Jesus's last days

Preached at St Mary the Virgin, Little Burstead, 13 April 2025 at 10:30 (Palm Sunday)

 

Reading Luke 22:14-23:56

Prayer

Father, We pray that through these words this morning we make know Jesus better and be able to follow him more closely.

Introduction

Normally, on Palm Sunday, we would hear about Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There would be palm branches, or something similar, and, if you were at Christ Church, there would be a procession around the church.

There are other ways of approaching Palm Sunday. Today, we have the alternate readings from the lectionary. Our very long reading takes us from the passover meal, through the betrayal, Peter’s denial, to the crucifixion and burial. As we go through these verses, I will try to concentrate mainly on the words and actions of Jesus.

Jesus’s Final Teachings

It’s an opportunity for us to take a wider look at Jesus’s final teachings.

Jesus’s Mission

An important part of the background to what Jesus is saying, is His 3 years training the disciples. If we read through a whole gospel, we will quickly see that Jesus is on a mission. He knows, very early on, that He will face opposition from Satan and the religious authorities. He knows that He has come to die. So, He must leave the rest of the work in establishing God’s kingdom on earth to the disciples.

Luke 22:14-23 The Last Supper

He starts by celebrating the passover with them. The passover feast reminds them that they were rescued from slavery in Egypt, and freed from the evil that occurred there by a very powerful God. In the Exodus, the Israelites escape punishment by marking their doors with the blood of a sacrifice. Then the angel of death passes over them. Jesus is going to repeat that rescue, make it for everyone, and He will do it by being the sacrifice himself. So that God’s judgement will pass over each of us. He changes the passover celebration to bring in the full meaning of what He is doing. Now, when we celebrate Holy Communion, we are remembering Jesus’s sacrifice for us, so that we should not suffer the punishment that we are due.

Luke 22:24-38 Prediction of Peter’s Denial

The discussion of who the betrayer would be quickly turns into a fight about who is greatest. For Jesus, it must be like dealing with young children. They just haven’t got the significance of what’s happening. Or, perhaps they have, but it’s too big a change for them to be able to take in now. Jesus carefully explains how God’s kingdom works – to be the greatest, you must be one who serves. He reminds them that He has been their example of that.

More difficult times are coming, especially for Simon, who is Satan’s main target in the lead up to Jesus’s death. If Simon can be destroyed, there will be no church, no Christianity. But, Jesus has already prayed about this, and God will answer His prayer. Jesus says to him at the end of verse 32:

And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

Notice that after that, Jesus calls Him Peter – because the prayer is answered. It is Peter who will deny Jesus.

Luke 22:39-53 Jesus is Arrested

Jesus takes them to the Mount of Olives, a place they were used to meeting. He asks them to pray for themselves, and goes to pray alone. Jesus needs to know that He really has to go through with this – that it is really His Father’s will. The cup he is asking His Father to take, is God’s wrath, that He knows He will have to face soon. Now, fully certain that he is doing the Father’s will, He returns to the disciples and finds them asleep.

Then Judas arrives and the arrest begins. A disciple gets trigger-happy and attacks one of the soldiers. That’s too much for Jesus – the soldier is healed. He is not leading a rebellion, He doesn’t want or need a fight. Instead, He tells them, “this is your hour —when darkness reigns.”.

Luke 22:54-62 Peter Denies Jesus

Jesus is led away, Peter follows, but keeps his distance. In the courtyard, he is accused of being with Jesus three times. Each time he makes a clear denial. It’s all too much for Peter. Right now he can’t live up to his boasts of friendship, but he is at least there. Watching, and perhaps praying. It’s not enough, but it is better than the others are doing.

Catching Jesus’s gaze, he remembers Jesus’s words. He is broken and weeps bitterly. That’s the first step back, but there’s a long way to go for Peter.

Luke 22:63-23:12 Jesus before Pilate & Herod

Jesus is roughed up a bit by the soldiers, they’re just ignorant bullies, but it all counts to the humiliation that Satan is casting on Jesus.

