The following sermon was delivered to a packed church on my last Sunday in the benefice before retiring. It is not, as it might seem a 'hit and run'. I received it from the Lord at 5.35 am, and heard Him clearly say, "Tell my people."
Much of my thinking over the last few months has been looking back on the last nearly 16 years. but to day I feel we should not be looking back any more but looking to move on, and that is certainly what the Scriptures are urging us to do in today’s readings.
As the sun rose and the sky lightened this morning I heard the voice of the Lord say to me.
“Lift up your eyes son of man, what do you see?” and I said I see a new day dawning, a silvering in the sky and a shortening of the shadows. trees becoming definable shapes. And I hear the sound of the birds awakening and a rustling in the hedge rows as the nocturnal animals burrow back into the ground. A new day has dawned.
Then I heard a voice say to me: This is what the Lord says - He who made a way through the desert places and put a watering hole in the parched land. He who drew out from the land the chariots and the horses, and those who laid siege against the people of God. He who has snuffed out like a smouldering wick, those who burned against the Lord’s Word. This is what the Lord says:
Forget the former thing and do not dwell on the past. I did not bring you through the fire, only to have you sit in the ashes and be consumed. I have brought you out of the long night, away from the shadows and into the dawn of a new day, my day. See, I am doing a new thing! As the springtime reveals the new life bursting from the warming ground, though you have not been aware of it, so I am bringing forth new life in these parishes. Growth that has already begun. This is my work, and not the work of any man. I am making the desert bloom, and the waste places a garden.
Just as the wild animals honour me, the beasts of the fields and the birds of the air rely on me to water and feed them, so shall the wild of these villages turn to me and find in the garden I am making rest for their weary-ness and food for their souls. Then shall the people I have called, the peoples I have chosen, proclaim my name with a mighty shout, and with great praise on their lips.
Then I said: How Lord, can this be. In a materialistic world the cost is enormous the change so great?
And I heard the voice of one who had suffered: I am the centre. When I am lifted up on the earth, I will draw all men unto myself.
Then like the dawn brightening in the east I saw that everything the World has to offer is loss, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. Everything we once counted as gain, and hoarded up, I now see as, just so much rubbish.
With Jesus as the centre, the vision now changes. The light of Jesus is like the sun that dispels the shadows of the night. The monsters become trees and the moving shadows become the flickering of light on the leaves.
This is what the Lord says to his people, to all those who are called by His name.
“Re focus on Jesus. He is your centre. In the days and months ahead, walk with him and listen to his voice. Know that He, though he was guiltless, completely without sin, took upon himself all your sins, and suffered, bearing the whole weight of the sins of all mankind, did not do that to have you continue in bondage and sin, but to set you free. Because He suffered and died for you; you are a new creation, made right with God through the righteousness of my Son. You my people can rise to new life and a new day.
This new day is not yet fully grasped. Forget the former things and all that lies behind, and strain forward towards a new day and a new experience of life. Press on to obtain the prize to which God has called you.”
When I was 12 years old, and had just started attending a Secondary Modern School for Boys in St. Albans. Our headmaster was a deeply committed Christian. He took us for “R.E”. Religious Education, newly renamed from “R.I”. Religious Instruction. He was an interesting and knowledgeable teacher. In those days, R.E. meant Christianity. We did learn about other faiths, but they came under a special module called comparative religion. In my first year with him, we looked at the early church, and used as our reference point The Acts of the Apostles. I was fascinated, and I might say, somewhat confused. I had always been bought up to believe that the Church of England ‘had got it right’. But what, I saw in the ritual and practice of the Church I attended, bore no resemblance to what I read about in The Book of Acts!
When I asked George about it, he referred me to the early Church's practice of ‘breaking bread together’ and the ‘rite of Holy Communion’. But I wasn't satisfied. The only real comparison with the bible was ‘the breaking’, we didn’t even use bread!
