I remember as a little boy in England, asking my grandfather about the First World War.

He told me that he had walked fifteen miles with some other young coal miners to Pontefract Castle, to enlist. Unfortunately, or fortunately, during the routine medical, he was found not to meet the rather low health requirements. He was given a cup of tea and a muffin, and set out to walk the fifteen miles back home.

He didn’t, then, go to war, but he did tell me something that spoke volumes about it.

He said that a young friend of his, a miner like himself, had volunteered, and after only a few weeks of training, had been sent to the trenches. After a while, this young man came home on leave for a week or so, and his friends gathered around to ask him what war was like.

He told them about his first trip over the top – when he and thousands more had come up out of the trenches like dead men coming out of graves, and had charged the German positions.

“Charged,” was an exaggeration. The ground was so muddy, and there was barbed wire everywhere, so the charge was rather like a walk.

This was his first time, remember, and after very little training.

He was trying to run forward with his fellow soldiers, and noticed strange whistling noises in the air.

“Hey,” he called to the soldier on his right, “What is that noise? Is it birds?”

“No,” his friend replied, probably with some exasperation, “Them’s bullets.”

That young man went back to the trenches after his leave, and didn’t come home again.

That story impressed a little boy, more than stories about bravery and bloodthirsty battles. I knew there was something pathetic about the whole thing even then.  

Of course, men were sent to the front with too little training.  With trenches, barbed wire, the machine guns, mines, and so on, warfare had changed, and the generals on both sides didn’t know how to cope.

There was a phrase at the time, that went something like: Heroes led by donkeys.”

So men were sent to certain death in fruitless charges that made little or no difference at the time.

War is hell.

War brings out the worst in people and ironically, it brings out the best.

You know why war is hell?  War is hell because it reduces people to the level of objects.

The man aiming his gun at you from a hundred yards away isn’t a husband, father, son, brother. He is some thing that has to be eliminated.

And in his mind, so are you.

It has to be, I guess. We wouldn’t want to kill those whom we saw as warm, breathing, God-fearing family men.

And neither would they.

And if generals allowed themselves to think of the men under their command as fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, then they wouldn’t be able to send them into battle.

No, war makes us all into objects.

Civilian deaths aren’t called civilian deaths any more, they are called ‘collateral damage.’ They are not even accorded the dignity of their human-being-ness.

Now history tells us that if someone attacks us and we don’t retaliate, then we will also lose our human-being-ness. We will be enslaved.

So, we have to fight. We have to go forward to defend our country.

And the heroes were those who knew that, and were frightened when they came face to face with the machines of death, and yet, out of a need to protect their families, or the pal next  to them in line, or just to stay alive, shoved their fear down deep inside themselves and went forward anyway, and some died and some lived, and they were all heroes.

Ironically, it also brings out the best in us.

But war isn’t what God wants for us.  We are not objects to Him.

We are precious and dear, and valued, in His eyes.

And those who went to war on our behalf, should be precious and dear and valued in our eyes.

Didn’t I read, just in the past couple of years, that a tomb of the unknown soldier had been opened and genetic material recovered, and the ‘unknown’  soldier identified?

And that soldier’s family finally knew where their son had lain.

Because that son was and is precious and dear and valued.

And that’s what we are supposed to try to do today when we remember those who fell in two world wars and the Korean conflict and in numerous peacekeeping missions since: to see them as someone dear and valued.

Thirty years ago I took our younger daughter to the UK to meet her family there, and to see the places that had figured in my early life. I took her to the village where I was born, and I showed her where my father had lived, and I showed her the Cenotaph.

I pointed out to her the name Sgt. Richard LLewellen Jones on that memorial. He was one of my two uncles who went to war.  One uncle came back. The other didn’t. 

That moment was the defining moment of that trip for Alison. Here in a faraway land, on a little village green was a monument to those who had died defending their country, and right there was a name to which she was connected – Sgt. Richard Llewellen Jones. 

