The natural world has a way of teaching us lessons for life. Jesus often pointed to the birds of the air, the grass of the fields or the fruit on the vine. Artists have also used this rich imagery to illustrate Jesus’ life. Stanley Spencer pictures Jesus as a kind of butterfly emerging from the broken shell of the cocoon in the last of his studies on the ‘Temptations of Christ’. Jesus emerges from the struggle with wings spread out ready to fly. Just as the butterfly must struggle to free itself from the restrictions of the cocoon, so the wrestling in the wilderness prepares Jesus for his ministry. The wings of the butterfly would have no strength without the struggle to emerge from the chrysalis and the ministry of Jesus would have been powerless without the trials of the desert.The Wilderness Years of IsraelThe wilderness years of wandering in the desert are often thought of as wasted years in the history of God’s people, yet Israel is told to remember them when they emerge into the ‘Promised land’. It was here they learned important lessons about themselves and their God.Identity: It was there that they learned of their true identity as the ‘People of God’. They had been a bunch of ‘Wandering Aramaeans’ but God called them to be a great nation.Vocation: It was here that God called them out of the slavery of Egypt to be a holy people serving Him alone.Covenant: It was here they received the Law, not as a burden to bear but the promise of a faithful God who would be at their side in all their struggles.They discovered all this in the heat and dust of the desert. When they were tempted to turn back because they had no food, they found God mindful of their needs.When they were tempted to revert to the worship of Egypt’s gods, they saw God’s power displayed in mighty signs and miracles. As they faced empty stretches of desert and marauding enemies, God proved faithful to His promise to be with them. So now as they enter the Promised Land they were called to bring the first fruits of all they produced so that they should remember:Who they were – God’s people, dependent on Him.What they were called to be – A Holy people dedicated to God.How they had arrived – Through God’s goodness and faithfulness. The wilderness experience of JesusLuke sees Jesus as the new Israel, as he prepares for his ministry of deliverance. Instead of the forty years in the desert, Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days, but he is tested in the same way.By hunger:‘Where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during these days, and he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Jesus answered, “It is written; Man does not live on bread alone.’ Luke 4: 2-4Significantly, the devil begins by saying: “If you are the Son of God” As Israel learned about their identity as God’s people, so Jesus is tested as to his identity as the Son of God.By false godsJust as Israel had been tempted to return to the false gods of Egypt, so Jesus is tempted to turn to a false god as his source of power and authority.“I will give you all their authority and splendour, for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours”Jesus answered, “It is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” Luke 4: 6-8It was not to be through the power and authority of evil that Jesus was to bring deliverance but by obedience to the will of his Father God.By testing God’s faithfulnessIsrael had tested God’s faithfulness at the Waters of Meribah as Psalm 95 tells us:‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.’Now the devil challenges Jesus to put his Father God to the test by throwing himself off the Temple:“If you are the Son of God,” he said, throw yourself down from here.”…Jesus answered, “It says: do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Luke 4: 9-12At every stage, Jesus is tried and tested to take a route to the work that his Father God had called him to, that is not that of his Father, but of the devil. As they say: ‘The route to hell is filled with good intentions’!Our path in life is often testing, but the trials and testing can be a blessing. For if even Jesus had to go through this wilderness to equip him for his ministry, we should expect that our trials and temptations can be used by God to equip us for the journey.Like the butterfly we have no power to fly without the struggle. Without the struggle we will not remember from whom we have received everything. Without the struggle we will not remember that we are held by a loving God. Without the struggle we will not remember to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.Rev. Simon BrignallA Prayer for UkraineGod of peace and justiceWe pray for the people of Ukraine today,and the laying down of weapons.we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow,that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them.We pray for those with power over war and peace,for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisionsAbove all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear,That you would hold and protect them.We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.Amen
