The power of faith

 

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Mark 6:4-6

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Luke 7:6-9

Did you know that there are just two occasions in the Gospels where Jesus is said to be “amazed” or to “marvel”? You didn’t? Well, neither did I until the other day as I happened to be reading a commentary.

You might say, So what?

Well, it’s fascinating to notice what it is in particular that caused him to be amazed…

In Mark 6:4-6 he is preaching to his own townspeople, that is to fellow-Jews – only to find that “they took offence at him” (verse 3). And so Mark tells us that “he was amazed at their lack of faith”. His amazement took the form of dismay and disappointment.

And then in Luke 7:1-10 he has an encounter with a soldier, a centurion serving in the Roman army. This man is desperately concerned for a sick servant, and not only is he humble enough to plead with Jesus for healing but he also has a simple, almost childlike faith that Jesus can do it. Whereupon Luke tells us that Jesus “was amazed at him… ‘I tell you… I have not found such great faith even in Israel’”. This is amazement in the form of delight.

Very different. But in both cases it’s all about faith. In one, he is amazed not to find it where he thinks he should, among his fellow-Jews; in the other he is amazed to find it where he obviously doesn’t expect it, among the gentiles, in a pagan soldier.

The centurion is worth focussing on. In fact, in the Gospels and Acts centurions in general are worth focussing on. The other famous example is Cornelius, whose story we read in Acts 10. Yes, another Roman soldier, but “he and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need, and prayed to God regularly” (Acts 10:2).

If you were a Jew in Capernaum that day described in Luke 7 and saw the centurion walking down the street in his uniform and hob-nailed sandals, with his sword strapped on, your reaction would probably be one of hatred and fear. He was one of the occupying force, noted for their brutality and cruelty.

But if you were a local resident you may have seen him differently, for it seems he had been based in Capernaum for some time and was noted for his friendliness towards the people he had to control. It was said of him (verse 5) that “he loves our nation” and had even “built our synagogue” (how surprising is that!). It seems he was a rich man, even to the extent of financing a major building operation for the Jewish population.

The more you read Luke’s account of this incident, the more impressive this man appears. He is compassionate, loving the servant who is sick and dying. He is humble, prepared to approach the wandering preacher Jesus and to plead with him. Above all, he had the kind of faith which took Jesus’ breath away.

A simple point emerges: we never know what is going on in the heart of another person. Appearances can be very deceptive.

There’s no reason to think that things are any different today. There may be somebody in your circle – a neighbour, perhaps, or a work colleague – whom you have never remotely suspected of being a Christian. Indeed, they may not be a “Christian” at all, in the sense of having a declared faith in Jesus. But who knows what goes on in the depths of their soul? Who knows if indeed they pray with greater faith and humility than… you or me?

We tend to divide people into two clear-cut categories, the “saved” and the “unsaved”. And Jesus indeed gives some encouragement for this in several of his parables (for example the sheep and the goats). But let’s never forget that God alone knows which category each person fits into.

The Gospels never encourage us to speculate on another person’s status before God. And the New Testament as a whole suggests that we should be very careful before making up our minds about someone else’s eternal destiny. No: our job is simply to love and care and to present Christ as best we can.

Of the unnamed centurion the astounded Jesus declared “I have not found such great faith even in Israel”. In other words, “In the very place where I ought to be able to expect faith, I don’t find it. But in the very place where I don’t expect faith, there it is, leaving me shaking my head in amazement”.

Could it be that there is some person in your life, as yet unconverted, of whom Jesus might say “I see more faith in him/her than in those people turning up regularly at that church down the road?”

Remember, the New Testament tells us that we are “justified by faith”, something the centurion had in spades, not that we are justified by believing in justification by faith. Get the difference?

Lord God, you alone know the heart of every man and woman on this earth. Please help me not to jump to conclusions, but to leave judgment to you - and not be surprised if you spring some surprises! Amen.

