Bible Sunday, 28 October 2018, Austwick, Clapham
I've concluded this week that I'm a very popular person. I'm popular because people keep making generous invitations to me, usually by post or on the computer screen. Through the letterbox and in my inbox this week I’ve had eye-catching messages saying:
'Come to our lovely new hair salon!' (Well I would but I get mine shaved at home);
'Come to Laura Ashley - buy a lovely pink crochet trim coordinate top' (I know I wear a black dress on Sundays, but I think I'll pass on that);
'Come to Tesco - we're cheaper than the rest!';
'Come to Asda - we're cheaper than the rest!';
'Come to Morrisons - we're cheaper than the rest!';
'Come to us for a year's free digital TV' (Read the small print - it's not free at all);
I think I've changed my mind - I'm not popular after all. Just put on by all this stuff that assaults my senses every day. All of these are designed to look like generous invitations. But we all know that none of them are.
How we long for a genuine invitation; one which isn't trying to exploit us. How we long for an offer which comes with no strings attached - really. How we long for a world where all this trivia and grinning dishonesty could be replaced by depth, integrity, decent relationships, real rapport.
We get other kinds of invitations in our lives. Friends, when we are young, call and say, "Come out to play!" Grown-up friends invite us to come out for the evening. There's that famous invitation from Mae West: "Come up and see me sometime!" - which you may think is a bit vulgar but at least it's to do with the earthy stuff of real human relationships in all their messy beauty.
What did your Mum always say around mealtimes when you were outside or upstairs playing: "Come and get it!" Now there's an offer you seldom refused. That's an invitation which has love and care behind it: four words which call you to the heart of family life, to the heart of community, the meal table.
We heard an invitation in today's Isaiah reading. It's from God:
"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”
I’m in danger of becoming cynical because of what junk mail and celebrity culture and post-truth politicians do to me; but "Come, come to the waters…” how I long to overcome my unbelief when I hear a genuine, generous, no-strings-attached invitation like that.
How I long to learn how to overcome the drive to consume and conform to the shallow ways of our culture, and to learn to root my desires in the Word that can be trusted. God yearns for this too:
"Why spend money on what is not bread [God says], and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”
God’s Word is the Word that can be trusted. This is the invitation to something wholly other - which is good and deep and true. Which will not take from our pockets - but will add to our spirits and our souls.
This Word is alive in the world today, calling out its invitation to us behind the clamour of the marketplace. If we tune our ears we can hear it - the Word of God in scripture, the Word of God among us, the Word of God within us.
We can hear The Word of God in scripture - on every single page. Whether we read the bible carefully each day at home, or listen to it being read to us each week in worship, if we tune our ears to expect words of wisdom, wonder, inspiration, guidance, the scriptures will come alive for us.
We can hear The Word of God among us - because Jesus is alive: "The Lord is here; his spirit is with us" - we say these words each week in church and if we tune in to God we can believe them anywhere. "The Lord is here; his spirit is with us" - in the kitchen, at our workplace, in ordinary places and places of fear and wonder: we can know that Jesus is with us there.
We can hear The Word of God within us - because alive inside us, we have both the scriptures and the Spirit of God. There are scriptures we know so well that they're part of who we are - those bible verses which have been with us from childhood and still sustain us, complete statements like the Lord's Prayer or the Lord's My Shepherd, and soundbites like "Do not be afraid", or "You are made in God's image" or "I am the bread of life". [2]
And if it is our desire, the Spirit who lives in us, will connect us to God and make these words come alive in us, over and over again.
Today is Bible Sunday, when we are encouraged to rediscover the power of The Word in our lives. And last night the clocks went back, a little jolt in our year which reminds us how closely we are tied in to the cycles of time and nature. Hear again what God says through Isaiah:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, … so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will … accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
God's Word is consistent, just as autumn follows summer. And God's Word makes life flourish just like the water cycle from which food grows. This is the Word that can be trusted.
It's a radical word - it goes against the grain. What are we to make of God's invitation to those who have no money, "come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost"? It has the same sort of meaning and same sort of impact as a Skipton Town Councillor saying to a Big Issue seller outside Rackhams - "Get off our streets - and come, come to live in my house for the winter, come and eat my food."
And it's a living Word. The world is full of stories of people who have taken it to heart and made such a difference - there are plenty of you in this room today. Jesus told people off who diligently studied the scriptures but refused to come to him. Life comes not from the words on the page but from the God they refer to, the living God who calls us to come and experience life alongside him.
As we skim through our junk mail distracted by special offers, as we click through the adverts popping up on our iPads, as we struggle with constant pressures to consume and conform, may we learn to trust the Word of God more than any other word; to guide, inspire, and fulfil us.
Notes
[1] A rewrite of The Word that can be trusted, first preached in Wavertree in 2003.
[2] “For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.”
- from the Iona Abbey Morning Prayer service, Iona Abbey Worship Book 2017 Edition, pp.66, 112.
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