Andrew Boyle           Pentecost 12                                                               23 August 2009

 Ephesians 6 .10-20 John 6. 58-69

When I was at school we used to always sing a hymn at weekly assembly. Because it was a boys’ school we always seemed to sing hymns with

rousing tunes, often with a marching beat to them; to stir the blood and rally our allegiance. This passage from Ephesians, about putting on the whole

armour of God, is indelibly etched in my mind because we used to sing the hymn: Soldiers of Christ Arise – a sort of Boys Own pom-pom-pom affair.

So I have some ambivalence about this passage because of its militaristic overtones.

Maybe the Ephesian church had some serving or former soldiers of the Roman army in it. Like the USA now, Roman society was a military state,

so the symbols and language of war were an ever present reality. This letter to the church in Ephesus often speaks about power. As it does so

though it’s easy for us to slip into reading the concerns of the letter through a lens which implies that it is about temporal power – maybe even

military power. The writer’s concerns, though, are not with enemies of blood and flesh, as he says, but against the rulers, against the authorities,

against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

This ancient Mediterranean world was governed both by the bloodthirsty tyrants of the empire but also by what people understood to be the unseen

realm of the spirits. The Christians at Ephesus are being called to be warriors in this other-worldly battle – a battle for hearts and minds and souls.

Now maybe there was a direct analogy in the writer’s mind between the aspects of a warrior’s armour and the aspects of the life of faith which

he lists: truth, righteousness, faith, salvation and the word of God; represented by the belt, the breastplate, the shoes, the shield, the helmet and

the sword. And possibly we’ve all heard sermons unpacking these parts of a soldier’s armour as a direct analogy to aspects of the life of faith,

but their purpose is to conjure up an image, a strategy for a way of being in this spiritual warfare. Of course an aggressive militarism is just so

contrary to the way of the cross so we need to hold this military metaphor lightly.

What does impress itself upon me as I read this passage on this occasion, though is the injunction about what to put on the feet. He says: As shoes

for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. I imagined putting on sandals or stilettos or steel-capped boots

or sensible walking shoes, maybe running shoes or just some ordinary, everyday shoes – in  order to do whatever is necessary to share the good news.

Paul speaks of being all things to all people in order to share the good news. There is no-one-way that this has to be done; or which is effective.

You put on the appropriate shoes for the occasion. I think it’s a helpful metaphor for us wondering about the nature of church and what it might be

like in the future.

Last Saturday John and Sharon Hyne, Rob and Jan Serpell and myself took part in what was called the Future Church Conference at the CTM.

At it we heard stories about experiences in two parts of Melbourne where new manifestations of church are emerging. One story was of the Churches

of Christ in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, where eight churches were just about to fall off their Zimmer frames, but after some radical

reorganisation and amalgamation four of these churches are now – after a ten year period -  a recreated and revitalised church. The other story was

about a new Anglican church in Caroline Springs – a totally new suburb along the Western Highway. In both cases these new churches are putting

on whatever is necessary to help them proclaim the gospel of peace.

In the case of the Church of Christ in the northern suburbs this church has at present eight congregations, some of which don’t resemble congregations

in the ways in which we have either imagined or structured them in the past. Some meet in the church centre, but others meet in cafés and homes;

even one in a pub. Yet as they were described there was no question that each congregation is a legitimate congregation in which the gospel is shared

and the love of Christ is present. And while to some of us they don’t look like traditional congregations as such they are recognised by their church

as legitimate gatherings of the people of God. What is essential to their identity is their shared values and shared action as people seeking to be faithful

to the way of Christ. There was no sense as these different scenarios were described to us that they are some second-best sort of church.

The location in the city of Melbourne that this church is in – and Pilgrim and Doncaster East also – is that we are part of demographic trend. I don’t

need to tell you that you were all part of the expansion of Melbourne during the 60s and 70s – and this expansion trend has continued – to the extent

that Melbourne is now beginning to strangle itself. Traditional mainline churches between the city and here have been undergoing a decline in the past

decades; a sort of wave which seems to be spreading out from the city; church attendance is no longer the order of the day and the assumptions

which meant that people joined and contributed to the life of a local church denomination, of which they considered themselves to be a part, do no

longer hold. There is no point in asking: why don’t people come to church anymore? No point in hoping that the next minister will alter our fortunes.

