St Wystan's, Repton, Church Army Preachment 'Feast of St Mary Magdalane'

St Wystan's, Repton, Church Army Preachment 

'Feast of St Mary Magdalene'

Today the Church celebrates St Mary Magdalene and our readings this morning reflect this.

What one word comes into your mind when you hear the name of Mary Magdalene?

Apostle – she was sent by Jesus to tell the apostles that he was raised from death.

After years of vilification Pope Francis passed a decree in 2016 to reinstate Mary Magdalene and set her Feast Day as the 22^nd July, overturning years of misrepresentation by the Western Church. Mary Magdalene is now known as The Apostle to the Apostles.

Being sent by Jesus to bear witness to his resurrection is very apposite as I come here this morning to speak a little about the Church Army.

My own involvement with Church Army began forty years ago in August 1978 when I joined a Church Army Beach Mission in Great Yarmouth.

From there I then went to London to work for Church Army as the Warden of a Conference and Holiday Centre in Victoria, London.

In 1983 I entered the Church Army Training College in Blackheath and on the 24^th June 1986 was Admitted to the Office of Evangelist and Commissioned as a Church Army Officer at Southwark Cathedral by Archbishop Robert Runcie.

As a Church Army Officer I have served in Luton, Northumberland, in Cornwall and Sussex, coming to Stafford in January 2015.

The Church Army began with a young charismatic curate called Wilson Carlile who started a ministry in 1882 in the slums around Westminster, known colloquially as ‘under the clock.’

Wilson Carlile was a successful businessman who went from being a nominal Christian to embracing the faith with a passion.  A faith he wanted to share in words and actions, knowing and having personally experienced the trans-formative power of the Gospel.

He recognized that the clergy for the most part, couldn’t speak the language of the people, especially those who rarely engaged with the church, the poor and marginalized.

Wilson Carlile wanted to create a mass movement and to quote; 'he wanted to cast out the dumb spirit from the Church of England Laity.'

Initially recruiting men whom he would call Captains (no ranking as in the Salvation Army) they would have a 100 ‘soldiers’ under their command – men who could respond to Carlile’s challenge…

‘Can you tell the Gospel in the same homely language of the workshop?’

However following the good example of the Lord he loved, he recognized that woman could have a key role to play as well.

In 1883 the first Training College for men opened in Oxford and this was followed in 1889 by a College for Woman with the help of his sister, Marie Carlile. 

At this time the only opportunity for woman’s ministry in the Church of England was the newly recognized Deaconesses. On the 18^th July the Church remembers the first of these, Deaconess Elizabeth Ferrard, Founder of the Community of St Andrew in 1883.

As woman in ministry in the Church of England was still a novelty the woman joining Church Army undertook training in hospitals alongside their training for mission and evangelism. Hence they became titled as Sister’s from the medical profession not the religious.

Today much has changed and only a very few older Officers occasionally wear the distinctive grey battle dress uniform.  We have embraced the current casual culture.

However, although uniforms may have gone the idea of reaching out to the least, the last and the lost in words and actions remains at the heart and core of Church Army today.

In September 2012 the Church Army became an Acknowledged Mission Order within the Anglican Communion.

As a dispersed Mission Community we offer four pathways, Commissioned, Covenanted, Co-worker and Companion.

Explaining in reverse order…

Companions – are people who share Church Army’s vision and support it through prayer, giving and/or practical help. Vital to the health of Church Army they are involved where possible in the life of the Community, live by the Rule of Life and ascribe to the ethos of Church Army.

Co-worker – are people who work for or alongside Church Army and/or its evangelists, whether in a voluntary or paid capacity, but are not themselves evangelists. They are involved in the life of the Church Army Community, live by the Rule of Life and ascribe to the ethos of Church Army.

Covenanted – are members who are evangelists who have not been formally trained by Church Army but are supported, helped and guided by being in relationship with Church Army.

They do the work of an evangelist, are involved in the life of the Church Army Community, live by the Rule of Life.  They need not be members of the Church of England.

Commissioned – this remains the bedrock of Church Army. After suitable training Captains and Sisters are Admitted to the Office of Evangelist and Commissioned as Church Army Officers. This is the only recognised Office of Evangelist within the Church of England. When I was training 35 years ago I attended the Wilson Carlile College of Evangelism in Blackheath London. In the 1990’s the training college and then our headquarters moved to a purpose built building in Sheffield.

As the Mission Community has grown and developed we have moved away from Residential training and began to offer training in Centres of Mission, working and training alongside two or three senior experienced Officers.

That has been developed further and now we offer training in-situ much the same as someone might train for Ordination through something like Queens, Birmingham.

The training has common elements but is also tailored to the individual and their circumstances. And the length of training depends on any prior qualifications.

Someone with a degree may only require one or two years, but someone without any formal qualifications might require three or four years.

