St Bartholomew 24 August 2003 St Peter's

Revd Mark Bonney

Today we celebrate in the life of the Church someone about whom we can say very little at all - perhaps an excuse for a really short sermon. All that is known of Bartholomew with certainty is that he's mentioned in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as one of the twelve disciples - and that my friends is it. . The name Bartholomew literally means 'son of Tolomai', many scholars believe he's the same person as Nathaniel mentioned in John's gospel (one of the reasons being that Bartholomew isn't mentioned in that Gospel) - but we can't be sure. The Roman Martyrology says he preached in India and Greater Armenia where he was flayed and beheaded by King Astyages - hence he's often presented in art as flayed and holding his own skin in his hands. There is an apocryphal Gospel that bears his name, but it was condemned somewhere along the line. His relics are thought to be preserved in the church of St Bartholomew-in-the-Island, at Rome. 

Knowing so little about St Bartholomew led me off in other reflections - and I have been pondering on his designation as an apostle and what it means now when Sunday by Sunday in the creed we call the Church apostolic.

I'm sure I'm telling my grandparents how to suck eggs when I say that the route meaning of the word apostle in its original Greek is 'one who is sent' - hence the apostles are those who are sent out - the Great Commission, as it's called, at the end of Matthew's gospel says-"Go and make disciples of all people". 

This morning's gospel that we've just heard is quite thought-provoking about what it might mean to be sent out. The few verses that we heard are part of a longer section in Luke's gospel - words Luke has Jesus speak to the disciples during the course of the last supper. It's the "I'm not going to be with you for much longer" kind of stuff - and "if I'm not going to be here, this is how you are to behave". What for me is forever challenging about the gospel words of Jesus is that they so often turn my natural preconceptions upside down. The Church has battled on for 2000 years - Christian people have tried to follow Christ for 2000 years - yet so many of Jesus' words we haven't taken on board at all. The apostles in today's gospel are called to be servants - the greatest must be like the youngest - the leader like one who serves. Challenging words for anyone in leadership positions. Challenging words for a church that loves pomp and ceremony, that guards its place in the Establishment, in the corridors of power, in the House of Lords with an iron grip.

In the Creed it is the Church that is called 'apostolic'. All of us, of course, are members of the Church through our Baptism - we are thus all called to be apostolic. Those who have read this month's Review will have read about the 'Vision for the Parish' that the PCC are considering following their awayday. One small group of which I'm a member are beginning to look at the bit about developing lay ministry - and one thing we did was read a CofE report entitle 'All Are Called' - it made a lovely comment when it was identifying obstacles to the development of what it called a mature and committed laity when it said "it has to be admitted that very many of our laypeople would frankly rather not be called."!! 

But by Baptism we are all called- and there are two aspects to this being called to ban apostolic Church.. Firstly it means being true to the apostolic faith; it also means that the Church is sent in every generation. These two bits are bound together - we as the Church are sent out to proclaim the Gospel, the same Gospel as has always been - to proclaim it afresh to every generation.

It has to be said that sometimes the words "the apostolic faith" have been uttered in ways that have stultified any change or development. For example, some people speak of the apostolic succession of Bishops as if by tracing hands laid on heads you will get back to the first apostles - and by so doing guarantee some kind of purity of faith and practise. I'm afraid that history has proved both those premises to be wrong. 

Those who are Bishops today very much need our prayers - they are successors to the early apostles - they guard the faith handed down - but the danger is that that can become an attempt to preserve something of the past in aspic, rather than engage with it positively for the present. Tradition is something that grows and develops - the bishops have a role to make sure that something new is clearly linked with what has been, but they need to be brave enough sometimes to move on and speak the tradition afresh - or else the good news is no news at all. 

The last part of every Eucharist begins with the word "go" - usually -" Go in peace to love and serve the Lord". I'm quite fond of the word Mass to describe the Eucharist - that's of course considered a wildly High Church thing to do, so not many follow me, but there we are. The word Mass simply derives from the Latin for that part of the service - the last words in Latin rite are "ita missa est" - missa - is related to mission - the words kind of mean 'this is your mission". Mass is related to mission - it's all about going out. Now we've celebrated the love of God in Christ, now we've fed on him in the sacrament - now "Go" - live it. Eucharist emphasises the saying thank you - Mass links in with the going out and getting on with it.

"Go and be apostolic" - and we can all do that. We can do it by wrestling in our thoughts and prayers with the world in which we live and how we might utter the traditional faith in fresh ways so that faith is alive and vibrant and not stale and tired - that's not easy, and for many people things like the Emmaus courses have been an enormous help in looking again at the faith that we proclaim week by week. Words aren't always easy - and they're not always necessary - but the apostolic call to go out and serve is always there; St Francis is reported as saying "Go and preach the gospel - use words only if you have to." 

May we all be apostolic as we go and preach the gospel to the glory of the one and only living God who is Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.