Thursday 20 September 2007

Empowering

Preached this sermon in St. Peter's, Maybush on 9 September 2007. St. Peter's is a gorgeous little church, with some charming Art Deco features (most notably the leaded windows and the light fittings), and very welcoming congregation.
Philemon
Lk 14:25 – 33
  • Rather than the Gospel, I’d like to focus on the reading from Philemon this morning
  • Because it lends itself well to a theme that seems to be occupying my thoughts a lot of late … namely the theme of inclusivity and affirmation.
  • In our Philemon reading, there are 3 main characters; Paul, Onesimus and Philemon. The letter is written to Philemon – afriend of Paul’s, while Paul himself is in prison, about Onesimus.
  • Why was it written? That’s not immediately apparent simply from reading the text, but is rather to be found in the background behind the text. That’s also where it becomes quite an interesting story. Onesimus was once Philemon’s slave. To make matters more interesting, Onesimus had stolen from Philemon and then run away … matters which clearly were not befitting for a slave.
  • Onesimus ended up where Paul was in prison, and was of assistance to Paul, and so Paul writes the letter to Philemon, encouraging and affirming him first, but then asking him that he do welcome Onesimus back, but even more, welcome him as a brother, not a slave. So he was asking for Philemon to not only forgive Onesimus, but to free him.
  • A bit of a tall order, perhaps?
  • But, then Paul saw something in Onesimus that others couldn’t see.
  • He recognised Onesimus’ potential and sought to empower him to reach that potential.
  • And do we know exactly what happened to Onesimus, after Paul’s act of kindness? We do know that Philemon forgave and freed Onesimus and welcomed him as a brother.
  • After that, things are not as clear. Some scholars believe that he is the same Onesimus that was consecrated Bishop of Ephesus by the Apostles years later.
  • We do know that Onesimus has since been sainted by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran Churches
  • But who knows where he would’ve ended up without someone who saw him, not for what he was, but for what he could be?
  • Our Lord was an empoweror as well …
  • He had a small band of misfits as followers.
  • I like to think of them as the gang that weren’t…
  • The weren’t glamorous enough; they weren’t literate enough or learned enough; they weren’t wealthy enough; they weren’t articulate enough; they weren’t respected enough; they weren’t strong enough; they weren’t brave enough; they weren’t wise enough; they weren’t charismatic enough…
  • And yet … He believed in them!
  • And look at the outcome of that relationship!
  • Our Lord is an empoweror to us as well.
  • He believes in our potential, and wants us to reach that potential.
  • Are we empowerors to those around us?
  • Do we see the potential in others, or do we simply see what they do wrong.
  • I think, sadly nowadays, people are far too aware of what other people do wrong, and not able to see the phenomenal potential of the other person
  • And so, we are faced with two challenges this morning;
  • Firstly, how we can reach the potential that our Lord sees in us; and
  • Secondly, how we can affirm and empower others to reach their God-given potential
  • The reality is that we don’t live in an affirming society … we’re bombarded with messages and media that tell us all the negative things about ourselves and our lives:
    Our young people are disrespectful, not to be trusted and lazy
    Our children are not clever, sporty or well-behaved enough
    Our young men and women aren’t fit, attractive or glamorous enough
    Our parents aren’t wealthy or cool enough
    Our partners aren’t considerate, romantic or attractive enough
    We’re not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough
    The list goes on
  • We’re bombarded by negative messages about our lives, our society and our loved ones.
  • Sadly, the picture is not much better in many of today’s churches, were too often people are made to feel badly about themselves because they’re not modest enough, conforming enough, pious enough, regular enough in attending worship, giving enough to charity or the Church, “Straight” enough or perfect enough …
    … to be welcomed into the Church
  • We see far too many churches and church leaders focusing very hard on who they can exclude, in order to protect their exclusive members’ club, rather than on who they can include, to grow it’s sense of family and community and also it’s numbers.
  • We see a very different picture in our Philemon reading this morning, and we see a very different example in the life of our Lord.
  • We have been given “Good News” after all!
  • We have been freely welcomed and should be freely welcoming all to share in that good news.
  • So back to our challenges…
  • How can we welcome, include, affirm and empower others, in order that they may reach their potential, rather than being dejected, rejected and excluded?

