Sermon 22nd September 2013

Today, our Honorary Assistant Minister, Gill Tayleur, continues our study of Paul's letter to Ephesus.  Her sermon is based upon the reading from Ephesians 2:11-22

Shalom

Shalom – the Biblical word translated into English as peace. But as you probably know, the word shalom means much more than just calmness or the absence of war or hatred. It’s much more encompassing than that. It means wholeness, completeness, wellbeing, a flourishing, safety and harmony, as well as tranquillity or restfulness.

Do those words describe you and your life?! But it’s what we all long for, isn’t it?!

In the Bible shalom is used to refer to the state of individuals and the state of relationships, as we do with the word peace in English. We say we’re at peace within ourselves, or at peace with someone after resolving a conflict.

In our Bible reading this morning, Paul talks about shalom, this peace, about peace with God and peace with one another. And both of them contribute to the sense of peace in ourselves, peace about who we are, and what our life is all about. So let’s look at what Paul says to the Christians in Ephesus about peace, with God and with one another.

First peace with God. In order to grasp what Paul means by peace with God, first we need to grasp how not-at-peace we are with God naturally, how separated and alienated we are from him. We need to hear the bad news in order to appreciate the good.

Let’s look at what Paul says about people who are living without God in their lives.

In verses 11 and 12, Paul describes the state of Gentiles before they came to faith in Christ Jesus. Gentiles were and are everyone who’s not a Jew. As such, Paul says, they were separate from Christ, excluded from the covenant relationship God had with his chosen people the Jews throughout the Old Testament. And so they were without God and without hope. That pretty much describes the spiritual state of everyone before they come to faith in Christ Jesus. Separate from God, alienated from him, distant.

Do we sometimes feel like that, distant from God, even in church?

There’s a good reason why we’re distant from the God who made us and loves us:

Put simply, it’s because of our sin. It’s our sin, our self centredness, all the rotten and bad stuff that screws us up and that we screw up, that causes the distance and separation from the all loving, all good, all holy, all powerful Creator God.

We’re all in the same boat. Oh we like to create a hierarchy of sin, to point the finger at someone else and say they do much worse things than we do, but the reality is both the person on the top of Mount Everest and the person in the deepest mine in the world, are equally unable to touch the moon.

Yes the bad news is that we’re all sinners, all in the same hopeless situation, hopeless because we can’t bridge the gap between us and God by trying harder, or by keeping all the OT laws and regulations, we’re so far off God’s goodness and purity. And if we’re honest, we know that, deep down. All of us have things we’ve said or done things that we’re ashamed of, ways we’ve messed things or relationships up, haven’t we?... And that leads to a sense of ill at ease, of not-peace, of being detached or distant from our deepest selves and from God...

BUT! BUT once we’ve acknowledged that, then there’s good news! The very best news!

Verse 13 says “You who used to be far away have been brought near by the death of Christ.” God has made a way for us to be brought near to him! It’s the cross. The death of Christ Jesus on the cross.

On the cross Christ Jesus died for us, for sinners like you and me. He died in our place, taking the consequence of all the sin and shame and bad stuff, in the world, and in each of us. So that we might be forgiven and come back to God. To bring us near, to bridge the gap.

And so he made peace with God possible. Shalom peace, reconciliation, relationship, nearness, a sense of safety and security, acceptance, forgiveness, mercy, grace and love. The cross of Christ achieved all those things. It really was the pivotal moment of all history.

And in order to experience all those benefits of the cross, we simply need to come to God, to own up to our need of Christ’s death for us because of our sin and self centredness, repent, that is say sorry and turn away from it. And as we do so we can have peace with God – no more guilt and shame! We can draw near, in prayer and worship, to love and be loved by him. We can have a better sense of who we are: forgiven, beloved sons and daughters of God.

That’s shalom peace with God, now and for all eternity.

A peace that’s not dependent on the storms of life battering all around us.

.............................................................................

Second then, peace with one another. Now we need to understand a bit more about Jews and Gentiles. As I said, Gentiles were - and are - everyone who’s not a Jew. Jews were circumcised as a sign of their Jewishness, as required by the OT law, to show that they were a people chosen and set apart for Yahweh, the one true living God. Although this chosen people were intended to show ALL the peoples of the world what God is like, and how to follow him, in practice the OT law created a division between Jew and non-Jew, or Gentile. Jews looked down on and despised Gentiles for not having or following the law, and then Gentiles despised the Jews back for despising them. And so there was real hatred between them.

It’s this hatred, enmity or hostility that Paul is addressing in these verses. Verses 14 to 16:

“Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and Gentiles one people. With his own body he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies. He abolished the Jewish Law with its commandments and rules, in order to create out of the two races one new people in union with himself, in this way making peace. By his death on the cross Christ destroyed their enmity; by means of his cross he united both races into one body and brought them back to God.”

