Always Hope

This sermon was preached last week on the Gospel of the day: Mark 8:31-38  (NIV)   31  He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.  32  He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.   33  But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”   34  Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  35  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.  36  What good is it for someone to gain the whole worl...

I know it's neither topical nor timely, but this is my Palm Sunday sermon. I decided to start uploading sermons to the blog with this one, but it's taken me a couple of weeks to grapple with the technology. Let's hope it works: (If you listen, could you let me know if there are any problems, thanks) For me this was an important sermon. I felt it was a moment to get closer to the heart of Christian discipleship, what it might cost us, and where it might lead us. It was at this time that I wrote this post on "of gods and men".

The image I posted on Good Friday has filled my mind these last few days of Lent. The cross looms large over the whole Gospel story, as we follow the Son of Man who came to give his life as a ransom for many. And if we really want to follow him, the first thing he says is "take up your cross". In a sermon on Palm Sunday (it's on our church website if you are very keen) I reflected that Jesus calls us to follow him and die. I was struck by this blog post from Joseph Black, and his reflection on success: Western Christianity has no category for martyrdom. We are so oriented towards and seduced by our host culture’s worship of success that persecution and martyrdom would seem the opposite of achieving God’s ‘blessing’ on our ministries and on our lives. This is such a profound challenge that I haven't been able to walk away from it. What does it mean, and what would it mean, to lose our lives for Jesus? Then last night, in a moment of confirmation or serendipity, I foun...

Yesterday at Kea we had an excellent sermon from Charles Burgess of CPAS : a simple and effective explanation of servant leadership, based on Matthew 20:20-28. It's good to be reminded of what kind of ministry Jesus calls his disciples to: You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,and whoever wants to be first must be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. I feel strongly that this is another of those parts of the Bible that is well known, but little understood. So many Christian groups seem to embody a style of leadership that is the opposite of what Jesus lays before us here: bombastic, self-promoting, controlling, abusive. And often it's not just the leaders who inflict this on others, but the people themselves who collude in embracing thi...