Acts 1: 9-26
I have this wonderful image that
comes to me whenever I think about the Ascension. I imagine all the disciples
standing there looking at the sky as Jesus goes to be with the Father. No one
has noticed that they are joined by two extra people. I wonder how long they
all stood there before the angels spoke to them. They would have been taken by
surprise I’m sure. And then they go back to the upper room and start the
process of being a Church. They start the process of becoming something
completely new, in the world but not of it. They will become the greatest force
for change in the world leaving a legacy that will still be standing the test
of time nearly 2000 years after they have all been promoted to glory.
Fast forward to 2014 and we stand
on the eve of another Pentecost and I think we are still, like the early
disciples, looking at the sky wondering what’s going to happen next. I often
wonder where we went from being a world-changing group of people to people
keeping the status quo.
We look at the statistics and we
see a Church that is keeping afloat. We have had some dramatic drops in numbers
coming to Church but recently those numbers have started to rise. Even in my
own denomination, the Methodist Church, I see how the drop in numbers is
affecting the very structure of the church. A friend of mine is being taken out
of full time Chaplaincy development and being put back into Church life because
they can no longer afford to keep the staffing levels in the Chaplaincy
Development as they are. The euphemism used is restructuring.
But before I drive us all to drink
with depression about the eminent demise of the Church we need to look to
Pentecost because therein lies the message of hope for us all. You see the one
thing that stands out for me in the Pentecost is how the disciples’ perspective
was changed from one of being insular and self-protecting to one of taking the
message of Christ and of hope to the world who in the words of Jesus “hated
them because of the truth within them.”
And because I am a chaplain who has
the privilege of supporting 70 chaplains across the county of Kent I see
chaplaincy as the ultimate expression of Pentecost. Because the role of the
Christian chaplain is to take the love and gospel of Christ to a world that doesn't know or is hostile to the truth in us. We don’t necessarily do it like Peter did, addressing big crowds. We tend to do it like Paul, who had conversations with people,
encouraging them to look at the Gospel because we show that there is more to
Christianity than words.
But being so outward focussed
places the chaplain in a place of tension. One of the questions the chaplains I
serve and I get asked regularly is: “If you are doing such a good job of
showing the love of God, why aren’t we seeing more people in Church?” The
answer lies in the Great Commission. We are called to make disciples not grow
churches. We are not called as chaplains, or Christians for that matter, to
ensure the survival of a club.
Archbishop
William Temple is reported to have said that the Church is the only organisation
that exists for the benefit of its non-members.
More recently Rob Bell wrote:
The Church does not exist for itself; it exists to serve the world. It’s
not ultimately about the church; it’s about all the people God wants to bless
through the church. When the church loses sight of this, it loses its heart.
(Taken from Velvet Elvis pg 165)
Gerard Hughes wrote this is his
book God of surprises:
Christ cannot…really be present in a congregation whose energies and
interests are focussed on themselves, and who do not show as a body and as
individuals, an interest and compassion for the needs of the immediate
neighbourhood, and a consciousness that the congregation exists, as a Christian
group, to serve the needs of others. (God of surprises pg. 132)
Our function as other have said
more eloquently than me that we are there for the benefit of others. At a
meeting recently I had the opportunity to open the meeting with the devotions
and my reading was the reading in Matthew in which Jesus calls Matthew and then
has dinner with “sinners”. When confronted by the teachers of the law, Jesus’
reply is as always a classic: “it is not the well, who need a doctor but the
sick.”
And that is the joy and the promise
of Pentecost. We become obsessed with sharing the love and hope of Christ and
then it no longer about bums on seats but about the Kingdom of God and we truly
all become chaplains in the truest sense of the word.
Amen
