Category Archives: Exposition

Palm Sunday: Three Barriers to Surrendering to God

Surrender is not a popular word, is it?  Almost disliked as much as the word submission. It implies losing, and no one wants to be a loser. Surrender evokes unpleasant images of admitting defeat in battle, forfeiting a game, or yielding to a stronger opponent. The word is almost always used in a negative context. In today’s competitive culture we are taught to never give up and never give in. So, we don’t hear much about surrendering. If winning is everything, to surrender is unthinkable. We would rather dwell on winning, succeeding, overcoming and conquering not yielding, submitting, obeying, or surrendering. It is ironic then that surrender is at the heart of the Christian faith.

Palm Sunday is all about surrender. Jesus rode on a donkey not a horse.  Jesus came in peace not war, to surrender not conquer. Jesus came to give his life as a ransom sacrifice, to be the Passover lamb, to make atonement with God. And when some in the crowd laid their coats on the ground, it was a sign of their surrender to him. Because surrender is the natural response to God’s grace and mercy. Our surrender is called many things in scripture: consecration, taking up your cross, dying to self, yielding to the Spirit, presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice. What matters is that we do it, not what we call it. 

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Believing is Seeing (John 9)

I woke up the other day and couldn’t see properly. I could see a blurred object like a large hair moving around in one eye. When I looked in the mirror there was nothing on my eye, but I could still see something moving around. That was when my curiosity turned to mild panic. Was I losing my eyesight? Was it cancer? 

I phoned the medical helpline 111 and was referred to the local Accident and Emergency Eye Hospital. A nice person triaged me over the phone and made an appointment for me to visit the next day. I was seen quickly by an eye specialist who did numerous tests, one of which is not for the faint hearted. It involved smearing my eye with aesthetic jelly and then placing an instrument on the pupil to explore the inside of my eye. Her diagnosis was that I have a vitrous detachment or ‘floater’. 

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Jesus on the Gospel and Gender Equality (John 4)

This week we celebrated International Women’s Day. The same day the UK government announced they would be funding more football sessions in schools for girls to improve gender equality in sport. I remember when our daughter wanted to play football at school she found it difficult to get picked for the team. The assumption then was that boys played football, while girls played netball.

But as you know sexism on the playing field is tame compared to the gender discrimination women face in career opportunities, in promotion prospects, in pay differentials, in the stereotype roles expected of men and women, even within such a liberated and enlightened society as ours.

One female executive put it like this, “To get anywhere in the corporate world a woman has to do the same work a man would do in the same job, but she must do it twice as well.” Then she added, “Fortunately, that is not difficult.” Another said, “We deserve more pay than men. After all, anything Fred Astaire could do, Ginger Rogers could do backwards and on high heels.”

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The Medium is the Message – Jesus is God’s Love in Action

How good are you at memorising information? Probably better than you realise. I suspect over the years you have memorised hundreds of messages without realising it. Let me test you. How many of these messages you can complete? And for a bonus point, can you remember who said it.

To our members we’re the fourth…emergency service: AA
Bread wi’ nowt …taken out: Allinsons.
Vorsprung durch… technik: Audi
The United Colors of… Benetton: Benetton
The taste of… Paradise: Bounty
The World’s Favourite… Airline: BA
Go to work on… an egg: Egg Marketing Board
A glass and a half in every… half pound: Cadburys
And all because the lady loves… Milk Tray
A pint a day helps you… work, rest and play: Milk Board
The man from Del Monte he… say yes: Del Monte
Put a tiger in… your tank: Esso
Hands that do dishes can feel… soft as your face: Fairy Liquid
No FT… no comment: Financial Times
The best a man… can get. Gillette
Guinness is… good for you. Guinness
Refreshes the parts other… beers cannot reach: Heineken
Beanz Meanz… Heinz
Graded grains make… finer flour: Homepride
Have a break. Have a… Kit-Kat
Never knowingly… undersold: John Lewis
Because you’re… worth it: L’Oreal
It does exactly what it says… on the tin: Ronseal
Diamonds are a girl’s… best friend: De Beers. And lastly…

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How To Overcome Temptation

I was driving past a Dunkin Donut store and felt this strong pang of hunger come on, so I prayed “Lord, if you want me to buy some donuts, please send me a sign and provide me with a parking space right outside the shop”. And guess what, The Lord answered my prayer. On my tenth time I drove past the shop, there was my parking space. It was Oscar Wilde who made famous the phrase, “I can resist everything… except temptation.”

