Forgivness and reconciliation

 

Reflection Sunday 16^th August 2020 Genesis 45: 1 – 15

 

If you’ve ever seen the musical “Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat” I defy you not to start humming some of the songs as we look at our passage for scripture today.

Last Sunday’s Genesis passage introduced us to Joseph, with his brightly coloured coat, and his brothers. We learned how the brothers plotted against Joseph and sold him into slavery.

Today we’ve skipped on – towards the end of the musical if you like – and we find Joseph reunited with his brothers. The brothers have come to Egypt to seek help – there is a famine in their homeland. As you’ll see in the preceding chapters, at first, they have no idea who Joseph is. They think he is an important Egyptian official who ensures that they are given plenty of food to return home with. Though not before Joseph plays some tricks on them. Joseph hides a silver goblet in Benjamin’s sack and pretends Benjamin has stolen it to ensure Benjamin is left behind to become a slave. (See chapter 44.)

Only after all this does Joseph come clean “I am Joseph!” Genesis 45:3

At this point, it might be understandable if Joseph sought revenge on his brothers for what they did. After all he is in a position to do with his brothers what he pleases. Yet his language and demeanour show no evidence of anger. (“He wept loudly” Genesis 45:2) He sets aside his trappings of royalty and brings himself down to the level of his brothers.

Note that earlier I said, “we find Joseph reunited with his brothers”. I purposely didn’t say “reconciled” which might have been a more suitable a word. Reconciled implies I think that people have put aside their differences. And often reconciliation comes about following forgiveness or in some instances reconciliation leads to forgiveness.

You may recall that in South Africa, after the end of Apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as offering reparation and rehabilitation to the victims. There were some remarkable stories of forgiveness following the work of the Commission.

I think it’s also worth remembering that we can be “reconciled” to a situation. Meaning we are content with it. It might not be perfect, but it is liveable with.

Here Joseph forgives. (Reconciliation will have to wait until chapter 50.) Joseph’s forgiveness comes about because he believes the brothers’ actions were part of God’s plans.

⁵ And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ……  ⁷ But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.^{[a] 8} ‘So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. Genesis 45: 5 – 8

Joseph is exhibiting Gospel forgiveness, the Good News forgiveness we think of with Jesus. God, acting through Joseph, has ensured life rather than death. Life in the sense of the family not going hungry as opposed to death via the famine. Life in Joseph not taking revenge and putting his brothers to death. But also new life that follows forgiveness. God has used the actions of the brothers, no matter how reprehensible that action was, as a way of sustaining the life of this family.

You may know the name Corrie ten Boom. She was a remarkable woman. The ten Booms hid Jewish people in their home in the Netherlands during the Second World War. The ten Booms were betrayed and sent to a concentration camp. Only Corrie survived and after the war she developed a ministry preaching about forgiveness and reconciliation.

In her book The Hiding Place, in which she tells her story, there is a remarkable scene. It is 1947 and Corrie has been speaking at a church in Munich about forgiveness. After the talk she was approached by a man who she recognised as having been a camp guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp. (During her talk Corrie said she’d been in the camp.) The man didn’t recognise her. He explained how he’d been a guard and asked for her forgiveness.

Corrie says that when the man offered his hand she froze. Until by saying a silent prayer asking for strength to forgive.

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

That was not the end. Corrie – naturally – felt angry towards the man, and this anger stayed with her for some time. She wrote:

Help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks.

“Up in that church tower,” he said, “is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding then dong. Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops.

“I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive someone, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.”

And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversation. But the force–which was my willingness in the matter–had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether.

We know we are to forgive others. We pray it every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. But equally we all know it is sometimes not an easy thing to do. Maybe some of you reading this will relate to Corrie ten Boom’s story. Not the horror of a concentration camp, but in the difficulty in forgiving or being reconciled with someone who has hurt you.

If you find yourself having difficulty forgiving someone, or being reconciled, please pray about it. But equally know that once we let go of the rope of your grievances, eventually they will stop. And more over, we are all loved deeply by God and forgiven by him as his precious children.

Grace filled evangelism

 

Reflection Sunday 9^th August 2020 Romans 10: 5 – 15

 

As you may have heard, this year’s Methodist Conference met online at the start of July. The Conference “voted overwhelmingly to implement a new Church-wide strategy for Evangelism and Growth. The God for All strategy commits the Church theologically, culturally, and financially to deepen its mission to be a growing, evangelistic, justice-seeking, and inclusive Church.”

