“A BRAND
FROM THE BURNING” – AN ALDERSGATE SUNDAY SERMON
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This sermon was preached Readings: Zech
3, Jn 15:9-17 Left: John Wesley |
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Zechariah 3:2b
“Is this not a brand snatched from the burning?”
The Book
of Zechariah was written during the exile of the Israelites in Babylon.
It
contains God’s promise to his people in exile –
telling
them that the temple of Jerusalem will be rebuilt.
The people deserve the trials which have befallen them –
they
have been sinful and faithless – but they will be saved.
This particular verse refers to Joshua the High Priest.
Like his people, he too will be rescued -
like a piece of wood snatched out of a blazing fire –
he is a brand snatched from the burning.
He is to be rescued so that he can live to do God’s will.
This is
always God’s way.
Always
God’s people fail him –
we
are sinful and selfish,
we
are not worthy to gather up the crumbs which fall from the Lord’s table.
Yet
always God is watching over us –
and
when the flames threaten to consume us he rescues us,
and
says “You are my precious child and I will never leave you to perish –
you
are my precious child and I have work for you to do”.
Today is Aldersgate Sunday.
To those outside the Methodist tradition, that may not
mean a lot.
It is the day when we give special thanks for the life of
John Wesley,
who was the founder of the Methodist
Church.
Wesley lived from 1703 to 1792.
He grew up in a village in North Lincolnshire called
Epworth –
I know it well – my grandparents were farmers in the next
village.
John Wesley’s father was the Anglican Priest.
When John Wesley 5 years old the rectory caught fire –
or possibly, as his father was a
very unpopular vicar – it was set on fire.
Everyone escaped – until that is the horrified parents,
counting up their many children,
discovered they were one short –
little John was still in the
building.
Rushing back, they found him standing in an upstairs
window –
some bystanders pulled him to safety.
So it was that in future years
John Wesley frequently referred to himself as “a brand
from the burning” –
someone plucked by God from the
flames.
His mother firmly believed that little John
had been spared especially that he
might be used by God.
All the Rectory books were destroyed in the fire,
but according to tradition on the
next morning,
one scrap of charred paper was found
swirling around the stack yard –
it was a fragment of the Rectory
bible, containing the words
“Take up thy cross and follow me”.
So the Wesleys came to believe
that God had saved John,
that he might take up his cross and do
the Lord’s work.
Yet not
just the High Priest in Jerusalem,
not
just Wesley in the Rectory –
God
watches over us all – ready to pull us from the fire
and give us a a temple to
build, cross to carry, his work to do.
And from
generation to generation, God saves and calls his people.
We thank
God for all the Saints,
·
We
give thanks for all who have died in the Lord’s service,
remembering especially today John Wesley
·
We
give thanks for all those who continue to work alongside us –
today particularly we rejoice with Ernest
as he celebrates 60 years as one of Mr Wesley’s Preachers -
And as we
give thanks for the great list of saints past and present,
So we ask
what God wants us to do in the future.
·
And
maybe someone here today might be
·
hearing
that call to ordained ministry today –
if so – its a huge responsibility but a huge privilege -
please talk to me or Ernest or one of the other minsters here today…
·
But
salvation and call are not just for the ordained ministers -
everyone of us – ordained or lay – is called to take up our cross and do God’s
work
As
today’s set Gospel reading puts it –
You have not chosen me – I chose you –
and I have appointed you to bear fruit, to love each other.
We may no
longer believe (as Wesley did)
in the literal torments of eternal hellfire –
but we all know (if we are honest)
how often we contribute to hell on earth for ourselves and for others.
·
Sometimes
by active wrong,
we stoke the fires of evil and suffering
·
Often
by thoughtless indifference,
we simply allow the blaze to grow unchecked.
Did you see Tuesday’s Independent?
Tuesday’s edition of the paper had a guest editor, Bono of
U2
Bono commissioned a cover from Damien Hirst
–
it featured a cross made of icons: a skull,
praying hands, a syringe, some pills and, a dove.
The deeply ironic
headline said simply, ‘NO NEWS TODAY’ –
but then beneath it in deceptively small print –
the punchline footnote:
‘Just 6,500 Africans died today as a result of a preventable, treatable
disease.’
And
above the cross a Biblical reference, Genesis 1.27.
So God created man in his own image,
There is
our shame as a human race –
we
are made in God’s image to be like him,
and
yet so often we ignore the suffering of so many…..
We watch
or even stoke the fire,
and find ourselves engulfed by the flames.
·
So
we thank God how long long ago,
he spoke to the exiles in Babylon and said:
I will not give up on you and your people –
Even tough you have done wrong,
I will rescue you from the fire of evil
like a brand plucked from the burning fire
and give you my work to do.
·
We
thank God that he called John Wesley from a rectory fire
and said: I have work for you to do -
to fight slavery, to visit the prisoners,
the poor and the destitute, and to preach Christ –
·
We
thank God that he has called Ernest
to bring God’s Word and God’s love to his world for 60 years and more
·
We
thank God that he calls us –
that he points us to the heartache and sin and suffering of our generation –
and says “I have chosen you” – to bear the fruits of the Gospel
and to show God’s love in the world.
So I will save you like a brand from the burning –
Now see what the Scripture says to you -
“Take up your cross – and follow me.”