Mary Magdalene

Brixton Hill , 28 July 2019

Mary Magdalene

Last Monday, July the twenty-second, was the Feast of St Mary Magdalene,

in the part of the church that celebrates that sort of thing.

Which we aren't, of course, but nevertheless I can't resist having a look at Mary Magdalene today, because she is such an intriguing person.

We know very little about her for definite:

Firstly, that Jesus cast out seven demons from her, according to Luke chapter 8 verse 2, and Mark chapter 16 verse 9.

From then on, she appears in the lists of people who followed Jesus, and is one of the very few women mentioned by name all the time.

She was at the Cross, helping the Apostle John to support Jesus' mother Mary.

And, of course, she was the first witness to the Resurrection, and according to John's Gospel, she was actually the first person to see and to speak to the Risen Lord.

And that is basically all that we reliably know about her –

all that the Bible tells us, at any rate.

But, of course, that's not the end of the story.

Even the Bible isn't quite as clear as it might be,

and some Christians believe that she is the woman described as a “sinner” who disrupts the banquet given by Simon the Leper, or Simon the Pharisee or whoever he was by emptying a vial of ointment over his feet –

Jesus' feet, I mean, not Simon's –

and wiping it away with her hair.

Simon, you may recall, was furious, and Jesus said that the woman had done a lot more for him than he had –

he hadn't offered him any water to wash his feet, or made him feel at all welcome.

Anyway, that woman is often identified with Mary Magdalene,

although some say it is Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha and Lazarus.

Some even say they are all three one and the same woman!

So if even the Bible isn't clear whether there are one, two or three women involved, you can imagine what the extra-Biblical traditions are like!

Nobody seems to know where she was born, or when.

Arguably in Magdala, but there seem to have been a couple of places called that in Biblical times.

However, one of them, Magdala Nunayya, was on the shores of Lake Galilee, so it might well have been there.

But nobody knows for certain.

She wasn't called Mary, of course;

that is an Anglicisation of her name.

The name was Maryam or Miriam, which was very popular around then as it had royal family connections,

rather like people in my generation calling their daughters Anne,

or all the Dianas born in the 1980s or,

perhaps, today, the Catherines.

So she was really Maryam, not Mary –

as, indeed, were all the biblical Marys.

They don't know where she died, either.

One rather splendid legend has her, and the other two women called Mary, being shipwrecked in the Carmargue at the town now called Saintes-Maries-de-la-mer, and she is thought to have died in that area.

But then again, another legend has her accompanying Mary the mother of Jesus and the disciple John to Ephesus and dying there.

Nobody knows.

And there are so many other legends and rumours and stories about her –

even one that she was married to Jesus,

or that she was “the beloved disciple”, and those parts of John's gospel where she and the beloved disciple appear in the same scene were hastily edited later when it became clear that a woman disciple being called “Beloved” Simply Would Not Do.

But whoever she was, and whatever she did or did not do,

whether she was a former prostitute or a perfectly respectable woman who had become ill and Jesus had healed,

it is clear that she did have some kind of special place in the group of people surrounding Jesus.

And because she was the first witness to the Resurrection, and went to tell the other disciples about it, she has been called “The Apostle to the Apostles”.

So what can we learn from her?

Well, the first thing we really know about her is that Jesus had healed her.

She had allowed Jesus to heal her.

Now, healing, of course, is as much about forgiveness and making whole as it is about curing physical symptoms.

Mary allowed Jesus to make her whole.

This isn't something we find easy to do, is it?

We are often quite comfortable in our discomfort, if that makes sense.

If we allowed Jesus to heal us, to make us whole, whether in body, mind or spirit, we might have to do something in return.

We might have to give up our comfortable lifestyles and actually go and do something!

What Mary did, of course, was to give up her lifestyle,

whatever it might have been, and follow Jesus.

We don't know whether she was a prostitute, as many have thought down the years,

or whether she was a respectable woman,

but whichever she was, she gave it all up to follow Jesus.

