Sermon: What do we Owe to Government?

October 13, 2020 / admin / 2020, Sermons

Sermon preached by the Reverend Trevor Jamison at

Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields

October 18^th 2020

Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-9; Matthew 22:15-22

So, today, I’m preaching a political sermon, It’s not my fault – the Bible made me do it! We have three Bible readings – one from Isaiah, one from the Psalms, and one from Matthew’s Gospel, and they are all intensely political.

File:(Persia) Ciro el Grande.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(Persia)_Ciro_el_Grande.jpg

In Isaiah 45 the prophet says that God has ‘anointed’ (45:1) Cyrus for a special task. This is a huge surprise, for Cyrus was not a Jew, not one of God’s special people. Cyrus was the founder and head of the Persian empire, and was about to launch a war against the Babylonian empire where the Jewish people were held in captivity. One outcome was that they were freed to go back home to Jerusalem.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_Nations_Flags_-_cropped.jpg

In the psalm ‘all the earth is to sing to God’s glory (96:1, 9); to declare God’s ‘glory among the nations’, ‘the families of the peoples’ (96:3); and to acknowledge that ‘the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.’ (96:5) Just think of the implications for international relations if you went around saying that sort of thing to your neighbours about their gods.

File:Emperor Tiberius Denarius - Tribute Penny.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emperor_Tiberius_Denarius_-_Tribute_Penny.jpg

And then, in the Gospel of Matthew, in a conversation contrived by Pharisees and Herodians (22:15, 16) – by religious teachers and the supporters of the local king – it gets down to the nitty gritty: what do God’s people owe to government? To put it in the terms that was put to Jesus, ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to the [Roman] emperor or not?’ (22:17)

Yes, this is question about taxes, but it’s about more than that; it’s about where your duty lies in giving due honour and obedience to God and to the government God has put in place, or, at least, has permitted to come into power. And this is a question with which Christians have wrestled in different times and places across the centuries.

In our context, what’s the right way to respond to current government Covid regulations and advice? At present, the government says that people from different households should not meet socially in their homes. If a church minister is asked to pay a funeral visit to a household, or an Elder or church member to a lonely or isolated person in their home, what should they do? If you, a Christian, observe that some of their neighbours appear to be ignoring regulations about households mixing, should you report them to the Covid marshals? Nobody likes a “grass”!

And, to be honest, asking “what would Jesus do” doesn’t help us much: ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (22:21). That doesn’t make things clear for me, even if you substitute the word ‘government’ for ‘emperor’. As well as nimbly side-stepping an attempt to get him into trouble with the emperor for withholding taxes, or with fellow Jews for collaborating with the Romans by paying them, Jesus’s words seem to leave it up to us to make our own decisions, based on how we interpret our circumstances.

So, here are three rules of thumb that occur to me for making these sort of decisions – feel free to contact me afterwards to tell me what you think of them.

We should respect the government that God has given us.

Liking or disliking its political colour is not in itself sufficient reason to obey or disobey its laws and regulations. The same is true for our reaction to individual personalities. After all, God if could appoint Cyrus, someone so outside the perceived norm, then political differences, or our views about an individual’s personal qualities, do not justify us in ignoring a government.

But we should examine laws and regulations that a government produces in the light of our understanding of what God calls us to do and not to do in life.

For example, how does a law benefit others, not just me, or a group to which I belong? After all, as both the prophet and the psalmist remind us, God is the God of the wider setting, the heavens and the earth, all the nations and families of peoples. In complex situations, trying to calculate outcomes, to balance different interests, and decide priorities is so difficult. This is a place where for prayer comes into play, seeking God’s inspiration, trying to discern God’s will.

two man and woman holding cups on tables

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

And, since so many situations are finely balanced, talk about your conclusions, so that you can hear different views, and be aided in developing or amending your own, and others theirs. In recent days it’s hard to escape the thought that if our Westminster government had more conversations with local government in England, and with the governments in the other UK nations, things might go along a bit better. Of course, I would be in a stronger position to say that if I regularly talked to my MP or my local councillors about my thoughts on issues, and listened to what they have to say to me in return.

However we negotiate being faithful to God, to being followers of the way of Jesus, and also giving due respect and support to government, it’s clear that as well as praying for discernment in how we achieve that, we should pray for those in government. So let’s do that now, as we bring to God our concerns for the earth, for the nations, for the families of peoples …

Isaiah 45: 1-7, Matthew 22: 15-22, Psalm 96: 1-9

Sermon: Invitational Leadership

October 6, 2020 / admin / 2020, Sermons

A sermon, based upon one preached by the Reverend Trevor Jamison in 2011 to a United Reformed Church congregation in Essex, at a service where Elders were beginning a new period of service.

