Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Amos 6.1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6.6-19; Luke 16.19-31

'Abraham said to him, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."' That quote from the gospel reading this morning takes me right back, many years, to the office I used to work in and one day I remember very well. There was a discussion going on amongst 3 or 4 of us about Jesus Christ and the gospel and one of the group said to the rest of us, 'even if Jesus came and stood here right next to me now I wouldn't believe it'. It's strange how some things stick in your memory for years when most of the time you can't even remember where you left your keys, or why you went into another room, just a minute or two ago. Anyway, that quote at the end of the gospel reading, I think corresponds directly with what was said by my colleague all those years ago. God and all that comes from Him are matters of faith and it's really pointless trying to bring scientific and other methods to prove or disprove whether God exists or whether faith is anything at all. If someone is determined not to believe, nothing will convince them. And what that means for us, for we people of faith, I think, rather than trying to prove anything, is simply to show forth to the world, the Christian life as St. Paul says to his beloved friend Timothy in that last line of our epistle this morning, to show forth the 'life that really is life'.

Jesus said, you may recall, 'I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness.' We already have a life and that life is given to us by God. The life we have, no matter who and what we are, is a sacred gift, to make the best of, in the best sense of the word. So what is this 'life in all its fullness' that Jesus speaks of; the 'life that really is life', that St. Paul tells Timothy about? Well in short it's life in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated in his earthly life, the Kingdom that as Christians, we actually do inhabit even though it isn't fully here yet. And we see that Kingdom best of all when we gather as we do today, at the Eucharist, at the Holy Communion, because all the elements of Kingdom life are contained in this act of worship, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. So If we are a bit blind and deaf, in a spiritual sense, as most of us are; the readings this morning help us towards seeing and hearing and living in, the Kingdom.

There's a word used in theological circles that's quite an important word. It's the word 'antinomy'. It means, roughly, when two contradictory things are true at the same time. And there is an antinomy right at the heart of being a Christian. St. Paul spoke of it when he said as Christians we are 'in the world but not of it'. So, we live in the Kingdom of God but also live in the world which is not the Kingdom, at the same time. We can't really be in both at the same time but we are. You'll remember that Jesus said that you cannot serve God and wealth at the same time. That's true, you can't because you can only be loyal to one thing at once. But when it comes to the Kingdom of God, we have to do something a bit different. What we do is we serve God and live a Godly life and by that, by living in the Kingdom yet in the world at the same time, we transform the world. That's how I see it. I may have got it wrong but it's the best I can do for now.

In the New Testament reading St. Paul first warns Timothy about being side tracked by wealth. And remember that Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And then he goes on to remind Timothy about how he can live a Godly life, the life, as he says, that really is life. We are reading that this morning because we, as Jesus' followers, living in the Kingdom are meant to do the same. This is Kingdom life if you like; 'pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith....keep the commandment without spot or blame'. That's Kingdom life. And it's meant to be the life we live as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ. It's the life of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the life of the Church.

And that contrasts so vividly with life in the world which has a different focus, a focus of selfish gain, not just in terms of monetary wealth but of selfish gain in every respect; because the 'self' is god in the world. But the world out there isn't bad, it's just fallen, because we are fallen. But God has redeemed the world through Christ and it is becoming the Kingdom of God through Christ as each of us lives the life of the Kingdom. We are the Body of Christ in the world and so even as we speak, as we meet as the Body of Christ the world is being redeemed, the Kingdom is coming even though it has already come.

And as I said, here, at this Holy Communion service is where we see the Kingdom of God at its best, at its fullest for now. All we do, sing and say speaks of the Kingdom and the life of the Kingdom. This is the 'life that really is life', as St. Paul says, 'life in all its fullness' as Jesus says. And that's because here in this Eucharist, we are putting God first, here is where God is our treasure and therefore where our heart is. And it's this we carry out with us when we leave this place this morning. The Kingdom life we live here in all its fullness we carry out into the world when we leave here and we try to realise it there as much as we do here. So we are in the world but not of it.

And then it's for God to do. As we live our Kingdom life it's for God to open the eyes and ears of others to see and hear it; to put God and the Kingdom first in their lives. Jesus lived the Kingdom life and spoke of it. The rest was up to God and the people out there. It wasn't easy for Him and it's not easy for us. But that is our calling as people of the Kingdom and remembering in all the sorrow and the joy that we have 'the life that really is life', 'life in all its fullness'.

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Philemon 1-21; Luke 14.25-33

Our readings today say something about the cost of being a disciple of Christ. And to put it very simply and right at the beginning, that cost is 'love'. We hear it put in positive terms in Paul's letter to Philemon and in what you might call negative terms in the reading from St. Luke's gospel. One approach to the subject, that of St. Paul is what you might call a soft approach, that in the words of Jesus in the gospel, a hard approach. Either way, the result is the same, the cost of being a disciple of Christ is 'love'. And love actually costs us everything.

This letter of Paul to Philemon, Paul's and Timothy's dear friend and co-worker is written with an attitude of love. In the letter Paul thanks God for Philemon because he hears of their own love and faith and the work they are doing from their church which gathers in Philemon's house. He says that he has received joy and encouragement from their love because their hearts have been refreshed through Philemon's ministry to them.

Then Paul pulls rank a bit. He says that he could command Philemon to do his duty. There was much of St. Paul that wasn't converted on the road to Damascus I think. But he says he prefers to appeal to Philemon out of love. Its the iron hand in the velvet glove touch. Paul is playing good cop, bad cop all at the same time. He does it further on when he says that 'I'm asking you to do this favour for me, and I won't mention that you owe me the weight of yourself'. But you can see that the whole of the letter has that touch of love running through it. It sounds as though Onesimus might have had a set-to with Philemon in the past, that there is a bit of bad blood between them. But Paul says to Philemon that he must regard Onesimus now as a beloved brother and receive him back as such, and if there is anything owing from Onesimus to Philemon that he, Paul will accept responsibility. There's love going on here, from Paul and learning about love in Philemon and Onesimus.

Skip to the gospel this morning. Jesus talks in different terms. He says unless you hate just about everybody, especially those closest to you , you don't need to bother being His disciple. It's not about hate, Jesus is pushing the point that God comes first in our affections. Why? Because it's in our relationship with God that we learn what love is. Because God is love and those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them, says St. John in his first letter. And there is a cost in loving God and therefore in loving others and the cost is the cross. And the cross is the complete giving up of one's self, the complete giving up, of the putting to death of one's own self interest. There is nothing of the self in true love. Loving another is a one way process, from you to the other and asking nothing in return. It's an emptying out of the self towards the other, just as God emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and took on human form, as we read in the Bible.

And Jesus says to us that we should make sure we understand what the cost will be before we begin. And then there is another disjointed shift at the end of the reading where Jesus says none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Some, just a few, the monastics amongst us take that literally. The rest of us have to struggle with the torment of possessions and mainly our own self possession as we come back to the beginning again and recall that to love God and our neighbour means the complete forgetting of our self, which is a sort of death which is very painful indeed when we take it seriously.

But curiously and only can it be so in God's providence, that death is also the way to life, joy and peace. When we pay the price of putting to death our own self for love of God and neighbour, then we get back a life far more full, far more of love. Which is why we call Christ's death a victory and why we say that Christ trampled down death by death. He showed the way. He made it possible. By His death, actual and real, he did away with the effects of death and showed us the way to life.

Love is the hardest, costliest thing for any of us, but it's the one thing in life and in death that gives the greatest return.