Little people in a big world

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down”… John 6:5-10

If you surveyed a group of Christians to find out their favourite Bible stories I suspect the boy with the loaves and fishes would be well up there.

There’s a simplicity about the story which gives it a charm. The central figure is a child whose name we are not told: he could be anybody. So he could even be you or me.

Somehow he has spotted that the disciples have a problem: how are they to feed a big crowd in a remote place? Presumably he comes forward with the rather touching offer of his packed lunch. Whereupon…  the whole crowd is fed, with plenty left over.

The boy is a nobody; his offering is next-to-nothing; but Jesus takes it, prays over it - and turns it into a miracle.

Most of us, like that boy, are very little people in a very big world. We might once have had dreams of achieving something really significant in the world’s eyes, but that only happens to a tiny minority. We have to settle for sheer, down-to-earth ordinariness. Yet in God’s eyes there is no such thing as an ordinary person.

This has been brought home to my wife and me especially recently. For one thing, we are retired, after having both had busy full-time jobs. But we have kept ourselves active, determined to make some kind of contribution in our little world. And that has seemed fine for several years now.

But just last week we both tested positive with covid. Nothing too serious, fortunately, just like a nasty cold. But of course it meant that life became even more shrunk as we tucked ourselves away. And we have found ourselves feeling – well, actually, a bit bored! After all, there’s only so many books you can read, or chess games you can play, or tv programmes you can watch, or jobs you can find to do – or even, dare I say it, praying you can do. To come to this at this stage of our lives is a bit of a shock.

Don’t worry, I’m not looking for sympathy, certainly not. We’re only too aware how fortunate we are in the overall scheme of things. Life remains good! And no doubt it’s a good thing to swallow a healthy dose of humility in the form of a reminder of our own insignificance.

The lesson God seems to have been teaching us is the very basic one that he loves to use insignificant people to carry out his purposes. Think of Mary, the Palestinian peasant-girl. Think of David, last in a line of big strapping brothers.

The other morning we were reading in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. What great words these are! I invite you to soak them up…

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. 

When God chooses, he knows what he is doing.

And today it was the boy with the loaves and fishes.

The lesson seems very simple: when you really can’t do much, well, don’t go agonising about it, just get on and do what very little you can do. My wife is particularly strong when it comes to making contact by various means. And I dare to hope that my little blogs might be of encouragement to somebody, even if I never meet them.

Little people in a big world: that’s most of us. But by the grace and power of God we can in fact be big people in our own little worlds. Whatever you’re doing today, can I encourage you to think “I can achieve something today! I can make a difference to someone today! It may be forgotten tomorrow; but it will be remembered on the Last Day”.

I wonder what the boy in the story told his mother when he got home on that memorable day?...

“You know the pack-up you gave me this morning?” “Yes, of course”. “Well, I gave it away”. “You gave it away!” “Yes: you see, Jesus seemed to need it”. “What! Was he hungry?” “No, but he did something very wonderful with it…” “Tell me about it!”

Let’s leave mother and son together – mother looking at her son in wonder as she digests what has happened that day. I wonder what became of them, little people, yes; but with a big place in God’s world…

O use me, Lord, use even me,/ Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where,/ Until Thy blessed face I see,/ Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share. Amen. F R Havergal (1836-1879)

Living word - or dead letter?

Look, says the teacher, this is what I have discovered: Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things – while I was still searching but not finding – I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28

Imagine a non-Christian friend – a woman – taking you to task over Ecclesiastes 7:27-28.

You have been encouraging her to read the Bible because it is, you tell her, “the word of God”, and she does precisely that. But you are a little taken aback by the heat of her response: “That’s downright sexism! How do you expect a modern woman – or man, come to that – to react to that sort of ignorant prejudice!”

How do you respond? How should you respond?

Tradition traces the Book of Ecclesiastes back to King Solomon, but it’s unlikely that he personally wrote it. And even if he did, his own personal marital record (a little matter of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines: 1 Kings 11:3) doesn’t exactly inspire your confidence in his opinion of women.

