The Light of the World

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

27^th February 2022

John 9.1-41
 
On Thursday this week,
            the world took another step into the dark.
 
As we watch the assembled military might of Russia
            roll out across the Ukraine,
and as civilians flee their homeland seeking safety across borders,
            echoes of the darkest hours of the two world wars are hard to ignore.
 
And as we gaze across our continent
            to those whose lives have descended into the darkness of war,
I can hear an echo of the opening question from our reading today:
            ‘Rabbi, who sinned, these Ukrainians or their parents,
            that they should lose from their lives the light of freedom and peace?’
 
And I’m sure we would want to echo in reply the words of Jesus,
            that neither they nor their parents sinned.
 
But before we go too far down the path of absolving ourselves of prejudice
            by blaming it all on the sins of President Putin,
I do wonder whether we, collectively as a nation,
            need to do a little exercise in removing the log from our own eye
            before pointing our fingers at the blindness we have identified
                        in the eye of another (cf. Matt. 7.5).
 
Like the Pharisees around Jesus,
            it is so easy for us to become blinded to our own failures,
            whilst having clear sight of the failures of others.
 
It is too soon, I think, for a proper analysis
            of the causes of the current conflict in the Ukraine,
and our focus at this time must surely be
            on prayers for peace and on actions of mercy;
but history usually reveals that conflict is the result
            of multiple failures of diplomacy, relationship, and trust;
and it is certainly true that the rapid and strategic absorption
            of soviet bloc countries into NATO
            has created at least part of the context for the events of this last week.
 
And more broadly, if we consider our nation’s response
            to the vast people displacements from other recent conflicts
                        such as Syria and Afghanistan,
            we have a shameful track record in welcoming those in need to our country,
with the few who do find their way to our shores
            often then mired in mountains of red tape,
rather than welcomed to their new lives
            in a land of British care and opportunity.
 
It’s almost as if people believe that these victims somehow deserve their plight,
            maybe for having been born in the wrong country,
            or for speaking the wrong language,
            or for having the wrong skin colour.
 
The sad truth is that prejudice and nationalism run deep in our society,
            and they surface in times of conflict.
 
Now is the time for the followers of Christ
            to make their presence and voice known,
offering a different narrative than the blame-game we will read in our media.
 
For example, the Baptist Standard reported on Friday that
 
‘Even while bombs fell around them,
            Baptists in Ukraine made plans to care for their neighbors
            who were displaced by a Russian military invasion, …
planning to establish “centers of hope”
            at churches in each of the nation’s six westernmost regions
            to shelter displaced families and individuals.
They also are mobilizing churches along the most likely evacuation routes
            to provide care for people journeying from east to west.
“These are places where travelers can get food, rest,
            wash their clothes and receive spiritual care…”
The European Baptist Federation—with BWA support—
            is working closely with the Baptist Union of Ukraine
            to coordinate humanitarian relief.’[1]
 
I am offering these observations about the events of the past few days
            not to make us feel guilty,
nor to undermine our opposition to Russia’s aggression,
            nor to minimise our solidarity with the people of the Ukraine;
but rather to remind us that the darkness in the world
            is not simply ‘over there’,
            in the hearts of aggressors and the lives of their victims.
 
Rather, the darkness of sin, violence, prejudice, greed, and selfishness
            is over here too, and it lurks in our hearts,
            in our society, and in our actions.
 
The whole world is under the shadow of deep darkness,
            and we long for a light to shine in the darkness,
exposing the deeds of the night,
            banishing our blindness to the plight of others,
            and lighting the path to a better way and a better day.
 
Let’s hear from John’s gospel again:
 
Jesus answered, [“Neither did this one nor his parents sin.
            But in order that the works of God might be manifest to you,
                        it is necessary for us to work the works of the one who has sent me
                        while it is day; night is coming, when no one is able to work.][2]
            As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
 
The lesson here is clear:
            Firstly, we cannot, should not, must not blame others for their suffering.
            No one ‘deserves’ to live under the shroud of darkness in this world,
                        although many end up doing so.
And then, secondly, the works of God are made known in the world
            as the people of Christ, the body of Christ,
                        shine the light of his presence
                        through their works of justice, mercy, and peace.
 
The story of the healing of the man born blind is a sign of something beyond itself:
            it points to the presence of Christ in the world
                        through his followers as a light to the nations,
            shining into the darkest places
                        to bring deeds of evil into the light.
 
And whether this is in the Ukraine or here in London,
            the people of Christ, those who have already ‘seen the light’,
are called to mirror the behaviour of the man born blind
            by courageously bearing witness to the light,
            despite the opposition that such actions will inevitably generate.
 
Being a witness to the light of the world won’t win you any popularity contests,
            because the powers of darkness will resist any attempt
            to draw their deeds into the light of scrutiny.
 
And this was as true at the time John’s gospel was written
            as it is in our world of the twenty-first century.
 
So if we rewind back to the first century, to the original readers of John’s gospel,
            we discover that they were people who knew full well what it was
            to face opposition for their faithful witnessing to the light of Christ in the world.
 
The early Christian communities of the late first century
            were challenging the ethnic boundaries of Judaism
            by welcoming Gentiles into their midst,
and this had caused them to have to separate themselves
            from the worshipping life of the synagogue.
 
