The Resurrection of St Martin’s

A Sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields by Revd Dr Sam Wells on November 15, 2020.

Readings for this address: Matthew 25: 14-30

Each year at our Patronal Festival we reflect on our common mission at St Martin’s and how we each contribute to it. Together we discern our vocation. The way to discern a vocation is to reflect on our particular history, circumstances, characteristics and opportunities, and perceive where those sit in the overarching story of God.

A few weeks ago at our Annual Parochial Church Meeting we recognised together how grievous the last eight months have been for our company and how grateful we are for those who’ve guided us through these troubled times. We also thanked those who’ve found and provided sources of income to keep us going when three-quarters of our revenue was suddenly stripped away. Today I want to turn our attention to the future, and address the biggest question facing our community right now. How are we to rebuild our company? Our congregational life and wider online ministry is unearthing a remarkable sense of spiritual renewal through the Nazareth Community and many other initiatives of silent, spoken and sung devotion. How can the same renewal permeate into our commercial endeavours?

Today’s parable from Matthew’s gospel is the second of three parables that locate us in time between Christ’s first coming as a baby and his second coming in judgement on the last day. The first one, about the ten bridesmaids, tells us to be alert, for we don’t know when Christ will come, and the third one, about the sheep and the goats, tells us that the face we see on the judgement seat will be the face we’ve already seen in the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick and prisoner. This middle one addresses the temptation to passivity that could lie in the perception that all our efforts will be dwarfed and superseded by Christ’s coming, so we might as well not bother. You don’t really get the dynamism of this parable until you see that Jesus is the talent that God the Father doesn’t hide in the safe place of heaven but trades with in the risky marketplace of the world; which means that we should be the same and take our faith to market and trust in what results.

Thirty-three years ago my predecessor Geoffrey Brown read this parable and combined two things. First, he had a long-held desire for a project that would demonstrate his deepest convictions about trade and work, by selling good products, treating staff well, giving customers a good experience, and investing money appropriately. Second, he’d experienced this institution’s relentless thirst for money, having both a venerable building and a longstanding appetite for mission that far outstrips the congregation’s ability to resource. At several moments over the last 33 years the tension between Geoffrey’s two desires – to model the kingdom and to generate income – has been sharp and uncomfortable. But gradually in recent years that tension has decreased: starting to pay the London Living Wage, almost uniquely in the food services sector, was for example a major sign that we were coming closer to the original vision.

In the last eight months three things have happened. We’ve had to let almost the entirety of our commercial staff go. Our tourist and home-counties customer base has evaporated. And we’ve discovered that we can somehow survive, at least for a while, without £300,000 a year of commercial profit and even without the £600,000 a year that the business ploughs into maintaining the site; covering both has taken an immense effort, from our Trust team, our donors and from government-funded schemes, and a drastic reduction in staff; but we’re still here. What these three things mean is that now, as we begin to imagine the resurrection of our business, we have a chance unlike any before to envisage a company that more fully integrates Geoffrey Brown’s two goals: modelling the kingdom, and generating income. Our challenge is to do the second well enough by doing the first as well as it can be done.

We are a community made up not just of a congregation but of employees, homeless people, donors, neighbours, visitors and a whole company of radio listeners, livestream viewers and well-wishers. What are the things this whole community aspires to? I would say rehabilitation, because we believe everyone deserves a second chance; empowerment, because we’re alert to how people’s skills are often overlooked due to disability or poverty or migration; ecological alignment, because we care about living more faithfully with our planet; health, because we believe body, mind and spirit are all part of a flourishing life, and none of us can fully flourish unless we all do; education, because people reaching their full potential is crucial to a community that maintains we have been given everything we need; and social justice, because we know that even if we pay close attention to the first five things, people can still end up being treated unequally on account of race or background or disadvantage.

Our opportunity is to embody these convictions in the DNA of our business as we reconstruct it out of the ruins of the pandemic. And here’s the secret. If we become renowned as a place where these things are believed and practised, where visitors can see and touch what a community of hope looks and feels like, then the profits will look after themselves. Because people will come here, not just for our music, not just because we’re next-door to galleries and theatres and shopping streets, but because they want to experience the kingdom. Irenaeus said ‘The glory of God is humanity fully alive.’ What would it be like if people started to say, ‘If you want to see humanity fully alive, go to the Fully Alive café at St Martin’s. Yes, go upstairs and worship and lose yourself in choral music and join with the congregation in devotion and service and discovery. Yes, invest in the Charity and The Connection and be part of the rehabilitation of alienated and isolated and abandoned people who find themselves sleeping outside. But just as much, go down to the crypt and see what true cooperation, genuine teamwork, fair distribution of profits, locally sourced goods and delicious meals actually look and feel and taste like.

