SERMON 177 - SUNDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2022

Sermon delivered at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead Remembrance Day Service – Sunday 13^th November 2022

(adapted from Sermons 124 and 140)

John 15:13

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

“No one has greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you…I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”

So speaks Jesus to his disciples in that same passage where he describes himself as the vine and them as the branches.

So began the address I last gave to you here at West Grimstead on Remembrance Sunday 2019.  I went on to say that 101 years, since the ending of the first world War, there are no longer any people who remember at first hand the dreadful conflict of the First World War and today, some 77 years after the ending of the Second World War very few who were involved directly in that conflict or can remember it. My mother, who does retain memories of that war, and how it affected village life in Norfolk, is now 93 years of age, a young ten-years old girl when Hitler invaded Poland.

Talking of which, I am sure I have, on a previous occasion, told you about my trip to Poland in 2012 when I took my fifteen years old son to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland.  As we approached that dreadful place he turned to me and said “Dad, it’s in colour. It’s real!”  It suddenly dawned on me that for many, of his generation and those both before and afterwards, the horrors of war were, to some extent, sanitised by the absence of colour and were mere unreal monochrome images – divorced from reality. The same applied when I was watching a TV programme, “The World at War in Colour” – my wife came in and said that her blood was chilled by seeing images of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders in their brown uniforms and red swastika armbands.  So, for many, the horrors of the Second World War are either but a distant memory to an ever dwindling minority or consigned to the history books and black and white photos and films for those still interested. 

I have maintained a strong interest myself in modern history, hence the trip to Poland in 2012, and, during my lifetime, the words of Harold MacMillan, Britain’s Prime Minister in the late 1950s/early 1960s ring in my ears.  Addressing my generation – young at the time – he said “You’ve never had it so good”. Never in recent history, in my view, has a politician spoken truer words.  My generation has never lived through a global conflict involving a desperate defence of our own realm – but experienced a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity for the majority, we have enjoyed the welfare state, final salary pensions, free medical care and freedom from conscription. We are indeed the lucky ones and it was because of the sacrifices made by those whose names appear on the cenotaphs and memorials throughout our country that we have enjoyed these things. They fought against totalitarian and fascist states, against those who would try and control others by brutal and inhuman means.  We are rightly proud of those who defend our nation, both then and today, as well as those defending those other vulnerable nations of the world.

When I gave my address to you in 2019, little did I ever think that three years later we would be witnessing, once more on our European doorstep, the types of aggressive war and acts of inhumanity such as we are seeing today in Ukraine.  If anyone doubts what we fought against in 1914-1918 and particularly 1939-1945 just watch and listen to the news reports coming in from Kyiv. We must continue to pray for the complete liberation of that country and an end to the deprivations and suffering of her innocent people.

Today, we can see, almost immediately, the effects of war through the readily available media reports – in colour, and therefore there can be no excuse for anyone to stand back and simply allow these things to happen.  It has been an immense joy to see so many families in our Clarendon Team villages taking Ukrainian refugees into their homes and thereby showing solidarity with those innocent people caught up in a conflict not of their making.

Our gospel passage this morning is very familiar and often quoted by those sandwich board street evangelists – I distinctly remember one such colourful character in the aptly-named Lord Street in Liverpool when I was a student there – brandishing the words “The End is Nigh”.  Well I guess he is no longer with us but we are still here and suffering continues. Jesus is saying to those admiring the structure of the Temple that “all this would pass away” in due time – and indeed, within forty years the Temple had been torn down by the Romans so little is now left. Jesus also reminds his listeners that many may come and declare themselves to be Him returned but we must be discerning and not follow them just because they say so. And, finally, he tells his audience that “when you hear of wars and insurrections do not be terrified, for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately”. Jesus was aware that wars and insurrections would continue – and so they have for over two thousand years since.

What Jesus is saying is that as his followers we will have to endure this suffering for through suffering our Faith in God is strengthened.  The bible is full of battles and famines – especially the Old Testament – which result in the strengthening of Faith – we have only to think of Moses, Joseph and Daniel who were caught up in inhumane suffering and injustice.  As a church we are here to support those who suffer in whatever form and to support all those, like our armed services, who are prepared to lay down their lives to bring a stop to naked oppression – such as we have seen in Ukraine in recent months.

