JOHN 10:22-30

Jottings on John…Easter 4…New 2019

A theme that stands out for me in our passage is ‘Atmosphere’! First, it’s Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights to celebrate the rededication of the Temple in 164 BC after its retaking from profane hands. It’s winter! It’s dim, despite the festive lights. It’s cold! Despite the sacrificial fires burning. It’s smelly! From the smoke & the animal fats burning. The Atmosphere is amazing! You can taste it! How’s the Atmosphere where we lead or participate in worship? Whether we’re at the ‘smoke & bells’ end of the scale, or a more restrained conservatism, doesn’t matter as much as an Atmosphere of worship, flowing from our Attitude to YHWH God & each other. If the Atmosphere is God-centric in the way Jesus demonstrates God in His Own Person, that’s Great!

Contributing, too, to the Atmosphere that day is a restlessness among those who’ve come to town for the Celebration! Not least those who’ve come hoping to see Rabbi Jesus strolling among them & discover if He’s the Messiah. “If you’re the Anointed One, tell us!” Tell us! Are we making it clear in our living & preaching that Jesus is God’s Anointed One as He says? Or is there a restlessness, perhaps, in the way we’re coming across. Any uncertainty on our part will reverberate, creating its own Atmosphere. Not a good one, at that!

That people take Jesus to task isn’t one way traffic, though. Jesus takes those crowd-ing round Him to task! In no uncertain words. “I have told you, but you don’t believe!” Are there times when God moves us to take people to task, too? If we fail to do so, surely the Atmosphere of Faith & the worship that stems from it will reflect that? 

To be able to put this all together in our preaching, we need to hang on what Jesus says at the end of our passage: “The Father & I are One!” And, ‘the Jewish people took up stones to stone Him!’ 

Preaching the Truth of Jesus & His Oneness with the Father will make many restless today. People are not likely to throw stones at us in our pulpits, but there are those who would probably like to, if they dared! But Jesus’ Oneness with the Father by the Spirit is non-negotiable! It is Jesus Himself who creates that Atmosphere of ‘One-ness’ for us & among us.

Brian

Afterthought: If we’ve developed any habit of praying to our ‘favourite’ Member of the Holy Three-some, we’re nevertheless praying to The One-ness of God. Whether we realise it, or not, we’re being embraced by the Atmosphere of the total Holiness of One God.

JOHN 21:1- 19

Jottings on John…Easter 3…New 2019

Trains of thought that occur to me & invite imaginative exploration are, in order: I’m going fishing…Have you caught any fish?…Throw the net out to the right side of your boat…Peter jumped into the water…&, Bring some of the fish you’ve caught. 

When Peter tells the others, “I’m going fishing”, has a restlessness, or, an uncertainty, crept back into his life since the Jesus events that have unfolded thus far? When we don’t know what to do next, do we, too, ’Go fishing’ in a manner appropriate to us? Settle back into an old status quo, rather than risk venturing into God’s future for us?

When some ‘interfering stranger’ on the shore of our life asks us, “Have you caught any fish?” & then, “throw your net out on the right side”, are we likely to respond, “Mind your own business & I’ll mind mine!”? When we obey, though, we may find our ‘Interfering Stranger’ knows what He’s doing making it His business! Grasping God-Opportunities lead to grasping Faith-windfalls & sharing them with others. 

Instead of letting our ‘superior’ experience hold us back, go for the un-expected & un-known! You never know….! Remember how Jesus once talked of His fishermen followers becoming ‘fishers of human beings’. How’s our ‘human fishing’ been going lately? The ‘Stranger on the Shore’ could be much more the Promise of a good ‘catch’ than any threat we may fear!

Peter’s ‘diving into the water’ encourages us, too, to ‘dive in at the deep end’! I know it can be easier, though, to postpone taking any real action. (Can a church sometimes do that by setting up committees, rather than prayerfully discerning it’s time to take the plunge & dive in?) Where are we personally in this discerning process?

Last, but by no means least, Christian Faith has always been about sharing.  Sharing God-self with us firstly through the Prophets, & then in the Person of Jesus, & by His Spirit.  Sharing God with each other as ‘small p’ prophets, again by Holy Spirit, is the next step from the Jesus shore into the Jesus boat.  Let’s not avoid another issue that concerned Jesus (& JB); that of sharing the tangibles of daily life with one another.  

