Sermon
Sunday 28 August 2011
How can we recognise God’s call to service in our Church when our lives are already very busy?
Foreword: This is the last sermon I’ll blog as minister of St Monans linked with Largoward Church of Scotland. From 1 September 2011 I’ll be Chaplain to the University of St Andrews, and you’ll find new sermons on their website. If you’ve been reading these ones, thanks for being part of the community.
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It’s commonly said that our lives are very busy, and getting busier. Many people are working longer hours, and in Britain we work longer than any other European country. We live increasingly far from work, so spend longer commuting. Women work outside the home, so the family has less time for everything else, and grandparents are busy with childcare. Computers mean we do things ourselves we used to let someone else do – from booking a holiday, to printing party invitations.
This is squeezing our free time, the time we have for service in the church. Mind you, it all depends who you are. The 2000 Time Use Survey discovered that the average adult in the UK had 5 hrs 26 mins free time per day (bear in mind that includes non-working people, and weekends as well as weekdays). But of this 5 and a half hours, the average time spent volunteering was a mere 4 minutes. Teaching at Sunday School, at a Lunch Club, attending a Board meeting, singing in a choir, collecting for Christian Aid – all that is volunteering. 4 minutes. Which means that since most people in St Monans/Largoward Church are giving a good deal more than 4 minutes per day, a lot of people are giving less. Indeed, in the survey, only 12% of people had volunteered at all in the past 4 weeks. The Big Society is more like a Tiny Society working very hard for everybody else.
Of course we are called to serve by God in our Church:
for Timothy it was the call to proclaim the message, work hard to spread the gospel, and discharge all the duties of his calling.
And Jesus puts things even more sharply than Paul: following Jesus means complete commitment, risking security, compromising family duty, jeopardising the bonds of human affection. Surely a commitment worth more than 4 minutes.
The problem is that even in churches, there are different levels of commitment, and the same people find themselves volunteering for multiple roles, which can lead to stress, exhaustion and burnout – and I’ve witnessed this over the past 10 years. So how do we remain committed to Christ, and follow him wholeheartedly in the Church, while still giving of our best at work, loving our families and being a good friend? Let me come at this question at a tangent by looking back at the last decade of church life here in St Monans and Largoward, to see how we have answered that question in practice, as busy people, up to now. What have people offered to the church? What have I encouraged as your minister? Let me describe this under a few headings.
First, the drama of worship. I love leading worship, and I think the highlights of ministry for me have been services of worship. On one hand, I have tried to let worship reflect people’s own spiritual lives – in congregational hymn choice, in hot potatoes, in different music instruments. On the other, I have tried to challenge us to explore God’s word in contemporary life, by preaching, for example, for a year on the Apostles’ Creed, and by exploring fresh and contemporary hymns. There is nothing more encouraging to this minister than following the Bible into a church overflowing with people who have come to worship. Or discouraging than fitful attendance.
We’ve also let this building touch people with the nearness of God in more intimate services: for the bereaved, in Holy Week, at Christmas, a hundred rosy faces lit by candlelight, longing for peace and goodwill from God to be shared. And I will never forget some of the rites of passage marked here: noisy baptisms, joyous weddings (in most cases), funerals sometimes happy, sometimes heartbreaking. You may be interested in some statistics:
In St Monans, I have conducted 86 baptisms from Leah Stephen to Adam Kirk; 95 weddings from Rachel Bittern & John Milsom to Leanne McKend & Christopher Law on Saturday coming; and 189 funerals from Alex Hughes to Mary Reekie.
In Largoward, I have conducted 22 baptisms from Ben Hunter to Millie Ferguson; 9 weddings; and 28 funerals from Granny Black to Arthur Yuill.
Second, the care of souls. I love visiting people, at home, in hospital, hearing the story of their lives, reflecting on the way forward, praying with them and for them. In a novel by Marilynne Robinson called Gilead, an old minister says: In the old days I could walk down every single street in Gilead, past every house, in about an hour. I’d try to remember the people who lived in each one, and whatever I knew about them, which was often quite a lot. And I’d pray for them. When I read that, it seemed he was speaking for me too.