In 2019 I asked the question in my address “So then how should the church approach this difficult topic [of war]? What is the role of the church at times of such conflict and man-made horrors? “My response to this rhetorical question was that I believed it was not just to bury the dead or lead services of remembrance after the events.  I also believed that the church had a role too in preventing such conflicts occurring in the first place.  I have not changed that view. My mother would often use the phrase “prevention is better than cure” – usually in the context of health issues admittedly – and wherever possible, if we can remember Jesus’s Second Great Commandment – “to love others as we would wish to be loved ourselves” - war could be brought to an end.  That is a very high and unfortunately unlikely ideal, I have to confess, but whatever we can do to try and bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth, we should try.  As the Chinese proverb states, “the completion of a long journey starts with the very first step”.

Today is a remembrance of those who have laid down their lives in faith in those battles against Wrong.  The church continues to have that role today – as we remember the fallen we should also remember our immediate role as reconcilers and instruments of peace.  Those we are remembering today made the ultimate sacrifice – their todays were given up for our tomorrows; as did Jesus Christ himself when he died on the Cross for our sins – in a spirit of strong love of Right against Wrong.

We are all God’s soldiers, marching as to War, to that Spiritual Warfare which we see all around us today, but we march not with guns or bayonets but with the Cross of Jesus going on before, as the hymn states.

I end with remembering the words of Christ once more - “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you…I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them”

  

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/11112022

SERMON 176 - SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 2022

SERMON AT WILTSHIRE FREEMASONS’ ANNUAL CHURCH SERVICE AT ST. MARY THE VIRGIN PARISH CHURCH, CALNE WILTSHIRE – SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 2022

Joshua 1:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may my words be a blessing to all who listen to them.

First of all, a great big thank you to Revd Teresa, David Bevan lur organist and all those connected with this wonderful church for once more allowing us to hold our Annual Church Service here in this sacred and lovely space. Also, thank you all for attending this annual event when gives us the opportunity to sing praises to and worship our Christian God, reminding ourselves that to Him do we owe all things and should at all times give him thanks and praise.

This year has been a year of great change and challenge when many of our traditional ways of thinking have been disrupted and changed for good.  During the course of 2022 we have seen the world order disrupted in Europe by the aggressive invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation plunging Europe back into war the likes of which we haven’t seen in eighty years, we have seen a change of Prime Minister and Cabinet following upheaval in our own Government, a change in the monarchy after seventy dutiful years and finally, and more locally, a change in our own Provincial Grand Master after eight years.  I am also sure that during the course of this year there have also been many personal changes in each of your lives – some for the better and others more a challenging.

I think the one thing which we have all had to take on board over the last three years or so is the need to adapt and change some of the things we do.  We had to face suspension of our activities during the Covid lockdowns and adapt our lives and ways of working accordingly, which I think we did exceptionally well through the use of technology and by maintaining frequent contact with each other. It was so heartening to see the manner in which, despite the difficulties encountered, this Province continued to survive and indeed flourish so that our numbers have remained buoyant and we can now move forward with much optimism.

Our scripture readings today were chosen with care to reflect upon the situation we now find ourselves in.

The first Old Testament reading comes from the beginning of the Book of Joshua. Many of you will recall that Joshua was called upon by God to lead the Jewish people into the Promised Land after Moses had successfully led them out of captivity in Egypt and then wandering in the wilderness for forty years. Moses had been an inspirational leader, in contact with God throughout, but not without his critics and throughout those forty years of wandering in the desert lands between Egypt and Israel, his leadership had been continually questioned by those who were impatient to find and enter the Promised Land – indeed on one occasion they had told Moses that it would have been better for them to have stayed enslaved in Egypt rather than wander around seemingly aimlessly.  However, it was during this period of seeming futility that the foundations were laid for the establishment of the Jewish people as a cohesive group with their own laws and customs firmly established.  When eventually God thought them ready to enter and settle in the Promised Land, Moses was an old man and died before he was able to lead his people across the border into Israel.

That honour fell on his successor, Joshua, as recounted in that first chapter of the Book of Joshua read to us this afternoon by our new Provincial Grand Master. Indeed, it fell upon Joshua to take up the reigns of Moses and to establish and secure the Promised Land as their new home.  As we know, it wasn’t an easy task and the Book of Joshua contains stories of the numerous battles he had to fight against indigenous tribes in order to secure the land – something we are reminded of in our Second Degree ritual.

