Epiphany

These are the readings we will reflect on tomorrow for Epiphany

Seeing the light
We can’t be sure there were three of them.
We can’t be sure they were men.
And they don’t seem to have been particularly wise,
stirring up a political storm, causing havoc in their wake and untold grief
at the slaughter of innocents.
Condemning the holy family
to life as refugees
is their gift about which we rarely speak
choosing to focus instead
on the gold, frankincense and myrrh.
And yet perhaps that gift of flight was as significant as any other
in determining the affinity
that God laid down
with suffering, oppressed humanity, unlocking the way
that all might see
that God was, and is,
one of us.

Flight to Egypt
As the Holy Family fled
from the backlash
of a power hungry ruler,
did they have time to reflect
on how the Son of God
was worshipped by lowly shepherds
who journeyed to the stable
just as they were
responding to good news
as only they could.
Abandoning for a moment
their mundane hillside task
to pay homage with all that they had
recognising instinctively
something wondrous
unfolding in their midst.
And yet the star gazers
with all their power and privilege
brought a whole caravan of trouble
stopping off en route
to alert an insecure king
to the possibility of threat,
lured by their heritage
to a royal courtyard
rather than a stable floor.
And if they did
were their reflections harsh
and resentful
blaming their predicament
on the crassness of those
unfamiliar with poverty
and with life at the margins?
Or did they recognise
that to worship the Messiah
was a gift extended to all?
Were their hearts open enough
to welcome the homage
that each brought
from all that they knew best?
To know that each and all
are invited and welcomed
and valued.
To know that each and all
are offered the opportunity
to worship
the Son of God.
In such knowledge is Epiphany.

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Think on these things

Philippians 4:8
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

This was part of the Lectionary reading on Sunday. Although we read it in church, our focus was more on the peace that passes all understanding in the verses before.
I've heard many of my social networking friends say over the past few days that they were taking a break from listening to network news coverage. Not because they don't care but because what they are hearing is simply too painful. There is a need to process and make space before any more darkness can be allowed in. Perhaps that is when this verse speaks anew to us. We can pepper the darkness with light. By so doing we dilute not our compassion but the power of that darkness.
Even in overwhelming tragedy, stories of pure love and light emerge. Giving thanks for those does not in any way diminish the tragedy but it does nurture and nourish our fragile souls. And it allows us to punch holes in the darkness and to be mindful that "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out.

