Supporting and encouraging others in their development and growth

Here's the reflection I shared during Evensong at St Catherine's Wickford this evening:

John the Baptist had been the hot prophet of his time in Israel. He had been the man of the moment with people flocking to him in the desert to be baptized but now there was competition. Jesus, his younger relative, was just down the track at another site where there was plenty of water for baptizing and now the people were flocking to him instead of to John (John 3: 22-36).

How would John react? Would he see it as a competition? Would he fight back or drop out and leave without seeing what his competitor would do? His disciples obviously felt aggrieved by what was going on. In verse 26, we read that “they went to John and said, ‘Teacher, you remember the man who was with you on the east side of the Jordan, the one you spoke about? Well, he is baptising now, and everyone is going to him!’.”

John’s reaction was a surprise to his disciples because he wasn’t devastated. Instead, he willingly recognises Jesus’ pre-eminence – describing Jesus as the bridegroom and himself as the best man - and says that Jesus “must become more important” while he, John, becomes “less important.” To John there is no competition, he encourages Jesus in developing his mission and ministry, he actively points Jesus out to others and contributes to the development of Jesus’ ministry and accepts that in the process his role, position and influence will decline.

In this way he gives us a wonderful example of how one generation can support, encourage and bring through a new generation. Each one of us has the opportunity in our homes, our workplaces, our communities and here in our church to support and encourage others in their development and growth as people and in their ministry for God. And, if those we encourage surpass our own achievements, then that is not a cause for resentment or for frustration but instead a cause for celebration and a sign of our success in effectively grooming those people for greatness.

In Isaiah 43 God says, “Do not cling to events of the past or dwell on what happened long ago. Watch for the new thing I am going to do.” By looking for the new thing that God was doing, John the Baptist saw God himself as a human being, uniting heaven and earth, speaks God’s words, full of God’s Spirit, and demonstrating God’s power. I wouldn’t have wanted to have missed that if I had been in John’s shoes but many of his contemporaries did because they were focused on the past instead of looking to the future.

God calls us to be John the Baptist’s, people who are looking out for the new thing that God is doing and then calling attention to it and helping it to emerge. What new initiatives, young people, changing attitudes and roles or social trends are part of the new thing that God is doing in our day and how can we be witnesses to them?

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Al Green - How Great Thou Art.

Barnabas - the great encourager

Here's the reflection that I shared today during the lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Though not named among the twelve apostles of the evangelists, Barnabas emerges in the Acts of the Apostles as one of the most significant of their number (Acts 11. 19-30). He sold his estate and gave the proceeds to the Church, since all things were to be held in common, and clearly became a leader. In Acts 4 we read, "Joseph, a Levite, born in Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (son of encouragement), sold a field he owned, brought the money, and turned it over to the apostles." (Acts 4:36f). This is the first mention we have of him. His new name fits what we know of his actions. He is described as a Levite from Cyprus so, like Paul, was from the Greek world rather than that of Palestine, and he introduced Paul to the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem.

When Saul (or Paul) came to Jerusalem after his conversion, most of the Christians there wanted nothing to do with him. They had known him as a persecutor and an enemy of the Church. But Barnabas was willing to give him a second chance. He looked him up, spoke with him, and brought him to see the other Christians, vouching for him. He was sent to Antioch apparently to guide the Christians there in their relations with non-Jewish converts, promoting the concept of all being one in Christ.

Later, Paul and Barnabas went on a missionary journey together, taking Mark with them. Part way, Mark turned back and went home. When Paul and Barnabas were about to set out on another such journey, Barnabas proposed to take Mark along, and Paul was against it, saying that Mark had shown himself undependable. Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance, and so he and Mark went off on one journey (to Cyprus), while Paul took Silas and went on another. Apparently Mark responded well to the trust given him by the "son of encouragement," since we find that Paul later speaks of him as a valuable assistant (2 Tim 4:11; see also Col 4:10 and Phil 24). Tradition has it that Barnabas was martyred in Cyprus in the year 61. (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/182.html and http://www.excitingholiness.org/first-edition/index.cgi?m06/d11.html)

Dr Meredith Belbin and his team identified nine clusters of behaviour – called the 'Belbin Team Roles' - as part of a unique study of teams that took place at Henley Business School. Belbin suggests that every team needs access to each of the nine Team Role behaviours to become a high performing team. If we were to assess the skills and actions of Barnabas against the Team Roles, he would probably come out as a Teamworker, who helps the team to gel, and a Co-ordinator, who draws out team members and delegates work appropriately. Barnabas consistently facilitated the ministry of others; providing resources for the church in Jerusalem initially, then uniting the church in Antioch, before supporting the developing ministries of Paul and Mark, even when they got into difficulties.

