Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"If only it weren't for people" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 22nd May 2005
Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 12 (starting at verse 22) Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see. All the crowds were amazed and said, "Can this be the Son of David?" But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, "It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons." He knew what they were thinking and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
I suppose we all have an idea of what the Kingdom of God is like. To some people it is a bit like a golf course, with perfect greens, great fairways, and an air-conditioned clubhouse with a view over a river where you can go fishing without having to pay a licence fee or throw the fish back.
To some people, it's a bit like Norwich winning the Premiership.
But if we really think about it, the Kingdom of God couldn't be so two dimensional or boring. Life is multi-dimensional, full of interesting interactions with interesting people and situations. Some of them are very difficult to live with. Others are just plain fun.
Strangely enough, it is usually in our responses to these most difficult situations that we find out what our faith is really about. We learn more about ourselves in the difficult moments than we do in the easy ones, and it is our response that is the most instructive part of those interactions.
So often, we find out that our immediate reaction is a bit different to what we thought we believed. The way we react when something puts us under pressure is very instructive. Difficulties bring out the realities in ourselves that we need to deal with so that we can grow in our faithfulness to God.
The Kingdom of God, is deeply connected with what goes on in my heart and mind. That is the place where Christ is Lord, or isn't Lord. This is the one place where I can decide who is King. It is the one place I can pray "Your Kingdom Come" and know that it is going to happen. It is the only place where I can ensure that the primary authority is God; in how I think and act, how I respond to the situations, the conundrums that life throws at me.
Living as though "Jesus is really Lord" is simple. What makes it gets complicated is living, - with other people, difficult circumstances, work, trying to figure out our morality, our ethics, our families.
Someone verbally attacked me a couple of weeks ago, very unfairly and unjustly I thought; (NO! It wasn't Sharn and it wasn't anyone from the church) and I yelled right back.
For a moment, I forgot that I was there to bring the Kingdom of God. For a moment, I reacted with aggression. I imaged the world around me, not God or Christ. I've thought a lot about that since that moment. God, how could I have brought your Kingdom into that moment and imaged you? Who was I really serving then; you? Or something else?
When Jesus casts the demons out, we have to make sure that we don't let them back in. Over in Verse 43, Matthew makes us aware that our faith doesn't make us impervious to really losing the plot. He records Jesus saying
"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order.Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation."
We need to be on guard, and the time we are most likely to lose the plot is when we are under stress. That's why these times are often the most instructive, and have the most potential for growth. If we do lose it, we can learn from it, learn a better way, because God forgives, and renews, and helps us grow more and more, into the image of Christ, if we want to.
We can pray for understanding about what it was that happened to us, and caused us to react in a way that wasn't Christ-like. Wasn't life giving.
And we can pray for the person or situation that upset us, and invite God to be a part of what is happening. So often, the best lessons of faith are learned in the most difficult moments.
In Genesis, chapter one, the first creation story reaches its climax with those lovely words
"So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
The story is telling its readers that we do have the possibility of being in the image of God. That is what we were made for, you and me.
I find the image of God very strongly in nature. I love the majestic sweep of great mountains, the plunging gullies and the refreshing rain of summer showers, the beauty of a star-filled night sky and the fluid movement of a wild animal hurtling over the paddocks at full pelt. I can see God in nature and I love it. My favourite song is How Great Thou Art. But the creation story tells me that you and I are made in the image of God. We can see God in each other in a way we can't in other parts of nature.
In the complexity, the autonomy of decision making, the infinite variety of possibilities and reckoning, in our loving and our thinking is the potential for a great revelation of who God is. God came to us in fullness in a person, Jesus. And we too can live as people who are cast in the image of God. And if our eyes are open, we will also encounter God in each other.
Aldersgate Sunday remembers the new creation that John Wesley found himself to be after his encounter with the Holy Spirit at that meeting in Aldersgate Street in 1938. His life had an amazing impact on his world because he truly made Christ his Lord, because he truly prayed "Your Kingdom come" and put that to work in his heart and mind.
The man in our story from Matthew's gospel would not have found that life suddenly became simple and easy. He still had to interact with his complicated and difficult world. When Wesley was converted he didn't find that suddenly there was no more ambiguity and testing. But in life's ambiguity and testing, he was able to bring the presence of God to others because he worked so earnestly at allowing God to be present in him.
Difficulties and complexity and challenges to our conscience, our security, our beliefs, our existence- these are the realities in which the kingdom of God comes. The dream laden image of a place without tension or struggle, our idyllic golf course in the sky - that sort of place will never cause anyone to grow beyond their limitations. It is in the struggle that we find God and God finds us. Not when the struggle is non-existent.
When the writer of that creation hymn in Genesis Chapter One, wrote that male and female were made in the image of God, he did it knowing what people were like. He lived in the real world but he still believed that God could be seen in us, in people, just like the people now. The idea that God could be known in Jesus, a human, perfectly at one with God, is found in the first chapter of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The idea that God might be seen in us, is there in the beginning. It's still here now, held in the Christian faith. The question that faces us today is, how much of that image is seen in me, now?