Ash Wednesday 2013

I was only thinking to myself the other day I hadn’t seen many snowdrops this year.

But then today I drove past the end of the road and looked into the grounds of Dorney Court and saw the woodland floor covered with them.

They have been lying dormant since last year – doing all they needed to do under the ground and then like a symbol of resurrection came alive again to inspire us all.

I start with this picture because I want to think as we begin our Lenten journey today about the idea of journeying with God and of the difficulties that can be but the rewards too.

Just like the snow drops does all it’s work unseen in the dark before it can rise through the ground again in beauty – our Lenten journeys are done quietly unseen in our hearts – between us and God and can bring us to a place of new beauty – in our relationship with God and also in our relationships with each other.

So we start Lent and start that journey of discovery – journeying towards the cross with Jesus and journeying to get closer and closer to God through disciplines which we adopt during these 40 days.

So I guess the question I want us all as individuals to address is this – how are we going to make the most of this journey? What things are we going to do to enable it to be a time of spiritual growth, growth done in our hearts in the quiet place out of sight, but growth which will show in a beautiful way.

And each of us will respond to this in a different way but there are some principles which are good to think about together this evening as we start off on our journey:

Firstly, the prophet Joel says these words which we heard this evening- Rend your hearts and not your clothing.

I am a person who wears my heart on my sleeve so these words speak quite powerfully to me. If I am giving up something for lent, or doing something which is hard I want other people to know about it! – I want people to look at me and think = wow she’s doing well,

But here God speaks to us through Joel and says – it’s not about other people it’s only about you and me, it’s about my relationship with you.

Don’t rend your clothes so other people can see what’s going on – don’t make a public display about it – but rend your hearts,  this is about stuff that is done quietly silently between you and God.

Jesus himself picked up on this when he spoke to the disciples about prayer – he said don’t be like the hypocrites who stand on street corners but go into your rooms and shut your doors and pray to your Father in heaven who hears you.

This lent what are you going to do that allows that space to be quiet with God – to rend your hearts not publically but quietly to allow that deep work to take place.

To allow God to challenge you- which leads me nicely on to my second point which is about allowing space this lent for careful examination of our lives.

In the gospel reading we see Jesus hear challenging those who brought the women to be condemned for her adultery.

We are not sure what he wrote in the sand but we know that his challenge to the crowds was clear-Whoever is without sin let him throw the first stone.

Janet on Sunday asked us – who is blameless here to put up their hands and their wasn’t one hand up.

We all know that we are not without sin – we know that we all struggle with different things and lent is a time for us to rend our hearts to examine our lives to ask God to help us to change.

How do we do this – perhaps it is by looking at our behaviours- looking at the things that wind you up on a daily basis and asking the question – why? What does this say about me, why did I react in that way and is their a better way to react?

Why not journal during lent – keep a diary of what happens to allow yourself that reflection time. No one else has to see it – it’s just between you and God.

What about examining yourself by actually trying to carry out something in a positive way – if you know you struggle with negativity try to not  avoid it during lent but try to be positive.

If you struggle with putting people down – try to build people up instead.

If you struggle with gossip try to pray for others in need and commit them to God without having to know any details.

If you are a moaner or complainer –try to give time for praise for all the things that God has given you.

Acting in these ways can not only challenge your behaviour but also bring change of heart.

And then the third thing I want to think of tonight is that of discipline verse instant gratification.

I have been thinking a lot about this recently as I have had conversations with others and as I have watched and heard news of the latest food scares in our supermarkets.

We are very much living in a society which seeks instant gratification and convenience, and this has led us into all sorts of trouble.

The instant gratification of I really need that – I must have it even though I can’t really afford it. Leading to increased debt and worse.

The culture that has led to the need for convenience quick and easy food at ever cheaper prices and we are now reaping the consequences in not being sure what our food actually consists of.

This culture will continue  if we let it. But surely as Christians we can take a stand because this goes against what we stand for as Christians.

The Christian faith is about a long term relationship not instant gratification.

The Christian faith is based on daily denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Christ.

This involves disciplines of prayer and study – to discern God’s will and ways, it involves changing behaviour that is not honouring to God, it involves giving up things that do not build us up in our faith.

Lent brings us up short to think again of the importance of discipline rather than instant gratification.

Perhaps this year during Lent you may want to think of one of the Christian disciplines to focus on – perhaps to fast once a week, to pray on a more regular basis, to read a book of the bible or a Christian book.

God calls us for the long haul – change is not going to happen overnight and he needs us to work to change and develop.

So I started with the anology of the snowdrop which appears in all its’ glory after the dark ground has allowed it to change and develop again.