On the cross, Christ paid the price for everyone’s sin, the Jews’ and the Gentiles’. In God’s sight, there’s no hierarchy! And so we can no longer look down on others, we are all the same, there’s nothing to separate us. The Jewish Christians could no longer feel superior to the Gentile Christians; they were equal.

What about us? In the same way that something God intended for good, the OT law, became the thing that caused Jews to look down on Gentiles, so too, we sometimes twist the gifts or abilities that God has bestowed on us into a means of looking down on those who don’t have those same gifts.

Oh it’s not acceptable in our society to look down on someone, or disdain them, on the grounds of race – but what about intelligence? Or taste, or political viewpoint, when they’re different from ours? Or the way they bring up their children? Or what about refugees and asylum seekers? They’re really looked down on in our society at the moment, as if they haven’t had enough pain and suffering in their lives already.

Do we secretly look down on certain people we feel are different from us? Or keep them at a distance? The cross of Christ has broken down all barriers between us, and that’s the reality we must live in, especially in the church.

And that brings us to the last few verses of today’s reading. Paul says that together, as one people united by faith in Christ Jesus, together we are able to come into the presence of God. Together we are being built into God’s people, and the place where God lives through his Spirit.

Together. The New York pastor Tim Keller says:

"If I threw a thousand threads onto the table, they wouldn't be a fabric. They'd just be threads lying on top of each other. Threads become a fabric when each one has been woven over, under, around, and through every other one. The more interdependent they are, the more beautiful they are. The more interwoven they are, the stronger and warmer they are. God made the world with billions of entities, but he didn't make them to be a mixed up jumble. Rather, he made them to be in a beautiful, harmonious, knitted, webbed, interdependent relationship with one another."

Does that describe us in St Paul’s & St Saviour’s Churches, a fabric like that?

This is who we are, and what we have to share: A people united in peace with God and peace with one another.

I want to finish by asking you 4 very personal questions, for you to think about, now -silently – you needn’t talk to anyone! But please try to respond as honestly as you can. There are 4 possible responses to the questions: never, rarely, often, or consistently.

We’ll have a few moments of quiet to consider each one: Never, rarely, often, or consistently?

Are you at peace with God? Would you describe your relationship with him as near, as personal, as peaceful, secure, knowing yourself to be deeply forgiven and dearly loved? Never? rarely? often? or consistently? What could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

Do you have peace of mind and heart? Or is your mind filled with a jumble of unforgiven memories, unresolved plans, and frustrating disappointments? Are you free from smouldering anger, nagging fears, doubts, and envy? Do you have peace of mind and heart? Never? Rarely? Often? Or consistently? What could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

What about your relationships with others in the church – are they also characterised not only by peace but by closeness and brotherly love, shalom? Never, rarely, often, or consistently? What could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

And finally, how shall we take this wonderful reality of shalom, of peace with God and with others to a peace-starved world? Globally, we pray for it, and will again in a few minutes. There are other ways we can support and contribute to peace on the international scale. But locally, in our parish? The Milkwood Working Party is going through the Discovery process to see how best we can live and take God’s shalom and love to those who haven’t yet experienced it. Our [St Paul’s] building project is creating a building better equipped for that purpose, to live and spread God’s shalom and love in our parish.

So do you play your part in sharing God’s shalom with others? In our parish? At home? At work? Never? Rarely? Often? Or consistently? And what could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

If you want to talk or pray about any of this, you know where to find me or Cameron.

But now, let’s draw together all our responses and offer them to God in prayer:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful peace you offer thanks to Christ’s death on the cross for us. May we each experience peace with you, with others, and pray our part, in being built together into a beautiful woven fabric, for the benefit of the world, and for the praise of your glory. Amen.

Shalom – the Biblical word translated into English as peace. But as you probably know, the word shalom means much more than just calmness or the absence of war or hatred. It’s much more encompassing than that. It means wholeness, completeness, wellbeing, a flourishing, safety and harmony, as well as tranquillity or restfulness.

Do those words describe you and your life?! But it’s what we all long for, isn’t it?!

In the Bible shalom is used to refer to the state of individuals and the state of relationships, as we do with the word peace in English. We say we’re at peace within ourselves, or at peace with someone after resolving a conflict.

In our Bible reading this morning, Paul talks about shalom, this peace, about peace with God and peace with one another. And both of them contribute to the sense of peace in ourselves, peace about who we are, and what our life is all about. So let’s look at what Paul says to the Christians in Ephesus about peace, with God and with one another.

