Breaking News (Luke 24.1-12)

Honestly, is there anything more insufferable than 24-hour news channels?

If you’ve never had that experience, 24 Hour news is just a continuous loop of the same headlines, the same reports, the same graphics, the same adverts, the same tickertape words running across the screen and on and on and on. Once you’ve watched about… 20 minutes of it you’ve pretty well had enough.

But just occasionally, the tedium, the slow drip torture, is interrupted and your will to live returns. These are the moments when the words “breaking news” flash on the screen and the presenter says, “We’re going to leave that story now because we are getting reports coming in that the trapped miners in Chile have been found alive… or the Palace has announced that Prince William and Kate Middleton are to marry… or a breakthrough new cure has been found for some disease…”

Breaking news is a sudden jolt to the droning information cycle and that’s what Luke chapter 24 is all about. It's on page 1002 of the church Bibles so it would be good to turn to it. And while you're finding the page, let me ask you a question. 

Have you ever wondered what sort of literature the Gospels are? 

Nobody quite knows where to situate the 4 Gospels as a literary category.

They are not quite biographies because they miss so much out. They are highly selective accounts. John tells us this in the last verse of his Gospel; “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” So these are not biographies.

They are certainly not fiction; they are accurate historical records, properly researched and sourced from eye witness testimony. Some people have pointed out occasional superficial differences between them as you wold expect. If you were to read about last week’s Budget in the Mirror, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Economist you would get quite different views I suspect but closer examination would reveal that they are consistent.

So the Gospels aren’t fiction. But they are not really histories either. Again they omit so much detail. One half of Mark’s Gospel covers over three years and one half is centred on just one week. So they aren’t history books in the way we do historical studies today.

There is no exact literary equivalent to the Gospels. There is nothing else in all literature quite like them. The nearest thing we do have in our culture is extended news bulletins; they are news reports (breaking news, in fact) but – because they are extended reports, they give you a lot of background to the story as well as the main item.

And the big headline event that accounts for why the Gospels were written down is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

If that had never happened, Jesus of Nazareth would have probably have gone down in the footnotes of history as an original communicator, a gifted illusionist and a failed religious reformer. My guess is most of us here would never have heard of him.

But the resurrection changes everything and provides the proof of who he is.

Like a breaking news item on a dreary day at CNN, no one was expecting it.

“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.”

All four gospels are agreed; these women made their way to the tomb very early in the day, as dawn was breaking. Sunrise at this time of year in Jerusalem is about 5:30am.

As they left for the tomb, they were anticipating doing what they had not had time to do on the Friday – as sun set, marking the beginning of the Sabbath. 

They were expecting a guarded tomb with the stone in place, which would need to be rolled open so that they could wash and embalm Jesus’ body.

The first surprise was that (v2) the stone was already out of place. The second surprise (v3) was that, when they looked in, there was no body there. 

So v4 says they were wondering about this.

What did they wonder?

Did we go to the wrong tomb? No, this was the one.

So why is the body not there? Perhaps it is being embalmed elsewhere?

But why would anyone do that?

And anyway, who moved it?

Maybe we can look around and ask if anyone knows anything more?

Perhaps there’s a…

Third surprise! Suddenly! “Two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them” (v4). 

In fact, surprise is not quite strong enough. Verse 5 says “in their fright the women bowed down…” The men did more than make them jump. There was something eerie, something strange about them.

And then the fourth - and greatest surprise (v4-5). “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day [Friday, Saturday, Sunday…] be raised again.’”

And so the women, dazed, perplexed, still working out what it all meant, but strangely excited, make their way back to break the news to the men that something has rather messed up their plans for the day.

I’d love to have been a fly on the wall.

“What are you doing here?”

“He said it. He said he would be raised when we were in Galilee!”

“What?”

“Yes, after three days Friday, Saturday, Sunday!”

“Have you done the embalming already?”

“Yes! No! We did go. Two men were there.”

“Two men? Oh, good grief, no, there was only one body in the tomb. Can you believe it, they’ve only gone to a grave with two bodies in it. Women have no sense of direction!”

