A Listening Community
Warren Hartley’s sermon on church as a Listening Community from Sunday 9th August, part of our August series ‘What is Church?’
Reading: James 1.19-27
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Sermon
Thanks Mark and Louis. Its great to be with you this morning!
My name is Warren Hartley and I’m a lay member of the ministry team here at St Luke in the City and help to lead the Open Table services for the LGBT+ community at St Bride’s.
In our Sunday gatherings in August we’re looking at five different takes on ‘What is Church’. It’s great question to explore and a natural topic considering that over the past few months we haven’t been able to gather in person in our buildings. Last week Mark Waters looked at church as ‘embodying forgiveness’ and if you missed it may I encourage you to check it out on the St Bride’s blog and Kath may be able to share the link for you in the chat.
What is church and what is it for; are questions I’ve pondered for many years. I’m afraid I’m one of those rather irritating people that asks the why question… Lots. Why do we do this, why do we do it this way, why is liturgy like this, why do people use the words they use, why, why why! My mother can testify I’ve been this way since I was child and my long suffering husband knows all too well my propensity for questions and my very frequent dissatisfaction at the answers I receive.
Of late I’ve become obsessed with the idea of story, and the power they have in and over our lives for both good and ill. We seem to define ourselves as individuals, as a group of people, as a nation, as Christians etc. by the stories we tell and absorb. Stories can literally create us or destroy us.
What has this to do with church though? In church we tell and share lots of stories. We share stories from scripture, stories through the liturgy, the prayers we use, the hymns we sing and reflections from the pulpit and so on. It is all story and we each drink it in, in diverse ways depending on our culture, our language or the ways we’ve been taught to interpret stories. We all use “interpretative keys” either consciously or unconsciously as we navigate life.
The Revd. Barbara Glasson, who has just completed her year as President of the Methodist Conference, took as the theme for her year in office to ask the question “so what’s the story?”. Indeed she co-wrote a book with just that title which asks “What can we learn from other people’s stories? How can we better express our own story, and hold it alongside the stories of God? How can a deep engagement with all these stories be helpful to our life and witness, and on what occasions can they be unhelpful?”. Great questions and a great book.
Barbara who is both a friend and someone I deeply admire visited St Bride’s a few years back to preach and in her inimitable style she regaled us with stories. Unlike many sermons, mine included, which are deeply forgettable, something Barbara said that night struck me and I can still hear her words “I believe the mission of the church is to be people who listen”. I want to say that again “I believe the mission of the church is to be people who listen”.
Now I don’t know about your experience, but so often religion can come across as ‘let me tell you’, rather than ‘let me listen to you‘. So many church communities seem more interested in “spreading the word” than in listening to the life experiences, thoughts, hopes, dreams and tragedies of each other. To parody for a moment, the message I have often heard is “fit inside my narrative or sod off”.
Unlike the protestant reformer Martin Luther who imperiously described the epistle of St James as “an epistle of straw compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it”; I’m actually rather fond of it. It is a challenging read though. In today’s reading James calling us beloved says “let everyone be quick to listen and slow to speak”. But more than that too! He goes on to say “be doers of the word and not merely hearers”.
Listening is vital but if all we do is listen and don’t let what we hear change us and change the way we are in the world we deceive ourselves. Listening is difficult because what you hear may change your long held beliefs about yourself or other people. It is so easy to hold onto prejudices towards people we have never met. But when we meet someone who challenges or triggers our prejudices but we are willing to listen we may find ourselves changing or questioning ourselves and that is an uncomfortable place to occupy.
Despite this, that is what we are called to do and to be, as a church. So what is church? I believe it is, among other things, a challenge to build a listening community. A community of radical inclusion attempting to work beyond the limitations of culture, institution, history, language, story and circumstances. I include myself in this as I very falteringly attempt to live this out.
Like Mark said last week “Forgiveness isn’t spoken by a church official and left at the door but a way of life given to us by our founder. Christian story is a very different story to that in other systems. We remember and are put back together in a different way. We hear different stories from each other and shaped by them.”
St James put it even more strongly “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless” and goes on to say that “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is ….. to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world”. Orphans and widows is bible shorthand here for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. They stood in their society at the lowest rung of the ladder and we are to listen, hear the distress and then act. The call to keep ourselves unstained isn’t a retreat from the world and to keep ourselves pure & holy but instead, I want to suggest, is a challenge to listen to people, to really listen and not to take the glib answers that surround us which write off whole segments of our society off as worthless and therefore we don’t need to act.
One key part of the Christian story is that we are all made in the image of God, or the “imago dei” in Latin. We need to learn, the Rev. Aurelia Pratt says, “to embody the belief of imago dei: that you are made in the image of God and the Spirit of God dwells within you. This means you not only have permission, but it is absolutely essential to become well-practiced in listening to your Spirit. No mentor, podcast, pastor, or book can do this for you. It is the road less travelled to be sure!
So again what is church? For me it is a listening community where we listen to ourselves, listen to others, listen to God and then act because we’ve been changed by what we’ve heard and can’t help but work for change in our church and our world.
A famous poster titled How to Build Community concludes with this line “Know that no-one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this”. So what is church but to “Know that no-one is silent though many are not heard. Work to change this”.
Amen.