Nothing else matters

 This week the Governing Body of the Church in Wales met and it was one of those occasions where the deliberations made the television news as a vote passed allowing the blessing of same sex couples in church. Of course, some people thought it a step too far, others not far enough… It’s a subject where the church and society have been quite far apart up to now and this closes the gap somewhat. 


And that is a great challenge for the church - the balance or meeting of the spiritual and secular is one that, as Christians living in a modern society, we constantly have to be aware of. Just because society does something it doesn’t mean the church should, but similarly just because the church has said something for years doesn’t mean it can never be thought through again and again…  


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’.

It could have been a gold star for Peter, 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 as 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. 


One of the key elements of those standards and expectations has to be love – how we treat each other, how we care for those we know and those we don’t. 

I saw on twitter yesterday something which said that an Amish man was once asked by a tourist if he was a Christian and the Amish man replied, “you’ll have to ask my neighbour”.


The point is that our lives matter in terms of our faith. When James wrote in his letter that we heard part of this morning (James 3:1-12) he reminded us all that the tongue is a powerful thing. The words we say are powerful and they can be positive or negative… What we say, just as what we do, is hugely important in our lives as disciples of Jesus…  


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 actually, it’s real function is to hit the target, returning to the thrower only if it misses that target. The same is true for life. 

If we live only to ourselves, spending money only for ourselves, spending 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. As Christians our target must never be ourselves and as churches our target must always be to share the love of Jesus in every way we can both inside and outside our walls.

Jesus understood all of this and he foresaw all the problems and difficulties that his followers would face. Living as Christians poses challenges, 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… 


Then there have been the debates over how the church is best organised. I heard once of some Churchwardens entries going back to 1758 – 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. That was 1758 and in generations since there have been many more concerns and many times when the Church has struggled and times when it has flourished…


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 clearly 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. In our reading today he talked about his followers having to take up the cross to follow him…

It isn’t always an easy message to hear and we, like some of the disciples might struggle to understand things at times and there will certainly be times when we hope for things to get a little easier, but what Jesus did offer for all people was something we must never forget, it  was 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 power that could conquer the evil of the cross and bring resurrection and 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 and rise again for us.

A well-known quote says, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing !’ It’s a pretty important one to remember I think in church life as we sometimes worry about buildings and money and all kinds of other things… 

The main thing as a Church that we must be sharing is not a beautiful building, important though our buildings are; it’s not wonderful social events or coffee shops that welcome anyone, important though those things are; it’s not fellowship groups, which again are really important, but it is the love of Jesus – our relationship with him and with others, and how we share that love and his message. 


Anything else, all of the distractions, all of the ventures, all of the plans and thoughts are important, but the main thing is Jesus and his love for us and for others and the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. If we don’t get that right, then nothing else matters. AMEN

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