It does seem a little unfair that Moses, who had taken upon himself much hard work and suffered much deprivation to attain the Promised Land, was not allowed by God to
enjoy the fruit of his labour. How many times we do feel that too when we see others achieve what we failed to or where not permitted to?  This story is also repeated with King David when he was also told by God that he would not be allowed to build the Temple at Jerusalem and that this honour would be bestowed upon his son and successor, King Solomon.  Both of these stories remind us that we are all subservient to God’s will and that as such we work as a team for a common goal or purpose, not personal fame or glory.  I am sure you can think of many incidences when things which you have started have been completed by others. Rather than envy them we should be grateful that our work has been fulfilled.

The importance of the Joshua story is to remind us that when changes occur, that does not necessary mean and ending; indeed, in most cases it means a continuance of something already started.  So often we hear people speak of “an end of an era”.  Indeed as with the passing of our Great Late Queen, the Elizabethan era has now come to an end but our monarchy and our traditional way of government has not – we have a new King and we owe him the same due allegiance as we did the late Queen.  The smooth passage of one monarch to another, as we witnessed last month, is testimony to the fact that change does not necessarily mean a loss of continuity or destruction.

So it is with our Province. There may be some changes ahead in the way we do things in our lodges over time but our institution has survived for over 300 years and so long as we acknowledge that change does not mean an end we shall continue for another 300 years or more.  As we move forward we shall no doubt break new ground, we are even looking at the possibility of how we might make changes to this annual service in future years, but the important thing is that whilst structures may change our unwavering Faith and desire to serve God endures.

In our New Testament reading from St. Paul’s letter to his brother in Christ, Timothy, Paul reminds his protégé, Timothy, of the importance of worship and in particular that intercessory prayers should be made for everyone – nobody is to be excluded – and he makes special reference to kings and those in authority (often those opposed to the new Christian Faith in fact) – “that we may all live peaceful and quiet lives”.  As we enter new eras in the authorities over us, nationally and locally, it is especially important that we give such praise and prayers – that is why the intercessions led by our Assistant Provincial Grand Master were worded in the way they were.  It is also important to remember that it is essential to give praise and prayer daily in our ordinary lives and not just on those occasions when we are in church.  Remember the “twenty-four inch gauge” represents the twenty four hours of the day – one third “to be spent in prayer to Almighty God”.  Our masonic forefathers knew this well and it is for this reason that prayers are offered at the beginning and end of each of our meetings and we say grace before and after each of our meals when we break bread together.  In other words, it should be as much a part of of daily life as labour and refreshment and helping others in need.

There is a hymn which we are not singing today but whose words of refrain are very relevant to the theme of today’s service:

He changeth not, he changeth not

Yesterday, today and evermore the same

He changeth not, He changeth not

Just the same kind loving God, praise his name.

 

And again in that more familiar hymn “Fight the Good Fight” –

 

Faint not nor fear: God's arms are near.
God changeth not, and thou art dear.
Only believe, and thou shalt see
that Christ is all in all to thee.

 

So, in conclusion, whilst everything around us might change, just as the seasons change, just as day turns into night, just as the Moon goes through its different phases, we can rest assured that there will always be some continuity for so long as we put our trust and faith in the one true and living God Almighty.

 

Amen                                                                                                        MFB/176/15092022

 

 

SERMON 175 - SUNDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 2022

 

SERMON 175 – ALL SAINTS CHURCH, WINTERSLOW

–  SUNDAY 11^TH SEPTEMBER 2022

REFLECTION UPON THE LIFE OF HER LATE MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II

Like so many of you here this morning, I am not old enough to remember another monarch reigning in this country.  I was born a couple of months after the Coronation in 1953 not far from Sandringham, in Norfolk, close by where my maternal grandparents lived – indeed my grandfather delivered milk on the estate.  My mother was baptised in Wolferton Parish Church next to the railway station for the Sandringham Estate from which the body of the Queen’s father was taken by train to London to lie in state when he died in 1952 and it was quite common to see members of Royalty in and around the local villages. My mother until mobility problems arose would go annually to the Sandringham Flower Show and mingle with the Royals. Apparently when I was literally a babe in arms the late Queen came across on one such occasion and smiled at my mother and me.  Now all that is a distant memory but the legacy of Her Late Majesty as a Great Queen and Christian Leader will continue for all eternity.

