Sunday Service 23rd November

Inheriting Heaven

23/11/25

Call to worship

Hymn 279: Make way, make way for Christ the King

Time for all

Hymn 641: Seek ye first the kingdom of God

Reading:  Luke 10: 25-28 Margaret

Prayer

Reading:  Mark 10: 17-22

Hymn 402: ‘Take up thy cross’, the saviour said         

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 449: Rejoice the Lord is king

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 23^rd of November.

Technically, today is the last day of the Christian year, called Christ the King Sunday.. Next week starts advent and the start of a new Christian year.

So it is fitting that we finish the Christian year with Jesus talking about eternity.

But how do we get there?

Sermon

Sometimes things get lost in translation.

This is my email address

revjimalvakirk@gmail.com.

When I give other people it over the phone I put the spaces as rev jim alvakirk at gmail.com.

Now this makes perfect sense to me because I am looking at it and I created it and I know the context of how the word was created.

Now you didn’t create that email and you weren’t there when I created it, but you know enough about me and the context of me that when you read it, you read it the same way.

But what if you didn’t know the context and you were trying to read this for the first time.

So it was that my boiler broke and I was talking to some woman from abroad, England, maybe Wales, who didn’t know me or the context and I had a bill to pay for the call out charge. And I was asking that she send me a receipt to my email and she said, ‘Oh yes we have it here, and she said, ‘REV JAMAL VAKIRK at GMAIL.COM’

It took me a while to work out how she got that.

But that is the same problem that every translator of the Bible has when they try to change Greek, or Aramaic, or Biblical Hebrew into English.

If a word in Aramaic has three meanings, all of which might be similar, which one do you choose?

So I want to read out the start of these passages from the RSV which is slightly more adult version than the Good News.

Luke 10: 25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

Mark 10: 17 And as he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

Two very different conversations, but the same question.

In the first we have a biblical lawyer trying to trip up Jesus. He is standing, showing that he sees himself as at least Jesus’ equal, he is challenging Jesus with a question deliberately seeking to trip him up.

In the second we have a person of influence and power, but he comes to Jesus kneeling in submission, he is desperate for an answer, he is looking for, pleading for, insight from Jesus.

Two very different conversations, but the same question...and very weirdly, the same wrong answer.

All these years and I have skimmed over these passages and failed to see the obvious wrong answer given in both.

In the first passage Jesus asks the lawyer how he thinks he will inherit eternal life and the lawyer says, ‘Love the lord with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbour like yourself.’

And Jesus replies, ‘Well if you do that then you will inherit eternal life.’

And the lawyer then says, ‘Well who is my neighbour?’

And Jesus replies by giving the parable of the Good Samaritan that Elaine looked at last week.

Seriously?

Are we seriously saying that we can earn our way into heaven?

That by being good to everyone, like the Good Samaritan, then God has no choice but to let us into heaven?

And in the second passage the rich ruler asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life and Jesus tells him to obey the law, the Ten Commandments, that would be enough.

Seriously?

That goes against everything else in the New Testament that says that obeying the law isn’t enough.

I believe Jesus knew that these were the wrong answers.

I believe Jesus knew that the answers that people followed were just wrong and getting them into a mess, and so he quotes them and allows them to be quoted, so that people see the obvious theological mistake.

So let me reset the question so that you can see the obvious mistake that I failed to see after nearly 40 years of studying these passages.

One day I will die, hopefully later rather than sooner, and on that day I hope to have an inheritance, maybe some money in the bank, maybe a house, probably lots of graphic novels and definitely a lot of puppets.

Here’s the question....what must YOU do to inherit any of that?

I will repeat that, what must YOU personally do to inherit any of my inheritance?

I asked Elaine that a couple of weeks ago when I was starting to consider these passages and she said, after thinking a lot about it ‘I would have to be nice to you.’

And I replied, ‘Would that guarantee you got anything?’

You see my problem?

The question doesn’t make sense.

You can’t DO anything to inherit something, inheritance is something given,

given to family, given to friends who are like family.

In the first discussion Jesus asks the lawyer what he thinks will get him into heaven, get him the inheritance, and the lawyer gives all these rules about loving God with all his heart and soul and mind.

And Jesus basically says, ‘Have a go and see where that gets you..

And the lawyer, realising that he has set himself an impossible task, because who could love God with everything, and love everyone else wholly, FOR THEIR WHOLE LIFE, tries to limit it, tried to find a loophole.

And Jesus basically closes that one down.

We don’t inherit heaven by earning it; there is nothing we can do.

In the second conversation I think Jesus has sensed that the rich ruler has begun to work that out for himself. Jesus senses that he has tried to earn his way into heaven and still feels that it isn’t enough, so Jesus takes him through his journey so far;  articulates his spiritual journey.

Jesus tells him what everyone believes; ‘obey the law and you get into heaven’.

