Thank God for the Helpers

It’s never easy deciding what to speak on on Thinking Day/Founder’s day. Should I do something around  the Scout and Guide Motto – Be Prepared.? Or the Thinking Day Theme which this year is ‘connect’? There’s the centenaries of the Cubs and the Senior Section of the Girl Guides to celebrate. We started a new sermon series on Hebrews a couple of weeks ago and today we’ve had Donna along to tell us about the work of Compassion.

So you’ll understand that it took me a wee while to settle on what I wanted us to think about this morning; but as I thought about it I realised that helping others was a common theme in all the different strands of this morning’s worship. And with that in mind it didn’t take me long to land on the Bible passage that we heard read earlier from Luke’s gospel.

You have to admire the persistence of those men who helped their paralysed friend get to see Jesus.

People had got word that there was a healer in town and crowds had gathered at the place where Jesus was teaching. The paralysed man’s friends tried to get him in the front door, but it was a bit like going to see your local GP – the place was so full of folk looking for paracetamol on prescription that the folk in real need struggled to get a look in.

So they decided they had to be a bit more ruthless about things. Or maybe that should be roofless.  Before long they’d clambered onto the top of the building and started taking off the tiles to make a space big enough to lower their friend down. And I’d love to know what he was thinking at this point. Maybe he was urging them on, thinking this might be his one and only chance to see Jesus and be healed.

Or maybe he didn’t want to be here at all; didn’t want any fuss. And now bits of tile and straw were falling into the room below, people were getting angry and shouting at them, somebody was already Googling Direct Line to see if the house insurance covered this kind of thing…..

…and before he knows it, in all the chaos, he’s being shakily lowered down into the room until folk lift their hands to grab the stretcher, more out of necessity than any great desire to help. And as they lower him to chest height, he finds himself surrounded by a sea of faces: some angry, others curious; several laughing at the audacity of his friends. Can you imagine how utterly helpless and vulnerable he feels?

But from behind him, unseen, comes a voice as clear as day; and a reassuring hand is placed on his shoulder. “Your sins are forgiven my friend” says the voice. And he knows in his gut that this man isn’t just speaking the truth; he’s making the truth. Right then and there, in that very moment.

And there’s more to come, of course. He gets healed in body as well as soul.  But we’ll pause there for a moment because there’s something in the text at this point that’s crucial but easily overlooked.

Whose faith is Jesus responding to here? The faith of the paralysed man? Well, perhaps. But the text is very clear that it’s more than that. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell this story and they all say that it was their faith – the faith of the friends as well as the man – that Jesus responded to.

The helpers made all the difference in this case. Their concern, their determination, their persistence, their faith in Jesus is a big part of what makes this healing possible.

So the first thing we need to do this morning is thank God for those in life who are willing and able to help.

It doesn’t sound especially spiritual, does it? But when Paul writes to the church in Corinth to correct some of their spiritual excesses, he says that the willingness to help others is evidence of a mature faith. Some folk were arguing that speaking in tongues was the ultimate spiritual gift, and if you didn’t speak in tongues you weren’t a real Christian. To that Paul says – “In the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.”

Helping others is halfway down Paul’s list; speaking in tongues comes right at the end. I think he’s making a point here. Don’t belittle those whose spiritual gift is the selflessness that allows them to help and serve others. Where would we be without people who are willing and able to help?

Thank God for the helpers.

The folk like Donna, who give their time and energy to raising awareness of the work of agencies like Compassion. The folk who work in their programmes, and sponsor children so they can move out of poverty.

The leaders in the uniformed organisations here today, who spend many unseen hours getting ready for meetings week by week and  more hours running them; always trying to strike a balance between having fun and doing things that are worthwhile and going to help raise a new generation of boys and girls who will be prepared. Prepared to help.

You could think of the folk in this church, and all other churches. Where Sunday’s just the tip of the iceberg and all the other stuff that goes on day in day out in terms of pastoral care, worship, service and administration, relies on the goodwill of folk who are volunteer helpers.

And the folk in our communities who work hard to make them better places for all of us to live by running coffee mornings and litter picks. Planting flowers and putting up Christmas lights. Small things, but things that make a difference.

We thank God for the helpers this morning. And we remember too that those who choose to help also pay a price; sometimes a very heavy one.

A couple of years ago I came across a lovely poem by Seamus Heaney which makes that very point. It’s based on this Bible Story and he wrote it after suffering a stroke in 2005. It’s called Miracle.

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in —

Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat. And no let-up

Until he’s strapped on tight, made tiltable
And raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

For the burn of the paid-out ropes to cool,
Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
To pass, those ones who had known him all along.

I remembered that poem this week as I watched a family lower a coffin into a grave, feeding the taut, thin black cords carefully through their hands. Laying a man to rest who’d needed intense care for the last few years of his life.

