19th January 2014
There is no such thing as a quiet toy
Acts 11.19-30
Most church problems are sorted out by the people who
know, in the car park afterwards. It’s not worth having the
original meeting at all, when you think about it.
I was given a book for Christmas called ‘Rules for
Reverends’i. It is a humours/serious book dispensing
wisdom from a vicar who has been in the business for over
25 years. Some of his sayings are very pithy and witty and
some of them have much wisdom.
Let me give you a selection:
The one time you answer the phone in an amusing way
will be the one time you wish you hadn’t.
Just because you are on twitter doesn’t make you
acceptable to the young.
Some people will never be satisfied. Find out who they
are, and spend as little time as possible trying to sort
things out for them.
If you let the children of the Junior Church at the biscuits
first, there will be none left for anyone else. Devise a plan
to avoid this. Or frighten the children out of church all
together. That will not be difficult.
There is a right tune for every hymn. It’s just rarely the
one you chose.
No one will notice if the vicar does their bit at the wrong
time. Everyone will notice when the organist does. Cut
them some slack.
If you want something to thrive, threaten to abolish it.
Most people’s worst nightmare is a vicar with a guitar.
This situation is helpfully relieved by saying, ‘I know. I am
your worst nightmare – a vicar with a guitar’ when tuning
up give them a bit of Status Quo or AC/DC
Always accept a resignation
I could go on… I usually do!
The preferred communication style of most churches is
osmosis and telepathy.
We have been looking at some passages from the book of
Acts in the New Testament, since the start of the New
Year. Acts of the Apostles is the story of how the church
of Jesus Christ got under way. The challenges they faced
and the personalities and conflicts that came together to set
the church in motion. Reading through it is very
instructive as we reflect on being church today, in fact just
dealing with people and working in organisations –
whether they are work places, voluntary organisations or
churches.
Last week we looked at the conversion of Paul from
persecutor of Christians to the apostle of the gospel. This
week we see how Paul got integrated into the early church.
The execution of Stephen, which we looked at two weeks
ago, has caused a persecution of the first Christians
scattering them into the surrounding countries. As often
happens – persecution can often strengthen the witness of
those who stand firm during that time of trial. Like the old
saying – when the going gets tough the tough get going.
I was reading The Road Less Travelledii, a classic
bestseller by the Christian Psychiatrist, Scott Peck, the
other day. His first chapter starts with the words ‘life is
difficult’: life poses a series of endless problems. Yet in
the whole process of meeting and solving problems life
has its meaning. Problems call forth courage and wisdom;
indeed they create courage and wisdom. It is only because
of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. As
Benjamin Franklin said ‘those things that hurt instruct’. It
is for that reason that wise people learn not to dread but
actually to welcome problems. Most of us are not so wise
and we try to avoid problems and spend out lives in denial
or in fantasy. This tendency to avoid problems and the
emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis,
in his view, of all human mental illness. Peck says ‘Let us
therefore teach ourselves and our children the necessity of
suffering and the value thereof, the need to face problems
directly and to experience the pain involved but also
working through and learning and growing in the process’.
Bringing this back to the passage in Acts, it is the case that
those who made a stand for their faith, grew in the faith
and saw the church grow as a result. I remember being at
school and not wanting to own up to going to church. It
was embarrassing and I didn’t want to get humiliated and
picked on. Consequently I felt diminished and ashamed.
When I got to university I was starting again and I knew I
had difficult decisions to make about the person I wanted
to be. I decided to come clean about my Christian faith.
Although there was much ribbing and even hostility, my
faith grew because I had made a stand. I’d come out.
Having to speak about my faith made me have to think
through my faith and be more intent about my faith –
because now it was on show. You can see where this goes.
The pain of witnessing actually led to freedom to be who I
truly was and to growth and courage and strength.
These persecuted Christians, in Antioch, in fear of their
lives, still go out telling the good news of the Lord Jesus.
To everyone, even the Gentiles. The power of the Lord
was with them and a great many believers turned to the
Lord.
The news reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem.
These are Jewish Christians who at this stage still believe
that Jesus came for the Jews not the Gentiles. Reading
between the lines, and knowing what comes up later in the
book of Acts about the great controversy in the early
church between Jewish and Gentile Christians, the church
in Jerusalem get a bit alarmed about these goings on in
Antioch and so decide to send Barnabas to Antioch.
Barnabas is basically sent on a snooping mission to see
what is going on. The scriptures say that when he arrived
and saw divine grace at work, he rejoiced and encouraged
them all to hold fast to the Lord with resolute hearts, for
he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
And large numbers were won over to the Lord.
Barnabas saw divine grace at work. Where do we see
divine grace at work? We all know that you walk into a
workplace, a home, a group of people and if you are
intuitive, you can pick up a vibe, a spirit of the place. Are
these people getting on? Is there meanness in the air? Are
they warm or cold? Are they under pressure, under a
cloud, or is there a freedom and lightness and a joy in this
place.
Every group or community or workplace needs the
Barnabas’s of this world. Those who are encouragers.
Barnabas literally means ‘encourager’. He sees the good in
people and rejoices. He has faith – positive trust and hope,
and those kind of people change the atmosphere – they
make a difference.
All organisations need leadership – but you can get bad
leadership and good leadership. It is well documented that
for the church to grow it needs good leadership. What
makes for good leadership? Well that often depends on the
context – what is the challenge before you and what type
of leadership does it require. But I would hazard a guess
that whatever the context being an encourager will get the
best out of the people you are trying to lead. Barnabas was
an encourager.
