Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-21
All ancient cultures have myths and legends that came about to explain certain things about the world.

You can see it at the Giants Causeway. When my brother and sister-in-law came to visit last October we went with them to see the Giants Causeway and learnt 2 explanations about the origin of the Giants Causeway.

The scientific version: Around 50 to 60 million years ago, Antrim was subject to intense volcanic activity. During that time highly fluid molten basalt came up through chalk beds to form an extensive lava plateau. As the lava cooled, if left pillar-like structures.

Then there is the mythic or folk explanation: in which the causeway is said to be the remains of a great bridge created by a giant Finn Mcool that stretched from Ireland to Scotland when he was challenged to a fight by the Scottish Giant Bennadonner. As with many ancient myths and legends, there is embedded within it a deeper reflection and commentary on life: a reflection on both the ancient connection between Scotland and Ireland, but also something of the ancient rivalry that has existed as well.

In the Bible, you see a parallel phenomenon, especially in some of the old Testament stories. For example in the story of the Tower of Babel, you can almost hear the voice of a child asking a grandparent: “Why do different people speak different languages?”

And in response we hear the grand-parent begin to tell the story of the tower of Babel. The story itself is what we would call a myth or a legend. On the surface of the story, it is not historically true, but when you begin to explore something of the inner meaning of the story, one discovers that there is a hidden wisdom in the story... a little bit like the parables of Jesus.

The parables of Jesus are fictional stories. None of them are historically true, but as parables they contain a wisdom that invites the listener to think more deeply about the nature of the Kingdom of God, which is the theme of most of Jesus parables.

Marcus Borg, a contemporary Biblical scholar who died about a year or two ago tells the story of a Native American Indian story-teller. Whenever he would tell his tribes creation story or creation myth, he would begin with the words: “I don’t know if it happened exactly like this, but I know this story is true”.

When one comes to the story of the Tower of Babel, I believe that it would be appropriate to preface it with the same words: “I don’t know if it happened exactly like this, but I know this story is true”. In other words, I don’t believe that this story is historically true, but if we have ears to hear, we will hear a wisdom and a spiritual truth embedded within it. Rob Bell puts it another way. A story like this is true not because it happened but because it happens. It is reflective of our human experience.

In the story itself, we read that the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. The plain of Shinar is in fact a reference to Babylonia, and thus the origin of this story is probably again the time of the Jewish exile in Babylonia. Having settled in Shinar or Babylonia, we read that the people learnt how to make bricks and began to build themselves a city. Next they desired to build a tower that would reach towards the heavens, because we read they wanted to make a name for themselves.

The story continues however that the Lord caught wind of their plans and so came down to see what they were up to and was clearly rather disturbed by it. Maybe if the people built a tower to the heavens, they might try and take heaven by force and usurp the power of God himself. This is implied in verse 6 where the God voice suggests that nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. And so God decides to intervene before it is too late and confuses their language and scatters them all over the earth.

The tower of Babel in the story is probably a reference to the ziggurats or pyramids of the Babylonian empire. The word Babel is therefore a play on words. On the one hand it carry’s overtones of the word Babylon but also carry’s overtones of the Hebrew word Balel which means “to be confused”. For the Hebrews, listening to the Babylonian language it would have been a little bit like saying “It’s all Greek to me”, its all Babel or Balel to me.

At one level, the story of the Tower of Babel reveals something of the Jewish prejudice against the Babylonians, and perhaps that is understandable when it was the Babylonians who had invaded Jerusalem and then taken them off into exile. Underlying this story is the accusation that the Babylonians with their impressive Ziggaurats are in fact a people in rebellion towards God.

But if one reads beneath the prejudice, there is a commentary on human beings as a whole. We all in our own way want to make a name for ourselves. Sometimes that is not a bad thing, but often the rush of pride goes to our heads, we begin to think we are God, in the sense of being all-powerful and in the process our pride brings division. The message of Jesus is in fact that we can become like God, we can share in God’s nature as we grow in love, humility, service. But many human beings are not interested in becoming like God in that way. For many human beings they want to become God by seizing power, through dominance and control and not through humble love and service. The moral of the story is that humanity’s pride and tendency towards domination and control leads to a division between people, a fragmentation between communities. Communities and peoples are no longer able to live in harmony with one-another.

And perhaps that is where we switch over and begin to reflect on our other passage today, the passage from Acts where we read of the Pentecost Story. Did the Pentecost story happen exactly like that “tongues of fire”, a violent wind, people speaking in different languages and tongues? I cant be sure? Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.

But at the very least I would repeat the words of the Native American Story teller. I don’t know if the story happened exactly like this, but I know this story is true. In other words there are a spiritual truth's in the story for us if we are open to hearing them.

And so what, we might ask, is the truth that the Pentecost story seeking to communicate?

For a long time, theologians have suggested that in the Pentecost story what we see happening is a reversal of the Tower of Babel story.

In the Tower of Babel story, the arrogance and the pride of humanity has brought to division to the world and division between people. People are unable to communicate with one-another and are scattered over the earth. But in the Pentecost Story you have a movement in the opposite direction. People from all over the known world have come together in Jerusalem, and through the gift of the Spirit the former divisions caused by language are overcome. The apostles, those who have been anointed with the gift of the Spirit of God, are able to communicate across the language barrier or divide as they begin to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to do.

Human Sin, pride, arrogance, unbridled ambition brings division, but the Spirit of God which is also described in other passages in the book of Acts as the Spirit of Jesus, heals divisions and brings people together. Sin divides, but love unites.

The message of the story I believe is this: When people truly begin to be moved by the Spirit of Jesus, when people begin to speak the language of Christ’s self-emptying love, the divisions of this world begin to heal. But the more we act out of distorted, unbalanced self-interest, the world begins to fragment and become divided.

But when people begin to be moved by the spirit of Christ’s self-emptying love, putting others needs on a par with our own, then an undoing of the tower of babel story begins to happen all over again.