I remembered those called to care for people in utter dependence; newborn children, the sick and the elderly; people with profound disabilities and care needs.

I remembered those remarkable folk who find it within themselves to care not just for their own, but have the largeness of spirit to look after the other, the different and the stranger in their needs too.

Thank God for the helpers; may he strengthen them in their work, and inspire us by their selflessness, which – whether knowingly or unknowingly - reflects something of his own.

Because the man who taught and healed that day in Galilee was selflessness personified. He was God, setting aside all his divine glory, to come and share life with us in Christ. Our God, contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man as Charles Wesley put it.

2000 years on, we still struggle to grasp it, but it’s never been better expressed than in these words from the Apostle Paul to the church in Phillipi.

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

⁶    Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

⁷    but made himself nothing,

    taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

⁸    And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    and became obedient to death—

    even death on a cross!

⁹    Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰    that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹    and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

Thank God for the Helper who came to earth to live our life and die our death; and say to all who would look to him in faith “Your sins are forgiven, my friend. Get up, pick up your bed and go in peace.”

Amen 

What God's Like - Hebrews 1:1-3

There’s a story told about young monk who entered a monastery where they observed a strict vow of silence. Only allowed to say two words every ten years.

After first decade, has his meeting with the chief Abbot and he says “Bed Hard”. Abbot nods, sends him on his way.

Another ten years go by – “Food terrible”. Abbot frowns a little and sends him on his way.

Another ten years pass and this time his chosen words are “Monastery freezing”.  Abbot glowers at him.

After another ten years, he’s shown in again. and he says  “I quit”. And the abbot says “I’m not surprised – you’ve done nothing but complain since you got here!”

This morning, as we begin working our way through the book of Hebrews, we start by thinking about God’s speaking to us: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son”.

And we’ll come to all that in a moment. But if you’re anything like me you’ll find it hard to think about God’s speaking without reflecting a little on God’s silences as well.

What was going on in Biblical times? Did God really speak directly to these folk, or were they – like us – going on feelings and hunches and intuiitions most of the time? Have the rough edges of their experience been smoothed over in the reporting of them so it all sounds a bit more straightforward than it really was?

Or did God speak with total clarity; which begs the question why doesn’t God still speak in that way?

Has God stopped communicating? Or are we just finding it harder to tune in these days?

Or does God’s seeming silence simply confirm what many have thought for years – that’s we are alone in the universe after all?

Well I have a theory on God’s silence this morning, but we’ll get to that a little bit later.

For now, let’s think about God’s speaking.

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets.”

And they were a colourful lot, those prophets. Not many shrinking violets among them.

Hosea’s one you probably don’t know too well. God spoke to him. Told him to go down to the docks and find a working girl and take her home to be his wife. Now that’s a conversation I’d like to have heard.  Hello God? Sorry the signal’s breaking up. Are you in a tunnel? The signal’s rubbish. I  could have sworn you just told me to marry a working girl!

Can you imagine the town elders’ faces? Hosea – are you sure this is what God wants you to do? Turns out it was exactly what he wanted him to do. This was an acted parable, played out in front of the whole community so that they’d get the message. I’m Hosea, God’s saying. And Israel – you’re my chosen people. And do you know what? I’m tired of you seeing other gods.

This is what God’s like, says Hosea – he’s like a jealous husband who wants you to be faithful.

Or there’s the prophet Nathan: one you probably won’t know by name, though you might remember his story. King David’s bored; he’s prowling the rooftops looking for some action. That’s how people had to do it in the days before Tinder and Ashley Madison. (Don’t Google those, by the way). He saw a pretty woman bathing; her name was Bathsheba.  Had her brought to the palace. Kind of hard for her to say no in those circumstances. She gets pregnant. David tries to cover things up, but ends up having her husband, Uriah, killed.

And that’s when Nathan gets involved. Comes to the palace, tells the king about a terrible thing that’s gone on in the neighbourhood. There’s a poor man with one wee lamb he treats like a child. It goes everywhere with him. His rich neighbour, who has hundreds of sheep, has guests arrive suddenly and instead of slaughtering one of his own animals he takes the poor man’s lamb and has it killed instead. And David’s furious, threatening all kinds of revenge on that greedy swine until Nathan stares him down and says ‘You are that man’.

This is what God’s like, says Nathan – he cares about injustice.

Or there’s Isaiah – a prophet you might have heard of, though not many of us will have ploughed through the 66 chapters of the Bible that bear his name. Prophesied at a time when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon and had long given up hope of ever returning home. And into that situation Isaiah brings these words from God:

¹    The desert and the parched land will be glad;

    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

    Like the crocus, ²it will burst into bloom;

    it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

³    Strengthen the feeble hands,

    steady the knees that give way;

⁴    say to those with fearful hearts,

    “Be strong, do not fear;

    your God will come,

    he will come to save you.”

