Sermon preached at St Mary’s, Lapworth at 11am Eucharist
Sunday 20th June 2010 – Trinity III, proper 7
Readings: Gal 3: 23-29 Luke 826-39
Recently my daughter Caroline was in a dance show, so I went along to watch her dance. The show was based on a book called “Peter Pan in Scarlet” which has been written in 2006 as an official sequel to the story of Peter Pan, the little boy who has adventures in Neverland, and who never grows up.
Now the story of Peter Pan ends when Peter Pan’s arch enemy, the evil pirate Captain Hook is defeated by Peter and falls into the jaws of a crocodile. Peter Pan in Scarlet is all about Peter Pan, who carries on living in Neverland, wearing the scarlet robe that was formerly worn by Captain Hook. And as the story develops Peter Pan slowly takes on more and more of Captain Hook’s personality. He becomes angry and selfish and difficult. His gang of friends, “The Lost Boys” find him harder and harder to live with. Peter begins to dream the dreams of Captain Hook and to take on his desires, and all this because he is wearing Captain Hooks cloak. Peter Pan’s situation gets worse and worse until he realises the problems the cloak is causing him. He casts off the cloak, and from that point, although Peter has become very ill, everything starts to get better. The premise is that somehow, by wearing someone’s clothes you slowly become that person.
So in what way is that true? Last night we had a very enjoyable curry night to raise money for the charity “Warwick in India”. I wore the Indian clothes that I bought eight years ago in New Delhi. Did wearing Indian clothes make me more Indian? Well I don’t know? I certainly felt more Indian. And certainly, if I was more Indian, I would wear Indian Clothes more.
Well this all seems like the realms of fairytales. But in our epistle reading today Paul said, “As many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ”. And Paul is forever using this idea of putting on things which are good, like we might put on clothing, in order to make ourselves good. When we get up on a morning we have to choose the clothes to put on. In the same way we can start each day by choosing our attitudes and behaviours for the day. In different parts of the New testament Paul tells us to put on the armour of light (Rom 13: 12), the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 13: 14), the imperishable, immortal body (1 Cor 15: 53), the whole armour of God (Eph 6:11, see also 1 Thes 5: 7) and the new self, the new man ( Eph 4: 24 Col 3: 10). It seems that Paul is always urging us to put on good things, holy things, good behaviours as we would put on clothes. These things might be external to us, they might come from God rather than from our own nature, but they have a positive effect on us, slowly changing us into something better. And Paul often talks about Christians as being changed and transformed. He says that we are transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor 3: 18). Eventually, wearing these good things like clothes, they make us Christ like. Paul says, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2: 20).
Equally Paul is always telling us to put aside bad things; to lay aside the works of darkness (Rom 13: 12). This is important because the opposite can also happen. If, when we get up in the morning, we choose to put on evil things and bad behaviours then evil grows within us. In our gospel reading we heard of a man processed by many demons. He was in a most terrible state, completely under the control of his demons, but Jesus still managed to heal him.
In the church we are all Saints and we are all Sinners. We all have Christ within us, especially since our baptism, but we also all have a tendency to sin, to rebel against God. Paul is urging us always to cloth ourselves in the Saint. Always live by the Saint, adopt the attitudes of the saint, the behaviours of the Saint, to think of the good of others, like the Saint. And this is important, because the Saint who grows within us has a future that is eternal and blessed. It can only get better. When we choose to live in the Sinner then we are building for ourselves a future that is in opposition to God. This might seem easy in the short term, but in the end it can only perish and decay and die.
And of course it is not just in the morning that we have to choose to live by the Saint. We have to do it in each present moment of our lives. It is the behaviours and attitudes that we are choosing right now in the present moment that have an effect; not our good aspirations for tomorrow. When I was training for Advanced Driving Test I often found that I had my hands in the wrong position on the steering wheel. As soon as I noticed, I would put my hands back in the right position and carry on. And sometimes this was really hard, I just felt that I could not be bothered. But the more I did it, the more natural it became to me and now I find it easy, instinctive even. Well in the same way I try to train myself always to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and to live each moment in the Saint. And over time that too becomes for natural and instinctive.
