I thought this morning that I would begin by telling you a little bit about what I was doing last weekend when I was not here.
 
As many of you know, I have served as the Secretary of the Europe Area of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. When we have meetings, we try to go and visit one of our member churches, to learn about what they are doing and to offer encouragement and solidarity in difficult situations they are facing.
 
Last weekend, we visited our most northerly member church, the Uniting Church in Sweden. I had long been agitating to go and visit them, because I think they are a very interesting church and also because I like the experience of really, really cold weather and I high hopes for that in January in Sweden.
 
On one count, I was disappointed. It was really no colder than here. But on the other count, I was absolutely right. Their story is both interesting and inspiring.
 
The Uniting Church in Sweden is the most recently established church in Sweden. It was formed just six years ago, in 2011 but, as the name implies, it is not brand new. It has been formed from bringing three churches together. One of those churches, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, which itself grew out of a revival movement within the Lutheran Church of Sweden in the 1870s, was a part of the World Communion of Reformed Churches and its predecessor organisation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. It is the part of the Uniting Church which would traditionally be most closely related to us in theology and practice. The other partners to the union are the Baptist Union of Sweden and the United Methodist Church of Sweden.
 
To someone interested in church structures and theologies, this is fascinating. How can you bring together and hold together one two churches which practice infant baptism with a church which rejects infant baptism? With difficulty, but it can be done, by agreeing to live with difference. The part of the Uniting Church of Sweden which rejects infant baptism agreed not to seek to re-baptise adults who had been baptised as children even though it does not really recognise the validity of infant baptism. This is an act of great ecumenical generosity, made for the overall good of the church as a whole.
 
In the process of coming together, valuing tradition and cherishing identity were important. Individual congregations of the Uniting Church were free to keep their old names – Baptist, Methodist and Mission Covenant. But more and more, over the last six years, congregations are choosing to change to the new name. More and more, the worship traditions of each of the partners are being shared by the whole church. It is growing into a new identity. It is a church which is uniting, not claiming to be united. This speaks of moving forward, of hope, of growing trust and deepening love.
 
I’m sure you are all as fascinated as I am by church structure, but there’s more to the story of the Uniting Church in Sweden than that. There are 760 congregations spread across the whole country, with a total of 70,000 members, meaning that the average size of a congregation is about a hundred. But here’s something that surprised us. Another 130,000 people are involved in the activities of the church. Not members, but people involved. I expect my friends on the Committee were, like me, thinking about all the members of our churches who are not involved in the life of the church. How do they do it?
 
I suspect that there are lots of answers to that. But let me offer a few.
 
The first is, as I have been saying, is that this is a church which is visibly and deliberately coming together. Slowly, carefully and respectfully, they are dismantling the barriers which have normally kept denominations apart. They are not trying to preserve the past for its own sake but are building something new on the foundations which were laid down by the different churches which have come together. They are respecting and valuing and making space for the traditions and the styles and practices of each congregation, not forcing change, not trying to homogenise things that are incompatible but valuing diversity.
 
The second is that this is a consciously liberal church. Certainly there is a variety of opinion within it. Churches which do not have that are sects, not churches. In the Uniting Church in Sweden, there is freedom to think and believe and practice faith in the way that seems right to each member. Broadly speaking, though, the church as a whole is theologically liberal which means that it is not inwardly focussed, not consumed with theological power struggles as so many other churches, not least the Church of Scotland, are. Sweden is a broadly liberal country, and this is a church which is quite in tune with the way many people think. That’s not to say that the general population is religious, quite the opposite, but they see in the Uniting Church a church which reflects generally held concerns across Swedish society, particularly concerns for justice and equality.
 
But by far the most significant thing, and this came out again and again with everyone we met, is that this is an outward looking church. Many congregations are engaged in active work on diversity issues, promoting the rights of women, youth, minorities, supporting the struggle for justice for all, not only in Sweden but in twenty-seven countries around the world where there are active partnerships. Over a hundred congregations are involved actively in working with refugees and new immigrants. Informal Swedish language classes, run by volunteers, are a staple of many congregations in a country which has welcomed hundreds of thousands of “new Swedes” as they call them in recent years. Literally thousands of church members are starting from the presumption that new Swedes are friends, and then living and working to make that a deep reality.
 
We saw one extraordinary example. In addition to all the work done by congregations, the church runs a refugee integration centre in Uppsala which we were privileged to visit. Over three hundred people at a time are being taught the skills needed to be Swedes in Swedish society, from the language to riding a bicycle to learning how to use a computer to understanding Swedish law and culture to learning the norms of parenting. For instance, if you hit your child in Sweden, you’ve committed a criminal offence, but many are coming from places where physical punishment is accepted. Even more challenging is the fact that many families arriving in Sweden have endured the trauma of war, long periods of separation, and have not had the chance to develop normal relationships with their children because their focus has had to be only on survival. We heard of a man from Aleppo who’d found it difficult to sleep at first in Sweden. It was so quiet without the constant sound of bombs exploding. Another told us of his journey on foot, by smugglers’ boat and lorry, and by prison van from Afghanistan to be reunited with his wife and daughter. “How could you do it?” we asked, facing such danger, hiding in forests from the authorities, cutting border fences, experiencing arrest and deportation. “I wanted to be a father to my daughter,” he replied.
 
The World Communion of Reformed Churches is very thankful for the work and witness of the Uniting Church in Sweden, and for similar work being done in many member churches. January is a time when we often try to think about church unity and to me, what I saw last weekend is really what church unity is about. It is about coming together as churches in a way which values different perspectives and it is about coming together to serve the world, not for the sake of the church, not to be seen to be doing good works, but for the sake of people in need. Only a church which lives the message of unity in its own being can authentically demonstrate Christ’s message of unity to the world, a message which there is an increasingly desperate need for the world to hear. We have much to learn, and much work to do.
 
Amen.

 
What are you looking for? Where have we heard this kind of thing before? Maybe that’s not a fair question because, in a way, we have not heard it yet. But this question of Jesus to two of John’s disciples reminds me of the question the angels ask of the women at the empty tomb. And the answer in both instances is ‘Jesus’.
 
But John’s disciples could not have given that answer. They were not looking for Jesus. They were looking for the Messiah, the anointed one of God, who would save the people. But in looking for the Messiah, they found him in Jesus, the man pointed out to them by their friend and teacher, John the Baptist.
 
This week, we are following on from the story we read last week, but not from the same gospel. Last week we read from Matthew about Jesus’ baptism. This week, we move to John, who always has a different angle. Matthew tells us that he knew that Jesus was the Son of God before he came for baptism. Luke goes back further, saying that John recognised Jesus before either were born. But the Fourth Gospel tells a different story, that it was only as John saw the dove, the Holy Spirit, descend upon Jesus that he fully understood.
 
