Like
Bob Geldof, I’m beginning to have a problem liking Mondays.
Monday tends to be the day that most ministers take off – but for me, it’s the day when I try to get my preparation for the following Sunday done. The house is quiet, and I’ve usually got an uninterrupted stretch of time to work in until the kids come home from school.
But recently, things haven’t been going so well on Mondays. I’m ten years into the parish, fifteen into ministry. That’s getting on for 600 sermons, having been round the lectionary cycle five times, when I’ve chosen to follow it. After all that, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that you’ve said it all before. Luckily you lot seem to have short memories!
And recently, when I’ve sat down to study a text I’ve found it harder to focus in on the one or two things that need to be said. My minds full of ideas, but trying to grab a couple of them and pin them down isn’t getting any easier. The comedian Bill Bailey did a tour called Dandelion Mind a few years back, and that’s a pretty good image of a Monday for me, at the moment.
So there I am, for five or six hours on the trot, trying to study and pray and discern and write, and not making a whole lot of progress, and before I know it, there’s the rumble of the school bus and there’s Isla knocking at the study window with a big smile on her face.
And I want to be a good dad for her, and smile back. But too often on Mondays, I don’t feel like smiling. I try to be present for her, but I’m weighed down by the fact that after several hours of reading and thinking, all I’ve got is a paltry 300 words and no real clue where the sermon’s going. And once the after school stuff’s done, and I head out to an evening meeting or a visit, that’s Monday gone and I haven’t even got the hymns picked because I don’t know where I’m going with the sermon yet.
I want to do better and to be better – for everyone. For my family, for you folk in the pews. But too often I end up feeling tense, irritable, resentful, clenched. No good to anyone. Incidentally, that’s something you could pray into for me – pray that I’ll get the help I need from God to make preparation more of a pleasure and less of a pain.
But my saving grace in all of this is that I know you could tell your own stories like this too. Different things would set you off; different scenarios would pull your trigger, but I bet you know what I’m describing. Those times when you’ve tried to get a grip on something and all that’s happened is that it’s ended up getting a grip on you – your mood, your behaviour, your outlook.
We need a word from Jesus this morning. We need some light to help us live better.
The disciples come to Jesus bearing good news in this morning’s reading. He’s just entered Jerusalem at the start of what we now call Holy Week. The crowds are pressing in to see him; wondering what this miracle-worker from Galilee is going to do next. The Pharisees are rattled because they can’t explain away the things he’s doing, and the people are following him in their droves.
And that’s the point at which some Greeks, who were there for the Passover, approach Philip to see if he can arrange a meeting with Jesus.
Now we know nothing about these Greeks – they may have been converts to Judaism, but it’s more likely they were just ordinary Gentiles, curious about who this Jesus was and what he’d been doing. Maybe they’d seen him run the animals and the traders out of the Court of the Gentiles and wondered if, for that reason, he’d have some sympathies towards them.
But whatever their thinking, the fact of their approach is met in a strange way. Jesus doesn’t give Philip a yes or a no to a meeting as we might expect. Instead, he launches out on this strange monologue about the fact that his hour has now come.
So what’s he on about? What is his ‘hour’ and why has it come now?
Well all throughout John’s gospel we’ve heard time and time again that Jesus’ hour hasn’t yet come. When his mother draws him into the wine crisis at the wedding at Cana, he says ‘Why do you involve me, woman? My time has not yet come’. When the authorities unsuccessfully try to grab and silence him on a couple of occasions, John tells us that Jesus manages to escape because his time hadn’t yet come.
But now, standing in Jerusalem on the cusp of his destiny, his hour has finally arrived. Even as the leaders of his own people are plotting against him, we find Gentile Greeks coming to ask for an audience with him – a sign of just how far his influence was spreading. And their approach would have had great significance for Jesus. The Messiah, Abraham’s seed, was to be a blessing to all nations. And here they are – representatives of the nations coming to seek him out.
His hour had come. But what was the hour going to bring?
Well at first it sounds like honour and success. “The hour has come for the son of Man to be glorified’ he said. And with that we might have expected palm branches, brass bands and tickertape parades. But we know enough about Messiahship now not to be surprised when Jesus’ idea of glorification turns out to be very different from the world’s idea.
His glory will be found in obedience that leads, ultimately, to death.His glorification looks for all the world like ignominious failure. But it’s not. Because he knows that it’s only as the seed gives itself up in death that it can generate more seed and more life.
It’s only as Jesus gives up his life in death that others can take on his Spirit and continue his work - scattering God’s word and God’s ways across the whole earth.
