Sermon - Luke 23:1-12 - A Fair Trial?

Luke 23:1-12

1. Have you ever felt misunderstood or treated unjustly? How did it feel? Maybe we are so familiar with the trial of Jesus that we miss the injustice and underestimate how it felt for Jesus to be treated in this way.

2. It can be hard to get a fair trial, especially if the crime the person is accused of is high profile. We can think of examples of how hard it is to get a fair trial in a free democratic country - how much more so in a dictatorship or a country ruled by an occupying army. That is the kind of place where Jesus was tried and so perhaps the unjust verdict, the sentencing to death of this innoccent man is not such a surprise.

3. However one of the many ironies in the story is that the Roman legal system correctly finds Jesus innocent. It is his own people's religious leaders, those responsible for leading people to God and worshipping and obeying God who manipulate the situation to turn the crowd and Pilate against the prisoner, who IS God in human form, and ensure his crucifixion.

4. We should be shocked by the depth of hatred these servants of God have for the man whose words and deeds have revealed him to be the Son of God. Before they take him to Pilate we see that it is this "blasphemy" (it would be blasphemy if it were not true) which has led them to demand the execution of Jesus. But this is not the accusation they make before Pilate...

5. Pilate would not have been interested in some religious dispute amongst Jews, so they presented Jesus to him as a violent agitator of trouble against Rome, the leader of an insurrection. It is a completely false charge and even Pilate can see this immediately. (The fact that Barabbas is freed instead of Jesus is packed with irony; more of that during Holy Week).

6. The silence of Jesus in the face of this cruelty and injustice is remarkable. He has so often stood firmly and outspokenly against cruelty and injustice but now, when it is all aimed at him, when he is the chosen scapegoat, he just stands and takes it...

7. We know that at the end of the story God will overrule the rejection, the condemnation and the execution by the resurrection of Jesus, turning evil's greatest victory into its defeat (Resurrection rather than Insurrection turns out to be the answer to injustice!) More about that next Sunday! It is tempting to press the “fast forward” button, but we need to reflect on how and why it happened this way.

8. So for now let's focus back on the thoughts and actions of Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders and Herod -  and allow ourselves to be challenged. Would we have decided and acted differently from them? How often do we know the right thing to do but allow ourselves to do the wrong thing (or allow ourselves to be talked into doing the wrong thing)?

9. The religious leaders’ error – blinded by prejudice and jealousy, they fail to recognise the works of God or even the person of God right in front of them. They end up opposing him violently and maliciously. What prejudices do you and I have and how are these affecting our loyalty to God, our working with God in what He is doing?

10. Herod’s error – He just wanted to be entertained and amused by Jesus, for Jesus to dance to his tune and give him what he wanted without challenging his corrupt ways. Isn’t the same true of us sometimes? Don’t we sometimes come to Jesus with this attitude too? Are we happy to have him entertain us but back away from him when he starts to challenge the things which are wrong in our lives?

11. Pilate’s error – Giving in to pressure and condemning an innocent man. We usually know what is right and just and fair, but how often and how easily do we capitulate and just let the crowd dictate what we do?

12. All these people had power, authority and leadership positions but used them unworthily. The one who had all power, authority and leadership available to him used his power differently. He allowed evil, sin, injustice to have their way, trusting that his death for the sins of the world would bring new life for himself, for those who loved him and even for those who hated him.

13. How should we respond and how should we use our own power and influence? Can we resist the temptation to follow the bad examples set by the religious leaders and Herod and Pilate and instead follow Jesus through the door he has opened into a new way of life?

From chapter 2 "The Education of the Ideological Community"

"One cannot help noticing again and again in British churches that a preacher who speaks in simple, emotive rhetoric with a warm flow of stereotypes is preferred to a preacher who makes a genuine attempt to tackle some real aspect of contemporary Christian life and faith. The preacher, most congregations seem to feel, should not make these kinds of demands upon his listeners. No matter how well educated and successful they may be as professional people in their week-day lives, they will complain of not being able to understand a preacher who encourages them to think, but the one who gives them a cosy feeling of being in a familiar, warm cocoon of accepted beliefs is admired and appreciated. It does not matter to the listeners that they are unable to repeat even the main theme of the sermon five minutes later; the important thing is the comforting emotion of familiarity and belonging which swept over them as they were listening to him. It is this experience, whether conveyed through words, music or ritual, which many church people seem to be referring to when they speak of worship and what it means to them."


