Sermon - Parable of the wicked Tenants

 08/10/23                          St Peter’s                        Trinity 18     

Philippians 3:4b-14                                       Matthew 21:33-end 

A few years ago the author Hilary Mantel was interviewed about Wolf Hall - her historical novel about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She said the tricky thing was keeping in mind that even though she knew the story’s ending the people involved didn’t. What to us seems inevitable is to them only one of several possibilities. 

Anne Boleyn had great hopes for her future path but hadn’t realised Henry VIII was so fixated on having a son he was ready to sacrifice anything and anyone if he thought it would improve his chances. Anne Boleyn failed him as he saw it so the future she had expected was violently taken from her. Hilary Mantel creates an atmosphere where we encounter characters before their future is fixed, where everything still seems possible

This fluidity is something to remember when we read the bible. We hear a well known story and think how could it be otherwise but nothing was laid down for the people involved. They didn’t know how things would turn out

We’ll come back to that in a moment but first let’s look at our gospel.  

A landowner sets up a vineyard, leases it out and goes abroad. Come harvest time he sends his people for his share. The tenants violently reject the landowner’s servants. He sends more, the same thing happens, so he sends his son. ‘Excellent’ think the tenants ‘if the son is dead we can hang on to his inheritance’ . So they kill him.

‘Now’ says Jesus, ‘when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” his hearers answered, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

Jesus replies, ‘“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

Jesus has not been subtle in this parable. He’s given  a potted history of God’s dealings with Israel and their failure to be the light to the nations they were supposed to be. Even when God sent his prophets and teachers and eventually his son  to call them back they dealt badly with them.  so their role in God’s plan is passed on to others. The chief priests and the Pharisees get the point, they know he is talking about them and it sharpens their sense that he is a threat.

We’ll come back to the parable too but now to the epistle - 

When we think of Paul we think of the saint, the theologian, the person who did as much as any of the early followers of Jesus to shape the church -  For us the shape his life took is inevitable and necessary, but he  underwent such a change of direction I don’t suppose it ever felt like that to him. 

Paul wrote his letters were sent before we had the gospels.  Until then what Jesus said and did would have been kept alive by his followers telling and retelling what they remembered. After his conversion Paul would have soaked all this up so I’m sure he will have known this parable.

Just imagine what an impact it would have had on him when he first heard it. 

Sometimes when we hear a bible story we have to think about where we might be in it - in the good samaritan are we the victim, are we the robber, are we the samaritan, are we the person who walks by, in the prodigal son are we the returning prodigal or are we the unwelcoming elder brother. 

But Paul could have had no doubts in this one  

‘But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’  So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.’ 

That was where Paul had been standing ‘a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. If anybody met the criteria of the unjust tenants it was Paul. He had rejected Jesus the cornerstone as zealously as anyone.

He must have thought, with all I had already done with all I intended to do how could I be forgiven, how could Jesus reach out to me?  And yet he did and Paul’s life was turned upside down.   

In our reading he begins by laying out all the religious reasons he had had for preening himself but goes onto say I so much prefer knowing Jesus to all the status I had before that it all seems rubbish. The standing I had in the community carried privileges but it was hollow. Now I know Jesus and the more I know him the better it is. 

So this may not surprise us - passages  like this are how we have built up our picture of Paul - but this is where we have to think like a historical novelist - nothing in his early life prepared him for this and if we think his future was inevitable we will miss his sense of wonder, of incredulity, about how things have turned out. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. And we will miss his gratitude - that was what fuelled his life after his meeting with Jesus on the Damascus road - his faith, his writings, his zeal, his readiness to suffer, his constant work so that the early church should be faithful in their following of Jesus, his letters, his missionary journeys are steeped in his gratitude that for all his past history Jesus still held out his hand to him. And now Paul wants nothing more than to know Jesus better.

Paul’s future was gloriously reshaped - rather than being an agent of destruction, by the grace of God he became an agent of life. And in that there is hope.

When we hear the news - climate crisis, war, hunger, social instability the temptation is to think the path is fixed, Paul shows us otherwise - even the most intractable circumstance, even the most difficult people can change. 

