St Peter In-The-Forest Walthamstow
Carol Service, 6.30 pm Sunday 20 December 2009
Reflection
Come with me on the short six mile ride from Jerusalem, heading south to the Holy City of Bethlehem. The roads are wide and tree lined. You see the pleasant views of the rolling hillside. The day feels good. The air is, well, dusty, but it’s good enough
We turn a bend in the road and see a long fence snaking over the hill side. As the fence gets closer we see that it is an electrified fence. As we drive into the suburbs of Bethlehem we see the fence becomes a wall. A huge concrete wall. And then we turn into a military compound. There are armed soldiers. There are watch towers watch with soldiers in them (oh they are watching Bethlehem) And there is all the apparatus of a major security check.
We go through without too much difficulty having shown our passports. But then we are British. If you are Palestinian you have to get out of your vehicle and go through the security checks. If you live in Bethlehem and are fortunate enough to have a job in Jerusalem (there are not many jobs in Bethlehem and unemployment is high) then you have to do this twice a day. Every day.
On the wall, in English and in Hebrew, is a big slogan “peace and security”. When you get through on the other side its all covered with graffiti and images of Palestinian leaders. The images on the Palestinian side of the wall are not of “peace and security”. They are images of oppression and injustice.
We drive on. The roads get narrower and steeper. We pull up outside our destination. The Al Shurooq school for blind children. Its a ne-wish building. With lots of brightly painted doors and walls. And bright lines painted along the floors of all the corridors. We are wamly met by Helen Shehadeh, the Director, and one of the staff (as the morning rolls on the observant among us note there is always a member of staff at Helen’s side. She, we realise, is also blind).
Lots of sweet tea, juice and cake appear among smiling faces to welcome us. Their generosity is infectious. Helen tells us about the work of the school. It’s been going for several decades. They recently moved into their new building. But the teaching resources are still poor. We did not see one computer during all of our visit. (But then when electricity supply is erratic they are not a lot of good as a teaching tool). We dig out the gifts we had taken. Some books, and a pile of wooden abacus from the UK RNIB. They are very much appreciated – we had checked before we went and they specifically said “Abacus from RNIB” We had a debate about the plural of “abacus”...
Then we go on a tour of the school and meet some of the amazing staff and, well, the equally amazing children. For a host of reasons there is a high incident rate of blindness among Palestinian children. The children were stunning. And at the end of our visit they sang to us. In excellent English, several songs, including “We shall overcome”
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS: Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day
And one of the verses in their version was “we shall have Palestine one day”
Look you can take Christmas in lot of ways. If you want nice fluffy Christmas you can have nice fluffy Christmas. But it’s all too easy to forget the real world at Christmas. Jesus was born, so the Gospel writers tell us, in Bethlehem. He was born into the real world. The town where Jesus was born is the wrong side of the Security Wall. Jesus was born the wrong side of the Security Wall. Remember that this Christmas.
As we hear the nativity stories of Christmas, let us remember that all is not well today for the people’s of Bethlehem. And let us hold all of them: Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, together in our hearts.
There is no NHS in Palestine. And state support for education in the Palestinian Authority is patchy. The Al Shurooq school survives because of voluntary donations. We are giving all the collection from tonight’s service to the School. So please give generously. And if you are a tax player please gift aid your donation. We will get the money safely to the school through the McCabe Educational Trust. So don’t worry about whether or not it will get there. Those children will thank you.
Oh: and in case you think I making this up. I am not. A group of us from St Peter’s went on Pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine back in May of this year. We did that journey from Jerusalem to the Al-Sharooq school in Bethlehem through the Security Wall. Those children sang to us “We shall overcome someday”.
Amen
Geoff Hammond
Reader
St Peter in the Forest Walthamstow
20 December 2009
Isaiah 55:1-11; Psalm 19:7-14; 2 Timothy 3:14-4.5; John 5: 36b-47
May the words of my lips and the thoughts of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
I expect nearly everyone here has either learnt to drive at some time or at least knows someone close to them who has.
When you learn to drive – what d’you have to do? Lessons, practice, Highway Code?
