Third Sunday of Easter, Year B
First reading: Acts 3:13–15.17–19 - You killed the prince of life. God, however, raised him from the dead.
Second Reading: 1 John 2:1-5 - He is the sacrifice that takes our sins away, and not only ours, but the whole world’s.
Gospel: Luke 24:35-48 - So you see how it is written that Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.

'It is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.'

In the name of the Father …

The 'Background' section at the beginning of the PCC annual report of which everyone on the Electoral Roll has recently received a copy begins with the words:

'The PCC of Saint Mary-the-Virgin, Kenton has the responsibility of co operating with the Incumbent, Fr Giles Pinnock SSC, in promoting in the ecclesiastical parish the whole mission of the Church - pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical.'

They are not words that we have invented for this year; they appear - with the names changed as appropriate - on every annual report produced this year and for a number of years by every PCC of every parish in the Church of England.

It appears to give the PCC a very wide remit indeed; and today, I want to talk about some of the implications of that remit and its breadth and purpose, and why in fact it is not only the remit of the PCC but of all the members of the Electoral Roll; all the members of this congregation.

I am also going to talk about some major works that the PCC is going to have to make important decisions on in the coming months, and about one or two other things that will require decisions of not only the members of the PCC, but of us all.

This may all sound very dry and 'unspiritual'; but this is the Sunday of the Annual Parochial Church Meetings, and if there is a day on which it is most fitting to preach such a homily, this is it.

Today's Gospel ends with the words: 'You are witnesses to this.' To what are we individually and as a community to be witness? We are witnesses to the Incarnation, teaching, Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is what this building is here for; that is what we as an ecclesial community; as individual Christians are here for.

And particularly when we are called, for example, to consider the practicalities of building maintenance and the like, we do well to remind ourselves of that.

All those tasks that are described as being the remit of the PCC are all tied up in witnessing to Christ - first and foremost. And we witness to Christ in a number of ways; by our worship and by our service of God in one another and in service of our fellow man.

But it is wonderfully easy to go on in that vein - a bit vague and waffly, but very pious.

We need to think in rather more concrete terms. And so I want to borrow a term I have heard used by Baptists and other members of the protestant free churches - 'every-member ministry'.

What it seeks to promote is the realisation that there should be no passengers in the Church. Every member should have an active service for the Church in which to engage.

Another way of expressing that is to compare the Church either to an ocean liner - with a small but hard-working crew who steer the ship and put on the entertainments; or to a battleship - with a crew every member of which knows that when battle stations is called they have a job and a function to do that is intertwined with all the other jobs and functions on the battleship. No-one, but no-one, has nothing to do when battle stations are called on a warship.

And today I am calling battle stations, because I know, for example, that when the churchwardens, not just this year but in preceding years, have asked people to be a sidesman once a month or so, they are told that it would be too much of a commitment.

But if not many more people undertook to do it, the 'commitment' need only be once every six or so weeks.

I know that the number of people who come and clean this building on a regular basis is very small, and there are any number of reasons why we are told that more people can't help out with it.

But I can guess that the number of people who would complain if it were not cleaned would be much larger.

The truth is that whether it be cleaning, food, flowers, serving, Sunday School, representing this parish on the Good Friday Walk of Witness; in fact, as that phrase in the PCC report puts it - in the whole mission of the Church - pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical, there is a fairly fixed group of frequently recurring names …

Some people have given long service and now want to take a step back; fair enough.

Some people, either temporarily or for the foreseeable future, genuinely have too much on their plates to do any more. Fair enough, although it is often those people who already do bordering on too much who willingly volunteer to do something else rather than make the excuse.

But those people for whom an additional commitment now would not be reasonable do not add up to the 100 or so on the Electoral Roll of this parish.

This is not an occasion for pointing fingers, but for asking ourselves whether the Lord is calling us to do more than we presently are. And so I would ask each of you to ask yourselves quite seriously - where are you, mentally speaking; on a cruise liner or a battleship? by the pool with a Pina Colada, or ready for battle-stations?

A priest I know regularly asks his congregation at the very least to consider themselves - every single last individual one of them - as assistant churchwardens.

And I would like to issue the same challenge here. Think hard about what you don't do but could - and may indeed have already been asked to do it, and found a reason why not.

You are after all witnesses to Christ's suffering and Resurrection, and the preaching of the forgiveness of sins to all the nations.

That is what we're here for.

And we do that the context of our stewardship of a building that, being Grade II* listed, is in the top few per cent of the important buildings in this country. That responsibility should not be underestimated, and such a building needs money spending on it.

'That's OK' you might say 'haven't we got a lot of money in the bank?' Well yes, we do. We are fortunate in that; many (even most) parishes are not. And the Charity Commissioners have indicated that if there is money in the bank, it should be spent, not sat on for a rainy day. So fair enough.

