Sermon: Uprooting mulberry trees

Short sermon preached at St. Paul's Church, Rusland, October 2019

Scripture passages: Luke 17:5-10 and 2 Timothy 1:1-14

The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!'

He replied, 'If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it will obey you.

'Suppose one of you had a servant ploughing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, "Come along now and sit down to eat?" Would he not rather say, "Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink"? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, "We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty."' (Luke 17:5-10)

Our Gospel passage comes in the context of Jesus speaking to his disciples about sin and the importance of forgiveness.

Perhaps because they realise how much help they need in living up to Jesus' teachings, the apostles interrupt: 'Increase our faith!'

Jesus says that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed, they can tell a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it will do so.

We can interpret this at least two ways. The first way is literal: the apostles, through faith, can perform supernatural acts. We see them, and especially Jesus, doing this. Jesus calms storms, for example, and in one instance when the apostles are praying, the earth shakes.

But there is also a spiritual interpretation to what Jesus is saying here, and I want to focus on this, partly because the ability to uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea can only get you so far!

In some ancient cultures, mulberry trees symbolised death. Mulberry trees have white flowers, but the berries become red and then black. For this reason the church fathers saw the mulberry tree as an image of the devil, who had been in the company of God in heaven but fell into darkness.

Also, the leaves of mulberry trees are used to feed silk worms. Some church fathers have made the connection between the mulberry tree and hell because Jesus speaks of hell as the place where their worm never dies.

Thus, we can understand the mulberry tree to symbolise death and the works of the devil. Jesus is not only saying that, through faith, the apostles will be able to move trees (although I believe that is true), but that through faith they will be able to uproot evil and cast it into the sea (which symbolises chaos). Jesus is reminding them of their mission: that this good world has been invaded by weeds sewn by the devil, and their task is to be gardeners uprooting evil.

We see the apostles doing this. A few chapters earlier in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus sends out 72 disciples into surrounding villages to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, to heal the sick and to cast out demons.

And Jesus himself will go on to Jerusalem, where he will offer his life on a cross, and in dying and rising from the dead, he will conquer death. Through the cross, that great tree, Jesus uproots the ultimate mulberry tree and casts it into the sea.

So Jesus tells them that, through faith, they can do amazing things, and he outlines the vision for their work. He follows this with an illustration of a servant at work.

There is not enough time to say everything that needs to be said about this illustration, so I will simply say that Jesus is speaking in the context of instructing his apostles about their work. I don't think Jesus is telling us that we should treat our employees (if we have any) harshly or without encouragement. Jesus himself encouraged his 72 disciples when they returned from their mission trip, saying he saw the devil falling out of heaven like lightning. But Jesus also tells them not to rejoice over their spiritual power, but rather that their names are written in heaven.

Similarly, Jesus is giving his apostles this illustration to keep them humble. He has just told them that their faith empowers them to do amazing things. But they are not to think they are doing God any favours by their uprooting mulberry trees. No, that is simply a part of their job description.

There are some jobs in which workers do not expect thanks. For example, when we are riding a train and we arrive at our destination, we do not usually go out of our way to thank the security guard for his work as we step off the train. In the same way, the apostles need to work not to earn praise but because this is what God expects of them. They are not going above and beyond their duty. It is their privilege to serve God.

Notice too that in the illustration there seems to be two phases. In the first phase, the servant is in the field ploughing or tending the sheep. Then the servant enters a second shift: coming into the house. The servant is tempted to rest, but there is more work to be done. Only when the servant has prepared the meal can he rest.

I wonder if any of us can relate to this. Are any of us in second phases of life - or third or fourth? Maybe some of us have retired from our life's work and are in a new season. Maybe we're in a time of transition, wondering what's coming next.

I think the message to us is that, as disciples of Christ, there is more work to be done. As long as we are alive on this earth, we are expected to work for God's kingdom. We can't put up our feet yet.

Yes, it's important to take care of ourselves, to honor the Sabbath and rest. But we must have the attitude of the servant on duty.

And it's not just any work for the sake of work. Jesus says that the servant 'did what he was told to do.'

What has God told us to do?

There are some things he tells all of us to do. We are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbour as ourselves. We are to witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. We are to continue the work of Christ and the apostles of uprooting mulberry trees, the works of the devil.

I believe God has also given each of us unique assignments. It takes listening to God to know what he has for us to do each day, and in each season of our life. We can also encourage each other to be doing God's work.

So, I encourage and challenge us to do what God has told us to do. Before we close, I'd like to look at our passage from 2 Timothy because I think it can inspire us to do that work.

Paul writes to Timothy,

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. (2 Tim. 1:6-7)

God has given us the gift of faith and the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us to do God's work. But we cannot simply passively receive it. We must actively fan the gift into flame.

