ABUNDANT LIFE FLOWS FROM GOD

Sermon delivered on the 3^rd Sunday after Easter the 13^th April 2008 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Acts 2: 42-end     1 Peter 2: 19 - 25     S. John 10: 1 - 10

S. John 10:7 Jesus said "Truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep"

THE GOD-DIMENSION IN ISRAEL

If you pick up the Old Testament and start to examine its style, you will perhaps be greatly struck with how theocentric it is. The book of Genesis has its own particular way of demonstrating this, a way that scholars call "anthropomorphic". As if He were a man, the Lord is depicted as not just inspiring but talking with people, as quarrelling with them sometimes or even fighting with them, as being persuaded by them sometimes, as walking with them, and as sealing Noah's Ark with its inhabitants by closing its door on them from the outside. The prophets, who were those who both fought with and formed the public opinion of their day, gave the reason for public rejoicing, not merely that the city was rebuilt, or that an enemy army was driven back, or something of the sort, but that God was great in the midst of the inhabitants of Zion. Naturally they interpreted some disaster such as the sacking and destruction of the city as an expression of God's anger and not just the perversity or strength of the enemies. There was this extra dimension all the time: meaning did not lie solely in who was stronger than whom as a leader, or what the political line-up was. Our modern times, I believe, have much more to learn from this ancient witness than we like to admit. Mrs. Meg Munn from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in her recently publicised letter to the Leader of Government Business writes of universal values that transcend cultural and national boundaries, but that leaves an unanswered question of great importance, as to the provenance of such values. As Christians we should be looking not just to what has been determined by man, but to what has been determined by God.

 

The 40 Days of Easter celebration must be seen as theocentric in a similar manner; we are reminded to say again, though in a New Testament way, "Great in our midst is the Holy One of Israel." The Resurrection of Christ witnessed to the Divine Presence, in contrast to any fear that in the condemnation of Jesus by the authorities God had absented Himself from His people. By the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord's disciples were and are now being gathered together in a New Testament Noah's Ark. In the Old Testament Noah's Ark, the Lord is shown as sealing in the elect; in the New Testament the Ark becomes the sheepfold and Jesus is now the Door through which one enters to be saved and to go in and out to find pasture. The Eucharist of the Church of God throughout the world continues, as it did from the first partaking in the "Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, ... the breaking of bread and the prayers", as described in our first lesson, to express the joy and thanksgiving of His people that in the Resurrection of Christ God is present and that He is great and powerfully effective beyond the manifold causes of our fear. And that goes beyond our own gatherings for acts of worship. By giving thanks for His Presence and powerful effectiveness when we gather in Eucharist, responsibility is also given to us for bringing such consolations to bear on life in general. Our Eucharist bears witness that Christ is risen and that God is great in His Presence and in His action, not just in church but in the universe. Actually we teach that the Risen life of Christ and the effectual Presence of God are objective truths, that these are the realities that do not change no matter what the circumstances might be. In every Eucharist we witness to the fact of these realities not in the circumstance of the Eucharist alone, but also in the circumstances of the world, yes even in the circumstances of the oppression of the vulnerable, and of all forms of persecution of the faithful. All such things have taken place and still take place in the presence and in the face of the Risen Christ; this is what we teach, and this is what our world often fails to hear, and this is what we also are tempted to forget.

 

THE GRIEF OF THE RISEN CHRIST

The Risen Christ who is present is certainly grieved and angered when His people turn away from Him and injure His children. Old Testament Israel was aware of the Lord's anger in a way that somehow we in our time have anaesthetised ourselves to. Might we not consider that there is a lesson for Cayman when its way of life is so patently threatened both by the grosser crimes and enormities caused by greed and by the more subtle and powerful secularising influences of our time? For have we not for years been fostering here as well a culture of the neglect of the holy? We will be having Cayfest and Batabanoo, Earth Day and a host of humanitarian concerns, all vigorously promoted, and that is good. Still, it is not hard to see what our community is being asked to leave out of its consciousness and its conscience. We are being asked to leave out the holy. We are tempted to leave out the source of the meaning of it all. So at times God allows certain specific horrors to become a symbol of death to us. Yes, the perpetrators of those horrors have a repentance to undertake before they can escape Hell and attain to the Resurrection Kingdom. But so do we all have a repenting to undergo. Our theocentric Resurrection faith shows us that in the imagery of today's Gospel we have One by whom if anyone enters, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. He is actively concerned for us and never apathetic. He came that we might have life, and have it abundantly. "Others", that are left unnamed by the Gospel, are those who might make similar promises but end up proving to be thieves and robbers.

 

BEARING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WITNESS TO THE RISEN PRESENCE

During the rest of the 40 Days, therefore, the time between Easter Day and Ascension Day, let us bear the responsibility for witnessing to the Presence among us of that concerned Shepherd, the Risen Christ. It is not what we make our world into that counts, or that will make anything truly better. What will count in the end for our world is how closely we have followed Him and put into effect His will. Last Sunday's Collect said it well: after we are reminded of the gift of God's only Son, we pray in that prayer for grace to receive the inestimable gift of His sacrifice for us and to endeavour to follow the blessed steps of His holy life. We are called to be theocentric in the Resurrection manner. We are called to be aware of that Risen Presence and that divine-human Will and that Holy Spirit, and we are charged to adjust our patterns of living to take account of that unavoidable reality. In St. Peter's words in our Epistle today we are reminded that this could include a measure of unjust suffering. Oddly enough, that is a part of God's way of working upon this world. We are supposed to be the children of the Resurrection. We need to recall, and to keep on recalling, and to be an open witness to the fact, that in a world that is running away from its Source, we have returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, and that this is now the reason for the way we are living and for the continuing abundance of our hope.

 

 

QUESTIONS

1. The theocentric witness of OT Israel and of the Church seems proof to some of incorrigible ignorance. Outline arguments in a debate over this position.

2. How can the Church in Cayman best respond to and counter the neglect of the holy in our community?

3. What can we do to make "the way we are living" a clear witness to our own return to the Shepherd?