CHRISM EUCHARIST
APRIL 19TH 2011
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Readings: Ezekiel 37 vv 1-14
Psalm 96 vv 1-10
Ephesians 4 vv 1-8 & 11-12
John 11 vv 25-29
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Words just read by Alison:
“The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” John 11 v. 28b.
I had a phone call the other day reminding me that my car would soon be three years old and would soon need an MOT. This set me thinking that, three years on, an MOT of Diocese and episcopate might not be a bad idea. Reflecting on this, my mind went back, not three years, but more than twenty, to a Bishop from a Diocese in Africa who, when preaching at Newport Cathedral, used a challenging, though I don’t think original, image. He said, ‘The Church here is like a sleeping lion.’
The lion is sometimes used in scripture as a powerful and hopeful image to describe the potential possessed by God’s true children, for leadership, strength and power, to roar in such a way that none would fail to hear and to inspire others. But those same children stand no chance of fulfilling their potential if sleeping or snoozing in the sun. In such a state, they are at risk of attack. They run the risk of being overcome. As the Book of Proverbs has it:
“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
(Perhaps, because the true children of God, will never be overcome, I should say that an institution, pretending to be the children of God, convincing itself that it’s the church, risks being overcome.)
So, the (MOT) question arises: are the children of God awake and alert, fit for the journey, or is an institution with the outward appearance of being the children of God really asleep, snoozing away, deluding itself? Do the children of God actually know what they are about, or are they so enveloped in familiar structures and words which mistakenly convince them that they do?
The Church is, of course, good at Structures and words; they are part of our stock-in-trade. But, however well designed the structures, and however apt the words, they count for very little or even nothing on their own; they must enable and inspire faithful actions. To use a saying, once very ‘in’, now a bit careworn, but actually quite biblical as a sentiment: the church must ‘walk the talk’, or else:
“They honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”; and, “Faith apart from deeds is dead.”
And so, in this week which vividly recalls Christ’s supreme act of commitment, on this day of our personal and collective re-commitment to him, as a band of brothers and sisters in Christ, both lay and ordained, we may usefully try to answer honestly the simple question of ourselves and of our Diocese: Asleep or Awake? Do we pass the MOT?
Well’ I have good news! From what I observe as your Bishop and from what I hear from others, I rejoice to be able to answer positively and hopefully. Let me begin to do so with reference to the passages of scripture which I selected for today:
First to the prophet Ezekiel and to the Psalmist:
Distanced from God because of a religion that had become empty lip-service, the children of God had starved themselves of his Spirit and the consequences were inevitable - only one possible direction of travel: down and then out, to become the dry, dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision. But, as he saw, bones with such potential. Sleeping there on the desolate valley floor, they just lacked the one thing which would revive them: the breath of God.
This Diocese has its fair share of valleys and it also has its fair share of dry bones; exiled and, if not empty of, running low on God’s Spirit.
Many of those dry bones are outside our congregations. They’re people for whom what we do is weird; people for whom the words ‘Jesus Christ’ are just a common way of swearing – would our Muslim friends put up with that? - people for whom the Gospel is a fairy tale and the faith we proclaim a peculiar form of life insurance policy. These are, of course, the people to whom the psalmist urges God’s people to tell out the Good News. The fields may ripe for harvest; but are God’s children ready, because of prior importance, are some dry bones closer to home, within our congregations: habitual churchgoers, members, often long-standing ones, of an institution, whose vision of being the children of God has become dim.
Being equipped for the harvest by first being equipped to restore the internal life of the saints is the vocation about which Paul wrote the Ephesians. As he had been called so they were being called. Like us, no two of them were uniform in each and every respect. But:
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Each one possessed different gifts;
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Each one had various strengths;
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Each one would, undoubtedly, have personal weaknesses and ambitions;
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But each one was called, with lowliness and meekness, to share those gifts and to use those strengths in striving, as a family, for unity in Christ, and exercising ministry in building up his body, the Church.
They might have felt daunted and failed from time to time, they might have hidden behind the self-deluding cloak of unworthiness or inability - you know:
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Not me, Lord, I’m not good enough;
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I don’t have anything to offer;
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Here am I, send him or her;
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They might simply have not wanted either challenge or change;
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They might have just lacked confidence or they might just have had nobody to awaken them. Dry bones.
I guess that it is so for some in our Diocesan family today.
