Sermon 1st October 2017

Today, one our Lay Readers, Simon Brindley, preaches. The reading is from 

Colossians 4, 2-18:  

How to behave in Christ 

In case you weren’t here 7 weeks ago (and probably a good number of you weren’t – it was the middle of the summer holidays) we had two very interesting services at St Saviour’s then St Paul’s in which, following the story of God speaking to Moses out of the burning bush, we asked ourselves, “Well, how does God speak to us today?”

And we asked people in the congregation to say, from where they were sitting, what ideas or experiences they had had, in answer to that question. Then one of our young people at both churches [                ] drew a series of images, pictures, of what each person in the congregation had called out.

Here is this congregation’s set of drawings – show the drawings - and I wrote down later that day what each congregation had said and it was:

That God speaks to us, for [St Saviour’s], through prayer, the Bible, the life of Jesus, through dreams, through our conscience and thoughts, through the prophets, the world around us and places we find ourselves in, other people both friends and strangers, on our deathbed, through music, suffering, appearances and visions, through the psalms and through preaching.

[St Paul’s] list was similar, but see if you can spot any differences. It was that God speaks to us through miracles, through other people, both their words and their actions, through suffering, prophecy fulfilled, the kindness of others, music, art, history, the mathematical precision of the universe, as we are dying, through the world and places we find ourselves in, visions, through the animals – the created things – prayer, the Bible, through preaching and as we are gardening and see the beauty that is there.

Then, in the final bit of that learning together session at each church that Sunday, we asked anyone who wanted to, to come to the front and share any actual examples they had of how they felt God had spoken to them before in one of those particular ways. And at each church about three people came up and shared, sometimes deeply personal experiences, of ways in which they felt they had heard God speaking to them. And of course there is no hierarchy, no experience that somehow counts more than another person’s. God just wants us to listen. And, interestingly, after the services more than one person came up to me and said they wished now they had come up to the microphone because they had also had something they would have liked to have said.

And the reasons for sharing that Sunday again today, apart from the fact that you may not have been here to hear what people here had to say, are first to remind ourselves that every time we come together on a Sunday to hear the Bible read and to hear a preacher preach, the question that should be uppermost in our minds is not, if you like, how good the service and the sermon was but rather above all else, to listen for His voice and to ask, “What might God be trying to say to me today as I hear these words spoken and read?”

And, secondly,  I wanted to go back to that idea of how God speaks to us because we are in the middle of a critically important process for the life of the Parish of Herne Hill.  I don't, personally, think there has been a more important time for this parish for many decades. Both churches have grown and changed and become established and have grown together, strongly establishing the parish as a whole. So much has been done and so much is going on and there is so much potential for more to happen but perhaps in different ways with a different way of being led and of people being enabled to take part and to grow.  So we are at that point of asking God to speak to us, to show us who our new vicar should be….and I believe it is a really important time for us and for this area we try to serve and for our children and young people and for the future.

More on some of those thoughts over the next few minutes as we turn to the end section of Paul’s letter, in chapter 4 of the letters to the Colossians, his letter, written from prison, from his being kept in prison in chains, to the new church at Colossae, a city that no longer exists in the modern day but was at the western end of what is now Turkey, about 120 miles inland from the coast.

Paul’s letter up to this final chapter has been rich, rich in his expressions of love for this group of people who will read it; its been rich in its emphasis on Jesus Christ as supreme and at the heart of everything; its been rich in his desire for the best for these people as they struggle with the change from the past that they are experiencing and begin to understand the depth of their new freedoms; but its been rich also in his certainty that this new life they experience in their faith in Jesus Christ must mean that old ways and old habits and old weaknesses are put off and new ways of living, what he calls new clothes, are put on. You may remember the list. It includes patience and kindness and humility and compassion and forgiveness…

And now at the end Paul comes to what you could call a long sign off to his letter and it breaks down, I think, into two parts.

It’s a bit, I think, like the letter a concerned parent might write – or should I say the email or whatsapp message they might send - to a child who has gone away from home for the first time, maybe to work, or to university or to live in a different country.  It’s a bit like “Don't forget to eat at least one good meal a day and don't forget to get plenty of sleep and don’t forget to do your washing!”

It's a bit like that, except maybe a bit more serious. But it has that same sense of concern, of urgency perhaps because Paul seems to me to be saying,  “Look, if you forget some of what I have said before, it was quite deep perhaps, you can come back to it over time, please do not forget these things.”

And the first thing he says is: do not forget to pray…in fact he says please spend a lot of time and effort in your prayers. Devote yourself to prayer. And Paul says keep alert in your prayers, be on the ball in your prayers, be focussed and specific. And Paul says give thanks as you pray. Don't just pray for what is ahead. Give thanks for all God has done in the past in your lives and the lives of those you know and in the life of your church.

So, is anyone hearing God’s voice this morning as we face this enormously important transition in the life of these churches to our new vicar, to what may be a new way of doing things and our future together?

Does anyone feel called or challenged or encouraged to pray? If you do, don't wish you had done so when the opportunity has gone. Take advantage please of the opportunities that there are. There is one this Thursday, 5^th October, 8pm at St Paul’s, specifically to pray about the appointment process for our new vicar and for all the people involved. There will be other opportunities, but if you think God is speaking to you about prayer, please do take part in this one. You do not have to feel brilliant at praying, just to feel that God may be nudging you to pray..

