Trinity 16 Mark 9.30-37 20th September 2015

This morning’s sermon is expository, it will expound, bring out the meaning as best the preacher can of a particular passage, and it’s our Gospel reading of Mark 9.30-37, which is why the verses are left in so you can follow me through. Follow me though, as always in Church, with both heart and mind.

It’s the middle section of Mark’s gospel we’ve been following in Year B of the liturgical cycle since Advent 2014. It’s a Gospel you can read in a hurry of a Jesus in a hurry – the shortest Gospel of a man with a mission! When you pick up Mark – and there are some free copies at the back – you see he’s no time for genealogies and birth narratives, angels, shepherds and wise men. For Mark on p1 its straight in – this is the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Repent and believe! It’s real and it matters.

Today engaging with that reality we’ve moved from p1 to p27, half way through the 52 pages of the paperback Mark’s Gospels on offer at the back, the ninth of the 16 Chapters and verse 30 which you could read aloud with me on p… of the eucharist booklet.

After leaving the mountain 30 Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;

·         Move forwards with Jesus from the Transfiguration to Calvary: Jesus the great trail blazer making human beings a joyful path to God.

·         Crowd falls back to leave Jesus with disciples: ’true discipleship’ Value of the Jesus Prayer.

·         Marcan secrecy: one commentator: humility to not wish a great fanfare about his obviously successful ministry. His directives to silence about his great accomplishments may be no more than an example to the faithful not to blow their own horns. It proves the reliability of the Gospel as it’s hard to imagine a made up story of Jesus with such emphasis.

31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

·         First  chapters show us who Jesus is. Now, moving into why God sent him and what it means to us as disciples we have a second prediction of the passion following last Sunday’s in Chapter 8 that we missed to keep St Giles.

·         Paradoxes – things that contradict in logic to be held together in experience. Creation (out of nothing ), Trinity (Unity) founded on life (through death) = Son of Man (Son of God).

·         Jesus not a physically compelling Messiah but a suffering servant morally compelling Saviour. A sign of contradiction – the disabled people who spoke out to help defeat the Assisted Dying Bill two weeks back.

·         'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’ Ann Voskamp ‘I wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the beauty of Christ’.

     

      33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

·         Post-Transfiguration jealousies set disciples against one another

·         Jesus sees into their and our hearts- can show up what’s needful

·         Village plan jostling of self interest with altruism

·         Alexander Schmemann - the signs of pride are: the absence of joy, complexity and fear. Signs of humility: joy, simplicity, trust

·         Those who serve others have a joy about them, they are the greatest

·         How do we get there? ‘Know yourself, love yourself, forget yourself’ (the discipline of Christian meditation which takes us out of ourselves in contemplation – drop by Church and use prayer sheet )

36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

·         

       Paradox of child centred society cf ancient culture and many other cultures which gave or give children no legal rights. Christian legacy.

·         Striking act of Jesus to take the most powerless and exalt them

·         Who are the powerless around us? Who are those most in need of our help? The half million who supported Jeremy Corbyn whatever we make of that – do we have 2^nd class citizens? We do. Those without money – no holidays (FSW Give a Child a Holiday). Those who can’t leave room or home through age or disability. Those refugees. The young struggling for a job.

·         Last verse shows Jesus before us in the powerless: Whoever welcomes one such ....in my name welcomes me. Cf Matthew 25 Jesus ‘in the least ’

·         

      To see this we need the insight, or spectacles of holy scripture: 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’

·         We need the sense of Jesus before us that the eucharist schools us in.

·         Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ upon his throne of glory, in the holy scriptures, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, in the hearts of the needy and in the hearts of all his faithful people.

Trinity 14 (23B) Poverty of spirit 6 September 2015

Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?  James 2:5

There’s an obvious link between today’s Old Testament and Gospel reading about the unsealing of the ears of the deaf – it’s about Our Lord fulfilling the Old Testament as Messiah, the promised one who comes to help people hear the word of God.

I felt God lead me though to the reading that stands rather on its own – the epistle of James Chapter 2 which speaks of the blessings of poverty. It seems as if James’ church had rather forgotten what Jesus said about the poor since the rich were getting the best seats in church!

At any rate the apostle makes a striking point that it’s those who are poor according to the world…God chose to be rich in faith.