How can we share Paul’s hope, how can we add it in to the world around us? Jesus said the kingdom of God will be given to a people who produce the fruit of the kingdom  

What are these fruit? 

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. - As we bear these fruit so will God’s kingdom grow - Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. This is the path we are given to give to be people of hope

As we try and nurture the Spirit’s fruit in our lives, it is quite possible that we will find ourselves in places we never expected to be,  but if we keep in step with the Spirit however unlikely or even unwelcome the place we will not be there alone.

 

Sermon - John 6 - Despondency

  Trinity 12                         St. Peter’s                      27/8/23                                

Family Communion                                   John 6:35, 41-51

A few days ago Hilary and I read Psalm 88. Now one of the strengths of the Psalms is how unfettered they are - all human life is there - every mood represented - but having said that there is no denying Psalm 88 is on the gloomy end of the spectrum - even its heading calls it ‘A prayer for help in despondency - it’s a glass at least 3/4 empty kind of psalm

So the psalmist writes : I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. / You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. / You have taken from me my closest friends  and have made me repulsive to them.

 Darkness is my closest friend.

At least 3/4 empty. It is gloomy, but for many of us it will ring some bells. It’s part of being human 

So however happy we are, however satisfied with our situation simply living means we will have picked up some baggage - the things we remember when we wake in the night, the situations we could have handled better, the words that shouldn’t have been spoken, the friendships that have soured, we’ve dealt shoddily with people we love,  we should have offered help  but didn’t/ couldn’t, opportunities we’ve missed….   

But we also carry things not our fault - the  losses we’ve suffered, those times where there was no right thing to do, and the things that were good but not easy, that you wouldn’t want to change but still they have a weight to them  

And we carry cares for the people around us, the  situations we hoped might have worked out a bit better for friends/family. Life is messy, and there isn’t always an easy way out of our own particular quagmires. 

But though despondency is very common it doesn’t have the last word on the human condition. 

Two things we can say in the face of it. Both are of grace - the first is a common grace  grace we tap into simply because of the way we are created - whatever our faith or lack of it common graces will touch us, whilst the second grace is Christian.

A for instance of  the first.

The radio programme Soul Music doesn’t use the word grace but it’s what it majors on. It’s half an hour of people talking about why a particular piece of music matters to them - I often remember somebody who explained how at a time in his life when he was deeply unsettled - for something good - but still unsettling and a chance hearing of Tallis’s Spem in Alium  knitted him together - he said it gave him consolation. 

Despite   all that is wrong, all that is painful, all that has to be carried - whether good or bad - despite all of that - sublime beauty still exists in the world - whatever baggage we are carrying doesn’t leak out and set the world’s mood - and this being put in touch with something larger than us, something which is good restores a sense of proportion

Not just music, not just art, not just poetry,  consolation can come in all sorts of ways - through nature - a storm, a starry night, dawn. Through people - an unlooked for kindness, sometimes one can feel carried by the energy and joy of others. 

We read something, hear a casual remark and know that this person has trod where we are treading. We are not the only ones.  

What is consolation? How does it work? It is surprising we can feel better even though nothing has changed. Consolation in this sense comes not by addressing a problem and solving it - how could it - nothing can make good a loss or call back the words you wish you’d never said, life will continue to be messy. But things don’t have to be relevant to be helpful and  consolation often comes at us slant. I am met and I am given proportion. I feel weighed down, but something so touches me - beauty, goodness, love - that I am enabled to take my eyes from my own burden and look beyond it. 

The world is not just about me.

The consolation of this common grace restores a sense of proportion in the face of despondency.

The Christian word goes further than proportion and gives us a new perspective. Where  Jesus meets us consolation shades into hope.

In the gospel reading a grumbling crowd comes up to Jesus - they are hungry, they want a sign, they want change, they want a king or at least a military leader and He is only a local boy - all that they are carrying spills out. 

Just as consolation comes in slant so too Jesus doesn’t address their particular concerns head on, but where consolation says look beyond your burdens, Jesus says look at me. ‘What I am offering you is more than a temporary fix, ‘I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”.’