The chief priests and teachers of the Law aren’t violent, but they use any means they can find to work out a charge that will result in Jesus’s death. Jesus, himself, is very non-committal, not exactly refusing to answer, but saying as little as possible. It really doesn’t matter what He says at this point, they will twist it until they have enough. When they do, they go to Pilot, and he goes to Herod.

Luke 23:13-26 Pilate Pressured by the Crowds

The two Romans are not convinced, so it is the crowd that has the final say. The Roman Governor only has so much power, his role is to keep the province under control. He doesn’t care about one man.

In these passages in particular, Luke is showing us that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Everyone in this part of the story have gone against God in some way. The priests and teachers of the law have ignored every thing about truth they every knew. The soldiers are simply acting like thugs, the governors have given in to political expediency, because the crowd are shouting for crucifixion and in support of a murderer. His disciples have fled, or denied being his friend. Jesus alone stands before God, ready to take the punishment for all this, and so much more.

Luke 23:27-43 The Crucifixion

Women

As Jesus is led to the crucifixion site, a large crowd follow Him. Some are women are weeping for Him. Jesus is more concerned for what is coming in the future for them, than He is for Himself. Maybe He is alluding to the coming destruction of Jerusalem that He has already spoken about. Now, they are killing an innocent man, he says, but in the coming days the barbarity of the destruction will be on an altogether more horrific scale.

His murderers

As he is being crucified, Jesus says “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”, Maybe it’s that they don’t understand that they are killing the son of God, or they don’t care that they’re killing an innocent man. Even in this extreme situation, Jesus is focused on the people around Him, and is praying that they will not suffer the consequences of their actions.

The Criminal

One of the two being crucified with him at least realises that he is guilty and is getting the punishment that he deserves. He knows he is going to face judgement, and asks Jesus to remember him. That’s quite an insight for a criminal – to see a resurrected Jesus ruling the kingdom of God. Jesus’s reply, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” is one of the most discussed sentences in the entire bible. Paradise, in Jewish though, is not heaven, it originally meant a walled garden, but in Jesus’s time had come to mean a place where souls go immediately after death.

Luke 23:44-56 Death & Burial

Now Jesus is dead. There has never been a death like it. The way Jesus has behaved during the crucifixion has had an effect on many people, we have heard of the criminal who responded to Him, now we hear of the Roman Centurion. “Surely this was a righteous man”. This is a pagan, Roman judgement on the son of God, and Luke has included it so that his gospel can speak to everyone, not just the Jews.

Luke goes on to carefully tell us exactly where Jesus body was put, because he knows that Sunday is coming, and those events will rightly get an incredible level of scrutiny.

Luke 23⁵⁵ The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.

The women cannot be mistaken – they have been to the tomb already.

Conclusion

As you’ve listened to my comments on the passion in the Gospel of Luke, I hope you have seen one or two things that you haven’t seen before. Mostly, though, I hope you have gained a greater appreciation for Jesus and His mastery of the incredibly difficult situation He found Himself in. Let’s close with a prayer.

Prayer

Father, when we find ourselves in difficult times, help us to remember how Jesus dealt with His death, give us the same courage and strength.

Amen

Do you not percieve it?

Preached at Christ Church, Billericay @ 08:00 6 April 2025

Purpose: A look at what God is doing

Reading Isaiah 43:16-21, John 12:1-8

Prayer

Father God, we pray that we will be allowed a glimpse of what you are doing in our world, as we seek to follow you more closely each day.

Introduction

When I read through this morning’s passages about 10 days ago, there was one phrase that stood out to me – the question that God asks of the Israelites, in verse 19, when He says “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”.

My first response was, “No, Lord, I don’t.”. I felt rather guilty about that, and then wondered if perhaps it was supposed to be a rhetorical question. There was one sermon I read, where the author also said that he doesn’t perceive it, after that I felt a little happier. I also remembered a former vicar of Christ Church saying that you can only see what God has done in hindsight.

Lent 5 – Backwards & Forwards

The fifth Sunday of Lent is supposed to be a time when we look backwards at what God has done and forwards to see what He is doing and will eventually do. We see what God has done for us in the past, and maybe, we can see a little of what God will be doing for us, or better, with us, in the future. Both our readings have that element in them. In the Old Testament, God is telling the Israelites that He is going to rescue them from exile. In the New Testament, the dinner is to celebrate Lazarus’s rising from the dead, but it also looks forwards to Jesus’s crucifixion.

