CHURCHES TOGETHER IN PORTSMOUTH
OASIS CENTRE
SUNDAY 28th MARCH 2004
‘What it is to be made in the image of Christ?’
Reading: Luke 4:14-30
Whenever I am asked questions about what I believe, I do three things. The first is to try to understand who is asking the question, and therefore why they are asking it. The second is to look at my own life, and see from the people I have met and the things that I have experienced what might cast a small ray of light on what is being discussed. The third is to look at the Scriptures, hopefully the gospels, in order to find an event, or some teaching, in which Jesus can speak to us in all our enquiring frailty.
So let me begin by looking at the question: – who is asking me – us – tonight, what it means to be made in the image of Christ? At one level, it is the churches of the centre of Portsmouth who are looking at this theme at this particular stage in Lent. Lent is an old English word for Spring – and the springtime of our faith is when we look at green shoots sprouting in the barren soil of winter. There are fewer gardens in Portsmouth than there are up in Fareham, where I live. But there is still the experience of new hope being born out of darkness and the fact that Christians from different traditions meet together in order to rediscover what we have in common. You could, therefore, say that part of what it means to be made in the image of Christ is to recognise each other as our brothers and sisters in Christ. And for me there is always one prayer which makes it possible to say just that – the Lord’s Prayer: tucked away in the very centre of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13), it begins with those crashing words, Our Father – which may slip across the tongue but still makes the claim that, together, we are children of God, no less. To discover that common truth, is a way of saying that the Name of God is to be made holy by the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will. Not just in heaven, but on earth as well, among us; which means the earthly rhythm of looking at ourselves where we are now, and asking for bread for today, forgiveness for yesterday, and protection for the future. So the question, ‘who is asking what it is to be made in the image of Christ?’ comes from us.
But it also comes from other people. We know that, as stumbling, faithful Christians, we are a small minority of the population of Portsmouth. There are many who we can reach, by the kind of contact and networking that is possible in our various congregations; and there are opportunities, too, to reach many people through the media, like the occasional ‘Pause for Thought’ on the Quay Radio. I am not the sort of person who finds it easy to judge the sometime silent ‘Nicodemus Christians’, who (as it were) come to Jesus by night (John 3:1 ff), because they are too shy to come by day, although I am aware that there are some Christians who would be more confident than I could ever be in making claims about them in relation to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Christian enterprise is not about us cosying up to each other against a world that we must regard as essentially hostile. Many people are asking us questions that can be summarised as ‘what does it mean to be made in the image of Christ?’ They may not put it exactly that way, but as with all sharp questions, they want to know why we believe what we believe, and what it is that makes the difference in the way we live and the way we behave. By our very divisions we do not look very impressive. From the way we are sometimes publicly portrayed, people look for sharp contrasts, with one opinion put radically against another. We often seem unable to get our act together, because we cannot agree on everything.
The fact that we cannot always agree leads me to my second line of approach – my own experience. The trouble, however, is that my experience is limited, and I cannot tell the whole story! I am, frankly, very conscious that if I were to stop the sermon now, and ask each one of you about the stories in your own lives that say something about how you are made in the image of Christ, the results would be rich and varied. (You will have your chance later!) Some will speak in a very articulate way – there is always a great deal of talking among Christians. Others will find it less easy to put these things into words – either because they are a bit shy, or because the deep things of their life are so deep that they don’t want to go further than acknowledge that it’s all there. Not everyone wants to discuss their faith, and many people would rather look at how it is all to be put into practice.
My experiences may not be helpful at all. But the one I want to describe tonight takes me back thirty years to my first months of ordination. I was working in a Lincolnshire market town, and inherited from my predecessor a list of people to visit once a month and given them communion. One of them – let’s call him John – was bed-ridden, a widower, whose family life had, to all intents and purposes, collapsed. A few friends came to see him occasionally, over and above the home-help. And along comes this young, green curate, to do his bit; open up the Communion set, light the candles, hand him the little service card; and go through a procedure that echoes Christian practice in countless different situations from the Last Supper onwards. Then afterwards there was another routine: I put it all away, made two cups of coffee, and smoked a cigarette with him (I am not really a smoker, but it was expected of me, so I did). Like many really old people, events from the distant past were more vivid to him than what took place the day before yesterday. He talked about being in the Artillery in the African Desert in the Second World War – where most of the fathers of the children I knew as a boy had fought as well (my father had to be different – he was an Intelligence Officer!).
