This is a bit of a contrast with last Sunday for me,Yejide, Stacy and Laura. A week ago at this same time we were sitting on the floor in the Church of the Reconciliation in Taizé, deep in rural Burgundy, surrounded by 4000 people mostly under the age of 30, who were singing and praying with intense concentration. Three times a day, throughout the spring and summer, the brothers of the ecumenical Taizé community are joined by thousands of young people who simply want to pray and sing alongside them. The brothers themselves don’t attempt to explain it: they simply accept and welcome the young people who come.

Why is this such an extraordinary phenomenon? I suppose because there are very few places of Christian worship, at least in Europe, that are bursting at the seams with young adults. The much more usual demographic is like ours here at St Mary’s: lots of babies and young children and adults of all ages, but very few people in their teens and twenties. Those that are here, of course, are greatly valued!

Why should this be? I suggest there are two main reasons, one positive and one negative. The positive one has to do with psychology and coming to maturity. Children tend to believe what they are told when they are little. They want to imitate the adults around them. As they get a little older, they want to be part of the crowd of their peers and be like everyone else. As long as their schoolmates go to church, they will go too.

But there comes a time, and it is often around the traditional age of confirmation at 13 or 14, when a young person really begins to think for him or herself. Having been given, we hope, a secure and loving basis on which to build, teenagers need to question every assumption and challenge every assertion. This is an important and necessary part of growing up. A person who unthinkingly repeats the creed and prayers of their childhood into adult life is someone who has not grown up in a spiritual sense, however well educated and experienced they may be in other parts of their life.

So “straying”, the subject for this week, is a natural part of our spiritual journey. It can be a moment of painful honesty when a young person tells his parents that the Christian faith just doesn’t make sense to him. It may take real courage for a teenager to say that she is going to disappoint her parents and stop coming to church with them, unless of course she is just trying to annoy them! Sometimes this part of spiritually growing up has to be spent in a sort of wilderness, where the old answers that satisfied a child are no longer sufficient for a maturing and enquiring mind.

Jesus knew this. He compelled no one. He asked even his closest circle, “Do you wish to go away?” He knew that only by God’s grace can anyone be faithful to the hard road of discipleship. He knew that accepting the scandal and failure of a crucified Messiah took an act of faith that went counter to the world’s wisdom. Jesus turned his face towards Jerusalem not to claim a throne or preside in the Temple but to lay down his life for those who hated him.

And that brings us to the negative reason for the melting away of young people from Christian churches. Their voting with their feet is often a judgement on what they see. Is the typical Church of England parish a community of reconciliation and love, where everyone is welcomed without reserve and the neediest are served and honoured? Is it a place where people live lightly and provisionally, ready to respond to the Spirit’s guidance and to change old ways for new ones as needed? Does it honour its prophets and take to heart the scriptural call to be ready to give up everything for the gospel?

Well of course the honest answer is no. Even churches that try hard to be loving and faithful will fall very far short of the example of Jesus. For adolescents with their sharp eyes to spy out hypocrisy, the gulf between what the Church proclaims and how it lives is too great. They seek to live out their idealism elsewhere.

This is why Taizé is remarkable. It grew out of the idealism of one young man, Roger Schutz, who was born in Switzerland in 1915. When he was young he was ill for years with TB and had a lot of time to reflect. One of the things he pondered was the stories he had been told as a child by his Protestant parents about the Roman Catholic community of nuns at Port-Royal in 17th century France. His family had a most unusual ecumenical outlook in their day. Roger was attracted by the idea of a group of people living together in such a way that they transformed the community around them.

As a young man Roger bought a run-down farm in a very isolated village in Vichy France, near the border with occupied France, and he lived very simply there and used it as a place to help Jewish people escape from the Nazis. After the war he and six other young men took vows to live together in celibacy and poverty, to earn their own keep and refuse all charity, and to live a disciplined life of prayer and service.

As the years went by, young people were drawn by their simple and committed lifestyle. They came in increasing numbers to pray alongside the brothers, who developed a very simple form of worship with quietly repeated chants using words from scripture. The young people saw that the brothers lived out what the gospel demands, the selfless service of love.

