Introduction
On Thursday last week the Church marked the Ascension of Jesus at the end of his earthly ministry - most Christians, like us, observe this event today. The Ascension marks the end of Jesus' presence in bodily form on earth, and is a prelude to the sending of the Holy Spirit on the disciples at Pentecost. It also marks the fact that the responsibility for spreading the gospel has moved on from Jesus as we heard in today's reading.
Jesus and Gabriel.
There is an old story that when Jesus had ascended into Heaven the first person he bumped into was the Archangel Gabriel.
Gabriel: Oh, hi Jesus, how's it going?
Jesus: Not bad, thanks, been a bit busy recently, but glad to be back home.
Gabriel: So did you convert everybody then?
Jesus: er, no.
Gabriel: Oh, so how many did you really convert then?
Jesus:
Well its hard to say, really, I worked with 12 men very closely, and 11
of
them are doing ok. There are some women who are superb too, but
those who
really got what the message was, are only really a handful.
Gabriel: Oh, so what is going to happen now then?
Jesus: Ah, I have left my work to that handful of followers
Gabriel: Oh, do you think they will achieve anything…………?
The Great Commission
Jesus' ascension means many things. It is his final vindication by God that he has conquered death and sin and now sits with God on high in the place of royal victory. But it also means that we have been commissioned, like those first disciples to continue his work on earth. This is the meaning of today's gospel where we are commanded to do three things
Go
First we are commanded to go to all the nations. Like those first disciples we are called to journey into the mission fields of our world with Jesus. When I was a child my church understood this call to mission in quite a traditional way. We used to pray for the mission priests who worked in other countries, we used to collect money to support them and every few months a woman would come round to our home and collect the money we had raised in a sort of red plastic piggy bank for the mission priests. We used to pray for their conversion and this, we thought, was mission. In many ways we were right, but we forgot about the mission fields of our own cultures.
In MCC we have been called to go in particular to one particular nation. We are open to all, and we rejoice in the great diversity of our congregational life. But we were raised up by God to have a particular, though not exclusive, ministry with the lgbt people. The Greek word translated as nation in today's reading is ethnos - where we get the words ethnic and ethnicity from. It can mean "nation" but it can also mean "people" or "group" or "race" or "tribe". Our calling is to go to our tribe, and announce the glad tidings that love is about more than how we look, that happiness is about more than a pill or a bottle, and that fulfilment is about more than what we wear or where we party. We are called to go to our community. We do this in many ways, through our website that Philip maintains so well, through the posters that Dan puts up in the Village, through the work so many of us do at Pride when we staff a stall, through the media work we do. All this is about proclaiming to our community that God cares for them and that in Jesus we can find true freedom from all that we cling to and which drags us down.
Grow
The next part of our mission is to grow. Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. This process involves growing. In my time as a priest within MCC I have seen many different stages of congregational life in this and in the two other MCCs I have been a member of. In each of these MCCs we have always wanted to grow, but have been a bit put off by the idea of changing. We want more people, but we don't want to change too much! One of the consequences of growing is that we will change and develop and become ever more like the church that God wants us to be. One of the things I rejoice in here is how open we are to growing. Over the last 9 months we have doubled in our regular atenders here each Sunday and this has not caused too many pains around growing. Over the next year we are called to continue to grow, to continue to work in the media, to continue to invite people through the web, through pride, and through personal invitation to come along and check us out, to see if this is where God is calling them to be. Our calling to grow means we are all responsible not only for inviting folks to come along but for welcoming them warmly when they arrive!
Give
The last part of the call in today's reading is to give. Jesus doesn't explicitly say this, but he does tell us to go and make disciples. The consequence of this is to give. In order to make a disciple we need to give of our time, our energy, our prayers, our love, our emotions and our money. Whenever we join someone else on a journey we give of ourselves. We listen to their pains, we hold them through their tears, we laugh with them in their joy, we give of our time and our energy to support those we love and help them as they help us to become better disciples of the Lord Jesus.
Yesterday Philip, Dan and I met up to plan more fully the weekend away we are having in the middle of June. Dan realised he had been in MCC for 10 years, Philip 11 and I realised that in October I will have been part of MCC for 18 years. I have been in MCC Manchester for 9 years now. I felt a bit sorry for Dan in the middle of the session as we went for a meal and Philip and I began to slip into our anecdotage! Philip and I started to recall what MCCM was like 9 years ago. It was interesting.
9 years
ago:
- we had between 10 and 12 men a week attending.
- No women
came,
- no transgendered people.
- We had no pastor and could not afford
to pay any stipend nor expenses
- Our media profile was appalling and the
church considered closing
- Our budget was less than £2,000 a
year.
9 years on the picture is quite different!
- Over
the last few months our average attendance has been in the mid 30s. We see over
50 people a month who attend once a month or more. Our mailing list has over 200
names on it. We have over 100 people on our email list.
- We pay £11,000 for the
stipend - just under a half time salary. All my expenses are paid.
-
Our media
profile has been superb. In the past year we have appeared many times on local
radio, on national Radio 2, in the Independent, on the Heaven and Earth Show and
I have been invited to address students at both Manchester and Dublin
Universities.
- Far from closing we are flourishing and we are one of two churches in
our region that are licensed to train new clergy.
- Our budget this year is
over £28,000 and we will meet it. A 1400% rise since 1996.
All this has happened not because you have a "super pastor" - believe me you don't! It hasn't happened because of any quick fix solution, but it has happened because we have consistently and sacrificially given of our time, our talents and our money. We are part of something we believe in and we want others to be part of this too.
Conclusion
We are all in MCC because people before us obeyed Jesus' great commission to go, to grow and to give. I joined MCC 18 years ago. I went along because of a personal invitation, although I had vaguely heard of it beforehand. I stayed because of the hard work that had happened by many faithful people who had been building up the church in the UK in the previous 15 years. Someone invited me - they followed Jesus' call to go. They welcomed me and followed Jesus' call to grow - even though including me meant changing. The people before me in MCC gave sacrificially as an investment in the future of God's work to our people.
We have all benefited from those who were following God's call. Now, those of us who have been here for years, and those of us who are new, have to do the same as those who were here before us. We are all called to go and invite people to meet God here, to grow and welcome those new folks into our hearts and lives and to give, regularly, consistently and sacrificially of our time, our talents and our money so that our work in the mission fields of our world might be fruitful. This is the work our risen and ascended Lord calls us to do.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.