Mini Sermon preached at 9.45am Holy Communion service (BCP) at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton on Sunday 3rd April 2011. Also preached at the 8.30am Said Eucharist at St Mary’s Lapworth.
Mothering Sunday
Readings: Col 3: 12-17 Luke 2: 33-35
In the reading from Colossians, Paul presents the church as he would like it to be; its an image of a church as “family”.
There are many different images of the church: “Institution”, “Boat”, “Hospital”, “net”... and each of them emphasises particular qualities, and ways of behaving which are important to the church.
But it seems to me that in our present times it is very important to emphasise the importance of church as “family”.
This emphasises some of the values Paul mentions: compassion, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, above all love.
How much does our world need these values?
How different they are from what we see on telly!
Actually it is the opposite values that make for dramatic, eye-catching telly – cruelty, arrogance, pushing forward, wanting things now. In the case of these values you have something to look at. Looking at someone being meek or patient is less eye-catching. Consequently our TV tends to celebrate and promote these bad qualities.
Also the power of TV pushes our politicians and leaders away from the true values. A prompt and effective intervention, comes over so much better on a TV News report than patience and meekness. An eye catching initiative or gimmick gets so much more publicity than humility.
I believe that this has affected our society in a very bad way. We fail to value properly and celebrate properly the things that are really good for us: compassion, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, love.
In the church we really need to promote and celebrate these values.
It is with these qualities that Love typically heals and resolves difficult situations, and it takes time. Usually these are the qualities that families and the church need to use to overcome their problems. The dramatic intervention is so often damaging in the longer term.
We often associate these true values (compassion, humility, meekness, patience) with Motherly Love, but actually they are essential to all Love. Fatherly Love might emphasis structure and discipline, but if this is not underpinned by compassion, humility, meekness and patience then it loses all meaning. It is no surprise that our society also struggles to formulate structure and discipline in a way that people find helpful and constructive.
So let’s resolve anew to live by compassion, humility, meekness and patience. Let’s bear with one another, forgive one another, and above all let’s seek to grow in love. Let’s promote these values in our families and in our society, first of all by our example, but also by our words, for our good and for the good of all the people around us. Amen.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
03 April 2011
05 September 2010
"hating" for God
Sermon preached at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton for 9.45am Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer) on Sunday 5th September 2010.
Trinity 14, Proper 18, Year C
Readings: Philemon 1-21 Luke 14: 25-33
Outline Notes Only
Gospel reading needs some explanation
- Jesus always says love others, but here he says “hate”
Similar sayings of Jesus:
Luke 9: 57-62 - what Jesus says to people who want to follow him.
let me first go and bury my father - let the dead bury their own dead
let me say good-buy to family – no one put hands to the plough and turns back is fit
Luke 9: 23-26
followers must take up your cross – he who wants to save his life will lose it
Matt 10: 34-39
I have come not to bring peace but the sword
So what is Jesus saying…
Cost of following Jesus is total, - required to “give up all your processions”
Man who builds the tower
The king who sizes up his army.
Processions seems to include family bonds – must come second to the bond with Christ
Examples – Mary, St Frances, experience
Priorities – God first, family bonds second
Even those who are called by God to exercise earthly power often have to have an experience of letting those things go, in order to put God first. Experience of losing.
Philemon as an example, lost his slave, but later returned to him, differently
Wisdom of losing life in order to find it.
Summary – let’s get our priorities right, God in the first place, all else second.
Let’s be ready to lose things for the sake of God, confident that God has other gifts to give us, higher, purified and more refined.
Above all let’s trust God, who created us and gave us all that we have. He has our good at heart and other good things that he wants to give us.
Amen
Trinity 14, Proper 18, Year C
Readings: Philemon 1-21 Luke 14: 25-33
Outline Notes Only
Gospel reading needs some explanation
- Jesus always says love others, but here he says “hate”
Similar sayings of Jesus:
Luke 9: 57-62 - what Jesus says to people who want to follow him.
let me first go and bury my father - let the dead bury their own dead
let me say good-buy to family – no one put hands to the plough and turns back is fit
Luke 9: 23-26
followers must take up your cross – he who wants to save his life will lose it
Matt 10: 34-39
I have come not to bring peace but the sword
So what is Jesus saying…
Cost of following Jesus is total, - required to “give up all your processions”
Man who builds the tower
The king who sizes up his army.
Processions seems to include family bonds – must come second to the bond with Christ
Examples – Mary, St Frances, experience
Priorities – God first, family bonds second
Even those who are called by God to exercise earthly power often have to have an experience of letting those things go, in order to put God first. Experience of losing.
Philemon as an example, lost his slave, but later returned to him, differently
Wisdom of losing life in order to find it.
Summary – let’s get our priorities right, God in the first place, all else second.
Let’s be ready to lose things for the sake of God, confident that God has other gifts to give us, higher, purified and more refined.
Above all let’s trust God, who created us and gave us all that we have. He has our good at heart and other good things that he wants to give us.
Amen
26 August 2007
Keeping the Sabbath
Thought for parish pew slip – 26th August 2007 - Trinity 12 (Proper 16) Year C
Readings Isaiah 58:9b-14 Hebrews 12:18-29 Luke 13: 10-17
Our readings today challenge us to think about the Sabbath.
In our reading from Isaiah, the prophet asks us not to go our own way, serve our own interests or pursue our own affairs on the Sabbath, but rather to honour the Sabbath and to think of it as a delight.
In our gospel reading Jesus performs a healing miracle on the Sabbath. This is one of several gospel stories where Jesus heals on the Sabbath, and it is always a challenge to the Scribes and Pharisees because it goes against the detailed regulations of the Law. Jesus however is insistent. In Luke 6:9 he asks, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil”.
Nowadays we live very busy lives and it is hard to live the Sabbath well. And yet the busyness of our lives makes it all the more important to set aside time for rest, for the family and for worship. If we don’t do these things on a Sunday, then when do we do them? Trying to observe the Sabbath is a good way of ensuring that rest, family and worship do not get crowded out of our lives. We need these things if we are to live fully human lives.
Readings Isaiah 58:9b-14 Hebrews 12:18-29 Luke 13: 10-17
Our readings today challenge us to think about the Sabbath.
In our reading from Isaiah, the prophet asks us not to go our own way, serve our own interests or pursue our own affairs on the Sabbath, but rather to honour the Sabbath and to think of it as a delight.
In our gospel reading Jesus performs a healing miracle on the Sabbath. This is one of several gospel stories where Jesus heals on the Sabbath, and it is always a challenge to the Scribes and Pharisees because it goes against the detailed regulations of the Law. Jesus however is insistent. In Luke 6:9 he asks, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil”.
Nowadays we live very busy lives and it is hard to live the Sabbath well. And yet the busyness of our lives makes it all the more important to set aside time for rest, for the family and for worship. If we don’t do these things on a Sunday, then when do we do them? Trying to observe the Sabbath is a good way of ensuring that rest, family and worship do not get crowded out of our lives. We need these things if we are to live fully human lives.
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