A Saviour not a personal butler
From Helen
I want to step back in time a little this morning, as I want you to try and remember what it was like to be a child….
I remember some of the games I used to play as a child, games such as skipping, kiss chase …. I will
leave that one to your imagination, weddings (which incidentally I often conducted) and the sound
of music. The last game got a bit boring to be honest. At first I loved the game I would pretend to be
the mother superior and my friend Anne would pretend to be Maria Von Trap. It was a really good
game which involved breaking into song every so often. It was fun the first twice, then I realised that
being the mother superior wasn’t always the best role and so I suggested we change. Anne thought
about this and decided that she should stay as Maria and I should still be the mother superior. After
a number more goes of the game Anne relented… I could be anyone I wanted but NOT Maria.
Games are fun, I do remember hearing a game going on with Jessica our daughter and some of her
cousins. It sounded really nice until I heard about someone being pregnant, someone else hating
another member and then someone being a murderer. I realised that they were playing Eastenders,
and so I made a mental note to perhaps suggest a nice game, maybe one based on Neighbours.
Games that children play are often based on the personalities of the children. Anne was very
confident, my nephew Jack was and remains very cool and in the Eastenders game he was, of course
the hero. The games we played as a child might mirror the type of people we become… I really do
conduct weddings now !!
In our gospel reading this morning we heard something of the way that people react to life. In our
reading we heard of the people wanting something in particular from Jesus and in particular from
John the Baptist. When Jesus and John the Baptist didn’t behave in the way they wanted them to the
people became disillusioned, petulant perhaps.
It is almost as if the people wanted to have John the Baptist as their hero as they thought of
repentance, if they were children he may have been leading anEastenders type of game. Everything
will be ok in the end, but you need to sort yourself out and the Dot Cottons of the world would enjoy
the memory of their own sin and everyone elses as well…. But then they decided they had enough
and so they looked for a new hero. It was as if John was too depressing for them.
The people then turned to Jesus, much more fun. Maybe the type of game where everyone is always
happy and laughing but then…. They realised that Jesus had a challenge for them and so they
weren’t happy anymore.
The people did not know what they wanted, but they knew what they didn’t want which was to be
challenged. They were happy to follow John the Baptist and Jesus until it became uncomfortable and
they felt too much was being asked of them.
But then towards the end of the reading from the gospel we heard of a relationship where a person
was worshipping God, enjoying relationship with Him. There is almost an adoring type of
relationship here, as the person is reminded that God is always there for them and they can cast
their burdens onto Him.
The gospel reading seems almost ridiculous as we think of people demanding of Jesus and John the
Baptist what they wanted. It is almost an attitude of,’ ok Jesus we will follow you, but on our terms
not yours.’
It would be so much easier to be a Christian if we could do it all on our terms. If God never expected
anything of us, if God would just let us plod along as we wished, being happy when we want to be,
sad when we want to be, aggressive when we want to be, as committed as we want to be, the world
would be so much better for us as individuals if we could just do the things we want and make God
behave in the way that we would like. We want to play the tune sometimes and expect God to
dance to our music.
I was a leader once on a youth camp and every morning and evening leaders would lead bible
studies in their dormitories. The dormitories were rooms in a comprehensive school. I remember
sitting there one evening with a group of 12 year old girls who asked me to pray for them. I was
really happy, everything these girls had been hearing about God had got through and now
they were ready to devote even more of themselves to God. It was brilliant, so I asked what these
?’ the next two girls said exactly the same and then came one girl who said, ’Can you pray that Peter
will want to marry me?’ I decided that some explanation was needed about God not controlling
people in this way and also the logical problem that Petercouldn’t go out with all the girls at once
!!
We often want God to fit into our agenda and will and by doing this we miss out so much.
God is not our personal butler, He is our saviour and as our saviour He has given everything up for us
and yes he does ask something of us and that is that we follow Him, seeking to be more like Him.
The type of person who relies on God to change them. By being more like Jesus so we become
people who remember the need to turn to God and to expect Him to change us.
May we be people whose only expectation of God is that He will accept us and help us to change to
become more like Him. A personal butler might be nice, but a saviour is everything. All we need to
do is to submit to God, to ask Him to take control and then to be prepared for challenge - yes, but to
also be prepared for feeling that we are right with God, the one on whom we can cast all out
burdens. AMEN
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