Go and Tell what you See and Hear

It's great to bring greetings from Highbury Congregational Church in the UK, from the Congregational Federation and from the International Congregational Fellowship.

It's been great to see so much, do so much, meet so many and be part of the NACCC meetings.

In one of the many, many conversations we have had over the last days someone commented about that sense of 'anxiety' there is abroad at the moment.  There's an uncertainty about what's going on in the world, often people find it difficult facing life changing events in their own world.  There's a longing for meaning and purpose, and a wondering in many people's hearts.

It can come to us all.

How can you be sure?

There are so many different life-style options on offer!   Pick up any paper at the weekend and there will be no end of pundits advocating all sorts of views and touting for our support.

How can you be sure?

It feels as if there are so many things to choose from … and choice is of the essence.   But how do you choose?

Maybe, anything goes: it doesn’t really matter what you believe, so long as you believe in something.

I googled the meaning of life and came across an artist with a piece called ‘the meaning of life’  The very act of doing that is characteristic of our age!

Where’s meaning …

I came to a picture – thought provoking – title – meaning of life.

Looked up the blog – born 1973 studied fine art, exhibits a lot, got his own blog – works with children.  Interesting person.

Invites us simply to respond – from his blog – right at the end …

I am a painter exploring light, colour and form using mixed media; mainly oil and acrylic paint. My works are often abstract statements leaning toward the lyrical, poetic or spiritual in terms of inspiration and painterly tradition. I’m interested in the way ideas transcend the medium and how these are mediated through human dialogue.

During the painting process I’m looking for an inner weight to begin to establish its presence; a weight which does not completely abandon reference to our sensual experience of space/time, yet also points elsewhere. Direction and resolution are found in an idea such as a personal or collective history, memory or narrative which launches the process or marks its completion i.e. I either begin with a concept or discover one which suggests itself to me.

At the same time I look for tension in the suggestiveness of what is seen by the viewer (as if the work is still evolving.) This tension between what is resolved and yet still being resolved, is the source of engagement that I try to achieve. Sometimes this emerges as a shifting middle ground between figuration and abstraction as if the images appear and then dissolve at the frontier between the two. For this reason my painting must become something to the viewer over time, as they engage in the process of constructing meaning.

Googled again …

What is the meaning of life?  Whatever you want it to be.

How can you be sure?

People come and people go … and they have an offer the thing that will make everything better.

How can you be sure?

Sometimes it can feel as if we are living in a particularly bewildering age – with instant communication, so many TV channels, the internet, globalisations – the old certainties are gone … and we live with so many things that make us feel uncertain.

How can you be sure of who you are, what you believe, what life is for?

Actually, the question is nothing new.

2000 years ago it was a time of great uncertainty.

The world of the Roman  Empire had taken an iron grip on Judea,  Samaria, Galilee – anyone living there was immersed in a world of massive choice – the Roman world with its pantheon of gods, with its cult of the Roman emperor.

It’s easy to imagine that Jewish people simply stood out against that world … but actually Jewish people were caught in a quandary – how do you live in that kind of world?

Some felt one thing, some felt another – some went along with it, accommodated it, some wanted to maintain a purity of race and ritual, some wanted to withdraw into a kind of monastic way of life, some wanted to take up arms against the powers that be.

Just occasionally people emerged who seemed to get it.   They offered a way of living in the world that was true to the faith of their Jewish roots and yet also was real in this world.

John the Baptist had been just such a person.

The thing to make sense of everything else as far as he was concerned involved having a whole new way of looking at the world that centred on recognising God’s rule in the world, God’s kingdom.

His message was simple.

Repent, have a whole new way of thinking, for the kingdom of heaven, God’s rule, has come near.

Jesus lined himself up with John the Baptist – went down into the Jordan and came back up into the wilderness – and once John was in prison took on the mantle of John – his message was just the same …

Repent, have a whole new way of thinking, for the kingdom of heaven, God’s rule, has come near.

Read on from Matthew 4 and you see how Jesus shared this with those fishermen disciples, and then with Matthew, one of those publicani who were caught in the extortionate system of taxation the Romans had imposed, and then the twelve are listed.

Jesus calls the first Disciples

Jesus ministers to crowds

Sermon on the Mount

            Love God                                            Love your neighbour   Love your enemy        Pray                                                  Act

Jesus cleanses a leper, heals a centurion’s servant,  many at Peter’s house, stills the storm, stills one deranged, one paralysed, girl who has died, woman in crowd, two blind men, one who cannot speak

Calls Matthew and the 12 and sends them out

It was as if these were the core of the kingdom.

Jesus sketched out what it took to live in that kingdom – in the Sermon on the Mount – love for God, love for neighbour, love for enemy too.  A life of prayer rooted in that most wonderful of prayers …

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

Wherever he went that was the teaching that Jesus shared.

