Growing the Church through Pastoral Care (Romans 16.1-16)

On Tuesday July 1^st Jenny Meadows was commissioned as an Authorized Pastoral Assistant in Durham Cathedral. She has studied for three full years, attending weekly courses in Durham, doing practical and written assignments and getting regular feedback and supervision from Sylvia Wilson.

That is quite a stint but when you consider as well that Jen persisted in her course through a quite draining illness in which she was really unwell, it is a herculean achievement.

Well done Jen. We are very proud of you and greatly admire your tenacity, determination and commitment. Those are hard, tough qualities but they come from a warm and tender heart to care for people in need.

According to the Diocese of Durham’s own website, an Authorised Pastoral Assistant (APA) is someone who is "selected, trained and authorised to serve alongside the clergy, readers, churchwardens and other ministers in a parish or benefice. APAs focus on pastoral ministry.”

We need to understand that pastoral ministry is not a closed shop reserved for the professional clergy. Far from it; there is no trace of that in the New Testament and a sign of a church’s maturity is the strength of its lay leadership.

Pastoral work comes in all shapes and sizes - in traditional activities like visiting the sick, home communions, care of the elderly, the bereaved and the housebound and also in things like offering support to unemployed people and new parents and so on.

Think about this with me; if just one person does all the pastoral care in our church what are the chances that you will be noticed if you’re not quite yourself? And if every person in the church feels responsible for caring for others what are the chances then?

And so APAs do a lot of pastoral ministry themselves but also they encourage other people to become more pastoral as well so that that the whole church cares for the whole church. 

There are currently over 80 APAs in about 60 churches throughout the diocese. 

I wanted to be here today to congratulate Jen and to commend her ministry to you all.

I chose the reading from Romans because I think it shows so well what the church should look like.

What do you think of when I say the word “church”? Some people think of a building, usually quite an old one, inadequately heated, expensive to maintain and desperately lacking a toilet. So when people talk about “our village church” they think about the building – whether it’s empty or full to bursting does not really have any relevance.

Other people when they hear the word “church” think of the hierarchy of clergy. “Attitudes in the church are out of touch” people say. And by that they mean men in costumes using words missing from everyone else’s vocabulary like chancel, synod, chasuble, chorister, absolution and transept. These people think the church means the pope, the cardinals the archbishops, the bishops and the parish priest. They are “the church.”

The word “church” in the New Testament is translated from the word ecclesia from which we get the English word “ecclesiastical.” But it doesn’t mean anything ecclesiastical at all. Ecclesia simply means ‘a gathering together of people.’

In fact, the very first church was a gathering together of quite ordinary people who owned no premises for the purposes of worship (they met in their homes), they had no money to speak of, they held no power, and they didn’t have ordained clergy as such.

What we find in Romans 16 is a great insight into what the church should be like.

It mentions 29 different people by name (some of whom are rather difficult to pronounce) as well as churches that meet in houses, members of households and unnamed “other brothers and sisters.”

By the way, a friend of mine was once getting stressed about having to do a reading in church with lots of strange names. And the curate just said to her, “No one else knows either. Just pronounce them however you like. As long as you say it confidently everyone else will think that only you know.”

Some of the people in this chapter are simply people Paul wants to say “hello” to at the end of his letter. We don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they lived in Rome and Paul knew them or knew about them from somewhere.

But for others, Paul mentions a few things that I think are really revealing about the sort of people we should expect to find in the gathering of people that is the church.

Phoebe in v1-2 was a deacon. The word deacon means servant and she was set aside as a special kind of church leader. In 1 Timothy 3 it says what deacons should be like; worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain. So Phoebe must have been a woman of sound character. Paul says “[Phoebe] has been a benefactor of many people, including me.” So she was presumably a woman means but she used the wealth she had been blessed with to supply others’ needs. She was a generous woman.

Who else does Paul single out here? Priscilla and Aquila in v3-4 were co-workers with Paul who risked their lives for others. They lived dangerously. They laid their very lives on the line. Andronicus and Junia suffered with Paul the dishonour of imprisonment for Christ. These are four people for whom being a Christian was clearly much more than a hobby. It went a bit beyond belonging to the Rotary Club or the Parish Council.

Then what about Ampliatus (v8)? This was a very common slave’s name. It doesn’t actually say that he was a slave but scholars are pretty sure he must have been.

Let’s put it this way, what are the chances that William and Kate would name any future children they have Kylie or Dwayne? I mean, they could, but it's not likely is it? Somebody would make a fortune on a £5 bet if they did.

Similarly, how likely is it that any babies born this week on the most challenging housing estates in our country will be named Hugo or Felicity? Not very likely. Those are names you would hear much more commonly in Kensington and Eton. Different names are popular in different social groups, always have been. In the same way, you just know Ampilatus would have been a slave because of his name.

But isn’t it wonderful that Paul calls him “my dear friend in the Lord” rather than “so and so’s lackey”? And doesn’t it say something magnificent about the church that this man features in the same list as a lady of considerable means?

It’s a lovely sketch of a church in which there is no favouritism, no ranking, no class system, no cliques, no in-crowd and no outcasts.

Then what about Mary (v6), Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis (v12)? These were four women who Paul singled out for having worked hard, or in one case "very hard in the Lord" for other people.

I like that. These women were grafters. They put the hours in. They went the second mile. They worked hard. They got stuck in. I get the impression that Paul was talking about more than serving tea and baking cakes – important though the ministry of hospitality undoubtedly is.

We know Pricilla was a Bible teacher with her husband Aquila. We know Phoebe was a deacon, a recognised member of the church leadership team. Junia is described as “outstanding among the apostles” – that is not something you’d say about someone whose ministry is restricted to giving out the hymn books - important though the ministry of welcome undoubtedly is.

But it’s what Paul says in v13 that most warms my heart. “Greet Rufus” he says, “chosen in the Lord, and also his mother, who has been a mother to me.”

Great pastoral ministry is about knowing we have been chosen by God to belong to him and about being spiritual fathers and mothers to one another. Rufus' mother was a mum to Paul. Isn't that special? This dynamic leader, this exceptional apostle, this energetic missionary, this brilliant scholar sometimes just needed someone to give him a hug and put the kettle on. What do we love about our mothers?

I could look like ‘Exhibit A’ from a circus freak show, maybe I do, but my mum will always think I’m the best looking boy on God’s green earth.

Our mothers went through the pain barrier to bring us into the world, they spent years changing our nappies, they stayed up all night when we wouldn’t sleep, they calmed us down when we were frightened, and they cried when we cried. They taught us right from wrong, they nourished us through life, they nursed us through every illness, they bandaged our grazed knees, they encouraged us when we were the last to be picked for the sports team, they believed in us when we doubted ourselves, they loved us whatever we did, they nurtured us and never left us.

That, surely, is what pastoral care is all about – being a spiritual mother or father, but especially a mother perhaps in the family of God, his church.

And on this day when Jen is recognised as our APA, let’s pray for her that God will equip her to care for us like a mum, but also that she will help us all to become an increasingly caring community.

Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 13th July 2014