Here are some answers to this question. The church: is for...

The church: is for worshipping God; is a sign of the unity of God’s people; is about mission to the world. After Pentecost, the lectionary readings invite us to consider the question in our own context, in particular Te Hāhi Weteriana O Aotearoa. In July the focus this year for the gospel readings is on mission.

On 3 July we hear how the 72 are sent out for mission, to proclaim the nearness of God’s Kingdom, and what happened when they did. As preachers and congregations, we claim that heritage but, rather than slavishly copying what they did, we need to discover what mission means for us. The rest of the month shares some challenges which are still relevant today.

10 July confronts us with the challenge of racism and prejudice. The Good Samaritan story questions presumptions about who is acceptable, worthy and to be applauded, and who is not. Society around us often supplies easy answers which are not founded in God’s love. As Christians we need to challenge those answers which prevent us from seeing the good in some and encourage us to ignore the bad in others.

On 17 July we are faced with the ‘work ethic’ - the idea that working hard and long is always good, that the Gross National Product must increase and rising house prices are automatically good things. Mary is praised for her more relaxed lifestyle, over Martha whose goal is productivity. This does not mean work is bad or that Martha was wrong but Jesus did praise Mary and what do we make of this?

24 July has a focus on prayer, including the Lord’s Prayer. As people of faith, prayer is important to us but much of our culture presumes that prayer is either about badgering God for things we want or is totally useless (there being no god to pray to). We are to challenge the presumption that God is removed from life, uninterested, unable to act or be involved in any meaningful way.

Finally, on 31 July the challenge is materialism as life’s goal, with the farmer who built a bigger barn to store a greater crop, without storing up any spiritual harvest. Our culture’s obsession with getting more and/or bigger stuff, excessive travel, fashion, and ‘healthier’ bank balances, simply enables the richest to get richer at the expense of the poorest. Our gospel, our mission, has to call this obsession to account.

This is a hard month to be a preacher, and even harder to listen to such challenging messages. Being true to the gospel can mean opposing our society, looking out of place, and even plain wrong in the eyes of our world. Are we up for a challenge? Or are we too enraptured by society’s norms to hear these challenges? Can Te Hāhi proclaim God’s values over and above those of our cultures? That is our task this month.