“No! He is risen!”

“What do you mean… risen?

“The men. They said so.”

“Oh, talking skeletons now is it? You just couldn’t make this up.”

“No! He is not in the tomb. Two men told us that Jesus has risen.”

We’re told that the men “did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” 

But Peter (v12) “got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”

What did he wonder?

• Could it be that the women are right?
• So where is he now?
• Hang on. Is this a practical joke? Candid Camera?
• But he did talk about rising didn’t he?
• Whenever you get breaking news, as soon as it’s possible to do so, the news reporters interview eye witnesses and commentators to try and get different perspectives on the story.

“So there’s going to be a royal wedding. What do you think?”

“I think it’s wonderful, I can’t wait.”

“I think when you’ve got hospitals closing down, it’s a waste of public money.”

“I think it’s so important for the country to celebrate.”

“I think it’s terrible for my business that we have another bank holiday.”

There’s nothing like a good argument to break up the tedium of 24 Hour News…

In the early church there were arguments too. There were disagreements.

The Bible tells us that they quarrelled forcefully about food distribution to widows.

They had heated disagreements about whether or not to include Gentiles in the church.

Two key leaders, Paul and Barnabas, had an embarrassing public spat over whether to allow John Mark to go on mission with them because he had deserted the team the last time.

Oh, the first century church could make the Church of England look like a picnic in paradise.

But that church, whatever it squabbled about, was absolutely united and in complete agreement from the very earliest days about the one issue that was most difficult to believe and most likely to cause disagreement; that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead.

No one in the earliest Christian communities disputed it. No one said “Hang on a minute, a dead man coming to life? This doesn’t quite add up.” There were no major bust ups or emergency councils or big divisions about the resurrection of Christ from the dead. It was the one thing everyone agreed about – such was its status as established fact.

And that, my dear friends is… Hold on..! We’re interrupting this sermon because news is just breaking of several confirmed sightings of a man who was executed on Friday. We’re going live now to our Middle East correspondent. Over to you, Luke…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 31st March 2013

Why I am a Christian (7)

Sin Offers the Best Explanation There Is of What’s Wrong with the World

In 2012 I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I found 26 so I decided to serialise them in a blog every fortnight for a year.

The first four explain why I think belief in a creator is reasonable and credible with what I have learned from science – anything but a leap in the dark.

The next two examine the human condition and show that the way we are wired is entirely consistent with what the Bible says about us. Whether we like it or not, human beings are innately inclined to worship and have an inbuilt sense of moral responsibility (though both can be squeezed out of us with often disastrous consequences).

Now, I am explaining why I think that it’s only in the world of theology that an accurate diagnosis of what’s wrong with the world (and what the cure is) can be found.

I take it as self-evident and beyond dispute that there is something wrong with the world. It’s plain to see. 

Everywhere you go on our planet there is injustice, hatred, cruelty, corruption, rejection and untold other evils.

The best explanation I have found of what’s evidently wrong with the world is that there is a universal and inescapable downward tug on the human soul. The Bible calls this "sin." 

You can hate the word and try to rebrand it - but you can hardly deny the reality it affirms. Even if, for argument’s sake, you take God out of the equation, nobody could honestly claim that they always thought, said or did what met with even their own standards of what is right.

Would you, reading this post now, be absolutely comfortable with the prospect (if it were possible) of having your every thought, word and deed - even in the last week - laid bare for all to see?

Nor can we pretend that this powerlessness to live exactly as we know we should is just a minor aberration. It is a global pandemic. 

Everywhere you go in the world, on every continent and in every nation, at every time in history, you find exactly the same thing. There is not a human being on Earth who is able to live a perfectly moral and upright life. Nor has there ever been before (except Jesus - and I will write more about his sinless life in my post for Reason 13). 

