Welcoming the Kingdom...Welcoming the King. Matthew 21. 1-10

 Welcoming the Kingdom...Welcoming the King.   Matthew 21. 1-10

We know the story so well: it's dramatic and colourful and great for action songs with the children... But there are so many layers to this story that once we know they are there, can help us understand more deeply what is happening. I'm going to try to draw on some of these layers, so that we can welcome the Kingdom and welcome the King today in 2013.

1. Embracing the Supernatural:  authority and power.
The event starts with Jesus telling two of his disciples to go into the village opposite, where they will find a donkey – or two, mother and foal – tied up.  Untie them and bring them, says Jesus.  Now, maybe Jesus had nipped across the valley and spoken to the owner of the donkey.  It's possible, but it's not what the Bible says, and the story gives the impression of supernatural knowledge. The details Matthew, Mark and Luke give have no relevance unless they are describing a supernatural event.  

Now, even if I’m wrong here, the triumphal entry took place immediately after the healing of two blind man one of whom was called Bartimaeus (Mt 20. 29-33).  The Kingdom Jesus brings involves the supernatural, and calls us to embrace the supernatural.  The Kingdom is the power of God, supernaturally touching people's lives.  It is God's rule.   The two who are sent to fetch the donkey are called to be part of that:  stepping into a situation, finding the donkey where Jesus said it would be, challenged and responding in a particular way, because Jesus says so.

It's as simple as that, really.  We engage with the supernatural element in the Kingdom of God – the healing ministry, speaking out words that Jesus gives to us – because Jesus says so.  We exercise his authority in his world.  The Kingdom involves supernatural power.

And it's interesting that, having brought the donkey, the disciples know what they should do next (apparently without Jesus telling them!) and throw their cloaks over the donkey.  They take the initiative.  Welcoming the Kingdom means embracing the supernatural, engaging in what God is doing and taking the initiative with the light we are given.

2. Embracing simplicity: God of the poor
Gentle, riding on an donkey – for the first time in his life!  Do you know, that every other land journey Jesus made, he made on foot.  Jesus is a king who is himself poor and ordinary.

You know how parents can embarrass their kids.  You know what I mean: “He got five A's you know; here's her graduation photo; I'll speak to the boss see if he can give you a job.”  My Dad once wrote to a personal friend asking for help for me, and he also wrote to me telling me what he had done.  He put the letters in the wrong envelopes.  He believed in going to the top of an organisation and used to say “it's  better to speak to the organ grinder than the organ grinder's monkey.” Now when I got this letter written to someone else, I said to Pam “I'll bet you my Dad has written to me that 'it's better to speak to the organ grinder than the organ grinder's monkey'.”  Sure enough, he had!  It was maybe a bit like that for James and John.  Their Mum was asking for top jobs for her lads.  And Jesus' answer: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever would be first among you must be your slave....

A little while later, the religious leaders would complain about the children singing Jesus praises.  And Jesus answered “out of the mouths of babies you have brought forth perfect praise.”

This is the upside down Kingdom where small is great, where the first are last and the last first, where those who are struggling are blessed... and embracing that Kingdom Simplicity is another aspect of embracing the Supernatural in the Kingdom.  God is able to take the children, the poor, the uneducated, and use them.. God is able to provide for the poorest, defend the weakest.

3. Embracing surprises:
Matthew points out that the prophet Zechariah had foretold that Jesus would come this way: as a humble, gentle, peaceful, compassionate King.  (Zechariah 9.9)  So the people were all shouting “Hosanna. O Lord save” (From Psalm 118. 25)... When the crowds saw this sight, a humble King, riding on a young donkey, they started to cut branches from the trees and strew them on the road, and to wave palm branches... and this is where we need to look at another layer, the Jewish background to the story... because what Jesus does is, a few days before the passover, to act out two other Jewish festivals:
the feast of Tabernacles ( autumn).  This was when the Jews remembered living in shelters and tents in the desert.   They would build shelters, roofed with leaves and branches, they would wave palm leaves, and use the words of Psalm 118. 25:  Save us, we pray, O Lord!  (Hosanna!)
Hanukkah (November/December: winter), when they would light the candlestick. The story behind Hanukkah was this.  About 200 years before Christ, a Greek ruler called Antiochus had sacrificed pigs on an altar to Zeus in the Jerusalem temple, and then the Jews, led by a guy called Judas Maccabaeus, had fought against the Greeks and chucked them out.  Hanukkah celebrated the cleansing and rededication of the temple.  Guess what, they sang “Hosanna” and waved palm branches!