And there is no future in expecting that a drum-kit, a data projector, more comfortable pews or refurbished buildings will bring new people and ensure

that we keep them. People are not interested in church as it has been.

 This doesn’t mean, though, that the gospel no longer has the potential to affect and shape people’s lives and result in new Christian communities

being formed. The changed demographics will mean that Christian communities of the future will probably look different to what we have known.

The proof of their legitimacy and their faithfulness to the gospel of peace, will be whether or not the spirit of Christ is present and shaping their life.

 The response of most churches between the city and here over the past decades has been to accept their decline as  inevitable and that little or

nothing can be done to alter their fortunes. In this perspective congregations are ultimately confronted either with closure or only to embrace change

when the money runs out. In some cases churches are well endowed and so there are some congregations with maybe only a dozen or so regulars who

can afford a minister because they are well-endowed or have significant property income. But the pattern in the main has been that change only ensues

when the economic bottom lines demands it. We have been so attached to the ways things have been done that any change has been resisted as

contrary to the will of God. In some sense an unwillingness to change is actually an act of despair. As Phil McCredden from the Northern Community

Church of Christ said last Saturday though: to do nothing is the real failure. Will it be the same for the churches in Manningham?

No question we are in a time when we are struggling with questions like: what does it mean to be the people of God in this time and place? Under

what circumstances do we need to change? And will change result in things being better than they are at present or the way they were in the past?

However we might measure these things? How do we know?

If we expect that joining some congregations will halt, even reverse, the decline then we will be disappointed. If we think that a new building or

new location will attract people, we will be disappointed. If we expect that a new minister will change our fortunes, we will be disappointed.

Part of our trouble is that we are addicted to success in numerical and financial terms. In this regard we are no different from the rest of our society

which is driven by these things. These are not things that the gospel calls us to be committed to. We are called first and foremost to a faithfulness to

the way of Christ – to his imagining of a world re-created by the urging of God. The pattern of Jesus ministry was that he went and met people

where they were, and left them there in most cases, with a sense of the love and grace and generosity of God. He didn’t come and ask them to

come to the local synagogue and put their bottoms on the pews. He called them to live in a way which embodied a world re-imagined by God.

If we want to  faithfully be the people of God; if we want to bequeath a legacy – I think we need to be willing to, as Jennie Ellis calls it, reposition

ourselves. Not move the deck chairs – because moving the deck chairs doesn’t have hope associated with it, nor a sense of reality for that matter.

But re-positioning ourselves requires of us that we take a good look at ourselves; the way we have done things; the way we are doing things now;

and it requires of us a willingness to look and see the context in which we live and where the mission is needed in in the community around us.

Because any mutual cooperation and possible merging which takes place between the UCA congregations, whatever form that might take, is pointless

unless we begin to look to the needs around us. The merging of a number of declining  congregation just results in one, slightly larger but nevertheless,

still declining congregation.

The challenge for us at this time is not just to explore how we can more dynamically cooperate with the other Uniting churches in Manningham but for

us to endeavour to re-imagine church also. This is really the bigger and more challenging task. But it is the task which will give us the inspiration to

imagine and create something new with a sense that it is the life of God being breathed into us.

I love the response of the disciples to Jesus after some have turned back from following him from the reading from John today. Jesus asks if they will

turn back too and they respond: Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. To me these few words capture that sense of what

it means to know oneself touched by the life of God; and that when this has happened there really is no other choice – not because we have been

forced into a corner but because we know that the life of God is to be found in the one who calls us to follow in his pattern.

I have no doubt that if we are willing to faithfully follow and act that some thing new will be able to emerge and grow.

It will require commitment and courage but we can know that God is faithful and travels with us as we go.