St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Christine preached this sermon on Sunday 13 October. Here it is for you again:

Seek the Lord and live.

The word of God is alive and active.

Why do you call me good?

Three lines taken from the three readings we have today that speak to me about our relationship with God and how much we should love and trust him with our lives.

Seek the Lord and live, if we ask this as a question, “how do we seek the Lord and live?”, most people would say read the Bible more and pray.  Both of which are a very good start, but I feel there’s much more to our relationship with God than that.  If we really want to seek the Lord we have to look at our lives and the way we live them.  Do we do what Jesus would do? an old saying that is still as relevant today as it was when it was first banded about a few years ago or do we tend to try and hide our lives from God as Adam and Eve did, or even some of the Old Testament Prophets.

Hiding is something we may have done with our parents, if we were in trouble or with our friends, playing hide and seek as children.  I’m sure many of us can remember that game and being one of a large family I remember playing it quite a bit, either outside on the plot of land opposite our house or in the house.  Hiding behind trees, in bushes under the table or in wardrobes and trying to stay as quiet as possible, so whoever was looking for me couldn’t find me and then jumping out on them, usually with good effect!  It was one of those past times that we as children all enjoyed and kept us out of trouble.  However, the first time I played hide and seek I didn’t really understand what I was doing and actually can’t remember it.  My mother told me about it when I was older.  Apparently, I was about 3 or 4 years old and my parents had what we would now call, a bed and breakfast house in Yorkshire with a plot of land behind it.  In the back they had geese and chickens, I’m not sure if they had any other animals, but I think they did.  Anyway, one day my mum couldn’t find me in the house or at the front, so she had the whole family and the street out looking for me.  A neighbour came to my mum and asked if she had checked round the back, but mum replied, if she’s gone round there the geese would have let me know, because she would have to go past them to get into the yard.  I don’t know how many of you know this, but geese are one of the best guard dogs you can have and the neighbour agreed, but mum thought about it and decided she’d go and check, you know just in case.  Apparently, she found me sitting, as she said in the dirt, playing with the goslings.  It turned out, I had been shown a hole in the hedge by my elder brother that bypassed the geese, and sure enough that’s what I had done!! I’m not sure what trouble he got into for that!!  I’ll have to remember to ask him next time we meet up.

However, as well as playing hide and seek in the physical sense, sometimes we try to hide things in our hearts from each other and from God.  It maybe something we have said and regretted, it maybe something we have done, it maybe something we are worried about.  However, it isn’t always a good thing to do and it something we can’t do with God, which is why we pray to ask for his forgiveness.  God knows us so well and is close to us all the time.

The word of God is alive and active, he knows us intimately and as Jeremiah (1:5) says he knew us before our birth whilst still in our mother’s womb.  Let’s face it he formed us, but we are still told to seek the Lord.  However, he doesn’t really need to seek us and truthfully we know how to find him, in our hearts and minds, because the word of God is alive and active in us and around us.  We only have to look at the fields of wheat, at nature, the trees as they change colour during the changing seasons to see how active God is.  Many of us are lucky enough to have all our senses to see, hear and smell the good earth, especially in rural communities during the muck spreading season.

So, let’s seek the Lord daily and live, because the word of God is alive and active, the evidence is all around us, it’s not hidden from us.

And why do you call me good? The question Jesus asks of the young man.  Jesus knew this young man as God would also have known him and he probably knew he had a lot of possessions, but he continues to question him about his commitment to God’s commandments and statutes, before saying he would have to give everything up to follow Jesus.

We know he is good, because of what he did for us and he described himself as the Good Shepherd and how a good shepherd minds his sheep.  He protects them and feeds them, but Jesus also knows the cost of following him.  To this young man who had probably heard of the many things Jesus had done, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, to him all these things were good, so why not call him Good Teacher.  After all he was teaching good things.  Teaching everyone what they must do to become part of the Kingdom of God and servants to all.  No wonder the disciples were perplexed after everything they had given up to follow Jesus, but as usual they didn’t fully understand where Jesus’ Kingdom was.

It’s a big ask, but to follow Jesus with all our heart, mind and body is not easy and he never said it would be, which is why Jesus is at God’s right hand now to intercede for us.  He is our High Priest who stands before God and he understands our weaknesses, frustrations and desires, because he has lived as one of us.

He has experienced first-hand the temptations that we face in our daily lives and he has been tested as no-one else has been tested.

Through Jesus we have a loving relationship with God, and he told us to call God father and to trust in him.  He taught us how to ask for forgiveness and he gave us an example of how to love, so we don’t need to hide from God.

Jesus was both willing and able to obey God perfectly, he didn’t shy away from what he was asked to do.

Jesus didn’t play hide and seek with his disciples or the people he was sent to save, he was present and visible.

In today’s world it’s often difficult to see where the word of God is alive and active, but if we think back to last week.  To harvest and the gifts that were brought to church.  Gifts that will have gone to those who need them most and if we look hard enough there are examples of God’s presence all around us, through Porch boxes and Food Pantry’s.

The word of God is alive and active, even if we don’t feel him near and we are told to seek the Lord through prayer and action, being disciples in this world and doing what Jesus would do because God is Good to us.

Let us pray.

Lord God, Father of all, you give us life, you give us love, you give us yourself.  Help us to give our lives, our love, ourselves to you, in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.