Steps Towards Reconciliation

The meditation presented at Chirbury Church last night, using material made available by the C of E for use this year, with some additions and adaptations.

‘Steps towards Reconciliation’:

A monologue interspersed with words and music

SCRIPT

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Music  - Welcome and Introduction:                 

[Opening Music  -  "Call of Wisdom" Will Todd]

Welcome. Tonight we mark the centenary of the war that many hoped would end all wars, with a meditation on the theme of reconciliation. Reconciliation requires an honest ‘truth telling’, and the text we use tonight honours the fact that we may only be able to take steps towards that goal. There are seven steps :

Firstly, the need to remember and to look back honestly;

then the voicing of regret and loss;

thirdly that we recognise the humanity of the other, the enemy;

fourthly, that we admit the need first to change our own viewpoint;

then, fifthly, accepting our differences,

sixthly, agreeing to walk together;

and finally, the seventh step, that we come to share a vision.

Each of the ‘steps’ is linked by an imagined monologue, in which, perhaps, a British soldier is speaking to his opposite number in the German army.

An opening prayer:                                                                                   SLIDE 2

O Lord, our maker and our strength,

from whose love in Christ we can never be parted

either by death or defeat:

May our remembrance this day deepen our sorrow

for the loss and wastes of war,

make us more grateful to those who courageously gave their lives

to defend this land and commonwealth;

and may all who bear the scars and memories

of conflicts, past and present, know your healing love

for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Amen.

The first step: the need to remember and to look back honestly.

Monologue:                                                                                                 SLIDE 3

‘The petals fall and we walk away…But if there is to be any reconciliation, then we must circle back, return to that place where the mud clung to our boots and we shivered, afraid, with enemy fire deafening our ears. We had each other in our sights, you and me, and we cursed to mask the stench of death as we lobbed the grenades and canisters of gas. I could not, would not, picture your face. But, yes, I knew, all right. I’d seen the wounds, raw and bloody red.’

Reading: Wilfrid Owen, Strange Meeting                                          SLIDE 4

Earth’s wheels run oiled with blood. Forget we that.

Let us lie down and dig ourselves in thought.

Beauty is yours and you have mastery,

wisdom is mine, and I have mystery.

We two will stay behind and keep our troth.

Let us forego men’s minds that are brute’s natures,

let us not sup the blood which some say nurtures,

be we not swift with swiftness of the tigress.

Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress.

Miss we the march of this retreating world

into old citadels that are not walled.

Let us lie out and gold the open truth.

Then when their blood hath clogged the chariot wheels

we will go up and wash them from deep wells.

What though we sink from men as pitchers falling

many will raise us up to be their filling

even from wells we sunk too deep for war

and filled by brows that bled where no wounds are.

 The second step: lament – the voicing of regret and loss

Monologue:                                                                                                 SLIDE 5

‘There will be a time, a little distant from now, before the memory totally fades, when we must face the ugliness and disfiguring brutality of war. ‘Oh God!’ we cry, but the sound of our voice is lost in an empty sky…. But evil will be faced, words will wither on the tongue, and we will feel a silent scream deep inside. Such waste, such horror! ‘How did this happen! Why, oh, just why was it allowed to go on and on in its industrial madness – shattering the landscape, razing the town to rubble, and cruelly tossing broken lives aside. The silent cry is irrepressible, and we search here and there for words to voice our complaint: “How lonely sits the city . . . How like a widow she has become  . . . She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; Jerusalem is a wilderness . . . Arise, cry out . . . Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord.”

[Lamentations, words from Chapter 1 and 2]

Music:                                                                                          SLIDES 6,  7,  & 8

 ["Agnus Dei" from "The Armed Man" Karl Jenkins]

The third step: recognising the humanity of the enemy

Monologue:                                                                                                 SLIDE 9

‘Is it possible for us to meet? Do we have the courage to face each other, to look each other in the eye…Can we meet, as those twins who were enemies from the days when they were in the womb? Can we recognise our kinship, the bond of our shared humanity? With trepidation we take a step towards each other, not knowing what resentments, what recrimination remain in the dying embers of the residual guilt, the anger and the hurt that linger in our hearts. Like Jacob, we walk towards our brother, not knowing just how it will be when we meet. But we will meet, and when we do I will see myself in you, and you will see yourself in me.’

Biblical Reading: Genesis 33, reading from the first verse:

Jacob looked up and there was Esau coming with four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah and Rachel and the two slave-girls. He put the slave-girls and their children in front, Leah with her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. He himself went on ahead of them, bowing low to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

Esau ran to meet him and embraced him; he threw his arms round him and kissed him, and they both wept. When Esau caught sight of the women and children, he asked, ‘Who are these with you?’ Jacob replied, ‘The children whom God has graciously given to your servant.’ The slave-girls came near, each with her children, and they bowed low; then Leah with her children came near and bowed low, and lastly Joseph and Rachel came and bowed low also.

