Introduction
Last week we started a four part sermon series about Growing in God. We reflected that as a church we grow in four ways - we grow in spirituality, in maturity, in service of others and in numbers. We looked last week at practical things we can do to help us grow in spirituality and I hope you have used the prayer booklets as an aid to your prayers this week. We have more to give out this week - don't worry if you weren't here, or if you didn't use them, you have another chance this week for the next set.
We said that these four aspects of our growth are like four legs on a chair or a stool - they all have to grow at the same rate or the chair, or stool, is not usable. In the past we have concentrated on growing in numbers at the expense of the other four areas. We hope that now we have learnt a bit more about this, we will have a more holistic approach to church growth and that we will respond to the call of God to grow.
Will you pray with me?
Lord Jesus,
Help us to become more mature people,
People who are honest with others, and ourselves,
People who are part of the solution, not the problem
And people who are generous in spirit,
So that your church may become all that you dream of.
Amen.
The Reading
The reading today, from the book of Exodus, tells of a formative part of Israel's journey through the wilderness. The people of Israel had seen many marvellous things that God had done for them. They had been released from slavery, they had been led, dry shod, through the sea, they had seen the army of Pharaoh drowned and they had seen God's miraculous care for them as they were led by fire at night and by a pillar of cloud during the day. Each morning they received manna, or bread, from God. More than any other people they saw and experienced the loving kindness of our God. They were where it was at, they were at the centre of God's blessing - yet they mucked it up because they were not yet mature in their faith journey.
Instead of doing as they were asked, they wanted to worship in the way that other nations worshipped - they wanted idols to worship. So they melted down all that gold and made two golden calves. Some people think that what they wanted was to show that their God was invisible, as usually calves such as these were foot rests for the statue of a deity, by not putting a statue on the calves they were trying to make some claim about God being spirit. However, God knew that such actions would lead to idolatry in a people who were not yet seasoned and mature. Moses came back down the mountain and blazed with anger at the faithlessness and immaturity of the people.
What about us?
What about us, I hear you think. What has this ancient story about a group of freed slaves falling into idol worship got to do with us, we don't worship idols? We are mature, aren't we?
At first glance this is what I thought when I was looking at the reading for today's service, but if you scratch below the surface, we can see some alarming similarities. First, we too have seen marvellous things that God has done for us. God has lifted us up, saved us, changed us, turned our lives around. We have come into living relationships with God, we have experienced the forgiveness won by the death of Jesus on the cross, we have felt the Holy Spirit within us making us strong, we have found this church where we can worship with fear of prejudice or debates about gay bishops.
And yet, we too are often tempted to worship other gods. Isn't it ironic that the things which are good for us are not very tempting. I know lettuce is good for me but somehow the idea of having a nibble on a lettuce leaf is not so tempting as tucking into a Yorkie bar! I know that prayer is good for me but somehow having 10 minutes more in bed is so much more tempting. I know that coming to church on a beautiful day like today is good for me, yet it is so much more tempting to do the 101 other things that tempt us on a beautiful afternoon.
We have seen the wonderful things that God has done for us and we, despite these things, are tempted to do stuff which is bad for us and displeasing to God.
Maturity
What we need is to grow in maturity. Last week we looked at growing spiritually, we can do this as we grow, hand in hand, in maturity. As we grow in maturity we find that we are grow more as faithful disciples of Jesus and as a church.
Growing in maturity involves three things: first a willingness to deal directly with others, second a willingness to be part of the solution not the problem and third a willingness to take the Biblical teaching on giving seriously.
Dealing Directly
Whenever we are in an organisation we will come across gossip. Now gossip is not necessarily bad. All organisations have good gossip - who is going out with who, what's so and so been up to, have you heard about? This is good and healthy and part of the human need to be in community. Gossip, however, can also be poisonous. When we hear bad things about another person, when we tell bad things about someone we have a problem with we are indulging in poisonous gossip. It is so much easier to tell someone who is not involved about what is bothering us than to deal directly with the person concerned yet it is not mature and not what we are called to do.
If we have a problem with someone else we need to do three things.
The first is to pray about it. In prayer we gain a new perspective, a different point of view. In prayer some of the anger diffuses and we start to see things from a different angle.
The second thing is to decide, after prayer, if this problem is worth worrying about. Sometimes we have to choose our battles; some things are not worth worrying about. Often I hear about different gripes about me - hardly ever from the people who are griping I might add. Sometimes I hear that I am too Catholic, sometimes too Pentecostal. Sometimes I hear that I am too soft with women, other times that I am a closet misogynist. Sometimes I here these things on the same day, sometimes over a period of time! I am learning that most of the time these things are not worth worrying about. I will never be liked by everyone and to try and be liked by everyone means spending all my time trying to please people not God. So, increasingly, after praying about the stuff, I try and let it go and not to bother with it.