Do these differences matter? Probably not a lot. But the Fourth Gospel casts John very firmly as the last and possibly greatest of the prophets, those who had looked forward in faith to the coming of the Christ, who had laboured to prepare the people. Finally, John was able to say, “Here he is. Behold the Lamb of God.”
 
In many respects, Christmas is over for another year. We spoke last week of how all the paraphernalia was away, boxed up till next December. But the church, in its worship, is not in quite so much of a hurry. The central feature of Christmas, which is both truth and mystery, is still before us. We are still being directed by our Bible readings to contemplate the Incarnation. We’ve heard it announced by angels to shepherds; we’ve seen wise men offer their gifts and their worship; we’ve listened as it was confirmed by a voice from heaven announcing that Jesus is God’s son, with whom God is well pleased. Now here, the Baptist is telling his disciples, “Here is the one for whom the generations have waited. Here is the one for whom you are looking.”
 
While this passage from the Fourth Gospel looks back to and reflects upon the baptism of Jesus, it also looks forward to other stories of Jesus calling disciples. But, as so often with the Fourth Gospel, this is presented rather differently. There is no sense of Jesus deliberately picking people that we get from the other Gospels. Rather, it is John who gives a gentle nudge. He’s handing over. He’s done what he was to do. He has found the Messiah. And a new, different journey of discipleship begins for Andrew, possibly too for the other unnamed disciple of John’s, and certainly from Simon, Andrew’s brother, of whose relationship with John we know nothing.
 
But the fact is, these people, and later others, enter into a relationship with Jesus. It is a relationship of many things – travelling companions, helpers, friends, disciples. And that last one is such an important one within the life of faith that we need to pause and think a little more about what it means.
 
And to do that, I want to put before you two Bible verses which we’ve not read this morning but which I’m sure you’ll know very well. One is the Greatest Commandment and the other is the Great Commission.
 
Discipleship has many elements including sharing common life, and learning. These are things that traditionally the church has emphasised. Our life of discipleship focuses very heavily on learning about Jesus together in community. Over the coming weeks, we’ll read many stories of the disciples learning from Jesus and one of the occasions we’ll hear about is them asking what the greatest commandment is. Jesus told them that it is, ‘to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind and to love your neighbour as yourself.’
 
Love is the core of the greatest commandment. It is not difficult to see why. God is love. It is love which binds Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As the hymn we sometimes sing says, “Love is what God is for love is of God.” To accept the call to discipleship is to accept the call to love.
 
The Great Commission, though, says this: “Go into all the world, and make disciples of all nations.” It is interesting how both of these verses are called ‘great’, but Jesus himself only called the commandments to love ‘great’. And that maybe ought to make us wary. Because the church has not always been great at making disciples. Very often, it has given this confusing message – God loves you unconditionally but you’ve got to change; to do this, that and the next thing, to believe this, that and the other. You see how that’s confusing? How can love be unconditional if it demands change? It can’t be. Somehow, the extraordinary power of love has been downplayed, pushed aside by caveats which make the loving less demanding.
 
In this wee story, there are two little signs of how love was all important to Jesus’ practice of discipling. First is Jesus’ unconditional invitation to Andrew and the other disciple to come and spend the day with him. “Come and see where I’m staying. Come and be my friend.” And the next comes when Simon is introduced to Jesus by his brother. Straightaway, he gives them the nickname, ‘Rock’, basically saying to Simon, ‘I see you can be strong, you can be reliable; you’re all right.’ It is an affirmation of Simon given in love.
 
Many of you will be familiar with these words, and attributed to St Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Spanish mystic.
 
Christ has no body but yours,
no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
in compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
 
These are words about discipleship, about loving and serving, and they are also words about incarnation, about Christ’s disciples incarnating him on earth. They are words about being like Jesus, doing his work, living in his way, loving as he loves. But we should not try to take this too far, as we can be tempted to do. There are things about Jesus we cannot imitate. We can imitate his humanity, but his divinity is not ours to emulate. Yet there can be the temptation, and this probably afflicts clergy more than most, to feel that if the world needs to be saved, it is us who have to save it. No we don’t. Christ has saved it. That’s not what he calls us to discipleship to do. He calls us to love the world as he does, unconditionally.
 
There is a sense in this story of a passing of the baton, from John to Jesus. But perhaps we should not let ourselves move on from John altogether. Perhaps more consciously we should imitate him by trying to be people who point to Jesus.
 
But because Jesus is no longer walking by, we have no means to point to him except with our love, our love for him, but most especially, our love for one another and for the whole of humanity which is so deeply loved by God.
 
Amen.

 
The church looks a little different today. Gone is the Christmas tree. Gone are the Advent candles. The pulpit falls are green rather than white. Gone are the flowers which adorned our pillars. The prettiness, the decoration is away. The church is back to normal.
 
And is church life back to normal too? Perhaps. We’ve put away the Christmas carols and are back to singing normal hymns. For me, after a couple of weeks without meetings and sometimes being unsure of which day of the week it was, I find this week is well filled already, and the normal pattern is resumed.
 
To some, all this may come as a relief. The disturbance of Christmas is over. In some ways, I like to get back to normal. In some ways, I prefer the predictable patterns, the working week laid out in its usual way, the pattern of Sunday worship comfortingly familiar. But wait a moment. What did I say? The disturbance of Christmas is over? Most assuredly, it should not be.
 
Much as I like my Christmas tree at home, and glad as I am to get it away and the dropped needles hoovered up, that's not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the profound disturbance that Christmas teaches us about, but which is so often so effectively obscured by the way we celebrate it. I’m talking about the profound disturbance of the natural created order, of the breaking of the division between heaven and earth, of the destruction of the distinction between divinity and humanity that occurred in real historical time, in a real historical place, in Bethlehem, a little over 2000 years ago. Our focus on stars and angels, on shepherds and wise men, on the pretty little nativity scene, on the cooing over the baby, can obscure the real impact of the truth that, at that time, God came to earth, not as God but as a human being; and it can distract us from realising the implications of this extraordinary act.
 
Today our Gospel text describes for us the baptism of Jesus. Only it doesn't. Matthew is a fascinating writer. He's always got something going on which can be hard to spot at first, but which is crucial to the story he is trying to tell. And what he’s doing here is talking about incarnation, but doing it in the context of Jesus’ baptism.
 
Let me unpick that a bit. When I say Matthew doesn't tell us about the baptism of Jesus, what I mean is that he doesn't say Jesus went down into the water. He doesn't say if John said any words over him. He doesn't say whether he was immersed or sprinkled with water. What he does tell us about is a conversation beforehand, a conversation between Jesus and John.
 
We need to put that in context. John had a particular understanding of what he was doing. The baptism he was offering was a ritual purification, an outward sign undertaken by people who had heard and accepted his call to repentance, who had decided, under his teaching, to turn their lives around, to renounce sin. John, and all the people who came to him, understood this. Doubtless, Jesus understood this to, but he also understood it in a different way, but we’ll come back to that. John didn’t realise that, hence his reluctance to baptise Jesus.
 
