One of the things I’ve spoken about in sermons from time to time is the belief that some people have, the very mistaken belief they have, that doing good works makes a person a Christian. I don’t know if any of you have ever spoken to someone who believes this, but I have, many times, over the years. People who say, and with great sincerity, that even though they never go to church and don’t really believe in God, they nevertheless consider themselves to be Christians because they’re ‘good’ people who never do anyone any harm. In fact I do remember once being told something along those lines by one person who said that he didn’t even believe that Jesus Christ ever really existed which, as Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that they must have faith in God and faith in him, shows, I think, a very strange understanding of what a Christian is.

But as strange as that may be, it’s a belief that’s not too dissimilar from another very curious belief about what being a Christian is that I’ve also come across many times, and in this case, even amongst the clergy; the belief that whatever a person might believe or whatever faith they profess, whether they’re atheists or profess and practice a religion other than Christianity, they are nevertheless, whether they realise it or not or want to accept it or not, Christians if they do good works; in particular, if they practice what the Church calls pastoral care of others. In my experience, the basis people have for this kind of belief is that they believe all pastoral care stems from the teaching and example of Jesus and so therefore, anyone who practices pastoral care is following Jesus’ teaching and example which, in turn, makes them a Christian.

But again, this is a mistaken belief. I think that people in the Church forget far too often and easily that Jesus was not a Christian; he was a Jew. His faith was based on what we call the Old Testament of the Bible. When Jesus quotes the Scriptures, or indeed when any of the authors of the New Testament speak about the Scriptures, it’s the Old Testament they’re speaking about. When they say that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures, they mean the Old Testament Scriptures and when Jesus himself said that he came to fulfil the Scriptures, the law and the prophets, it was the Old Testament he was speaking about. So Jesus’ mission and ministry, the pastoral care he taught and practiced was of Jewish origin and it had been taught by the prophets of the Jewish faith and written in the Jewish Scriptures before Jesus came to earth. So, on that basis, rather than saying that all those who carry out pastoral care of others are Christians, we could, just as easily, say that they’re Jews. In fact, if we really wanted to, we could go back even further in time to look for the origins of pastoral care because many ancient civilisations practiced it. We now have evidence that even the Neanderthal people, people who were once thought of as nothing more than brutish cavemen, showed at least some degree pastoral care towards the sick and elderly of their kind.

So showing care and concern for others alone, doesn’t make people Christians. It might very well make those who show that kind of care and concern, good people, but it’s quite possible to be a good person without being a Christian. There are and have been many such people. We know there have been because we read about some of them in the Old Testament of the Bible. But if showing care and concern for others doesn’t make a person a Christian, what does? Quite simply it’s this; to believe in Jesus and in all he said. To believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, so deeply that we do all he told us to do. That is what it means to call Jesus our Lord and Saviour and to live as though we really believe that. And a person can’t be a Christian unless they at least try to do that. As Jesus himself said, 

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do what I tell you?”

And again,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” 

And Jesus told us what the will of the Father is too when he said.

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

To be a Christian then, is to believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, and to do all he told us to do. There are, as we know, many people who do proclaim Jesus as their Lord and Saviour but, as we also know, the really difficult thing about being a Christian is living out that proclamation of faith by doing what Jesus told us to do. I’m sure we all try to do that, but it’s not easy and perhaps the single most difficult thing about being a Christian is putting into practice the things Jesus told us about forgiveness. 

In the Old Testament it’s invariably God who forgives the sins of the people, but in Jesus’ teaching people are called to mirror God’s forgiveness in their own lives by forgiving one another. At one time, it was thought that this was a teaching so novel, so unique to Jesus that, for example, in his poem The Everlasting Gospel, written around 1818, William Blake could write,

There is not one Moral Virtue that Jesus Inculcated but Plato & Cicero did Inculcate before him what then did Christ Inculcate. Forgiveness of Sins This alone is the Gospel & this is the Life & Immortality brought to light by Jesus.  

We now know that this understanding of forgiveness was already present in the Judaism of Jesus’ day but, nevertheless, forgiveness, both God’s forgiveness of sinners and our forgiveness of one another does lie at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. So one of the most important things we’re called to do, as Christians, something we really must do to be Christians, is to accept our own need of forgiveness and forgive the sins of others. But isn’t this teaching of Jesus, one that’s so essential to his message and ministry, the one that we find the hardest of all to carry out?