But, the Mary of our Gospel reading was awakened by the call of Martha, to emerge from the physical gloom of a shuttered, if safe, house and from the spiritual gloom of mourning the loss of the past, because the Teacher had arrived and was calling for her.
We, too, are emerging, collectively and individually. I know it. I see it. I feel it. A little while ago I told you that I can respond positively and hopefully to the question, “Asleep or awake?” Let me tell you why, beginning, rather surprisingly with administration:
Our Diocesan Board of Finance has as its primary objective, clearly stated, facilitating the awakening of the mission and ministry of the Diocese. Growth; not just ‘keeping the show on the road.’
Though the Parish Share, system needs and is receiving fine-tuning, many more benefices are awakening to understanding the Share, not just as a means of paying for the ministry and support which they get, but as a means of supporting the entirety and variety of ministry in the Diocese, providing the means to sustain what we have and to plan for the better delivery of what we need. Money Means Ministry is not a slogan, but a statement through which we affirm that understanding.
Even Diocesan and Bishop’s Administration – such as form-filling, letting the office know who’s who and where you are in your benefices and so on – is becoming more widely understood to be, not a chore to be put off for as long as possible or ultimately avoided completely, but to be a means which enables the Diocese to function more efficiently, more personally and carefully. We need to know each other. It doesn’t always work, but we do try – we really do.
These bits of administration may seem too dull a peg on which to hang a sense of emerging life. But they enable the structure; they keep us more personally connected and aware;
That word ‘personally’ is a bit of a key to present awakenings and to the future; an vital factor underlying the improvements we are making:
On becoming your Bishop, I was invited to visit several Deanery Conferences to set out my vision for the Diocese. I focussed on three calls:
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Our call to be a family where we knew and understood each other better;
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Our call to be a learning family where we knew and understood our faith better;
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Our call to be a welcoming family into which we could confidently attract others better.
Personal relationships needed to become stronger; dry bones to come to life.
Since then we have had three Diocesan Conferences all of which, I believe, to have had a significant effect. Before the first, I decided to ditch the old format. Then:
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In 2008 I challenged the conference to think about the whole point and purpose of its existence. Was it to hear a series of lectures or was it to have a conversation?
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In 2009 we had conversations. We talked in groups and Deaneries later went on to explore in words and actions what it meant to be ‘A Child of God’.
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In 2010 we again talked in a way which picked up the vision laid before those first Deanery Conferences, considering ‘Belonging (the family), Believing (the learning family) and Behaving (the welcoming family)’.
Clergy now meet together in synods three times a year, and I am told by many that these are now appreciated as a means of cementing existing fellowships and of developing new ones. Personal relationships getting stronger. Dry bones coming to life.
Deaneries have met to discuss matters of faith rather than finance, and to share in fellowship and worship. Personal relationships getting stronger. Dry bones (and there often used to be nothing drier than the Deanery Conference!) coming to life.
I see a church unapologetically active and involved in community work through formal initiatives such as Faith in Families and through countless hours of personal volunteering: discipleship better understood and lovingly practised all over the place. Personal relationships getting stronger. Dry bones coming to life.
As I go around the diocese and visit benefices, your witness and welcome convince me of more and better things to come.
All of this gives me real hope for the future. We are waking up to a refreshed understanding of discipleship. Personal relationships are getting stronger. Some dry bones are coming to life.
There remain three further and closely connected areas which not only give hope but which also create some excitement:
Over number of years we have witnessed a significant growth in the understanding and delivery of licensed lay-ministry. Not ‘helping out the Vicar’, but putting flesh on the bones of the ministry to which baptism calls all God’s children. Gifts and talents put to good use, building up the body.
Secondly, we are getting ready to deliver the Christian Discipleship course, ‘Living Faith’, which promises to be a wonderful tool in our trade of awakening, learning and growing as children of God.
Thirdly and finally, in March we appointed Janet Russell to be our first full-time Director of Mission. Janet comes to us, from the Diocese of Oxford, with a wealth of experience and a vision which I know will enable us to experience further growth in faith, ministry and mission.
Back, then, to the sleeping lion and the dry bones. I see signs of them disappearing. I see signs of awakening and new life. Like the Ephesians, we are not uniform, we have strengths and weaknesses, we have gifts and flaws. We can’t and don’t always please each other. There are times when we will disappoint each other. But we have one Teacher who is calling for us. We have to listen to him. Please stick with it. It’s what we are made for.
Amen.