Brian

Afterthought: Easter is all about our jumping out from our ‘old old stories’ & into God’s new future for us. What Easter is all about isn’t simply Jesus being raised to new life, but His raising us to new life with Him. When God-in-Christ calls us from the beaches of our lives, let’s ‘do a Peter’ & jump to it; jump to Him. There’s no Easter for us in staying on an old shore, or returning to the safety of our old boats.  

JN 20: 19-31 

Jottings on John…2nd S. of Easter…Revised 2019 

How Jesus 'broke into' that room isn’t nearly as important as how you & I are broken out from behind any ‘locked doors’ we’re using as barricades right now. Barricades preventing God from being there for us, & our becoming the person God has always known we could become. Jesus, resurrected from, freed from behind that great rock door of Joseph’s tomb, is our freedom, too; from behind ‘locked doors’ entombing us. 

‘Breaking & entering’ is an everyday crime these days. Cracks-people break in to steal anything of value. Why not imagine God as the Great Cracks-Person. One who has only our well-being in mind! Breaking into Jesus’ tomb as He does; breaking Jesus out from death to new, raised life, in a new dimension we call ‘Resurrected’. YHWH-God in Jesus & by His Spirit then breaks into the room the disciples have shut themselves up in, & breaks them out from behind their doubts & fears. What is God doing today to free people like us from behind our barricades?

I.T. programmes we use are constantly offering us ‘up-dates’; ‘fixes’ for security issues to keep us a step ahead of those who would break into our world for dubious purposes. When God breaks into our world it is always to keep our spirits & our defences up-dated. Against anyone or anything threatening His intentions for us.

In breaking into Jesus’ tomb, YHWH God breaks into Death itself! Turns the tables on Death so its power to hold Jesus, or any of us, is destroyed. From now! If Jesus can be freed & raised to a quality of life called ‘Eternal’, & those first disciples with Him, so can we, today’s followers. God-qualities like Eternal Life are neither a history lesson, nor ‘Pie in the sky in the sweet by & by’! 

‘Eternal’ always embraces right now! Sure, we expect to be raised at that ‘Last Day’. But it would be foolish indeed to wait for ‘it’ till then when we can choose to be raised with Christ Today! The historical first Easter means we can experience our own Easter, our own living in the new Eternal dimension of life God makes possible today! 

Brian

Afterthought: ‘No-one’, says JN, could 'write down all the signs in this book'. Some-one else, though, does add another chapter later! Easter is an opportunity, for us all to be writing new chapters of ‘the old, old, story’ by becoming extensions of them as we tell our own story on. Live out our own experiences of being raised by Jesus’ Spirit.

PS: You might like to go online to + Michael Curry’s Easter address to Episcopalians for something really stirring!

John 20:1-18

Jottings on John…Easter Day…Revised 2019 

(For Luke 24:1-12 see Laterally Luke ad loc)

The first of two big challenges I see in Easter preaching is bringing the story out of its past - & Jesus out of His with it! - & telling it on in the Present Tense. In us! So Jesus is raised & among us by His Spirit now. If the story ends back then it ends indeed! The second challenge, at the other end of the time scale, is, again, making Resurrect-ion happen as a Now thing; not something vaguely, or even enthusiastically, hoped for on some future Last Day. Compared, though, with taking Easter & Resurrection as only a thing of the past, or a possibility of the future, taking the holiday, is very much Present Tense! How can we bridge that gap between Eternal & Secular time?

On the First Easter Day God turns the tables on Caiaphas & his cohorts, Herod & his, &, of course, Pilate & his! All of them representing misdirected power at one level or another! There’s a lot of that about now, too! In many parts of the world. ‘Nominally Christian’ nations can be found arguing over how to create, or, save physical energy, but overlooking the Divine Energy Resurrection represents. If we fail to live out Christ’s Raised Life in our communal structures, no wonder the wheels fall off!

Rather than emphasise the need for personal & individual responsibility for Faith, as we often do, why not explore the possibilities & consequences of Easter from the angle of community, national, & corporate responsibility in very laissez-faire times? Rather than simply blaming politicians for the state we’re in, why not ask if our own failing to live out being resurrected with Christ is backfiring on us all?

