A sermon preached at Choral Evensong on Sunday 1st June 2014, swiftly followed by ice cream sundaes at Scoops on Southsea with the choir!

Ephesians 1:15 – 23 Loving the Saints

I love the TV series The Vicar of Dibley – I particularly like the scene where David Horton welcomes the village’s new vicar to his home. He is shocked to discover it is a woman as she takes of her all-consuming raincoat. Her response is priceless. “You were expecting a bloke with a beard, bible and bad breath and instead you've got a babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom”. Well, I do not have a magnificent bosom but this scene does make me wonder what should a vicar look like? I’m very vain and drive my family mad with whether I look ok before I leave the house or not. When someone tells me I don’t look like a vicar I take that as a massive compliment – I don’t want to look too much like a vicar! But what does a Christian look like? Is there a stereotype which is only funny because it is based on truth? Do I look like a Vicar? Do I look like a Christian? Do you?

Paul seems to have had a good idea of what Christians should look like. He spent two years in Ephesus preaching and teaching the gospel and he would have got to know the believers fairly well during his stay there. Paul eventually left Ephesus to minister elsewhere but now he is in prison (3:1). He has deliberately made attempts to keep in touch with what was going on in the church at Ephesus. He may have had regular visitors in prison and no doubt he asked about the believers in Ephesus.

Paul does not ask so much about their belief, he does not ask what these Ephesians' believe but he asks specifically about their faith in the Lord Jesus. We can believe all the right things about God we can be clear concerning the doctrines of the bible or what the church says and yet not exercise faith in Jesus.

Paul has heard that these Ephesians' believe in Jesus as the one who has come to save his people, but how does Paul know that this faith in the Lord Jesus is true and genuine. Well he knows this by their love for their fellow believers. One of the marks of true faith is a true love for others. Jesus himself said that this is a true mark of Christianity (John 13:35) “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”.

We know we actively believe in Jesus not by ticking boxes of belief or agreement but by our love for each other. Notice that it is not love for the people that we get on with, those who we seem to gel with but it is love for 'all the saints' including those that we don't gel with, those that we don't agree with theologically and those that we don't see eye to eye with in the way that we work out our faith in everyday life.

We are to love those whose style of worship is different from ours or whose emphasis is completely different from ours. We are to love those who have a different view of women bishops or equal marriage. True genuine faith in the Lord Jesus leads to true love for all people. It's easy to say I do love all the saints and then spend most of our lives trying to avoid the ones that we don't get on with or don't gel with or don't see eye to eye with. In February of this year the House of Bishops of the Church of England issued a statement relating to equal marriage. I fundamentally disagree with that statement. I believe it to be flawed in its theology, its logic and furthermor that it is actually damaging to the mission of the church. There are people who will disagree with me. There are people here this evening who will disagree with me. I have to love them in the same way I love the people who think the same as me. I have to love the Bishops despite my disagreement with them. And those who disagree with me have to love me too. Archbishop Justin Welby talks about good disagreement – the ability to disagree over something and yet continue to love the person you disagree with - achieving this is perhaps the biggest challenge facing the church today.

I am not referring to a mushy, red hearts and fluffy valentine kind of love. No the kind of love I am referring to is hard and gritty and difficult. It is the kind of love which goes on wanting the best for someone you don’t particularly get on with or you may not even like!

Everyone has been telling me since my arrival here what a wonderful loving family the Cathedral congregation is and I myself have seen and have been privileged to join the community of people who together make up the life and rhythm of this place. But let’s not pretend for one second that we are some ‘Stepford Wives’  or loving automation version of the church, we are also like every other family on Earth with fighting and arguments and people we don’t much like. But our calling to be followers of Jesus requires, no demands, that we love our neighbour. Even if we don’t like them, we can still love them and want the best for them. It isn’t easy, it is an act of will rather than waiting for some warm affectionate feeling.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."

Love must be worked out practically in everyday situations. This was what Paul wanted to know from his prison, were the believers still practising this love?

Notice also that the first thing Paul does upon hearing about the way the believers in Ephesus practice love is to thank God for them. It is all too easy to criticise the church; almost everyone who comes into contact with the church has a story they will tell you of a bad experience of church, I have them too. It is so easy to get into that frame of mind which shows up all of the church’s faults and failings and we have them here at the Cathedral as well. But as I have already said the church is a family of faith and at its best when that love for one another is expressed. It is a good idea whenever we want to moan or complain about the church that we also thank God for the faith and love of the people here as well.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you…

I wonder if this could be said of us? How would people describe the Christian community in Portsmouth? Would they know our faith by the love we have for each other?