Shaping a community of faith.
Ordinary Sunday 15: 13th July, 2003
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Jesus summoned the twelve and began to send them out. (Mk 6:7)
I always find it helpful to remember that Paul's letters to the churches in places like Corinth or Ephesus were most unlikely to have been addressed to groups of more than fifty or sixty new Christians. These were disciples who were, as often as not no doubt, a very unlikely group. So, if it comes to that, are we. Certainly, the original twelve sent out by Jesus in the gospel for today, by any reasonable personnel assessment, would scarcely be the ones we would choose for the job required. Can you imagine the job interviews? And yet these disciples had a remarkable impact. Further Paul assures the small and young communities of faith that he was nurturing that they themselves had everything, everything that was necessary, to live and to work and to grow as a community of faith.
And this proves true. Out of a diverse group of individuals can grow a group, a community. Out of disbelief can come faith, out of a lack of direction can come purposeful service. This is the language of covenant, of relationship, of the community of the people of God. the Scriptures are full of this language.
For God's people are given grace and strength and help in time of need. Together, not as a collection of individuals, but together: sharing, supporting, encouraging, receiving, even a very small and inconsequential group can be given new heart and strength. They can step out again on that journey which is the way of being God's people, wherever they find themselves. That is good news for the Church in Ephesus, the good news of the Gospel, and good news for us here today at St Peter's. For it is above all a statement of the grace of God's ministry at work.
Week by week, the Scripture readings make the point that the lives of believers are to be shaped and expressed, not merely by that which is intellectually expressed in appropriate dogmatic forms that remain in the head, but rather by concrete actions of love. This is about the acceptance and recognition of God in Jesus Christ. This flows into discipleship. This finally reshapes lives. So often in Christianity this is described in the narrowest of terms to do with personal diet like fish on Fridays, language – make sure you don't say that word – and treasure; make sure you make a big donation. Now all of these have their place – especially the last one. (!) But the gospel vision of discipleship is much broader, and at the same time, much deeper.
It is time to turn back to God, to turn to Jesus Christ, to renew again our vision of what it is to be a follower of him. It is in lives characterised by loving service, with a special awareness of the utterly weak, and shaped by the presence of God in Jesus Christ in them – that is where we see best the model that is presented to us in the Gospel.
The ones who would be followers of this Son of Man, are called to be those whose lives and actions and works are characterised by a very different sort of approach to power and position: – an approach that is expressed in what the world would consider powerlessness, and which reaches out in compassion to the powerless, as to God. This is an upside-down gospel of expectations. These are hard sayings for instance for those disciples who were continuing to jockey for position even amongst themselves. But a Gospel which is of grace rather than law is one that can dispense with rank in the sight of God.
It is therefore by the visible results in the lives of these recipients of God's grace that they will be best recognised – as in the letter of James: "Faith without works is dead." Discipleship which does not express itself in self-effacement, in other-regarding service, and in the honouring and cherishing of the weak and helpless, is discipleship that has moved away from these central teachings of the Lord.
The great reforming times in the life of the Church, those great upsurges of renewal and reconsidered response to the radical implications of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth have been times of great turbulence and no little distress. We are in such times again. But in the midst of all of this, there has always remained the challenge, put before a largely sceptical Church and world, of these fundamental Christian propositions and imperatives of service and compassionate care – out of love for the Lord and out of his love for us.
The follower of Christ, any Christian person and any Christian parish, is not free from all trials and troubles, misunderstandings and hurts. But there is a focus, a centre, a heart, that comes from a life lived in the company of God. And that focus, that centre, needs to be affirmed and nurtured and cherished. God is with us in all this.
Don't panic in a time of crisis, the Lord says. Don't act as if you had no belief or trust at all. Don't worship this world by giving it your full will and attention. Think of that striking Gospel teaching about the lilies of the fields. If so much is lavished on the passing things of this creation, like birds and flowers, Jesus says, how much more will our heavenly father care for us, his own children. Search, look up, look beyond. That which we seek, that which we yearn for, that to which we are committed – these are the things which will shape and define us as people, as a community of faith. What is this to be for us?
Jesus summoned the twelve and began to send them out.
The Lord be with you.
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