In the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I was at a clergy conference some years ago down in England. At the end of the evening meal one evening, someone suddenly said, “what is the most stupid prayer you ever heard”.
And I have to say that there then followed a very funny half hour as the various clergy from all different kinds of churches put their bids in for the most stupid prayer that they had ever heard.
The winner was – “And Lord, we pray for Beirut… which is in the Lebanon”
And perhaps inevitably, and perhaps more uncomfortably for clergy, the evening went on to a further discussion when someone asked – what is the most stupid sermon you ever heard?
I wonder how you would answer.
I can think of a number of contenders. Very high on my list is a sermon that I heard whilst on holiday some years ago when the preacher began with the words, “In this sermon, I want to explore the question of whether there is resurrection on the moon”.
It didn’t get better than that. The preacher argued amongst himself about whether or not there was resurrection on the moon. And then ended with the words, “…there is of course so much to say that it is impossible to answer this in one sermon, so think of this as part 1. I’ll come back with a definitive answer next week. Amen”.
I never heard the second sermon.
I still don’t know the answer.
I still don’t know whether there will be resurrection on the moon.
And I never really knew what that question meant in the first place.
Which maybe brings us to the Sadducees and the story they brought to Jesus.
Now, one of the extraordinary things about Jesus is the stories that he told.
In just a few lines of text, he left behind him stories which still have resonance with the world today. Some stories which seem perplexing, many which are enlightening. The parables. The prodigal child. The good Samaritan.
They are phenomenal stories which still have the capacity to stop us in our tracks.
And a lot of the gospel readings that we get in church are Jesus telling a story and sometimes we get to hear of those around him talking about the story.
In this Sunday’s story, that dynamic is turned on its head.
Other people tell Jesus a story and ask him to interpret it.
The Sadducees spun him a yarn and asked him to interpret it as a bit of a test.
I’m not sure that we know that much about the Sadducees other than that they were a religious group that didn’t accept that resurrection happened. And in telling their story they are setting Jesus a test. Was he one of them or one of their enemies?
There was this woman who married her man and then he died before they’d had children.
So his brother married her. And he died.
And the next brother married her. And he died.
And his brother married her. And he died.
And the next brother married her. And he died.
And his brother married her. And he died.
And the last brother married her. And he died.
And then she died.
Presumably exhausted.
Whose wife will she be in the resurrection they say.
(They were being sarcastic remember – they didn’t believe in the resurrection anyway).
How would you answer them.
You might have something to say about this woman being treated as the property of a bunch of men.
Patriarchy is strong in this one!
I think if I’d been Jesus I’d have been tempted to roll my eyes and just say, “Well they are all deid anyway. What does it matter.”
And in a way, he does kind of say that. But he does affirm that he believes in a resurrection – but seems pretty clear that his view was that human ordinances are for our earthly existence. And that our being with God will so dominate our heavenly existence that such questions simply die away.
It is a bit like asking whether there is resurrection on the moon.
The idea of resurrection isn’t about sorting out who is whose husband. We have this life to do that – if that is what we are looking for. Some of us doing rather better at it than others.
It is the case that now as then, there are religious people who manage to worship together who have different views about what will happen when we die.
Right at the focal point of this building is a piece of art which clearly addresses what some people were feeling. The reredos behind the High Altar is our Second World War memorial. And the painting on it puts three women at the tomb looking for a body and an angel with rainbow wings is very clearly saying – he is not here he is risen.
It isn’t difficult to see why those who had experienced war at first hand and who were themselves mourning those who never came back wanted to place such an image centre stage in a church such as this one.
They had been to hell and back.
An experience that is not confined to war.
The reading from the second letter to the Thessalonians that we have this morning is the first of several that we get as we approach the end of the church year in a couple of weeks time.
The world for the author of 2 Thessalonians is falling apart. Lawlessness is rife and deception is all around. If feels as though the end times are just around the corner.
I’ve often thought that this world view felt far away. But not so much at the moment.
The author tells their audience to continue to give thanks, stand firm to the traditions they have learned and feel the real comfort of God’s love and grace.
That comfort is not described as being transitory, nor even long lasting. It is described as being eternal.
As all seems to be falling apart the author says, the God who loves us gives us grace and good hope.
Not a stupid sermon.
The only sermon worth hearing.
