Tag: jesus

Sunday 10th January 2021

Simon’s reflection for the Baptism of Christ.

St Louis of France used to sign his documents not, “Louis IX, King” but “Louis of Poissy.” Someone asked him why, and he answered: “Poissy is the place where I was baptised. I think more of the place where I was baptised than of Rheims Cathedral where I was crowned. It is a greater thing to be a child of God that to be the ruler of a Kingdom: this last I shall lose at death, but the other will be my passport to an everlasting glory.”

I wonder if we remember or celebrate our own baptisms in the way that St Louis of France did. In similar vein, Martin Luther said we should think of our baptism every time we wash our face. We’d be thinking of our baptisms a lot in these days if we did!

The reason that many of us have been baptised of course is that the Church over the centuries came to be believe that Jesus, Himself, instituted it. There have been many questions in the Christian tradition about how to understand baptism. Does the act of baptism itself strengthen us through the action of the Holy Spirit to become the children of God? Is it a means of grace or just a sign of God’s love and acceptance? Is it just about individual repentance and faith? Should we baptise infants? I’m sure you can think of many others.

This Sunday as we celebrate the feast day of the Baptism of Christ, we are taken back to the roots of the Christian practice of baptism in Jesus’ acceptance of the baptism of John but also in the difference between the baptism that Christ would bring and the baptism of John.

The practice of John the Baptiser in calling the people of Israel to Baptism was really something that was extremely radical. Before that, baptism was probably only known as a rite for non-Jews who wanted to become Jews; an act of repentance and acceptance into the chosen people. To call on people who were already Jews to be baptised was a profound challenge to any sense of self-righteousness or entitlement people might feel by simply being descendants of Abraham and John’s call certainly gave offence for that reason to many of the religious leaders.

John called the people to the wilderness; the place where the faith of Israel was originally nurtured. He called them to a renewed sense of dependence on God. Participation in John’s baptism was a sign of a person’s willingness to change and of God’s willingness to forgive. It was also a baptism of preparation for something that God was about to do. It was about getting ready for a new age. John wore the clothes of the prophet Elijah who was expected to appear before the messiah and his message was that one was coming who would bring a greater baptism than his; a baptism not just with water but also with the Holy Spirit.

Many people in the early church puzzled themselves about why Jesus asked John to Baptise him. They reasoned that he was a greater figure than John and also that he had no need of repentance.

Yet Jesus’ request for baptism from John at the start of his public ministry shows in a profound way what his ministry was to be about. In his divine humility, he identifies with those he came to save. As St Paul puts it, he became sin, who knew no sin, in order that we might be saved.

As Jesus is baptised, the heavens are rent open, the lines of communication between God and humanity re-established. The Holy Spirit, who hovered over the waters at the time of creation, descends anew and the divine voice affirms who Jesus is as God’s Son  and as the suffering servant from the prophecies of the Book of Isaiah and tells us to listen to Him.

This is not a god who just shouts at us from the sidelines but God who meets us in Christ in the mess of human life and who is absolutely drenched in our humanity for our sakes. The God who becomes one with us, because he wants to help us to be at one with Him.

Because of Jesus’s baptism, our baptism is not only about repentance and preparation but also about the assurance of God’s love, about belonging to God and belonging to each other as the church, a reminder that God’s love came before our decisions of faith and was not something we had to earn but something freely given because we are his. Baptism becomes a bridge between God and us.

Jesus goes on in his deep trust that He is God’s beloved to withstand the trials in the wilderness. These difficult times are a bit like a wilderness experience, reminding us of who we really need and depend upon.  We all need resilience and endurance. With Jesus baptism comes the assurance that we too are loved by God and the promise that God is alongside us as well as the challenge to listen to Christ and to follow Him in all we do.

 So, on this feast day of the Baptism of Christ, we should take all this to heart and dust off our baptism certificates. We should remember and celebrate the dates, give our children and God-children if we have them reminders or gifts on theirs. If I took Louis of Poissy’s practice, I would sign myself Simon of Peacehaven, what would be yours?  Amen.

