Preaching Steve Croft: Sermon Series on the Beatitudes - The Poor in Spirit

Delievered at: St Mark's Harrogate 3^rd January 2010 – 8am

Textual Basis: Isaiah 61:1, Matthew 5:3

Today we begin a new sermon series on the Beatitudes, as presented in the Gospel of Matthew. It’s a series that has been devised alongside a particular book by Steve Croft, the Bishop of Sheffield, called “Jesus’ People: What the Church Should do Next”. I’d encourage you to go and get a copy as it’s a book you’ll be hearing a lot of references to over the coming weeks as we look at the Beatitudes individually.

Steve Croft’s basic argument is that organisations often have a character and in that way the Church is no different. And just like a person, the character of an organisation can be formed by its experiences and history. An organisation that has known only success and prosperity will have a different character from that which is used to struggling to survive. As it is with individuals, so it may be with groups of people.

So the book is an attempt - in under 100 pages – to argue that the Church is called to be a community that reflects the character and nature of Jesus Christ to our wider society. And that character, argues Croft, is to be found in the eight statements of the beatitudes found in the first ten verses of Matthew Chapter 5.

A point to stress before looking at the first of these today, is that for Steve Croft each of these statements needs to be seen not through an individual lens, about what it might say to me as an individual, but rather through a corporate lens – how does it speak to us as the body of Christ in this part of the world ?

When we read these texts we often tend to go straight for the individual interpretation: “this is how I am to be and I am to behave.” But Croft argues that in looking at the Beatitudes afresh we need to hear them in the context of how Christians can be together - as values for community living.

So having set the context for the coming weeks, let’s turn to our beatitude in today’s text: Matthew Chapter 5 verse 3  “Blessed are the poor in Spirit – for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.

“Poor in Spirit is an intriguing phrase.” Says Croft. “An alternative translation of the Greek gives us a way into understanding it. One of those alternatives is this: “Happy are those who know their need of God.”

When he talks about the ‘poor in Spirit’ Jesus is not talking about the down in the mouth, or those having a bad day. Rather Jesus is saying Blessed are those who are spiritually poor and impoverished, blessed are those who come to God in humility and recognition of their need for Him – it is these who will enter into His Kingdom. Or to turn the phrase around again, when we think we are self-sufficient and full of our own goodness, at that moment we are far from the Kingdom of God.

One of the things about being poor in Spirit is a deep and knowing recognition of our utter dependence on God’s grace. Of the knowledge that we cannot do it by ourselves, we cannot earn our way into the kingdom. We are utterly dependent upon God’s invitation and gifting.

But it is hard isn’t it to believe this corporately at a Church like ours here at St. Marks ?

By most terms of measurement we belong to a successful church. Every week 500 or so people worship here. We give approaching £200,000 to the diocese to help support churches throughout the area, more than any other single church in Ripon and Leeds. We give away a further £50,000 – 10% of our income to those working in areas of need - supporting the homeless, working with people with disabilities, environmental groups to name but three.  We have modern facilities, a beautiful building and even beautiful clergy – I refer of course to my wife. Surely we are blessed and along the right track aren’t we ?

Jesus’ words here suggest that as soon as we start patting ourselves on the back we begin to take a step away from the Kingdom of God. We become concerned perhaps with our Church building more than with the people who form the Church. We begin to think that it is our budgets and not our prayer life that is where our focus should be. We start becoming obsessed with leadership and start losing sight of servanthood.

A parallel can be found in the lives of the rich and successful who fall from grace. Many of you will know the name of John Profumo. Although he held an increasingly responsible series of political posts in the 1950s, he is best known today for his involvement in a 1963 scandal involving Christine Keeler which led to his resignation and contributed to toppling the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.

After his resignation, Profumo began to work as a volunteer cleaning toilets at Toynbee Hall, a charity based in the East End of London, dedicated to helping the homeless and socially deprived. He eventually became Toynbee Hall's chief fundraiser, and used his political skills and contacts to raise large sums of money. All this work was done as a volunteer, since Profumo was able to live on his inherited wealth. The social reform campaigner Lord Longford said he felt more admiration for Profumo than “for all the men I've known in my lifetime"

It was only when he had realised the utterly futility of depending on his own goodness and self-sufficiency that John Profumo discovered a life of service where he found his true vocation. 

