This Sermon was preached at the Ordination of Revd. Andy Smith to the priesthood at All Saints, Woodside, on 2nd October 2010.

The first reading was 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2

Whole Church context
In one sense this service shouldn't be happening – Andy would normally have been ordained in the company of his fellow deacons at the beginning of July, just after the feast day of St.Peter.
However, since Etienne had decided on the same week for his own arrival, we know why that couldn't happen!
So what a wonderful opportunity this is for us all – and thank you Etienne!
In the past this was the norm: that a Curate be priested amongst his or her own congregation in the parish church.
But this could all too easily turn into a congregational or parochial affair, OUR curate being ordained to be OUR priest in OUR church.
But as the bishop's leading of this service reminds us: what is happening here this evening sets up waves which spread out far beyond Lymington.
OUR Andy is this evening being ordained into the priesthood of the whole Anglican communion and therefore, despite our human fractures and divisions, the priesthood of the whole Church of Christ.
Diversity in world church
The recent visit of the Pope has brought both the unity and the divisions in the church into the headlines.
Coverage of joint events with the Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury.
Coverage of the offer of the Roman Catholic church to offer welcome and hospitality to Anglo Catholics wishing to join their communion.
And of course reminders of Apostolicae Curae, from Pope Leo 13th in 1896 declaring all Anglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void"
And that's just to look at the issues between two very similar denominations.
Everywhere you look in the world church you can see one denomination questioning another over matters of authority, organisation, succession, doctrine, ethics and so on.
Either Jesus' prayer for unity is, after 2000 years, still unanswered, or God is answering that prayer in some other way.
Anglican generosity
Within the Anglican communion we celebrate a breadth and inclusiveness which springs both from our position as the national church here in England, and also from the British values of tolerance and mutual respect, which were forged in bitter civil and religious wars.
Yet even our tolerant communion is faced with internal strife: women as bishops being this year's line in the sand. Who is with me? Who against?
In the past it has been candles on the altar, water in the wine, the bible in English, pipe organs in the music, in fact probably just about everything we now take for granted has been something to fight over, a dangerous new departure.
The Anglican way forward, called fudge by those who despise it, and generosity by those who admire it, is to keep rules and pronouncements to a minimum.
Rather than decide once and for all whether candles on the altar are right or wrong, we prefer to write a paper explaining why it's helpful for some people, and pointing to the incorrect interpretations which need to be avoided.
So for example we have clearly written down that appropriate robes must be worn, but not much detail what IS appropriate, and also reminding us that robes have no theological significance.
So people can continue in ways which they find helpful but the idolatry of beloved rules is avoided.
Movement between denominations
For some Christians such generosity is divine, for others the fudge is unbearable, and so people have always moved in every direction between the various denominations.
And our disapproval of a fellow Christian doesn't disqualify him or her from the Church of Christ.
In St.Paul's words from 1Cor 12 “The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you.'”
These disputes and divisions are HUMAN lines, FAINTLY drawn across the perfection of Christ's Church.
Christ's prayer for unity is answered not in uniformity but in commitment to him.
Change is how God works
Look at how the world has been, and continues to be, created by God.
Diversity flourishes, monocultures succumb to disease.
Some novelties work out, others don't.
Tomorrow is populated with those of today's differences which succeed.
Evolution shows us that diversity is essential to growth, and that it's important is to be prepared for TOMORROW'S world, not for yesterday's.
Priests too
That's just as true for our priests and leaders as it is for us as a congregation or a communion.
We need a variety of ministers for a changing world.
Those of us who are training ministers can no longer simply teach the succeeding generation to ape what we have learned for ourselves.
It is not, “This is how to do it, watch and learn, now off you go and be like me.”
In a sense that puts us in natural Anglican territory because there are no hard and fast rules.
Instead we have to train in diversity, in leading change, in listening to God and watching for his next move.
Andy
When Andy arrived he caused an immediate sensation in the 8 o'clock service. Not an easy feat!
It wasn't his radical missiology, nor even his unique perspective on Fresh Expressions of church.
No, it was the fact that he doesn't tuck in his shirt.
Well we can all cope with a certain amount of change, but there are limits!
Of course the serious point here is that while we may SAY we need to adapt to survive, in fact we FEEL that things should go on exactly as they are.
Even though we know they can't.
Job spec.
As we proceed with the service this evening, you will listen in vain for a detailed job spec. for a priest.
I actually counted 51 different things which Andy will be told to do, including serving and presiding; admonishing and absolving.
But there's no mention of sorting a worship rota, being a governor of a church school, deciding on the suitability of a churchyard memorial, or which sort of chairs to buy for the Church Hall.
No mention of leading a prayer group, chairing a PCC or taking a funeral.
51 different things, any one of which could be a whole life's work, and yet no mention of the actual day to day business of being a priest.
Uncertain future
And when you think about it, that's absolutely right.
After all, how will the church of the future look?
What will Andy's day be like within that church?
We don't know, so we remind him of all the tools which ministers have found important in the past, and pray that God will guide him in choosing and using them in the future.
Celebrating the changes in society
Very often we look out from behind our church ramparts at a wayward world with despair in our hearts.
But Andy has been helping us here to see all that's good in the modern world, see how God is at work, and opening up new opportunities for mission.
We see a new openness to the things of the spirit.
We see a new emphasis on relationship and communication.
We see disillusionment with materialism and individualism.
We see a hunger to become engaged and involved rather than passively consuming.
Andy is a child of those same movements of the Spirit, and is perfectly placed to discern, follow, serve and lead wherever they may blow.
Context of the bigger picture
I've set all this in the context of the worldwide Church of Christ and our fellow Christians in other denominations.
But I'd like to finish by spending a few moments putting it into a still wider context within God's eternal purposes.
If you turn back to the first reading, from 2 Corinthians 5, I'd invite you to look at the tenses.
For those in Christ: everything HAS become new. Past tense. Already done.
In Christ God WAS reconciling the world to himself. Past tense. Already done
So much is done already, so what is OUR role? Read on.
We ARE ambassadors of Christ, God IS making his appeal through us. Present tense.
Our work now
THIS is our work in every age.
Each one of us, ordained, lay, male, female, old, young, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Anglican; each one of us an ambassador for Christ, making God's appeal to our generation.
In today's clothes, today's language, today's culture saying, “See, NOW is the acceptable time; see, NOW is the day of salvation.”

