Sermon preached at St John’s Bexley: 16th June 2024: Third Sunday After Trinity: Ezekiel 17:22-end; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34
Last month I went to hear the Reverend Kate Bottley, a familiar face to fans of Gogglebox, Songs of Praise, Radio 2, and a whole host of other household entertainment.
Kate (yes, we are on first name terms) was talking in St Paul’s Cathedral about her book which is called Have a Little Faith (with the disclaimer ‘Whatever that means to you’): Its about her experiences of the Church, ministry, parishes and being a ‘Media Vicar’, but whilst a lot of the focus is on her, the real interest, the drive, comes from the people she’s met and encountered in her life as a parish priest – especially those who wouldn’t normally consider themselves (or be considered by others) as ‘church-goers’, or even Christians.
Those conversations so many of us have that begins with ‘I’m not religious, but…’
And then the floodgates will open on deep insights, profound thoughts, searching questions.
I’m not religious, but… Will you bless my baby?
I’m not religious, but… Please can you pray for my nan?
I’m not religious, but… Is it okay to get light a candle in your church?
To all those questions, the answer is invariably ‘YES’: And sometimes that can take people completely by surprise: I’m not religious, but… It might as well be ‘I’m not a member of your church, but…’, ‘I don’t belong here, but…’, ‘I don’t feel worthy, but…’
Now why do people think that? You know, and I know, and Kate Bottley knows, that the Church of England exists for all people in its parish, whether or not we see them on a Sunday, whether or not they’ve been Baptised, whether or not they donate to the roof repairs.
But still, there’s this sense that people often feel a need to ask permission to engage with the church: We see it here a lot – during the week, when the building’s open but I’m often asked ‘Is it okay to come in’?
Yes, it is, that’s why the doors are open… But the intriguing thing is why people feel they need to ask?
What has the Church done, nationally and locally, to give the impression that we’re a Private Members’ Club – that God’s people may only receive the Church’s ministry and access her sacred spaces if they have first attained the approval of its gatekeepers?
The sad thing is that we can all think of examples when churches, a specific church, the institutional Church have put up barriers – perhaps through bureaucracy, perhaps through a general demeanour of its members, which have fostered that preconception, but although the Church’s membership might try to control her borders, the work of God is by no means as restrictive: Awakening and inspiring hearts everywhere, not just in the pews… People who see the face of Christ even if they cannot, or will not, speak His name.
These are the people in the title of the book, the people who Kate Bottley says have a little faith, and it may small as a Mustard Seed: An urge to light a candle; An unspoken but heartfelt prayer to a sense of the divine that you or I or Kate Bottley might call God, but not everybody else would; a need to be still, to get married, to say goodbye to a loved one, in a place of extraordinary beauty.
Seeds that sprout and grow as people sleep, so that they’re not even seen until they’re ready to harvest; Faith like a Mustard seed, so tiny, but when allowed to flourish puts forth the mightiest of branches.
That was an image Kate Bottley drew on in her talk: Those with faith the size of a Mustard Seed: They may not be part of a church, they may not know their way round a Bible, or know the doctrines of the Christian Religion, but there’s something there – a Godly spark, a tiny grain..
As I listened to Kate talking under the Dome of St Paul’s (as it happens she was standing in the exact spot where I was ordained), as she described the examples of mustard seeds she has encountered in her ministry, various people and situations came to my mind too: The conversations I have when I’m about the village, the things people say to me on buses, certain online interactions, and I was seeing a lot of mustard seeds:
It’s very easy in a parish of with a population of seven and a half thousand people, in a nation with a population of 67 Million, to lament ‘Why don’t more people come to church?!’, but if we do that we’re setting a really narrow metric:
Because there’s something I get to see as a vicar, and I hope you do too in how the church connects with people beyond the Sunday Service: When candles are lit on weekdays; when I walk in and there’s someone praying silently, or a parent and children playing with the toys; when people stop in the street to ask questions about faith; or a stranger in the pub recognises me from their friend’s funeral; those who call out of the blue to ask for the Last Rites, or simply for a chat; cautious enquiries for Weddings and Baptisms; the man who keeps asking me to bless his Lottery Tickets…
We may not see them on a Sunday, and they may not consider themselves members of St John’s, but there’s still a connection and with that a sense of belonging, even if they don’t cross the radar of the vast majority of us here on a Sunday.
Have a little faith, because a little is all that’s needed: A grain of mustard that when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade… And our parish, our community is full of mustard seeds – but we’ll only see them if we bother to give them our attention: To look beyond our own boundaries to be open to the work of God in the lives of those around us…
And when we’re attuned, when we’re attentive, we’ll see those mustard seeds glimmering like gold on a sunny day… Just waiting for their potential to be cultivated.
Fr. Edward 