Lent is a time of the silent heart to rend and change to examine ourselves and to grow into the likeness of God in all his glory.

Will we give others opportunity this lent for this to happen.

Parable of the sower

This is the sermon i preached today at Eton College Chapel - based on Luke's account of the parable of the sower.

This week we had the chance to go and see the film zero dark thirty – centred on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden – it is quite an action packed film and I think well worth seeing- all though there has been some controversy surrounding the torture scenes with in it.

It focuses on the CIA agent Maya who gets a hint of a connection with Osama Bin Laden and an unknown courier and her life’s work is to hunt it down until she is able to pull it all together.

She is focused and determined – she is like a bear with a bone, gnawing away at it – piece by piece until she gets the end result.

Why start with this because I was thinking of this film in contrast to the film forest gump.

One of my favourite films but in that film – Forest seems to just go from one thing to another – he drifts from one extreme situation to another not by any planning of his own but by just going with the flow of life.

So the contrast of the driven person to the drifter- the focus to the unfocused.

Which is best- which will get the best results –

Now I am sure we all know that generally to succeed with something the more focused you are the better.

Generally in life if you are not focused you don’t tend to get anywhere – unlike the Holywood movie.

Whether it be academically, in sport, in music in other areas generally one can see that being focused is a good idea to get the best chance for yourself to succeed.

But what about life away from the demands of academic success or career, what about the internal life we all lead the spiritual side of our lives.

Are we focused here or do we just let things drift?

It’s easy to forget this side of our lives and the parable from Jesus this morning brings us up sharp to think about it.

A simple story with a meaning that helps us to think about our own response to the spiritual sense of our lives.

Here we see seed growing and we are told by Jesus if we read on to hear the meaning of this parable that the seed is God’s word.

The challenge then is what sort of soil or response do we give this seed.

You see just as through life we have a choice to let things happen or be in control and to work towards a goal – so in our spiritual lives we do too.

And the response to the seed – Jesus says is like our response to his word and he identifies 4 different responses to his word, 3 drifters and 1 focused.

Now if we were scattering seed today with this in mind we might be a bit more careful than the farmer here.

We might avoid the areas that we know seed would not grow.

But we are told here that the farmer was not like that – he scattered the seed liberally, he scattered the seed over all the soil and he waits to see what will happen.

Interesting because in this way Jesus tells us in this parable  – God’s word is not spread only to the areas where there might be a response – but God’s word is spread to all just like the seed.

The seed doesn't determine the outcome. The conditions of the soil and surrounding areas determine the outcome of what will happen to the seed.

This puts the responsibility straight away back on us and our response to the seed- God’s word,

So the first lot of seed falls on the wayside.

The wayside would have been the paths that farmers left for travelers through their fields. This ground naturally would be hard-packed by the traffic. So birds would quickly eat the seed which fell there.

The challenge to us then is our reponse to God’s word a hard path-

 do we even give it a chance to break into our lives or are we just too cynical, too closed to let anything challenge and change us?

And then what about the seed that falls on rocky ground Galilee is underlaid with limestone rock. In some places this rock is covered only by a thin layer of soil. The seedlings had little chance of rooted properly.

In our spiritual lives do we allow the word of God to permeate our lives deeply or is it just something shallow, is it OK for somethings but when it becomes too challenging we choose to ignore and move on.

And then what about the seed that fell by the weeds. The seed might have grown but the young plants were soon strangled by other plants around them and couldn’t grow.

Here we see the analogy of giving our faith time to grow amidst the pressures and conflicting interests of our busy lives.

We may be so focused on some things in our lives that God’s seed never has a chance to grow.

And then of course we have the last seed scattered on soil where it can grow and flourish and bear more fruit.

The parable of the Sower is one of the most well known parables that Jesus ever shared with the people.

The Sower shows us that there are different responses to the same gift - the giving of the Word of God. For all of us here this morning the Word of God is being scattered upon all of our lives, but that should not lead anyone to believe that we will all leave here the same.

Just because the Word of God is given doesn't mean the receiver will allow the Word of God to shape and mold their life.

We started by thinking about being driven or drifting – we are soon approaching lent a time to think about our internal spiritual lives – perhaps the challenge to us all this morning is are we prepared to be focused in this as well as other areas of our lives to grow inwardly and in our relationship with God.

I end with a final picture of the film Zero dark thirty – at the end we see the CIA agent on her own – you can identify the emotion she is feeling – she has succeeded with what she set out to do, she has achieved her goal but you are left with the unsaid question – yes that’s great but what on earth am I going to do now, how can I now give my life meaning.

The experience of countless Christians down the ages is that feeding and growing your inner life can do just that