After you’ve passed your test, what happens if you don’t drive much, don’t practise? Lose your skills, don’t develop your skills.
If you think about it, it’s a bit the same being a Christian - you have to practise and learn and go on practising and learning. And our Highway Code is? The Bible
And today’s Bible Sunday - is there anyone here who hasn't got a Bible somewhere at home? Maybe several bibles? Now, I’d like you to think of your favourite Bible. Where is it at the moment? - Picture it in your mind - maybe in the bookcase? On a desk? By your bed? Under the bed? Let's think about that Bible now - did you buy it or was it given to you? Think about the person who gave it to you - or the person who inspired you to buy it? Maybe send them a blessing and a thank you in your mind?
And also, when did you last open it? Our guide as Christians, our Highway Code, is the Bible. It’s easy to forget how lucky we are to have it at all. Wendy mentioned Latimer and Ridley in her sermon last week. It is only a few centuries ago that people here were being burnt at the stake for possessing and reading their own English bible. Imagine having to hide your bible and make sure no-one saw it, or saw you reading it – and that the secret police and your neighbours were watching you. And think of those countries where there are Christians who would dearly love to possess their own bible in their own language but, even if a translation exists, and they know how to read, they couldn’t afford it anyway. I’ll come back to our Bibles again in a minute, but I want to look more closely at today’s readings first. One message which comes through from all of them for me is ‘Come, come to God, come to Christ, come to the living waters, that you may have life’ Essentially they show that there’s a choice to be made – every morning, every hour, every minute.
There’s a choice between the true path with and to Christ and what Paul, or whoever wrote the letter to Timothy, describes as the path of myth, untruth. Paul says: The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Sounds a bit like today, doesn’t it? I like those ‘itching ears’ particularly - itching for the quick, easy answer, six steps to a new you. We know that the path to Christ isn’t always easy; we won’t always hear what we want to hear. For the path of myth, as Paul tells Timothy, there are lots of teachers, gurus, pundits, who will tell us exactly what our ears are itching to hear. The Gospel reading from John describes the muddles we get into when we’re on the wrong path, that path of myth. It describes how we can end up seeing everything from the wrong perspective and ideas of right and wrong get skewed: Jesus says: ‘I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name you accept him.’ !! - Paul’s false teachers, gurus and pundits again - Jesus goes on .. ‘you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God’ Accepting glory from others tends to involve accepting their values. When we accept their valuation of us, whether glorious or not, we’re accepting their values. And other people’s values, the values of society at large, may or may not coincide with Christian values. We talked a little about this in the Bible Study Group last Wednesday.
And anyway what are the values of society today – I’m not sure society knows. At what point does working hard to support yourself and your family become greedy accumulation of wealth? And how does this fit in with Jesus’ telling his disciples to just leave everything and follow him? What happened to his disciples’ families? As Isaiah says, God doesn’t think the way we think. The way we work isn't the way God works. ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way,’ declares the Lord. Consider the freedom of putting all our wobbly values and ideas to one side and just trying to do and to be as God wishes us to be …. Which takes us back to the Bible again. Isaiah says ‘Listen to me, listen well …… listen that you may live.’ Paul says ‘all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ And Jesus tells us to come to Him and let his Word live in us. And one way we can all try to let his Word live in us is to start to use the Bible more. To let His Word become part of us by reading it, rereading it, thinking about it, praying about it, even talking about it, regularly, day by day. I know that many of you already do this, and’ve been doing it for many years, but if you aren’t, please consider it now. For me, personally reading the Bible was the key. It was starting to read the Bible more and more frequently, more and more regularly, maybe only a couple of verses, but reading them carefully and thinking about them which has led me to where you see me now…..
