 |
|
Get real!
May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts, for God’s sake, make a difference.
So what do you want to hear? What do you think needs saying as we gather for the last time – this century – as the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church? Whatever your answers, I hope like me you feel it’s a privilege, one that reaffirms what it means to belong to this great company of believers in Jesus Christ. At least it gives us the chance to be the church rather than simply go to it.
Perhaps the question we should be asking is 'what is the Spirit saying to us at this special time?' A word of challenge, change? A word of promise, possibility? A word of justice, judgement? A word of compassion, care? A word of healing, wholeness? A word of love, life?
To be honest, I hope we hear all of that, and more – not from my words but through them to the living Word which touches the heart. I would prefer heart-beat to head-banging! Better for us to be souled and healed than crippled!
So what to say? After 31 years in ministry let me stick to what I know – us. And it’s about us I speak, and with some optimism, not because of the way we are, but because of whose we are.
There is a theme for this address, and it’s simple enough. It’s about saying to all our congregations, to all of us in this gospelling business, for God’s sake in the name of Jesus Christ, 'get real'. And get real’s the theme, basic but authentic, a bit like me! You see, for me, get real’s got a prophetic ring to it, a sense of urgency. It’s like a divine command, a wake up call to the living dead. Get real, wake up sleeper, rise from the dead, Christ will shine upon you, you are light, you are light. (432 in Rejoice and Sing, a must for many a church meeting!)
Get real’s also got biblical resonance to it. Remember in the Book of Proverbs that clarion call to, ‘get wisdom’. Getting wisdom, says Proverbs, is the most important thing you can do. That is some claim when you consider some of things we think important. So if we are to be a General Assembly that gets real it is God’s wisdom we are going to have to seek, especially as we respond to all the reports, speeches, and voices that demand our attention.
It is a world and church of many voices these days wanting to win us over, but it is God’s wisdom that cries out to be heard – not half truth, ignorance, thoughtless assumptions, or party politics. We are not here as card-carrying delegates from little unions trying to score points or get votes for our side. We are here as representatives of Christ's body, seeking the mind of Christ, and that is a humbling activity – especially when we cannot fully discern it or agree to it. Then we have to live by faith, a testing business when you prefer certainties; as is discovering other people’s holy ground is not always the same as yours, even though it is the same holiness.
So, dear friends, if hearts and minds get in a twist, let alone anything else, get real, watch out for distortion, pray for discernment, listen up for wisdom, and do not let fear have a say either. Fears and phobias are real, and influence many, but they can have no standing or authority in our Assembly or any council of our Church!
The word for us is 'be not afraid', a far greater word than any of mine will ever be! It is a word to rely on when making hard choices, a word to hold us together in an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust, and good humor – at least that’s the theory, and if we get real it can be the practice as well. It is of no advantage to the purposes of God for the church of Jesus Christ to fall apart, so be not afraid. And when you are, try not to spread it around, attempting to genetically modify the rest of us.
Speaking of 'us', I wish all of us, all 97,000 plus of us who make up this God-given United Reformed Church could gather together just for once in one place, so we could physically see each other, catch a vision of being a single community under one crucified Lord, see who our traveling companions were on our common pilgrimage of faith, see people's faces, the look of sadness in their eyes if we speak too lightly of walking away from them, or withholding our support for them, talk we instead of us, us instead of them, share first hand joys and sorrows, hopes and hurts, explore the possibilities and difficulties as one body, be accountable to each other, supportive of each other, pray our Father instead of our bit of our Father (or whoever) and stop singing 'you in your small corner and I in mine'.
I would really value an occasion like that, not because I am a megalomaniac – 'tomorrow the world' – but because it might help us experience the reality of unity in an age of chronic individualism and self interest. We need a communal vision because it is the vision God has of the world and of us in it. How God must grieve at deliberate separatism and divorce between churches, and rejoice when people commit and stay committed as one!