Lots of food for thought here for members and leaders of churches. Why are we here and what are we doing?

The Two Lost Sons and their Prodigal Father

All Age Talk – Luke 15.1-3, 11-end

Who can remember the story of Aladdin? Can you remember what Aladdin’s three wishes were?

1.       To become a prince

2.       To be rescued from the sea

3.       For the Genie who granted his wishes to be made free

Did the story have a happy ending? Yes of course!

In today’s Bible passage Jesus also tells a great story – one of the most famous stories in the whole Bible. He tells this and two other stories as an answer to some religious leaders who were grumbling about Jesus “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” The sinners are also in the audience and the story is for them too.

It begins with a young man (we assume he’s young anyway) who, like Aladdin, has three wishes:

1.       To get rich quick without working

2.       To run away from his responsibilities and travel

3.       To be in charge of his life

He doesn’t have a Genie to grant his wishes, but he does have a very unusual Father. A Father who Jesus uses in the story to show us what God is like. When the young man asks his Father for his inheritance that is actually a very hurtful and insulting thing to ask. Its like saying:-

·          “Why should I wait until you die to get my share of your money; I want it NOW.”

·          and what’s more…  “I REFUSE to help run the family farm a minute longer. Its boring, its dirty and it SMELLS. I want to get as far away from THIS DUMP as my legs will carry me.”

·         and while we’re on the subject…  “I’m sick of you controlling my life and telling me what to do. You’re not the boss of me any more. I’m going to live as if you don’t even EXIST.” 

(He didn’t say all those things of course, but his Father knew him so well he knew that was what he was thinking!)

How should the Father respond? Well in all the Parenting Skills Manuals I’ve seen (and believe me I’ve tried a few J ) the answer is clearly “No!” Here is a situation where the child (teenager? Young adult?) needs to learn boundaries, patience, respect, discipline. In the time and place that Jesus was speaking, those same values held just as much importance and a son like this would be put very firmly in his place. But the Father in Jesus’s story surprisingly gives him exactly what he has asked for.  (hand younger son a big bag of money and he walks off)

(Adult voices from congregation):

Pharisee:            This Father is a reckless fool!

Scribe:                  “Why does he act like this? No real Father would act in this way!”

Servant:              “Can’t he see what the consequences will be?”

Elder Son:           “This son has brought disgrace on his family. God will bring disaster on him!”

Consequences

As the story goes on, disaster does eventually come on the son, not caused by God, but by a combination of the son’s own wasteful behaviour and the pure misfortune of a famine in the place where he has gone to live. When his money runs out, so do his friends and he is left in poverty and hunger, working on a pig farm (the very worst job for a Jew) and even wishing he could share the pigs’ food (Yuk!).

This is finally what it takes to bring the son to his senses. Even the servants in his Father’s house have plenty to eat –

“I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.”

We can imagine him on the long, journey, weakened by hunger, struggling along and practising his little speech as he goes. We can also imagine the Father, watching and waiting day after day, hoping against all odds, that his son might return.

Powerful emotions are at work on both sides.

Coming Home

You know how the story ends. The wonderful reconciliation as the Father runs out to meet his lost son, back from the dead. He doesn’t even let the boy finish his speech and receives him joyfully back into his household, not as a hired servant but as a son, with all the privileges and responsibilities that brings. The forgiveness of the returning stray is unconditional. The Father doesn’t wait to see if he has reformed and learned his lesson, he welcomes him home and loves him unconditionally. Surely many of the despised sinners in Jesus’s audience would recognise their own story in this surprising reconciliation.

So the story ends and everybody lives happily ever after, yes?

Not exactly. Not everybody is happy. Not the fattened calf of course L …  and then there’s the other lost son... WHAT? I thought you said there was only one lost son. No, there were two! Because it turns out that the older son, the one who stayed at home and never strayed, the one who lived by all the rules, slaving away resentfully, knowing that he was right and good – was also lost. He might have been physically close to his Father, but spiritually and emotionally he was a million miles away. The way this showed up in Jesus’s story was in the reaction of this elder son when he saw his Father celebrating the return of the stray, the younger son.

Elder Son:           What’s going on? Where’s all that party noise coming from?

Servant:              From inside the house. Your Father is throwing a party to celebrate your brother’s return. The fattened calf is in the oven and your Father wants everyone to join the celebration. Isn’t this the best good news ever?

