Relationships
Jeremiah Wright who is the rather controversial pastor of Barack Obama’s former Church in Chicago said that the cross of Christ has two arms – one is vertical, representing the relationship between us and God, and the other is horizontal, representing the relationship between us and other people.
This illustration reminds us that the Christian faith is built on relationships – relationships that are two way – between us and God and between us and other people. In the reading from the letter of James (1:22-end) we heard the words ‘be doers of the word and not hearers only…’
This too reminds us that as Christians we have responsibilities – responsibilities to be in the world and be part of the world but also to be a part of the kingdom of God.
The vertical arm of the cross points upwards to God from us on the earth, but it also points in the other direction. For our part we are to commit our lives to God, and every part of our lives – we are to recognise that it is God who is the very source of our life, who is the one to whom we can turn at any moment.
And so we commit everything to him, and that means offering him our prayers, our praise and seeking to be more like him by trying to do his work in the world today – prayer, praise and action are things we thought of this morning – every one of them is important as we seek to build our relationship with God.
But then the arm points downwards from God to us as well – and that assures us that God is always looking out for us – God is always in control, whether it seems like it or not. God has promised never to abandon us, and that promise is good – it is a promise that he has shown us time and time again in our own lives, and in the lives of others, and a promise that was emphasised when he sent his Son to die for us, to rise again and to spend time revealing his plans and thoughts to his followers, and then he sent down the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift of God to guide us, strengthen us, sustain us, empower us – and a gift to help us to love as he loves…
James goes on in his letter to say, ‘religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this ; to care for orphans and widows in their distress…’ In that phrase James is using the image of the orphan and the widow to describe all those who are in need…
And so we give to God but we also take from God – we give ourselves, our love, our praise, our lives… and we take his gifts, we accept his love and we respond to that love, and we take his new life…
We then think about the horizontal arm of the cross – the arm reminding us of our relationship between us and other people – and again it’s very much a two way relationship… We give and take, we teach and learn…
Our duty to others is to be as Christ to them – to love people and to serve them. Our duty is to care for people everywhere… Most of our readings since Easter have rightly concentrated on the new life that we enjoy through Jesus, and that is a new life which is to be shared. There is no exclusive gospel, there is no ‘right’ type of person – recently I read a piece from the Thesaurus of Slang – and under the word Christian, the synonyms alongside were ‘white, respectable, a good egg, steady’ – if only things were so easy!!!
Our duties to love and to serve know of no such distinctions….
And loving and serving means accepting – it means not judging or condemning… And if we can live like that, if we can welcome people in the way that Christ welcomed people our Churches may be full of a wider variety of people – the perfect example of the liquorice allsorts illustration that is often used in childrens talks to describe the make up of the world and all the different kinds of people contained within it !
As I said though, once again our relationship with others is also, like our relationship with God, a two way relationship… We learn from other people throughout our lives – sometimes the learning is good, sometimes not, sometimes it is helpful, sometimes not, but in our openness to others, we can hopefully begin to see in them something of the image of God in which we, and they, were created…
Currently in our political system all kinds of deals are being offered to build relationships – who can give or who can get the most in order to pursue their agenda ? And maybe for politics useful lessons will be learned about working together and about co-operation for the good of the country – but our relationships must be built on something totally different….
They, like the political relationships, may be two-way, but unlike them they are built on a desire not to give and take, but to enjoy… we love and serve people because that’s what Jesus did, we love and serve God because he has given us abundantly more than we can ever ask or give…
To finish with the words of the collect for today, slightly paraphrased, ‘God our redeemer, you have brought us out of darkness to see your light, and the light of possibilities all around us… Grant that as by the death of Jesus we have found new life, for us and for others, so may we live our lives reflecting that joy in all our relationships… AMEN
This illustration reminds us that the Christian faith is built on relationships – relationships that are two way – between us and God and between us and other people. In the reading from the letter of James (1:22-end) we heard the words ‘be doers of the word and not hearers only…’
This too reminds us that as Christians we have responsibilities – responsibilities to be in the world and be part of the world but also to be a part of the kingdom of God.
The vertical arm of the cross points upwards to God from us on the earth, but it also points in the other direction. For our part we are to commit our lives to God, and every part of our lives – we are to recognise that it is God who is the very source of our life, who is the one to whom we can turn at any moment.
And so we commit everything to him, and that means offering him our prayers, our praise and seeking to be more like him by trying to do his work in the world today – prayer, praise and action are things we thought of this morning – every one of them is important as we seek to build our relationship with God.
But then the arm points downwards from God to us as well – and that assures us that God is always looking out for us – God is always in control, whether it seems like it or not. God has promised never to abandon us, and that promise is good – it is a promise that he has shown us time and time again in our own lives, and in the lives of others, and a promise that was emphasised when he sent his Son to die for us, to rise again and to spend time revealing his plans and thoughts to his followers, and then he sent down the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift of God to guide us, strengthen us, sustain us, empower us – and a gift to help us to love as he loves…
James goes on in his letter to say, ‘religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this ; to care for orphans and widows in their distress…’ In that phrase James is using the image of the orphan and the widow to describe all those who are in need…
And so we give to God but we also take from God – we give ourselves, our love, our praise, our lives… and we take his gifts, we accept his love and we respond to that love, and we take his new life…
We then think about the horizontal arm of the cross – the arm reminding us of our relationship between us and other people – and again it’s very much a two way relationship… We give and take, we teach and learn…
Our duty to others is to be as Christ to them – to love people and to serve them. Our duty is to care for people everywhere… Most of our readings since Easter have rightly concentrated on the new life that we enjoy through Jesus, and that is a new life which is to be shared. There is no exclusive gospel, there is no ‘right’ type of person – recently I read a piece from the Thesaurus of Slang – and under the word Christian, the synonyms alongside were ‘white, respectable, a good egg, steady’ – if only things were so easy!!!
Our duties to love and to serve know of no such distinctions….
And loving and serving means accepting – it means not judging or condemning… And if we can live like that, if we can welcome people in the way that Christ welcomed people our Churches may be full of a wider variety of people – the perfect example of the liquorice allsorts illustration that is often used in childrens talks to describe the make up of the world and all the different kinds of people contained within it !
As I said though, once again our relationship with others is also, like our relationship with God, a two way relationship… We learn from other people throughout our lives – sometimes the learning is good, sometimes not, sometimes it is helpful, sometimes not, but in our openness to others, we can hopefully begin to see in them something of the image of God in which we, and they, were created…
Currently in our political system all kinds of deals are being offered to build relationships – who can give or who can get the most in order to pursue their agenda ? And maybe for politics useful lessons will be learned about working together and about co-operation for the good of the country – but our relationships must be built on something totally different….
They, like the political relationships, may be two-way, but unlike them they are built on a desire not to give and take, but to enjoy… we love and serve people because that’s what Jesus did, we love and serve God because he has given us abundantly more than we can ever ask or give…
To finish with the words of the collect for today, slightly paraphrased, ‘God our redeemer, you have brought us out of darkness to see your light, and the light of possibilities all around us… Grant that as by the death of Jesus we have found new life, for us and for others, so may we live our lives reflecting that joy in all our relationships… AMEN
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