sermon:Pentecost Sunday 4.6.06
Malvern@6 4.6.06
I think I might have used this story before but it bears repeating. For me it was something like an epiphany, a revelation, it was something that rocked my world and from that moment on has never let me be.
I was in my shed where I was running my joinery carpentry business and it was mid morning. Basically there was only one radio station that I could listen to and for a couple of hours each morning they took at talk back radio program hosted by the notorious John Laws. John was a pretty colourful character and was always stirring up trouble wherever he could. For some reason this particular morning he had just had a conversation with a so called Christian. One of those people who do more damage than good, you know the sort who on radio look dumb even before they open their mouth and confirm it. Anyway John had basically torn strips off this bloke who had hung up in shame.
But that wasn’t the end of the conversation, because John went on to launch a full broadside against all Christians and how they were do goodders and meddlers and prudes and miss informed right wing fundamental idiots. Now I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to criticism and these comments didn’t worry me too much. But then he launched into the church. And in doing so he raised the issue of the crusades and the witch hunts and the injustices done to scientists.
(let me just comment there I find it strange that people are very keen to bag the church for these thing – which I fully admit are true – but never is there one iota of a comment about the churches role in setting up little things like schools, universities, hospitals, mental health institutions, aged care facilities, welfare originations, equitable work places, caring for the vulnerable, orphanages, rescue missions and a couple of other similarly smallish humanitarian programs. Through evangelism and discipleship ministries the church cultivates commitments, disciplines, and virtues that promote responsible caring for self, family, and community. Numerous economists and sociologists have documented the contributions of Christianity to the creation of strong, caring communities BUT never mind all that. )
And then John Laws went on to say something like “well what’s the church good for anyway aren’t they just like rotary or some other service club.” My friends if you want to light my fuse, put fuel on my fire or any other such provocative action, start bagging out the church and start to tell me that it has no value in society whatsoever apart from a social club. I aint gonna take it.
This one comment from this very dubious man set my life in a course that I am still on. I wonder if he knew what he was starting.
Its fitting that today is Pentecost. The day when the church was given the power to do what we were made to do. In reality is our corporate birthday. The flame that has been lit has never gone out. There are a lot of us – myself included- who still don’t quite get what happened that day when Gods Spirit fell on Peter and the other disciples. When I simplify it down I come up with this one sentence “God’s energy is available for the church to do what we were meant to do.
Tonight I want to talk to you about the church. About this church. I think about us a lot. I wonder what difference we can make in this world, I wonder what our particular purpose is, I wonder why we connect with some people and then not with others.
Tonight I want to share with you what I think we are about and in the next couple of days and weeks I invite your feedback. Email me, SMS me, phone me up, send me a letter – whatever – but please think about and engage with what I am saying.
1.
First of all I want to say just who we are.
There is a common perception that this one hour on a Sunday night is church and to some extent that is true. As a church we must gather in community worship. We must do it. We must force ourselves to do it. Whatever it takes we must be here to celebrate our life together.
But being here together is not the sum total of who we are. And in fact if that is all we did for our faith, then we are in great danger of living out that great Australian accusation to the church – that we are all a bunch of hypocrites. Their belief is that we come and get our little blessing and then go out to the real world. Like John Laws comment - we are just a club, a social gathering. A group who does not make any difference to the world – only to its members.
You see the thing is that while I am the most fervent supporter of gathered worship if this on Sunday night is all we do then we are missing the point. God is not honoured by that sort of Christianity and our lives are only partly fulfilled because we are made for more. I am telling you this because the church, the true church, is always in motion. It’s never stagnant. It’s at its most dodgy when its looking inwards at itself. In fact the church dies when its looking at itself. Rather the church in the Bible is referred to as a body, something that is moving, something that has life, and is always in action.
Sure worship is a huge part of who we are. And I will do my best to make these gatherings the most inspiring and useful that they can be – but hear this really well – this is not all that we are about!
