MORECAMBE PARISH CHURCH SUNDAY 5 AUGUST 2018
EPHESIANS 4: 1 – 16
Introduction
I have just received a letter
from the Apostle Paul to Holy Trinity Poulton-le-Sands with St Laurence
Morecambe. It got a bit delayed until Tychicus realised it’s usually known as Morecambe
Parish Church.
Let me read you this morning
what the Apostle says:
Dear friends in Morecambe:
I heard about the party – all
that singing by the choir and soloists and the geriatric something or other.
They told me about those 2 old geezers with their maracas trying to accompany
Mike on the guitar. And that bloke called Michael Page who was all shook up or
something – we didn’t sing that in my day so I didn’t quite get it.
And I heard about Mike’s
message last week – I couldn’t have done better myself. All that about bread
which you had again in the gospel this morning. And your presentation of that
fabulous picture Linda had painted. And that Reader of yours feeling she’d made
a fool of herself. Just tell her to get over it; she was probably expressing
what many of you felt.
I know you’re going to miss
your previous Rector, Mike, but you know, God is not leaving you; I know it’s
scary going into a vacancy but God is going to be with you. He doesn’t leave
his people to flounder, in my experience..
And thinking of you all there
in Morecambe, it reminded me of some things I said to another church that was
in a sort of vacancy in a place called Ephesus an awful long time ago. So
that’s why I’m writing to you this week.
I had a lot to say to that church
in Ephesus about all that Jesus Christ had done for them and about who they
were in him. You’ve got that bit of the letter. And then I got onto talking
about some practical things. And those are the things I want to say to you
today.
1 Maintain the unity of the Spirit
The first thing is this: I
want you to keep united. I want you to keep together. That’s going to take
humility and gentleness and a lot of patience because unity is not easy.
It takes a whole load of
effort.
There’s always something or
somebody who wants to undermine it. A little misunderstanding and suddenly
you’re not speaking to each other. You get tired I know in a vacancy because
there’s so much more to do, so many more responsibilities. You suddenly realise
what the Rector did behind the scenes, without anyone noticing and it’s easy to
feel over-whelmed and then to get irritable with each other and before you know
it something has been said that you regret and it’s very hard to take it back.
My advice is, apologise quickly, put it right, don’t let things fester –
maintain the unity.
I said before and I’ll say
again: bear with one another, put up with one another – even those who really
wind you up. Jesus has loved you and his Spirit living in you will help you
love them. You may not feel very loving like you do to people you like. But do
the loving thing; want the best for them and you’ll find that the feelings will
eventually follow.
You know I, Paul, had rows
with people when I was a young apostle. I was so furious with my fellow worker
Barnabas because he wanted to re-instate a young guy called Mark that we went
our separate ways (Acts 15: 37). But when I had time
to reflect during my long years in prison, with God’s help we put it right and
eventually Mark became one of my closest companions. (Col 4: 10 & 2 Tim 4:
11)
So maintain the unity because
“you’re all called to travel the same road and in the same direction. . . . you
have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over
all, works through all, and is present in all” Permeate everything you are and
think and do with being One.” (The Message)
The other thing I want to say
to you is that:
2 God has given you everything you need for this vacancy
I know some of my original
letter to the Ephesians sounds a bit complicated but that’s because they were
Jews like me and were familiar with what I was referring to.
You see the most important
story to us Jews was the Exodus from Egypt and how afterwards when they were
wandering in the desert, their leader Moses went up the mountain and came down
with stone tablets on which the Law was written. We thought of the Ascension of
Jesus as rather like that. Jesus had been through death and resurrection – a
new Exodus, setting us free from bondage to sin and death. And then he had
ascended to heaven and sent his Holy Spirit and now his Spirit was showering
gifts on his Church.
Well let me tell you
Morecambe Parish Church, Jesus is still sending the gifts of his Spirit on the
Church - including yours. So if you’ve got the same Spirit as we had, you can
serve like we did. It may be a different millennium but you’ll find ways that
are appropriate to your generation.
In my day, God’s Spirit
equipped and sent people like me into new situations all over the Mediterranean
and we planted new churches. We were called Apostles. Some of you will be able
to tell other people about Jesus in a very natural way so that they want to
become Christians too. We called them evangelists.
Some will be able to speak
truth to power; they’ll understand what’s going on in the world around you and
say things that are just right on the mark. We called them prophets. Some will
be able to open up the scriptures to you and make them live. We called them
teachers. Some will be really good listeners and take care of your needs. We
called them pastors. There are lots of other gifts God gives to the church – I
wrote about them in other letters, but these are enough for now.
They have a very special
purpose. They are to help you grow up, so you aren’t tossed about on a sea of
opinions that haven’t much to do with Christian faith v 14.
These gifts are to help you
get on with the ministry like Mike was encouraging you to last week, to keep up
with the things already established and be alert for anything else God wants
you to do.
It may be a vacancy but that
doesn’t mean it’s a vacant lot in Morecambe! You’re not a vacant building;
you’re a body. And just as the ligaments in your body link all your skeleton
together, so you are linked to each other so that you pull in the same
direction.
These gifts will make the
body of Christ there in Morecambe strong, so that you become more and more
united in purpose, more and more full of the knowledge of God, more and more
like Jesus.
And so Paul ends this letter
sending us grace and peace.