I don’t know how many of you watch F1 racing but even if you don’t, I’m sure that there can’t be many, if any, of you who haven’t heard of Lewis Hamilton. And it’s quite understandable that even people who don’t watch, or even particularly like F1 racing, or motor racing of any kind should have heard of him because he’s a very good and successful racing driver. He’s won a joint record seven drivers world championships, a record he shares with another very famous racing driver, Michael Schumacher, and he holds the record for the number of F1 Grand Prix race wins with 105 victories. He’s so good and successful a driver in fact, that many people regard him as the GOAT, the greatest of all time.
I used to be very interested in F1 racing, though not so much these days, and I always think it’s a rather pointless exercise to say that this or that driver is the GOAT because times change, technology changes and as it does, so do the cars that racing drivers drive. And as the cars change, driving styles change too. Also, the F1 drivers of today drive in many more races than they used to and, thankfully, they have a much better chance of surviving than they once did. But even taking all those things into account, it’s still rather pointless to say who is the greatest racing driver of all time because no racing driver, no matter how talented they are, would ever have much success if they weren’t part of a great team. How much success would Lewis Hamilton have had, for example, without the people who designed and built race winning cars for him to drive? How much success would he have had without the people who look after those cars and make sure that they’re reliable enough to last a full race distance? How much success would he have had without the people who analyse conditions and performance to make sure that his car was at its best on race day? How much success would he have had without the people who get him in and out of the pits in just a few seconds during races? The fact is, that without all those people, and probably many more besides, all doing their jobs very well, Lewis Hamilton nor any other racing driver would ever have much success; they’d hardly ever, if ever, win a race let alone a world championship. They’d never get within sight of breaking and holding records and their names would never even be mentioned in the greatest of all time debate. The driver may get the glory for winning a race or a championship, but they’d get nothing if they weren’t part of a great team.
And I think that’s a good, modern analogy for what St Paul is saying about the Church in the reading we’ve just read from his First Letter to the Corinthians. As we know, St Paul calls the Church the ‘body of Christ’ and compares the individual Christians who make up the Church to the different members or parts of a human body. But the point he’s making is that, although each of us have different gifts and although each of us have a particular role or function in the Church, we are all part of the same Church; we’re part of the same team, and we can’t and won’t achieve the results our combined talents make us capable of if we don’t all work together as a team. And I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that one of the great failings of the Church, probably the greatest failing of the Church, is that we constantly fail to work as a team.
There are so many ways we do this but perhaps the most obvious example is seen in the divisions within the Church, whether that be divisions along lines of denomination or tradition. The very fact that the Church is divided in this way screams out that we’re not working as a team. We see so much rivalry between denominations and traditions in the Church, so much animosity and at times even hatred between denominations and traditions in the Church.
‘We’re right, you’re wrong.’
‘We’re not doing anything with that lot because they’re Catholic.’
Or Protestant, or Low Church or High Church or whatever the difference may be. Even that those of different denominations or traditions are
‘Not proper Christians.’
Which can only mean that in the opinion of those speaking, those who aren’t like them aren’t part of the Church.
To use St Paul’s terminology, it’s like a foot saying to a hand,
‘You’re not a foot so you’re not part of the body’
You’d expect to hear this between F1 teams,
‘Don’t share this with them because they’re Mercedes and we’re Ferrari’ for example, because they are rivals and in competition with each other, but not between people in the same team where everyone is supposed to be working together to get their driver over the finishing line in first place. And aren’t we all supposed to be on the same team in the Church? Aren’t we all supposed to be one in Christ Jesus, all on his team and all supposed to be working together for the common goal of seeing the Gospel proclaimed and the growth of God’s kingdom on earth?
But we see this in parishes and congregations too. All of us, I’m sure, want to see our own parish church doing well. We want to see more people coming to our church and see our church grow and thrive. But if that’s what we really want, then we all have do our bit, play our part in trying to make it happen. But how many people don’t and won’t play a part in helping to make that happen because they think they can’t? How many people say,
‘I can’t do that, don’t know how to do this, have never done it before’
or something similar and so won’t even try? But, and to use the F1 analogy again, at some point every race or championship winning team had to start by doing things they’d never done before. People who’d never designed a built a race winning car had to learn how to do it. The team had to learn how to make a car fast enough to win a race reliable enough to finish a race. They had to learn how to analyse conditions to make sure that their car was performing in the best way possible on race day. Pit crews, people who can change all four wheels on a car in 2 seconds or less don’t simply appear, as if by magic, they have to be put together, and they have to learn how to work together so that they can do it. So to say that we can’t, don’t know how or have never done it before, is no reason not to do because we can all try, and we can all learn.
Just a few days ago, I was at a Clergy Chapter meeting, and one of the things that almost everyone there was, and is, concerned about is the fact that there is so much that needs doing in their parishes but so few people who are willing to do it. Everyone in a parish congregation wants to see their church grow and thrive, but it seems that so many also want to sit back and let other people do all the work in trying to bring that about. But what would happen in an F1 team if some people decided that they wanted their team to win races and championships but that they didn’t actually want to play any part in achieving success? That they wanted to wear the teams outfit so that they could bask in the glory of being part of a successful race team, but then go AWOL when the time came to get down to the hard work of being part of a race winning team? What would happen if, for example, Lewis Hamilton was leading a race but when he pulled into the pits for new tyres, he only found half the pit crew waiting because the rest of the team had gone for a brew or were too busy watching the race on TV to be where they were supposed to be during the pit stop? Or were simply too comfortable sitting with their feet up to be bothered to get up and get to work?
The answer is, of course, that it would take too long to change the tyres, if they could be changed at all, and the race would be lost. The individuals in the team wouldn’t have worked together as a team and there would be no success and no glory for anyone involved.
Any team who had people like this would very soon find that there were no race wins or championships to celebrate, no glory to bask in, and they’d soon be out of the racing business altogether. And it’s the same with the Church. If we want the Church and our parishes churches to survive then we all have to pull our weight and work together as a team to make what we want to happen, really happen.
And this is what St Paul is driving at too. Just as all the members of a human body work together for the good of the whole body, so every member of the Church has to work together for the good of the Church. Just as all the members of a human body serve different functions, so everyone in the Church has their own part to play in serving the Church. But St Paul makes it quite clear that each member of the Church does have a particular role to play; we don’t all have the same gifts, and no one has all the gifts necessary to do all the things that are necessary. So it’s not right to expect a few people to do everything. Where is the teamwork in that, that being called a body implies?
St Paul says tells us that God wills each and every one of us in the Church to care for one another and that,
‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.’
One very real cause of individual suffering in a church is the unrealistic expectation and burden that’s placed on the few people who are willing to do, by those who won’t do. And that does cause all to suffer because it inevitably means that some things that need to be done aren’t done because the few can’t possibly carry the burden that all should be sharing. And if one is honoured for what they do for the body, how can those who’ve simply left them to it and not helped, rejoice with the body? It would be like someone claiming part of the glory for a Lewis Hamilton win when all they’d done is walked around wearing the team shirt.
Amen.
Propers for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary time 26th January 2025
Entrance Antiphon
O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth.
In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.
The Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
direct our actions according to your good pleasure,
that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10
Psalm: 19:8-10, 15
1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21
Prayer after Communion
Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, receiving the grace by which you bring us new life,
we may always glory in your gift.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 