Sunday 22nd June 2008

PARTY IN THE PARK

Today, as a Parish, we did something different. We held a joint service in Milkwood Community Space. There was lots of great music and singing. And, although the wind heartily blew, the day remained rain-free and was quite sunny in parts.

The service was followed by a fabulous lunch and then a variety of activities including: face painting, a bouncy castle, juggling lessons, relay races for the children, a quiz, a game of rounders and a tug-of-war.

One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, spoke at the service, based on the reading from Matthew 15: 32-39 Jesus feeds 4000.

1. What a story! What a miracle! And what a good story for us to read today as we are gathered “on the hillside” ready to hear the words of Jesus – just as that big crowd was in Jesus’ time.

Start with a question: how many people were slightly surprised to hear the number of people who were fed by Jesus: “The number of men who ate was 4000, not counting the women and children”. Did some of expect the number to be 5000? Because usually we talk about “the feeding of the 5000”, don’t we? Well Geraldine did not get it wrong: this is another miracle – a different miracle. In Matthew’s gospel, just 1 chapter earlier, he tells us about the events of the feeding of the 5000: and the two stories mirror each other very, very closely. But not so closely that we might imagine Matthew made a mistake and included the same story twice! The 4000 were fed in a different place, at a different time and were different people.

2. But numbers are difficult. Counting isn’t easy is it? Particularly when you are counting people? It’s funny that when there has been a demonstration or a march, the estimates of numbers attending by the police on the one hand and the organisers on the other are so very different.

Look: here’s picture a lot of us will be familiar with – the group photo from last year’s Parish Weekend. Have a quick look, then answer these questions:

· How many people are in the photo? (139?)
· How many men are in the photo? (40?)

Difficult isn’t it? Matthew tells us there were 4000 men. If the proportions were the same as at the Parish weekend, how many people would have been on then hillside? (c.14,000 people!!)

Difficult to imagine - and probably wrong anyway – but we get the idea of the size of the crowd that had come out in the hills, leaving their towns and villages, walking for hours, perhaps days, just to see Jesus. Many had come because they wanted healing; and had heard that Jesus could heal them; others would have brought loved ones to be healed; others just came to hear his teaching.

One last way of getting to grips with the numbers on that hill: each page here has 200 smiling men on it. How many of these do we need to get the 4000? (20) Good, that’s how many I have got. Now while the rest of listen a bit more, can some of the little folk colour the faces in and make them nice and bright?

3. And so this great crowd had been there listening and learning for 3 days. And the food had begun to run out and - because this is what the disciples were like, even though they might have learned their lesson only a chapter earlier! – the disciples began to worry and to fret: “How are we going to feed them? All we have is 7 loaves and a few small fish.”

Time for a little light acting: get the disciples up; you are crowd. We have all got parts to play: the disciples are fretting; the crowd are hungry. Can you imagine that? Now what were the alternatives available?

· In the first scenario: I want the disciples to do what they had suggested Jesus should have done before he fed the 5000: ie to send the crowed away; make them go back to the villages and buy their own food.

How did that feel?

· In the second scenario: now that we have established that we have a few loaves and a few fishes, I want the disciples to make a grown-up decision, to weigh up the alternatives, to think about what is possible and what is not possible and to decide to make the most of what is available and to eat the available food themselves: after all they came prepared, they brought the pack-lunch!

How did that feel?

· And last, let’s play it as Matthew tells us Jesus did it: He gave thanks to God for the food, he broke the bread, gave it (the Greek says “kept giving it”) to his disciples who in turn kept giving it to the crowd. And all ate and had enough; and 7 baskets were taken up at the end.

How did that feel?

4. At the start of the reading this morning there is phrase which is the key to what went on that day: “Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I feel sorry for these people…”. Other translations say: “I feel compassion…/My heart goes out to these people….”. What we see is an expression of the love of Jesus for people: the miracle is a response to need and an example of the deep, deep love that God has for his Creation: compassion means that He suffers when we suffer. This is just one example of a massive number in the Bible, where God is expressing His love. And of course it leaves lots of questions like: do I recognise this love in my life? Do I see that God is not wanting to send me away; that he does not intend His love to be kept for a special few? Can I see that He wants to perform miracles equivalent to this great feast in the amount of love poured out in me and us every day?

Let’s end by looking at our crowd and saying a prayer.

