Your credentials, please!

Sermon for Septuagesima

You hear a woman calling in the street, "repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!" Of course, you feel uncomfortable by this brazen display of being religious, but one of the questions that might go through your mind is, "who is she to say that?"

What might make us trust her message? What will give us confidence that she is qualified to go around and preach this discomfort?

What if she is a doctor of divinity from Oxbridge?
What if she is a Dominican nun?
What if she is well known for having visions from God?
What if she is an Anglican Catholic?

[PAUSE]

Everyone who makes some authoritative statement in today's society has to present their credentials so that people can be satisfied that they have the required authority and suitability for issuing that statement. We would expect someone who says, "the UK Economy will grow, this year" to have had much experience of working in the global financial industry. Likewise, we would expect someone who says, "Chocolate Orange causes ingrown toenails" to have a medical degree and substantial time in medical research before we accept that.

St Paul has to go through this procedure too. His previous message to the Church in Corinth has caused many in that Church to question his credentials. "Who is he to say that to us?" they say as St Paul takes them to task on their obsession with spiritual gifts. The trouble is that the Corinthians will not hear his message - they will not hear the word of God - until it is shown to be acceptable to their earthly way of thinking. They have ears, but they will not hear it with those ears until they cry out to Our Lord Jesus for those earth-filled ears to be unblocked.

You hear that woman's voice again! "Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand!" Is this woman speaking God's will?

[PAUSE]

You might call into question her credentials. Perhaps she got her doctorate in Divinity by bribery or studied some obscure topic such as "breakfasts of the apostles." Perhaps she has just been expelled from the Dominican Order for preaching too loudly. Perhaps her visions of God are due to a lithium imbalance in the brain. Perhaps she is one of those people who claim to be Anglican Catholic but is just using the name to validate her own sect.

If we don't want to hear the message, it's very easy to discredit the messenger.

And that's the problem. Sometimes, we focus too much on the messengers than the messages that they bring.

St Paul know this well. He regards his own credentials as being magnificently irrelevant. All that he has done, all that he has experienced, all that might give him some qualification, all that might earn him respect, all can be called into question by others because they cannot experience St Paul's life for themselves. There is no worth in his actions that will convince everyone that he is telling the truth.

This is why he is asking us to listen to his message, and evaluate that.

There she goes again, "repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!"

[PAUSE]

Suddenly, the women herself becomes irrelevant, though she is infinitely precious in the eyes of God. It is her words that we hear.

If we are good and if we are honest, we will recognise those words as being of Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Do we, too, ask Our Lord to present His credentials before we will listen to Him?

If we're Christian, there will be one thing that will convince us that this is His message and that His message is true, and that is His Cross. It is that Cross that has the most impact, the most earth-shattering, curtain-rending, heaven-rending impact which must convince the Christian of the truth of the message. This impact we call Glory.

This is how we know whether a message is true - does it bear the glory of Christ's Cross? Does it present the great truth of God made man, born, crucified, risen and ascended? If it does and holds the truth of the Gospel, the message that the Church has always possessed, then it is true and the person of the messenger is irrelevant. For this is the word of God and, in the good and honest heart, it will grow and bear fruit.

You don't need a degree in fruit-bearing for that to happen.