Sermon 1 - Revelation 1:1-8 Seven Churches and Seven Lampstands This is the start of a short August series looking at the sevens of the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, known as the Revelation or Apocalypse of John and written on the island of Patmos where we believe the author had been exiled in which the number 7 appears in almost every chapter. There are 23 sevens in the book of Revelation so we will not cover every single one otherwise you and I could get “sevened” out by the end of the month! Nor am I going to say too much about the seven churches and the letters to each of them. This is because our refreshed Stodden Bible Study group which starts in September and compliments this mini series focusses on the seven letters to the seven churches making this morning’s talk more of an overview but I pose you one question as a tempter to the study. What links the box office success movie of 2026 with the seven churches and which one is it? Patmos was described at the time as mines surrounded by mountains and was considered as quite depressing and yet it was on this island that John had this detailed prophetic vision. The author contrasts en patmo with en pneumo which looks better written down because both begin with “p” in Patmos and in the Spirit of God. The author has a choice be depressed by his surroundings in Patmos or be taken up in the Spirit and be blessed. Carys has just returned from the Keswick Convention and brought a book by Nancy Guthrie called Blessed on this the last book in the Bible. You may think this a strange title for a book on the apocalyptic judgement that will befall the earth at the end of this world but both the author of Revelation and Nancy Guthrie want us to be clear that Revelation is less about Jesus’ return and more about who we are to be, what we are to do and what may expect to endure thereby taking out of the final judgement the fear, intimidation and confusion that this book can often generate if read the wrong way. Some writers have suggested it should never have been included in the Bible. Others fear the apocalyptic nature of the book. Well, the clue is in the Greek title Apocalypses. It is not the only book of this type in the Bible but it is by far the longest And this is where seven comes in. Seven is a very significant number. It is a prime number and the only prime number to precede a cube number of primes. It has significance in Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. A week is seven days – it took God 6 days to create the cosmos and on the seventh He rested. Some writers point to seven being a sum of the three persons of the Trinity and the four corners of the earth. I remember as a curate placing seven large candlesticks on the altar at the end of Sunday worship reminiscent of the menorah seven branched candlestick placed on the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 24 but here represent the 7 churches. Jesus was asked how many times should I forgive – is it 7 times? And Jesus says not 7 times but 70 times 7. Too often I hear people say “Oh that just means a lot – keep forgiving” I am not so sure. While I do not suggest 490 is significant of itself it emphasises the completeness and perfection of seven as a number. Yes, the Apocalypse is about judgement, the final days of earth but this is a perfect judgement, signified by being seven-fold and the entire letter is written to these churches seven of them. Is that because there were just seven churches in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey when John received his vision? No, there is a book in the Bible written to the church at Colossae – not one of the seven but the vision seeks to demonstrate a perfect and united vision of judgement. Just as a certain supermarket advertises that any one of its products are no ordinary whatever but that particular supermarket’s; so too God’s judgement on the earth is one of perfect judgement and because of that we are and should be blessed; which goes to make the Revelation an exciting book. But it comes with warnings for the churches for which it was written. Address those things I have against you says God to 6 of the 7 churches – again come to the Bible Study to find out which ones - or I will take your golden lampstand from you. Jesus is the light of the world but if we as a church fail to walk in the light of Christ, do we deserve, do we even need that golden candlestick of light? In other words, are we living en patmo or en pneumo living on Patmos or living in the Spirit of God? The way to eternal life is life in the Spirit but the choice is ours whether we are ready to be caught in the vision. Just look again at Revelation 1:3 in your Pew Sheets “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.” By the time we get to 30th August we will see a glimpse of those blessings. But for now, be Blessed. Amen
Am I alone in thinking every time I see one of those photographs of the Prime Minister and his or her cabinet sitting around that big meeting table at Downing Street and let’s face it that photographer has been pretty busy recently with all the ministerial changes – what a bunch of misfits?! A lot of my friends and former work colleagues tell me after a long management career, I should enjoy watching the TV series “the Apprentice” which I generally avoid. I wonder why? A bunch of seeming misfits with huge egos sent out by Lord Sugar into the community to deliver a business venture or task and come back with a profit or not. My ignorance of the fundamentals of the programme may illustrate that I really do not watch it but if I have got even the barest outline of the Apprentice then where might I find an early template for the Apprentice albeit with the profit motive replaced with a missionary one? Well here it is from 2000 years ago in Matthew 9 and 10. If you were choosing a team of missionaries would you really have picked fishermen, tax collectors, political activists? Would they be the perfect fit? When I went to Uganda earlier this year, I travelled on the same plane as a vicar I know from Stamford who was leading a mission to