When we review our life and burdens in the middle of the night an underlying question is, ‘Is this who I am?’  Jesus responds to that by saying ‘Who you are is not who you are alone, but who you are together with me.’ He doesn’t dismiss what we are carrying, but He doesn’t let it define us. He sees us as human not just the sum of our words, decisions, actions, burdens. Look at Him, go to Him, eat of the bread. He is out true home rather than those things that we continue to carry. 

We will never find hope if we just look inwards, hope comes from following Jesus, drawing close to him. 

There’s a passage in Kathleen Norris’s Dakota which blurs consolation and holiness - which points to meeting God in the place of consolation.

‘The high Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often acts as a crucible for those who inhabit them. Like Jacob’s angel, the region requires that you wrestle with it before it bestows a blessing. This can mean driving through a snow storm on icy roads, wondering whether you’ll have to pull over and spend the night in your car, only to emerge under tag ends of clouds into a clear sky blazing with stars. Suddenly you know what you are seeing: the earth has turned to face the centre of the galaxy and many more stars are visible than the ones we usually see on our wing of the spiral.

Or a vivid double rainbow marches to the east, following the wild summer storm that nearly blew you off the road. The storm sky is gunmetal grey, but to the west the sky is peach streaked with crimson. The land and the sky of the West often fill what Thoreau termed our ‘need to witness our limits transgressed.’ Nature, in Dakota, can indeed be an experience of the holy.’ 

Life has rough edges and loose ends and we are bound to pick up baggage along the way. It’s the human condition. But we can know consolation - something good, something beautiful touches us so we can look beyond ourselves. It restores a sense of proportion in the face of despondency.

But the gospel word is that Christ goes further and gives us a new perspective. Where  Jesus meets us consolation deepens and firms up until it becomes hope. Hope in Him, in His word and His promise of life and He will not disappoint us.

Sermon - for St Peter's Day

 020723                 Holy Communion                          St.Peter’s

1 Peter 2:19-25                                              Matthew 16:13-19

Today is the closest Sunday to St Peter’s day - our patronal festival. A day to be grateful for the way we are enriched by being here, a day too to  look at Peter for hints about how we can better be God’s church in this place and at this time. Peter is a great saint - as much as anyone in the New Testament we see him changing and growing, but also flawed, fallible and forgiven. In our gospel reading we see a Peter whose heart is in the right place but he has a lot to learn, by the time he wrote our epistle he has the voice of a saint. How did he that happen. 

The first time we meet Peter  John the Baptist has just been arrested and Jesus is in Galilee, ‘From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.’ 

Perhaps he’d heard John the Baptist, certainly there must have been a restlessness, a hunger about him so that when Jesus called him to follow that’s what he did. He never turned back from this, always his desire was to follow Jesus - we know there were times when his courage or understanding failed, but his love never did.

Following Jesus took Peter to places he would never have gone to by himself, and they met all kinds of people - Jesus would talk to anyone - which itself tells you something about the Kingdom he preached -  men, women, adults, children, rich and poor, fishermen, tax collectors, publicans, soldiers and civilians, zealots, scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, foreigners, pagans and gentiles, Greeks, Canaanites and Samaritans - he didn’t seem to notice taboos - lepers, a woman with a flow of blood, cheats, thieves and lawyers, wedding parties, crowds and individuals, a woman from Herod’s household, and woman on the verge of being stoned for adultery   Jesus would talk to anyone -in fact he was more likely to be angered by the religious putting up barriers to those they considered sinners than by the sinners themselves. He was not a conventional rabbi. 

As he followed him Peter understood Jesus better. He found that where Jesus was the world was different, the world was truer to what it could be, Jesus carried an honest joy with him and shed it wherever he went. 

In our gospel reading Jesus and his disciples are in Caesarea Philippi and he asks them, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”’

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.  

Sometimes we caricature Peter as a buffoon - enthusiastic but always putting his foot in it - but what he says here is both extraordinary and brave.

For me - probably many of us- the the word Messiah is a charged word - I think ‘Handel’ - wonderful, stirring. But of course that was not the weight it carried for Peter; for him the Messiah was someone much more dangerous. 

