Sunday 13 January 2013, Epiphany 2, The Baptism of Christ, The Greatest Gift, Bruce

Welcome to week one of a four week series entitled “Just Walk Across the Room”, and to a talk entitled “The Greatest Gift”.  We do this on the Sunday when we particularly remember the baptism of Jesus by his cousin John, when Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and heard his Father’s voice.  Jesus is God’s great gift to us.  Some gifts have a real effect on us.  If I give you an alarm clock but you never set it or use it to wake you up, have your really “received” it?  If I give you a membership of a club, but you never bother to go, have you really received and valued the gift?  In the same way, God’s gift to us of his Son Jesus has a profound effect on any one who receives him.  In the words of our collect today, we “recognise him to be our Lord”.  Our attitudes and lifestyles will be changed as we become more like Jesus.

Epiphany is the missionary season of the church’s year.  We celebrate the glory of Christ shining out, and our part in it.  If we have received the gift, so we also recognise that we have the greatest gift to pass on.  The single greatest gift we can give people is an introduction to the God who created them, who loves them, who has a purpose for their life.

We are talking about evangelism.  I can imagine that this will raise all sorts of emotions, and possibly fears, in the hearts of many here this morning.  I am not talking about learning a method or a complicated formula, or going out of your way to be embarrassed or humiliated.  What if I were to suggest that it is as simple as taking a walk across a room?  The course is based on a book of that title written by Bill Hybels.  In it he relates the true story of an Afro-American man whose life was changed when a stranger extricated himself from the circle of friends he was with, walked across the room, and extended the hand of friendship.

How do we go about sharing the greatest gift?

The first point is to be willing to enter the Zone of the Unknown.  Just to talk to someone we do not know can seem uncomfortable.  Bill seems to suggest that there is a reserve we must overcome, and he is from Chicago.  We Brits might find it even harder!  We all find it easier in a group of familiar faces.  Even groups of clergy tend to stick together.  This is very human, natural, understandable.  But I believe that if we are really made in the image of God, and wanting to be like his Son Jesus, then we are called to leave the comfortable place and enter the Zone of the Unknown.  We have the greatest gift, and we want to pass it on.  This is for every one of us.

But we might quite naturally be concerned that we will make a mistake and get things wrong.  Yes we might, unless we have some help and guidance.  We are learning to listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  Did you notice that an essential part of Jesus’ baptism was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?  Did you notice our first reading from Acts 8? 

“¹⁴ When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria.¹⁵ When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, ¹⁶ because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”

It seems that it was inconceivable in the early church for them to exist without a living experience of the Holy Spirit.  A little later in the service I will say to you “The Lord is here!”  and you will respond “His Spirit is with us!”  He is the one who inhabits our praise and helps us as we meet Jesus at his table.  He is also the one who is with us and in us as we go to work or go shopping, to the gym or to a club, care for the children or grandchildren, drive a car or ride a bus.  He is the one who is changing us to be like Jesus.  One of his top priorities is to change us into “walk across the room” people, who will follow Jesus and share him with our families and friends, neighbours and colleagues.  Every single one of us. 

But how?

Just remember that we are walking in the Spirit every day.  It is not that I happen to be a Christian and I happen also to play golf; I might be a follower of Jesus who plays golf with my friends.  It is not that I am a Christian and I happen also to shop regularly at “….” Supermarket; I am a follower of Jesus who is taking the presence of Jesus with me amongst the shoppers and staff.  Whether I am in an office or in school, at the surgery or riding a horse, wherever I am, I am walking with Jesus.  I am salt in the world, a light shining in the darkness.  Salt can be very useful in purifying and cleansing, but not if we keep it closed up in the container.  It needs to come into contact where it is needed.

Now if you are anything like me, you will be uncomfortable at the thought of sharing Christ’s love with others, because I am such a bad advertisement for Jesus.  To use an out of date analogy, I do not always do what it says on the tin; I am concerned that my life does not adequately reflect the faith I would love to share.  The heart of the gospel is that we are not good enough.  We were never good enough, and we never will be, at least in this life.  But God has demonstrated his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 8:5)  We walk across the room, not to say how wonderful we are, or our church is, but how wonderful Jesus is.

He is wonderful because he made the same walk.  In the familiar passage from Philippians 2 we are asked to have the same attitude of mind that Christ Jesus had:

⁶Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a human being,
    he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

In other words, Jesus left his Zone of Comfort – heaven, glory, the Trinity, and came to live on earth in a way that was far from comfortable.  So this brings us to our third point: Just Walk!  He lived this out again and again as, prompted by the Holy Spirit, he had encounters with many sorts of people.  On one occasion he deliberately separated himself from his circle of friends and disciples, to spend time with a disreputable woman, who was also a Samaritan.  At first she argued and changed the subject, but I get the impression that Jesus was happy just to talk to her and see what his Father God would do.  You can read about it in John 4.  When you do, you will see that what started in an unpromising way ended with many people from her village coming to find out more about this man, who spoke to her in such a special way.

You might imagine that, years later, the Christian community in that village might have asked themselves the question, how did we become Christians?  And one of them might have responded that it all started with that man, Jesus, who took a walk from his comfort zone to meet a woman who was on the edge, to share God’s love.

I know from my own experience that this is not easy.  We live busy lives with lots going on.  But I do encourage you to take seriously the fact that we have received the greatest gift – Jesus, and we can do our part in sharing that gift with others.

As I close, I wonder if you would like to cast your mind back.  Was there a person who “walked across the room” for you, who helped you in your path to meet Jesus, to encounter God and grow in Him?  Let us give thanks for all those who have shared the love of Jesus with us, and let us also pray that we can become people who share Jesus with others.

Amen.