Dear Church Member
I had wanted to take the opportunity to write a sermon about Corona virus but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to remind myself – and all of you – about the love of God in Jesus Christ – a love that will outlast the crisis this world now finds itself in, a love which, like the Almighty Himself, is from everlasting to everlasting.
God wants us to respond to Him with love and trust, especially now - like any good mother, parent or carer, like Our Father. When you wash your hands take the opportunity to pray the Lord’s Prayer and know that you have a Heavenly Father who knows exactly what he’s doing and is speaking to us through these times. As much as we pray for a vaccine or for a “flattening of the curve” we must never rely solely on human agency and wisdom. If the world can’t pray we can and we can pray for them, to God alone.
Along with the rest of the world we have an opportunity to turn to God again; to, like both sons in Luke’s story, to return to the fold and acknowledge that, without God, we are all undone.
I can’t help thinking that our motto for 2020 is so appropriate now: “The Lord is all I have, and so I put my hope in Him…” (Lamentations 3:24 a) We have an opportunity to share with gentleness and respect the hope we have.
In this crisis we have the opportunity to care for each other, to stay in touch with one another and to be a good Baptist Church by exercising our all-member-ministry, or what used to be known as the priesthood of all believers – to minister to each other, to serve. If you have any sort of need call your deacon. Do not struggle on alone. If you have questions about food, supplies, the right thing to do you have a fellowship to support you.
We have an opportunity to use this time of lockdown in the most positive ways. Read your Bible! Practice the Presence of God, moment-by-moment; do the jobs you have been putting off. Watch the news but sparingly. Do not allow the enemy to swamp you with his messages of doom about the future or about work or the Stock Market. We do not worship these things! And God will provide.
Mother’s Day used to be called Mothering Sunday. The church was like a mother who provided for the needs of her children. I pray that the lost children of this generation will return to the mother who loves them and misses them.
We may not be able to meet physically but the church was never about the bricks and mortar. We are the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit”. Even though we cannot hold hands we can say the Grace and never will it have meant more.
I will send a letter and a message each week as we approach Easter. We should take the opportunity to worship at home between 10:30 and 11:30 on Sunday morning. We will then be meeting in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
With our love and prayers,
Mark & Susan (19/03/20)
STORY:
A small boy is asked to do some chores for his busy mum: tidy your room, put your toys away, help with
the washing up, let the cat our, let the cat in!
The small boy helps his mum, but he doesn’t really like it, though each time he helped, she said, “Thank you, son!”
So he thought he could get more for helping his mum so, for the whole week, he kept a note of what he had done.
Tidy room: 50p…
Put away toys: 50p…
Helping wash up: 50p… So, at the end of the week, he presented his mum with a bill for £1:50…
Mum smiled at her son and paid, but said nothing…
The little boy thought, “This is great; I’ll soon be rich!”
So, he helped again the following week and kept note of all his chores and, just like before, he gave her the bill; but this time she gave him a bill in return:
For doing all your washing: no charge…
For cooking all your meals: no charge…
For staying by your bedside when you were ill: no charge…
For loving you even when you are naughty: no charge…
This mum loves you a lot like God loves you:
NO Charge! He paid the bill in full…
Mothering Sunday Sermon: Luke 15: 11-32
A mother was overheard telling a story about her wayward son, Jack. Jack couldn’t hold down a job; what money he did have went on drugs and booze. He rarely phoned home – brought little joy into her life – or her husband’s – he never even talked about Jack. The mother spoke of her helplessness: “If only I could bring him back and shelter him and try to show him how much I love him,” she said. She tried to compose herself and then added, “The curious thing is, even though he rejects me, Jack’s love means more to me than that of my other three, the responsible ones. Odd, isn’t it? That’s how love is, I suppose.”
Jesus was the master story-teller. He asked his listeners to imagine, just for a moment. Imagine that a younger son did ask for his share of the family’s estate and that the Father (head of the household) agreed to give him the money. It would have been hard to imagine such a scenario, because at the time Jesus told that story (in that culture), it simply would not have happened. A child, especially a son was a priceless asset, both personally and in real practical terms.
If a son did say, “Dad, Mum, give us your money, I’m off”, this would have been nothing short of a death-wish. It would have been the same as saying, “I wish you were dead!”
To take off with one third of the family silver would have exposed the family to distress and it would have left them vulnerable in all sorts of ways, not just in terms of money. It would have brought shame upon the family; the chances of the family being accepted in the community were slim…
But, in this story, the hard-to-imagine does happen. The boy gets as far away as possible from the family. He goes to a far off land and lives the life of Riley. The rest, as they say; is history, and he blows the lot on wild living; to add insult to injury, there is a famine in the land – there is an economic down-turn; food is expensive and he hits rock bottom: he can’t go any lower really; there he is penniless, starving and enviously watching the pigs eating their husks. We should not let the significance of the pigs pass us by. He is covered in filth. Imagine the shame!
