A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward
at the Church of All Saints, Orpington
Sunday 20 September, 15 after Trinity; Proper 20; Year B
Readings: Jeremiah 11.18-20, James 3.13-4.3, 7-8a; Mark 9.30-37
Someone said to me recently that having children was the first time in his life he had done something that wasn’t selfish. In his view of himself, having children was the first thing he did which put someone else first. I am impressed by his humility in saying this, and by his enthusiasm for his new way of life. It also must be a sad realisation for him that in his first 30-something years before he had children, in his own view, he had never done anything that wasn’t selfish - although I'm sure that wasn't really true, it was what he said he thought of himself. It took the true turning upside-down-topsy-turvyiness of life with a new little baby for him to put someone else first. The other side of this is that this man was also very successful in all that he did – in the world’s eyes, a success, on the way up.
The world doesn’t always have it right. It seems absolutely mad that it is possible to describe someone as a great success who, by his own account, had been leading a selfish life, but we do this all the time. The concept of “success” does not usually include having good personal relationships, it does not include generosity except as this might serve an ulterior purpose. So often “success” is about selfishness.
And even the disciples were subject to this kind of delusion. Jesus asked the disciples, as they were walking along, what they were arguing about. And like a bunch of schoolboys who know they have done something wrong – they said nothing – because what they had been arguing about was which one of them was the greatest. And they knew that that Jesus wouldn’t be impressed by that. I wonder about this – what were they actually saying? Sadly not recorded. Whatever it was they weren’t willing to admit it – Jesus view of greatness was the opposite of theirs: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
The other day I was at a clergy conference, where we heard an extremely eminent theologian and churchgoer propose that church members should tell their church treasurer or minister how much they earn. This would be so that the treasurer could look at the costs of the whole church, and work out how to divide them up fairly according to each person’s ability to pay. Each signed-up member of the church would be asked to give a contribution in accordance with their means. It actually sounds pretty fair.
Now I don’t think anyone who heard this proposal the other day took it seriously. We all had an instinctive fear of the possibility of asking or recording how much someone earns, no matter how discreetly it is done. We do not like the idea of publicizing anything to do with money or income. In talking of salaries, Christians would want to be very cautious, in case we were mistook for buying into the world’s view where someone’s worth is equated to how much they earn. In the world’s eyes, to be ‘successful’ – in nearly any field – is to earn more money than anyone else. This is not a Christian view – where each and every individual human is precious, no matter who they are or what they come from. So it is with the best of intentions that we would be loathe to enquire after someone’s salary.
But I wonder if that very English discretion could have a more sinister aspect. I wonder if behind it is a belief that the world has it right – I wonder whether there any small part of us which still believes that someone’s worth is related to how much they earn. And that therefore it could be embarrassing for someone to turn out to earn either less or more than one might have guessed. Is our discretion about money and salaries because really, they don’t matter very much, or the opposite - because deep down we do still think they matter more than anything. We need to think about our reasons for not wanting to talk about money, because not doing so can make life difficult for the church and any voluntary organisation.
More broadly, our fear of talking about financial matters – our fear of asking for money – does really matter. Because in a silence people can really get the wrong end of the stick. I have two examples of this. The first one is in a church had been redundant, and through hard work fundraising and applying for grants had been converted to a wonderful, multi-use centre, offering facilities for the community as well as a beautiful worshipping environment. One day, a long-standing member of the congregation gave something she had which she didn’t need any more to another member of the congregation. He offered to pay for it, and she said no. So he said that in thanksgiving he would give the money to the church instead. She told him not to – this faithful long-standing member of the church – and when asked why, she said because the church didn’t need any money. She said that in the 15 years she had been going to this church, she had given one pound a week in the Sunday collection, and in that time she had seen the church utterly transformed at great expense. Clearly, the church had been able to do great things with her pound a week, and didn’t need any more money. She mistook a beautiful church for wealth.
And another example – I was at a conference last week in my former theological college, which – having no endowment, having an alumni of clergy who don’t tend to leave it large legacies, and being squeezed year on year by the central church funding - has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for several years. Someone attending the conference complained about the state of the pavement at Westcott, comparing it unfavourably with the other colleges. I think he thought it was a sign of a lack of care – I told him that no, it was a sign of a lack of money. He mistook a crumbling college for a lack of interest.
A beautiful church, a crumbling college – either way if we aren’t open about money we lose, we find ways of not seeing that if we don’t find the money to keep the show on the road, no one else will.
The disciples argued about who was the greatest, and Jesus rebuked them for it. Money, salaries, and buildings can all too easily become a false representation of ‘greatness’ – of success. Real success isn’t about money and the things that represent money – it is about people. The flower festival which was held in this church a few weeks ago was a great success and it raised a lot of money. It’s success was in the people, the hundreds of people involved, who planned and created things of beauty, those who attended and helped, who met each other and built up relationships – the flower festival was successful because it ministered to our community, it served our community – partly through the money raised, and just as much through getting people together to meet and to enjoy and to laugh.
Success it isn’t about a beautiful building or having money – it’s about what you do with these things. Success is about learning to serve others using well all the good things that God has given us: in Jesus’ words “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
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