This was not just a name any more. But someone who had been flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. A person. A son, husband and brother, an uncle lost in battle.

Not an object. Not any more.

You know, Isaiah tells the children of Israel that there will be peace. There will be normal commerce. He promises them peace and freedom. 

Because they are God’s people.

People as a whole. They have had a covenant, as a people, with God. .

Jesus brings us a different way of covenanting with God. He brings a vision of a God who knows and loves each of us individually.

This God doesn’t take vengeance on us because of what we have been. Instead, He shows us His love in the way He died for us.

He didn’t make us die for Him, as we deserved, perhaps, but instead He died for us.

That’s a big difference, isn’t it?

It’s the opposite of how we are supposed to be in war. It’s the opposite to the way we are supposed to be in business.  It’s precisely the opposite of what the world expects us to be.

One of the great slogans of the last century was that of P.T.Barnum – “Never give a sucker an even break.”

That’s a far cry from dying for somebody, isn’t it? 

But not everyone held to that sentiment. 

The ideals of  Jesus in most dire  circumstances:    a soldier risking his own life to bring back a wounded buddy;                   an airman deliberately crashing his stricken aircraft rather than bailing out and leaving it to come down in a populated area;                 a sailor risking his own life to get men nearer to their landing point;             medics going out under fire to bring back wounded men;              women driving “ambulance trucks,”             nurses working in forward hospitals under bombardment,      because they were needed.

Even there, in the midst of all that horror, people loving and caring for, people – not objects.

Isn’t it a pity that that sentiment could not always prevail everywhere? 

If we hadn’t been taught that the others were so bad, that they were different, and their difference made them less than human, then there would never be a war.

But even in peacetime you still see traces of that objectifying of other people – denying them their human-being-ness – in business, in sport, in everyday life, as people strive to get ahead – ahead of the other guy, at all costs.

We have just witnessed just south of here, an election process where more than one candidate specifically singled out those who were different – Mexicans, Muslims, blacks and women.

We have to be on guard against that. 

Else it will become easier for some political leader to get us to see some others as objects. Easier to victimize them, easier to go to war.

If Jesus died for me, and for you, then he died for everyone.

One of the biggest revelations about God’s love, and our human need for God came to me when at the age of about ten, I found some war souvenirs that my uncle – another uncle, who had been in the struggle for Berlin, – had given to my dad.

Among them I found a German soldier’s belt. It had a chrome buckle, and on the reverse side of the buckle, were the words, Auf Gott vertrauen wir- In God we trust.

What a surprise that an enemy, someone who would have killed my uncles if he had them in his rifle sight, who fought for an evil regime, should believe in God – in the same loving, caring forgiving God I believed in.

What a bigger surprise to come to understand, that God does indeed love them, as He loves us.

And if that were the size of our human love, then again, there would never be war – if we could see everyone as valued and loved. 

Today we remember the children of God – those who died to ensure our freedom.

People.  Not just names.  Not just objects.

Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, uncles.  Sisters, wives, daughters, mothers, aunts.

And we remember those who came back, and give thanks for them all.

And vow it will never happen again? 

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John.

 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.  “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

‘Come and see, Lord,” they replied.Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.  “Take away the stone,” he said.“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

(Jn 11:32-44

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Our Western provinces salesman,  told me once of a practical joke he and a friend played on a neighbour.

They stayed up late. They waited until a good hour had passed from when they saw their victim’s houselights go out, and then they got ladders, and lots of black plastic, and duct tape. They spent a good couple of hours blacking out every window of their neighbour’s house.

They laughed so much while doing this, that they nearly fell from the ladders, but they completed the job, and went home to sleep, worn out, and smiling at the thought of what their neighbour and his wife would do when they woke up at a time when it should have been light out, and found themselves in darkness

Of course, it was a bit of an anti-climax. The neighbour and his wife had clocks to tell them the time, and they could see that the windows had been tampered with.

But it was a good idea, wasn’t it?