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Joy that costs

Zephaniah 3:14-20
A Song of Joy
14 Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.
16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands grow weak.
17 The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
18 as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
19 I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
20 At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the Lord.
Philippians 4:4-8
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Rejoice in The Lord always! And again, I say Rejoice!
Someone asked me to read these words recently at a funeral service.
I wasn't sure...
But as I read them, I realised, yes, they are appropriate.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
While we may,often, feel nothing like rejoicing, the fact remains that God is with us.
And that, in every situation,God brings peace, as only God can, a peace that is beyond our comprehension, beyond even our imagining.
The kind of peace that only God can bring.
Rejoicing in the Lord does not necessitate false smiles and putting on our brave face.
It consists of the acknowledgement that God is near, always in our midst.
And, because of that, whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, we can rejoice in the accompaniment of God.
This Sunday is known as Gaudete Sunday.
The Sunday we light our pink candle.
The Sunday we focus on the JOY of Advent.
As the news unfolded on Friday of yet another massacre of children and their teachers and carers, this time in Connecticut, I wondered how churches could bring a message of joy today - joy - the focus of our Lectionary texts.
But let's listen again to that letter to the Philippians and see how it does speak even into the most painful of experiences:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
A word of assurance, a word of calm, a word of comfort, a word of peace and, even - a word of joy!
And our reading from the Old Testament prophet, Zephaniah focuses on joy too.
The prophet looks forward to a day when there will be rejoicing - outward and inward.
Rejoicing because the Lord is near and because the Lord has turned things on their head, defeated the enemy, gathered the people of God and brought them together in safety and in peace.
A time for which we hope.
A time which, in faith we anticipate.
That time is most clearly not yet just as it wasn't yet in the time of the prophet.
But it is a promise that will be fulfilled for the people of God.
And, in the meantime?....
God chooses a virgin to bear a son and to call him Jesus, for he will be the Saviour of the world.
In this season of Advent, we celebrate a light that came into the darkness.
A light that could not be extinguished.
A light that many, many times in human history has sputtered and flickered and fought for survival.
But has not been put out.
And we remember that light is at its most effective in times of darkness.
We can barely see the lights on the tree in our well lit sanctuary this morning.
They hardly show up in competition with all the other light.
But in the darkness of the midweek service, they come into their own.
I say again - Light is most effective in times of darkness.
This third Sunday in Advent, we are not invited into a joy that is shallow or fleeting.
We are invited, rather to experience the gentlest stirrings of a joy that is fragile yet lasting.
A joy that is borne out of pain.
Listen again to the words of Zephaniah:
17 The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
18 as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
19 I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
20 At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the Lord.
The promised restoration that the prophet preaches and the joyful response come after suffering and loss.
It is restoration following loss.
Rejoicing following despair.
Our call today is not to somehow experience joy at all costs.
But to experience joy that costs.
Joy that can only be felt when despair has been known.
Joy that can only be felt when pain has been a part of life.
Hope, peace, joy and love are the themes of Advent - symbolised by our Advent candles - hope,peace, joy and love - not emotions to be forced and indulged - but realities to be anticipated.
Promises of God and of the reign of God.
Advent is a time of looking ahead, not so that we can be all warm and fuzzy at Christmas.
But so that, in sharing the pain and despair of our world and the reality of our lives, we can know the longing for that joy that promises to bring healing and balm and restoration.
Of course, in that looking forward, we may well want to ask: How long O Lord?
But that, too, is a question born out of hope.
A question we are moved to ask because our hope is in the God who honours and fulfils promises.
A God who promises joy.
A God we trust, even when all the signs seem contrary.
A God who promises joy even today.
A God we trust to deliver promises, even when all the signs seem contrary.
And so, in the darkness of today's world, we CAN preach joy.
And see the candle of advent joy courageously piercing that darkness, refusing to be extinguished.
This Advent, may you know joy,hope, peace and light - the gifts of God for all God's people.
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Prepared and preparing

