CTC’s Communications Officer Andy Walton preached last Sunday (16 February 2014) at St Peter’s Bethnal Green, as part of its “Just Church” sermon series on mercy, justice and evangelism.

His sermon took as its text Deuteronomy  30.15-20

I’d like to know what you all had for breakfast today. Can we take a quick poll?

Ok, so hands up for cereal. Hands up for toast. Hands up for full English. Hands up for something a little more exotic. Hands up those who slept through the alarm and grabbed something so you wouldn’t be late for church…

One of the big decisions that I face every day is what I should eat for breakfast. You know what it’s like. You feel like you should eat something healthy like yoghurt and fruit or something like that, but especially when it’s cold and wet and windy outside, you feel like having something a bit more bad for you…

But every day I’m faced with this choice. Since I was about 10 I’ve made my own decision about what to have for breakfast. So when I was a student, I chose to eat that cold pizza that was left over from yesterday. I don’t do that so much these days, but I still have a choice to make. When I’m being good I choose to have some porridge and fruit. But even if I choose to eat something bad for me, it’s my choice. I live with David and Hannah and they would never dream of telling me what to have for breakfast or denying me my choice. Sometimes David raises his eyebrows, such as when I had four Weetabix the other day (I think that’s a sensible number of Weetabix, but he disagrees!) but all joking aside, the choice remains entirely open to me as to what I eat.

But maybe the choice I make isn’t that much of a choice after all. Some of you will have seen this picture when it did the rounds on social media a couple of years ago, but it’s worth looking at again. It’s actually American, but has a big overlap with what we eat here in the UK. It shows all the major food types and shows which brand owns which. Have a look at how few companies own basically all the food we eat. Between them, 10 global mega-corporations own it all.

So even if I decide to have Quaker Oats, which sounds wholesome and British, I’m actually buying something from Pepsi. Look over there on the right. If I decide to eat Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream cos it’s all quirky and independent, well it’s actually owned by the same people as Walls, Magnum, Cornetto and loads more.

It’s the same when it comes to other areas of life isn’t it? So much of what looks like choice is actually an illusion. Think about phone contracts – there are millions to choose from, but all they really do is allow you to make phone calls. What about phones themselves? There are so many to choose from. But all of them are made of the same stuff inside. And the people who make them in China still work in the same pretty awful conditions whatever the brand name is on the front.

The best satire of this illusion of choice I’ve seen is, of course, from the Simpsons. Here’s Homer and Barney doing a tour of the Duff Beer factory. Can you spot what’s happening here? It’s the illusion of choice. Our society tells us we’re at our most free when we’re spending money. It tells us that the best way we can spend our Sunday is not in church or with our families or enjoying creation, but in the Westfield Centre, getting out our credit cards for another thing that the marketing departments have told us we need!

This has seeped into other areas of life as well. Parents are now told they have the right to choose any school for their children, rather than going to a good local school. Students are encouraged to shop around when choosing a university as if they’re supermarkets, there’s even an idea of choice in which hospital we use now, rather than just going to the closest one.

But this isn’t real choice.

Real choice is about something far more profound than that and we heard about it in our first reading. The final two verses of the reading from Deuteronomy are God addressing His people: “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

So God has told the people about real choice. Life or death. Blessings or curses. And then He tells them straight – choose life. When God addresses them here, the people of Israel are slaves in the desert. They are at a crossroads – will they choose life or will they choose death? You would think it an easy choice to make – life actually please!! But just as in the Garden of Eden the ways of death (“surely you will not die if you eat the fruit of that tree”) seems so much more attractive than the ‘boring’ ways of life’ (“everything else is for you”!). And why is this the case? Well, because, just like us, they were people who were always likely to choose the path of sin rather than the path of following God.

For the Hebrew slaves that are becoming a nation, the patterns of living seen in the surrounding peoples will test their own sense of call and identity. As they move among the new nations, will they hold on to what they have known to be true (being led and fed in the wilderness, seeing the glory of God) or will they be lured away by other things that appear true as well. As they enter to transform the lands around them will they unwittingly be transformed by them? Going in God’s image – whose image will they become? They take with them the laws and festivals which will help them remember who they were and now are. They are called live out the life they have been given, which aims to create ‘holy habits’ that will continually offer the ‘path of life’ for them. But will they choose it?

Well, spoiler alert, the rest of the Old Testament is basically the story of the people of God chopping and changing constantly between choosing life by following God and choosing death by straying away from Him. The prophets try numerous times to call them back to life but they carry on repeating the same bad choices. They keep choosing death.

In fact, in our Gospel reading this morning, we heard Jesus explain just how badly wrong things can go.  “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment’ Ok, so far so good. Most of us aren’t murderers. But hang on, Jesus takes it to a new level. “I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” So, in other words, we’re all in trouble. To an extent, we’ve all chosen death rather than life because none of us have been able to live up to the standard that God sets for us.

But Jesus is angry here for another reason. He knows that these seemingly little things add up. When we all make sinful and selfish decisions, it leads to systemic injustice. The kind of world in which 10 companies own all the food we eat, yet millions of people go hungry every day.

This is the story of the crucifixion as well. A series of bad and selfish choices by the priests, Judas, Pilate and others led to Jesus’ death. But by choosing to die, Jesus unmasks the systemic sin of injustice. And by His resurrection, he gives us confidence to do the same today. So when we challenge injustice, we do so not because it feels nice, but because Jesus on the cross gave us the ability and imperative to do so.

Eventually in the New Testament, we see the full glory of what God has decided to do about this problem. Instead of relying on the people of Israel to make the right choice about life and death, He makes a choice.

God, in the form of Jesus, decides to become human, be born in a stable in Bethlehem, where I was just a few weeks ago, to be alongside people, to learn the scriptures, to begin a public ministry, to heal the sick and proclaim the Gospel and then to give himself up to the Roman authorities to be beaten and crucified.