Now I know that some of you reading this will be shuddering at the mention of “evangelism”. Evangelism has unfortunately become a dirty word to many people. People know it exists, but they associate it with old fashioned tent revival meetings, street preachers and fundamentalists.

This is unfortunate because at its heart evangelism is the work of those who are the messengers of good news. The word itself has the same roots as “angel”. And surely if ever there was a time for people needing good news it is now? But it is hard for many of us to think of ourselves as evangelists, bringers of good news.

Broadly speaking we can think of evangelism in two ways. On the one hand there are those who see evangelism as closely linked to mission of some kind – by funding the work of others to share the Good News via some kind of action; whether food banks or Street Pastors close to home, or overseas through charities such as Christian Aid or Tearfund. On the other hand, are those Christians who have no fear in going out preaching and whose members are happy to talk about their faith to others.

Both forms of evangelism are valid – and that statement from the Methodist Church at the start of this Reflection picks up both I feel.

But, we need to remember that both form of evangelism are about one thing – about sharing the Good News and bringing others to Christ. Neither form of evangelism can make someone into a Christian, however. Those who feel that they can “save” others whether by good works or by words missed the point. And this is made clear in the part of Roman’s we are considering this morning. Paul is clear (Romans 10: 8 - 10)

Paul reminds us that that Christ is already present. It is not up to us to save the world. God has already done that. What is up to us is to believe that it is true and live as though we believe. We cannot save others by our actions alone. In fact, we cannot save ourselves in this way. Of course, this may be a comfort to you.

You may say “As Christ has come into the world to save sinners, why do we need to do anything?” If God in Christ has already done it all, what are we supposed to do? What is our purpose in the world?

Paul addresses these questions as follows:

¹⁴ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵ And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’^[g] Romans 10: 14 – 15

In Paul’s view, although Christ has come into the world to save people from sin, to be saved they still need to have heard the Good News that belief in Christ can save them. 

⁹ if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10: 9

This begs the question of course “If people genuinely have never heard that they may be saved through Christ, will they not receive eternal life?”

In a round about way John Wesley addressed this when he spoke of “prevenient grace” or as we might put it today “preceding grace.” The Rev. Gary Henderson, of the  United Methodist Church explained it this way: “Prevenient Grace is a really large term but to keep it simple, it is “grace before we knew we needed it.” Grace reaches out to us. It is God’s provision for us before we knew it and before we were aware of it.”

In other words, God’s grace extends to all people from the beginning of their lives. Thus, those who genuinely have never heard of Jesus Christ, and the salvation he offers, are included in God’s kingdom by prevenient grace. However, those who do know of Christ, and then chose to ignore him, may ultimately find themselves excluded from God’s kingdom.

However, I digress. I would not advocate any of us starting out as evangelists by discussing prevenient grace. What should our starting point be? It might not be discussing prevenient grace, but it could well be exhibiting and telling of the way we have experienced God’s abundant love in our own live. Those who know God’s abundant love in their lives are to ensure others to do.

As Methodists I suppose we always look to John Wesley and how he converted tens of thousands of people in his lifetime. And often this was through his preaching. What a gift he was given to bring people to Christ through preaching. But few have such a  gift and it seems to me that the way for believers to explain God to those who have not heard of his saving love is not by our theological brilliance or by quoting scripture at any given opportunity. Instead it is living out the “word within”

⁸ But what does it say?

“The word is near you,
    on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); Romans 10:8 NRSV (my emphasis)

The word of faith we proclaim means living out the Gospel of Christ. Sharing the Good news in a way it can be understood. This may mean witnessing to one’s own faith by speaking about it or by engaging in actions that proclaim the faith in tangible ways. Whichever way we are called the message is clear: those who believe are to messengers of the good news. To be evangelists.

Wrestling with God

 

Sunday 2^nd August 2020 Reflection Genesis 32: 22 – 32

 

Over these last few months, the Book of Genesis has featured in the suggested Sunday readings. And as you may recall I’ve reflected on the Genesis passages several times. A few people have said they’ve found it interesting to read more of Genesis and think about it. Therefore, today we’re going back to Genesis.

The story of Jacob wrestling with God is a strange one. As Terence Fretheim says in his commentary on Genesis “This text has long fascinated commentators. Its meaning is so elusive that a variety of interpretations are credible.” Mr Fretheim then spends five pages of a large book exploring the passage! I must be briefer.

