Worship at Home by John Hinton first available Sunday 19th July 2026

Message:

In the book Robin Meyers differentiates Christ: the Divine focus of worship, from Jesus: the living breathing loving person who walked the streets of Palestine. Jesus who pointed the way to God, who reflected the nature of God more clearly than anyone, but who arguably never saw himself as divine. In Mark, the earliest Gospel to be written, he even railed against being called good never mind God when he is reported to say "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." Yes, he called God father, but he taught us all to say “Our father”.   

The early church followed Jesus rather than worship him. So much so that they were known as people of the Way. What was the way? Well to many it was the way of the insane. Meyer writes: It is no wonder, then, that when Jesus began to teach and preach an alternative wisdom, he appeared to be insane. Samaritans were often the heroes of his stories, even though they were considered heretical and impure. Pharisees were often exposed for hypocrisy and empty faith, even though they were the keepers of the faith. Parties were given for prodigal sons who did not deserve them, and God heard the agonized prayer of a tax collector above the rote prayer of a religious professional. The Beatitudes, or “blessings,” of the Sermon on the Mount turned the world upside down. Most disturbing of all, he ate with outcasts, criminals, and prostitutes—proving that if we are known by the company we keep, then it is no wonder they called him a drunkard and a glutton. And yet, and yet!!  The life and teaching of this drunken glutton, this insane man, were so attractive to his followers – those that witnessed his deeds with their own eyes and heard his teaching with their own ears – that, after his death on the cross, they chose to carry on as though he was still with them. They chose to become people of the way, followers of his way. A way of community, of inclusivity, of healing, of sharing, of challenge …. a way of Love. But as the decades and the centuries rolled by Christianity became less defined by ‘doing’and more defined by ‘believing’ – sometimes in what in in the 21st century is unbelievable – to be “in” you had to accept the doctrines, the creeds and the dogma. The definition of being a Christian moved away from these words of Jesus as recorded by Matthew

Matthew 25: 31-45. 

Jesus’s words on judgement – and here we must recognise that most of the time he spoke of forgiveness rather than judgement- but here his words on

judgement are all about actions. The King did ask “Did you feed the hungry and thirsty, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and the prisoner?”He did not ask whether you accepted statements of belief! Why do I agree with Robin Meyers that the call to “stop worshipping Christ and start following Jesus again” is so important now?  

Well, look around and see emptying pews, closed churches and apathy. Is this because people no longer have any appetite to hear the alternative wisdom of Jesus – that there is a different and better way to live - or is it that they can no longer believe in the Christ as defined by the church? Pat and I went on a rail holiday this year and there were over 30 in our party. Pat recognised that I was in heaven – 30 new people to tell my stories to!  It came out that I was a local preacher and a number of people were truly interested to talk about faith. They didn’t go to church now and I think they would have had little interest in a conversation about creeds - a virgin birth and miraculous ascension – but they were genuinely interested to hear what I said about Jesus and why I thought his ‘alternative wisdom’ was so important now. We live in a world with all the same problems that Jesus’s life, teaching, wisdom and healing addressed - We have our outcasts and unloved, We have our poor and our discarded and overlooked, We have our “out of touch” religious and political leaders, We have our sick in mind and body…and I believe we also have the feeling that “there must be another way, a better way” Jesus offers that way but so many people can’t get past the trappings of the church -  who know what they are supposed to believe but can’t - to be able to hear it! ……..

Let’s sing, a hymn that the early followers of the way could have sang!

StF 713: Show me how to stand for justice