What do we make of this? Or for that matter of the blessing Jesus himself announces upon the ‘poor in spirit’ in his Sermon on the Mount.

Seeing all those refugees puts in your mind eye how faced with the need to flee what would you take with you, or even, less emotively, faced as we often are with short breaks what not to take!  That sort of review touches on a key feature of spiritual poverty, the call to detachment which goes alongside confidence we should have as children of God in Our Father to provide for us in all circumstances. God bless those many migrants who are fellow Christians with such confidence and provision.

There’s a school of Christian faith that speaks of abandonment to providence. Jesus is said by St. Paul to have ‘emptied himself, taking the form of a slave’ in his abandonment to God’s will. It is this sort of poverty that’s in Christ himself that’s spurred on his Saints all through the ages. St Francis of Assisi is the great example, casting even his clothes to one side to belong wholly to the church as servant of God! There’s a story of how the Bishop of Assisi one day said to Francis: ‘Your way of life without possessions of any kind seems to me very harsh and difficult’. ‘My Lord’, Francis answered, ‘If we had possessions we should need arms for their defence. They are a source of quarrels and lawsuits, and are usually a great obstacle to the love of God and one’s neighbour. That is why we have no desire for temporal goods’. There’s wisdom there! The migrants on TV again speak of this!

The wealth of the rich is their strong city we read in Proverbs 18:11-12, in their imagination it is like a high wall…but humility goes before honour. The ‘high wall’ riches can literally raise up can all too easily put worldly honour before humility. This ‘honour’ is the ultimate evil of materialism which we are brain washed into day by day – the valuing of people by what they possess rather than for who they are as those loved by God and bearing his image!  I am appalled that European leaders can repel the needy on account of non-Christian faith, in contrast to others who are reminding us Christ’s way is hospitality.

What does it mean to be ‘poor in Spirit’? It means to have a true knowledge of God for who he is and of ourselves as who we are. To know God in his infinite grandeur is to know oneself as a nothing and a less than nothing through sin.

We all want progress writes C.S.Lewis but if you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back on the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. To be poor in spirit is to be progressive in that you go further when you’re travelling light. When you repent of ‘seemingly little sins’ and turn back from an alluring path you’re not regressing on your spiritual journey but progressing. You’re seeing all sins are great and you’re moving forward in the knowledge of God as the great God he is.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know!

Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place? Job 38:4,5,12

Words from God provided through the poetry of the book of Job. If you’re ever feeling self-satisfied pick up your Bible and turn to Job 38 – it puts you in your place more than any other passage I know and moves progress for you in the sense we’re examining!

What must he be like who made the earth, who provides the dawn new every morning? Who stretches out the stars above? Who can tell the greatness of the Lord? 

From this village we enjoy some splendid views, of the South Downs and Ashdown Forest especially. What must he be like who designed such grandeur?

If he is the ground of all being we are as nothing compared with him – and worse than nothing in our ingratitude for all he gives us! Nothingness deserves nothing – this is the ground of humility.

When James warns that being ‘rich in faith’ means poverty according to the world this must be at the heart of his concern – that a true knowledge of God in his infinite grandeur brings with it a recognition of one’s self as an utter nothing!

If only we were but ‘nothings’! Our capacity to do harm shows the opposite even if it’s balanced by the capacity to do beautiful things too.

As someone put it, our poverty is like that of a song compared to the singer. We are like a song of the Lord – he is the singer, we are the song. How can the ‘song’ compare itself to the singer?

Yet it is our privilege to be able to live in the praise of God! Here at the Eucharist, the great thanksgiving sacrifice of the Church we can admit this truth – all things come of God and of his own do we give him… through, with and in Jesus Christ!

If poverty of spirit is about detachment, abandonment to providence and humility it is also a whole sphere where we find Christ in this world. In Matthew 25 Our Lord’s picture of the Last Judgement portrays the poor as manifesting his own hidden presence. I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink God says to the blessed. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me.

