Vocation (Passion Sunday)

Passion Sunday
(Vocation – Taking Stock - 5th in Series at All Saints Putney)

Jeremiah 31.31-34; Hebrews 5.5-10; John 12.20-23

“Whoever serves me, the father will honour.”
John 12.26

Let me tell you my story.

Missionary, steam train driver, Baptist minister, maths lecturer, composer, engineer, academic, father, bishop, politician…

The list goes on of all the things I have wanted to be in my life. But now, as my Freedom Pass draweth nigh, I realise that a number of them are not going to happen – although most steam trains are now being driven by aging priests.

Quite a number of these things did happen – I’ll let you guess which – but then there were a number of things I had not planned:

Postman, refuse collector, council grass cutter, holiday guide, unemployed, administrator, school teacher, prebendary…

The list goes on. Some of the things were pleasant, some unpleasant, and some, like the curate’s egg, good in parts.

Many of the jobs I desperately wanted, I didn’t get. And on the whole, I am glad I didn’t.

I nearly became an Anglican when I was 23, but waited till I was 45. Looking back now, I think it could have been a fatal move.

Today is both Passion Sunday, when we begin to prepare for Holy Week, and as the 5th Sunday in our Lent series, it carries the theme of vocation: Taking Stock of our sense of purpose, God’s purpose, in our lives.

Those lists of what I wanted to do and what I have been doing are an illustration we could all give from our own lives.

Sometimes we think of vocation in too narrow a way. In the church we often use the word to mean simply a vocation to the priesthood. But it is much more than that.

One of my jobs is Director of Ordinands for the Diocese, and I’m glad to say that we continue to have record numbers of men and women offering themselves for ministry in the church: there are over 140 in training from London at the moment and another 60 or more exploring their vocation.

And I hope that God maybe calling some of you to the priesthood – in that strange phrase from the epistle today – to be a priest after the order of Melchizedeck, the mysterious King of Righteousness who appears to Abraham and who is held up in scripture as an example of the priesthood of Christ and indeed of all priesthood.

One of the great privileges in my job is to see just how different are the people God calls to serve him in this way, and to hear their stories.

Jeremiah, for example, was an unlikely prophet: a young depressive who didn’t want to do the job.

But he became the voice of God for the people of Israel, and in those wonderful verses we read this morning, he pointed to the new thing that God was preparing to do in Jesus.

But e must keep things in perspective. To be a priest is a high and hard calling, but arguably not as hard as being known as a Christian in year 10 at school, or in some of the places where you work.

All our callings are costly, and for most of us, the calling is simply to be God’s servant in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

They may not be the circumstances we would wish for, although if we are fortunate, we may be very happy most of the time in our calling.

And of course things change during the course of our lives as in today’s society many of us will play a variety of roles during our lifetime.

We have to take the rough with the smooth, and believe me, all priests have days when they would rather be anything than a priest.

It reminds me of the story of two priests who decide to take a break away from it all in the Canary Islands. They’re determined to make this a real holiday from people by not wearing anything that would identify them as clergy. As soon as the plane lands, they buy some outrageous shorts, shirts, sandals and sunglasses.

The next morning sitting on the beach, enjoying a drink, a gorgeous blond in an imaginative bikini walks by. She smiles at them and says, "Good morning, Father, Good morning, Father."

They were both stunned. How in the world could she have known?

The next day, they bought even more outrageous outfits - so loud, you could hear them before you saw them. They even got rid of their Oxfords and black socks in favour of flip-flops. Well after a while, the same gorgeous blonde walks along the beach, turning heads as she passes.

As she approaches the two of them she nods and says "Good morning, Father, Good morning, Father."

Astonished one of the priests shouts out “How do you know we’re priests?”

The blonde turns with a puzzled look and says, "Fathers, it's me, Sister Monica!"

Well all of us at times don’t like where we’ve ended up, and want to get away from it all. But usually that’s just not practicable or even possible.

And this is where our Christian faith comes in to encourage us. Jesus says in our text, ‘whoever serves me, the Father will honour.’

We have to go about our daily work seeking to serve Christ.

George Herbert put it this way in the poem we often sing:

Teach me, my God and King,
in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.

A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
makes that and the action fine.

Now there’s just a patronising hint there that we should count ourselves ever so lucky to be sweeping the floors of those who have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

The Christian way is not one of fatalism. Like the Calvinist who fell down the stairs and said ‘thank goodness that’s over with!’

Part of Taking Stock this Lent is to open ourselves to divine possibilities; it is to pray in the words of Mary ‘Be it unto me according to thy word’; it is to believe that with God all things are possible. It is to offer the gifts we have and all that we are, and all that we might be, in the service of God.

And we must never look at what other people do and think that what we do is somehow inferior. That looking after children, or stocking the shelves in Sainsbury’s is somehow not a real vocation.

If we cultivate an attitude of service to Christ and others in all that we do and all that we dream of doing, then the Father will honour us with a sense of wellbeing, will guide us into the right paths and will bless us in all we undertake and in all the circumstances of our lives.