John had a theological understanding of Jesus at that point which was unique to him, but which all followers of Christ now accept. He understood that Jesus was God incarnate, the real God in actual human form. He knew that God was holy and without sin. How then could God incarnate require a baptism for the washing away of sin?
 
Well, clearly, he couldn't. But it was not for that that Jesus came to John at the Jordan. He came as a sign of commissioning, of setting out on his journey of ministry. We’ve noted a couple of times in the last few weeks how heavily Matthew drew on the stories of Moses in telling the story of Jesus. So, as the children of Israel left behind their life in Egypt and passed to the waters of the Red Sea, trusting in the guidance of God to lead them to do what he wanted them to do and to be where he wanted them to be, so Jesus passes through the waters of Jordan from his old life of anonymity to his testing, turbulent life of gospel ministry. And in this, he redefines John’s style of baptism, and gives us the style we practice in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for our baptism is a commissioning to ministry and service in Christ’s name.
 
So what of the conversation between Jesus and John which is really the focus of Matthew’s account? John's question to Jesus is a question about his own perceived unworthiness to baptise the son of God. Who am I that you should come to me?
 
That really is the question which lies at the heart of the mystery of the incarnation. His name shall be called Emmanuel – God with us – but who are we that God should want to be with us? Even more startling, who are we that God should choose to be one of us, incarnated fully in all that it means to be human, not least to know suffering? The answer is that we are no more worthy on our own account than John was, but that our worth derives wholly and completely from the fact of God’s choice, God’s choice to create us and God’s choice, in Christ, to redeem us.
 
The fact is that God has chosen to be with us. This is the profound disturbance of Christmas. For Christmas is the point that everything changes. The incarnation of God in Christ not only brings the divine into the human, it calls the human into the divine. It changes us as much as it changes God. It brings heaven to earth and earth into heaven. We may ask: who are we that God should do this for us? God’s answer is this – you are mine.
 
We are his. And everything that happens in the gospel from this point on, everything that Jesus says, everything that Jesus does, unfolds to us what belonging to God means.
 
Amen.
 
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This sermon is heavily indebted to an article by Josh Way published on patheos.com and accessed through the Unfundamentalist Christians page on Facebook. It quotes freely and extensively from it. For the full article, please see:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2015/12/why-two-christmas-stories-are-better-than-one/
 
Now the birth of Jesus took place . . . in which way?
 
Next week, we will do what we often do, and as many other churches do. We will trace the story of the birth of Jesus in reading and in carols and in reflection. This is the story we shall tell again: how an angel appeared to Mary and announced that she would bear a son, how she and Joseph journeyed to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in a stable, because there was no room at the inn. We’ll read about the visit of the shepherds, followed by the visit of the Magi, and we’ll remember that King Herod, filled with wrath, ordered the slaughter of every baby boy, but that Jesus escaped by being taken by Mary and Joseph into Egypt. It is all very familiar. But it will be a mash-up. Because this story does not occur in the Bible. Every bit of it does, but not together, and not actually in that order. Centuries of Christian tradition have taken two quite separate and distinct stories about the birth of Jesus and blended them into one, trying to harmonise them along the way.
 
This service is about separating them out, in order to learn their distinctive lessons.
 
Here are some questions we might like to ponder:
 
Why are there only two accounts of Jesus’ birth? There are four gospels, after all. Why is there not one other single reference to the nativity or the virgin birth anywhere else in the New Testament?
 
Why do Matthew and Luke give such wildly different genealogies for Jesus?
 
Why is the angelic annunciation given to Joseph in Matthew’s Gospel, but to Mary in Luke’s? And why is the story told entirely from Joseph’s perspective by Matthew and entirely from Mary’s by Luke?
 
Matthew assumes that Mary and Joseph live in Bethlehem, but Luke says they live in Nazareth and them provides a fairly unlikely reason for them to have to travel to Bethlehem. Why should this be?
 
Why does Luke never mention Herod’s anger and the flight to Egypt?
 
Why does Luke omit the Magi while Matthew says nothing of the shepherds?
 
And why do so many in Luke’s account break into song at some point or another – Mary in response to the angel’s announcement, Zechariah in response to the birth of his son John the Baptist, the whole heavenly host in response to the birth of Jesus, the shepherds in response to seeing the baby in the manger, yet not one note of music is heard in Matthew’s version?
 
These questions cannot be answered, but thinking about the issues they raise will lead us to appreciating anew the unique message of each story. We must not think that Matthew and Luke were each counting on the other to fill in their own blanks. They weren’t. They were presenting truth as they saw it. Truth, not history, and that’s an important distinction, though a difficult one for modern minds to comprehend. Though the stories are very different, we must not conclude that either of them are wrong, even when they contradict one another. Rather, each was trying to say something different.
 
Matthew’s story
 
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.”
 
Matthew sounds very clear, very definite, but this is not, actually the beginning of his account of the birth of Jesus. This is Chapter 1, verse 18, but we never read the first seventeen verses. And there’s a good reason for that. They consist of an elaborately constructed genealogy of Jesus, starting with Abraham, working down through Isaac and Jacob and Judah to David and Solomon and on through the generations to Joseph.
 
It is a passage leading to a particular conclusion, which is then sidestepped at the last moment. The ancestry of Jesus is traced through the male line, with name after name being described as the father of the one that comes next. But when it reaches Joseph, all it says is that he was the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. But in Matthew’s story, it is Joseph who is key.
 
He is not, though, the only interesting name in the list. We recognise a few of the more prominent men, but many of the names mean little to us, though they all appear in the Old Testament. However, hidden among all these fathers and sons are five women, and their inclusion is very interesting. There’s Tamar who was left childless when her husband Judah died. By subterfuge, she seduced her father-in-law, none of Judah’s brothers being willing to marry her, and thus secured the continuation of Judah’s name, as was the custom of the time. Her descendants went on to be the most powerful tribe of Israel. Then there’s Rahab, a gentile prostitute who played a pivotal role in the siege of Jericho, the fall of which opened the way for the children of Israel to enter the promised land. She became incorporated into the Israelite people and an example of courage and faithfulness to later generations. Then there’s Ruth, a woman from Moab, a people the Israelites hated, who put her trust in the God of Israel, married an Israelite and became the great grandmother of King David. Then there is Bathsheba, referred to not by name but as Uriah’s wife, who was raped by David. And then, finally, there is Mary, whose story of inexplicable pregnancy is just as scandalous as the others.
 
What is Matthew saying here? Two things. Jesus is from a royal line, counting David and Solomon and many other Kings of Israel among his ancestors. But he is also saying that it is an ancestry which contains scandal and sin, in which there are foreigners, in which there are both Jews and Gentiles and which, crucially, has been thrown off course a number of times. There are unexpected twists. Things are not necessarily what they seem.
 
