REV: Hugh Perry

Readings

Ruth 3: 1-5, 4 13-17 

Both Ruth the Moabite and her Jewish mother-in-law Naomi are widows and have returned to Naomi’s homeland from Moab.  However, without a direct male relative they are destitute and have survived by Ruth gleaning in a field belonging to their nearest living relative Boaz. But now the harvest time is coming to an end, so Naomi thinks of a cunning plan for their ongoing survival.  It might be Naomi’s plan but it is Ruth who has to implement it, but she understands their situation so agrees.  It is after all a cunning plan that has been carried out time and time again in cultures where women are completely dependent on men for their survival. 

Maurice Andrew notes that ‘On the one hand, these are ‘woman’s wiles’; on the other hand, they were what women were able to do in order to survive in a time of deprivation.’ [1]

When Boaz, tired from work, partying and maybe even a little too much to drink Ruth slips into bed with him and when he wakes up Ruth explains that he will now have to marry her.  Boaz seems open to that suggestion but first makes sure that he will get access to her property before he agrees.  When the wheeling and dealing at the town gate is complete Ruth and Boaz are married and in due course Ruth has a son, Obed who became the father of Jesse, who was the father of David.

On the birth of the son Ruth becomes redundant and Obed is known as the son of Naomi.  The foreign woman Ruth appears to only be valued for her ability to bear children, but the reality is that she is still the mother of kings.

Mark 12: 38- 44

We now move to the fate of widows in Jesus’ time, which was not much of an improvement on the times of Ruth and Naomi.  Jesus says ‘Beware of the Scribes’.  The Scribes were the experts in the law and Jesus points out how they like to make a big show of their piety but one of their revenue streams was exploiting widows.  As experts in the law, they would manage widow’s estates, because women without a husband or son could not manage their inheritance but the scribes would use up all the inheritance in fees.  That is a practice not unheard of in twenty-first century Aotearoa New Zealand although we could add fund managers, finance companies and con-artists to lawyers in that same context. 

The first section about lawyers and fund managers puts the second section about the widow in the temple in context.  Jesus is criticising the temple’s flat tax system which for the widow is everything she has, but for the wealthy in the society, for instance the scribes who put on a great show of piety, the temple tax is inconsequential. 

Sermon

The book of Ruth is another of the books of the Hebrew Scripture that give so much more meaning if they are read right through like a novel rather than just the short passages the lectionary gives us. 

However, if you read last week’s reading from the opening verses of Ruth you would have learned about the vulnerability of widows in biblical times.  Then todays reading gives us two extracts from the conclusion of the book. 

We miss out the classic ‘gleaning’ episode which highlights the do-it-yourself social security system of the time.  Law proscribed that landless widows were entitled to take the grain that was missed during the harvest.  That reminds me of Inge Woolf’s description of her family arriving in England as refugees from Nazi Germany.  They were undesirable aliens without work permits, and at one time Inge’s mother collected offcuts from clothing factories and made them into children’s duffle coats.  The factory gleanings were then sold at a street stall to provide income for the family.[2]

Returning to Ruth and Naomi, Maurice Andrew points out that, although they were able to redeem their situation through ‘woman’s wiles’, we need to remember just how desperate the situation was.[3]  

Certainly they were not living in the middle of the London Blitz with the patriarch of the family serving in the Czech Unit of the British Army. 

But, there is a definite hint of the patriarchal system that controls women’s lives in these closing passages we read this morning. 

The son of Boaz and Ruth is regarded as a son for Naomi even though the child has no biological connection to Naomi, she is simply Ruth’s mother-in-law. 

The human constructed custom of levirate marriage, where a brother is obliged to marry the widow of his dead brother, seems to have been extended to the cousin Boaz.  The first son of levirate marriage is considered the son of the deceased brother, not the biological father.  Therefore, Obed is understood as Naomi’s grandchild and both Boaz and Ruth are simply surrogate parents. 

The benefits for the women are that Naomi has security in the community through her grandson and Ruth has security through her husband.

The spiritual context that challenges human law is added to the story by the biblical writer’s irony.  The writer provides a forward running genealogy that notes that Obed became the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. 

So, despite the strange human constructed levirate rules designed to keep control of patriarchal property, the non-Jewish Moabite woman becomes the great grandmother of Israel’s idealized king.  That is a message to all peoples who seek racial purity and is worth remembering as population growth, changing economics and global warming moves people around the globe. 

Despite human laws, customs and practices that are designed to manipulate people’s lives, God’s will prevails.  We are all the family of all humanity.  Today’s reading from Ruth reinforces the Exodus call to freedom that continually perverts even the most structured of rule-based slavery, giving liberation to desperate widows and adding DNA from a despised race to the most powerful of patriarchal families in Israel’s history. 

That divine indifference to human racial sensibility is later reinforced as David’s successor, Solomon, is the son of Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah the Hittite.  Furthermore. Bathsheba used ‘womanly wiles’ to first become queen and then queen mother.

It is this hint of divine oversight and concern for widows as marginalised people that features in our Gospel reading.  Jesus first criticizes the scribes for exploiting widows and then contrasts the donation of those who contribute out of their wealth to the widow who is forced to give all that she has. 

The scribes were experts in the law and, just like the legal profession of our time, were capable of administrating inheritances.  In a society where women were expected to deal through a male, they often administered estates for widows without sons like Ruth and Naomi. 

With widows from poor families the scribe’s fees could easily use up all the inheritance which is not beyond the realms of possibility in our society.  The cost of running a law office is significant and is not related to the size of someone’s estate, which is why we have the Public Trust and Community Law. 

However. as we move further towards user pays the poor of both sexes get marginalised and even a free school lunch is seen as a threat to the market economy.

However, Jesus’ accusation was much sharper than simple criticism of the free market.  ‘They devour widows’ houses.  (Mark 12:40) 

For those of us who live in the digital age that sounds very like computer scams, elder abuse and dubious investment schemes.  Deliberate deception that can even involve care givers and family members.   

When I lived in the Waikato there was a major fraud that targeted vulnerable people.  That group remortgaged old people’s inherited freehold homes, kept the money.  When the victims failed to repay the loan they lost their homes.  Continue reading Sunday 10th November →

Rev Barbara Peddie

Living pictures.

A sermon on Job 1:1 2:1-10, and Mark 10:2-16. October 2024.

What’s your picture – your image – of God? What is it that underpins and sustains your faith? What keeps you here, in this community? Is it a shared vision, or a shared hope, or perhaps a confidence that we’re on the same path even if the images of God that we carry are wildly different? I suspect that those images are indeed different. I suspect that for most of us, the way we think about God has changed throughout our lives, and is still changing.

When I was small, I had a book of Bible stories and God was a venerable and benignant gentleman in sweeping robes. The problem with that was, that for years afterwards, somewhere in my head there sat a picture of God with a familiar shape – God with skin – just like us. There’s a lot to be said for the Jewish and Islamic prohibition on making images of God – those early pictures can take a lot of dislodging.

