“…puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking…” Colossians 18.b
I almost missed this short phrase when I read through the readings for this morning. I’m glad I noticed it as I think it gives us a link between the three readings set for today. Basically, what the phrase says; is ‘don’t let your ideas make you proud or arrogant’. There are echoes here of Christ’s teaching; that human ways are not necessarily the ways of God. Yet, all too often, the Church over the last two millennia has forgotten this and has tried to assert human ways over the ways of God. One only has to ponder on the commandment to:
‘Love one’s neighbour, as one’s self’
and how that has been used and misused by Christians. For example, many ‘God-fearing’ practicing Christians owned slaves; and many male Christians believed it was right to subdue and treat women as inferiors. We humans can be very good at deciding that our ways are better than God’s. It’s something Genesis tells us that we have always done.
The sin of Sodom was inhospitality. The young men were not welcomed to the city as God would have expected. There were those who sought to ‘use’ them for their own ends. To be blunt the mob wanted to rape them. An act used by men to subdue and humiliate enemies and those they did not know. Rape has nothing to do with an individual’s sexuality, it is a violent act of aggression and in Sodom’s case inhospitality to strangers. In fact if you read the tale in Genesis it gets worse with Lot offering his daughters to the mob to stop the ill treatment of the male visitors. You could not be inhospitable to men but women!!! A human way of thinking where women, were not valued as much as men.
Abraham, pleads to God that he might save the city if 10 good men were found to dwell in it. Sadly, those 10 could not be found and only Lot and his family escape and to be frank Lot had plenty to be ashamed about but God was prepared to give him a second chance because of Abraham’s pleading.
God is very good at giving us second chances and we can see this all the time in our lives but the ultimate second chance he has given us is Jesus, his Son. The one we rejected and ill treated but who still saved us. We humans, need to remember who Jesus is and what he has done for us, what he has taught us and what he continues to teach us but we also need to beware. St.Paul says:
“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.” Colossians 2:8
Simply put; ‘Prefer nothing to the ways of Christ’. False prophets and social media influencers, self-obsessed politicians and the like all try to sway our minds and show us their ways, rather than the ways of God. Ways that they convince us are the true path but are in reality ways of controlling others and destroying hospitality and goodness.
This sermon has been rather gloomy thus far and you might be thinking that we are doomed and we can do nothing to change things. we can always change things and Jesus tells us how - by prayer. Prayer is something we Christians are called to do daily, and I suspect all of you here this morning do this. As St.Luke tells us Jesus taught his disciples and followers how to pray in the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Obviously, Jesus didn’t call it that it is a name we have given to his words and instructions. It’s a good name and one that we can relate to easily and it’s a prayer we can remember.
It was probably the first prayer you ever learnt, as it was me and it remains a prayer I say more than daily. It is a prayer that encourages, comforts, and sets our cares and concerns before God in a succinct way. It is also a prayer with the power to change things by the hope it can give us. As we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are opening ourselves to God and those for whom we are praying too. God always has an ear open for our prayers and is always will send his grace upon his Creation. As Luke reminds us:
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11: 18
There is nothing God cannot do, especially when we ask him on the behalf of others and he even doesn’t mind us asking for ourselves too. When we pray, for others we are caring for them and not forgetting them. This is a form of hospitality and God loves a generous giver, one who is welcoming to the stranger, the widow and the orphan to quote other passages of Scripture.
So don’t leave Church today, gloomy after this sermon; instead take heart and know that when we welcome and pray for others we meet God in them and we follow the ways Jesus taught us.