And that continues as he relates the story of Jesus’ birth. Actually he says nothing of the birth but instead tells the story of Joseph, how he heard from an angel that his betrothed was to give birth to a very special child, the long awaited Messiah; how he resolved to divorce her, but then relented on the advice of the angel; how he had the privilege of naming the child ‘Jesus’; how he took Mary to his home; and how he did not have union with her until Jesus was born. Then, after telling us about Herod and the Magi, Matthew tells us how Joseph was told by an angel of the danger the child was in; how he took Mary and Joseph by night to Egypt, and how later he brought them back, not to Bethlehem but to Nazareth, for their safety.
 
The key to understanding this is to realise that Matthew chose to tell the story of Joseph according to an Old Testament narrative template. The one he chose is the story of Moses. We’re going to hear a little bit of that now.
 
Exodus 2: 1-10
 
Baby Jesus corresponds to Baby Moses. In a genealogy of Moses contained in Exodus, we learn that Moses’ father was Amram and his mother Jochebed, corresponding to Joseph and Mary. Herod follows in the footsteps of Pharaoh who ordered that every baby Hebrew boy be drowned in the Nile. The Magi correspond with magicians at the Egyptian court.
 
But Matthew subverts these roles. Just as the women in the genealogy subvert expectations about Jesus’ lineage, the roles of some of the characters in Moses’ story are swapped around as Matthew weaves a new story about a new prophet come to rescue God’s people. In Matthew’s story, the magicians honour the true king. The villain is not a pagan emperor but Israel’s own king. Matthew is using a narrative that would have been utterly familiar to his first readers, but by changing things round, he is indicating that something radically new was happening.
 
We have to do a bit of work to recapture that, but that’s what we’ve just been doing. And so we are now in a position to see what Matthew was doing. He was declaring that a new Moses had been born. As Moses led God’s people out of slavery in Egypt, so Jesus would lead God’s people out of the slavery of sin. As Moses gave the Law, so Jesus would give new teaching which would fulfil the Law. As Moses ushered in a new age for God’s people, so also would Jesus. And the subversive things Matthew drops into his story tell us much about this new age. Women who had been through tough times, foreigners who had risked all to come to God, even magicians who worshipped other gods are key to Matthew’s understanding of who Jesus was and what he came to do. Matthew’s nativity is ultimately about God’s inclusive love.
 
Luke’s story
 
I’m not going to read Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth. We could probably recite it, and we’ll hear it next week.
 
Luke’s story is quite different from Matthew’s. He tells of Mary, a young woman who lives in Nazareth, betrothed to Joseph. She is told by an angel that the child she will bear will reign over Israel on David’s throne. She understands this to mean that, in her son, God will fulfil his promise to deliver her people. He then tells us of a census which required Mary to go with Joseph to Bethlehem, where the child was born. After an angel announces the birth, a group of poor shepherds visit the child. Then they all go home to Nazareth.
 
There are some overlaps with Matthew, but not many. Most significant is the story telling technique which Luke employs. He also uses the pattern of an Old Testament narrative to tell his story. His, though, is not a specific narrative like Matthew chose, but a common genre, known as an “opening womb” story. Here’s one of the most famous ones.
 
Genesis 21: 1-7
 
Sarah was so old she had given up hope of bearing a child. The same was true of Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, in Luke’s Gospel. Common to all of these stories, such as the birth of Isaac, of Samuel, of Samson and of John the Baptist, is a couple who do not consider that it is any longer possible for them to conceive, but who are blessed by God with a child. All of these children grow up to play decisive roles in the history of Israel. Their miraculous births are signs that God has acted to guide, and often to save, his people.
 
Luke does not mention any danger faced by the infant Jesus. That would come later when Jesus announced his ministry to the congregation in Nazareth. Matthew tells of Jesus’ nativity as a confronting of the powers-that-be. Luke shows no interest in them at all. He tells of the most significant birth in history being predicted, fulfilled and revealed entirely among the poor and lowly – a peasant girl, a displaced family, a bunch of shepherds. If we were to ask where God is revealed, the answer he gives is not among the places and people of wealth and power, but among the anonymous, the humble, the people on the margins, literally those outside in the night. Luke’s story may lack the conflict of Matthew’s but still it announces a fierce ideological confrontation. In answer to the question, what really matters, he answers – not the wealthy and the systems of power, but the poor and meek and lowly, for it is among them that you will find God.
 
In speaking of what Matthew and Luke wrote, I’ve been deliberately calling them two stories, not two versions. They are so different. But at the heart of each is the announcement of the birth of God with us. Next week, we will doubtless return to the comfortable way of thinking about the birth of Jesus. The angels will be more cheering than alarming. The shepherds in our minds will be kindly and clean, rather than uncouth and smelly. And there will be wholly unbiblical sleepy cows and asses lending warmth to the scene. It will be like this because we cannot break the habits of a lifetime. We cannot completely reject all that we love about this story.
 
But the lovely imagery we so cherish obscures some of the truth of Jesus’ nativity. Though one confronts power and the other simply dismisses it, both stories are intensely, radically, dangerously political. Matthew presents a radical inclusiveness at the heart of God’s birth in Jesus, an inclusiveness we find offensive because it shows us unambiguously that God loves especially those we find too hard to love. Luke presents a revolutionary political manifesto, of God’s new order brought to being in Jesus exalting the humble and throwing down the mighty. Both tell of good news to all the people, but it is good news of liberation, of rescue of the marginalised and needy, of deliverance from oppression. It is bad news for business as usual, for those who already have their comfort and security. This is good news for all, but for some, the story, or rather the stories, of Christmas, are rather harder good news than for others.

When I was a child, my family attended a church in Newhaven on the north side of Edinburgh. The congregation was served by a kind and gracious minister who believed that every word of the Bible was literally true.
 
I remember on one occasion he gave a children’s address on the passage from Isaiah which we have heard in this service. I suppose I must have been about nine or ten at the time, so I don’t really remember what he said. However, I remember how I felt about it. I thought it was complete nonsense.
 
In those days, we had not had a television for long, but a staple of Sunday evenings would be watching a nature programme, usually presented by David Attenborough. I just love the fact that this is still a staple of Sunday evenings. In many ways, over the decades, these programmes have changed. The photography has improved, the diversity of creatures featured has increased, the bigger issues such as climate change and hunting are more prominently addressed. But in other ways, these programmes have not changed. At their core is the telling of the life story of animals. And the life story of animals is mostly about mating and eating.
 
Listening to a children’s address about the prophecy of Isaiah, I had this other authoritative information in my mind. I knew that animals eat each other. I saw it on the television. I knew that humans eat other animals. My mother maintains that before I could walk, and with my father carrying me on his back in papoose, I would point at sheep in the fields and gleefully shout, “dins!” So from a very early age, I seem to have known that eating animals, and animals eating other animals, was natural, that it was meant to be.
 