You may have your own views on this but, as far as I’m concerned, where I am may not always be comfortable and I often find it challenging and make every mistake in the book, but it does feel closer to being where God wants me to be and a little closer to doing what He wants me to do….. Now I do know how life can get amazingly full. I thought I’d have time for everything when I retired, but it hasn’t worked out that way. And then I think back, to when the children were young and I was working and every hour of sleep I could grab was precious ….. and I marvel how much we crammed into each day. But somehow, if we haven’t already, we need to insert a bible shaped wedge into that busy day – if only five minutes – and once the wedge is in it will grow and change as necessary! And so shall we grow and change, as Christians. We’ll grow closer to God and closer to what he wants us to be and do……. What’s more, if we all, as members of this church, try to read our Bibles more, St Peters will grow too. It’ll grow closer to God and closer to being what He wants our church to be and doing what He wants our church to do.
As Isaiah says: …… you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you. Our congregation could grow out of all recognition! To finish, let’s also give Isaiah the final word again: Isaiah says: The Lord declares ..my word that goes out from my mouth …will not return to me empty, but will accomplish I what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Amen.
John 2:13-22 Lent 3. 15.2.09 2nd draft
May the words of my lips and the thoughts of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
I wonder what it was like in the Temple Courts that day with everyone getting ready for the Passover. Sounds a bit like Walthamstow market on a Friday or Saturday: crowds moving up and down, stallholders shouting – not to mention cows mooing and sheep baaing. (And what about the doves?). Perhaps the odd pickpocket as well.
What were they all doing there in the Temple courts? The animals were needed for sacrifices but the money changers?
Perhaps, if asked, the stall holders and money changers would’ve said that they were there to provide a service for the community. It was much easier for worshippers to buy the animals needed for sacrifice actually at the Temple, rather than for each worshipper to bring their own – imagine the mess and congestion if everyone had to drive their sacrificial cows and sheep through Jerusalem’s narrow streets to the Temple. And there was a quality issue – animals for sacrifice had to be perfect, no defects. Those sold in the temple would’ve been guaranteed fit for purpose.
And the money changers? People came from far and wide to sacrifice at the Temple, with many different currencies. All these currencies had to be exchanged for the special approved temple currency, and where better to do that than at the temple itself.? What could be more reasonable? Probably these were family businesses which had been providing this service for generations.
But then this upstart teacher from Galilee appears and creates havoc! Can you imagine someone setting about the stallholders in Walthamstow Market with a whip, turning over their stalls and driving them away?
And Jesus was so angry and the stallholders and people so shocked that they seem to have let Jesus just drive through them.
‘Who do you think you are to do this?’ They asked? And his response ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days’ made no sense to them at all. Much later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, John tells us the disciples remembered these words and realised Jesus was talking about his body, but at the time ….. At the time destruction of the Temple was a touchy subject. The Temple was the only place where the ritual sacrifices could be offered. The Temple had been destroyed in the past – in the sixth century BC when the Jewish nation was conquered and exiled to Babylon. Remember the words of Psalm 137
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion
Memories of this destruction and exile were strong for the Jewish nation – like the holocaust today. And, as we know, threatening to destroy the Temple was one of the things Jesus was accused of by the chief priests at his ‘trial’ before the crucifixion. (The Temple was finally destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD – and this led the rise of the synagogues as centres of worship, and the end of the sacrificial rituals.)
But, back in the Temple Courts with Jesus before the Passover – why was He so angry? Laying about him with a whip and overturning tables – not the sort of behaviour we associate with Jesus. His behaviour reminded onlookers of Psalm 69:
Zeal for your house will consume me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me
Jesus appears to have felt that what was going on in the Temple was an insult to God and God’s law.
Psalm 19 – which we listened to earlier in the service – talks about God’s law;
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right and rejoice the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure and gives light to the eyes.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Back again in the Temple courtyard, the people there would have said this was just what they were doing, keeping the law of the Lord as laid down in the Scriptures, and, as far as the stallholders and money changers were concerned, helping people to do this.
So what has gone wrong? Didn’t Mary and Joseph come to the temple and buy doves to sacrifice when Jesus was born? There were no problems then.
And what about this Law they were all following in the Temple?
Every Sunday in Lent, including today, we’ve been repeating the Ten Commandments. (When I was a child at primary school we had to learn them off by heart and repeat them frequently – that familiar to any of you?)
