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SELECTED SERMONS

AT
HOLY TRINITY
SLOANE SQUARE

5 OCTOBER 2008

FIRST SERMON AS RECTOR OF


HOLY TRINITY

THE REVD ROB GILLION

Other sermons are also available on the


Holy Trinity website
www.holytrinitysloanesquare.co.uk
A Sermon for the
Twentieth Sunday After Trinity

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.

Building a meaningful and passionate relationship with God


himself, that’s the real thing and that’s not to be faked, that
has depth which is going to withstand the pressures and the
hardships. When our roof, as it were, leaks we need to
strengthen ourselves and get practical and down to earth. it requires effort and sometimes pain for we are to be athletes
There then can be true energy. The church can be set in the of Christ.
right direction. I want to grow closer to God at the same time
establishing strong roots that go really deep. Those roots are Before this service I shared with Father Graham in the
into the community and the world which God has created. Baptism of Paula. Again it was interesting that my last
I was fascinated to discover that Bishop Michael Marshall, my Sunday at St Simons and St Saviours was full of Baptisms
predecessor’s, final sermon here at Holy Trinity was on the and I come here and here we are again, new life, new birth, in
19th Sunday after Trinity and my first as Rector is the 20th the family of the church.
Sunday after Trinity, how is that for a continuous heartbeat? I
am so well aware that in this last year the heartbeat of prayer, I invited Father Graham to read from Ezekiel that wonderful
worship and pastoral care has been as strong and perhaps passage about the heart. ‘The Lord God says: ‘’I will sprinkle
got stronger, I hope so. Bishop Michael also spoke about clean water over you and you will be cleansed. I will give you
Jesus, as Lord of this Church. He loved the Church most a new heart and a new spirit within you. I’ll take the heart of
when it talked least about itself and mostly about God. Jesus, stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I’ll put my
Lord of the Church. spirit into you.’’ ‘ And for me this is the beauty of sacramental
ministry, which invites us to focus on God’s signs of love
And St Paul in that letter to the Philippians that we heard read through Jesus. For so often we put ourselves as humanity
is seeking the same. A right relationship with God which relies right at the centre of everything. It all revolves around me.
not on safety, not on the law, not on our own strength or our
qualifications but relies on taking risks, getting to know Christ, In our Gospel reading, often described as the ‘Parable of the
know him personally and that’s not achieved, it’s given, not Tenants,’ that also put people right at the centre but actually
won but accepted in trust. Paul also puts great store in the it’s the story of God’s vineyard and we are to be his stewards.
belief in the power of the resurrection. Do you know it And when God the owner sends servants to collect the fruit of
guarantees the importance of this life and this body in which the vineyard what do they do? They beat and stone and kill
we live? It’s a guarantee of life to come. It’s a guarantee that them. They try to usurp God’s place. Finally the owner sends
Christ is with us always. So we can risk, and we can walk in his Son and he too is killed.
the way he walked, which is the way of the cross, the way of
compassion. God’s own son Jesus was sent to Earth to show us how to
live and how to love and be in right relation with our
We have been grasped by God for a purpose and the whole neighbour and creation and yet he too was killed by a selfish
of our personal and community life is to discover what that humanity. But we look at that story from the other side of
purpose is. To live truly with his heartbeat requires discipline, Easter. We know the son did not remain dead. Although he

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