First peace with God. In order to grasp what Paul means by peace with God, first we need to grasp how not-at-peace we are with God naturally, how separated and alienated we are from him. We need to hear the bad news in order to appreciate the good.

Let’s look at what Paul says about people who are living without God in their lives.

In verses 11 and 12, Paul describes the state of Gentiles before they came to faith in Christ Jesus. Gentiles were and are everyone who’s not a Jew. As such, Paul says, they were separate from Christ, excluded from the covenant relationship God had with his chosen people the Jews throughout the Old Testament. And so they were without God and without hope. That pretty much describes the spiritual state of everyone before they come to faith in Christ Jesus. Separate from God, alienated from him, distant.

Do we sometimes feel like that, distant from God, even in church?

There’s a good reason why we’re distant from the God who made us and loves us:

Put simply, it’s because of our sin. It’s our sin, our self centredness, all the rotten and bad stuff that screws us up and that we screw up, that causes the distance and separation from the all loving, all good, all holy, all powerful Creator God.

We’re all in the same boat. Oh we like to create a hierarchy of sin, to point the finger at someone else and say they do much worse things than we do, but the reality is both the person on the top of Mount Everest and the person in the deepest mine in the world, are equally unable to touch the moon.

Yes the bad news is that we’re all sinners, all in the same hopeless situation, hopeless because we can’t bridge the gap between us and God by trying harder, or by keeping all the OT laws and regulations, we’re so far off God’s goodness and purity. And if we’re honest, we know that, deep down. All of us have things we’ve said or done things that we’re ashamed of, ways we’ve messed things or relationships up, haven’t we?... And that leads to a sense of ill at ease, of not-peace, of being detached or distant from our deepest selves and from God...

BUT! BUT once we’ve acknowledged that, then there’s good news! The very best news!

Verse 13 says “You who used to be far away have been brought near by the death of Christ.” God has made a way for us to be brought near to him! It’s the cross. The death of Christ Jesus on the cross.

On the cross Christ Jesus died for us, for sinners like you and me. He died in our place, taking the consequence of all the sin and shame and bad stuff, in the world, and in each of us. So that we might be forgiven and come back to God. To bring us near, to bridge the gap.

And so he made peace with God possible. Shalom peace, reconciliation, relationship, nearness, a sense of safety and security, acceptance, forgiveness, mercy, grace and love. The cross of Christ achieved all those things. It really was the pivotal moment of all history.

And in order to experience all those benefits of the cross, we simply need to come to God, to own up to our need of Christ’s death for us because of our sin and self centredness, repent, that is say sorry and turn away from it. And as we do so we can have peace with God – no more guilt and shame! We can draw near, in prayer and worship, to love and be loved by him. We can have a better sense of who we are: forgiven, beloved sons and daughters of God.

That’s shalom peace with God, now and for all eternity.

A peace that’s not dependent on the storms of life battering all around us.

.............................................................................

Second then, peace with one another. Now we need to understand a bit more about Jews and Gentiles. As I said, Gentiles were - and are - everyone who’s not a Jew. Jews were circumcised as a sign of their Jewishness, as required by the OT law, to show that they were a people chosen and set apart for Yahweh, the one true living God. Although this chosen people were intended to show ALL the peoples of the world what God is like, and how to follow him, in practice the OT law created a division between Jew and non-Jew, or Gentile. Jews looked down on and despised Gentiles for not having or following the law, and then Gentiles despised the Jews back for despising them. And so there was real hatred between them.

It’s this hatred, enmity or hostility that Paul is addressing in these verses. Verses 14 to 16:

“Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and Gentiles one people. With his own body he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies. He abolished the Jewish Law with its commandments and rules, in order to create out of the two races one new people in union with himself, in this way making peace. By his death on the cross Christ destroyed their enmity; by means of his cross he united both races into one body and brought them back to God.”

On the cross, Christ paid the price for everyone’s sin, the Jews’ and the Gentiles’. In God’s sight, there’s no hierarchy! And so we can no longer look down on others, we are all the same, there’s nothing to separate us. The Jewish Christians could no longer feel superior to the Gentile Christians; they were equal.

What about us? In the same way that something God intended for good, the OT law, became the thing that caused Jews to look down on Gentiles, so too, we sometimes twist the gifts or abilities that God has bestowed on us into a means of looking down on those who don’t have those same gifts.

Oh it’s not acceptable in our society to look down on someone, or disdain them, on the grounds of race – but what about intelligence? Or taste, or political viewpoint, when they’re different from ours? Or the way they bring up their children? Or what about refugees and asylum seekers? They’re really looked down on in our society at the moment, as if they haven’t had enough pain and suffering in their lives already.