The danger for us in Harrogate, where words like “failure” “poverty” and “need” are words we hear about others, is that through our own seeming spiritual self-sufficieny, we begin to squeeze God out.

The good news that we hear from the prophet Isaiah is good news for the oppressed, for the poor, for those who know what it is to be broken. Jesus came to save the broken and not the self sufficient. Those who believe they save themselves daily have no need for a saviour in Christ nor do they recognise such a need. Their own affluence, intellect, beauty, skill, talent will be sufficient unto themselves.

It is through the brokenness of poverty, the brokenness of failure, the brokenness of bereavement, illness and addiction, it is through the experience of emptiness that comes with brokenness that we begin to open ourselves up to the fullness of God’s grace. 

It is only when we begin to grasp our own spiritual poverty that we can enter a place of growth and grace.  So may God grant to us in this place the recognition of His Grace, of our dependence on it, and the humility of Spirit that leads us to first seek Him.

Amen

Here's To You Mr. Robinson - Redemption in the first two days of 2010

It seems a little early to be welcoming in a new decade with tales of portent, laden with meaning  but two days into 2010 and already the year has given me a story of friendship, community and redemption as well as a social media affirming by-line.

Yesterday, New Years Day, I went to the park with my wife and 19 month old daughter who is a sucker for swings with bucket seats. The park in question was the Valley Gardens in Harrogate which has recently opened a brand new play area for kids. It’s a great place – the kind of place every public space should have –with swings, slides, wooden musical instruments, climbing frames and all manner of currently unvandalised and fully operable toys.

It was here, pushing my daughter on a swing, that I noticed that my wedding ring was getting a little loose. Not that I had managed to lose any of my substantial bulk over Christmas, but the cold weather – the snow and ice were still in plenty supply in the park – meant that the wedding ring that fitted snugly over a chubby finger in the summer of 2006 sat a little loose on the contracted cold – although still chubby -  winter finger of 2009.

After finishing up on the swing, we walked over to a couple of other play pieces, but it was getting colder and there were tears and screams, so we decided to walk back to the car and head home.

Two and half hours later, at home on the sofa with a cup of tea, I noticed my wedding ring was missing. At the bottom of my ring finger of my left hand there was a circular indent in the skin but no sign of the ring that caused it. Of course I panicked and started looking everywhere. The kitchen, the lounge, the sofa, the chairs, everywhere I had been since I entered the house was searched. Thirty minutes later I realised that it was at the park by the swings that I last remembered wearing my ring. So I looked in the car, in the hope it might be there, on the pavement between the car and the house. All the while it was snowing outside and the snow was freezing over into ice.

The ring was nowhere to be seen anywhere in the house or car. So I found a torch and headed back down to the now deserted Valley Gardens, in the dark and the snow, to begin the proverbial needle in a haystack search for my wedding ring. I wasn’t particularly hopeful. The ground had a new layer of snow on it, which was rapidly turning into ice. Even if I had dropped it somewhere here, it was unlikely I would be able to see it.

 

As I swept the ground with my torch a stranger walking his dog asked me what I was looking for. When I told him he said he;d only recently put waya his metal detector in his loft and otherwise he would have gone home and got it. He wished me luck and walked on.

I got home feeling more than a little miserable. I had not found the ring, I had lost it in, and it was now somewhere, anywhere, either in the snow or even picked up and placed snugly into a strangers pocket. I had been stupid not to have taken it off when I noticed it was loose and was now without my wedding ring. I suddenly envied each of those days I had so casually worn  without a second thought and chastised myself for not being more thankful for those times or more careful in these times.

I told my wife about the man in the park and she suggested I email a few friends asking them if they had a metal detector and if they might come out and look with me. “No chance” I thought, and sure enough having emailed a few people, asking if they had a metal detector or knew someone who did and informing them of my woe, I received the replies commiserating with my loss, in some cases offering to come out and look with me, but none with any metal detectors.

So whilst every one was posting facebook and twitter updates wishing one another happy new year or commenting on how great Dr. Who was, I posted from my misery lamenting my loss and informing the world that this was a “fail” on the Happy New Year scale.

And then at about 8 pm I got a call from Keith Robinson. He said his daughter Amy – a facebook friend – had noticed my update on facebook about losing my wedding ring. He said his mom’s partner had a metal detector and could he come and help ? It was now dark, cold, the snow was falling again and I had given up. But I was touched that he had seen it and called so we arranged to meet up in the morning at 8.30 in the park, before any kids got there, and to have look.