They were recognising that here is Messiah; here is the King; here is the Kingdom...  Trouble is, they were thinking in narrowly Jewish terms.  A Jewish Messiah to rescue Jewish people from Roman domination.  But Jesus was concerned about the world. He hadn't come to chuck out the Romans. He had come to bring them in! The upside-down kingdom is also the inside-out kingdom.  So the circles widen: two people become twelve, becomes a little crowd, becomes  a huge crowd.  And so they would get the point, Jesus went into the temple and drove out he people who were running market stalls, selling high quality animals and birds for the sacrifices, and changing Roman money for Jewish money for the offerings.  If that wasn't bad enough, they were doing it in the “Court of the Gentiles”, the only place where “outsiders” were allowed to come in and pray. That place of prayer for all nations was filled with the noise and smell of the market. No wonder Jesus was annoyed.

And during the next few days, Jesus told a lot of parables – all about sons who won't obey and tenants who won’t pay the rent and wedding guests who won't come to the party and servants who squander their opportunities, and sheep and goats...  They look to the future, the final triumph of the kingdom; but also to its impact in lives here and now.  They burst through prejudice and exclusiveness, They hint that outsiders are welcome in, and that smug “insiders” may end up thrown out. They tell us the scope of the Kingdom.  It touches every race and class and every bit of life and transforms what it touches. And one day it is going to triumph.

4. Embracing suffering... Atonement through pain...
The crowds were in Jerusalem for a reason. The city was filling up for the Passover.  That was when they remembered  the “passover lamb” –  remembering the sacrifice of lambs to save people from the angel of death, before they escaped from Egypt.  Jesus knows he is the Passover lamb.  In his teaching about humility, Jesus had gone on to say “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  (Mt 20. 28b)  That is precisely the impact of the Passover Lamb.  It was a ransom that saved the lives of the first-born of God's people. Jesus is that Lamb. He is the One who is going to have to die to take away the sin of the world.

Nothing can compare with the enormity of that sacrifice.  It's not just that Jesus died a physical death and a horribly cruel death.  It's that he died in our place.  It's that he knew in that death, separation from his father.  He took our sin: the weight of our load of rubbish, the stink and contamination of our filth.  It's almost too much to imagine. 

We too often look on  Palm Sunday as an ironic prelude to Good Friday. We say “How sad that the crowds who cheered for Jesus on Palm Sunday were howling for his death by Good Friday, five days later.  How sad that the leaders felt threatened by Jesus' claims and put him to death”. Too often as Bible believing Christians, we say something like “Jesus was born in order to die on the Cross for our sins” – as if the bit in between hardly mattered.  But Palm Sunday is the link between the “Bit in the middle” –  Kingdom-bringing life of Jesus – and the Cross. We need to understand that Jesus died and rose again, to deal powerfully with our sins in order to bring in this amazing, wonderful Kingdom. 

We need to embrace the simplicity, the supernatural, the surprises and the suffering of the Kingdom.  Without the supernatural we become fatalistic. Without the Suffering we become triumphalist.  And most of all we need to embrace Jesus.   Through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, we have everything we need.  Paul says “God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” 

Look at this King.   Love this King    Welcome this King.

© Gilmour Lilly March  2012

John 13. 1-20

John 13. 1-20

So it's passover time again. The familiar annual meal of lamb bitter herbs and unyeasted bread, remembering the escape from Egypt and the passover lamb; each of them had done this every year of their lives. The upper room is all ready and this year the group are coming together for their passover meal.  They hesitate at the door.  Where's the water; is there a slave? Who's to wash the feet? The trouble is, nobody has brought a slave.  So there they all are, with dirty feet.  It's just not done to sit down and eat like that – and especially not a celebratory meal like the passover....    The settle down on couches and cushions.  Some of the older ones thinking “John ought to do it – he's the youngest!”  John's thinking “Matthew ought to do it – after all eh was a tax-collector.”  And Matthew's thinking “It ought to be one by one of these labouring types – a fisherman maybe: they're used to the smell of fish so the smell of feet shouldn’t' hurt them....”  Washing feet was such a  low job that a Jewish slave couldn't be compelled to do it, and none of the twelve wanted to do it. So, even though it was a bit unpleasant, a bit uncomfortable, with the dust and smells of the street still clinging to their feet, they settle down for the meal.

