This is the text of Rev. Graham Crawford’s Sermon for the Morning Service at St James on 25 January 2015.

Introduction: “Dream Big”

One of the things I heard often when I was growing up was the phrase: “Dream Big”.

There was this idea that you should never aim at the run-of-the-mill or the ordinary.

You should dream big, test yourself – even test God.

After all, if you are trying to achieve something that you can do perfectly well by yourself and then ask God’s help, what room is there for God to work?

You have to push the boundaries, think big, think beyond your own capabilities for then you leave room for God.

Now, of course, this notion of leaving room for God is something that I have learnt later in life.

It was not obvious to me as a youngster, but has become more and more apparent as I have become older and, I would hope, a little wiser.

Model Railway plan

One arena where this philosophy has taken root for me is in my model railways.

I have a grand plan.

For close to 15 years I have been researching and planning to build a layout representing Dunbar in the late 30’s.

It is a grand plan that I hope to accomplish, but I now realise will also take up a lot of space.

So, in the meantime, I work on smaller projects, honing my skills so that, when the time comes, I will not just have the knowledge but also the skills-base to achieve it.

“Stairway to Heaven” plan

Another grand project I have is Stairway to Heaven.

It is a programme of spiritual development for Christians to help them move from being vaguely interested in Jesus Christ to being in the likeness of Christ.

Whenever I find a little bit of spare office time, I will open up the file and work on it a little more.

It is another project, like Dunbar, that I wonder if I will ever see reach completion – but I do a little here and I do a little there, when I can.

The meaning of Church Membership

One of the things that it has led me to reflect on is the meaning of Church membership.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the common conceptions of membership.

After all, if everyone who was a member was an active member, this church would be “standing room only” on a Sunday morning, which it quite clearly is not.

So what are some of the conceptions of church membership?

Cultural association

There are those who will quite openly claim that St. James is “their church” but who never attend worship, never contribute anything to the life of the church, who may or may not contribute financially to the church but who are adamant that this is their church!

This is often a cultural or historical association, which has absolutely no reflection on their life or their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

One-day-a-weekers

There are others who come to church to worship, sometimes once a year, or maybe twice – or, for some, really quite frequently.

They have some sympathy with the Christian faith: they quite enjoy being in church, but they have no real desire to get involved.

They are quite simply “one day a week” Christians who do not want to be labelled as religious or have to consider how their lifestyle might be affected by becoming too involved.

These people may or may not have taken the step of formal church membership.

Belonging

The third group are those who really belong.

They attend worship regularly, they contribute financially, they participate in church events and programmes and are very much a part of the church family and are dedicated to this journey of discipleship.

Of course, it is the goal of every minister to encourage and lead his people to make this third kind of commitment, but sometimes this just does not happen.

One of things that every minister struggles with is how to encourage their people to this sort of commitment.

Inheritors

As I have been reflecting on this I have realised that there is another subgroup within this last group of regular people who really belong.

They are, to put not too fine a point on it, the inheritors.

They may or may not have grown up within the particular church they now attend, but they feel very strongly a sense that they have inherited the church from their ancestors and their job is to keep it going until they can pass it on to the next generation.

They love the way things used to be, are suspicious of innovation and, if in positions of control, are very loath to give up control.

They are not very involved in discipleship programmes, or personal development, because they are mainly there because they love their church and want to support it, in order to keep it going.

A continuum of members

Now, of course, this is a very simplistic view.

No one person fits into any category completely but I suspect that we all see ourselves somewhere on that spectrum of membership.

Jonah as an “inheritor”

Jonah would have seen himself as being a part of this inheritance group.

The grace of God was for the people of God and no-one else.

He had no desire, and actively resisted God’s call, to be an evangelist.

The book of the prophet Jonah was written at or after The Exile, as a reaction to the internal ethnic cleansing which marked this period of Israel’s history.

It was believed by the people that Israel’s fall from grace was a result of their apostasy and inter-marriage which had offended God.

The only way to restore the relationship as God’s people was to cleanse, to the tenth generation, the blood lines. In other words, God’s love and compassion were to be peculiar to Israel.

This story is the antidote to such arrogance.

So let us hear what happens when the reluctant Jonah reached the great city (Jonah 3: 1 – 10) –

3 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’ 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
‘By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.’

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

Gentile Nineveh, chosen for its ‘sinfulness’ in folklore becomes the object of God’s mercy and compassion, and Jonah the instrument of the boundlessness of God’s love.

You would think that such repentance would delight Jonah, but instead, in chapter 4 verse 1, we read that this change of plan – God’s decision to grant the city mercy and grace – upset Jonah, and he became very angry.

He became angry that God dared to share his love with non-Israelites.

Jonahs of today

You still hear of that reaction today.

“Have you heard that so-and-so is now attending this church or that church? After all they have done in their life, they now claim to have turned their life around and they are so religious now. If people just knew what they were like!”

It is almost as if some people just do not get the whole idea of genuine repentance and new birth.

And so they become “on the lookout”, hoping against hope to reveal the person to be as hypocritical as Holy Willie in that great poem written by someone whose birthday it is today [Robert Burns, Scotland’s National Bard].

And yet, it is these people, as well as others, that we need to be reaching with the Gospel.

As has been so often said: “The church is to be a hospital for sinners; not a Sunday Club for the healthy”.

Jesus’ message

Listen again to the opening words of Jesus’ ministry (Mark 1: 14 – 20) –

14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’

Jesus calls his first disciples

16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.

19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Let me repeat his words: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

This is our message.

What our message is (and is not)

Our message is not: “Come to St. James so that we can keep the doors open another few years.”

The message is not: “Come along and meet your friends.”

The message is not: “Come along to see, and be seen.”

It is: “The Kingdom of God has come near, change your mind, change your heart and believe the Good News, the Good News that, if you do truly change your mind and heart, even if you have done the most heinous things in the past, through Christ these sins are forgiven, your slate has been wiped clean and you will then be able to receive that forgiveness he offers.”

Folks, this is our sole raison d’etre, our sole reason for being: to offer to people hope, forgiveness and love.

To let them know that – whatever they have done, whoever they have been – if they are prepared to turn their lives around, God will love them, we will love them and, in that love, they will have the freedom to become what God created them to be: His children, made in His likeness and constantly growing more and more into that likeness through ascending the stairway to heaven.

Jonah quite simply didn’t get it.

He didn’t get that God could love beyond the boundaries of his land.

Others don’t get it either: they don’t get that going to church makes you as much a Christian as sleeping in the garage will make you a car!

But, my prayer this morning is that you get it.

My prayer this morning is that you know God’s love deep in your heart.

That you have turned your life around and – that you are so excited and enthusiastic about your new found relationship – that, like Simon, Andrew, James and John, you are prepared to leave your old life behind, to tell others of God’s great love.