Reflections on Sunday Bible Readings
Epiphany 4 (Year A) Matt 4.12-23 27 January 2008
The region between Naphtali and Zebulun was rich in Messianic expectation – the hope that there would come a saviour who would free God’s people from oppression once and for all. But whereas the messianic hope was centred on political freedom, Jesus had come to bring freedom of a different kind. The other ‘kingdom’ movements and messianic pretenders had concentrated on attempting to raise a revolution and claim back the land by force, but for Jesus, this would be no more than fighting darkness with darkness, and he came instead to bring light for all people.
With the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus’ own mission can now take centre stage, and gain momentum. It is time for him to gather the disciples who will support and carry on his ministry after he himself has gone. He chooses fishermen – ordinary people – and asks them to bring the skills and experiences that they have into the service of the kingdom. Can we offer the same?
Candlemas (Year A) Luke 2.22-40 3 February 2008
Today we remember Mary and Joseph taking the baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to perform the Jewish rites of purification. There, they met two holy people, Simeon and Anna, who had served God faithfully all their lives, and who recognised Jesus as the promised Messiah, daring to embrace the reality that in Jesus, God was doing something new that would bring liberty not just for God’s chosen people, but for all the world.
Mary and Joseph were amazed at the glorious things Simeon and Anna said about their baby son, but their amazement was also tinged with sadness, because Simeon warned of opposition to Jesus and a sword that would pierce Mary's soul. For us, Candlemas is a ‘pivot’ between Christmas and Easter, between the end of the celebration of Jesus’ birth, and the start of the path through Lent towards his death and resurrection. It reminds us that even at the nativity, the shadow of the cross was not far away.
Lent 1 (Year A) Matt 4.1-11 10 February 2008
The Devil asks Jesus for a miracle. He taunts Jesus, inviting him to prove once and for all that he is the Son of God, by deeds of power and dramatic escapes from certain death. But Jesus doesn’t need to prove anything! He went into the desert with his ears still ringing from the words his Father spoke to him at his baptism: ‘You are my Son, my beloved, and I am well pleased with you’. Those words are enough. Jesus knows that that affirmation is not a reward for what he has achieved (all this takes place before he’s done a single miracle), but is the one things that really will keep him going while he is being tempted. That is why he is able to respond to each of the devil’s temptations by pointing back to God and finding in his Father all the strength he needs. This Lent, may we find the same.
Lent 2 (Year A) John 3.1-17 17 February 2008
Nicodemus represents people who carefully and cautiously must examine the new things that God may be doing and subject these to painstaking scrutiny in light of past traditions and experiences before jumping in and embracing them. Jesus, on the other hand, speaks of God in paradox, as mystery, and Nicodemus struggles to grasp it all. But when it comes to it, the message is startlingly simple: those who seek understanding will eventually find that the heart of the mystery is nothing less than the infinite, self-sacrificing and overwhelming love of God. God is not mysterious because he does not want to be known and loved; perhaps he seems mysterious to us because such overwhelming love is outside and beyond our intellectual understanding. But it is not beyond our ability to embrace it.
Lent 3 (Year A) John 4.5-42 24 February 2008
Sermon on John 4.5-42 given by Revd Ally Barrett
Why would Jesus wait alone by a well at the very hottest part of the day when all sensible people were indoors? Whom did he hope to meet? Only those who could not go to the well at any other time – the misfits and outcasts – would go there at midday, so the woman’s colourful past and dubious marital status may have explained her own presence there. But she is surprised by Jesus’ attitude. How often do we have the best conversation when we’re least expecting it, and with someone we wouldn’t expect to talk to? Jesus speaks the truth to her – both good and bad - how do we feel about being met and fully known by God? If you sometimes feel unworthy in God’s presence, ask yourself to whom Jesus gives his full attention, to whom he reveals his identity, and whom he trusts with his mission.
Passion Sunday John 11.1-45 9 March 2008
Jesus wept’ is famous as the shortest verse in Bible, but it is an important verse, too. Throughout most of Johns gospel, Jesus seems to be in control – even at the end, Johns Jesus makes no plea of anguish in the garden of Gethsemane, and no cry of dereliction on the cross. It can sometimes seem that Johns Jesus is so much God that we lose sight of his humanity. But in that one small verse, ‘Jesus wept’ his full humanity and vulnerability is write large. Here, Jesus is not just God, not just God-with-us, but God-as-one-of-us. Even though he knows he will raise Lazarus to life, the grief at his death are real. For us, too, though our faith may assure us that our departed loved ones have gone ‘to a better place’, the grief is just as acute; even in this, Jesus walks beside us.
Palm Sunday John Matt 21.1-11 16 March 2008
The liturgy for Palm Sunday is a roller coaster ride encompassing everything from the joyful hope of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to the dereliction of the cross - the whole of holy week condensed into just an hour. When we tell again the final part of the story on Good Friday we are standing at the foot of the cross, but today, through the reading of the passion drama, we are called to enter into every aspect of the story - we are the crowd shouting "Hosanna", we are the disciples sharing the last supper and then sleeping in the garden, we are Peter, weeping at his betrayal, we are the ones shouting 'Crucify', we are the repentant thief, asking Jesus to take us with him to heaven, and we are the Roman soldier, recognising in the broken body of Christ the salvation of the world. This is Jesus' story, but it is our story, too.
