The gospel according to Rabbie

Celebrating the bard's birthday:
Sunday 25th January 2009

Reading: Psalm 8
Mark 1 v 14-20

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Just what is it that keeps the myth of Robert Burns alive?
What is it that turns his followers into a worldwide cult perpetuating the wisdom he penned in a very short life some 250 years later?
I’d like to suggest it is not so much the man – it is the message. A timeless message that needs to be told again and again.
An ability to see things for a certain day and age but seeing, in fact, things that speak to every day and age.
A social gospel if you like - that needs preached time and time again.
Robert Burns, who, if you can believe his victorian and somewhat puritan biographers, lived a colourful life spoke into situations that were familiar then and are all too familiar now.
Just one of the reasons the bard’s work has survived and continues to be revered all over the world is its incisive critique of culture and particularly of those who sat in judgement of others and set themselves up as superior to the rest.
O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,
Sae pious and sae holy
Yeve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neebours fauts and folly:
Whase life is like a wee-gaun mill,
Supplied wi’ store o’ water:
The heapet happer’s ebbing still,
An’ still the clap plays clapper

Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared
And shudder at the niffer
But cast a moment’s fair regard
What makes the mighty differ?
Discount what scant occasion gave;
That purity ye pride in;
And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave )
Your better art o’ hidin.
From Burns’ Address to the unco guid, or the rigidly righteous.
The folk Burns poked fun at on a good day – or slandered on a bad day are still around, still making the same judgements, still pitching themselves as superior beings – and still propping up the kirk!
What keeps the memory of Robert Burns alive is the timeless observation of the ills – and sometimes the good – in the world around him, ills and good that are still very present in this day and age.
2,000 years ago, Jesus addressed the ills of the society surrounding him and called for people to change – to change their ways and, in so doing, to change the world.
And the struggle that Burns had in his day with the hierarchy of the kirk seems little different to the struggle Jesus had with the keepers of the faith in his day.
There was hypocrisy and injustice. There was a self righteousness and superiority in those who held power. They didn’t practice the things that they preached.
That’s why, when Jesus sought folk to become his disciples, he didn’t look in the synagogue, he looked on the beach.
He didn’t look for folk who thought they were good enough – he dragged along with him those who would never have considered themselves willling or able to spread the good news.
The keepers of the faith were failing in their task, so Jesus called up some new defenders, taught them a different way – a way of love and not judgement.

In our gospel reading this morning we find Jesus recruiting not among the righteous or the so-called holy but among fishermen.
The pharisees who were entrusted with upholding God’s law had turned that law into something harsh and impossible, had turned the God of love in to something remote and inaccessible.
Jesus wanted to reclaim faith for ordinary people.
In a Cotter’s Saturday night, we are presented with one facet of the gospel according to Rabbie Burns: every man is called to be a defender of the faith, starting with his own kith and kin.
The gospel is a message to be preached, not from lofty pulpits but in our own homes and hearths.
“The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o’er, wi’ patriarchal grace, The big ha’ Bible, ance his father’s pride: … He wales a portion with judicious care; And “Let us worship God” he says with solemn air. They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; … Then kneeling down to heaven’s eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays.”
Burns proclaims the humble cotter not only the father of his children and the husband of his wife. He is also “the saint”, the one who leads his family in prayer and the reading of the Scriptures.
Burns clearly believed in the priesthood of all believers: that every believer is a minister, that we are all called to preach and to live out the gospel in our everyday lives, not least in our own homes.
Faith and life are one. The ‘cotter’, as much as the ‘minister’, is called to lead others to God.
Burns had a gift for reading situations and not beating about the bush in interpreting and speaking into those situations. He spoke as he found and was not frightened of causing offence in so doing.
And Burns upset the social elite of his day in the same way that Jesus caused offence and outrage among those who considered themselves the social elite in Galilee.
And the response was much the same: “the common people heard Jesus gladly”; the Pharisees made it their aim “to destroy Him”.
Following in the footsteps of Jesus, Robert Burns spoke of ordinary life, of the life he and the folk around him endured every day:
The harshness and beauty of nature:
“O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us!”
Its incredible that those words that have been encapsualted into common speak the world o’er come from Burns’ poem To a Louse, penned when he saw a louse on the bonnet of a lady worshipping in church.
It’s a real gift to be able to take the most ordinary things of everyday and turn them into parables and, in those proclaim the wisdom of God.
But that’s a gift that you and I are encouraged to pursue every day.
To look at our life with the mirror of God.
To consider the most ordinary happenings and see God speaking to us through them.
And don’t we need the assurance today that God does speak to us in daily life.
That in all the beauty around us, in all the wonder of creations as proclaimed in the Psalm we read, that God is present.
But that God is present too in the harshness of life – in our worries about jobs and income, in our fears for the future, in the loss we feel because our loved ones are no longer with us or are out of reach.
In all that, too, we need the assurance that God is present.
Burns waxed eloquent on the fears that plagued humans:
In To A Mouse:
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, 

An' weary winter comin fast, 

An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 
Thou thought to dwell, 

Till crash! the cruel coulter past 
Out thro' thy cell.


