20th After Trinity
Mark 10: 45: For the Son of Man came not to be served but
to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
What
does it mean to be a follower of Jesus today in the West, in the 2nd
decade of the 21st Century?
In
some ways it’s very different from the experience of the first disciples who
set out to follow Jesus on the Way.
In
some ways it’s very similar.
Firstly, how is it different?
One word: Christendom.
Whatever
we think about how ‘Christian’ we are in the UK now, we have to live with the
reality that for large swathes of the population, going to church and following
in the way of Christ are seen as entirely unnecessary to the good life.
So
as disciples of Jesus today, we are already swimming against the tide.
It’s
as if Christianity has been tried and found wanting.
When
the Emperor Constantine first embraced Christianity as the official Roman
religion, the Way of Christ became associated with the way of temporal power.
Given
our gospel reading today, this was perhaps a mistake.
Rowan
Williams in his Epilogue to Praying for
England (Wells and Coakley, Eds., 2008) says ‘we cannot take for granted any specific religious
foundation for national belonging, public morality or policy-making’ (p. 172).
He is surely right. We cannot assume any sort of religious, let alone Christian
basis for society any more.
We
are post indeed Christian, but with the background noise of a once Christian identification humming away like society static.
So
people still come to the church in times of need.
When
April Jones, the five year old from Machynlleth
disappeared, to be later presumed dead, the Bishop organized a silent procession from her home to
the local Anglican church - half the town turned out to cling onto something in
the darkness.
This
was the church standing up for and serving the weak and powerless, not wielding
influence over society through some imagined privilege.
We’re
called to follow a Saviour who chose the way of the Cross, not the way of power
and political influence.
The
first disciples misunderstood this, as we heard in the gospel.
James
and John said they could suffer with Jesus but the fact they asked him for
privileged positions in heaven shows they had got it wrong.
Anyone
who follows Jesus for the privileged position it will give them is onto a
losing wicket.
(Okay,
I have to admit that processing into a Cathedral with your clerical robes on,
for an Ordination service does make you feel quite special, but there is a
warning here against pride.)
The
Established Church today is a strange mixture of what looks like past historic
privilege and the reality of today’s falling numbers, falling revenues and
falling reputation.
People
generally don’t want the church to assume it has influence today and to tell
them what to do.
Is
it a case of how the mighty have fallen?
Does
it bother you?
A
fellow Curate told me of a time recently when he was called to visit a woman in
her 80s whose husband had died.
The
first thing she said, a little abruptly, when he arrived at the house was ‘why
have you never visited me before?’
He
felt like answering ‘because I didn’t know you existed until now.’
She
was living in a world where the Parish Priest apparently knew everyone and
checked up on them if they didn’t come to church.
She
told my friend that when she was little, the priest would walk around the
village in his black robes and if you didn’t say a courteous hello as he
passed, he would be in the school the next day complaining about you to the teacher.
This
world of ecclesiastical influence and privilege does not exist any more (at
least it doesn't appear to in Whitchurch).
Is
this a terrible loss, or is it an opportunity for a new humility about the
place of the Church in our culture?
The
demise of Christendom, is, of course, experienced differently in different
generations.
I
will not forget in a hurry the time I helped to start an All Age Service a few
years ago in a previous church.
With the particular aim of nurturing younger Christians we eventually gathered a group
of people who represented three different generations.
We
had a handful of teenagers, some mums and dads in their 30s and 40s and some
older members of the regular congregation, in their 60s and 70s, who came to
support and give stability to this new group.
We
met on a Sunday afternoon, and one day our theme was sharing your faith with
those you come across day by day.
We
split into groups to talk about how easy or difficult it was to talk about
being a Christian today.
The
older people, by and large, found that it wasn’t really an issue for them.
Most
of their friends were in the church already and so it didn’t seem that they
were living in a culture that was hostile to Christian faith.
The 30s and 40s said it was hard to follow Jesus ‘out there’ in the world, but
the encouragement of a handful of Christian friends did help and they were
seeking ways to be Christ in their culture.
The
teenagers were very timid. One of them spoke up and said it was extremely
difficult to be a Christian and a teenager in today’s culture; that a Christian
at Secondary School is in a tiny minority and finds it very hard to have the
courage to speak out.
I
know this to be true as my son recently left Sixth Form College where he helped
lead a Christian union of 6 people in a College of 2000.
Three
different experiences from three different generations.
When
we consider what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the 21st
Century, let’s remember and cherish those younger people who are forging a way
forward in a highly secularized environment, and give them our prayers and
support.
Living
in a secular environment, though, can represent a chance to go back to basics,
to refocus on the Son of Man who had nowhere to lay his head and whose
disciples were called to follow his example of self sacrifice.
Jesus
was absolutely clear that following him would not be easy.
He
had set his face towards Jerusalem and in so doing, spelled out to his disciples
that there would be a baptism of suffering for them.
We
relive this baptism into his death and resurrection every time we gather around
the Lord’s Table and break bread and drink the cup of his self giving.
The
first disciples would drink the cup
of suffering but only as an outworking of their discipleship, not for any hoped for promotion in heaven.
So
we do live in a culturally different time to the first disciples.
We
have to contend with a post Christian society which doesn't know what or whom to
believe any more.
One
thing that doesn't seem to change amongst disciples, however, is the bickering.
After
discovering that James and John have asked this embarrassing request of Jesus,
the other ten are incensed.
They
argue, they get into camps, they say bad things about the others; they feel
they’re in the right while the others are in the wrong; they have no unity
amongst themselves…
And
all the while something of huge salvation importance is unfolding ahead of them
on the road to Jerusalem.
Bickering
about non essentials whilst ignoring the essential…
Does
it sound at all familiar?!
How
many times have we read in the newspaper that the church is arguing over this
or that, while some huge issue like West African Famine unfolds on the front
covers?
We
need to look outwards and to regain a sense of urgency about seeking the Lord
while he may be found.
We
need to regain humility.
We in the
Church of England are so wonderfully middle class and respectable - we urgently
need to divest ourselves of any remaining sense of cultural privilege and
recapture a sense of service to our world.
Two
words used in Mark 10 describe the life of a disciple: Jesus says ‘whoever wishes to become great among you
must be your servant, and
whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all’.
‘Diakonos’ and ‘doulos’.
'Diakonos' gives us ‘servant’, ‘minister’ or ‘deacon’, and 'doulos' is
even lower: ‘slave’.
Servant and slave.
Two words which sit uncomfortably against a history of power,
wealth and privilege about which the Church may well feel uncomfortable today.
‘The
Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for
many (verse 45).
This
is the life to which we are all called; this is the life of humble service.
This is the life which may be misunderstood by the general populace but which still brings salt and light to the world.
May
God strengthen us in this life today and teach us to walk in the way of the
Cross.
Amen.