Sunday 27th September

Simon’s reflection for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost

What do you find encouraging in today’s readings? I invite you just for a moment to reread the verses of the letter to the Philippians, verses 5 – 11; the ones that begin: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus….” There, have you read them? Good, then I’ll continue.

Now, I’m no biblical scholar and I don’t know enough to assess the different arguments among scholars about biblical texts. I do however believe that understanding the bible properly and with the help of good scholarship can strengthen our faith rather than weaken it, but what I want to say is what I know of that passage deepens my faith and is something that really encourages me. I’ll tell you why but first a bit of background.

The letter to the Philippians may consist of 3 letters put together. The letter or letters were written around the mid-50s AD, around 20 odd years after the death and resurrection of our Lord. Paul is writing them from prison, probably in Ephesus, and his purpose is partly to encourage the Christians of Philippi to bear with the sufferings they face and to see God at work through them, just as Paul, as a prisoner, is doing.

Many people think that the verses you read at the beginning were part of a hymn that was known by Christians at the time. There is a theory that this hymn was written in Aramaic, the language Jesus would have spoken. Paul of course wrote in Greek. Whether the words were written in Aramaic or whether St Paul composed it, I do not know, but, here’s what I’m trying to write about, what I find amazing is the things those Christians believed about the man, Jesus of Nazareth, so soon after his death!

Of what human being would anyone say that they were in the form of God and had some sort of equality with God; that they “emptied themselves” first by being born, which implies that they existed with God before birth and secondly by dying on a cross? To what human being would God give all power and authority? How did these first Christians come to believe such remarkable things about a human being? What had happened to make them believe such things?

Now some may say that people believed all sorts of things in those days. Well yes that is true. Other ancient cultures were inclined to call their ceasars or their pharoahs or their emperors  “gods” but I don’t know of an example from antiquity of anyone describing a convicted criminal as a god, do you? After all, one of the main things that is corroborated about Jesus’ life outside the bible is that he died on a cross. Jesus suffered a humiliating and degrading criminal’s death; the ancient equivalent of the scaffold or the electric chair!  I suspect those who died in such a way in those times would normally be thought of as life’s losers rather than “gods.”

Moreover, the people who first started thinking these things about Jesus were not Greeks or Egyptians or Babylonians but Jews. They were steeped in a culture which didn’t accept that men or women were “gods.” They had a strong history of opposing idolatry. Their own kings, even the greatest ones like David and Solomon, were not described as gods in the bible but, rather as very fallible human beings.

So, I still find it amazing. Something must have happened which made those people believe such things and I believe that something was the resurrection.

Paul says that the power that was in Christ can be in us. So while he is asking the Phillipians to imitate Christ’s humility and self-sacrifice, he is also saying more than that. “Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus” He speaks of the sharing of the Holy Spirit among Christians. He is saying that God can form us into more Christ-like people and a more Christ-like community, if we let Him.

Now perhaps in a way that can sometimes be even more difficult to believe, that God can be at work within us especially when we get things wrong so often.

But it does say that Christian discipleship is about more than simply being loving and kind to one another. It is definitely about that, but in order to do that we need to believe and trust in the one who emptied Himself out of love for us. We need to work at loving our neighbour and loving God at the same time as they both feed into each other. We need to let Jesus teach us what genuine love and genuine authority are and we need to learn from him.

Maybe discipleship is a bit like learning to dance. To do it well we need to learn and practice the steps but who wants to dance without music? Our relationship with God is the music. Amen.

Simon’s reflection for Sunday 6th September

The Book of Ezekiel teaches that we have a duty to challenge others when they are being sinful. Our gospel suggests that if another member of the church wrongs us we should challenge them. I wonder how we understand what our faith teaches us about difficult situations of conflict and grievance and when we should challenge others.

