A place at the table.

A little while ago, I was going through messages on my phone and discovered an invitation for me and my husband to a friend's 50th birthday party. The party sounded very nice; it was a barbecue at their house. The problem was that it was for May 2025. I realised that I had looked at the invitation, worked out that we couldn't make it, and then forgotten to reply to our friend. I quickly apologised and hoped they had enjoyed their birthday and the party in 2025, and also their birthday this year. We had a fun conversation, and we ended up going out for a meal with our friends.

I felt quite rude, to be honest. Thankfully, my friend understood and found it funny. This was not the case for the king in the parable that Jesus told in Matthew (22:1-14) . In this parable, a king held a wedding party for his son. He was met with replies from people who could not make it to the wedding. One explained that he needed to look after his farm, another had business interests, and others reacted with hostility.  

This wedding, as the wedding of the king's son, would have been extremely important and an incredible honour to have been invited to. Rejecting the invitation would have been seen as the same as rejecting a friendship with this family.

Jesus was making a point as He told this parable. People had been offered a wonderful relationship with God, but they had rejected Him. They had turned to their own ways. They had followed their own instincts and thoughts, and by doing this they had pushed God out. This may not have been deliberate; it may have happened because of the busyness of life, the demands placed upon them, and the needs of others. Of course, it may also have been a choice to follow other gods, to put keeping laws first, and to put the order they had planned for their lives first.

I wonder if we can honestly say that we have never done any of this. I remember being at a Christian conference where I was discussing all the different workshop options with a friend. We couldn't work out how we would have time to fit in one on time management. We couldn't, and I think that was a lesson in itself. There wasn't time to fit in a session on time management, suggesting that this was probably the one I needed the most.

In this parable, the king doesn't respond with anger. He is practical; the wedding hall was booked. The king decided to fill the hall with anyone who could attend. Those who would never have expected an invitation were suddenly attending this very special event.

Of course, Jesus is making another point here. God had offered His salvation, but people had ignored it. By doing this, they had missed out on the best invitation ever. Those who would have been the least likely to be invited were receiving God's goodness in their place. Jesus was showing that His grace was wider than anyone could either have expected or imagined.

There is a problem, though. The reading ends with someone being thrown out of the wedding. This sounds wrong to us. After all, surely God wouldn't throw people away? The point is that the person who didn't have the right outfit on represents someone who wasn't ready, someone who wasn't prepared to join in the wedding banquet. Or, to put it another way, we need to be ready and prepared to accept the goodness that God offers us. It is not on our terms but on His. All He asks is that we love Him and accept Him.

God is there for us. We were reminded of this in Paul's letter to the Philippians (4:1-9). In this passage, we came across the beautiful words that we are not to worry because we can turn to God and ask for His help. The words are beautiful, and I think they become even more so when we remember that Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison. I really like the fact that this is the letter in which the word "joy" appears most often. Paul had joy because he knew God's love and protection. He trusted that God would always be with him. He had received the invitation to know God, he had responded, his life had been changed, and now he faced the future with assurance. He had discovered that faith was not about pretending difficulties did not exist. It was about placing those difficulties into God's hands.

This is where our best free gift ever comes in. The more time we spend in prayer, the more like God we become. This might sound strange, but in prayer we can enjoy the peace of God, a peace that is beyond our understanding and which reminds us that God is with us. As we pray, we change.

Following God should constantly shape us and change us as we approach life thinking as He does, as we love as He loves, and as we place our faith in Him. We remember His faithfulness to us and that, with His power, the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be different.

What an amazing gift. What a fantastic opportunity. One with life-giving promises. Paul describes it as dwelling on whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, and lovely. In other words, faith is not simply about being invited; it is also about becoming the people God created us to be.

The wonderful news in both readings is that God has not given up inviting us. Day after day, moment after moment, the invitation continues. Come to God. Come with your worries, your questions, your failures, and your hopes. Come not because you have everything sorted, but because God loves you.