As C.S.Lewis again wrote, next to the Blessed Sacrament your neighbour should be to you the most sacred object on the earth. We are to welcome Jesus in a moment in the Blessed Sacrament. God in the material order, hidden in bread and wine. As we welcome him here, may he open our spiritual eyes to see him elsewhere in the material order - particularly in the run of our lives in the coming week - that we may encounter him in the needy. The needy in body, mind and spirit - those who are enduring personal ordeals and badly in need of attention - our attention, our time, our money if needs be. Those who invite our action through the collection of clothes, tents, pots and pans for the Calais refugees

God free us to travel lighter in our Christian pilgrimage with deeper detachment from material things, abandoned more and more to his purposes. The Lord deepen our confidence in his provision and also our humility. We need both confidence in him and humility before him to serve him and his world aright.

As we own up more and more to our own spiritual need and poverty may we see Jesus – Jesus on his throne in glory, Jesus in the sacrament of the altar and Jesus in the hearts of the materially poor and the poor in spirit!   

Blessed, praised and hallowed be Our Lord Jesus Christ upon his throne of glory, in word and sacrament and in our hearts now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Trinity 12 True worship 30th August 2015

I want to think with you this morning about true worship.

The thought is implied in our Gospel from Mark 7 where Our Lord makes a stinging attack on lip service.  He draws on Isaiah: This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.

We live at a time when there’s lots of talk about renewing worship – indeed our Mission Action Plan three years ago had that as a first heading. When it comes to renewing worship – moving from talk to reality – it’s surely, as Jesus says, more about renewing hearts than about changing outward forms. Impatience with outward form can be godly, but it can also be ungodly. It’s a godly motive to make worship accessible to outsiders. It’s ungodly to make worship bespoke.

Bespoke is all the range. Some of you may be wearing bespoke clothing which has been custom made to your own specification as opposed to being a ready to wear item. Bespoke is no longer just about tailored clothing. It’s about all sorts of things.

Worship though can’t really be bespoke! It’s rather the opposite. The Anglo Saxon means to give worth to something beyond you. Worship is, to quote Evelyn Underhill, the adoring acknowledgment of all that lies beyond us – the glory that fills heaven and earth. It’s very ‘unbespoke’ and hardly consumerist

Worship is about centring on God rather than self though its agenda is mixed.  The word adoration means from the Greek submission and from the Latin ad-oratio, literally, mouth to mouth, the kiss of love.

Renewing worship is about building Godcentred-ness in the church and in individuals through personal prayer. Accessibility is very important. It’s not Christian to be an élite community. Yet, at the heart of Christian worship there is awe before God drawing us to submission and loving devotion. We don’t want our church to be élite and inaccessible but we do want our church to be awesome – awesome, not awful. There’s quite a fine divide here for young people I’m afraid.

I remember preaching in a church in Lewes where there were a good number of teenagers kneeling with everyone else through the Prayer Book Holy Communion. Talking to them afterwards I learned how they found this traditional worship authentic and intriguing. It intrigued, it drew them to a God beyond this world.

Sometimes we lose confidence in the power of the age old liturgy. People see this loss of confidence in anxious attempts to provide novelty in Church.

Other times, of course, we shirk the duty to make this liturgy accessible. New comers to the prayer book get hopelessly lost without page numbers! I remember a baptism family struggling manfully with this at the 8 o’clock some time back. Let’s all be aware of this, even at 10am! When you see someone struggling with the bits of paper take courage, engage them with a smile, and point them to where we’ve got to!

Renewing worship is a matter of helping one another to get into it. It’s a bit like evangelism, helping people do their own business with God.

Renewing worship means working for accessibility. This has always been the case. The move from Latin at the Reformation was one attempt. Alas making worship accessible is far more than making the words intelligible. Even the truths of the faith can be made as plain as can be and worshippers, this one included, fail to act on them. This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.

The role of the sermon in worship is both to touch on what is awesome, open up some windows to the resurrection world we enter on the Lord ’s Day, and to serve access to scripture. The role of ceremonial around the proclamation of the Gospel and the consecration of the Eucharist is to herald and make accessible the Lord in our midst. If we want to renew worship at St Giles we’re not going to find anything ready built other than what the Lord has provided in word and sacrament and his call for us to participate actively in it.

Just a suggestion. Free your eyes on occasion from your papers and hymn books.

Don’t feel obliged to follow every word as if you were word checking a proof. Try closing your eyes or looking up at the east window. When the priest takes, blesses, shows and breaks the elements watch. Jesus didn’t say read this in remembrance of me – he said do this. The Eucharist isn’t something read out of a book. It’s a sacrificial action. As Christ was taken, broken and shared in his passion so is the bread – and so are you and I.