In the lectionary readings for today we’ve got several pictures of God, and I have to say that I don’t like all of them! But maybe you do. All of us will get something a little different from these readings. All of us will even get something subtly different each time we read them – or hear them. Because whenever we engage with something, a sort of relationship is set up, and the way it works will depend on where we are at that moment.

Take the Book of Job. It’s often said that Job is a book for the hard times. We throw the phrase ‘the patience of Job’ around, as though that’s the main message we can get from this book. We often explore that theme when looking at Job – and it may well surface over the next few weeks of readings. But I want to use a different lens this morning. The first two chapters set the scene for all that’s to follow. Job’s life comes apart in a truly horrendous way. He loses his property, his children, his health – and his wife suggests that his faith should go out of the window in the same way. Continue reading Sunday 6th October →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Job 23: 1-9, 16-17

This reading from Job is part of the discussion with his friends who point out that God is all seeing and all knowing. The reason Job is suffering is that he has done something wrong that he isn’t admitting.  According to his friends if he returns to God, agrees with God, and is at peace with God, then God will restore good fortune.  The advice of Job’s friends is solid ‘prosperity gospel’ complete with the unfortunate implications for the poor.  If you are faithful to God then you will receive health, wealth and happiness and the dark side of that assumption is that if you are suffering, or poor, then you must have done something to deserve it, God is displeased with you.  Under the worst case prosperity gospel belief social welfare and universal health care are frowned upon because the poor and the sick deserve their plight.

Job’s answer in this passage is to plead that if that is true then he wants to meet with God and put his case.

Job’s friends want him to accept a plea bargain so he can get on with his life, but Job is insistent on a hearing to prove his innocence.  This conflict between Job’s friends and the presence of an unapproachable God also makes the point that, admitting guilt is unlikely to help because as Job is not guilty, there must be another reason for his suffering and, although understanding may not prevent his suffering, it may bring peace of mind.

Mark 10: 17-31

Marcus Borg is absolutely brilliant in his comments on this passage and particularly helpful to financially cautious Presbyterians and middle-class Methodists.  He begins by saying of the rich young man:

It is natural for us to imagine that this man is asking Jesus what he must do to get to heaven, for that is what the phrase ‘eternal life’ has come to mean to many Christians.  But the Greek phrase used by Mark renders the Jewish notion of ‘life of the age to come’—a transformed earth, or the kingdom of God.  Not heaven, but God’s kingdom on earth.^[1]

Sermon

Some years ago, I read an article on the website of the United Church of Christ in the US that claimed that Christians should measure the economy against one fundamental truth.  The earth and all that is in it belongs to God, and their proof text was the first verse of Psalm 24: ‘The earth is the LORD’S and all that is in it.  The world, and those who live in it’.  (Psalm. 24:1).

The article went on to suggest that the divine instruction on gathering the manna in the desert supports this faith-based view of the economy.  This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents. (Exodus 16: 16-18) [2]

If what these texts suggest is true God provides enough for everybody.  Therefore, it is the human exploitation of the world’s resources that corrupts the divine order and creates the situation where the rich get richer, and the poor, not only get poorer, but also become more numerous.

At the time I thought it was a thoughtful use of scripture in backing up a view on the sharing of our planets resources and I am still impressed.  It makes even more sense considering the evidence of climate change and the growth of the gap between rich and poor that has happened since I first read the article.

It suggests a cause and effect between the sin of exploiting the worlds resources and the resulting suffering.

However, those who suffer are not necessarily those who do the exploiting.  We are a communal species and the exploiting of a few can bring suffering on the whole human community.

That was the problem with the theology of Jobes friends.  They suggested that his suffering is caused by his sin.  So, in today’s reading Job quite rightly rebuts that suggestion and proclaims his innocence.  Furthermore, he demands a hearing in the divine court. In so doing Job accepts his friend’s cause and effect logic.

The people of Tuvalu are about as innocent of causing global warming and sea level rise as any community can be.  Yet the sea now regularly runs through their homes and gardens, as well as other low-lying Pacific Islands.  Meanwhile those who continue to exploit the worlds resources are insulated from such effects by their wealth.  Some even purchase ‘just in case’ holiday homes in Queenstown and Wanaka,

The wisdom of the Exodus command was to gather as much as each person needs, each for their own tent.  In other words, each person is given divine permission to gather enough from the gift of the world’s resources for their own family or household.

But when the motive is profit rather than need future generations are put at risk.  Profit becomes wealth that is stored, reinvested, spent on a bigger house or, more significantly, gives power over other people.

It can therefore be argued, just from Exodus 16, that such excessive use of natural resources is against the divine plan and therefore, in religious terms, sinful.

But although sin might be seen to cause suffering it needs to be remembered that is not necessarily the sinner who suffers.  In the sin of exploiting the worlds resources the sinner is often rewarded, and vulnerable people suffer.  Job was loyal and righteous but vulnerable in his sickness.

All across our world today people find themselves in solidarity with Job in hopelessly demanding justice.

That vision of hopelessness connects with our Gospel reading. The rich young man seeks to be part of the divine realm but can’t leave his wealth behind. Continue reading Sunday 13th October →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Proverbs 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23

This is a selection of short proverbs encouraging generosity to the poor and the quest for justice rather than wealth.  Maurice Andrew places this section as straddling the second and third collection of proverbs. The second section is short sentences often using antithetic parallelism (lines of similar length and rhythm but opposite meaning).  The third selection may have been used to educate young men entering service in the royal court and, unlike the third person style of the second section, the style now moves to a direct address to a second person.

Maurice notes that robbing the poor because they are poor sounds very like revising the finances of a country by reducing the benefits of those with the fewest resources. ^[1]

Proverbs are exactly that, short wisdom sayings that do not fully explore issues as a story might so are therefore dangerous as proof texts.  They are wisdom of a community and can warn us of recurring injustice and stupidity.

Mark7: 24-37

This reading from Mark contains an exorcism by remote control and a healing.  The woman with the possessed daughter, not only is a foreigner but, intrudes on Jesus’ private space.  Jesus’ response is not only a very human response but a cultural response.  He was interrupted in his ‘time off’ and Jews did not associate with foreigners.  In contrast to the Jesus of John’s Gospel we see in this episode a very human Jesus growing in divine awareness through his dialogue with the woman.  This is the not the only story in the gospels where Jesus changes his mind and it is a woman who led him to do so. ^[2]

In the next story Jesus heals by physical means, putting his finger in the man’s ear, spitting and touching the man’s tongue.  This, according to Hooker, was typical of healers of the time and place so Jesus is practicing as a regular healer of the day.^[3]

What both Borg and Hooker point out is the significance of the summary in verse 37 ‘he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’  This is typical of Mark’s irony where those who should be speaking and listening like the Pharisees don’t but the physically deaf and mute do.

Sermon

This morning, we read from the book of proverbs which, along with Job, Ecclesiastes, and the wisdom psalms. is considered part of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible.  One of the recent lectionary readings was about God granting wisdom to Solomon.  But acquiring wisdom is incremental and is not usually uploaded from the cloud.  It comes in programme updates over time.  Likewise, communities acquire wisdom over generations.

