Robbie Williams, David Beckham, Roger Federer, all three attract crowds to watch them perform. People are not only attracted to star performers, though. They flock to see whales stranded in the Thames, to watch the Niagara River falling over a cliff, to join in the Basler Fasnacht, to run around the sacred stone at Mecca, to gawp at car accidents, just as in the past they flocked to watch Christians being thrown to the lions or to listen to Adolf Hitler address a Nazi rally.
The Gospels often record how Jesus attracted "a crowd", or, to use one of Matthew's favourite expressions, "many crowds followed him." They flocked to listen to him, they flocked to be cured by him, they flocked to support him, and in the end, they flocked to demand his crucifixion. The crowds who followed him before the Sermon on the Mount, the five thousand who were fed with five loaves and two fishes, give an idea of the scale of Jesus' ministry.
But Jesus' life was not all among the crowds. At times, he retreated to the desert, or to a fishing boat, alone, or with "the Twelve", or with a smaller group (Peter, James and John, for instance). And John's Gospel records intense one-to-one conversations, with Nicodemus, with the Samaritan woman, and visits to intimate friends, such as Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Jesus was not only the crowd-puller, but also the true friend offering an individual relationship.
The crowds who followed Jesus ended up crying for his death. It is interesting that when the word 'crowd' appears in the Acts of the Apostles, it is often a hostile crowd. This is not to say that the church did not attract large numbers. It did, and Luke uses the word 'multitude' to describe the people who heard Peter's message at Pentecost, the "believers who were added to the Lord" at Solomon's Porch (Acts 5:14). And in 13:45, a 'crowd' of "almost the whole city" comes to hear the word of God from Paul in Antioch.
There were no 'mega-churches' in those days, though. The apostles normally preached in the synagogues, and only occasionally in squares and market places. When the church family met for worship, it was normally in private houses (Romans 16:5): we have the picture of Paul speaking in an upper room at Troas at midnight with a congregation that needed 'many lights' and where some had to perch on the window sill (Acts 20:7-9). But we can only guess at numbers. In the same way, Paul's correspondence with the Christians in Corinth, who were clearly numerous enough to have split into various factions, tantalizes us by giving no hint of how many of them there were, who ministered among them, or how or where they met.
Over the centuries, the church has attracted both crowds and those who seek quiet and individual company. Often the crowds have flocked to hear charismatic preachers: Ambrose of Milan, Francis of Assisi, Billy Graham. Pilgrimages and processions in the Middle Ages had the same enthusiastic following as certain centres of worship do today, whether Taizé, or Lourdes, or Holy Trinity, Brompton. And there have always been places to which individuals can retreat, for quiet contemplation and communion with others, and with God.
At St Ursula's we fill the middle ground, which the meetings in upper rooms held in the early years of the church. We know too little about the first few centuries to be sure how the church developed, but in the cities, congregations grew up, each with its own structure and leadership, and each with its own character. New patterns of commitment, new patterns of leadership, new ideas about how the church should worship and be involved with the world around - a world which is no longer as 'Christian' in its assumptions - should lead us now in 2007 to reassess what we are doing and how we are doing it. Do we want to be 'company', or 'a crowd', or, like a family, something in between?
HD