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27th
January 2013 - Morning - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs |
Sermon
for Morning Service - Epiphany 4
Nehemiah 8.1-3,5-6,8-10
Luke 4.14-21
 Let's take a little
straw poll. How many people here today like books and reading?
What is your favourite type / genre?
Who here has bought a book in the past week?
How many of you possess an electronic reader of some kind? Kindle,
or I-pad or something similar?
Those who bought books, was it electronic or in physical format
; paper and print?
I confess I asked those questions because I took a decision to
try in future to use my I-pad for my sermons, rather than printing
them out on paper. I am still finding the ways in which I can
transfer work between the i-pad and the desk-top computer so
we will see how I get on!
But also because I have a deep love of books (as anyone who has
ever been in my house or worse still, had to help me pack to
move house!) . It is an occupational hazard for most clergy.
We are addicted to words and the printed page ... and when we
were thinking about the subject of Temptation at the Fellowship
group this week, it occurred to me that book buying is probably
one of my greatest temptations.... We used to joke at Theological
College in Cambridge that we did not discover book buying as
a competitive sport until we arrived there! And note I said book
buying, not reading. The two are related of course, but I would
be lying if I said that I had read every book on my shelves or
stacked up beside my bed ... where books are concerned, I really
do have eyes that are bigger than my ability to consume! If I
never bought another volume, it would probably take me the best
part of several years to finish reading all the unread, but terribly
interesting books in my possession....
And I have very wide reading tastes. They are not all theology
or religiously inspired! Although I am pleased to say that I
have not succumbed to buying 50 Shades of Grey! (Don't worry,
I am not expecting those of you who have to confess to it in
public) But there are plenty of other novels of dubious literary
merit in my collection.
But what of the future? Will we still have bookshops on our high
streets to explore? Will we still have high streets for that
matter? Or will we see all the Waterstones, and Smiths and other
book stores succumb to the same fate as HMV and Jessops?
Some of you will know that I often spend my rest days in Much
Wenlock. I cannot speak highly enough of the two independent
bookshops that are in that little town. One is full of second-hand
books, and the other is one of the best independent book retailers
that you could wish to find in the country. But enough of the
advertisement!
Those who follow one of the three great Abrahamic faiths; Jews,
Christians or Muslims are known as People of the Book. And whether
it is the Torah, the Bible or the Koran, we hold our Scriptures
very dear. In our readings this morning you can begin to understand
why.
Mind you, our own relationship with our Holy Scriptures, the
Bible is perhaps more ambivalent than the orthodox adherents
of either Judaism or Islam. Indeed the Roman Catholic Church
has argued that Christians should rather be known as People of
the Word of God, rather than of the Book - because we follow
the person as well as the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who
we believe to be the Word of God incarnate; God's own Son. And
Christian tradition has always emphasised that our relationship
with Holy Scripture is dynamic, not static. We have the duty
to engage with the Bible and to interpret it afresh to each new
generation ... which is one reason why almost any bible passage
can be read in several different ways and hold finely nuanced
meanings for different people. Confusing sometimes, I grant you,
but never boring!
But we read from the Bible at every single formal act of public
or indeed private worship. We believe it to have been divinely
inspired and we offer it back to God and to each other in our
worship.
Jesus would not have known the sort of books that are now so
familiar to us today. There was no mechanical form of printing
then, and books were usually encountered in worship in the form
of scrolls; long strips of parchment or vellum or papyrus, hand-written
and precious, wound around wooden rollers. But it was the right
of any adult Jewish male to offer to read from the scrolls of
the Torah, and then for the congregation in the Synagogue to
listen while he, or the rabbi offered some teaching and interpretation
of the passage of scripture read out. I doubt this was the first
time that Jesus had read in public, but it was almost certainly
the first time that his words, his interpretation, had been so
electrifying. We know that Jesus comes to this moment quite soon
after his baptism - as it has sometimes been put "still
streaming with the power of the Holy Spirit". And now, having
read out a passage from Isaiah, that would have been very familiar
and comforting to his congregation, he sets the cat among the
pigeons by saying - today, in this place, these words are fulfilled
- they are about me!
No wonder he caused chaos and confusion. But books - words -
both of God and otherwise, have great power to affect the human
mind. Truly we are people of the Book, but let us strive also
to truly be people of the way, the truth and the light that is
represented for us not just in dry and dusty words printed on
the page, or flashing across our screens, but in the living breathing
person of Jesus Christ, especially as we come now to be united
with him in the bread and wine of communion.