She was the leader of the group of women who went around with Jesus and the disciples,

and who made sure that everybody had something to eat,

and everybody had a blanket to sleep under,

or shelter if it was a rough night, or whatever.

Mary gave up everything to follow Jesus.

Again, we quail at the thought of that, even though following Jesus may well mean staying exactly where we are, with our present job and our family.

But Mary didn't quail.

She even accompanied Jesus to the foot of the Cross,

and stood by him in his final hours.

And then, early in the morning of the third day after he was killed,

she goes to the tomb to finish off the embalming she hadn't been able to do during the Sabbath Day.

And we know what happened –

how she found the tomb empty, and raced back to tell Peter and John about it, and how they came and looked and saw and realised something had happened and dashed off, leaving her weeping in the garden –

and then the beloved voice saying “Mary!” and with a cry of joy, she flings herself into his arms.

We’re not told how long they spent hugging, talking, explaining and weeping in each other’s arms,

but eventually Jesus gently explains that,

although he’s perfectly alive, and that this is a really real body one can hug,

he won’t be around on earth forever, but will ascend to the Father.

He can’t stop with Mary for now,

but she should go back and tell the others all about it.

And so, we are told, she does.

She tells the rest of the disciples how she has seen Jesus.

She is the first witness to the Resurrection, although you will note that St Paul leaves her out of his list of people who saw the Risen Lord.

That was mostly because the word of a woman, i

n that day and age, was considered unreliable;

women were not considered capable of rational judgement.

At least Jesus was different!

So Mary allowed Jesus to heal her, she gave up everything and followed him, she went with him even to the foot of the Cross,

even when most of the male disciples, except John, had run away,

and she bore witness to the risen Christ.

The question is, of course, do we do any of these things?

We don't find them comfortable things to do, do we?

It was all very well for Mary, we say, she knew Jesus,

she knew what he looked like and what he liked to eat, and so on.

But we don't have to do these things in our own strength.

The Jesus who loved Mary Magdalene, in whatever way,

he will come to us and fill us with His Holy Spirit and enable us, too,

to be healed,

to follow Him, even to the foot of the Cross,

and to bear witness to His resurrection.

The question is, are we going to let him?

Amen.

Thirsting for the Word

After all that, I discovered that the sermon had recorded, after all!


I forget who it was who, when asked whether he preferred Martha or Mary, said:

“After dinner, Mary.
But before dinner, definitely Marthat!”

Me, I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Martha.
There she was, desperate to get all these men fed,

and her sister isn’t helping.
And when she asks Jesus to send her in,

she just gets told that Mary has “chosen the better part”.

Yet it was Martha who, on another occasion, caused Jesus to declare:
“I am the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,

and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
And Martha herself gave us that wonderful statement of faith:
“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah,

the Son of God,

the one coming into the world.”
Martha was seriously a woman of faith.
And she wanted to show her love to the Lord by providing him and his disciples with a really good meal.
Maybe she overdid it –
the Lord might have preferred Martha’s company,

even if it did mean dining on bread and cheese, and perhaps a few olives.

The family at Bethany has many links in the Bible.
Some people have identified Mary as the woman who poured ointment all over Jesus’ feet in the house of Simon the Leper –
and because he lived in Bethany –

Simon the Leper, that is, not Jesus –

some people have also said that he was married to Martha.
We don’t know.

At that, some people have said that Jesus was married to Mary;

again, we don’t know.
What we do know is that Martha and Mary were sisters,

and that they had a beloved brother, called Lazarus.
We do know that on one occasion Mary poured her expensive perfume all over the feet of the Lord –
whether this was the same Mary as in the other accounts or a different one isn’t quite clear.
But whatever, they seem to have been a family that Jesus knew well,

a home where he knew he was welcome,

and dear friends whose grief he shared when Lazarus died,

even though he knew that God would raise him.
Lazarus, I mean, not Jesus, this time!

