Civic Service Sermon

A burglar broke into a house one night. He shined his torch around, looking for valuables; and when he picked up a CD player to place in his bag, a strange voice echoed from the dark saying, 'Jesus is watching you.' He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his torch off, and froze. When he heard nothing more after a bit, he shook his head, promised himself a holiday after his next big job, then clicked the light onand began searching for more valuables.

Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, Clear as a bell he heard, 'Jesus is watching you.' Surprised and frightened, he shined his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his torch beam came to rest on a parrot.

Did you say that?' he hissed at the parrot. 'Yep,' the parrot confessed, then squawked, 'I'm just trying to warn you.' The burglar relaxed. 'Warn me, huh? Who in the world are you?'

'Moses,' replied the bird. 'Moses?' the burglar laughed . 'What kind of people would name a bird Moses?' 'The kind of people that would name a Rottweiler, Jesus.'

‘Jesus is watching you’ is a very common thing to tell children who are thinking of doing something a little bit naughty, perhaps even adults! It’s a kind of persuasive threat not to do that thing you were thinking of…

But it’s not actually the element of threat that we should be thinking about when we think of Jesus. Too often, people have been turned off the gospel, the good news of Jesus, by threats of eternal damnation and the fires of hell. Jesus watches what we do… Jesus is all around us…

But those phrases shouldn’t imply a threat, but rather the greatest promise and assurance we can ever possibly know or conceive… He is there at the time of joy, just as he is there at the time of sadness. He watches what we do, and we can see what he does… if we are willing to look.

People who live their lives in any kind of public service, or any kind of high profile job are aware that every little bit of that life is open to judgement, from people who we may often be tempted to think should mind their own business, but things don’t work like that, and that is the message that we hear in each of the three readings this afternoon.

From Paul’s letter to Titus (Ch.3) we were encouraged to live good lives, faithful to God, , caring for others, and recognising our own faults. In that reading we hear a lot about the need to avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions and quarrels about law. Paul encourages Titus and the Church members to cut off those people who are causing trouble, and to move on…

I suspect that all of us at times are very guilty of getting bogged down with things that in the larger scheme of things really don’t matter too much, with traditions and rules which breach all common sense. This is the point that Jesus was making in the account of the Good Samaritan that we heard (Luke 10:25-37). It’s easy to read the story just as a condemnation of those who walked on by as the man lay on the floor, and a celebration of the unlikely one who stopped to help.

But these people who walked on by, without doubt, should have known better, but each had a good excuse for not doing the right thing. Their laws talked of the need to avoid any sort of uncleanliness, their traditions spoke of the need to get to the Temple to worship regardless of what was happening in the streets. They had the excuses, and so they did nothing to help.

It’s a picture we can all recognise – we know the right thing to do but sometimes find a good justifiable excuse for not doing it ! Jesus was saying to put aside any excuses, put aside any relatively minor problems, and deal with the wider issue – the need to do right !

And then of course we returned to Paul and his letter to the Romans (12:6-18). This was a Church of influence, a Church at the heart of the Roman Empire, facing perhaps worse persecutions than others, facing all the trials of a small group battling a huge opponent. But that small group had a gift which the rulers would never really understand… the gift of love and tolerance, the gift of forgiveness and encouragement.

These things would give them the encouragement to go on, but what really motivated them was their love for Jesus, and his teaching – love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself.

And of course, as we think about neighbours, we are not thinking about the person living next door to us, or the friend that we’ve known for years from around the corner, or the person that we meet in the pub, or outside the school, or wherever – our neighbours are all around us…. The people that we find it easy to get on with, and those that we don’t !

I began with that joke about Jesus watching us, but that isn’t really a joke at all. Jesus watches every move we make, not to condemn us or to judge. He loves us and he wants what’s best for us – he gives us the courage to do things we simply couldn’t do with our own strength, he gives us the strength to persevere when things seem to be going wrong, and he gives us the ability to sense right and wrong, to seek out need, wherever it may be and whatever form it may take, and he gives us the wisdom to seek out answers to that need.

The Bible contains many different themes, but over riding everything contained in it is the story of God’s love for every one of us, and his desire for us to respond to that love by offering our lives in his service and in the service of other people. I recently got a new Bible which highlights in a different colour those verses that speak about poverty and about justice – there’s an awful lot of highlighting, in fact something like 3,000 verses in the Bible speak about those things, and that’s before we even start to really think about the over arching comments about love, and our need to love one another.

Society today is often painted as a fairly bleak picture. Papers and the tv often seem to prefer things that way. Sadly at times the Church hasn’t seemed to be very good at offering a more positive or hopeful picture, the same I would have to say has been true for politicians, but I have no doubt that a huge majority of people in Church and a huge majority of people involved in politics, nationally or locally, are actually motivated by a desire to serve, and with a wish to do good.

What is so often lacking is the confidence to stand up and say that – Paul wrote in that letter to the Romans, ‘Let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good’. In his letter to Titus he wrote of the need to do good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle and courteous, and in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus reminded us to treat everyone the same, and in just the same way as we would like to be treated ourselves.

As we look around we see all kinds of people doing all kinds of good things, and we can try and follow them, and learn from their example, but we also look to Jesus as a perfect example. He spoke of love and compassion, of tolerance and forgiveness, and it wasn’t just talk. He sacrificed so much for others, he dedicated his life literally to other people… He spoke and he acted… An action that ultimately took him to death on the cross, but in rising to life again, he offered us new life, and reminded us that nothing could ever ultimately stop light from penetrating darkness, and good from overcoming evil.

May each one of us live in the confidence of Jesus, knowing that all we do, we do in his name, for his glory and seeking what’s good for all of his people, whoever they are. AMEN