Tongues and Interpretation (1 Corinthians 14.1-28)

Introduction

My brother and I used to play a trick when we were young. We used to catch someone’s attention and say something inaudible and see how many times we could get them to ask us to repeat what we’d said. “Jsjfvwej” “Hmmmm?” “Jsjfvwej” “What did you say?” “Jsjfvwej” “Pardon?”

The real trick was to say something that almost made sense but didn’t quite. “Did you take the jsjfvwej yesterday? Or where every word sounded distinct but it didn’t make a sentence. “Fourteen get the car in glasses.” We used to play it on my dad too. “Why can’t you articulate properly boy?”

Oh, what fun we had. Now – if you had to listen to a service leader, preacher, worship leader and person leading the prayers doing that all evening you’d be attending a church service in Corinth in the first century. 1 Corinthians 14.23; “If the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”

Tongues of Men and Angels

Speaking in tongues is when the Holy Spirit enables you to say something in a language you have never learnt. It’s a spiritual gift. It’s a good gift. Verse 5 says “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.” But it’s not the most important gift. When Paul makes a list of spiritual gifts, tongues usually appears right at the end. So someone might say, “So why are you speaking about it tonight if that’s the case?”

Well, first of all it’s in the Bible. That should be reason enough. But secondly, both in the New Testament and in our experience, tongues seems to be very often a beginner’s gift. It’s commonly the first of the more obviously supernatural gifts that follow the outpouring of the Spirit in Scripture and it’s my observation that it is the first gift many people receive.

What is this all about then? 1 Corinthians 12.10 talks about (note the language carefully) speaking in different kinds of tongues. What might that mean do you think? The answer is found, I believe, in 1 Corinthians 13.1 where Paul talks about human languages and angelic languages.

Human tongues are recognisable languages and dialects like Spanish, Russian, Cantonese and Serbo-Croat.

Here’s an example of that: Dave Bishop, who is a church leader in Bexhill, writes about an experience that happened in his church. After some teaching on the Holy Spirit one of the church leaders offered to take a new couple home. On the way they started chatting about what they had been hearing. The couple brought up the subject of tongues and said how confused they were. At that, a young man, who was a passenger in their car, leaned forward and said, “You don’t need to be so uneasy about tongues – it’s just like this.” And he started to speak out in tongues.

This shocked the couple. They just weren’t expecting anything so normal, that someone could just start and stop at will. They thought it might be some ecstatic and weird phenomenon. And then the husband asked if the young man knew what he had just said. “No, I don’t,” he replied.

Well, said the husband, I am from an Iranian upbringing and you have just spoken in broad Persian.”

So the young man asked, “What did I say?” And the reply was, “You have just said ‘the Lord is worthy. He alone is God. He alone is worthy to be praised.’”

So that is what Paul means by human tongues. It’s what you read about in Acts chapter 2 when 120 people, freshly filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, start speaking out in tongues and the thousands of people gathered there understand clearly what is being said as the wonders of God in their own languages.

I have heard several stories like this from reliable sources - Nicky Gumbel for example talks about a similar incident in an Alpha course in London when someone spoke out in Russian having no idea what she was saying, having never learnt that language. Somebody else understood the language and interpreted it as “My dear child, my dear child.” I have never actually seen anything like that myself. Has anyone here? …

I just want to say that I don’t think that this is what 1 Corinthians 14 is about. This seems to be more about angelic tongues than human ones. The tongues of angels, it seems, are not the sort of languages that you can learn by doing a Berlitz course.

It appears that human tongues are addressed to people and are inspired by God for powerful witness. Angelic tongues are addressed to God and are inspired by him for intimate worship. The language of angels is the language of praise; they constantly adore God around his throne. Most speaking in tongues we experience in church is of this nature and the interpretation will usually be words of praise. Not always, but often.

My Experience

My first encounter with speaking in tongues was, in fact, singing in tongues. I was a new Christian and I was at a Catholic Renewal Mass. Shortly after everyone had taken communion, two or three people started to sing out different but complementary melodies in a strange language. Others joined them one by one, adding new harmonies. Before long there were about 50 people producing the most otherworldly sound that was literally both weird and wonderful. Personally, I was a bit freaked out by it. I could see the look of pure joy on people’s radiant faces as they sang, but I just wasn’t prepared for it.

Not long afterwards I went to a Pentecostal church where in the middle of a time of open prayer someone started speaking out in a loud voice and a foreign tongue. The service leader waited until it was finished, then explained what had happened, and then asked if anyone in the congregation had an interpretation. After a few minutes someone spoke up and what he said was accepted as a rendering in English of what had been said.

I began to speak in tongues a few months after this. A guy offered to pray for me for the baptism in the Holy Spirit and that I would receive the gift of tongues. As he prayed I felt a strong outpouring of love and grace over me. I felt some sounds forming in my mouth but I didn’t have the confidence to speak them out, I was a bit self conscious, so I just stayed quiet. But when I went home and prayed on my own, I spoke the words out quite hesitatingly at first. And the strange thing is this; I only “heard in my mind” the first few sounds, just three or four syllables, but as I spoke them out, others followed. As I used the gift more regularly, the more fluent I became.

When my children started to talk they didn’t all of a sudden begin articulating in eloquent, flowing English. They started with one word and usually that word was “No!” But gradually, as time went on, they developed other words. They learnt the word “Mummy”, and several months later: “Daddy!” Language grows, and as people use language they develop it, and broaden the range of it. I think it is similar with the tongues of angels.

Since those early days, I have spoken out in tongues in church perhaps four or five times. When I do, I get a rising up of a tongue in my spirit that I feel I just need to release. But mostly, it is a prayer language I use more discreetly in praise and intercession. That is what Paul says it should mostly be in v2. “Those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God.” It’s mostly a prayer language.

What Value for the Church?

What should be the normal expression of tongues in church life? Should we be hearing tongues regularly in church? If so, why don’t we hear it more? Can we receive this gift if we don’t have it already? Should we use the gift of tongues, if we have it, whenever we pray alone? What does the Bible say about speaking in tongues?

Do you need to speak in tongues if you don’t already? Is there something wrong with you? No. Not all Christians speak in tongues. Some do, some don’t. It’s not even necessarily a sign of being filled with the Spirit. You can be filled with the Spirit every day and never speak in tongues.

So this being understood that there are no first-class Christians who speak in tongues and second-class Christians who don’t, let’s just have a quick rain check on our experience of this gift. How many here have prayed in tongues at some time? Keep your hands raised if you have spoken out in tongues in a church service in a way that was clearly audible to everyone else?

1 Corinthians12-14 show us that speaking in tongues was a normal and common experience in the church there. Though some of the details in this passage are a bit difficult to grasp, the main point is clear. Paul says here that he favours the gift of prophecy over the gift of tongues. Let me just read verses 4 and 5.

“Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves, but those who prophesy edify the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy.”

The reason why Paul had to write 1 Corinthians 14 is because the gift of tongues was being used excessively in church; in their services everyone was shouting together in a long cacophony of unintelligible sounds.

They were tongues fanatics. On and on and on they went, working up a frenzy, babbling away all together in the language of angels (which to the angels was perfectly comprehensible, but to everyone there was like gibberish). So it’s a bit of a surprise that in v18 Paul says, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all.” So Paul liked speaking in tongues. He did it a lot. “But, in the church,” he went on, “I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.”

They’d gone way over the top in Corinth. They were so excited about it they said, “Oh, let’s do away with preaching, that’s dreary!” So instead of having a sermon everyone would stand up and speak in tongues together, and Paul said, in v9 “Look, this is hopeless.”

“Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.”

Let’s go back to v2 where Paul writes, “For those who speak in a tongue, do not speak to people, but to God.” Speaking in tongues is mostly a form of prayer, and Paul says in verse 4: “Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves.” So it builds up the individual Christian. In v14, he goes on to say that it transcends the limits of human language: “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful”.

All of us are limited by human language. And sometimes we find ourselves frustrated that we cannot express what we describe as feeling deep down here. Sometimes, even in a human relationship we say, “I can’t find the words to express what I want to say.” And that is even truer about our relationship with God.

Sometimes we feel that we just don’t know how to express to God what we feel in our spirit.” And the gift of tongues enables us to express that without the limitation of human language. It doesn’t mean to say that we’re not thinking - we can be thinking all sorts of things that are on our hearts to pray about, but the mind is not having to go through the process of putting those prayers or praises into sentences of intelligible English.

The speaker, of course is in full control. He or she can start and stop whenever they wish, that’s why Paul can lay down rules here for how the gift is to be exercised. It’s not something that takes over your personality. It’s only in the demonic world where forces take people over. In the Christian, spiritual world, there’s always an element of co-operation between us and God and we can start and stop when we want, and therefore Paul lays down guidelines. This is why Paul says in v4 “Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves.”