That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! 

Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, 
But house or hald, 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 
An' cranreuch cauld.


But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain: 

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
Gang aft agley, 

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 
For promis'd joy!


Still thou are blest, compared wi' me! 

The present only toucheth thee: 

But och! I backward cast my e'e, 
On prospects drear! 

An' forward, tho' I canna see, 
I guess an' fear!
Burns was well aware of the fragility and sometimes the fickleness of life and even in that epic tale Tam O Shanter, Burns manages to interlace beautiful poetry with his social comment and warning:
But pleasures are like poppies spread, 

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; 

Or like the snow falls in the river, 

A moment white--then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place; 

Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm.-- 

Nae man can tether time or tide;

It seems he couldn’t separate his faith and life.
And that’s as it should be.
Its when we try to separate the one from the other that we run into difficulty and we become like the subjects of much of his poetry: folk who preach one thing and practice another.
I started off by saying that what keeps the Burns movement alive is not so much the man but the message and we’ve now come full circle – to a great extent, the man was the message. He spoke of things he knew, injustice he had witnessed, temptations to which he had succumbed, hardships he had endured.
That’s why in the conclusion of his address to the unco good, he cautions us thus:
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman
Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it.
Who made the heart, ‘tis he alone
Decidedly can try us:
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance, lets be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.

Through all of life, its ups and its many downs Robert Burns never seemed to lose sight of the overarching love and power of God embracing all:
And, though he had reason to question – and in fact did, though he often ranted on the unfairness of life, in the Epistle to the Rev. John M’Math, Burns said this:

“God knows, I’m no the thing I should be,
Nor am I even the thing I could be,
But twenty times I rather would be
An atheist clean,
Than under gospel colours hid be
Just for a screen.”

Burns knew and proclaimed the truth that the gospel must be for all of us anything but a screen.
The gospel is a call to action.
Not something we can hide behind but something that drives us forward to make a difference by living out the love of God wherever we are.

Can we hear that call to action in this place and this time?
Can we, upstanding members of the kirk be seen, not as hypocrites or defenders of the faith, but folk who practice what they preach?
That social gospel needs to be heard in our world today.
But it more than anything needs to be lived.
And today, we are being called to take up the challenge.
A challenge not perhaps to wax eloquent, though there’s nothing wrong in that, but a challenge to follow Jesus wherever he leads us as did those fishermen, following Jesus into the unknown.
Our world is filled with the unknown today.
And you and I are called to bring the assurance of God’s love and God’s power.
You and I are called to kindle the flame of hope.
In this time of uncertainty, hope is what we cling to – not some impossible hope, but hope in the God of all who is not remote but intimately cares for you and for me.
So let’s leave Robert Burns for a time today, planting words of hope in our hearts from his poem: a man’s a man.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bearthe gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