Such wisdom is often recorded as wisdom literature but, as the rest of the Hebrew Bible tells us, the stories of a people’s journey both record wisdom and tell how the wisdom was acquired.

Our Gospel reading contains an incident where Jesus acquires an incremental dose of wisdom from a foreign woman and another instance where, through Jesus, the blind and the deaf can see and hear but the rich and powerful are both deaf and blind. A situation not unknown in our world.

The meeting with the woman of Syrophoenician origin appears to be one of the incremental spring times of Jesus’ journey to divinity and September is officially the beginning of our Spring and a reminder of the call for new beginnings in our own life.

There is in fact a growing green consciousness in our community that, in turn, leads to concern about the damage caused by introduced species.

Phoenix palms used to be very popular in people’s front lawns.  So much so that people would come with cranes in the middle of the night and steal them.  However, it has been discovered that they thrive in the northern forests and crowd out the native nikau palms. So now it is illegal to sell them, and people need to pay to have them removed.

The stoats and weasels people imported to control the rabbits found it easier to kill native birds, and I recently spotted a neighbour’s cat leap up, over a metre, straight off the ground at our bird feeder.  It landed straight back on its feet and ran off with tail feathers protruding from its mouth.  Hamish Kerr might have a gold medal for high jumping, but he has nothing on the grey ghost of a cat from two houses down the street.

Thinking about these struggles with our environment I am reminded of a biologist friend who told me that the most invasive species in Aotearoa is people.  Wave upon wave of people have colonised these pristine islands and each group have done their share of damage.  Each and every fresh set of colonisers have changed the landscape to survive, and each change has had unfortunate side effects.

What my friend didn’t mention was that each group felt, and continues to feel, more entitled, safer and more self-righteous amongst people they see as their own people, rather than those who came before them. Continue reading Sunday 8th September →

Hugh Perry

Readings

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

The lectionary gives us snippets of a growing and continuing power struggle within the royal household and within the nation.  Such struggles are not uncommon among feudal monarchies, wealthy families and corporations and indeed democracies. Although the violence is more subtle or hidden in the contemporary world.  The consequences of David’s lifestyle began to work themselves out and violence erupts among the king’s children. Absalom conspires to kill his brother Amnon, because he raped their sister, and eventually Absalom is led into open revolt against his father David.  The carnage of the resulting civil war eventually puts Bathsheba’s son nearer to the throne.

John 6:35, 41-51

This section begins with verse 35 from last week’s reading to remind us of Jesus’ claim that he is ‘the bread of life’ and to clarify, for us, that we are still dealing with John’s communion theology begun with the feeding of the five thousand.

Jesus’ sermon continues to build his theology using rebuttal from the crowd as a prompt for Jesus to continue his argument, first by pointing out that God directs people to Jesus.  The connection between the manna in the wilderness and Jesus feeding of the five thousand is made along with the idea that eating sustains the body, scripture feeds the soul and generous hospitality in remembrance of Jesus acts as support for those who have been called by God.

Sermon

The two examples of scripture we read this morning give a contrast between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God.

Furthermore, the Second Samuel reading is very significant at this time when there is once again brutal fighting between people who see themselves as children of Abraham.  In that context I recently saw a comment from a Jewish scholar who said that her reading in the original of the Hebrew Text did not promise the land to the escaped slaves.  The scholar claimed that the Hebrew Text told the fleeing slaves that if they followed the ethical laws that God had given them they could live in the land with the other people who lived there.

That aligns with a comment I read when reading about Jewish Refugees from World War Two.  A wise old grandfather was asked how the Jews could be God’s Chosen People when there were so many other people in the world. His reply was that they were not chosen to be the only people, they were chosen to be an example to all people.

Throughout history people have felt more secure if they are living among people who are like them.  However, even my addiction to crime novels tells me that isn’t true and my memory of reading Shakespeare confirms that fact.  More specifically Rev Dr Margaret Mayman told me that when she did her PhD thesis, she discovered that 70% of the murders in the Unites States were committed within intimate relationships.

I have suggested that figure to people who work in Aotearoa rescuing women from violent relationships and they say our figures are about the same.

What we read in our news reports focuses on young people robbing dairies, boy racers or gangs intimidating ordinary citizens.  We like reading those reports because those crimes are committed by people who are ‘other.’  They are stories that sell advertising without frightening readers with uncomfortable truths.  But all those authors from Agatha Christie to Ann Cleeves are correct, people harm each other in families and get into deadly disputes about inheritance.

As Maurice Andrew says in the in The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand ‘The Old Testament is Realistic’.

Yet even in amongst the deadly struggles of David’s family there is recognition that humans live best in community.  However, fear drives them to first seek the community of their relatives, then to rule that community and eventually to rule others. Continue reading Sunday 11th August →

by Kelvin Chapman

Artificial Intelligence – Challenge or Opportunity?

It’s the latest thing in the tech world that everyone is talking about. It promises much and seems to be delivering at least some of the promises.  It is becoming more widely used but what of the doomsday predictions that are being made.

So what is AI? Is it the breakthrough that will allow many of the tasks that we now do to be done by computers perhaps executed by robots? And will these robots be able to make their own decisions – perhaps being able to turn against their creators?

Is it here now? And the answer to that is right now on our cell phones – every time you use the predictive text you are using an early form of artificial intelligence – one that learns from the messages we have previously sent – and from the message that we are replying to

To begin to understand all this we need to go back to the earliest computers – and perhaps a little earlier than that.

Alan Turing was the man behind the UK code breaking effort in WW 2 and as part of that work developed the first stored program computers – the earliest form of those we have today.  These were comparatively crude.  Transistors had not yet been invented.  But Turing saw the potential of these new computing machines and in 1952 was asking the question “can automatic calculating machines be said to think?”  This resulted in what has become known as the Turing test which in its simplest form postulates that if a human is communicating remotely with something and, whatever questions may be asked, cannot determine whether that thing behind the wall is a human or a machine.  If it is a machine, that machine can be said to have the capability of the human brain.

We will come back to the Turing test later on in this discussion

The earliest computers could only act on the information they had been given.  Their main benefit was that they could do things much faster than human computers.

But as computers have become faster the internet has come into being allowing us to access a vast range of information from our cell phones.  Artificial intelligence, first defined by Alan Turing, is the term now used to describe computers and programmes that allow questions to answered using this broad range of information and to draw broader conclusions from the data available

These answers are more likely to be accurate where the rules that apply to the question are well established.  One such case is where it is now possible to look for relationships in the health field, identifying relationships in data that are not identified by previous methods.

We are beginning to see previously unidentified responses – both favourable and unfavourable – to drugs in this data.  AI has also enabled the process by which the proteins in all living cells can “fold” – an important next step in understanding how living cells replicate.  These applications will result in a better understanding of how drugs work and lead to improve health outcomes far more quickly than earlier methods of analysis.

