“THE SHIP OF THE CHURCH” –
A CHURCH ANNIVERSARY SERMON
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A Sermon Readings: |
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Left: Mint Church, Exeter Right: Rembrandt, Storm
Mk 4:41 “Even the wind and the waves obey him”
Although many of Jesus’ friends were fishermen, the
Israelites
were not keen seafarers. They knew how cruel the sea could be,
and saw their relationship with it as a struggle rather than a joy.
In Hebrew mythology from Genesis onwards,
the sea was a symbol of evil, chaos and threat.
So when John the Divine (Rev 21:1)
wants to draw a picture of the perfect and idyllic City of God,
he says that “the sea was no more”
When Mark wants to sum up Christ’s ultimate triumph
over all the powers of evil, he tells of Jesus stilling the storm –
The waves stand for evil and chaos - which God will finally
conquer –
but with which in the meantime we must contend.
So maybe its
not surprising that the early Church
came to think of itself as a ship.
Indeed the words “Nave” for the body of
the Church building
and “Naval” have the same nautical origin.
From the days of Noah onwards,
God’s sailors have often had bad weather.
Sometimes, as with Jonah, the storm was the sailor’s own
fault
Other times, as often with Paul, it doesn’t seem to have
been his fault at all
Either way, God doesn’t guarantee calm weather for his
sailors,
and the Church should not expect everything to be plain sailing.
Like Hamlet, we should expect life
to include a “sea of troubles” involving conflict or suffering.
And Christ says “Follow Me” – hoist a sail,
let the Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation
blow your ship of love and truth & justice into the heart of the stormy
waters.
For that is where I go, and where I call my people to
follow.
Is this the sort of seafaring Church we are?
Are we committed as God’s people
to engage with the world of sin and sorrow?
Or are we more like the Admiral in HMS Pinafore ?
You remember his advice -
“Stick close to your desk and never go
to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Navee.”
And how often are we tempted as Christians to have our cake
and eat it -
to join the ship of the Church but avoid the actual voyage?
Charles Causley has a marvellous poem all about St Peter,
who is cast as a fisherman,
more on the Cornish than the Galilean pattern,
rushing with his apostolic companions to launch the ship of the Church.
The trouble is the Congregation don’t want to go to sea:
Peter jumped up in the pulpit,
his hands all smelling of fish
His Guernsey was gay with the sparkly spray
and bright as an angel’s wish
The seagulls came in through the ceiling
the fish flew up through the floor
Bartholomew laughed as he cast off aft
And Andrew cast off fore.
They charged the thundering Churchyard
like a lifeboat down the slip.
The congregation in consternation
prepared to abandon ship…”
Peter, the apostles and their ship disappear over the horizon,
leaving the Church folk behind.
The congregation set about building a new Church
but this time they don’t make the same mistake again.
This time they build it with lead gunwales and concrete sails –
no danger of it going anywhere.
And the poem ends –
“I walk all day in the dockyard
looking for Captain Pete
But there’s not a marine or a brigantine
at the bottom of Harbour Street
The boy
voiced boat like summer
has sailed away over the hills
and I’m breached like a bride by the travelling tide
with a packet of seasick pills”
And today on Church Anniversary Day
we give thanks for all the Saints who have gone before us
in this place over 194 years –
and indeed all those saints and apostles everywhere
throughout the ages who have passed on the Gospel message
from generation to generation down to this day.
The question is: are we still following in their wake?
Or to put it another way -
this Anniversary we are again raising money
for the redevelopment of our Church premises –
what sort of Church are we building –
a safe secure comfortable building
to keep us safe from harm with a sail of cement?
Or the means whereby we can ride the storms in the power of
the Spirit
to follow God into the unknown??
May we not be like the man who built a
fine ship
and then would not sail her out of the harbour
in case she came to harm –
ships may be safe in harbour,
but that is not what ships are for.
Last night’s Safari Supper was great – and those who missed
it –
well you missed a treat – get your tickets early for next year.
The theme this year was a Caribbean Cruise –
and that was just great for some fun on a Saturday night -
Just as long as we remember that the Ship of the Church
is anything but a Cruise Liner
(going in a gently relaxing circle back to where it began).
In one of his books Rowan Williams
quotes
the American poet Annie Dillard – on this precise theme.
She says this:
“Why
do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists
on a package tour of the Absolute?
The
tourists are having coffee and doughnuts on Deck C.
Presumably someone is minding the ship,
correcting the course, avoiding icebergs and shoals,
fuelling the engines, watching the radar screen,
noting weather reports radioed in from the shore.
No one would dream of asking the tourists to do these things.
Alas, among the tourists on Deck C,
drinking coffee and eating doughnuts,
we find the captain, and all the ship’s officers,
and all the ship’s crew……
The
wind seems to be picking up.”
Don’t we understand, she says, the
seriousness of the journey,
the powers we are dealing with here?
Finally she says
“It
is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to Church;
we should be wearing crash helmets….
[Door Stewards] should issue life preservers and signal flares;
they should lash us to our pews.
For the sleeping god may awake some day and take offence,
or the waking god may draw us where we can never return.”
(Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to
talk, London 1984 pp40-41,
quoted in Rowan Williams Open to Judgement, London, DLT, 1994 pp116-7)
Crewing the good ship
Mint should not be a Caribbean Cruise –
it should be like a cross between crewing with Jonah and Paul,
taking passage on the Mayflower,
crewing a Greenpeace protest ship,
a Mercy Ship relief convoy,
and the Exmouth lifeboat …..
And if that sounds scary, remember that ultimately,
if we sail with Christ, all will be
well.
The story is told of a famous preacher
who
100 or so years ago used regularly to cross the Atlantic
between preaching engagements in Britain and America.
On one occasion he was talking to the Captain
& the Captain commented that the ship was at that very moment
passing over the sunken wreck of the Titanic –
sunk too far down ever to be raised.
To which the Preacher is reported to
have replied:
“No one is too far down for the hand of Jesus to reach them,
and lift them out of their misery.
No soul is so sunken in sin to be beyond
redemption point.”
Those words hold good today –
even in an age when few talk to ship’s captains in such terms.
So this Anniversary
Day, let us commit ourselves afresh
to sail with Christ - let us hoist a sail,
and let the Spirit blow us where he will –
come hell or high water!
For who need fear the waters of sin or death
with Christ at the helm?
For when indeed at
last our earthly journeyings are done
and death approaches, we need have no fear, for – praise God -
then at length does the one whom wind and waves obey
take our hand & beckon us aboard
for one final river crossing to our heavenly home –
“when I tread the verge of Jordan
bid my anxious fears subside –
death of death and hell’s destruction,
land me safe on Canaan’s side.”
ORDER OF SERVICE
10.30
a.m. Church Anniversary Service
led by Rev Andrew Sails
Hymn 274 “Saviour blessed Saviour”
Prayers
Dialogue of Praise:
Prayer
All Age Ministry – Debbie Myhill
Hymn 238 “I cannot tell”
The
Peace
[Young
People leave for their own sessions]
Reading: Rev
21:1-6 (p.1249)
Reading:
Mark 4:35-41 (p.1006)
Hymn NHWS 203 “Living God”
[Malcolm Archer ©
Kevin Mayhew 1999 Tune
272 Hyfrodol CCL Licence 58752]
Sermon: “The Ship of the Church”
Hymn 678
“In heavenly love abiding”
Offertory and Dedication of Gifts
Prayers and Lord’s Prayer
Leader: ….O Lord,
hear our prayer
People (sing) O Lord, hear my prayer
O Lord hear my
prayer
When I call, answer me
O Lord hear my
prayer
O Lord hear my
prayer
Come and listen to me.
[©
Taize Community, Calamus
Licence 1613]
Hymn 615 “Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah”
Blessing
[The Dialogue of Praise is adapted from a liturgy by
Thomas
L. Weitzel
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America]