Elder Son:           NO this is NOT good news!

Pharisee:            HOLD ON … He’s telling this story about us!

Scribe:                  Don’t be silly, its just a made up story about a man who had …

Pharisee:            No, you don’t get it, we’re the elder brother.

Scribe:                  What do you mean?

Pharisee:            WE’re the ones who are angry because HE’s welcoming these filthy sinners and eating with them.

Scribe:                But we are right to be angry!                     

Elder Son:          Who does he think he is anyway?

And so the story ends with one lost son found and the other son, who didn’t know he was lost, standing outside his Father’s house… lost - in anger, jealousy and pride. Perhaps the Father will after all have to settle for one out of two? … But no, look!

The Father comes outside the house, away from the party, to find his second lost son.

Father:                 Son, please come inside and join the celebration.

Elder Son:           Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.

Pharisee:            We kept all His commandments!

Elder Son:           You never threw a party to celebrate my obedience … but when THIS son of yours…

Scribe:                  This load of unclean dropouts (pointing at congregation)

Elder Son:           When this son of yours who turned his back on you and wasted everything you gave him FINALLY decided to come home …

Pharisee:            You forgave him (and them) too easily

Scribe:                  You accepted him as a son and welcomed him

Elder Son:           You even killed the fattened calf for him and threw a big party.

And the Father said -

Father:                 My Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.

Here the story does end, leaving us to wonder what happened next. Did the Elder Son go inside and make up with his Father and his Brother? Did the Younger Son really change his ways and become a resposible family member? Did these religious people in Jesus’s audience change their attitude towards Jesus and all the sinners he was eating with?

Maybe it is up to us to decide how the story ends, as we recognise how like one or other of these two lost sons we are, how like these religious people we can be. As we respond to the love of this Prodigal God, who has only two wishes: that ALL his lost children will be found and that they will love each other, even as much as he loves every one.

Through story and through his actions, Jesus reveals the full extent of God’s endless mercy and love. What will our response be and how will the story end?

                              

Sermon - Luke 13:31-35 - Staying the Course

Luke 13:31-35

Last week we looked at the Testing of Jesus. This week’s reading, from his journey to Jerusalem, shows him behaving with integrity, commitment and complete reliance on his Father God; exactly as the Testing had suggested he would.

1.       The Pharisees warn him to run away from Herod Antipas (either genuinely concerned for J or colluding with HA) but he refuses to be distracted. Jesus is determined to complete the work he has come to do and will not be frightened off course by Herod or anyone else.

2.        It is not just getting there (to the fate which awaits Jesus in Jerusalem) that matters to him, but HOW he gets there – what he does on the way, i.e. healing people and freeing them from the grip of evil. This work is not just an incidental aspect of Jesus’s life, it flows naturally and irresistably from the core of his being.

3.       Jesus’ knowledge of what will happen to him makes him sad, not for himself but for Jerusalem. The city which will reject and kill him. The house of God (Temple) has become “your house” and is left desolate, empty. God is not now present in the building but in the PERSON of Jesus.

4.       The presence of God IN JESUS (cf 2 Corinthians 5:19) is the best way, I think, to make sense of J saying that he has often tried to embrace his people but they have repeatedly rejected his love. God’s people have lost sight of him and they will not see him again until they recognize God in Jesus and worship him, saying Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Application

1.       What distracts or frightens us off course in our Christian walk of discipleship and mission? How can the example and resources of Jesus help us stay the course?

We are not living in a part of the world where being known as a follower of Jesus will lead to threats or put us in physical danger. That’s very rare here (thank God).

A more realistic fear for us is to worry about being disliked or misunderstood. This might not sound too bad, but it can seem so bad that it paralyses us into inaction. Perhaps like the Jewish leaders who admired Jesus but were afraid of the Pharisees, we often love the approval of men (who we see every day) more than the approval of God (John 12.43) who is out of sight, out of mind?

This is a real threat to our discipleship and one we are unlikely to be able to deal with alone. It is one of the reasons we need church (its not an option). We need each other and we need to know and rely on each other more deeply. Building real relationships with each other (and of course with God). This is best done in smaller groups.

2.       Like Jesus, as people who are on the way it is not just where we hope to end up that matters but how we get there, what we do on the way. For the NT writers, especially Luke/Acts, the work of the disciple is the same as the work of the master – healing people and freeing them from the grip of evil. How does this relate this to our everday tasks and opportunities?