What I’d like us to think about is the struggle between Jacob and God. The wrestle.

Firstly. Why does God wrestle with Jacob? Some commentators suggest that God is responding to Jacob’s history of deception and wrestles with him as kind of punishment. Almost wanting to teach Jacob that he cannot proceed into the future relying on his own devices. Therefore, the story could be seen as Jacob’s conversion to a life more attuned to the ways of God.

But is this the case? There is nothing in the story suggesting any judgment by God on Jacob’s past misdemeanours. There is no repentance on Jacob’s part and there is no fundamental change in Jacob’s subsequent life pattern. In fact, in God giving Jacob a new name – Israel (meaning “he struggles with God” or “the one who strives with God”) – God commends Jacob for struggling. The new name reflects how Jacob has been in the past and how he is now.

Who is changed by the struggle? God? Jacob? Both? Certainly, their relationship has changed. They hold fast to each other; neither will turn away. And Jacob is not so changed that he loses his identity. Yet there are changes. As I’ve said Jacob’s name is changed. And this new name is a recognition of the strength Jacob has exhibited in this encounter with God and through out his lifetime.

What is the significance of the injury Jacob sustains? The story presents a poignant portrayal of Jacob limping down the road to the promised land as the sun’s first rays peek over the horizon. Jacob can move on towards his goal. But at the same time Jacob has been sharply and perhaps permanently marked by this struggle with God. What is the significance of the mark? On the one hand it signifies Jacob’s success, not his failure or defeat; he has struggled and prevailed. Jacob has not become a victim of God, reduced to grovelling before the power of the Almighty. On the other hand, it attests to God’s graciousness; Jacob has wrestled with God, yet his life is preserved. So, the mark symbolizes both who Jacob is and who God is.

What does this strange story mean for us?

I think the story of Jacob wrestling with God says something of how from time to time we can wrestle with God. And in my Genesis commentary Terence Fretheim suggests “God may encounter people in conflictual times by taking the form of the anticipated difficulty”. It’s a point also made by the leading Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann “In the night, the divine antagonist tends to take on the features of others with whom we struggle in the day.”

This may seem a strange idea. But if God is in everything then God must be in those things we are wrestling with in our lives.

I think what Terence Fretheim and Walter Brueggemann each mean is that when we are wrestling with something in our life, God wrestles with us. Almost as if we are then better prepared to encounter the thing we are challenged with. And if we refuse to engage with God in that struggling moment, we deny ourselves a God given resource. To go through it with God before we go through it with others provides resources of strength and blessing for whatever lies ahead.

Therefore, when it comes to struggles in our daily lives, we can count on God’s wrestling with us, challenging us, convicting us, evaluating us, judging us. And He does this so that we are better prepared for what we encounter. God holds fast to us even if at times we let go of Him.

Every couple of months I go and have a conversation with a Spiritual Director. I don’t like the term Spiritual Director. But what it means is someone I can go and talk to in confidence about my own journey of faith. One of the things I know will happen from time to time is that when I take something I am wrestling with; my Spiritual Director will challenge me if he feels it is right to do so. I firmly believe this is God speaking through him, helping me make sense of the thing that is challenging me.

If you’re of a certain age you may remember the wrestling that used to be on ITV on a Saturday afternoon. Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Mick McManus. The fights were choreographed with the winner the nice guy. In our wrestling with God there will only be one winner – God. And that’s because he loves us and sent his son Jesus to save us. As I’ve said God holds fast to us even if at times we let go of Him. And, just like Jacob, God gives us his blessing so that we are bound together facing the future together.

God hears our prayers - even if they are a word salad

 

Reflection Sunday 26^th July 2020 Romans 8: 26 – 39

 

I last led a service in church on Sunday 15^th March. Since then I have produced a service and reflection for each Sunday. And I will continue to do so for some time. (Even when our churches reopen, I envisage producing something similar every week for those people who feel it won’t be safe to come back to church due to their health concerns.)

I am very grateful for the messages I get from you telling me how appreciative you are of the services, and the work that goes into preparing them. I do not think of it as work or a hard task. After all, I’d be writing a sermon each week anyway. And if anything, the present set up allows me more time to think and prepare than normal. Usually writing a sermon has to come between church meetings, Bible studies, pastoral calls (whether in person or on the phone) and other things. Now I have been gifted more time to prepare these services.

