Trinity 10

Sunday 13 August 2023

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Readings: 1 Kings 19.9-18; Romans 10.5-15; Matthew 14.22-33

Preached by The Reverend Revered Dr James Gardom, Interim Priest-in-Charge, St Bene’t’s

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The Parish Profile. It helps potential applicants know about the Church that they are applying to lead. It’s a really good opportunity to think about the nature and purpose of St Bene't's, but sometimes it is is difficult to find the right words.

Is St Bene't's Anglo-Catholic? Of course it is – the signs are there, a deep engagement with the Eucharist, strong conviction of the centrality of the Catholic spiritual disciplines, and the importance of the long history of faithful Christian living and thought. But is this a word we like? Perhaps not – it implies, for some, an uncertainty about the ministry of women, a yearning for the elaboration of ritual, and an overdependence on the pastoral properties of gin.

Is St Bene't's a Liberal church? Of course it is – the signs are there, a thorough-going commitment to inclusion, to concern for the most vulnerable, and to diversity as the hallmark of a flourishing Christian community. But is this a word we like? Perhaps not – it implies, for some, an indifference to the history and contents of the faith, and a kind of condescension towards people who actually believe things, and a kind of religion without content.

I want to talk today, in light of our reading from Romans, about another word – Evangelical. Is St Bene't's an evangelical church? I do so in the knowledge that a significant proportion of St Bene't's people have been brought to faith within evangelical churches. In such churches they found God, found Christ, and even found themselves. But I also know that a significant proportion of St Bene't's people, and often the same people, have been hurt, even damaged, by aspects of contemporary evangelicalism.They have been told they are not loving Christ right, or indeed loving themselves and other people right. Can we be Evangelical?

At its best, evangelicalism stands by three crucial perceptions. We need to be saved. Our salvation is a gift from God through faith. And, because of these, we are called above all to the spreading the good news.All these are present in today’s reading from Romans, and in fact Romans is the central book for evangelicalism. Let’s consider these in order, to discover whether St Bene't's in addition to being (in the best sense of the word) Anglo-Catholic, and (in the best sense of the word) liberal should also think of itself as (in the best sense of the word) Evangelical.

You and I need to be saved. What does it mean to need to be saved, to be healed, to be made whole?

Our awareness of our need for salvation arises from the intuition that there is a quite unbridgeable the gap between God and human beings. God whom we meet in our dark moments, the God whom we meet in sudden flashes of joy and awe, the God whom we meet in our prayers: this God is holy, this God is something totally and immeasurably distant and different from the human nature. We do not need to talk at length about our wretched , dull, sad sinfulness. It is not primarily some secret list of shamefaced activities and propensities that separates us from God. It is just being what we are – self-obsessed, fragmented, foolish, vain and dim-witted. As soon as we sense God we sense that of course this is a relationship which cannot work.

This awareness of the awful and tremendous Majesty of God, this awareness of the impossible smallness and inadequacy of human beings lies at the root of all religion, I suspect, and certainly of our Jewish inheritance. Some of Jesus contemporaries believed, of course, was that God had offered a way up the unscalable cliff. Longing for God, they hoped and they believed that it might be possible for them to draw near to God through the keeping of God's law.That is a central theme of Romans. But Paul tells us something which I think we may know already from our own experience. The attempt to draw close to God based solely on trying to do God's will has a self-defeating quality. It is not possible by building ourselves up, by refining our climbing skills, and by exercising our abilities to make a start on the massive difference and the impossible distance that stands between us and God.

So, we need to be saved by God , to be healed, to be made whole. Paul tells us, and the evangelicals tell us, and our hearts tell us, that the power for salvation does not lie within us.

So how are we to be saved? Paul tells us what we are saved, made right, by faith.

So, what is faith? It was once rather sourly defined as "The ability retained by some adults to believe what they know not to be true." I like this definition, not because I believe it is accurate, but because I believe it captures an important truth.When Peter stepped out of the boat in today's gospel he believed something most adults would regard as not true. He believed that when Christ commanded, some fundamental rules, in this case some fundamental rules of physics,simply did not apply.

To have faith in Jesus Christ is to live as if some fairly fundamental rules about the world, which most adults believe most of the time, simply do not apply. It is an extraordinary thing to live as if the secret of the world was expressed by God in the crucifixion of a wandering carpenter and preacher 2000 years again. It is an extraordinary thing to live as if the God of heaven and earth, who made all creation and all time, can be present in the brief lives and the ordinary doings of people like you and me. It is an extraordinary thing to live as if love is stronger than death, as if good can overcome evil, as if suffering can be given meaning, as if God is Love.

Faith is, at least in part, living as if, and living in faith changes us. It remakes and aligns us with God’s nature and God’s purposes. That is our healing and our joy, our salvation, however incomplete. It is the business of our Christian lives, and it is the business of this church.

And that is Gospel, good news.

There is an apocryphal saying of St Francis: Preach the gospel at all times. If absolutely necessary, use words.There is another saying I remember from a sermon I heard in my teenage years, “If we began even in a small way to live the gospel we have heard, people would be queueing up outside our churches”. I don’t know about words, and I don’t know about queues, but it is hard not to respond to the eloquence of Paul as he thinks of this glorious gift we have been given.

14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! If we see such glory, what can we do but tell it?

So I believe we are, and must be, an Evangelical church, in the best sense of the word.

Our shared foundational experience in worship is a sense of the glory of God. It would even lead us to despair if it were not infused with love. We long to be saved, to be made whole. Our shared lived experience is that God makes it possible for us to be whole if we live in faith. We are being saved by being remade by living in faith. Our shared vocation is not to treat this a private treasure to be enjoyed and concealed, but a glorious wonder to be shared.

Evangel, as you know, means Good News. This good news is ours, no less than other churches, and no less than other Churches we must and we do proclaim it.