In the URC the Elders Meeting – Minister and elders elected by the congregation – collectively ‘exercise oversight of the spiritual life of the Local Church’ (URC Manual)

Matthew 22: 1-14 (Isaiah 25: 1-9, Psalm 23)

“The king was enraged [by having his invitation spurned and by the mistreatment of his servants]. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” (22: 7) I do hope that you are not taking the king’s response here as a role model for how United Reformed Church Elders should carry out their leadership tasks: “turn up for Church Meeting, you lot, or else”. All the same, this peculiar story – and it is one of Jesus’ stranger ones – does say something to us concerning leadership in the church, and what the church is here for today.

Sometimes this parable has been interpreted as being about the relationship between Christians and Jews. The theory goes something like this: those who first receive an invitation to the son’s wedding have their chance but reject it and so in turn are rejected by the king. Then a second group receive and accept the invitation, happily entering into the wedding feast … as long as they are dressed correctly. Some Christians have interpreted the story to put the Jews in the first group and Christians in the second. Beware of that interpretation, and not only because of its use to justify those who have done terrible things to Jews.

We should always be wary of interpreting parables to put us in the right and others in the wrong, no matter how convenient or comforting that might be for us. Specifically, I don’t see how a parable told by a Jew (Jesus) to other Jews could be intended to have such a meaning. In fact, Jesus is not only telling this as a story amongst Jews, he is telling it in response to a particular group among the Jews of his day: the ‘chief priests and elders of the people’ (21; 21). This parable, is one of a set that begin in the previous chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus’ authority is questioned by the official religious and political leaders of the people. If this is a story aimed at anyone it is aimed at religious and political leaders; so here we are, back with our Elders and what sort of leadership they should offer to the Church today.

What sort of leadership do we look to our Elders to practise today? Firstly, such leadership is invitational: “The kingdom of heaven,” the way God works, says Jesus, “is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son” (22: 2) to which he invited all sorts of people. I grant you, when an invitation comes from a monarch, prime minister or president it carries a certain amount of weight. Few people today, for example, receiving an invitation to the Queen’s garden party would just toss it in the bin, at least not without some thought first.

The people in the parable, however, do feel free to turn down the invitation, preferring to spend their time working their land or carrying on with their business activities. In some cases they abuse and kill the king’s representatives. To take such a risk they must have thought that he had begun to lose his grip on power, though as they quickly find out, when he sends his army to “destroy these murderers and burn their city” (22: 7) this is not the case.

Church leaders – Elders – today exercise an invitational leadership, calling upon others to enter into the life of the Church and into a deepening relationship with God. Church congregations, like today’s congregation, promise to accept their leadership, encourage them in it, respond to it, acknowledging that it comes from God.

At the same time, the reality is that URC Elders can’t force people to do things. They don’t have the powers of a first century Middle Eastern King, nor an army to back them up, and even if they did, they shouldn’t work in this way. This maddened and murderous king bears more resemblance to King Herod than he does to King Jesus, or to the sovereign God of the universe. In contrast to the king in the parable, when confronted by human rejection, God offers his son’s life rather than take ours … but even then, people can still say ‘no’ to the invitation. If that’s how God chooses to work, then Church leaders need to take note: church leadership in invitational.

And the invitation our leaders are called to make is a wide invitation: “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (22: 8-10) We look to our Elders to have an invitational approach that has a wider vision than the boundaries of the current congregation. Jesus is our role model here, issuing God’s invitation to one and all; not only to those within boundaries of religion and respectability, such as Israel’s chief priests, Elders and other religious leaders, like the Pharisees, but also to those deemed to be outside the fold, including, famously, tax collectors, prostitutes and foreigners.

In the light of today’s parable I don’t think that it’s a complete coincidence that one of the ways Jesus chose to do this was to sit down and eat together with such people; to invite them to a banquet, so to speak. Given that we live in a time when the great majority of the population have little or nothing to do with the Church we look to our Elders to encourage us in thinking not just about ourselves but about the invitation we can offer to others, both those we regard as ‘good’ and those we see as ‘bad’.

