Isaiah 55:1-11, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, John 5:36b-end

The Rev’d Sonia Falschi-Ray

“My word… that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  “My word”, the word of God, is a dynamic and performative act.  Dynamic, as in a powerful, propelling action of the will of God.  And performative, as the act of speaking brings the intention into being.  On a human scale that can be like saying “Congratulations!”  The utterance of the word is the act of congratulating.  On God’s scale he said “Let there be light” and there was light.”  The word of God.  How do we access the word of God?  Well one important way is by reading the Bible.  The Bible, as you know, is more like a library than just a book, containing as it does a range of different types of books: history, poetry, prophesy, prayer, biography, parables the use of metaphor and mythology.  (By mythology I don’t mean fairy stories or ancient Egyptian and Greek tales of gods and monsters, but of stories which contain important truths of God’s relationship with us and the nature of humankind packaged into accounts which may not be historically factual.)  For example I view as myth and parable the story of Adam and Eve and, in the words of Milton[1],

“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden.” till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,…….

……Say first–for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell–say first what cause
Moved our grand parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the World besides.
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, …..

However, whatever genre the books of the Bible are written in, Christians believe that they are all inspired by God.  That in them he has revealed himself and revealed the  relationship he would like to have with us.  Not all of it is an easy read, and some parts, especially in the Old Testament, can offend modern sensibilities.  Why does the God seem to be so bloodthirsty?  Why do the Israelites have to fight to clear the promised land of its inhabitants and continue to fight to maintain its boarders?  Well tackling that could involve an entire sermon series.  In part, God is attempting to bind a people together and educate them in his will for all mankind.  The diktat of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is to bring proportionality into retaliation, rather than escalating violence and having intergenerational blood feuds.  Later on Jesus developed that thinking further telling us to love our enemies.  However, God always starts with us where we are, drawing us onward to become more like him, if we are willing.  The word of God is to an extent codified in the Ten Commandments.  Many rules and regulations were added on, some in scripture hopefully inspired by the word of God and some, as Jesus pointed out, rules made merely by men. 

Then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.  Jesus admonished his critics saying, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.  Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”[2]  Jesus in person took some of the words of God, the Ten Commandments and expanded their meaning, most memorably in the sermon on the mount.  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil……. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”[3]  He also emphasized the underlying spirit of the law, the principles rather than the technicalities, for example, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. …….. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.  …….  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  Jesus made himself very unpopular with the political and religious leaders of his day by combating their legalism which ran contrary to God’s intentions.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.  It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”[4]  The scandal of our MP’s expenses falls straight into this category.  The purpose of their expense allowance is that they should not be out of pocket by having to maintain a London residence.  It was drafted at a time when MP’s were expected to act as their title suggests, ‘honourable’ members of the House of Commons and the ‘noble’ Lords.  However, many seem to have operated on the basis of “what can we get away with within the “rules”?” to enhance their life-styles.  This got to the stage of some MP’s claiming for imaginary mortgages and one claiming a spare room in her sister’s house was her principal residence, (rather than the large family home in the constituency where spouse and children resided)!  When caught out, so many of them just didn’t “get it”.  “We operated within the rules”, they complained.  The general public may not act all that honourably itself, but it knows a scam when it sees one. 

The Bible, the Word of God is to guide us.  As the letter to Timothy says, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”  The Bible is not just an old book.  It is inspired by God and contains his living word.  It can speak to us personally and the more we read it, the more we will be able to discern God’s voice speaking to us and into our situations, both personally and corporately, as a church, a village community, or even a country.  It is often best to have a systematic approach to reading the Bible, using the lectionary will get you though most of it over three years.  Alternatively, choosing a theme helped by using Bible notes or a commentary.  Or, just starting with a book and, maybe, alternating between the Old and New Testaments.  Many lifelong church-going Christians have a sketchy knowledge of the Old Testament and as Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.  But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”  By ‘Moses’ Jesus here means the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, which were thought all to have been written by Moses at that time.  The Old Testament shows us how God formed a people for his own possession and without it there can be little understanding of salvation history and the importance of what Jesus did on the cross. 