In some ways the story “works” better if the woman who poured ointment on Jesus’ feet in the house of Simon the Leper and this Mary

are one and the same person,

as we know that the woman in Simon’s house was, or had been,

some kind of loose woman that a pious Jew wouldn’t normally associate with.
Now she has repented and been forgiven,

and simply adores Jesus, who made that possible for her.
And she seems to have been taken back into her sister’s household, possibly rather on sufferance.

But then she does nothing but sit at Jesus’ feet, listening to him.
Back then, this simply was Not Done.
Only men were thought to be able to learn,

women were supposed not to be capable.
Actually, I have a feeling that the Jews thought that only Jewish free men were able to learn.
They would thank God each morning that they had not been made a woman, a slave or a Gentile.
And even though St Paul had sufficient insight to be able to write that “In Christ, there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile”,

thus at a stroke disposing of the prayer he’d been taught to make daily, it’s taken us all a very long time to work that out,

and recent events would show we haven’t really worked it out yet!

Anyway, the point is that Mary, by sitting at Jesus’ feet like that,

was behaving in rather an outrageous fashion.
Totally blatant, like throwing herself at him.
He might have felt extremely uncomfortable,

and it’s quite possible that his disciples did.
Martha certainly did, which was one of the reasons why she asked Jesus to send Mary through to help in the kitchen.

But Jesus replied:
“Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Mary, with all her history, was now thirsty for the Word of God.
Jesus wanted to be able to give Mary what she needed,

the teaching that only he could provide.
He would have liked to have given it to Martha, too,

if only Martha could be persuaded that they’d be quite happy with bread and cheese.

But Martha wasn’t ready.
Not then.
Later on, yes, after Lazarus had died, but not then.

In many ways, Martha and Mary represent the two different sides of spirituality, perhaps even of Christianity.
Mary, wrapped up in sitting at the feet of her Lord, learning from him, listening to him,

was perhaps so heavenly-minded she was of no earthly use.
Martha, rather the reverse.
She was so wrapped up in doing something for Jesus

that she couldn’t see the importance of taking time out to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.
Or if she could, it wasn’t something she wanted to do while there was work that needed to be done.
She expressed her love for Jesus by wanting to feed him,

wanting to work for him.

All of us, I think, are like either Martha or Mary in some ways.
Many of us are more or less integrated, of course,

finding time both to sit at Jesus’ feet in worship, adoration and learning, and time to serve Him in practical ways,

mostly through working either in the Church or in the Community.

Others of us are less balanced.
We spend our time doing one or the other, but not both.
Mind you, it usually balances out within the context of a church;
the people who do the praying and listening,

the people who do the practical jobs that need to be done around the place,

and the people who do both.
And perhaps in an area, too, it balances out,

with some churches doing far more in the way of work in the community than others,

but perhaps less in the way of prayer meetings,

Alpha, or similar courses

and other Bible studies.
And so it goes on.

Our Old Testament reading brings this need for balance very much to the fore-front.
The Lord, speaking through the prophet Amos,

expresses his disgust with those who have failed to be honest and upright in their dealings:

‘Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country.

You say to yourselves, “We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we can sell our grain.

When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again?

Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers.

We can sell worthless wheat at a high price.

We'll find someone poor who can't pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we'll buy him as a slave.”’

And then, after a paragraph of warning of physical misery, comes the terrible warning:

“The time is coming when I will send famine on the land.

People will be hungry, but not for bread;

they will be thirsty, but not for water.

They will hunger and thirst for a message from the Lord.

I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

People will wander from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean and then on around from the north to the east.

They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord, but they will not find it.”

“They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord, but they will not find it.”

The people started off with dishonest measures,

with forcing the poor into slavery,

and end up longing to hear from the Lord,

but the heavens have been closed off to them.

Why am I reminded of current events?

