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Sermon for
Proper 24 - Trinity 21 - Sunday 16 October 2016
Genesis
32. 22-31
Luke 18. 1-8
Do you believe in the power
of prayer?
Not just a rhetorical question
this morning... Do you?
Perhaps you could turn to one
or two of your neighbours in the pews this morning and exchange
views about the usefulness - or otherwise - of prayer?
Of course I am hoping that at least a majority will feel that
prayer is worthwhile - otherwise I am tempted to say - What are
we all doing here this morning? So - thinking of the persistence
of the widow who would not give up begging the unjust judge for
help, I shall give you 3 minutes or so to discuss whether prayer
works....
Tomorrow I shall be meeting
with our new Diocesan Bishop - Bishop Michael - who is coming
to pay a visit not just to Pattingham, but to the Trysull Deanery.
We have put together quite a varied programme of different things
for him to see and experience and I hope enjoy. But what I hope
above all is that he will find in this deanery a people, churches,
that freely admit their dependence on prayer. Prayer for growth,
prayer for individual people, prayer for the young, for the old,
for the suffering. Prayer for our neighbours and for the economic
life of this part of South Staffordshire - for the farms and
factories, the businesses and the retail outlets.
I shall no doubt tell him at
some stage of our particular efforts to reach out into the community
- of the Bells Run and the Scarecrow Festivals, and I shall feel
very proud of my own worshipping community here in Pattingham.
Proud of your kindness and your generosity and your community
mindedness. Of your willingness to embrace the new - sometimes!
- and to encourage our relationship with our school and young
people.
But can I be proud of your
focus on prayer? Do you believe in the power of prayer?
I am not sure.... One of the
'areas for improvement' that I think is glaringly obvious if
we look around us this morning is to ask, where are the lay leaders
in this church? Not just our excellent Churchwardens in post
currently and those who have served in the past - but where are
those people who are getting ready to step up into their shoes?
And why has this church - which has one of the healthiest congregations
in the area for numbers - especially in relation to the size
of the community, why has it not produced any candidates either
to be ordained or to become a Reader? Not for years and years!
We are blessed by the ministry
of our existing Reader Ken; and Paul has been invaluable as a
retired colleague. But neither of them came from this congregation!
Both of them were nurtured and developed and prayed for elsewhere,
and then - through changing circumstances have found themselves
in this church and part of this congregation... and don't get
me wrong - I thank God for them and for my PCC every day. Well
almost!
And this is a congregation
of superbly gifted and able Christians - I know you are. I see
evidence of it all around me and within this building frequently.
And yet no-one has ever approached me here and said, "I
think God may be asking me to do a bit more, or to do it differently....
can I talk to you about what that might be?" And no-one
has said to me, "I think so-and-so might be good at preaching
- or leading worship - why don't we ask them?
Which is why I have begun to
question in my own heart what is going on in our corporate prayer
life in this place....
Let me quote to you a sentence
from a recent church report on lay leadership and vocation.
"It is when people become
aware of the great things that Christ has done for them and wake
up to the gifts that the Holy Spirit has bestowed on them that
a joyful and willing leadership emerges, for it is out of communities
of disciples that cadres of leaders will appear."
A community of disciples....
that is what I long to see developing in this place. That is
what I feel increasingly that God is moving me to encourage and
enable.
I need to begin to remind you
that the next few years will see further changes.
Your Churchwardens will be stepping down - either next year or
the year following. And I am conscious that - at the age of 62
- my own retirement day is now on the horizon - oh not immediately
DV - but in 4-6 years... which is considerably less than the
7.5 years I have already been here. Time is running out!
I do not know what the future
holds for this parish and this church. You are a fantastic bunch
and this is a vibrant community when it comes to action - but
where are the prayerful and godly people who will lead you on
so that the next Vicar (who you may well have to share with one
or more other churches) can feel called to this role, reassured
that with a strong lay leadership, the job they are being asked
to do is possible?
So I am laying down a challenge
to you for 2017 ... Next year needs to be the year when one or
more people come forward to say - Yes... I'm not sure how or
why, or whether I have the strength or ability, but God seems
to be pushing me in this direction.
It needs much wrestling in
prayer. It needs persistence in prayer. It needs prayer, Full
stop!
Almighty Father,
Give us grace and strength this day to build up your church
in love for the world, in the making of disciples
and to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
Plant your hope deep within us.