From the 1940s until today, the number of brothers has developed from seven to over a hundred. They come from Roman Catholic, Anglican and various Protestant backgrounds. None of them converts to any other form of Christianity: they live out the ideal of reconciliation. And not only in the French countryside: the brothers also live alongside some of the poorest people on the planet in Bangladesh, Haiti, Brazil, India and elsewhere.

During the years of the Cold War, they also discreetly visited many Communist countries in eastern Europe and built bridges with the beleaguered Christians there. Now that the political situation has changed, thousands of young people from Poland, Romania, Albania, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and other places pour into Taizé every year.

I am convinced that it is because the brothers are faithful to the vision of what a community of love should be like that young people, searching honestly for meaning in their lives, are attracted to Taizé. The brothers do not want to start a new movement or church. They only want to be faithful to the gospel and to help young people accept the love that God offers each of us unconditionally. Then, they hope, these young disciples will transform their own communities at home through their faithful service of love.

It is a big hope. But the brothers are not anxious. They leave it to the Spirit to make it happen. If the young people all stopped coming next week, they would still pray faithfully and live the life they are committed to. Their own transformed lives are enough to offer. They showed this four years ago when Brother Roger, their founder, was murdered during evening prayer in the church, in front of thousands, by a mentally ill woman. The service continued as he was carried out, and the visitors remained for a normal week of prayer and discussion. A new prior was appointed and the community moved on, quietly living out the love and forgiveness that they had always proclaimed.

There is an honesty and simplicity about this that attracts people in their hundreds of thousands. When we hear the word “Taizé” we often think of repetitive chants, candles and icons, but the truly distinctive thing about Taizé is the commitment to being a community of reconciliation in which all people, but especially the young, are welcomed and trusted without reserve. Young visitors are immediately given responsibility when they visit Taizé. It would be impossible for thousands of people to be fed and housed there every week without the work being shared by everyone.This is a bit of a contrast with last Sunday for me,Yejide, Stacy and Laura. A week ago at this same time we were sitting on the floor in the Church of the Reconciliation in Taizé, deep in rural Burgundy, surrounded by 4000 people mostly under the age of 30, who were singing and praying with intense concentration. Three times a day, throughout the spring and summer, the brothers of the ecumenical Taizé community are joined by thousands of young people who simply want to pray and sing alongside them. The brothers themselves don’t attempt to explain it: they simply accept and welcome the young people who come.

Why is this such an extraordinary phenomenon? I suppose because there are very few places of Christian worship, at least in Europe, that are bursting at the seams with young adults. The much more usual demographic is like ours here at St Mary’s: lots of babies and young children and adults of all ages, but very few people in their teens and twenties. Those that are here, of course, are greatly valued!

Why should this be? I suggest there are two main reasons, one positive and one negative. The positive one has to do with psychology and coming to maturity. Children tend to believe what they are told when they are little. They want to imitate the adults around them. As they get a little older, they want to be part of the crowd of their peers and be like everyone else. As long as their schoolmates go to church, they will go too.

But there comes a time, and it is often around the traditional age of confirmation at 13 or 14, when a young person really begins to think for him or herself. Having been given, we hope, a secure and loving basis on which to build, teenagers need to question every assumption and challenge every assertion. This is an important and necessary part of growing up. A person who unthinkingly repeats the creed and prayers of their childhood into adult life is someone who has not grown up in a spiritual sense, however well educated and experienced they may be in other parts of their life.

So “straying”, the subject for this week, is a natural part of our spiritual journey. It can be a moment of painful honesty when a young person tells his parents that the Christian faith just doesn’t make sense to him. It may take real courage for a teenager to say that she is going to disappoint her parents and stop coming to church with them, unless of course she is just trying to annoy them! Sometimes this part of spiritually growing up has to be spent in a sort of wilderness, where the old answers that satisfied a child are no longer sufficient for a maturing and enquiring mind.

Jesus knew this. He compelled no one. He asked even his closest circle, “Do you wish to go away?” He knew that only by God’s grace can anyone be faithful to the hard road of discipleship. He knew that accepting the scandal and failure of a crucified Messiah took an act of faith that went counter to the world’s wisdom. Jesus turned his face towards Jerusalem not to claim a throne or preside in the Temple but to lay down his life for those who hated him.

