Sermons

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 25 September at 10am

Lesley Ashton

Readings: Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21: 23-32

You and I form part of the body of Christ, what a calling, what a responsibility! What a challenge, what an invitation we share. What abundance of grace has been given to each one of us, for we are all less than perfect, all of us have much to learn, all of us have to learn to grow and live together as God's family here at St Edmund's and within the wider church.

Looking in from the outside we are an odd, mixed up jumble of people. We have within this church people of all ages, babes in arms to ninety plus year olds, young families, single people, those of more mature years. We have amongst us those who are full of happiness and hope, those who are bereaved and living with loss, those who feel alone, despairing or depressed. We represent a wide range of occupations and professions, there are some who are retired and others who are just beginning to think about what their working life might be. We have people who have come from different Christian traditions, others who are life long Anglicans, others who are exploring the beginnings of their Christian faith, some who live with doubts and uncertainties, yet who still make their journey to this church week by week.

Where else but in a family of God's people would we find such variety, such a rich abundance of experience, knowledge and skills, so many different perspectives on how we can relate to God and explore the spiritual dimension of ourselves.

These things are a cause for celebration an for joy, but like in any family, they also have the potential to be a cause of disunity, of tension, of opposition. It is good that we all have views and opinions and many of us have deep convictions about certain subjects, this is part of what church is about. But sometimes our views will clash and the way we respond to each other in these instances can be fundamentally important. If we deal with them inappropriately then we become inward looking and we fail to be authentic witnesses of our Christian faith.

The letter Paul writes from prison to the people in Philippi is one of the most encouraging and joyful of all his letters. It is a letter marked by its emphasis on joy, confidence, unity and perseverance in the Christian faith. But it does pick up on and address the signs of disunity and tension that are developing within the Philippian' congregation and which are causing them to oppose each other rather than working together as a team, the unity of their church is endangered because of this.

Paul's words take the focus away from their disagreements and he encourages them to focus upon those things that help them to appreciate the grace they have received as a community of believers in Christ. He reminds them of those things that have formed them as a church and which remain essential foundations for them if they are to live in unity.

So he asks… Has their experience of being Christians caused them to come alongside one another, to be companions on a journey of faith. Have they experienced motivation and strength from having a mutual source of love in Christ? Have they experienced fellowship in the Holy Spirit? Have they experienced warm affection, kindness and compassion from and for one another? He is reminding them of the positive experiences they have all shared because of their Christian faith and Paul encourages them to build on these rather than focus on their disagreements or be critical of one another. In other words they have a choice.

Now this is interesting because often we think that we have no choice, that we are being pulled into a web of negativity or that the church institution is so divided that it is doomed to failure. We can criticise our church family if things start to go a little off course or a few mistakes are made, we can despair as we try and find a way forward with our covenanted churches and progress feels slow and laborious. We can easily get caught up in doom and gloom in the great debates that presently rage within the Anglican communion.

BUT we do have a choice and we can choose to focus on and be thankful for those good things that we all share because of our experience as being part of God's family at local and worldwide levels. We can remind each other and ourselves of all that we have to be thankful for.
We can choose to encourage one another. Paul sitting in jail could easily have become self absorbed and sorry for himself, but he chose to encourage and bring messages of hope to those churches and people who were his brothers and sisters in Christ.

We can choose to put our energy into listening to other people's views, to listening with respect to people whose opinions are different to our own, to really hearing what it is that drives their faith and convictions.

Sometimes our choice has to be to engage with the conflict or to deepen discussion and understanding about those things that divide us; but we need to do this in a way that keeps Christ at the centre of the process.

I am currently part of a small group within the Diocese that has voluntarily come together to have an ongoing dialogue about human sexuality. We come from different traditions. Our views are in some instances polarised, our interpretation of scripture is often very different, our experiences vary. Sometimes the discussions we have are painful. I could have been easier to be criticise one another, to stereotype each other, to keep our distance but we made a choice, we chose to meet and listen to one another, to hear each other's experiences and to grapple with the underpinning theology of what we believe. To date I don't think that any of us have radically changed our views but what we have discovered is how much we hold in common, what the threads are that hold us together in our Christian faith. We have learnt how to listen to each other well. I think we have grown in mutual respect for one another and probably most importantly, we have grown to recognise and love Christ within each other.

I share this because I am amazed at how the grace of God can work miracles and bring unity when we choose to put Christ at the centre, when we seek Christ within each other and when we make choices that consider each other's interests and views.

Paul sums it all up in that wonderful hymn that forms the bulk of our new testament reading. It points us to the example of Christ, as the touchstone of how we should try and live out our Christian faith. It is worth reading again and again, it can be the focus for our prayers, a piece of scripture to meditate upon and be drawn into. Words that we need to inhabit and which inhabit us. These are the words that call us to put Christ at the centre of all we say and do and think.
Lets use this reading now as a prayer.

Read Philippians 2 5-11

Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay