Other Harvest

THE OTHER HARVEST

"John, I think you had better go back to your drawing board," I said. "Do you realise that you had more statues in Church this morning than people! "

I had just finished preaching at a Patronal Festival of one of our inner city churches.

There were over 10,000 people living in that large residential parish. There were nine people at the Eucharist and there were sixteen statues!

Hence I turned to John, the parish priest, who was once an ordinand of mine, and said, "l think you had better go back to your drawing board". I then hastily retreated back to Australia, where I had been working for the previous twelve years.

Well, someone had to say it!

Like so many people John had become so tied up with keeping the show on the road that he had lost sight of what the church could be.

And that is the problem facing so much of the Church of England today.

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For the past 30 odd years we€ have kept ourselves so busy with getting our house in order that we are in danger of losing sight of what the Church could be.

First there was the Paul Report, followed by the Morely Report, followed by the Sheffield Report, each concerned about the most efficient use of manpower - or perhaps I should say "woman power" and the necessary pastoral reorganisation.

Then there has been the whole subject of Synodical Government seeking to give recognition to the laity's necessary

involvement with the Church's decision making process. This I understand is shortly to be reviewed!

We have also been caught up in liturgical renewal together with the rest of the Anglican communion, with Series 1, 2 and 3 and then with its consolidation with the Alternative Service Book. This too is due to be reviewed at the turn of the century!

And of course you cannot think of the Church without thinking of money. As the value of past endowments has been eroded by inflation, so the living Church has been expected to contribute more and more and clergy have found themselves needing to direct more energy and time toward the hands that feed them.

Ministry has also continued to occupy the Church's agenda, including both lay and ordained, currently focussing upon the Ordination of women to the Priesthood and Episcopate. We have also looked at the way senior Church and local appointments are made.

The Church of England has also been involved in the search for Christian unity, in particular the failed Anglican and

Methodist talks, and the Anglican and Roman Catholic Consultation issuing in the ARCIC reports, 1, 2 and 3.

Finally, there has been the whole subject of authority under discussion within the Church, and the current polarisation of positions between the Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals on one side, and the so called Liberals on the other.

To be fair, there have been some glimmers of hope when the Church endeavoured to look outside itself. In particular the reports "Faith in the City" and more recently, "Faith in the Countryside" and some 8 more of the Board of Social

Responsibility, especially "The Church and the Bomb". And of course, God managed to sneak onto the agenda a couple of times through the outspokenness of the Bishops John Robinson and David Jenkins.

Nevertheless, by and large, the Church has been inward looking over the past 30 years. It has tended to leave evangelism to the Evangelical and Charismatic sections of the church. It has consumed valuable time and energy, to say nothing of consuming tons of paper just to keep the show on the road.

In short the Church of England has become much more exclusive than it. was, say, thirty years ago in response to the secularisation of society, which is also an observation of John Habgood in his book Church and Nation in a Secular Age.

In fact we€ are not so unlike the people of God at about the 4th Century BC, when that unknown author wrote a religious propaganda leaflet entitled The Book of Jonah. Incidentally, in order to make the message more palatable to the sensitive ears of his time, the author dressed the story up in the 9th Century BC costume.

Aware of their special relationship to God, as his "chosen people", the Jews had interpreted their status in terms of

privilege, rather than of purpose. So the author tries desperately to open their eyes to their wider responsibilities, outside the narrow confines of their current religious life.

The story of Jonah is so well known you don't need me to repeat it all, except to remind you of its salient features.

The first attempt by God to get Jonah to go and preach repentance to the City of Nineveh failed, and he finished up

inside the belly of a big fish.

The second attempt by God was more successful. In fact as far as Jonah was concerned, too successful! Well over 120,000 people responded to his sermon by repenting. God also appears to have been taken by surprise. He changed his mind and did not destroy the city as he had originally planned.

Feeling let down by God, Jonah went off and sulked. We are told that God caused a vine to grow up and offer protection to Jonah from the fierce eastern sun. Then he did the dirty on Jonah. He sent a worm along to eat up the vine, and thus exposed Jonah to the hot burning sun.

We are told Jonah protested at God's action, feeling sorry for the vine. And so the story comes to its climax. The sorrow self-centred Jonah felt for the vine should have been directed away from himself towards the people of Nineveh!

In other words, the author is endeavouring to shake the Church out of its exclusive mentality, to look beyond itself. To see its unique relationship to God in terms of purpose rather than of privilege. He is seeking to encourage the Church to come from behind its ghetto existence and become the Church for all men and women, both Jews and non-Jews alike. In short, to be an evangelistic Church.

And this brings me to Chapter 21 of John's Gospel.. Here we had a vision of what the Church could be. I say 'could' rather than 'should', because it is up to us to respond to the vision we are given.

After a fruitless night's fishing, the disciples are told by the risen Christ to put down their nets yet again. This time they catch an enormous harvest of fish. So many, in fact, that they quite expected the net to break.

Once ashore, reunited with Jesus who they thought was dead, the tired and hungry disciples first sit down and count the catch before tucking into a hearty breakfast. We are told there were 153 fish!

A likely story! Or should I say "A typical fisherman's story"!

It was St Jerome, this time in the 4th century AD, who pointed out in his commentary in the Book of Ezekiel that the Greeks believed that there were actually 153 different kinds of fish in the sea. Whether that is true or false I cannot say. The point is the author of the Fourth Gospel believed it, and so did those to whom he wrote his gospel. In other words, we€ are given a picture of the universal mission of the Church. A Church which is inclusive - capable of including everyone. This is a picture of what the Church 'could be'. But that of course, depends upon the attitude of those who are its members.

Just as the First Evangelist concludes his gospel with the divine command to preach the gospel to all, so the Fourth

Evangelist echoes the same sentiments at the end of his gospel.

It is a command we cannot hear too often. That is why the Lambeth Fathers decided, in their wisdom, to make the final years of the twentieth century century a "Decade of Evangelism". They were taking us back to the "drawing board" as I tried to take John back to his "drawing board", to remind us of the divine command to evangelise. To share the good news.

To use that over worked expression, they were challenging the Church to move from maintenance towards mission. To move away from being an exclusive Church, towards being an inclusive Church.

My friends, good housekeeping is only important as a means to an end. The potential harvest is great! The opportunities are enormous! The need is beyond question!

Are your arms wide enough to embrace everyone? Is your heart big enough to reach out and touch those outside your fellowship?

Never forget those prophetic words of Archbishop Michael Ramsey in the 1960s, "A Church which lives to itself will die to itself". Unless you are prepared to put evangelism at the top of your personal and parish agenda, you too could finish up with more statues than people in your church!

And now to the God of the harvest, who encourages us to launch out into the deep, be all honour, glory, dominion and power, today and forever. Amen.