'Looking backwards to go forwards' - transcript of sermon 17th February 2017

Sermon – St Anne’s Brown Edge 12^th February 2017

Deuteronomy 30.15-20 Psalm 119.1-8
1 Corinthians 3.1-9 Matthew 5.21-37





Here we are, a dozen Christian gathered together on the 12^th February 2017 in a place called Brown Edge on the very edge of Stoke.

Here we are in this rather strange building and before us are some very ancient texts – and it is good to remind ourselves that these texts are ancient texts, none of them less than 1,500 years old.

Manifestly what we are doing here this morning is of little concern or interest to the majority of people in and around Brown Edge.

And as we sit in here this morning the world out there, we might say, appears to be going to hell in a handcart.

We have one of the most powerful men in the world of one of the most powerful nations not giving a great deal of thought to any texts, ancient or contemporary. Admitting to receiving news mostly through TV.

He prefers to tweet – government and pronouncements reduced to 140 characters.

Across the world at the moment there are an estimated 1.5 billion people living in an area of armed conflict or a war zone.

Europe has taken a million migrants and refugees fleeing the violence and war.  They are amongst us, and they are traumatised, especially the children and not 3,000 but 350 is scandalous.

In our own country, we have campaigns to end hunger, one shortly to begin in Stafford. Food Banks have become normalised.

Our heath service is on the verge of collapse.

We have seen advancement with robotics and AI and it is predicted that they will replace a good percentage of humans in the work place over the next twenty years.

People are beginning to seek cybernetic implants for aesthetic reasons and not simple prosthetic because of the loss of a limb.   

Members of the Cybernetics Society say this will become as mainstream as tattoos and body piercing has over recent years.

Today, if you were to read one daily newspaper from cover to cover, you would absorb more information that a person would have done in the whole of their life 100 years ago.

There is an increasing call for gender to be a matter of personal choice and not specified as male female binary but anywhere along that spectrum. This is leading to more gender-neutral toiles in public places, schools and colleges.

And we sit here this morning with these ancient texts and going through some rather strange rituals.

However, do not these very text, written by men and woman over thousands of years, men and woman inspired by God's Holy Spirit, do not these texts tell us a different story.

Do they not tell us that this earth is God’s good creation and that God is bringing everything back into good order?

Do they not tell us about how God became man and then became King – King of over all. We find that supremely in Philippians 2 – ‘The Hymn of the Kenosis’ or ‘Song of Self-Emptying.’

Do these texts not tell us about the people of God as they grasped the reality of God come amongst them – of sins forgiven and the possibility of reconciliation not only with God but also with each other?

If, Jesus says, you come to the Temple, to bring an offering, and as you get near to a Holy God in the Temple, and you realise you are in contention with a brother or sister (not necessarily relatives I think we can presume) then leave your gift and go and be reconciled. That would mean a round trip of about a week – now that’s a serious undertaking.

Our Gospel reading is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (mountains are important for Matthew and the places where key things happen) and it would appear that Jesus is saying that the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart, perhaps with verses like this one in mind.

From Ezekiel 36.26-27

"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.…

And this is a choice put before us as we heard from the Book of Deuteronomy…

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it

So, what is your choice individually and what is your choice as the people of God in Brown Edge?

Just what does it mean to love the Lord, walk in his ways and keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments? 

It would appear for the most part that the People of Israel thought this meant keeping rules and following regulations. Regulations that Jesus was to say on one occasion, that appear bright and shiny on the outside, like whitened tombs, but inside are full of dead men’s bones.

Jesus calls for a heart surgery that removes stony hearts that are satisfied with ritual and regulations for one that beats with the blood and fire and passion of the living God.

Jesus call for radical discipleship where we would rather mutilate ourselves than offend God and go against his good will and create dis-ease with our brothers and sisters. 

Cutting of hands and tearing out eyes is a serious suggestion – albeit obvious hyperbole.

Jesus knows that the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.

Jesus knows that the thought is father to the deed and must be stopped at source.

Jesus knows what it is to live as an authentic human being and invites us to follow him.

Jesus invites us to become a different kind of community where love and forgiveness prevail.

Jesus calls us to demonstrate that we as the People of God are people of hope and we know that God is bringing everything to good order.

However, how do we go about doing that?

I would want to suggest that it isn’t by pulling up the gang plank on the Ark and shutting ourselves in and away from the world with all its problems and challenges.

Sitting here singing familiar hymns and going through certain rituals and studying ancient texts in some vain hope that we can escape from all that is going on in the world.

In The Message translation of John’s Prologue, we hear this…

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighbourhood.

If we are to have anything meaningful to say to our neighbourhood, I would want to suggest that we need to do far more than we already do to be and become an authentic Faith Community of God’s people set here in Brown Edge.

We need to gather regularly as God’s people to study together and wrestle with these ancient texts. We need to do more life together, to eat more together and most certainly to pray more together with and for each other and for the wider community in which God has called you.

In these dangerous times, in these times of huge complexities, where there is so much uncertainly, so much pain and suffering we need to speak with a different voice and with confidence that this is God’s good world and that God is bringing all things together for the good. That we, as a Community of God’s Kingdom People, demonstrate how to live as authentic human beings in today’s world and to invite others into this Community, so that they might taste and see that the Lord is good. So, that they may have their own heart transplant and come to experience life in all its fullness.

In the ancient world, such radical communities quickly spread the Gospel around the Roman Empire.  Today, such Communities and Fresh Expression of Church are offering hopeful signs and showing real growth. You can read about this in this month’s copy of Inspire magazine.

Maybe the Churches future does lie in the past – if we go back far enough!

Let us pray…

O Saviour Christ, in whose way of love lays the secret of all life, and the hope of all people, we pray for quiet courage to match this hour. We did not choose to be born or to live in such an age; but let its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us, its injustices anger us, it possibilities inspire us, and its vigour renew us. Pour out upon us a fresh indwelling of the Holy Spirit; make us bold and courageous in sharing faith in both word and deed for your Kingdom’s sake we ask.

Amen