There are one or two key themes in the Bible and how we see
everything rests on these key concepts.
For the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of these is reconciliation and he
has made this one of his priorities for his tenure in office. Christ came to reconcile us to God and to one
another. He brings peace and in that
peace we live peace. Justin Welby wants
us to live this reconciling love and his hope is that focusing on this will
change the church and affect the world.
To my mind he is right.
Behind this is another key idea, which I think is
foundational. It is that of gift, of
grace. Everything is gift. We only exist because God chose to make it
happen as a gift, out of his generous love.
We see how exceptional life is through the various space explorations. There is a probe around Pluto at the moment
and it has sent back spectacular images. Journalists are fascinated with whether they will find signs of
life. They may, they may not, but the
more we see of these planets and other orbiting masses, the more remarkable and
incredible we see our planet to be with its ability to enable life to emerge
and to support it. That there is
something rather than nothing is incredible and the result of gift.
There is a prayer used in Morning Prayer that reminds us
that the night is passed and the day lies open before us, and we rejoice in the
gift of this new day. It seems to be
very popular to ridicule politicians who own up to having a faith in God. Tim Fallon, the new leader of the Liberal
Democrats, has been on the receiving end of this recently. Having faith means that you are someone who
believes in gift and is thankful for that gift.
Out of this gift a great deal flows, but the opposite of it is to
believe that life is random and ultimately pointless. All sorts can flow from that, but at its core
it is not very hopeful. I feel sorry for the sneerers.
Our readings were full of gift and grace. The story of Elisha
feeding 100 people (2 Kings 4:42-44) prefigured Jesus’
feeding of the 5,000, which we heard about in our gospel reading. The clear message about Jesus is that not
only can he tick the box of performing wonders, he does it and some – not 100
hungry people, but 5,000 are fed (John 6:1-21). He takes the meagre provisions of a small
boy’s lunch and turns them into a banquet.
The gift of the God who makes everything out of nothing is that there is
no situation that cannot be transformed by gift, by grace, being let loose.
The reading from Ephesians (3:14-21) was a
beautiful song of praise and thanksgiving to God praying for strength in our
inner being, that Christ may so dwell in our hearts, that we will be rooted and
grounded in love. This love will fill us
with nothing less than the fullness of God, accomplishing abundantly far more
than we can ask or imagine. This all
comes from gift, from grace, pouring, flowing from God. It is generosity which cannot stay contained
or shut inside. It has to flow and it
changes us; it changes everything. It
becomes the reconciliation where that is needed, it becomes the life that
blesses, it refreshes with energy and new life, it is the opening for
evangelism and mission.
I think a lot of people are quite frightened by the words
evangelism and mission. They have become
buzzwords but they can conjure up all sorts of different things depending on
what you have seen those labels attached to.
And around the city centre we see some pretty bad examples of shouting
and aggressive behaviour in the name of evangelism and mission. It is a turn off. But at its root sharing the faith that
inspires us and gives us hope is really rather simple. It involves making friends and being
friendly. We meet people; treat them
with the love and value which everyone deserves by virtue of being a fellow
beloved child of God. They too are the
fruit of gift and grace. And as we get
to know them the faith that is the focus of who we are shines through and can
be shared. It can be as simple as asking
if they think life is fundamentally pointless or has a point. That point lies with God who doesn’t stay
aloof, but meets us, supremely in everything we see in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. In trying
to be more like him we become one of his disciples and meet each week to be
renewed in grace, as we share together in bread and wine, coffee and Jaffa
cakes. The last two don’t appear in the
Bible, but they should. What could be a
better sign of gift and grace than a small chocolate covered sponge cake with
jam inside it! May be clotted cream and
scone…
None of this is rocket science, but it can prove to be quite
elusive. How doe we fare here? When people come through the doors, do we
greet them with the love and value they deserve as fellow fruit of God’s gift
and grace? Do we treat one another like
that? If we are really honest about
this, we will find that there are times when we do. There is generous caring; there is welcome
and acceptance. But there are also times
when we don’t manage it. We do have a
reputation of not always being a happy place.
That’s not good. We have to turn
down the volume on the grumps and bad temper and turn it up on the grace, on
the love, on the remembering that the person in front of us is a fellow beloved
child of God.
There are times when this is difficult, not least because
some people make it hard to respond that way.
Like Harry Potter combatting the Dementors we have to conjure up our
patronus, whatever reminds us of hope, grace and love so that we can be
these. Sometimes we are caught off
guard, absorbed in another task, with challenges we have to get sorted and the
request or comment comes at us what feels like sideways and there is a side-on
collision that shunts us across the road like in a high speed car chase in a
film. How we respond in a crash may say
quite a lot about us. I have been
involved in a head on collision and I didn’t get out and stab the person who
smashed into me, like happened recently in West Sussex. Few of us would. It is an extreme response. But there are degrees of aggression and
degrees of crash. If we find it hard to
be gracious when there are sudden challenges then we may need help, at the most
extreme with anger management, or it may be that public facing roles are not
for us.
I’ve been the vicar of a church that had a lot of angry
people in it and it was not pleasant at times and it was destructive of
mission. People looked and said if that
is how Christians treat one another then you can count me out. I went to a funeral tea in the early days in
that parish and someone asked me if I’d met the witches yet. When I looked puzzled she said ‘you’ll find
out’. Not a good reputation and it takes
a lot to overcome it. It can happen but
only if the gift, the grace of God dwells in us so much that we are filled with
the life and love of Christ. Without that we have no good news to share. We are not good news to share. We cannot be the agents of the reconciling love
that we see and proclaim in Christ. The
Archbishop’s priority for reconciliation will only happen if it is rooted and
grounded in grace, in gift, in love.
This church is not unique is struggling with this. A lot do.
In fact I think our culture struggles with the realities of
community. Communities are made up of
people who are different, have their joys and injuries, their raw nerves which
if you wait long enough someone will find and irritate. Community, in an age of individual consumer
choice that sells the lie of designing your own life to tailor fit you, does
not flow easily. We need to work at
it. That work begins inside us. It begins with seeking to be so filled with
the grace and gift, the love and life of God in Christ, that we become people
who honour, respect and value those we meet.
That becomes a moment of blessing for them and in the peace the gospel
can be shared. It can’t be shared
without it and indeed won’t be.
Sermon preached at Peterborough Parish Church, Sunday 26th July 2015
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