On 5th April 1985 I was looking at a heart monitor and listening to nervous medical staff at the maternity unit of the Royal Free Hospital in London. I didn’t understand what was going on but it seemed that our first baby Anna had a slow heartbeat that was a cause for concern. I remember this feeling of dread and panic but at the same time desperately wanting to pray, but not knowing how to pray, and I have never been more grateful for the gift of tongues with which to pour out my heart to God. A great peace came upon me – and Anna was born with no complications shortly afterwards. “Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves.”

The gift of tongues is also powerful when praying for other people. Jackie Pullinger has a fantastic ministry amongst drug addicts, prostitutes and gangsters in Hong Kong. She wrote about the transformation that happened in her ministry as she began to use this gift.

In her book Chasing the Dragon she writes, “I prayed 15 minutes a day in the language of the Spirit, and still felt nothing as I asked the Spirit to help me intercede for those he wanted to reach.” It is significant that it wasn’t a feeling, it was something that she felt led to do and did out of simple obedience. “After about six weeks of this, I began to lead people to Jesus without trying. Gangsters fell on their knees, sobbing in the streets. Women were healed. Heroin addicts were miraculously set free. And I knew it all had nothing to do with me”.

It was also the gateway for her to receive other gifts of the Spirit. She wrote: “With my friends I began to learn about the other gifts of the Spirit and we experienced a remarkable few years of ministry. Scores of gangsters and well-to-do people, students and churchmen were converted and all received a new language to pray in private, and other gifts to use when meeting together. We opened several homes to house heroin addicts and all were delivered from drugs, painlessly because of the power of the Holy Spirit.”

What about v22-25? They are the most confusing verses in the chapter because they don’t seem to be coherent. There is probably something lost in translation.

The Message puts it all in contemporary terms.

“So where does it get you, all this speaking in tongues no one understands? It doesn't help believers, and it only gives unbelievers something to gawk at. Plain truth-speaking, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of believers and doesn't get in the way of unbelievers. If you come together as a congregation and some unbelieving outsiders walk in on you as you're all praying in tongues, unintelligible to each other and to them, won't they assume you've taken leave of your senses and get out of there as fast as they can? But if some unbelieving outsiders walk in on a service where people are speaking out God's truth, the plain words will bring them up against the truth and probe their hearts. Before you know it, they're going to be on their faces before God, recognizing that God is among you.”

When it says “tongues are a sign for believers” it doesn’t mean a sign that God is real which is what we automatically assume. It means that tongues, without interpretation, are like a great big notice hanging in a church building saying “Are you new? Well, you guessed right – these people are seriously unhinged.”

Ending

I think I want to stop there because I’ve spoken long enough. But I think it would be good to ask God to give the gift of tongues to anyone who would like to receive it for the first time. If you want this gift, ask your Father for it. I think too, it would be good for those among us who have let the gift of tongues fall into disuse to say sorry “Lord, I want to fan into flame the gift you have placed in me, that I may enjoy you with deeper intimacy, praise with greater joy and intercede with an increase of power”…


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18th July 2010

How God Chooses (1 Samuel 16.1-13)

Did you ever have to line up with your school mates at play time and wait to get picked for a team? When I was at school it was always Paul Harriot and Vincent Barnes who picked the teams because they were the best at sports. The rest of us lined up trying to look athletic, hoping we’d get snapped up quickly for the better team - all of us desperate not to be selected last.

That was usually the sad lot of Denis Weeks (name changed) who had thick glasses, zits, a complexion that always looked like he had just been seasick, a stammer, an awkward gait and who was the last in our class to break his voice. He was every inch a loser and could quite effortlessly lose the game for his team in the first 10 minutes if told to play in the back four.

After last week, I seriously wonder if the F.A. hired him as defence coach for the national team… I was usually picked with undisguised reluctance two or three boys before Denis Weeks.

Have you had similar humiliating experiences in life? Of being one of those who never seemed to get into in the in crowd? Of getting picked last? Of missing the boat? Of failing to make the cut? Of getting passed over for selection?

Well, lift your head this morning – because one of the greatest designations of the Church of Jesus Christ is God’s chosen people. God doesn’t choose like the world does. 1 Corinthians 1.27 says that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

Listen to these Scriptures; if you are a Christian believer today, these words from the Bible are about you.

“Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.” (Romans 8.33)

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession…” (1 Peter 2.9)

We’re going to look at how God chooses this morning. What are the criteria he uses in his sovereign choices about people? And we’re going to focus on 1 Samuel 16, which is the beginning of the story of David.

Verses 2-5 set out for us the background of the times in which David lived, about 1000 years B.C. God says to Samuel to fill his flask with aromatic oil to go and anoint a future king. Saul, the first king of Israel, and present incumbent, has just fouled up big time in chapter 15 and now the whole atmosphere of his reign is one of fear and suspicion. In v2 Saul is scared to go to Bethlehem because he has to pass through Gibeah - where Saul lives. Samuel would rather avoid that because he knows Saul is out of control. He could easily lash out and kill a man of God in a fit of jealousy. So Samuel has to travel with the pretext of offering a sacrifice to God for fear of his life.

And that atmosphere of instability and intrigue permeates the whole nation. Because in v5, when Samuel arrives in Bethlehem, the elders of the town ask nervously, “Is everything all right? Have you come in peace?” It’s horrible.

You know when a church or a work environment or a family has become dysfunctional when no one trusts anyone anymore. There’s an atmosphere. People are suspicious of each other’s motives. If your family or your home group, or any relationship you are in, has gone that way there’s only one way back - and that’s the cross; the place of forgiveness.

So Samuel says to everyone in Bethlehem living in anxious fear in v5 “Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” In New Testament terms that means “get your hearts cleansed by coming back to the cross; the source of grace.” It’s the way back.

Do you remember when God told Abraham to offer his son Isaac? When they got there Isaac said, “The fire and wood are here but where is the sacrifice?” In other words, “Everything is in position but the essential is missing. That’s like saying “We’ve got everything in place for worship; great musicians, all the latest stuff for the sound, banners, a good building, nice chairs and a decent projector. But God says “Where is the sacrifice?” This is a matter of the heart isn’t it? Are you offering up to God your whole heart, your whole life?” Let me just ask you, are you really giving God the best in worship?

So much for the atmosphere in the nation. What about the atmosphere in Saul? The reason why Saul is in such a bad place is that he has been rejected - by God. We have to understand this; God chooses but God also rejects.

Let’s read v1 again. “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel?’”

The Lord is saying to Samuel here, “Don’t be nostalgic for anything that is contrary to my will.” Saul has been continuously disobedient to God. He has not stopped compromising God’s standards. That’s why he has been an ineffective leader of God’s people because he has no real heart for God.

We’ve got to be ruthless in our opposition to sin. I don’t mean we should castigate sinners. How could we? We’re all sinners. But we’ve got to be clear in our minds that we will give no concession to compromising God’s word.

But why would a loving God reject anyone? And does this mean that God might ditch us as his chosen people as well? Should we be feeling a little less secure?

Listen, God never ever abandons or forsakes those he loves. Jesus never ever changes his mind over the chosen people he paid for with his own blood. He never ever lets anyone or anything snatch his treasured possession from his hands. What it says here is quite different. Look carefully and notice that God says, “I have rejected (Saul) as king over Israel.”

It means God was relieving Saul of his responsibilities as king. Saul’s disobedience to God’s word had direct consequences on his fitness as a leader of God’s people. God was therefore withdrawing the authority he had given him. He was removing the anointing he had poured out on him.

God actively regulates the proliferation of evil in the world by limiting the length of office of ungodly political leaders. That’s why, when you work out the average length of reign of all the monarchs in 1 and 2 Kings, the good ones reign, on average, three times longer than the bad ones. It pays to read the Bible with a calculator sometimes! All those elected to office will have to give an account to God for their record in government – and the King of kings and Lord of lords can remove them at any time he wishes.

Similarly Hebrews 13.17 says, “Have confidence in your (church) leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.” All those in pastoral ministry will answer to God for their decisions in leadership – and the Lord can relieve them of their posts whenever he wants to.

So much for how God rejects. What about how God chooses?

The gentile journalist William Ewer once said, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” To which an anonymous Jew replied, “Not odd of God. Goyim annoy ’im!”

But goyim don’t annoy God any more than Jews do. In fact, the Bible says that God chooses in two ways. The first is how he chooses those who are to be his people and is found in verses like Deuteronomy 7.6-7 which say this:

“The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery.”

That means that God’s sovereign choice is nothing to do with the qualities of those he chooses. That God has chosen us as his treasured possession is nothing to do with our merits, our strengths, our attractiveness or our plus points, whatever they might be. It’s pure grace from beginning to end. It is completely undeserved and unconnected to the way we are.

That’s the first way God chooses. But who does God choose among his chosen people to place his anointing on? What are the criteria for that? That’s the second thing and that’s what this story is about.

