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Do I have to sell everything that I have to follow Jesus?

Mark 10.17-31 [Note to congregation on why I hand out the text.  Please feel free to take it home with you. It would be wonderful if you chose to reread it, to think it through for yourself. Possibly to learn a verse. To live with it. And the purpose of this talk is not to give you a correct interpretation of the passage (I could not do that: and almost certainly I will have missed what you might think is the most important part of the passage), but to give you a fascination for the passage – and a desire to look at it again. And if you do, then I will have done my job ]. A man comes to Jesus. He seems to have everything He is young (Luke): life is ahead of him He is a ruler (Matthew) and has influence and power He is morally upright: he has kept the commandments (there is no reason to doubt him) He has wealth, and all that it offers: openings, security, comfort and status But he is not satisfied. He knows that something is missing, there is something more. It is bugging him. He runs
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The four outrageous claims of Jesus

  John 6.35,41-51 “Our hungers are so deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness. Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire.” (William H Willimon, Feasting on the Word) The audio of this talk can be found here And Jesus says “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. Can it be that this crucified, resurrected Jew who lived 2000 years ago in Palestine is able to meet – not only meet but satisfy - our deepest desires and longings? There are four staggering claims that Jesus makes in our reading.     1.   He has come from heaven in a unique way   Jesus claims, “I am the bread that came down from heaven”. It is a staggering claim. So much so that the people complain. Not because he said he was bread, but because he claimed that he had come from heaven. “How can he say that. We know his parents. Joseph and Mary. We know where he
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Baptism as a door into another world

John 6:24-35 Baptism is a door into another world. Like the wardrobe in CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It takes us from this world into another world And this other world is more actually more real than this world In this world, this is God.  This bread stands for all the things that this world offers The satisfaction of our physical desire The craving for experience I have been struck this week listening to the commentary on Radio 5 live on the Olympics. I think that it is quite telling that the focus of the commentary is far less on what is happening in the actual event, or even on the athletes expertise or skill or strength. Instead it is on their emotions and feelings on winning or losing. This bread stands for all the things that we live our life for: sensation, love, stuff, thrills, status, adventure, security The people in the story we read have just seen Jesus feed a huge crowd with 5 loaves and 2 fish. They are wowed. They say, ‘Move over Rachel Reeves. We ne
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Don't limit what God can do.

John 6:16-21 I’d like to focus on the second half of our reading today. The story of when Jesus walks on water Audio of the talk can be found here For most of us, even if we profess to be Christians, it is as if we are down here and God is up there.   We live parallel lives. It might be like having an older teenager in the house. You think they are there, there is evidence that they are there – dirty clothes, unwashed dishes - but you never see them. But occasionally God comes to us and there is a meeting. Maybe we experience him coming to us in church, as we hear his word read and taught, and those words speak to our heart; or as we receive him through bread and wine. Maybe we experience him in encounters, when we become aware that God has come very close to us. I remember Jenny dying of cancer in a side room in the West Suffolk Hospital. Jesus came to her in a very real way. She couldn’t look at him, but he lifted up her head so that she looked into his face. Well, the disc
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A talk for the baptism of a child. Proverbs 3:1-6

Proverbs 3:1-6 The words we have just heard are the words of Solomon to his son, of a parent to their child. They are words that you have chosen that you would want William to hear 1. Listen to the wisdom of the past “My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments” There is something very special about the passing down of wisdom from generation to generation, even if we have sort of lost that a bit. I am conscious that if I had listened to my parents, and not insisted on learning everything for myself, life could have been so much richer! And as a parent I do wish that my children could learn from my mistakes, and not have to make those same mistakes for themselves! There is a wisdom which comes to us from the past I think that you said that your mother spoke these verses from Proverbs to you, and her mother spoke them to her. And so it is special that you have chosen them for today. Even in this, there is a passing of teaching and wisdom And this chu
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Dependence on God and miracles.

Mark 6:1-13 “And Jesus could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them” (Mark 6:5) Compare that with Mark 6:13 “They (the disciples) cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them”. A link to the audio of this talk There was a huge difference between the ministry of Jesus in his hometown and the ministry of the disciples – and, one suspects by the reference to anointing with oil, the ministry of the early Christians after the death and resurrection of Jesus. We long to see those deeds of power. We long to see people set free from the grip of evil, and those wonderful healings. When I finished at university I went to work as a parish assistant in Hackney. I was asked to visit a young man who was in a long-term coma. I sat by his bed, and I would pray for a miracle. Perhaps, if I am honest, I wanted to see that miracle so that I could claim that I had power, so that I would be vindicated, so tha
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Excellence in Giving

  2 Corinthians 8:7-24 Talking about giving! It is sometimes difficult coming into the middle of a passage. In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul has been speaking of the Christians from Macedonia who have given generously to the fund that Titus and he are collecting for the Christians in Judea and Jerusalem who are facing famine. Now he addresses the Christians in Corinth. He speaks of how they excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in eagerness (one assumes, to do the will of God). He adds, oddly, that they also excel in being loved. It is, incidentally, much easier to give when you know that the one to whom you are entrusting your money really cares for you. Financial consultants understand that, and so did Paul. And he urges the Corinthian Christians, just as they excel in many other things, to excel in their generousity. There are several things that I would like to draw out from this passage. 1. If you want to know what a person loves, look at what they give We give to what w
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