He could also discern God’s grace at work. It takes
humility and faith and the openness to see where God’s
grace is at work. Carole and I went to visit the Marah
project in Stroud the other week. Marah was set up by the
Churches in Stroud ten years ago to offer a welcome and
hospitality to those on the margins of society – the
homeless, the destitute, those with addictions. They offer a
free lunch three times a week in a church hall. Volunteers
cook and serve the food and offer friendship. They cater
for about a hundred people in the week. They also offer
advocacy for those who want help – to try and get out of
their desperate state. But as we arrived there was some
drug dealing taking place outside the main door. We made
our way past a number of dishevelled looking individuals.
I was recognised by one man who many years ago did one
of our alpha courses but who got in trouble with the law
and spent time in prison for sexually assaulting a young
girl. There has been a lot of that in the news recently –
how we need to pray for this nation! He hasn’t been able
to find work since but he has found God. He has joined the
Salvation Army and has become an evangelist amongst the
Marah clients. It is a costly piece of work the churches are
doing there loving the unlovable. It wasn’t pretty being
there. It wasn’t comfortable being in that place – and yet
there was a whiff of grace. There were plenty of other
whiffs too – but there was a whiff of grace around the
place.
I smell that whiff of grace at other places too – our Open
Door is one place where it’s quite strong. I smell it when
I’m with parents who are caring for their disabled children,
or children coping with disabled parents, coping with
dashed dreams and painful realities but pouring out
unconditional love. I get the whiff of it when I see people
whose lives are far from perfect and often broken yet still
respond bravely to the challenges of life with openness
and generosity. They have a whiff about them: the whiff of
divine grace. I wish we could bottle it.
Barnabas sniffs out this divine grace and realises, despite
his prejudices that the gospel should only be given to the
Jews, recognises that the Holy Spirit is in to breaking
through people’s prejudices and beliefs about how things
should be done. So Barnabas goes off to Tarsus to find
Paul.
out that they have a big disagreement over John Mark and
they decide to go their own way.
In Acts chapter 9 Barnabas, the encourager, is the one who
introduces Paul to the church in Jerusalem. They are all
afraid of him, knowing his reputation for persecuting
Christians, but Barnabas is the one who stands by him and
introduces him. Barnabas brings Paul to Antioch
presumably so that Paul can bring teaching and preaching
to this infant church and establish the mission in that
place.
As we start the week of prayer for Christian unity – the
reality is we are all human. There will be conflict –
differences of opinion – which are often irreconcilable.
Going back to my book ‘Rules for Reverends’ here is one
piece of advice: ‘Work out how to respond to conflict,
because there will be some. The Body of Christ is made up
of human beings, after all. And the Holy Spirit doesn’t
make it easier. Look at Corinth’. I could add - look at
Barnabas and Paul, look at Antioch and so on…
Again and again the church needs good leadership. It
needs not only the people who can take the work of Christ
forward, as prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit, but it
also needs the Barnabas’s of this world who in prayer and
humility can spot the very person that God is calling.
For Barnabas to bring Paul into an already flourishing
group of disciples, which he had not founded, must have
been potentially difficult. There might have been
resentments, personality clashes and the like. Tragically
the close bond between Paul and Barnabas would itself
fracture. Juts read Acts 15 and Galatians 2 and you find
But for the moment in this story there is a honeymoon
period and that kind of thing sometimes happens when a
work of God is being established. Testing will come later:
the advice is get the roots deep now while you can!
And out of all that (as there often is when God’s work is
going forward and there is a whiff of divine grace around
the place) there emerges a mood of glad generosity.
Agabus, a prophet, predicts famine. There was indeed
recorded a severe famine in Palestine in 46-48 AD. At
once the Christians do not say to themselves ‘How shall
we survive, can we look after ourselves – will we be
OK?’. Instead they say ‘how can we help those who will
be in a worse position than ourselves?’ I smell that whiff
of grace again.
The Lent course this year will be about the economy, our
possessions and our money. The course material, which is
very challenging but also very good, comments that the
most moral document in our possession is our bank
statement, as it records what it is that we really value: how
we spend our time, how we get our income, what we
spend it on. You could do the same for a church budget.
Are our Christian values reflected in what we find
valuable?
Luke the writer of Acts notes the believers are called
‘Christians’ for the first time in. Having the name
‘Christian’ is a huge responsibility. I wish I had a pound
for every time someone has said ‘call yourself a Christian’.
I can understand why Bono, the lead singer with the rock
group U2 when asked was he a Christian said he would
like to be but he wasn’t a good advert. Perhaps he should
be called more of a fan than a follower. Dorothy Day a
civil rights activist in the States said "Don't call me a saint
-- I don't want to be dismissed so easily," and Soren
Kierkegaard's, "Once you label me you negate me."
For good or for ill we are called Christian. And there are
lots of types of us – hence this week of prayer for
Christian unity. The first Christians were not just known
as the King’s people which is literally what Christian
means. They were known as people who precisely because
the king was Jesus himself, were committed at the deepest
level to giving themselves in love to Jesus, to one another
and to all in need. They had the whiff of grace about them.
Pray God that we may have too.
i
ii
Rule for Reverends by J Fletcher, pub by BRF
Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck, pub Arrow