Last Sunday's thought: By what authority are you doing these things?

‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’ It was a question that, in one form or another, Jesus was asked many times during his ministry. ‘…who do you say that I am?’ he asked his disciples (Matt. 16:15; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20) at Caesarea Philippi. At Nazareth, because he had been brought up there and his family was known, his ministry was rejected: ‘a prophet is not without honour except in his own country…’ (Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; cf. ‘no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town’: Luke 4:24). Our Lord’s ministry on this earth provides us with plenty of examples of criticism and rejection. Far from seeking compromise and consensus, Jesus was prepared to hit out at his critics: ‘the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you’, he tells the chief priests and the elders in the gospel. The choice of words was not calculated to endear him to his critics.

Any preacher, minister or priest can face such questions if he says something which is uncomfortable, or which does not conform to the current consensus. Yet if the church is to prosper and grow, comfort zones have to be challenged. The new Conventional District to be established around the Church of St Guthlac with effect from 1 October is called ‘an intentional mission initiative’ which ‘seeks to increase the number of disciples and the depth of discipleship at St Guthlac’s’. It is not therefore about maintaining the status quo. It is about increasing discipleship in both senses – numbers and depth. There is no point in seeking to increase the number of worshippers if we are only offering them a feeble, dumbed down version of the good news of Jesus Christ. No, we seek to deepen our own discipleship while at the same attracting others to join us by the warmth of our welcome and the quality of what we have to offer: the story we tell, in other words, is so powerful and compelling that not to be part of our worshipping community is to miss out on something that is life sustaining and life enriching. We are the poorer if we are not present in Church each Sunday to hear the good news and celebrate our love of God and of his son our saviour Jesus Christ. In one sense, what we are trying to do is all relatively simple. This does not make the task of managing ‘an intentional mission initiative’ itself either simple or easy.

If this development is to prosper, it needs, in humility, to be dedicated to God. The words of the assassinated bishop Oscar Romero are pertinent: ‘We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it’s a beginning, and a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.’