Psalm 129. On the narrative you live by

Three stories with a common theme to kick us off this morning – one in the form of a video, one a story and one a photograph.

We'll start with the video first.

(At this point I showed a short clip of Fernando Torres missing an open goal against Manchester United the previous weekend - a glaring miss).

For all his ability, the only narrative that's playing out around Torres is 'here's the £50 million player who's turned into a flop'. He seems stuck in a story he can't get out of.

My second story comes from my visits down to our local nursing home - Balmedie House. There's a lovely lady there who I'll call Mary and she's at the stage in her life where she can't really remember things from day to day, and we have the same conversation every time I'm down there. She sees my collar and says "Are you a minister?"  "Yes" I say. "Church of Scotland?".  "Yes - that's right. Belhelvie's my parish".  "Aw – I’m a Piscy" (Episcopalian!) she says, "but it’s nae sair!" (it's not a problem)

Why that memory, I wonder? Why ‘it’s nae sair?’ Did she feel awkward or different growing up a 'Piscy' if everyone else was Church of Sotland or RC?

My third story comes from a recent visit to Belfast with two colleagues. We did a bus tour of the city, and were taken into both the Loyalist Shankhill Road and the Republican Falls Road, and many of the gable ends of houses there are painted with cultural and paramilitary murals. We all agreed that the one below was the most striking of all. Black and white images show some of the atrocities perpetrated against the loyalist community over the years of the troubles, and questions how justice is - or isn't - being worked out in their favour.

Where are our inquiries. Where is our truth? Where is our justice?

Those words read like a howl of pain from a community that's trapped in the past and can't get past the things that have happened to it. It sounds like they are defined by the ways in which they have been wronged.

So those are our three stories. And the common theme is that in different ways, and to different degrees, all three describe people who are trapped in narratives they can’t seem to escape from. One story has become the dominant story that they are living out of.

One of the most perceptive and probing questions I think I’ve ever heard came from the lips of the Irish poet and mystic John O’Donohue. “What are the seven thoughts that have shaped your life and made it turn out the way it has?” he asked. There’s something to mull over by the fireside as the long dark evenings start to draw in! “What are the seven thoughts that have shaped your life?”

I’ve thought about that a lot, and I’ve never managed to get past the first two or three!

And for today, maybe it’s enough to simplify O’Donohue’s question and ask: “What one thought is shaping my life just now?”. What’s the story I’m living out of?

And the reason I ask is because it’s all too easy to get stuck in a bad narrative. One way of thinking, or of understanding ourselves and our situation, can end up swallowing all the others.

Our Psalm this morning starts with a bad narrative – one about pain and enemies and oppression.

“Israel, tell us how your enemies have persecuted you ever since you were young”.

And if you know a wee bit of your Biblical History you’ll remember some of the stories. The way their baby sons were taken and slaughtered by their Egyptian taskmasters. The forced labour, bullied out of them by beatings and murders. The many battles they had to fight to finally enter the promised land, and the constant threat of war and invasion on their borders once they’d settled there.

Israel knew a thing or two about enemies and persecution.

And that thought makes me want to pause for a moment to give our struggles a little perspective.

I doubt that there’s anyone here who doesn’t have some difficult folk to contend with in life. We all have. And when you’re in the thick of those situations it can feel intolerable. And sometimes that’s exactly what it is – intolerable. By any rational measurement, things are genuinely awful for you. You need the help of friends and family, maybe even professionals, to help sort things out.

But much of the time, I think we only feel it’s intolerable. Examined in the cold light of day, the things we get so het up about don’t really amount to much, yet we get irate about them.

We magnify little things and get enraged by them; we read a significance into things that simply isn’t there. We do the exact opposite of what the Scriptures say and instead of dealing quickly with any anger we feel towards someone, we store it up and let it fester. And we end up making mountains out of molehills.

May God spare us from ever making real enemies – the kind that Israel had, and that some folk in today’s world still have. The kind who come knocking on your door at midnight to thrash you within an inch of your life and leave your back looking like a ploughed field.

Unless we’re very unlucky, in this part of the world I think the enemies people have most problems with are the ones within, rather than without.

Maybe it’s your pride that’s the enemy – that’s made life difficult for you. Maybe it’s your temper. Your rare ability to start a fight in an empty room.


Maybe it’s your stubbornness, or your low self-esteem, or your need to take over and be in control.


Maybe it’s what the apostle Paul calls the belly gods – the gut-level desires and hungers that take us over if we let them.

