Sermon
delivered at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead, Wiltshire – Sunday 13th September 2015
Isaiah 50:4-9a; James
3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38 (end)
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
As a child, one of my
favourite films of all time, and it remains so, was Fred Zinnemann’s “A Man for all Seasons” based on Robert
Bolt’s play of the same name. It told the biographical story of Sir Thomas
More’s last six years of his life – first at the court of King Henry VIII and
later in the Tower of London. It
contained a star-studded cast of that time with Paul Schofield playing More
alongside Robert Shaw (of later “Jaws”
fame), Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey),
Nigel Davenport, Susannah York, Wendy Hillier, a very young John Hurt, and
Orson Welles as a slightly American-sounding Wolsey!
Sir Thomas More, as Lord
Chancellor of England, and now the Roman Catholic patron saint of lawyers, is
portrayed as a man putting his faith first and foremost and hoping that by
remaining silent, he can avoid the necessity of swearing an oath of supremacy
to Henry VIII as Head of the Church in England and thus putting his soul in
danger by denying the supremacy of the Vicar of Christ, The Pope. His silence confounds those who would seek to
make him either swear the oath or else trap him into confirming by speech or
writing the true reason for his refusal to do so. As More says “When he learned his trade at the Bar it was a golden rule that an accused’s
silence could not be taken as an admission of guilt”. He is held in the
Tower for a whole year “a man for all seasons” because he refuses to break his
silence on why he will not swear the oath.
A young man, previously an
untrustworthy but sycophantic acolyte of More’s, Richard Rich, is summoned to
remove More’s books from his cell, which he has brought into the Tower of
London with him. During the course of
their removal Rich engages More in conversation which he then twists and
reports back to the authorities that More has denied the King’s competence to
make himself Head of the Church. More who has remained silent all this time is
then confronted with Rich’s evidence at his trial in Westminster Hall and
points out that Rich must be committing perjury as why would he have remained
silent all this time just to make a very condemning statement to an acolyte he
has never trusted?
The evidence is just what
the court requires to commit More to the scaffold for treason and More becomes
resigned to his fate. Just as Rich is
returning to his seat after giving his perjured evidence, More notices that he
is wearing a chain of office. Enquiring of Rich what he is wearing he is told
by Thomas Cromwell that Richard Rich has been appointed Attorney General for
Wales. At which point More, looks Rich straight in the eyes and quotes from
that part of St. Mark’s gospel which we heard this morning :
For what will it profit [a man] to gain the whole world
and forfeit his [soul]? But for Wales??
In other words, by his perjury,
by the untruthful words given under oath at the trial, Rich has forfeited his
soul. Jesus talks about such forfeiture
in the context of gaining everything (“the whole world”) whereas More is
emphasising that Rich has put his soul in jeopardy for something far less – a
position within the Principality of Wales.
From this extract we learn
the message which all three of our readings give us this morning. The tongue is such a powerful organ of the
human body. It may be small but through it
we can make a huge difference in the way we live our lives and affect
others.
The apostle James is
particularly careful to warn his readers of the importance of keeping the
tongue tamed – especially for those who use speech and words for a living. As James puts it :
“Not many of you should become
teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with
greater strictness. For
all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect,
able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths
of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they
are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a
very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small
member, yet it boasts of great exploits.With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.”
Richard Rich was, at the wag of his tongue, able to send Thomas More to the axeman’s scaffold and today, I have been disappointed at some of the misinformation and xenophobia which has been stirred up against those who would help those caught up in the refugee crisis affecting Europe. Yet some of our modern day media, whose livelihood is bound up with using words, have sought, I believe, to put a popular spin on things for their own political agendas and in many cases whipped up this xenophobia.
This morning we have been using our tongues to praise God in the worship hymns and praises we have been using. To give him thanks for the goodness which has been bestowed upon us, to ask humbly for forgiveness in the words of the confession and, later, to send him prayers of supplication through our intercessions. As Christians it is our duty to do all those things and to encourage others to do likewise.
But it is also important that in our
everyday lives we use our tongues wisely for, as James says :
“No one
can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. Does a spring pour forth from
the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt
water yield fresh.”
In other words, it is a matter for us
as individuals to tame our own tongues – just as we as humans tame other
animals. If we truly do that, and attend to it, thinking first of the
implications of our words for others, and in using our tongues here in this
church to be a blessing to God and the people around us, as we now are, then
the same goodness should emanate when we are outside of this holy environment. Our tongues should be used only to praise,
encourage and be a blessing to all around us and not a curse otherwise we do
not bear the true fruits of the Holy Spirit which should be inside each and every
one of us a Christians. It is not
easy. Today’s world seems to thrive on
the dark side of life. It is so often much more easy to moan, complain,
criticise, gossip and tell stories which are against others than to praise
encourage and promote. I know, I struggle sometimes myself in situations where
I feel that I have been badly let down or treated poorly. But even then, we can
point out the errors of others in ways which don’t upset or demean.
I wonder what James would have said in
his Epistle if Facebook and other
Social Media had been around in his day?
I am sure his message would have been pretty much the same - only
perhaps even stronger. I have to admit to being a regular user of Facebook myself – hopefully for the
greater glory of God but at least in the hope of encouraging others. Yet, it pains me often to see it used for
what James would have called evil intent :
“How
great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And
the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of
iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
I think that should be on everybody’s
Facebook page to remind the poster of the responsibility he or she has not to
promote or upset others by the remarks and opinions they may post.
It is a sad fact that many people
under the banner of being Christians have disgraced Jesus’s and James’s
teaching by the way they have openly spoken on social media sites and
elsewhere. The actions of the Westboro
Baptist Church in the USA immediately comes to mind. I know that is an extreme
example but we can also easily upset the people around us by the way we speak
to them and I, regrettably, know of quite a few cases where people have been
turned off by or turned away from church by a few unfortunate words spoken from
existing members. I hasten to add none from here. As Archbishop William Temple so famously put
:
The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members”
We therefore, as Christians, have a
duty to show to the world that we stand for the truth and should tame our
tongues to use them only for the greater glory of God in the way we speak and
write. We started this morning, with
saying the Peace together, in a moment we will affirm our Faith in the words of
the Creed and later on we shall all stand again to say the Grace. We speak those words as a positive
declaration of our faith – our belief in Jesus Christ and his teachings and we
speak such beautiful words with our tongues.
Let us not be like Richard Rich,
prepared to perjure ourselves by distorting or denying the truth of our Faith
to others or saying or implying bad things about others or upsetting others
even if it does gain us some profit for a time.
Let us go out this week determined to use those same tongues, which we
are using this morning here in church, in our everyday lives to praise and encourage
others and in so doing show to the whole world the grace and love which marks
us as Christian brothers and sisters.
Amen
MFB/64
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