Choral Evensong Sermon 15th June 2008

Our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, preached:
United in Christ
Romans 5:1-8
Therefore…
We have been justified through faith…
We have peace with God…
We have gained access into this grace in which we now stand…
We boast/rejoice in hope of the glory of God…
We rejoice in our sufferings…
Christ died for us…

These are magnificent statements of faith which the apostle Paul wrote to express solidarity with the church in Rome; the new community of faith who had begun to identify themselves with the Messiah Jesus. A thriving church had started up in Rome – possibly from the Jewish Christians that returned from Jerusalem after Pentecost. Acts 2:10

It is thought that Paul most likely wrote this letter while at Corinth Acts 2:20 during the three months he spent there before sailing east. He longed to visit Spain; and Rome seemed a suitable stop over en route. In fact he asks if they will assist him in his onward journey. This letter however, which has often been described as the fullest and grandest statement of the gospel in the New Testament has another agenda. There was a problem with the church in Rome.

The church consisted of both Gentiles and Jews – a typical urban mixed community church, a bit like what we have in London churches. This had brought considerable conflict between the two groups. Jewish Christians who lived in Rome regarded Christianity as a part of Judaism – and all the cultural stuff that went with it – the food laws etc and notably circumcision. They required all who wished to convert to Christianity to be circumcised and observe the Jewish law in full. Acts 15:1


Gentile Christians on the other hand believed they didn’t need Jewish ritual and culture to become Christians; and they were proud to be champions of a law free gospel. They had no time for Jews. Jewish Christians on the other hand were proud of their Jewish status and heritage. After all Christ had been a Jew…

So here are two opposing sides, and Paul is saying to them oh no guys… stop! Please stop! You have got it all wrong!
In Paul’s view both camps needed to be humbled. Both were drifting away from the heart of the gospel. Paul was fully qualified to rise to this occasion being himself a Jew who had already declared that his privileged Jewish status; being circumcised, being of the tribe of Benjamin, being an educated Pharisee – all this was nothing compared to his new relationship with Jesus. And what was more, God had specially commissioned as the apostle to the Gentiles.

And Paul helps them to remember what it really means to be called a Christian. You could call it going back to basics. It is very easy to clothe the gospel – the good news of Jesus with lots of ornaments and rituals and style which are not unhelpful in themselves but which can easily become the objects of our worship. We often do so with very noble intentions. I think it is the single most important cause of denominational splits. That is why it is often necessary to go back to these basics and be reminded what it is all about. And Paul uses the word “we” repeatedly; he is saying to them we are in this together. If you consider yourself followers of Christ then there is something beyond your Jewishness and Gentileness.

And he begins…
We have been justified through faith. Did you know that Christianity is very unique. There is no other system, or ideology, or even religion that proclaims free forgiveness and a new life to those who have done nothing to deserve it; instead deserving judgement. All other religions teach some form of self-salvation through good works of religion, righteousness or philanthropy.

Christianity is furthest from all these in that it is the good news that God’s amazing grace has turned away his wrath, his anger, that God’s Son has died our death and borne our judgement, that God has shown mercy to the undeserving. The result of all this is that, there is nothing left for us to do, or even contribute. The deal has been sealed. God has done it for us. What remains is our part of the deal which is this - to receive what God has offered.

And this is where faith comes in; only through faith can we begin to accept this unique offer from God. It is called God’s grace; the free, unmerited favour from God, his undeserved, unsolicited and unconditional love. That is what God has offered. In a famous scholar’s words, the only function of faith is to receive what grace offers.

You know, there are two alternative responses to the promises of God; unbelief or faith. The former (unbelief) is often easier to exercise. It is the way we are wired up. The latter, faith, is more difficult because it involves letting God be God; letting him be supreme in all ways and in all things. It is counter-cultural, often radical and even popular. But it is the foundation of the Christian faith. It is no wonder Christianity has never been a popular movement – I mean the raw, plain, uncomplicated following of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It has never been, never will be popular. Many of Paul’s contemporaries died very horrific deaths because of their faith. Many brothers and sisters in our world continue to die for this simple gospel faith. That is why faith is the less preferred response option for the promises of God.

It is this faith that Abraham exercised. As he pondered over his old age and his wife’s barrenness, the promises of a son from God must have baffled him. Barrenness and old age are the perfect conditions for childlessness. Abraham did not however lose sight of the one who had promised – he considered him faithful. Why? Abraham knew that God could keep that promise because of his power and he would do so because of his faithfulness. That is the faithfulness that confronts all who seek God through Christ. Indeed, faith’s only function is to receive what grace offers.

So Paul reminds them and us tonight we have been justified through faith, but have you really? Have you made this choice? You see the value of faith is not found in itself. Faith in this sense is only found entirely and exclusively in the person of Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified and rose again from death. There is no middle negotiating ground, and this calls for a hard choice to be made. We are obliged to choose.