That’s the choice He makes. When He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane after the last supper, He talks to God the father and says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me” At this point Jesus can still make a choice. He can back out. But then He ends this prayer, “yet not my will, but yours be done.” He chooses to follow God. He chooses to go to the cross and suffer for us. His choice looks like this.

The theologian John Stott said this about the cross: “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it… I have turned… to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering.”

So the key question for every single human being is what we then do in response. Jesus has done what seemed impossible. He has opened up a path between the perfect and holy God and humankind which always ended up choosing death and running away and hiding like Adam and Eve did in the garden. So He’s opened up this path and beckoned us to believe in Him and to trust in Him so that we can be restored to that right relationship with God. In other words, he’s offered us the chance to choose life. It’s come full circle if you like, except now; we don’t have to follow a list of 613 commandments handed down in the Old Testament like some of my Orthodox Jewish friends still try to do. Instead we simply have to believe that what Jesus has done on the cross is enough. That’s it. It is finished, as He Himself said just before he died. We don’t need to add anything to it. And in believing that his death (and then his resurrection) are sufficient for us, we are choosing life. Pretty amazing eh?

Now, even though that is all we need to do to get ourselves back into a right relationship with God, once we’ve done it there is a path that we can then follow which means that choosing life isn’t a one off decision, but it becomes a way of life. So in the same way that I choose what to have for breakfast every morning, the fact that I’m a Christian and have chosen to believe in Jesus means that every day I’m presented with thousands of little choices I can make to follow Him more closely. Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength. In other words, to choose life. But then he follows up by saying there is a second commandment which is like that first one. To love your neighbour as yourself. He says that all of those 613 laws and everything the Old Testament prophets taught rely on these two commandments.

Also, following the path of the cross means going to the heart of systemic sin, confident that it is no longer the final word on the human condition. Jesus, on the cross, instituted a complete turnaround in how sin affects the world. No longer do all our sinful choices inevitably add up to a systematically unjust world. Instead, we’re invited to help build God’s Kingdom of justice. We can do this confidently and face down injustice in the knowledge that Jesus has won.

In choosing the path of life on a daily basis, along with my sisters and brothers in this church and churches across the world, we begin to look like the body of Christ. We begin to embody that shalom that Adam talked about a few weeks ago – the peace and wholeness of the Kingdom of God. And what does that look like in reality? Well, that’s where we come to what David spoke about last week. The church as a taste of heaven come to earth. The first fruits of the kingdom of God are healed relationships, healed bodies and minds, food shared, possessions shared in common, hospitality for eachother, a warm and genuine welcome here at church, being peacemakers, like the Orthodox priests in Ukraine whose pictures we’ve seen on the screens here and in the news in the past few weeks.

This series we’ve been doing the past few weeks is called Just Church. And that sums up what a church full of people who have chosen life looks like – it is not only helping its own members in the way I’ve just described – it is fighting for Justice in the local area, the rest of the country and the rest of the world. We do this not in our own power but in the power of the cross.

That’s why Caitlin and Emmanuel led a group of young people around Tower Hamlets on Thursday with torches in the dark, showing the police where they felt unsafe. That’s why David is leading our work against those horrible payday lenders who charge criminal rates of interest against people who take out a loan. That’s why we as a church are so involved in many, many other works seeking justice.

But we don’t only seek justice; we also want to invite more and more people to join us in choosing life. So that’s why as a church, we are unashamed in telling people about what Jesus has done for us. We will be out on the streets in a few weeks on Palm Sunday; we did the same in Advent on Columbia road when singing carols. We want to go out into our local area and invite others to come and choose life alongside us.

It’s why we run Alpha courses here, to introduce people to Jesus and what He’s offering. It’s why we put a blackboard out at the front and ring the bells on a Sunday morning  –  to say to those in our area that we want them to come in here and hear about Jesus, to come in and understand what Jesus has done on the cross for us and then to join us in choosing life.

We want more and more people to come to know Jesus, because the Bible desribes two options. It’s life or death. It’s Blessing or curse. It’s Jesus or bust, basically. Because He is the author and the main character of this story and it’s through His death and resurrection that life comes.

So, we want to do justice because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We want to tell people about that choice that Jesus has won for us on the cross. But of course, when he went to the cross, Jesus knew that wasn’t the end. He knew the good news that would burst forth three days later, but that doesn’t mean that it was an easy choice. It must have been an incredibly tough choice to go to the cross, despite being the only totally innocent and good human to ever live. But Jesus chose to do it and he chose to do it for us – because the people of God had shown time and time again that they couldn’t choose life and stick to that choice. So Jesus says, OK, I’ll do it for you. I’ll take all the sin and rubbish and brokenness and death upon myself on the cross so that you don’t have to.

A few weeks ago Adam preached and used a phrase that stuck with me when I listened to it online.  When talking about the grace shown to us by God in the form of Jesus on the cross, he said, “Nothing is achieved by us and nothing is deserved by us. It all comes from God.” And that’s true. Jesus made the choice to be treated in the worst way possible. But He chose to do it for us.

So when you get up tomorrow, and decide what you’re going to have for breakfast, remember that although it might seem like choice to be able to select Grapefruit or Kippers or poached eggs, actually there is a much more profound choice in front of you and me. You can choose life and you can choose to follow Jesus. It’s my prayer that we all learn to follow him more closely tomorrow morning, the rest of this week and the rest of our lives.

Amen

I’d like to know what you all had for breakfast today. Can we take a quick poll?

Ok so hands up for cereal. Hands up for toast. Hands up for full English. Hands up for something a little more exotic. Hands up those who slept through the alarm and grabbed something so you wouldn’t be late for church…

One of the big decisions that I face every day is what I should eat for breakfast. You know what it’s like. You feel like you should eat something healthy like yoghurt and fruit or something like that, but especially when it’s cold and wet and windy outside, you feel like having something a bit more bad for you…

But every day I’m faced with this choice. Since I was about 10 I’ve made my own decision about what to have for breakfast. So when I was a student, I chose to eat that cold pizza that was left over from yesterday. I don’t do that so much these days, but I still have a choice to make. When I’m being good I choose to have some porridge and fruit. But even if I choose to eat something bad for me, it’s my choice. I live with David and Hannah and they would never dream of telling me what to have for breakfast or denying me my choice. Sometimes David raises his eyebrows, such as when I had four Weetabix the other day (I think that’s a sensible number of Weetabix, but he disagrees!) but all joking aside, the choice remains entirely open to me as to what I eat.

