Fifth Sunday after Easter

Date:10th May 2009

Preacher: Revd David Carpenter

Holiness takes time, the faithfulness of abiding is something to be worked at.

In the name of God: our wisdom and our truth.

Do you get fed up?

I get fed up.

What makes you fed up?

Every time you arrange a Barbeque it rains?

Settling down to watch your favourite TV programme and the phone rings?

The bus that is always late is early the day you want to catch it?

Perhaps there are more series issues that get you down.

I get down, fed up, when I witness the church in such disarray apparently tearing itself apart. Certainly, over recent years there have been some weighty issues: the ordination of women to the priesthood, the marriage of same sex couples, and the ordination of those who are in openly gay relationships.

Often it would appear the church is fond of publically displaying its angst to a world that has for a long time engaged with, and continues to engage with these issues.

What distresses me is that instead of leading positively, we seem, so often, to lag behind; unable it would appear to grasp the best that others have already embraced.

I get down, fed up, when I see church folk fall out over the simplest, most pointless of things. I never cease to be amazed at the variety of issues that Christians can fallout over. At least those issues that I’ve touched upon have some gravitas, but we can’t always pass the buck so easily. I sometimes think to myself that that if people had something of substance to worry about then they wouldn’t be wasting time and energy arguing over trivia. The sad reality, of course, is that so often these things are not regarded as trivia – they are the extent of some people’s world.

How easy is it for us to become sidetracked with issues that have nothing to do with the churches real mission?

What worries me is that so often it would seem that the church fails to see the bigger picture: It’s as if we become locked in to our own concerns, our own likes and dislikes, our own small world, and we are constrained by the limits of our own horizons. When this happens the danger is that we can refuse to engage with the issues that really matter. We argue with each other, and are critical of things that so often confirm an opinion held quite wildly, that coming to church is a waste of time at the best, and downright destructive at the worst. For how often is this destructive sprit of criticism followed by anything constructive?

I’m sure you know the sort of thing I am referring to, and some of you here will know only too well the struggle to break out of this narrowing position and become visionary and the cost of this.

Just to spread the net a little wider, you will also know that this narrow vision and critical spirit is not limited to our experience within the Christian community. Isn’t it also true that so often we don’t want to change, we are comfortable with where we are and we fall foul to a more general all-embracing criticism? Almost every institution falls foul to our disapproval. Those in charge are all out for their own ends; those in authority are out to stitch us up. Almost everybody is better off than we are and no one is more hard-pressed than me.

So is the lack of vision, the critical spirit just a churchy thing, or is it more deep seated than this?

Is the critical spirit just a church thing, or are we just reflecting something that is widespread in society?

Has life always been so I wonder, or are we more discontent in our time?

Today everything has to whirl and wiz; has to give instant gratification, have a feel good factor, entertain, or we quickly grow bored, wishing for the next whirligig.

Remember Mr Toad of Toad Hall? Following his obsession with boats, came the wonderful canary coloured caravan, then the fast sports car that left the hapless caravan, mole and rat in the ditch.

There is, it would seem, restlessness in society today – and that’s only another way of saying a restless in each of us that manifests itself with a general discontent with what is going on, with others, and sometimes ourselves.

I certainly then, wouldn’t want to claim that the things I have pointed to are entirely the prerogative of the Church. We are citizens of this world as much as members of the Christian community, and as individuals, we are no more or less affected by society’s behaviour, and ourselves shape that behaviour. Yet, it still surprises me that Christians can so obviously and manifestly get things so out of kilter.

The word "Abide" is used by Jesus in today’s gospel. “Abide in me, and I in you”. It is not a word we use often in everyday speech these days. The basic idea of the word "abide" is to stay somewhere, to continue in some place or relationship. I suggest it’s something of an alien concept in society today. And the church often, it would appear, gets caught up in the cultural milieu of the time and risks forgetting the significance of abiding.

Why are you here this morning?

What lies at the heart of your coming to this place?

