Sermon Archive
Giving an Account of the Hope that is in us
Sermon preached by John Armes at Holy Communion on 27 April 2008
Acts 17.22-31 ; 1 Peter 3.13-22 ; John 14.15-21
‘Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you’.
There was once a man who would have enjoyed this injunction from St Peter. I may have mentioned him before. As a young man he’d had a religious experience. He was so excited that he told everyone about it – they were excited too. As he told it he embellished it so that it gradually became more colourful and amazing. He wrote it down – so he didn’t have to waste his breath telling the story; ‘Here,’ he said, ‘Read this!’ Eventually, truth be told, he became a bore. People avoided him. And when he died and they were clearing out his chest of drawers they found tucked in one corner a dog-eared and tattered bundle of papers marked ‘My Experience’. When they were unfolded they fell to pieces.
He’d become so fixated upon a past experience that he was unable to experience anything new. What should have fired him up and liberated him had instead imprisoned him in a cycle of constant regression.
Sometimes I think the Christian church risks falling into the same trap. Of becoming so focussed on what God did in the past, so dependent on it that it actually indicates a lack of faith in what God does in the present. It’s a kind of Golden-Ageism – the idea that the best days are behind us. The Reformation of the sixteenth century, for example, achieved much, but it encouraged an almost obsessive interest in the early church, the church of the New Testament, as the ideal to which we should aspire and, indeed, from which we shall always fall short. Or elements in the Oxford Movement of the nineteenth century suggested quite explicitly that it’s all been downhill since Constantine declared Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire in 325. That’s an awful lot of hill to go down!
And now, in the 21st Century we have some branches of the church who are so terrified of departing from what they see as biblical truth that there seems little expectancy that God might be calling us to something new or that God might be teaching us anything through non-biblical means.
Now, certainly, for us there is something definitive about the first century; how could there not be? For we’re swept up in a story in which Jesus of Nazareth is the central character. And our reference to who Jesus was, what he did and taught, what happened to him, provides us with, if you like, a set of filters which colour everything we see. We see the world through Christ and the world comes to us afresh, anew. ‘If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation, the old order has gone, behold the new has arrived!’
If we believe in the resurrection – if we believe that Christ is risen then, however much we might wish it otherwise, we shall constantly be surprised by newness. And, if we believe in the incarnation, that God is with us in our human identity, then this newness will not be something theoretical, or something to be known only in a discontinuous future age, but in our real experience now.
In one sense this is breathtaking; in another sense I’m not saying anything remotely original. For Jesus himself seems to say far more about what God will do than what God has done. John’s Gospel is full of promises. In today’s reading, Jesus tells his followers that they will be given the Spirit of truth to be with them forever. Unless we’re to say that that this Spirit was only given to the first century disciples then, presumably, this is a promise made to us as well. A couple of chapters later, we learn that this is the Spirit that will lead us into all truth, who will declare to us the things to come; who will declare to us the many things we are yet to learn about Jesus and his teaching.
‘Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you’. These are words from St Peter, a man who knew better than we do what it was to be called to something new. The hope that was in him wasn’t glib or cheap – it was born from brokenness, the shattering of his hopes, his sense of personal failure and the loss of his closest friend. When he tells us to be ready to share our hope with others, therefore, he’s not expecting us to have easy answers or persuasive arguments; nor is he suggesting that we will be spared failure, defeat, suffering or death – the hope that is in us will sometimes be a deep and painful perplexity. He’s simply telling us that we live in a world, which because it’s a complicated place, will ask us hard questions. We must be ready to answer those questions as best we can. Our best will always be provisional, and it will never be closed to learning something new.
I’m sorry if this seems either old hat or dangerously heretical – but this whole question has exercised my mind a lot recently. And I find it exciting to reflect on what new things God might be saying to us. You, of course, will have your own thoughts to offer here, you will have your own passions and epiphanies they may well be intensely personal, rooted in an encounter with individuals and finding God there. But let me offer you three general areas where I believe Christians as a whole must give account of ourselves, of the hope that is in us. Three challenges which are also God-given opportunities. The first two are familiar to us.
The world is slipping towards ecological disaster. It’s fascinating that now we’ve begun to wake up to this so much of the faith we’ve inherited is relevant to it. Strange that a faith that believes in a Creator has yet been so slow to reach a credible position on how creation is to be regarded. At St John’s we’ve started this, in a small way, but I see this whole crisis as God’s way of leading us into a new understanding of an old truth that the world is not just given for human beings to exploit; we also have a duty of care. Our faith community as a whole must stand up and be counted on this.
Our world is also a shrinking community in which the issues of pluralism and difference press upon us in urgent ways. Again, we’ve begun something of this exploration of inter-faith dialogue at St John’s. But this isn’t just a matter of fashion. We must learn what it means to give an account of ourselves, of the best of our faith, in a context not of proselytism or persuasion, nor of proving others wrong, but of talking and listening with respect and openness. A difficult one this because not all Christians will agree on this approach. And yet, I believe profoundly that this is an area in which God is leading us into new truths and taking us to places we’ve never been before.
Ecology and pluralism – thirdly, what we might call post-Christian Christianity. In recent years I’ve been really excited by meeting (often young) adults who have come to Christianity without any childhood experience of the faith, no legacy of churchgoing. They come with no baggage, no presuppositions, and generally either with a home background of indifference to faith, or antagonism. Yet they come with fresh vision; they see Christianity as most of us are unable to see it. And they’re drawn to it by, well by what?... the movement in them of the Spirit of truth – of the God who makes all things new. I believe these people constitute one of God’s greatest gifts to the church. To see ourselves as other see us; to see our faith through their eyes and to see it afresh. We often go on about the decline of Christianity as if it’s a terrible thing, and a sign of our failure. Yet without that decline we would not get this glimpse of a God who beckons and calls and moves deep within the deepest heart of a person, touching them directly, not through the church.
In our readings we heard St Paul speaking to the people of Athens of their shrine to an unknown God (‘I perceive that you are very religious people’). Apparently up to 70% of Britain’s population believe in an unknown God – like Paul we have an opportunity to describe this God and to help people to see in God the face of Jesus Christ.
Ecology, pluralism and post-Christian Christians – all of them opportunities, none of them areas where we have all the answers, each one to be wrestled with, each one requiring us, in different ways to be ready to change, to become new. Each one demanding that we give an account of the hope that is in us. Each one, I believe, an example of the Spirit at work, the Spirit leading us into all truth.
I believe that; how about you?
Worship >> Sermons >> Sermons