HARVEST SUNDAY

“The Fruits of the Spirit”

A sermon for Harvest

and our first Sunday after the Referendum

Revd Andrew Bain

There are all kinds of harvests, and harvest is an image Jesus uses when he wants to concentrate people’s minds on some critical moment, a “now” moment, a moment of choice and decision. The harvest is ready – God’s people are waiting for good news – but the labourers are few. Wheat and tares, let them both grow together until that day when only the Lord of the Harvest can separate bad from good. The parables of Jesus are full of references to seeds and harvests, the very essence of life for people whose lives depended on them.

But what Jesus is saying is: ask yourself, what’s the harvest of your life going to be? Will we be the seed that falls in good soil and produces a hundredfold, or the seed that gets choked by the weeds and the cares of this world? Will we be the seed that dies to itself and so bears much fruit, or the mustard seed that, tiny as it is, grows into a great tree and the birds of the air make their nests in its branches?

There’s even a kind of warning parable with a rather bad-tempered vineyard owner who has a fig tree that yields no figs. Judgement is close. Root it up, he says. Why should it use up the ground? But the vine-dresser, who is Jesus, implores the owner for time – another year in which to nurture the tree, to water its roots and care for it. Just wait, he says: this tree will bear fruit – you’ll see.

And I guess that’s God’s faith in us. On a day when we come to give thanks for the fruits of the earth, he says to us: And these are the fruits I see in you, and expect in you. He knows what we’re capable of which is why he never gives up on us. At the end of the parable of the sower:

And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.

In this momentous week, with all its possibilities for divisiveness and rancour, this possibility of fruitfulness for good that we really are capable of is something truly to be thankful for. We can be thankful that the fruits of our history and our way of life made a referendum possible at all. Because it’s the struggles of our ancestors that put such a possibility into our hands. In many ways the Christian contribution to society has been to demand of each generation a better harvest, a better life, and for more than just the few or the rich or the powerful: Think of William Wilberforce and emancipation of slaves; Elizabeth Fry and prison reform; the Christian friendly societies which became the trades unions; more recently the civil rights movement in the USA (Martin Luther King and his “I have a dream!”) and  the struggle against apartheid, and so on and on through the generations.

The Church is called to scatter seeds of hope and justice in order to create a kingdom that looks more like the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

But before that great work can even begin, there is the harvest of your own heart to tend, and Paul knows exactly the fruits that’ll build up the Kingdom and bring us the fullness of life Jesus promises. The fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.

And to the Philippians he proposes a spiritual tending of the soul he guarantees leads to life: whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise. He says: plant your minds with these things and you will have what you long for more than anything else: the harvest of peace. God’s Peace. We’re to fill our minds with these things, and our speaking too, I would say.

At the conclusion of a debate easily capable of rousing thoughts and feelings almost the polar opposites of the virtues I’ve just mentioned, the Christian presence is so needed to nurture and to heal. Taking the larger view, we’re reminded that here we have no abiding city but we seek that city which is above. Christians are resident aliens always. In the midst of the earthly kingdoms we find ourselves in, our calling is to bear fruit, lots of it, all the fruits Paul names. This is what transforms the kingdoms of this world. Christian people are always hopeful for what God still has in store for us (so a referendum really should be a beginning, not an ending), and Christian people are thankful – come, ye thankful people, come – thankful for a bounty of freedoms, and institutions and good people of all faiths or none who are clearly passionate about seeking the best for our country; a bounty of wonderful things about our life together, and far too easily taken for granted.

Yesterday afternoon I climbed to the top of Traprain Law to try and clear my head of all the jangle of stuff from this last week. From the summit there was a 360 degree view of a least three counties, from the place where our ancient forebears kept watch and said their prayers, and trusted in the seasons returning with their fruitfulness and their gift of life. I shared this view of blue sky and blue sea and stunningly beautiful countryside as far as the eye can see with about a dozen wild ponies who stood around me shaking their shaggy manes out of their eyes and no doubt wondering what I was doing there. No thoughts of politics and all the human storm and stress for them, nor for the swallows who darted and danced in the blue sky over my head. And the words of the psalmist came to me as a gift, as I took it all in: The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the round world and they that dwell therein.

All things, and all of us, and all our hopes and dreams, and the fruits of our labours, and the fruits of the earth are held in God who gives not just all things, but his own very self. And as a sign and more than a sign of this he puts nothing less than himself into our hands today. The Bread of Life.  

So come, ye thankful people, come.

HOLY CROSS SUNDAY

14^th September 2014

“GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD”

Revd Andrew Bain

Readings:

Phil 2: 6-11 – Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...

John 3: 13-17 – God so loved the world...