Their opposition was the Jewish leaders of the synagogues,
            who opposed, on the grounds of religious purity,
            the message of a messiah for all peoples.
 
So when John’s gospel casts ‘the Jews’ and ‘the Pharisees’
            as the opposition to Jesus and his followers,
we have to remember the context in which this gospel was shaped.
 
Some have used these passages shamefully,
            to cast a wedge between Christianity and Judaism;
and the irony of this, of course, is that the intent is precisely the opposite:
            the opposition here are not ‘all Jews’,
but precisely the kind of religious leaders
            who prize purity over relationship.
 
Those Christians who use this passage to declare Judaism obsolete
            fall into the very trap that the Pharisees are critiqued for,
            as they opposed Jesus for his healing on a Sabbath.
 
The light of Christ, John’s gospel proclaims, is for everyone, at any time:
            it cannot be constrained to one ethnicity, one religious group,
            or one ‘way of doing things’.
 
Rather it shines in the world,
            casting light into darkness
and leaving those who have wedded themselves to dark deeds
            with nowhere to hide.
 
And so Jesus declares, ‘I am the light of the world’,
            in what is the second of his seven ‘I AM’ statements that we find in John’s gospel.
 
But the problem with a statement such as this,
            ‘I am the light of the world’,
            is that it’s a pretty abstract concept.
 
What does it actually mean for Jesus to be a light?
 
One of the golden rules of sermon preparation
            is that the sermon has to go somewhere,
            it has to have some kind of practical, real-world, application.
 
But the problem with Jesus declaring himself to be a light
            is that it doesn’t, at least not obviously, go anywhere.
 
So let’s take a moment together now to unpack this,
            and see if it sheds any light on the passage,
            and our own lives lived in the light of it.
 
The first thing to notice is that, once again, Jesus is referencing the Hebrew Bible.
            In Psalm 119.105 we find the famous quotation:
            ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’
and this is surely in the background to what Jesus says about himself
            as the light of the world.
 
In the psalm, of course, the ‘word’ that the author had in mind
            was the word of the Torah - the law of Moses.
 
So when Jesus declares himself to be a ‘light’ to the world,
            he is doing two things:
firstly, he is casting himself, once again, as the fulfilment of Torah,
            something we’ve seen him do before
            when he spoke of himself as both the bread of life, and the water of life;
and secondly, he is declaring that the light he shines
            will be more than a light to the people of Israel,
            it will in fact be a light that illuminates the whole world.
 
This is why the Jewish leaders make a point of comparing Jesus
            rather disparagingly with Moses (v.28-29).
They get the point, and they don’t like it one bit.
 
But Jesus isn’t just declaring himself as the new Moses,
            the embodiment of Torah for all.
 
Rather, he then takes decisive action
            to make real the implications of this declaration in the world.
 
And this is where we come to the healing of the man born blind,
            the ‘lucky beggar’ as he is sometimes known!
 
And here we have a bit of a problem,
            because we have to make a decision as to how we are going to treat him
                        as we interpret his story.
            Is he a sign of something beyond himself,
                        or is he a real person in his own right?
 
The temptation is to spiritualise him,
            to see him as a metaphor of the way Jesus brings light into the darkness
            and restores the spiritual sight of those whose inner eyes are blinded to truth.
 
And this is a legitimate interpretation,
            it is, after all, what John’s gospel does with him.
 
John offers him as an exemplar,
            as a model disciple,
whose eyes are opened to see the world differently,
            and who then embarks on a journey of faith
            to a new way of living in the world
            and a new relationship with his saviour Jesus.
 
We can see this in the way his restored ‘sight’
            then leads to a growth in his spiritual ‘insight’.
 
Near the beginning of his story (v.11-12),
            when he is asked who has healed him,
he says simply ‘the man called Jesus’,
            but then goes on to say that he doesn’t know where to find Jesus.
 
But just a few verses later (v.17) his insight has grown,
            and the next time he is questioned, he says that he knows Jesus to be a ‘prophet’.
 
And then a bit further on still (v.33),
            he tells the Jewish leaders that Jesus who restored his sight
            is ‘the one sent from God’.
 
And then finally, a bit further on still (v.35-38)
            he acknowledges Jesus as the ‘son of man’, as his ‘Lord’,
            and worships him as God with a statement of absolute belief.
 
Clearly, John’s gospel wants all those who encounter the light of Christ in their lives
            to make this same journey into faith and belief,
and the man born blind is offered as a metaphor for each of us,
            as the darkness of our spiritual blindness gives way to something glorious,
            as we discover freedom from the sin and selfishness that oppress us,
            and as we enter into a new relationship with God through Christ.
 
The problem here, though, is that in doing so he reduces this man to a metaphor,
            he is instrumentalised in the cause of the gospel.
 
And the reason this is problematic
            is that, fictional or not, he still exists within this text as a person,
and as such he invites us to see ourselves in him,
            and to see him in us.
 
And so if he is reduced to a means to an end,
            then that creates a world where the same can be said of others.
 