Jesus knows that this is how things have to be; and yet now that his hour has come, even he is afraid.
John has no record of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, but these next few verses take us into the same emotional territory: “Now my heart is troubled – and what shall I say? Shall I say ‘Father, do not let this hour come upon me”? But that is why I came – so that I might go through this hour of suffering. Father, bring glory to your name”
Jesus’ glorification doesn’t come by might or by power. By force of will or force of arms. It comes with quiet self-surrender and hands that are open to accept the will of God for his life, even if that sees those hands nailed to a cross. He lets go of everything that might hold him back so he can let God get on with his work.
And there, I think, is the word for you and for me for today. Let go and let God.
Listening with 21st century ears, we might well misunderstand what Jesus is saying in verse 25: He says “Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal.”
What does he mean? Surely we’re in the business of loving life, not hating it? And if you hate your life why would you want to keep it for all eternity anyway!?
Well what he’s talking about here is the need to hold things lightly, with an open hand. If we’re guarded and possessive about things, life will close down on us and we’ll be lessened as people. If we’re generous and free with what we have and who we are, life will begin to open up for us and we’ll be enlarged. It’s the kind of upside-down thinking that’s so characteristic of Jesus’ teaching – where the first are last, the lowly lifted high, and those who give end up receiving back a hundredfold.
When Jesus says to hate your life, he doesn’t mean it literally any more than when he says elsewhere we’re to hate our mothers and fathers. There’s a wee bit of the bible you didn’t know!
Monday tends to be the day that most ministers take off – but for me, it’s the day when I try to get my preparation for the following Sunday done. The house is quiet, and I’ve usually got an uninterrupted stretch of time to work in until the kids come home from school.
But recently, things haven’t been going so well on Mondays. I’m ten years into the parish, fifteen into ministry. That’s getting on for 600 sermons, having been round the lectionary cycle five times, when I’ve chosen to follow it. After all that, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that you’ve said it all before. Luckily you lot seem to have short memories!
And recently, when I’ve sat down to study a text I’ve found it harder to focus in on the one or two things that need to be said. My minds full of ideas, but trying to grab a couple of them and pin them down isn’t getting any easier. The comedian Bill Bailey did a tour called Dandelion Mind a few years back, and that’s a pretty good image of a Monday for me, at the moment.
So there I am, for five or six hours on the trot, trying to study and pray and discern and write, and not making a whole lot of progress, and before I know it, there’s the rumble of the school bus and there’s Isla knocking at the study window with a big smile on her face.
And I want to be a good dad for her, and smile back. But too often on Mondays, I don’t feel like smiling. I try to be present for her, but I’m weighed down by the fact that after several hours of reading and thinking, all I’ve got is a paltry 300 words and no real clue where the sermon’s going. And once the after school stuff’s done, and I head out to an evening meeting or a visit, that’s Monday gone and I haven’t even got the hymns picked because I don’t know where I’m going with the sermon yet.
I want to do better and to be better – for everyone. For my family, for you folk in the pews. But too often I end up feeling tense, irritable, resentful, clenched. No good to anyone. Incidentally, that’s something you could pray into for me – pray that I’ll get the help I need from God to make preparation more of a pleasure and less of a pain.
But my saving grace in all of this is that I know you could tell your own stories like this too. Different things would set you off; different scenarios would pull your trigger, but I bet you know what I’m describing. Those times when you’ve tried to get a grip on something and all that’s happened is that it’s ended up getting a grip on you – your mood, your behaviour, your outlook.
We need a word from Jesus this morning. We need some light to help us live better.
The disciples come to Jesus bearing good news in this morning’s reading. He’s just entered Jerusalem at the start of what we now call Holy Week. The crowds are pressing in to see him; wondering what this miracle-worker from Galilee is going to do next. The Pharisees are rattled because they can’t explain away the things he’s doing, and the people are following him in their droves.
And that’s the point at which some Greeks, who were there for the Passover, approach Philip to see if he can arrange a meeting with Jesus.
Now we know nothing about these Greeks – they may have been converts to Judaism, but it’s more likely they were just ordinary Gentiles, curious about who this Jesus was and what he’d been doing. Maybe they’d seen him run the animals and the traders out of the Court of the Gentiles and wondered if, for that reason, he’d have some sympathies towards them.
But whatever their thinking, the fact of their approach is met in a strange way. Jesus doesn’t give Philip a yes or a no to a meeting as we might expect. Instead, he launches out on this strange monologue about the fact that his hour has now come.
