July 5, 2015

Helen Jacobi

Ordinary Sunday 14     Ezekiel 2:1-5     Psalm 123     2 Corinthians 12:2-10     Mark 6:1-13

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“Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” Jesus quotes a well known saying of his time to describe the response he received on a visit to Nazareth. We know this guy; we know his brothers and sisters; who does he think he is coming to preach to us? Tall poppy syndrome at work in first century Nazareth. Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. Hard to take, from his own, they couldn’t see who he was and what he came to teach.

Over the last month I have been thinking a lot about the church’s voice in society. I had to write a chapter for a book marking the 25th anniversary of the ordination as bishop of Penny Jamieson. Penny was ordained 25 years ago, the first woman in the Anglican Communion to be a diocesan bishop. My topic for the book was the voice of the church in the public square. 25 years ago Bishop Penny’s ordination was on TV. Now the church only gets on TV if we are being scandalous or stupid. We pine for a time when the church had a voice in society, when what we said counted for something. There was a time when the church spent money and personnel on ecumenical agencies who gave us a voice and on research and positions such as our Social Responsibility Commissioner. Now every time we speak or try to speak we feel I think like Jesus in Nazareth – no one is listening, no one cares. I think the billboards at St Matthew’s, the most controversial ones, fell into that trap of desperately wanting to be heard and get some attention. And they did get heard but only for a moment and then gone again. They too were part of the lamenting of our lost voice. We hate it that no one is listening, and so we desperately try to get their attention.

Expecting a voice for the church in the public square, as of right, is part of the old world of Christendom. The old world of Christendom when church and society were roughly the same thing. Church was an institution like Parliament, or the justice system, or education – an institution which had a voice alongside all the others. Most people belonged or were involved in some way. But Christendom is over now. In our post modern, new millennium world institutional voices no longer carry weight. We have been saying this in the church all the time I have been ordained but we still don’t act like it. We still have large bureaucratic structures; we still want our bishops to speak out on political issues – as long as they agree with us of course.

So instead what might the voice of the church look like in a truly post Christendom, post modern world? For my chapter I asked the statisticians how many people actually attend church in an Anglican church on a Sunday? It is a hard figure to get but we came to the conclusion that 76,000 people attend an Anglican church in NZ at least once a month. 76,000. That is a lot of voices. Our post modern voice is not a single voice. In post modernity a plurality of voices is common. There is no one right definitive answer. There is no single doctrine any more. 76,000 voices, 76,000 ministries, 76,000 daily lives and callings. Our voice as a church is the voices of the people of faith – you – living out your daily lives. Being leaders and followers at work, being neighbours and community leaders, being volunteers, voters, politically engaged activists. Being teachers and doctors and shop assistant and digital workers and mothers and poets and writers and bus drivers and students. These voices have power and influence. And as a church we need to support you, empower you, educate you maybe. We can be a place where you reflect on your calling and contribution to society and we back you up and equip you. Instead of pouring money into a church bureaucracy who might somehow speak for us we should be pouring resources into you and your lives and hearing you speak.

And that means of course that we have more than one voice.

Even on one of the crucial issues of this decade – marriage equality – the church has so far agreed to have two voices and live with two voices; so the likelihood of us having one voice on any issue is unlikely. But we can be part of debates and partnerships and projects in a dynamic way at many levels without having to have one institutional voice. Each time though I think we have to earn the right to speak alongside other community groups and potential partners. If we wish to speak about the need to welcome more refugees into NZ we had better be sure we are supporting a refugee programme. If we wish to speak about poverty we had better be sure we are engaging in work with those in need and understanding the complexities of the causes of poverty. If we wish to speak about the environment we had better be sure we have completed our environmental audits of our churches and made the changes we can to be better stewards of our buildings and resources. If we wish to speak about business ethics we had better be engaged in conversation with local businesses.

And the church cannot speak about marriage equality when we are not offering marriage to people of the same gender ourselves. That conversation has become an internal church conversation while the rest of the world moves on. Our prophetic voice there has to be turned inward on our own institution. The Episcopal Church in the USA showed us this week that change is possible by voting strongly in favour of marriage equality. We now call on our own Anglican church to follow.

In our gospel reading this morning Jesus guides us in how we are to act in this post modern world where we no longer matter as an institution. Jesus’ response to not being listened to in his home town was this: He called the twelve and sent them off in pairs, not alone. (No committees, no structures) And they were to travel light, a staff for walking, but no bag, no money, no bread, no change of clothes. They were to go to households that welcomed them and stay for a while. There they would engage, share the news of the coming kingdom, listen, pray. And then it would be time to move on. If they weren’t welcomed they were to shake the dust off their feet and move on. No drama, no preaching, no recriminations. Just move on. Travel light, no baggage from the past. Listen, talk, work in partnership, find ways to get things done. Do not build a monolithic institution, with one doctrine and one voice.

In our visioning work that we did together a month ago there was a lot about making connections, within our church community, and in the wider community – networks, connections, partnerships – fluid not static – inspired by our worship in this sacred space, this spirited space. To make those connections work, to find common ground on which to work together, we need every voice. We have a few hundred of the 76,000 voices. And each voice can be a voice for the church in turn in the public square. And maybe that way you prophets will be listened to even in your home town.