Caring and cross bearing

Passage for reflection: Matthew 10: 24 - 39

There is a lot of thinking going on at the moment

about what shape Church will be in the future. Having to have our buildings shut and having to find new ways to be Church has I think given us an opportunity to think about what really matters in our programme if we really are to be the Church of Christ. 

I continue to say thank you to those of my colleagues who week by week since we were locked down on March 23, have enabled on line services, bible studies, pastoral support, Zoom meetings and coffee mornings and have provided practical help to the most vulnerable in their communities. The Church has not closed over this period, it has perhaps been more relevant than ever.

 One of my Facebook friends has unfriended someone who called on line worship “wishy washy kitchen sink services.” They needed  unfriending! Reflecting how long it takes me to think about an on line sermon like this and my plodges on film, they take longer to put together because I’m aware my congregation is diverse, and a lot of people who read my stuff or listen to my rambling don’t do formal church so it is a challenge to be relevant and helpful.

 On line, you don’t know who you are reaching. It is far from wishy washy, even though I long to return to public worship in a sacred space and with others around me, and most of all, I long to share communion with people. I last took a communion service in a Church on Sunday 15 March at Terrington St John Methodist Church. The steward put an out of date bottle of hand gel on the lectern. We were told to wash our hands before giving out the bread and wine, and to wipe hymn books after using them. None of us back then thought how serious this pandemic would soon become.

A lot of people think that Matthew’s Gospel was written as an instruction manual for the Early Church. We need some help as we work out where we will put our energy both inside a fellowship when it is safe to do so, and outside where we are called to serve.

The American writer Shane Claiborne tweeted this which got me thinking:

“ Our faith is not just a ticket in to heaven and a licence to ignore the world we live in. We have promised people life after death, when many people are asking if there is life before death. This is not just about going to heaven when we die. It’s about bringing heaven to earth.”

Is “bringing heaven to earth” the new missio Dei, the new raison d’etre for the Christian community? We are I think called anew to share who God is, and then think about our calling. The passage for today in Matthew 10 has words for us about both of those things.

What sort of God do we have?  A “God of the sparrows”, a God who cares deeply for even those small creatures in his world that are sold for half a penny. If you are one of those today, God loves you more than these. And God loves you more than anything. In fact, God will stop at nothing to make sure you know you are loved and valued beyond measure. For you are created in the image of God. The imago Dei. The very imprint of God is at your core. And you do not have to be afraid. Because God has counted your every hair, your every wrinkle, your every cell. And you are LOVED! No matter what has been done or left undone in your life thus far, your story can be told and new life can be found. You are ultimately a child of God. This is your truest identity and everything else stems from it. Flows out of it. And if we know our truest identity to be “child of God,” we can tell our stories and hear the stories of others in the light of God’s love. Without fear. 

Jesus sends the disciples out with few if any supplies, but he sends them out with everything they need: the assurance of care and the message of love incarnate. 

But it won’t be easy! Jesus comes to bring a sword. Our call to be his people may well bring conflict and trouble. We are not called to be popular. We may well need to be in the middle of violence and the struggle for justice, we may well need to use our voice to speak for the voiceless, and have days, even years when it just feels like hard graft. I don’t like Jesus’ words about families turning on each other. Not at all. 

He goes on to say what the heart of our call is.

“Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” 

This coming week the Methodist Conference meets virtually. On Saturday the new President of the Conference, the Rev. Richard Teal, will be inducted. I’m so glad Richard is this year’s President as he is a passionate advocate for rural chapels and mission. I’ve sat on a working party writing material on the rural Church with him. It will be easy when thinking about mission and where we put resources to just say, well, small chapels should just close. But but but but... it is my experience that often the best caring and sacrificial witness is done by little places in villages because they are often at the heart of where they are called to be and they know the needs and joys of people around them. So a plea to those in big churches who’ve never been in a little one but have all sorts of opinions about them and write papers about their demise, please don’t diss the rural Church. There is much to celebrate in it. 

“A small church is no more a failed big church than a satsuma is a failed

orange, they are different.”

So let’s as we think about the future focus on what matters. Maybe some things, when our buildings are safe for all, will not open again. I definitely think on line worship and presence will continue. Take my vlogs: over 200 people watch them. The largest physical congregation I preached to in the Fens was, at most, 40. 

Most of all, we need to be relevant, to have a vision and to keep the cross at our heart. Only a God who knows what it is to suffer can really be of help to people who desperately need care. It will take a long time to get over some of what this pandemic has done. Which reminds me of a song we used to sing in youth club in Harpenden from the Iona book “Enemy of Apathy”:

Don’t tell me of a faith that fears
To face the world around
Don’t dull my mind with easy thoughts
of grace without a ground!

Don’t speak of piety and prayers
Absolved from human need;
Don’t talk of spirit without flesh
Like harvest without seed.

Don’t sate my soul with common sense
Distilled from ages past
Inept for those who fear the world’s
about to breathe its last.

Don’t set the cross before my eyes
unless you tell the truth
of how the Lord, who finds the lost,
was often found uncouth.

So let the Gospel come alive
in actions plain to see
in imitation of the one
whose love extends to me.

I need to know that God is real!
I need to know that Christ can feel
the need to touch and love and heal
the world, including me!

I like how someone has responded to Shane Claiborne’s tweet about bringing heaven to earth. 

“In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to say “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” If we sit back waiting for God’s kingdom to come on earth without actually becoming engaged it the process, it’s nothing but “thoughts & prayers.”

Claiborne has retweeted some words of Bryan Stevenson over the Black Lives Matter campaign:

"Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet."  Isn’t that the call of a cross shaped and cross carrying Church? Isn’t that the proof that God cares for the sparrow that feels insignificant and uncared for? That Jesus goes to the ultimate in love for his people means that his Church, in thinking about its programme has to be sacrificial.