A church was torn apart over an issue in its life. There was too much noise before worship and the organist threatened to walk out. Her compromise was to arrive at one minute before the service, slam in, and start playing. The atmosphere when she started doing this was dreadful. The minister, trying to be helpful suggested they shut the door into the worship area to encourage people to meet each other and chat loudly in the foyer, to enable others to be quiet in church and listen to the organ. He was told shutting or not shutting doors should be taken to the Church Council. For two weeks, the door was shut by some, and opened by others and it got ridiculous, and people who wanted quiet got cross, and people who felt they had been told to be quiet said they would not come again. All over whether a door should be open or shut.
That was the last issue I had in my Circuit when I served in the North East – I have never heard how it was resolved.
But today I believe the question about doors is a real one for us, it’s not about a door open or shut to deal with noise, it is about whether the doors of our church are open or shut when it comes to attitude.
Let’s think about what sort of church we are today…
Perhaps we want to be a church that the door opens to let us in but then we shut it to keep everybody else out. To come through a door into a safe haven can bring us protection and warmth and security.
There’s an old hymn which goes:
When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door,
less the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer,
may our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware
that the world we banish is our Christian care.
If our hearts are lifted where devotion soars
high above this hungry, suffering world of ours,
lest our hymns should drug us to forget its needs,
forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds.
We want, once we are inside to shut the horrible world out, because that world is dangerous, we don’t want it inside here, we are immune from it here with like minded people. We want the door to open to give us the love of Christ and then we want to stay inside without distraction, don’t we? Of course, having a door open can be risky indeed dangerous.
We think about Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh on Sea and their regular opening of their door for the local MP to have his surgery with his constituents. We know on Friday, Sir David Amess was brutally stabbed to death. David Amess was a much respected MP.
He has been described as “kind and caring and had the gift of disagreeing without being disagreeable.” I guess it would now be easy for MPs to abandon the surgery to be safe, but I’m not sure many of them would want that.
The open door can be unwelcome…
I read one of my old sermons yesterday looking for inspiration. I told a story of when I was on a train coming back from a lovely peaceful stay on Lindisfarne. I got on at Berwick upon Tweed. The journey due to engineering work was going to be 8 hours. Until Newcastle, I had Coach G all to myself. That didn’t last long. A large group got on together with provisions. Coach G now party coach - all those who are around me are together about 30 of them and the gin, lager, Pinot Grigio and shouting loudly started before we left the station!!!! Four on the table opposite me had between them two bottles of white, one bottle of red, four cans of lager, and four cans of gin! The vodka and the Daily Mirror crossword were opened as as we left York. The lady who clearly was in charge on her fourth glass of wine complained it wasn’t difficult enough. At Doncaster the mini eggs were passed round.
At Peterborough how I wished Brian Blessed were not one of the crossword answers. It was not fun listening to impressions of him. Then they started having a pop quiz involving blasting out tracks on the iPod for the carriage. Robbie Williams Angels with actions! At Kings Cross they congratulated me for putting up with them! 15 London civil servants who were returning from Newcastle after an overnight sail there from Tilbury Docks (as you do)! I really must get a life.... The open door then, was unwelcome.
Sometimes we want it like that in the church. We want to come in and hide behind the door, in safety, like disciples did post the crucifixion of Jesus, remember they were locked behind a door for fear of their lives, for being associated with Jesus.
Sometimes, when life is hard, we shut down, we want to hide away, we want to shut ourselves away behind the door of our faith, and I guess there are times we need to do that, to receive, but I also want to say that a shut door can say to the community we are set in, we don’t want you in here, and we don’t want to know about your problems, we are safe in here and we have no challenges, and that is how it is going to stay, thank you very much!
Is that the sort of church we celebrate being today? I don’t think so.
Perhaps we celebrate being a church with an open door, or at least a church that tries to be open. What do you think?
Dare we mix with the world?
I read a blog by a girl who was seriously considering fleeing this country, fed up with bad news. She was passing St Pancras Church in London. There was a man there, sat with all his possessions next to him in wet boxes, eating sandwiches out of a bin bag. She writes “Now I don’t know about you, but I think as long as that man and millions like him are eating leftovers out of the rubbish, wallowing in pity or booking the next flight out of here is not going to feed the hungry.” There is need out there and we can talk about why there is, and what “they” must do about it, but the need gets worse as we talk, people need action beyond the door.