Esau asked, ‘What was all that company of yours that I met?’ ‘It was meant to win favour with you, my lord,’ was the answer. Esau said, ‘I have more than enough. Keep what you have, my brother.’ But Jacob replied, ‘No, please! If I have won your favour, then accept, I pray, this gift from me; for, as you see, I come into your presence as into that of a god, and yet you receive me favourably. Accept this gift which I bring you; for God has been gracious to me, and I have all I want.’ Thus urged, Esau accepted it.

Music ["Thou Knowest, Lord" Bob Chilcott]                                            SLIDE 10

 The fourth step: the first resolve, ‘we must change’

‘This is the imperative of remembrance, the outcome of honestly facing our former enemy. We might protest, and say that it is for them to change. But it isn’t just them. It’s too easy to speak of us and them, to pass the buck and to duck our responsibility. We can’t just load the guilt onto someone else. No, honesty makes its demands. And If I truly recognise myself in you, and you can see yourself in me, then we must both change. For Christ’s sake, I say, I should no longer see, or feel, or think in the way that I did. If I could, just for a moment, see things as you see them, then perhaps, and only perhaps, I could come to act differently.’

Music ["Adagio for Strings" Samuel Barber]                                              SLIDE 11

Biblical Reading: 2 Corinthians 5, verses 16 to 20:

With us, worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of anyone; even if once they counted in our understanding of Christ, they do so now no longer. For anyone united to Christ, there is a new creation: the old order has gone; a new order has already begun.

All this has been the work of God. He has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has enlisted us in this ministry of reconciliation: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer holding people’s misdeeds against them, and has entrusted us with the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors. It is as if God were appealing to you through us: we implore you in Christ’s name, be reconciled to God!

The fifth step: accepting our differences

Monologue:                                                                                         SLIDE 12

‘There is much we share, but in the end, you are not me, and I am not you. This much I now see. So how should I respond? My first word has to be ‘sorry’. But it’s such a heavy, weighted word. It rolls so effortlessly off the tongue, but what a freight of meaning it has to carry! How can it be said? The word just carries too much. But perhaps if we were both to say it, and say it together, then perhaps the word will be heard, the apology will be spoken, received and reciprocated. ‘I am sorry, so sorry’, we cry, ‘sorry for it all.’ There! It is said, and by being sincerely said, the crushing weight is lifted, and we can start to move on.’

Music: ["Lacrimosa" W.A.Mozart]                                                       SLIDE 13

The sixth step: resolving to walk together

Monologue:                                                                                                 SLIDE 14

‘You promised to help me, and now I must reciprocate… there will be tasks to share, but first let’s share the stories. Tell me again, where were you from? Where, again, was home for you? Where would you like to travel now? Could we, you and I, journey together, could we keep our feet in step and step out together? Let this be our resolve.’ 

Poem: German Prisoners - Joseph Lee:                                               SLIDE 15

When I first saw you in the curious street,

like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,

my mad impulse was all to smite and slay,

to spit upon you, tread you ‘neath my feet.

But when I saw how each sad soul did greet

my gaze with no sign of defiant frown,

how from tired eyes looked spirits broken down,

how each face showed the pale flag of defeat,

and doubt, despair and disillusionment,

and how were grievous wounds on many a head,

and on your garb red-faced was other red;

and how you stooped as men whose strength was spent,

I knew that we had suffered each as other,

and could have grasped your hand and cried, “My brother!”

The seventh step: shared vision - ‘a new heaven and a new earth.’

Monologue:                                                                                                 SLIDE 16

‘In what you said I heard another voice, and what I tried to say in a faltering way was to give voice to that other voice. The voice calling us to see. “Open your eyes, cries the voice, open your eyes to see who you could be; open your eyes to see what the world could be. Look out and see, look out and see a world rightly ordered by the mercy, the peace and justice of the eternal Word. The Word that was in the beginning, and that Word that, in the end, will call us home together.’

Biblical Reading: Revelation 21, reading from the first verse:     SLIDE 17

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had vanished, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice proclaiming from the throne: ‘Now God has his dwelling with mankind! He will dwell among them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There shall be an end to death, and to mourning and crying and pain, for the old order has passed away!’

The one who sat on the throne said, ‘I am making all things new!’ (‘Write this down,’ he said, ‘for these words are trustworthy and true.’) Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water from the spring of life as a gift. This is the victors’ heritage; and I will be their God and they will be my children.

Prayer:                                                                                                          SLIDE 18

Lead us, good Lord, from death to life, from falsehood to truth.