I learnt a lot from these visits. It was more a case of him ministering to me than me ministering to him. He died after only a few months, and his was the first dead body I ever saw. That was very special for me. It made me realise what the resurrection really meant for the first time. If God really is God, then death cannot be the end; and all our limitations, even to the extent of falling out with each other, can be signs of new life – our physical death being the ultimate sign. John and I did not talk deep theology, nor did I ask him if he was saved. It was all taken for granted in a beautiful but severely practical – and serious – way. And that little testimony, is, I am afraid the best that I can offer you tonight.
Which brings me to the third line of approach – the Scriptures. Here, I don’t have the burden of choice – because that wonderful passage about Jesus at the synagogue in Nazareth has been set for our service (Luke 4:16-30). It is in many ways a strange episode. Jesus has been baptised (Luke 3:21-22), and full of the Spirit, he has gone into the wilderness to be tested, tempted (Luke 4:1-13). Now, once more (we are told) filled with the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14), he back goes to Galilee, where his reputation grows, and where he attends the synagogues to teach (Luke 4:15). We then read what amounts to a short drama. The setting is the synagogue in Nazareth, where he is best known of all, because that is where he grew up. The passage set for that particular Saturday is from Isaiah 61:1-2 –‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me’ – which we’ve been told earlier in the Gospel is exactly what has happened to Jesus, at his baptism. Then he preaches what has been described as the shortest sermon ever given – only nine words; ‘today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:23).
People begin to react – favourably, at first: isn’t this Joseph’s son? (Luke 4:22). Jesus explains himself, with a challenge: do they just want a repeat of whatever happened in Capernaum up the road (Luke 3:23)? In other words, do just that (some teaching, or a miracle? - we don’t know what it was), and that will be enough. Jesus sees through them: and it is so important for us not only to see through each other, our facades, the way we play games with one another, pretending that all is well, or else are victims of life one way or another. It is even more important that we let Jesus see through us. For he goes on to tell the Nazareth community how during a severe famine Elijah, the first great prophet of Israel, went right outside the community of faith, to the widow at Zarephath, in Sidon, who fed him, (I Kings 17:8-16); and when it came to cleansing lepers, it was Naaman the Syrian, another non-Jew, who alone received Elijah’s ministry of healing (2 Kings 5: 1-14). When Jesus tells them of these incidents, the relationship between him and his own people breaks down. They are unable to understand his message; and although they want to do away with him, he somehow slips out of their grasp (Luke 4: 29-30). Why? For the simple but very threatening reason that Jesus is not there to cosy-up to people, with a repeat performance of whatever he said and did in Capernaum, according to the religious gossip of the area. Just as Elijah went right outside his own people in his ministry, so Jesus will do exactly that in his; and we must remember that this is Luke’s gospel, the only non-Jewish evangelist, who among many other things gives us those parables about the lost sheep (Lk 15:307) and the prodigal son, (Lk 15:11-32).
That Jesus’ own Nazareth community rejects him is not anti-semitic, or anti-Jewish – in the way that Mel Gibson’s new film as been criticised. (Every ten years or so, it would seem, there is some new life of Christ dramatised or filmed that attracts some controversy). The message is loud and clear. The good news of Jesus Christ is not the private possession of the Church. We are, therefore, not called to be a holy ghetto of the doctrinally sound. We are called to be disciples – and that means that we have to hear the good news, as well and keep hearing it, and hearing it again, always ready to see something fresh and challenging about what we believe, and the way we put it into practice. Perhaps it means becoming more ambitious – in the best spiritual sense of the word – about the way we try to follow Christ, so that we talk less, act more, and pray constantly.
That is surely what it means to be made in the image of Christ.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
