(a sermon i preached at Kingston 31st ) Thank you Geoff for your kind invitation to come and preach today.
31st – is Reformation Day! this is the day when we celebrate Luther in 1517 nailing his theses to the Church Door – if you have a thesis of your own please don’t nail it to the church door unless you have a faculty.
Luther shook the church’s understanding of salvation moving it back to Grace and our understanding of God from scary and judgemental to remembering that God is love, and grace. And that shock has been reverberating through Christendom, through the world since then, – not especially a new way of seeing God and salvation – in fact a very old way – but getting our focus back on track.
And Luther re shaped how we see our lives as entirely called by God. It’s not just the priest and monk who are called but all of us, you can be a beer brewer, a baker, and find God in the midst of that calling. We still struggle with this idea- vicars, nurses and teachers they have a vocation but the rest of you don’t – and Luther said ‘No, we all have a vocation and if yours is to make money then that’s great. But then you need to hear the call of God to use that money for good’.
So hurrah for Luther. He was part of God’s plan to shake up and renew the Church. Lots liked it, lots did not like it. We’re not good with change, but here in scripture is the promise of God to make all things New, so we’d better come to terms with that promise of God.
Today’s sermon is Be the Saint that God is calling you to be. Be the Saint that you are.
St Paul starts so many of his letters to the Saints in this place, to the saints in that place – and if I were to write you a letter – to the Saints in Kingston, Rodmell, Iford & Southease , I expect you would say – “I wonder who he thinks he’s writing to, I’m no saint!”
But neither was Luther. He had a drink problem but we could probably dismiss this on account of his illnesses. He was, in the end anti–semitic – he said some rather nasty things about the Jews in his later carer, he was very disappointed that they didn’t hear his message of goodnews and grace and jump on his bandwagon of salvation – I think to a large extent the Jews must have heard his message of grace and thought to themselves, ‘Yes we know about the God of grace very well thank you!’
So Luther was no saint in that strong sense, and yet God used him – so I say Yes he was a saint, and so are you, so Be the Saint that God is calling you to be.
And it starts with wondering what it is that you See.
St John saw the Holy City – the image is ridiculous – it’s there hovering in the skies coming down to land and its wearing a really big wedding dress – so as cartoon imagery goes – try and imagine those cartoons from the Sunday Papers that might show the Russian bear wrestling with the Asian tiger, while uncle Sam looks on and a wheel of blueish golden stars spins around – and immediately you see it and understand it.
Here we see the promise that runs through the bible – ‘they will be my people and I will be their God’ – and here is the fulfilment of it, God dwelling with humanity – in a way that we catch a glimpse of in Christmas, in a way that we see more of from Pentecost onwards but in a way that we continue to long for – Our Father, Your kingdom come, your will be done – this is our prayer – and John sees this prayer being answered!
What do you see? When you look at the Church? Or when you look at your fellow saints? St John sees a bride getting herself ready, sees the turbulence of change as proof that God has not forgotten us but that all things will be made new.
St John sees the hand of God.
If we are to be the Saints that God is calling us to be then we need to pray for the eyes to see each other the way that God sees us, for us to see the Church the way that John saw it.
If we can see like this then that will help us in simple ways – in our pastoral care for each other, phoning each other up, especially those who are not quite ready to come out to Church, keeping them in the loop of what’s going on, keeping them feeling that they’re part of the Church family.
Because You, each of you, you are the Church. Geoff isn’t the Church. You are the Church.
A few years back, someone phoned me up to have a go at me and said You (me) you’re the problem with the Diocese, you’re the Diocese, not me, and you’re the problem!
And I thought ‘Yippee I’ve made it! I’m now on a par with the Diocese!’
Indeed I may be the problem, but alas we all are, for we are all the Diocese, and alas all that he could see was the problem, he couldn’t see the Bride, he couldn’t see each of us as saints. He was smug in his own self-righteousness, but alas he could not see the body, the bride of Christ.
So a little while back Bishop Martin in a rash moment made me Rural Dean. You’ll know all about that from Geoff being RD some years ago. I describe RD as being sort of Shop Floor steward for the vicars in this deanery.
So what do I see? I see the mourning and the crying and the pain and the tears – these last few years have taken their toll – on the faithful saints who have gone before us- and our limited ability to be able to mourn them properly – and on ourselves in our ability to see where God is at work, on life and society being so topsy turvy –
good Christians remaining cautiously at home,
folk who have found that actually being part of a worshipping community isn’t that big a deal,
some have not missed coming to church, and I struggle with that – and it makes me wonder about our faith and our hope and how we re-fuel in a time of panic.
And I see our finances struggling, all that we saved for a rainy day, well it’s raining now.
What do I see? What does Jesus see? “And Jesus saw her weeping”. He comes, at last, to the grave of Lazarus his friend, but delayed, even deliberately delayed, and now he too sees his friend Mary weeping, and Martha grieving, and Jesus is moved. And we have that beautiful moment – Jesus wept.
And we hear that anger – Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.
And from the crowd- Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying.
It’s not a lack of faith, its an anger caused by the faith – we have faith, and hope – but our hope struggles, and we have love but our love tires, and so here’s this moment where faith turns to anger at Jesus.
Lord if you had been here …
I wonder if last night or tonight you might get some trick or treaters. Don’t blame the pagans for this festival, it was never like this, even in the heydays of the Roman empire, if you must I suppose blame the Americans.
There are two approaches for Christians – one is to dislike it – I don’t care for the glib attitude to death and hell, I don’t like the acceptability of people, young people, accepting sweets from strangers, knocking on the doors sometimes of elderly and vulnerable.
But there is another way of seeing this, to see that we, Christians, celebrate All Saints and All Souls because we Christians are not afraid of death, it does not have the last word, death has lost its sting.
And when we remember that, then perhaps we can remember our Hope, our calling.
Jesus calls for Lazarus to come out.
And he shuffles out. Here’s an astonishing moment and if you have eyes to see it you’ll see
not merely the restoration of Lazarus but
you’ll see that death has lost its sting,
you’ll see that Jesus has not forgotten you,
and we’ll remember that Jesus has conquered death.
Halloween is not a scary moment, it’s a moment to celebrate.
What do you see?
So the prayer to be praying is Lord help me to be the saint you’re calling me to be, to be the Saint you see in me, to
see the way that you see. Help me to see hope and faith, help me to see in the chaos of the change – that you are making all things new.
Help me to see our churches, our congregations, those who are here, those who are haven’t been here for some time as well as those whom we have loved but see no longer
help us Lord to see each of us as Saints, as your church, as your bride.
Help me Lord to see the way you see.
Amen.