At the end of Acts chapter 15 Paul decides to visit his fellow Christians in places he knew but he is prevented from doing so.  Instead, in Acts 16:9-15, he is sent somewhere new.  He believes that he is going to the men in Macedonia but it is the women who respond to his preaching.  The work of God leads him to unexpected people in unexpected places, the outcomes are equally uncertain, some positive some not so and he will not always be able to see his efforts bearing fruit.

This morning, in John 5:1-9, Jesus’ efforts also have mixed results when he heals a paralysed man in Bethsaida.  The man offers no thanks and shows not signs of faith.  He will go on to blame Jesus when he is reprimanded by the religious authorities.  The man’s paralysis is more than physical. His situation has left him apathetic and despairing.  When asked if he wants to be made well, he blames others for his condition.  He took no responsibility before he could walk and he continues to take none once healed.  We too are often paralysed.  We are not confident that our actions can make a difference. Perhaps we are afraid that we may be rejected or that our efforts will fail, that embracing healing and wholeness will also involve embracing change and uncertainty.  But, despite our reticence, our recklessly generous God continues to ask us “do you want to made well?”

This week is Good Shepherd Sunday, a day to reflect on what it means to be called to hear Christ’s words and follow him. John 10:22-30 reminds us that we belong to God and, if we belong to God, we also belong to one another, called be part of a community that cares for each other.  As God’s flock, we are promised abundant life. Life which is experienced and enjoyed only when we share it with others. This week, as we celebrate the work of Christian Aid, striving to bring abundant life in poor communities across the globe, we commit ourselves to living lives of generosity and love, trusting in Christ’s promises of abundance and faithfulness.

The Easter holidays are over, everyone has returned to work or school and all is back to normal.  Yet our readings insist that life post-resurrection cannot just go back to normal.  Something has changed and we need to change too.  In John 21:1-19 the risen Jesus is just the same as he always was: calling to the fishermen, filling their empty nets with an abundance of fish, breaking bread with them, just as he had before his death.  He is the same but he is inviting them to change, to begin again but this time to follow his lead.  The last time he broke bread with his disciples they betrayed and abandoned him, last time Peter warmed himself at a fire he denied Christ.  Now they, and we, have a chance to try again, to risk ourselves for love of God and God’s people. That this will have its challenges is clear from Acts 9:1-20: here the risen Christ offers Saul a new beginning but it is Ananias who struggles to put into practise all that he has learnt about love: must he really embrace an enemy? Must he care for and support those who have threatened him? Must we? Change is hard but so is not changing.  Easter, once more, gives us the chance to embrace it.   

Christ is always returning to us, continually offering us the gift of the spirit, repeatedly inviting us to begin again. The fact that we are failures makes us perfect for the job too. Knowing how rubbish we are at being Christian, at doing God’s will, puts us in the perfect position to forgive the faults and failings of others and invite them to begin again alongside us.

Last Sunday we rejoiced at the resurrection, the disciples, however, didn’t. A week later our gospel, John 20:19-31, finds them hiding away in a locked room afraid of what the future holds for them. Thomas often gets a bad press for doubting but the other disciples are not doing much better: Jesus has already come to them offering peace, sending them out as the Father sent him but a week later, when Jesus returns, they still haven’t moved. Perhaps Thomas did not believe them the first time because despite encountering the risen Lord, they hadn’t changed. However, the fact that they doubt, that they fail to act, is what makes them perfect for the job; because the job is forgiveness, and who better to know the joy of forgiveness, the significance of a new beginning, than someone who has been in need of forgiveness not just once but again and again. By the time we come to the story in Acts 5:27-32, the disciples have changed, they have started to live as if new life were truly possible.

Christ is always returning to us, continually offering us the gift of the spirit, repeatedly inviting us to begin again. The fact that we are failures makes us perfect for the job too. Knowing how rubbish we are at being Christian, at doing God’s will, puts us in the perfect position to forgive the faults and failings of others and invite them to begin again alongside us.

Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, the annual memorial of the death and resurrection of Christ.  Through our services this week we share in Christ’s journey, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the empty tomb on Easter morning.  Today begins outside the church as we echo the excitement and anticipation of Jesus’ followers joyfully waving palms as he enters Jerusalem.  Our procession, like that in the gospel, is led not by chariots and horses but by a donkey, signifying that God’s idea of leadership is not at all the same as that of the kings of the world.  Once in church we turn towards the cross as the Passion gospel, Luke 22:14-23:47, is read and the events of Holy Week are anticipated.  This solemn passage offers us a different vision of leadership: in which the servant king pours out all that he has for the sake of the world God loves.

When Mary anoints Jesus’ feet in John 12:1-11, she is criticised for her lavish generosity.  Why waste this expense honouring one man when it might have been used to feed the masses?  Jesus explains that she has kept this gift for his burial and yet she anoints him whilst he is still living.  Perhaps, as she has witnessed her brother being raised from the dead, her action expresses her faith in the resurrection; that the cross will be a second Exodus, like that referred to in Isaiah 43:16-21, when her people were led to freedom.  This is the exodus Isaiah promises, a new thing, leading to freedom for the whole of creation, giving us a new way of living.  A way which honours every person as precious and valued, worthy of excessive love and lavish attention.  Judas is wrong, not because he has dubious motives, or because he has a practical, utilitarian approach to how best to use resources but because he does not recognise that there are no limits to God’s love, that God also holds nothing back, but will pour out everything for love of us.  Her extravagant devotion leads us to ponder how we respond to the limitless love God pours on us and whether we, like God, perceive others as also worthy of such lavish attention. 

Today, on Mothering Sunday, we celebrate our Mother Church and all those (related and unrelated, male and female) who nurture and care in our lives and in our world.
We hear again the story of the infant Moses from Exodus 2:1-10 and the community of individuals of different faiths and ethnicities who came together to keep him safe and raise him.  In it, Pharaoh’s daughter names him Moses (which comes from the Hebrew verb Moshah to draw or pull out of water) “because, she said, I drew him from the water”.   When Moses was drawn from the water, he was given a new life just as we are when we emerge from the waters of baptism.  Just as Moses is given a new family, we too are part of a much wider family because of our baptism, a family, like Moses’, which is made up of people who are like us and people who are not.  We are called to care for them, protect them and nurture them, to be mothers to one another.  Pharoah’s daughter was taking a risk when she protected Moses, by law she could have been put to death.  In Luke 2:33-35, Jesus has just been recognised by Simeon as one who will care for not only his own people but all people, Simeon knows that this will come at a cost.  Our readings remind us of our baptismal calling, asking us to become a community of mothers who take the risk of extending love and protection to all those God sends to us.   

Why, Isaiah 55:1-9 asks, do we spend our time, energy and resources on “that which does not satisfy” whilst refusing the gifts God offers freely?  The answer has something to do with why Jesus’ contemporaries thought that those who suffer misfortune were worse sinners than those who escaped misfortune: we think that we are responsible for good gifts we enjoy, we think that we have earned them.  Jesus and Isaiah are each try to change the way we see both ourselves and those who are in need.  We are all in need of God.  None of us can succeed by our own efforts alone.  We are the same.  All of us are vulnerable.  And if all of us are vulnerable, how should we act towards those in need?  In Luke 13:1-9, Jesus, having castigated those who think people bring trouble upon themselves, tells a parable of the man who wants to cut down his fig tree because it is not bearing fruit, it is not paying him back for the efforts expended on it: the feeding, watering and tending.  But the gardener asks that, instead, the fig tree be given even more time and even more care.  Jesus is inviting us to stop seeing the world in transactional terms but instead to view life in relational terms.  When we are aware that we too are needy we are more likely to show empathy for others in need.  If our eyes are opened to see that there is no distinction between the fortunate and the unfortunate perhaps we will be more committed to building a world in which the needy are responded to with the abundant compassion and generosity of the gardener.