A prophet is
not without honour: values that turn the world off. Christ Church 9th July, 2000.
Mark 6
1-13
2 Cor 12:
2-10
Ezekiel 2:
1-5
President Lyndon B Johnson
used to tell a story about a preacher back
home in Texas who dropped his notes one day as he was leaving for
church, and his dog jumped on them and tore them up.
When the preacher stepped into the pulpit, he apologized to his
congregation:
"I am very sorry that I have no sermon today. I will just have to
speak as the Lord directs. But - I will try to do better next Sunday.
Last week felt like a very
special time for me, and I want to say thank you to everyone here for making me
feel so loved and affirmed and for showing me that you value my calling. But as I come to be priested I've been
thinking about how those outside of our church might view me. Things aren't what they used to be. A lot of people might see our priests as a
bit cranky. A bit irrelevant. A little too heavenly minded to be any
earthly good. And what about us as a
church? I have heard it said a number
of times very wistfully that in the Sixties you used to have to queue to get to
evening prayer in Christ Church. Not
any more. Yesterday, I did my first
wedding. All seemed to go well. But as I was talking to the photographer outside,
he was saying how there used to be five weddings every Saturday at
Christchurch, and he was asking himself what has happened.
So it seems that here in Old
town a prophet, or if you like, this church, is increasingly without
honour. It seems that, like Jesus
discovered in his own home town, people take offence at us. Or worse, that they completely ignore
us. There was a time are few hundred
years ago when it was simply assumed that God existed. That wasn't even questioned. You didn't have to apologise or explain your
faith, it was simply accepted and listened to.
But we live in a time when faith is only acceptable as long as it is
private. If we proclaim what we believe
in any public way, then we might well find that people take offence. They don't like anybody claiming that what I
believe might be important for you too.
I visited a house in Old town this week to deliver something. On the windows of the lounge facing the
street were three stickers, and they all said this: no prayer in schools. A bit extreme you might think, but it
reflects a growing decline in respect for the Christian role in the society we
live in. Even though the "Soul of
Britain" programme has claimed that half think that Britain would be a
worse place to live in if there were no religion, only one in three people
claim to have any confidence in the church.
There may be a lot of spirituality around, whatever that is. But to talk about a saviour who has the
audacity to say "Follow me" might well make trouble.
A prophet is without honour
in his own town. A church is
marginalised in its own country, despite its long history and tradition. I was not ordained in order that I might
become acceptable in society. There are
no Jane Austen like rectories or social positions to be had through the
church. That has passed. And thank goodness. But it may be that to be Christians now not
only does not guarantee respect anymore, but it may also make us
unpopular. It may be that the only way
we are going to avoid people taking offence at the Gospel is to make our faith
a private thing, and perhaps sometimes we are tempted to retreat into that.
So why is it that we are
increasingly on the edge of things?
Some may argue that we need to get our act together as a church in the
way that we relate to society around us, that we are too stuck in ways of doing
things that people cannot connect with, and there is certainly some truth in
this. But the deeper reason is that the
path Jesus calls us on is not a palatable one.
The values of being a disciple of Jesus are hard to accept. Because they are values which are rooted in
the idea, as Paul experienced, that for a Christian weakness is strength.
The Gospel which asks us to
reject power for self giving love, to admit our need, to boast of our
weaknesses, is a Gospel which has a lot of potential to create offence. There are a lot of things this world holds
dear that the gospel we proclaim cuts to the heart of.
Finding a bottle on the
beach, Jake uncorks it and releases a genie.
"Ah, now you get three wishes," says the genie.
"Great!" Jake replies. "First, I want one billion
dollars." Poof!
There's a flash, and a paper with Swiss bank account numbers appears in
Jake's hand.
"Next, I want a Ferrari." Poof! Another flash, and a
shiny red Ferrari is
parked next to him.
"Finally," Jake says, "I want to be irresistible to
women." Poof!
There's another blinding flash, and Jake turns into a box of chocolates.
In a world which says it is
normal to always want to come out on top, the Gospel of Jesus says that the
proud are scattered and the mighty are put down from their thrones. In a world which judges us by how
materialistically successful we are, the rich are sent empty away. In a world in which it is normal for those
who cannot contribute anything to be ignored or even rejected, the Gospel says
that the undeserving are given a place at the table, and that the last shall be
first. In a world which teaches us to
examine everyone else's lives, but not necessarily look at our own, the love of
God asks us to come face to face with ourselves.
These are upside down ways of
being. And the truth is that to be a
Christian today is to have a strange relationship with the world around
us. Someone has described us as being
"resident aliens". We are
resident in God's world. We know that
it is good, that he has placed us here and we are to bring out its potential
and to make it sing a song of praise.
We are world affirming, body affirming, flesh affirming. But we are aliens to a lot of the cultural
norms, or so called norms, that we see around us.
And so we find that a prophet
is not always honoured in our own town.
But to be misunderstood, insulted, or rejected by those you are close
to, you have served, you will work with, even by the members of your family, is
to suffer the same fate as the most loving and magnetic person of all-Jesus.
And so we boast in our
weaknesses. But our weaknesses do not
create in us that need to retreat. To
shut up. Rather, we see God picking
Ezekiel up from the floor, telling him not to be afraid and to speak the truth
whether people hear it or not. We see
Jesus sending his disciples out two by two, proclaiming the message that they
have heard. There is no weakness in
their missionary effort. And there need
not be in ours, or in the church of England, or in any other church. One day, we prayed in our collect, creation
will be set free under the lordship of
Jesus of Nazareth. We aim for that, and
we tell the story to the world around us whether the world is listening or
not.
In season and out of season,
with honour or without honour, whether popular or unpopular, we boast of the
love that we have received. As
individuals we may feel small, that we do not have much to give all to say. But we do not need self-confidence; we need
God-confidence! It is he who is the
strong one. And, as someone else has
said, " someone who thinks they are too small to be effective has not
spent the night with a mosquito."
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