The church teaches that there is a change, a real happening, in the worship of the Eucharist. It’s a mysterious change which affects the bread and the wine and the worshipper and the world they come from.

Here is a poem that expresses what I am saying:

I lift this bread/and lift therewith the world, myself and Thee.

Hast Thou not said/‘I, lifted up, will draw the universe to me?’(Martindale)

Attendance at this service is about lifting ourselves and the world on our hearts with Christ to God. I lift this bread and lift therewith the world, myself and Thee.

As the bread is offered at the Eucharist see your life and the lives of all those on your heart as being placed on the altar. As the wine is mixed and offered see your sorrows and those of the world that are on your heart as being offered.

Why not look as you sing the offertory song – it’s not just your money that’s going to that altar but your whole life – if you want it so! There’s the rub for you and I!

When the priest says over that bread and wine on our behalf and on behalf of Christ himself This is my body…my blood see your life, your body and blood, taken up into his life and his love.

The love that descends anew upon the Altar, to draw us moth-like, into its celestial flame.

After the words of the Lord and at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer priests lift the consecrated bread and wine upwards as a sign of hat drawing up of that love towards God through with and in Jesus Christ

True worship is about submission, and the adoring kiss of love. It is about our love for God and God’s for us and our love for one another in the body of Christ.  Accessible worship is worship that helps a congregation see such a vibrant flow of love from their joined hearts through the externals of word and sacrament to God and back.

There should be enough organisation for people to hear the word and lift up their hearts in the Eucharist but not so much as to distract and deaden things. The priest’s role is to be there, but not to get in the way. He represents Christ, of course. He is also, so to speak, a midwife, bringing things to birth by coordinating a prayerful liturgy.

Part of that birth giving is the call to repentance we have already picked up from today’s gospel. We are also warned of ritualism in the context of the eucharist by St. Paul when he says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 11v28 examine yourselves and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Self-examination has two aspects – negative and positive. As we celebrate the Eucharist we are to do so confessing our sins. We are also to do so, more positively, through offering the Lord all our positive aspirations. Are you there now – before the altar? Are your joys and sorrows, your family and friends, your ambitions and frustrations – have you put them there yet as a living sacrifice?

I lift this bread and lift therewith the world, myself and Thee.

Hast Thou not said ‘I, lifted up, will draw the universe to me?’

Coming to the Eucharist is a lot more than taking a piece of blessed bread and sipping consecrated wine. Sometimes the consumerist streak in all of us sees Holy Communion as the important thing – what we get out of the Eucharist. No, it’s what we put in as well!

True worship is about our souls and bodies being made a living sacrifice with those on our hearts, part of the universe that is ours, being drawn through our devout prayer into true worship of God, into the celestial flame of love which is his, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Blessed Virgin Mary: God’s Yes 16th August 2015

Words from the second letter of St Paul to Corinth, Chapter 1v19-20

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not "Yes and No"; but in him it is always "Yes." For in him every one of God's promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we say the "Amen," to the glory of God.

Christianity – for Paul or for us – rests not on a truth we build but on a God who is truth, who speaks truth, who acts out truth in sending his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem us and who promises to lead those who trust him into all truth. God’s Yes has no ambiguity about it, unlike our own affirmations.  No "Yes and No"; but in him it is always "Yes."  

That cry years back of Barack Obama yes, we can fulfilled now but in part catches us especially as Christians because our religion is a real ‘yes, we can’ religion and our bishops and priests and people are ideally ‘yes, we can’ guys mirroring their ‘yes, we can’ Lord and his ‘yes, we can’ Mother.

Today’s eucharist booklet for the Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary has a Yes theme at top and bottom because she above all Christians embodies what it is to say ‘yes, I can’. [As we just sang] [As that beautiful hymn expresses it:] Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head. ‘To me be as it pleaseth God.’ She said.’

This morning God wants your Yes – a sung Yes in a moment – a Yes said at the altar rail – Amen to the Body of Christ - and a Yes from the depth of your heart, a yes of allegiance to Christ on his Mother’s Feast Day.

