Last night I was delighted and moved to be the guest president and preacher for the relaunch of Rock Mass. Is it a fresh expression? Is it a youth thing? No (well maybe/could be/yes-ish). But mostly it's a rock mass. Ronseal all the way.
Abundance is offered – co-operation is needed. The Kingdom is like……..
So we’re back – Rock Mass is back – the thing that was happening – or one of the things that was happening (whispers 'pandemic') – is mostly over and we are getting forward to the Kingdom. Or up to the Kingdom. I haven’t decided yet – I like forward – but I absolutely love the idea that our life with God is something we are getting up to together.
Whatever we’re doing – we’re not getting back to normal.
For two reasons.
1. One because there’s no such thing as normal and there never was – and this really shouldn’t come as a surprise to followers of Jesus. Sometimes I think the whole purpose of Jesus ministry was to combat the delusion of normal. The fantasy that there is some place where all our defensive, closing down, restrictive, safety seeking, excluding, scarcity focussed human instincts put us in the right place. I think Jesus showed us a way of being where with our trust in him, creator, saviour and spirit, we might just dare to breathe in and out and know that we are not the same as we were before we took that breath. That change is the only constant and we do not need to be afraid for God is with us.
The second reason we’re not going back to the thing that doesn’t exist? The trajectory of the planet the good God sent spinning into space is unidirectional – by which I mean it’s going one way – only one way, and that’s forward. There is no going back – just ask Don Henley and the Boys of Summer. (80s reference).
So what we’re doing, as a community,
as Christians, as the church here in Mixenden and Illingworth, as the church
wherever each of you happens to be the savoury flavour or the head torch of
truth – as the body of Christ - what we’re doing is getting forward - re-orientating ourselves to Christ’s way. We're checking to see how the ground beneath our feet feels –
and what we’re getting forward to – or maybe getting up to – what we’re getting up to is the Kingdom. The Kingdom that wasn’t what
people thought was normal when Jesus first told this parable – and the Kingdom
that doesn’t feel like what the world around us now calls normal. The Kingdom
that is breaking through.
I think we’re spending this year
hearing from lots of lovely guest preachers like me about what the Kingdom we
pray is coming might be like – and there are so many places this reading could
have taken us tonight – but I’d like us to focus on three things – adulting (sorry!) - invitation
and abundance.
So this isn’t a parable for the faint
hearted – it does not say that whatever you do everything is going to be
absolutely fine cos God’s just lovely. It’s more like God is lovely AND just.
This life is more than a game. I am a
parent of teenagers – and the bit of info I keep trying to crowbar into my kids
heads – is that our actions have consequences – and we have to deal with those
consequences. It’s not so much that you make your bed and you have to lie in
it. More that once you’ve made it, you
might have to unmake it, repent of it, respond to your invitation, and try again.
You can choose to ignore your
invitation. You can even turn up and then change your mind and walk away. But
you can’t really blame God for that decision. We have been given the freedom to
make the choice, a huge risk that our God takes out of love for us - and we have to take responsibility – we are
not playing good daddy bad daddy games with God.
Wisdom has set her table. The God of
all time and space has sent us gold-plated invitations. We need to adult on up there to the banquet
and join in with what God is doing.
And let’s think about that gold plated
invitation. I think this has a particular kick for us post-pandemic. I know this parable is telling us a story
about God and God’s people through history – that those to whom Jesus was sent
would not recognise him – the people you might have expected to be the a-list
invitations would not come to the party table.
But it feels, as parable so often do, that it’s telling us a story of
now too. You are invited. The challenges of the last three years have
left us I think desperately needing to respond to God’s invitation, needing in
faith to step out and offer God’s invitation in turn to others, but feeling
like we want to curl up in a corner and sleep too.
But we’re the ones who know God is
good, we’re the ones who have come to baptism, who have chosen to be here, who
have glimpsed the coming kingdom in our friendship, in what we can do for the
communities around us, in the goodness that flows from being together like the
father, son and holy spirit are together.
God has sent you a gold plated
invitation to come to the banquet and join in with what God is doing.
Has God done that Rachel? - you might well ask - really? I don’t remember getting that invitation, you
might be thinking. But you’re standing in it, next to it, listening to it,
dancing to it. Your gold-plated
invitation tonight is played by a rock band and crafted with love to help you
connect with God.
Your gold plated invitation is at the
lunch club, at the community pantry, at the scouts, in the creating, making and
being real community which exists here and is growing. Your gold-plated invitation is people being
who they are, throwing their gifts and skills into the pot together to do
things God’s way. An invitation to be just like you, the best, transformed in
Christ’s image you, being in God’s service.
Come, all you vagabonds,
Come all you
‘don’t belongs’
Winners and
losers,
Come, people like
me.
Come all you
travellers
Tired from the
journey,
Come wait a
while, stay a while,
Welcomed you’ll
be.[1]
And what you are welcomed to is abundance. Rather marvellously the idea of abundance came up in the midweek zoom bible study at my church this week – we were reading the Isaiah reading from the Feast of Epiphany which says
the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,
the
wealth of the nations shall come to you.
A multitude
of camels shall cover you,[2]
I know – weird right? We got briefly
caught up in the weird – but then realised that when those bible guys tried to
communicate what God was saying about abundance, they had to use ideas that our
imaginations could reach for. Wealth,
seafood, camels, - exotic, unfamiliar, next level. The wedding banquet –
probably the most sumptuous, delicious, wonderful feast anyone would experience
in a lifetime – and even then not that often.
Wisdom has set her table, she has poured her wine[3], and we are invited to the banquet.
We have to choose whether to go. God will not force us, we are not playing games here – we are given the choice whether to respond and we are given fair warning that our choices have consequences that we must take responsibility for.
But if we choose to go to the feast we
will find that the banquet we are invited to is beyond our imagining because
the abundance which flows from God isn’t stuff that God gives us – the
abundance is God. God is the
banquet. The things that overflow from
the baskets and bowls on the table are the things we really need to be whole in
our humanity and transformed in it too. They are the abundance of the
Kingdom. For the banquet table of the
Lord overflows with justice and mercy, compassion, patience, equity, respect,
dignity, hope, wisdom, prophecy, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving – we
are invited to gorge ourselves on this goodness that is the Kingdom and brings
the Kingdom, that transforms us into Kingdom people.
O taste and see how gracious the Lord is – blessed is the one that trusts in the Lord.[4]
We thank God tonight for our
gold-plated invitation. I hope we will
commit ourselves to try to respond and take responsibility for that choice as
best we can in this coming year - and I hope too we will remind ourselves often
that the abundance we need is not of this world, but can be found at a
banqueting table overflowing with all that shows the Kingdom breaking into our
community of faith and our world.
Amen.
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