The consequences of sin are everywhere. It's so universal we take it for granted. We know it is not enough to have a front door for our houses; we need locks on them. We know it is not enough to have a lock on the car door; we need an alarm as well. We know it is not enough just to tell an official who we are. We need to provide proof of identity (sometimes several different proofs). We know it is not enough to have a username for our e-mail accounts; we need passwords too (preferably different passwords for different accounts). We know it is not enough for the Highways Agency to inform drivers of speed limits. They need radar and camera devices to enforce them. We know it is not enough to have international borders. Nations have to protect them with armed forces.

Why? Because everyone knows that human nature, by itself, cannot be trusted. We are simply not virtuous. We are flawed – pretty well incurably. What the Bible calls "sin" is hardly an opinion - it's as near an established fact as any fact can be.

Incidentally, sin is hugely costly. Imagine all the resources that could be poured into feeding the hungry, educating the young, caring for the elderly and protecting the environment if we did not have to pay for defence, police, intelligence, security and prisons. But the biggest cost of sin, far greater and more serious than the economic one, is the chasm of separation, the alienation, it opens up between people and God. Sin puts the human race in open rebellion against God and his laws.

This is how the Bible puts it in Romans 3.10-12:

There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

Then this conclusion shortly afterwards:

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, [religious people and irreligious people] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3.22-23).

American preacher Louie Giglio puts it very simply. He explains how easy God made it for people to be good by giving ten clear, basic and simple rules to live by; the Ten Commandments. 

The first is not “You shall give all you have to the poor” or anything terribly demanding like that. The first commandment states; “You shall have no other gods before me.” It’s not all that complicated. But when you try and find, anywhere on Earth, anyone - anyone - who has never considered anything or anybody in their life more important to them than God you are bound to be disappointed. You will not find a single soul.

Nobody, not even the most devout and saintly person on Earth, can even get past Number One of God’s ten clear, basic and simple rules.

This is what the Bible means when it affirms that all have sinned and have fallen short of God’s standards.

It’s a pessimistic assessment of who we really are. But it balances and complements the marvellous vision of being made in the image of God, declared “very good” by the Creator and loved by him (see reasons 5 and 6). The full biblical understanding of human nature is that we were all created glorious and unblemished but that we have all gone badly wrong.

As systematic theologian Dr. Wayne Grudem explains, “It is not that some parts of us are sinful and others are pure. Rather, every part of our being is affected by sin – our intellect, our emotions and desires, our hearts (the centre of our desires and decision-making processes), our goals and motives, and even our physical bodies.”

The Reformers called this “total depravity.” This does not mean that people cannot ever do good things. Clearly, they can. Rather it means that we are all indelibly tainted with a downward pull away from perfection and that we are totally unable to be right with God by our own efforts.

Of course, this whole approach is rejected by the secular humanist mind-set that is so fashionable in the 21^st Century Western world. This philosophy, in its vanity, tends to assume basic human goodness as a default position and even the word “sin” leaves secular commentators embarrassedly reaching for the Thesaurus for something a little more palatable to them. 

C.S. Lewis perceptively pointed out the inherent naivety in this approach in Mere Christianity. “It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.” 

Funny, that. Haven't you become self-satisfied and proud when you have acted in ways that are noble? And haven't you made excuses when you have acted in ways you regret? Me too. It's an experience as old as the Garden of Eden and as widespread as the human race is scattered.

We tend to take pride in our goodness - but it is an illusion that leads to spiritual emptiness and God seeming distant. We bury the guilt we feel about not being all we know we should be.

When God shows us the truth about our self-righteousness and our need for Christ - and when we acknowledge both - everything falls into place.

Most people, if they are really honest, have a sense within them of never being as morally pure as they might be - and indeed want to be. But because in the Western world the Christian message is so marginalised in political circles and so perverted by the media, few understand what sin is – and therefore few experience the wonderful release from its grip that Jesus offers.

When I became a Christian one warm July evening in 1979, I experienced three things; firstly, a sharp sense of my own sinfulness. I saw through all my pretending and posturing. I realised how shallow I was, how utterly unable I was to live a good life. The Bible calls this experience “the conviction of sin.” I finally stopped living in denial and got real.

Secondly, I wept and wept over my wasted past, over all my pride and self-importance and vanity. The Bible calls this “repentance.”

Thirdly, I had a revelation of the love of God for me. Wave after wave of cleansing grace and favour poured down into my soul. I knew I was loved. I knew I was a child of God. Oh, the joy of it! I knew I would never be the same again.

33 years on, I still view my conversion as the most significant experience I have ever had. I catalogue everything in my life is as ‘before’ or ‘after’ that event. And nothing, even falling in love, getting married and having children, has matched it for the intensity of its delight.

Happy are those
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.

Happy are those
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Psalm 32.1-2

That's the seventh reason why I am a Christian; sin is real. The evidence for it is everywhere. I'm as guilty of it as anyone else. But thanks be to God, it is no longer counted against me - or anyone else who turns to him in repentance and faith.

Why I am a Christian (6)

The Innate Sense of Right and Wrong in Human Beings Points to a Moral Universe Governed by a Good God

In 2012, I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian and found there are 26 so I decided to serialise them in a fortnightly blog over a year.

The first four reasons are to do with science and they are foundational to my understanding as to why I think that my belief in a creator is plausible and not irrational. 

The next two are more to do with metaphysics than physics. They are rooted in the mysteries of the human condition. 

Firstly, why are we obsessed with meaning? That seems most unlikely if we live in a meaningless universe randomly created by blind forces.

And secondly, why do human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong? That would be out of place in a universe that had no truth, no ultimate good, no such thing as evil, and where everything was relative. 

The fact that we have a conscience at all points to the existence of a moral universe governed by a good God.

So why do we, unlike all other beasts, have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong? Where does this come from? Mark Twain once said “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

An inbuilt moral compass seems unique to human beings, and forms part of the Judaeo-Christian understanding of being made in the image of God. 

We are morally responsible creatures with our eyes opened to knowing right and wrong. We celebrate virtue and we deplore foul play.

Animals, by contrast, instinctively know only of what is favourable to their survival. For example, it is not a lion’s fault if it attacks and devours the cubs of a male rival. He does what comes naturally to him and there is no question of “guilt” or “vice” or “sin.” (I'll build on this in my next post, Reason 7).

But if a man wanders next door with an axe and kills all the children in the house there is justifiable outrage, whatever the motive. It is wrong, full-stop.

Part of the humanist response to claims that we live in a moral universe is to object to the use of words like “evil”. But the kind of horrors human beings seem uniquely capable of (for example, the incarceration of a young woman by her father as a sex slave in Austria, the summary execution of men and boys in Srebrenica, the abduction, torture and murder by 10 year-old boys of a toddler in Liverpool and the flying of hijacked airplanes into skyscrapers in New York) are not just “inappropriate” or “unacceptable.” These words are patently inadequate to describe acts that are just morally wrong and evil.

Some people who are disinclined to believe in God say that what we call 'right' and 'wrong' is simply learned values picked up from the ambient culture. We are informed by our environment, so the argument goes, that certain things are O.K. and that certain things are not.

But from about the time children learn to talk, parents are given regular updates from their offspring about what they judge to be morally right. “It’s" "not" and "fair” are often the first three words children learn to put together! Our sense of justice seems hard-wired from birth.

Isn't this surely just the way things are? Imagine living in a land where an individual took pride in stealing from the nurses who had cared for his or her dying mother. Imagine a world where parents eating their undernourished children's dinner was admired by all.

We know instinctively that such behaviour is beyond the pale.

Yes Homer, selling Flanders' ride-on lawnmower on e-Bay to buy a year's supply of beer and donuts is not really on either.

C.S. Lewis has shown in The Abolition of Man that the basic standards of morality, of what people know to be right and wrong, are more or less the same in all cultures and at all times. This gives real weight to the argument that objective good and evil are self-evident.

Nevertheless, some argue that our sense of morality derives from an evolved desire for the common good (which gives our species a better chance of survival). So according to this view, racial prejudice, jealousy, cruelty to animals, bullying, adultery, theft and computer hacking are not objectively wrong. They are just what we have collectively decided at the present time to say is against our interests. 