Lead us from despair to hope, and from fear to trust.

Lead us from hate to love, and from war to peace.

And so let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe.  Amen.                                                                                                           

[Music - "For the Fallen" Douglas Guest]

A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday before Advent

At about this time a few years ago, this description of the “average British soldier” of today was doing the rounds on social media - here’s an edited version:

The average British soldier is 19 years old.....he is a short haired, well built lad who, under normal circumstances would be considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, and just old enough to buy a round of drinks, but old enough to die for his country - and for you. He's not particularly keen on hard work but he'd rather be grafting in Afghanistan than unemployed in the UK . . . He can march until he is told to stop, or stay dead still until he is told to move.

He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation but he is not without a rebellious spirit or a sense of personal dignity. He is confidently self-sufficient. He has two sets of uniform with him: he washes one and wears the other. He keeps his water bottle full and his feet dry. He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never forgets to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes and fix his own hurts. If you are thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, his food is your food. He'll even share his life-saving ammunition with you in the heat of a firefight if you run low . . .
He is the latest in a long thin line of British Fighting Men that have kept this country free for hundreds of years. He asks for nothing from us except our respect, friendship and understanding. We may not like what he does, but sometimes he doesn't like it either - he just has it to do. Remember him always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. 

I started with that quote, because it reminds us today, Remembrance Sunday, that those we remember from past wars, and those who are there to fight on our behalf today are people; real people. People who feel afraid; people who get hurt, and make mistakes. People who are courageous, resourceful, loyal, obedient, and even heroic.

The readings today are those for today in the church calendar, the Third Sunday before Advent, but the Gospel theme of Jesus calling the first of his disciples seems to me to connect with that image of the soldier. Jesus too called ordinary guys; but what he saw in them and called out of them was obedience, loyalty, immediacy of response, resourcefulness and courage.

One of the hymn books we use in our group, though not at this church, is so anxious not to glorify war that it removes any possible military reference from any hymn. So “onward, Christian soldiers” becomes “onward, Christian pilgrims.” I think that rather emasculates some fine hymns: the analogy between Christian service and warfare is one that goes back a long way, and it’s one that works. Nearly all the first disciples were, we think, martyred, put to death for the faith they proclaimed. They needed the same courage, and the same spirit of sacrifice, as any soldier.

But they, and we, are soldiers in the cause of peace. Today though, one hundred years from the end of what was called the Great War, and by some hopeful people The War to End All Wars, we can’t help but have war in mind. A poem read at a concert I attended on Friday night included the line “every poppy worn stands for a soldier dead”. We remember those who died in defence of our freedom, many of them with the hope of peace and a new world in their hearts.

When you reduce it to the level of real people, war is always a bloody and horrible thing, whatever stories of heroism and service may be told. But the fighting man or woman isn’t there to glorify war. They know too well the reality of it. There's a job to be done, and they do it: not because it's a good thing, and certainly not because God blesses or applauds the wars we fight, but because in the mess that is human life in the real world, sometimes the alternative is even less possible to contemplate. That was certainly true in the two great wars of the last century.

Our God calls us to peace: Jesus is called the Prince of Peace, and  at his birth angels sang 'Peace on earth, and goodwill to all.' But what kind of peace? There’s a sort of peace when spears face each other, but are not driven home, or when loaded guns are levelled, but not fired. We remain at peace in this nuclear age just so long as no-one presses the button. That may be the best peace we can manage, but it’s a lot less than the peace God desires for us, and that Jesus called his disciples to teach. Peace in the real world may require the appeasement of tyranny, or that we turn a blind eye to injustice: but such peace can never be God's will.

The peace Jesus calls for begins when we love one another as he loves us. It will rest on foundations of justice and righteousness, in which we aim to be like him. It will require us to care for our neighbour, who might well be on the other wide of the world, or else might be the stranger in our midst. It will need us to be firm in our opposition to all that enslaves, disables or discriminates. It will happen when I refuse to seek my own wellbeing without also  seeking the wellbeing of others. The Bible speaks of spears being beaten into pruning hooks: the things that destroy becoming instead tools for creative activity.

Is that an illusion? In part it is, this side of heaven. But it’s a declaration of the kingdom of God. It’s what Jesus called those first disciples to do. In the real world of real people, it's a risky endeavour, leaving us open to the jeers of those who call us fools. But when Jesus said "Blessed are the peacemakers" he meant it. He called his first disciples, and he calls us too, to build the foundations on which true peace can stand.

The names we read as we fall into silence today deserve the same of us. They helped to oppose and beat back a great evil. And we honour the dreams they had - of peace, and of a better world, and of an end to war. May our godly passion for justice and peace be worthy of their service and sacrifice. Amen.