Now, before going on, I want to clear up one potential misunderstanding. I am not criticising vegetarians. There are compelling environmental, ecological and health reasons why humans should eat less meat, though I admit that this is something where, in my life, knowledge does not translate into practice. So I’m not criticising meat eaters either. The sermon is not about that.
 
But can I take you back to the phrase I just used – it is meant to be. That’s a very loaded phrase. Meaning does not just emerge out of nothing. Meaning is given. And it can only be given by a sentient being, by something that thinks and interprets. Saying that certain animals are meant to eat other animals implies that someone created that intention, and that someone could only be the one who created the animals with their meat-eating physiology. No please don’t think I am arguing against evolution. I’m not. It is quite possible to hold together a belief in the natural processes of evolution with the belief that the origin of life lies in the will of God.
 
Anyone who watches programmes about animals eating animals knows that, though fascinating, the sight is not pretty. What we cannot say is that this natural phenomenon is a sign that creation has gone wrong, that it is disordered.
 
Now, I say that you cannot say that because cows and bears do not graze alongside one another that creation is disordered, but others do say just that, people who set themselves the intellectually impossible task of taking every word of the Bible literally. It is delusional and misleading to take all of this passage as a literal and accurate prediction. Isaiah spoke into a very different intellectual time from ours, a time when people were much more attuned to hearing truth in story, in imagery, in parable, in poetry. Does God literally intend lions to eat straw like oxen? Of course not: but let us not delude ourselves into thinking that there aren’t other things which God intends to change, to put right. These are not to do with changing the natural order, but to do with changing human sin, which is a disorder of what God intends.
 
Focusing on the animals in the second part of the reading means that we can easily overlook the first part. The imagery here is more opaque. Roots and branches may make us think that this is about plants. Of course it is not. It is about a person.
 
A person born from a particular family, the family of Jesse, father of King David. In other words, this person will emerge from the very heart of the chosen people, deeply and fully one of them; not from outside, not set apart. This person will have a particularly close relationship with God. As God is wise and understanding, so will he be. As God is mighty, so will he be. All that he will be, will be founded on his love and respect for God.
 
Now, listen to what this close relationship with God will enable him to do. He will judge, not just on what he sees and hears, because these can be deceptive, but with deep wisdom and understanding. He will ensure that the poor are treated rightly, no longer exploited. He will not do as others do who ignore those who are quiet, but will give all people their due place. Fundamentally, this is about peace, for in human relationships, no good ever comes of violence. So rather than by using force, he will affect change by the words of his mouth, with what he says. His whole being will be bound together with what is right and just and faithful.
 
Sound familiar? Of course. Isaiah is speaking of the Messiah, who we know as Jesus of Nazareth. All these things are descriptions of the way he would be. All these things were true, are true. And what the Messiah will bring, says Isaiah, and remember this is a promise from God, is a time of perfect peace, a time which Isaiah describes using very poetical rather than literal imagery.
 
Do you think this all sounds a bit airy-fairy? It is, of course, a promise which has not yet been fully fulfilled. But it is being fulfilled. In a few weeks, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. That moment marks the beginning of the fulfilment of this promise. His life on earth was lived by the attributes Isaiah described, and he continues to live on earth among those whose lives seek to mirror his, among those who judge with wisdom, who treat the poor with equity, who speak peace rather than practice violence, who are guided at all times by righteousness and faithfulness. In Christ, God broke into and disordered world. Amid continuing disorder, it is a life, a calling, we can never give up on, because it is how we witness to the way things are meant to be.
 
Amen.
 

Sermon
Sunday 27th November, 2016
 
On Thursday last week, I spent some of the day at a roadshow organised by the Church of Scotland’s Mission and Discipleship Council. They are touring the country with this event which, it is claimed, is designed to hear the voice of the local church and give opportunity to determine the priorities of the Church of Scotland and shape its strategy over the coming years.
 
After a brief act of worship, the event was introduced by the new Convener of the Mission and Discipleship Council, a nice man who is minister in Granton Parish Church in Edinburgh and who was at university around the same time as me. He outlined some of the challenges the Church of Scotland is facing. Over the last 20 years, membership has declined by 30% and the number of ministers by 24%, which somewhat unexpectedly means that there are proportionately more ministers to members than before, but fewer overall. He reminded us that if you are a minister under 50, you are in the youngest 20% of ministers. You can imagine how good that made me feel, but the serious point is that very soon, nearly all the ministers we have the moment will be retiring. All this is very familiar staff, but it does no harm to be reminded every so often. I was interested, though, that we weren’t told how many congregations had been amalgamated and how many buildings disposed of in the last 20 years. My impression is that the number would be quite small, meaning that fewer ministers are serving smaller congregations but spread more thinly through much the same number of buildings.
 
The Convener then rehearsed a litany of other issues – declining income, greater regulatory burdens, difficulty getting elders, difficulty getting people willing to commit. You could see participants there, elders and ministers alike, nodding in recognition. It was all a bit gloomy. I sat with people I didn’t know who turned out to come from some pretty posh areas of Edinburgh and, in a way, it was comforting to learn that their struggles are very similar to ours.
 
We were encouraged to talk about things we thought the central church administration could do to help us address the problems we all face. As you might expect, given my predilections, I kept chipping in with suggestions that we try to deepen our relationships with other denominations. I hope my suggestions were received with profound gladness. But, as the day wore on, I became increasingly concerned. Concerned because what was coming from the Mission and Discipleship Council were suggestions that, with a tweak of the rules here, a change of procedures there, then things would be fine.
 
Let me do a straw poll. Hands up if you would like elders to be able to celebrate Holy Communion.
 
What is being discussed is that, given the right permission and encouragement, elders will eagerly undertake many functions previously reserved to ministers. If the Mission and Discipleship Council are listening, they will hear that actually the opposite dynamic is happening. Ministers are more and more having to do things that previously elders and other members would have done as a matter of course. I spoke with one who is acting as his own session clerk, for example.
 
But my concern is not that, in my view, the solutions on offer simply won’t work, but because they are not grounded in an understanding of theology. I believe very firmly that every major thing the church does must have a theological reason behind it. If it’s doesn’t, if it is just a technique borrowed from the world of business, it probably won’t work.
 
Take the shortage of ministers, for example. Make training easier, shorter – that’s the suggestion. By the way, it is always training now, whereas back in the day when I was at the bottom end rather than the top end of the youngest 20% of ministers, it was education for the ministry. Ministry, it seems, is being reduced to set of tasks, whereas there’s actually a lot more to it than that. But where in this thinking is the theology of vocation. Is God calling dozens of people to be ministers who are refusing to call because the training takes too long? Has the church stopped believing that everything is possible with God, or indeed has it stopped believing in Christ’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, and that as long as God wants a church on earth, here it will be.
 
I came away thinking that what the Church of Scotland is seriously lacking at the moment is not money, or people or ministers, though evidently it has less and fewer of all these than before. What it is lacking is a story, a story it can tell coherently, a story about our life in the world.
 
