A few years ago I went to visit some friends of mine who went to a large church on the edge of a busy city. The place was packed with funky families and enthusiastic worshippers who all seemed to know each other and had things to do and places to go during the service. The music was great, the sermon entertaining, informative, profound, challenging and short, and the coffee was fantastic.
It made me feel a bit dissatisfied with the church I was attending, great as it was, over towards Rugby. I spoke to my vicar about it and we had a chat about what made for a ‘perfect church’. He caused me to reflect that for me perhaps my dissatisfaction arose from my view that the perfect church would be a place where people think like me, worship like me and share my religious views, a place where we are always in harmony as we journey together, a place where I can do what I like. Is that what church is about, he asked me.
We’ve looked at worship being about God, not us, and how it is a 24/7 thing. Also looked at some of what we do here on Sunday mornings in relation to the early church.
Today we’re going to think a bit about what it mean for us and those we know that we are people who worship God, and maybe we can reflect on what it means to us to be a part of this church.
Our reading today said something very important about what it means to be a Christian, about how we are to behave and to act towards others-we should value others and do things for them, copying the way that Jesus values us and has done the most amazing thing for us-taking all our mistakes and bad behaviour so that we can be best friends with the God who made the universe. It says we should be ‘like-minded’, trying to be as Jesus-like as we can. It is a great encouragement to work to make the church all it can be. Indeed the passage actually tells us how to have a perfect church…it tells us that it is about each of us and how we think and act. We need a new attitude, one that comprises of a heart that is open and receptive to God.
Sunday Club rules-"have fun", "listen carefully", "be kind" etc. are the rules that the children themselves agreed would make the group the very best for all of them, and these rules say something about how the children downstairs are to value and respect each other and do things for someone other than themselves.
Actually, those rules aren’t just for downstairs-kids, they are for when you get upstairs too. And when you get home, and when you’re at school etc . They give guidance on how to not just think about yourself. They help you to be more like Jesus.
And actually, they aren’t rules just for the children, either. We grown-ups can take guidance from them, too. They provide a good template for how we are to behave when we’re in church, valuing others above ourselves and looking not to our own interests but to the interests of others. It’s a real challenge. Who are these ‘others’, these ones with interests different from our own? Is it the rest of the congregation? The children? Or is it bigger than that? Could it be the guests we have with us today as we celebrate these wonderful baptisms? Could it be even bigger than that-could it be everyone in this neighbourhood who isn’t here? What a challenge that is, to try to put their needs before our own, particularly when we come to church on Sunday. How might that change how we behave when we are here? What might people think of us if we all always put them before ourselves, finding out what they need and trying to serve them?
But by doing so we imitate Christ, and look what the outcome of his humility was-every knee bowed, every tongue confessing, everyone accepting that Jesus is Lord and worshipping him.
If we can act gently and for the good of others in all that we do, whether at church, in Sunday Club, wherever we are, we are imitating Jesus, and by doing so we are helping our family, our friends, our church family, our class mates, our work mates, our neighbours to discover something of the love of Christ. And then perhaps it will rub off on their family, friends, class mates, work mates etc. and we will see more of the love of God throughout this neighbourhood. And if that goes well maybe we’ll see more of the love of God throughout this City, throughout the Midlands, throughout Britain until every knee will bow and every tongue confess, until everyone knows that Jesus is Lord and that God loves them.
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