However we cannot all be together this week, at least not physically, but I can dream dreams, and you can use your imaginations. And together we can remember we are part of a whole host of saints of all ages, with a need to have a mature sense of proportion about things. To which end let me quote:
‘We are living in difficult and dangerous times. Youth has no regard for old age, and the wisdom of the centuries is looked down upon both as stupidity and foolishness. Young men are indolent and insolent, young women indecent, and indecorous in their speech, behaviour, and dress.’
So there you are! So much for FURY, our Fellowship of United Reformed Youth! Except that was written virtually a millennium ago, in 1114, by a man called Peter the Hermit – a name I might well take unto myself before the year’s out!
I have no idea how accurate Peter’s impression was of his day – but it does make you wonder if there is anything new under the sun and what folk might say about us in another millennium’s time? Perhaps that our young men and young women had a far more realistic and compassionate view of the world than ever his did?
Nevertheless the end of a millennium does give us an opportunity, even a need, to pause and reflect on where we’re at, so we can get real and not take into the new millennium some of the nonsense, worthlessness, and terrible injustices of the old – and that is true not just for the world but for the church as well.
For a moment a word to those who do not see themselves as belonging to the church. In a way you are the reason we exist, but we need to apologize to you for talking about things which matter much more to us than they do to you. Sad to say, that can be par for the course. The church of Jesus Christ can get caught up with issues that matter much more to her than to those outside her door: things like pews versus chairs, which hymn book to use, where the notices should come, who holds the key of the cupboard where the best china’s kept, hermenutical principles (don’t even ask). And of course the big one – the date of the next meeting!
Or maybe you think we are more interested in loins than life and want to say to us 'get real'. Certainly if we lose sight of the communities in which our congregations are set, we lose sight of the incarnate Jesus in these communities. We can even become hostile to them, seeing their culture only in terms of sin and evil. Of course these things are very real. There is corruption, greed, violence, aggression, revenge, religious bigotry, self indulgence, self interest, and killing injustice devastating life as God would have it. The poor are still isolated from the rich, the haves from the have-nots, the disadvantaged from the over-advantaged. 500 million children starve again tonight. That obscenity can’t go on into a new millennium, and I wonder how God will turn it round – and if we’ll be willing to comply, since we’ll be on the losing side?
When will we recognize there’s no third world, only one, the one God loves, the world in which God’s only Son turned up to ransom, heal, restore, and forgive, once and for all, literally.
The frightening thing is, he came to his own and his own did not recognize him. How blind are we? Have we lost the ability to see Christ in the world, on the telly, at the match, down the market, in the school, pub, club, cinema, theatre, office, hospital, prison – where we are? Do we only recognize Him where we expect Him to be, want Him to be, even worse where we put Him ourselves? Is it not time to get real and expect God in the unexpected?
Sorry, I am supposed to be speaking to folks not of the church. The difficulty is, some of us have been friends with God for a very long time and we’ve stories to tell and experiences to share about God’s dealings with us and the world. And they are good stories, Good News at eleven, or nine, or whenever it is now, although having said that, the way it is sometimes broadcast, I would not blame you for wanting to switch channels.
But we need to hear your stories too because it is when people listen to each other that they often hear God’s truth for them both. And we’re not always very good at listening. Being still and knowing God isn’t always where we’re at. We prefer doing, saying, quoting, rather than listening.
Anyway to those of you not of the church, stay tuned; the millennium’s still about a man called Jesus who calls us by name, and His church matters more than you may think! Get real, His church matters more than some of it’s own members think! Sorry we couldn’t get to church meeting it was the cat’s birthday, the gerbil’s funeral, the Band of Hope’s wine and cheese party!
OK, back to the plot, although I have a sneaky feeling that was the plot, and on to those who have enormous far-fetched unreal expectations of newly inducted General Assembly Moderators, and other species – and again I say get real!
According to some, Assembly Moderators are supposed to double the numbers, treble the children, quadruple the offerings, disband robed choirs or frenetic music groups depending on taste, clone ministers, up the levels of theology, down the levels of bureaucracy, make district councils the best thing since sliced bread, increase bed-nights at Yardley Hastings and Windermere, and sort out sex! ‘Get real, get real, and again I say get real!’
