Sermon for Ordination and Induction of Rev Alastair Bruce, Ellon Parish Church

Isaiah 30:15-18           Mark 1:29-39

There’s a story told about a minister who was conducting a baptism
as part of morning worship, and she’d been running around so much
before the service she didn’t realise that there was no water in the
font until they were halfway through the baptismal hymn.

So as discreetly as she could, she started making eyes to the
Session Clerk and nodding towards the font, and he – being quick on
the uptake – realised what the problem was and slipped out to try
and find a solution.

Now this was a wee country church, and the only receptacle he could
find to hand was a vase with some flowers in it. So he wheeched out
the flowers and filled up the vase with fresh water from the tap
outside. But how on earth was he going to get it into the font?

Well, of course there was no discreet way to do it, so ended up
doing the only thing he could.. He strode back into the church during
the last verse of the hymn, holding the vase out before him with
great pomp and ceremony. Poured the water into the font with a
flourish, bowed to the minister and sat back down in his pew.

And afterwards everyone was saying ‘wasn’t that a lovely thing they
did with the water. I’ve never seen that done before – wasn’t that a
lovely thing.”

And lo and behold – a new tradition was born!

How do we end up doing the things that we do within the church?

I wish I could say it was all by careful thought and prayer and
design, but we’re a human institution as well as a spiritual one, and
our reasons for doing things aren’t always as spiritual as they might
be.

Some of our practices owe more to accident and circumstance than
deliberate planning. Speaking to some of our members you’d think
that the old tradition of celebrating communion twice a year was the
eleventh commandment rather than a quirk of fate.

It’s well known that John Knox wanted the new church to celebrate the sacrament
every Sunday, there just weren’t enough ministers to make that possible in the early years of the Reformation. An accident of history that became a cherished tradition.

Some of the things we do in the church we do because it’s aye been
that way; and we in the Kirk are rarely in the vanguard of change.
We keep doing things that were meaningful for previous generations
without stopping to ask if they continue to have meaning for this
generation.

And some of the things we do in the church, we do simply because
we’re swept along in a river of well-meaning activity borne out of a
sense of duty, We ought to do this, we ought to do that. It’s what
the writer Gerry Hughes calls a hardening of the oughteries.

I heard a sketch a while ago by Adrian Plass in which a man comes to
faith.

“So what do I do now?” he says to his Christian friend….

“Well there’s the Bible Study on Monday, the Prayer Meeting’s on
Tuesday; on Thursday there’s a new Nurture Group starting – you’ll
need to get to that. Friday there’s a bus going to hear an American
Evangelist, Saturday there’s a day-long conference on next year’s
Mission and on Sunday there’s the service in the morning, Christian
Aid meal at lunchtime and communion in the evening.”

“Hallalujah!” says the new convert.  “Free at last”

We’re so busy doing things in the church. But I often wonder if
we’re too busy. Do we speak about the grace of God, but then find
ourselves living with the Pelagian anxiety that it all comes down to us
and our efforts? 

It’s easy to be busy in the church, especially in these challenging
times. It’s much harder to be busy with the right things.

But what are the right things? How would we even begin to know?

Well Isaiah and Mark have some wisdom to share with us on that
question this evening.

God, through the prophet Isaiah, is addressing his people. And his
accusation is that they are busy making their own plans about how to
deal with the challenges they face. Parleying with stronger nations,
forging alliances, playing politics, or failing all of that – simply
running away from danger. Fleeing on horses.

Their sin isn’t that they live in the real world and have tough choices
to make. It’s that they’re acting as though their hope and their
salvation lies entirely in their own hands.

And isn’t that a little like us, sometimes? Aren’t we tempted to think
that salvation lies in the next programme, or scheme that we start
in church life? If we could only get this group going, or get that
initiative started, or raise the money to do this piece of work, then
our fortunes would change. If we could only get that nice young,
capable minister and convince him and his family to stay around for a
few years, then we’d be sorted!

Well we need plans and programmes, and we need people to serve
the church in a whole host of different ways. But the place we need
to start isn’t with the doing, it’s with the being. Hear the word of
the Lord this evening through Isaiah:

God says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and
trust is your strength”.

