{"id":23,"date":"2012-04-30T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T11:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/2012\/04\/30\/aldersgate\/"},"modified":"2016-06-16T16:42:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T14:42:52","slug":"aldersgate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/","title":{"rendered":"ALDERSGATE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sermon:<\/a><\/div>\n
Romans 1:16-17;3:22b-28<\/b><\/div>\n
Matthew 7: 21-29<\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
As a methodist minister seeking temporary refuge in a United Reformed Church I suppose I should refer to May 24th – a major Methodist festival Day, for it was then in 1738 that John Wesley in the company of Christian friends meeting in ,London, had what has often been called, his evangelical conversion and as he wrote in his diary, \u2018I felt my heart strangely warmed\u2019. Unlike some of the new-wave Christian movements that were around at that time with the then novel idea that even poor people could be God\u2019s friends, the Methodist movement that began to rapidly evolve was strong in its emphasis on the improvement of human life and the principle of social justice. There\u2019s a delicious bit of local history when Wesley and Beau Nash met each other in Bath, both deeply hostile to each other before they ever met!<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
That warmed heart of this otherwise serious and rather prim Anglican cleric in a meeting room in Aldersgate Street, London, was kindled as someone was reading the preface to Luther\u2019s notes on Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans<\/u>. A fascinating conjunction of three very strong-minded men and if they all ended up in heaven I should love to be present at their first meeting. other. I guess Paul would be in the chair and the other two would be working very hard to set the agenda.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Four significant one might say Protestant <\/i>words in our reading from the letter to the young Roman church.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
1. I am not ashamed <\/b>of the gospel. Many years ago I read a book by the Presbyterian minister James S. Stewart. It was called \u2018Heralds of God\u2019 and was like many such books I read in my relative youth, about evangelism. The trumpet sound of faith! There is this gospel imperative clear from the New Testament and always strong in the reformed tradition, that the good news is for everyone and everyone should have a chance to hear it. But what is one to do with the embarrassment and shyness that can make us if not ashamed, certainly cautious \u2013 the strength of the secular society the world has become that pours scorn on all faith statements and \u2013 quite properly \u2013 often warns us against the sort of blind-folded faith that ends up as bigotry and bone-headness.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
But it was the simplicity of the gospel that was Paul\u2019s embarrassment and may be our\u2019s too. This story of a good man loving the poor into believing in a benign and present God \u2013 God of all things; and my <\/u>God! King of the hidden but profoundly real kingdom that is in the air we breathe, in the flesh that need not imprison us, in the humanness that we share, in the ever living spirit of Jesus abroad in the world and sacramentally known in the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine. The gospel is about a gift \u2013 the gift of a life lived fully and freely with God who is the giver of it. Nothing to be ashamed of there. The human spirit\u2019s yearning for love, life and freedom keeps on bubbling up, challenging the hard secularism and the religious fundamentalism abroad in the 21st. century. And though we find it difficult to use the right words, there is a listening ear in every part of the world for what we call new life in Christ. Be critical, observant, gracious and humble about our Christian truth, but don\u2019t ever be ashamed.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
2. And then the Jews first. <\/i><\/b>Paul \u2013 the converted but still as he believed it, faithful Jew\u2013 makes room in his idea of the kingdom for his fellow believers to come home first. Let\u2019s think for a moment about this ancient, abused, nomadic, perceptive, arrogant, proud people. Jesus was a Jew, and if he moved away from the faith of his fathers, his beliefs were still founded on them. It has become a fashionable field of new testament theology, to emphasise his Jewishness and to set him almost entirely in the messianic tradition. I resist that \u2013 on the basis of hunch rather than scholarship. It\u2019s his uniqueness and his freedom of spirit that fascinates me and draws me to him. But- he \u2013was- a -Jew, that astonishing tradition of faith, surviving against all the odds, is the bedrock of Christianity. I don\u2019t know about firsts and lasts, but we owe it to our history and to the ways in which the Jewish people through the years have been marginalized and misjudged, to be very careful not to slip into the abyss of anti-Semitism or contrarily, the bunkers of uncritical Zionism.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
