SERMON 163 - SUNDAY 25 JULY 2021

Sermon at Winterslow Baptist Church, Winterslow, Morning Service  -–  Sunday 25 July 2021

It is lovely to be back here at Winterslow Baptist Church, and whilst I have taken a few services at All Saints Church here over the last few months, it seems an absolute age since I was addressing you here in what you affectionately call the “tin tabernacle”.

I have to confess that I did struggle a bit putting together today’s talk as I was not sure how and where we would be doing today’s service.  The original plan was for me to come here and preach in person at a normal service, then possibly on Zoom or via a recording made at home; but finally it was decided in view of the continuing Covid-19 guidelines you would have a café-style church with limited numbers and I was delighted that I could come here in person and talk to you.  When Jason phoned me a couple of days ago to find out what I might need by way of hymns and themes I decided that it would be good to keep it simple and rather than a formal sermon, in view of the café-style approach you might like to hear my musings on how my faith has been affected and survived these eighteen months of restrictions and lockdowns.

I thought about biblical examples too and, of course, the obvious one is the Great Babylonian Exile of seventy years at a time when the Jewish nation were separated from their place of worship, the Temple at Jerusalem, and encouraged to worship other idols in Babylon.  There seems to me to be a parallel with our experiences of late – the inability to sing songs of praise and worship in our established churches of whatever denomination.  The Book of Daniel has been, for me, a great encourager during these unusual times.  Like the faithful of today, Daniel found ways to continue to worship his God despite all the obstacles and restrictions put upon him and I do recommend you to read that wonderful book of the bible again in the context of where we have found ourselves in recent days.

So a question for you, how have you managed to remain connected with God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost?  How has your faith suffered or grown through these dark days of pandemic?  Let me tell you my story and my own thoughts on this subject.

I think a lot of us, right at the beginning, thought of the first lockdown as a bit inconvenient but also a “bit of fun” – an opportunity for the old Spirit of the Blitz” to be restored to this nation.  Following the divisions in this country caused by Brexit when families and friends had argued with each other over whether it was a good thing or not to leave the European Union, there needed to be a healing process and I think many saw this pandemic and restrictions on each and every one of us an opportunity to pull together and help one another irrespective of colour, creed, sex/sexual orientation or religion. I personally witnessed many genuine acts of random kindness and understanding particularly in the community in which I live in Downton and I knew that this also happened in great measure in Winterslow.  The Clarendon Ministry Team, of which I am a full member, actively sought to ensure that we found alternative ways in which to bring Jesus into the homes of anyone seeking Him through Zoom – something I had never heard of, let alone used, before March 2020.

Our wings were clipped though, and my weekly visit to the homeless hostel in Salisbury as chaplain stopped and I had to content with my ministry becoming a weekly and then fortnightly telephone conversation with the manager.  Liz and I continued to recite the Morning Office together and read our bibles and pray together although as time went on we started to pray less frequently and not necessarily together.  My praying occurred during my daily allowed walk when, during those early few weeks the weather was glorious and I was able to walk five or six miles a day around Downton.  Additionally I would keep a journal and write down, each day a Thought which I shared with others online.

As time went on I have to confess that I stopped missing the actual going to church and reciting similar liturgy and turned to connecting with God through the wonders of nature – a realisation that God had left the building – because we could no longer attend – and was to be found within the community and within nature itself. The wonders and mysteries of God were to be found all around us, and in my case, especially above us!

Many of you will know that I write the monthly article in the local parish magazine about what any casual observer might see in the night sky in any given month.  I have been a keen amateur astronomer since I was twelve years of age and bought my first telescope with my paper round money. Over the last several decades of my life I have added further instruments to that first little 60 mm refractor so as today I have five telescopes of differing types and sizes as well as a number of binoculars. 

However, during my busy life as a lawyer and then, following early retirement, my retraining as a church minister and then a spiritual director, I had little time to pursue my passion of astronomy as I was busy building on my career, bringing up a family and then, concentrating on my theological training – writing endless assignments and attending lectures and courses.  My interest in the night sky continued but got shoved to one side and became a casual pastime.

When the pandemic struck in March last year, the weather was glorious and the night skies beautifully clear and dark – no aeroplane trails across the sky and the sky seemed to be generally much less polluted.  Out came my telescopes and I made a conscious effort to re-acquaint myself with some favourites – stars, planets and other celestial objects which I had observed as a 12-year old boy from the back garden of my family home in Lincolnshire. It was an amazing feeling to see these objects unchanged from back then – a feeling of continuity and closeness to the faithful unchanging face of our Great Creator. The vastness of the Universe and the mysteries of those objects that we can only just see on the edge of the visible Universe make me feel extremely humble and small and yet so amazingly important to think that we exist on this small fragile planet, orbiting an average star, on one of the arms of an average galaxy amongst billions.  How is that possible?  And to think that we are so important to God that he sent his one and only Son to save us.

When the space probe Voyager 1, having flown past and taken images of the outer planets of the Solar System was on its way out of the Solar System, it was instructed by Mission Control back on Earth to take one final photograph looking back towards the Sun.  The image was taken on 14^th February 1990 when it was at a distance of 3.7 billion miles 6 billion kilometres) from the Sun. The photograph captured, in the glare of the Sun, a tiny pale blue dot – the Earth. The photograph was later to inspire the tile of Carl Sagan’s book “Pale Blue Dot: A vision of the Human Future in Space”.  He said “Look again at that dot, that’s here, that’s home, that’s us”.

To me, though, that same little blue dot image inspires me to say “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future on Earth”. For me it should always remind us, as did that famous “earthrise” photo over the Moon taken by Bill Anders on Apollo 8 that we live on a fragile space craft spinning at a vast speed through space.  We are fragile enough without trying to destroy it ourselves with wars and climate change activities.

I once more return to the Book of Daniel.  Despite all the efforts of the Babylonians to make Daniel conform with their ways – how they ate, how they dressed, how they worshipped, Daniel remained faithful to God.  In recent times we, as Christians, have faced many challenges and persecutions and the stronger we become the greater those challenges will be.  We should look upon these challenges, including the pandemic we have faced and continue to face, as opportunities to grow our faith – perhaps in new ways beyond what we have done in the past.  A certain decree of traditionalism is important but too much legalism can actually destroy our true purpose.

The lessons for me during these difficult times has been to look at things afresh – to find God in new places – to “boldly go where we have not gone before” to paraphrase a famous space sci-fi series. The church has left the building just as Jesus left the synagogues and preached on the mountain tops and in the streets.

Yes, it is good to meet together and worship – that is one way of expressing our praises and thanks to God, it is also a way of helping and supporting each other but Jesus probed the unknown, went to the houses of sinners, ate and drank upon the ordinary people.  He left us the Holy Spirit to inspire and impassion us.  I once heard a preacher say to his congregation “What is your passion?  What do you really care about?  “What really gets you excited?” Answer that question and you will find God for where your passion is, there is God because he inspired you to it!

I shall continue to attend church but I shall also continue to seek God in heavens above as well as amongst the communities below.

 

Amen                                                                                       MFB/163/24072021

SERMON 162 - SUNDAY 11 JULY 2021

Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Winterslow, Morning Worship -–  Sunday 11th July 2021

Mark 6 14-29

Back in my schooldays, when morning assemblies and Christian teaching were commonplace I especially loved those stories from scripture which contained blood and gore – I guess I was no different from many schoolboys of my age and times or even today.  The stories I especially loved where those of David and Goliath, the stabbing of King Eglon of Moab, the 46,000 Ephraimites being slain on the banks of the Jordan, the execution of the baker in Joseph’s prison and many more.  Indeed, the Old Testament seemed to be full of battles and bloodshed and quite often we would recreate these gory scenes in the playground – not literally I hasten to add although scraped knees and the occasional battle wound would be sustained.

The story of John the Baptist’s beheading was another of such stories and I think, as a child, I didn’t realise the subtleties of this particular story; and I wonder how many other people realise that it has a lesson for us all in today’s modern world of envy and revenge.

Mark, in our reading today, sets out the scene very clearly for us, but to recap, King Herod II (Antipas), who was the puppet monarch of the Roman occupiers in Judea, had already heard of all the miracles and particularly healings which had been carried out by Jesus and knowing what had happened to John the Baptist was now superstitious of John having come back from the dead to haunt him. So much so that he was absolutely convinced of this and that Jesus was not a mere prophet but the Baptist back.  He must have been terrified living in fear of revenge for his part in John’s death.

What is clear is that before the fateful party where Salome, the king’s stepdaughter, danced, King Herod held John the Baptist in high regard and acknowledged his righteousness.   John had warned the King that nothing good would come out of marrying his brother’s widow, Heroditas, and in our own British history I am sure this piece of scripture would have been well known to King Henry VIII when he married his brother Arthur’s widow, Katherine of Aragon.  For this reason Heroditas had a terrible hatred of John the Baptist and wanted above all things to have him done away with but Herod fearing the power which John wielded through his preaching and baptising of the common people feared both them and in particular God’s wrath knowing that his marriage and kingdom were not secure.

Then, of course, during the course of what we can only imagine was something of a drunken party he was struck by the erotic dancing of his stepdaughter and made a wild promise that she could have anything she desired up to half of his kingdom. This was King Herod showing off and trying to impress his guests with his largess. This was the moment that Heroditas had been waiting for, priming her daughter, Salome, to ask for John’s head. Revenge served up on a platter before the king and his guests.

We read that King Herod realised the mistake he had made and certainly did not want to harm John whom he feared but so as not to lose face amongst his guests he submitted to Heroditas’s request through Salome and the gruesome deed was done.  This was why when Jesus started moving amongst the populace with tales of miracles and healing King Herod feared the worst – that as John reincarnated he would be out for revenge.

When we analyse this story there are so many aspects of it which we can apply to our own attitudes and beliefs today.  In the tradition of lectio divina I wonder where, after careful reading, prayer and re-reading we would place ourselves in the story and what emotions it evokes?

Leaving aside John himself for the moment, we have a fearful king – a man who knows that his hold on power depends upon his ability to control his subjects for the benefit of the Roman occupiers – a well-known policy of Rome was to ensure that to keep control of its Empire it needed the assistance of collaborators – just as Hitler’s Nazi Germany needed Vichy France.  Also, Judea was a God-fearing nation which looked back on its history and its freedom from slavery and exile at the hands of Jahweh, the one true living God.  Herod therefore had to be careful, treading a tightrope – keeping the Romans and his religious community happy.  He also wanted to be popular with those around him to maintain his throne and power – hence the throwing of lavish parties and feasts.

Then we have a vengeful woman, Heroditas. She knows that in marrying her dead husband’s brother she is breaking with the law and thus the religious community. Although we are told this in the passage which we read this morning, she was probably not thought of well by the population – another parallel with English history – Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson.  John had been very vociferous of his condemnation of their union and this had brought about an intense hatred on the part of Heroditas.

And finally, Salome, the exotic dancing stepdaughter/niece of the king who entranced him and his guests.  She has been told she can have anything she wants up to half of his kingdom but she consults with her mother and does her bidding, asking for John’s head. Clearly she was not her own person, she was being controlled by her mother because she had to go to her to decide what she could ask for. Was she a pawn in all this – being used by her mother in the same way her stepfather was using her to titillate his guests or was she part of a wider conspiracy to remove the Baptist?

These are some of the questions which the passage poses and we may never know the true answer but when we read this passage again and perhaps again I am sure there have been times in each of our lives when we have been in similar situations to all three players – although hopefully not with such tragic consequences.

Let’s look at them again.  Herod. Have you found yourself in a situation where you have been forced to do something by another which you know was wrong or with which you found yourself very uncomfortable doing? Perhaps at work?  I know I have and I can think of a number of such times – especially when I practised law and took on a case which I was unsure about the truthfulness of witnesses for example.

Heroditas, the woman whose position was tenuous and unlawful.  Her power and strength came from being married to the king and here was a strange man influencing her husband and others emphasising her weakness.  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” wrote William Congreve in 'The Mourning Bride' in 1697.  Have there been times when you have sought revenge or wanted to remove someone who is compromising your status or position? Perhaps not in having them murdered but perhaps in trying to remove their influence or reduce their reputation?

Finally, Salome.  How innocent is she in all this?  Well let’s say she is or at least naïve. Have there been times when you might have been used by somebody else for their benefit and not your own?  In this story, Salome could have had riches beyond compare – she could have been co-ruler with Herod but she went along with her mother’s evil plan to remove the thorn from her flesh.

All this, goes to show us how stories from the bible can help us understand ourselves and our own emotions.  Scarcely is there an issue can arise today in which we will not find some biblical precedent.  That is the beauty of theological reflection and in many cases we will discover that we are far from perfect ourselves.  Each of our three characters was flawed and each of our three characters will have displayed some of our own faults too.

This goes to remind us that whilst we all want to be Christ-like it is always a long journey which we will never complete until we are re-united with Him. We will go on making mistakes but we know that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and the Holy Spirit which, through Jesus, will intercede with us.

As they say, there but for the grace of God go any of us.  Indeed, God’s grace will always surmount our darkest moments and raises us up.

 

 

Amen                                                                                                 MFB/162/09072021