Verses 6-11 show us just how naturally people fall into the trap of judging by appearances. We all instinctively look people up and down when we first meet them and form instant opinions about them based on their face, hairstyle, shape, clothes, jewellery, age, sex, voice and body posture. Jesus never did. It says he knew all people and what was in them.

Saul had stood out from the rest when he was made king. 1 Samuel 9.1-2 says, “There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish… Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else.”

Saul was tall, dark, handsome and from a wealthy family. He was the George Clooney of ancient Israel. Ladies, what’s not to like?

So when Samuel went looking for a new king and saw Eliab he thought “I reckon it’ll be him” because Eliab was the kind of guy who’d look good doing coffee adverts; good looking, with a strong physique. Samuel was looking for more of the same. But it wasn’t Eliab, Aminadab, Shammah or any one else. Verse 7: “The Lord does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

That’s one of the reasons why there is no physical description of Jesus in the Bible apart from this one from Isaiah 52.14 foretelling his suffering; “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.” Yet he was supremely anointed; that’s what the word “Christ” means – the anointed one.

It’s not your face or your physique that qualifies you for God’s anointing – it’s your character. “Character” says Bill Hybels “is who you are when no one is looking.”

Who wants to have a good reputation? Well, God’s not interested in reputation. He’s looking for character.

Reputation is what you are supposed to be. Character is who you are.

Reputation can be made in a flash. Character is built over a lifetime.

Reputation can grow like a mushroom. Character always grows like an oak.

Reputation is what people say about you on your tombstone. Character is what the angels say about you around the throne of God.

So when you read v12 it’s quite a surprise to read that David’s physical features were actually not that shabby. “He was glowing with health, with a fine appearance and handsome features.”

So you don’t have to be ugly, small, bald, hook-nosed and bow legged to qualify for God’s anointing! The truth is it makes no difference at all what you look like.

When it comes to who God is going to pour out his anointing oil, he is not looking at our faces. He is looking into our hearts. And David, the Cinderella of his family, had a heart for God.

As we’re going to be seeing over the next few weeks, he had a worshipping heart. “Psalm 9. A psalm of David. I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”

God is looking for men and women with a heart for worship who are committed to giving the very best to exalt his greatness worthily. Are you going to be one of them?

He had a servant heart. Acts 13:36 says “David… served God’s purpose in his own generation.”

And he is looking for servant-hearted men and women who are passionate about doing the will of God in ours. Are you going to be one of them?

He had a trusting heart. “David said: ‘I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken’” (Acts 2:25).

God is looking for men and women who will not be moved because their hearts have placed their trust in God’s unshakable promises. Are you going to be one of them?

He had an undivided heart. “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.” (1 Chronicles 28.9).

He had a prophetic heart. Acts 2:29-30 says “(David) was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.”

God is looking for men and women who will hear from him and speak out his word. Do you want to be one of them?

He had an obedient heart. Acts 13:22 says “God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”

In short, David had a heart for God.

And if you have a heart for God you already have the key for the Lord’s anointing over your life as well.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 4th July 2010.

Eat and Drink with One Another (1 Corinthians 11.23-34)

Introduction

On the table in front of us there is bread and there is wine. Why? It is a matter of obedience. Jesus himself told us to this so that we never forget what it cost him to bring us together and win us for himself.

For most meals the essential thing is what the food tastes like. But what is important here is not what it tastes like but what it means. We come to this table, as equals, hungry for God.

Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” So I want to take you with me on a journey in time. We’re going to think again about what happened around the meal when Jesus broke bread the night before he died.

1) Past

It’s the night of the Passover festival and Jesus’ twelve followers are with him in Jerusalem. They’re all there; Peter, James and John of course, the inner circle… but unknowns too like Thaddeus and Bartholomew.

Jesus instructs his disciples to prepare the traditional feast in an upstairs room. They don’t know that it’s their fateful last night with Jesus and that by this time tomorrow he will be dead and buried. For them it’s a festive celebration, it’s a gathering of friends in the company of their master.

It’s Jesus’ last ever meal, and he alone knows it. He washes his disciples’ feet, talks with them and takes charge of the meal. He tells them just how much he had been looking forward to it. “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22.15). He says clearly, without parables, that he is going to go through agony and die. “My blood will be poured out for you,” he says. He knows exactly what’s going to happen to him. Arrest, torture, the cross, desertion, loneliness, dereliction, death…

Peter is there, unaware of what he is about to do. In just a few hours he will have categorically denied ever having known Jesus only to bitterly repent afterwards. Jesus knows. But Peter is welcomed at the table anyway. Every week there are Peters at this table; coming with a good heart, earnest, innocent, enthusiastic… but fickle, impulsive, and easily led. The Lord knows that you and I can deny him just as easily. What matters is can Jesus count on us to come back to him broken and sorry afterwards?

Judas is there too. Yes, even him; the Judas who will hand Jesus over to death, the Judas who will show regret and remorse - but not repentance. But Jesus accepts even him as well to this table. On the cross tomorrow Jesus will cry out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t understand what they are doing.” Was he thinking of Judas as well as the soldiers who crucified him, and the crowd who jeered at him?

Peter, because he allowed himself to be broken, was restored and given a new commission. Tragically, Judas never repented. Listen! Never think you have done something so bad, so shameful, that God would never forgive you. Never think that God is good, but not good enough to forgive you the worst you have ever done. Even Judas wasn’t beyond the pale. “Father, forgive…” He loves you, and nothing can separate you from his love – only your unwillingness to receive his mercy.

After the meal, events move very quickly. Jesus heads towards his favourite public garden just outside the city, called Gethsemane, which means ‘olive press.’ He invites his closest disciples, the ones he can really trust, to accompany him and watch with him through the night. They fall asleep. He suffers anguish and sorrow and mental torment. God presses the cup of his fierce anger against sin to his son’s lips, a cup that no one else can drink or even taste. Jesus drinks the cup dry.

Moments later, Jesus is face to face with Judas, who has come to hand him over. Three years of travelling together, of ministry together, of sleeping under the stars and eating at table together ends in a disorderly confrontation, and an awkward greeting… Face to face.

A bit later still, Jesus, chained up, his hands behind his back, steals a glance at his great friend Peter. Their eyes meet briefly across the crowded square. Peter has just called down curses on his head, swearing he has never met Jesus, adamant that doesn’t even know who he is. Face to face. All that awaits him now is a violent judicial murder. Relentless beatings, blood, humiliations, more blood, insults, more blood.

This meal, for us too, is a face to face encounter with Christ. Look Jesus in the eye with me this morning. Us in all our guilt. Him in all his blamelessness.

2) Present

Those are the events we recall this morning in breaking bread and pouring out wine. It’s an evocative reminder. It’s not like anything else on earth. But it’s not just about thinking back to the past.

Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, says v26 you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. By sharing this meal together we publicly identify with the power of the cross and resurrection for us. Taking bread, sharing a cup is saying openly, “I believe today with all my heart that Jesus really died on a cross, that he carried my sin there in his body and because of him I can know God and be healed.” It’s a perfect opportunity to testify freely to those truths. Jesus didn’t say, “Watch this”, he said, “Do this in memory of me”.

We share this simple meal remembering the past, recalling to mind the agony of Christ on the cross. We also share it to express some profound things in the present; that we belong to a Christian family, that we are in Christ, and that his presence fills our life.

We belong to one another, we are members of one another as the Bible puts it. We, who are many, are one body, because we all share one bread. Meeting together at the same table is about belonging, not just to Christ, but to one another as well. This is a communion table.

That is why it is really important to be right with one another before we come to communion. Jesus said, “If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you… go to this friend and make things right first.” This is why we share the peace.

But of course, we need to make sure we are right with God as well as right with each other. It is a holy communion.

There’s an important parallel between what it says about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 8-11 and what it says there about food offered to idols. It says that meat sold in the market, having first been offered up to idols is O.K. It’s just meat. You can eat hallal, or in those Chinese restaurants with an idol statue by the front door, with a good conscience, even though the food may have been part of a non-Christian religious ritual.

It’s only food and anyway there is only one God. But it also talks about a spiritual dimension and that pagan sacrifices are offered to demons. Paul seems at first glance to contradict himself. But he is making two different and simple points; firstly, that food is just food; it’s not magic. But secondly, when we eat food in the context of worship, whether of God or of idols, we find ourselves in fellowship with hidden spiritual realities behind.

So when we break and eat this bread, it’s just bread. No more. It’s not magic. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, when we engage spiritually by faith, to us it’s more than just bread. It’s, as Paul describes it in 10.16, “a participation in the body of Christ.” The wine is real wine. If you drink it all, even ‘consecrated’ you won’t drive home legally! The physical ingredients do not change. But when we drink from that cup, in faith, submitted anew under Christ’s lordship and authority, it is the cup of salvation. In this bread there is healing and grace. In this cup, there’s forgiveness and abundant life. In this moment, by the Spirit, Jesus Christ is present.

