When I was growing up, virtually every house I went in, whether it was of family or friends, had something in common, and that was their vacuum cleaner, and their washing machine if they had one, were both made by Hoover. I believe that originally, Hoover made electric motors and only entered the domestic appliance market as an outlet for their motors. But nevertheless they were incredibly successful at selling those appliances.
There were at least two very good reasons for that. First of all, their products were very good. Secondly, their workforce had it drummed into them just how good those products were. One member of my family and a very good family friend had both worked for Hoover at one time and they told me that at company sales conventions and the like, at some point they’d all be up on their feet singing Hoover’s advertising slogan:
All the dirt, all the grit,
Hoover gets it every bit;
for it Beats as it Sweeps as it Cleans.
The intended result was to produce a highly motivated workforce who really believed in the company’s products. And it must have worked because Hoover were very successful at selling their products. So successful in fact that, even today when they might never have owned a vacuum cleaner made by Hoover, people still talk about ‘Getting the Hoover out’ and of using their vacuum cleaner as ‘Hoovering up.’
Hoover became very successful at selling domestic appliances through a combination of manufacturing good products and creating a motivated team who really believed in those products. And we can apply those same ideas to the Church and its mission.
First of all, what is our product, what is it that we’re trying to sell? Well it’s not eternal life because it’s not in our power to grant that. The gift of eternal life is one that only God can give to people. What we do have though, is the instruction book on how to achieve eternal life. The Gospel is our product and that’s what we’re trying to sell to people. We could liken it, I suppose, to a search for buried treasure. We can’t give the treasure to people ourselves because don’t have the treasure, God has it. But we know how to find it because Jesus has given us the map. So what we can do is let people have copies of the map.
If you think about, this is something that everyone should want. No matter how successful we are in worldly terms, no matter how good our life is or how happy we are with life, we can all be brought crashing down to earth very quickly with the certain knowledge that one day it will all come to an end because we’re all going to die and there’s absolutely nothing that we can do to alter that fact. So something that shows people how they can live forever should be the most sought-after thing on earth. So why aren’t people banging on church doors pleading with us to be let in and pleading with us to share this wonderful thing we call the Gospel with them?
I think one very good reason for that is that our product is so unbelievably good that a lot of people don’t believe it. There’s a well-known saying in advertising isn’t there, especially when it comes to advertising get-rich-quick financial schemes, and that is,
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!”
And I think for a lot of people, eternal life is something that probably does sound too good to be true.
Perhaps another reason that people aren’t stampeding to the Church to get their hands on what we’re selling is that it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. What we’re selling isn’t something you simply buy into and ‘Hey presto’ you’re going to live forever. It’s not that kind of product. It’s not really like a vacuum cleaner either. That made life a lot easier for people because before they had vacuum cleaners when people wanted to clean their rugs and carpets they had to take them up, hang them over a washing line and beat the living daylights out of them with a paddle, whereas all you have to do with a vacuum cleaner is plug it in, switch it on and push it round. The Gospel though is something you have to study, to learn how to use and then put to use every single day of your life if you’re going to get the reward it promises. It’s like searching for buried treasure, the doubloons don’t simply fall into your lap because you’ve got the map, you have to get out there, follow the map to where the treasure can be found and then dig for it. So even if you have the Gospel, there’s still a lot of work to do if it’s going to work for you. And that brings us to another reason, perhaps the main reason, that people aren’t falling over themselves to get hold of what we’re trying to sell them.
To put it in worldly terms, the Church has a product, the Gospel. We are the people asked to sell the Gospel to those who don’t yet have it, and to offer on-going support in helping people understand and use the Gospel so that it has it’s desired end result, i.e. the people who use the Gospel are raised to eternal life. The world calls it advertising and sales and customer support; we call it mission and evangelism, and discipleship. But we’re struggling to sell this product we have. The quality of the product isn’t in question, how can it be, it was made by God and given to us by God’s own Son. So if it’s not the product that’s at fault then surely we have to look at the team who are doing the advertising and selling and customer support. We have to look at our own motivation and to ask, for all our fine words, whether or not we really do believe in what we’re trying to sell to other people.