I don’t suppose most of us go around telling people off where we think they are doing something wrong. Sometimes though this can be a failing in courage. Some people do. I remember my mother used to get very cross if she saw people throwing stones or littering on Brighton beach and she would have no compunction about telling them off much to my embarrassment if I was with her! It takes courage to do that and a readiness to not be conflict averse. We can’t always avoid having to challenge people!

On the other hand, some people are a bit too eager to correct others and to point out other people’s faults and to take great satisfaction in doing so! Perhaps on this subject we should remember Jesus’s warnings about self-righteousness alongside today’s readings. Do not point out the splinter in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own!

We don’t always know the whole story. The police sent round a local circular recently pointing out that we should be aware for example that some people are exempt from wearing face masks in shops. This was in response to people being unfairly and rudely challenged by others. I suspect there have been a lot of inappropriate challenges in these tense times in this sort of case and others.

It is definitely true though that sometimes as the Book of Ezekiel teaches a failure to correct can be a failure to love. The Old Testament reading makes clear that the point of correction is not just the self-satisfaction of the person doing the correcting, it is the well-being of the person corrected. There is an important truth in this. We can’t wash our hands of one another. We all belong to one another and sin isn’t just an individual thing, it is a corporate thing. Sin doesn’t just affect the sinner. There are no victimless sins and love is not just letting people do whatever they want to.

The gospel passage reflects on a church situation where one person has sinned against another and it gives a sort of legal process of how to act in such a case. People have different views in biblical scholarship on how much this is a direct tradition of something Jesus taught and how far it may have been an application of Jesus’ teaching applied to the needs of the early church. Either way, it reflects how close-knit the early church was and also the deep sense of responsibility to one another that church members felt.

I’m not sure how exactly we could apply the advice intended for that early church to St Baldred’s or St Adrian’s.  We probably wouldn’t encourage people to tell their grievances to the whole church gathering, for example! Mind you, I have known of awkward and painful situations where that has happened and perhaps that is where a sense of grievance has grown without being addressed quickly as the gospel suggests so some elements of it may well be relevant to our churches now if perhaps not all.

The first step on the procedure is to challenge the person that has wronged us, assuming of course that we are in the right. As I suggested earlier we might first want to try to give the other person the benefit of the doubt as we should for a brother or sister in Christ and think about whether we have misjudged the situation.

But it does happen that people sometimes wrong us and we shouldn’t also put ourselves in the wrong all the time. Again, it is important to challenge wrong-doing in an appropriate way both for our own sakes and for the sake of the other person. Our duty to love even when it is difficult and even to love our enemy is not a calling to be a doormat. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves.

This is advice which applies to our wider relationships too. But the question is in what spirit do we challenge another. As the gospel implies we should not merely challenge to vent anger but rather to achieve reconciliation. As the rest of the process shows reconciliation can be hard work.

Challenging appropriately when we feel hurt or wronged can be very difficult of course. We are only human.

What makes reconciliation more likely is if there is a loving relationship to draw on. In a church community where people are doing the right things, looking after one another, encouraging and nurturing one another and seeking to follow Christ by serving others. There will be more good relationship to draw on. If we have to tell someone that they are in the wrong, it is easier to hear that if they know that we love them! It is also easier perhaps, if we are aware of our own faults and we too can accept appropriate correction from others.

If we want to follow Jesus, we can’t duck out of the hard work, challenge and self-sacrifice that taking reconciliation seriously involves. Jesus was never afraid to call out wrong-doing but he was always ready alongside that to show that he wanted the good and the well-being of the other.   Amen.

SIMON’S REFLECTION for the 13th SUNDAY after PENTECOST

People often say “we all have our crosses to bear” and by those words, they are usually referring to the fact that no-one is exempt from suffering in some form.

“Into each life some rain must fall” as they say. Fairy-tales may end with the words “happily ever after” but we need to realise that “happily ever after” is in reality for the hereafter. We all face problems in life from time to time, from sickness of ourselves or loved ones and for many other reasons and of course, how could we be entirely happy when we look at the suffering and injustice in the wider world around us. At the moment living through these difficult times, these things are even more apparent to us perhaps than normally.