But there is one thing that causes me more work than anything else in my preparations and that are the prayers. For I must confess, I find prayers the most challenging part of any service. Not so much prayers of intercession or prayers of thanksgiving but the other prayers. The prayers of praise and the prayers of confession.

In part, this is because I can’t put into words my own praises, and my confessions might be different to yours!

Therefore, I am grateful to the many gifted writers of prayers who I can draw on. I know some of you have been keeping the services I’ve prepared. If so, if you look back, you’ll see certain names feature regularly - Nick Fawcett, Donald Hinton, Neil Dixon and Christine Odell as well as the likes of Ruth Burgess from the Iona Community and the various writers of the Methodist Worship Book. These women and men have been gifted the prayers to write by the Holy Spirit, to enable people like myself to have the right words to offer as prayers. I thank God for them and for their ministry.

We all know we should pray, and we even know how we should pray  - remember Jesus gave his disciples what we call the Lord’s Prayer as a template on how to pray see Matthew 6: 9 – 13 and Luke 11: 2 – 4. (We’ll keep for another day why these versions of the Lord’s Prayer differ slightly.) And undoubtedly, many people have no issue with praying.

But some of us find prayer difficult. We want to pray but we get ourselves in a muddle somehow. Not knowing how to start, what to say, what to pray for, who to pray for. We hear of other people who find prayer easy who seem to pray as if they’ve just picked up the phone to God and that makes those of us who find prayer a challenge (or even a chore?) guilty. Why can’t we pray like them?

A few weeks ago, I was sent a little video. A kind of animation. (If you are a Facebook member, head to the Central Methodist Church Group and you’ll find it there posted on 24th June.) The animation shows a magnetic board. The kind that children sometime have to stick letters to, to make words.

A woman’s hand sticks at the top of the board letters spelling out “DEAR GOD”. The woman then starts to write various things such as “HOW DO I” and “I JUST”. They are the starts of prayers. But each time she clearly doesn’t know what to say next and she removes the letters, leaving “DEAR GOD” in place and starts again.

After a while she gets frustrated and dumps a whole load of letters on the board before writing “AMEN” at the bottom.

Then the board is cleared by an invisible hand and a message is added:

“DEAR CHILD,

I KNOW.

I LOVE YOU

GOD”

That is all. And the video ends.

When I saw the video for the first time, I found it such a comfort. It could have been me trying to write those initial prayers. As I watched the video some words of scripture came to mind. They are words we find in the passage from Romans for today – Romans 8: 26 – 27

I like how the Living Bible puts it:

²⁶ And in the same way—by our faith^[e]—the Holy Spirit helps us with our daily problems and in our praying. For we don’t even know what we should pray for nor how to pray as we should, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with such feeling that it cannot be expressed in words. ²⁷ And the Father who knows all hearts knows, of course, what the Spirit is saying as he pleads for us in harmony with God’s own will Romans 8: 26 - 27

It is encouraging to know that no matter how jumbled up our prayers are, no matter how inadequate we feel our words are, no matter if we never get past “DEAR GOD” on our equivalent of a magnetic board, God hears our prayers through the Holy Spirit making sense of our groans, our “word salad” (a phrase I’ve heard recently.)

Paul isn’t saying we shouldn’t pray and rely on the Holy Spirit to do the job for us. We still need to pray. Even if we say the prayers in our hearts and minds. We still need to pray. But we can be assured that through the Holy Spirit God hears our prayers no matter how messy or inadequate we think our prayers are.

Don't be a judge

 

Reflection 19^th July 2020 – Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 – 43

 

In one of his books, C. S. Lewis points out that when people become Christians, if they are not careful, their sinning often shifts from the overt, outward, visible sins of lying, cheating, stealing, cursing and swearing, to the more inward, hidden, non-apparent invisible sins.  Among them Lewis lists "a critical spirit" ... a spirit of judgmentalism, a censorious attitude. In fact, he points out that this sin is more commonly committed by church people than by those who are not. So prevalent is it in church circles, that it is sometimes labelled "Christian cruelty."

In the Parable of the Weeds (or Tares) we’re thinking about today, Jesus is thinking about the sin of judging. What exactly is the sin of judging? It is jumping at unverified conclusions. It is relating as fact that which is only hearsay or conjecture. It is reading evil into another’s motives merely because it seems obvious.