It would have to be a better idea than that,  to keep me up until the early hours, though.

That episode brings me to something a couple of us were talking, about, a week or so ago – the relativeness of time. How falling asleep, you are not aware of time. Do you know what I mean?

Have you ever woken up feeling as if you have been asleep for a long time, to find when looking at the clock that it has only been a few minutes.  I know the opposite is mostly true – you wake up after a night asleep and feel like you only had five minutes. 

There are stories of people who have been asleep – in a coma – for twenty years, say, and have woken up, thinking they have been sleeping for just a few hours. They are astonished when they are told that twenty years have passed.

So the idea that came out of our short discussion was that when we die, and are laid to rest,  the time between our dying and our actual ascent to heaven – assuming that’s where we are going – which could come at the end of time, will seem instantaneous.

Coincident with that, then, is an assumption that if say a wife dies ten years before her husband, then it would seem to be only an instant  before he joins her.

We like to think that when we die, we immediately go to Heaven, and that may be, I am only indulging in a little speculation here, because we have John’s Revelation for our first reading today.

John has had a vision, and in it he sees that at the end time, God will live among us. He has promised to be our God, and that we are his people.  It is a wonderful idea of what heaven will be like.

The promise is also seen in the Old Testament and in Paul’s’ writings. Ezekiel, has, “My dwelling place shall be among them.” 

God’s promise in Isaiah  is , “Tears and grief shall be  no more….. and sorrow and sighing will flee away ……I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people…..no more shall be heard the cries of weeping or the cry of distress”

….. then, promising the end of death, God says, “ Death too,  shall be gone,” and then ” God will swallow up death in victory and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.”

This vision of John’s, of God living with His people, in a new Jerusalem so beautiful, it can hardly be described, is a promise for the future, but it is also a comfort in today’s world, especially  for all those who mourn.

We know that death is not the end. Dying is not dropping down some big black hole to nothingness. It is the gateway to closer communion with God, in the place prepared for us.

This day is set aside for us to remember the saints.  The saints of the church. And I don’t mean only those whose names are in the canon, but those we have known, ordinary men and women, passed away, and also those we still have with us.

We remember those who by their very being, their being among us, make the days seem brighter,  and who somehow manage always to have time, love, and concern for others. 

And I mean you.

Those who mourn will be blessed, but even better for us who are still in this world, death is swallowed up in victory for those who know Christ, and the power of his resurrection.  In other words, we don’t die.

The story of Lazarus in today’s Gospel shows us Jesus’s power over death, and presages his own death and resurrection, his own victory over death.

In Jesus lives are made new. And that means that  we have no need to carry with us the bad memories, the burdens laid on us by the past. 

God says, through Isaiah, “Remember not the former things, do not consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing.”

How many of us are affected by the things of our own past? How many of us have problems that come from our past – childhood, or later – that still have an impact on us today?  And which we wish we could get rid of?

Paul says that God can take a person and recreate them. He can  make a new person out of them.

Because as John  says, all things begin and end with God. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Somebody once compared a life that has been changed by Jesus to a piece of embroidery.

You look at a piece of embroidery and the picture or pattern woven there is exquisite. That is life with Jesus.

Turn  the piece over and you see all the thread, tangled, confused, with no apparent purpose or design – that typifies life before Jesus.

But there is more, since John tells us that God has prepared a beautiful place for us, a new Jerusalem. A place of such beauty that it is hard to describe.   The prophets have said it has streets paved with gold, and walls studded with precious gems, and no need of light from sun or moon, since it will be lighted for ever by the light of God.

So, we go from this life, this old life, to that new life, seamlessly, it seems, slipping out of our old worn-out bodies, frail and diseased as they may be, into a new existence, with no pain, no tears, no worries, no hardship, in a place custom made for our happiness.

This isn’t to imply that we should give up on life and look forward to death.