There are no short cuts to a “happy ever after” in this life. That doesn’t mean that this aspect of life should overshadow everything else. There is still joy and happiness in this life but we can’t expect to feel that all the time.

But important as all that is, it is not what Jesus is talking about in his words to Peter and the disciples in today’s gospel. Jesus is not talking about the general unhappiness that comes to everyone at times through life, he is talking about the suffering and sacrifices that will come to those who choose to follow him.

His words are a corrective to the over-excitement of Peter. I’m sure the other disciples probably felt the same over-excitement. Today’s conversation follows on from the conversation we read about last week in which Peter recognised that Jesus was the messiah. Jesus confirmed Peter’s insight but he then tried to take the disciples a step further to understand what it means to be God’s messiah and to warn them that the opposition already building against him will lead, in the end, to his death.

Peter’s horror at Jesus’ words shows that this is not the picture of what was going to happen next that he had in his head. Peter, no doubt, had a triumphalist vision of what it meant that Jesus was the Messiah. That vision was in line with the popular imagination of the time. Peter pictured a King David figure, who would restore Israel and then usher in a “happily ever after.”

The prophet Jeremiah could have told him differently. In our Old Testament reading we heard one of Jeremiah’s laments which reflect his struggles with what God has asked him to do. Jeremiah, called as a young man, had to tell his people that their sins were so great that God was going to send a punishment upon them. They would be sent into Exile. It was a message that would bring him persecution and that would be rejected.

The joy Jeremiah initially felt at his call has turned to distress and a feeling of abandonment. Yet he knows that in the end, God will vindicate him.  It is a vivid picture of the cost of true service.

In morning prayer last week, the readings focussed on Acts chapter 7, the account of the stoning of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Stephen’s speech illustrates the early churches understanding of the fate of the prophet s in the Old Testament; an understanding which may well have come from Jesus.

Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets are themselves rejected by the generation they are speaking to, even if their message may later be revered and accepted by subsequent generations. The early church saw all of this history of the rejection of God’s messengers as pointing to the ultimate rejection of the Son of God who was put on a cross.

Jesus then is warning his disciples that that they too will face troubles and rejection and some of them will face literal martyrdom if they truly follow him.

Elsewhere, Jesus says that if our following of Him, brings us trouble that actually may be a sign that we actually are following him. “Blessed are you when people revile you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” So when the troubles come our way that may come from being true to our calling and genuinely serving others whether that is easy, as with friends, or difficult, as with enemies, we should rejoice!

So what are the costs of our discipleship? What are the crosses that we bear through following Jesus? They may be everyday things that come out of our helping with the task of looking after a church or helping to look after each other as the people of God. Sometimes they can just be the boredom of doing seemingly thankless tasks. Someone once said that the test of a vocation is our acceptance of the drudgery it involves! Sometimes, it could be the difficulties that will come our way by trying to reach out with the love of God into our community.

St Paul gives a concrete example of what it means to follow Jesus in the way that we behave. He exhorts his Roman readers to practise a genuine love which is more than just words; a love, moreover, which is more than the world expects and which even extends to forgiving enemies. The whole of this reading could be summed up with the words “overcome evil with good” which is what Jesus did on the cross. All these are difficult teachings to follow and remind us how hard it can be to follow Jesus.

So we are called to be realistic about the cost of discipleship but that should not put us off. There are deep, deep rewards to discipleship too though they come to us unsought. Sometimes the most difficult things in life are also the most rewarding. If we are really passionate about a cause we will not let the cost put us off.

If we look back to the days when the pandemic we are going through was at its height earlier in the year, among the most exposed to danger for obvious reasons were doctors, nurses and those working in the medical profession. It’s very touching then that that experience has not put off young people putting themselves forward in record numbers for medical careers.

If a course of action matters to us enough we will accept the sacrifices which may accompany it. Whatever sacrifices we accept for Jesus are as nothing compared with the sacrifices he has made for us. Christ’s sacrifices show us that we are a cause that is very, very dear to him. Amen.

Simon’s reflection for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Isaiah 51-1-6; Romans 12.1-8; Matthew 16.13-20

Peter, as he is presented in the gospels, sometimes gets things spectacularly wrong but in today’s gospel, he gets something spectacularly right. Jesus is asking the disciples who the crowds think that he is. The crowds show a limited understanding of Jesus. In one way or another, all the responses indicate that Jesus is seen simply as a prophet. The crowds are looking beyond Jesus for someone who is yet to come. But Peter is spot on. He sees that Jesus is the one and there is no need to look further. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

Peter’s comment shows great faith, insight and openness to God. In response, Jesus tells Peter who he is in God’s eyes and gives him a new name. Perhaps you could call this Jesus’ faith in Peter! “You are Peter, “Jesus says and “on this rock, I will build my church.” There is a pun here of course for the name Peter comes from the Greek “petrus” meaning “rock.”

I offer you three things to think about from this great passage.

First of all, God is personal and we can relate to God on a personal level. Have you ever received or sent one of those round-robin Christmas letters? They are valuable in themselves. We don’t have time to individually write to everyone that we know but we know they are not the same as an individual letter written to an individual with that person in our minds. A hand-written letter can be nicer to read than a typed one; as long as you don’t have illegible hand-writing of course! A phone call can make us feel more connected than an e-mail. There is something about the personal touch which is very important in relationships.

The Christian understanding of God as personal means that God is not some kind of mysterious force who brought the universe into existence with a big bang but who is otherwise impossible for us to relate to. God is personal and therefore has a relationship with each one of us. He is not only the creator of the universe. He is our creator. “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away!”  (psalm 139). “You are Peter”, Jesus says. Jesus knows who Peter is. Actually, he knows who Peter is better than Peter does. God knows who we are. His relationship with us is personal.

Following on from this, the second thing is calling. Jesus has a purpose for Peter. It is a purpose beyond Peter’s wildest imagining. It is a purpose which draws upon his character. Jesus will draw on who Peter is to fulfil that purpose. We remember that passage at the call of Peter and the other fishermen by Lake Galilee. “Come with me and I will make you fish for people.” I wonder whether there were things about who they were as fishermen which Jesus will use as he teaches them to love and serve other people by helping him build his kingdom. I wonder whether Jesus’s nickname for Simon, Son of John; his nickname of “Rocky” was based upon elements of Simon Peter’s character; perhaps a quality of leadership, perhaps a boldness or toughness.

God has a purpose or a ministry for each one of us. We all have particular things to offer which are based on the gifts and the personality God has created us to be and is calling us to be. I love the line from the old hymn “Jesus shall Reign” which goes:  “Let every creature rise and bring, peculiar honours to their King.” “Peculiar” here meaning “unique to the giver” rather than “odd”! Christian ministry happens whenever we use our talents, our abilities and who we are to give God glory.

St Paul urges the Romans to live their whole lives as living sacrifices or offerings to the Lord and points out the way in which they all have different things to offer. He uses his great image of the church as the Body of Christ though to remind them, that they offer their lives together with others and that the gifts we have need to be alongside the gifts other people have. Our gifts, if they are properly used bring us together. We need each other and God needs us to work together.

Of course it can be difficult to trust in what God can and will do with us. I said at the beginning that Peter sometimes got things spectacularly wrong and he sometimes got things spectacularly right. We will hear in next week’s gospel how Peter straight away puts his foot in it after his great confession of faith. I wonder how Peter would have felt about Jesus commission to him to be his rock on that Good Friday when he denied Jesus three times.

Peter, as we see him in the gospels, is a work in progress and is not yet fully the rock he would become. So perhaps there is something for us here in trusting in God’s future. We have to live the present in the light of God’s future. The prophet we call second Isaiah gave a message of comfort to a people living in Exile. He told them that God was not finished with them. He had not forgotten his promises. The God who created the world and who made Israel would also rebuild Israel.

“You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church.” The words are not just a commission they are also a promise. Amen.