So what’s he on about? What is his ‘hour’ and why has it come now?
Well all throughout John’s gospel we’ve heard time and time again that Jesus’ hour hasn’t yet come. When his mother draws him into the wine crisis at the wedding at Cana, he says ‘Why do you involve me, woman? My time has not yet come’. When the authorities unsuccessfully try to grab and silence him on a couple of occasions, John tells us that Jesus manages to escape because his time hadn’t yet come.
But now, standing in Jerusalem on the cusp of his destiny, his hour has finally arrived. Even as the leaders of his own people are plotting against him, we find Gentile Greeks coming to ask for an audience with him – a sign of just how far his influence was spreading. And their approach would have had great significance for Jesus. The Messiah, Abraham’s seed, was to be a blessing to all nations. And here they are – representatives of the nations coming to seek him out.
His hour had come. But what was the hour going to bring?
Well at first it sounds like honour and success. “The hour has come for the son of Man to be glorified’ he said. And with that we might have expected palm branches, brass bands and tickertape parades. But we know enough about Messiahship now not to be surprised when Jesus’ idea of glorification turns out to be very different from the world’s idea.
His glory will be found in obedience that leads, ultimately, to death.His glorification looks for all the world like ignominious failure. But it’s not. Because he knows that it’s only as the seed gives itself up in death that it can generate more seed and more life.
It’s only as Jesus gives up his life in death that others can take on his Spirit and continue his work - scattering God’s word and God’s ways across the whole earth.
Jesus knows that this is how things have to be; and yet now that his hour has come, even he is afraid.
John has no record of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, but these next few verses take us into the same emotional territory: “Now my heart is troubled – and what shall I say? Shall I say ‘Father, do not let this hour come upon me”? But that is why I came – so that I might go through this hour of suffering. Father, bring glory to your name”
Jesus’ glorification doesn’t come by might or by power. By force of will or force of arms. It comes with quiet self-surrender and hands that are open to accept the will of God for his life, even if that sees those hands nailed to a cross. He lets go of everything that might hold him back so he can let God get on with his work.
And there, I think, is the word for you and for me for today. Let go and let God.
Listening with 21st century ears, we might well misunderstand what Jesus is saying in verse 25: He says “Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal.”
What does he mean? Surely we’re in the business of loving life, not hating it? And if you hate your life why would you want to keep it for all eternity anyway!?
Well what he’s talking about here is the need to hold things lightly, with an open hand. If we’re guarded and possessive about things, life will close down on us and we’ll be lessened as people. If we’re generous and free with what we have and who we are, life will begin to open up for us and we’ll be enlarged. It’s the kind of upside-down thinking that’s so characteristic of Jesus’ teaching – where the first are last, the lowly lifted high, and those who give end up receiving back a hundredfold.
When Jesus says to hate your life, he doesn’t mean it literally any more than when he says elsewhere we’re to hate our mothers and fathers. There’s a wee bit of the bible you didn’t know!
Luke
14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does
not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and
sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple."
It’s hyperbole. He’s not telling us to hate the people we love, or our own lives. He’s saying that our love for God should be deeper than all those other loves. Our love for God should be the thing that defines us; everything else is secondary.
If we have deep roots in God, we don’t need to keep clinging on unhealthily to other things that tell us who we are – appearance, wealth, looks, abilities, status, family. We can enjoy them, but with an open hand, knowing that they are not the last word on our lives. God has the last word, and he calls us his beloved.
The ancients had a word for that kind of thinking. They called it the practice of detachment. A rootedness in God which helped keep everything else in proper perspective. It’s a lesson all of us need to keep re-visiting in life, time and time again.
I’ve told you before about the time when I was living in Glasgow and thought I had a call to go and minister on Tiree in the Western Isles – everything seemed to be coming together beautifully.
And I remember going to see my prayer mentor, Sister Joan, when all this was fermenting in my mind and I was really excited about it. And after the opening pleasantries, I launched into this big spiel about how this just seemed so right and how it would be exactly what we were needing and how God seemed to be leading us there.
And eventually she broke into my monologue and said “Paul – hold on a wee minute. Am I still here? You haven’t looked at me for about 20 minutes”. And she was quite right. I was away and running with this idea, but I was so engrossed in it I’d treated the real live person I was sitting opposite like a cardboard cut-out.
I was holding Tiree too tightly. Instead of pinning my hopes on God’s timing and God’s provision, I was pinning them all on this idea. This was the solution! This was the answer! It was only when I unclenched my hand, and did some research and prayed some more that I came to realise that actually, it wasn’t the answer.