But in fact, not only is this view morally repugnant, it doesn’t even conveniently solve the atheist's problem of living in a moral universe. It just kicks the can further down the road. It still comes back in the end to a need for objective standards of right and wrong.

C.S. Lewis again, this time in Mere Christianity puts it best: “If we ask: ‘Why ought I to be unselfish?’ and you reply ‘Because it is good for society,’ we may then ask, ‘Why should I care what’s good for society except when it happens to pay me personally?’ and you then have to say, ‘Because you ought to be unselfish’ - which simply brings us back to where we started. You are saying what is true but you are not getting any further.”

No, ethical standards are etched onto the human soul. Our conscience marks us out from all other beasts as morally responsible beings. Right and wrong are real concepts in a moral universe because God, who is wholly good and just in all he does, has created us in his image.

If there is no God, there can be no absolute standard of good and evil. (This is not to say that atheists cannot be good people. Of course they can and often are. It means rather that they have no objective foundation for their moral code. They have to borrow one - and they do so mostly from the Judeo-Christian tradition). 

Even Richard Dawkins has had to admit that the quest for absolute standards of right and wrong - which exclude the existence of God - is doomed to failure: “It is pretty hard to defend absolute morals on anything other than religious grounds” he writes.

It’s rare I can say this, but I am glad to agree with Professor Dawkins this time.

Make no mistake, if there is no God it’s your morality against mine - and there are no measures, no standards, no criteria to determine which of us is right. 

One of us might think that killing old people is fine because they are a burden on society. And one of us might say that it is wrong because it is wrong (ultimately because all people are created in the image of God and therefore should be treated with respect and dignity from the beginning of life to its end). 

I just hope that if and when my loved ones become acutely disabled, the good guys are still making the rules.

To sum up, if a good God who opposes evil exists, then whether we believe in him or not, we should expect that all human beings would have a hard-wired sense of morality – which is, in fact, exactly what we observe.

As the Apostle Paul put it:

When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. 

(Romans 2.14-15, the Message Version) 

This is another area incidentally, where science – for all its worth – cannot help us. Science is inadequate as a giver or measure of moral values.

As Oxford Professor of Mathematics John Lennox has succinctly put it; “Science can tell you that if you put strychnine in your grandmother’s tea it will kill her. Science cannot tell you whether you ought or ought not to do so in order to get your hands on her property.”

Bottom line: the issue of right and wrong is only discernible by the human soul made in the image of a just and holy God to whom everyone will one day be required to give an account. 

That's the sixth of the 26 reasons why I am a Christian.

How to Not Be Religious (Colossians 2.20-23 and Luke 5.27-39)

Introduction

Well, congratulations to Benjamin and Sohini on your baptism. And Steph, congratulations to you too on the renewal of your baptismal vows.

Each one of you today has had a growing and maturing Christian faith for some time now – but what’s different about now is that today you want to stand up and say that it’s real, that it’s very important to you and you want the world to know – and who cares what anyone thinks.

Not Religious?

Some people might wonder why the title chosen for a sermon in a baptism service is “How to NOT be religious.”

Some would say, “Hang on a minute! Look! The fact that these people are being baptized today shows that religion is important to them. Baptism is a religious ceremony isn’t it? How much more religious can you get than this?”

Maybe some people have been thinking as they looked at the information sheet, “I’ve noticed a typo here. It says ‘How to Not Be Religious.’ That should say ‘How to Be Religious.’ Someone should have proofread this properly.”

So let me put that one to bed. There’s no mistake. There is no misprint. It says “How to NOT be religious” on purpose.

The truth is this: The last thing I want for you here today, or anyone else come to think of it, is to be “religious”.

Religion is all the things people do to try and get to God. There are dozens of religious customs you hear about and are well known. All religions have different customs and practices.

Some people have to wear different kinds of head and face coverings; turbans, nikabs, burkas, skull caps, veils and so on.

Some people only eat fish on Friday; others never eat pork or beef on any day of the week.