We say Yes as Mary did because God has said Yes to us through his stated plan to establish and gather together all things in Christ.

He needs our Yes for that to be accomplished. Yes to the unification of the cosmos.

To say No is hell – the Trinity or hell, there is no middle way - that’s Christian Faith.

Let’s look at how your Yes or my Yes might be voiced this morning.

It may be that there’s a scheme ahead, possibly financial, that’s very right for you and yours but requires something of a calculated risk, a leap of faith, a costly Yes. Say it this morning at the altar.

Or there might be an inner restlessness or loneliness that begs from you a more profound surrender to your state of life. So often the answer to our problems lies in changing the way we look at our life and especially in positive resignation to the will of God in our circumstances.

Sometimes we lack joy and gladness and that deficit traces to a fighting of harsh circumstances that need acceptance, as in job loss, marital breakdown or bereavement, so we pray with Mary, Yes, Lord, be it unto me according to your will.

Perhaps there’s a parenting challenge, a health challenge or the demands of caring for a sick relative that are wearing you down and has bred an anxiety not of God that you need to surrender him. I’ll say Yes, Lord! Yes today!

Dare I say, is it Mary you need to say yes to? She is Jesus’s Mother and Mother of believers. Welcome her, say Yes Jesus, with you I love the One you love above all. Shall we not love thee Mother dear whom Jesus loves so well?

We live in a rich place with richly gifted people. How do we get more of these riches consecrated to God’s praise and service?

Does the size of my standing order to St Giles or what I place in my envelope evidence a serious commitment to God’s work in this place? How does it compare with what I spend on recreation to please myself rather than God?

God seeks the Yes of someone prepared to serve with David as Churchwarden and that is a costly gift of service most necessary for the building up of Christ’s body.  God wants the Yes of that person from this village as much as he wanted Mary’s from Nazareth!

Peter Vince is having so much pain he needs an operation for a new knee. Our lead Sacristan will be off for a month from next weekend and we need someone to help prepare the altar. There’s need for someone to go under Marion’s wing and help with copying service booklets. Or to help Chris, Rhoda, Marion and the team build bridges between church and young families and our school. Or to work with deacon David to build up the team, young and old, that serves on the altar.

Imagine if Mary had missed God’s affirming invitation or said No to God? What would have become of our salvation?

Imagine looking back on your life in 10 years time and see in your mind’s eye the difference you’ll have made as a result of your wholehearted surrender to God?

Imagine how bare your life history would look if you continue to do it your way and not his?

How do we get more of our gifts consecrated to God’s praise and service? It’s a key question the addressing of which affects the future of St Giles because it affects another key question, namely, how do we get more people to embrace the love, truth and empowerment that is in Jesus?

Christianity isn’t just a crutch for the weak – it’s that OK I well know it – it’s a direction of strength to good. So many strengths are put to destructive use, yes, even in this village! Nimby-ism is one facet. We’re in God’s backyard actually, look at the fields!

To accept and say Yes to Jesus is to lose ourselves to gain ourselves and contribute to the gaining of God’s universal plan to bring all things to himself.  In the process we gain confidence, not self confidence, but the certainty that rests on the certainty of God we’ve given way to.

With this comes the Spirit’s anointing. It came with that first great Yes from Mary in Nazareth.  Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to your will she said and the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. She received the seal upon her and the gift of his Spirit in her heart as a first instalment.  There was a second instalment for her at Pentecost and now she is surely at the centre of that establishing and gathering up of all things in her Blessed Son Jesus Christ.

God sought Mary’s Yes and he seeks ours so he can anoint us as he anointed her. He seeks our gifts to be employed for his praise and service.  He seeks our devotion. With devotion comes anointing in the Spirit, you rarely see one without the other. 

With devotion comes anticipation on earth of the joyful goodness of saints made perfect in heaven as a first instalment.

God seeks our Yes before he seeks our success both as individuals and as a church. He seeks our devotion more than our mission strategy, important as this is.

As with the Corinthians and Paul his faithfulness, his great ‘Yes’ will carry us forward into the spiritual battle that is ours and the consummation of it in the unification of the cosmos.

So to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, from the heart of blessed Mary and all the faithful be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, dominion and power henceforth and for evermore. Amen.