Now that it's properly autumn, we have been putting on fires in our wood burning stove nearly every day. If you have one, you will know that sometimes after the log has been lit, the flames will nearly die out, lying low. In such cases you need to open the vents to let the air flow in and set the log blazing again.

In the same way, we must open up the vents in our lives and hearts to let the Holy Spirit flow through us and set us ablaze. We can do this through prayer and giving ourselves over to God again and again.

May we have the same courage as the apostles did to ask Jesus: 'Increase our faith!' And may God increase our faith so that we may do his work, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to uproot mulberry trees, to defeat the works of evil in our world and in our time. Amen.

Sermon: Blessed are those who mourn

Sermon preached at a church in Heysham, UK, in October 2019. 

'Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.'

Matthew 5:4

This passage comes from the Beatitudes, which is a series of blessings that Jesus gives at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. He is teaching his disciples and so we can learn from these blessings about what it means to follow Christ.

To illustrate this challenging Beatitude, I wish to look at three examples of mourning and comfort in the Old Testament.

The first example comes from the book of Job. Some people believe Job lived in the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was a righteous man - but due to a battle in heaven, in which the devil challenged Job - and God's - integrity, God allowed the devil to destroy much of Job's life in order to test Job. First Job's children died in an accident, and then Job was struck with sores across his whole body.

Job tears his robe and sits in mourning for seven days and seven nights. This is the first kind of mourning I want to look at: mourning the loss of life. Three of his friends come to comfort him, joining him in his sorrow.

But Job is not comforted. After these seven days, he speaks. He curses the day of his birth and asks where God is, why God has allowed this trial and what Job has done to deserve it.

Job's friends then speak, but they prove to be poor comforts. They blame Job for what they see as God's punishment upon him, telling him that he must repent.

After various rounds of Job and his friends arguing, it is God's turn. God finally speaks out of a storm:

Gird your waist like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer me.

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Job 38:3-4

These words, 'Gird your waist like a man,' encourage and strengthen Job. They stir him to get up from his despair and come face to face with the God he has been calling out for. Thus Job finds peace. His questions are not directly answered, but somehow, in his face to face experience of God, Job is satisfied. He realises that God is far beyond him, that his situation is not something he can understand, but that ultimately God is ruler over all. He expresses his humility, his lowness before God, and God exalts him. God restores his life and blesses him with more children. Though his first children are not brought back to life, Job is vindicated and redeemed.

I was recently speaking with someone about this Beatitude, 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.' This person knows someone whose child died at an early age. Even many years after the child's death, the mother continues to feel the pain of her loss. The person I was speaking to said that Jesus' words had not come true, saying, 'She hasn't been comforted.'

My first reaction was to try to defend Jesus' words. Surely Jesus cannot be wrong, so I thought of reasons why the mother might be in the wrong. Maybe she has not truly mourned and this is why she has not received comfort.

Thankfully, I kept quiet. I thought of Job and how his friends had done the same thing: they had put the blame on him, when in reality, Job had done nothing to deserve his suffering. The only way Job could be comforted was through an encounter with God. So too, I believe the only way this mother can receive comfort is through an encounter with God. All I can do is pray for that encounter to take place in God's time.

Perhaps we can learn how to help others in their grief through the book of Job. The best thing Job's friends did for him was spend time with him in silence those first seven days of his mourning. Maybe when others are mourning, the best thing we can do is be there for them, and help them to make space for that dialogue with God that only they can have, help them to listen to God - for the question is ultimately between them and God.

The second example of mourning comes from the book of Jonah, and it is mourning the loss of relationship with God and others because of sin.

God calls the prophet Jonah to preach against the wicked city of Nineveh. This city is the capital of the Assyrian Empire, known for its ruthless violence against its enemies - including Israel.

Jonah runs away from God because Jonah knows that he is being sent to Nineveh to give them the chance to repent and receive God's mercy, which is the last thing he wants for them. He is swallowed by a large fish at sea and vomited back onto dry land and only then does he accept God's task for him.

Jonah goes into Nineveh and preaches against them. Perhaps to our surprise (but not to Jonah's), Nineveh listens. The greatest to the least of them, from the king all the way down to the peasants, mourn over their sin. The king takes off his royal robes and issues a decree for all of the people to mourn in the hope that God will change his mind.

The Ninevites' mourning is perhaps one of the clearest pictures of mourning we can look to. First, they fast - not only the people, but even the livestock! Second, they wear sackcloth. They publicly display their grief the way people wear black at funerals. Third, they pray to God. Fourth, they change their wicked ways. This last part is the most important, but the first three prepare their hearts to change.

They mourn over all they have done to grieve God, over all of the loss of life and relationship that their wickedness has caused, and in return, they receive the comfort of God's mercy. God does not do what he had planned to them, and we learn of the deep love and care that God has even for them.