Come and See

Reading: 1 Samuel 3 v 1-10
John 1 v 43-51

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Its 6 months now since I came to work at Castlehill. Feels like so much longer. Take that whatever way you like! J
I’m sure by now you’ll have cottoned on to some of my eccentricities, some of my habits, even some of the lingo that I routinely use. Most of us have wee things that distinguish us in one way or another, ways that we like to do things, ways that we like to put things – things that have become, for us ,routines that we’ve fallen into.
But just because things have become a habit doesn’t mean that they are any the less important.
One of the things I like to say every week as I welcome you to worship is that I hope you’ll take away your order of service – with all the intimations on it – that you’ll read it and leave it handy, that you’ll join in what you can and that you’ll invite your neighbour to come along to our fellowship too.
Do you do that?
When you get home, do you pin your order of service on the fridge or leave it on the coffee table as a reminder of the service and as a reminder of all the things you can join in during the week? All the things to which you can invite your neighbour?
Or do you perhaps just find it the next time you wear that coat or that jacket to church?
Or is yours left in the pew, done with before you even leave the building?
In our gospel this morning, Philip is called by Jesus to follow him. So what does he do?
He goes and finds Nathanael and tells him about Jesus of Nazareth.
Nathanael would have done well in the church of Scotland – a true cynic.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
And Philip replies: Come and see.
The most natural invitation.
Come and see.
When is the last time that we invited our neighbour to: Come and see.
When was the last time we encouraged them to check out where we’re going and what we do together?
Come and see.
One of the measures of our relationship with God is the state of our relationship with our neighbour.
The two are inseparable.
I heard a story this wek, from the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, David Lunan.
He was at a dinner with Alex Salmond and Alex said to him: you know when I went to university my mother hoped that I would become a Church of Scotland minister. (she obviously didn’t have very high hopes for her sonJ) when he became a politician she said: I always knew with you it was too much left and right and not enough up and down.
In our Christian life, the up and down must be matched by the left and right. Our relationship with God must be reflected in our relationship with our neighbour.
Come and see.
One of the simplest invitations but one of the most profound.
When we are not ashamed of what we do but want our neighbour to join in - we must have something worth sharing.
The conference I took part in at the beginning of the week had as its theme “Homecoming”.
The Scottish Government has ear marked this year 2009, as a year of homecoming – a year when that great Scottish diaspora will be welcomed home – a year when all the stops will be pulled out to welcome back the exiles.
It coincides with the 250th anniversary year of the birth of Robert Burns – more on that next week as you’ll see in the intimations.
The Scottish Government is launching all sorts of initiatives and programmes to encourage all those who feel they have an affinity with Scotland to visit this year and there’s no reason why the church should not be involved in that welcome. Indeed it is vital that the church IS involved. Spirituality is an integral part of Scotland’s growth and history.
But how can we welcome the stranger if we cannot welcome our neighbour?
Come and see.
The church is being called to rediscover its ministry of hospitality.
Its not enough to welcome folk back to a cold building where we sing dirges with dour faces. And that, I’m sure will be the memory that many folk have of the kirk – or the story that’s been handed on to them even if they have never experienced it themselves.
You and I know that things have changed drastically.
THEY HAVE, HAVEN’T THEY!
But how will others know if we don’t encourage them to Come and see?
Come and see – inviting others to be a part of the story.
Philip wasn’t put off by Nathanael’s cynicism. Can anything good come out of Nazareth.
Nathanael had obviously swallowed the party line, was prepared to be unimpressed.
But did that deter Philip from persisting in his invitation?
From challenging him to look again?
Let’s face it – the history of the church and the miserable encounters tat many folk have had through the years is not something to boast about.
Folk might well take quite a bit of coaxing.
So we shouldn’t be knocked back by an initial reluctance.
That’s to be expected.
But what we do have to do is ensure that those who have had negative experiences with the church will experience something very different when they respond to our invitation this time around.
When Philip urged Nathanael to come and see – he wanted him to check out for himself who Jesus was.
Jesus didn’t fulfil expectations. He didn’t fit the pattern. He wasn’t what people wanted.
He didn’t entertain, he challenged – and he demanded a response.
Folk were surprised by Jesus – he was unpredictable.
And so is life.
Often, we find answers, we find help in the very last places we would think of looking.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth.
Well, not if you don’t look there.
Not if you don’t have any good expectations.
We believe that in the fellowship of the church, folk can be pleasantly surprised.
But how do we get folk to even think of looking to the church for help – to looking to us to be welcoming.
Not just smilingly welcome when they cross the threshold but offering real hospitality in a world that is suspicious of strangers.
Henri Nouwen wrote this:
‘The very world we live in is hostile. So many people are busy, lonely, estranged from friends, family, God. The world is so full of competition, aggression, fear, and suspicion. In this type of setting we as followers of Jesus have an obligation to “offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.”
An open and hospitable space.
Nouwen defines hospitality as “creation of free space where a stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer space where change can take place.”
Hospitality welcomes the stranger – as they are. Hospitality does not demand conformity but encourages everyone to be who they are and discover the God who loves them just as they are.

Would you be happy to invite your neighbour to Come and see?
If not – why not?
Are there things you experience here that you’ll put up with but wouldn’t expect your neighbour to put up with.
Do something about it.
Are things not exciting enough around here to invite others along?
Change them.
Start up some new, exciting things.
The halls are buzzing – but there’s still some spare capacity.
Is this your personal “me” time that you don’t want your neighbours involved in?
What about the left and the right as well as the up and the down relationships?
Our relationship with God and our relationship with our neighbour is inseparable.
And remember:
Inviting your neighbour to Come and see doesn’t make you responsible for them. Its not your responsibility to ensure that they have a good time. but it is your responsibility to ensure that they are given the opportunity to be challenged and changed by God.
The gospel story goes on:
When Philip introduced Nathanael to Jesus, Jesus told Nathanael that he knew him already – he’d met him under the fig tree.
That provoked Nathanael to respond: Rabbi, You are the Son of God.
And what was Jesus’ response to that>
YOU AINT SEEN NOTHING YET!
Nathanael was convicted by Jesus’ knowledge of him.
But that was only the beginning.
Journeying along with Jesus was going to show up a whole lot more miraculous things.
Jesus does that.
All we are being asked to do is invite our neighbour to “Come and see”
And leave the rest to God.
So take your service sheet home today.
Check out all that is on offer – in worship and in play.
Invite your neighbour to join you.
And leave the rest to God.
YOU AINT SEEN NOTHING YET.
AMEN