Salvation - Gift, Promise, Choice John 6 Trinity10 (19B) Salvation 9th Aug 15

Has anyone ever asked you if you were saved? How would you answer?

I was visiting the other day. Someone was sharing problems but he set them against what he called ‘the happy go lucky attitude’ he had because he knew, in the end, everything would work out. He knew he was saved.

This came back to me as I looked at this morning's Gospel which has a lot to say about salvation and what it is to be saved. These last few weeks we've been reading through the sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel, a chapter that ends with Peter's famous summary: Lord, to whom shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Salvation, eternal life, is a gift, a promise and a choice - three headings gathering up the teaching of St John Chapter 6 - so we'll take them one by one!

1.                  The Gift

Looking over the whole Chapter we see a tremendous emphasis on the wonder and mystery of the gift of Jesus.

The chapter starts with a tale of miraculous feeding. Five thousand are fed - an image of overflowing, wondrous grace.

Then Jesus begins to make many points about this sign, bringing out not just the meaning of that lunch in Tiberias but the ultimate meaning of all things - and how we can enter into that.

The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world he says in the passage we read last week, v33.

The multiplication of the loaves represents the abundance of life-giving grace that has come to the earth.

Who is the bread of God? He answers at the start and end of today’s gospel v35: I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty and the end sentence v51: Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. .

What a gift! To live for ever! Always we are longing, we human beings. We long for security, for love, for identity, for purpose and reason for life - and here it is, all of that for which we long, offered at last - through the great mystery of Jesus, God come to earth, lifting earthbound beings to live with him for ever!

To be saved is to welcome the gift of Jesus, the Bread of Heaven. The passage on the Heavenly Bread interprets and brings out the full meaning of the gift we welcome in this service week by week.

Can there be a passage in the Bible which speaks more strongly about the need to participate in the Eucharist than verse 53 of St. John Chapter 6 just after today’s section: Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Salvation is about welcoming Jesus - and what he has done by the separating of his body and blood in sacrifice. It is a gift given for us in the coming to earth, dying and rising of Jesus. You can't be saved, says Jesus, by contemplating your navel, by the vague religiosity of crystals and New Age, or even by our efforts for justice and peace, admirable as they are - but by welcoming the gift of Christ into our souls

Salvation is presented here as a gift - and also, secondly as a promise.

2.                  The Promise

You have the words of eternal life says Peter at the end of the chapter. He is confirming his understanding of the earlier teaching where Jesus makes it clear that when we welcome him we also inherit a promise, the promise of eternal life: Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my

blood has eternal life

When someone asks you if you are saved they are really touching on whether you feel sure that your life will not be lost when you die.

Are you sure?  Do you know that you have eternal life?

St Cyril of Jerusalem speaking to those preparing for Christian initiation in the 4^th century said we have no modest aim, but the gaining of eternal life… we endure everything that we may gain that life from the Lord… the Father is life really and truly. Through the Son he pours forth upon all in the Holy Spirit the gifts of heaven as from a fountain. The experience of salvation is to be playfully ‘happy go lucky’ under that fountain. It’s taking God at his word when he promises you something.

I remember someone rather surprisingly asking a holy and thoughtful priest whether he believed in God.  There was a long pause.  Finally the wise old man replied - I'm not sure, but I'm sure of this - that God believes in me. Those humble, thoughtful words back away from arrogant certainty and they reach powerfully into our spirits.

We may lack belief but that doesn't stop God believing in us. We may be unworthy of salvation - but that does not stop God promising it! If I know I am saved it is because God has promised it to believers and I believe God - I trust God to keep his word to me - the key is knowing the promise.

Evangelism is about spreading good news, which means letting people know about the gift and the promises of God so that they can choose for themselves to believe - which brings us onto the last heading.

3.                  The Choice

At the end of this sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel we read in v60 that many of the followers of Jesus said, "This is intolerable language.  How could anyone accept it? And they choose to leave Jesus. He then says to the Twelve later in the passage: What about you, do you want to go away too?

When we contemplate the mystery of Christ we should be profoundly moved, awed by the generosity of God in sending his Son to save us and then giving us the choice of whether we accept him or not.

This is awesome - for us to be given a choice.  Awesome, but also perilous for us to be so honoured with freedom to choose in a matter affecting our eternal welfare.