This is what God’s like, says Isaiah – he brings hope even in situations that seem hopeless.

Or think of Jeremiah – reminding us that we have obligations to the whole human family and not just those who are like us.

³This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Do no wrong or violence to the alien the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood.”

This is what God’s like, says Jeremiah – he has compassion towards those in need; and so must we.

Do you remember all this? - the writer of Hebrews is saying.  In the past God spoke to us in many ways through the prophets. But all their words have been affirmed and embodied in the most remarkable way in recent days; because now God has spoken to us in the person of his own Son.

All the prophets pointed to some great truth and said “This is what God’s like”. But the Son, uniquely, points to himself and says “this is what God’s like.”

And that’s an outrageous thing to claim, when you stop and think about it.

And that’s the thing folk often miss about Jesus when they bracket him with the Buddha, or Mohammed, or Ghandi as another enlightened human being. Much of what Jesus said was nonsense, if he wasn’t who he claimed to be – God in human form.

Jesus claimed to have existed before his ancestor Abraham was even born, a thousand years earlier. He said that people should think of him as the light of the world; the way the truth and the life. “If you want to know what God looks like” he said “then take a look at me”.

Those aren’t the words of a well-adjusted humble scholar! If they’re human words, they’re some of the most rampantly egocentric claims that anyone’s ever made!

But if they’re true – and I believe they are true - it means that in Christ, God has come among us in a unique way and we need to pay special attention to the truth he’s bringing us. Because “in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son”.

But how did he speak?

Well, interestingly, not in lists of do’s and don’ts. He taught in parables – thoroughly human stories that draw you in and get you thinking. Stories that make you draw your own conclusions rather than giving you spoon fed answers. Stories that opened up discussion and thought rather than closing down on them.

But words can only take you so far, can’t they? Words by themselves are rarely enough.

I had a pastoral visit with a man last week who’s had a stroke, and communcation’s become very difficult for him. It’s terribly hard to make out what he’s saying and at one point I had to confess I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell me.

The next few words were very clear. “You might as well go home then”. And I think that was the tiredness as much as frustration speaking.

But I didn’t take it personally. I took his hand, and he responded with a grip that was surprisingly firm, and I finished that visit with a prayer that he appreciated. That grip said what needed to be said when words failed us.

And I would argue that Jesus’ actions say at least as much as his words.

Making his way down to the Jordan to be baptised by John, not because he needed to, but because he wanted to identify with us in our need and our sin.

Making time for the least the last and the lost – the folk society ignored or actively shunned. Talking with a Samaritan woman, healing a leper, blessing little children as mothers brought them to him. Fraternising with conspicuous sinners, without ever losing his integrity.

Letting a working girl wash his feet with her tears; inviting himself to Zacchaeus’s home for lunch; running rings around the religious authorities; taking a dead girl by the hand and summoning her to life. weeping at the grave of a friend.

And finally, ultimately, accepting the path he was always destined to take – the one that led to the cross. Ironically, a visible sign of everything he tried to teach us through his words and through his actions – Love God with all your heart, soul strength and mind, and love your Neighbour as yourself.

750 years before Christ’s death,  Isaiah heard a word from God on this which still stuns us with its foresight and precision:

“We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.

“In these last days” says the writer of Hebrews,  “God has spoken to us through his Son”.

And what has the Son said? He’s said “this is what God’s like”. There is no God behind the God. He who has seen me has seen the Father.

And maybe now we’re getting somewhere on that question of God’s silence.

If God’s quiet, maybe it’s because Jesus is his last word.

I imagine God pointing to Christ’s full life, and his vacant cross and his empty tomb and asking “What more do you want me to say?”

What more can I say to help you understand who I am, and the lengths I’d go to for you, and how I want you to live - with me and one another?

You know there are times in life when the significance of something that’s said in a conversation can’t help but bring a silence.

I’m dying; I’m pregnant; I love you; I no longer love you.

You don’t rush on from those words. It takes a moment for them to sink in. You have to reckon with them. You have to respond carefully because they are life-defining words.

I think God still has plenty to say; he still speaks in many different ways and at many different times.

But in a sense, those words are just the working out and application of his last word which is still hanging in the air two millennia on. The word he spoke in Christ.

The real question isn’t “Why Is God Silent?”

The Real Question is are you ready to break the silence and continue the conversation God’s already begun, in Christ?

Introduction to Hebrews

“Christianity Rediscovered” is the story of how Vincent Donovan, an American Catholic missionary, successfully brought the gospel to many of the Masai tribes of Tanzania. It’s a wonderful book, not least for Donovan’s honesty about how his encounter with the Masai changed him and his understanding of what the church really is, and how God is at work in the world.

