Go, tell

In 2019 Living Brook Benefice is encouraging everyone to tell their stories of God in their lives, and to pray for people to meet Jesus. We begin the year with a sermon series given by the Lay members of the Living Brook Ministry Team.What follows is the second sermon given by Steve Watson.

Our Benefice theme for this year is the phrase I will tell and Julia on behalf of the Benefice Ministry Team introduced this a fortnight ago. I too stand before you today to continue the narrative and Angie Milne will carry it on further in 2 weeks time.

My  theme for today is taken from the last few verses of Matthew’s Gospel; these are commonly known as The Great Commission.

Reading from verse 16

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. The Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

The first thing that popped into my mind when I read this was a few lines from a hymn:

Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere.

Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.

Shortly afterwards I read a piece in the newspaper about a monk who had been living on a bleak hill in Northumberland since 1971; first in a caravan and latterly in a house he built with the help of friends. The site now has a church and 4 monastic cells also built with occasional help. Brother Palmer could be described as a hermit but he is not a full recluse having visitors every week or two.

I started to ponder how to square the idea of the great commission with this life of comparative solitude spent largely in prayer and saying the various daily offices. For me the answer is in the epistle reading set for last week and today from 1 Corinthians. Paul describes how each of us is given different gifts; we are not to have all the gifts, but some of them, and we are to work together as a team helping each other.

Brother Palmer’s gift is for prayer and he has used it to provide a retreat where others who want to experience prayer in solitude can come and join him. He has chosen a life not of going out evangelising but of visibly witnessing to God mainly on his own. It seems to me that his vision of telling it on the mountain is to set a clear example of following Jesus that anyone can look up and see. The invitation is implicitly there to come and join him for a while and engage in prayer with the aim of becoming closer to God.

Frankly it is not a life or a lifestyle that I feel comfortable with – for one thing I have stood out on too many draughty building sites in the cold and rain and I appreciate my creature comforts in Piddington. That led me to think about some of the people I have known over the last 40 years and who have prayed in all 3 churches in our Benefice. One of the things that struck me as I reflected was that many of the people of my parent’s generation had a faith that was grounded in a thorough knowledge of the Bible and they were not apologetic about sharing it with anyone. A Christian Life was important to them and it showed in what they said and did both inside and outside the church.

Of course times have changed but I wonder how many people could say of each of us - I can see that they are Christian by the way that they lead their lives, by the example they set, and that they are prepared to justify their beliefs in public.

Today’s Old Testament reading is from Nehemiah. In Chapter 8 Ezra, the priest, reads to a large gathering from the Book of the Law of Moses. This is probably the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Bible where among other things Moses is setting a way of living for the Jews. Ezra is telling the people God’s word and the people are listening carefully.

The Gospel Reading from Luke Chapter 4 sets out that Jesus has been teaching in the synagogues and today he starts to give a clue to who he really is – he has been already, and is now, telling them what the Christian story is going to be.

Both Ezra and Jesus are speaking publicly, their actions and their words are inextricably linked

So what does Go and make disciples of all nations look like. While I was reading round I came across some figures.

According to research the ratio of non - believers to believers has steadily declined over the centuries.

At the end of the first century (AD 100) there were 360 non - believers for every single follower of Jesus on earth.

By the end of the first millennia (AD 1000) that number shrank to 220!

By the beginning of the Reformation (AD 1500) there were 69 non - believers for every Christian.

 As the last century began (AD 1900) the number was down to 27.

After two world wars (AD 1950) progress was still being made. The number of non - believers for every Christian totalled 21.

By 1980 that number had diminished to 11 non - Christians on earth for every “Great Commission Christian” – those committed followers of Jesus who are trying to spread their faith to others.

To be fair that sounds good; however the number of people on the planet has also vastly increased so in terms of actual numbers there are a lot more people who still have to learn about our Lord

Also a couple of figures from the Diocesan website I found last week:

·       52% of mission is led by non-licensed lay people (31% clergy, 17% licensed). Often not picked up by the system these hidden gems are doing outstanding mission work all across the diocese.