Imagine if we became not just an iconic venue but an iconic institution, not only drawing customers to enjoy our products and ambience, but also attracting admirers seeking to replicate our brand of social entrepreneurship across the world. Think about how the glory of Southwark Cathedral sits beside the activity of Borough Market; a spiritual centre beside an aspirational and dynamic food and retail forum. Imagine if St Martin’s combined the two, not side by side but upstairs and downstairs, in an even more central venue, in the context of an organisation committed to social good.

This isn’t just about redefining people’s notion of business. It certainly is that, because it breaks down the assumption that hard-nosed calculation and honest endeavour for profit can’t coexist with idealistic imagination and aesthetic aspiration for healthy living. But it’s more than that. This is about redefining people’s notion of church. As much as we at St Martin’s hate to name it, a great many people perceive churches, including ours, as self-absorbed, holier-than-thou, aloof, judgemental and escapist. The vision I’ve just outlined is none of those things. It’s embodied, practical, transformative, inspiring, compassionate, and down-to-earth: or, to use a theological word, incarnate. It’s putting flesh on the gospel. We can say, ‘Go upstairs to explore and discover who God is and how you fit in God’s story; or, if you want something more immediate and tangible, go downstairs and see what God’s kingdom looks like in day-to-day social relations.’ A church is not a cold building where a group of self-righteous people go to talk to a faraway God about irrelevant things. A church is a dynamic hub of inspirational activity driven by the energy released when we realise our past has been healed and our future contains nothing to fear.

Everything I’m describing was there in acorn in Geoffrey Brown’s original vision. But there’s something that’s developed more recently in the Frontline Network, HeartEdge, and the online music offerings now just emerging. And that’s the recognition that, more than a building, or a set of initiatives, or even a church, St Martin’s is fundamentally an idea. Over the years we’ve tended to understate the idea: the implied idea up to now has been that a bunch of initiatives can spring out of a church. But the idea henceforth needs to be that the combined energies of faith and secular imaginations can achieve things more dynamic and innovative than either could alone. The Holy Spirit creates beautiful, true and good things when people lower their defences, suspend their judgements, and see only the assets each other are bringing. Jesus didn’t hide away in heaven, but entered the daily existence of business and social relations and controversy. The two commended characters in today’s parable didn’t hide their talents in the ground, but took them out to trade. St Martin didn’t hide from the beggar he met by the road, but realised his cloak was big enough for both he and the beggar to enjoy, and later discovered the beggar was sent to bless him, not vice versa. The activities on the St Martin’s site are not ends in themselves but shop windows and laboratories for this idea. HeartEdge exists to share, foster, and foment this idea. St Martin’s grows into an icon of how beautiful architecture, music and liturgy, together with outstanding work with disadvantaged people, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit and commercial nous, can enrich one another and generate a constant stream of new social possibilities.

I want to finish by telling you a parable in the spirit of the parable we’ve heard today. The was a little girl who came to St Martin’s for several years, and sang and asked the vicar questions and joined in the children’s club and sometimes took the collection. One day she brought a friend, and the friend noticed all the other things going on at St Martin’s. The little girl said, ‘You see the church was hard up, so it had to start a business, and it was getting rough around here, so it had to start a homeless centre, and it was a bit full of itself, so it set up a national movement.’ Her elder sister overheard the conversation. That night she sat the little girl down and said, ‘There’s something you ought to know. That café – that’s not there because we’re short of money. That’s there because there’s nothing more exciting than seeking to turn our convictions into a living, breathing example of what being fully alive means. That homeless centre – that’s not there because we feel sorry for people or find them a nuisance. That’s there because Martin discovered if he wanted to meet Jesus, he needed to make genuine respectful relationships with people on whom the world turned its back. That national movement – that’s not there because we want to turn the world into versions of ourselves. That’s there because the most exciting thing in the world is when people discover together how much they can learn from each other, and how gifted they are if only they learned to look in the right places.’

A few weeks later the little girl again brought a friend with her to St Martin’s. Her elder sister heard her explaining, ‘D’you know why there’s all these things going on here? It’s because this is where ideas turn into action. They call it the word becoming flesh. I love being here, because everyone here wants to make this the most inspiring place in the world.’