by Anne Kay…..

John Newton is an inspiration to me!

That he could overcome all the challenges and persecution during  his life and come through with such a legacy of God’s Grace, that is still affecting us today.

Born 24^th July 1725 in Wapping, UK,  to a devout Nonconformist mother and merchant ship captain father. His mother taught him to read and she shared her active, living faith.

I found a post on Youtube recently called ‘Newton’s Grace’ it is based on the history of his life.

Even though his mother taught him hoping to give him a good start in life, he confesses himself, there was always a deep rage within him, partly due to his father’s absence and his sense of life’s challenges. As a young person he always seemed to be in trouble with the authorities.

Sadly his mother died from tuberculosis  when he was nearly 7 which was a a terrible shock to the young boy.  He was sent to boarding school after being expelled from previous schools. There he continued in his disruptive ways.  By the time he was 11 he was accompanying his father on  sea voyages.

While still in the Merchant Navy he had a very vivid dream. He was given a ring that if he kept it he would safe and things would go well. If he didn’t he would be on his own. There was a fellow seaman who taunted him about his faith in God and said his dream was untrue. ‘don’t believe all that stuff ‘be a real man’ so he threw the ring away.

During this time he had stayed with a dear friend of his late mother’s. she had a daughter called Mary Catlet and she became John’s ‘life-love’

‘His Polly’.

While at sea she became his reason for living. He had some shore leave and was on his way to visit Polly when he was accosted by Royal Navy thugs to serve on the HMS Harwich. The ship was patrolling the Channel during some skirmish with the French. He was 18.

He always worked hard and was eventually promoted to ‘able-bodied seaman’. Longing for a life with ‘Polly’ he attempted to desert. He was relieved of his post and sent aboard a passing slave vessel. Continue reading Sunday 21st April →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Acts 3: 12-19

Peter’s sermon to this impromptu audience begins by identifying the God he refers to as the Jewish God and this God has glorified Jesus.  William Barclay says the early preachers never regarded themselves as sources of power but only challenges of power and this he says is the key to the Christian life. ‘Not I but Christ in me’.

Peter goes on to offer mercy and warning. Those who crucified Jesus did so out of ignorance, but that ignorance is no longer possible because of the resurrection, therefore there are no excuses for rejecting Jesus.  Barclay notes the text blames the Jews for the crucifixion and this blame has played a significant part in some appalling acts of anti-Semitism over the last two thousand years.  We need to recognise that, under Roman rule, Jesus was legally executed, and that execution critiques all empires and all power systems.  The resurrection calls us to live differently, and we are all vulnerable to being sucked into systems that deliver us comfort while disempowering others.

Luke 24: 36b-48.

The details here are similar to last week’s account from John and it is slightly odd that, as Christ arrives in the midst of a discussion about the resurrection, the disciples are said to be terrified and thought they had seen a Ghost.  But Luke is using this story to point out that whatever the experience of meeting the risen Christ is it is not about being frightened by a ghost.  Jesus’ identity is verified by the marks of the crucifixion and his reality by the eating of the fish.  Both these verifications were also used in John’s Gospel which would indicate that both writers had access to similar sources, or equally possible John had access to the synoptic gospels, but his more Gnostic or spiritual agenda makes this less apparent when compared with Mark, Matthew and Luke.

Sermon

I recently watched the documentary ‘Escaping Utopia’ and the comment that really shocked me was the young mother, who was obviously miserable, living in squalor in India.  When her sister challenged her she agreed her life was miserable but added, ‘The Lord will return soon, there is so much bad in the world, he must come soon.’

I reflected sadly on all those who, like her, have endured exploitation for thousands of years on the promise that God will build a new world for the righteous.

In fact, one of the mistakes the disciples made was their expectation of a superhero messiah.  Today’s readings are about their realisation of what Jesus’ mission was really about.  The startling realisation that they are the resurrection.

The gospel writers are also encouraging us to realise that is also true for us. As Christ lived in them so Christ lives in us and in the power of Christ we are called to transform our world.

The greenies are right, there is no planet B. As followers of Jesus, we are called to build a new heaven and a new earth.  Christ is risen in us!

The post Easter gospel readings have rightly been about the first disciples meeting the Risen Christ.  The question for us in those readings is ‘how do we meet the Risen Christ’.  We also should note what the readings tell us the Risen Christ is not.

Luke is very helpful because he gives us a selection of possibilities and to truly appreciate that we must look at the textural context of today’s reading.