It’s a bit like a window. You can look at the window; the frame, the handle, the size, the shape… Or you can look through the window and see much more. You can see just bread and wine if you want. But you can also, by faith, look through that and taste and see that the Lord is good.

Physically, we take bread into our bodies and we are nourished, given new energy and strength. Bread is good for you. Spiritually, what’s happening is that, by faith, as we give Christ our hearts, as we meet him, in our minds, face to face at the cross, we tap in to all the blessings that flow from his costly death. It’s the bread of life, the cup of salvation.

By eating this bread and drinking this cup I am saying to the world that Jesus is real and working in my life. He is alive in me. I am letting him work in me. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live is for the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up to die for me” (Galatians 2.20). I am saying, just as Jesus did in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” I am trusting him to guide my life.

3) Future

So we share this meal looking back to what Jesus did. We come to this table too looking in to the present reality of our relationship with God, and looking around at of our unity with one another. But we also eat together looking forward to all that God has promised us. The Bible is extremely clear about this. Holy Communion will one day be obsolete. In eternal terms it has a very limited shelf life. God will one day abolish it. Soon, in fact. If Jesus comes back tomorrow the Communion we share in this morning will be our last. For in taking bread and wine we proclaim his death until he comes again, and only until then.

When one of your loved ones is away you might look at their photo to remind you of them, but not the moment they return. Why treasure a photo souvenir when you have the real thing? When Christ comes back, we shall see him face to face, and we won’t need shadows and symbols any more.

So this is why we eat and drink with one another at the Lord’s Table. But what about verses 27-31? I remind you that Paul says, without any ambiguity, the following words: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. We ought to examine ourselves before we eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For those who eat and drink without recognizing the body of the Lord eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.”

Who is not puzzled or troubled by these words? What do these verses really say? What does it mean to examine yourself before eating and drinking?

Clearly, it means that taking communion is a serious business between you and God. You don’t do it lightly. It is a time to remember Jesus’ death and what it cost him to free you from sin. It’s a time to remember his resurrection, his presence in your life, his return. And the prayer we say at communion is designed to focus on those things.

But what if you don’t “recognise (or discern) the body of the Lord?” Does the Bible really say here that if you take Communion insincerely or absent-mindedly you can fall ill and die? It seems a bit extreme doesn’t it? Paul’s words in v30-31 are plain. “Those who eat and drink without recognizing the body of the Lord eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have died.”

And there’s an example of this you are all familiar with. Someone who ate bread and drank from the cup, who shared communion with Jesus and his followers, without having examined his heart? Someone who died very soon afterwards? Judas Iscariot; the one disciple who fell away. Peter, that same night betrayed Jesus too, but he turned back to Christ in tears of repentance, went on to bear much fruit.

Ending

So let’s come face to face with Jesus this morning. Let’s humbly accept Jesus’ forgiveness like Peter did, and not despair in self-pity like Judas.

Let’s eat and drink as an expression of faith; that we might go on to bear much fruit as well.

Let’s eat and drink with gladness - not because we must, but because we may.

Let’s eat and drink not because we love him a lot, but because, like Peter, we so easily discover that we love him only a little. Let’s share this meal to say we want to love him more.

And finally, let’s eat and drink with one another proclaiming the cross with our brothers and sisters on the same journey. Until he comes again.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 27th June 2010

No Compromise (Judges 6.25-32)

Introduction

An atheist turns up on a Rabbi’s doorstep one morning with a dead parrot and says, “Good morning, Rabbi. My parrot died yesterday and I’m looking for someone to do the funeral. Do you think you could do the ceremony and bury him in your Jewish cemetery?” So the rabbi scratches his head and sys, “In thirty years at this synagogue that is the most outrageous request I have ever received. There is no way on earth I would desecrate holy ground with your dead bird. Now get off my land!” Seeing that the rabbi’s answer was pretty clear-cut the guy says, “O.K., I’m sorry for the offence. But do you think the Anglican vicar down the road would do the funeral for £2000?” So the Rabbi says, “£2,000? Why didn’t you say your parrot was Jewish?”

My grandmother was Jewish, and I loved her very much. It's the kind of joke she would have enjoyed. She would have found nothing offensive about it and I would suffer that kind of humour at my expense as a Christian without getting upset at all. But it is a bit close to the bone. And I told it because tension between religious factions is no laughing matter. In Pakistan and Indonesia and Sudan people have been killed for their faith in Christ this year by Islamist extremists. Churches are burnt down in Nigeria. Shiite mosques are targeted in Iraq. Hindu temples are destroyed in India.

On the 1st of March 2001 the Taliban blew up two enormous 1,500 year old statues of Buddha, carved in the cliffs of the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan. The whole civilized world was shocked at this ignorant provocation. Our media showed us ‘before and after’ pictures of the event that was described as a crime against the cultural heritage of the world. A part of history has gone, lost forever, all because of a group of small-minded fanatics with anti tank grenades.

But, at first sight, what we had read to us from Judges chapter 6 - that is to say the vandalising of a religious artefact at a holy shrine - seems to come from the same mould. It’s just another radical group that can’t stop itself smashing up someone else’s sanctuary. In fact, you could even say that the Gideon story is worse than the Taliban one. At least the Taliban had the courage and conviction to destroy those statues in broad daylight and without apology. But Gideon did what he did under the cover of darkness so he didn’t have to face the music.

I live my life by the Bible. I believe that this book contains the words of God himself, that every page is God-breathed. (Well, maybe not the index. Or the maps...) But I believe that the Bible, all of it, is trustworthy and reliable. I believe that God will bless those who read it and live out its message. And, yes, I take passages like Gideon smashing up an altar to a foreign idol as the word of God for me. That is non-negotiable and has been ever since I gave my life to Christ when I was 17.

And yet the very idea of rounding up a gang of thugs to help me blow up a Hindu temple or flatten a synagogue or desecrate a mosque doesn’t enter my mind. Christians should respect the holy places of all other religions, whatever they are, however compatible or incompatible with our faith in Christ. Have I sold out?

These are really important questions for us because the conflict between religions is one of the biggest issues of our generation. And one of the greatest objections to the Christian faith in our day centres on a disgust for passages like this one. Some people can’t get over the seeming contradiction between what they read about God’s anger in the Old Testament and what they read about his love in the New. And it’s a real problem. And in order to try and resolve it, at least as far as this passage goes, with integrity, we need to answer two questions.

Firstly, we know that Gideon demolished an altar that was set up for the god that is called Baal, but what was Baal worship exactly? When we get to the bottom of that we’ll see Judges 6 in a new light. And secondly, in what ways was Gideon’s world different to ours? When we understand the differences in context we’ll have a better understanding of the issues. The answer to both questions will give us the key that unlocks the problem of Gideon’s attack and God’s authorization (indeed God’s commissioning) of it.

Baal Worship

In v25-26 God says to Gideon, “Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this hill. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer a bull as a burnt offering.”

What was this altar? What did people do on it? What was the pole? What was it for? What was it about these objects that God found so offensive?

Baal worship at this time in Israel’s history was quite developed and certainly widespread. It had priestly leaders and sanctuaries on every hill that were (unimaginatively) called ‘high places.’ And the magnetic power of Baal was particularly strong in the time of the Judges. That’s why many of the stories in this book begin with an expression like, “The Lord’s people turned away from him and bowed down before the Baals and Asheras.” Notice that Baal and Asherah were often talked about in the plural. That’s because they both gathered together under one figurehead many cult gods and goddesses, from Babylon, Egypt and elsewhere. It was a kind of nebulous, unfocused, post-modern mishmash of a religion, a bit like the New Age movement in our day. Many different, and even contradictory, ideas, each promising happiness and wholeness, and none demanding any moral commitment.

Quite the opposite. One the features of Baal worship was its runaway eroticism. On each high place there were icons and sometimes sordid statues of Baal, sacred poles, which were phallic symbols, and incense altars. The Baal cult was excessively tawdry. Prostitutes, both male and female offered sexual favours - it was more like a Roman orgy than any worship service we’d recognise. So, there were confused, mixed-up gods, lustful, licentious ceremonies, and to top it all off - barbaric rituals. Baal worship promoted the abomination of human sacrifice.

God talks about this, in Jeremiah 19.5, in these terms; “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.” These macabre rituals became commonplace all over the land as people even burnt alive their own children to secure the blessings of fertility and prosperity from these idols.

That’s the truth about this cult and that’s why God got so upset about it. Can you understand now why his righteous anger burned so passionately against Baal worship? Can you see why it is not possible to talk in terms of tolerance or moderation or respect in this situation? Gideon’s demolition of Baal’s altar and his setting fire to the Asherah pole were not the reckless and ignorant lashing out by a fanatic but a responsible and prophetic stand for justice and decency.