This squares with Webster’s dictionary definition: "Judging is to criticize or censure, to think or suppose ... by pretending to know the motives of the person doing the acting." It is Judging that Jesus scorned when he said, "Judge not." He was condemning the common act of appointing oneself to be the judge and jury in matters where only partial knowledge or evidence is available. As Byron J. Langenfeld has said, "Where is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scale?"

The sin of judging is a dangerous business and should be carefully avoided by those who wish to prevent this sin from becoming part and parcel of their lives.

First, we should not judge because things are not always as they appear. Not only are we so often lacking in background information for what we see in others; we do not always understand what we see them doing.

There once was a minister who was seen staggering from a bar at 1 in the morning being held up by another man. The next day he was summoned to give an account of himself before the elders of the church. “It’s not what you think. I went into the bar to bring out the man you saw me with. His wife phoned me in desperation as she was worried about him. I was carrying him out and tripped as I left, that’s why I staggered.”

But the story with all its lurid implications would not die. It grew and spread out of all proportion in that small town. The minister’s deacons upbraided him for what they considered an indiscretion, and finally the man was dismissed from his parish. This exemplifies the "Christian cruelty" which is frequently practiced.

False, misinformed, bribed, and prejudiced witnesses did the same with our Lord Jesus. Here we are not talking about the ignorant rabble, but about men experienced in law. An INNOCENT MAN was unjustly convicted, and the cross was his sentence. What a terrible miscarriage of justice! We sinful people; how prone we are to make mistakes and be guilty of erroneous judgments.

Secondly, we should not judge because we may be setting our own (rather than God’s) standards and judging others by them. Matthew 7:2 seems to hint at this when it says,

² For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

All people stand under the same judgment of Christ Jesus. In his presence all our defences topple over like the walls of Jericho. So why do we think that we can set the standards of judgment based upon our own preferences?

In John 8 we hear of a woman caught in adultery by Pharisees who brought her to Jesus for him to judge her. Jesus did not condone what she had done, but he knew that these men were not blameless either. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," (John 8:7) he said, and no stone was ever cast. The Lord helped them to see that they were being inconsistent in their judgment. Well, then as now, the Lord Jesus penetrates into the dark corners of our thoughts and words, and at that point no person can stand up and say, "I have no sin!"

Thirdly, we should not judge because we may not understand the weaknesses and battles of others. Often, we see only people’s failures, not the hundreds of battles they win. This makes many of our judgments not only incorrect but often downright cruel.

Rev Dr Leslie Weatherhead told of a young girl who enjoyed an Atlantic crossing in pre-war days on a luxury liner. The chef on this ship was an original man who liked to make the ice cream in different shapes each night. One night it was served in the form of a ship; another night it would be like a statue, and so on. One night it was served in an ordinary dish without being shaped, and this spoiled girl complained that the chef was getting slack. What she didn’t know was that the chef had received a radio message that very day that his wife had died.

We may sometimes be unconsciously cruel, but we are cruel nevertheless and often grossly unfair.

The plea in the Parable of the Tares is not that we condone sin or wink at evil, but rather that we be charitable and reticent to condemn. We need to maintain the open opportunity to witness to the offender. We should want every transgressor to join with us in seeking the love and forgiveness of Jesus.

Because Jesus was willing to absorb the punishment we all deserved on account of our sins - including those of misjudgement - we who repent of our critical spirit, can receive full forgiveness and pardon at the hands of a loving God.

People who have been forgiven much, should forgive and pardon much. Perhaps as we go about living lives without an unduly judgmental spirit, we can show others just how much we realize that we ourselves have been forgiven. As Paul’s says to Timothy, “… set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”  1 Timothy 4:12

Covidiots and sinners

 

This Reflection was produced for Sunday 12th July 2020. It looks at Romans 8: 1 - 11

I wonder what you’ve made of the photographs and TV footage of the vast crowds on the beach at Bournemouth or crowds gathered outside pubs? I have to say these images made me cross. Like many of you, we’ve had to “shield” over these last 3 months. It’s not been too bad, but it has certainly been frustrating at times. Nevertheless, we’ve done it to protect our own health and also in consideration of the NHS and other people.

No doubt those people on the beach in Bournemouth or gathered in pubs all feel justified in what they’ve done. No doubt some of them have been stuck at home for weeks. No doubt their children have been driving them to distraction. No doubt there are all manner of reasons why people felt they could do what they do, including testing their eyesight! But they’ve “sinned” haven’t they?

