The main thing
Every 3 or 4 years all the clergy in the Diocese go on clergy school, and this week Oxford was invaded by the clergy of the Diocese of Llandaff, eager to learn. Actually, and perhaps rather surprisingly, it was pretty good. One of the interesting parts of the school was the worship which was at a local Church in the centre of Oxford. And this week, 2 of the days happened to coincide with St Giles’ Fair, a huge event which has gone on for hundreds of years, and which now includes a massive fun fair with all the noise and fun that comes with it.
During our services in the Church in times of quiet prayer and reflection, the sounds of the fair, which began just outside the door, were just as clear as if we were outside – with constant music and people laughing and shouting. It was, in many ways, a perfect merging of the world and God.
And that balance of the spiritual and secular is one that, as Christians living in a modern society, we constantly have to be aware of. And this conflict is one that has gone back to the times of Jesus himself, as we have seen in the gospel reading today (Mark 8:27-38). Jesus, travelling with his disciples, asks them who people say that he is – and Peter replies, ‘You are the Messiah’.
But then, as Jesus moves on to speak of the suffering that he must undergo – of the abuse, trial and persecution he must face – Peter argues, and says this won’t be the way. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I would rather remain silent and be thought a fool than speak out and remove all doubt,” and this is surely how Peter must have felt.
Jesus reacts angrily as he says to Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan ! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things’. He explains that to follow him means to put others first and to take up a cross that will mean suffering. In some of the clearest words he ever offered about discipleship and commitment to him, Jesus says that to follow him means to change our lives, and to live not according to the standards and expectations of the world but to live according to his standards, and his expectations.
There is a story told about the great psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. After giving an address in Melbourne, he was given a boomerang as a gift. He commented that the boomerang reminded him of our human existence. People assume that the function of the boomerang is to return to the thrower, he said. But it is the real function of the boomerang to hit the target and to return to the thrower only if it misses the target. The same is true for life.
We return to ourselves, to become self-absorbed and preoccupied, only if we have failed to find meaning in life. The meaning of life is to move out beyond ourselves, beyond our own meaning, and therefore find new meaning. If we live only to ourselves, spending money only for ourselves, squandering our time and our strength only on ourselves, focusing chiefly on ourselves, life boomerangs and comes back to us with only ourselves to show for it.
Jesus understood all of this and he foresaw all the problems and difficulties that his followers would face. Throughout every generation Christians have faced problems – in the early Church there was the persecution and the risk of death, later there was the corruption of some Church leaders which withheld the gospel message from ordinary people… at the clergy school we heard of some Churchwardens entries going back to 1578 – nearly all of them involved some moans about not having a Vicar, or at least having an absent Vicar, and about problems with their buildings and lack of attendance in Church, and in generations since there have been times when the Church has flourished, but times also of struggle…
Today we often think we have things harder than members of Churches in the past – with constant distractions turning people away from the Church – with Sunday shopping, sports events, with so many split families and so on. We have things tough because we’re supposed to be so polite that we can’t argue as the Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life – that is how polite and ordered the Church has become – political correctness has quietly worked its way in to our sub consciousness…
But the fact is that Jesus didn’t say that life would be easy, nor suggest it should be – the way of resurrection is a way that involves death first – it involves struggle, it involves pain and hardship. I’m sorry to keep quoting back to clergy school, and I’ll do it again before the end of my sermon, (but I have to show I learnt something), but one of the talks was about the spiritual nurture of Muslim children – it was a frankly bizarre subject for a Christian conference, except that it showed that if we are serious about our faith, then we need to tell our children about it, and we need to tell others about it.
Someone sarcastically said, ‘How cruel it is to tell our children of someone who can bring them eternal and abundant life !’ That is the message we are offering, not a message of threats to others, not a message of selfish ambition or greed, not a message about the Church and its buildings, we spend far too much time worrying about that !
We offer a message of hope – of a hope that can overcome any of the problems in life, of a hope that endures through difficult times and circumstances, of a joy that is endless – literally! - as we share eternal life with a Saviour who loves us enough that he was willing to die for us.
Another quote I heard this week was, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing !’ It’s a quote I intend to use a lot ! The main thing as a Church that we must be sharing is not a beautiful building, it’s not wonderful social events or coffee shops that welcome anyone, it’s not fellowship groups, but it is the love of Jesus – and those things may all help us to do that – but that’s what they are – helps ! And they must never become the main thing – the main thing is Jesus, and the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing !
As we left Church after evening prayer one night this week, with the sounds of the fair ringing in our ears, a friend said to me that what we should have done is not go to Church and say evening prayer, but to all have put on our dog collars, buy a load of mars bars and go around the fair giving them out and just saying ‘Jesus loves you’.
