From time to time I put sermons I give up here. Not because I think they are particularly good, even less that they are model sermons. I can't even guarantee that I agree with everything I said then - I am (of course) learning all the time. But someone may be interested.
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You'll be glad to know that the reading was short, but I'm going to preach on a single verse this morning—one verse for you. But I'm going to do that in its context. That verse is Galatians 6:10: "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."
Well, school reports are not what they used to be. In the old days, you used to get a little paragraph of text from each teacher, describing personalised words as to how each child is doing. In the modern day and age, you just get categories: you're either doing better, worse, or as expected — and not a lot more feedback than that.
Well, I'd like to introduce you to myself, aged 10 years and 2 months, and I've just completed the Easter term at school. I was in class 4G. Okay, here is French:
Have you ever missed out on something that you were really looking forward to happening? I think back to when we were coming out of the various Covid lockdowns and where you were allowed to meet up with friends and family from all over the country, provided everybody was in a perfect state of health, and I can think of more than one occasion when we had something planned to meet up with various branches of the extended family, and then at the last minute someone had some symptoms or a test and we were not able to go to whatever it was that the rest of the family would be gathering at.
I wonder who here has made a New Year resolution, because in a little over 12 hours it's time to start to keep the resolution that you have made. Interestingly, when I met with the youth before the service, only two of the people in the room had at that point picked any New Year's resolutions. The others were either leaving it to the last minute to decide which ones to go for, or decided that this is an out-of-date practice that only oldies like would have an interest in. They were too polite to tell me which of those two was what was really going on.
If this was not the sermon in a service but the all-age teaching slot, I would start by putting pictures up on the screen of various objects and taking a survey as to: who likes this, who doesn't like this? We could have things you might eat or activities. We could have some sports, some hobbies. Who likes stamp collecting? Yes? No? And then I would end with: who likes taxes? And everybody would say, "Boo! No, we don't like taxes."
Nobody likes conflict. One of the ugly things in local church life, and in church history, is when Christians squabble and fight amongst each other. So the idea of looking together at a letter in the New Testament that tells Christians to fight for the true version of Christianity and to oppose wrong versions doesn't sit comfortably with us.
Before I started in full-time Christian ministry, I did various different jobs. The one I spent most time on was software development, but I've done other things as well. I've done data entry, I've done outbound telly marketing, I've done recruitment consultancy — all kinds of different things.
Let me ask you a question: what do you make of the story of Jesus rising from the dead? This is the central reality of the Christian faith. It is the most important reality of the Christian faith. The Christian faith is grounded not in theories and ideas but in historical events that took place in real space and real time. You can put a date in the calendar; you can put GPS coordinates on the map where these things took place. And of all the events of history around which our faith revolves, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the central one.
Have you ever had the experience of Christmas of being given a present that you are not sure what it is for? You're not sure what to do with the present that you've just been given, or perhaps more exactly, you're not sure what it does for you—how it would improve your life to have this present that you've been given. Anyone for musical toilet rolls that, as you unravel the sheets, plays you the tune of Jingle Bells? You know what it does, but you're not quite sure how it improves your life. You might—pardon me for saying—it could drive you potty.
Perhaps like me you long for good times to return again: the opportunity to take a holiday whenever, wherever you wish; the opportunity to meet with friends, any number of people, indoors or outdoors; the opportunity to forget face masks, to sit closer than two meters to somebody from another household. Perhaps you long for good times to return.
If you do picture for a moment the Jews of Jesus' day. they longed for good times to return.