Acts 17.22-31; 1 Peter 3.13-22; John 14.15-21
The parishes of the diocese are wrestling at present with the questions our bishop has put to us about how we can grow the Church. We had a meeting of our deanery with bishop James a few weeks ago when we gave him the answers to the questions he'd put to our Parochial Church Councils over a year ago now. Most people chosen to speak at the meeting told us in great detail of the many things and the work they were doing in their parishes. And wonderful and varied things they were too. A huge amount of good work is being done in God's name by very good, committed and dedicated and godly people. There's no doubt about that.
After we'd all spoken, the bishop told us how Church attendance is very much in decline. And it seemed to me that he'd told us that most of what we are doing, albeit great and good work, isn't contributing at all to increasing the numbers of people who are coming to church. There are one or two exceptions here and there but by and large, it's true that church attendance is still very much in decline. So what IS to be done? Where is the answer?
I think and believe that we are facing the same sort of situations that St. Paul and the other apostles faced in their time in preaching the gospel especially to the gentiles. There's all sorts of religion out there in the world. People are attracted to a whole range of 'spiritualities'; most of which have nothing to do with Chrisitanity. And so the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News of Jesus is foreign and alien to them. And even if they've heard of Christianity, they know nothing about it.
Earlier this week, on Thursday, we celebrated St. Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent by Pope Gregory from Rome in the year 596 with a group of monks to re-evangelise England. Christianity had been around in Britain since at least the 2nd century due largely to some very zealous Celtic monks who preached the gospel tirelessly and fearlessly. And also during the Roman occupation especially when the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity. But the faith, following the Roman occupation, having waxed strong in earlier centuries began to wane and so Augustine was despatched to England re-invigorate the faith. He wasn't a confident man and wanted to turn back. But the Pope wouldn't let him and so reluctantly but in faith he got on with the job.
I have a feeling that the present age had a feel of what both St. Paul and St. Augustine encountered. There's much weird and wonderful spirituality out there in peoples' hearts and minds but it's a far cry from our faith. And there's lots of stuff out there too that's simply heresy in Chrisitan terms. And by that I mean that there are many who claim to be Christian but they don't believe in the Holy Trinity, that Jesus is God, as we do. And this sort of thing the early Fathers of the Church did so much to fend off and stamp out in their own time. But also too now we have so many different interpretations, even within the true Faith itself, of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus that people new to the Faith don't know what it is they are supposed to believe to have a true Faith. There's so very much confusion out there in the minds of people who are attracted to the Faith. And this is an added dimension to the difficulties that early preachers of the gospel had.
So, we have a situation now in this country very much like those early years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It's true that St. Paul looked at the prevailing culture and used what was in it as a peg on which to hang the gospel as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles today. But he didn't beat around the bush. He went straight to the point. There were no gimmicks in St. Paul's preaching. And I think that we will only get more people into our churches when WE understand more fully what's at the heart of our Collect and readings and post-communion prayer today. It's what's at the heart of this Easter season which will shortly be coming to a close.
The Collect speaks about the significance of the resurrection for our whole life. Through the resurrection the Collect says, 'God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His Son.' That's the gospel, in a single sentence. Yes, it might need explaining to the uninitiated, and that's our job, yours and mine. But we'll only be able to do that if we understand what it means by having experienced Christ's resurrection in our own lives, in the way the gospel speaks of it. We can only pass on what we know as real and true for ourselves. And St. Paul explains that 'in Him (God) we live and move and have our being. God is so close to us that we abide in Him. When we are convinced of that and we know that then we can show others. St. Paul says, in the Acts of the Apostles that God put everyone where they are in the world so that they 'would search for God and perhaps grope for Him and find Him.' God wants those people to have that relationship with Him through which they will experience the resurrection of Jesus in their lives, making once dark lives where they 'groped' for God, full of the glory of the light of Christ, where at last they will see. And it's for us to help them into that relationship, not least through our own conviction, as St. Paul did for the people in his age and St. Augustine five centuries later in his.
We don't have to do all the work for others who don't know God in Christ, in fact we can't even begin to show people God, they have to discover Him for themselves having seen that our lives are lived in Him and the difference that makes to us. It's through what we say to them, through how we live our lives in front of them that they might, as our post-communion prayer will say towards the end of the service; come to 'thirst for (God), the spring of life and source of goodness'.
