I’m sure many of you will have heard the joke about what’s the best and worst thing about being a priest. If you haven’t, it goes like this:
What’s the best thing about being a parish priest? The answer? Dealing with the people. What’s the worst thing about being a parish priest? The answer? Dealing with the people!
That is a joke, but it is one with more than a hint of truth behind it. One of the great joys and privileges of being a parish priest is dealing with people, sharing in the good times of their lives, helping them through the bad times and, hopefully, helping them to grow in faith. But, as we all know, people can be very difficult to deal with at times and so whilst dealing with people can be a great pleasure, it can also be very challenging too. Having said that, for me personally, one of the best things about being a parish priest is dealing with one group of people who are, at one and the same time, both a great pleasure and extremely challenging to deal with. Those people are school children.
As vicar of this benefice, I have the pleasure of going into St Gabriel’s Primary School on a weekly basis to lead a school assembly and to welcome the children into church from time to time either for visits or for end of term worship. Part of the joy of that for me is in the children’s enthusiasm for what we do; the obvious excitement they show as their hands shoot up when I ask a question and they think they know the answer, and the sheer joy on their faces when they get the answer right. One challenge of dealing with the children though is in making sure that you understand what they’re trying to say when they answer questions.
Anyone who’s ever had or dealt with children will know that they don’t always express themselves in the way that adults do. So, when they answer a question, they often do know the answer, at least have some understanding of what the answer to a question is, but they can often give the answer in an unusual way and what they mean isn’t always immediately clear. It’s also never a good idea to tell a child that they’re wrong, especially in front of their classmates, let alone the whole school, and so you have to think very carefully about what a child has said before you respond. And you have to do that quite quickly too. Typically, I have about 10-15 minutes to lead a whole school assembly at St Gabriel’s and so you can’t afford to take too long on one question or your you wouldn’t get very far before your time was up. But I think the real challenge of dealing with school children isn’t in their answers to my questions, it’s in the questions they ask and expect me to answer.
Children can ask the most unexpected questions. Perhaps to an adult they might seem to be completely random questions that have nothing whatsoever to do with what we’re actually talking about. But to child, they might have. In any case, if a child asks a question when you’re leading an assembly or RE lesson, it’s because they want to know something and so I think you have to give them an answer, and again, you have to give them an answer quite quickly. So you have to think on your feet.
This happened just a couple of weeks ago when I had a Year 4 class in St Gabriel’s on a church visit. The idea of the visit was for me to show the class round church and explain what things in the church were and what we use them for. We’d not got very far into the visit when one of the children put his hand up to ask a question. So I, thinking it would be a question about something he’d either seen in church or I’d spoken about, asked what his question was. But his question didn’t seem to have anything to do with what we’d been looking at or talking about, it was this:
“Fr Stephen, what would you do if Jesus came into church now?”
So I said, “What, right now? Came and stood here with us right now?”
“Yes” he said.
“Well” I said, “I think the first thing I’d think is that I’d hope I’d been a good Christian, a good enough Christian to be Jesus’ friend. So I think perhaps one of the first things I’d do is ask him that. And I’d hope that he’d say ‘Yes’.
In the context of the school visit, I’m not sure why that young lad asked that question, but he must have had his reasons. And the answer I gave him seemed to satisfy him. But in the wider context of our lives as disciples of Christ, it’s a very pertinent question, a question that perhaps we all need to be asked, or at least ask ourselves on a regular basis. Just what would we do if Jesus came and stood with us right now? And if it’s a question for us to ask or be asked generally, it’s an especially pertinent question at this time of year as we begin the season of Advent and prepare to celebrate the coming into the world of our Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas.
The season of Advent is all about preparing for the coming into the world of the Messiah, isn’t it? Throughout Advent we read and hear the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah. This morning, for example, we read Jeremiah’s prophecy that the days are coming when the Lord will fulfil his promise to Israel and Judah that he
‘…will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.’
We know from elsewhere in the prophets that this refers to the promise to send a Messiah, a Saviour of David’s family line, who will save God’s people.
But as well as this kind of prophecy, of foretelling what God will do in the future, the prophets were also commissioned by God to call his people back to righteousness, to call them away from lives of sin and back to the covenant he’s made with them so that they would be ready to meet the Messiah when he came. We see this especially on the third Sunday of Advent when we hear the preaching of John the Baptist but it’s also something we see in this morning’s Psalm.
The Psalms are often thought of as a hymn book but they’re part of the Scriptures too and, in some ways, they can be seen as the Scriptures in miniature because the Psalms contain all the themes we find elsewhere in Scripture, including prophecy. This morning’s Psalm is in that prophetic tradition because it’s a call, a prayer, to God that he might show us his ways, teach us his paths and lead us in his truth. It’s also a prayer for God to forgive our sins, and these are all things the Messiah would do when he came.
So, as we look forward to celebrating the birth of the Messiah, the coming into the world of our Lord Jesus Christ, we look back to those who told of his coming and called the people of Israel to prepare for his coming. But we also look forward during Advent to that unknown time in the future when Christ will return in glory, and just as the people of Israel were called to be ready for his first coming, so we’re called to be ready for his second coming. That’s summed up in our reading from 1 Thessalonians today when St Paul prays,
‘…may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.’
And in our Gospel reading today, we have Jesus’ own exhortation to live as God’s people so that we’ll be ready to him when he comes again:
“…watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
As we think about these things, and more in the same vein that we’ll read during Advent, we could, and perhaps should, ask ourselves the question that I was asked during that school visit to St Gabriel’s a couple of weeks ago: What would I do if Jesus came here, now? Perhaps we’d all hope, as I said I would, that we’ve been good enough Christians to be his friends. I’m sure we’d all hope, as I said I would, that his answer would ‘Yes’. But, if we’re really honest with ourselves, how many of us could be entirely confident that’s what his answer would be?
So, as we look back and forward during Advent, let’s not forget to look inward too, at ourselves, and if we see things that aren’t in keeping with the way we should live as God’s people and disciples of Christ, let’s do something about it. Let’s put those things right, and ourselves right; right before God before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because if we wait until he comes, it might be too late.
Amen.
The Propers for Advent 1 can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 