Another case is in the legal system where cases are fairly well documented to a common standard, making it possible to identify relevant details in past cases both quickly and comprehensively. Answering exam questions is a doddle for an AI system where the course material is available on the internet.

And of course AI can correct our grammar much more accurately than we perhaps would like, while also identifying ways in which text can be made clearer.

These are useful and positive applications.  The same rules enable an AI system to take a voice sample and a face photo and create a video of the person behind the face saying anything that the author wants.  The possibility for deception is very real – and is with us now. Continue reading Sunday 21st July →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

This reading from 2^nd Samuel records the arrival of the Ark in Jerusalem which establishes the city as both a religious and political capital that brings both northern and southern tribes together.  Jerusalem had been captured from the Jebusites and was therefore on neutral ground having not been part of either the northern or southern kingdoms.

Maurice Andrew sees David dancing before the Ark as capturing people’s imagination and notes its reference in Shirley Murray’s hymn, ‘Sing a happy alleluia’ ‘Sara laughed at God’s good timing, Mary sang and David danced’.^[1]

Saul’s daughter reproaches David for his exhibitionism and this apparently gives us the reason why she had no children so, although the house of Saul is still a factor, its possibility of continuing into the dynasty is blocked.^[2]

Mark 6:14-29

The first part of this reading flows on from the sending out of the twelve and our reading begins where we are told that King Herod heard of it.  We also get some of the things people were saying about Jesus and the movement his mission had become.  A resurrection of John the Baptist—a continuation of John’s mission of repentance and baptism while others said it was Elijah returning from heaven with the implication that he was the forerunner of the Messiah.  Still others said that it was a new prophet. Herod’s comment was that John, he had executed, had been raised.’  In other words the unrest and insurrection that I thought I got rid of by executing John has started up all over again.’

Then we get a description of John’s arrest and execution which focuses on the legitimacy of Herod’s marriage which was also a suggestion about Herod’s legitimacy to rule. ^[3]

Sermon

David had not only secured the throne but had brought Judea and Israel into one Kingdom.  He had captured Jerusalem and made that his capital.  As it had never been part of Judea or Israel it was a neutral city that gave no benefit to the tribes of Judea or Israel.  It was like Australia building Canberra as a capital city independent of any State capital.

Today’s reading is about demonstrating that David had divine approval for his reign.  The Ark was the symbol of divine presence during the Exodus and, having that in the capital city, was a demonstration that he had divine approval of his reign.

Remember that King Charles coronation was a religious service.  That not only confirmed him King but also head of the Church of England.  In recognition of his authority within the commonwealth and the reality that Britain is now both a multi racial and multi faith nation, representatives of different faiths were also involved.  There was even an ex all black captain there, no doubt representing New Zealand’s national religion. More significantly the moderator of the Church of Scotland presented the King with a Bible and told him that was the only authority needed confirming the reformation principle of the authority of scripture over church hierarchy.

I am sure I was not the only Presbyterian whose heart was strangely warmed at that moment.  It’s not just Methodists that can have that experience.

By contrast our Gospel reading involves a time when the authority of the Israeli monarchy was severely limited by Imperial Rome.  Various religious leaders, including John the Baptist, were criticising Herod’s authority.  The issue quoted in our reading is one of the scriptural marriage laws.  I suspect there was a feeling that if their king really ruled on God’s behalf then he would be able to get rid of the Romans and more particularly Roman taxes.

Tax cuts always make good headlines.

In fact, the Rev Dr Bill Loader suggests this story from Mark’s Gospel ‘sounds like a bizarre story, lifted from the ‘popular press of the day’.

Loader goes on to say that it cast a shadow over what is to come.  That indeed was what Mark was intending.

Reading on we would discover that fickle, exploitative political powers will perform another convenient execution.  We will wonder if someone can be so callously executed and come to life again.

We are invited by this Gospel to ask ourselves if we see the risen Christ wherever such powers are confronted. Do we confront such injustice as individuals or collectively with our society? Continue reading Sunday 14th July →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Acts 1: 1-11

This is the beginning of the book of Acts and the author, Luke opens this book, as he opened his Gospel, by addressing Theophilus and, then, like any good sequel, he recaps the ending of his Gospel.

Only Luke tells the story of the ascension, both here and in his Gospel, and the way Luke has constructed his Gospel makes the ascension vital to the narrative’s credibility.  At the beginning of the Gospel he promises Theophilus an ordered account so having made certain that we understand that the Risen Christ is not a ghost, but a reality that can be touched and eats fish like anyone else, Luke has to explain to his readers why Jesus does not pop into visit them for a meal from time to time.  William Barclay notes that ‘Jesus won an immortality of influence for his effect upon the world’ and then he goes on to say:

Above all, there is an immortality of presence and power. Jesus not only left an immortal name and influence; he is still alive and still active. He is not the one who was, he is the one who is. ^[1]

Luke 24:44-53

Earle Ellis comments on this passage by saying:

Luke’s story began with a righteous priest giving his blessing to the congregation of Israel.  It closes with Jesus, the resurrected high priest, giving his blessing to the messianic Israel.  The priest Zechariah went into the temple with a petition for the redemption of Israel.  The followers of the resurrected Jesus also go to the ‘temple’.  But their prayer is one of joy and thanksgiving.  The redemption of Israel has been accomplished, and the messianic community, the new temple of God, has been established.^[2]

What Ellis is saying is that in this closing passage Luke is referring to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, taking his turn as temple priest as was the practice in the past.  Now, however the Risen Christ has passed on the role of temple to the followers of Christ who have direct access to God through and in Christ.

Sermon

This is the Sunday that we celebrate Ascension rather than the 9^th of May presumably because contemporary people are unlikely to come to an extra service on a weekday.  Furthermore, if we made Ascension a public holiday people would make a long weekend of it and certain business groups and politicians would wail that religion was wrecking the economy.

However there is an even more concerning element to our reading from Luke that William Barclay notes in his commentary.  Firstly, he notes that Luke has to reinforce Jesus’ presence in the heavenly realm.  For two thousand years and counting Jesus has not be available to attend a youth group fish and chip night or even a parish dinner.  That is despite the resurrection appearances we have been reading about since Easter.

So Luke answers that concern by having those first disciples witness Jesus not only go back up to heaven but he also promise to come back.  As Barclay notes, by promising to return Jesus introduces the idea of a second coming and two thousand years and counting of speculation on timing.

Furthermore some Christians have seen that as removing their obligation to transform the world by acting as Christ to others.  Super Jesus will fix everything.

But we are looking at the work of Luke the Gospel writer not Marvel Comics or Tika Waititi.  In next week’s exciting episode, the Holy Spirit will descend as of tongues of fire on a representative group of Jesus disciples. By that Spirit we will all be empowered and obligated to change the world through the power of Christ within us.  Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger, ‘he’ll be back!’  But unlike any superhero he will be living and transforming the world through us.

