Sermon
delivered at St. Mary’s Church, West Dean – Sunday 28th June 2015
Lamentations 3:23-33; Psalm 30;
2 Corinthians 8:7-24; Mark 5:21-43.
May
I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be a
blessing to all who hear them. Amen
“Down this road, on a summer
day in 1944. . . The soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a
few hours. When they had gone, the community which had lived for a thousand
years. . . was dead.”
Does anyone know where that quote comes from? Here is a clue, it was famously narrated by
Sir. Laurence Olivier in the early 1970s.
Here is the rest of the quote:-
“This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in
France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men
were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road
. . . and they were driven. . . into this church. Here, they heard the firing
as their men were shot. Then. . . they were killed too….”
It is the opening and closing sequences of that epic
series, The World at War, which continues to be shown on the satellite channels
and is an enduring memorial, as is the village of Oradour itself, to the
sufferings, deprivations and sheer evil perpetrated during the Second World
War, the end of the European part of which we have recently been celebrating 70
years on.
A week ago I had the opportunity to visit Oradour
whilst on holiday in France. The old
village (really a small town like Stockbridge) has been preserved just as it
was left by the Nazi German forces which carried out its destruction. After
shooting 642 men, women and children in a few hours on 10th June
1944 and looting the deserted houses, they systematically set fire to every
building in the small town and burned the bodies of those they shot – many of
whom were still alive.
In 2012 I revisited Auschwitz-Birkenau another great
memorial to Nazi atrocities and suffering – the place reeked of death and
destruction and evil – even nearly 70 years later – for it was a place designed
and constructed for death.
However, despite the terrible events of 10th
June 1944, and the suffering and evil committed in and to that French community
near Limoges, Oradour did not have that same feeling of sheer evil which
pervades the site of the great death camp in Poland. Admittedly what happened at Birkenau was on
the scale of millions, rather than hundreds, but Oradour had been a town built
for life, not death, and despite its destruction many symbols of normal and
happy life are still to be seen – cars, bicycles, children’s bicycles, buggies
and toys, sewing machines, pots and pans, even the butcher’s scales upon which
he would have weighed out his last sausages that fateful Saturday morning
before the Germans arrived. The small
town has a feeling of defiance of good over evil and this is highlighted by the
building of the new town of Oradour immediately to the north of the destroyed
and preserved old one. In that new town
is a beautiful new church of similar design inside to Coventry Cathedral, that
other great symbol of rebirth or resurrection. Oradour may be preserved to
remember the evil of that dreadful day, and rightly so, but to me it also
emphasised what all us Christians believe – suffering will ultimately lead to
resurrection and eternal life – just as our Saviour died on the Cross and was
raised up three days later.
Each of today’s readings, and Psalm 30, which is the
alternative text to our first scripture reading this morning, talks about this
topic. In Lamentations, we hear some
comforting words for us in time of great trial and suffering, when God may seem
to have deserted us, we are reminded that we must stick with him and bide our
time:
“It is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord … to give one’s cheek to the smiter and be filled
with insults;
For the Lord will not reject
forever; although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of
his steadfast love;
For he does not willingly
afflict or grieve anyone”
In other words, being followers of the Faith does
not necessarily bring about a total lack of grief or suffering, indeed, as
Christian we can often more readily expect it as our brothers and sister are
enduring it now in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The writer of Lamentations
is telling us it is good to wait upon the Lord, to show our faith and belief in
his salvation - for those things which trouble and afflict us will turn around
on God’s compassion for us.
In Psalm 30, which we did not have read today, we
hear from the psalmist of his lamentation at the way he has been treated by his
enemies, but this becomes a song of praise for his redemption at the hands of
the Lord. He has been “brought up from
the dead” (Verse 3) and gives
thanks to God “For his wrath endures the
twinkling of an eye but his favour endures for a lifetime. Heaviness may endure
for a night but joy comes in the morning” (Verse 5). What a beautiful line and I’ll say it
again - “For his wrath endures the
twinkling of an eye but his favour endures for a lifetime. Heaviness may endure
for a night but joy comes in the morning. How encouraging is that? And
later on the psalmist writes “You have
turned my mourning into dancing” (Verse
11).
On the west wall of the new church in the new town
of Oradour-sur-Glane is a magnificent
mural of St. Martin on his horse, cutting his cloak to give a part to the naked
beggar before him and it reminded me of the passage which we had read this
morning from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. St. Martin, when confronted by the beggar
showed to him that compassion which is spoken of in Lamentations – “According to the abundance of his steadfast
love” (Verse 32). St. Martin could
have given the whole of his cloak to the beggar but did not. He took his sword and cut off a portion of it
just sufficient for the beggar’s needs without detriment to his own personal
safety and comfort. Likewise, I firmly
believe that God will often test us, as Paul is testing the church in Corinth,
by giving to God and to our fellow creatures sufficient for their needs in a sacrificial
but not a self-destroying way. God
frequently tests us, tests our fidelity and commitment and will provide trials
but also opportunities to demonstrate our utmost faith in him.
In our gospel reading, we heard the two very
well-known accounts of the bleeding (and by the custom of day “unclean”) woman
and the dead girl of Jairus. Both of these instances involve people who
believed that they were in a terrible and terminal situation – the women had
been afflicted, we read, for twelve years and couldn’t be cured despite the
administrations of several doctors, and as for Jairus’s daughter, Jesus had
been delayed by the sick woman and it appeared all too late for him to cure
her. Here we learn three lessons about Jesus and God’s good grace – first of all, as
with the sick woman we can act audaciously and connect with him outright for
his forgiveness, healing or any other supplication – the woman simply touched
him; secondly, He is never too busy for us (and we should never be too busy for
him – Jesus was rushing off on an errand of mercy to heal Jairus’s daughter but
he had time to stop and talk to the sick woman and heal her; and thirdly it is
never too late for God to deal with our own sufferings and we should realise
that he works to a different time scale to us – Jairus and his wife thought it
was too late to heal their daughter, she was dead – but we are never too late
to be redeemed. Jesus worked to his time scale not theirs and resurrected her.
Whether our supplications are personal, for others
or for our church, these rules apply. God will stop and listen to us, however
busy he might be, he will act and redeem us but at times which are more
suitable to him and us, knowing our needs better than we do ourselves. Things may look hopeless, evil may be around
us, we may feel persecuted or unable to cope, but by prayer and faith he will
overcome for us all our difficulties. Faith is the key and that Faith will be
tested from time to time.
At the moment you may feel that the Christian
community here in West Dean is struggling – and yes maybe it is – but in time,
and in God’s time, and by Faith – our Faith, those struggles will turn to
joy. Things may be very different to how
we have them now, and we are currently praying for a new minister here, but God
wants us to thrive – in the words of Jeremiah
29:11
“For I know what plans I have
for you, to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a
future”.
At the beginning of this sermon I quoted the words
spoken by Sir Laurence Olivier at the beginning of “The World at War” and which are repeated at the end of the very
last episode:
“Down this road the soldiers
came….”
It echoes
the words of John 18:12 in the Garden of Gethsemane:
“Then a detachment of soldiers with its Commander
and the Jewish officials came…”
This, of
course, would lead to the cruel death of Jesus on the Cross but with it the
Glorious Resurrection.
Amen
MFB/59
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