But maybe the choice I make isn’t that much of a choice after all. Some of you will have seen this picture when it did the rounds on social media a couple of years ago, but it’s worth looking at again. It’s actually American, but has a big overlap with what we eat here in the UK. It shows all the major food types and shows which brand owns which. Have a look at how few companies own basically all the food we eat. Between them, 10 global mega-corporations own it all.

So even if I decide to have Quaker Oats, which sounds wholesome and British, I’m actually buying something from Pepsi. Look over there on the right. If I decide to eat Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream cos it’s all quirky and independent, well it’s actually owned by the same people as Walls, Magnum, Cornetto and loads more.

It’s the same when it comes to other areas of life isn’t it? So much of what looks like choice is actually an illusion. Think about phone contracts – there are millions to choose from, but all they really do is allow you to make phone calls. What about phones themselves? There are so many to choose from. But all of them are made of the same stuff inside. And the people who make them in China still work in the same pretty awful conditions whatever the brand name is on the front.

The best satire of this illusion of choice I’ve seen is, of course, from the Simpsons. Here’s Homer and Barney doing a tour of the Duff Beer factory. Can you spot what’s happening here? It’s the illusion of choice. Our society tells us we’re at our most free when we’re spending money. It tells us that the best way we can spend our Sunday is not in church or with our families or enjoying creation, but in the Westfield Centre, getting out our credit cards for another thing that the marketing departments have told us we need!

This has seeped into other areas of life as well. Parents are now told they have the right to choose any school for their children, rather than going to a good local school. Students are encouraged to shop around when choosing a university as if they’re supermarkets, there’s even an idea of choice in which hospital we use now, rather than just going to the closest one.

But this isn’t real choice.

Real choice is about something far more profound than that and we heard about it in our first reading. The final two verses of the reading from Deuteronomy are God addressing His people: “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

So God has told the people about real choice. Life or death. Blessings or curses. And then He tells them straight – choose life. When God addresses them here, the people of Israel are slaves in the desert. They are at a crossroads – will they choose life or will they choose death? You would think it an easy choice to make – life actually please!! But just as in the Garden of Eden the ways of death (“surely you will not die if you eat the fruit of that tree”) seems so much more attractive than the ‘boring’ ways of life’ (“everything else is for you”!). And why is this the case? Well, because, just like us, they were people who were always likely to choose the path of sin rather than the path of following God.

For the Hebrew slaves that are becoming a nation, the patterns of living seen in the surrounding peoples will test their own sense of call and identity. As they move among the new nations, will they hold on to what they have known to be true (being led and fed in the wilderness, seeing the glory of God) or will they be lured away by other things that appear true as well. As they enter to transform the lands around them will they unwittingly be transformed by them? Going in God’s image – whose image will they become? They take with them the laws and festivals which will help them remember who they were and now are. They are called live out the life they have been given, which aims to create ‘holy habits’ that will continually offer the ‘path of life’ for them. But will they choose it?

Well, spoiler alert, the rest of the Old Testament is basically the story of the people of God chopping and changing constantly between choosing life by following God and choosing death by straying away from Him. The prophets try numerous times to call them back to life but they carry on repeating the same bad choices. They keep choosing death.

In fact, in our Gospel reading this morning, we heard Jesus explain just how badly wrong things can go.  “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment’ Ok, so far so good. Most of us aren’t murderers. But hang on, Jesus takes it to a new level. “I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” So, in other words, we’re all in trouble. To an extent, we’ve all chosen death rather than life because none of us have been able to live up to the standard that God sets for us.

But Jesus is angry here for another reason. He knows that these seemingly little things add up. When we all make sinful and selfish decisions, it leads to systemic injustice. The kind of world in which 10 companies own all the food we eat, yet millions of people go hungry every day.

This is the story of the crucifixion as well. A series of bad and selfish choices by the priests, Judas, Pilate and others led to Jesus’ death. But by choosing to die, Jesus unmasks the systemic sin of injustice. And by His resurrection, he gives us confidence to do the same today. So when we challenge injustice, we do so not because it feels nice, but because Jesus on the cross gave us the ability and imperative to do so.

Eventually in the New Testament, we see the full glory of what God has decided to do about this problem. Instead of relying on the people of Israel to make the right choice about life and death, He makes a choice.

God, in the form of Jesus, decides to become human, be born in a stable in Bethlehem, where I was just a few weeks ago, to be alongside people, to learn the scriptures, to begin a public ministry, to heal the sick and proclaim the Gospel and then to give himself up to the Roman authorities to be beaten and crucified.

Now, I mentioned Bethlehem there, and Adam asked me to give you a quick two minute summary of my time in Palestine and Israel…

That’s the choice He makes. When He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane after the last supper, He talks to God the father and says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me” At this point Jesus can still make a choice. He can back out. But then He ends this prayer, “yet not my will, but yours be done.” He chooses to follow God. He chooses to go to the cross and suffer for us. His choice looks like this.

The theologian John Stott said this about the cross: “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it… I have turned… to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering.”

So the key question for every single human being is what we then do in response. Jesus has done what seemed impossible. He has opened up a path between the perfect and holy God and humankind which always ended up choosing death and running away and hiding like Adam and Eve did in the garden. So He’s opened up this path and beckoned us to believe in Him and to trust in Him so that we can be restored to that right relationship with God. In other words, he’s offered us the chance to choose life. It’s come full circle if you like, except now; we don’t have to follow a list of 613 commandments handed down in the Old Testament like some of my Orthodox Jewish friends still try to do. Instead we simply have to believe that what Jesus has done on the cross is enough. That’s it. It is finished, as He Himself said just before he died. We don’t need to add anything to it. And in believing that his death (and then his resurrection) are sufficient for us, we are choosing life. Pretty amazing eh?