Some people burn incense, others light special candles. Some cross themselves when they feel afraid, others bathe in special rivers. There are many different religious rituals.

I’m going to put a rough percentage on how much of that is important and necessary. Zero per cent.

(There’s a 0.1% margin of accuracy there so it might not be exactly right. But it’s definitely close).

We need Jesus, not religion. You might say, “What’s the difference? Isn’t Jesus a religious figure? Isn’t Christianity a religion? Come on…”

So I am going to share with you this morning some of the differences between what we call religion and what we call the Gospel. Basically, the difference is this; religion is man-made, and the Gospel is heaven-sent.

Religion, as I said just now, is all the customs and traditions and practices that people observe to try and get to God.

The word “Gospel” is the opposite of religion. The word just means the Good News about Jesus. In fact, the word Gospel is an Old Anglo Saxon word that simply means good news.

1) God Will Love Me or God Does Love Me?

The first difference between religion and the Gospel is this:

Religion says: “If I behave well enough then God will love me.” You see? So if I stop drinking, if I tell no more lies, if I stop swearing, if I give up smoking etc, if I cut out all my excess and brush myself up a bit, become a better person, then God will love me.

But the Gospel says: “No! God does love me. It doesn’t depend on me being a good person first.

How do I know? I know because God showed just how much he loved me by sending his very own Son to live for me, die for me, rise again for me and come to live in me by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says “God demonstrates [God proves, God reveals] his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, [that means when we were still all over the place, when our lives were messed up, think about your life as low as you’ve ever been… it was then that] Christ died for us.”

So religion says “God will love me if I behave.” The Gospel says “God loves me so much already. And if I am in any doubt how much God loves me I just need to look at the cross.”

Religion is like me turning around to my children when they were young and saying to them “Here is a list of things that are important to me so I hope you’re taking notes. I want you to tidy your room, work well at school, share your toys with your friends, clean your teeth three times a day, wash your hands before you eat – and if you do all that I will be your daddy. And if you don’t, I won’t love you anymore and I will leave you.”

My kids always knew – at least I hope they did (I tried to tell them) – that they could light bangers in the house, they could put custard in my bed, they could dip my books in the toilet and write graffiti on the kitchen walls... To be fair, they knew very well that I wouldn’t be all that happy about it. But crucially, they knew I would never, ever stop being their daddy or stop loving them just because they did.

2) Good and Bad or Repentant and Unrepentant?

Here’s the second difference between religion and the Gospel.

Religion says that the world basically contains two kinds of people; good people and bad people. How do you know who the good ones are? They’re the ones like us. Bad people – well, they’re the ones like them. Don't quote me now. That’s what religion says.

So a group of religious people called Pharisees went around in Jesus’ day praying in a loud voice so everybody could hear; “O God, thank you so much that I am not like other people - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

They totally thought they were good. That’s what religion looks like and, to be honest with you, it stinks.

They are the kind of people Paul was talking about in our first reading. “Human commands and teachings” he says. “False humility and harsh treatment of the body” he says. “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” There’s a nitpicking joylessness about religion. It’s obsessively miserable.

The Gospel also says there are two kinds of people; but it’s not good people and bad people. 

It’s repentant people and unrepentant people. The word “repentant” just means sorry. It’s when I admit I’m in the wrong.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Everybody sins and everybody falls short of God’s standard.

Would you agree? Or would you not agree with me?

O.K., let's put it to the test. If anyone here this morning can confidently say “I have always lived a perfect life, my motives are always flawless, my thoughts are always pure, my words are always loving, my actions are always good” please stand up now.

All of us think, and say, and do things we know we should not. We all know they are against what God wants. The only difference is that some of us say sorry to God and some of us think we’re fine without him.

So God doesn’t look down and see good people and bad people. This is going to sound harsh. But he sees bad people and the Lord Jesus.

Because when I just asked anyone to stand who could say “I have always lived a perfect life, my motives are always flawless, my thoughts are always pure, my words are always loving, my actions are always good” Jesus could have stood up.

Think about this with me; who were the people who rejected and murdered Jesus? Was it the thieves, prostitutes and alcoholics? Or was it the upright religious people?

