“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?
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.
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?
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?
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.
If you’re looking for a book which helps you to encounter more of God – then this could just be what you’re looking for.
God Soaked Life, by Chris Webb, begins with an imaginative parable which paints a scene of life with God as living in a ‘unifying presence of the community of love’, setting the scene for the rest of the book.
Through the journey of the book, Webb highlights the invitational nature of scripture, where he suggests God is inviting us to live and love in community. We are all a work in progress, none of us are ever perfect, but regardless, we are valued in God’s Kingdom community. God’s love overflows for us, and God invites us to overflow in love for others – simple because we love as God loves.
Webb encourages us to embrace the vulnerability of honestly, in prayer, in community, in relationship with God, and accept God’s invitation to live a life soaked in God, day, by day, day. And as we do, we discover just how deeply God is already in all things.
I found reading God Soaked Life by Chris Webb an easy, yet riveting and enlightening read, that reframed and deepened my own understanding of what it means to live in relationship with God. Living a life of God Soaked Love, God Soaked community, God Soaked Life.
God Soaked Life: Discovering a Kingdom Spirituality, by Chris Webb is published by Hodder Faith.
ISBN: 9781473665286
The below service from leatherhead Methodist Church includes me preaching with reference to this book, in particular the opening imaginative parable.
You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Matthew 5:13
Developed from a sermon preached at Felpham Methodist Church, West Sussex, on 5th February for their Vision Sunday. The full audio recording of the sermon is available below.
Audio recording
Compost for the vegetable patch
When we moved into our home, the garden was a mess. the bushes and weeds hadn’t been pruned regularly, and so it had all become rather overgrown. but one day, as we cut back some of the overgrown bushes, I was delighted to find a compost bin.
That compost bin now sits proudly on the corner of the vegetable patch, and in it we collect the grass cuttings, vegetable peelings and the occasional mouldy orange – and over time the worms do their thing and it all becomes compost, which has helped to boost the soil and grow great plants and crops on our veggie patch.
In the last weeks, all the autumn’s offerings have meant the compost bin has been overflowing, and I recently had to dig out some from out of the bottom to make space for more to be added.
Compost is great for the garden, but only when it is used. My compost will never serve its purpose if I leave it in the compost bin. it needs working into the soil to fulfil its purpose.
Jesus’ words ‘you are the salt of the earth’ in Matthew 5 are often understood as calling us, as salt, to flavour the earth, the world, will God’s goodness. But sometimes this can also lead to seeing the world as other than ‘us’, and something to not be directly engaged in, for fear of being tarnished by an unsalted world.
But, while the idea of being people who bring the flavour of God to the world can be a helpful metaphor – I find another interpretaiton equally helpful, if not more so.
Because in Jesus day, I don’t think they had table salt as we do today. So the word we read as ‘salt’ might have meant something slightly different to Jesus first hearers.
In the dead sea area of Palestine, minerals we now know as phosphate were plentiful, and used to fertilize the ground and were spread and dug into the land.
So when we read Jesus saying you are the salt of the earth, could Jesus actually have been saying you are the minerals of the soil? The compost for the vegetable patch?
In many ways I find that a comfort and encouragement. That might seem odd… why would I find encouragement in being told I am a mouldy orange or pile of potato peelings?
But for me, I find that an encouragement because it reminds me that despite my own self-doubt, my imperfections, my brokenness, my humanity, my own feelings that I can never live up to what God wants for me – God says you have great potential.
Even in the mess of my life, there is goodness and fruitfulness to be discovered.
Jesus doesn’t want perfect human specimens, stored up in a salt cellar of equally human specimens, looking out on the world.
Jesus wants us to be real. Human. Jesus wants us, calls us, loves us, warts and all… And invites us to be salt of the earth, the mineral for the soil, potato skins, banana peels and grass cuttings – compost for the veggie patch, with great worth, purpose, potential and goodness.
So Jesus invites us to get out and live on the earth, dug into the soil of the world. Getting stuck in and living as people of God.
We’ve reached the final week of There is Room – and our theme as we conclude this journey is ‘There is Room for Revelation’.
The Christmas story is full of it – so much of it in fact – that I wonder if we to easily gloss over the breadth and height and depth of revelation we encounter in our journey through the Christmas story.
Go right back to the beginning of the gospel story. God revels through an angel to Mary she will bear a son. God reveals to Zechariah that Elizabeth will be with child in her young age. God reveals to Joseph through a dream that Mary was pregnant, despite him know the baby wouldn’t be his.
Then to shepherds on a hillside God reveals the wonder through choirs of angels, and to Magi who saw a star, and through diligent study find prophecy revealed.
And journeying on God reveals to the Magi through a dream not to go back to Herod, and to Joseph through a dream to flee to Egypt.
And all circling a baby in a manger. God revealed as man to dwell – Jesus our Immanuel.
There is so much of God’s revealing threaded through the Christmas story. Moments where the divide between heaven and earth runs thin. Where something more of God, God’s nature, God’s will, God’s plan, God’s faithfulness, God’s presence is revealed.