Getting up at 7 this morning, my hopes were not high. I got to the park earl and looked again, noticing how the ground had frozen over anew. At about 8.45 Keith, his wife Beverley, his two daughters Amy and Jena,and his father in law arrived. Together we retraced my steps from the day before. It took twenty minutes before the detector started buzzing, and there – at the edge of the swings beneath the snow and the ice was my wedding ring. Incredibly and against all the hope that I had lost, we found it.

A few months ago I read a book called “Here comes everybody” by Clay Shirky. The opening chapter is about someone who leaves their mobile phone in a taxi and is eventually reunited with it after an online campaign. I have been thinking about this chapter a lot since getting my ring back this morning. There are a couple of parallels – without the online posting, the facebook updates, Amy, Jena and Bev wouldn’t have seen it, and Keith would never have rung. But the subtitle to Shirky’s book – ‘the power of organising without organisations’  falls flat as a parallel because without the community or organisation of my local Church, I would not be friends with the Robinsons and there would have been no call from Keith.

Keith’s actions flowed from his desire to help someone who was in need, a desire I believe is born the faith we share. He picked up the phone because of the Church that brought us together in that faith. In this instance the physical community came first, and the online community supplemented it. The online community offered me empathy and shared my misery. But the physical community found my ring.

There is another moral of the tale for me. The metaphor of finding something that has been lost is a constant in Christian theology. Whether it be the parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15 or the line from Amazing Grace – I once was lost but now am found – the story of my ring lost and found is a reminder for me of that deeper theological truth that runs throughout the Gospels - there is nothing beyond the redemption of God’s grace, no person too evil, no situation so horrible, no incident so unforgivable, that is beyond the hope of redemption. There’s nothing too lost to us that is beyond redemption.

In the finding of my needle in the haystack, I have been reminded once more that I have been found myself.

So here’s to you Mr Robinson, and the faith that we share; the ring that was lost and now is found and the endless and eternal possibilities of hope, faith and love. 

Not a New Year I am likely to forget in a hurry.

Swiss Ban Minarets

Accordsing to the BBC  Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.

More than 57% of voters from 26 cantons - or provinces - voted in favour of the ban, Swiss news agency ATS reported. The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People's Party, (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which says minarets are a sign of Islamisation.

Opponents - including all the mainstream Churches and Jewish organisations in Switzerland - say a ban would amount to discrimination and that the ballot has stirred hatred.

The Swiss Ban will serve as proof positive to those who argue that Islam and the west are set ona collision course. This analysis - shared by Jihadists and NeoCons alike - is probably best expounded by one of its American advocates Samuel P. Huntington whose book the Clash of Civilisations has been influential amongst those in the last US administration who saw a long term impasse between Islam and the West.

Huntington and his ilk are flawed in their analysis. The coalition against the Swiss minaret ban included people of all faiths and none, muslim and jew, protestant and catholic, orthodox and sikh. The one positive of the ban being proposed was the unfiying of these groups under one banner. It is unfortunate that those on the other side of the argument have sown that fear and bigotry still has the power to overcome the most progressive of coalitions.

Swine Flu Restrcitions Lifted

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have today issued new guidance to the House of Bishops lifting the restrictions on celebrating communion in one kind.

Their new guidance is as follows:

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have issued the following statement to the College of Bishops:
Dear Bishop,
In July, during the first wave of the Swine Flu pandemic we issued national advice with regard to the administration of Holy Communion.
This advice was based on information and guidance received from the Department of Health which was geared to the situation at that time and the projected levels of risk suggested by the potential course of the pandemic.  Since then the scientific understanding of the Swine Flu virus has advanced, further experience of the course of the epidemic has been gained,  and the first stage of a vaccination programme, targeted at those most at risk from the virus, is nearing completion.
Throughout this period, our advice has been driven by the interests of public health, particularly for the protection of the vulnerable.
In the light of continuing consultation with the Department of Health, and with updated information on the course of the Swine Flu pandemic, we believe that we can now advise that the normal administration of Holy Communion ought to resume.  This recommendation is subject to the guidelines issued in June (http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/swineflu/communion.doc) which set out good hygiene practice for public worship and which allows for local discretion in the event of outbreaks of pandemic flu in particular centres of population.  We shall also continue to monitor the situation.
We wish to thank you for your patience and cooperation during this challenging period for both Church and Community. We are thankful that the pandemic has so far proved less severe than was feared.
Please pass this on to your colleagues in the diocese.
With every blessing,
+Rowan Cantuar               +Sentamu Ebor

The Joys of Nooma

I'm a big fan of Nooma videos and Rob Bell.