Amen. |
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27th
January 2013 - Evening - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs |
Sermon
for Evening Service - Epiphany 4
Numbers 9.15-23
1 Corinthians 7.17-24
You may recall that when I was much, much younger
and had just left university for the first time, I went to work
for an organisation called GCHQ in Cheltenham. Its purposes and
even its existence were shrouded in secrecy - for all that it
was the largest employer in that town at the time. It is hard
to remember - now that we have freedom of information legislation
and that there have been so many exposés of our Secret
Services, but in that former (more innocent?) time we were not
even supposed to admit that was where we worked.
Of course that did not stop a lot of speculation in the town
as to exactly what went on "in that place on the hill".
One popular theory that I heard more than once in the cafes and
pubs concerned the tall chimney behind the building in which
I worked. On some days the smoke issuing forth appeared black
and sooty. On others it was whiter. "Oh well", the
locals would say, "when you see the blaack smoke, thaat's
when they're burning the Russian spies innit?" (apologies
for the Gloucestershire accent!)
Thankfully the truth was much more mundane - as indeed was much
of the work that went on in that place. But I guess it was not
so surprising, coming just 30 or so years after WWII and the
horror that everyone who lived through that conflict felt when
the truth of the concentration camps was uncovered. This Sunday
is Holocaust Memorial Sunday, and it is in the light of that,
that to read of the children of Israel following a 'pillar of
fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, takes on a new and
somewhat sinister nuance.
Of course it was not just the Jews who suffered at the hands
of that perversion of humanity that was the Nazi ideology. Gypsies,
homosexuals, the disabled, both physical and mental, all were
condemned to death on an industrial scale in the ovens of the
extermination camps. And they died in their thousands and millions.
Unimaginable horror. But the Jews certainly bore the brunt of
that persecution, and - while many are unhappy at the actions
of the state of Israel against its Palestinian neighbours, we
do well to remember and to hang our heads in shame that human
beings could ever have perpetrated such inhumanity on men, women
and children as during those years of the Holocaust.
"Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned;
to which God has called you."
It is hard to think that God had any hand in assigning the life
that was lived in the death camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen
Belsen and the rest. Surely God could not have called any of
his children to that fate - far less the nation with whom he
had enjoyed such a long and special relationship as the Jews.
For many, of course, that experience was so terrible that it
destroyed their faith forever. For how could a loving and omniscient
God permit such suffering, such depravity?
Others, however, found that their faith was the only defence
they had against the horror through which they were living and
dying. And many survivors owed their lives to the actions of
men and women of goodwill and faith, who were prepared to take
great risks with their own personal safety to conceal and rescue
those who the authorities told them were less than human.
Paul, writing to the young church in Corinth, was concerned with
new Christians who were in danger of being distracted and deflected
away from the true path by all sorts of internal disputes and
quarrels. So not so very different from the Church of England
today!
Paul was thoroughly convinced that the second coming was immanent
of course. He expected the second coming of Jesus Christ to happen
at any moment ... and so the day-to-day preoccupations of people
who were trying to decide whether it was a good thing or not
to get married, raise children - live life, often seemed insignificant
to him, when what was at stake was people's immortal souls! Hence
his advice to put up with the condition of life into which you
found yourself called, since this must be what God had intended
for you. So if married, stay married; if single, stay single;
if a slave, remain a slave.
Understandable in Paul's context and with his world view perhaps,
but can we honestly say that this holds true for us today? Or
rather, are we to strive to live lives according to God's values?
The values of the kingdom of heaven, where justice and mercy
rule and all are forgiven?
We are reminded that the children of Israel set off across the
desert leading them to the promised land with no clear idea of
where they were going - or of what their final destination would
look like. They were simply to follow God's lead - a lead that
was expressed through smoke and fire and which would wander around
- sometimes resting for days or months in one place, before they
were taken on again. I can only think this was because they needed
time. Time to rest with God, to learn his ways, to make mistakes
and be brought back to the true path. Time to be prepared for
their new life in the promised land.
I have come to believe that God is continually leading his people
on a journey during which he interacts with them in many different
ways. He leads them with many signals. They make - we make -
so many false turns and mistakes along the way. Yet thank God,
he keeps calling us, leading us, showing us signs and indications
of the path to choose. A path leading ever closer to his kingdom,
his reality, his love, his heart.
"Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned;
to which God has called you." |
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