It is for this reason Paul reminds this bunch of Christians in a conflict to shed off all their cultural and religious preferences – the ammunition they have increasingly accumulated to fight each other. he reminds them; if they have indeed been justified by faith in Jesus Christ – the Jesus that Paul knows – if this is the person they claim to believe in – and if this means anything to them – then they have no choice but to unite. How powerful!

What is more, peace with God, the reconciled relationship with God is the first product, the blessing of justification. We are made one with the Prince of Peace. We also enter into a sphere of God’s grace – the free, unmerited, unsolicited, unconditional favour and love of God. We are also ushered in to a joyful, confident and expectant hope that lies on the promises of God – not like the ordinary and uncertain hope about the weather and our health.

The glory of God is our hope – the hope that has been made manifest in Jesus Christ. It is this same hope that gives us an insightful understanding in our sufferings. You see our sufferings should not fuel our doubt of God’s love, as they often do. In Paul’s words later (8:17) we are co-heirs in Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

If our hope rests in the love of God, who gave himself for us through his Son, suffered and died on a cross for us, then suffering is the best context in which to become assured of God’s love. This is a perspective we continually need to rediscover. His love will never betray us, ever. And so friends, our Christian hope rests on an unshakeable foundation of the unending love of God. My prayer is that we would be willing to receive more and more of it. Amen.

Sermon from 15th June 2008

Today, one of our ordinands in training, Gill Tayleur, preaches, based on the reading from Philippians 3:1-11.


Let’s pray: Lord please open our hearts and minds to see something more of you this morning. Amen.

What do you want more than anything else?
(a more fulfilling job? money to pay off your debts? to be better from a long term health problem?)

What do you want more than anything else?

I wonder whether many of us would answer the way Paul did in the reading we’ve just heard. For him, the answer was: Knowing Jesus Christ!
What did he want more than anything else in the world? to know Jesus Christ!
What did he value more highly than anything else? Knowing Jesus Christ!
What gave him confidence that he was right with God? Knowing Jesus Christ!

In case this sounds a little over enthusiastic to our ears, a bit super spiritual, let’s take a closer look at what Paul said and why.
There was a problem in Philippi. That’s where the Christians were that Paul was writing to, in ancient Greece. Paul wrote from prison in Rome, to thank them for a gift they’d sent him, and to encourage them to be joyful in their faith. A couple of weeks ago, when Adjoa preached, she described this as a love letter! And last week we heard about the supportive and loving relationships between Paul, Timothy and Epaaprodite.
All very warm and cuddly – but now in this morning’s section of the letter - WHAM!
The tone suddenly changed, as Paul got angry saying WATCH OUT!
The Greek word translated watch out, ‘blepete’ is used 3 times: watch out for those dogs! Watch out for those evil men! Watch out for those who insist on cutting the body!
Watch out?! Paul obviously thought there was real danger for the Philippian Christians, so what was it?

The danger was that they’d put their trust in the wrong things.
That they’d think they were alright with God for the wrong reasons.

What could be so wrong? On the surface, it was the issue of circumcision. There were people who had infiltrated the Philippian church who said that anyone who became a Christian had to be circumcised. They said faith in Jesus Christ was not enough; they must fulfil the requirements of the Jewish law as well.

Now this wasn’t a new problem for the early church. The issue of whether or not non Jews who became Christians had to be circumcised or not, had caused lots of trouble in other places. There had been some serious splits over it. So much so that a big meeting had been called in Jerusalem to thrash it out, some years before. The Council of Jerusalem.

So Paul wanted to nip any potential problems in the bud in Philippi, to make sure those who said Christians must be circumcised were not listened to right from the start.
Paul called them dogs! In that society dogs weren’t family pets, they were disease carrying scavengers. Calling someone a dog was very insulting.

Paul was saying don’t listen to them; circumcision doesn’t matter.
Don’t trust that you’re alright with God because of an external thing like that.
V 3 “We do not put any trust in external ceremonies.”
He said it’s only by faith in Jesus Christ that we can be right with God.
It’s only knowing Jesus that brings true confidence that we’re right with Him.
There are lots of other things that might be attractive to put our trust in, external things, which we might want to believe can put us right with God – but they don’t.
It has to be faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul goes on to say if there was anything else that could make us right before God, if it was dependent on our own credentials or effort, well, we could have a competition to see who’s got the best of them – and he’d win! And he goes on to list the things that he could put his trust in, saying he had the best of them all.