When we became an Acknowledged Mission Community we also reversed the bar on Ordination so that now the Church Army has both Lay and Ordained Officers and members of the Community

We currently have around 600 people involved with the Church Army across the UK.

We have also seen an increase in people coming forward to train as Church Army Officers.

One of the key developments of Church Army has been its Centres of Mission. I mentioned these earlier in regard to training. Here a small team of Evangelist work with the local Church in partnership with the Diocese to implement the Church Army’s DARE strategy.

Doing Evangelism

Bringing people to a living faith in Jesus Christ throughout these islands is at the heart of Church Army.

Advocating Evangelism

We are passionate about encouraging the wider Church to become more actively involved in evangelism.

Resourcing Evangelism

We train people and put the right tools in their hands so that they are resourced to do what God has called them to do. For example…

Faith Pictures

Posada

Why on earth? Video resource asking some of the big question

Enabling Evangelism

We enable people to do evangelism in their own context by creating opportunities for them to join the Community or work alongside Officers on projects and initiatives.

Our Centres of Mission are located all across the UK, mostly in areas of urban deprivation but also in deeply rural and isolated locations, adding the lonely to the least, the last and the lost.

The Church Army also run a Youth Programme with a difference called Xplore…only you don’t go away but stay in your own community with support and training.

Xplore is for 18-30’s who want to live missionally doing evangelism. It is a peer led community where everyone gets to do evangelism in their own context.

We also have a flagship Woman’s Centre in London, the Marylebone Project that last year offered 40,000 bed nights to homeless and vulnerable woman.

In Cardiff we have special residential unit for young people who self-harm.

In all of this and we remain true to the charism of Wilson Carlile, sharing faith in words and actions.

There is a story told of Wilson Carlile outlining one of his latest plans to the Archbishop. The Archbishop said, it seems to me Mr. Carlile that you want to turn the Church upside down. O no, your Grace, came the swift reply, inside out.

Our current ABC Justin Welby began his 2015 Lambeth Lecture on Evangelism by saying…

I want to start by saying just two simple sentences about the church. First, the church exists to worship God in Jesus Christ.

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 is decoration.

I see the evidence of your worshiping God in Jesus Christ here this morning.

But what about the makings of disciples – or to put it in even better terms, are the People of God at St Wystan’s encouraging disciple making disciples?

From Romans 10.13-14

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach?

The People of God gather together for approximately 10 hours every week. For 110 hours they are the dispersed People of God going about their daily lives.

It is here, in our daily lives that we need to heed again Jesus’ commission to Mary Magdalene to tell about Jesus resurrection.

It is here that we again need to recall the Great Commission of Matthew 28, which is now as much our call as it was theirs – to make disciples.

It is here we hear the words of Wilson Carlile echoing down the years, with language that might have changed but with the same challenge…

‘Can you tell the Gospel in the same homely language of the workshop?'

Let me close by using Prebandary Wilson Carlile’s Consecration Prayer

And now and here I give myself to you,

  and now and here you give yourself to me;

  and now and here I find your love within.

Break through me Lord that others I might win;

Your wounded body and your life blood poured

 impel me forth to live and preach you Lord.

Want to know more - check out https://churcharmy.org/

And watch this video to get an idea of both our past, our present and under God our future..

https://vimeo.com/273674317

'Who are you going to serve?' - transcript of sermon, St Bertelins, 15th July 2018

St Bertelins Sunday 15^th July

Ephesians 1.3-14 Mark 6.14-29

When I was younger it was often said that most people could remember where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated?’

Today that is more likely to be, can you remember where you were when Princess Diana was killed?’

Both those two deaths have spawned countless conspiracy theories, books and investigative TV programmes.

The story in the Gospel we heard today is in a very similar category.

It contains all the ingredients for a great story, power, intrigue, politics, sex and scandal, and in the case of Herod and Dianne the added spice of royalty.

If this story about Herod, Herodias, Salome and John happened today there would be tweets galore and plenty of Facebook comments.

We simply haven’t got the time but I do commend to you a study of all these key players in this story that also appears in Matthew’s Gospel in a shorter form and also in extra Biblical works from Josephus.

There are also lots of Herod’s, so it can easily all become very confusing.

The Herod here is Herod Antipas, one of three surviving sons of King Herod the Great.

He ruled over Galilee and Perea from 6BC until 34AD.  

On a trip to Rome he became infatuated with his sister-in-law Herodias who was married to Herod Philip.  At this time, Herod Antipas was married to a Nabatean Princess whom Herodias demanded he divorce.

It all reads like something off a TV Soap!

Of course all of this went against Jewish law and customs.

A man could marry his brother’s wife; in fact, the law said that he should…

If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.  Deuteronomy 25.5.

This comes up in a confrontation between Jesus and the Sadducee's recorded in Matthew 22.

But of course the important part of this was that your brother should be dead, otherwise it was against the law.