·       77% of all contacts with non-church goers happens in and around primary schools.

Going back to Brother Palmer, the monk on the hill, he was definitely not someone like Billy Graham who was comfortable talking to thousands but someone who interacted with no more than 2 or 3 people at any one time – and that it was where I personally feel more comfortable, along with, I suspect, many other Christians.

So where does that leave us here in Quinton / Hardingstone? How can we show and tell today?

 Here’s a couple of ideas - could anyone help support the Benefice Pastoral Team by giving a small portion of their time to visit a lonely person. Alternatively the Children’s Team are running Experience Jesus days at the end of March for the local schools in Hackleton and Hardingstone. I know many of you have volunteered to help previously at these events and found them very spiritually rewarding both for the children and themselves, please speak to Gill Watson if you can help. We are going to need additional help this year because Gill needs another replacement knee operation and will be out of action during the schools’ visits.

For an action –

At Piddington I suggested that it would be good if we could tidy up Church Walk again and trim back the tree overhangs so that the children can reach the church safely. A lot of people use that path, it’s on the dog walking circuit and it’s another way of showing the church in action.

In Quinton I was very impressed with the display of poppies on the church for Remembrance Day. Is there anything else that the church here can do to show that it is not just contained within these walls.

Here in Hardingstone you can now see the church from the High Street thanks to the efforts of a group of volunteers but is there anything else that the church here can do to show that it is not just contained within these walls.

In our brown hymn books the hymn immediately after “Go tell it on the mountain” has a chorus that goes

Freely, freely you have received;

freely, freely give.

Go in my name, and because you believe,

others will know that I live.

In many ways I think those few lines say a lot about Christian living and sum up what I have been saying earlier.

Go tell it on the mountain by all means – but much better to tell it here in Living Brook in both word and action.

Amen

Build up the church in love

21/28 October                    1 Corinthians 14

This sermon begins with reading a couple of verses from the chapter in a language that I am able to read, but that I know isn't spoken by anyone present in the room - in this case, Welsh.

Did that edify you? Did you feel better for hearing those words that you didn’t understand? It made me feel good! Well, actually, it didn’t, because I wasn’t communicating with you. The words were meaningful, and as it happens I know exactly what I said, which is not the case when I normally speak in tongues – I wasn’t using the gift of tongues then, I was teasing you, speaking Welsh. And it wasn’t good for you or for me, and would only have been good had there been a Welsh speaker here to understand the words.

The reason I did it was, of course, to underline Paul’s point about speaking in tongues. Using that gift in private, to grow closer to God, is really wonderful, and I can strongly commend it to you. But in public it is no more helpful than those words of Welsh were, unless there is a way to translate it. My speaking it in this way is basically selfish. And that’s not how the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us are to be used. Whatever gifts we have, they are of proper value when they build up the whole church. That’s not to say we should only use our gifts for the whole church – we must work at growing closer to God as individual disciples in prayer, Bible knowledge and in the way we live. But in church we must use our gifts to build up the whole church.

Paul tells us that this works by starting with the rule of life that underlies all Christian life. He calls this rule the ‘way of love’ and describes it in chapter 13.4-7: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13.4-7 NRSV). This is the way of life that each of us should strive for. In chapter 14.1 Paul writes: ‘Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy’.

This way of life is a privileged one, but it is not a reserved one. Some people think that only those of us who are ordained need to live this way, or to have spiritual gifts, and especially to have the gift of prophecy. But Paul wasn’t writing to a group of clergy. He was writing to a whole church. All Christians, he suggests, should live according to the rule of love, and ask God to give them spiritual gifts, whether of teaching, hospitality, tongues, apostleship, healing, wise discernment – or prophecy. The point of prophecy, he reminds us, is that it builds up the church. Used properly, prophecy speaks into the present moment, speaking God’s word into what is happening right here, right now. Prophecy can bring comfort and encouragement. It strengthens and affirms. Sometimes it challenges and disturbs too, and seeks to change the status quo, but only ever for the building up of the church.

