Sermon(s) 14th August 2011

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches based on the reading from Acts 9:32-43:

Peter heals Aeneas and Dorcas

“The news about this spread …and many people believed in the Lord.” Acts 9:42

1. Today I am going to attempt something which, to my knowledge, has not been attempted previously in the history of the Church [except at St Sav’s earlier!]. Today I am going to attempt to preach two sermons - at the same time. Let me repeat that: to preach two sermons; at the same time.

And fortunately both sermons start with the same question: What has God your creator been saying to you this week?

Sermon 1 starts over here with an introduction to the first person that Peter met in our reading today, Aeneas the man in the town of Lydda. [4 helpers and explain the rules]

Sermon 2 is over here: and when you get one of the numbers that you need, then I will do a bit of Sermon 2.

2. OK? [Play/read]

3. Sermon 1: And so we meet Aeneas, a man who had been paralysed for 8 years, unable to get up and carry out the ordinary things of life: now healed by on Peter’s instructions. We are told that the people living in his town and in the country around saw him and believed in Jesus. And then Dr Luke goes on to tell us about what followed on in another nearby town, where a popular and hard-working lady had died. So Peter went to her house, prayed for her in private, her eyes opened and she, like the man Aeneas, responded to Peter’s request that she get up! Amazing stories! Incredible stories!

4. Sermon 2: What has God your creator been saying to you this week?

5. Sermon 1: We have just been on holiday. It has been a very busy year and so I was looking forward to a very quiet holiday, away from it all and this is what I took with me: books(for stories and ideas), mobile phone (to keep in touch with family and the office in emergencies), Blackberry (to keep in touch with the office anyway), laptop (partly as back-up in case the phone and the Blackberry went down), Kindle (to get a newspaper every day – to keep in touich with what was going on).

A “quiet holiday”, “away from it all”?! Looking at this little pile, I will leave you to analyse me as you wish. To me it suggests I like to be in touch, to communicate?

6. Sermon 2: What has God your creator been saying to you this week?

7. Sermon 1: I firmly believe that God still allows miracles to occur in part because it is one way – just one way - in which God fulfils his desire to communicate with us. The whole history of God’s dealings with His creation, the story at the heart of our faith, is about a creator who wants to communicate to us His desire to recreate unity, to enable healing and to dispel fear both for us individuals and for our/His communities. Miracles – especially perhaps miracles involving healing such as that of Aeneas and Dorcas – even though we are used to them, perhaps take them for granted, in our familiarity with the Bible stories - are instances where God communicates most starkly, most obviously, His desire to be involved in, to intervene in those things which are at the heart of the lives of those he has made.

And the intervention creates a wave and people hear and people understand and people believe. When John the Baptist, in prison, sent his disciples to establish Jesus’ credentials, Jesus reassured him pointing to the signs of God’s intervention in people’s lives: “Go back and tell John …: The blind can see, the lame walk, [lepers] are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

So the miracles are one sort of signs of God wanting to speak to us of His love.

8. Sermon 2: What has God your creator been saying to you this week?

If you have been listening to Sermon 2, you may feel a little short-changed; but then Sermon 1 has been doing the round of my mind for a couple of weeks. Over here, you have had and still have only the emotive appeal that asks you to join me in examining our response to the events of this week. In preparing for today, I could have dumped Sermon 1: except that to me, that God wants to be with us, in our minds, in our homes, in our communities, is what gives me the confidence to ask myself and to ask you: what has God your creator been saying to you this week?

The answers to that question may be very varied: for some the responses may be very personal – relief from fear perhaps; for some the answer may be directed at our churches as a community in the wider community. For some the answer may be “nothing”.

9. Paper at the back to note down any answers?

Amen