Answer: it was the religious people. That should tell you all you need to know about whose side religious people are really on.

Jesus went to the religious people - and he loved them - and he told them the truth about who they were.

And they replied “How dare you!” They hated him, they tried to trap him, they argued with him, they plotted against him, they arrested him, they fixed his trial, and they got him crucified. 

This is what the Bible calls the offense of the Gospel. It offends religious people when they're told the truth about themselves because they think that they're good. And part of the Gospel is to learn that no one is really good.

Jesus went to the messed up people; the loose women, the drunkards, the tax collectors and petty criminals - and he loved them - and he told them the truth about who they were as well.

And they said “You’re right, we are totally screwed up. Our lives are a disaster. How are we ever going to get out of the mess we’re in? We need change but we just never seem to get out of the hole we’re in. Is there anything that can be done? Can you help? You can? Great!” they said, “Come over to our place for dinner!”

That is what happened in our second reading. Jesus finds himself invited to a party with his mates. He gets there and finds himself surrounded by the riff raff - who love him. But there are religious people there too and guess what? They can’t stand him.

They don’t get it that Jesus keeps company with messed up people. They get upset about it and find it embarrassing that a spiritual leader is having a good time.

So they say “What’s this about?” Verse 30: “Why do you eat and drink with sinners?” You should be doing religious things that the good people do. You should be fasting. You should go around looking depressed. You should be living a rigorous life like John the Baptist and the Pharisees.”

See what they’re saying? “Look at you. Call yourself a Christian? Having a good time? Eating party food and drinking alcohol. Have you seen who’s here? The likes of us shouldn’t be seen with rogues, whores, crooks and street rats…”

And tax collectors. People used to love tax collectors in those days just like people these days love expenses-fiddling politicians and fat cat bankers on massive bonuses.

So Jesus tells them what’s what. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

In other words, there are two kinds of people. There are those who think they’re good. They love religion.

And there are those who know they’re not good and are sorry. They love the Gospel – because it’s good news about God’s love and favour for them.

What do you think? That the world only has good and bad people – and that you’re one of the good ones?

Or that there are only bad people and Jesus – and that when you are sorry for your sin you get given all Jesus’ goodness to you as a gift.

3) Birth Credentials or New Birth Credentials?

The third and last difference between religion and the Gospel is this: Religion says that your birth credentials are what matter.

Never mind all this happy clappy Jesus stuff, were you done when you were a baby? Did Uncle Billy say “yes” to being your godfather?

Or “you’re all right because you’re the vicar’s son, or the bishop’s daughter or your Auntie Lil once shook hands with the Pope.” All these things are about the advantages of the family you happen to be born into.

Benjamin and Steph – you grew up in a Christian home. Sohini, your background was Hindu, but you heard about Jesus at school and a spark was lit in your soul when you were young.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that really. In fact it’s great. But in itself, it’s not enough.

In our second reading, Jesus talked about wine and wineskins.

In those days they didn’t have bottles, They used animal skins to contain wine because the skins were watertight and they stretched.

When wine is fermenting it expands so the container it’s in needs to expand as well – otherwise it bursts and you lose your wine.

You can’t put new wine in old wineskins because they’ve already been been stretched to their limit. If they stretch more they burst open.

In the same way, all the advantages you have from the family you were born into and the upbringing you had cannot hold the new wine of God’s grace.

What I’m saying is this. It’s not about the advantages that come with your birth. It’s about new birth. Jesus said “You must be born again.” You must. He said “Unless you are born of water [that’s baptism] and the Spirit [that’s something changing in your soul where you start a new relationship with God] unless you do that, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

You have got to have faith for yourself.

Ending

So Benjamin, Sohini and Steph, we are delighted today that you have asked to be baptized and to renew your baptism promises. 

We know that God has started a new work in your lives. We can see it.

We know that your lives are not about religion. They are about the Gospel. You know it’s all about Jesus.

May everyone here as well be like new wineskins for the new wine of God’s grace.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 3rd March 2013