How wonderful that before we had achieved anything, before we had succeeded or failed, before we had got our lives neatly organised, God died for us and reached out to us.

This is all because He loves us. All He wants is for us to turn to Him. We turn to Him with our worries and concerns so that we can know His peace.

God loves us, and as we enjoy a relationship with Him, may we seek always to praise His name.

Amen.

Turn around…

 I am sure that in the news you will have noticed the need for someone in power to prove themselves to us. I imagine this is why a certain book by Earl Spencer has created such a stir as people try to work out what is true and what is not.

I know as well of a Church leader who, whilst in prison, had to prove that he really believed in God. He also had to prove that he really was a Jew whose life had been changed completely as he followed Jesus. This is what is happening in the reading from the letter to the Philippians (3:4b–14). This letter was written by Paul, who had experienced the light of God in such a way that he had changed his views of God. Rather than being someone who hated those who believed that Jesus was God, Paul became someone who followed Jesus. He preached about Jesus and ended up starting communities of faith in the various places that he visited across the Roman Empire.

The problem was that not everyone liked his preaching. The Jewish people thought that what he was saying was wrong. Not just this, but when he preached he built up a following of people. This could have been seen by the Roman authorities as a group possibly starting a rebellion. Basically, Paul was not popular and he ended up in prison. This didn’t just happen once, but whilst in prison, Paul wrote this letter to encourage the believers in Philippi.

It always strikes me as amazing that this letter is full of joy. In the reading today, Paul was explaining something about his achievements. These achievements were all to do with his previous faith as a Jew; he had met every credential going. He persecuted the Church, and then on the road to Damascus his life was changed when he had an encounter with Jesus that convinced him that he had been completely wrong. If he hadn’t changed, his life would have been very comfortable. He was on the road to success, but he changed and in this passage he described everything else as nothing compared to knowing Jesus. He had been changed and, in being changed, he saw everything that had gone before as worthless, as rubbish. This is a really big statement to make.

Paul was a zealous man. I am not sure that he would be the most relaxed company you could have; he would be challenging, though. Paul had a new goal and that was to be like Jesus, even if it meant suffering. Paul had been turned around, and he was encouraging others to do the same. We, as we follow God, are also turned around; we have an opportunity to get closer to God, to be different. We can ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit; this is to give us strength. By asking the Holy Spirit to help us, we are asking God for His strength. God is three in one: God who creates, God who came amongst us in Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit who gives us strength. We can ask for this strength every day, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. After all, we can be filled with the Spirit, but we can also leak.

In the reading from the Gospel (Matthew 21:33–36), Jesus was doing the same thing as Paul. He was teaching people that they needed to change; they needed to turn around. He was speaking to the religious leaders and pointing out that they had not treated God well. They had not seen that God was present amongst them in His Son, in Jesus, and by doing this they were rejecting God’s message to them.

Like Paul being turned around, Jesus was explaining to the people around Him that they too needed to turn around. When Jesus told parables, He was taking the opportunity to teach people by using a story. In the story, the landowner planted a vineyard. This is like God creating the earth. The landowner had tenants to look after his land. God had rescued the people of Israel from slavery and given them a promised land. The tenants did not want to give the harvest that had been produced, and so they mistreated those who came to collect the harvest. They beat one messenger up, stoned one, and killed another. God had sent prophets, messengers to the people, asking them to turn back to Him instead of all the other gods that they had started following.

The owner of the vineyard decided that the best he could do was send his son; after all, they wouldn’t attack him, would they? They killed him. 

God the Son, Jesus, was amongst the people. They were rejecting Him. Every building needs a cornerstone to be the base of the building and to hold it together. Jesus was the cornerstone and they were rejecting Him. Everything that was needed was in God, the one they were rejecting.

This parable was both a challenge to turn around and follow God and also a way to give the message to the chief priests and Pharisees that God was amongst them and they were rejecting Him.

Bonnie Tyler was an amazing singer. As I was writing this, one of her songs kept going around in my head. It was, ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’ In particular, the words, ‘Turn around,’ and the description of a ‘total eclipse of the heart’. The song is about a relationship that has ended. I want to think of those words as a relationship began.