God’s Warning

But there’s another reason why Gideon’s actions were right. Some years before the period of the Judges, perhaps 30 or 40 years before Gideon’s birth, the nation of Israel lived in the desert in tents. They were a nomadic, homeless nation, with no land and no inheritance. And it was at that moment that Moses gave a solemn warning to his compatriots who were about to enter Canaan, the Promised Land, where Baal worship was established. And this is what Moses said at that time, in Deuteronomy 11.16-17; “Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.”

In other words, mixing the Baal cult with worshiping the one true God will result in drought, in famine, in want, and in exile. It will bring a curse on the land and on the people. That’s what happened. Conversely, faithfulness to the Lord will mean abundance, rain, good harvests, peace and prosperity. This is the thing: Gideon’s sabotage of Baal’s altar brought Israel back on course for a blessed future. We shouldn’t be in any doubt about this. It wasn’t that Gideon insulted the respected religious communities of his day. No. The destruction of that pagan shrine redirected his rebellious generation towards the model that God had established for it.

And by the way, notice that God’s promise to bring his people into a land of milk and honey had a proviso. God’s promises always have conditions attached. I like claiming God’s promises. “I will be with you to the end of the age.” That’s nice isn’t it? But check out the small print before claiming it! “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.” If I’m not doing that I have no business claiming the promise that is attached to it. In Isaiah 41.10 God says this; “I am with you for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” But that promise is invalid without the disclaimer; “Do not fear, and do not be dismayed.”

Smashing Down Altars in Our Society

If we lived in a land that God had given to us, if our families were abandoning God for degrading practices, sacred prostitution and child sacrifices, the message for us would be clear. But we live in a secular and pluralist nation where there is a multiplicity of different faiths.

Our situation is not like Gideon’s. It’s more like that of the first Christians in the first century. In Acts 17, for example, Paul, even though he burned with irritation at seeing how Athens was full of idols, he didn’t go around smashing up the Acropolis at night. What did he do? He dialogued. He listened. He asked questions. And he spoke with conviction and consideration about the resurrection of Jesus in the most engaging and eloquent terms possible.

Our world isn’t Gideon’s world; it’s more like the one known by the young Christians in Colossae, to whom these words were written; “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” In other words, learn to speak about the Lord in a way that will be attractive to people around. No harshness, nothing judgmental or opinionated but gracious and appealing.

Our society isn’t like Gideon’s; it’s more like the one that the recipients of Peter’s first letter lived in; they were a Christian minority in an overwhelmingly pagan and superstitious world. And this is what the Apostle Peter wrote to them; “Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick.” (1 Peter 3.15-16, the Message). In other words, work at defending your belief in Christ when it is attacked, but especially to do so courteously. People are more likely to agree if we are more agreeable.

So is there a word from God to us from Judges 6? What are the altars that God would have us demolish? And how must we demolish them? I believe the combat zones are the same as those in Gideon’s day; muddle and confusion about who God is, the temptations of the body and the devaluation of life. But our battle is not against flesh and blood. It’s not a physical conflict, it’s against principalities and powers. Our fight is spiritual; the theatre of our warfare is in prayer and fasting, in acting in obedience to God’s word. And it’s in the power of the Holy Spirit that God will bring down strongholds.

Smashing Down Altars in Our Lives

In a way, Baal still lives today and this passage is terribly modern. If Gideon’s generation had to smash the altars of confusion, of sex and of child sacrifice, so does ours.

Vast numbers of people in our land run after the shallowest ideas (look at the body, mind and spirit section in any bookshop and count the number of books offering a sane, biblical approach, then compare it with the number peddling occult practices and New Age muddle. It’s an altar to Baal.

Take a walk round any red light district or gay quarter in any of Europe’s cities and study the tortured faces of men addicted to every pleasure and perversion, the majority unable to sustain any kind of committed or meaningful relationship. These are altars to Baal.

In Britain, the most dangerous place to be is not a black spot on the A1 in fog or in Toxteth or Moss Side after dark – but in your mother’s womb. Look up on the Internet the statistics for pregnancy termination or child abuse in this country. The laws of our land side with the aspiration for a comfortable lifestyle more than they protect the chance of an unborn child to see the light of day. It’s an altar to Baal.

Ending

And when these values penetrate our own thoughts and ideas, always very subtly, we need to fight them with strength and conviction, like Gideon did. When Jesus said that the kingdom of God is forcefully advancing, and that only aggressive men lay hold of it (Matthew 11.12) He had this kind of spiritual battle in mind.

Because it’s not those who just weakly accept the values of this world who are going to go forward in Gideon’s commission and anointing. It’s those who resist against the spirit of Baal with all their strength. Are you one of them?

Are you going to oppose, with all your might, the compromise which corrupts true faith and weakens Christ’s lordship in your life and in the Church?

Are you going to be one of the militants who look Satan in the eye and say, “We will fight you in our minds, in our hearts, in our homes, in our churches, in the streets… We will never surrender one inch of ground to you.”

God calls you, like Gideon’s generation, to discover and pursue wholesome, passionate, biblical faith.

God calls you, like Gideon’s generation, to purity and faithfulness in sexual relationships, mirroring his brilliant holiness and his enduring faithfulness.

God calls you, like Gideon’s generation to love life, to nurture it, to protect the powerless, especially the young.

When we respond to that call, the altars to Baal will crumble, in our lives and in the Church - and altars of high praise to the Lord will spring up in their place.

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 6th June 2010

Bear With and Forgive One Another (Colossians 3.12-14)

Introduction

Kathie and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on Friday. 27 years. Sometimes people ask what the secret of a long marriage is. My answer is this; we go out to a restaurant twice a week and arrange a little candlelit dinner, with soft music, and a slow walk home. She goes on Tuesdays and I go on Fridays! No seriously, here’s to you darling; no matter how old you are, you don’t look it.

Marriages require a great deal of maintenance don’t they? No marriage just turns out well on its own. It takes effort to make the relationship work because however in love a bride and groom are on their wedding day they’re entering into a coalition of two sinners, and sin always spoils everything. Your garden needs trimming and weeding otherwise it becomes a jungle. In the same way, married couples need to constantly affirm one another, listen to one another, be patient with one another and forgive one another or the marriage will soon become life-sapping. The thing is what is true for gardens and marriages is also true for churches.

Ask most people in the UK what they think of church and you will hear words like “boring,” “hypocritical,” “irrelevant” and “judgmental.” But God’s great vision for his Church is of an alternative society, a new community, an inspirational fellowship of people quite unlike anything else you can find on earth.

Have you ever asked yourself why Jesus spent three years with a motley collection of lame ducks and losers? He did it to build them into a united band of brothers capable of taking on the might of the Roman Empire and winning. It has been calculated that 44% of the letters of the New Testament are specifically about how we should get along with one another. If anyone thinks it is inconsequential that so much of the New Testament is about relationships they’re wrong. One of the key measures of our effectiveness as a church is how we get on with each other.

The theologian Andrew Kirk puts it this way: “What the New Testament means by the Church is not an institution which owns property, performs rites and organises meetings, or even one that plans strategies to evangelise unreached people. Rather, [the church] is a group of ordinary people who, because they are experiencing the immense grace of a compassionate God, are learning how to overcome hostility between people, forgive and trust one another, share what they have and encourage one another in wholesome and joyous relationships.”

That is right. There are, in fact, 54 ‘one anothers’ in the New Testament, and each one is a command, not an option on a menu. Love one another, bear one another’s burdens, pray for one another, wash one another’s feet and agree with one another encourage one another, teach and admonish one another, be devoted to one another, greet one another with a holy kiss… But today, we’re going to consider what it means to bear with one another and forgive one another, both of which are found in Colossians 3.

Putting On Christ

Read Colossians 3 carefully is all about you - not as you see yourself but as God sees you. It gives you God’s perspective - and therefore the correct view - of the way things really are with us. Our understanding of spiritual reality is like looking through an opaque window; it’s always distorted by sin. From the moment we are born every one of us naturally sees ourselves as the centre of the universe. Everything revolves around me; what I want, what I like, what I need. So we need to be educated by the Word of God and learn to place Christ at the centre of all that is.

According to Colossians 3, as God sees you, once you’re a Christian, the personality you were born with (with you at the centre of everything), as far as God is concerned - it’s all dead and buried. It’s finished. All the wrongs you have done and every wrong done to you… the funeral is over. And it says that God has made you a new personality, a new self with a new heart. Every believer in Christ is a new creation, born again. “You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (v3). “You have been raised with Christ” (v1). That is your status in God’s eyes if you are a Christian this morning.

It means this; putting it crudely, because you and I have been given royal status by God it is expected of us now to show a bit of class. So in v7 it says, “you used to walk in these [sinful] ways, in the life you once lived, but now you must rid yourselves of all [that]. We saw this week that, just because someone has connections with the royal family, it doesn’t mean they automatically live accordingly. It’s one thing to be given the status, it’s quite another to adopt the lifestyle.