Do we secretly look down on certain people we feel are different from us? Or keep them at a distance? The cross of Christ has broken down all barriers between us, and that’s the reality we must live in, especially in the church.

And that brings us to the last few verses of today’s reading. Paul says that together, as one people united by faith in Christ Jesus, together we are able to come into the presence of God. Together we are being built into God’s people, and the place where God lives through his Spirit.

Together. The New York pastor Tim Keller says:

"If I threw a thousand threads onto the table, they wouldn't be a fabric. They'd just be threads lying on top of each other. Threads become a fabric when each one has been woven over, under, around, and through every other one. The more interdependent they are, the more beautiful they are. The more interwoven they are, the stronger and warmer they are. God made the world with billions of entities, but he didn't make them to be a mixed up jumble. Rather, he made them to be in a beautiful, harmonious, knitted, webbed, interdependent relationship with one another."

Does that describe us in St Paul’s & St Saviour’s Churches, a fabric like that?

This is who we are, and what we have to share: A people united in peace with God and peace with one another.

I want to finish by asking you 4 very personal questions, for you to think about, now -silently – you needn’t talk to anyone! But please try to respond as honestly as you can. There are 4 possible responses to the questions: never, rarely, often, or consistently.

We’ll have a few moments of quiet to consider each one: Never, rarely, often, or consistently?

Are you at peace with God? Would you describe your relationship with him as near, as personal, as peaceful, secure, knowing yourself to be deeply forgiven and dearly loved? Never? rarely? often? or consistently? What could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

Do you have peace of mind and heart? Or is your mind filled with a jumble of unforgiven memories, unresolved plans, and frustrating disappointments? Are you free from smouldering anger, nagging fears, doubts, and envy? Do you have peace of mind and heart? Never? Rarely? Often? Or consistently? What could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

What about your relationships with others in the church – are they also characterised not only by peace but by closeness and brotherly love, shalom? Never, rarely, often, or consistently? What could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

And finally, how shall we take this wonderful reality of shalom, of peace with God and with others to a peace-starved world? Globally, we pray for it, and will again in a few minutes. There are other ways we can support and contribute to peace on the international scale. But locally, in our parish? The Milkwood Working Party is going through the Discovery process to see how best we can live and take God’s shalom and love to those who haven’t yet experienced it. Our [St Paul’s] building project is creating a building better equipped for that purpose, to live and spread God’s shalom and love in our parish.

So do you play your part in sharing God’s shalom with others? In our parish? At home? At work? Never? Rarely? Often? Or consistently? And what could you do to improve on that, with God’s help?

If you want to talk or pray about any of this, you know where to find me or Cameron.

But now, let’s draw together all our responses and offer them to God in prayer:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful peace you offer thanks to Christ’s death on the cross for us. May we each experience peace with you, with others, and pray our part, in being built together into a beautiful woven fabric, for the benefit of the world, and for the praise of your glory. Amen.

Sermon 15th September 2013

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh Cunnell, continues our study of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. The reading is from Ephesians 1:10 - 2:10

Well 2013 has been a big year for Fiftieth anniversaries

I'm sure like me one of the anniversaries you may be most keen to celebrate is....

The birth of the humble cassette tape..

All those mix tapes lovingly made for friends and beloveds...

Pressing Record just as the needle hit the vinyl on the correct track

Taping the top 20 on the radio on Sunday nights

Having to fix the tape with sellotape when it stretched & then snapped

Slotting the pencil through the hole to wind the tape back in when it inevitably got caught in the machine

The thrill perhaps of getting a tape recorder of your own or maybe even a radio cassette player or even ... later ...even a ...Walkman, for your portable listening pleasure 

Happy days

Or perhaps it's my fiftieth anniversary you're thinking of...moving swiftly on....

Or perhaps 

the fiftieth anniversary of the Bristol Bus Boycott where people refused to use Bristol buses for months  until hostile unions and the Bristol Bus Company allowed black & Asian drivers and conductors to be employed on the buses..the effect of that boycott eventually led to the first British Race Relations Act in 1965, but meanwhile back in Bristol in 1963, on the 28th of August the unions and Bus company relented and employees regardless of colour were hired  to work on Bristol Buses.

Perhaps that date - August 28th 1963 sounds familiar - it is also the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights March on Washington DC led by the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Junior.

The March was blessed by an Irish American Catholic Archbishop, Patrick O'Boyle, masterminded by a gay black Southern man Bayard Rustin, and entertained by the leading singers of their day, including Bob Dylan, a Jewish man and Joan Baez, a Native American woman,  the United States of America in all her glorious diversity ... not to mention having in attendance Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Paul Newman, Charlton Heston, Sammy Davis Junior and a host of other Hollywood stars, who came out to march in support.

