SERMON 201 - SUNDAY 14 APRIL 2024 - EASTER 3

Sermon at St. John’s Parish Church West Grimstead and All Saints’ Parish Church, Farley   -  Easter 3  – Sunday 14 April 2024

Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

On Wednesday evening this week I attended a meeting, over a light supper at Sarum College, where Bishop Stephen met with a large number of lay people from five of the deaneries, including our own, which make up the Sarum Archdeaconry.  The purpose of this meeting was for him to tell us of his vision for mission – “Making Jesus Known” and finding out what the laity felt it needed to assistant them to carry this out – or rather what members of the laity felt they were lacking as a resource.  As you can imagine there was a great deal of discussion and many questions but out of this, one thing spoke to me louder than any other and this is reflected in our gospel reading this morning.

Bishop Stephen told us a story about when he had first been appointed as the Dean of Gloucester Cathedral.  At his first service, he had witnessed the departure of a long-standing director of music and at the end of the service a presentation was made and he asked the congregation to give a round of applause. Afterwards, a leading member of the congregation pointed out to him that people do not give applause in cathedral services and also, whilst on the topic, they also object to being referred to in his sermon as “disciples” – that is far too evangelical. They prefer to be called churchgoers.  Quite a number of the people at our meeting laughed or gasped but I think some others sympathised with the Gloucester member of the congregation.

It got me thinking - how do we in our rural churches see our ourselves? Churchgoers or disciples? Well certainly we are the former, if we regularly attend church, but what does that mean?  Are we going simply in the hope of doing the right thing by God or are we really following the teaching and mission of Jesus Christ?

So, what is it to be a disciple?  Webster's definition of a disciple is "a pupil or follower of any teacher or school.”  A true disciple is therefore not just a student or a learner, but a follower: one who applies what he has learned.  This was the assumption or hope which Bishop Stephen was expressing to his cathedral congregation in Gloucester and this is the assumption and hope which he is expressing today in his new diocese of Salisbury – to us all!  That we know Jesus – hence “Making Jesus Known” not simply “knowing about Him”.

In our first two readings this morning, first from Acts written by Luke and secondly from John’s First Epistle, we reflect upon the mistakes of the past in not fully knowing Jesus. Luke in our first reading reminds us that Jesus was put to death on the Cross by people who were ignorant of who he was and also the reason why it was necessary for him to die. John in our second reading reminds us that now we know him we can be truly called God’s children and, when Jesus is revealed to us, we can be like Him.  That explains why properly knowing and following Jesus is to be a disciple - a true follower and that is why, if we are to call ourselves Christians, we have to acknowledge and realise that we are true disciples and that in everything we do and say we do so in the spirit and grace of Jesus.

Our gospel reading reminds us of the disarray in which those first disciples found themselves after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It occurs after the resurrection and they are all together in one place talking about what they had heard; rumours, as they would have been, of Jesus having risen from the dead.  It must have been an awesome experience for them to have the risen Christ suddenly appearing in front of them.  Even after he had shown them the scars of Crucifixion they were still disbelieving – no doubt thinking that he was some sort of ghost. It is for that reason that he demonstrated that he was really still flesh and blood and alive by asking them to give him some food – a piece of grilled fish. He then reminds them that all this was foretold in the Old Testament and that having known him and having witnessed his resurrection they can be true witnesses of all that has happened, witnesses of God’s love to the people of the world and that those who truly repent are forgiven their sins without the need for the Temple ritual previously required.

It would take a long session to consider all the arguments about the meaning of the Cross and its significance but I think we can be well satisfied that God sent Jesus into a broken world, a religiously corrupt world so that Humankind could be reconciled with God and that through the death and resurrection of his Divine Son, Jesus, we could seek direct forgiveness through repentance and prayer – hence the tearing of the Temple Veil to signify that every believer and follower has direct access to God without the need of complicated rituals and hierarchy.

Today, this service is being led by me, a Licensed Lay Minister, not a Priest. My role is to teach and preach in a pastoral context.  Yes, I may have gone through four years of theological and ministerial training and wear these robes of church authority, but, like all of us here today, I am simply, at best, a follower of Christ and, hopefully a reasonably good disciple although, like many of those original disciples, I often get it hopelessly wrong!