Which is mindbending. Because all we really have is a story, a story from which everything else flows, a story which gives everything we do meaning. We may not be much good at being a big institution any more, but we still have our story, and we ought to be confident in telling it.
 
And today, as we enter the season of Advent once again, we begin again our annual telling of the story. The part we read from Matthews Gospel can seem fearful, gloomy even. In a way, it is just a scene setter, a reminder of the ordinary things of life. It is into ordinary life that God comes. It is among ordinary life that the church serves. Don’t dwell on the image of one been taken of the other left. We are the ones were taken, not away, but into Christ’s service.
 
It is an image which has been used to scare people, to change their behaviour, but that was not the way Christ worked. He reached out in love. He invited people in. He came with a message of peace and hope. As Isaiah says, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,” and as the Psalmist says, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” This is an invitation to be received in joy and gladness, a promise which gives us hope. No longer are we to be gloomy. No longer are we to be afraid, because the promise is that God will reign in perfect justice; no longer will people go to war; division will be replaced by unity; tranquillity will displace strife; and prosperity will take the place of want.
 
This is the beginning of the story we tell, as Christians, as the Church of Christ. It is the story which unfolds with the birth of Jesus, through his life to his death, resurrection and ascension, to his giving of the Holy Spirit. This is the story we believe, the story we say defines who we are. It is time to cast off gloom, to trust in God and live the story we believe.
 
Amen.

 
Jesus said: Who do you say I am?
 
Like most people, I expect, who think about the Bible at all, I have parts I return to again and again in my mind. And that question of Jesus to his disciples is one of them.
 
I’m sure you’ll remember the occasion he asked it. It is in Marks Gospel, just after the feeding of the four thousand. Jesus is reflecting with his disciples on what has just happened. He asks first, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples report on various things they have heard people saying about Jesus. Then he asks the more direct question, to people who, because they were closest to him, might have had deeper insight – “But what about you? Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers. “You are the Messiah.”
 
I keep returning to this question because, for me, it is possibly the central question of faith. Who do we say that Jesus is? The answer we give to that goes to the heart of our faith.
 
And although we have not read the story I have just briefly retold, I’m thinking about this question because of this day. On Friday evening, I was in St Michael’s and all Saints Scottish Episcopal Church, near Tollcross and, for a concert. The church had already been made ready for this morning. The green altar cloth had been put away and, in its place, the altar was dressed in gold. It was a very visible indication that is today is the feast of Christ the King.
 
This is a Sunday which has gradually been growing insignificance over recent years. Until about twenty years ago, very few people in the Church of Scotland would have heard of it. Hardly any congregations would have observed it. But it is one of the great and undoubted gifts of the ecumenical movement that churches learn from each other, and insights and traditions are shared, to the benefit and enrichment of all. So, over the last couple of decades, many congregations have begun to mark and appreciate the feast of Christ the King.
 
It falls on the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Next week is the First Sunday of Advent, and we move on to Matthew’s Gospel as our guiding gospel through most of the year. And we begin again by looking forward to the coming of Christ, which gives the context for our remembrance of his birth, his ministry, his death, resurrection and ascension and his sending of the Holy Spirit. In this way, the church seeks consciously to live its life in the context of the life of Christ. It may sound repetitive, but it isn’t, because every time we read and think about the stories of Jesus, we do so as different people, changed by the experiences we have had since last we read them. So just as we look forward to a new liturgical year, this Sunday invites us to look back. Who have we said Jesus is in the year since last Advent Sunday?
 
Though we change and develop, Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and for ever. In the words of today’s psalm, he is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in time of trouble. He is the eternal Son of God, who was born in humility in a stable in Bethlehem; who, in helplessness, was entrusted to human parents; who, as a young man, taught us all we actually need to know to live in reconciled relationship with God; who was ultimately betrayed, abandoned and killed, only to triumph over death. This is who we say Jesus is.
 
It is an unconventional story. No one expected that this was how God would act to redeem the world. Many, as we know, cannot believe it yet. But still, in the sketchiest possible terms, this is the story of the one under whose guidance we live our lives, whose example we seek to follow, whose story gives our lives meaning and whose promises give us hope. This is the story, to use the terminology of today, of our king.
 
And it is in the description of his crucifixion, a story which is always difficult to read, that we see most clearly and he was, he is – humble, loving, obedient, forgiving, suffering, dignified even in pain and mockery, compassionate, at one with those society rejects, because he himself was rejected. This is the one we acknowledge to be our King, the ultimate authority in our lives.
 
And this both raises and answers another question. Who do we say that we are? On this day, looking back over a year lived in Christ and looking forward to year in which we hope to grow in faith and continue in service we declare afresh, we are disciples of Christ, our King and we offer ourselves anew to him.
 
Amen.

 
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
 
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
 
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
 
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
 
One hundred years ago, a retired British general, Sir Francis Younghusband, came to the view that German propaganda was damaging the British war effort. To counteract it, he founded campaign called “Fight for Right”. Believing that it needed a song, he asked the Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges, for words. Bridges selected verses by the 18th century English mystical poet, William Blake. He took this poem to his friend, Hubert Parry, professor of music at Oxford, and a man considered to be one of England’s finest contemporary composers. He asked for “suitable, simple music, that an audience could take up and join in.”
 
Parry wrote suitable but certainly not simple music, but for all that, ever since its first performance in March 1916, it has been taken up and sung full voice in churches and schools, by trade unionists, suffragettes, missionaries, rugby supporters, promenaders; in short, by people of all walks of life, nationalities and political persuasions.
 
Asking Parry to compose the musical setting was an inspired choice. As a musician, he believed that German music stood at the very pinnacle of the art form. He was internationalist in outlook, and watched the destruction of the young men of Europe in the trenches of Flanders and France with horror and despair. He was no nationalist; he was no jingoist and, shortly after writing Jerusalem for the “Fight for Right” campaign, he withdrew its right to use his work, instead assigning the rights to the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. It was a mark of his and his wife Maude’s lifelong commitment to the cause of votes for women.
 
Parry, in some ways such an establishment figure, had real anti-establishment leanings – deploring militarism and war, actively supporting an end to male privilege and looking forward to a time when all would be equal. His beliefs made him a composer well-suited to set Blake’s words.
 
The son of a shopkeeper, Blake was an engraver to trade. Never well off, he was part of and identified with that stratum of English society which lived with poverty and debt, hunger and disease, and which was then entirely unrepresented in the places of power. His parents were Dissenters, that is not members of the Church of England, a principled stance which put them at considerable social disadvantage. William Blake was profoundly influenced by the Bible and Old Testament prophecy in particular, and biblical imagery suffuses his poetry. He was also a mystic; he believed he had prophetic powers himself, and was deeply influenced by ancient English legends of the Druids.
 