Wherever he went, he brought healing into troubled people’s lives.

It was not something he alone did.  He shared the task with those disciples he had called – and in Matthew 10 he sketches out what they should be engaged in as they went out in twos to proclaim the kingdom.

It wasn’t just that Jesus took up the mantle from John … more than that, John sensed he was the one who was to come – who would usher in the kingdom – who would be king in the kingdom of heaven.

But how can you be sure?

The longer John was in prison, the longer he was tormented by the question.

How can you be sure?

Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities.

A new way of thinking – the kingdom of heaven has come near.  God’s rule breaking into our world.

This was a special message.

But how can you be sure.

2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’

This is the question that troubled so many people.  It was a question that troubled John.  It’s the very question that can trouble us.

How can you be sure that this is the One.

That it is in Jesus and this message that we can find something that will give meaning and shape to our lives?

The response Jesus gives is a response we can take to heart … and it is a response that speaks as much to us today as ever it did to John.

4Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’

There are two things that it all hinges on

What you hear

And what you see

Weigh up the teaching of Jesus – the sermon on the mount – does it make sense to John – and it did!

Weigh up what you see - 5the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

And that’s exactly what was going on.

This is the One.

What do we hear?

The teaching and message of Jesus –

May we hear once more your Word for us,

A word of comfort,

a word of peace

A word of strengthening,

a word of challenge

What do we see?

May we see once more your love for us

In the love you had for others long ago

In the love you’ve had for others ever since

In the love you have for others in this place

In the love you have for others at this time

People being helped – sharing that healing, wholeness – the testimony of Alice who has just died at 101 – a quiet faith, full of questions, yet doing so much for other people, and sensing something very real of God.

Came as a child to our church, brought by another girl.  Went through the Sunday School, became a teacher in the Sunday School and went into teaching.  Alice turned away from the church and didn't have time for church until she was approaching 90 when her sister died.  She started coming to church again, was regularly there, except for the Sundays when she would be serving breakfasts in the local homeless shelter.

Then she had to go into a nursing home.

She sat in her chair, looked through her window and all she could see was the wall of the next house, a plain brick wall.

She spoke of her faith, of reading the Bible and of the importance of prayer.

I pray to God, she said wistfully, that that wall would be taken away.

She would pause, sadly.

And then she would cheer up.  And then I pray to God, thank you, God, that I can still see that wall.

Wonderful faith she bore testimony to.

How can we be sure?

The teaching remains all it has ever been.

The difference that God’s love makes in people’s lives.

Then there is also a task – I love the words of Matthew 11:4

Go and tell … what you hear and see

That’s our task – to go and tell.

The way that Jesus offers makes sense of life and the world and is something for us to share.

Go and tell.

What do we tell?

What we hear – of Chrsit in that teaching

What we see – the difference it makes in our lives in other people’s lives.

Lord Jesus Christ, send us from this place,

To go and tell what we hear and see

And one last thing remains.

Jesus goes on in chapter 11 to sing the praises of John the Baptist – the one Jesus had taken the mantle from –

Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

There’s a real sense we are to take on the mantle John passed to Jesus and Jesus has passed on to us.

The consequences of not doing so  are grim – and are filled with destruction.

At the end of this chapter you come to a wonderful prayer Jesus prays to his father and then an invitation.

I wonder whether these words are addressed to John as he is asking this question?

I wonder whether when we are bowed down under the weight of this question, these are the words we should hear once again.

They are words of comfort.  But they are also words of challenge as they invite us in other words to take up the mantle, or to be yoked to Jesus and continue carrying out his work – they are wonderful words.

On Independence day we had visited the Living History farms in Des Moines and seen a yoke hanging on the wall.  One of the wooden pieces to fit round the ox was bigger than the other.  The younger, inexperienced beast would be yoked to the more experienced animal who would lead the way.

That's maybe the picture in Jesus' mind.

Wearied by the questioning,

Hear again the teaching of Jesus.

See again the difference he makes in people’s lives.

And may we always know deep in our hearts

That we may always come to you,

However weary and heavy laden

And you will give us rest

But most of all hear these words addressed to you …

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Lord Jesus Christ

As we gather together in your name

May we hear once more your Word for us,

A word of comfort,

a word of peace

A word of strengthening,

a word of challenge

May we see once more your love for us

In the love you had for others long ago

In the love you’ve had for others ever since

In the love you have for others in this place

In the love you have for others at this time

Lord Jesus Christ, send us from this place,

To go and tell what we hear and see

And may we always know deep in our hearts

That we may always come to you,

However weary and heavy laden

And you will give us rest


Let us go and tell
what we have heard in the Word of God
what we have seen of the Love of God
sure in the knowledge
that the Lord our God is with us
wherever we go.