Luke 6:17-31 Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective?
Certainly on the day Jesus spoke the words of Sermon on the Plain, as our Gospel reading is known as, He gave those around Him a new perspective on life with the Beatitudes (the sayings that started with Blessed are they…
Illustration:
One church chose as its Lenten theme, "Forty Days of Love."
Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways.
The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives.
After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor.
The pastor described the man as "kind of macho, a former football player, who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man."
The man told his pastor, "I love you and I love this church, but I'm not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It's OK for some folks," he said, "but it's a little too sentimental and syrupy for me."
A week went by.
The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again.
"I want to apologise for what I said last Sunday," he told him, "about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong."
"Wednesday?" his pastor repeated. "What happened on Wednesday?"
"I got one of those letters!" the man said.
The letter came as a total surprise.
It was from a person the man never expected to hear from.
It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time.
It spoke of how the macho man had made a positive contribution to the writer’s life and he thanks the macho man for it.
"Every time I read it," he said, "I get tears in my eyes."
It was a transforming moment in this man's life.
Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church.
This changed his entire outlook.
"I was so moved by that letter," he said, "I sat down and wrote ten letters myself."
Receiving that letter was a transforming experience for Mr. Macho.
It came from through the post rather than a mountain -top experience , but the effect was the same - his perspective was changed.
God breaks into our lives and we are changed.
Perhaps the pastor had been reading 1 Thess. 3:12 and 13 where Paul says:
12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
The NIV Study Bible notes had this to say about these verses.
“If we are full of God’s love, it will overflow to others. It is not enough merely to be courteous to them, we must actively and persistently show love to them. Our love should be growing continually. If your capacity for love has remained unchanged for some time ask God to fill you again with his never ending supply. Then look for opportunities to share that love.”
I wonder what would happen if we as a Church decided to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to our lives in Lent this year?
It is “Not very British” you might say.
But then “Not being British” is NOT synonymous with being Christian?
Or indeed is it any longer a term for being fair.
Illustration: A friend of mine Martin Purnell told me the story which shows you can be fair to opponents and still operate a profitable business.
It seems to me that the American Football League runs on much fairer basis that the English Football Premier League.
For example,
1. The American Football League allows its games to be aired on TV free of charge so everyone has the chance to watch if they wish.
The English Premier League only used to allow you to watch it on TV if you an exorbitant Sky fee. Though you can see some matches on BBC and ITV now too, though often only the highlights.
2. The American Football League shares the profits from all club merchandise equally among the clubs who are a part of it.
In the Premier League each club keeps the receipts from all its shirt sales.
Imagine Chelsea or Man U’s reaction if they were asked to share their shirt sales with Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton.
3. The American Football League allows the team which finishes bottom of the league to have first choice of the crop of players that have graduated that year from College.
And no player can be signed under the age of 21!
In the English Premier League the richest clubs can buy the best players! They often sign them up as young as 16 as they progress through their footballing academies.
Which is the fairer system?
As Christians, God has made us saints through the death on the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the death
And so our response has to be to live lives that fit the GOSPEL MESSAGE.
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus shows us JUST how COUNTERCULTURAL the Gospel is
Let me read again what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Plain:
20 Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
And then on top of all that Jesus says:
23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
So what are we to make of all this
I think first and foremost Jesus is challenging our ATTITUDES to life
I was reading in the magazine Christianity in October 2016 that Christian Churches have made a huge difference in the effectiveness of FAIR TRADE.
They wrote this: The campaign to persuade multinationals to take fair trade seriously has been a long uphill battle.
Larry Bush, who is a director of Tradecraft, one of the largest Fair Trade organisations said this:
“Fair trade is becoming popular, people are aware of it. It is something the Church should take a lot of credit for. In the early days congregations were buying fair trade products before it go out in the market place.”
Christians throughout the centuries have made a difference in the UK.
1. It was Christians that first introduced schools for our children, before the State took over
2. It was Christians that first introduced hospitals and paid for them for poor people, before the NHS took over.
Indeed the NHS was established by Nye Bevan/ who was himself a practising Christian.
Nye Bevan brought about the founding and funding of the NHS in Clement Atlee (post 2nd World War) Labour Government.