This whole mess in our country, everybody wondering what will happen next;

will we really have to leave the EU without a deal, or at all?

and what are the implications if we do?

I don’t want to go into detail about the causes of this whole disaster;

you know them as well as I do.

The road this country has chosen to take over the past 50 years hasn’t helped –

the erosion of our manufacturing base,

the disappearance of industries such as shipbuilding,

consumer electronics,

aircraft manufacture

and most of the vehicle construction industry. 

The fact that we were lied to, over and over again,

by politicians and by the Murdoch press....

you know all that as well as I do.

And I’m finding it incredibly difficult to work out what to say, anyway,

as I’m so aware that my experience as a White, middle-class, elderly British woman is so very different to so much of many of your experiences.

What, after all, do I know?

But whatever our experiences, however afraid of the future we might be, can we do anything about it?

None of us knows what is going to happen tomorrow;

we can’t see round the bend in the road.

But there is much we can do –

not least, to pray for our country, and for our leaders;

we may or may not care for whoever is elected leader of the Conservative Party tomorrow, but whoever he is, he will be our Prime Minister and will need our prayers.

Those of us whose Christianity is more like Martha’s will want to get involved in many different ways;

those of us who are like Mary will want to spend time in prayer and perhaps even fasting for this country we call home.

We don’t know the future;

but we do know the One who holds the future in his hands.

We may long and long for a word that doesn’t come, but we know that we have not been abandoned.

We know that we may sit at His feet and drink of His word, and we may, must and will trust Him for tomorrow.

Amen.

Trinity Sunday 2019

This sermon is very like that of three years ago, but a few differences.

Today is Trinity Sunday,

the day on which we celebrate all the different aspects of God.

It’s actually a very difficult day to preach on,

since it’s very easy to get bogged down in the sort of theology which none of us understands,

and which we can very easily get wrong.

The trouble is, of course, that the concept of the Trinity is trying to explain something that simply won’t go into words.

We are accustomed to thinking of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

and most of the time we don’t really stop and think about it.

Trinity Sunday is the day we are expected to stop and think!

The thing is, the first half of the Christian year,

which begins way back before Christmas,

is the time when we think about Jesus.

We prepare for the coming of the King, in Advent,

and then we remember his birth,

his being shown to the Gentiles,

his presentation in the Temple as a baby.

Then we skip a few years and remember his ministry,

his arrest, death and resurrection, and his ascension into heaven.

Then we remember the coming of the promised Holy Spirit,

and today we celebrate God in all his Godness, as someone once put it.

The second half of the year, all those Sundays after Trinity,

tend to focus on different aspects of our Christian life.

And today is the one day in the year when we are expected to stop and think about God as Three and God as One.

And it is difficult.

It’s a concept that doesn’t really go into words,

and so whatever we say about it is going to be in some way flawed.

It took the early Church a good 400 years to work out what it wanted to say about it, and even that is very obscure:

“That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity:

Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

For there is one person of the Father,

another of the Son,

and another of the Holy Spirit.

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one,

the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.

The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.”

The whole thing incomprehensible, if you ask me!

St Paul said it better, in our first reading.

‘We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ and a little later in the same paragraph, ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’

St Paul may not have known the expression ‘The Holy Trinity’, but he certainly was aware of the concept!

There are all sort of illustrations you can use to try to get a mental image of what it’s all about.

Look, for instance, at what happens when you join two hydrogen atoms to one oxygen one –

you get H₂O.

Di-hydrogen monoxide!

Which, I am sure you realise, can be ice –

a solid, good for cooling drinks or injuries, for preserving food, or for skating on.

Or it can be water –

a liquid, making up most of our bodies, good for drinking, sustaining all life.

Or it can be steam –

a gas, good for removing creases from our clothes or for cooking vegetables. Ice, water, steam, all very different from each other, but all, still, H₂O.

It’s an illustration.

It happens to be my favourite one, but there are plenty of others.

