Yesterday was the start of the week of prayer for Christian
Unity – that’s why it’s around this time of the year that we share a service
with our friends from St Luke’s.
It’s a statement that belonging here in Highbury, or
belonging there in St Luke’s, or belonging to a Congregational church and
belonging to the Church of England we are all of us part of something bigger,
something more inclusive, something that stretches all over the world and all
down the ages – the One Church of Jesus Christ.
How good to share.
And so next Sunday please note – we will
be starting our service at St Luke’s at 10-00 in the morning … and not
10-30!!!
That’s not the only way we share – there are more ways we
are sharing too. This Tuesday and every
Tuesday in term time we run Transformers jointly with friends from St Luke’s.
St Luke’s are responsible for St
John’s school – they have invited us at Highbury to
share with them in building closer links with the school – that means that at
Christmas we had a stall at the Christmas fair and took the opportunity to
build up relationships.
On Wednesday mornings Mike Workman, who is the minister at
St Luke’s, and I alternate taking assemblies – we work through a cycle of 12
core values – and this half term the theme is Hope and in five weeks we are
telling the story of the whole Bible as the most wonderful book full of Hope!
St Luke’s have just re-started the prayer meeting for St
John’s school and Carolyn and I joined Helen Bloxham at St Luke’s and on the
first Tuesday of February, 4th
February we are going to host that prayer meeting here at Highbury. It would be great if people could join
us. It will be after Transformers – a
cup of coffee as people arrive around 7-15 and then 7-30 to 8-45.
There’s one more thing we are going to do in that spirit of
togetherness and unity.
Mike has given me a passage to preach from next Sunday
morning – it’s part of a series they are doing at St Luke’s on St Matthew’s
Gospel.
Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, if we could take a look at
St Matthew’s Gospel too. That way my
sermon next week will not stand alone but will take us forward from today.
I love Matthew more than anything else as a very practical
guide to what it takes to be a follower of Jesus, what it takes to be a
Disciple. Matthew the tax collector is
very much the outsider who finds through Christ that actually he belongs as
much as anyone else!
It’s a wonderful sense he has.
He belongs on the one hand to Jesus Christ and to that group
of people who are determined to follow him.
I get the feel that the clue to what Matthew’s gospel is all about is at
the very end.
Jesus has shared his ministry with so many people and in
doing so has ushered in the kingdom of heaven.
He has gone to the cross. He has
been raised to life. And now he gives a
final commission to his disciples …
All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Those words are full of hope, full of promise and full of
challenge.
You get the feeling that the person behind this gospel has
taken those words to heart. How can you
go teach people everything Jesus has commanded them unless you have a record of
his teaching and all he did command his people.
That’s exactly the inspiration of Matthew’s gospel. He has basically followed the outline of the
story as the earlier gospel, Mark tells it.
And then into that basic outline he has brought together something
missing from Mark – a compendium of the teaching of Jesus.
He has arranged it in five blocks through his gospel.
If you want to follow Jesus then turn to Matthew’s gospel
and you will find a compendium of al that he has commanded …
Matthew 5-7, 10, 13, 18, 23-25
The Sermon on the
Mount – 5-7
do to others
As you would have others do to you
The charge to the 12 – 10
proclaim the Good News,
The Kingdom of heaven has come near
The Kingdom
of Heaven
hear Christ’s word
and understand it
And bear fruit in the living of your life.
On the nature of the church 18
welcome one small child
And so welcome Christ
The final words – 23-25
give food to the hungry
Something to drink to the thirsty,
To clothe the naked, to care for the sick
To visit the prisoner … for inasmuch as you do it
To one of the least of these my brothers and sisters
You do it to me.
This is powerful stuff.
Take this book in hand and feel as if you belong to Chist …
and it begins to make a difference in your life and through you in the lives of
others too.
But more than that.
Matthew doesn’t just feels he belongs to Christ and to his
circle of followers.
Matthew senses he belongs to something that stretches back
to the beginnings of time and forward to the end of the age. To belong to Christ is to be part of the
people of God stretching back to the beginnings.
Read through the Old
Testament and it really is a book of hope!
As the story unfolds you get the feeling that the world of
God’s creation is a wonderful world but people have made a mess of that
world. Repeatedly that mess does not
get the last word – but God gives people a fresh chance. God acts to set things right and to show
people how to do just that.
At our assemblies last Wednesday and next we found a
colloage of pictures to help us tell that story to the children. It was a visual way of going through the
whole story o fthe Old Testament.
Matthew does something similar at the very start of his
Gospel.
He prompts the memory – he sums up the story so far.
The opening verses of Matthew’s Gospel are among my
favourite in all the Bible – and they are so rarely read!
An account of the
genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the
father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the
father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron
the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of
Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by
Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and
Jesse the father of King David.
And David was the
father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and
Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the
father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the
father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of
Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and
Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the
father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to
Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon:
Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel,
and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim
the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of
Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and
Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the
father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the
Messiah.
.
There are people who got things right. And people who got things dreadfully wrong.
Matthew the tax collector who had felt so much the outsider
really felt as if he belonged to Christ and to the people – maybe it’s no
coincidence that he includes Rahab the prostitute in this family tree – Ruth
the foreigner turns out to be the great grandmother of David.
And David is key. The
first great king in God’s Kingdom
of Israel
And Matthew is going to tell the story of the one who is
born to be King in the God’s Kingdom of heaven.
And he is born of the line of David.
Hebrew is one of those languages that doesn’t use
numbers. Instead letters of the alphabet
have a numerical language. It is a
language without vowels as well. So the
three consonants DVD add up to 14.
And so Matthew stylises his genealogy and breaks it down
into three lots of 14.
So all the generations
from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation
to Babylon , fourteen generations; and from the
deportation to Babylon
And then Jesus is born – those wonderful stories we have
been reading from Matthew spell out more than the others the way the birth of
Jesus, the coming of the Magi, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight to
Egypt, the return to Nazareth are all in fulfilment of the prophets.
Mattthew has a sense of belonging to this movement that goes
back to the beginning of time – that has been moving forward to this moment in
time. And he sees Jesus as the one who
is the Messiah – who ushers in the Kingdom
of Heaven
Wow, it is a wonderful book.
With St Luke’s we share in that very movement. We are part of the one Church of Jesus Christ
world wide.
We are to welcome all and make people, especially the
outsiders, feel at home and feel they belong.
We are to delight in the promise that Jesus is always with
us.
And we are to rise to the challenge teaching people all that
Jesus has commanded.
And Matthew’s gospel is not a bad place to start – and not a
bad handbook to put into people’s hands!
Lord, teach me
Lord, teach me
All that you have
commanded
Teach me, O Lord,
In everything to do to
others
As I would have others
do to me
Teach me, O Lord,
To proclaim the Good
News,
The Kingdom of heaven
has come near
Teach me, O Lord,
To hear your word and
understand it
And bear fruit in the
living of my life
Teach me, O Lord,
To welcome one small
child
And so to welcome you
Teach me, O Lord
To give food to the
hungry
Something to drink to
the thirsty,
To clothe the naked,
to care for the sick
To visit the prisoner
and so to serve you.
Matthew 28:20, 5-7,
10, 13, 18, 23-25
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