    There is an old story that is told about an army (which is the actual collective noun for frogs!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_by_collective_term_A-K ) of frogs that went hopping through the forest one day when two of the frogs suddenly fell into a deep pit. All of the other frogs gathered around the hole to look down on their two fallen comrades. They all began to sadly shake their heads and to croak out dismal warnings. “It’s too deep!” croaked one frog. Another frog croaked that there was no way that they would ever be able to get out of that pit alive.
    The two fallen frogs began to continuously jump as they tried to get out of the pit, but the frogs that were watching kept croaking louder at them that they might as well stop because they were as good as dead and just wasting their time. One of the two frogs finally gave up and heeded the pessimistic advice of the frogs at the top. He quit leaping and literally “croaked” and died. The other frog just kept right on jumping and leaping harder than ever in spite of all the loud croaks of disapproval from the frogs around the top of the hole. They kept croaking shouts at him to quit jumping and save himself from all the pain and suffering he was incurring as he leaped and fell back down to the bottom of the pit over and over again. Finally, he jumped even harder than ever and to the surprise of all the other frogs he leaped right out of the deep pit. The other frogs asked him, “Why did you keep leaping even though we croaked and yelled at you to stop?” It was then that the frog explained to them that he was deaf and he had thought they were cheering for him and shouting words of encouragement to him the entire time!
  • Our words and actions have the power to help others to rise above where they are and achieve their full potential.
  • We need to not stop at what we can see, but rather to ask for the grace to see what each person’s God-given potential is. Then we have to WORK hard at keeping that up, because it can be easy to resort back to judging and belittling them when we don’t see them living up to their potential.
  • We need to remind ourselves of the grace we received, and of the fact that they are God’s beloved, perfect in His eyes.
  • The second challenge we had was how we, ourselves, could reach our potential.
  • This is, for many of us, a harder challenge, partly because we’re so accustomed to seeing our negative points. We’ve been conditioned to do so … it’s how businesses sell products to us.
  • So, it’s vital that we extend the same grace to ourselves, that we’ve just discussed extending to others.
  • We, too, are perfect in God’s eyes and perfectly loved.
  • We, too, need to realise this, ask for the grace to see this, and then ask for help to affirm this within ourselves.
  • And we could try spending a bit more time with people that affirm us, rather than those that judge us (making sure that we return the favour).
  • Amen

Tuesday 4 September 2007

Good News for all the earth?

This is a copy of my sermon from Sunday Last:

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14

Interactive introduction (for a church set out with tables and chairs, rather than rows of seating - if church is in rows of seating, adapt as necessary):

Approach front table, and lay with plates and wine glasses. Pour Bucks Fizz (or sparkling wine / champagne, if your finances can support it) into the glasses. Light some candles. If you have any eats for them, lay those out as well.

Then ask the congregation whether or not they mind if you go ahead at that table, and that it's unfortunate that they weren't seated at that table. Tell them you only have enough for the one table, but you're sure they'll understand. Proceed with the celebrations at that table.

Talk:

· Ask the congregation how they felt when they realised they weren't going to receive the same treatment? Ask if they felt it was unfair or not?

· Then return to the pulpit (if you need to clear the table, you can do it here, or perhaps later on in the service, during the peace).

· I'd like to tell the story about a young girl. I'm not sure of the origins of the story ... I was given it in email many years ago.

It's the story of a little incident that took place in Mainz in 1456 when Gutenberg was printing the first printed Bible:

The printer had a little daughter, Alice, who came into the printing press and picked up a discarded sheet with only one line of print. That line of print read: "God loved the world so much that he gave..." Now, those were times when popular religion was a matter of living in fear and trembling before the awesome wrath of God. So Alice put the paper in her pocket and kept on thinking of the fact of God being so loving, and her face radiated with joy. Her mother noticed her changed behaviour and asked Alice what was making her so happy and Alice showed her mother the sheet of paper with the printed line. Her mother looked at it for some time and said, "So, what did God give?" "I don't know," said Alice, "but if God loved us well enough to give us anything, then that is enough - we need not be so afraid of Him."

