Going down Sodom Way - A second sermon for ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 18: 20 - 32

Sodom and Gomorrah - the stuff of legend in the annals of Hellfire preaching. After all this is the Biblical story of God’s ferocious judgement on homosexuals. Indeed, our words sodomy and sodomite come from this very story.

But is it possible that we have misunderstood this story. For a moment let’s look back at the story? Let’s go back before the Scripture that we have heard this evening. For at the beginning of the 18th Chapter of Genesis, we find Abraham sat by his ten beside the oaks of Mamre. He looks up and finds before him three men. He doesn’t know them but being a Middle Eastern man, Abraham welcomes them into his home and provides them with water whilst Sarah cooks up a feast. This is the hospitality which will be in the mind of the writer of Hebrews when writing;

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

As hospitality is enjoyed by the three guests, Abraham and Sarah are rewarded with some good news. Old as they are, they will receive the blessing of a son from whom will come a mighty Kingdom. More than that, as a result of this

“All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.”

But now comes an ominous turn. Two of the guests who are identified as angels, set off for the town of Sodom whilst the third guest who is revealed as the Lord tells Abraham that he too will go to Sodom to see if it is as wretched a place as it has been reported as being.

Abraham will seek to persuade god to show mercy on the city. In part this will be because, he has a nephew, Lot, there but for now we will leave Abraham’s protestations to go on and see what happens in Sodom when the angels arrive.

The first thing that happens is that they encounter Abraham’s nephew Lot who is sitting at the gateway. Clearly a well brought up man, Lot offers the sort of hospitality that Abraham had offered back in Mamre. Like Abraham, Lot waters and feeds them. He overrules their objections to offer them accommodation for the night. So far, so good. But now the story takes a sharp turn for the worse. Before the guests have gone to bed, a crowd of men surround the house. They have but one thing on their mind. They want to rape these guests. A gangbang is what they have on their minds. What a contrast to the hospitality which Lot has shown!

Lot’s resistance to this knows no bounds. He shuts the doors and somewhat inexplicably offers his virgin daughters to the mob. I find no way of excusing this part of Lot’s conduct and indeed later he will find that his daughters are far from sweet when whilst living in a cave, they get him drunk and so become pregnant by their own father. .

But back to Sodom. Lot is now the object of the fury of the crowd. Listen to their words;

“This man came here as an alien, and he would play the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them.”

Oh yes, the mood is now very nasty indeed. Lot is learning that because he is a migrant, there are those who will always see him as a second class person. He has no option but to get out and fast. And so, he calls his wife his daughters and the men who were intending to marry his daughters and tells them that they need to escape. The would be sons in law think he is jesting and so they stay put. But Lot, his wife and his daughters, escape the city with the help of the two guests, who warn them to flee and not to look back. As Lot’s family take flight, disaster overtakes Sodom and Gomorrah with sulphur raining on them. And of course, we all know the story of Lot’s wife looking back and being turned into a pillar of salt.

What exactly happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is a subject for speculation. We do know that by the time of the final editing of Genesis, the leaders of Israel were in exile in Babylon. There they speculated as to why their fortunes had reached such a low. And as they did so, one school of thought that acquired influence was what was known as the “Deuteronomic” school of thought. These people took the view that when people were obedient they were blessed by God whilst when they were disobedient they were cursed by God. We see this influence particularly in the Deuteronomistic histories but also in parts of the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. To such people who felt that the plight of their time was a consequence of disobedience by the people, it would be reasonable to assume that a city of sin would receive punishment at the hands of God.

But wait! The dialogue between Abraham and God does not seem to end on a note that suggests imminent destruction. And we know that the two cities lie on a geological rift which extends from Turkey to East Africa. This rift contains extensive sulphur, bitumen deposits and oil springs. An argument that cannot surely be dismissed suggests that an earthquake with associated fires might have ignited these deposits and created an explosion with deadly consequences on these cities. Of course, this is not an open and shut argument but it merits consideration. Certainly, the alternative of wholesale slaughter leaves us with serious problems regarding the nature of God.

So what was the sin of Sodom? Frankly, I believe that the Scripture before us, offers no help in the debate on sexuality which seems to be going on within the Christian churches. There is all the difference in the world between the violence of rape and consensual sexual relationships. The seemingly unending debate on homosexuality will need to be based on other Scriptures than the story of Sodom.

I suggest that the story of Sodom rather than being related to Gay News is more relevant to Express Newspapers, the Daily Mail Group and News International. For the real issue seems to be based on hospitality and how we treat strangers from other places. The real sin of Sodom is that their welcome of those who came from outside, was devoid of any compassion whatsoever. More than that, foreigners who had come from outside were judging by the hostility shown by the citizens towards Lot, deprived of a right to challenge life denying orthodoxies. I ask you, do you not see echoes of such xenophobia in the way in which East Europeans, Asians, African and travellers are at times portrayed and treated in our country? And that is before we start to talk about people of other religions.

