Evensong, Christchurch Priory, 12th March 2006
Jeremiah 22.1-9,13-17
Luke 14.27-33
Lent is a time for personal reflection.
But a time for reflection as a church, as well. Doesn’t give up chocolate. Maybe it should give up committee meetings.
Two passages, one from Jeremiah, one from Luke. Both of them deeply challenging to us as individuals, as church and as society.
Hard to imagine just how unpopular Jeremiah would have been. So I’m going to try and help you imagine by being a bit of thorn. Everything I say is directed at us, not you.
Jeremiah’s talking about justice. He’s comparing Shalum with his father Josiah. Josiah was one of the few righteous kings that we read about in Kings and in Chronicles. Things were off track and he brought them back on. But after his death, things soon went wayward again.
Jeremiah’s criticising and preaching against the economic injustice of the society. He calls Shalum to remember the way of his father:
“Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me?”
“He, Josiah, judged the cause of the poor and needy”. How do we judge the cause of the poor and needy as a church, an outpost of God’s Kingdom?
In January for the Bournemouth Churches Housing Association we raised £400+. I was struck by an incongruity. This is the warmest building I know of in Christchurch. Here we have a warm building with the gates shut at night to keep those who are cold out.
Are yes, and that’s when all the justifications for doing it would come in. Remember – I have been a churchwarden, if only for a couple of years.
Shop in the church, fine. Organ funded on the basis of gambling. Have the homeless sleep in your church. Couldn’t possibly.
We need to remember that Jesus washed feet. His life was sacrificial. “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13.
What does Jesus make of our justifications for how we are as a church?
Let me jump to the gospel reading. The crowd is following Jesus. And he starts shocking them. He’s deconstructing the prevalent understanding of what kingdom of God will be like. It will not be based on race – we’re descendants of Abraham therefore we inherit. That’s the first one to go.
He goes on to say
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
An finally,
“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Open to 21st Century interpretation about simply material possessions of TVs and cars and so on. Maybe that’s the focus. But the line I’m reading it there’s another interpretation. About land. Deep theological resonance. I will give you this land to live in, to Abraham. The land was understood as an icon of God’s fidelity. But Jesus is saying, no, it’s not about this land. God is not to be found in the land. It’s not about inheritance, about being born into something. And it’s not about the land. The Kingdom of God transcends these parameters. So don’t go getting ready for a battle with the occupying forces, the Romans, that you can’t win.
“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” This phrase leaps across 2000 years.
What’s our principal possession as an instance of God’s church? This building.
We need to give it up. Not sell it but give it up. Let me explain as it has to do with mission. But I want us to reflect on mission being intrinsically entwined with hospitality.
Steps in the right direction. But the music we offer. Flower festivals. Arts. So narrow.
Broader range of music. More small scale activities. That draw communities, subcultures of Christchurch into this space. Not for us to organise them. They can organise how they use this space. Jesus hung out with all the wrong people. What would it mean for us to let “all the wrong people” use this building?
Our we putting our aesthetic preferences, prejudices? ahead of the gospel?
But this place is holy, some might say. But what do we mean by holy. Holy means set apart.
But the part of this building that is set apart is the sanctuary. It’s set apart. That’s why we have the sanctuary rail from olden times to stop the animals from coming in. Not the children. The animals brought to market and so on. Not so much a question of new thinking but more the case of rediscovering forgotten ways.
Increasing the opportunity for drawing alongside. In our places of work, family, leisure. If you like, our relationships are our fishing nets. We must attend to them.
When we draw alongside, we must be Christlike otherwise, nice building, shame about the people. We are all becoming Christians. We’re so not there yet.
And why will we do this? If we have the guts.
So that we will meet God. They will bring God with them. Not our bringing God to them.
You only meet God in the other. You do not meet God in yourself.
Christendom is over. 1700 years of history have passed. The Christian faith is now not the culture that defines our community but one of many subcultures amidst our community. How are we to be church now without abandoning our past? This building is representative of that challenge.
We must lose this building so that we may gain it, if you like. Hospitality understood as mission. Mission to ourselves.
If the purpose of the building is for us, then it is not a blessing for those around us. And if it is not a blessing for those around us, then it will never be a blessing for us either. And that’s our dominant experience. But if it becomes a blessing for those around us, then it becomes a blessing for us too.
So what’s the shift of focus?
When we are focused on being in every way we can a blessing to our community, with our lives and with our bodies and ours souls and yes, this building, then God will bless us in ways we cannot yet envisage because our impoverished imaginations, impoverished by our preoccupation with survival. But for as long as we are obsessed with our own survival as Christian subculture, with the preservation of this building, He will not, for we are ignoring all those who he has called us to minister to in our community now.
It’s all about Jesus. And our getting out of the way so that he can draw his people to him.
The way we are as a community and the way we use this building are for so many in our local community obstacles to that end. We are getting in the way. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we must change.
“He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me?”
“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
In this time of Lent, I pray that I have however fleetingly, be it intermittently, and doubtless erroneously nevertheless spoken faithfully in the name of Jesus, Our Lord, Our Saviour, Our Prophet, Our Priest, Our King. Amen.