Whaley Bridge Parish
Jan 31st 2021
“To respond to human need in acts of loving service” – the third mark of mission
When I was fourteen year our family experienced a crisis. My clever and talented older sister became suddenly extremely mentally ill, her behaviour bizarre and unpredictable. There were police cars and ambulances coming and going in the middle of the night; my parents were distraught. This was the 1970s and mental illness was not spoken of, a source of huge shame and stigma. There was little understanding or care from anyone. Except for Sophie. Sophie was what I think was called a parish worker in the church, twenty years before women could be ordained.
There was a quiet strength about Sophie, a prayerful presence. She didn’t have any answers, she couldn’t take the pain away. What Sophy did was simply be there. I remember spending time with her one particularly difficult day in the life of our family and the comfort that came from knowing we were not alone with this. By standing with our family through a traumatic time she was modelling the faithfulness of the God who walks with us in Christ through our darkest times.
“Behold, I am among you as one who serves” says Jesus. This is the third in our sermon series on the five marks of mission. Last week we were thinking about the call to baptise and nurture new believers, and two weeks ago we looked at the foundational call to make known the good news that is the Gospel This week our theme is the church’s calling to respond to human need in acts of loving service. That is what Sophie was doing all those years ago, and it was what we are called to do now.
Just to remind you: we were thinking about mission as the outpouring of diving energy in the world: the activity of God’s Holy Spirit. Mission begins with the very person of God whose nature is to be turned outward in saving love towards the world – like a fountain that keeps on and on overflowing.
The mission of the church is simply to share in that overflow of divine life and love – a love most fully realised in Christ who calls himself a servant. “ I am among you as one who serves” .
In our gospel passage we heard how Jesus intervened in an unseemly squabble among the disciples about who was the most important. How pathetic we might think. Here are the disciples travelling with Jesus towards Jerusalem, towards what they must sense is the climax of his ministry – the final showdown with the authorities –and they are bickering about of them who is the greatest. Well, like us the disciples were only human. We are all sinful people, all prone to getting caught up in worries about status and where we fit into the social pecking order. Envy is powerful emotion and I’m sure all of us have at one time or another noticed ourselves envying other people their situation or of the discomfort of others envying us. Jesus cuts the conversation short and reminds them that the Kingdom of God is not like this. It’s not about social rank and status. It’s not about self- aggrandisement and climbing up the slippery pole. Jesus simply turns their ideas about status upside down.
He tells them: The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.
What does this really mean? What does it mean for us to be one who serves?
"Service" and "servant" are words with an increasingly old-fashioned ring about them. If we are honest, we may have negative associations with them words. But essentially serving is about paying careful attention to the needs of someone else, and taking action to meet them. So for example, we appreciate good service in a shop or a restaurant, when someone is attentive to our needs. Jesus's call to serve comes at a much more fundamental level than this: he tells us that service is to be the basic orientation for our whole lives. If our lives are being shaped by love of God and love of neighbour, then that means our focus will not be on self. We will be prepared to put our own convenience, our own timescales, our choices and freedoms in second place – or at least put them on hold for a while. Easy to say, less easy to do.
"Diakonia" is the New Testament word for service, and from this word we get the word Deacon. Every Christian Priest is ordained as a Deacon first and that is is foundational in our understanding of Christian ministry. Ministry is first and foremost about serving God in our service of others. All believers share in the church’s ministry, ordained and lay together. So we have a priesthood of all believers, but also a Diaconate of all believers. That's what all of us here who are baptised people about. We're here to serve in the model of Christ the servant: to be available to others in a humble way without judging.
At Sheffield Cathedral there is a homelessness project in the basement of the building. Sometime at midweek services you get homeless people coming up to receive communion next to business people on the lunch hour. That’s a picture of the Kingdom of God: all social expectations about greatest and least fading away around Christ’s table.
I am among you as one who serves.
Jesus is modelling service of others all through his ministry. In the gospels we see him paying attention closely to ordinary people, drawing into conversation those who aren't usually listened to. Healing is one way in which he serves others: feeding is another - all the gospels tell us how Jesus fed large crowds. Jesus teaches the crowds to touch their deepest spiritual needs. Perhaps the most powerful image of Christ the servant is his washing of the disciples feet at the last supper, a humble and intimate giving of care. And this is all part of the bigger picture of Jesus's ministry in the model of the suffering servant, of whom the prophet Isaiah writes. Jesus embodies the suffering servant who freely gives himself even up to death out of love for others.
Throughout the ages the Church has found many ways of expressing Christ’s love of neighbour. In this country many schools and hospitals have their origins in Christian foundations, as does the Hospice movement of the 20th Century. This we should celebrate. And yet at times this impulse has gone horribly wrong. In Ireland there is currently an investigation into church run mother and baby homes where unthinkable cruelty perpetrated: one of many stories of institutional abuse which has infected the church over many decades.
Servant ministry in the image of Christ is grounded in love and practised with humility. Where there is no humility, no love, all too easily the giving of care can become an exercise of power over another person. What the abuse scandals in the church have taught us is that time and again there has been a concern among church leaders for the church’s reputation rather than the needs of survivors of abuse. Maintaining the church’s status and privilege was the number one calculation. We in the church need to learn to kneel with Christ at the feet of those who have survived abuse from those who act in the name of his church.
Yet the abuses committed in the church’s name should not blind to the quiet acts of loving service that permeate the lives of ordinary church communities up and down this land. These are largely unseen and not newsworthy but they are the yeast in the dough of life, they are signs of the kingdom of God in our midst.
One of the things that drew me to Whaley Bridge Parish was the sense of a church where care for others was taken seriously and put into action. The CT lunch club is one shining example of this, as is the individual support given within and beyond the church community. In recent weeks I’ve been meeting with the pastoral team to understand how support of and prayer for others happens and how we can build on the good ministry that is currently happening.
Beryl has told me that in fact care for the needs of others has been in important part of this church’s life for decades. This church developed a helping hands initiative in the 1970s, encouraging good neighbour support. This grew into a volunteer scheme across the town that was effective for 35 years and only closed shortly before the pandemic. Is it time to refresh and revie this scheme I wonder? Or as we emerge from the pandemic will other needs become apparent? We need to be open to discerning this, and to the part our church community can play.
Behold I am among you as one who serves, says the Lord.
Gracious God
Who leads us into new things
And strips us of the comforts we have outgrown,
Give us grace to discern
How we may serve you in this time, in this place
In the name of Christ the servant,
Hear us now
Amen
Revd F. Eccleston, Jan 21.