To be honest I am not sure where to start this week. These past few weeks have been really challenging for me and I am currently in turmoil. And the passages today, as we spin ever faster towards Holy Week leave me wondering if we have forgotten who we are about. Are we like those Israelites in the desert moaning and complaining, wishing we had stayed in a place where conditions were pretty horrible but somehow better than where we are?
They had escaped extreme poverty and bullying, being slave labour under a Pharaoh who was getting crueller by the day. But the trek to the promised land was proving long and difficult. They weren’t interested in what lay ahead but caught up in the misery of the moment, and were looking back with rose tinted glasses. They became inward looking, focussing on all what was wrong and missing the fact they were free. Of course, the journey was hard, the food repetitive and the circumstances somewhat less than ideal. They had run out of patience and weren’t willing to spend time in the desert, roughing it.
I wonder if the Church is in the wilderness, roughing it having escaped the heady days of forced attendance and participation where belonging to the Church, especially as an Elder, could help land that decent job. We remember days of Sunday Clubs numbering in the 100s but forget that in the main church for children was super boring. We remember days of young women’s clubs in a generation where often the escape to a church women’s group was the only escape in a hard life of housewife and child rearer. We remember days when churches were full but faith was not necessarily the reason. Of course, there were good people in the Church, just as I am sure there were Egyptian leaders who were good and kind as well. But from around 1963, and to a certain extent even earlier after the Second World War, Christianity began its downward spiral. People became more confident in themselves and turned their back on the Church. Arguably, a lot of people didn’t turn their back on God but on the Church, and a more recent study called the Invisible Church suggests there is still a high proportion of people who have faith in God but not part of the Church.
The Israelites spent a long time in the wilderness, around 40 years. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness and the Church is naïve if she thinks she won’t spend time there. But we can chose how we embrace the wilderness experience. We can be like the Israelites and moan and complain. We can look back and only see the good, filtering out the negative – kind of like we do when we speak about the dead. We can turn it all on God – why have you abandoned your Church Lord? Why are we flailing around in the dark?
Yet perhaps we need a wake up call. It makes uncomfortable reading that God sent the snakes into the camp. I want to push back against it and yet I am called to trust in God’s sovereignty.
My children don’t like it when I punish them, and I sure didn’t like being punished as a child. There are punishments I will never forget, which by today’s standards would be totally deemed inappropriate yet even 30 years ago weren’t. Some of you will even know what it felt like to have the belt or the ruler over the knuckles. And remember the phrase ‘wash your mouth out with soap’ – I know that one. Jessica read that as I typed it and was totally disgusted! Understandably but back then…
So we have to take everything in context – the Israelites were being particularly obnoxious and ungrateful to their God, even if we can sympathise with their circumstances. However, God doesn’t leave them wallowing in their pain and suffering, but comes with forgiveness. It requires Moses to make the bronze snake and the people have to make a conscious decision to look up at it. The Israelites could choose to be stubborn and remain downcast and not look, or to look up and be healed. In the story we see a forerunner to Jesus, but Jesus comes not just for the Israelites but for the whole world.
The whole world – I love this. Our God comes not just for Jews or for the Romans or for British people or white people – but for the whole world. And if there is any verse that your average Christian or RE pupil might know – it would be the one ‘for God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son that whosoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life.’
My concern is that we have, in the western world in particular, deemed that God is for the people in the Church only. We measure the success of a congregation by the number in our pews on a Sunday morning. We measure success through our financial ability to pay our way. What we do meets the needs of people already in the Church and limits anything that means taking risks, spending money or doing things differently. Suddenly God loving the world becomes much smaller in our understanding and the Church turns inward.
We need to remember that God’s church is thriving in the majority of the world and the exception to that is the Western world. The secular movement or humanist movement is fast taking over the western world, and with that comes reluctance to submit to any sovereignty or authority. If we are truly honest with ourselves, the majority of the public put up with public figures such as politicians as long as they are not interfering too much in their day to day life. Yet one of the fastest growing social groups at the moment is Slimming World – and people will go faithfully week by week and any time of the day, following a way of life that is collaborative, collegiate and requires accountability. If they can’t make their regular meeting, they will go to another session, even looking up one up in a town they might be on holiday in. Even long after a person has met their target weight they will continue to attend. Someone even kind of apologised to me for joining it because she knows I can’t align with their understanding of food.
Now Slimming World may come and go but it will arise again in another guise, for it follows on the back of Rosemary Conley and Weight Watchers. And perhaps, from that we can take comfort that the Church may be different but the underlying message will be the same, for the message of the Gospel is timeless.
But where these weight based agencies have grown and changed over the years, the Church could be accused of stagnating. We have hit a wall. I have hit the wall. How does the Church engage in a world that has moved on and the Church is still behaving like it is the 19th Century? In 2015 I was included in the statistic of the Church of Scotland that said 4.8% of ministers were under the age of 40. I have moved into the next category but in 2015 just slightly less that 18% of ministers were under 50. So guess where the other 75% is found?
