Christ the King, Listening to the Voice

Sunday 25th November

John 18: 33-38
1 Corinthians 16: 13-21

Have you any last words? The prisoner’s reply was ambiguous.

“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

I have been asked by a few people what I will say in this sermon? It sounded like offering my last will-and-testament!

I never planned to be a preacher, nor a pastor. It just happened, and I learnt on the job.

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One of my overseas mentors, the late Eugene Peterson, taught me a deal about ministry, especially about how difficult it is in a culture like ours and how there’s always the temptation to run away, and find something better to do.

God knows, I felt that temptation on a number of occasions whilst also wrestling with this vocation which has spanned close to four decades when I began working as a parish community worker.

Each of the placements I have served has shaped me, but two have blessed in significant ways – Clayton-Wesley in SA and Koonung Heights. But all have enriched me working with lay leaders, finding ways of sharing the gospel of Jesus, and exploring faith, love and doubts.

My experience is that Christ- seed has been scattered, people have worked diligently but there has not been a lot of easy fruit . Practicing church has been challenging as we moved from an easy cultural Christianity to a challenging missional setting.

But, Jesus never said it was going to be easy ( or was that someone else?!?)

In his book, Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene draws on the story of Jonah, that prophet who wanted to be anywhere but where God was calling and  Eugene strongly challenged the idea that churches are religious businesses.

He quite shocked me, because although I agreed, no one was saying this aloud. The shop talk was often about church growth, renewal, revival, the good old days.

“We hear tales of glitzy, enthusiastic churches and wonder what in the world we are doing wrong that our people don’t turn out that way under our preaching.. On close examination, though, it turns out that there are no wonderful congregations.

 Hang around long enough and sure enough there are gossips who won’t shut up, furnaces that malfunction, sermons that misfire, disciples who quit, choirs that go flat – and worse. Every congregation is a congregation of sinners. As if that weren’t bad enough, they all have sinners for pastors.”

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First Corinthians is one of my favourite letters by the Apostle Paul. He was rather reluctant originally to listen to Jesus. For quite some time he persecuted the fledgling Church, being convinced that they were atheists. However, he was bowled over by the famous Damascus Road revelation which changed everything.

Paul is often heard as legalistic, misogynistic, dour and demanding – but I disagree with that conclusion. It cannot be made if we read his authentic letters carefully, with the help of close interpreters of his ancient letters.

Paul often expressed his indebtedness to men and women crucial in establishing the young churches. That might not sound surprising, but in the context of his day it is a clear indication of how ancient boundaries of gender, status and position were subverted in the Christ communities.

Recall that famous egalitarian text in Galatians 3. “As many of you were baptised into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” What does the clothing of Christ look like? Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness and self-control to name a few virtues.

At the conclusion of his letters Paul often named people who shared in the cause of the gospel. We heard the end of 1st Corinthians which has a shorter list, than Romans 16 which names couples and  singles, some with unpronounceable names ( so I was having mercy on our bible readers!)

In every congregation I have served there have been women and men using their gifts, sharing their wisdom, building up the community of faith. If I listed people in my experience it would be long, and mean little to many here – except for people like Margaret, Joe, Harriet, Sue, Philip, Rose, Ray, Voon, Simon & Kay …. and many others in my five placements.  Thank you.

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One of the reasons I was snaffled into ministry ( had the Call, as the Selection Committee in 1980 discerned) was that I was always an exploring reader.

I think a few of you have noticed, and been the beneficiaries or victims of that addiction!  I like to share what I am reading as I have been stirred, challenged, provoked, sustained in living the questions.

I determined to share what I had learnt and was discovering and so adult faith education became an expression of the heart of my ministry.  I have lost count of the number of courses I have prepared, adapted, led and the book discussion groups that have gathered to have head and heart conversations.

Around 20 years ago a few colleagues and I began a lunch-time discussion group for interested ministers and laypeople.

We began by spending several months discussing “Liberating the Gospels: reading the Bible with Jewish eyes” Jack Spong stirred the group vigorously ….

A largely lay  group began exploring questions of faith, evolving Christianity and the culture and shape of church.  No issue was off-limits and the ground rules included agreeing to disagree as needed. It was the seeds of the Progressive Christian Network in SA.

We were in no doubt that Christians in Australia were living in an increasingly secular society and the working conditions for ministers and lay leaders was increasingly complex. No longer could you establish a church with a building,  a hymnal and a handbook of denominational regulations!

Questions of belief and unbelief became sharper every few years, especially in the wake of new atheism. R.S. Thomas wrote poems which captured my own struggles with the experience of God.

It is this great absence/that is like a presence,/
That compels me to address it without hope/
Of a reply. It is a room I enter …

Encounters with God cannot be conjured up, mystical moments manufactured or the gospel of Jesus the Christ be assumed. Yet the call is to listen to the Voice, the I Am, still singing the cosmos into being.

Assumptions of Western Christendom were being undermined by a new secular world in which the church felt itself sidelined. Everything had changed – Christianity had been culturally moved to private opinion, rather than being public truth.

Let’s go back to Eugene Peterson. He was quite orthodox on a surface reading, but listen carefully and he was an instructor in navigating the hazards of church, beliefs, action and ministry. He also was a reading pastor which comforted me.

In a searing passage he wrote “ The pastors (of America) have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches.

They are preoccupied with shopkeepers’ concerns  – how to keep the customer happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customer will lay out more money.”

I didn’t need a lot of convincing that was not my calling, but at there same time there was a lot of stuff to do to help a faith community attend to its vocation as Christians, both in mission and maintaining the community of faith.

One of my colleagues, Jillian, told me of the wisdom of the Chinese sage, Lao-Tse.

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.”

 Being the body of Christ is a shared journey for life together founded on the life, witness, suffering and resurrection of Jesus, icon of the invisible God.

I am fascinated by Jesus – the myriad of ways he has been, and is understood and embodied.

I am inspired by those who take his call to discipleship seriously, and and share the concerns of those who struggle with Christian ideas as they are traditionally believed.

These were twin poles of my experience as I bore witness to the loves and doubts of Christian faith, the unending exploration into G.O.D. whom Christians’ believe is revealed in Jesus living, dying and rising

His response to Pilate echoes down the centuries:

“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth. Everyone who listens to the truth listens to my voice.”

 How do we listen to that voice?

Through the scriptures,

        in breaking bread together,

exploring questions of faith and doubt,

in building up one another in hope and love.

May you continue to build on these spiritual practices as you continue to live  as a Christ-community.

Rev David Carter