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15TH DECEMBER 2008 AT 7.30 PM
ST. MATTHEW’S BRIDGEMARY
Readings : Romans 15 : 4-13
Matthew 11 : 2-10
Whenever I approach Christmas, I feel a bit torn. Part of me is being propelled from all sorts of quarters to get on with the journey to Bethlehem. I’m thinking of all the events, the special occasions, the carol services, family arrangements, the diary in general. And I quite enjoy it – I’m not one of those killjoy clerics that bleats about ‘the real meaning of Christmas’, against the season’s commercialisation. But as I proceed along this journey, I sometimes feel as if I’m trying to get through an entrance, and there’s someone who keeps stopping me, and he’s always in front of me, regardless of what position I take up. He’s not acting like an aggressive guard. He’s more like a conscientious security officer. And his name is John the Baptist!
It’s a strange experience all round. I want to get to my destination in the end, but this man keeps stopping me, and he stops me in order to ask me ‘who is Jesus, and why do you want to meet him?’ It’s the same every year, and the more I think about it, the more I realise that, however awkward he is, and however difficult those questions are, he’s only doing his job.
The same questions might well be asked of Reuben Preston and his new flock here at St. Matthew’s, and of the close knit community of the Gosport Deanery. Who is Jesus of Nazareth, and why are we going to meet him? This is what the world asks of the Church, that is, if it’s actually noticed that we’re here.
Questions like that can be answered in a number of ways. We could reply by saying (truthfully) that we want to see the saviour of the world. But that’s hardly the language of everyday speech. Admittedly, it’s good that the world should hear that sort of language, not just because it’s spread all over the carols that we hear and sing in so many places at this time. But I want, instead, to suggest another kind of answer, that’s provided in the gospel passage which we’ve just heard.
John the Baptist is again asking awkward questions, this time of Jesus himself – who is he? Jesus replies, not by pulling some sort of heavenly rank of him, but by pointing to what he has done. The blind receive their sight. The lame are enabled to walk. The lepers are cleansed. The deaf can hear. And the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. It’s a remarkable set of priorities in any age, including our own. Jesus is not tackling mass unemployment. Jesus is not solving the problems of international finance. He’s not even adjudicating over the differences between political parties, nor over debates in the church about the ordination of women. Instead, he provides these five pictures of how human beings can be liberated. They are very specific, and they can be applied to individuals, institutions of all kinds, education and local government included, – and the Church. If we can’t (or won’t) see properly, if we can’t (or won’t) move easily, if we can’t (or won’t) look for healing and wholeness, if we can’t (or won’t) listen to today’s questions, then we will live a very isolated and lonely existence; and the poor of every kind will never hear our message. And that’s the point: if we’re going to make this vision in any sense our own, we need to be specific and focussed about the development of ministry and mission here in Bridgemary. Otherwise, we’ll be overwhelmed by the massiveness of the gospel, and the sheer impossibility of realising all our pet dreams by tomorrow morning.
What I’m suggesting is that in the new ministry that we’re celebrating tonight, we ponder how those five pictures of human freedom can be applied to the work of the church here. What can we see that we were blind to before, because we ignored it? Where can this parish and congregation move, because it certainly can’t walk everywhere at once? In what ways should we try to safeguard its health, for example by working together – and not pulling in different directions – about (for example) the development of this building, and the relationship with Bridgemary Community Sports College nearby? And then there’s the question of how we use our ears: being deaf is a very isolating experience, and I often think that parts of the church have become like that, because we’ve lost the ability to heed not just what we’re saying to one another, but what the world is saying to us. And in what specific ways can the poor hear the good news? They, after all, keep occurring in the gospels and from the earliest times the Church was one of the only organisations to pay any attention to them – what a truth to bear in mind in increasingly straightened economic times!
It’s so easy to think of Jesus’ arrival on this planet as a kind of foam that gets absolutely everywhere. And of course he does. But Bethlehem was a very specific place, and he was born there at a very specific time. You don’t need me to remind you therefore, to be specific about mission here. It is about seeing, walking, looking after our health, and listening. These are very gospel truths, ensuring a voice is heard by those who are most easily forgotten. But they’re also deeply human needs. So, Reuben, we wish you well in your new work, with your own varied pilgrimage, which has included its own times of waiting, and taking stock. It will have prepared you well for those occasions when a John the Baptist of some sort is blocking your path, to make you do a bit more searching on what you’re about. And just remember – if it’s any comfort to you Bishops have been trying to learn that one since about the time of St. Peter.’
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
