Perhaps that’s how you feel today, just one of the crowd, just a nobody who unfortunately got caught stealing some food and now you’re up on a cross in amongst many others, dying, with no hope, no life left, and, in reality, without any friends or family even bothered to stand with you at the foot of your cross.
That’s a lonely place to be in, where you’re unsure what life is going to throw at you next, and unclear what you’re meant to do anyway..
Or maybe, instead, you feel like you’re on one of these three crosses we heard about in our reading.
Maybe you’re the one who wants to make fun of this idiot beside you, the nutter that calls himself “the King of the Jews”, the one who claims to be God, and yet he’s in just the same place as you are, he’s no better off, he’s getting what he deserves..
Liar…..Cheater……Just like you…..Just like me
How pathetic, getting caught and now paying the price with my life.
I’ve not had time to really do anything, to change anything, to make any kind of impact. They’re not even going to bother putting my name on any kind of tombstone when I’ve gone.
I will simply rot on the rubbish tip.
Perhaps you are that kind of person who is quite happy to laugh and joke at everybody else’s expense, to join in the responses that make fun of life, the person who couldn’t care less, who is always just wanting to go out and enjoy themselves and blow the consequences.
Life is for living! That’s what we’re here for!
Those religious nuts can go away…I’m not interested in what they’re selling…most of the time they seem to be pretty miserable anyway so why would I want what they’ve got…looks like some kind of a disease to me.
Or maybe you feel more like the one on the other cross next to Jesus.
You started by doubting, being sceptical, but now your eyes have begun to see that actually there is something different about this Jesus, something you can’t quite put your finger on.
Mystery is here.
The mysterious.
Even the sky and the earth around you seems to be changing with Jesus being there next to you.
Perhaps it’s because you’ve been lifted up from the earth in a way that you never thought would happen to you, and now you can see clearly, you can see some light in your own personal darkness. The truth is beginning to dawn on you…
You’re not convinced, but something inside you tells you that you need to reach out to this man Jesus and ask for help…what if it’s true…what if this Jesus really is the King?
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42)
Or maybe, today, you are on the cross with Jesus.
You see, it is being on the cross with Jesus that is what the Christian life is all about.
It’s not about a set of rules, obeying a system of commandments to appease some All-Mighty God.
Jesus died on the cross to save all people from the lives that they have led, the mistakes they’ve made, to give them a new life.

Jesus died on the cross to enable us to take on his life as our lives.

Jesus died on the cross in order that we could exchange our lives with his.

I live today because I recognise that when Jesus died I was there on the cross with him, and I myself died with him.

That happened so that, together with Jesus, I too was raised to new life with him through his resurrection so that today I am free to allow him, Jesus, to live my life.

The apostle Paul saw the truth of that when he wrote:-
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2: 19,20)
Jesus spoke about coming to bring people life, to give people life in all its’ fullness, but so often we think this means we can live the way we want to.
The truth of the situation is that once we find Jesus, once we realise that we have been crucified with him, the Holy Spirit that God places deep within our hearts when we come to faith, begins to set to work on changing our lives from the inside out, changing our desires and wants so that Christ Jesus’ desires and wants become our own.
The cross of Christ, permitting us to die to everything that is in our past, sets us free to do God’s own thing.
When you find God’s own thing, and God’s own way, then you find true peace, joy and love.
Which cross do you want to be on today?
One that makes you simply one of a lonely crowd, one that keeps you bitter and twisted about the bad luck you’ve had in life, one that begins to help you to see the things you’ve got wrong and begin to long for change, or the one that will equip you to change?
Christ Jesus died for you, so you could live for Jesus Christ.
Let’s go do God’s work…

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” (Matthew 4:1)
Temptations abound in the modern world.
Our reading from 1 John speaks to us about them falling into three categories, temptations because of our cravings (the lust of the flesh maybe), temptations because of the lust of our eyes (what we see leading us astray, perhaps into wanting something we see), and temptations about what we have and do (the pride of our life, or pride in our riches or possessions).
John’s letter also seems to suggest to us that all these things, all these temptations, come to us from this strange thing called “the world”, and we are urged there in that letter to “not love the world or anything in the world” (1 John 2:15).
James’ letter directs us also to not complain when we are tempted:-
“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:13 – 15)
So what exactly is it that happens when Jesus is sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil?
“led by the Spirit” (Matthew 4:1)
How often do we read those words or hear those words spoken, and actually hear people telling of something that is wonderful that has happened?
“I was led by the Spirit to speak to so and so, and he was so inspired by what I said that…”
“The Spirit led me to go and see that lady down the street, you know the one with the noisy dog…and …”
I have not recently heard anybody tell me that the Spirit led them into a dark and nasty place, somewhere where we felt frustrated and angry because of what was going on in our lives, a place where we decided that actually we wanted to run away from God and find a new place to be.
So why do we have this record of Jesus being led into the desert to be tempted?
Is it God that is here doing the tempting or the testing? If it is, what is the reason for it? And if we then try and apply it to our own lives, what does it all mean?
As with a lot of the scripture we read, a lot of the bible that we think about I am sure there are things here that we can learn about God, and that can help us in our Christian lives.
Perhaps firstly we should observe that Jesus, elsewhere we read, was tempted just as we are, and yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and so maybe in this record of Christ’s encounter with the devil we can find some clues as to how Jesus managed to resist temptation.
We find that Jesus quotes scripture, bible verses, back at the devil when the devil makes his suggestions to him.
That can’t be the sole thing that takes place though because we find that the devil in his craftiness also responds to Jesus by quoting scripture, quoting parts of the bible back to Jesus.
There is a misquote there by the devil if you would like to look it up some more, but I want to say to you first of all this morning that whilst knowing what the bible says may be part of the answer to dealing with temptation…it is not the full picture.
Whilst noting that what you see, what your flesh or body wants, or the pride that sometimes influences you, may be the sources of the things that tempt you knowing those things may not actually help you to overcome temptation, or deal with times of testing.
Is there a difference between the two?
Are there times when the Spirit leads you into the desert, times when you need to experience dryness, dullness, pain, weakness, anxiety?
Is there occasion when, in order to grow and mature as disciples or followers of Jesus Christ we must experience tragedy, grief, loss?
I think that too often we come into an understanding of the Christian faith that makes us think that it is about doing the right thing, being a nice person and begin to follow rules to enable us to be good Christians.
But I do not think that the Christian faith is really about all that.
I do not think that we will be able to overcome any temptation simply by obeying some instruction or other we have learnt.
I think that Jesus was able to deal with the accusations that he was faced with, not because he had learnt the scriptures, although undoubtedly this was useful.
I think Jesus was able to deal with the temptations because of that very first line we heard read to us.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit…” (Matthew 4:1)
And I think further that the letter from John leads us further into a greater understand of what following the Christian faith is all about.
Jesus was led by the Spirit.
Jesus had a relationship with the Father.
Doesn’t it talk about that in our reading from John, the different stages in growth?
Out of Christ’s relationship with the Father and the Spirit Jesus was able to stand firm against the temptations that came against him.
Further, Jesus was someone who loved all those he met, all those he encountered, and Jesus kept on loving his brothers and his sisters, wherever he found them.
It is love of others that enables us not to cheat, not to steal or destroy, not to take pride in what we have or do.
It is love of others that means that we are constantly wanting to help one another, and not wanting to see others fall out of this special relationship with God.
It is love that is the most powerful weapon against out testing times.
As a Christian community what do we do when we see one of our members hurting? Is it not at those times that we need to demonstrate the love that God has placed within our hearts to, possibly in some cases, simply be with those people holding their hands and their hearts?
By chance (!) I was at the hospital the other day and bumped into a lady whose brother I helped lead a memorial service for recently. Her mother had been taken into hospital following a fall and was still receiving treatment.
I prayed with the lady and at the end of our brief time together she asked if she could ask me to do something for her….she wanted me to give her a hug.
I don’t think sexual impropriety came into it as she was in her 80’s but I felt honoured and privileged that this woman recognised, I hope, something of the Jesus in me that was willing and able to embrace her.
How many of our members have experienced that kind of love recently?
How many members from churches have actually instead sought out sexual, physical love as a means of being able to feel wanted because they are not receiving the love that John speaks about in his letter, or perhaps are actually receiving hatred from a brother or sister, possibly even from a Christian brother or sister?
I wonder.
It is the relationship that we have with God that will enable us to come through a time of testing or a time of tempting.
It is the relationships that we have with one another that will also be crucial and critical when we pass through such a time.
I know that it sometimes feels like it would be easier to run away and hide, and not share our hurts and pains with others, but our own healing may well be best worked out by letting others in to share your hurt.

