Sermon: The Sunday morning after the political night before

Acts 16:9-15, John 5:1-9

So here we are on the Sunday morning after the political night before, not sure what the political future will look like and gathered to worship a God who is far more concerned for the welfare of his world than the most dedicated political activist is for his or her country. Much of the bible, especially the Old Testament, forms God's political agenda for the life of the world because it is about the way we live together and with God. Today's Collect reminds us that we have been brought into the kingdom of God's Son and later in this service we will indicate our vote for God's manifesto when we pray "Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven..."

In a week when we have focused on our participation in the political life of this nation and are 65 years on from the end of a six-year political and military nightmare in Europe, what does it mean to pray for God's kingdom to come?

The first thing to say is that the church is not the kingdom of God come on earth - mercifully, given the state of much of the church today - but is the foretaste and expectation of that kingdom. Secondly, it is not just about people but about all creation. Today is Rogation Sunday when we pray about our stewardship of the natural creation, about which there is a lot in Scripture - the original Green agenda, albeit not in the technical detail of today. The bible ends with creation renewed and fulfilling its intended role in relation to God and humanity and we glimpse foretastes of this in Jesus' miracles that show his authority over the natural creation: the stilling of the storm, walking on the water, feeding the 5,000 today.

We've been bombarded with political manifestos recently and I lament the emphasis in Durham on why other candidates are wrong rather than on what the parties offer positively for the well-being of the nation. Not so in the bible. Before Jesus was born, Mary and Zechariah sang songs which embodied the Jewish understanding of God's actions for justice for all people - a political manifesto more radical and just than any I've seen recently - filling the hungry with good things, sending the rich away empty, putting down the mighty from their thrones, exalting the humble and meek, setting us free from the hands of our enemies, guiding our feet into the way of peace. Jesus expects his followers to be feeding the hungry, tending the sick, visiting prisoners, caring for widows and orphans. And he was happy to break the Sabbath in order to do so himself: today's Gospel ended with the crucial words, ‘Now that day was a Sabbath'. The Sabbath was the culmination of creation, a day of rest on which Jesus' healing was thought to be work, and the story goes on to tell how it got him into trouble. He could have left it for one day - after 38 years what difference would that make? - but instead he deliberately took the initiative to make the day that was culmination of creation into the day that brought in a sign of God's coming kingdom.

We heard in Acts of another life-giving act on the Sabbath. Paul and his companions had gone in search of the Jewish community which, in the absence of a synagogue perhaps because there weren't ten males to form it, was likely to be found meeting by water with its symbolism of purification and deliverance. In Philippi the river was about a mile and a quarter from the city and so people who had gathered had broken the Sabbath law to get there because this was more than a Sabbath day's journey.  The group of women heard Paul tell the good news of Jesus Christ and Lydia, apparently a prosperous former slave who had become a business woman in a region known for its expensive purple dye, heard and responded eagerly to the good news and was baptised. I can't resist pointing out that she was the first convert in Europe and thus all European Christians look to a woman as their forebear in the faith.

Today we gather not on the Sabbath, the day of rest, - that was yesterday - but on the Lord's Day, the Day of Resurrection. On this day when the power of death was conquered, how much more are we mandated to connect our religious observance with life-giving action in God's world. So what has our worship today got to do with our vote this week? Last week Canon Cherry encouraged us to make a connection between the words "vote" and "votive" and to vote in the same frame of mind as we would light a votive candle. I want to ask you to take that further and to make a connection between your vote this week and the Eucharist.

Communicants in a church in Kenya were told a couple of weeks ago by their priest that they can only receive Holy Communion if they show him their voter's card for the country's referendum on a new constitution. We won't ask you if you voted, and certainly not how you voted, when you come to receive the bread and wine, but that priest is onto something important. He know the connection between marking your ballot paper and receiving the bread and the wine. It is not just to do with God's mandate to work for justice in his world, a creation imperative which we share with other people of goodwill but sadly is often lacking in Christian's understanding fo their faith, but more specifically with the inauguration of the Eucharist in the context of Jesus' engagement with the authorities of his day, a redemption imperative unique to Christians. Today's Eucharistic Prayer embodies this link between creation and God's coming kingdom inaugurated by the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ which we celebrate in the Eucharist, ‘Through Him you begin your works of new creation, as we look for a new heaven and a new earth in which your righteousness dwells'.

