Click here for Astrid's video messageMark 3:20-end 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1Trinity 1O the mystery that is family! The bond between family members can be so strong, yet it can be broken and seemingly beyond repair. What we often call ‘family’ is also indicated with the words ‘house’ or even ‘kingdom’. A kingdom is a household on a larger scale, and we view a household as the shape of a family dwelling. ‘Home’ is another such word that describes the place where people are known by their connection to one another. Even for those living on their own, the word ‘home’ speaks of connection, of the comfortable place, where they can be themselves; where they can invite others for moments of shared peace and comfort. The word ‘comfortable’ has ‘comfort’ in it. But this is not a litany about semantics. Rather, I’d like to talk about what it means to be connected as family and what it means to go or be at home.In the incident that’s recorded in Mark’s Gospel about the attack on Jesus by the scribes, Jesus explains, in parables, how he is establishing a new kingdom, a new house, a new family, that is stronger than the ‘house’ of Satan. God’s house, and his kingdom are stronger and Jesus is proving that by every step he takes towards the cross. His blood relatives are afraid that he may be seized by the authorities, but Jesus knows that the scribes’ accusation is absurd; even so, Satan’s rule is at an end anyway. Jesus speaks of ‘the strong man who needs to be tied up before his house can be plundered’, saying in effect that he, Jesus, is the one who has broken into Satan’s house and bound him. Now the house of Israel and indeed the whole world will be set free from the power of sin and death, as a new day dawns in the reign of a new kingdom that is God’s. When his mother and brothers and sisters appear, presumably to take him home and, in their minds, to safety, Jesus replies by saying that he has a new family: those who are with him, he describes as his mother and brothers, for ‘whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’When my Mum was in hospital and realised that she would not get better, she decided to accept that and she began to speak about ‘going home’. She didn’t mean her house, which had been her home on earth for so many years, but her home in heaven, with God. It took a little more explanation to help her doctor understand the true meaning of her words. The doctor thought she was speaking in terms of physical reality, but my Mum had spiritual dimensions in view. Now, looking back, I am also reminded of my grandparents’ grave, which has the words from 2 Corinthians 4, verse 18 inscribed on the headstone: ‘because we look, not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.’ The comfortable space that my Mum was looking forward to was not the house in the village that she had lived in with my Dad, but the space that Jesus had gone to prepare for her, with her heavenly Father. A new place that she called home, as she knew herself to belong to a different house, the kingdom of God. She had loved being with her family on earth, and was grateful for what she had received in earthly terms. Her task here had finished. Now the time had come for her to go in a new direction, to be with her other family. And her other family are all those for whom Jesus has prepared a place, so quite a crowd, I reckon!God’s kingdom has often been referred to as ‘now and not yet’. In other words, it is already here and yet it is to come in all its fullness, at a later date. Whatever we now know as family and as home in a positive sense, is a reflection of what is to be. As Christians we are already part of God’s family, with a promise for our future existence, when we are called to our eternal home. I find that very comforting: we have a place on earth and we have a place in heaven, where our connection with those we have known as family continues. Jesus says clearly: ‘here are my mother and my brothers and sisters’. He doesn’t say that they will only be his family once they’ve reached heaven, but that they already are family while on earth, doing the Father’s will. And if we follow Jesus, we know that we are already home. Amen.
Click here for Astrid's video messageTrinity Sunday John 3:1-17 Isaiah 6:1-8How many times, on any given day, do you have to give proof that you were born? My guess is: not very often at all, especially if people can see that you’re alive, so they can deduce that, yes, very obviously, you were born. Following on from this, then, I would suppose that the fact that you’re alive is more important than the proof of your birth. Although you may need to show a birth certificate at some point, to give evidence of the date and place of your birth, you don’t go around showing it to everybody all the time, when they can see it’s quite obvious that you were born. Last week, we celebrated the birth of the Church, Pentecost. It was that first Pentecost, when the promised Holy Spirit came upon the disciples as they gathered, which gave ‘birth’ to the Church, the Body of Christ on earth. So what about the birth certificate of the Church? Or of your own ‘proof’ of your ‘rebirth’ in Christ? How do we go about giving evidence of our existence as living members of the Body of Christ?Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who came to visit Jesus by night, was challenged about this. He was a religious teacher; the Pharisees being the religious authorities of the time. But it took some reassessment of his spiritual understanding for Nicodemus to see why he could not be complete without knowing his need for the renewal inside him by the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Baptism with water was already an ‘outward sign of an inward grace’, of a turning towards God, recognising him as Lord. But baptism by the Spirit, or being born of the Spirit, takes our faith to the next level. Those words of Jesus that he says in John 10: ‘I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly’, are an expression of the same thing. It’s not enough to have an academic knowledge of the divine; you need to make it your own, in your heart, to allow faith to have an effect on your life. That’s when the ‘proof’, if you like, becomes visible, not just on paper but ‘in the flesh’.So, then, how does it all happen? Well, I know that some Christians have a wonderful, dramatic, spiritual experience, that comes like a flash of lightning and in which they feel the presence of God very strongly and distinctly. It’s that particular moment in life that they refer to as the pivotal moment of either their conversion or the renewal of their faith. However, for many others it’s not like that; rather, their realisation of being renewed by God comes on much more gradually, as a dawn followed by sunrise rather than a light-switch moment. Does that matter? Well, no, of course it doesn’t matter which journey one travels in that respect, as long as it leads to that completeness of being ‘born of water and the Spirit’, as Jesus says to Nicodemus. In Judaism, God was already known to the people for who he is as Almighty, the One True God, but through Jesus, God becomes their Father. And through the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, they can have a relationship with him and the Trinity. In that famous Rublev Icon, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the figures are placed around the table in a way that invites the onlooker in. No more distance, but relationship and intimacy, between us and the divine. Mind-boggling, isn’t it! And one of the signs of human life is relationship.For too long now, we’ve had to keep other people literally at arm’s length. For many it’s proved to be detrimental to their health. How ironic, if it weren’t so sad!The signs of life that we project as re-born Christians should be the proof that we have been made new in Christ. Those signs are love, kindness, generosity, humility, patience and self-control. We can’t show that to others on paper! We can’t just wave about our baptism certificate… Rather, we should wear it on our sleeve. That way, nobody will ever ask for a ‘re-birth certificate’; because they will see for themselves that, obviously, we are alive in Christ, as it makes a difference for all to see. If we haven’t done it yet, let’s be open to the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Then we can show the world that we’re really alive, in the way we are connected to God, as he guides us into the ‘heavenly things’. Amen.
Click here for Astrid's video messagePentecost John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 Acts 2:1-21Happy Birthday! I hope you’re having a nice day :-) At the moment we can’t celebrate birthdays with parties as we used to – whether they are personal birthdays or the birthday of the Church. But that doesn’t mean that we let it go by unnoticed, or that there is to be no visitor at all.Pentecost is the celebration of the beginning or ‘birth’ of the Church, as described in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit came as the Helper, the Advocate, the Comforter, whom Jesus had promised. He would testify on Jesus’ behalf, as the Spirit of truth, and he would inform and inspire the Body of Christ in all her witnessing to Jesus. The book of the Acts of the Apostles records the arrival of the Holy Spirit as something very dramatic, as any birth or beginning of anything new of course is. We, as disciples of Christ in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, may think perhaps that everyday life in our part of the world is so sophisticated that we may not need the Holy Spirit to remind us of the truth. Or, in other words, many people believe they can know all they need to know without God. But that would be a mistake. And all we have to do to realise such error is look at the situation we are in, not just here, but everywhere in the world, at all kinds of different levels. I don’t only mention the pandemic, but other problems like the violence in the Middle East, the burning of the Rainforest, a tornado in India, plastic waste in the seas and rivers, the dying of the Great Barrier Reef, the plight of refugees… should I go on? It doesn’t make for cheerful reading or listening, I’m sure! Should I still wish you, my brothers and sisters in the Church, a Happy Birthday? Well, I think I should and I do! Because we are called to be people of joy. The prophet Habakkuk writes: ‘Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.’ (Habakkuk 3:16-19). I am not denying that life can be difficult. This time last year we thought that the pandemic should be over by now; we probably didn’t count on the way it has impacted our lives in very deep ways. Each time we thought things might get better, they took a turn for the worse. And yet we rejoice! How can that be? I think it’s got everything to do with our focus. Of course, if we focus on the bigness of the problem, we may feel overwhelmed, sinking into despair. But if we focus on the bigness and the greatness of our God, we find that sinking becomes singing; yes, even today, when congregation singing is still very limited.It’s easy to be grateful in good times. It’s rather tough to be grateful when things are not going well. And with some problems piling up, we may be tempted to just give up. But that is also the moment when we need gratitude the most.I am reminded here of the lady from Kenya who featured in the Christian Aid video for their appeal this year. She said, ‘When somebody is rude to me, or unhelpful, I turn away and sing.’ Her response to challenging circumstances is focussing on God and praising him and singing. We can learn a lot from such grace.So, as we recall the coming of the Holy Spirit on that first Pentecost, let us rejoice that God has organised this ‘visitor’ to take up residence among us, to comfort us, to cheer us on, to be our champion amidst the challenges we face. The Church celebrates, because God is good, all the time. Happy Birthday! Amen.