I therefore choose to rejoice today in the sure and certain hope of resurrection, joining with the ancient praise of all God’s people in the famous words of Job 19:

I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and he will stand upon the earth at last.
And after my body has decayed,
    yet in my body I will see God!
I will see him for myself.
    Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.
    I am overwhelmed at the thought!

Job 19:25-27 (NLT)

Pause and pray

On Christmas Day 1952 the new, 26 year-old monarch of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth nations, spoke for the first time to the world in what was to become her annual Christmas broadcast:

'Pray for me,’ she asked, ‘that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve Him and you, all the days of my life.’

 

It was a prayer God answered. Elizabeth would make a series of solemn promises six months later at her coronation, which she kept faithfully for the next seventy years. The newly crowned Queen promised three things: to govern appropriately, to maintain justice, and to profess the gospel of Christ. All this she surely did until her final breath. 

Also, at her coronation the Queen was presented with a Bible as these extraordinary words rang out in Westminster Abbey, and around the world: 

‘We present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom, this is the royal law, these are the lively oracles of God.’

She was wearing a priceless golden crown adorned with 2,901 precious stones, she was sitting upon a throne in a thousand year old vaulted abbey, and yet God’s Word was recognized as ‘the most valuable thing this world affords’. Thousands of years earlier the Psalmist put it like this :

Oh, how I love your law!
   It is my meditation all day long.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
   for it is always with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
   for your decrees are my meditation.

Psalm 119: 97-99

In her Christmas broadcast of 2000, the Queen reflected on the millennium year with complete candour about the importance of her own personal faith: 

‘For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life.’

 

Almost twenty-two years after that speech, more than seventy since Elizabeth became Queen, we witness contemporary leaders failing and falling all around us at an unprecedented rate. Notions of duty, of promise-keeping, and of accountability to God can seem antiquated and even naive. But at such a time, Queen Elizabeth’s lifelong example of consistency in private faith and integrity in public service is both startling and inspiring.

Following on from his mother’s own plea for prayer in 1952 we now pray that her successor, King Charles III, will continue to uphold her strong sense of duty and purpose and especially uphold the Faith which meant so much to his dear mother.  In his accession speech yesterday he indicated that he will do just this and we, as a Christian Community in this country, must do all we can to support him in this important promise by the way we too act towards and pray for all his subjects, irrespective of race, creed or colour, just in the same way Jesus himself did so during his years of ministry on this Earth.  All that remains to be said at this time, therefore, is

GOD SAVE THE KING!

Amen                                                                                                             MFB/ 175/10092022

 

SERMON 174 - SUNDAY 28 JULY 2022

Sermon at All Saints’ Farley Parish Church, Evensong - Trinity 11 – Sunday 28 July 2022

Luke 14:7-14

Today I want to do something a little different from just talking to you about my own thoughts and reflections on the readings we have heard this evening – I want to involve you in an exercise which was used extensively by the great theologian St. Ignatius of Loyola and adopted by the society he founded – The Society of Jesus or more commonly known as “The Jesuits”.  The exercise, I dare say you know well, bears the posh erudite Latin title of lectio divina or more simply “holy reading” and we are going to use the process together to unpick our New Testament reading from Luke’s Gospel and listen to what God might be saying to each of us through the words.  I think we are the right sized group to do this.  You may say as much or as little as I you wish but, hopefully we will all go away all the wiser for our study of the passage in this way and might have heard a message from God for ourselves or someone else.

The way we do this is for me to read the passage again, and for each of you to look out for any particular word or passage which stands out for you and to make a mental note of it. This first reading is a bit like setting the table for a meal – don’t worry too much about the historical or biblical context too much – the meal is yet to be served - just let it speak to you. After that we will then read it out again, a little slower and this time think about yourself being one of the characters in the story - immerse yourself as though you are there.  What message is there for you or your character?  Perhaps you are a “lowly guest” at the wedding or somebody of standing. Perhaps you are the host.

