Mary …

We tend to use a mixture of readings from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to revisit the miracle of Jesus’s birth. Here, Matthew doesn’t tell us how the Virgin Birth took place—except that it was by the Holy Spirit. Whereas, Luke gives a little more detail, the angel telling Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her. The Virgin Birth is a divine miracle in the power of the Holy Spirit.

But Matthew does tell us two things about Jesus, one being what he does: “You shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins”. Many Jews were looking for a Messiah who would come in conquering power. But Matthew shows us the much deeper human need. Jesus comes to save us from our sins—our spiritual needs far outweighing other needs.

The miracle of the Virgin Birth is also a sign of the far greater miracle and mystery of God becoming flesh and taking his place amongst us as one of us – the Incarnation. God didn’t just send angels, prophets and messengers—he came! In Jesus, God has come close; has taken human nature and human life to himself joining human nature to his own divine being. This is all of the Grace of God, who is a God who stoops to take us by the hand. In this respect, Matthew quotes from the Old Testament: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him “Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”’ If the name Jesus is descriptive of what Jesus does, Immanuel is descriptive of who Jesus is—God with us.

The miracle of the Virgin Birth points towards both the humanity and the deity of Jesus. He was a human person born in the normal way. He is also the eternal God who has come to us—the God-man. Jesus didn’t begin his existence at Christmas, but as eternal God, entered into time and space at Christmas. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given… (Isaiah 9:6).
So many people are ‘in the dark’ about God and don’t see him clearly. Yet, if you want to know what God is like, you only have to look at Jesus. Jesus Christ is the “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing…” He is the revelation of the will, wisdom and person of God. His teaching is the
instruction of God. His death is the death of God-for-us. His resurrection is the victory of God! The meaning of Christmas is first and foremost a message of amazing grace, of a God who comes near.

The miracle of the Virgin Birth is a new creation, the beginning of a whole new world. What we can’t do for ourselves, God has and is doing. Into a world of brokenness and sadness God has come by means of a supernatural birth in the power of the Holy Spirit. But it doesn’t end there: the same Spirit who hovered over Mary and brought about a miracle of new life and transformation in her can also do the same in us! Regardless of who you are or what you have done you can start a whole new life as part of the new world. Jesus is the answer to our deepest needs. He is God come among us in order to save us from our sins and to rescue us from the deepest cause of our alienation and brokenness. When we start from the inside out we can have hope that the entirety of our life can experience the transformation he brings.

Mary, mother of Jesus (Photo by Juan Carlos Leva on Pexels.com)

Don’t be a Pharisee …

The Legend of the Stones

Two women approached a wise man and asked for instruction. One of them regarded herself as a terrible sinner. In her youth, she had deceived her husband, and she tortured herself constantly with the memory of her infidelity.

The second, on the other hand, had lived her entire life within the law and by the rules. She wasn’t conscious of any serious sin, had nothing much to reproach herself with and felt quite pleased with herself.

The wise man asked both women about their life. The first went as she confessed her great sin. She felt her sin had been so great that she had no right to expect forgiveness. The second said that she had not committed any particular sins.

The wise man said to the first woman, ‘Go, daughter of God, and look for the heaviest boulder you can find – one that you can barely manage to carry – and bring it to me.’

‘And you,’ he said to the second woman, who could not recall any serious sin, ‘go and bring me as many stones as you can carry, but they must all be small ones.’

The women went off to do as the wise man had told them. The first brought a huge boulder; the second brought a whole sackful of small pebbles.

The wise man examined the stones and said, ‘Now do as follows. Take the stones back and replace each one of them exactly where you picked it up, and when you have put them all back where you found them, come back to me.’

The women went off again to carry out the wise man’s instructions. The first very easily found the place from where she had taken the huge boulder, and she replaced it where it had been. But the second had no idea where she had picked up all her little pebbles, and had to return to the wise man without having carried out his instruction.

‘You see,’ said the wise man, ‘that’s how it is with our sins. It was easy to take the big, heavy boulder back to its place because you knew exactly where you first found it. But it was impossible to remember where all those little pebbles came from.’

And to the first woman, he said, ‘You are very conscious of your sin. You carry in your heart the reproach of your husband and of your conscience; you have learned humility, and in this way you have been freed of your wrongdoing. You, however,’ he said to the second woman, who had come back still carrying her sack of little pebbles, ‘you, who have sinned in many small ways, do not know any more when and how you did wrong; you are not able to repent. You have grown accustomed to a life of little sins, to passing judgement on the sins of others while becoming more deeply entangled in your own. It has become impossible to free yourself of them.’
A story by Leo Tolstoy retold by Margaret Silf

To paraphrase from part of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18: The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like other people. He details his religious practices and self perceived righteousness and considers himself more virtuous and superior to others.

The tax collector feels unworthy and simply asks God to have mercy on him, a sinner.

Jesus states it is the tax collector and not the Pharisee who went home justified by God. God values the tax collector’s humility, not the Pharisee’s self-righteousness.