Jesus appears in today’s reading to all the disciples together when Peter has returned after a meeting with the Risen Christ at the empty tomb.  The couple who met Christ on the Emmaus Road have also returned and related their experiences.

This episode is opposite to the Emmaus Road encounter where the couple recognise Christ in sharing a meal after he had opened the scripture to them on the journey.  In this episode the disciples verify Christ’s identity and then he opens the scripture to them and eats with them.

So perhaps Luke is stressing that there are different ways of meeting Christ.

But the point of the Risen Christ eating a piece of fish it that the disciples are not meeting with a ghost.  So why are they frightened?

Perhaps they are frightened because of the realisation that Christ is risen in them.  They are the ones who have to build the new heaven and the new earth.  It’s a scary prospect and church history testifies that plenty of people suffered a similar fate to Jesus for standing for what is right.

The gospel writers are very clear what the resurrection is not.  Even if the challenge of the resurrection may be frightening the resurrection is not a ghost or an hallucination.  From Luke’s account the Risen Christ can be met at the empty tomb, on a journey or more particularly when we break bread with a stranger.  The Risen Christ can also be met as people gather to talk about their religious experiences.  Meeting together and sharing food together is about meeting with the Christ in each of us.

Most importantly those meetings with Christ the readings describe, involve sharing the scripture together and seeing Christ in the context of the Hebrew Scripture or Old Testament.

Some people dismiss the Old Testament, but the Gospels only make sense in the context of what has gone before.  This is apparent in the Acts reading where Peter first defines the God he is referring to from the scripture of his religious tradition before introducing Jesus. Continue reading Sunday 14th April →

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings

Isaiah 25: 6-9

This passage is part of what is referred to as ‘the Isaiah Apocalypse because the verses are seen as resembling the apocalyptic works from about the third century BCE onwards.

The passage we read contains the remarkable statement that God will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears from all faces.  Maurice Andrew suggests it is likely that the reference is not to life after death.  Instead he writes that the writer has constructed a poetic picture of the total transformation of the human condition.^[1]

Mark 16: 1-8

Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza says that Mark’s naming of Peter, Andrew, James and John at the beginning of the Gospel and naming four women at the foot of the cross at the conclusion of Jesus’ mission indicates that the disciples included both men and women.  Schüssler Fiorenza names the four women as Mary of Magdala, Mary the daughter or wife of James the younger, the mother of Joses, and Salome.

To get four women she has placed a comma in a different place to the NRSV but the original Greek text would not have had the punctuation so this is just as valid an interpretation as other translators. .^[2]

Sermon

The resurrection is not just an historical event that happened long ago, the resurrection is ongoing, and we are the resurrection in our world.

In 1971 Hodder and Stoughton published a book by Lloyd Geering called Resurrection-A Symbol of Hope.  Sir Lloyd had already caused division in the PCANZ before that.  In 1967 he was charged with “doctrinal error” and “disturbing the peace and unity of the (Presbyterian) church”.  The charge was dismissed and I doubt that any of those who brought the charge were knighted for services to Religious Education or live to be 106.

More to the point Resurrection-A Symbol of Hope pretty much sums up what Easter morning means for us.  Indeed, it is what the resurrection means for all Christians past present and future.

In our reading from Mark’s Gospel the heavenly messenger tells the women at the empty tomb that Jesus is not there, he has been raised.  Then he gives them a mission:

‘But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him just as he told you.’ (Mark 16:7)

We can’t make a pilgrimage to Christ’s tomb because he is not there.  There are plenty of tombs of great figures in the past that are major tourist attractions but not the tomb of Jesus.

The Risen Christ is going on ahead of us and has gone on ahead of us for more than two thousand years. Furthermore, the women were instructed to tell the disciples that the Risen Christ will meet them in Galilee. That was their home town and Christ meets us in our home, the place where we live, earn our living, raise our families and so on.  As Bill Wallace wrote ‘Christ is risen in our lives’.

The Risen Christ is a symbol of hope, and we are all called to follow that Christ and be that Christ in our world.

Maurice Andrew suggests the writer of our reading from Isaiah has constructed a poetic picture of the total transformation of the human condition.

That makes the passage an ideal reading for Easter Sunday because that is the message of the resurrection. It was the call from the empty tomb to the disciples who disserted Jesus after he was arrested. Continue reading Sunday 31st March →