But that doesn\u2019t mean that we should be immune from some of the qquestionable consequences of Jewishness, the most significant of which is the state of Israel – notionally a secular state, but inspired by the passion and nostalgia of a nomadic people searching for land and identity. The practical wish to \u2018come\u2019 home; indeed o have <\/i>a home.\u00a0 Christians like all libertarians are right to condemn the way the present government of Israel views its Palestine neighbours and indeed anybody else who disagrees with them. So we have this delicate task of honouring our spiritual forbears but dissenting from the excluding politics of the first Jewish nation in more than 2000 years.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
3.Then what becomes of boasting<\/i><\/b>? asks Paul? There are a few Christians around who have no sense of irony and believe and behave as if they were the sole interest of God. I have heard many testimonies of faith intended I am sure to bring glory to the converting power of the gospel, but they have been so much about me, so full of how awful it was to have been a sinner and how wonderful not to be one now, that its felt more ego-centric than Christ-centred. This is an abiding question for many religious people \u2013 \u2018who\u2019s in and who\u2019s out\u2019? There are better questions, like \u2018who is God\u2019. Paul says. \u2018yes Jews and Gentiles on the same terms are in and there are no<\/u> favourites<\/i>. Dynamite for the Jews but also a disturbing thought perhaps for many non-Jews. \u2018There\u2019s no ritual you have to perform and no tribe you have to belong to : God takes the lot of us on equal terms. So, no room for boasting.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Historically it has been the triumphalists \u2013 Christian, Muslim and Jew \u2013 who have endangered the delicate plant of true religion. Such people were around for Jesus. We think he was probably less dismissive of the pharisees than the gospels suggest \u2013 the evangelists wrote-up the tension between the two, many scholars suggest. But they were <\/i>a problem \u2013 they were boasters rather than seekers. It\u2019s a great challenge in our Age \u2013 to believe firmly but gently; to have your own convictions and at the same time to be open to those of others.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
4. Since God is one. <\/i><\/b>This is the belief that each of the Abrahamic religions have in common. There are other things too and we should look for areas of agreement rather than mapping out battlegrounds of dissent, but this unity of God, his aloneness, answering to no other powers, responsible for all that is, before, during and after the creation of the universes, is a vital one. God not lost in our theologies, not imprisoned in the words of scripture, not confined by the creeds and statements of faith by which we try to describe him \u2013 but God, free and absolute. More than we shall ever know, and yet so much that we do know, and which delights our hearts and inspires our minds.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Father, Son and Holy Spirit enriching our sense of God, but never detracting from his singularity.\u00a0 The great foundation of our faith, a faith for which many have struggled in the face of doubt and disaster. Martin Luther \u2013 we see him as the strong man of faith \u2013 in fact he spent nights fighting doubt, and one morning the family saw, after he had prayed through the night hours he had scratched across his table, the words \u2018I have been baptised.\u2019 Not only the unity but as well the nature of God was Luther\u2019s struggle. The God he said he had once hated had been a God of vengeance. The God he came to love and serve, turning western Europe into a cauldron of controversy, was the God his \u2019dear\u2019 Paul taught him to love<\/i> as he himself he came to believe, was also loved.<\/div>\n
And so this verse of his hymn as he faced the political and ecclesiastical opposition which marked his life \u2013<\/div>\n

That word they never can dismay<\/em><\/h1>\n

However much they batter<\/em><\/h2>\n
For God himself is in the fray<\/em><\/div>\n
And nothing else can matter.<\/i><\/div>\n
Then let them take our life,<\/i><\/div>\n
Goods, honour, children ,wife.<\/i><\/div>\n
We will let all go,<\/i><\/div>\n
They shall not conquer so<\/i><\/div>\n
For God will win the battle.<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u2018Let God be God\u2019 is the title of one of many books written about Luther. When we say our prayers there is only one who hears us, from whatever faith-system we speak. \u2018Since God is one\u2019 as Paul says.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Protestant words, these four assertive phrases of Paul? I think so \u2013 protestant in the original Reformation meaning \u2013 certainly a protest against <\/i>the imperial corruption of truth in the then Catholic Church; but more a protest for <\/i>a faith\u2026\u2026.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
which sets people free for God and each other;<\/div>\n
where no race has exclusive rights to the attention of God;<\/div>\n
where there is no place for pride, for all is of grace;<\/div>\n
and where the supremacy and unity of God is the ground of religion.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Paul had never been to Rome when he wrote this letter.\u00a0 I wonder how after reading it the churh\u00a0anticipated his first and it seems his only visit to them, this thoughtful man who had a closely reasoned faith. A man who knew where he stood.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