But hold it! An I concluding as I am our of a perverse agenda? Well, I remember being told many years ago that we should let Scripture interpret Scripture. And so I want to draw your attention to the ways that other Scriptures interpret the story of Sodom. Isaiah refers to Sodom in both the first and third chapters but in both cases, the reference is against a background of condemnation of injustices. Jeremiah in the twenty third chapter refers to Sodom but here it is in the context of a condemnation of the abuses of the Court prophets. As for the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, Jerusalem is Sodom’s sister because of a similar disposition. Says Ezekiel, Sodom and her daughters “had pride, excess of food and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” Within the New Testament, the Second Letter of Peter speaks of Sodom as “an example of what is coming to the ungodly” without telling us what the sin of Sodom was. Meanwhile Jude makes mention of “sexual immorality” and going after other flesh, presumably that of angels. This text has reference to the misuse of sexuality but we have always known that rape is both sexually immoral and inhospitable. But to me the most convincing text is to be found in the tenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus suggests that the places where the seventy two sent out on mission do not receive a welcome, face a future so bad that it “will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.”

In other words, the overriding Scriptural interpretation of the destruction of Sodom, is that the key issue is about welcoming of strangers. Oh, there are days when I wish that people would realise that the Bible has so much more to say about welcoming strangers and people from other lands than it has to say about our modern day obsession with sex. It really is time that we stopped using this story as an instrument of hatred and instead grab hold of the true message that we are called to be welcoming to those who are other than us. For in welcoming strangers we may be welcoming the very messengers of God.

And now having seen the liberating message of this story, just a moment on Abraham’s controversy with God. This dialogue is one which teaches us so much. Partly as a result of his nephew being in Sodom, Abraham urges God to save the city if a few righteous people can be found. As God acquiesces, Abraham keeps reducing the required number until eventually it goes down to a mere ten. I think there is a beauty in Abraham’s approach. He knows little of Sodom but he knows the value of human life and so he acts as a reminder to God to be merciful. In this, we are reminded that human lives matter so much. Today, we find it so easy to lump people into groups and so evade the issue of their humanity. Oh to rediscover the insight of Hannah Arendt who once said, “I don’t love groups. I can only love persons.” What a powerful corrective to our tendency to label people.

Not so long ago, I watched the occasional television programme, Sharia. On the panel was the Muslim gentleman who taught me about Islam for a year when we were in training. The issue of an Islamic nuclear bomb came up. He was dismissive of the notion. An Islamic bomb was he said, a contradiction in terms for such a weapon would be indiscriminate. After all the Quran says, “Anyone who kills a human being must be accounted to have killed all mankind.” It is as Mahatma Gandhi commented when asked for a reaction to the bomb that landed on Hiroshima, the atom bomb had “resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet to early to see.”

Abraham reminds us that for Christians, all human life is precious. Such an understanding impacts upon our attitude to weapons of mass destruction as well as upon a range of socio economic issues. But most importantly this evening, let us simply affirm the worth of all and the essential quality of mercy, a quality that we find honed to its fines level in Jesus Christ.

Going down Sodom Way offers us so many lessons as to what it means to be God’s people. They just aren’t the ones we might expect. But then, God’s love and way of inclusion has always surprised us.

May it go on doing so.


This sermon was preached on Sunday July 29th at Alverdiscott Methodist Church. The inspiration to tackle this subject was an infinitely superior sermon by Kim Fabricius.

Prayer as a means of change - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 11: 1 - 13

A boy in a small village for some reason best known to himself took to attending the weekly Prayer Meeting at the local Methodist church. Each week, the regulars would welcome him warmly when he arrived, always a few minutes late. Each week, he would listen to the prayers but never contribute himself. That is until a few weeks before Christmas when to everyone’s amazement he prayed out loud;

“Dear God, please give me a bike for Christmas so that I can get things from the shops for Mum.”

And week after week, he repeated that same prayer.

Now Christmas was drawing close and the faithful men and women at the prayer meeting began to get concerned. What would be the affect on the boy’s faith if at Christmas, there was no bike. So they got together and each of them put some money into a jar. To their joy, they found that the money they had given would go half way towards the boy getting the type of bike that he had told them he wanted. So they put the money in an envelope and delivered it to the boy’s home just a week before Christmas.

Christmas came and went. The New Year arrived and at the first gathering of the Prayer Meeting in the New Year, the people wondered what the boy’s response would be. Sure enough, the boy arrived a few minutes into the meeting and in no time they got their answer as he prayed;

“Dear God, thank you for giving the money for me to have a new bike. Only, next time, please don’t give it to the Methodists as they nicked half of it.”

