Are you a hypocrite? It’s a charge that is often levelled at Christians, but one which fails to understand what is at the heart of Christianity.

Often that is the fault of individual Christians and the Church as an institution because we fail to put across the true message that our faith is good news, and instead narrow it down to a set of rules about what behaviour is or is not acceptable.

As I write this I have just said good-bye to a friend whose baby is due next week. When a baby is born, there is usually a time of great celebration, of rejoicing over the wonder of a new life. There is often thankfulness for a safe delivery and sometimes a pondering over the amazing nature of God’s creation. As the child grows there will be a continuing story to tell of new discoveries and exciting growth.

Easter too is a time of new life. It’s a time to celebrate new beginnings and signs of growth. Of course, what Christians celebrate specifically at Easter is the resurrection of Jesus, but we do this because of its long-lasting and life-giving character, not only because it was a remarkable event in itself.

The good news we have to share is that we are not condemned when we get it wrong but that we can receive God’s forgiveness and eternal life. As with a child growing up, there is a continuing story to tell, a story of new discoveries about God’s love and faithfulness, a story that begins with the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and continues each and every day.

This is what we celebrate. As a response, we desire to live a life pleasing to God. Sadly, this becomes all too easily nothing more than a set of rights and wrongs, the message we Christians give to others becomes nothing more than moralising, and the charge of hypocrisy is brought.

Sometimes the correct verdict is “guilty as charged”. However, this is often not the case. There’s a saying that sums it up well: “Christians are not perfect - just forgiven.” That is surely good news. So, may I invite you to look again at the Easter story and what it means, to celebrate with us the joy of life and to help tell the continuing story of God’s love.

Happy Easter

Sarah

Isaiah 43.16-21; Philippians 3.4b-14; John 12.108

I wonder whether any of you have seen the film Babette’s Feast. It’s a moving tale. A woman arrives unexpectedly in a remote Scandinavian village and is taken in by two sisters. Babette has fled bloodshed in France and ends up as servant to the two sisters. They have always led a pious life, without much pleasure. Their father, who has died, was a strictly puritanical church minister and they have carried on his ways since he died, both forgoing marriage in order to carry out selfless works for their community.

When Babette has been with them for a number of years, she wins the lottery: $10,000 francs. The sisters believe that she will now leave them and move away with her money, but Babette has other ideas.

She offers to cook a proper French feast for the sisters, for the day which would have been their father’s 100th birthday.

The preparations are mammoth. Babette even goes off to Paris to make sure she has everything she needs for the meal. The sisters become increasingly worried about the opulence, which they even label a satanic Sabbath. Echoes of Judas here, I feel. Why was the money not given to the poor?

The villagers rally round the sisters, and it is decided that they will attend the meal but that they will not talk about it, as if they had not tasted the fine fare before them. To get their message across even more strongly they begin the meal with a hymn: take not thought for food or raiment.

The sisters and the villagers mellow as the meal progresses and past bitternesses and feuds fade into the past. Village conflicts are no more. In a poor community, $10,000 francs was a fortune. At the end of the meal, Babette reveals that she has used up all her winnings and is now quite poor again. But the results of that meal last much longer and the lives of the sisters and villagers are changed.

Babette’s feast was an extravagant act of love towards the two sisters who had taken her in. She had worked hard for them over the years and certainly didn’t owe them anything any more.

Mary’s act of anointing was a similar extravagant act of love. Nard was extremely precious and expensive; it came from India. We don’t know for certain but it’s likely that Mary had been holding on to the costly perfume for a special occasion; certainly it would have taken her a long, long time of saving up in order to buy it. Judas moans that it could have been sold for 300 denarii; that’s little short of a year’s wages.

Last time I preached on this story, I came across an estimate that in today’s terms, the money could buy 50,000 tins of baked beans. That’s an awful lot of beans.

In earlier times many people had a room in their houses that they would only use when important visitors called. They would keep it for best. I wonder how many of us have best clothes that we keep in our wardrobes unworn because we’re saving them for the next wedding we’re invited to. We keep things for best, but the time for best never comes.

Mary has saved her perfume for best, but recognises that now is the time to use it. She seizes the opportunity presented to her, to show how much she loves Jesus.

Compare her attitude of overflowing love with that of Judas, who is worried about the amount of money that has been spent. And we discover from John that, in spite of what Judas says about the poor, this is because he steals money. Judas is portrayed as a hard, mean man, trapped by his own thoughts, which have bound him with worry, not liberated him.