The post Easter readings have unsurprisingly focussed on the resurrection appearances.  They employ all sorts of symbolism and metaphors to convince the readers that they didn’t imagine it, they didn’t see a ghost, and locked doors couldn’t shut it out.  Dominic Crossan, among others, suggest that what they were trying to impress on their readers was that resurrection is not something we try and persuade people happened.  We must demonstrate it in the way we live. Continue reading Sunday 12th May →

Rev Barbara Peddie

Building community

Acts 10: 44-48 and John 15: 9-17. Easter 6B 2021

These past weeks have seen a series of readings about building Christian community, and the challenge to widen the boundaries of God’s new commonwealth on earth. There’s an air of wonder about them. Not surprising. The new Church was growing and changing almost from day to day.

Pause, and remember the seasons of the year -–and of the church. The early church was in its springtime, and spring in our climate is a time of rapid change and growth. The church today is moving through another season. We can’t pretend we’re at the beginning. We have to work out what the tasks are, for this community, and this Methodist Connexion, in this country of Aotearoa New Zealand. That’s our mission.

At the same time, we can remember and celebrate the springtime of the church, and search out the links for our context. The seasons of the church year get a little muddled for us, because we have Easter in autumn and Advent and Epiphany in high summer – and Pentecost at the beginning of dormant winter. That adds another dimension of challenge us to stretch our imaginations to embrace and celebrate the cycles of change here and now!

Those first Jewish Christians were uneasy because their treasures – their taonga- were suddenly open to outsiders to share. We are often uneasy because our culture is changing around us. We’ve become multicultural – and it wasn’t necessarily by choice. Our churches are fragmenting, as our culture fragments. How do we build our communities when the old materials slip through our fingers? Where do we find our building blocks?

Today’s Gospel gives us some answers – perhaps one of the most important answers, and one of the hardest to live out. Love one another ‘as I have loved you,’ Jesus says. That’s the heart of the Gospel. But today I want to tease out some other aspects of this reading that can get lost behind the great commandment. I want to talk about the gifts of friendship and community.

This Gospel passage talks about ‘laying down one’s life for one’s friends.’ Sometimes we stop there. We hear the call to sacrificial love – and we recoil. It’s too much to ask, and it’s not something that will ever come my way. Probably not – or not in the literal sense. But it doesn’t let us off the hook of taking friendship seriously, and engaging with it, and recognising it as part of the glue that holds any Christian community together.

In Jesus’ world, friendship was valued as a virtue and a fully human love. When Jesus talked about friends, he wasn’t talking about drop-in type acquaintances, mates who come and go in our lives, people we do things with for a while because it’s convenient. He wasn’t talking about companions. He wasn’t talking about allies. He was talking about relationship and interconnectedness. Continue reading Sunday 5th May →

by Anne Kay…..

John Newton is an inspiration to me!

That he could overcome all the challenges and persecution during  his life and come through with such a legacy of God’s Grace, that is still affecting us today.

Born 24^th July 1725 in Wapping, UK,  to a devout Nonconformist mother and merchant ship captain father. His mother taught him to read and she shared her active, living faith.

I found a post on Youtube recently called ‘Newton’s Grace’ it is based on the history of his life.

Even though his mother taught him hoping to give him a good start in life, he confesses himself, there was always a deep rage within him, partly due to his father’s absence and his sense of life’s challenges. As a young person he always seemed to be in trouble with the authorities.

Sadly his mother died from tuberculosis  when he was nearly 7 which was a a terrible shock to the young boy.  He was sent to boarding school after being expelled from previous schools. There he continued in his disruptive ways.  By the time he was 11 he was accompanying his father on  sea voyages.

While still in the Merchant Navy he had a very vivid dream. He was given a ring that if he kept it he would safe and things would go well. If he didn’t he would be on his own. There was a fellow seaman who taunted him about his faith in God and said his dream was untrue. ‘don’t believe all that stuff ‘be a real man’ so he threw the ring away.

During this time he had stayed with a dear friend of his late mother’s. she had a daughter called Mary Catlet and she became John’s ‘life-love’

‘His Polly’.

While at sea she became his reason for living. He had some shore leave and was on his way to visit Polly when he was accosted by Royal Navy thugs to serve on the HMS Harwich. The ship was patrolling the Channel during some skirmish with the French. He was 18.

He always worked hard and was eventually promoted to ‘able-bodied seaman’. Longing for a life with ‘Polly’ he attempted to desert. He was relieved of his post and sent aboard a passing slave vessel. Continue reading Sunday 21st April →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Acts 3: 12-19

Peter’s sermon to this impromptu audience begins by identifying the God he refers to as the Jewish God and this God has glorified Jesus.  William Barclay says the early preachers never regarded themselves as sources of power but only challenges of power and this he says is the key to the Christian life. ‘Not I but Christ in me’.

Peter goes on to offer mercy and warning. Those who crucified Jesus did so out of ignorance, but that ignorance is no longer possible because of the resurrection, therefore there are no excuses for rejecting Jesus.  Barclay notes the text blames the Jews for the crucifixion and this blame has played a significant part in some appalling acts of anti-Semitism over the last two thousand years.  We need to recognise that, under Roman rule, Jesus was legally executed, and that execution critiques all empires and all power systems.  The resurrection calls us to live differently, and we are all vulnerable to being sucked into systems that deliver us comfort while disempowering others.

Luke 24: 36b-48.

The details here are similar to last week’s account from John and it is slightly odd that, as Christ arrives in the midst of a discussion about the resurrection, the disciples are said to be terrified and thought they had seen a Ghost.  But Luke is using this story to point out that whatever the experience of meeting the risen Christ is it is not about being frightened by a ghost.  Jesus’ identity is verified by the marks of the crucifixion and his reality by the eating of the fish.  Both these verifications were also used in John’s Gospel which would indicate that both writers had access to similar sources, or equally possible John had access to the synoptic gospels, but his more Gnostic or spiritual agenda makes this less apparent when compared with Mark, Matthew and Luke.

Sermon

I recently watched the documentary ‘Escaping Utopia’ and the comment that really shocked me was the young mother, who was obviously miserable, living in squalor in India.  When her sister challenged her she agreed her life was miserable but added, ‘The Lord will return soon, there is so much bad in the world, he must come soon.’

I reflected sadly on all those who, like her, have endured exploitation for thousands of years on the promise that God will build a new world for the righteous.

In fact, one of the mistakes the disciples made was their expectation of a superhero messiah.  Today’s readings are about their realisation of what Jesus’ mission was really about.  The startling realisation that they are the resurrection.

The gospel writers are also encouraging us to realise that is also true for us. As Christ lived in them so Christ lives in us and in the power of Christ we are called to transform our world.

The greenies are right, there is no planet B. As followers of Jesus, we are called to build a new heaven and a new earth.  Christ is risen in us!

The post Easter gospel readings have rightly been about the first disciples meeting the Risen Christ.  The question for us in those readings is ‘how do we meet the Risen Christ’.  We also should note what the readings tell us the Risen Christ is not.

Luke is very helpful because he gives us a selection of possibilities and to truly appreciate that we must look at the textural context of today’s reading.

