Sermon for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
First reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-17Gospel reading: Mark 9:33-41
Imagine – at the end of a
particularly fractious church council meeting, Jesus walks into the
room.
'What', he says, 'have you been arguing
about?'
Silence. No body wants to say, 'whether
to replace the photocopier with a cheaper model' or 'what hymn book
we should buy' or even 'that we'd all like to get more people to come
to church, but everyone's
too busy to volunteer'.
And
Jesus looks round the circle of chairs, and smiles, gently and sadly.
He knows exactly what we've been arguing about, and we feel our faces
go hot with embarrasment.
Or we
might even imagine arriving in heaven with a big crowd of other
Christians, and Jesus standing in front of the crowd and saying:
'what on earth were you arguing about on the way?'
'And',
he might add, 'did it get in the way of telling people about me? Did
it put people off following me? Did they get confused as to why there
were two, or three churches, let alone several faiths, each swearing
they had the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or did
you argue goodnaturedly, while working side by side to get the job
done?'
Both our readings this morning show a
group of people, followers of Jesus, arguing about who is the
greatest. Who is the best disciple - who was going to sit at Jesus's
right hand in this promised Kingdom he kept going on about? And Paul
is horrified to discover that the Corinthians are arguing about
whether he, or Cephas, or Apollos, or even Christ himself, are the
best person to follow.
We can only imagine how the Corinthians
felt when they first heard Paul's letter to them read out. I wonder,
did they all go silent with embarrasment, and vow to get on? Or did
some, at least of them, go away from that meeting muttering to
themselves, in little twos and threes: 'well that's all very well,
but Cephas is here with us working hard and who does Paul think he
is, telling us off like that?' 'Its all very well telling us to
agree, but Stephanus and Julian are just plain wrong and its our
Christian duty to tell them so'. Or even, 'humph. I'm a bit offended
to tell the truth that Paul doesn't remember baptising ME. Don't
think I'll bother going there again'. And so on.
We don't know the Corinthian's
reactions, but we do get to hear how the disciples react when Jesus
asks them what they are arguing about. They are deeply embarrassed.
They might still be thinking, inside 'Well I am better than
Judas, anyone could see he's not to be trusted', but they have the
grace, at least, not to try to justify their arguments to Jesus.
And Jesus, knowing of course exactly
what they have been arguing about, sits them down and brings a child
into the centre of their inner circle. He hugs the child – the
child is getting the best place at that table, is closest to Jesus –
and says: 'whoever wants to be first must be last of all, and servant
of all. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me; and
not just me, Jesus the person, whoever welcomes one such child
welcomes God the creator of everything, Yahweh, God.'
We tend to see this as a fairly sweet
little scene. Jesus and the children – you might remember
watercolour paintings of Jesus surrounded by small children from all
around the world, from your Sunday School days? And which of us would
want to argue. We know, don't we, that children are important, that
they are not just the church of tomorrow but part of the church of
today, and so on. We love seeing babies and small children brought to
church. Although we sometimes hear horror stories of parents with
small children being told off for the kids making a noise in other
churches, I'm sure we'd all be fairly sure that wouldn't and
shouldn't happen in our own churches. Yes, we welcome children.
The gospel reading doesn't say what age
the child was. I wonder what age you imagine? In my head, the child
is perhaps 3 or 4: a little blond haired pre school cherub, just like
in those watercolour paintings. Who could possibly not want to
welcome such a sweet, innocent little thing?
And the gospel reading also doesn't say
where Jesus got this child from. So I wonder...
What if, instead of a washed and
brushed little infant, proudly handed over from her mother's arms, he
was a 12 or 13 year old street urchin? Perhaps the reason he was in
that house in Capernaum was that he'd been creeping round the circle
of disciples trying a little light pickpocketing, or hoping to pinch
the loaf of bread waiting on the table for their tea?
If we imagine Jesus dragging forward a
frightened and belligerent little street urchin, who is perhaps
flashing a knife ready to try to slip away from these threatening
grown ups now he's been caught, the challenge to us is much greater.
Over the last week I've discussed these
readings with a couple of members of the Belmont congregation.
Talking about this reading, one of them told me a story of when she
and her husband were acting as wardens for a Quaker meeting house in
Bolton. One day, two or three young tearaways skidded into the
entrance hall on their bikes. The 'welcomer' on duty duly approached
them, and asked what they were doing there. 'It said Society of
Friends on the door', said one.
'Well', she snorted, 'We're not friends
for the likes of you.'
Would that happen here?
Well...another true story.
A few weeks before Christmas, one of
the members of the Belmont congregation arrived to open up for
morning prayer and found a gang of teenagers, about 15 or 16 year
olds, smoking and spitting on the front steps. 'Good morning lads,'
she said. 'But please don't make a mess on the steps. This is a
special place for you and everyone to come to, not somewhere to make
a mess of'. They stayed where they were.
So she invited them into the church.
They stubbed out their fags and shambled in, and she cleaned the
steps and then made them drinks and gave them chocolate biscuits.
Eventually, one of them growled at her - ' do you know Mandela has
died?'. It was the morning after his death. And it turned out that
that was why they had come, incoherently and not quite knowing what
to do when they got there, to the church. It had felt like the right
place to be. She invited them to come and light a candle in Nelson
Mandela's memory, and they did so. Then they left, and their parting
shot was 'We're gonna pray for peace.'
I only heard this amazing story a few
weeks later, just before Christmas, when I received a Christmas card
addressed to the vicar, with a £10 note inside and an apology for
making a mess, and their thanks to the lady who had cleaned up, let
them into church, and given them food and candles to light.
When I asked the lady concerned why she
hadn't told me, I learnt that she had mentioned it to one or two
people, but had been roundly told off for letting that sort of person
into church, regardless of her personal safety or the safety of the
church. And when I told others that this was what being a welcoming
church meant, someone eventually said, 'But we don't want the wrong
kind of people coming.'
'What on earth do you mean, the wrong
kind of people?' I said, trying hard to keep my temper. 'Well,' they
said, 'You know. People who are just coming to nick the collection,
or be disrespectful'.
Iwas horrified at first, but then
grateful for their honesty. I'm sure we all, in our heart of hearts,
have people we are really very glad we don't have wandering into our
churches. Of course, we tell ourselves we would be welcoming if they
came. But I wonder, if you're really honest with yourself, who would
you really, prefer NOT to welcome into your church?
A bloke who turns up topless and
covered in tattoes? Baptism families who don't seem to know what's
going on and talk all through the service? Someone who smells of
drink and stale urine? Maybe even someone from your family, or your
work, or your street who you just can't stand?
Who are you secretly glad doesn't come
to your church – you love them, you know God loves them, but you'd
rather you went to the church down the road thank you very much!
And imagine again: Imagine – at the
end of that particularly fractious church council meeting, or even an
ecumenical discussion group, Jesus walks into the room.
'What', he says, 'have you been arguing
about?'
Silence.
And he looks round the circle of
chairs, and smiles, gently and sadly. He knows exactly what we've
been arguing about, and we feel our faces go hot with embarrasment.
And then he nips out of the church
door, into the street – but before you can breathe a sigh of
relief, he's back, and that person – the one person you'd rather
not see in your church – is firmly led in by the arm. Perhaps
they're even kicking and squirming, fighting to get away. And Jesus
plonks them down in the middle of the church meeting. He looks around
the circle, looking each of us in the eye for a long moment.
'whoever welcomes such a person in my
name', he says, 'welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes the
God who sent me.'
Amen.
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