Sermon on the birth of John the Baptist Patronal Festival - Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters

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Arweud expectations.

Mae'r speiddian ar gael dylechol hefyd teimlo.

Ellier Cynllewd.

Axel.

umriettwch dahi neu roedd yajeb yn ner chi. Mae g Morea y Pol Caergrath usod ar y gwrdd hyn cit,

neu coblad mewn ffordd.

Mae ergyrchiad hanesr hynny a o'u cyfriferon yr isaed yn bethusol?

influ am全sylції a gwyrnodd ac yn goly arcade.

Roedd notr ar ei rai booth, bydwyd yn ei meddwl nhw wnaethuen fellystä.

ac yn holl笑 adatwm Shop Barvald,

os ym ych gefn – beth mae'n fywr yn iefnogi na cutd d weaponid.

Ond wedi fydd dishesen iawn.

D exhibits Viwng o'r f anten yn bod seriaeth

gyda Cerddo a'r 모습ach,

o hol �ources wedigylbor â hyfforddiad o bryd mewedol o bobl yw iddiad i nodi Mrimon?

Fe yw ddachr yn can excellent yma yn predictっちwyd cyflowead

hyn ar yr� lightlyn a falta transfers o ran chi aogurau fanhee discovery a'r tal monedod

ar y llang.

Mae hynno'r fanhawn sydd wedi ychydig ar y cyflos a lwy neeis yma

lle sut mae hi debyd y caselOUTd yn llryd du'r bod ni'n risie

ar yr y ol.,

ond y twch gweld y yanol sydd hi arno geriperd wider digital

an Èw'r pleid capitalist, nid oedd yn gondolin fearless o bobl gwnaet Hymро Dollars hefyd hynod ydi.

Nidці謝謝 o f Australian

a'n mynd i ei proswch y gallu inform

o blaen y gallwn wyf.

Felly se reform am gyllwan

Felly se reform am gyllwan

Felly seogaeth ad "..

Rwm mod i'r sgwyllipher

a'r mynyddu'r ei ffrân

o'r Monster困au

Cyryd ar y swyddeng gwahanol

Cyryd o'r twf שה mount

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the poor. Yet even the best public servants are rarely completely popular. As human beings,

we tend to demand a just world, particularly of our public servants, of our leaders. Until

that is that we find out that the unjust world unjustly benefits us. Then of course we find

ways to justify and protect our unjust privilege, lest it be taken away and meet it out more fairly

to someone else. So even the best public servant tends to be unpopular, because if they really

pursue justice, which many of us say we want, there will be many who lose out. Indeed, even

in question time we needed look no further than the cause to limit migration, to understand that

there are many in our unjustly privileged country and community who would prefer an

unjust world to one in which we give up our self-interest to serve others who have greater

needs than ourselves. But the problem goes deeper than just self-interest. We don't live in a perfect

world and as excellent as a public servant might be, they can't change that. Were we to elect the

most righteous, self-sacrificing, hard-working public official at the next general election,

there would be still much that is out of their control. Wars, hatred, prejudice, discrimination,

all of these would still occur. People would still be poor, sickness and death would still happen.

Disappointment in these crews isn't anything new. Trust in politicians of course

comes and goes, but throughout history public servants, be they political or royal, have faced

questions regarding their own powerlessness. In 1 Samuel 8, the people demanded of Samuel

that he anoint a king over them to replace the judges. We heard that accounted by St Paul

in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The judges before the kings had acted as

spokespeople for God, but had always been understood that God was their king throughout

the period of the judges. The judges acted to broker disputes, making decisions based on the

scriptures and the law as it had been handed down and they discerned the will of God for the future

of his people as Moses and Joshua had done in the wilderness, but they were servants of God

first and foremost. But the people wanted a human king. They wanted someone over them to rule over

them, who they could see and touch and feel. They wanted someone whose direct influence they

could understand and someone who in turn they could influence. There were many great kings through

the Old Testament periods and of course the greatest as St Paul mentioned was King David,

a forerunner of Christ, described as a man after God's own heart. And yet even King David,

the greatest of the kings, as well as being a great ruler, a great warrior, a great worshipper,

a great prophet, was also an adulterer and a murderer. And though he proclaimed that he would

not rest until he built a temple for the art of the covenant, it was not he but his son who built

the first temple. None of this is said to denigrate the work or the role of public servants.

To serve others is always to follow the call of Jesus Christ, who is the true servant. However,

as servant and a served as leader and as follower, the humility of Christ calls us to acknowledge

our own frailty. It is human nature to be fragile as a leader, just as it is human nature

to be vulnerable to unreasonable expectations as one who is served. It is natural that leaders are

tempted to pride in their power, just as it is natural for those who are served to become jealous

of the power they have given. It is normal to promise the world as a leader and it is natural

that as someone served, our higher-minded priorities and our day-to-day realities don't often go

hand in hand. If you were to end things there, then the picture would of course look rather bleak.

The cry went up, the people are grass, the response came, the grass withers, the flower fades.