In Ephesians 4 we read that ‘Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith’ (Ephesians 4.11-13). So, in a letter attributed to Paul, we hear that the leaders in a church are there to equip the people for service that builds up the whole community. It is feasible that that description of church leaders may have been pointing people to Barnabas as a role model.

We are all part of teams, whether in our church or in elsewhere. All teams need those who, like Barnabas, encourage, equip and facilitate the ministry of others. Michael Moran, one of the great encouragers' at St Martin’s, often encourages each of us to bloom where we are planted; that is an encouragement to take on board for ourselves, but is also one to share with others. In the spirit of Barnabas and Michael, the encouragers', I wonder who we can encourage to bloom where they are planted today and how we might do so.

Pat Marrin, writing of Barnabas, reminds us that: ‘History gives top billing to the big stars, but it is often the supporting players who enabled their greatness.

St. Barnabas … was one of these key agents in the early church, directly responsible for integrating Saul of Tarsus into the Jesus movement after his conversion …

[his] gift was to season others with encouragement. Not too little, not too much, salt improves food, company, conversation and friendship. Barnabas, overshadowed by Paul, taken for granted, invisible and imperceptible, nevertheless enhanced the life of the church in every way.’ (https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/pencil-preaching/st-barnabas-apostle)

May it be so for us. Amen.

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Cyrillus Kreek - While Great Is Our Poverty.

3 Mothers: Latest ArtWay Visual Meditation

For my latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay I reflect on icons depicting contemporary saints or church members, focusing on 3 Mothers by Regan O'Callaghan:

"O'Callaghan ‘believes in representing the sainthood of all believers by painting living Christians with the same care and honour that you would reserve for painting a saint.’ ...

In doing so he is consciously building on the tradition of iconography, having studied the technique of icon writing for 6 years, specifically focusing on the Greek and Russian traditions. The ‘Sainthood of all Believers’ series is therefore a contemporary response to an ancient tradition. Religious icons belong in the realm of what he calls a ministry of encouragement, whether this is experienced in their writing or the praying before them. It is this spirit that is of interest to him."

My other ArtWay meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Maciej Hoffman, Giacomo Manzù, Maurice Novarina, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes and Henry Shelton.

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John Tavener - Fragments Of A Prayer.

Doubting John the Baptist

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

John the Baptist had had a great ministry. He’d gone from being a nobody to having the religious leaders of his day coming and asking whether he was the next Elijah. He had not only recognised Jesus as Israel’s Messiah but had baptised him as well. And as he had baptised Jesus, he had seen the heavens open and God’s Spirit coming down on Jesus and had heard God the Father saying to Jesus, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am well pleased.” At the end of his life, however, everything came to a crashing halt as he was imprisoned by Herod, until his life was cut short by Herodius asking for his head on a platter. How was he affected by this sudden end to his ministry which had had such an impact?

Well, we get a clue from our gospel reading (Matthew 11: 2-11) because John sent a message to Jesus to ask if Jesus was the one that they had been expecting or whether they should look out for someone else. In other words, as he sat in his prison cell, John the Baptist doubted what he had earlier been certain of. After he had baptised Jesus, John had seen the Spirit of God come down and stay on Jesus and had confidently told others that Jesus was the Son of God. Now though he wasn’t so sure and so he sent some of his disciples to Jesus with this question.

Isn’t that similar to our experience as Christians? Don’t we often go through times when we experience a real sense of closeness to God when we feel absolutely certain of what we believe. Times when God feels so close to us that we could almost reach out and touch him. But then there are other times when that kind of confidence and that awareness of God’s presence seem to be far away in the past and we wonder how we could ever have been so sure about what we believed. In these times we haven’t lost our faith but we don’t have the sense of assurance that we once had. Does this mean that we are not following God’s plan for our lives? Does it mean that we have failed or sinned or stopped trusting? The answer to all those questions is no. Think for a moment about the way in which Jesus replies to John’s question.

First, Jesus doesn’t criticise John. He doesn’t tell him to pull up his socks or to be more trusting or to have more faith or to repent for his sins. And then he tells the crowds that there has never been a man greater than John the Baptist. Jesus knows that doubt is part of the journey of faith. Even the greatest man who ever lived experienced periods of doubt. If John the Baptist did, then we should certainly expect to too. Jesus welcomes John coming to him with his doubts and sends back a message of encouragement. John was isolated in his prison cell. He had some contact with his disciples but he was not free and his disciples would only have been able to see him at certain times. In his isolation, it would have been easy for him to retreat into himself with his doubts and allow them to grow and play on his mind without being answered. But that is not what John did, instead he shares his doubts with Jesus. In the same way, we need to share our doubts and difficulties with each other and with God himself. And when others share their doubts and difficulties with us, we need to be like Jesus and give encouragement.

