Dear Friends
Christ is risen!
Many receive offers portrayed as gifts, “An extra 10% off for our loyal customers,” or “these extra benefits of being a member with us,” could appear on a whole multitude of communications. And, for the most part, we interpret them not as gifts but as inducements to gain and maintain our custom: these are bargainings, trade-offs, quid pro quos, where the company offers us a deal to secure our purchase.
While we may expect this from companies and purveyors of services, this can also happen in personal relationships: an unexpected bottle of wine is followed by a request, a parcel by a list of demands—the item exchanged has caveats, strings attached, which the giver demands as obligation. And we are placed in a difficult situation, we want to show gratitude for the item but sense the hypocrisy.
A gift is about a relationship, about the giver wanting to build and maintain a bond with the receiver. This is not directly about its financial value—a gift given with careful thought or is handmade by the giver usually has a much greater value to the friendship than one bought at great cost—but about demonstrating our love for them: they matter for who they are not what they can do. An inducement, on the other hand, is focused solely on myself, “What can I get out of it?” would typically be a question running through the giver’s head. And the item’s financial value is of huge importance in this process: it’s a coaxing to get what I want, a bribe to achieve my goal, a contract that once accepted must be fulfilled.
The Lord does not want our inducements nor bribes—in any case, what exactly do we have which could force the Almighty God to do anything? Why would we believe He is obliged to something on account of our meagre offerings? Yet the Lord offers to us gifts, our homes, our families, our jobs, our money, even the very air we breathe is a gift from His bounty. He gives to us, gives freely without obligations and gives unceasingly: all we have is from Him. He gives gifts to each of us, but not the same gifts, as the Apostle says,
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who worksall in all.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:
for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings bythe same Spirit,to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
— First Corinthians 12:4–11
And, despite that we receive far more than we could ever return, to maintain this relationship we are called to give gifts to Him: not as an obligation but in gratitude, not a compulsion but in love, not to “assuage His anger” but to be an outward sign of our loyalty to Him.
Our time, our talents, our energy and our money can all be offered to God as free gifts, not with strings attached but in love for Him, for He loves us and continuously gives Himself to us that we may have Life through Him. We gather together and we offer all our gifts to Him—all is present, all is given, when we take bread and wine and give thanks. And this gift is different, because in our thanksgiving the Lord receives the bread and wine and deigns to become our food and drink. The Creator of all the heavens and the earth, of all things visible and invisible from vastly enormous galaxies to the most delicate of petals, wills to accept our gifts and make them His Body and Blood that His people, His Church, may have Life in Him.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we feel the hypocrisy when others give with obligations attached, so we must learn to give to the Lord all that we can—plus a little bit more!—not as obligation but as gratitude, not with conditions but with love, that He receives our gifts only as our desire to draw close to Him. And as we grow in faithfulness we will grow in love.
If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
— First John 4:12–16
Let us, therefore, give as He gives to us, serve as He serves us, love as He loves us, that we may offer gifts to His glory, we may abide in Him and, thereby, abide in Life.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Come and see!
There has come an opportunity to establish a new mission community in Chichester. Once running, we hope to serve a Liturgy there on certain Saturdays. Our Father in Christ, Metropolitan Silouan, has blessed this outreach and has entrusted it to the heavenly patronage of the Holy Great Virgin-Martyr and Vanquisher of Demons Margaret of Antioch (feast day 17th July).
If you are interested in supporting our parish’s mission, please let me know, and I will update you as we make progress.
Holy Mother Margaret, pray to God for us!
We serve a meal following the Liturgy on Sundays. All are welcome.
Do you, or someone you know, want to join our mailing list and receive our weekly email? Then let me know.
Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Christ is risen!
Our world, dear brothers and sisters, sees marriage as an inward act: “I will marry someone who completes me, who helps in my journey of self-discovery, whom I find attractive, who will be there for me and help me through life.” And those who follow this system will go out, or gaze into their phones as if they were crystal balls, with a list, a set of requirements, which have to be met. “He must be good looking, earn well, be funny … she must be beautiful, reliable, a good cook, …” But this is all self-centred, egotistical, narcissistic: it is all about lust, covetousness and fulfilling erotic and other desires yet is far from what love is, true love, what Christian love is.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
— First Corinthians 13:4–8
And we hear from the Lord what it is to love.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
— John 15:13
For a marriage to be Christian and not according to the standards of this world, it is not an inward act—to complete myself—but an act of giving, of sacrifice, of loving in the Christian sense: here is a person whom I can honour and serve daily, whom I can raise up when he is down, with whom I can rejoice when she is joyful, whom I can learn to love as Christ has loved me and so as we together grow in love we may, together, conform ourselves to Christ and enter the Kingdom as one. This is the meaning of our identity, it is not an inward self-discovery: our identity is only truly found when we look outwards and form relationships based on giving, sharing, serving. Marriage is “learning to stop being so self-centred,” which is the path of all Christians whether married or single.
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Read this Sermon, Joined to Love.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 23rd May
Discussion on the Prophecy of Isaiah, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 24th May
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 25th May
Matins & 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 the risen Christ
Fr Alexander
[email protected]