The way the Bible puts it in v9-10 is this; it’s just like God gives you an entirely new wardrobe. You open the door and all the garments in there are classy, brand new, well designed, made from the best materials and perfectly fitting. Becoming a Christian was like taking off your old dirty, stained, ill-fitting, badly designed, nylon rags with holes in the arms and knees and being dressed in the very finest clothes you have ever worn. “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self.”

The thing is about clothes though is that you have to put them on every morning! Every day, you get up, get washed, open the wardrobe and you put on each garment, one at a time, until you’re fully dressed and ready to go out.

So that’s where we pick up the train of thought in our reading; v12.

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

This is the kind of heart and attitude God wants you and me to choose and display – consciously choosing these virtues as if we were putting them on when we get dressed in the morning.

Of course, the royal robes God invites us to put on are not made of natural material. They are woven from spiritual fibres. Try as you might in your own power to always be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient, they don’t come naturally. You need to let God grow them in you.

For instance, compassion. The old human nature with me in the centre says things like, “She deserved that, I don’t feel sorry for her at all.” But the new nature with God at the centre says, “She must feel terrible. But for the grace of God that’s where I’d be. I’ll give her a call and see how she is.”

Kindness; the old human nature with me in the centre says, “I’ll do my fair share but no more.” But the new nature with God at the centre says, “I’ll cheerfully go the extra mile here and that will be an offering of praise to God.”

Patience; the old human nature with me in the centre meets inconvenience and says, “I’m important, I deserve better than this!” But the new nature with God at the centre smiles and says, “the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in love. How can I reflect his heart in this situation?”

Forbearance

So v13: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

What does it mean to bear with someone? It’s a bit of a strange expression. When you phone someone up and they ask you to hold the line, sometimes they say, “Just bear with me a minute…” It sort of means, “I want you to just wait and not get annoyed.” I looked up the original verb in my Greek Interlinear and traced all the other times it is used in the New Testament.

It turns up in Mathew 17.17 when the disciples failed to drive out an evil spirit and Jesus says, “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” So we might say “put up with others in the church even when they are slow to learn, annoying and a bit useless.”

The word appears again in Acts 18.14 where it is translated “to listen to someone.” You know when you’re in a conversation and you are so focused on putting across a point of view that you don’t really hear what the other one’s saying because you’re preparing to say your bit? Well, I think it’s saying here that “bearing with one another” means really listening to what others are saying even if our first thought is that they’re going to talk rubbish.

It appears again in 1 Corinthians 4.12 when Paul talks about his response to constant hassle. “When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it.” So we might say “endure others in church even when you are shabbily treated and gossiped about by them.”

So put up with one another’s irritations, listen to one another’s words and endure one another’s failings for the sake of Christ. Bear with one another.

Forgiveness

Verse 13 continues, “forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

If you have a grievance it means you have a legitimate reason to feel offended. For example, if someone promises to help you clean up the garage, but instead they fall asleep watching football on the sofa, you have grounds to feel aggrieved. If someone promises to meet you at a certain time, and they forget and leave you standing out in the rain, you have a valid grievance. I bet everyone in this place today could come up with a list of legitimate reasons why we have been upset with certain people. In fact, here’s a list I’ve been keeping since I arrived here nearly two years ago… (produce long roll of paper). And I’m sure people could produce a roll of paper twice as long for the things I’ve aggrieved them over in half the time.

The Bible doesn’t say “don’t have grievances.” It assumes that you will. It says, when you do have grievances, don’t run away, sort it out.

You may not have realised this, but there are in the New Testament several different words translated “forgive.” The one here in Colossians 3.13 means to freely or graciously give something away. The idea is of someone treating someone else better than they really deserve. Imagine someone says something untrue and quite hurtful about you, or someone badly lets you down. And they realise it and say “sorry.”

What about your pound of flesh? Natural justice suggests that you have the right to demand something from them in compensation for the distress they caused you. But this word “forgive” means not only do you refuse to insist on reparation, but instead you freely and graciously return good for bad. That is the meaning of this word. “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” When the Lord forgives, he doesn’t just make a bad situation neutral, he goes one step further and makes a neutral situation beautiful.

There’s a story about a man who drank a bit too much at a party and embarrassed his wife. The next morning he felt really bad and asked her to forgive him. She said she would, but day after day she kept bringing it up. So one day in discouragement he said to her, “I thought you said you forgave me.” She said, I did. He said, “Yes, but I was hoping you’d going to forgive and forget.” She said, “I have, I just don’t want you to forget that I have forgiven and forgotten!”

Ah, ah! No cheating… When you forgive, let it go. “Yes, but I keep thinking about it, it won’t go away.” Well, every time the thought comes back to mind, rebuke it and send it back to the cross, the place where God completely forgives and permanently forgets in Christ.

Ending

And finally, verse 14: “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” After you have dressed yourself with compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and forbearance and forgiveness – after you have put all these other things on, then, over all these virtues cover yourself with love.

What kind of “love” are we talking about here? When people think of “love,” they usually think of two-way love. In other words – you love me, and I’ll love you too. I love you because there are certain things that attract me to you. And you love me because there are certain things that you like about me. But when the Bible says, “Over all these virtues put on love,” it’s talking about one-way love. In other words, you love me, even if I don’t love you back. You love me, even though there is nothing particularly loveable about me. It’s the kind of love that God has for the world. Even though you didn’t ask for it, Jesus loves you and died for your sins on the cross.

That’s the kind of love that God is saying he wants us to have here – a one-way kind of love. Love the unlovable. Love even though no one says thank you. Love even though no one appreciates what you do. Even though there are a million reasons to not love someone, love them anyway. “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 30th May 2010

Chasing the Wind (Ecclesiastes 2-3)

So, here you are, on the brink of independence. This service marks, not just the end of the school year, but the end of school full stop. Soon it’ll all be over and most of you will be waiting on the A-level results that will decide where you’ll be living in October. Where do you think you will be this time next year? Durham? Exeter? Oxford? Manchester? Basildon..?

It wasn’t all that long ago that you first walked into this school as children. Now you’re about to leave it as adults, legally able to drive, marry, vote, drink alcohol and gamble online.

As the Apostle Paul in our first reading reflected on his passage from infancy to adulthood he said, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” And he went on to talk about hope. It’s not greater than love, he says, what is? But it is up there in his all-time top three of virtues. Faith, hope and love, and the greatest is love.

What about hope, then? Hope is defined in the dictionary as “expectation and desire for something to happen.”

As I awaited my A-level results it was more a case of desire than expectation - hoping against hope; clinging to the mere possibility that I might attain the grades I had scarcely worked for. Some hope… But I’m sure you have greater cause for optimism than I had.

At the time in my life when I was sweating on my A-level grades, I was looking forward to something better. Even two years before then - I always seemed to be dreaming of utopia which was just over the next horizon. So when I was 16, I said “When I have a few exam certificates to my name, life will be great,” and then I passed my GCSEs, doing inexplicably well, went on to VI form - and for a couple of months it felt great to be free.

But as soon as term started in September, I found myself thinking “I wonder if there is more to life than this? I hope so.”

And then I thought “Maybe when I’ve got a girlfriend, things will finally start to get interesting.” And somehow or other, I don’t know how I did it, but I somehow managed to get a girlfriend and it was amazing… for about three weeks! But then my sweetheart and I had a big argument about nothing and, (I still maintain I was right by the way) but before I knew it, I discovered I had been unceremoniously ditched. “I wonder if there is more to life than this? I hope so.”

So then I thought, “Well, when I get a job, I’ll earn some serious money and I’ll be able to buy more and do more.” And I got a job offer. Oh, the elation when I opened the letter! “Dear Mr. Lambert, we are delighted to inform you…” So I started work and for a short while it was fantastic. The adrenalin, the challenge, the pay slip at the end of the month… But then the novelty of that wore off too. “I wonder if there is more to life than this? I hope so.”

I’ve found that many people spend the best part of their lives dreaming about the next house, the next promotion, the next relationship, the next holiday. But when they get there, they find it doesn’t really satisfy them in the way they hoped it might.

King Solomon was such a man. He lived about 1000 BC which was Israel’s golden age. And he was in charge of it all. Its economic wealth, its cultural influence and its military strength were at their zenith during his reign. Israel’s borders have never in history been so extensive either before or since. This is the narrator of our first reading and he tells there of the many things he did in his quest for greatness.

Like many of you here, I suspect, with the best years of your lives ahead of you, he was ambitious. He wanted to be significant and leave his mark on the world. His engineering feats were legendary; grand building projects, fortress cities, landscaped parks and gardens, impressive roads and canals...

People worked for him in their thousands. He was one of the most powerful people on earth. Royalty from all over the then known world travelled to Jerusalem to admire the splendour and finery of his palace and kingdom. He amassed unparalleled wealth and lived the luxurious life of a superstar – including the charm. As far as we can make out, there were about 1000 women in his life. Everyone wanted to be Solomon and everybody envied what he had.

