Sermons

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 18 September at 10am

Simon Cowling

Readings: Philippians 1. 21-30; Matthew 20. 1-16

I want to speak about vocation this morning, but not in a churchy 'how many of you feel a call to be priests' sense. I want to speak about the vocation, the calling, that belongs to all of us. Imagine for a moment a triangle with the angle at the top marked 'up', and the two angles on the base marked 'in' and 'out'. These three angles might each be taken to represent an aspect of our life as a church community or, as I would prefer to think of it, an aspect of our vocation, our calling as Christians within the body of Christ. The 'up' angle has to do with the quality of our relationship with God: our worship together, our prayer life as individuals or as small groups, our study of scripture. The 'in' angle has to do with the quality of the relationships within our community: the love, care and concern we show each other, the laughter, the tears and, sometimes, the anger and frustration we share. The 'out' angle has to do with the quality of our witness as Christians outside the church - to our neighbours, friends or colleagues; to those in our city and our world whose needs we seek to answer through prayer, through action or through financial support.

As we think about these three aspects of our life together, the 'up', the 'in', and the 'out', we might begin to think about how St. Edmund's measures up as a church community; or, to put it slightly differently and perhaps more challengingly, how we measure up as a church community. How is our relationship with God? What do we bring to our worship - or do we expect it to be there for us? How is our prayer life? How often do we read our bibles? What's going on in this angle of the triangle marked 'up'? And how are our relationships with each other? Are there people within our fellowship from whom we have become estranged or whom we find difficult? Have we failed to notice the newcomer because we are busy talking to someone we know well already? Do we mostly talk to people our own age because we find it easier to stay in that comfort zone? What's going on in the 'in' bit of the triangle? Finally, what about our witness. Do we have a sense of helplessness as a seemingly relentless succession of needs assails our consciences? Darfur, Niger, Mali, Iraq, New Orleans. Are we fully alive to the needs of those in our city, some of which were brought home to us so vividly in the One City Project earlier this year? Do we witness to Christ in our relationships with neighbours, friends or family? What's going on in the bit of the triangle marked 'out'?

As always, scripture can help to root our reflections. Paul's relationship with the members of the young church at Philippi is one that is clearly based on mutual love and affection: "I thank my God for you every time I think of you" Paul writes from prison, probably in Rome, "and every time I pray for you all, I pray with joy…" Later in chapter 1, in the portion we heard just now, he tells the Philippians how important it is "for your sake….that I remain alive," adding a little later still: "when I am with you again, you will have even more reason to be proud of me in your life in union with Christ Jesus." We know from elsewhere in his letters, and from evidence in Acts, that Paul did not always find relationships easy; but we also know, not least from this first chapter of Philippians, about the importance he attached to the building up of fellowship and to the maintaining of good relationships within the local church. This is, if you like, the 'in' bit of our triangle re-visited.

But for Paul good relationships within the local church were not important because they were, in some vague sense, a good thing. Good relationships were important because, as he puts it in today's reading, "your way of life should be as the Gospel of Christ requires, so that …… I will hear that you are standing firm with one common purpose." Throughout this first chapter of Philippians, Paul is emphasising that our life as Christians must be rooted in Christ: "For what is life?", he asks: "To me, it is Christ." For Paul, in prison and with the threat of a death sentence hanging over him, prayer and thanksgiving that come, as he says, "from the heart of Christ Jesus himself" are essential nutrients for the blood flowing through the arteries of Christ's body, the Church. Here is the 'up' bit of our triangle.

Reflecting on our Gospel passage moves us into a different world. This is not the world of fledgling church communities in the developed urban centres of the late Hellenistic world such as Philippi, but the world of day labourers in the Palestinian countryside; a world in which work was often hard to come by and where competition was intense. Small wonder, then, that the workers who bear the heat of the day are so indignant that the owner of the vineyard where they have been toiling gives them the same amount of money as he gives to those who have worked only an hour or so in the cool of the evening. Yet this, Jesus is saying, is what God is like. God does not see as we see; God does not take account of what we have already done, of our years of service in this or that good cause, even of our religious affiliation - or lack of it. Here is true equality of opportunity, true equality of regard, a truly open Kingdom of Heaven. This is the God to whom we, in our lives of discipleship, bear witness; the God whose prodigal generosity challenges our mean and pinched sense of what is fair. Here we begin to see the outlines of what the 'out' bit of our triangle might imply for us, collectively and as individuals, within this and any church community as we seek to emulate this prodigal generosity in lives of service and witness to others.

A three dimensioned vocation, then. A calling to deepen our relationship with God, to deepen and to build up our relationships with each other and to deepen our commitment to the world we serve. I ask you to reflect on this three dimensioned vocation in the weeks leading up to our autumn Stewardship campaign beginning in October. This campaign, Gratitude and Generosity, is the fruit of much hard work and planning by our stewardship group. It calls on us to give thanks for the many gifts that God has given to us and for the many gifts he gives through us; and the campaign calls us to be generous in response, to recognise that the resources needed for each corner of our three dimensional vocation include financial resources, to acknowledge that, in giving of what we have, we are simply giving what is God's. Let us pray that, in our gratitude to God and in the generosity of our response we may enable each other to strengthen and deepen our relationship with God, our commitment to this church family and our resolve to serve the world. Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay