The Bible in 100 words (from Neil)

Light from dark; Cain and Abel;

Noah's Ark; the Tower of Babel.

Abraham; the promised land.

Jacob wrestling in the sand.

Famine, Egypt, Exodus;

Numbers and Leviticus.

Forty years just eating manna:

Moses - hopeless journey planner!

God's commandments, carved in stone;

River Jordan - nearly home...

Canaan full of Philistines:

Joshua smites them, several times.

Ruled by Judges, then by Kings:

A golden age young David brings.

Solomon, temple, Israel's great!

Babylonians at the gate...

Conquest, exile, bitter cup:

Prophets keep the spirits up!

Jesus; Saviour; Christ; Messiah;

Crucified, but rose in glory.

Love, forgiveness, life eternal:

Bible - never-ending story.

Sermon Sunday Peter Lister
22nd August 2010 Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

"Woman, you are set free from your ailment."
Luke 13.12

Illustration

There is an image of Victorians as being very straight-laced and morally upright.
Certainly in marked contrast we think to attitudes and morals and values today.
The image of that Victorian era is very much personified in the image of Queen Victoria herself.
We think of her as a stern unsmiling widow in black, an image fostered by black and white photographs in what was the early days of photography.
And that music-hall phrase, “We are not amused!” seems to sum up the sort of person she was – an icon for her age.

In fact Victorian values and morality were not all that they seemed to be.
Apparently they were often a façade to give an appearance of respectability.
People did not necessarily live up to the accepted standards of the day, but what the middle and upper classes demanded was that appearance be preserved.
The great sin, was in practice the sin of being found out in an overtly public way.
Even Queen Victoria was by no means as starchy as the popular image would have us believe.
There was even something of a racy side to her character.
What on earth was the truth behind that strange relationship she had with the Scottish gillie, John Brown.

After her death one of her daughters very carefully went through her diaries and destroyed them because of the very un-Queen-Victoria observations she had recorded on her life.
A great loss to posterity!

So there was a great deal of hypocrisy about at that time, and this in many ways continued well into the last century.
Of course, people’s feelings and behaviour have not really changed – we’ve always been like that.
It’s just that today we live in an age where there is a good deal more honesty and openness about relationships and behaviour – and much less hypocrisy about them.
What do we make of this age when traditional values and expectations are questioned, ignored or played down?
We can ‘tut, tut’ about it, but we still need to be around to help pick up the pieces when things go wrong.
That is what family is really about.

Application
he passage we have heard from St. Luke’s Gospel has to do with a challenge to accepted values and beliefs and a lot to do with hypocrisy.
And for those reasons it is quite a challenge to us even today.
It is an example of Jesus at his most typical and demonstrates why he provoked bewilderment and shock in some and enthusiasm and hope in other.

We are given a series of contrasts in the story.
There is the contrast of the bent woman - who had not been able to straighten herself we are told for eighteen years – and the morally upright and straight religious leader.

In what happened, he was shown by Jesus to be a hypocrite for he was actually religiously and morally crippled, while the woman who had been physically crippled found herself touched by God and was straightened.

So often Jesus used that word ‘hypocrite’ to describe people like that religious leader.
And in fact as the story develops Jesus does not just describe this one man as a hypocrite but goes on to actually take the opportunity to attack all religious leaders and their zealously religious approach to life and refers to them all as hypocrites.

It was this sort of message on the part of Jesus that caused the most difficulty for many of those who heard him.
It was almost certainly why he seems to have made very little impact on the religious establishment of his day.
They were finding, as had generations before, that men who came preaching the message of God as prophets came with uncomfortable messages from God.
No one likes to be accused of being a hypocrite.
The more we delve into the story of Jesus and what he was really trying to do, the more we see this pattern at work.
So many of the incidents recorded in the gospels show Jesus challenging men and women about the accepted and traditional attitudes and values.
Those who were insiders and full of moral righteousness were condemned by Jesus; while those who were on the margins of respectability – or beyond it – and who thought of themselves as inadequates and failures were given a message of hope.
It was for them that Jesus had a message.

And so he went out of his way to defy the accepted conventions and to proclaim his message by word and by deed.
And so a religious leader of the local synagogue who would have shown more compassion for his own animals than for a crippled and weary woman on a Sabbath day was shown up by Jesus for the hypocrite he was.
We can detect, as his ministry developed, that Jesus came to see that his message from his heavenly Father was one that was designed to bring good news and hope to those who were considered outcastes of a rigid and inflexible religious and moral code.
That is why he was content to be seen with them, and so raising the eyebrows of the morally respectable.
That is why those who did respond to him and his message were so often drawn from what were considered the unsavoury sections of society.

Application

And times don’t change, and situations don’t change, and people don’t change, do they?
There are still those who take the moral high ground and speak with conviction and indeed passion about what is right and what is wrong:
those who know just what the Lord or the bible has to say about any and every situation;
those who know just who have strayed from the straight and narrow; and who are beyond the pale because of their beliefs or their sexuality or their behaviour.
I’ve had them from time to time pin me to the wall as they state their certainties in no uncertain way.

And they frighten me for I get the whiff of hypocrisy about them.

And there are those of us who know what it is at times to be bent under the weight of problems and uncertainties and fears and failure – perhaps even as long as that poor woman we have heard about today.
Who feel ourselves at our lowest moments to be outcastes even from our God.
Well, we take heart from her story.
Jesus is really for us.
Jesus is really for us.
It is his touch that can deal with what has crippled us emotionally and spiritually and bring relief and hope and joy out of darkness.
That is the good news of Jesus in the depths of our greatest needs and despairs.
Jesus is really for us.
Amen.

Sermon Richard Spicer. Sunday August 22nd 2010.

35 – Who’s in charge? The authority of Jesus –
Matthew 22. 23-32.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, help us through the working of your Holy Spirit to understand the words of your servant Matthew for us this evening. Amen.

Three of four years ago on Ascension Day evening I was walking back to my car parked in the road just outside the church here and a young lad on a bicycle flashed by on the path on the opposite side of the road. As he did so he shouted, “You can’t stop me! This puzzled me as I did not recognise him and why should I want to stop him anyway. Then I realised that I was wearing an open-necked short-sleeved white shirt and black trousers. The lad had mistaken me for a policeman.

That young lad thought that I had authority over him and he was challenging that authority. The theme of our Gospel this evening is AUTHORITY – in particular the authority of Jesus. It is a theme that runs right through the Gospels.
We’ll follow it through Matthew’s Gospel this evening, starting with the concluding verses of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has given his great discourse updating the Laws given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai in the Old Testament. This covers 3 chapters of Matthew’s Gospel and ends,
“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Matthew 7. 28-29).
So right from the start of his ministry the people realised that Jesus was different, he spoke to them with a different, more powerful authority.

Secondly, Jesus showed his authority by his actions. The Jews recognised 4 four forms of evil – storms, madness, sickness and death. Jesus challenged and showed authority over all 4 of these,
• calming the storm when he was with the disciples in the sinking boat (Matthew 8. 23-27).
• healing those afflicted with madness, for example the Gerasene demoniac (Matthew 8. 28-34).
• healing the sick, for example the woman who had suffered from bleeding for 12 years (Matthew 9. 20-22) and
• raising Lazarus (John 11. 1-44) and Jairus’ daughter (Luke 9. 49-56) from the dead.
Jesus showed that there was no form of evil over which he did not have authority.

Thirdly, Jesus showed his authority over his fellow human beings when after his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday he went on to “cleanse” the Temple – his Father’s Temple – of the money-lenders and those selling doves. (Matthew 21. 12-13). He accused them of making the Temple “a den of robbers” – strong words indeed, challenging their authority and making his position very clear.