Now, even though that is all we need to do to get ourselves back into a right relationship with God, once we’ve done it there is a path that we can then follow which means that choosing life isn’t a one off decision, but it becomes a way of life. So in the same way that I choose what to have for breakfast every morning, the fact that I’m a Christian and have chosen to believe in Jesus means that every day I’m presented with thousands of little choices I can make to follow Him more closely. Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength. In other words, to choose life. But then he follows up by saying there is a second commandment which is like that first one. To love your neighbour as yourself. He says that all of those 613 laws and everything the Old Testament prophets taught rely on these two commandments.

Also, following the path of the cross means going to the heart of systemic sin, confident that it is no longer the final word on the human condition. Jesus, on the cross, instituted a complete turnaround in how sin affects the world. No longer do all our sinful choices inevitably add up to a systematically unjust world. Instead, we’re invited to help build God’s Kingdom of justice. We can do this confidently and face down injustice in the knowledge that Jesus has won.

In choosing the path of life on a daily basis, along with my sisters and brothers in this church and churches across the world, we begin to look like the body of Christ. We begin to embody that shalom that Adam talked about a few weeks ago – the peace and wholeness of the Kingdom of God. And what does that look like in reality? Well, that’s where we come to what David spoke about last week. The church as a taste of heaven come to earth. The first fruits of the kingdom of God are healed relationships, healed bodies and minds, food shared, possessions shared in common, hospitality for eachother, a warm and genuine welcome here at church, being peacemakers, like the Orthodox priests in Ukraine whose pictures we’ve seen on the screens here and in the news in the past few weeks.

This series we’ve been doing the past few weeks is called Just Church. And that sums up what a church full of people who have chosen life looks like – it is not only helping its own members in the way I’ve just described – it is fighting for Justice in the local area, the rest of the country and the rest of the world. We do this not in our own power but in the power of the cross.

That’s why Caitlin and Emmanuel led a group of young people around Tower Hamlets on Thursday with torches in the dark, showing the police where they felt unsafe. That’s why David is leading our work against those horrible payday lenders who charge criminal rates of interest against people who take out a loan. That’s why we as a church are so involved in many, many other works seeking justice.

But we don’t only seek justice; we also want to invite more and more people to join us in choosing life. So that’s why as a church, we are unashamed in telling people about what Jesus has done for us. We will be out on the streets in a few weeks on Palm Sunday; we did the same in Advent on Columbia road when singing carols. We want to go out into our local area and invite others to come and choose life alongside us.

It’s why we run Alpha courses here, to introduce people to Jesus and what He’s offering. It’s why we put a blackboard out at the front and ring the bells on a Sunday morning  –  to say to those in our area that we want them to come in here and hear about Jesus, to come in and understand what Jesus has done on the cross for us and then to join us in choosing life.

We want more and more people to come to know Jesus, because the Bible desribes two options. It’s life or death. It’s Blessing or curse. It’s Jesus or bust, basically. Because He is the author and the main character of this story and it’s through His death and resurrection that life comes.

So, we want to do justice because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We want to tell people about that choice that Jesus has won for us on the cross. But of course, when he went to the cross, Jesus knew that wasn’t the end. He knew the good news that would burst forth three days later, but that doesn’t mean that it was an easy choice. It must have been an incredibly tough choice to go to the cross, despite being the only totally innocent and good human to ever live. But Jesus chose to do it and he chose to do it for us – because the people of God had shown time and time again that they couldn’t choose life and stick to that choice. So Jesus says, OK, I’ll do it for you. I’ll take all the sin and rubbish and brokenness and death upon myself on the cross so that you don’t have to.

A few weeks ago Adam preached and used a phrase that stuck with me when I listened to it online.  When talking about the grace shown to us by God in the form of Jesus on the cross, he said, “Nothing is achieved by us and nothing is deserved by us. It all comes from God.” And that’s true. Jesus made the choice to be treated in the worst way possible. But He chose to do it for us.

So when you get up tomorrow, and decide what you’re going to have for breakfast, remember that although it might seem like choice to be able to select Grapefruit or Kippers or poached eggs, actually there is a much more profound choice in front of you and me. You can choose life and you can choose to follow Jesus. It’s my prayer that we all learn to follow him more closely tomorrow morning, the rest of this week and the rest of our lives. Amen.

media@theology-centre.org

St Peter’s Bethnal Green – one of our partner churches – has just begun a sermon series based around our Just Church report.

Preaching on 19 January, the Revd Adam Atkinson (Vicar of St Peter’s, and CTC’s Senior Tutor) introduced the series.  His text was 1 Corinthians 1.1-9

The sermon is reprinted below.

Great stories often start with a strong opening line. See if you can guess/know any of these from literature or film:

All children, except one, grow up [J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan]

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. [The Hobbit]

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much [J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone]

It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen [George Orwell, 1984]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife [Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice]

The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. [Dr Seuss, The Cat in the Hat]

Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate’s life for me. Yo, ho, yo, ho, it’s a pirate’s life for me …  [Pirates of the Carribean]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth [Moses, Genesis/The Bible]

This is not a sermon to promote a pub quiz at The Marksman, though that’s a good thing. This is an introduction, an opening about a sermon series called ‘Just Church’.

In this new sermon mini-series, ‘Just Church’, each talk builds on another. There’s a ‘Just Church’ booklet to go with it and we are recording and podcasting the talks.

This is an introduction to the Just Church series. ‘Just’ – what is it to be just? and ‘Church’ – what is church? Are you sitting comfortably? In the beginning…

In our reading, Paul ‘an apostle’ is the author. He’s given testimony, told the story of Jesus to real people in Corinth. Scripture is personal. He’s now writing them a letter which we can read, which speaks to us and which we can act on.