In Ephesians Paul speaks of the division between Jews and Gentiles – one of those ancient rivalries. In chapter 2 Paul says that Christ himself has now become our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility. His purpose was to make a new humanity out of the two thus making peace and to reconcile them through the cross by which he put to death their hostility.

I have always wondered how the cross of Jesus can heal our divisions, the more I have reflected on it, the more I have come to believe that the cross heals our divisions by teaching us the way of self-emptying love.

On Penetcost Sunday, we celebrate the gift of the Spirit of God. It is none other than the Spirit of the crucified Christ, that teaches us to speak the language of Christ-like love. The Pentecost story inspires us to believe that the healing of this world is possible. The story of the Tower of Babel can be reversed when people’s lives are touched and moved by the same spirit that was at work in Jesus.

1 Cor 12:12-26 and 2 Samuel 24:1-17 (1 Chronicles 21:1-17)

Today I would like to reflect on what I think can only be described as a strange story from the Old Testament, that hopefully might help us to reflect more deeply on the nature of the Bible.

The passage is from 2 Samuel 24:1-7.

The first interesting thing to note is that God plants the idea within David to take a census.

When David actually begins to take the census, God tells him that he has sinned by taking a census and then proceeds to give David a few potential punishments. David chooses the third option of a plague, in which 70 000 people in Israel die.

It is a strange story. Why, we might ask ourselves would God prompt David to do something and then turn around and punish him for it?

Maybe another question we might ask ourselves is how might a story like this have come about in the first place?

If I had to speculate, I imagine that the following kind of scenario might have taken place.

David decided to take a census. Somehow at the same time or just following the census, a plague broke out within Israel. When something bad happens the natural tendency is for human beings to ask the question: How did this disaster come about? Who is to blame? Why has this happened?

The answer which is given: the only thing that has been different in recent times is that King David has taken a census. We are not sure why? But God must be punishing David and the people of Israel for taking the census.

But in the ancient Hebrew world-view, the dominant belief was that God was all-powerful and therefore God is ultimately responsible for everything that happened. And therefore, while the teller of the story had come to the conclusion that it was David who had sinned by calling a census and thus bringing a plague upon the people of Israel, because God is the ultimate power in the universe and ultimately God is in control of everything, God must have caused David to take the census in the first place.

What makes this whole story in 2 Sam 24 even more interesting is when you compare it to the retelling of the same story in 1 Chronicles 21. The 1 Chronicles is a much later re-telling of the story – possibly even by a hundred or more years. What is most significant is that 1 Chronicles 21 was written/edited after the exile of the Jews in Babylon.

During the exile, Jewish people were exposed to a new culture and different religious ideas. In Babylon, they were exposed most especially to the religion of Zoroastrianism in which the spiritual world was seen to be dominated by two opposing spiritual beings: Azhura Mazda, the Supreme Being who was all wise and all good, and his counterpart Angra Mainyu, who was responsible for evil, chaos and destruction in the world.

And thus in exile, the idea of a second spiritual reality comes into the Jewish understanding of the world. The idea of Satan, as a spiritual being opposed to God first begins to take hold in the mind of Jewish religious thinkers.

And so when we begin to compare the stories between 2 Sam 24 and 1 Chron 21, we see this interesting change. In verse 1 of the Chronicles story, instead of God being the cause of David taking a census, there is a new, explanation that helps to resolve the underlying injustice of the 1 Sam 24 rendition of the story. Instead of God planting the idea in David’s mind, the writer of Chronicles suggests that it was in fact Satan, the enemy of God who made David take a census.

And thus the strange anomaly of the previous telling of the story is now resolved. If God prompted David to take the census in the first place, is it really fair that God should punish David and the people of Israel?

But if the story is retold and Satan, the arch enemy of God is now the instigator, then it makes more sense that God should have been able to punish David.

What this story does is that it helps us to see that the Bible is a more complex book than Biblical literalism would suggest. Biblical literalism asserts that every verse in the Bible is God inspired and without error or contradiction. But here we have two renditions of the same story, one that says Satan made David do it, and the other that says that it was God who made David do it. A second significant change in the story is the numbers in the census are also different. 1 Sam 24 gives one set of figures, but 1 Chronicles 21 gives a very different account of the number of able-bodied men in Israel and Judah. In 2 Samuel 24 it is 800 thousand able bodied man in Israel and 500 thousand in Judah. But in 1 Chronicles 21 there were 1 million one hundred thousand in Israel while only 470 thousand in Judah.

When you actually begin to look at the details of some of the Biblical stories, you begin to see that arguments for Biblical literalism begin to break-down. The Bible is in fact not that kind of book.

It also shows that in the Bible, there is a theological development. Between these two stories, there has been a development in thinking. The first story teller has no strong idea of Satan as the enemy of God who is causing all this trouble. But in the second story, the character of Satan emerges as a new way of trying to explain the evil in the world.

The story also reflects another aspect of the Israelite culture of the day: The culture was one dominated by a group ideology. If one member of the group sinned, the whole group was punished. David’s sin leads to the punishment of the whole of Israel. You see this in other places.

Later in the development of other Biblical writers, you can see a shift towards individual responsibility. In the book of Ezekiel, the prophet sees a great injustice in people being punished for the sins of others, especially children being punished for the sins of their parents. He writes that if a father sins, the father will be punished. If the son sins, the son should be punished. But for most of the early Hebrew writing group ideology dominated their thinking. One persons sin (in this case David), could lead to the punishment of the whole nation of Israel. In our passage, even David sees an injustice happening that the people of Israel should be punished for his sin.

