A challenge from God? 

By Emily Kolltveit

Good morning everybody firstly, I must say what a huge moment of excitement and joy it is for me today, to have finally made it back to you after two years of training at Ripon College Cuddeson. I’ve been looking forward to this day for such a long time and I want to thank you all so much, for allowing me to come here and to serve as your curate for the next three years.

This must be the strangest time to be celebrating an anniversary of such significance - the opening of this church building in 1872. For the first time since that day, we are not gathered together in the same building celebrating as a church community and for some months our doors have been closed. And yet somehow, we are here together we have managed to gather, some of us actually in the building, some of us virtually - via the means of technology. I’m sure there has been a very steep learning curve for many of you, I know there has been for me - concerning the quirks of zoom. 

Today's gospel reading really speaks to me of challenge. A resounding challenge from God, that asks us to take a good long hard look at what we are doing, where we want to be and how we are going to make that happen. It is a challenge that asks, ‘what will our church and the wider church look like after things return to some kind of normality,’ 

This incredible sense of challenge that is right here in this scripture seems poignant after what we've all been through in the last few months but I suspect that the challenge has always been there but only now within these extraordinary days, have we had a chance to really hear it. The pandemic has heightened and highlighted a sense that we are a people who need to begin to look for and bring about change, a change that is so desperately needed in our world, a change that begins within the walls of every parish church in this country and worldwide. 

A change that began all those years ago, when the first foundations of this church were laid.

I suspect that this challenge - asking what Church is going to look like has been on the table for a really long time - it’s only now when it’s been taken away from us and we’ve not been able to enjoy the fruits of our gathered church, that God’s question has finally reached our ears. 

What does a true house of prayer looks like? 

In our present culture and context, what kind of building meets the very real needs of God’s people and God’s Mission. As a church I suspect that you are ahead of the game already, plans are being made for updating the building and altering it for the community’s needs. You are living out so many of the things that are required, needed and desired in this area. However, we have had time to reflect, to see the world from a different angle and perhaps to consider which corners of our community we need to explore, leading us to question where we can dig deeper, who may we have we forgotten?  

As a worshiping community these three months have been a time of great uncertainty and some fear, but I also suspect there have been moments when you have had a chance to think about how you would like to move forwards in your own life. We’ve had a chance to explore what things are important to us and perhaps what things are dragging us down, what we can and can’t live without. Perhaps there have been some surprises, some unexpected joys, some hidden pain that has shown itself.  

When Jesus says my house shall be called a house of prayer but you are making it a den of robbers, I wonder whether we can also hear in his teaching, a call to explore the house of skin that we all live in, our bodies, a house to our spirit, our consciences, our very essence. So often we abuse our bodies, we don’t rest enough, we eat trashy food, drink too much, we don’t get enough exercise. We make our bodies a place where unhealthy habits can flourish, we make our skin houses, a den where bad habits rob us of our health. It's been really wonderful to see so many people reassessing their health and the way they looked after their bodies and their minds during this time of pandemic. However, for those already suffering with ill health be it - bodily or mentally - the pandemic has been a time of almost unbearable challenge.  

If we are all one body with Christ as I believe us to be, and our teaching tell us, then the way we care for ourselves, mind body and spirit, is deeply connected with the way we care for others - mind body and spirit. Our body, the body of the church and the building itself is a reflection of the trinitarian relationship - interconnected - each important for the success and well-being of the whole. 

The way we treat our bodies and what we put into them, I am only now starting to learn is deeply connected to the welfare of the planet and the welfare of the animals that we share God’s creation with. 

This piece of the scripture in the Gospel also interests me, because it’s one of the many times that Jesus points to children to reinforce his teaching. Much of the work that I've done over the last couple of years has involved kids and although very reluctantly at first, I've really grown to love working with children because they bring such an interesting and different point of view to almost every circumstance. Jesus had a really brilliant way of using those outside of the normal intellectual circles of the time as his teaching tools the poor, women, the sick and children. And here in this piece of scripture the kids are going crazy, they're making a whole load of noise, they are disrupting things and Jesus is pointing to them and saying ‘this is what house of prayer looks like.’ I do think that in order for our house, our church to truly represent that house of prayer that Jesus is pointing to, then we must look to our young people, to hear their ideas and their point of view about what gets them excited about the future and continue to make that central to God’s mission here at St Mary’s.  

We are incredibly gifted as a church when it comes to young people, we’ve got some really talented special brilliant children that I've been getting to know through the online 915 services and they are the future of this temple of God. 

The text in Revelation, probably the most misunderstood book in the New Testament, certainly has a sense of unveiling or revealing to us, of a new kingdom, a new Eden. Alongside the sense of catastrophe in John’s scripture there is also a sense that this rebirthing will bring about a much better and more glorious future. There is something to be gleaned here when we consider that treasure incrusted vision of the Kingdom of God, the holy city of Jerusalem, radiant and Jewel like. The pandemic has offered us a glimpse of what our country could look like and we have seen tantalizing moments of change. I haven’t spoken to one person who hasn't in someway reviewed their life and how they are living it. The struggling NHS which for years has been undervalued and under resourced - here and now revealed to many as the greatest representation of God’s Kingdom we have in this country. The pause that has offered the environment a much-needed moment of time to heal. 

This challenge from God that for so long we have struggled to truly explore, is now before us and it is for us decide how we move forwards and begin to piece back together our worshiping life, taking with us everything we have learned. I am so grateful to have spent time with you in the past and to be spending my time with you now as we work together to overturn the tables that would leave anyone outside of this moment of reconciliation that is about a true commitment to continuing to put God’s mission at the heart of this building.

Marjorie said to me when I was discerning on placement here with you a couple of years ago, that prayer is the skeleton of your work as a priest and that if you don’t have a skeleton your body will just collapse. I really took this piece of advice on board and one of the things that I've done over the last couple of years is to really try to establish a prayer life and put it at the heart of my working day. I think that our church buildings are the same, if we don’t make prayer the foundations and the structure of what we do here, then the bricks and the mortar may fail us.

Perhaps after this time of struggle and fear and loss, we can see the world from a different point of view, perhaps even through the eyes of our young people and children, to discern what God is asking of us. It is sometimes in the letting go of the old habits, the baggage that weights us down, the narrowing of our ideas that we begin to truly understand the message of God through Christ, which is so utterly expansive and limitless. The incredible loss to the world of the human Jesus only to be granted the revelation of the risen Christ. The challenge from God is perhaps to have the faith to let go of dearly held ideas that have worked for a really long time, those comfort blankets that we all cling onto, in order to allow something even better to happen, the loss of the human Jesus resulting in the risen Christ, the new Eden. We are witnesses of the crucifixion that led us to the resurrection and we carry knowledge of both with us when seeking to live out the missio dei.  

This is a wonderful moment of return after a period of reflection when the life of this building begins to flourish afresh and we accept God’s challenge, as one body, through the knowledge and gift of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.   

Amen