Jesus appears in today’s reading to all the disciples together when Peter has returned after a meeting with the Risen Christ at the empty tomb.  The couple who met Christ on the Emmaus Road have also returned and related their experiences.

This episode is opposite to the Emmaus Road encounter where the couple recognise Christ in sharing a meal after he had opened the scripture to them on the journey.  In this episode the disciples verify Christ’s identity and then he opens the scripture to them and eats with them.

So perhaps Luke is stressing that there are different ways of meeting Christ.

But the point of the Risen Christ eating a piece of fish it that the disciples are not meeting with a ghost.  So why are they frightened?

Perhaps they are frightened because of the realisation that Christ is risen in them.  They are the ones who have to build the new heaven and the new earth.  It’s a scary prospect and church history testifies that plenty of people suffered a similar fate to Jesus for standing for what is right.

The gospel writers are very clear what the resurrection is not.  Even if the challenge of the resurrection may be frightening the resurrection is not a ghost or an hallucination.  From Luke’s account the Risen Christ can be met at the empty tomb, on a journey or more particularly when we break bread with a stranger.  The Risen Christ can also be met as people gather to talk about their religious experiences.  Meeting together and sharing food together is about meeting with the Christ in each of us.

Most importantly those meetings with Christ the readings describe, involve sharing the scripture together and seeing Christ in the context of the Hebrew Scripture or Old Testament.

Some people dismiss the Old Testament, but the Gospels only make sense in the context of what has gone before.  This is apparent in the Acts reading where Peter first defines the God he is referring to from the scripture of his religious tradition before introducing Jesus. Continue reading Sunday 14th April →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Isaiah 25: 6-9

This passage is part of what is referred to as ‘the Isaiah Apocalypse because the verses are seen as resembling the apocalyptic works from about the third century BCE onwards.

The passage we read contains the remarkable statement that God will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears from all faces.  Maurice Andrew suggests it is likely that the reference is not to life after death.  Instead he writes that the writer has constructed a poetic picture of the total transformation of the human condition.^[1]

Mark 16: 1-8

Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza says that Mark’s naming of Peter, Andrew, James and John at the beginning of the Gospel and naming four women at the foot of the cross at the conclusion of Jesus’ mission indicates that the disciples included both men and women.  Schüssler Fiorenza names the four women as Mary of Magdala, Mary the daughter or wife of James the younger, the mother of Joses, and Salome.

To get four women she has placed a comma in a different place to the NRSV but the original Greek text would not have had the punctuation so this is just as valid an interpretation as other translators. .^[2]

Sermon

The resurrection is not just an historical event that happened long ago, the resurrection is ongoing, and we are the resurrection in our world.

In 1971 Hodder and Stoughton published a book by Lloyd Geering called Resurrection-A Symbol of Hope.  Sir Lloyd had already caused division in the PCANZ before that.  In 1967 he was charged with “doctrinal error” and “disturbing the peace and unity of the (Presbyterian) church”.  The charge was dismissed and I doubt that any of those who brought the charge were knighted for services to Religious Education or live to be 106.

More to the point Resurrection-A Symbol of Hope pretty much sums up what Easter morning means for us.  Indeed, it is what the resurrection means for all Christians past present and future.

In our reading from Mark’s Gospel the heavenly messenger tells the women at the empty tomb that Jesus is not there, he has been raised.  Then he gives them a mission:

‘But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him just as he told you.’ (Mark 16:7)

We can’t make a pilgrimage to Christ’s tomb because he is not there.  There are plenty of tombs of great figures in the past that are major tourist attractions but not the tomb of Jesus.

The Risen Christ is going on ahead of us and has gone on ahead of us for more than two thousand years. Furthermore, the women were instructed to tell the disciples that the Risen Christ will meet them in Galilee. That was their home town and Christ meets us in our home, the place where we live, earn our living, raise our families and so on.  As Bill Wallace wrote ‘Christ is risen in our lives’.

The Risen Christ is a symbol of hope, and we are all called to follow that Christ and be that Christ in our world.

Maurice Andrew suggests the writer of our reading from Isaiah has constructed a poetic picture of the total transformation of the human condition.

That makes the passage an ideal reading for Easter Sunday because that is the message of the resurrection. It was the call from the empty tomb to the disciples who disserted Jesus after he was arrested. Continue reading Sunday 31st March →

Rev Hugh Perry

Theme: Snakes and Darkness to the Light of Christ

Numbers 21: 4-9

This reading opens with a typical whinging in the wilderness prevalent in the Exodus saga and moves into a strange story that, Maurice Andrew says is not to be taken literally but, seeks to explain that the bronze serpent, which was to be found in the temple, was not a forbidden graven image.

The complaints arise in our reading because the Edomites refused to allow passage through their land so a detour had to be made.^[1]

The significance for us is the allusion to it in John’s Gospel where the image of the snake on the pole is substituted by the crucified Jesus.

Hear what the spirit is saying to the Church.

Thanks be to God.

John 3:14-21

This reading is part of the theological discourse given to Nicodemus which starts at the beginning of chapter 3 with Nicodemus coming in the night to Jesus.

From the opening of this sermon on, salvation by baptism, Jesus uses crucifixion as a saving symbol.  Just as the serpent, a symbol of evil from Genesis, becomes a symbol that heals those afflicted by snake bites so the symbol of evil in a cruel and tortuous death, becomes a symbol that gives life and, lifting up to die on the cross, becomes lifting up to resurrection.

In Numbers, God passes judgement on the people but in this passage the judgement is self-judgement in accepting the transforming light or ignoring it.

Bill Loader writes:

This sets the scene for 3:14-15 which belong closely with what precedes. The Son of Man must be ‘lifted up’. Like the ascent in 3:13 this refers to the event which begins at Jesus’ death. ‘Lifted up’ is wonderfully ambiguous. He will be lifted up on a cross. He will also be lifted up/exalted to God’s presence. John plays on the double meaning in typical fashion.  Here he uses what may have already been a traditional association between Jesus’ death and the snakes in the wilderness. A Crucified Jesus is like the bronze snake which Moses fashioned and put on a pole.

John is tending away from a picture of God who wants to punish people forever towards a picture of God who wants life for people.  Whatever our own solution to the issues of inclusion and exclusion, John’s Gospel asks us to recognise, that to reject the love, light and truth we see in Jesus, is to choose death.^[2]

Sermon

As a boy I used to listen to a radio programme called ‘My Word.’   You will not be surprised to learn that I liked it because of the way it manipulated words in a way that was funny.  In the introduction the listener was told that it was a programme about words by people whose business was words.

John the Gospel writer was obviously in the word business.  He manipulated words extracting meaning from them in the way he twisted and arranged them.  Many of the writers of what we call the Old Testament played the same games and if we could read ancient Hebrew, we would find that they used puns as well as allusion and quotations from older texts.

This twisting and turning of words and meaning is very apparent in today’s Gospel reading that contains layer upon layer of meaning as John passes on to us the passion he has for following Jesus, and his enthusiasm for encouraging others to also follow Jesus.

