We are the Body of Christ...transcript of sermon St Peter's Rickerscote October 6th 2019

St Peter’s, Rickerscote 7^th October 2018

Genesis Ch2, verses 18-24;

Hebrews Ch. 2, verses 9-11;

Luke Ch17, verses 5-10

On Radio Stoke the other day they asked people to write in if they could remember  anything about their first day at their first job.

I didn't write in but I do remember it very well. It was on the 30th July 1966.

I had made a long train journey with my mum and step-father from Rochdale, Lancashire to Newmarket, Suffolk.  At Newmarket station I was greeted by two young stable lads and said goodbye to mum and step-father who turned around, climbed back on board the next train and made the long journey back home.

With the two lads I walked the couple of miles into Newmarket and into Palace House Stables. I was taken up to a room above the stable block next to the hay loft and shown my bed and chest of drawers. It was a fairly large room which I was to share with five other lads. 

I was called down for Saturday evening stables which were a frantic affair as the lads wanted to get their horses mucked out, fed and watered and bedded down in short order. It was Saturday night and there was much to celebrate - it was the day England won the world cup. 

I had never been in a stables before and never been near any horses. I remember the sights and smells. the clang of metal buckets echoing of the walls, the banging of doors, the loud and robust language of the lads who seemed to be hurrying and scurrying everywhere leaving me confused and wondering what on earth was I doing here having just turned fifteen and never been away from home before. It was a cacophony of sights, smells and noise. It was a whole new world where I didn’t have a clue what was going on.

One thing I did learn very quickly was that the horses were more important than you and they were your primary concern. 


 Coming in wet from riding out you had to attend to the horse before you went and grabbed some breakfast and went and prepared another horse to ride, often without an opportunity to change out of your wet things.

Five years’ on and I left the racing industry and went behind bars – to serve as a cocktail bartender in various hotels around Cambridge and Newmarket.

Again you learned quickly that it doesn’t matter how you feel or what is happening in your own personal life, you have to stand up straight, button up your jacket, push anything bothering down inside, smile and greet guests as if they are the most important people on the planet.

              

So, I get this little story Jesus told about the servant, or in some translations, slave.

Anybody here who has been in public service will also understand what Jesus is driving at here.

But in my experience in the stables and in the bar trade it was contractual. I was an indentured apprentice or a paid employee.

It was sir and servant – literally.

But then Jesus says…

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

This moves it from sir servant to sibling servant – we serve not out of duty or because of any contract or reward but as members of the Body of Christ, as brothers and sisters, as relatives in the same family of God.

 To quote St Ignatius…

Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.

As a Sacramental Faith Community let me put this challenge before you as a way of  reflecting on what it might mean to serve the Lord in each other in this sibling servant way.

It is in your tradition to show deep reverence, devotion and respect for the Blessed Sacrament.

This has an outward form of genuflection and signing yourself with the cross at significant moments.

Now, we come forward and take into our very bodies the Blessed Sacrament, the Real and Living Presence of Jesus, our Lord and our God.

Now this sacrament is en-fleshed, it is embodied and stands before us as a brother or sister in Christ.

So, if we offer such reverence to the Blessed Sacrament as the elements, how much more should we give deep devotion and respect to the Sacrament now it is embodied?

Many years ago I spent some time at Pricknash Abbey, no doubt known to some of you because of their incense.

Chatting to me the Guest Master said that according to the Rule of St Benedict he was supposed to lie prostrate at my feet and offer me every hospitality.

He then said, but generally today, we show you were the loo is and give you a cup of tea.

St Benedict’s Rule on the reception of guest says this in the opening words…

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt 25:35). Proper honour must be shown to all, especially to those who share our faith (Gal 6:10) and to pilgrims.

Now imagine for a moment if we took that to heart as the People of God today in all of our Churches.

It may be strange if we genuflected before each other, although that is not a bad thing to do from time to time. 

But what we can do all of the time is genuflect in our hearts and in our minds when we come before a brother or sister.

And I don’t want to develop this now but some would argue that this is the right behaviour towards everyone and towards the whole of God’s creation. It is worth pondering on that a little further at some time – perhaps thinking of St Francis whom we remembered last week.

And it is this radical inclusivity, the honouring and the sibling serving each other that is a true manifestation that having received the Blessed Sacrament it is now doing its work of transformation.

…until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4.13

What is called Theosis in the Orthodox Church, a transformative process whose aim is likeness to or union with God.

Think about it…

Shall I take the Body of Christ and curse it, or slander it, or mistreat it or grumble against because I didn’t get my way.

I hope and trust you would say no and a thousand times no.

Yet sadly we do find ourselves doing these very same things.

When we mutter, groan, moan and gossip about our brothers and sisters of the Faith.

When we fail to see Christ standing before us with an opportunity to serve the Christ that is in them.

Then we are dishonouring the Body of Christ.

As long as we act more like a religious social club than the Body of Christ, the less likely we are to have any real effect in our communities.

I am passionately convinced that the hope for our nation is the local church – when it is self-sacrificing and self-giving and not self-serving.

I am passionately convinced that if we could but demonstrate such a way of life to a watching world then they would take more notice.

Let me close with a quote from Bishop Jack Nicholls…

“There is nothing like the local church when it is working right. Its beauty is indescribable; its power is breath taking. Its potential is unlimited.

It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources to those in need, and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. 

It breaks the chains of addictions, frees the oppressed and offers belonging to the marginalised of the world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.

Still to this day, the potential of the local church is almost more than I can grasp. No other organisation on the earth is like the church. Nothing comes close” 

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Come my brothers and my sisters, let us eat and drink of the Lord and then let us go out into the world proclaiming God's love for all of creation. Amen