First, he was circumcised when 1 week old, following the exact requirements of the Jewish law. Then there’s Paul’s religious heritage. A pure blooded Jew, of the kingly tribe of Benjamin. That’s a top pedigree! Then Paul says he was strictly religious. He was a Pharisee. He was very sincere and thought Christianity was so terrible that he persecuted Christians very determinedly. And Paul said he led a very good life. He was scrupulous at keeping every law and every rule. “I was without fault” in verse 6 about obeying the Jewish laws.

So Paul’s credentials were first rate, unbeatable really. And I wonder about ours, wonder whether we might be inclined to think we have the right sort of background and achievements to give us confidence before God, to make us right with him.
Maybe you, like me, were born into a Christian home. Maybe you were baptised as a baby, receiving that mark of belonging to God’s family. Although it isn’t quite the same as circumcision, baptism is a sign of being made right with God. But on its own, without faith, it’s not enough. We can’t trust baptism by itself to put us right with God.

As for national or cultural heritage, today some people might think being British automatically makes them CofE, makes them part of God’s family. Or maybe that having a Christian upbringing and family, having been to Sunday School, gives us confidence that we’re alright with God. But we can’t inherit faith, we have to know Jesus for ourselves.

As for sincerity like Paul’s, today many people say, it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. We may think it’s sincerity that matters before God.
But we can be sincerely wrong! I can sincerely believe the P4 bus will take me to Oxford Circus but it won’t! Paul was sincere but wrong when he persecuted the church and killed the Christians. Sincerity on its own isn’t enough.

How about keeping a moral code? Many people today think “I’ve never hurt anyone”, and that leading a generally good life is enough to make them right with God. So, a lot of people have difficulty seeing their need for forgiveness. But when we compare our lives to how Jesus lived and loved people, then we may realise how far short we fall.
No we can’t be made right with God by living what we think is a fairly good life.

We dare not put our confidence in any of these things to make us right with God.
It’s knowing Jesus that made Paul right with God, and it’s the same for us. He said, “I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is gained by obeying the law. I now have the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith.”
Paul had found a new righteousness, quite different from his previous self righteousness.
Quite different from the righteousness he thought he was earning by keeping the Jewish rules and regulations so carefully.

This new righteousness, this new being put right with God, is a gift from God! We don’t deserve it and cannot earn it. It’s a gift, which we receive “through faith in Christ” as Paul said. Jesus made it possible by his death on the cross, taking our sin and shame on himself, for us to be totally forgiven. Believing this, having faith in Jesus, is the way of receiving it.
If someone gives us a present, we can’t suggest we’ve earned it. However we do have to receive it, to unwrap it and enjoy it. By faith we start to receive God’s gift and enjoy it. What we enjoy is getting to know Jesus!

Yes we can get to know the Jesus of the Gospels today. We can’t see him physically but we can talk to him, hear him speak to us, experience his love, his direction and his power to change us from the inside. We can get to know him in the same sort of way as Paul did.

And it’s this knowledge of Jesus Christ that Paul got so excited about.
He had 2 pictures to show how wonderful it was to him. One is of profit and loss on a balance sheet. Like the pros and cons. All those things that could be counted as profit, his family background, his religious heritage, his achievements and his morality, he considered them all as losses, because knowing Jesus is far greater! “All these things that I might count as profit, I now reckon as loss for Christ’s sake. Not only those things: I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”

The other picture is of rubbish. He said everything other than knowing Jesus is like stinky rubbish that he chucks out! He said “For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere refuse!” The word used for refuse here verse 8 is filth: it means either human excrement or stinking rotting food. He said everything, even those great credentials he listed, everything is like filth in comparison with knowing Jesus Christ.
All those things which brought him confidence before he was a Christian, he now considers as useless. They’re insignificant, as he has now got something far far greater by comparison.

So, the question is, have we? Have we that relationship with Jesus Christ? Do we know Jesus? And if so, do we value that relationship above everything else in our lives? What priority do we give it? Is there something above it? If it needs more time, do we make it?

Paul gave up his family, friendships and freedom to know Jesus and his power. We may need to make sacrifices to know Christ too. Maybe the approval of some of our friends, or maybe some of our own self centred plans. Maybe that time to spend with Jesus in prayer, reading the Bible and worship. Knowing Christ is worth any thing we might think we have to let go of! No matter what we give up, we’ll always be in credit.

And as we get to know him better, we’ll experience his power to be changed from the inside. That same power that rose Jesus from the dead can be at work in us! How does that happen? Verse 10 explains: “All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection – to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death.”
How do we share in his sufferings and become like him in his death? There’s a part of each of us that wants to go our own way, not live God’s ways, not live in the right relationship with Christ that we’ve been thinking about.