If, however, after prayer and after considering if something is worth following through we decide that something needs to be said, then we need to go and say it to the person concerned. Not, half the church and all our social circle, but to the person concerned. Of course dealing directly is problematic, the person with whom we are dealing may have a different perspective on what the issue is, we may have misunderstood something, we may end up agreeing to differ - but to be mature in community with each other means dealing directly.
To gossip about situations with people who are not directly involved is not mature. One of the things I rejoice about here is the way, over the last year, we have grown in our maturity. Now, when people start to enter into inappropriate gossip, I hear of people steering the conversation around. "Oh well I wouldn't know about that" or "oh, well you need to speak with X about that directly" or "oh, I am afraid this isn't a conversation I want to have, we have moved on". These comments speak of a church rapidly growing in maturity.
Solution-Focused
Have you ever noticed that Christians are so much more happy about bad news that good? I sometimes think that if some Christians got their way we would speak about Good Friday more than Easter Sunday! In any debate about change, or problems or anything, there are always people who want to hark on about the good old days, how much better the previous person was, about how, if they had their way, we would do this in this way. We moan about how low numbers were in church last Sunday - of course we weren't ourselves there but we heard about it through the grapevine. We are just so worried about the finances - but we haven't actually given ourselves recently!
In any problem we have a choice, we can either focus on the problem or focus on the solution. Worried about low numbers - make a commitment to be in church each week and bring a friend! Worried about finances, put extra in the collection and make out a standing order form! Don't like the way something is done, say so and expect to think about better ways of doing things!
Being mature as individuals and being mature as a church means when we see a problem we look at solutions. This week a few of us have started to think about some of the problems with the Mardi Gras/ Europride festival.
Problem - Leaflet overload
One problem was about how many leaflets people get given that just get thrown away - solution - get stickers printed we stick to people. I can just see Darren and Pontus wandering through crowds giving out stickers with out details on! They will be there for ages!
Problem - Getting all the way to church
We thought about how the church is a little bit far out of town so people may not want to get the bus down Upper Brook Street - solution - Ian has volunteered to drive a minibus up and down Upper Brook Street so our people can come to church in the early afternoon, drop their bags off, go and party, and get a lift back to worship - and bring their friends. We can advertise the minibus on our publicity.
Problem: Transexuals
One of the factors in working with people who are transsexual is that their journey, after surgery, may take them onto other churches where they have only been known in their new persona. This means that we often say good bye to people who have moved on in their faith journeys. One solution has been suggested by Jenny-Anne who is putting a lot of work into organising a Tea Party for the trans community over the Europride weekend and has asked us to put a service on for people coming to tea.
We can choose to be part of the solution to a problem - or by doing nothing and/or moaning we can choose be part of the problem itself.
Giving
Over my 16 years in MCC I have learnt that maturity always involves generosity. Early on in my time here I was told by two people that my preaching needed to be more Biblical - I got the impression that they would help me understand the Bible more fully themselves. I was, as you can imagine, overwhelmed by their spirit of generosity. I suggested a sermon series on tithing and when, as a church, we had learnt this important Biblical truth we would move onto another one - I had in mind respect for leadership. They didn't like this idea at all and soon drifted away, of course their giving pattern didn't change!
Scripture teaches us to give to the work of God and to give sacrificially. Many of us believe the Bible teaches us to give a 10th of our income away to the work of God and one of the reason our finances have grown so well over recent months is that more and more of us are tithing or moving towards tithing. Some of the poorest people in this congregation give the most.
We are told to give of our time, our talents and our tithe. God measures our maturity not in the amount of Biblical passages we know, though it is good to some them, but in how we give of our time. God measures our maturity not in the number of years we have been Christians, but in how much we give. God measures our maturity not in terms of how often we say we are religious, but in how we use the resources and gifts given to us for the service of others.
This week Ian produced our six monthly financial report and this has been sent to everyone. In this we see a wonderful growth in income this year. This is wonderful for lots of reasons; for purely practical ones it means we have paid off our debts to the denomination and now can devote more of our money to ministry and mission. It means we have set and met achievable realistic goals and we can feel good about ourselves, but much more importantly it means that more and more of our people are getting serious about giving. This means that more and more of our people are growing in maturity.
Conclusion
If we are to grow into mature disciples of Jesus and if we are to grow into being the church that God dreams of we need to continue to grow in spirituality and in maturity. We can grow in spirituality by setting aside time each day to pray - we suggest you use the little devotional booklets we prepare each week. If we are to grow in maturity we need to commit to deal directly with others, to be focused on the solutions not the problems and to learn to obey the Biblical teaching on giving.
Will you pray with me?
Loving God,
Help us to grow,
Help us when we fail to pray, to make time for you
Help us to deal directly with others,
not to indulge in hurtful gossip,
to have the courage to say what we need to say to others.
Help us, loving God, when we see a problem,
To look at the possibilities for change and growth,
not at the negatives,
and help us Lord Jesus,
to give and not to count the cost,
so that we may be transformed into
being the people and church you dream of
and died for.
Amen.
This
sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester.
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