Anglican Diocese of Perth

Northern Region

Bishop Farran's Sermons 2004

A sermon preached by Bishop Brian Farran at the Commissioning of the Reverend Gordon Killow
at the Church of the Resurrection, Kallaroo, Friday, May 28th 2004.


The priority of experience

In a recent interview published in The Times, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in only the third in-depth interview he has given since becoming Archbishop, lamented that because of the time pressures upon him, his writing was more dense than he would wish it to be. "If you're writing fast, it's hard to write clearly." In other words, people find Rowan's prose requires time for digestion, reflection before they are sure that they have extracted the meaning the Archbishop intended.

Density is an issue with the writing of Saint Paul too. His horticultural metaphor in Romans does not quite work, and there are in his letters lengthy, conflated sentences that run on into each other. As you struggle after the sense, you have the impression that Paul is so full of insight that the insights tumble out, one after another, giving the original listener aural indigestion! Even the writer of 2 Peter acknowledged that in Paul’s letters “there are some things in them hard to understand”. (2Peter 3:16)

However, in the letter to the Philippians, Paul writes with transparency. This is a church which causes Paul great satisfaction. He alludes to this as early as verse three in chapter one, when he writes, "I thank my God every time I think of you; whenever I pray for you all, my prayers are always joyful, because of the part you have taken in the work of the gospel from the first day until now."

That accolade is quite spectacular, coming as it does from Paul who could be steely as we know from his letters to the Corinthians and to the Galatians. Paul's enthusiasm for the church at Philippi suggests that this church was cogently active in mission, that this church had integrity about its ministry, that this church was focussed by its love for God and its devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this first chapter of Philippians, Paul emphasises the importance of experience. In verses nine and ten, Paul lays this out: "And this is my prayer, that your love may grow even more richer in knowledge and insight of every kind, enabling you to learn by experience what things really matter". Within the subsequent text Paul returns to the importance of experience, including his own incarceration and the opportunities for mission that this had given him. Paul reaches a crescendo with , "for me to live is Christ" (1:21). That is a real high point of discipleship that most of us struggle after. My impression is, from my observation of the churches, that most Christians add to Paul's single focus, "for us to live is Christ, and a home, and...".

Experience of Christ was an absolute for Paul that not only stopped him literally (as we know) in his tracks, but became the energy and drive of Paul's life. Paul examined and reflected upon all experience that came his way through the single focus of Jesus Christ and the disclosure of God given in Jesus. This scrutiny lies behind Paul's writing, especially as Paul responds to the daily issues vexing the churches for which he felt himself an apostle. These issues could flare up into doctrinal and behavioural conflagrations that could easily discredit the Christian mission. We still live with such possibilities.

My focus tonight in this service of re-commissioning the whole congregation for ministry and commissioning Gordon Killow as the priest-leader of this congregation is, the priority of Christian experience and its need for constant renewal. Experience was a natural selection criterion in the deliberations of the Nomination Board. I pay tribute publicly to the careful, thoughtful and prayerful work of that Board and express gratitude to all members of the Board.

The outside community that forms the obvious and adjacent mission field of this congregation has a proper, natural expectation that anyone whom they might encounter within this congregation has authentic experience of God and God's saving mission to humankind. Indeed, it is a litmus test of the maturity of congregations that they can function as missioners or as gospellers, rather than having to direct inquirers to queue in front of the priest at coffee time, >for that sort of thing'. Most evangelical parishes have a reputation for being able to share the story of Jesus Christ and its connection with the personal story of an inquirer.


However, I think I detect a reluctance to value experience. Indeed, I wonder whether the various sectors of the church are retreating from experience into dispensing capsules of belief or order. I mean by this that we pre-emptily offer a series of belief statements for agreement, rather than share our own experience of Christ or even first attend sensitively to the life and spiritual experience of the inquirer.

Even the high pressure evangelists of the American West Coast have retreated from their confrontational approaches of dramatic intervention, and have adopted a process of getting alongside people by listening to their existing story of spiritual development and indicating points of coherence with the gospel story of Jesus. This newly adopted process seeks to honour experience or what is termed in educational settings, prior learning.

However, there are cautions that we need to bring to this valuing of experience. A first caution was introduced by John Wesley in his Sunday afternoon classes of methodical Christian formation. John Wesley insisted that class members in their mutual encouragement of one another not speak of any Christian experience that was more than a week old. Wesley's point was that Christian formation is continuous, daily, and that therefore class members should expect to reflect upon and integrate their most recent experiences. This requirement does force us to understand God as our contemporary, and not to luxuriate in one past major formative experience.

A key element of Gordon Killow's theological and spiritual expertise will be as the one in this community who questions the community about the contemporaneity of its experience, who enables the community to value and integrate the experience, and who assists the community to derive the meaning from the experience. In respect of Christian experience, I am rather haunted by two famous quotations that underline the need for continuous Christian formation.