What do we expect from prayer. Some people I have met seem to expect miracles on demand. I knew someone who was convinced that a prayer for a parking space would be answered with just such a parking space. Oh, I had to bite my tongue a time or two on that one. For what sort of God would be fail to prevent cruelties such as ethnic cleansings yet come running into action to meet requests that can best be seen as trivial.

And yet, prayer matters. Oh, I confess I have attended some pretty depressing prayer meetings in my time. I know what my late uncle meant when he spoke of prayer meetings that seemed to be a competition in who can use the floweriest language and quote the most remote Scriptures.

But still, this morning, I want to put the case that prayer does matter and is a means of bringing change. Listen for a moment to the words of the greatest of Hindu’s Mahatma Gandhi;

“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”

We see such an appreciation of the importance of prayer in Jesus. There is not a lot of teaching on prayer within the Gospels but the clues are everywhere that Jesus, especially in the stormy passages of life, makes time even in the hours when we would be most inclined to be asleep, to be in prayer before God. And now, in our Gospel reading, he encourages them to pray and in the Lord’s Prayer offers them a pattern to follow in praying.

Sometimes, I fear that we are too familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. We can recite it without a second thought and it feels so very homely. And yet, we lose a sense that this is a prayer which boldly challenges how we are often inclined to see God, the world and life.

This morning, we can but scratch the surface. Yet it is a surface that is revealing.

Firstly, we see what the Lord’s Prayer tells us of our relationship with God. And here, there is good news. God is not a distant figure such as a remote king or a patriarchal father who holds his family at arms length. God is so much closer and accessible as is revealed in Jesus having a preference for the intimate term, “Abba” is his addressing God. For Jesus would know of the abuse of power within society and within families. And he goes to great lengths to communicate that god is so different from such destructive understandings. There is a hallowing, a respect directed to God but this should not be seen as a cringing before God. On the contrary, our relationship with God is rooted in a respect which is both given and received. We are called into a healthy relationship with God which will be reflected in our other relationships.

And yet it affects how we see the world. Take note of the petition;

“Your Kingdom come.”

Sometimes, we can be accepting of the way that our world is ordered. We fall into the trap of thinking that it can be no other way. And in so doing, we ignore the claims of the Kingdom of God which Jesus came to proclaim. For this Kingdom is so different from the expressions of empire which litter our history books. Here is a new vision of what can be, a vision in which force, oppression and the power of capital give way to the path of peace in which each is recognised as being of value and worthy of consideration. Unrealistic, some may say. And yet, here is a vision which we are called to for in it is the recognition that every man woman and child is precious to the God who has given life to all. The emphasis on Me gives way in this way of seeing the world to a recognition that in Christ, there is a We.

And it also affects us in our daily living. For we are called to be sensitive to the needs of others seeking that the needs of others be met and that we be willing to exercise forgiveness and reconciliation in our relationships. We know there are times when this is hard and yet we know from experience that bitterness tends to reap a harvest in ever increasing circles of hatred.

But how does all of this work? During the week before last, our family went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Now please don’t ask me questions about it as I kept falling asleep during it. However, I do remember the power of the spells cast by the wizards. A wave of a wand and a shout of “Expelliarnus” seemed to create quite an impact. Well prayer is not like that. It is not a form of magic to be turned to when convenient. That is why Jesus goes on to talk about persistence in prayer.

Now I don’t want to rule out any possibilities in regards to the answering of prayer but I do want to suggest that prayer is primarily about our being connected to God who is always present. And that being connected with God is more about our being changed than it is about God being changed.

Let me use an example. “Shadowlands” is a film based on C.S. Lewis, the Oxford don who was quite a literary sensation years ago with his Narnia stories. In the film , he has fallen in love with Joy Gresham, an American woman. She has sadly developed a terminal illness and during her struggle for life, the love of Lewis and Joy has deepened. Now, at the hospital where she is being cared for, they have married.

Soon after, Lewis has arrived at the college where he taught and been met by his friend, Harry Harrington who is an Episcopalian priest. Harrington asks what news there is. Lewis replies speaking of the marriage rather than the illness;

“Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news.”

Harrington who is unaware of the mariage thinks that Lewis is referring to Joy’s medical situation and so he says;

“I know how hard you’ve been praying. Now God is answering your prayer.”

To which Lewis responds;

“That’s not why I pray Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God; it changes me.”

And in those words we see the reasons why we pray. We pray because we need to be in relationship with God, something we especially appreciate in out times of weakness. Prayer is the opening up of the means of communication and just as we need to communicate with and not just grunt at our significant others, our relationship with God requires communication or it can soon be dormant.

