SERMON – SUNDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2012 – All Saints Parish Church,
Whiteparish
Numbers 13 and Philippians
2:12-28
I wonder how many of
you, like me, were addicted, in the 1960s to watching the original TV Sci-Fi
series Star Trek? I do know that there is at least one
“Trekkie” in the congregation tonight who watched avidly the deep sky adventures
of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones McCoy, Scottie, Mr Sulu and of course the lovely Lt. Uhura as they explored the universe in their Starship Enterprise. And how many of your remember the series’
“strap line”? Yes “To
boldly go where no man has gone before” or as my pedantic English teacher
cynically put it “To boldly split infinitives where they’ve never been split
before!”
This year, we also
celebrate the 100th anniversary of the bold adventure of Robert
Falcon Scott and his brave team of four companions who, having reached the
South Pole, were disappointed to find that the Norwegian explorer, Amundsen,
had arrived there a few weeks earlier and they now had to trudge back to base
at Cape Evans in howling blizzards and appalling weather perishing in the
attempt. Bold men indeed.
These examples (one
fictional and one very factual) stand in stark contrast to eight of the ten spies
whom Moses and Aaron sent out in our Old Testament reading. I have always found it strange that, after all
the depravations of the wilderness, the treatment received at the hands of the
Egyptians and the blessings they had received at the hands of Yahweh, our God,
in the form of the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea and the manna they
received on their journey, they should so easily be tempted to give up on
finally reaching the land they had been promised.
The context of David’s
[Seal’s] reading this evening is that
having reached the edge of the promised
land, God then commanded Moses to send into the promised land twelve important
leaders of the ancestral Jewish tribes – and in the verses which were missed
out in the reading, they are listed in quite some detail. I won’t bore you with them now – I’m not sure
that my Hebrew is quite up to it anyway – but you can read the list for
yourself when you get home. Two of them,
however, are important to us, Caleb and Joshua.
The twelve reported
that the land was indeed flowing with milk and honey, just as promised by God,
but that the towns and cities were heavily fortified by the incumbent tribes. Ten of the twelve, realizing that to take the
land would require a good deal of courage and bloodshed in warfare, exaggerated
the size of the potential opponents saying that by comparison “we are mere
grasshoppers”.
The incredible fact
is that they seem to have completely forgotten how the promises made to Moses
by God have so far actually come to fruition.
They have just spent 40 years in the wilderness, getting lost, and now
they want to go back!
Because, we read on,
in the next chapter, that Caleb, having tried to inspire the rest to go on, is
rebuffed by “the whole congregation” as it is described in the New Revised
Standard Version, who exclaim “We would rather have died in Egypt or in the
wilderness” than fall to the swords of the incumbent tribes. They then propose that they elect a captain
to take them back to Egypt. I really do
wonder what sort of reception they expected to receive had they done so with
Pharaoh’s son having drowned pursuing them into the Red Sea! . As we know, Caleb and Joshua, in particular,
did eventually lead the people into Canaan and, after many bloody battles,
settled there.
It therefore took the
boldness of Caleb and Joshua to stand up to the crowd to be able to go on and found
the Jewish nation. They alone, apart from Moses and Aaron, at the end, had true
faith in God’s word to see the job through.
In a similar way,
Paul, in our second reading, in his letter to the Philippians, implores those
at Philippi to obey God’s word because the instructions he, Paul, has given
them in the past came from God through Jesus and they should have faith to, as
he puts it, work out their own salvation.
However, hard the road ahead might be, God is with them and will protect
and guide them.
Paul was in a good
position to understand just how hard that road was. This letter was written at a time when Paul
was imprisoned and, in fact, he probably more than half-expected to be executed
for professing the new Christian faith.
Earlier in his letter, Paul writes that he has actually found his
imprisonment a blessing because he has been able to use this time to preach the
gospel to the soldiers who are guarding him. In all probability, a Roman guard would have
been placed in Paul’s cell, probably even chained to him, so he would have had,
literally, a captive congregation!
I sometimes have a
vision of Paul acting a bit like a modern day TV evangelist to his congregation
of one or maybe two soldiers. Perhaps, because they couldn’t switch him off, as
we can with those TV preachers, they decided to let him go! We do know that he
survived that imprisonment. Certainly
Paul was very passionate in his writings.
His message in this
letter, therefore, is that however hard or difficult a situation is or might
seem, God’s love and protection, and the blessing of the Holy Spirit, will be
provided to those bold enough to proclaim the gospel - the good news - to
others.
Paul mentions
“suffering” a lot in this letter. Being
a faithful Christian is not an easy matter he tells those in Philippi. Even in today’s age, perhaps especially in
today’s age, it can be a very difficult occupation indeed. We hear daily of the persecution of
Christians in China, the Middle East and Nigeria, for example, as well as in
many other parts of the world. It is because of their boldness, and in spite of
the persecution of many ordinary folk in these countries that Christianity is
actually on the increase. How much we
owe these people for their faith and love in Christ that they risk their lives
and those of their loved ones, to proclaim the gospel.
We are the lucky ones
then aren’t we? We can attend church
here in this Wiltshire village without fearing for our lives. We are free to come here to meet, worship and
to pray.
But in this modern
age we are also surrounded by the secular and commercial world which doesn’t
seem to have room for our faith. The “bottom line” or the latest Ipod Touch have become the centre of
worship. Simply, for many, it is “not
cool” to be a Christian or religious. It
can be so easy, in those surroundings, to slip into complacency or simply into
the background. To go along with the
crowd, to follow the herd or simply keep quiet.
Jesus himself was never afraid to profess his faith in his father and
neither should we.
My message to you
this evening, then, is a simple one. Be bold, stand up for your faith - whenever
challenged or questioned. Like Caleb and
Joshua, respond with a positive voice founded on your belief and trust in God
and his Son, Jesus Christ. We should all
try to be like Paul, who when in chains actually said “I am glad of this
opportunity to spread the gospel to the Imperial Guard” and not, “I really wish
I was somewhere else”.
See opportunities,
even in difficult, and especially in difficult circumstances, and with great
apologies to my English teacher – “I’m sorry Mr. Muir”, “To boldly go where no
Christian has been before!”
Amen
MFB/02022012
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