Click here for Astrid's video messageSeventh Sunday of Easter John 17:6-19 Acts 1:15-17; 21-endTeresa of Avila has said:“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”This quote came to mind when I read the prayer that Jesus prayed, for his disciples, and for his followers of all time, even for us, as part of His Body, the Church. You might wonder why Jesus went to all the trouble of prayer, when he was going to save his friends anyway by going to the cross. Surely, in one fell swoop, God could have made everything right there and then? It’s the question that is often asked about prayer: why, if God knows what’s going to happen, do we need to pray? Does it make any difference at all? Well, I’d say a very loud ‘YES!’ I know it for sure, because I’ve seen it. Prayer does make a difference: a situation placed into God’s hands is safer there than anywhere else – and a person who prays is a person who stays. Prayer doesn’t always get the answer that is asked for, or the answer comes a long time afterwards. But prayer does something for the person who prays no matter what the answer may be: the person who is drawn closer to God in prayer will find that he or she is changed in the process. Let me explain a little bit more:You may agree with me, that if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you will probably never find it. I have sometimes changed my prayers mid-course, because I became aware of a change, either in me and my own priorities, or in the situation itself. Prayer is not just offering up a shopping list. Rather, it is a way to anchor oneself, to adjust to God’s leading hand, but it’s also a re-aligning or re-directing of ones priorities, so that they will fall in step with God’s plan. Jesus spent a lot of time doing that: he’d often go to a quiet place all by himself, early in the morning, for example, simply to pray. If he needed that, then surely we do even more! So he prays, and the prayer that’s recorded in John’s Gospel is very specifically for continued protection and guidance for his followers once he’s gone from the earth. We find an example of the way this worked in Acts 1, when Peter leads the group into prayer for a new disciple, to take Judas’ place. Prayer, followed by action in faith, delivered result, and Matthias was chosen to join the eleven apostles. When Jesus prays for his followers, he makes a specific reference to the world, how it hates him as well as them and how they need to be protected from being drawn in and falling prey to its tricks and traps. Yes, in Jesus, they will be kept in the loving care of the Father, and he has already done all he can for their souls. What he is praying for now is that the Father will complete in them what Jesus has already begun. The outcome is pretty awesome: indeed, we, as the Body of Christ on earth, as his hands and his feet, his eyes and his ears, are called to ‘look compassion on the world’ in all its needs. Our hands and feet are to declare God’s word to all who don’t yet know it; to speak his love, to touch with his healing of body, mind and soul. How do we do that? Through prayer as a start, as a beginning of a new wave through the community, and as a continued approach to make Christ known. The Church didn’t stop with the Twelve Apostles. They prayed, laboured, and gave witness to Christ Jesus with all their might. And others after them did the same. That’s why there’s a Teresa of Avila, that’s why there’s me and you, and the Church of this day. So, what does that tell us about the future?Let us pray:O God of power, glory and might, the One and Only Sovereign, who has given us life through your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, change our hearts and help us to reflect your loving care in the way we speak and act your living word to all. Teach us anew to pray as you wish. That the whole world may see your glory. Asking it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