Jesus told this parable to warn those who trusted in themselves but who treated others with contempt. He warns them against spiritual pride and calls for us to have humility in prayer and in life. Our justification comes solely from God’s grace and mercy and not from our own achievements.

Humility is essential for a right relationship with God whilst spiritual pride leads to self-righteousness and being rejected by God.

It is easy to fall into the trap of behaving like the Pharisee. I know someone who, on a regular basis, beats their chest and says “I thank God I am not like other men”.

Modern day Pharisees are not all as obvious as this but are characterised by their self-righteousness, a tendency to burden others with strict rules whilst not following them themselves and a focus on power and control of over serving.

They may appear religious whilst lacking genuine faith whilst adhering to certain rules or attending church yet without a corresponding difference in their daily life. They may focus on strict adherence to rules and traditions, creating heavy burdens for others yet ignoring the spirit of the law. They judge and condemn others, even misrepresenting their motives whilst projecting their own shortcomings onto them.

They believe they are more righteous than others but are unwilling to admit to their own sins or weaknesses.

They are more concerned about other’s opinion of them and how they are seen than they are about having a genuine relationship with God.

But, even for Pharisees, there is hope.

To not be a Pharisee, hear the words of Jesus. Jesus is the Light of the world, whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.

Don’t ignore the content of what Jesus says, or you’ll miss out. Hear Jesus’s word and His message. Actively listen to Him by reading and paying attention to Scripture. If you ignore Scripture, if you ignore the Bible, if it just sits on a shelf gathering dust, then you are ignoring the word of Jesus.

Regardless of how busy we are, we make time for what matters most. Nobody is too busy to hear Jesus’s word.

Hearing Jesus’s word – reading the Bible is non-negotiable for both first-time faith and for growing faith. You can’t believe in and become like Jesus without His word. Hear His word.

See Jesus’s light. Light is a big metaphor. Jesus is an exposing light, an illuminating light, and a welcoming light.

He exposes what is hidden, calls out sin, and banishes darkness. He illuminates, revealing or making known the way, shining out in the darkness and showing us what we need to see. He is a welcoming light guiding us and inviting us home.

See the light, put your faith in Jesus, and be welcomed home. Follow Jesus’s path. Jesus’s promises of light and life are only for those who follow Him. Truly believe and truly follow Jesus.

This doesn’t mean just recognising that Jesus was a real person – and there is historical evidence of this – it means seeing and listening to Jesus, going wherever He leads and doing what He says. Literally following Him. Not just being a Christian but being a Christ-Follower. True believing where your highest allegiance is to Jesus; whatever He wants, that’s what you want.

Don’t be a Pharisee.
Hear Jesus’s word.
See Jesus’s light.
Follow Jesus’s path.
Be humble.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, all sinners.

Gratitude

The passage from Luke 17:11-19 about the ten lepers clearly corresponds with the passage from 2 Kings in which Naaman the Syrian is healed of leprosy through Elisha the Prophet.

Leprosy in Jesus’s time was a deadly skin disease. Anyone who caught it had to live away from the healthy people and had to keep a distance away. Most would join a group of other lepers and be part of a leper colony.

When the lepers call out to Jesus, they call him “Master” – just like the disciples do.

In a similar way to other instances of lepers cleansing or healing, Jesus sent the lepers to the priests to confirm the healing.

The law was that if a leper was cured, they had to go to the priest to be inspected, and if they were healed (clean), the priest would give them a certificate. Only when they have the certificate would they be allowed back into society.

Jesus sent these ten lepers to the priest before the healing took place. They were required to obey and step out in faith to be healed; and they were healed whilst on their way to the priests.

God is at work when Jesus notices and heals hurts and brokenness that are not noticed by others.

Those living on the edges of our community, who are treated as invisible because of how they look, who they are, or where they come from. Jesus notices them and loves them and calls us to do the same.

But Jesus also notices the parts of ourselves that we hide, and he heals our hidden brokenness.

Jesus cares for the marginalised. In this example of the ten lepers, at least one of them was not a Jew.

After the ten lepers were healed, and once they had their certificates from the priests, they were free to go their own way, even to rejoin their families.

Ten were healed, and one returns full of gratitude and thanksgiving. That one, as it turned out, was a Samaritan, and Jesus said to them, “Your faith has made you well (saved you).”

Jesus’s life is full of people glorifying God – from the shepherds at his birth to the centurion at his death. Here, as in many other instances, it is as a result of Jesus’s work of healing and restoration.

The right response to Jesus is to praise and glorify God.

The Samaritan recognised God at work. He understood that to thank Jesus is to glorify God. He gave the response of faithful recognition and gratitude.

All ten lepers were willing to go to the priest in faith, but only one was filled with true praise and thanksgiving.

Jesus noticed that nine of the lepers did not return to give thanks. He notices our ingratitude.

There is no reason to assume that the other nine lepers were not grateful: they may have just been too wrapped up in their relief and amazement to even think of returning to give thanks to Jesus.

But one did return to Jesus. He recognised his gratitude and returned to say thank you and to form a relationship with Jesus.