I choose this story partly because the mourning over sin comes from people we don't expect. When I first began preparing this sermon, I thought of asking, 'Who are the people in our society, in our communities who need to mourn over their sin?' How easy it is to look for sin in others, but how difficult to notice the sin in myself!

The surprise in this story is that, by the end of the story, it is Jonah who is in need of repentance. He receives no comfort from God because he wishes for the destruction of his enemies when God wishes for their salvation. Indeed, God does not want anyone to perish - although we might - but that all might turn to him and be saved.

The first place we must look when we think about mourning over sin is ourselves. What sins must we repent from? How can we mourn over the evil attitudes and behaviours in our lives?

Repentance is not something we do only once in our walk as Christians. It should be an ongoing attitude, daily confessing our need for God's mercy and healing upon our lives. When we mourn over our brokenness and sin, whether those in the present or from the past, we can be assured by the comfort that God will be quick to forgive, that God will meet us with his mercy.

The third and final example of mourning comes from Psalm 42:

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
'Where is your God?'

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

vv. 1-4

It is not clear why the psalmist is in despair, but from the last lines of the above quote, it sounds like the psalmist is mourning over the loss of the past. He had once been full of joy and thanksgiving, leading worship in the house of God. Perhaps he is also mourning over the loss of an identity he once had as a leader.

Do we grieve seasons of life that have passed?

The psalmist speaks to his own soul, and here he finds comfort:

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God.

v. 5

The psalmist's comfort comes from hope in God. In spite of the weight of his despair, he reminds himself of what God has done and that God has a good future for him, that he will again praise God.

Notice the psalm's references to water. When Jonah is in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, he prays a portion of Psalm 42: 'all your waves and breakers have swept over me' (v. 7).

Some Christians see Psalm 42 as pointing to Christ. Verse 6 says, 'My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan.' The land of the Jordan is where Christ was baptised, where he went under the waters.

Baptism points to when Christ lay in the belly of the great fish of death for three days. Perhaps Jesus prayed this psalm too as he descended into darkness.

I think the most important thing I can say about mourning and comfort is that Jesus has experienced the depths of mourning and the heights of God's comfort. Like Job, Jesus mourned the loss of life - of others, and his own. When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept. And Jesus himself underwent the unjust death on a cross, where he prayed, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'

Many people have experienced unjust, painful deaths - some worse than Jesus'. But the tragedy and glory of Christ's crucifixion is that he was the Son of God. He was God in human form, the very one we would think would not experience such a death. Yet he laid down his life because he loved us. In dying and rising again, Christ has conquered death and sorrow. God vindicated Jesus like he vindicated Job - and so we can trust that as we follow Jesus through the waters, we too will rise again.

We do not know when the comfort will come. It may come in this life. It may not come until we are united with God in heaven. But we can trust Jesus' words, knowing that although we mourn today, we have hope that we will one day gird ourselves and stand before God in praise.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Christmas sermon

Scripture passage: Luke 2:8-14

The past two times I have come here, I have spoken from the beatitudes. These are the blessings that Jesus gives at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. First we looked at Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven and last time, in October, we looked at Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

I want to look at the third beatitude today: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. But since it’s Christmas in a few days I also want to tie this into our passage from the Gospel of Luke where the angels announce the birth of Christ to the shepherds. Fortunately, I think the two passages work well together.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Meek is a word that I don’t like very much because it has come to mean something different from what Jesus meant. I usually think that meek means weak, spineless – a meek person being one who is easily pushed around.  

But Jesus means something different. In the Greek, the word is praus. This can be translated as gentle, which is quite different than weak. Also, in those days war horses were described with the word praus. War horses were strong, but their strength was controlled, harnessed, bridled so that they would obey their masters’ every commands.

A pastor once defined meekness for me with the image of a very strong man gently holding a baby in his arms. It would be foolish to ask which one would win in a fight – but the strong man is controlling his strength, holding it back because he does not want to harm the baby. The strong man here is being meek.

Thus, meekness is the combination of strength and gentleness. It is harnessed strength. The meek are those who use their strength, their power, for God’s purposes and in obedience to God.

I think of Jesus’ words to his disciples when they were arguing over which one of them was greatest: ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves’ (Luke 22:25-26).

This brings us to our passage from the Gospel of Luke because the angels announce the news of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, who help us understand meekness.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ (Luke 2:8-14)

Miriam and I live in Cumbria, where there are many sheep – and a few shepherds and farmers as well. Farmers need to be strong. They work seven days a week, getting up early every morning and following a strict regimen, maintaining their equipment, buildings and livestock. They also need to be strong with their animals, holding down the sheep when they are shearing them or clipping their nails. But they must also be gentle. If a sheep is giving birth, it needs to be able to trust the farmer. If the farmer has been harsh, the sheep will try to run away. Farmers thus illustrate meekness, as they combine strength with gentleness.