Of course you want to make a difference, who doesn’t, but that’s not how we work, and there are not always simple solutions. I wish there were. Perhaps, like Judas we believe there should be, but life in Christ is not like that. There is no such thing as the perfect church, the perfect minister, the perfect member, the perfect moderator, Assembly, council, committee, the perfect report to make every thing all right and neatly tied up. Get real, these things do not exist, they are goals, ideals we strive for on our journey of faith, with our eyes fixed on the only one who perfects our faith.
We need to drop unreal expectations of people and systems, or the way we want life to be, taking our bat home if things don’t go our way. Get real, we live by grace not perfection, clay pots and all of that. It is never the well tolerating the sick, we all need healing most of the time!
So apologies when this particular sinner, or others, do not always match perfection’s expectations. Grace will have to do: and I still believe God’s grace is amazing and sufficient! If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be here. Wait for the autobiography – after I’ve got the retired house and pension!
Fortunately God often works despite, not because, which brings us to our local congregations. All seventeen hundred plus of them, communities at the coal face with so much possibility for good news, and let me remind you why.
What do we do in our local churches week, after week, after week, regardless of size, situation, with or without adequate toilets? Answer, we worship God in the name of Jesus Christ! More than any other activity, more than jumble sales, Scottish country dancing, badminton, the young wives over 60’s club, every congregation worships God, week in, week out, and therein lies our hope. OK, some weeks' worship can be pretty self indulgent, even boring, banal, if there is only bland blancmange or cerebral stodge on the menu, or when the only living water’s that strange green stuff you sometimes get in the glass left for the preacher in the pulpit!
Nevertheless, worship in Jesus name is what we have in common, even if it’s very different in different places. So if it is going to enrich faith and enliven our living relationship with our living God, let alone with each other, it needs to be the best it can possibly be. Worship’s got to touch us, move us on in our faith journeys, bring us closer to God and to each other, so that when the worship ends the service begins! The good news is there are many examples of congregations who have got real in recent times and transformed their worship, their life, their buildings, their priorities, their practices, their relationships with other denominations and local communities, in imaginative and courageous ways. And why? Because they’ve been open to change. We need to get real and recognize that we are in the middle of a reformation, and because we’re in the middle of it, it's sometimes difficult to see the wood from the trees – which is maybe why we keep bumping into each other and getting neurotic at times. 'Change or decay' is the Spirit’s cry for our time. Change that enables us to build new bridges rather than manage old ghettos, launch into deeper waters rather than stick to happy holy islands where folk can escape to from God’s real world.
The trouble is there are dozens of women, men, young people, children, in our congregations who long for reformation, who want to get real and see real change, but are constantly frustrated by 'change resisters', those afraid to put to death practices long past their sell by date, afraid of losing control, afraid of being butterflies (preferring to remain caterpillars), breeding holy cows nobody can touch, (and what a thought, caterpillars breeding holy cows), congregations spiritually blind seeing no further than their church, with their minister, the deaf hearing only their voice. Playing the scapegoat game in our blame culture, claiming it’s others who need changing first – them at church house, or the URC.
Get real! What is needed in so many places is fundamental change, not of outdated systems, structures, or practices, but of the outdated attitudes which support them.
Change the attitudes and you change the world, enhance the vision and suddenly you start enhancing a whole lot more besides – the state of the toilets, the weekly offerings, front doors open instead of shut, prayer life like all-bran, regular, worship that is wholly, (and there’s a plug), evangelism, witness, healing. Even notice boards are transformed so they actually tell folk who we are – rather than who we were, or who we’d like to be, or who we call ourselves!
Think on. Is your church named after a dead person, such as St Adolphus the Crinkly, or Big Bertha’s Memorial Church? Does that sort of name really say who and what we are today? For Christ’s sake should we not be identifying with the living rather than the dead? What if we named every one of our local churches ‘Place Name' United Reformed Church, where 'place name' referred to the community in which we were set? Of course, some are already there, but what if we all were? Wouldn’t people in our local communities at least know we were identifying with them and who we were? Place name, United Reformed Church – ‘oh yeah, I remember that lot! Noticed them last week in Bognor, Blackpool, Bedlington, Barking, Bath, Buckfastleigh, Brockley, Boulevard Weston-super-Mare, and they were open, and it was Tuesday! I rest my case! A brand image born at last, after 27 years!
