SUPER SUNDAY – SIMPLE GOSPEL
Sermon preached by Fr Tony Noble on Sunday, February 7, 2010
1 Cor 15:3 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”.
Superbowl Sunday! When I first came to America it was always the last Sunday of January, but now it has moved up to the first Sunday of February. And you will not be surprised to hear that I am hoping for the Saints to win. It’s a feel good story isn’t it? I will be fascinated with the game today and hoping that at about 7.00pm there may be a big party in Bourbon Street, New Orleans!
I’m also going to be interested in an advertisement that is scheduled on CBS during the Superbowl by Tim Tebow. Some of you may be aware of this – it’s a pro-life advertisement. The background is that Tim Tebow is a college footballer and his mother and father were Christian missionaries in South America at the time he was born. Mrs. Tebow already had five children and the doctor advised her that she should have an abortion because of the danger of his birth.
Being a devout Christian she said no. He has gone on to be a professional football player, and Tim and his mother are featuring in this advert. No one has seen it, but there is some controversy about it, and calls that the advert should not be seen. Some suggest that it’s inappropriate for such an event.
I’m surprised. America is the land of free speech, and we have ads today for beer, and we have wardrobe malfunctions – but we cannot have an advertisement about life. And I’m even more surprised because America is also the home of religious advertising at sporting events. Many years ago I was rather taken aback to see at a baseball match a sign being waved which simply said: John 3:16.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only son that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life”.
This is far more Christian than a pro-life advertisement – because non-Christians and other people of faith also support a pro-life advert. But John 3:16 is entirely a Christian message. If we can have that at a sporting event, then I think anything can be shown.
I’m fascinated about all of this because John 3:16 is very much echoed in our epistle reading today in Corinthians 15. In this epistle reading Saint Paul is not only saying that the heart of the Gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, but also that he rose from the dead and appeared to Peter and the apostles, and then to hundreds of others.
Not only that, but what is really important is that Saint Paul says this is the Gospel he preached to them – and unless they stand firm and hold it fast, their faith is in vain. So Saint Paul is saying what John 3:16 says.
It is also the message of today’s Gospel of the calling of Peter. From the Gospel reading we see Saint Peter being called by Jesus to be an apostle and obviously he was not quite convinced about Jesus – he had some disbelief I’d say, although he had already seen Jesus heal people so he knew that Jesus was a healer and a preacher, but he hadn’t got to the stage where he knew who Jesus really was.
And then this miraculous catch of fish that convinced Peter finally of who Jesus was, and so he declared: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man”. He realized that he been such a disbeliever in who Jesus was – he was aware that he was a sinner in his disbelief.
In this Gospel his disbelief had been blown out of the water, literally! Peter was suddenly aware that he was unworthy to be in the company of this man who invites him to follow him, and to be a fisher of men.
Later Saint Peter would know the reality ( to his own shame) that Jesus died for our sins. On that night before Good Friday, he denied Jesus. Then Jesus restored him later, after the resurrection. in another lakeside scene – and another catch of fish – when Jesus appeared and said to him: “Simon Peter do you love me more than these others?” Peter said: “Lord, you know I do” and Jesus said: “Feed my sheep”. At that moment he knew the healing and reconciling love of the risen Lord Jesus.
You notice in the Gospel and the Epistle today that both Peter and Paul feel entirely unworthy, Saint Paul recaps his career before he had that conversion and says he is he is the least of the apostles. Saint Peter feels entirely sinful and unworthy.
In our first reading Gideon feels the same way. So today we are presented with three strong men of God concerned about their own inadequacies and their sinfulness. And look how their ministries became so important.
Last Tuesday I had a magnificent celebration of the 30th anniversary of my ordination – and I thank the parish for celebrating with me in such a wonderful way. Naturally Tuesday and Wednesday were days of reflecting on 30 years as a priest. I couldn’t help but go back to the beginning and remembering how inadequate I felt, and the mistakes I have made as a priest. And they weren’t all made in the first five years, I can tell you!
Yet God has still used me, and I have tried to be a valiant warrior for the Lord – like Gideon, Peter, and Paul.
Turning that around, and thinking of the controversy about the Superbowl advertisement, I cannot help thinking that the challenges all of us face, whether ordained or lay, are very much the same challenges those Christians faced all those years ago.
In fact the signs of our times are very similar to those beginning days, that first century – not least wars and conflicts. And I’m not just referring to wars and conflicts geographically, but wars and conflicts spiritually, and morally.
So a question: How did a small group of apostles evangelize their culture so that four hundred years later the Christian religion was the world’s dominant religion, and the foundation of the western civilization that we continue to enjoy? It’s a good question – and maybe it’s a lesson for us in a similar age and civilization.
In his book, The Rise of Christianity (which addresses this very subject) the American agnostic, Rodney Stark, gives two reasons for the growth of the church at the very beginning. Firstly, what Christians believed. Secondly, their faithfulness to that doctrine.
He says: “An essential factor in the religion’s success was what Christians believed“. That, of course, is exactly the point that Saint Paul is making in today’s epistle. The church through the apostles preached the Gospel, that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead.
But those early Christians didn’t just agree to a set of ideas or possibilities – believing that Gospel meant changing their whole way of thinking and living. And it was such a radical transformation that they couldn’t go on living like the people around them.
Have you ever actually thought about the final stanza in the Creed that we say every Sunday: “I believe one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”? You probably think that you are stating that you believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church – that you acknowledge it exists, and that you are a member of it.
But we don’t say: “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”. We say we actually believe one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. That is, that we believe all the Catholic Church teaches us. We believe it – we don’t just believe in it.
It’s about what we believe. What Saint Paul says has been handed on to us. What we call the tradition of the church – which this parish stands for above all other things – and the unbroken teaching of the Church.
The first Christians understood that they were members of a new worldwide community, which was the new people of God, and the Body of Christ in the world. They saw the culture around them as a culture of death, and a society slowly killing itself in despair. And of course so it did.
As we consider our calling, and follow the same Lord Jesus Christ, like Peter and Paul – we do well to consider that if the Roman Empire and its Caesars could be won for Our Lord, we can do the same like them in our own day.
What it takes is the zeal of the Gideon, the courage of Saint Paul, and the commitment of Saint Peter, to live what we claim to believe.