I particularly want to look at verses 2 and 3. St Paul writes to them, calling them in v2 ‘the church of God in Corinth’.

We are ‘the church of God in Bethnal Green’ and, church, God does want us to hear him speaking to us today, specifically to us in our context. He’s got a message for us, collectively and individually. It’s personal. He’s about relationship.

So, what is church? People who have been ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people’. Who are they? ‘All those … who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

What does that mean? People who are no longer in control of their lives, subject to own wills and instincts but instead who call Jesus ‘their Lord’ and when they pray and worship and also when they face things in life and decide and act ‘call on’ that name, the person of Jesus. They can, we can, become new people because we can know him, personally.

So the message to us has already started: What God has done ‘in Christ Jesus’, makes us his new people. We become God’s people as a result of divine activity.

And as his people we are sanctified. It is a technical-sounding word, applied to utensils in the Temple, set apart for God. Because we have been set apart for God we must also bear the character of the God who has set us apart.

As those ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus’ we are ‘called to be his holy people’. If we are ‘in Christ’ then we are no less than God’s children by divine calling and, as his people, will reflect his character, the family likeness.

For the Christians in Corinth this was not their strong suit, they looked far more like others around them in Corinth than they looked like God’s holy people in Corinth.

Holiness is part of God’s intention in saving his people. The church in Corinth needed to hear this because they separated belief from action, there were no ethical consequences to their faith. But holiness in the Bible usually involves observable behaviour, be under no illusions.

What about us? Do we look like God’s holy people in Bethnal Green, or do we look like the rest of London?

What I mean by that is holiness in speech, holiness on social media, in our sex lives, in our spending. Also holiness – something also observably different – in our approach to other people and to the structures and systems of society.

If Jesus is our Lord and not ourselves then we will reflect his holiness, we will sound and act and look different here in Bethnal Green to others who are still subject to the Lordship of London.

Paul is writing to ‘the church of God in Corinth’, God is speaking to ‘the church of God in Bethnal Green’.

The one thing that you might know about the church in Corinth was that is was a mess – full of problems, sin, division, heresy. It was in this sense no different from us – and every other church for that matter!

What is church? A fellowship of sinners seeking to become saints. We are not heroes, we are full of weaknesses and sins – I’m going to let you down and you will let one another down. But we are a family, at our worst dysfunctional but at other times displaying the best of human family, loyal, caring, open – a cup of tea not far away!

There are lots of reasons to  come to St Peter’s! But here’s one reason to come: we’re on a mission from God and we’re in it together. Like an old mission outpost set down and publicly evident in an area where lots of people don’t know Jesus and who we get to show and tell God’s good life.

We’re a community church, we’re diverse, we’re cross-tradition, we’re trying to be authentic. We’re not perfect but that doesn’t mean we’re like all of London because we are set apart for God, becoming more and more holy.

We are in it together, with those across the globe who ‘call on the name of the Lord’. Church is where we encourage one another in holiness. Life Groups are so important in this, life at the heart of the church, meeting to eat together and in many different ways calling ‘on the name of the Lord’.

The most important thing about us though is that we are ‘in Christ’. That is true of us before anything else. We have warts and all but God has done great things for us in Christ. What’s on display of holiness and other things in church such as growth, faith and activity are all good but they come out of being ‘in Christ’. God’s generosity and faithfulness in his relationship to us is what counts most of all.

As church we’re people relating to one another not accidentally but intentionally. We’re set apart, we’re being made holy. And we are part of a bigger picture, we’re not alone.

We also get something in church. There it is in verse 3: ‘Grace & peace’. Say it to one another. ‘Grace and peace’ – it is what you should experience in & around church. Grace and peace is what should flow from us.

CS Lewis was asked to sum up Christianity in a sentence. He said ‘I can do better than that, I’ll put I in one word: grace’.

God has given himself to us human creatures mercifully and bountifully. Nothing is deserved by us, nothing is achieved by us, instead it is all God’s work for us out of love. Grace means that there’s nothing I can do to make God love me more and there’s nothing I can do to make God love me less.

And the sum of these benefits as experienced by us who receive God’s grace is bundled together in the word ‘peace’, shalom – meaning wellbeing, wholeness, of body mind and spirit and wellbeing, wholeness of the entire world order.

‘Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’, and explicit in v 6 is the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus was in the congregation now, and I interviewed him about his story he might say it is one that involves being loved by the Father. Which might surprise you – because when we think of Jesus’s life on earth it is easy for us to imagine it wasn’t so great. Persecuted in his own town, hunted down, ganged up on, abandoned and finally killed.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Jesus didn’t have a very rosy view of his time living among us. But Jesus knew he was at the centre of God’s love. And as such he was able to love others and tell his story of relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit. He’d want to tell us the story so that we could be part of the story of their relationship too.

Father, Son and Spirit – the Trinity – love one another, prefer one another, look to one another, rely on one another. We can share in this relationship today and for eternity.

We are made to relate to a relational God. He has created us for relationship. To love God and to love our neighbours. That’s Jesus’s summary of the OT Law: Love God and love our neighbours. So, church, ‘Grace & peace’.

Where there is shalom, peace, there is likely to be justice. Which brings us to being a just church – what is it to be just?

Last week I talked about Jesus the servant healer and King in Isaiah, who is coming back to establish the reign of his Kingdom and heal everything that is wrong in the world, to do justice.

Justice is the job of a good King and Jesus will do that, he will put everything right, he will undo all the horrendous and degrading effects that sin has had on the human race.

The church ‘in Christ’, in relationship with this King Jesus, is to care for the bruised and battered with him who is loving and kind to the broken. As he heals and forgives us we share the story of our relationship with the King among those could miss out on his grace and peace.

It also means we are a church to do justice with him, to put things right out there in the world. But do this in such a way that gets the results of the good king of the Kingdom, without resorting to the methods of the earthly evil empire.