Being a prophetic voice is not easy. People don’t like prophets when they challenge or disturb. If a prophetic voice seeks to change the way that things have always been done it must of course be tested. But so often across time prophets have been shouted down or shouted at for speaking uncomfortable truths. We take some of those truths for granted now: that we should read the Bible in our own language, for example, that we should update our liturgies, or that the priest should not turn his back on the congregation – or that the priest might be turning her back. Or more locally, it can’t have been pleasant to be the person who first said ‘we’ll have to close the church in Horton’, for example. Perhaps that’s why so many people shy away from asking God for the gift, or look to the clergy to be the ones who exercise it. The clergy are so much easier to blame. But its not what Paul said. All of us are to ask for the gifts and to use them out of the basis of the way of love. Lovingly building up the church.

It’s challenging, especially when community demands clash with the needs of the church. We have to measure our actions against scripture, look at what Jesus taught and ask ourselves how community demands and the good of the church come together. Sometimes they don’t. Paul tells us that we have to think like adults in this, while acting like children when it comes to evil – in other words, to learn and apply our learning when it comes to the way of love, and to stay well away from learning about evil. Unless it is part of our working lives – as police officers or social workers, we should keep away from it. And thus we must pray extra hard for Christians who do have to deal with evil as part of their work. Jesus tells us to be ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ (Matt. 10.16). In the affairs of the church, we must exercise adult wisdom. Millennials sometimes talk about ‘adulting’. Intentionally being responsible, thinking about it properly. Adulting should be loving and unselfish, looking to build up ourselves and others, not to indulge ourselves at the expense of others. So let’s do adulting when it comes to living in love and using the gifts that God gives us to make our church stronger and more encouraging. Let’s do adulting when we try to be men and women of prayer and of scriptural confidence. Let’s do adulting when supporting each other and seeking what is best for the church. Let’s do adulting when we look at the Bible to see what God actually wants us to do for the community around us, and then use our spiritual gifts – most especially the gift of love – there too.

This is my body

1 Corinthians 11.17-end

It was a great day for a church picnic. Everyone was bringing their own food, but the PCC had implied that a certain amount of sharing would be encouraged, and the vicar had given Jo and Sam the impression that if they came straight to the picnic after their shift at the warehouse, it wouldn’t matter that they didn’t have time to sort out their own food. ‘Don’t worry’, she said, ‘everyone always brings too much. You just come.’ The picnic ran between 12 and 2, so it seemed fine to arrive as soon as they could after their shift – running for the bus meant they got to the site soon after 12.30. Not too late.

Photo by Christine Siracusa on Unsplash

The vicar seemed distracted when they arrived, getting ready for the communion service. The church members were sitting in groups around the site. Some of the members who came from the big houses at the edge of the area had occupied the picnic tables. They’d brought cloths and had plates and glasses and some very fancy looking dishes of food – a lot posher than any picnic Sam and Jo had ever seen. Other members were sitting around blankets with more ordinary looking food. It was obvious that they’d been eating and drinking for a while and some seemed to have finished already.  

Sam and Jo spotted the picnic organiser with his family at one of the tables and went over to them. ‘You made it then,’ he said to them. ‘We understand from the vicar that you couldn’t bring your own food. Shame. Never mind. There are some cheese sandwiches here.’ And from a bag under the table he pulled out a packet of sandwiches and a bottle of water. As he passed it to Jo, he seemed unembarrassed at his failure to offer any of the wine or lemonade on the table, or of the chicken Caesar salad, quail’s eggs or the delicate individual fruit pavlovas that looked so delicious. Not that there was much of it left.