One of my most personal, most tangible moments of God revealing to me was in a field at Soul Survivor. 10,000 young people gathered in a massive big top. We’d been worshipping for some time, and then ther band struck up an acoustic version of Amazing Grace. Perse by verse the band began to drop out and leave the stage, until we came to sing the last verse:
When we’ve been there ten thousands years Bright Shining as the Sun We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’ve first begin.
As we song that last verse, 10,000 voices, I could have heard a pin drop. In that moment I got a glimpse of what heaven might be like – I felt the divide between heaven and earth run thin and felt a certainty in the depths of my soul of God’s presence and love for me.
While that experience was a particualrly powerful one, I believe God is always speaking to us, revealing to us, moving among us – but we don’t always notice.
Speaking through dreams, angels, Through putting a thought in our minds, Through a conversation with someone else, As we reflect on life’s events. Moments when a mundane activity or an ordinary place becomes moments of divine encounter.
As we journey into a new year – let us make room to be ready to see God among us, to and experience God’s revealing. For God is with us. Alleluia. Amen.
When I was at Theological College I remember a visiting speaker asking us to share with the group where our home was. I naturally responded saying it was here at Queens – because for that 2 year period Queens was home…
But immediately I was asked – “no I mean where is your actual home…”, and I pushed back… “this is my actual home…”
Having moved around a lot as a child, and now training for itinerant ministry – despite the instability it offers, I’ve got quite used to home being a movable place – that where my family is is home.
The Nativity story is also one of changing home. Mary and Joseph leave their home town of Nazareth, and find a borrowed room in Bethlehem – and then they have tio move on again – and end up in Egypt.
An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
Matthew 2:13
I wonder how Mary & Joseph felt at that time. They’d got earthly responsbility for God’s son – indeed to them Jesus was their son – and yet so much danger surrounds them.
This year I’ve come to question the line in Once in Royal David’s City ‘And through all His wondrous childhood’ (verse 3). Was Jesus childhood years, living as a refugee, an alien in a foreign land, wonderous? Is it wonderous to live in fear? To have to flee for your life?
Jesus experienced persecution from those who clung desperately to power from an early age. And so too, today, there are people in our world who spread hate against others – including for refugees – simply so that they can cling to their power.
May 2023 be a year when we turn hate into love and hostility into peace – and make room for refugees who from terror and devastation flee.
A Grandparent was staying with one of their children, who were having building work done on the house.
They when into a bedroom to find their grandchild jumping up and down in a playpen, crying, reaching up their arms longingly saying, saying “Out! Please! Out!”
But they knew that their grandchild had been put in the playpen to keep them safe while builders were moving equipment around in the house.
“I’m sorry my love, they said, you need to stay in.”
But the child kept crying. Their tears and outstretched arms reached deep into the grandparents heart. What could they do? The child needs to stay safe, but they were desperate to comfort them.
Finally – love found a way – the child couldn’t come out of the playpen – so they climbed in the play pen with them.
The Christmas story is one of a loving parent seeing those they love in need, and choosing to climb in with them.
God – chooses to become flesh – human, like us – and to be born as a vulnerable babe.
There was a time when God was seen as a more distant being, somewhat beyond our reach and understanding – and only interested in those who were descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That there wasn’t room for others.
But as God comes to live among us, God does the unthinkable, the unexpected, and shows that God is not above us or beyond us, or distant from us or even against us or only for a select few…
but shows God is with us and among us. And loves all of us.
For Mary and Joseph, when they arrived in Bethlehem the usual places of hospitality were full – there was no room. But Mary and Joseph found room – they had to – Mary was about to pop! They made room for a baby, for some shepherds – and we think there would have been some animals around too. And later in the story – at the other end of the scale – magi come along too.
A right mix of beings – who all found room to come and meet the babe – who was the Son of God. And now, 2000 years later, that opportunity continues.
There is room for you in God’s story – because God in interested in everyone. God welcomes everyone. God makes room for you, me, us and all.
The story is told of a school preparing for their Christmas play. One of the focuses of the play was to reflect the radiance of Jesus. An electric bulb was hidden in the manger and all the stage lights would go off, except the one in the manger.
On the day of the performance the moment came, the lights went out.. and so did the one in the manger. There was a period of silence when a little shepherd loudly whispered – “Hey, you’ve turned of Jesus!”
As we discover There is room in God’s heart for you, for me, for us, for all, we are offered an opportunity to respond – invited to make room in our hearts for God…
In the festivities of the season, Turkey shortages, Delayed Christmas deliveries, A new Christmas jumper, That one last person on the Christmas gift list you just don’t know what to buy for And working out who is going to have Aunty Marjorie for Christmas Day, Let us not turn off Jesus.
Let us not forget the reason for this season. Let us make room in our hearts and lives for the one who made room in the world to be with us, and say to us there is room for you, me, us and all.
Rev Dan Balsdon's Blog 