So, throughout his ministry, Jesus asserts his authority over the secular powers of his day on a number of occasions. This culminates in the display of ultimate authority over sin and death by his Crucifixion and Resurrection.

How does this authority relate to us as the Church of England and as individuals?
Well, as the Church of England we look first to the Scriptures for our answers. Again we turn to Matthew. Right at the end of his Gospel he records the great Commission given by Jesus to his disciples. Jesus said,
“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28. 18-20).
So, all authority from God has been given to Jesus, his Son, and in turn he has commanded us to go forward proclaiming his Gospel in his name. This is where our authority comes from both as a Church and as individuals. And we have just seen how powerful that authority can be.
Jesus also sent the Holy Spirit down to us after he returned to his Father to guide us and help us use this authority appropriately. Just before he ascended into heaven he said to his disciples,
“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem……..and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1. 7-8).
Therefore we have the tools we need to proclaim the Gospel. We have the authority of Jesus – the correct authority, unlike the young lad who mistakenly thought I had authority – and the Spirit to guide us. With these tools we can carry out Jesus’ Great Commission to make new disciples. In doing this we will make the people out there ask – “by whose authority are you doing this?” Then we can rightly say – we are doing it by the AUTHORITY of JESUS.



Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, help us to be like your first disciples and respond when you call us to do your will. May our lives proclaim your authority here in Cubbington and beyond in the coming days. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen.

Sermon Revd. Peter Lister Sunday 16th August 2010
Trinity 11

“Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
(Luke 18.14)

Gospel Teaching

Jesus could see through humbug.
And so the self-righteous, over-zealous so-called religious people of his age, from time to time, came in for some scathing comments from him.
What they lacked was true humility.
As far as Jesus was concerned, humility was one of the foundation stones on which daily life is constructed.

So what, then, is humility?
How do we define it?
Ever the consummate teacher, Jesus told a story that vividly pointed to what humility was about: The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
In his own eyes, the Pharisee was humble.
He observed all the rules.
He was steeped in religious tradition, and meticulously adhered to all details of the Jewish law to prove his humility, and therefore his worthiness, before God.
He was satisfied in his own mind that he was doing all that was required of him.

But he was also totally unaware of his own self-righteousness, and blind to the rigidity of his outlook.
As Jesus portrays him, the Pharisee is the complete opposite of any notion of humility.

His attitude resonates with those which Jesus describes in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Which of the four men, who passed by the injured traveller who lay by the roadside, proved to be his real neighbour?
Not the three religious men who were also Jewish, but the despised Samaritan who was considered to be beyond the pale.

We should like to believe that in a similar situation we would “go and do likewise”, or that, in today's Gospel, we would stand with the tax collector, and display the same openness and honesty before God.
Tax collectors worked for the occupying Roman powers and were both despised and considered outside proper Jewish life.
The tax collector in the parable despised himself for what he was, who he was, and what he did.
He was a social outcast “standing far off”.
He was beyond the niceties of religion.
All he could do was to open his heart: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
He was the one who showed real humility.

So how do we recognise humility?
What does it consist of?
Well, humility may involve living without recognition, or affirmation.
It’s not easy to be taken for granted, but sometimes we find ourselves in that situation.
Humility means simply getting on with it and not to crave for recognition.
Humility can also be the willingness to get involved with those we find difficult, but who do need support, however unattractive they may be.

Humility may include the willingness not to take up rigid and fixed positions of attitude and outlook in the understanding of faith.
Humility entails a continuing awareness of the need for reappraisal and reinterpretation of what we believe in the face of the constantly changing circumstances of the world around us, and our lives as we live them and know them.
The Pharisee in the parable would not, or more probably could not, do this.

