Dear Friends
Many go to visit museums, tourist attractions or other such places to see significant artefacts. Perhaps a famous painting, a famous building, a famous scene. We go for many reasons—maybe just so that we can say we’ve been or that we think its culturally important to have seen it. We go and we pass judgement, “I don’t like it as much as I thought I would,” or “It looks even better in the flesh,” might be said by a multitude of people. And whether it’s Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh, Buckingham Palace, or Wembley Stadium, the Mona Lisa, the Arc de Triomphe or the Seine, we go away with memories, with stories, with ideas. We may come away with a postcard or two, photos or even models which act to remind us of our visit as we return to our lives but the item remains in its original place, away from our life, and we must accept that distance.
What is tragic is when Christians behave like this towards God. We go to Church and we encounter the living God. “This has refreshed me for the week,” I say to myself, knowing that I will be ground down over the coming days of work awaiting refreshing again the following weekend. Because I go as a spectacle, as a tourist attraction, I go to get out of God what I can and then remain a stranger to Him until I want something else. I go to Church and expect God to bring change into my life without any effort on my part, I go to be with God but only on my own terms, I go to bring me luck for the week ahead—that my job goes well, that my family is safe, that nothing in the house breaks and needs replacing.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
If this is true, if the Resurrection is the reality of our lives, if we too have beheld His glory, we cannot remain unchanged. If the Gospel given to us is the ultimate revelation of God then our gathering together as the Church to offer the Liturgy cannot be as to a tourist attraction, cannot be to pass judgement on a piece of art, it must be to turn again to the living God. And so I must repent of my sins, I must not turn up as a way to help me get through the week but that I carry Christ with me during the week so that I may serve and honour all before me. Church is not the medicine to make life bearable, it is the inoculation so that we can stand against sin in the world. Christians should not be those who want an easier life in this world, we should be those who want to live a transformed Life, a transfigured Life, a Life where we resist evil and no longer fear death for its power has been abolished.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the full meaning of our gathering together as the Church is not to be lifted spiritually nor to be helped through life in this age, we gather to be changed and transfigured, to make a change for the better in how we interact with others—both towards those who love us and towards those who hate us—that we may bring Christ into this world. And this is hard, this is challenging, but it is essential if our calling ourselves ‘Christian’ is to be for our benefit. Let us, then, turn again to the living God, let us repent, that we may not be as a tourist in Church but Children of the Light and inheritors of eternal Life.
Come and see!
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.
All around us, dear brothers and sisters, there are those in poverty. For some, indeed, it is a poverty of money, for others a poverty of food. But there are other types of poverty: of love, of hope, of company, of direction. We meet people who, for their whole lives, they have worked—worked hard and diligently—to build up wealth, to provide for their families, to support charities, but for what purpose? Their poverty overtakes them and they, too, can experience a poverty of meaning in their lives. And this poverty has lead to an explosion of anxiety, of addictions, of depressions.
And I come to Church and God offers to me Life. Not merely a continuous and unending series of moments—what a boring hell that would be!—but Life where now all things are present, now we experience God to an ever greater depth, now all things are filled with Life. I come to Church and God is calling me to become something greater, to fulfil my potential, to reveal in my life here in this fallen world the likeness of God. And I hesitate, and I falter, and I shy away from it. Here, clothed in the most beautiful purple and fine linen, feasting sumptuously on Life, I neglect Lazarus at my gate. I have heard the Gospel but believe it applies only to me, I have experienced the Resurrection and bring that into my life but no further, I eat of the Bread of Life but deny Him to others. And in torment, from the depths of Hades, I will cry out, “Have mercy upon me.”
“I am the living Bread,” says the Lord,
“which came down from Heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and the Bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
— John 6:51
Christ came for me, yes! But Christ did not come solely for me: he came that the whole world may have Life. The Apostle tells us,
“For if I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel!”
— First Corinthians 9:16
…
Read this Sermon, I am the rich man.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 7th November
Discussion on the Prophecy of Isaiah, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 8th November
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 9th November
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get indd 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
webenquiry@orthodoxeastleigh.uk