Sermon for the Rededication of All Saints’ Church in Middleton Stoney – 25th May 2025

by Bishop Steven Croft

It’s a real honour to be part of this service of rededication for this ancient parish church. Congratulations to you all on what has been achieved in this repair and re-ordering project. Thanks to all who have given so generously of their time and talents and treasure to make it possible. Thanks to all of the skilled joiners and builders and organ makers who have made their own contribution. Well done to Gareth and the ministry team and everyone who has helped. The church now looks and sounds amazing and is well prepared for ministry in this next phase of its life.

I wonder the next time you show someone round what you will say is the most important part of the church? We might choose different things. The practical ones might point to the roof which has been repaired and doesn’t leak. Those who love history might point to the norman arches or the ancient font which may just be the font in which Edward the Confessor was baptised more than a thousand years ago. The musicians might point to the newly refurbished organ and play a few bars. The missionally minded will point to the servery and to the new toilet, enabling the church to host and welcome visitors. Of course everyone would be absolutely correct. Every part of the church we rededicate today is vital from the lecturn to the altar to the font to the porch.

But there is an even more vital part to the church which has enabled it to stand firm in this place from generation to generation across hundreds of years and to be at the heart of this community. That more vital part is both literal and metaphorical. This church stands generation after generation because of its deep foundations sunk deep onto the rock of Oxfordshire. The church stands spiritually, generation after generation, because it is founded spiritually on the apostles and the prophets, as Ephesians tells us, on God’s eternal truth, revealed in Scripture and on Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 

Jesus Christ is the model and pattern for the Church. It is Christ’s love and example which draws us together. As we rededicate this building we acknowledge that we too are being built spiritually into a holy temple for the praise of God’s glory. The Church is called to point to Jesus Christ – to his example, his teaching, his sacrifice, his resurrection – through every season of the year. The Church is called to tell his story in the midst of this community because in his story men and women and children find life and love and forgiveness and new beginnings. And we find here new foundations on which to build.

Jesus says this of our lives in the gospel reading. Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

In our world today too many people are seeking to build their lives without foundations. Too many people are trying to build on sand: with no sense of purpose; no clear values; no ethics to govern their behaviour; no space for reflection; no vision for their lives.

Lives which do not have foundations will be shaped only by consumerism, by complacency, by a blunted conscience, by frivolous pleasures. This is the sand our culture offers as the foundation for our lives. But a life built on sand, as Jesus shows us in his parable, is a life at risk of collapse. When tests and temptations come; when adversity strikes; when resources are scarce; when the pressures of an uncertain world strike us, there is literally nothing there, nothing remaining, and the house we are trying to build will fall.

For that reason there are many in our communities at the present time who are beginning to ask deep and searching questions about foundations: about the strength that is needed to live a meaningful life and where that strength will come from. There are many, especially young people, who are beginning to return to Jesus Christ as the foundation of their lives. Last Sunday I was privileged to confirm four students in their early twenties who had found this new faith in the University. Next Sunday, God willing, there will be another confirmation in the University Church. There are many in parishes across the Diocese.

Jesus parable invites us to consider what happens when we attempt to build without foundations. Lives crash and collapse, outwardly and inwardly, at great cost.

The rededication of this church building is a moment for joy and celebration and thanksgiving. All Saints’ has been standing at the heart of this community generation after generation because of its literal and spiritual foundations.

But these foundations call out to us now as they called out to those who have come before us. What are you building your life on today? The sands of consumerism; of complacency; of frivolous pleasures; of a blind and blunted conscience? Or the invitation of Christ to follow the way of life, the way of love celebrated in this place Sunday by Sunday.

May this rededicated church be a place where life is shared and love is grown. Amen. 

 

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