Whatever, however shocked you may be as a Christian by your friend’s reaction, it’s hard to deny that she has a point, to put it mildly…

I’m not in fact wanting to write about one particular awkward verse in the Bible (I’ve just picked one out of many that I could have chosen), and certainly not wanting to suggest a glib answer to your friend’s question. No: but her response raises a far bigger question: What kind of book exactly is the Bible? When we speak of it – as I’m sure we should – as “the word of God”, what does that mean in practice?

Of course it isn’t strictly “a book” at all: it’s a collection of books, sixty-six of them, written and gathered together over the course of several centuries. (And some of the individual “books” amount to just a single page, if that.)

These ancient documents were written in different languages: the Old Testament almost entirely in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Which means that if we want to gain as full an understanding as possible we need people who are experts in these languages. We rely on them to make sure that translations are accurate and that commentaries and other explanatory material are correct.

So, though of course there are passages whose meanings are pretty straightforward, the Bible as a whole isn’t a book anyone can just pick up and read and immediately understand.

More to the point, the Bible isn’t some kind of God-given compendium or encyclopaedia which enables us to read off God’s truth on any particular topic if only we know where to look. That would be to treat it like magic – and that is, one suspects, exactly how many Christians do treat it.

Going back to Ecclesiastes 7 to see if you can pacify your friend, you could of course point out that the writer explicitly states that he made his very negative observation about women at a time “while I was still searching but not finding”. Well, we can certainly agree with him there! (And his assessment of his fellow-men isn’t a lot more positive, is it? – one in a thousand is hardly impressive!)

You could also point out that in 9:9 he recommends “enjoying life with your wife, whom you love”, which suggests a far less cynical attitude towards women than the verse we’re thinking about. And what about Proverbs 31? – had the “Solomon” who wrote Ecclesiastes ever read this description of a truly “upright” woman?

A basic principle of Bible interpretation emerges from these thoughts: we must never pluck a single verse out of its context and build upon it some abiding truth which applies in every situation: to turn it, in effect, into “doctrine”. To do so is to misuse scripture and to lead ourselves into error. (While we’re in Ecclesiastes, why not take a look at 9:8? I met a man once who felt this was indeed a divine command for all time; well, it certainly made him stand out of the crowd on a Sunday morning…)

In a word: The books of the Bible need to be understood according to their kinds, having respect for their individual human voices.

Certainly, there are passages of teaching, especially in the New Testament letters, which essentially address the mind and are the raw material of doctrine.

But there’s a whole lot more besides… prophecy, sometimes angry, sometimes comforting, sometimes puzzling; narrative, whether in the history books of the Old Testament, or the Gospels and Acts of the New; prayers, as in the Psalms; visions and revelations, as in Ezekiel, Daniel or Revelation; strange stories, as in Job; strange poems, as in Song of Songs.

And, coming back to where we started, there’s also wisdom, as in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. These are books of reflection and observation, their individual verses intended as thought-provokers or discussion-starters, not to be nailed down as eternal truths. To point this out to your angry friend is surely the best response. (Dare I suggest that Ecclesiastes 7:28 could even be a typically corny male joke?)

Let scripture be scripture! Let’s read it in all its wonderful variety - and not squeeze it into a mould that was never intended for it!

Father, thank you for the wonderful variety of your inspired word, the Bible. Please help me, by your Holy Spirit, to interpret it on its own terms, and not to force it into a strait-jacket of my own making. Amen.

Fads and fashions

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching… Ephesians 4:14

I vaguely remember a song from many years ago about someone who was “a dedicated follower of fashion”. I think it was back in “the swinging sixties”, and that it mocked the tendency of many people to latch onto whatever was the latest thing in clothes, music, hair styles or whatever. How shallow people were! (Perhaps still are.)

Exactly the same thing can be true of religion – and that includes Christianity.

And it’s nothing new – Ephesians 4:14 makes it clear that it happened even in the earliest days of the church. Paul is urging his readers to grow up, to mature in their faith, and he uses a dynamic illustration to describe what will happen to them if they don’t: they will be “blown here and there by every wind of teaching”.

There are Christians, he implies, who are fickle, unstable and far too easily taken in by the latest plausible spiritual fad – people who jump on spiritual bandwagons. Just think of autumn leaves in a strong, gusty wind: that’s you! he says.

This is where getting old can offer many examples.

My conversion at 15 virtually coincided with the birth of what became known as the charismatic movement (ancient history today!). At first it was seriously bewildering – all those weird Pentecostal practices seemed to have broken their bounds and come flooding into the “mainstream” churches. It took us – well, me anyway – some years to digest what was going on and to come to some kind of assessment. When I did that, I was humbled to learn that while there was indeed much that was damaging and simply wrong, there was perhaps even more that was thoroughly scriptural and much needed for the enrichment and enlivening of tired, stale churches.

Since those days we have had a steady succession of movements… “heavy shepherding” - churches controlled by leaders who were very likely self-appointed; the “prosperity gospel” - if you’re a Christian you can expect to be wealthy and successful in everything you do; the “new Calvinism” - which places a distorted emphasis on the great truths of the Reformation; “deliverance ministry” – which sometimes seems, in practice, to be obsessed with the devil and all things demonic; the “ministry of healing” - with an admirable but sometimes naïve faith in the availability of physical and mental healing; “Christian Zionism” - which very likely places an unscriptural emphasis on the nation of Israel.

I could go on…

What can be confusing, of course, is that there are likely to be elements of both good and bad in all such trends. So the key question is: how can I tell the difference between a mere fad and a genuine movement of the Holy Spirit? God is sovereign, after all, and he is quite capable of doing something new. Christians whose minds are firmly bolted and barred against any possibility of “a new thing” are just as harmful as the dedicated follower of spiritual fashions. Cynicism can be just as deadening as gullibility is deceptive.

The apostle John tells us not to “believe every spirit, but to test every spirit to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). In a word, we are to nurture the gift of discernment – the ability to probe and ask thoughtful questions so that we are not misled.

But how do we do this? That question may need a whole blog to itself (perhaps next time). But at the very least a good grasp of the Bible is needed, and wise, mature, reliable Christians to guide us. Not everybody is a scholar, and that’s fine, and many Christians are not natural readers (remember that probably the majority of the early Christians could neither read nor write), and that’s fine too. But the Bible is a very complex book, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. So we need all the help we can get.

An obvious but perhaps overlooked safeguard against being deceived is, quite simply, time. Yesterday’s exciting novelty may well turn out to be tomorrow’s stale innovation, so we need to pause, not get too excited, and look at things in the cold light of day.

If we embrace new ideas too readily there is a danger that we turn our churches from being – well, simply churches, that is, communities of followers of Jesus, and turn them in effect into spiritual clubs for the like-minded. I can think of churches I have known which seem almost more like sects or even cults.

If we do find ourselves sometimes a little confused by the bewildering array of options available to us as we look around the churches, here’s a three-point plan that I would suggest…

(1)  Love Jesus. He and he alone is to be the focal point of our lives. And remember that loving him also means obeying him (John 14:23). 

(2)  Trust Jesus. He and he alone is worthy of our simple, childlike faith.

(3)  Serve Jesus. He and he alone deserves our glad and sacrificial service until the day we die.

Stick with these simple guidelines and you won’t go far wrong. 

Father, our world is awash with new ideas, some of which are clearly outside the mainstream of the Christian faith while others may represent the moving of your Spirit. Please give me the wisdom and humility to know the difference! Amen.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Great expectations?

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:13-14

When it comes to praying for particular topics or people – “intercessory” prayer – what’s your experience? Would you describe it as (a) dogged perseverance or (b) red-hot expectation?

All right, for most of us it may not be quite either of those extremes! But I ask because anyone who has been seeking to live seriously as a Christian for any length of time is likely to find themselves puzzling over it.

Certainly, dogged perseverance is taken for granted in the New Testament. It is often pointed out in sermons that Jesus’ well-known “ask… seek… knock” saying could well be translated “ask and go on asking, seek and go on seeking, knock and go on knocking” (Matthew 7:7). And he even told a story – the story of “the persistent widow” – to show his disciples that they “should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).

But then there are those other passages where, frankly, Jesus’ words seem almost too good to be true. John 14:13-14 is an obvious example: “I will do whatever you ask in my name… You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it”. Whatever we make of that little phrase “in my name” – which is surely key -  Jesus certainly didn’t intend it simply as a magic formula to tag onto the end of our prayers in order to guarantee their effectiveness. The fact is that Jesus wants his followers to be expectant when they pray; and we mustn’t water that down.

It’s a conundrum. And it boils down to a question: If I have persevered in prayer for a particular matter over perhaps many months and even years, and that prayer has not yet been answered, how can I possibly maintain a spirit of expectation? Isn’t that just too much to ask?

I find myself wanting to say to God: “Look, Lord, I do have faith, I really do – whatever else has kept me persevering as I have! But expectation, to a large extent, is a mood, a feeling, and moods can’t just be conjured up by will-power! Yes, I can always accuse myself of not having enough faith – and I’m sure that’s true. But didn’t Jesus say that faith as tiny as a mustard-seed can move mountains? Lord, what do you expect from me?”

I think I know what God’s reply must be: “My dear child, just keep on plugging away in prayer. Don’t try and psyche yourself up artificially; you’ll only end up getting discouraged and depressed. But keep believing the promises! Your prayers will be answered, and the day will dawn when everything comes clear”.

I don’t think I can do any better than that – please let me know if you have a better suggestion. How we hold together in our minds day by day the two poles of vibrant, expectant faith on the one hand and stubborn, determined  perseverance on the other is one of those paradoxes of the Christian life.

However, there’s a marvellous story in Acts which, I’m tempted to think, might have been given to us by God to help us with precisely this puzzle.

In Acts 12 Simon Peter is delivered from prison by God: his deliverance involves a full bag of miraculous tricks (so to speak) - an angel; a heavenly light; chains dropping off; iron gates swinging open.

Wonderful! But we shouldn’t really be surprised, should we? After all, verse 5 tells us that “the church was earnestly praying to God for him”.

But no sooner has Peter come to his senses, and decided to head for the house of Mary the mother of John Mark, where that prayer-meeting is in full swing, than a wonderful miracle degenerates into something not far short of farce…

Peter knocks on the door; a servant girl called Rhoda comes to see who’s there; she realises, to her wonderment, that it’s Peter – and promptly runs to interrupt the group bowed in prayer with the breathless announcement “Peter is at the door!”

Whereupon they burst into joyful praise – “Thank God! Our prayers have been answered!”

Well, actually, no they don’t. I made that bit up.

They tell poor Rhoda off: “You’re out of your mind!” (verse 15). They don’t even do the obvious thing and say, “Then for goodness’ sake, you silly girl, go and let the man in!” No, they convince themselves “It must be his angel!” Note that: anything rather than believe in the very miracle they have been praying for. Doh!

Meanwhile poor Peter is still knocking on the door…

Of course, it all ends well. But this is what occurs to me: If, even in those wonderful early days of the church - days of Spirit-filled faith and miraculous events - the first followers of Jesus could fail in such a comically ridiculous manner… well, I’m not suggesting that that excuses our faltering faith, but perhaps God in his mercy is happy for us to draw a little comfort from it.

It seems we aren’t the first believers whose expectations fall short of their faith!

Thank you, loving Father!

Father, when prayer seems routine and dutiful, please help me to persevere. When there is a strong sense of exciting things afoot, please help me to rejoice in your powerful, mysterious, unpredictable workings. Amen.

Medicine for a troubled conscience

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14

Do you have anything on your conscience today? It may be something that seems quite trivial (I say “seems”, not necessarily “is”) – you snapped at someone perhaps, or over-indulged yourself somehow last night.

Or it could be something more obviously serious – perhaps a painful memory of something done long ago, a memory that just refuses to fade away.

Whatever, we all know that feeling of guilt and shame, that sense of not just having let ourselves down but, far worse, of having hurt somebody and of grieving God by knowingly doing something wrong.

The beautiful little story Jesus tells in this passage is perfect medicine for a hurting conscience.

The Pharisee – that is, the proud, self-righteous, religious person – prays a prayer all about himself. He informs God (as if God needs informing!) what a fine person he is. He turns a superior, condemning eye on the tax-collector standing near him in the temple and thanks God that “I’m not like him”. If you met this man in the street you might be a little in awe of him; he is what used to be called “a pillar of society”.

But he is full of himself. (Are any of us like that?)

The tax-collector on the other hand may well have lived a pretty shady life (Jewish tax-collectors working for the Romans did not have a good reputation, to say the least). And he knows it. So when he comes into the temple to pray he really hasn’t got any fine words to use. The best he can manage – along with beating his breast with remorse – is “God, have mercy upon me, a sinner”. End of prayer. (Sometimes, note, the shortest prayers are the best.)

And guess what happened? Well, let Jesus tell us in his own words: “… this man went home justified before God”.

“Justified”? That means to be “declared in the right” - acquitted; discharged from the court; a free person. I picture that man leaving the temple a few minutes later: look! - he has a light step, a straight back, and his head is held high. This wasn’t because he had done anything good. No, all he had done was admit his own wretchedness and throw himself humbly on the mercy of God. But his confession cut more ice with God than all the fine deeds of the Pharisee. I wonder what his wife thought when he came in the door and she saw his glowing face? “What’s been happening to you…?”

We mustn’t tar everyone with the same brush; in this story Jesus isn’t simply having a go at the Pharisees, even though he had many debates and disputes with them. No; there were good, humble Pharisees as well as the kind depicted here – think, for example of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.

No, the Pharisee in the story stands simply for a certain type of mentality, and you can find it, sadly, wherever Christianity is to be found - among Anglicans and Charismatics, Methodists and Baptists, Roman Catholics and Orthodox. Why, you might even find it if you look deep enough into your own soul.

The point Jesus wants to make is clear; there is nothing God loves more than to forgive someone who is truly sorry for what they have done and the people they have become. In fact, Jesus tells us (twice, just to make sure we get the message!) a couple of chapters earlier that “there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine good people who don’t need to” (Luke 15:7,10).

Why does God choose to forgive us in this way? Because he loves us, that’s why! It really is as simple as that.

Did you know that God loves you, even in spite of all that is bad about you? You might answer, Of course I do! I’ve known it pretty much since I was a child! I hear it pretty well every Sunday in church.

All right… let me put the question another way. Have you taken this great truth to heart? Have you “taken it on board”, as they say? Have you ever sat down in a quiet and serious moment and said to yourself “God loves me? God is waiting to forgive me?”

No? Well why not today? Why not right now?

Thank you, oh God, that you sent your Son Jesus to die on the cross and pay the price for my sins. Help me to receive your forgiveness today, to rejoice in it, and to live, from this day on, the joyful life of a sinner washed clean as snow. Amen.

Why are we waiting?

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed ears, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” Matthew 13:24-30

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise… Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

In an agricultural society there were (perhaps still are) various ways you could damage your enemy: you might, for example, set fire to their crops (Samson had a particularly imaginative way of doing this: see Judges 15), or you might poison their water supply by throwing an animal’s carcass down their well.