Remembrance Sermon 2018

Preaching this Sunday at Middleton-in-Chirbury :-

This year the 11th day of the 11th month is a Sunday. And it’s exactly one hundred years since the ending of the conflict we now call the First World War. It’s sad it has that name, because that reminds us how it wasn’t, after all, the war to end all wars. All these hundred years later, war continues to be a fact of human life, and we’re all the poorer for it I think, even in the comparative peace of our land today.

A little before Remembrance Sunday some years ago I was in Gibraltar; and wandering through the town we found a quiet and well kept cemetery in a peaceful corner. I wondered whether these burials were from the First or the Second World War, but as it transpired they were older than that. Here lay the remains of those who died at the four sea battles along that coast - Algeciras, Trafalgar, Cadiz and Malaga - of the Napoleonic Wars. Far from home but still remembered, here lay the officers and men who’d fought then to defend king and country, life and liberty.  We found other memorials too, from more recent wars, but this quiet cemetery, still carefully tended, really did touch my heart. 

Why do people go to war? Is there something fundamental to human nature that makes us warlike? Surely hardly anyone would ever want to go to war. Surely even would-be emperors bent on conquest would rather the other side surrendered without a shot being fired. In fact there were occasions in times past when opposing armies would be stood down, while the champion of each side came forward and fought one to one. An example from the Bible is of course the story of David and Goliath, from the wars between the Israelites and the Philistines. Sadly, I don’t think that could ever work today. Mr Trump versus Mr Putin, anyone? Though they might actually be on the same side, of course. Far from ending war, the First World War ushered in the modern era of war, in which war is more complex, more messy, and no longer confined to any separate field of battle.

But neither the First World War nor the second that followed it were of our choosing. In both of them men and women of our nation and its allies nations came forward to defend not only their own freedom but the freedom of the world, an order based on tolerance and freedom and mutual respect. The other day I was watching an old newsreel of people signing up to fight at the beginning of the Great War. I’m sure not one of them will have wanted to go to war, but if it had to be done they were ready to do it. There was an aggressor at our gates, and peace can never be bought through appeasement. 

That doesn’t make war right. War is never right, and I’ve always been suspicious of those who claim there’s such a thing as a just war, especially if they go on to say that such a war is blessed by God. But war may be necessary; a necessary evil, but one that has to happen. Today we remember the particular names, and people, and stories, and events that relate to these parishes, but Remembrance Sunday also reminds us just how costly our peace and freedom and prosperity are. Things we take for granted had to be defended at the cost of many lives at a time when the world immediately around us had grown very dark.

Today also reaffirms the value of peace. When the guns fall silent, one man wrote from the battle-front, there may be stillness but there is not yet peace. In our magazine this month I wrote about the peace scripture calls Shalom; the peace God desires and wills for us. Shalom is much more than cease-fire, shalom speaks of a wellness and harmony that embraces each one of us and our neighbours too. That’s what God desires for us, and what he calls us to desire for one another. Shalom is peace that makes space for everyone to live in harmony and to enjoy life. Peace in which, as the Old Testament prophet Micah wrote: 'every man shall be at ease under his own vine or fig tree, and no-one shall do him harm.'

I imagine there’ll have been sailors at Algeciras and Trafalgar who held such dreams of peace in their hearts. I know there were people dreaming such dreams on the battlefields of the First World War, the second too, and too many wars since. Some of them expressed those dreams in poetry, others in song. Today we think not only of those who fell in battle but all who passed through the fire of war. Every one of them will have been changed for ever by what they experienced. As we remember, we best do them honour not only by being here, but by desiring the peace they desired, and committing ourselves to work and strive for all that makes for true peace. We must take care not to let slip the liberty they fought to defend, the freedom, the sense of duty and responsibility, the standards of justice and mercy. These things cost many lives. 

Our war memorials here, like that quiet cemetery in Gibraltar honour and remember ordinary folk, who had it not been for the call to defend our nation and its heritage might well have lived unremarkable lives. Today remembers and celebrates the ordinary men and women who at a time of test and trial were called on to do extraordinary things. 

We’ve heard the words of Jesus: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for God shall call them his children.' Blessed are the peacemakers; peacemakers are not the same thing as peacekeepers. Peacekeeping may well be where it has to start. Someone has to negotiate the truce, someone will have the risky task of keeping the warring factions apart. We pray for those of our own armed forces who are doing just that in our world today. But peacemaking requires more of us than silencing guns. It needs positive action, as the rest of that list of blessings instructs us: it requires that we hunger and thirst after righteousness; that we show mercy; and that we mourn, which really means that we share the grief of others, and that we share and care about the pain and tragedy and hurt of our world.

