Give and it shall be given unto you.
Besides football we’ve been thinking a lot about the economy this week.
You could see our gospel reading as topical in its call for generosity – topical or countercultural!
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
Give - in this word and action lies success in life although it flies in many ways against the spirit of the world.
We could think of our home economy and how it is best served by Christian principles but I will choose something more basic to many households.
Think of the meaning of marriage. In it we give ourselves. We take, yes. People don’t get married unless they got something out of one another, so to speak, but unless there is giving there is little blessing.
Giving of time one to another, giving of patience, giving the benefit of the doubt, giving care to one another.
This is not a natural action. It is so far, but when our human capacity to give seems exhausted, be it in marriage or in other realms, we need our Christianity which is the open line to heaven Jesus gives us.
Christianity is about grace, about help from above. Blessed are those who have discovered that grace and help as a reality to aid daily living and loving!
In Jesus, God's unbounded love is given to all who will welcome his Holy Spirit. We receive from his Spirit to give more than we can humanly give to others.
In the sacrament of marriage couples receive a special anointing in that Spirit. In this, the sacrament of the altar we receive the same Spirit.
With that gift, in Holy Communion or marriage, comes the call to love as the Lord loves you, to give as the Lord has given to you.
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
Our lives, our marriages, our churches, to be most fruitful need to be open to God, who is able, by his spirit, to melt our meanheartedness and make us ever more generous.
Through this Holy Communion Jesus gives himself to us under the veil of bread and wine.
Let us respond to his word to us this morning by a resolve to be generous and make space for others and for him in our hearts. Amen.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Baptismal eucharist 13th June 2010
If you had to argue with someone for the existence of God you could try a number of lines.
You could say that physics accepts the universe had a beginning 14 thousand million years ago in the Big Bang. The idea of someone who gave it that beginning makes more sense therefore than it did 50 years ago when there was a steady state theory that gave the universe no beginning.
A second argument for God is from the ordered nature of the universe and the fine tuning it seems to have which has allowed life and consciousness. As Einstein said once, ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ Does matter really come before mind or is it the other way round? We’re given minds not only to explore the world we inhabit but to understand the Mind that put us here.
A third argument for God is to ask people to think about themselves. You and I are evidence for God. There’s something about us and our ability to shelve our own interests for others that points beyond the animal kingdom. When we show love we’re showing something beyond this world, what has been called the image of God in us.
Today we baptise Rupert Harris. The birth of a baby always gets people thinking about God and love. In Rupert’s case he brings joy as the least of a family of six with mum and dad, John and Caroline, brothers Alexander, Cameron and sister Anushka. The children were telling me the other day how much happiness Rupert’s birth has brought them. They think that having him has built even more love in their family.
We’re thinking about love this morning. The collect for the 2nd Sunday after Trinity spoke of ‘that most excellent gift of love... without which whoever lives is counted dead before God’. The epistle reminded us ‘love bears all things and...never ends’. In the second Gospel reading we had that mysterious saying of Jesus about the sinful woman, ‘her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved much’.
I read the other day a story of how a mentally impaired youngster was in the chemist’s. Seated on the floor he began to play with some bottles he’d taken from the shelves. The chemist ordered him to stop and then scolded him with an even sharper tone. Just then the boy’s sister came up, put her arms around him and whispered something in his ear. Right away, he put the bottles back in place. ‘You see,’ his sister explained to the chemist, ‘he doesn’t understand when you talk to him like that. I just love it into him.’
People respond negatively to being scolded and harassed. Those six words, ‘I just love it into him’ are another clue to God and indeed to life.
Perhaps the greatest distortion of Christianity in our age is that it’s a scolding, harassing creed that targets those who fall short. It’s actually the very opposite of that false perception. We hold to a Saviour who wants the best fro us and gives us that best by loving it into us and not forcing it in.
‘Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way’.
‘Jesus is patient; Jesus is kind; Jesus is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on his own way’.
The great thing about the Christianity into which we baptise Rupert this morning is this – there is Someone over us who is love. God treats us as better than we are so we get inspiration to do the same. Look how Jesus dealt with the sinful woman in the gospel. Her love for him came out of his love for her, his readiness to treat her not as the sinner she was but as the beloved daughter of God she was called to be.
So it is with us. We are sinners but love covers a multitude of sins.
A former inmate of a Nazi concentration camp was visiting a friend who had shared the ordeal with him. ‘Have you forgiven the Nazis?’ he asked his friend. ‘Yes.’. ‘Well I haven’t. I’m still consumed with hatred for them.’ ‘In that case’ said the friend gently, ‘they still have you in prison’.
Our enemies are not so much those who hate us but those whom we hate. Once we refuse to treat people as better than they are we fall short of Jesus Christ who actually died for people who were pretty worthless and I am thinking about myself primarily.
‘Without love – which means forgiveness many a time - whoever lives is counted dead before God’.
God has blessed the Harris family with love in Rupert’s birth. May he continue to bless them as their family is linked once more to God’s family at his baptism.
