Since January I have been enjoying a wonderful time of rest, relaxation, travel, study and reflection. Part of what I want to achieve with this sabbatical is to focus on the changes I need to make within myself to become a better pastor both for you and for the many who are to come. I have already done a lot of thinking, reflecting, praying and talking about much of what I am understanding about myself and where the next stage is for me in my lifelong development as both a Christian and a pastor. I have come to realise that my spiritual journey could be summed up in five sounds; but these sounds are common, I think, to all of us as we seek to journey and follow Jesus.
1: Gasp
The first sound that I want to reflect on is a gasp. When I first read about MCC I gasped. I had, for years, struggled with a vocation to ordained ministry and the knowledge that I do not possess the gift of celibacy. I was too honest to want to work in a church where I had to hide who I was so I had sort of concluded that I had to find another way of living out my vocation. And then I read about MCC and I gasped. I gasped at the audacious vision of a church which tried to reach out to everyone. A church that said it was both Catholic and Protestant. A church that welcomed, lesbians, gay men, hetrosexuals, transsexual and transvestite. A church that tried to be universal in its appeal yet still committed to the central truths of the Christian faith. I gasped as I caught the vision of a church which has been uniquely blessed by God to be a source of blessing to so many others. I still gasp when I see what MCC does around the world. In San Diego I saw our MCC there and despite the differences of culture, I recognise so much of what we try to do here. Their morning services reached over 400 people who were as diverse as any MCC congregation you could expect to see. Their choir was stunning, their staff superb and their building is far to small for them. Every Saturday a team of people come to the church and make up parcels of foodstuffs to give to the poor. This loaves of love ministry feeds over 100 people each week. Another team comes to church and makes up bunches of flowers to give to people in San Diego living with HIV and Aids - just a small thing but an indication that people care. I gasped.
In all of our lives we have times when we gasp with joyful amazement as we catch a glimpse of what God calls us to. Sometimes the vision of what our world could be, what we could be, what our church could be makes us gasp with amazement.
2: "uh oh"
My gasp, however, soon gave way to another sound a sort of "uh oh" or "who me?" I sensed God's call on my life in a new and powerful way but then some of the reality dawned on me and, of course, it was my mother who was the herald of reality. "so they don't pay you anything now and possibly nothing for years?" "umm, yep, that's right!" "They don't have a pension scheme" "no, they don't"! And the questions went on. My family are still convinced 15 years on that I am quite mad. But internally some of the things that God calls me to still make me squirm and go "uh oh". Sometimes it is very clear where God is calling me to lead others to but I lack the motivation and will power to go all the way with God. Sometimes it is easier to compromise. I really identify with Jonah who was given a very difficult preaching assignment by God and so he tried to go as far as he could in the opposite direction. My friend Mike Piazza pastors our church in Dallas and it is the largest MCC in the world having around 3,000 members. He says, with all humility, that the growth of MCC Dallas has been more about the growth of himself personally than it has been about anything else. What he means by that is his willingness to allow God to change and challenge him - sometimes very painfully - as he seeks to become, more and more, the person God is calling him to be. Wesley talked about this in his hymn "love divine" when he speaks of us being changed "from glory into glory". In the Christian life we are called to change and develop as we mature in the Lord.
But there are some temptations when we think about being changed - and Lent, after all, is a time when we think about this. The first temptation is to think that we are worthless sinners, who are in total need of redemption. I was brought up with this type of faith - humanity is utterly fallen and we are just lying in the mire and mud of our own sin. But this discounts the fact that we are made in God's own image and that image is good. The other temptation is to measure our Christian maturity by the length of time we have spent in the church. I know some who have been Christians for over 30 years who are not as mature in the Lord as others I know who have only been believers for the last 8 or 9 or so. Christian maturity, like emotional maturity, is not measured in years, but in obedience to God's will. Do we make time each day to be quite and listen to God in prayer? Do we seek to discover God's will and make it paramount in our lives? Do we give generously to God's work - or do we shudder whenever it gets to the offering - or kid ourselves that we can't afford to give realistically? Do we deal directly with a problem or do we have to tell all our friends first before we can actually deal with it? These are all signs of Christian maturity.