Sam looked around for somewhere to sit, and found a space some distance from the tables. Soon the vicar was calling them together for communion – the sandwiches would have to wait. She broke the bread, using St Paul’s words about there being one bread and one body, but as Sam and Jo looked around the gathering, it didn’t feel like that to them. The people at the tables had only spoken to them when handing them the sandwiches that were so inferior to their own lunch. It seemed they had nothing in common. ‘But we should’, whispered Jo. ‘Didn’t Jesus die for us too? He didn’t think we were less important than anyone else. So why don’t people talk to us? Why are we over here and not siting at one of those tables? Why aren’t we worth a share in the nice food? Is it just because we can’t afford to put a lot in the collection, or because we’re late – it isn’t our fault that they always start these events while we’re still on shift. If this is the body of Christ, I don’t feel like I’m a part of it’.

What happens next? Do Jo and Sam go and find another church, one where they don’t feel looked down on for being warehouse operatives? Does the vicar spot what is happening and speak out to the wealthy members of the church? Perhaps those wealthy members haven’t realised just how unfair they are being. Perhaps they think preparing a few cheese sandwiches was a great kindness and that they did well – will she put them right? Will she tell them that they are amputating part of the body by behaving so thoughtlessly? Or will she keep quiet, because she’s afraid that these wealthy people have the power to make her life miserable, or even to take her job from her?

I’m not describing a real scenario. Jo and Sam are fictional. But I’ve seen close enough variants a few times in the course of my life to know that what St Paul described in 1 Corinthians 11 is still a threat to the body of Christ now. In those early days of the church, the sharing of bread and wine was becoming symbolic but hadn’t yet been separated from the sharing of a meal. Influenced by the shape of a Passover meal, bread was broken and blessed at the start of a shared meal, and the cup of blessing shared at the end of it. People reminded themselves of all that Jesus had asked them to remember, as part of the sharing in a full meal. But in Corinth the local customs for eating together were leading to divisions within the church. Wealthy hosts would eat in their dining rooms, starting as soon as they were ready. Poorer church members would arrive to find the meal in progress and their food – of a much lower quality – served in the hall. That was not how Paul, Peter and Apollos had taught the Corinthian Christians to behave, and it definitely did not reflect the teaching of Jesus.

As Paul reminded the Corinthians of the story of the Last Supper – and this is the earliest account of it that we have – he was doing it to show them how their behaviour was not a remembrance of Jesus, but rather it was letting him down. Jesus calls his people to be one body, united in love for God and for each other. The bread is the symbol of that body. Jesus, the bread of life, identified his body with bread and asked all who follow to see bread as his body. The bread of life, the body of Christ, both are one. And so, Paul says, when we share that bread, we are not just connecting with Jesus, in receiving something that becomes for us his body. We are connecting with the whole church – because we are the body of Christ. The bread is a symbol and sign of our identity as the church – we are the body of Christ, and so we are the bread of life for the world. Eating that bread is not only a personal spiritual experience. It is a shared experience – the word corporate really comes into its own. Eating the bread binds us as Jesus’ body here on earth, his presence in the world.

And if we believe that, then our behaviour towards each other must be completely respectful, loving and thoughtful. It isn’t acceptable to look down on other Christians. It isn’t acceptable to hand one a cheese sandwich while you eat lobster. Better for everyone to have cheese sandwiches. And to eat them together – not eating first but waiting. In my picnic scenario, the event should have been times to start when Jo and Sam were able to get there. And a proper planned shared meal would have been better too. With tables reserved for those unable to sit on the ground because of bad hips, or dealing with a baby, or old age, even if that meant some people used to a more refined way of living find themselves sitting on the grass. Those who really can’t wait to eat, Paul said – eat at home, because you are making it into a private meal, not a shared meal for Jesus’ followers. There should be no exclusivity, no looking down on people. We are one body and we need to behave as though that matters.

