A still more excellent way

January 30, 2022

I will show you a still more excellent way…

You may well have heard me tell the joke about the new rector whose first sermon in his new parish amazes and delights his new parishioners. Word spreads around the parish that they have hired someone superb, and the crowd on the second Sunday is even larger as people gather to hear an even more wonderful homily… and he simply preaches the sermon from the previous week.

The punchline of the story comes when the rector is finally challenged by his wardens to explain why he only preaches the one sermon, and he responds that the next sermon will come when they start living lives that show they’ve taken the first sermon on board. It made you all laugh gently when I first told that story, so I suppose it’s an OK clergy-style joke in its way. But it always makes me want to ask what the next chapter is – what is the next sermon? And will it actually be as good as the first one? Will it be possible, to quote St Paul, for the new rector to show them a still more excellent way…?

Well, this morning is the day we get a ‘second installment’, and unlike the new rector joke, it comes hard on the heels of the first installment, all in about fifteen verses of Bible text.

Jesus’ first sermon – the one which had them on the edge of their seats – was simply his announcing that the great prophecy from the scroll of Isaiah has been fulfilled. Good news for the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind, and freedom from oppression. It sounds really good – it sounded good on the lips of the prophet over 500 years earlier, and it sounded really good right there in Nazareth.

But – like the joke about the new rector – clearly folk didn’t really want to own it. And thus we find Jesus’ fellow Nazarenes muttering, “Who does he think he is?” For whatever reason, they don’t really like the implications of his first sermon. And that’s when Jesus follows a different tactic from the new rector – Jesus gives them the second sermon straight away…. and if they didn’t like the first one, as we heard, they positively hate the second one! They do not like Jesus offering them a still more excellent way.

Today is the day when we both look back over our shoulder at the past critically to assess our mission and ministry in the twelve months gone by, and then stare as deeply as we can into our future, to make sure that our gaze continues to be focused on Jesus and the direction in which he calls and leads us. And I think it probably fair to say that in a time as extraordinary as that in which we find ourselves, both as a church community, and in the world at large, the disciplines which our annual meeting demand of us are probably more important than ever. For, while we might have tried as hard as possible to ‘keep the show on the road’, the nature of the pandemic has meant that it has not been ‘business as usual’ in many many ways – either for us, or for anyone else.

And in many ways, today is a day of celebration and rejoicing, as should be obvious from those ministry and financial reports. In a year that has had real ups and downs, almost all our ‘numbers’ have been impressively strong, and there is much about which we could boast. But – as we were just reminded by MJ – if we boast without love we have nothing. And that is why, on today of all days, we must strive to see a still more excellent way…

Paul, who wrote these words, had been having ups and downs. He had founded the church in Corinth, and for a while things had been glorious. The church community had grown well, they loved their founder and leader, and if they had had such a thing as an annual meeting back then, the first few would, I am certain, have been wonderful.

But Paul moved on – as is the way of church leaders both then and now – and problems began to arise. Indeed, if you read the two letters in the New Testament we know as First and Second Corinthians fully and completely, rather than broken down into the little extracts chosen for Sunday worship, you will be reminded how ‘situational’ almost all of Paul’s letters are, and you can see very clearly some of the problems that had arisen after Paul had moved on to pastures new. Divisions within the church community, inappropriate sexual relationships, tensions between rich and poor, rivalry over spiritual gifts and charisms – and a growing gap between the local church leaders and Paul himself.

And so, this time last week, we heard the previous chapter of First Corinthians, in which Paul reminds this fractured community that a church needs to be made up of members with all sorts of gifts. The body needs eyes, feet, hands and everything else, as he explains with great clarity. And that was as true 2000 years ago as it is today. That is why our reports makes such wonderful and exciting reading – for here at St James both within your staff team and across all our elected leadership and ministry leaders, we certainly live out that diversity of skills and experiences about which Paul was writing.

But Paul doesn’t leave it there. And I do not think it fanciful to suggest that the reason for this is he knows that the Corinthian community is falling apart. And – with I suspect a fair degree of exasperation in his voice – he knows that he needs to bang their heads together, to knock some sense – no, some grace – into them. And in what I suspect his long-suffering amanuensis will have heard as a cross between anger and despair, he cries out, I will show you a still more excellent way…

And then comes the most famous and beloved piece of Scripture in the Christian tradition. If – I – do – not – have – love – I – am nothing…

As simple as that. And more than that – nearly everything else will pass away. Everything except faith, hope and love…and the greatest of these is love.

In other words, says Paul to this not yet perfect Christian community, ‘get your priorities right and work together’. You can be better than you think you are. You can behave better than you currently are. And what message could be more apposite for us – or any church community to hear – on the day of its annual meeting. Especially when coupled with that ‘what happened next’ incident we heard in the gospel – that moment of rage when a faith community got confronted by Good News that challenged its own values and priorities.

Now when I look in the mirror, let alone when you all may look at me, it is plain to see that there are any number of times when the way I chose to take is far from excellent. But nevertheless, if it falls to anyone, now, today, Sunday 30^th January, 2022, it falls to me to prompt us all to remember the need for that still more excellent way – on this Sunday of all Sundays in the year.

For instance, when we start our meeting, we will, I know, be talking about our buildings. We will be talking about this beloved and beautiful cathedral, whose fabric shows concerning signs of wear and tear. And I dare say we may talk about the ongoing implications of the diocesan trustees decision to sell the office building and plaza.

But while we are, of course, called to be responsible stewards of our assets, let me tell you a little secret…. One day… this lovely church will either fall down or be demolished. And it won’t, ultimately, matter – it won’t matter if the St James community has taken seriously the words of the hymn that we just sung, which calls the followers of Jesus to raise a ‘living temple’ whose towers ‘may tell forth salvation’ and whose walls ‘may re-echo praise’. That’s the still more excellent way – without which, nothing we do in this building or to preserve this building is of any worth at all.

Or we might need to remember that more excellent way if COVID has made us prioritize attending church, receiving the sacrament, and participating in mission, formation, and fellowship just a little lower than was once the case. At a point when the majority of COVID cases for the vaccinated are mild, and when we gather in a very large and airy space, and when many other aspects of life are back to close to normal, our pews have been remarkably empty, our formation activities poorly attended, and our mission work sometimes struggling to find volunteers.

And the next time we look at our bank balance and our financial commitments, we might need to look for that more excellent way. As of some 48 hours ago, 51 families who I believe still consider themselves to be members of the cathedral community had yet to complete a pledge for 2022. That’s probably simply oversight – for we all lead busy lives – but it hinders our ability to function properly – it hinders our ability to tell those tidings of a new creation to this old and weary earth.

And, most importantly of all, (and let me say that now more than ever I am preaching first and foremost to myself), we need to keep looking in the spiritual mirror, and making sure that we have really understood and are really acting out the kind of love that Paul was talking about – the kind of love about which Charles Wesley spoke in that famous first hymn we just sung… the love that is divine, and without which nothing else is worth anything at all.

For you – and I – need always to remember that we are but a work in progress. We are still, as Wesley said, being ‘changed from glory into glory’, and, whatever we achieved last year and will achieve this coming year, that work will and must continue ‘till in heaven we take our place’. So join me, on this Annual Meeting Sunday, join me in following Christ on his unstoppable way of love, and allow him to show us all, a still more excellent way. Amen.