In Search of the Mystery of God

Like a thief in the night, the Lord will come on clouds in Glory. The paradox is resolved in the fact that clouds hide the light. The Gospels are littered with warnings that we might miss his coming unless we are very careful. And then we discover that Christ is already here - our task is to live in his light in the midst of the darkness, to beat the swords into ploughshares, the spears into pruning hooks. Welcome to Advent.

Poem: 'The Coming' by RS Thomas

OT Reading: Isaiah 2:1-5

NT Reading: Romans 13:11-end

Gospel: Matthew 24:36-44

Jesus was mockingly called 'The King of The Jews'. He was given a purple robe, a sceptre, a crown and a throne - all the regalia still used by the British monarchy today. We vest the wealth of the nation in our monarchy, and they are bathed with military honours.

But for all our tradition, does this actually have anything to do with kingship? And who decides what a real king looks like, and how a real king should act? They thought they knew in the 1stC, and it looked a lot like our modern expectations. Have we learned nothing in 2000 years?

This King upends all our notions of royalty and fealty'

Poem: 'The Kingdom' by RS Thomas

Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

War begins in the soul. It is planted through the stories we are told by those around us, and that we then tell ourselves - stories of 'us' and 'them'. In these stories our fellow humans are cast as somehow different, other than 'us'; not 'us'. This, then, allows us to distance ourselves from them, and in that move lies the licence to deny them the same humanity as 'us'. This is the first step of murder and of war - the denial of a fellow human as brother or sister.

So what does it mean to be 'fully human'?

In the beatitudes, Jesus' "Blessed are..." sayings, he reveals the opposite way to live, being 'poor in spirit', not arrogant; being 'gentle', not a 'task master' or a bully, etc.

But then there is the difficulty of others who treat us as less than human, where we become the 'persecuted'. As was Jesus - and it led to the Cross. How then shall we live?

Poem: 'A Listening Post'; by RE Vernede

Reading: Matthew 5:1-12

Turmoil and uncertainty all around. From the crisis in social care, to terrifying food, energy, and mortgage inflation; from government sleaze to the 'invasion' by the destitute and homeless; from children dying of starvation to personal rockets to the moon; from the Trumpeting of the end of democracy to the rise of nationalism and xenophobia; from corporate mega-profits to the extinction of the human race through catastrophic climate change: take your pick. We can find glimpses of goodness in the personal, but broaden out and there is injustice and injustice at every turn.

Job is devastated by a hurricane of disasters, yet still hopes. The Thessalonian church is persecuted and perplexed, but still believes. The Sadducees know talk of 'life after death' is utter nonsense, and for whom there is no 'yet' or 'but'. In the midst of it all is the God who stills the storm by taking it all into his Son...

Poem: 'Inversnaid' by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Readings:

Old Testament: Job 19:23-27

New Testament: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,13-end

Gospel: Luke 20:27-38

Hell is separation from the God whose being is Love. It is the place of bitterness, hatred, manipulation, vindictiveness, violence,loneliness, emptiness, worthlessness. All of us have been there, many live there. We have all pointed the finger of blame at others while failing to notice the three pointing back at us. Jesus confronts our hypocrisy by visiting those who 'deserve' our hatred. The hell in which they live fractures in the presence of his love: hell is harrowed. Dare we follow in his footsteps?

Poem: 'The Poet' by George Mackay Brown

Readings: Isaiah 1:10-18, Luke 19:1-10

Not the wilderness only, but the heart also, can be a dark, lonely, and deserted place, not least when seen under the glare of a ruthlessly honest conscience. And yet there is no other way to come to God. We follow the tax collector into the desert, and discover the extraordinary judgement of God, not just on ourselves, but on all creation.

Reading: An extract from "Now, This Bell Tolling Softly for Another , Says to Me: Thou Must Die" by John Donne

Bible Readings: Joel 2:23-end

Luke 18:9-14

A rabbi wanders in no-man's-land between two countries where the outcasts dwell. He sends them to the Temple to praise God. But one of them returns before reaching his destination. Or does he? The sermon for Trinity 17.

Readings: 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19

Poem: RS Thomas 'The Prayer'

The means, or the end? The journey, or the destination? "Lord, we do not even know where you are going. How can we know the way?" But actually all we have is this mysteriously small moment we call 'now' in which to live. All else lies untouchably in the future or in the past. What we do with each step we take in the garden of time determines where we are going, and how we get there. The journey is the pilgrimage. And it all begins with the death and rebirth that is baptism, and the gift of the Spirit.

Poem: 'A New Child' by George Mackay Brown

Gospel: John 14:1-5

We have an innate sense of fairness. Society is built on the principle of justice. And yet justice has no power to give life - only to take it. And where do we stand before a just God? The Lord's Prayer has the key. The Bewcastle Benefice sermon for the 6th Sunday after Trinity, Year C.

Poem: 'St David' by D Gwenallt Jones

Readings: Hosea 1:2-10

Colossians 2:6-15

Luke 11:1-13

What does Jesus mean, 'let the dead bury the dead'? What is freedom? What is this 'Spirit' that is so often portrayed as a wild bird over the waters, or in the mountains? What does it mean to see the world aright and be alive to God? Some of the questions posed by the readings for Trinity 2.

Poem: The Raven, by Norman Nicholson.

Old Testament: 2 Kings 2: 1-2, 6-14.

New Testament: Gal 5:1, 13-25.

Gospel: Luke 9: 51-end.