Paul needed to turn around and follow Jesus, the Pharisees and chief priests needed to turn around and follow Jesus and to see Him. When this is done, our hearts and everything can be changed.

I think that’s the challenge for us each day as we follow Jesus. We can keep turning around from the things that get in the way of Him, and then we can enjoy and know a total change, a total eclipse of the heart. We can always seek to change and grow closer to God. We can keep turning to Him for strength. After all, we all leak sometimes. That is, we all have times when faith is hard, but how wonderful for us to be able to say with Paul that Christ Jesus has made us His own. AMEN. 

Thanks be to God

Harvest is a wonderful service where we give thanks, think of others and enjoy the good gifts God gives us. We are reminded that God helps us in our daily lives. 

A vicar had just arrived in his new Parish and the people were looking forward to hearing him preach his first sermon. He got up in the pulpit and said, “I’d like to speak to you today about one of my favourite passages in the Scriptures – the episode in the Garden of Gethsemane where Peter cuts of the ear of the High Priest’s servant,” and he went to preach what they all agreed afterwards was a good sermon.

The following week people were a bit taken aback when he began with precisely the same introduction: “I’d like to speak to you today about one of my favourite passages in the Scriptures – the episode in the Garden of Gethsemane where Peter cuts of the ear of the High Priest’s servant,” and he went on to preach exactly the same sermon as the week before – word for word. After the service, there was a bit of muttering, but people agreed that he’d only just moved in and he must have been busy unpacking, so they could understand that perhaps he hadn’t had time to write a fresh sermon. They would see what happened the following Sunday.

The next week, exactly the same thing happened – the same introduction, the same sermon, but by now people were beginning to feel that something ought to be said, so one of the churchwardens agreed to have a word with the vicar. “We do appreciate your sermons, Vicar,” he said diplomatically, “but we were wondering as next Sunday is Harvest festival, whether you could preach on something topical, something on the Harvest theme?” “Of course,” replied the vicar, “Just leave it to me.”

So the following Sunday the vicar stood in the pulpit and opened the Bible. “My text for today,” he began, “comes from the fourth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, and the twenty-eighth verse: ‘The earth produces of itself first the blade, then the ear’ and that reminds me of one of my favourite passages in the Scriptures where, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter cuts of the ear of the High Priests servant…”

Back to today. There are people here, who do not need to imagine what harvesting looks like. There are people here who know exactly what is involved in caring for livestock, watching the weather, worrying about prices, hoping for rain when the ground is dry and hoping for sunshine when rain threatens the harvest.

There are always problems that will be beyond our control, such as weather. There are often times in life when all we can do is trust God, and wait. 

Harvest is the end of that waiting and is a chance to give thanks to God. We don’t only give thanks because a year has been perfect, some years really aren’t. We give thanks because throughout every season, good or difficult, God remains faithful.

In the reading from Deuteronomy (28:1-14), the people of Israel were reminded that God is the source of every blessing. The passage speaks of blessings on fields and flocks, on crops and livestock, on households and communities. It paints a picture of abundance and flourishing.

It is a beautiful picture of everything going well as you follow God, and His commands. There is not a promise here that followers of God won’t face difficulties. Rather, it is a reminder that ultimately every blessing comes from God.

Harvest calls us to stop, and recognise that all good things have their source in God. Sometimes it can feel as if society tells us that if we work hard enough, organise well enough and plan carefully enough, we can control everything that will happen.  This is why it is good to stop and think of the meaning of harvest. This is because harvest is a reminder of our dependence on God.

In our reading from Luke (12:16-30)  Jesus told the story of a rich farmer whose land produced an exceptionally good harvest. The problem for the man was not the good harvest.  The problem was that he made it all about him talking of his barns, his crops, his grain and his goods. Rather than seeing something to be thankful for he wanted to build bigger barns so he could protect what he had. He wasn’t thankful for what he had, he just wanted more. He saw all that God had given him as belonging to him alone and not to be shared with others. 