How many of us are really willing and able to see ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness? How often do we try to hide our faults and failings behind excuses; it wasn’t really our fault; I only did it because someone else did this to me first; it’s only a little thing, and no one was hurt so it doesn’t really matter? How often do we try to divert attention from our own faults by pointing out the faults of others; I don’t know how they’ve got the nerve to call me after what they’ve done? How often do we claim that we never do anything wrong, or if we do, it’s nothing like and nowhere near so bad as the things others do? How often do we, in effect, point out the specks in other people’s eyes and ignore the logs in our own?

Forgiveness is really about wiping the slate clean; it’s about putting what’s past behind us and moving on without letting what’s happened in the past affect our future relationships with those whom we feel have hurt or wronged us in some way. But isn’t this something we find so difficult to do too? We’re all sinners in need of forgiveness but how often do we try to take the moral high ground in disputes; we’re right, they’re wrong? How often are we tempted to or actually do remind people of their faults and failings; of the things they’ve done wrong in the past? And how often do we get a sense of pleasure from doing that because it makes us feel good about ourselves and probably superior to them? We’re called to love our neighbours as much as we love ourselves, but can we honestly say that, if someone has hurt or wronged us, we don’t let that affect the way we treat them in the future? We are all sinners in need of forgiveness from God and from one another and yet how often are we unforgiving of others because we’re unwilling to see ourselves as doing or being wrong? In The Everlasting Gospel, William Blake wrote

‘If you forgive one another your Trespasses so shall Jehovah forgive you That he himself may dwell among you but if you Avenge you Murder the Divine Image & he cannot dwell among you…’

We believe that we’re made in the image and likeness of God and our forgiveness of one another is a mirror image God’s forgiveness of us. If we can’t or won’t forgive others, aren’t we doing exactly what Blake said – killing, murdering the divine image within us and preventing God, Christ and the Holy Spirit from dwelling within us? So, whatever else we may do that’s in keeping with Jesus teaching and example, if we can’t or won’t see ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness, and/or can’t and won’t forgive others, how can we be or call ourselves Christians?

One day, we’ll all have to stand in front of Christ and give an account of ourselves. If we’ve called ourselves Christians, what will we say when we’re asked to give an account of how we showed that in our lives? If we’ve acclaimed Christ as our Lord and Saviour, what will we say when we’re asked how often and how well then, did we do what he told us to do? What will we say when we’re asked to account for our sins? Will we still try to plead our innocence and that we never did anything wrong? We won’t get away with that, but we’ll all want God to forgive us, so what will we be able to say about our own willingness and ability to be forgiving of others?

In 10 days’ time, we’ll celebrate Ash Wednesday and the start of the season of Lent. As we know, that’s a time for self-reflection and penitence in preparation for our Lord’s supreme sacrifice on the Cross, a sacrifice which was all about forgiveness; our forgiveness and even the forgiveness of those who plotted and caused his death, and for the great foundational event of our faith, his Resurrection on Easter Day. What better time could there be than to think about our own attitude towards forgiveness? What better time could there be for us to ask ourselves how willing and able we are to see ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness and how willing and able we are to forgive others? What better time could there be to ask if we really are the Christians we claim to be, whether we’re people who simply call Jesus, Lord, or people who live as though we do truly believe that he is our Lord and Saviour and show it by doing all he told us to do?

There’s a lot more to being a Christian than many people seem to think, but whatever else we do, our willingness and ability to see our own need of forgiveness and to forgive others is perhaps a very good test of how well we really do live up to the name so perhaps it’s a test we should all take this Lent.

Amen.  

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The Propers for the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time (2nd before Lent) can be viewed here.

When people think about the responsibilities of ordained or authorised lay ministries, something they probably rarely, if ever think about, is the responsibility that comes with preaching. But be that as it may, preaching is a great responsibility. It’s a responsibility that comes from the sermon being the one time in a service that the preacher, usually the parish priest, speaks to people in their own words. The priest speaks to people throughout the service of course but, on the whole, the words the priest uses aren’t their own, they’re the words that the Church has authorised for use in public worship, but in their sermon, the priest uses their own words to speak to the people. All joking about the ‘sermon slot’ being time for a nap aside, it’s also the time during a service when everyone in church is, or should be at least, listening to what the priest is saying. So it’s important that the preacher chooses their words carefully.

