St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Helen preached this sermon on Wednesday 4 September 2024. Here it is again for your consideration:

When I was training to be a priest I trained alongside members of the Methodist church and you think we’re all Christians, this is going to be fine. Despite being from two different denominations we had a lot of classes together, the same biblical study, doctrine, mission and ministry but get down to the everyday of doing things that’s when our differences started to become a bit clearer and there were a few friendly and not so friendly debates. Something like what is the most important thing in a service (you can only pick one)? The sacraments, the liturgy, the hymns or the sermon. If you are having communion do you have the wine from the common cup or little glasses, should that wine be alcoholic and what to do with your leftovers afterwards? Do you consume them or put away as reserved sacrament or throw leftovers out for the bird to eat? It does humble you training with another denomination and thinking about why these things matter.

That’s just with one other denomination, I’ve not got time to list the debates the Church of England has the Baptists, URC, Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholics over different issues. How can we expect this to get any better when within our own denomination, with that church next door who don’t do it like us, their church isn’t as nice, we have many different debates over the practices but also on bigger issues that affect peoples lives like should women be allowed to be ordained as priests or can same sex couples get married in a church? Our own denominations are still tackling these things and that’s before we go any further. We are more and more divided as Christians and it is so sad, I sometimes wonder if this is what Jesus envisioned for his church, what he thought would happen after he left. It’s probably not what he had in mind when he told us to love each other.

As you can see from todays reading this isn’t a new thing, this is something that was happening in the early church. You see the extract we have from the letter of Paul and he’s…I’m going to go with a bit annoyed! Paul is saying that I won’t be able to fully give you Jesus message as you’re not ready for it as you’re squabbling, fighting and behaving like children. It’s almost like saying if you are going to behave like children then I am going to treat you like children. That’s something I hear my mother saying quite a lot to me and my brother, recently, and we’re both in our thirties.

You can see the camps here in the early church you have Paul and Apollos here but also Cephas (or Peter), I’m going to focus in on Paul and Peter because you have Peter, one who knew Jesus and went to spread the word to the Jews and Paul, the person had that extraordinary vision on the Damascus road and had the mission to go to the gentiles.. It’s also fair to say that Paul and Peter, did really like each other to much! Let’s not forget Peter will have heard the stories of Paul who has suddenly had this conversion and wants to join them, I think if I was Peter I would be a bit unsure If you read Acts it all a bit lovely and twee but read between the lines, especially in some of Paul’s letters and it’s different, you hear in Galatians of Paul picking at Peter around table habits. How have the people of Corinth, in this letter heard of Peter, he’s mentioned in chapter one. How? Had he been there? Was he checking up on Paul and seeing what he was doing. So even these early churches were divided in their early days.

So what do we do? Well we could always think about the things that unite us for a while rather than the things that divides us and of course there is one big thing that unites us isn’t there? It is Jesus it’s not a trick question but it’s Jesus who is there at the centre of our faith it’s all about him.

In today’s gospel Jesus says to the people when they find him ‘Proclaim the kingdom of God’ and everything else must be second to this. The kingdom is the message Jesus brings and this is what it entails. Jesus tells us to be kind to other people, he tells us to include everyone we are all his children, to forgive each other, to love our enemies. No one ever said being a follower of Jesus would be easy, even he didn’t soften it up, you will be hated, persecuted and killed because of me. I think the over arching thing is that Jesus told us to love each other, actually more than that he told us to love each other as he loved us and that’s what we should be doing. Jesus gave his own life for the people he loved, many he would never meet and we squabble over common cup or little glasses, does seem a bit pathetic at times. Jesus told us to proclaim the kingdom of God and pass on the message we learn from him here out into the world.

At Queen’s, the theological college I attended, and this is something that we did all agree on. As you left the chapel there was a sign on the inside of the door as you left. It simply said ‘You are now entering a place of worship’. Now my question is why isn’t that sign on the inside door of every church in every denomination because that is what is important. That is what the most important part of being a Christian is, no matter what denomination. Jesus told us to proclaim the kingdom of God and that’s what we do through the things Jesus did, the things Jesus said and by telling his stories, the excitement of his birth, the breadth of his ministry, the horror of his trial, torture and execution but also the hope and joy through his resurrection which we celebrate when we meet here together for communion. That’s what he really wants us to do.

Christians are a divided group, they squabbled in the early days and still do and I don’t think this is something that will stop anytime soon! However I think we need to put these things aside and thing about the thing that really matters. That we proclaim the message of Jesus and keep telling of the things he did and the reality of what happened to him. Jesus says at the start of his ministry ‘The kingdom of God is near, repent and believe in the good news’ and as long as what we do emulates him, what he said, did and how he chose to live his life then…I think he’d be happy with that. Amen