A PEOPLE INVITED TO FOLLOW

Address by Rev. Dr. Heather Morris at her Installation as President of the Methodist Church in Ireland in Joymount Presbyterian Church, Carrickfergus, on Wednesday 12th June 2013. Joshua 3 A PEOPLE INVITED TO FOLLOW God is here. God s Spirit is with us. I have said it and will say it often for I believe that it is true - that these are exciting days in the life of the Church, we see it across the churches. God is at work, stirring us up, breathing life, inviting us deeper in relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and inviting us out into the world, where God already is. And we are not naïve for these are also challenging days, we face difficult decisions this Conference, we are aging, financial challenges loom large. But God is in it all, in the tensions and the challenges, in the questions to which we do not as yet have answers, in heartache, in the moments when our hearts soar and we cannot keep from singing; in it all God invites us to follow. The people of God are led by God to the bank of the Jordan. After three days the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it. Joshua told the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. Joshua 3:2-4 You are camped on the edge of the Jordan; you have grown up being told about the land which God has promised, that promise is in your DNA, and now you are camped on the edge of the Jordan with that Promised Land almost within touching distance and with the words ringing in your ears that tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things, can you imagine trying to go to sleep that night, on the edge of wonders, on the edge of the fulfilment of God s promise? There may well have been some in the camp that night for whom waiting one more night was almost too much to bear, who would have paced the river bank, looking over, frustrated with Joshua for making them wait until tomorrow; others perhaps who didn t sleep that night because they were anxious, and understandably so - what would this new land look like? Would a people who had only known desert and wandering, would a generation who had only ever eaten manna, be able to cope in this new space? And others, others who did not want to go, for whom this call to get ready was a call they didn t want to hear. They were in a land they knew and loved, why move? This people, young and old, women and men, excited, reluctant, stubborn, frustrated, cynical, longing, all deeply loved by God, all invited to follow. Now invited is a challenging word: invited means we can say no, invited means we can choose to stay even if everyone else moves on with God, invited gives us freedom to go, but with teeth and fisted clenched, looking back, reluctant. 1

This is our gathering time. Perhaps tonight as we listen and think and pray and sense God s uncontrollable Spirit amongst us, we echo some of the feelings that may have been around that Israelite camp that night; perhaps the honest answer of our hearts is, Lord if this is your invitation, I want to want this. I am tired and am not sure if I have the heart; my cynical side kicks in and I think but we have been here before and nothing happened; but I want to want it. That my brothers and sisters, is the way I feel about fruit salad. I want to want it. I long for the day when given a choice between fruit salad and Pavlova, I will choose the fruit salad because I want it, rather than choosing it because it s the right thing to do. But in the meantime whether I want it or not, I try to choose it, and hope that if I learn the habit of choosing that wanting will grow. The invitation that is before us is not based on what we want; but on God s calling and will. Invited is a challenging word: invited means we have the freedom to go rejoicing. The kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-45) The guys got it - nothing was going to hold them back from going after that which they had found. Rejoicing, in joyful anticipation, they let everything else go for sake of the treasure they had discovered. One afternoon my Mum was due to pick David, who was then about 6 or 7, up from school. She called into our house; knowing Mum, it was probably to drop off some ironing or put something in the fridge for our tea. There was no- one else at home and Mum didn t know that the handle on the kitchen door was broken so that if you closed the door you couldn t open it again from the inside. On the way to pick up David, Mum went into our kitchen and closed the door. With a few minutes to go before pick- up time she tried to open the door, it didn t budge, her bag was in the hall, there was no phone in the kitchen. In a few minutes her 7 year old grandson would be standing alone outside the school gates wondering why no- one had come to get him nothing was going to stop her getting there. Our manse has an unusual design, the kitchen window is about 8 feet above the ground, my mother, whose age we will not share, climbed out the kitchen window, dropped onto the dog s kennel and then down to the ground and out to get the child. Nothing, not a locked door, or an 8 foot drop, not the risk of looking foolish if neighbours saw, nothing was going to stop her from being where she needed to be. Will we step into God s invitation like that? Rejoicing. Determined that nothing, not our comfort, or our familiarity, not our preferences, not fear of looking foolish, not challenges, determined that nothing will hold us back from obedience; that nothing will hold us back from being the people God is inviting and enabling us to be? This invitation to follow is not a burden or a nuisance, something we feel as heavy - it is rather a joy- filled opportunity. 2

A people invited to follow. See the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. Now then choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord - the Lord of all the earth - set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand in a heap. Joshua 3:11-13 Now there is a challenge. And the writer wants us to be in no doubt at all that this is significant, we are told clearly in verse 15, Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. And the priests come to the edge of the water; and the water doesn t stop as they stand dry on the edge and look at it, but when they put their foot out and step into the water, it stops flowing. The central image for this Conference captures that moment; a people who are invited by God to trust and step out and get our feet wet and see God act. A people invited to follow, that will necessarily demand such a depth of trust in God that we are willing to take a risk, try an experiment - get our feet wet. So what might wet feet look like for us? Here are some ideas; you will have others Practising radical hospitality: Do not forget, we read in Hebrews 13, to show hospitality to strangers. One of the gifts God has given us as a people is hospitality, we are great at welcoming. Now what if God was asking us to push that - develop that gift; to go out of our way to welcome those who have come from other countries, to meet more than halfway those who have the immense courage to venture, curious, into church after generations of no church contact. How might Northern Ireland be transformed if each of us invited a Roman Catholic neighbour in for coffee, simply to chat and get to know each other, how might our discussions and actions on the issues which face us and on which we differ, lottery, sexuality, education, poverty and economics be transformed if we all made an effort to really understand a viewpoint with which we radically disagree perhaps God is prompting us to get our feet wet and practice radical hospitality. Or perhaps for you God is inviting us get our feet wet and step out into passionate prayer: to step out from knowing we should pray into fervent believing consistent prayer. This is the theme which Ken so effectively led us to last year. Last summer I had the opportunity of going to Ibiza as part of a team working with 24/7 in Ibiza. The core calling of the ministry is to pray for Ibiza. Folk who are the worse for wear, or in trouble, or drunk and alone are helped to get home, but the core business is to pray. The pattern of the night is that half of the team are in the prayer room, while the other half are out on the streets of the West End in San Antonio, and then the teams swop. And I have never experienced as close and as obvious a link between prayer and God s action as I did in that prayer room and on those streets, the two mirrored each other. People of God, if prayer matters that much why do we play at 3

