Sermon  

Rev. Rosemary Pantling 

7^th September 2008            16^th Sunday after Trinity 

Our Church is dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary 

 The Virgin Mary – the Perfect Role Model?

Luke 1 26-38 

What would you put on a list of the qualities you look for in the perfect friend? 

-be successful at their jobs

-have 2.4 perfectly behaved children who never quarrel and keep their rooms tidy without being asked. 

-invite you to four-course cordon bleu meals in their immaculate houses. 

-arrive everywhere absolutely on time,

-remember your birthday

-know the immediate answer to any problem you might have, whether the best route from here to Birmingham airport or how to get stains out of the carpet? 

I very much doubt that any of these things are on your list.  In fact my perfect friend has an equally untidy house to mine, two equally exasperating children, with whom she loses her temper at least as often as I do, and definitely has to have as many faults and make as many mistakes as I do, because that’s how I know she understands me, and I can tell her about my failures without feeling she’ll look down on me. 

Now all this is by way of introduction to what I want to say next: 

I have a problem with the Virgin Mary. 

And my problem is that she is so often held up as an example of perfection.  I do know that for centuries many Christians, especially Christian women, have found her an inspiration and a comfort.  But for many modern women, and I know I’m not alone in this, the meek, submissive, innocent perfect woman is so far from what I am, or even what I aspire to, that I struggle with what to make of her. 

However, as so often is the case, it helps to go back to the Bible, and try to let go of centuries of Christian art, myth and legend, which have added to our perception of Mary all sorts of things which just aren’t there in the little we know of her. 

And then I find a Mary with whom I can identify more easily.

Firstly, she definitely didn’t know it all.  Her immediate reaction to he angel’s message: “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be”. (v 29) 

 This reminds us of what Luke also says after the shepherds have visited, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Lk 2.19)  

Here is a Mary we can identify with.  One who was puzzled, had to think about things, had to try and work out what was going on. Remember how young she was, if she is not yet married she is probably a very young teenager.  Mary was not someone with everything nicely worked out and sorted, not someone with all the answers.  In fact I very much doubt she ever did understand it all.

What a comfort this Mary is.  God doesn’t ask us to be sure and certain of everything, he doesn’t mind that we carry questions with us, perhaps for the whole of our lives, we don’t need a perfect understanding of every teaching about God to believe in him and serve him. 

And so despite her uncertainty, Mary says, “I am the Lord’s servant, May it be to me as you have said.”   

So the Mary of the Bible, the one we can identify with is obedient. 

I don’t think she did it without a fight though.  She did question the angel after all.  “ How will this be, since I am a virgin?” “Hold on a minute, I can’t have a baby  because I haven’t slept with a man.” 

We all are called to do God’s will and serve him in the way we believe he wants us to, but being obedient to him requires us to be quite certain of what he wants in the first place.  He’s given us common sense and it is not wrong to struggle to be sure we are doing the right thing.

This is a Mary with whom I can identify, a friend who can understand me.  Mary doesn’t understand it all, but she tries to serve God.  

But now we come to the problem, perhaps the biggest problem for modern Christians -the issue of Mary’s virginity.  I don’t want to get sidetracked here, but what I would like to ask is, why has it become such a big deal?  Why, the moment a Bishop admits something like:  “some Christians have a problem with the virgin birth,” do we get silly headlines saying “Bishop denies virgin birth”?  Because it is important to be able to discuss it, and to especially to look at what some Christians have added to this belief.  

You will know that some believe that Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life.  We today are celebrating the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, Mary’s own birth.  There are many Christians who believe that in order for Mary to be pure enough to bear Jesus, when her parents conceived her it was a special conception, an immaculate conception, so that she herself was conceived without sin.   

Neither the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary, nor the belief that she remained a Virgin for life, are required to be held by Anglicans. We should however be willing to think about what Christians seem to say about the physical marriage relationship when they do hold such beliefs.   