My own journey of being changed "from glory into glory" has been painful. There is a continual struggle to realise that Jesus is in charge of my life and I have to become better at letting him lead. Every time I realise this anew I am back to making that "uh oh" sound again!
3: Humpf
My next sound is the "humpf" or even a "groan" groan of frustration. So much of what I do as a pastor is about frustration. I often listen to the frustrations of others. Every time I see some TV evangelist or self appointed guardian of other people's morality I get frustrated that these people just don't get the fact that the gospel is about love and inclusion, not hate and condemnation. I get frustrated when people assume that MCC is part of the problem - so at Gayfest this year I got a mouthful off some poor guy who had obviously been hurt by the church. It was only when I explained who and what we were that he softened and his eyes filled with tears. I get frustrated with the thousands of expectations people have about pastors. We are supposed to be integrated in our sexuality, never have a sexual problem and never, never, look at someone with lust. However, at the same time, we are never to criticise others for having sex lives which cause harm to other people. We have to be as gentle as a dove, take advice from everyone, and somehow cope when that advice contradicts other advice we are getting. Pastors have to listen to everyone's problems but never have a problem ourselves. We have to help people in their brokenness but never even hint at being broken. But at the same time we have to be open and vulnerable! I was told a story last week about the Bishop of Ripon who went to visit a church in his diocese which was without a priest. The congregation had been very unhappy with the last priest they had had and she, eventually, had enough and went to pastures new. The bishop asked the congregation what type of priest they wanted. When he finished listening, with exasperation, he turned round and said "until I ordain the archangel Gabriel you will never have the type of priest you are looking for!". Sometimes we have such high expectations of our leaders that if they ever make a mistake we feel profoundly let down and forget that we, ourselves, often make mistakes and have feet of clay too.
And then I get frustrated with myself. This Summer I celebrate 10 years of ordained ministry in MCC and, at Easter, 13 years of membership. Yet I feel I know less now about so many things that I did then. I am trying to be a life-long learner and, with my Open University studies, and what I have been reading whilst on sabbatical, find that there is so much more to learn about the business of leadership, church management and church growth. It is frustrating to realise that seminaries and theological colleges don't teach this stuff. It is frustrating to realise that MCC is only just, as an institution, looking at how to access the very best of leadership and growth training.
And I also get frustrated with the practical stuff. I hated being a teacher, but I got a good wage. I love being a pastor but only get paid for two days a week - and this month the money is late coming. It is frustrating and I hear my mother's voice enquring if I am quite mad! Yet this is more than a job, it is a vocation and a way of life and I couldn't do anything else with as much enthusiasm and energy. This is what I am called to do but, at times, it can get rather frustrating.
4: Sob
Another sound I associate with pastoring is the sound of tears. I listen to people who are at their wits end and contemplating suicide. I listen to people who have been in churches where they have tried to throw demons out of them - and the long term damage of such theology is immense. Those of you who read or saw the TV adaptation of Oranges are not the Only Fruit know the story of the young Jeannette Winterson being condemned and exorcised for being a lesbian in her Pentecostal church. Those of you who read anything that Winterson writes no she is no longer a Christian. People here in church tonight have been told they have demons, some have even gone through exorcism ceremonies - simply because of how they love and it makes me cry.
