York Minster

Liberated by God's gifts

Date: 12th August 2007
Preacher: The Revd Canon Dr Jonathan Draper

The most important series of events of this past weekend has not been the continuing developments surrounding the outbreak of Foot & Mouth disease in Surrey, nor has it been the successful launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the continuing development of the international space station; the most important event of the weekend, and the one which causes my wife to groan the most, is the start of the football season, or soccer season if you’re visiting us from the USA and have only just heard of David Beckham. Here starts 10 months of highs and lows, scandal, heartbreak and drama which grips the nation, and indeed the whole continent of Europe, as summer moves into autumn and winter finally arrives. All life is played out in what they call at Manchester United, the ‘theatre of dreams’.

St Paul, the beginning of whose second letter to the somewhat difficult Christians in Corinth was our second reading this evening, liked to use sport as an analogy of how he approached the Christian life. At times he sees the Christian life as being like an athlete who trains hard and strives to win the prize; at times he sees it as being like a boxer training for a fight, though I think even St Paul might have found the immortal line, ‘drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life’ a sporting analogy too far.

Sport, like music, can be a useful way in which to remind ourselves of the kind of discipline, dedication and single-mindedness needed if we are to give ourselves in the same sort of way St Paul gave himself in his approach to the Christian life. For Paul nothing was more important than following Christ and making him known to the world, and he is always shocked when other people share neither his dedication nor his passion, when they don’t share his vision. He is equally shocked when what he sees as their style of life doesn’t show in itself Christ-like qualities. His first letter to the Corinthians contains a great deal about how they are together to be Christ’s body in the world and to show Christ in their lives and the ways in which they love each other. In this second letter Paul spends a lot of time re-establishing with the community his personal and, as it were, professional credentials as an apostle. He has sought, even through suffering, to live his life in such a way as to exhibit Christ to them. The implication of Paul’s argument, sometimes none too subtly put, is that those who have tried, as St Paul sees it, to divert the Corinthians from the faith that Paul had taught them, have more style than substance when it comes to following Christ, and that their lives do not bear witness to their talk.

The nub of the matter comes when Paul is expressing his concern for the church at Corinth; he writes, ‘there is one thing we are proud of: our conscience shows us that in our dealings with others, and above all in our dealings with you, our conduct has been governed by a devout and godly sincerity, by the grace of God and not by worldly wisdom’. Paul wants the Corinthians to see that he has been the vehicle of God’s grace because he has not been as smooth and suave as the others who have come their way. He doesn’t have the clever speech and subtle arguments of the worldly wise, he only has an overwhelming commitment to Christ and through that commitment God is at work teaching them the right way of faith.

Respectable Christians find St Paul’s message as difficult today as they did back in Corinth. St Paul’s insistence that it is precisely our weakness that provides opportunity for God’s grace to work, rather than our cleverness, status or respectability, has always been difficult for those who would like to take pride in their faith. St Paul insists that we should recognise faith for what it is: sheer gift. And not only is it sheer gift to you and me, but to anyone who will have it. It is an aspect of God’s prodigal generosity that he distributes his gifts to all and sundry, to those who deserve them and those who do not.

St Paul calls us simply to give thanks for the generosity of God, to recognise that our faith is God’s gift to us and to be liberated by that understanding to rejoice in and give ourselves wholly to the new life God’s gifts make possible.

Amen.