But in that communication, the greatest need is for us to be open to what God communicates to us. That is why the Quakers are on to something with their emphasis on silence. For it is in silence that we are best able to hear what God is saying to us. It is silence that we become open to being changed.

But back for a moment to the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t suppose that God has a desperate need to hear us saying those words. God, as it were, has heard it all before. The need is with us. For our need is to be connected with the nature of God and the nature of our calling to be God’s people. And then, we find before us the invitation to reimagine the world, our relationships and the possibilities before us. Through this prayer we are invited to live in a way that brings the signs of Christ’s liberation for others.

I know I can be cynical but I don’t believe in prayer as a means to find parking spaces. It is so much more than that. What prayer does is to change people. And then people can change all that is around them.


This sermon was preached at Bideford Methodist Church on Sunday July 29th 2007

Sisters - Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10: 38 - 42

There is an old story in which three women arrive at the Pearly Gates. One is a Roman Catholic, another is a Baptist and the third is a Methodist. Before deciding whether to let them in, St Peter says to them;

“I will need to see proof that you’re worthy of admission.”

The Roman Catholic holds up her rosary and is waved through. Next the Baptist holds up her Bible and is also waved through. The Methodist hands St Peter a dish and says;

“Don’t burn your tongue on the casserole.”

Yes, meeting the needs of our stomachs seems to be an important part of Methodist identity. Not for nothing does the Superintendent Minister of the Bideford Methodist Circuit, tell incoming ministers that the most important decision they will face is what to eat with their clotted cream. For Methodism is often like an army marching on its stomachs.

From our Bible reading, I guess that Martha would be inclined to identify with Methodism. We find her busy with the tasks that come from having a guest in the home. What these tasks were, we are not told but I can imagine her as being hard at work with whatever was the Palestinian equivalent of the casserole dish.

All well and good, we might think. But there is dissension within the house. Such is the level of Martha’s busyness, that she is described as being “distracted by her many tasks.” Meanwhile her sister Mary is failing to help Martha with those tasks, preferring instead to listen to the guest, Jesus.

Such is Martha’s irritation at the lack of help from her sister, that she asks Jesus to tell Mary to help out:

“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

And does not something within us sympathise with Martha’s complaint? After all is there not a degree of merit in the old adage;

“Many hands make light work.”

If Mary helped, Martha might also be free to spend some time with Jesus.

But now, Jesus takes the opportunity to surprise us. Instead of backing Martha’s complaint, he decides to take the side of the seemingly lazy Mary;

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

So what’s going on? Does Jesus really fail to understand and sympathise with Martha’s predicament? Surely, this is not fair!

But wait a moment! I think that what Jesus is doing here is not so much to chastise Martha as to help her. It is not that Martha is doing wrong things. Her problem is that she is becoming obsessed with her busyness. Everything has to be done immediately and properly. And it is stressing her out big time!

In this we begin to find that this story speaks very much to us today. We are part of a society that tends to honour doing rather than being. 24/7 activity is increasingly becoming the pattern in our cities so that we become more and more like New York, known as the “city that never sleeps.” And is that not a destructive road to walk down? No wonder, we are beginning to find people talking about our need to rediscover a proper work/life balance.

And this is not just the case in the world of commerce. Within the church, we can also be lured into a cult of busyness. Now of course, there are tasks within the church that need to be done. But is there not a danger that the demands of maintenance and meeting the bills are so overwhelming, that we are failing to adequately listen to God as well as failing to be about God’s mission?

Increasingly, it seems that we need to get away from the idea of doing things as we have always done them. Where our communities have got smaller, all this is doing is putting more and more pressures upon the willing so that like Martha, we become distracted and of little use.

Martha needs to learn to do things simply. She needs to appreciate that doing that which is good, can never be an adequate substitute for doing that which is best. Like us today, she needs to get a proper understanding of priorities.

How does this apply to us? There is a temptation to think of ourselves as being Marys or Marthas. That misses the whole point. You see, we are not being told that we must abandon the need to deal with the practicalities of life. Look at the history of the Jewish people and you find that hospitality quickly became a sacred responsibility. Even the famous story of Sodom and Gomorrah has far more to do with showing hospitality than with any debate about sex. Jesus himself was regularly involved in the receiving of hospitality and in the early days of the Christian church, we find seven deacons being set aside in order to attend to the needs of the poor. And throughout the two millennia that have followed, the practical provision of hospitality has been of great importance to Christians. And rightly so!

To have the right balance in our Christian lives, we need not so much to choose between Mary and Martha but to seek a healthy balance of both of them. For our calling is to be in communion with God and to serve God not so much as we have always done, but in response to the requirements of God’s Kingdom.

