Our passage this morning from the Book of Hebrews is a passionate piece of. writing. With the authenticity only genuine experience can express, we are

Transcription

1 Sermon Sunday 18th August 2013 Lessons Hebrews 11: 29-12: 2 St Luke 12: Our passage this morning from the Book of Hebrews is a passionate piece of writing. With the authenticity only genuine experience can express, we are treated to the achievements of faith. By faith, the Hebrews passed through the Red Sea. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down. By faith, the judges of Israel governed: Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah. By faith, women received their dead raised to life again and the saints, though stoned, sawn in two, tempted, slain with the sword, destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandering in deserts, on mountains and living in dens and caves, they were not defeated. The author of Hebrews encourages us to set aside every weight, every sin, and run the race of faith with perseverance. Speaking at the International Book Festival this year, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, bemoaned the fact that Christians in Western societies complain that they are persecuted. Bluntly, he told them to 'grow up'. In the West, Christians, he said, maybe ridiculed for being idiots - perish the thought - but that is a world away from persecution. If we are to be taken seriously in society, we have to earn respect. Williams said: I've had the privilege of being alongside Christian communities in Pakistan, I have heard a bit about the experiences of Muslim 1

2 communities in bits of China and the Russian Federation, and I have two Syrian friends who were abducted about three months ago and whose fate remains unknown. Pushing aside all whingeing about persecution in Britain and the US, Williams said ridicule is not the same as 'the systematic brutality and often murderous hostility that means every morning you get up wondering if you and your children are going to live through the day.' The sort of persecution to which Williams refers is perhaps a step closer to the reality faced by the people of faith mentioned in the Book of Hebrews. The author of Hebrews points us to the great cloud of witnesses: we are surrounded by this cloud. Witnesses in this context mean those who have given their life, their whole life, to witness to the faith, to declare it in their deeds and devotion. I always find it inspiring to watch and listen to the witness of others. My family and I went on holiday this year to the island of South Uist, the population of which is largely Roman Catholic. In the late 1950s, the Ministry of Defence intended to build a large military town on the island in order establish a missile testing range as well as facilities for building missiles. Led by the local priest, the community commissioned and funded the building of a 50ft statue of Mary and the Christ-Child, Our Lady of the Isles. Today the missile testing range and statue sit side by side on the same hill. As a place of pilgrimage, the statue is a powerful reminder of another world and of different 2

3 values. In a moment of reflection and stillness, the peace and sacredness of the sculpture and the ground upon which it stands are overwhelming. What struck me about the passage from the Book of Hebrews was how the author had consciously brought to mind the life of the witnesses. The author let their example, their faith, live in him. In his many bouts of depression, the reformer Martin Luther, in prayer, in his soul, would say, 'I am baptised, I am baptised, I am baptised.' These words, like a mantra, did not somehow 'magic away' his depression - how could they - but for a moment it gave him a different perspective on his life and the life of the world. It is in still moments, when we are open to receive, that we can see and feel ourselves to be held in the mysterious and yet sure hand of God. Use Luther's words, envisage yourself held in the love of God and let yourself be reborn into the life of the Spirit. This week in my personal devotions I have been using A Diary of Private Prayer by the Scottish theologian John Baillie. For the morning of the 15th day of the month, Baillie uses the prayer to set his life within the context of God's life. Listen to this prayer: O God who is from eternity to eternity, and is not at one time in one place because all times and places are in You, I would now seek to understand my destiny as a child of Yours. Here I stand, weak and mortal, amid the immensities of nature. 3

4 But blessed are You, O Lord God, that You have made me in Your own likeness and have breathed into me the breath of Your own life. Within this poor body You have set a spirit that is akin to Your own Spirit. Within this corruptible You have planted incorruption and within this mortal immortality. So from this little room and this short hour I can lift up my mind beyond all time and space to You, the uncreated One, until the light of Your countenance illumines all my life. Here, in prayer, Baillie stills our soul, taking us to a deeper level of consciousness, a Divine Communion, to a point when we see our life lived at one with God. In life, we have to consciously bring God to mind, and then we will be changed. It is good to think of life, not as measured by time, but by moments of grace, moments of intimacy with God, moments of grace experienced through encounters with others. Yesterday, the prayer website, Pray As You Go, led us in meditation with Rachmaninov's Vespers: life is punctuated by moments of grace. Last week, in The Daily Telegraph, the atheist writer, Matthew Norman, was scathing in his criticism of the fundamentalist atheist Richard Dawkins. Amusingly, Norman says that every time he hears Dawkins on the car radio he instinctively wants to 'do a handbrake turn and drive like a maniac to the nearest church, synagogue, temple or mosque' to offer prayer! Norman was complaining about Dawkins' apparent suggestion by Dawkins that few Nobel Prizes have been won by Muslims because of the dogmatic teaching of the 4

5 Koran. Describing Dawkins as more repressively dogmatic than the Ayatollahs, Norman describes Pope Francis as 'a genuinely holy kinda guy' and the new Archbishop of Canterbury as 'an absolute sweetheart'. Norman's point, it seems, is that Pope Francis and Justin Welby appeal as beautiful, humane human beings, while Dawkins seems brutal and irrational. The spirituality and humility of these two Christian leaders shines through: a cloud of witnesses. I encourage you to see life, your life, as measured by moments of grace and, as in the Book of Hebrews, let those moments be witnesses to inspire and increase your faith. Let the beauty and humanity of the witnesses around us, including each one of us in this congregation, be a source of strength in facing the challenges, pain and disappointments that come our way. Use the mantra of Luther, I am baptised, or simply the name of Jesus to take you to a deeper place of prayer. God bless. Amen. 5