I love these two cartoons - we don't really want to change our ways do we?
Tomorrow, I am having to say something meaningful to a church that is leaving its building in September as it is beyond them. We have possibilities to be church differently. Tomorrow, I simply want to encourage them. I am not sure I have in these words, but this is what I am led to say:
We gather on
the first Sunday of 2016. 2016! Where did 2015 go?
We gather at
the beginning of what will be an important year in the story of our church. On
September 18th we will gather in this building for the last time. We
will then be somewhere else! Conversations will continue to take place
surrounded by much prayer and a positive spirit about how we will be God’s
people, temporarily once this building has been closed, and then a permanent
presence in this part of the community. We have a future we do not yet see all
the details of, but we step out in confidence as this important year begins. We
might not know all the answers but we know who comes with us and we trust. We
make our Covenant this morning believing in the God who has been with us since
Methodism began in this part of the town, through 150 years of this building,
through changes and chances, and now says come with me, it might be a bit
frightening, it might be a bit bumpy, but it will be exciting. Trust me!
Our Covenant
Service this year as you are going first this year of my four, falls a few days
before the feast of Epiphany, the day we remember journeying Magi from the East
and their example to us, their frightening, bit bumpy, but exciting journey to
the toddler Jesus. Remember they come much later than shepherds to Bethlehem.
We just put them in nativity plays to give everyone a part, but actually Jesus,
Mary and Joseph are in a house by this time, and Jesus is not now a baby.
I want to
use this journey to think about the need in us to journey, not just at the turn
of the year but every day. The journey
of the Magi, symbolizes the faith journey of men and women down the ages. The
doubts, the fears, the decision to give up and turn back for home, but still
something nagging in the back of one’s head, says ‘stay with it, keep on travelling’.
The wise men
are a metaphor for our own spiritual life and journey of faith. An example for
us here as we begin our year of change.
I see
something about ruts, about going for it, and about new roads for God’s church
today.
First, we
need a star to follow. We need some sense of direction. So many people today
are in a rut. Life is a problem, they want to get out of where they are today
because there has been to be something else. To leave for something else
because what is happening to you today is so rubbish, means you have to be
brave and stand up for yourself sometimes. I was in a rut in Carphone Warehouse
the other week trying to buy my Mum a very simple mobile phone for
Christmas. I simply wanted to buy a
phone with cash which Mum can pop up in the shop when her credit runs out like
now. But dear Majed, who was training and “a bit wobbly” according to his supervisor,
got me.
I tried to
explain to him my first name is not Rev. He started to go all through all my
bank details. I asked him why can't I just give cash and have the phone. He told
me it was for security reasons. I told him the phone was not for me. He said he
needed to know who I am and everything, marital status and all. I told him
again I wanted to give him cash. He started going on about direct debit coming
out of my account bruv so we need your account number and wouldn't hear no Mum
would top up the phone and it is nothing to do with me, and then he asked what
is a vicar bruv and what are you doing tonight bruv I decided to go! We went
round and round and round and round and all that was happening was he and I
were going nowhere until I ran away! I needed to get out. January 2016 begins
with ruts. Flooded out homes in the north, worries about financial insecurity,
wars and rumours of wars, pain and prejudice but we start from these things.
You are as a
church here made a decision to leave this building a few years ago. We need to
leave it before it falls in on us. I know Evelyn hoped the nativity might be
livened up by the infamous bit of roof coming down. We and the pain filed
people of the world start the journey in hope, I guess that’s why so many buy a
ticket to watch fireworks. They want hope. I liked what Bishop Nick Baines said
Hope is not the same as wishful
thinking; hope refuses to let go in the face of even fierce discomfort. We all
need to get out of a rut, stupidity, things that need to end, a world going
mad. I am now sure the magi in the east were in a rut, but they were restless.
There was something better to be made and to follow.
Second thing
for today – the need to just go for it. A wise and Christian journey is always
of faith, whatever star we follow. What prompted the wise men to go on an
uncertain and perilous journey: ‘where was he who had been born king of the
Jews?’ God’s journeys always involves faith. People of faith have been willing
to respond to the challenges of the unknown in search for God. Faith does not
mean certainty.
It means
having the courage to live with uncertainty. It does not mean having the answers,
but rather having the courage to ask the questions, to go on the journey and to
follow a star – to respond to intuition, that inner sense of calling by God
that many searching a vocation often articulate. It is risky faith in action.
