Sermon
delivered at Winterslow Methodist Church, Wiltshire to the Seniors’ Tuesday
Club – Tuesday 27th October 2015
Mark 28-34
May
I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be a
blessing to all who hear them. Amen
First of all let me say how
honoured I feel to be given this opportunity of coming to speak to you this
morning at this short service and thank you especially, Duncan, for your help
and support
As many of you will know,
probably as much by the absence of the flagpole at the corner of Middleton Road
and Youngs Paddock, I have now moved out of the village in circumstances which
were not of my choosing. It is therefore lovely to be able to continue to be of
service to the community I lived in for over 16 years. I have now moved to a new property at Old
Sarum and I am just beginning to get to know some of the people there who are
now my new neighbours.
Community is so vitally important
in this day of modern technology. My
young daughter has literally hundreds of friends – virtual friends – on
Facebook and other social media sites. I must confess myself to using media
sites and the global nature of the Internet and modern technological
communication systems means that it is so easy now to communicate with people
halfway across the world. They are all
our neighbours.
In our reading this morning,
the Jewish lawyers, in an attempt to find out who this Jesus of Nazareth was,
and by what authority he spoke and taught Jewish theology, tried to get him to
reveal which of the Ten Commandments given to Moses was the greatest. It was
really a trap to get him say something which they could pin as being
blasphemous. Jesus, however, used this
opportunity to declare that there were only two great commandments from which
all others must necessarily follow –
To
love God with all your heart, soul and strength and to love your neighbour as
yourself.
The first of these, should
be easy for us. If we accept that God is
our Creator, that we are on this Earth because he created us to be here and
that all things that we have come from him and we are mere custodians for the
period of time we are here, then it
should be a fairly simple matter to give him thanks and praise. Indeed we
should feel an inherent desire to do so.
As we sing our hymns of praise this morning we are worshipping him and
illustrating that love of God which Jesus speaks of.
I don’t know about you, but when I sing these
rousing hymns it gives me a strange sense of elation and feeling of a
connection with him.
The second can be much
harder. To love your neighbour as yourself. Accepting that we are all God’s
creatures, then we are expected to treat everyone as our neighbour and treat
them with that same love which God shows to them and which we would like others
to show to us. At times people can do
cruel and hurtful things to us and it is easy to take revenge on them or not to
love them. The love which Jesus is
talking about is that which all humans should show to each other in
community. One of Jesus’s questioners
asked him “But who is my neighbour” and was answered with the parable of the
Good Samaritan – which I know you all know so well. In that parable it is not just the Samaritan
himself who helps the mugged man but also the innkeeper who trusts the
Samaritan, a foreigner to return to settle the bill. With our modern global outlook, the world has
shrunk and we are increasingly called upon to help our neighbours from great distances
– many just now flocking from war-torn Syria and African countries.
Here is Winterslow I was
always impressed by the degree of social awareness on display – Project Uganda,
Morning Star, the Link Scheme, different Church Groups and Social Groups – this
Tuesday Club. These are all ways in
which we can express our love of our neighbour and make life that bit better
for others.
I talked briefly about my
teenage daughter. She misses her brother, my teenage son, who recently arrived
at Hull University. Having spent the
summer largely in his room on the Internet he suddenly realised that having
virtual cyber friends was no substitute for the social graces and skills he
needed to make new real friends, colleagues, some 200 miles away in a foreign
city (well it is Yorkshire!). He has
made a real effort to make those new friends and was overwhelmed with the
support and friendliness with which he was greeted by all those new students in
a similar position.
Jesus was right when he
talked about the two great commandments.
If the whole world took these aboard – to recognise and love God and to
love each other as they would love themselves – wars would be prevented, crimes
would be a thing of the past and people would feel happier and safer in
themselves.
As we get into the Autumn of
our lives we tend to think more and more about our mortality. We wonder what
Heaven would be like if we get there! My
view of Heaven is as stated by John in the book of Revelation – there will be
no more pain or suffering – God has wiped every tear from the eyes of those who
live there. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?
I am a great believer that
as a Christian, it is up to me, and my fellow Christians, to try and bring a
little bit of Heaven down here to Earth.
In a moment we shall be saying the Lord’s Prayer together and a line of
that reads
“Your will be done, on Earth as it is in
Heaven”
We pray for a little bit of
Heaven to appear here on Earth. Today
let us make a point of bringing a little bit of Heaven into the lives of somebody
else. Let’s show our love for our
neighbour by what we say and what we do – it only needs to be a small thing – a
smile, a kind word or even a short prayer in the privacy of our own home.
Amen
MFB/66
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