Beloved of God

Reading: Genesis 1 v 1-4
Mark 1 v 1-11

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It won’t be long until we see the inauguration of the new president in the United States.
I remember sitting up until I simply couldn’t stay awake any longer watching the election back in November.
And then being woken at 4am by some friends over there who just had to share the incredible news that Obama had been elected.
Their celebrations however were tinged, as were those of many others, by the acknowledgement that his was an uphill struggle.
That the issues he was going to face with his country and with the rest of the world were momentous.
And since then there has been no let up or reprieve.
Indeed things have spiralled downwards.
Global recession and war continue to escalate.
Its hard to see how one man can even begin to address injustice and oppression and poverty and war and yet folks, not just in America but all over the world wait with hope and expectation.
Recently I’ve been putting together some ideas for officebearers of the sorts of issues that we in Castlehill church might address over the next few months.
Suggestions of things we might tackle in order to serve this community.
Ways that we can bring some hope and the love of God to the community in which we find ourselves today.
But its so easy in the church, as in the world, to see the task as too great – and the folk called to serve as not up to the task.
Its like we make our excuses for failure before we even begin.
But if the advent of the Christ child that we have just celebrated is to mean anything to us then it must bring us hope.
God sent his son into the most unlikely place, into the midst of the most unlikely circumstances into the lives of folk who had given up hope.
The story of God’s people throughout the ages is a story of hope dawning when it seemed there was no future. God has always turned up in the seemingly God forsaken places.
So who are we to limit God and not to expect God to turn up here – to transform us and what we do together into things of great potential?
Who are we to say- it will never work, not here, not now.
If there is one phrase we can borrow from the president elect, I’d like to borrow the title of one of his books – The audacity of hope.
A book written to herald Obama’s election campaign, the future president calls us, against the odds to go on hoping – hoping that things can change for the better.
Hope based not on blind optimism, wishing the evils away but hope based on the changes that history has brought and that can be wrought again by folk getting together to work for change.

And surely in the church our hope can afford to be audacious – because we have the Holy spirit working among us, fanning the flames of our efforts, making a difference to us and to our world.
And we have a God who tells each of us – you are my child. With you I am pleased.
As we await the new American president, the jokes about George Bush continue to rumble on.
I’m sure it will be a long time before those fade out.
Like recently when George Bush was visiting a nursing home, he stopped one of the elderly residents in the corridor and asked him: Do you know who I am?
To which the resident replied: No I don’t but if you ask that kind nurse up there, I’m sure she’ll remind you.

This morning, as we read of Jesus’ baptism, we are reminded of who we are – children of God, with whom God is pleased.
And more than that – we are beloved children of God.
Dare we believe that?
That is where it starts.
That’s where the difference is made.
When we can each believe ourselves to be beloved children of God.
Because knowing ourselves loved – knowing that God is pleased with us makes all the difference to how we live and act in the world.
It sounds so easy.
And yet virtually all of life conspires to cover up that fact that we are beloved children of God.
From our earliest years we are told we are not good enough, we don’t measure up, we need to try harder.
In God’s eyes, we are beloved.
We are already good enough.
Before we amount to anything in the eyes of the world, we are loved by God.
The curious thing is that for us as human beings, that kind of love, that kind of acceptance scares us.
Its something we find great difficulty in coping with.
We get so used to having to earn love, having to earn our place in society that to accept that God loves us just because we exist is really difficult.
The status that God places on us is hard for us to deal with.
Marianne Williamson sums this up well when she says:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Powerful beyond measure is what God makes us telling us that we are loved.
Powerful beyond measure.
That, we cannot handle.
For all the confidence we might display in our private and professional worlds of our everyday, to feel empowered by the status God bestows on us as beloved children is something we resist.
Suddenly we become shy. We become modest.
We refuse to own that God rates us.
In baptism, our inauguration into service in the church, God claims us as beloved.
Our response to that, in time, is to serve.
To serve with the same extravagance that God shares with us.
An extravagance that won’t be held back, that won’t be beaten down.
An extravagance that has the audacity to hope.
Hope that lives will be changed and that communities will be transformed and that the spirit of God will work through us to bring about God’s kingdom where war and poverty and injustice and neglect are things of the past.
History is full of stories of love triumphing over evil.
Our past tells us that poverty can be overcome , that the needy can be helped that those struggling under great burdens can be liberated.
All that is within our power.
And when we begin to think, not here, not now, lets stop and ask, why not?
Lets’ cultivate the audacity of hope.
Lets accept ourselves as God accepts us – beloved children, with whom God is pleased.
As children of God, we are brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous. God says so. And if we won’t believe that for ourselves then we cannot believe it for others.
If we’re prepared to accept it of ourselves then we must also accept it of others – be able to look around and see this place and the places of our daily lives populated by children of God – beloved children.
And when that small voice of doubt creeps in, with a persistence built up through years of believing otherwise, lets have the audacity of hope that each of us, a beloved child of God has a part to play in changing this congregation, this community, in changing the world for the glory of God.
Amen

Mary, pondering

This is just one of the readings we're using this week as we reflect on Mary. It comes from the Wild Goose Resource Group, Iona Community, Scotland.

What is this seed which God has planted,

unasked, uncompromised, unseen?