There is a, possibly apocryphal, story of a man who wanted spiritual guidance, believing that God would speak to him through the Bible, so he opened it at random.  His finger fell on, Mat 27:5 “Judas ‘departed; and he went out and hanged himself” “Oh no the man thought, that can’t be right”, so he tried again, Luke 10:37, “Go and do thou likewise”  In despair he thought he’d have one more go, John 13:27  “What you are going to do, do quickly”.  So, random verse selection may not be the best way to seek God’s guidance. 

However, I will finish with an example of God seeming to speak to me directly through the Bible.  I’m sure many of you will be able to offer your own examples.   Shortly after I had come to faith on an Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton, I was approached by a woman, whom I shall call Clara.  She was in my Home Group and was aware that I had had a highly paid job in the City of London.  We were numbered about 10, who met weekly to study the Bible, pray together and enjoy each others’ company.  Clara suggested she and I have lunch together, during which she explained that she was in a tight financial situation, (she was a free-lance journalist).  She then said that God had told her that I would give her £1000 in order to pay a tax demand.  Now I can be a bit of a soft touch, often getting my chequebook out as my heart is moved even before the end of the sob-story.  I felt nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Having listened I left the restaurant table and went to the loo, where I got down on my knees in a very small cubicle.  I was troubled, it didn’t feel right and I prayed, “God if this is from you, let me know.  Please give me a sense that you have spoken to Clara and you want me to give her the money.”  I felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing.  I returned and regretfully refused.  She was pretty put out.  The next morning I was still perturbed. Had God spoken to her?  Was she prophesying?  I turned to the Bible and asked God to speak to me through it and he led me to a passage I don’t believe I had ever read before, 1 Kings Chapter 13.  Briefly, a man of God prophesies disaster to the king of Judah, the king hates it but his arm is withered as he tries to strike the Man of God who, on request, prays and the King’s arm is restored.  “Then the king said to the man of God, ‘Come home with me and dine, and I will give you a gift.’  But he replies, ’If you give me half your kingdom, I will not go in with you; nor will I dine.  For thus I was commanded by the word of the LORD: You shall not eat food, or drink water, or return by the way that you came.’  So he went back another way.  Now there lived an old prophet in Bethel, he went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak tree.  He also invited him home for dinner, but got the same rebuff.  Then the old prophet said to him, ‘I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD: Bring him back with you into your house so that he may eat dine.’ But he was deceiving him.  Then the man of God went back with him, and ate and drank but, as they were sitting at the table The LORD spoke though the prophet, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, … your body shall not come to your ancestral tomb.’  Then, as he went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him.” [5]   The old prophet had said, ‘An angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD.’  But he was deceiving him.  That was what I was given, a deceitful, false prophet.  I am not aware of a similar situation begin described anywhere else in the Bible.  I felt a lot better after that!

So the Bible is the living word of God and the more we read it the more we will be able to discern God’s voice.

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[1] John Milton, Paradise Lost opening stanzas 1667

[2] John 5:39-40

[3] Matthew 5:17, 27-8

[4] Matthew 23:23

[5] 1 Kings 1-24

The Rev’d Sonia Falaschi-Ray

God takes sin seriously.  He does, he takes it seriously.  Jesus in trying to get that point across launches into Semitic hyperbole, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off….if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off… if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out.  It’s better to enter life maimed than be thrown into hell.”  He particularly picks on those of us who by our words or actions impede others’ path to God.  How do we do that?  Well it may be by just behaving badly when people know we are a Christian.  I’ve found myself in arguments where I have had hurled at me “You’re a priest, you shouldn’t say things like that.”  Even though I felt that I had right on my side regarding the argument, I also knew that their comment was correct.  Maddening!  God is happy for his Spirit to operate through people in ways we may find uncomfortable.  The Israelites and Jesus’ disciples complain that those prophesying were ‘in the wrong place’ or ‘not one of us’.  Jesus was always doing that, healing on the Sabbath, outwitting scribes in their use of scripture, being claimed as Messiah having emerged from an artisan’s family in a small northern town.  (Think plumber from Barnsley perhaps?)  Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  We must take care not to block people’s reaching out to God just because they don’t do it in ways we find seemly.  God cares about this.  God cares about sin.  A few weeks ago we looked at ‘pride’.  If you missed it you can find the text on the Benefice website.  I had a request for ‘lust’ from people who are away at the moment, so that will have to wait.  Today I thought we might look at anger.  Anger is not always sinful and may well be justified.  However, the risk we run is that we may start off with justifiable anger at an injustice and then allow it to get a grip of us until we end up feeling quite murderous.  Jesus pointed out in the ‘Sermon on the mount’ the continuum between calling someone raca, an “ignorant idiot” and murdering them. 