Rwanda. As we arrived at the gate waiting to board our flight there was Canon Martyn doing short first-time interviews with members of the team who in a few hours, he would send out as a mission team. Now I am not suggesting these people were misfits – I am sure they came with many skills and qualities but in the limited time they had in Rwanda how could they best be used for Jesus in the harvest? It actually was harvest time in Rwanda but this was a different harvest – a harvest of souls. Meanwhile I was waiting to board wondering what God would call me to do during my visit - well the answers are found in my presentation on our Church Near You website details on your pew sheets if you have not yet seen it. Might it have been better if that Rwanda team had x skill or y qualities? Might it have helped if I was better equipped for whatever I would be doing or if I too had a team? Probably but God uses us. We may feel like misfits but God uses us and works with the skills we have and the gifts God gives us. How often do I hear across our 6 churches that there is so few of us and we are struggling to cope or wish more people would come forward? That same prayer was going up in 1st century Galilee because Jesus commanded people (chapter 9 v.38) “So pray the Master of the Heaven to send more workers to harvest his fields.” I suppose we need therefore to ask the question – are we grumbling or are we praying? One commentator I read observed of this passage that the writer of Matthew could have just recorded this incident in a few words or even ignored it completely but chose to set out the detail of what the disciples were to do when sent out, which places to visit and not to visit, what to take or not take, what research to do, how to approach and how long to stay. The reason that commentator gives for such detail is because it is good practice for all of us for all time and I think that is right. I remember attending Canon Martyn’s church some years ago and hearing a young student who had gone from their university with another person they hardly knew. All they took was their passport and were given a return flight ticket. They were flown to Romania I think and taken to a university in a remote city. There were no Christians there. They had no money and spoke no Romanian. Somehow, they found someone with some English who knew someone who would put them up on their college floor, fed them and found a venue for a mission and several people became Christians. So, it happened 2000 years ago it has happened in the 2000s and can still happen even in small rural churches. What led those students to the right people and what leads us when we despair at how few people there are? It was prayer and it is prayer accompanied by obedience and being willing to serve. That is why all that detail is there and that is why there can be a solution. Of course if we would rather do it all in our own strength well just look around at how many closed churches there are and then pray to the Master of Heaven. We may feel we are misfits. The world may look at us and confirm we are misfits but God uses us just as we are and shows the way. What a privilege it can be to be a misfit!! Amen
Matthew 28:16-end – Is God a hybrid?I am indebted to Revd Dr Giles Fraser, Vicar of St Anne’s Kew for introducing me to the nurseryman Mr Thomas Fairchild of Hoxton in East London. Fairchild who lived from 1676 to 1729 and is believed to be the first person in 1717 to create a hybrid of two different plants, recorded as the Carnation and the Sweet William to form a new plant called the Fairchild’s Mule. Now a mule was a sterile plant so once it has gone unless you manage to get cuttings, it is finished. Thomas Fairchild had the foresight to take some cuttings, dry them and two remain with the Royal Society today which had been formed a little over 50 years before Mr Fairchild donated them so botanists can closely examine what this first ever man-made hybrid plant was like.But Mr Thomas Fairhild was not at all happy with what he had done because he was a devout Christian and believed that the world had been created divinely by God and feared, and indeed some critics told him as much that any attempt to tamper with God’s creation amounted to blasphemy. So perturbed was Mr Fairchild that he left a bequest to his local church, St Leonard’s in Hackney for a sermon to be delivered every year warning against tampering with God’s creation by playing God and creating new forms of life. A sense of that crops up again in 19th century novels like Frankenstein. The sermon is always delivered in the week leading up to Trinity Sunday and this year that honour fell to Revd Canon Dr Giles Fraser.In around 2011 a botanist tried to recreate Fairchild’s Mule and suspected the carnation Fairchild used might have been a Pink rather than a carnation and produced these magenta looking flowers which closely resembled the Fairchild’s Mule specimens at the Royal Society. They were indeed sterile and attempts to take cuttings of this prolific little plant failed and eventually it flowered itself to death. This picture of these replica Fairchild’s Mules is therefore all we have. Perhaps Thomas Fairchild was right to be fearful and leave the bequest he did!!Today hybrids of plants and animals of two or three or more types are common and use of hybrids is constant to get the best strain or crop or variety. So, is the Godhead also a hybrid and was Fairchild playing at God’s game? To which my answer is emphatically no. For that to be the case someone would have to have made God and the three constituent parts of the single godhead and no one ever did. Last year we celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea where the Nicene creed was drafted and approved affirming the Holy Trinity. In it the writers wrote that we believe in “Jesus Christ the only Son of God begotten of the Father before all ages.” We know that the Holy Spirit was brooding on the face of the waters at creation. All three persons of the Godhead are eternally begotten. No one created God. We believe in one God who was and is and is to come