In the last couple of weeks, our retained architect has inspected the condition of the wall around the memorial garden and agreed that as a whole it needs to be rebuilt and that in fact one part of it in particular is potentially dangerous.

Also, the condition of the floor of the sanctuary is degrading and the inside walls of the church need either to be cleaned or painted, or a combination of the two - all as part of our custodianship of this building.

These things will not be cheap - they will likely make a substantial hole in the £200,000 reserves we presently hold.

But I would ask you to be supportive of the PCC as they receive in a few weeks' time the architect's report on these matters and are called upon to agree the spending of sums of money that would make any sensible householder wince.

It would be easy to say from the sidelines 'oh, isn't that a lot'; much harder to be a PCC member and trustee of a Grade II* listed building that we are obliged to keep in good and safe order, inside and out.

The PCC will keep you informed as to what is going on and why, and I would ask you to be supportive in return, especially as cleaning the inside of the building and work on the sanctuary floor may well require us to vacate this building and worship on Sundays in the Hall and elsewhere during the week - for how long though we don't presently know.

There is also the question of the £65,000 or so that we pay in Common Fund to the Diocese of London. We pay this because we have the Happy Child Nursery to bankroll us, but we have to be realistic about the present financial climate; other nurseries have folded and we are very exposed to the business decisions that Happy Child might make about where it runs nurseries. We have no indication that they want to close this one, but if they did, this parish would go from financial viability to non-viability very quickly indeed.

So why pay this £65,000 to the Diocese of London? Because, and I shall come back to this, the Church of England is not a congregational church. Like it or not, we are part, through Bishop John and the Diocese of London, of the Church of England, and through baptism with something much greater.

But all this is very much about us in here and this place, and the mission of the Church is to bring people to Faith in Jesus Christ, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them all he has commanded us.

Some people I know would have me and one or two others out door-knocking, cold-calling in the manner of double-glazing salesmen. I have done a couple of parish missions like that; and, generally speaking, they don't bring anyone new to church.

Those involved feel very virtuous, but not a lot comes of them. In my experience, the thing that actually brings people to, or back to, church and worshipping Almighty God is a personal invitation from someone they know and trust; a friend, a neighbour, a colleague; not the man in black calling uninvited when they are trying to do something else.

A few years ago, the Anglican Church in Nigeria experienced rapid growth because its archbishop challenged all Anglicans to each bring one new person to church each year.

Each of us might ask ourselves the question: 'when was the last time I brought someone new to church simply by taking the risk of saying - if you don't understand why I go to church, come and see for yourself, you'd be very welcome.'

That is what we're here for.

And finally, another reminder that all this is not just about us in here.

As I said in relation to the Common Fund, the Church of England is not a Congregationalist church. We may all for now be St Mary's people inasmuch as this where we regularly worship.

But we are all actually or effectively members of the Church of England. What goes on in the CofE is of consequence to what goes on here. Because we do things rather differently than much of the CofE, others in it, and we, might almost kid ourselves that we aren't really part of those things about which we feel uncomfortable or with which we actively disagree.

I have said before and I will say it again now, although not today talking at all about the detail of the politics - you know the issues to which I am referring, the CofE is either changing into something which is progressively less convincingly catholic in any sense, or is simply demonstrating itself never to have been properly catholic in the first place.

That clearly has implications for those who believe and worship in a manner that is catholic.

It means that I and all of you will need to decide where the CofE's direction places us. Snap decisions are not generally a good idea, but a time of decision one way or another will come for us.

And you may need to make a decision that is difficult, but it must be one with which you feel able to live in good conscience. Or you may be called to respect the decisions of others with which you may strongly disagree.

And so you may ask what is the point of my encouraging you to greater commitment and activity in the life of the Church here and now?

The Church is a large vineyard. Some of us may work out the rest of our shift in this corner of it, and should do so unstintingly if that is what we believe God calls us to.

However long we remain here, we should serve God here. When we are called elsewhere, we should serve him unstintingly there.

Some of us will be called over time to other parts of the vineyard, either through work changes, moving house, retirement - not only through changes in denomination or Church.

And wherever that takes us, in whatever circumstances, at whatever time, we must commit ourselves to the Church and to Christ - trusting that he will honour that commitment.

For us, that place is here and that time is now. Let us acknowledge the call to battle-stations and so let us be conscientious and deliberate in serving God in His Church and each other.

It is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.

Amen.

St Mary-the-Virgin, Kenton
3 St Leonard's Avenue, Kenton HA3 8EJ
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8907 2914
Registered Charity No. 1132234

All text and images on this web site are
© St Mary-the-Virign, Kenton unless otherwise acknowledged.

The menu system is the intellectual property of www.milonic.com