Last Monday evening the Planning Committee of Surrey Heath Borough Council voted unanimously to pass the application for the new annex to be built to St Michael’s. The work can now pick up to plan and raise the money to carry this project forward. Many of you will be aware that we have been working on a scheme of four phases – the roof, the spire, the interior and the annex. We have much to be thankful for, while also being aware that the hard work starts now!
While being thankful, consider this – that a brand new building will not, of itself, bring in the kingdom of God. Even if you were able to write me a very large cheque this morning, and thus enable us to all that we aspire to, if all that results is a gin palace, a monument to our hard work, then it profits us nothing.
A man called Stephen Covey wrote “The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing”. Our main thing is not to build buildings, nor to restore them or conserve them. Our main thing is not to sing worshipful music (if we can all agree what that would be), to preach inspiring sermons or to arrange beautiful flowers.
Our main thing is to know Jesus Christ.
The good news for each of us this morning is that we can have a personal relationship with that man who walked on this earth 2000 years ago, and is alive today and sharing god’s love with us.
But there is a problem.
We get in the way.
The church is seen to be full of people who judge, and look down on others. We are seen to be those who have the answers, which we seek to impose on others. “Yes, you can come to God”, we seem to say, “but first, here are some rules you must keep, some life styles you must adopt, so that you can join our club.”
In Paul’s day, it was bound up with keeping the Jewish Law, but at the same time “bolting on” a faith in Jesus. He is able to say that by the standards of his time he was living an exemplary life, almost above blame; he was so zealous that he was being commended for doing terrible things in God’s name – persecuting the followers of Jesus. But now he can say that everything he worked so hard for before in the spiritual life he now counts as dung, preferring to a righteousness that comes from trusting Jesus.
And he wants to know Christ. He wants to experience the power of God in his own life, the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and the power that took difficulty and suffering in this world and transformed them so that God’s kingdom could come, his will be done here on earth. When each difficulty comes, have a choice. We can push it away, saying in effect that God has slipped up in allowing this to happen. Or we can embrace it, looking for the way that God is working all things together for the good of his elect. We can know the joy that comes from seeing God at work, transforming our character as we go through trials. We can encourage each other as we travel together with God.
Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing ....
And yet we find that our relatives, our friends, our colleagues and our neighbours do not always see this. They see instead the church.
Children love to explore the world, looking at and touching, taking apart and rearranging. Someone once said that we give children toys to distract them from the real world and stop them learning.
In the same way people instinctively want to connect with God, to find their way to Christ, and we give them instead the church.
Now I am in favour of church, I like church. I also like Marmite. I prefer beer.
Yeast extract is a by-product of brewing. In Burton in the 19th century they brewed all different beers, and the dark salty residue came in different flavours and textures. One brave, or fool-hardy, soul tried tasting the sludge, and even spread it on his bread; Marmite was born. It became very popular, and soon a purpose built factory was established to market what was now a standardised product that some people hate, but others love.
The point is that we are, so to speak, the brewery. If our main business is brewing beer, why are we bothering so much about marketing Marmite? I am not knocking church. Some people love it and some people hate it. There are great benefits in our buildings, liturgy, synods, and all the rest. They are no substitute, however, for knowing Jesus Christ, and growing in him. There is the real issue of the times when the church has been caught out as hypocritical, apparently tolerant of child abuse, cravenly supporting rulers of this world in their godlessness. If you have been tempted to see church as a disappointment, a grind, an imposition, a weight that saps your energy ..... that is not the church as Jesus sees it – his body here on earth. He faced all manner of difficulty and opposition in his time here on earth, as evidenced in the parable recounted in our second reading; he embraced the cross on our behalf. Love so amazing, so divine, demands our souls, our lives, our all.
In all humility we come to Jesus, we ask him to fill us with his Holy Spirit, we continue in our quest to encounter God and grow in him.
Discussion starters
1. Paul listed all the things that he might have been proud of, but which he now saw as worthless. What are the things that you have been tempted to rely on instead of trusting in Christ?
2. What, for you, is the main thing in following Christ? What are the distractions that are not bad in themselves but distract us from following Christ?
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