On Thursday over 500 clergy of the Diocese of
London gathered for a days study summit in Church House Westminster. The
Archbishop of Canterbury gave the opening key note address and in the afternoon
Tim Keller spoke about his experience as a church leader. He is an
extraordinary person who took the job of leading the Redeemer church in New
York city and growing the church from 50 to over 5,000 in a few years.
He spoke about the nature of church being a
community that should be identifiable as “contrasting, serving, unifying, lay
launching, suffering and prophetic.”
In this mornings gospel we observe Jesus with
his disciples and in the few verses we see these “marks” of the church as
identified by Tim Keller.
Jesus is of course trying to get the disciples
to understand that as they journey towards Jerusalem what awaits him, and of
course those who will ultimately follow him, is suffering. The reality of this
suffering is of course contrasting to the popular held ideas current in first
century Jewish messianic hope and expectation. Jesus is having this
conversation as part of his teaching and training of those whom he has called
and will soon send out into the world to continue his work. This need and
desire to teach his disciples is required as part of “lay launching”, and of
course what he is suggesting to the disciples is prophetic for his suffering
will come to shape all that follows in the life of the church.
And what is the reaction of the disciples? they
cannot bear to hear these words of Jesus. They exhibit the all to familiar
behavior of those who have followed in their footsteps up to the present day,
division rather than unity, an attitude of self-serving and self absorbed
behaviour. They get themselves into a bother about who is the greatest amongst
themselves. It is threatening the unity of Christ’s followers, that most
important mark of the church referred to by Tim Keller and prayed for by Jesus
himself. The arguments within the church today over issues of gender and sexuality
are a sign of a church more interested in serving itself than the world in
which it is called share the Good News.
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eSZM9EllMIk/UF81zWwsZbI/AAAAAAAAADE/9WeAbdGflso/s320/woman+cry.jpg)
Sex has become the predominant verbal occupation
of the day. Whether in discussion of sin or in the context of sanctioned
blessing, sex has become the central issue of not just the world but of the church.
This episode in Mark cries out for us to notice a bitter irony, to see that
while Jesus is telling us about his death and suffering, we are arguing like
the disciples amongst ourselves.
What Jesus does next is to take a child and
remind us in our own time of the need to welcome those around us as we would a
child. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever
welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Verse 37
We cannot of course welcome anyone, let alone a
precious child, if we are only concerned with our own selves and being right in
all we say and do within the church.
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