To be brutally honest with you I think we have started to look inwards too much. I think we have forgotten who we are and we have become introspective and narrow. We have been so busy looking after ourselves and dealing with our own problems that nothing else seems to matter. I intend to call us out of that, to see the bigger picture. To dream big dreams and in faith to see them fulfilled.
2.
Secondly I want to signal a shift in how we do church.
As you are hearing from what I am talking about its time we had a change in emphasis. Most importantly I want to promote the view that says we are here so that we can be recharged for ministry. (and when I say ministry I mean anything we do in the name of Jesus). Maybe it would be better if we called this gather time together something like ‘refresh’ as in the computer button. We come here to be refreshed in all sorts of ways. In our relationship with God, with one another and to be stimulated to make a difference in the world in which we live.
A famous man once described the difference between an audience and a church. He said, "An audience is a crowd. A church is a family. An audience is a gathering. A church is a fellowship. An audience is a collection. A church is an organism. An audience is a heap of stones. A church is a temple for the Holy Spirit." Do you see the difference. The church is meant to be in motion.
As well as being refreshed we gather here to hear the stories. The great stories of faith that we have which have been passed on down through time until we have them now in the Bible. Then there are the stores of people who have gone before us who have paved the way for us to be here. Then there are our stories, like what we heard from Neal Michael last week and Shelia’s story tonight. Also I want to give time to stories of how people are doing ministry.
You see the thing is that we are part of all those stories – the big story, where God has interacted with all of us. We live in this grand tradition where God is doing a great work among us. We need to hear more stories. Stories about how God is transforming people like you and me into a new people a new community in whom His saving work among us can be displayed.
3.
So thirdly I want to call us to become a living organism by thinking the right stuff.
If we really are different then we need to think different. Primarily I want to promote among us an outward focus. When I was to be accepted into the ordained ministry I offhandedly said “the church exists for those who don’t belong to it” I was nearly kicked out of the room. That’s not the prevailing view of the church hierarchy. But with all my heart I believe that statement to be true. We come here to this place for us – sure, but we are also here for those who haven’t yet had the same experience of grace that we have. So that we can be vessels to dispense that grace and the mercy of God. But we cannot do anything about it unless we know it to be true.
So my plan is to preach over the next quite a few weeks on things that I consider to be our Core values. That is the way we react without even thinking about it. A core value is an immediate response to a circumstance. So I have protection for my kids, I act on their behalf, even though it could endanger my own life, I act just because that is one of my core values.
I want to raise with you the whole topic of core beliefs that I believe we should have. What does our faith here rest upon and how do we react to it. And again as we are going through I invite your feedback.
4
But fourthly, it’s no good thinking about the right stuff without doing something. So I am clling us to become a living organism by doing the right stuff.
I have been really blessed and surprised by just how many are willing to commit to the trip to India. Now maybe we have bitten off just about the biggest of the overseas trips but I am going to go on record and say that this experience will change your life. I suppose this trip represents my philosophy in life taken from that great guru Peter Brock who says “I have always bitten off more than I could chew and then chewed like hell”. It’s my belief that the trip to India just the first of many thing that we are going to undertake. Together, working hand in hand as we are meant to, we can make such a huge difference.
Its my intention to keep this sort of idea going. So for those who could not make it to India I hope that we can do some service here in our local environment. Maybe there is a country community centre that needs a paint, maybe there is a rural library that needs a hand. Whatever, it does not matter. What matters is that we go and be the church in action. That we do something in the name of Jesus.
But I can also see that we can make a huge difference in our local area. I fully support the Big Week Out, it’s a great idea and all those of us who can should do it at least once. But there are some things that we can do as well. Some ideas that I have heard include things like forming a letter writing group aligned with Amnesty international to write and put pressure on foreign governments to let political prisoners go. Form a group to renovate furniture and give it all away to new refugee families. Help support a new refugee family as they settle into Adelaide. Maybe we could fix up a car and give it away to someone doing meals on wheels or sell it to support drug education in the schools.
You see its time we did stuff. Its time we became Christians with our arms outstretched towards God in worship and our arms outstretched towards our fellow humans. And doing this just because Jesus has done something in our lives.