So how can we be good disciples and how can we undertake the role we are being asked of making Christ known if we don’t know Christ ourselves? In my view only by studying and following the example of Christ – first by studying the gospels and secondly by “walking the talk” just as Jesus requested of those first disciples in Matthew 28 – the Great Commission – which I think useful to set out again here - 

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So ends Matthew’s Gospel as well as the TV production of “Jesus of Nazareth” but do note that even here, at the end, some disciples still doubted, even after all this time and experience.

In his talk last Wednesday night, Bishop Stephen ended with another story. As many of you will realise, the Bibby Stockholm barge, housing a number of asylum seekers at Portland, is within the Diocese of Salisbury. Bishop Stephen, together with a local priest, went there on Maundy Thursday after the Chrism Service in the cathedral and washed the feet of some of those asylum seekers.  As he did so to one particular man, the asylum seeker said “Surely, we should be doing that for you”!

Bishop Stephen used this story to illustrate that this is an example of where we can “evangelise” our faith to others – doing as Christ did to his disciples.  Serving and not being served and teaching others by the way we demonstrate our good discipleship and knowledge of Jesus to those who have yet to know him.

As we shall say, once again at the end of the service, let us depart in peace to be sent out to love and serve the Lord.

 

Amen                                                                                                            MFB/201/11042024

SERMON 200 - SUNDAY 31 MARCH 2024 - EASTER SUNDAY EUCHARIST

Sermon at All Saints’ Parish Church, Winterslown   -  Easter Sunday Eucharist  – Sunday 31 March 2024

Isaiah 25:6-9; Acts 10:34-43; Mark 16:1-8

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Today’s readings should bring an overwhelming sense of joy and emotion to Christians throughout the whole – a reminder that Jesus having been executed by the cruellest of methods by the Roman occupiers of Judea – has risen on the third day and is alive.  Whenever I read or hear today’s gospel passage it always sends a feeling of upwelling emotions and tears.

One of my favourite films, largely because I love railways and trains (in fact my current house lies on the old trackbed of the Salisbury to Bournemouth railway), is “The Railway Children” – the 1970 version directed by Lionel Jeffries with Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett, Dinah Sheridan Bernard Cribbins and William Mervyn (of the Church of England sitcom All Gas and Gaiters fame).  This wonderful story written by Edith Nesbit in 1906 tells the story, I am sure you will recall, of three children and their mother who are forced to leave fashionable London and live in a small house near a village with a railway station because their father, who holds an important position in the Civil Service, has been falsely accused of being a traitor, a spy, and put in prison.  We later find out that a work colleague framed him to cover for his own crime.

The book and film tells the story of the adventures which the children get up to in and around the railway line and station including preventing a train wreck after a landslide, preventing an injured schoolboy being killed in a railway tunnel and helping a foreigner to be re-united with his family. There is also a scene, you will recall, where the boy Peter attempts to steal coal from the station yard in order to provide heat for his poorly mother.  During their time away from London they have to survive much deprivation which their changed circumstances have brought about and after an affluent life in London, their changed circumstances and the stigma of their father’s incarceration prove to be a great challenge.

The scene which I want to remind you of, though, is that moment when Roberta, the elder daughter played by Jenny Agutter, is told by the station master (Bernard Cribbins) that “today is a very special day – I’ve seen it in the papers”.  She has no idea what he is talking about but feels that everyone and everything seems a little odd and she wants to be alone.  The passengers on the train all wave to her and the station master seems to be so excited as he fusses around, as do the passengers waiting for the train to arrive.

It does not matter how many times I see the film version, or even think about that final scene, as I am doing now, my eyes always well up with emotional tears of joy as Roberta sees her falsely accused, but now released, father standing with his case on the platform as the smoke from the locomotive disperses and she shouts “Daddy my Daddy”!

For me, there is a direct parallel here with the Easter Story.  Like Roberta’s father, Jesus was falsely accused of seditious activity against the Roman authorities and paid the price for others’ sins.  Indeed he paid the ultimate penalty and Jesus’s followers and family must have felt that his ministry and life were firmly over.  That Good Friday and Easter Saturday must have been absolutely dreadful for them – just like the children in the railway children – their life had been turned upside down and doubts must have entered their heads as to what or who Jesus had been. 

