The scripture readings always have a spiritual force in the Eucharist. They are just as much a part of Christ’s coming more real to us as the transformed bread and wine!
We should be able to say with those first disciples that our hearts burn when the Lord Jesus opens the scriptures to us in our Sunday worship, and makes himself known to us in the breaking of the bread.
So what might the Lord be saying to us all on this fourth Sunday after Trinity?
It’s our vision and mission day and – lo and behold – the set readings are full of vision and mission.
All a bit powerful, some would say, a bit strong. Bible days seem far from our day – but is that really so?
Take Ezekiel in the first reading: The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. When I saw this, I fell on my face and I heard the voice of someone speaking.
Or take Paul, probably speaking of himself indirectly I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person…was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told.
Then in the gospel, faced with the vision of God in Jesus, we read many who heard him were astounded.
Among those astounded were the twelve apostles - who get a mission.
He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
All a bit powerful, I said. A vision that sets people off house to house!
Well we do do house to house in Horsted Keynes – we deliver P&P and we collect for Christian Aid week!
Our vision day will hopefully kindle some sorts of apostolic work, mission work – apostle means one sent – though the pattern suggested in today’s scripture needs reinterpretation. In a small community like our own we maybe don’t need to do house to house to teach people about Jesus. We need to get more lit up by Jesus so people see God’s light more through us.
This brings me to the ABC. It’s not for nothing that the A comes first – attending to God.
Ezekiel saw the heavens opened and we have 48 chapters of the Old Testament to prove it. Paul got caught up into
What evidence would be put up in my defence or your defence if we were accused of being Christian visionaries? What difference does our own attending to God make?
Or - at St Giles – this is our question today – how transformative is our worship Sunday by Sunday? Or the private prayer that ascends day by day from our church and its members?
Might it be that we need help to enrich and deepen our Sunday worship and personal prayer? If so how can we best get help?
Our Sunday collection, envelopes and standing orders are evidence for our attending to God. What sort of evidence? Does our money go with our mouth so far as worship goes? If not where can we find suitable teaching and inspiration?
A-B-C – building Christian community is part of our diocesan vision. It flows from our attendance upon God in corporate worship and personal devotion. You can see something of where we stand on this in the Looking forward booklet. There’s a lot of lay involvement in our Christian community. There could be more though. There’s scope for building a more inclusive Christian community so far as children and young people go and also so far as the elderly and housebound go. No doubt we’ll hear and discuss more on this later in the day.
A-B- C – commending God’s love for the world. According to the booklet we do well on social engagement which expresses God’s love but less well on voicing our faith, evangelism, which helps Christian faith to be spread.
Our Lord didn’t beat about the bush with the apostles. He sent them out! Would he send us? If so how would he send us? Or how could he better use us to spread the Faith?
In the last weeks I’ve met a number of folk who’ve been refreshingly up front with me about where they stand or don’t stand with Christianity. They need you and me (and probably you more than me because sheep make sheep, shepherds don’t!)
I can think of one man, an irregular worshipper, who said he felt he had a bit missing from his Christian faith. He had pieces of the jig saw but needed them to get fitted together again. Who’ll be there to guide that man? He’s very open to guidance.
Another lady told me straight. She wanted to work for Horsted Keynes as a community but didn’t believe in God. I felt she needed someone non-clerical to listen to and hear out her objections. Who’s going to be there for her?
There’s another person I met who’d drifted away from St Giles and seemed to me to need a helping hand to get her life back on course. Could you be that angel?
Or a gentleman who’s recently read Dawkins The God Delusion and believed it. He still seemed open to reason on God. I wonder. Who will he find from among us or the other Christian denominations represented in Horsted Keynes to reason with?
These are people I’ve met already who could well rejoice in the meaning and purpose we share through attending to God as a community of Christians. How can we get better equipped to commend that meaning and purpose that are ours through knowing God’s love? Do we need to know God’s love better ourselves?
The scriptures this morning remind us that our God as Christians is a God who isn’t just up above the clouds. He’s also sufficiently down to earth to speak to a temple priest like Ezekiel, a tent maker like Paul or to the fishermen apostles Peter, James, John, Andrew and the crew.
Does he speak to us? Yes he does! He’s speaking now and he’ll speak at the altar in Holy Communion. He’ll speak through our special gathering later on in the Martindale. God would speak to us day by day through our seeking him in prayer, the bible and the sacraments - if we seek him from the heart.
I believe the Lord wants to speak more to each one of us as well as to us all together here at St Giles. He’ll not speak, though, quite like he spoke to Ezekiel, Paul or those first disciples but in a way that’s special to us as 21st century
I know in my heart that Our Lord has mission work for us at St Giles. It may not be visiting two by two but it’s certainly something we’ll be getting involved in together. God gave marriage so folk would work in twos and Christian mission isn’t just for lone rangers or Rectors. This is one universal truth behind the two by two sending in today’s gospel, however uncomfortably it reads to us in 21st century
You’ve got a ‘you can do it’ Rector, I hope, because he believes we’ve got a ‘you can do it’ God! That might be scary to some but I need not apologise. The great thing about any work God gives us is that it brings with it the promise of his sure provision.
Fear not – be open to the word of God, trust his promises and welcome the enfolding of his love that is demonstrated in the Eucharist.
This is my body – bread that is Christ, given to us so we can be Christ to others.
This is my blood – wine that is Christ poured for us so we can be poured out in service and witness.
For Christ has no body now but yours
no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks with
compassion on the world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands. Yours are the feet.
Yours are the eyes. You are his body
- seeking to effect God’s will and God’s kingdom in Horsted Keynes and its surrounds!
Amen – so be it!
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