One night I prayed, asking God to show me what the 'real church' was like. I fell asleep, and in my sleep I had a vision, or dream. It was this: “I was in a room full of people. They were all people I knew, and yet, at that time, I didn't know any of them! They were all in an attitude of prayer, some sitting, some lying, some standing, and some kneeling. They all had a look of peace on their faces, and I just knew, that they all knew the Lord Jesus Christ personally. Although I remembered the vision in the morning I thought very little about it. I just had the assurance I needed, that the ‘real church’ still existed, out there, somewhere. All I had to do, was to find it.
At a prayer meeting some 12 years later, I was kneeling facing the wall. I heard the words “Martin, turn around and open your eyes,” the Vision or dream of all those years previously, was not in my mind at all, but as I obeyed, sat back in my chair, and open my eyes, the vision/dream, and the reality of the moment, overlapped and became one. I knew I had at last found what I was searching for. I had found the Church. I had truly come home!
That group of Jesus centred, praying people became my spiritual home for many years, and the bonds of friendship and love built up in that fellowship have stayed with me all my life. People at the established Church I was attending, unfortunately, didn't understand, and were very defensive about what their church was. I suffered quite a lot of verbal abuse from the very people who should have been supportive and happy for me.
I tell you this because I want to encourage you, in the years to come to be very daring. We live in a fast changing world, and in the days and months ahead, you will find the church, you have always known and thought of, as an unchanging rock is in fact changing very fast. The days are now on us when all that is not of God will crumble away. The time has come, indeed it has been with us a long time, when we need to first, make sure Jesus is at the centre of all that we do. Keep him there. The throne in the centre of the throne room of our church, was made for Jesus, not for us! Approach Him. He wants us, to draw near and speak with him, and he with us. Get to know what Jesus wants of His Church, and begin to re imagine Church.
Oh I’m not talking about the tinkering of parish boundaries, or changing to NSM rather than stipendiary. Those things will change absolutely nothing. I am talking much more radical than that! I am talking about giving Jesus back what rightfully belongs to him. The honour and the praise and the worship of his people.
If I now make you feel uncomfortable, I do not apologise. The reason being, I believe God has given me this to say to you.
God is not the slightest bit interested in our man made institutions and established churches. He has no interest in the buildings and the rituals. All the things about ‘church’ that occupy our thoughts and energies are no more than distractions.
Put Jesus in the Centre.
Read the New Testament and reveal what it has to say about the Church Jesus built, and compare it with what we, man, has built.
The time has come when tinkering and re ordering is not enough. We have to re imagine, not using man made structures as our template, but Jesus.
Imagine a church without buildings.
Imagine a church without clergy.
Imagine a church without liturgy.
Imagine a church run not by a PCC but by prayer!
Over the last few years we have heard a lot from Bishops and general synod about ‘every member ministry’. In reality it doesn’t yet exist, because the priesthood is in the way. It is all part of an exercise to prop up crumbling structures, without having to pay!
So, imagine a church where every member is encouraged to really exercise ministry, to the full.
We are about to commission two more lay worship leaders. People who now hold the Bishops permission to help in the leadership of worship.
Don’t sit back and think, “Phew, were all right now, all these LWL are here to take our services”. Say instead; Thank you Lord for raising up these people and calling them, We commission and support them. What Lord, are you calling me to do?
Look up the many times the New Testament that mentions every 'member ministry' and you will find each one is about being led by the Holy Spirit and Jesus, without reference to any form of ordination.
Do you realise there is more about every member ministry than about communion?
Did you know the New Testament Church, the real Apostolic church didn’t have bishops, priests or deacons, they are all ‘post apostolic’.
Imagine a Church where Jesus is the only priest.
When you begin to re imagine Church in this way, uncomfortable though it is, The trash we have accumulated over the years falls away and only the things that really matter remain.
As I leave these parishes I dare you all, in all love and sincerity, to put Jesus at the centre and to become the church God want’s you to be.
God bless you all.