I have also come to realise that not everyone has had a chance to get involved to the level that they would like. Our mission here is to get everyone involved as much as they feel they can. It’s no good being a body if one bit cannot get drawn in and is frustrated! I am going to make it my goal to facilitate each one of us being involved in a crucial ministry.
Let me also say that faith sharing is important. Actually speaking out how God has impacted our lives is core to who we are as followers of Jesus. I will say more about that in the coming weeks. But nights like what we have coming up on the davinci code will give us all the tools to answer the questions many people are asking about God. Later in the year I am planning to run a workshop to give us more skills in sharing what is most important to us.
I’d like to go on to point number 5, 6 and 7 but I think that’s enough for us for tonight but let me finish with a couple of dreams that I have and an image to hold on to.
I yearn for the time when we are a place that is totally honest about faith and life and all the goings on in between. I yearn for the time when little pockets of people are scattered around after the service praying for each other because we have been free enough to share and honest enough to reply. When we can discuss issues of faith and our struggles with following Jesus as easily as we talk about what music we listen to. I long for the day when new people enter in here and by the time they walk out they have 10 new friends. I am busting to see us radically follow the way of Jesus in a way that proves we are more than a club.
I have been fascinated by the goings on, on Everest this last week. One Australian climber left for dead but yet who is still alive. Another climber who is really dead. It was pointed out to me that among climbers there is a thing called the fellowship of the rope (yes I know, maybe this is something that Tolkien borrowed). The fellowship of the rope. It speaks to me of a connectedness to each other. You are tied together in a way that makes your destiny depend on your fellow climbers and theirs on yours. What happens to them happens to you. You are in the same line as them. You are tied to your fellow climber. The fellowship of the rope.
I think that is a really good image of the church. Maybe we should talk and think in terms of the fellowship of the rope.
My friends we are not a club. We are not even close to being an association or a union. For we are the church. Gods instrument in this world. Connected to each other, connected to God by His Spirit. Moving and growing and doing Gods stuff.
I think I might have used this story before but it bears repeating. For me it was something like an epiphany, a revelation, it was something that rocked my world and from that moment on has never let me be.
I was in my shed where I was running my joinery carpentry business and it was mid morning. Basically there was only one radio station that I could listen to and for a couple of hours each morning they took at talk back radio program hosted by the notorious John Laws. John was a pretty colourful character and was always stirring up trouble wherever he could. For some reason this particular morning he had just had a conversation with a so called Christian. One of those people who do more damage than good, you know the sort who on radio look dumb even before they open their mouth and confirm it. Anyway John had basically torn strips off this bloke who had hung up in shame.
But that wasn’t the end of the conversation, because John went on to launch a full broadside against all Christians and how they were do goodders and meddlers and prudes and miss informed right wing fundamental idiots. Now I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to criticism and these comments didn’t worry me too much. But then he launched into the church. And in doing so he raised the issue of the crusades and the witch hunts and the injustices done to scientists.
(let me just comment there I find it strange that people are very keen to bag the church for these thing – which I fully admit are true – but never is there one iota of a comment about the churches role in setting up little things like schools, universities, hospitals, mental health institutions, aged care facilities, welfare originations, equitable work places, caring for the vulnerable, orphanages, rescue missions and a couple of other similarly smallish humanitarian programs. Through evangelism and discipleship ministries the church cultivates commitments, disciplines, and virtues that promote responsible caring for self, family, and community. Numerous economists and sociologists have documented the contributions of Christianity to the creation of strong, caring communities BUT never mind all that. )
And then John Laws went on to say something like “well what’s the church good for anyway aren’t they just like rotary or some other service club.” My friends if you want to light my fuse, put fuel on my fire or any other such provocative action, start bagging out the church and start to tell me that it has no value in society whatsoever apart from a social club. I aint gonna take it.
This one comment from this very dubious man set my life in a course that I am still on. I wonder if he knew what he was starting.