Open our eyes to a fresh vision of your kingdom.
Give us wisdom for the common task.
Draw us and all your Church deeper into Christ,
our foundation and cornerstone,
that we may work together as one body,
in the power of the Spirit and for the sake of your glory.
Amen.
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16th
October 2016 - Sermon for Proper 24 - Sunday Evening |
Nehemiah 8. 9-18
John 16. 1-11
I think that one of the possible
themes for today's readings is the need for faithful Christians
to hold on fast to their faith and to what they perceive as true
- even in the face of opposition, of persecution, and even in
the face of death.
Keep on keeping on we might
say.
And that is often the hardest
thing to do, isn't it. To keep on believing, to keep on praying,
when times get tough and life seems to have dealt us a less than
brilliant hand.
Just now we have quite a lot
of really poorly people in the parish. None of them deserves
the trials and tribulations they are going through at present
- and neither do their nearest and dearest - for whom it is often
the most difficult thing of all to stand by and watch while a
loved one suffers or perhaps struggles with memory or mobility.
And the temptation is to demand of God, "Why?" why
do good people have to suffer? Surely a merciful and loving God
would spare his creatures this suffering if he really existed?
Well, I would not blame anyone
in the pit of despair from uttering such a cry - and I have even
done it myself from time to time.
This week I saw a clip of Justin
Welby, the ABC being interviewed by Jeremy Vine on just this
topic. And he acknowledged it to be THE question - to which there
is no definitive answer. He spoke of the book of Job - a book
about suffering at the end of which there is no reasoning why,
but we have to acknowledge that God is there with us in the suffering.
And that is a large part of what the psalms are all about. The
psalms are often an example of how one keeps on keeping on -
because ultimately there is no escaping God - either through
or at the end of our suffering. God's embrace of us is all encompassing
and seems somehow - in a way we cannot quite comprehend, to scoop
us up with all the suffering and the sorrow and the tears and
tantrums and gives us the only answer which is Love.
And it isn't easy. And it isn't
neat - instead it is really, really hard and really messy, because
life is. But life is also wonderful and beautiful and filled
full of joy and laughter as well as the suffering and the tears,
and it is worth hanging on for and worth fighting for - and certainly
worth praying for.
In the book of Nehemiah, when
the people realise how far they have fallen short of God's plan
and God's expectations of them, because for so many years they
had forgotten God's commandments and failed to keep his Laws,
their first reaction is to wail and to tear their clothes and
mourn - because they assume that God will rain down punishment
on them.... not realising that the punishment is actually to
live lives separated from his love.
But in contrast Nehemiah and
Ezra and the scribes and Levites tell the people that on the
contrary they should be celebrating and holding a great feast
- because they are restored to God's sight and his favour. And
they are to remember the great events of their past that have
shaped them as a people and made them the chosen of the Lord.
By contrast, on first hearing
there does not seem much to celebrate in the message that Jesus
brings to his disciples in this portion of John's Gospel. The
future seems pretty bleak - excommunication from their kith and
kin, persecution, physical violence and even death. But Jesus
is telling them all this to prepare them and because he does
not want them to be overwhelmed when it happens. He does not
want them to lose sight of the great Joy that God promises. A
joy so deep, so solemn, that they will only begin to feel it
when Jesus has finally left them and they are totally dependent
on the Holy Spirit. And when that happens they will find all
of their preconceived notions about God turned on their head!
God doesn't want them to be
sad and sorrowful - God never imposes suffering on us as such.
God feels our pain alongside us and wants to help us make something
good and positive from even the blackest moments of our despair.
Those moments are not of His making - they are a consequence
of us living freely in a fallen world - a flawed world that too
often we make a bit more broken than it already is. That I think
is why the ruler of this world is spoken of as being condemned.
This week saw a hero of my
youth being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature - yes, Bob
Dylan - very possibly one of the most skilful prophets of our
own day.
One of his most famous - even
iconic - songs is Hard Rain's a gonna fall, one verse of which
goes
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed
son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall
As we think tonight of the
suffering we know of close to home. And we think of the suffering
of the children and families in the bombed out streets of Aleppo
and so many other places around this wonderful, broken world,
so our only answer is prayer and lament and trust in the God
who is ultimate unconditional love.
Amen.
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