So, the leadership Elders offer is invitational; the invitation is a wide one; and the invitation is to something good. Remember though, the ‘something good’ is not the Church itself, though it might happen in a church setting, and be helped to develop by being within a church. The invitation in the parable is to a wedding banquet and that image had specific meanings for a Jew like Jesus and his equally Jewish audience. In the Old Testament, marriage was employed as a metaphor for the relationship between God and his people, Israel: “’In that day,’ declares the Lord,” according to the prophet Hosea, speaking to Israel, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master’. (2: 16) And the image of the banquet was used to speak of the celebration of that relationship: “the Lord Almighty”, declares the prophet, Isaiah, “will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wine.” (25: 6) And let’s not miss some important implications of familiar words from the twenty-third psalm: “My table thou hast furnished in the presence of my foes; my head thou dost with oil anoint, and my cup overflows.” (R&S 679)

The widely made invitation that characterises the leadership of Elders in this church or any church is an invitation into a healthy relationship with God. At a time where Elders face on-going challenges concerning the present and future of the church; at a time when we have to make choices between a host of possibilities on the basis of limited resources, it is useful to remember this point. To what extent does what we do help us to grow our relationship with God, as God has been made known to us through Jesus Christ? To what extent does what we do enable others to hear that invitation to come into a closer relationship with God? These are the essential priorities that Elders need to address, and these are the matters that Elders must lead a congregation to address. We do so, however, in the knowledge that Elders are not attempting this on their own initiative. They do this, and are able to do this, because God is issuing an invitation – a wide invitation to one all, good and bad included: come and live your life with me, come and join the party – you’re invited.

elders, Isaiah 25: 1-9, leadership, Matthew 22: 1-14, Psalm 23

Sermon: God’s Creation, God’s Law

October 5, 2020 / admin / 2020, Sermons

A sermon preached by The Reverend Trevor Jamison on October 4^th 2020

Psalm 19

When I read Psalm 19 in preparation for preaching this sermon my first thought was … “how strange is that.”

I did not think it was strange that a psalm should praise God for the wonders of creation: ‘the heavens are telling the story of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork … in the heavens God has set out a tent for the sun … [which] runs its course with joy. (1, 4, 5)

Nor did I think it strange to find praise for the law in a psalm. You find that in several of them, and, in fact, it’s the subject of the very first one in the Book of Psalms: ‘Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on that law they meditate day and night.’ (1:1-2)

No wonder, then, that in in Psalm 19 the ‘law of the LORD is perfect’ (7), its decrees sure (7), precepts right (8), commandment clear (8), ordinances ‘true and righteous all together’ (9). No wonder the psalmist claims that the law rejoices the heart (8), is more desirable than gold (10), and sweeter than honey (10).

So, nothing strange to encounter a psalm in praise of creation or one in celebration of the law, but both of them together in one psalm? That seemed strange to me. To me, creation and the law seemed like two distinct, separate things. Why choose to shoehorn the two of them together into one psalm – trying to get a quart into a pint pot, to put it in imperial terms. Surely, I thought, it should be either/or, not both/and.

Then I had another thought. It struck me that that creation and law do share something. Both are structures; not static ones, but ones that live and develop; both are systems. In fact, our language reflects that; we talk of “ecosystems” and “legal systems”. Psalm 19, it turns out is a psalm in praise of systems.

And these systems are praiseworthy because both bring life by giving structure and stability. Think of the place of humans and trees in the eco system. We breathe in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide. Left to ourselves, after a while that would cause problems because we would use up all the oxygen and be left only with CO2 which would not sustain us. How handy then – you would almost think there was a designer’s hand in it – trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen: thank God for that!

Or consider plants and bees, one providing nectar and the other transporting pollen, so enabling plants to grow, which breathe out that oxygen we need and provide us with food to eat. And, let’s not forget, as it used to say in an advert for breakfast cereal, to “tell them about the honey mummy”!

And that handily brings us to the legal system, which, as you will remember, the psalmist describes as, ‘sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb.’ (10)

Just as we rely on the ecosystem for the flourishing of this part of God’s creation called, “planet earth”, so we have the legal system that allows our society and every society to exist and flourish; the speed limits that enable us to travel in safety; the law of contract that allows business to take place, homes to be rented or bought; the legislation on surveillance that protects us when we make a telephone call, surf the net, or meet together on Zoom.

And then here’s one further reason for creation and law to appear together in one psalm. Not only are both systems but they are systems that interact with one another.

