Dear Friends
“I need meaning in my life,” I cry out, almost in despair, “I want purpose, a direction, an objective.” Because many of us want there to be an underlying reason and goal, a target at which to aim, a higher calling, something—anything!—to show our lives as valuable. So, we look around us, jobs which can define us, skills which express our individuality, families that prove our worth. And, what’s more, it is God’s job to tell us, direct us, guide us, speak to us from Heaven to make it a reality: “I go to Church,” I speak at Him, “it’s the least You can do for me.”
And I miss the small, the mundane, the ordinary. There I am waiting for God’s voice to speak directly to me and I miss the co-worker who’s having a bad day, I am listening eagerly for His word and I ignore members of my family, I go round my prayer rope a hundred times and the beggar on the street does not even feature in my outlook. While I am seeking the big, the extraordinary, for my life—careers, houses, family plans, riches, status, dignity, worth—the Lord sends to me the everyday and mundane. “Be present today,” the Lord is saying to me,
here and now be alive to those around you. Give attention to your spouse, your parents, your children and all your family. Be kind to co-workers: treat your managers with respect and those whom you manage with compassion. Be present in your Church community, be a force for good in the world.
Because, it seems, there are more and more people who are treated without any humanity: in the workplace ever more is piled up on them, in the family they are taken for granted, in society they are ignored, one is treated with contempt while another with blame, one is dismissed as ‘troubled’ while another as the source of trouble, their opinions are not listened to and their problems dismissed. And while AI and other modern technologies offer much, they cannot offer human contact and personal interaction, theirs is only a fake mockery of what we can offer to one another.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are often seeking for big ideas and vocations in our lives, and these exist and are valuable, but they should not be at the expense of being part of all the groups and communities to which we belong. I am not truly me if I do not relate to other people. And when I relate to other people, not everyone in the same way but everyone in his or her own way, the callings in life start to become clear and the mission of my life becomes apparent—to bring love into the world and allow hope to flourish, to attend to the needs of others and support them in their mission, to be a christ and to bring Christ to those in need of Him.
Let us work together, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and let us be present in all the communities and groups to which we belong—Church, families, workplaces, society and all others—that we be shown to be heirs of the Kingdom of God and inheritors of eternal Life.
Come and see!
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
The Apostle and Evangelist Mark begins his Gospel in the same way as St Matthew, by giving the lineage of Christ. But whereas Matthew begins with His lineage from Abraham,
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
— Matthew 1:1
Mark’s begins with,
“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
For Matthew the importance is to show how Christ is the fulfilment of the Promise to Abraham, for Mark the importance is to show how He brings a universal Salvation: for one he gives His biological lineage according to the flesh, for the other he gives His divine origin. One and the same Christ, but two different perspectives, not in disagreement but complementarity.
And how, dear brothers and sisters, are we to present this Gospel? How are we to introduce Christ? Do we set Him forth as our banner, do we shout “Jesus” from the rooftops? Christ is the heart of our Faith and our Faithfulness, Christ is at the core, “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received:” says the Apostle,
“that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve.
After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.
After that He was seen by James, then by all the Apostles.
Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”
— First Corinthians 15:3–8
Yes indeed, Christ crucified and risen is the centre of our Faith. Yet a crucial detail lies in the first sentence, “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received.” Christ is the core, but Christ must be communicated through someone. Someone must prepare the ground, must soften the heart that the Gospel might be received. If I am a Christian today it is because others have brought Christ to me. Christ is not a concept, a philosophy, an ethic which might just occur to a person, He is Himself a Person Who must be introduced.
…
Read this Sermon, The Forerunner’s Example.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 9th January
Discussion on Isaiah, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 10th January
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 11th January
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