Sermon at All Saints’ Parish Church,
Whiteparish – Sunday 7 August 2016
Genesis 15:1-6;
Hebrews 11:1-3; 8-16; Luke 12:32-40
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
There was a TV Series
which ran between 1979 and 1988 of which I was particularly fond – not least
because of the dancing girl at the beginning – I think it was probably one my
Dad’s favourite too for that reason although probably in secret! Can anyone think what it was? Well a clue -
many of the stories came from East Anglia and some of these were
introduced by Roald Dahl. Still not got
it? Well I mentioned one of the words in its title at the beginning of the
service – yes “Tales of the Unexpected” – and this is the theme of our
scripture readings today – the unexpected - just as last week we heard the
story of the rich man who intended to store all his grain and lay back to enjoy
his wealth when God demanded his life.
Despite his own planning this was
not planned for, not expected. Even when
we do go out of our way to plan our life then often circumstances or a lack of
understanding of our surrounding will lead to results we never expected.
Roald Dahl illustrated this point in one of his famous “Tales
of the Unexpected” short stories called “A
Dip in the Pool” concerning his frequent character Mr. Botibol.
Mr. Botibol is travelling across the ocean
in a large transatlantic liner and wants desperately to win the passenger
auction. Each night the captain of the ship estimates the distance that they
will cover in the next 24 hours, and a range of possible numbers are then
auctioned off to the guests. Whoever owns the correct number the next day wins
the amount of money in the pool. Mr. Botibol notices that the sea has suddenly
become very rough and that this will surely slow down the ship and throw off
the captain’s estimate. Confident of victory, then, he uses his life savings to
win the “low field” number (meaning any number more than 10 nautical miles less
than the estimate). When he wakes up the next morning, though, the sea is calm
and the ship is clearly making up for lost time. Mr. Botibol arrives at the
desperate conclusion that jumping overboard is the only way to slow down the ship
and therefore win the pool. He plans his strategy very carefully (as he thinks)
and deliberately – he will wear light tennis clothes (so he can swim better),
he will make sure another person witnesses his “fall” and reports it to the
captain, and he will swim as far from the ship as possible so that it must turn
completely astern to pick him up. He finds the deck deserted except for one
older woman. After talking to her briefly he concludes that she is neither deaf
nor blind, and within moments he has plunged into the water directly in front
of her, screaming for help. The woman acts confused for a moment, then relaxes
and watches the small bobbing man get further and further away. At the very end
of the story, a bony woman comes out to collect the older lady and admonishes
her for “wandering about” and telling stories and tells her that it is time for
her medication. The old woman is seemingly a psychiatric patient or suffering
from dementia! The story ends with the
ship ploughing on into the distance with Mr. Botibol bobbing up and down in the
waves, desperately trying to attract the attention of the ever diminishing
ship.
Well, the outcome for Mr. Botibol was certainly an unexpected
one as the tale seeks to show. How many
times in our lives has the unexpected occurred?
We can never ever plan for the unexpected but we can be prepared for
it. Neither does unexpected have to be
negative.
In our Old Testament reading this morning, we heard that
Abram had resigned himself to the fact that at the ages of himself and his wife
Sarah, he could not expect to have children and that his inheritance would pass
to his kinsman Eliezer of Damascus. He cried out to God that as God had sought
to make him childless then only a servant of his household would inherit. This was in accordance with the then Jewish
rules of inheritance.
But God reassures Abram that he will not be childless and
that his heirs would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. It is such a
lovely piece of prose and a wonderful reminder to all of us that for God
nothing is impossible. There then takes place the covenant which is made
between Abram and God – that the heirs of Abram shall be God’s chosen
flock. For Abram this was indeed an
unexpected turn of events. Sarai, his
wife, was well beyond child bearing age and therefore it seemed to Abram to be
an impossibility that that he could have legitimate heirs. Indeed we later read in Genesis 16 how Abram
sought to bring about God’s prophecy by producing a son, Ismael, through a
liaison with Sarai’s maidservant, Hagar.
However, in another unexpected turn of events, Abram learns that Ismael
isn’t meant to be his legitimate heir but Isaac born of Sarai. Abram’s attempt
to bring about the prophecy is thwarted.
Abram attempted to plan things his way but God had other ideas.
In the letter to the Hebrews, the author seeks to remind his
readers that it was because of Abram’s Faith, ultimately, that God did indeed
do the unexpected and grant him a legitimate heir through Sarah. It is well worth reading Chapter 11 in its
entirety as it lists so many miracles and incredible unexpected turns of event
which have occurred through Faith. It
reminds us that whatever we may think or do or plan, ultimately it is God who
knows what lies ahead.
The bible is littered with this theme – Proverbs 16.9
says “In
his heart a man plans his course but the LORD determines his steps”; in
Jeremiah 29.11 again “For I know the
plans I have for you, … plans to prosper you and not to harm you” and again
in Psalm 139.9 “… if I settle on the far
side of the sea even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold
me fast”.
I don’t preach pre-ordination – it is important that you know
that I fully believe that to function fully as God’s creatures he gave us full
free will to act independently and sometimes foolishly. However, if we live by Faith, by believing that he is
our Creator and as such we are stewards of the world he created, that he sent
down Jesus Christ his only Son and left us the Holy Spirit to guide and protect
us and to follow Christ’s teachings, then God will always be there for us and
ensure the best for us; even if that is
not what we are expecting or planning for ourselves. It gives us a great sense of freedom to know
that if we do “muck up”, God will be there to pick up the pieces and help us
put our lives back together again if only we have the humility and wisdom to
ask for his help through prayer.
Sometimes we can be very surprised indeed when he does this and I can think
of so many examples where people have reached a very low ebb in their lives
only to have their lives restored and feel the fullness of God’s grace after
prayer and the refreshing of their Faith.
But we mustn’t ever let our guard slip or sit back on our
laurels – especially when we are in the good times. We can so easily forget
God, we can so easily ignore him when we are enjoying life to the full. We can become careless in our devotions and
thereby allow our Faith to slip. This is
what Jesus is saying in our gospel reading today.
Jesus in these few words is reminding us again that to store
up treasures for ourselves in this world means that those treasures will remain
in this world after we have moved on – but if we use those treasures wisely for
the good of others as is expected as mere tenants of the world, not owners but
just passing through, then we shall store up treasures in the next – for we do
not know when Jesus might return in judgment and so we must act as though that
could be at any time. In other words, we
should not be found wanting in our Faith at any time.
My grandfather used to dig graves for a churchyard in
Norfolk. He also assisted in laying out
the bodies. He never stored up riches
for himself but lived frugally and gave generously. I remember him saying, on more than one
occasion, that all the times he has been involved in funerals he has never seen
pockets in a funeral shroud. “You
take nothing into the world and you can take nothing out” he would say.
The unexpected does occur.
We can prepare for it but we cannot plan it. Mr. Botibol could have, I suppose, equipped
himself with a life jacket and some provisions but he could never have expected
that the old lady he so carefully cultivated would not be believed.
Only God has planned when he will return; only God has
planned when our term on this Earth will come to an end; only God knows his
plans for us. We must pray constantly
that our lives and own plans follow along his steps for us and ask for his
guidance when things, usually through our own actions, go wrong. Unlike Mr. Botibol’s ship, God will never
abandon us and sail away without noticing our plight. Have Faith and always trust in God – then we
can cope with the unexpected and hope for the future.
MFB/84/03.08.2016
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