Of course what happens if there are two congregations in the same town or locale? Who gets to be called Place Name United Reformed Church then? Exactly! Get real! Are we short of ministers or long on congregations – and that is something to chew on when ruminating on change or decay!
There’s a need for many a church to be born again, not in a distorted religious way, but in the way Jesus meant when he spoke to Nicodemus and said, 'rethink where you’re at, what you’re about, who you are, what you’re called to be, and stop being so twitchy!'
The good news is we are not alone in this twitchy pilgrim journey of faith and if it is time to get real about change, it is more than time to get real about unity with others whom Jesus also calls friends. The last two years, two centuries, two millenniums, have shown the way people relate to each other speaks volumes more than what they say they believe. Attitudes speak louder than words. By our love for one another they know we are his disciples, and by our lack of it they know we are not!
We perhaps need reminding that it is love – along with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self control – which are the signs of life in Christ. It is these qualities which determine whose side we are on, and a lack of them which denies any pretence at holy living.
You see the need for reformation? Imagine belonging to a community or church in which there was little love, no joy, no peace, no patience, no kindness, no goodness, no faithfulness, no humility, no self control. What a ghastly thought, and a spectre too close for comfort at times. Get real, we need the spirit’s fruits, all of them! One measly apple’s not good enough for our teacher.
It would help relationships if we could put to death the curse – for that is what it is – of simplistic stereotyping. Sticking a label on someone. That does not give us the right to treat them, or speak about them, any way we like. ‘Oh them, they’re Roman Catholic, they’re Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, evangelical, liberal, black, Serbian, Kosovan, foreign, poof, queer, disabled, divorced, single parent, high table, Scots for goodness sake! Jesus didn’t read labels, – tax gatherer, sinner, publican, prostitute, Jew, gentile, Samaritan, beggar, leper, it made no odds. He refused to stereotype, he searched for the person, like he searched for you and me.
Get real, it’s time for repentance. We have all bad mouthed other members of Christ’s body somewhere along the line, deliberately withheld our love, our weekly offerings, our prayers. It’s quality relationships God requires from us, not pathetic religious intolerances. How long shall we sin that grace might abound, or make 'Holier than Thou' a new commandment? It’s time to get real about pride and prejudice, and look for Christ in others, not despise or reject them because we have stuck a label on them, like 'King of the Jews'. And if we cannot see Him in others we should get real and look at our own hearts first, motes and beams and all of that, as the man said.
It's also time to repent the blasphemy of division within congregations, between congregations, within the denomination, between denominations, –wherever it exists or, even worse, wherever it’s even suggested as a way forward. As if Christ’s body divided, split, separated, could ever be a way forward? No kingdom divided against itself can stand. It is time to grow up, move on from the old disunities, trust each other more, enjoy each other more, refuse to pedal prejudice, or sustain dis-ease.
I take it you have noticed God’s world is torn apart by division, disunities that allow the evils of ethnic extinction, racism, genocide, oppression, poverty, to disadvantage, abuse, rape, again and again and again. Yet what hope is there for the world if God’s people of hope multiply these cancerous sores by echoing them in their own dealings with each other? What gospel have we to proclaim if our relationships are so poverty stricken? Get real, unity is not an option, it is the only way, the only truth, and the only life.
Of course a community as rich and diverse as the Body of Christ is never going to totally agree on everything. A casual look at the New Testament and church history shows it never has, and probably never will. Get real, we are never going to see eye to eye on everything. But if we can sort things out together, give in together, give way together, eat and drink together, let go and let God together, if we can stay with it on the faith journey, whatever the disagreements, whatever the wings, the groupings, no winners no losers, what a cracking witness we can offer, far better than dust shaking feet, back to being souled and healed again!
‘97,000 plus friends of Jesus stay united while disagreeing!’ It is a great headline, and a powerful testimony to the one who said, love your enemies, not just your like minded friends.