“God was there before we ever got there” he writes. “It was simply up to us to bring him out so they could recognise him”.

In his first few weeks and months, Donovan spent most of his time listening to the Masai, so that when he spoke, it would be with a better understanding of their culture and their belief system. “Tell me about your God” he asked them. “What is he like?”

“Then they told me of Engai, their God, who loved rich people more than poor people, healthy people more than the sick, the God who loved good people because they were good and rewarded them for their goodness. They told me of God who hated evil people – ‘those dark, evil ones out there’ – and punished them for their evil. Then they told me of a God who loved the Masai more than all the other tribes; loved them fiercely, jealously, exclusively. His protection saved them from all the surrounding hostile, Masai-hating tribes and assured them of victory in war over these tribes. His goodness was seen in the water and rain and cattle and children he gave them.”

Donovan listened, and when his time came to speak he said that they reminded him of another great nation – the Hebrew tribe. A tribe famous for having pursued the one true God. But even for them, that pursuit wasn’t easy. They often tried to restrict God to their tribe, and their land, and so made him seem less of a God than he really was.

“The God we are all looking for”, said Donovan, “is not the God of one tribe only; but the High God over all the peoples. This is the one we should worship. This is the one we should seek”.

Donovan’s book charts the progress of some of the Masai peoples from their tribal religion, towards faith in the High God as we meet him in Jesus. And the book of the Bible we’re going to be looking at over the next few months, the book of Hebrews, tells a very similar story. The story of a group of people beginning to discover that the truth about God is far more expansive and comprehensive than they could ever have imagined.

Hebrews is pretty unique in the New Testament canon – it’s 13 chapters long - more of a sermon than a letter -  and unusually, we know very little about its origins.

We’re not clear about who wrote it. It’s often been attributed to Paul, but recent linguistic studies suggest it’s more likely to have been someone connected with Paul than the apostle himself.

We don’t know when it was written; though it’s pretty safe to assume that it was before 70AD because the author of Hebrews writes about the Temple in Jerusalem as a going concern, and we know that the Temple was destroyed in 70AD

And we don’t know to whom it was written; but even a quick scan through the letter shows that it had Jewish themes at its heart.

Wordle – bigger the word, more often it occurs in the text.

Top 50 words, Top 10 – God, faith, priesthood, covenant, sins, blood – where Jesus fits into this.

So it looks like the author was speaking to a community with Jewish roots who’d come to believe in Jesus, and if you know a little New Testament history you’ll remember how hard it could be for folk in that position.

They were put out of the synagogues, they’d lose their place in Jewish society, they’d be shunned in their neighbourhoods. They could even be persecuted and martyred. Paul himself, before his conversion, oversaw the systematic persecution and stoning of many Jews who’d become followers of Jesus. That’s what he was heading off to do when he had his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus.

And reading between the lines, it’s clear that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews knows these people and has insight into how things are for them. He knows that they’re tired; tired of serving the world, tired of worship, tired of learning, tired of being thought of and treated as different from everyone else. Tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going.

And they’re afraid. They’re wondering if it’s worth all the hassle; some might even be hankering to go back to the old ways. In dark corners, with people they trust, some are whispering that maybe following Jesus has been a mistake. Maybe they ought to cut their losses and see if the door of the synagogue’s still open to them, if they go back and make their apologies.

When Paul writes to the churches in Colosse and Corinth, he has to rein those congregations in to stop them charging off in all kinds of wrong directions. But these Hebrews don’t have the energy to go charging off anywhere.

That’s where they’re at.

And maybe you’re beginning to understand why this might be a useful book to be studying. A tired church, facing a lot of criticism from society, wondering what the next move might be, low on energy and spiritual reserves? Isn’t that much of the story of the mainstream churches in Western Europe? Different in Africa and China – they’re Colosse and Corinth – storming ahead! But perhaps we’re more like the Hebrews. We need to get back to basics and rediscover the God who is with us in Christ.

Hebrews is a wonderful book and times a difficult book, but as we go through it, don’t get too hung up on the language of priesthood and blood and sacrifice and covenant – language that naturally meant far more to folk with their roots in First century Judaism than it does to us. When you get behind that language, their questions are essentially the same as ours:

How does God speak to us?

Is God on our side?

Does he understand what it is to be human?

What do we need to do to have peace and friendship with God?

What does it mean to live a good life?

And where can we find the resources to do so?

And the book of Hebrews gives us the answer, and the answer is always and everywhere, Christ.  The book of Hebrews unashamedly holds that we find the answers to all of these questions when we fix our eyes upon Jesus.

How does God speak to us? In many ways and at many different times, but ultimately, uniquely, in Christ.