Then there are those who have no sense of their self worth; those who have been told by other churches that the way they love makes them "intrinsically morally disordered" or the way they dress makes them "perverted" or the fact that they are women means they cannot have a full part of the church. Cecilia, our District Co-ordinator, has always told me she has more issues with the Catholic Church because she is a woman than ever she did because she is lesbian. As a girl she knew she wanted to be a priest but they wouldn't even let her be an altar server. At Summer School this year we modelled many different types of worship style that are found in MCC. When we did the Catholic style service and used incense Cecilia got very excited and asked, afterwards, to be shown how to swing the incense. I felt, at first, this was rather an enthusiastic request - but she said that, as a child, she had never been allowed to do this. The way the church treats women makes me cry.
But the thing that made me cry most in my ministry was about the pain a friend of mine called Janet had. Janet came to us in East London about 8 years ago now. She was a very slight woman and had a haunted worried look about her. She was very friendly, but very vulnerable. She told me she was an abuse survivor and asked if she could put some literature about a group for Christian abuse survivors out. This was her test of whether I was a "safe" person. Of course I said yes, and over the coming weeks and months Janet became part of our life and church. Janet was abused by her father from when she was a baby until she was 18 or 19. She was committed to a mental hospital and he even used to abuse her on his visits to her. She was so disturbed they drugged her up to the eyeballs. It was only one nurse who noticed that Janet was worse after her father visited that meant they started to help Janet recover. By the time she came to us she was living independently but was still very depressed.
She never quite got over anorexia and often used to self harm - on some occasions in church too. Eventually the pain for Janet got too much and she ended up sectioned again in hospital. When I went to see her she was in the middle of a flash back and she attacked me thinking I was her father. When I left the hospital that day I was so exhausted with emotion, with pain, with anger that all I could do was sob.
Janet eventually committed suicide and my dear friend Jane Clarke had to lead East London MCC through the pain of bereavement - I had, by that time, moved up here. The pain for Janet was too much to live with and even now when I think of Janet I fill up with tears.
5: Ummmm:
But when I do think of that, I also think of the good things in pastoring. And when I do this I feel "ummm - this is as good as it gets". I look around this church and I see what a difference it has made to those who are here. This time last year some of you were suicidal - thinking the same things that my friend Janet was thinking about the pain being unbearable. I know, and you have told me, that you would not be here if it were not for MCC.
I think of Nina and Barbara and the immense bravery they have to face major surgery with cheerfulness. I know the pain both of them have endured to get to where they are now and it is has been an immense privilege to share that journey with them and to be there through the tears and the laughter. And on good days I think "umm, this is as good as it gets".
I think of Amy and Craig and Angie and Rhona and Lev, our newest members. It is has been wonderful to seem the over the last few months and, in Lev's case the last couple of years! As they have grown and developed and deepened their faith and commitment to the work of God here I get encouraged. Umm this is as good as it gets.
I look at my friend Darren and am aware that two years ago he had no Christian faith but through his relationship with John has found not only security but also faith here in this place. Umm this is as good as it gets.
I look at my friends Gwen and Margaret and Anne and Margaret and see relationships that are long lasting, stable and sources of great blessing. This April Gwen and Margaret celebrate 30 years of life together - Anne and Margaret have been together for about the same amount of time. In a culture where anything, including relationships is thrown away, to see such long term stable relationships is such an encouragement, such a blessing such testimony to the power of love I think "umm this is as good as it gets". It inspires me and Ian to think about growing old together to be together for 30 or 40 years or however, long God gives us.
I could go on and name so many people, so many situations that makes me think "umm, this is as good as it gets".
Our gospel reading shows one of those times with the disciples as they see Jesus as he really is. That experience of glory got the disciples through the mess of the rest of their lives. That last sound of "umm" gets me through the times when I feel like crying, when I groan with frustration or squirm as I realise, again, that God is calling me to transfigure from "glory into glory".
It is my prayer that this Lent, we will all remember the gasp of joyful amazement we felt when we first captured the vision of what MCC could be and that even though we might squirm, get frustrated, or sob, that that vision of amazement will give us the strength to see the good stuff so that at the end we might, with Jesus, relax and say "ummm, this is as good as it gets." Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.