But western culture as a whole has generally moved in a completely opposite extreme to a radical individualism. On the surface it might seem that it is progress. But in actual fact, it is just another extreme. What Western culture is beginning to realise is that the truth lies somewhere in between. We’re beginning to realise that there is in fact no-self-made man. All of us are inter-connected. Its an insight that some Westerners are learning from quantum physics. Somehow inexplicably it was discovered that when twin photons are separated geographically, when scientists caused one two spin in one direction, the other automatically began to spin in the same way. At a sub-atomic level, the world is deeply interconnected. Another source for learning of our interconnectedness has been Buddhism. It was one of the insights of the Buddha that life is interconnected. The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of inter-being. We live interdependent lives.
Another source for our learning this principle of interconnectedness is in fact ecology and the ecological crisis. The more we become aware that a damaged ecology will affect human beings, the more we come to see that extreme individualism is a delusion. None of us can actually live without everyone else.
In African culture in South Africa there is still a strong sense of group culture. Which has it’s downsides as in the story of David. But there is a phrase that is used in African culture than can help us Westerners find a better balance between the collective and the individual. In a concept called Ubuntu they have a saying that goes - “I am because we are”. No-one is an island. Even if we seclude ourselves and live in our home as a hermit, only coming out to buy food from the shops, we would still be reliant on a whole network of other people for our food, our electricity, our water, government service. I am because we are. No-one is an island.
Although I would struggle with the Biblical writers interpretation of this story of David’s sin bringing punishment on the whole of Israel, it does convey the idea that one persons sin can and does affect other people. Very few people would take seriously the notion that God punishes a group for an individuals sin. But it is possible to see that one persons sin, or one persons negative or destructive behaviour can often have consequences on a whole community.
In the New Testament, Jesus teaching on the Greatest Commandment is in its own way an expression of our interconnectedness. If I am because we are, then it begins to make sense that loving my neighbour is another way of loving myself.

Paul’s use of the image of the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 is another Biblical image that emphasizes the interconnectedness of life. He uses it specifically as an image for the church community. But the image has wider application and could very easily be used as an image to describe society as a whole. The more globalised the world becomes, the more we realise how interconnected we are. The world is like a body of interconnected parts. When one part of the body suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.

And so, as we reflect on these passages today in this way, it perhaps comes as an invitation for us to ask ourselves: How does my behaviour and maybe even my private life impact on others, in my family, in my community, in this country and even in the world? Is the impact of my life on the world ultimately a positive one or is it perhaps a negative one? When one thinks for example how the life of Jesus has reverberated across the world for over 2000 years, what is the impact that your life and my life is having on others and the world. Amen.

Does God ever turn his face away?

I had a congregation member in a previous congregation who lived with the dreadful fear that one day she would fall out of favour with God. She lived in a constricting unhealthy marriage that was oppressive. Her husband was controlling and emotionally abusive.

Inside, her heart was crying out space to breathe, to be herself, to flourish and to grow. For years she had tried to make the marriage work with great resistance from her husband, and even denial that there was even a problem. She had got to the point where she could not live in the marriage any longer. But she was struggling to go through with her desire for a divorce, because she had this deep deep fear that God would reject her, that God would turn his face away from her, and withdraw his approval from her. And so her faith and a deep fear of losing God’s approval, kept her trapped in a controlling, oppressive and abusive relationship for many years, even when she felt she could no longer live like that.

Does God ever turn his face away from us?

That phrase is found in the hymn that we have just sung. It is one of my favourite hymns: It is partly the moving melody. But it is also the poetry of the words and the picture of God that it expresses: A God whose love for us goes beyond our ability to comprehend and grasp. A love that is infinite, beyond our ability to measure:

How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast, beyond all measure.

In the hymn we see that it a love so great that it is willing to empty itself give itself away, expressed in the dying crucified Christ who gives his life away in an act of love and sacrifice for the sake of others and for the sake of the world. This is not a carefully measured out love, it is an extravagant, overflowing love.

How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast, beyond all measure.

That he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure.
Secondly, It is also a hymn that expresses something of our own human experience:

It expresses our human experience of sometimes feeling utterly wretched at times. Sometimes we do and say things that have the ability to cause un-told harm upon others... our capacity to be unkind, cold, calculating indifferent to the feelings of others, to be self-concerned and completely self-seeking. There are times when I think back on things that I have done or said that make me really want to cringe. Feeling wretched. Did I really do or say that? Did I really let that person down in that way? And yet, in the hymn, we hear the promise and hope that God still claims us as his treasure.

The words of the hymn are also powerful because they express something of the excruciating pain we experience as human beings, living in this world. There are some things in this world that have the ability to absolutely break our hearts and leave us feeling crushed and broken. The hymn writer, Stuart Townsend suggests that inexplicably, God, the infinite source of life and love somehow shares in that experience of excruciating loss and pain. In the 5th line we hear the words: “How great the pain of searing loss”.

But there is one line in this hymn that I have always battled with: “The Father turns his face away”.

Does God ever turn his face away from us? Did God turn his face away from Jesus on the cross?

The reason I battle with it is because there is a whole theology of the atonement that is expressed within that line that I battle with.

The theology behind this line suggests that because God is holy, and therefore cannot bear to look upon sin, when all of our sin had somehow been transferred onto Jesus, God therefore had to turn his face away from Jesus because God could not bear to look upon our sin that had been transferred onto Jesus. In other words, our sin was so ugly and detestable on Jesus, that God could not bear to look at him any longer.

Where does this idea come from?

Nowhere in the New Testament is there mention of God turning God’s face away from Jesus. At the most, one can say that in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus last dying words one the cross were: “My God my God why have you forsaken me.” It could be said that in that moment, Jesus felt forsaken by God. But that is not the same as saying that Jesus was forsaken by God or in that moment God had withdrawn himself or his love from Jesus.

Those who have this interpretation of the cross, of God turning his face away from Jesus, because Jesus had become sin for us base it on Habakkuk 1:13 “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”

But you cannot base a whole theology on one verse in the Bible that is taken out of context. When we look more closely at Habakkuk and read that verse again, we see that ironically in the passage, somehow, God does tolerate sin, wickedness and evil. In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet Habakkuk is in fact complaining against God.