Application

Those words give us the expression of humility in its simplest and most basic terms: a willingness to acknowledge our need for God.
Some years ago, there was a popular picture poster which carried the saying: “Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you try to grasp it, the more it slips through your grip.”
Humility is the same.
We cannot grasp it, or even work at being humble.
We can only open ourselves to God, who makes himself known to us in countless different ways, often through the needs of others.
The paradox is that we can only be open to them in proportion as we are open to God.
In that openness lies true humility, humility which enriches our life, and becomes its own reward.
“Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

Sermon. Revd.Peter Lister
Trinity 9
Aug 1st 2010

“Jesus said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’”
(Luke 12:15)

Illustration

‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’
These are words in our New Testament from St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy.
Thinking of the banking crisis of 2007/08, I am very much persuaded of the truth of those words of Paul.
Those working in certain banking sectors had, over a number of years, become very greedy indeed and became involved in risky, if not dubious, practices.
On the face of it, these practices were very lucrative indeed.
And so they were paying themselves year after year enormous bonuses.
Some were even getting in bonuses in a single year more than I have earned in the whole of my working life.
Well, when the bubble burst in such a dramatic way and the economies of our nation and most others teetered on the brink of collapse, the pigeons came home to roost with a vengeance.
And we have all been affected.
We have all paid our share to shore up certain banks and financial institutions, and will continue to pay for many years yet.
Our new government, as was inevitable, have started to make severe cuts in its effort to balance the nation’s books at some time in the future.

We are all affected and face a long haul of austerity before we can get back to the halcyon days before the banking collapse.
Those of us who were relying on savings to supplement income, know only too well how those returns have been slashed to virtually nothing.
But have those very bankers and financial whiz kids who caused our problems suffered as well?
True, some lost their jobs.
But the remainder are still, we hear, getting huge bonuses.
Who was the idiot who first dreamed up the idea of giving their employees bonuses?
Perhaps you can hear a certain amount of sour grapes from someone who worked most of his life with an organisation that never dreamt of giving out bonuses.
Well, I don’t know about you but I feel a little better for having got some of my grouches off my chest

As we have heard, St. Paul once wrote, ‘Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.’
And he was clearly echoing something of the teachings of Jesus.
There are four Gospels in our New Testament that tell the story of Jesus.
Each of these four Gospels has its quite distinctive and characteristic style and concerns.
With Luke’s Gospel we find a particular emphasis on prayer and on the role of women in Jesus’ ministry.
But another of his major themes is wealth and poverty.
Today we reflect on one of many passages in Luke’s Gospel warning us that our attitude to wealth and possessions is a crucial test of actually being a follower of Jesus.

Gospel Teaching

The parable of the rich fool that Jesus used to make his point seems pretty straightforward, but there are depths and challenges within it which emerge if we note its wider context.
The parable is prompted by a man appealing to Jesus to intervene in a dispute about an inheritance.
He has a grievance against his brother, who he says hasn’t shared out their inheritance – probably the family land.
We have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the complaint, which may well have arisen from an acute sense of frustration in the face of injustice.
This man no doubt felt as if his life was on hold until he could get what he believed should be his.
Surely, he thought, Jesus, of all people, would take up his cause?

But Jesus would not be drawn into the dispute.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation, he discerned a deeper need than sorting out the alleged injustice.
Jesus saw that even if he were to intervene and try to resolve the dispute, the man would still face a much more basic challenge.
So Jesus turned the conversation around.
The man’s request identified a problem in his brother for Jesus to solve, but Jesus responded by warning the man of a problem within himself that needed his urgent attention.
He was prey to the power of greed or covetousness, and it is this that he must deal with.

The essence of the problem is simple.
We are led to think that possessing more and more will give us an increasingly full experience of life.
This is the attitude displayed by the man in the parable, driving his compulsive desire to accumulate wealth.
But this, as God puts it bluntly at the end of the parable, is just stupid.
It is an idiotic misunderstanding of what life is really about and what makes for the really good life.
And this misunderstanding has tragic consequences.
The rich fool’s greed isolates him in a world where he is self-centred, aware just of himself: he addresses only himself and he is completely self-absorbed in his fantasies of future happiness.

