Year B - Proper 20 - The Centre of the Centre - Mark 9.30-37

My own personal reflection of the mission of the Church has coincided nicely with this week's Gospel - Mark 9.30-37. This pivotal part of the narrative marks the end of the Christ's mission and the beginning of his final southward journey to Jerusalem. We are told in the opening verse that Jesus passes through the Galilee anonymously with his disciples. This confirms that he senses that the period of outreach has finished. 'For he was teaching his disciples saying to them - The Son of Man is to betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three after being killed, he will rise again.'

However the disciples dont understand what Jesus is saying. The reality of either Good Friday or Easter seems incomprehensible. Instead on the way to Capernaum the disciples are arguing amonst themselves as to who is greatest? Two little footnotes here with regards to the passage. First, it is the disciples not the Twelve who are having this discussion. There may have been hundreds if not thousands - we are not told. But notice that it is the inner group, the Twelve who are taken aside. Secondly, the return to Capernaum is important too because Jesus begins his ministry there and it seems to in this Gospel the centre of his ministry.

So Jesus returns to the centre. But in many ways the followers are not pyschologically at the centre - at the heart of what it means to follow. Then he does an extraordinary thing - he places at the centre of the centre - a child. 'Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, he said to them - 'Whosever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.' The adults have been arguing who is the super-follower, whose had the greatest converts, whose done the most miracles, who has walked the most miles. But Jesus puts a child as the greatest.

I've spend a lot time wondering what the next thirty years is going to be like for the Church - nationally and in my own parish. I think we have underestimated the sheer power and influence of secularisation in Britain and the way it has decimated our congregations. The belief used to be that churches would always be filled with grannies and toddlers. The idea was that as people got older they returned to worship. But new research now points to the fact that they are not returning in riper years because they were never here in the first place. We can now speak of three generations of unchurched people. So our supply of returners is drying up.

Yet we are asked by the leadership of the Church to be missionary in our land. We have to be 'fit for mission' and a 'mission shaped' Church with lots of 'Fresh Expressions of Church' and have events like Alpha and 'Back to Church Sunday'. Now I'm not try to poo poo this because there is a lot of inspiratinal stuff here. But I think there needs to a minority report which challenges the presumptions that people are going to return in their droves - if only we make our churches a little bit more user friendly. Also, I sense that in many typical congregations, a small number of people are being asked to run the building, go to the endless meetings, pay the quota to the diocese, and then be evangelists outreaching into the community. And again, many churches do excellent work but many many more struggle.

Could we not at an epoch where we have to say to ourselves - has not this period of mission ended? Is it not the case that the majority of people in our land have not responded to the Gospel. Have we not to quote the psalmist -'Sit down by the rivers of Babylon and weep while we remembered Zion.' Is it not now the time to consolidate, regroup and come back to the centre? I dont think this is defeatist or negative. The greatest moment in our country's military history was Dunkirk - a retreat. If Dunkirk had failed we could have lost the War.

My guess is that our ecclesiastical Dunkirk would involve putting the child at the centre of the centre. By this I mean supporting families who trying to be little churches in their own homes. I dont mean house churches - but rather that we must have many special families in these diocese where Mum and Dad practice and are trying to live out Christian life centred on the home. Because of the age spread of most typical congregations they find it hard to find Sunday worship with people their own age. Their children may be the only children coming on Sunday. Yet surely, these people should be the mainstream not the exception?

So my controversial advice to the bishops is to say that we need to plant in each diocese a number of centres exclusively for families to come and worship. I would envisage that this would mean five to ten churches like this per diocese. Each would have a membership of at least a hundred so that they had the possibility of growth. They need to be this size so that newcomers can come and see what it is like without feeling they stick out. The other reason for a large congregation, (that is beyond the size of the a small 'club') is to draw on a lot more resources that can currently be shared.

For church like the one I lead in Salcombe, it may be that it is not possible to be a centre for families - even with our new reordering. However, thinking outside the box, could we not be a centre for families in the 'high season' where the population goes up from 1800 to 25,000?

