The Perkins Lectures: "Christianity in the Crucible"

Sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury
Wichita Falls, Texas

Sunday, 14 May 2000, 10:00 am

This is the fourth and last address in the series known as the Perkins lectures. Under the general theme of Christianity in the Crucible, I have sought to explore the kind of Church we need to be to engage with the world we have. I have considered Christ himself, the Scriptures which speak of him, the message he proclaimed - and today we think about the Church he founded.

The Church provokes many different reactions. I once saw a banner in England which read: "Jesus - yes. The Church - no!" It is sad when people perceive that there is such a gap between the founder of an organisation and the organisation itself.

But, of course, we must be aware of the dangers of generalisation. Although there will always be some for whom the Church has been a hateful symbol of repression or class or establishment or rigid morality, there also will be many more for whom it has been the channel of blessing, grace and God's love. As someone who travels the world, I can tell you without equivocation that the Church we belong to has blessed our world with humanitarian aid, with educational opportunities, with medical science, and has introduced human rights and equality to untold millions of people. There is, of course, much that is wrong with the Church, because it consists of fallible people like you and me who daily need God's love. But we would be less than truthful if we denied its manifold blessings to so many.

The problem is complicated by the fact that we are part of a two thousand year old organisation which has many hundreds of different forms. A few years ago an American scholar, Sam Pascoe, stated that

"Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise."

It is hardly surprising, then, that for some the recovery and renewal of the Church takes the form of "let's return to the simplicity of the New Testament Church. Let's get rid of bishops, clergy, liturgy and the whole paraphernalia of religion and let God take over!" Of course, it is easier said than done - because no one knows precisely what form the NT Church took! In fact, as is clear from the New Testament itself, the early Church took many forms depending on the cultures in which it was set.

I love the story of C. H. Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher in Victorian England. He was a very effective instrument of God's love and built up his Metropolitan Tabernacle to be a most effective Church. But, as every clergy-person knows, you can't please everyone! There was one lady who kept complaining and yearned for the perfect Church. One day she told Spurgeon she was leaving. Spurgeon said to her, with a twinkle in his eye: "Mrs Jones. We are sorry you are leaving us, but when you find your perfect church - don't join it, you will only spoil it!" He meant, of course, that we bring to every fellowship our own failings and weaknesses. There is no such thing as the perfect or ideal Church.

And this leads me to a glorious verse in Ephesians (2.10) - the Epistle which I have quarried this week for my Perkins lectures: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to devote ourselves to good deeds for which God has designed us." The word 'handiwork' in that translation is the word 'poiema', from which our English word 'poem' comes.

Isn't that a lovely idea? That we are God's poem, his masterpiece, his 'opus'.

A few years ago, I saw a wonderful American film which entranced me. Entitled "Mr. Holland's Opus," it described the career of a ambitious young pianist who set about writing his own opus. Newly married, he had to take a temporary teaching job while he worked on his beloved opus. He did not find the school congenial. The pupils were bored and suspicious; the staff were disillusioned and, in some cases, apathetic. He had to start with most basic teaching with pupils who could not play their instruments properly and who were, in the main, quite indifferent. He struggled with them, but the breakthrough came when he realised that they loved music - jazz and rock - but were bored with classical music. He put jazz and rock to work and they loved it - but, of course, some of his fellow teachers found his methods distasteful.

But Mr. Holland began to like and love his pupils as they blossomed and became friends. He prepared some very talented pupils along the way. And little by little, his opus got pushed to one side as he gave more and more of himself in teaching. In addition, his wife gave birth to their only child - a boy - who turned out to be totally deaf. And then, suddenly, at the age of 60, it was all over: Mr. Holland was being retired and he felt bitter and resentful. His ambition to write the opus was unfulfilled, and now he was having to step down from the teaching he adored.

But his former pupils had a surprise in store. On his final day, he walked into the auditorium to find the place packed and the orchestra ready. There were familiar faces from times past, people he had helped to musical success. A former star pupil walked forward and said, "Mr Holland. We know that all your life you have tried to write your opus. But look around you: we are you opus now. Will you conduct us?" And Mr Holland took the conductor's wand and the school orchestra played - for the first and last time - his opus.

The key words were, of course, "but we are your opus."

And we are God's opus, his poem, his handiwork. And I find that one of the most wonderful ideas in the New Testament: the Head of the Church is fully human, and in Christ, we are God's handiwork.

So, how should that remarkable reality inspire us in our Christian lives?

