A Kingdom Of Things Deemed “Not Fit For Purpose”

Mark 4:30-34 2 Cor 5: 14-17 Ezekiel 31 Daniel 4

“Mr Cunnington?”

 “Yes?”

 “Just been lookin’ at your car sir, ‘fraid it’s bad news, not fit for purpose y’see. Rust’s got hold of it big time and it’ll not pass, not without oooh hundreds of pounds worth of work”

KSR 81X was a little mini metro I had about fifteen years ago. It was a great little servant and I couldn’t bear  to hear this news, even though I guess I knew it was coming.

“Fifty quid for scrap’s the best I can offer sir, and I’ll be lucky if I break even”

So a couple of days later I stood in a side street to complete the wretched deal and couldn’t bear to look as the mechanic drove  my little car away so roughly to goodness knows where.

When you’ve had a car for a long time, you locate the heartbeat don’t you, you find there’s a soul amidst all that metal and all that plastic. The day I let KSR 81X go, was the day I really felt a betrayer.

But the truth was that it was not fit for purpose, like so much in our world.

This Government is not fit for purpose – we hear almost daily, nor is the health service or the railway system., the media, the church, the football team, the cricket team or the TV schedules. All fit for nothing. So it’s only a small step for me to conclude that amidst all this failure I’m probably not so very different.

Our Gospel  reading  this morning  comprises a couple of fairly harmless looking parables – it’s also Bishop Tom’s text for this evening and it will be interesting to see what he makes of them.

I’d like to take the second of the two – the one about the mustard seed which grew to be so big that all the birds of the air could find a home in its branches.

The original hearers would not have been impressed with this story.

“All very unlikely” they would have said to themselves  “a mustard seed doesn’t grow like that, nothing like it, makes no more sense than the tale he told a few weeks back. The one about the camel and the eye of a needle – not fit for purpose!

“All very misleading” they would have said “God’s people are chosen people, who need to stand up and be counted, set a big example by the dutiful keeping of the law. All this stuff about being small and insignificant, and then making a place for everyone else – taking humility too far if you ask me.

“All very wrong ” they would have said to themselves “In fact positively heretical” for in the scripture they knew so well , large trees in which birds of the air found a home were actually used to describe the enemy of God’s people . In Ezekiel you find it as a way of describing the awesome authority of Egypt’s Pharaoh. And he was a baddy through and through! 

 In Daniel you find it as a way of describing the Babylonian take over – through which the identity of the people of God was practically destroyed. Not fit for purpose.

So this Jesus of Nazareth. This so called Messiah. This self styled Christ. What is it he is saying?  Son of God? Saviour of the world? Not with this sort of talk.

Not fit for purpose! ..and they looked for an opportunity to arrest him.

Yet this is precisely what Jesus does, this is the essence of his Good News – he takes what is deemed not fit for purpose and makes something purposeful out of it. That’s what the Spirit is all about.

Paul gets the message in our Epistle reading when he starts talking about one man having died for all and then being risen for all. That we all can share new life with him – that no matter who we are we can become new creation – not counting the weight of our sins against us – but rather counting the weight of his love, and his love is always the heavier.

So it is that all these candidates will be gathering here this evening for baptism and confirmation, each one of them with a sneaking feeling that they shouldn’t really be there – because of the little voice whispering in their – not fit for purpose you, not really. And them needing our prayers – so that they may hear the second voice, the Spirit’s voice on the breeze of our worship tonight – but I am, I am fit for the purpose of loving you and changing you.

And that we may hear it too, when we feel we’re not shaping up.

The phone rang three months after I said farewell to my little car.

“Is that Mr Cunnington”

“Er, yes it is – how can I help you”

“I just wanted to thank you Mr Cunnington, because I’ve just bought this car and its such a lovely one, I just wanted to thank the previous owner and your name was on the log book – KSR 81 X – that was your car, wasn’t it Mr Cunnington – can’t imagine why you wanted rid of it. She runs like a dream!

RH 14.6.09