By every reckoning, the British Olympic Team has delivered our most successful Olympic results for 100 years.  This is a remarkable achievement from a nation that prides itself in losing fairly and decisively, and which has a philosophy expressed in some lines by Grantland Rice, an American sportswriter who wrote that it doesn’t matter that you won or lost but how you played the game.  That just about summed up the British attitude to the Olympics until now.

That things have changed is partly due to the ability of our sportsmen and women, not least those who gained medals but also, too, the sense that this time round, Britain’s Olympians have been working together as a Team. Team GB  is not just a piece of publicity hype, it is a genuine reflection of how we have approached the Beijing Games.   

The overall impression has been of a real Team working together – not just the stars of the show but the trainers, coaches, and all that goes to make up a Team working together with a common goal – to represent Britain and to achieve the very best for the honour of our Nation.  Teamwork is also behind today’s feast of Saint Bartholomew.

If you go to the Gospels you will be hard pressed to find out much about Saint Bartholomew.  He is listed in Matthew, Mark and Luke amongst the 12 Apostles but just as a name.  Unlike most of the other Apostles he has nothing to say in the Gospel nor does he seem to have done anything that made him noteworthy to the Gospel writers.  He appeared again in the Acts of the Apostles, as one of the witnesses to the Ascension and, more specifically he is named as one of those who remained together in the upper room, as they prayed together and awaited the promised gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  He does not appear in St. John’s list of disciples though biblical scholars link him with Nathaniel who does.

He it was who uttered the famous question –Can anything good come out of Nazareth? and of whom Jesus said Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit (–or guile).  The reason Jesus thought this was because he saw Nathaniel standing under a fig tree which was the favoured spot for rabbis who taught the faith and also a place of prayer. Jesus saw Nathaniel as a spiritual man and therefore without deceit.

The general agreement is that Nathaniel and Bartholomew are one and the same.  Bartholomew is not normally a first name – Bar generally means son of and therefore he was the son of Tholmai. It is not impossible therefore to give him a first name, making him Nathaniel Bartholomew – Nathaniel, son of Tholmai. That seems to be the common understanding amongst many Biblical Scholars.

Beyond the Gospel and Acts, Bartholomew remains a man in the background though legend suggests that, along with Thomas, he travelled to India where he is said to have worked for the Gospel.  A strong tradition says that he was flayed alive in Albano’polis in Armenia whilst proclaiming the Gospel to that nation.  Hence his emblem of three knives.

In England, of course, he lends his name to the famous London Hospital, St. Barts. This took its name from the nearby Church of St. Bartholomew the Great which was itself built as a thanksgiving for recovery from fever by a certain Prebendary of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Rahere.  This church became a centre of prayer for healing and so its legacy continued with the Hospital which bears the saint’s name and does so still.  (Appropriately, therefore, we offer this same prayer for healing at the end of this service.)

That we know so little about Bartholomew is really of little importance because what matters is not Who the Apostles are but what and Whom they represent.

In our reading from Isaiah we heard:

You are my witnesses, says the Lord,

and my servant whom I have chosen.

The Apostles were the primary witnesses to Jesus Christ , chosen by Him to proclaim the Good News – the Gospel of the Kingdom.  This was their common task and no matter that we know more about some than about others, all worked together as a Team.    Like Team GB – though obviously with a greater goal – they worked as one.  They represented Christ to the world and through their witness the Good News of Jesus Christ spread throughout the world.  The common bond that held them together was laid down in the Gospel passage we heard from St. Luke.

There was a jockeying for position – who’s the best, who’s the best, choose me!  … They weren’t yet Team players – they wanted the Gold but they hadn’t yet learned that the Gold wasn’t them but what they were being shaped for.  They were an example of a certain truth that most teams aren’t teams at all but merely collections of individual relationships with the boss. Each individual vying with the others for power, prestige and position.  So Jesus laid down the ground rules.  You want to be great – then become like the youngest; you want to be leader – then serve.

Service – working together for the Gospel and not for our own egos.

Teams are created when everyone works together on a common aim and when everyone is valued for their contribution.  A successful team has been described as a group of many hands but of one mind.  The Apostles were chosen not because they had the potential for greatness but because they had it in them to learn how to serve  and how to set their sights on a far higher goal than personal achievement.   The Goal was nothing less than God’s Kingdom of love.

It doesn’t matter that we don’t know for certain who Saint Bartholomew is – it only matters that as part of our Lord’s Team he went for Gold – he proclaimed the Gospel and he shared that proclamation with others.  Because of those Apostles and those who subsequently took up their work throughout the ages, we are here today. And if we are to be here tomorrow then we must go on discovering what a life of service means. We must go on working on being God’s Team in this place.

Henry Ford once said that

Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress.

Working together is success.

God has gathered us together in this Church and through teaching us love, respect for each other, mutual concern for each others well-being, we keep together and make progress.  But real success is when we Work together – when we each play our part in the work and witness of the Gospel.  Over the Autumn we hope to do a faith and skills audit. What that means precisely will be revealed at a Congregational meeting to be held on Sunday September 21st.  It flows out of the Growing Healthy Churches exercise we did in November 2006 which produced a plan of action in important areas of our life together.  The PCC will re-visit this plan during the autumn to see what we have worked on and what still needs to be done but the key to our future lies in each of us playing a part in the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ as it has been entrusted to us.  The Faith & Skills audit will help each one of us to look at ourselves and see what we can truly offer to God by way of service – from front-line ministry to prayerful support

Within this Church many people are using their gifts and talents and in the past year we have been engaged in developing lay ministry in new ways. The most obvious is the Upfront initiative which began last September but not everyone is called to be Upfront. As with Team GB there are the backup forces which make success possible.  The provision for ministry and mission in the Church of tomorrow will rely more and more in our discovering what it means to be the People of God who, like the disciples have been chosen to be Christ’s representatives in the world.  The greatest gift God has given for his work of loving and saving the world is those who have been baptized and who understand that baptism is an ordination – a setting apart with blessing – for a life of service to the Gospel. That is God’s call to us and why he has chosen us to work together in this place.

One of the things that used to be said to me regularly when I worked with those who wanted to offer themselves for ordained ministry was: I want to do more.  Well, you may no be able to do more and it may be that some of you have to give up what you are doing to do something new but all of us can do something rather special – we can do things with more love ---   

–with more dedication to Jesus Christ and with more commitment to the Gospel we claim to serve – a Gospel which has shaped our hearts and lives and goes on  doing so.  Rediscovering the power of the Gospel to change us is the starting block for all our offering – discovering anew how much we are loved by God is the beginning of real conversion.  Witnessing to this in the world is Christian Teamwork.

God is doing amazing things in our world and in our Church.  If that were not so then the devil would not be attacking the Church as much as is evident today – using that well known weapon of divide and rule.  The current negativity about the Church is perversely encouraging because it suggests that we are worth destroying. The best way to avoid that destruction is to re-commit ourselves to God’s purpose for us which is to Unite and allow God to Reign on the thrones of our hearts.

Whatever we know or don’t know about St. Bartholomew, we do know this – that God reigned in his heart with love and that together with the other Apostles he passed that on to others.  That is what God is asking of us – it is a work we must do together - as Team JC.