Wanted! Wisdom!

 

What is for you the greatest example of human inventiveness, human ingenuity, human discovery or human achievement?

 

A quiet reflection for a moment or two.

 

Now share your own thoughts with one or two people sitting near you.

 

And now an opportunity for those who want to, to share their experience with all of us.

 

For the writer of the book of Job one of the greatest feats of human achievement and human endeavour was to be found in the ability of miners to mine the depths of the earth for precious metals.

 

Job 28: 1-11

1 There are mines where silver is dug;

There are places where gold is refined.

2 Miners dig iron out of the ground

And melt copper out of the stones.

3 They explore the deepest darkness.

They search the depths of the earth

And dig for rocks in the darkness.

4 Far from where anyone lives

Or human feet ever travel,

They dig the shafts of mines.

There they work in loneliness,

Clinging to ropes in the pits.

5 Food grows out of the earth,

But underneath the same earth

All is torn up and crushed.

6 The stones of the earth contain sapphires,

And its dust contains gold.

7 No hawk sees the roads to the mines,

And no vulture ever flies over them.

8 No lion or other fierce beast

Ever travels those lonely roads.

9 Miners dig the hardest rocks,

Dig mountains away at their base.

10 As they tunnel through the rocks,

They discover precious stones.

11 They dig to the sources of 

rivers

And bring to light what is hidden.

 

It is essentially the same fascination we have for the wonder of human achievement, human endeavour, human inventiveness.

 

There is, however, a problem.

 

The great problem with human inventiveness, with scientific advances is that they can so often be used for good or for ill.

 

On occasions the difference between good and ill is clear.  It is stark.  It is plain for all to see.

 

However, all too often, the distinction between good and ill becomes blurred.  It is not so clear.  There is an immense area of grey.

 

That is the point at which we require wisdom.  Wisdom to discern good from ill.  Wisdom to understand what we ought to do with the discoveries we make.  Wisdom to cope with the world we shape through our human ingenuity, inventiveness and endeavour.

 

 

Where can that wisdom be found?

 

That is the plaintive cry of the book of Job.

 

Job 28:12-19

 

12 But where can wisdom be found?

Where can we learn to understand?

13 Wisdom is not to be found among mortals;

No one knows its true value.

14 The depths of the oceans and seas

Say that wisdom is not found there.

15 It cannot be bought with silver or gold.

16 The finest gold and jewels

Cannot equal its value.

17 It is worth more than gold,

Than a gold vase or finest glass.

18 The value of wisdom is more

Than coral or crystal or rubies.

19 The finest topaz and the purest gold

Cannot compare with the value of wisdom.

The question becomes more pressing.  Listen to the final part of this passage.  The way Job arrives at the insight that makes all the difference maps out for us a route to follow.

 

The insight he arrives at is an insight we would do well to take to heart. 

 

Reading:  Job 28:20-28

 

20 Where, then, is the source of wisdom? Where can we learn to understand? 21 No living creature can see it, Not even a bird in flight. 22 Even death and destruction Admit they have heard only rumours. 23 God alone knows the way, Knows the place where wisdom is found, 24 Because he sees the ends of the earth, Sees everything under the sky. 25 When God gave the wind its power And determined the size of the sea; 26 When God decided where the rain would fall, And the path that the thunderclouds travel; 27 It was then he saw wisdom and tested its worth — He gave it his approval. 28 God said to human beings, “To be wise, you must have reverence for the Lord. To understand, you must turn from evil.”

Wisdom is not to be found simply within human endeavour.  Not all would agree with that statement.  Many have mapped out systems of thought that seek to explain things.  Are human systems of thought satisfying?  Do they answer all questions?  Hopeful, or not hopeful.

 

One problem is the sheer scale of things – the possibility of having a single theory that encompasses all is attractive but elusive.  Maybe there is something.  The writer of the book of Job has the conviction that none is to be found that fully satisfies every eventuality.  I think I am with the writer of the Book of Job.

 

Is there an alternative.

 

It is at this point that faith comes into its own.  Faith points us to one who is greater than all we see, greater than the greatest human endeavour.  Faith points us to God beyond, within, around, beneath, above all that we see.

 

The wisdom to understand, to find purpose, to live in the world of God’s creation, is to be found in the God who is creator of the world.