Mary is a strange a role model for the perfect wife if she remains a virgin when the Church teaches that the physical relationship between man and wife is a vital and God-given part of the marriage bond.  As I said, the only part of this which actually comes from the Bible, and which is therefore part of Anglican belief, is that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus.  

But Christians should be allowed to admit that they find it difficult to believe that Jesus was conceived to a virgin mother.  We should allow them to discuss that, and ponder that, and think carefully about what it is about the virgin birth that matters to those of us who do hold that belief.  

Because what is sad is that while we get het up over the odd misleading quotation in the press we might be missing the real message.  The gospel passage we heard read today is just not interested in the physical body which gave birth to Christ.  What it is telling us is the amazing exciting extraordinary fact that God has become a human being.  Emmanuel he is called, which as you know means God with us. 

The incarnation.  Everything that God essentially is, becoming everything that essentially we are.  

A real normal human birth from a real normal human body, giving us a real human baby who grew to be a real human child and a real human adult. 

That’s what we can relate to.  Mary being a normal human mother, with the same love and concern for her child as any human parent.  Mary, and Joseph, having to do the normal physical caring for their child, and the normal nurturing and teaching and worrying and scolding no doubt.  

Because only then is Jesus a real human being, who can be my perfect friend.  A friend who has lived in a family where there will have been quarrels and not everything will have been perfect all the time. 

A friend who knows that we make mistakes, that we hurt and get hurt, that life is complex and muddled and difficult. 

 We give thanks for Mary today, as our patron saint, because without her the incarnation would not have happened.  The real human that she was, not the perfect myth, who did not know it all, was willing to ponder and puzzle, who was willing to serve God but in the course of that to argue it out with God and then say yes, OK I’ll do it, she it was who brought Jesus into the world.  And that flawed Mary is our perfect role model, out perfect patron saint.  An ordinary real person just like us.  

So just as she brought Christ into the world by a real human birth, so we too can bring the incarnate Christ into the lives of those around us.   

Through us, imperfect, puzzled, not wholly convinced, but ultimately willing to try, through us Jesus comes.  We are the ones who can speak his words, offer his love and show him in all sorts of ways to a world who has forgotten him. 

So our prayer as we give thanks for Mary and try to follow Mary’s example, is to offer to do our imperfect best to serve God. 

Then with Mary we can say: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.” 

Sermon  

Rev. Rosemary Pantling 

31^st August 2008            Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Stepping stone or stumbling block? 

Isn’t it frustrating when people get the wrong end of the stick?  When you have spent ages patiently explaining something, think they’ve got it – and then one sentence tells you they haven’t been listening to a single word.  As a former teacher I know that feeling only too well – and I expect most of us have experienced it at some time or another. 

More than once poor old Peter gets it wrong – and I feel for both him and Jesus! 

Last week’s gospel told us of when Peter got it right – when he realised Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus was full of praise.  “Well done,” says Jesus, “You’re going to be important – the foundation for the Church.  A rock on which I will build.”  How pleased and proud Peter must have felt at that moment.  Like the youngster who’s got outstanding exam results, the employee whose initiative is picked up on by the boss, we all enjoy getting it right. 

Peter was called a rock by Jesus.  He’s going to be a strong foundation.  Rock is a good place to stand.  A rock is immovable, safe.  If you are out hiking and come to a tricky bit, muddy or wet or slippery, it’s good to find firmly embedded stones to step on to get a sure footing.  Like stepping stones across a stream.  That’s how Jesus is going to use Peter. His leadership of the early Christians would help others to go the right way.  We should aspire to be like Peter.  A stepping stone which others can use to come to a place of safety, of understanding, of knowledge and love of Jesus. 

But immediately it all goes wrong.  And so we come to the passage we heard this morning.  Almost in the next breath, as Jesus talks of the future, Peter, well-meaning I’m sure, tries to reassure Jesus. 

“We’ll never let anything happen to you – God will protect his chosen one.”  Peter thinks he’s understood who Jesus is – and if he’s that special, then nothing can go wrong.  Peter’s shown in fact that he has got the wrong end of the stick.  Far from the Messiah being protected by God and having special status – it means inevitable suffering is on the way for Jesus. 