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The Grace of Giving

Rejoice with me for I have won a Premium Bond prize! I got fed up with the abysmal interest rate my bank was paying on savings.   I feel quite good about lending my savings to the government to help bail out the economy. I have already won more money than I could have earned in a year’s worth of bank interest. Rest assured, the prize won’t change my lifestyle but I feel more generous. How much did I win? all five thousand pennies… (or £50).

The currency changes everything doesn’t it? Which currency are you using to evaluate worth? An earthly or heavenly currency?

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The Jesus I Never Knew

They say you never get a second chance at a first impression. But first impressions can sometimes be rather superficial. And that is also true when people think of Jesus. What were your first impressions of Jesus? 

My first memory of Jesus was around the age of six when I first attended Sunday School. I remember two things: Singing the chorus, “Jesus loves me this I know…” and a large painting of Jesus on the wall. Jesus was holding a lamb in his arms surrounded by lots of little children my age – except strangely unlike my Sunday school class, they were all different colours. There was an African child, a Chinese child, an Indian child, a Native American child and many others that were different to me. But I do remember, reassuringly that Jesus had long golden hair and a blond European complexion. My first memories were of a white Jesus and for many of us that is our unconscious default view we carry we carry with us through life. Comforting it may be until we encounter someone with a different religious heritage.  William Blake described the dilemma we face. 

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Anger Management for Beginners

What is it that makes you angry? At a trivial level, I get angry when I see someone drop litter or see a dog owner allow their pet to soil the path. More seriously I get angry when I see graffiti sprayed on a wall, or a tree sapling vandalised. I get angry when I hear climate change deniers, or when companies discharge waste into rivers. I get more angry when I see someone being bullied or harassed, especially if it’s a child, a woman, someone with a disability or person of colour. I get even more angry still over child abuse, sexual harassment or physical violence. I feel very angry with holocaust denial, Antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism. Above that, those who justify apartheid, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide. That’s me. What about you? What about Jesus? What did Jesus get angry with in the gospels? Surprisingly it was none of the above. What was it? Religious hypocrisy. Worth reflecting on that isn’t it?

In our gospel reading today Jesus’ instructs us on dealing with anger and with conflict resolution. Here are three headings: 
Unjustified anger is always destructive (Matthew 5:21-22)
Unsettled disputes are invariably costly (Matthew 5:25-26)
Pursue reconciliation to resolve conflict (Matthew 5:23-24)  

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Strong Reproofs for a Scandalous Church

My first parish as a young enthusiastic priest was St John’s, Stoke, in Guildford, Surrey. It is situated next door to Guildford College. In my time there as Rector, we held occasional events for students and faculty.  Previously I had spent four years working as a student pastor so when the chaplaincy of the college fell vacant I asked my Bishop whether the two posts could be combined. We heard nothing for months. Eventually when I pressed the Archdeacon, I was told that it was considered inappropriate for an evangelical to be appointed as the chaplain to an academic institution. Then when I proposed undertaking a part-time post graduate degree I was asked by the Director of Training, rather cynically, was I going to buy it from America? That was all the motivation I needed to pursue a Masters from Oxford and then eventually a PhD.

I can therefore relate to how the Apostle Paul must have felt when he was mocked by the Christians in Corinth for his lack of eloquence or oratory skills. Let me read to you from John Stott’s book “Calling Christian Leaders” (IVP)

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The Beatitudes: The Christian Manifesto

This is a poignant week for me. The 31st January is the 70th anniversary of the 1953 floods that devastated the coastal communities of East Anglia. A confluence of two weather systems – one in the English Channel and the other in the North Sea, caused a a storm surge. The abnormal rise in sea levels brought death and destruction all along the East coast, the worst floods in living memory. During that raging storm out to sea, the Lowestoft trawler Guava sunk without trace. My uncle Edward Sizer was one of the eleven crew who never returned home. 

Where do you find your security in the storms of life? Where do you find peace of mind in an uncertain world? How can you experience joy in a scary world?  

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