'Where are you living now?' transcript of sermon at HMP Stafford July 16th 2017

                             HMP Stafford 16^th July 2017  Romans 8.1-11  Matthew 13.1-9,18-23

On the 30^th July 1966, Gordon Banks was defending England’s goal in the World Cup at Wembley. 

Meanwhile, at just turned 15, I was travelling down from Lancashire to Newmarket to sign on as an Apprentice Jockey with Bruce Hobbs.

At the age of 14, I had developed a deep adolescent angst about dying and dying unknown. Something that is not untypical. 

So I dreamed of becoming a famous jockey, somebody people would remember when I died.

My first career as a jockey did not amount to much, although I did ride one winner.

After that career ended, I spent some years behind bars.

However, I was not serving time but serving drinks in various hotels around Cambridge and Newmarket.

I think I have behind bars like this on only three previous occasions.

In 1980 when I visited somebody in Wandsworth. Then in 1986, when during my Ministry training I spent a whole day in Strangeways. Then my last visit here for your Christmass Carol Concert.

I also had a good friend when I was living in Cornwall who was a Chaplain in Dartmoor, and so got to hear a little about prison life from him.

However, I really know very little about what prison life is truly like. 

That being said I think I would not be wide of the mark to say that at least in your thinking you live your life in one of two places. 

Either in the past or sometime in the future – maybe when you are released.

A Priest in a sermon at a Church in Brighton, another place we have lived, said something profound that I have tried to hold onto.

‘Between the past we cannot change, and the future that we cannot control, there is the now here with God and that is where we should be.’

Of course, you are not alone in living like this; an awful lot of people live in those two places.

Looking back to the past can push us into ‘if only’ – I can tell you as a minister who has conducted hundreds of funerals you hear this all the time.

‘If only’ we had not said, ‘if only’ we had said, ‘if only’ they were not at, ‘if only’ they did not go.

I had my own ‘if only’ moment when riding in my third public race and it brought to an end any hopes I ever had of becoming a jockey, famous or otherwise.

We simply cannot live like that.

Let us consider the story we heard from the Gospel, the Parable of the Sower.

We know the seed was good – we are not told that the sower broadcast good seed into good soil and inferior or bad seed among the rocks and weeds or along the path. The seed as we hear later is the Word of God, and it is the best of seeds.

Maybe the sower had an ‘if only’ moment – if only I had not sown that seed among the rocks, or with the weeds or along the path.

On the other hand, perhaps the sower when he planted the seed dreamed of what would happen in the future.

Perhaps he imagined a bumper crop, a rich harvest with enough to feed his family and have some left over to sell.

Of course, he could have dreamed like that while sitting in the barn with his feet up on a bag of corn waiting to be sown. 

That would of course have got him nowhere fast.

He had to get out and sow the seed.

It is absolutely right and proper we have dreams, visions and ideas of what might lie ahead in the future. In the American business world, they call them BHAG’s –

Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

However, it has to start right here and right now.

This is the first thing I would like us to consider.

You may be serving time in H.M.P. Stafford, Her Majesties Prison – but I want to suggest you can also be spending time in His Majesties Presence.

That right here and right now, you can begin a work that will help you achieve your BHAG!

However, there is an ongoing work to be done; clearing away stones that would hinder growth, scaring away those who would steal your idea or tell you are wasting your time.

Then making sure people do not walk all over your dreams, ideas and ambitions.

In the Letter of James Chapter 5.7-8, we read…

‘Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.’

So how do we maintain our patience?

I mentioned His Majesty Presence, now we need to talk about His Majesties Present – His Gift.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit that we heard about in the passage from Romans.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans is his greatest work and needs a lot of unpacking to understand all that he was trying to say.

However if there is one message that comes out clearly time and time again, it is that in Christ we can have a new life – a life lived for God, a life in which the Seed of the Gospel, the Word of God, dwells within us.

Let’s see if reading this passage in The Message translation helps – I think it does…

‘But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms.  It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!’

We have talked about His Majesty Presence and His Majesties Present – and it is interesting to note that another word for Present is a Gift – the present moment is always a gift. 

Now I want to talk about His Majesties Purpose.

That purpose is laid out across the whole of the Scripture from Adam and Eve onwards. Our true human vocation is to be image bearers of God and to care for His good creation.

In Ephesians 4.13 we read about the importance of unity among believers…

until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ. 

‘…as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.’

That is God’s purpose for each and every one of us – that we become like Christ.

That is the best goal, dream, idea, vision or BHAG you can ever have.

Because speaking of my own experience, once I turned away from trying to live life under my own terms, and once I read a little verse from Colossians 3.3. ‘For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God’    

Once I turned my life over and said let me work for God, sowing Gospel seeds, then I experienced His Majesties Presence, His Majesties Present and discovered His Majesties Purpose.

Every morning when you get up is the first day of the rest of your life – you can make a choice either to live in the past or to live in the future – maybe because the present is just so awful.

However, it is right here and right now that you can find God – in His Majesties Presence.

You can make a decision to clear away stones, pull up those weeds and set to work planting good seeds, looking for a great harvest.

On the other hand, you can sow seeds of bitterness, of anger and resentment, of jealously.

One thing I do know about life in prison is that you have limited choices.

However, I also know that you can choose how to live your life each and every day and in each and every moment.

Can I urge you to make the right choice – to recognize God’s presence, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and begin to live life in the present moment, knowing forgiveness and healing for the past, and having a realistic hope for the future.

And whether you are able to walk out of here later on today or not, the same choice lies before us all.

Living in the moment with the help of God and accepting the gift of His Holy Spirit to renew our minds that will help us walk a different path daily, we can all become part of that rich harvest, good seed sown in good soil.  

Therefore, which path are you going to choose - for it is always your choice!

 

Amen


Support the work of the Chaplaincy Team at HMP Stafford.  Join with the Prison Fellowship Prayer Group - next meeting 30th August 2.00pm - 3.30pm at Rising Brook Baptist Church, Stafford.  www.prisonfellowship.org.uk