Dear Friends
Many have an inner monologue, a continuous expression of speech within which expresses to themselves hopes, dreams, desires and fantasies. They evaluate their experiences, think back on what went well and what went badly, and the monologues rate their performance for the day. This is the hidden self, the “ego” or “id.” We are subject to its approval or its displeasure. This is the inner self, the true self, which tries to rule the person and must be obeyed: it would be an act of supreme stupidity to supress or even to temper it.
This idea starts in enlightenment thinking and finds its expression in René Descartes’ (1596–1650) famous dictum “Cogito, ergo sum,” “I think, therefore I am.” For Descartes the only thing about which he could be certain was that he was able to think—no matter what he experienced, what he felt, it was his ability to think and to reason which was the definition of his existence. But what he was really saying was “I am, therefore I doubt.” In other words, “I cannot trust what I experience, I cannot truly rely on my senses, all which I can be sure about is in my own mind.”
In the decades and centuries following the Enlightenment, our society took to pushing God, religion and anything spiritual to the edges. But this creates a problem—how do we explain why outwardly good people do evil actions? This was, in part, addressed by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) who talked of the id, ego and super-ego as the structure to our psyche and developed psychoanalysis as a clinical method for treating mental illnesses.
Yet the Church gives to us a more straightforward explanation. The mind is sensory organ: as the eye is the organ by which we interact with the visual world, as the tongue is to taste, so the mind is the means by which we interact with the spiritual world, and from the spiritual world good as well as evil can be placed in the mind. The presence of an evil concept in the mind is, therefore, not necessarily a malady to be treated but an evil to be rejected.
Our mental ideas are not an inner monologue expressing the true self, they are concepts which need to be tried and tested, then accepted or rejected. Our inner monologue does not need to be accepted unconditionally as truth but must be held up against Truth and be tested by fire to be proven or burnt up.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not blindly follow our inner monologues, but against both Descartes and Freud examine them against our experiences, against reality, against Truth. Let us,
“Rejoice always,
pray continually,
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not treat prophecies with contempt
but test them all; hold on to what is good,
reject every kind of evil.”
— First Thessalonians 5:16–22
And then we will receive the blessings of the Lord and eternal Life.
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Brothers and sisters, pray for us.
Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. …
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
— First Thessalonians 5:23–28
Amen.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
For centuries the remnant of Israel had toiled through the night. They had returned from the captivity of Babylon and rebuilt the Temple, they had fought wars and made alliances and yet still they were under foreign oppression.
“Because you did not serve the Lᴏʀᴅ your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything,
therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lᴏʀᴅ will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.
The Lᴏʀᴅ will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand,
a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favour to the young.”
— Deuteronomy 28:47–50
Yet God has not abandoned his people whom he loves but has sent salvation into the world. He has appeared not as an angel, nor in the form of a man, but has himself taken on flesh that he might destroy his enemies and unite us to himself by his death and Resurrection.
“Master,” we, the people of God cry out, “we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word we will let down the nets.” And, indeed, at the appearance of the Word of God, the nets have been cast out and we are invited to new Life in him.
…
Read this Sermon, Do not be afraid.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 27th September
Discussion on the Gospel of Matthew, 8 pm.
Online only
Saturday 28th September
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm.
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 29th September
Matins and Divine Liturgy, 9 am.
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at 3rd URC Scout HQ, Kings Rd, Chandlers Ford SO53 2EY. The Scout hall is behind and to the left of the URC Church. Come and See.
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Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
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