St James’ Newchapel
25th February 2018 Second Sunday in Lent
A couple of weeks ago I
was at a meeting for those who had been trained up to deliver the one year
course on Frontline Discipleship from LICC. www.licc.org.uk
One of our number, Bill
Mash, heads up the Black Country Urban Industrial Mission and he was enthusing
as you might expect about encouraging people to take their faith to work.
I quipped that we had
Jesus to blame for our often getting a wrong-headed view of ministry.
Jesus begins by calling
Simon, Andrew, then James and John to leave their family business and join him
as he traveled around as an itinerant Rabbi.
At one level this was
perfectly normal. Young Jewish men would often ally themselves with a
particular Rabbi so that they could learn from them.
However what is not normal was the Rabbi inviting disciples to join him.
John
15:16
You
did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and
bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the
Father will give you.
It is also in John’s
Gospel that we pick another aspect of the rabbi disciple relationship.
John
1:38-40
Turning around, Jesus saw them
following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means
“Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and
you will see.” So
they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It
was about four in the afternoon.
It was customary practice
for the disciple to follow their chosen master everywhere. They wanted to know how they lived, how they
ate and how they interacted in the world and with people. The good rabbi had to
walk the talk.
However following Jesus
was something extraordinary as we read in our Gospels.
It was also deeply
challenging, especially ‘when the days
drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.’ Luke 9.51.
A journey we are currently
reflecting on as we engage with Lent.
(Which in itself simply
mean lengthen, when the days begin to draw out more.)
One person whom Jesus called
asked to be allowed to bury his father, a customary duty, or if his father was
still alive then again a customary duty to care for an aged parent.
'Leave the dead to bury the
dead' was Jesus demanding response.
To yet another who
responded by asking simply to say farewell to his family, ‘no one who puts his hand to the plough and turns back is fit for the
kingdom of God,’ was the terse response.
In John’s Gospel chapter 6
we have Jesus’ discourse about his flesh being true food and his blood being
true drink and those that ate his body and blood would not die but have
everlasting life.
Verse 60 goes on to say...
On
hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can
accept it?"
And the result was…
‘From
this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.’
Then we come to today’s
passage – and could anything be more stark, brutal and challenging.
He
called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become
my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow
me.
Remember this was to a
crowd who knew what it meant to be crucified and who would have witnessed it
sometime in their life.
The Romans didn’t invent
or devise crucifixion.
Crucifixion (or impalement), in one form or another, was used by Persians, Carthaginians, and Macedonians from at least to 5th century BCE.
However the Romans
certainly made it their own.
It was the perfect way of
making a very clear public statement, don’t mess with us, or else this is what
happens.
And despite the modesty of
most depictions of the crucifixion, most people would have been stripped naked.
(Michelangelo at the age
of 18 made a naked Christ crucifix for the Basilica de Santo Spirito in Florence for their high altar around 1492.)
I remember a sketch we used to do on some missions and
the like. A person who wanted to become a Christian would approach a desk. The
clerk would start taking down details. The person wanting to become a Christian
was asked to hand over everything they had on them. Their wallet, passport, car
keys, house keys, phone, watch and maybe their jacket - we didn’t want to go
too far! Then the person would sign them
over. The clerk would then hand them all back and say you can have these back
but remember you have given them to God and they are now only on loan to you.
The person makes to move away and the clerk calls them back with the word, ‘O
and one more thing, you will be needing this - and hands them a large wooden
cross.
As you know well some of
our Christian brothers and sisters are facing this very severe test even as we
are gathered here this morning. We give thanks and pray for them in their
witness and fortitude.
‘If
any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me.
Last March Bishop Michael
invited us to follow Christ in the footsteps of St Chad, to deepen our
discipleship, to discover our vocation and to engage in evangelism.
We are going to be
exploring more about what that means for us later on today.
But let me say just a word about each of those headings.
I remember the Principle
of the Church Army Training College, Charles Hutchins, in a sermon on
discipleship said that, ‘discipleship is daily dogged determinism.’
That I think sums it up quite well.
After all who would want
to be associated with the Church at Laodicea!
On vocation one of the
aspects that Fruitfulness on the Frontline talks about is that everyone is a
full time Christian worker. Each and
every one of us has a distinct and unique calling.
Problems can arise however
when we try and shoe-horn people into roles they are neither gifted nor called
to fulfill.
You may have heard about
the helicopter church people avoided because they were afraid of getting caught
up in the rotas!
Very shortly rotas and
roles will be on our minds as we come to the APCM.
It would seem a good time
to consider the opening words of the
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at the Lambeth Lecture 4th March
2015
Second, the Church exists
to make new disciples of Jesus Christ. Everything else is decoration. Some of
it may be very necessary, useful, or wonderful decoration – but it’s
decoration.”
We do need to ask
ourselves from time to time what this whole enterprise it about, all these
jobs, and rotas and meetings and committees.
I appreciate that the PCC
and the Churchwardens have legal duties. However there is still scope for
everyone to find and fulfill their God given vocation – which may not fit into
one of those roles.
It would be perfectly
fitting for Janet to approach any one of you and ask what you think your
calling might be and then to see if the church could support you in that
calling, to fulfill your vocation.
And not everyone is called
to leave their nets or their tax booths – we are called to discover our own
unique front line and there to be a faithful witness in both word and deed.
In
the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good
deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5.16
And good deeds need to be
backed up with good words about the Good News.
‘But
in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to
everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do
this with gentleness and respect…’
1 Peter 3.15
That naturally nudges us into
evangelism, which simply put is the sharing of the Good News.
In a recent survey it was
discovered that 67% of people in the UK knew a Christian whereas only 1% knew a
Christian leader. So if you plan on
leaving sharing the Gospel to Janet you are not going to get very far.
Sitting here in Newchapel
in 2018 may seem like a long way away from Jesus’ call to Simon, Andrew, James
and John.
Yet the call is the same –
the urgency is the same – the need is the same – the call to a full
wholehearted commitment is the same.
And you are only sitting
here today because someone at some time responded to the call to follow Christ.
The challenge for each and
every one of us is how we are going to respond to that call to follow
Christ.
I responded to that call
by way of making a New Year’s Resolution on January 1975 to become a Christian.
A key verse for me was
Colossians3.3.
‘For
you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ‘
And your life, your true
once and for all God given life, the life that is as unique as your
fingerprints – that is to be found only in God revealed to us through the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus.
This is how John Henry
Newman put it…
‘God has created me to do
Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not
committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I
shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as
necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise
another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham.
Yet I have a part in this
great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has
not created me for naught. I shall
do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth
in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and
serve Him in my calling.’
When you come to receive
the bread and the wine today and as you open up your hands can I invite you to
say yes to God and yes to all He wants to do in you and through you and all
that you may be and become.
After
this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So
Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to leave as
well?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall
we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we
have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One
of God.”
So - have you also come to
believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God who calls us to follow him?
What decision are you going to make?
