RonBlog

Sunday 6th May, 2012 Fifth Sunday of Easter Sentence In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we ought also to love one another. 1 John 4: 10 Collect O God, so form the minds of Your faithful people that we may love what You command and desire what You promise, so that, amid the many changes of this world, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys asre to be found, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen First Lesson Acts 8: 26 – 40 An angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth." The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Psalm 22: 26 – 32 From You springs my praise in the great congregation: I will pay my vows in the sight of all who fear You The meek shall eat of the sacrifice and be satisfied: and those who seek the Lord shall praise Him – may their hearts rejoice for ever. Let all the gods of the earth remember and turn to the Lord: and let all families of the nations worship before Him For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and He shall be ruler over the nations How can those who sleep in the earth do Him homage: or those who descend to the dust bow down before Him? But He has saved my life for Himself: and my posterity shall serve Him This shall be told of my Lord to a future generation: and His righteousness declared to a people yet unborn, that He has done it. Epistle 1 John 4: 7 – 21 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. GOSPEL John 15: 1 – 8 Jesus said "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. © New Revised Standard Version of the Bible Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved NOTES ON THE READINGS First Lesson I have an awful suspicion that if Philip had been operating in the Church in the 21st Century, all his efforts with the Ethiopian eunuch would have been refused recognition, and it may be that the Coptic Church may never have happened. Dear Philip: he went against all the rules, and yet did the obviously right and generous thing. You see, although that eunuch was high-placed and important in his own world, and even though he was an enquirer into Judaism, he was castrated, not to put too fine a point on it, and that disqualified him totally from the Faith, Jewish or budding Christian. OK, the Holy Spirit may have urged the deacon on, but how do you establish that even with fellow-Christians? You are given neither proof nor paperwork eh! And what another delight! The Seven were ordained as deacons with a particular portfolio of looking after people. They were not ordained evangelists, nor did they fit the sausage-skin! And good on them!!! Stephen died because he did what he felt impelled to do; and Philip followed his intuition and conviction. All that sort of thing is rather too scary for Church leaders in our own day and age. Even John Flynn had a monumental struggle to get his flying doctor concept off the ground. Do I admire Philip? I think it shows, does it not – and that is the sort of conviction-led, Spirit-led sort of thing that needs to happen these days. Psalm And the Psalmist points in the same direction. Here is the report of personal experience of the God Who is there, ready to relate to all who will listen, and respond with faith and obedience. Mind you, in this day and age (like any other I suspect) there will ever be nutcases and fruit loops with stupid concepts, and need to be responded to, and filtered out. ‘Test the Spirits,’ Paul exhorted, and that need remains. Epistle All the world needs is love, sweet love ..... you may recall the pop song from decades ago, And the message remains true, if you are really talking about love. Dear old John – quite the wisest of the Apostles, and yet also quite the simplest and most uncomplicated. Mind you, he was never naive. GOSPEL Over the decades I have heard all manner of sermons and talks about ‘abiding in Jesus’ and I would have to say that much of it was little more than pious garbage. If you live with someone, you begin to share their traits, good and bad. And ‘abiding’ is ‘living with.’ That may well be worth pondering for a while! NOTES FOR A SERMON Even as a young child at Sunday School, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch impacted on my mind and memory. I cannot recall what the cause of impact was, way back then, but the imagery stayed with me. As I grew and learnt more about the tale, the picture was coloured more vividly. The connection with deeper Africa was one thing – and with a grandfather who would read from Isaiah after every midday meal, the Biblical connection widened. Those days one simply had the story told, without Biblical context. As that changed, the interest widened. Here was someone stepping outside of apparent authority, yet responding to what he knew to be necessary. Mind you, Philip (Greek name, so a Greek person) would not have encountered the strict regimen of Judaism I suspect, perhaps even unaware that he had stepped outside invisible bounds. The whole matter of possible acceptance of Gentiles (Goyim, aren’t we?) had still a long way to go before general acceptance. But that cadet Christian was faced with a challenge, and was perfectly happy to take it up. His greatest surprise may well have been to see that foreigner reading from a scroll as he drove along in a chariot. (I find trying to read in the car does little more than produce a headache! But you may also now see the connection with Grandpa and Isaiah!!!) I would have loved to have been caught up in that conversation, I must confess. There was the eunuch trying to make sense of the passage, and Philip was just the one to open up the Scriptures for him. Out of that ‘chance’ encounter, some enormous developments occurred. Almost certainly this was one of the causes of the spread of the Faith through Egypt Sudan and to Ethiopia. And that spread has stuck through two millennia. I find it interesting. Peter encountered contrary pressure for getting mixed up with a Roman centurion. Like later bishops and things, there was resistance to change taking place, especially if it did not come from the top. And here was a total change that emerged from ‘the little people.’ This may turn out to be a quite short sermon today – but it is one that asks us to step out of being hide-bound, and follow our intuition and the Spirit’s leading, for time and again, similar cameos and challenges come our way as we live as the People of God. What I put in front of you is to dare to step out in faith. Sure, check your references before you head to far into the deep, but do not be afraid of mistakes. Others may have problems with them, but one can still learn better from boo boos that from what one does right.