I wonder, in each of those passages, what do you think the people they are speaking about thought that God might be doing.

History (of the Exile)

Let's start with the Isaiah passage.

597bc Nebuchadnezzar

In 597bc Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon defeated Jehoiakim, king of Judah and the leaders of Judah were taken into exile in Babylon. For Babylon, the exiling of the elite was a way of managing those they had conquered, and preventing rebellions. For the Israelites, it was an experience that left them questioning everything they thought they knew about God. Even if, looking back, the prophecies seem quite clear. If they do not follow God and live the way He asks them to, they will suffer the consequences – and now they have.

539bc Cyrus

In 539bc Cyrus, king of Persia, conquers the Babylonian Empire, and, the policies for managing conquered people change, so eventually the exiles are allowed to return. They will have been away from their home for about 70 years.

The Israelites, God is speaking to

The passage in Isaiah, is speaking to the exiles at a time when the initial shock of what’s happened has worn off, and they have started to make a life for themselves in their new situation. The vast majority of those who were exiled would die in exile, only their descendants would return. Sometimes God has to wait for a whole generation to pass, before He can do the next thing.

A new thing

Now, perhaps when they’ve really settled in to a life in a foreign country, when they’ve begun again to know who their God is, or think they know, He’s telling them to get ready for the next thing.

God says:

Forget the former things. The rescue from slavery in Egypt, when I got you across the sea – an impenetrable barrier that stopped you in your tracks, and then utterly annihilated your pursuers. Their chariots and horses, and all the Egyptian troops are still there, buried in the mud, never to rise again.

God doesn’t really want them to completely forget, or he wouldn’t have just reminded them! He wants them to look forward rather than backwards, because now He is doing a new thing. He is preparing a way across another impenetrable barrier, this time a desert. It must have seemed like an impossible dream that they could return home. That they could once again live in the promised land, the place they all look to as home, even if many of them have never been.

God can, and will, deliver on the dream, He’s making it a promise, because when God says something, it WILL happen. And if you still doubt that, well He’s done similar things before.

I wonder what they really thought when they heard those words? After all they only have to walk 500 miles across an inhospitable desert.

John Reading

The New Testament reading that we heard is more nuanced. There is no clear prophecy. Mary’s extravagant and outrageous act of worship could be just that – an instant expression of her love for Jesus, but Jesus give it a greater meaning. According to Judas, she wasted a years wages in that act, and all who witnessed it would see her actions as those of a prostitute, because no self-respecting Jewish woman at that time would let her hair down like that.

Jesus’s response to the accusation is:

⁷ “Leave her alone, it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. ⁸ You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

I wonder, do you think that Mary, Martha, Lazarus and the other guests realised that Jesus’s death was only days away? Do you think they had any idea what that meant for the wider world? If you read the gospels now, it is clear to us, with hindsight, that Jesus knew exactly where he was going, why he was going there and what would happen when He arrived – and afterwards. He knew that his crucifixion, and then His resurrection, would save use from a situation that we couldn’t escape from.

Saving Ourselves

It is not a river, or a desert that stops us saving ourselves. It is each of us that stops us saving ourselves. We are the insurmountable barrier to our salvation. There is a chasm to cross, a pit to fall in, and the cross of Christ is the bridge. God makes a way for us to places where we cannot go on our own.

God is always active.

Even when the way is made, we cannot follow it, if we cannot see it. God is always there ready to show us the next steps.

I wondered what we can see God doing, and how much we can understand what He is pointing us towards.

Looking back – the world

As we look backward on the history of our world, we see that those who followed Jesus spread across the entire world. Some of that was caused by people fleeing persecution, and sharing their faith with their new neighbours. Some was very carefully planned, people were trained as missionaries and sent to places where it was known that the word of God had not been heard. All of those things were prompted by the Holy Spirit. Almost none of it was easy for the people involved.