Easter Day John 20.1-18 23 March 2008
Sermon on John 20.1-18 given by Revd Ally Barrett
Just as when at the moment of creation God brought light into the swirling darkness , the 'new creation' also started in darkness -of uncertainty, grief and despair, for a small group of sometimes-faithful disciples whose entire world had been shattered. Like a chick that has broken out of its shell, the disciples quickly realized that there was no going back, and that the world was a bigger, brighter and more exciting place than they had ever thought possible. But darkness can sometimes be comforting, even cosy, and coming into the light can be uncomfortable or even painful. With the light comes a future that may be full of challenges as well as full of promise. Dark days followed for the disciples, but they still lived as Easter people. For us, in whatever difficulties we face, and however dark our world may sometimes seem, the resurrection light of Christ still shines, reminding us that we are Easter people too, and that not even death can separate us from God's love.
Easter 2 John 20.19-31 30 March 2008
Belief in the resurrection of Jesus will not help us much if we keep our faith to ourselves, huddled behind locked doors and in the company of people we know have had the same experience of God as we have. Perhaps what Thomas discerned is the same thing that Mary Magdalene found last week: the fact that with faith comes a commission, that belief alone is not enough: real faith implies belief together with commitment to action, and courage to be sent out in the name of God to take part in his mission to the world. If this sounds daunting, remember that the dymanic of mission always incorporates our own experience of meeting God and of being resourced and empowered and commissioned by God (whether in church or elsewhere) – we do not act on our own, but rather we share in God’s own mission to his world.
Easter 3 Luke 24.13-35 6 April 2008
In this one reading, the whole gospel is re-told: the conversation on the road to Emmaus contains everything from the prophecies to the reality of Jesus' ministry, through the disappointment of Holy Week to the news of the resurrection brought by the women.
But the episode is not just a microcosm of the gospel, it is a microcosm of the journey of faith. Christ walks alongside us, often unrecognised, but patiently seeking to open our hearts to the truth and love of God. And there will be moments - perhaps in the breaking of bread at the Eucharist - when we become more fully aware of his presence in our lives.
There are two disciples on the road to Emmaus: Cleopas, and one who remains unnamed. Perhaps the unnamed one is Cleopas' wife, or perhaps she is left unnamed because Luke wants us to imagine ourselves in her place, sharing all that happens along the way, and becoming, in time, witnesses of the resurrection.
Vocations Sunday John 10.1-10 13 April 2008
The Fourth Sunday of Easter is when the church keeps 'Vocations Sunday'. It can be tempting to think that vocation is something just for 'special people' - doctors, missionaries, teachers and so on. But in God's eyes everyone is special, and so God has a purpose for each one of us which, when we discover it, will enable us to experience that 'life abundant' that Jesus promises. But it is also true that our vocation is not just an individual and private matter, but is something that we experience and discern together: Jesus speaks of sheep, not cats(!) It is when we gather like sheep around the Good Shepherd that we can learn together how to hear his voice more clearly (and to distinguish it from all the other, competing voices that would try and lead us astray) and so work out what he is calling us to do and to be, as individuals and as a community.
Easter 5 John 14.1-14 20 April 2008
‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ is one of the most comforting and one of the most challenging verses in the Bible. Jesus is saying that human beings need to be in real relationship with God. It is not enough just to have some vague religious understanding of God, we need actually to come to God, and to make our home in his home. In the person of Jesus Christ we can indeed meet God face to face, and the ‘way, truth and life’ are only a description of Christianity insofar as they are a description of Jesus himself: the Jesus who washed his disciples’ feet and told them to copy his example, the Jesus who gave his life as the shepherd for the sheep. As a church, we can only claim Jesus as our way, truth and life, when we also recover our nerve to follow Jesus in his own ministry and vocation.
Easter 6 John 14.15-21 27 April 2008
In this mysteriously beautiful passage we have one of the closest things in any of the gospels to an exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As a starting point for understanding the Trinity, one thing immediately stands out: at its heart the Trinity is a loving relationship, dynamic and tender. And it is not a closed circle, a holy huddle impenetrable to mere mortals – what Jesus describes is a process of being drawn further and deeper into the life of God, and we are all invited to partake. In this passage Jesus was preparing his friends for what was to come. Knowing that his return to heaven would leave the disciples feeling abandoned, he struggles to articulate the promise that through his Holy Spirit, he would be with them in a closer way than ever, and would never leave them. He still promises us the same.
Easter 7 (Sunday after Ascension) John 17.1-11 4 May 2008
This is Jesus’ final prayer to his heavenly Father on behalf of his disciples and all who would come to believe through their testimony. In this extraordinarily intimate moment, we get a crystallisation of what the gospel as a whole has revealed: that when we look on Jesus Christ, we truly know what God is like, for they ‘are one’. Jesus’ prayer has this intimacy as its subject, but the whole tone and character of the prayer embodies it, too. When we make that prayer our own, when we pray ourselves into Jesus’ presence as he spoke it, we too can be drawn into that intimacy of relationship with Jesus and the Father. It is this relationship with God through Jesus which constitutes Eternal Life, so we do not have to wait until we die to receive it – we are invited to start living it here and now.
Pentecost John 20.19-23 11 May 2008
‘Breathe on me, breath of God’ – the words to the familiar hymn speak of the life-giving love of God that is at the heart of today’s gospel. While the Pentecost reading from Acts is focused on action, on mission, on communication, and on power, in its very dramatic and public manifestation of the Holy Spirit, the reading from John’s gospel has an altogether more inward focus on closeness to God, on peacemaking and reconciliation. Jesus here is able to bring the Holy Spirit to his friends even though their fear has locked the door, and there is no rushing wind, and no tongues of flame: it is simply his breath which imparts the Spirit. But there is power here, too - power that they will need in order to be sent out to do God’s work. The gift of the Spirit is for those who are willing to be transformed from disciples into apostles.
We come together in church to worship God, to hear His word and to share the Good news of Jesus, receiving forgiveness and renewal through His death and resurrection.
We are sent out from church to live as Christian disciples, showing love to others and living out our faith in all we think, say and do.