But to return to buses, the great mass of people in attendance, came from right across America on buses.

People who were afraid that for having attended, they might not have a job to go back to or  might get beaten up when they returned to their neighbourhoods, alongside people who had none of those fears but who just knew to deny people their civil rights on the basis of their colour was unjust, and they all marched, on that day among many, to say so.

They all took a pause that day from their daily routines, they took a risk, they took a great leap of faith, to call for justice.

And it took place, confounding all expectations, in an atmosphere of love and peace and inspiration. A pause, a reflection before action.

Now, not 50 years ago but 1953 years ago or thereabouts Paul was experiencing an enforced pause., His period of reflection, of breathing out the stresses of his incarceration in Rome and breathing in what it meant to live in Christ, results perhaps in our study series from Ephesians

In the September edition of our Wickwar Parish Magazine, while at my dad's this week, I read a message from the Vicar David reflecting on the role of the prophets in pointing people in New directions, not just for their own good but for the good of those around them.

In the book of Isaiah God speaks to his people saying in ch 43.19 

' see I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

In the tradition of those prophets, Paul presents us with this new thing, a template for Christian living, a Landscape of Christian Faith as Cameron described it last Sunday.

And in Ephesians that template is expressed in prayer

It is worth noting that Paul prays a prayer of thanks to God for the faith of believers because faith is Christ working in us, rather than something we do.

It is grace, Paul tells us in this passage, that takes us from dead worldly life to living Christ filled life and we'll come back to that.

The Jesuit priest & writer Anthony De Mello was discussing helping people to pray with a colleague.

He writes that his colleague told him

"That he approached a Hindu guru for initiation in the art of prayer. The guru said to him,

'Concentrate on your breathing'

My friend proceeded to do just that for about five minutes, writes de Mello, Then the guru said,

'The air you breathe is God. You are breathing God in and out. Become aware of that, and stay with that awareness.'

For Anthony De Mello's friend & colleague, over many years his prayer life was enriched immensely and he discovered to his amazement that prayer can be as simple as breathing in and out.

Now clearly given that Hinduism didn't exist in AD 60 Paul was unlikely to have had a similar conversation in a Roman jail with any Hindu guru, and perhaps being Paul, not even if it had existed... but one can imagine that a long time of enforced solitude gave Paul the wonderful opportunity to be in extended prayerful communion with God in Christ - listening and thinking deeply about the nature of faith and of life in Christ.

Cameron spoke vividly last Sunday about the elemental quality of the life of the Christian

The notion of Fish who don't worry about swimming in water , 

of birds who don't worry about flying in the air

 and the notion that neither should we worry about living in the world but have the confidence to live fully in the world because we too are sustained by being in our natural element - Christ.

In living and breathing in and out we are filled with the breath of God that gives us life and carries us forward in Christ.

And if we are confident that we are living in our right element, that a right lived righteous life is where God constructed us to be, then we we will be sustained, supported and held up just as surely as the waters of the seas hold up fish and the currents of the air hold up birds.

In the death and resurrection of Christ, in this new element for living that is Christ, God is doing a new thing.

Moreover in this new thing, in this living in Christ that Paul writes of, death is no longer the end -  in Christ the physical reality of death is changed forever. 

 Christ focus us on life, not death; on freedom, not slavery. The motive is love, not oppression, God's compassion. 

Paul writes of love, grace, mercy. This Christian Landscape brings all people together  - to be what they were created to be.

Paul begins by speaking of living people being dead. 

The death in which people live is characterised by being dominated by destructive powers.

To put it at its most fundamental level, If we step back from those destructive powers and patterns of behaviour, and allow Christ to fill up our lives, we will find ourselves in our right element, we will feel better and then we can make our world feel better.

Paul is talking about the reality of God's kingdom here and now in the world we live in.

In Christ, what God wants and what is in the interests of others coincides, because God is love.

 The Kingdom of God which Paul presents in Ephesians  is not one which exploits in the interest of a few, but one which includes and cares in the interest of all. 

It produces ways of being which lead away from conflict and distrust, whereas the world's empires encourage competition and conflict and protect their interests by discounting the needs of others, and treating the poor, the weak, the strangers as expendable.

In Christ we have a chance to enter a new Landscape, to move from death to life, to choose the offer of life.

This is not a transaction of action where the new people, the faithful, the 'In Christers' live a certain way and in return receive God's love.

In this new Christ filled reality it is grace, God's grace - His generosity & goodness in giving  himself in Christ to bring healing and life and power over death - that makes the change in  all our stories.