And then, Jesus gets up, strips to the waist, takes a towel and a basin of water,.  and starts washing feet.   This was the lowest thing.  It was dirty, unhygienic, smelly.  Jesus with a towel wrapped around his waist is looking and acting like a slave.  He's doing that job that you couldn't force a Jewish slave to do.   They're all a wee bit uncomfortable with this, really. But Peter, as usual, speaks out what they're all thinking.  “No, no, Jesus.  No you don't.  You're not washing my feet.  Keep a sense of proportion here, Jesus.  It's all right, Jesus, I’d rather have dirty feet.  You're not out-humbling me!” 

And Jesus' strong hands grasp Peter’s ankles and push them into the basin...   “Yes I do,Peter.  If I don’t' wash you, you have no part with me.”   So Peter says “All right, Jesus, wash me – not just my feet: wash my hands and face too.”  and Jesus answers, “You've had a bath. You are clean already. It's just the dirt of the road you need to get rid of.”  Through that exchange, it dawns on everyone – Jesus isn't just interested in clean feet. Jesus is talking about inner cleansing.  By washing the disciples' feet, Jesus is demonstration the total transformation in peoples lives that he gives. "Having a part in Jesus," new birth, forgiveness, entering the kingdom, receiving the Spirit, being clean, having everlasting life.  In John's Gospel, these are not separate things.   They are one thing, but looked at in different ways; they are streams that flow together into one massive Amazon of a river.   

For this – to make us clean, to bring us to new birth, to enable us to enter the kingdom, to give us the Holy Spirit – Jesus came, lived, died and rose again. 

He says to Peter, “You don't understand this now, but you will later on.”  And later on, when John writes the story,  understanding it all, he begins by saying Jesus knew where he had come from; he knew that the time was coming to go back to his father; he had loved his disciples and would love them to the end –to the uttermost, to the full.   (not just a time reference but really meaning he would show them how much he loved them.) 

This was the extent of his love. As he entered the upper room to share this passover with his friends, he knew that he was the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He knew that now was the time. He knew that one of the twelve was set to betray him.  He knew that the Cross lay before him.  It wasn't just the clean feet that were an acted parable. So were the stripping to the waist, the towel, the basin.    In order to make us really clean, he had to empty himself, take the form of a servant, become obedient to death, death on the cross. Philippians 2 is Paul's way of reflecting on this incident.  Both knew what happened.  John sat down and wrote the story; Paul sat down and wrote a song.

This totality of what Jesus does is the result of the totality of who he is.   It is effected by his incarnation, life, death, and resurrection. 

But because of that love and that sacrifice – we have a part with Jesus;  are clean.  Isn't that amazing. Isn't that something to celebrate? 

You don't “feel clean” - but if you belong to Jesus you are clean. You don't feel like a new person; but if you have encountered Jesus you are.  You don't feel like a son of God, but if you belong to Jesus you are God's child. 

Like the twelve, waiting for someone to start washing feet, you're status-conscious, prejudiced. Like Peter you shoot your mouth off.  Like Peter, you think you're a bit better than the rest; like Peter you are proud and push people away.  Like Peter would do in a day’s time, you bottle out of standing up for what is right.  Like Judas, you're motivated by profit and are capable of stabbing someone in the back.... Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  It doesn't matter what you have done in life, God forgives all you sins... because Jesus died on the Cross.

Maybe there's someone here, and you've always pushed away the idea of God doing something for you.  You think, “I'll do my best for God. Surely He will be happy with that.”  you think, “Maybe he won't notice; maybe he just isn't bothered.”  Don't push Jesus away.  Unless you let him deal with your rubbish, you have no part with him.

Maybe there's someone here and you know you pick up the dirt and filth of the road.  You may even think “How can I get another chance.  I keep messing up?”  For some of us, Jesus. says “It's OK. You are clean.  You just need to wash you feet.”  Even after denying the he ever knew Jesus, Peter was able to get his feet washed.  He was able to come back into fellowship with Jesus.  

And so...
And Jesus finishes off with this: “Do you see what I have done for you? I, the Boss, have washed your feet. So you must wash each other's feet.”

