My last sermon as minister of Stirling Methodist Church

22 Aug 2010 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

"Go on your way."(Luke 10:3) were Jesus' words to the seventy missionaries that he sent ahead to prepare the way for his coming.

"Go on your way." Words, which I feel I heard clearly when it was decided that I would move on from this position after ten years. Ten years is a long time.. Methodist ministers used to move every 3 years! But it is also a short time – I read in the last ACTS bulletin of Revd Andrew Scobie who is just celebrating 45 years in Cardross parish church...

So I am moving on and I am being challenged to do something new and different with my life. Though at first I wanted to stay on here as the months have gone on I have become aware that it is time to move on in a totally new direction. I was serving as a minister in churches that had been the whole of my life for those ten years. I am in a part of the country that I love and treasure. I was working with colleagues who are wonderful and caring. I am with friends, both old and new. It seemed to me that everything should feel perfect, and yet I have been forced to acknowledge an inner feeling that I was becoming stale, lacking the enthusiasm and bright new ideas that I had when I first started here and I should prepare myself for a new direction.

The decision was made and it is still frightening, scary, sad and exciting. A decision complicated by the family situation where we are not able to move at the present time. This means I am out of the normal pattern of what usually happens to ministers. But I know deep down inside that it is the right decision. What the future really holds I do not know. I have been investigating several openings but to date none of them has been the right one for me.

"Go on your way. I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves."(Luke 10:3) Jesus' words to the seventy he sent out speak to me loudly. I feel like a lamb that is being removed from his flock and shoved out into the big bad world. I don't think there are any wolves waiting to devour me; ( the interview panel at Edinburgh University were rather wolf like!) However, I do not know where my journey will take me or the welcome I will receive.

This quote from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien holds real truth in my life and I share it with you, thinking that it may resonate for you as you experience your own life's journey.

"The road goes on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

For each of us, life holds real uncertainties which are part and parcel of its fullness, delight and challenges. Each of you has surely had moments like those that are so pointed for me at this juncture.

I feel as if I am walking in the footprints of the first missionaries of Jesus. I know not what the future holds for me but I know that wherever I go and wherever I serve I will be taking something of what I have learned here with me. You are part of me, each of you and each of those who have been a part of this church family. God has richly blessed all of us. We have struggled together, we have grieved together and we have laughed, played and rejoiced together.

We have caressed each other, soothed each other's wounds and we have nurtured each other. We have prayed for one another and we have worshipped together. We have had disagreements and we have made up our differences. We have helped our children to grow spiritually and lovingly. We have seen little toddlers become young men and women and move on to take their proper place in the world. And we have watched each other grow older and comforted each other as we have aged. There were no grey hairs in my beard when I started here! This is what a Christian family does for each other and I will be taking all of this with me into the wider world. I will be sharing what this church has taught me about the joy of worshipping, of working for God and of spreading the good news of the gospel.

A church is much more than its minister. Ministers can set the tone and influence the direction of a church but the church is the people and you together are the ones who make things happen or not as the case may be. Ministers are called by God. But this is no different to the Call that God makes to every follower. What matters is that we open ourselves up to hearing the voice of God in our lives, and accept Gods call to us when we receive it. That call can take many different forms. We are not all called to the same ministry. We are not all called to be ordained in the church for example.

After church on Sunday morning, a young boy suddenly announced to his mother, "Mum, I've decided I'm going to be a minister when I grow up. "That's okay with us," the mother said, "But what made you decide to be a minister?" "Well," the boy replied, "I'll have to go to church on Sunday anyway, and I figure it will be more fun to stand up and yell than to sit still and listen.

