First Sunday after Trinity by Fr Jack

with Holy Baptism

Genesis 12.1-9
St Paul’s Letter to the Romans 4.134-end
St Matthew’s Gospel 9.9-13,18-26

Jesus calls Matthew in today’s Gospel. Those of us who were lucky to be part of ecumenical Lent Saturday mornings this year with Wesley’s Chapel, Jewin Welsh Church, and our local RC Churches will perhaps immediately have Caravaggio’s rendering of this moment in their mind’s eye. It is electric.

But it isn’t just a moment from then, or for some. Jesus calls us all, all the time. A million times a day, and in big life moments. 

How many times a day are we invited to grow in mercy, in love, in generosity, in wisdom and stature, in selflessness and courage. All these micro moments are invitations to grace from the Lord.

In the baptismal promises, Gabriel’s parents and Godparents, and all of us with them, pledge ourselves away from devil, darkness and despair, and towards the Lord, light and love. And a million times a day, in tiny encounters, many moments we don’t notice at all, but Jesus stands before us, as He did St Matthew, and we choose. 

Jesus also calls us, like St Matthew, in big decisions in life. Gabriel, we pray, will grow up and discover his vocation, or perhaps his several vocations.

It’s easy for me, I have one principle vocation: being a priest. For some of us it’s parenthood or partnership or both, it might be our work, or something we do alongside or outside work. Vocation comes in many different shapes, sizes and seasons; but it is real, and finding what God has in mind for us in life is the path to really being alive. 

St John Henry Newman was born just a few streets from here a couple of hundred years ago. Here is a lovely prayer he wrote. It’s on St Giles’ website along with the text of this sermon if you want to find it later. It’s a very good prayer. 

‘God has created me to do Him some definite service. 
He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. 
I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. 
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. 
He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. 
I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place,
while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. 
Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. 
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. 
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. 
He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. 
He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. 
Still, He knows what He is about. Amen.’

It’s a tough prayer. It’s about finding God’s way for us, and living God’s way, wherever we happen to be. It doesn’t shy away from suffering. Newman’s Victorian England was full of very great suffering. It is today too. But looking suffering in the face, it looks to goodness.

We pray for ourselves and for Gabriel that we might find God’s way, and live this way wherever we find ourselves in all life’s ups and downs. 

Because, like for St Matthew, God is here, calling, in small everyday ways, and the big stuff of life. And (for what it’s worth) my small experience is that if we go with it, really go with it, (not my plan, but God’s) then we will find it a path of adventure, meaning and joy. 

Look at the first and second readings given for today. Abraham was already a good age; he had a nice, settled, quiet life. But God called and sent him. St Paul today (in the second reading) is saying it wasn’t the legal codes of ancient Israel that were Abraham’s relationship with God, it was the trust and faith of a real relationship. The adventure God and Abraham went on together. That’s the gift of being a person of faith: the relationship and adventure of doing life with God, together, on purpose. In baptism, for us, and for Gabriel today, that adventure starts: life with God, and with God’s people, the Church. 

It’s a mystery of course, God, love, life: these are great mysteries. So is the adventure of life. 

And it wasn’t easy for Abraham, or St Matthew, and Jesus doesn’t say it will be straightforward for us either. Our vocation may bring significant hardship, heartache, sacrifice and surprise. It did for Abraham and Matthew. But nonetheless it will be real. If we are swimming downstream with God’s plan for us, despite difficulties, it will be right and joyful in a way that is hard to describe, but it’s just somehow the real thing. 

It’s true of prayer too. We rightly bring our hopes and desires to God. Jesus tells us to do this. But that doesn’t mean prayer is just asking for stuff. Nor is it really (although we all slip into this) asking God to ratify or rubber stamp my plans for me and the world. 

Instead, prayer is honest and real, and really about me growing in relationship with God so that my desires and plans become more and more in tune with God’s plans for me and the world. 

We pray for baby Gabriel today, that God’s good plans for his life will be more and more the road he walks. And that he will grow up into that love and those plans. And that we will continue to grow into them too, God’s plans for you and me. That we will find them, in the micro of every day, and the big picture seasons of life. And that as we live them, with courage and love, we might know the joy of the Gospel, and share it with everyone around us in life. Just the first part of that prayer again:

‘God has created me to do Him some definite service. 
He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. 
I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. 
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. 
He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. 
I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, 
while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. 
Therefore, I will trust Him…’