Sometimes the way forward involves recognising that something’s become too important to us and that we need to let it go before God can get on and use us.
I wonder if there’s something you need to be letting go of this morning? Something you’ve been holding on to so tightly that your knuckles are white and your mind’s getting tired from the strain?
What are the worries you’ve brought here this morning?
It’s hyperbole. He’s not telling us to hate the people we love, or our own lives. He’s saying that our love for God should be deeper than all those other loves. Our love for God should be the thing that defines us; everything else is secondary.
If we have deep roots in God, we don’t need to keep clinging on unhealthily to other things that tell us who we are – appearance, wealth, looks, abilities, status, family. We can enjoy them, but with an open hand, knowing that they are not the last word on our lives. God has the last word, and he calls us his beloved.
The ancients had a word for that kind of thinking. They called it the practice of detachment. A rootedness in God which helped keep everything else in proper perspective. It’s a lesson all of us need to keep re-visiting in life, time and time again.
I’ve told you before about the time when I was living in Glasgow and thought I had a call to go and minister on Tiree in the Western Isles – everything seemed to be coming together beautifully.
And I remember going to see my prayer mentor, Sister Joan, when all this was fermenting in my mind and I was really excited about it. And after the opening pleasantries, I launched into this big spiel about how this just seemed so right and how it would be exactly what we were needing and how God seemed to be leading us there.
And eventually she broke into my monologue and said “Paul – hold on a wee minute. Am I still here? You haven’t looked at me for about 20 minutes”. And she was quite right. I was away and running with this idea, but I was so engrossed in it I’d treated the real live person I was sitting opposite like a cardboard cut-out.
I was holding Tiree too tightly. Instead of pinning my hopes on God’s timing and God’s provision, I was pinning them all on this idea. This was the solution! This was the answer! It was only when I unclenched my hand, and did some research and prayed some more that I came to realise that actually, it wasn’t the answer.
Sometimes the way forward involves recognising that something’s become too important to us and that we need to let it go before God can get on and use us.
I wonder if there’s something you need to be letting go of this morning? Something you’ve been holding on to so tightly that your knuckles are white and your mind’s getting tired from the strain?
What are the worries you’ve brought here this morning?
Work, family,
health. How you feel about yourself?
Where do you find
yourself angry? Nursing anger towards someone, or at a set of circumstances?
How is that affecting you?
Are there things that have become too important to you? How you look? What you own? How others perceive you?
No-one’s saying these things don’t matter, but don’t be like me in the room with Sister Joan. So intent on what I was clutching that I didn’t reckon with the deeper reality of the God who is always holding us. The God who is bigger than any circumstance we happen to find ourselves in.
I finished the bulk of this sermon at half past three on Monday afternoon. There’s probably much more I could and should have said. There always is, when you’re a preacher. But I decided to unclench my hands and my mind, trust God for the rest, and go and greet my daughter off the bus with the kind of welcome that she deserves. Life’s too short to let worries keep us from being the people we really ought to be.
As I was getting ready for this morning I remembered a lovely song by Tommy Emmanuel called Today Is Mine. It’s a song that speaks into this kind of territory, and we’re going to take a few moments now in silence to listen to it together and reflect on its wisdom.
Are there things that have become too important to you? How you look? What you own? How others perceive you?
No-one’s saying these things don’t matter, but don’t be like me in the room with Sister Joan. So intent on what I was clutching that I didn’t reckon with the deeper reality of the God who is always holding us. The God who is bigger than any circumstance we happen to find ourselves in.
I finished the bulk of this sermon at half past three on Monday afternoon. There’s probably much more I could and should have said. There always is, when you’re a preacher. But I decided to unclench my hands and my mind, trust God for the rest, and go and greet my daughter off the bus with the kind of welcome that she deserves. Life’s too short to let worries keep us from being the people we really ought to be.
As I was getting ready for this morning I remembered a lovely song by Tommy Emmanuel called Today Is Mine. It’s a song that speaks into this kind of territory, and we’re going to take a few moments now in silence to listen to it together and reflect on its wisdom.
Prayer
Today is ours, Lord – this day you have blessed us with.
Today is ours, Lord – this day you have blessed us with.
So grant us the serenity
To accept the things we cannot change;
Courage to change the things we can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as we would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If we surrender to His Will;
So that we may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
To accept the things we cannot change;
Courage to change the things we can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as we would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If we surrender to His Will;
So that we may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.
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