"

If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity. He has violated his brother, and the guilty couple will remain childless. Leviticus 20.21

This is what John the Baptizer railed against bringing the ire and displeasure of Herodias.

Mark does give us a fairly full account but others have added and filled out the story, notably bringing in the infamous Dance of the Seven Veils.

The story was also a favourite of Medieval artist who liked the juxtaposition of a young girl, either as an innocent pawn in a power game or a sexualized young woman in league with her mother and knowing exactly what she was doing, this alongside the gruesome idea of a severed head on a silver dish was a real favourite subject.

In 1891 Oscar Wilde wrote a play ‘Salome’ which for the most part was Wilde using the subject matter to address the issues of his own sexuality. 

In 1905 Richard Strauss created a one part opera based on Wilde’s play.  In this opera the sexual tension is increased as Salome fantasizes about John and has an erotic dance with the bloodied body of John and his decapitated head. To an already disturbing story Strauss adds necrophilia. 

It still receives mixed reviews.

But let’s move on and return to the genesis of the story as recorded in Mark’s Gospel.

This story follows on from last week’s Gospel reading where we looked at the story of Jesus’ rejection in his own town and among his kith and kin and then ending with the sending out of the twelve Apostles.

I would suggest that we are dealing with the same basic theme that runs throughout the Scriptures and indeed runs throughout all life, being very much part of the warp and weft of life itself.

Power, rule and authority.

And in this story here is power being used with impunity, with Herod and Herodias acting as if they are above the law.

And the outspoken prophet, John the Baptizer, stands in a long line of Jewish prophets that spoke out boldly against anyone, even kings and rulers. 

Jesus was to say on one occasion…

Woe to you! You build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses who consent to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and others they will persecute.’…  Luke 11.48-49

Jesus said to his disciples, his followers and us…

"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.”

What does light do?

It shows up all the muck and the filth, as much as it guides and illuminates the path.

And here John the Baptizer has come to call the People of Israel to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

And the Pharisees want to know by whose power, rule and authority John is baptizing people and calling them to repentance…

…So they said to him, “Who are you? We need an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

So we have the same dilemma as Jesus had when he went to his home town…

Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked.   Mark 6.2

What they couldn’t see, and what the Pharisee’s couldn’t see, and what many people even today cannot see – or refuse to accept is,

…that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Cor.5.19

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”    John 8.12

You see, that is the stark, simple and yet profound choice you and I have to make today and every day in a thousand and one different ways. You can walk in the darkness of this world or chose to walk illuminated by God’s spirit with the light of life.

St Augustine was to say on one occasion, ‘If Jesus be not Lord of all, then he is not Lord at all.’

Power, rule and authority…

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Colossians 2.15

We can sometimes act as God’s people as if the Christian Faith is a simple matter of personal choice. You chose to do this and I’ll choose to do that.

It quickly becomes wrapped around personal piety and a privatized faith that has little or no public dimension.

However, a quick look through the Scriptures will soon tell you that it is far more than that.

If God be God, if God is the creator and sustainer of the world, if God squeezed his very being into human form and appeared as a man among us to show how to live as authentic human beings.

If this God/Man was rejected and despised, mocked, beaten and killed – but then rose from death, defeating once and for all the greatest enemy of all, then surely we cannot simple reduce the Christian Faith down to a private choice or personal piety.

Surely it has to be much bigger than that?

For example, what are asking for when we pray the Lord Prayer? Words that are often on our lips but less often in our hands and feet to make our prayer a present reality?

God’s Kingdom to come, God’s name being honoured, forgiveness of sins, bread for hungry and so much more.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.

Jesus came from the east bank and emerged on the west bank having being baptized by 

John with the witness of the Holy Spirit falling upon him in the sign of a dove.

Thousands of years earlier Joshua led the Israelite's out of the desert wanderings over the river Jordan from the east bank to the west bank into the Promised Land. Years later, knowing he was drawing close to death he called all the Israelite's together and said..

 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

So to close a simple question for us to take into the week ahead.

The People of God gathered here this morning at St Bertelins will tomorrow become the dispersed People of God and be found in all sorts of places. And you will find yourself facing any number of choices based around whose, rule, authority and power are you going to follow?

On a personal level it might be that smutty joke, or that salacious gossip or a racial slur or a character assassination when we are tempted to join in and add in our own bit of bile.  

Different choices face us all the time.

And in the public domain I know that we read in Romans 13.13…

Obey the rulers who have authority over you. Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power.

But this needs to be balanced with our story of John and his speaking out against the abuse and misuse of power.

Perhaps we can also be guided by the brave words of Peter and another John…

Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than God. For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”…  Acts 4.19

I hope we are those who have heard and seen and know God’s sovereign reign, rule and authority – and that we cannot therefore stop speaking about it.  

Otherwise the world will continue to stumble on in the darkness with misuse of power, rule and authority!