We have been journeying with Jesus through Lent, Holy Week and shared his pain as we have remembered and re-enacted the events of Good Friday; but here we are on Easter Day, standing on the steamy platform like Roberta as Jesus Resurrected appears to us through the narrative of Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of James. Upon realising that Jesus was back, the feeling which they must have had must have been that same overwhelming feeling of joy as we experience with Roberta in that film scene; and like Roberta they are amazed and confused and we read also terrified at the same time.  For me, like watching that scene again and again, I still get an incredible lump in my throat when I hear and read that passage read as I explained earlier; but for me I know how the story ends, the two Mary’s didn’t.  It was an experience so remarkable that it was difficult for them to comprehend.

At times when our Faith is tested it is good to remember this passage. In today’s extensive secular society Christians continue to be persecuted for their beliefs – especially surrounding the resurrection.  The early Christians had much to put up with from non-believers; in fact even those who believed struggled, such as those disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Luke, in the reading from Acts which we also heard read this morning, recalls Peter speaking to those surrounding Cornelius’s House reminding them of the great sacrifice made for all mankind – not just those of the Jewish Faith. Cornelius, you will remember was a Roman Centurion who heard God calling him to summon Peter to his where he, his family and his whole household were baptised as Christians following a vision which Peter had demonstrating that it was not just those of the Jewish Faith who obeyed the Mosaic Law who were worthy of being Christians but everyone and everyone who accepts Jesus as their true saviour who died on the Cross for the sins of all.  That such believers and followers will receive forgiveness through his name.

I think it is wonderful that, like the name of a seaside town running through the length of a stick of rock from first lick to last lick, the coming of Jesus as our Saviour permeates the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Our First Testament reading from Isaiah is an example of this when it is written:

“… the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the Earth, for the LORD has spoken.  It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, so that he might save us.  This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation”.

There are really two important points which Isaiah conveys – first of all, he will wipe away the tears of all, he will take away the disgrace from all the Earth; and secondly, here is an acknowledgement that the LORD (Yahweh) for whom we have waited has come and that therefore Jesus is indeed GOD (Yahweh) incarnate.

Whenever my Faith is shaken or I feel not quite in tune with God I remember these words. I remember the fact that in the context of the universe which God created as a whole, our little planet is so insignificant. It is one of the smaller planets revolving around a small yellow dwarf star, on the outer limits of a galaxy which is not the largest of a group of galaxies a group which is one of the smaller ones contained in a larger galactic cluster set in the infinity of a universe whose boundaries we cannot currently discern.  Yet, despite this, the Creator God was so concerned and compassionate about us and the way in which we were going, he sent himself, in the form of Jesus, to save us from ourselves.

We live in an ever-increasing secular world – in a world where most worship material things – money, possessions, celebrities. We live in a world where untruths abound and through social media we spread gossip and lies without stopping to examine their veracity or the harm they do to others. We are constantly being led by false shepherds, false prophets, people who appeal to our greed.  They spread Bad News because it appeals to us – conspiracies, and rumours or because it fills their pockets with our hard-earned money. 

As Christians, we have to stand up against such falseness and fake news and we do so by going back to the message of Jesus – “I am the way the truth and the life”.  It is our role as Christians to spread this Good News to all we meet in our daily lives.

It grieves me so much to see a world which honours and follows those who appeal to our poorer nature and instincts instead of inspiring us to follow Christ and his teachings of loving one another as God loves us.

I am optimistic though.  Just as everything worked out well in the end for Roberta and her family in the Railway Children, justice did prevail, her father was restored to his family and his position – no manner of falsehood or fake accusations could destroy them in the end.  I daresay the whole family though benefited from going through the turmoil of giving up their comfortable life in London for a harder but I think richer life in the Yorkshire countryside.

Likewise, through Jesus’s passion, death and resurrection we are richer in that we are now able to access God directly through Jesus and the Holy Spirit and can be restored to the people which God created us to be. Let us not simple proclaim this with our Alleluia’s in church but in our daily lives as we spread this Good News to all we meet.

 Amen                                                                                                   MFB/200/27032024