Sunday 16 June 2013

Telling the Faith

Another Sunday talk . . .

I remember that once when I was very small my grandfather took me to see a launch at the shipyard where he worked on the banks of the River Tyne.  I stood in a big crowd of people to watch the bottle smash against the hull of the new ship.  And then nothing happened.  Not straight away, and not for quite some time.  In fact, in my youthful naivety I began to suspect things had somehow gone badly wrong, but of course that wasn’t so.  It’s just that some things take a while to get moving.  And yes, at last I could see that the hull was moving, moving very slowly at first, almost too slowly to see, but moving. And then the newly named vessel gathered pace on its maiden journey down the slipway, to slide smoothly into the river to the shouts and cheers of the crowd.

I used that story a few weeks ago when I preached in another chapel on Trinity Sunday.  It came into my mind on that occasion because I found I wanted to think about naming things - and of course every new ship gets named at its launch.  But perhaps there’s also a lesson to take away from the slowness of it all;  things were happening straight away in fact, once the vessel had been released from the chocks that held it - but from where I was standing there was nothing to see, nothing changing, no movement.  In my innocence I’d imagined a sudden dash down the slipway and a great splash into the river, almost as soon as the bottle had hit, but it isn’t like that.  A giant pile of metal like that is going to take some time to start moving.

This theme of things that happen unseen is one that Jesus returned to again and again as he taught his disciples and the crowds that came out to hear him.  He told them stories about hidden things that became revealed or discovered, like the pearl of great price, or the seed that grows in secret.  He told them stories about little things that have a big impact, like the mustard seed that grows to be a huge great plant.

And Jesus called his own disciples his ‘little flock’. He told them they must be like salt and yeast - they must be like the small and hidden things that make a big and crucial difference when they’re put to use.

St Paul described the work of an apostle as planting seeds from which others will reap a harvest. The one who starts the process off may very well not see things through to fruition.  Maybe from where he’s standing nothing seems to be happening, despite all his hard work and careful planning, despite all his prayers, even.

But things are happening, even so;  seeds grow in secret. Of course, some of the seed may not grow at all, or at least not fruitfully, as we know from a reading of the Parable of the Sower.  But the sower’s work must still be done.  For if the seed hasn’t been sown, nothing can ever grow; and if the word hasn’t been proclaimed, then no-one will ever respond.

Reality today, for the churches of our land with their history of being large and secure, is one of having to come to terms with being little flocks, even perhaps just barely hanging on, with a future that looks anything but certain.  It could feel like an inescapable decline, and it certainly does involve a real loss of influence and position and security.  Perhaps, though, the picture isn’t as bleak as it may look from where we’re standing.  The shape of the Church, capital ‘C’ is changing, but meanwhile my experience is that people are still asking big questions about faith. One form of worship and of church organisation may be in decline, but meanwhile other ways of being Christians together emerge and grow. Of course it’s also no longer true that Christianity’s the only faith option in town - that can feel uncomfortable and even a bit threatening to those of us with a long history in church or chapel, but in a way it’s only a return to the situation in which the mission of the first apostles began.

The work of mission is essential, be the Church large or small, because it is the Church’s raison d’etre. The German theologian Emil Brunner once said that the Church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning. That’s a good comparison, for if the Church isn’t doing mission, then its fire has gone out. But how are we to do mission today, and what sort of return will we see, and when?

Well:  churches are organisations, and so they’re organised;  sometimes they’re so organised that the organisation of things matters more than anything else.  I’ve been in churches like that, anyway.  How do we do mission?  Let’s organise ourselves to do it.  Let’s look at methodology, lets set a few targets, let’s train some people up and commission them and give them special titles.  Maybe we’ll be really serious, and do a feasibility study and a cost-benefit analysis;  oh - probably we ought to stick a health and safety audit in there too.  And we’ll need a committee and quite probably a few sub-committees too.  And a budget.  And an archdeacon or a moderator or a chairman of district, someone like that to chair the working party.  Goodness, there’s the advertising to sort out as well.  We’ll need a catchy slogan;  let’s see if we can get some air time;  and how about a big service in a football stadium, just to start things off? I wonder why Jesus didn’t think of all that?  You’d think he would have.

Let’s look at what he did do, when at one point in his ministry he sent his disciples out to prepare the way.  He said to them, you won’t need much, in fact take as little with you as you can get away with.  It’ll only get in the way if you have too much.  And then, just do and say things that’ll make a positive difference:  feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit those in prison . . . love your neighbour.  Mission should be the natural activity of the Church, but that doesn’t mean we all need to stand on soap boxes to do it.  St Francis told his followers: preach the word at all times, and where necessary, use words.