The interesting thing about the use of a snake as a symbol in today’s readings is that it is an image that twists and turns through scripture in a very snake like way.

Beginning in Genesis it is the serpent that tempts humanity away from the limitations God imposes.  The snake therefore becomes the symbol of the evil side of humanity that turns away from God.

Therefore, it is logical that image is picked up in our Numbers reading where snakes are the punishment for complaining about the freedom God has given the people.

Complaining about freedom’, or as I like to call it, ‘whinging in the wilderness’ is a constant theme that runs through the Exodus saga and highlights the reality that to be truly free means to live off the resources of the journey.

We have recently remembered the devastating damage Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle inflicted on the North Island bring floods and loss of life to Auckland and isolating parts of the East Coast around Gisborne.

As the stories of those isolated communities emerged, we not only learned of acts of heroism but also people who did what they could with what they had.  People who had bulldozers and people who had inflatable boats who cleared paths and recued people off roofs.  Surf lifesavers that took their IRBs up rivers instead of out to sea.  People who accepted the journey and made the most of what they had.

But complaining about adversity and inconvenience is also alive and well in Aotearoa.  We recently lived through the first and most deadly wave of a pandemic.  Our death rate was lower than most nations in the world.  But just like Moses’ people folk had to divert their journey to avoid conflict.  There was a cost to avoiding a potentially deadly pandemic.  Closed boarders enforced quarantine, and compulsory vaccination for those employed caring for people interfered with a lot of peoples’ individual journeys and personal beliefs.  So, they not only complained bitterly but made up alternative facts.

Recently real estate agent Janet Dickson has taken legal action against her Continue reading Sunday 10th March →

Rev Barbara Peddie

Pattern for living

A sermon on Exodus 20: 1-17 and John 2: 13-22. Lent 3B 2024

In these days of rising costs, ever-increasing lists of repairs left undone, resident Covid, and ever-louder voices of protesters, it takes an effort of will to move into the place of expectation that Lent brings to us. Just now, it’s definitely not easy to believe that God is about to do a new thing.

Well, it certainly wasn’t easy for the exodus Israelites in the desert, and it’s even harder today for the Palestinians in the wreckage and bloodshed of Gaza and the Ukrainians constantly listening for the next explosions. In these times, just as much as in the time of Moses there’s constant challenge and uncertainty and worry and fear about what tomorrow might bring. So maybe today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures comes at a very appropriate time for us. Although, for the Israelites in the desert, when God did do a new thing and gifted them with Torah – the Law – it’s possible they felt like it was like being kicked when they were down. Who wants rules and regulations when survival is top of the priority list? Who wants more challenges in a way forward? As far as the Israelites were concerned, all they wanted was to stop wandering and settle down in a good place!

The appearance of the Decalogue in the midst of the readings for Lent comes as a surprise. We’ve heard it all before. For my generation, the Ten Commandments were given a fair hammering. Moreover, the Sunday School stuff was probably overlaid with a heap of non-biblical imagery that can be very hard to shake off. Altogether, it’s hard to think of those 10 commandments, or laws, or ‘words’ as a gift of God to God’s people. But they were and they are. Walter Bruggemann writes, they’re a ‘proclamation in God’s own mouth of who God is and how God shall be “practised” by this community of liberated slaves.’ It’s about the ‘how’ of living in covenant with the faithful God of Abraham, – and Jesus. And God’s faithfulness is not a response to the people’s obedience. Fortunately! Continue reading Sunday 3rd March →

Rev Hugh Perry

Theme: Transfiguration

Readings

2 Kings 2:1-12

Today’s reading is about Elisha succeeding Elijah and we should note that Elijah has to cross over the Jordan to fulfil his destiny then, in the passage immediately following today’s reading, Elisha crosses back to fulfil that promised ministry.

Moses led the people across the Red Sea to leave Egypt and Joshua leads them across the Jordan to enter the Promised Land.

As we listen to the crossing of the Jordan bringing new promise in today’s reading remember that earlier this year we looked at John the Baptizer appearing as the new Elijah by the banks of the Jordan.  We also read that in baptism Jesus comes up out of the Jordan and instead of the waters parting the heavens parted, a truly new beginning.

Andrew notes that all biblical religion depends on succession and that understanding not only helps us cope with our world but helps us understand the message the Gospel writers bring us as they explain Jesus as a continuation of their religious tradition.

Mark 9:2-9

Context is always important because so much of the gospel writer’s message is delivered in the way the story is assembled.

Chapter 8 begins with a great crowd following Jesus to the point where, if they went back to their homes for food, they would collapse on the way.

We learned in our first reading that new beginnings have got something to do with crossing water and dividing things.  However, with Moses as the model we also know that when people of God take people away from home on the way to something new they are expected to feed them.  Jesus does that by feeding four thousand. (Mark 8:9)

Then the Pharisees come and ask for a sign and the disciples worry about not having bread and we are left with the impression that neither the Pharisees nor the disciples can see what is happening.  Jesus then heals a blind man who sees very well.

That brings us to the turning point of the Gospel at the return from Caesarea Philippi where Peter proclaims Jesus as the Messiah but does not understand about Jesus’ death.

In today’s reading a representative group of disciples are taken to a secluded place and have a spiritual experience of Jesus’ identity.

Sermon

Through their understanding of their religious tradition and scripture Peter, James and John had formed a reasoned understanding of who Jesus was.  That framed the spiritual experience described in our reading and was the structure Mark used to describe it.

So are our spiritual experiences also constructed in our minds by our religious tradition and scripture, and if so can they still guide us to our best possible future.

Maurice Andrew writes that ‘All biblical religion depends on succession.  What comes feeds on the past, and what is past leads to what comes’[1]  A very wise comment from a very astute biblical scholar but it goes further than simply acknowledging biblical structure.  Innovation in the human society also feeds on the past.  Practices and understandings from the past help to build new knowledge, structures, organisations and ways of living in the future.  The rapid development of the covid vaccine was based on years of vaccination science and practise.

The Bible is built on a structure that recognises that experience and spiritual insight from the past informs the future.  The reason why Christians put so much emphasis on reading the Bible is this reality that spiritual insight from the past will not only inform our lives now but guide us to the future.

The Bible is a collection of books, that’s why it is called the Bible. It is not a book of rules called Spiritual Direction for Dummies.

The Bible has a collection of rules but also, history and stories.  All of which are assembled in a pattern of succession where the past informs the future and episodes in one time are reflected in earlier times.

Therefore, the Bible reflects real life and offers us both a foundation and a framework to build our own religious response to our world.

Our gospel reading is built on a previous episode and the imagery in the vision described reflects past scripture and religious tradition.

Jesus and the disciples took time out in the gentile resort of Caesarea Philippi.  That was not Jewish territory, but it was a place of considerable ancient religious significance.  Building on the past is an interfaith experience.