The first complaint is that Habbakuk calls out to God for help and God does not listen.
The second complaint, If God is holy and pure, then why does God tolerate evil.

I don’t have an answer for that question today. To do so would take a whole sermon on its own. But it does show how we can pull out one verse, in this case verse 13, and build a whole theology of the cross with it, but all along, we have not read the verse in its original context. We have not understood it in the flow of the text.

If we really want to understand God’s relationship to ourselves, and our sin, we need to look at Jesus. As Jesus says, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. In other words, Jesus is the best place to look if you want to come to an understanding of what God is like. But in the Gospel stories, we see time and time again, how Jesus chooses to spend most of his time in the presence of sinners. Jesus seeks sinners out. The Pharisees even complain that Jesus spends too much time with sinners.

Jesus does not turn his face away from sinners. And if Jesus reveals to us who God is, the Infinite Source at the heart of life, then we discover that God does not turn his face away from Jesus on the cross. And the good news that God will never turn his face away from us either.

Jeremy Myers writes: “Sometimes we get this crooked view of God where He cannot look upon sin or be near sin because sin would somehow taint His holiness. Such a view gives sin way too much power and gives God way too little. God is not like a pristine white couch upon which no one can sit for fear of it getting soiled.”

Indeed, many of us are brought up to believe in a perfectionist God who is SO perfect that God cannot stand to look upon imperfection. But interestingly, the only place in the New Testament where God is spoken of as being 'perfect' is in Matthew 5:48, and in the verses that follow that one, we see that in fact it is the perfection of love. A love that is even willing to embrace the imperfect, the sinner and the unrighteous.

One of my favourite John Wesley hymns has the following line in it:

“O Jesus full of truth and grace. More full of grace than I of sin. Yet once again, I seek your face. Open my heart and let you in.”

Does God ever turn his face away from us? In my best understanding, I believe that the good news that Jesus brings us, is that God never turns his face away from us, but comes seeking us out. Jesus reveals that God is constantly seeking to find and save the lost.

What then do we do with this line in the hymn?

In the last fulltime church where I ministered in in Edenvale, just east of Johannesburg, we changed the words. It was easy to do because we had a projector. Instead of singing that "the Father turns his face away", we sang “The Father’s heart is broken.”

That’s not easy to do when you sing out of hymn books.

At times for the sake of singing with a little more ease, I have tried to re-interpret that line. Sometimes I just sing the line just as it is, and in my mind there is just a little question mark that I mentally put there. At other times, if you read my lips while we are singing, sometimes I change it and simply sing that the Father’s Heart is Broken.

But there might be others for whom that original line does have meaning. Maybe you have a completely different take on that line than how I have interpreted it today. And that is one of the great gifts of being a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian. You don’t have to subscribe to everything that the minister says from the pulpit. Neither do you have to necessarily have to agree with every line that you sing in a hymn. Because even hymns themselves are human poetic attempts to express to do our best to express devotion to God. And in the end, all of the words we use fall short in some way.

Luke 17 20-21 and Psalm 46
A legend says that, at the beginning of time, God resolved to hide himself within his own creation. As God was considering how best to do this, the angels drew around him.

“I want to hide myself in my own creation,” God said. “I need to find a place that is not too easily discovered, for it is in their search for me that my creatures grow in spirit and in understanding.”

“Why don’t you hide yourself deep in their earth?” the first angel asked.

God pondered this a moment and replied, “No, it will not be too long before they learn how to mine the earth and discover all the treasures it contains. They will find me too quickly, and they will not have had enough time to do their growing.”

“Why don’t you hide yourself on their moon?” said the second angel.

“God gave this more thought but then replied, “No, it will take them a little longer, but eventually they will learn to fly through space. They will arrive at the moon and explore its secrets—and they will find me too soon, before they have had enough time to do their growing.”

The angels were at a loss to suggest any more hiding places. There was a long silence.

“I know,” piped up one angel, finally. “Why don’t you hide yourself within their own hearts? They will never think of looking there!”

“That’s it!” said God, delighted to have found the perfect hiding place. And so it is that God secretly hides deep within the heart of every one of God’s creatures, until that creature has grown enough in spirit and understanding to risk the great journey into the secret core of its own being. And there, the creature discovers it creator, and is rejoined to God for all eternity.

(from One Hundred Wisdom Stories, by Margaret Silf)

It is an interesting story from a number of perspectives:

Firstly, it raises the question: Is God hiding from us? Is God playing a game of hide and seek with us? That in itself is an interesting perspective, because it suggests that at the heart of creation, there is something very playful going on.

The little story is interesting from another perspective, because it suggests that if God is hiding from us, then it is not just done out of playfulness, but also with an educational purpose. God hides from us so that in our search for ultimate meaning and purpose we grow and discover things about us and the world that we didn't know before.

Is it possible that God often remains just out of sight as it were in order to stimulate our own growth and discovery.

In Jeremiah 29:13 we read: “You will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart”. The words, “seek” and “search” would seem to support the view that God is not always immediately self-evident and is therefore in some way hidden from us.

But there could also be an argument that suggests that God does not hide at all from us. St Paul suggests in Romans that the invisible qualities of God have always been there for people to see, if they have eyes to do so:

Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”

It is an interesting verse, because it speaks of God’s qualities being clearly seen, and yet those qualities themselves are invisible. In other words, not completely self-evident or immediately visisble. If God is hiding, then Paul indeed believes that God is hiding in plain view.

Ultimately in this little story or legend, the point is not that God is hiding Gods-self, but rather that if we truly wish to find God, we should begin to look within. As some have said: God is an inside job. For anyone who is deliberately embarking on a spiritual journey, at some point, that journey will have to take us inward, to discover God in the depths of our own hearts.

