Preached on 2nd July 2017 at St. Michael & All Angels, Bedford Park
Trinity 13 (Family Mass): Romans 6:3-4;8-11: Matt 10:37-42
Let’s play a game:
I need you guys at the front to stand up… Adults, you can play along too, but maybe do it in your heads so we don’t have a health and safety nightmare.
It’s a very simple game: I’m going to give you a series of choices and if you prefer one choice, you come over to this side of the platform, and if you prefer the other, you come over to this side of the platform.
So for a practice run; If I say ‘Cats, or Dogs’, if you prefer cats then come over here and if you prefer dogs, come over here. Let’s try it:
Cats, or Dogs?
Okay, let’s clarify this a bit. Sometimes when people play this game the stand in the middle because they can’t make their minds up, but we’re not going to play it that way today. If you don’t like either choice, you’ll have to choose the one you dislike least. If you like both, you have to make a call, I’m afraid!
Let’s try another:
Chocolate or Pizza?
Star Wars or Doctor Who?
Books or video games?
Going to school or going to church?
Singing hymns or hearing sermons?
Let’s make it a bit more difficult:
Giving money to charity, or doing chores for elderly people?
Challenging bullies, or reading Bible Stories?
Having a heart, or having a brain? … (Obviously you can’t live without both, but I’m making you choose!)
And the big one:
Your parents, or Jesus…?
That’s a tough one, isn’t it?: It’s not an easy choice, but it’s not supposed to be an easy choice: That’s why in today’s Gospel, when Jesus tells his disciples that they need to prefer Him over their own parents, He also tells them they need to ‘take up the Cross’, just like He did when he went to die, and he says that ‘Those who find their life will lose it’.
If we say as Christians, that following Jesus is the most important thing in the Universe, we’ve got to think long and hard about what that means: If following Jesus is most important then nothing else in our lives can beat it.
…Even our lives themselves…
Who can tell me what a martyr is?
A martyr is someone who dies because of their faith. We hear about a lot of the saints who were martyred, we also hear about Christians in the world today who are being arrested, tortured and even killed because they believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
So a Martyr is someone who has made a choice: They have chosen their religion over their own life!
Now that’s the extreme end of the decisions we have to make as a Christian, thankfully: But there are other decisions we have to make in our Christian lives: Do we spend Sunday morning having a lie-in, or do we come to Church? Do we give money to charity, or spend it on going to the cinema?
What other decisions do you think we might have to make as Christians?
One decision I had to make was whether to stay in my job as a teacher, or give that up to become a priest.
So how do we make those big decisions when they come up? How do we know whether the choice we’re making is the sort of choice God wants us to make?
Suggestions may include:
- Prayer
- Common sense
- Reading the Bible
- Learning from other Christians
- Example of the Saints
- Listening to sermons
So there are lots of ways we get clues, or hints… And they don’t make it easy, we’ve still got to work at it and make an effort, but sometimes when we pray we can feel God drawing us in a certain direction and the things Jesus taught can help.
For example we’ve had a lot of really hot weather recently haven’t we? How many of you were at the Green Days? It was hot wasn’t it? How did the weather make you feel?
So let’s imagine you’re out on Green Day, and it’s really sunny and really hot, and you’ve been running around and you’re really tired and then someone gives you a glass of water… Like this one… And then you meet someone else. Maybe a child who’s quite a bit younger than you and has been out in the hot weather all day and there exhausted.
Now let’s check your memory on today’s Gospel: Who’s getting this glass of water? You, or the thirsty child?
Jesus said “If anyone gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward”.
So when we make big decisions, really big decisions, we need to think about what God wants us to choose: It’s very tempting to make the decisions that suit us… But if we’re making the choice God wants then maybe it’s not about what we want after all… It’s about preferring God over ourselves.
Amen
Fr. Edward 