Straightaway Peter is transformed from being a stepping stone to a stumbling block.  People who think like him will stop Jesus doing his work.  At that moment Jesus must have remembered his temptations in the wilderness at the start of his ministry.  Then the devil tempted him with visions of the easy way, grasping power and glory.  As Jesus rejected the devil then, so he recognises the same temptation in Peter’s words.  

Hence the harshness in his reaction.  “Get behind me Satan!”  What a shock to Peter, one moment praised as being like Jesus’ right hand man, next moment called the evil one.  And no longer a rock, a foundation, a stepping stone.  Instead a stumbling block. 

Are we sometimes stumbling blocks?  Like Peter, meaning well, so convinced that we are saying or doing the right thing, but instead being a stumbling block, causing others to be tripped up or led astray.  Do we misinterpret the gospel message and so mislead others?  Do we put difficulties in the way of them being able to hear Jesus speak to them?  Do we hinder God’s work by our immovability? 

Which are we? Stepping stones or stumbling blocks?  And how do we make sure we are the right kind of rock?  The answer is in Jesus’ next phrase.  “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” 

Do we see things God’s way or the human way?  The human way is often well meaning, but wanting to take the easy way, for others as well as ourselves.  The human way often worries about practicalities – we can’t afford it, it would be dangerous, it won’t work. 

 God’s way can be unexpected, surprising, new, risky.  Peter would have known his scriptures, was close to the person of Jesus himself, but still failed to realise just what God had in mind.  It was hard for him to recognise, because it was so different from what the Jews were expecting of the Messiah.  It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know our scriptures, and study and seek understanding of the things of God.  But having done that we shouldn’t think we’ve got it all worked out.  We must keep listening.  We must hear what God is saying, especially when it doesn’t quite fit with what we expect. 

Are we able to hear God saying something new and surprising?  Are we able to understand and be sure enough to recognise Jesus speaking to us, to know him as our Messiah, and then let him use us as a rock, a stepping stone for others?  Or is our confidence in our own understanding what makes us a stumbling block, stopping God’s work.  We need humility, to say over and again to God, I’m not quite sure, let me hear you tell me.   

And in order to hear God we need to listen.  We need to make space for God to speak.  We need to make time somewhere each day to stop and know that God is there, to wait in silence and ask him to speak.  He will, I promise.  Usually when people say God doesn’t speak it’s because they haven’t stopped talking enough to listen.  We’re rather good at blundering on like Peter, gabbling on and saying more and more.   

We don’t get to know each other, our interests and opinions, our strengths and difficulties, unless we listen to each other.  So it is with God.  We want to be in tune with the mind of God?  We need to give him time and attention, just as we would our friends and family.  Then with a mind in tune with God, we can stop being stumbling blocks and start being stepping stones, in the right place and doing the right thing to help others on their way.  Peter managed it in the end – so can we. 

“You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” 

When we do have in mind the things of God, then we will change Jesus’ rebuke to us: 

“Get behind me Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me”  

Instead he will praise us with Peter, and with Peter we can become stepping stones and foundations:  “You, me, all of us, are Peter, and on this rock can Jesus build his church.

Sermon

Rev. Rosemary Pantling 

August 24^th  Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Living sacrifice 

“We offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice”. Romans 12.1 

Towards the end of this service we will all be saying together those words, which come from our first reading.  We say them every Sunday morning, in the prayer which follows the receiving of the bread and wine. 

Sacrifice.  What do we mean when we think of sacrifice?   

We’ve been watching a number of people on our TV screens over recent weeks who know the meaning of sacrifice.  Those Olympic gold and silver and bronze medals will have been hard won.  Not only the athletes but their families will have given up much to see them achieve their dreams. 

Most of us who are parents have caught ourselves saying that we have sacrificed things for our children.  But if we’re really, really honest (but don’t tell my children I admitted this), the things we say we have sacrificed for them are probably not that costly. 