He was thought to be God’s king anointed as spearhead of a resistance movement that would set the world to rights. There wasn’t one clear idea of his role, but many thought it would involve force and overthrowing the existing structures, for instance the Romans. This didn’t make them universally popular and when here had been would-be messiahs before it hadn’t ended well for them.  

What Peter says to Jesus and what Jesus acknowledges as true is risky. Tom Wright puts it like this, ‘the disciples knew they were not only signing on to be part of a prophetic movement that challenged existing authorities in God’s name; they were signing on for a royal challenge. Jesus was the true king! That meant that Herod  - and even faraway Caesar - had better look out. 

The twelve trusted that if Jesus really was God’s messiah then nobody would be able to stand up to him.  

But they misunderstood what Jesus was doing - he wasn’t interested in making Israel or anyone else top nation. Rather he is going to build a community consisting of all those who follow him as God’s anointed king, they will be the seed of the kingdom of heaven on earth.  And this movement starts at Caesarea Philippi with Peter’s declaration.

Peter hasn’t grasped this yet so that’s why a few verses later he gets it wrong

 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter simply cannot understand how this could happen to God’s messiah - it made no sense to him. This sounds like defeat. 

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

 But Jesus has come to bring in the Kingdom of God - and that Kingdom must reflect the character of God so it’s a place of reconciliation place as well as of rescue - it can’t be built by compulsion. 

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 

Peter didn’t get it at the time and it must have been hard for him to take Jesus’ rebuke so soon after his triumph, but he accepted it. Why? He answered that question on a different occasion

 “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” 

 Throughout Jesus ministry Peter tried failed learned grew, the same process continued once the Spirit had been given.

By the time Peter wrote his letter his understanding of the kingdom and the Messiah’s work had changed so that  what he had said must never happen to Jesus When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, he now holds up as a model of behaviour for his readers.

What can we learn from Peter? Two things - First, the word that kept repeating in the life of Peter was  follow. That’s what Jesus called him to do and for all his flaws that was a constant. And if we want to mature that, by the presence of the Spirit, is what we must do too. The closer we follow the more we will grow. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. Second, the community of the church is to be a picture of the kingdom of God - our life as a community can reveal what God is like. An Indian Christian, Pandita Ramabai, said ‘People must not only hear about the kingdom of God, but must see it in actual operation, on a small scale perhaps and in imperfect form, but a real demonstration nevertheless.’

Sermon John 14:1-14

07/05/23            Holy Communion                    St. Peter’s, Birkdale

1 Peter 2:2-10                                                       John 14:1-14

Most of us probably spent quite a lot of yesterday watching the coronation service where the first spoken words made reference to the Kingdom of God and the kingship of Jesus. Our starting point is John but there will be a few excursions to the Coronation.

John 14 has a very particular context and it makes a difference to how we should watch what Jesus is doing and listen to what he is saying

We join him at the last supper after after he has washed his disciples feet, after the meal and just after Judas has slipped off into the night to betray him. 

Jesus knows his immediate future is likely to hold arrest trial and death. His expectation that this was the  this was the  last meal he would share with them gives an added poignancy to his actions, and it gives an extra weight to what he is going to say to them. These words and actions are what he most wants them to remember, So it is significant that his first action when they are all gathered is to wash their feet. He was the host, he wanted them to know they were welcome, he had no servants to do it for him so he did it himself. Here Jesus very explicitly takes on the servant role and he wanted them to remember that they should all serve each other’s best interests

The first thing Charles said in the service was ‘In the King of kings name and after his example I come not to be served but to serve.’  Kingship and the service of the common good belong together. 

What else does he want his disciples to remember? Despite what is about to happen they have a future and a hope.  

At this point they probably think that everything is going well. When Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey - it was great -  everybody loved them - certainly the crowd did and Jesus always got under the skin of the temple authorities anyway. But Jesus knows this time is different. The sky is about to fall in. 

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.’

He wants them to remember this later, to know that though they are going through a dark night they have his word that there is a dawn coming. They have not been abandoned.