This year we will again celebrate a partnership between cocoa growers in West Africa and chocolate makers in Britain. ‘The Meaningful Chocolate Company’ is part of the Fair Trade movement around the world working with producers to source cocoa and add value to this natural resource by generating an income for producers that enables them to invest in community projects they choose. New schools, medical centres, as well as freshwater, and good sanitation are just some of the benefits that Fairtrade makes possible. All this may sound a long way from our reading today, but it springs out of a unique Christian insight into the way God works in the world – he works in partnership with us. “Who is this?” the disciples ask as Jesus stills the storm. Luke 8:25. The account of the stilling of the storm poses questions about our world, our God, and ourselves that shape the way we live. Our world: We can read this account as the story of a chaotic world in which natural disaster always threatens to overwhelm us. Or we can read it as an account of a mechanical world in which God has abandoned us to our fate in the struggle for survival. The Church has read it however as the promise of a world in which God is in control over all the forces of nature and works with us to promote the welfare of the planet and its creatures. Our God: These views presuppose the kind of God who might be in charge. Ancient civilizations saw malignant forces behind nature that humans must appease by sacrifice or sympathetic magic. The disciple’s rebuke of Jesus, for example, suggests that they might have held him responsible for the storm. Today we tend to think of the world as a machine working according to the laws of nature without any kind of divine intervention. If there is a God He has left us to our own devices; maybe the picture of Jesus asleep suggests this kind of view. But the bible presents us with another point of view: A God who is present and active in the world, working and suffering with us, and intervening in the person of Jesus to rescue us. God with usOur painting today illustrates this literally. Rembrandt in one of his earliest works (1633, when he was 29), pictures himself in the boat, beside Jesus. You can see him looking directly at the viewer, holding on to a stay that runs from the stern of the boat to the masthead. Unlike the other disciples, he seems calm as if to say, “I know how this story ends. I will be safe with Jesus in the boat.”. The composition of the picture, with the sky brightening up and the clouds clearing, suggests that it is not the disciples’ pleading that produces results, but that Jesus already had command of the situation. Even in a world where God seems absent, we must trust that He is ultimately in control. The way we live: If we see this world as chaotic all we can do in response to the wild and maybe malignant forces of nature is to keep our heads down and hope the danger passes us by. On the other hand, our modern worldview assumes that humanity is ultimately the master of the forces of nature and can control them. Our approach to climate change rests on the belief that technological progress will deliver us from disaster. The Church from earliest times, however, has seen this account as an invitation to faith in a loving Creator. Jesus’ question “Where is your faith” Luke 8:25, asks us to examine where we place our faith. For the Church, God is present with us in the storm and in the calm, working in partnership with us in the project of making the world a better place to live. The Fairtrade project is part of this response to the God who is in control of everything, by working with Him in the improvement of the lives of others we are working to make a better world where all can flourish. Rev. Simon Brignall With the world in turmoil, and storm clouds gathering, we pray for peace with Justice in Palestine/Israel and Ukraine.Please keep our grieving families in your prayers.God of peace and justice,we pray for the people of Ukraine today.We pray for peace and the laying down of weapons.We pray for all those who fear for tomorrow,that your Spirit of comfort would draw near to them.We pray for those with power over war or peace,for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions.Above all, we pray for all your precious children, at risk, and in fear,that you would hold and protect them.We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.Amen
What makes you happy?Happiness surveys come along every few years tracking what makes for a happy life. The latest survey I’ve seen is from the UK, it suggests that we are at our happiest in our mid-teens and mid-sixties.So, that happiness is either about looking forward with excitement or looking back with contentment.It doesn’t tell us much about happiness or how we can find happiness.It would be sad to think that but for these few brief years of our life happiness was beyond our reach!A Swedish survey on the other hand is more helpful as it gives us clues as to how we might open ourselves up to be happy each day.It recommends 6 ways to live well:Start the day with a fresh dip in the pool or if you don’t have a pool a cold shower!Find time to go out into the wilderness to be aloneDe-clutter your wardrobe and live with a few versatile garments.Take breaks during your working day to re-energise yourself.Learn to listen to others as they speak.Perform random acts of kindness. We might want to call this the Swedish beatitudes!Makarios – Happy or Blessed?The word often translated as ‘Happy’ in new translations and ‘Blessed’ in older translations is Makarios. Together these two words capture something of the sense of the Greek word.Makarios was not just a feeling like happiness but the fact of God’s blessing, and as a result of the knowledge of