It is said that when Montgomery Campbell became Bishop of London, he was once standing on the altar steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral looking down as the procession of clergy moved towards him.  Turning to his Chaplain he was heard to remark,

“Behold, the Sea gives up its dead!”

Not the most flattering description of clergy! Certainly not from a Bishop who was chosen in part to be their ‘Father in God’ – one charged with their pastoral care and well-being.  We must hope that Montgomery Campbell’s remark isn’t an accurate description of the clergy but in case we are tempted to think it may have some truth we need to remember that the reason we get the clergy we do is because we have only the laity from which to choose them!  It was ever thus and God too has only human beings to choose from in the building up of His Kingdom.

The Bible is littered with choices which, perhaps, we might not ourselves would have made.  The Murderer Moses was chosen to lead God’s people out of slavery; The adulterer David was given the Kingship of Israel; the reluctant Isaiah was asked to proclaim God’s word to a reluctant people; the Petulant Jonah was asked to save Nineveh; and the persecutor of Christians, Paul, was chosen to lead the infant Christian Church to new horizons – and that’s just a few of God’s educated choices from the Bible.

Add to that the people he called to serve Him throughout the ages and you might ask yourself – what sort of judgement has God got of human nature? You ‘d think He might know what we are like, being our Creator and all that.

The poet U A Fanthorpe, for years a mistress at Cheltenham College for girls before she became what she describes as a ‘middle-aged drop out’ and turned to writing poetry has written a poem Getting it across in which Jesus ponders on his choice of disciples.  Thinking about the motley crew he had gathered together to be the foundation stones of the Kingdom Jesus envied Moses who could choose stone to carve his message from God and the Prophets, too however luckless their lives and instructions, inscribed on wood, papyrus, and walls, their jaundiced oracles.

I alone, says Jesus, write on flesh.

Not even the congenial face of my Baptist cousin,

my crooked affinity Judas who understands,

men who would give me accurately to the unborn

as if I were something simple, like bread.

But Pete, with his headband stuffed with fishhooks,

his gift for rushing in where angels wouldn’t,

Tom, for whom metaphor is anathema,

and James and John, who want the room at the top –

these numskulls are my medium. I called them.

I am tattooing God on their makeshift lives.

My Keystone Cops of disciples, always

running absurdly away, or lying ineptly,

cutting off ears and falling into the water…

Miss Fanthorpe, like Montgomery Campbell, appears to sit in judgement on those who lead the Church but recognises that they, for whatever divine reason, are God’s chosen ones – plucked out of all humanity to carry his message – The mouths of God on earth.

They are, she says, The dear, the human, the dense, for whom Christ’s message is.  Not only them but us too – the Peters, the Pauls, the Thomases, the Jeremiahs of today’s Church. We are the odd bunch on which Christ relies to get his message across.

The only qualification that is needed to do this is baptism but when we consider the Baptised we realise that Jesus is just as haphazard in his choice of disciples today as he was when he stood by the side of the Sea of Galilee – perhaps even more so. 

Most of those who are baptised don’t even want it – or are, at least, in no position to express an opinion.  Carried, sometimes screaming, to a font full of water and then attacked by a man or woman wearing a white gown who throws water all over them whilst others stand by and make promises on behalf of the one being baptised about how they will live their life hardly seems a fair way of recruiting people into the band of Christ’s followers – especially when so many who make these promises on their behalf have some difficulty in keeping those same promises in their own lives.

It’s a big burden to lay upon an infant life that they should never be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ Crucified and fight against sin, the world and the devil etc etc. Those little infants haven’t even met Christ yet! – not in their hearts - and there we are, making all sorts of promises to God for them.  Sometimes, not only the baptised but those who bring them for baptism haven’t got a clue what it’s all about. 

But then, we can take comfort from our Lord’s choosing of followers by the Sea of Galilee.  As they threw down their nets, leapt from their boats and rushed after Jesus, they hadn’t a clue either.  And his choice seems indiscriminate enough for us to even wonder whether our Lord had a clue either.  Or even whether he has learned his lesson.  Because what he’s landed himself up with isn’t just a group of New Testament followers, nor a few Saints, but a whole army of baptised people whom he seems to have entrusted with his message of loving salvation.

And here we are – part of that motley crew.  He not only chose Andrew and Peter, James and John but you and me too. Is that madness? Can he really build up his Church with such seemingly unpromising material?  And yet Christ goes on Tattooing God on our makeshift lives and that’s the point – Christ does the work. We merely have to be the recipients of his efforts. 

And letting Christ in is what makes the difference. He transforms our seemingly unpromising lives - with all their foibles and weaknesses- with love – as he said at the end of today’s Gospel when addressing his Father – the love with which you have loved me may be in them.  In this way God acts upon our lives, changing us from within.

Of course, we know that he turned fishers into fishers of men and all those flaws we see in those early disciples were changed as they came to know Jesus and God his Father whom Jesus showed them. They were also changed by a Cross and a Resurrection – and they were completely changed by a rushing outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Most of all they were changed by Love – so it is possible that we too can be changed. The unpromising material of our lives can be used by God and the little gifts and talents we offer to him can be accepted and developed by God in such a way that we all contribute to the building up of God’s Kingdom.

In many ways it isn’t what we have to offer that matters to God – it isn’t gifts or abilities – but whether we can learn to be loved by God and to love. He isn’t looking for successful people. What he’s looking for is faithful people who are prepared to let love rule their lives.  If that’s in our lives God can use our weakness, our failures, our hurts, our inadequacies just as much as he can use our talents and obvious gifts. In fact. often it is through weakness that God acts best.

In today's lesson from Acts we find Paul in a weak position. Cast into jail because he denied certain unscrupulous men of their livelihood by casting out an unclean spirit from a slave girl, Paul was flogged and kept secure in prison.  And when an earthquake offered him release along with the temptation to boast about how God had come to save him, Paul was silent – except to reassure the hapless jailor that all in the prison were still secure.  Instinct told Paul that this was not a moment to make his escape. What seemed to concern him more was the jailor’s safety – ‘don’t not harm yourself, for we are all here.’  It was this care rather than any display of power – God’s or Paul’s own, which converted the jailor’s heart and through that conversion that of an entire family.  And it is precisely this witness which converts lives through care and love that God calls us to.

For some that witness will be to a loving and caring ministry through the ordained ministry – and the Church certainly can use such vocations right now; for others it will be as Readers – and we know how valuable their ministry has been to us here; some will be called to Lay Evangelism or as Pastoral Visitors or as Lay Leaders in Worship. We are working on that!   But there are many other ministries we can engage in.

The New Team Directory is just being published and whenever I look through it, I marvel at the many different things we do as a Church and at the number of those engaged in a variety of ministries from playing the organ to offering a welcome cup of coffee on Market Day.  All these are needed and we shouldn’t shirk our responsibility to provide such ministers – including the responsibility not only to encourage others but to look at yourself and ask if God might be calling you.

The excuse that God couldn’t possibly want you – perhaps because you are scared or because you believe that you haven’t got what it takes is not one that God takes much notice of.  And, if we ignore the gifts we have been given – however imperfect we may judge them to be -and do not use them in God’s service we deny God the opportunity he longs for - to love the world through us.

When, at the Ascension, Jesus returned to heaven, the Archangel Gabriel asked him what plans he had made for carrying on his work on earth. Jesus told him that he had chosen a group of men and women who would pass on his message until it reached the whole world.  “But suppose these people fail” said the Angel, “what other plans have you made?”  “I have no other plan” Jesus replied, “I’m counting on them.”

Jesus is tattooing God on our Makeshift lives so that others can read his message of love. We must not let him down.