It has often intrigued me that when Christians speak to children about Jesus, often they will tell them that Jesus is in their heart. But somehow by the time children become teenagers and adults, we no longer think of God or Christ within us. By that time, we begin to speak of God, almost exclusively as living outside of us. Most of the time, we speak of God living far away, in heaven and sometimes God visits us, most especially 2000 years ago in Jesus, but for the most part we think of God as somewhere out there.

There are a lot of Bible verses that would speak of God somewhere out there and above us, but we are so conditioned to thinking God is external to us that we fail to see that in numerous places in the Bible tradition, God is spoken of as existing within the human heart.

• Colossians 1:27 speaks of the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory.
  
  
• 2 Corinthians 13:5, the apostle Paul asks a question: “do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?”
  
• Romans 8:10 “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”
  
• John 14:20 “On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
  

Probably the most well-known is our passage from Luke’s Gospel today where Jesus says: “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

We read Luke 17:20-21 “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

Not all translations translate it like that. Some translate it to read: The kingdom of God is in your midst. The Greek word ‘entos’ from which we would get our English word to ‘enter’, more accurately means “within”. The Kingdom of God is within you.

That is quite a revolutionary concept. If we spend our lives looking for God outside of us, waiting for God to sweep in from the outside, we might miss God altogether, because God is within. God is this deep and powerful internal resource within us. An inner strength that we didn’t know was there. God is an inner source of refreshment and inspiration like a great under-ground pool of water that we can draw on if we take the time to quietly go in.

This image is found in Psalms 46:4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.

What the Psalmist is referring to is the underground "Spring of Gihon”, whose waters were brought into Jerusalem by a tunnel. It is what made Jerusalem so strong against external attack because there was a resource of fresh water from within that could sustain them even when they were under siege. And so, here it is used as a symbol of God's refreshing presence... a presence within.

This is emphasized again in verse 5 where, God is described as being within. “God is within her, she will not fall”.

How might one begin to access this refreshing presence of God within? Later in the Psalm, in verse 10, we are given a clue:
“Be still, and know that I am God”

The Hebrew word “raphah” means to sink, relax, abandon, let go, be still.

When we allow ourselves moments to relax, let go and sink into stillness, we discover this stream of God’s presence within.

And so, when the storms are raging on the outside, when the nations are in turmoil, may you make moments for stillness, where you and relax and let go in the silence, discover the stream within that makes glad the city of God, and In Being Still, to discover the Infinite Presence of God hiding quietly, softly, gently within you.

Sometime in my early 20’s I made a decision that I wanted to stop eating meat. It was a big decision and took a while to actually implement it fully.

There were a number of factors that influenced the decision:

• When I worked in an African community I witnessed the slaughtering of a bull. It was part of the Easter celebrations. When I saw and heard the distress of the animal, I realised that I would not be able to kill an animal, and that perhaps if I didn’t eat meat, it might be a small step towards making the world a less violent place. We were still living through quite a lot of violence in South Africa at the time.
• I had also begun to read about environmental issues. Part of my studies was a course in Environmental Ethics. I read that becoming vegetarian was a way in which one could walk more gently upon the earth.

Unfortunately as a 20 something year old and into my 30’s I didn’t read enough about how to supplement ones diet. During a period of fatigue that was partly depression related (I had just resigned as a Methodist Minister and felt quite lost), I was told by a Chinese doctor that I needed to at least introduce a bit of fish into my diet. And so for the past 5 years Wendy and I have been eating fish about twice or three times a week.

On Thursday morning, I read a new headline that was a reflection on the recent United Nations report on biodiversity on the planet. The report suggests that if we continue on as normal (business as usual), more than a million species around the world are soon going to face extinction. That is not just a devastating loss for the animals, birds, fish and insects themselves. Its not just going to make the world a more boring place, but it will be a devastating loss for humanity as well, because it will be a disruption to the whole eco-system on which we depend. Even though often we like to pretend to ourselves that concern over environmental matters is kind of optional, the truth is that humanity’s survival depends on the earth, as the Bible reminds us, we are Earth Creatures.

In the second Genesis creation story when we read of Adam, Adam is not in fact a name as such, it is a play on the Hebrew word 'adamah' which means earth, and therefore the word Adam really means mean: ‘Earth Creature’. Human beings are earth creatures. As the Genesis story puts it rather poetically, we are made of the soil of the earth. God may have set Eternity in our hearts, but when it comes to our bodies, we are utterly dependent on the health of the earth and of the planet.

Getting back to the News article on Thursday it was looking particularly t the state of the worlds oceans. The report that said that though the biodiversity of land species was becoming critical, the oceans are in fact in a much more serious position. And even though the problem of tonnes and tonnes of plastic being washed into the sea on a daily basis is a huge problem, the bigger problem for biodiversity in our oceans is in fact the commercial fishing industry.

I was under the impression that controlled fish farming in large fish farms off the coast was perhaps more environmentally friendly and sustainable, but I discovered in the article that this is not the case. Fish and prawns are often fed on entire marine ecosystems as trawlers indiscriminately dredge up everything and mash it into fish-meal to feed these fish farms.

The news article suggests that if we want to stop the ravaging of our oceans by great multinational fishing companies, we all need to radically cut our fish consumption and perhaps stop eating fish altogether.

This week, Wendy and I have decided to cut back our fish intake to once a week or maybe even once a month. In line with the children’s address, we are hoping in our small way, to become two little snowflakes (See "How much does a snowflake weigh"). It is becoming evident that if we all continue as normal, as business as usual, we and our children and our grand-children are going to soon be heading into an environmental dark age.

And that brings us to our passage today: In verse 22 we read what seems like an insignificant and passing detail. Just three words. “It was winter.”

Most scholars would tell us that when John makes a comment like that, he is not simply telling us a detail about the season of the year. It is a phrase that is meant to brim over with meaning. It is a bit like in the Game of Thrones, when you hear the phrase “Winter is coming!” it is more than just about the state of the weather. The phrase carries with it a sense of the ominous and the foreboding.