The early martyrs, thrown to the lions ran forward eagerly to meet their deaths.  They were convinced  they were  going to that  better place. They were eager to be with Jesus.

But, Jesus himself  asked God, if it were at all possible, to spare him from that death on the cross.  In his obedience, he went to his death willingly, but he had no death-wish. He wanted to live. He had work to do. Things to accomplish. Life to live. Love to give. He went to the cross knowing it was his destiny, and his Father’s plan.

So it is with us Christians, we have no death-wish. We have a life wish.

In fact, the best Christians I know are so full of life, they won’t quit living until they die.  This is contrary to those who seem to have given up years ago, and just continue to exist.

We know, don’t we,  here,  in our heart, that in time, we will inherit immortal life, and join our brother Jesus in that special place, but life is too precious to give up right now.

There is too much to do.

We want  to make this  world better.

Pity those without the vision. Pity those who are merely passing time, waiting for   death to catch up with them. They have no belief in the afterlife, and it seems, no belief in the present life. They spend  it  so cheaply.

George Burns, who worked hard until the day he died, said, “If you were to go around asking people what would make then happier, you’d get answers like, a new car, a bigger house, a raise in pay, winning a lottery, a face-lift, more kids, less kids, a new restaurant to go to – probably not one in a hundred would say a chance to help people. And yet that may bring the most happiness of all.

“I don’t know  Dr. Jonas Salk, but after what he’s done for us with his polio vaccine, if he isn’t happy, he should have that brilliant head of his examined. Of course, not all of us can do what he did.   I know. I can’t do what he did. He beat me to it!!

“But the point is, it doesn’t have to be anything that extraordinary. It can be working for a worthy cause, performing a needed service, or just doing something that helps another person.”

Cast your mind back and remember those saints who were part of this church in years gone by. Or the ones who influenced your life for the better, in school, or in some other place or time.

Then think about the saints who are among us right now. They are the ones who spend busy lives doing God’s work,  not letting faulty knees, or bad hearts, or creaky joints hold them back. 

And are still doing it.

And just won’t stop!

Go and do likewise.

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Mark

Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.  (Mark 10:46-52)

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Isn’t it maddening when you are trying to explain something and the other person just can’t grasp what you are getting at? 

“Can’t you see?”  you say.  It is so frustrating.  Like when you discuss – argue – politics or religion with someone.

It is so hard to get the other person to see your point of view.

They are just as frustrated as you are of course, because they can’t get you to see their point of view.

If I discuss religion with someone, I try to keep what I say on a personal level. I talk about what has happened to me. What things in my own life brought me to know my Jesus, and to decide to follow him.

They can’t say it didn’t  happen. They can’t say that God doesn’t work like that, or that there is no God, or that Jesus isn’t the Son of God.

Because I make no claims.

I just tell the truth about how I came to believe. And leave the other person to think about that for themselves.

The thing is that when it happened to me, it was a revelation. It was something about which I could say, “ My eyes were opened. ”

I had been living one way, being that sort of person, and suddenly I saw things differently.  All the stories I had ever heard about God, or about Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, the bible stories read to me as a child, the testimonies I had heard other people give, somehow,  all made sense. 

Suddenly, I understood.

In Raymond Moody’s  book on near-death experiences, there is one story that stood out for me.  A man’s heart stopped for a while. He was certifiably dead. Then his heart was restarted, and he literally came back to life.

When he was revived, he said something very profound. He said,

 “ When I died, I understood everything.”

When I died I understood everything.

Like, all the things he had learned and remembered, or forgotten; the way he had been brought up; the things he had come to believe  – rightly or wrongly ; the habits of thought he had developed;  his very way of being, as a human being.  – everything that might get in the way,  was swept aside and his vision clarified. 

It was like he got spectacles for his mind.

We read to day that Jesus and his disciples entered the city of Jericho which was only fifteen miles from Jerusalem. The main road ran right through Jericho. 

Lots of people were headed to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, and anyone coming from the north would travel along that road.