And the second thing Paul says is, “Conduct yourselves wisely towards outsiders, making the most of the time.”

You may not know this if you are not very closely involved with the process, but when a parish in the Church of England is looking for a new vicar, it gets a lot more attention from outsiders than it normally might expect. The Bishop takes a keen interest, because this is his area and he wants to be sure things will go well. The Archdeacon takes a keen interest because she has local overall responsibility and she wants to know she will have someone she can work with. Other people take a keen interest because they have legal responsibilities to help us make our choices and they want to exercise those responsibilities wisely. And, above all perhaps we open ourselves up to potential candidates for the post, to those outsiders we want to come in and join us and we say look here we are, this is us, this is what we do, this is who we are, this is where we might like to go to. Please consider coming inside and leading us forward for the next ten years or more.  Please consider leading us in this part of the world, this part of South London, in increasingly complex and demanding times.

So it is important perhaps for us to realize that we are in fact a bit in the spotlight. People are looking at us. We need to remember that and behave wisely. I don't know but do you hear God speaking to you about that this morning?

And the third thing Paul says is, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Be careful, if you like, not only in what you do but also in what you say.  You should say what you feel strongly about, don't let what you say be tasteless, it should be seasoned with that tang of salt! But be measured and respectful in how you express yourself, aware that people will have different views and things may not always work out exactly as they first appear to you that they should.

You see, at times of major change of direction, changes of personalities, or changes in the way things are done, we do get more opportunities perhaps than normal, to say what we really think about the way our churches should be going and the way they should be led.  So yes,  we should say what we really think and feel strongly about, but say it in a measured and a balance way, respectful of the views of others and aware that out of all this discussion  and debate God will lead us forwards, as He has before.

I don't know, but do you hear God speaking to you about that this morning, about the way you should be speaking to others at this time of change and of new potential?

And finally in this first half of the long sign off to his letter, Paul asks his readers to pray for him that he will have opportunities to declare the mystery of Christ.

I have been enjoying thinking about that phrase this week as I wondered what to say this morning. The mystery of Christ! Does it not in a way sum up all our experience of the Christian life as we engage with this person in the gospels. Is he not full of mystery? Do we not think about so many questions about him? Who is this man? What does his teaching have to say to me and what does it have to say to this world and the way we do things today? And what about this idea that he as both man and the Son of God? What might that mean? And what about the things he did? What do they say about who he was and what might be possible? And what about his death? Why did he have to die? And what does it mean that he died for me? And what about his rising to life? What did that achieve and what does it signify for who he was and for hope beyond suffering? And what about the future? They say he will come again and that everything will one day be perfectly restored…  and so on and so on. Is this not the heart of it all for us who come to these churches? To work out the mysteries about Jesus Christ with all their complexities and challenges and inspiration and hopes? Is this not the heart of the task we want someone else to come and lead and enable us in?

The former premiership footballer with Newcastle, Chelsea and Queens Park rangers, Gavin Peacock who nine years ago gave up a career as a football pundit to move to be the pastor of a church in Canada put it like this in the Independent newspaper a few weeks ago when he wrote that the last nine years had been the hardest part of his life in some ways but “through the difficulty, we’ve grown deeper in our faith in Jesus Christ. It’s been a very testing time but a very fruitful time.”  You can sense I think some of that wrestling with the mystery of Christ. He is back in the UK this month speaking about his life and work if you want to Google him just in case he is near you and you would like to hear him.

So there is the first half of Paul’s sign off. A bit like the parent to the child newly left home. His list of things not to forget. Don't forget to pray. Don’t forget to be careful how you act and in what you say and don’t forget what you are really all about. And don't forget to do your washing! Might God just be speaking to you today about any of these?

And then finally, again like the letter to the child recently left home, Paul signs off with that lovely long list of greetings. A bit like, “Aunty so and so says hello.” And Mrs B next door sends her love and your cousin David, or whoever, he prays for you, you know. And your sister wants to come and visit when you are settled. And if you see the daughter of Mrs so and so round the corner can you pass on a message, you know the one I mean, she was in your brother’s class at school.

So we hear about the faith and the prayers and the encouragement and the hard work and so on of Tychicus and of Onesimus and of Aristarchus and of Mark the cousin of Barnabas, and of Jesus who is usually known as Justus and of Epaphras and of Luke the doctor and of Demas. And Paul says to his readers that that they should give a message to Nympha and tell Archippus not to stop half way through what he has started. He needs help to keep going and do the right thing, that one.

We don't know a huge amount about most of these characters. We can only imagine what they might have looked like. But they were probably, when it comes down to it, people not too different from you and me. People who had heard God speaking to them in some way and wanted to hear more. People who were wrestling one way or another with all those questions about Jesus Christ. People who wanted to grow but people who needed reminding all the time about what is really important and about what their priorities should be.

Churches are not primarily institutions or processes or buildings or names. They are primarily groups of individual people, long lists of people called by the God who longs to speak to them in so many ways and to help them to grow in relationship with Himself and with each other and with the communities they serve. And that might not be a bad thing to have in our minds as we wait and pray and talk about and prepare for the next person who God has to lead us here.

Amen