Malachi 3:1-4
The Coming Messenger
1 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; 3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Luke 3:1-6
The Proclamation of John the Baptist
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. ’”
At this time of year, there is always a debate among colleagues about allowing Christmas to overtake Advent.
Whether we should sing Advent hymns or Christmas Carols.
Whether our readings should focus on The Nativity or the Prophets.
For me, its always been important to take time to observe Advent so that we can be better ready to celebrate Christmas. To plough through all the strange readings of the Advent season as a way to prepare for the birth of Jesus- and to see in them again how awesome this child's birth really was - and is!
And so we focus on two prophets this morning.
Malachi and John the Baptist.
In Malachi, we have strange imagery of a refiners fire and fullers soap.
Both suggesting a complete change of character.
Changes that result in a marked difference.
We can all, I'm sure imagine the heat of a fire used for refining.
If we've not experienced it for ourselves I'm sure we've seen images of molten metal, impurities removed, being moulded into something else.
I had to google the fullers soap- and discovered that it was a heavy duty kind of bleaching agent used on sheepskin wool to render it suitable to be made into cloth.
Refining and washing - images of changes wrought to make things more useful.
The prophets, in Malachi's time AND in John the Baptist's were concerned with agitating for real change in their society.
Both lived in times when people were suffering under oppressive regimes.
But both are anxious to call the people to whom they preach to repentance.
Just because they are oppressed does not mean that they can be lax about observing the ways of God.
Just because they are exploited does not mean that they can exploit others.
Indeed it is even more important, the prophets seem to claim, that in tough times, the people are even more assiduous in following God and in doing all that that demands of them.
It is even more important that they are distinctive - distinguished by their practice of love and justice and by their walk with God.
Their lives should be lived in stark contrast from the lives around them.
So, when things get tough, it's not a case of relaxing our ways but of redoubling our efforts to ensure that those around can see the positive difference that following God makes.
Only by observing Advent can we properly consider these things and ask hard questions of our lives and begin to fully appreciate that The Nativity does not make everything alright but, in fact turns everything upside down.
Refining fire and Fullers soap - tough agents for a tough job - the kind of cleansing that still is needed today.
And so we come to Luke's gospel:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
It seems a long introduction to a reading: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius when Pontius Pilate... And so on.
Luke is very particular about placing things in their historical context.
When he recounts the birth of John the Baptist, he locates that in the days of King Herod of Judah.
When he begins to tell of the birth of Jesus, he locates that in the reign of the Emperor Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
Why?
Because Luke sees the events he recounts as every bit as important as the political events of the day.
He sees both Jesus and John the Baptist as bearing as great an import as Emperors and Kings and Governors.
John the Baptist - a way out guy in an out of the way place.
Yet God chose him to herald a brave new world.
In many ways Gods tactics have changed little over the years.
Still God chooses the least likely people to share the good news.
People like you and I.
In our homes, our schools, our places of work, the places we hang out and have coffee, the places we work out or relax - in all of those places, God chooses us to continue to herald the reign of God.
In all of those places God calls us to be distinctive.
Whatever is happening around us.
However much pressure we are under.
God calls us to live with values that are often contrary to all that goes on around us.
Counter cultural.
God calls us to pit ourselves against the system, however futile that might seem, however insignificant we might feel.
God calls us and empowers us to make a real difference.
Whether that difference is as simple as doing Advent before Christmas or whether it is reaching out to our neighbour, God calls us to make the effort to contribute to growing Gods kingdom wherever we find ourselves.
And so...
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the second, in the wake of an anticipated Royal Baby, during the government of Prime Minister, David Cameron, we who gather here in Castlehill Church today, are called to be heralds of good news.
We are called to stand up, wherever we find ourselves this week, to believe that God equips us to make a difference in the world, beginning where we are.
In our place and time God calls us to be messengers - to point to that alternative kingdom, to be people of peace and justice and hope.
