Podcast
Trinity Vineyard Sunday Morning
Hosted by Trinity Vineyard Church · EN
We're a church in South East London learning how to love God and love our neighbours. Here you can listen in to what we're talking about.
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The Ransom
Jan 11, 202500:16:01Tap to summarizeJesus called them together and said, 'You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'- Mark 10:42-45If you're really lucky you'll be blessed at some point in your life with the kind of friend its just great to be around. Someone who doesn't demand much from you. Someone who 'gets' you. You have similar values and approaches to life. This person will really bring joy to your life and probably you'll bring great joy to theirs. But sometimes, they'll be people in your life who you love dearly and loving them will mean sacrifice. Anyone who's cared for a young child, or an elderly friend or relative - even a pet! - will know this. You have to give up your comfort so they can be comfortable. You have to go without so that they can have. You have to give up your favourite pass-times so that they can have your time. They'll be holidays you won't get to go on, restaurants you won't get in to, treats you'll have to forgo. Though caring for them is a great burden your love will lead you to sacrifice these things, almost without thinking about it. This is one way to think of God's love for us. But our need is so much greater. Jesus uses the picture of a ransom - the price needed to buy back a slave. Our life is not our own, and a life has to be given so it can be redeemed. And not just any life - the life of the Son of God, so valuable that it can be a ransom not just for one but for many. His love leads him to do it gladly.James and John wanted positions of importance as if to prove their value. It caused such a fuss - and all for no need. Who needs to prove their value, when they've been bought at such an extraordinary price?
Transcribe →Divorce
Jan 4, 202500:42:19Tap to summarizeTo the Pharisees it was a question of divorce, to Jesus it was a far deeper issue of covenant loyalty. 6 ‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ - Mark 10:5-9 This is a framework for a society to flourish. Divorce is not the centre but loyalty to our relationships is. Loyalty in relationships is learned behaviour. We are made male and female for the purpose of learning covenantal loyalty. God’s covenantal loyalty to his people and our response of loyalty back is a deep wisdom we can only learn through modelling and practice. It is not an idea in our head but a lived practice. As we learn of God’s covenantal commitment to his people unto death our ability to commit to our relationships will grow. This flows out for the blessing of the whole of society and all of us learn more of God. Through faithful marriages in society we see a glimpse of God's covenantal faithfulness to his people. Respecting how we are made as male and female and respecting the ideal of covenant loyalty is a way of making healthy communities. We need our church community to help us. This should make us aware of the importance of the church community and our individual responsibility to work to create a healthy church. What are we doing to make TVC a healthy church? A place that is empowering people to build a better society? A place where we can become apprenticed to loyal relationships with each other and with God? A place of relationship where we can find healing? A place that is committed to bringing each other to God in prayer?
Transcribe →Kingdom of Losers
Dec 28, 202400:38:39Tap to summarizeThey left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”- Mark 9:30-37What is the Kingdom like? Who gets in? Who gets a blessing?Well the kingdom belongs to those who can pass through a small door. Greatness in the Kingdom requires a reversal of values—being “last” rather than seeking personal fulfilment. The smallest children - those without value and prestige - represent the great, even God himself. It also belongs to those who can get over a low bar. When the disciple John reports stopping someone casting out demons in Jesus' name, Jesus rebukes him. Those acting in Jesus name, for the sake of the little ones of Jesus, are on the Kingdom's side. The requirement for belonging is simple: not exclusivity or high qualifications, but solidarity with Jesus and his followers.Finally, it belongs to those with deep wounds. Jesus advises the disciples that they must not cause themselves to stumble. It is better to take radical action against those parts of us that lead away from the Kingdom. If we don't cut them off they will lead to spiritual ruin.For these disciples, who argued about who is the greatest and had got into a habit of ordering people to turn away from Kingdom mission, there was work to do.
Transcribe →HELP. ME.
Dec 21, 202400:41:21Tap to summarizeJesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”- Mark 9:21-25In this story there's a happy ending. The boy is set free by Jesus. Praise God.But, hypothetically, what if he wasn't? What if this man's story ended like Jesus' story? In his crisis Jesus prayed: Father, if it is at all possible... Possible, the same exact word as Jesus used her in Mark 9 to encourage the father’s faith.Father, if it is at all possible, take this cup from me. And heaven was quiet.And a few hours later, on the cross: my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And the sky was dark.You see, at the end of the faith of desperation. At the end of the cry of HELP ME comes the faith of surrender.I think some of you will know the pain my family and I are going through right now. You may know that the plans I had made for the future, the prayers I had faithfully prayed for my friends and my community are in tatters, and a savage scar left behind in their place.It has been a reminder that I am not ultimately in control, how fragile and precious life is, and how wrong death is. It was never a part of God’s plan. A small action, over so quickly, and yet the consequences have and will affect so many. Who can I go to at this moment, in the full desperation of my realised fears? Who can I go to but to the one willing to pray: "not my will be done but yours". Who have I in heaven and earth but you oh God? The one who was willing to go to the cross for me. For my friends. For my community. The one willing to absorb the sting of death in his body and destroy its power.I know I am not going to get the answers I crave. But I know the one whom I can bring all my questions to. The one who I can trust without reservation. I know that I can surrender my grief and my pain and my questions, my shattered plans and unmet expectations, all to him. Even when the religious transaction seems to have failed, when it seems God isn’t holding up his side of the deal, I can ask him for more faith. I can let the man's prayer become my own: Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.
Transcribe →On the Mountain, In the Valley
Dec 14, 202400:32:03Tap to summarizeJesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”- Mark 9:2-7Once or twice in life we might have a profound, powerful, even unsettling, experience of God. Peter, James and John went up an unidentified mountain with Jesus. The mountain - called the 'holy mountain' by Peter in one of his letters - turns out to be a Sinai-like mountain, and the meeting a Sinai-like meeting. Jesus, who Peter has acknowledged as Messiah in the previous chapter, is revealed as the Son of God.Why? I think this is a moment for discouraged disciples. For every mountain top experience, there is time in the valley of the shadow. As Moses sat with God on the mountain, they people of Israel were going off the rails. Elijah defeated the Baal prophets, but then has to flee to the wilderness in fear for his life. And so on... Meanwhile, Peter, James and John have been asked to 'take up their cross' and follow Jesus into conflict with evil. And on the way down the mountain they have an encouraging(?) discussion about John the Baptist's execution. What kind of movement are they part of? The kind where, because of Jesus, they get a place in presence of God, and a glimpse into the very core of reality.
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