And there is something more of God’s Kingdom to note before we leave this story. Notice how Luke places this episode just after the Parable of the Good Samaritan. That parable has taught us that racial and religious barriers to God’s Kingdom are unacceptable. In today’s story, Jesus shows that gender barriers, are equally unacceptable. His own conduct in being alone with women who are not relatives, allowing a woman to serve him and teaching a woman in her own home, would have won him many a frown. More than that by allowing Mary to sit at his feet involved recognising her as a disciple. For here, another barrier is being dismantled. Whatever, the subsequent sins of the church against women, the message of Jesus is clear. Women no longer can be kept in the private spaces. They too can learn the good news of God and be followers every bit as much as men. Indeed part of the purpose for Jesus rebuking Martha is to draw her away from being the martyr who serves because if she doesn’t, nobody else will. The Kingdom is a place of gender equality! It is a place where fixed roles no longer exist and in which women are as free to find their calling as men. May God forgive the church when it fails to practice this!

This morning, let us embrace the good news that we are all called to play a part on God’s Kingdom. Amidst the practical services that are a part of discipleship, we need to remember that our spiritual life is rooted not so much in the frenzy of activity as it is in taking time to listen to God. And rather than being obsessed by busyness, we need to give God the chance to let us know when we need to change directions. For the journey upon which we have embarked is journey in which God shows us the way to connect with and to help others to connect with the wonder of Divine love.

Two sisters - Mary and Martha. Two sisters whose story shows us so much about fulfilling our desire to be God’s people today.


This sermon is being preached at Woolsery Methodist Church in the Bude Methodist Circuit on Sunday July 22nd 2007

Beyond traditionalism - Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 7: 1 - 23

I do not know what the word “tradition” means to you. For me the word conjures up conflicting responses.

You see, tradition can be a good thing. It reminds us of things that have gone before us . We do not have to reinvent the wheel for we are the heirs to a lot that has hapened before we were born. We inherit a story of our community, our country and its institutions albeit often in a somewhat doctored form. We inherit values and customs which are thought to be helpful for right conduct and for harmony

It is similar within the church. We treasure a tradition which goes back to the Scriptures and which has developed through the Apostles and 2,000 years of church history. Within Methodism, at times it seems as of we have a cult of veneration of the Wesley brothers with even now candidates for the office of local preacher and the ordained ministry being examined on what are now rather dated sermons by John Wesley.

Now I don’t want to decry tradition. In a sense it reminds us of who we are and of our reason for being. As the President of the Methodist Conference, Martyn Atkins, would put it, there is great value in knowing our DNA. And yet when we become obsessed with tradition, it can become every bit as stifling as a hangman’s noose. For all too often the problem is not one of honouring tradition and learning from it but of being fossilised in one particular bit of tradition.

Back in the 1960s, Bob Dylan sang, “The times, they are a changing.” And in those words lie the problem with traditionalism. The problem of traditionalism is that it still seeks to impose yesterday’s answers on today’s questions. And this fails when we consider that we are living through a time of unparalleled social change.

Back for a moment to Martyn Atkins. I heard Martyn speaking a few weeks ago at Edgehill College’s Speech Day. There, he told us of an organisation in America that had run childrens’ orphanages. There came a time when these orphanages began to empty and it seemed as it was time to give up. That was until the archivist of the organisation told them of the story of how the organisation had begun. The orphanages had been a response to the problem of abandoned and neglected children. Responding to this need was their DNA. But now the old means of addressing the problem had come to an end. Yet, children were still facing problems and so the organisation dared to express its DNA in a new way by turning what had been orphanages into Day Centres where they were able put on a range of childrens’ activities and parenting classes. Had they abandoned their calling? No! What had happened was that they were implementing what John Prescott (even St John Prescott) has called “traditional values in a modern setting.”

So, where does this leave the church? Well whilst we should not think of ignoring or jettisoning our past, we do need to be also about the questioning of how we can remain true to our DNA in a modern setting? And traditionalism or seeking a return to past glories is not a viable option. For too often, the last words of the dying church have been;

“We’ve always done it this way.”

This doesn’t mean that there are not treasures from the past that we need to be reacquainted with. Indeed the “emerging church” movement has found value in revisiting traditions that have been long discarded. But it does mean that we need to explore the possibilities of “fresh expressions” of being church as we seek to envision what the church of Christ will be in the post modernity of the west.