Any one of these, unchecked, can come to be the dominant narrative of our lives.

I knew a man in Glasgow years ago and it was a standing joke among his friends that if you hadn’t seen him for a while and you asked him how he was doing, he’d always say “Well, I’m alright NOW”!

He was caught in a bad narrative where he was always a victim. And nothing ever seemed to change.

Mike Yaconelli tells a story about a nine year old girl called Margaret who for some reason kept irking her teacher. And one day, in a rage, the teacher made her stand at the front of the class, and forced the other 25 girls to come up and write cruel things about her on the blackboard. Margaret is fat. Margaret is stupid. Margaret is a bad person.

It took that woman 40 years to escape the shadows that were cast over her soul that day. Those words became the narrative of her life.

It’s all too possible for one narrative to take you over.

How can you know if that’s happening to you?

The simplest answer to that, I think, is to listen to yourself. What do you talk about? What do you keep gravitating back to, in your speaking and your living and your thinking?

Are there times when you catch yourself halfway through a sentence thinking “oh no. here I go again”. That’s a strong clue that one narrative is beginning to take over.

But the good news today is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Psalm 129 begins with the Psalmist saying “Israel, tell us how your enemies have persecuted you ever since you were young”.

The Psalmist is inviting Israel to tell a story. And you know as well as I do, that the only time you encourage someone to tell a story is when you already know there’s a good ending!

What does Israel say?

V2 – “Ever since I was young, my enemies have persecuted me cruelly.”

Those are the facts. The facts are a given. But it’s what you do in the face of those facts that matters.

“my enemies have persecuted me cruelly, but they have not overcome me. They cut deep wounds in my back and made it like a ploughed field. But the Lord, the righteous one, has freed me from slavery”.

How do they get out from under this narrative of oppression? They pick up the strains of another, better narrative and they begin to live out of that.

How did Israel escape from slavery in Egypt? Moses – trembling, stuttering Moses, gathers his courage, makes his way back to Pharaoh and speaks the word ‘God’ into a situation that seemed godless. And as he does so, memories are stirred, and hope is kindled. There IS another story they can live out of – the God story.

Or think of David, who wrote many of the Psalms – hiding out in caves because the King he used to serve, King Saul. has turned on him for no reason and wants him dead. David could so easily have chosen the victim narrative, or the revenge narrative. They were a good fit in those circumstances. But he chose the God story. He chose the way of trust, patience, forgiveness and honour.

Or think of Jesus – living in a country under Roman occupation where it seemed that there were only two options: submission or waging a near-suicidal guerilla war. Again – the victim narrative or the revenge narrative looked like the only possibilities.

But Jesus showed how to live out the God-story. He embodied a third way, a defiant pacifism that forced the authorities to recognise the Jewish people as people.

When you study his teaching about turning the other cheek, and going the second mile you realise that these are deeply subversive practices. They force the Romans to see the Jews as people – people who refuse to accept the narrative role they’re expected to play, because they have a better story they’re living out of. One that tells them that first and foremost they’re not Roman subjects but the beloved children of God.

The Psalmist has a good story to tell this morning

The enemy oppressed. But they have not overcome.


The Lord, the righteous one, has freed me from slavery.

I wonder what oppresses in your life just now?

Time? Work? Responsibility? Something to do with how you perceive yourself? Someone who’s making life difficult? We all have our stories of oppression.

But the good news today is that they needn’t be the dominant narrative of our lives.

The Lord , the righteous one, can set you free. says the Psalmist.

And he will do, if we set ourselves to listening for the strains of his story.

As I was thinking about this morning, I remembered a movie I haven’t seen for absolutely ages - Shirley Valentine.

Shirley’s a middle aged housewife, living out of a narrative she’s grown tired of. Her husband Joe and her daughter take her completely for granted, and whatever spark and individuality she once had has been all but extinguished by dull routine. She’s unhappy, but she’s more or less resigned to how things are.

And then her friend wins a competition where the first prize is a trip for two to Greece, and she offers to take Shirley with her. It sounds like an impossiblilty - Joe would never allow it. But a little part of her begins to dream.

She puts a brightly coloured poster of Greece on her pantry door, and it lights up her drab kitchen. She looks at it all the time, wondering what it would be like to go there, and eat different food and meet different people, and drink a cold glass of wine sitting beside the sea in the evening sunlight.

And then something happens that makes her decide that that’s exactly what she’s going to do. Thursday night is always steak night in their house, but Joe freaks out when she dares to cook him egg and chips for a change and he literally throws it back in her lap.

