Carol sermon 1 of 2. (used Sat 12th Dec)
I’d like to tell you about three people – Rachel – true story – the names might have been changed. It was earlier in the year and we were suddenly thrown into that first lock down.
And so we had to quickly learn how to be a televangelist, how to do Zoom, we scrambled to buy tripods and kits – and we learned to worship differently. We learned to watch telly and worship. We discovered that we had to be on the one hand more proactive about choosing to worship, bothering to “go” to church. And on the other hand, once we’d found it, it was easier.
And we learned to be evangelists – because we were phoning people and helping them connect to the Church. And especially on Facebook – a public forum – people were ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ what the Church was up to.
It has led to us being braver about our faith.
I had started to do both morning and evening prayer on Facebook. And we were encouraged to say Hello to anyone who connected in to join us for prayer. So there I was leading prayer when I noticed that Rachel had joined us in prayer. So I said “Hello Rachel how lovely to see you”.
It turns out that Rachel was in the bath. She had been flipping through her Ipad seen that the vicar was praying and paused to see what that was all about and when I had said “Hello Rachel lovely to see you” she had screamed, dropped the ipad, called to her husband to assure her that the vicar had not just seen her in the bath!
This year our faith has grown in odd and different ways. It has grown more bold, it has grown more practical – we have been out shopping for neighbours and supporting food banks – it has become more pastoral in phoning people up.
People without faith have grown their faith.
And the Church has learned to be the Church without walls.
God sends Adam and Eve out from the Garden and into Isolation – isolated from God and from each other.
In the 2nd reading you heard how God persisted with the promise that Abraham and Sarah would be blessed and that their purpose and now our purpose was to be a blessing to all nations.
And that means being a Church without walls. Not being an isolationist religion but being a blessing to all.
We have learned to be the Church without walls – please God, keep it that way.
Let me tell you about David. David can’t easily come to church, he has a phobia of being in a crowded space – so for him, joining us for prayer on line was great. The rhythm of it gave shape to his day, a calmness and peace to his mind. He knew he had to be somewhere by a set time so he could join in and it often meant that he and I would have sort of chats. I could verbally talk to David and he could type back at me.
In this way I have been taking prayer requests. I was leading Evening prayer 6pm as I have been since the Archbishop of Canterbury asked us to, I looked up and there was Someone, no idea who, who had typed up Please pray for Social Workers, no one ever does. So I did.
Back to David. He was being regular to my daily prayer and that was blessing me and it was blessing him. Sometime after Easter we did an Online Alpha course and he came along. And the effect was it brought together all that he already knew about Jesus and the Church and faith and it renewed, rekindled his faith. He’s become, as John’s Gospel puts it, one of the Children born of God.
I think a lot of people have found the stress of lockdown hard. What to do. How not to feel useless. Whilst others found it hard because they were in the direct line of a stressful job.
And we have had to learn to adjust and adapt on the hoof. And that has caused us to be careful with ourselves. To look after ourselves. Go for that daily act of exercise. Take a moment to be still. And so prayer, mindfulness, meditation, has become trendy again.
We could sing when we were at home and had telly church, but when we came back in we couldn’t sing. We have had to learn to worship differently. For me, I’ve been noticing the words of the hymns much more.
“O Little Town of Bethlehem” sings of the Hopes and Fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
We have learned to be a Church without Walls.
And many have found their faith rekindled. My prayer is that we will continue to fan it into flame.
And not in a simple glib way, often in a tear filled tired, angry way. We have found all this emotion welling up in us and we haven’t known where to take it and so, better that vomiting it out on our nearest and dearest, we have hit out at the Universe – Oh dear God what on earth is going on?
Isaiah gave hope – he saw a Great Light, a wonderful counsellor, the Prince of Peace – and Micah said this Divine Shepherd will be born in Bethlehem – they spoke Hope. But its been hard waiting for a vaccine, learning to live in the new normal.
I took a funeral a little while back – two things – one distressing and the other sort of refreshing but I don’t know. The distressing thing was a grown up daughter in tears unable to hug mum. That sort of thing gives a bit of an edge to your prayers.
The other was one widow saying she was quite glad that only 15 could come (now its 30) because it meant that she hadn’t spent the last few days making sandwiches, and it meant that in the service itself she had been able to mourn rather that put on a brave face.
So when our son Sam went off to University and caught Covid19 we just felt weird, paralyzed, too far away for us to help but even if we were closer not sure what we could have done. It’s a painful part of parenting, of relationships, of love. How to be close when you can’t.
And that’s made us pray more!
But John’s Gospel starts with an end to the divine isolation, with a mission of reconciliation, God has come among us in Jesus. To hug and be hugged, to forgive, in fuse us with faith and enthuse us with hope. To call us to be born into his family, To all who received Him, He gave the right to be Children of God, not of natural birth or .. but born of God.
We have learned to be a Church without walls. Please God help us keep it up.
We have grown in our faith– in how we live that out, in prayer, in generosity, – please God keep us at it.
So as we come to hear this next carol, take it as a prayer – Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.