But what about the times when we just can’t do it? What about the times when, like the demoniac we are dominated by unruly forces within us and we can only choose behaviours which are bad and destructive. Or perhaps the problem is with the people around us, or the society we live in, and we find ourselves constrained towards violence and injustice. Well, in my opinion, this happens all the time and the key thing is to continue to live in the Saint, even when the Sinner is in control. Jesus, in his passion and death, seemed to be overpowered by the forces of evil. It seemed that they had overcome him completely and killed him. But Jesus’ cry went up to heaven. God revealed the Resurrection; new life for Jesus and defeat for evil. So, where the Sinner is in control in our lives, living in the Saint means sharing with Jesus in the experience of passion and death. It is painful and humbling, but where our cry rises to heaven united with the cry of Jesus, there God breaks the power of evil and gives new life.
So let’s be clothed in Christ. Let’s choose always the attitudes and behaviours of the Saint. And let’s practice this in each present moment of our lives, because practice makes perfect!
Showing posts with label all saints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all saints. Show all posts
20 June 2010
01 November 2009
All saints day
Informal sermon preached at St Alphege 9.15 Eucharist
Sunday 1st November 2009 – All Saints Day – Year B
(A more traditional version of this sermon was also preached at the 11am Eucharist.)
Readings: Wisdom 3: 1-9 Rev 21: 1-6 John 11: 32-44
[AV - Camera]
So it’s All Saints Day; the day when we remind ourselves about all the saints in heaven, both those who are famous and have their own special days in the churches calendar, and especially those who are not so famous, those whose holiness is known to God alone.
And what is a Saint? Well a saint is a person who is holy. A saint is a person who has drawn very close to God, who is illuminated by the holiness of God. A saint is someone who is completely filled with the love of God, who moves in complete harmony with God. A saint is someone who has at last become precisely what God created them to be. God’s creation in them has been realised in all its fullness.
[AV - Picture of saints in heaven]
And here we have a picture of the saints in heaven. In the centre you can see Jesus on the cross, above him God the Father, and above him the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. And around the three persons of God we have countless saints, all looking to Christ and all moving in perfect harmony with God.
And the good news is that we are all saints. In the New Testament, all the baptised people are commonly called saints. And we have been baptised. We are a new creation (2 Cor 5: 17), we are members of Christ’s body (1 Cor 6: 15), children of God, and co-heirs of God with Christ (Roman 8: 16-17). By our baptism we become part of God’s chosen people, part of his royal priesthood, and holy nation (1 Peter 2: 9). And all this because we have believed and been baptised (Mark 16: 16). So there is a sense in which we are all saints, already!
[AV - Camera]
Well you are probably sat there looking at the person next to you and thinking, “Well she’s not a saint. I know that for sure. If my wife was a saint she would be far better at cooking!”
And this is where we get to the bad news. Although all of us in the church are saints, we are also all sinners. We all have this part of us that rebels against God’s love; that says, “No, I want to do it my way.” And this sin affects us in many ways. First of all it clouds our vision. It makes us look at things selfishly and not as God sees them. There is a sense in which your wife really is a saint, but in your sinfulness you don’t see it. You are too busy thinking about your stomach! But then our sinfulness also leads us into bad attitudes and bad behaviours. We treat other people as enemies or threats and not as children of God. And as we all know, it gets worse.
So we are all saints, and we are all sinners. Well we probably knew that already, because we know that everyone has their good points and their bad points. But the very important point that we must not overlook is that the saint within us has an eternal and blessed future with God in heaven, and with the saints, whereas the sinner within us has no future. He can only shrivel up and die. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6: 23). So the skill of life on earth is to always make the saint within us grow, and flourish because the saint is our future. And the sinner we allow to die, because in the end that is all he can do.