Those who came back from that Great War, my grandfather among them, did so hoping with all their heart for a new start. Maybe that hope was kindled by the carpets of poppies that reclaimed the waste of the battlefields. Dreams fade as flowers do, and they found the post-war world not to be as new and different as perhaps they’d hoped it would be. And there’ll always be those who threaten the freedom and justice and peace of our world. I have to be conscious here in church that where people learn to hate one another all too often religion plays a part, maybe even more of a part now than in the past, who knows? The fact is that whatever people believe in strongly enough can be misused and twisted so it becomes a reason to hate.

In response I can only say this: no true religion never desired our neighbour's harm or destruction. I dare to say that despite the bloodiness of some Old Testament scripture, because as a Christian my faith is built around Jesus, who said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” To follow him requires me to desire not only my own peace but he peace of my neighbour too, whoever and wherever he or she may be.

And I can say this because the cross is our sign. The cross is where Jesus entered the deepest depths of human cruelty and tragedy; he shares our suffering and knows our pain. The cross tells me that the new world I hope for won’t come easy or free; we must be build it on love, compassion, and sacrifice that reflect what we see in Jesus.

The Kohima Epitaph reminds is that “For your tomorrows we gave our today.” Crosses mark many war graves: historic sites that date from before I and most of us were born. One hundred years have passed, and our remembrance is needed more than ever. We must never forget the sacrifice of so many young lives, and we must never abandon the values and dreams that many young people carried into battle. Peace, shalom, is a costly thing. We have seen what it cost then. We need to treasure it still.

A sermon preached last Sunday . . .

. . . at Marton and Trelystan:

Last week scientists warned the world’s nations that we need to act now to reduce our use of the world’s resources. If we don’t the predicted rise in the world’s average temperature will be more than we can sustain. The week before that, the BBC showed a highly disturbing film about plastic clogging rivers and estuaries; soon it will be followed by a “Blue Planet Live” programme one focus of which will be the way the plastic we throw away is polluting our seas. But can we live without plastic? We seem to have forgotten how to, while governments either don’t dare or don’t care to do enough. And some governments, those of the USA and Australia to name two, seem to be blatantly stopping their ears to what most scientists are saying. They’d rather believe their own chosen false prophets instead.

It’s tragic; we own so much, we have so much power, but the things we possess end up controlling us, and the planet suffers and our future is at risk. This is how Jesus put it: “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” His disciples would have been surprised and shocked to hear that. They would have believed - as most people did in those days - that to be rich was a sign of God’s blessing. A rich man who kept the law and attended synagogue and made the right sacrifices at the temple was just about as close to perfect in God’s sight as you could get.

So in astonishment the disciples asked, “Then who can be saved?” Ten days ago the Church celebrated Francis of Assisi. Francis was brought up in a very comfortable and well-to-do home, and he was heir to his father’s very successful business. He had dreams of being a knight, a man of chivalry. But then his life changed; and he began to take seriously those words of Jesus about selling your possessions, giving to the poor, and following him. He seemed to hear God calling him in a special way. So he gave up his rich and privileged lifestyle, to serve sister poverty instead. He determined to spend his life on the open road as a little brother to anyone in need, in imitation of his Lord. And as his life drew to a close he received the stigmata, the marks of the nails in his hands and feet, a tangible symbol of his devotion to Christ.

Even Francis, though, knew his attempt at a good life to be a pale reflection of that of his Lord. Other people might praise him, but he knew himself to be a sinner and unworthy, despite it all. He’d made himself poor, but even the most humble possession could still get in the way of his service of his Lord. And if even a famous saint like Francis was really still a sinner, what chance for the rest of us?

The answer Jesus gave to his stunned disciples was this: “No chance at all.” No chance at all if you mean to trust to your own efforts, if you want to make it on your own. We can try to be good, we can aim to be like Jesus, but we can never match the example he sets us of love and humility and service.

But while Jesus said to his disciples, “For mortals it is impossible” he went on to say, “But all things are possible for God.” God makes the impossible possible. We call this grace, which is a short way of saying “the saving, healing and forgiving and totally undeserved love of God.” God meets us in our weakness, our uncertainty, our failure and our sin, and he welcomes us as though we were strong and pure and clean. God accepts the unworthy offerings we bring, and he counts them as worthy.

It’s like when I’m visiting a foreign country. Like most British people, I’m no good at foreign languages; but myself, I’ll always want to have a go. And what I find is that though my attempt at French or German or Spanish may be mangled and messy and hard to follow, the French or German or Spanish person to whom I’m speaking (or trying to speak) is often really pleased that I’ve at least made the effort. Often their English puts to shame my attempt to speak their language, but they’re still glad I’ve tried. People I've tried to speak to have respected the fact that I’ve made the effort; they’ve met me in my messiness and incompleteness. Though they’ll probably have had a bit of a laugh as well.