In our Old Testament reading we have the Israelites sick of just having manna to eat, after they had enjoyed a variety of foods while slaves in Egypt. (Apparently manna tasted like fried bread.)  God was angry at their ingratitude.  Moses was furious at God for having all these complaints dumped on him.  Even though God was cross, he sent quails to the camp- but they came at a price, God told Moses to say, “You shall eat meat; for you have wailed in the hearing of the LORD, saying, ‘If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt.’ Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat…. not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month–until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you–because you have rejected the LORD who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’” 

In considering Anger I have been greatly helped by a sermon given by Nicky Gumbel at Holy Trinity Brompton[1]

A while back, The Sunday Times had an article about anger claiming that more than 80 per cent of drivers say they’ve been involved in road-rage incidents. (we will look at one later) 64 per cent of Britons working in an office have had office-rage; 71 per cent of internet users admit to having suffered net-rage; and 50 per cent of us have reacted to computer problems by hitting our PC, hurling parts of it around and screaming abuse at our colleagues.

Rick Warren, a Christian writer, describes four different ways in which people express their anger at work:

1. The maniacs. They are the exploders. These people are walking time bombs – they yell, they curse, they throw things when they get upset or frustrated.

2. The mutes. They’re the silent types. They hold it in and hide their true feelings. They simmer and stew. Selwyn Hughes often said that: ‘Anger is never buried dead. It’s always buried alive’.

3. The martyrs. They are the best at holding pity-parties. Instead of getting angry, they get depressed. What’s wrong with me? But martyrs make everyone else miserable too.

4. The manipulators. They don’t get mad, they get even. They retaliate in an underhand way. They use sarcasm and office politics to express their anger.

When I read this I got quite worried, the only one I am not is a mute!

Anger is an emotion, a natural passion.  Physically, it causes many changes in our bodies: adrenalin flows, hunger disappears, we have a clearer, more focused vision, and an increased supply of testosterone.  So is all anger wrong?  Is there such a thing as constructive anger?  How are we to handle anger?  Jesus said “If you are angry with a brother or sister [without cause], you will be liable to judgment;” Throughout the Bible God himself gets angry. It’s his personal reaction against sin. It’s part of his love. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that, ‘God is wrath’. It says, ‘God is love’. His anger is an expression of his love. Because he loves us, his creation, he gets angry on behalf of the victims, the poor, the downtrodden. C. S. Lewis says such anger is, ‘the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it’. Jesus himself got angry. He was indignant when he saw children not being treated properly. He was angry when religious rulers tried to stop people from being healed for legalistic reasons. He was angry when he saw a place that had been built for worship being used to make money. So anger in itself is not wrong. It’s not necessarily contrary to love.  It’s actually an expression of love, and sometimes, in the face of some of the appalling things that we read about in our newspapers, if we didn’t get angry, it would show a lack of humanity, a lack of compassion, a lack of love. But, like most sins, anger can take something that’s good, which is a proper hatred of evil and injustice, and twist it into something destructive.

There’s a difference, isn’t there, between righteous and unrighteous anger?  One of the problems with righteous anger is that it easily gets turned into self-righteous arrogance that tolerates no difference of opinion or opposition.  There’s constructive and there’s destructive anger.  When Animal Rights protestors turn to physically attacking researchers and their property, that has to be a corruption of righteous anger.  If our anger is channelled in the right direction, like Wilberforce’s, or Lord Shaftsbury’s, into transforming society, that’s a wonderful thing – but we have to be careful that it’s focused not on love of self, but on love of others.  As you look at Jesus’ anger, it was always against sin and injustice towards others.  I think it is easy to justify our own anger and condemn the anger in others. An article in the New Statesman said: ‘You are annoyed; he is making a fuss about nothing; I am righteously indignant.’ In our Gospel reading, Jesus is concerned about hampering others’ access to God by our behaviour, and uncontrolled anger can do that.  So what should we do when angry?

