​​

​​

​

​

25th May 2025

The Book of Job - keeping the faith and aiming upwards

The Book of Job, a poetical book of philosophical narrative, explores the problem of suffering and the relationship between God and humanity. It follows a righteous man named Job who experiences immense loss, including the death of his children and the onset of debilitating sores, while remaining faithful to God. His friends and wife offer various theories about why he suffers, prompting Job to question God's justice. Ultimately, Job's faith is tested, and he learns to trust God's wisdom even when his suffering seems inexplicable.

The book begins with a prologue that introduces Job as a prosperous and righteous man, There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil (Job 1:1). And he said: 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). The prologue is followed by a conversation in heaven where Satan challenges God's way of rewarding righteous individuals like Job.

Following this, God allows Satan to test Job's faith, leading to the loss of his livestock, servants, children, and ultimately, his own health.

Job’s wife and his friends are convinced that the troubles that befall him are due to the fact that, in some way, Job has sinned and is being punished. But Job counters this, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10).

Job then, during his immense suffering, questions God's justice, wrestling with God, while his friends continue to offer various explanations, some blaming him for his sins. But Job remains steadfast, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him (Job 13:15). It is thus the book continues with Job engaging in poetic dialogues and monologues, expressing his pain and questioning God's ways.

Despite the attempts of his wife and friends, and despite losing more than most of us can imagine, Job remains true to the Lord. God’s ways are beyond us all, we can never even begin to comprehend why things happen, we know so little in comparison to the boundless knowledge of God. As Job was told, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding (Job 38:4). This perhaps underlines arguments we all sometimes have with God. We are so embroiled in our own lives, this is all we can see. We lose the ‘bigger picture’ to use such a crass phrase for the unending manifestations and doings of God. God appeared to Job, not to explain his suffering, but to reveal his boundless power and wisdom. May we all bear this in mind.

The book concludes with God restoring Job's health, giving him twice as much property, and a long, prosperous life, demonstrating God's ultimate mercy and care, And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before (Job 42:10), he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys (Job 42:12).

This conclusion highlights themes of redemption and the faithfulness of God, and teaches us about the complexity of suffering, the importance of faith, and the sovereignty of God. It encourages believers to trust in God's wisdom and goodness, even in the face of inexplicable suffering.

It also, I put forward, encourages us to look for the good, rather than the bad. This message echoes our theme of ‘aiming upwards’ from late January. Many in our modern Western world, are committed to doing the very opposite, and appear to actively look for wrongdoing and darkness. But what about us?

Let us look at our church building. What do we see?

I would hope that we see beauty, perhaps commitment and dedication, a noble act of leaving something for the future. A place where many have, do, and will continue to come close to God. A positive outlook, we may say?

But many in this modern world, and I say modern because this is a relatively recent phenomenon, and is infiltrating our young, will see negativity. Was the stone and timber sustainably resourced? Were the labourers paid a decent wage and treated with respect? From where did the Brice families wealth come from? Do you see what I am getting at? Blood soaks everything if you look enough to find a problem.

So, should we continue to look at the good? Look at, and rejoice in, the good? I would say, yes. Like Job, like Abraham, like Moses, like so many before, we must be positive. This is not to say that bad things do not happen, of course they do, but rather to suggest that they are far outweighed by the positive.

This can be said of our nation, our heritage, our faith. Many will pull it apart. Many, again particularly among the young have a bizarre attitude that we should somehow be ashamed of our past, and therefore move ahead almost in embarrassment. I need not tell you how angry this makes me feel.

We heard a few weeks ago some dreadful passages from the Bible, we are not ignoring or reusing to face such things, but we are rather taking the Bible, taking our history, as a whole.

Condensed down, is the world good? If you look for goodness, beauty, truth, if you aim for goodness, beauty and truth, then you may not necessarily find them, but you will certainly make the world a better place, lifting both ourselves and those around us. If you think the opposite, the opposite will occur.

[mark on wall, up/down]

Similarly, we can never be perfect, only Jesus can attain such heights on earth, but in striving to follow His way, in aiming for His heights, we progress not just ourselves, but humanity. If we don’t aim for goodness, then how can we ever find it? Burn and destroy, or build, solve, repair, and move forward?

Mephistopheles, Goethe’s Luciferian spirit, credo, ‘everything that lives should be eradicated due to its insufficiency’ (paraphrase, Faust 1&2). The world is so flawed that the best outcome is eradication. Worryingly, Marx is said to have a fondness for this quote from Faust. Worrying because, in this revelation of

Mephistopheles, all that suffers should die, only then will suffering cease.

Utterly dreadful, but distressingly, parallels can be drawn to much modern thought.

Of course, suffering can be used for good. We all know how Jesus suffered in His last days on earth. Not only was this not in vain, but the exact opposite, it has given us two millennia of hope, may it continue to do so. Individuals have prospered, nations have been built, thanks to the suffering of Jesus. But there are now people willing, not just willing, but determined, to pull this down. We must resist.

This brings us to faith. Faith is not a hollow belief in some superstition or other, but something far deeper.

So what do we think?

We can believe that the world in its essence is good, as is the spirit of being, or we can forgo that and do as our selfish minds may tell us. This is the situation Job found himself in. His wife, his friends, pointed him (perhaps even rationally) towards the darkness. But instead he decided, despite all that had happened to him, to stay faithful to the Lord. The evidence even suggested that he should curse God. But no, he stood firm.

May we all have the strength to do the same.

We will never understand God’s ways, but we must always know, like Job, that God is good. The spirit that underlies being is good. The essence of aiming upwards is good.

Friends, in conclusion, let us never forget that the answer that we seek is dependent on the aim.

Amen.

 

18th May 2025

Stillness

Have you noticed the amount of noise in our lives? An onslaught of sound and visual interference. There are innumerable things vying for our attention. We are bombarded with imagery and noise; a multitude of television channels, radio, telephones, mobile telephones, magazines, advertising boards, signage, email, and the internet itself. Never before have we been subjected to so much information and noise. ‘Buy this!’, ‘Shop here!’, ‘Must see TV!’ all seem to be shouting at us, demanding our attention. Everything seems to be a demand. Now, now, now! At times this can appear too much for us.

Psalm 46:1 tells us that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. A refuge. When we think of a refuge we think of a quiet place, a safe haven from the noise and the battle. He is our strength, our power, the one from whom we derive the will to go on. The psalm continues, ‘Therefore we will not fear’. For, fear is useless. Fear is indicative of a lack of faith in God. How can you feel fear if you are in a safe haven? A refuge? So why then do we often find ourselves so stressed? We become embroiled in modern life. For many, hectic is the norm, there is no rest, no recouperation. Despite this, the Lord says we should not fear. The fear we feel today has less to do with a physical enemy surrounding our town and bringing siege to it with battering rams as alluded to in the psalm, but the anomalous fear of economic collapse and the search for material wealth; that someone is getting ahead of us at our expense, that we are missing out on something so important that we will never catch up to the rest of society unless we have that one thing. We fear the other; that the other person is taking what is ours and usurping our prerogatives. This is, for many, the basis for our unease. Material greed.

If only we could see the truth. We have nothing to fear if we rely on God. He is our collective strength and He allocated His power to all His children equally. We are all assured of His very present help in our trouble. To calm our fears the Lord gives us, toward the end of today’s psalm, a simple command. Be still and know that I am God! How wonderful that phrase is. He uses the same command over and over in the Bible. In Psalm 4:4 He tells us to Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Commune with your own heart, listen to yourself … listen to the voice of God within ourselves as He guides us. Be still. This command works. We remember that famous passage from Mark’s account of how Jesus used it on the storm in Mark 4:39 when he stood up in the boat and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still’. And when He did there was a great calm. Think of the power in that command. A raging storm was brought to a halt and the sea calmed to nothingness in an instant. Jesus was not overly loud or theatrical when He spoke, but He simply said, “Be still” and it was enough. It can be enough in our lives as well. The Lord is with us today, and gives us the same command. And as it worked on the storm, it will work on our lives. The wise psalmist knew this. Our Good News Bibles use the phrase Stop fighting, and know that I am God, the majority of translations simply state Be still, and know that I am God.  (Psalm 46:10). Be still and know that I am God.

Those of us above a certain age, which is practically everyone here, will remember the days before the Sunday Trading Act of 1994. Other than going to chapel or church, a Sunday pre- this date almost forced us to do less than normal. Sunday was a day of difference. A day of rest. Pre-computers, the internet and multiple television channels, we used our imagination for entertainment and we rested our minds and bodies. Nowadays there is little to no rest from the cloying business of modern life, especially for the young. This is a worry. I don’t think we realise what we are doing sometimes. Meditation and reflection has fallen out of style in the West since the Transcendental Meditation fad of the 1960’s, although in some circles is becoming popular again. But the Christian is always encouraged to reflect. The dictionary defines meditate as “to focus one’s thoughts on: reflect on or ponder over” and that is just what we should do. However difficult and stressful our lives are, and every one of us has experienced hardship, we must attempt to take time to be as one with God.

A few weeks ago, on Good Friday, we painted a picture of the very darkest of the dark. This is what Jesus was facing. What did He do? He didn’t rant and rave and scream of unfairness, but rather took Himself to the Garden of Gethsemane to be as one with the Father among nature. Surely we can learn from this? So let us try. Let us, when things are difficult, be warmed by the fellowship we have with each other and let us take time to be as one with God. Beauty can help with this. Nature, poetry, and, as we heard by listening to the movement from Peer Gynt that Sue played earlier, music, can all help. Anything to clear our minds of external influence and be still with the Lord.

One looks at the BBC website and social media and sees ‘specialist courses’ and ‘experts’ in ‘mindfulness’, and help in how to ‘find peace’. Many people will dismiss the Bible and listen to such things, but is it not simply ‘rebranding’ what is already written within? Self-help! This, friends, is the only self-help manual we need! For, as Christians we should focus on, and reflect on, God. Focus on God, and that will take the focus away from our fear. Perhaps we should all take time to sit and think. Take time to get away from the noise and shouts of daily life. Even if only for five minutes during a busy day, stop. Listen and commune with your own heart. Hear the voice of our Lord as He says, “Know I am God”. For He is our God. Our God of presence, omnipotence, wisdom, truthfulness, goodness, grace, love, fore-knowledge, righteousness, wrath, stillness. Everything. So, let us take time to accept, to be still and to listen. Listen, knowing that He will be there.

And in this stillness, may the peace, joy and love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all, Amen.

​

11th May 2025

The violent God of the Old Testament

Over the past weeks we have encouraged each other to listen to the voice of Jesus, to gain strength and courage from our Lord, but todays message is far broader. It perhaps encompasses everything. That is to say the logos. For, in our search for the truth, we have to look at the whole; to attempt to expand our minds perhaps into the unknown. The truth is found in Scripture, but our Bible runs from Genesis to Revelation. Within is extreme violence, the deepest joy, the darkest night, the brightest sunshine, clarity and confusion, fact and symbolism,… none exist on their own. Without dark there is no light. All combine to guide us to the truth.

And so to today’s key text from 1 Samuel. A testing passage, but far from the only one in the Old Testament. Mark my words. The story of the Israelites seems to be a continual cycle of goodness, fall, punishment, and redemption. And then there is the reference to the treatment of other nations. The Book of Joshua alone can read as and angry attack on all who oppose God. This darkness reaches a low point perhaps at the end of the Book of Judges. So how do we make sense of it all?

Before we start, and may we always bear this in mind, there is a danger always of reading passages, especially short passages, in isolation and without context. That said, without doubt the Old Testament contains some dreadful images. Why do we rarely use Psalm 137? Perhaps the final line puts us off,… Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! (Psalm 137:9). The running through of the Canaanites and Amalekites continues through several books, the Book of Joshua alone, as I said, can be seen as a blitzkrieg against nations. But, it is all in here (LIFT BIBLE), and if this is the word of God, let us not shy away. Let us instead wrestle with our discomfort.

And so to today’s key text, which is seemingly calling for genocide. Utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.. Not just soldiers, but non-combatants, not just non-combatants, but all even their animals. Obliteration. How do we interpret this? Well, there are perhaps a number of ways we can approach it.

Firstly, we can take it literally as the truth. This is difficult to accept, but it certainly is one way of looking at things. If any oppose God, wipe them out.

Secondly, as pointed out by Thomas Aquinas, God, being the creator, has a right to take life. Is it this we struggle with? Or is it the fact that He, in this passage, uses humans to do so? Is this worse, for example, than wiping whole nations out using plagues? Are human soldiers worse than microbes? The same number end up dead, after all.

Another argument would be that the passage is not literal, but rather exaggerated warfare rhetoric, written centuries later with the purpose of underlining the fact that the Israelites should have nothing to do with pagan influences. This may explain why Scripture sometimes gives two seemingly contrasting accounts of the same event. For example, in one case Joshua refers to ‘slaughter all’ whereas in Judges we read ‘tear down their idols and drive them from the land’. These are not the same by any means. Also, hyperbole may be at play, in the same way as we sometimes use it. I may say that hopefully Leicester City will slaughter Nottingham Forest this afternoon. Slaughter as a turn of phrase, although a somewhat crass one.

Some churches, and this is not new (Marcian in the second century proposed this) find a way around things by ignoring the Old Testament entirely and concentrating solely on the New. Accept the goodness of Christ without the darkness that has preceded. This I stand firmly against. I imagine you do too. For, as humans we are sinners, and if we are to learn from the past, we have to learn from the darkness, however unsavoury that may be.

Yet another explanation is that the Old Testament contains some ‘holding passages’, which may be seen as imperfect until a time when we reach a fullness in God, offered through Christ. The notion of ‘Verbum domine’ points to this.

But we are perhaps no nearer.

I, personally, perhaps read the Old Testament as ‘this is how it had to be’, but still with an ambiguity. We will never understand fully, we cannot, but we must at least attempt to learn something from it all.

This brings us to our complimentary reading today, the passage from Revelation 5. Our Christian story is not that of Jesus, the first century human, but rather that of God Himself, taking responsibility. God created the world, that was the only way it could happen, and on the cross He is bearing it all Himself. This is not comfortable, but the cross is not meant to be. Christ is a fulfilment. Yes, we have in the Old Testament the slaughter of Canaanite women, but at the foot of the cross stands Mary. A sword will pierce her soul. Can you picture the imagery? And as we move into Acts, we are again encouraged to pull on the armour of God, but with the literal swords of the Old Testament replaced with the sword of the Spirit. We need to open our minds to the whole. Perhaps one of the most rounded views was proposed by Origen of Alexandria, way back in the second century. For Origen said that the Bible has to be read as a whole, from the standpoint of the final book, John’s Revelation. Only then does it become whole. In the passage we heard earlier, from Revelation 5, the scroll stands for the whole Bible. It seems that no-one can unseal it. But there lies a little lamb, a lamb that appears to have been slain. He appears in honour and meekness. He alone can open the scrolls. The lamb, of course, is Christ crucified. Only through Him do we find the truth. We have to look through the standpoint of Christ crucified. For if we read the Bible in such a way that we see God as capricious and cruel, or in a way that encourages us to be violent, then ipso facto, by that very fact, we are misreading it. We have to, instead, read the whole Bible as a witness to the true God, from the standpoint of the lamb slain, though whose blood we are all saved. That is how we interpret the Bible. So let us pray to Him for guidance. For, in the words of Origen, He makes Himself known to those who, after doing all that their powers will allow, confess that they need help from Him.

May we be forever thankful to the lamb, and may we go forth and tell of His glories.

Amen.

 

4th May 2025

The road to Emmaus

I stand before you today on the third anniversary of my being called to ministry at this great church. As I enter my fourth year, I can say that the honour is greater than ever. We have had good times, and bad, but we stick together. We have each other, and we have Jesus.

Now, there are many texts that provide solid foundations for ministry, today’s text is one.

The passage from Luke begins with two disciples on their way back home to Emmaus. They have just left Jerusalem, and are walking back home. They are sad and confused. Sad because their hope died on a cross, and was buried in a tomb. Confused, though, because they have heard reports that the tomb was found empty by the women who went there, and that there were angels telling them that Jesus was alive. Although no one had yet seen Him. So, you can imagine their conversation as they walked back home that day.

And while they were talking about all these things, Jesus himself joined them but, we are told, their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. And what did Jesus do when He joined them on their journey? First, He listened to them. He asked them a simple, open-ended question, and then He listened to their answer. ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ He asked. Of course, Jesus knew what they were discussing. But He still wanted to listen to them. Jesus wants to know what is happening with all of us. In our own words. And so, in this story, Cleopas and his friend share what is in their hearts. Standing still, looking sad, they share their story. This reminds us, first of all, that the risen Jesus is walking with us through this life, even when we don’t recognize Him. But it also teaches us about how to share our faith with others. Because we can learn from Jesus. The best teacher. It is all in here.