The end of the story is rather chilling, but it does help in asking the question of what we are doing with the blessings that God has given us ? How are we using the good gifts that God has given to us ? They may not be financial. God gives all sorts of gifts. 

I want you to think for a moment about the good gifts God has given you.

The gifts might include baking, speaking, being a good friend, flower arranging, being a musician, being an artist, helping with building maintenance or being good at organising, being good at administration, being good at praying for others, being able to encourage others. There are so many gifts that people possess.

The harvest gathered in a field does no good if it remains there. The grain stored in a barn only fulfils its purpose when it feeds people. And the gifts God has placed within us fulfil their purpose when they are shared.

There is a a message that runs through this afternoon’s readings. This is that as God blesses, so we give thanks. As God provides, so we share. As God gives generously so we are to respond generously. When all of this happens the blessings of God grow as our response reaches to others so that they too can know the goodness of God. 

So as we celebrate Harvest today, let us give thanks for the land, for those who work it, for the food we enjoy, and for God whose faithfulness sustains us through every season. Then let us also give thanks for the gifts God has placed within each one of us.

And for all God's goodness, generosity and faithfulness, both seen and unseen, today and every day, we say:

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Impossible Forgiveness

  excused and to be given time to repay it. The amount he owed was impossible to pay. A writer called Josephus, writing around the time of Jesus, calculated the taxes in Judea, Idumea, and Samaria as coming to 600 talents, which he said would take 150,000 years to pay off. There was no way that the man in the parable Jesus told would be able to pay off his 10,000 talents.

The king had been forgiving and basically excused this man, whose response was not good at all. This is because the man then attacked someone who owed him a lot less and had him thrown into prison.

This is appalling behaviour, but the ridiculous nature of it reminds us that forgiveness, which is so much greater than we could imagine, must be accepted and should make us want to act differently.

God has given us the best gift ever: forgiveness and the promise of everlasting life. God has blessed us extravagantly, but this means that we are to be extravagant in return. 

Extravagant in our love for God, putting Him first. Extravagant in our love for others, putting their needs before our own. Extravagant in the ways that we forgive others, even when it seems to make no sense to do so.

The writer Corrie ten Boom told of not being able to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so couldn't sleep. Finally, Corrie cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest. “This help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor,” Corrie wrote, “to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks.”

“Up in the church tower,” he said, nodding out of the window, “is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding, then dong. Slower and slower until there's a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we've been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn't be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They're just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.”

“And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations, but the force, which was my willingness in the matter, had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether. We can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts.”

This is how we learn to forgive others. It is also a reminder that we can accept the forgiveness that God offers by forgiving others extravagantly, as we give thanks to the One who loves and forgives us extravagantly. May we be extravagant in our love and in our forgiveness. AMEN.

From small beginnings

 Some time ago, I was with some friends, and we were walking through some fields. All was going well until a stile came up, and I had to clamber over it whilst battling with the feeling of, ‘Help, I am going to fall.’ I am a very clumsy person, and although I didn’t fall on this occasion, it would not have been that big a surprise if I had.

Our readings this morning have reminded me of that ‘Help, I am going to fall’ moment. In the reading from 1 Kings (19:9-18) we heard of Elijah being scared as he was being hunted down. His faith remained strong, but he needed reassurance from God that all would be well. For the disciples, they must have thought that they were going to fall into the water as they went through a storm. They were safe, but then Peter had his moment when he actually did fall.

Those two readings speak of faith. A faith that knows that even when we feel like we are going to fall in our journey of faith, God is still there to pick us up.

In our Gospel reading this morning (Matthew 14:22-33), we heard of the disciples going through a very difficult time when they must have felt scared. They went through a storm, had the fear of seeing a ghost walking towards them who turned out to be Jesus, and, to top it all off, Peter, in his bravery, reached out to Jesus and moved from having enough faith to walk on water to realising what he was doing and starting to lose faith.