As folk all around us become caught up in the Christmas rush, we are called to be witnesses to the quiet advent of God, entering the world as a vulnerable baby, confounding kings and rulers, standing up to injustice, heralding change, not by violence but by the gentle practice of love.
Rooted firmly where we are this Advent, our mission is to stand up for all that the Christmas baby brought to the manger, stand up for those whose lives he came to change, stand up as messenger of God, fulfilling our advent tasks on our journey to Christmas.
God does not deem us as too insignificant or too out of the way.
God places a spotlight on us today and calls us into that light to be witnesses to and heralds of the Kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God.

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Reason to be hopeful

Jeremiah 33:14-16
The Righteous Branch and the Covenant with David
14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
Luke 21:25-36
The Coming of the Son of Man
25 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
The Lesson of the Fig Tree
29 Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Exhortation to Watch
34 “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
I LOVE the Advent readings!
They are so dramatic.
Full of foreboding, full,of menace, even threat.
It's just as well the first reading this morning, from Jeremiah spoke of hope.
Hope and promise.
The days are surely coming when I will fulfil the promise...
It's important to have those words of hope and promise ringing in our ears when we come to the gospel.
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world..
I can't help wondering, though, whether those words have actually lost their effect on us today.
The thought of terrible things coming upon the world.
We've already seen so many awful things, that in many ways, there's little that surprises us or shocks us.
Conflict in Afghanistan, in Israel and Palestine.
Refugees trudging along desolate landscapes to find shelter in camps seething with humanity, rife with disease.
The homeless, the hungry, those trapped in the grip of poverty.
We've been witness to the suffering of so many of God's children.
And we've heard the warnings of worse to come:
Of the ravaging of the earth.
Of Global warming.
Of the spread of bacteria that can't be controlled with medicine currently available to us.
In many ways we are well acquainted with horror.
So perhaps we don't fear the end of the world in quite the same way that the early Christians did.
But we can and do get worn down by all that goes on in our world.
By all the places where there are few signs of hope, by all the people who seem to lurch from one crisis to another, whose expectations are so low that they have stopped hoping for things to get better.
This foreboding reading becomes for us, not so much fanciful but all too real.
And often, our way of dealing with such awful reality is to put our heads down and plough on regardless.
No wonder the great British phrase: keep calm... so appeals.
Keep calm and carry on...
That's the way we deal with so much of life, with the things we can control and with the things that we can't.
Keep calm and carry on.
It's almost as though we believe that keeping a low profile will somehow lend us immunity from all that harms and threatens our tenacious hold on security.
Acknowledging threat or crisis allows it to become real.
We cope by ignoring the signs that are all around us.
And yet the gospel urges us to stay vigilant.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life"
Be on guard the gospel exhorts.
We are encouraged not to be weighed down by the awful signs that are all around us.
Not to seek anaesthetisation through drink or drugs or other mind numbing solutions.
Not to become so inured to all the signs that we expect nothing else but catastrophe.
But to be on guard.
Our gospel today is counter intuitive.
Goes completely against the grain.
Shakes us out of our default mode.
"Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
At this stage of the 21st century, we might be forgiven for being a little sceptical of those words.
If those words are true, they have been an awful long time in coming to fruition.
And it's hard to keep on hoping for something that seems just as unlikely now as it did to the world 2000 years ago.
Living in hope demolishes all the coping mechanisms we have erected around ourselves, barriers to protect us from the harshness of the world we live in.
And yet the gospel says: Stand up and raise your heads.
Jesus uses a parable to get his message across.
He points to the fig tree.
Fig trees seem to feature throughout scripture, often serving as barometers of prosperity and faithfulness.
Fig trees don't appear out of nowhere.
They take some cultivation.
And they don't bear fruit easily but only after tending and nurture and the passage of time.
They need the space and the patience to be allowed to develop.
The confidence that the wait will be worthwhile.
So it is with the way of God.
God's sense of timing is certainly not ours.

