St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Helen preached this sermon on Sunday 5 May. Here it is for you again:

I want you to think about those you love, your friends, the people who are closest to you. What sort of friends do you have, who is your oldest friend, who do you feel closest to. Now just think about this, how like you are they? Even those who you admire, are they like you, do you make them like you? Now I want you to think about those who are different from you? Different gender, race, culture, class, sexuality, the disabled? Do you welcome them in the same way that you welcome others? How do you view them, have a really honest moment with yourself here!

That is one of the issues that surrounds the first reading today from the book of Acts, you have two groups of people distinct from each other, circumcised and uncircumcised and one group is suspicious of each other. The circumcised group are…if we’re honest a bit alarmed that those who aren’t circumcised are speaking in tongues and worshiping and exalting God and…they’re not sure about this, even wondering how these different people can do it but Peter (as a circumcised person through his culture and faith) doesn’t accept this and says he will not with hold the waters of baptism from anyone, especially those who have received the Holy Spirit all should be baptised, all are welcome.

Do we still have the same spirit as Peter had all those years ago? We are all equal in the eyes of God, Oscar Romero puts it well, bare in mind his context when he said ‘What right have we cataloguing people into first-class humans and second class-humans, when in theology of the human there is one class, that is the children of God’ so do you follow that hand on heart all the time, I don’t at times and I know I don’t, what about you? Do you always treat everyone equally with no prejudice?

It’s hard at times and no one said it was easy, God demands a lot of us. Jesus gives a command in the gospel today  and it is one of everyone can repeat and pipe out without really thinking about it, You will love one another as I have loved you’. So, what does this actually mean, how do we love like Jesus loved? Well…Jesus healed the sick, even those with a skin condition like leprosy, many wouldn’t touch someone with a condition like this, even today, but Jesus did. Jesus also made friends with those who the society didn’t always treat fairly, tax collectors, like the story of Zacchaeus who’s house Jesus eats in, one of his disciples, Matthew was a tax collector. He even brought fishermen into his inner circle, which was a low ranking, menial job and the smell. Jesus even had women in his inner circle who were so unimportant they are barely mentioned or even erased all together.

So Jesus was perfect and without any prejudice? No we know Jesus had some prejudice I mean he did like rich people very much did he, we see the way he speaks to the rich man, he also has a few spars with the Jews through out the gospels. Despite all that Jesus loved, he didn’t always like, liking is always an optional extra but that wasn’t Jesus command he told us to love each other, to love those who are different from us, to forgive our enemies (that is a tough one), even Jesus found this one hard and had to hand it over to God, look what he said when the soldiers were nailing him to the cross he would die on ‘Father, forgive them…’ he hands it over to God as we can also do when things get thought.

Jesus says something else interesting in this dialogue, ‘There is no greater love than one who lays down their life for their friends’ which Jesus did, he died for everyone there were no caveats on who he saved despite some of his own feelings, I do sometimes wonder if Jesus knew what he was letting himself in for when he chose his friends, did he know Judas would betray him, did he know Thomas would be constantly questioning him and debating with him even doubting his greatest miracle, did he know Simon Peter would be so hot headed even liability at times, go on to deny he knew Jesus to save his own skin? Jesus probably knew there might be trouble but, as it says Mark 3:13 ’ He called to him those whom he wanted,’. Didn’t think it would be easy, probably did like them all the time, knew they weren’t all like him, but he wanted them and he loved them ‘You did not choose my but I chose you’

That’s how we honour Jesus and be his followers by loving everyone and there is no exception and if you can think of any exception, as my brother would say, you need to stop and have a little word with yourself. The final bit of this narrative is when Jesus says ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you’. This is how we show our love for Jesus by loving everyone with no exception and putting other feelings aside sometimes. We follow Jesus example and how much did Jesus love us? He loved us so much he gave his life to save ours, that is love. Amen