A young minister found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the service, half of the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the minister said or did got anywhere near solving the problem. Finally, in desperation, he went to the 99-year-old retired minister who had been the first minister of the Church after it was founded.
He told the old man about his problems, "So tell me," he pleaded, "was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?" "No," answered the old minister." Ah," responded the younger man, "then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?"
"No," answered the old man. "Well," the young minister responded, "what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and shout." "Ah," said the old man, "that was the tradition."
Many of our readings recently have focused on lives being changed – if we go back to Christmas there was the arrival of Jesus, who, even as a small baby, changed the lives of Mary and Joseph, of the shepherds, the wise men, and amongst others, even King Herod.
We have heard today as we did last week about Jesus calling his first disciples to ‘Follow him’, and we have heard various parts of letters from Paul, a man whose life was famously transformed as he met his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, just as he went in search of more Christians to persecute.
The gospel of Jesus we must recognise is a gospel of transformation – it is about an initial transformation as we come to recognise his presence in our lives, and a gradual transformation as we get to know him better, get to ask more questions, and get to see more of his incredible work in our lives and in the world around us.
I have spoken about Psalm 27 before – it’s my favourite psalm, and the first couple of verses highlight what must be our focus every moment of every day in our lives – ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear ? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid ?’
A group of monks were gathered together one night for their evening prayer when suddenly all the lights went out, leaving them in darkness. One of the monks knew the words of Evening Prayer so well that he just continued. One knelt down and began to pray for the light to come back. One suggested to his friends that they should enquire as to the nature of light, and consider the sequence of causes that may have led to its failure, and meanwhile one had gone out of the room to go and mend the fuse.
Our immediate thought would probably be to congratulate the practical one, but actually all of the different reactions have some merit, and as we are called to change and transform ourselves more closely into the image of God, and into a community of people committed to living out his love and his power, all of the different reactions will be necessary at times, but all must ultimately focus on the one fact that Jesus is our light and our salvation, and with him, in him and through him we have no need to fear anyone or anything.
There are times when our faith is tested when we simply have to know – to be still and know that God is there. It may be in the darkest and hardest times of our lives. It may be when the questions seem to far outweigh the answers, but those are the times when our knowledge of Jesus and his love for us will be most tested, and it is for those times that we must spend good times in prayer and Bible study and fellowship as we get to know him better. The better we know Jesus, the more we can live through the difficult times which will almost inevitably test us at some point.
And there are times when prayer is all we can offer. There are many practical ways in which we can and should help the people in need in the world today, the hungry, the homeless, even those living in countries torn apart by war or terrorism, but there is no gift that we can ever offer that is greater than prayer. Our practical help must be backed up by our thoughts and our prayers.
This week there has been a lot on the news about the Bridgend area having the highest rate of youth suicides in the country – some have come from our own Parish – we must be involved in helping to find practical ways of preventing these tragedies, but we must also offer our prayers constantly for young people and their families for whom life seems to have lost any hope or meaning.
And then there are the people who best find the light by trying to examine it more closely, and by keeping asking questions. Again, it’s something we must all do, because knowing more about a person is an essential part of building any sort of relationship with them, and the same applies with God. If we’re serious about a relationship with him, then we must work at it. To know him better we must read his word in the Bible, and we must be prepared to ask questions of him and of other people.
We must spend time in prayer and in fellowship with others, and we must be prepared to live out his teaching, however radical and different it can sometimes be in the context of the world today. It’s what children do as they grow up, and yet we, as Christians, so often forget that we’re still growing, or supposed to be growing.
And then there was the practical monk who went to seek a solution to the problem, and there are times when that must form part of our lifestyle. Prayer, determination, reflection and study are all important, but there is a time to just focus on Jesus and look and think about what he would do.
Jesus lived a radical life – he spoke out, he taught things which were tremendously controversial and unpopular with some, he loved the seemingly unlovable, he touched the lives of people who previous generations of so called religious people had failed to go near – he knew that his mission was not to preserve some great tradition or to maintain or even slightly improve the model that had been in place for years before – he came to transform, he came to build a true Church – a fellowship of people celebrating his love, and committed to sharing that love with everyone.
Jesus is our light and our salvation – if we focus on him, both getting to know him better and telling others about his life and his love, then we have nothing, even in the darkest times, to fear. The prophet Isaiah wrote (Ch 9), ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.’ If we focus on Jesus then that light can never be extinguished. AMEN
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