 

Job 28:23-27

23 God alone knows the way,

Knows the place where wisdom is found,

24 Because he sees the ends of the earth,

Sees everything under the sky.

25 When God gave the wind its power

And determined the size of the sea;

26 When God decided where the rain would fall,

And the path that the thunderclouds travel;

27 It was then he saw wisdom and tested its worth —

He gave it his approval.

 

Is it possible to tune in to this wisdom?

 

Job has the conviction that this wisdom is available to humankind.

 

“God said to human beings …”

 

It is a remarkable feature of the human mind that it is capable uniquely among all the creatures of the planet to grasp the nature of the world.  Let us not under-estimate the human ingenuity.

 

One of the things that I find most remarkable is that the human mind has the capacity to identify just six mathematical equations, that have a beauty to them, which are capable of describing the whole universe and everything in it.  I think that is remarkable.

 

The human mind is capable of receiving insight from the creator.

 

“God said to human beings …”

 

In my faith that is because the human mind is made in the image of God.

 

So we reach this wonderful verse :  Job 28:28

 

God said to human beings:

“To be wise, you must have reverence for the Lord.

To understand, you must turn from evil.”

 

This is the key.

 

This is the essential wisdom.

 

This is the way to understand our place in the world, who we are, where we are going.

 

To b e wise you must have reverence for the Lord.

 

First, to acknowledge with awe and reverence.   God is God.  This world is the world of God’s creation.

 

That means putting God first.

 

Secondly, as we acknowledge God that gives us a framework to distinguish good from evil.  And then a reason to depart from evil and follow the good.

 

“To understand you must turn from evil.”

 

Were it only Job that we had at our disposal at this point, I would not find that altogether helpful.

 

It begs so many questions.

 

What is God like, what is the evil we should avoid?

What is the good we should do?

 

It is at that point for me that the Christian faith becomes good news.  The God of creation discloses himself to us in humanity itself.  God, the God of creation, becomes as one of us.  He speaks our language.  He confronts our problems.  He weeps our tears.  He shares our vulnerability.

 

In Jesus Christ.

 

Many think the most powerful image of Christ is this remarkable painting, ‘The Bound Lamb’  It captures in a way that is so hard-hitting, the sheer vulnerability and weakness that is at the heart of our Good Friday Faith.

 

He is surely echoing Job’s insight when he suggests there are two fundamental dimensions to living in the world of God’s creation.

 

First, love God – to be wise, love God.

 

Second, love your neighbour – to understand, love your neighbour.

 

There are immense grey areas … but these two things give us a framework within which we can grapple with issues and seek a way of living in a world filled with human ingenuity but fraught with humanity’s inhumanity.

 

The very nature of the God we focus on in our Christian faith is love.  God is love.  Let us always come back to that as the touchstone for living our lives.

 

The very essence of the life we are called to lead is of love.

 

We are preparing to mark the story of Jesus – through Holy Week.

 

The Greatest Week of our Lives

A Journey with Jesus at Highbury Congregational Church (Oxford St, London Rd)

www.highburychurch.co.uk

 

5^th April Palm Sunday – The Procession

9am – Sunday Special children’s breakfast

10.30 and 6-30 Palm Sunday Services

 

Monday to Saturday – The Greatest Week

10.30-11.30 am and 7-8pm a space for Prayer – with The Passion on DVD with Communion on Maundy Thursday

 

Good Friday – Hero to Criminal

10.30 to 12-30 a space for prayer and 12-00 a walk from Imperial Gardens to St Mary’s Church

 

Saturday – The Quietest Day

10am-2pm, Easter Holiday Club meet at St Luke’s church

7-30 The Passion on the big screen

 

Easter Sunday – The True Hope

6.15am at Crickley Hill – sunrise service

10.30am and 6-30 Easter Celebration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is almost an anti-story of human endeavour.  It tells of weakness, suffering, vulnerability.  And yet it tells of God’s presence.

 

God is in the suffering, in the weakness in the vulnerability of our world.  Maybe this is the greatest human creativity for us to celebrate.

 

The way for us to follow is precisely this way.  The way of the cross.  The way of weakness, suffering, vulnerability.  The way of God’s love.

 

Here is wisdom indeed.

 

Here is the key to it all … the beginning of unravelling the mystery of life and all it means to live in the troubled world of God’s creation.