And the rich ruler says, ‘I’ve tried that and I know that doesn’t work, there has to be more.’

So Jesus says, ‘I can give you more if you want, give up everything and follow me.’

And we get so het up on the ‘give up everything’, trying to find a loophole so that we don’t need to do that, and we fail to see the ‘follow me’ bit.

Why is this important?

Because it is not about heaven, it is not about eternal life later on, it is about a heart that feels secure, content, at peace now.

A heart that feels loved, a life that feels it matters, that it is significant.

The world tells us that we are a piece of dust,

an insignificant point in the huge vastness of history,

that who we are and what we do doesn’t matter.

And we crave for that to be wrong, but we fear that it might be true.

So what do we do?

We accumulate stuff, because if we have stuff then we must matter. Elon Musk has given himself a 1 trillion pound pay rise. Why? Why does anyone need to have more money than most countries?

Because it makes him the richest man in the world, the most significant man in the world, he must matter.

But when he dies it all goes to someone else.

We accumulate power, because if we have power then we must matter. Why do we think Putin invades neighbouring countries? Because he wants to be the most powerful man in the world, if he is the most powerful man in the world then he must be important, must be significant. But when he dies he loses it all.

We don’t have the option of becoming the richest person or the most powerful person in the world. So we try to be good enough to get into heaven. And it is a false journey, a dead end.

As Jesus is pointing out to the lawyer and the rich man, it has been tried before; it is a waste of time.

So how do we inherit eternal life, how do we inherit heaven?

We don’t.

Only the children of God inherit his kingdom.

Only the children of God have God’s love and care, have a relationship that cannot be broken by anything, even death.

Here’s the twist.

At great cost to himself, Jesus took upon the task of making us his brothers and sisters.

At great cost to himself God took on the task of adopting all of us into his family.

The gift is already ours, the gift is already given.

But we don’t feel it.

And we don’t feel it because we try to find our security and happiness and contentment in other things....and as long as we chase the wrong things then we will never be happy.

Unfortunately what happens is that we think that if we just chase the other things a bit more, then we will eventually find the peace we are looking for.

And eventually, exhausted, we give up, or sometimes we even die trying to still chase the stuff that we think will make us happy and give us meaning.

I’m not Pentecostal, or Charismatic, but on this I think they may have it right.

Maybe what we need to do is claim what is already ours.

We need to claim Christ’s forgiveness, and find a release from the guilt of the past.

We need to claim the Father’s wisdom and accept his guidance for the future.

We need to claim the fellowship of the Spirit and let that give us the courage to create community with others.

We need to accept the responsibility of bringing in God’s influence into our workplaces and homes.

We need to rejoice in the knowledge that we are known and loved by God.

We need to let go of the need to feed our own ego and jealousies and hurts, and accept the healing and reconciliation that God has already offered us.

As a child of God we seek to follow him, to be like him.

That might mean taking on board the heavy cost of forgiving others, but that also means we get to let go of the burdens of carrying on to those grievances.

That might mean taking on board the need to be the cleverest in the room or having ourselves acknowledged by others, but it also means we are free from the burden of our ego having to be seen all the time.

That will mean having to follow the path of Christ has for us no matter where that might take us, but that also means giving up the feeling of always having to be in control of everything,

and also giving up the fear of always knowing that at some point we will not be in control and how do we cope then?

How do we find the life we want?

How do we inherit eternal life now, eternal relationship with God, now?

We do nothing, except claim what God has already given us.

A life in service of God; of growing, of forgiving, of loving.

If we want a life of meaning and significance all we need to do is hand our life to God; because both our meaning and significance is found in our relationship with an eternal. loving God.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father

You are a God who longs to be in relationship with your creation.

You sent your son to show Your deep levels of love, and to show that you would pay the cost of that love.

And you send your Spirit to remind us constantly of the love that inspired the sacrifice, a love for us.

So help us to claim what is already ours, help us to claim our inheritance.

Help us to claim our forgiveness.

In our silence we give you all the things we are ashamed of, all the things we regret...

Give us your forgiveness...

May that inspire us to offer your forgiveness to others, so that our hurts and resentments may fade away and haunt us no more.

Help us to claim your guidance.

In our silence we give you all the reasons we use to follow our own path, all the excuses we give to ourselves for not being like your Son...

May that inspire us to use your guidance to create healthier relationships with others, to build on the fellowships we have and extend them to new folk...

Help us to claim your love.

In our silence we give you all the ways we bring ourselves down, undermine our significance and deny our significance in your eyes...

May that inspire us to use your love to build others up, to see the best possibilities in others and encourage them to be what you can see they could be.

May we be so confident in your love for us that we can rejoice with those who are doing well.

May your love in us be so deep in us that we can mourn with those who are struggling.

In all things may Christ be our inspiration, example, and our strength.

Amen