But it’s not only the shepherds who are meek. Through the birth of Jesus, we understand the meekness of God.

God is beyond all that we can know and comprehend; he is a mystery. His ways are above our ways, and his thoughts are beyond our thoughts.

But on Christmas we celebrate something that, to our knowledge, never happened before: God became a man. The same God who created time and space, our world and humanity, entered into time and space and was born of the Virgin Mary. He limited himself and became one of us.

As it says in the Gospel of John, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Not only did God become a man. He came into the world in the form of a baby – a vulnerable human, dependent on others – and was not born in a palace or even a hospital, but in a place where the animals lived, lying in a feeding trough.

Strength with gentleness. Power with humility. Divinity fused with humanity.

One church father, St Athanasius, put it this way: ‘God became what we are that we might become what he is.’ God became a human so that humans could become like God.

This is what we mean by holiness: God transforming our very nature so that we become like Christ, who is God.

Why did God do such an amazing thing?

God did this in order to save us. As the angel says, Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you.

We know that Jesus saves us through his death and resurrection. Jesus, because he was God, lived a righteous life and when he died on the cross, he offered to God the perfect, final sacrifice on behalf of our sins. Because he was also man, his offering was on behalf of the human race. Thus his death saves us from sin.

When he rose again, he trampled upon death, conquering it, and thus his resurrection saves us from death. We believe that all who die in Christ will be raised with him.

But we often forget how Jesus’ birth saves us. It saves us because by becoming a human, God united humanity with divinity. He has opened the door for humans to be united with God in a way never possible before. He was never far from us, but now, in Christ, he has become one of us, knowing us more closely than we know ourselves.

St Athanasius says that God’s becoming a human is like when a king takes up residence in a village. Or imagine if the Queen moved into Heysham. No enemy would dare attack the village because the king/queen would be protected – and thus so would the village.

In the same way, now that God has become one of us – moved into the neighbourhood, so to speak – the enemy, the devil and his demons, are scattered. Throughout Jesus’ life we see him casting out demons, and the demons shrieking in terror because they realise he is the Son of God.

Jesus is our Saviour because he is God. If he were merely a human being, even a righteous human being, he would not have the power to save us by uniting us with God. Only God can save us, and in Christ, he has.

There are three things we can take away from this.

First, remember what the angel told the shepherds: ‘This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’

Just as baby Jesus was wrapped in cloths and placed in a manger, so too he wants to be wrapped in us. We are to be the mangers in which he lives.

Joseph was a carpenter, so I imagine he knew just what was needed to prepare the manger and the room where Jesus was born. I imagine he and Mary took great care to make sure Jesus was warm and comfortable, finding the right cloths to cover him with.

Miriam and I are in the process of moving house. As you will know, there is much work one must do before one can live in a house. Decorations, sorting out the utilities, cleaning, repairs. And the work doesn’t end when you move in. You have to maintain the house, constantly cleaning it and looking after it.

In the same way, we must prepare our hearts for Christ. God gives us his Son and his Spirit as a gift, but we must do our part in making sure he can make a home in us. As the Apostle Paul writes, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

How can we be fit mangers and temples to carry Christ within? What must we clear away from our lives and relationships that are contrary to Christ? What can we ‘furnish’ our hearts with so that Christ lives in us more fully?

Even if we have been Christians for many years, our hearts can become cluttered with habits and behaviours that oppose Christ, so we need to be vigilant in our maintenance so that we belong wholly to Christ.

Second, God’s becoming a human in Christ means that he is with us. We face challenges, struggles, pain, and illness – but we do not face them alone. God has taken on flesh, and so he understands our weakness, and has triumphed over it. Christ lives in us, and works with us to overcome our trials. The battle is not ours alone; Christ is fighting with us, and in him we are victorious. He is transforming us into the image of his Son, who is complete and perfect.

Third, let us be meek like the shepherds. Not many of us are shepherds or farmers by trade, but you might be in a similar role as parents, grandparents, teachers, caregivers. You might shepherd people through your leadership, guidance or care.

How can you use your power to serve them, to build them up for God’s glory, to show them the gentle strength of God?

It is to the meek that God came: to the shepherds, to obedient Joseph, to righteous Mary; to the wise men who, though they were kings, humbled themselves in worship to Christ.

So too it is to the meek that Christ comes today. It is the meek – those who use their strength in service to God – that will inherit Christ and his kingdom, the new heavens and the new earth.

When Jesus was born, the world saw the beginning of that union of earth and heaven. Through us, through his Church, he desires to continue being born into the world, transforming and saving it so that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. This is because of his great love for us and for the world.

For this amazing salvation that has come and is still coming to us in Christ, let us praise God, along with the angels: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people on whom his favour rests!