He has not learnt what so much of the Scriptures were teaching.
The Bible vision of well-being is at its heart not simply about the individual and their happiness but more about each person within the wider community and its well-being.
In order to flourish and be happy we need to be rightly related to other people, but this man’s greed has blinded him to this fundamental aspect of what it is to be human.

Shortly after this passage Jesus teaches his disciples the positive ideal that contrasts with the rich man’s attitude.
Just as they receive abundantly from God, so they must give generously.
Many years ago I was in charge of a church which was not really paying its way.
But we decided that out of any money raising activities, 10% of the proceeds should go to a charitable cause.
One year there was a major earthquake in Italy and we had our summer fair at the time.
The council made the decision to give 15% to the disaster appeal.

We were not popular with the other churches in the parish for doing that, but I think it was that sort of generous response that actually led to the finances of the church getting onto an even keel.

Application

But let’s get back to that passage from Luke’s Gospel.
Luke may well leave us wondering about the man who asked Jesus to sort out his dispute with his brother - and what he made of Jesus’ response.
Like many others who put questions or requests to Jesus, he receives a response which opened up quite different issues from those he thought were important.
We might profitably reflect on his unsettling experience and ask ourselves whether we also tend to identify problems in other people and become so preoccupied with our grievances that dangerous attitudes grow within us and come to need urgent attention.

None of us can assume that the specific warning Jesus issues here about covetousness does not concern us.
Whatever our financial resources might be, we need constantly to be reminded of how the compulsive power of greed can eat away at our capacity to live the life to which Jesus calls us.
And those of us who are prepared to recognise that we are wealthy – and by most of the world’s standards we are indeed wealthy – need to reflect on the tragic stupidity of the man in the parable.
That parable is a challenge to us all today.

Sermon.  Richard Spicer July 25th 2010.  

Mark 1. 14-20. 

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, help us through the working of your Holy Spirit to understand the words of your servant Mark for us this evening. Amen. 

Can you work out who I am talking about in this story?

A father put pressure on his son to follow him into the family business. The son did not want to be in the family business. He wanted to be a poet. The father told him in no uncertain terms that this was just a silly dream. His father also said that the business would guarantee him a solid income and as it had been going for 4 generations the family honour was involved as well. He really must carry it on! But the son was not interested at all; he was determined to be a poet. And he did become a poet, a rather well-known poet. In fact he became Poet Laureate and when he died he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Do you know who he was? Yes, he was Sir John Betjeman.

Here’s another family story. The great grandfather started a sign-writing business locally around 1900. He had 3 sons. His eldest son was killed in the First World War but his middle son took up the mantle and helped by the youngest son and their sister he expanded the business first into painting and decorating and then into building houses, several of which were, and still are, on Kenilworth Road in Cubbington. His elder son inherited the business and kept it going until his retirement. His elder son – also the fourth generation you will notice – was not interested in building and keeping the family business alive. He went into healthcare and latterly into preaching!

So I have something in common with and can empathise with Sir John Betjeman!

How does this relate to our Gospel reading this evening? Jesus calling his first disciples? Well, the scripture tells us that James and John were at least second generation fisherman as their father Zebedee was also there. And with the staple diet of the time including fish, their family may well have been fisherman on Lake Galilee for 4 or even more generations. James and John, and probably Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, unlike Sir John Betjeman and myself, had gone into their family businesses which I am sure would have pleased their fathers. And I expect that they thought this was how it would be until they reached the age of retirement – if indeed they had such a thing a thing in those days. 

But, of course, the scripture this evening tells us that this was not the end of their story, this was just the beginning. Along comes Jesus one day as they are tending their nets and tells them to “follow me, I’ll have you fishing for people!” James, John, Simon Peter and Andrew, we are told, did not hesitate for a moment – they stopped what they were doing immediately and followed Jesus. 

Let’s stop ourselves for a moment and consider two things.