Is God on our side?  Of course he is – that’s why he sent Christ.  To be with us; to live and die and rise again for us.

Does he understand what it is to be human? Yes – he knows, because in Christ he has shared our humanity.

What do we need to do to have peace and friendship with God? We need to place our trust in Christ and what he’s already done to reconcile us to the Father.

What does it mean to live a good life? – To follow the way of Christ. To live as he would have us live.

And where can we find the resources to do so? – Through prayer and communion with Christ.

Now in the weeks ahead, we’ll get to the detail. But if there’s one thing we need to take away from this series on this particular letter in the New Testament, it’s the all-sufficiency, the utter centrality  of Christ. And I know how dogmatic that sounds in the multicultural, multifaith society we live in, where talk about God is just about tolerated, but talk about Christ consistently gets people’s backs up.

But I make no apology for placing Christ front and centre because I believe with all my heart that that’s what the Bible teaches, and that’s where he belongs.

Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus – that’s the book of Hebrews in a nutshell. And if you forget everything else you hear over the next couple of months – that’s the one thing you need to hold on to.

And it sounds easy. But it’s much harder to put into practice.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. Ever since I became a minister and took on a pastoral role within the church, I’ve found it much harder to focus on God in prayer. I know that sounds daft; but when I sit down to pray my mind is generally racing with churchy things. People I need to see, things I need to arrange or prepare, emails I need to send. All valid enough in their own right, but not when they’re suffocating the time I’ve set aside for prayer – for focusing on God.

My mind, left to its own devices, will naturally slide back to all the things I have to do and all the things that are happening in the church unless I make a conscious effort to keep my focus on Christ. To remember that I’m in his presence; and before he wants me to do anything or say anything or be anything or ask for anything he simply wants my company and my attention.

When I focus on him, the rest seems to come together. If I focus on the rest and forget him, that’s when things tend to fall apart. I should know that after 30 years as a Christian! I’m a slow learner, I guess. I’m in good company with the Hebrews

Fix your eyes upon Jesus says the writer. And maybe that’s enough of a word for today, because it’s a hard word, and you know it is.

We’re a bit like Zacchaeus before he climbs the tree in last week’s story, aren’t we? Jesus is walking by; he’s right there. But there are a lot of other things in the way that make it difficult to see him. Can’t see past those health problems. Can’t see past that work issue. Struggling to see beyond those words that were said, and the person who said them. Can’t see him because of all those questions and doubts in the way.

Where does your mind tend to slide off to during the day? The next piece of work, the next pleasure, the next worry? We’re all different – only you can answer the question, but it’s a question worth asking.

So with that in mind, let’s make a pact as we start out on this journey together. Let’s make a real effort in the days and weeks to come to try and fix our eyes on Jesus. Make those times of prayer, yes, and try to keep your focus in them. But during your day, keep turning to him in your heart and in your imagination. Talk to him, silently, as you go about your work; as you find yourself waiting in queues or stuck in traffic.  As you do the things you love to do, the things you have to do and the things you wish to goodness somebody else would do. Keep looking in his direction.

One of the church’s great pray-ers says: “A little lifting of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, one act of inward worship are prayers which, however short, are nevertheless acceptable to God.”

Acceptable to God, yes. But more than that – necessary to help us grow into the kind of mature faith the author of Hebrews wants his people to have. The kind that remembers that Jesus is with us always, and we can always look to him.

Lost

On May 4^th, 1995, a Jewish girl called Suri Feldman disappeared while on a school field trip to Bigelow State Park near Massachusetts.

Suri had been walking in the woods with several hundred classmates, and it was only when they got back to the buses that they realised she wasn't there.

The park was enormous, and after a brief search, her teachers decided to inform the local police that Suri was missing.

And when they heard the news they were very concerned because a few months earlier, a twelve year old girl called Holly Pirainen had disappeared and been found murdered in the same woods.

Police from Massacheusets and Connecticut started the search that evening in the middle of foul weather. Weather so bad, scared Suri might die of exposure before they could find her.

By May the 6^th, there were a thousand police and volunteers looking for Suri. Six hundred of them were Hasidim, religious Jewish men in black, three piece suits and black hats. People from Suri's own community.

They'd driven from New York, Washington, Boston and Montreal to try and help find her. One even arrived with a truckload of kosher food to feed all the rescuers.

On May 7^th the police found Suri Feldman down a dirt track in the heart of the forest. She was alive and completely unharmed, although obviously cold and thirsty.

When the news filtered through to the Hasidim, they danced. Right then and there in the middle of the woods.

It's part of the way people in their tradition give thanks to God. So they danced.                     

And after Suri had been given a medical, they took her back home to Brooklyn, and when the car pulled into the parking lot near her house, it could hardly move because of the throng of Hasidim who had come to rejoice.