Winter is the time of year when darkness reigns. It is a time when both the light and the warmth recede. For John’s Gospel, it is a description of the state of humanity, the state of the human soul. In the context of the story, it was certainly descriptive of the state of the souls of the Jerusalem leaders who had already begun to plot Jesus’ death as they felt threatened by his presence and influence on the people. It was a description of the darkness that had begun to grow around Jesus.

It was winter.

All indications are from the news headlines and from people like David Attenborough is that metaphorically speaking “Winter is coming”. We are heading towards an age of great suffering in the world, if we do not pull back. If we do not collectively make radical changes to our lifestyles.

The second detail in the passage that I want to point out is also in verse 22: “It was the Festival of Dedication” at Jerusalem.

The Festival of Dedication (or Hanukah) was a celebration of the re-dedication of the Temple after the Seleucid King Antiochus Ephiphanes desecrated the Temple in 168 BC by sacrificing pigs on the altar and by erecting a statue of Zeus in the centre of it. These were actions designed to humiliate and infuriate the Jews who he had conquered. Antiochus’s title of Ephiphanes reveals what kind of ruler he was, or what he thought of himself, because the title means “a revelation of God”. In other words, he thought of himself as God’s gift to the world. It is interesting. While in the story, Antiochus Ephiphanes desecrated the Temple of God in Jerusalem, it could equally be said that today, even as we sit here in church, humanity collectively is desecrating the Temple of God’s creation.

When Antiochus Epiphanes had been defeated and driven out by the Maccabees, the Temple was rededicated over an 8 day period. The Festival of Dedication or Hannukha is likewise an 8 day festival, and over the period each night an extra candle is lit from a central candle on a menorah. So over the 8 days you would have a growing sense of light as more and more candles on the menorah were lit.

Perhaps today, as we hear that we are heading towards a time of ecological darkness, God invites us to begin to light candles in the dark as we seek to rededicate the temple of creation back to God and to no longer sacrifice it on the altar of continual material consumption and indifference. As Jesus is the light of the world, can we hear his call that we too should become lights in the world, becoming agents of change.

It is very easy when we hear the scale of the environmental problem to become depressed. One of those who worked with David Attenborough on his documentary "Climate Change: the Facts", said that after they had finished filming around the world and pulling all the detail of the documentary together, she fell into quite a depression when she saw how bad the problems really are. It was a depression of powerlessness. How do we turn this ship around?

There have been times in my life where I have felt that kind of despair and depression about the environment. But when I begin to feel that way, it is helpful to to remember the message of the children’s address. Every time we begin to feel despair we should ask ourselves the question: “How heavy is a snowflake?” And to remember that as little snowflakes begin to fall, and begin to build up. In the end it just takes one or two snowflakes extra to fall on a branch for the branch to become weighed down and for the snow to slide off. “How heavy is a snow-flake?” Are you willing to become a snowflake for change, and to be reminded that even the seemingly insignificant things you do to save the environment can begin to add up.

We can make a difference.

David Attenborough in his documentary provides a number of quite easy and practical ways in which we can start:

1. Make our homes as energy efficient as possible. Do not put your heating on unnecessarily. Put on a jumper if it means being able to turn down your heating even just a little.
2. Everything we buy has a carbon foot-print, from a mobile phone to a packet of crisps, a take-away coffee to a washing machine. We can cut carbon emissions by buying and consuming less.
3. Do not replace appliances and furnishing unnecessarily. Buy higher quality so that it will last longer. Each appliance requires the burning of enormous amounts of fossil fuels just to make.
4. Food is about a quarter of our carbon foot-print in the UK. Do not let food go to waste. We can care for the environment by simply eating everything we buy. Avoid air-freighted food which is about 100 times as impact-ful than putting it on a boat. Consider eating vegetarian, for just 2-3 days a week. Not everyone has to become a vegetarian. David Attenborough suggested that the problem is not with traditional farming techniques but rather with intensive farming.

The documentary suggests that if we do these things alone, we will knock off 2 tonnes of each persons annual carbon foot-print which currently sits at about 13 tonnes per person per annum in the UK.

In the last few weeks Wendy and I had to by a new mattress. It arrived this week. Our current mattress was such a disappointment, lasting only just over a year. We decided to buy an expensive mattress that would last. The more we researched, the more we realized that natural latex produces the longest lasting mattresses and they are environmentally friendly because they are biodegradable. But it was quite expensive. We struggled with the question. Do we do it or not? In the end our consciences won out. We decided to pay extra on an environmentally friendly mattress even though it was expensive. If we are going to pass on the planet to our children and grandchildren, humanity has some hard choices ahead of us. Perhaps one less polyurethane mattress might make a little difference: another snowflake.

Wendy and I are obviously concerned about the environment, but we are not environmental heroes. We are as enmeshed in the problem as everybody else. We are just as addicted to plastic as everyone else. We burn oil to heat our home like everybody else.  We are just struggling to make sense of all of this, and hopefully, trying do our part in beginning to make a change.

May we remember that the Bible refers to us as earth creatures, we depend on this beautiful, fragile eco-system. In the darkness of the environmental news, may we begin to light our own Hanukah candles rededicating the Temple of Creation back to God. And when we feel down and depressed wondering if we can even make a difference let us remember to ask ourselves: “How heavy is a snowflake?”

Some of you may have heard the parable of the lighthouse which is a powerful as a metaphor for the church:

On a dangerous sea-coast where shipwrecks often occur there was a once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station. And it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.

Some of the new members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.

So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they re-decorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club.

Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do this work.

The mission of life-saving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the life-saving activities personally.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people.

They were dirty, wet, injured and sick, and afterwards, the beautiful new club was a mess. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal life pattern of the club.

But some members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. Which they did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded.

If you visit that sea-coast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, only now most of the people drown.

Our passage today can be read at just a literal level, but some scholars believe that it should be read at a symbolic level.

The passage forms the epilogue to John’s Gospel.