May God’s love be poured afresh into our hearts through this eucharist for the world is thirsty for love.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less – that is the riddle of Jesus Christ.
We want to turn to him now, repent of our sins and renounce evil
You could say that physics accepts the universe had a beginning 14 thousand million years ago in the Big Bang. The idea of someone who gave it that beginning makes more sense therefore than it did 50 years ago when there was a steady state theory that gave the universe no beginning.
A second argument for God is from the ordered nature of the universe and the fine tuning it seems to have which has allowed life and consciousness. As Einstein said once, ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ Does matter really come before mind or is it the other way round? We’re given minds not only to explore the world we inhabit but to understand the Mind that put us here.
A third argument for God is to ask people to think about themselves. You and I are evidence for God. There’s something about us and our ability to shelve our own interests for others that points beyond the animal kingdom. When we show love we’re showing something beyond this world, what has been called the image of God in us.
Today we baptise Rupert Harris. The birth of a baby always gets people thinking about God and love. In Rupert’s case he brings joy as the least of a family of six with mum and dad, John and Caroline, brothers Alexander, Cameron and sister Anushka. The children were telling me the other day how much happiness Rupert’s birth has brought them. They think that having him has built even more love in their family.
We’re thinking about love this morning. The collect for the 2nd Sunday after Trinity spoke of ‘that most excellent gift of love... without which whoever lives is counted dead before God’. The epistle reminded us ‘love bears all things and...never ends’. In the second Gospel reading we had that mysterious saying of Jesus about the sinful woman, ‘her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved much’.
I read the other day a story of how a mentally impaired youngster was in the chemist’s. Seated on the floor he began to play with some bottles he’d taken from the shelves. The chemist ordered him to stop and then scolded him with an even sharper tone. Just then the boy’s sister came up, put her arms around him and whispered something in his ear. Right away, he put the bottles back in place. ‘You see,’ his sister explained to the chemist, ‘he doesn’t understand when you talk to him like that. I just love it into him.’
People respond negatively to being scolded and harassed. Those six words, ‘I just love it into him’ are another clue to God and indeed to life.
Perhaps the greatest distortion of Christianity in our age is that it’s a scolding, harassing creed that targets those who fall short. It’s actually the very opposite of that false perception. We hold to a Saviour who wants the best fro us and gives us that best by loving it into us and not forcing it in.
‘Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way’.
‘Jesus is patient; Jesus is kind; Jesus is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on his own way’.
The great thing about the Christianity into which we baptise Rupert this morning is this – there is Someone over us who is love. God treats us as better than we are so we get inspiration to do the same. Look how Jesus dealt with the sinful woman in the gospel. Her love for him came out of his love for her, his readiness to treat her not as the sinner she was but as the beloved daughter of God she was called to be.
So it is with us. We are sinners but love covers a multitude of sins.
A former inmate of a Nazi concentration camp was visiting a friend who had shared the ordeal with him. ‘Have you forgiven the Nazis?’ he asked his friend. ‘Yes.’. ‘Well I haven’t. I’m still consumed with hatred for them.’ ‘In that case’ said the friend gently, ‘they still have you in prison’.
Our enemies are not so much those who hate us but those whom we hate. Once we refuse to treat people as better than they are we fall short of Jesus Christ who actually died for people who were pretty worthless and I am thinking about myself primarily.
‘Without love – which means forgiveness many a time - whoever lives is counted dead before God’.
God has blessed the Harris family with love in Rupert’s birth. May he continue to bless them as their family is linked once more to God’s family at his baptism.
May God’s love be poured afresh into our hearts through this eucharist for the world is thirsty for love.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less – that is the riddle of Jesus Christ.
We want to turn to him now, repent of our sins and renounce evil
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Trinity 1 in Corpus Christi-tide 6th June 2010
I want to do some interactive thinking this morning about the meaning and power of the eucharist. Since this is at the heart of our life together as Christians it makes sense once in a while to consider what we receive and what we put into Sunday worship.
The Eucharist is the HOUR OF JESUS. We come as the Lord's people to the Lord's house on the Lord's day around the Lord's table - to be impressed by Jesus!
The Eucharist is Jesus' embrace - like a mother consoling a hurting child...
It is the place that builds the COMMUNION which is the church.
The Eucharist is Christ's SACRIFICE and ours. It is the memorial of his once for all redemption.
The Eucharist is Christ's PRESENCE at the table of his word and the altar of the sacrament.
The Eucharist is a great PROMISE, the pledge of glory, like the cinema advertisement, a preview of forthcoming attractions.
I’ve got those four headings for us to look at and hopefully to engage your thinking aloud including any questions you might have:
COMMUNION - SACRIFICE - PRESENCE - PROMISE
We could go for these one by one but since they are stated poetically in the refrain for Corpus Christi on the pew sheet let’s start by looking at and reading the refrain together and see what thinking emerges.
Have a look through the antiphon. It was written by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century from a scripture base and has a noble simplicity.
You might recognise the four themes of COMMUNION - SACRIFICE - PRESENCE – PROMISE
Have a think about the phrase that most speaks to you. Or of what’s missing from your understanding of the eucharist?