God’s blessing, flows the feeling of happiness, joy, peace, and contentment. It was a word used by the ancients to describe the life of the gods, and it remained in most people’s minds a dream beyond reach, an unattainable ideal, and yet an ideal we all reach for.The Beatitudes of loveThroughout history, humanity has attempted to achieve happiness in two different ways, either through grasping happiness or by going in the opposite direction and turning their backs on earthly pleasure. The painter Stanley Spencer in his attempt to find happiness tried both!From 1937 through to 1938 Spencer charted his sad attempt to find love and happiness. In a series of eight paintings, he records his difficult relationships with women, ironically naming the series ‘The Beatitudes’. In truth, they represent the very opposite, not happiness but misery. Having divorced his wife Hilda he sought out a new partner, Patricia Preece, showering her with gifts of perfume and jewelry, almost ruining himself financially.In this painting, we see two figures of Spencer one kneeling at Patricia Preece's feet in worship and the other facing his former wife, pleading, I think for forgiveness. Despite all his pleading and worship both relationships failed and Spencer was left bereft and alone. From now on he decided to live the life of a monk!Love and happiness could not be bought but are as Spencer discovered a gift we give to each other, a gift that comes with the blessing of God.The Beatitudes of JesusWhen we look at how Luke presents Jesus’ teaching we are confronted with an apparent contradiction. Those who are poor or hungry, weeping or persecuted are blessed and those who are rich or successful in life are condemned to hunger weeping, and woe!Strangely Jesus’ mission depended, according to Luke, on the generosity of a group of rich women. In contrast to Spencer, Jesus and his disciples lived entirely by gifts rather than by grasping, thanks to the hospitality of wealthy disciples.So behind this apparent contradiction, Luke is speaking about our attitudes to happiness: We can be both rich and unhappy or poor and happy depending on the way we live, as Matthew makes clear in his account of Jesus’ teaching by adding the words ‘In Spirit’.A person can be ‘rich’ because ‘blessed’ by God or ‘poor in spirit’ as we recognise our dependence on God’s goodness. Richness and poverty are judged not by what we have, but by what we give to each other. It is our attitude of heart and not our bank account that God looks at!Life in all its fullnessJesus embraced life he said that he had come to bring life in all its fullness. Happiness for Jesus was not cold showers every morning or even isolation from the world. Jesus made friendship, fun, and laughter as well as generosity, faithfulness, and prayerfulness, a priority in the community he created. He neither taught us that we could find happiness through renouncing the ‘Good life’ nor that we could find it by pursuing the ‘Good life’.Jesus's approaches to wealth and poverty in the beatitudes, then, go beyond our understanding of happiness as the outcome of what life brings us, or indeed what we achieve in life whether it is wealth or poverty, persecution or prosperity. Happiness is not something we can find for or achieve for ourselves, happiness is a gift of God. We must read Luke’s account of the Beatitudes in this light:‘Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God’ Luke 6:20We find happiness, Jesus says, when we approach life’s ups and downs in a spirit of humility, knowing that we are nothing in ourselves but rich in God’s goodness to us.Acknowledging God’s mercy and love in poverty and wealth, ‘in sickness and in health’, as the wedding vows express it. Every other road to happiness makes big claims for ourselves. The words used in many Self-help books that talk about self-realisation or self-fulfillment, assume we can achieve happiness through our efforts or indeed be denied happiness because of our needs. Happiness flows from the fact of God’s love for us and not from what life throws at us whether good or bad.‘Happy are you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied’ Luke 6: 21Now that we no longer demand happiness as our right but as a gift from God, our desires are redirected to Him. The whole focus of our desires has changed, instead of focusing on ourselves and our needs, we are now God oriented as we seek to honour Him and give him thanks for the life he gives us. This person will be satisfied, Jesus says because the God to whom we turn is faithful and true and desires only what is good for us. This is true whether we find ourselves overcome by adversity as many of God’s servants have been through history or blessed with prosperity as we are.‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh’ Luke 6: 21Adversity and pain, bereavement, and sorrow can bring us to our knees and, as Wesly commented, this is often the best place to start our journey back to God. When in our helplessness we turn to God for strength we find again that He is faithful, He can be trusted with our sighs and sorrows and will give us the strength to take us through.C S Lewis wrote two books on Pain, one an academic study ‘The problem of Pain’ that looked at the theological problems of suffering and a God of Love, and the other after the death of his wife Joy ‘A grief observed’ a cry for the heart as he agonised with his doubts about the God of love.Through his struggle to understand what God was saying to him he spoke of pain as a megaphone. Sometimes God in His love needs to break through our complacency or self-confidence, our pride or boastfulness in a way that helps us to our knees to seek His strength rather than our own. In my mind, the C S Lewis who wrote after the death of his wife, was a more humane and compassionate man who truly understood the problem of Pain.