Having hit the bottom he comes to his senses. He is desperate and he is hungry. “Perhaps I can work for the old man, work my passage; I’ll never pay off the debt, but at least I’ll have food in my belly! He can hire me out”, he thinks.
I imagine the boy had a long, lonely trek home and a lot of time to think about the state he was in. It can’t have been easy for the boy to go home; but he came to his senses. What sort of reception would he get?
His imagination got the better of him: “My Father will probably tear his clothes off his body in rage and grief and say, I do not know you. I disown you. You are not my son. Go back from where you have come, there is nothing for you here. You are dead!”
Imagine the boys’ fears!
He imagines the worst. “He could never love me after what I have done to him! Against heaven, against you alone, I have sinned! And I’ve only got myself to blame!”
The boy is hungry, but there’s another sort of hunger nagging away at him, in his heart. And there is the boy coming home, beaten and dishevelled, muttering away to himself, rehearsing what he might say. What could he say? And there in the distance is the old man whose wrath he fears, running towards him; an unimaginable sight, it wouldn’t happen; it’s undignified, unexpected…
But the father is filled with compassion for the wayward, ragged boy; he throws his arms around him and kisses him. The boy attempts to explain himself and confess, but no sooner than he opens his mouth the Father says,
“Forget about all that! I know what’s in your heart; we’re gonna celebrate instead! You’ve done your worst; now I’ll give you the best!”
You’re back and that’s enough: NO CHARGE BOY!”
When you come to God for forgiveness, when you come sincerely to Him, he forgets that you wasted your life and says: you’re home and that’s enough for me, boy or girl.
GOD’S LOVE IS FREE: NO CHARGE. THAT’S HOW GOD’S LOVE IS!
Really, I am not the sort of parent you think I am. And often in our depths we avoid turning back to God because we sometimes believe he is cruel and unkind: we have this picture of a tyrant on his throne; because we think of him this way, we don’t come home to him and we don’t experience his extravagant love.
“How great is the love that the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)
We expect to be turned away; perhaps we expect that others will turn us away. We don’t expect to be saved, but to be condemned. We don’t expect this kind of reception; we don’t feel we deserve it – and we would be right – we don’t!
The love of a mother is like God’s love, someone said: God loves us, not because we are loveable, but because it is in his nature to love, and because we are his children.
We don’t expect to hear, “Whatever you have been up to, wherever it is that you have been doing it, child (boy/girl), you are nonetheless, still (always) my child!”
“God pardons like a mother who kisses her child’s offence into everlasting forgetfulness!” (Psa 103: 10-13)
The father (parent) has waited; he never gave up; never stopped praying that the boy would come to his senses. Here is the kind of love that let the boy go in the first place.
GOD’S LOVE RISKS LETTING GO: THAT’S HOW GOD’S LOVE IS…
The boy was, in fact, a man. Lots of people have tried to define what love is. But God knows that you cannot force someone or coerce them into loving you. Some countries have harsh regimes, and will use power (or the abuse of power) to force people into submission and obedience. But only love, which has no conditions, or no price-tag attached to it, can ever summon a response of love.
And that is what God wants, and that is the reason God made us in the first place. What kind of God would he be if he forced you to love Him, if he made you love Him? Simply, he would not be God!
GOD’S Love risks the possibility that you will reject him. Bringing children into the world is a great privilege, but for a parent or for a mother or father, a parent-figure, it will never be easy. It is always a risk. Parents wound their children and children wound their parents; how often we wound the ones we love and yet, the ones we wound are impossible to replace…
This is a story which has 3 main characters and one, of course, is the older brother. He wants his waster of a younger brother (that son of yours) to pay for his crimes and to keep on paying for them! There is a wonderful passage in 1 Corinthians on love: and one of the things about God’s love and one of the things about the love that he wants us to learn is that love (God’s love) keeps no record of the wrongs we have done.
And how much like the older brother we are: “he left home, I stayed; he wasted, I worked; he lost his cash, I kept it in the family!” The older brother is spitting feathers and the last thing he wants is the outsider to be allowed in! The older boy thinks he’s better, but really he is no better at all. Remember, the younger brother? For all his faults he asked his father to forgive him – he repented. The older brother resented!
Hard to imagine?
GOD’S LOVE: No charge, free, free at the point of your need!
GOD’S LOVE: when he loves he does it lavishly
GOD’S LOVE: when he forgives he forgets to keep score
GOD’S LOVE: a love that risks letting go: he loves the world; he loves you whether you love him or not
GOD’S LOVE: John 3:16..
Hard to imagine, but that’s how God’s love is…
(Sermon: Mark F-R)