I think that this reading can describe our walk of faith perfectly. We can feel very sure in our faith, quite confident, until something comes along that tests us. The disciples had been in a storm before, and Jesus had been with them and calmed the storm, but now they must have felt all alone. Sometimes we can feel that way, as if God has abandoned us, even when we know deep down that He has not.

Or maybe we are confident in our faith but a little too frightened to offer everything to Jesus, as we would like to keep some things to ourselves, and so we stumble in faith and end up in a big mess.

I really like Peter. The account we heard this morning is so encouraging. Peter gained confidence to reach out to Jesus on the water and started to walk, but then he lost that confidence. Peter reassures me; we can mess up, but God never leaves us.

The prophet Elijah always makes me a bit nervous. He always seems very confident to me. The reading today has reminded me that even the most confident prophet can have doubts.

To be fair, I am not at all surprised that he was nervous and questioned God. His life was under threat because, as a result of preaching the message God had told him to preach, he had insulted the queen and others. People had been unhappy with the challenge that he had offered, and so they decided that they needed to get rid of Elijah.

Elijah felt abandoned. God spoke to Elijah and promised to come to him. Elijah waited and saw many spectacular things, but God was actually in the quiet.

Peter and Elijah had both gone to God, reached out to Him, but had then lost their confidence. It was as if they suddenly thought, ‘Help, I am going to fall.’

We can all feel as if we are going to fall in our walk of faith. We may sometimes feel as if God has abandoned us, but we can know that God will not let us fall.

The life of faith is not always easy, but it is the best way to be. We can be ready to ask God for more so that we can experience more of Him, more of His love in our lives. Then we can have confidence and know that even in times when our faith dips and peaks, God is still with us. He never leaves us; He is always there, and all we need to do is turn to Him. We may feel like we are going to fall in the water like Peter, to fall in our faith, but just like He was for Peter, God is always there to pick us up and help us on our way.

Today, I also want to think about the faith of a woman who saw a need and met it. In 1876, Mary Sumner, who was married to the rector of her parish, noticed that there were other women who could use help in bringing up their children. She started a group for every mother, of any background, to work together.

The group was a success, and in 1885, after she talked about the group at the Portsmouth Church Congress, other people did the same in the places where they lived.

She saw a need and thought of how to help. She did something different and stepped out in faith. The Mothers' Union is an incredible movement that began from something small.

This year we are celebrating 150 years of the Mothers' Union. I am one of over 4 million members in over 80 countries.

Mothers' Union is described as “a woman-led international Christian movement dedicated to ending poverty, violence and social injustice in communities in the UK and around the world”. By doing this, they see themselves as “strengthening families and communities and advocating for meaningful change.”

In our Ministry Area, there is a group that meets monthly at St Cadoc’s Church, Raglan. During the intercessions today, we will be praying for the work of the Mothers' Union in our Diocese.

This is not an advert to join the Mothers' Union, although if you are interested, find a member and ask more. I want to think about the simple way in which it began from a young woman called Mary Sumner stepping out in faith to help others.

The readings this morning have encouraged us to step out and trust in God. Like the beginnings of the Mothers' Union, in our lives we can step out and see that, from a small beginning, God can do amazing things.

Faith is like that. We can think of all that might stop us trusting, that may stop us from listening to what God is saying. However, knowing God's promise to be with us always, we can have faith. May we always seek to have faith. Amen

Abundant gifts

 “You pray for the hungry, then you feed them; this is how prayer works.” Pope Francis

I read this quote the other day, and I loved it. The fact that you don’t just pray for those who are hungry or in need, but you feed them. You help them with the needs that they have. I remember being in one church where there was a Harvest bring-and-share meal. It was brilliant; there was lots of food and people having fun together. One person questioned the amount of food. I explained that you can’t tell people how generous they can or can’t be. It was then said that the food should be given to homeless people. This was briefly discussed until one person commented that we could do better for a homeless person than giving them a plate of vol-au-vents. Absolutely correct. When there is too much food, what should we do? When we have been given too much, what should we do?

