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AT
HOLY TRINITY
SLOANE SQUARE
5 OCTOBER 2008
5 October 2008
The Revd Rob Gillion
First Sermon as Rector of
Holy Trinity Sloane Square
was rejected he rose triumphant. And we also know that his Knowing I was going to have to clamber up these stairs every
death and resurrection enables us, you and me, to make a Sunday morning I thought I ought to get fitter, but the first
new start with God. thing that the doctor did was to take out her stethoscope and
listen to my heart to discover if it was beating soundly. Can it
So Jesus is, as the Bishop of Durham Tom Wright once said, deliver the blood to the whole body so that every different part
is ‘a fresh grass growing through the concrete of corruption can flourish? So far so good. If I take that analogy to my
and decay in the old world.’ God’s big picture is the Jesus spiritual condition the same thing applies. Is my heart beat,
who has transformed people. We might fail as tenants in beating to the rhythm of Christ’s heart? I need a daily check-
God’s vineyard but we are given a second chance to find our up. Same thing applies if I then look at any local church, any
purpose and to recover our role. So our hope, my hope, your local body of Christians. The heart of our community is
hope, lies, doesn’t it, firmly in the person and work of Jesus centred, especially in this church of the Holy Trinity, on God in
Christ. It lies in Christ’s people to rediscover their vocation. In relationship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If this relationship is
our Epistle St Paul says: ‘I press on to take hold of that for healthy, life will flow to all other parts of the church and out to
which Christ Jesus took hold of me.’ Let us then recommit the world.
ourselves to doing that together. Let’s be God’s people
working in the vineyard of His creation to His praise and His Our relationship with God needs to be in good health, for you
glory. Amen know when Jesus was asked what the first commandments
were he said: ‘To love the Lord your God with all your heart
and soul and mind and strength and your neighbour as
yourself,’ developing that heart both in corporate and
individual aspects. We’re here together primarily to look
Godward, that’s why in a moment I shall invite you to look that
way as we go up to the Altar for the Sacrament of Holy
Communion. I haven’t turned my back on you, I’m simply
inviting you to turn with me to the transcendent God. Then I
shall come back again for the Blessing in which our hearts will
then go out, out to the world.