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From: Fr HC Smith <howard.smith@anglican.org.au><br>
To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic@ecunet.org><br>
Sent: Wed, May 4, 2011 4:30 pm<br>
Subject: [propertalk.topic] 3rd of Easter, New Testament reading<br>
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<div style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fff; MARGIN: 0px; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; COLOR: #000; FONT-SIZE: 12px" id=AOLMsgPart_0_e1026d70-7539-4f93-816d-db8de8007b4a><PRE style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt"><TT>Friends,
Here are my notes from the southern hemisphere towards a sermon on the
reading from Peter for this Sunday. Use whatever suits you.
Howard
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* Today we start the 3rd week of Easter - the 3rd week in which we keep
on remembering the great events on that first Easter Day in the 1st century,
how Jesus rose to new life;
+ And as we celebrate this great happening, the Church keeps on
helping us to discover what it means for us now in the 3rd millennium.
+ This week we are reminded of God’s gifts of faith and hope
again, and are told about another gift which grows out of our
faith and our hope: the gift of love.
+ Hope is a gift which keeps us looking to the future, so that we
don't allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by all the bad things in the
present.
+ But nevertheless we do still have to live in the present, so
Peter addresses the question: how can we do that better?
- Peter’s advice today is to "keep on loving with all your heart".
+ And whom are we to try to love with all our heart? God's
answer seems to be we are to "love one another".
+ I reckon that means the people who are around about us, to start with,
- and then perhaps when we have done that we can try to
reach out to people on the other side of the world;
- but if we can't love the people we come across every day,
then it's not really going to be possible to love the people on
the other side of the world.
+ Now when we find it hard to love those nearby people, God
doesn’t leave us floundering, but gives us a little bit more help;
- we are told today that we have been given a ‘new birth’ by
God's message which lives on for ever.
+ What on earth do those strange words mean?
+ Well, this letter of Peter is thought to be the bones of a sermon
used at the baptism of new members of the family of God back
at the end of the 1st century.
+ So, the “new birth” referred to here most probably is referring to our
baptism.
+ I reckon this is telling us that because Jesus rose from the
dead, and sort of had a new beginning, all the rest of us who
have been baptised into his death and resurrection, have
been given another chance, a ‘new birth’:
+ But so we don’t let that make us despair - I mean we’ve all
slipped a number of times since we were baptised,
- the Church has always taught us that repenting and making
confession is a way of refreshing the effects of that ‘new birth’ of
our baptism.
+ Just think what being born is all about: "Birth" is all about
starting life: babies get born and their life is waiting for them to get
going.
+ Now applying that to our situation, it means that whenever we
let God's message into our hearts,
- whenever we wash away the mistakes by confessing our sins,
- God gives us another opportunity to start living the life of
the Heavenly Kingdom, the life of God’s New World, once
more: the life of loving one another with all our heart.
+ Everyone knows that we need to do something about making
the world a better place to live in:
- Well, that's just what we are doing when we love one another,
- like when we do good to others, rather than pushing people around,
- like when we don't try to force people to do things, but
persuade, invite, encourage them;
- like when we hold back from being violent or abusive towards other
people,
- but do all we can to understand where they’re coming from
and do all we can to help them.
* So God’s gift of love is all about bringing the gift of hope, the gift
of the future, into the present: making this world more like the Kingdom of
Heaven, letting our vision of God’s great future invade the places where we
live, work and play, in the present
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Rev'd Dr H.C. Smith
Retired Anglican Priest
Orange NSW
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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