Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 23rd August 2020
Although we have been able to resume public worship not everyone is able to attend so the service was recorded and made available online as well as being played in church for those who chose to attend. That can be found here.
Trinity 11
Isaiah 51.1-6
Matthew 16.13-20
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
After the first reading from Isaiah
What future for the Church?
We so often forget that God’s timescale is not ours. God’s vision for the church began with just one man – Abraham.
A man who – at the beginning of the story – did not even have any family of his own, other than a wife, Sarah, and she – it seemed at the time – was not able to have children… Not a very promising beginning for a worldwide institution with members numbering in the millions!
So from this one man, one family, God created a nation – the Nation of Israel – to be his chosen people – the ones from whom would come salvation for the whole world. And that salvation – in the shape of Jesus of Nazareth was again, just one man – who didn’t even have a wife!
And it is worth remembering that when we begin to question the future of the established church and lament that she does not seem to attract the numbers she once did. And our recent experience certainly has not helped.
With churches closed for several weeks our worshipping presence has now moved on-line – maybe irrevocably. And it may well be that we are reaching more people through this means than before…. But it is hard to feel the same sense of community, of coming together; of human connection with the divine and with each other.
And what is the church for, if not to build community as we worship God together?
Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the Bible describes God as the potter and us as the clay: we are being shaped by God’s hand, shaped for a purpose.
If you imagine the church as a boat or vessel, what would it be I wonder? A working cargo ship or a passenger liner? A sleek racing yacht or a simple coracle which – if the sailor is not careful just floats around in circles?
The picture we have – of ourselves and of the church – changes over time. And it can sometimes be hard to adapt to the changes that come with the different needs we confront and the situations in which we find ourselves.
Our worship today is about considering how God calls us; how he shapes his church; about the vessel of our lives and our sense of purpose.
After the Gospel Reading
Matthew is the only one of the Gospel writers to mention the church as such – twice using the word ecclesia, but the church envisaged by Matthew is very different from the great bulky, bureaucratic, hippopotamus figure, as TS Elliot called it that we know today – and that applies to the church in all its forms – Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, you name it!
If Peter is a rock, then the church is living stones; not a building, but an assembly; not a thing, but an event; not a place to visit, but a community to which to belong. The community gathers around Jesus and to Matthew, Jesus matters above all.
Now in the face of falling attendance figures, you may feel that the promise of the “gates of Hades not prevailing” rings a bit hollow? But it was never about the numerical size of the church. Rather it is a claim that the living stones that gather faithfully around Jesus – and I count those at home as well as those in any special building, will remain the witness of God to the world.
Peter is entrusted with a special role in the new church, but it has been argued – I think with some justification – that his keys are not so much to lock anyone out of the afterlife, but to gain entrance to the storehouse of resources to enable him to make provision for the community. And it was Peter, remember, who first experienced the revelation that the gates should be open to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
But as well as the image of keys there is that of rope; used to bind and unbind.
Many of our deep divisions in the Church come down to binding and unbinding. One side argues that the Church has too many binding conditions; expecting people to live and to believe in a certain way. Others claim that the Church is doing too much loosening, and it is high time people were bound to more rigid beliefs and orthodoxies in conduct.
Jesus asks the question, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter comes up with his reply, but we all have to answer that question for ourselves. It is our vocation, our calling, to say who we believe Christ to be. It is our Church’s vocation to help us to learn and know who Jesus is, and then to provide the safe space and the means where we can practice voicing our convictions and hammering out our beliefs.
And whatever our fears, we do so in the assurance the God will not allow his Church to disappear until it has fulfilled its primary purpose; to make the Gospel known in all the world.
So what is the future for the Church? Only you can answer that question!