I never really buy into this new Methodist year lark but I was led to lead my congregation this morning using the set epistle from Romans 13: 8 - 14 into looking at priorities for renewal. Some of my sermon is reproduced below:
On Thursday
afternoon, I had to go and
do a visit in some very posh flats opposite the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill,
De La Warr Heights. My instructions told me how to get in and to go in the lift
to the second floor where I would find flat 16. I got in, I found the lift, I
went up to the second floor, I walked out, there was no flat 16, there was flat
5, flat 7, flat 9, flat 10, flat 12, no flat 16. I walked round and round, I
went back down to the ground floor in the lift, I then went back up the stairs,
flat 5, flat 7, flat 9, flat 10, flat 12. There was a door with no number on
it. I opened it, it was a cupboard! I went downstairs again. Then I saw a sign
– flats 13 to 20 this way, there was another lift, the instructions were right
in front of my nose, I ignored them and got in a mess. The lady had let me in
20 minutes earlier. I didn’t tell her I’d been in a cupboard!
But we are
like that in the church, we ignore the instructions, we waste time, we do our
own thing, and we wonder why things aren’t working.
We are
called to be community, and sometimes the church isn’t a very good advert for
Christianity. Relationships even
in a Christian community can be really difficult, we have to work at it. Love does no wrong to
a neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. So many Christian
communities have forgotten the instruction to love. And then there
are the people who say sorry and want new starts in churches and the other
person won’t accept it, holding on to the hurt.
Then
secondly, we are to recognise that God is at work. Romans says “now is the
moment for you to wake up from sleep, for salvation is nearer to us now than
when we first became believers.” Look around you and see the blessings of God
today. Wake up, says Paul. Perhaps you know what it is like to nod off and miss
something important. I do it watching television, especially dramas. I wake up
and I don’t understand what is happening. I fell asleep watching England play
Norway on Wednesday evening. I woke up and it was still mind numbingly boring as
before I shut my eyes.
I remember a Thursday Sisterhood and Mrs Lancaster.
Mrs Lancaster used to nod off and snore during the meeting. I remember taking
the meeting once and she nodded off. 20 minutes later she woke up suddenly,
looked at me and said “Good God, are you still talking?”!
Wake up
calls are common when we travel. We call the hotel's front desk and we tell
them when we want to be awakened. The next morning, the phone rings at the
appropriate time, and a computer-generated voice can be heard telling us the
time. Sometimes wake up calls come in other forms. The boss telling us one more
mistake, and we are fired. A near brush with death. Sometimes we are awakened
in the middle of the night, by a knock on the front door or a phone ringing or
a child crying or a fox prowling setting off the security light or a cat head
butting you on the pillow at 3.30am – oh that’s just my house then!
Now is the
time to wake up from your sleep for salvation is near. Perhaps this is the time
right here in this church at the beginning of a new year to wake up. Wake up
and see what we have here, not what we haven’t. Churches are notoriously bad at
listing what has gone, numbers, large Sunday schools, young people, but forget
the resources within themselves today. Wake up and see what God is doing,
salvation is coming. Jesus is at work amongst us, today. There are blessings
today. It’s good to be the people of God today. Wake up!
Paul is addressing the Christian community in Rome not people
who are outside of faith. He is
addressing baptized Christians, Christians who live in the Spirit. It would
seem that this sleep is a spiritual sleep. The gift of the Holy Spirit has been
received but it has fallen asleep.
Then
finally, we need time to rediscover the joy of Christ in our lives again. Paul
says Put on Christ, like a garment, put him on, never go anywhere without him.
He talks about the world we are to live in, the world of Iraq and Gaza and
Ukraine and pain and heartbreak all around us.
But for
Paul, although the reality of the world was real, something stronger was more real,
is more real for us. We need to begin this third year in confidence here. In
Paul’s mind the day has dawned. We are not of night or darkness. We belong to
the new day. “You are not in darkness!” You live in a very dark age—a dark and
sinful time. But that is not the main reality for you, if you are a Christian.
The day has come. Light has come. Christ has come.
When the church spends time rediscovering community, loving, being confident and awake, and
putting on Christ to help us and lead us then we become what the church should
be, distinctive, expectant, hopeful, and working to build the Kingdom and make
the world be those things too.
I was sent a grace a family here found in America in the summer while
visiting family. Perhaps this sums up my rambling for this morning:
May God give
you grace to never sell yourself short;
Grace to risk something big for something
good;
Grace to remember the world is now too
dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
Is love a priority for the church, love for everyone, at the beginning of another crazy year? I hope so,