But Mary’s act was one of generosity and freedom. Mary’s act was also a prophetic one. Nard would have been used for preparing bodies for burial. Jesus acknowledges this by mentioning the day of his burial. Mary’s act of love foreshadows this.

I wonder how we show love for those we care about, how passionate we are about them. Mary’s passion and recognition of who Jesus was, her outpouring of love in her extravagant action, was recognised for what it was by Jesus, an act of love, but with the sadness and suffering of his death underlying it. At this stage in Lent, we are being pointed towards what is to come.

In our epistle reading this morning we heard Paul saying that all his pedigree and high standing in society, all his confidence in his background and education, was nothing compared to the confidence he had in Christ. Everything he had before his conversion he now counted as rubbish, because the gift of knowing Christ surpasses everything else.

Mary recognised this too when she carried out her outrageous act of love. She seized the moment when she could – if she’d left it much later, it would have been too late.

There have been many other people throughout history who have acted extravagantly or sacrificially for the sake of the Gospel. Paul had had such an experience of the life of God that all else was diminished beside it.

Paul talks of the power of Christ and of his resurrection, a power that was also discovered by John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace. Following a near shipwreck because of a terrible and violent storm, Newton began to pray and reflect. His conversion was not as instantaneous as that of Paul, but during the month between the storm and reaching land, Newton became convinced of the grace of God.

His transformation as a Christian took time, and initially he continued to be involved in the slave trade, although later he joined the abolitionist cause. In later years, he wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, very much based on these early experiences of God while he was at sea.

His gravestone reads: John Newton, Clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy.”

Like Paul, Newton’s experience of God’s grace, affected the rest of his life. Although it took a long while for Newton to realise the iniquity of the slave trade, he heavily influenced William Wilberforce.

Wilberforce was born in 1759 in Hull, for which he became MP when he was 21. Following a reawakening of his childhood faith, Wilberforce began to take Christ’s teachings seriously. He was persuaded, by Newton among others, that God could use him through the political institutions to carry out his work.

Eventually, because of Wilberforce’s perseverance, the abolition of the slave trade act was passed and received Royal Assent 200 years ago today. Wilberforce had taken 10 attempts to get it through.

His perseverance was another act of extravagance.

He cared not that others might have disapproved of his actions, but only about following the ways of God. He was secure in his faith, which gave him confidence to work sacrificially for the good of others.

Christ brought freedom for Mary and for Newton, for Wilberforce and for Paul, in a way that meant their love for him transcended all else.

The contrast is with Judas, who became so entangled with his own concerns, his dishonesty and self, that he later destroyed himself.

The love of Christ can bring freedom from our concerns, from our sins and freedom to press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

As we approach Easter, let us reflect on how we might show our love for Christ, how we might come closer to the confidence that Paul had in his Saviour, how we might emulate Mary in her extravagant outpouring of love for the man whom she followed.

After all, Christ who gave his life for us asks nothing more than he was prepared to give to show God’s love for us. Amen.

Sunday 1st April - Palm Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Annual Parish Meeting for Barley, Town House, Barley,
    followed by bring-and-share lunch
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
All services to include blessing of palm crosses and reading of the Passion

Monday 2nd April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 3rd April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdelene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 4th April
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Thursday 5th April - Maundy Thursday
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Mary’s, Reed
11.00 a.m. Eucharist and blessing of oils, St Albans Cathedral
3.00 p.m. Interment of ashes of David John SOuth, Buckland graveyard
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, followed by silent Vigil until midnight, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Friday 6th April - Good Friday
10.30 a.m. All-age Service, recalling the events of the Passion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
1.30 p.m. Meditation on the Passion with hymns, St Mary’s, Reed
7.30 p.m. Stainer’s  Crucifixion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
 
Saturday 7th April - Easter Eve
9.00 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 8th April - Easter Day
6.15 a.m. Sunrise service with Holy Communion and breakfast, St Mary’s, Reed
9.00 a.m. Easter Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Easter Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
12.00 p.m. Easter egg hunt, meet at Manor Farm, Barkway
THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Thursday 12th April
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway
4.15 a.m.  Barkway All-age worship Committee meeting, The Old Post Office

Sunday 15th April - Easter 2
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
6.00 p.m. Sogs of Praise service, St Margaet of Antioch, Barley

Wednesday 18th April
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group meets at Aylwins, Sandon

Thursday 19th April
7.00 p.m. Church Times study group, High Bank, Reed

Sunday 22nd April
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Sung Eucharist and Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway