Service Date: 30 June, 2008

The Moderator demonstrated how a paperclip could float, and showed this miracle to two boys in Junior Church. The people at the back of church couldn't see - would they believe the boys when one of them went to the back and explained what had happened? Maybe...

Hymns

R&S 690: O send thy light forth and thy truth

R&S 572: Colours of day

Tell me the stories of Jesus

R&S 574: Go forth and tell

Sermon

This is the first time I have led worship here and most would be expecting a representative from the Yorkshire Synod - in fact I am a messenger from the heavenly Council. If you think our church council meetings are long then those in heaven seem to go on forever. We have been deliberating ever since you built this building all those years ago, and now I have come with divine authority - to close you down!

I'll just make sure... (leaves pulpit, goes down the aisle and out of the building! Returns) Yes, it is as I thought. God's byelaws clearly state - "When you build a new house, be sure to put a railing round the edge of the roof." You clearly haven't! I know you are God-fearing folk , but for this omission you will have to close down - heavenly building regulations DEUT22.8.

The book of Deuteronomy really does stand between two eras - straddling between what lies behind the people of Israel, forty years of desert wanderings by often a rebellious people, sometimes the fault of Moses, and now the old folk are dying off - and what lies ahead for the people of Israel - the threshold of the Promised Land; the claiming and settling of Canaan. It hasn't started yet, but it's on their lips, tired lips of a weary people, but excited lips of a hopeful people, perhaps also the quivering lips of a fearful people heading for the unknown! This is a story for Today - for Today's church which feels it has lost its way in a desert for two generations since the Second World War - sometimes you have been the rebellious people, sometimes the Church Leader's have been at fault - now many of the old folk are dying, but also a realisation of a new age dawning. Maybe, like Deuteronomy, we straddle two ages, and like Moses, we give the challenge - are we ready to move forward?

Moses gathered the people together before they took those first steps. And so began the story telling - night after night, around the camp fire and in their tents, and later when settled and villages and towns were built, generation after generation would meet together on their rooftops in the cool of the evening to keep the stories alive. No wonder they would need a rail around their roofs! And so a place was created for stories - safe and secure, and everywhere and in all ages, people have need that place, whether it be reading stories to our children tucked up in bed or acting out our tribal legends in a forest clearing, whether it is gathered before a pulpit for the latest sermon or gathered before the TV for the latest soap. But this is more than just entertainment, it is here we discover who we are, our shared ideals and where we have come from. I believe the only way to face our future is to remember our past - to hear again the Dreams of Yesterday. That is what Ben Gurion, first President of Israel, meant returning to Israel after the War, when he said "Remembrance leads to redemption, forgetfulness leads to exile" That is what Moses did -sitting the people down to remind them of their story, and of their special story of being the people of God - God the Creator, the Father of His people, the Redeemer from Slavery, the Law Giver. So it is all there in the Books of Moses which were collected and written and read and narrated to generations for people never to forget God's story is their story.

And so to us - Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear... God's story goes on and I thank God that here is a place of storytelling where the people of Sheffield can hear again the exciting story of Jesus, and know it is our story, God's love for us, God's love given to us, and God's love triumphant. This is a story needed just as much today.

But then, as we remember the past, we also have visions of tomorrow. And the Moses tradition is prophetic. Indeed Moses will never step foot on the Promised Land, but he sees it from the mountaintop, and he sees the future stretched out before him. And he knows it will not be long now - soon and very soon! As we need to remember, we also need vision - without vision, can you imagine what life must be like? For the Israelites it became a life bogged down with the minutiae and legalism of tassels and measurements, for us the bureaucracy of form filling and tedium of shopping lists. Without vision, we literally perish - for everything is done without purpose or meaning. Again and again the People of God lose that vision and are given fresh motivation with the same promises of God that were given to Moses, of a land flowing with milk and honey. And how often as they fell away from God, even led again into exile, the Word of God came to them of how things could be. In Zechariah here is a vision so powerful of a perfect kingdom - perfect community, all people, all ages living in peace together. It is also a vision of political peace and restoration for it is a picture of sad Jerusalem, referring to a time when the people were in exile and the city in ruins. Who could believe they would ever return, and the city restored. Today no less awesome a vision - who can believe the city of Jerusalem will ever know peace and restoration. Who can see the Kingdom of God in the streets of Sheffield? For human endeavour - impossible, but not for God! For the Lord says "I'm going to do it, it shall happen" Can we put our Faith in the Promises of God. For this vision goes ahead of us right to Revelation's portrait of a new heaven and earth. In each, God is at the heart of the community - "I will bring them back... They will be my people and I will be their God." This is the vision this Church needs - God once again recognised at the heart of community. Can we really believe in a people coming back to God, our churches once again full of life and at the heart of our communities?

Although Deuteronomy is a book looking back to the past and forward into the future, for me its clarion call is TODAY! Today we live - in the light of experience and in the hope of tomorrow, we journey today. So Deuteronomy is the book which gives us God's laws, without losing sight of where we have come from or where we are journeying. It is such a visionary book because it is grounded in the very practical day to day rules for living. And because it does that , it is amazing how many of those laws designed for a quite simple society , are also the basis of our laws and customs; and though some are definitely out of date, many still apply to such a complex society as our own. How fortunate we are to have this gift of God.

But there are some churches remembering the past so much, they are like a museum for Grandma's time, but a time that probably never was; others are lost in platitudes for a better tomorrow, like a modern Nostradamus - a tomorrow that never will come! If you have a past, then build on it today. If you have a vision, then take the first step today.
So let's look again at this law for living God's way today.

"When you build a new house, be sure to put a railing round the edge of the roof."

It may seem silly and irrelevant to us - but no - it is a straightforward safety law. It is for the construction of a parapet 1 metre high around the edge of your roof. For whom was it meant?

It was meant for the stranger, the visitor, someone unfamiliar with your house. Just as you could find the bathroom in the middle of the night you'd show your visitors the light switch. Similarly, someone enjoying the evening chat may not know how far back they can step!! Is this church here for the stranger, the visitor, to the church but maybe also to the country - the immigrant and the refugee. How concerned are the laws of God for the outsider, the foreigner among us.

It was meant for the children - however familiar they are they get so absorbed in their play, they would soon run off the edge. The vision in Zechariah has children playing in the streets. How welcoming is this church to children and young people, accepting of them and celebrating what they bring?

It was meant for the elderly, no longer steady on their feet, they could easily topple over. They need that extra care. Is this church tolerant of the elderly, caring to their needs and using their experience and gifts?

Here are people in need and laws to give them a place of safety, refuge and renewal.
Dedicate now this Church to the needs of the poor. I know that in Matthew's version of the beatitudes it says Blessed are the poor in spirit - but in Luke's account it is starker - Blessed are the poor! The most common word in the Old Testament is a favourite word of mine - ANAWIM (or variations) It simply meant being bent, or bowed down so you can see how it became associated with those afflicted, bent over, oppressed, dehumanised - the poor. Through the Old Testament times the Anawim became the strangers, orphans and widows, all who bend before God, and know their need of Him. How often we have to be penniless, and powerless to know the riches and strength of God. And so "the poor" of Luke's beatitudes become the "poor in spirit" I Matthew's.

I have seen the old woman so bent over with age that she can only see the ground - her family know her not, so wrapped up in their own lives.

I have seen the young girl, -used to call her "Smiler" in children's club not so many years ago - today "on the game" - head bent low with shame, I hope not her own, but the shame of the middle class men who abuse her.

I have seen the young man bent over in agony because of a bad trip - all because he couldn't cope with society or society couldn't cope with him.

I have seen the old man bent over by the weight of all he possesses on his back, but more weighed down by Government platitudes.

And these are not visions or distant memories, but real people today nearly on your doorstep. They are the anawim, the bent ones. And God is with the anawim in Sheffield. Doesn't it say that Jesus came for such as these? Doesn't it say that God would not break such a bent reed? It is here with you they will find protection , refreshment, renewal of hope, new beginnings and good endings. Isn't the message of Deuteronomy that the vision becomes a reality as the Laws of God are lived out. That law is written in the heart of Christ - Love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength and your neighbour as yourself!

Remember my task to report back to heaven. Can I give a report that says this church may have failed in the letter of the Law - there is no parapet - but that you have fulfilled the Spirit of the Law - here a place where the story of God is told, the vision of God's Kingdom proclaimed and the Law of God lived out as the hungry are fed and the thirsty find drink.

Don't build a parapet in bricks and mortar, but let yourselves be built into living stones!