If God truly loves the world then I believe that has to include our growing secular, atheist, agnostic, humanist culture. But how are we going to reach them, and how are we going to reach them if we ourselves can’t commit to God? How can we preach a message about God’s love if we don’t truly believe that God loves us? People are not converted through words but through our actions, our presence, our energies in making God’s kingdom apparent here. Yet we say that Church doesn’t need us. God doesn’t mind if we don’t get involved with the Church, and we can spout many a good reason, especially as the world gets busier and busier. But we are so programmed to have Church on a Sunday morning that to not have it would require notifying Presbytery. The most successful service time at the moment is a Saturday evening, when a number of the Catholic Churches in the area hold a service. Their services are numbering in the region of 200 – is the worship any less on a Saturday night than on a Sunday morning? Sunday morning worship still happens, but there is a choice.
However, the problem I am struggling with, and I see replicated across the Church of Scotland is that we are not embracing alternatives. With the few exceptions up and down the land we are stuck in a rut. Regardless of what I offer here, the uptake is so low. Messy Church is excellent but to be honest it is failing at reaching new people. With the exception perhaps of three families who are not already connected with Sunday Church currently it is having a limited appeal, and we are no where near measuring up to other local Messy Churches. Pancake Praise was a bust – people resorted to phoning people to come to that. And even our support of Sanctus has dwindled to the sacred few so much so one minister wondered if we should continue with it.
And so I have hit a wall. And by that, I am thinking of the wall in a marathon race – that moment where you can either throw in the towel and sink to the ground knowing that you gave your all and you have nothing left. Or you hear the cheers and support of the crowd, the other racers who gently encourage you and you push through the wall and finish the race, not necessarily with class but at least with integrity and sheer determination.
Paul talks of us running the race, and for me, Jesus had to push through the wall in the Garden of Gethsemane. By that point he was exhausted – mentally, physically and potentially spiritually. He prayed in the garden, he prayed his heart out pleading for a way out, to be able to sink to the ground and call it quits. But with God the Father by his side, and with a clear sense of identity and belonging, he is able to push through the wall, and continue to the finish line.
I am at the wall and I can see it standing right in front of me. The wall is imposing, terrifying and to be honest, the thought of turning away is so inviting. I could slink off into a new area but what I the Lord revealed is that the wall surrounds the Church. Not just Blantyre Old but the wall surrounds the Church. I can put off dealing with it by moving to a different place, but I would hit the same wall.
This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
The wall is still there but now I see more clearly. I still don’t know who to push through this wall, but I have realised something – I won’t get through this wall without you. Jesus could have left his disciples in the upper room and said he was going out. Jesus could have left his disciples in a safe place, but he doesn’t. They have to be there, they have to be a part of the whole experience for it will shape them. It was such a hard time, but at no point are they excluded from it.
God has journeyed with me so long and his grace and patience beyond my comprehension. Like the disciples who can’t keep watch in the garden, I hear God shake up my selfish demon and speak directly to my heart. He challenges the narrowness of my vision and reminds me that this journey of faith is not about being comfortable. Remember those Israelites – it was a long walk. Remember Jesus. Even Peter, or Paul or John exiled.
There will difficult decisions to make in the future – Strathaven has voluntarily gone from 4 churches to one, Larkhall has gone from 3 to 1 not quite voluntarily in all cases, and Blantyre will be facing the proposal of one church with two places of worship. And that is on track to happen in the next 7 years. The Church of Scotland anticipates a drop of 20% of available ministers in the next 5 years. Given there are approx 750 ministers now… And then what happens after that…what happens from 2023-2028. I know that sounds a long time away but that is ten years. What will happen to the faith of our children – what will the faith of Kieran and Jessica who in ten years time will be 21 and 18 be? And what role will you have played in nurturing their faith and the faith of all our children? We put so much effort into making sure our children get to take part in sports or uniform organisations – yet what effort are we putting into helping them develop their faith? What effort is the Church putting in?
I don’t believe it is all doom and gloom – after all Jesus went to the cross, but he didn’t stay dead. He rose again to new life – we are the Church of the resurrection – death is part of our journey. The wilderness is part of our journey. The wall is part of the journey.
But I reiterate this – I cannot push through this wall without you. I need you to be the church, to speak fondly and lovingly of God, of your Church and to get involved. If you are not willing to step up and work for the future of the Church in Blantyre, there may come a day that the Church closes her doors here permanently. Over the years we have downsized the number of churches and we will go to two church buildings at some point. But in ten years will even those doors be closed? After all – whoever saw the day when there would be no banks in Blantyre…
Yet we worship a God who so loved the world he sent his one and only Son that whosoever believes him will not die but receive eternal life…. Pray for God to show us the way, just as Moses did on behalf of the Israelites, and he responded. Pray that God will show us, each of us, how we can encourage, nurture, develop the faith of those around us that we might truly be disciples not just consumers. Pray that God will help us step into our community and parish and engage with those who know nothing of him or us. Pray that we find a way through the wall and be the Church in the 21st Century whatever that might mean...
Pray that in 450 years time someone will remember us in their history books or memory archives and say of us ‘they found a way through the wall and God’s people thrived in Blantyre and beyond.’ Amen.
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