D, on the same subject, once brought in three tins of soup –

lentil, mushroom and tomato –

well, it might not have been exactly those, but something like that –

all tasting very different but all soup.

Some people like thinking of an egg,

which has the shell, the white, and the yolk....

They are all sort-of pictures, but only sort-of.

Nobody really understands it.

And, of course, that is as it should be.

If we could understand it,

if we knew all the ins and outs and ramifications of it,

then we would be equal to God.

And it’s very good for us to know that there are things about God we don’t really understand!

It’s called, in the jargon, a “mystery”.

That means something that we are never going to understand,

even after a lifetime of study.

Lots of things to do with God are mysteries, in that sense.

Holy Communion, for one –

we know what we mean when we take Communion,

but we also know that it may very well mean something quite different, but equally valid, to the person standing next to us.

Or even the Atonement –

none of us really understands exactly what happened when Jesus died on the Cross, only that some sort of change took place in the moral nature of the Universe.

Nevertheless, for all practical purposes,

we live very happily with not understanding.

We synthesise some form of understanding that suits us,

and, provided we know it is not the whole story, that’s fine.

And the same applies to the Trinity.

It doesn’t matter if we don’t really understand how God can be Three and One at the same time:

what matters is that we love and trust him, whatever!

And in our Gospel reading, Jesus talks of Himself, the Father and the Spirit as equal:

“All that belongs to the Father is mine.

That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”

Like St Paul, He doesn’t have the word “Trinity”, but it is the kind of thing He means.

And in the reading from Proverbs, which I chose not to use, we are reminded of Wisdom.

“The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,

before his deeds of old:

I was appointed from eternity,

from the beginning, before the world began.

When there were no oceans, I was given birth,

when there were no springs abounding with water;”

and so on and so forth.

Wisdom, here, is personified as female.

The Greek word for Wisdom is Sophia.

And some commentators equate Sophia, here, and in other passages, with the Holy Spirit.

Incidentally, some people find the image of God as Sophia, Lady Wisdom, helpful and different.

It’s one of the many images of God we have, up there alongside the Shepherd, the Rock, the Strong Tower and so on.

If you don’t find it helpful, then don’t use it, but if it is something that appeals, then do.

But that is beside the point.

Seeing God as Lady Wisdom is a very old tradition,

but the real point is that even in the Old Testament we get glimpses of God as having more than One Person.

The Trinity might not be a Bible expression, but it is a Bible concept.

But really, the thing about today is that, no matter how much we don’t understand God as Three but still One,

today is a day for praising God in all his Godness.

It is not really a day for deep theological reflection, nor for self-examination, but a day for praise and wonder and love and adoration.

So I’m going to be quiet now, and let’s spend a few moments in silent worship before we sing our next hymn.

Peter and Paul

Another "Golden Oldie"

Our readings today are about two very different men, both of whom were leaders of the very early church, and both of whom had made appallingly bad starts!

To take them in chronological order, first of all there was Peter.

Simon, as his original name was –

Peter was basically a nickname Jesus gave him.

It means stone or rock;

if Jesus had been speaking English, he might have nicknamed him “Rock” or “Rocky”.

“You're Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”

But the Greek word was “Petros”, so we know him as Peter.

Anyway, as you know, Peter was an impulsive type,

probably with a hot temper.

We probably know more about him than we know about any of the Twelve, as it is often his comments and answers that are quoted.

And, sadly, the fact that when push came to shove his courage failed him

and he pretended he didn't know Jesus.

And our Gospel reading today is all about his reinstatement.

It’s not very clear how this story fits in with the rest of John’s Gospel, which seemed to come to an end after last week’s reading.

But the writer seemed to find it necessary to add this additional story.

The disciples have gone back to Galilee after the Resurrection,

and have gone fishing.

I suppose they must have thought that it was all over,

not realising how much their lives were going to change.

And although the other gospel-writers tell us that Peter had seen the risen Lord, he still seems to have had trouble forgiving himself for the denials.

