Sunday Service 9th February

Welcome to our meditation for 9th February.

We live in a confusing time. And it isn’t helped when people don’t give us a straight answer to a straight question.

Ask any politician any straight question and it feels like they twist and turn their words so that they are not really committing themselves to anything.

Because situations might radically change and they don’t want their words to come back and haunt them.

Now that might be a practical strategy, but it does make them sound untrustworthy, that they have something to hide.

So it may then feel frustrating that Jesus often didn’t give a straight answer to a question either, he instead often told stories, parables.

If he had nothing to hide, why would he do that?

And we will look at this after Peter leads us in our reading and prayer for today.

Sermon

(We live in a confusing time. And it isn’t helped when people don’t give us a straight answer to a straight question.

Ask any politician any straight question and it feels like they twist and turn their words so that they are not really committing themselves to anything.

Because situations might radically change and they don’t want their words to come back and haunt them.

Now that might be a practical strategy, but it does make them sound untrustworthy, that they have something to hide.

So it may then feel frustrating that Jesus often didn’t give a straight answer to a question either, he instead often told stories, parables.

If he had nothing to hide, why would he do that?)

(For recording only:

So we have Jesus using parables instead of saying things plainly.

Why would he do that?)

Well there are many reasons.

The first one was that he was hiding.

If Jesus said out loud that he was creating a new kingdom, a kingdom of God on earth; then the Roman Empire would have destroyed him.

In fact that is the accusation that was used to justify crucifying him.

And historians will often talk about the Messianic secret in their books.

Theologians, in their books, say it is because if people hear a fact then it goes in one ear and out the other. That for a fact to get into our head, we need to think we have worked it out ourselves. The process of working out the fact then engrains that fact into our head.

So Jesus saying a fact like, ‘God loves you as you are.’

That goes in one ear and out the other.

When I was at university in Glasgow there was this guy that was a street preacher. He would be in George Square every lunchtime with his mega-phone and he would shout out to the crowd, ‘You are all sinners. You need to change your ways. God loves you.’

All facts.

And you know how many people would stand and listen to him. None.

Four years of dedication and no one stopped to ask him what they needed to change.

Now to be fair I liked the guy. If I wanted a bit of peace and quiet from people then I would sit in one of the seats near him; because no one else would go anywhere near him. George Square could be crowded, except for a circle round this guy, it was as if he had an invisible force field round him where humans couldn’t enter. And for a natural introvert that just wanted to eat his lunch without anyone annoying him that was a gift from God.

Meer facts often don’t inspire change, and Jesus knew that as well.

So instead of saying to folk, ‘You are all sinners. You need to change your ways. God loves you.’

Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son. Who gave up the love of a family for greed and selfishness. Who then realised his mistake but thought that there was no way back to that relationship that he had squandered.

But then when he makes his first move to reach out to the father...realises that the Father has never given up on him.

He just tells the story.

And as people hear the story they try to work out what it means.

Maybe if they turn to the Heavenly Father they will find that God hasn’t given up on them.

But then the wonder of the story is that it can have many meanings.

Maybe as we reflect on the story we realise that we are not the younger brother.

There is an older brother in the story that resents the younger brother returning.

Maybe we are like him, and need to change.

To start loving the younger brother more,

to realise that they, as the older brother, are also loved, but they have been so busy working that they have given no space to enjoy being with the Father.

Maybe we have been so busy doing church work that we have forgotten just to enjoy the world God has created for us.

Or maybe we are like the father, and we are the person that has to hug the younger brother so that he knows he has been accepted.

But that means looking out to see where he is, being keen to see the first signs that he has been trying to find a way home.

I think that there is another reason.

I think Jesus was setting an example.

Jesus was telling God’s story as part of his story.

And because those two stories were so close that meant if you started to become part of Jesus’ story, then you were becoming part of God’s story.

And the thing about stories is that they are intimate, they are close to us,

so for us to hear a story it means becoming close to the person telling the story.

That is the way evangelism works.

I was listening to this podcast on church growth with Joby Martin and Mike Housholder.

And in this podcast they quoted a Barna survey where they had asked American ministers of all denominations and none how good their church was at reaching out to people who don’t come to church.

Now important things to remember when trying to work it out, this is America, where you have all these mega churches.

The culture over there is so much more Christian that over here.

Every presidential candidate will boast about what church they go to because it is a vote winner. When Trump survived an assassination attempt one of the first things he said was that he felt God close to him...politicians over here avoid the subject like the plague.

I can’t imagine any prime minister surviving an assassination attempt and praising God for helping him through it. In fact Tony Blair, who was a practicing Christian, had his men say that ‘They didn’t do God.’

So what percentage of churches, in America, thought they were good at reaching out to those who didn’t go to church...1%.

1%

And I think that percentage would be even lower over here.

You know why it is so low?

Because evangelism is hard.

Too often we have done the big spectacular thing because it is easy.

As individuals we can hide behind them.

If they don’t work it isn’t our fault, we put the money into it, we got the big speaker to come along, they let us down.

What’s more important...we didn’t get embarrassed in the process.

Can anyone guess when the church started to decline in Scotland?

The same time as the Billy Graham campaigns became popular.

We hired out our evangelism to professionals and long term it didn’t work.

Sure thousands came forward, but the vast majority of them didn’t stick with it.

Joby Martin and Mike Housholder, who come from radically different denominations, have got growing churches and it is not growth from people coming from other churches. It is growth from a simple philosophy.

Who is the one more person?

If you wanted one more person to get into heaven, who would you want it to be?

Once you start asking that question then the truth is that their story starts to be part of God’s story, only they don’t know that yet.

They will only get to know that their story is part of God’s story...if we tell them.

But we can’t tell them how their story is part of God’s story unless we know their story.

And we will only know that if we listen.

We can only listen if we are close to them, a serious part of their lives.

That’s why mass evangelism was always destined to fail.

For faith to grow we need to be part of a faith community.

Mass evangelism was only interested in personal, individual decisions.

Then when these strangers came to church no one knew them, they had no fellowship and they didn’t know how to become part of the fellowship....and to be blunt, we didn’t know how to make them part of the fellowship.

We didn’t know if they were holiday makers out for the day,

or someone moving into the area,

or scammers thinking Christian old folk were easy targets.

How do you make a meaningful friendship from someone you don’t know and have only met because they sat in the seat in front of you three seconds ago?

So Joby Martin and Mike Housholder, coming from different styles and communities, came to same conclusion.

You don’t start with the message, you star with the community.

They get their people to ask the question, ‘If you wanted one more person to get into heaven, who would you want it to be?’

And they care enough to listen to their story and see how God is working in that story.

If there are things that are troubling them then you admit to them that you will be praying for them, because you care enough that you would want to pray for them,.

If they are struggling and you don’t know how to help you tell them the truth, that you don’t know what to do but if there is anything you could do to help, then you will, because you care enough that if there was anything that you could do to help, then you would.

Jesus told stories because his story was God’s story, and he wanted us to see that our story is Gods story as well.

And we saw it.

The last thing he said to the disciples was to follow him, and let the world know that their story could be God’s story.

The guy with the megaphone in George Square.

All he did was shout at people his story about how he was good with God and how everyone else was failures in God’s eyes.

I wonder if he would have had a greater effect if he watched to see if anyone was struggling, and then listened to their stories and asked how he could help.

Maybe then they would have asked why he was helping, and he would have had the right to tell some of how God’s story was his story...and how their story could be God’s story too.

Let us pray

Words...

We get so caught up in the meaning of words.

Religious denominations have divided over the meaning of words.

Wars have been fought over the significance of words.

But in the end our lives only have significance with the words that are used to describe them.

How would others describe us; parent, child, child of God, kind, hopeful?

Or would it be more severe; humourless, strict, selfish?

Would others think of our story as fiction or nonfiction, just the facts, or exaggerated?

In the end we know ourselves by the story we tell of our life;

The stories of times of joy, the stories of times of sorrow.

The stories that tell of challenges overcome, the stories the tell of regrets.