Its fitting that today is Pentecost. The day when the church was given the power to do what we were made to do. In reality is our corporate birthday. The flame that has been lit has never gone out. There are a lot of us – myself included- who still don’t quite get what happened that day when Gods Spirit fell on Peter and the other disciples. When I simplify it down I come up with this one sentence “God’s energy is available for the church to do what we were meant to do.
Tonight I want to talk to you about the church. About this church. I think about us a lot. I wonder what difference we can make in this world, I wonder what our particular purpose is, I wonder why we connect with some people and then not with others.
Tonight I want to share with you what I think we are about and in the next couple of days and weeks I invite your feedback. Email me, SMS me, phone me up, send me a letter – whatever – but please think about and engage with what I am saying.
1.
First of all I want to say just who we are.
There is a common perception that this one hour on a Sunday night is church and to some extent that is true. As a church we must gather in community worship. We must do it. We must force ourselves to do it. Whatever it takes we must be here to celebrate our life together.
But being here together is not the sum total of who we are. And in fact if that is all we did for our faith, then we are in great danger of living out that great Australian accusation to the church – that we are all a bunch of hypocrites. Their belief is that we come and get our little blessing and then go out to the real world. Like John Laws comment - we are just a club, a social gathering. A group who does not make any difference to the world – only to its members.
You see the thing is that while I am the most fervent supporter of gathered worship if this on Sunday night is all we do then we are missing the point. God is not honoured by that sort of Christianity and our lives are only partly fulfilled because we are made for more. I am telling you this because the church, the true church, is always in motion. It’s never stagnant. It’s at its most dodgy when its looking inwards at itself. In fact the church dies when its looking at itself. Rather the church in the Bible is referred to as a body, something that is moving, something that has life, and is always in action.
Sure worship is a huge part of who we are. And I will do my best to make these gatherings the most inspiring and useful that they can be – but hear this really well – this is not all that we are about!
To be brutally honest with you I think we have started to look inwards too much. I think we have forgotten who we are and we have become introspective and narrow. We have been so busy looking after ourselves and dealing with our own problems that nothing else seems to matter. I intend to call us out of that, to see the bigger picture. To dream big dreams and in faith to see them fulfilled.
2.
Secondly I want to signal a shift in how we do church.
As you are hearing from what I am talking about its time we had a change in emphasis. Most importantly I want to promote the view that says we are here so that we can be recharged for ministry. (and when I say ministry I mean anything we do in the name of Jesus). Maybe it would be better if we called this gather time together something like ‘refresh’ as in the computer button. We come here to be refreshed in all sorts of ways. In our relationship with God, with one another and to be stimulated to make a difference in the world in which we live.
A famous man once described the difference between an audience and a church. He said, "An audience is a crowd. A church is a family. An audience is a gathering. A church is a fellowship. An audience is a collection. A church is an organism. An audience is a heap of stones. A church is a temple for the Holy Spirit." Do you see the difference. The church is meant to be in motion.
As well as being refreshed we gather here to hear the stories. The great stories of faith that we have which have been passed on down through time until we have them now in the Bible. Then there are the stores of people who have gone before us who have paved the way for us to be here. Then there are our stories, like what we heard from Neal Michael last week and Shelia’s story tonight. Also I want to give time to stories of how people are doing ministry.
You see the thing is that we are part of all those stories – the big story, where God has interacted with all of us. We live in this grand tradition where God is doing a great work among us. We need to hear more stories. Stories about how God is transforming people like you and me into a new people a new community in whom His saving work among us can be displayed.
3.
So thirdly I want to call us to become a living organism by thinking the right stuff.
If we really are different then we need to think different. Primarily I want to promote among us an outward focus. When I was to be accepted into the ordained ministry I offhandedly said “the church exists for those who don’t belong to it” I was nearly kicked out of the room. That’s not the prevailing view of the church hierarchy. But with all my heart I believe that statement to be true. We come here to this place for us – sure, but we are also here for those who haven’t yet had the same experience of grace that we have. So that we can be vessels to dispense that grace and the mercy of God. But we cannot do anything about it unless we know it to be true.
