In the December edition of Progressive Voices, the magazine of the Progressive

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1 Sermon Sunday 6th January, 2013 Lessons Isaiah 60: 1-6 Ephesians 3: 1-12 St Matthew 2: 1-12 Prayer of Illumination Let us pray. If we hear Your voice today, harden not our hearts. Give us, O Lord, the open ear, and hearts responsive to Your Word. Fill our souls with Your Spirit and let Your Word be fruitful within us. In Jesus' Name. Amen. In the December edition of Progressive Voices, the magazine of the Progressive Christianity Network in Britain, there is an article entitled 'Prayer to a Non- Existent God.' The writer states: God does not exist: such, I believe, is the contention not only of Dawkins but of most of the secular world. To emphasise it, we might add, 'God never did exist, and never will.' Our former youth worker, Angus, said that one of his favourite memories of his time at Mayfield Salisbury was of his very first Sunday. He sat half way down the nave, excited to be at his new church, in his new post, raring to go, and the opening silence of worship was broken by my words of bidding, 'God does not exist.' Angus said it was a surreal moment. In the article in Progressive Voices, the writer argues that the Bible itself tells us as much. The Second Commandment is, 'Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to 1

2 them, nor worship them.' The writer says we are forbidden to envisage God in terms of anything that exists: nothing in the heavens, on the earth or in the deep, can in anyway represent God; nothing in the entire universe can represent God. The point the writer is making is that if by existence we mean something that is born, lives, changes, matures and dies, anything in this material universe, then God does not exist. God is beyond existence. The writer, a retired minister, says that in The Lord's Prayer the reference by Jesus to heaven, 'Our Father which art in heaven' is a reference to the Transcendent God: the God who is outside existence, if 'outside' is the right word. Heaven means transcendence, which means God is beyond existence: God does not exist, at least not in the usual sense of the word. The minister goes on: He says, By starting to pray, we enter into The Beyond. We take our stand point utterly outside the world. Only from such a standpoint can we view life as a whole, and our own situation within it. By having a special place for the act of praying - perhaps a church, perhaps some place special to ourselves alone, a quiet corner of a garden, a place set apart as a sanctuary within the home, we may designate this as our 'heaven.' He writes of being subsumed in the great Reality of prayer. This is the point to which he has been working. He says: 2

3 For prayer is that great Reality, that time, that place, which is neither time nor place but is the complete presence of God who is beyond all existence. Such prayer, I find, precludes my treating God as Santa Claus. I do not, I dare not ask the non-existent God for a list of material possessions. Merely I may desire of him the in-breaking of his kingdom, the day's bread of grace for the day's journey... What struck me about this article was the sense of progress or growth within the minister's understanding of God and prayer. It is wonderful to see and feel spiritual progress and maturing within oneself, if that is not a conceit, and, as a minister, it is a real joy to see progress and growth within individuals in the church community and the community as a whole. It is no surprise and no criticism at all that many of us begin our understanding of prayer as a wish list, or, at the very least, we try to make a bargain with God. However, very quickly, we realise that this is not sustainable. Like Jesus, we may make our requests but finish with 'Thy will be done.' From here, in time, we may move to being content with practising the Presence and savouring the silence. Sara Maitland says, 'Silence is joy inducing.' The mystics speak of meditative prayer as self-discovery and self-surrender, keeping our mind as free as we can from colours, images and words, though they can be an aid at the beginning of prayer. Simply an awareness, a conviction, that we are held is enough. My point is one of progress, growth, journey and spiritual pilgrimage. It is important for all of us, me included, not to harden our hearts but to be open and spiritually alert, eager to hear the silent word of God. In the summer, the 3

4 atheist, Julian Baggini, had an article in The New Humanist about hope. In the piece, various atheists mock Christians for their belief in life after death. The infantile A C Grayling describes Christians as hoping for 'endless hymn singing after they're dead.' He argues that the hope of Christians that there is a better life to come invalidates this life and that Christians are consequently likely to care less about this world than atheists. I understand that Grayling has a DPhil from Oxford and gets paid for this kind of stuff! To be fair, Julian refuted Grayling and cited the slogan of Christian Aid, 'We believe in life before death.' However, for some Christians, it may be the promise of heaven which motivates and fuels their faith but, I think, we can and should move beyond that. If a place in heaven is our motivation, it is a selfish one. The real end to the spiritual life is intimacy with God in this life. It is our sense of heaven, of the Transcendent, in the here and now which transfigures life for us. The pinnacle of our faith is life lived in the Spirit now. The idea of the resurrection of the dead is largely absent in the Old Testament and, in the lifetime of Jesus, different Jews had different opinions on this: the Sadducees, the priestly party, did not believe in the resurrection, not any form of resurrection, while the Pharisees believed in the resurrection at the end of time. Jesus spoke of resurrection as immediate: He said to the criminal beside Him on the cross, 'Today you will be in paradise with Me.' For myself, life with God in this life is already enough and if there were no resurrection that would 4

5 be fine. But Jesus, the image of the Invisible God, speaks of God's eternal love for each of us and that love will never let us go. When you look into the face of Jesus in the Gospels, in prayer, you know you can trust His word. In heaven, in God, He says, there will be neither male nor female, but God's love will never let us go. Here again, my point is progress, growth, journey and spiritual pilgrimage. It is important to make ourselves available to God, to keep open our heart, mind and soul. The ancient story or faith narrative of the Magi travelling from the east to Bethlehem is pure spiritual pilgrimage. At times, it drives me mad to listen to ministers speak as if the Birth narratives are actual (camcorder) history; they should know better. The interpretation of Scripture is itself an opportunity for progress, growth and journey: to carefully step from the literal to the richness of what I call faith narrative, a rich blend of historical fragments, mythology, spirituality and liturgy. Like everyone else, I am still on this journey. Over the past decade or so, I have been a passionate supporter of the work of the biblical scholars Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan. On the whole, they focus on the humanity of Jesus and the social, economic and political activity of Jesus. They are not wrong but the human Jesus is not enough; we need the Christ of faith, the Christ we encounter in prayer, in Scripture and in Church tradition. We must abandon dogmas and doctrines which are now a burden to the Church, such as substitutionary atonement and, of course, Jesus as a 5

6 superhero who literally walks on water and the like, but the human Jesus is not enough. In prayer, in worship, we encounter the Living Christ. My point is that everyone of us is on a journey and we must remain open to the Spirit's leading. Throughout this coming year, our year of pilgrimage and retreat, whether or not you are able to participate in any of the pilgrimages to various destinations, I hope that all of us will take seriously this call to be a pilgrim: to look for God in new ways, in new places, to let yourself be surprised by God. Perhaps not only as individuals but also as a kirk session and congregation we will be open to pilgrimage, to movement, discovery and change. It would be something of a success if, in a year's time, we feel as individuals and as a kirk session and congregation, we have been changed, transformed, by our pilgrimage this year. It would be good if we could say, 'We are still in Mayfield Salisbury, but we are not the same: we have grown and progressed on our spiritual journey.' Amen. 6