Looking forward – the world

As we see the world order changing and hear of deportations from America, can we see God at work. What is He doing? Do you perceive it? It is estimated that over 1 million Christians will be deported from the USA as ‘illegal migrants’, most will go back to South American countries, principally Venezuela. What is God doing there?

Father Dan, was saying at Forging Men that the young people of today are looking to practice a different type of faith – they will worship God, follow Jesus, but not in the way that we do. What is God preparing for that generation? Is He perhaps just waiting for us to pass before he does something amazing?

Looking back – the church

We can also look back at our church, I’m talking about Christ Church and the things we were involved in, rather than the Church of England. We can remember times when God was blessing us in different ways. Maybe you remember the time when we had about 100 people in our main service, and all the gifts they offered to our church. Or you look back to events like Mission ‘89, or perhaps to our weekends away. All of those things seem unlikely to ever happen again.

Looking forward – the church

How will God build us up in the future, what blessings will he bestow? What will we have to do to be a part of that. We have a new Rector, so things will undoubtedly change. Can you see what is coming, do you perceive it? Or, do we just see the impossible barriers that God can so easily break down. It’s not the sea, or the sand, now it’s the age gap.

We will just have to continue to follow Jesus as closely as possible, and see where the Holy Spirit is leading us, step by step. In a few years maybe we will look back and see what God did in this time, until then, there is some hard work to get on with building the kingdom of God. Meanwhile, we continue to look for God’s leading in all sorts of new directions.

He says: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Amen.

The Price is Right

Preached at 10:30 on 16 March 2025 at Christ Church, Billericay

Reading: Luke 14:27-33

It can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbyUoEzEmk from 26:00 to 44:00.

Prayer

Father, Through these words this morning, help us to understand the cost of being a disciple.

Amen.

Introduction

Jesus has told his disciples that there is a cost to choosing to become a disciple. In the 1980s through to the 2000s, there was a TV show, where contestants had to guess the price of certain items to win those items. To remind us of that we’re going to play the game in a church way – because I can’t afford prizes worth £1000s.

[Slides 2 – 7 Play the game, 3 rounds with 3 people guessing the price of a pack of sweets or a chocolate bar.  Have consolation prizes, in case the children don't win.]

Value

So, I don’t know if you thought that those prices represent the real value of the products or not? They are, of course, the price I had to pay for them.

Everything has a cost

Everything we do has a cost, whether that’s buying sweets, or major life decisions. If you decide to live one way, the cost may be that you cannot do certain things, that you may otherwise have been able to. With some lifestyles, there will be a cost to your health, or even your longevity. Jesus is trying to explain to his disciples, and the huge crowd that is following Him, the true cost of becoming a disciple.

Outrageous – Hate (25&26)

To do that, He is being outrageous, or at least that’s how it appears to us. We have to go back two verses to get the full power of what Jesus is saying:

²⁵ Large crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

Now, I for one, would not expect Jesus to advocate hating anyone, especially not the family that God has placed us in. So, what’s going on? Well, it’s mainly a translation issue. The word that gets translated ‘hate’ really implies something of low priority, something that we don’t care about very much. Matthew 10:37, puts it in a way that is easier for us to understand:

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸ and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Carrying the cross

Which brings us nicely back to carrying your cross. I wonder what comes to mind when you hear someone say “We all have our cross to bear”? It almost certainly doesn’t mean what it meant to Jesus’s many hearers in the first century. To carry a cross, in Jesus time, meant that you were in the queue for execution.

Here’s Monty Python’s take on it from the ‘Life of Brian’.

What I love about this clip is the extreme politeness, contrasting with the incredibly awful thing that is happening to the men in the queue.

Our understanding, today, takes much of the horror away from what Jesus is saying. “If you want to be my disciple, be ready to lose your life”. It’s said to get an effect, but it’s also true. That is the cost of being a disciple.

Costs

Jesus goes on to give two other examples – one about building a tower and the other about a king going to war.