Men with black beards and black hats and black coats, looking for all the world as if they'd just stepped out of the 18^th century.

A local volunteer said "I've never seen so many people dance in a circle".

The joy of being found. The terror of being lost.

We all know what it feels like, at least to some degree,

Maybe it’s your wallet or your purse that’s gone missing. Maybe it’s your keys. Maybe – worse still – it’s been a child in your care. Or maybe you’ve been that child.

If so, you’ll know the gut-wrenching fear of loss. And the elation of finding again, or being found.

And that’s why Jesus’ stories of lostness – lost coin, lost sheep, lost, or Prodigal, son – are among the best remembered and most loved parables he told.  They push our buttons. In different ways we’ve all been there, done that and got the T-shirt.

And the story of Zacchaeus takes us into similar territory, but in a less obvious way, because real life is rarely as clear cut and obvious as it is in a story.

It’s only at the end of his encounter with the little tax collector that Jesus mentions lostness; it’s only on reflection that we realise that Zacchaeus was every bit as lost as the stray ewe in the story of the Good Shepherd, or the younger son in the parable of the prodigal Son.

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” said Jesus of Zacchaeus. So how exactly was he lost?

Well not physically, obviously! He knew where he was! Up a tree trying to get a look at what was going on!

But why was he there? Well I reckon he was there because he was lost emotionally and lost spiritually.

Remember that Zacchaeus was one of the tax-collectors. They  were in cahoots with the Romans and they used their power to fleece everybody in their districts for as much money as they could. And they made a good living from it.

The downside, of course, was that nobody wanted to know them. They were social lepers, cut off from the community because they’d become lackeys to the Roman overlords.

Make no mistake about it: Zacchaeus wasn’t just up a tree because he was small. That’s the Sunday School answer. He was up a tree because he didn’t belong. Nobody would step aside for him, nobody would make way for him because of who he was. He was emotionally lost – out on a limb, quite literally, with nowhere to go and no-one to turn to.

And what’s interesting is that for all the wealth he’d gathered, he still wasn’t content. Somewhere inside him there was a voice telling him that things weren’t supposed to be like this.

If he’d been happy with the way things were, why didn’t he just grunt when people went running off to see Jesus, and go back to counting his money?

I think it’s because he knew his lack. There was a lack in his life – a spiritual lostness – and it was that dull ache that took him up that tree more than idle curiosity.

Doctors tell us to pay attention to dull aches, don’t they?! Well, the doctor I live with does, anyway!

Is there a part of you that feels that same ache today? Maybe it’s buried deep within you, unnoticed most of the time. But you know it’s there, even if you rarely admit it, even to yourself.

Maybe you feel the same kind of isolation Zacchaues felt. You don’t have to be alone to feel lonely. It’s possible to be lonely in a crowd; lonely in a marriage. Loneliness isn’t about the proximity of people. It’s about the quality of relationships we have with them.

We can meet and greet people all day, go to work, come home and be the life and soul of the party and still be lonely.

Or maybe you’ve become lost within yourself, somehow. You don’t understand why you do the things you do. Why that temper keeps surfacing. Why life seems perpetually disappointing. Why you keep making the same old mistakes.

Or maybe everything’s fine in life – things are going well and you’re happy. But deep down there are still unanswered questions about life and faith that you’d prefer to keep in the dark. The answers might be too inconvenient to deal with. They might mean a change in your lifestyle. But every now and again the dull ache reminds you that they’re still there.

Maybe you’re up that tree today, with Zacchaeus, watching to see what happens.

Well I love what happens in this story, because for me it’s a snapshot of the whole gospel. Jesus stops dead in his tracks and he calls this man by name.

“Come down Zacchaeus. I have to visit your house today”.

Imagine all the heads turning towards the wee man up the tree; the hated wee man who’d been trying to hide but was now – deliberately - the focus of everyone’s attention What was he going to do? Fob the teacher off with some lame excuse, or take him at his word and come down?

It was one of those moments when your whole life hangs in the balance; like the infinite seconds between a man’s proposal and a woman’s saying ‘yes’, or a labouring mother’s final push and the newborn’s first cries.

We’ll never know how long those few seconds of attention and deliberating felt to Zacchaeus, but we know what he did. He clambered back down the tree and jumped, feet first, into a new life.

A life where nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed.

He walked with Christ along the same streets back to the same house, and hurriedly tried to tidy away the same breakfast dishes he’d left lying there that morning because he wasn’t expecting visitors.

He was still a tax collector. He was still short. He was still hated. But he wasn’t lost anymore, because Christ had called him by name.