Unknown to everyone but angels this gift has been.
And who am I to be the mother,

to give my womb at heaven’s behest,

to let my body be the hospice

and God the guest?
Oh, what a risk in such a nation,

in such a place, at such a time,

to come to people in transition and yet in prime.
What if the baby I embody

should enter life deformed or strange,

unable to be known as normal,

to thrive or change?
What if the world, for spite, ignores him,

and friends keep back and parents scorn,

and every fear of every woman in me is born?
Still, I will want and love and hold him,

his cry attend, his smile applaud.

I’ll mother him as any mortal,

and just like God.

Servant King

Reading: John 18 v 33-37

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.

Have you ever been offered M and S tokens if you click on to Persimmon homes’ website and encourage all your friends to do likewise.
Or been asked to send on a chain email to keep an animated figure walking around the world to raise funds for breast cancer?
The internet – a bane and a blessing.
And a source of some wonderful hoaxes.
Perhaps this is a story you have come across:
Many years ago, when Hitler's forces occupied Denmark, the order came that all Jews in Denmark were to identify themselves by wearing armbands with yellow stars of David.
The Danes had seen the extermination of Jews in other countries and guessed that this was the first step in that process in their countries.
The King did not defy the orders. He had every Jew wear the star and he himself wore the Star of David. He told his people that he expected every loyal Dane to do the same. The King said, "We are all Danes. One Danish person is the same as the next." He wore his yellow star when going into Copenhagen every day in order to encourage his people. The King of Denmark identified with his people, even to the point of putting his own life on the line.

It's a wonderful story with a powerful point. BUT - it isn't true. It's an urban myth. It's been around for a long time and told thousands of times over.
With the internet urban myths are proliferated throughout the world. Its hard these days to know what is true and what is not.
But it’s a shame this story isn’t true because it’s such a powerful story.
What an image for a king, identifying with his people. "Are you the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked Jesus. "Is that your idea," Jesus said to him, "or did others talk to you about me?"

That's how urban myths begin.

People talking about what other people have said.
Jesus was essentially crucified on gossip and rumour.

An urban myth had developed around his ministry that he was going to lead a revolt against Rome, a myth that grew out of the longing of people of that time for a warrior to come among them and resolve their years of oppression.

In his conversation with Pilate, Jesus finally does imply that he is a king. "But my kingdom," he explains, "is not of this world."

Not of this world. That's what it takes.

That's what it takes to find a King who identifies with his people.

A King of heaven, a King of kings from some place other than this world.
Pilate cannot grasp this concept of kingship.
Pilate is a politician – and politics is based on compromise.
A member of government was the victim of a road traffic accident – he died at the scene.

He arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance. "Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter.

"Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem.

