Sunday after Ascension – evening
Sunday 2nd June 2019
Easter 7 – Sunday after Ascension – evening
Isa. 44. 1-8
Eph. 4.7-16
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Have any of you discovered the delight of Audiobooks? I find that during a long drive, it is great to listen while someone reads me a story! Probably takes me back to Primary School and Friday afternoons!
Most recently I have been listening to a book written by a friend of mine, Paula Gooder, who happens to be a New Testament Scholar – but this is no heavy theological text book. Neither is it – she insists – a novel. Rather it is something inbetween; an exercise in the imagination where she takes the character of Pheobe – who Paul commends to the people of Rome in his letter to them. She is described as a Deacon and a Benefactor and the church in Rome is asked to give her all the help she might need.
Paula has taken this and worked out a complete backstory that explains how Phoebe – who begins as a child captured into slavery and brought to Rome by a noble soldier, grows up to endure various hardships – some of which are of her own making – before winning her freedom and becoming a wealthy woman in her own right. The story imagines her being sent to Rome from Corinth by Paul with instructions to make preparations for his planned missionary trip to Spain – the final journey we know that Paul was anxious to make, but never actually did.
As the tale unfolds we see how Phoebe’s faith develops through her contact with the Christians of Rome. How her confidence also grows until she is able to acknowledge that maybe God is calling her to undertake the voyage to Spain on Paul’s behalf and to ensure that the gospel is taken –“to the ends of the earth” – at least to the outer reaches of the Roman Empire, which was the same thing then.
Paul often talks about the need to develop spiritual maturity when in correspondence with the young churches over which he has pastoral oversight.
In the case of Ephesus, he is encouraging them even more directly than with Rome and Phoebe, to “grow up” in Christ. That they may come to maturity in the full stature of Christ, moving as it were, from milk to solid food. He asks them to consider the gifts they have been given by God, and how each might be called into use for the building up of the church. This, he says, requires them not only to receive, but also to give generously of themselves for the sake of the gospel.
Such advice is just as useful today as it was 2000 years ago. The Church of Christ is made up of ordinary people exercising extraordinary gifts – some which are obvious, others less so. Some yet to be discovered.
Some are still called to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers – some are naturally hospitable, some sing, or play instruments, some arrange flowers, some clean, some garden, some bake. In order for any church to thrive – as we well know here – its members are called to reach a level of maturity by which they are able to take on their share of ministry for the benefit of all… (not, please note, as a favour to the Vicar!) They move from being people who are primarily ‘fed’ whether literally or spiritually, by others, to people who are themselves called to nurture others in the faith. And faith – they say – is best ‘caught’ not only taught. Everyone has a part to play and this is perhaps what Paul means when he talks about growing up in Christ.
What do we need for this to happen? The writer of Psalm 68 assures us that God gives power and strength to his people. This is then affirmed in the words of the prophet Isaiah, where God shows us our destiny as his children whom he has known from the beginning. God will take his seed of life and pour out his blessing upon it so that we each spring up – if not like willows, then perhaps like the grass and even weeds that seem to be doubling in size every day in our gardens at present!
Christ’s gift to us – his Holy Spirit which we look forward to next Sunday, is without limit and has the power to help each one of us find the gifts we have been given to then share with others.
In her story, Phoebe discovers that she cannot simply continue to enjoy the quiet life of a respectable Roman matron, enjoying the family that she never dreamed she would ever have and enjoying the love of a good man.
Loving God; loving Jesus, requires her and us to risk it all, but we will not be left with nothing. There is a reciprocity among the people of God that may be relied on. Experience is a gift – but so too is enthusiasm, diversity and a fresh perspective. As Isaiah puts it, we all belong to the Lord, and we all therefore have a gift to share in his name.
Living the Christian life is not something we can passively observe and leave it at that. We are each called actively to participate and share in the life of the communities of which we are a part. Every member of every church has a ministry, and the challenge for each one of us is to discern what that might turn out to be, and even more importantly, how it can be shared to build up the life of the Church in this age and in the future. Amen.