FAREWELL SERVICE – NOVEMBER 2013
Mark 129-39
INTRODUCTION
In preparing for this evening I have tried to continually remind myself that this is a sermon not a talk, an address or a presentation.
I gave my final Presidential Address to the Diocesan Synod in October.
The BBC locally has kindly given me three opportunities for a presentation – on East Midlands Today with Quentin Rayner last week, Sarah Julian on Sunday morning and Frances Finn this morning. Before I get going properly I would like to thank the BBC, and indeed local newspapers, for the kind way they have treated me, and engaged with me these past four years. You have been suitably robust when necessary, always professional, but also always polite, kind and friendly – thank you.
So back to the fact that this is a sermon. A sermon is always to be rooted in the scriptures; exploring them, expanding them, reflecting on them with the prayerful longing that together we will hear and discern the voice of God to us through them.
JESUS AND ISAIAH
Our Isaiah reading is one that has been crucial in shaping the development of our Diocesan Vision. Joining Together in the Transforming Mission of God through Living Worship, Growing Disciples and Seeking Justice.
These words from Isaiah were Jesus own ‘manifesto’ as he stood and read in his home synagogue of Nazareth early on in his public ministry. They are about the jubilee, the release that God brings through the Messiah – Jesus himself.
So it was important for me that together we read them again this evening as part of this farewell service. Indeed you could choose to sit and reflect on them further rather than listen to my remaining words if you wish. Or else come with me to reflect on our reading from Mark’s gospel.
In the early weeks of this year I found myself reflecting on this passage several times. In particular I found myself considering the question of the people Jesus disappointed. When the invitation to leave here and move to Durham came I found myself returning to reflect on this in an unexpected way. But I will come to that in a couple of minutes as first I want to reflect on Jesus at prayer.
JESUS AND PRAYER
This is the first occasion in Mark’s gospel where Jesus deliberately gets away from everyone else to be with his Father in prayer. Later it was his disciples’ regular observation of Jesus at prayer that led them to specifically ask Jesus, ‘Lord teach us to pray’. They had worked out that it was Jesus relationship with his father in prayer that was totally at the heart of his ministry. Nothing happened; nothing was said without it being borne from this prayer-based relationship.
On this occasion, so determined was Jesus to be alone that the disciples had to search him out, even hunt him down, in the desolate places where Jesus had gone to pray in the early hours of the morning.
If prayer, time with the Father, was such a priority for Jesus it has to be for us as his people. Prayer is doing God’s work. It is being about the Father’s business. In prayer we are refreshed, renewed, refuelled. It is so easy to become too busy not to pray. It is very easy to be drawn into activism when contemplation is needed.
It is frighteningly simple to excuse ourselves from the discipline of prayer. But the reality is that for churches to grow they need to pray. For individual lives to be transformed we need to pray. We need to spend time wholly and solely in our Father’s presence, gazing on him, listening to him, lining ourselves up with him.
We need to keep returning to this priority of prayer. I have concluded that we will probably only manage this by our repeated reading of the gospels which will keep reminding us of this in Jesus.
As I leave, I wish I had given more time to prayer – and encouraged us all to do the same. I believe we have done many good things together. We have got plenty of things right. But I think more contemplation would have led to better and more focussed action. As I go I want to make prayer more of a priority, and would encourage you to do the same.
JESUS AND DISAPPOINTMENT
Jesus had had a busy, and thrilling, day in Capernaum. Alongside Simon Peter’s mother-in-law many people had been healed, and set free. He had brought the good news into many people’s lives. In doing so he had also raised the hopes and expectations of the whole community.
Come the next morning they all wanted more. There were more sicknesses to be healed; there were more oppressive spirits from which to be freed. There was a longing to hear more from the teacher. So much so that the disciples can declare “Everyone is looking for you”.
But Jesus will not go back; he has determined that the Father’s call on his life meant that he had to go on elsewhere.
Now I just wonder what the conversations were like in Capernaum on that next, and subsequent days. Excitement and encouragement at all that had happened, certainly. But was there also disappointment that Jesus had moved on? What about those who had hoped for healing? What hopes were there for hearing more parables?
But it was the simple point of Jesus disappointing people that I reflected on a bit earlier in the year. I am not sure I had ever thought as much about this before. Jesus’ ministry in all its forms led to some people being disappointed.
At the time I found it helpful to reflect in this way, and have done so even more, since knowing I would be moving away. You see I want to please everyone if I possibly can. I want people to be happy.
But the sharp reality of life, and of Christian ministry, is that actually you cannot please everyone. Sometimes the right decision will disappoint some people. It may even make them angry. Of course unlike Jesus I, and we, will not always get the timing or decision-making right, and then there may be justification in anger or disappointment. But I do not want that caveat to take away from the core point – Jesus sometimes disappointed people, and he did so because they were not the centre of everything. Jesus had to move on because that was his Father’s call. The Father and the Father’s will was the centre of everything, and the disappointed people had to line up with that rather than putting themselves at the centre of things.
I know that my call, and decision to leave, has brought disappointment to some, even many of you. Some might even be, no, are angry, about it. I recognise that is so. But please recognise that for all of us the key thing must be the Father’s will. And I leave because the church believes, and so do Rosemary and I, that this is the Father’s will, however much there is a pull to stay, enjoy the good things that have happened and even build on them. Like Philip in Samaria when the Holy Spirit says ‘Go’ then we have to go. Even if it means disappointment for some.
JESUS AND PROCLAIMING
So to my final reflection. God delights in coincidences; divine coinciding of events that become charged with significance.
At my installation service here I preached on Matthew 935-101. From this I made the point about being ‘out and about’ in the communities, proclaiming the Kingdom etc. Well this morning’s New Testament reading for Morning Prayer was, yes, Matthew 935-1015.
It acted as something of a word of completion, yet encouraging continuation, especially since my final point from Mark 1 was already set down in my notes.
Jesus moved on so that he could proclaim the good news in fresh places. The call to proclaim the Kingdom was constant for him. This is why he came, to announce the good news of the Kingdom; to call people to repent, turn around, and believe the good news.
This is my call now in a new place. This is why we travel on – to proclaim the good news.
But this too is your call. Personally, and together, the Lord calls the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, through its churches, schools, chaplaincies to proclaim the good news. The Lord calls you to do so with your fellow Christians of all denominations. He calls you to join with all people of peace, wherever possible, to bring good news, especially to the poor in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Natal, Israel / Palestine and Burundi.
He calls us all to be proclaimers of God’s wonderful good news in Jesus.
CONCLUSION
It has been an enormous honour and privilege to serve this diocese, with this wonderful Cathedral, over these past 4 years.
I have had fantastic colleagues in +Tony, Dean John Guille, Archdeacons Nigel, David and Peter, Chief Executive Nigel Spraggins and my other senior staff colleagues and Directors.
My office team of Tony Evans then Lucy, of Jan, Jenny and Jackie have been superb. I could not have done anything without them all. But I pay special tribute to the clergy of the parishes and chaplaincies, the Readers, the wardens, the lay ministers, the headteachers and teachers of our schools and the Christians who serve in so many settings.
To you all a huge thank you.
As I move on please seek to be ever more like Jesus
-make prayer a priority
-accept that you will sometimes disappoint people in doing God’s will
-proclaim the good news
Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
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