who as well as being one is God in three persons. And we are commissioned by Jesus in the penultimate verse of the last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel to go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Note the word “name” is used just once and in the singular. We baptise into the name of one God Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we do so because we are making disciples across all nations: disciples of the living God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. Yesterday as a JPCC we were looking at and reviewing the Mission Action Plan for our 6 churches so that we have a plan for how we deliver that great commission. By next Sunday lunchtime we will have had 4 baptisms in our Stodden churches compared to just one baptism in 2025 and we know there are more baptisms to come in the second half of this year and maybe by refocussing our mission action plan there may be even more. This is our job; it is what we are here for. We have also had 4 confirmations in the last 6 months – the first confirmations across our churches in over a decade but only two of our fonts have been put to baptismal use since I came and our confirmands have come from just 3 of our churches. So, there is lots of scope for our 6 churches going forward. Yes the Great Commission does challenge us to go out to all nations but let us at least go out to Pertenhall, Swineshead, Dean, Shelton, Melchbourne and Yelden getting people ready to be baptised – why not join us at Melchbourne for afternoon tea this afternoon and make a start so we can be baptising in all these places in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as Jesus commissioned us to do. Amen
John 14:1-14 The Way the truth and the life Something we would often do when I was in Africa in February was to find a motorcycle or boda-boda driver, pay them a couple of quid and follow them to where we need to get to like a hotel or a restaurant. We were unable to do this in Kisumu, Kenya because we arrived late and after a certain time the drivers all go home, so we had to rely on Google maps to find where we were staying but in Uganda that never happens because shops rarely shut and drivers rarely sleep. Then, when we found the right road by now in the small hours of the morning, we had to find the right gate to get us into the private road then find the right gate to get into the right house. What would it be like? It looked OK when we booked but was it and would there be enough room? Both gates opened for us and a young man; the askari came out of his own house in the grounds to let us into our house. It was huge as he kindly took our bags in and showed us round. Each of us had our own huge bedroom with our own bathroom and bed nicely made. We slumped on the huge sofas as the last bags were brought in. “You won’t see me in the morning said the young askari but there will be someone coming in later - but welcome.” We apologised for being so late but he was all fine. Before long we were all asleep in our rooms eventually awoken later that morning by vervet monkeys scrambling over the roofs and tapping the windows! We did meet our young askari again and invited him to join us for dinner and discovered he was a graduate and a local church worship leader. The picture my Kenyan experience portrays illustrates much of what Jesus is conveying to us in our Gospel reading. Some of this passage is frequently chosen when someone dies – in my Father’s house are many mansions and I am going to prepare a place for you provides a lot of reassurance to many mourners which Jesus prefixes with the words that start this passage “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” This is a promise from God who loves us. And, Jesus continues, you know the way to the place where I am going” to which Thomas who is always good for saying what everyone else is thinking, says “no, Jesus we’ve got no idea where you are going – how can we know the way?” And Jesus responds a little like my boda-boda driver by saying I am the way. You don’t need a map or a satnav – just follow me. Not only that but I am also the truth. You do not want to stray away from the course Christ has set before us and I am the life. Only through me, says Jesus will you have life and life everlasting. Many Christians wish Jesus never said this and regard it as the height of arrogance. How dare John or anyone put these words in Jesus’ mouth. How dare Jesus suggest he is the only way. Others and I would include myself in this, take the opposite view. This is one of the most powerful passages in the Bible and Jesus says this not out of arrogance but simply because it is true. But more than that, you cannot dethrone Jesus out of some misguided notion of political correctness without enthroning someone or something else, be it Buddha or Mohammed or Krishna or Mamon. As Bob Dylan once sang – you’ve gotta serve somebody and it may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you’ve gotta serve somebody. And it is not just this passage. Jesus made this claim at various times in different ways. I am the gate, the good shepherd, the true vine. The whole new testament affirms this as did the early church and as do we over 2000 years on. I had to get through several gates and doors to get into our house in Kisumu including 2 international border crossings. But Jesus is our means of access to the Father. For us Christians there is no room for replacement with vague general truths. As baptised believers we claim union with the Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life. That is what baptism signifies being baptised in the name of Jesus, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, being redeemed, bought back by the love of God through what Jesus did for us on the cross. What Jesus says in this passage is not the claim of an arrogant mad man. It is the truth of a God who loved us so much he came to live among us, die for us to buy us sinful people back to him. To rise again for us and promise us eternal life with him. That does not sound like arrogance to me but simply amazing love. Amen