Finally, we shall have a short discussion as to what the story means for or to you, for yourself or others, what message it contains,  and I will happily share with you my own thoughts.  Finally, we will read it one last time to see if anything else has been communicated to us through this piece of Scripture.  It’s an exercise you can do at home anytime you have a spare moment when you get out your bible and read a passage.

Here is our reading:

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’

He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’

 

 

 

Amen                                                                                           MFB/174/28082022

SERMON 173 - SUNDAY 31 JULY 2022

 

Sermon at All Saints’ Farley Parish Church, Trinity 7 – Sunday 31st July 2022

Ecclesiastes 1:2.12-14; 2:18-23; Colossians 3:1-11;  Luke 12:13-21

Today, we heard three scripture readings which individually and collectively provide us with great wisdom in a world which seems to concentrate on wealth and riches and the pursuit of money and possessions. The last gospel reading is a warning to us all – storing up great treasure on Earth in the hope of an easier life in the future is no guarantee that such a situation will occur – indeed in the example Jesus gave, the rich man was to forfeit his life before he could build the barns to store his wealth.

The Book of Ecclesiastes, from which was taken our first reading, traditionally is considered to have been written by that wisest of monarch, King Solomon, who himself, had great riches and built an opulent palace at the same time as building the temple at Jerusalem.  Believed to have been written towards the end of his life, Solomon in this book is reflecting on life and achievements in the face of eternity and concluding that much of what he (and also us) do is based upon our own ego and what we have done or achieved in tangible ways and which, in due course will pass away just as our earthly bodies will.  He recounts how much time he has taken toiling away, being busy busy busy and to what ends. All is vanity, he says.

I have to admit that there have been many occasions when, in answer to the question “How are you?” I have responded “Very busy” as if that is something to be treated as a positive but as I have grown older, just like Solomon, I have come to realise that to live a full and prosperous life you need to take time out to simply spend time with God – amongst his creation – walking in the countryside, spending time with family, enjoying seeing animals and birds, experiencing sunrises, sunsets and especially in my case enjoying the wonders of the night sky.  All these things are free to us – they do not require money or possessions, they are there for us to enjoy without cost.

In our second reading, Paul asks us to seek things that are above, not on things of the Earth. Here Paul is telling his reader of the importance of putting our trust in God through Jesus and not on those icons which we make for ourselves here on Earth.  Of course, Paul was addressing the people of Colossus in particular where there was much immorality and greed amongst the population and Paul was reminding the Christian community in that city that they should not indulge in those activities he lists – fornication, impurity, passion, evil desires and idolatry and so on but concentrate on those things which Gods wants of us.

Today, we often find, in social media, examples of all those things which Paul talks against. We tend to live in a hedonistic society in the western world where, like the rich man in Jesus’s parable, we want more and more possessions and an easy life. For many people, in recent years, life has indeed been very easy but following the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis we have suddenly been plunged into an economic crisis which we were not prepared for. 

Having money and wealth doesn’t always make us happy either.  I have told this story many times, so excuse me if you have heard it before.  One man who I have admired in my life is not someone who I met during my years in politics or the law or in the church – it is my maternal grandfather – a very simple straightforward, straight talking (when you could actually understand his broad accent) Norfolk labourer. During his 85 years of life he had been a milkman, farm labourer, sugar beet factory hand, grave-digger, coffin maker, concrete maker and during the war a member of the Home Guard looking after Italian prisoners-of-war. The furthest he ever travelled was down to Sussex to work on the Duke of Norfolk’s estate in Arundel – interestingly the duke always felt it important to offer employment to inhabitants of the county from which he took his dukedom.

A simple man of simple tastes, he lived well on his own produce and had few possessions, living in a council property in his Norfolk village.  He never had a large amount of money during his life although, when he died, we discovered that his state pension had provided him with more income than he actually needed.  For him, to be out in nature enjoying his beloved countryside, growing his vegetables and keeping his chickens was enough other than the regular pint of mild at the Compasses Inn and the odd flutter on the horses.

He always seemed happy with his life and I asked him why he was content with his simple life.  His response was that throughout all the years he had assisted the local undertaker with making coffins and digging graves he had never seen any pockets in the shrouds of their occupants.  He explained that the one thing which he had come to realise quite early on in life was that whether rich or poor, death was a great leveller and having buried both the wealthy and the poor it was all the same at the end of the day.  He could have been the author of Ecclesiastes with these words of common-sense wisdom which have stayed with me throughout my life.  