And us?<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 1:16-17;3:22b-28 Matthew 7: 21-29 \u00a0 \u00a0 As a methodist minister seeking temporary refuge in a United Reformed Church I suppose I should refer to May 24th – a major Methodist festival Day, for it was then in 1738 that John Wesley in the company of Christian friends meeting in ,London, had what has often been called, his evangelical conversion and as he wrote in his diary, \u2018I felt my heart strangely warmed\u2019. Unlike some of the new-wave Christian movements that were around at that time with the then novel idea that even poor people could be God\u2019s friends, the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","has_thumb"],"yoast_head":"\nALDERSGATE - About Belief<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ALDERSGATE - About Belief\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Romans 1:16-17;3:22b-28 Matthew 7: 21-29 \u00a0 \u00a0 As a methodist minister seeking temporary refuge in a United Reformed Church I suppose I should refer to May 24th – a major Methodist festival Day, for it was then in 1738 that John Wesley in the company of Christian friends meeting in ,London, had what has often been called, his evangelical conversion and as he wrote in his diary, \u2018I felt my heart strangely warmed\u2019. Unlike some of the new-wave Christian movements that were around at that time with the then novel idea that even poor people could be God\u2019s friends, the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"About Belief\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-30T11:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-06-16T14:42:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/04\/sermon-ALDERSGATE.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"525\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"euroresidentes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"euroresidentes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutos\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/\",\"name\":\"ALDERSGATE - About Belief\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-30T11:41:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-06-16T14:42:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#\/schema\/person\/3079cc0ad7acb04ec2f26d72f31add9b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"es\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Portada\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"ALDERSGATE\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/\",\"name\":\"About Belief\",\"description\":\"Euroresidentes\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"es\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#\/schema\/person\/3079cc0ad7acb04ec2f26d72f31add9b\",\"name\":\"euroresidentes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"es\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/340321f0c1d3581e26d3ff649a9b0467?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/340321f0c1d3581e26d3ff649a9b0467?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"euroresidentes\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/author\/euroresidentes\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"ALDERSGATE - About Belief","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/","og_locale":"es_ES","og_type":"article","og_title":"ALDERSGATE - About Belief","og_description":"Romans 1:16-17;3:22b-28 Matthew 7: 21-29 \u00a0 \u00a0 As a methodist minister seeking temporary refuge in a United Reformed Church I suppose I should refer to May 24th – a major Methodist festival Day, for it was then in 1738 that John Wesley in the company of Christian friends meeting in ,London, had what has often been called, his evangelical conversion and as he wrote in his diary, \u2018I felt my heart strangely warmed\u2019. Unlike some of the new-wave Christian movements that were around at that time with the then novel idea that even poor people could be God\u2019s friends, the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/","og_site_name":"About Belief","article_published_time":"2012-04-30T11:41:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-06-16T14:42:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":525,"url":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/04\/sermon-ALDERSGATE.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"euroresidentes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"euroresidentes","Est. reading time":"8 minutos"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/","url":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/","name":"ALDERSGATE - About Belief","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-04-30T11:41:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-06-16T14:42:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#\/schema\/person\/3079cc0ad7acb04ec2f26d72f31add9b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"es","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/aldersgate\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Portada","item":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ALDERSGATE"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/","name":"About Belief","description":"Euroresidentes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"es"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#\/schema\/person\/3079cc0ad7acb04ec2f26d72f31add9b","name":"euroresidentes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"es","@id":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/340321f0c1d3581e26d3ff649a9b0467?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/340321f0c1d3581e26d3ff649a9b0467?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"euroresidentes"},"url":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/author\/euroresidentes\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euroresidentes.com\/euroresiuk\/about-belief\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}