Beginning and Beginning Again
Preacher: Rt Revd Martin Fair, Moderator of the General Assembly of Church of Scotland
Sermon: Beginning and Beginning Again
Readings: Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
Good morning. I’m Martin Fair and I’m presently serving as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and I want to begin by extending to you the very best wishes of the General Assembly at this time. I’m dreadfully sorry not to be with you in person, I really had been looking forward to the trip to St Andrews. I’m sure it would have been a wonderful occasion for all of us to be gathered together to celebrate Founders and Benefactors Day. Well, we know that such gatherings are just not possible right now, but we know too, the last year has taught us as much, that there’s nothing for it but to get on with it and make to the best of it. That’s what I’m trying to do as Moderator and I’m sure it’s the same for you all at the University. As you strive to continue the life of the University, in the most trying of circumstances, I can assure you of my prayers for the whole of the University community, and for the town of St Andrews more generally.
Well, let’s begin, and I want to talk today about beginnings and new beginnings. We read towards the beginning of Marks gospel that Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan by John, John the Baptist of course, and then towards the end of Jesus’ ministry that with his disciples, he commanded them to go into all the world and to preach good news and to make disciples of all nations and to baptise. And so out of all of that we have the Sacrament of Baptism. On the day of Pentecost, as we now call it, Peter and the other disciples were before a huge crowd. Peter preached the first ever Christian sermon and finished up by encouraging those gathered before him to repent, and yes, to be baptised. Baptism, might I call it the Covenant of New Beginnings, yes, the Covenant of New Beginnings.
Now, the apostle Peter, just referred to, in his first letter, he draws a comparison between baptism and the story of Noah. We heard a part of that story read earlier, I’m sure you know how it goes. The world had become wicked beyond description, or we might say, ‘beyond repair,’ so God had sent a flood, and waters covered the whole earth. Only Noah and his family and the animals aboard the ark were spared. Peter puts it this way, ‘that they were saved through water’, saved through water and therein is the relation to baptism. Noah and his family, they came to a new world, a new life, a new beginnings and that is exactly what baptism represents to us. I wonder, if perhaps, this pandemic that we’re all battling through right now might, in the fullness of time, be seen to be a moment when we were able to press the reset button. Now those of you who have any kind of digital device will know well that from time to time you need to have to press that button reset, or restart, or refresh. It might be that a bug is in the system, some kind of glitch, and so by pressing reset we wipe it clean, we give it a fresh start. Isn’t that what happened for the world through the flood and isn’t it what baptism represents – a fresh start. I guess it’s too early for say for sure, or to draw any firm conclusions, but I know this, I’m longing for new beginnings once we get through the worst of the restrictions caused by the pandemic. I mean new beginnings for the church, and for the world, and more; but I’ll come to that in due course.
First of all, for the church. I think it’s true to say, that for the church, certainly the Church of Scotland, my own denomination, that we had lost something of what we were called to. We’ve been in decline for 60 years and more. I wonder if we had, in fact, lost sight of what we had been called to be as the church. I wonder if we had become more concerned with our own life than with giving our life away as Jesus calls us to do. I hope that when church comes back it’s not just a case of back to where we were but to something new. A church once more committed to the mission that God has upon our lives. Committed to bringing good news in word and in deed. I long for that. I long for a church that matters. I long for a church that is relevant right across every part of our society. Oh that good news is needed, the good news of God’s love. We need to speak of it and we need to live it out. That is the challenge for the church.
But for our world, do we really want to go back to the way it was or have movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement showing to us that there is and must be another way? And do we really want to live in a world, here in the developed part of the world, where thousands upon thousands still rely upon food banks for daily nourishment – is that the world we want to live in? Or do we want, as the phrase encourages us to do, ‘to build back better.’ I have a friend in ministry who puts it this way, ‘build back with.’ To build back with those who struggle, those who cry out for justice and for something more like equality. I long for a better world and I wonder if now is the time to press reset and for there to be new beginnings.
But you know, it’s easy to talk about the church, and the world, and our longing for better days and new ways but sometimes that is to avoid an important new beginning that is called on for each one of us. Let me tell you about a friend of mine called Gareth. I got to know Gareth some years ago. He turned up at a project that my congregation in Arbroath runs – it’s called the Havilah Project. It’s been on the go since 2006 and essentially it serves men and women who struggle with drug addiction; and let me tell you in the town of Arbroath there are many who come into that category. These are not folks that normally come across the threshold of the church, these are folks who would consider themselves not worthy, consider that they would not fit in. You see to those folks, church is for the respectable, for the well off, they just wouldn’t see it as being for them. So we opened the Havilah Project, it’s an outreach. It’s been a surprise to many that it’s been such a huge success. Through the years since it’s opening many men and women have come, and many have found freedom from addiction, and have gone on to live life something like, ‘in all its fullness.’ Gareth is one such man. He first came to us in a terrible state. He had been involved with the drugs world from a very, very young age, his life had unravelled step by step to the point of heroin addiction. He spent much of his formative life in jail through his late teens, and twenties and into his thirties. He’d been working for some of the drug gangs as an enforcer – Gareth was not somebody you’d would have wanted to have been on the wrong side of. Then one day, by word of mouth, he came to our project. Oh there was no overnight change or success but gradually Gareth began to open up, gradually the barriers came down and he became open – to love. Love that really he’d never experienced in his life. Eventually we were able to get Gareth into a Christian rehabilitation centre and after some considerable time he came out clean, ready to live life – new world, new life, new beginning. He found faith in Christ, and he went on, and has gone on, and is still now, to give so much back. He is running and managing a centre in the South of Wales, a house hosting 16 young men at any one time, all of them now in the same position that Gareth once was. He supports them as they find their way out of addiction, out of that lifestyle, into the promise of something new. He wants for them the new beginning that he himself found. Isn’t it wonderful when someone gives back! Gareth is a cause for rejoicing, he really is, he inspires me by what he has gone on to do.
Now, I wonder if some of you are perhaps saying quietly to yourselves, well so much for Gareth, but that’s not me, that’s not been my life, nothing like it, and so I don’t need a new beginning, I don’t need that kind of reset press that Gareth had. Well, let’s be careful about that. In the gospel of Luke, we find the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus tells firstly of the Pharisee who comes, convinced of his own righteousness, convinced otherwise that he had no need of change. Then comes the tax collector who cannot even face to look up, and so with head bowed and on his knees, comes before the Lord seeking only mercy. I don’t know about you, but I find myself in that place. Not convinced by my own righteousness but sure that I need God’s amazing grace – just as much as Gareth or anyone else, for all have fallen short.
We all need to be aboard that ark, and to be saved through water. We all need the baptism of Christ that we would know a new beginning. Friends what will, ‘build back better’ look like and might we, ‘build back with’ Christ all the more. Are you open to what he would do to you in your life? For those of us that are part of church, are we open to the radical calling of Christ upon our future? Will each of us be ready to play our part in building a better world, for now, and for those who will come after us. Yes, a fairer world, yes, a life where everyone matters and, yes, a world in which we care much more for the environment that has taken such a hammering. I long for all of that friends, beginnings and new beginnings – are you ready to embrace those possibilities that are coming? Amen.