For in this Grace, this unconditional love Paul wants us to(2:10) understand that We are created for good works, 

not acts of goodness that demonstrate that we are living in Christ - good works' are not to be reduced to a list of 'do's and 'don't's. Throughout the passage 'good' is about God's goodness and generosity. 

w

We are made for goodness, we function properly as God's creation when we live our lives from a default place of goodness, of kindness, compassion, generosity and love.

As we read in 2:8-10 God's intention all along has been that people become what they were made to be and the 'earth be filled with the glory of God'. 

God's glory is God's love, God's goodness - a move in a new direction, as Isaiah would have it, from a death way of being to a life way of being - here and now. 

It is that divine vision of God's glory, God's goodness, that fuelled Martin Luther King at the culmination of many months of marching planning and inspiring

It is that vision that shapes our Christian Landscape

It may be said that we saw on the 28th of August 1963 how Christ was working in and through Martin Luther King Junior in Washington DC

MLk jnr had given the 'I have a dream' section of that great speech many times before.

1963 was not like today, where everything is captured & rebroadcast immediately, we were at the of the cassette, never mind the Internet ....

He honed that speech, repeating  it across the country, to churches congregations, at civil rights rallies, but on that day he shocked and inspired people to courage with his vision and his fearlessness.

I have a dream was not even part of his prepared written speech that day

As his prepared speech was coming to a close, the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson who had just sung, called to him

"Tell them about the dream Martin"

A reporter for the American ABC news channel covering the march on Washington recalls that the crowd didn't know that they were going to church that day....

Responding to Mahalia Jackson's call

 part of that speech went as follows

'I have a dream  today  . . . I have  a dream that  one  day every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  every  hill  and mountain shall  be  made  low.  The  rough  places  will be  made  plain, and  the  crooked  places will  be  made  straight.  And  the glory  of  the Lord  shall be  revealed,  and all flesh shall  see it  together. 

This  is  our  hope.  This is the faith that I go back to the South with. 

With this faith we will  be able to hew out of the mountains of despair a stone of hope. 

With this faith we will be  able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. 

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle  together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be  free one day.'

A Christ filled Martin Luther King, who knew of the death threats against him, who knew he might not make it to the promised land, but who was encouraged to live and  work for Gods kingdom of justice and love on earth nevertheless, radiated that Landscape of Christian Faith as he spoke, as he took the nation to church, he communicated God's new thing in Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

And like Paul's letters and prayers, like a Cassette love letter to be played & passed around, Martin Luther King jnr's words inspired by faith that day, continue to inspire us.

Some days life feels unbearably hard, as though there is no possible way out of our predicament, no possible way to imagine that we will ever feel happy again, no possible way we will ever stop worrying about 'what next?' - family, friends, work, health, money, Syria, the world - all those areas we will be praying for this morning.

Some days it feels like if just one more thing happens that we have to carry, we will crumble

Some days just getting out of bed & putting our feet on the floor, the first step of another day, seems like a miracle - and some days it is.

But as the song much sung on civil rights marches called 'Keep your eyes on the prize'.

 We are not carrying our burdens alone, Christ's feet are right alongside ours every morning

We are supported by God's incomparably great power

That power is the mighty strength  20 God exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,

When we allow ourselves be 'filled up' in Christ, we can respond to the world and reflect on the world from a godly place of goodness, from the harmonious place of God's creation.

When we pray, breathe, contemplate, meditate in Christ, allow God's breath in us to carry every part of our lives; when we are acting in that Christ element then we are encouraged - courage from coeur the French for heart - 

then we come from a place of love, 

love that sustains us when we receive it, 

love that sustains us when we share it

That is the purpose of the building project that is now underway at St Paul's , 

that is the purpose of the Milkwood Working Party and our ministry in the parish of Herne Hill

Our purpose 

We are here for God's grace and mercy and justice and love in Christ, to fill us and to fill our world

And whatever impedes that great love we need to pray over and lay it down at the foot of the cross,

 be it concerns for the world, our communities, our families and friends, work struggles, money struggles, personal struggles 

we are to breathe them out in prayer 

breath in Christ 

and feel ourselves carried and sustained in our right God created element.

It does not mean that we will not experience our hard times 

Paul was in Prison, Peter was crucified upside down, Martin Luther King was assassinated, 

we will not avoid pain by living in Christ, but we will experience the love of God, 

we will grow God"s kingdom on earth 

We will breathe in and breathe out in the breath of Christ

Confident in our right element

 encouraged and encouraging 

 and in the love of Christ we will overwhelm the death living of the world and increase the justice and love of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth 

That is my prayer for us this morning.

Amen

1)And because

We were created and are loved by A great High Priest,

 whose name is Love,

The great unchangeable I am,

And because

Our names are written on His heart;

When we are tempted to despair

 lets look up to The King of glory and of grace

And know we are in our element because our lives are hid with Christ on high,

And so let's sing

Before the Throne of God Above

2)An expression of our confidence at being in our right element in Christ, as a loved, sustained and faithful community in good times and hard times is found in the words of the Creed.

