Trinity 16 19th September 2010

God our Saviour desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2v3-4)

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also (John 10v16)

Christianity is a draw.

We are drawn here this morning by a Saviour’s desire to save and gather his flock.

I must bring them also. Jesus says. And so he is working always in the world to draw people’s attention and bring them into his church so that they in turn may be a draw.

It’s helpful to think of God as a magnet who is magnetising the church to be a draw to those as yet outside of her.

Bishop Walsham How caught something of this in the second verse of his hymn, ‘O my Saviour lifted’:

Lift my earth-bound longings,
fix them, Lord, above;
draw me with the magnet
of thy mighty love.

When we baptise people we enfold them in God’s powerful radiance and make them spiritually magnetic.

They are then capable of growing in their own magnetic force and of drawing others to the love of God.

In baptism we are given a special capacity for God like iron filings have capacity to get shaped up by a magnet.

I would not be standing here nor you sitting there without such magnetism of the Spirit. We are all drawn into the Christian community by the drawing power of others. My own Christian commitment traces back to the example and drawing power of my parents, of friends at my Oxford College, of a holy priest or two, of countless individuals right down to my time here in Horsted Keynes.

Reading the lives of the saints has been an important influence on me. It’s a good counter to the rubbish we often find ourselves reading if we don’t plan to read things that will build us up.

I remember not so long back reading the autobiography of Bishop Helder Camera who died in 1999 having spent his life in the service of the Brazilian poor. He abandoned his Bishop’s palace to live among the poor and hitched lifts instead of riding in his official car. When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint, he used to say. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.

He was always controversial, a great pioneer of the social gospel.

Camera writes of the spiritual magnetism that steered the direction of his life, notably an encounter with a Cardinal he once helped run a Church Congress in Rio de Janeiro. This man, moved by what he saw of Rio’s shanty towns, suggested Camera would be better putting his organising talents to the service of the poor. He writes: And so the grace of the Lord came to me through the presence of Cardinal Gerlier. Not just through the words her spoke: behind his words was the presence of a whole life, a whole conviction. And I was moved by the grace of the Lord. I was thrown to the ground like Saul on the road to Damascus.

A chance conversation proved to have enormous force, for Camera, and for the poor of Brazil.

The magnetising of the interior life of one man of God by another brought about wonders for the world through the extraordinary possibilities of God.

When a baby or infant is baptised they are given the capacity to receive God’s love in Jesus Christ through others. Their parents and godparents, who share their love for one another with their children, go further to share with their children their love for God.

If parents are seeking God they have in a sense already found Jesus. You can’t seek something you haven’t in some sense found already. Your love for God, my love for God, is actually measurable by our desire to seek God and especially on the occasions when we can’t seem to find him.

Like with magnetism we’re drawn to God from outside of ourselves as well as from inside of ourselves, drawn by our contemplation for transformation and for the transformation of others.

Pope Benedict, who this morning beatifies former Anglican priest John Henry Newman, has written helpfully against people’s negative perception of the Christian church:God rejects no one. The Church rejects no one. Yet in his great love God challenges all of us to change and become more perfect.

This saying of the Pope echoes our second reading from1 Timothy: God our Saviour desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

God draws us – but he also challenges us to get shaped up to be more like Jesus since he desires our salvation.

We need saving from ourselves – from our sin, fear, sickness, doubt and despair as well as from death and the devil!

The question is do we want to be changed in this way? Do we want to be saved? To be shaped up to be like Jesus?

In the baptism service the parents and godparents say they do. They want their children to be shaped up in this way, magnetised by the mighty love of God set forth in Jesus Christ.

Justin and Liz want this for Jessica, Rebecca, Brandon, Paul and Emily. They want their family to have more of the love, joy and peace of Jesus so that others may be drawn to Jesus through them.

They are grateful for their children and want the best for them.

They also struggle, as we all do, with the workings of God. Little Brandon’s brain tumour has been allowed even if it is not God’s will that he or we suffer such sickness. It is natural that we pray healing for Brandon at his baptism as well as trust and patience for his mum and dad and brothers and sisters.

Today’s readings remind us of the need to trust the power of God that is working to draw everyone to himself through their circumstances. Next Sunday is Back to Church Sunday and we have a chance to implement this morning’s word from God by inviting someone to come to St Giles with us next Sunday.

When it comes to drawing people back to church the secret is the contemplation of Jesus which deepens our spiritual magnetism.

So we turn once more to contemplate magnetic Jesus, to reflect on his word, to gaze on him in the holy sacrament of his body and blood, praying that we will be drawn to him more and be made ourselves more of a draw for Jesus to build his body, the church and who reminds us this morning I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also (John 10v16)