Covenant Sunday Sermon - Unity!

In the Gospel reading, Jesus is probably returning to Capernaum after delivering the sermon on the mount, he is becoming better known and things are beginning to heat up.  People are taking sides, claims are being made, and some extraordinary things are happening.

Back in Capernaum, the place where he had healed people before, he is now approached for another sign, a miracle. 

The Centurion, a Roman Soldier in charge of 100 soldiers of an occupying force, was demonstrating faith, humility and hope, when he asked for his slave to be healed.  He was also demonstrating his willingness to take a risk for the slave he loved.

He sends some of the Jewish leaders to Jesus, to plead his cause.

We sometimes have a romantic view of the Romans as a sort of civilizing and cultural force, however this wasn’t what the people remembered them for when they left.  The first facts any schoolchild will give you is that the Romans gave us cement, bricks, sewers, straight roads, swimming baths and cats.

They don’t talk about the slavery, the bloody games and the oppression.  They don’t readily talk about the murders and ethnic cleansing.  They also don’t mention that there was a crucifixion because the cross was a Roman instrument of torture and execution.

I can’t ever remember preaching about, or even mentioning the fact that the Centurion was…well…a military leader from a brutal and unforgiving occupying force.  I can’t remember thinking how it was odd that he sent the Jewish leaders to Jesus.  I can’t remember thinking how this flash of Christ in the Gospels gives us a fantastically important vision of the kingdom of God, and the divine purpose.

In a week when we are walking the tightrope of unrest through the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in London, and the subsequent rise in religious and racial hatred, it seems wholly appropriate that we have Christ looking at the faith, humility and hope of the Centurion, seeing his need, and not his class, race, colour or belief.

I’ve had a bit of a journey this week, I’ve managed to take a few days off to do some exciting things.

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to see Rowan Williams talking at the Hay Festival, about religious icons.  At the end of the talk, someone asked him if he was happy to be ‘retired’.  He responded that it would be great to “catch up on his sleep”, and “to become a Christian again”.  People laughed and it was a lighthearted end to the talk.  This, of course, made the headlines, but behind this seemingly throwaway remark, there was a lot of truth.

The truth is that we need to see through the noise of everyday life, to see the the faith, humility and hope at the centre of the lives of other people, and to try and consider ourselves too.

Looking for the signs of God slowly working his purpose out. 

Christ saw these in the centurion, past the uniform, the slaves and the violence.  He saw the challenge of someone trying to find faith.

Finding faith

The Desert Fathers, and Mothers were hermits, ascetics, and monks who mainly lived in the desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD.  The most famous, Anthony the Great moved to the desert in 270AD and by the time he died seventy years later, thousands of people had heard of the sayings of the Desert Fathers and moved to the desert.  Such was their influence on the growth and direction of Christianity.  It is fair to say that almost all monastic orders grew from the desert.

Abba Arsenius, a Desert Father prayed;

“O God, do not leave me.  I have done nothing good in your sight, but according to your goodness, let me now make a beginning of good”

Another, called Abbot Pastor prayed;

"If someone does evil to you, you should do good to him, so that by your good work you may drive out his malice."

This two thousand year old wisdom from the desert stands for itself, I think you’ll agree.

Faith, Humility and Hope

And today, Covenant Sunday we celebrate the different traditions in Christianity that make for a broad church.  We think of our prayer partners, and we think of the promises that were made years ago, that helped us to live together in unity, whilst celebrating our differences.

I have an admission to make, and it is this.

I find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that as soon as you accept that there are other people of faith, this then resolves not merely into an ecumenism, but an acceptance that ALL people who wait on God to reveal his purpose are ALL the same.  If faith to you means;

·     You believe in a GOD who is actively involved in the life of the world

·     You believe in a GOD who gives faith to counter our discouragement and doubt

·     You believe and trust in a GOD you can’t see

·     You believe in a GOD that gives strength for people to do what they could never do alone

Then your truth is my truth – and perhaps, just perhaps that truth will set us free.

When I thought of Christ seeing the faith, humility and hope in the centurion.  I thought of the people of the York Mosque, when faced last week with a potentially volatile demonstration by the English Defence League, the newspapers told us that they quickly defused the situation with tea, custard creams and a game of football.  Beautiful as it is to believe that, they didn’t diffuse the situation with biscuits, sport and a drink, they diffused it with faith, humility and hope.  The rest was a product of that.

And between the people with very different views, backgrounds, heritage and life experience, there was a shared faith, a faith in a God who brings his people to unity, and a God who shares our suffering.

It was a truly lovely thing in a truly tragic week.

The tragedy of a soldier who died on the streets of London, and the story of a soldier who called on Christ to save a loved one intermingle to remind us what a Desert Father knew all those years ago, that;

         “Good work drives out malice”

Jesus himself marveled at the humble faith that so clearly trusted in him and his authority over sickness and death. Here was a Roman soldier, who had faith in God that outstripped even the Jews.

Oh, the Jews had faith, but the centurion had great faith. It was great faith that wasn’t self-centered. It was great faith that humbly focused on God. It was the faith of a powerful man that trusted in God’s authority.