He wasn’t in the place he wanted to be yet. But now, for the first time in his life, he knew how to get there. He knew the way; and the way had a face, a voice, and a name,

Christ had found him. He wasn’t lost anymore. And there was dancing in heaven.

Let’s pray.

Lord, call us by name.

Call us out of our lostness.

Call to us in our loneliness, our disappointment, our pain.

Call to us in our unbelief and hardness of heart.

Call to us,

Not so our circumstances might change,

But that we might be changed within them,

And being found; being known,

We might walk more closely, and with deeper joy,

The road which leads us home.

Amen

Who Are You?

This sermon begins at a hypothetical party. The company’s good, the night is young and there’s plenty to eat and drink. So naturally, you’re happy. Hypothetically.

But half-way through the evening, a pleasant stranger comes up

and says “Hi – who are you?”.

So you smile and give your name. But the stranger leans in closer, and says, with an intensity that kind of unnerves you: “No. I mean – who are you?”

So you start wittering on about what you do in life and your family and where you come from, and all the things that seem to define you as a person, but the amusement in your inquisitor’s eyes tells you that this still isn’t hitting the mark.

“No no. That’s not who you are. That’s the stuff you do and the people you belong to; they’re important, but they’re not you. Take them away, or get shipwrecked on a desert island and that part of you called ‘you’ is still there. So who are you?”

Of course, by this stage you’re looking around nervously for any excuse to break off the conversation, so when the doorbell goes you practically leap across the room to answer it.

And you spend the rest of the evening avoiding the stranger like the plague. But you can’t avoid the question. It’s there now: and the worrying thing is, you don’t have a clue how to begin to answer it.

Who are you, sitting out there in Belhelvie Church this morning?

There are farmers, teachers, nurses, carers, administrators, oil workers, people in retirement, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, new members, old members, non members, visitors, young people, old people, sick people, well people, content people, troubled people, depressed people, busy people, bored people.

Strip all of that stuff away from yourself, all of the stuff that seems to define you, and what’s left? Who are you?

Who are you when you sit alone in a quiet room away from everything that might distract you? Who are you when you take a solitary walk in the hills, or along the beach, and spend some time being rather than doing?

That’s a question we need to get to the bottom of, because although the things we do, and the people we love, are a huge, formative part of our lives, they aren’t ‘who we are’. They help shape the clay, but they’re not the clay itself. You are the clay.

But we forget that. We forget that we are more than the sum of commitments and relationships that make up our lives. And I believe that many people go to their graves without ever really discovering that truth about themselves.

So who are you?

Well according to what God says through Isaiah, the first thing we must understand about ourselves as Christians is that we’re chosen.

“Before I was born, the Lord chose me” says Isaiah in verse 1 of chapter 49, and that theme of chosenness is repeated time and time again in Scripture.

And today I want you to know that whether you realise it or not, God has chosen you. Before you saw the light of day; before your mother held you in her arms, you were chosen by God. He saw your uniqueness; he saw your gifts and your potential. And he chose you.

I wonder if you remember what it feels like to be chosen? Or maybe not chosen?

The boys line up against the wall, and the two best players stand apart from them, sizing them up. Maybe you were always one of the first picked? Maybe, like me, you were one of those who breathed a sigh of relief when you weren’t chosen last. Maybe you were the one left scuffing your shoes at the very end, chosen just to make up the numbers and get in the way.

The girls line up against the wall – red faced and giggling. Social dancing in the Assembly Hall. After much cajoling and threats, the boys drag themselves across the floor to pair up with someone. Maybe you were first chosen. Maybe you were always last; yearning for some shy lad to lift his eyes in your direction.

You see, choosing in this world is competitive – there are winners and losers.  If we’re chosen then it means that someone else isn’t chosen. So there are always tears mingling with the smiles.

But it’s different when God chooses. Because the game isn’t football and we’re not practicing our dancing. God chooses us so that we might bring our own unique gifts into his world, and use them for his glory. And that means that every one of us has something to offer.

So we all line up against the wall. And God sees us as we are. And he chooses some for their wisdom; some for their beauty; some for their enthusiasm; some for their compassion; some for their humility; some for their creativity; some for their practicality; some for their spirituality. But all are chosen, every last one of us, because God sees right to the truth of who we are, and values us for what we are, and what we can be, through Christ.

Who are you? Well the first thing to realise is that you – just as you are - are God’s chosen.

But what are we chosen for?

Well again, Isaiah gives us the answer:

“Before I was born, the Lord chose me and appointed me to be his servant”

Now I wonder what image comes into your mind when you hear that word ‘servant’? Mr Carson selecting the wines for the dinner, or Mrs Patmore slaving over a five course meal for a party of twelve, maybe?

It’s worth remembering that in the ancient world, some slaves, or servants, rose to positions of great importance in the household.

They were trusted. They were given responsibility.