So time for reformation. Think about it – was your congregation established years ago because Christians could not or would not get on with each other so they built their own place, did their own thing? If the answer’s yes, then is it not inevitable God would want to redress that blasphemy now and stop it happening again? So thank you Congregational Union of Scotland for taking a risk and helping us both have the possibility of a more worthwhile witness from next April 1st. Fools for Christ maybe, but at least Braveheart rules OK!
It is time for all of us to get real about unity not for the sake of self preservation, but for the sake of obedience to Christ. Our unity lies in our relationship with Him, not in colour, culture, class, race, gender, not in any resolutions we might pass. If the church stays united, it is not because she agrees, it’s because we are disciples of the man on the cross who leaves us no choice! So get real, and in every corner of the land, in every congregation, in every holy club now formed, ask with whom for the sake of Christ crucified should we unite, reunite, or stay united, whatever the cost?!
And finally, speaking of cost, do we need to get real and call it a day? Has our particular work, witness, service, organization, congregational life, run its course? Is it time to get real, and let go, move, change, close? Is that the hard price to be paid for reformation and new life, and is it a terrible thing to suggest? Does it smack of defeatism, faithlessness to the past? Should we even consider the idea of anything calling it a day, regardless of size, status, or standing? Yet nobody said things would last for ever. New growth does mean pruning; former things do pass away. Congregations are meant to journey on, not languish in museums!
Should we die? It's an uncomfortable question. The first disciples hated it when Jesus talked about death, even though it was the only way to new life. There can be no resurrection without crucifixion, no joyful Easter Sunday without Good Friday. And Good Fridays are painful. Death is never an easy option, reformation never painless.
Of course ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it’, but in many places it is broke, stony broke, no longer able to bear witness, provide service, bring healing or fulfil calling. The reasons or circumstances which brought it into being often long gone. Then it is time to take steps in faith, and find new life in other ways. Join with others who can sustain us more fruitfully, enable us to discover fresh contexts in which to contribute once again to God’s loving purposes. Perhaps we could even invite a neighbouring church to die with us and out of our dead pasts create new life in Christ for the future? Deployment is not just about ministers it’s about churches moving as well. Of course things may have died already, but nobody has had the courage to say so, and they won’t lie down. District councils aren’t into euthanasia, and self-preservation is stronger than self sacrifice.
I know it’s hard, Gethsemane – was hard – it’s hard to conceive of anything coming to an end and we need all the help and compassion we can get when faced with the possibility of death, and the loss, bereavement, fear, anger that goes with it. Nevertheless, come midnight new year’s eve, as part of our fun packed millennium evening, it might be good to think on these things, reflect on having the faith to say 'it is finished', rather than simply continuing as if nothing or no one had happened over the years, or saying 'happy new year' when what we really mean is a 'happy another year with no change'.
To die or not to die, that’s the get real question for us all in an age of re-formation, as it always was for Him!
Well there you are dear friends, that’s it! Not a lot jokes, but these are serious days, good days, days that are of God, days that in time others will thank us for because we were open to change, even death, we stood back from the brink of chaos and self interest and held hands with those we once despised, a time when we called it a day on our own kingdoms and sought God’s. Pray that things said of worth take root and fruit, and things not, wither and die.
So it is goodbye from me and particularly goodbye to any cynicism, pessimism, and mistrust that is around! We are moving on without them thank you very much, so if they are hanging around here tell them to get real, – REAL – Renewed, Enlightened, Alongside, and Loved!
And if folk ask ‘what did he say?’, answer: ‘nothing, he encouraged us to be'. To be united, to be re-formed, to be church – and what a good name that is!
I began with Peter the Hermit, I finish with Hosea the Prophet, because despite everything said tonight, at the end of the day it is not down to us :
The Lord says, I will bring my people back to me. They will blossom like flowers, they will be firmly rooted, they will live under my protection, they will be fruitful, they will be famous. I will answer their prayers and take care of them. I am the source of all their blessings. What more do we need? To God be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus, for all time, for ever and for ever, Amen.
|
|