Rabbis, with their followers would walk along, discoursing, as they did, and teaching their followers, and anyone who cared to listen. Those who couldn’t  make the journey to Jerusalem would line the road to see the pilgrims go by, and to see and hear famous rabbis.

Jericho was a city of priests and Levites. The temple in Jerusalem had 20,000 priests and as many Levites attached to it. They  couldn’t all serve at the same time, of course. They would serve a term of office in rotation.  Many of these priests and Levites lived in Jericho. There would be many of them in the crowd that day.

They would be eager to see who passed by, but perhaps doubly eager to see the rebel Jesus, who had talked about how temple worship had become irrelevant.

Their faces would be hard, their eyes hostile as they looked upon this man, this threat to their way of life. To their jobs.

Maybe it was out of concern for their positions in the temple. Perhaps it was their study and  observance of the law, but look as they may, they just could not see Jesus as the light that had come into this  dark  world. 

They just couldn’t see it.

Just as their colleagues in Jerusalem could not, or would not, see it.

But a blind man, a man  with no agenda to get in the way, sees Jesus as he is.

Here’s an interesting paradox. He was blind and could see. They had sight but could not see.

“Son of David,” he calls out, “ Have pity on me.”

Bartimaeus is his name, and he is persistent. He will not be prevented from getting to Jesus.  And when Jesus asks him to come over, he responds immediately. 

Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?”

On the face of it, this is a silly question.  It’s like when you go to the doctor and she asks, “ How are you doing?”  Like if you were well,  you wouldn’t be there would you?   Of course, like idiots, we say, “Fine thank you.”

Jesus can see that the man is blind, but he wants the man to ask for what he wants.

And the blind beggar is given his sight.

You might expect him to rush off  and show everyone what has happened to him, but we are simply told that he follows Jesus.

But what of those with the cold eyes, as they look upon Jesus?  Have they seen this miracle take place? And do they see it as a sign that God is in this man? And is it going to  make a difference in their lives?

No! 

Too many things stand in the way.

They can’t see that this man who  brings sight to the blind must surely have  some real connection to God Herself.  

That from now on the world would be different.

Would see differently.

But not them!.

Not at this time.

William Thackeray had one of his novels published in serial form in a magazine. He wrote each chapter just ahead of publication.  After a few chapters had been published, the editor called Thackeray into his office, and told him that the readers were becoming impatient for the hero to marry the heroine.

Thackeray said, “I have no plans for them to marry. It would weaken the plot.”

“Nevertheless,” the editor, said, forcefully, blind to the author’s rights, ” I  think they should marry.”

Thackeray, needing the money, realized this was a command, not a suggestion, so he said, “ Well, then, if you insist, I will marry them in the next episode.”

“But ” he added, ”I cannot guarantee that it will be a happy marriage.”

There are so many people in this world, even in our close acquaintance, who are stubbornly blind.  Can’t see anyone else’s point of view. Can’t see what you see.

Wouldn’t you just like to touch their eyes and have them see Jesus as Lord and Saviour – to just know, what we know?

Wouldn’t that be something?

You know there is a phrase that exemplifies  today’s technological culture, it is usually said with a cell phone to the ear:  “Can you hear me now?  Can you hear me now? “

Well, just cast your mind back  twenty years, and see if you remember those computer generated pictures that were all the rage for a while.  On the surface  they were a mélange of patterns, quite attractive in themselves, but they were much more than that.  Do you remember? 

If you stood about three feet away, and looked at the picture, and focused your eyes somewhere beyond the picture – which was quite a trick in itself – then  suddenly a three-dimensional image jumped out at you.  And you saw it! 

It was quite exciting.

Then, of course, you just had to show everyone else how to do it.  They had to stand just so, and to focus just so.

This practice may have given rise to the phrase, “Can you see it now? Can you see it now?”

I think getting to see Jesus is a bit like that. 

