(a sermon 18th Aug 2024 from Eph 5.15-20)
Love divine all loves excelling joy of heaven to earth come down!
Today’s take home point is I would like you to go out humming or singing, I would like you to make a point of singing your way through the day, through the week. If you enjoy it enough come and join the Visible Choir!
St Paul is urging us not to waste time – but to make the most of every opportunity
Did you love the Olympics?! Wasn’t it amazing watching people from all over the world at the top of their game!
We got to see hundreds of people who for the last 4 or more years have dedicated every waking hour to getting to this point. They have been focussed on being fitter, stronger, faster. They’ve been getting up early to swim, or to row, or to box.
They’ve been really committed to it and they’ve been supported by a massive bunch of others from team mates and coaches, to family and parents who have been there for them.
To some extent they have been following the teaching of St Paul – in making the most of every opportunity. They have been focussed on their goal, and their lives have been shaped toward that end.
So, Life is too short. Life is to short to stuff a mushroom, life is too short to hold a grudge, it is too short to carry the baggage of unforgiveness, bitterness, malice around. Life is too short to waste it on revenge.
So we keep short accounts with people, say sorry, forgive, let it go.
I accept that its not always easy to do that and you will quite likely need some prayer and support but it will be worth it if we can live a life that is free from the unnecessary baggage of hurts that we have inherited, or of carrying around the wounds from sins that have been committed against you – life is too short.
St Paul says Make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil – so firstly this means that Life is too short to spend it doing stuff that just seeks to cause hurt and hate and harm. It is too short to spend it carrying the baggage of revenge.
Secondly – Life is too short – to be entertaining yourself to death. St Paul is worried here about you getting very very drunk, and some the consequences that might flow from that – but the bigger fear is we live a wasted life by flitting from one amusement to the next and never get round to living out our purpose.
We are called to be a blessing to all nations. That’s something that you can do as a road sweeper, teacher, banker, estate agent, retired, living in a care-home. There will be quite different and specific ways in which you, with your set of skills and talents, with the blessings that God has given you, there will be different ways in which we each go about that – but the call remains the same – live a life that shows that we have this joy and grace at work inside of us.
Breathe o breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast.
When you come to worship here, I don’t mind it when you say afterwards: “great hymns vicar, my favourite tunes” – or great – “sermon vicar, nice n short!” I don’t mind that.
On the one hand you’re using the language of entertainment – and this morning is not about entertaining you, it is about worshipping the Lord God.
On the other hand, I know that in the joy of you being lost in wonder love and praise, that actually this worship is feeding your soul, and equipping you for this next week, training you in prayer, and if you will allow it – the Holy Spirit is hovering close to you to breathe into you God’s love upon your troubles.
St Paul says Make the most of every opportunity – and that’s not an invitation to a fresh wave of guilt – ah I can never waste any time!
But to live a life that has a divine joy deep down in your soul, that just wants to sing out God’s praise in how you live, and love, and bless.
So making the most of every opportunity is about being Open to God’s Holy Spirit giving you a nudge – perhaps a nudge to ask someone: How are you – and when they say Fine, to then reply – No really, How are you, How are you, I’ve got time, How are you? And then to allow them space to finally talk to someone and share their burden.
You don’t need to give them advice, you don’t need to be their messiah, you may be able to invite them to Church, you could offer to pray for them.
Making the most of every opportunity is more easily done when you yourself have received from God a fresh infilling of His love and his joy.
In the Gospel you heard Jesus speaking some really strange stuff about how you need to be eating Him, drinking Him. The more Ancient Israelite you are, the more repugnant Jesus’ metaphors are. Eat me, Drink me. This made no sense even to those first disciples.
Its easier for us to take this straight to Holy Communion. Fair enough.
When you come to take the sacrament – realise that you’re not just having a nibble of wafer, a sip of port, you are imbibing the love of God.
Take that up as your prayer. Please Jesus I need more of you and your joy in my life so as I eat this, in this moment, fill me with a fresh sense of joy and gratitude.
There are other ways we can drink in Jesus – through worship and song, through scripture and discussion, through serving and blessing each other.
St Paul says Speak to each other in Songs and Psalms – that’s all about us encouraging each other in our faith, through our struggles, being there for each other in prayer.
And then St Paul says ‘We need to be giving thanks to God for everything’. What Paul is getting at is us having an Attitude of Gratitude.
This is good old fashioned Counting your blessings.
Its such a strange thing that when you try to look for the blessings that God has given you that to start off with we don’t really see much. But then you take a little time and you begin to see some more. Oddly this spirals into seeing more blessing. I don’t know if this is about you seeing more blessing, or if God is giving more blessing, but I commend it as a practice.
I am afraid that it does not take away the pain of pain, the fear of what might be, the worry, but I do find that it gives me the strength to persist in prayer,
even in complaining prayer – Come on God what are you playing at!
Even in lamentation and sorrow prayer – Oh dear God why? Why?
Because a life that is filled with gratitude, is one that knows that God has not finished with you yet. That there is more. That God remembers you, that God is with you.
Come, almighty to deliver, Let us all thy grace receive;
I wonder if I haven’t preached this sermon in the wrong order. I wonder if actually our starting point should be to Start in worship, giving thanks to God for all the blessings we can see – perhaps as we practice this we will see more blessing –
and then to move from that Song, with that joy in our hearts – having imbibed the love of Christ through the sacrament, through worship –
that then we might then have the courage to pray bolder prayers, to encourage each other in our pilgrimage, in our struggles, and so together we might live that life that makes the most of every opportunity – that sees more opportunities to be a blessing to others, that lives a life worth living.
Because I think in the process of such a life we will find the truth of our final hymn. You can probably guess it.
Finish then thy new creation, Pure and spotless let us be;
Now that is a worthy prayer. And we may have to wait a while before we see that answered. But we can start by making the most of every opportunity, that starts by receiving the grace of God, by getting lost in wonder love and praise. Amen.