Abstract
Last week our Gospel reading focused upon Jesus as the vine and his disciples as the branches. To bear good fruit was to identify with Jesus as healthy and productive branches of that true vine. Today’s gospel continues the theme that Jesus’ love is also ours if we abide in him by loving one another as he has loved us. Our faith, then, is the foundation which commits us to a way of life, supported by prayer and worship, by sacraments and by the community life of the Church family.
But how does all this work? How does the Christian congregation organise for action – to be those productive branches? Many people in our churches were brought up in the faith from childhood. So how do we sustain their involvement? And, as for the retention of membership groups at the organisation level, there are big questions here about resources and staffing. Do we staff the poorer but probably more generous inner cities or give preference to the rich, white highlands? Putting the financial consideration to one side for the moment, let’s have a closer look at the dynamics of group membership. It all seems to hang on spiritual support and nurturing but in the words of Lord Sugar (of Apprentice fame) is this not to be considered a high risk strategy? What if new-born Christians never reach spiritual maturity because they are abandoned by those charged to care for them? What if older Christians, because of the cares and temptations of the world, are unable to benefit from the spiritual support necessary to maintain the Christian way of life? What if people stop attending worship and churches become unviable? What if? What if? What if? There are so many what ifs. What if the world comes to an end? It is certainly true that many organisations today complain about the difficulty of recruiting membership and getting people to take responsibility. We need here to start with some very basic questions as to why we join things any way. It could be because we want to and some particular organisation makes sense and we make a decision to join. So we join things or stay involved because they offer us something we want and that is as true of churches as of any other organisation.
So what does the gospel have to say about growing and nurturing the Christian faith in the context of the Church?
And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. (John 15.16)
Jesus left his disciples in the world to be the Church – our Lord’s continuing body in the world. Thus, we are in the world commissioned to glorify God in the here and now by doing his will.
I am not talking here about a vaguely benevolent approach but about a considered and planned series of restorative actions carried out as part of a sustained effort to bring the kingdom nearer. We know that God does not need us but we also know that God invites us into the divine rescue mission.
Working together draws us closer to each other in proportion to the outward visibility of our endeavours. Just as Jesus in his long High Priestly Prayer in John did not self reference constantly but yet his agony was clear to see, so we have to accept that this is a deeply personal commitment that may prove costly, so we need each other’s support and encouragement to remain loyal to our cause.
And if we do not do the good works lined up for us to walk in, does that mean that they do not get done, ever? We do not have the overview that God has but the thought of something wonderful and good not happening because we could not make the effort is unbearable; we must stick together through thick and thin.
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. (John 15.9-10)
Jesus models this unity in his great prayer. His vision of us intertwined through love and mission gives us glimpses of the operations of the Trinity itself. God demands that all that separates and divides be done away with as a new and perilous unity emerges with its beautiful potential for a genuinely new order.
Jesus’ agony helps us to understand more closely the relationship between cause and effect; it gives us more control and urges us to be rational and practical in our choices. The one who challenged every authority in his day surely does not expect us to breathe hapless pieties on Sundays and go our own sweet way during the rest of the week.
We know who our neighbour is, we know who we are responsible for, Jesus spelt that out often enough. No one is more special than anyone else; we are all beloved and long-for children, gifted with the redeeming passion that streams from God.
Whilst mundane families can be places of great cruelty, abuse and suffering, we have a clear template for how our family of God is to behave. As Jesus said, What you do to the least of these my little ones, you do to me. That is why we have need of the Holy Spirit to comfort and renew us; we cannot do this of our own strength alone. Exclusion, prejudice, impoverisation are all huge issues of injustice that the church is mandated to address and to remedy.
Stir up our hearts begins the collect for the Sunday before Advent. We need to be ardent, seeking out opportunities to enable all to live a just and fulfilled life free from want. Our good news is that there this is not all there is, we move dynamically through time and space towards the kingdom. That is too amazing to be kept as our little secret.
And just as we live with our hearts stirred up, we must cause a stir in the world around us.
The world must be able to track our path and discover healing, nurture and teaching along its way. We also do well to remember that roughly a third of humanity belongs to our faith – we really could shift mountains if we took our unity seriously.
Jesus was not an idealist, he acknowledges that there will be pain but he also entrusted us with the continuation of his mission and has given us the gift to have the strength to do this through the sacraments and through the body of the church. We are accountable to each other and that should steady us, make us firmer in our purposes. And as we voyage on in the ark of faith, we find, surprised by joy, that we can stay faithful and active. We have each other and we have the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God. Amen.