The revolution of belonging

There’s a story about a church where a very wealthy man rose to talk about his journey of faith.

"I'm a millionaire," he began, "and I attribute it all to the rich blessings of God in my life. I can still remember the turning point in my faith, like it was yesterday:
I had just earned my first pound and I went to a church meeting that night. The speaker was a missionary who spoke about his work. I knew that I only had this pound and that was all I had in the world. I had to either give it all to God's work or nothing at all. So, at that moment I decided to give all the money I had in the world to God. I believe that God blessed that decision, and that is why I am a rich man today."

As he finished speaking it was clear that everyone had been really moved by this man's story. But, as he took his seat, a little old lady sitting in the same pew leaned over and said: "Wonderful story! I dare you to do it again. Give all the money you have in the world to God and see how he blesses you!"

It’s very easy to risk everything when we have little to lose – time and time again history has shown us that it is the people living under most oppression, the people who are suffering the most, who are willing to risk everything to try and make things better. 

The Christian Church is a great example of this in recent history with growth coming fastest in areas where people are suffering, where people are actually really willing to lay everything before God and allow him to transform their lives…

And today in both of our New Testament readings (Galatians 3:23-29 & Luke 8:26-39), we are challenged to allow God to transform us and our Church – reading these passages in the relative tranquillity of our Churches, it’s not easy to recognise that actually these readings are incredibly powerful and even revolutionary…

Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, spoke of freedom – he was well aware that in pure worldly terms freedom was something he was never going to achieve - as long as he went about preaching the gospel, there would always be people who were ready to attack him.

But Paul wrote of a freedom which he knew would never be taken away by any worldly authority or power. The freedom of knowing that God is in control, and knowing that we live in a world inhabited by brothers and sisters everywhere – some may look different, some may sound different, some may actually be very different, but Paul made it clear, that we are all one – united by the God we can call ‘Father’…

And then in the gospel reading from Luke we have the account of Jesus approaching ‘Legion’ – a man, we are told, who was filled with many demons – but Jesus approached him and ordered the demons to be cast out into a large herd of pigs… Nobody could understand what had happened, and people were terrified and asked Jesus to leave…

But these two readings are linked by one important principle – the principle that all are one, however different they may seem… And that principle is an incredibly hard one to live out for us, because every one of us is conditioned in some way to see people as normal or otherwise !

God sees no differences, and he challenges us to do the same… to live not by a rule book, but by faith – to live, not by tradition but by the Spirit of God, to live not in comfort, but challenging ourselves to live as God commands…

And whilst there may be many different commands in the Bible, the one that covers them all is the words of Jesus, ‘love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself…’

Loving is the great non-negotiable command of our faith – and loving can be painful and difficult ! We don’t know what the demons were in that man in the gospel reading – but we can all have things that stop us from getting close to God 

– is it busyness ? Is it an unwillingness to truly seek and to follow the will of God ? is it a desire to always be in control ? A fear perhaps, of the unknown. A fear of surrendering ourselves. 

I read an article a while back which spoke about people making steps towards God, and in the article the person interviewed talked about the differences in us – he said that for some people the way to grow closer to God might be to invite a homeless person over for a meal – for others, it may just be to speak to someone who is homeless…

As we get closer to other people, we grow closer to God… It’s not easy – a friend of mine went into Cardiff coming up to Christmas several years ago now, and wanting to get in the shops early, he actually got there too early – before the shops even opened… he could have sat in a café, but instead went and sat with a group of homeless people, who had already begun their drinking for the day…

It’s not easy at all – but what a transformation our Churches might see if we truly welcomed everyone into our congregations… what a transformation if the drunken homeless person actually felt that they would receive a great welcome if they just came through the Church door, or what about any other sort of person that we find it just a little difficult to get to know…

Opening our lives to God must mean opening our hearts to other people too – and we can’t choose those people… When Jesus approached the man filled with demons he was doing something others wouldn’t – and it was an example for us…

Throughout his life Jesus gave no instruction to us to be judges – the instructions he gave were about us forgiving, about us loving, and he taught us to exercise compassion and offer hope and joy – may those be the qualities people recognise as they look at us and our Churches. AMEN