It is one thing to offer words of thanks or feel thankful, but gratitude is a state of mind which transforms us.

The leper was transformed physically, emotionally, and socially. Jesus wants to physically, emotionally, and socially transform us too.

Ingratitude is a horrible thing. It is the enemy of the soul.

St. Paul tells us we should give thanks in all circumstances. Part of the vocation of any Christian is to give thanks and praise.

We can always find reasons for gratitude before God.

The nine lepers who leave without acknowledging Jesus highlight how blessings can be missed when gratitude is absent.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which read, “I am blind, please help.”

There were only a few coins in the hat – spare change from folks as they hurried past.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. Then he put the sign back in the boy’s hand so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.

That afternoon, the man who had changed the sign returned to see how things were. The boy recognised his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

I wrote, “Today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it.”

Both signs spoke the truth. But the first sign simply the boy was blind, while the second sign conveyed to everyone walking by how they should be able to see…

When life is full of difficulty it can be hard to be full of gratitude. When things are going well we take it for granted.

Gratitude is a habit; a way of looking at the world and all the good things in it with appreciation regardless of whether we are going through the good times or the bad.

Gratitude is a heart-centred approach to being at peace with yourself, others, what you have, and the world around you.

We need to practice gratitude and give thanks and praise to God in all we do, and think and say.

Mothering Sunday

Talk from 19th March 2023

I’ll start by admitting that, whilst I was thinking about what I might say today, I was tempted to include a vote on who wants a talk about Mothering Sunday versus who wants a talk on today’s readings (Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:33-35, John 19:25b-27). Instead, in a good news bad news kind of result, you’ve got a bit of both.

The other week my husband asked me if I would be taking the Mothers’ Day break in the Lenten fast. Being me I asked why and got told it’s because it’s Respite Sunday. Well, those of us with the job title of Mother might agree that respite is a myth! So I looked it up.

In medieval times this Sunday, called Mid-Lent or Refreshment Sunday, was indeed used as a day of respite from the Lenten fast.

So why, I thought, would you break the fast, or resolution if you like, for one day when (assuming you’ve been able to keep it so far) you are half way through and it’s beginning to get easier. After all, it takes 6 weeks to make a new routine stick and only 1 to break it. Breaking the fast surely just makes it harder to keep for the final half of Lent.

Penny drops!

That’s why, I thought, because it had got easier, it’s not a temptation in the same way anymore, it’s easier to resist, that habit of having whatever it is we’ve given up is becoming a habit of not having it. We are not having to make as much effort and so the motive of Lent, the preparation, the trials, the testing need refreshing so that we are putting the same amount or even more effort into the second half of Lent as we did in the first half. It is not supposed to be easy.

So how did this become associated with Mothering Sunday? Simply because of the texts read at Mass during those medieval times which were full of many metaphors for and references to mothers; which are often linked to the personification of the church as the Bride of Christ and with the Virgin Mary.

Time passed. (It didn’t know the answer to the question). After the English Reformation (when coincidently the same readings were still being assigned to this Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer) Christians would ‘Go a Mothering’. This means they would return to their “Mother Church” for a service on this Sunday. By “Mother Church” we normally mean either the church in which we were baptised, the local parish church or the nearest cathedral (the cathedral being the “Mother Church” of all the churches in the diocese).

In more recent history, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their Mother Church, usually with their own mothers and family members.

Nowadays, we use Mothering Sunday to give thanks to all those who mother us. A day when we celebrate all who have and do give us motherly care.

Providing this love and care is, in itself, a vocation. It is a vocation of nurturing, care, love and joy. Equally, it is a vocation of tiredness and worry, pain and sacrifice.

There can be no doubt that Mary experienced all these elements of motherhood. She accepted the vocation and all the pain that was to come with it.

Jesus was born to be our Saviour and this involved Him being the Ultimate Sacrifice. In this short passage from Luke, Simeon receives Jesus like a priest receiving a sacrifice. He warns Mary that “a sword will pierce” her soul also.

We are told that Mary treasured and pondered on all these things she was told about Jesus. We can only imagine how much she may have dwelt on and worried or dreaded that time coming. Did it give her a chance to be prepared? A chance to be ready when that moment came?

Mary understood the joy of motherhood. But, she also had to understand the pain as she saw Jesus humiliated, tortured and die an extremely painful death. The sword piercing her soul.

Mary was there at important moments in Jesus’s life. Likewise, she was at the cross at His time of death. Yet, even at the moment of death Jesus’s heart is open. He sees the pain and grief of the mother who sacrificed for Him, whom He loves and respects. He sees the grief of a trusted disciple and friend and He gives them to each other to support and care for each other. He ensures that they will be okay by this act. An act of compassion at His darkest hour.

So as we move towards communion and towards our time of prayer let us bring to the Lord all our joys and sorrows. Let us bring to Him our thanks for all those who have provided us with a mothering care and all those who have been like mothers to us.

As we remember Jesus’s sacrifice for us upon the cross, His act of love, may we try and understand the pain of those who suffer out of love and may we strive to follow His example and walk in His footsteps striving to act with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and love.