With great power comes great responsibility. Want some?

Sunday 26-vii-2015, 8th Sunday after Trinity

Readings: Ephesians 3:14-21   John 6:1-21

No giants bestriding the parish, or other kinds of superheroes required.

Spider-man received his superpowers as a result of being bitten by a radioactive spider. The source of Popeye's power was....? Spinach. Batman's power, on the other hand, came from his wealth as Bruce Wayne, head of Wayne Industries, enabling him to develop gadgets and weapons to fight crime as the Caped Crusader. I don't know how many of you are feeling like superheroes this morning, but I assure you that power of a quite different kind to any of those is available to Christians, and is something dealt with in both our Epistle and Gospel readings today. And no Lycra costumes or canned vegetable are involved, you'll be pleased to know.

In today's Gospel reading, we pick up John's retelling of events at a point where Jesus's public ministry is in full swing. He has been healing, teaching, challenging the Pharisees; he has been to Jerusalem, and we find ourselves at an exciting moment. The Jews who followed Jesus might be forgiven for seeing Jesus as a political Saviour, the promised Messiah. They might be expecting an imminent overthrow of the Romans. Just imagine the scene: five thousand people turning out to see Jesus - it could look like the start of a popular uprising, a dangerous revolutionary movement in the making, from the Roman point of view. Based on Jesus’s growing reputation, the crowd has come expecting teaching, healings and miracles, and a miracle is indeed what the crowd gets in the form of apparently inadequate amounts of food - a few loaves and fishes - meeting and even exceeding their needs. But Jesus doesn't rise to the popular expectations of a Jewish Messiah: rather than using this as a springboard to leading a rebellion, he runs away to the mountains.

Is he teasing the people? Showing all the expected signs of being the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, but not delivering? No, that is not what Jesus is up to. He is showing the people who he is - he is indeed the Messiah - but he is clear that his public ministry is all about giving the glory to God, not amassing power in the world's terms. Jesus is showing people what the Kingdom of God looks like: it’s a place of healing, of hunger being satisfied, and - as the disciples find out when caught in a storm on the lake - a place where Creation itself is calmed, is restored to equilibrium with its Creator.

Jesus - God among us - is a living signpost to God's love for all Creation; a love which Jesus will fulfill in his death and resurrection. This is what the Kingdom of God looks like.

How do we, as God’s Church then also point people towards God? How can we, like Jesus, be living signposts to the Kingdom of God? St Paul gives us a clue in his letter to the Ephesians which was our Epistle reading this morning. Paul's prayer is that his readers might know the love of Christ, that they might be filled with all the fullness of God. Paul is clear that what will sustain us in our faith is not material things, practicalities - the loaves and the fishes, if you like. It is the Holy Spirit which will give us strength; and it is Christ dwelling in our hearts which is the source, the root of our faith; Jesus is the one in whose love the Ephesians and we need to be grounded.

How then can we make sure that we do have Christ dwelling in our hearts? Well, for a start, we can ask for it in prayer. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated – a simple prayer in which you ask God for the gift of faith is enough; just ask Jesus to put his love at the centre of your life. Find a time each day to do this: it might be as the kettle boils each day at breakfast, or every night before you put your light out – whatever works for you, but make a daily appointment with God in prayer. This kind of simple, faithful prayer really works, I know from personal experience – but that is a story for another time… Anyway, the simple answer to how to make sure that Christ dwells in your heart is to ask him to! Invite Jesus to be a living presence in your life every day.

The Lord is here, his Spirit is with us.

We do not simply remember Jesus as a holy man who lived, taught and died some 2000 years ago. The reality of the Christian faith is the same for us as it was for Paul: Jesus is alive. Jesus is here among us today. He is present in our worship and fellowship together; he is present with us in our sharing of bread and wine. As we say at the start of the Eucharistic Prayer: "The Lord is here, his Spirit is with us." It is this living faith in the living, risen Jesus who is alive and among us today which lies at the core of our faith and is our only source of power.

Do we want this power, to use to God’s glory, and to point people to the Kingdom of God? If we do, as well as praying for a renewal of Christ's presence in our hearts every day, let us pray also for strength and wisdom from the Holy Spirit to help us grow in faith and point others towards God.

I have a question for you: if someone asked you, could you articulate what the Christian faith is? Could you explain what the Kingdom of God is all about? Or what the Good News of Jesus Christ actually is? Often these are things we know we believe, but might struggle to put into words. It could be that you haven’t really thought about these questions as an adult. So bear in mind that there will soon be a short course, devised by David [the vicar], which is all about exploring our faith, looking at the basics of the Christian faith. It will be somewhere safe to ask questions among friends about what Christians believe. So do look out for details of this course in the Autumn and come along.

So we can pray, asking God to fill our hearts with the love of Christ and the gift of faith; we can take action to learn more about our faith and explore and deepen it with others on the same journey. And, with all of that in mind, be reassured by St Paul that we can love and serve our neighbourhood and we really can spread the good news of Jesus, even if we’re not convinced that we’re superheroes just yet. St Paul reminds us that it is not us, but the Holy Spirit within us which is the power at work in the Church, the power at work in us.

And Jesus is with us: ‘The Lord is here: His Spirit is with us”. So, let us go about God's mission here in these villages and beyond whether we feel up to the job or not. As Jesus put it on the lake, as he showed his disciples that he was there with them: "Do not be afraid!"

By way of introduction

In 2015 I was ordained Deacon in the Church of England and sent off, with my family, to be Assistant Curate to a group of rural churches in North Yorkshire. These churches are grouped around the market town of Masham (pronounced Mass'um - stray "sh" phonemes are frowned upon round here) where beer is brewed at the Theakston's and Black Sheep breweries.

Theakston's famous Old Peculier beer takes its name from the ecclesiastical Court of the Peculier which was based in Masham. I am not particularly old, but am almost certainly "peculier" in more than one sense of the word. The term for the Peculier of Masham meant that the court took its authority, not from the general jurisdictions which would normally apply but a "peculier" (i.e. specific) one such as the monarch, or a Dean and Chapter of a Cathedral, or a Bishop or Archbishop, or even some other authority. In the case of Masham, the Archbishop of York would normally have been the judicial authority, but as the journey time from York was considerable, a peculier was created and Masham was allowed to basically sort its own affairs out.

As a curate, I do follow the law of the land, but it is true to say that I take my authority from a 'peculier' place as well. At my ordination I took vows of obedience to both Monarch and Bishop. Quaint as this may seem, this was a sign that all authority comes from God and I'm called as part of something ongoing: the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, so I'm not just here to make up what I believe as I go along. A bit of humility does not go amiss among us clergy types. We are only one element of the Church - and no more loved by God, no more valuable than others who do not wear clerical dress. We do, however, have a 'peculier' calling, that is, a specific and distinct one. More on this in another post when I'll look at what I affirmed I believed and promised to do in the ordination service.

But for now, if prayer is your thing, I'd value your prayers as I learn to love these new communities (which is not an onerous task as people here are generally awesome and welcoming), as I find out what God is up to around here (and hopefully get on board with it!) and be a prayerful, caring, loving presence in a truly beautiful part of the world.

This blog will hopefully contain sermons, thoughts and reflections, but it will never contain tales of parishioners or colleagues - it's not a gossip column, more an invitation to join me on an adventure of faith. Let's go...