When you get to the end of your life, I wonder what you will want to leave behind.
I wonder what you will think, what you will want to say, what you may want to write down to leave to those who are to live after you have gone.
We don’t know for certain who it was who wrote the words that we had read to us this morning, but traditionally they are thought to be the words of the apostle John, the beloved disciple, who, at the end of his life, or towards the end of his life, or in his old age, comes to reflect and write to encourage those Christians that he has come to know and love and care about.
That is why I ask the question, what is it you would want to say to those you leave behind you, when you leave this world.
I often think over my own life and think how wonderful it would be to be twenty or thirty years younger than I am now, but with the knowledge and understanding that I now have,… but rarely do we really sit down and pass on the wisdom of our years to other people.
If only somehow we could learn to share what we’ve learnt, not in a way that says to the younger generations that they are getting it wrong… (who are we to judge?)..but in a way that we could share together… grow together… become wiser together…
Those who are younger have vitality and life that many of us need…those who are older generally have wisdom to impart and share…
But that is not always the case, but it is often the case that we hide from being real with other people until those times when we have to face up to the fact that we may not be immortal,,, we may not live for ever…
In Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesdays with Morrie”, where he returns every Tuesday to spend time with his old professor, and essentially talks about the meaning of life, the universe and everything (to quote the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) the professor in particular says so many things that have such deep meaning.
“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live”
“Life is a series of pulls back and forth… A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match…Which side wins? Love wins. Love always wins”
I think I’ve shared with you before an extract from David Watson’s final book, “Fear No Evil”, written when he was dying from cancer, where he speaks about God showing him clearly that his love for God “meant nothing unless I was truly able to love from my heart my brother or sister in Christ” and then David writing to various people asking them for forgiveness for hurting them.
He found the task difficult, but after he had done it, and once he began to get replies to his letters, he wept at those replies.
I myself have been moved most recently by simple comments made following the announcement that I was leaving here, not necessarily by things people have said to me from the Christchurch area, not that I have not been moved by some of your generous comments, but in particular by a comment made by a woman in Melanie’s church who has recently been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and doesn’t have long left to live.
To see the care that others who are dying often have for those they leave behind can be amongst the most moving things to experience.

And so, we come to John, who writes to the ones he loves and cares about.
What does he want to say to them at this critical time in his life, what is it he thinks is important to pass on to other people?
“The life appeared” (1 John 1:2)
Wake up!
The first thing he writes is to repeat again, that the One who was from the very beginning of time is the One that we have seen, heard and touched with our hands, our ears and our eyes.
“The life appeared” (1 John 1:2)
We haven’t made up this story. We know it seems so often to be so amazing, so miraculous…but it is actually true!
There are witnesses to Jesus still alive around you today! I am one of them!
Two thousand years down the line, virtually, have we as a church forgotten the information that we have received; that all of this; all the stories of Jesus that we have heard, the life we read about, is a true story, a tale that was not made up, not imagined, or concocted, but is actually a story of God, the story of God.
Some may well come along and want to argue about bits and pieces here and there, some may want to dispute whether it was one man or ten that Jesus healed at one particular point in the story, or whether Jesus actually sent demons out of people into pigs, or a whole variety of other things.

Scholars may want to debate the actual meaning of some Greek or Hebrew word and what it was that Jesus actually intended when he said certain things, and we may, at times, find it useful or interesting to have discussions about those things…
I don’t know if any of you caught the BBC2 programme in the last couple of weeks called “The Bible Hunters”…I think you can still watch it on the BBC iplayer at the moment…but you saw there the disputes and debates that have been had when different texts have been found in desert places and in monasteries…but the thrust of John’s message from the introductory paragraphs to this letter are that the story is true…God came…God appeared here among us…
What begins to be more amazing, more incredible about this is that God has allowed us to have fellowship with God.
John and his colleagues are just sharing what they know, what they have seen and heard, and what they are sharing is the fact that they have a relationship, “fellowship” John calls it, with God!
So we start with stating that the story is true, and then John looks to tell us more about this God that he has a relationship with.
“God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5)
You can’t hide anything from God.
God knows everything.
You can’t escape into a dark corner, run away when God speaks and calls you, because everything is visible to this God.
God is present in the darkest corner, the darkest place, the most remote spot that you can ever think about.
One of the Psalmists wrote “where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7) and the answer is that you can’t.
If you want to disappear into the night, God still sees, for the night is as the day to God.
I have sometimes found people challenging me when I use language that speaks of God being present with paedophiles, sex-workers, immigrants, dole-scroungers or a whole range of others who some consider to be people of no value, but the truth of the matter is that God is present with all people and in all places.
In the middle of the darkest night God is present, in the loneliest of places God is.
There is no-where that we can go to escape from the love of God.
And that is partly the point that John will move us on to as we read through the rest of this letter, that it is all about love.
Mitch Albom elsewhere says “love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone” and “one day spent with someone you love can change everything”
{http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2331.Mitch_Albom }
Does a day spent with God change your life? Has it? Will it?
John then moves on to talk about sin.
What a subject?
He talks about God being light, that there is no darkness whatsoever in God, and that there is a need for you and me, for those who read this letter way back in the beginning, to walk in the light as “he is in the light” (1 John 1:7) and starts to talk about dealing with our sins.
Did you notice the thrust of what John writes though.
It’s something that I do not think we really hear enough about in the church.
“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin” (1 John 2:1)
How many times have you heard in church that it is possible for you to live in a way that you will not sin?
How many more times have you heard in church that you need to repent of your sins, or that you need to confess you sins?
John talks about confessing our sins.
John talks about the fact that if we claim not to have sinned we are calling God a liar and that God’s word therefore has no place in our lives but…and it is rather a big BUT…John writes about the fact that our sins can be forgiven, and that if we know and understand that our sins can be forgiven we can walk in the light and we are able to walk in a way that means that we will not sin.
How often do we, as Christians, prefer to actually continue feeling sorry for ourselves and keep on confessing our sins, saying that we are not good enough, that we are miserable sinners, and that we do not deserve God’s love?
How often, to counter that, do we not rather celebrate God’s love for us, commend God’s love for one another to one another and dance with joy that we are forgiven and that we have been set free to live lives of faith and trust, being released from sin and able to walk in confidence and faith, being able to live in the light?
One of the former Moderators of one of the synods of the United Reformed Church, Graham Cook, once said that “Church is..the only organisation that talks about sin but doesn’t expect to find it” but, in my experience we seem to far too often talk about sin and not expect to ever be able to overcome it!
Within the communion service right at the beginning we are encouraged to confess our sins, in our regular worship we are often told to confess our sins…where do we actually celebrate the fact that Jesus died on the cross to conquer sin and death and hell?
What is the gospel we proclaim if it is unable to give us victory in life?
The letter to the Romans begins to address these sort of things..”how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17)
That is what John is talking about, victorious Christian living.
So often we are a long way away from that. So often we are stuck with our sins and sinful ways of living. So often it seems that sin and death have control over us and our lives seem to be constant places of hopelessness rather than faith and victory.
I think the mistake that we sometimes seem to make is that when things are tough, when we find the going difficult, we begin to think that we must be doing something wrong, we begin to believe Job’s comforters and think that perhaps we are at fault.
It is at precisely those times that we need to turn back to the letter from John and declare aloud that God say “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)
It is time for the church to celebrate God’s love, declare God’s forgiveness and love one another.
Let us do that and grow into maturity together.

