Sermon: The Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 15th July 2012

Service:

Mattins

Readings:

Deuteronomy 28:1-14

Acts 28:17-end

Ahead of the Booker long list, and in time for the holiday season, yesterday's Guardian Review was full of suggested summer reading.  From The Casual Vacancy, J.K Rowling's foray into adult fiction, to the latest  offerings of John Banville, Ian McEwan and  Zadie Smith, we are spoilt for choice.

Literary debate aside, the enduring appeal of fiction, remands us of the impact of stories.  We don't live apart from narrative.  The tales that we tell, gather up our memories; and give shape for our family history; our personal identity is held by a narrative.

Sharing stories are moments self-revelation to the other; such stories evolve. New strands are grafted on when we embark on new relationships. Then as memory fades, familiar stories and our sense of self are held for us by loved ones.  Our past, present and future are embraced by God's eternal love.

Today, we glimpse of moment of Paul's story. He arrives in Rome as a prisoner. Since his arrest in Jerusalem his freedoms have been curtailed; his release has been opposed; he seeks to appeal before the Emperor. He's invited to speak about the Kingdom of God to the local Jewish leaders.  This he does from morning til night before an  open-minded audience.

Paul seeks to  persuade them about Jesus; his testimony isn't drowned out by the wall of noise that overwhelmed Prime Minister's Questions this week.  The leaders attend to a story emerging from  their shared inheritance of Scripture. The words of the law and the prophets express the hopes of a people and the purposes of God.  Jesus' identity is revealed in his story: the divine Word dwelling among us, revealing God's reconciling love in his life death and resurrection, transforming the story of our human condition.

His hearers’ response is mixed. In the words of Isaiah, the message of salvation has been proclaimed; but God's people do not always see, hear and understand. Their hearts are waxed gross; they've gown dull.  This response is to be held within the trajectory of the God's purposes, which are being worked out year by year, generation by generation.

What looks like rejection enables God's message of salvation to be extended to the Gentiles, who will hear and understand. Their stories of gods and poets, of triumphs and tragedies are caught up in God's redeeming love. This fulfills the promise made to Abraham and his descendants.

They are called to faithfully keep God's commandments and to be a light to the nations. They are to testify to wisdom in joy and gladness. As Paul writes elsewhere, new branches are grafted onto the olive tree that is God's people.

Paul the prisoner confidently preaches the Kingdom of God in the face of death; at the end of his story, he teaches others about Jesus. That Gospel story continues to be re-told and re-enacted in the worship of the Church and in the lives of God's people. Our particular stories are woven into that universal narrative of God's creative, redeeming and sustaining love. God's word has been set loose in the Gospel, for the sake of the Kingdom. Nothing will stop it.

In his review of Geza Vermes' book Christian Beginnings, Rowan Williams notes that we continue to pause to ask what really is the right, the truthful, way to talk about a figure like the Jesus we meet in these texts. We are not called to pass on a duplicate or xerox copy of that narrative; human language and culture changes, we say the same thing differently. 

Like Paul, we are to place Christ at the heart of our lives, letting his love, forgiveness and peace transform us and our relationships. We still yearn for the gifts of God’s Spirit; the divine story re-shapes us; we are to live it and to proclaim it with zeal.