Teilhard de Chardin, a French writer, early last century, expressed it like this:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end without delay,
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made
by passing through some stages of instability......
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually;
let them grow, let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own goodwill)
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of your believing
that His hand is leading you, and of your accepting
the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense
and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919 (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 57.

Trust in the slow work of God
Much easier said than done.

One of my colleagues proclaimed this week: "I'm glad that I'm in a profession that forces us to preach about hope."
That's a pretty profound statement.
We ARE FORCED to preach hope.
Even when all the signs around us point elsewhere.
Even when it seems there is little ground or cause for hope.
We are forced to preach it.
Because the gospel is a gospel of hope.
"Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
The signs all around us, when we have the courage to lift our heads and look, are pretty grim.
And yet we are bound by our faith to be people who have hope.
Hope in the slow work of God.

That is our task this Advent.
To live as people who hope.
To spread that hope.
To invite others to join us in being hopeful in spite of all the evidence that might make us otherwise.
God is already among us.
And, in this season of Advent when we get ready to celebrate that fact again, we lift our heads high, knowing that, against all the odds, we have reason to be hopeful.
Thanks be to God.



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The king of love

Revelation 1:4-8
John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Look! He is coming with the clouds;every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

In addition to all the questions that we have gleaned and mulled over from Marks gospel, today we might consider another question: What kind of king?
The answer to that question lies in the many discoveries we have made about Jesus as we have pondered all the other questions raised by the gospel over the last few weeks.
What makes us clean?
The things inside of you.
What must I do?
Love God with all your heart, mind and soul.
Where can I sit?
In the lowliest place.
Who is the greatest?
The one who is servant of all.
Which is the most important commandment.
To love.
Every question we've probed brings us face to face with a character who confounds expectation and who calls us to be different too.
The one that we encounter this morning in our reading from Revelation as the Alpha and the Omega - the beginning and the end.
Christ the king:
A suffering king.
A serving king.
A king who stoops down to look in our eyes and tell us that we are loved.
Last year in Advent we decorated a Chrismon tree - a tree on which the decorations, in white and gold, all symbolised Jesus - from symbols of his baptism, to his life with the disciples, to his death on a cross.
Each decoration told a story.
About Jesus.
About love.
During the season of Lent, that tree was fashioned into a cross and we journeyed with Jesus through death to resurrection.
We have journeyed with Jesus through another year in the church but before we move once again into Advent, we pause to encounter the one who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, who was and is and is to come.
A king - but not as we know it.
In our town centres there are already signs of Christmas.
Lights are switched on, Santa has arrived.
Christmas trees have appeared in windows.
Christmas music fills the air.
But this one Sunday, in church, before we too become even more caught up in it, we pause to remind ourselves of the king whose birth we will celebrate.
The king who pours out his love in baptism.
The king who served others as he journeyed to the cross.
The king whose compassion embraced all whom he met on the way.
The king who still holds out love for each of us today.
Whether we are already caught up in the Christmas rush.
Or whether we're holding off until the last minute.
The king of love squats beside us, trying to catch our eye, trying to distract us from our need to do and inviting us simply to be.
The king of love who tells us - you are enough.
The king of love who proclaims - I love you just as you are.
And so, before we move into Advent, the church's season of preparation, let us today encounter love.
And, as we have celebrated that love in baptism, acknowledging that we love because first God loved us, may we celebrate too that love for our adult selves.
It is not only in the cuteness and innocence of infancy that Christ offers us love but in our youth and adulthood and later years - God still holds out love and repeats again: I love you just as you are.
Even though Advent is coming.
Even though we may feel we have so many preparations to make to allow us to celebrate Christmas.
Christ the king tells us again: I love you whether you're ready or not.
Today, as pressure mounts on us to get caught up in the rush, to conform to tradition, to cave in to buying gifts to prove our love, God whispers into this space - you are enough. I love you just as you are.
Lets be sure and hear that whisper and capture that promise while we still can today.
So that we can move into Advent, secure in the knowledge of Gods love for us, content that we are enough, confident that we can live in the love of God today and always.

For the little baby,
Dependant on others for survival,
God holds out love
For the child just beginning to encounter independence
God holds out love
For the teenager already rebelling
God holds out love
For the adolescent full of angst and confusion
God holds out love
For the adult shouldering weighty responsibility
God holds out love
For the middle aged striving to get it right
God holds out love
For the elderly fearful of once again becoming dependent
God holds out love
The king of love stoops down to offer Love
that holds all the promise of life everlasting.

Thanks be to God.

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Counting the cost

Mark 12:38-44
38 As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! 40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

I had the opportunity this week to discuss todays gospel with folk who are training for ministry.
They had heard this passage about the widow's mite used in various ways by preachers.
Mainly as an exhortation for us who have plenty to give more to the church.
Or as an example of sacrificial love, and that being compared to the kind of love that God has for us.
But we often take the widows mite part out of the context of the verses that go beforehand.
This Remembrance Sunday, the context of this story about the widows mite becomes very poignant.
Listen again to the description of the Temple Authorities in the verses that precede the story of the widow:

38 As he taught, Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! 40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

The widows of the day were reliant on the Temple Authorities to allocate their resources for living. And that's why they were so poor. Because those with the power took more than they needed, devouring widows houses, and left little for those who were dependant on their charity.
In spite of that, the widow still strived to pay her dues to the temple.
She chose to break the cycle of injustice and corruption.
She chose to do what was right even in the face of exploitation.
She wasn't put off by institutional wrongs - she looked beyond that to offer to God all that she had.
This Remembrance Sunday, it seems, we witness the same kind of corruption and are faced with the same kind of dilemma.
Those who have given themselves in war and have returned with injuries seen or unseen.
How do we care for them?
How do we honour the sacrifice they have made - and continue to make.
And those who have not returned.
How do we support their dependants in a life they had not imagined, without their loved ones to share?
How can we ask them to make such sacrifice when, in reality, the institutions that demand such sacrifice are failing miserably to find alternatives to war and, it could be argued, have even stopped trying.
News coverage this week carried pictures of Prime Minister David Cameron on a Middle East tour.
Proudly wearing a poppy, he was in the Middle East to sell fighter planes that the UK no longer needs as well as to win other defence contracts for the UK.
Our UK economy needs a boost - but through the sale of Arms?
The same coverage also saw the Prime Minister touring a refugee camp in Jordan that houses 36000 men, women and children who are fleeing Syria.
Mr Cameron pledged a further 12 million pounds in aid, bringing the total relief Britain is injecting there to 50 million pounds.
A total that pales into insignificance when compared to the 3 billion pounds Arms Deals he was also trying to broker.
Our government speaks of wanting to encourage democracy while at the same time selling arms to oppressive authoritarian regimes.
This kind of bartering displays a shocking disrespect for human rights of those who have no voice, of those we should be protecting - the widowed and the vulnerable.
Libya, Egypt and Bahrain launched their recent violent crackdowns with UK supplied weapons.
We have to question our governments commitment to peace and democracy in the Middle East when boosting the UK economy takes priority over other concerns.