· And that's the point!

· We're meant to share in and share 'Good News'

· God loves you and me so much that He gave ...

· And yet ... that's not currently the message that we see many Christians sending out!

· Something has gone fundamentally wrong with the Church, with a capital "C"

    • It's become more obsessed with moral policing, with who's in the "in" crowd and who's in the "out" crowd, than with telling people the Good News of God's love.
    • Gospel means Good News. In the modern Church, we don't have a Gospel anymore ... we have doctrine.

· IF the Church is the Body of Christ, then how does the world out there ... Joe & Jane Bloggs in the street, your neighbours, the youngsters in the pubs and clubs ... how do they see the Church?

· Well - we're forcing them to regress back to a medieval understanding of God as the big Eye in the sky, watching and judging everything that you do.

· The impression we're giving them, is that if you're married, with 2.5 children, which are all in faith schools, you have a mortgage, a good job (but only one of you - the other must stay home and parent), you tithe on your good income, you belong to a midweek Church group of some sort, you primarily listen to Gospel music, you don't swear and you own your own DVD copy of The Passion of the Christ ... then you're definitely in.

· While the contrast is also true: If you're very rich, you're out; if you're very poor, you're out; if you're divorced, you're out; if you're a single parent, you're out; if you drink or smoke or use any other substance, you're out; if you're gay / lesbian / trans-gendered / transsexual / transvestite / bisexual, you're definitely out; if we can't understand your accent, language or culture, you're out; if you're in any way mentally or physically different, you're out. There's no room in the Kingdom for your sort - God is perfect and does not tolerate imperfection.

· It's abhorrent, but sadly it is the image that far too many churches are sending out to the general public.

· (Directed at the people who were at the fortunate table) How did it feel when I was laying your table? (Directed at the rest of the congregation) And how did it feel when you realised you were not going to receive the same treatment?

· It may be helpful if you mentioned personal experiences relayed to you of people being kicked out of a church, or excluded, for some reason beyond their control - perhaps a beggar, a young person, a gay person, etc..

· And yet?!

· The life of Jesus tells us a VERY different story

    • He didn't spend time with the dogmatists, he didn't spend time with the legalists, and he didn't spend time with the socially comfortable, the pious or the acceptable...
    • He was out on the streets with the scorned, the excluded, the outcasts, and brought them inclusion, hope and love.

· That's why we call it a Gospel; because it's Good News

· And we're instructed to share Good News with people,

· NOT to turn God into a malicious playground monitor.

· That's what Jesus was about

· That's what our Gospel is about

· That's what our Faith is about

· That's what today's reading is about

· We are called to share the good news that all are welcome and that all are included.

· That's why we share communion - it's an opportunity for everyone to join in the meal around the table.

· I'd like to share the words of a poster I saw on the wall of an St Columba's House, in Woking, Surrey, UK:

Beware!!

Here we practise the inclusive Gospel of Jesus Christ!

This means you may be mixing with tax collectors, sinners, adulterers, hypocrites, Greeks, Jews, women as well as men, female and male priests, homosexuals, lesbians, the disabled, the dying, thieves and other sinners; even Black people, Asians and other ethnic minorities, Muslims, Bishops, bigots, people of other faiths, strangers from Rome and Nigeria, heretics, etc., etc..

And yes, even you, dear guest, are most welcome.

In fact, anyone like those who Jesus mixed with.

So beware! This is not a private club! Welcome to all!

· And so, let us close with the words of the hymn (which I know may be politically incorrect in it's use of the word 'men', but I simply quote as it was written):
"We have a Gospel to proclaim
Good news for men in all the earth ..."

· Amen

© 2007. A. Marshall