We seldom see politicians, so we’re not sure what to do with you."
"No problem, just let me in," says the man.
"Well, I’d like to but I have orders from higher up.
What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."
"Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the member of parliament.
"I’m sorry but we have our rules."
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course.
In the distance is an impressive clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends, most of them politicians as well.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress.
They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of their constituents. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes.
They are having such a good time that, before he realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.
The elevator goes up and up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting.
Now it’s time to visit heaven.
So, 24 hours pass with the MSP joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
"Well then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."
The politician reflects for a minute, then answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
Now the doors of the elevator open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.
He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up trash and putting it in black bags. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.
"I don’t understand," stammers the politician. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a club house, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time.
Now all there is a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable.
What happened?"
The devil looks at him, smiles and says, "Yesterday you were attending a campaign event. Today you voted us into power!"
There’s a huge difference between what is promised and what is delivered.
Any of you who have gone for job interviews recently will know that much of the selection process is based on psychometric testing and on presentation skills which, in actual fact reveal little about how effective someone will actually be in a job.
There are plenty of folk who can talk a good job but, when it comes to day to day management, simply don’t have what it takes.
What you see isn’t always what you get.
Jesus told Pilate: I came to speak about the truth.
And Pilate asked: what is truth?
This Sunday we celebrate Christ the King Sunday.
It’s the last Sunday of the Christian year – next week is advent when we see the Christian cycle begin all over again as we prepare to welcome the baby born to save the world – to save the world not by force but by love.
A king not of this world.
The end of a year is a good time for taking stock.
A good time for looking back and thinking: what have we achieved this year?
Stocktaking is important in our church life.
What have we achieved?
What have we done?
How have we moved on, or changed, or developed?
Is there any change?
Or are we stuck in the past?
Are the empty promises of politicians or the romantic notions of urban myths more important to us than the truths revealed by a servant king?
We claim that we want to see a better world, a fairer world, a world where all God’s people are loved and valued, where there is no war, no hunger, no refugees.
That is our dream for the world.
Yet we assert our rights over our own territory.
We claim we want to make a difference as Christ’s followers, sharing love, serving others, Christ’s hands and feet in our world.
Yet we are in dispute with our neighbour and don’t acknowledge the folk across the road from us.
We embrace an ideal.
Just don’t ask us to compromise our principles in seeing that ideal become reality.
Today, it would be easy, in our stocktaking, to focus on what the church is doing – or not doing.
But that is to deny our part in that lack of progress.
Its always easier to blame a body than to admit to our own culpability.
We are the church in this place.
If we won’t tear our eyes away from the past.
If we won’t resolve to engage with the demands of the gospel, to serve our neighbour whoever that might be, whatever that might take we might as well be perpetuating myths.
But the truth that Jesus died for, the kingdom that he serves, is not one stuck in the past, and impotent in this present age.
It’s a living, kicking kingdom that requires living kicking servants still.
The question is: do we want to serve or do we want to be seen?
Do we want to follow the truth or the myth?
Baptism this morning – and every time we celebrate it reminds us of our interview for discipleship.
Everyone of us is interviewed, in baptism, as a potential disciple for Christ.
And, guess what, we all pass the interview.
Signalling that different sort of work to which we are called.
A work that doesn’t demand that we be fully grown, accomplished and polished with the hottest of presentation skills.
But a work that demands that we offer ourselves as we are, at whatever age or stage of our journey – to be part of Christ’s body in his world today.
We are reminded in baptism that each of us does have much to offer, from the cuteness of babyhood to grey haired maturity and at all stages in between.
Part of the body, called and equipped to serve.
This last Sunday of the Christian year, when we celebrate Christ the servant king, I invite you to take stock:
Is it Christ’s kingdom we’ve been engaged in building?
Or have we been pre occupied with jostling for position and missed out on real opportunities to serve?
Do we ally ourselves with the king who is not of this world?
Or have we fashioned that king into something more palatable for our purposes.
Truth or myth?
What do we prefer?
As we look forward to the start of another Christian year, I invite you to make your resolutions:
To look again at the model of kingship that Jesus lived out for us.
A king who identifies with the lowliest of his subjects, who hangs out with the homeless and the destitute, with the anxious and the weary.
A king who’s right there for each of us.
Lets look at each other and see Christ, shining from each other’s eyes.
Lets all resolve to be live and kicking servants who can’t be relegated to the past but who are very much a part of the present and future building of God’s kingdom in this place.
Live and kicking servants who know the amazing love of God and who, changed by that love have the power to transform the world around us.
Servants who can see Christ in each other and who can be Christ to the community and the world around us.
Servants of the servant king.
Preach the gospel at all times – only if absolutely necessary, use words.
To the glory of God.
Amen

Saints alive

Sunday 2nd November 2008

Readings: Joshua 3 v 7-17
Matthew 23 v 1-12


In our Old Testament reading this morning, there is a sense of anticipation and excitement.
The Israelites, who have been wandering in the wilderness for the best part of 40 years are, it seems, finally going to enter the promised land.
Its taken an incredibly long time.
And many of them died on the journey.
But now, it seems, that after all their wanderings since their release from Egypt, they are finally going to occupy the land that was promised to them all that time ago.
I always want to be contrary when I read of God’s people and the promised land in the Old Testament.
I always want to ask – what about the folk who already lived there?
Didn’t they have any rights?
How is it OK for the people of God to stake a claim that seems to take precedence over other claims?
Biblical Imperialism, for me, raises more questions than it answers.
But the fact is that wherever God’s people went, they cleared out the people who were there before them.
Whatever the rights and wrongs, our reading tells us this morning of one major obstacle standing between the people and the land they’ve been promised. And that’s the river Jordan.
One more river to cross.
Our story tells us that God wanted to perform a miracle so that people would realise that their new leader Joshua was just as great a leader as Moses had been before him.
But for me, in this story, its not so much the miracle that God performed that stands out.
Its not so much that God caused the river to stop flowing so that all the people could get safely across.
The miracle was that, first of all, someone stepped into the river.
Its all very well believing that God can perform miracles.
Its another to step into the river and see if it really happens.
But, before God could perform a miracle, someone had to put their feet in the water.
Someone had to believe enough to get their feet wet.
It wasn’t enough to say I believe.
There had to be a stepping out in faith.
God can do anything.
But God’s people must be prepared to step out in faith to follow and to be a part of God’s miracles.
And not just in ancient times.
Today, God still relies on you and I being prepared to put our toe in the water.
Being prepared to take risks.
Being prepared to live in faith and not just talk about it.

Yesterday, as I was driving up the coast, I heard an interesting wee snippet on the car radio.
GP4S – a company formed by the merger of Group 4 security and Securicor had noticed that there was a higher than usual circulation of fifty pound notes. There was an assumption that folk were hoarding larger denomination notes against the predicted recession.
GP4Ss take on this trend was that either folk are keeping their money out of banks OR they are gathering cash rather than reverting to plastic.
So which is it?
Are you stashing your cash under the mattress? Or are you cutting up your credit cards? The interesting thing was that, at the end of this report, they did admit that their evidence was scant, based on a barely perceptible change. And yet, speculation was rife. It seems that financial analysts are determined to read all they can into the current trends in the credit crunch and are desperate to have their predictions of the downward spiral into global recession confirmed.
Doom and gloom is the only trend that makes news.
The journey I was making when I heard this news was to Gourock where I was facilitating a conference for church office bearers. The key note speaker there was talking about all the doom and gloom statistics we like to promote in the church- declining membership roles, dire financial straits, crisis of belief – all the things I’m sure you’ve heard on not a few occasions. Then he pointed out the peaks in the kirk’s history, the times when all these worrying markers actually peaked rather than troughed. Times of war, and then post war. Times of recession, times of national depression. It seemed to be that in times of need, folk turned to the kirk for support and guidance.
Do you think that would hold true for today?
Do you think that today global crisis would encourage folk to turn to the church for guidance and support?
While I am not pessimistic about the church and its potential for good or in the ability of folks like you and I to reach out with love for others, I do have qualms about the public perception of the kirk.
And I know that, for many folk, the church is the last place they’d turn.
Why?
Well, simply because, too often, the church, the folk who make up the body of Christ, have failed to practice what they preach.
You and I have talked the talk but not walked the walk.
And that’s precisely what we see Jesus railing against in our gospel this morning.
Folk who know the law inside out, folk who ensure that that law is upheld but folk who simply don’t practice what they preach.
Listen to them, says Jesus, because he doesn’t want folk to think that they can disrespect them and disregard their teaching which is sound.
Listen to them, says Jesus, but don’t live as they do.
And then Jesus tells us a bit about how we should live:
The greatest among you must be your servant.
And that brings us right back to youth church this morning.
We are all called to be saints.
To do those simple, everyday things that make a difference for others.
To be servants.
One of the many amusing things in the Americam presidential election campaign has been the way “joe the plumber” keeps getting cited. If you’ve been following the extensive coverage, you’ll have heard of joe the plumber, a real life metaphor for the ordinary guy in the street.
It seems to be that if you can make a difference for Joe the plumber, then you’re on to a winner.
This week, that has resounded for me as the same kind of line Jesus took.
If you want to be great, you must serve.
We are called to make a difference to the every day folk around us.
We are called to serve.
We are called to be saints.
We might think that that is not going to change the world.
But can you imagine the difference there would be in our world if we all lived up to our calling.
If we all served each other – the saints of God.
If WE practised what we preached, folk would flock to the kirk.
The church would, once again, be an institution that served the world around it, by serving God and by living up to its calling to be a community of saints.
The church would then be able to make a difference in the world.
We are loved by God.
God calls us saints.
Lets go then and put our toe in the water, step out in faith and serve each other. For the glory of God.
Amen.

Struggling with the text

Readings: Philippians 2 v 1-11
Matthew 21 v 23-32

Who do you think you are?
That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading this morning.
The religious worthies are feeling put out by this upstart, Jesus of Nazareth and they are taunting him: Just who do you think you are?
It seems to be a rite of passage.
The minute anyone shows any talent or skill, the minute they start to get good at what they do, there will always be those standing on the sidelines, ready to watch them fall or, failing that, to bring them down themselves.
I thought that that was a peculiarly Scottish thing.
The “I kent his faither” bit that runs through Scottish psyche and seems to say that no one can ever rise above their station in life – or, at least, excellence cannot be celebrated.
I mean if we go around praising folk, won’t they simply get big headed?

I wonder how my American friends will tackle this week’s text.
Because my experience of friends and of the church in America is of communities that celebrate success. People are praised for what they do, celebrated for what they are.
That’s not to say that there aren’t the usual gripes and politics that afflict all communities, not least religious ones, but I have certainly observed a more positive and affirming attitude, something that builds up and doesn’t tear down.
In fact, a couple of years ago, when I took some extended study leave in the states, our American hosts actually commented on how we Scots seemed to always be putting each other down, how we made light of each others achievements.

And you know this morning exactly what I mean by that, don’t you.
You know how often we slag each other off – not seeing it as cruel, but just a way of keeping folks’ feet on the ground.
And even if we don’t make light of others’ achievements, we almost certainly make light of our own.
Someone offers us a compliment and, instead of accepting it graciously, we laugh it off or say it was nothing, anything other than bask in praise or affirmation.

So this gospel today, might fit well with our Scottish theology.
Jesus has performed miracles, he has exhibited his fine knowledge of Scriptures, he has told very poignant stories.
The religious leaders want to know – Just who does he think he is?

Well, I’ve really had my fill of Scottish theology this week.
I spent two days at the beginning of the week at a national church conference – looking at how church structures might be reformed. Exciting stuff.
I always feel a bit out of things at these gatherings. There are so many learned folk with lots to say and lots of irreconcilable opinions.
In my day to day work in the church, I usually manage to get by by putting my head down and getting on with the huge task that is parish ministry – one relationship at a time.
But somehow, at gatherings such as the one I was at last week, I feel like a fish out of water, as if I operate on a different planet from others in the church.
Thankfully, at this conference, there were a few other folk who were able to laugh at themselves and we had some good debate in the late night after conference session.
But I always come away thinking – does it really matter?
Will all our talking and deliberating really make any difference in the building of God’s kingdom?
Does it matter what we call ourselves – or how many committees we gather around us? If we rewrite the rules and redraw the boundaries, will the kingdom really be any better served?
It all seems so much like whistling in the wind, making priorities of things that restrict us rather than free us to serve.