‘Blessed are you when people hate you when they exclude you and revile you …on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven’ Luke 6: 22-23Happiness then is not something that can be found by grasping or lost through misfortune or poverty, happiness is a gift from God to those who ‘Seek first the kingdom of God’.However, Jesus tells us we can also expect to be hated and reviled on account of our faith in God. The truth of these words can be seen down the ages as faithful Christians have faced persecution and death.As Jesus himself knew, a loyalty that seeks first the kingdom of God will confront powers and authorities, of regimes that set themselves up, over and above the Kingdom of God. Powers and authorities, like the Roman Empire, demand our worship, or in the case of modern tyrannies, obeisance to rulers who seek their own glory.We can be grateful that we do not live in such an age or under such a regime but we do confront a world that demands of us another loyalty, whether that be the power of money or the seduction of consumerism. These are gods that the Scripture calls idols, the gods of gold who do not see and cannot speak and who will, as we have seen throughout history, fail us.The Swedish beatitudes!The Beatitudes tell us that Happiness is for everyone at any age even in times of hardship. It points us to an approach to life that leaves space for the divine, for our neighbour, and space for ourselves. Perhaps then we might take time to read again that list of Swedish beatitudes:In the light of what Jesus says an early morning dip to freshen up might be a helpful discipline.That time in the wilderness a chance to wonder at the beauty of nature.That de-cluttering of the wardrobe is a useful exercise in saving the planet.Those breaks in the day may be a time to reflect on your life.Certainly learning to listen to others and practicing acts of kindness are at the heart of what Jesus meant when he spoke about ‘Seeking first the kingdom of God’So then, Makarios, the blessing of happiness, comes when we make time for ourselves so that we might have time for God and others in our lives. Rev Simon BrignallWe continue to uphold in our prayers the bereaved families of our parish.
We live in an age very conscious of The ‘Rights’ of the individual, an ideal that dates back and takes its inspiration from the foundation of the United States.Equality and LibertyThomas Jefferson famously stated the principles on which the American Constitution was founded“ We hold these truths to be self-evident:That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”The problem, of course, is that sometimes these unalienable rights compete with each other. Take for instance liberty and equality. They so often clash, not only in Slave owning States of the United States but today in liberal Europe.Please allow me a moment to reflect on the competing rights of majority and minority communities in Europe and Latin America before moving on to the picture Luke gives us of a diverse community of very different people living in apparent harmony!In the debate between liberals and conservatives that has been provoked by the clash of cultures in Europe ‘Equality’ and ‘Liberty’ often come to blows. Where liberal values focus on Freedom, and the values of minorities claim protection under ‘Equality’ laws that ban ‘hate speech’ and discrimination, society struggles to find a place where cultures can live peacefully together. The freedom to say what others may consider offensive competes with the values of minorities. A similar clash of cultures can be sensed in many Latin American cultures where European and Amerindian cultures have lived uneasily together for 500 years. I once had a fascinating encounter with a young Chilean craftsman selling his art. His art is inspired by Mapuche mythology and culture and as we got into a conversation about Chile and its many communities I sensed a great deal of anger in his voice. As a Chilean of mixed descent, he had decided that his real identity was Mapuche and he had taken up their cause as his own. He felt more comfortable to be the victim of history rather than the victor. Where then can we come together, as both victim and victor? A Moral Vision for SocietyIs there a vision of society that can hold together the competing claims of different communities?Most of us despair of any resolution to these competing claims and retreat into our private world and yet the institutions that hold society together require from us all a moral vision that allows our private life and our public world to flourish together.Communities of all sorts have, of course, come together with a common vision that brings together men and women from a variety of backgrounds, beliefs, and talents. Artistic communities provide an example of how creatives feed off each other and in so doing grow in confidence and skill. Think of the impressionists who originally came together in Brittany inspired by its rugged landscape and sparkling light. Amongst them were several British artists committed