   In the service  we were given the chance to pledge our allegiance to the king. Here it is the other way round - Jesus makes his allegiance to his disciples and through them his allegiance to us absolutely clear.

What does he want the disciples to remember ?

First, serve one another.

Second I will never abandon you, there is a place for you in my Father’s house

And then keep walking the way I have shown you

The disciples are used to being confused by Jesus - why is he going away? Why can’t they go with him? That’s what they signed up for. And where is his Father’s house - what does he mean. Thomas asks first - ‘we don’t know where you’re going so how can we know the way.’ 

Jesus responds, ’Thomas you all know me well, you don’t need to know more than I’m telling you now. You’ve all seen my relationship with my Father in action. Love God, love neighbour act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. Keep on with that and you’ll get there - there may be missteps, it will be difficult , but keep on 

‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me so Remember what you’ve seen and heard, follow the path I have shown you. 

Shape your behaviour by what you have seen in me. 

Jesus knows the disciples, but just as importantly they know him. The whole time they have spent together travelling round Israel they have been getting to know him, they have seen both his devotion to the Father and his commitment to them. 

They know they’ve been irritating, that they’ve continually missed the point, that they’ve squabbled amongst themselves when they should have been united and daydreaming when they should have been listening but he has never let them down. For all their failures he’s never given any of them a final warning. They know he loves them, they may not understand why, but they don’t doubt it. 

They trust Jesus but Philip is still worried, ‘We don’t know the Father like you do, if we could just see him it would be so much easier.’

Jesus replies, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?’

We shouldn’t take these words for granted. He is saying - when I was washing your feet that’s what the Father would have done, all those meals we’ve shared, conversations we’ve had - they have all taken you into the heart of God. He feels about you the same way that I do.’

The disciples may not have understood what Jesus was saying at the time, but they did remember what he said. Their trust in him kept growing even beyond the crucifixion. As we follow him, at the same can be true for us.

Three things Jesus wants the disciples and therefore us to remember

First, Jesus shows his commitment his disciples by serving them. He puts any idea of status to one side and washes their feet - they are welcome at the table he has prepared.

Then, despite all life’s uncertainties, however we may be feeling about God, he will not abandon us, 

Third, He is the way, trust him enough to follow that way. 

One final thought - in his epistle Peter sketches out a future for God’s followers

‘You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.’ 

The disciples could easily have felt that this was too high a calling for them to fulfil - we may feel the same, and despite the assurances of the Coronation service the king too might well feel overmastered by what he is being given to do.

But Peter goes on to say, ‘Once you were not a people,  but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,    but now you have received mercy.

And that is the grace that can encourage and strengthen us.

Sermon St. Peter's Birkdale 5/3/23

 5/03/23          Holy Communion.                  St Peter’s

               Gen. 12:1-4a.                            John 3:1-17

There are at least two self indulgences in this sermon - the first is the subject -  Nicodemus I’ve often thought there are not enough Nicks in literature generally -glossing over old Nick obviously - so this morning I’ll try and redress the balance:-

Who was Nicodemus - he turns up three times in the gospel, and I don’t think it’s too fanciful to see him going further out on a limb each time we meet him.  

In our first encounter we are told he is a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish ruling council - is a member of the religious establishment -  The picture we get from the New Testament of Pharisees is of a group whose faith - often genuinely and passionately held - had a very narrow focus, zeroing in on the law and the traditions of the fathers and for many that was where their faith stopped, but that was not enough for Nicodemus.

He recognised a wonder and a glory and a mystery in the world that the Pharisee approach did not do justice to. It’s narrow focus didn’t take him any closer to God. In the words of the Beatitudes he is hungering and thirsting for righteousness and he is intrigued by Jesus, so after dark he comes to talk to him.  ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’ And so they talk.

The second time Nicodemus is mentioned, he has moved on from a simple interest in Jesus.

When the Pharisees heard the crowd whispering about Jesus the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

The guards fail and go back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.

 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted.  “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?  No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”

They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

Nicodemus has gone beyond casual interest. We are familiar with regimes that sent out their police to arrest dissidents and what happens to people who don’t toe the party line. Nicodemus is taking a risk here. One can imagine the whispers beginning about how he was going soft, cranky.

