"Pressing on to where we have to go"
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on 7th March 2010 by Rt Rev Bob Gillies
Readings: Jeremiah 1: 4 - 10, Philippians 3:12 – 4:1
My thanks to you Jamie and to the Chapel Committee for the invitation topreach here today and to you personally for your kind welcome.
I have great pleasure in standing here before you today. This is University of which I am a graduate and this royal burgh is in so many waysour adopted home. For sixteen years I was rector of St Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Queen’s Terrace and dearly love the university and town to which which I feel so intimately connected.
In the last summer of my theological training at seminary the Episcopal Church let out the building to a group of actors from Australia who wereperforming at the Edinburgh Festival. They were in a hard-hitting and very aggressive play about life in a miningcommunity deep in the Australian outback.In many ways this particular troup was type-cast for they were very much thealpha males in reality who they were portraying on stage. But nonethelessthey were good fun to have around and we had them in residence in thetheological college for about six weeks. In such circumstances conversations begin equally as naturally as they subsequently deepen. And given that the context for our talking together wasin a theological college, issues of religion in general and of vocation inparticular inevitably arose.
In one of those conversations it came to be that one of the actors and Iwere in a ‘one to one’ as to why I had come to be following a pathway thatwould take me into ordained ministry.Without any notes, and without any biblical text in front of him, thisparticular actor quoted back to me verses drawn from Matthew and Luke whichgo, “When Jesus saw the crowd he had compassion for them. They were harassed and helpless, they were like sheep without a shepherd. And then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few,therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into hisharvest.”Words from this rough-edged actor that he knew from somewhere deep within.Words from scripture that he knew by heart and could apply.
Passages such as this one define in many ways the whole ethos of Christianministry. Going where least expected, sometimes where least preferred. Butpressing on, nonetheless.Those verses which my actor friend voiced will have been verses thateveryone who is called to deeper discipleship find addressed to themselvesin a very personal way. And this is the case whether you’re lay or ordained.
In fact, I would venture to suggest that if these verses haven’t yet spokento you in your own discipleship walk with Jesus, then perhaps today is the first time that they will. “…ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”Scripture verses come to mind as important facets of the story that God hasfor each one of us as we press forward on our discipling pilgrimage.
It is passages from scripture like this which give shape to where we’vecome from. They become part of our present and they impel us into the future.
They become important touchstones of God’s purpose for us and forothers, not least if like that actor we can recite them from memory.
They are there in such a way that the story of God’s eternal dealing withhis people throughout history and as recorded in scripture, somehowintersects with his story for me, now. And yes, for you, as well.Labourers are needed to bring in the harvest. No distance needs to be travelled for that to happen.
You begin with the person next to you, if not actually with yourself. Let me stress that no church, no Christian community, will ever succeed in mission elsewhere if it does not already practice mission amongst its own,where it is now.The people of God, gathered together for God’s own work press on to God’sharvest here.It might be in effervescent praise. It might be in tranquil calm. Perhapsamidst formality of a setting like this.
In other places, not least in my rural Aberdeenshire, having to endure freezing cold churches in contrast tothriving, shortsleeved, in bustling busy ones in our Aberdeen suburbs.Whatever the setting and context the labourers press on together.
Why? Because the Lord of the harvest says so. And we do so in recognition of what God has already prepared. Ourevangelistic pressing on together might be in conversation. It certainlymust be in support and in encouragement.Wherever and whatever the case it begins here with the labourers already at hand. Now.
Never be discouraged about what might seem to be a lack of harvesters tosend out because each of us is a harvester and each of us is a part of thatfield that needs the Lord of the harvest.It must not be that some press on towards a goal, towards the goal, to theexclusion of any of the rest of the others.
Together we all go on to those places to which God has called us to go. Sometimes where least expected, sometimes where least preferred, but all ofus – together - pressing on nonetheless.
Amen. And may God bless you all