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St Hilda's Church, Ashford, Middlesex
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"On the wall of my study there is a dramatic photograph of a Bishop who died nearly 1400 years ago - well, not really the bishop himself but a statue of him! He holds his bishop's crosier or staff in one hand and in the other hand he holds aloft a burning torch - a torch representing the light of the Gospel of Christ. It is St Aidan. One of the great early evangelists of our land who died at Banburgh in the year 651. He is a man who has always inspired me - we even named our second son after him. Why? Let me tell you the story.
King Oswald of Northumberland had become a Christian when he was in exile. He returned to Northumberland with a deep desire that all his people should come to know and love Jesus. He asked the monks on the Isle of Iona to send a group of missionaries - and this they did. But those missionaries did not stay long in Northumberland. They soon retreated to their island monastery complaining that the people of Northumberland were not only barbarians but also too brutish to learn anything - let alone the Christian faith. They refused to believe what they were taught or to do what they were told. They may have a holy king - but they were pure pagans.
That's when Aidan - who was also a monk on Iona - got up and said that he believed that it was important that love dominated in all they tried to do in bringing the Gospel to others. We must, first, accept people where they are: we must walk with them on their journey, we must serve them just as Christ came to serve. Our job, said Aidan, was to love people into the 'glorious liberty of the Children of God'.
Well, the monks were so impressed that they sent Aidan to lead a new band of missionaries to Northumberland. I wonder if he wished he had kept his mouth shut! But Aidan's prescription for mission and evangelism did work. Many people became Christians and his monastery on Lindisfarne - or Holy Island - became a great centre of worship, prayer, education and evangelism.
At its best, the Christian mission, Christian evangelism, has been nothing less than loving people 'into the glorious liberty of the Children of God'. Not threatening them, not cajoling or bribing them, not seeing converts as another scalp on our missionary belt - no, loving people into God's kingdom so that they - like us - may come to know and experience God's love in their daily lives. In the words of the Jesus of St John's Gospel: 'so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.' (19:6). It's loving people into the life of God Himself.
And right from those first snapshots of the Christian church - like the one we heard of in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles tonight - 'The Lord (has) added to their number those who were being saved.' Yes, there were dramatic conversions in Jerusalem soon after Pentecost - on one day alone 3000 were added to their number. And within ten years of the death of Jesus the Gospel reached Alexandria and Antioch - the greatest cities of the day in Africa and Asia - as well as being established in Rome.
From then on the mission of the church has continued taking many different shapes and many different forms throughout history. From the tin roofed churches in Mozambique to St Paul's Cathedral in London; from the Victorian slums to the walled city in China; from the leafy suburbs to the mountains of Tibet. The message of the Gospel has been, and continues to be, proclaimed. In fact according to recent research, more people have heard the gospel in the last thirty years than in the whole history of Christianity. And in an age in which the media tells us the church is dying a third of the world's population, over 2 billion, are Christian. You and I belong to a large and growing family.
Going to the ordination service at St Paul's last Saturday I had to plan my timing and route carefully to avoid running into the Olympic torch which had come to London for the first time since we held the Olympics in 1948. It reminded me that, like St Aidan, we have been given a torch to carry - the light of the Gospel of Christ. This year we celebrate the re-founding of the diocese by Mellitus, 1400 years ago and we rejoice in those countless Christians in our Diocese who have witnessed to Christ down the ages. Today it is you and I who have the responsibility of carrying that same Gospel torch through the streets of Spelthorne.
From the days of the early Church the gospel was carried by ordinary Christians. Yes, there were the apostles and great men and women of God who were missionaries and evangelists but it was the ordinary people, who 'gossiped' the gospel message to their neighbours. This is the challenge to us in Spelthorne. The mission is not over, it begins afresh everyday. Each one of us, ordinary Christians, are called to carry the torch, to gossip the gospel, to share Christ's living word with those who are around us.
But what are ordinary Christians? I'm reminded of a story about the crisis that happened in the zoo in Edinburgh. Their gorilla died. They had no gorilla - and at the same time, a young man went to the zoo to look for a job. So the manager said, "You are exactly what we need. Here is a gorilla suit and here is a gorilla helmet... You are our gorilla!" So he was very happy to have a job and they were very happy to have a gorilla; and he started practising to swing about in his cage. And he got very good at it. He was so good that he became rather over confident and when the crowds all came to watch he gave an extra little 'hup' and found himself flying out over the top of his cage into the next-door cage, which was the lion's... He landed about six feet from the lion, who started to stroke his eye with the back of his paw and then, to his horror, got up and started padding towards our friend. At this point, he lost his nerve completely, and started shouting out, "Help! Get me out of here! Help!" And he heard a rather furry voice whisper in his ear, "Shut up or we'll both lose our jobs!" I tell the story partly because I love it... but partly because it raises an interesting question: what is it that makes a gorilla a real gorilla...?
That isn't a very important question... but it raises a much more important question for us tonight: What is it that makes a real Christian? If we are looking for a picture of a real Christian I do not think that we can beat that one given to us in tonight's reading from the Acts of the Apostles: 'All who believed were together and had all things in common... day by day they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people'.
That early picture of Christians united in faith and prayer, in worship and fellowship, and gaining the goodwill of other people - this has been both the prescription and the focus of energy for evangelism since those early days of our faith. It's a simple - but, yes, demanding - recipe: communities united in faith and prayer: worship and fellowship - and gaining the good will of other people.
I am grateful that Mission at Heart has helped you as individuals and as Christian communities, to a renewed commitment to God, to one another and to the mission of the Church in this Borough.
Go on discovering your neighbours in the parishes that surround you and own the strength we have when we are together.
And, as together, you look with an evangelistic eye on your Borough remember - in the words of the poet R S Thomas - that 'ours is such a fast God, always leaving just as we arrive'.
Yes, God is ahead of us in the schools, the shopping centres, in the hospital and the offices and the streets of Spelthorne. Your calling and my calling is to follow this fast God and - like Aidan - to carry the touch of the Gospel of Christ with courage, determined to love others 'into that glorious liberty of the Children of God'. So - let's be on the move - together."
Bishop Michael