The Gospel reading was Mark 10:13-22

Value of children
Thank you Sheumas for that Treehuggers poem. I loved the bit about children being free from the “don't be a fool” of adults. How easily we slip into that. “Don't be a fool.”

Jan read to us some of Jesus' words, and we heard the divine perspective: "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." It seems we have a lot to learn from children!

Future is theirs
Whatever our chances in the Kingdom of Heaven, there's one world which we adults will certainly not enter because of our age, and that's the future. As our reading from John's first letter reminded us: “The world and its desire are passing away.” We shall pass away and leave the future world to our children, and they will need to cope with that future world, not the past world which formed us.

Evolutionary psychologists like Steven Pinker point out that's precisely why it is that children are so good at change: they have to be. And that's why they listen more to their peers than to their their parents: it's because their peers are the ones growing up into the same future; their peers will be their competition and their support. Parents are useful for a while but then we shall be gone, leaving them to it.

Good at change
It's just as well children ARE good at change, because there's a lot of it about, perhaps now more than ever. We need to be doing things differently because things around us are different.

Nuclear power seemed obviously wrong when I was at university. I even splashed through the fountains of Leicester Square to protest against it. But now, with all we know about the effects of CO2, it seems obviously right.
When I was young it seemed obvious that the state should look after people over the age of 65, but now we all live so much longer it just can't be afforded; my retirement age, for example, has just risen to 68.

Our children will have to make decisions we know to be wrong now, but will be right for their age. They NEED to be good at change.

Changes in the church
In one area I can speak about change with some authority, not to mention nostalgia: the church. In the Good Old Days, I would have been among the wealthiest in Lymington, living in Monmouth House with my family and servants. I'd have had lay people falling over themselves to help with whatever chores my servants couldn't manage, and people would have made some gesture of respect as I passed them in the street.

All that changed as the church became more Christ-like, rediscovering our servant heart, our desire to follow the Jesus-path of sacrifice. This Friday, I spent the morning on the roof of my garage clearing the gutter.
The very good reason we no longer have servants is because, quite rightly, we no longer sell people's time cheaply. That single change in society has also meant that machine-made goods are vastly cheaper than craftsman-made goods.

When pews were put in this church, for example, chairs would have been made by craftsmen and would have been completely beyond the reach of ordinary people. Pews and benches, while still made by craftsmen, were far easier to make and so cost far less, and were in every church and home. Only the rich had chairs. Nowadays chairs are made by machines and cost very little, whereas the cost of craftsmen's time means that just refurbishing our two choir pews is going to cost about as much as all the chairs in the nave put together. We in the church need to learn from our children how to be good at change.

