Sermon, Sun 11 June 'Rooted and grounded in love'...Wk42 WMRBW

Readings/ Romans 8:1-17;   Ephesians 3:14-21

SERMON …
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations
of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, 
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.

At the age of 6, his mother died.
His father, a shipping merchant, was distant
both geographically, and emotionally.
The boy grew up under the baleful eye of a stepmother
who had little love for him,
and eventually, he was sent to boarding school:
it was a miserable place, and a miserable time.

At the age of 11, he became an apprentice, joining his father on the sea.
Over time, his reputation for being headstrong and unruly grew.
Having served a tumultuous apprenticeship,
one day, while on shore leave visiting friends,
he was pressed into service in the Royal Navy.
He was deeply unhappy.
Eventually, he embarked upon his career as a slave trader,
trafficking in human misery.
This unruly sailor was notorious for his drinking, his gambling,
and especially, his language –indeed, the captain of the ship he sailed on
remarked that he was one of the most profane men he’d ever met…

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace, my fears, relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed!

Sailing one March, on the mid-Atlantic, a great storm blew up.
The wind howled, and the boat pitched violently between towering waves.
He had been standing on deck, and, mere moments after he’d moved from his place,
a great wave broke over the boat, and swept a fellow crew member overboard
who had moved to the very same spot that our sailor
had been standing on only seconds earlier.
During the course of the storm the crew urgently emptied water from the boat,
expecting it to be capsized at any minute.
He eventually lashed himself to the pump, with another sailor,
in a desperate attempt not to be washed overboard
like his fellow crew member earlier.
Along with everyone else aboard,
he wondered not if, but, just when the boat would capsize,
and, if they’d manage to get out of this alive.
‘Lord have mercy on us,’ he said, from his place at the pump –
a place he stayed for the next eleven dreadful hours…
a place where he wondered, in the midst of that storm, about God’s mercy.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
‘tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.

Two weeks after that terrible storm, the much-battered ship,
along with its half-starving crew, limped into a port in Ireland.
Had God been merciful to him?
He began to ask deeper questions of God, and of himself:
was he worthy of God’s love and mercy?
Was he even worth redeeming?
He thought about his life,
of the many terrible things he’d done,
of his mocking of others for having faith,
of his laughing at the very thought of God’s existence…
and yet…in the midst of the storm, when he was in fear and distress,
it was God he’d cried out to.
Was God trying to tell him something –
what was this change he was experiencing in his internal landscape?
Eventually, he cast his lot in with this God who, for whatever reason,
saw fit to love even a wretch like him.
‘He’ was John Newton – the author of the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’.

As he grew in the knowledge of God’s love and grace,
he grew more certain that to love God and to be involved in the slave trade
were mutually incompatible.
It was illness that put an end to his sailing career.
And, when back on land, his mind turned to the study of theology and the bible…
Eventually, he became a priest –
well known for his pastoral care and for his preaching,
which was so popular that the congregation added a gallery to the church
to accommodate all the people who flocked to hear him.

John Newton’s life was radically transformed by the love of God:
he grew to understand that, through God’s Spirit,
he was not meant to live as someone condemned –
rather, that the Spirit set him free …to live.
He grew to understand that, as his mind began to turn more to the God who loved him,
so God’s Spirit brought him peace.
He grew to understand that he belonged to God:
a precious son –
in a relationship with the One who created the universe and yet,
who he could call ‘Daddy’, so close was that bond of love.
As he grew in faith, as he became more
rooted and established in God’s love, so his life changed.
With a growing sense of the all-encompassing love of God…
sensing how wide, how long, how high, and how deep this love of God was for him,
Newton turned from a life of selling human beings
to a life of serving them…

Our lives, too, are radically transformed by God’s love through the Spirit.
Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to his friends –
the Spirit who would comfort,
the Spirit who would dwell within their hearts,
the Spirit who would teach those who followed Jesus
down through the ages what God’s love was like.
Not a Spirit of condemnation – for no-one is beyond God’s love:
God’s Spirit is life-giving, life-affirming;
giving peace in times of distress and discomfort –
hearing us when we call out
‘Lord, have mercy!’,
in the midst of our own storms.
It is the Spirit who enables us to approach God in that trusting, open way,
and call him ‘Dad’ – so close is God to us...
It reminds me of that great scene near the end of the ‘Railway Children’:
Bobbie, the oldest daughter, has come to the railway station, not sure of what she’ll find –
she only knows somehow that she must go there.
The train arrives and an assortment of passengers get off
and head out of the station, getting on with their lives.
Still Bobbie stands on the platform, in amidst the fog of the steam-train…
and turns, as the fog clears, to see her father standing on the platform –
the father who had been taken from the family,
the father she thought she may never see again.
She stands, momentarily, looking at him as he smiles at her in love:
‘Daddy! My Daddy!’
and then she runs to him as he holds his arms open wide.
...I confess, it reduces me to tears every time.
But, through the Spirit, in response to God’s great love –
we too, can say ‘Daddy, my daddy.’

It’s an ongoing process –
God’s not finished with us yet –
it’s a process that takes time:
but, as we become rooted and established in God’s love,
like John Newton, we too, begin to understand, in a small way
the amazing width, length, height, and depth of God’s love for us –
a love too big to really get our heads around.
Next week, we’ll be thinking about the effect of God’s love in our lives:
to reflect on what happens when we begin to take on board God’s love for us.

The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.

And now,
‘to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us,
to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus 
throughout all generations for ever and ever… amen.’

Let’s pray:
Lord, we would grow with you
New shoots reaching out
Hands stretched upward
Like leaves newly formed 
Soaking up your light and warmth
Lord, we would grow with you

Lord, we would grow with you
In sunshine and rain
In darkness and light
In cold days and summer days
From Springtime to Winter
Lord, we would grow with you

Lord, we would grow with you
And bring forth fruit
That is pleasing to you
Fed by your living water 
Giving sustenance to others
Lord, we would grow with you… Amen.*
                                                        *prayer from 'Roots'