The invitation

 

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, for the history, or for all kinds of other reasons. 

Over many centuries, Churches have been built to celebrate the glory and wonder of God. Centuries ago certainly but even sometimes today, it has been 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. It’s also one of the more recent British Cathedrals… 

But the reasons it was built were the same as with many other cathedrals. The obvious reasons are to be a place of prayer and worship and to glorify God, but this huge Cathedral in Liverpool 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 as Paul is speaking to the Athenians, there is a clash between the secular and the spiritual. 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 hasn’t 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 God, 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 constantly called to recognise in our daily lives God. God of all power and wisdom and love.

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 when our buildings are maintained well, and we are very fortunate in the Church in Wales to have so many lovely buildings to preserve with long and interesting histories, but the gospel is not just about yesterday. 

The gospel must be about today and it must be about tomorrow, and about preserving and proclaiming afresh a message - the most important message of all, that Jesus is the Saviour of the world ! 

Our message must be about speaking and being 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. 

As a church we regularly talk of seeking to grow and that is absolutely correct because that’s what we are commanded to do – to share the message of the gospel with others in a way that compels them to listen. And by that I don’t mean compels in a way that is scary or manipulative, but in a way that, through our words and our lives, makes the gospel message and the Saviour we talk about too attractive to resist… 

But there is another side to that, and it can be a painful question, but it’s one that is worth asking ourselves, and that is 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 and even disruption and we have to be ready for that. 

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 and welcoming 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. That welcome and love was and is the very essence of his nature. 

Paul, when speaking to the Athenians, was speaking to a people who had allowed other things to prevent them from really discovering God – in their case, 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. 

And that is the journey we’re following – a journey of love, of commitment, of peace and hope… And it’s a journey that involves us sharing these things with others… 

Thinking of how we encourage people to hear the gospel, I heard a story of an elder priest, speaking to a younger priest, who said, "I know you are reaching out to the young people when you had bucket seats put in to replace the first four pews. It worked. We got the front of the church filled first."

The young priest nodded and the old one continued, "And, you told me a little more beat to the music would bring young people back to church, so I supported you when you brought in that rock 'n roll gospel choir that packed us to the balcony."
"So," asked the young priest, sensing that this wasn’t going to be just an encouraging chat, "what's the problem?"

"Well," said the elder priest, "I'm afraid you've gone too far with the drive-through confessional."
"But Father," protests the young priest. "My confessions have nearly doubled since I began that !"

"I know, my son, but the flashing "Toot 'n Tell or Go to Hell" neon sign really has to go!  

When we think of the church, here and everywhere, we must constantly be thinking of how we share the gospel message – what are we doing to reveal the love of God to others, what are we doing to tell people about how our lives are changed by God… Whether what we are doing is seeking to mirror the life of Jesus and helping to reveal him and his love to others or not... or even sometimes, if we are actually hiding Jesus behind what we are doing. 

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. 

I’m really not a great expert on wild geese, or any animals really, but a wild goose is, I understand, a noisy and a troublesome bird, and 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 allow God to do that, our journey will be unpredictable, sometimes it will give challenges, sometimes even problems, but we can be sure that God takes that journey with us… We are simply and constantly invited to allow him to accompany us… 

On Thursday, as I said earlier, it is Ascension Day in the church calendar, and when Jesus ascended to heaven, he didn’t abandon us, but he entrusted us to be his people and share in his work.

A responsibility certainly, but a wonderful privilege from God who loves us unconditionally, who walks with us day by day, who supports and inspires us when we let him… the invitation is ours to accept or not, and if we accept it we can accept that privilege, that joy, of sharing with him in his mission.  AMEN