Alastair; good people of Ellon church - let those words encourage
you tonight. God is reminding you of your need to draw aside. To
rest; to change your thinking; to be still; to trust. Why? So that
when you go out in his name to live your life in all its aspects you’re
working from a place of centredness and contentment in God. You’re
channelling God’s energies, not just trying to summon your own.
You’re working to God’s priorities and not just pushing on with your
own. 

As ever, in recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about new
structures in the church and positive change is always welcome, but
what our church really needs isn’t new structures but deeper people.
Folk who, like a tree planted by a river, put down deep roots into
God that see them growing, stable and fruitful.

Can you imagine the powerhouses our congregations could become if
more of our people were willing to make that inner journey? We’d be
ready to take a few more risks. We’d be more willing to lend a hand
and not leave the work to others. We’d know in the core of our being
that we are loved with an unfailing love. That love might even spill
over to those around us and draw them into the circle of what God is
doing in the world.

I’ve believed for many years that the greatest task that our church
faces isn’t the task of mission; that’s a hugely important but
ultimately secondary task.

Our biggest task is to rediscover what is means to be disciples.
Knowing God for ourselves, not as a philosophical construct or a
tradition, or a printed word in a book, but as the loving Father in
whom we live and move and have our being. The God who’s closer to
us than our own skin.

If all of us could get closer to that God in that way, I’m pretty sure
all the work needing done in our churches would soon fall into place.

The writer and poet Antoine de Saint Exupery says

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood
and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long
for the endless immensity of the sea.”

The longing and love have to come first – then the doing naturally
follows. That’s why God says to us this evening:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is
your strength”.

And in tonight’s gospel reading we see the fruit of that in a very
immediate, practical way in Jesus’ life. A way that can help us in our
living.

Jesus is in Capernaum and as usual, once the healings start, there’s a
press of bodies at the door looking for his time and attention. A
busy evening stretches out into a late night, but after a few short
hours of sleep he gets up while it’s still dark and manages to step
through the thicket of snoring disciples without waking anyone;
heading off to find some time and space to be with his Father.

But before long, Simon and some of his friends have noticed Jesus’
absence and when they finally track him down he’s greeted with

‘”Where have you been?! Everyone’s looking for you!”

Of course they are. There’s more work to be done. There’s always
more work to be done. More healings, more exorcisms. More need.

And in the face of that need, Jesus does something we just wouldn’t
expect Jesus to do. He says ‘no’.

Let me say that again because it might fly in the face of some of
your ideas about Jesus. Faced with real human need in those
circumstances, Jesus says ‘no’ and he moves on. Not unkindly, but
that’s what he does.

Why?

Well, he tells us in verse 38 of chapter 1

“Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so that I can
preach there also. That is why I have come.” 

That is why I have come.

Apparently, Jesus is clear in his own mind about his purposes, and
even when something that’s good and worthy comes his way, if it
doesn’t fit with the plan God’s given him then he feels free to say
‘no’.

That’s a liberating story for you and me and I want to end by making
just one observation about it. And it’s this -  You can’t say ‘NO’ to
things until you’ve said your definitive ‘YES’.

Jesus knew what he needed to be about. I think it’s safe to assume
that in his times of repentance, rest, quietness and trust he grew to
understand what God was calling him to be and to do and he said YES
to it.

And once he’d made up his mind about that, the rest was pretty
straightforward. When something came along that didn’t fit with
the plan, even something good, he said ‘NO’. It simplified things
immensely.

It wasn’t that the other things weren’t important – they often were.
They just weren’t what he was giving himself to at that time. They
were good, but they weren’t the best. They were worthy, but they
weren’t his particular calling.

His saying ‘YES’ to a few things allowed him to say a kind ‘NO’ to all
the rest.

Is part of the reason we get so overcommitted and stretched in life
is that we’re not clear on what we’ve given our ‘YES’ to, so we find it
really hard to say ‘NO’?

Is that why so many ministers, in the memorable words of Flannery
O’Connor, become a quivering mass of availability?

It’s much better for all of us to do two or three things well with
vitality and joy than ten things half-heartedly and with growing
resentment.

But how do I know what I should give my YES to?