The text of And did those feet which appears above is faithfully transcribed from Blake’s own handwritten manuscript, which accounts for its non-standard punctuation and capitalisation. That’s important, because, although it sounds like it begins with four questions, the lack of question marks after the first two couplets leaves open the possibility that these are assertions of ideas Blake believed to be true.
 
The poem begins with a reference to the legend that, in the years the Gospels say nothing about the life of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea brought him on a trading visit to England. It may be that Blake believed that this had happened; after all he believed some strange things, but it is more likely that he is working towards a mystical rather than a literal truth. Jesus’ feet may never have actually walked England’s pleasant pastures, but God’s Spirit is everywhere present. Jerusalem, in this context, is not the physical Palestinian city but a metaphor for the kingdom of God, present on earth.
 
Elsewhere, Blake speaks of loss of innocence. Here, he conjures a picture of the Spirit of God present but overlooked, of the Kingdom of God crowded out and obscured by sin, using that highly redolent phrase – “these dark Satanic mills”. So much meaning is packed into these four words: the enslavement of working people in the factories of the Industrial Revolution; the dehumanising of children and women and men as their humanity is sacrificed on the altars of power and profit and war; even the universities and the churches, which Blake accused of imposing false ways of thinking on people.
 
These are ills which demand response. Drawing heavily on imagery from Ephesians 6, our first reading this morning, and a little bit on the story of the death of Elijah, Blake calls for the weapons of spiritual warfare, as do we when we sing his words. The bow of burning gold symbolises purity of intent; the arrows desire truth and justice, peace and equity. The prayer is for the clouds of sin covering the land to be folded back, broken up. The chariot of fire is the transport to the kingdom of heaven.
 
Then comes the climax – a vow, a promise –
 
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
 
This fight is to be fought by intellect, speech, persuasion, and goodwill, not by physical destruction. Blake abhorred war. Those who take up the struggle must not rest from it until God’s kingdom is fully revealed, unchallenged, on earth. In England? Well, Blake was English. It was what he knew. This is not a cry for English exceptionalism, proclaiming England to be better or more worthy than any other place. Although the name may sit somewhat uncomfortably on non-English tongues, all that we know of Blake leads us to conclude that his vision was not confined to one place or country, but embraced all humanity.
 
These are some of the reasons why this is a hymn for our time, and a hymn for this day in particular. The drumbeats of war are being heard again by those who have ears to hear them. The fires of division are being stoked. This is Remembrance Sunday, but remembrance will have failed if it thinks just about glory and heroism and sacrifice and does not remember the evils which lead to war – the turning of race against race, the rhetoric of blood and soil nationalism, the overblown claims of greatness and superiority, the exploitation of the poor, the cynical manipulation of legitimate grievance, the lust for rearmament, the erecting of barriers, the will to tear up hard won international agreements. All these things we are seeing and hearing getting louder, more insistent, more confident. We see their appalling consequences in Syria and Mosul. We hear them in the words of the far right government of Hungary, in the speeches of ultra-right-wing politicians in Germany, in France, in the Netherlands. We heard some of them in the voices of some who campaigned for Brexit and we have heard them from the man elected to the presidency of the United States. Certainly, the drumbeats of war are sounding.
 
And make no mistake, they are sounding because things are profoundly wrong. The neoliberal project of the Thatcher and Reagan, of Blair and Clinton and Bush and Brown and Cameron and, yes, even Obama, may be dying, and rightly so, but it is not going to give up without a fight. It is dying because it has done too little to distribute wealth fairly, and too much to concentrate it in too few hands. People are right to be angry, but the anger of white men should not be directed against black men, nor against women, or Muslims, but against those who have gamed the system and made themselves immensely wealthy. Now is a time for unity. Now is a time for solidarity. Now is a time for dialogue, for understanding, for mental, not physical, fight. Now is a time to proclaim the values of the kingdom of God, to break through the clouds of sin, to unshackle the bound, to seek the Spirit of God and find the face of Christ in all people. In unity not division, in faithfulness not fear, will we honour the memory of men and women who died in battle. In these dangerous times, if these poppies that we wear are to mean anything, they must be for us signs that we will not cease from mental fight, nor let our swords sleep in our hands, till, with God, we have built his kingdom of peace and justice in this, and every other, land.
 
Amen.

 
Have you ever been asked, “Why does God allow suffering?” I have. Sometimes it has been asked by people who have watched or are watching a loved one suffer. That kind of experience can be a real test of faith. Sometimes it is asked in much more abstract circumstances. And whatever answer you try to give has to be tempered by the intent of the questioner.
 
To a person witnessing the suffering of a loved one, the answer has to be pastoral. We might recall how God in Christ experienced great suffering himself; that we believe and trust in a God who is love and therefore suffers along with those he loves, sharing the burden of pain. We might recall that this is a world of ceaseless process of creation and decay. We might offer the thought that God does not inflict suffering as a mark of displeasure. We might want to say, because it is true, that there are things we cannot understand. Often the best way is to say little but to be with the other person in their pain and confusion, because that is the godly thing, because God is always with us, whatever we face, whatever is happening.
 
But what about those more abstract times this or similar questions are asked? Often, that’s a more hostile, more confrontational conversation, with a subtext like this. “This God of yours: you say he is good and loving and all-powerful, still there are all these bad things going on. Not such a great God after all, is he? Maybe just a figment of your wishful thinking!” That kind of questioner doesn’t want an answer. They want to show that they are right and clever, and that we who believe are a bit stupid and gullible and definitely wrong. These people are difficult to argue with, because their minds are made up.
 
We read about the situation kind of like this from Luke’s gospel. The Sadducees were an elite. Predominantly wealthy, they lived comfortable lives, lives which gave them the leisure to pursue theological disputes. Like many relatively closed groups, they built up a high degree of certainty in their own beliefs. Their big thing was that they believed that there was no life after death, no resurrection, and that this life was to be lived to the full. All right for them, you might say; most of them were pretty comfortable.
 
The Sadducees argued that there was nothing in the written Torah, the first five books of the Bible, to support a belief in life after death. The Pharisees, their great opponents, argued that there was plenty to support such a belief in the Psalms, the Prophets and the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament. It was a clash of fundamentalisms.
 
Jesus’ thinking was closer to that of the Pharisees on this matter. So this group of Sadducees thought they would try to demonstrate that Jesus was stupid and wrong. They came up with an absurd situation, of a woman who had been married in turn to seven brothers. ‘Who would she be married to in heaven,’ they asked, no doubt smirking. We’ve got you now, haven’t we?
 