We all need to be like a servant for one another.  We need to consider others better than ourselves.  Each of us is a Son of God.  But each one of us has come from being an outsider and slave.  None of us can stand on our dignity and say “He (or she) ought to do the serving.”

We need to be humble with one another. No standing on ceremony. No pecking order. Not the slightest hint that one is better, stronger, more importunate than another. 

We all need to help one another deal with the rubbish that binds us and holds us down.  Guys (especially!), we so often want to say, like Peter “You're not washing me” … We don’t want to admit weakness.  And we don't want to do the touchy-feely stuff.  We get embarrassed about praying for someone else.  Or if someone does open up to us, we can pigeon-hole them for the rest of their lives.  Lord have mercy upon us.  We are all struggling with something – denial, cowardice, pride, arrogance, addictions, habits, lusts and tempers.  We need to walk together,  not wallowing in sin our guilt but supporting one another in the journey to freedom.

Who wants to receive a gift: new life, to become a new person; to be cleaned up and a welcome back?  Who wants to be a servant like Jesus, with your brothers and with the broken in your world?  Who thinks they're already sorted?  Who can't be bothered?

© Gilmour Lilly March  2012

I John 3: Children of God - who love one another!

I John 3 Children of God - who love one another!  

Knowing Father's Love
When you trusted Jesus as your Saviour, something happened.  Yes, you made a decision.  You asked God to come into your life.   But something happened to you.  You were “born again”.  Little Noah Mitchell didn't really do anything during his birth. Being born was something that happened to him.  Being born again is smoothing that happens to you.   You were born into a new kind of life that is going to last for ever (John 3. 16).  You became a new creature. (2 Cor 5. 17)  The “old you” has had its day; it has stepped into the background.  The new has arrived! 

John says something else happened, too:  God became your father!   When a  baby was born, in Roman or Jewish society 2000 years ago, the child's father would name the child.  By doing to, he accepted that child as his own.  We see this in the story of Joseph, who didn't have intimacy with Mary until her baby was born but then “He named him Jesus”. (Matt 1. 25) When Jesus aged twelve was found in the temple having disappeared for a day or two,  Mary told him “your father and I have been looking for you.” (Lk 2. 48)  That didn't mean that Joseph was Jesus' biological father, but that he had accepted that roll when he named Jesus.  In the Roman world – that was actually called “legitimation”.  The father accepted that the child was his, and gave the child the privileges of sonship.   When you were born again, you were born again into God's family.  God became your father.   He gave you three things that we all desperately need:
Acceptance.   The opposite, rejection, is one of the most devastating experiences.  We can experience rejection in lots of different ways:  someone said the first duty of a parent is to survive. A small child understands any disappearance of a parent as a rejection.  A parent who is always at work, a parent who is distant when at home, one who retreats into the shed or down to the pub
 or simply into a bottle at home, is rejecting his child.
Affection.  We need to know we are loved.   Your brain is still growing and developing right up until you are a teenager.  It is now known that being shown love literally makes the brain grow better,  so the neurons in the brain have more sprouts.  God says, hear this, “I love you!”  One of the amazing things that happened on Wednesday at Prayer Experience was that as people spent time in silent prayer, that was what God said.  “I love you!”
Affirmation.  We need to know we are OK.  Sure there are items when we need to know we are Downey something wrong.  If that's done in the right way it is discipline. It is something that can help a child to grow up strong and healthy.  But if it's done in the wrong way it's just another form of bullying and abuse.  Even as adults, we are much more likely to accept and act on one negative point of correction, if it comes along with five positives.  In terms of raising kids, that's five hugs to every punishment.

Listen, God has become your father.  God is not like your earthly Father.   Our earthly fathers have failed.  I am sharply aware of my failings as a dad: the items when I have been critical, harsh and inconsistent with my kids. Some of us have had absentee fathers; some of us have had fathers we were scared of, some of us have had fathers who withdrew into alcohol; some of us have had fathers who abused us.  God is not like that.    Rather, your earthly father, where he was any good as a Father, was a  bit like God.  Your Heavenly father gives you perfect Acceptance, perfect affection, perfect Affirmation.  