the edges of it? Could it be that God is inviting us to step out into passionate, fervent prayer? This Conference as we seek God s heart, we will pray. The possibilities of what stepping out, getting wet feet, look like are endless, and will look different in Letterkenny, and Dublin, and Sligo and Larne. Wet feet looks like Jono and Beth leaving jobs and home in Dublin, moving to Shannon in Co Clare to develop the Surf Project. Jon will be commissioned as a Pioneer Mission Leader on Sunday. Wet feet - it might mean advocacy for those, like people with dementia; people with disability whose voice is often unheard; as we face into discussion about abortion, wet feet might mean following our talk up with care for women who at great cost, make a decision to keep their babies, and make known God s love and care to those who don t; wet feet for you might mean chatting to the other parents at the school gate about Jesus; wet feet might mean deciding to learn and think about some of the moral and ethical issues of this generation - to think theologically about poverty, consumerism, identity, physician assisted suicide; wet feet might means a bit of secret service, quiet kindness; wet feet might mean developing Christ- like selflessness; wet feet might mean getting involved in a campaign to stop human trafficking; it might mean saying I am no longer content with half- hearted discipleship, I will commit to meeting with others and develop deep God filled relationships (listen to Phil on that tomorrow); it will mean being missional disciples; wet feet might look like saying I will let go of the structures I know and love if that means that we are better able to make known the good news about Jesus; wet feet might mean going to the local coffee shop and talking and listening, to learn what are the significant issues for folk in your community. The truth is I don t know what wet feet looks like for you in your context, but God does. What it will not look like are churches who are content to be inward- looking, apathetic, self- seeking clubs. We are invited to follow; to put out our feet into the uncertainty and discomfort of water which is still flowing; to put our foot into the river knowing that humanly this is madness, for this is so risky that we will be swept away unless God acts and stops the water. For remember we are not the primary actors here - God is. This is God s dream; the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God s presence goes before - God is the guide as the people wake, shake off their stupor and began to move that morning. Joshua 3:16-17 And so the people of Israel set foot in the Promised Land. And here we need to pause and ask, What is our destination? For the people of Israel, the goal was to possess the land. It seems to me that the object of our journey may look a bit different. In one sense it is exactly the same - to be where God was calling them and is calling us to be, to be in the place God has for us. But I don t think our call is to possess the land in that same sense. 4

In our generation, faithful following will not mean a position of power in society, it will mean Godly influence. Our goal is not cultural dominance but intentional influence. To be a people formed in the power of the Spirit who see clearly the cost of discipleship and choose to be disciples. To be a people who live joyfully caught up in God s love for us and for the world. In our generation, faithful following may not mean prestige, size, honour; it will mean giving ourselves away, loving service, dying to self, sacrifice. All that Jesus might be made known. It will undoubtedly mean being a blessing: one of the pictures on my preaching scarf is of wheat - a reminder that the people of God in exile are commanded to plant crops, buy land, bless the people amongst whom they are living. Church is called to model a way of living in the world which the world cannot on its own terms know, because the world does not know Jesus but truth be told, often we don t, there is a now and a not yet about this invitation. We are a people invited to follow, so much potential and opportunity in that invitation and we argue in the carpark, gossip behind each other s backs, remember hurts too long; fall out over things that do not matter. There is a now and a not yet, there is a promise and a journey, there is a balance between holding on to the reality of what is held out for us and the reality that in this in- between times we live in a fallen world and the Church, in common with every other part of God s creation is subject to failure and weakness, suffering and pain. But knowing all that, knowing that there are real challenges ahead, will we still be content to journey with God into a future fully known only by God? Christians are a people invited to follow, and there is no- where else I want to be and it is going to be tough. And this we know; it is God who is inviting us to step into the Creator s Mission; God who in Jesus has made following possible; it is God s Spirit who dances among us enabling and equipping: this we know and that is enough. Amen. Post script: In your Orders of Service you should have received a card which has the picture of God s people, trusting, stepping into water at God s command - wet feet. I invite you to take that card and put it in your pocket, handbag, or in your Bible as a reminder of God s invitation, as a prompt to listen and watch and see where God is asking you to step out and get your feet wet. Recently someone asked me to describe a Methodist it s one of those questions that has stayed with me; what I would say now - is warm heart,- for everything stems from living relationship with Jesus; tough hands, because they serve and wet feet - because when God leads we will step out, take risks, be uncomfortable for the sake of God s Kingdom. 5