\u201cThus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.\u00a0 You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.\u201d<\/p>\n
These are indeed unsettling times for the church and for our nation. And although we may not leave this Synod with any earth shaking resolutions we hope that with God\u2019s Holy Spirit and our journey together we will begin to see ourselves in a new light.<\/p>\n
Luke\u2019s account of Jesus\u2019 meeting with the disciples and his commissioning for their future work, shares some common features with that of the Great Commission in Matthew\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 In both instances the commissioning takes place after the crucifixion and Resurrection.\u00a0 In Matthew, Jesus promises that his invisible presence will accompany the disciples; Luke speaks instead of the Holy Spirit as initiator and guide of the disciples\u2019 mission.<\/p>\n
Now that mission and evangelism are no longer on the periphery of our diocesan agenda the question is what are the theological and operational tools needed to make mission the centre of all our activities?\u00a0\u00a0 What struck me on reading the Great Commission again, is the fact that the Evangelist saw the commissioning of the disciples as the logical conclusion to God\u2019s salvation history culminating in the ministry and work of Jesus<\/b> – <\/b>All that God had accomplished through Jesus Christ; the reconciling love that ignited and transformed so many lives; would now become the task of the disciples.\u00a0 The disciples, like so many of us, never readily understood this to be their new role; nevertheless Jesus commissioned them to continue his work.<\/p>\n
Two things our text reminds us of.\u00a0 First, that although God\u2019s great transformation of the world has begun, it wont continue without us.\u00a0 And secondly, the task of mission is not about us, but what we are prepared to do in order to cooperate with God\u2019s Holy Spirit, who has already preceded us in mission.<\/p>\n
For decades the Church of England has been declining in membership.\u00a0 It may surprise you to learn that during the last three years the Church of England has grown numerically by some 2% per annum.\u00a0 What is not surprising is the strategic approach they took in placing evangelism and mission on the hearts of every baptised member.\u00a0 Archbishop John Sentamu, quoting the late Canon David Watson, said recently the Church of England must either \u201cEvangelize or fossilize\u201d.<\/strong> \u201cThe truth is that not every Christian is an evangelist.\u00a0 Evangelists are specially gifted by the Holy Spirit to proclaim<\/em> the Good News and to bring people to a living faith. \u00a0But EVERY CHRISTIAN IS<\/em> A WITNESS. Witnesses are empowered by the Holy Spirit simply to tell the story of their encounter with Jesus Christ; to share<\/em> what they have experienced. <\/em><\/p>\n Archbishop Justin Welby is equally passionate about evangelism and the critical role of the baptized.\u00a0 However, the Archbishop is under no illusion as to \u201cthe seismic (siz-mik) shift that needs to take place in order to re-position Evangelism at centre stage\u201d. But he says, \u201cA seismic shift is what we need. For this country will not know of the revolutionary love of Christ by church structures or clergy, but by the witness of every single Christian\u201d. <\/b><\/p>\n That seismic shift has already begun to take shape in the Church of England\u2019s revolutionary approach in using the catechism as a teaching tool for discipleship.\u00a0 Confirmation candidates are trained to see themselves as pilgrims on a Christian journey instead of being prepared for \u201cchurch membership\u201d.\u00a0 Surprising results will always occur once we become deliberate in enabling the lives of every follower of Jesus to be faithful witnesses to the transforming love of God\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cA witness simply says what they have seen and experienced. \u00a0We witness as we go, not to what we must do, but to what God has done and is doing and will do to bring about the change we seek (in our personal lives) and to bring God\u2019s Kingdom near.<\/p>\n Many devout Christians fail miserably in their effort to introduce others to Christ simply because they do not know how to go about it.\u00a0 Before you can introduce others to Christ, you must:<\/p>\n Ultimately the most effective witness is not the eloquent words we use, but the humility of our life. In the final analysis Christian witness is not about what we are able to accomplish, but our willingness to be used by God\u2019s Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n This then is the second thing we can draw from our text<\/b>.\u00a0 That there can be no mission until hearts and minds have become open to the living presence of the risen Christ.\u00a0 For the witnesses<\/span> that were to go to the ends of the earth were witnesses of the resurrection.\u00a0 And what made this possible was the action of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 And so Bishop John V Taylor could write: \u201cthe chief actor in the mission of the Christian Church is the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 He is the director of the whole enterprise\u201d.\u00a0 So obvious to Christians in the first century, but largely forgotten in our own day, and so have lost our nerve, our sense of direction turning a divine initiative into a human enterprise.<\/span><\/p>\n The promise that the Holy Spirit will remain as God\u2019s sustaining presence is one by which the Church stands or falls. The Holy Spirit is that power that opens eyes that are closed. If one is open towards God, one is also open to God\u2019s beauty, abundance and transforming possibilities.<\/p>\n If one sees only the limited resources that are available for mission; one is inevitably shut off from God.\u00a0 So Luke is reminding us today; that as Christ bequeathed to his friends what he himself had received; so he bequeaths to us God\u2019s Spirit to sustain and guide us into all truth.\u00a0 So it was for the apostles, and similarly for us.\u00a0 There can be no mission until our eyes are open to the work and witness of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When Christian witness is so infused wonderful things become possible.<\/p>\n Imagine with me what life at the congregational level would look like if we began to see confirmation preparation not as an activity to boost our membership pool, but to engage pilgrims on a Christian journey.\u00a0 Imagine what our missionary endeavor would look like if each local church became more intentional in the formation of witnesses to God\u2019s saving truth. If this is your dream then let us, at this Synod, commit ourselves<\/b>:<\/p>\n Compared with Evangelism and Mission<\/b> everything else is like re-arranging furniture when the roof is leaking.\u00a0 Tragically too often that is what we are doing. \u00a0Reorganizing the structures; defending entitlements and arguing over our costs,\u00a0 while our children and others in this \u201cstrange but beautiful land\u201d are left floundering amid meaninglessness, anxiety, and despair.<\/p>\n Resurrection challenges life. It reminds us that the ultimate passion of Jesus to make things right in our broken world puts all our religious activity in the shade.\u00a0 The task of the disciples is not to guard an empty tomb; it is to follow the Risen Jesus, and to try and understand afresh something of how he appears to us today.\u00a0 The Resurrection is all about embracing new life.\u00a0 Jesus is now to be truly encountered in the present. I believe as a Diocese we are ready to commit ourselves to that challenge and to grow the Body of Christ not only in numbers but also in depth of discipleship.\u00a0 I conclude with one of our Good Friday Prayers<\/b>.<\/p>\n Let us Pray:<\/b><\/p>\n O God of unchangeable power and eternal light:\u00a0 look favourably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.<\/p>\n Sermon Synod\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 April 9, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SERMON text: Luke 24: 46-49 \u201cThus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.\u00a0 You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised;…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-uncategorized","ctfw-no-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3368"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3769,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3368\/revisions\/3769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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