There is a further mystery of how God himself seems to make a hidden choice of those who do respond positively to him, so that our choice of God is almost pre-empted by his choice of us.

What a wonder and a mystery - the choices of God! We are saved by choice not by chance. No one has a right to heaven.  You may think you're as good as the next person - but what does that matter when we are talking about having eternal life with God? Who are we, so full of deceit and inadequacy, made of the dust of the earth, full of frailty, to be worthy of God in his holiness?

Only by God's gift and his promise - and our choice of him.

Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

To whom can we go?  There is one giver of salvation who gives us today his flesh and blood as life to our spirit!

You have the words of eternal life. You, Jesus, Bread of Life, promise us through our communion with you a quality of life that is in its nature unending. 

And we believe Given such a gift and such a promise the choice is ours, to live not by chance but by a definite choice, a choice for Jesus our Saviour, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Transfiguration thought from Anastasius of Sinai

What greater happiness or higher honour could we have than to be with God, to be made like him and to live in his light?

    

Therefore, since each of us possesses God in his heart and is being transformed into his divine image, we also should cry out with joy: It is good for us to be here – here where all things shine with divine radiance, where there is joy and gladness and exultation; where there is nothing in our hearts but peace, serenity and stillness; where God is seen. 

For here, in our hearts, Christ takes up his abode together with the Father, saying as he enters: 'Today salvation has come to this house'. With Christ, our hearts receive all the wealth of his eternal blessings, and there where they are stored up for us in him, we see reflected as in a mirror both the first fruits and the whole of the world to come.   

Anastasius of Sinai on the Transfiguration

Trinity 8 Romans 8 BCP 8am 26th July 2015

Little James and his parents were in church and there was a baptism.

The boy was taken in by all of this. He observed the priest saying something whilst pouring water over the infant’s head.

With a quizzical look on his face, he turned to his father and asked with all the innocence of a five year old ‘Daddy, why is he brainwashing that baby?’

Out of the mouth of babes!

At the baptism later this morning we’ll be reminded of what it is to be a Christian.

We will say we turn to Christ, repent of our sins, renounce evil and profess faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As we say it we will all be a little more brainwashed into Christianity.

At no other place does the Church of England make it so clear what it is to be a Christian than in the baptism service.

We will be brainwashed that bit more into the truth Paul announces in our epistle that the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God and, if children, heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

As we say what we believe, as we just did in the creed, our words enter our ears and descend to our hearts so that we believe it all the more.

Little James had a point.

In our or our parents choice for us of baptism there is a choice to be placed within the influence of Jesus Christ and his Spirit.

We are influenced by all sorts of worldly things but as Christians our greatest concern is to possessed by the spiritual focus that Jesus offers. 

It doesn't matter how much we do or have but it does matter how much love we put into it and the use of it and to possess what Saint Paul writes of in Ephesians, namely to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, to… be filled with all the fullness of God.

Such an aspiration is a long haul. Baptism is a long haul. It costs a lot but it’s worth a lot as the promises of God make clear, and the pivotal promise is that we just affirmed of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

We do baptisms on Sunday morning when Jesus rose as a reminder of the call to the baptised to honour  Sunday as the Day of Resurrection.

One of the things we get brainwashed or disciplined into as Christians is coming to church on a Sunday.

Sunday’s the day life triumphed over death in the resurrection of Jesus and there’s no more meaningful thing in life than what conquers death.

Earthly life’s a prologue. The book of life proper starts beyond the grave with Christianity’s Founder who is the life, the truth and the way.

Life is what Jesus is all about. God who gives us life wants to give us his life in his Son who said I came to bring them life and have it to the full (John 10 verse 10).

For a Christian the glass is never half empty it’s half full at the least and it gets to overflowing.

Another scripture, again from John, makes this plain. Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Jesus says Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.

When we choose Jesus there’s a fruitful overflowing. Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit… wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

As someone said God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.

Religion can get a bit nutty, yes. It’s God-given but it does get man-handled.

We seek the spiritual fruitfulness that flows from the long haul of baptism, trust in God’s promises and the hope of the resurrection.

May the Holy Spirit who anoints us with the bread and wine and words of the eucharist bring us energy this morning as we offer ourselves our souls and bodies in union with Jesus Christ to God our almighty Father.