Some of us have previous experience of the kind of Christianity
            which sees people as a means to an end,
where we are told to make friends with non-Christians
            for the sole purpose of ‘converting’ them,
rather than as an expression of God’s love in Christ for all people.
 
And it gets even more problematic
            when the nature of his disability is considered.
 
His congenital blindness is used as a metaphor for sin,
            and his journey into sight after his encounter with Jesus
            becomes a journey from enslavement to sin into freedom from oppression.
 
It gets even worse when you then take into account the NRSV translation of vv.3-4
            which suggests the reason for the man’s blindness
            was so that God’s work might be revealed in him.
 
In other words - his life of disability was ‘so that’ God might heal him
            to create a nice metaphor for the spiritual journey of others.
 
Thankfully we can dispense with the poor translation problem,
            the Greek in no way suggests that this man was born blind for this reason,
and the translation we have used today
            more accurately captures the original intent
by offering no reason for his disability,
            and instead locating the revelation of God’s works not in the man’s blindness,
            but in the transformation of those around him.
 
In this, we come closer to the social model of disability,
            where a physical impairment is only a disability
            if the social word of the impaired person disables them.
 
I have preached a couple of times fairly recently on the theology of disability,
            and these can be accessed via our website.
I’ll make sure the links are in my blog post for today’s sermon.[3]
 
I would also suggest, if you want to think further
            on the issue of how the church responds to those with disabilities,
that you have a listen to the sermon by Revd Glen Graham,
            a Baptist Minister who was himself born blind,
            which he gave here at Bloomsbury as part of our Inclusive Church series,
            and again I’ll put the link on my blog.[4]
 
But I want to make the point that we cannot entirely gloss over
            the personal effect on this man,
            of his encounter with Jesus.
 
And we need to take seriously the warning against seeing anyone as a means to an end,
            particularly where faith is concerned.
 
Too many people with sickness or disability have been told
            that it is somehow their fault that they have remained un-healed,
            possibly because of some sin in their life, or because of their lack of faith.
 
And we need to hear Jesus saying, clearly and plainly,
            ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned’.
 
Sometimes, life just is what it is,
            and resists any attempt to assign blame or cause.
 
Some people are born blind, they just are.
            Some people get sick and die early, they just do.
Some people were born in Ukraine and now live in a war zone,
            it’s not their fault.
Some people are refugees, seeking a new life in our country,
            and they don’t deserve it.
 
The work of God is not revealed in some magical reversal of fortune,
            but rather in the works of those who follow the light of Jesus,
shining that same light into the world
            to challenge all those who perpetuate oppression, prejudice, and violence.
 
As Jeffrey John puts it:
‘In Christ the fullness of God’s light broke into the darkened world,
            conquered death, and offered us a new way of relating to God.
The gospel is [therefore] above all a Gospel of restored relationship.’[5]
 
Our calling, then, as the people of God,
            is to avoid the blindness of the Pharisees,
who determinedly resisted seeing the truth of God’s revelation
            that was before their very eyes.
 
And rather, instead, to praise the One who breaks the darkness
            with a liberating light.
  
The Kingdom by R. S. Thomas
It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.
 

---

[1] https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/world/baptist-churches-in-ukraine-mobilize-for-ministry/
[2] Translation by Jo-Ann Brant
[3] https://www.bloomsbury.org.uk/on-forgiveness-and-healing/
https://www.bloomsbury.org.uk/antilectionary-do-miracles-still-happen/
[4] https://www.bloomsbury.org.uk/inclusion-and-disability/
[5] Jeffrey John, the Meaning in the Miracles, p.138.

Rivers of Living Water

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

20th February 2022

Exodus 17.1-7

Isaiah 12.2-4

John 7.37-52

In our reading for today, from John’s gospel,

            we’re returning to a theme we first met a few weeks ago,

when we were with the Samaritan woman

            encountering Jesus in the heat of the day beside Jacob’s Well.

 

In that moment, Jesus told the woman

            that those who drink the water from the well will be thirsty again,

but those who drink of the water that he gives

            will find that it becomes in them a spring of water,

            gushing up to eternal life (4.13-14).

 

And I shared the words of a friend of mine,

            spoken as we had stood around the fountain at St Dunstan in the East,

            as she wondered, ‘well, who wouldn’t want that for their life?’

 

This is a fine question, and an important challenge:

            Jesus offers us a way of living that is like a spring of water

            gushing from the ground to give life to all who drink from it.

 

And John’s gospel could have left it there,

            and moved on to other metaphors for the new life that Jesus brings,

            such as light, or bread, or vines, or shepherds, or doors…

 

But instead, just three chapters later,

            the gospel returns us to the theme of water.

There is more, it seems, that we need to discover and think about

            if we are to get to grips with the true significance

            of Jesus as the water of life.

 

By the time we get to chapter 7, Jesus has gone back down to Jerusalem,

            this time for the great Jewish festival of Booths,

            sometimes also known as the feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot.

 

This festival was a kind of harvest festival,

            but with added layers of symbolism,

and understanding a bit about it can help us

            begin to get to grips with what Jesus is saying here in John 7.

 

At one level, the festival of Booths marked the end of the autumn harvest,

            with people making a pilgrimage to give thanks

                        for the ripening of the grapes and olives,

            and to offer their prayers to God for the start of the rainy season,

                        without which there would be no harvest the following year.

