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I will tell you a story
My text is
Psalm 78: 4 I will tell you a story with a meaning. For a long time now I
have believed that we have to learn again to be storytellers. It is an art that
has been lost to a large extent within society, and we have also lost it within
the church. Yet it is so important to our life, to the quality of our life and
to our understanding of who we are. I will tell you a story with a meaning.
What is that story for us today in the church, how do we take it to ourselves
and how do we begin to communicate it, to tell it to others?
I
believe that I am a storyteller and I belong to a community of storytellers.
The time when this is most obvious for us is Sunday by Sunday in our worship. I
find it helpful to reflect on this as I prepare for worship and to accept that I
am not required to come up with something new every week, something that is
quite unique, something that will stun every-one by its newness. In fact, it is
the opposite that is required of me. My role as a preacher, as a leader of
worship, is to tell the story, to retell the story that the church has been
telling for almost 20 centuries. It is an old, old story.
As a
Christian minister I tell the story of Jesus. It begins at Advent as I prepare
for the birth of a child. It is a story that is so well known and yet there is
so much to explore in it. At Christmas and Epiphany I tell of that birth, the
birth of Jesus, in all its strangeness, wonder and mystery. I tell the story of
the people who came to visit him. And in the telling of the story I begin to
explore what it means, what is its significance. But I hope that always I allow
the story to display its own power and not permit my explanations to become more
important than the story itself.
Within a
short time I move on into the period of Lent when I tell the story of this child
now become a man. I tell some of the stories that he told. I speak of the events
of his life, of the people with whom he shared his experiences. I speak of his
popularity and of the way people followed him about, hanging on his every word
and of the ways in which he expressed his care and concern for them in a great
variety of situations, often situations of extreme need in their lives. About it
all there is a sense of excitement and of drama, a sense of purpose.
But in
honesty I have to tell a fuller story. I have to say that the story of Jesus is
not one of continued popularity and unquestioning trust, respect and love from
people. Jesus made demands upon people, both as individuals and as groups. He
raised questions about how they related to each other, about justice and
integrity, about how they used power and authority. He told the truth about
issues that others preferred to hide. It is not surprising that his popularity
waned. So we arrive at Holy Week. I tell of his coming to the city of Jerusalem and of the ambiguity of that arrival there. An apparent welcome but the sense of growing opposition is almost palpable. To walk with Jesus at this point in his life, to tell his story, is to feel the deep, deep pain as the opposition grows and the different groups come together to bring about his death. The story tells of his betrayal, the mockery of a trial, his humiliation, the scattering of those who were his friends and their denial of that friendship. Finally to tell the story of his agonising death by crucifixion is to plumb the depths of human wickedness, of our capacity for evil, of our willingness to turn from the good.
A couple
of years ago I was taking part in our annual ecumenical procession of witness
and worship on Good Friday through the streets of St Ives, Cambridgeshire. When
we arrived at the Free Church we went inside for our final act of worship
because of the heavy rain. None of the chairs had been put in place. It was just
a bare space, but somehow more evocative. We stood or sat on the floor. I
remember so clearly that the final reading about the death of Jesus was by a lay
member of the local Roman Catholic Church. It was a story that he knew very
well. He had read it lots of times. But his voice kept breaking and it was clear
that he was surprised by the deep reaction that he was having to this story. We
hear the story and if it is told well, if it is allowed to speak for itself, it
is as though we are hearing it for the first time. It is to know that we were
there when they crucified our Lord and we cannot tell the story in any other
way. There the story should end. But miracle of miracles, to our amazement the story continues. On the Sunday the friends of Jesus discover that he is alive, that they experience him with them and that all their hopes and dreams are there again. We can tell the stories of the times he shared with his friends, of the ways in which they knew themselves to be accepted by him and that their fears and denials were not the last word in their relationship with Jesus. There was work to be done and they were commissioned to do it.
So we come
to Pentecost and the bursting forth, the pouring out, of the Holy Spirit in all
its fullness. Immediately we are into another story. This time it is the story
of the church and if we continue telling it we will come to the point where we
discover that we are characters in the story. We are part of the church and we
each have our role to fulfil.
