GUEST POST by Fr John Ackland, preached at Croydon Minster Sunday 6th February 2022
Isaiah
6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
In
this sermon I would like us to explore what could be called Theological
Psychology - but then I thought far too
pompous and I might have some of us rushing for the door! But the intention is
to consider how we ‘think as Christian people’ and
how we respond to those thoughts?
Our
Gospel repeatedly makes us look at the
church, each other and ourselves from our Lord’s perspective.
We are called to reimagine the church
through the eyes of God.
Often at
our Ministry Team Meetings held every Tuesday we have explored the
concept of what it means to have a Culture of Abundance or a
Culture of Scarcity. It has been truly fascinating! Personally, I
love this sort of inquiry because it really makes me think!
"Is the glass half
empty or half full?" is a proverbial phrase, used rhetorically to indicate
that a particular situation could be a cause for pessimism (glass half-empty)
or optimism (glass half full), So if we replaced the word pessimism for scarcity
and optimism for abundance, well, we can ask ourselves- does our Minster church
have a Culture of Scarcity or Culture of Abundance? Half empty? Half full? And
why does it matter?
Well, this
scarcity/abundance dynamic is at the heart of so many human encounters with
Jesus.
Do you know that there is
only one miracle that is found in all four gospels, only one that we find in
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? What is it? It’s not the calming of the sea or
raising Lazarus from the dead or changing water in to wine: it’s the
Isaiahfeeding of the five thousand. It starts with ‘scarcity’ -so many miracles
and parables begin from a perspective of scarcity.
Just five loaves two fish
and five thousand people. Quite clearly there is not enough food. In the moment
the disciples reflect that culture of scarcity! “we haven’t got enough, we cant
do it” And rightly so in one sense. There is’nt enough food amongst so many.
Scarcity.
But Jesus reflects that
culture of abundance and miraculous things can happen when we have a culture
of abundance.
So let’s briefly explore today’s Gospel
reading.
You have probably heard this reading many
times.
The scene is set; it is morning. Crowds
have gathered to listen to Jesus on the shores of the lake.We see two fishing
boats. The fisherman have been fishing all night without success.
So, they are washing the nets before
returning home to eat and rest.
As more and more people gather to listen
to Jesus, he decides
to climb into one of the two fishing boats
asking Simon to put out into the water so he can speak from there to the crowd.
Sound over water is amplified and he is now facing all the people and he
speaks- but we don’t know what he says!
When he is finished he tells Simon to put
out into deep water and let down the nets. Bearing in mind they had been
working all night they are exhausted and the nets have already been washed, it
was a big ask.
But he does it anyway and, as we know,
miraculously, the nets are overwhelmed with fish. The nets threatened to snap
so he calls for the other boat to help and they both came back to shore weighed
down with the weight of the catch.
Simon Peter says to Jesus to “Go away! ….I
am a sinful man”
Jesus says “ Do not be afraid, you will be
catching people”
Then they all left there boats and
everything else in there lives and followed Jesus.
What does that mean?
Did you spot the culture
of scarcity at play? We find it twice-
once because they fished all night and caught nothing, what’s the point
of doing it all again- a scarcity mindset.
Second- Simon tells Jesus
to “go away” he feels he is not good enough nor ever will be-a scarcity
mindset!
Abundance is expressed in the catch of the fish. Abundance is expressed in the
faith Jesus has in the imperfect Simon and the fisherman.
In today's Old Testament
reading, the magnificent Isaiah is in the presence of God and is being called
by God to take a message to God's people. How does Isaiah react? He protests
and says "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live
among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
hosts!”. A statement of scarcity.
Both Isaiah and Simon
Peter feel the magnitude of their unworthiness, there ‘feeling not good
enough-ness.
A seraph cleanses Isaiah lips with a burning
coal and’God asks Who shall I send and
who shall; go for us?” and Isaiah says “Here I am, send me!” and Jesus has
words of abundance for the fisherman “be not afraid I’ll make you catchers of
people!”
Whatever troubled their
hearts was let go as God set them on a new course and empowered them for new work
in the kingdom.
That half full or half
empty observation is linked to our ‘mindset’.
Our mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how we make sense of the world and
ourself.
A very recent national
Church report speaks of a church “captivated by scarcity”. That’s an
interesting phrase- “to be captivated?” The
Cambridge Dictionary tells us that Captivated means
to hold the attention of someone
by being extremely interesting, exciting, pleasant, or attractive:
Oh- so how does that work
with being Captivated by Scarcity? Now I don’t know for sure yet because I am
following up with that report to find out exactly what they mean.
But could it be, could it
possibly be, that actually, a culture of scarcity is attractive and seductive
because it is easier.
After all, ‘the church is
struggling’, ‘we’ve done that or this before, didn’t work’, and ‘we don’t have
the funds’… ‘Whats a church to do?’ You see how menacing it is. Scarcity can
become a captivating interpretation because it makes no new demands, no need to
change, you see?
Remember, a Culture of Scarcity is a culture without
hope!
Whereas abundance speaks
of endless possibilities, yes, but it also speaks of risk! The safest, easiest
way, is to do nothing- but God does not call us to do nothing- his call is
abundant!
Research shows that mindsets play a
significant role in determining life's outcomes. By understanding, adapting and
shifting our mindset, we are told, we can improve our health, decrease our
stress and become more resilient to life's challenges.
We are all imperfect Christian
people and we are called to create that mindset, that culture of abundance that
we find everywhere in our Christian Gospel- God wants this for us …. for our
Minster church, for our faith and in our hearts and lives.
A culture of Abundance.
We have had two grim years of restrictions
and prohibitions of previously unimaginable struggles.
But something happened in our Minster
church this Christmas, an event that was the clearest example of what can
happen when we are guided by a culture of abundance instead of scarcity and it
was at no small risk!
We
had Carols of the Green- ‘Abundance?’ Yes,
this event was to be as professional and generous as we could make it.
Those transforming Christmas lights in the
trees, the quality of the food prepared with hired professional catering
equipment and hot drinks, the wonderful Salvation Army Band. a log bonfire
burning brightly and chocolates for all……if we had welcomed 150 people-we would
have been delighted, whereas we had over double that amount. Most of those
three hundred people were strangers to us.
People of all ages all backgrounds it was,
truly,
‘joyful
and triumphant’
Risk? Yes. Of course. One cloudburst and
it would have been a washout. Where there is culture of abundance there is always
risk.
But the Minster church
did it anyway.
There was great fear and risk for
those lakeside fisherman who dared to follow Jesus
But they did it anyway.
There was fear and risk for the great
prophet Isaiah.
But he did it anyway.
Of course, we must always be careful and
act with wisdom and discernment in the decisions we make…to be prudent-of
course- we must always be good stewards.
But our gospel calls us to be bold and
brave.
Again, we are reminded that where there is
a Culture of Scarcity there is no hope.
Where there is abundance there is
hope-filled ambition where we reimagine the church through the eyes of God.
I’ll close by recalling our Pre Pandemic
Minster Awayday- it seems an age ago. On that day the Minster people said
wonderful things about what they wanted for the Minster church, words like ‘alive’
‘a place of belonging’, ‘welcoming’ and ‘joyful’, ‘a church reaching out to the
people of Croydon’.
That is the ambition of abundance!
And, in God’s name,
In God’s name…..….we
can do this………AMEN