This takes a lot of wisdom on our part. We have to deal with the doctrine of sin and the spirit of the servant.

The doctrine of sin tells us is that people who wield power in an unjust way will never relinquish power from the goodness of their heart. The doctrine of sin applies. At the same time we need to exhibit the spirit of a servant, Jesus came not to take power but to give it up and to love and to die and to suffer. The results of the king without the methods.

This is the case in the area of payday lending. Last year we went to one on the high street and celebrated Canada Day, because their terms are better in Canada than here. We were after a relationship with them and justice for customers – with Maple syrup! That’s why we are building a CitySafe Zone along Hackney Road, relationships leading to justice.

The church ‘in Christ’, in relationship with this King Jesus, is to care for the bruised and battered with him who is loving and kind to the broken. As he heals and forgives us we share the story of our relationship with the King among those could miss out on his grace and peace.

It also means we are a church to do justice with him, to put things right out there in the world. But do this in such a way that gets the results of the good king of the Kingdom, without resorting to the methods of the earthly evil empire.

To extend mercy to the broken, bleeding and battered and also to be a church enacting
justice among the systems in this world is hard. But we are in relationship with one
another and with our neighbours, we’re on a mission.

The last time we asked what people wanted to see better around us in Bethnal Green the result was: jobs, money, housing & food. So these are at the top of our list of action to be taking.

As we do, the display of grace and peace among the church is an acting out of the story of Christ. The gospel is the good news of what God has done – done for each of us. We pass this on, bear witness, we need to show and tell the story.

It isn’t an option to be a silent witness Christian. ‘My faith is a private matter’, ‘Oh she doesn’t force her faith on anyone’, ‘he just quietly goes off to church’. Yes, there is a story we are writing with our lives as a testimony to the love of God, but it goes together with story that comes from our lips.

The love of God, Father, Son & Spirit is a relationship we are set apart for. It is a relationship which shines out in holiness. It is a relationship abounding in grace & peace. Not pie in the sky when you die but meat on the street with your feet.

We’re Just Church – we get fed here, refreshed here, restored to that relationship again here, we receive his grace and peace to us sinners here. And from here we follow him outside to continue the story. One which does not end with his death on a cross but through the resurrection if we are ‘in Christ’, really can end: ‘and they all lived happily ever after’.

CTC’s Researcher and Community Organiser Cailtin Burbridge preached today (26 January 2014) at St Peter’s Bethnal Green, as part of its “Just Church” sermon series on mercy, justice and evangelism.

Her sermon on “How ordinary stories become extraordinary with God” took as its text the first chapter of the Book of Ruth

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THE GENRE OF THE BIBLE?

In the Bible we learn how to live – and we learn about the character of God, and about the things His people did down through history.

So what are the ways that these kinds of messages could have been written? They could have been written as a list of dates recorded next to things that happened. It could have been a very long list of rules or recommendations. Or ot could have included lots of speeches, and great lists of instructions.

In fact, the most common form of writing in the Bible is STORY. The Bible is full of all sorts of different types of story. There are parables, poems, and songs, there are historical accounts of things that happened, and there are fictional stories – all of which teach us about God. God uses stories because we can relate to them.  They are more interesting and exiting to listen to, and they often have characters which we can understand – people who might be a bit like us. Often the stories in the bible are of people who actually seem quite ordinary.

One of the most amazing things about all of these  stories in the Bible is that they are woven together to form a much BIGGER story. God’s BIG story is the whole narrative of the Bible from the creation of the world, right through to Revelation. In fact it’s a story that is still being written.

So what is God’s big narrative? In Genesis we read a story which explains to us the creation of the world, and man’s decision to not follow God. This is shown to us through the story of the fall of man when Adam eats the apple in the garden of Eden. After this story in Genesis, we see throughout the Bible the story of God working in relationship with his people to bring about his kingdom on earth. God is renewing our world, one story at a time.

I’ve come to the conclusion therefore that God is a big fan of stories.

The Bible is not just a book which we leave next to our bed and pick up when we want to read it. It is not just a set of teachings and rules to live by. When we read the Bible, we realise that it is made up of lots of different stories of ordinary people who are trying their best (or sometimes not trying at all!) to live out their life by following God. It is these ordinary stories which actually shape and create the narrative of the big story. It means that WE are a part of making God’s big story. In John 1, verse 14, we read, ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’. This is not an abstract word, a guide in how to live, or a set of rules. This is the ‘Word made flesh’, a collection of real stories, stories of ordinary people who God has made, who God loves, and who God wants to work with to bring about his BIG story. The story in which he reveals himself on earth. That’s pretty amazing isn’t it?

RUTH: A FAIRLY ORDINARY STORY BECOMES EXTRAORDINARY

Most of the time the stories in the bible are about very ordinary people. That’s a bit of a relief to me! So I want us to have a think about the story of someone fairly ordinary in the bible. This is the story of Ruth which we have just listened to.

Now, just to go back a little and make sure we’ve understood the stor.   Naomi was a woman from Bethlehem who had to flee to Moab with her husband. When they were in Moab, her two sons married two girls from Moab. One of these girls was Ruth. In the story, all the men in the family died, leaving Naomi, Ruth and her sister in law Orpah. We get the impression in the story that Naomi probably wasn’t much fun as a mother-in-law. She’d had a hard time and she was left feeling quite better. Anyone who refers to themselves as ‘bitter’ is probably not someone you want to be best mates with.

Naomi heard that the lord was providing ‘aid’ (or food) for the people of Bethlehem so she wanted to go back and take her daughters in law with her. However, she does something rather unusual. After they’d set off she stops and asks both of the girls to go back, saying ‘there will be nothing for you in Bethlehem’.  Now Naomi  was right, if the girls went with Naomi they would be foreigners and life would be very difficult for them. We see today how hostile some people can be about those who are ‘foreigners’ in this country. Back then, it was an even bigger issue. The young women would have no family support, no guarantee of marriage or friendship. They would be choosing to live a difficult life of poverty and alienation.