Strictly speaking the final verses to John’s Gospel ends with the conclusion in John 20:30-31. Our passage seems to have been added on after the conclusion in order to answer the question: What is the role of the Church in response to the news of the Risen Christ? What should the disciples be doing? What should the church be doing?

The answer contained in the epilogue is two-fold:

1. “The Church should be fishing?”

2. “The Church should be shepherding”


1. “The Church should be fishing?” - The church should be catching people for Christ....drawing people into the community of Christ. The Church is one of those few organisations in the world that exists not for itself, but for people outside of it. It can be compared to a life-saving club. It is a strange life-saving club that would only be interested in caring for it’s own members. The church exists for others, for those who are outside of the church. One of our tasks is to be engaged in fishing for people. In this passage when Peter says: Lets go fishing, it is symbolic for the work of the Church in drawing people towards Christ. Peter is therefore fulfilling his original calling when Jesus said to him “I will make you fishers of people”.

An important job of the Church is to be fishing. To be reaching out drawing people into the Church community.

This is clearly not just the ministers job. One commentator makes some interesting observations:

In the story, Peter, the leader, initiates the fishing expedition, but he himself doesn’t catch the fish. He is the one who recognizes and points to Christ. It is the rest of the disciples who actually make the catch, although Peter does assist in dragging the fish to shore. Peter could stand for the minister and the rest of the disciples the congregation. The ministers role is to point to Christ, but it is the whole church who are called to draw new people into the community of Christ.

That is a very practical challenge that we face as a congregation over the next few years: to draw new people into this community of Christ.



2. The second purpose of the Church is to shepherd those who are in the church.
In the Gospel story, after the great catch of fish and the meal with Jesus on the beech, we read of the reinstatement of Peter. Just a few chapters before our passage, during the arrest and trial of Jesus, we read how Peter denied Jesus 3 times.

Now in this passage today, as Jesus reinstates Peter, Jesus asks him 3 times: Do you love me? Three times Peter replies: Lord you know I love you. And to each reply Jesus says: Feed my sheep. Take care of my lambs. Feed my sheep, and then finally the words spoken when Jesus first called Peter:  Follow me.

While fishing is a drawing of new people into the Church, drawing people towards Christ, shepherding is a caring for those already within the Church. While it may be an important function of the minister, it is also true that the whole church community need to be involved in shepherding. It is very encouraging when I do hear of members of the church checking on the well-being of other members.

I have also heard stories, in this church but also other church’s that I have ministered in where a person stopped attending church and found that no-one contacted them to say: We have been missing you. Is there something wrong?

In a church community that is often called the family of Christ, this can be one of the most painful experiences: To stop going to church and to discover that no-one misses you and no-one asks where you are.

And so this passage asks us a few questions:

• Is this a community that you would feel comfortable inviting someone to be part of?
• If not, what would need to change for you to want to invite someone?
• In what way can you participate in caring for others in the community: Following up if you haven’t seen anyone for a while. Sending a text to say: We are missing you. Are you ok?
  
  

John 20:1-18

Perhaps one of the most moving stories in scripture is the passage we read this morning from John’s Gospel. As we enter the story, we read that it was early in the morning on the first day of the week. While it was still dark, Mary went to the tomb. It was a natural place for her to be... to be as close to her Lord as possible, even thought it was only his dead body covered over by a large stone.

When she got there, she saw something that startled her, throwing her into deep confusion and turmoil. The stone had been removed form the entrance. Wasn’t it enough that they had put Jesus to death? Did they now have to come and raid his tomb and remove his body? It was a devastating discovery for Mary, for whom Jesus had been her life and her joy.

Running back, we read, she found Peter and the Beloved Disciple (believed by most to be John). Upon hearing the news it seems that a race ensued between Peter and John to see who could get there first. John outran Peter, but then waited at the entrance of the tomb for Peter to arrive. After Peter had gone inside, John joined him where they saw the burial clothes neatly folded where the body of Jesus should have been.

Some find it easy to believe. John it appears was one of them. We read that when he saw, he believed.

Others find it more difficult to believe. At this stage, Mary was still in deep confusion and turmoil. Peter and John went back to their homes, but we read that Mary stated behind, crying. It was all too much for her.

We read however that as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus should have been.

“Women, why are you crying?” they asked her.

As she replied to the angles, it seems that she turned away from them, perhaps trying to hide her tears. Turning around, she saw Jesus standing in front of her, but she did not realize it was him. As she turned around, Jesus repeated the question that the angels had asked:

“Woman, why are you crying?”

1) In this passage we see that the Easter Story invited us to get in touch with our own pain.

Woman, Why are you crying?

For Mary her tears were tears of utter grief and loss. The man who had given her life back to her had been cruelly tortured and brutally murdered. The one who had shown a love to her like she had never experienced before was dead.

It must have been an utterly devastating moment for her; like the bottom had fallen out of her life. The centre of her life had been taken away from her. The one person who had brought meaning and purpose to her life had been taken away from her.

This was the source of her pain; an indescribable pain, an emptiness within that throbbed with a pain that must have felt like it would never go away.

Why are you crying?

The Easter story invites us to get in touch with the things in our lives that bring us pain, that cause us to weep when no-one else is watching, that leave us feeling empty with a throbbing sense of meaninglessness.

Why are you crying? What is the pain you carry with you today?

For Mary the pain was so great that sage couldn't see Jesus stadning in front of her. It seems that her own tears obscured her vision. Sometimes our tears and pain obscure our sense of the Presence of God... we are unable to recognize the one who can wipe away our tears.

Why are you crying? What is the pain you carry with you today?

2) The second thing we see in this passage: As Jesus asks her why she is crying, he asks her a second question: “Who are you looking for?”

Who or what are you looking for? If truth be told, we are all looking for something, something that will fill the void, that last puzzle piece of life that will make the picture complete. We are looking for something; that one thing or that one person who can make our lives complete.