Over the summer I have been reading Angela’s Ashes, that moving account of Frank McCourt’s poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland.  When you have next to nothing, go hungry daily and then give up the little you have for someone, that’s sacrifice.  So it’s quite a challenge to those of us living now in these times, who have comfortable enough lives not to have to worry about where the next meal will come from.  What sort of sacrifice does God want of us? 

Let’s think about what Paul was saying.  What did Paul mean when he said we were to be living sacrifices? 

For the Jewish people of the time, and indeed for the Romans, Greeks and most peoples of those centuries, a sacrifice to God involved killing. An animal would be slaughtered  - sacrifice involved the giving up of life.  However the sacrifice Paul says we are offering to God is definitely not one involving killing, for it is a living sacrifice.  

Sacrifice means to make holy, from the Latin sacer, "sacred" and facere, "to make. So how do we make ourselves holy? 

By offering ourselves.  It is the offering which makes holy – the giving up of selfish concerns, of wanting to have things our way.  If we give someone something we have no more use for or have too many of, it’s not much of a gift.  A gift, an offering, should cost us something, whether of money, time or effort.  We offer ourselves to God, for his use, in his service.  

This means, as Paul puts it, being transformed by the renewing of our minds.   We offer our bodies for practical use in doing the tasks God would have us do, but it is by making our minds conform to the mind of God that we can truly be an offering he can make use of. So if our mind is set on God’s work, we find our wills are in tune with his will. 

Offering is enshrined in our worship.  In the communion service we call the point just after the Peace the Offertory , when we go up to the altar with our gifts of money and when we lay the table with the gifts of food.  We have reinstated the custom of carrying the bread and wine to the altar to remind us of this symbolic offering, the gifts of the people being brought and shared.  It is important that we offer the tangible gifts of money in this symbolic way also.  It reminds us that the sacrifice we make should be a monetary one also.  Every Christian should be offering their whole resources of time, talent and wealth, for use in God’s service.  As we offer it we make it holy.  And if it is a sacrifice it should cost.   

We all know the story of the widow’s mite.  No one in a church community will ever pass judgment on the amount given by another, for no one knows what calls there are on a person’s purse and in what other ways God has called that person to use their money.  But each one of us, if we take our offering of ourselves seriously, should give thoughtfully.  And that is why we make it possible to give very practically through the bank, but still offer up that gift, to make it holy, through the use of the little cards to put on the plate. 

Our Olympic athletes won their gold medals by costly sacrifice of money, physical endurance, and time with family.  Every Christian should think in terms of such dedicated commitment.   

The difference between us and the Olympic athletes though is that essentially the Olympic athletes are forced to be selfish.  They have to want to win enough for themselves, to be prepared not only make sacrifices themselves but also to expect others to give things up too.  Parents, spouses and children will be celebrating with them of course, but will have had no choice but to bear some of the cost of that victory themselves. 

The sacrifice God wants from us though is essentially unselfish.  It is not about gaining anything for ourselves, but about winning others for Christ.  It is about letting God use us and the resources we have available to us.  Some of that giving has been seen in the Village Hall this week, as a whole team of people gave up their time to run the Rainbow Time for our youngsters so successfully.  You will know many other examples of unselfish offering of time, talent and money which God uses. 

The sacrifice God wants from each of us is different.   As you come to the altar this morning, and as afterwards  you say that prayer, offer him yourself.   

“We offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice”.  Ask him what he wants to do with you.  How does he want to use your time, your gifts and skills, your wealth?  Does your Christian faith cost you enough?   

And you will find, if you respond to him, the real meaning of living sacrifice.  For when you offer yourself to him, you will discover that the more you give up to him, the more he gives in return.  You will find your life enhanced beyond measure.     Your life will be a life lived to the full, in the best way possible. 

The more you invest the more you gain.  What is it they say in the small print of investments?  The value of your investment may go down as well as up.  Not when you are investing in the Kingdom of God – the rewards go on increasing and increasing. 

We won’t take home medals as a result of our sacrifice to God, we will earn instead the greatest reward of all, eternal life.  Life which begins here and now. 

“We offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice”.  Amen.