We know that being a Christian isn’t easy, but Jesus never said it was going to be easy, quite the contrary in fact. And because it’s not easy, and because living according to the Gospel is something we have to try to do at all times throughout each and every day of our lives, it’s understandable that we get things wrong sometimes. But I don’t think that’s really the problem. The problem is when we do things knowing them to be contrary to the Gospel but then try to excuse those things or shrug them off as though they don’t matter. And that is a very big problem for the Church and for its mission, evangelism and discipleship.
One of the most exasperating things I find about being a parish priest is having to deal with petty squabbles between members of the same congregation. And they are almost always petty, extremely petty because very often they’re about nothing more than people stamping their feet and spitting their dummies out simply because they want their own way and can’t have it. Perhaps the thing that makes me most angry as a parish priest is losing people from a congregation because of the un-Christian behaviour and attitudes of another Church member, whether that be an archbishop or the people sitting alongside one another in the pews. All these things stem from a failure of discipleship, a failure of Christians to act in accordance with the teachings of Christ as revealed in the Gospel, the very thing we’re trying to sell to others. And these things make it so difficult for the Church, for us, to engage in mission and evangelism because how can we sell the Gospel to others if we in the Church don’t use it ourselves? How can we convince people that we really believe in the Gospel we’re trying to sell if we ourselves act as though we don’t really believe in it?
When we do these things, what are we but blind guides, asking people to become disciples of Christ when our own example of discipleship is so far from being Christ-like. Is it any wonder that people see what we do and accuse us of hypocrisy? Why should anyone buy what we’re trying to sell when our voices say “We believe” but our actions say otherwise? And if our actions show that we don’t really believe in the Gospel, how can we expect and why should we expect anyone else to believe us when we try to proclaim the Gospel?
So what can we do to show that we really do believe and help others to believe through us? In one sense there isn’t very much we can do if the one who’s acted in ways contrary to the Gospel is a bishop or an archbishop except to tell other people that this is not the way of Christ and to pray for those concerned. But when we’re guilty of un-Christian behaviour and are involved in disputes because of un-Christian behaviour we can always start by trying to see things through the other person’s eyes and simply say to them “I’m sorry.” And if we think that we’re the one who’s been sinned against, we might want to remember that we are all sinners, think about the Lord’s Prayer and remember that God will forgive us only to the extent that we are willing to forgive others. So we might want to be a little more forgiving. And if we’re ever tempted to stop coming to church because of the words or actions of another Church member, we might want to remember why we come to church in the first place. We come to church to worship God and to give thanks to him for his love towards us. Is it God’s fault if someone else is less loving towards us than they should be? No, it’s not, so why should we stop worshipping God because of the un-Christian behaviour of another person? And if we think everyone else in the congregation is a hypocrite, so what. That doesn’t mean we have to be one too does it?
In the Gospel we have a great product. If we, at least, can be those humble, loving, forgiving, thankful, worshipping people the Gospel calls us to be then we’ll be showing that we, at least, really do believe in the Gospel we’re trying to sell and perhaps we. at least, might be able to sell it to someone else.
Amen.
Propers for the 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2nd March 2025
Entrance Antiphon
The Lord became my protector.
He brought me out to a place of freedom;
he saved me because he delighted in me.
The Collect
Grant us, O Lord, we pray,
that the course of our world
may be directed by your peaceful rule
and that your Church may rejoice,
untroubled in her devotion.
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
Ecclesiasticus 27:4-7
Psalm 92:2-3, 13-16
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Luke 6:39-45
Prayer after Communion
Nourished by your saving gifts,
we beseech your mercy, Lord,
that by this same Sacrament
with which you feed us in the present age,
you may make us partakers of life eternal.
Through Christ our Lord.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 