Well that’s where the time away from the crowd comes in.
Repentance, rest, quietness, trust. Discerning where your particular
gifts and responsibilities lie; where you can best serve God’s
purposes. It’ll look different for each one of us. And it’ll look
different at different stages of our lives. But all of us need to
discern what we’re called to say YES to, so we’re able to say a life-
preserving NO when we need to.

I heard a wonderful reading many years ago at an ordination and I
think it’s worth sharing this evening. It’s from the Methodist Church
in Singapore and’s entitled ‘Called to Something Smaller’. It’s
addressed to the ordinand, but it has a word for the whole
congregation.

And it reminds us all that a pastor’s primary call isn’t
to become CEO of the local congregation. Leadership is the shared
task of the Kirk Session. The pastor’s call is to say a YES to the
particular tasks of ministry for which he or she has been set apart,
and then a gentle NO to everything  else which might detract from

that calling.

The liturgy says:

Tonight, in your ordination, you aren’t been called to ministry;
That happened at your baptism

You aren’t being called to be a caring person;
You’re already called to that.

You aren’t being called to serve the Church in committees, activities
and organisations;

That’s already implied in your membership.

You aren’t being called to become involved in social issues, ecology,
race, politics, revolution;
For that is laid upon every Christian.

You are being called to this charge, for something smaller and less
spectacular.

To read and interpret the sacred stories of our community, so that
they speak a word to people today.

To remember and practice those rituals and rites of meaning that in
their poetry address people at the level where change happens.

To foster in community, through word and sacrament, that
encounter with truth which will set men and women free to minister
as the body of Christ.

Ministry has always been the work of the whole people of God.

Ministers are simply those called to prepare the people of God for
the task.

To minister in Christ’s church in whatever capacity, is both a great
privilege and a significant responsibility. It will often ask more of us
that we feel able to give.

So may God help us remember that “In repentance and rest is our
salvation; in quietness and trust is our strength”.

Pentecost

Talk 1 – Fire

 

Why fire?

 

When the Spirit falls at that first Pentecost, the disciples are crowned with tongues of fire. Burning flames that don’t burn. There’s no sizzling of hair here, no scorching of flesh, no howls of pain. Just an experience of wonder that’s at one and the same time profoundly individual and deeply communal.

 

But why fire?

 

Christians tend to forget that Jews were observing Pentecost long before the Spirit came. The Old Testament feast of Pentecost was observed 50 days after Passover as a harvest festival, but also as a celebration of the giving of the law to Moses on Sinai. A time when God descended on the whole mountain wrapped in smoke and – Fire.

 

Maybe the tongues of flame are a reminder of a Holy God who descends and draws near to bring us blessings.  Or maybe they’re meant to say something about the nature of that God.

 

What is God like? What is fire like? Frederick Buechner offers us this by way of reflection:

 

Fire has no shape or substance. You can't taste it or smell it or hear it. You can't touch it except at great risk. You can't weigh it or measure it or examine it with instruments. You can never grasp it in its fullness because it never stands still. Yet there is no mistaking its extraordinary power.

The fire that sweeps through miles of forest like a terrible wind and the flickering candle that lights the old woman's way to bed. The burning logs on the subzero night that save the pipes from freezing and give summer dreams to the tabby dozing on the hearth. Even from millions of miles away, the conflagration of the sun that can turn green earth into desert and strike blind any who fail to lower their gaze before it. The power of fire to devastate and consume utterly. The power of fire to purify by leaving nothing in its wake but a scattering of ash that the wind blows away like mist.

A pillar of fire was what led the children of Israel through the wilderness, and it was from a burning bush that God first spoke to Moses. There were tongues of fire leaping up from the disciples on the day of Pentecost. In John's apocalypse it is a lake of fire that the damned are cast into, and the one called Faithful and True, he says, has eyes of fire as he sits astride his white horse.

In the pages of Scripture, fire is holiness, and perhaps never more hauntingly than in the little charcoal fire that Jesus of Nazareth, newly risen from the dead, kindles for cooking his friends' breakfast on the beach at daybreak.

 

Fire – powerful, moving, homely, wonderful, terrible. This is our God. This is his Spirit.

 

 

Talk 2 – The Personal Spirit

 

Fire, wind, breath.  All these metaphors for the Spirit serve us well, but they’re all incomplete because they lack one key ingredient and that’s the element of personality.