As we approach the final quartile of our lives, just like King Solomon, we find ourselves reflecting upon our past lives, opportunities taken and opportunities missed and wonder what it was all about.  It was once said that the legacy which we leave is not about what we did or achieved, what possessions we had; not even about what we said – although sometimes those quotes like my grandfather’s can have a profound effect on our lives. No none of those things are as important as how we made people feel in our presence.  I know when I talk about people who have passed away it is often about how they made me laugh, or think or feel when in their presence. 

The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us to make the most of the daylight whilst we still have it; to accomplish those tasks which we need to do but also to remember that those tasks in themselves should reflect the glory of God.  The ancient Greek bishop Saint Irenaeus wrote “The glory of God is a human being fully alive” – and that is a human being full of the spirit of God himself who reflects God’s glory in creation in the way he or she acts and behaves.  It is not about simply storing up treasures for ourselves but in sharing our Christian love and beliefs with others to make the world a better place – one free from greed, envy and selfishness.  Then we can truly say that “all is not vanity” but has purpose and provides a true and lasting legacy.

 

Amen                                                                                           MFB/173/28072022

SERMON 172 - SUNDAY 10 JULY 2022

 

Sermon at All Saints’ Farley Parish Church, Trinity 4 – Sunday 10^th July 2022

Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Colossians 1:1-14;  Luke 10:25-37

I think that the true and important teaching of Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan can easily be lost to us because of the familiarity of the story.  I am sure, like me, many of you will have heard it, and probably even play-acted it, at junior school. The word “Samaritan” has become synonymous with the concept of doing good, of being a person who comes to the aid of another in times of distress. The word is also used as the name for that most important of listening organisation which has saved the lives of so many disturbed and depressed people.

It is important to go back right to the beginning of the story.  Jesus is being questioned by a lawyer – his purpose, a bit like Prime Minister’s Question Time – is to try and catch Jesus out – to test him and God’s manifesto.  Referring back to our first reading where Moses emphasised to the Jewish people the importance of obeying God’s law in order to prosper, Jesus asks the young lawyer (who of course could be expected to know and understand the law better than many others) what the law reveals about salvation and therefore provides the answer to his question “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The young lawyer is able to parrot the answer but clearly does not entirely understand its meaning for he has to follow up with another question – “who is my neighbour” and Jesus is compelled to explain the answer not by academic legal discussion but by telling a story in the simplest of terms.

Before we go into the parable in further detail let’s look at the historical context of the story. The Samaritans were a people living between Galilee and Judaea who didn’t follow the laws and customs of the Jewish people. They were, therefore, culturally different and in the eyes of the Jewish people inferior in every way.  Accordingly they suffered dreadful discrimination at the hands of the Jews.  You will recall the Samaritan woman at the well who engaged Jesus in conversation after all the other women had already been and filled their buckets. She was ashamed to be with them and probably suffered much abuse. Having had several husbands too probably didn’t help! They were the “wrong” people, with the “wrong” traditions and “wrong” theology and treated very much as second-rate people. How often do we view others in that way?  Not members of our club or society.  It is that context which makes this parable so powerful.

So, asks the lawyer, who is my neighbour?  Jesus does not, as so often the case, give a clear unequivocal answer – for two reasons, first, he is acutely aware that the question is a lawyer’s attempt at getting him to compromise the Jewish faith and secondly, and more importantly, he wants the lawyer to work out the answer for himself and to do this he sets out the little scene so familiar to us all.

I don’t need to labour the story itself as it is so well known to us all but it does also reveal a couple of dark moments it.  In the story the poor victim, who is left injured by the side of the road, is passed-by by two individuals who should know better. We are told in clear terms that they are of the Jewish Faith – a priest and a Levite.  Both would be well versed in the law quoted by the lawyer – the priest by virtue of his learning and the Levite by virtue of his learning and service in the Temple or other holy place. Levites were a special class of Jew who assisted the priests in the Temple – a bit like LLMs I guess!

And so it is left to the third pass-by, a hated despised Samaritan to come along and give assistance to the poor victim.  The lawyer correctly responds to his own question that it is this unlikely and perceived unfriendly man who has proved to be the real neighbour of the victim – who has demonstrated proper compassion and rendered practical assistance in the circumstances and not the holy, pious clerics.