 

Running the Race

So, I’m talking about running the race this week.  And there are so many different references to running or to races in the bible but why is it so repeated?

 

Well, a lot of the things that link with running a race or in fact doing any type of sport can link with what following God is like.  In fact, it fits with all the different things we can do in our relationship with God, whether it be the daily toll, becoming a deacon or struggling through life situations.

 

Now, I don’t know how many of you are into your sport.  But I felt that to talk about this subject I really needed to push myself at the gym.  I’m not someone who runs races.  Every race I ran at school I came last in.  This is short distances, like 100metres or medium size distances or even long distances.  I am not a runner and could never be called one.  So how can I and others like me relate this race metaphor to our daily struggles.  Well, that’s what I hope to talk about today.  And I’d like to say it is pure coincidence that I am talking about this at the end of race week.

 

Now, every race as a beginning, middle and some sort of an end.  But before we start we might need to get ourselves in the zone.  If you notice before runners start running, before any exercise happens, they prepare themselves for it.  Get ready for what they are facing.  So they might get on the right clothes, stretch, decide on the plan for that race.

 

And the same is true for our relationship with God, we can’t just expect it to happen.  When we start services here we usually start with worship songs or a hymn.  That can be getting yourself in the zone.  Many different bible notes recommend that you start with prayer, to get yourself mental ready, help you focus on what is ahead.

 

In the same way we might start our day with God by reading some of the bible, praying or committing our actions to whatever he has planned for us.  But we make sure we are ready, prepared and focused on God.

 

So we get to the start, we are in the zone – we know what we want to achieve and how we mean to do it – like life things may not and probably won’t go to plan but we have an idea of how we want it to go.

 

So we’re there, nervous, wondering how we will do and then the starting whistle goes off and everyone starts running.

 

Now you could just stand there and think, well, maybe I’ll get to the end.  There are lots of important things in running a race but one of the main ones is that you need to start it.  If you’re not willing to start running, start going forth in the race then you will definitely never finish. 

 

You can’t finish a race if you never start it.  Now I have had in my lifetime of gym trips a lot like this.  Ones where I never made it, I was mostly in the zone, had my gym kit with me but I never actually made it to the gym, other things took my focus instead.

 

If we never start the race with God, start following him with all that means then how will we know how it will go.  We might be rubbish Christians, we might struggle with being kind to all people or letting him be the most important being in our lives.  We might be great at those things, at telling people about God and really focused in prayer.  But if we never start by following him then we will never know.  We have to start that relationship with him to find out.  Running at our own speed, in our comfort zone.

 

 

When we start running it’s not about copying the way those around us run.  When I’m at the gym I have an order and a time limit in the way I do the machines, I like that order, it fits with the way I like to push myself.  Some people run for miles on the running machine, I walk, my balance was not made for running on a machine.  I am doing it my way, not someone else’s.  It is the content of a much longer talk but when following God we don’t have to do it like everyone else does it.  We will meet great followers of God who we might long to be like but God has a plan for each everyone of us. 

 

As I have different skills and needs when exercising so I have when it comes to life and my relationship with God.  In that way I cannot be like my friends or people in my family.  God has a plan for me and a race for me to run.

 

 So, we’ve started the race, we’ve be going a couple of miles but this is when another significant issue arises.  Something we hear several times in the Hebrews reading.  Discipline.

“¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

 

Have you ever been someone who goes and does the gardening after a while away for it, or who suddenly goes on a long walk, bike ride or does some form of exercise when you haven’t done it in a while?  It’s then, or usually the next day, that you realise the effect of sudden exertion.

 

If our bodies can keep at a form of exercise or can compete in a race then we need discipline.  There is a football phrase of “the game isn’t won on the day but throughout the week” – or in Cheltenham Town’s case not at all.  What I mean is that following God isn’t just something that just happens on a Sunday or at a certain event or occasion, it is part of “training” in the week. 

 

This might mean reading the bible, singing praise to God through everything, constant prayer, meeting with other Christians to discuss issues, reading books by others.

 

Discipline is an intimidating word but it means making sure we can face the difficult, daily situations by continuing on the walk with God.  Not expecting ourselves to sail through the problems and understand what God is doing when we don’t know his ideas on anything.  Preparation is key, whether we are running a marathon or following God. 

