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Someone had to do Something

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A monologue from the perspective of Judas, prior to the Last Supper.

I say ‘the perspective’, but it might be better to say ‘a perspective’ as this piece probably has a more compassionate and understanding interpretation of Judas than Christian tradition as always portrayed.

The name’s Judas.
Jesus called me – like he did the rest of us.
I’ve listened to his teaching.
Travelled far and wide.
He commissioned me with the rest,
with authority to heal and preach and cast out demons.

And boy does the world need that.
The evil powers of the Romans,
Influencing everything.
They’ve got the pressure on the temple leaders.
Pushing them into a corner.
Corrupting our religion, our way of life. 
Something’s got to change.

And Jesus’ radical message was one I was wholeheartedly behind.
Down with the Romans and their defilement of our country!
I’m ready to take them on by force.
And there’s others too.
There’s plenty of people who want to see them gone.
I’m ready to rally the troops when Jesus gives the signal.

In the meantime,
I’ve been serving the cause as treasurer for Jesus and the group.
Managing the money,
Making sure we have enough to get by.
It’s hard work – life on the road,
Not knowing whether we’ll have a safe place to sleep each night.

Especially when Jesus doesn’t exactly tell us the itinerary for the week.
It’s hard to plan ahead when you don’t know where you’ll be by nightfall!
And then he goes and disappears to ‘be with his father’,
without even telling us where he’s going!
The number of times we’ve not been sure where he is.
Worried they’ve captured him.

And given how increasingly unsafe it’s been getting,
That’s been really concerning me.

And then walking into Jerusalem,
Boy oh boy I thought it was the moment,
Riding a donkey,
And parading in from the east,
just as Pilate was doing so from the west.
The crowds gathered,
“Hosannah to the Son of David!”

I was getting ready to sound the trumpet,
And rally the troops,
I knew we could do it,
Liberate our people,
And get back to being the community of God we’re called to be.

But then, he went and trashed the temple!
We’re meant to be overthrowing the Romans,
Not our own!
I mean, yes the Romans have a lot of control in the temple,
But trashing the temple,
Think about the optics!
That looks like an attack on our people,
Not the Roman puppeteers who exert their power. 

It was at that point,
I decided that the pressure must have been getting to Jesus.
He was risking everything,
The impetus that’s been building among the people,
That I’ve been building among those willing for an uprising.
Now people were beginning to doubt.

So I decided,
I’ve got to do something.
I’d save the programme.
Steady the ship.
Steer us in the right direction.

And Passover is just the time to do it.
Jerusalem is full of people remembering how God delivered Isreal from slavery of Egypt.
Full of people who will be on right side of the fight.
Now God will deliver us from the oppression of the Romans,
Just like he did for Israel when the escaped Egypt.  

So I quietly went to see the Chief Priests.
Asked them what they wanted,
And they said, if I hand him over to them,
Betray him,
They’ll sort the rest. 
And pay me 30 pieces of silver for it!

Betrayal – that’s a loaded word.
I wasn’t betraying him,
I was just creating the right circumstances for Jesus to do what Jesus came to do.
Revolution.
Reform.
Out with the Roman’s – in with God’s way.
God’s kingdom – come on earth.

So if Jesus is Messiah,
The one who has come to save,
When he gets arrested,
Captured,
They he’ll have no choice,
But to make the call to arms,
And we’ll gathering in great numbers,
Overthrow the Romans,
And we’ll be liberated at last.

And 30 pieces of silver,
That will go a long way to convince the people on the fence about joining us in the uprising.
It’s an added sweetener,
An investment to help the cause.

The Romans will all be taken off guard,
And the revolution will really begin.
It’s not betrayal.
It’s just doing what needs to be done.
Nudging things forwards,
Before the momentum gets lost.

It’s a weight of responsibility.
I feel it heavily.
But it’s the burden I have to bear,
The sacrifice I make,
for the cause of the kingdom of God.
I’ve just got to do something.

All Posts, Blog, Easter, Meditations, Poetry, Resources, Seasonal

Gathering to celebrate

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They gathered,
In that upper room,
To celebrate the feast.

A space prepared,
To welcome them,
Together and in peace.

The city
had been stirred,
When Jesus rode in on an ass.

He upturned
Tables in the temple,
And said what would come to pass.

When walking from the temple,
They’d said
‘Look how large and grand’

Yet He’d replied
One day soon,
No stone would be left to stand.

Sun will darken
Moon go dim
Stars disappear from the heavens.

And the powers
and principalities
of all the earth be shaken.

