Ss Peter & Paul, Kettering
Walking in newness of life
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
So - here we are again. Another Sunday morning; another church service; another sermon! And how are we doing this morning? Do we think this is a good turn out? Certainly, there’s room for a few more people here, isn’t there, if we squeeze up a bit! In truth, we could fit quite a few more people into the pews without a great deal of effort. While some might say that we are not doing at all badly, we aren’t full up either.
And did you know that, on the basis of the latest figures currently available in the Church of England, Sunday congregations are dropping? Indeed, they have been dropping for some years, despite there being other signs of numerical growth in the life of the church. To be precise, the average Sunday attendance dropped by 1% from 2005 to 2006 - from 993,000 to 983,000. And the year before was the time it dropped from being just over one million average Sunday attenders.
So I guess it may not be surprising if there is room for just a few more people to come along and join us on a Sunday morning. Church-going is simply not a growth industry across the Britain of today. The idea that one might pop along to church for an hour-and-a-bit on a Sunday morning seems to figure less and less in the public consciousness, especially when weighed against the rival attractions of such activities as ‘family time’ (which means, of course, time with the domestic family of blood relatives), sports (whether for adults or children or both), or car boot sales. Indeed,
I journeyed to London...
There I was told: we have too many churches...
There I was told:
Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church
In the place where they work, but where they spend their Sundays.
In the city, we need no bells:
Let them waken the suburbs.
I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:
We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor
To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.
If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.
In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed
That the country now is only fit for picnics.
And the Church does not seem to be wanted
In country or in suburb; and in the town
Only for important weddings.***
Not my words, and not even my era. The great poet and Christian T.S. Eliot, writing as long ago as 1934, penned those words. And if the Church did not seem to be wanted then, is it wanted any the more, almost 75 years later?
And yet Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
But here we are, however few, relatively speaking, we might be. However it might have come to us, and for whatever reason, we few are folk who have heard a call and here we are. And the good news is that we are the people who have been baptized in Christ Jesus, we are the people who have been united with Christ in his death, so that we might be united in his resurrection - we, we who are the people who, like Jesus, have been called and restored to walk in newness of life. Surely, that’s amazing, isn’t it? And doesn’t that make us amazing people? Isn’t it amazing to be walking in newness of life. Isn’t it amazing to have the confidence that we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his?
And yet, where is everybody else? Here we are - a community that has been given renewed, wonderful, unstoppable, resurrection-focussed life, and yet, across the country as a whole, we are in numerical decline as each Sunday morning comes and goes. Pondering on the implications of that rhetorical journey to London and the suburbs and the country which I quoted just now, Eliot continued his verse by wondering:
Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws?
She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget...
She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape...
You can see that rather clearly in this morning’s readings, I guess. While it is good to know that, according to Matthew, we are of more value than many sparrows, which I guess is something, the general tone of the message is rather harder, isn’t it, when we hear Jesus say:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Indeed, family break-up is only for starters. For the real meat of this passage lies in the fact that not only do you risk conflict with those immediately around you, but there is also a major commitment implied in all of this: whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Why indeed should men and even women love the Church?
Well, with sentiments like that in the gospel reading, perhaps it is no wonder that numbers are dropping. Perhaps it is no wonder that we are written off by a world that struggles, perhaps, with the kind of commitment hinted at in the idea of taking up the cross and following. Perhaps it is no wonder that we are seen as ineffectual and boring, or even as counter-cultural and divisive, if the words of our gospel passage are to be taken seriously? And yet.... And yet.... Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
By now, I hope you see that something is seriously amiss. Something is seriously contradictory. The world leads to death. No good thing lasts for ever, and everything ends in death and destruction. Money, fame, sex, drugs, rock and roll.... all of it, ultimately, is a hiding to nothing. Try as people might, mortality is inescapable and unavoidable. And we - we are the community that are meant to have the answer: Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
But something - something is missing. Somehow, it doesn’t all add up, does it? We are the community with the answer to the biggest question. We are the people who know that because we have died with Christ, we can live with him. And yet, we fail to radiate this remarkable truth to those around us, near or far. So how do we make men (and even women) love the church?
Well, the answer, I believe lies in us, in the heart of our community which we call the church. . And, actually, the hard words of that gospel passage give us a clue about how we might do some of this. For they tell us that we have to be a community that believes in commitment to the Good News - a commitment so strong that you put it first, in front of your preferences for your own family and friends. That’s why Jesus said whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son of daugher more than me is not worthy of me...
And we have to be a community that can, to quote the Archbishop of York, do ‘big stuff’. We have to be capable not just of making small talk to welcome people as they arrive, but also doing big talk - big talk about the issues which really count, like life and death, and sin and evil. For a lot of people who walk through these doors for the first time do so because they are grappling with really big issues, and they don’t know where else they should turn for help in doing so.
And we have to be a community that values total honesty and openness so that we don’t say anything behind anyone’s back, we don’t say anything that binds us into the complex web of secrets which can so quickly turn to sin. For Jesus said what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. In other words, live as people who don’t need to have secrets from each other. Don’t do things of which you are ashamed. Don’t gossip, or spread silly or malicious rumours.
And, as if none of the rest of this was remotely challenging, we have to live as a community which shows we care for others - care for others more than ourselves. One of the greatest of archbishops of the 20th Century remarked that the church is the only body that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members - and we have to live like that. For we have a gift that is so, so precious - both in terms of eternity, and also, potentially, in terms of community.
In a few days time, this church will be full to over-flowing of flowers, and, I hope, full to over-flowing of visitors. And I hope we understand, and I hope that our visitors will see, that we are doing all this not just because we think we are good flower-arrangers. I hope our visitors will see from the flowers and from the welcome, and from the fact that any money we make in the festival we are giving to a local school and a local hospital, I hope our visitors will see something special - uniquely special - in the community that is welcoming them into this building. And if, as I very much hope, in the years to come we work out an exciting way to re-order the interior of this building, again, I hope we will all understand we need to do this to allow this magnificent building properly to serve our community as fully as possible, as it’s first building intended.
T.S. Eliot, whose musings have been in my mind this morning, said one more thing in his poetry I want to quote as I close:
What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of God.
For, bound together by our common baptism, and bonded into this strange body called the Church, you and I are the people who have chance to walk, so wonderfully, in newness of life. And we are the people called to share that newness of life with the unknowing world just outside these doors. In other words, we can be a community that lives fully in praise of God.
Now, if you don’t want newness of life, and you don’t want to find how we should share it with others whom we don’t yet even know, then now is the time to go. For then you are refusing to take up your cross and follow Christ, and you are not worthy of Christ. But if you want, all the more, to live, fully and properly, that newness of life, then show it and share it like it really mattered, and you might just be surprised by the result. For Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Amen.
The Reverend Dominic Barrington, 22nd June 2008
***Quotations are from Verses for The Rock, by T.S. Eliot
Office Address:
The Rectory
Church Walk
Kettering
NN16 0DJ