He planted vineyards and produced the finest wines. He held banquets serving the world’s most luxurious and sumptuous food imaginable with top celebrity guest lists. Anyone who was anyone had to be seen at Solomon’s dinner parties.

He took to writing; he was a gifted poet, a prolific song writer, a brilliant philosopher, and he also delved into science and academic investigation.

In fact, he says “I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me… Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

Like when you try and hold water in your hands, as hard as you try, it leaks out and it’s gone. “I wonder if there is more to life than this? I hope so.”

He came to a depressing conclusion; that study, wealth, fame, greatness and unlimited pleasure just don’t satisfy the soul. They can’t because there is a God-shaped gap in every human heart that gives us a yearning, a restlessness, for the eternal. Like a square peg in a round hole, nothing else fits.

Even learning and wisdom... Near the end of his life Solomon wrote these weary words; “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” Even Solomon sat A-levels it seems…

He also wrote this in the same chapter;

“Life, lovely while it lasts, is soon over. Life as we know it, precious and beautiful, ends… Remember your Creator while you're still young, before the years take their toll and your strength wanes, before your vision dims and the world blurs and the winter years keep you close to the fire.”

You have worked hard during your time at Yarm School. Well done. (All right, perhaps some of you haven’t worked that hard – some of you are probably a bit like me in that way)!

You have so many options and possibilities before you. I wish you well. (Not least because when you get to the height of your earning powers, you’ll be paying my state pension)!

I hope that, collectively, you’ll achieve more than Solomon, that distinguished overachiever.

But most of all, I hope that, unlike Solomon, you’ll remember your Creator while you’re still young, so you’ll not end up concluding, as he did at the end of his career, that it was all so pointless, nothing more than chasing the wind.


Sermon preached at the Yarm School leavers’ service, Yarm Methodist Church, 20th May 2010

Hope to the Helpless (Luke 7.11-17)

Among the more difficult things I get to do as a minister is taking funerals from time to time. For obvious reasons, funerals are not occasions that anyone really looks forward to attending. Once in a while, you get a funeral that is quite depressing. Usually they’re very moving and, especially when the deceased was young, some can be absolutely heart-rending. Funerals for children or young people are often like this. There is no greater pain to observe than that of a mother burying her child. The part of her that she has just lost will always be missing. No consolation is adequate. No affliction in human experience compares with this one.

So you can picture the ghostly, grief-stricken face of the widow of Nain in Luke chapter 7 as it describes two groups of people converging at the town gate. The first crowd is the funeral cortege making its way out of the town to the cemetery. The second crowd is a large gathering of interested followers surrounding Jesus who just happens to be passing that way.

What’s going through this woman’s mind? She’s at that stage in the grieving process where everything is numb. Nothing has really sunk in yet. She still can’t believe what has happened to her. She was acquainted with sorrow. She had already lost her husband, she was a widow. Now her only son has died too and with his death the family line has ended.

We can’t always appreciate how serious her situation had become. With this death, this woman had just lost her last source of income. In a land and culture with no social security she was now facing destitution. Her son was her one and only pension plan – and the basic income that she would need in her retirement and old age was now gone forever.

In a few hours, the crowd of mourners would give her a hug, say ‘goodbye’ and then all go home. Once the last one left the funeral she’d be penniless and alone.

We know her son was grown up (it says he was a man) so we can surmise that she would have been in her forties - and in her society, at that age, her prospects for remarriage were practically zero. The bottom line was this; unless someone from her wider family took pity on her, she was facing a bleak future - probably begging bread. She would be easy prey for crooks and racketeers.

But her funeral procession meets Jesus and his followers on the way to the grave and immediately everyone knows that something is not quite right. Normally, Jesus and his entourage would just stand respectfully to one side as the funeral party passed by – or perhaps they’d join the back of the crowd out of sympathy. To interrupt a funeral procession was completely taboo. It was one of the most serious transgressions you could think of in 1st Century Jewish culture.

To touch the funeral bier, the cart on which the body lay, meant that, according to the Law, Jesus would be ritually unclean for the rest of the day. To touch the body he would be ritually unclean for a week. Jesus didn’t seem to mind that much. He never let ceremonial religion get in the way of healing someone’s broken heart.

The funeral party would have been led by the widow (the next of kin always used to go out in front); so she’s the one Jesus would have met first. When the Lord saw her, it says, “his heart went out to her” and he said, “Don’t cry.”

Why did he say “don’t cry”? Was he a bit embarrassed by a show of emotions? Was he saying to her “Come on now, chin up, stiff upper lip and all that”? Never.

He didn’t want to see her suffer any more. He wanted to do something about her pain. He wanted to bring hope out of her tragedy. And so he did.

He turns to the dead young man. A body ready for burial would usually be anointed in fine spices to cover the smell of decay, dressed in strips of linen, and a shroud would be covering the face. “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

And it seems to me that this is what God wants his Church to be like. That’s certainly what Lions Raw is about. I thank God for men like Jon Burns to whom God has entrusted a vision of Christians bringing blessing and renewal to some of the poorest communities in South Africa with the good news about Jesus.

• Hearts going out in kindness and compassion to the loveless and abandoned
• Drying the tears of street children who have lost their parents to HIV
• Saying to people who are down in the dust, “Young man, I say to you, get up!”
• And helping them to their feet again
• Showing the world what “Good news for the poor” looks like

Every time you watch the Three Lions on TV this summer, pray for the ministry of Lions Raw and cry out to God for the kingdom of heaven to come in power in the townships.

Pray for Matthew, Stephen and Michael who’ll be part of that 120 person army.

Matthew Trotter, Stephen and Michael Farish; why don’t you come out to the front and tell us more..?

• Why did you want to get involved in Lions Raw?
• What are your hopes and fears about the trip?
• When are you flying out to Durban?
• What exactly will your role be when you get there?
• Is there anything you still need to get sorted before you go?
• How can we pray for you while you’re out there?

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 16th May 2010

Wash One Another's Feet (John 13.3-17)

Introduction

I guess I must have been about 13 and I was late for P.E. I arrived in the sports building and hurriedly changed into my vest and shorts before walking barefoot into the gymnasium where all my classmates were standing in line. I crept in and excused myself for being late. My P.E. teacher called me out to stand in front of the others and directed everyone’s attention to my feet.

I looked down and, to my horror, they were as grimy as I can ever remember them. It looked like they hadn’t been near a bathroom in months. I don’t know why; perhaps my shoes had holes in – or perhaps I really hadn’t washed for weeks – but my feet were inexplicably and exceptionally grubby. “Lambert! Your feet are absolutely filthy! When was the last time you washed! You come here into my nice clean gym and cause a health hazard with those feet, what have you got to say for yourself?” I can’t remember what I said, but I felt deeply embarrassed as the whole class erupted with laughter, pointing at me and making faces at the lamentable state of my feet.

You know what? Let them laugh. The Lord Jesus is not only my magnificent Saviour, my unparalleled master, my righteous redeemer, and my supreme king - who justifies me, who saves me, who delivers me and who crowns me with honour – he is the God who washes my feet.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons this passage of Scripture has always touched me. Why did Jesus do it? What did he mean when he said “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me?” What’s that about? And what did he mean when he said, “You also should wash one another’s feet”?

The Upper Room That Night

Let’s go back and explore. It was the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested. There was tension in the Jerusalem air. He was in a first floor room for the Passover, which he was about to celebrate with the twelve. Everything was on the table. Everything was ready. They were all reclining around the table, rather than sitting upright. Each was lying on a thin mat and leaning on their left elbow, eating with their right. Their heads would be resting against the chest of the person to their left, their feet pointing away from the table rather than tucked under it.

In our culture people wash hands before coming to table. In Bible times people washed feet before eating. It was really necessary because everyone walked around in open toed sandals through dusty, insanitary streets. (Even in 1980 when I was in Jerusalem, my guide told me, “Mind where you’re treading because it could be anything - and probably is.” In Bible times, there were many more animals roaming around and sanitation was much more primitive. Everyone’s feet got dirty and would smell at the table.

That’s why washing feet before eating was indispensible! But unsurprisingly, nobody wanted to do it. It became the most demeaning of tasks. If there wasn’t anybody available to wash your feet, you did your own. In that very hierarchical society it just wasn’t the done thing even to wash the feet of an equal. Nobody would even think of washing the feet of somebody below them in the pecking order.

In Luke’s gospel it says that a dispute arose at the table as to which of the 12 was the greatest among them. They were jockeying for position. Who’s the most important? Who’s highest up the pecking order? Who’s top dog?

This is how it worked; the second lowest servant had the demeaning task of unfastening people’s sandals but only the absolute lowest of household servants had the indignity and humiliation of actually washing the feet afterwards. John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, “I am not worthy of untying his sandals” but Jesus didn’t think washing feet was beneath him.