And how do we do this? How do we make the saint within us grow? Well we do it by focusing on Christ, who is THE saint, the holy one, the source of our holiness.
Our gospel reading today presented a powerful picture of Christ as the resurrection and the life. Jesus was able to restore the body of Lazarus despite the stench of four days of decay in the tomb. Jesus was able to call Lazarus back from the dead and give him life once more. So it is that Jesus is the source of our resurrection life. He is the one who gives life to the saint within us makes it grow. Our holiness does not come from us, it comes from God. It is the gift of grace. Our part is to want it, to pray for it, and to accept it and co-operate with it. And accepting this grace means accepting the commandments of Jesus, especially the commandments to love other people. If we practise loving then the saint grows within us. The kingdom of God within us might feel like a very small mustard seed, but it has the potential to grow into a great tree (c.f. Matt 13: 31).
And as the saint grows within us, so the sinner within gets marginalised and squeezed out. And this can be painful; it a kind of death. But its worth it because it allows the saint to grow.
[AV - Picture of saints in heaven]
Let’s go back to that picture of the saints. One of the amazing things is that they are all very different. In Revelation 7 (v 9) we are told that they come from every tribe and nation, every people and language, and they all have a specific role in heaven. They all have their own distinctive way of ministering to the other saints. And the church on earth is like this too. We are all very different. We do come from many different tribes and peoples, nations and languages. And we all have a distinctive ministry to one another, each of us our own particular way of helping the others.
[AV - Picture of listening]
And today I would like to emphasise one particular ministry that lies beneath all the others; the ministry of listening. It is so important to listen properly to one another, to create the space for the other person to express themselves. Listening is the basis of so many other ministries because only by listening can we understand the needs of the other person, only by being attentive to them can we be sure that our ministry is exercised for their benefit and not out of our own pride. And listening is also very counter cultural. Our culture always emphasises the importance of getting our message across. Listening, in contrast seeks to hear the truth of the other person; not the bluster and self propaganda, but the truth of the person created by God. In October’s parish magazine we advertised a taster evening of training on Christian listening coming up on 17th November. I commend this to you. Look out for more details in the next weeks pewslip.
[AV - Camera]
So, on All Saints day let us rejoice with the saints in heaven. Let’s praise God for our baptism which like a small mustard seed means that we too can grow up to become great saints. And let’s focus on Christ. Even if our lives are sinful and putrid, like a body four days in the grave, Christ can show us the way and make it happen, so that we grow up to discover our own small place in heaven, along side all the other saints. Amen.
Sunday 1st November 2009 – All Saints Day – Year B
(A more traditional version of this sermon was also preached at the 11am Eucharist.)
Readings: Wisdom 3: 1-9 Rev 21: 1-6 John 11: 32-44
[AV - Camera]
So it’s All Saints Day; the day when we remind ourselves about all the saints in heaven, both those who are famous and have their own special days in the churches calendar, and especially those who are not so famous, those whose holiness is known to God alone.
And what is a Saint? Well a saint is a person who is holy. A saint is a person who has drawn very close to God, who is illuminated by the holiness of God. A saint is someone who is completely filled with the love of God, who moves in complete harmony with God. A saint is someone who has at last become precisely what God created them to be. God’s creation in them has been realised in all its fullness.
[AV - Picture of saints in heaven]
And here we have a picture of the saints in heaven. In the centre you can see Jesus on the cross, above him God the Father, and above him the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. And around the three persons of God we have countless saints, all looking to Christ and all moving in perfect harmony with God.
And the good news is that we are all saints. In the New Testament, all the baptised people are commonly called saints. And we have been baptised. We are a new creation (2 Cor 5: 17), we are members of Christ’s body (1 Cor 6: 15), children of God, and co-heirs of God with Christ (Roman 8: 16-17). By our baptism we become part of God’s chosen people, part of his royal priesthood, and holy nation (1 Peter 2: 9). And all this because we have believed and been baptised (Mark 16: 16). So there is a sense in which we are all saints, already!