Jesus goes up on the mountain and begins to teach the multitude that is there…the vast array of people from all over that region who have gathered to hear this new wise preacher-man speak to them.

What will they hear, what will they listen to, that may help them, may comfort them on their journey through life, for many a journey that we can presume will not necessarily be the most comfortable of experiences.

For many, living in a land which was effectively occupied, controlled by the Romans, and in which they probably felt powerless and inferior, weak and where they struggled to earn enough for their daily bread (why else is it that Jesus teaches them to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”?).

On the mountain Jesus begins to speak and proclaims words of comfort and reassurance…”Blessed are  the poor in spirit…Blessed are those who mourn…Blessed are the meek….Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…Blessed are the pure in heart…Blessed are the peacemakers….Blessed are those who are persecuted…”

The sighs of relief that must have echoed down the hillside and into the valleys…the delight that must have begun to be felt by those who were listening as their understanding was broadened, as their relationship with their Creator began to be illuminated again, their lives were lit up by the hope that the words of this preacher-man was giving them.

I wonder whether any of them thought to themselves that this must be too good to be true, that perhaps there may be a catch in all this “good news” somewhere?

They were captivated.

In Mark’s gospel it is recorded that “The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching – and with authority!’” (Mark 1:27)

At the end of the long section recorded as the sermon on the mount we find:-

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” (Matthew 7:28,29)

Have you ever heard something wonderful, something that has sounded too good to be true, and then started to really believe it and then find out that it wasn’t really true, that there had been a catch there somewhere?

I wonder whether the people who had heard Christ’s blessings right at the very beginning when they then began to hear him speaking the words we heard read to us today they started to think to themselves these sort of thoughts…

See…we knew it couldn’t be so good…you’ve never had it so good becomes a phrase with no meaning…Jesus is now making it harder and I’m not sure I want to follow where he is going…

The teachers of the day had been teaching the people, but their teaching seemed to have no power or authority.

Jesus comes along and is a breath of fresh air in a stale climate, the pilot of a life-raft in the floodwaters of life.

But he begins to lay down some rules for those who are interested in his teaching…you know, don’t you that you shouldn’t murder, well I tell you that if you call your brother a fool or your sister a tart then you are in danger of the fire of hell.

Wow!

Where did that come from?

There we were listening to some lovely words about life, and about how we will be comforted, those of us who haven’t got much going for us and Jesus comes along and tells us that we’re just as bad as that murderer they hung up the other day, you know, the one who had slit the throats of a dozen women in one day…

What’s more, Jesus begins to talk about the need for reconciliation, for making it up with our fellow human beings while we can, sorting things out with them for the good.

It’s the sort of thing that was probably as challenging for the people who heard it in those days as something I read in a book by Miraslav Volf recently where he was talking about forgiveness, and how far we should go to forgive someone who has harmed us.

“Forgiving the unrepentant is not an optional extra in the Christian way of life; it’s the heart of the thing.” (Volf 2005:209)

Volf takes the teaching of Jesus and demonstrates for us what it should mean if we are to live as Christians, followers of Christ today.

It should mean that we give, and give and give and give, and that we forgive, and forgive and forgive and forgive.

Volf explains that this is not something that naturally we can do, or may be even want to do, but that because Christ is in us it is what we are called to do, and can only do because of the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

Jesus speaks about adultery, and that it’s not enough to say that we haven’t committed adultery if that is not what we perceive to be one of our sins, because Jesus says that if we’ve looked at another person with lust in our eyes, whether that be male or female, same sex or other sex then we have committed that sin.

Is it any wonder that at times during Christ’s ministry here on earth we find that “many of his disciples said ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’”(John 6:60) and that “from this time on many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66)

The goalposts suddenly seem to have moved, and it may well have been that those same people who one minute probably thought that everything was looking really good for them, began to realise that there was some further truth that they needed to engage with, some other pieces of information that they needed to deal with, before they could confirm that this Jesus really was somebody that they wanted to follow.

It was the same people essentially, you will recall who cheered on Palm Sunday and then called out Crucify later that same week, and sometimes for us we can be the most popular person around one day, and the villain and hated the next.

I have found it very sad recently to note that some people who have been going through the hardest of times, and have been supported through those times by what looked to be good friends, have suddenly for one reason or another, seen that relationship, that friendship disintegrate and be demolished such that now not a kind word seems to be capable of being spoken by one of those former friends to the other.

Jesus then talks about divorce, something that the man seemed to have the running in, and, at times it appears that men chose their women like you would decide what to have for dinner.

Are Christ’s words about divorce here something we would want to say again to the world we live in, or is there something else we would want to talk about?

As someone who has failed in many of these and many other areas, how do I read the words of Jesus here in this place?

Am I one of those who is delighted that I can be blessed but then wanting to run away when the call to follow Christ becomes difficult.

Jesus makes it harder.

Or does he?

Jesus certainly blows holes through the conventions of the day, but when we come to the twenty first century where do we find the hypocrisy and the lies, where is it that the conventions need to be challenged and changed.

I know that my life has holes in it, and some of them have been and are very big ones, but I hope that by trying my best to follow Christ’s example some of those holes will filter through God’s amazing love for everyone I meet.

I think you’ve probably heard me say before, but if you haven’t let me repeat it again here, that one of the key things that made me put myself forward to become a minister of word and sacrament in the United Reformed Church was a couple of statements that are made at the beginning of the Manual, our “rulebook”, if you like.

“5. The unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church have been obscured by the

failure and weakness which mar the life of the Church.

6. Christ’s mercy in continuing his call to the Church in all its failure and weakness has taught

the Church that its life must ever be renewed and reformed according to the Scriptures, under

the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

7. The United Reformed Church humbly recognises that the failure and weakness of the

Church have in particular been manifested in division which has made it impossible for

Christians fully to know, experience and communicate the life of the one, holy, catholic,

apostolic Church.

8. The United Reformed Church has been formed in obedience to the call to repent of what

has been amiss in the past and to be reconciled. It sees its formation and growth as a part of

what God is doing to make his people one, and as a united church will take, wherever

possible and with all speed, further steps towards the unity of all God’s people.”

Just because Jesus makes it harder, it doesn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t follow on.

Just because it looks like it is going to be a tougher ask for us, a more painful journey, it doesn’t mean that we should give up and go home.

Jesus may make it harder, but Jesus also promises that he will go with us on the journey.

What does it feel like to walk with Jesus on this journey?

Volf again;

“A sense of freedom and desire to practice Christ – this is how Christ’s living through human beings might feel to persons involved. At the same time, those who, indwelled by Christ, practice Christ will have a sense that it’s not so much they who are acting themselves into Christ, but it’s Christ who is acting through them.” (Volf 2005:202)

Volf, Miraslav (2005) Free of Charge Grand Rapids, Michigan:Zondervan

A sermon on dementia, based on 1 Peter 2: 1 – 12, preached at Burton Green and High Cross Church on 19th January 2014:-

Dementia is one of the fastest growing issues that society in the west is having to deal with. It is estimated that at present 800,000 people in the UK suffer from dementia, but expectations are, that with people living longer, those suffering from dementia will increase to 1 million by the year 2021.

According to a NHS guide:-

“Dementia is a syndrome (a group of related symptoms) associated with an ongoing decline of the brain and its abilities. This includes problems with:

• memory loss
• thinking speed
• mental agility
• language
• understanding
• judgement

People with dementia can become apathetic or uninterested in their usual activities, and have problems controlling their emotions. They may also find social situations challenging, lose interest in socialising, and aspects of their personality may change.

