Back To Church Sunday 2010

A little later than planned, here is my sermon from last Sunday's really excellent "Back To Church Sunday' service. Church was P-acked with barely a spare seat and lots of returnees. Our most 'successful' B2CS yet...

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I’d like to share with you some very solemn announcements that have been made in Churches up and down the land in recent years. Some are taken from Church Notice Sheets, Notice boards and magazines:

1.A report from the Church meeting: the Vicar spoke briefly and delighted the audience.
2.Next Sunday is the Vicar’s last Sunday before he moves. Our special anthem will be the Hymn ‘Come ye thankful people come’!
3.Ladies are requested not to have children in the church kitchen.
4.A notice stuck to the hot-air hand-dryer in the men’s toilet at church had these words on it: ‘Press this button for a repeat of last Sunday’s sermon’!
5.Tuesday at 4.00 pm there will be an ice-cream social. All are welcome. Ladies giving milk should come early!
6.From a Diocesan Newsletter: ‘You will all be pleased to hear that the Bishop is making very slow progress after his operation’.
7.The sermon next Sunday will be on ‘Hell’. A warm welcome will be extended to all.

All of us came to church for the first time once. Sometimes we might have a a bad experience. Apologise. Sometimes the church may not communicate it’s message very clearly. Our reading this morning picks up on the people who became Jesus’ closest companions meeting him and coming to be with him for the first time and hearing a very simple message loud and clear.

It is reasonable to assume that Andrew and John (the beloved disciple) had heard and met Jesus before this encounter. Our reading from John’s Gospel illustrates how they respond to what somebody else says, what John the Baptist exclaims “Behold the Lamb of God.” They follow because of what they have heard another say.

John the Baptist referred to his ministry in the words of Isaiah, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.' " He had been preparing the way even to the point that his own followers would now consider and indeed make the decision to follow Jesus. John the Baptist is pointing the way to the Anointed One, The Messiah.

Jesus is welcoming and he offers an invitation for his hearers to develop their relationship with him. To get to know Jesus, only if they wish too. "Come," he replied, "and you will see."

We now witness the first missionary act in a new ministry that would become Christianity. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

We do not know a great deal about Andrew. Maybe that is because he lived a quiet life as he followed Jesus but he was the one who brought Simon to be renamed Peter to Jesus. Simon has a life-changing encounter with Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter). What a morning that was for Simon Peter. His brother invites him to come and see.

Can you imagine the scene. Your brother rushes home. “Quick Simon there is someone you must talk too.” “Who?” “This is the person; the one John the Baptist has been talking to us about. I have seen him. It is him. I am sure of it. Come and see and decide for yourself.”

What a brilliant brother! You walk with your brother feeling self-conscious hoping that no one will ask you where you are going. It feels a bit strange to say I have an appointment with the Messiah. “There he is” Andrew exclaims. Jesus looks at you and smiles. “Welcome. You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter).That’s it. Your life turned around in that very instant. You are now on the path of discovery to who you truly are. “You are Peter, The Rock on who I will build my Church,” said Jesus.

How would you feel if you were Simon? You are standing looking into the eyes of God who looks right into your very being and declares what you will become. He looks at you and you challenges you to follow him. I wonder how he explained that to his family and friends. How would you explain that your name has changed. You are no longer Simon but Peter. That is the invitation that Jesus is offering to all of us. To change and transform us for good, for God.

Gladys Aylward was born in London, in 1902, to a working-class family Gladys became a wealthy family's parlor maid at the age of 14. She trudged through this life of routine until one day after attending a church service a stranger confronted her with what being a Xn really meant.

It transformed her and her outlook on life. She began attending Young Life services and reading about the far-away land of China from books in the vast library of her employer. This birthed an unstoppable desire to go to China herself. Gladys applied with CIM as a candidate for China. After reviewing her advanced age and test results it was determined that she was too old and unfit to learn the difficult Chinese language. At the age of 28, Gladys dreams were momentarily crushed; she decided if she couldn't go with CIM she would go on her own. Every month, Gladys would save all the money she could from the small paycheck she received to buy a one-way train ticket to China.

On Oct. 15, 1932, Gladys left Liverpool Street Station by train to travel across Russia and eventually into Northern China. She carried two suitcases, a bedroll and wore a bright orange jacket. After a long and roundabout journey across Russia, Gladys finally set foot in her beloved China.

Gladys began to lean Cantonese and eventually became a "foot inspector." The tradition of binding Chinese women's feet had recently been outlawed, but due to cultural perceptions of beauty it was still being practiced in many places. Gladys began traveling around inspecting the bones in women's feet. As she traveled she would tell stories from the Bible and many looked forward to the days they could hear these strange new stories.

The people's esteem and respect for Gladys also continued to grow. What was even more remarkable was the ability she had to take on Chinese culture and language. By 1937, when the Japanese begin bombing nearby mountain villages, Gladys had so identified herself with the Chinese people that she refused to leave even as artillery shells begin to fall.

After 20 years in China, Gladys returned to England in 1940. She was embarrassed to find that she quickly became a celebrity. A book, movie and TV documentary were all made about her life. To many Gladys became known by many as "The Small Women," the title of her biography. She continued to travel and speak about her beloved China, returning to Taiwan in 1957.

Humble in spirit, Gladys once made this comment to a friend, "I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China. There was somebody else. I don't know who it was --- God's first choice. It must have been a man --- a wonderful man, a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing. And God looked down and saw Gladys Aylward."

What about you and me this morning? What name is Jesus wishing to bestow upon us? Are we fishing in the wrong place as Simon was? Where are we being called to go? 70% of us, according to a recent survey, consider ourselves to be Christians, but being Christian isn’t about being nice, it is (as Simon Peter and the other disciples dscovered) about following and and listening and learning from Christ. Jesus doesn’t ask us to come with airs and graces, it’s not even about how we look. it’s not even about what we think we know about him He simply asks us to come as we are - for He accepts us and loves us just like that - and get to know him for ourselves. Amen.

Jesus Needs You

When a Government wishes to increase the number of recruits for the Armed Services, the advertising campaign is based on the threat posed to the country or its values. ‘Your Country Needs You!, was the most successful poster campaign of the first world war. Modern day advertising is to recruit people to volunteer by appealing to their sense of adventure and excitement. There is never a footnote on the poster “Soldiering may be dangerous to your health”

Jesus was different. When an enthusiastic young man ran up to Jesus and said “I‘ll follow you wherever you go” Jesus stares back and retorts, ‘Foxes and birds have the comfort of hole and nest; I don’t have even that, and neither will you. Go home and think some more about discipleship” This does not sound like a winning formula for church growth.

Discipleship is costly in any era. In the past century i.e. the 1990s more Christians have died for their faith than in all the centuries before put together.

Statues of 20th Century saints and martyrs were erected in St Albans Abbey to mark the millennium. They include Mother Theresa. One of them Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor lived in Germany during the regime of Hitler.

Bonhoeffer was part of the resistance to the Gestapo, and though he lived in America for a short time and could have avoided persecution, he chose to go back to Germany to encourage others in Germany especially in the Church not to crumble before Hitler and his Government. Eventually he was arrested, along with other members of his family and placed in a concentration camp. Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9th 1945 just a few days before the concentration camp was liberated by the Allies.

While in the camp he wrote papers and letters about the theology behind martyrdom - these were smuggled out by guards who liked him. Later they were put in a book called ‘The cost of Discipleship’ Jesus, in our passage of scripture today is talking about the cost of Discipleship.

Bonhoeffer believed we live in a time of ‘cheap grace’ and easy beliefs. He argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. Cheap grace given away at cut prices The Sacraments, forgiveness of sins, the consolations of religion are showered with generous hands without asking questions or fixing limits

Cheap grace is forgiveness proclaimed as a general truth without stressing repentance. God’s love is taught as a general concept of God without stressing that God’s love wants our salvation. True grace is Costly – it is free because the account has been paid in advance by Jesus but not cheap. It is treasure hidden in a field – for the sake of it a person will sell all he has. It is a pearl of great price that a person gives their all to possess It is the kingly rule of Christ for which a person will pluck out an eye if it causes him to stumble. It is the call of Christ for which the disciples left their nets to follow him. It is so magnificently summed up in the Methodist Covenant Prayer:

In am no longer my own but thine. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will: put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

True grace can be costly. Jesus doesn’t want to con his followers into believing it will be easy - it will be fulfilling - it gives us inner peace, pardon, the power of the Holy Spirit - eternal life but could be difficult. Jesus drives the point home with three Cannot statements

1. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his
wife and children, brothers and sisters- yes even his own life- he cannot be my disciple. This must have been shocking to those who heard it - it is shocking to us. We are to love family. Marriage and family are the good gifts of God. He means we should never love our relatives or ourselves more than Him. This is part of the cost many Christian workers pay is terms of time spent with family, or finance or promotion so fulfilling the call to missionary work.

2. If anyone does not carry his cross and follow me he cannot be my
disciple. This too would be very shocking to the crowds. After all, unlike us, many of them may have witnessed what Jesus here described: a condemned criminal bearing his own cross through the streets of a town to a place of crucifixion. Jesus is saying you may suffer for your faith. Jim Elliot had a passion to take the gospel to the Auca Indians of South American. He flew with a missionary pilot deep into the jungle. They landed their plane near a river. Their reception was violent and the Auca Indians killed them. An investigation showed that there was a gun in the plane that had never been used. They had come in peace. Jim Elliot had written in his journal these words “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”. Jim’s and the pilot’s death became the seeds of more missionary efforts. Eventually the Tribe of Aucas were won over. Later, Elizabeth Elliot, Jim’s widow would baptise in the river where her husband was killed, the man who fired the fatal arrow.

3 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything. They
cannot be my disciple. This is a long way from what is called prosperity gospelfv - where faith will automatically give you health and wealth. Jesus had just re-enforced the point with two stories “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ The issue was not whether or not he should build the tower, the issue is to be prepared before beginning. The issue is not do with building or not or waging war or not... It’s to do with being aware of the costs from the outset.

Have you assessed the cost of being a disciple? When you, however and whenever you said your yes to Jesus, did you realise that suffering, poverty and losing all relationships were on the cards? It’s not too late to walk away... no strings attached.

Being a disciple is nothing to do with the warm fuzzy feeling, it is nothing to do with being (or being seen to be) good or holy, it is nothing to do with just coming to church. Being a disciple is all about listening to, learning from and living and loving like Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t say that you cannot be my disciple - all are welcome. He just asks us to give him our all. Amen.

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Oh, I am back off hols and that is a version of what I'm preaching tomorrow... :-)