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours.
Let’s look more closely under the four headings I spoke of.
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ...
The Eucharist is the place that builds the COMMUNION which is the church.
What makes us one?
We are made one not by having the same feelings but by sharing one bread in penitence, not trusting in our own righteousness but in God's manifold and great mercies.
We become what we are - the body of Christ - more fully.
We are made one with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ...His sufferings are remembered...
The Eucharist is Christ's SACRIFICE and ours. It is the memorial of his once for all redemption.
When you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11.26).
We stand at the Cross.
How do you understand the link between what Jesus did for us on Calvary and what you’re doing every Sunday at this service?
We recall Jesus - to use a law court analogy, not just as a witness recalls what he saw but in the sense of the recalling of the witness.
We see the gift of Jesus to the Father and to us.
Taking, blessing, breaking, sharing. This is our grand invitation to enter into the movement of his self-offering.
Paschal Lamb thine offering finished once for all when thou wast slain in its fullness undiminished shall forever more remain cleansing souls from every stain.
The eucharist has a strong intercessory aspect: coming before the Lord with people on our hearts.
Let's share any experience of the eucharist as a privileged place of prayer.
Our minds are filled with his grace...
The Eucharist is Christ's PRESENCE at the table of his word and the altar of the sacrament.
How do you see Christ’s presence in the eucharist?
How else can people come close to Jesus in this world other than through word and sacrament?
The Eucharist is a place of empowerment. People who recive Holy Communion receive power.
We receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours...
The Eucharist is a great PROMISE, the pledge of glory, like the cinema advertisement, a preview of forthcoming attractions.
The use of material objects reminds us that God is transforming the whole universe.
What difference do you think what we do here makes to the world?
The Eucharist serves the building up of a new creation in which the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.(Revelation 11.15)
To summarise the Eucharist is: THE HOUR OF JESUS - COMMUNION - SACRIFICE - PRESENCE -PROMISE
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours.
The Eucharist is the HOUR OF JESUS. We come as the Lord's people to the Lord's house on the Lord's day around the Lord's table - to be impressed by Jesus!
The Eucharist is Jesus' embrace - like a mother consoling a hurting child...
It is the place that builds the COMMUNION which is the church.
The Eucharist is Christ's SACRIFICE and ours. It is the memorial of his once for all redemption.
The Eucharist is Christ's PRESENCE at the table of his word and the altar of the sacrament.
The Eucharist is a great PROMISE, the pledge of glory, like the cinema advertisement, a preview of forthcoming attractions.
I’ve got those four headings for us to look at and hopefully to engage your thinking aloud including any questions you might have:
COMMUNION - SACRIFICE - PRESENCE - PROMISE
We could go for these one by one but since they are stated poetically in the refrain for Corpus Christi on the pew sheet let’s start by looking at and reading the refrain together and see what thinking emerges.
Have a look through the antiphon. It was written by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century from a scripture base and has a noble simplicity.
You might recognise the four themes of COMMUNION - SACRIFICE - PRESENCE – PROMISE
Have a think about the phrase that most speaks to you. Or of what’s missing from your understanding of the eucharist?
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours.
Let’s look more closely under the four headings I spoke of.
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ...
The Eucharist is the place that builds the COMMUNION which is the church.
What makes us one?
We are made one not by having the same feelings but by sharing one bread in penitence, not trusting in our own righteousness but in God's manifold and great mercies.
We become what we are - the body of Christ - more fully.
We are made one with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ...His sufferings are remembered...
The Eucharist is Christ's SACRIFICE and ours. It is the memorial of his once for all redemption.
When you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11.26).
We stand at the Cross.
How do you understand the link between what Jesus did for us on Calvary and what you’re doing every Sunday at this service?
We recall Jesus - to use a law court analogy, not just as a witness recalls what he saw but in the sense of the recalling of the witness.
We see the gift of Jesus to the Father and to us.
Taking, blessing, breaking, sharing. This is our grand invitation to enter into the movement of his self-offering.
Paschal Lamb thine offering finished once for all when thou wast slain in its fullness undiminished shall forever more remain cleansing souls from every stain.
The eucharist has a strong intercessory aspect: coming before the Lord with people on our hearts.
Let's share any experience of the eucharist as a privileged place of prayer.
Our minds are filled with his grace...
The Eucharist is Christ's PRESENCE at the table of his word and the altar of the sacrament.
How do you see Christ’s presence in the eucharist?
How else can people come close to Jesus in this world other than through word and sacrament?
The Eucharist is a place of empowerment. People who recive Holy Communion receive power.
We receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours...
The Eucharist is a great PROMISE, the pledge of glory, like the cinema advertisement, a preview of forthcoming attractions.
The use of material objects reminds us that God is transforming the whole universe.
What difference do you think what we do here makes to the world?
The Eucharist serves the building up of a new creation in which the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.(Revelation 11.15)
To summarise the Eucharist is: THE HOUR OF JESUS - COMMUNION - SACRIFICE - PRESENCE -PROMISE
O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours.
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