So when he realises that it is Jesus on the lake shore, he grabs his tunic –

he will have been working naked in the boat –

and swims to shore.

And they all have breakfast together, and then Jesus turns to Peter.

You can imagine, can't you, that Peter's heart started beating rather faster than usual.

Now, part of the whole point of this story doesn't actually work in English, because we only have one word for love, which we use for loving anything from God down to strawberries, including our spouse, our children, our best friends and the writings of Jane Austen!

But the Greeks had several different words for love.

There was eros, which was erotic love, the love between a man and a woman;

then there was storge, which was affection, family love, the love between parents and children.

Then, and these are the two words that are relevant to us here, there was philia, which is friendship, comradeship, and agape, a word only found in the New Testament, which means God's love.

And when Jesus says to Peter “Do you love me?” he uses the word agape.

Do you love me with God's love.

And Peter can't quite manage to say that, and so in his reply he uses philia.

“Yes, Lord, you know I'm your friend”.

And Jesus commissions him to “Feed my lambs.”

This happens again.

“Do you love me with God's love?”

“Lord, you know I'm your friend!”

“So take care of my sheep.”

And then the third time.

Well, that's logical, there were three denials, so perhaps three reinstatements.

But this time it is different:

“Simon, son of John, are you my friend?”

Peter doesn't quite know what to answer.

“Lord, you know everything;

you know whether I'm your friend or not!”

And Jesus tells him, again, to feed His sheep.

And comments that he will die a martyr's death, but instructs him to “Follow Me!”

And, we are told, Peter did follow Jesus.

We know he was in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came,

and it was he who preached so powerfully that day that three thousand people were converted.

We know he was imprisoned, and miraculously released from prison;

there is that wonderful scene where he goes and knocks on the door of the safe house,

interrupting the prayer-meeting that has been called for the sole purpose of praying for him,

and the girl who answers the door is so shocked she leaves him standing there while she goes and tells the others, and they don't believe her!

Quite the funniest scene in the Bible, I think.

Anyway, we know that Peter ended up in Rome, and, sadly, tradition tells us that he was crucified upside-down, which those who wrote down John's gospel would have known, which is arguably why it was mentioned.

But the point is, he was completely and utterly forgiven and reinstated, and God used him beyond his wildest dreams.

And so to St Paul.

Now Paul, at that stage known as Saul, also needed a special touch from God.

He couldn't have been more different from Peter, though.

He was born a Roman citizen in the city of Tarsus.

He was well-educated, and had probably gone to university,

contrasting with Peter, who, it is thought, only had the basic education that all Jewish boys of his time and class would have had.

He was a Pharisee, the most learned and holy of the Jewish religious leaders of the day.

And, like so many Pharisees, he felt totally threatened by this new religious movement that was springing up, almost unstoppably.

It was, he thought, complete nonsense, and not only that, it was blasphemy!

He set himself to hunt down and kill as many believers as he could.

But God had other ideas, and grabbed Saul on his way to Damascus.

And we all know what happened then –

he was blind for three days, and then a very brave man called Ananias came and laid hands on him,

whereupon he could see again, and then,

after some time out for prayer and study,

he became the apostle to the Gentiles, so-called, and arguably the greatest influence on Christianity ever.

He had a knack for putting the great truths about God and about Jesus into words, and even today, we study his letters very seriously.

He started off by persecuting believers, but in the end, God used him beyond his wildest dreams!

So you see the common link between these two men:

one an uneducated provincial fisherman,

the other a suave and sophisticated Pharisee, and a Roman citizen, to boot.

Peter knew how dreadfully he had sinned;

Paul thought he was in the right.

But they both needed a touch from God, they both needed explicit forgiveness,

they both needed to know that they were loved, no matter what they had done.

And they both responded.

If this had just been a story of how God spoke to two different men in two different ways, that would be one thing.

It would be a fabulous story in its own right.

