Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Winterslow - Trinity 13 – Sunday 25 August 2024
Joshua
24:1-2a; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Listening to and reading each of
the passages of scripture which we have heard this morning reminds us all of
the greatness and wonder of God’s grace and power but it also reminds me that
being a Christian and being faithful to the Trinity is also, at times, quite
difficult and challenging.
In our first reading, Joshua is
acutely aware that there have been negative murmurings from the Jews led out of
captivity in Egypt as far back as the early days of their wanderings with his
predecessor Moses and so decides to have a showdown with the elders, the heads
and the judges of the various tribes and puts a direct question to them – Whom
are they following? Is it the God who led them out of captivity or those other
gods who might have influenced them either when they were in Egypt or during
their journey?
In order to persuade them of the
correct answer he answers the question for himself – “… as for me and my
household, we will serve the LORD [Yahweh]” The god of the Hebrews.
I remember back in the days with
Nils and Linda Carter, here in this church and at “Food for Thought” in the
Village Hall, we would often sing the popular song “As for me and my
house, as for me and my family, as for me and my children, we will serve the
Lord” very enthusiastically. It was a catchy little number and the tune was
still ringing in my ears as I was writing this sermon.
It is a direct and very important
question – not just for those ancient leaders of the Hebrew tribes but also for
us today when there are so many false gods whom we could be tempted or
persuaded to serve – and I don’t just mean within other faiths but as the
author of our second reading put it – “rulers, authorities and spiritual and
cosmic forces of evil which surround us.
Whom do you serve? The answer, if we are committed Christians should
always be the one which Joshua himself gave.
In recent times I have become more
and more concerned and disappointed at the way the world seems to be going and
especially the way in which false Christian teaching and secular thought has
become so focussed on material wealth and worshipping the icons of self and
wealth that we forget the true message of the gospel.
For “entertainment”, I often watch
the blatant trickery adopted by preachers of the “Word of Faith” movement who
would part vulnerable people from what little money they have after promising
them a miracle. Jesus never once
performed any miracle for money or financial gain; yet people continue to line
their pockets with vast sums of money for their “ministry”. These people are
being led astray.
Never before, in my view, has it
been more important to lead people along the right path – the narrow path as
Jesus described it. It is incumbent upon
each and every one of us to act as shepherds to support each other in
continuing our faith along this tricky, narrow, winding road.
Paul in his letter to the
Ephesians gives this precise warning – that we need to guard ourselves and others “against the cosmic and spiritual powers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”. Paul was
addressing the Christians in Ephesus, a dark and unholy place where immorality
and hedonism was rife. Paul was anxious
that the Christian church he had founded there should not be subsumed into this
dark culture which surrounded it. That
was in the first century AD. Has much
changed when we look at the United Kingdom in the second millenium AD?
Christians today are facing
confusion and conflicting theologies. In
recent times I have, myself, found it difficult sometimes to reconcile the
loving word of God with some of the elements of ecclesiastical doctrine and
dogma. Often we come across ministers
and theologians using scripture simply to prove their own prejudices and dogma
– what is termed eisegesis – putting into scripture one’s own ideas, as opposed
to exegesis – taking out of scripture what it is truly meant to say.
During my years of training for
this ministry we were repeatedly taught the importance of the difference. Essentially, the correct way to approach it
is to ask four questions – Who wrote it? To whom is it written? When was it
written? Why was it written? For example, in the passage from Paul, he, as we
have already discussed, was writing to the church leaders in Ephesus in the
first century at a time when that city was spiritually dark and the church
needed encouragement and support with its Christian faith. When we understand the context of scriptural
passages we can better understand what it is that they are trying to
convey. The Psalms are especially good
for this as they portray the triumph and tragedies of the psalmist’s life –
expressions of feelings and experiences we all have from time to time.
Jesus, as we learn from our gospel
reading this morning, was not exempt from being questioned by the leaders and
elders of the Hebrews and his own disciples about his status. The context of
this morning’s passage is that the Jews were arguing amongst themselves
following Jesus’s difficult statement that he is the “bread of life” and that
unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood you cannot have eternal life. They thought, of course, that he was talking
about some form of cannibalism – literally eating his flesh and drinking his
blood – but of course he is not.
The disciples find the whole
concept of his statement too difficult to comprehend and Jesus has to explain
that he is talking about spirit and life – a belief that he has come from
heaven to be the way to eternal life if you believe in him and in his teachings.
For some of his disciples this is
too much to bear and they desert him but, as we read not Peter although later
on he would deny Christ on the eve of the Passion.
When I get bogged down with
conflicting dogma and doctrine and hear the dangerous words of false preachers
and those who would falsely declare themselves prophets I like to get “back to
basics”, as Prime Minister John Major once said. What did Jesus say? What would
Jesus do? I once wore a bracelet I was given at Spring Harvest on which were
inscribed the letter WWJD? It was a
wonderful reminder to keep reading the gospels and go back to basics. There
many of the conflicts can be resolved if you simply put your trust and faith in
Jesus Christ. That is why we call ourselves Christians and if we cannot do that
then perhaps we are not titling ourselves correctly!
Non-Christians have often come up
to me and said either they don’t believe Christ ever existed or if he did exist
he was, at best, just another teacher/prophet and not who he claimed to be –
the Son of God.
The respected theologian and
Christian apologist C S Lewis had this to say in response, and I can think of
no better response. It’s called the Lewis Trilemma –
“Christ
either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was Himself deluded and
self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma. It
is inexorable”.
If we accept
the latter, which Lewis did himself after much soul searching and research,
then we must accept all that he said and did, and live by those Christian
values and principles he left us and preached by Paul. Values and principles
which we are to practice as a means of telling the world, just as the church in
Ephesus was meant to and those who followed Joshua, of the need to put God
first in our lives, to follow and worship the Trinity and not false idols and
gods which surround us both physically and spiritually.
Let us pray:
Father God, we
pray for the growth of your kingdom in every country around the world. Even in
the midst of persecution, ridicule and danger, give people the strength and
courage to continue sharing your good news with those around them. Work in the
hearts of non-believers and draw them to yourself, and to the existing church
communities. Help churches to continue to grow, and to thrive both in numbers
and in faith especially in those places where materialism, hedonism,
immorality, evil and violence are rife. Help them to trust in you and to
continue to work to know you better making your son, Jesus Christ, known.
We pray this pray
through that same Jesus Christ whom we acknowledge to be our Lord and Saviour,
Amen
MFB/204/22082024
