Today's Sermon

St Mary’s, Handsworth

Sunday 11^th July 2010

Deut. 30:10-14, Psalm 68, Colossians 1:15-20

Gospel: Luke 10:25-37

Sing:

Would you walk by on the other side
When someone called for aid?
Would you walk by on the other side
and would you be afraid?

Cross over the road my friend
ask the Lord His strength to lend
His compassion has no end
Cross over the road

That song, written for and sung in primary schools, couldn’t summarize the parable of the Good Samaritan any better… I’ll explain why in a bit.

First, I can’t help but get excited whenever I read the Gospel of Luke. I love his writings. His Gospel, more than any other, gets across this idea that Christ – God – was one of us. Luke’s Gospel not only portrays Jesus the man, but in a humble way, Jesus as the divine and loving God. Luke himself wasn’t a Jew, so he knew the things that people wanted to hear about Jesus. Luke’s Gospel is the only Gospel that contains the parable of the Good Samaritan.

As we heard a few weeks ago when I preached on welcoming people who are on the edges of society into our church family, there is not one single person that God wouldn’t welcome into His arms. Luke wants to make this totally clear. God creates no boundaries between people and neither should we. Love looks beyond boundaries.

So this famous parable –the story of the Good Samaritan – read in our church two thousand years or so after Jesus told it. Nothing much has changed in some sense. We still live in a world of fear. In a world where we can’t be seen with the poor, those lower than us, or where helping someone in need is seen as an embarrassment or hassle.

How many of us have walked past the man selling the Big Issue. All he wants is for us to buy a magazine for a couple of pounds. Oh but no! We’re in a hurry, we don’t have the change! Or do we walk by because we fear that we might say hello to him. We might ask his name or where he’s been sleeping. We might feel guilty, that in one of the richest countries in the world, we are approached by beggars. Or is it we are embarrassed to be seen with him while everyone else looks on?

I was upset on Thursday when I received an email from Zimbabwe saying that a couple I know, who are extremely poor, were struggling to pay school fees and medical expenses after the wife needed dialysis. By Thursday I also knew what the Gospel for today was. I had the email one open one side and the Bible open next to it. I instantly gave my excuses – I only get £30 a week… I need my money for this and that… I forwarded the email to Fr Nicolas to see if he could help. Thankfully I think we can pay a little to help them out.

I wonder what excuses the priest wondering by on the other side of the road had as he looked at the stranger beaten and bloodied. And the Levite who also ignored the man. They were probably similar to mine. Probably similar to yours. We know we should help someone, but we just can’t pluck up the courage.

Of course we feel like the priest and the Levite. Jesus was shaming us by using these characters to tell His story. Good, moral and upright people walking on by. We can’t do it on our own. Therefore, I’m not pointing a finger at anyone, including myself for having walked on by in the past. We cannot love strangers on our own account, we need to experience Jesus’ love first. We cannot approach someone who looks different to us, we cannot go into places that are uncomfortable, even if someone needs help –it’s natural. We need God. The short hymn I sang at the beginning sums up what Jesus was trying to tell the crowd. It pin points exactly where we go wrong. It says, ask the Lord His strength to lend. His compassion has no end – yours does, which is why you need my love. If you noticed, before Jesus told this story, He first gave the answer – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. (Luke 10:27)

We are weak, we all fall and we all fail. But that doesn’t mean that we escape God’s love. His love lifts us up in order to be able to lift up others. It brings us out of the gutter so we can deliver people fro their gutter. His love restores our frail body into something glorious and special so that everyone else knows they are also loved. His love transforms our sin into laughter and dancing so that sinners and outcasts know that they can be set free. His love frees us from ourselves so that Satan cannot take grip of our lives.

He has given us the power and strength to approach the stranger on the roadside, whoever that may be. You don’t have to be the wisest, most priest-like, rule knowing, or richest person in the world to stop. You just have to be someone who loves God.

I can only end by reading the psalm we heard… this is my prayer to you, my prayer for your favour. In your great love, answer me, O God, with your help that never fails. Lord, answer, for your love is kind; in your compassion, turn towards me.

Amen.

Moving on.... again!

Hello people!

My Sheffield placement is coming to a close - with only a month or so left to complete. It is coming to a natural close too, which is great!

I'm getting used to moving on and moving about... From Suffolk to Mirfield, from Mirfield to parts of Africa and Zimbabwe, from there to Sheffield!

So much has happened here in Sheffield too and I've learnt so much. I've preached at Weddings, Funerals and Baptisms, led services, preached on Sunday, visited the sick, the dying and the joyful and living! Met so many interesting people - so many hurt people - so many joyful people. I have come a long way from inward looking Carl two or three years ago to a rather noisy and confident Carlyboy! (I hope that's good!) I've learnt one thing above all - that God loves me! This might sound an obvious and strange thing to say I've learnt, but I've also learnt that the biggest sin and biggest killer in our society is not being able to be the way God has made us - not being true to ourselves. In my previous blog 'Welcoming Arms' I explain that a little...

So, another move... to Bristol this time... to begin a three year course in Theology and training for the priesthood. I go in at a time when the Church of England is struggling and in need of peace... but it is at this time when we are learning who we are, what the church is really about and what we are called to be.

What are we called to be? Confident hypocrites... rejoicing sinners... confident and sure of God's love not just for us, but for all people...

Welcoming Arms

St Mary’s, Handsworth

Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1, Psalm 62, Galatians 3:26-29 Gospel: Luke 9: 18-24

For anyone who wants to save His life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. (Luke 9:24)

Last week, we heard that fantastic Gospel Reading of the sinful women who anointed Jesus feet and wiped them with her hair. The owner of the house, Simon, who guest Jesus was didn’t even welcome Him.

Jesus has the ability to literally turn everything on its head. He mixed with people who no body else wanted to mix with. He touched people that others cast aside. He condemned self-centredness and created a family of love and truth. He made the poor rich and sent the rich away longing for more! He was seen with prostitutes and tax collectors- the despised. Wow!

While I was in Africa, I had the amazing chance to visit a leprosy camp. It was set up for lepers to be able to live freely and easily according to their condition. Some of the people there had no ears, or noses, or hands, or feet. When I stepped into one of the little huts I saw this, quite honestly, awful looking man. I wondered how I should greet him. As I went to shake his hand, I realised that he didn’t have one. I felt a fool. But, in my foolishness I just thought, how would Jesus greet this man. So, I flung open my arms and hugged him, nearly knocking hi off his crutches. Poor bloke! I’d never met a man with leprosy before. That day I met about 50 lepers. Wow!

In Suffolk, a few years back over the Christmas period, five prostitutes were murdered. It was a scary time for everyone in Suffolk. I knew a mother of one of the girls who was killed from a local church. She stood up to speak to a Churches Together prayer meeting, obviously distressed and tearful. But she said, the only way I can cope with my loss, is to think of Jesus. He touched a prostitute and blessed her. Then, on the cross He forgave us all. We are already learning from Jesus how to forgive this murderer. Wow!

A friend back at home was on the verge of killing himself because he was gay. He loved God and called himself a Christian. You could tell he loved God! He had met some Christians who had plainly said that he was a sinner and that he wasn’t welcome at their church. They also said ‘God doesn’t love you.’ To my ears, this statement is a sin itself! It was at an evening service he attended that the preacher recognised his pain and hurt and stopped his sermon and said ‘God loves you. He wants you to know.’ At that, the preacher sat down. Wow!

This is the God I know. A God who is proud to be identified with the poor and those in need, those who have problems and those who admit they are sinners. A God who still cares for people even when they turn their backs on Him. A God who, no matter what we’ve done, always welcomes us back. These are the places Jesus went.

So, what does any of this have to do with today’s Gospel? Carrying your cross, denying yourself, loosing your life to follow Christ? Well it is everything to do with it! When we decide to become Christian we actually choose to carry the cross of Jesus with Him. We give up the me, me, me about us and we follow Christ. By sharing that cross with Him, by loosing ourselves and by becoming Christ-like, we follow Christ into the places where no one else wants to go. To be seen, privately or publicly with prostitutes, gay people, Asians, Muslims and other religions even! Not just to be seen with them, but to be loving them.

Knowing Christ means knowing yourself. He offers to complete our lives in every way. He wants to know us, even though He knows us better than we know ourselves. The more we tell Him about ourselves, including our failures and flaws which we often miss out, the more He can tell us about Himself. And that is the amazing part! We think we know God, but just as we tell Him about ourselves once more, we find that we hardly know Him at all. O the length, the depth and the height of God! The most refreshing thing I have done lately was go to confession at Walsingham. Sometimes after confessing our sins it’s nice to hear a voice declare the promise of Jesus – child, go, your sins are forgiven.

Once we know ourselves, and once we tell Christ about ourselves, we can then lose ourselves. Literally, we can lose ourselves by being lost in Christ. Then it doesn’t matter where He leads us, we rest in the knowledge that we are with Jesus, carrying the cross. Carrying that cross with Jesus means we follow Him into the gutters of society. Daring to be seen with those who are simply not understood, those who don’t feel they are loved and those who have no time for God, until they realise that God has time for them.

It’s really hard to welcome people who have drink and drug problems, people who can be disruptive. Can we ask ourselves what we would do if a gay couple, or a prostitute came into our congregation? Could we cope with people with mental problems? I think we know that Jesus would welcome them. Maybe we need to ask Jesus to help us understand how we can make St Mary’s the kind of church that can live as Jesus did? St Mary’s is a loving church. You’ve all been very loving to me! But love always needs to grow. And when God asks us to make our love grow it can seem we are losing control on our life; but in fact we discover a whole new kind of life. Amen.