Come and See

Here's the Sermon I shared in the All-age Eucharist at St Mary’s Runwell this morning:

Andrew says to Jesus, ‘Teacher, where are you staying?’ Jesus says, ‘Come and see.’ After spending the day with Jesus, Andrew goes to his brother and essentially says to him, ‘Come and see Jesus’ (John 1: 29-42).

What Andrew does is essentially what Jesus wants us to do, to say to others ‘Come and see’.

That’s also my offer this morning as we gather here together. ‘Come and see’. I wonder if any of the children here would like to ‘Come and see’ some interesting parts of the church.

[Invite someone to come and see with you]

Here’s a copy of our Reflective Tour of the church which enables us to pray our way around the building. We’ll use some of the information and prayers in it as we come and see what’s by the font first.

So, come and see 'The Baptism of Our Lord' by Enid Chadwick. Enid Mary Chadwick, who was known for religious art and children's religious material, lived in Walsingham for more than fifty years and her paintings appear in the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Peter Kwasniewski has written that Chadwick’s work is “simple enough for young children, and yet at the same time full of complexities for those who are attentive.”

What do you see in this painting?

With its flat, outlined style and use of gold leaf, ‘The Baptism of Christ’ has the feel of an icon without having been written as a traditional icon. Christ is framed by John the Baptist on the left, angels on the right and above, the hand of God the Father and the dove of the Spirit. In this way, Chadwick has created a simple, yet unified design, centred on Christ and the significance of baptism as a doorway to faith. The painting was gifted to the church by Fr David John Silk Lloyd.

Come and see the altar table and cross in our side chapel. Local woodworker David Garrard crafted Stations of the Cross using the motif of the Runwell Cross (which is found originally on the Prioresses Tomb) which have been placed around the church. David Garrard also built this altar for the side chapel together with the inscribed cross above.

What do you notice about the cross and the altar?

The words carved on the cross encourage us to reflect on our start in life, our own personal mortality, and the ways God has been present with us on our journey through life and will be with us into eternity.

Finally, come and see what’s in the sanctuary.

This tomb is known as the Prioress’s tomb because it may have been the tomb of the last Prioress of the Nunnery alongside the running well which is located a couple of miles away and may have given Runwell its name. If you look closely, you’ll see the Runwell Cross on the tomb. Reflecting on the Runwell Cross, we notice that it is formed by four circles in a square; the instrument of our redemption is set within a sign of the perfection of God. So, here we can pray that we might know God more fully in his divinity and his humanity.

I hope we’ve seen the value of coming to see for ourselves. When we allow others to show and share what and who they know, there is much that we can learn and much on which we can reflect.

That was the lesson that Andrew learnt in today’s Gospel reading and which he then shared with his brother Simon Peter. He came to see Jesus and, in doing so, realised that Jesus was the Messiah they had been expecting. In the Prologue to John’s Gospel, we read that Jesus is God the Father’s only son become flesh and blood and sharing the fullness of his Father’s glory. No one has ever seen God, we read, but through God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, he has been made fully known.

That is what Andrew realised by coming to see; he was not seeing another ordinary man, instead he was seeing God in Jesus.

As Andrew invited his brother to also come and see Jesus, so we can do the same for our friends and family. Jesus calls us to make that same invitation. We might make that invitation my inviting them to come to church or by taking them round the church on a reflective tour that introduces them to Jesus or by giving them a copy of John’s Gospel to read. However, we do it our part in the process is to be the one who invites others to come and see Jesus. What happens after that is always down to God. 

Andrew said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, where are you staying?’ Jesus said, ‘Come and see.’ After spending the day with Jesus, Andrew went to his brother and said to him, ‘Come and see Jesus’. I invite you to go and do likewise.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graham Kendrick - We Worship At Your Feet (Come And See).

One shall tell another

Here is my homily from yesterday's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

‘One shall tell another
And he shall tell his friend
Husbands, wives and children
Shall come following on
From house to house in families
Shall more be gathered in
And lights will shine in every street
So warm and welcoming

Come on in and taste the new wine
The wine of the kingdom
The wine of the kingdom of God’

One Shall Tell Another (The wine of the Kingdom) is a hymn by Graham Kendrick from the 1980's, but one which accurately describes what happens in today's Gospel reading (John 1. 35 - 42).

John the Baptist tells Andrew and another disciple that Jesus is the coming Messiah. The two disciples spend the day with Jesus and then Andrew tells his brother Peter that Jesus is the Messiah. John tells Andrew and his fellow disciple, Andrew tells Peter, and so it goes on. One shall tell another and he shall tell his friend. This is how the Good News spreads. In our day and time, we call it gossiping the Gospel.

But what is it that we tell? What is it that we pass on? What is it that we gossip? There are times in our journey as Christians when he don't share our faith with others - perhaps because we are afraid to do so in what seems a hostile culture or, perhaps, because we are afraid of saying the wrong thing. In some churches courses are run to encourage people to share their faith and to know the right thing to say. But that is not what we see happening here. These disciples simply pass on the news that Jesus is the expected Messiah. They point others to him and tell others what they have experienced in meeting him.

The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin says that this is the mark of a true witness; “the function of a witness is not to develop conclusions out of already known data, but simply to point to, report, affirm” the new reality that the witness has seen and heard. This is also what John’s Gospel, as a whole, sets out to do and what it wants those who read it, like us, to become. Newbigin writes: “[John] points his hearers to Jesus (e.g., 1:29ff., 36ff.; 3:27ff.); Jesus draws his hearers to himself. But these hearers will in turn become witnesses through whom others may believe (15:27; 17:20; 20:31), for the purpose is that not some but all … may come to faith.”

So we are to be witnesses like the writer of the Gospel, like John the Baptist, like Andrew, like Peter, this is our calling as Christians. And this is essentially a simple task. We are not asked to become fluent in all the doctrines of the Christian faith or to have an answer for every question that people ask about Christianity. We don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story.

We are to be witnesses to what we have seen and heard about Jesus; to be “a witness to the living God, traces of whose presence and actions have been granted in the events which are recounted.” Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others.

That is what Jesus calls us to do; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. No more, no less. The focus is not on us and our lives but on him and what we know of him and have experienced of him in our lives. So instead of needing to memorize a Gospel presentation, all we need to do to be a witness is to tell our story; this is how I came to know Jesus and this is what he has come to mean to me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Larry Norman - Sweet Song Of Salvation.