Because it does matter. It matters enough that it was one of the last things that Jesus prayed for, and St Paul and other first generation apostles spoke of it constantly. We are one body. And so let us live thoughtfully, respectfully, lovingly, always putting our fellow Christians needs ahead of our own. Jo and Sam and fictional, but the truth is, there are plenty of people out there who have been made to feel the way that they were. Let’s not be that church. Let’s be the church that Jo and Sam looked for – the one that welcomes, and includes and keeps things equal.

The Gates of Heaven

Recently most of my posts have been the texts of sermons, which I am trying to be in the habit of sharing as a way of making them accessible to those who are unable to be in church for any reason, or want to think more about what they heard, or who just like reading sermons! This week my Lay Reader is preaching, which will be a treat for the congregation at 11am, and so I've had time to think more generally.

At the moment I'm indulging myself in reading a book by one of my favourite theologians, Paula Gooder. In her book 'Heaven', she writes about how in ancient Israel the Temple in Jerusalem was understood as the place where God dwelt, literally, in the Holy of Holies. The Temple therefore was a symbol of God's presence, of God's favour for Israel and indeed of God himself. It was where his people went to encounter Him. The veil of the sanctuary which hid God's presence was like a gateway to heaven, the veil or raqia that divides heaven from Earth, mortal life from eternity. Passing through the veil into the Holy of Holies, and into God's presence, was to enter Heaven- to be in the place where heaven and earth come together.

The New Testament speaks of Jesus as the gateway, the way to the father; cf John 14:6 'Jesus said to him: 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' As Jesus died, the veil in the Temple was torn in two. The Holy of Holies was open to all, no longer reserved only for the High Priest, but flung open by the great high priest Jesus. In Jesus the presence of God is revealed, and the way to God is manifest. It was no longer necessary to go to the temple, because God's presence was to be found not in a place but in a person. Jesus. The temple had no further purpose and was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD and not replaced. God is no longer to be found there.

Jesus, ascending to heaven, sits at the right hand of the father and continues to be our way to the father's presence. Before his death Jesus spoke to his disciples of the work he would do, saying 'I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it' (Matthew 16:18). This saying was the focus of our thinking at the Peterborough Diocesan Ministers Conference last week. The church is Jesus's church, and Jesus is both architect and chief builder on the project. The church is not a building like the temple, nor an institution like the temple hierarchy, but a gathering of people who seek to follow Jesus and to live out his commands. 

Jesus replaces the temple, and so in Him we find our way to the dwelling place of God. He is the symbol of God's presence, of God's favour for all who follow him, and of God Himself. There is no longer a veil separating people from God, but rather an invitation to encounter the Father through Jesus the Son.

The church that Jesus is building is, Paul tells us, his body, of which he is the head (Ephesians 4:15). As his body, the church finds itself in the onerous and honourable position of being that place on earth where people can come to encounter Jesus, and through Jesus, God the Father. 

The church, as Christ's body, succeeds to the place of the Temple. Jesus is building in us a place where all people should be able to encounter God. No veils, no curtains, nothing to hide God or shield us from Him, or Him from us. Instead, coming to the church should be the way to meet Jesus, and it should allow Jesus to make each person who comes to be another building block in the church He is building. 

As each person becomes a building block, they become part of the active and real connection to God, the sanctuary of God's presence that Jesus is making of us. We stand at the gateway to heaven, in the place where the veil used to be, and so for those who approach us we are, in a way, the gateway to heaven. This is what Jesus surely meant when he told Peter that he was giving him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. We know the way, and we can direct people to it,  unlock the gate, usher them in, make them welcome. Or by our behaviour we can prevent people from finding a welcome and from encountering the Father and the Son. 

Jesus intention is that we will welcome people. The gates of hell- the only other place to go apart from the gates of heaven - will not prevail against Jesus' church. He told Peter that. Jesus does not want people going through the gates of hell and away from Him. He tore down the barrier between Earth and Heaven. The temple priests had to keep people out of the presence of God, worshipping from the other side of the veil. Our job as the church is to show people into the presence of God, to be a gate - the very gate of Heaven- that is open and unlocked, and to usher them through into the presence of Jesus.