I find, the more honest I am, honest with myself and with God, about the ways in which I live in a self centred way, the more I experience God’s power to change! The more I recognise how I want to put myself and my needs first – and repent of it, put it to death, if you like, the more I know God’s power to free me from it. The death and suffering we share in, is a death to sin, an ongoing every day death to the self-centred me. And that’s how I experience the power of his resurrection - the new, God-centred me grows instead, living out the ‘right with God’ status we have. As we grow to know him better, we grow in his love and power day by day. And we grow in true confidence that we’re right with God.

Is that what we want? What we REALLY want? If so, let’s go for it - we won’t be disappointed!

Let’s pray: Lord Jesus Christ, thank you that we can know you, not because of anything we’ve done but because of God’s gift of faith in you. Please help us to receive and enjoy that gift, by making it the most important thing in our lives.
In your name, amen.

Sermon 8th June 2008

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches - based on the reading from Philippians 2:19-30:

“New Friends”

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15

1. “And so we continue our series. Our series looking at the development of TV comedy in the years 1961 to 1969. A period of turbulence in the political sphere reflected in the growing willingness of comics to grasp the nettle of satire and so comment on the change in the nation’s life. This morning we come to 1966: arguably the satirical boom is beginning wane and the enfant terrible of “That Was the Week that Was”, David Frost, has moved on to the gentler “The Frost Report”. And a recurrent motif of the gags became the “3 men” – Messrs Cleese (soon to move onto the wacky Monty Python), Barker and Corbett (later to be national heroes in The Two Ronnies) – the 3 men of different heights and builds with comment on the topics of the day.

We join them now considering class: [perform an extract from the sketch].”

2. Back to reality. Back to what is really our series – following the teaching of Paul through his letter to the church in Philippi. But back also this morning to 3 men: to Paul, Timothy and Epaphroditus. And I will want to suggest that just as that sketch from The Frost Report used the relationship between those three men to open up some of the unspoken realities of the English class system in the 1960s – so our passage this morning may help us to open up something about the intended reality of Christian friendship.

This is my first talk in this series and, in case it is the first talk for some of you, before we look at our 3 men, I wanted to set out a couple of scene-setting assumptions:

· First, if you have a picture in your mind of the sort of letter Paul writes as being one packed with stern and intense teaching, put that to one side. Last week, Adjoa described this as a “love letter” to this new church. A good summary. Paul had been to Philippi at least twice: he knew the people and they knew him; and as Paul told us at the opening of his letter, whenever he thought of them, it brought a smile to his lips: when he prayed for the little community, he had joy. I am sure some of you share that experience – that when you pray for someone, you relive some experience of them: praying for Jocelyn, I find myself smiling as I think of the determination she has shown to get where she is today. So it is a love letter; and, moreover, a thank you letter, as Paul records his gratefulness for a gift sent to him in prison by his friends.
· Second, in part because the letter lacks the systematic theology of other letters, we get a glimpse of “Church” as it was in these pioneering days – not as she ought to be but as she was. Because the letter is more “private” than some of the others, we may feel that what Paul chooses to say, is chosen because it is immediate, it is directly relevant to this motley group of believers. And bear in mind, how motley it was. In Acts we read that Paul’s first visit resulted in the conversion of a wealthy lady cloth merchant – possibly Jewish -, of (it is at least likely) of a young clairvoyant slave girl, and of Paul’s jailer and his family. Quite a mix! And when we read this love letter we can begin to understand the impact, the difference, the change that becoming a believer, that “being Church” had – really had, not should have had - on these people. And so our series is exploring these changes.

3. Back to our 3 men: let’s explore how much we know about them. First their names were? [Paul (meaning = small); Timothy (meaning = honouring God); Epaphroditus (meaning = lovely)] They came from? [P – Tarsus, near the S coast of Turkey; T – Lystra, also Southern Turkey; E - Philippi, NW Greece]. Background? [P - Jewish, through and through; T – Jewish mother, Greek father; E – almost certainly 100% Greek]. Age? [P – (guess) 60s?; T (guess) 30s? E - ??]. Experience? [P – where to start? – from his conversion (as Saul) on the road to Damascus, his acceptance by the apostles, his special ministry (with Barnabas) to take the gospel to the gentiles, his journeys through Europe, his church-planting, his sail-making, his triumphs and failures, the words, the miracles, the persecution – and now his imprisonment: a lifetime of experience in representing Jesus. T – already a believer when Paul came to Lystra, but chosen by Paul to accompany him on his journeys, circumcised, and then from both Acts and the letters we find Timothy sometimes accompanying Paul on the journeys, sometimes being sent on ahead, sometimes staying with churches; he seems to have acted as Paul’s secretary in writing some of his letters; and now he is imprisoned with him; E – we know no more than we read here – he was the messenger, who carried the gift from the Church to Paul].

