I wonder whether you have heard of a place called Edinburgh.
It is a place about 50 miles away from here.
And it is a wonderful diverse, international city…for at least three weeks a year.
Now the East of Scotland and the West of Scotland are different one from another.
Amongst other things, religion is different over there to over here.
I’ve always said that if you preach the same sermon in Edinburgh and Glasgow and say something funny, in Edinburgh you have to give a warning that there’s a joke coming up by saying, “And that reminds me of a joke…” and only then do they have permission to laugh.
In Glasgow however… [everyone knows the punchline before you get there]
Anyways, those three weeks are upon us when Edinburgh is en fete. And yesterday I took myself over for the final service of the Festival of the Sacred Arts that has been running for the last few weeks. I’d missed everything else but there was a special service to round it off in a church not unknown to me, being conducted by a former vice provost also not unknown to me with good music and scattered flower petals and our Blessed Lady Mary much to the fore. And I’d decided it was right up my street.
So, I looked up the details and decided to go along.
And something hit me between the eyes when I looked up the details on the Fringe Website.
It was a warning.
Alongside every show in the Fringe programme they publish warnings in case you might be upset about something.
Different shows have different warnings.
Warning: Offensive language.
Warning: Graphic nudity from the beginning.
Warning: Not suitable for under 18s.
And Choral Evensong at the end of Festival of Sacred Music bore a clear warning next to its listing.
I wonder if you could guess what the content warning was for Choral Evensong.
It said, “Warning: Audience Participation”.
Now, I think that it is really interesting and really quite funny that you have to warn people that there might be Audience Participation at a service of Choral Evensong.
I went along and sure enough, forewarned is forearmed. We were all indeed expected to belt out the hymns.
How ridiculous I thought, to give such a warning on a website…
Warning: Audience Participation.
Warning: Audience Participation.
Some through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
Well, that’s a bit more than belting out a few hymns.
Warning: Audience Participation.
Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword.
Audience participation.
Faith has always required audience participation.
And yes, probably does demand content warnings.
The great paeon to faith from the Epistle to the Hebrews that we’ve been reading over a couple of weeks is one of the great rhetorical passages of scripture.
We come, it declares, from a heritage of faith which has made demands. Which has included audience participation of the greatest and most profound kinds.
The heritage of Christianity should carry content warnings.
And health warnings.
And life warnings.
And yet that is the paradox.
Even knowing the risks of professing faith in God publicly, people have through centuries lived out their faith through persecution and tribulation.
For they have found within their faith something worth living and dying for.
The next bit of Hebrews that we get next week declares that we have come to the City of the Living God.
Let me give you a content warning.
To approach that City and to draw close to that Living God is to risk profound change.
The Christian faith neither promises that everything will be nice, nor that everything will be easy nor that everything in your life will be unchanged if you take it seriously.
Just the opposite.
Jesus is laying it on thick in the gospel today. He knew that people living out his message would cause division and not bring immediate unity.
And he speaks realistically about how that can feel within communities and families where faith is not shared.
What Christianity offers is change. Change for every one of us who takes it seriously. Change to the world around us. For yes, we hope to see a world transformed and transfigured and born anew.
We believe in ethical living acknowledging our that we are creatures made in the image of a loving God. And we believe in a Saviour, who taught us to try to be so kind, so peace-loving and so good that it would enrage a world that is hell bent on a quite different set of values and ethics. And we believe that God’s spirit inspires us to seek ever new ways of proclaiming the kingdom of justice and joy and our beloved saviour announced to the world.
And yes, we are a people who want others to join in. For this way of living we have found is good for us and good for the world around us.
If you are trying to put this altogether, and trying to work out what living as one of God’s friends is all about, then come and talk. And remember, we’re going to be running a Christian basics course sometime between now and Christmas where it will be possible to explore the extraordinary claims that the Christian faith makes.
Perhaps you are trying to work out for yourself a way of living the Christian faith.
Well, here’s a content warning for you. Audience participation isn’t optional. It is a requirement of being one of God’s beloved.
And the kinds of things that Christians have encouraged one another in since our Lord himself walked the earth don’t change much through the centuries.
Learning to worship together and catching a glimpse together of a God who lurks in this world longing to love us more.
Learning to pray together and learning to pray alone.
Learning to read scripture with all our God given gifts of intellect and holy common sense.
Learning to be generous and to recognise that time and money are gifts we have been given that are enriched and not diminished when we in turn give them away.
Learning to light candles in the darkness. And to see a scattered flower petal as being one square inch of this world where the whole of God’s glory shines.
Learning to be holy. Learning to love. Learning to be still. Learning to see that the world will only make sense when tyrants and megalomaniacs are toppled over and the lowly lifted up.
This is the way of life that Jesus invites us to participate in.
It is not without cost and it is not simply for spectators. It is certainly not for those who never want to join in.
And we who are Christians believe it is worth heaven and earth.
For Jesus in his love and compassion simply says this: “Who is with me in this journey? Who will walk in my way?”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
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