Let’s think about that for a moment – especially in the context of Jesus’s parting comments to the young lawyer – “now go and do likewise”.  How easy do we find it to go and give assistance or welcome to those who are not like us.

Our first reading this morning from Deuteronomy recalls Moses telling the Jews that they must obey the law.  As a lawyer myself I have no problem with that.  The rule of law is what should bind up any nation and prevent anarchy and disruption. The importance of Moses speech is that he is telling his people that in order to do so it is not necessary to go to any great lengths or call upon any messengers to go to heaven or across the sea. Obeying the law is by honouring God in the here and now.  By doing so and obeying his commands and teachings – and we as Christians add the teachings of Christ who proclaimed that he had not come to set aside the law but to fulfil it – we can prosper.  St. James reminded us that although we are saved through our Faith that is not sufficient alone and that we need to turn that faith into actions or deeds as he calls them.

Let me tell you a personal story – how I have come to be wearing these robes and am preaching to you this morning. I was brought up on the idea that in order to go to heaven you needed to be good and that somewhere up in heaven there is a book in which all your bad deeds are written down.  When you get to the gates of heaven the account is balanced between the good marks and the bad marks; a bit like the scales of truth and justice wielded by the ancient Egyptian god Anubis. That was simple theology and resulted in God being an entity to fear, a truly frightening concept.  Indeed, when we look at the Doom Painting in St. Thomas’s Church in Salisbury we realise that this has been the ecclesiology over many centuries.  I think many people even today are of this view and for this reason fear that becoming a Christian is a joy-killing moment they want to avoid.

In the early 2000s I first attended a Spring Harvest event in Minehead – that great Christian Gathering over a week long.  On the second or third night, in the Big Top I listened intently to a wonderful Christian speaker who explained to us that being a Christian is not about us personally climbing the stairway to heaven through our good deeds and generally being good but that our principal aim should be to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to Earth so that we can experience it in the here and now and that by doing this we are indeed good neighbours to all.

We live in a globally aware today.  Back in Jesus’s day the world was much smaller in terms of known different cultures. We integrate more and, in this country alone we have become multicultural in many regions and cities.  Never before have we had the opportunity and needed to act as Good Samaritans.  It has been heartening to see our response in our local villages to welcoming in some Ukrainian families from that dreadful conflict.  That is a prime example of being good neighbours.  It also pains me to know that there are still many who find it difficult to accept people of different creeds and cultures but we can make a difference by the way we, as Christians, show that love and respect to our neighbours.

So, in the words of Jesus at the end of the gospel passage, “go now and do likewise”.

 

 

Amen                                                                                           MFB/172/08072022

SERMON 171 - SUNDAY 12TH JUNE 2022

Sermon at West Grimstead St. John’s Parish Church, Trinity Sunday – Sunday 12^th June 2022

Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Trinity Sunday is always a difficult one for the preacher – I think this is often the reason that sermons on this day are often given to the more junior members of a ministry team and today is no exception.

Each of the readings sets up a challenge.  When I first saw the reading from Proverbs, I had just completed reading Professor Jo Dunkley’s account of the current hypothesis for the creation of the Universe with its complicated explanations of quarks, bosons, dark matter, dark energy, gravitational lensing and so on. Here, in Proverbs we are told that Wisdom was created before all else – before the creation of the Universe and all it contains! Was this the answer?  Well, no, and it certainly contradicted the scientists’ current view of how the Universe came into existence. 

The writer of Proverbs, believed to be that great monarch who was famed for his wisdom, King Solomon, is using prose and poetry to express his idea of the importance of wisdom in our daily lives. Proverbs is regarded by biblical scholars as not being one of historic or autobiographical fact but a book of wise sayings which still, in my view, provide an important tool for world today.