A number of years ago there was a great stushie about Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ”, which majored on the horror of the Cross, the crucifixion itself and the anguish and pain of it all. I have to confess I deliberately didn’t go to see it. Partly because I haven’t forgiven Mel Gibson for “Braveheart”(that isn’t a Referendum comment, by the way), but more seriously because his approach seemed both way too much and not remotely enough.

I say “too much” because showing us all that horror down to every gory detail misses the point, and because the meaning of the Cross in fact transcends all that – it belongs to everyone. If the Cross is only about the three hour anguish of the Man of Galilee, then frankly in the scales of human suffering – when you think of the anguish of families of hostages held by Islamic State under threat of beheading, and the sufferings of refugees now so many across the Middle East that they’ve stopped even telling us how many, and the Ebola virus claiming countless lives, well how much can we say about three hours on a Cross?

I once saw the Mum of a boy struggling with leukemia interviewed between the hymns on Songs of Praise and she just told it like it was and said, “Don’t talk to me about the Cross, I’ve been watching my son suffer for years.” So being overfocused on those three hours both insults people’s pain and it sells them desperately short.

For God so loved the world… And he loves the world so much that, like a true parent if you like, he can take our anger, our crying out at the sheer unfairness of things. Christopher Nolan, the Irish author who lived with cerebral palsy and died at the age of forty-three, describes a moment where the young disabled boy, Joseph, through whom he tells his own life story, has a moment of terrible despair and he rails against God in the crucified Christ.

A friend has taken him into Church. “What,” said Matthew, “Do you want to see the crucifix, Joseph?” He wheeled him over and there hanging up on the wall was a lifesize Christ crucified to a huge black cross. His pallid limp body sagged windswept and dead. Crowned with thorns, his grey face was streaked by caked blood, his wonderful eyes were turned vacantly upwards, his head fell backwards and his veins were taut in his throat. But Joseph was not seeing the sadness of the spectacle that day, his boy’s heart was broken and he knew who to blame. The bright angry eyes of the rebellious boy looked up at the great crucifix and swinging his left arm in a grand arc he made the two-finger sign at the dead Christ. He told God what he thought of him. He was furious still.

For Joseph this self-assertion before God is part of his spiritual journey, part of his growing up in faith, as it needs to be for all of us. Joseph loves the God he sometimes hates and that’s ok, and in the Eucharist he meets the crucified God in a special way, just as he is. One of Joseph’s problems is opening his mouth to receive the host when his uncontrolled reflexes keep his jaws jammed shut. “Once, when Joseph was in difficulty, the priest came up with a bold idea of his own – Hi Joseph, what were you doing in the Church yesterday? Were you riflin’ the poor box?

Joseph was so surprised by the accusation that his mouth fell open in astonishment. The priest immediately returned to prayer as he placed communion on the boy’s tongue. Such were Fr Flynn’s schemes, such his empathy that the boy became more and more relaxed over the years.

And so you see Joseph, no matter all the challenges he faces relaxing more and more into who he is and who he is with God. Nolan writes: “Communion served to join the silent boy with the silent God, and into his masked ear Joseph poured his mental whisperings, begging blessings to be showered on his faithful friends.”

Just this week I finished a book which is the most joyful stimulating response to the all atheism that’s been so popular recently. Francis Spufford writes with passion and nowhere more so than when he describes what’s happening on the Cross. “The doors of Jesus’ heart are wedged open wide, and in rushes the whole pestilential flood, the vile and roiling tide of human cruelties and failures and secrets. Let me take that from you, he is saying. Give that to me instead. Let me carry it. Let me be to blame instead. I am big enough. I am wide enough. I am not what you were told. I am not your king or your judge. I am the Father who longs for every last one of his children. I am the friend who will never leave you. I am the light behind the darkness. I am the shining your shame cannot extinguish. I am the ghost of love in the torture chamber. I am change and hope. I am the refining fire. I am the door where you thought there was only a wall. I am the earth that drinks up the bloodstain. I am gift without cost. I am. I am. I am. Before the foundations of the world, I am.”

I love this image of Jesus opening his heart universe wide to accept everything, for all of us for all time. All those things we know about ourselves but can scarcely even name to ourselves, our fears for a world of mind-numbing brutality, and even in this week our hopes and aspirations and anxieties for our own country’s future.

Francis Spufford makes the point. Our God isn’t born into some realm of timeless myth like the Gods of the Norse or the Romans or the Greeks. Our God took flesh in the reign of Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria, when everyone had to be registered to be taxed (not a referendum, but a census); and he died on a Cross when Pontius Pilate was Procurator of Judea. Our God comes in real time, in the time of nations and peoples, in the time of their hopes and their griefs. He comes in Joseph’s real time, the real time of a boy trapped in a body that won’t do what he wants. He comes in your real time and mine. He comes. And for you and for me, for Syria and Iraq, for Ukraine and Scotland, for all times and all places with one message ever the same: God so loves the world. 

