St Richard, Haywards Heath 14C 7 July 2019

The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest Luke 10:2

The French have a military saying ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’ – retreat, coil up, draw back in order to better jump forwards.

Each Sunday St. Richard’s has work ahead, Gospel work, and she needs our labour – so we need to prepare, to get ready.

The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him in pairs..

There’s work ahead. We need to prepare, ‘reculer’, to draw back somewhat into ourselves, to retreat before attempting an advance for God in our community

Two thoughts first on ‘reculer’, on retreat – and they are about seeking deeper humility and confidence in God.

Then two thoughts on ‘sauter’, on jumping forwards – the need to work at prayer and invitation as joint scissor blades that will cut a way ahead for us.

First then thoughts about how we might need to ‘coil up’ in readiness for effective outreach. St Francis de Sales taught two essential virtues for Christians which we are always in need of deepening.  They are humility and confidence in God.

1. Humility

To go into ourselves, ‘reculer’ must be about deepening our humility as individuals and as a Church.

Don’t you feel humbled at the very idea of mission?  Who are we to commend Almighty God to folk at a time when religion to many people is more source of evil than good?

Who are we to tell Haywards Heath it needs Our Lord?

Good thinking – our greatest resource for mission as Christians must be humility, a sense of our own inadequacy.

The more we’re aware of God’s mercy to us in all humility, the more we’re able to reflect it towards others – and the more affinity we have with our fellow human beings.

Just as our flesh literally weighs us down there’s a gravitational field of self-centredness that makes human life without God the burden it is. When we discover mercy we discover our nothingness and our less than nothingness through sin.

It is precisely in owning that nothingness in the virtue of humility that we grow wings that lift us away from self towards God and neighbour.

Freed more and more from taking ourselves so seriously we take flight. Here supremely at Mass, week by week, is a school of humility. We’re humbled by an ever-fuller vision of God in his magnificence and mercy – and we indeed take flight.

2. Confidence in God

A second virtue for us to work on is confidence.

By confidence I mean confidence in God and not self-confidence. To ‘coil up’ and gain energy as Christians preparing to spring forwards we need to renew a different sort of confidence – confidence in God.

God, Almighty God, is far worthier of our trust than we will ever believe on this earth.

Through the new bible study group, through our forthcoming pilgrimage, through our own reading about the faith or through conversations with one another including our priests we build confidence in Our Lord, his promises and his possibilities so as to be in a better position to bring in the new Church members we hope to see in St. Richard’s.

We need confidence in God coupled to humility – it is this combination that resources us for outreach. Our admission we’re nothing before God saves us from being presumptuous in witnessing to others. Our confidence that God desires to be everything to us and to everyone balances this and helps put spring in our steps as we commend Christian Faith.

Lastly two thoughts on ‘sauter’, on jumping forwards – the need to work at prayer and invitation.

3.  Prayer

These two things - prayer and invitation are like two powerful blades in a scissor action lying ahead for St. Richard’s as we work for yet more effective outreach.

As Hallesly wrote: ‘It is by prayer that we couple the powers of heaven to our helplessness ...the powers which can awaken those who sleep in sin and raise the dead, the power which can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible’.

Thousands around us are living and dying without Christ and we want them to discover a purpose for living and a reason for dying - the very purpose and reason we have as Christians here at St. Richard’s. As today’s Gospel implies we’re called to act - you are called to act.

I am asking you each day to pray for the growth of the Church mentioning particular individuals known to you upon whom you desire God’s richest blessing.

It may be a matter of praying the Our Father slowly, ‘Thy Kingdom come in Haywards Heath, in Sussex, in the life of my friends, or of taking up afresh the parish monthly intention sheet, or of saying a prayer of our own like, ‘Lord Jesus draw him to Yourself with a special intention for particular friends.

We have an ongoing Mission -  and you and I are on its executive Committee - we are to act - by the prayer we offer day by day and by the invitations we give out to our friends for special events, especially social events at Church like last night.

4.  Invitation

Invitations for people to join in some of our events requires forethought.  The idea of inviting folk must be around as we make new friends or as we relate to our existing friends and family members. We need a whole attitude of ‘invitation’, to make ourselves, or let the Holy Spirit make us more and more a living ‘invitation’ to meet with Our Lord and his Church

Both our prayer and our invitation require a right attitude, one of wholeheartedness.

So we move back from ‘sauter’ to ‘reculer’, from planning our advance to planning the right sort of preparation.

Do you think it is the will of Our Lord for his Church to grow? Today’s Gospel says yes, it is!

Do you think we at St. Richard’s have something the friends we are called to pray for are missing out on?

We need to believe this if our prayer and our invitations are to be wholehearted.

Let me put it the other way around. How will you feel when the friend or neighbour you are going to pray for comes with you to Church? Will you feel embarrassed? If so, why should you feel so?

Is the celebration of your own faith helpful to your human and social flourishing? How good is the gospel to you - good enough to be worth sharing? Or is your faith something private, something weird and wonderful, special for Sundays but nothing you would dare to trouble your friends and neighbours with?

May the Lord touch us this morning as we welcome Him in the Blessed Sacrament - touch us in our heart of hearts, so we can touch others for him! God refresh in us the purpose for living and the reason for dying given to us in our Risen Lord. As God is so near to us may he make himself near to all whom we entrust to him in the weeks ahead. The Gospel is good! This Church is a place of purpose in a confused world, a place of belonging in a lonely world. May more belong here with us to Jesus!