Dear Friends
We develop ideas in our minds and we want to contrast groups, and we do this in the spiritual life: saints and sinners. In this understanding, the saints are righteous, holy, and make God manifest in the world whereas sinners are unrighteous, unholy and defy the works of God.
And we look at our lives and many would say to themselves, “I could never be a saint.” Despite the promises of love, of life, of the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh, it is easy to fall into despair.
One problem with this is we are obsessed with identity, and we want to classify people accordingly—”He is greedy; she is holy; I am selfish, etc.” as if that is the only important characteristic about them all. But these do not define us. We are find our identity not by characteristics but by our actions, by our interactions with others, “He serves others; she prayed; I was lazy.”
At the Last Judgement, Christ will say to the righteous,
Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in;
I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.
— Matthew 25:34–36
They may all consider themselves greedy, or selfish, or uncaring, but these do not form our identity and so we will not be judged on them: we will be judged solely on who we are which is demonstrated through actions. If I consider myself to be selfish I could grumble about it but if I want to change I should give to others—perhaps half-heartedly at first, perhaps feeling hypocritical, perhaps grudgingly. I might still consider myself to be selfish but the actions of my life would start to show that to be not true: my identity, how I relate to God and to my neighbours, would change.
And we come to the contrast between saints and sinners and start to see these are not opposites: many of the saints we great sinners. The saint, though, is a sinner who repents, who turns away from sin towards the Lord. And the Church is, for us, a school of repentance, the Body to which we are joined that we learn to repent, we learn to turn from our wanderings and back to the Lord.
May this be, may our Church of the Twelve Apostles be a place where we all continually repent, where we reject that which is sinful in our lives and turn back to the living God, who loves us and died for us that we may have eternal Life.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
We see in Scriptures, and in the history of the Church, the appearance of blessings seems to come in phases. We see this in the spiritual life too—at the beginning prayer is easy, attending Church is easy, but over time these become difficult and excuses come to us quickly to avoid them.
For seven years Israel and his eleven sons experienced bountiful harvests in Canaan and enjoyed the produce of the land. For seven years, too, Pharoah and Egypt experienced the surplus, but under the Patriarch Joseph they did not sit on their laurels, they worked to build up a store for the hard times ahead.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
We have heard the Lord speak to us today of the blessings he brings. I am poor, I am captive, I am blind and oppressed and the Lord brings to me the Gospel, he releases me from captivity to sin, cures my blindness to truth and gives me freedom. And like Israel in Canaan I want to sit back and relax, enjoy these blessings for myself and continue on with my happy existence. But the Church is calling me, and she is calling you, to be as the Egyptians, to work with these blessings to store them up for the long road ahead—for a time when the years of plentiful harvests may disappear—that we may have Life. And when famine comes we may serve others, we may feed the hungry and offer Life to all the more.
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Read this Sermon, A period of blessings.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 6th September
Discussion on the Gospel of Matthew, 8 pm.
Online only
Saturday 7th September
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm.
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 8th 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.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the parish?
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
[email protected]