 

A winter of drought could be catastrophic,

            and the autumn rains literally brought life to the land and the people.

 

The final day of the festival, on which John tells us

            Jesus gave his discourse about living water,

was the day of the ‘water ritual’,

            where the high priest would walk from the Temple to the pool of Siloam

                        to collect a pitcher of water,

            which would then be poured onto the altar in the temple

                        as part of the prayers for life-giving rain.

 

This is, then, the first layer of meaning

            that we are invited to see in Jesus’ talk of himself

            as the source of living water,

and I think it speaks down the millennia to us, too.

 

As I’m sure Matthew could explain far better than I,

            we live in a world where the future well-being of humanity

            is going to be affected profoundly by issues around water supply and scarcity.

 

As climate change continues its inexorable transformation of our planet,

            and desertification makes previously habitable areas

                        inhospitable to life and agriculture,

            we too, or at least our children and grandchildren,

                        may find themselves again offering prayers for rain and an end to drought.

 

And as is so often the case with prayer,

            it may be that the answer is before us already, at least in part.

 

There is a need for urgent adaptation,

            for a re-thinking of the relationship between our planet and its inhabitants,

             if death and disruption on a global scale are to be avoided.

 

From the decarbonisation of the global economy,

            to planning now for the changes

                        that are already locked-in to our climate systems,

            we need a new and better way of being human,

                        where the resources of our planet are treasured and conserved, r

                        ather than taken for granted and exploited.

 

And water supply will be at the heart of this.

            Without water there will be no life, no crops, no civilisation.

 

Jem Bendell, in his 2018 paper ‘Deep Adaptation’,

            adopts a prophetic voice in calling humanity

            to resilience, relinquishment, restoration, and reconciliation.

To which I would add, I think, repentance.

 

Resilience will come as we decide what we value most

            and how we want to preserve it;

 

relinquishment will be the letting go of what is not needed

            or which makes things worse;

 

restoration will be the rediscovery of better ways of living with nature

            which have been set aside in recent centuries;

 

reconciliation is a call to move towards peace and away from conflict

            as we adapt to a new world;

 

and repentance will be a recognition that those economies

            who have reaped the greatest rewards from the burning of hydrocarbons

            must take the greatest share of responsibility for driving change.

 

And as the people of God,

            the church needs to hear again the words of Jesus

who spoke to a world of drought,

            to proclaim that anyone who is thirsty should come to him and drink;

            that from his heart, and the hearts of his followers,

                        shall flow rivers of living water.

 

We should not seek to spiritualise this away.

            There is a spiritual dimension to it, which we will come to;

                        but if the people of God are not engaged in the climate crisis,

                                    calling humanity to a better way of being human,

                        and working to bring that new humanity which is in Christ

                                    into being in our world,

                        then we are missing a key aspect of what Jesus is saying.

 

We are those who can call the world to a Just Transition,

            because we do not ultimately answer

                        to extractive systems of production, consumption,

                        and political oppression.

 

Rather, we answer to the lordship of Christ, the source of life,

            and so we can prophetically embody

                        resilient, regenerative, and equitable living,

            where the transition to a post-carbon world

                        places concerns of race, gender, and poverty

                        at the centre of the solution’s equation.

 

As a church here at Bloomsbury

            we are already Eco-church accredited to a Bronze award,

                        and it is my hope that we can achieve

                        silver and gold accreditation before too long.

 

And some of us are already involved through London Citizens

            in the Just Transition campaign for London to prioritise

                        the needs of those living in fuel poverty

            as the city decarbonises over the next decade.

 

If you want to be part of these with me,

            please speak to me and together we can work out what it means

                        for us, in our context, to be a stream of living water

                        for the thirsty in our world.

 

But there is a second layer to the festival of Booths,

            and it invites us to take Jesus’ words to another level too.

 

You see, the festival wasn’t just about the harvest and the autumn rains.

            It was also a specific remembrance of the exodus.

 

You know the story;

            the people of Israel were led by Moses from slavery in Egypt,

                        through the waters of the Red Sea,

            into 40 years of wandering in the wilderness,

                        before finally settling in the promised land.

 

In the desert of the wilderness

            they had need for sustenance, and need for shelter.

 

We have already seen how the language of Jesus as the bread of life

            recalls the bread-like manna from heaven

            that the Israelites gathered from the desert floor each day to feed themselves;

and here in the festival of Booths

            as the setting for Jesus’ sermon on living water,

            we encounter yet more Exodus imagery.

 

The booths or tabernacles

            in which the festival-attendees stayed for the week,

were temporary structures

            that echoed the temporary and portable housing

            in which the people of Israel lived through their decades of desert wandering;

 

and the water ceremony on the final day

            recalled the striking of a stream of water from the rock at Horeb,

as the staff of Moses that had parted the waters of the Red Sea

            was used to part rock and bring forth life giving water into the desert.

 

This theme of water in unexpected places

            echoed into the spiritual imagination of Israel,

and became a recurring symbol for the life-giving,

            saving power of God.