As well as
making a decision to leave this building in 2010, I salute you this morning as
2016 opens for your commitment and your faith in action. It would be so easy to
say let’s just close in September. But we aren’t prepared to and we don’t need
to do that, because it is merely a poorly building we have not a poorly people.
In fact we have grown over the last year, reaching more people in our community
through our programme and our special events.
If you
weren’t at the Messy Christingle on Christmas Eve you missed something really
special, one of those God moments in our story, 92 people in here, having fun,
engaging with each other and sharing worship. And as we lit the Christingles,
Christ’s light – I sensed more powerfully than at any other moment since I have
been with you – it is absolutely right we stay here in this area, whatever that
means. We need to hold on to each other, as the magi did across the desert
sands, we need not to worry about how long it takes to where we need to be,
God’s time is not ours. We need to keep following because we are being led. So
we might be travelling through a bit of a desert for a bit, but there are
greater things ahead, aren’t there? We need to go for it.
It’s like
Dotty I read about in a women’s magazine the other day. Women’s magazines are
full of good stuff! Dotty decided in 2015 to not do the ironing. She says “When
I say “not do the ironing” I don’t mean leave the pile to grow huge and
intimidating – I mean just stop doing it. I sent my iron to the charity shop
over a decade ago. Nothing bad happened. It turns out that with a bit of
panache and a judicious approach to shopping you don’t need to iron. Ever. My
kids are no more crumpled than anyone else’s and I’ve never been barred entry
to anywhere because I was too creased.” She uses all her clothes one by one in
the wardrobe, including wearing a cocktail dress for work under a blazer, first
feeling a little self-conscious. “The self-consciousness lasted until I
remembered I am awesome, and if you can’t wear what you like as a grown-up,
what is the point?” Sometimes you just
have to go for it and believe, and not worry what others are saying or how many
doors shut, if you believe in what you are doing. I’ve had said to me “they
should just go to Calvert!” No we need not! Let’s keep going for it. Thank you
for all you are doing.
Finally, I
think we need to be expect surprises.
We can often
look in the wrong places to find God. The wise men knew that Herod’s palace was
not the birth place of the one they sought. They didn’t go to the Jewish Temple
to find God’s presence. They went to an unexpected place, where love was wrapped
in a manger then in a parent’s care of a little boy. There are no limits placed
on where the divine and human Christ can be found. And, when we discover Jesus
as the shepherds and wise men did, we should be willing to be surprised.
There was an
irresistible pull felt by the wise men who sensed God’s revelation, took risks,
saw within themselves that following their star would lead them to Christ. The star though went a different way. And
there was a new road to go back by. The old ways, well, they were old. The new
way was life changing for ever. It’s like me not to go to Bexhill along the old
Bexhill Road ever again. The new road is so much more exciting.
So what is
God’s message for us at St Helen’s on this Covenant Sunday 2016? It is this –
get out, follow and find a new way to be. Perhaps that’s the message I say to
the whole Circuit at the moment, get out, follow and find a new way to be.
Let’s also remember Hollington today and Park Road who will be joined together
in September as one. Let’s remember also other shoots of exciting new growth
out there.
In the
Journey of the Magi by T. S. Elliot he wrote of the change in the wise men:
‘This birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like death – our death. We
returned to our palaces, these kingdoms, but no longer at ease here in the old
dispensations, with an alien people clutching their gods.’ The wise-men were
changed by their encounter and such changes are a sign of God’s activity.
The Covenant
Prayer we make this morning as folk have here before us calls us to accept the
guiding hand.
Jean-Pierre
de Caussade, in his classic Abandonment to Divine Providence, ends my rambling
for today well:
“Imagine we
are in a strange district at night and are crossing fields unmarked by any
path, but we have a guide. He asks no advice nor tells us of his plans. So what
can we do except trust him? It is no use trying to see where we are, look at
maps, or question passers-by. That would not be tolerated by a guide who wants
us to rely on him. He will get satisfaction from overcoming our fears and doubts,
and will insist that we have complete trust in him.”
The wise-men
were wise because they were willing to follow their star.
They were
wise because they were willing to look in unexpected places where they were
surprised, and they were wise because they were willing to be changed.
And 2016 for
us means we will be too, not just where we do church but how we are as Christ’s
people.
May God
bless us, challenge us, encourage us, surprise us and reassure us as we set out
this New Year together. Amen.