It would show us that we, too, no matter how dreadful we are,

no matter how prone to screw things up,

we too could be loved and forgiven and reinstated.

And this is, of course, true. We are human.

We screw up –

that, after all, is what sin is, when you come down to it –

the human propensity to screw things up.

Which we all do in our own particular ways.

It doesn't actually matter how we mess up –

we all mess up in different ways,

and sometimes we all mess up in the same way.

It is part of being human.

God's forgiveness is constant and unremitting –

all we have to do is to receive it.

There is no more forgiveness for a mass murderer

than there is for you or for me.

And there is no less forgiveness, either.

It is offered to us all, everybody,

even the worst sort of person you can possibly imagine.

No nonsense about God hating this group of people, or that group of people.

He doesn't.

He loves them, and offers forgiveness to them as and where they need it,

just as he does to you,

and just as he does to me.

But, as I implied, that isn't quite the end of the story.

It would have been a wonderful story, even if we had never heard of Peter or of Paul again.

There are one or two marvellous stories in Acts that we don't know how they came out –

I'm thinking here of Cornelius and the Ethiopian treasury official;

both men became Christians,

one through Peter's ministry and one through Philip's,

but we are not told what became of them.

We don't know what became of the slave Onesimus, either;

the one who had to return home to Philemon,

bearing with him a letter from Paul asking Philemon to receive him as a brother in Christ.

But we do know what happened to Peter and to Paul.

They both responded to God's forgiveness.

They received it.

They offered themselves to Christ's service and, through their ministry, millions of people down the centuries have come to know and love the Lord Jesus.

Of course, they were exceptional.

We know their stories, just as we know the stories of John Wesley,

of people like Dwight L Moody, or David Livingstone,

Eric Liddell or Billy Graham.

But there are countless thousands of men and women whose stories we don't know,

who received God's forgiveness,

offered themselves to His service,

and through whose ministry many millions of men and women came to know and love the Lord.

Some of them went to live and work somewhere else,

but many of them lived out a life of quiet service exactly where they were.

Some of them, sadly, were imprisoned or even put to death for their faith,

but many died in their own beds.

And you see where this is going, don't you?

Now, I know as well as you do that this is where we all start to wriggle and to feel all hot and bothered,

and reckon we can't possibly be doing enough in Christ's service,

or that we are a rotten witness to his love and forgiveness.

But that isn't really what it's about.

For a start, we are told that when the Holy Spirit comes,

we will be witnesses to Christ –

not that we ought to be, or we must be, but that we will be!

And I know that many of you are doing all you can to serve the Lord exactly where you are, and I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job of it, too.

But maybe it never occurred to you to offer.

Maybe you accepted Jesus' forgiveness, and promised to be his person, and rather left it at that.

That's fine, of course, but what if you're missing out?

You see, the giving and offering isn't all on our side –

how could it be?

And when we offer ourselves to Christ's service, you wouldn't believe –

or perhaps you already know –

the wonderful gifts He gives to help you do whatever is is you're asked to do.

I know that sometimes people have even wondered if God could possibly be calling them to do whatever it is,

as they want to do it so badly that it might be just their own wants!

But, you see, God wouldn't call you to do something you would hate, would he?

And so what if it did end badly?

Look at a young lawyer, in a country far from here, who was thrown into prison for his faith, which led him to stand up for what he believed was right against the government of the day.

He left his country when he was released from prison –

and to this day he will tell you that it was knowing his Bible as well as he did that helped him stay sane while he was in it –

you may have known him, for some years ago he was a local vicar and now he is the Archbishop of York!

I'm rather waffling now, so I'll shut up.

But I do just want to leave this with you:

Perhaps, today, you just needed to be reminded that God loves and forgives you, whoever you are and whatever you have done.

But it maybe you need to think:

have you ever offered yourself to God's service as Peter did, as Paul did, as so many down the years have?

And is God, perhaps, calling you to something new?

Amen.