When I looked at the Bible passages for this Sunday, I was immediately drawn to Romans 8: 1 – 11, In particular verses 6 and 6 which, in the Contemporary English Version read:

⁵ People who are ruled by their desires think only of themselves. Everyone who is ruled by the Holy Spirit thinks about spiritual things. ⁶ If our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, we will have life and peace. Romans 8: 5 – 6 CEV

Oh yes I thought, those words of Paul entitle me to write a stinging rebuke of a sermon to those “Covidiots” on Bournemouth beach or in pubs. (Covidiots is a phrase coined to describe the behaviour of those who appear to be unconcerned with the risk of catching Covid 19.)

But then I thought “Wait a minute. Which one of us at some point in our lives has not behaved in a way when we’ve thought only of ourselves as opposed to others? Which one of us at some point in our lives has sinned we have sinned against God or against our neighbour in thought and word and deed, through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault?” (If you feel you haven’t, I suspect you’re suffering from severe headaches as your halo is too tight!) And it’s quite possible that amongst those hundreds of thousands of people there were some Christians.

We’ve all sinned. It might not be majorly, but we all have sinned. And we know that God hates sin. And by rights, we should be punished for that sin. We should be condemned. But Paul reminds us

“… there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1 NIV

The key part of that verse are those three words “in Christ Jesus”. There is no condemnation from sin for those who are in Christ Jesus.

What does that little phrase “in Christ Jesus” mean?

To be in Christ Jesus is to be part of something far larger than oneself. As David M. Greenham puts it in the Feasting on the Word Bible commentary for this passage

“To be in Christ Jesus is to encounter a power astronomically greater than the sum of all the will power you have ever mustered, added to all the physical power you have ever exerted, added to all the clout you’ve ever had”.

To be in Christ Jesus, is to be swept up by the power of the Holy Spirit and to be free from the things of the flesh that bind us. In other words, to be in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit means the the things of the world, “the flesh” has no control over us. To be in Christ Jesus means we see things from Christ’s perspective not the world’s perspective.

This is good news. But it is difficult to believe. Yet it is not impossible to believe. To believe we are in Christ means that we have reoriented our lives toward a power greater than ourselves. A power greater than any in the world. (And that, Paul reminds us, is the power of death. Even that power has no control over us if we are in Christ Jesus.)

The Spirit we have in Christ Jesus can do so much more than we are able to do. On our own we are not able to get it all done; so much is left undone. By this tiny phrase “in Christ Jesus” Paul shows us we are not constrained by our own limitations or shortcomings or failings. We are not even condemned for our cruelties, our hurtful ways or our hateful actions. There is no condemnation for our sins. We are forgiven. In Christ Jesus we are free.

That is not to say we can sin without impunity. Paul reminds us that

“… those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” Romans 8:5

We are frail people. Even when we are in the Spirit we will sometimes sin in some shape or form. But we have the assurance of forgiveness if we seek it and if we are in Christ Jesus.

In 1973 a gang of bank robbers held up the Kreditbanken in Stockholm, Sweden. The police interrupted their heist, but the bank robbers proceeded to hold several bank employees hostage for six long days. When at last they were rescued these kidnap victims, who had been terrorized and abused by their captors, stunned the authorities by demonstrating considerable emotional attachment to their victimizers. Swedish criminologist Nils Bejrot termed what had happened as Stockholm syndrome.

Since 1973 Stockholm Syndrome - a captive showing loyalty and concern for the captor — has been repeated and recognised thousands of times. Including in domestic abuse cases. The captives get their own identity so wrapped up in that of their captors that no matter how bad their reality, it seems better than facing the fear of an unknown, undefined future.

One of the dominant sicknesses facing our world today is a kind of cultural "Stockholm Syndrome," blindly defending and claiming as good for ourselves the very things that keep us captive. Whether it is not caring for our neighbour, lying, cheating, or whatever.

It is only recognition of being held captive by sin and the need to be freed from sin by Christ Jesus that can help us. Whether we’re Covidiots, or sinners, or both!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Take the yoke I give you

 This was originally produced as a Reflection for Sunday 5th July 2020

How restful is your life at present? Do you manage to get some rest? For some people these questions mean rest in the sense of getting sleep.

Others want a different kind of rest. In ordinary times they seek relief from a busy schedule. The rat race gets to them. Relief from family tensions is the goal of many today. There is too much nagging between parents and children, between parent and parent, and between one child and another.