In the message that Jesus sends to John he asks him, firstly, to look again at himself, at Jesus. When we do this, when we honestly look at the Jesus who is revealed to us in the gospels, we see a man who is genuinely like God. We see a man who does and says the things that only God could do and say: “the blind can see, the lame can walk, those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life, and the Good News is preached to the poor.” When we doubt our faith, as we all do at different times in our lives, one of the best things we can do is to remind ourselves of what Jesus is like. Could anyone do and say the things that Jesus did and said and not be God?

The message that Jesus sends to John also asks him to look at the signs of the kingdom that can be seen in Jesus’ ministry. Those things that Jesus said and did were the first signs that the rule and reign of God was coming about on earth. As John looked at these tangible signs of God’s kingdom he could see the prophecies about God’s rule on earth coming true. Like John, we also need to look in our world for signs of God’s kingdom in changed lives and changed communities.

Sometimes as preachers we give the impression that the Christian life should be all highs and no lows. Sometimes preachers even deliberately preach that God’s plan is that we can all become champions, successful in all that we do. But that is to preach and read only a part of what the Bible says, not the whole. God’s way for us often involves apparent failure and hardship. Look at John in this passage. A faith that survives the difficult times is longer lasting that a faith that only knows ease and comfort. It is in the testing times that our faith is stretched and grows. Jesus understands our doubts, he encourages us to share our doubts with others and to support others in their doubts and difficulties. He points us to himself and to the signs of God’s kingdom in our lives and the lives of those around us as an encouragement to us to hold on in those difficult times and see our faith grow and develop as a result.

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On Jordan's Bank, The Baptist's Cry.

Quiet Day: Abbotswick House of Prayer

Today we have had an excellent Cluster Quiet Day organised by our curate at St John's Seven Kings, Santou Beurklian-Carter, and led by George Kovoor, Principal of Trinity College Bristol, at Abbotswick House of Prayer.

George spoke with animation, humour and simplicity about the nature of Church and the ministry of encouragement (citing the example of Barnabas). His primary illustration was that of a stamp on a letter. The stamp is an identifier and representative of a country. It has stickability and bears a message bigger than itself. Finally, the price of the stamp has been paid. Similarly, we are to be identified as Christians and representatives of Jesus. We need perseverance and steadfastness in our ministry as we too share a message bigger than ourselves; that the price has been paid and God's love is freely available to all.

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Al Green - The Letter.

What Would Jesus Do in marriage

One of the bands that young people are wearing on their arms these days have the letters WWJD on them. WWJD stands for What Would Jesus Do and, when Romans 15. 1 - 13 says “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” this passage is saying that you can’t follow a better rule of thumb in life or in marriage than that.

So as we think What Would Jesus Do in marriage we start by asking what does it mean to the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had. St Paul answers that question in his letter to the Philippians. There he says that the attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
 ⁷ Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had,
      and took the nature of a servant.
   He became like a human being
      and appeared in human likeness.
 ⁸ He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death—
      his death on the cross.

In marriage you are equal partners but, if you want to have the same attitude as Jesus, you won’t use your equality for your own advantage. Instead, each of you will do all you can to serve the other by giving all that you have and are to the other. God so loved that he gave and it is when we are in the mindset of giving to others that we are most fully in the mindset of Christ.

According to Paul, in Romans 15. 1 - 13, this means bearing with the failings of the other by not pleasing ourselves and seeking to please our neighbours for their good, to build them up. So, Paul is commending patience with the failings of the other and affirmation and encouragement of the other in order to build that person up. Remember, of course, that this intended to be mutual - two-way support and affirmation – but you should also be able to see that true love always involves sacrifice. In Jesus’ case, as we were reminded by the Philippians reading, this involved the ultimate sacrifice of his own life. Married love rarely involves the ultimate sacrifice but, when we are told to please our partner for their good rather than pleasing ourselves, we can see that sacrifice is involved.

Finally Paul says, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you.” Ultimately, your relationship needs to be based not just on the love that you have for each other but on the love that Jesus has for each of you as individuals. He accepts you as you are – while you were still sinners he died for you. He didn’t wait for you to change and earn his love before dying for you. No, while you were still turned away from him is when he poured out his love on you by making the ultimate sacrifice for you. You are both loved equally and eternally by God and it is as you receive that love and marvel at that love that you will see the true beauty of your partner.

Let’s be frank, there are days for all of us who are married when we don’t feel love towards our partner. For whatever reason, there are days when we feel angry or frustrated with them. In those moments, we need to remember that ultimately the worth of our partner does not lie in what she or he has done to us or how I feel about that, their true worth lies in the fact that Jesus loved them so much that he gave his own life for them. When we allow that reality to come into the mix then it becomes possible to bear with the failings of our partner, not please ourselves and seek to please our partner for their good, to build them up.

That is what Jesus would do and that is the way in which Jesus wants you to live out your married life together. May you know God’s blessing on your marriage as you live out your married life in his way.

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Delirious? - Hang On To You.