Is it because you like organising?

Is it because you have always come?

Do you like sitting on committee’s?

Do you enjoy being part of the choir or the serving team?

Is the important thing about our coming together this morning what we say: or what we hear: The music, this sermon?

Is the inter-reaction with your friends what charges you?

Is it to express what you believe?

Is it because being here makes you a better person?

All these are important things, but all with an emphasis on self.

What happened to the notion of being here to abide in the presence of God?

Could so much of what harries us in church today be a symptom of our own frenetic times?

Is it a real possibility that the turmoil and dissatisfaction that we see as a hall mark of society in this day and age is mirrored in the life of the church?

There are lots of questions for you to think about.

So, with a more positive thrust, may I suggest that we come here, first and foremost, to stand before God in repentance: Certainly not to justify ourselves, but neither to bewail or berate ourselves. Simply to stand in the presence of mystery, and begin to understand that in the presence of such mystery all we can do is abide. Yet so often our doing and our busyness prevents any real silence in God’s presence. So it is that the sound of our own voices, drown out his.

We need to learn to stand in silence before God and to learn to trust. To allow the mystery to shape us, and in silent wonder to discern God’s way amidst the muddied footprints where we are so fond of stomping around.

Such a faithful trust and continuity of commitment, in which people are happy with their belonging, is the very opposite of what we so often find in life today: in which people feel that they do not belong, that they are no longer at home where they find themselves. This kind of alienation can produce isolation; it can make us feel as if we are outsiders.

Yet we are not outsiders. Abide in me, and I in you, says Jesus. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Notice where the fruit is born: it is born in abiding.

Our witness to the wider community should be rooted in our own willingness to abide in God and to hold the mystery before this community.

We need to discover afresh what it is to stand (Abide) in God’s presence. We need a refocusing of our time and attention. We need to be still before God: to hone the ability to listen. To quell the noise that churns up and disturbs.

Perhaps we could do worse that to listen to, and follow the example of those who spend time in meditation. Those faiths and practices that lay great store in stillness and contemplation. Maybe the church needs to rediscover its own monastic centre.

In his book ‘Silence and Honey Cakes’ Rowan Williams speaks of the need to promise ourselves to our environment in reality. He reminds us that God does not stop working in the church when we Christians are wicked and stupid and lazy. He writes, ‘The church is not magic, much as we should love it to be – a realm where problems are solved instantly and special revelations answer all our questions and provide a short cut through all our conflicts.” And here is the crucial point, it is rather he writes, ‘pre-eminently and crucially – a community of persons where holiness takes time and where the prose of daily faithfulness and yes, sometimes, daily boredom, has to be faced and blessed, not shunned or concealed... in short, a church that is faithful to its basic task is telling people that willingness to be who they are, and to begin to change only from the point of that recognition, is fundamental in the encounter with God.’

As a community of believers, we need to rediscover the truth that holiness takes time, that the faithfulness of abiding is something to be worked at. For it is in ‘abiding’ that we discover who we really are. To struggle against mirroring what goes on, on the outside. Instead we ought to be nurturing an alternative way that when reflected outward could be of great benefit in a society that so often appears to have lost direction.

We do not want to be copying that: instead we should be showing an alternative way, and we can only do it if we abide in the vine, take our nourishment from the root. The synonyms are abundant: water of life, root and branch, bread, light, the well of life.... whatever.

It is fundamentally learning to listen: learning to Abide, discovering what it is to ‘BE’ with God.

At the heart of this is a focusing on our worship. Not about how we can make it look better, sound better; feel more relevant – although all these things are important. Rather, how we can allow it to speak to us of God’s presence and how it can enable us to listen. How we can encourage us to more fully and faithfully abide.

It is not about the behaviour of the person next to us, what they should believe, or about how they should change. It is about how I can change, where it is that I have to experience the pain of change and of growth. How in faithfully abiding, God can bear fruit in my life.

This is not about fast food; it has more to do with making wine.