But of course the cry continues. But the word of our God will stand forever, get you up to a high

mountain ozion, herald of good tidings, say to the cities of Judah, here is your God.

As human beings, our desire is to lead on ourselves, just as the people demanded of Samuel

a King rather than a judge, someone like them to rule over them. We conceal our fragility behind

a masquerade of imagined control over the world and over ourselves because to do otherwise would

be to admit our reality that our future is not totally our own. And so we appoint leaders to

manifest the mask of our own insecurity, but by doing so we place them on a pedestal from which

they have no option but to fall. Isaiah reminds us that there is in fact only one stable place

in which we can trust, the word of the Lord. And as John chapter one tells us,

the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Our reality, our future cannot be founded on ourselves,

it cannot be founded on human leaders, it must be founded on the person of Jesus Christ.

He alone is without beginning or end, he alone is truth and love and security, for he alone with

the Father and the Holy Spirit is perfect. But this isn't something that we should lament,

it's something that we should embrace. The words of Isaiah's cry, the people are grass,

the grass withers. They at first sound so difficult, but in fact they are given as a comfort.

When we take upon ourselves the burden of making our own reality, of being responsible for everything

about our own future, we commit ourselves to a task for which we are not designed. We make ourselves

promises that we can never and should never hope to keep. We are created beings, we are not our

own authors and that's okay. We were created by the one who is love, by the one who is the author

and he created us for relationship, for partnership to be brought lovingly under his care and direction.

And though he doesn't need us, he wants us, he invites us into partnership with him.

We are invited with him in proper relationship to him to build a better reality, to contribute to our

own future. He empowers us to build the kingdom of God through the loving care of his creation and

through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In all of this there is no better example

than St John the Baptist. As we heard in our gospel reading, we are invited to build a better

world. As we heard in our gospel reading, we could see how easy it would be for St John the

Baptist to have grown up to be proud and conceited. After all, there aren't very many people who have

such a miraculous birth story. A baby boy born to a religious ruler and his wife far after it

should have been biologically possible. His birth announced in the place where the temple worship

was offered at the altar of incense by an archangel of God. His father giving a prophecy in his birth

which proclaimed him the prophet of the Most High. Throughout his early ministry, St John the

Baptist had plenty of opportunities to promote himself. He preached to massive crowds. He offered

a baptism of repentance to probably hundreds, if not thousands of people. He had scores of followers,

disciples who dedicated themselves to his teaching, going as far as to live with him in the wilderness.

He even had the religious authorities come to him and ask him directly,

Are you the Messiah? Are you the chosen one? Are you the Christ? When Jesus arose and came to

St John the Baptist for baptism, by contrast he was nobody. Nobody had heard of him. He had no

followers. He'd preached to no crowds. He'd done no miracles. He was unnoticed by the authorities.

Unlike St John the Baptist, he wasn't born to a great, creasty line. He hadn't enjoyed the exposure

to the religious and ritual life of Israel that St John the Baptist had had from Zechariah.

And yet, when Jesus came to St John the Baptist, the superstar, the great preacher,

St John proclaimed Jesus the Lamb of God. St John taught that he, he, the Baptist, the great

baptizeder, was unworthy even to kneel down in the dirt and untie Jesus' sandals. He would have

refused to baptise Jesus, though baptism was his ministry because he knew that he needed to be

baptized by Jesus. And when Jesus started building his own ministry and gaining followers, rather than

being jealous, St John the Baptist sent his own disciples away to follow Jesus. When people started

going to Jesus, rather than St John the Baptist to be baptized, St John the Baptist said,

he must increase and I must decrease. St John the Baptist knew that his life was not about himself.

His life was about Jesus. All he did was to follow the call of God. When he led, he led as one

who follows God. When he stopped leading, he stopped as one who knew his service was finished,

glad rather than bitter to hand over to the one who came after him.

Our call is to follow his example as the people of St John the Baptist here in Barnett. We are,

we must acknowledge our fragility and turn our attention to the one who walks with us

and ahead of us knowing that he is the only true ground of life. Many of us are, have been,

will be called to serve in some way. We will be called to some kind of leadership position.

If and when we are, we need the humility of St John the Baptist to know and embrace the reality

that we are not perfect to know and embrace that we do not lead for ourselves but only for him.

Many of us, probably all of us are called to be served in some way. We are to follow a leader.

We must share in the humility of St John the Baptist's disciples. When we are led,

we need to remember that our leaders are human. They make mistakes and we must recall that they

are in their position, be it secular or religious, only to lead us to a truer knowledge of Jesus Christ,

only to help us better build the kingdom of God. And it is our duty to keep them accountable to doing

just that. And so may we all, as servant and a served, as leader and lead, have the humility

to know that we are but grants. And let us build our lives not on the rocky foundation of ourselves

or of human leaders but on the shore foundation of the world made flesh, knowing that in all things

our only duty is to follow and to worship him. May we be as St John the Baptist. Amen.