Dwight D. Eisenhower once said;
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of labourers, the genius of scientists, the hope of the children.

It's easy, however to criticise our government, and there is much to question there.
But what about ourselves?
How do we honour the sacrifice of those whose lives have been given in defence of our nation?
How do we honour and support those who have returned from war changed forever?
Are we paying those sacrifices cheap lip service?
Or are we committing ourselves to making a difference.
Are we committing ourselves to peace to ensure that we don't keep on asking for more sacrifice, more lives ruined?
We wear our poppies with pride.
Are we prepared to wear them also with commitment?
The commitment to hardship that will be necessary if we want our economy to rely less on Arms Deals and more on brokering peace and on continuing to support families blown apart by the ravages of war.
In preaching on this gospel text this morning, I'm asking, not that we be more like the widow, giving her all but, rather, that we notice the irony of the widow being forced to pay tax to a corrupt institution - an institution charged with protecting her rights that chose to exploit her.
I'm asking that, in noticing that injustice this morning, we will also open our eyes to the injustice that is perpetrated to our service personnel and our veterans in this country every day.
That those who are being asked to give, being asked to pay a terrible price, are not being supported as our government finds new battles to fight and barters more human lives in boosting our economy.
It's a huge, messy, complicated wrangle with no easy fixes.
But, if wearing our poppies today is to be in any way meaningful, it will involve us recognising the corruptness of our institutions today and it will involve us, with our eyes wide open, entering that fray to make a difference for peace.
It is for us, today, to question the costs that we still demand from those who can least afford it.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus called to attention those on the margins of society, those who had previously gone unnoticed, the poor, the blind, the lame, the beggars, the lepers, military personnel and widows.
Those whom society looked down on or simply ignored.
It is these that Jesus brings into focus.
It is in these people that Jesus demonstrates the Kingdom of God.
What is the Kingdom of God?
It is the time or the place or the people in whom Gods will is accomplished.
The time or the place or the people in whom we see the face of Christ.
It is the time and the place and the people to whom God constantly calls us back.
In every decision we make, our over riding concern should be - are we establishing by our thoughts or commitment or action the Kingdom of God?
Are we promoting the face of Christ above all else?
We wear our poppies today to honour those who have fallen in war and those who continue to pay the price of war.
We wear our poppies to establish the Kingdom of God and to see the face of Christ in all those we honour today.
Those who have sacrificed much.
And, from our abundance, we commit ourselves to ensuring that that sacrifice is not made any more difficult.
We commit ourselves to sharing the cost.
The cost of peace.
We are all too aware of the cost of war.
But Peace costs too.
And, unless we are willing to commit ourselves, sacrificially to that cost, our nation will continue to sacrifice lives for war, not peace.
There is a sense of futility in our gospel story this morning - it doesn't appear such good news.
A widow giving her all to a corrupt institution, an institution that fails miserably to care for her as charged.
But she gives anyway.
And Jesus commends her giving.
Jesus commends her giving while condemning the system.
Such is the strange conundrum in which we find ourselves today.
Recognising how flawed and inadequate are our moves toward peace, recognising how flawed and inadequate are our institutions charged with finding peaceful solutions to conflict, charged with reducing the cost of sacrifice.
In all of our hurt and outrage and disillusionment and,often, sense of defeat, yet we honour those who continue to sacrifice.
Our military personnel and their families who make their offerings.
All those who have served.
And those who continue to serve.
We salute them.
And we take up the challenge to bear the cost that must be borne so that the sacrifice is not theirs alone.
Jesus did not undervalue the widow's gift and its cost.
And neither should we.
But we look beyond that gift to determine what we can do to challenge the institutions that continue to demand such sacrifice.
In that work, will our poppies be worn with pride.
In that work will the Kingdom of God reign and the face of Christ be seen.
For the glory of God.
Amen


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