Words for Worship

Ministry Today

I am famed in my family

for,

at the age of three,

standing up in bed

crying my heart out

and sobbing

its terrible to be

a teacher’s son.

 

Quite why I was so miserable

about my mother’s day job

I can’t at all remember.

 

But who can doubt that

our teachers

had a huge influence

on who we are today.

 

Since if they taught

their subject well

and enthusiastically

then we were wholly engaged.

 

And as an outcome,

we just might pursue it

as our own passion too.

 

That’s why the title

of teacher or rabbi,

genuinely given

to Jesus bin Joseph

in his own lifetime,

is so instructive.

 

Because it gives a measure

of what he expected

to achieve

in people’s lives.

 

Take his teaching

on that golden principle of

love thy neighbour

as your self

as an example.

 

He made the point

initially

well enough.

 

But then

he was challenged.

 

That clever cocky boy

which every class has

just had to impress his mates

by shouting out

please sir –

who is my neighbour.

 

It was then that Jesus

Showed himself

the complete domine.

 

Here to tell us how

that masterclass went

is……………..

 

Lesson I

 

Luke 10.25-37

 

Anthem

 

Yet in the end of the day,

we more usually remember

our good teachers

less for their professional ability

than for their personal qualities.

 

In other words,

what they said

on this issue

or that personal problem.  

 

Even more so,

what personality

did they show

when the chips were down.

 

Put simply,

we end up recalling

most of all –

their strength of humanity.

 

And in his extermitis,

Jesus showed humanity

in its most noble vintage.

 

Our next lesson is read by………

 

Luke 23.32-43

 

HYMN………..

 

Have you ever made

a categorical statement

which history

has proved wrong?

 

Take these experts

that time

has made complete wallys of.

 

Experts like the author

in the Popular Mechanics magazine

who in 1949

made this prediction:

"Where a computer today

has 18,000 electronic valves

and weighs 30 tons,

in the future

they may have only 1,000 valves

and weigh only 1.5 tons."

 Take also an inventor

by the name of Lee DeForest.

 

He claimed that

"While theoretically and technically,

television may be feasible,

commercially and financially

it is an impossibility."

 

Finally, we come

to that humdinger

of the Decca Recording Compan

y when they stated:

"We don't like their sound,

and guitar music

is on the way out."

 

That was their prediction

in 1962

concerning a few lads

from Liverpool.

 

Their band was called

the Beatles.

 

Well maybe aware

of the possibility

of bald facts

being overtaken by time,

good teachers

tend to focus

primarily

on principles.

 

Because these transform

our understanding

better than bogging us down

in disconnected information.

 

What’s more –

principles are more easily remembered

than a miscellany of data.

 

Jesus knew all this.

 

But he went further

and showed himself

more than a good teacher;

he showed himself

an inspired teacher.

 

For he not just taught

transforming principles

he also taught them

in the most memorable way.

 

And he did that

by using stories.

 

Stories that would prove

universally applicable across history;

stories that come to mind

in a thousand and one situations;

stories we can apply

to those difficult moments

right now.

 

To make my point,

I need only mention

the parable of the Good Samaritan

and you immediately see

what I mean.

 

For if today

there was a desire

for a legal definition

of who is our neighbour

then doubtless

there would

be a huge European document;

this in turn

would be debated

in parliament

and a UK bill produced

and then the lawyers

would have a lucrative field day

driving coach and horses

through it all.

 

But Christ’ teaching story

tells us as it.

 

Can anyone here

not know

who our neighbour is.

 

Let us then grow our faith

by knowing the right.

 

Let us reread Jesus stories.

 

Let us walk into Jesus’ stories

and let us be transformed

by Jesus’ stories.

 

For, they are

indeed

the bedrock of our learning,

the sourcebook of our principles

and the seeds of our beliefs.

 

But Christ earned his epithet

as teacher

in another way;

a way that all the best teachers employ;

a way that can grow our faith

in him

not just as saviour

but as our guide

for the here and now.

 

For Jesus knew that pupils

learn more

from what we do

rather than what we say.

 

To illustrate that,

I recall that

I often hear

Professor Moina Siddique

on Radio 4’s thought for the day.

