Sermon for Pentecost

(To be preached at Chirbury)

Not long ago, after attending a family funeral, I had a walk round some of the places I used to know in my primary school days in Stafford. It was interesting to see how things had changed, some for the better but some not so, in my view anyway. My brother Ben has recently signed me up to a Facebook Group called “Stafford Remembered”, and it’s been fascinating to see and to share some great old photographs and memories of my home town, and to re-make one or two acquaintances as well. People all around the world are part of the group, and the impression I have is that many of them really wish that places they knew when they were young could still be just the same whenever they went back to visit. If I’m honest, part of me feels the same way. But I also know that it can't be like that. For better or for worse, the world moves on, and we have to move on as well; you can't hang on to the past, however much you wish you could; you have to let go.

Last week a friend of mine was showing me some photos of a family wedding she’d just been to, her niece’s, I think. I didn’t know most of the people in the pictures, but it was nice to look in on the celebration: a celebration of love, in which friends and family come together to wish these two people joy and  blessing, God’s blessing, in their married life together. That’s one particular way in which we let go of the old life, to take on something new, at a wedding. The two people looking so happy at the heart of the family groups would not of course be letting go of all the old stuff: “something old” is deliberately part of the list of what you have to have at a wedding, and families and friends continue to have a part to play in the new partnership sealed in a wedding ceremony. But things will be different: husband and wife belong to one another in a new way.

To start out and begin again is a recurring theme within the church year: Advent, Candlemas and Lent; Maundy Thursday and Easter Day - all these are times when we're encouraged to start out afresh, and to make a new commitment to God.

And today is also one of those special days, and perhaps the most important of them: Pentecost. Today is sometimes called the birthday of the Church; when the Holy Spirit entered the lives of the apostles with sudden and dramatic power. Birthday - yes, from this point on this band of folk not only had a message for the world, they had the means and the desire to share that message, and to share it with an infectious joy that would cross all kinds of human boundaries.

They were changed from what they had been - disciples, followers, learners - to become instead witnesses and apostles (the word apostle means messenger). The experience they shared of God's presence and power was totally transformative - something they simply had to share, and take out into all the world. And there’s still a hunger for the message of joy they had to share.

After another funeral not long ago, a slightly unconventional one, I found myself talking with a young teacher who works in a church school in London. Christian values are important to her, she said, and she’s clear about what she believes; but she’d been finding it hard to actually go to church week by week. That was partly just the pressure of teaching and of city life, but also she wasn’t sure what to say or do, or when to sit or stand, in a fairly traditional church. “It sometimes seems that everyone’s looking at me,” she said, “and sometimes I don’t really feel very welcome there.”  Things like when to stand or when to sit aren’t important, I replied. "But they do feel important when I'm there,” she said. As a girl she’d always been chapel, so maybe the culture shift between church and chapel was part of the issue - but not the whole story. Anyway, she’d keep trying, she said.

That conversation reminded me that there’s a real market out there beyond our sturdy walls of people who are serious about faith but maybe unsure about religion. People who are not churched, but who do perhaps want to make a new start in life, and to know God.

I remember at a clergy training day some years ago Robin Gamble, of “Leading your Church into Growth”, saying that many clergy he spoke to felt their churches were surrounded by opposition and hostility. There is some of that of course, he said, but the truth is that churches are mostly surrounded by people who think well of us. But they don’t come, most of them, most of the time. Why is that, and how can the Church today help people to find that new start in Christ, in the Gospel, and indeed in church? Over the ten days since Ascension Day, we’ve been asked to reflect on that and pray about it within our diocese, and this afternoon there is a gathering at the cathedral to celebrate faith and mission on this birthday of the Church.

The challenge of mission and church growth begins with ourselves, with being open to renewal, and ready to make a new start. Like in my home town, that means some of the old has to go or to change, but not all of it. Some new things need to come in, but always in the service of the unchanging and undiluted message of God’s saving love and the power of the cross. We’ll win no converts by being trendy just for the sake of it, but nor will we is we’re inflexibly hooked on traditions whose main role is to make us feel comfortable. A living faith is always open to change.

The Pentecostal experience of those first disciples was of God not far off in space or far back in time, not needing to be approached in some special way or by using special words, not needing all the paraphernalia of the temple cult - but simply there, powerfully and compellingly present in the here and now of their lives. The only way they could describe what happened was by speaking of the uncontrollable and cleansing forces of nature: wind and fire. A rushing mighty wind that filled the whole house, and tongues of flame that rested on each one standing there. They were so filled with joy, so completely infused with a sense of God’s power, that as they spilled out onto the street people thought they were drunk on new wine. And so, in a way, they were.

But that was then, what about now? Bishops Richard and Alastair have asked that in every parish we pray for the God’s gift of his Holy Spirit, which is what the disciples had been commanded to do. But what does that mean, in practice? I don’t think it’s about signing up for a happy clappy style of religion, not necessarily anyway; but it does I think mean taking the risk of stepping out of our comfort zone - to coin a phrase, it’s about “letting go, and letting God”. Asking God to empower and enthuse and re-vision us in his service.

Is that scary? It should be, because it’s about me surrendering control of my life from me to God. I’ve been thinking about scary things ever since an otherwise quite sane and sensible friend told me she was going to do the zip wire at Blaenau Ffestiniog to raise funds for charity. Something I would never dare to do, or that’s what I think now, anyway. Put myself completely in the power of others? Let go, and hope for the best? That’s maybe how it was for the first disciples in that first Christian Pentecost. But this is my prayer: I’m convinced I need to pray it, and I think every church needs to pray something along these lines, if we are truly to invest ourselves in the future that God desires: “Lord, bless me and fill me with your Holy Spirit. May I receive again and afresh the blessing of your love, and may I be empowered to share that blessing in your world. Amen.”