It is in this light that the words of Jesus here in this text sound so inviting. He says,

  ²⁸ If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take the yoke^[f] I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me." Matthew 11: 28 – 29 CEV

Very often we feel "yoked" - burdened, exploited, loaded down. So what is the promise that Christ holds out here? What is the yoke of Christ?

We need to remember  that Jesus says his yoke is "easy," but a yoke is still a yoke. This, then, is no invitation to sail through life. There's no promise in Christianity that we will ever be completely and finally relieved of all burdens and challenges on this earth. The yoke of Christ doesn't ever mean no yoke at all. Christ’s yoke is not a promise of sweetness and light, so we don't have to lift a finger again. The yoke is still a yoke. The load is still a load.

The word "yoke" is an agricultural term, of course. It refers to a wooden frame for joining two oxen or cows together in their task of pulling a load. Jesus is now offering us this piece of subservience. He wants to fit us with a yoke of his own making. What kind of a yoke, then, is Jesus offering us?

The yoke of Christ is easy and light when compared to other yokes. It’s still a burden but a lighter burden when compared to other burdens.

We have the challenge of dealing with our own sins, with our human failures, with our bad relationships with other people. Jesus is saying that there is an easier yoke or a more difficult one as we deal with these matters. He asks us to choose the easy yoke he offers.

Let's illustrate this. A ten-year-old boy and his friends love to play cricket. The boy's father has warned him many times to keep away from the houses so as not to break a window. The boys ignore the warning and our ten-year-old friend sends a “Six” right through a window.

Now the boy has to deal with his "sin". He has a choice of burdens to bear. He could choose the route of concealment. That’s what his friends tell him to do. It will be an easier way out. But in doing that, the boy soon realizes that he has a yoke to bear anyway. By following this choice, his father becomes an object of fear, and fear is a burden. An innocent look from his father across the dinner table becomes a suspicious glance in the boy's eyes. Every time the phone rings, the young lad wonders whether someone is calling to report the deed and the culprits. Life becomes uneasy. A heavy yoke is being borne.

On the other hand, the boy may choose an easier yoke to bear. He could choose to go to his father immediately. Yes, there is the burden of self-humiliation to bear. He must painfully hear his father say, "I told you that would happen!" As every young person hates to realize, he must suffer the pain of admitting that in some ways his parents are more intelligent and better informed about life than he is. He may even have to bear the burden of ultimately working at summer jobs to pay for the window.

But this yoke is still easier than the route of concealment. For there is also the distinct possibility of hearing his father's word of forgiveness, of knowing that this deed has not really separated him from his father's love and grace.

This is the kind of easy yoke Christ offers us in view of our sins and human failures. Many are bearing the yoke of guilt, of concealment, of sin that nags, of sin not ever really confessed or faced.

On occasion people have unburdened themselves to me of some of the yoke they’ve been carrying with them for years. Inevitably once they’ve “confessed” they feel better for doing so. Their burden is lighter. This is no accidental feeling. They have taken on the easier yoke of Christ. Still a yoke, yes. Still some pain. Still some humiliation. But an easier yoke.

Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who suffered for our sins and died for us on the cross, now lovingly invites us to choose a lighter load.

The yoke of Christ is easy and light when compared to the alternatives. And it is a well-fitting yoke too. That is, well-fitting and therefore easy in comparison to a bad-fitting yoke. William Barclay tells about the legend in the Holy Land concerning Jesus the Carpenter. The legend says that Jesus helped his father, Joseph, make yokes for oxen in their carpenter shop at Nazareth. So successful was their workmanship, so well-fitting were their yokes, that a sign above the shop door read, "My yokes fit well." That's what Jesus is saying to us today, "My yokes fit well!"

Jesus is an expert on life and on how to live. He knows the way we were meant to live, the way God always dreamed we should live on his earth. Look at the witness of Christ's life in the Bible. Christ knows how to love, to forgive, to heal. Christ knows how to die, and to rise again. He knows life! He wants to give all of that to you and me.

We think we know life and how to live. But so often we make even the simplest and most beautiful things of life a burden. We often end up with a yoke that doesn't fit very well. It rubs at the neck. The nerves become sensitive, the skin grows raw. And all the time an easier way is waiting for us. A gracious Lord is offering us a lighter load.

²⁸ If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take the yoke^[f] I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me."