Most of you will have visited a great Cathedral, many will enjoy looking around wonderful Church buildings, whether wonderful for their beauty and splendour, for the things contained in them, for the atmosphere of peace, or for all kinds of other reasons.
Hundreds of years ago many Churches were built to celebrate the glory and wonder of God. It was thought that the more impressive the Church, the more it glorified Him. This philosophy behind the building of Churches has continued into relatively recent times – I think the largest Cathedral in Britain is the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool. I love visiting Liverpool and have always fancied taking a Parish trip on the 3 Cathedrals tour – the Anglican Cathedral, The Roman Catholic Cathedral, nicknamed Paddy’s Wigwam, and of course the third Cathedral, Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club !
Anyway this huge Cathedral in Liverpool was built to glorify God certainly, but it was also built to show the power and wealth of the City. And there we have the rather strange anomaly of the mixing of spiritual and secular. But of course there’s no reason why it should be strange – we follow Jesus, who involved himself in every level of society, who mixed with different types of people, many of whom didn’t share his view on the world, and many who would never be convinced by him.
And perhaps some of these people are being addressed as well by Paul in the reading we heard from the Acts of the Apostles (17:22-31). In that reading Paul is speaking to the Athenians. Athens of course had been the home of the great philosophers from Socrates to Plato. It was also a city of great cultural history, and also great religious practice.
And I use the word ‘practice’ because this is what Paul is suggesting it is, not faith, not devotion, not commitment, but an exercise… Paul talks of how religious the people are. He speaks of finding an altar with the inscription ‘To an unknown God’, he talks of shrines made by human hands. And then Paul introduces to them the God who made the world and everything in it, the God who raised Jesus from the dead…
Today is the last Sunday in the Easter season of the Church calendar – on Thursday we celebrate Ascension Day, the day when Jesus physically left the earth, but of course he has not disappeared. He remains firm in his promise to stay with us every moment of every day, and as we think of Paul’s words to the Athenians he is surely offering us a challenge as well to remain focused on him.
Many Churches and Cathedrals have been built with wonderful intentions, many serve a huge purpose in witnessing to the God of all power, yet we as the people of God are called not to glorify God through buildings or symbols, but through our actions as we seek to live out the gospel of love, joy, compassion and hope.
And we are reminded again that all of our worship, all of our hopes, all of our lives, must be focused on Jesus as our example and our inspiration. It is good that our buildings are maintained well, and we are very fortunate to have lovely buildings to preserve with long and interesting histories, but the gospel is not just about yesterday, the gospel must be about today and tomorrow, and about preserving a message- the most important message of all that Jesus is the Saviour of the world !
Our message must be about proclamation of good news of hope for all people. In our lives we must seek to live out the example of Jesus – the example that he offered of courage, wisdom, understanding, tolerance, love and compassion, and welcome – welcome for all people, regardless of age or background or anything else.
In the PCC meeting at The Rest last week I raised the question of whether we are really keen to welcome new people into our Churches – the answer is obviously ‘Yes’ but with that desire to welcome we must recognise that welcoming in new members of the family will inevitably mean change – just as a new baby coming into a home, or an elderly relative coming to live with a couple, new members of the family of the Church will mean changes, and we must welcome those changes, because it is only by doing that that we will be moving the gospel message forward.
Time and time again we read of Jesus making room for new people – we think of his parables of the lost sheep, the prodigal Son, the lost coins – all relate to the importance of the discovery of one that was missing, one that was lost, and when found there is a huge celebration. In his relationships with people he often chose the unexpected people, the ones who didn’t seem to have the right background. Jesus welcomed, because in welcoming he showed his love and his compassion.
Today we are called to reflect on our Churches, and on our own attitudes – and that can often be uncomfortable – I know because I’ve done it ! Paul, when speaking to the Athenians, was speaking to a people who had allowed other things to prevent them from really discovering God – material things, grand things…
It’s very easy for us to do the same – to continue on a comfortable, unchallenging, peaceful journey of faith, but then we remember that such a journey bears no similarities to the one that Jesus took for us.
In the gospel reading today (John 14:15-21) Jesus promises the assistance of a helper, the Holy Spirit, for all who follow him, and in the early Celtic Church the Celtic Christians chose the wild goose as a symbol representing the Holy Spirit. Now a couple of weeks ago I shared my knowledge of sheep – and the fact that, contrary to popular opinion, they are actually quite intelligent animals. This is strange because my knowledge of animals is not very good at all, but I learn these things from time to time ! Anyway, now to my knowledge of wild geese - a wild goose is, I understand, a noisy and a troublesome bird, in many ways completely uncontrollable. And what a great description that is of the Holy Spirit if we truly allow God to act through us.
If we do, our journey will be unpredictable, sometimes it will give challenges, sometimes even problems, but God takes that journey with us… Proclamation of the wonderful gospel of Jesus is not a choice if we are following him, our proclamation must know no limits of buildings or cultures or backgrounds, it must know no limits of fear… And we remember God is with us every step of every journey we make. AMEN
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