These are exactly the kind of non-cheesy, non-embarrasing films which can be shared without feeling they are too preachy or heavy but which explore issues from a Gospel perspective. I've used this one a number of times in house groups and confirmation classes to introduce the topic of forgiveness.It's good stuff; powerful but accesible. Modern day parables.

My only issue with them is that they can be a little too American in their look and feel. The first in the series "rain" has a section which turns me right off due its overuse of the word "buddy".  I begin to lose what he's saying and get hot under the collar about how he's saying it. On the whole though they are excellent.

But Where is the British version of this ? Do we really not have the creative abilities and people to do something like this on this side of the pond ?

We must support Gordon Brown's moral authority, and stop undermining it

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Gordon Brown. Picture: Dave Thompson/PA

Published Date: 15 November 2009 - Yorkshire Post

IN recent days, criticism of Gordon Brown has turned from a barrage to an all out assault. Leading the charge has been The Sun which, to use a phrase from the football manager's handbook, has decided to play the man and not the ball.

Seemingly fed up with the determination of the man to keep his head down and to steadily hold a course, the newspaper has decided to
refrain from persuasion or diversionary tactics and simply to try and kick his legs out from under him.

In response to this onslaught, Gordon Brown has appeared to remain both stoic and steadfast. At his recent monthly news conference, the Prime Minister apologised fulsomely for any offence he may have caused to the grieving mother of Jamie Janes and maintained a solemnity which matched the mood of a nation on Armistice day.

Brown's response has a lot to teach us not only about his own character, but also how we might learn to support our leaders better during a time when our armed services are involved in combat operations abroad.

The chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Matthew Taylor, put it this way in a recent lecture on democratic values: "The problem with our democracy is less about the performance of politicians and more about the content of the democratic conversation.

"Proper processes of democratic deliberation would help us be less petulant, wiser and more responsible task masters for our beleaguered representatives."

Certainly the content of the democratic conversation has become breathtakingly abusive in its recent tone towards the Prime Minister. Legitimate questions of policy and strategy, on the economy and in matters of defence, have given way to a character assassination where the need for both more wisdom and less petulance has never been more apparent.

The ferocity of the personal criticism directed towards the Prime Minister has brought to the fore questions of moral authority in terms of Gordon Brown's character, a question which seems especially
poignant given the continuing debate of this country's strategy in Afghanistan.

The question which lies beneath much of the criticism of Gordon Brown is simply whether he has sufficient moral authority to lead a country during a time of war?

Moral authority is not tested in political party manifestos, nor is it earned through democratic mandate. Rather it is something that comes through demonstrating the just nature of the action or course which
one advocates, despite the heavy cost or burden that the pursuit of such a course may entail.

The actions of Tony Blair in intervening in the Balkans gained moral authority once the genocide in Srebrenica became known, while the shifting sands beneath the claims of weapons of mass destruction seriously undermined the moral authority for action in Iraq.

For many people, the cost of the conflict in Afghanistan, represented by the tolling bells and funeral corteges that pass through Wootton Bassett, now outweighs any conceivable benefit. But questions of moral authority require more than a cost-benefit analysis.

They require a broader consideration of what is just. The countless lives lost to the indignity of the apartheid system were not sufficient grounds for abandoning the opposition to it. Rather its horrors and blatant disregard of equal humanity provided the moral authority for Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and others to finally triumph.

The lives of our Armed Forces lost to the conflict in Afghanistan must be counted alongside the almost daily loss of life through recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Each life is a victim of an ideology (purportedly Islamic but to many unrecognisably so) which denies basic standards to women, that makes apostates of innocent men and sentences to death those who seek to oppose its unbending will.

The apparent ease with which civilian casualties, regardless of their Islamic faith, are not only considered justified but actively targeted is a reminder of the callous inhumanity that our soldiers now actively oppose.

That they do with a selfless courage and bravery that stands in stark contrast to the moral cowardice of the Taliban should be a reminder of the just nature of the cause.

Gordon Brown's moral authority remains intact precisely because of the moral nature of that cause. It is not an authority that will be undermined by misspelt names or scribbled letters.