Mission – (sounds scary but all it means is what we do together for God in the world) is something we all do together. I believe passionately in working together. Think of the church as a group of people traveling along through life together. The journey can happen in many ways -Two examples:

If the minister is in total control and does everything then it is like those big tourist coaches I see passing regularly through Stirling. The driver is in his seat with a microphone in his hand and telling everyone what they should be seeing as they go past. And you look at the bus as it passes - the seats are filled with the glazed faces of semi comatose people, numbed into not seeing or doing because they don't know where they are: They have been through so many places so quickly and never really stopped and felt the wind on their faces and the earth under their feet. The people from the coach will have absorbed some stuff as they went along but they are not equipped for making any sort of journey on their own or indeed for passing on much of what they have been spoon fed through the commentary from the speakers above their heads...

A church can be like this if a minister is there doing everything for everyone and not letting people build and develop their own ministries. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the ride – but church can be so much more than this.

On the other hand a church can be like a group of friends out for a walk in the park. They will work out between them where they want to go and take account of what everyone can do. They will discuss the route, maybe argue about it, arrange between themselves for rest stops and what they want to see and achieve.. they will invite others to join them and bring their friends because the experience is one that is to be enjoyed. In this sort of vision of the church the minister is one of the friends walking in the group, someone with special gifts and training but who helps everyone else to use their gifts and talents but does not try to over control or run everything...

The latter as you know is my vision of church – a group of people who work together to try and do something useful for God. Now that sort of vision transcends the boundaries of denomination, churchmanship and nationality. Sometimes the church gets lost in these structural concerns.. we loose sight of what the church really is under the accumulation of detritus piled up on all of us from centuries of history and thought. All these things have their place but sometimes we need to strip it all away and think what is it really all about at the most basic level. ( I almost said back to basics but that phrase has been devalued by association!) .. and for me it is really all about knowing we are loved and valued by God, becoming people with more of the characteristics of Jesus in our lives, so that both individually and together we can do things that make the world a better rather than a worse place. And if we have stripped off all the cultural baggage it is then easy to tell other people naturally about what faith means to us because it will be more likely to mean something.

With a vision of church like that when I step out into the unknown I am not afraid because God is with me. I carry with me the love and friendship I have shared with many many people and know that God will guide my path in the future as he has in the past. It is always easy to see god in the past for with hindsight we all have 20-20 vision.

Remember the song “I was born under a wandering Star”(Lee Marvin 1970) .... One line - “I haven't seen a sight that doesn't look better looking back!” With hindsight we can all have 20-20 vision!

As I look back over the ten years that I have been here I can see many things which now I can see as the will of God but at the time we were too close to see the wood for the trees. Often when we are going through a difficult or confusing time, we are unaware of how God is guiding us. When I’m in the middle of a crisis, it’s difficult to comprehend God's plan because my thoughts and emotions are in turmoil.  My mind is frantically working to find solutions, but all the while God is right there working things out!  Years later it may become clear why God brought us through that experience the way He did. The bible verse at Romans 8:28 “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” sounds very confident but when things are a muddle all round we may not feel at all confident in God.

William Willimon says, “I believe that providence can be discerned in this life, but usually only in the backward view, never in the forward. That is, it is difficult to speak of God's guiding in terms of what happens to us at this moment or what will happen to us tomorrow. But we are more able to discern the loving hand of God in that which has happened to us in the past. As Saint Augustine said, when you first consider your life, it looks like nothing but a bunch of chicken tracks in the mud of a farmyard, going this way and that. But through the eyes of faith, we begin to discern pattern, meaning, direction.  Providence.”

And we take with us the gift of peace...

I pray that I will enter each new experience with the words of the first missionaries, "Peace to this house" (Luke 10:5), and that this may not be just a message from one Christian to another but a message from all of you to other Christians who share in the Kingdom of God. For we all are sharers of the peace of God, sharers of the peace of the Son of God. Luke tells us in Acts 16 that to proclaim the peace of Christ to others is to proclaim that God reigns supreme in our lives.

The most meaningful part of our liturgy and worship for me personally, is the sharing of the peace and our sending forth at the end of each service often with the words "Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord." The ultimate reason for our lives. Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with all who will hear, see and accept it.

I hope this is the prayer that you will send me out with – for it is certainly the one that I will leave with you.

"Peace to this house."(Luke 10:5)