Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Farley - Trinity 11 – Sunday 11 August 2024
1 Kings
19:4-8; Ephesians 4:25–5:2; John 6:35,41-51
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Each of the three readings this morning speak strongly of our
Christian doctrine and values – that the fountain of all life lies with God
through Jesus. That’s what makes us able to call ourselves Christians – the
belief in a Supreme Being, the God of Israel, that Jesus was his Son and divine
and that God’s mercy and grace given to us is something which we, in turn
should show to others. Indeed, I could end this sermon here and now with those
words; but, in today’s commercial and material word, I think it is very easy to
lose sight of the simple messages which are to be found in scripture.
Let’s look at each passage carefully, and reflect upon what it is
telling us in this modern day and age:
First Reading – 1 Kings 19:4-8
Elijah, the great prophet from the Old Testament is tired, worn out by
his prophesying to King Ahab which has fallen largely on deaf ears. In fact, he was fleeing from the wrath of
King Ahab’s wife Jezebel who, having heard of how the priests of Baal had been
massacred, threatened to deal with Elijah likewise. He took himself off into
the wilderness and rested under a broom tree and there was lamenting what he
had done and wishing that his own life would end there and then. He fell asleep
and we then read how an angel came and provided him with bread and water to
revitalise him. Twice he had this holy visitation such that he was strengthened
to carry out his good work.
Jesus, later on in Matthew 11:28-30, promised that all those who are
weary can come to him and that he will take their burden. A promise direct from
God that in doing God’s work He will give you strength and take on any burden
too heavy for us to bear ourselves by our own efforts. Jesus also uses the
analogy of bread in our Gospel reading today which we will look at shortly.
Elijah was persecuted by King Ahab, through his wife Jezebel, because
he continued to preach and prophesying about the God of Israel and not pay
homage to the pagan gods supported by Jezebel at that time. Today, as Christians, we too can find
ourselves persecuted by not following some of the profanities of modern culture
and can be ridiculed for our Christian belief. We too can have moments like
Elijah when it all seems too much and we just want to go and hide away. At times like these, we need to put our faith
in our Saviour, Jesus Christ, pray to God through him and ask him to shar ethe
burden which we are carrying.
Second Reading – Ephesians 4:25-5:2
In our second reading, Paul is writing to the Church in Ephesus. At
that time the city was largely an ungodly place. He describes the
non-Christians (Gentiles) there as “living in the futility of their
thinking; darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God
because of the ignorance that is due to the hardening of their hearts. Having
lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to
indulge in every kind of impurity and a continual lust for more”.
These words of Paul precede the scripture reading in our Second
Reading and therefore we see that Paul is discouraging the Church there from
those practices which he considers impure and list those virtues which having
been taught by Jesus himself should be practised by those who call themselves
Christians. It is worth repeating them again here as I believe they form a
wonderful Code of Conduct for Christian living and which are encapsulated in
the two Great Commandments as left by Jesus with his disciples –
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind". Jesus also says in this verse that this is the first and greatest commandment. The verse continues, "And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself. ' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37) -
“Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect upon those two passages of scripture – one from the mouth of Jesus himself and one in a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Church in Ephesus – and think how relevant it is today in Great Britain and Northern Ireland where we are seeing intolerance, racism, greed, envy, crime, violence and the general dilution of these Christ-like (Christian) values.
Gospel Reading – John
6:35,41-51
Finally we
heard, this morning, from Jesus himself in our third, Gospel Reading.
Here, Jesus
is addressing a crowd of people after crossing the Lake of Galilee; but the
Jews started to complain about his preaching when he had said that he was the
“Bread of Life” – something of a flashback to the Old Testament stories of
manna during the great wanderings in the wilderness following the exodus from
Egypt and, indeed, the story of Elijah’s cake which we have just been
considering. For them it was blasphemy,
false teaching and an arrogance of somebody they had known as the son of a
humble woodworker and young wife. Now
they are being told by him that he is the Son of God, sent by God, known by God
– the bread of life. The bread, he says, will sustain them for all eternity
unlike the manna which sustained those fleeing Egypt who would all die
eventually.
Of course,
Jesus is not talking about actual baked bread, like Elijah’s cake, but himself
– his body sacrificed for all on the Cross. Later on, we read that the Jews had
taken Jesus’s words literally arguing, again, amongst themselves, how could
this man give his flesh for [them] to eat? (v 52).
Jesus is
saying that by believing in him and obeying his words, the words of God, we
shall be saved and be given the blessing of eternal life.
But, as we
have seen, in these readings and in others of the recent weeks, being a
Christian is not easy and, I don’t know about you but I find people today
either don’t want to believe in Christ or are frightened to believe – perhaps
because they think of the Ten Commandments and think that being a Christian is
all about negativity – not doing the things they want to do rather than
understanding that it is a way that leads through love of God and the Trinity
to a global love of all God’s creation and all people.
Sometimes, I
am sure those of our friends and family who are non-Christians challenge us in
many ways not least by trying to convince us that we are following a
fantasy. The great writer and theologian
C S Lewis put it like this – what is known as 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 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.
Let us pray.
Dear God, we pray
for the growth of your kingdom in every country around the world. Even in the
midst of persecution 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 secret church
communities. Help churches to continue to grow, and to thrive both in numbers
and in faith especially in those places where evil and violence are rife. Help
them to trust in you and to continue to work to know you better.
Amen MFB/203/08082024
No comments:
Post a Comment