First, we should be inspired to be truly be the Church of Jesus Christ. And to be such a Church is to live and be like him. One of the prominent names associated with Methodism is E. Stanley Jones, one of the great missionaries to India. He wrote these words:

"The best Man that ever lived on our planet illustrated [a] receptivity and response rhythm. No one was so utterly dependent on God and no one was more personally disciplined in His habits. He did three things by habit: (1) 'He stood up to read as His custom was' - He read the Word of God by habit. (2) 'He went out into the mountain to pray as His custom was' - He prayed by habit. (3) 'He taught them again as his custom was' - He passed on to others by habit what He had and what He had found. These simple habits were the foundation habits of His life. They are as up-to-date as tomorrow morning. No converted person can live without those habits at work vitally in his life." (Conversion, 1959)

And if the goal of any Church and of each individual Christian were to be to develop these habits, then there would no competition with other churches, nor any sense that we are simply "another religion in a market place of religions." The job of all Churches is to bring others to the Lord of the Church. And while that makes us an enterprise, it is not for the sake of money or for the sake of making a name for ourselves. And that means the smallest church is, in God's eyes, just as important and as successful as the so-called 'mega-churches' here in Texas and elsewhere in the States. I do not decry large churches; indeed, I think they are splendid and are able to offer much that smaller churches cannot. But our pride should not be in largeness, but rather in the gift we have to offer - that of Christ himself.

Second, let us make it our aim to be prophetic churches which are unashamed of our Christian witness. We do, by the way, have the most outrageous and yet compelling message - that God has spoken to all people through Jesus Christ and calls us them all to turn to him. God takes no prisoners; he wants all to follow him. This outrageous message is linked with another: that a battle is going on for the souls of our contemporaries. And so the book of Ephesians urges Christians to

"put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

Perhaps we modern Christians have ignored the Bible's testimony about the pernicious, seductive and evil character of the opposition party. Our 'goods' can so easily become our 'gods'. There is a profound truth in the power of evil, against which Christ calls us to 'stand watch'. One may bring one's heart to pray, but the difficulty is in keeping one's heart there. Spirituality is the key to keeping 'warmed up' for the fight against sin, the world and the devil.

One of the greatest writers about the power of evil is C. S. Lewis. If you have never read his Screwtape Letters, you have missed a real treat. Lewis shows the banality of evil and the way the Enemy uses ordinary things to make faith distasteful and to be avoided. The premise of the book is that Screwtape is teaching 'Wormwood', a young devil who is trying to lead astray a new convert. And Screwtape urges Wormwood to get his 'convert' to look critically at his fellow worshippers when he goes to church. Screwtape writes that when a Christian goes inside a church,

"he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him a shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided."

Screwtape further advises,

"Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like 'the body of Christ' and the actual faces in the next pew."

But, says Screwtape, what we don't want our victims to see is the real Church as we know her to be: "The Church spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners."

Terrible as an army with banners. That is the real Church, as seen by God. And we have a wonderful message to declare - of God's love in Christ shown on the Cross and lived out in sacrificial living. I was very attracted by the words of the Rev. Robert Edgar, a United Methodist pastor and former US Congressman, who said recently that the National Council of Churches stands at "a unique position in history" to offer a prophetic voice to the world, noting that "the world we live in is different than the world we were born into." Yes, it is so different, but in another respect it is just the same old world. In spite of all its achievements, it is still the broken and bleeding world which Christ came to redeem.

Third, the Church we must build is one where the work of God is joyful and where each person has a contribution to make. There are several indices of Church growth I have noted over the years. One is that growing churches have a message and that it is earthed in prayer. A second index of growth is effective leadership. People who have few leadership gifts may have much to offer church life, but it will hardly be in inspiring people to offer their lives in service and creating conditions for growth! A third principle of growth is surely lively and inspiring worship in which all feel they have a part.

But the fourth area of growth I have seen over and over again is the sharing of gifts and everyone participating in ministry. Beware the 'one-man band'! He may be a good turn at the circus but should not be emulated in church life. Clergy who cannot share leadership and management will never encourage growth, and when it happens it will be in spite of them. And so, growing churches are those which encourage all to share in ministry at the appropriate time. Those of us in leadership, let us never be ashamed to say to those who come regularly, "We want your ministry in some shape or form." It might be in the ministry of music, in the ministry of welcoming, in hospitality, in speaking, or in leadership.

But in spite of the great challenges facing churches today, we have much to encourage us. We are not in business to please ourselves, and we belong to a fellowship whose success is already guaranteed by God. We shall never go out of business - neither will there be any end of the pleasure of serving our Lord and Christ. And that is what made John and Charles Wesley such effective evangelists for God, because they loved him and wanted others to know him. Little wonder Charles could write:

"O for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace!"

And praise leads to determination to do something about it:

"My gracious Master and my God.
Assist me to proclaim
And spread through all the earth abroad
The honours of thy name"

And so shall we begin to express and fulfill that vision for God's people so wonderfully expressed in Ephesians:

"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."