And yet, we are not the first people to face the challenge of how we respond to tradition. The question of tradition is at the heart of the clash between the Pharisees and Jesus in our Gospel reading. You see, back in the desert days, the Israelites had developed a concern for purity. The law given to Moses includes what is known as the Purity Code. Some of this concerned hygiene. Some of it was commonsense and included the sorts of things which we gladly follow today. Much of it related to forming a people who would be very much a nation under God. However, by the time of Jesus, much of this Law would seem to have served its time. Indeed, too often, that which was the basis of the foundation of Israel, now served the purpose of nationalising God as Lord of but one people.

In our Gospel reading, a group of Pharisees (unrepresentative as research suggests that their view was more extreme than most Judaism or Pharisaism of that time) challenge Jesus over his disciples eating without carrying out ritual hand washing to guard against impurity. The consequence is that things kick off big time for Jesus immediately accuses them of hypocrisy quoting from Isaiah of a people who worship with their lips but with hearts that are far away. Then he adds the killer punch;

“You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

And to reinforce the point, he reminds them of the law of Corban, through which people were encouraged to dedicate their estates to the Temple which meant that they were frozen until death so that they could not be used to meet the needs of dependent parents. So much for honouring one’s mother and father!

But what is really at stake in this clash? I think the real problem is that ritual purity had become a means of keeping outsiders as precisely that. It was a means of maintaining a sort of holy huddle which kept so many out. The radical message of Jesus is that God’s love is for all. This means that our barriers need to be broken down. Listen for a moment to Garry Will as he writes of the inclusive love of God;

“No outcasts were cast out far enough in Jesus’ world to make him shun them - not Roman collaborators, not lepers, not prostitutes, not the crazed, not the possessed. Are there people now who could possibly be outside his encompassing love?”

And too often, the church has barred the doors on people. For long it was the Jews and there is a guilt that the Christian church must bear for the terrible events of the 1940s. Often today, the barriers are erected against gay people or the new enemy, Muslims. And others come to mind who have too often seemed to be rejected - the poor, those who have been married on a number of occasions, those who are mentally ill. And we could add others whom we might be tempted to think of as outsiders.

And yet, the message of Jesus is that true religion must hold on to the humanity of all peoples and encourage all to see that they are the recipients of Divine love. If the religious traditions to which we give our allegiances, serve to be an obstacle to love and compassion, then we need to revisit our theology.

We are the heirs and respecters of tradition. Yet the challenge that we face today is be constantly reinterpreting tradition in such a way that the God of love is accessible to all manner of peoples. It is not good enough to say that we will go on as we always have done. Our calling is to serve the present age. And if our traditions, be they how we worship or the message we share, are barriers, then such traditions need to be let go. And in these things there is little that is new. For the church at its best has always been prepared to question the place at which it is. Why should we be different?

May we respect what has been handed down to us whilst being prepared to move with God beyond traditionalism?


This sermon was preached at Torrington Methodist Church on Sunday July 15th 2007

The Good Samaritan - Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10: 25 - 37

It’s a big question. One of the experts in the Law of Israel, asks Jesus;

“Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Too often today, we interpret those words as a request for information as to how to have life beyond death. And indeed there is an element of that in the question. But what we too often miss out on in our “Me, me me” world, is that “eternal life” would have been understood as being not just about continued existence beyond the grave, but as being about a quality of life in the present - a quality of life that is about sharing in the life of God. It is about being all that God would have us be in this world as much as beyond.

So what does Jesus do? Well, firstly, he points the expert to the Law which he has studied.

“What is written in the Law? How do you read it?

At this, the expert replies by affirming the same pieces of Old Testament Law which Jesus is recorded in the other Gospels as affirming as the greatest of the commandments;

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,’ and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ”

So far, so good. But the expert wants to delve further and to question Jesus as to who is his neighbour. And it is at this point that Jesus tells what we know as “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” - a story which would have challenged the expert’s worldview. A story which if we will but dare to release it from familiarity and being made safe, potentially completely change how we see the meaning of life.

Let’s for a moment consider the characters in this story.

Firstly, there is the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. We know nothing about him. His race and background are blank pages. All we know is that he would seem to have been foolish because the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho was a road that was very steep with plenty of twists and turns. It was the happy hunting ground of brigands, a place of danger. And it was on this road that the traveller received a mighty beating.

Yes, this traveller can be seen as any man or even as a nobody with all the markers as to his identity taken from him by his assailants And too often then as now, those without the trappings of status so often counted for precious little.

And yet there would seem to be hope. We are told of two men who see this injured man. Those listening would expect a happy outcome for both of these men were the religious professionals of that time - a priest and a levite. Why they didn’t help we are not told. It may be because they feared that the battered traveller was a decoy to enable further injuries to be visited upon them, something we know all too well in the stories of terror that we hear of today. But I think it is more likely that the reason for their failing to help the battered man is more likely to be religious. You see, the priests served in Jerusalem’s Temple. They had to be ritually pure to perform the services that were required of them in two week shifts. To return home as “unclean” would have been quite some embarrassment. Yet, this would have been the case if he had contact with a dead body.