So, after a couple of days in London, I returned back home and promised to take the children to the MGM Studios where the Harry Potter films were largely shot.  I still hadn’t really managed to finish my sermon, and I was looking for  something to finish my sermon for today.  I wasn’t sure that I’d find anything in Watford. 

As I walked into the film set, there was a quote in five foot letters from J.K.Rowling.

“No story lives unless someone wants to listen. The stories we love best do live in us forever.”

That was it!  This is the end of the sermon!

Whether you’re a Roman centurion, a Desert Mother or Father, a person of faith seeking God’s purpose for you, your family and community, or whether you are a newly retired Archbishop, you need to take time to put words to the story of GOD in your life.  And that story will live in you forever, in the name of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  AMEN

Pentecost! A good and fine day in the life of the Church

Today is a great and grand day in the church calendar; it is one of the splendid Christian feasts.  It is the day when we celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit present in the Church of Christ.

Last year, it fell on the fourth Sunday of the month, so (at 10.30) we had a Family Service, which involved making ‘flame’ hats to represent the Holy Spirit above the heads of the Disciples.  This year, the family Eucharist falls next week, on Trinity Sunday – I’m at a loss what to do for next week!  It could be fun!

Today is the start of that great season of Pentecost, where we can almost see the rest of the year stretching out before us.  Apart from Trinity Sunday, and some feasts of Saints, we are in the Pentecost Season until the 1^st Sunday of the Kingdom Season in November!

This rhythm of the seasons gives us a steady and solid beat with which to plan the year.  It allows us to prepare, plan and hopefully get things right for the festivals. 

We all love a bit of forethought and preparation – if clergy are able to sit back a few weeks before Easter or Christmas with all their liturgy, sermons and speeches prepared they are happy – there is an air of calm that descends when a sermon is completed – mostly because before sermon writing starts, most of us haven’t a clue what we are going to say.

This sense of all being good, and planning ministry is lovely! But it’s a million miles from what happened to the disciples that day. 

They were uncertain what was going to happen, their world turned upside-down.  A wind blew through the locked room, flames appeared and then they were literally speaking a whole new language, or languages.  The reading from Acts tells us;

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

The next line of the reading after the Holy Spirit descending finds the Disciples outside in the streets, they were in the crowd, preaching, showing their faith, being ridiculed and berated – but they were there – DOING THE WORK OF THE CHURCH.

The reading doesn’t even tell us what they said after the Holy Spirit descended…

God had given them a gift too precious to waste.  They are up and out.

We then hear the sermon of Peter, who puts the whole thing in context, firstly by promising that they aren’t drunk!  And then he tells them what the Prophet Joel said concerning these things.  He tells them a horror story of the sun being turned to darkness and the moon to blood.  He tells them of the glory of the coming of The Lord to give salvation to all who call upon his name.

The Acts of the Apostles is an important book in the New Testament because it gives us snapshots of how the early church spread so far, so quickly across the world.

The visitors to Jerusalem took the faith back home with them, and soon there were Christians in Samaria, Ethiopia, Damascus, Sharon, Lydda, Joppa, Cyprus, Phoenicia and Antioch, and, with Paul’s conversion, Europe and parts of Asia.  The faith even came to Wales relatively early in its’ development.

And…just like at the beginning….the message was taken to people in their own language, speaking into their lives, about their worries, troubles, fears and their joys and happiness.  The stories have been transmitted in a thousand languages to millions of people, keeping up the tradition of that first Pentecost – the Birthday of the Church.

I’ve thought sometimes that calling Pentecost the Birthday of the Church is over sentimentalizing the whole event.  The terrifying event surely can’t really be similar to the church of today.

If it resembled the church of today, well, on the Day of Pentecost, there would be someone giving out a bulletin with events for the week, there would be tea and coffee after the service, and the children would have walked in just before the end.

But then again, perhaps it was just like the modern church!  The people who said;

·    “These people are drunk”, well they might have been the Pentecostals. 

·    The ones who disagreed and said “No, they can’t be” well, they must have been the Methodists. 

·    Then there were others who said “what does this all mean?” were the Baptists. 

·    The ones who insisted on making sure that the sermon was available in all languages so that no one was excluded were the United Reformed Church.

·    And then the one who categorized everybody into different nationalities, writing a list and making sure that each person could be categorized, so in the future when people would read what happened, they would understand a little of the history….yes, they were the Anglicans.

Right at the beginning of the church, we had all the usual characters.  Working Ecumenically together if you like.

It would take a few years for committees, organs, Sunday school and church wardens to arrive, but the main components of the modern church were there.

The beauty of Pentecost, is that we can see God tends to do things in a particular order.  The people of Jesus’ day hadn’t really understood what the prophets were telling them. 

That they were being blessed by God, in order to be a blessing to the whole world. 

No wonder Peter quoted the Prophets!

Pentecost expresses what God requires – that we, who are blessed, share in a world-wide mission, without fear, because God wishes to reconcile humanity.

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles about the birth of the Church, is a glorious connecting with God.  From their desolation and despair, their trust in the truth of God brought them to the will and purpose of God.  Wonderful Stuff!   For those gathered at Pentecost, it was a leap of faith, a jump into the unknown.  Would it be that we were as brave.