Just as I
have spoken about the story that leads on from Pentecost so I could also speak
about the story that precedes that of Jesus. I tell the story contained in the
Hebrew Scriptures of God’s dealings with the Children of Israel. In all of
this I believe that I am telling God’s story. It is the story of God’s
mighty acts and it is the story to which I am committed week by week. It is the
story that I must tell and in which I delight. But it is not just about me. This
is our story. As a church we are committed to it. Whatever theological
differences there may be among us, whatever may be the different styles of
worship, whatever may be the different sense that we have about how we handle
and interpret Scripture, it is this story that holds us together, that binds us
together. It is there is our history. It is there in our foundation documents.
We are a people with a story and it is God’s story. God’s mighty acts by
which he shows his love for us, by which he redeems us.
And we
each have our own particular story to tell. On an occasion like this it is not surprising that I
should be aware of my own story and of the journey that has brought me to this
moment. But my story is more than just the events of my life. Let me explain
what I mean by that. I am the youngest of four children and I grew up in a small
house in inner city Belfast. Both of my parents were from large families so I
had lots of aunts, uncles and cousins and all of them lived within a few miles
of us. Ours was the house that they gravitated to at weekends. On Saturdays and
Sundays especially my parents would never know how many people were going to
arrive for supper. But arrive they did and food was found for them. My memories
of childhood are of lots of adults sitting eating together and talking.
None of
them was well educated. They would all have left school at 14. But they would
have read their daily newspaper and listened to the radio, particularly to the
news. I suspect that many of them were very intelligent and that if they had
been born a generation later, many of them would have gone on to higher
education. They all had views and opinions and were willing to share them with
one another. I do not remember hearing any arguments among them, but I do
remember some heated discussions and differing views being expressed. I am very
proud of this aspect of my background. It taught me so much, about how people
relate to each other, how they support one another. Most of all it taught me a
great deal about who I was and am. This was my family and their history; their
story was my story. So often I would hear them say, do you remember the time
when…..and another part of their story, my story, was told. I do have to say
that I think this was not at all a bad way to be brought up.
During most of my ministry I have been involved in counselling. I think most counsellors could tell a story that goes something like this. The person sitting before them is very quiet, shy, uncommunicative, introverted. Working with them is hard work because they give so little of themselves. They are very reluctant to talk about themselves. They are there because they recognise that they need help. Yet it is so difficult to get close to them. I say again that they are unwilling to give of themselves. Or unable. Their story is locked up within them. They have never felt that they were important enough, interesting enough, that anyone should want to listen to their story. And yet they do have their story to tell and hopefully they begin to realise that there is someone in front of them that welcomes their story, values and affirms it. Sometimes this will open the locked gates and it comes tumbling out. Their story is given voice and you see them flower in front of you. That is a privilege indeed.
Isn’t that what we are about every week, in our worship? We are telling the story of God, but we are also enabling people to tell their story. Yes, I know it is not possible for everyone to be allowed to stand up and tell what has happened to him or her during the past week, to bring their story up to date. Not if we are going to keep within the hour so as not to upset anyone. But we do have to ensure that through our worship, our hymns and prayers and sermons and everything else that is part of our worship, people are saying, “That’s me, that’s me. I’m being prayed for. This expresses my need, my thanks, etc.”
Father,
this is our worship –
(Duncan B Forrester et al
Worship Now Book 2; Edinburgh: St Andrew Press 1989 page 7) Through
our worship of God, our telling of God’s story and telling our own stories we
are in the business of helping people to reach fullness of life. We are not in
the business of causing them to lock their story within themselves.
In our
worship we are telling the story, of God’s activity on our behalf and
we are telling our own story. We are telling the story of heaven to earth and we
our telling our story lived out on earth. As Christians we believe that the most
profound meeting point of earth and heaven is in Jesus, in his life, death and
resurrection. In him the life of earth is caught up into the life of God. It is
not possible to say that we have faith until we recognise that our life is
caught up into the life of God, our story is caught up into the story of God.