Now, you see, I think that’s how God relates to us. We don’t get everything right, but if we're trying to do our best he rejoices in that, and meets us in the attempt we make. We may sometimes go badly wrong and really let him down; but even then, if we wake up to what we’ve done or failed to do and if we’re sorry and turn back to him, he’s gracious and ready to forgive. We can make ourselves quite unlovable, yet still God loves us, like the father of the prodigal son in the story who spent every day watching from the rooftop. The cross in our church and the cross marked on us at our baptism is our sign of a love that is forever, a love which is for all.

But we make smaller gods for ourselves, and they take us over. Things like money, power, popularity, position and status that trap us and turn our hearts and tie us to the earth. Money isn’t itself wrong, and Jesus never said it was, even when he talked about the camel and the eye of the needle. Nor does the Bible say that money is the root of all evil; what St Paul wrote to Timothy was that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” That’s what happens when we get our focus wrong. Things we own can be dangerous; if we don’t watch out, they trap us and take us over. And the more things we own, the more chances we have to get trapped. The easier our lives, the less likely we are to think we have any need of God. Debbie said something similar in her harvest sermon the other day. Graham Norton was quoted recently as wondering why it is that people who are far too rich to ever need to think about where their next penny is coming from spend so much time and effort avoiding paying taxes when, as he put it, that should be their privilege and their duty.

Disciples of Jesus know that worldly things, like money and power and possessions, are both danger and opportunity. They’re a mortal danger if we let them take the place of God. But if we really are seeking God’s kingdom before anything else, our possessions become something to use in God’s name - to change lives, to help our neighbour. But only if we’re ready to see as our Lord sees; for those who seek the kingdom of God, all that we are and have and own is his.

I didn't post last Sunday's sermon . . .

. . . so here it is (preached at Leighton and Chirbury):

Those who study the gospels sometimes debate whether a particular event or saying is completely authentic, or has perhaps been added by the gospel writer or even by a later hand. This is because the gospels as we have them were not written down as it all happened, but much later. The four gospels we have differ from each other in style, and sometimes in content too. All of them though were based on, perhaps some earlier written records, but certainly also oral records - stories and teachings passed on by word of mouth.

When these sorts of academic debates take place, one rule of thumb often applied is that the more difficult teachings are more likely to be genuine. That means something hard to understand - because if something’s hard to understand, it’s more likely to be changed to make it easier to understand than the other way round. And also things that are hard to take, the tough sayings, because surely the natural instinct might be to soften them.

If that rule of thumb works - and of course the professors argue about that too - but if it does, then the teaching in today’s gospel is very likely to be straight from the mouth of our Lord. It’s tough and uncompromising, and quite possibly hard to take.

Over the years the Church has interpreted these words of Jesus as allowing and encouraging it to take a very firm and hard view of marriage, as indissoluble; so that those who had had a marriage end in divorce, or even, like my aunt, having been widowed and having then met and married a man whose own previous marriage had ended in divorce, were (a) told that they could not marry in church, and (b) in my aunt’s case, might well be told that they could no longer receive communion in church. As a good Catholic, my aunt, who died two years ago at the age of 99, for many years attended church regularly which for her meant daily, and always had to remain in her seat when others went forward to receive communion. Until her second husband died, when as a respectable widow she was allowed back into full communion.

While I have nothing but praise for my aunt’s faith and obedience, I can’t find it in me to praise or even sympathize with the Church. The Church had got it wrong. The Church was, I consider, being quite un-Christlike. And indeed the Church was, and often still is, misunderstanding the reason why Jesus gave this hard teaching on marriage (and indeed on other things too).

Jesus loved sinners. In fact it would seem that a lot of the time he got on much better with sinners than he did with good and holy people. Now that’s not to say that he didn’t take sin seriously. He took it very seriously indeed. Sin is fatal; sin, to be clear, will be the death of you. And me.

But Jesus also took forgiveness seriously; and grace, which is love without strings, loved offered to us without our needing to merit it. That’s what he preached to the sinners, and they listened and responded. That’s what he wanted to preach to the good and godly folk too - but they didn’t think they needed to hear him.

So think of the response of Jesus to that question about marriage as shock tactics. He wanted to break through that shell of self-righteousness that was preventing the Pharisees and folk like that from hearing his message. They didn’t hear because they didn’t think they needed to hear. They were all right.

“I live a good life,” people say to me, more often than you’d think. It’s a defence mechanism, I think, in case I might otherwise seek to convert them or persuade them to come to church. They sometimes go on to tell me that they don’t need to come to church because they can be quite good enough without it, and anyway church is full of people who think they’re good enough when they’re not really, or at least no better than the rest of us. No, it’s not full, I’m tempted to reply - we’ve still got room. But anyway, that’s the wrong idea about what church is for, and probably the wrong idea about what goodness is, as well.