Local democracy
Similar changes are afoot in our civic life. The old certainties of class and power have faded, though not everyone has noticed. I was struck by the irony of a recent letter to the Lymington Times saying that the “snobs in power” were ignoring the wishes of the ordinary working people. How far from the truth! Sadly the wealthy have, in the main, forgotten, or never understood, the responsibilities which go with a privileged life, and stick to saving and spending their money. No: the 'elite' who run Lymington are elite in the sense that they give their time selflessly in service, and accept that, far from thanks, they will mostly receive insults. Those in civic life also have to learn how to be good at change.

Language of confrontation
And that leads me to another area where our children have been instigators of change: the very language we use. We're just catching up with Bad and Wicked meaning Good when they're off to the next confusion.
We've seen it in this recent effort to divide Lymington into POSH and ORDINARY. Now when I was little being POSH was something to be quietly aspired to, it meant you had high standards, good taste and the money to back it up. Now it is actually an INSULT, and means that you consider yourself better than other people, something no truly posh person would ever do, as snobbery is the epitome of bad taste!

Perhaps the old meaning of POSH is found now only in the word DECENT. Then we'd see what an insult to ordinary working people it is to imply that they are incapable of being DECENT. And I think not many people would like to stand on the other side of the line if we tried to divide Lymington into DECENT and LOUTISH.

So often these arguments are really about language. Imagine if we recast the Wetherspoon argument in terms of “Wealthy business interests driving a coach and horses through local planning rules.” Who's on which side now? So we need to learn from children how to cope with a changing language.

Public communication
Another change confronting our children is the dumbing down of public communication to sound bites and manufactured confrontations. From the age of nothing at all they are bombarded day and night by lies and pointless arguments. These shoes will make your bottom beautiful; (no they won't) He says Nike's best, but I say it's Reebok; (who cares?) There's an App for everything (no there isn't). Our children have the world pecking at their brains day in and day out: Twitter; Facebook; Youtube. My phone can tell me right now what menial task one of my on-line 'friends' is currently engaged in. It's all available but there's too much to take in.

And somehow our children will make their way into the future with all that. And they WILL somehow make it work out because children are so good at change.

Morality
So does this mean that us oldies are a complete irrelevance? Far from it. And as they travel into the future our children need us to give them one parting gift for the journey. That gift is a compass which will tell them right from wrong, or as we must say nowadays, appropriate from inappropriate!

When Jesus was asked about the setting on that compass, he said to the rich young man: there are rules – don't do thins, don't do that. The young man replied, “Well I know the rules and I'm doing fine, is that it?” So Jesus says there's more than rules, as well as NOT DOING BAD things, there are also virtues and values, there's DOING the RIGHT thing. If you've got money; if you've got time, use it to help those who are struggling in the community. And the rich young man went away sad because he was rich. His parents had set his compass towards greed, and he was lost.
We parents can't pass on rules because they may not apply in the future, but we can pass on VALUES which are timeless.

Jesus is the constant
Our children need to hear Jesus today, because he's the one who knows why we're here on earth, and what's the point. He's the one who knows what's RIGHT for RIGHT NOW, and into the changing future. And he'll tell our children to use what they have in service of others. Maybe the robes will change, maybe the pews will be chairs, but they need to hear Jesus calling them to civic responsibility.

It's actually summed up in the words on the front of your sheets: Civic Service. If we can hand on to our children a compass which points them to Civic Service then we shall be helping them to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. It will probably lead them towards insults rather than thanks, but far more importantly it will lead them towards the Kingdom of God.

Sermon 25 April 2010 - Acts 15: 35 - end
Preached by Revd Andy Smith

Isn’t it amazing how well politicians in the same party get on with each other during the run up to a general election. All the infighting, all the disagreements, the characters that rub each other the wrong way, they suddenly seems to be best of friends. The people that just weeks before seem to be at each others throats, planning the overthrowing of a party leader, or removing someone from a key role, suddenly with an election around the corner not only are all their differences sorted out - but it is as if they never had them in the first place. Quizzed on the problems of the past it is as if they have been airbrushed out, and replaced with a version that just seems a bit too good to be true.

Now to give an example from the UK political scene so close to the election is perhaps not appropriate - I am sure you can all think of examples, but a similar thing happened in the US presidential election. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who seemed so opposed to each other during the Democratic Party nomination process, not just relating to policies, but character and how they related to one another too. For the presidential election it suddenly seemed like they had always been best of friends.