Or you might sow weeds among their wheat; this was a well-known and  particularly spiteful method, and it was dealt with in Roman law in the time of Jesus. So it’s no wonder that he chose to use it as an illustration in this “parable of the wheat and the weeds”.

Most Bible-teachers think the weeds were a particular form of “darnel”, about which there are three things worth knowing: first, it was poisonous; second, it was virtually indistinguishable from wheat once it had begun to grow; and third, once harvested it could be burned as fuel.

But most obviously, as Jesus makes clear, you would never dream of sowing it in your own field; if it appeared, that could only be the work of “an enemy”.

If we go down to Matthew 13:38, where Jesus gives his own explanation of this story, we find him stating that “the field is the world”. So it seems that he is offering an explanation for the sad fact that this beautiful world in which we live is also so disfigured by evil - witness the wars, the jealousies, the violence, the lies, the cruelty, and so much else.

The story suggests various important truths that we need to be aware of. Here are four…

First, we have an enemy.

If we go again to Jesus’ own interpretation of the parable, we find that the enemy is identified as “the devil” (verse 39), elsewhere called in the Bible “Satan” or “the adversary”. We probably think immediately of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, or of the tempter of Jesus at the start of his ministry (Matthew 4).

These are just two of the most prominent stories, but there are others too, and while we shouldn’t make the mistake of dwelling on them over-much (some Christians develop an unhealthy interest in the forces of darkness), neither should we gloss over them. If Jesus had to wrestle with an enemy, how much more do we…

Second, our enemy is a deceiver and a liar.

In John 8:44 Jesus calls the devil “a murderer from the beginning” and “a liar and the father of lies”. He lied to Jesus during the temptation – and he will lie to us. He will try to convince us, for example, that a particular sin is not really serious (“Everybody does it, anyway!”) or that the Christian life doesn’t require struggle and discipline (“Just let go and let God!”). He will tell us to drown out the voice of conscience and simply “go with the flow”.

The brute fact is that every day of our lives we are engaged in a spiritual warfare – which is why, according to Paul, God has provided us with an “armour” (Ephesians 6:10-20). What soldier would go into battle leaving his armour behind?

Are you – am I – consciously fighting the enemy today?

Third, judgment will ultimately be done.

The final end of the weeds is that they are burned. Our perfect, holy God cannot and will not tolerate anything unholy in the final, heavenly kingdom. And this means that while, as things stand at the moment, good and evil are not always easy to distinguish, at the final judgment there will be a clear division of the two.

The burning of the tares is, of course, a picture of what elsewhere in the Bible is called hell – in effect, a great cosmic incinerator. It is, after all, by burning that destruction of bad things is most effectively achieved. This doesn’t mean that God burns individual people in a literal, eternal fire, but is a vivid way of saying that ultimately we are called to account for the lives we have lived and the people we have been.

Judgment may be rather grim-sounding, but is in reality good news. It reminds us that there will one day be a final righting of wrongs, when perfect justice will be done. At the crucifixion Jesus “carried our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), and this means that when that day comes, everyone who has put their trust in him receives the forgiveness he has earned through his death. Rejoice in the judgment of God!

A fourth truth suggested by this story – we need to cultivate the virtue of patience.

The servants of the owner of the field were keen to roll up their sleeves and get to work on the darnel. But the owner wouldn’t let them: that day would come as and when. And so it will be for us. (The apostle Peter offers an explanation of why we are being kept waiting: see 2 Peter 3:9.)

Which leaves us with a big question: how will we spend what time remains between now and that day? By focussing on essentially trivial things? Or by being busy about the work of the kingdom? What about… today?

Dear Father in heaven, thank you that Satan has been defeated by Jesus both in his life and in his death on the cross. Thank you for the merciful perfection of your final judgment. Help me to live daily in the light of it, and give me confidence that one day I will be “gathered into your barn”. Amen.