By the Rev’d Hilary Willett

Season: Reign of Christ Sunday

Readings: 2 Samuel 23:1–7 | Revelation 1:4b–8 | John 18:33–37

Today is Reign of Christ Sunday. In preparation for today, I had a read over the last time I had preached on the Reign of Christ. It was three years ago. I don’t know how, but somehow, the preaching rotation has not landed on me for a while for this particular feast day. Even more weird, the last time I preached on this day was three years ago. Which means, for those of you who know your lectionaries and the three-year cycle of readings, I had the exact same readings the last time I preached on the reign of Christ. Which has the really nice benefit of meaning that I didn’t have to do a lot of research for this sermon today. I did it all back then, three years. Poignantly, it was also three years ago, in November, that I was told I would be placed as a curate in Howick.

But here’s where it gets a bit uncanny. In my sermon, three years ago, I said, and I quote: “This Reign of Christ Sunday comes at a challenging time.” See three years ago, Auckland was in a COVID-19 lockdown. I was preaching this sermon on Zoom, hoping that my words were reaching people despite us being in our homes rather than our church buildings. At the time, many of us were frustrated and exhausted. We didn’t want to be on Zoom any more. We wanted the pressure on our relationships, the limitations on our liberty, to ease. We wanted to go “back to normal.” Normal meaning back in our church. Normal meaning no more facemasks. Normal meaning our safe place.

Only, when we did return, normal had changed. Our numbers had dramatically dropped. Equally dramatic, online engagement was common in work, study, and in church. Online it seems is here to stay. A recent study was conducted on over 10,000 U.S. adults, across a variety of ages and demographics, showing that 54% of those adults got all of their news from social media. And that’s all adults, it’s more dramatic when you look at young adults.

Another study, this time from the U.K. involving 2,000 participants. A quarter of young adults, between the ages of 18- 34 never answer their phone. Ne-ver. One a scale of one-ten, they answered zero!

That’s not actually how they framed the question, it wasn’t a scale. But I was making a joke. Artistic licence. The point is, a lot of young people don’t like talking on the phone.

Which raises two important things:

1. All of you who got a phone call from me during the neighbourhood project data gathering should be very grateful because I am pushing against generational bias.
2. What does this mean for young people are in crisis when the expected way for them to communicate that crisis is by calling someone? Or, even more tricky, what does this say about the assumption that the crisis can’t be that bad because they are texting instead of calling?

The world has changed. And while COVID-19 did not “cause” these changes, they’ve been happening for a long time, I think it’s fair to say that COVID-19 sped it up. Crises often do. We adapt because we have to. For better or worse, we start getting creative, innovative, strategic.

But these changes are often uncomfortable. COVID-19 was uncomfortable for many of us. We had to learn about how to prevent spreading the virus. We had to learn how to use new technologies, like Zoom. We had to learn a different way of being and interacting. We learned how to do church online, experimented with how to cultivate connection and worship in an entirely different space. Coping with change takes grit. In many ways, change is a kind of death.

But change is much, much easier if we are able to find a firm place to stand on. If there was one lesson that COVID-19 taught us, it’s that human things can change without warning. We can be prevented from accessing our buildings. We can be forced to worship differently, to gather differently.

But there’s another lesson in this. Three years ago, I noticed that the Christians who seemed to cope the best were not the people saying that we need to “go back to normal.” They were the people who were saying “this is the new normal.” No doubt they had times of struggle and emotional overwhelm. But they were able to reassure themselves. They were able to face the present. Similar to what Lucy spoke of last week, they re-centred on Christ. Because Christ is the constant. The safe place.

Three years later, Howick finds itself in a similar position of significant change. And it will be very easy to focus on human things. The ways notices are done. Where we sit. How we raise money. How we worship. The songs we sing. Our leaders. This building. And if our faith is in those things never changing then we will be constantly unravelled and upset. Because change is guaranteed, one way or another. We cannot avoid it forever. The world has changed. And the church must be able to change to respond effectively to this world. Which means that we need to be able to cope when it comes. We need to know where our safe place is.

I don’t say this from a position of superiority. I say this as someone also struggling. Someone who also needs to hear this message. As most of you know, change is coming very soon for me. I will be leaving soon. And I’m feeling really sad about it. Because this community is a beautiful one. You have all been so hospitable and generous to me. I really do care about you and love the journey this community is on. I will miss this place. I’m sure Sarah can relate. This community is special. It will be hard to go. I don’t know what the future holds. Honestly, I tried to control that future for a bit, determine what it will look like. Anything other than uncertainty. But I’ve discovered (again) that I can’t control the future. I can’t prevent change. But I can process my fear. I can trust God. I can have the courage to sit with my feelings and process them. Because Christ reigns.

This community is not done yet. The church is not done yet. I have seen the numbers and the trends. I know the trajectory. But the world still needs God. We need the God who brings peace in war, who shelters, who comforts, who advocates, who reconciles, who brings justice. We are not done yet, but we may look different. And if we have the courage, if we are able to put our trust in the God who is the alpha and omega, the first and the last, we find a firm place to stand on. A rock in the storm. Suddenly change, while hard, is not debilitating. Suddenly facing the world as it is, is not terrifying. It simply is. Because our safety is in the God who does not fail or falter. In the Christ who holds all things together and who holds the church.

We are not done yet. We can change. Christ reigns.