A person with dementia may lose empathy (understanding and compassion), they may see or hear things that other people do not (hallucinations), or they may make false claims or statements. 

As dementia affects a person’s mental abilities, they may find planning and organising difficult”. [http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/dementia-guide/Pages/about-dementia.aspx]

Some of us may well have experienced members of our family who have suffered with dementia, and, for those who have done so, it is certainly no laughing matter.

It is very painful to live alongside those how have suffered from dementia, who have often been very much loved members of the family, parents or partners, husbands or wives.

To cope with the person you married no longer recognising you, not wanting you to touch them because they think you’re a stranger, is probably one of the worst experiences that one can have.

At least now understanding and awareness of dementia is growing, due in part to the work of the Alzheimer’s Society and others, but I must admit to often finding myself wondering how good we are in the church in dealing with dementia, and also how good we are in dealing with mental health issues.

I seem to have often been reading lately or hearing stories that whilst people who have physical problems like broken legs or are physically sick are understood to be poorly, those who have mental health issues are not thought of in the same way as actually being people who are ill. Often mental health issues are not seen in the same way that physical illnesses are, and are therefore either overlooked, not assessed quickly enough, or simply dismissed.

I guess we all have much to learn.

However, it struck me quite seriously the other day when I was thinking about dementia that actually when you look at the effects of dementia, the symptoms, the different kinds of dementia that there are that people are suffering with whether actually dementia is an illness that the church itself is actually suffering with at the present moment in time.

“memory loss, thinking speed, mental agility, language, understanding, judgement” [http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/dementia-guide/Pages/about-dementia.aspx]

If we look for a moment or two at our reading from the first letter of Peter today what do we notice?

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”(1 Peter 2: 2,3)

I wonder where our cravings are in the church.

Are we desperate to come to church each week for spiritual food and drink, or do we find that attending here is simply a drudge, a routine that we’ve got into that we really don’t appreciate any more.

Is the memory of the day when we first found God simply that, a vague memory?

Do we have a passion for Jesus, or have we forgotten how good the Lord is?

I can remember, when I first became a Christian, on a Sunday morning I would get up early, probably pray and read my bible for a bit and then walk, or cycle if I had a cycle I could use, about five miles to go to the church I wanted to go to.

Would I do that now? Would I go that far, am I that keen to actually meet with God and with God’s people?

Have I stopped thinking about my faith, have I given up trying to work out what God may be saying to me? Does it seem harder or easier these days to engage with things that provoke us to think?

Is it easier for us to ignore the issue of dementia and old age around us than for us to think about how we might be able to respond to the need within the local community?

What about the language that we use in church? Is that a help or a barrier to those around us.

When, in our reading today we speak about “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:7) how do we explain that kind of language to the people of Burton/Somerfored/Walkford/Christchurch?

Has our language become a source of division between us and the world around us?

Have we stopped trying to interpret the good news that we discover in the bible for the people around us?

Language needs to be understood. If we mumble, if we grumble, then we will not be able to get across the message of love, peace and joy that the Christian life is supposed to be all about.

If we do not aggressively dive into God’s word, explore God’s heart through our praying and reading, then we will probably struggle to uncover the pearls of wisdom that there are that God wants to give us that will enable us to have the strength and faith to cope with the struggles that life can throw at us at times.

Have we as a church lost our ability to understand what is going on around us, and have we begun to be a people who judge first and ask questions later. Are we disorientated or disorganised or do we have a plan…?

Do we know God’s plan? If we don’t, what are we doing to discover or uncover God’s plan?

For me, it is this issue of memory loss that I think we in the church have to face up to more than anything else.

“But 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. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy”. (1 Peter 2: 9,10)

How does that make you feel?

This is what I struggle with.

I don’t think that we in the church have fully understood who we are, the sort of people God has made us to be.

If we ever did know who we are we seem to have forgotten it.

We are special people, we are people who have come into the light, we are people who have been saved, we are people who have tasted of God’s goodness, who have caught a vision of God’s purposes and plans not just for us, but for the whole world, for everybody and yet we seem content so much of the time with worship that is not inspiring and does not encourage us, with activities that do not draw us near to God and one another.

How often do we forget that God loves us, you and me, exactly as we are?

We are the people of God and we have received mercy and favour from God, and yet we so often seem sad and dispirited, unable to lift ourselves up and know deep in our hearts the joy of the Lord.

I long for us to know the joy of God invading our hearts so much that we would never forget it.

I long for the love of God to fill our lives so completely that we would never forget it.

I long for the church of God to be a church that does not suffer with dementia, that when we begin to find ourselves struggling we find others around us who will stand with us and support us, who will remind us of the many promises that God speaks about us in the bible.

God has planted inside each one of us the Spirit of Life, abundant life, life that brings hope.

We need to nurture that life, feed that life, develop that life…and not get stuck in a rut that instead means we become forgetful, anxious, lose our memories, misunderstand others, judge people wrongly, speak in a language that others cannot understand, and think and act too slowly to be of any real use within our world.

Is it time for the church itself to come back to God and to ask for God to heal this body, this special body that God wants to use as an expression of God’s love, to be an agent demonstrating that love and what it means to the universe we dwell within?

Let us pray that God would heal us, restore us and take us forward.

2014 has begun, for us here at High Cross, with a fair bit of change.
We come together this morning and will come together next Sunday morning as an Anglican and United Reformed Church worshipping as one.
It may be a painful process of joining together, there may be many hurdles ahead of us, some of which we may have seen and some of which we may not have seen, but what I would like to ask us to do together this morning and every time we gather from now on is to endeavour to work together.
We have just read the Statement of Faith, Nature and Order of the United Reformed Church together again.
Did you notice the final section that we read?
“We affirm our intention to go on praying and working with all our fellow Christians, for the visible unity of the Church in the way Christ chooses, so that people and nations may be led to love and serve God and praise him more and more for ever.”(Hymn 761 R&S)
What does that mean for you and for me?
It is a statement to say that we intend to pray and work with ALL our fellow Christians…not simply the ones we like…not simply the ones we agree with on everything…not simply the ones that look attractive or the ones that are intelligent…it is a promise we make to work with ALL of them.
Who do we exclude, who did we exclude when we read and made that promise this morning, or did we read it and not mean it…is it simply a set of words that we thought was useful to say this morning to pad the service out a little.
Why do we make that promise, why do we make that statement?
We make it because we say, in the United Reformed Church, that we want to see the visible unity of the Church, because we want to see it in the way Christ chooses, not the way we choose, and because we want to see people and nations being led to love and serve God and praise God more and more for ever!
We put aside our own agendas, we set aside our own thoughts and offer them all to God, and we seek God together with other Christians to try to expose visible unity in order to lead people to Christ.
We don’t say that this is easy, we don’t say that we will achieve it right now or that it won’t take a huge effort BUT we do say that we want to go for it, we want to make it our aim.
We have an advantage when we think about such things possibly because we are talking about seeing the visible unity of the church.
The first lesson we learn as Christians when we encounter other Christians is that we are united.
Jesus talks about all Christians, all followers being one, that when we become followers of Christ each of us becomes united with Christ in spirit and therefore if each one of us is united to Christ in spirit we are also united to each other, and Christ further calls us to love one another.
The Spirit that lives inside you and me lives inside our Baptist colleagues, our Anglican colleagues, our Catholic colleagues, our Pentecostal colleagues, our brethren colleagues.
God’s Spirit is in all these peoples’ hearts – all we need to do is to begin to recognise that God is with them in the same way that God is with us.
Can we do that?
Can we accept that it is possible for God to speak to other people just as easily as God can speak to us?
When we come together to worship God what should our attitude be?
Jesus, on the night he was to be betrayed to die his death on the cross for each and every one of us, put a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet.
Jesus served everyone around him.
Jesus gave his life for ALL those who surrounded him, who came to him.
Do we give our lives simply for the people we like, or choose to live with, or do we give our lives for ALL others, no matter what they believe, no matter how they live, no matter what attitude they may have towards us serving them?
One of the areas where we have differences, one of the places where Christians, who are united with Christ together in spirit, is at the communion table.
Next week we will share communion in a different way to that which we in the United Reformed Church are used to, and next week I will talk a little about the differences that there are in the way in which we celebrate Holy Communion.
Some of what I will talk about is spoken of a lot longer in a book by an URC minister, Donald Hilton entitled “Table Talk” – if you’d like a copy I have several copies available that you can take with you after the service today, but, for now, let me simply give you a small taster.
Donald begins by talking of the different names we use for communion:-
The Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, Communion, Mass, Sacrament, Liturgy, No name
Each of those names gives a different image, a different concept of what the Holy Meal we share in means, what participating in that meal is all about.
I will speak more of that next week.
But in amongst the discussion that Donald Hilton has about what name we use for this meal he points out that it is not only between churches that there are division but also even within the churches themselves that our words and actions do not agree with each other.
“Denominational division in the Church is not the only point where, at the table, our actions deny the words we use. How can there be communion if people are scattered to the four corners of a largely empty church? Does a silent procession of believers from pew to altar-table speak of community?…Doesn’t ‘communion’ suggest a circle rather than rows, one loaf, rather than myriad pieces. And conversation alongside silence? Words and actions should be true to each other.” (Hilton 1998:12)
Do we need to look again, anyway, at how we are as a church, what we do together, how we work and live together, what this Christianity is all about, what it truly means to follow Jesus Christ?
If we come together in this building and do not sit with one another what does that say to others who come into the church about how much love, care and concern we have for those around us?
When was the last time you showed love to another person within this gathering of God’s people?
A church divided will not last very long, but a church united will grow, will expand, will develop.
Jesus showed us the way to behave, to serve, to give ourselves for those around us, and His words to those first disciples were that He was giving them a new commandment, that they should love one another.
This is a new commandment that I would like to share with you this new year as well.
Let us love one another.