Shirley’s had enough. She goes to Greece with her friend, and falls in love all over again – not so much with the place, or even the local womaniser she has a dalliance with. She falls in love with life again, and with being Shirley Valentine.

The movie ends with Joe, her husband, walking stiffly down to the harbour in his black suit, shirt and tie, and walking right past Shirley as she sits, having that glass of wine by the sea. He doesn’t even recognise her any more. It’s only when she speaks that he realises who she is. And the film ends with him, bewildered at the change in her, joining her for a drink by the sea.

We don’t know how things will pan out, but we know that for Shirley, and we hope for Joe, things will end well because she’s found a better narrative to live out of.

And the image I want to leave you with this morning, is that poster of Greece on Shirley’s pantry door. Something that pointed beyond the drab or difficult now to something better.

There are times when I feel like a broken record. Sometimes I feel like all I do in my preaching is encourage you to read and reflect and pray. But I want you to realise that’s not because God demands it of you. It’s not meant to be a dull duty, like washing up or cooking egg and chips.

For a believer, prayer and reading and reflection are like the poster of Greece, reminding us that there are other, better stories to live by. They open up possibilities; they make us realise that there are other ways to be, And in the humdrum of our everyday lives, with their burdens and their pressures, that’s a message that all of us need to hear again and again and again.

I began this week feeling pressurised by the weight of things not done. And when I feel that pressure, my regular temptation is to get the head down and crack on with it, prayerlessly and grumpily. I live too much of my life out of that narrative.

But this week something, most likely the Holy Spirit, nagged me to sit down and keep company with God before I began to do anything. So I did. And I read these words in a little book I use when I come to pray:

“It is a great loss if we greet every day with clenched hands stuffed with our own devices. We will never know what is out there waiting for us if we don’t extend an empty hand to the world and wait for the wonder to happen”.

That metaphorical glance at the poster was enough to remind me to live out of God’s story that day, and not my own. To unclench my hands a little and wait for the wonder.

I’ll probably have to learn the same lesson again this week, and the week after and the week after that but thank God he never tires of drawing us into his story and setting us free.

Blessed Are Those Who Are Persecuted for the Sake of Righteousness

Today we come to the penultimate beatitude in this series of eight we’ve been looking at in the build up to Christmas:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires – the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as them”.

It might seem like a strange topic for the season of goodwill: but given that this is a communion service where the cost of following God to the end is shown graphically in the elements of bread and wine, perhaps it’s not so strange.

Now there are two obvious Sermons to preach today and I don’t intend to preach either.

The first is to hold up examples of Christians who are persecuted in today’s world and say “there you go, folks. That puts whatever problems you’re facing because of your faith into perspective”.

It would be very easy to do.

If you Google “Christian Persecution”, you’ll quickly find several websites that spell out the reality of life for an estimated 100 million Christians across the world. I lifted these headlines at random from one website, but there were pages and pages of other stories I could have chosen.

“Europe urged to halt death sentence of Iranian pastor”
“Pakistani teenage Christian nearly stoned to death in prison”
“Hindu militants attack Punjabi Church”
“Gunmen break into Iraqui Christian home and kill 2”.
“Chinese house churches raided – two pastors missing”.

And they’re just headlines, but behind every one there are people being denied basic human rights, and families worried sick for their loved ones and for themselves.

And though it has to be said that people of all creeds (and none) face persecution in different parts of the world, the fate of Christians, particularly in Islamic and Communist countries, is especially precarious in today’s world.

And it would be easy to use their stories to flagellate ourselves for how little we suffer for our faith; but that’s not a sermon I want to preach.

And nor do I want to put on my Daily Mail hat and rail against the so-called persecution of Christians in Britain today. You know the kind of thing – the Airport worker who’s told she can’t wear a crucifix round her neck at work. The healthcare worker who’s struck off for offering to pray with a patient.

These kinds of small-scale persecution are cropping up with regularity now because we live in a culture of overcautious political correctness. But although stories like that are saddening and maddening, they’re hardly surprising.

Minorities often suffer at the hands of the majority, and we live in an age when only 15% of the UK population attend church at least once a month. We’re a minority now. And instead of spluttering our outrage about it, we’re going to have to learn all over again what it means to live creatively at the margins.

But I digress.

So those are the two sermons I’m not going to preach this morning.

Instead, let me tell you four things the Bible says about persecution and leave it at that.