Firstly, the enormity of that statement. The power of their call by Jesus outweighed everything else in their lives – their families, their family businesses – their livelihood – all paled into insignificance at that moment. They could not have known what they were going to be doing, only that Jesus was calling them. And this was more than enough for them to drop every thing. 

Secondly, let’s consider our situation, our call from Jesus in this light, for everyone here tonight has been called by Jesus, otherwise you would not be here. Jesus has called us all individually to follow him and to keep following him. Are we prepared to do that? To keep following him on the path he sets out for us. It’s not easy, in fact at times it is near impossible with the way the world is out there. However, we should persevere as God has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us and his Grace to help us. 

Sir John Betjeman rejected his father’s plea to go into the family business to pursue and gain his dream as a poet.

I chose not to go into the family business to pursue my chosen career.

These are both personal goals and dreams.

James and John, Simon Peter and Andrew turned their backs on their families when Jesus called them to the massively important task of being his first disciples and “fishers of people.”

Tonight, Jesus calls us to put him first in our lives and to be his disciples and “fishers of people” here in Cubbington and beyond. It is the next part of OUR story and, like the story of those first disciples called by Jesus 2000 years ago, what an exciting and wonderful story it will be.  Amen.

 Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, help us to be like your first disciples and respond when you call us to do your will. May our lives proclaim your Gospel here in Cubbington in the coming days. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen.

Sermon  Sunday 11th July 2010   6pm  Peter Took    

Mark 7: 1-23            

I read recently about someone who was  eating  muesli for  breakfast when he found what he thought was a  slightly-larger-than-usual sultana. Fortunately, he examined it carefully  and discovered that in fact  it was a small, dried up lizard! 

The muesli had been imported  and the tiny creature had somehow slipped through the net.  The makers and suppliers of that brand of muesli were fined heavily for failing to take enough care about their product.

Stories such as this make us feel quite queasy.  What goes into our mouths can be pretty worrying, but what comes out of our mouths can be just as bad.  In the passage we have just heard, Jesus is saying that we should be a lot more worried about the words  that come out of our mouths than the food that goes into them.  What would happen if we were fined each time we said  something bad about someone else,  or had a nasty thought?

The spread of Swine Flu some months ago  led to a widespread  washing of our  hands at each stage of the day and particularly before meals.  At services of Holy Communion,  the sharing of bread and wine was  identified as a health risk and as a direct result, many churches now insist that  those who are administering the bread should clean their hands before so doing.  This is usually carried out

by using a cleaning gel. This is quick and easy,   and basically works well.  You know the ad … “kills 99% of all known germs” 

However … consider it in this way.  The body and blood of Jesus  when taken in faith at a Communion Service  is meant to cleanse us and heal us.   We are now faced with the dreaded rules of Health and Safety becoming super-imposed on the Sacrament of God!  I don’t feel that this is a problem, as such.  It is good common sense to wash our hands before any sort of food preparation  and I am happy to accept  that  this applies to administering  the bread at a Communion.

But I wonder how this will be remembered and interpreted in 20 years time?  And in 50 years?  By then this modern variation  on the theme of washing of hands

might have become a man-made ceremony  held to be  just as important … or more important … than the actual communion. Personal hygiene is a great thing

 but it does nothing for the purity of the soul. 

 In this country we might not always  wash our hands before we eat  but  we do take  care to see that we keep our bodies clean.  We bath or shower frequently,

and probably use a selection of  deodorants and perfumes.  And clean clothing, of course.  Particularly in this hot and sticky weather.   

I am sure that today, and every day, all of us take care to make ourselves  look good and presentable.  We want to look good  and  we  want to smell good!

