Homilies
We Share Not Only the Gospel, But Ourselves.
Holy Spirit take my words and speak to each of us according to our need.
Have you ever had someone tell you that everything is going to be all right, and yet somehow it doesn't make you feel any better? Perhaps you were grieving, or frightened, or struggling with something that seemed too much to carry. Someone offered you the right words, perhaps even a Bible verse, but what you really wanted was someone to sit with you, listen, or just make you a cup of tea. Then perhaps someone else comes along who doesn't have any great words to offer. They don't try to fix things or explain why everything happens. They just make time for you. They listen and they care. There is something of the Gospel in those encounters, particularly the second one.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica: “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” … Not only the Gospel, but themselves.
I wonder whether those words might help us think afresh about what it means to be the Church, and what it means to share our faith with the world around us.
Paul's letter to the Thessalonians is one of the earliest writings in the New Testament. He was writing to a relatively young Christian community, people who had received the good news about Jesus and were trying to work out what following him meant. Their new faith hadn’t made life easy. They faced opposition and uncertainty, and Paul had been separated from them. His relationship with this community mattered deeply to him.
Just before our verse, Paul described the way he and his companions behaved among the Thessalonians. He speaks of gentleness and care, comparing their approach to that of a nursing mother caring for her children. He then described how they encouraged and supported the community, as a parent might encourage their children. This is a picture of people who have become involved in one another's lives, not people sending impersonal instructions from a distance. And then Paul adds that they were eager to share not only God's Gospel, but themselves.
In other words, they didn't just arrive with a message, deliver it and leave. They gave their time, their affection, their energy and their presence. The people they had come to serve had become dear to them. Their ministry was not only telling people that God loves them. It was about allowing people to experience that love through the way they themselves loved others.
They proclaimed the Gospel in words, but they also made it possible for people to experience it relationally.
What does it mean to share ourselves? We might think that sharing the Gospel means finding the right words, explaining what we believe, or inviting someone to church and those things are important; Paul certainly didn't stop speaking about Jesus. But what happens when our words and our lives become separated?
We can speak about God's welcome while making people feel that they don't belong. We can speak about forgiveness while holding on to resentment. We can speak about God's love while being too busy to notice the person who is lonely or struggling.
Of course, none of us gets this right all the time. We are human, we make mistakes, and we sometimes run out of energy. The Christian life is not about pretending to be perfect. It is about allowing ourselves to be shaped, day by day, by the love we have received from God.
If we speak about grace, can people find grace in their encounters with us? If we speak about hope, can we sit alongside someone who has lost hope, without rushing them towards a cheerful conclusion? If we speak about the dignity of every human being, can we treat the person who disagrees with us, the person who irritates us, and the person who has little to offer us with the same dignity?
Sharing ourselves means allowing our faith to affect the ordinary ways in which we relate to people. It means being willing to listen, to be present, to offer practical help, and sometimes to let someone see that we, too, have questions and struggles.
It is not about making ourselves the centre of the story and showing how good we are being. It is about letting the love of Christ shape how we enter other people's stories.
In September 2026, a community partnership at Midland Metropolitan University Hospital was reported to be helping patients and staff through the work of trained volunteers. These volunteers, drawn from a range of backgrounds, offer reassurance to people waiting in the emergency department. They talk with patients and relatives, help people understand what is happening, and notice when someone needs practical or emotional support. The initiative has been described as benefiting both patients and staff.
Those volunteers are not replacing medical professionals. They cannot make the waiting disappear or promise that everything will be fine. But they can make sure that people facing an anxious time do not feel alone. Sometimes a reassuring presence is a gift in itself.
Or how about the story of Ahmed and Rifat Ali, a deaf couple from Southampton whose home had been left unsafe following failed building work. In October 2026, the BBC reported how hundreds of volunteers had helped transform their home through DIY SOS. The work went beyond repairing a building. The family needed a home that worked for them, including adaptations that would make everyday life more accessible for deaf parents raising hearing children.
What is noticeable about stories like these is that care becomes practical. People give their skills, their time and their energy. They don't just express sympathy for a family in difficulty; they become involved in changing that family's circumstances.
These acts of kindness are not limited to Christians. People of many faiths and none give themselves generously to others. We can recognise and celebrate that goodness but as Christians, we can recognise the values of the Gospel in these acts of compassion, dignity and self-giving love. They help us imagine what it means for good news to become something people can actually experience. Perhaps though, they can also challenge us. What might happen if our churches became places where people could expect not only to hear about God's love, but to encounter it in the welcome they receive, the relationships they build and the care that surrounds them?
This doesn't mean that every Christian has to become a volunteer, solve every social problem or be available to everyone at every hour. Sharing ourselves is not the same as exhausting ourselves. Even Jesus withdrew to pray and rest. Nor does it mean that every conversation has to become an opportunity to talk about religion. Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is listen without trying to turn the conversation towards ourselves or our beliefs. Sometimes it is to cook a meal, visit a neighbour, offer a lift, remember someone's name, or make space for a person who feels they have no place. Sometimes it is simply to stay with someone in their sadness.
We may be tempted to think that these are small things, somehow less important than preaching, teaching or organising church activities. But the love of God has always been made visible through ordinary human lives. And we never know how much a small act of kindness might mean to someone who is having a difficult day.
The person who arrives at church for the first time may remember less of the sermon than the person who noticed them standing alone. Someone who has been away for months may need a gentle message more than a question about where they have been. Someone who is grieving may need the freedom to cry without being told to look on the bright side. In all these encounters, we have an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel in more than words; to experience it relationally. We don't need to have all the answers. We need to be willing to meet one another with compassion, humility and love.
There is one more thing to notice in Paul's words. He shares himself because the Thessalonians have become dear to him. It isn't a technique for getting people to believe. It isn't kindness offered with strings attached, as though we love people only in the hope that they will come to church or share our faith. It is love that has become personal. And for Christians, that love begins with God. We are not asked to manufacture a limitless supply of compassion from our own resources. We are invited to receive the love of God, to be changed by it, and to let it flow through us to others.
As Paul writes elsewhere, it is Christ who lives in us. We will never embody Christ perfectly, but we can keep learning to reflect his patience, mercy, generosity and welcome. Our calling is not to make people think how wonderful we are as Christians but to live in such a way that, through their encounters with us, they catch a glimpse of the love of Christ. Not because we are perfect, but because we are willing to be present. Not because we always know what to say, but because we are willing to listen. Not because we can solve every problem, but because we are willing to share something of ourselves.
So, as we go from here, perhaps we might carry Paul's words with us: Not only the Gospel, but our own selves.
What would it mean for us to live out those words this week? It might mean making time to be with someone who needs support, but it might also mean allowing ourselves to receive care too, remembering that the Church is a community where we are all learning to give and receive love.
May we be people who speak of God's love and make room for others to encounter it. May our welcome reflect God's welcome, our compassion reflect God's compassion, and our relationships bear witness to the grace we have received. So that, through our ordinary, imperfect, everyday lives, others may discover that the Gospel is not just something we believe or say. But it is good news that can be experienced. Amen.