I think we have to stand back a bit  from the skepticism of this world.  We have to lose our hardness of heart – and recognize that we too need healing.  And look beyond the everyday stuff that obscures him from us.

And when healing is offered, we need to leap at it, and grasp it, and accept it and celebrate it, and be thankful for it.

Or go on being blind.

The story I told you of the man who died and saw the truth, is wonderful, in that he came back and was able to live in the knowledge of that truth.

I would hate to think that we will only know the truth, by dying,  wouldn’t you?

Because let’s face it, the chances of coming back to put it to use are close to nil, aren’t they?

Amen. 

The Gospel  of our Lord Jesus Christ According to Mark

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.”

Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

”When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.
So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45 )

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Some time ago, I  came across a book by  Andrew M. Greeley called ‘White Smoke.’ Andrew, who died in 2013, was a Roman Catholic priest  with an insider’s  knowledge of that church. He wrote many best-selling novels, most of which touch on the church, but are as powerful and dramatic as any you might read.

The novel, ’White Smoke’, is, as you might expect from the title,  about the election of a pope.  The cardinals charged with electing a pope are locked away in conclave, and each day  they cast their ballots until a pope is elected. A two thirds majority plus one is required. The ballots are counted and then burned.

If black smoke rises from the chimney, (straw having been added to the paper ballots, to create the thicker smoke )  then no-one has been elected. When white smoke appears, then a pope has been chosen. 

The novel,  ‘White Smoke,’ published in 1996, is sub-titled ‘A novel about the next papal conclave.’ It was a  timely read,  as there was  daily  speculation about the health of the current pope in the news media at the time. 

The novel tells of behind-the-scenes scheming, horse-trading, politicking, and downright chicanery, as various groups sought to influence the cardinals.     

I thought about the book when I read today’s Gospel, in which Mark tells us John and James, asked Jesus for positions of influence.  

It’s astonishing, isn’t it,  that these two men were so ambitious?   It is true that they had been, along  with Peter, a part of Jesus’ inner circle.   In addition, they were a little better off than the others – their father had been wealthy enough to employ servants  – so perhaps they saw themselves as coming from a higher social strata than the other disciples, and consequently, were  more deserving.

Even so, it’s astonishing that they still haven’t understood Jesus. Just before this incident occurs, Jesus has told them quite openly, and simply, “Look here, all of you. We are going to Jerusalem and the Son of Man is going to be handed over to the chief priests and lawyers, and will be condemned to death. They will hand him over to the Gentiles, and they will make jest of him, spit on him, scourge him, and then they will kill him. And after three days he will rise again.” 

Like hello!!!   Weren’t you listening?

They just didn’t understand, did they? And I don’t blame them. It is a fantastic thing that is about to happen. Who could grasp it?

When they pose their question, Jesus tells  them,  ”You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink from the cup that I must soon drink from, or be baptised as I must be baptised?”
Can you go through the same sort of experience that I am about to go through?

“Yes” they say.

Sure enough they will.

In the days to come they do go through experiences similar to those of their Master.   James was  beheaded by King Herod Agrippa, and though we are not told that John was martyred, he did suffer much for Christ. 

To their credit, they accepted the challenge of their Master, even though they were blind to what that challenge really was.

So James and John, regular human beings like you and me, were  concerned about their well-being. They were  ambitious.  But they were so  blind weren’t they?  

And yet, when tested, they were more than equal to the task.

The church, as Andrew Greeley’s novel sees it,  has within it, many of higher and lower rank who see the church  as a way to power and glory – earthly glory – rather than a means of bringing the love of Christ into the world.

If you read his novel, you will be horrified at the villainous stuff that goes on. You may think it cannot possibly be as bad as that, but Andrew assures us it can.  And is!

However, thank God,  there are cardinals and bishops and priests and lay people who do shine like Christ in this world.  Thank God there are those who with quiet faith and compassion and courage, embody the love of God,  worshipping, and praising and serving Him in sometimes quite awful circumstances.