Finding the raised Christ can be a very elusive business if we’re looking for Him only in some half-light. Mary M is first to be baffled. Next, one of the others reaches the tomb ahead of the other, but at first doesn’t go in. How like the way Resurrection dawns on believers today! We must go in! 

The two men go home, more than a little chastened, but Mary M, who’s returned to the tomb with them, remains. She meets up with two angels, then unwittingly, with Jesus Himself. Always be on the look-out for angels, whatever their guise. They’re always pointing us in the direction of Christ raised from the dead, alive in the world, &, as a consequence, offering us new possibilities for raised life too, in all sorts of situations!

 Our trio, &, later, other disciples, represent stages any of us may need to pass through on the way to a discipleship based on experiencing Christ raised in or lives! Someone else telling us about their experience is no substitute for our meeting the Raised Christ in Person!

Brian 

Afterthought: As our own stories of being raised with Christ grow & expand, the more all the God-dots are joined. The more Belief & Joy & Confidence break through into our personal & communal experience the better we’ll all be. 

JOHN 18:1-19:42

Jottings on John…Good Friday…2019

Today’s Gospel is so vast it seems unwise to try to cover, or preach, more that a modicum, but choose to highlight one aspect. I’m for choosing ‘Truth’.

With OZ facing a Federal election in a month’s time, & politicians & churches having a pretty bad press on the whole, why not remind our flock Jesus is the Victim of hard-line Politicians & Religionists, both. Would Jesus willingly have voted for any camp, politically, if He had a vote! Would He be found in any of our churches, except to stir the things-of-God up a bit as we often see Him doing in synagogues in the Gospels?  

 To try to bring all this together, the entry point I suggest is emphasising that the fact of Jesus being God’s Truth is an uncomfortable Truth, take that where God wills us to take it in our preaching. When we settle for ‘alternative truths’ over Truth with a T in the Person of Jesus, we’re aligning ourselves with Pilate, the Chief Priest, & their cronies & how they see things, rather than with God & God’s Way of seeing things. 

Truth goes to the heart of Jesus' mission & kingship. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus has had to wrestle out in the wilderness to test the Truth of Who He is; what kind of Messiah He’s to be. He’s been tempted to hand Himself over to devilish ways but discerns there’s no Truth in that direction.

Pilate doesn’t ‘get’ Jesus. “You’re not really a king, are you?” he asks. (Try saying that using differing inflections!) When Jesus replies, “You’re the one saying I am”, Pilate’s response is,“You don’t look like a king to me!” Is this still many people’s response to Jesus today? Do we ‘get’ Jesus any better than Pilate & Co? Pilate can’t see the God in Jesus. When is a king not a king?’ Let’s ask our flocks “What is it about Jesus that puzzles us?” Why does He puzzle us - if he does?

Is there any other way to help anyone, inside or outside the church, puzzling over Jesus’ kind of kingship except by our living out the puzzling Truth of His Kingship? So they can see Jesus living God out in us, and ‘get’ it! Get Him! Get God!

Jesus tells Pilate, “Everyone who belongs to the Truth can hear my voice”, echoing what He’s earlier said to antagonistic fellow Jews [8:47]. When Pilate refuses to change the wording over Jesus’ cross, is this Truth-about-Jesus question still bother-ing him? How much does it really bother us today?

Brian

Afterthought: Jesus, nailed to His cross, is the Essence of the non-negotiable Truth of God. He puts the seal on that in His last words before He dies. Let’s not settle for the tame, ‘It’s finished’, or ‘It’s over’, kind of translation. Jesus is saying, & means, “I’ve done it!” “I’ve brought it off!” And that’s God’s Truth! Now it’s our turn to live that Truth by His Spirit.

JOHN 12: 1-8

Jottings on John…Lent 5…New 2019

[Next week back to Laterally Luke!]

“Do you know what Mary’s done? You know, that Mary! Lazarus’ & Martha’s sister! Haven’t you heard? That hussy has been & washed this Jesus’ fellow’s feet! That chap who’s always hanging out at their place! She’s actually gone & washed His feet! Not only that, she’s gone so far as to let her hair down in company & then dry His feet with her hair! Scandalous stuff! Pity Lazarus doesn’t run as strict a family as his father did when he & their mother were still alive!