 

So in Ezekiel’s vision,

            a prophecy given to the Israelites in exile in Babylon,

                        following the destruction of the first Jerusalem temple

                        at the hands of the invading army,

            the prophet describes a restored temple,

                        with water flowing from below the threshold of the temple

                        to fill a vast lake, teeming with life,

            making the stagnant waters into which it flows

                        fresh enough to sustain fish,

            irrigating the land so that trees grow

                        whose leaves never wither and whose fruit never fails,

            because the water that sustains them

                        flows from the sanctuary of God in the temple itself.

 

Here in Ezekiel, the image of a life-giving stream of water

            becomes a symbol for a restored Israel,

            for the end of exile and the rebuilding of the temple (Ez. 47.1-12).

 

But Ezekiel’s vision is far wider than just Israel:

            the restoration of the people of God is, he says,

                        to be a blessing for all people,

                        for the lands beyond Jerusalem and Judea.

 

Ezekiel speaks of

            the fruit of the trees that grow from the water’s edge

                        as being for food,

            and of the leaves as being for healing (47.12).

 

This image finds its way into the Christian tradition in the book of Revelation,

            another visionary text written for people of faith

            facing difficulty and oppression.

 

In Revelation, written just after

            the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple by the Romans,

there is also a vision of a restored Jerusalem,

            and like Ezekiel’s temple this one also

            has a stream of water running through it.

 

In Revelation’s reworking of this image, though,

            there is an important difference.

 

Whereas in Ezekiel the water flowed from the sanctuary in the temple,

            the new Jerusalem in Revelation has no temple.

 

Rather, the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

            flows directly from the throne of God and the lamb, that is, Jesus (22.1).

 

In the Christian visionary tradition then,

            Jesus has taken the place of the temple sanctuary

            as the source of life-giving water in the world.

 

Like Ezekiel’s vision,

            the river of life in Revelation also irrigates a tree,

                        described as the tree of life

            and, as in Ezekiel, its leaves are also described as being for healing:

                        ‘for the healing of the nations’ (22.2).

 

Jerusalem as a city famously had no natural water supply,

            but in the visions of both Ezekiel and John of Patmos

it becomes a source of life-giving water

            flowing from the heart of the people of God

            to bring life to the world and healing to the nations.

 

From Horeb to Babylon to Patmos,

            the water of life is a gift from God

            given through the faithful as a gift to those in need.

 

And all of this is in the background

            to John’s description of Jesus in Jerusalem

                        on the final day of the great feast,

            as the high priest went to the pool of Siloam

                        to collect the water that would be poured out on the altar.

 

Those who are thirsty,

            whose souls are parched and whose spirits are desiccated,

are invited to drink deeply from the well of life-giving water

            that has come into being in Jesus, the word of God made flesh.

 

From Jesus’ heart, and from the hearts of all who believe,

            shall flow rivers of life-giving water.

 

And here we come to the third, most spiritual, layer of meaning

            in this sermon from Jesus on living water:

the water of life is encountered in the world

            as the Spirit of Christ.

 

Today is not the day for me to explore

            the rights and wrongs of the Nicene creed and the filioque controversy,

but it is worth our while noting

            that the 1,000-year global division of Christianity

                        into two traditions, of East and West,

            owes much to this passage,

and to the debate over whether the Holy Spirit

            should be understood as proceeding into the world from the Father alone,

            or from the Father and the Son together.

 

We’ll save more on that for another day.

 

But it is interesting to note, I think,

            that this idea of Jesus, present to the world as life-giving water,

            through the gift of the Holy Spirit to his followers,

was controversial not just in historic Trinitarian debates,

            but also for those in Jerusalem who first heard him make this claim.

 

His proclamation of the gift of the Spirit as a stream of living water

            unmasked all kinds of prejudice and bigotry

            in those gathered around him on this final day of the festival of Booths.

 

We see racial prejudice,

            geographic and class-based prejudice (41, 42, 52);

we see false accusations seeking to silence someone

            who has tried to speak out, tentatively, for justice (52);

and we see a tendency to disregard the rule of law (51),

            the role of the police (45-47),

            and a desire for mob justice to overcome.

 

It all feels frighteningly contemporary.

 

I’ve just been listening to a fascinating podcast on BBC Sounds

            called ‘Things Fell Apart’

in which the journalist Jon Ronson

            explores the origins of the culture wars

            that currently dominate social media.

 

It has been salutary to discover

            how often Christians have been the originators or instigators

            of social movements that have oppressed, and continue to oppress,

                        the lives of countless people.

 

From the pro-life movement,

            to anti-Trans activism, to the Q Anon conspiracy,

            to cancel culture, to racist bullying on Snapchat,

Christians do not have a proud record of tolerance and justice.

 

My own recent negative experience

            at the hands of hostile Christians online

has left me both shaken but also somewhat despairing,

            that those whose hearts are supposed to bring forth

                        the life-giving water of the Holy Spirit as a blessing to the world,

                        and as a gift of healing to the nations, the climate, and the planet;

            have instead become the self-imposed gate-keepers of orthodoxy

                        in ways that divide, demean, and destroy.

 

Friends, this call to be the bearers

            of the water of the Spirit of life to the world

            is not an abstract calling.

 

It is not something we can or should

            try to do alone or in secret.

