St Anne’s, Brown Edge Forth Sunday of Easter
It was said of Harold
Wilson that he always answered a question with a question. Apparently one day he was being interviewed
on the television and the interviewer said, Mr Wilson, it has been said that
you always answer a question with a question, why is that.’ Mr Wilson leaned forward, lit his pipe and
said, ‘who said that?’
MP’s are known for saying
a lot but not saying anything.
You have only to listen to
John Humphrys on Radio 4 trying to get a straight answer to a straightforward
question.
This is what lay behind
the wonderful – ‘Yes Minister’ with Sir Humphrey Appleby giving knowledgeable,
sound and very clear advice.
Sir Humphrey: It is characteristic of all
committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection
of them and that every member’s recollection of them differs violently from
every other member’s recollection. Consequently, we accept the convention that
the official decisions are those and only those which have been officially
recorded in the minutes by the officials, from which it emerges with an elegant
inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached will have
been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials and any decision which
is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached even if one or
more members believe they can recollect it, so in this particular case, if the
decision had been officially reached it would have been officially recorded in
the minutes by the officials, and it isn’t so it wasn’t.
A first glance at our
Gospel reading for today, and indeed in many other parts of the Gospels, we might think this
is exactly the same sort of thing that Jesus is doing.
So the Jews gathered around him and
said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell
us plainly.’
Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and
you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to
me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my
sheep.
Jesus was of course
employing what was a long tradition, using a teaching method common to wise men and woman, sages and prophet’s and teachers of the religious way. And a very Jewish way of answering questions.
It is to answer in such a
way that the person asking the question comes to understand and discovers the
answer for themselves.
And here, it is the things
that Jesus is doing that he draws his questioner’s attention to…
The
works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me;
Remember John the Baptist in
Herod’s prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask just the same question, are
you the Messiah?
And Jesus response?
So
he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have
seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy
are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is
proclaimed to the poor.
Words, even
clever words and well put together phrases can be empty and vacuous if they
carry no substance, no practical outworking.
Jesus again…
Watch out for false prophets! They dress up like sheep, but inside
they are wolves who have come to attack you. You can tell
what they are by what they do. No one picks grapes or figs from thorn bushes. A
good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A
good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Every
tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned. You
can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.
Our lovely
little story from Act talks about Tabitha – and we don’t get to know much about
her but this we do notice…
Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in
Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to
good works and acts of charity.
What about you and what
about me – what do people say of us, what do people see as we go about our
daily lives?
What kind of fruit are we
displaying?
Not just when we are in
here with a definitive focus on God, but out there in the daily rough and
tumble of life.
As we do our shopping and
someone is rude to us.
Or someone cuts us up
while we are driving.
Or we hear some salacious
gossip – or perhaps we hear someone being talked about in a negative way – do
we join in?
Let me put this direct
question to you, and see if you are able to answer it with a clear cut answer.
If you were on trial in a
court of law for being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict
you?
Okay, a few people might
know you go to Church – but does that really mean you are a Christian?
They may say of you, well
I am pretty certain they believe in God.
But if we read our Gospels
we know that demons believe in God.
The week before last I was
at the ‘On Fire Mission Conference’ and we had as our theme ‘Called to
Holiness.’
We were reminded that
holiness is not sitting in Church thinking holy thoughts – but out in the world
bringing the aroma and presence of Christ into the world.
Some of you know I am a
runner and take part in the occasional half-marathons and 10k’s.
One of the most amazing
things about running in races like this, and we saw it again recently in the
London Marathon, is that the runners encourage each other and help each other
to run the race set before them.
And that’s our call and
encouragement to each other…
I Peter 1.15-16…
But
just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written:
“Be holy, because I am holy.”
And as God’s holy people
abiding close to the Saviour and filled with the Holy Spirit we will produce
fruit, fruit that will last.
We hear of what this fruit
is in a number of places like Galatians 5.22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness
and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Would there be enough
evidence to convict you if you were accused of being a Christian?
Think of it like this…
Imagine you walking along
with a glass full of water and someone bumps into you – what’s going to spill
out – the water.
So, what would spill out
of you when someone bumps into you if you are filled with the Spirit of God?
But be honest, what
actually spills out of you when people bump into you?
When you encounter people who
are not their best at that moment – perhaps to frazzled, or busy or burned out
or maybe just down right rude?
It makes no matter – as
God’s holy people if we are truly filled with the Spirit of God it will be the
Spirit of God that spills out…
…love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness
and self-control
Jesus invited people to
look and see what he was doing as evidence that He and the Father were one and
that He was about the Fathers business, that He was fulfilling His divine call.
Are we truly showing
evidence of a holy and fruitful life lived fully for God and His purposes?
Are we showing that as
individuals in our day to day lives?
And are we showing that as
God’s people – as a Faith Community – as a Church – as St Anne’s, Brown Edge?
Is there a distinctive
difference from the way St Anne's conducts its affairs from any other social gathering
or group in Brown Edge?
To close let’s hear and
heed a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 12.1-2….
‘The
Message’
So here’s what I want you to do, God
helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating,
going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t
become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside
out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
No comments:
Post a Comment