Jesus was surrounded by people who knew all the rules and whose sole task in life was to ensure that those rules were adhered to, even at the expense of helping one another.
And so, they call into question Jesus authority.
There is a story about a group of military leaders who succeeded in building a super computer that was able to solve any problem--large or small, strategic or tactical. These military leaders assembled in front of the new machine for a demonstration. The engineer conducting the demonstration instructed these officers to feed a difficult tactical problem into it. The military leaders proceeded to describe a hypothetical situation to the computer and then asked the pivotal question: attack or retreat? This enormous super computer hummed away for an hour and then printed out its one-word answer . . . YES.The generals looked at each other, somewhat stupefied. Finally one of them submits a second request to the computer: YES WHAT? Instantly the computer responded: YES, SIR.

The Pharisees, like these generals, were accustomed to people saying "Yes, sir" to them. They were the religious authorities. They were used to being treated as such. But there was a new teacher in town, a teacher who was threatening their authority. The Pharisees feared Jesus' popularity, his ability to heal and to perform miracles. In their eyes, Jesus was preaching heresy and leading people away from the religious traditions that defined the Jews. The Pharisees wanted to expose him as a fraud.

It was in this context that Jesus told a story about a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, "Son, go and work today in the vineyard."The boy immediately said, "No." Later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to his other son and said the same thing. This one answered, "O.K." but he never got out to the vineyard. Then Jesus asked a simple question: "Which of the two did what his father wanted?""The first," they answered.Then Jesus delivered the punch line, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him." That really was some punch line, and the Pharisees were the ones who were punched.
I’m sure Jesus heard some gasps and "How dare he!" from the crowd that day. It was unthinkable to compare the righteous Pharisees to blatant sinners like the tax-collectors and prostitutes. Didn't he know that the Pharisees were too good to be lumped together with the likes of them? Didn't he know that only those people with the right "credentials," so to speak, would make it into the Kingdom of God? What was Jesus talking about and why was he running down the best people in town?Jesus was teaching that day about what types of people are acceptable to stand before God. And he passes over the religious professionals in favour of the worst of sinners.

Would we accept that kind of teaching any differently today?
Can we accept that our self-righteousness doesn't earn us any points with God? That we cannot earn God's love? That God loves us even when we fail?God's arms are open to everyone, from every race and nation and tribe and tongue, from every walk of life, from every circumstance. We're really missing something extraordinary when we try to put boundaries on God's grace.In the Pharisees minds, God only had regard for folk who were perfect, unblemished, without defect. They had reduced God to the level of human beings who honour only the beautiful people. The Pharisees had no concept of God's grace--God's love for all God's children, even those who were tarnished.Jesus knew that the way to bring hurting people into the kingdom of God was only , is only, by loving and accepting them. Jesus did that by living out God's amazing, startling, absurd grace.
And that’s how we have to live.We have to be full of grace too. We have to value all people as worthy of acceptance.
We have to live as Jesus lived.In God’s kingdom, I’m sure there will be a few righteous souls. But these few righteous are out numbered by the thousands, no, millions of people, like you and I, who have not been all they might have been, or should have been, but who have been healed by the love and acceptance of Jesus.

Our passage in Philippians gives us some idea of how to go about that:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And, being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.
I have to confess today to falling far short of that high calling – a calling to humility, a calling to service.
As well as the trauma of a church conference this week, I also had the trauma of being harshly judged by a colleague – a colleague who barely knows me but who is angry at something in which I am involved. A colleague who sent me an email telling me just what he thinks of me. An email that, still when I read it makes me feel as though I have been punched in the stomach. I’m sure you all know that feeling. Haven’t we all been there at some point?
Now I know that the Christian response to this, are the very things I have been preaching about not just this week but for the last few weeks – the Christian response is to be gracious and to be forgiving. To be humble and to keep on loving. But, aside from the hurt, I feel angry at being so harshly dealt with. I feel righteous indignation at being so misjudged. I, too want to ask: Just who does he think he is?
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.
Let none of us under estimate how difficult that is.
Nor let us underestimate how important it is.
We cannot stand on our past good deeds or our wonderful displays of Christian living.
Jesus didn’t cry privelege. He was obedient, even to death on a cross.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.
I don’t particularly like this passage this week. I’m failing miserably in living up to it.
But, like it or not – that is the gospel for today.
May God be with us as by the grace of God we learn to live the gospel and practise having the mind of Christ.
It is to that that all of us are called.
For the glory of God

Amen