This wonderful thing, God becoming your father, you becoming his Child, is not just an idea, not just an empty title.  When we lived in Gloucester, my friend Roland happened to be Chaplain on HMS Gloucester.  When HMS Gloucester was given the freedom of the City, it involved a lot of ceremony.  But it didn't mean that much.  The ship's company paraded through the city centre.  But I imagine, if Roland went to the shops or pubs, and demanded free clothes, electrical goods and drinks, he would have realised how little “Freedom of the City” actually meant.John says it's more than empty words. It has actually happened.. John is quite clear about that.  What love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of god – and that is what we are. 

That's what we are.. as for what we will be, it's not seen yet, but, one day we are going to be like Jesus our “older brother”. What a wonderful thing to look forward to.... 

Showing Father's Love
The commands are important
If we really are God's kids we are going to make it our intention and our habit not to go out looking for bad stuff to do but to go out looking for the right stuff to do.  Jesus took our sins away. The very reason why he appeared was to destroy the works of the evil one.  So how, says John, can we possible continue deliberately as a regular thing, to to the devil's work for him.   if we are God's kids, the god DNA will change or attitudes. If we are God's kids, we will make it obvious who our dad actually is.   (v. 4-10)  It's not about earning our relationship with God.  It's the results of having that relationship with God.    Living in sin is an absurdity.  Yet it is an absurdity that we area all used to.  We are all stretching towards that day when we shall be like Jesus – but we ain't like Jesus yet.  John knows this. He ha already said “If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father...” (1 Jn 2. 1)

The command is love
And his command, the main command and the one that shows who we really belong to is to love one another.  John weaves the positive and negative sides of this together as he writes: If we're God's children we will love. If we don’t love, our relationship with God is suspect.   (v. 11-15)

Love is practical and sacrificial.
And that love has to be practical in the way it worked out.  Jesus laid down his life for us.  We love each other in a practical and sacrificial way.  Fellowship is not just about keeping the Church running.  It is not just having a cup of tea with a few people we happen to get on well with, after Morning worship. It is  having Jesus in common and caring for each other the way Jesus cared for us.  Sacrificially.   (v. 16-18)

The older I get the more I have a problem with Church.  You see, I have always believed in the Church.  I was brought up with Church. I was baptised in a Baptist Church when I was twelve years old and have been a church member since then. When I was a teenager and began to engage with what the Holy Spirit was doing in Scotland through the work of what was then Fountain Trust, we  were taught that the Holy Spirit is given not just to individual believers but to the Church; we each play or part in the body. When David Watson wrote his book “I believe in the Church” I agreed with him.  For thirty two years I have sought to lead churches into spiritual life, growth and mission.  The theme of Anglican Renewal Ministries I have always agreed with: “To be real it's got to be local”...   

The I have problems with the Church when the church becomes an institution that wants people to play their part; there are jobs to be done: finance, administration, buildings, children's work, Baptist Union and BMS all need attention.  Relationships easily take second place to all this stuff.  If we're not careful the idea of relationships is used as a way of manoeuvring us into doing the jobs, keeping the institution running.  I was hearing about a church recently that puts every new bloke who joins, on car park duty...

And yet on the other hand, if some sort of structures aren't there, it would be be very easy for church simply to be a loose association of people who have no relationships with or commitment to one another, like guys going to watch football.  The only thing that keeps these guys standing on the terraces is what the twenty-two guys are doing on the pitch....  You aren’t' family; you don't belong together.
We need to be more than an institution. We need to be more than a crowd who come together for an event – preaching or worship or whatever. We need to be family.  Knowing – and showing – the father's love.

Breaking the cycle of condemnation
When we hit crisis moments, and wonder how saved we really are, and maybe think “I'm not a very loving person; I haven't really loved by brothers like God loves me.”   If when we come to pray, seeking the face of this big, loving Father in heaven, we are struck by a sinking feeling that says,“I just don't come near to your standard..” we need to remember to rely on Father's knowledge of us, not our knowledge of ourselves.  Father knows everything about us. He knows our hearts. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and still he doesn’t condemn us! 

So we can break out of the cycle of condemnation.  It's when – because we hear what God says – our own hearts can't get a word in edgeways, that we can pray with confidence.   And confidence will bring answers to prayer – dramatic, generous – real answers to prayer.  We will receive what we ask for.  We will live closer than ever to Jesus; and we will know the Spirit's power in our lives.


© Gilmour Lilly February 2012