The first quotation is from the great English poet, T. S. Eliot, and his line, "we had the experience but missed the meaning." It would be tragic if folk were to pass through any congregation, be exposed to the congregation's reflection on Holy Scripture, be immersed in the congregation's worship, enjoy the congregation's fellowship, yet fail to detect the meaning behind these aspects of the congregation's life, namely, commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and how that is lived out.

In this congregation that has had for some years a structured pattern of Scriptural teaching and exegesis, there probably are more than just one potential teacher or expositor who can extract meaning from ordinary experience and from hearing Scripture. Teasing out meaning from personal experience gives to others knowledge by acquaintance, the most primary and powerful form of knowledge there is.

Such knowledge bonds to the source, and in this instance, to God. This is basically a way of helping people read life from a Christian perspective. This reading requires resources and practice, hence the need for weekly small groups that provide the nurturing environment in which Christ can be formed in us.

I referred to two quotations that haunt me. The second is from Fredrick Nietzsche, the philosopher who captured the mind of Adolph Hitler. Nietzsche once said, "I'd believe in the Saviour, if his disciples looked a little more saved." Of course, we all whimper under that observation. However, this criticism makes the point that the experience of sanctification is essential if we are the progress of the gospel is to be helped. Even in prison, the progress of the gospel was Paul's chief concern. (1:12).

John Wesley tried methodically (hence the name Methodist) to attend to sanctification amongst his converts. I recognize from my own failed attempts at Christian formation that space and time to have Christ deeply formed in converts in a transforming way is vital, if such converts are to stay converted. My concern is that we generally settle for too quick and easy a formation process, as if we were snap freezing Christ in converts.


The reality is that many converts assume a Christian veneer over a pre-existing secular world-view that distorts expectations about Christian experience into another version of shopping. There is presently in Perth a great social whirl-pool of converts trudging from one church to another church (often of different denominations) in order to get satisfaction. This movement that mostly participating churches embrace (foolishly, I consider) creates social instability, wastes pastors' time, and deflects from the real progress of the Gospel. I can imagine Paul growling (as he did to the Galatians 3:1), "You foolish people of Perth, who has bewitched you?"

We can be as addicted to experiences as we can be to substances. Sadly, addiction to experience can include religious experience. I remember once as a parish priest pleading with a middle-aged woman to stop coming to everything the parish offered. I suspected (and it proved to be correct) that this woman was seeking to avoid issues in her marriage. Her behaviour simply antagonized her husband, kept her from dealing with the underlying issue, and used Christian Faith as an escape mechanism, a means of avoiding reality. This is the polar opposite of what Christian Faith is about - Christian Faith is to enable us to deal with reality, our own personal reality and the reality of society.

The primary Christian experience is that of "the love of Christ controlling us". Of the outcome of this primary, foundational experience, Paul says in 2 Corinthians, "for anyone united to Christ, there is a new creation: the old order has gone; a new order has begun." The new order is not one instance, just one moment of spiritual awareness and transition. No, the new order is a continuing order, latent with further endorsing experiences that mature the convert.

It is this maturation that is an important priority in Christian formation in every congregation. Classic Anglicanism does have a maturational understanding of faith. For instance in the Confirmation Service, the congregation joins with the bishop in praying that those confirmed "will daily increase in the Holy Spirit more and more". John Wesley was correct, I think, to expect continuing experiences of the Holy Spirit's ministry that form Christ in us, the principal internal work for the Spirit.

How can we detect if we are daily increasing in the Holy Spirit more and more?

A very helpful assessment I have read comes from a renown evangelical bishop of the Church of England, John Taylor, for a very long-time the General Secretary of the English Church Missionary Society. Bishop Taylor wrote a classic study of the Holy Spirit which SCM Press are again to re-release in their Christian Classics series. John Taylor's description of the work of the Holy Spirit helps us to assess the development of our Christian experience. Is our Christian experience twenty years experience or one year's experience repeated twenty times?

"The Holy Spirit is that power which opens eyes that are closed, hearts tat are unaware and minds that shrink from too much reality. If one is open towards God, one is open also to the beauty of the world, the truth of ideas, and the pain of disappointment and deformity. If one is closed up against being hurt, or blind towards one's fellow-men, one is inevitably shut from God also. One cannot choose to be open in one direction and closed in another. Vision and vulnerability go together. Insensitivity also is an all-rounder. If for one reason or another we refuse really to see another person, we become incapable of sensing the presence of God."

As I reflect yet again on John Taylor's words, I sense how fully Paul fulfilled them. Experience for Paul was the grist not of self-satisfaction, but of encouragement and energy for mission. Vision and vulnerability gave Paul perspectives for perseverance with the message of Jesus Christ. Indeed, they so shaped Paul that he could joyfully and truthfully exalt that for him to live was Christ.

May there be an explosion of that joy here with this congregation taking Christian experience seriously as a source for real mission!