You’ might remember that Joseph started life as a slave in Egypt, and yet he rose to become the Pharaoh’s right hand man.

So the defining characteristic of a servant isn’t that they’re poor or downtrodden, but that they’re people whose will is subject to someone else’s. They don’t just live to please themselves. They live to please the one they serve.

“The Lord chose me and appointed me to be his servant” says Isaiah.

In other words, I don’t just live for myself and the things that I want any more, because I’ve realised that God has a prior call on my life. “You are not your own” says the apostle Paul. “You were bought at a price”.

And of course this is where the rubber hits the road, because serving God comes at the cost of some of our personal freedoms.

When we take vows of membership in joining the church, we’re committing to set aside Sunday mornings for worship. Wherever possible, that should come first.

We’re committing to practice spiritual disciplines in our own time; developing a life of prayer, and starting to discover how God speaks into our lives through the Bible.

We’re committing to give of our time, talents and money to the church, so that God’s work in this place can flourish.

And we’re committing to being open with others about our faith, and unashamed of being known as a Christian.

That’s what it means to be a servant of Christ, and a member of the church. It’s not about joining an institution; it’s about choosing to live from a different set of priorities. that become foundational for your life.

Anything less than that is a watered down form of Christianity that doesn’t deserve the name.

Who are you? You’re God’s chosen; and he’s chosen you for service in his kingdom

But there’s one more step we need to take in answering the question that the stranger in the story was asking us.

If we’re chosen to be servants, then what’s our task? What are we meant to do?

Well once again, Isaiah helps us with an answer:

verse 5 of chapter 49 says this: “Before I was born, the Lord appointed me (chose me); he made me his servant to bring back his people, to bring back the scattered people of Israel”.

Isaiah understood those words in a particular way, because he prophesied in the years when the Israelite people were exiled in Babylon and longing for home.

But those words speak just as clearly to you and me today. Our role as servants is to bring the scattered people back to God.

Stop and take a look at our society with me for a moment.

This morning, we’re a small, seemingly eccentric minority in Great Britain – in coming out to church.

The rest of the country’s out at the car boot sales; or in bed reading the papers. Some are busy scrubbing the alloys; some are heading off for retail therapy; some are putting up shelves; some are heading off for a day out with the kids, all of which are fine things to do. But not when those things are filling the space in our lives that God’s supposed to occupy.

And of course, some commentators are rubbing their hands with glee at the way secularism has replaced faith in the hearts and minds of the nation.

But what staggers me is that the same commentators, ridiculing belief as superstition, then turn around and start wringing their hands about the way society’s changed in our lifetime. Can they not see the connection? It doesn’t take a PhD in Social Science to see what’s happening!

50 years ago, a basic Christian morality was the glue that held our society together. People knew right from wrong. They understood respect. They thought about people other than themselves. The basic truths about how to live in the world seemed self-evident, even to those who weren’t committed believers.

But in our day that glue’s perishing in our nation; people amd communities don’t seem to hold together in the ways they used to. We’re more scattered than we’ve ever been.

People are scattered, spiritually and emotionally, because in the absence of God, they have no story that tells them who they are. So they have to search out an identity for themselves; and that puts us entirely at the mercy of the great corporate machine which tells us how to think, how to look, what to eat, what to wear, how to live and what to aspire to.

We’re in this place today because in small, seemingly insignificant ways, our nation drifted away from the story that once gave it life.

We got rid of God and then promptly set up a host of other idols to worship in his place. We don’t call them idols – but they’re the things we live for.

And although the drift’s been glacially slow, you only have to look at the ice-carved hills of our country to know what slow movement over time can do. It digs deep, deep valleys.

“The Lord made me his servant to bring back his people, to bring back the scattered people of Israel”.

Thank God we don’t often see the worst of this scatteredness, this brokenness in our community. But it’s there, and you know it is. The couples who can’t seem to give and take enough to make it work; the people who are working too hard for their own good; the neighbour who’s hitting the bottle; the parents who either can’t cope or can’t be bothered to cope. All scattered.

What can we do? And what can we do about our own brokenness?

Well, Isaiah gives us another word to hold onto as we leave. In a world lacking stories to live by, where many feel worthless and powerless to change, this is what the Christian can say:

“The Lord gives me honour. He is the source of my strength”

The most powerful witness to the presence of God in a scattered world is the evidence of broken people becoming whole through him. Not denying the pain, not pretending away the difficulties, but working through them with faith – and becoming stronger, deeper, wiser and more together as a consequence.

Who are you? asks the stranger at the party. And it’s a good question to be asking.

You’d do well to think long and hard before you say anything in response; because how you answer says a lot about where your roots really lie. In things that will pass and fade with time? Or in the God who holds all our times in his hands?