The moral compass to which Gordon Brown laid claim early on in the days of his premiership will need to remain fixed Eastwards as he holds firm to opposing the triumph of terror and hate.

Closer to home, he will also need to renew a military covenant with those whom he expects to pay the ultimate price so that he too does not become a victim of the shifting sands of inconsistency.

The consequences of losing this conflict will not only act as a recruiting sergeant to the fellow travellers of al-Qaida,
but will also provide the Taliban with a domestic base from which to operate.

If such consequences are to be avoided, then Gordon Brown's moral authority needs to be re-asserted and not undermined as we each decide which side we
are on.

PG Wodehouse, Strictly and The P Word

Why this dancer can't waltz away from row over racism

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Published Date: 12 October 2009 - Yorkshire Post

THE coverage of Anton Du Beke, the Strictly Come Dancing star who stepped into a race row by telling his dance partner Laila Rouass that she looked like a "Paki", brought to mind some advice offered by PG Wodehouse in The Man Upstairs: "It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them." This case shows why Wodehouse got it wrong.

There was a long queue of people fully justified in demanding that Du Beke – or Anthony Beak to give him his real name – should apologise. At the front of the queue was Laila Rouass herself, whose initial reaction was reported by one of the 15 people in the room at the time of the incident. "Laila just stood there gobsmacked, as was everyone else. She just looked at him as if she couldn't quite believe what he'd said… she glared at Anton and just walked out – she was so upset. She just went to her dressing room, collected her stuff and went straight home. She felt totally humiliated."

When a national newspaper picked up the comments, Du Beke first denied having made them, but subsequently confessed and apologised. For her part Rouass showed a great deal of grace and a good deal more class than her dance partner by accepting his apology and saying that it was "time to move on".

Ironically it was the legendary host of Strictly, Bruce Forsyth, who gave added legs to the story on Wednesday, when he suggested the term used by Du Beke was no more than a nickname and that people getting worked up about it needed to rediscover their sense of humour. A similar line was taken by Godfrey Bloom, the MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, who said that being called a "Paki" was no different to being called a "Brummie".

As someone who has been called both of these names regularly throughout my life, I can assure Mr Bloom they are not at all the same. Being called a Brummie is a matter of pride for me. I am proud to come from England's second city, to have been born and brought up on its heritage-laden streets, to have been educated in its schools and universities and even to retain a small part of the local twang in my accent, which is so loved and derided in equal measure by those who lack it.

The term "Paki" is altogether a different matter. I remember hearing it for the first time in the Seventies when being warned about a group of skinheads called the "anti-Paki league" whose sole purpose was to beat up young men of Asian origin. Part of their uniform included the steel toe capped Doc Marten boot, which was to be used with vigour. Unfortunately that was not the only time I was to hear the word, but despite the decades that have passed it has retained the insulting bite that causes humiliation and anger every time it is directed at me.

When I was younger one of my coping strategies at being on the receiving end of the word was to politely inform the person using it that I was born in Birmingham and not Pakistan. That my parents
came from India, not Pakistan, and that calling me a Paki was like suggesting that someone from Germany was Dutch. It
was not only geographically inaccurate, it didn't even
make sense.

Unfortunately, this strategy was short lived. It's hard to have a discussion with someone who shouts the word at you from a moving car, as happened on a number of occasions, or when you're heavily outnumbered and in severe danger of physical harm.

Perhaps more importantly, it totally misread the purpose of the term being employed in the first place. The people who called me a "Paki" did so for one reason: to degrade and insult in the deepest way possible.

It is a term that is designed to dehumanise, alienate and humiliate. It removes every part of my character, individuality and personhood and renders me nothing more than a skin colour – a colour that is different.

It is simply not possible to use the word "Paki" in a way that affirms or that results in a cheery jest. This is why both Bruce Forsyth and Godfrey Bloom got it so wrong when they suggest there is nothing offensive about the term. The word is nothing but offensive, as poisonous in its intent to degrade as the purest toxin.

Demanding that Anton du Beke takes full responsibility for his actions is not seeking mean advantage. It is a recognition that people who enjoy the benefits of the limelight and reap its rewards must also be responsible. In the case of public broadcasters they must also be accountable. This was the lesson of the Jonathan Ross-Russell Brand affair. It is a lesson that Anton Du Beke quickly needs to step to.