It may have been quite scary to see 150 clergy in their dog collars walking around a fair – some would probably have thought it was fancy dress – but what an effect it could have had – that many Christians out in the fair, with the popcorn and the hotdogs, and the fairground rides, and even the fortune tellers caravans, just saying to people – Jesus loves you.
There is no more important message to share in our lives than that. We can’t separate God from the world – and the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. AMEN
During our services in the Church in times of quiet prayer and reflection, the sounds of the fair, which began just outside the door, were just as clear as if we were outside – with constant music and people laughing and shouting. It was, in many ways, a perfect merging of the world and God.
And that balance of the spiritual and secular is one that, as Christians living in a modern society, we constantly have to be aware of. And this conflict is one that has gone back to the times of Jesus himself, as we have seen in the gospel reading today (Mark 8:27-38). Jesus, travelling with his disciples, asks them who people say that he is – and Peter replies, ‘You are the Messiah’.
But then, as Jesus moves on to speak of the suffering that he must undergo – of the abuse, trial and persecution he must face – Peter argues, and says this won’t be the way. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I would rather remain silent and be thought a fool than speak out and remove all doubt,” and this is surely how Peter must have felt.
Jesus reacts angrily as he says to Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan ! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things’. He explains that to follow him means to put others first and to take up a cross that will mean suffering. In some of the clearest words he ever offered about discipleship and commitment to him, Jesus says that to follow him means to change our lives, and to live not according to the standards and expectations of the world but to live according to his standards, and his expectations.
There is a story told about the great psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. After giving an address in Melbourne, he was given a boomerang as a gift. He commented that the boomerang reminded him of our human existence. People assume that the function of the boomerang is to return to the thrower, he said. But it is the real function of the boomerang to hit the target and to return to the thrower only if it misses the target. The same is true for life.
We return to ourselves, to become self-absorbed and preoccupied, only if we have failed to find meaning in life. The meaning of life is to move out beyond ourselves, beyond our own meaning, and therefore find new meaning. If we live only to ourselves, spending money only for ourselves, squandering our time and our strength only on ourselves, focusing chiefly on ourselves, life boomerangs and comes back to us with only ourselves to show for it.
Jesus understood all of this and he foresaw all the problems and difficulties that his followers would face. Throughout every generation Christians have faced problems – in the early Church there was the persecution and the risk of death, later there was the corruption of some Church leaders which withheld the gospel message from ordinary people… at the clergy school we heard of some Churchwardens entries going back to 1578 – nearly all of them involved some moans about not having a Vicar, or at least having an absent Vicar, and about problems with their buildings and lack of attendance in Church, and in generations since there have been times when the Church has flourished, but times also of struggle…
Today we often think we have things harder than members of Churches in the past – with constant distractions turning people away from the Church – with Sunday shopping, sports events, with so many split families and so on. We have things tough because we’re supposed to be so polite that we can’t argue as the Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life – that is how polite and ordered the Church has become – political correctness has quietly worked its way in to our sub consciousness…
But the fact is that Jesus didn’t say that life would be easy, nor suggest it should be – the way of resurrection is a way that involves death first – it involves struggle, it involves pain and hardship. I’m sorry to keep quoting back to clergy school, and I’ll do it again before the end of my sermon, (but I have to show I learnt something), but one of the talks was about the spiritual nurture of Muslim children – it was a frankly bizarre subject for a Christian conference, except that it showed that if we are serious about our faith, then we need to tell our children about it, and we need to tell others about it.
Someone sarcastically said, ‘How cruel it is to tell our children of someone who can bring them eternal and abundant life !’ That is the message we are offering, not a message of threats to others, not a message of selfish ambition or greed, not a message about the Church and its buildings, we spend far too much time worrying about that !
We offer a message of hope – of a hope that can overcome any of the problems in life, of a hope that endures through difficult times and circumstances, of a joy that is endless – literally! - as we share eternal life with a Saviour who loves us enough that he was willing to die for us.
Another quote I heard this week was, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing !’ It’s a quote I intend to use a lot ! The main thing as a Church that we must be sharing is not a beautiful building, it’s not wonderful social events or coffee shops that welcome anyone, it’s not fellowship groups, but it is the love of Jesus – and those things may all help us to do that – but that’s what they are – helps ! And they must never become the main thing – the main thing is Jesus, and the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing !
As we left Church after evening prayer one night this week, with the sounds of the fair ringing in our ears, a friend said to me that what we should have done is not go to Church and say evening prayer, but to all have put on our dog collars, buy a load of mars bars and go around the fair giving them out and just saying ‘Jesus loves you’.
It may have been quite scary to see 150 clergy in their dog collars walking around a fair – some would probably have thought it was fancy dress – but what an effect it could have had – that many Christians out in the fair, with the popcorn and the hotdogs, and the fairground rides, and even the fortune tellers caravans, just saying to people – Jesus loves you.
There is no more important message to share in our lives than that. We can’t separate God from the world – and the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. AMEN
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