So let's stand now and share those words with one another in love and faith.

Please stand

Sermon 8th September 2013

This week, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, begins a new study series looking at the book of Ephesians. Today's reading is from Ephesians 1 verses 1 to 14.

Before we leap right into what is clearly going to be solid, and meaty, stuff, here is something rather more light-hearted, to take us back into the summer that’s just ending ...

OK, so it is a Bible quiz - but it’s one with a difference. Not only will it show who’s on the ball, it should also make you smile (or groan!). So, fingers on those metaphorical buzzers, please; and tell me (if you can):

Which Bible character had no parents?

(Joshua, son of Nun).

What explanation did Adam give to his children as to why they no longer lived in the Garden of Eden?

(Your mother ate us out of house and home.)

Who’s the best-known female financier in the Bible?

(Pharaoh’s daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a little prophet.)

Who’s the best-known male financier in the Bible?

(Noah. He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation).

Which area of Palestine was especially wealthy?

(The area around Jordan: the banks were always overflowing.)

Which servant of God was the most flagrant lawbreaker in the Bible?

(Moses. He broke all 10 commandments at once.)

What kind of man was Boaz before he got married?

(Ruthless)

And to end, it’s not biblical, I know: but what are pastors in Berlin usually called?

(German Shepherds).

All of which leads seamlessly right into our new series – of course! Well the idea was to get you all on the ball enough to spot that I didn’t call this “Paul’s letter to the Ephesians”. The fact is, and as usual, I am with our favourite Bible scholar, Tom Wright here. I too am convinced by the evidence that Paul wrote this letter, in +- 60 AD, while he was in prison, in Rome. I’m just as sure that the ancient city of Ephesus was indeed one of the places that these words went to, on their journey around the churches of Asia Minor. Of course you are very welcome to spend hours reading all the scholarly debates about such matters for yourselves. Or you can choose instead just to know that they exist; and then to focus instead on the intent, and content, of one of the most comprehensive, inspiring, well -written, and amazing books in the entire New Testament!

Bold claims, it’s true; but by the time we get to Advent I am sure that Ephesians will have climbed to the top of many a Herne Hill favourite-Bible-book list. Again it’s Tom Wright who likens reading it to taking a trip on the London Eye. Now I’ve not gone on it myself; but I have walked beneath its 450-foot span. I can well imagine what the view is like for those who are brave enough to ride it. I’m sure that you will get a very different perspective on the street that you’re used to walking along, and the buildings that usually tower above you. They will doubtless fit together in a whole new way, after you have seen the bigger picture. And that is what the different elements of New Testament will do, once we have worked our way through all of Ephesians.

Now it is true to say that Ephesians often reads rather more like a sermon than a letter. It is quite different in style to the letters we have that Paul usually wrote. We’re more used to him dealing with specific pressing issues, and difficult people, in particular challenging situations. But this is part of the evidence for ‘Ephesians’ (as we’ll keep on calling it) being a circular letter, one that was sent to a group of churches – because it is more general. Again, it’s also true that Paul probably knew most of the churches in that area and their leaders, very well. He had been instrumental in shaping the church there by, introducing them to the Holy Spirit for the first time. That was on his 3^rd missionary journey, when Paul kept the promise that he’d made on a brief previous visit. He went back, and had spent over two years living and preaching there, and overseeing the setting up of churches throughout that region.

Again this was all very typically Paul-like. He deliberately (or, as we might say, intentionally) spent his time and energy on the key citys of the Roman Empire. Ephesus was then the 4^th largest, and was gateway into the province of Asia Minor, in modern-day Turkey. As is still the case today, people came to and through such centres: whatever happened in them soon spread far and wide. And that was exactly Paul’s aim for the Good News about Jesus, of course. Paul never made any secret about that – as we can see from the very start of this letter. He called himself an ‘apostle’: literally in Greek meaning someone who has been sent. Paul had no doubt Who had sent him, or exactly why either – which again he declared outright here, at the start.

I’m sure that it won’t have escaped your notice who Paul said he was writing to as well. The NIV is quite right to use the word ‘saints’, because that is exactly what Paul meant! We might have a rather different picture in our heads today, after a long history of people (including Paul himself) being beatified. In Paul’s day people weren’t made saints in that way, though. In that sense the GNB is better, by using the phrase ‘God’s people’ – because that is who Paul meant! For him, anyone and everyone who was a Christian was a saint. That Greek word also means ‘holy’, or someone who has been set aside for God’s work. And of course anyone who calls themselves Christian today is meant to know that is who and what we are: “faithful in Christ”.

