If
you are a guest or here for the first time today, I want to extend a special
welcome to you. It is great to have you here and I hope you feel at home.
On 12
August 2016 I had the privilege and honour of conducting Maggie and Joe’s
wedding right here in this church.
I have to say, I have rarely seen a more radiant bride, a more delighted
groom and, if I can say this, a more emotional bride’s father. It was quite a
day. And it’s wonderful to see that Maggie and Joe have been busy since their
wedding day! Welcome to little Jack.
It was clear for all to see on 12 August two years ago that
Maggie and Joe had met the love of their lives. It’s just written all over
their faces, isn’t it?
But how do you know
when you have met the love of your life? How can you tell if he or she is the one?
Listen to this true story told by a young man called Paul Grachan in a book called Mysterious Ways.
He says, I couldn’t stop thinking about Esther. My spirit soared
at the sight of her. We laughed whenever we were together. But, I don’t know. Should
I really invite her to dinner on Friday and ask her to be my girlfriend? What
if she doesn’t like me? It’ll be pretty awkward eating dessert together…
While on my lunch break, as I was thinking about this, I went
for a sandwich and as I was about to pay, I glanced at the $1 bill in my hand.
Something was written on it. I took a closer look.
It was
the word “Esther.” What were the chances? Could this be a sign?! I paid with
another bank note and, heading back to the office, I had an idea. I went into a
shop, bought a small picture frame and put the note inside. I’ll invite Esther
out on Friday night, I thought, and if she agrees to be my girlfriend, I’ll give
her this framed banknote.
That Friday, Esther told me she’d love to be my girlfriend. And
as we basked in the glow of our new relationship, (quick status update on
Facebook…) I pushed a box of pretty wrapped paper across the table. “I have a
present for you” I said.
Aw, how sweet, said Esther. She tore off the paper, opened the
box, held up the frame and stared at it.
Yeah, it was the craziest thing I said, telling her how I had
discovered that $1 bill. But she just kept staring at it. Finally, she looked back
at me – but not with a smile. She appeared shocked, even confused. It
definitely wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.
I thought she’d laugh. But she slipped the frame into her
handbag. She seemed so out of sorts I didn’t dare to press her about it.
Anyway, about two years later, we were married and moving into a
new flat together. While unpacking, I came across that framed $1 bill. I didn’t
even know she’d kept it.
Hey, you never told me about this, I said. You acted really strangely
when I gave it to you. What was that about? This time, as Esther took the
frame, she smiled.
Here’s the story, she said. A few years before we met, I was
working as a cashier at a printing shop. It was a slow day, I was bored, and I
started thinking, how do you know when you’ve met the love of your life? And I had
an idea. I wrote my name ‘Esther’ on a $1 bill and I gave it out the next time
I had to give change. And I said a prayer that somehow that $1 bill would end
up with the man I would go on to marry!
I love that story because, well, everyone loves a romance with a
happy ending, but also because it reminds me of how amazing God is.
What were the chances of that $1 bill, of all the bank notes in
the country, ending up with the man Esther would marry and who would actually give
it back to her framed, without knowing? But that was Esther’s prayer and God
heard it and answered it.
This
morning’s theme, as we look over these few weeks at the attributes of God, is
“God our Sovereign.” That means he’s the king. He rules and he reigns. Nothing
is too hard for him. Nothing takes him by surprise. He has no rival, and no
equal.
As our second reading says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! From him
and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory for ever!”
God
is sovereign and almighty and awesome and majestic - but he doesn’t sit aloof
and at a distance, arms folded, and blame us when we drift away from him. He
doesn’t wash his hands of us when we mess up, saying that we’re just too much
trouble. When we are a long way from where we know we should be, he goes out to
find us.
About a hundred years ago, an American missionary called William
Young took the gospel to the tribes of East Burma. He learned the language and
one day he was preaching in a marketplace.
And as he preached, some men at the edge of the crowd from the
Lahu tribe pushed their way to the front. And overflowing with emotion they
said, “We’ve been waiting for you for centuries. We have prophecies that tell
us that a white man will come with a book from God, and will set us free.
We have even built meeting places ready for you to come. You
must come with us now.” Then they showed him bracelets that they wore. They
said, “We Lahu have worn these rope bracelets since time immemorial. They are
placed on us at birth. They symbolise our bondage to evil.
And we know that you alone as the messenger of the one God can
cut these from our wrists, when you have brought us the message from the book
of the one creator God. In 1904, William Young baptized 2,200 Lahu
tribespeople. In the next few years after that he baptized another 60,000.
In our baptism liturgy
earlier, I said, “We all wander far from God and lose our way: Jesus comes to find us and welcomes us home.“
Like
the shepherd of 100 sheep who notices that one is missing, and who goes out of
his way to look for it and find it. This is what God is like. A king who knows
every one of his subjects personally.
We
stress over things we lose – or might lose. A wallet or keys or travellers’
cheques. Or, more seriously, our job or the house, or our health. But the most
precious thing we can lose is our own soul – to be far from God and not know
the way back.
I
hope and pray that Jack will grow up knowing that God loves him and is for him.
He is too young to understand this now. But when he gets a little older, and becomes
more aware of spiritual things, he will have
to make a spiritual decision for himself – like we do as adults; yes or no, for
or against. Because his baptism doesn’t make him a Christian; it brings him
into the community of faith but he will have to decide for himself one day
whether he wants to stay or leave.
Your
job as parents and godparents and our job as the church here at Saint Mary’s is
to do all we can to help Jack make the right choice. Let’s pray for him, love him,
tell him how amazing God is and how much Jesus loves him.
Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 7 October 2018
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