Much of the best mission is wordless.  It’s about loving our neighbour;  it’s about walking the extra mile;  it’s about daring to be a bit different from those around us, though without making a big thing of it.  After all, mission never says “Hey, look at me” - it’s always about Jesus.

Light, salt, yeast - the images used by our Lord.  None of these things is about making a fundamental change, they’re all about making what’s already there that bit better, that bit tastier.  Sunlight through a stained glass window brings the colours to life;  a single candle burning in a dark room drives back the dark, so we can find our way and see all the things that are there, and, I suppose, not bump into things too much.  A grain or two of salt will make my salad tomatoes taste much more tomatoey, or my fish and chips like fish and chips really should.  And just a grain or two of yeast will allow the things I mix together to make my loaf of bread achieve their full potential.

There’s no need to be too heavy about this.  Too much light simply dazzles, or indeed becomes painful, it can even be used as a form of torture.  Too much salt, and my tomatoes don’t taste of tomatoes any more, they just taste of salt.  The same with yeast:  too much, and the loaf rises too quickly and just tastes sour.  In fact, of course there are times when the churches of a place need a big mission push, so in reality all the planning and organisation I made such fun of earlier can be good and have a purpose - but even then, if the quiet work of yeasty and salty mission isn’t going on before and during and especially after the big event, then all those big plans will have gone for not very much at all.

In fact, any big declarations in mission that we make as churches stand or fall by what people see of the local Christians they know, or the local churches or chapels they may occasionally attend.  We are the measure by which the message is judged to be true or false.

That feels like a big ask, and it is.  It would no doubt be better if mission was something we held back on until we were sure we had the strength and the resources and the courage and the cash to really do it.  But in fact everything we are and do as Christians is mission.  It isn’t that we’re either doing mission or we aren’t, so much as that we’re doing it all the time, sometimes well, sometimes badly.  All that we are and do either proclaims Jesus as Lord, or else doesn’t.  In which case, it’s sort of negative mission, isn’t it?  I was cut up quite badly the other day by a car with a fish emblem on the back - there was a bit of negative mission, if you like.

But, thinking back to the story of Jesus sending his disciples out - he sent them to the towns and villages he was intending to visit himself.  And that’s still the case.  There isn’t anywhere we go in mission, nowhere we get sent to, that Jesus isn’t going to himself.  I’m reminded of something written by a missionary of a century or more ago, who had gone into dark and pagan places to take the light of Christ.  Or that’s what he thought he’d been doing - but in his memoirs he noted how again and again he found his Lord already at work in the places he travelled to preach the Gospel, and in the hearts of those to whom he preached.

And, to repeat what I’ve already said, often there won’t be anything much for us to see, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.  We sow the seed, someone else may reap the harvest;  or, we knock away the chocks on the slipway, but it may be a while before anyone can tell that the ship is moving.  A former colleague of mine, when visiting his local hospital as a young curate, once called to see a parishioner who at the time was quite rude and resentful, and didn’t want to be bothered by God or by anyone working for him.  Years later, revisiting the church where he’d served his curacy, he found that the man he’d visited that day was now one of the churchwardens.  That day, unknown to himself, he’d planted a seed of faith that eventually blossomed big time.

I had a similar experience.  When clergy take weddings and funerals - and even baptisms, for that matter, a lot of the people in church look bored, uncomfortable and even hostile at times.  They don’t want to be in a church;  they’re just there because they have to be, or maybe they’re just there for the beer and sandwiches afterwards. It’s tempting for the minister - and for the regular churchfolk there too - to write off such people, or maybe not to try too hard.  I hope that’s not been true of me, but if it has, I should stand corrected by someone I came across in a church not far from here, who told me his conversion began with something I said in the address I gave at a wedding he happened to attend.  I don’t even remember the event;  I’m just glad that on that one occasion, the Lord was able to use me.  Maybe there were other I’ll never hear about, who knows?

But there are other stories I could tell you, such as the lady who eventually started coming to church despite her own doubts and inhibitions just because her neighbour who did attend always seemed so happy and positive and helpful, so much so that she started wondering why.  Or the chap out walking his dog who each Sunday used to pass the time of day with a neighbour on her way to church.  Their greeting was the same each time:  “Say one for me while you’re there!” he used to say.  “Why don’t you come yourself some time?” she’d reply.  “Maybe I will and surprise you!” he would always say back.  And one day he did;  and the next week he brought his wife;  and the week after her brother came, with his wife;  and then his wife’s parents started coming;  and ultimately the church grew by ten or eleven souls because of that one encounter.

Well, God moves in mysterious ways, but always exciting ways as well - and it is his work, of course, and not ours.  All we need do, but we must do it, is to keep sowing the seed, not by saying a lot, but just being Christ-like in our thinking and in our acting, and adding a bit of salt or a bit of yeast to the mix.

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