[AV - Camera]
Well you are probably sat there looking at the person next to you and thinking, “Well she’s not a saint. I know that for sure. If my wife was a saint she would be far better at cooking!”
And this is where we get to the bad news. Although all of us in the church are saints, we are also all sinners. We all have this part of us that rebels against God’s love; that says, “No, I want to do it my way.” And this sin affects us in many ways. First of all it clouds our vision. It makes us look at things selfishly and not as God sees them. There is a sense in which your wife really is a saint, but in your sinfulness you don’t see it. You are too busy thinking about your stomach! But then our sinfulness also leads us into bad attitudes and bad behaviours. We treat other people as enemies or threats and not as children of God. And as we all know, it gets worse.
So we are all saints, and we are all sinners. Well we probably knew that already, because we know that everyone has their good points and their bad points. But the very important point that we must not overlook is that the saint within us has an eternal and blessed future with God in heaven, and with the saints, whereas the sinner within us has no future. He can only shrivel up and die. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6: 23). So the skill of life on earth is to always make the saint within us grow, and flourish because the saint is our future. And the sinner we allow to die, because in the end that is all he can do.
And how do we do this? How do we make the saint within us grow? Well we do it by focusing on Christ, who is THE saint, the holy one, the source of our holiness.
Our gospel reading today presented a powerful picture of Christ as the resurrection and the life. Jesus was able to restore the body of Lazarus despite the stench of four days of decay in the tomb. Jesus was able to call Lazarus back from the dead and give him life once more. So it is that Jesus is the source of our resurrection life. He is the one who gives life to the saint within us makes it grow. Our holiness does not come from us, it comes from God. It is the gift of grace. Our part is to want it, to pray for it, and to accept it and co-operate with it. And accepting this grace means accepting the commandments of Jesus, especially the commandments to love other people. If we practise loving then the saint grows within us. The kingdom of God within us might feel like a very small mustard seed, but it has the potential to grow into a great tree (c.f. Matt 13: 31).
And as the saint grows within us, so the sinner within gets marginalised and squeezed out. And this can be painful; it a kind of death. But its worth it because it allows the saint to grow.
[AV - Picture of saints in heaven]
Let’s go back to that picture of the saints. One of the amazing things is that they are all very different. In Revelation 7 (v 9) we are told that they come from every tribe and nation, every people and language, and they all have a specific role in heaven. They all have their own distinctive way of ministering to the other saints. And the church on earth is like this too. We are all very different. We do come from many different tribes and peoples, nations and languages. And we all have a distinctive ministry to one another, each of us our own particular way of helping the others.
[AV - Picture of listening]
And today I would like to emphasise one particular ministry that lies beneath all the others; the ministry of listening. It is so important to listen properly to one another, to create the space for the other person to express themselves. Listening is the basis of so many other ministries because only by listening can we understand the needs of the other person, only by being attentive to them can we be sure that our ministry is exercised for their benefit and not out of our own pride. And listening is also very counter cultural. Our culture always emphasises the importance of getting our message across. Listening, in contrast seeks to hear the truth of the other person; not the bluster and self propaganda, but the truth of the person created by God. In October’s parish magazine we advertised a taster evening of training on Christian listening coming up on 17th November. I commend this to you. Look out for more details in the next weeks pewslip.
[AV - Camera]
So, on All Saints day let us rejoice with the saints in heaven. Let’s praise God for our baptism which like a small mustard seed means that we too can grow up to become great saints. And let’s focus on Christ. Even if our lives are sinful and putrid, like a body four days in the grave, Christ can show us the way and make it happen, so that we grow up to discover our own small place in heaven, along side all the other saints. Amen.
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