On the way back from Caesarea Philippi Jesus instigates a discussion about his identity.  Where does he fit in their religious tradition and perhaps other religious traditions?

Mark’s Gospel gives us two prompts from Jesus.  Who do people say he is, and who do the disciples say he is?  After going through a number of significant figures from their religious and cultural tradition Peter finally proclaims Jesus as the Messiah.

That was a reasoned conclusion based on the religious tradition of the past. It was also a conclusion derived from the difficulties people experienced in the disciples’ time.

Through reasoning they were led to believe that God would send new leadership in the future.  God would send a messiah.  The disciples concluded Jesus’ actions and teaching came so close to what tradition said about a messiah that he must be the expected messiah. Continue reading Sunday 11th February →

Rev Barbara Peddie

God’s work – and ours

Epiphany 5B and Waitangi

This was one of the times when I was tempted to move away from the set lectionary readings – although as it happens there was a choice for this Sunday. There’s a separate set for Epiphany 5 and Waitangi Day and this is the closest Sunday to Waitangi Day. But, in the end I opted for the readings for Epiphany 5. But, let’s face it, they’re a challenge!

In these days, where the news is full of death and disaster, both in the wider world where there is war and misery and desperation in far too many countries, and in our own land where the new year has begun with fire and storm, far too many deaths on the roads and in the water, and violence in the streets, it’s hard to take real comfort from Isaiah’s hymn to the everlasting Lord who “gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless”, or from the Psalmist who sings of the Lord who “heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.” Tell that to the people of Gaza and Ukraine and wait for their reaction!

And the reading from Mark has its own challenges. Jesus’ healing stories are hard for us. We know both too much about illnesses and not enough. We know that fevers are often caused by infections, and we know how to deal with them. We know that some mental illnesses are genetic in origin, and some are caused by chemical imbalances, and there are ways of treating them. But we also know that some diseases are unexplained and uncontrollable. And we know that wellness means more than physical wellbeing. There is a spiritual dimension to health, and there is a ministry of healing.

I’m not saying that God doesn’t heal. There are times when the veil between us and God – between what we see as reality, and what we feel as something other, or sacred, or numinous – whatever we call it – is thin. I think there are people with a healing ministry – who can make themselves channels for God to act as God chooses to act. I don’t, however, have much time for people who claim that power for themselves. And there’s more than one sort of healing ministry. We have people walking among us with gifts of reconciliation, or of mending the earth, or of recognising and calling out gifts in others. They’re all healers too. Continue reading Sunday 4th February →

Rev Stephanie Wells

Theme ” The Light Shines”

Epiphany 4

TEXTS:          Deuteronomy 18: 15-20,                    Mark 1: 21-28

Our news is often full of the cry that the young have no respect for authority. The strange thing is that we have heard this comment every generation as the young rebel against the rules and expectations of their elders.

‘Authority’ is a word that carries a lot of baggage. At this time of year we think of the authority teachers need in the classroom to make sure pupils actually get to learn. Teachers hope they won’t get students with authority issues – the ones that challenge their authority every moment. In turn pupils hope that they won’t get a teacher this year with authority issues either; the ones that are bossy and mean, and even worse the ones that have no control and let the classroom become a war zone where no one learns anything and each day is a case of the survival of the fittest.

We hear of parents too who have authority issues with their children; either being too soft or too tough on them. The government and its various agencies have also been worried about how parents exercise authority over their children. Unfortunately, according to many media reports, parents are either too harsh and should have their children taken off them or are accused of not taking enough responsibility for their child’s action and are told to be tougher. With all these conflicting ideas on authority it’s a wonder more parents don’t simply give up.

In the church we also get conflicting suggestions on this thing called authority. So much so I wonder whether some of us haven’t given up too. We are called to respect the authority of scripture. Which is something most people shouldn’t have too much problem about – right? Wrong! Because everyone who calls on the authority of the bible seems to have a different idea on what this means.

Some believe they can find a bible verse that supports everything they believe; (please note the order I said that). Some believe God dictated every word, in the language of the King James version, and this means other versions are evil. Some believe that every word has a divine meaning, or a cosmic meaning, or a hidden meaning based on a special code, usually their own. Bible passages have been used to justify wars, slavery, greed, all kinds of things we might regard as evil. Is it any wonder then that some people, even Christians, have become a little cynical about the claim of scriptural authority. Continue reading Sunday 28th January →

Rev Hugh Perry

Theme: Voices in the Night and Encouragement

1 Samuel 3:1-10

Samuel you may remember was dedicated to God by his mother and given into the care of Eli the priest so he could be brought up to serve God.  In 1 Samuel 2:12 we are told:

Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for Yahweh or for the duties of the priests to the people.

So in a time of hereditary leadership, we have a constitutional crisis looming with the dedicated successors to Eli demonstrating that they are clearly unsuitable. It is a time when people were not particularly in touch with God.  But today’s reading tells us how that is about to change and how that change comes from an unexpected direction.

John 1: 43-51

Mark, Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ baptism. But John’s Gospel does not have a baptism scene as such.  Instead, John the Baptist describes what happened when he baptised Jesus.  In so doing he recommends Jesus as the one to follow on from his ministry to two of his own followers and they go to visit Jesus.  One of them, Andrew, then goes and brings his brother Simon to Jesus whom Jesus then names Peter, or Cephas in Latin which in Greek is Petros.  John wrote in Greek so there is a pun as Petros is confused with Petra the Greek word for ‘rock’.  That becomes relevant later as Jesus affirms Peter’s rock like dependability and authority.

The key issue here is that John the Baptist, who has had a vision of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus at baptism, recommends Jesus to others who then pass on that recommendation.  Listen for that as.

SERMON

Sometime, in the not-too-distant past, a young dyslexic man is called back to work an extra shift because the person rostered on was sick.  His father had told him that if you are working for someone you should always treat their business as your own.  So, in spite of a promised diner date with the love of his life he went back to work.

What his boss hadn’t told him was that there would be a film crew in the restaurant making a documentary about restaurants.  That didn’t bother him because he worked in the kitchen.  He just worked away with his usual skill and control of multiple orders, as he usually did.  However, the film crew were fascinated by the way focused on his tasks, his manual dexterity, his cheery countenance and his ability to keep so many tasks going at the same time.  As a result, he featured extensively in the filming and when the producer saw the film crew’s results, the young man’s phone began to ring.

This year with the publication of his latest book, Five Ingredients Mediterranean that now not so young man became the author of the most non-fiction books in the United Kingdom.  He has also just had a series on our television called ‘Jamie’s Christmas Shortcuts.

He is of course Jamie Oliver MBE. And after I reheard him relate that story on a recent Graham Norton programme it mixed with my recent reading of Samuel’s night voices, and I woke with the thought:

‘How many times does a serendipitist moment change people’s lives.’  Was, being in the right place at the right time what Samuel’s night voices was all about?

Are we all called to be awake to those unexpected events that can change the direction of our lives? Should we always be ready to sing, even in the middle of the day. ‘Here I am, Lord, Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night’. Continue reading Sunday 14th January →