Sermon: Back to Church Sunday

Can I echo the special welcome (already given) to all those of you who have taken a chance on coming back to Church this Sunday. I am sorry if the actions of the Church or church members in the past have been part of why you stopped coming to Church, here or elsewhere. The Church is full of very ordinary human beings: we may have a glimpse of heaven in our imaginations but often we don't live it out very well, day by day. So I am sorry if we have got in the way of whatever God is doing in your lives. But there are all sorts of reasons why people lose touch with each other or with the Church, and sometimes lose touch with what is important in their own lives. It is so easy just to lose touch and to drift. Whatever happened in the past, today is a new opportunity for us all. It's an opportunity to listen, to try to attend to the reality of God who is all about us. Much of the time we are so preoccupied, inattentive, that we just don't recognise what is going on.

So why come to Church? Last week this Cathedral was full of footballers for the Memorial service for Sir Bobby Robson. The seat you are sitting in this morning may have been warmed by Jack or Bobby Charlton, Fabio Capello, Gazza, Alan Shearer. Indeed from this very pulpit Gary Linekar and Sir Alec Ferguson held us spellbound: the aura is still around. I suppose they could have held the memorial service at St James' Park, but I think it is not just habit or tradition that makes people come to a Church for this kind of event. Death pulls us up short, we can't avoid it; when we come to the boundary of life, we are brought face to face with God, or the possibility of God, and all those nagging questions which get suppressed in the busyness of ordinary life.

But more people go to Church each week than go to football matches, so why do we come, not just for special occasions, but week by week? I would like to offer you three metaphors and ask which is most like going to Church for you. Going to Church: is it like going to a concert, or a club, or a meeting of party activists in the run-up to an election?

Is it like a concert? People go to concerts for all sorts of reasons, but for most people it is an optional extra in life, an enjoyable evening (if you like the programme) adding to the pleasure and the quality of life. But not much in life is changed by it. So is going to Church like going to a concert? Well, I suspect the average parish church congregation would say ‘definitely not - not with our singing!' But here at the Cathedral the comparison is much more apt. We have wonderful musicians who bring together great skill and hard work to move and inspire us. But here it's not just about pleasure, or a good experience. The difference between a concert and a service is that all this beauty is created and offered not just in itself but as part of the texture of our relationship with God. The liturgy leads us through a drama in which we engage with the great themes of our need and longing and frequent failure, and God's love and rescue and restoration, and the words and music help us to enter into this through our imaginations and feelings and sensitivities. For God is real, but not in the same way as Sunday lunch. We need a bit of help to get attuned to the reality of God, and all the ingredients of worship are designed to help us to do that. As we go through this service week by week, and are challenged by thoughts and moved by feelings, different bits of the story strike us, not in a casual way  (‘that was nice, wasn't it') but in a way which heals us and challenges how we live (‘that's the truth - I've got to do something about that'). So this first metaphor explodes far beyond attending a concert and leads us into relationship with God. Feeding the human soul and spirit in worship leads us into the arms of God.

Is going to Church like going to a club? The thing about a club is that you frequently do familiar things in familiar places with familiar people. It might be golf or cards or drama; whatever it is, you go because you enjoy the activity and you meet your friends there. Church can be like that; and if that is all it is, it is good but not good enough. Church is much more than a club. Think what a motley crowd of people Jesus picked as his disciples to help him open up the Kingdom of God and begin the Church. What a motley crowd we remain. Not like-minded, not necessarily friends, not really united by a common interest. We are not really people who club together with a common interest; we are folk Jesus has called. He has wandered along the pavements we tread and somehow he has said, you, and you and you. It happens in all sorts of funny ways but that is what it amounts to. And when we find ourselves here we discover that Church is not just about those who are like us: it is about discovering love for those who are not like us as well - and living well with them. It is a club focussed as much on those who are not members as on those who are. It is not just about a get-together once a week but about 24/7 life out and about. Much of the time we do very little about this vision of an inclusive, expansive society, it is so easy to settle back into the comfort of the club lounge.

So, thirdly, is going to Church like going to a meeting of party activists in the run-up to an election? Well, more people go to Church than belong to political parties, and it looks like we shall soon be having an election, but how is the Church like a political party? This brings us to today's gospel. I have to say I groaned when I saw that today's readings include the idea of throwing someone into the sea with a heavy weight round their neck, and cutting off hands and feet. A fine welcome Back to Church. But Sunday by Sunday we don't pick just the cuddly readings; we have to cope with the difficult ones as well. The explanation here, of course, is that Jesus was not urging us to do these terrible things; he was just trying to get us to see how very important and urgent is the business of coming to life with him. It would be so awful to miss what he is urging us to do that these other terrible things pale into insignificance alongside that.

Bishop Tom tells a little story in connection with this passage. During the war, whilst London was being so heavily bombed, one of the canons of Westminster Abbey watched his house, and everything in it, go up in flames after a direct hit. The clothes he stood up in were all he had left. Next day, he went to Oxford to stay with a friend and went out to buy some new clothes. The shop assistant was surprised by the comprehensive list of things he was asking for. "Don't you know there's a war on?" she asked. Of course, he did, and that's the point of the story. But what Jesus says here implies that the disciples don't know. So (the Bishop says) Jesus is telling them (and us?) that there is a serious business afoot, battle has been joined; martial law is now appropriate - don't they know there's a war on? Being a disciple is not just about personal fulfilment and satisfaction: it is about signing up for a tough mission. The Bishop uses the language of war, and I am using the milder language of a general election, but there is the same sense of a society, a set of values, a way of life to fight for. Political parties have a vision of what society could be like, they develop a set of policies and they work very hard during an election to persuade everyone to give them the power to shape society according to those policies. Is coming to Church like joining in this sort of thing with God? Is the gospel we hear about each week like a manifesto? When we come to Church do we have a sense that we are working towards a better deal for the poor, for the environment, with urgency, as if there is an election to win, a war to fight on behalf of the poor, the world, justice, mercy?

Three metaphors, each quite inadequate in itself, but pointing towards what is going on when we come to church. I wonder which of these matches your experience of going to Church? Perhaps there is a bit of each, and much, much more. But I expect each of us would struggle with one of the three. I think I find the ‘enhanced concert' metaphor easiest and the ‘club' hardest, but I'd be interested to know which is which for you. We usually keep a few moments of stillness after the sermon and you might like to use these moments to think about how you relate to these three.

But, whatever we feel about going to Church (and it isn't all joy but at its best it is a place of healing) it's not really about Church at all; it is all about coming to God: coming to the Father, in and through his Son Jesus Christ, by the gentle working of the Holy Spirit. This is quite a private thing, but in the Church it is also a shared thing. So, in these moments of stillness, in the quiet of your own mind and heart, you might prefer to try saying to God whatever is on your heart to say. It may be saying ‘thank you', or ‘I'm sorry', or ‘I'm afraid', or ‘what should I do next', and then listen in the rest of the service for what he might be saying to you. For whatever Church is, it is first of all a place of meeting; we come to the God who is always there for us, because getting back together again is what he most wants. Amen.