This is the text of a sermon preached by Michael Harvey at St Paul’s cathedral on 12th January 2019
In 1971, a young boy in the playground of his Primary school. Suddenly he is surrounded by his classmates who begin to taunt him with the following question:
‘Why are you black, and your sister white?’
This was the day the boy knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t answer the questions of the other boys and girls in his class. His sister was five and had started school the same day – she had a different colouring, which his classmates had noticed, and, children being children, they took the opportunity to taunt the boy.
I am the boy in that playground; I was born out of wedlock to an English mother, and to a father who came from Jamaica during the Windrush; I am a child of the Windrush
Growing up I never knew my father. He was driven away by my own family because of his colour. I never lived with my mother, and later I found out that I’d had a brother given away, and my true name changed by deed poll.
All the way through my childhood, teenage years, and well into my adulthood, I struggled with abandonment and rejection. But, at the age of 11, I was invited by the youth leader of a church to which my mum had brought me to start coming on a Sunday evening. That youth leader (his name was Frank) believed in me before I believed in myself – For God is in the business of taking the wounded, the hopeless, the rejected and making them whole
The original meaning of the word health is wholeness. It is not just about the absence of disease but it is the becoming of the person we were imagined by God to be. We are rightly today interested in the outer universe, but God seems to be interested in the inner universe. And this is at the heart of the bible’s story:
Think of name changes in the bible, and how they happened during the process of people realising their God given mission. From Sarai to Sarah….From Abram to Abraham…From Jacob to Israel, the person who wrestled with God…From the orphan Esther to faithful queen of Persia…From Saul to Paul.
Each one has an issue in their past which, without them knowing, had imprisoned them in unlived lives. Each one had trouble noticing the activity of God in their lives
And so to our reading today: John 1:35-42
As soon as Andrew invites his brother Simon to meet Jesus, Jesus prophesies the healing or wholeness process; Jesus saw the changes he would undergo, the healing that was required, as he grew into his mission- You are Simon but you will be Cephas. How does this happen?
Well, it was through mission, particular the mission to preach and to heal in which the disciples of Jesus were engaged. And the work changed them into the leaders that Jesus needed to grow the church. The leaders became leaders because of the healing they underwent and Jesus could see the transformation that was required – from Simon to Cephas, the rock on which the church was built. In Luke 9 v 2 Jesus is ready to send Simon out on his own, saying: ‘preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick’. Three years later Simon Peter’s shadow is healing people (Acts 5.15). We need a fundamental relook at Christian mission to reunite the preaching of the gospel with the healing of the sick, for those outside the church (the mission field) and for those who will do the work, the missionaries.
Frank my youth leader took me on mission: he gave me opportunities, he watched me struggle, he was there when I got angry at some slight, he became proud as he saw me mature. Four years ago he died but today, as I stand here under the dome of St Paul’s cathedral, I like to think that he would be so proud.
Real health is wholeness and not just disease management. A society that concentrates on symptoms rather than the cause of the illness and pain is really only treating the symptoms and not the roots of suffering. In contrast, Jesus pointed to the potential for wholeness, and it is the duty of CHristians and the church to proclaim the potential for this type of health.
Mission leads to transformation or can lead to transformation, and it always involves healing! Just look at Jesus’s own mission statement: God has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free. God takes an oppressed Moses, ‘slow of speech and tongue’, and with that tongue he speaks to a nation. God takes an oppressed Gideon, ‘who is the least of the least, and with 300 men with no weapons wins a battle against a huge army. God takes an oppressed David, just a boy With a sling and five stones and defeats a giant of fear. Sometimes our pain becomes our greatest gift to the world if we rely of God’s power to heal, and not our own power.
‘You are Simon but you will be Cephas’.
We were all brought up with the nursery rhyme:
Humpty dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the kings men
Couldn’t put humpty together again
We are all broken humpty dumtpy’s – and the world is very quick to dispose of what is broken and crack. But this is not the way of God, as we can see from all the examples of mission and leadership throughout the biblical history. I think we need to learn from the Japanese art of Kintsugi: the art of repairing what has been broken. A broken bowl is mended using lacquer dusted with powdered gold, that leaves the repair visible, but alters the original value. It is now in a way more precious become it has been broken and repaired. What a beautiful way to imagine the way that God uses what is broken in us to let God’s glory shine, and to enable God’s mission in the world.
In mission God calls forth the place of ‘our’ brokenness, and calls us to use our weakness in mission. For you see, it is a mistake to think of the healing ministry mission as the strong going out to repair. We need to first remember how God puts us back together, and uses this as a foundation for reaching out, even when if mend or repair is a little crooked.
Perhaps it is true, and perhaps you might even identify this idea in your own life here tonight – is God mysteriously conspiring to give you a second chance? For this is the business of God, to somehow fix some of the greatest mistakes we’ve ever made in our lives, and to use us for even greater jobs. It is an astounding, but awe-inspiring, phenomenon in our history. It is a phenomenon that bequeaths hope.
One of the characteristic things that stops people from learning things that are necessary is that you almost always have to undergo a descent, before you undergo an ascent. David had to be chased by Saul, Moses had to go back to Egypt, Jacob had to go to Laban, Joseph went to prison. Christ went to the cross. It is the fundamental human narrative. You have the capacity to transform – but it is not necessarily be the easiest journey. It takes strength and courage, and you often need a companion for the journey. Seek that companion, or be that companion –
Will you be a Frank for someone? Someone who is broken and in need, someone who has potential, some who needs to change; From Simon to Cephas. It’s a journey to wholeness, and one that we are all on, with the cracks and glory, with God dreaming of the person he imagined us all to be, for the glory of God’s kingdom.
Michael Harvey has helped a numerous businesses and individuals unlock growth and unleash potential. In 2004 Back to Church Sunday was birthed and Michael started to work with churches throughout the UK and eventually throughout the english speaking world. He has spoken to thousands of church leaders in his Unlocking the Growth Seminars and has to date seen thousands of Christians mobilised to invite, resulting in hundreds of thousands of accepted invitations. Michael has also been instrumental in developing the God and the Big Bang project over the past few years, an innovative project to help secondary school pupils engage in faith and science.