4. 3 men – some things in common and some differences. And what did Paul have so say of them: “Timothy…like a son with his father has served with me…”; “Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier…”. A brief insight into the friendship between them. 3 friends, thrown together by being “Church”. We see a small part of how they have related – at least from Paul’s perspective. Timothy, the apprentice, standing out as the one with “a genuine interest” in the welfare of the people in Philippi: a real love, a real desire to see Jesus glorified. Epaphroditus who longs for the Church at home, whose working and soldiering have made him very, very ill, but who, in that illness was more concerned about the effect on his friends than on the risk to him.

5. Our passage is a domestic interlude in Paul’s letter: it is a delightful, candid, glimpse into the friendship – possibly unlikely friendship – between the 3 men. But can it have any relevance to us? Taken in isolation, it may be tricky to see how: but read in the context of the letter as a whole, I think so. A dominant theme of the letter, continued from that smile that came to Paul’s face when he thought of this church, is the encouragement to be united in love: “my prayer for you is that you may have still more love, love that is full of knowledge and insight…”(1:9); “live together in harmony, live together in love as though you had only one mind and one spirit between you…” (2:2); and “…make up your differences as Christians should..” (4:2).

The friendship of the 3 men is in the context of the love of the Church. It is an example of the many friendships – some closer than others – that the men will have had: but an example too of the “fellowship”, the “agape”(the Greek), that the Church knew - and still knows today. As a church it is part of Christ’s gift to us that we are capable of agape-love – love that is decisive not impulsive; that is deliberately not dependant on emotion, feeling or impulse; but where we can make the decision to love unselfishly, to serve, to have Timothy’s genuine interest for those we love, to take the risks with our own well-being that Epaphroditus was willing to take.

6. It was clear to me that this was not a sermon that could say, as those little cartoons use to say, “Love is….”, “Christian friendship is….” Instead, this footnote to a love-letter, provides a chance for each of us to ponder our own engagement with the fellowship love of the Church – perhaps to review our attitude to those around us – the extent of our response to the love of God. Remember that it is the nature, the genuiness, of that love that will often have most impact on those around us: Tertullian, an early Church leader, wrote: “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. 'Look!' they say, 'How they love one another!’”.

HERE IS A MESSAGE FROM JOCELYN BARKER, OUR VICAR'S WIFE, WHO HAS JUST UNDERGONE A DOUBLE LUNG TRANSPLANT

Dear all,

Firstly I want to praise and thank God for bringing me through the operation, and now home so quickly. I am also so grateful for the donor, who has saved many lives. As a family we really appreciate all your prayers, love, practical support, and hope-filled cards.

Now I am onto the next, life-long, battle, to stop the lungs being rejected and avoid infections. Initially I will be back at the hospital for at least two days a week. There are so many new rules which I now have to live by, including what and when I eat, limiting visitors, and not having any flowers etc! But it is amazing to be able to walk and climb stairs without getting breathless!

However, the surgery will take months to recover from, and I will have to take life slowly at first. Sadly that includes avoiding busy public places for the first few months, and that means that I can't come to church for now. I am missing you, but I'm also so very grateful and hopeful for the life ahead. Thank you all, and God bless, with love from

Jocelyn

Sermon from 1st June 2008

Today's sermon is delivered by one of our trainee ministers, Adjoa Cunnell. It is based on the reading from Philippians 2:12-18