Last week I spoke about the need for us all to love one another, to work together and to work through as a Christian community the differences that we have between us.
Today, for many of us, the way in which we are to share in holy communion may be different, unusual, and we may feel a little uncomfortable at this particular change in our services.
It may be just another one of those things that we feel is a step too far for our own faith and understanding, and we may want to find a way out.
It may be a little like changing the seating layout within the church.
We have operated with a more circular layout of seating since the beginning of December.
Most people have made little comment about this, a few have said that they don’t like it, while others have said that they think it feels more homely, more welcoming, more open.
Our views about things are influenced by many different things.
I recall a conversation with one of my Anglican colleagues recently who observed that, in his view, the way we prefer to have communion is likely to be the way we were brought up to have communion..
I’m not saying that I necessarily agree with him, but I did find it an interesting observation.
Another comment that may sometimes be made is that we are doing things this way because it’s the way the minister wants it done.
At this point I’d like to assure you that, whilst I admit that I moved the chairs, what we are doing here together this morning is NOT really the way I would want it to be done, and that the majority of the services that I lead are not lead in the way that ideally I would wish to lead them…and that, within the church, we all have to work together, we have to respect one another’s ideas, thoughts, preferences…and somehow work them out together.
That really is one of the things I was trying to say last week.
“Love one another”
And, last week, I said that I would spend some time this week talking about communion, or the eucharist, and what it means in different church traditions.
So, to begin with, I wonder if any of you noticed the reading from Luke that we heard read to us today, and heard last week, and what that says about communion.
It’s not the usual reading because it’s obviously got mistakes in it.
We normally use a reading from elsewhere when we read the account of the first Last Supper, possibly the first reading we heard read to us today.