 

Our relationships with God can be like a marathon, with ups and downs, euphoria and pain and there might be sprints and short bursts but generally we’re in it for the long term and if we are going to stay in it for the long term then we need that preparation, that discipline.

 

I remember that when I used to face difficult situations or want to know what God had planned I did that thing where you close your eyes flick through the bible and then point to a passage, open your eyes, read it and hope it fitted with your situation.  Now sometimes that worked.  But really that isn’t the way God wants to deal with a situation, by immersing ourselves in his word, but having regular conversation with him we can have more of an idea of how he wants us to deal with different situations.

 

We might do this discipline in different ways – there is a way of exercising called cross training, doing different things, exercising different muscles.  Understanding that with all training there are weaknesses.  So we combine it with other things.

 

This might be as I said through reading the bible, other books, talking to friends, hearing Christians speak, prayer, etc.  And even these ways may be different, we may choose to pray in different ways and settings, we may try listening to worship music at home or we may try reading different versions of the bible.

 Story about Geoff and graphic version of the bible.

 

We don’t all learn in the same way and we may need to adapt the training to suit ourselves.

 

So you’ve got yourselves in the zone, you’ve started the race and you have even been really disciplined.  But there is something else that runners talk about – the wall! 

 

This is the bit on the race where you face a barrier, not a physical barrier but a mental one. And it’s like being suddenly faced with a brick wall. I’ve never experienced it but there is one thing that I think relates.

 

You may have heard about it or even seen the documentary, but a couple of weeks ago I was obsessed with the Red Nose Climb of Mount Kilimanjaro.  9 celebrities attempted to climb this mountain in order to raise money.  They had done all the discipline and got themselves in the zone but while going up this mountain they each, in turn hit the wall.  Whether through injury, altitude sickness, lack of sleep, exhaustion, drained emotion or any of the other things they had to go through. 

But they each hit it, not sure if they could go on. 

 

Not sure if they could face another step. 

 

But they did, they all made it to the top.

 

But what got them through it? Well, they knew their goal – they knew what they were doing and who they were doing it for. 

 

In Hebrews it talks about running with perseverance, it talks about fixing our eyes on Christ. 

 

In Philippians 3 it talks of straining towards what is ahead, pressing on towards the goal and the prize. 

 

In our relationship with God we hit a wall, everything gets too much for us, stress, life, worries, pain, sadness and we’re just not sure we can get past it.  But we can fix our eyes on Jesus, the only constant in this world, straining towards him.  Thinking about one day being in Heaven with him, where there will be no more tears, sadness but His love and presence.

 

We, like those climbers have some other things.  They had their guides and we have the bible and wise teachers.  They also had those going through it as well.  Those who felt their pain, shared in their struggles and encouraged them in all the steps, including the last steps to the top of the mountain.  If you look around you then you can see that we all face struggles, times when we can’t go on but we have each other to help us, to share stories with. 

 

To share moments of joy and terrible sadness. 

 

I have been so grateful for all the people praying for myself and my family recently, this church is full of great prayers and to know that there is love and caring makes it possible for me and others to get passed this wall.

 

So finally, we come towards the end.  But I haven’t yet mentioned, the most significant thing still not mentioned.  We have our friends, teachers and discipline but we have something more amazing. 

 

We have Jesus.

 

We can struggle, we can stumble, we can think that we can’t go on, that it is all too hard and we can’t be called to experience all of the cruel and painful things life has for us.

 

But… we have Jesus

 

He is here, he is running with us, looking after us, keeping an eye out for things that will hurt us, bring us down or even the things that will keep us going.  He is there for all of it.

 

There is a prize and Jesus wants us to share in it with him.  2 Timothy 4 says:

⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.⁸Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day.

 

There is a prize but also there is Jesus the whole journey.  Standing firm and taking care of us.

 

So what difference will hearing this today make in our lives?

• maybe we will go home from church today and decide to run a real marathon
• But maybe we are instead going to take up that other kind of race, going to get in the zone and start doing that walk with Jesus.
• Or maybe we will work on our discipline, the thing that has been missing from our race, not trying to do it like everyone else but reading the bible and pray in a way for us
• Maybe we will try and get past that wall that I talked about, finding people to have to talk to about issues or joining the Highbury prayer group
• Maybe we will remind ourselves what our goal is and find all these race references in the bible
• Or maybe we will ask God to help us to remember that he is with us the whole time we are in the race no matter what

 

And I want to finish with this, the whole idea for this sermon came from a clip that I saw on 100 Greatest Tearjerkers, one of those awful programmes that you don’t really want to watch but somehow end up watching.  And even talking about this clip tends to involve me holding back the tears.

