Sermon: Eucharist at St Andrew's Farnham

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 23rd June 2013

Venue:

St Andrew's, Farnham

Service:

Eucharist

Readings:

Galatians 3: 23-29

Luke 8: 26-39

This week it was announced that Girl Guides will no longer pledge their loyalty to God and country. Instead the promise will include a commitment ‘to be true to myself and develop my beliefs’.   Some will argue that this reflects society, making Guides open to all by extending mutual respect.  Others contend that it all went downhill when Jeff Banks redesigned the uniforms. 

What is clear is that purpose and identity matters – for us as individuals and for the kind of communities we are forging. It would be a cheap shot to equate being true to myself to L’Oreal’s advertising slogan “because you’re worth it”. It is a more serious question to consider the kind of self we are called to be true to; is something lost when the horizon of meaning shifts?

Promising to be true to myself as an individual suggests independent thought; shaping my own moral framework; striding through the world in my own way and on my own terms.  Such a conception of the self privileges personal choice; it doesn’t recognise the extent to which we can be swayed by emotion and desire; it doesn’t recognise how easily we can be manipulated by forces beyond ourselves.  It rather exaggerates my personal capacity to know and do what is right. 

Although the Girl Guides’ promise is situated within the stability of a wider historical, cultural and religious context; there is something lonely and corrosive about defining ourselves by ourselves.  It’s a heavy weight to carry; it doesn’t acknowledge our frailty and limitations. It somehow makes us smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable.  What if I let myself down? What if my perception of myself is distorted? What if I lack self-confidence – who or what will draw me into a deeper sense of assurance beyond mere self-reliance?

Both of our readings today subvert a sense of self determined by personal choice; by offering a vision of personhood which is rooted and grounded in the love of God. We’re directed to the hope of transformation, a radical inclusivity and open up a generative pattern of service.  Today our selves are drawn in two directions: not in the sense of being over-stretched or fragmented; but rather being drawn more deeply into the complexity of the world and more deeply into God.

Luke tells us of Jesus journey beyond Galilee into the non-Jewish territory of the Garasenes: he ventures into a society where lives are shaped by the whims of gods; by tragedy, fate and human achievements.  Yet for all this attentiveness to ingenuity, ritual and imagination, there was a deep fear of the fragility and brokenness of humanity – expressed as the demonic.

The man, who throws himself at Jesus’ feet, is a man who is exiled from civilisation.  Being true to himself would have been a terrifying, indeed destructive, burden.  He may have had moments of lucidity, but he lived in fear of the unpredictable episodes of mental distress which tore his life apart.  Attempts to restrain him failed; his uncontrollable strength threatened others.  He fled into the wilds, barely clothed; life for him was so disordered he made his dwelling place among the dead.

As he falls to the ground he cries out in fear, begging for release.  Even in the raging of his mind, he glimpses something of who Jesus is as Son of the Most High God. Jesus asks his name.  The answer doesn’t reveal a given name or familial identity. The name itself indicates distress; a name that says myself is violently shattered and beyond my control. “I am Legion”. 

Jesus says nothing else; he stays with him, facing the darkness and fear; dispelling the forces to which he is beholden.  After the shouting, stampeding and chaos; there is calm.

Let us fix our attention on the man sitting at Jesus feet.  In the midst of superstition and destruction, Jesus brings peace and healing.  The man instinctively wants to remain with the one who has restored him to life; learning from Jesus in gratitude and longing. 

Yet, he is told to go home.  His purpose and calling is to be fulfilled among those in his own community.  He is sent to tell others about what God has done; to share with them how he has been returned to his true self.  No doubt that seemed a daunting prospect as he faced possible prejudice and mistrust.  He re-enters community declaring how much God has done in Christ is the basis of his re-entry into community.  His new found stability of life, the peace that has entered his mind and body is also a sign of the power of God’s love.  

Jesus faced fear, turbulence and dislocation with an intensity of love which transforms releases and restores.  He confronts all that threatens our humanity, face to face.  He reveals that God is the source of all that is good.  Legion has become a child of God, in Christ.  Our identity, like his, is formed by that relationship; our lives, like his, are lived out amongst the diverse cultural, social and historical norms of our community.

This can be a complex process of balancing competing demands and priorities; our starting point is being rooted in Christ.  We make sense of our identity and our lives, of our experience of God and our hopes for community in him. When Paul writes to the church in Galatia, he is caught up in this process of sense-making.  He can’t simply be true to himself without engaging with a wider frame of reference.  Paul the Jew is Christ’s apostle; doing justice to God’s gifts to his people and his bestowal of grace in Christ. 

Paul seeks to do justice to the old dispensation of the law as a guide; he seeks to explain the impact of the new dispensation marked by faith and freedom.  Out of this wrestling, there emerges a new vision.  Being in Christ makes us all children of God.  We have been called by name and our identities are grounded in God: we too have been baptised into Christ. 

We are also clothed with Christ. We have been called into a relationship with God which extends his mercy, grace and forgiveness to us; we are to literally put this on, as outward vesture which shapes our thinking and speaking and acting.  We are to be true to Christ. 

That is a challenge to us as a Church – as we live and worship and work.  We are one in Christ that there is no longer Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female. All the other marks of our social and economic status, all that makes us who we are, have been relocated in Christ. In baptism we become united with one another in one body, offspring of one family.  It is not that our difference and disagreement evaporate; it is that they are channelled to a common purpose; reshaped by God’s love.  All of you are one in Christ Jesus. It is a thrilling and compelling vision; but it is also a demanding calling.

However marred within the reality of our own lives, the vision is fresh full of capacity to amaze and challenge.   Look around you: these are the people with whom God has placed us; the people whose experience and ideas will provoke and challenge us; the people with whom we are one.  If we were just another human federation, committed to being true to ourselves and our beliefs, committed to community and service, we might wonder how on earth we are to get there. However, week by week our hearts and minds are changed by sharing in this gift of the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is a foretaste of what is to come; a heavenly banquet, a kingdom where God is all in all.  Yet the Eucharist as well as being a place of abundance; here we find forgiveness.  We are one because we share in broken bread and outpoured wine.  We lay down our regrets and betrayals. We receive God’s gifts of forgiveness, grace and healing in order that we might be one.

The kind of love we have in Christ is messy, fragile and generous.  The kind of love we have in his body is deeply personal, yet universal.  It is complex; yet we are formed and reformed.  All that we have and all that we are is taken up in Christ. 

We like the man restored to health of body and mind, sit together attending to the love and mercy of God; yet we like him are called to walk as disciples of Christ in the world.  We are to take up our daily tasks, our involvement in our community; we are to do our work; live our relationships within a new frame of reference.  We are reshaped by the bond of love and peace.  We are to be true to ourselves as a new creation in Christ; rather than being true to the selves we construct.

Along with your Rector and PCC, you will be looking outwards into Farnham: discerning where God is at work ahead of you; identifying the challenges of your community – how you can support, encourage and celebrate all that is happening here.  Go, declare how much God has done for you; go, as those whose lives are reformed in Christ; go as people facing fear with love.