Church Reordering

Occasionally I have heard some folks complain about the reordering of the church. Thankfully we havent had the 'pew wars' that other congregations have suffered. 95% of the membership have been behind the plans to reorder the church and many of the elderly parishioners are really excited. But we have had one or two negative comments this summer from non-church people now the building work is in full swing. I do find it hard to get my head around the idea of a pew being a fundamental to someone's faith. Surely what is of greater dignity is the person, made in the image of God, sat on the pew (or chair).

Interestingly enough most churches go through somekind of major reordering every few centuries. These buildings would fall apart is work like this is not done to this. In fact, as the underfloor heating is put in this week the builders have found that a small number of beams supporting the foundation are rotten. The base of the pulpit was completely rotten. (I knew there was a reason I dont use it!) So in our reordering we are able to do things which will ensure that this place of worship survives the next millennium and doesnt collapse into the harbour.

Put on the Armour of God

After ten hours on the road, numerous toddler squabbles, and one or two near misses, we stopped for supper at the Dartmoor Lodge, Ashburton. We were on the final leg of our journey back from Aberdeen. Parking the car, I slumped against the steering wheel, only to hear Nathaniel (3) whisper, ‘Luke – I am your father’.

It’s the best line in cinema (in my opinion) from the Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars), the film that brought us the cosmic struggle to rid the galaxy of the dark side of the Force.

It resonated for me with Ephesians 6. 11-17, my favourite bit of the New Testament, with the injunction to put on the armour of God because ‘of the cosmic powers of this present darkness.’ I like to use it in the baptismal liturgy when the child or adult is anointed with the oil of baptism. I think it is particularly powerful to do when baptising boys because the prevailing British culture wrongly sees the Gospel as something largely for girls. We rarely speak of the Church Militant or being a spiritual warrior for Christ.

Perhaps I should have presided in a suit of armour rather than an alb, stole, and chasuble? There is in fact a mosaic in Ravenna of a beardless Christ dressed as a Roman Soldier. Could we imagine a Ninja Jesus, or a Christ in Khaki battle dress, or Jesus paratrooper?

I am not advocating violence, crusades or some kind of Christian Jihad but rather the idea of the armour of God and the cosmic powers calls us not to sleepwalk in the task of being a Christian in the world? Remember Jesus said to the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was stormed by violent men (and women) and that these violent people were taking from them. In other words God’s revolution was being snatched from the luke warm and given to the enthusiasts for the Gospel. Likewise, the letter to the Ephesians wants us be to tuned into the bigger picture of what the Church is all about. The Church was devised not in committees, vestries or sanctuaries but in the mind of God before creation. The Church is the central instrument of salvation in the World. And as the Church increases her territory so she finds resistance, confrontation, injustice.

The battle that the Church finds itself is not simply against injustices or people who don’t like our religion. The battle, Ephesians is telling us, has an undercurrent. It is a battle for the heart, for imagination, for the soul. It is war of ideas. Even if you find it alien the concept of a devil or a supernatural dark side, believe that we are fighting a war of ideas.

In the news recently has been the passionate debate about the urgency to provide soldiers in Afghanistan with more helicopters, land vehicles, and personal body armour. Having half the kit, is almost pointless. The write of Ephesians clearly calls us to be strong in the Lord by putting on the whole armour. The emphasis here is on the whole, rather than part. All bits of kits are crucial, in many ways it’s a mindset as well as discipline. We need for our armour, a sense of salvation, an understanding of the Scripture in our life, the canniness to know untruth and heresy, and the shield of a mature faith to protect us.


Finally, and core to our armour is the breastplate. This protects the heart and lungs, the core of our being in other words. Ephesians links the breastplate with righteousness. This is not self-righteousness but rather you and me doing the right thing. Abbot Jamison has written a book called Finding Happiness which I would eagerly recommend. He wisely points out that most of us want happiness but when pushed struggle to define it? Monasticism understands it as the pursuit of what is good, namely living a virtuous life. If we do the wrong thing, if we choose the easy path, (or to quote Yoda – choose the ways of the Sith and not the Jedi) then will we know true happiness? Will not our conscience be racked and our spirituality fail? Surely this is at the heart of Jesus’ first sermon the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) which itself starts with the word ‘Happy’. Happiness is doing the right thing.

I want to end with the words of Soldiers of Christ Arise

Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul,Take every virtue, every
grace, and fortify the whole;Indissolubly joined, to battle all proceed;But arm
yourselves with all the mind that was in Christ, your Head.