And then what about the levite? Well, all priests were levites but not all levites were priests. Still, even those levites who were not priests tended to be men of high religious standing, often rabbis. They were part of Israel’s religious elite. And yet, following the priest, the levite goes a little closer but ultimately follows the example of the priest in not helping the traveller.

And here we find ourselves encountering a dilemma that has reverberated down the years. It is the dilemma when people feel that what God wants should have priority over human kindness and compassion. We all know of religious wars waged by earnest religious people down the centuries. We all know of cruelties meted out by devoutly religious people upon those who in some way especially in the field of sexuality, have not conformed to what these religious people see as truth. We all know of sincerely religious people who put the institution of the church or forms of observance ahead of basic humanity and compassion. Yes, the example of priest and levite is an example that has all too often been repeated.

But this is an example that is in no way applauded by Jesus in his story. At the end, priest and levite alike have failed to be good neighbours. For one of the messages of this parable is that loving the “neighbour” is not secondary to loving God. On the contrary, this parable reminds us that the most helpful picture of God is of a Being who is all loving and who is constantly engaged in pouring out such love. So love and compassion for others is not so much about an obligation as it is about our being invited to participate and share in the life and being of God.

But back to the parable. There now appears another passerby. This person is a Samaritan. Imagine for a moment, the horror that this would have struck in the mind of those who were listening to Jesus. It is as if the pantomime villain has arrived upon the stage. For there was a long history of enmity between Jews and Samaritans going back several hundreds of years to the time when Assyrian invaders deported the elite in Northern Israel leaving behind the less important people who eventually mingled with the foreigners who the Assyrians brought in to repopulate the land. Inevitably, there were wrongs on both sides. There were rival temples. There were wrongs done by both peoples and ultimately the conflict was in part religious and in part racial. Indeed, in John’s Gospel, when the enemies of Jesus wish to discredit him, they say;

“Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

Whilst when a Samaritan village does not receive Jesus, his disciples, James and John ask;

“ Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them.”


Oh yes, it was a bitter conflict all right! But in this story, we find that the Samaritan does what priest and levite fail to do. He shows compassion and attends to the man’s needs. He, the outsider, fulfils the role of neighbour.

So what does this story say to us today? Like ancient Israel, we still erect barriers. Day after day, we see the reality of racial exclusion. Just look at what some of our newspapers spew up in terms of hatred of asylum seekers. Day after day, we see the reality of religious hatred. So often, we see attempts to increase divisions between different faiths - many increasingly becoming experts in an Alf Garnett sort of way regarding Muslims. And the list could go on! But Jesus in this parable defies our traditions of building walls between insiders and outsiders. For all the rainbow people of our planet are in the light of this parable to be seen as neighbours. We need to see, to appreciate and to embrace the whole human community which we are called to be in relationship with.

But finally, there is one more subversive twist in the story. Not only is the Samaritan a neighbour in our story. He is also the Christ figure in our story. See him bandaging the wounds and pouring oil and wine upon them. See the limitlessness of his compassion. And is that not a picture of Jesus. For when we feel battered, down and out, Jesus reaches out in loving kindness to us, to put us right and to fix us that we might once more embrace life and participate in the cycle of kindness of which he is the author.

In Christ we have the ultimate good neighbour. And in kindness, he invites us to share in his life.


This sermon was preached at Alwington on Sunday July 15th 2007

Keep your eyes on the road - Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 9: 51 - 62

Back seat drivers - don’t you love them! Well I am married to such a person. When I am in the driver’s seat, as my head begins to move around with my eyes looking at things to either side of the car, I am regularly given the abrupt message;

“Keep your eyes on the road!”

Now it goes without saying that I respond to this with a sharp retort followed by the moodiest silence that I can muster.

And yet (don’t let her know that I have admitted this) I have to concede that she is normally right. For the danger with my attention span being at a level of an under developed amoeba is that my drifting across the road may eventually put myself and others at mortal risk.

“Keep your eyes on the road!”

You know, it’s a bit like that with our following Jesus. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we are called on to give up our capacity for rational thinking or in any way to become Christian automatons. No way! But it does suggest that we have to develop a sense of focus as we live out our spiritual lives.

And such a need is by no means new. Indeed it is at the heart of the Gospel reading we have heard this evening. And I want for us to glimpse two ways in which we can be blown of course.