Then and only then, when people experience these things this passing from darkness to light in us and in themselves, these things which are the movement of the Holy Spirit of God in different ways in them and us, will people not only come, but stay. And when they stay, both they and we too, more and more of us together, will learn to love God more and give Him the praise, glory and worship that is due to Him from now until the end of the ages.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 7.55-60; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14
During the Easter season we've been reading about the various resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples and also from the Acts of the Apostles what that meant for individuals and the Church. We continue in that vein today and as we do so we are left with these extraordinary words of Jesus from St. John's gospel, 'Very truly, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact, will do greater works thatn these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever yo ask in my name. so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.'
Those are astonishing words which ought to make us sit up and do some really hard thinking and ask some really searching questions; not least whether or not we do feel we get our prayers answered and whether or not we see the things that Jesus did, happening around us now. They are challenging words. But I think they are also meant to lead us much further than simply to answer questions at such an immediate and personal level. They are words which, put together with the other readings this morning highlight what the Church is all about and why we are part of it.
I wonder if you ask yourself the questions, why you are here this morning and why you are a member of the Church? Each of us will have our own personal answer to those questions. But as you look around at the world in which we live, you've got to admit that on the face of it they are pretty odd things to be and to be doing. Compared to everything else we do in life, again from a purely superficial and comparative point of view this being a member of the Church and coming to church are very different indeed. And that in itself should give us cause to ask why we do it; once of course we get beyond the answer that it gives your child a better chance at getting into a Church school.
Well to start at the end with the answer which I'll try to explain a bit more fully as I go on. I like what the theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann said about the Church - 'the Church is the presence in the world of a saved world.' That sums it up very nicely. The Church is here for the sake of the world. The Church is the place where we become all that God intends us to be; and that is completely reconciled to Him and as such, reconciled to one another; to have the relationship we had with Him before the Fall. It's a place where all that we are in the world and all that we bring with us actually makes sense and has meaning. The Church is where we learn to be the people God wants us to be and that is 'in Christ' as St. Paul put it. And as such we become the Body of Christ in the world now. The Church is the very real presence of Christ in the world now. And all this, as Jesus says 'that the Father may be glorified'.
We are able to be and do this because we are given the Holy Spirit in baptism. And it's in our baptism that we are resurrected to a new life, through the Holy Spirit. It's in our baptism that we are 'born again' as Jesus said. We are born again 'of water and the Spirit' Jesus says in St. John's gospel. But having been born again we have to grow. And we do this as we co-operate with the Holy Spirit in our ongoing life if, that is, we 'crave for the spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good' as St. Peter says. St. Peter exhorts us to come to Christ who he calls that 'living stone' upon which the Church is built. And just as Jesus Christ is the stone which is our foundation as members of the Church, He's also a stumbling block to those who don't or won't believe.
And don't we see this in the death of St. Stephen. We see how when Stephen glorifies God in Christ, people put their hands over their ears and grind their teeth in anger. They can't stand even to hear the name of Jesus. Isn't it like that these days with so many people. How angry and abusive people get these days as they did in those early years of the Church, when Jesus is mentioned. He is their stumbling block.
So we both proclaim Christ and do His works as well, and greater works than Him, He says.But look at the promise held out for us who live this Christian life by the grace of God in the Holy Spirit through faith. St. Peter says, 'you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.' And all of this that more people will be drawn into this holy nation and glorify God. So the Church is the presence in the world of a saved world, and for the sake of the world too.
The Church is different - 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation'. That's why so many have difficulty understanding and becoming part of it. Simply because it is so different to the world. But the thing is that the world is meant to be how the Church is. St. Paul says 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself'. The world isn't meant to stand for ever outside the Church, which is the Body of Christ. It's meant to become the Body of Christ. And that's why the Church has got to remain as it always was and always will be. The Church isn't an organisation of human beings, it's a divine human organism. It's a living thing. It's the Body of Christ. It can't and mustn't be compromised in the so many ways it seems to be these days by taking into it the values of the world around it. It mustn't be 'watered down' and become so dilute that there's no real difference between it and what you find in the world. The reason that people aren't coming any more, the main reason I believe is just that, that people often experience so little difference between what they experience in the Church to what they experience outside it. And the other reason of course is that when people do hear the gospel it's too big a challenge for them, far greater than anything that they experience outside in their world, which compared with the Church is quite cosy and comfortable and manageable. But that's another story.
What we realise from the readings today is that the resurrected Christ is present to the world as the Church, the Body of Christ which is us, you and I. And this Church, this Body is here for the world itself, whether it knows it, understands it or wants it. But it's here out of love for the world, for that's why Christ was born, lived, died and was raised. Because God loved the world so much.......
