Wesley Church - About Us

STEWARDSHIP SUNDAY

This is Janet's sermon from 2005. This year she updated it with the changes which have been made, namely the community outreach co-ordinator at St. Stephens, the Youth worker at Wesley and the Wesley website. A lot has been accomplished in one year!

MATTHEW 9: 35 - 10: 1 - 15

INTRODUCTION

‘How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.’ George Washington Carver.

Two weeks ago I spoke about the ‘Vocation of the Methodist Church’: evangelism, education, eschatology and entity. In other words: what we do, how we do it, when we do it and why we do it.

what we do - evangelism bringing good news - not hatred, intolerance and religious bigotry

how we do it - by education and social action

when we do it - in this life - it’s too late to want to help others in the next and

why we do it - because of who we are as inheritors of the legacy of John Wesley but more importantly because of the one we follow - Jesus Christ

With the ‘Vocation of the Methodist Church’ backgrounding our minds I want to ask the question ‘Quo Vadimus’ - where are we going? And I want to ask it in the light of this scripture passage and in the light of today being Stewardship Sunday.

POINT 1

Let’s look at the scripture passage:

9: 35 - 38 speaks of the harvest being plentiful and the labourers few.

10: 1 - 4 tells of the calling of the 12 disciples.

10: 5 - 15 gives them instructions for the journey or the mission.

Each of these sections is a sermon in its own right. But what I want to emphasise this morning are three things, things that are pre-requisites in order for the mission to be undertaken:

- compassion

- prayer

- being called or summonsed

COMPASSION

There is a very vivid expression in the Gospels that appears only a few times. It is ‘to be moved with compassion.’ In the language of Jesus’ day they spoke of one’s intestines or bowels or guts being moved. It was a deeply emotional experience as you saw the suffering of someone else.

Our English word ‘compassion’ means to ‘suffer with’. It is the sort of thing that was written about in Galatians when it talks of us ‘bearing one another’s burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ’. For in the scripture this morning it says that Christ had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus was moved with compassion - but then he did something about it! Compassion is more than just feeling sorry for someone - it is feeling enough to want to lighten their burden.

A medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: ‘The first outburst of everything God does is compassion.’

PRAYER

Be careful what you pray... In this passage Jesus commands his disciples to ‘pray to the owner, or Lord, of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest’. The next thing we know, Jesus is sending out the disciples. They were instructed to pray; then they were instructed to go. Sometimes we may be the answer to our own prayers.

BEING CALLED

And then Jesus called the 12 together. And what a motley crew they were! And what enormous differences there were among them. We have on one hand, Matthew, the tax collector, a lackey of Rome and all it stood for, and Simon ‘the Cananaean’, the ‘zealot’ - a Rome hater and a member of the guerilla movement who wanted all the Romans out of Canaan or Palestine. This shows that the Jesus Movement of first-century Palestine embraced and transcended the tensions in the old community of Israel. Folks, we’re in this together! Whether we like it or not. We have been called into this Body. There are people in this faith community who we wouldn’t choose as friends. We may not like what they do, what they stand for, their politics, their theology. But how dare we isolate ourselves from each other in order to keep the purity of our beliefs. How unbiblical is that? And how very, very, un-Christlike!

And then the passage finishes off with :15. Why bring in Sodom and Gomorrah at this point? What was the sin of Sodom? Let scripture tell us: Ezekiel 16:49. [read it] Any other interpretation is in conflict with Jewish commentators on their own scriptures. Sodom was equated with economic greed and deprivation. Sodom broke the Law of Hospitality that’s why it is mentioned here in the context of NOT being welcomed.

POINT 2

Quo Vadimus? Wesley? Where are we going? A few weeks ago we held a Triple S Day:

Steering into what waters is the Wesley Waka going. What direction are we planning to go in? Because if we aim for nowhere we will reach it.

Synergy working together - new enhanced effect compared to separate components

Synchronicity meaningful coincidences - fortuitous intermeshing of events

With the hope of: Serendipity, unexpected discoveries quite by accident - the surprises of life - the things one cannot plan for - e.g. ‘Well, I’d never thought of that!’

Over 30 of us gathered and then we came together in groups of like-minded people and asked what were the issues facing us as a faith community.

We did this under the headings: our strengths and our weaknesses

our opportunities and our threats

Our strengths are that we are a strong community, financially stable, with good participation, and we are open.

We are surrounded with opportunities - this is one of the fastest growing areas in the country - we are not a depressed region having to close things down because of population decline - far from it! There are scores of people here in the Western Bay of Plenty for whom the gospel message of compassion would be transformative - if only we knew how to communicate it.

POINT 3

Today is Stewardship Sunday. Look around you. Who is not represented in this faith community? Close your eyes. How would you feel if when you opened them you were the only person older than 25? Because when young people come into our Sunday morning congregation - and don’t go out to Sunday School - that’s the kind of thing they feel - the isolation of being the only one under 25.

In the Stewardship Letter you would have received this year this is what I said: I believe there are two specific challenges facing our faith community at Wesley at this time: the first is knowing what our core values are - what we do NOT change. The other challenge is knowing how to communicate those core values across the generations. The latter must involve change.

On the next page you will see some aspects of how we live out our spiritual life, for WORSHIP is at the heart of our core values. This is a picture of the life of our faith community lived out in God’s world, for that is where our worship takes us. This year there have been some changes: we have added Youth and Communication

I am challenging you about giving because we must address the question of resourcing someone to look after our young people and reach out to those for whom faith and gospel and compassion are unknown quantities. Next year I would like to add a Youth Minister to the Ministry Team. I would like to do the work myself. I really would. ‘The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few...’

There is a need for more alternative services. We need creative ministries released into our faith community. This Sunday morning service will not change. But this kind of service is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’. Are you generous enough to allow other forms of ‘being church’ to grow and flourish? Are you generous enough to support and resource them?