At this point in the story, you might think: “Phew! Ruth and Orpah have finally got rid of this slightly difficult woman and they can go back to their own people. Thank you God!”

But Ruth does something rather surprising. It says in verse 14, ‘Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth clung to her’.  At this point we should be thinking: “What?!! This is your moment to escape! Go on, go back!” But Rutch doesn’t. Naomi says again, ‘Go back’. But Ruth refuses, ‘don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.’

There are three things I want us to notice about Ruth. Firstly, Ruth knows the heart of God and was obedient to it. Secondly, Ruth is brave, and finally, Ruth acts with great humility.

So the first point. Ruth’s decision to accompany Naomi did not benefit Ruth in any way. But she wanted to go to accompany her elderly mother-in-law. She wanted to look after her, and not abandon her. This was a remarkable act and showed that she recognised this is God’s heart-to accompany, to come alongside, to remain with us. Ruth was obedient to the will of God. Knowing that it would be good to do something (which I referred to earlier as knowing the heart of God) doesn’t always lead to obedience. But Ruth chooses to be obedient. She does not want to leave Naomi alone. She is loyal to her family.

Secondly, Ruth is brave and demonstrates great faithfulness. As I mentioned earlier, being a foreigner in Moab would have been a very difficult thing. She would have no support, and no family. We know that she was poor. Despite all this she was faithful. She was prepared to live wherever Naomi wanted to be in order to support her.

Finally, Ruth was humble. She was prepared to give up everything that she had in her home and come and work in the fields in Bethlehem. Ruth did not tell people about the sacrifices she had made, but she chose to walk humbly with God for the sake of Naomi. She had the option not to, but she chose to anyway.

Now why am I telling you about this particular story? I’m telling it because something rather extraordinary happens at the end. We heard in the second part of the reading that Boaz sees Ruth’s noble and humble actions and chooses to marry her. Through this marriage, Ruth actually enters the genealogical line of Christ. Now we question genealogies and family lines, but what this story demonstrates is that ordinary Ruth from Moab chooses to act out of obedience, bravery and humility in accordance with what she understood to be the desire of God’s heart, and her ordinary story comes into direct line with God’s big narrative of the whole bible.

We read in chapter 4 about the family line of someone called Perez, which ends in this way: ‘Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the Father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David’.

This is Ruth’s family tree! The line of David. This is the same genealogical line as Jesus. Now actually, it doesn’t matter here how much we know about the genealogies. The point it demonstrates is that Ruth’s ordinary story in which she chooses to serve God by coming alongside Naomi becomes woven into the arc of the whole biblical narrative. God’s BIG story.

Ruth’s story seems fairly ordinary. Yet the way it comes into the line of the whole biblical narrative is extraordinary. To us Ruth might seem fairly ordinary, to God she is extraordinary. When we look at the root of the word ‘extraordinary’ we see that it actually means beyond the ordinary. I like this a lot. Often I think we understand the word extraordinary to mean something which is particularly impressive. Something which started out impressive. Like a beautiful sunset, or a spectacular view. But actually, what this suggests is that there is a progression from ordinary to extraordinary. There is a journey to go on from the ordinary to the extraordinary. When we look beyond this ordinary story, we can see it’s role in shaping something ‘beyond’ the ordinary. That is God’s BIG story. This is extraordinary.

I’ve talked about Ruth. But there are lots of other stories of ordinary people being used in extraordinary ways throughout the bible. Remember the boy who had just 5 loaves and fishes. He was a child and yet because he was willing to offer the little that he had, God was able to use him to feed 5,000 people. This narrative is used to explain something of God’s generosity. The ordinary story of one person and the big story of God’s redemption of the world are, yet again, woven together. The ordinary becomes extraordinary.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR US?

So what does all of this mean for us?

I wonder whether you know the stories of everyone in this congregation? I certainly don’t. In what way might God be using you, and using everyone else to contribute to his big story of redeeming the earth?

The question I want to ask is ‘What part of Naomi’s story did Ruth see when she looked at her’?

When she looked at Naomi, perhaps she saw these things:

1. Perhaps she saw that Naomi was in her family, a family which God had given her, and a family Ruth therefore wanted to remain loyal to, even if it meant she would be poor and that she would have to live as a migrant.

2. Perhaps she also saw that Naomi had a need. Naomi was an old woman who would really benefit from the support and accompaniment of Ruth-someone younger who could look after her.

3. Perhaps she also saw God? Did she see Naomi was someone who God loved and cared about deeply about. Someone who God loves and wants to be with.

I think the Bible is full of stories because God loves the stories of his people. He loves to see how each one of us is joining in with his plan to restore creation through seeing the needs, and desires of those around us.

As with Ruth, God doesn’t just see what is on the outside of our stories, he sees what is going on inside. For a story is more than a description. When I look at Adam I could say that I see a man who is wearing a black cassock, or jeans and a shirt. Or…I could find out what Adam’s story is. Who he cares about, the things that make him excited, the things that he finds hard. God didn’t just see Ruth. He saw her humble, and faithful obedience.

This has implications for how we act as a church. What happens when we truly seek to know the stories of those around us. When we seek to see beyond the surface. In the same way that the bible is not a sequence of lists, and rules about how to live, neither is the church to be a place where we come along, learn about God and go home.

How much more life-giving is it to think about church as a place where we try to understand the stories of those who are around us? Perhaps those we are sat next to, those who live next door to us, those who serve us in the local shops on the hackney rd, those who drive the bus? What are their stories, and how might God want us to be involved in them?

I am certainly challenged and encouraged by Ruth’s story. Everything seemed quite hopeless for her. Yet because she was willing to be obedient to the will of God, she felt God’s compassionate heart for Naomi and acted took action. Through these humble actions her story comes into line with the grand narrative of God.