Building

If you’ve ever watched Grand Designs, or tried to do your own building, you will know how difficult it is to get the cost of any type of building right. That’s why you have to get the help of experts and be very cautious in what you agree to. Otherwise, you’re likely to suffer a horrible overspend, or not get the job completed. Jesus may have been alluding to Herod’s temple, which was apparently unfinished at the time, work had been going on for years.

War

I don’t suppose any of us have ever planned out the cost of going to war, but just like the people in Jesus’s time, we are very familiar with the wars and the costs involved with them. We get that from our media. You will hear that leaders are not able to calculate the costs of a war. Putin thought that Ukraine would be overrun in a few days. In Jesus time, stories would be heard – some true, some just rumours. Remember, their country was occupied by the Romans.

Cost of being a disciple

There are many other ways of understanding the cost of being a disciple. It can be thought of as a journey, with a fork in the road. If you take one fork, it leads you to a life of hard work, where your main concern is providing for your family and trying to get rich, or at least comfortable. You may have to make compromises on that road, and do things you find distasteful, or you may not care what your actions do to others, and exploit everyone you can, just to get ahead.

The other fork in the road leads to a life given to God, where all that you do puts Jesus and his teachings first, and your own needs and that of your family take second place. It can lead to difficult times or even premature death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called “The Cost of Discipleship”, where he looks at what that means in the modern world (well, the 1930s actually) but it’s still an interesting and challenging read.

Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis for his beliefs, just before the end of WWII. The cost to him was literally his life.

The price is right

I will finish by trying to describe to you my decision process. That is going to leave us with a difficult question – one that I suspect you won’t be able to answer – I certainly can’t.

In my early 20s, I was invited to church by a friend, after some long discussions about the reliability of the Bible, and who Christ really was. I joined the youth group, and it was the young people there, and they way they lived their lives, that finally convinced me to make the decision to follow Jesus.

So far as I remember, no-one talked to me about the cost of becoming a disciple. The idea that there was a cost, and my understanding of the price to be paid, came along much later.

So, my question is: “Should we make the cost clear to anyone thinking seriously about making a commitment?”

Initially, I just thought that Jesus had paid the price for our sin on the cross, and that allowed us to have eternal life. That’s true, of course, but the reality is that we have to pay a price too. It is impossible to follow Jesus, without our lives changing. The decision to follow him takes us down a particular path. In order to get eternal life, we have to give up our sinful lives, and that means there are things we can no longer do:

— we can no longer exploit others, or belittle them, or insult them

— we can no longer lie and cheat our way through life

If you want a more detailed list, read the 10 commandments.

There are also things we must do

— we must as Jesus says Love our neighbour as ourselves

— above that, though, we must love God and be dedicated to His Son.

In other words, the price we pay for our salvation, is to give up our old, failing lives, and accept our new, and everlasting life.

The Price is right for us, because we have nothing else to give but ourselves.

Amen

 

References

https://sermonsfrommyheart.com/2019/09/07/luke-1425-33-the-cost-of-following-jesus/

https://sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-cost-of-being-a-disciple-carl-willis-sermon-on-endurance-35382

https://sermoncentral.com/sermons/what-could-i-possibly-give-to-god-lynn-floyd-sermon-on-giving-general-36606

https://sermons4kids.com/sermons/counting-the-cost

https://ministry-to-children.com/d-is-for-disciple-coloring-page/

https://ministry-to-children.com/count-the-cost-sermon/

 

Divorce ( & Marriage)

Preached at St Mary the Virgin, Little Burstead @ 10:30 on 16 February 2025

Title: Divorce (and Marriage)

Purpose: To look at Jesus’ teaching on divorce

Reading Matthew 19:1-12; Genesis 2:18-24

Prayer

Introduction

The main reading set for today is from the Gospel of Matthew and is about divorce. Some of the disciples who were with him found what He was saying hard to accept. Some of us may also find what is said hard to accept or difficult to hear – they are not the same thing. Before we can understand what Jesus was saying about divorce, we must first look at what the scriptures say about marriage.

Male Oriented

This whole discussion is very male oriented. That is because women had very few rights in Jesus’s time. A wife was very close to being a husband's possession. It was the man’s responsibility to find a good woman and make a family.

