| The Foundation of Lady Katherine Leveson at Temple Balsall | ||
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St
Mary's Church
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A Simple Faith worth Sharing John 21. 1 - 19 I am always slightly suspicious of polls and wonder how representative they are of popular public opinion - if such a thing exists. However, I conducted my own poll after Easter amongst the friends that I trained with for ordination in Cambridge. Without exception, like us here in Temple Balsall, they found their Churches full even in difficult inner-city parts of London, Manchester and Birmingham. Churches were full "It's not over quite yet" said a friend of mine working in a tough part of Balham "I simply don't know where they came from, but the church was overflowing". On Easter Monday after a visit from the Mayor of Solihull to judge
t our Easter bonnet parade, I turned to some seriously therapeutic work
- thinning some of my files of excess paper! Indeed, much to my delight
I was able to get rid of one or two files altogether! Work in progress
had become work completed. In particular I decided to send to the recycling
bin a file marked - New Archbishop of Canterbury. Nearly 2 inches of
paper and press cuttings surrounding speculation about the appointment
and then reaction to the appointment of Rowan Williams. Flicking through
the paper I guess I was surprised at the interest in this appointment
and indeed in the Church of England. There was a robust defence of the
Church of England by journalists in fairly radical papers like the Guardian
defending the Church's role within the social fabric of this country My conclusion? That my unrepresentative telephone poll and this funny pile of press cuttings are both encouraging. Maybe the Church is not some obscure secret society that nobody much cares about. Perhaps, more significantly, this keen interest in the institution of the Church speaks of a deeper spiritual searching after truth and meaning and the things of God. God is not dead. The challenge for us is whether we can so organise our hearts and structures and communities so that we connect with this spiritual longing and searching. There are of course dangers in giving too much attention to the institution and its workings with all the focus on the top so to speak. There is also a danger in assuming that only good and healthy congregations are large congregations. Numbers both matter and don't matter at a fundamental spiritual level. The danger is that we might substitute the institutional church its buildings and culture for a real and living faith. Though I believe, as an Anglican, that the Church is an instrument of God's kingdom; that the Church in itself is a holy and gracious institution in and through which Christ works; yet I also feel that the Church is an institution can demand so much attention and devotion that God begins to be forgotten sometime.: Christianity becomes Churchianity. Essentially and at heart, our faith is a very simple faith. It is not a simplistic faith - no, it is full of mystery and paradox and unfathomable depth, but for all that, it is still a simple faith. I think this morning's reading about Jesus appearing to the disciples bears witness to this simplicity. The story is witnessing to the profound mystery that Jesus was raised from the dead and hascome and shared himself to his friends. And yet look where all this happened. Not in some great religious building - not in a basilica or a Cathedral, but on a beach at dawn. And the risen Jesus does not come to a great meeting of assembled worthies, or to a conference of theologians or Bishops, - but to a small group of ordinary people, fisherman, doing their work and not having a very successful time of it. In the simplicity of an ordinary meal shared together, these first members of the Church encountered Jesus. This is our experienc. We know Christ to be alive in what we share together - in this community, the friendship and fellowship of those who follow him, in the breaking of the bread. So sometimes, I think we ought to un-strip the layers of distraction and irrelevance - to realise that much of our 'going on' has a danger disguising the basic and wonderful truth of Christ. Why are we here? This Eastertide - to witness to the resurrection of
Jesus. Amen
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