How is Lent going for you? As we had refreshment Sunday last week, Lent is well over half way through. Today is Passion Sunday, so in 2 weeks it will be Easter Sunday and we shall relive, celebrate and rejoice greatly in the resurrection of Jesus. Today is the final sermon in our Lent series of looking at and reflecting on our Eucharist service. If you can remember 5 weeks ago, Fr Tom Duncan spoke on our Gathering, the beginning of the service. Then Modupe spoke on The Word, when we listen to readings and sermon. Two weeks ago Jane reflected with us on receiving communion, and today, we look at the ending of the service, our "Going Out", our mission.
This "Going Out" begins with the prayer we pray together after receiving Communion or a blessing. In a major way the whole of our worship before this time is to prepare us for this "Going Out". Each one of us here is called to be here, to be part of our gathering, to receive God’s word into our hearts, to hear it for our lives.
We all receive Christ’s body and blood or his blessing to help us grow as followers of Jesus, to help us receive his grace. We are called to come together with Christ; we are called and enabled to go out in his name.
There is one prayer in this final part of the Eucharist that always makes me tremble. Would you turn to page 9 of your service sheet? This is what we say together, we declare it before God, we make it our statement of intent, look at the words of the 2nd sentence:
‘ Through him’, Jesus,’ we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice’. What are we doing? What are we saying? Souls and bodies – the whole of us, nothing held back. To be a living sacrifice – we agree to give up our own wants and desires if they do not align with God’s life in us. In other words we are agreeing with Jesus: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and may that include me; help me to do your will, help me to let you bring your kingdom into my own life, even though I know it means I will need to sacrifice, give up, some things.
I would like to share a story with you. In 1984 Mike and I were looking for what God wanted us to do with our lives. We had a few acres of land at that time, and we wanted to somehow help others by using our home and land to build a home in the other buildings, to help others use some of the land. Then one evening we went to a big meeting in Derby. At the end of the talk, the speaker asked people to stand up if they wanted to allow God to lead them where he wanted. So, as this was in line with our searching at that time, we stood up, and made the promise that whatever God wanted us to do, we would do it.
We then learned that God takes our promises seriously! We also learned that following God’s way for us wasn’t deprivation, that we wouldn't became destitute, it wasn’t depressing. We experienced God working in us, walking with us as he prepared us to do what he planned. So a few months later, we sold our home and land and joined a mission organisation. Many people thought we were foolish, stupid to throw away our seemingly secure future. But I can truthfully say we and our children have received so many life-giving benefits from following God’s way instead of our own plans.
That was a major change. In some ways it’s harder to offer our souls and bodies to God each day as we face the challenges that come. But let’s look at our first reading on page 3.
This is a passage from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi. He is talking about what he has given up and what he has been given since he met Jesus in a vision while he was travelling to Damascus to persecute Christians. In his life before Jesus he had lots of reasons to be proud, to be self-righteous, he was a very good Jew, he kept the Law, he was even blameless under the Law.
He was a respected leader in the Jewish religion. But, look at line 4 onwards, Paul says he counts all these achievements that gave him respect and status in the eyes of other people, he counts all these as loss, worth nothing, as rubbish, when compared with knowing Jesus Christ as his Lord. Paul was called by Jesus on the way to Damascus for a specific task. He was called to go, to take the good news he had heard, that he had embraced so fully, and take it to others. So Paul left his old life behind and he went. He went because he loved Jesus, because Jesus had made Paul his own. And what does Paul tell us he wants now? ‘I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.’
So he forgets what lies behind, the losses, the hardships, and he strains forward, he presses on towards his goal – the prize he will receive, ‘the heavenly call’ as he puts it. He knows the hope of resurrection life both here and now, and beyond death. Jesus called him for this life, and Paul knows that calling of Jesus goes on into the next life.
And my dear fellow pilgrims, we are called. We are called to be here as children of God; we are called to be sent out from here, to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, to show his heart to the world. How do we fulfil this great calling on our lives? So often I feel I can’t. I fail. I’m afraid, I run out of energy, resources. I don’t know how or what.
What can we do? We can breathe a prayer: Help, rescue me. Help me to be aware of you, to grow in faith in you, to know the power of your resurrection. Help me to be available to you, to surrender my own ambitions, my own goals and take into my heart your goal, the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Even when I’m caught up in fear, anger, greed, self-centredness, wanting to take revenge; when I get trapped in complaining, in judging, self-criticism, in looking to my own strength, in these times help me to breathe a prayer, hand it all over to you.
For then we can look for the strength of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit to help us live our day-by-day lives, to live as the sent-out people of Jesus.
What do we have to go out with? What do we have that we can give to others? The call of God to us gives us so much to take out with us. It can be summed up in 6 words: the power of Jesus’ resurrection life. This is what Paul had. We are given the same. We do have different lives to lead from Paul, but we are given the same power. And this power, this resurrection life changes things. It changed history, it changes us. As the changing people of God, what do we take with us as we go?
We are living examples of God’s love revealed in Jesus. We are witnesses to the blessings God gives in Jesus. We have a new life with God in Jesus because God has done everything to reconcile us to himself in his Son. So we reveal who God is; God who blesses in a world where it seems so easy to curse. We reveal our God who desires everyone to know they can be reconciled to him, no more guilt, no need to hide.
He offers reconciliation in a world that builds barriers, that cannot, or will not, take them down. We can bring hope in a world of despair, thankfulness in a world of complaint and criticism, compassion in a world of disinterest.
We have good news instead of bad news, good news that brings the breath of life where there is the shadow of death; we bring a different light, not generated by us, but received and burning within us, shining for others to see, a light that no darkness can put out.
Paul was given the task of preaching the good news of Jesus through many countries, and eventually to almost the whole Roman Empire. The task God gives each of us is different, but our calling is the same as Paul’s, the gift we have received of Jesus’ resurrection life is the same. One of the Church Fathers said something very interesting to followers of Jesus: Go and preach the good news of Jesus, and if you have to, if you must, use words. He was saying that we don’t necessarily need to preach, with words. We preach in our lives as we live the life of Jesus within the places we live, where we work.
And much of the time we won’t know the influence we have had. Just occasionally we may hear something good. But God knows, he knows every unseen good that we have given. Our work is to want to know more of Jesus’ life.
May God help us to know more of what he has given to each of us and continues to give us as we receive Christ’s broken body, his poured out blood. May God help us to offer him our souls and bodies as breathing, walking, working, sharing, day-by-day living sacrifices, that we may make ourselves available for him to send us out, not in our own strength but in the power of his spirit, that all glory and praise will go to him, that his kingdom will come on earth. Amen.