Firstly – Anyone who’s trying to live a Christian life will come up against persecution of one form or another. That’s guaranteed. If you choose not to follow the crowd, don’t be surprised if the crowd turns on you now and again.

Now some folk bring it on themselves – the Dot Cottons of this world with their moany self-righteousness. But there are many good souls, doing nobody any harm and plenty of folk good, who still find themselves at the sharp end of criticism.

As Jesus spoke with the disciples on the night he was betrayed, he warned them that the going ahead would be tough “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also”.

Expect it, he said. Do your best to live at peace with everyone, but don’t expect that it will always be successful. If you choose to live the way of the kingdom you won’t always fit in. And you know what the world does to people who don’t fit in. It kicks them until they’re the right shape, or it pushes them to the margins where they can safely be ignored. Don’t be surprised when it happens.

Don’t be surprised when you don’t get the invitation; or they pass you over for promotion because you’re not ruthless enough or you prioritise your family and your church life over your career.

Don’t be surprised when tongues wag, or emails fly because you choose to live differently. Don’t be surprised when some take great delight in misrepresenting you.

Persecution of one sort or another will come. Expect it, says Jesus.

But remember, secondly, that you’re not alone in it. Christ is with you in your suffering. Expect God’s presence.

Some of you will know the story of how Saul became the apostle Paul. As one of the most devout Jews of his day, Saul was tearing about the country persecuting the newborn church; presiding over the execution of some of its key members.

And then on the road to Damascus, he was blinded by a shining light from heaven. And he heard the voice of Jesus saying “Saul, Saul . Why do you persecute me?”. Not “Why do you persecute my church? Why do you persecute those poor believers? Why do you persecute ME”.

Now by this stage, Jesus was long gone. Saul never laid eyes on him except in this encounter. But for Jesus, persecuting his church was the same as persecuting his very self. He is with us in our suffering.

Much, much later in life, after he’d struggled long and hard in the service of the gospel, Saul – now Paul - set down these words in his letter to the Romans, and they’re words that are born out of experience:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

We are not alone when we suffer for his sake. God is present with us.

And that is hugely important, because the next thing he asks us to do, we couldn’t do without him

Jesus asks us to pray for those who persecute us. We need to Express Prayer for them.

Nothing represents the whole upside-down, counter-intuitive philosophy of Jesus’ kingdom way, better than this command.

Just a few verses on from where we read this morning, Jesus says these words:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven".

Martin Luther King, who had more enemies than most of us, put it this way: “He who would change someone must first love them”.

How will our enemies, our persecutors, ever change if we refuse to love them and return hate for hate?

Desmond Tutu tells a story from the work of the Truth and Reconciliation committee’s work in South Africa. A black woman whose son and husband had both been brutally killed by security police officers found herself in the same room as the man who had orchestrated their killings. After he’d finished giving his testimony, the commissioners asked the widow how she wanted justice to be done.

“I want three things” she said.

“I want to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned, so I can gather the dust there and give his remains a decent burial”.

“My husband and my son were my only family, so the second thing I want is for Mr Van Broek to become my son. I want him to come twice a month to the ghetto where I live so I can pour out on him whatever love I still have within me.”

“And thirdly, I want someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so I can take Mr Van Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven”.

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse”, says Jesus. Why? Because it’s the only way to break the cycle of hate. It’s the only way that love can triumph.

Expect persecution. Expect God’s Presence. Express Prayer, and lastly, Embrace Powerlessness.
One of the worst things about persecution of any kind, is the feeling of powerlessness that goes with it. But in the kingdom, that powerlessness needn’t be a hindrance. It can be an opportunity.

In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes about an especially difficult time in his ministry where he felt utterly powerless. But in that situation he heard God say these words which have been a comfort to many suffering Christians:“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

When we come to the end of our own strength, there’s nothing left for us but to rely on God’s strength. And when accept that, we find the power to endure.

Mother Julian of Norwich was a 14th century mystic who lived in a time of great turmoil and uncertainty with the land ravaged by plague and warfare. And in the midst of it all, she had several intense spiritual revelations from God which she wrote down, and they can still be read today. There are her words:

'You will not be overcome, ' were said very insistently and strongly, He did not say, 'You will not be laboured, you will not be disquieted; but he did say: 'You will not be overcome'.

Persecutions will come. We can expect them. But we can also expect God’s presence in the midst of them. And when we express prayer for those who seek to wound us, and embrace our powerlessness, we will find the strength to get through, even in our weakness.

There’s the blessing. Thanks be to God.