Sunday 30 May 2010 - The Servant King

I was asked to supply-preach this morning on the general subject of "Memorial Day". I chose to use the assigned Epistle reading from the lectionary, Romans 5:1-11 but I departed from the lectionary for the Gospel reading and chose the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet from John: John 13:1-9

The sermon can be found on my sermon blog.

A Mature Faith?

I found the following article by Giles Fraser in this week's Church Times to be very interesting: Growing Up is a Moral Business

Fraser writes:

The true grown-up is the person who is able to face genuine otherness with gratitude and thanksgiving. The grown-up does not need to analyse every situation with a sharp eye for how it benefits him or her.

Winnicott put it thus: “A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another.”

Fraser goes on to write that churches (usually? often?) take the approach with young children of teaching them the simple message 'Jesus Loves You'. But as children get older, there is also 'a call to wake up to the needs of others'.

Sometimes Christians quibble about whether 'the Gospel message' is about 'God loves you' or whether it is about service to others. Along with many other expressions of the Christian faith, Methodism has always asserted that 'the Gospel message' is about both of these things: knowing oneself to be loved by God and serving others because of having been empowered by God's love.

I've seen at close hand that damage that people do to their own lives by living life as if the primary human questions were 'What can other people do for me?' 'How can I make sure I get (more than) my share of stuff in life?' 'How can I make sure the other guy doesn't take what's mine?'

If the Christian faith is more than simply serving others, then it is also more than simply saying 'God loves me.'

Quote of the day

This text from The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg struck me very powerfully this morning. I 'preach' to no-one but myself and simply share this text if it resonates with anyone else.

Jesus took a little child in his arms and said [to the disciples], in effect, "Here's your ministry. Give yourselves to those who can bring you no status or clout. Just help people. You need this little child. You need to help this little child, not just for her sake, but more for you sake. For if you don't, your whole life will be thrown away on an idiotic contest to see who is the greatest. But if you serve her - often and well and cheerfully and out of the limelight - then the day may come when you do it without thinking, 'What a wonderful thing I've done.' Then you will begin serving naturally, effortlessly, for the joy of it. Then you will begin to understand how life in the kingdom works."

Aren't most of the values of 'the world' centred around 'An idiotic contest to see who is the greatest' in one way or another?  This is the big way that I think The Church of Christ can be 'counter cultural'.