In \u201cThe Five Love Languages\u201d Gary Chapman talks about five different ways in which we give and receive love. Words, Touch, Time, Gifts, and Acts of service. For some of us words are most important in the expression of love, especially words of affirmation, encouragement, and building up. For others it is touch \u2013 holding hands, hugs, a hand on the shoulder that most deeply express love. For still others it is spending good lengths of time with the person they love. <\/p>\n
For yet others the giving and receiving of gifts, not necessarily of great financial value, but those given with significance and thought, that show love. For others it is the things that someone does in service \u2013 the washing up, the ironing, the fetching and carrying, that express love. <\/p>\n
Of course the categories aren\u2019t cut and dried, and we\u2019re all a bit of a mix of them, but it can be a helpful way of enabling people to think about the way in which they express and receive love. It can be particularly fruitful for couples who love each other, but express and receive it in different ways. <\/p>\n
If one\u2019s love language is time and the other\u2019s is gifts then it\u2019s a recipe for disaster. One doesn\u2019t understand why the other one, who says they love them, doesn\u2019t want to spend all their time together, and the other doesn\u2019t understand why all the gifts they are giving aren\u2019t appreciated. It\u2019s like one is saying \u201cI love you\u201d in Russian but the other only knows Hindi. In order for their love to be truly communicated they need to learn each other\u2019s love languages, and be willing to speak and hear in a language which is not their native tongue.<\/p>\n
With all that in the back of your minds, I\u2019d like to invite you to think about appreciation. What is your appreciation language? It\u2019s likely to be the same as your love language, as showing appreciation is part of love. When you want to show appreciation do say something nice or give a gift? When someone says they appreciate something you\u2019ve done, what makes it easiest for you to believe it \u2013 that the person spends time with you or that they give you a hug? Again, it\u2019s probably a mix, but I wonder if you can work out what your preference is?<\/p>\n
In our reading from Mark\u2019s eyewitness account of the good news of Jesus, we heard a story of appreciation. The woman appreciated Jesus, and wanted to show that appreciation. She brought a gift, costly perfume, which she poured out on Jesus\u2019 head in a profound act of service. She showed her appreciation of Jesus in her actions and with her gift. In John\u2019s account of this episode, we read that she also anointed his feet, showing appreciation with touch as she wiped them with her hair. <\/p>\n
Some of the others at the table were indignant, but Jesus isn\u2019t, he\u2019s moved, and stands up for the woman, appreciating her with his words, \u201cShe has done a beautiful thing \u2026. wherever the gospel is preached, throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.\u201d And whilst we don\u2019t read of it in this account, we know from John\u2019s account of another meal at the same house that the woman, Mary, prioritised spending time with Jesus, listening to him, appreciating him. <\/p>\n
So, in the breadth of Jesus and Mary\u2019s relationship we see mutual love and appreciation expressed in words, touch, gifts, time, and acts of service. <\/p>\n
We don\u2019t often read out this list from the end of Paul\u2019s letter to the church in Rome. I chose for us to do so today because it seems to me that it models Paul\u2019s appreciation. In this list of names we see some more things that are important in appreciation. It is wide ranging, it is specific, and it is public.<\/p>\n
Firstly it is wide ranging \u2013 It includes men and women, Priscilla and Aquila, (with the fact that Priscilla\u2019s name is first indicating that she was the more experienced minister), Jews (Andronicus and Junia, and Herodian) and Gentiles (Epenitus at least), rich people (Narcissus and Aristobulus are likely to have been prominent members of Roman society identified in other historical records of Rome at the time), slaves or ex-slaves (Ampliatus, Urbanus and Rufus are all common slave names). Every layer of society is represented, and Paul appreciates all of them.<\/p>\n
So Paul is wide ranging in who he appreciates, and specific as to what he appreciates\u2013 these worked hard, these ones were in prison with me, this one is faithful under testing, this one was like a mother to me. You get the sense of a personal involvement, of a real knowledge of the people he\u2019s appreciating, of shared experiences.<\/p>\n
With this specific appreciation to this wide range of people, Paul goes public. He copies this email to the entire church. This letter is to be read out in their gathered meetings. As he mentions different churches that meet in different houses, it\u2019s reasonable to suggest that either the letter was passed round to be read at their different meetings, or that, on occasion, everyone got together for worship and teaching, and on one (or more) of these occasions the letter was read out. It may even have been copied locally (no photocopiers but plenty of scribes in Rome) so that each congregation could have their own copy to read and study together. <\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve gone through this series, exploring different aspects of what it means to be a church that values celebrating, we started with the place of joyful worship, we went on to consider the importance of noticing what God is doing – so that we can celebrate it, we talked about being grateful to God, and then last week Nick helped us think about generosity.<\/p>\n
His main focus was on the radical generosity of Jesus which went beyond giving things that he had, to the extent of giving his life, so that our relationship with God could be restored. Yes, we are to be generous with our things, our money, our time, but as Nick noted last week, many others do that as well. What is unique about the generosity in which we are called to follow Jesus, is that we are called to give away our wills, so that we can do God\u2019s will, and we are called to give away our selves, as Jesus did. This radical generosity will be seen in all these areas of our lives, but it won\u2019t stop there, it will go beyond it. <\/p>\n
I appreciate that message that Nick brought for us last week. I appreciate Nick\u2019s ministry among us and in Wellington. The difference he is making through the links he has in the community, through the Orbit project, and through the Wrekin Community fridge amongst others is significant. <\/p>\n
I also appreciate the challenges he brings us, seeing things from a different perspective. The challenge he brought us last week about being more than our Sunday meetings, and the things he has struggled with about engaging with Sunday services, post Covid, I know resonated with people who were encouraged that he felt able to share those feelings from the front. I also know that some people were unsettled by what he shared. <\/p>\n
He and I have been having some good conversations about it through the week, and I know that others have taken up his gracious invitation to talk about it with him as well. We are working together on discerning how, in light of this, Nick\u2019s ministry in All Saints and Wellington might be shaped as it continues in future. We would be grateful for your prayers and generosity of spirit in giving us space to have those conversations well, so that we can all continue to flourish, and that the devil will have no foothold to get in and disrupt our relationships. Because, I deeply appreciate Nick\u2019s ministry here, including the challenges he brings to us, and I want to see it continue and bear fruit.<\/p>\n
There are many others who I appreciate here and at St Catherine\u2019s. I know I\u2019m not always good at showing that appreciation, and that when I do it is usually in the form of words of appreciation rather than the other four. I am continuing to learn the other languages, but I\u2019m not a particularly quick study. When I was writing this, I did think about starting to read a list like Paul\u2019s but I had two fears. On the one hand that the list would be too short and I\u2019d miss people, or if I made the list long enough to include all the people I appreciate then we\u2019d still be here tonight. So I decided not to. And, on further reflection, this is about a whole church way of being. It is part of moving beyond doing church towards really being the church, that we build a culture of appreciating, and expressing appreciation for each other in all we do. Not with self-satisfied back-slapping but with genuine encouragement and love.<\/p>\n
So my invitation to us all is to consider the different ways in which we can express appreciation, with words, touch, gifts, time, and acts of service. Let\u2019s see how wide ranging we can make our appreciation, beyond the people who are like us, beyond our usual circle. Let\u2019s be specific when we show that appreciation, and let\u2019s be vocal about it, as we notice what God is doing in and through each other, as we are thankful to God for those things, let\u2019s be generous in our appreciation and joyful in the worship that goes with it, so that we can be a church that celebrates well together, and throws parties that draw people in and closer to Jesus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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