Viruses are natural things, but sometimes there needs to be legal regulation and advice in order to be able to protect individuals and societies lest we are overwhelmed by a worldwide pandemic. And in a time of climate emergency, it’s a system of laws and regulations that will rein in the worst of human excesses in terms of exploitation, over exploitation, and misuse of the world’s resources in ways that would bring everything crashing to the ground.

So, thanks be to God for both creation and law, for ecosystems and legal systems; thanks be to God for their healthy interaction; thanks be to God for a writer – a psalmist – who thinks it appropriate to devote a psalm to the two of them together. And may we respond to that with good actions, rooted in right thinking, good speech and conversation. So, as the writer concludes Psalm 19, ‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.’ Amen.

creation, law, Psalm 19

Sermon: A Harvest of Weeds and Wheat

September 24, 2020 / admin / 2020, Sermons

A sermon preached by the Reverend Trevor Jamison at Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields on Sunday 27 September 2020 Harvest Sunday

Matthew 13:24-30, 34-35

So, it’s harvest time, though not as we normally would know it.

Harvest produce

Haddington West Parish Church https://www.haddingtonwestcofs.org.uk/picture-gallery

In any other year, there would be festive decorations throughout the church, and people processing to the front of the church together, bearing gifts of food; but not this year. Many of us, including me, feel sad about that, and in the light of recent government announcements which talk about restrictions which last for six months, some of our much-loved Christmas traditions also look unlikely to happen this year, at least not in their usual format.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Food#/media/File:Good_Food_Display__NCI_Visuals_Online.jpg

Still, this harvest time, there is much to celebrate, including that we live in a country where, by virtue of the huge efforts of retailers, wholesalers, and transporters, all sorts of good things have continued to available to us. At the moment, that even includes flour, eggs, and those universally in-demand harvest items – toilet rolls. Maybe this is the year that we recognise and give thanks for the harvest of the forests, which provides the wood pulp, which produces paper, which results in toilet rolls.

wheat field

Photograph by Melissa Askew – Unsplash

Other things may have been cancelled or delayed, but there has been a harvest yet again this year, because the growing process that God gifts to the world has continued, world pandemic notwithstanding.

green and yellow heavy equipment

Photograph by Edoardo Busti – Unsplash

And as well thanking God for the growth, we also give thanks for those who do the work of bringing in the harvest this year. After all, without the care of agriculturalists …

… who knows what imperfections or impurities might pollute crops that we all depend upon for life and flourishing. Jesus uses that situation, of weeds sprouting up in a field of wheat, in the parable in today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel. He does so, not to talk about everyday farming but about a different sort of harvest. And here’s an image inspired by that parable …

It’s by a contemporary Greek artist, called Fikos, who paints huge murals, often on current themes, but using the style of Greek orthodox Christian iconography.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_parable_of_the_sower.jpg

Jesus says …

‘the kingdom of heaven is like someone who sowed good seed in his field’ (13:24), but then, we hear, that some enemy sowed weeds in the middle of it all.

When ‘weeds appeared as well as grain’ (13:26) the field workers asked the householder what they should do. Should they trample through the wheat, into the middle of the field to weed out the bad stuff? ‘No’, says the householder, wait until it’s harvest time, when the wheat has had its chance to grow. Then ….

‘… collect the weeds … to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ (13:30) That’s not usually something we emphasise in our harvest services; that in the ‘kingdom of heaven’ (13:24) – in the way God works – there will be “harvest” where God directs a division of weed from wheat; one to be burned, and the other is safely stored in God’s barn.

Maybe our discomfort with that image comes from a history of church people being all too keen to take an impressionistic image in a parable, and use it as though it were a detailed diagram which authorised them denouncing others as “weeds”, fit only for the fire. Discomfort with that, however, should not lead us to discard the parable, and its picture of God’s great harvest. Instead, we remember that this is Jesus telling a parable, and our belief is that Jesus’s personality and life-story give us a vital glimpse into the character of the God of the harvest.

That’s what leads me to focus not on the weeds being burned but on the lengths the householder goes to in order to get the good harvest wheat to flourish. The householder puts up with all sorts of stuff, for goodness knows how long, before anything (or anyone) is weeded out. Everything that grows (everyone that lives) gets the fullest chance to flourish in the way in which landowner intends that they should.

It might even be that Jesus tells this parable as a tale of “what might be”, but holding out the possibility that everyone could up as wheat, not weeds. Whatever the case, it’s clear that Jesus – it’s clear that God – wants to gather us into safety; God does not desire our destruction.