May be I am just a bit too cynical - but when two people who disagree with each other on so many issues, and who seem to keep frustrating each other suddenly get on so well just as everyone is watching them I get a bit suspicious. And I am even more suspicious when it’s portrayed like nothing was ever wrong.

Our reading from the Acts of the Apostles there is no attempt at such cover up. There is no rewriting of the history books, no plastering over the cracks. One commentary I read on this text titles it simply ‘a huge row’. The word used for argument suggests red or distorted faces, loud voices, and things said that perhaps shouldn’t have been said. This was a proper, full on argument - not a gentle discussion.

It's between St Paul, who spearheaded the spread of the gospel in the early church, and has written much of what we now call the New Testament, and Barnabas. Barnabas was a close friend of Paul, they went on missionary journeys together, and he described earlier in the book of Acts, in Acts 11 as “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith”. This huge undignified row is between two of our spiritual giants.

The argument centres around Barnabas’ cousin John-Mark. He had been taken with them on an earlier journey but had disappeared off when it looked dangerous, when a mob set on them.

Paul and Barnabas where planning on heading much further afield this time, and Paul is rightly concerned that so much further from home, they need someone reliable - if things get difficult John-Mark he couldn’t have John-Mark disappearing off again.

Barnabas feels differently - he is known elsewhere as the ‘Son of Encouragement’ - and you can imagine him wanting to give John-Mark a second chance - after all he was his cousin. You can imagine too that Barnabas had spent time with John-Mark since the last experience, had seen that he’d matured, grown up, had a deeper faith and was ready to join them. The result - a big argument and they each go their separate ways.

The first thing I want to share is that it is really interesting that this big argument is recorded at all. Sometimes those who try to discredit the Christian faith and the Christian scriptures suggest the authors of the bibles books made things up, that stories were invented to strengthen what they now thought, and that they failed to record things that may discredit it.

We live in a world where most people no longer have a belief in Jesus, and many are deeply suspicious, they have read Dan Brown’s Divinci code, Phillip Pullman's book ‘the Good man Jesus, and the scoundrel Christ’ and become even more suspicious.

As disciples of Jesus we need to know why we can trust in the scriptures, both to strengthen our faith in the light of increased hostility and for each of us to help journey with those we know who are interested but suspicious of a relationship with Jesus Christ. This reading is a good example.

It does not portray the early church leaders in a good light, and so it would have been very unlikely to have been made up or altered, it speaks of authenticity. This is the sort of thing you would leave out of your political party manifesto, and asked about it, would be evasive.

It is the sort of account that if you were trying to paint a rosy picture of the early church and of the apostles you wouldn’t dream of including - yet Luke the author of Acts did include it. It is just one example of the credibility of our scriptures, and so gives us greater confidence in our scriptures.

My second point is about what actually went on in this account. Just because we see St Paul and Barnabas, two spiritual heroes of the Epistles having a big argument does not mean that it was right. They were still sinful humans and messed up. Just because this text from Acts is recorded does not mean that they were doing good.

I believe God deeply wants restored relationships with humanity - between him and humanity, but between individual people too. I think this event must have really upset God - it seems to be a backwards step of God's mission to restore relationships - from two people who were trying to move it forwards.

Restoring relationships between humans was part of God's mission then, and it is today too. He still cares about how we relate to one another. Individually, as a congregation how we relate to the others in the parish, as a national church - how we relate to others within the church we passionately disagree with. Now we live in a completely different culture to that of the middle east 2000 years ago. It's quite easy for us to use this to allow this reading not to impact us in the way that it's meant to. These two passionate middle eastern men disagreed probably by raised voices, banging their fists on the table and shouting.

Well I don’t think I have ever done that here - so I’ll look round and see if I can see anyone else behaving in this way. But in middle class, southern Britain Lymington people argue in very different ways. We are reserved, polite, British, but we still disagree, we say things to others when the person is not there, we leave people out, we go about it in ways that are just as destructive, just as damaging to each other, and just as disappointing to God.

My final point is about God's grace. The outcome of the argument between Paul and Barnabas - two missionary journeys instead of one. Barnabas going with John-Mark on one missionary journey and Paul and Silas on another.

This does not mean the argument was a good thing or that God wanted it - but simply another example of a recurring theme within the bible, perhaps the best summary of the entire bible - God takes the greatest human mistakes, the greatest sin and turns them around for good. This is what God is up to and it gives hope to each of us.