As the old joke goes:

God said a good woman would be found in each of the four corners of the Earth

Then God made the world round.

Marriage

Purpose of marriage

God, did not, of course, say anything remotely like that at all. We heard, in our Old Testament reading what God did actually say. The woman was created as a companion for the man because it was not good that he was alone.

From that and other passages in the Bible, we can see that marriage is more than a social construct; it is a divine institution ordained by God. It serves several purposes in God's grand design:

Companionship: Marriage provides companionship and emotional support, reflecting God's desire for us to experience meaningful relationships.

Partnership: Husband and wife are called to be partners in life, working together to fulfil God's purpose and steward His creation.

Procreation: Marriage is the context for raising and nurturing children, ensuring the continuation of God's creation.

Sanctification: Through the challenges and joys of marriage, individuals grow in character, learning to love selflessly and sacrificially.

Marriage is the expected way to live

In Jesus’s time marriage is still the normal way to live. A young man’s parents would be expected to find him a suitable bride and have him married and let him established in his own household before he became properly mature – say 30 years old.

Bachelor

It is interesting to note that the word bachelor is not found in the Bible. There are however a few references to staying single – and we will look at that later.

Divorce

The basic laws of divorce are found in Deuteronomy chapter 24. These are the words that the Pharisees are referring to:

¹If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, ²and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, ³and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, ⁴then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Protect the woman

The certificate of divorce was designed to protect the woman, who would otherwise have been left in a kind of limbo, rejected by her husband and unable to take another husband because she would still seem to be married. She would then have had to rely on charity to survive.

Divorce - controversy

Divorce is a hot topic in 1^st century Jerusalem. What exactly is meant by “displeasing” and “indecent”? There were two schools of thought, each championed by a particular Rabbi.

The school of Shammai, argued that divorce was permissible only in cases of adultery. Now, you will say to me, that the penalty for adultery is death by stoning, and that is true. However, by this time the death penalty was rarely, if ever, used in these cases.

The school of Hillel, held a much broader view—allowing for divorce on almost any grounds, even trivial matters – and some of the grounds that he accepted were genuinely trivial – a burnt meal, or perhaps he just didn’t like the look of her any more and wanted to trade her in for a better looking model.

Pharisees Trap

When the Pharisees approached Jesus, asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” They were really hoping that Jesus would align himself with one of these schools of thinking. That way they can cause controversy among His followers, and hopefully a split. Jesus is, of course, too clever for them and goes back to the purpose of marriage, which we have already discussed. He reminds them that Moses permitted divorce, not commanded it, and that any divorce is not what God intended in the beginning.

One reason only

So, Jesus tells them that there is only one ground for divorce:

⁹ “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Disciples Reaction

The disciple's reaction is interesting. They are mostly young, not-yet-married men. That puts them in their late teens to early twenties. Their reaction speaks volumes about their attitudes.

“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Which means they are thinking, ‘If I can’t divorce the woman because I want to, I would be better off not marrying at all.’ It seems that they are not prepared to give up their control over any marriage they may eventually have. To contemplate living without a partner is unusual in our world, but in theirs it is unthinkable. If they were to try it, they would come under a lot of pressure from their families.

Jesus answers them by talking about eunuchs. Here eunuchs refers to men that cannot, or will not be able to father children. So, some are made eunuchs by others – like those who look after the king's harem. Some are born eunuchs and are unable to procreate, and some choose that lifestyle. Although they could father children, they choose not to. This may be because they are, for example, dedicating their lives to building the church of God.

Divorce Today

Let’s get back to divorce, as that’s the main topic of this sermon. Divorce today is very different from divorce in Jesus’s day. Here the sexes are on an equal footing. Either a woman, or a man, can petition for divorce. While we should not presume to go beyond scripture, some other grounds for divorce in a Christian marriage are often suggested: spousal abuse (emotional or physical), child abuse, addiction to pornography, drug / alcohol use, crime / imprisonment, and mismanagement of finances (such as through a gambling addiction).

There were 80,057 divorces granted in England and Wales in 2022, down almost 30% from the previous year. The most common reason for the divorce is ‘unreasonable behaviour’.