So this is short but complicated passage yields its first lesson. We don’t know much about heaven, but Jesus tells us a little here. Heaven, he says, is not going to be just like this life, only better. Heaven is a gathering in of God’s people into God. In heaven we will be together with one another, together with those we love but not particularly together with any one other person because all will be equally together with God. Our life will continue because it will be life in God. It will be life in which all is restored because there will be no further separation from our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
 
It is interesting that the scenario the Sadducees concocted to try to outwit Jesus should have been what it was. It centred on a woman. Without question in their minds, her function was simply to provide heirs for her husband. She is nothing more than a possession, to be passed on to the next to inherit. Although taken to extremes in this scenario, this was a real system, and was developed in response to poverty and insecurity, situations of which the Sadducees would have had a little direct experience. They have no sympathy for the woman, no thought for the suffering implied by their tale.
 
But the answer Jesus gives does. Although he speaks about the next life, he is also speaking about this life, for to Jesus, there is no discontinuity between the two. In the next life, the systems of this world will have no further relevance. Those who are oppressed will be freed. Those who suffer will have their burden lifted. All shall dwell within the perfect love of God.
 
While this assurance brings hope, it also begs the question – if God’s perfect kingdom is like this, why do we put so much effort into maintaining systems which are corrupt, which do oppress, which call such suffering to so many? How can we be content with what is so far from perfect when we have such a good idea of the will of God?
 
These largely rhetorical questions find some sort of answer in the final thing I want to say. There is something of the Sadducee in all of us. We all wants to know where we stand. We like systems and rules and consistency. It is how we struggle to achieve fairness, which is laudable in an unfair world. But these systems are also the means of preserving privilege. Those who set the rules wield the power. That’s why they are so seductive. So we make the making of and keeping of rules all-important. We do it in many aspects of life, even in our life of faith. We call it a dogma, these systems of ‘correct believing’ that we create, rules by which we judge and measure faithfulness.
 
That’s exactly what the Sadducees were doing. They wanted to prove that Jesus didn’t measure up, that he was a bad teacher, a bad person even. But they made a fundamental mistake, one which fundamentalists are always making. They were elevating beliefs and dogma over the grace of God. Believing correctly had become more important than living lovingly. Believing by the rules had taken the place of gratefully appreciating the grace of God. Understanding rather than loving had become the goal of faith.
 
But God doesn’t work that way. His grace is abundant. It is always unmerited, undeserved. We cannot box God in and expect him to abide by our rules. Rather, what we must do, is appreciate God with thankfulness and, to the best availability, copy him and his all-inclusive love, love which makes us all his children, love which promises us that all will live in God for ever.
 
Amen.

 
When I heard that Still Game was to return for another series, seven years or so after the last one, I was pleased and anxious in equal measure. Pleased because I always really enjoyed it. Anxious that it wouldn’t be as good as I remembered. In the event, I needn’t have worried and have enjoyed the first four episodes of the new series enormously. I think it’s great comedy.
 
And I think it works because, although each character is a caricature, each exaggerates only slightly character traits that we recognise, either in ourselves or in others. No one is as nosy as Isa, no one is as hapless as Winston, no one is as mean and miserly as Tam, no barman is as sarcastic and unhygienic as Boaby, but they are not so far-fetched as to be entirely unbelievable.
 
Some of you, fellow Craiglang aficionados, will know what I’ve been talking about. Others won’t have a clue. So how about a different comic story, one we all know because Reader has just read it for us.
 
At its centre is a funny wee man who does a funny thing. He climbs a tree. And funnily enough, the celebrity wants to see spots him and stops to have a chat with him, and even invites himself to dinner. Classic comedy ingredients. A funny character and an unexpected twist.
 
But there’s more to it than that. A bit like with Still Game, we see something of ourselves exaggerated, just a little bit, in Zacchaeus. For who hasn’t experienced an overwhelming sense of curiosity from time to time? Who hasn’t hung around to catch a glimpse of famous person? And who hasn’t experienced that sense of being a bit out of things, a bit on the edge, a bit excluded? And, at its most basic, who hasn’t struggled to see over or around the people in front? We know how Zacchaeus felt. We may not climb trees ourselves, but we know why he did.
 
This is one way of approaching the story of Zacchaeus. Undoubtedly, it has comic elements, and that’s possibly why the story is so well-known, so immediately appealing. It also seems to have a happy ending, and the people who end up grumbling are shown up as not very nice, while wee Zacchaeus goes and does the right thing.
 
And this is a valid approach. It is probably the way we approached it as children, with simple songs and nice pictures of Jesus smiling up at Zacchaeus. But there are other ways of approaching the story, and deeper lessons to be drawn from it.
 
Take Zacchaeus’ name. There would be something darkly comic about someone called Joy being the grumpiest person you’d ever met, or someone called Faith being a militant atheist. Something in a similar vein is going on here, because, in Hebrew, Zacchaeus means ‘pure and righteous’. And actually, he is anything but. He’s stinking rich, and like so many who have achieved that dubious distinction, has acquired his money by leaching money off the poor and the powerless. And everybody knows this. He’d probably taking money off most of the people in the town. Them shutting him out is entirely understandable. They call him a sinner and they’re right, even though they are all sinners too, just, in their own eyes, not as bad. ‘Sinner’ is a label they apply, and like most labels we apply to one another, there is truth in it, even if it is unhelpful, even if it is dehumanising.
 
Though they may contain grains of truth, labels applied to people are a way of not seeing who people really are in all their complexity. And I want to argue that seeing, rather than comedy, is the key to this story. There is the obvious concerned with seeing. Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. That’s why he was up the tree. Then there’s the fact that Jesus saw Zacchaeus, up there among the branches. But we need to go beyond merely physical seeing.
 
When the people saw Zacchaeus, they saw a hated person, someone who has done them harm. But that’s not who Jesus saw. He saw someone who was capable of redemption. He saw the hidden goodness in Zacchaeus, goodness Zacchaeus himself maybe knew nothing about. That’s how Jesus looks at us all, seeing past the sins to the goodness that is in us all.
 
When Zacchaeus came down from the tree and looked at Jesus, I don’t suppose he saw what he expected to see. He’d expected to see a locally famous teacher and healer. What he saw was God, face to face with him, looking into his heart. And that experience was transformative. Straightaway, with no calculation, no haggling, no bargaining, he offered to make amends. In other words, he began to see the people around, not as sources of revenue, but as victims of fraud, fraud that he had perpetrated. Rather than their money, he saw their humanity, and the harm he had done to them.
 
Beneath the charming and comic surface lies is one of the most challenging and radical stories of the Gospels. And it’s all the more powerful because of its gentleness. At no point did Jesus denounce Zacchaeus’ sins. At no point did he say, “Woe to you!” There’s no process of justice, of condemnation, of punishment for sins committed. He just said, I want to be with you, so I’m coming for dinner.
 
And that was enough to effect the most profound change in Zacchaeus. It is what Jesus says to all of us. “I want to be with you. I want to be with you in your home. I want to share food with you.” He wants to be with us because he sees past the sin, right to the essential goodness within us. In Christ’s eyes, all are capable of redemption. And when we look on Christ, and see his justice, his compassion, his holiness, our lives are transformed. Happy are those whose sins are forgiven.
 
Amen.