A sermon is supposed to draw out some deeper or hidden meaning in the readings of the day. It’s intended to give the people a better understanding of the Scriptures and ideally, it will do that in such a way that it gives people a deeper understanding of their faith and an example of how they can put their faith into practice in their daily lives. But, unless the preacher does choose their words carefully, a sermon can do the opposite of what it’s intended to do. A few mis-chosen words can mean that what was intended to teach, can cause confusion; what was meant to give deepen faith, can cast doubt, and what was intended to inspire, can discourage. And there’s always the temptation for the preacher to use the sermon, not to proclaim the Gospel, but to proclaim their own ideas and beliefs; to use the sermon to push their own agenda and pass it off as something in accord with Christ’s teaching, even when it really isn’t. Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of this is the infamous sermon given by the bishop of London during the First World War. As a great supporter of the British war effort, the bishop was keen to urge men to enlist and to mobilise the general population to action in support of the war. And to that end, in 1915, he used a sermon to claim that all freedom loving peoples were banded in a great crusade to kill Germans in order to save the world. As understandable as that may be given the time and circumstances, it’s hardly in keeping with Christ’s teaching and example and much more in keeping with the bishop’s own agenda. 

For all these reasons, preaching is a great responsibility that’s placed on the shoulders of those who are called to do it in the Church. And so, when I read the readings for today so that I could start to give some thought to my sermon for this Sunday, I was really quite pleased with what I read. Not because I thought there was an easy sermon in them, but because they give a scriptural vindication of the things I’ve preached on in the last couple of weeks.

I’m sure we don’t have anyone here who dozes off during my sermons so I’m equally sure I won’t have to remind any of you of what I’ve preached about on the last two Sundays. But, for those who may not have been here or who may have missed out on one of my sermons because they’ve been in Sunday School, on one of the past two Sundays, I’ll remind you.

Last Sunday, I preached about the need for us to remain faithful to God and Christ despite the evil and suffering we see in the world. I said that we need to remain faithful too, in spite of the hypocrisy we sometimes see in the Church. I said that the evil, the suffering, and the hypocrisy we see around us shouldn’t give us cause to doubt our faith because all these things are caused by sinful human beings, not by God and not by Christ. Neither do God and Christ sanction these things. And so, as our faith is not in the sinful human beings who cause evil, suffering and hypocrisy, nor in any human institutions, which are also inevitably sinful, but in God and Christ who neither cause evil, suffering and hypocrisy, nor sanction it, but actually condemn it, we shouldn’t question our faith in God and Christ on account of the evil that men do. And in our Old Testament reading today, we hear the prophet Jeremiah speaking about the sins of Judah and saying,

Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord…Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.”

So it’s not just last Sunday’s preacher who says that we should remain faithful despite the sins and hypocrisy of human beings, it’s the Lord who says it, in this case, through his prophet Jeremiah.

Two Sundays ago, I preached about our need to proclaim the Gospel. Then, I said that in one sense, that’s very easy to do, as easy in fact as saying “I go to church, and I try to live my life according to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ because I’m a Christian.”  But I also acknowledged that proclaiming the Gospel can be made difficult because of the response we might get from those we try to proclaim it to. And that can be hard because we can be abused for proclaiming the Gospel. We can be abused by people who think we’re stupid for not putting our trust in human science and understanding. We can be abused by people who see hypocrisy in the Church and use that as reason for disbelief. And we can be abused, perhaps more personally too, by those who know us well and know our own faults and failings, our own hypocrisies. Nevertheless, I said we’re called to proclaim the Gospel in spite of any abuse we might get, and that we shouldn’t and can’t blame ourselves if people won’t listen to us. And in our Gospel reading today, we hear Jesus saying,

“Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” 

So it’s not just the preacher from two Sundays ago who says that we should proclaim the Gospel in the face of opposition and abuse, it’s God who says this, through his own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Jesus’ words do imply that those who proclaim the Gospel will not always be listened to and will be abused by those who don’t want to listen. But he also tells us that we shouldn’t worry about that. In fact, he tells us that we should rejoice when this kind of thing happens because it’s what people have always done to the prophets. That, in turn tells us that, in proclaiming the Gospel, we are God’s prophets.

At the start of my sermon today I said that a sermon should give people a better understanding of the Scriptures, a deeper insight into their faith, suggest ways of putting their faith into practice and inspire them to do it. And that’s what we find here. Jesus pulls no punches; he makes it quite clear that we’ll be opposed and abused for proclaiming the Gospel, but he urges us to do it anyway.