So my plan is to preach over the next quite a few weeks on things that I consider to be our Core values. That is the way we react without even thinking about it. A core value is an immediate response to a circumstance. So I have protection for my kids, I act on their behalf, even though it could endanger my own life, I act just because that is one of my core values.
I want to raise with you the whole topic of core beliefs that I believe we should have. What does our faith here rest upon and how do we react to it. And again as we are going through I invite your feedback.
4
But fourthly, it’s no good thinking about the right stuff without doing something. So I am clling us to become a living organism by doing the right stuff.
I have been really blessed and surprised by just how many are willing to commit to the trip to India. Now maybe we have bitten off just about the biggest of the overseas trips but I am going to go on record and say that this experience will change your life. I suppose this trip represents my philosophy in life taken from that great guru Peter Brock who says “I have always bitten off more than I could chew and then chewed like hell”. It’s my belief that the trip to India just the first of many thing that we are going to undertake. Together, working hand in hand as we are meant to, we can make such a huge difference.
Its my intention to keep this sort of idea going. So for those who could not make it to India I hope that we can do some service here in our local environment. Maybe there is a country community centre that needs a paint, maybe there is a rural library that needs a hand. Whatever, it does not matter. What matters is that we go and be the church in action. That we do something in the name of Jesus.
But I can also see that we can make a huge difference in our local area. I fully support the Big Week Out, it’s a great idea and all those of us who can should do it at least once. But there are some things that we can do as well. Some ideas that I have heard include things like forming a letter writing group aligned with Amnesty international to write and put pressure on foreign governments to let political prisoners go. Form a group to renovate furniture and give it all away to new refugee families. Help support a new refugee family as they settle into Adelaide. Maybe we could fix up a car and give it away to someone doing meals on wheels or sell it to support drug education in the schools.
You see its time we did stuff. Its time we became Christians with our arms outstretched towards God in worship and our arms outstretched towards our fellow humans. And doing this just because Jesus has done something in our lives.
I have also come to realise that not everyone has had a chance to get involved to the level that they would like. Our mission here is to get everyone involved as much as they feel they can. It’s no good being a body if one bit cannot get drawn in and is frustrated! I am going to make it my goal to facilitate each one of us being involved in a crucial ministry.
Let me also say that faith sharing is important. Actually speaking out how God has impacted our lives is core to who we are as followers of Jesus. I will say more about that in the coming weeks. But nights like what we have coming up on the davinci code will give us all the tools to answer the questions many people are asking about God. Later in the year I am planning to run a workshop to give us more skills in sharing what is most important to us.
I’d like to go on to point number 5, 6 and 7 but I think that’s enough for us for tonight but let me finish with a couple of dreams that I have and an image to hold on to.
I yearn for the time when we are a place that is totally honest about faith and life and all the goings on in between. I yearn for the time when little pockets of people are scattered around after the service praying for each other because we have been free enough to share and honest enough to reply. When we can discuss issues of faith and our struggles with following Jesus as easily as we talk about what music we listen to. I long for the day when new people enter in here and by the time they walk out they have 10 new friends. I am busting to see us radically follow the way of Jesus in a way that proves we are more than a club.
I have been fascinated by the goings on, on Everest this last week. One Australian climber left for dead but yet who is still alive. Another climber who is really dead. It was pointed out to me that among climbers there is a thing called the fellowship of the rope (yes I know, maybe this is something that Tolkien borrowed). The fellowship of the rope. It speaks to me of a connectedness to each other. You are tied together in a way that makes your destiny depend on your fellow climbers and theirs on yours. What happens to them happens to you. You are in the same line as them. You are tied to your fellow climber. The fellowship of the rope.
I think that is a really good image of the church. Maybe we should talk and think in terms of the fellowship of the rope.
My friends we are not a club. We are not even close to being an association or a union. For we are the church. Gods instrument in this world. Connected to each other, connected to God by His Spirit. Moving and growing and doing Gods stuff.
posted by Jonathan at 2:07 PM
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