I was thinking this when I thought about the Gospel reading for this morning (Matthew 14:13-21). In the reading there was the description of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. I am not sure that this is the best name. After all, when you look at the words, you see that 5,000 were fed, plus women and children. Although, if we knew the account as the Feeding of the 5,000 Plus, we might become more interested in the numbers than in the act.

From a very small amount of food came an absolute abundance. Five loaves and two fish fed all these people. Maths was never my favourite subject in school, but I know that such a small amount of food should not stretch to that many people. I did a GCSE in Home Economics Food, and even that didn’t teach me how to make such a small amount of food feed so many.

We are in church, we have an account from the Gospel of Matthew, so it is clear that Jesus is involved. Out of hardly anything there is an abundance. Jesus blessed the food and it multiplied.

It is a little like the Last Supper Jesus had with His disciples before His trial, as He blessed food and shared it. We will remember this event this morning as we share in bread and wine, thinking of all that Jesus both has done and continues to do for us. How fantastic!

It is a time to be thoughtful and reflect as we think of Jesus dying for us and then rising again. It’s also a time to rejoice. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have all been given the greatest gift ever: salvation and the chance to be in a relationship with God here.

In the account, Jesus had gone away to a deserted place. Jesus often did this; in the Gospels we find descriptions of Jesus going off alone to pray. Jesus had wanted time alone as He had just heard that His cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded. I am pretty sure that if I needed some time for peace, seeing that a great crowd had followed me would not have brought much happiness.

Jesus, however, helped them by offering healing, and He had compassion on them. The Greek word used for compassion translates into English as a gut-wrenching pain. This is incredible. Jesus was not cross or frustrated, but He had compassion.

The disciples panicked and asked Jesus what they should do. Jesus replied by getting them to look and see what they could find. Of course, all they could find were five loaves and two fish. They took their concerns to Jesus, and He made everything so much better. Jesus performed a miracle as He blessed the bread and the fish. People were fed, and there was enough left over to fill twelve baskets. This is incredible.

I love this miracle because it reminds us that, in what seems to us a desperate situation, Jesus can make so much more. How amazing! I like the fact that the disciples went straight to Jesus and offered all they had and were to Him, and everything changed. This reminds us that, as a church, the Body of Christ, Jesus can do so much when we rely on Him and offer Him all that we are and have.

There was more left over. I was asked fairly recently what happened to the leftover food. I don’t have the answer, but it has got me thinking about the good gifts that God gives us. In the same way that there was an abundance of food, so there is an abundance of the gifts that God gives us.

We may know the gifts that God has given us and be able to use those gifts. We may feel a bit frustrated that we can’t see the place where God can use our gifts. We may think we are giving enough to God; however, there may be more.

I remember seeing online a mock interview of a young woman who attended an interview and told the interviewer when she could work. She explained that she could never be there at 9 a.m. as she slept until 10 because she liked talking to her boyfriend on the phone until 3:00 a.m. This meant that the earliest she could arrive was 11:00. The interviewer asked if she could change any of her timings for a job. She said that she understood it sounded as if she was being difficult, but surely the company could change its hours to suit her?

Of course, this was a fictional account. I wonder whether we might do this to God sometimes, almost saying that we are happy to use the gifts we have been given, but only on our time. Or maybe that we are doing enough for God, so we do not want Him to keep dropping hints that we should either do more or do something different.

The way that we hear God speak may be a feeling inside us as we pray or think about Him. It may be through the words of other people. If you feel God is talking to you, please talk to someone else. It could be one of the clergy, a churchwarden, or someone you trust.

Out of five loaves and two fish, Jesus fed 5,000-plus people. When we go to Him with all that we have, just think what He could do through us and for us.

AMEN

Exceedingly good !

 I want to think of a perfect morning, where there is lovely weather, good company, sunshine, and being surrounded by God's beautiful creation. In the words of a Mr Kipling's cake advert, this would be 'exceedingly good'. Perhaps almost heavenly?

