Sunday 31st October 2010 by Revd. Margaret Massey
Readings: Psalm 113; Hebrews 12:12-17; John 14:25-31
You’re fired!
If you’re familiar with the popular TV show ‘The Apprentice’ you will recognise these as the words that Alan Sugar, self-made millionaire, booms out each week to one unsuccessful candidate for the job of his apprentice.
Well the Good News is, we’re hired. Jesus Christ is our personal invitation to come to God as Jesus’ apprentice. We are invited to join God’s company. This invitation doesn’t come with a one year contract, a six figure salary and something that looks good on our CV; no, it comes with much more. We are invited to a live-long apprenticeship to our master, Jesus Christ. We are invited to a growing-learning relationship, to building up our heavenly CV and many future blessings.
When we accept God’s invitation we join the community of apprentices that Christ draws together. We become part of an alternative society that is formed around him. Being an apprentice is the process of being transformed by God and community is a crucial element of the formation process. The company handbook, the Bible, like all handbooks, was not written for and about isolated individuals; it was written for and about a community of people —Israel in the Old Testament, the church in the New Testament.
There is no such thing as ‘self-made’ or ‘lone ranger Christianity’; we cannot live the Christian life if we don’t join in the fellowship of the church. We are Jesus’ apprentices together with other Christians who serve God in the world —praying together, worshipping together, studying God’s word together, sharing our burdens, and encouraging each other.
Jesus’ life demonstrates this so well for us. At the very beginning of his ministry, after praying and listening to God all night, Jesus chose a small community of twelve disciples to be with him (Mark 3:13—14). Jesus invited them to come to him and join a community formed by his teaching and leadership. And John’s Gospel records that at the very end of his ministry, as he hangs on the cross, Jesus entrusts his mother and beloved disciple to each other to be part of the same family. He says, "Woman, here is your son," and to the beloved disciple, "Here is your mother." By speaking these words Jesus established a new family at the foot of the cross, one that that was centred on him and obedient to God. (John 19:25-27).
‘The Apprentice’ TV show gives a good example of how in our society people will choose to operate as individuals, even though they have been invited to be part of a special group.
We have replaced community belonging and responsibility with individual identity and rights. And sometimes the church is mistakenly viewed as a place for individual worship and fulfilment. Faith is thought to be exclusively an individual concern.
But this is not the faith of Jesus or his apostles, nor is it the understanding of the earliest Christians. The early church never saw itself as a collection of individuals gathering to pursue their own individual spiritual programs for growth. The early church was a vibrant counterculture - an ‘outpost of heaven’. These communities lived in contradiction to the world around them and saw themselves as an entirely new expression of humanity. And today, by his Spirit and through his apprentices, Jesus Christ is calling us to be a vibrant community.
There is a story about a young man from Scotland who was admitted to Oxford University. He moved into a dormitory. His mother worried about how he’d get along with all those snobbish English in a strange land. She gave him a call. “How do you find the English students, Donald?” she asked.
“Och, Mother,” he said, “they are strange and noisy people. The one on my right side bangs his head against the wall all night and won’t stop. The one on the other side shouts and swears until the early hours.”
“Oh, Donald,” said his mother, “How do you put up with such rude, noisy, people?”
“I ignore them, Mother,” said Donald. “I just sit here quietly each night, practicing my bagpipes till the sun comes up.”
Well, the sound of bagpipes reduces me to tears, but for non-Scots I’m sure hearing bagpipes playing into the middle of the night would reduce you to head banging or swearing. But some people are just like Donald. They live as if they were the only ones who matter. We meet them every day on the roads and in the super markets. Maybe in our own family, or dare I say, even here in our church. In fact, maybe we are the ones who are oblivious to our effect on others. But as Jesus’ apprentices we have responsibilities to and for one another.
I don’t know about you but I always find it is much easier to be holy when no one else is around to frustrate me. If there is no one else to challenge me I can fool myself into thinking that I am maturing as a Christian. But I know this is false, real maturity needs to be shown in relationships.
Rick Warren author of ‘The purpose driven life’, says that the phrase “one another” or “each other” is used over fifty times in the New Testament; we are commanded to love each other, pray for each other, encourage each other, forgive each other and many other mutual tasks. These are our responsibilities that God expects us to fulfil through a local fellowship.
Jesus’ apprentices can be encouraged that we are never without help. We’ve just heard in our Gospel reading that Jesus says, ‘But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.’(John 14:26)
Jesus doesn’t simply ask us to do what he would do, he offers us God’s Holy Spirit, how incredible is that! He enables us to do what we could never do ourselves. We can trust is in God’s reconciling love, in God’s power, in the presence of the Spirit to guide us into being God’s light.
Through the Spirit’s power we can honestly recognise the differences amongst us and confess that we may not want to love someone we see as unlovable. However, when we learn and experience God’s love through Jesus, we are enabled to show love to others.
God has drawn us together to be the light of his reconciling love for the whole world. Such love can be given only because Christ’s Spirit dwells in the church and with each member. When the church opens its heart and soul to this love we are transformed into a community that seeks justice rather than revenge, reconciliation rather than domination.
You should be aware that in the New Year, we will be moving to The Hall for our Sunday morning worship together. Church is not a building it is a community of people whom God has invited. Change is always unsettling, therefore as a community we need to take care of and listen to one another. We need to be sensitive to the fact that, even though it is not intented, some may feel they have been left out. If people think that things have not been fully communicated to them it can lead to feelings of hurt and bitterness.
Bitterness has been described as an odourless, colourless and tasteless poison that you administer to yourself and it kills you. But its more lethal than that,it isn’t just personal, it can infiltrate whole church communities.
The overall point of the Hebrews passage we heard was that we should protect the community of God’s people against dissension, bitterness, immorality, and godless living. Together we can strengthen one another and set an example of faithfulness and care. We can keep one another from spreading bitterness, we can give help and we can find help when we need it most, through prayer.
As a community we need to draw together more regularly in prayer. Some good advice I heard recently is: Have you prayed about your problem as much as you’ve talked about it?
Morning Prayer takes place in this parish every day between 9 and 9.30am except on Wednesdays and Sundays. Sometimes there are only 2 of us present and it would be good to have more support.
During this vulnerable time we should all make a special effort to come and join together in prayer, to be quiet with others in a noisy world. Jesus is always near, he is able to do the impossible, he works through his people to bring about his purposes, and, as the master, he loves his apprentices unconditionally.
I’d like to finish by reminding us that God’s invitation exists first of all because of the loving action of God on our behalf. We come together in response to his gracious invitation through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us.
Out of gratitude for all God has done we should draw near to him, keeping faithful, encouraging one another, and enjoying fellowship as Jesus’ apprentices.
Praise be to God; as Alan Sugar would say, we’re hired!
Questions:
- Do you agree that we can’t grow in Christ by ourselves?
- What do you consider to be the fundamental purpose of the ‘church’?
- Reflect on how you feel modern-day discipleship compares against discipleship in the early Church.
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