Yet I am just one, and so I have encouraged elders, pastoral visitors and others to give of their time to listen, to reflect, to care and to pray for God’s people.
Third I have encouraged a deeper connection with creation, from the early morning Easter service at Abercrombie Kirk, where the birds seem to sing their joy at the risen Christ, to walks from Largoward to St Monans, to filling the kirk with holly, fir, rosemary and yew at Christmas. Indeed the hymn I chose for today’s service, in St Monans, is the great hymn of creation by St Francis of Assisi.
Fourth, I have discovered that our church is a community of communities, in which people encounter God and uncover their faith in different ways – in the Guild, house-group, youth groups, Sunday Schools, Christianity Uncovered and Recovered, Coffee & Co; online on the website, listening at home to the tape/CD. One size will never fit all again.
Fifth, I have learned that a church in a community such as St Monans/Largoward must be a church for the community, involved in village life, not condoning every aspect of contemporary society, but supporting all that is good in modern life. We do this in the Sea Queen, the Gala, the Community Arts Festival, supporting the school, care homes, delivering Loaves and Fishes to every house, and opening our churches to visitors. I think I understand the phrase Church Without Walls better now than when I came here.
And, sixth, I have encouraged the arts as ways of expressing our God-given creativity, a response to our creator, and a source of comfort and hope: from world class music in the East Neuk Festival to King Creosote playing at the church hall last November while a blizzard enveloped North-East Fife; from restoring the windows of the church with wonderful craftsmanship to exhibitions of Celtic art; from bluegrass concerts to Medieval Mystery plays. Indeed, the plays, directed by Maya my wife, perhaps encapsulate my ministry best of all: drawing from the past in a medieval setting, but in language pungent enough to reach out to today; visual, dramatic and profound; engaging with scripture, sometimes playfully; connecting church and community; finding gifts throughout congregation and parish; and discovering my darkside as Lucifer himself: lovely for a time to not have to be good.
Six themes then, interwoven in our common task of ministry these past 10 years: all sorts of worship and care for souls, creation and diversity, community and beauty.
It’s not a perfect list: if we think we’ve found the perfect church, we should take our smugness somewhere else. And I am conscious of roads not taken: deeper engagements with Bible-study and prayer, or involvement with the world church and commitment to the needy, or with vulnerable people in the village itself. There’s plenty to discover in the future.
Which leads us back to the Hot Potato. We have done and shared and experienced a pile of stuff over these years. And it’s been fun. But how should we continue and develop this ministry given how busy we all are? At the risk of pre-empting next week’s sermon when I’m sure the Interim Moderator will say something similar, here are some principles:
1. Christ is the minister: and we are caught up in his work of love for his world, his fellow-people. No matter what happens in our service in the Church, it is service in God’s mission to the world: and his are broad shoulders: Jesus said, Come to me, all who are weary and whose load is heavy; I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me… For my yoke is easy to wear , my load is light.
2. Let us build the church around the gifts of the people. Nobody is good at everything, and so people should not feel they must do everything: instead let people offer service in the church which they enjoy; let them retire when they want to; and let us not be scared of vacancies: these allow fresh blood.
3. Work matters. Family matters. Christ’s sayings are hard sayings: Let the dead bury their own dead, and so on. He makes a crystal clear distinction between those committed to him and those who are at best lukewarm in their discipleship. But the fundamental call in the Christian’s life is to become a disciple of Christ where we are: within families, at a workplace. Indeed, our care of husband, wife, partner, child, grandchild or parent may be the theatre in which loving our neighbour must be played out, before any commitment to a church organisation. And being a Christian at work, in love, honesty and integrity, may well be more important than service in the church.
4. Don’t look back. Jesus was surely right that no-one who looks back can plough straight. It is very alarming to be a passenger in a car where the driver constantly turns round to check on their children – at 70 mph. In the church too, we must look forward, to where God is drawing us forward. The church of the future will not look the same as today; indeed it will be different by next week, with new vision, new priorities, new style. It will still be led and supported by busy people, I’m sure, but perhaps somebody here today, just exploring their faith, taking tentative steps in the church, will surprise a hunger in themselves to be more committed. And follow Christ. And after today’s nostalgic spin around the last 10 years, no looking back.
