Churches Mission to all people
1990 (Year A), 8 July /
Pentecost 5
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
There was once a little man who had never seen the sea, even the sea, even though his mother was an old pirate woman. He lived in a city far from the seashore. The little man always wore a brown suit, a brown tie and shiny shoes. Before he spoke he always coughed nervously and he worked in an office adding up figures. One day his mother insisted he take her to the sea again so he pushed her in a wheelbarrow because he had no car and no money.
As they went his mother told him about the sea and gradually the man began to change. He took his shoes off and threw his jacket away. When they finally got to the sea, the little man was already in love with it. With joy he and his mother danced hornpipes along the beach. How the little man’s neat clothes grew wild and happy to be free.
A rosy sea captain came along. ‘Well, here are too likely people,’ the captain said. ‘Will you be my bo’son, madam? And you, little man can be the cabin boy.’
The little man coughed, ‘Thank you!’ he said.
‘Say “Aye, aye, sir!”’ roared the captain.
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ replied the little man as if he had never had coughed in his life. And he sang as he twirled on his toes. So Sailor Sam went onto the ship with his pirate mother and the sea captain. A year later somebody brought the little man’s old employer a letter, it had been washed ashore in a bottle. ‘Having a wonderful time,’ it read. ‘Why don’t you run off to sea too?’
And if you want to find any more moral to this story, you must go to the sea and find it.
Sitting there this week, listening to the story I knew instantly, with my heart, the point it was making and I guess many of you do too. For there are some things which speak to us whoever we are.
The Bible contains similar stories – ones which speak to all of us. When we hear of Ruth the destitute and widowed Moabite, remaining through loyalty with her already widowed mother-in-law, in a strange land, with a people very different from those she was used to, then we are moved to affirm her actions. She transcends those barriers which divide individuals and nations. ‘Yes that’s how it should be,’ we nod. And when we read of Peter and his vision of a church open for all, not just the Jews, then again we feel instinctively that, ‘Yes it’s right.’
It is quite clear that the church should be inclusive rather than exclusive. That’s what we feel with our hearts and minds – yet somehow between the thinking and feeling, something strange happens to the reality and it doesn’t quite work out as it should. We become closed and some of those outside are, apparently quite deliberately, kept there. Maybe, it’s for some unconscious attitude – but there are those churches who see themselves as needing to live only for themselves – they become inward looking. They become numerically smaller and smaller until eventually they die, and this one is not entirely guiltless.
It is the task of the church as symbolised by those sent out by Jesus to look forever outward to those who are not now insiders. Not with the intention of watering down what we have to say to make it more acceptable to them, nor of demanding they join us at any price. We look outward so that we might tell them what we know of God and so that they in turn might teach us.
It’s hard to imagine the change that came over Peter as he realised that he must speak to all people not just the Jews. It’s hard to realise what courage it must have taken to persuade the other early Christians that what he was saying must be the way from now on. The old order of separation and sectarianism was over. It’s almost impossible for us to understand the bravery of Ruth.
It is however, relatively easy for us to look back at these stories to see the point and accept it, and to see what makes the little man with the pirate mother free. It is much more difficult to look into our own lives and make the connections between those bible stories and what’s happening inside our churches now. To actually see the barriers we erect, the looks which exclude, the words which prevent others taking their rightful place in our midst.
The gospel message, with which we are empowered, like all the stories we’ve heard today is capable of being understood and accepted by everybody. For the message speaks to all that unites us, our common humanity, and it is in that shared humanity that we find Jesus. The church will never be an end in itself, no matter how hard we try. It is simply there to help people on their way. And so it is a source of continual joy that Jesus said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.’ AMEN