There is yet another story that I have become more deeply aware of in recent years. It is the story of the faith community to which I belong. We can think of this at many levels. I am a member of the United Reformed Church, I am within the Cambridge District of the Eastern Synod. But at the most profound and most demanding level, I live out my Christian life in covenant with other Christians in the life of a local congregation.
For a
number of years I have been greatly influenced by the work of the Alban
Institute, an organisation based in the United States of America, just outside
Washington D C. It is dedicated to the study of congregations and their life. It
says that the congregation is the most important unit in the Christian Church.
Every congregation is unique. No two of them are the same. That is obvious and
it is vitally important to recognise this when dealing with congregations. Loren
Mead, its president says:
The
congregation is where people touch the church and are touched by it. It is there
that literally millions of people are struggling to understand their own
personal sense of mission and to get the strength to pursue it. The congregation
is where new people are brought into a faith-heritage that connects them to the
biblical story and to the life of the people of God.
(Loren B Mead, The Once
and Future Church Reinventing
the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier Washington: The Alban
Institute 1991 Page 7) I am one
of the ministers of the St Ives Group of Churches. It is made up of two
congregations, St Ives Free Church and Fenstanton United Reformed Church. For
the purposes of what I want to say I will focus on St Ives. When reflecting upon
the life of the Free Church I think not only about what we are doing today, what
we did yesterday and what we have planned for tomorrow. All of these things are
important but they are set within a wider context, a greater story.
St Ives
Free Church has a long history. The yearbook of the United Reformed Church gives
our foundation date as 1642. I think this can be at best a rough figure. It
could be argued that our history goes back to the 1630s when Oliver Cromwell
lived in St Ives for a period of five years. It is known that at this time, as
well as attending the Parish Church, he gathered people in his home and attended
the homes of others for worship. Others would place the foundation date of the
church later in the 17th century when James II granted a measure of religious
toleration. Be that as it may, it has a long history that was written up by one
of its members, Mary Wagner, in a book entitled, Not an Easy Church. The
title comes from a letter written in 1918 by a deacon of the church inviting a
prospective minister to accept a call from the congregation. Interestingly, a
copy of the book was given to me at the time when I was considering becoming
minister at St Ives.
What I
want to affirm is that I find great strength and encouragement in my sense of
being part of this faith community and the awareness that it gives me of being
part of the Communion of Saints, the continuity of saints. Let me tell you one
incident from its history. It comes from the 1860s, clearly a less ecumenical
age. The Parish Church in St Ives levied a tax on all the inhabitants of the
town to pay for raised pavements to the church so that parishioners would not
get their feet wet or muddied on the way to church. Some of the members of the
Free Church refused to pay the tax and their goods were seized and put on sale
in the Market Place. But other members of the Free Church gathered round them
and refused to allow anyone to bid for the goods. The book does not record what
methods they used. But what I read in the story is about people who asked
questions about justice and injustice, about the nature of society and how to
live with freedom and dignity within it. I read about people who stood together
in solidarity, who matched their questioning and discussion with action. I
believe we continue to ask the same questions today in the Free Church through
our Just Sharing shop and our involvement with Commitment for Life
and Jubilee 2000. They are the same issues of justice and solidarity but
on a wider international plane while not neglecting the local concerns of St
Ives.
One more
story about the Free Church and this one is nearer our time. In the entrance
hall there is a stone set into the floor and on it are the words,
THIS
HOUSE WAS REOPENED 27 SEPTEMBER 1980
Some of you may know the present building. It is large and imposing and has stood at the centre of St Ives since 1864. It is the sort of building that has often engendered great pride in the people who use it. It is also the sort of building that could quite easily become a millstone for the life and mission of a congregation. And those two aspects are not incompatible. Buildings can be a source of pride and a millstone at the same time. I am constantly amazed by the courage of the people who decided to move out of their building for two years, to continue their life in very cramped conditions, and plan and work for the future they believed they had in St Ives. Many of those people are still part of the congregation at St Ives, some of them are present with us today, and I know that together we could give witness to the continuing life of that faith community. Every week it sees between at least 2,000 people through its doors for a wide variety of reasons and activities. It provides a home for a great number of organisations, both church and community. But I refuse to draw a distinction between church and community activity. All of it is about the church being concerned for community, being in community, seeking to be at the heart of the community. We are there to witness to the activity of God in Christ and pointing to the possibility of a richer, fuller life.