The first danger comes with a misplaced enthusiasm. The context we find offered to us by Luke is that Jesus has met with rejection in a Samaritan town. These Samaritans would be the descendants of a mixture of Jews whom the conquering Assyrian seven and a half centuries earlier had deemed too insignificant to deport to Babylon, and the Gentile people whom the Assyrians had settled in Palestine. Bitter rivalry between Jews and Samaritans had existed for half a millenia. And yet, in Luke’s Gospel, we normally see a good relationship between Jesus and Samaritans.

But here, that harmony comes to an end because Jesus was heading to Jerusalem where many a Samaritan grievance was directed. Now James and John, Sons of Thunder, live up to their reputations. They have seen Jesus rejected and so they seek payback time;

“Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them.”

Chill at those words for those are the words of religious fanaticism, that belief that justifies violence in the name of that which is perceived as truth. It is the voice of twisted religion and yet sickeningly it is a voice that has been heeded by zealous followers of every religion at various points in history.

Too often today, we think of fanaticism merely in terms of Islam and whilst Islam has its fair share of problems to face, it is hardly alone. Christian anti Semitism has reared its head with devastating results down the years leading to a Holocaust. The crusader mentality has threatened particularly Muslims in the East. And in the founding of the Americas, conversion has all too often come with the threat of bloodshed. Indeed, we have barely scratched the surface of that particular tragedy.

But here, Jesus rejects such voices of fanatical violence. He is not in the business of coercion. For his way is to be the path of loving rather than of hating. He is in the business of building bridges rather than erecting walls. He rejects once and for all that darkest of myths, the myth of redemptive violence which sees violence as a means by which good is done.

One of the greatest dangers that faces Christianity today is the temptation to resort to a bunker mentality that sees threats all around. The mentality that sees as enemies all those who think differently or who adopt a different lifestyle, is a mentality which however devoutly held is in conflict with the way of Jesus.

May God deliver us from unthinking fanaticism that diverts us from the path of Christ.

But then there is a very different diversion. It is the diversion of half hearted discipleship. This may be the following of Jesus which is done with a good understanding but it fails to give following Jesus the priority that it demands. Here we find people with a good and proper desire to follow Jesus but they keep looking back. They have unfinished business before they can follow Jesus.
This is one of those scriptures in which Jesus seems to be upping the demands in a way that we find disconcerting. Let’s just see them one by one.

Firstly a man says to Jesus;

“I will follow you wherever you go.”

So far so good we might say. But Jesus replies by saying;

“Foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of God has nowhere to lay his head.”

What is Jesus playing at? Well perhaps he is drawing the man’s attention to the insecurities of being a follower of Jesus. For just as Jesus lived out his ministry in a state of radical dependence, so too will the follower be in a situation in which he may miss out on the things that attract the highly aspirational. To follow Jesus means being on a journey in which we put comforts and notions of success on the backburner for Jesus himself let these things go.

Next another man says to Jesus;

“Lord first let me go and bury my father.”

Fair enough, most of us would reply but Jesus responds;

“Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

And everyone of you knows that if I said this to someone recently bereaved, I would soon be looking for a new job and rightly so. After all, to bury one’s parents is the last act of honour that we can give them and is something that Jewish people certainly took seriously.

I can only conclude that there is an element of shock treatment here. Maybe we sometimes put family or religious duties ahead of the Kingdom of God. And to correct this excuse for not getting on with God’s Kingdom, Jesus throws out the hyperbole big time.

But he’s not finished yet. For there is another man who says to him;

“I will follow you Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family.”

Once more it sounds reasonable but Jesus is having none of it;

“No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.”

Wow! Even Elijah allowed Elisha to say farewell to his folks. This sounds unreasonable but is it?

Well in one sense it is but in another sense, Jesus is reminding them that to follow him means keeping our eyes on the road. If I drive with my eyes looking back through the mirror, I will never be fully committed to going forwards. And that is what this teaching is all about. To reduce it to literalism is as is so often the case, to do a violence to Scripture. We know that Jesus is committed to community and family - his own life shows this - but too often these things are used as excuses that act as barriers to the path of radical discipleship to which Jesus calls us. That discipleship will inevitably draw us into a wider circle than merely Me and Mine. It draws us into a communion with all the losers and sufferers in our world for it is with such people that Jesus is to be found.

Jesus calls on you and me to follow him unconditionally. If we place conditions, our discipleship is of no use. But as we give ourselves to Jesus and his Kingdom, we do so to a community that must be rooted in love even when such is contrary to our instincts. It is indeed a serious and demanding calling. No wonder we need the important warning;

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

In a few minutes we shall respond to the invitation of Jesus to come to his Table. There we once more are connected to his love and there we receive his help. For that help is absolutely necessary if we are to be the all loving ever faithful followers of Jesus that we are called to be. For we know that we need all the help we can get to;

“Keep our eyes on the road.”


This sermon was preached at Northam Methodist Church on Sunday July 1st 2007