We don’t come to church because it looks good, I hope not anyway. We don’t come to church because we feel we’re good enough to be here. I come to church because I’m not good enough - I’ll come back to that thought in a minute. We certainly don’t come to church in order to rack up celestial Brownie points that will help us slip more easily into heaven.

No. We’re here to say thank you, especially at this service of the Eucharist, because that’s what Eucharist means - thanksgiving. We’re here because we’re not good enough, and yet although we’re not good enough, God still loves us and calls us his children. We’re here because though we sin, we have a forgiving and healing Father. And we’re here to commit ourselves to take that forgiving love to heart, and to make it part of our own lives, and as a thank offering to share with our neighbours something of what we have received from God.

To his questioners Jesus was saying this: God’s law cannot be watered down: what’s wrong is wrong is wrong. And, as we’re reminded elsewhere in the New Testament, to break one small piece of God’s law is to break all of it. It all belongs together: you take it all, or you take none of it. Jesus didn’t want to belittle or condemn the Pharisees and their like - but he did want to convince them that they too, even they, were sinners. We all stand under God’s judgement, we’re all in need of his grace. Until they accepted and understood that, he couldn’t reach them.

Historically we in the Church have interpreted today’s gospel as implying God’s special condemnation of those who happen to make a bad marriage. And following that line we end up saying to those who’ve made a good marriage second time round that that doesn’t count, for God still rules you out of his favour because you’ve broken the rules. But does that really sound to you like what Jesus would say? Not to me it doesn’t. What Jesus is saying is this: Yes, you’ve sinned. All kinds of people, even people trying hard to be good, end up sinning, in all kinds of ways.

To sin is to miss the mark, to fall short, to break the rules. And somewhere or other, we all do it. We all fail to be what we could be, or should be. But, Jesus goes on to say: God loves sinners; he meets their failure with his grace; he cancels out our wrong with his love. That’s why we’re marked with the sign of the cross. That cross says: I’m not worthy, but Jesus has made me worthy, by his love, by his sacrifice, by his cross.

And so Jesus places a child in front of his disciples, and he tells them, “You can’t enter the kingdom of God unless you come like a small child.” What in particular about a small child is so important? The innocence of a small child, perhaps? But no, we’ve grown up, we know about the world, we’ve been there, done that. We’re not innocent, like it or not. Can’t go back there.

But I believe what Jesus is pointing to is dependence. A child knows it needs someone to care for it, someone to look after it, someone to give it a name and a place. It can’t cope on its own. I say “it” by the way not just to be gender inclusive, but because in the Greek of the New Testament teknon, meaning a child, is a neuter word. In the thinking of the time, a child did not exist as a separate entity, not until adulthood. A child belonged to its parents, was the possession of its parents, far more completely than in today’s thinking.

So to come to the kingdom like a child is to come knowing we are nothing without God. We are his possession, we belong to him. Without what he alone can give us, we are nowhere; we have no name, no purpose, no destiny. But God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. And with Christ and in Christ and through Christ, to borrow a phrase from the communion prayer, all that we need is ours.

Yesterday's sermon . . .

 . . . at Chirbury, we celebrated both Michaelmas and Harvest:

So, here we are in "Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", as the poet John Keats wrote. And it’s also the season of Harvest Festivals and this weekend the great feast of St Michael and All Angels - Michael’s Mass, or Michaelmas.

Michael the Archangel was credited with having led God’s army in driving out Satan and his followers from Heaven. His feast day yesterday, 29th September, comes not long after the Autumn Equinox, so by now the days are shorter than the nights, and they’ll go on getting shorter. The shortening (or in spring, the lengthening) of days happens at a much greater pace around the equinoxes, and since in the popular thought of past times there was always a link between darkness and evil, people would be praying earnestly through the autumn to be protected from evil. Since Michael was seen as one of the great protectors, Michaelmas was one of the times for such prayer.

But Michaelmas is significant in the secular world too. It’s a quarter day, so therefore a hiring day, a day for the transaction of land and property, and one of the days when rents were paid. And Michaelmas begins one of the four legal terms in the year when the courts of the land sit in judgement.

And at about the time of Michaelmas the “Harvest Home” would be happening too. Harvest home was completely a secular affair until it began to transmute into the harvest festivals we now know maybe a century and a half ago. The harvest home originally was just a big party to celebrate the crop brought in, and the fact that the hard labour of harvesting was over. Back in the days when if there wasn’t enough food in the barn someone was going to go hungry, both harvest home and Michaelmas celebrated being safe and secure, ready for the dark and cold of winter. I suspect the main tradition of the old harvest home was the drinking of lots of rough cider. But there seem to have been quite a few old traditions connected to Michaelmas.