New Responsibilities

My Dad and my stepmother Rosemary came up to stay with us last weekend. They’re Quakers and last weekend was their annual conference, a bit like the Lambeth Conference but quieter. Anyway as we sat talking at dinner, Rosemary repeated a phrase that someone had come out with at conference that day that had stuck with her. The speaker was describing how they felt their Christian faith impacted on their day-to-day life. They said
“Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light, am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.”
I’ll repeat that.
Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.
That phrase echoes for me the sentiments of this part of Paul’s letter. It is a description of an active involvement in the world inspired and supported by a personal faith in Christ. Bringing our inward faith into relationship with the world is a strong theme in Paul’s letter, which we’ll return to.
But first, as it’s been a few weeks since we shared together this love letter from Paul to the church at Philippi, let’s recap. Especially since today’s passage begins ‘Therefore’, referring us back to what Paul has just spoken of.
Cameron began this series reminding us that Paul, like his Lord and Master Jesus, wanted nothing more than for people to live life to the fullest – as God intended us to. Paul calls us to a holy life, filled with truly good qualities, which only Jesus Christ can produce. God has put his new heart in us so that we can actively be his people, living for him and his Good News. Paul tells that this new life begins with our being willing to die for our faith, willing, in the strength and courage of God, to use any opportunity to share the Gospel with those around us. As John went on to highlight, this new life in Christ Paul writes of, demands of us that we are united in purpose and attitude, regarding the Gospel and what it means to be citizens of heaven.
And in order to live God’s abundant holy life full of Christ’s good qualities, with a unity of purpose and attitude, we must therefore, Paul says, follow the path of Service and Obedience as Christ did.
And this path leads us today to New Responsibilities, for ourselves vv 12-13, for the world around us 14-16a and for our church community vv16b-18.
Next Wednesday it’s the press night of the play I’m in at the National Theatre. Everyone gets jumpy around press night. When I was asked to preach this Sunday, my first full-length sermon three days before Press night, I got jumpy! Press night’s the night to shine, to give a great performance, to garner great reviews, it’s my calling card for my next potential job, as it is for all the other actors, for the director, designers, composers, author. We yearn for good reviews…. Notice me, like me, hail me, we mutter to ourselves. Perhaps for you its being a teacher yearning for good results, or a lawyer wanting to successfully see through a case, a health care practitioner wanting to deliver year on year improvements in health, or someone working in admin determined to get a project in on time and on budget. It’s a competitive world. There is a drive to do well.
I’m sure there are times when we all feel we’re striving and struggling. Perhaps we get passed over, perhaps we feel jostled out of what we were hoping for, unfairly treated, resentful? It’s not a good feeling, is it? It’s quite embarrassing actually, a bit small, a bit petty. Aren’t we beyond that? We are Christians after all. Where is our Christ centred response?
How do I square it’s press night “love me” give me another job, with Paul’s call to remember Christ’s self denying service for others to the point of death? How do we square those personal tensions, those worldly demands, the dynamics within our own communion, with our new lives in Christ?
You know the much abused saying ‘with rights come responsibilities’ well Paul is telling us that it does still hold true.
By God’s gracious, saving love, we have been given the right to call him Father, knowing that he is with us always and that on last day we will be with him always in heaven. But this isn’t a secret right. We are to live out the qualities, the responsibilities that grow out of that new relationship with God. Remember that opening phrase from Rosemary?
Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.
Our Christ centred response, our responsibility, Paul tells us, is to live that transformation in our lives, to be obedient as Christ was obedient, to serve as he served, to live a life transformed by his example. We are to use that process of prayerful discernment; of listening and looking for God’s guidance at work in us, so that we may ‘work out’, live out our salvation. There is our focus, it is not in the passing gratification of praise from the boss or a good notice in the paper, it is to be diligent in our work and to be good friends and neighbours, but as God’s people.
Paul says in vv12-13, ‘Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, because God is always at work in you.’ The RSV has it as ‘Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you’. We are to work out our salvation, in the same way that we may work out an apprenticeship, learning more and more until in the fullness of time, we are qualified, ready to take up that place in heaven that awaits us.
Meantime we are to work out our salvation with an attitude which, Paul writes at vv3-4,“should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” whereby “we do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than ourselves, looking not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others’.
“ The attitude we should have is the one that Christ Jesus had.”
Does that sound hard? Arrogant even?
Well, take comfort, because the blessing of a life lived for God, is that we are not in this alone. Paul says in verse 13 “God is ALWAYS at work in you to MAKE you WILLING and ABLE to obey his own purpose.” (RSV For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose) We don’t aspire and work towards an attitude like Christ’s alone. Neither is it a one time only event, God is ALWAYS at work in us. “Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation”. Our life in Christ is a continuous process in which we turn with the fear and trembling of real commitment, to that inner place where God is at work in us. He will nourish us and give us the ability to bring outward that attitude which is like Christ’s into our own lives, into the life of the world around us and the life of the church.