 

Rather, it is a call to collective action;

            it’s a call to build communities of love and acceptance

                        and to offer them as a gift to all

                        who are longing for somewhere to belong;

            it is a call to engage in acts of justice,

                        building creation-centred communities

                        with a bias to the poor;

            it is a call to challenge any system, whether secular or religious,

                        which excludes or perpetuates injustice.

 

It is, therefore, a call to controversy and to courage;

            but it is also a call to generosity, to healing,

            to love, and to life.

 

Let anyone who is thirsty come, and drink.

The Bread of Life

 A sermon for  Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

13 February 2022

 

John 6:35-59  
1 Kings 19:1-8  

Back in the day, well, in my day, anyway,
            there was a popular film called ‘Highlander’
            starring Sean Connery
and it was one of the box office smash hits of 1986.
 
I think it was an interesting film
            because it explored the issue of what it might mean to be immortal
 
The premise of the film is that there are, living amongst us,
            a race of immortals
who survive from generation to generation,
            carrying their battles down the centuries
            while those around them get old and die.
 
One of the great things about the film was its soundtrack
            which included a number of songs by the rock group Queen,
And one of these was a poignant ballad written by Brian May,
            which asked, over and over, ‘Who wants to live forever?’.
In the film this song was used
            to frame the scenes where the hero
                        must endure his beloved wife
                        growing old and dying
            while he, as an Immortal, remains forever young.
 
And I can remember listening to this song
            with all the optimism of a fourteen year old,
and in response to its repeated question
            of ‘who wants to live forever?’
thinking to myself, ‘well, I do!’
 
To quote another Queen song, (I want it all)
            there just sometimes seems ‘so much to do in one lifetime’
 
I’ve long joked that discovering the secret of living forever
                        is my ‘sleeper project’
            It’s something I work on when I’ve got an idle moment,
And I have to say, as I approach the end of my fifth decade,
            ‘so far, so good!’
 
But of course, it’s never that clear-cut, is it?
            I mean, would we really want to live forever?
I’ve asked a few people,
            and the response has been mixed.
Some, like me, have a kind of instant ‘yes, of course’ approach,
            in which the benefits outweigh the disadvantages
But others seem to take a more considered view,
            recognising that eternal life may not be all it’s cracked up to be
I’m tempted to take a straw poll,
            but I think I’ll just leave it for each of us to consider our own response
 
And whilst we’re thinking about this,
            it’s worth hearing the story about one of the characters
                        in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers series of books
            who has had immortality accidentally thrust upon him
He finds himself unable to come to terms with his longevity
            and gets increasingly frustrated
                        with a universe that he’s growing tired of
So, to pass the time, he decides to embark on a quest
            to insult every living being in the universe - in alphabetical order.
 
And I have to wonder whether I too, in time,
            would find myself tiring of life
If someone offered me the elixir of eternal youth,
            would I really drink it?
If some alchemist perfected the Philosopher’s stone
            would I really grasp it?
 
Many historic cultures include myths
            which address this issue
with the tantalising offer of eternal life
            striking right at the heart of the oh-so-human fear
            of aging and dying
 
And in our own world
            we are offered promise after promise
                        of ways to stave off the inevitable
            with anti-ageing products
                        diet regimes
            magic bullets
                        and a preserve-life-at-all-costs
                        approach to aging and dying
 
Eternal youth is only one trip to the botox clinic away,
            and many of us live in the hope
                        that the medical profession will keep us fit and active
            until we’re well into our nineties, if not beyond
 
But, at the end, death will come to us all…
            death and taxes, as Benjamin Franklin once said.
 
So, who wants to live forever?
 
Well, come back in time with me
            to a synagogue in Capernaum,
It’s nearly 2,000 years ago
            and a local preacher is down to speak.
 
And as he stands up to address the congregation,
            he asks roughly the same question we’ve been considering this morning:
            ‘Who wants to live forever?’
 
This was, for the Jews of the first century, a live question
            and there were different schools of thought around
            about whether eternal life was possible or not
 
The Sadducees were a Jewish group that arose during the Maccabean period
            and they famously didn’t believe that the soul could exist beyond death
            with no possibility of reward or punishment after one died.
So, for the Sadducees, this life was all there was
            and it needed to be lived carefully and faithfully.
 
Whereas other groups, such as the Pharisees,
            seemed to see some future for the human soul
            beyond the point of the ending of the body
and they came to believe that the rights and wrongs of this life
            could be sorted out in the afterlife
 
And it’s into this context that our young preacher
            starts talking about bread,
            and the importance of eating bread to stay alive
 
At one level this is absolutely correct, of course.
            without regular food, of which bread was the staple component,
            the people of Israel would starve and die.
In years of famine, when the grain harvest failed,
            the reaping of corn was all too swiftly replaced
            by the grim reaper coming to harvest the lives of the living.
Bread was, indeed, essential for life.
 
But even a regular diet of bread
            couldn’t stave off the inevitable forever.
Eventually even the most well-fed member of the aristocracy
            would get ill, and die of something or other.
Bread, it seems, is all very well to keep you going until tomorrow,
            but it won’t keep you going eternally.
 