Grace. Love. Hope.
For ever.
66 responses to “Sermon Preached on 9 October 2011”
-
Now, I think we are in danger of moving away from commenting on the sermon that was posted above.
Further comments that are focused on that sermon are welcome. I think that I will exercise my perogative and choose not to host any further debates on this thread unless they pertain directly to the orginal post.
Several comments from those of differing opinions have been gently hushed.
-
I remember hearing you preach this sermon, Kelvin, and being surprised at your take on it. Mine, I now realise (thanks for the research, Rosemary), came from Augustine (via my RC school chaplain, now happily married, whose constant theme was the love of God for us). It’s difficult to revise views learned while young as the evidence we accepted as children is not always acceptable to our adult minds – if we chose to review it. So I sympathise both with my coreligionist and with our Cromwellian interlocutor, despite their abrasive tone and the fun we can have with bowels and prostrates: they appear both to speak the truth as they see it. But so does everyone else commenting – and some (like Jaye) read the Hebrew scriptures in the original. I like the interpretation put forward by Kenny and Agatha and just because it was a convenient one for Augustine doesn’t mean it has to lack truth. So I turned to the Greek for backup and the first word that struck me was Ἀρίστων (ariston) which has connotations of excellence and survives in ‘aristocrat’. This king calls his ‘banquet’ (Jerusalem Bible) literally ‘my excellence’ – and he’s obviously gone all out. So none of the big wigs turn up and he goes all inclusive and gets the good and the bad in. Then throws a hissy fit about the dress code. He sounds A LOT like me when I’m directing. Then I noticed there’s a lot of play on IN and OUT (even ‘crossroads’ is διεξόδους – diexodous – way out ways?) and the final words are a pun on κλητοί (kletoi – named/ invited) and ἐκλεκτοί (eklektoi – called/ chosen).
Now I suspect that shackling a quest hand and foot and shoving him out the door into outer darkness (the Greek word for darkness is the Classical root of ‘Scotland’!) may have put a rather gloomy outlook on the evening’s festivities. Could that be the point? It’s sandwiched between the parable of the wicked husbandmen that has the son of vineyard owner exit sharply and the trap Jesus escapes about taxes.
With all this about ‘who’s in who’s out?’ and ‘which side of the coin are you on?’ can we take this passage with a pinch of Paul (and Augustine, and Cromwell) and say ‘our righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord’? So the point is not how we are named/ that we are invited but that the church (ekklesia) we are chosen and called to be is not one of domineering control freaks throwing hissy fits because the excellence of their table arrangements has been spoilt by someone not following rubrics. Or by (ditto) because their nice ideas about biology (JS, once you mention ‘purpose’, no biologist will take you seriously) have been spoilt by people in love. St Mary’s is a great liturgical feast indeed. Everyone goes all out for excellence. Yet I’ve seen the oddest-dressed people doing the oddest things (me late, again, in my glad rags included) welcomed. The RC Church in Scotland, of whose hierarchy I am deeply deeply ashamed, would do well to stop whitewashing sepulchers and start calling the clergy and laity in their charge to inclusive love.-
That should be άριστον, guest, εκλεκτοί. Transliteration is correct, it was the cut and paste that was slapdash. Fortunately my phone does Greek (no pun intended) but it doesn’t do breathings.
-
Previous Posts
-
Opera Review – Les Troyens
This review was first published by Opera Britannia Rating: It was a tale of two divas. And it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. The Mariinsky Opera‘s Les Troyens was a bold attempt to bring an epic work to the Edinburgh Festival which never quite achieved what it should have done. Though…
-
Pictures to think about #2
There I was last week standing in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, staring up (as you do) at the stunning mosaics high up on the walls. The pictures are astonishing and I may get round to posting some of them online later. My attention was distracted though by a small boy rushing backwards…
-
Pictures to think about #1
I’ve been away from St Mary’s for the last week or so travelling, so no time to write much. However, I did take a lot of photographs and thought I would post one or two things here which made me think. As usual, comments welcome.
-
Well-meaning but homophobic
A week has now passed since the Guardian published the following snippet commenting on the twitter exchange that I had with the Director of Communications for the Church of England after Vicky Beeching came out. The Church of England’s director of communications communicated himself into a corner last week, after a well-meaning but homophobic tweet…
Leave a Reply