When Paul writes to his dear friends in the church he inspired in Philippi, he does so in part to head off a growth of resentments and tensions within their community, a little of which we read in Chapter 4. He writes to refocus that church on what it means to be a follower of Christ in community with other Christians; a community operating in a world in real need of Christ.
We may well look at the news reports this week of the number of our young adults in London alone, who have died at the hands of other young adults, or we may look to the continuing misery of civil wars, poverty and injustice worldwide and see a world crying out in need of Christ. And like the Philippians we too may need to refocus our Christian responsibility.
One of Paul’s great gifts to the Philippians and to us is that he always looks at the BIG picture. His focus returns always to Our Salvation; to that act of healing and saving, to the fact that Christ ‘acted on our behalf without view of gain’; to the fact that it was ‘self denying service for others to the point of death with no claim of return, no eye upon a reward.’ Christ showed his responsibility for us in his humble life, his service in sacrificial death and in the promise of eternal life hereafter for us all in his resurrection. ‘Therefore’ we too, having chosen to take up his offer and place him at the centre of our lives, have a responsibility, to show a like obedience to that of our Lord’s. That’s Paul’s point. That’s the big picture. And he writes to us today, just as surely as if he were sitting in prison in Rome this Sunday morning.
He writes this letter of love, joy and encouragement in the midst of his own suffering in Prison and perhaps in the midst of the suffering of the Philippians too, a church community under hostile Roman rule. He wants them to see the big picture. He wants to reilluminate them so that they, and we, living in a world full of people acting in dark ways, may “shine among them like stars lighting up the sky”.
I don’t know if you were one of those children who needed a nightlight at bedtime, or had the door left slightly ajar with the landing light on, but I was. I used to imagine all sorts of terrible creatures coming out of the wardrobe to ‘get me’ in the night. And so when Paul calls us to be those shining stars, it’s not just to shine with good deeds or a welcoming demeanour, we are to shine v 16 says as we offer those around us “the message of life’. Life in Christ. The fears of the world, like the night terrors of a small child, CAN be eased. A new abundant life in the reassuring power of a loving God is available. And it is our newfound responsibility as obedient followers of Christ to offer that message. We are to be active. We know that doesn’t stop bad things threatening or happening, but we have God, a place of light to take those fears to, and so, Paul says we ‘must’ also be that nightlight, that door ajar showing the way to God for others. We ‘must’ be a power for God’s good purposes.
So do we grab the opportunities that come to us unexpectedly, like Paul locked up in prison, preaching the Gospel to the entire Palace Guard? Maybe we don’t feel brave enough to launch in, in as bold a manner as Paul’s, at our work places or among our neighbours and communities. But if we ARE living as those shining stars, in the world but not of its darkness, then that quality of God working in us will mark us out perhaps, as a place where someone may come, who has a desire for change in their life without quite knowing yet how. Rosemary says ‘The place that God calls us to, is where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.’
So, it may be the case that everyone sitting here this morning will not be here next week because God’s Holy Spirit will so have moved in us that we’ll all be off travelling the country, or the world, as Paul and others did, spreading the Gospel and that would be fantastic. But then again perhaps most of us will still be back here and that’s fantastic too, because the Church of England, is an apostolic church. We are part of a communion of apostles, it is our responsibility to evangelise through the power of God at work in us, wherever we are, Roman Prison or Milkwood Community Park. And we’re not to worry, because God will give us the desire and the ability.
So what is our responsibility to each other within this apostolic communion? The Philippians would have been familiar with the pre Christian tradition of pouring out a libation or drink offering to announce the main offering or sacrifice. In vv17-18 Paul invokes this early tradition as a way of illustrating how he ‘pours out’ his life in service to the work of bringing others to a life in Christ and right relationship with God. And there is such joy in Paul’s service. If we share the joy Paul speaks of in that same work, I pray we too may discover that depth of loving communion with each other, which Paul says at verse 8 comes from ‘a deep feeling rising from the heart of our Lord himself.’
And so finally let’s ask ourselves today
Would Paul have reason to be proud of the effort he put in on our behalf on the day of Christ’s coming again?
Are we working to complete our salvation?
How does the way we conduct our lives, light up dark places, offering other people hope in Jesus?
Let’s be inspired, refocused on the Big picture! Salvation!
We are to live in imitation of Christ, in obedience, in humility, in service; but we are not alone, for God is working in us so that we can be that joyous starlight shining out God’s message of a new abundant life in him.
Far more rewarding may I suggest than a pat on the back from the Boss or a great review from the press.
And if for any reason you want to turn inward in prayer this morning, we have people on hand by the Billington room after the service who will gladly pray for you.
And so now let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be your children. As you work within each one of us so that we may live the abundant life you created us for, fill us with that willingness and ability to live out your good purposes, so that we may indeed shine out your message of hope at all times and in all places, we ask this in the name of Jesus who died for us, Amen