Jesus teaches us that it all starts simply by joining someone on their journey: Walking with them. Talking to them. Listening to them. It starts there. To be present to them. Before we ever share our faith, we listen. As Jesus did.

When commencing ministry, I sought advice from many people. Two, Delia O’Halloran and Alan Argent, both gave the same advice in two simple words, ‘Be there’. Isn’t this what the Bible is telling us too in this passage?

After Jesus listened to Cleopas and his friend, He then opened the Bible. Not literally, as we do, but He began to interpret what Scripture had to say about His death and resurrection. As He spoke, their hearts burned. Their hearts burned with a fierce joy. Why? Because He helped them to see their story wrapped up in God’s story. And He helped them to understand that the cross was necessary. That everything Jesus did in His life and in His suffering was done out of love for us. And that it was all necessary to bring forgiveness, healing and hope to our sad, broken and sin-filled world. Oh how we wish the words of Jesus here were recorded! What a lesson that would have been. But even by hinting at what Jesus said, we can not only see our own lives, but can help others to see their lives through the lens of God’s grace and mercy. We can help them to better understand their place and purpose in this world, by helping them to see that they walk through this world with Jesus, who died for them, and is with them now. What a privilege it is to do this.

Now, it is also important to notice that Jesus does not just offer them those two disciples a pat on the back and a gesture of love. He also rebukes them for their lack of faith, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe,’ He says to them. Sometimes, in other words, when we look at our life through the lens of eternity, we don’t like what we see. We have wandered off the path. Or a friend has wandered off the path. Sometimes we need to hear, from our Lord or from a friend, a word of rebuke. Reminding us how foolish we are, and how slow of heart we can be to believe. And sometimes we might need to say that to another.

So, what is next? Well, Cleopas and his friend are nearing their home in Emmaus. Jesus walked ahead, as if He were going on. They still don’t know it is Jesus, but they urge him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’

So, let us think about that: Jesus doesn’t invite Himself into their home. He waits for an invitation. He teaches us to do that. And He does that for us. Jesus joins us on the journey without our asking, that’s true. But at some point, and maybe at a lot of points, He waits to be invited in. ‘Listen, I stand at the door, knocking,’ Jesus says in Revelation. ‘If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.’ Jesus comes to the doors of our hearts knocking, but He waits to be let in.

Now, once the disciples in Emmaus did invite Jesus in, they broke bread together. And this simple meal becomes holy. Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. And then, their eyes are opened, and they recognize him. In the breaking of the bread. To some, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, is the summit of the Christian life. It is arguably the most important thing that we as Christians do. We worship the living God. It is amazing, when you read the Old Testament, to see how much of it is dedicated to proper worship, and to the building of the temple, or the restoring of the temple. In the New Testament, we learn that Jesus is the temple; and that proper worship is all about gathering in Jesus’ name to do what we are doing today: To confess our sins, to hear God’s Word, to pray for our world, and then to bless and break the bread in remembrance of Him. And there really is nothing more important that we do than this. It may not always feel that way. But we trust that it is true. And we can pray that our eyes will be opened when we worship Jesus; and that we, like those disciples in Emmaus, will have Jesus made known to us in the breaking of the bread when we join in communion with Jesus shortly.

So let us never reduce the importance of faith and the ways in which Jesus reveals Himself to us, even when we are facing doubt and despair. He constantly encourages us to remain hopeful, even when we can't see Him clearly.

And let us not be too hard on ourselves for, as we know, sometimes the disciples themselves didn’t recognise Jesus. They knew Jesus as a person but were still often confused. But ultimately, they had faith.

So, do we realise and appreciate that Jesus is with us? Yes, we call out for Him when we are in need. Yes, we probably give thanks when things go well (although maybe not as much as we should). But ordinarily do we appreciate His presence? For He is with us.

So, may our eyes be opened, so that we can recognize Jesus in our midst. May our hearts burn with joy as we see our story wrapped up in His. And may we always be eager to share the joy of His resurrection and presence among us.

To the glory of God. Amen.