Jesus shared the Last Supper with his disciples knowing that he was about to be arrested, tried and put to death by the political system of his day. He accepted the authority of the Roman state even though he put it in perspective by pointing out to the Roman Governor, Pilate, that he only had power because it was given to him by God. Earlier he had told people to "Render to Caesar that things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." If we try to disconnect the Eucharist from life in the world with its sometimes messy politics, making it merely a private spiritual experience, we deny its original context of the Last Supper and Jesus' bold engagement with the powers-that-be which resulted in his death.

As we know, his death was not the end of the story and the Eucharist is, of course, also our celebration of our redemption and the anticipation of God's righteous kingdom coming on earth as in heaven. In the Eucharist we are gathered together and transformed as God's people - God who is the world's ruler and judge - before we are sent out to "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord" in that same world in which we have just voted for a new government. So when we take bread and wine we are remembering Jesus' actions in a politically dangerous situation and setting out a manifesto that connects pressing political concerns like justice, poverty, hunger, sickness and violence with the victory of God in Christ.

Our daily life and work during the lifetime of the new parliament, and beyond, should be expressions of God's life-giving manifesto in action. How can that be? because the Holy Spirit is active in God's world and indwells God's people. So we will pray today, "As we eat and drink these holy gifts in the presence of your divine majesty, renew us by your Spirit, inspire us with your love and unite us in the body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." "Renew us by your Spirit": where? in our daily life in the world with its hung parliament, economic crisis and pressing social needs. In another Eucharistic Prayer we offer ourselves to be part of the Holy Spirit's work, "Lord of all life, help us to work together for that day when your kingdom comes and justice and mercy will be seen in all the earth."

Politicians have been promising us all sorts of routes to a better world and we can applaud their concern to secure the well-being of all people, especially the vulnerable, and should accept the consequences in terms of taxes. The aim of caring for all people is a biblical imperative, particularly in the Old Testament, and we need no other mandate than the words of the prophets and the example of Jesus. So in this Eucharist we bring the needs of the world to God in the prayers of the people, without which there can be no Eucharist. Then in bread and wine we remember that Jesus shared our human condition and brought God's healing and wholeness to a broken world through his life, death and resurrection.

So, on this Sunday morning after the political night before, we dare not leave it to our politicians to sort thing out, and we cannot think that we have done our bit for the next few years by voting them into power. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist over the duration of this parliament we are doing something which is integral to what we have done by voting on Thursday, whether or not the person and party we voted for was elected. And we will express that link both by what we do in church and what we do in the world. Today we can pray for our new MPs as they try to form a government.; we can remember with thanksgiving the victory in Europe in 1945 and pray for all victims of wars past and present; and on this Rogation Sunday, we can pray for our relationship with the created world. But what else are you doing to answer the prayer that God's kingdom should come on earth as it is in heaven?

In God's grace the Eucharist is also about the suffering and wounds experienced in our lives in a broken world being healed, it is about life restored through Jesus Christ. Jesus healed wounded people and those who, like the man in the gospels, had lost hope after 38 years, and was himself wounded. After his resurrection, he showed the startled disciples his wounds and let them touch them - they were not miraculously swept away. On Thursday we will celebrate Ascension Day remembering that Jesus ascended into heaven bearing the scars of crucifixion, the scars of his engagement with the world. At the Last Supper Jesus said, "This is my body, broken for you" and he took the wounds of his broken body into heaven. Because of that we know there is a place in heaven for our wounds and the wounds of the world.

That is a hope no politician can offer. That is our mandate for holding together our engagement with the wounds of the world with the hope that, in Jesus Christ our Lord, God's kingdom is coming on earth as it is in heaven. Week by week as we celebrate the Eucharist, pray we are all transformed through it into the likeness of our Lord who faced the political powers of his day and offered himself into their hands, but who also took bread and wine and instructs us to do the same in remembrance of him who brought new life to the world life through his death, resurrection and ascension. Thanks be to God.