One such tradition was the Michaelmas Goose, which would have been well fattened from the stubble left in the fields at harvest, and then kept to be eaten as winter food. Goose Fairs were commonly held on or around Michaelmas Day, one of the greatest being the Nottingham Goose Fair that still takes place today.

I was always told not to pick blackberries after Michaelmas, because the Devil would have spat on them and spoiled them. I think originally that would have been the old Michaelmas Day of October 10th, because 29th September seems too early to stop. And sometimes people say St Luke’s Day instead, which is 18th October. By this time of the year blackberries are getting past their best, and they don’t have the lusciousness and flavour of the fruit in late summer. But maybe these days we wouldn’t feel the need to blame the devil!

St Michael is also, I’m told, one of the several patron saints of horses and horsemen, and there was a Scottish tradition of horse races on Michaelmas Day. It seems as well that at Michaelmas you could lawfully borrow your neighbour’s horse without needing his consent, and ride it for the day, provided the horse was safely returned before daybreak! You can see how important the cult of Michael was in medieval times from the impressive number of causes of which he’s regarded as patron - chivalry, soldiers, police, paramedics and firefighters. Some regard him as a patron of the sea, of those who are living with illness, and of grocers; and he is the patron saint of Germany.

It would have helped my sermon theme if Michael had also been the patron of farmers, but alas, no. That honour goes to St Isidore, of whom I confess I know almost nothing. But the wealth of old traditions from this time of the year reminds us how such traditions used to rule people’s lives. Now mostly they’re fading from memory, to be remembered only by antiquarian enthusiasts.

And that starts me worrying that maybe harvest festival’s one of those old traditions whose time really is done, and in the end it’s bound to fade away. Could church itself be numbered among the fading traditions? This building was built to last, like the faith it was built to proclaim. But has it really had its day?

When we look back, we see lots of interesting and colourful old traditions, nice to remember but hardly relevant today. What about when we look forward? Maybe we don’t see anything very much, no clear road ahead, no secure future. We find ourselves saying, “Wouldn’t it be great to go back to how things used to be!” I say that myself.

Harvest is a time when memories are at their strongest - and I remember full pews and mighty choirs, processions through the streets, and a well supported church brimming with confidence. It’s amazing what memories can be conjured up by the smell of chrysanthemums or a verse of “We plough the fields”. Some of them may even be true.

My memory’s also triggered by Michaelmas Daisies. Everyone used to have them in their gardens, though I don’t see quite so many these days. Being late flowering plants that would stay in flower right through till the frosts, they were a welcome splash of autumn colour, as this old verse reminds us:
The Michaelmas Daisies, among deed weeds  /  bloom for Saint Michael’s valorous deeds, and seems the last of flowers that stood,  /  till the feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude.

Simon and Jude’s day is 28th October, by the way. Another thing  we’ve lost, I suppose. Now we’ve got things all around us to tell us the time and the date, watches, phones, even cookers and washing machines - we no longer need to look at the sun, and no-one these days measures the date in saints’ days.

But we can’t go back to the past, whether real or fondly imagined. Perhaps we wouldn’t want to go back to the real past, anyway. The world’s moved on, and we’ve only one direction of travel. And, if you’re wondering, I don’t believe that either harvest festival or the church itself is no longer relevant.

In fact I believe the exact opposite. Harvest festival is if anything more important, and Church should be. Harvest reminds me that there’s a God-shaped piece in all of us; we’re not really complete without it. A previous Archbishop of Canterbury - I forget which - once said, “A nation that loses its faith loses its soul.” And by soul I think he meant its raison d’etre, its direction and purpose, its identity.

The harvest isn’t mine to do what I want with - to hoard, stash away, defend from all comers, without any thought for others. That’s a harvest message we need to hear. It’s not my harvest, it’s God’s. The fruits of the earth are at best a co-operative venture; we can only use what’s given us. Harvest festival tells us that, and reminds us that we ourselves should be God’s harvest, fruitful in our care for each other and for the land, fruitful in the praise and service we offer our Lord.

Tradition has an important part to play, and I’m glad that harvest reminds us where we come from, our roots and heritage. Without the labours of our forbears, we’d not be here. Without our care, there is no future harvest. Everything links together.

Harvest festival celebrates the greatest of Givers - God who creates, God who holds all things in being. His church should be a giving church. We call Jesus the man for others; and we should be a church for others. From great cathedrals to the smallest country church we are here to serve, to be community minded and world minded. Michael is celebrated as God’s warrior; may we be warriors too - not holding back or hiding our faith, but living it boldly and generously and lovingly, in the name of Christ.