28 July 2024 is the Tenth Sunday after Pentcost. Today’s service is led by our Minister, Rev. Geoff McKee.
Below you will find the main Scripture reading from the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Ephesian Church (from the New Testament).
The theme for today is essentially “Unity in the Church”.
Today’s main reading from the Bible which forms the basis of the sermon
Ephesians 3:14-21 (From The Message translation of the Bible)
14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
No full recording of service from Lossiemouth Church of Scotland today
We’re sorry there was a technical issue and we did not pick up either vision or audio on our recording, unfortunately.
In substitution, please find the text of Geoff’s sermon and an audio (phone) recording of Geoff’s children’s address – discussing the start of the 2024 Olympics in France and Emil Macron’s meeting with French Rugby star, Antoine Dupont.
Ephesians 3:14-21 – Sermon
Our Bible reading in Ephesians today takes us to the heart of Paul’s sermon to the Ephesians, for that is surely what it is.
All good sermons are prayers – for there is the implicit recognition in the preacher’s words that all is offered to God on behalf of the people. Here we have a beautiful offering from the apostle Paul.
A bit of context for today’s reading…
The text begins with the words “for this reason” and as the lectionary has omitted the previous verses we would be quite right to ask the question – for what reason? For what reason does Paul bow before his heavenly Father? Well, looking back at the earlier chapters we learn that the great mystery that God was now revealing related to the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s plan of salvation. And their
inclusion was on exactly the same basis as the Jews – the undeserved love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The Gentiles were not admitted to God’s family via the back door. Their’s is not a second class citizenship but instead they are welcomed as brothers and sisters, for this is the family of God.
Paul began the text this week with, “for this reason I bow my knees before the Father (pater), from whom every family (patria) in heaven and on earth takes its name. The word ‘patria’ is rare in the New Testament. Normally it means tribe or lineage, but here it has the extended sense of family. All descended, so to speak, from the Father.
And so Paul will argue strongly, as he expands his thinking through Ephesians, that there cannot be two families of the one God. There is only one family and so do not try to segregate or discriminate. If you do that you will tell the world a lie about the nature of your God, who is one. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in God’s family. This was the mystery that is now being revealed to the world and it has
life changing implications for all who are willing to take it seriously.
Last month, we had friends visiting us from Germany.
It was very interesting listening to their experiences of living in a rapidly changing Germany through the latter half of the twentieth century – the coming down of the Berlin Wall and the challenges of change for the former DDR.
But it was another topic of conversation that stayed with me.
One of our friends was describing her sense of despair when the grave of a loved one was, unbeknown to her, emptied of remains
and re-used after a number of years. Apparently if annual grave fees are not paid the ground is re-claimed. I could hardly believe this, but apparently, this is common practice in Germany. To me, this is an example of the fracture of patria that I referred to a few minutes ago. A breaking and separating of precious ties for people – just because people no longer breath, does not mean that they no longer live in the hearts and minds of those left and the earth bears an important witness.
For Paul, that’s exactly what some Jewish believers in Jesus Christ were doing whether consciously or not.
And we mustn’t diminish how difficult it would be for them to accept this newly revealed mystery. They had a complex system of rules and regulations that had been adapted over the years to reflect the new circumstances that the people found themselves in. They were a very adaptable people and they had survived some very great traumas. They were not going to very readily dispense with these securities and identify markers for the sake of including peoples and races who had previously persecuted them. That was very
understandable.
Paul needed to progress carefully with them.
How was he going to do that? – by praying for them.
Prayer changes those being prayed for and it changes the one who prays.
CS Lewis was the author of the widely read children’s books,
He wrote the Narnia Chronicles, as well as many novels for grown-ups and books on issues surrounding the Christian faith.
The movie Shadowlands (directed by Richard Attenborough and produced in 1993) told Lewis’ story, focusing in particular on his relationship with his wife, Joy Gresham. Gresham and Lewis meet while Lewis was a don at Oxford University. After Joy was diagnosed with cancer the couple married.
The movie invited us to witness their love, their pain, their grief, their struggles with faith and God.
Eventually Joy died.
At one point in the story a friend said to Lewis, “Christopher can scoff, Jack, but I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.” Lewis replied; “That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.”
Prayer changes those being prayed for and it changes the one who prays.
REV. GEOFF MCKEE
Paul had been gifted the revelation of the mystery of God, that God was for the world and not just the Jewish people.
For that gift to be handed on Paul had to be convinced of it himself and he had to set about convincing his own people.
Jesus told the story of two sons and their father. The youngest son wanted to live life to the full and to live it now. He didn’t want to wait on the good things so he asked for his inheritance from his father now. It was a shameful thing to do but his father granted his wish. Off he went and squandered the money until in his deprivation and despair he came back to his father.
Instead of refusing to receive him his father welcomed him back joyfully with open arms. But here comes the telling part of the story.
The older brother, the other son, was disgusted.
Disgusted with his wee brother and therefore disgusted with his father.
This story – which we know as the parable of the Prodigal Son – would have been penned shortly after the apostle Paul wrote Ephesians.
But it is of the same era and context.
Inclusion is important to God.
It demands a change of mind and a change of life for those who are being challenged to receive it.
The Jewish struggled with it and we must not kid ourselves that we find it any easier because one of the tragedies of the human condition is that we are very good also at condemning some people to live ‘in the cupboard under the stairs’.
We must not tolerate that kind of behaviour but instead we must comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ.
Amen.
Children’s address: The 2024 Olyimpics, Emil Macron and Antoine Dupont