to the ideal of painting ‘en plein air’. They returned to England to discover the same inspiration as they had found in Brittany in Devon and Cornwall. The leader of this group that came to be known as the Newlyn School was Stanhope Forbes whose painting ‘A fish sale on a Cornish beach’ 1885 was exhibited in the Royal Academy. Such was its impact that extra carriages were added to the Penzance to London train by the Great Western Railway to accommodate the number of submissions to the annual Royal Academy exhibition by the growing artistic community in Newlyn.Can we find a similar common vision that brings the diverse communities of Britain? I believe that Jesus offered such a vision, a vision that brought together a diverse group of men and women, rich and poor, Greek and Jew, intellectual and practical. At its core this is a religious vision and yet the values it expresses can and have been embraced by our secular society. it is often stated in our liberal cultures that religion belongs to the private realm and yet this is certainly not the case in many countries and indeed has only recently become the norm in Western European countries.Jesus liked to mix politics with religion and mention the unmentionable as well as questioning the unquestionable. His Vision of Society: He called it ‘The Kingdom’ which broke down the barriers between private and public, secular and religious, conservative and radical. The Calling of PeterHis actions in Luke’s account of the Calling of Peter illustrate something of his disregard for boundaries.He takes a boat and uses it for a pulpit.He tells a fisherman how to fish. In John’s gospel, he crashes a wedding party, interrupts a funeral, trespasses on others' land, he overturns the exchange desks of the money changers. The Kingdom of GodAt the centre of this blurring of boundaries, the clash of private and public interests can be seen in a new way.In Jesus' Kingdom, private and public interests are not competing claims but complementary gifts that enrich a community. He is building a diverse community of men and women who might have previously been enemies. Their private interests will always clash but they are held together in a team in which the whole is greater than the parts. Love is the only wayAt the heart of this new community is a new way of living together. ‘Equality’ and ‘Freedom’, as we have seen, lead us into competing with others so that our rights might be respected, but there is another way.The fishermen fish their way but Jesus proposes another way, and after a fruitless night of fishing Peter is ready to acknowledge his unworthiness. Peter is the first to recognise that he needs to change not only the way that he fishes, but the way that he lives. He surrenders his right to do things things his way to be part of a greater community. Team spirit “ If we can’t live together we’re gonna die alone” Not the words of Peter but of Jack in an Airplane crash drama as he attempts to bring together a group of survivors struggling to survive in their own way. Only together can they survive. These words though do point to a reality of life in 'Community', it requires sacrifice if we are all to survive.Another word for Sacrifice is love, indeed it is the plus side of Sacrifice reaching out to the other not just turning away from self. The remarkable fact of Jesus' group of followers was that it was so diverse. Tax collectors and terrorists as an example, there was a great need for love that reached out and embraced the difference in each of these disciples!Yet from this diversity sprang up a worldwide fellowship. What united them was not equality before the law or freedom of choice, but the love of ‘The other’ – those who were different and underlying that love, a recognition of our equality before God who both forgives our foolishness and fulfills our dreams. Conversations and CommunityMaybe our best contemporary examples of leaders who have embraced this inclusive vision of society are Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.In his autobiography ‘Dreams of My Father’ Barack Obama tells of his struggles with his identity as a black man with a white mother. As a black man he tries to establish his identity in the history of oppression and injustice, but in attempting to establish his right over against others he is left unable to reach out across the divisions of society.This retreat into the politics of race, gender, and class can only be self-defeating.Like Peter he is brought to realise his failures in a profession he thought he understood, the delusions, the blindness, and the bigotry of this kind of identity politics. Instead, he finds answers in the engagement of others in a conversation with those who recognise they are not a community without those who differ from them. Underlying this political vision is the vision of Jesus for a Kingdom in which all are equal before God, bound together not by ties of race, gender, religion, or class but by a recognition of our incompleteness and our inadequacy without others. Without that community that God alone can bring together we can never truly recognise our potential as human beings. Only when we recognise the gifts that others bring by their difference can we become secure in our identity and offer up our gifts that will enrich others.Rev Simon BrignallPlease continue to hold in your prayers the Morris family, the Douglas home family, the Abel Smith family, and the Criddle family.