And that brings us to the negative reason for the melting away of young people from Christian churches. Their voting with their feet is often a judgement on what they see. Is the typical Church of England parish a community of reconciliation and love, where everyone is welcomed without reserve and the neediest are served and honoured? Is it a place where people live lightly and provisionally, ready to respond to the Spirit’s guidance and to change old ways for new ones as needed? Does it honour its prophets and take to heart the scriptural call to be ready to give up everything for the gospel?

Well of course the honest answer is no. Even churches that try hard to be loving and faithful will fall very far short of the example of Jesus. For adolescents with their sharp eyes to spy out hypocrisy, the gulf between what the Church proclaims and how it lives is too great. They seek to live out their idealism elsewhere.

This is why Taizé is remarkable. It grew out of the idealism of one young man, Roger Schutz, who was born in Switzerland in 1915. When he was young he was ill for years with TB and had a lot of time to reflect. One of the things he pondered was the stories he had been told as a child by his Protestant parents about the Roman Catholic community of nuns at Port-Royal in 17th century France. His family had a most unusual ecumenical outlook in their day. Roger was attracted by the idea of a group of people living together in such a way that they transformed the community around them.

As a young man Roger bought a run-down farm in a very isolated village in Vichy France, near the border with occupied France, and he lived very simply there and used it as a place to help Jewish people escape from the Nazis. After the war he and six other young men took vows to live together in celibacy and poverty, to earn their own keep and refuse all charity, and to live a disciplined life of prayer and service.

As the years went by, young people were drawn by their simple and committed lifestyle. They came in increasing numbers to pray alongside the brothers, who developed a very simple form of worship with quietly repeated chants using words from scripture. The young people saw that the brothers lived out what the gospel demands, the selfless service of love.

From the 1940s until today, the number of brothers has developed from seven to over a hundred. They come from Roman Catholic, Anglican and various Protestant backgrounds. None of them converts to any other form of Christianity: they live out the ideal of reconciliation. And not only in the French countryside: the brothers also live alongside some of the poorest people on the planet in Bangladesh, Haiti, Brazil, India and elsewhere.

During the years of the Cold War, they also discreetly visited many Communist countries in eastern Europe and built bridges with the beleaguered Christians there. Now that the political situation has changed, thousands of young people from Poland, Romania, Albania, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and other places pour into Taizé every year.

I am convinced that it is because the brothers are faithful to the vision of what a community of love should be like that young people, searching honestly for meaning in their lives, are attracted to Taizé. The brothers do not want to start a new movement or church. They only want to be faithful to the gospel and to help young people accept the love that God offers each of us unconditionally. Then, they hope, these young disciples will transform their own communities at home through their faithful service of love.

It is a big hope. But the brothers are not anxious. They leave it to the Spirit to make it happen. If the young people all stopped coming next week, they would still pray faithfully and live the life they are committed to. Their own transformed lives are enough to offer. They showed this four years ago when Brother Roger, their founder, was murdered during evening prayer in the church, in front of thousands, by a mentally ill woman. The service continued as he was carried out, and the visitors remained for a normal week of prayer and discussion. A new prior was appointed and the community moved on, quietly living out the love and forgiveness that they had always proclaimed.

There is an honesty and simplicity about this that attracts people in their hundreds of thousands. When we hear the word “Taizé” we often think of repetitive chants, candles and icons, but the truly distinctive thing about Taizé is the commitment to being a community of reconciliation in which all people, but especially the young, are welcomed and trusted without reserve. Young visitors are immediately given responsibility when they visit Taizé. It would be impossible for thousands of people to be fed and housed there every week without the work being shared by everyone.

Stacy is going to say a little bit about our visit in the notices, and after the service there will be some photos and a video to see while we are having coffee. I want to finish by reading one of Brother Roger’s short prayers based on today’s gospel: “Jesus, peace of our hearts, you call each of us to follow you. To whom should we go, other than you? You, Christ, have the words that give life to our souls.”

Stacy is going to say a little bit about our visit in the notices, and after the service there will be some photos and a video to see while we are having coffee. I want to finish by reading one of Brother Roger’s short prayers based on today’s gospel: “Jesus, peace of our hearts, you call each of us to follow you. To whom should we go, other than you? You, Christ, have the words that give life to our souls.”