We may not often find ourselves in such dramatic confrontations with evil and sickness as Jesus and the disciples did, but, if we are looking for them, there are opportunities every day. For example we might offer practical help to somebody who is going through a trauma or who is trapped in difficult circumstances. It might not seem like much, but practical help can have more spiritual value than we realise. God is ever present and emotional support can bring healing.

3.       What about Jesus’s sorrow – God’s ongoing sorrow – at his rejection by Jerusalem, by the people who, more than anyone, should have recognised and treasured him? I say “him” but we have here the most beautiful feminine image of God as a hen who longs to cover and protect her chicks – although they reject her.

As we have already noticed, it is remarkable that Jesus’ sadness is for the ones who are doing the rejecting, not for himself. And this is challenging, because when you or I feel rejected, our sympathy is only usually with ourselves. What’s the answer? It would be easy for me to say ‘we just need to increase our passion for God and our love for others.’ Easy, but not very helpful.

More helpfully I would encourage you to admit to God “I actually can’t stand the sight of this person. God, I need a lot of help if I’m going to see this person as you see them, as a wayward child in need of love and healing.” That might be a hard prayer to pray, but maybe something in us needs to change first, before we are able to confront what is wrong in the other person.

I love the way that Jesus’s confrontation of his opponents is assertive and direct, yet at the same time full of compassion (v34). Our approach needs to be the same if we are to stand a chance of opening another person up to God.

4.       Which leads us to the final challenge. How can we turn people towards Jesus, to help them believe that “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”? Again the answer has to start with ourselves, inside us. We are so accustomed, even in the church, to making judgements about other people and seeing ourselves in a separate group or category.

Be honest, when you enter a room with people in it don’t you make assumptions about them (examples…)? Jesus could do this too and accurately because he could see inside a person’s heart. The difference being that Jesus doesn’t divide people up into the ones who deserve his attention and mercy and those who don’t. He has the same compassion for all people, he reaches out equally to all people, he opens the door of his kingdom to all people and he never gives up on anyone.

Final thoughts

As we continue to reflect on the hard road that Jesus followed to his destiny in Jerusalem, may we learn from the connections with our own faith journey. Church will not be optional because it is here that we help each other learn the teaching and values which will sustain us when the going is tough. Here we can receive and give support to help us on the way. And may we look for God in others and respond to God in others, so that all may be one, in the name of Jesus Christ.

What Prevents Christian Adults From Learning (2)

Continuing to read John Hull's book and have now finished chapter 1. Here are some more of the interesting points he makes:

(Page 19) "By studying what a congregation experiences as being distracting, we may often gain a deeper understanding of the problems of adult learning in that congregation. The source of the distraction is the centre of a potential interest which has been ruled illegitimate by the form of spirituality into which the worshipper has been domesticated ... (for example) Congregations where children are found a distraction should stop thinking about their ministry to children and start thinking about the ministry of children to them ... Learning breakthroughs occur when barriers suggested by the experience of distraction are broken through."

(Page 21) "A future without a past is as empty as a past without a future is hopeless. What is needed is a shift in the Christian construct of the past such that the past is seen in a learning perspective... (Page 23) The Christian learner does not only learn the Christian past; he learns from the Christian past. This has important implications for the way in which the Bible is handled in the Christian education of adults today. The important thing is not the world out of which the text came, but the world to which the text points. The meaning of the biblical text is not only to be found in the historical and philological factors which created the text; its meaning also lies in that which the text has since created and may still create."

(Page 24) "Although, as (Christians) look back on their lives, they admit that it could have been different, there is often a strong sense that life has unfolded according to a preconceived divine plan. The Christian, it is thought, must try to get to know this plan, but once he does know it, many of his choices will be settled. Popular attitudes to prayer often suggest this release from responsibility."

Describing how a vicar preached a sermon condemning a TV series called Jesus: The Evidence, before it had even been broadcast, and had warned his congregation not to watch it, Hull writes (Page 37) "From the point of view of education, the Christian believer is here given no alternative to the life of docile, unquestioning obedience, for the life of active enquiry would induce guilt and would be blasphemous. To enquire is to doubt, to doubt is to mock. The world of television and of scholarship may enquire and so mock, but the little flock which is the church trusts and has faith."

Food for thought!