his first spiritual awakening experience. We read that when he reached a certain place he stopped for the night because the sun had gone down. Taking one of the stones that was lying about, he made his bed under the stars and put the stone under his head as a pillow.

It is one of those details in the story that cries out for some explanation. I can’t imagine resting my head on a stone for a few minutes, let alone for a whole night. I wonder if it is in fact a symbol, that when we have done something we know has been wrong or harmful we no longer experience the softness of life. Even sleeping can become hard and difficult.

During his sleep, Jacob has a dream of a ladder, or a stairway between heaven and earth, with the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. And suddenly Jacob discovers that God is present with him. In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses the same image to speak of his own spiritual experience. Interesting, despite Jacob’s sin and deception, God doesn't bring a message of judgement or anger against him, but rather blesses him and promises to be with him: “I am with you and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you.”

Even in the midst of our sin and deception, God (or Reality with a capital R as Michael Dowd refers to God), promises to be with us and to watch over us, continuing to nurture us in order that we might flourish into who we really are.

As the story proceeds, Jacob wakes up from his dream. Marshall Davis suggests that this could be read both literally and symbolically. A change has taken place in Jacob. He has woken up to a depth of life that he had previously been unaware of.

So, in his now awakened state, Jacob declares: “Surely the Lord or the Eternal One is in this place and I was not aware of it. How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God: this is the gate of heaven.”

As Marshall Davis says, it is a powerful passage filled with symbolism. The gap between heaven and earth is bridged by a stairway. Heaven and earth are united in a reversal of the creation story where God is said to have divided or separated the two.

So Jacob becomes aware of God’s presence in an ordinary place, in the temple of creation. This wasn’t what people would have called a holy site. It was simply a matter of Jacob becoming aware of something that had always been present but which he had missed all that time. It is a reminder that in the most ordinary places of this world, God is present. As one ex-colleague used to put it, there are no God-forsaken places in this world.


In the words of Marshall Davis, the House of God is not a holy building. It is everywhere. In the open countryside. It is here and now. Wherever we are is the gate of heaven. But later on, Jacob’s descendants took this statement literally, as religious people tend to do, and they built a temple on that spot and named it Bethel, meaning the House of God. Religion always has the danger of fossilising and literalising the spiritual experience of a spiritual ancestor, leaving an outer shell often with very little or just a faint sense of the inner experience.

It is for this reason that in this denomination, there has been a tradition of making a distinction between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus. The religion of Jesus is the way he lived and taught and acted in this world. The religion about Jesus refers to all the religious traditions that have grown up around Jesus and which sometimes have the danger of becoming an empty shell where the living spirit of Jesus, how he lived and taught and interacted with people can so easily be lost.

So may you, in those moments when it feels like you are sleeping with a stone or rock under your head, dream a new dream with Jacob, of a ladder uniting heaven and earth and earth with heaven, and wake up to discover the wonderful truth that God is in this place here and now, in the beauty of a flower, in the miracle of an insect, in the playfulness of a child, in the smile and the handclasp of a dear friend. May you discover that God is in this place and you were unaware of it, and that this, sacred here and now, is the very gate of heaven. Amen.