In our modern technological age we are obsessed with obtaining knowledge.  Every day we look at our computers and smart phones or televisions to find out what is going on and we are constantly fed with the opinions of others as they seek to persuade us of their own thoughts and ideas – this is one of the dangers of social media and the easy way in which ideas, both good and bad, can be communicated to millions. Knowledge often is no longer turned into wisdom but the new thirst is for “information” often whether true or not.  Instead of looking at original sources we are tempted to read accounts by self-publishers often without verification.  It is an easy option.  I can scarcely believe that when I was at university there were neither calculators nor computers and that my research had to rely on learned books, pens and paper. No getting the laptop out and searching Google or Wikipedia for that important law case to support my essay – I had to go to a text book and then the library to thumb through endless law reports to find the original text. How much easier, and better grades I would have received, perhaps, if I had been able to sit at my computer and churn out the essays more easily. However, it did mean that I had to use my own brain and resources to find answers to my tutor’s requirements. As an interesting experiment, I have written this sermon today without the use of my computer other than as a typewriter.

Knowledge, as opposed to simple information, is certainly useful in trying to understand what is going on in the world but it should never be confused with wisdom.  Wisdom is, essentially, the gift of knowing what to do with the knowledge obtained.  It is, in my view, a far greater gift than a massive reserve of knowledge. As the writer of Proverbs so beautifully puts it – “I was daily [God’s] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighted in the human race”.

I have been fortunate to have been brought up in a country where education is relatively good and free. I have been fortunate enough to attend good schools and universities with support from my parents and family. I was also brought up in a house of books where the pursuit of knowledge was encouraged.  My parents were not themselves professionals or academics but they had wisdom – wisdom to encourage and assist both my sister and myself to pursue better careers than themselves.

Wisdom is about knowing what the right thing to do in any given circumstance and to know that it is necessary to have sound knowledge of the circumstance first and apply it.  I sometimes feel that I know quite a lot more than I actually need for life – lots of useless facts and figures – be it football or cricket scores, steam locomotive numbers or the registration numbers of Grimsby buses – yes I do know those!  My knowledge has been useful in helping my teams win pub quizzes on occasions and people may describe me as clever, but in my opinion the cleverest people are not those with such knowledge but those who we would describe as being wise.  During times of prayer I nearly always include one for wisdom and not knowledge. Let me give you a personal example.

You will all know, I have no doubt, that in recent months I have had to undergo some intense treatment for a chronic condition and this is the reason I have had to step back to some extent with my ministry. In the months leading up to my treatment I was bombarded with facts about my condition but, ultimately, I had to make a decision based upon those same facts as to which treatment it was best to have. I prayed a lot about it – asking for wisdom to choose what was best for me.  Following that I felt able to be humble enough to ask the right questions which resulted in a clear decision being made – a decision for which I shall be eternally grateful.  I was also grateful to have the prayers and thoughts of those around me and I am convinced that they contributed, in a large measure, to the “stupendous success” as reported by my consultant on Thursday.  In my mind, wisdom is the greatest gift which God can give us but it does require us to have a certain humility and great Faith too.

Our second reading, containing one of my favourite quotes from St. Paul, encapsulates this perfectly. He says, and it is worth repeating it again here, “Since we are justified by Faith” – in other words since we, as Christians, have been saved through our firm and unshaken belief in Jesus Christ – “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand…” – here Paul’s saying that we have access to the support God can supply by his grace through sending us his son, Jesus as our Saviour – “… and we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”.  In other words, although things can get tough, yes especially for Christians it often seems, such sufferings can be the making of us and we can continue to live in hope.  This message was further illustrated in a real historic drama when Ernest Shackleton’s aptly named ship “Endurance” was trapped and crushed in the Antarctic ice and although he and his crew suffered the most ghastly of deprivations they showed the character which produced hope and a safe return for every crew member to their home country.

Finally let us leave the final word to Jesus himself. In our reading from John’s gospel Jesus tells his disciples that they will be blessed with the Holy Spirit – “the Spirit of Truth” - as he calls it. “When the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide you into the truth” promises Jesus. Here he is telling his disciples – and don’t ever forget that us Christians today are his modern day disciples that the Holy Spirit will provide the wisdom we need being what God gave to Jesus in order to save the world.

Although the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is never fully explained in the Bible these passages are especially important for us to use the wisdom we have been given to understand the concept better. Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was with God right at the beginning, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is Wisdom and John tells us that Jesus (“the Word”) was also with God at the beginning and Genesis tells us that God was at the beginning. In other words Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all three at the beginning and therefore are the Three in One Trinity.

This is the inevitable universal conclusion we must reach. Before quarks, bosons, and the like we had the Trinity; and that is what we celebrate this Sunday.

 

 

Amen                                                                                       MFB/171/10062022