There is a fine Pauline phrase, that comes up time and again throughout this letter. One writer has gone as far as to put it like this: “Birds belong in the air; fish belong in the water; people belong ‘in Christ’. It’s who, and what, we are; what we have been made for; how we’re designed to live: all of us! Yes, Paul talks here about those whom God has chosen. [And there is a full sermon to be preached in its own right (though not today) on the subject of predestination.] But our eyes are instead meant to be drawn on, I believe; to God’s ultimate purpose ‘in Christ’. Again, it’s all set out here, just in these first few verses. Solid and meaty stuff it is; of the mind-blowing kind, when we realise our God-intended place in His plan. God’s plan is to bring all of creation, everything in heaven and on earth together, Paul says, with Christ as its head; and this has been God’s plan for us to be part of since before He made world?!

Now you may have worked out from the fact that we’re more than half-way through that there’s no way that we can even get close to unpacking all there is in here. As ever, that’s fine: our job as preachers is to encourage us to work out for ourselves what this means for how we are to live: in Christ indeed. Lots of the small groups that meet through the week do that in the sort of depth that it often takes. There is always room for others to join those, so speak to Gill if you’d be interested in doing that. Either way, in groups or on our own, there are enough starters in here to keep anyone going for quite some time, just with how Paul begins this letter. It’s almost like from the (relatively!) relaxed perspective of his prison cell he was able to step back, and to view that wider, London-Eye-type, picture.

Now one other key feature of this letter that needs mentioning at this introduction stage is this. It has many themes and ideas in common with Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Scholars, like Tom Wright, who believe that Paul did write both, think that the two letters were written very close together in time. Paul first dealt with the issues in Colossae, in response to to a visitor who’d come to ask for his help. Then he wrote a more general letter to this group of churches that weren’t so very far away from Colossae, to send back with the same messenger. It’s no surprise that some of same themes would have been at the forefront of his mind as he wrote the 2^nd letter, then. There are universal truths that apply in particular ways to specific circumstances, which also then apply just as well in more general ways; to encourage churches, for example.

That was essentially why Paul wrote this particular letter, to this group of churches it seems. There weren’t any pressing issues, or people to be dealt with – which made a pleasant change from what he so often had to face. Rather, it was a matter of encouraging them to be, and do, what God wanted from them. Paul wanted them to do that even better than they were already doing it; and to be even more united in doing it. So he began in only proper place: with worship. Having reminded them of who he was and who they were, in Christ, the next 12 verses of his letter are one long sentence: an excited, unstoppable outpouring of praise and worship of God and His Son Jesus. And the scope of it is truly amazing.

Set out in the rest of the letter is the entire landscape of the Christian faith: it starts with God, of course; it includes the world that He made; the work and person of His Son, Jesus; the church; the means of salvation; what proper Christian behaviour looks like; how marriage and family life are to be ordered before God; and how believers must engage battle in the spiritual warfare that our faith in reality is. That all lies ahead, waiting for us to explore in glorious detail through the rest of the year. But here is the sole basis on which we can and must do so. In Christ: God has blessed us; He has chosen us; He has foreordained us; He has poured out His grace on us; He has given us redemption; He has set out His plan, for us and for His creation; He has given us an eternal inheritance, and an eternal hope; and He sealed us with His Spirit who is a deposit to guarantee what is yet to come!

Each and all of those are ‘in Christ’. Each is also worthy of a sermon in itself – also not today! For today what is to note particularly is the refrain that punctuates these verses: everything is to be for “the praise and glory of God in Christ”. It is God who’s taken the initiative; it is God who has done what was necessary, at great cost to Himself; it is God who is now working His plans out in and through us; it is God who guarantees our inheritance; and it is God who will bring it all to completion at the right time, in the right way. How can we not respond to that and to Him with praise and worship – and by wanting to tell others what God has done, and is doing, in Christ? That is the essence of living to the praise and glory of God in Christ, Paul says; and it should be ringing some bells for us too.

At our church AGMs back in May this year I said the two key tasks for us this year are: to be united in what we’re doing; and to make sure that it is all about Jesus. It’s not that we face any pressing issues or people. We certainly are entering into a whole new phase of this parish’s life, particularly as the St Paul’s building project starts. What flows from that, and from the on-going Discovery process, has got to be focused on Jesus, to the praise and glory of God. We have also got to stay united in whatever we then choose to do, in response to what God is saying to us. Our study of Ephesians this autumn can, should, and must, keep all of that right at the very forefront of our minds: week in and week out. And so may “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give us [all the] grace and peace” that we need, as we work out how to respond to Him: in Christ; united; to His praise and glory. And so now let’s pray ...