St Pauls Presbyterian Church, Napier – Sunday 23 January 2011
Isaiah 9: 1-4
1 Corinthians 1: 10-18
Matthew 4: 18-23
A New Start
Our church life has many occasions when we make a new start of one sort or another. Today we have shared in baptism, that ceremony which celebrates God’s love for us through the water of baptism, and next weekend we will celebrate another church ceremony when Rev Sally Carter is inducted as our minister, a celebration of a new beginning for Sally and for the parish.
New starts are often accompanied by time for reflection on what has been and time for planning what might be. People and processes get shaken up and what was comfortable might suddenly become different, unsettling or uncomfortable. New starts are always a time of change.
Some time ago I took on a role to lead a project involving a building and the process of relocating people and customers into the new facility. I found myself the focus of various people and groups who were on the one hand pleased with the change that was being made and on the other by people and groups that were not. It was a testing time as I listened to them all and helped managers make decisions or confirm decisions already made that naturally didn’t please everyone. It was important throughout the process to keep the big picture goals in mind. Why was the building being built? How would this help the customers? What improvements would staff benefit from? What were the owners trying to achieve when they invested all this money?
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1: 10-18) he talks about the divisions that are affecting the church. He asks them to work together because of course they have more in common than they have differences. The idea of a church working together in harmony in a world of disharmony is meant to be a striking point of difference and it seems that the same is true of us today. Part of my building project work was to get the different groups working together, despite their minor differences, for the greater good.
The old saying “many hands make light work” is a reference to the power of combined energy applied to a task. Paul asks the people of Corinth to “make light work”, something for us to reflect on today.
What is the work, the call that we need to work together at? Isaiah says “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. They have lived in a land of shadows, but now the light is shining on them.” (Is 9: 2)
This is the great mission of the church to bring light where darkness prevails and a church that is connected to its community will find many opportunities to fulfil that mission. There are many good examples of this parish reaching out to its community but at a time of a new start the important thing is to not rest on our laurels but to continue and to expand that work.
I could have started this reflection with the third reading from Matthew in which Jesus calls Simon (called Peter) and Andrew, James and John to follow him. “Jesus called them” (Mat 4: 21) they left behind all that they had and were involved in and followed him, so beginning a movement that continues to this day. Every day we are called to follow, it’s the centre of what we do – our mission “Celebrating life in Christ” includes a call “join us on the journey”. While not as radically life changing as the experience would have been for Peter, Andrew, James and John, the call to follow Jesus nevertheless will present us with some life changing moments. This is one of them.
At a time of a new start when we will all be faced with change in this Parish how will we measure up? Will we be like some in my building project who wanted simply to move all their old ways into a new building without actually changing anything? Or will we have the courage to say “here’s a new environment, what can we do to make the most of it?” When something new comes along will we shy away and cringe at the thought of something different or will we give it a go, take a new step of faith into a new world just like Peter, Andrew, James and John?
Change is the message in today’s three lectionary readings: unity, mission and Christ’s call to follow him. May we have the courage, commitment and faith to rise to the challenges ahead.
Kerry Marshall