 

Many people, especially in charismatic churches, speak of God's Spirit as a force, or a power – and understandably so. How can you ‘pour out’ a person or be filled with a person. That’s how Scripture speaks of the Spirit, yet it’s also equally clear that the Spirit is personal.

 

If you scan through the Bible you'll discover that God's Spirit can be grieved and resisted, and He can speak, think, teach, testify, forbid, search out secrets and intercede on our behalf. That doesn’t sound like an impersonal force to me.

 

When we dig a little deeper, discover that this Spirit’s involved in divine work, like creation, resurrection and sanctification.

 

He's described as all-powerful and eternal. And Paul, in the First letter to the Corinthians, tells us that the Spirit knows and understands the deep things of God:

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

 

So in the same way as you and I have a Spirit, it seems that God has a Spirit, and that Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is fully divine.

 

So with that kind of evidence, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Holy Spirit, rather than being an impersonal force, is a personal divine being, co-equal with the Father and the Son.

 

And that takes us into Trinitarian territory – but we’ll leave that mystery for another day.

 

So fire, breath, wind – all good metaphors. But never forget that the Spirit is a person, with will, intent and character of his own – not a force to be sent this way and that at either God’s or our bidding.

 

And one last thing on personhood.

 

All along I’ve spoken of the Spirit as ‘him’. But is the Spirit a ‘him’? If you look at the Greek, the word for Spirit – pneuma - is actually neuter, so by rights I should be calling the Spirit ‘it’, but when you do that in English you tend to turn the object into a thing rather than a person.

 

We need to remember that when we talk about God, all our gendered language is metaphorical. When we use male pronouns about God, we’re not saying that God is somehow male. That’s a category error like asking what colour accountancy is or how fast the letter ‘h’ can swim. It doesn’t make sense. Gender is a property of limited, embodied creatures not the infinite divine spirit. God is beyond gender. Genesis teaches that both male and female are made in God’s image, so by definition, both genders must reflect aspects of who God is. God isn’t bound to either maleness or femaleness. Those terms don’t really apply.

 

But given that the second person of the trinity was incarnate in a male form, as Jesus – and that we’ve been taught from the cradle to refer to God in male terms, as Father, theologians and hymn writers for many years, but especially more recently, have started speaking of the spirit in feminine terms to try and redress the balance a little.

 

In her hymn  “Enemy of Apathy” Kathy Galloway writes “For she is the Spirit, one with God in essence, gifted by the saviour in eternal love; and she is the key, opening the scriptures, enemy of apathy and heavenly dove.”

 

Despite the fact that the work of the Spirit is often nurture, guidance, counsel, birthing new things, some of you might find that feminine language strange. I want to reassure you that it’s not heretical! It’s fine. Don’t get hung up about gendered language. But never mistake the Spirit for a thing. He/she/it is personal.

 

  

Talk 3 - The Empowering Spirit

 

So with a fiery outpouring, God’s Spirit descends in person and comes to rest on the disciples.

 

But how do we know that it ever happened?

 

Because we tend to believe the Bible, I guess. But also because the evidence for the change in the disciples is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that the Resurrection really happened and the Spirit really came.

 

These men go from cowering behind doors to preaching to thousands in a matter of days. From leaving Jesus in the lurch to going to their own crosses for the sake of his name. This is not normal. What we are seeing in the disciples is the transforming work of the Spirit at its most exceptional.

 

So what is this gift of the Spirit? What does the Spirit bring them?

 

Well, we part of it, I guess, is enthusiasm and energy. And Lord knows we need as much of that as we can get!

 

That very word, enthusiasm, comes from the Greek – en theos – in God. When people are genuinely in God there’s a lightness about their Spirits, a hope, a joy. There’s a movement to their living; there’s a sense of quiet purpose. An optimism that’s founded in who God is, not how things are.

Even as I wrote those words, I thought ‘Lord, I want to be more like that’! This is the kind of person I want to be.

 

Gloom, pessimism, weariness – they can become our norm, if we let them. It takes an encounter with an enthusiast to shake us out of them. Someone who doesn’t deny the challenges in life, or pretend them away, but has the vision to see through them and beyond them to where God is already working to bring life and hope.