Conclusion

So, as I finish, I’d like to remind you all that the perfect marriage does not exist. Difficulties will always arise. Life throws curveballs, and sometimes couples face immense challenges. But the ideal, the goal, is a lifelong commitment, a reflection of Christ's unwavering love for the church. The practical application for us today lies in understanding the gravity of marriage vows and striving for reconciliation and forgiveness within the marriage. Before considering divorce, we must exhaust all avenues of seeking God's guidance and support, including prayer, counselling, and seeking wisdom from trusted mentors within the church. Divorce should be a last resort, not a quick fix for marital difficulties.

Let us remember that God's grace is sufficient, even in the midst of brokenness. He offers healing, restoration, and hope, even when our circumstances seem insurmountable. Let us approach marriage with reverence, commitment, and a willingness to work through challenges with God's help. Let us pray for strength, wisdom, and understanding for ourselves and especially for those facing marital struggles.

Amen.

The Nazareth Manifesto

Preached at Christ Church, Billericay on 26 Jan 2025 at 10:00

Recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaHtGFPbsS8 from 18:25 to 34:25

Introduction

Well, that’s a very odd place to stop.  It’s as if there was a second part of the drama coming tomorrow.  Here’s what happened next:
21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.  23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his home town. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30, But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Reaction: Good, then bad

As you have heard, the initial reaction was good – everyone was amazed at his gracious words.  Then Jesus notices a change in their mood, they start to question who He is – “He’s Joseph’s son isn’t he?”.  Jesus’s response is to tell them that a prophet is never accepted in his home town.  Then, to make it worse, He uses two examples where prophets were sent to foreigners.  Both Elijah and Elisha, two of the greatest prophets, were sent to people who were in the pagan nations around them.  That, I suspect, was too much for the crowd.  They are very happy to receive God’s blessings from the prophet speaking in front of them, but they cannot accept that the gentiles would also receive God’s blessings.  Those people, after all, are supposed to receive God’s wrath.

The Nazareth Manifesto

These few verses, where Jesus reads selectively from Isaiah, are often called “The Nazareth Manifesto”.  That’s because they sum up very nicely what Jesus will do in the rest of His ministry.  In a moment we will look at each of them individually, but first it's worth going to the passage that Jesus selected and to read what’s there for ourselves.

 What’s Out - vengeance

The reading is from Chapter 61 verses 1 & 2.
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
… and it goes further, but Jesus has already stopped quoting this part of the scripture.  It is interesting to note that Jesus didn’t talk about vengeance at all, that he stopped, part of the way through verse 2, before that phrase.  He’s preparing them, very subtly, for a change in the way that God will deal with them.  He knows, that He will, after some time, give up His life for them and take the vengeance that they are due, on Himself.  So, here, He doesn’t have to bring it up.

The manifesto is for us too

The manifesto is not just for Jesus’s ministry, it is for ours too.  As His followers, we have to find ways to put the manifesto into practice in the world we live in today.  As we look at these 5 points, try to think of other or better ways that we can make this manifesto work.
Here are the 5 main points:
    1. good news to the poor
    2. freedom for the prisoners
    3. recovery of sight for the blind
    4. set the oppressed free
    5. the year of the Lord’s favour

5 Manifesto points

1. good news to the poor

Good news to the Poor.
The poor are those who don’t have enough, they are the helpless, who have to rely on the rich and powerful, or the government, for their existence.  The poor can also be the poor in spirit, as Matthew 5:3, tells us.  These are those who have to rely on God for their spiritual well-being – which I might suggest is all of us [Get Agreement?].  The good news is God’s message of redemption and forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The root word in the Greek for good news is where we get our word evangelism.  Jesus though went further than simple proclaiming the good news, he fed the poor, - for example in the feeding of the 5000.  
As His followers, we are called to help the both the physically poor and the spiritually poor.  Can you think of ways that we do that, or could do that better than we do now?

