The very first church of which I had charge had chairs rather than pews, very like the ones you have here. They were a little old and uncomfortable, to be honest, but they were proper church chairs, with a box on the back for the people behind to put their hymn books, and a hook so you could hang up your hassock. Again, probably like here, there never had been any pews in St Thomas’s, right from when it was first built. But I think some of my folk wished there had been, because then it would feel like a “proper church”.
Me, I like chairs, because they’re more flexible. You can move them about and create space. They could be more comfortable as well, not that I’d want to encourage people to drop off to sleep during my sermon. But here’s another reason why I like chairs: too much fixed furniture can give the wrong impression: it can get people thinking that churches and chapels are supposed to be fixed and immovable places, and they’re not. Lovely and special they may be, but they are staging posts and refuelling points, at best. For our Lord didn’t come to found an institution, but to start a pilgrimage.
Tonight our Gospel reading told the story of how Jesus called his first disciples. And he didn’t say to them, “Have you thought of training for the ministry?” or even, “The church I’m founding could use a few chaps like you!” He just said this: “Follow me.” “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they left all the fixed furniture of their lives, and went with him, out on the road.
Somewhere at home in my collection of religious cartoons, I’ve got one which shows a bemused band of Sunday church-goers standing outside the closed door of their church. On the door there’s a notice: “You’ve been coming here long enough. Get out there and do it.” In reality, we do need to come to church, to hear the word, to break the bread, to sing God’s praise, to be still in his presence. But the point is that churchgoing can be an end in itself, and it shouldn’t be. It has to lead to something or else it’s wasted and we’re wasted too. Jesus says to Simon Peter and the others: I need you now, not just to listen to me but to walk with me, to be with me out on the road.
So what will it mean to do that, to get out on the road with Jesus? This is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a time to remind ourselves that we should be united in discipleship and in seeking to know the mind of our Lord, in doing his will, and sharing his love. Across our differences as people and as Christians, we’re called to be pilgrims together, walking the same road, and following the same master.
I’m keen to get Christians of different sorts together to talk things through and find out about each other, but I have to say that it hasn’t always worked as I’ve wanted when I’ve tried to do it. Many years ago I, with my local Methodist and Roman Catholic colleagues set up meetings in Lent so our folk could do some discovering and sharing. We’d been getting on well as ministers, meeting each week for fellowship and prayer, and we wanted our folk to share a bit of what we had.
What a disappointment it turned out to be! Many of those who came obviously felt they had to defend the fixtures and furniture of their church against all comers. Our mistake as ministers perhaps - we’d chosen topics where we knew our denominations said or thought different things. We thought that would make it interesting, and a chance to widen our vision and our understanding. It didn’t work out that way.
Like church buildings filled with pews and other heavy furniture, Christian denominations can seem very fixed and settled, in a way that doesn’t work for me. I’ve never belonged to just one church: I went to church every Sunday morning as a boy, and to chapel Sunday school in the afternoon. I value my denomination and tradition, but I’ve never felt I’d got to defend it against all comers. Nor have I thought that my lot have all the truth. There’s always something I can receive or learn from others.
When Jesus called his disciples he called them away from fixed points and furniture and out onto the road. There, as he told them, “the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” So we don’t want to have too much baggage of denomination and tradition. We might even have too much scripture, or I should say we can be tempted into making too much of it. St Paul, when he was Saul the Pharisee had more theological furniture than was good for him; but out on the road as Paul the Apostle he wrote that he was resolved to know “only Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” All the rest is secondary.
Whatever doctrines and traditions we hold in our minds, it’s our hearts Jesus really wants. Jesus never said to Peter and the others, “Let’s settle here and build a church.” When he said to them, “Follow me” he wasw challenging them to leave everything they had, everything they thought they knew, and to go with him to who knows where on the open road. And he gave them just this promise - “I will make you fishers of men.”
Don’t get me wrong. I do love the furniture - the settled things about my faith, buildings, hymns, liturgy, prayers and even pews. But I hope never to love them too much, for they must never be what I worship, or in the way of what I worship. Jesus doesn’t want me, or you, to stay where we are, or as we are: he doesn’t want his church to be a thing, certainly not a fossilised thing. A Church true to this man who says “Follow me” will be a pilgrimage, a movement, a process, and even a victory parade, people singing and praising out on the road.
One of my favourite songs of faith is “Lord of the Dance”. Not everyone likes it, but for me it sums up what I feel about Jesus calling me. Where I’ll find him and know him best is in the dance of life, in the things that move and change and develop, in the journey on. And that dancing road of faith is, I believe, what he calls Peter and Andrew and James and John, and each one of us, to share.
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