In the account in Luke’s gospel Jesus shares the wine, then shares the bread, then shares the wine.
Luke obviously has got the Last Supper wrong and, because we like to think we are biblically based as a church we need to make sure we read the right account of the Last Supper, where Jesus, in the United Reformed Church tradition, takes the bread and breaks it into tiny little pieces and we share it together, and then He takes the wine and we drink it out of individual little glasses.
And in the Anglican tradition Jesus takes little wafers and passes them around, and then asks everyone to drink out of a single cup, so we can share the diseases we have with everyone else.
At this point I may agree with you that I am being a little flippant BUT what is this holy meal really all about?
How did we get to where we are today, and why is it a struggle for some of us to cope with sharing this meal in a different way to what we are used to?
Perhaps we should start at the very beginning.
“The New Testament word for ‘supper’ literally means a dinner, a meal, or a banquet. And the Greek word for ‘table’ refers to a table in which a full meal is spread..To the first century Christians, the Lord’s Supper was just that – a supper. It was a banquet – a potluck dinner that included bread and wine. It was the table communion of the saints. A family festival. A fellowship meal.” (Viola 2008:75)
At the very beginning the eucharist, the communion, formed part of an agape meal, part of a shared meal held together.
“in 200 there was still sufficient memory of an earlier phase of offering when the principal corporate act of Christians was a meal …and the point of this meal was that each brought what he had and shared it with the others; that made it the ‘Lord’s supper’ since Christ did the same with bread and wine on the night when he was given up to death, and his passion itself was a similar sacrifice, a giving for others. Before long the bread was seen as representing Christ’s Body and the cup… as representing the Blood…the meal and other offerings consequently came to be treated as the less important or less serious part of the rite” (Hall 2005/1991:22)
The gifts that were brought once “’eucharistized’ by the thanksgiving, they were distributed to those present, and some were carried by appointed ministers…to the sick and other absentees” (Hall 2005/1991:23)
It doesn’t look or sound that much like what either of our communion or Eucharistic services have developed into, does it?
And then, when we move forward a couple of thousand years to today we discover that we call the meal, which really would not satisfy the hunger of most people, different things in different places.
So let’s have a look at some of those descriptions now. Some of them will mean more to you than others. Donald Hilton makes brief comment about them at the beginning of his book “Table Talk”:-
“The Lord’s Supper….It is not our supper; it is the Lord’s…we symbolically sit around a table – the Lord’s Table – we are remembering that event and affirming that this meal is not a human invention but a divine prescription.” (Hilton 1998:8/9)
“Breaking Bread…The title ‘ breaking of bread’ puts the cross and our salvation at the centre of the table” (Hilton 1998:9/10)
“Eucharist…means ‘thanksgiving’…At the table we are reminded of the sacricfice of Jesus and want to say ‘thank you’…The table is an opportunity to grow in spiritual things and so ‘thanksgiving’ is a natural response. If we come to the table with guilt there is the opportunity for confession and renewal. If we know we have been spiritually lazy there is the chance to search the heart. If we have a secret fear we can share it with God. The bread and wine become signs of God’s love – the perfect love that casts out fear – and so eucharist – thanksgiving – is central to the event.” (Hilton 1998:10/11)
“Communion…..is a double edged name. It allows recognition both of communion with God, and communion with other believers….We are many, and yet each of us is a separate individual bringing personal hopes, fears, guilt, loves, faith, and longing. We are one because we know we share many of these feelings and belong together in common faith, worship, and obedience.” (Hilton 1998:11/12)
“Mass…relates to the closing phrases of the Latin Mass…’Go, it is sent.’ The usual interpretation is that once the Mass is over the people are dismissed to move from God’s service in the liturgy to God’s service in the world. ’It’s over! Get out and be God’s people in God’s world!’..
It makes the table the place where we meet together so as to find strength to get out. It is a gathering in church to discover our corporate and individual roles in the world..” (Hilton 1998:12/13)
“Sacrament…points away from the table and what is done, to inner conviction and unspoken faith. It introduces a sense of mystery.” (Hilton 1998:14)
“Liturgy…suggests a faithfulness to the worship tradition of the church and points to long ages of celebration. It discourages us from seeing the table only in our present generation with whatever passing interpretations our own times gives it.” (Hilton 1998:15)
And, finally, we have to think about the fact that some of our sisters and brothers do not share communion or the Eucharist at all.
“No name…the Salvation Army and the Quakers in their rejection of the service altogether…out of conviction..” (Hilton1998:15)
I wonder which of these definitions, which of these phrases, have meant the most to you, and I wonder what sharing in this meal today means to you.
What do you get out of it?
What do we put in to it?
Are we sharing together, or are we participating in an outdated ritual that has no meaning?
May I read some more words that have been written about this meal:-
“The Lord’s Supper includes the breaking of bread..The broken bread points us to the humanity of Jesus…
The bread – being the most basic and lowly of all foods – points to the humility and availability of our Lord. By taking on our humanity, Jesus Christ became accessible to us all – just as bread is available to everyone, both rich and poor.
The breaking of bread also reminds us of the cross upon which our Lord’s body was broken. Bread is made from the crushed wheat. Wine is made from the pressed grape. Both elements represent death.
Yet the breaking of bread not only depicts the death of Christ. It also shows forth His resurrection. The grain of wheat has gone into the ground. But it now lives to produce many grains like unto itself..As we eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood through the Supper, we obtain His life…This is the principle of resurrection – life out of death” (Viola 2008:74)
“Today, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a meal, we are remembering the covenant we have with God in Christ. We are participating in the shared memory of what Jesus has done for us. And we are proclaiming our new identity in Him.” (Viola 2008:77)
“The Lord’s Supper possesses past, present, and future implications. It’s a reproclamation of the Lord’s sacrificial death for us in the past. It’s a rededication of His ever-abiding nearness with us in the present. And it’s a repronouncement of our hope of glory – His coming in the future.” (Viola 2008:78)
“But the Lord’s Supper is neither a literal sacrifice nor an empty ritual.
The Lord’s Supper is a spiritual reality. Through the Supper, the Holy Spirit reveals the living Christ to our hearts anew and afresh. By it we reaffirm our faith in Jesus and our membership to His body. Through the Supper, we sup with Christ and His people.” (Viola 2008:79)
Does it really matter then, how we partake of this holy meal?
Is it important that it is done in a particular way?
Let us go back to Luke’s account once again, and ponder why it is that Luke records something different to that which we normally hear read at the table.
We are told that the original Last Supper took place on the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed and that the Passover meal was prepared to be eaten.
The Jews still keep the Passover today and celebrate through a seder meal.
I don’t know if any of you have attended such a meal yourselves but it includes several elements:-
1. Kadeish קדש – recital of Kiddush blessing and drinking of the first cup of wine
2. Urchatz ורחץ – the washing of the hands
3. Karpas כרפס – dipping of the karpas in salt water
4. Yachatz יחץ – breaking the middle matzo; the larger piece becomes the afikoman
5. Maggid מגיד – retelling the Passover story, including the recital of “the four questions” and drinking of the second cup of wine
6. Rachtzah רחצה – second washing of the hands
7. Motzi מוציא, Matzo מצה – blessing before eating matzo
8. Maror מרור – eating of the maror
9. Koreich כורך – eating of a sandwich made of matzo and maror
10. Shulchan oreich שולחן עורך – lit. “set table”—the serving of the holiday meal
11. Tzafun צפון – eating of the afikoman
12. Bareich ברך – blessing after the meal and drinking of the third cup of wine
13. Hallel הלל – recital of the Hallel, traditionally recited on festivals; drinking of the fourth cup of wine
14. Nirtzah נירצה – say “See you in Jerusalem again!”
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover_Seder]
Don’t worry, I’m not that clever…I had to look all that up!
Anyway, there were four specific cups of wine that were drank, and some traditions suggest and the practice may be followed that there was a fifth cup that was always left for the prophet Elijah….
You may find it of interest to do a little more research about this meal.
Is the record then that we have that Luke gives us a more accurate recording of the meal than we get elsewhere?
If it is, why does he not tell us of all the cups of wine that were drank?
Was the cup that Jesus took and drank from after the meal the one that was reserved for Elijah, the prophet who was supposed to come and announce the arrival of the Messiah?
If it was, what is that saying to us about Jesus and who He is?
As you can see, this meal that we share today is a meal that has much meaning attached to it in its’ various forms.
What does it mean for you and for me?
How do we share together, and participate together this day in the life of Christ?
And, after we have feasted, what does this meal mean for the rest of the world?

Hall, Stuart G. (2005/1991) Doctrine and practice in the early church London:SPCK
Hilton, Donald (1998) Table Talk London: The United Reformed Church
Viola, Frank (2008) Reimagining Church Colarado Springs, USA: David C. Cook

The minister of our group of churches preached the following sermon on the 3rd Sunday of Advent this year (2013)

Christmas is, perhaps, one of those times of the year when storytelling comes into its’ own.

The mystery that surrounds the stable scene, the magic that seems to be present in so much of the narrative about the arrival of the Christchild into the world, creates suspense, drama and provokes thought.

The carol services we attend, the nativity plays we watch and hear, the visits to Father Christmas maybe, or discovering the reindeer at the local garden centre…

The Christmas TV schedules, both modern and of the past, and the books written, Dickens possibly, all serve to focus our thoughts…. on what?

Is Christmas simply a time for nice thoughts, for happy memories, for the opportunity to give to those we care about?

What is the truth about all these tales, and are they really of any importance whatsoever?

The writer of Luke’s gospel sets out his case right at the very beginning of his record:-

“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you…so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:1-4)

His desire is to give the reader the facts, the true story.

Hopefully he is providing us with those things, those true statements that we can rely upon, and upon which our faith is based.

So, when we come to read the story of the shepherds in the fields we can be fairly certain that this story is a tale of something that actually happened because Luke, whoever he may be, has done his research to check out his story before committing it to being included in his gospel record.

But why does Luke include the story.

Is it significant?

Why does Luke not tell us about the wise men, or Magi? Why does he only give us this part of the Christmas story that relates to the shepherds coming to worship the baby Jesus?

Is there something about trying to prove to us, prove to the reader or hearer, that Jesus came from God, by the inclusion in the gospel of stories of angels appearing.

Does the presence of an angel, or more than one angel, in the story give it some greater credibility? Does it make it more or less believable?

There are some links to the Old Testament scriptures, to the prophets of old, with the visit to Bethlehem, not far from where the shepherds kept their sheep, but Luke does not spell out for us why it is important for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem in the same way that the writer of Matthew’s gospel does.

Luke seems to want to keep things simple, to simply explain what happened when and where without confusing the reader by reference here to why.

“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19)

The mother of the Christchild is presented as thoughtful, and conscious of the words that have been spoken to her about the destiny of her child.

And perhaps that is Luke’s way of encouraging us to be thoughtful as we consider his words.

We know from Luke where the baby was born, how it happened that Mary and Joseph came to be there, but we are left to search elsewhere to find out why that place was the right place for this to happen.

So what is added to our understanding and knowledge by having this story in the gospel?

Why doesn’t Luke make it simpler still by just saying that some people came to see the baby Jesus?

Here, Luke does not speak of Kings or wise men coming to see the baby but a group of lowly shepherds, simple folk, unclean folk, ordinary people.

William Barclay writes that:-

“It is a wonderful thing that the story should tell that the first announcement of God came to some shepherds. Shepherds were despised by the orthodox good people of the day. They were quite unable to keep the details of the ceremonial law; they could not observe all the meticulous handwashings and rules and regulations. Their flocks made constant demands on them; and so the orthodox looked down on them. It was to simple men of the fields that God’s message first came.” (Barclay 1975/1953:27)

Is there not an echo here in Luke’s gospel of something we later find the apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth?

“Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Is it part of Luke’s message that he is trying to get over through his gospel that God is there for everyone, God is here for everyone, even the simplest and most basic among us?