There is a story about a Sunday school teacher who was trying to prove a point to her class about faith and following God. She asked, "If I sold everything that I have and gave the money to the Church, would that get me into heaven?" The Sunday school class responded, "NO." She asked another question, "OK, if I sold everything that I have and gave the money to the poor, would that get me into heaven?" The response was, "NO," so she tried another tack. "If I gave you all my money, would that get me into heaven?" "NO." "Well, what will get me into heaven?" One little boy piped up, "You have to be dead first."

I have worked with children a lot, and they often seem to want to know important things such as, "Who created God?" and "Why is there evil?" These are the gentle starting questions. However, they have also provided answers. To the question, "What is heaven like?", I read the following answers:

"Everything is free and everyone lives in a mansion."

"Everyone drives a monster truck."

"Heaven is a place that is so beautiful, you would think it was make-believe. It's perfect."

"Heaven is paradise. The weather is nice. It never rains. Nothing can go wrong. We will be perfect."

Well, a write-up like that does tend to make heaven sound amazing. In our Gospel reading, Jesus used short parables to explain what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Kingdoms always sound magnificent to me. I remember, as a child, being very interested in kingdoms; after all, they have princesses and are magical. As I grew up and my love of history kicked in, I became fascinated by the Tudor period. I don't want to compare the Kingdom of Heaven, or of God, to that. The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God are the same; they are about the perfect life that we can have with God, both in the future and now.

We are part of the Kingdom of Heaven by the fact that we follow Jesus, and by being His disciples we try to be more like Him, which means that we seek to point people to a better way, a way that is exceedingly good. We know that there is even more to come; what we have now is a glimpse of what will be.

In the Gospel reading this morning (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52), Jesus used comparisons to challenge people to make a decision. Were they ready for the Kingdom? Were they ready for a commitment that removed everything that stands in the way of God? And were they ready to spread the good news that they had heard?

This challenge is to us as the followers of Jesus today. Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven as being like a mustard seed, a small seed that can grow into something huge. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a small piece of yeast that, once put into dough, grows and makes bread rise. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who gave up everything he had for a small treasure that meant everything. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sold all he had for one great pearl, again another treasure.

We have the challenge of how we will react to the life changing news of Jesus. We can be like the mustard seed and the yeast, doing our own bit to spread the good news of the love of God in our lives. You may feel quite insignificant in the whole scheme of life, but to God you are everything. When you love others as God loves, then people will be changed. This does not have to be in any great action that is publicised, but by being as Jesus to people: coming alongside them, loving them, being a good friend, helping those who need help. This is your mustard seed, your bit of yeast from which God's Kingdom can grow, as you help people to see and know the love of God. A love from which we are never separated, as we came across in the reading from the letter to the Romans (8:26-39). I wonder whether this is even better than exceedingly good.

The man sold all he had for a field; the pearl merchant found the pearl of great value. He was a merchant, which meant that he had the job of selling things on. If we thought of God as being like the pearl, then we would be thinking that, for us, it is about giving everything up to follow Him and then wanting to sell the pearl on. Or rather, to fit the analogy better, that we would want to share the good news of this pearl with others.

God offers us His love, which is the best treasure ever. To know God is to know life; it is to know love, and we need to ask ourselves if we have removed everything that may stand in the way of our relationship with Him. It may be time, it may be other people, or we may be so busy trying to do the right thing that we forget to pray and so damage our relationship with God.

The reading from the letter to the Romans had the wonderful words, "I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God." We also had the reminder that because of all that God has done for us, "we are more than conquerors". When we follow our Creator, when we try to be more like Him, we are on the winning side.

To know God is to know heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is here in part because it is about following God, knowing that we have the promise of even more. Heaven is here in our lives as we reach out to God, but it is only in part because, in life eternal, we will truly see what heaven is like. In the meantime, I pray that we will all seek to bring heaven to earth by living more and more like Jesus, praying for those in need and loving those in despair. Amen.