“So what are you preaching about on Sunday?”
The question took me unawares.
My friend wanted to be remembered to everyone … and she is
pleased to think she is remembered by everyone.
She hasn’t been so well recently and is not really able to get out as she
would want to.
The question took me unawares … but I was not
unprepared. No bad thing because it was
still the middle of the week.
I knew roughly what I would be saying this morning and so I
could tell her.
So this is very much a re-run of something I have already
shared.
Even as I was sharing it it struck me that this was
something that speaks into the kind of situation Caroline finds herself in, I
found it was something that was speaking in a very different but no less real
way to me as well.
Today we come to the end of the magazine, booklet that was
shared with us at our Congregational Federation May Meetings down in Bristol
It tells the story of ‘the journey of the flame, a symbol of
both the light of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
It’s the power of the Holy Spirit that’s working in our
church through enabling people to use their gifts.
It is the power of the Holy Spirit that lifts us up when we
are down.
It’s the Spirit that brings unity, binding us together,
… and binding us together with the Jesus whose love is for
all.
It’s the Spirit that brings hope as we seek to build a
better future
It’s the Spirit that brings light, shining in our world, our
churches, our homes and our hearts
And now we come to the end of our book and the final thought
…
The Spirit brings love
Look back and thank God,
Look forward and trust God
Look around and find God
Look within and know God
The God who is love.
My theme for today had been in a sense chosen for me.
It was earlier that day that I had been reflecting on what
passage of Scripture to turn to.
I had been drawn to what is one of the really great chapters
in the Bible about the Holy Spirit.
Romans chapter 8. In the morning
I hadn’t been sure where I would start.
“So what are you preaching about on Sunday?” was the question I had been asked.
I took a deep breath and jumped into the middle of the
chapter.
Sometimes it can be very hard to find the right words for
prayer. Sometimes it is hard to
pray. Sometimes it can feel almost impossible
to pray. Maybe that’s the point when it
feels hard to be a Christian, almost impossible to hold on to that faith.
It is exactly at that point that Paul has a wonderful
insight to share with us … it’s exactly at that point when the words fail us, when
the thoughts aren’t there that God is still there – and God is there with us in
our weakness, groaning.
the Spirit helps us in
our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit
intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
Prayer matters not because at all times we can find the
right words to pray. Prayer matters
because at those moments we find ourselves unable to pray it’s not just that
others are praying for us, important though that is, it’s God who is there with
us, sharing in our every weakness, groaning with us when words just won’t come.
There’s lots more Paul has to say … but my thoughts jump
then to a question.
35Who will separate us
from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
This is leading towards one of those wonderful passages that
I’ve come back to time and time again.
It has a warmth to it, a confidence to it, something tremendously
powerful.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
The love that is thought of here is that warm love Christ
has for us as his love surrounds us and upholds us and is always there.
Who will separate us from this wonderful love of Christ that
in the words of the children’s song is so wonderful you can’t get over it, you
can’t get round it, you can’t get under it?
Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him who loved us.
38For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers,
39nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is a wonderful thought.
The Spirit takes over in our weakness and is that strength
from beyond ourselves we need so that we can have that assurance that the love
of God in Christ Jesus is something that will always be with us, always be
around us, always be deep within us.
It’s at this point that I could have brought my thoughts to
a close. That’s enough of a thought for
one day.
The conversation went on a little.
But there was something more I wanted to say.
I have come back to these verses and seen them in a
different light over the last week or so.
It was last Sunday when I found myself wanting in my preaching to make
something of a response to all the horror we have been so aware of on the news
recently.
I might have kept that to myself. Why go on to think of that. But it is one of the perverse things in our
society today that if you are not able to get out so much, if y ou find
yourself at home, the TV will be on maybe more than once it was. And you cannot help but see the news. And that too tears at your soul.
It was Elias Chacour, that remarkable Arab Christian
Palestinian Israeli citizen who gets you thinking about the Beatitutdes
differently – take them back into the Aramaic Jesus would have spoken and the
word we translate as blessed becomes an active word, not so much a passive
word.
Why don’t we try doing that with this word love?
I have always taken it to mean here at the end of Romans 8
the kind of love of God in Christ that surrounds us that strengthens us that
comforts us that upholds us.
There is nothing in all of creation that can separate us
from the warm embrace of that love of
God in Christ Jesus.
Words of wonderful comfort.
But what if there’s more to these words than that?
The love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord is not just a love
that we are on the receiving end of. It
is a love that we are to be active in sharing with other people. It is a love we receive from God that then
becomes active in the very way we lead our lives for the sake of other people
that is at the heart of the Chrsitian faith.
What if, as paul is coming the climax of this first part of
a letter that is written to a set of Chrsitians who are living in a very
hostile environment in Nero’s Rome, he is not just talking about the comfort
you receive from the love of God, but also the need to keep on being active in
the love we share with others.
IS there something else this question is asking as well?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ, from that
active business of getting up and getting involved and working at the love of
Christ we are called to share with the hungry, the poor, the thirsty, the
naked?
Will hardship, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Will all the awful things we see happening in our world make
us lose our resolve to keep at it, to work at making a difference?
It’s not an idle question.
The hopelessness of the situation can get the better of you. There is such hardship, such persecution, the
sword is so much in evidence … it’s enough to make you give up on this whole
thing of getting up and being active in love for others.
Every one of us can be active in doing something to make a
difference – a new resolve to pray and to keep praying – to give where there is
need – I mentioned the Lighthouse School – it is one of those partners Embrace
the Middle East works with –
It is what draws me to support the statement I read out last
week from the Bethlehem
Bible College
We are against killing
children and innocent people. We support love not hatred, justice not
oppression, equality not bigotry, peaceful solutions not military solutions.
Violence will only beget wars, it will bring more pain and destruction for all
the nations of the region. Peacemaking rooted in justice is the best path forward.
Therefore, we commit ourselves to spread a culture of love, peace, and justice
in the face of violence, hatred, and oppression.
Come back to those last words of Romans 8 and they are not
just wonderful words of promise, they are powerful words of commitment
No, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else
in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord …
… that active
business of getting up and getting involved and working at the love of God we
are called to share in Christ Jesus our Lord with the hungry, the poor, the
thirsty, the naked.
What we are doing
to help:
Embrace the Middle East
Support our
Palestinian Christian partners in Gaza
We need to raise
£60,000 to support emergency relief.
Depending on the exact
needs of our partners, it is likely that funding will go towards:
Medicine and medical
supplies to Al Ahli, NECC health clinics, and Caritas Jerusalem health clinics
Fuel for Al Ahli and
NECC clinics
Food parcels for
families*
Blankets for displaced
families
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