 

But I felt when I watched it that it was the true image of how God helps us on the race.  There is some back story to this clip.  In 1992 a runner called Derek Redmond had got to the Olympics.  He had been dogged by injury in his bid for medals at the Olympics before but he thought finally, this was his chance.  He got to the semi finals and he started to run, doing fantastically.  Until he heard a pop and he realised it was something in his leg.

 

He went down, knowing his dreams were gone and he suffered.  But then he got back up, determined to finish the race.  His dad, his trainer, the man who had stood by him in everything got on to the track.  And at this point Derek thought his dad would make him stop, that they would be fighting because Derek knew he had to finish the race.  But instead his father took hold of him and helped him finish. 

 

This clip expresses so much about our relationship with God, we fall down, we suffer.  But instead of stopping us, taking us out of the situation, he helps us to get to the prize, to the finish line, he holds on to us and loves us all of the way.

Click here to watch Derek Redmond's Olympic Race in 1992

In the beginning ... God

It’s been great talking to 5 year old Murray about today’s baptism – the questioning and the comment keep you on your toes – the theology is quite profound as much in the questioning as in the answering.

 

A couple of weeks ago I found myself eavesdropping on a wonderful conversation between four 5 or 6 year olds on a school trip to the wonderful Nature in Art gallery at Twigworth.  Adrian Stanley had always wanted me to visit and I got round to going a couple of weeks ago.  He had always waxed eloquent about the opportunity you had to see an Artist in Residence at work in their studio.  I made a bee line for the Artist in Residence’s studio.  As it happened there  were two Bennet’s buses in the car park and a Gloucester Infants school going around the Art Gallery in small groups of four.  One such group were deep in conversation with David Miller about his wonderful paintings of fish.

 

Their questions were wonderful.  They ranged over the whole process of painting the artist engaged in.  From the underwater photography he did as a diver while wearing a decoy bird on top of his head (is that to trick other people?  they asked.  No, to trick the fish he said in reply)  through the first pencil sketches (is that the same pencils as we use?  Yes, he said.  Ours are shorter, they replied a little indignantly), to the studies that he was in the process of painting in the studio (But there isn’t a pier in the photo!  No, that’s the beauty of being a painter I can put the fish under the pier!  So, you’re tricking people.  No, I’m not tricking people, the artist insisted, there’s one I finished yesterday.  You couldn’t have finished it yesterday, you’re tricking us.  No, I’m not tricking you!  That’s really good.  Do you have to wait until it’s dry before you paint the fish on to the water.  No, it’s called wet on wet painting with oils.  I would wait until it’s dry to do the real detail in a painting) right through to the wonderfully, detailed finished painting of beautiful fish.

 

Then the final set of questions that caught my attention.  How do you paint the scales?  It has to be said the fish shone and the scales were beautiful in the finished painting. 

 

 

“I count them,” David Miller replied.  And then he went on to explain that each fish of the same species has the same number of scales.  “If you are going to paint them, you need to count the scales.  Some artists try to paint a fish without painting the scales and the fish never looks quite right.  You need to count the scales.”

 

So there you have it.  The secret was out.  Whether any of that group of youngsters, their teacher or I will ever aspire to the heights or is it the depths of painting fish I somehow doubt.  But the six of us have now been let into the secret.  And we know if we are going to have a go we’ll have to count the scales.

 

It was a wonderful way to spend a very special day.  I was in a mood to celebrate.  It was Darwin’s birthday.

 

I wanted to turn the conversation to Darwin and the Origin of Species and ask why each species of fish has a particular number of scales.  But it was not for me to join in the conversation – there was already another group of four little ones raring to have a go … and an immensely patient painter all set to answer another set of questions.

 

The questioning of those four five year olds set me thinking.

 

He was a painter.  He used photographs but then he went on to paint the fish and the birds he so carefully observed.  It was as if painting gave him a greater freedom.  He could put the fish under the pier.  His painting of the pier was wonderfully accurate.  His painting of the fish was equally so.  But the fish weren’t under the pier in his photo.  They might well have been at some point.  He was able to paint the fish.

