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Rev. Gregor Henderson
- 5 July 2006
Opening service of 11th Assembly and installation
as President
Bible readings: Isaiah 55:1-13; John 1:1-18
In the name of God - creator, redeemer, sustainer.
A.
Worshippers coming forward to receive communion: as I place the bread
in their waiting hands, with the words “the body of Christ, broken
for you”, some say amen, others murmur thanks, a few give a quiet
grunt or a nod, most are silent. A few months ago a young African woman
listened intently as I placed the bread in her hands, then she looked
me straight in the eye, and she said “Wow!”
That was a beautiful God-moment. God spoke to me then, reminding me that
to be Christian is a most awesome thing. We believe in God, we believe
that through Jesus God’s love gives and gives, grace upon grace,
and we believe that God’s Word is alive and with us, every day.
Wow!
After 15 years of serving in the wider church, I returned three years
ago to my “trade”, a local minister. In congregational ministry
you see God’s Word at work in people’s lives all the time
- people coming to faith for the first time, people reconnecting with
God, people renewed in their prayer life, people experiencing a miracle,
people energised to bear witness and to work for compassion and justice,
people who know that God’s Word is alive and with them, every day.
It’s a joy to be back in congregational ministry - and I’m
glad that as President over the next three years I will remain well grounded
in the Canberra Central Parish.
B.
The magnificent prologue to John’s gospel tells us that God’s
Word is of the very essence of God. The Word is the second person of the
Trinity who “became flesh and lived among us”. Through his
life and death and resurrection, this Word, Jesus Christ, has made God’s
ways known for all to see and gifts us with becoming the children of God.
Centuries before, the prophet Isaiah spoke about God’s Word accomplishing
God’s purpose, an alive, active, and succeeding Word.
So God’s Word is not just the Bible, the inspired record of God’s
dealing with humankind - although God’s Word is heard through the
Scriptures. God’s Word is not just Jesus on earth living, dying
and rising in Palestine - although he indeed is God’s Word to the
whole world. God’s Word is God with us now, present every day with
gifts of guidance and faith, hope and love. The Word is a living Word
- as our Basis of Union states
“Christ who is present when he is preached among
people is the Word of the God who acquits the guilty, who gives life to
the dead and who brings into being what otherwise could not exist”.
C.
Too often our state of being as church seems to deny this basic truth
of God’s living Word. In the Uniting Church we have far too many
congregations where the joy and excitement of the faith and the confidence
that God is leading us into his future, do not shine through. The statistics
about the numbers of people who are part of the Uniting Church are not
as discouraging as they were a few years back, but they still give us
no reason for boasting. We have to face squarely the reality that we are,
overall, an ageing church. In John’s prologue we are told the Word
came to bring life and light - we need to rediscover and re-emphasise
that life and light in many parts of our church.
The potential of course is enormous. When we focus on being a church at
worship and at mission, a church that knows God’s Word is alive
and with us, then we can and will connect with some of those 80% of Australians
who have no regular contact with any church, despite the fact that most
of them claim some sort of Christian affiliation. It distresses me that
so many of our congregations seem content to remain moribund - showing
no interest in connecting with their local community or somehow deciding
to focus on something other than worship and mission.
Equally distressing to me is the way we have allowed our disagreements
over theological and pastoral issues like sexuality and leadership to
descend into personal denigration and abuse. This is not the way of Christ.
I was horrified to learn that a few church members at a small national
gathering last year stood up and sang the doxology when they heard the
news that a couple of key evangelical leaders in our church had decided
to leave us - that is not an occasion for celebration or praise, it is
a matter of loss, failure and sadness! On the other hand, thousands of
church members signed a petition after the last Assembly which accused
Assembly members of not being faithful to the Basis of Union and our Assembly
leaders of misleading the Assembly. Such strong charges warrant far more
care and consideration before they are levelled, and I wonder, had all
those signatories really read the Basis of Union before signing the petition?
D.
These are shameful behaviours, not worthy of Christians. I believe passionately
that we can live together in fellowship and peace despite significant
differences in our theological or discipleship emphases. As Paul wrote
“no-one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit”
- surely we are bound together by our common faith, by our conviction
that God’s Word is alive and with us, by our shared convictions
about God and God’s world and God’s church that are much bigger
than the differences that seek to separate us.
I’ve always felt strongly drawn to the principle coming from the
Reformation in Germany in the early 17th century, and strongly supported
by none other than John Wesley: “in essentials unity, in non-essentials
liberty, in all things love”. In his great sermon on “Catholic
Spirit” Wesley challenged his listeners “Though we cannot
think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though
we are not of one opinion?”
Now let me acknowledge that some of our differences in fact involve arguments
as to what is essential and what is not essential in the faith. That’s
a healthy debate for any church and it’s a debate I’d welcome
in our church over the next years - as long as we never never forget the
final phrase of that Reformed principle, “in all things love”.
E.
I also believe it is time for us to emphasise that now and always the
church exists not for its own sake but for the sake of the world and of
a new humanity in Christ. This is unmistakably affirmed in John 1.
John’s prologue proclaims that the whole of creation came into being
through God’s Word. It is God’s world, not ours, and God’s
incarnate Word came for the whole world. This is what compels Christians
to engage with the world. We are not called to live apart from the world;
we are called to join God in God’s world. God is already there,
working for peace and love - but thwarted by people who do not recognise
God in their lives and in their world.
As Australian Christians seeking to witness to God’s Word in God’s
world, it’s inevitable that we will have some serious disagreements
with those in political power. I affirm our governments for many of their
policies and outcomes: for our overall national prosperity, in multiculturalism,
in peace-making in the Solomons and East Timor, in our generous response
to the tsunami disaster and other natural disasters, in finally moving
to increase our levels of overseas aid.
But nothing like the same insight, commitment or generosity is offered
to indigenous Australians, or to asylum seekers, or to David Hicks. And
at a time of extraordinarily increasing wealth in this country, how can
we justify the fact that the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever
before in our history, and how can we accept that there are people in
this country who everyday are victims of poverty, racism, physical or
sexual abuse, homelessness. What’s happened to the concept of the
“common good”? What’s happened to our compassion, to
our peaceful and safe communities, to our concept of the “fair go”,
to God’s gifts of life and light for God’s world? It is a
time when those of us who believe in the living Word of God must engage
strongly in the national and international life of God’s world.
A few months ago I heard Dean Drayton say that the level of church discontent
with Australian government policies on asylum seekers, workplace relationships,
the war in Iraq, human rights and the restrictions of the anti-terrorist
laws could well mean that the next Assembly President might spend time
in jail. His hopefully tongue-in-cheek comments rather focussed my attention!
I have no ambitions in that direction - but we in the church are called
above all else to give our allegiance to God’s Word in God’s
world, and if that means disputation and discomfort then so be it. It’s
not a time for shirking God’s mission - it is a time to set the
Uniting Church free to proclaim and live the good news of Christ, to cease
our divisiveness and to get on with being the church at mission.
F.
Friends, to conclude:
I believe it’s imperative that in the Uniting Church over these
next few years we live out two big convictions about the Christian life,
with passion and determination:
· one, that God’s living Word is there
for us and for everyone, every day, alive, active, succeeding, seeking
for us to receive God’s love and to know God’s power and peace
in our lives; and
· two, that God’s living Word is at work
in God’s world, every day, seeking for people to join with God in
working for and with compassion and justice and peace.
Wow!
It’s God’s Word, God’s world.
Podcast
For the pod cast to this sermon, please click here.
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