Even in the depths and violence of war, their love, and courage shines through.

One such person, was a flyer in the Vietnam war, Captain Gerald L Coffee. He was shot down over the China Sea, February 3 1966 and he spent the next seven years in a variety of prison camps.

The years of the Vietnam War were confusing and troubled times for American foreign policy, and for those involved.  In fact, the seeming lack of a definite and legitimate purpose for being there made it worse for all the participants.

The effects of the trauma endured by some, last even  to  today.

Captain  Coffee said that the POW’s  who survived did so by a regimen of physical exercise, prayer, and stubborn communication with each other.

After days of torture on the Vietnamese version of the rack, he finally broke and signed the confession they demanded. Then he was thrown back into his cell to writhe in pain. Even worse was his guilt over having cracked. He was devastated, and alone. 

He didn’t even know if there were other Americans in his cell block. But then he heard a voice, shouting out,  “Man in cell number 6 with broken arm, can you hear me?”

It was Col. Robinson Risner. ”It’s safe to talk. Welcome to Heartbreak Hotel,” he said.

Coffee asked about his navigator. Had anything been heard? 

Col. Risner told him he had no news of the navigator, and went on to say,  “Gerry you must learn to communicate by tapping on the walls. It’s the only dependable link we have to each other.”

Risner had said, ‘we’ so there must be others. “Thank God I am back with the others, “ Coffee thought.

“ Have they tortured you, Jerry?” Risner asked.

“Yes” and I feel terrible that they got anything out of me.”

“Listen,” Risner said, “ Once they decide to break a man, they will do it. The important thing is how you come back. Just follow the code. Resist to the utmost of your ability. If they break you, just don’t stay broken. Lick your wounds and bounce back. Talk to anyone you can. Don’t get down on yourself.

” We need to take care of one another.”

Coffee would be punished for days at a time – stretched on the ropes – merely  for some  minor infraction. His buddy in the next cell would tap on the wall telling him to ‘hang tough’ and that he was praying for him.”

Coffee says, “Then when he was being punished, I would be tapping on the wall doing the same thing for him.”

Coffee says his friends and his faith helped him through.  Every Sunday, the senior officer in each cell block would pass the signal – church call – and every man stood up in his cell.

Then with a semblance of togetherness, they would all recite the Twenty-third Psalm. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”

Coffee says, ”I realised that despite being incarcerated in this terrible place, my cup did run over because someday, somehow, whenever, I would return home to my wife and kid in a beautiful and free country.”

One day he received a letter from his wife, telling him about his daughter Kim and his son Jerry. His eyes filled with tears when he realised that little Jerry, named after him, had been born after his imprisonment.

On Feb 3^rd 1973, the seventh anniversary of his capture, the peace treaty was signed, and he was freed.

What was wonderful to me in this story, is that  these men,  even though they couldn’t see each other,  shared each other’s pain, prayed  for, and with each other, and astoundingly, under those conditions, worshipped together.

They weren’t in a grand building. They had no beautiful music. There were no pews, no vestments, no candles. No committees.  No structure.

They embodied the true church.

Huddled and suffering as they were in those prison cells they lived as Jesus instructed us, by serving others.

Jesus  knows what it is like to suffer, and he suffers with us. He taps on the wall – if you like ‘on the wall of our heart’ – to assure us that he is there with us, and for us.  

And if Jesus, Son of God, lives alongside us as brother, not as Lord and Master, then how can we wish to lord it over others?   

The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was chosen by God as our High Priest. He accepted, not because he wanted the honor, but out of obedience to God.

He went to the cross out of obedience to God.

As members of the church – His body – we are also called  to obedience to God.    

Over the years leaders have risen, and fallen, flaring like  comets  across the night sky.  Their appeal was to the hearts of men and women, to their needs and desires.

“ Follow me and I will make you great,”  they said.

Jesus says, ‘Follow me and I will show you how to serve.”

“ The Son of Man himself did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who gave his life to save many.”