Press the ‘pause’ button

One of the things that it often says in the Bible about God is that God is slow to anger. Proverbs says, ‘The fool is quick-tempered’. And the quick-tempered do foolish things.’ Don’t I know it? As someone said, ‘We should learn the lesson from the Space Shuttle: Always count down before blasting off.’  This is one of the dangers of email. Email allows us to respond very quickly. My grandfather, a solicitor, told me, ‘When angry, write a letter, write it all out and sleep on it. Next morning, re-read it and then tear it up.’ The thing about pressing the ‘pause’ button is that it gives time to reflect. It gives time to talk, even to get advice. Don’t push the anger down – talk it out.  We should ask ourselves, ‘What is the loving response to this?’

Watch the words

Jesus says: ‘Anyone who yells “you ignorant idiot”, will be in danger of the fire of hell.’ I once in the heat of the moment called a friend a ‘silly woman’.  It destroyed our friendship for years.  Jesus is saying that words are very powerful and they can be very damaging.  Proverbs 15 v 1 says, ‘A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.’

Master the mind

Jesus said, ‘You have heard that it was said to people long ago, “Do not murder” and “Anyone who murders will subject to judgment”, but I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.’  If we don’t control what we think, certain patterns of thought can become habitual, which means they become part of who we are.  Then, under stress, what we really think is liable to pop out.  Sir Keith Joseph said of Margaret Thatcher.  “When she speaks without thinking, she says what she thinks.”  We should try to change our attitude to things that irritate us in people, rather than rehearsing what we would like to say, so each time an evil thought slips into our mind, instead of revelling in it and imagining a scenario where we get the better of this person, we should turn to God and ask him to help us love them.  This particular piece of advice I probably need to heed more than most.

Consider the cost

On the 26^th September 2009, Simon de Bruxelles of The Times reported, “A father has been jailed for 18 months over the death of his stepdaughter in a high-speed crash as he gave her a lift.  Edward Goddard, 41, was driving at up to 110mph because he was annoyed at being called at 1am to collect Kaylee Goddard, 20, and her boyfriend from a nightclub in Abertillery, Gwent.

A court was told that he lost control of his car while trying to scare them by driving at a concrete bollard.  The car hit the bollard and rolled several times before coming to rest upside down.

Miss Goddard, mother of two, [aged 4 and 2] was not wearing a seatbelt and died from head injuries.  Edward Goddard spent 12 days in a coma with head and spinal injuries and suffered permanent brain damage.  Miss Goddard’s partner Luke Grey, 23 and his bother Mark escaped with minor injuries.  Consider the cost.

Jesus says anger is the first step on a road to hatred, murder, prison, even hell… and the only way to deal with it is quickly and thoroughly.  Pause before reacting, watch the words you use and in the meantime change your attitude while considering the cost of anger.

Pursue peace

Jesus urges us not to get involved in disputes.  He gives two instances. I want to take the one concerning our attitude to those outside the church first: Jesus said,’ Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you’re still together on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you’ve paid the last penny.’ Jesus says, if possible, avoid legal action.  Any lawyer will tell you that in so many cases both parties get unnecessarily hurt.  Going to court is usually not a great idea. 

And then, in terms of disputes inside the church: ‘Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift.’ Be reconciled. This applies within the church; between churches; between denominations.  We have to be reconciled to one another.  We may not always agree and indeed we may have to agree to differ on matters. But we should try to be peacemakers. Of course, it’s not always possible, but St Paul says: ‘If it’s possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone’. We all fall short, but it is possible to be different. It’s possible for there to be this alternative community where, instead of anger, there is acceptance, forgiveness, love, graciousness, goodness.  This is the society that Jesus advocates. How is it possible? It’s possible because of the cross, because we’ve received forgiveness and we’re able to give forgiveness. It’s possible because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills us with God’s love for us and love for others.  However, we are all still work in progress.

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[1] 17.6.2007