 

What did the Spirit bring? Enthusiasm. Energy. And also Power. Wherever the disciples went after this, things happened. Provocative things, disturbing things, amazing things, good things. People noticed what they were doing. Some responded in faith, others threw rocks at them or clapped them in irons. But they were rarely if ever ignored.

 

The influential author and pastor AW Tozer once said:

 

“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

 

That’s an observation worth pondering. If the Spirit upped and left our church today, would things just roll on as usual?

 

Are we working out of our own power to our own ends, or are we working out of God’s power to God’s ends

 

Let me say one more thing as I end this little chunk of the sermon.

 

There are churches around the world who read this story in Acts and come to the conclusion that if we’re filled with the Spirit, then speaking in tongues, miracles and healings and so on will follow – as they did for the apostles.

 

Now God must be God in the church, and it’s up to God how and when he blesses his people with supernatural gifts. But I think it’d be a mistake to assume that what we’re seeing here in Acts 2 is a norm that we should all be aspiring to.

 

The Spirit, it seems respects context. The Spirit gives us the gifts we need in the moment to be about the work God would have us do.

 

What’s happening in Jerusalem at Pentecost? Thousands of Jews from across the world have gathered for the celebration. Dozens of languages are spoken by the visitors to the city.

 

What does the Spirit do? The Spirit blesses the apostles with the gift of language. Not the babbling prayer language we call speaking in tongues – actual understandable languages. That was what was needed. That’s what the Spirit gave, so the word could go out to the assembled crowds in ways they would understand.

 

What do we need from the Spirit in our time, so the words we speak and the way we choose to live reach our generation with the good news?

 

Faith? Courage? Innovation? Generosity? Hospitality?

 

Let’s bring it even closer to home. What gift do you need from the Spirit to reach the people God’s placed you with?

 

 

Talk 4 - The Here and Now Spirit

 

Provocative words from Barbara Brown Taylor to end with, reflecting on today’s story from Acts.

 

The question for me is whether we still believe in a God who acts like that. Do we still believe in a God who blows through closed doors and sets our heads on fire? Do we still believe in a God with the power to transform us, both as individuals and as a people, or have we come to an unspoken agreement that our God is pretty old and tired by now; someone to whom we may address our prayer requests but not anyone we really expect to change our lives.

 

There’s a lot of fine teaching and writing out there on the Holy Spirit. And I hope that none of it satisfies you.

 

I hope that you’re not satisfied until you’ve felt the Holy Spirit blow through your own life, and maybe even set your own head on fire a little bit.

 

It still happens.

 

Moments of insight, strength, courage, prompting, conviction that can only come from God.

 

As I prepared for today I cast my mind back through my own back catalogue of those kinds of experiences. Things I’ve shared with you in sermons over these ten years – times when God’s spirit seemed to speak very clearly.

The evening in September ’86 when I gave my life to Christ. Praying, after nearly getting mugged on a train in Morocco. Sitting with my brother as he died of cancer. Walking the labyrinth at the Bield in Perthshire.

 

And even as I remembered those times, and others, the Spirit spoke wordlessly in my heart once again. She said: “Paul, why do so many of your stories of me come from the past? Are you missing me in the present? Has it all become routine? Are your eyes open to the opportunities I’m setting before you today? We need to make some new stories together, you and I.”

 

Indeed we do. We all do.

 

Let’s go, in the power of the Spirit, and make them.

As I prepared for today I cast my mind back through my own back catalogue of those kinds of experiences. Things I’ve shared with you in sermons over these ten years – times when God’s spirit seemed to speak very clearly.

The evening in September ’86 when I gave my life to Christ. Praying, after nearly getting mugged on a train in Morocco. Sitting with my brother as he died of cancer. Walking the labyrinth at the Bield in Perthshire.

 

And even as I remembered those times, and others, the Spirit spoke wordlessly in my heart once again. She said: “Paul, why do so many of your stories of me come from the past? Are you missing me in the present? Has it all become routine? Are your eyes open to the opportunities I’m setting before you today? We need to make some new stories together, you and I.”

 

Indeed we do. We all do.

 

Let’s go, in the power of the Spirit, and make them.