I’m glad that is the case because there are times when I feel very thick, when I find it difficult to understand what God is saying.

Is that why Paul continues in his letter to the Corinthians to explain further:-

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27,28)

The shepherds may well have had chips on the shoulders, perhaps even big boulders.

There is a possibility that the flocks of sheep that they were looking after were the flocks of sheep that were destined to be used in the temple as religious sacrifices.

They as people were treated as unclean, and unable to keep the religious rules of the day, but the work that they were doing was enabling others to fulfil their religious duty and yet they were looked down upon for their part in the process!

Have times changed?

Do we not find that today even in our society there is a gulf between the people that do menial tasks, jobs that are considered of no importance, and those that are well off?

Do the people in the big expensive houses walk on the other side of the street from the people that take their rubbish away?

Are those that work in sewerage plants ignored by people who think nothing of leaving their taps running all day?

Are people really equal in our country, or do some have greater influence than others?

And what about in the church?

Do I have more say than you about what happens here?

Should I?

Should you?

Luke writes his gospel “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:4)

Luke wants to get the message across that God speaks to everyone, God can come and communicate with each and every one of us, from the least to the greatest.

Jesus came so that all of us could experience the life of God for ourselves.

If we are experiencing that life, truly experiencing that life, then I believe we have a duty to share the good things that we are learning and experiencing with others, particularly with those who have faith like ours.

The shepherds had the opportunity of being in the presence of a heavenly host singing praise to God.

A glorious appearing.

After seeing the Christchild they “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child” (Luke 2:17)

Are we like that?

Are we excited by the fact that we are included in God’s plan, embraced by God’s love?

And are we keen to share the good news that we have heard?

Matthew 1: 18 – 25
Matthew 2:13 -18
Matthew 2: 19 – 23

The school is buzzing with news about an upcoming production.
It’s getting near to Christmas and everybody knows that there’s a big Christmas play that needs to be put on, for parents, for aunts and uncles, for grannies and grandpas.
It will be talked about for years to come.
And the big question that everybody wants to know the answer to is….not …who is going to play the lead male role?….
Unlike a lot of the Hollywood blockbusters the focus is all about the girl…who’s going to play Mary?
The poor lad who gets stuck with Joseph will be just that…stuck with Joseph…
When the Mary role is announced, and the young girl who is to play that part has been identified the majority of the boys, at a certain age, will be hiding in the corner trying to escape from picking up the role where all you do is stand about in a stable while Mary takes all the glory.
Forever you will be condemned as the boy who played alongside THAT particular Mary.
You might find the occasional aspiring thespian, actor to most of us, who will “go for it” but in general it is not a role that boys want to play.
Why is that?
Have we lost Joseph somewhere in the nativity story?
Perhaps it’s because our idea or understanding of manhood and masculinity are in some ways diminished by this character, Joseph.
When we’re looking for a man, perhaps we’re seeking after someone that will play a particular role for us?
(Hero clip)
Is this the kind of person that we’re looking for when we’re looking for a man, and because we think we don’t find it in Joseph we dismiss him?
Who is he, and what does he do?
Is he of any relevance or is he simply a bit-part actor in the story?
What happened to him anyway?
Why do we not hear of him anywhere else in the gospel – he certainly does not appear when we get to Jesus’ ministry later on in his life.

I think that part of the answer is that we do often treat Joseph as an aside, we don’t notice him because he doesn’t seem to do anything spectacular.
And isn’t that one of the difficulties we have in terms of a masculine understanding of things.
Men are supposed to be strong, and bold, and brave.
Men are supposed to be super-heroes.
A man who is simply a man may feel to us that he is not.

In actual fact a man who is simply a man is a man.

That sounds obvious, but what do I mean?

All that Joseph does in many ways is simple and straightforward, but in his own way Joseph is very much being his own man.
He is thoughtful.
He is obviously kind.
He is a man who is open to have his mind changed and to be persuaded about a different course of action, very contrary to some of the so-called male heroes that we have heard about in our lives who seem to be bent on going their own way even if it hurts them or others in the process.
Think of the popularity of the “Die Hard” movies, or of the James Bond movies, and how the lead male characters in those films are portrayed. You may have others to suggest from your own viewing.

Joseph “finds out” that the woman he is engaged to, before they came together “was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit”…such a simple statement but what kind of emotions would it bring in any man.
Outrage and anger, an emotional outburst, an argument at the very least.
But the biblical record speaks about Joseph, Mary’s husband, being a righteous man (Luke 1:19). Isn’t that a strange statement to begin with? The bible speaks about her only being engaged to Joseph at the start of the narrative, at the beginning of our reading, but then speaks of him as being Mary’s husband.
The concept of engagement, the promise to marry someone else was far more important in many ways than the way many of us treat engagement today.
They were regarded as committed to each other, and that was that.
There was a contract in place between their families that Mary couldn’t break, only Joseph could do that.
Joseph was an honourable man, one who didn’t want to have Mary shamed.
Isn’t it strange that there appears to be no mention in the text of any shame for Joseph in having a pregnant wife.
Was he willing to go through the stigma of apparently having sinned, or had a wife that had sinned, by having sex outside marriage, or before they had been married?
On what grounds was Joseph beginning to think about divorcing Mary that would mean that there would not be some ongoing effects of such a divorce?
How could you “divorce her quietly”? (Luke 1:19)
There are so many questions that we may well want to ask, but the clear point that I want to draw from this is that Joseph appears to be a decent sort of man, he seems to want to do the right thing, and, as well as that, he wants to take his time and work out what the right thing to do is.
How many men today blunder in to making decisions in haste only to regret them later?
How many men rush into marriage, rush into relationships only to find that those relationships are not really what they want, or need?
How many times do we insist on buying things NOW rather than having the patience to wait until we can afford them, and then find that we don’t really need them anyway?
Joseph pauses, thinks, wonders…and is open to persuasion.
Perhaps this is where you are this morning, wondering about whether there is a God or not, wondering whether there is any truth in the bible, wondering whether attending this church has been any help to you in finding your own way through life.
Is there something or someone here that can help you?

Joseph gains a bit of an advantage over us in some ways in his discernment of the way ahead, although I believe that God can speak to us in similar ways to which God spoke to Joseph even in this day and age, if we are willing to invite God to do so.
“an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream” (Luke 1:20)
The angel appears, and Joseph, like the Joseph of the Old Testament known as the dreamer, is someone who is able to understand that God speaks to him through dreams.
An angel appearing in a dream happens three times to help Joseph with the decisions he needs to make.
It is the way that God speaks to Joseph.
Once the dream has happened, once the angel has spoken, Joseph is able to move on, to move ahead and there is no hesitating about the next step.
Joseph is quietly assured by the way God speaks to him about how to move forward, how to respond to the various crises that he finds himself in.
There is no arguing.
How many times has God spoken to us, and all we have done is argue about what we’re doing, what we should be doing and how we should be doing it.
There is none of that here in any of the readings that we have heard this morning.
Joseph confidently walks with God through the hazards and perils that confront him.
Four times God speaks to Joseph through a dream, and each time Joseph simply obeys what he is told.
Four times God clearly speaks to Joseph and he, like Mary, is obedient to the voice of the angel.
Why is it then, that Mary is the one who has her song of praise, the Magnificat, recorded for us, and there is no declaration of praise from Joseph?
Why has the church down through the ages shoved Joseph over to one side and allowed the glory of God to shine on Mary and the Christchild?
Or am I simply misreading church history?
I would be happy for somebody to do some research and prove me wrong, but I suspect that I am right.
I am drawn to Joseph, because Joseph quietly seems to get on with his work.
He is there in the background, present but not seen and then later we find nothing recorded about him.
It appears he was no longer around when Jesus exercised his ministry. All we hear about is Mary and her other children.
But Joseph must have been present for the family to have existed.
Joseph certainly must have been around for however long it took for Mary to have the rest of the family.
And I suspect that Joseph will have been there along with Mary in giving those children, that family, a start in life that began by telling the stories about the way in which God had spoken to their family.
And I wonder how many of the men within our churches have found themselves working in the same way that Joseph worked? How many people have simply gone about their daily tasks, praying, reading the bible, serving, sharing their money, helping out their friends and neighbours without expecting anything in return.
The writer of the first letter to the Thessalonians commends this peaceful way of life to us:-
“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody” (1 Thessalonians 4:11)
The Christian life is your life, the way you live it, lived under obedience to God’s calling to you.
You may be called to be a hero, you may be called to be a worker in the background.
All of us together have been called to follow Jesus Christ, and we need to work out together what that means.
The church is the place where we share our gifts and talents, where we encourage each other to follow whatever it is that God is saying to us.
We are here to strengthen one another, to give each other confidence in the things we are attempting for the sake of the kingdom of God.
Are we able to do that?