The dependence on bread
            had been a feature of the Ancient Near Eastern lifestyle
            since Neolithic times
And the rhythm of seed-time and harvest
            had enabled the growth of great civilisations.
 
But within the Jewish religious tradition,
            the dependence on bread
had acquired a metaphorical meaning as well
            with the daily consumption of bread
            signifying the importance of the regular consumption
                        of spiritual nourishment as well
 
In Deuteronomy chapter 8 (v.3), we find the phrase
            quoted by Jesus at his temptation in the wilderness
‘one does not live by bread alone,
            but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.’
 
Clearly, there is a parallel to be drawn
            between the physical life that bread sustains
and the spiritual life that also needs sustenance.
 
Whilst the body may be nourished by the regular consumption of bread,
            for someone to be truly ‘alive’
                        in a spiritual, as well as a physical, sense
                        apparently needs something more.
 
The suggestion of the writer of Deuteronomy
            is that what is required
            is to regularly ingest the ‘word’ of God
 
From the perspective of this ancient Jewish author,
            the ‘word of God’ was to be understood
                        as the ‘words’ of the Jewish Torah
            - the stories and laws found in the first five books of the Bible,
and especially those stories associated with exodus of the Jews
            from their time of slavery in Israel.
 
The story of how the people of God found release from Egypt,
            journeyed through the wilderness for forty years,
            and eventually entered the promised land
was one of the foundational stories for Jewish self-understanding.
 
And they remembered the moment
                        when God had freed their ancestors from slavery,
            in their celebration of the Passover meal
            - breaking bread together
                        and remembering their identity
                        as those whom God had spared from the angel of death.
 
They also remembered how God had sustained them through the wilderness
            with manna from heaven,
that strange bread-like substance
            which appeared on the ground every morning
                        and was good to eat
            but which didn’t keep overnight,
so ensuring that the people of God were daily dependent
            on the nourishment that God sent.
 
And it’s this image of daily bread from God
            that lies behind the injunction not to live by bread alone
            but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord
- daily dependence on God is what was required,
            a regular consumption of God’s word.
 
Meditating and ruminating on God’s commands
            was presented as the way to achieve a wholeness of being
- a path to life in a spiritual, as well as a physical, sense
 
So when Jesus, speaking in the synagogue in Capernaum,
            starts to talk about bread
he’s addressing a context which would already have been familiar
            with the need for spiritual, as well as physical, nourishment.
 
But the way Jesus puts it, there’s a new twist,
            and a provocative one at that.
 
‘I am the bread of life’ says Jesus,
            and in one short phrase lays personal claim
            to two of Israel’s great religious concepts
 
His opening words ‘I am’ deliberately echo
                        the divine name given to Moses on Mount Sinai:
            ‘I am who I am’ said God
                        in response to Moses request to know his name
 
And the phrase ‘bread of life’ symbolised, as we’ve seen,
            the Jewish Torah, the words of the law.
 
So, by saying ‘I am the bread of life’
            Jesus is claiming not only to be in some way Torah made flesh,
            but also God made flesh
 
And then he ups the ante even further
            by claiming that whoever eats this bread of life
                        will live forever
 
Whereas the bread given by God in the wilderness, and through the Torah,
            was capable of sustaining a person throughout their natural life
Jesus suddenly started claiming that the bread of life that he offered
            was capable of defeating death itself
 
It almost sounds like an advertising campaign too far, doesn’t it?
 
Really? Eat this bread and live forever?
            Would that get past the Advertising Standards Authority?
            I somehow doubt it!
 
It certainly didn’t get past the Pharisees
            who were under no illusions as to the controversial and radical nature
            of Jesus’ claims to be the bread of life
 
And so they start to complain about him,
            muttering to anyone who will listen that this is just Jesus from Nazareth,
            and his mother and father are well known to all of us
                        - he’s nothing special
                        - he’s got no basis on which to make these kind of promises
 
But of course, for every person who didn’t want to hear it
            there were plenty of others who were hooked
Because whilst the radical nature of Jesus’ revisioning
            of what it means to be in relationship with God
was threatening to those who had a vested interests in the status quo
            it was similarly liberating for those who had been controlled
                        and manipulated by the Pharisaic gatekeepers of eternal life
 
The Pharisees had been telling people that the bread that leads to spiritual life
            was the bread of Torah law, as interpreted by them, of course…
And suddenly here was Jesus, claiming to personify both Torah and God,
            making them freely accessible to all
 
‘I am the bread of life’ (v35) he says
            ‘whoever eats me  will live’ (v.57) he says
‘The one who eats this bread will live forever’ (v.58) he says
 
The impossible dream,
            the bread of eternal life
is suddenly and unexpectedly announced in a synagogue in Capernaum
 
Of course, Jesus wasn’t talking about the avoidance of physical death itself
            any more than he was talking about re-entering the womb
            when he told Nicodemus that he must be born again
Rather, Jesus was speaking about entering into an eternal quality of life
            which transcends physical death
 
The good news of Capernaum is the defeat of spiritual death
            it is the entering into a new way of being
                        that has an eternal quality
                        and carries eternal value
 
For the ordinary Jew,
            unwilling to embrace the scepticism of the Sadducees
            and oppressed by the legalistic religion of the Pharisees
This was a message of life in all its fullness
            a new way of living in the here and now
            which finds eternity in each present moment
            and sees the eternal value of each mundane minute
 
The temporary manna of the Torah
            the daily observance of the law
            and the regular rituals of religion
give way in Christ to a joyful embracing of the now
            as this moment is welcomed into God’s eternal embrace
 
Jesus promises that he will lose nothing that has been entrusted to him,
            and that all that he has been given will be held fast
            and will receive the life eternal
 
So what earthly difference does this make to us, then?
 
