You can listen to this here (which just proves that I don't always say exactly what I write...)
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified: hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people, that in their vocation and ministry each may serve you in holiness and truth to the glory of your name; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
God’s love is a freely given gift of grace, and we choose whether and how to respond to it.
A year ago I stood here and told you about a big thing that I had done some 25 years earlier (a parachute jump), and I reflected on the bigger thing that I had done the previous week (being ordained as a deacon). Doesn’t time fly?
Today I look back at that bigger thing, and think about the even bigger thing that I was blessed with last Saturday, in responding to God’s call on my life (being ordained as a deacon). That blessing was in the form of the Holy Spirit being called to guide and support me in my work as a priest. And I’m very grateful to have that help, because life without God is like living in black and white compared to the full colour and glory of life with God.
But today, I’m looking out at all of you here, and thanking God for every one of you that has also chosen to accept the call on your lives from God; to become part of Christ’s Church here in this place, and to share the love of God with each other and with those who do not yet know God.
Each one of us has a part to play in God’s plan. Each one of us, as we have heard in our Collect prayer today, has a vocation and ministry to serve you in holiness and truth. And every one of us as the Ephesians passage tells us is, “blessed in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing in Christ”
In Psalm 8 we read that God has made us for himself; ‘a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned with glory and honour.’
Ephesians, this passage that is a song of praise to God for what he has done for us, tells us that were chosen, before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless; that we were pre-destined (chosen) to be adopted into God’s family. Were you listening two weeks ago to Bishop John Taylor when he talked about the responsibility of the redeemer - the family member who will come to our rescue when we are in trouble, the one who pays our debts to keep us out of jail, the one who takes us into their family if we are orphaned?
That description reminded me of something that happened in Bishops Stortford when my own children were very young.
The parents of a family of young boys were killed in a car crash, and their sons were orphaned. The boys had been staying with their best friends, also a family of boys. The parents then cared for them during the immediate aftermath, and eventually adopted them, bringing up all the boys together as one family. That’s redemption; that’s love in action – our call to care for the widow and the orphan.
We are adopted into God’s family, when we believe and are baptised, we become part of that family. It’s a family bound together by love. It’s a family that is given remarkable gifts by the Holy Spirit. It’s a family that relishes good things.
Look at some of the words used in this reading:
Holy, blameless, praise, blessing, pleasure, glory, grace (freely given), chosen, included. Get the picture?
This is a free gift to us, yet expensively given by God – our sins are forgiven, “in accordance with the richness of God’s grace”.
No more guilt, no more fear; we are loved, we are safe in that love, safe in that family. Whatever happens to us in our lives, and it doesn't mean that we will be protected from living the same kind of lives as other people... if we are in that relationship with God, we have that support, strength and comfort. Most, if not all of us here today have accepted that gift, and our own experience shows us the truth of the promise. Why not talk to each other afterwards and share just one thing you have experienced as a member of God’s family? Have a look at the board outside and see how the family of the church has nurtured and sustained people’s faith in this place.
Many of us have gone beyond simple acceptance of the gift. We have allowed it to work in us; we have also listened to God’s call on our lives, and have found great joy in working to fulfil that calling – whether inside the church doing the jobs that maintain this community, or outside the church in working and social relationships that show God’s love in action in the world.
I am thankful for all those cards on the board outside, and for all the stories not told, for every one of you, and for those who can’t get to Morning Prayer in the church, you might be glad to know that the sound of the trains often prompts us to pray for the work of each and every member here, both inside the church community and outside in the world.
And yet, there are people who do not know that; people who are seeking answers to questions they can’t even frame – that vague feeling of dis-ease and dis-satisfacton that permeates our culture today.
I was at a conference yesterday where the Canon Robin Brown, who wrote the ‘Growing Together in Christ’ course, spoke of the difference between our society and the world of the people who wrote the Psalms. He said that today our big question is ‘Does God exist? We see that questioning in the recent debates about bus advertising, and the current posters for Alpha – there are some in this church.
Robin then said that in the days of the Psalmists there was no doubt about the existence of God, but there was debate about the goodness of God. Is God good? Does God care about me? People felt able to be honest before God and to challenge the unfairness they found in their lives. Psalm 22 was quoted by Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” They were able to be honest and to work through their fears and furies; the last four Psalms are all Psalms of praise.
Robin makes some good points, but I’m not entirely convinced that the division between then and now is quite so clear-cut. I wonder whether some of the militant atheism that we see around us today is really a concealed fear that God does exist, but is really,
“an unpleasant character… jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” – to quote Richard Dawkins.
You will be glad to know that Dawkins also states that this is a fictional description. And to be honest, if this was my experience of God, I wouldn’t want to worship God, and I probably would prefer not to believe – rather like a child covering their eyes and pretending that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them.
(However, as anyone who has tried that with a child over about 8 weeks knows, the child also knows that it isn’t true, because they giggle when you put your hands down – they share the joke.)
I suspect, but I can’t prove it, that a lot of people who say they don’t believe in God are still willing to accept that they are spiritual people, that there is an extra dimension to that expressed by science and logic – something known, something understood, rather than something that can be weighed and measured.
I suspect, though I can’t prove it, that there are people who come across as hard-bitten and cynical, who would love to absorb and respond to the message that is in today’s reading, that God’s love is freely given, a gift of grace, undeserved and unearned, a mystery. I wonder though if they are afraid that God isn’t big enough, loving enough, if they are not good enough to benefit from such a gift.
And I also think, and this is the challenge for us, that Paul was entirely truthful when he wrote, cognisant of the mystery that is God’s will, that God’s purpose is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together”. All things. All things in heaven and on earth.
By our baptism we are members together, we are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit; we belong to Christ. Our inheritance is guaranteed.
If God’s love is a freely given gift of grace, and if there is more than enough to go round, what is our role in helping others to hear that good news for themselves? What is God calling us to do? What gifts are we being called to exercise in his name? What decisions are we being asked to make? What response is appropriate to this word that we have heard today?
I’d like to do a small experiment now.
In a minute I’d everyone to sit quietly and to close their eyes, and then to listen, quietly, to see what God’s Holy Spirit saying to you? I’m not going to ask for direct responses today – that’s something that you might like to share in your house-groups, or to pray with other people about after the service.
Let’s be silent now and listen to God.
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified: hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people, that in their vocation and ministry each may serve you in holiness and truth to the glory of your name; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
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