As you know, the Ten Commandments were given by God to the Israelites after they escaped from Egypt, at the beginning of their long 40 year journey to the Promised Land. They were also given detailed rules for daily life, including how ritual sacrifices were to be carried out, and what sacrifices were needed for what occasion. Some of the sacrificial details seem very alien to us – lots of draining and scattering of blood and separating of fat, for instance. But what does come through is the reverence for God. The Temple of the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant where the Israelites considered God’s presence to be were placed in the centre of their encampments to reflect the centrality of God in their lives. The laws, sacrifices, the festivals, the rituals, were there to constantly remind everyone of God, and what he’d done for them in delivering them from slavery in Egypt. The laws, sacrifices, the festivals, the rituals were also there to build this band of ex-slaves into a coherent, just society where all, rich and poor had their rights and duties and were looked after and treated fairly.
But this isn’t what Jesus found in the Temple courts that day. The Ark of the Covenant was there and the Temple of Jerusalem was the centre of all religious life and still considered to be the place of God, but, as can easily happen, the sacrificial rituals had largely taken on a life of their own and their original purposes often forgotten.
Jesus said he hadn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. When Jesus said ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind’ He wasn’t saying anything new – he was quoting from Deuteronomy. (Matt 22:37)
He also said ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. These words were also included in the original law given to the Israelites (Lev 19:18), but the Israelites had trouble remembering them and putting them into action and so often do we. It’s not ‘do your duty by your neighbours’ or ‘Make sure your neighbours are all right’, but ‘Love them as yourself’.
Let’s go back to those stall holders in the Temple Courts again. They were just earning their living, a service industry if you like, doing things the way they had always done – with the priests’ and society’s full approval. OK, so they made a profit, but they had to feed and clothe their families. And now they’re being told this is all wrong.
Does this remind you of anything? Now we’ve got the credit crunch and recession etc the press and media, generally with our approval, are wringing their hands about bankers and bonuses, greed, expectations that every day in every way we’ll all get richer and richer. And now this isn’t going to happen.
And of course it isn’t any particular person’s fault. We can look for scapegoats but it could be argued that everyone involved, including the bankers, was just doing what everybody else did, what they’d always done, with society’s full approval, like the Temple stallholders.
Where does this leave us now? There’s not much most of us can do about the banking system, but we could take a good look at how we personally do things, the habitual things we don’t usually think about.
Today we also had the reading from 1 Corinthians. Corinth in those days sounds a bit like London today: a rich, cosmopolitan, multi-cultural bustling city where new ideas were eagerly discussed, fashions and crazes came and went, and making money was important.
But in his letter to the Corinthians St Paul quotes from Isaiah:
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise: the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.
Paul sets new parameters for judging behaviour: he writes
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God
Then, as now, a lot of the things Christians did, said and believed just seemed plain daft to many of those around them. Look at us all here today! We’ve all chosen to get up on a Sunday morning and come to church – as opposed to all the other socially acceptable ways of spending a Sunday morning – having a lie in, doing the shopping, going out with friends, meeting up with family …. In our Lent groups too we’ve been looking at faith in the modern world – and the division between ‘those who believe in the powers of the world and those who believe in the Power of God.’
(Jesus and his disciples were often criticised for not doing what was socially acceptable. One big issue was Jesus’s healing people on the Sabbath when no-one was meant to do any work. Jesus says that ‘The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath, (Mark 2:27). He also pointed out that, luckily for us, God our Father doesn’t stop working on the Sabbath. (John 5:17))
The disciples left everything behind them to follow Jesus although most of the time they didn’t understand why he did things - like this scene in the temple – nor where they were going and certainly not what was going to happen next.
We have the same choice as the disciples, day by day, hour by hour. We can, all too easily, just focus on living decent, respectable lives, as most of those stall holders probably did, obeying all the rules, if you like, keeping our houses and our lives clean, or we can follow Jesus, listening, trusting that He will show us the next step and what he wants us to do next.
Lent is our preparation time for Easter – a very good time to watch these choices we make, even in the littlest things, and to see where they lead us.
Sue Diplock