 “The Law of Love”

Pentecost 13 – 7 September 2014

                                                                                                                           Liz Gordon

Readings:

Romans 13:8-14 – Love for the day is near

Matthew 18:15-20 - A brother who sins against you

‘The commandments... are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbour as yourself” Love does no harm to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.’

In his letter to the Christians in Rome Paul is teaching about keeping the law. But whose law?  Well this isn’t a lesson in ‘how to be a model Roman citizen’. Nor is it a lesson in ‘how to keep the Jewish law’ although, as a once zealous Pharisee, Paul would have been well equipped to give advice on that. No Paul‘s talking about God’s law as revealed to him by the risen Jesus. This is the law of God’s kingdom, the kingdom of Heaven which begins in the here and now.

Paul reiterates what Jesus taught, i.e. that keeping God’s law is not about abiding by a list of rules and regulations or  ‘thou shalt nots’.  No it’s actually all about love.

I can see the attraction of rules and regulations. After all they help create order and ensure life runs smoothly and, if we keep them we can tick off all the boxes, give ourselves a pat on the back and claim the moral high ground. The Pharisees had taken rule keeping to a whole new dimension with hundreds of minor regulations to be observed and they certainly took the moral high ground. Remember how they criticized Jesus for healing a man on the Sabbath? The thing is they had missed the point. And Jesus had harsh words for them, likening them to whitewashed tombs - beautiful on the outside but inside full of death and decay.

God’s concerned with what‘s in our hearts.  In the words of the psalmist ‘O  Lord... you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings, the sacrifices of God are a broken  spirit, a broken and a contrite heart O God you will not despise.’  These words were written by David, after he had broken the commandments big-time by sleeping with Bathsheba and then arranging for her husband to be murdered. He realised that what God required from him wasn’t a religious ritual but a fundamental change of heart.

So what does it mean to love your neighbour as yourself? Isn’t it a bit vague and woolly compared to the clear no nonsense laws laid down in the Ten Commandments?  Well whatever words we might use to describe Paul, vague and woolly certainly don’t spring to my mind.

You see, Paul had experienced a fundamental change of his heart and he had become as passionate about this new interpretation of the law as he’d previously been about the keeping of rules as a good Pharisee.

Indeed his passionate belief in this law of love inspires one of the most eloquent passages in the whole of Scripture - one that’s frequently used at weddings, funerals and other special services. In chapter 13 of his first letter to the church in Corinth, he describes the qualities of love and claims its supremacy over all other virtues. And reading his words we realise that love is certainly not a soft option.  Let’s just remind ourselves of those qualities of love.

‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’

Imagine a society in which people lived by that rule of love. War, poverty, cruelty and neglect couldn’t survive in such a climate. But such love is a tough ask -much more demanding than attending church on Sundays and refraining from murder, theft and adultery. So how can we begin to love like this?

The apostle John writes ‘we love because He first loved us’. God not only loves us, he IS love. His love is unconditional. He loves us as we are. Sometimes our life experience gives us a different view of love. If we’ve been neglected or abused we may grow up feeling we’re unlovable. Even if we’ve had loving parents we may still have grown up to believe that we are loved for being good or being successful.

Accepting the truth that God loves us as we are and really taking that truth into our hearts can be a liberating experience. If we can see ourselves as loveable then we can begin to see others as loveable too. The more we allow God to love us the easier it’ll be to share the gift of his love with our neighbours.

Of course we know that neighbour in this context extends way beyond the people who live in our street and is used by Jesus to refer to the whole of humanity and to those of different creeds and beliefs to our own. 

Amidst all the horror of recent news stories I came across two inspiring examples of love for one’s neighbour.

The first is the nurse, William Pooley, aged just 29 who went off to work with the dying in a hospice in Sierra Leone. While he was out there, he volunteered to work with victims of Ebola and ended up contracting the virus himself. His boss, the director of the hospice, in a television interview, summed him up in these words ‘He’s truly compassionate he really loves people’.

Another example which I read about in The Times is the unnamed (for obvious reasons) Sunni Muslim woman who has been risking her life to take food to Iraqui Christian families, who are in hiding in Quaraqosh. For her the law of love transcends any other that might be imposed on her.

Paul tells us that, without love, our best actions are worthless. God wants to use us as agents of his love in a troubled world and he wants us Christians to so love each other that, as Jesus says, the world will know that we are his disciples. Keeping the law of love isn’t easy. However, it’s not an option. It’s a requirement.