2. freedom for the prisoners

Freedom for the prisoners.
This seems to go against justice, and I can’t think of any prisoners released by Jesus.  Except Barabas, but that wasn’t strictly by Jesus, more because of the crowd and the Romans.  We wouldn't want someone like him on the streets, would we.
There are two possibilities.  Firstly, it was common practice to throw people into prison if they could not pay their debts.  We don’t do that any more, but we do have charities like CAP that will help people in debt to pay a reasonable amount of what they owe in a structured way.
The other possibility is that Jesus is being metaphorical.  If that is the case, the prisoners would be those enslaved to sin in various ways – through substance abuse, addiction, bad habits, selfishness – the list goes on and on.  We know that the Holy Spirit can release people from addictions – read “Chasing the Dragon” for a good example of that.  We know that God can release people, and that He uses us to help with those changes.
Can you think of ways that we do that, or could do that better than we do now?

3. recovery of sight for the blind

Recovery of sight to the blind.
We know that Jesus cured blind people, there’s an example in John 9:6-7.  So this part of the manifesto can be taken literally.  There is also a spiritual component.  Many in our world today cannot see the gospel for what it is.  It is becoming harder for them as we hear of more and more cases of abuse perpetrated by church leaders who should be able to be trusted.  Jesus frequently said that He is the light of the world.
Can you think of ways that we help people to see, both physically and spiritually? Can you think of ways that we could do that better than we do now?

4. Set the oppressed free

Set the oppressed free.
Jesus’s hearers would, no doubt, immediately have thought about their Roman occupiers, and being freed to rule themselves.  Oppression is defined as being “governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom”.  We know that there are many people in the world today that live in those circumstances.  Many Christians around the world, work for Human Rights, freedoms and human flourishing.
People are also oppressed by sin, and Jesus can provide freedom from that, just as He will provide freedom from unfair government.
Can you think of ways that we bring freedom to the oppressed? Can you think of ways that we could do that better than we do now?

5. the year of the Lord’s favour

The year of the Lord’s favour.
Every fiftieth year was a jubilee year.  The rules for jubilee are set out in Leviticus 25:8-55.  In summary any land that is sold is recovered, and anyone sold into slavery is freed.  It’s an economic reset because everything they have – the land and all that is on it and all the people belong to the Lord.  
Jubilee is clearly impossible while the Romans are in charge.
The jubilee teaches us that the constant acquisition of wealth and the establishment of a super-wealthy class is not a biblical concept.  Instead, we must try some form of re-distribution.  In the past, this was achieved to some extent by the super-wealth building hospitals and libraries.  That doesn’t seem to happen today.
This is perhaps the hardest of the 5 ideas for us to enact.  Can you think of ways that we can bring jubilee?

Conclusion

Jesus announced his manifesto in his home town.  The announcement was well received until he stated that God’s love and healing power is available to the gentiles as much as it is to the Jews.  The manifesto is revolutionary in its own right, and it is our manifesto too.  As we have declared ourselves His followers, we have no choice but to follow where He went.  So let me leave you with some summary questions.
Can you think of ways that we are implementing the Nazareth manifesto?  Can you think of ways that we could do that better than we do it now?
Amen.

References

https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/grace-and-judgement-in-the-nazareth-manifesto-in-luke-4/

https://sermonwriter.com/sermons/luke-414-21-the-mission-statement-of-jesus-hoffacker/

https://interruptingthesilence.com/2022/01/23/today-is-the-day-a-sermon-on-luke-414-21/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh

https://www.stmarysalehurst.com/uploads/8/9/0/8/89085122/sermon_on_luke_4__14_to_21_jan_23rd.pdf

https://sermonwriter.com/biblical-commentary/new-testament-luke-414-21/

https://www.faithinbusiness.org/Articles/589862/The_Nazareth_Manifesto.aspx

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nazareth-Manifesto-Samuel-Wells/dp/0470673265?asin=0470673265&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-luke-414-21-3

https://www.gotquestions.org/proclaim-good-news-to-the-poor.html

https://www.bibleref.com/Luke/6/Luke-6-20.html

https://goodfaithmedia.org/why-would-jesus-want-to-release-the-prisoners-cms-22627/

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/oppressed

https://www.inspiritencourage.com/mini/why-christ-came-to-set-oppressed-free