So, as at harvest time every year, we thank God for the harvest of food for the world, including the food we get to enjoy.

We also make sure to remember the importance of everyone in the world receiving their fair share of that harvest.

And finally, today, we look forward to the God’s great harvest, when we hope with confidence that we will be gathered into to God’s care for ever.

So let’s consider a traditional harvest hymn, recognising how much it speaks of God’s great harvest: Come, ye thankful people, come …

Come, ye thankful people, come,

raise the song of harvest-home!

All is safely gathered in,

ere the winter storms begin:

God, our Maker, doth provide

for our wants to be supplied;

come to God’s own temple, come,

raise the song of harvest-home!

All the world is God’s own field,

fruit unto his praise to yield,

wheat and tares together sown,

unto joy or sorrow grown:

first the blade, and then the ear,

then the full corn shall appear;

grant, O harvest Lord, that we

wholesome grain and pure may be.

Even so, Lord, quickly come

to thy final harvest-home;

from thy field upon that day

all offences purge away:

gather thou thy people in,

free from sorrow, free from sin,

there for ever purified,

in thy glory to abide.

Henry Alford (1810-71) altd.*

harvest, Matthew 13: 24-35

Sermon: Envy and Generosity

September 17, 2020 / admin / 2020, Sermons

Sermon

Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 20:1-16

Complaints, complaints, nothing but complaints …

There’s no shortage of complaining in today’s Bible readings.

First, there are the Israelites, grumbling about the good old days, back in Egypt, when they were slaves(!), and ‘we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread.’ (16:3) They must have stopped complaining, for a while at least, when God rained down upon them fancy food like quails, and everyday sustenance like bread: manna in the wilderness.

I imagine, though, that the vineyard workers in Jesus’s parable were less impressed with the response of the landowner to their complaints.

In this parable, these are day labourers. They have to turn up at the market place each day in the hope that a landowner wants workers. If not, they just have to sit there, hoping something will turn up.

Maybe we think this belongs to the past, or is confined to places far away from here, as in this picture of migrant workers in today’s Middle East.

Let’s not be overconfident that all the workers in our fields are as well treated as they might be.

Still, back to Jesus’s story, misleadingly, sometimes called the ‘the parable of the labourers in the vineyard’.

A landowner goes out in the morning to hire some labourers, agreeing on the usual daily wage. Additional groups of workers get hired at nine, at noon, and at three and five in the afternoon – almost at the end of the working day. As evening comes, the manager pays the labourers, starting with the five o’clock crew, who receive a full day’s wage, though they only worked for an hour. Those hired in the early morning expect to be paid over and above, but only receive the normal, agreed amount: ‘these last worked for only one hour,’ they complain, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ (20:12)

You can see their point of view, or would do if you identify yourself with the early group, instead of putting yourself in the shoes of someone fortunate enough to be hired on at five o’clock, just when you thought you (and maybe your family) were about to endure a day without money to buy food.

This is parable. It’s not a business management textbook or guide to industrial relations. Primarily, Jesus is talking about something else: ‘for the kingdom of God is like a landowner …’ the parable commences. So, concentrate on the landowner; on what they do and say, expecting that to tell you something about how God works in the world.

This landowner takes on everyone, treating all with equal generosity. Some may think they have a bigger call on the landowner’s generosity but it’s the landowner who makes the decisions: ‘Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?’ (20:15) Jesus seems to be saying that God’s approach is to take on everyone and treat everyone with equal generosity, even up to the point where ‘the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ (20:16)

All of that sounds good until you consider that this means that you will get nothing extra from God for turning up to church this morning.

God works by being just as generous to the others; those who chose to go to other churches, to follow a different religion, or no religion at all. God is going to be just as generous to those who have stayed in bed this morning, who are in their garden now, or who have just gone for a walk. Among we who have turned up here today, there will be no divine bonus for stewarding and chair cleaning, for manning the tech desk or playing the music; not even for writing and preaching a sermon.

Whether you come to faith early or late in life; whether you come to faith at all; whether your life is full of virtuous activity or notably lacking in it, you still receive God’s unconditional love. The clue’s is in that word: ‘unconditional.’

The thing, as Jesus’s parable indicates, is not to be envious of this good fortune of others, but to focus on God’s undeserved generosity to you. Think of the most deserving person in all the world … and know that God loves you as much as God loves them, for in the kingdom of God the last will be first and the first will be last. Amen.

Exodus 16: 2-15, grace, Matthew 20: 1-16

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