And then we will know that, as Jesus says

“Whoever serves me, the father will honour.”
John 12.26

For further Study
Compare a list of some of your hopes when you were younger with the reality of your life as it has unfolded.
Do you see your day by day work as a Christian vocation?
How could the church help in supporting and resourcing all of us in our vocations?
What prevents us from considering a calling to some particular form of Christian ministry: priest, Reader, chaplain, church worker…?
What is St Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 12.12-26?

Justification, Lent 2

Justification

Lent 2: Genesis 17.1-7, 15,16; Romans 4.13–25; Mark 8.31-38,

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Rom 5.1 (The words of the pax, the peace today.)

Occasionally, when I used to teach maths, I would give the class a test and tell them that I would give everybody the same mark as the one who scored highest. Invariably Stephen (who went on to be a Wrangler at Cambridge) got everything right, and the whole class were duly awarded 10 out of 10.

It was fascinating to see different pupil’s approaches to this kind of test.

There were those who generally never bothered much, who would sit and write me amusing messages on the test paper – at least the messages were what 14 year-olds think is amusing. I still remember: “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, he wants you for a lampshade.”

There were those who tried very hard and who were disappointed that their own efforts were being overlooked, albeit that they were going to be given top marks anyway.

Some even complained to their housemaster that this whole business was ‘not fair’.

Then a few suspected that there was a trick in this, and that they would somehow get punished if they didn’t make a good stab at it.

Quite a few were hopeless at maths, but tried their hardest anyway because they knew that was what they were supposed to do. They were the ones who were tickled pink that they had been awarded ten out of ten – a first for them!

And others, like Stephen, loved maths and did the test for the sheer joy of it.

Of course, most of the boys never realised that in a busy week, this technique excused me from the chore of ‘marking’. I only had to mark Stephen’s paper.

The staggering doctrine of ‘justification by faith’, which Paul underlines in today’s epistle, has caused similar reactions amongst both the faithful and the faithless.

We looked at justification from a different perspective a few moths ago. Perhaps you remember the simple Sunday School definition: “Justified means God looks on me just-as-if-I’d never sinned. Justified.”

This was the cornerstone of Reformation theology. “This one and firm rock”, said Martin Luther, “ which we call the doctrine of justification is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness.” (Commentary on Galatians.)

So it is hardly surprising that it’s in the 39 Articles of Religion published in the Book of Common Prayer as the reformation foundations of the Church of England. Article 11 puts it this way:

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.

In today’s epistle, Paul sums it up, and indeed the whole Gospel, in the closing verses:

Righteousness... will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”(Rom 4.24f)

How do people react today then to this teaching of the church; to what has sometimes been called ‘the outrage of grace’?

Many want to fall back into what Paul describes as ‘the slavery of law’, good works, which at least give us the security of self-satisfaction. John Stott reminds us that this is not the Christian way of believing: “Faith’s exclusive function is humbly to receive what grace offers.” (BST: 131)

Paul gives the example of the revered patriarch, Abraham. He was saved by simple faith, not by obeying the law. And this was ‘reckoned to him for righteousness’.

In other words, he wasn’t righteous – you only have to read Genesis to see that – but he believed in God; and so he was justified: righteousness was reckoned to him.

As with those boys in the maths class, there is something very unsettling about this doctrine. So we make some pathetic stab at our maths questions, or at living a Christian life, and God awards us top marks?!

Well it’s supposed to be unsettling, and of course, it’s not quite like that.

The Gospel passage today is a great endorsement of the full humanity of Christ. Even given Peter’s impetuous nature, for Peter to feel able to rebuke Jesus, to correct his game plan, to speak to the boss on behalf of the lads, the shop steward – presumably this is why Jesus turns to look at all the disciples when he rebukes Peter (33) - this shows that the disciples treated Jesus as a fallible man like themselves. They could not yet conceive the inconceivable.

In his inspired assertion that Jesus was the Christ (29), Peter had only grasped a half-truth. He had not understood that this Christ was also to be the suffering servant. He was utterly righteous in himself, in no need of justification, and yet he would suffer and die.

And this is the downside, if you like, of the doctrine of justification. Although we may be justified by faith, pursuing that faith, following and loving Jesus, is unlikely to be a bed of roses. Indeed Jesus likens it to ‘taking up our cross’.

Let’s go back to school days again. If you were like me at school, the best work you produced was often for teachers that you liked; whom you wanted to please.

Indeed, I can still remember how much I disappointed my maths master when I forgot to turn over an exam paper and consequently only answered half the questions.

Our obedience to God, our ‘wanting to please’, stems from a realisation of how much he has done for us. When we come to worship, we do not go away and want to lead better lives for fear of punishment – we are justified by faith in Christ. ‘There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus’.

No, we want to lead better lives because we love God and know the comfort and assurance of being accepted and loved by him.

This was the experience of the godly priest-poet George Herbert, who we remembered in the church calendar last week. He felt all unworthy to come to the altar, to the Table of the Lord, and had to be reminded of the Love of Christ, Love himself, who had born the blame and justified him through faith, and who welcomed him at the Table.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not," says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
So I did sit and eat.