 

Was he ‘tricking’ us?  Or was he presenting the reality of that underwater world with not so much poetic license as artistic license?

 

What came home to me was the way in which reality can be portrayed not simply by the accuracy of a photographic record, but by the artistry of a painter.

 

We do the Bible a grave injustice when we read it as if it was written as a 21^st century scientific treatise.  The Bible tells me the truth that the world we live in is the world of God’s creation.  It tells me that timeless truth through wonderfully rich poetry and story.

 

To me that leaps off the page as you read about creation.  There are wonderful rhythms and a beauty of language in Genesis 1 with those sonorous words, In the beginning … the repeated refrain, and God saw that it was good, the rhythm of ‘And there was evening and there was morning, the first day, And there was evening and there was morning the second day.”

 

This is the stuff of poetry.  And it is not tricking us!  The poetry of Genesis 1 confronts us with the truth that the world we live in is the world of God’s creation.  As it builds to its climax it challenges us to realise that we must look after God’s world.

 

It is in poetry that the Bible has most to say about creation – Genesis 1 is not the only place that tells us about the creation of the world.  There are great passages in the Psalms and most powerfully of all in the Book of Job that tell of creation.

 

Take Job 38.  It speaks of God ‘laying foundations’ for the earth, measuring the earth by ‘stretching a line’ upon it.  It speaks of the bases the earth is built on, it speaks of God laying a cornerstone for the earth.  It speaks of the morning stars singing together.  It speaks of the sea being shut in with doors, and then bursting from the womb.  It speaks of clouds as a garment and thick darkness as a swaddling band.

 

This is not a scientific description of the world, it is powerful poetry at its best.  And it is not tricking us!  The poetry of Job 38 confronts us with the truth that the world we live in is the world of God’s creation and it is awesome and fills us with wonder and awe.

 

It confronts us with that truth for a particular purpose.

 

The book of Job is a book that grapples with one of the greatest problems we all face.  It is the problem of undeserved suffering.  Job is perfect and upright – he has done nothing wrong.  And yet everything goes wrong in his life.  He loses his possessions, he loses his family, he loses his health … and he is brought to the pits of despair.

 

Three friends in turn, and then a fourth try to console him with reasoning and a lot of theology.

 

But none of their arguments is persuasive at all.

 

The problem remains.

 

It seems as if it cannot be resolved.

 

Job is left desolate and alone.

 

And in his solitude in the midst of the storm – it is then that he is brought face to face with a power that is greater than anything he can conceive.

 

Then the Lord answered him out of the whirlwind …

 

But the voice of God gives Job no answer to his problem.

 

In a prolonged series of questions that begins at chapter 38 and goes on for four whole chapters Job is confronted with the immensity of God in the wonder of his creation.

 

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Who determined its measurements?

On what were its bases sunk or who laid its cornerstone

When the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band?

 

Job has no answer to the tragedy of his suffering.

 

Job senses the reality of a God who is greater than anything he can begin to conceive.

 

And he is filled with awe and wonder … he has moved from philosophising and theologising about God to sense the reality of God.

 

The book of Job does not come up with answers.   What it does is to show that in the presence of an awesome God it is possible to live with unanswered questions as we sense the immensity of the God who is greater than anything we can begin to imagine.

 

You could say David Miller had the patience of Job in answering the questions of those five year olds.

 

Faced with life’s unanswered questions we need not only the patience of Job but his sense of the reality of God.

 

How can we sense that reality?

 

Look at the fish and try counting those scales.  Look at the birds of the air.  Go up on the hills.  Go out into the night sky and listen out for the singing of the starts in all their mysterious silence!

 

But there is one thing more we can do.

 

We can look to the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth and see that this God has become one of us … in Jesus Christ we can see his grace and his glory.  Look not only to the beauty of God’s creation … but look to Jesus.  And what do you see, someone who comes into a hurting world to bring healing.  Who comes into our hearts to bring love.

 

We are going to take a look at the last week of Jesus’ life in particular as Holy Week unfolds and Easter approaches and each day of Holy Week have the church open in the morning and again in the evening – for quiet reflection.  You can follow that week on our web site as well.  Look at the way God was in Christ as he experienced the suffering of that week, the agony of the cross.  God was in Christ through all that suffering and pain.

