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Sermon preached by Second Sunday of Lent, 28th February 2010
Sermon: Lent 2 2010: Why be a Christian? A couple of weeks ago I met up
with an old school friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in years. We had a
wonderful time catching up and sharing photos and stories of our
children – all now grown up; we shared a lot of laughter and remembered
our school days. And then Kim spoke to me about her loss of faith over
the years and I was heartbroken for her.
She’d been born an Anglican and converted to
Catholicism to marry a catholic; and I’d always thought she was okay
with it. But now Kim told me of how frustrated she was with all the
dictats of the faith, and some of the sham and collusion she saw in the
healing ministry practised in their very charismatic branch of the
church. And I was deeply saddened
because her frustrations echoed my own irritations with the
Anglican Church over the
years but how
differently they’d been
resolved. And I think one of the
first reasons I’m a
Christian is that however hard I rebelled against the flaws of the
institution, God
always drew me back to
himself with His love and gentleness; so that I
never lost that deep
connection with God that I’d had as a child. To be fair, it was only much
later that I was able to reconcile the two as I came to realise that the
Church is the
human face of God’s
mission in our world – made up of all of us here today and all
Christians across the world – with all our human failings. We, together,
are what makes that institution; and God calls
us to work with each
other,
with and through and
in spite of our human
failings, to bring His message to all.
And that message IS for all:
all of us are precious to
God! Our faith is open to
everyone - no holds
barred. God loves us and longs to be in relationship with us – whoever
we are. He doesn’t
just stand apart,
inaccessible, out of reach, (though he
Is mysterious and ‘other’
too) but he also comes to us and knows each of us intimately – he
holds us in the ups and
downs of our personal stories. As the psalm says: “O Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you
know when I sit down and I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far
away.....you are acquainted with all my ways....It was you who formed my
inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Our God knows us through and
through and he loves us. Time and again in the gospels Jesus shows how
he
welcomes even those who
are great sinners or unloved by others: tax collectors, adulterers,
robbers, prostitutes, doubters, outcasts, lepers.....
He shows how
all of us – even
though
we are sinners –
are
welcomed for the people
God calls us to be – and
forgiven when we don’t
quite measure up. He welcomes us not
just to be
part of his community but
also to
share in his great work
of love for the world. Think of some of those OT – Moses: murderer;
David: murderer and adulterer;
Jacob: cheated his brother out of his
inheritance; Abraham: willing to sacrifice his son – none of them
perfect by a long chalk but God is able to weave all their stories and
their lives into His overall plan for good. Then there’s Peter, Jesus’
constant companion – Peter who won’t have his feet washed because Jesus
is his master not his servant, Peter who, the same night that he
promises he’ll always stand up for Jesus, denies him three times; Peter
- with all his faults - whom Jesus picks out as the one who will be the
rock on which the Church is built. Peter, do you love me? Feed my
sheep...
So I’m Christian because I
long to live in
relationship with this God who knows me intimately and loves me and
always sees my
potential. This God who
chooses to use me
even though I get it
wrong; who is able to weave the things I do – both good and bad – into
his overall story for good in our world. This God has always been with me
– even as a small child, growing up on the Isle of Wight, one of six
children.
We weren’t well off but we had the sea and
the beach on our doorstep and in those days my God was
creator God. We’re told:
“In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word
was God. .. All things came into being through him, and without him not
one thing came into being.” I
didn’t understand those words then – perhaps I don’t fully even now -
but I
did know that my God had
created all the things that gave me so much joy:
sun, sand, sea, trees and flowers, meadows,
the seasons, my family and friends. And I’ve always seen God as the
joyful creator, bringing into being all the beauty we have in our world.
I don’t think he did it in 7 days – I think he had far too much fun
creating all the different creatures and linking them up together to
rush it all - but his creator side makes me see our God as a God of fun
and laughter: a God who loves children –who are also full of fun and
laughter!
From a very early age, too, my
God was a God of compassion. So much of Jesus’ ministry was underpinned
by his deep sense of
compassion
for others – remember how he was
exhausted after teaching and healing all day; and he went with his
disciples on the lake to find some peace and quiet; and he got to the
other side only to find that the people had got there first and were
desperate for his help:
and he
had compassion on them
because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus’ qualities of
compassion and love resonate so deeply within me as how I think we
should be with each
other. How could I be other than Christian if this is what it is about?
God is compassionate
particularly when we are vulnerable. But he also challenges us when we
are complacent. Two other qualities
And i have discovered during my life that
God is a God of trust, a steadfast God who is with me not only in the
good times, but in the bad times too. I don’t often speak about some of
my life experiences because I don’t want to be defined by them -
And
God is a God of challenge. I don’t think, as the Hebrew Scriptures argue
that God blesses the good people and curses those who are evil. For I
see daily round about me those who are
good people who suffer;
and I see the injustice of evil people winning out. And I remember Jesus
words: God sends rain on the good and the evil; and the sun shines on
both good and evil too. No: God doesn’t promise us that
if we are Christian life will always be easy. How can that be so when so
much of what we suffer is tied up in our relationships with each other?
Each and everyone of us
here
here has your own story of
how and
why you have come to be
Christian – stories of how
you have found God – or,
more probably, how God has found
you; stories maybe that
are very recent or stories that go right back to your early years;
stories that will be as varied as the diverse people who make up this
community. And every
one of those will give
reasons to be Christian. And all those stories are valued and precious
to God.
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