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people” (quoted in Fiorenza 1998:3)
So quotes Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza very early on in her book on Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context entitled “Sharing Her Word”.
And it is this notion, this idea, that God has always had, but which many, mainly men, have tried to deny, that is our focus today as we begin to look at the Christmas story.
Here, this day, we find ourselves face to face with Mary.
Mary, the woman who we find in our readings from the bible today is to be the one who will carry the baby Jesus in her womb; the woman who is greeted, visited by the angel Gabriel; an honour for any human, let alone a woman; let alone a young woman, a woman of no sexual experience and from a humble background, a woman who has been used to poverty, not wealth, a woman who was probably not noticeable in the place she lived in.
A woman who was, however, engaged to be married to Joseph, so was out of bounds for any man who may be looking for a wife and possibly, as a result, had another reason not to be noticed.
“Who is that young woman?”, a stranger travelling through the place may have asked, to have been told that she was Joseph’s fiancée…not, you notice to be told that she was Mary.
She had no individual identity.
She already belonged to someone else.
She was a piece of property.
She did not have any rights over her life, her body, her future.
She was spoken for, and accounted for; she might as well have been a number.

How do we view Mary?
Within feminist theological writings much has been written about the damage that what might perhaps be called the “cult” of Mary has caused. Women have perhaps felt harmed by the perfection of Christ’s mother, perfection that is portrayed in paintings, in dramatisations, in script and on the screen. The woman that carried the Christ child in her womb has often been portrayed as someone very special, and someone that women in general would do well to copy.
Has she been lifted up above other women?
Has she been favoured because of her unique position?
I guess I myself find it very hard to appreciate what damage, what harm veneration, or worship, of Mary the mother of Jesus may have caused.
For me, coming from a fairly traditional Reformed background, I have not been exposed as much to this possible cult, as maybe someone from a Catholic background might have been, but I wonder whether, within our own tradition we have fallen into another kind of error, one that dismisses the importance of Mary’s contribution to the gospel, the good news?
Have we removed this woman, Mary, from the story we tell of the Christian faith, and have we therefore removed something of God, something of God’s story from our own tale?

Are there any lessons we can gain by reading the story, and inviting the Holy Spirit to teach us through it?

If there are, might they be insights that are useful for women, or for both women and men?

The angel Gabriel appears to this frightened child.
Perhaps we should begin there.
It is likely that Mary will not have been that old, and it would probably be more accurate to call her a child rather than a woman. “Young girl” may be a possibility, but either way it is doubtful that she was as old as the young girls Becky and April that we have with us this morning.
Mary wonders “what kind of greeting this might be” (Luke 1:29) – I think we might have had the same response!
How can God want anything to do with me?
How exactly is God “with me”? I can’t see God, I can’t feel God, but I can see and feel you here with me, you angel, and I’m not quite sure what all this means.
I know that in general many of us here have probably not been visited by angels, but I wonder how we respond when God comes and speaks to us. I wonder how we respond when God is present, when we know that God is there, or here. Are we able to sense God with us this morning?
There are times when we know that God is somehow communicating with us, talking to us, trying to persuade us about something, but how do we respond to that voice, whether it be an internal one, a nudge, or a loud external shout?
In those moments when God comes to us, and we are full of fear and trepidation, do we panic, do we stall, or are we able to welcome the word that God gives, the things that God shares with us?

If nothing else we know that Mary was one of these people who had a level head on her, a practical girl. She was also someone who was unafraid to ask questions.

“How will this be?” (Luke 1:34)

There are some things that don’t add up here.

Mary knew that something needed to happen if she was to have a child, and also knew that, as at that time, in her own reasoning, she had done nothing that would enable her to have a child.

Something needed to happen, something needed to change if she was to give birth to a baby.

There was no disbelief that what the angel had said to her was not capable of happening BUT there was in Mary’s mind a need to understand what exactly was going to happen, how this amazing thing that the angel had told her about was going to occur.

I wonder how many times we are perhaps a little scared of asking questions about things. I wonder whether we have actually been taught within our churches that it is wrong to test God and that therefore we can’t ask God anything about the situation we find ourselves in, we are paralysed by some kind of teaching that we haven’t challenged in the past, and are prevented from beginning to understand more about what God has for us in this life.

Yes, there are examples in the bible where God tells people off for their unbelief about things, but do you really think we are in that place today, a place where God wants to tell us off for asking questions? I don’t think we are.

Mary asked a practical question.

Mary was building up a relationship with the angel. Mary was growing in her understanding, and was keen to know more.

Did “knowing more” help her to deal with the situation she then found herself in, or was later to find herself in?

The angel explains to Mary what is going to happen, and then refers her to another seemingly impossible occurrence that Mary appears to have been aware of.

Elizabeth, her relative, was going to have a child in her old age.

We have two women at either end of their life cycle, both to be expecting a child. How could something like this be happening to both old and young at the same time?

The natural order of things is disrupted.

Women are able to bear children at the time that God decrees.

God treats women as people, God hears their cries and concerns and responds.

God is breaking in to the lives of the people, and through these two women the lives of the peoples of the world are going to be changed.

If nothing else, perhaps it is the final words that Mary speaks in the first reading that we heard read to us today that are the ones we all should focus on.

Mary does not really know or understand fully what is going to happen to her, how it is going to happen, or what she is going to have to go through BUT her response to the angel is clear:-

“’I am the Lord’s servant’ Mary answered. ‘May it be to me as you have said.’” (Luke 1:38)

Tina Beattie writes that “for women, suffering is closely associated with birth as well as with death, and for some of us our most intense experiences of suffering have been those associated with bringing new life into the world and nurturing that life to maturity. If childbirth can be – and often is – a struggle that involves physical agony closely associated with the threat of injury and death, the vocation to mother the newborn child brings with it a lifetime of wounded love” (Beattie 2003:63/4)

Beattie’s words are ones that I cannot easily understand because the experience of childbirth is not one that I have, but I know that at the time Mary was being told she was to have a child the risks to both the mother and the baby were far higher than they are today in the western world.

To therefore effectively be saying to God that I am willing to die if necessary for this thing to happen that you have told me will happen is not simply a step of faith but a gigantic leap.

Many of you here this morning will have experienced giving birth in the twentieth century and will, I am sure, have been appreciative of the assistance that those giving birth receive in our western society, but imagine for a moment or two what pregnancy may have meant in years gone by, and still does mean in some other parts of the world.

Can I respond to God with similar commitment, am I able to see this picture of sacrifice given by a young girl?

A few years later, and it was the baby that she bore that was making the same sacrifice, saying that I am willing to die if it is necessary for this thing to happen that you have told me about.

This Christmas we celebrate Christ’s birth, and as we do so we celebrate too a woman’s faithfulness and sacrificial response.

Bibliography
Beattie, Tina (2003) Woman Continuum: London/New York

Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler (1998) Sharing Her Word T&T Clark:Edinburgh