SHARING STORIES TODAY

I’m going to ask Emmanuel to come up briefly. Emmanuel [a member of St Peter’s, and of its youth group] has been absolutely brilliant recently working with me to do some community organising – as part of our church’s involvement in London Citizens.

Emmanuel, can you tell me who was at the meeting we went to last Wednesday night? Lots of local people from churches, schools and mosques in Tower Hamlets

And what happened at the meeting? We shared stories together of things in this community which we all care about.

So what kinds of things came up? Issues of poor lighting in tower hamlets, inequality in the borough, people being treated badly on zero hours contracts,of people’s fear of crime and of gang culture 

What has been brilliant about working with Emmanuel, is that he is really keen to listen to the stories of people from around here. He is committed to understanding what people are going through, and because of this he is seeing more and more of the things that God wants to do something about in this community. These are our stories, and they matter to God.

Sometimes we have to be intentional about asking people about their stories, and we also have to be sensitive to when it is and when it isn’t appropriate to ask. This is not about being nosey! This is about asking this question when we wake up every morning: God-whose story do you want me to see today?

God will bring people into our day who he wants us to talk to. This is where there is a beautiful meeting of our ordinary stories, and God’s extraordinary story.

As we start to recognise that God values our rather ordinary stories, and we can see that God wants to help us to see the stories of those around us, amazing and new opportunities are created.

Knowing someone’s story might lead us to wanting to help them, perhaps even to take action to help them with a particular issue like Ruth and Naomi. Or it might mean finding out that there is something that they love doing that we can encourage them with. Maybe they are a keen footballer, actor, mathematician?!

Sometimes, knowing someone’s story might lead us to share with them more about our faith, why we love and follow God, sometimes even when things are hard. Have you ever thought about what you might say if someone asked you why you choose to follow God? Have a think about. What is your story and why would you share it?  I bet everyone has got stories of things that God has done each day which are signs of God’s goodness and faithfulness even when things are hard. Those stories of what God has done are unique to you. No-one else has experienced them, so you’ve got to share them. They might seem ordinary, but it is extraordinary that God speaks to us, and works in our lives. These events are part of our stories which are being created in partnership with God. Often I think people who maybe don’t know God like we do have no idea how we live out our stories. How we ask God to do things in our lives, and how he does respond. Sometimes in miraculous ways, and sometimes in more normal ways. And you know it’s much easier to share with someone your own story of what God is doing in your life than it is to try and explain who God is. You should try it.

A few years ago an old friend who I hadn’t seen for about 3 years sent me a message suggesting we meet up. “Brilliant,” I thought – so off I went and we chatted on a bench outside UCL where she was working. It was great to catch up. But I know that God had more planned for that meeting because my friend kept asking me questions about my life, how I’d made the decisions I had, why I am doing what I do. I couldn’t help but start to tell her pieces of my story. After I finished my degree a friend of mine said I had to meet Angus. So I did. There’s nothing particularly spectacular about that but I was sure in that meeting it would be a good thing or even the right thing for me to work for CTC for bit. Along the way all sorts of surprising doors have opened. But the thing about this meeting with my friend was that she just couldn’t stop asking questions about my story with God. She wasn’t asking me to explain God. But she was captivated that I believed he was doing things in my life. She started coming to church, and continued to say she was fascinated by the things that God was doing in peoples lives. These things seemed fairly ordinary. Someone had got a new job, someone had met someone in the street and been able to offer some advice, some were more miraculous stories about God providing money out of the blue. But you know all the time my friend didn’t want me to explain God. She wanted to know the stories. She has since moved to Australia and her faith is growing from strength to strength. Somehow God brought us together to talk, and he used my stories of very simple things he’s done with me to change my friends life.

Each story is different, and God will prompt us at different times to respond in different ways to the stories that we hear. Sometimes we will see that it is appropriate to help someone with a specific need-maybe they need help collecting shopping or doing homework, or campaigning on a bigger issue because we’ve heard that their living situation is really poor, sometimes it is appropriate to encourage someone to do something that they are capable of doing, sometimes it will be appropriate to share more of our faith. It won’t be appropriate to respond in all those ways to every story. The bible is made up of all these different types of stories at different times and in different places. Together they are part of God bringing about his light and love on earth.

What we can be sure of is that God delights in our ordinary stories, and he wants us to see the stories of one another, and to respond together, developing a community where we knowone another deeply, and where we act obediently, bravely and humbly to his prompting in every conversation we have. We share our story, and we hear the stories of another. This is not just for some of us to do-for the people who we think have got time or energy. Ruth’s situation was very difficult-she had no money, no family support and knew little of the place she was going. Yet God used her in remarkable ways. God loves all of our stories, whatever our situation, or however ordinary you think it might be. To God, our ordinary stories can be extraordinary.

When we enter into conversations with one another to hear our stories we build new relationships. This changes us. We learn more of who God is, and God uses those simple actions to do extraordinary things.

This is how God is bringing about his extraordinary story on earth.

So here is the challenge for all of us when we wake up tomorrow morning. Whose story does God want me to see today?

So finally let’s just look back to that family tree I mentioned earlier. Think of all those brilliant characters lined up in Jesus’s family tree-Boaz, Ruth, Jesse, David, Jesus. But Jesus died, didn’t he? He wasn’t married and had no children. So that should be the end of that lin,e shouldn’t it? But this is the beautiful thing. Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins. This is the beginning of the story in Genesis. But he didn’t remain dead. He came back to meet the disciples, the women and children, the lepers, the tax collectors, the Pharisees and the rabbis. He came back to bring about new life and to keep writing this story. He is weaving goodness and mercy into the big story of God’s world. We can be part of that family tree. We can be next in line with Adam and Eve, With Ruth and Naomi, with Jesse and David. We too can be part of that story. We can choose to let God be part of making our ordinary stories extraordinary. He is the AUTHOR of our faith. Isn’t that spectacular?

So remember when you wake up tomorrow morning, God wants to write your story with you. and here’s the question:Whose story does God want me to see today?