And now he says,
Quite openly,
My time is getting near,

So let us
Celebrate the feast,
It is that time of year.

The disciples
Didn’t understand
All these things he’d said.

They talked together
Pondering
What really lay ahead.

But despite all that,
As was his call,
They’d gathered there as one.

With hopes and fears
Uncertainties,
Unsure what was to come.

So now,
In this borrowed room
They gathered side by side,

To celebrate
The Passover,
With us, God abides.

All Posts, Blog

Striving for the good of God to come out on top

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I don’t often talk about the devil and spiritual warfare. From memory, I don’t think I’ve often preached on the topics, bar a fleeting reference or a small segue before coming back to the main sermon trajectory.

It’s probably a failing on my part as a church leader that I don’t. But I so often feel more drawn to preaching on God’s all embracing love, God’s unwavering grace, God’s transforming hope. Bad and evil don’t feel quite so attractive!

But this past week, when I sat down to read the lectionary passages for this Sunday (25th August 2024), I was immediately certain that God was asking me to preach on Ephesians 6:10-20 – the armour of God.

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

Ephesians 6:10-11

Day by day, as I came to reflect on the passage a bit more, and listen for God’s voice as I discern what God is willing me to say – there was silence.

When I’m doing sermon prep, there’s often a point where I’ve got more ideas that I can handle and I have to stop praying and thinking and start praying and thinning down! But this time, just getting something onto the page wasn’t happening.

It was like there was a brick wall between me and God. Between me and inspiration, Between me and hearing the voice of Spirit. I still knew this was the passage I needed to preach on – despite multiple little voices in my head saying; ‘I’ve got it wrong’, ‘dig out an old sermon instead’, ‘maybe this isn’t the right passage’.

Those voices were strengthening, but at the same time, the voice of personal experience – that when a sermon feels hard to bring to birth, sticking at it and continuing to wait on God always reaps results.

In many ways, my experience tells me that the harder I find a sermon is to craft – the more right it is for me to craft it and preach it.

By Thursday morning, I had reached the last bit of time I had to craft a sermon due to then having a couple days of leave. I was trying desperately to remain faithful and trust God – at the same time as beginning to feel a sense of panic – ‘what if I don’t get this sermon crafted today?’. ‘God I ain’t going to preach on spiritual warfare on Sunday without a plan – come on and help me here!’.

I turned to some commentaries and as I opened up Tom Wright’s ‘for everyone’ commentary notes on this passage everything began to make sense.

Tom writes about his own experience with this passage, and multiple barriers he experienced. My experience was no different. The reality is that preparing to preach on spiritual warfare was itself spiritual warfare.

As soon as I came to name that truth – inspiration struck, and the words flowed. Amazing really, that my writing was unlocked by simply recognising that my seeking to craft a sermon was being hampered by the spiritual battle between good and evil. It was like a doorway was suddenly added to my wall. A door was unlocked. A barrier removed.

And then since that moment of writing, I’ve come against multiple things in life that have been personal discouragements. Hurting me. Getting me down. Knocking my confidence. Tiring me out.

But as I come back to reflect on this sermon on the armour of God – I’ve come to realise that those personal discouragements and knocks are evil at work – trying to push back against the work of God and the flourishing of goodness in the world.

Once again, as so often happens for me, before I can preach on a passage, that passage needs to speak to me.

So today, as I put on the armour of God, and I preach on Ephesians 6:10-20, I will preach with all I have, heart on sleeve. Evil will not win, because good is stronger than evil. God is more powerful that any other. The good of God, when we seek it and strive for it – will always come out on top.

Featured Image: the path up Box Hill, Surrey. The journey up can be hard work – but the view’s that are revealed once you’re there are breath-taking. Hard work, diligence and ‘sticking at it’ pay off!

All Posts, Blog, Pentecost, Prayer, Seasonal

Come Holy Spirit

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Come Holy Spirit.

One of the shortest and simplest prayers in all history.
Yet a prayer with power and breath and depth beyond measure.
For in praying Come Holy Spirit,
We invite you, God, to come to us.

We know you’re already here.
Already with us.
But we forget, sometimes.
Sometimes we go about our lives, our discipleship, our worship,
Forgetting, that Spirit, you’re with us.

So we pray,
Come Holy Spirit.

We open ourselves to your already present presence.
Come Holy Spirit.

Come and encourage us.
Come and inspire us.
Come and heal us.
Come and strengthen us.
Come and empower us.
Come and hold us.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Originally written for an ecumenical Pentecost service in Effingham and Little Bookham, Surrey, 19th May 2024.

The prayer ‘Come Holy Spirit’ was inspired by the work of Rabanus Maurus, a 9th Century Frankish Monk, who wrote a song ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’, (Come, Creator Spirit). in the 13th Century it developed into a familair prayer across the Western Church, ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus’ (Come Holy Spirit).

All Posts, Blog, Easter, Resources, Seasonal

Unbounded Love, Bound Up

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“So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him.”

“Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.”

John 18:14 & 24

Over the season of Lent 2024 I’ve been journeying with the theme ‘Unbounded Love’, a phrase that appears within Charles Wesley’s Hymn ‘Love Divine’, and the title of the 2024 lent resources from The Methodist Church.

So as I began to prepare worship for Holy Week, I have been struck by the way John 18 refers to how Jesus was bound by those who arrested him, leading me to write this meditative reflection.

It could be used on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, as a tool to reflect on the arrest of Jesus, and the uncertainty this would have left his followers with.

Unbounded Love, Bound Up

They bound him,
After they arrested him,
After the betrayer had kissed him,
After he had told Judas to do what he had to do.
What now?

They bound him.
The one who said come to me and I will give you rest.
The one who said he had come to give us life in all its fulness.
The one who said he would quench our thirst.
What now?

They bound him.
The one who showed compassion to the marginalised.
The one who offered release to those bound by evil.
The one who healed the sick and brought hope to so many.
What now?

Jesus – the one who came and showed us what real love looks like,
Compassionate, caring, nurturing, welcoming,
Love unconditional,
Love unlimited,
Love unbounded,

And his unbounded love angered them.

And so they bound him.
Unbounded love, bound up.
What now?

All Posts, Blog

Letting go of jumble on the jumble sale

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After my wife and I married, we spent 6 happy years as part of Mount Charles Methodist Church, St Austell, Cornwall.

Among the congregation was a wonderful lady named June. She played the church organ and, she was also the proud and seemingly life-long custodian of one of the brik-a-brak stalls at every church fayre. if my memory serves me correctly, it was jewellery, broaches and necklaces and earrings and other shiny things.

As every church fayre approached, the boxes of goods would come out of wherever June stored them, she would lovingly unpack and display the goods on the table ready for sale.

Then at the end of each event, she would equally as lovingly box the remaining items up, and take custody of them until the next church fayre.

The problem was, that bar the odd item, the same items went back into the boxes that had come out. Much of what I would lovingly call ‘jumble’ never got sold, but was kept hold of.

I’ve been thinking about June and her stall this week following last Sundays lectionary reading of John 2:13-25. It is the episode in the gospel story when Jesus upturns the tables in the temple, and lets the animals go free declaring ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’

In a dramatic story, Jesus declares the temple had become a marketplace, challenging the unjust trading, and the way was distracting people from God.

The passage goes to to share how Jesus talked of his own body as a temple (verse 19 & 21). The physical temple in Jerusalem was the place God dwelt with Gods people, but Jesus suggests he himself, his body, is a temple, and points us to see that Jesus was a person in whom God dwelt.

Elsewhere in the bible, we read a further reflection on ‘temple’ places where God dwells. In the book of 1 Corinthians 6, we read “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?”.

Which brings me back to June and her brick-a-brak. If we are temples of the Holy Spirit – people in whom God dwells – is there jumble on the jumble sale of our lives that needs upturning and taking out? Is there stuff in our lives that distracts us from God?

Sometimes we know there are things in our lives we need to let go of, but we hold on because they are familiar, comfortable, certain, while also knowing they distract us. Perhaps there may even be times when we hold onto the jumble because it is a distraction, and we’re fearful and what God will say when we remove them.

‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’

Are we ready and willing to allow Jesus to help us remove the distraction inducing jumble, to make space in our lives and our hearts, for Jesus?

Are we ready to allow ourselves to experience the depth & breadth of his love?

May we be willing to allow Jesus to upturn that which needs upturning, that we might turn to be more fully who God calls us to be.

Blog, Poetry

Farewell 2023

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And so we come,
To say farewell,
To 2023.
Through twists and turns,
And ups and downs,
An adventure we did see.

When the year began,
Home was still,
By sea in Bognor Regis.
Sea winds gusting,
Sea gulls squawking,
And lots that now we miss.

The months preparing,
To say goodbye
Were hard to say the least.
Letting go of what’s known,
And beginning the new,
Can be a scary beast.