We look in various places
Fame
Success, achievement
Money,

that one special relationship... if I can just find that 1 special person the emptiness will be filled.
Revenge – A number of years ago, Dr Phil interviewed a woman who was looking for revenge. She had been treated appallingly by her husband. When she divorced him she had an overwhelming desire for revenge. But she came to Dr Phil because she discovered that revenge was not helping her. It was not filling the hole like she had thought it would.
What are you looking for?

What is it that you are searching for in life?
The Christian story teaches us that beneath all of our striving; underlying all of our searching is ultimately a search for God, the Infinite, the Eternal. If all things come from God, then ultimately our real deep search in life is for God. The superficial desires and searching that we have is only a front or façade. Ultimately it is only the Infinite, the Eternal that can satisfy the hunger within. Mary was looking in the wrong place. Mary was looking for a dead body, and through her tears she couldn’t see the Risen Christ standing in front of her.

3) The third thing we see is that the One who we are searching for already knows us by name.
The crucified and risen Lord, the one who holds the key to deep happiness and fulfillment, who holds the keys to a life of true meaning and purpose already knows our name.

Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?

Mary answers out of her pain: “Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him and I will go and get him”.

And Jesus replied: “Mary”

The one we are ultimately looking for already knows our name. There is a God who sees and knows us.

Sometimes it seems as if our lives go unnoticed. Would it really make any difference if I was not around? About 10 years ago, I was helping with the music at the Methodist Churches conference with a few hundred delegates from all around the country. During lunch the presiding bishop walked past me and said: “Brian, I dint know you played bass guitar so well.” It was startling. I didn’t even know that he knew who I was. And he called me by name.

In the story of the servant woman Hagar, in Genesis 16:1-13, we read of how badly she was treated by Abraham and Sarah and so she runs away. The angel of the Lord finds her near a spring in the desert where she has laid down to die. After the angel has spoken to her and brought encouragement to her, Hagar speaks and gives a name to God: “You are the God who sees me. I have now seen the One who sees me.”

The one who we are ultimately looking for already knows our name. There is a God who sees and knows us.

4) Lastly, we see in this passage that as Mary hears her name being spoken, she turns around, and only in turning does she finally realise and recognize that it is in fact Jesus standing in front of her.

If we are to recognize the risen Christ it will often require us to turn and to face him. It is as Mary turns that she recognizes Jesus. TO see Jesus requires a turn... a turning point i our lives, a change of direction.

If you are to recognize the risen Christ, in what way do you need to turn today?

The Easter story invites us to a response... to bring our tears, to bring our restless searching, to be embraced by the Christ who already knows our name; to recognize that we may be at a turning point in our lives.

When we read Luke’s version of the Triumphal Entry and compare it to the other three Gospels, we see that there are some unique things about Luke’s version.

Firstly, even though we call it Palm Sunday, unlike all of the other 3 Gospels, Luke makes no mention of the people waving branches or leaves.

Secondly, in Luke’s version, no-one in the crowd shouts Hosannas. Instead, Luke tells us the crowd praised God saying: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” These are almost the same words that the angels sing when they tell the shepherds where to find Jesus, a passage that only appears in Luke’s Gospel.

Thirdly, only Luke tells us that the Pharisees tell Jesus to make the crowds stop. Even though Jesus comes as a King of peace, the Pharisees in the crowd do not want the peace that Jesus brings. And so in Luke’s version the crowds are divided between those who welcome Jesus and the Pharisees who oppose him. We do not see this in Matthew and Mark’s version and only get a hint of it in John’s Gospel. And so interestingly, in Luke’s version, the crowds hail Jesus with the word peace, but in this passage, Jesus presence causes division.

Lastly, only Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus starts weeping as he approaches Jerusalem. “If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from you”. Jesus weeps because Jerusalem does not know the way of peace. They do not know the path that will bring peace to the city and so Jesus weeps because he sees them heading for disaster.

The theme of peace is an interesting one in Luke’s Gospel. From the beginning of the Gospel, the coming of Jesus offers us the good news of peace. At the beginning of the Gospel we hear it in the song of Zachariah who praises God who with the coming of the Messiah will “...guide our feet into the path of peace” (Luke 1:79), and again in the message of the angels: “Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to people of good will” (Luke 2:14). The word peace appears 14 times in Luke’s Gospel, but only 1 in Mark, 4 times in Matthew and 6 times in John. Luke’s Gospel could be called the Gospel of peace. Jesus actions throughout the Gospel show him to be a peacemaker. For Luke, salvation means living at peace with God and with ones neighbour, whether Jew, Samaritan or Gentile, male or female, rich or poor.

And yet, in Luke’s Gospel it also becomes clear that this message of peace through justice and fairness brings opposition and division.

In a strange saying, in Luke 12:51 we read: "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!" (12:51). In other words, Jesus knows that the peace that he does bring, a peace based on justice and fairness is not everyone’s cup of tea, and so will cause division.

And we see that division in Luke’s version of the triumphal entry. While the crowds welcome him as king saying peace on earth and glory in the highest, the Pharisees are opposed to him and want him to tell them to be quiet.

In another detail that only appears in Luke’s Gospel, echoing the words of John the Baptist earlier in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 3:9), Jesus says that if the crowds keep quiet, the stones will cry out. In other words, the whole of creation is crying out for a king who will rule with justice and fairness and will bring true and deep peace to the world. As Paul puts it in Romans, the whole creation is groaning, waiting in expectation for the children of God (the children of peace) to be revealed (Romans 8:22-24).

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he comes as a king of peace, but his visitation causes a division.

Tom Mullen, from the Society of Friends or Quakers, makes the following statement about his denomination: "They work for peace -- and if you really want to cause conflict, [then] work for peace".

So it was for Jesus riding into Jerusalem.

I close with a question: Why is it that working for peace often causes conflict and division?

(With acknowledgements to Brian Stoffregan for the Tom Mullen quote and his observations on the text).