I hope
that what I am saying here is clear. I am part of a faith community and I draw
strength and inspiration from the people I work with day by day. Within that
faith community I know that I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, by
those who have gone before and whose stories continue to inspire me as well as
those who work with me day by day.
How well do you know the stories of your congregation, your faith community? You do not have to have been part of it since the day you were born. You may recently have joined that congregation, you may recently have come to faith. But you are the possessor of a great gift, the story of the people of God who have worked and witnessed and left us a great inheritance. Who are the people who have passed the faith on to you? Some you could name, they have been and are a part of your life? Others you could not name, but whose faithfulness, courage and vision have become your inheritance, your property, simply by you being part of your faith community, your church and congregation. Thank God for our faith communities. They may at times drive us to distraction. We may at times feel that they make too many demands upon us. But we know also that they enrich our lives in so many ways and through them we find the strength to live the life of faith.
So we are storytellers, telling the story of God, telling our own story and that of our faith community. But this is not an obscurantist activity. It is certainly not about living in the past, afraid to face today and tomorrow. Rather it is about drawing from our storytelling the inspiration, encouragement, guidance and strength to live the story today for the sake of the future story. For myself I find great encouragement through the interaction of the different stories that I have mentioned, indeed it becomes the dynamic of my faith. Again I need to explain that in a little more detail.
Mediaeval
scholars often drew a distinction between ‘fides quae creditur’ – the
faith which is believed and ‘fides qua creditur’ – the faith by
which it is believed. I came across this distinction about 10 years ago,
when I was doing some work on Adult Christian Education, and immediately
recognised it as something that was valid for me, about how I continue to take
the Christian faith into my life. When I tell the story of God’s mighty acts I
am speaking of the faith of the Church. This story has been told for
generations. It is celebrated in worship and to some degree encapsulated in the
creeds and statements of faith which have been drawn up by the Church at
different times. It is the deposit of faith, the fixed point to which I return
again and again. It is the faith into which I am growing. And I do need to need
to grow into it and it is going to take me the whole of my life to do it. The
faith of the Church is greater than the faith of Bill Mahood and yet the faith
of the Church is the faith of Bill Mahood. It is in this paradox that I find the
dynamic of faith. What I am saying is that my faith is greater than me, it is
greater than what I have experienced, it is greater than my intellectual
apprehension, it is greater even than my own stumbling discipleship. It is not
simply dependent on what I am feeling today, my doubts and my certainties, my
days of confidence and my days of fear and quailing. That is why I need to turn
again and again to the story of God, to the story of all the people of God and
to the present life of the community of the faithful people of God. By myself I
am nothing. But in the dynamic interaction of all these different parts I find
my place, my faith, my confidence and the outworking of my service to God. I
discover my value in the eyes of God. It is the same for all of us who seek to
live the Christian life.
I believe that this is a very good time, a very exciting time, to be part of the United Reformed Church. We have taken decisions together which will affect the whole of our future life. We will make more decisions in the next few days. I am thinking especially of the decisions we made last year concerning the Growing Up programme. I believe that in accepting this programme we committed ourselves to proclaim the faith that we hold and to live together as people of faith, so that our words and our actions are for the greater glory of God and for the sharing of faith with others. I am greatly encouraged by the reports that I hear and read about the ways in which congregations, Districts and Synods are taking this programme into their life. In fact they are doing more than that. They are changing it from being a programme into being a way of life. Mission is not simply finding its place on the agenda. Mission is the agenda.
We have
committed ourselves as a denomination to live the sort of dynamic life which I
have sought to describe in this Moderatorial Address. We will immerse ourselves
deeply in the story of God, in His mighty acts in Jesus, we will share that
story with all who will listen. We will strive to live this story, we will make
it our own. We will seek to make our congregations places where we ourselves are
challenged and strengthened and where others find a place as they too are caught
up into the life of faith. We will seek to be the people of God writing our
chapter of the story, and in doing that we will trust God for the future.
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