It’s difficult to think of an equivalent thing for our day and age; imagine being invited out to dinner at someone’s house and just before you sit down to eat your host gives you a toilet brush and bottle of Harpic and tells you to clean the toilets because they haven’t been done for weeks. You’d be embarrassed and taken aback wouldn’t you? You just wouldn’t ever expect anyone to ask such a thing.

But shortly before the meal was served, to everyone’s amazement, Jesus abruptly pushed himself up from his mat, left the table, took off his outer cloak, thus adopting the simple clothing of a slave, tied a towel around his waist, filled a bowl and began to wash his disciples’ feet. This is what Philippians 2 means when it says, “He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant… humbling himself.”

One by one… he carefully took each sandal off, took each dusty, sweaty, malodorous foot, lifted it in the water bowl, splashed water over the ankles, rubbed off the ground-in dirt, paying particular attention to between the toes, until each was clean again, then he dried the feet with his towel. What was the expression on their faces as he did it? By the time he finished his towel will have been stained brown with dirt, dust and muck.

There are two things going on here. Let’s look at v6. Jesus washes these men’s feet one by one – apparently to stunned silence. When he gets to Simon Peter, Peter can’t quiet any longer. “Whoa! Wait a minute, Lord; you’re not going to wash my feet are you?”

Jesus answers, “You don’t understand now what this is about, but it will be clear enough to you later.” With respect, that’s a hung parliament of an answer. Peter wants a straight “yes” or “no.” Or to be perfectly honest, he really wants Jesus to suddenly coil back and say, “Oh, Peter, you’re right! What was I thinking! Of course this is improper. I am your superior, you are my subordinate. Oh dear, I got that wrong didn’t I? Let’s see if we can find a complete nobody from somewhere who will take care of the foot washing!” But Jesus doesn’t say that. He just looks at him.

So Peter persists, Maybe if I just say it strongly enough, Jesus will see I’m offended and back down. “You’re not going to wash my feet - ever!”

Jesus doesn’t blink. “Peter, if I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.” Unless you humble yourself and let me do this, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.

Let Jesus Cleanse You

We have to allow Jesus to wash us. Jesus is not commenting here on Peter’s personal hygiene. Jesus is saying here that there is a symbolic, spiritual significance to this washing of feet which Peter would not fully understand until he received the Holy Spirit. It is, in fact, a symbol of Jesus’ imminent death on the cross.

Jesus could have suggested that everybody wash their own feet. “Come on guys, you’ve got to take responsibility for your foul-smelling feet, I’m trying to eat here” But he didn’t. Jesus washed did them all. And in doing that, he literally took their dirt and transferred it from them onto himself. Just as, on the cross, God made Christ, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As he suffered and died Jesus took on himself the full blame and the whole punishment for all our moral filth – everything, once for all.

This is what Jesus means in v8. It doesn’t mean: “Peter, I’ll be frank with you. The smell of your feet is so horrible that I don’t think I’m ready to look at my starter until you’ve had a wash.” It means: “Peter, unless you are ready to let me wash away the stain of sin in your life, I am wasting my time with you.”

And so it is for each of us here this morning. I am dirty before God because of my sins, and there is nothing I can do to clean myself up. You are in the same boat as I am.

In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul listed his best achievements and his most immaculate religious correctness - and then said this: “The very credentials people wave around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash - along with everything else I used to take credit for. All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant.”

Isaiah 64.6 says that all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. That’s the good things we do. Oh, the ego, the pride, the vanity they lead to.

Your dilemma, and mine, is that we need much more than a quick spiritual wipe down to bring us up to scratch. Oh yes! We are objectively guilty before a God who is so morally pure and gloriously holy that we could never hope to earn his acceptance on the merit of our tainted goodness. Just don’t even ask. But the amazing truth is that God’s love is so high, low, deep and wide that he has decisively cleansed us from every sin; past, present and future by washing us clean, washing away the otherwise indelible stain of sin forever. That’s what the cross is all about.

Are you allowing Jesus to come near, to wash your feet? Are you submitting to his leadership, seeking his forgiveness for sin? Are you letting Christ effect that ongoing cleansing you need in order to stay in a life-giving relationship with him?

Some people needlessly forfeit intimacy with God because they won’t let Christ wash their feet in this way. “No Lord, you will never wash my feet!” The point of resistance may be failure to submit to his moral leadership; “Jesus, I am not willing to accept your decision as final my relationships, choices and values.” Or it may be a refusal to admit that there is a need for cleansing; “Lord, I’m all right really as I am. I’m comfortable with dirty feet. I don’t want need you to do anything.” Or there may be a lack trust his power to cleanse. “Lord, how can I be sure that you will want to cleanse someone as bad as me?”

This is one of the basics of what it means to be a Christian. It’s so simple. But it cuts right across the grain of ego and self-sufficiency. That’s it’s one of the keys of spiritual growth and blessing; because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Learn the secret of daily letting Jesus bathe and cleanse you from sin.

Peter caught on pretty quickly. “Master!” said Peter. “Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!”

Notice that Jesus did not say, “Since I washed your feet, you should wash mine.” This is one of the world’s ideas about love - “I scratch your back, now you scratch mine.” But Jesus’ security and self-esteem was always rooted, not in getting appreciation and gratitude from men, but in his Father’s unconditional love and approval for him.

But that’s not all. Jesus didn’t stop there. He finished off, washed them all, including Judas, and put his outer garment back on. Everyone’s eyes followed him back to his place at the table. I bet you could hear a pin drop.

Wash One Anothers’ Feet

What was he going to say now? Could he possibly come out with something more outrageous? Let’s pick it up again at v12.

“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Could he possibly come out with something more disagreeable, more unpalatable, more outrageous than washing their feet? Oh, yes. He says here that it isn’t enough that God incarnate gets manure under his fingernails just before sitting down to dinner – he expects them to do the same!

“You also should wash one another’s feet.” I’ve been to Foot Washing Services before, usually organised for Maundy Thursday. And what happens is this; someone in senior leadership, a bishop for example, takes a basin and towel and symbolically washes the feet of the laity – only to go back and be waited on by his staff in his episcopal palace or castle. Some people find that sort of thing moving and uplifting. Whatever… I don’t think this kind of ceremonial show is what Jesus meant here when he said “You also should wash one another’s feet.” For a start, everyone who has their feet washed in a service like that would be mortified if their feet turned the water brown so they tend to make sure they’re spotless beforehand. Look, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet because they were dirty. They smelt. It was not a sacramental ritual – it was a functional chore.

When Jesus said, “wash one another’s feet” he was building on his commands to “love one another as I have loved you” and “live in peace with another.” He was saying to his disciples – and by extension to everyone who claims to belong to him – you must embrace a lifestyle of serving love toward others. Someone said, “Humility is not thinking less of ourselves but thinking of ourselves less.”

You know, in the hours before Jesus died the Bible tells us that there were two bowls of water. One was used by Jesus for washing other’ feet. Can you think of what the other one was? The other was used by Pontius Pilate to wash his hands of Jesus. There are only two bowls; if we do not embrace a life of lowly service we choose to wash our hands of Jesus and his message. The one and only alternative to serving others is indifference to Jesus.

When a brother or sister in Christ exasperates or angers you, creating an awkwardness or a distance between you, the easiest option is simply to wash your hands of them – just avoid them. We can even justify it. We say, “I don’t want to get hurt again, so it’s best we just stay away from each other.” Listen, Jesus washed the feet of a man who would, that night, hand him over to an assassin. Jesus washed the feet of a man who would, that night, deny ever knowing him. But I’ve seen people leave churches and go somewhere else instead of facing up to issues like this. Washing someone’s feet means swallowing pride and making a move and saying “I have not understood something,” or “I’m sorry, will you forgive me?”

In 1908 the Salvation Army held a conference. The founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, was old by then and was unable to attend due to ill health. So he sent a telegram. The message contained just with one word. Does anyone know what it said? “Others.” The Salvos at that time were in danger of becoming inward looking. “You also should wash one another’s feet” said Jesus. But if he was sending a telegram and only had one word, I reckon it might be the one William Booth used. The Salvation Army have gone all round the world with their blood and fire. Their movement is a byword for Christian love and service to the poor and needy. Even the bitterest opponents of the gospel admit that the world is a better place for these Christians - who wash the dirtiest feet of tramps and prisoners and prostitutes and drug dealers.

Finally let’s look at v17. “Now that you know these things,” says Jesus, “you will be blessed if you… do them.” Don’t be distracted by that word “blessed.” It can sound a bit churchy and religious but it just means “happy” or “satisfied” or “contented.” Jesus says here that foot washing is the pathway to true happiness.

Don’t believe the world when it says that you’ll find fulfilment when other people run around you and give you what you want when you want it. That’s a lie. Jesus says you can only be truly happy when you have learned to wash the feet of others the way he, on the cross, has washed you clean from sin. That’s the truth.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 9th May 2010