Bethany’s calmed down a bit now since this Jesus brought Lazarus back from death a few days back. We’re still trying to come to terms with that, when there comes this new whammy! This new buzz in the air. This feet washing & hair drying business starts things up all over again about that family! I’d never have thought of Mary as being a hussy before, but now she’s brought her family & our village well & truly into disrepute! All over again. After what this Jesus has done for Lazarus!”

Whatever else happens at Bethany that day, in anointing Jesus, Mary, one of His closest friends, Celebrates Jesus; Marks Him out for whom He is; Proclaims within her family & to some others (inc. Judas, who’s there, too) whom Jesus actually is; Prophesies what’s going to happen Him; Declares her personal faith & trust in Jesus. Puts her own standing in the community at risk by not only washing Jesus feet, but drying them with her hair! With Compassion!

Drawing closer to Palm Sunday & Holy Week as we are, there are a few sermon starters above, & no doubt you can think of more. Such as, what kind of King Jesus is committed to being when He enters Jerusalem, knowing full well the consequences of the actions He’s taking. That He’s already raised His old friend Lazarus confirms His own confidence in God’s ability to raise Him, too, ‘on the third day’. And, the love & compassion we’re challenged to show to others as lovingly as Mary cares for Jesus.

When Jesus dies in Jerusalem, there’s not going to be any opportunity for anointing or any other funerary rites, so what Mary does here are the real thing. There will be no other. Are there things we need to do for Jesus in life now, that no-one else is go-ing to do for Him if we don’t? How good are we at seizing opportunities to serve God through serving others? Even if & when it causes others to turn their noses up at us?

Brian 

Afterthought: It’s important we keep the Jesus story & the Jesus stories up to date in today’s world. By our own equivalents of Mary’s foot-washing & drying; of her  loving & serving selflessly. By our own confidence in God’s provident care for both served & serving. Is our congregation a committed carer for those for whom no one else cares for in our community? Or would that outlaw us, too? 

JOHN 2: 1-11

Jottings on John…Epiphany 2…2019

Is John standing in for LK today because LK - a later-comer to Christian Faith - isn’t at the party? Nor Matthew, nor Mark? Whereas John is? Whatever, it’s an invitation to explore, in an imaginative way, a question of who’s in & who’s out when it comes to giving & receiving hospitality. Hospitality is one of those ‘spiritual gifts’ that don’t make it onto the biblical lists! Who gets invited to our celebrations, & who misses out? Are you & I on anybody’s list? To invite, or not to invite!? In the Eucharist, YHWH God invites us all to the altar to share God-self, play Host to us all. But are our Eucharists, be they formal, or less structured, recognisably a Celebration? Of  God & each other? Where we can genuinely enjoy God through Jesus & by His Spirit in His Body & Blood? And, remember, enjoying each other’s company!

The Presbyterian ‘Larger Catechism’ (approved in 1648!) begins with the Question: ‘What is the chief & highest end of man?’ The answer is ‘..to glorify God & fully enjoy him for ever’. I like that. Many of us do our best to ‘glorify God’ in our varying ways. But is ‘fully enjoying’ God in the here & now part of our experience? Can we expect to enjoy God’s hospitality in any future world if we can’t recognise Him & enjoy Him among us today? Today’s Gospel may help us explore the issue. Why not have a go! 

I pretty sure most people think of Jesus at this wedding breakfast as a by-stander; sitting, or standing, watching others enjoy the proceedings. Maybe with a glass of water in His hand? I prefer to picture Him in the midst of the celebrating with a glass of wine in hand. Chatting to His relies, or partnering someone - why not Mary? - in an enthusiastic & energetic Jewish dance! Let’s think of Jesus as a participant, not a spectator, in everything that’s on offer in celebrating life today. Whenever there’s a celebration, a wedding or anything else, at Cana, or anywhere else. Including at our altars. Look for Jesus as Host, in Bread & Wine at the altar, & also in the midst of His guests. Unlike some of His followers, Jesus is no ‘kill-joy’!

I like to think the Chair of the wedding feast’s reaction on discovering how good the New Wine is - without knowing its Source - as a kind of allegory for those of us who benefit from Grace & how good it is - even if we haven’t yet worked out where it comes from! The reality, though, is that only those who draw on, & taste, & recognise God’s New Wine of Grace can savour it to the fullest!

Brian 

Afterthought: The wine’s long run out at Cana, but how is the wine of grace flowing among us, whoever & wherever we are?