 

In a world that confronts us with so many unanswerable questions sense that Christ is with us in the depths as much as in the heights and find strength in his presence.

 

Of the little ones parents brought to Jesus, Jesus said, let them come to me.

 

To each of us weighed down by unanswerable questions this same Jesus says, Come to me all you that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

In all things ... God

I like having company when I do the washing up after Sunday lunch.  And Geoffrey Smith has been good company.  A stalwart on that favourite after-Sunday-lunch programme on Radio 4, Gardeners’ Question Time and many a TV gardenin

g show – I have enjoyed his gentle sense of humour.   As tributes were paid to him over the weekend following his death at the end of this week, one comment caught my attention.  He had a love of the garden and of things that grow – so much so that he would talk to them and lovingly nurture them.  He had a recipe for those times when things get on top of you.  When things were weighing him down he would simply look at a flower.

 

Geoffrey Smith is in good company.  The book of Job tells the story of someone weighed down by the ills of the world.  It is the book in the Bible that grapples with unwarranted suffering and poses the question how can you cope when everything goes wrong.

 

The Book of Job recognises the truth Geoffrey Smith held so dear.  It is in the book of Job that some of the finest passages celebrating the wonder of God’s creation appear.

 

Time and again Job senses the awesome nature of God and as he looks at the beauty of God’s creation he holds it in wonder and in awe.  As the book unfolds it is that sense of wonder and awe he has with the God who is beyond all his understanding that he is able to look at his own situation and get it somehow into perspective.

 

Here in Job 9 he has a sense of the awesome power of the God of creation as he looks at the mountains and their grandeur, at the beauty of God’s world, and as night falls he looks up into the night sky and senses the wonder of God.

 

It was from Job 9 that our Call to Worship came.

God is so wise and powerful

No one can stand up against him.

 

We cannot understand the great things he does

And to  his miracles there is no end.

As we gather together in our worship, how good it is simply to wonder at the greatness of God.  Let’s do that as we read one of those passages, let’s couple with it one of the wonders of God’s world here on our doorstep – the River Severn with the second highest tides in the world, as Jenny and Ted saw it the other week, the snowdrops at Colesbourne and the night sky in all its splendour!  After our reading we will sing our praises to God.

 

Job 9:1-10

 

A time of praise and worship with Hy-Spirit

 

I am so frustrated when science and religion are seen only to clash with each other.  The more I learn about science the more in awe I am at the wonder of the world of God’s creation.

 

Some people, not least those scientists who reject any belief in God, with an eighteenth century, philosophical idea of God that is not a very helpful way of understanding the nature of God.

 

It received its classic formulation by someone called William Paley.  He suggested that if you discovered a watch with all its intricate mechanism lying abandoned in a field you would be quite right to deduce from a study of the watch that it had been made by a skilful watchmaker.

 

Look at anything in the garden, not least one of those wonderful flowers that meant the world to Geoffery Smith and you can conclude they must have been made by a skilled flower-maker – and that’s God.

 

It’s all right as far as it goes.  But it’s not the only way of seeing God.

 

I think it’s helpful to go back beyond William Paley to earlier ways of seeing God.

 

It was not so much that God is like a watchmaker who has made his watch and there it is.  Rather God is in all things.

 

Take the 17^th century poet, George Herbert and one of the hymns that I have chosen for a marathon hymn sing in aid of the Anthony Nolan Trust: its opening words catch something for more helpful for me …

 

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things thee to see.

 

Now that opens up a different set of possibilities.  Look at the wonder of anything in the natural world and in the universe and beyond … don’t look for a mechanistic deity like the watchmaker.  Instead, learn to see God in all things.

 

He is there at the beginning, he is there in creation, he is in that life force that energy that brings things into being.  He is there at each stage of evolution.  Whichever way evolution goes, whichever branch of the tree survives – God is there.

 

Teach me, my God and King

In all things thee to see.

 

For there is nothing in the present or the future, in height or in depths, nothing in the all of creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

 

George Herbert was living at a time of great scientific advance.  Having been born in Montgomery, he had spent a short while in Oxford University, before becoming Public Orator of the University of Cambridge.  Thomas Harriott, the Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University was one of those on the cutting edge of scientific discovery.  An astronomer he had accompanied Walter Raleigh as navigator on his voyages of discovery.  He had been implicated in the Gunpowder plot, and he ended up teaching mathematics and astronomy in the University of Oxford.

 

It was 400 years ago this year that Thomas Harriot made a remarkable instrument using lenses and tubes.  He was one of many all over Europe racing to develop a way of looking at the stars and at the moon that would take the world by storm.  It was not Thomas Harriot who got the accolade for being the first to use this new scientific device.  It was Galileo Galilei.

 

As Galileo’s story is told at his 400^th Anniversary in this International Year of Astronomy it is sad that people will dwell on the clash between church and science once again.

 

The reaction of those in the church who rejected Galileo and hounded him out, was not typical of everyone.

 

George Herbert was one of those not troubled by the advances of science.  He simply found it even more awesome as those advances opened up for him the wonder of God’s world.

 

It was between 1613 and 1615 that the word ‘glass’ was first used of a telescope.  It wasn’t long after that that the deeply devout George Herbert wrote this poem as part of a collection only published after his death that explored the depths of the Christian faith in the most wonderful of ways.

 

You can just imagine the scene – he has seen his first telescope.  His first glass.  It is beautifully crafted from brass – a precision made instrument.  It’s enough just to look at it in wonder at its beauty.  Indeed you can picture George Herbert walking around it and letting his eye rest on it.

 

A man that looks on glass

On it may stay his eye.

 

How true.  Simply look at this remarkable piece of engineering and marvel.  But wait a moment there’s more that you can do.

 

Take it out into the dark of a clear night sky.  And then don’t simply allow your eye to rest on it, but put your eye to the eye piece and look through it.

 

Imagine, you have never seen a telescope before. You have never looked through a telescope at the moon, at Jupiter, at Venus or at the stars!

 

It’s wonderful.

 

 

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if hepleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espy.

 

Wonderful.  Here in this poem, we encounter the awe and wonder that science evokes in the  heart of a deeply devout believer in God.

 

That’s the awe and the wonder I shared with the  Brownies at their sleepover last weekend as we went into the garden and spotted the very things Job had seen – the bear, the hunter, the Pleiades.  There they were.  And we could all see them.

 

Teach me, my God and King

In all things thee to see.

 

But this awe and wonder in George Herbert’s heart did not only make him see things differently, it made him do things differently too.

 

See God in all things, and all things become important in the eyes of God and in the presence of God.  Even the littlest of things in what we do in our lives  become all important.  On this St David’s Day it is not only St David who celebrated the little things, it is the little things that George Herbert of Montgomery wants us to see to be all important.

 

Teach me my God and King

In all things thee to see

And what I do in anything

To do it as for thee.

 

This is exactly what Paul is getting at.  As we come to the realisation that there is nothing in all of creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, so we need to realise that in living our Christian lives we must heed his words in Colossians 3:17.  Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 

Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.

 

That if you like is the measure of everything we do.  Is this something I can do in the name of the Lord Jesus?  It is also the spur to all we do.  Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.

 

If mathematicians and astronomers were making discoveries about the universe, chemistry was still in its infancy.  Alchemy was the quest to find a substance that would turn base metal to gold, the dullest to the shiniest and most splendid of metals.  Such a substance had a technical name:  tincture.  Others were looking for an elusive stone that would turn all tings to gold.  To find that most famous stone that turns all things to gold was the quest many set out on.

 

George Herbert was sceptical of such a quest: in due course alchemy proved very much a dead end.

 

But do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and the dullest things can be transformed.  Maybe this is the tincture that can turn the dross of our daily humdrum living to the gold of God’s presence.

 

The thing is that this is open to everyone.

 

All may of thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which, with this tincture, “For thy sake”

Will not grow bright and clean.

 

Do things for Christ’s sake.  Whatever you do, do it “for thy sake’ and see the difference it makes.  All things grow bright and clean.

 

The tincture is this ‘clause’  “For thy sake”

 

This applies across the board to the very meanest of tasks.  Maybe even washing up after Sunday lunch!

 

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine;

Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,

Makes that and the action fine.

 

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold:

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

 

That’s the whole point.  God’s touch is on everything.  Everything is God’s.

 

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things thee to see

And what I do in anything

To do it as for Thee.