Amidst it all,
Life threw some punches,
With Lydia unexpectedly under the knife.
One appendix less,
And now she’s better,
And back to being full of life.

Louise kept on crafting,
Wool, fabric and stiches
Stashed in every available corner.
Rebekah keeps writing,
And singing and dancing,
And Dan, well he just got a bit bolder.

The country saw a coronation,
And more u-turns than we want to remember,
Though at least Rwanda is paused for the mo,
And yet again
we didn’t win Eurovision,
But at least it Sam gave a good show.

And so we said
our fond goodbyes,
To work, to school, to friends.
Our lives packed up,
Into boxes on vans,
Our time in Bognor now ends.

And then we landed
In a new place,
Leatherhead was to become home.
It took some time,
But it’s become exciting
to have new spaces to roam.

We’ve felt loved, accepted,
And touched by the welcome
We’ve received from new neighbours and friends.
It’s made it much easier,
To let go of what was,
Though we still miss the people we’ve left.

So thanks to all those
Who’ve been part of our year,
Whether you’re near or far.
In the year that’s to come,
We pray you will know,
just how loved and appreciated you are.

Advent, Blog, Published Talks, Resources, Seasonal

Advent: A time of Wanting

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The 3rd in a 3 part series for the start of Advent

Advent.
A time of wanting.

What do you want for Christmas?
A new bike, a new microwave,
A box of chocolates, but not one with the minty ones in…

This world is filled with wants.

Adverts, telling us what we want.
Watching the news and desperately wanting peace where there is conflict.
Business Enticing us with wants.
Hearing of friends suffering, and longing for them to be freed of their pain.
Supermarkets tempting us with treats and tantalizing tastes.
Wanting to live in a world where the most basic of human needs are met by all in this world.

But how do we distinguish our desires between selfishness and selflessness.
How do we keep our wanting in check with God’s wanting for us?

And in that moment,
advent connects with the climax of the story.
Christs words in Gethsemane echo in our ears:
“Father, not what I want, but what you want.”

Advent.
A time of wanting.

Wanting as Jonah did, inside the belly of a fish, for 3 nights praying, re-orientating himself from his own wants and desires.
Not what I want, but what you want Lord.

Wanting as Mary did, as she accepted the angel’s word: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Luke 1:38
Not what I want, but what you want Lord.

Advent.
A time of wanting.
Yet – what are we wanting?

A time of watching.
Yet – what are we watching for?

A time of waiting.
Yet – What are we waiting for?

Advent, Blog, Published Talks, Resources, Seasonal

Advent: A time of Watching

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The 2nd of a 3 part series for the start of advent.

Advent.
A time of watching.

Watching the news.
Watching the world go by
Watching children, and grandchildren play.
Watching the sun rise and set,
Watching the seas roll and break on the shore,
Watching the trees bend under the weight of the wind

Yes watching, it seems, is not merely seeing.
Watching goes deeper than simply observing and acknowledging what we see.
Watching involves interpreting, it involves foreseeing,
Looking at both the now, and the not yet,
The present and the yet to be.

Advent.
A time of watching.

Watching, as Noah did, for the waters to recede.

Watching as All Israel did,
watching for the Messiah,
But when messiah came, they rejected, ignored, dismissed.
The Messiah that came was not what they had been watching for.

Advent.
A time of watching.

What are we watching for?
Watching for what we want God to do?
Or watching for God’s voice, God’s action in this world?

Advent.
A time of watching.
A time of waiting.

Advent, Blog, Published Talks, Resources, Seasonal

Advent: A time of waiting

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The first of a 3 part reflection for Advent.

Advent.
A time of waiting.

Waiting for the bus,
the TV programme to start,
waiting for test results,
for an appointment,
for a child to be born,
for dinner to cook
still waiting for the bus.

Waiting inhabits most areas of our lives, in one way or another.
Sometimes waiting passes by unnoticed.
At others, waiting is a heavy millstone around our necks.

Sometimes waiting can be a joyous and uplifting time,
At others, it can be draining of life.

Advent.
A time of waiting.

Waiting as Abraham and Sarah did, waiting for God’s unexpected and seemingly impossible promise to come true, that in their old age, they would bear a child.

Waiting as Joseph did, rejected by his brothers, imprisoned for years, yet when all hope seemed lost, his liberation comes as he interprets dreams, and finds purpose.

Waiting as the Israelites did, time and time again, for 40 years, to reach the promised land. Waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled.

Waiting as Mary did, having been visited by an angel, and told she would conceive, waiting for this Christ-child to be born.

Advent.
A time of waiting.