| Bowls. Sewing, knitting, caravanning, boating; football, bingo, reading, cookery; biking, surfing the net, clubbing.
Hobbies and favourite things.St Elisabeths.
What’s on your list? Yes, if you were to write a list of things you enjoy doing in your leisure time, what would you put on it?
Painting, writing, hiking, drinking; night in, nights out, early nights……. late nights?
Hobbies and favourite things. The list is endless. The possibilities are almost infinite. I can’t hope to imagine what your personal list of hobbies and favourite things would include.
But I could take a chance predicting what it wouldn’t include. Yes, I’d be fairly certain that your list of hobbies and favourite things probably would not include: Paying bills, doing your income tax, changing the duvet, or cleaning the toilet. These are things which few folk enjoy…….., unless they have very exotic tastes. They are duties, rather than hobbies; things which are necessary for life to go on, rather than favourite things.
So, a question: which of your lists would “Church” go on? Would being here, gathering for the Eucharist, being part of St Elisabeths, would this be on the first list, the list of hobbies and favourite things? Or would being here, gathering for the Eucharist, being part of St Elisabeths be on the second list, the list of duties?St Elisabeths.
In the middle years of the last century, when I was born, and the Women’s Guild were but slips of girls out trapping men (some things never change!), going to Church was still, just about, a duty. Especially if you were a Catholic – Roman, or a member of the C of E with Catholic views.
“I am a happy Catholic” an old hymn said, “I always go to mass.” And you always did. Week by week. Without fail. It was a duty. And like lots of other duties, there were penalties for failing to comply. You misbehaved at school, and you got caned. You missed mass and you didn’t get to heaven. Or, worse still, the Rector would come round and see you.
But those days seem now to belong in a different world, a world of ‘bus conductors and putting a shilling in the electricity meter; a world where the first person up in the morning had to light the coal fire, a world where washing machines – if you were lucky enough to have one – had mangles for wringing clothes; and that other new-fangled invention, the television, had only one channel: and that was in black and white, with a picture so faint you had to turn off the light and close the curtains to get a clear image.
Yes Church-going, in those far-off days, used to be a matter of duty. But now, in common with so many other things, it has become a matter of choice. Church-going is now definitely on the “hobbies and favourite things” list. Or not. It’s take it, or leave it. Go when you can. Come when it suits you. After all, there are plenty of other things which can compete for our precious spare time. Yes, for many today, the Church is another hobby, one thing demanding of our time and our attention among many others. Or not.
“Come when it suits you”: and when it suits is when it’s entertaining and not demanding. When it suits is when it’s easy and fairly effortless. And so we have dumbing-down, worship replaced by entertainment, and risky faith displaced by cheap certainties.
Following Christ is, of course, about much more than this. Yes, running through today’s readings is that on-going biblical message of a new kingdom of love and justice. A kingdom God longs to bring about in our world today.St Elisabeths.
Right at the start of the gospel reading, St Matthew rams home hard his summary of John the Baptist message: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Repent – a Greek word “Metanoia” – means not to feel sorry, but in fact, to change to turn your life round, to face in an entirely new direction. John’s voice cries, demands, that people prepare the way for the new kingdom by repentance, by changing their lives – by letting God change them.
* * * * *
The Church has a task. And that task is to build God’s kingdom here on earth: a kingdom of love and justice, a kingdom of joy and gladness, a kingdom where the meek are dealt with fairly, a kingdom where children play safely, where no one is excluded; a kingdom where God is glorified in Christ Jesus. Building this kingdom here and now, here in Reddish, now, today, doesn’t sound much to me like a hobby or a favourite thing. It sounds like hard graft. It sounds as if it will need discipline and duty and determination. This is stuff from our second list, things demanding and hard.
St Elisabeths.
So how do we do it? How do we get the energy to strengthen ourselves for this task of building God’s kingdom on earth? The answer is we don’t. We don’t. God does. God strengthens and equips us. And God does this especially here, at the altar, in this Eucharist, this mass. All we need to do is to find the time and make the effort. And it is effort.
But so often we confuse worship nowadays with entertainment.
“Oh, it was a right nice service and I really enjoyed the singing. And that curate who calls herself “Father” dressed herself up like a nun and sang selections from “The Sound of Music”. They’re having toilets put in too, and a kitchen. Someone said they’re going to have proper cups. Course, I’d like nice upholstered chairs, a low ceiling for warmth, and a power-point presentation on a screen instead of a sermon. Incense could go, and all that purple in Advent – ugh, really miserable. The altar would look far better in baby pink, I think.
And they should stop having a collection. It puts folk off.”
Entertainment.St Elisabeths.
We have come here, I hope, today, not for that, but rather to meet the living God who comes to us in bread and wine and welcomes us at his table while we are yet sinners. We’ve come here to meet the God who dies for us, and rises for us, and call us in return to co-operate in this amazing adventure of building a new kingdom of love and justice here on earth. We’ve come here because here, at this altar, in this mass, in this place where prayer has been valid, God feeds and strengthens and equips us. But it takes some effort of our part. Yes, effort. Work. Opus dei. The work of God. That is what worship is.
You know, in those middle years of the last century when going to Church was still, just about, a duty, you prepared. You said special prayers the night before receiving Holy Communion. You received fasting. One lady from this Church (whose anniversary we remember this week) was known to walk along the old canal to St Benedict’s Ardwick to make her confession. And her saintliness is still remembered.
And yes, many of these things stood in the way of spontaneity and real joy in worship and many of them have rightly been dropped. But the trouble is that the baby has all but gone out with the bath water. So I plead with you today to make a new start.
First, commit yourself to being here week by week, come what may.
Second, revive your prayer life. Spend some time on Saturday preparing your self for Sunday’s encounter with the living God.St Elisabeths.
St Elisabeths.
Third, when you get here, do more praying. Don’t just keep quiet because the Rector will award you with the look that withers if he catches you talking. Pray. Pray for yourself. Pray especially for all the people involved in music and serving and reading and preaching and leading the intercessions. Pray for that new man no one has spoken to. Pray for that bossy piece two rows in front on the other side who you don’t like.
Forth, focus yourself. Join in. Think about what’s happening. Apply yourself as you would to any other supremely important task. Concentrate as you would on any matter of life and death.
St Elisabeths.
Lastly, when you come to the altar, remember that there, given into your hands, is the bread of God, the life of the world, the creator of the universe, the Godhead here in hiding. And adore that God, and allow the God of all things to come through this sacrament anew into your heart.
So, you might ask, how will all this bring about God’s kingdom? Surely there are other things we need to do? Well, yes…., and no.
No, because all we really have to do is this Eucharist, this mass. This is all we have to do because if we do this with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength everything else will fall into place. The intensity of worship which I am talking about cannot ever leave you unchanged. You needn’t do anymore, but God will.
Yes, God will use this eucharist, this mass. God will use it to make you discontented with the world’s order and its inequalities and injustices; God will use this eucharist, this mass to make you transgress the world’s standards and reach out boldly to build his kingdom in all sorts of ways you have yet to imagine.St Elisabeths.
A new year, last Sunday in Church: A New Year, in just three weeks in our diaries. A new year, a time for fresh starts.
Let’s use this time to start again in our lives of worship. Let’s use it to make a new effort, and fresh concentration, a deeper commitment.St Elisabeths.
“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
May we, each one of us, work to build that kingdom of love and justice here in Reddish today. Amen.St Elisabeths.
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