Be imitator's of God - Mother Moira's sermon Pentecost 10 9.8.09

Texts:

1.     2 Samuel 18:5-9,14,31-33 – The defeat and death of Absalom

2.     Psalm 130 – Waiting for divine redemption

3.     Ephesians 4:25-5:2 – Rules for the new life

4.     John 6:35, 41-51 – The bread from heaven

 

Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

When St Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, he was counselling a community to set aside previous lifestyle choices that had been self-centred, insular and (ultimately) destructive for a new life as Disciples of Christ marked by the Spirit and in imitation of God.

 

The Ephesians had willingly come to Christ. They acknowledged Jesus as the Saviour of the world and as the source of all physical, mental and spiritual knowledge and activity. Now, St Paul says to the Ephesians, you must practice what you preach. If you declare yourselves to be members of Christ’s body, a new people and children of God, then you must show by your actions who you really are. He says:

·      Put away falsehood.

·      Speak the truth.

·      Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

·      Labour and work honestly with your hands.

·      Share with the needy.

·      Let no evil talk come out of your mouths rather let your words give grace to those who hear.

·      Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

·      Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.

·      Be kind to one another and tender hearted

·      Forgive one another.

·      Be imitators of God.

·      Live in love.

 

St Paul knows well that the only way for a community to maintain unity is, quite simply, by being kind to one another. Being authentically kind, however, requires integrity and strength of character and the willingness to put to death all of those little cruelties, in thought, word and action, that can result in a community tearing itself apart.

 

Kindness involves sacrifice. Christians, of course, should not be fearful of the concept of sacrifice for it lies at the very heart of our faith and our belief in Jesus who, “loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (5:2)”

 

We should not fear sacrifice because, as with Christ’s ultimate act of kindness, his sacrifice on the cross, we will experience transformation and new life. Remember, we look through and beyond the tortured corpse of the crucified Jesus, to the glorious body of the risen Christ.

As it was for the Ephesians it is for us now, following Christ means being committed to a life of sacrifice, to a life long process of dying and rising, of being open to change and transformation.

 

There can be no other way for the Christian. We are and always will be a pilgrim people taking up our cross daily and following the Christ who had nowhere to lay his head. As Jesus travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem he was constantly faced with and challenged by unpredictability and change, because that’s what life is like on a journey. You never really can predict what each new day will bring. There are so many things that are out of our control.

 

Jesus travelled lightly and because he was open to the possibility of change he was not constrained by anything, he was free to respond fully and wholeheartedly to the challenges, which God threw at him.

 

As surely as God challenged Jesus, he will challenge us. When we become complacent and cosy in our faith, God will throw something across our predictable paths to force us to change direction or look at something in a new way. Like Jesus, like the Ephesians, we have to learn to live provisionally; we have to be prepared to sacrifice some things that we cherish, to let go of past certainties, to respond to the new whenever and however that might appear.

 

This is no easy task. Living provisionally can be stressful. Sacrificing things that we cherish, letting go of the past is painful and upsetting and yet that is the life to which we have always been called as Christians. When we were baptised, we made a vow to turn to Christ. Obeying Christ’s call to follow him will involve dying – at the end of our life’s journey and in all of those lesser deaths along the way. But our faith tells us that death will always bring new growth.

 

As a parish, we are experiencing a death of sorts at the moment. All of those past certainties, reflected in the large and ornate Churches we built, in the overflowing Sunday schools, in the pews that were filled, all of those past certainties seem to be decaying. The state of our buildings, perhaps, is symbolic of this.

 

How are we going to respond to this present crisis. Will we throw up our hands in despair? Will we slink off into a corner and sulk? Will we tear each other apart as one or the other of our three Churches seeks some form of ascendancy? Or will we see in our current situation a loving challenge from God to change direction, to allow some things to die in order to encourage new growth, to look at our parish life and the way in which we proclaim the gospel in fresh ways?

 

In all that us faces us though we must remember that we are the Body of Christ. We are called to unity of purpose. We are called to be kind to one another, tender hearted and forgiving. But above all, we are called to, “be imitators of God” and to, “live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

 

In the name of God Father, Son and Holy Spirit.