And he inspires us to do it by telling us that, in proclaiming the Gospel, we’re God’s prophets in our own time and place and that, just like Jeremiah and all the prophets, who were all opposed and abused in their time and place, we’re assured of a great heavenly reward for our trouble. And we know this isn’t simply Jesus’ opinion. We know this because we know that Jesus wasn’t working to his own agenda and his words were not his own; he was working to God’s agenda and speaking God’s words because, as he said,

“…I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me.”

Preaching is a great responsibility but, as with everything else we do as Christians, Jesus has set us an example of how to preach. It’s up to the preacher to do their best to follow that example, just as it is for anyone to do their best to follow Jesus’ example in anything they do as Christians. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously, and I hope that translates to you as it should, in a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, a deeper understanding of God’s word, in a firmer faith in God and Christ and in encouragement to live out your faith in your daily lives and so to fulfil the prophetic ministry that God has called each and every one of us to in own our time and place.

Amen. 

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The Propers for the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time (3 before Lent) can be viewed here.

Over the 40 plus years I’ve now been going to church, I’ve made many friends in many places and in a number of different churches. Unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with many of those friends over the years, partly because I’ve moved around from place to place, but also because many of them have died. One of the latter, and one of the best friends I’ve made over those years, was a man called Mike. Mike was an ex-paratrooper and a very straightforward and plain-speaking kind of man, and because of his plain-speaking ways, he was one of those characters whom people either liked or didn’t, and there wasn’t really any in between. And many people didn’t like him, including quite a few those who were members of the church we went to.

Because of his character, one of the things Mike really didn’t have any time for at all was hypocrisy, and, also because of his character, he had no qualms whatsoever in speaking up about hypocrisy when he saw it, and that included when he saw it amongst the members of our parish congregation. As you can imagine, that didn’t make Mike universally popular, in fact I know there were a number of people at the church who’d have been very happy to see the back of him. And from time to time, they got their wish because, from time to time, Mike would decide he’d had enough of ‘being part of hypocrisy’ as he put it, and would take a break from the church.

As I’ve said, Mike and I were friends so we’d still meet up during the times he was absent from church, but during those times, we had many conversations about this problem, the very real problem of hypocrisy in the Church and of how we should respond to it. My argument was that we shouldn’t let the hypocrisy of other people damage our personal relationship with God. Going to church was part of our response to our faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ and at that level, of our personal response to faith, it really doesn’t matter that other people are hypocrites, in fact at that level, it doesn’t matter if everyone else who goes to church is a hypocrite. At that level of personal response to faith, what matters is what we ourselves do; even if everyone else who goes to church is a hypocrite, that doesn’t mean we’re a hypocrite too, and it doesn’t mean we have to be one either.

That argument was usually enough to bring Mike back to church eventually, but it’s an undeniable fact that many, many people have left that Church, permanently, because of the hypocrisy of some members of the Church. It’s an undeniable fact that many, many people are put off the Church, and not only the Church but the Christian faith too, by the hypocrisy of Church members. And in a wider context, it’s an undeniable fact that many people are either turned away from faith or lose the faith they once had by the evil and suffering they see in the world. This has always been a problem for the Church, but I think what’s making this all the more of a problem these days is that the Church itself doesn’t only seem to expect this kind of thinking now, but seems to be almost condoning it in, of all people, the clergy.

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when reports surfaced that the Archbishop of Canterbury had questioned the existence of God because of the problems and trouble he sees going on in the world. And I was reminded of it again just a few days ago when I was doing some preparatory work for the clergy safeguarding training which we all have to do from time to time, and which I’ll have to do over the next couple of weeks. Part of the work was listening to an online presentation about abuse, and this included some reports the cases of abuse that have taken place in the Church. One of the questions we were asked to think about was how these things have challenged our faith.

I must admit, I find that quite a puzzling question. My faith is in God and in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. My faith is not in any human being or institution, so why should the fact that some people who claim to hold the same faith as me, and yet have acted in ways that are abhorrent to the God I believe in, and in ways that are contrary to the teaching and example of the Lord and Saviour I believe in, challenge my faith? Why should the hypocrisy of some people in the Church, make me doubt God and doubt Christ? Did God abuse those concerned, or did un-Godly, hypocritical human beings abuse them? Did Christ tell his disciples to abuse others, or have un-Christian hypocrites who claim to be his disciples abused them in complete disobedience to Christ’s teaching and with no regard to or for his example? It’s the latter in both cases surely? So whilst these things may cause us to lose faith in human beings, and in some of those in the Church to live out the faith they profess, and whilst they may cause us to lose faith in the Church as an institution which has knowingly allowed these things to go on, and tried to cover them up, to save it’s own reputation, regardless of the cost to the victims, why should these things challenge our faith in God and Christ? Surely what is and should be in question is not our faith in a God and his Christ who tell us these things shouldn’t happen, but the faith, character and conduct of those human beings who’ve done these things anyway.

In his Letter to the Ephesians, St Pauls writes that God

‘…gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…’

Yet it seems that today, the Church actually expects even those who lead the Church to be tossed to and fro by the tumult of the waves; to question the very faith that we’re called to grow in and live by, on account of every wind of change, or example of human cunning, craftiness and deceit that we hear about. Is it any wonder then, that the Church is not growing?

This morning, in our readings, we heard three stories about faith. We heard about Isaiah’s commission as a prophet. We often call Isaiah THE prophet of Advent because he foretold the Messiah’s birth. And we find prophecies of the Messiah’s suffering and death for our salvation in Isaiah too, in those parts of his prophecy that we know as the Song of the Suffering Servant. As a prophet, Isaiah spoke out against the sins and faithlessness of the people and called them back to God so that they might be saved and, like all prophets, Isaiah suffered because his message. But does that fact that people were sinful and chose to remain sinful rather than heed Isaiah’s warning mean that we should doubt his message was from God? As Christians we believe that Isaiah’s prophecies have been fulfilled but if other people don’t, or act as though they don’t, does that mean we should start to doubt them too? Does the fact that some people don’t believe in Jesus, or say they do whilst acting as if they don’t, mean that we also have to doubt him, his Incarnation, his message and ministry, his death for our salvation, and his Resurrection which promises us eternal life? Surely not.

In our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul says:

‘I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.’

So why then should the Church today be asking us, if not actually expecting us, to doubt the Gospel? Because that is what the Church is doing if it’s asking or expecting us to question our faith. Why should we doubt the Gospel in which we stand and believe, and by which we’re being saved because of the evil of some people who don’t believe and so who don’t stand in or live by the Gospel?

Why should we question the means of our salvation because of the actions of those who are condemning themselves by their unbelief?

And in the Gospel, we heard the story of the great catch of fish. The meaning of the story is that, if we’re willing to do what Jesus tells us to do, we will draw people to faith, we will be fishers of men. But it’s us who have faith who are called to bring those who don’t have it, to faith. We’re not called to doubt and question our own faith because of the evil that men do, because of the un-Godly, un-Christian or hypocritical actions of the unfaithful. And if we do, then rather than us being fishers of men, we’ll be in danger of becoming the ones being fished. Rather than us dragging the unfaithful to life in Christ, we’ll be the ones who end up caught in their net, the net of the unfaithful, and we’ll be the ones in danger of being dragged away from Christ, and life, to death.

From a number of conversations I’ve had in recent years, I’m sure that by constantly asking and expecting us to question our faith in the light of the evil and suffering in the world, the Church thinks it’s helping us to ‘identify with the brokenness of the world’; that’s I phrase I’ve heard quite a lot of in recent times. But we’re already part of the brokenness of the world by virtue of the fact that we’re human beings who live in it. As Christians we’re called to help the world find a better way, a way to heal it’s brokenness. But how can we do that if we constantly, and publicly call into the question the very thing that we have to offer, our faith in a God who loves us come what may and in a Saviour who taught us that better way and who gave his life for us so that we might have eternal life?

We have a better way, and we can have eternal life, every single human being can have these things, but the price of these things is faith in the God and his Christ who offers them to us. So before we start to doubt and question our faith, let’s remember who it is who does the evil and causes the suffering in the world. It’s not God, it’s us, human beings. So why should we question and doubt him for what we ourselves have done and caused. It’s not Jesus who tells people to be evil and cause suffering, it’s us, human beings who do that against his wishes. So why should we question and doubt him because we can’t follow his teaching and example. So let’s remember that and remain faithful before we allow ourselves to be ‘tossed to and fro by the waves’ of the sinful actions of human beings and find that what we once believed was in vain because we’ve allowed others to catch us in their net, and drag us away from it.

Amen.

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The Propers for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time (4th before Lent) can be viewed here.