 

She is now a Professor

at Glasgow University’s

Divinity Department

in Islamic Studies.

 

Now probably

it is a sad reflection on me

that I remember little

of her lectures upon Islam.

 

But what I do remember

is her invidulating

our final exams

on a baking hot day.

 

She quite contently

wandered between our desks

pouring out cups of cold water

for all the candidates.

 

And that taught me

about her faith

more memorably

than any words

she could have spoken.

 

Because we too

do grow Christian faith

in others

by how we apply Christ’s parables

to them;

how we show his principles

in our actions

towards them

and how

we have been transformed

by Christ

to their benefit.  

 

After all, I am sure

that the condemned thieves

who surrounded Jesus

on the cross

found faith

in their dark hour

through Christ’s teaching

to them.

 

For even in his own pain

he leaned out

and touched their futures

with the promise of life eternal.

 

Yet Jesus is more than his parables

no matter how behaviour modifying

they can be.

 

For, in truth,

he left something

other than stories

on this earth –

he left himself.

 

Because,

there are many morally edifying tales

around.

 

Each has

 

to some degree

an effect on its hearer.

 

But if we really want to grow our faith

to a new level of understanding,

we need teaching

not by distance learning

but hands on mentoring.

 

Put directly,

we need the risen Christ

to interpret his teaching

for us

in our current situation.

 

And that he does.

 

For the wonderful reality

of ‘Christ with us’

is that he is still teaching

through the parables;

he is still guiding

the application of his principles

and he is still transforming

painful situations

into a new avenue for faith.

 

Now many of us feel

at the moment

are challenged by issues,

disputes and conundrums.

 

Some are caused

by us just being alive

at this moment

in a Britain at war

and on

an endangered planet.  

 

Other problems

are peculiarly personal

to ourselves.

 

But, in each,

Jesus enters

and interprets the story;

the story for resolution

and their reconciliation;

the story of a bolstered faith

that acts memorably.

 

And a story that

quietly transforms

even the impossible situation

by transforming

even the impossible

in us.

 

Now all of that

Strangely

takes me to a video recorder.

 

For many years ago,

when I living in Taunton,

my telly went on the blink.

 

While I it was being repaired

I said to the dealer

does he ever get

any second video recorders in?

 

At that time,

they were very expensive items.

 

Yet as a result

I bore home

an old Panasonic machine

about the size of a small suitcase.

 

Well, after recording

various programmes

of the then 4 TV  channels,

I hired a video film

from the village SPAR shop.

 

It starred jack Lemmon

and was called ‘missing’.

 

Now in this true story

a well-healed,

middle class

and law and order American

flies down to Chile

to find out

what happened to his son

during the coup

that brought Augusto Pinochet

to power.

 

We travel with him

through a journey

from open support

for the military regime

to his discovering

of his protesting son’s

likely horrific end

in that infamous Santiago football stadium.  

 

Here then

is a modern day parable.

 

And that parable was a journey

too

for me.

 

Since during my Naval career

I had met

the charming and urbane

Chilean officers

with their medals;

medals from

their country’s internal war –

decorations

for their service

during what was quietly known

as South America’s dirty war.

 

Symbols too

of what was commonly held

to be their part

in what we all perceived

as world wide cold war.

 

But after watching that film,

I saw their medals

in a different light.

 

After that story

my understanding

was transformed.

 

After that teaching experience,

I started to discover

a different

and better answer

to the question –

who is my neighbour.

 

Well today

if we allow Christ

to be our teacher

we risk seeing things differently.

 

We risk needing

more faith to ask –

who is my neighbour.

 

Moreover, we risk

seeing our own

untutored inability

to defeat the problems

around us

both individually and globally.

 

But that risk is worthwhile –

for we risk

uncovering a teacher

who not only instructs

but leads by example.

 

We risk turning to a guide

who is still here

talking us

through our problems.

 

Indeed we risk

being transformed

from one side

of Christ to the other.

 

From the side

that condemns

to the side that hears

our invitation into paradise;  

the side of the self-righteous

to the side of the made righteous;

The side of the self taught

to the side of

the teacher and guide

of our salvation.

 

Amen

 

Offering

 

 

HYMN…………..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus as Teacher