All this talk of bread that gives eternal life?
            all this talk of eternity in the here and now?
 
What are we, here today, to make of it…?
 
Well, in many ways we’re in the same place as those hearing for the first time,
 
Some of us will be Sadducees,
            The rationalists who can’t quite bring themselves
            to buy into a belief that there’s more to life than meets the eye
 
Some of us will be Pharisees,
            so sure they’re right,
                        because they’ve been doing it this way for years,
            and unwilling to let go of the values that have got them safely this far
 
And then some of us will be sitting in the middle,
            neither the rational sceptic,
                        nor the religious establishment,
            but just longing for some good news
 
Well, to the Sadducees amongst us, Jesus affirms the present:
            the here and now does indeed matter.
 
Eternity does begin today,
            and who we are here, is who we shall be eternally;
            welcomed and purified and held safe forever,
                        by the one who calls us to follow him.
 
But Jesus also challenges the Sadducees
            to recognise that just because now matters
            doesn’t mean that there is no hope for tomorrow
 
For those of us stuck in our rationality,
            focussing only on that which we can see, taste and touch and measure,
Jesus asks us to dare to believe that there is an eternal dimension
            to who we are and what we do.
Because maybe, if we can let go of our ownership of the now,
            and if we can learn to trust our present to God’s eternity,
we can find release from the burden of today
            and embrace wholeheartedly the risk-taking adventure
            that is our part in the in-breaking kingdom of God.
 
To the Pharisees amongst us, Jesus affirms the future,
            reassuring us that all our hard work and self-denial
                        and care and attention to the details are not lost.
 
But he also releases us from the necessity to care so much
            and he calls us to trust him when life loses its certainty.
            to trust him when others do it differently,
and he reminds us that our way isn’t the only right way,
            and that the lives of others are also valued and held fast by God,
            even when they seem far from the way we have been called to live.
 
And maybe, if we can let go of our ownership of the future,
            we can find release from the burden
            of trying to make sure we get there in the right way
and can learn to embrace wholeheartedly the risk-taking adventure
            that is our part in the in-breaking kingdom of God
           
And to the rest of us, Jesus affirms our value as people of eternal worth,
            and calls us to join him in changing the world
 
If we can learn to trust him with our lives and our deaths
            if we can learn to embrace today without fear of its ending
                        then death has lost its power over us
and when this happens,
            we can discover the freedom and liberation
                        that Christ gives
            to live each moment
                        as an instant of eternal worth
 
There’s an apocryphal story told about Francis of Assisi
            who was out hoeing the garden one day
and was approached by someone who asked him
            ‘great saint, if you knew that tonight you were to die,
            what final great work would you accomplish this afternoon?’
to which Francis replied that he would finish tending the garden.
 
Today matters, the task for today matters,
            whether it’s a mundane day, or an important day
            whether a day of pain, or a day of rejoicing
            whether it’s a day of youth, or a day of old age,
today matters.
 
And if this moment is of eternal value
            then we can risk it all for the sake of the in-breaking kingdom of God.
 
If we’re no longer defeated by the power of death,
            then we’re liberated to live fully in the present
 
And so, today, if we are sustained through the wilderness of the world
            by the bread that gives life,
if we’re nourished by the bread of the body of Christ
            who lived, and died, and rises eternally to new life,
then we have before us the path that leads through death
            and in following that path
                        we find the freedom and strength
                                    to live life in all its fullness
 
And so we ourselves become in turn the agents of good news to the world:
            recognising and proclaiming the eternal value of each human soul
 
Because if this moment in my life is of eternal value,
            then it is also of eternal value in everyone else’s life as well
            and their lives matter too
 
And so when we engage the world in the name of Christ
            we must challenge those policies and decisions
which depersonalise and objectify
 
we must remind the powers that be
            that people are more than statistics
            and that every human life is of equal value
 
We must resist the insidious voice
            which whispers in the ears of the powerful
            that one person is of more worth than another
            and that privilege is a right not a gift
 
And as we do this, as we challenge the world
            to pay attention to the individual soul of each created person,
intercessory prayer takes on a new dimension
            because we bring others before God
            in the confidence that nothing that is good is lost
            and all that he keeps is held safe for eternity
 
So, when we hear news of floods, fires, and famines,
            of civil war and terrorism, of so much human suffering around the globe
                        we are not powerless before God
 
Because as we pray for those who suffer
            we know that even in the depths of hell on earth
                        the crucified and resurrected Christ is present
 
The astonishing news of the bread of life
            is that the broken body of Christ on the cross
            is the nourishment that brings the lost to life
The bread of life is broken
            so that those who are dying can receive the gift of life eternal.