Sometimes you have to go out of a door to find life.
There is a story, and I don’t know how it was ever resolved, that I was so shy as a little boy, that at the Junior School I attended at the age of 7 I would hide in the classroom toilet all day and not interact with any other children.
I remember vividly we all had a number to shout out when the morning register was called, and I would open the door and shout “5” but I have not idea what mediation was needed to get me out of there. I wasn’t living the school experience or progressing. Sometimes living behind a door can be claustrophobic, you need to get out to find life!
I rather love that story of the young camel, who was very young and confused.
“Why,” said the young camel to an older camel, “why do I have such big feet?”
“Oh,” said the older camel, “God gave you big flat feet so that you could run easily across the desert sands!”
“And why,” said the young camel to the older camel, “why do I have such long skinny legs?”
“Oh those, “ said the older camel. “God gave you those so that you do not sink into the desert sands.”
“And,” said the young camel, “why do I have these long eyelashes?”
“God gave you those to protect your eyes in the desert storms.”
“And what, ” said the young camel, “is this huge lump on my back?”
“That’s very useful. God made that so you don’t get thirsty on long desert journeys.”
“So tell me then,” said the young camel, “if God has given me all these, what am I doing in a zoo?”
How open are our doors so that we can use the gifts God has given us and which have been nurtured in this society especially, to be his people beyond the door? How open are our doors to others? How are we encouraging others to come through, if not the door of our church building, through the door of Christ’s love? Or, are we afraid of what we might discover and who might want to come back through the door of the church with us?
Matthew represents today the open door approach of our Lord. Remember in Jesus’ day, tax collectors were despised because they were part of the system hated by people, collaborators with Rome and all that.
And yet, Jesus dares to be the agent of God’s love with tax collectors and sinners, he receives strangers and welcomes them in, he comes for the sick and not the healthy, and he says to people leave your old ways behind and come through my door! And he says to religious people condemning things – change your ways and unlock your door of fear and prejudice…
We need to be renewed to keep our doors open don’t we? Let me share a quote from someone I read recently about the Church…
“Church at one time meant a gathering of people. Now it means a building with a steeple. Worship at one time meant the act of celebrating God’s presence. Now it means a collection of rituals at 11am on a Sunday morning. Faith at one time was a red-blooded response to the stirring of the Spirit. Now it is a set of beliefs so insignificant that they can be contained in doctrines. The Way has become religion, it’s meaning drowned in a sea of ceremony.”
Perhaps the quote is a bit harsh, it was written to an Anglican parish, perhaps by a frustrated vicar but you see the point don’t you?
And of course, it can be very hard for people to come through the church door. Those of us who have always been to church don’t get that. Perhaps it is because I am an introvert and hate crowds and find entering somewhere new difficult I understand people’s hesitance.
Our challenge, as the challenge is for every church, is to continue grappling with the needs of our community and being church wherever we are and offering the presence of Christ in their lives. We are called to celebrate the presence of God and share God’s love. We need therefore to come through the door to be refreshed by God and go out through the door to share him. John Wesley had plenty to say about going out beyond the door even if it is hard for us.
Remember these words: 'One great reason why the rich, in general, have so little sympathy for the poor, is, because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is, that, according to the common observation, one part of the world does not know what the other suffers.
Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it; and then plead their voluntary ignorance an excuse for their hardness of heart. "Indeed, Sir," said one person of large substance, "I am a very compassionate man. But, to tell you the truth, I do not know anybody in the world that is in want." How did this come to pass? Why, he took good care to keep out of their way; and if he fell upon any of them unawares "he passed over on the other side."
When the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door,
Lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer:
May our prayers, Lord, make us ten times more aware
That the world we banish, is our Christian care…
I like Pope Francis on this subject of doors:
“The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door.” And…
“But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.” The context of this image is a sobering reflection born of his “Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators.”
Arbiters of grace: What an indictment of tollhouse Christians! We can do better. We can “facilitate” grace in part by behaving “like the father of the prodigal son, who always keeps his door open so that when the son returns, he can readily pass through it.”
I want us to be challenged by Matthew the tax collector.
He was definitely outside the door of religion, but Jesus brought into the door of divine love and acceptance, and this is our task as we go forward as a church today.
The doors of our churches were opened many years ago, for people to find God in Jesus and that people have been brave enough to go out and help others find him too ever since. May we be encouraged to continue that work now and always.
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