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When’s the last time you had
one of those letters.? They come regularly despite the increasingly rude
messages I write on the envelope about them not being wanted when I return
them to sender. You know the one – it says you’ve won a prize
in a draw and need to contact the firm to find out whether it’s the
top prize of a zillion pounds or a pair of worthless plastic sunglasses
– and guess which yours will be? and the cost of the phone call is
several pounds because they keep you talking on a premium rate line…
so you throw the letter away or send it back with a ‘not known at
this address’ on the envelope.
Imagine the potential though for getting so used to doing that with letters
that you inadvertently throw away something really valuable. You can imagine
the scenario – you come down to breakfast and your child or parent
or foreign lodger, who’s seen you do this to countless letters before,
proudly announces that another junk mail came today so they’ve put
it through the shredder to save you the bother – something about
a premium bond win, a million pounds, can you believe the cheek of these
scam people – and there on the table is the envelope with ‘National
Savings’ on it. Like throwing away a winning lottery ticket –
you’re left with a lifetime of regret for a missed opportunity.
What is the heart of the Christian faith? People say different things.
But it’s not first of all about doing the right thing, being good
to others, or even following all the teachings and commandments of Jesus
– wonderful as they are, and hard as we try to observe them. Nor
is it primarily about being a member of a church or Christian organisation,
however helpful that will be to our journey of faith. Nor is it about
having great religious experiences, or being a fantastically holy and
prayerful person, wonderful though that is – though most of the saints
of the Church are a decidedly odd bunch one way or another. Nor is being
a Christian mainly about believing the right things, helpful though that
is to the rest of our faith.
In today’s gospel Jesus makes that clear – that it’s not
what we do that puts us right with God. Lord, don’t we speak great
sermons and cast out demons in your name, heal people and do wonderful
things in the name of Jesus? But I do not know you, says Jesus –
because you do what you want and not what God my Father wants. You don’t
know us;we don’t know you.
The heart of the Christian faith is to do what the Father wishes: and
the first thing, the main thing, the place where we start by doing God’s
will, is not with what we do at all; it is what we receive.
God sends us in Jesus the eternal equivalent of that letter through the
door, the special offer, the prize we have already won and only need to
claim. Paul in his letter to the Romans (3.23-4) puts it succinctly: ‘All
have sinned and fall short of what God wants, but are now made right by
his love as a gift, through the redemption in Christ Jesus’.
God offers all of us the gift of eternal life, of forgiveness, in Jesus.
All we have to do is to accept that gift. We can’t earn it, we can’t
deserve it: all we can do is accept it and be changed by it, just like
the person who wins a million pounds on the lottery. Life will never be
the same again. Like the junk letter offer, claiming the free gift will
cost us something: it will cost us our pride; our illusions about ourselves
and how good we think we really are; the loss of the illusion of ultimate
control over our own life and destiny. God offers us himself, his love,
without condition, for us to accept joyfully – how could we human
beings not respond?
Well, lots of us don’t. Sometimes because we don’t understand
that this really is God’s unconditional love: if all your experience
of love has been that it comes with strings attached, that it involves
exploitation or abuse, then you may throw God’s offer away like a
winning ticket, without realising that it’s different. For example:
Today is Church Urban Fund Sunday, celebrating the work that’s changed
people’s lives all over the country – like the example of Martin
from the Caleb drug project here in Bradford. Martin says: ‘As soon
as I walked through the doors of Caleb, I knew there was something different
about it. I know this sounds crazy but I could really sense love in the
room. The first few months were really hard, trying to put down the drugs
and deal with the side effects, change my habits and the people I socialised
with, but…. I realised that God’s power was the only answer
to help me get free from my addictions. I began to hand my life over to
God, and since then my life has changed. It’s still a daily challenge,
but I take one day at a time. I have so much to live for now.’ Martin
has encountered and been changed by the love of God, because he could
see it in people and that that love accepts him as he is.
The people of Jesus’ day were scandalised that Jesus offered God’s
love and forgiveness without insisting on repentance first, not understanding
that repentance follows on from being offered forgiveness: you can have
remorse at any time, but you can’t repent until you have faith that
there’s something to turn to, that God really does love you more
than all your problems and mistakes. But the idea that bad people could
be loved by God has always been hard for people who think they’re
good to accept. That’s why it’s vitally important to remember
that church is for people who know they’re hypocrites, who know they’re
not very good, but want to be better.
In a little while we’re invited to come and take communion: to stretch
out our empty hands to God, to re¬ceive the tokens of his love, his
gift of a relation¬ship with him for ever; a love unconditional and
not depend¬ent on how worthy we are; a love seen in the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus. It’s this acceptance of God’s love
which is the heart of our faith, which we need to recall and respond to
every day of our lives, and to share with others too.
We are justified by God’s grace as a gift. Let’s not throw it
away; but receive and cherish it, and the Father who gives it, and the
Son who died to transform our lives by the free gift of the wonderful
love of God.
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