Lord Soper, himself a Methodist minister, once wrote this about the NHS:
“The National Health Service in particular, represent the noblest domestic act of government in the 20th century.
I should indeed want to go further – it seems to me to be the most Christian political achievement of my
lifetime and one of the most transparently Christian political acts in British history.
“(http://www.sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/the-sma-and-the-foundation-of-the-national-health-service-dr-leslie-hilliard-1980/aneurin-bevan-and-the-foundation-of-the-nhs/aneurin-bevan-an-appreciation-of-his-services-to-the-health-of-the-people-pamphlet-published-by-the-socialist-medical-association-c-1960/)
3. It was Christians that were active in prison reform before it was popular to do so.
4. It was Christians in business in the late 19th Century that built houses for their employees
Illustration: I know– because I worked for one of them before training to become a vicar.
The company I worked for was Reckitts in Hull that built the Garden Village for their employees to have good housing for their families.
And until very recently had their own school in the Hull site for the children of their employees
Indeed the Reckitt Board meeting was referred to for many years as the Prayer meeting by their employees.
Cadburys did a similar thing in Bourneville for their employees.
And in today’s society we have Operation Blessing run by the 700 Club - a Christian Organisation from Canada helping to rebuild houses free of charge for those suffering from Hurricanes/ eg in Haiti, the Cayman Islands and regions in the southern part of the United States, where there is insufficient State Aid to rebuild.
The list can go on:
If being a Christian means being counter cultural, how do you think the Lord wants to use us to fulfill the Great Commission, as we read it in Matthew 28:18-20 where Jesus said
18 ……. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
God calls us all saints (the term Saint simply means those who have been sanctified)
And as Saints God has a calling for each one of us
And the challenge is this:
How is God calling you in our rural church here in Swayfield to reach our community with the Godd News of Jesus Christ and to fulfil the Great Commisssion
One way I have seen a small rural church grow is by the local Church being led by a Focal Minister.
This was an idea I pioneered on Romney Marsh.
When I went to New Romney as Priest in Charge, I was the sole Stipendiary Priest for seven churches .
I persuaded Bishop Graham Cray to license 7 Focal Ministers in April 2005 and some worked well and others did not.
Basically a Focal Minister was the first Port of Call in the parish. He represented the Parish to the village and to those outside who came to the Parish for Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals.
He also took my place running the PCC and built up a team in the church to grow the church.
My friend Peter Firth who was a Reader was one of the first Focal Ministers and the most successful one.
He was licensed to Old Romney and eventually he was ordained deacon from having been a Reader.
When I came to Romney Marsh, Old Romney had two services a month. One a morning service and one an afternoon service, both with about six people.
Peter immediately started a Sunday service every week at 10.30am and had 35 people at one stage (the village only had a population of 100),
Peter’s comments : The success of Old Romney in particular was: Reliable regular Sunday services at the same time each week and being open every day for visitors (Old Romney became the most popular church in the Diocese of Canterbury for organised & ad hoc visiting).
The numbers increased by people joining us from Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals – and they were mostly non-churchgoers before joining us.
The congregation grew by having a Focal Minister and good co-operation from Church members
All of this came from the concept of Focal Ministry.
Peter said: I was not too surprised that it was stopped after you (and Jim Field your successor) and Bishop Graham Cray left the Diocese of Canterbury.
Sadly poor clergy and lazy bishops saw this as a threat to them".
But having talked about Focal Ministers , the growth of a Rural Church is not just in their hands.
And I would like to give you some challenges
1. Is Jesus challenging any of us to organise pastoral care in the village.
That is not doing all the visiting but rather finding out who wants or needs a visit and arranging for others to go and actually visit.
2. Is Jesus challenging us to organise a regular Women’s Lunch say in the Village Hall
3. Is Jesus challenging any one of us to organise a meeting for the Youth in our village.
4. Is Jesus challenging any one of us to organise a regular Men’s Breakfast or indeed a Couple’s Evening Meal together in the pub?.
You might ask this question.
Why has God put US in Swayfield Church?
And what is his call for US personally to do to promote the Great Commission that is “to go and make disciples of all nations," here in Swayfield?