The final mention he gets is when he and Joseph of Arimathea recover Jesus body after the crucifixion so he can be given a proper burial. He didn’t know what happened next - he is saying though this terrible, shameful thing has happened to Jesus, though the authorities have won - I will stand with him.

What happened in that conversation with Jesus to give Nicodemus this trajectory.  

Nicodemus came to Jesus as a dissatisfied Pharisee. His colleagues approach to God had  contracted him so he would fit into their laws and traditions. They worked with what God had done and had said - Nicodemus knew that God is too big to stop there - he is still doing and is still speaking  - Nicodemus doesn’t want a shrunken knowledge of God, he  wants to know more of him, he wants a bigger understanding.

Who is Nicodemus? He is a pharisee, but a Pharisee with his eyes open so he begins his conversation with Jesus by saying He doesn’t know who Jesus is, but he does recognise God in Him 

What did Jesus want him to know, how does he want his faith to develop?

Nicodemus has recognised that God is working through Jesus and Jesus tells him you wouldn’t recognise the kingdom unless God was already at work in you.

“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” And he goes on to talk of a world that is blown through by God’s Spirit.

He says we live in a world penetrated/shot through with God’s presence. ‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.’

God is always active in the world but because we are  creatures with all kinds of baggage we don’t always see it. 

Two witnesses to God at work… 

And this is where the other self indulgence comes in  - about ten days ago we had another granddaughter -  there are occasions that we don’t have proper words for, where we are joyfully aware that our understanding falls short of what is going on - and birth is one of them - where we encounter  wonder, mystery, glory, and we know this world is insufficiently explained by pure materialism - it’s a time of grace, a touch of the eternal that hallows what could be commonplace.

That’s an example of God at work on a good day but there can be moments in terrible days that suddenly catch us. The other witness is the writer Christian Wiman  talking of a time when he had a life threatening illness and is rather tentatively exploring his local church. He’s just had very bad news and a very bad night’s sleep and is reluctantly walking to the train station with the church pastor who he hardly knows and on the way they have a rather stumbling conversation but ‘I remember when we parted there was an awkward moment when the severity of my situation and our unfamiliarity with each other left us with no words, and in a gesture that I'm sure was completely unconscious, he placed his hand over his heart for just a second as a flicker of empathetic anguish crossed his face. It sliced right through me. It cut through the cloud I was living in and let the plain day pour its balm upon me. It was, I am sure, one of those moments when we enact and reflect a mercy and mystery that are greater than we are.’

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. 

Nicodemus could have been forgiven for thinking that Jesus had given him enough to think about but the conversation continues

One of the promises that God made to Abraham was that all the peoples on earth would be blessed through him. Jesus in the last part of our reading fills that out

He says three things that give ample space for wonder, glory and mystery and since we can’t exhaust any one of them I’ll just give the headline

The first of them is the promise of eternal life - the kind of life we already get occasional hints of - the Son of man is lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life - this is not about keeping all the laws, or by being born in the right family, or even being a lovely person - this is about recognising that Jesus is the one to follow, however inadequately

The second is the answer to the question the pharisees might have asked  - why does God set the bar so low?

And the answer is He loves us - and love is perhaps above anything else that we know beyond our powers of explanation  ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

The third thing is a reminder we are not God’s gatekeepers. The Pharisees sometimes seemed keener on a purity that barred people from God’s presence than a love that welcomed them v.17 makes clear this is the opposite of what God wants. ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’

Perhaps as a Lenten disciplines we could try and notice God - ‘not in the fire but in the still small voice’ the voice that slightly disrupts your normal internal narrative - it could be ‘this is something that needs to be done and I could be a part of doing it , but it could be the unexpected richness of a moment ‘this is a beautiful sky’, ‘this is my friend with whom I feel at home’ 

Typically those parts of life which mean most to us have at their core something inexplicable and yet holy  - not religious holy, but everyday holy, something we recognise as good news   those places where  we get a glimpse of wonder, mystery, glory - the place where we are most likely to meet God, or at least recognise his finger prints.