There’s nothing personal about this!  We are clean outside,  but  can the same be said about our inside?  Jesus is not so concerned about  cleaning our hands

 as he is about cleaning our hearts. In verse 15 He said:   “Nothing outside a man or woman can make them `unclean’ by going into them.  Rather, it is what comes out of a man or woman that makes them `unclean.’ " 

And what are  these things on the inside? Verse 21 doesn’t mince words.   whole list of nasties is provided.  Evil thoughts, sexual immorality,  theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  

 It is easy to clean up on the outside but in truth how many of us can say  that we are clean inside from all these things?  We all know the line given in the past

to children who use bad language:  “If you do that again,  you’ll have to wash out your mouth with soap and water!”  Of course,  in a literal sense that won’t solve the problem.  Similarly for us,  soap and water will not fix the problems  that we have on the inside. What comes out is a result of what is within,  and the only way to clean out the mess inside  is to allow Jesus to occupy those sinful spaces of our lives.

Quite often there are  times when,  like the Pharisees, we too are quick to make a judgement on someone based on how they might look on the outside.  All that glitters is not gold.  You can’t tell a sausage by its skin. 

A widow, who had three young children, ran a small Bed & Breakfast  establishment, that was just along the road from a hospital.   One summer evening there was a knock at the door.  She opened it to see a truly awful looking man.  His face was red and raw  and seemed swollen and lopsided.  Yet his voice was pleasant as he said,   "Good evening. Do you have a room available for tonight?  I have to be at the hospital  very early tomorrow  for further treatment to my face”.   He continued  “No-one else seems to have a vacancy.

 I guess it’s my face.  I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says that  with ongoing treatment it will improve".

For a moment she hesitated,  but then decided to offer him a room. After the evening meal, she began to talk to him and It didn’t take long  to see that this  man was something special.  He talked and played with the children, and they  responded happily.  He told her he was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease,  which was apparently a form of skin cancer.  He thanked God for  giving him the strength to keep going.  He said the Lord was the captain of his life  and the Master of his soul.

The next morning, as he was leaving,   he said,  "Could I please come back and stay  the next time I have a treatment?”  He paused a moment and then added,

 "Your children made me feel at home.  Grownups are bothered by my face,  but children don’t seem to mind."  She said he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived with little gifts for her and the children.   In the months that followed he came often  and there was never a time   that he did not bring little presents. 

The widow often thought of  a comment her next-door neighbour made  after the man left that very first morning. "Did you keep that awful looking man last night?

 I turned him away!  You can lose customers by putting up such people!".    She thought to herself  “Well, maybe I did lose the odd booking once or twice,  but I know our family will always be grateful to have known him.   From him we learned  what it is to accept the bad without complaint,   and the good with gratitude to God”.

That man was ugly and unclean  on the outside,   but on the inside he was filled with the presence of God.  That is what God wants for you and me; to be pure of heart.  Be careful not to allow earthly customs and traditions  to rule your life. 

The world wants you to look good on the outside,  but God wants you to look good on the inside.  At the end of this life it will not matter what perfume you used  or how well you dressed. What will matter is that you are in a right relationship with God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

That would probably  have been  a good moment to end, but I’d like to share with you a personal story connected with verses  6 & 7  of Mark  chapter 7,  which have a special significance for me. It’s the quotation from Isaiah 29. 

For most of my life up to my early 40s I had been a regular church attender and thought of myself as “A Christian”.  Then, one Sunday morning,  I heard those words read as the lesson.  I must have come across it before, but that morning I was hearing it for the first time.

“These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”.

Instantly, I recognised myself!  It was a true description of me.  I went to church, said all the set pieces,  but that was as far as it went! And that was when I became a Christian.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Way back in the 13th century,  St Richard of Chichester wrote a prayer. In the 20th century,  more or less in its original form,  that prayer became a song in the musical “Godspell”.
 

Day by day, 

 Oh Dear Lord,  three things I pray.

To see thee more clearly,  Love thee more dearly,  Follow thee more nearly,

Day by day

Lord, help us to see you more clearly,  knowing that with that clarity  the man-made laws and traditions of this world will dim, as your light shines.

 Help us to love you more dearly,  as we receive your Grace, freely given.

And help us to follow you more nearly, in the Glory of your Kingdom.  Amen