During the Easter season we've been reading about the various resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples and also from the Acts of the Apostles what that meant for individuals and the Church. We continue in that vein today and as we do so we are left with these extraordinary words of Jesus from St. John's gospel, 'Very truly, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact, will do greater works thatn these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever yo ask in my name. so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.'
Those are astonishing words which ought to make us sit up and do some really hard thinking and ask some really searching questions; not least whether or not we do feel we get our prayers answered and whether or not we see the things that Jesus did, happening around us now. They are challenging words. But I think they are also meant to lead us much further than simply to answer questions at such an immediate and personal level. They are words which, put together with the other readings this morning highlight what the Church is all about and why we are part of it.
I wonder if you ask yourself the questions, why you are here this morning and why you are a member of the Church? Each of us will have our own personal answer to those questions. But as you look around at the world in which we live, you've got to admit that on the face of it they are pretty odd things to be and to be doing. Compared to everything else we do in life, again from a purely superficial and comparative point of view this being a member of the Church and coming to church are very different indeed. And that in itself should give us cause to ask why we do it; once of course we get beyond the answer that it gives your child a better chance at getting into a Church school.
Well to start at the end with the answer which I'll try to explain a bit more fully as I go on. I like what the theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann said about the Church - 'the Church is the presence in the world of a saved world.' That sums it up very nicely. The Church is here for the sake of the world. The Church is the place where we become all that God intends us to be; and that is completely reconciled to Him and as such, reconciled to one another; to have the relationship we had with Him before the Fall. It's a place where all that we are in the world and all that we bring with us actually makes sense and has meaning. The Church is where we learn to be the people God wants us to be and that is 'in Christ' as St. Paul put it. And as such we become the Body of Christ in the world now. The Church is the very real presence of Christ in the world now. And all this, as Jesus says 'that the Father may be glorified'.
We are able to be and do this because we are given the Holy Spirit in baptism. And it's in our baptism that we are resurrected to a new life, through the Holy Spirit. It's in our baptism that we are 'born again' as Jesus said. We are born again 'of water and the Spirit' Jesus says in St. John's gospel. But having been born again we have to grow. And we do this as we co-operate with the Holy Spirit in our ongoing life if, that is, we 'crave for the spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good' as St. Peter says. St. Peter exhorts us to come to Christ who he calls that 'living stone' upon which the Church is built. And just as Jesus Christ is the stone which is our foundation as members of the Church, He's also a stumbling block to those who don't or won't believe.
And don't we see this in the death of St. Stephen. We see how when Stephen glorifies God in Christ, people put their hands over their ears and grind their teeth in anger. They can't stand even to hear the name of Jesus. Isn't it like that these days with so many people. How angry and abusive people get these days as they did in those early years of the Church, when Jesus is mentioned. He is their stumbling block.
So we both proclaim Christ and do His works as well, and greater works than Him, He says.But look at the promise held out for us who live this Christian life by the grace of God in the Holy Spirit through faith. St. Peter says, 'you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.' And all of this that more people will be drawn into this holy nation and glorify God. So the Church is the presence in the world of a saved world, and for the sake of the world too.
The Church is different - 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation'. That's why so many have difficulty understanding and becoming part of it. Simply because it is so different to the world. But the thing is that the world is meant to be how the Church is. St. Paul says 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself'. The world isn't meant to stand for ever outside the Church, which is the Body of Christ. It's meant to become the Body of Christ. And that's why the Church has got to remain as it always was and always will be. The Church isn't an organisation of human beings, it's a divine human organism. It's a living thing. It's the Body of Christ. It can't and mustn't be compromised in the so many ways it seems to be these days by taking into it the values of the world around it. It mustn't be 'watered down' and become so dilute that there's no real difference between it and what you find in the world. The reason that people aren't coming any more, the main reason I believe is just that, that people often experience so little difference between what they experience in the Church to what they experience outside it. And the other reason of course is that when people do hear the gospel it's too big a challenge for them, far greater than anything that they experience outside in their world, which compared with the Church is quite cosy and comfortable and manageable. But that's another story.
What we realise from the readings today is that the resurrected Christ is present to the world as the Church, the Body of Christ which is us, you and I. And this Church, this Body is here for the world itself, whether it knows it, understands it or wants it. But it's here out of love for the world, for that's why Christ was born, lived, died and was raised. Because God loved the world so much.......
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