The Gray Monk

Evensong Sermon
Tewkesbury Abbey
Epiphany 2, 2004

+ May I speak in the name God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
May the Spirit inspire my thoughts
And the word of God fill my heart and mouth.
Amen

“There is one body and one Spirit through the bond of peace – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

It is said that every preacher has just one sermon inside him. I am beginning to think that I know what mine is. Every time I start to prepare a sermon I find the same theme running through the readings. Either there is some truth in the one sermon theory or someone is trying to tell me something! Could it be that I am just not being as receptive as the young Samuel? I hope not, because then I would be in the same case as Eli, a worthy and faithful but uninspiring leader, but one who failed to fill his office, failed to speak out against wrongdoing and even condoned it by his inaction. A caretaker and no more.

“In those days the Word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.”

Oh dear, could this be an indictment of our own age? Where are our prophets, where are our visions, where indeed is our \zeal for the Lord? To use a hideous media label, why is this a Post Christian Age? It sounds almost as if we, sat here tonight, are some sort of interesting architectural style instead of a living, vibrant and developing church.

Our Archbishops have only to open their mouths to be subjected to a torrent of criticism and abuse from one interest group or another, some of them even from within the church. How does this accord with the idea of one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one Spirit in the bond of unity and peace? No wonder people are abandoning the “institutional” churches in droves, we can’t even agree with ourselves!

St Paul is not everyone’s favourite Apostle, indeed he is sometimes irritating and always difficult, if only because he has such a large part in shaping the church as it is today. Some of us even have the radical view that maybe, just maybe, St Paul is, in the words of the authors of “1066 and all that”, a “bad idea”. I’m afraid I cannot subscribe to that view, and have to live, as a result, with all the difficult bits as well as the bits I like. And what I am seeing in this pair of readings is both a way and a warning.

“It was he who gave some to be Apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and some to be teachers.”

He called the boy Samuel to be his Prophet in a time when Israel faced growing threats from rising Empires around them and needed to move from the semi-nomadic life of the tribes under the “Judges” to the more settled and cohesive life of nationhood under their Kings. In doing so, he set in train a period of spiritual growth and the development of a religious coherence suited to the spiritual growth of the people he had selected.

Eli stood condemned by his failure to be more than a simple caretaker, a keeper of rituals and ceremonial, and his lack of vision to grasp the nettle of risking confrontation and getting to grips with the realities of ministry to and for the people committed to his charge. In this we can see the parallel with the parable of the Master who entrusts to three servants portions of his wealth. The first ventures all and does well, the second is more cautious but still does reasonably well, while the third buries the treasure, does nothing with it and returns it untouched to his Master. Eli was definitely the third servant in this case – in fact he may even have been in the position of having failed to protect it from inflation – so it was worth even less when he gave back what he had received.

What of us? What have we done with the treasures entrusted to us? Where are our Apostles? Where are our prophets? Where are our Evangelists? At risk of getting a good ticking off from Fr Paul and Fr Peter; Where are our Pastors and teachers? Yes there are some here present, we all recognize the ministries of Fr Paul and Fr Peter, David, Carolyn, Charles, Carleton and I suppose even myself, all exercise ministries which fall into those last two categories, but so should everyone else here present! This is where we find a unity in the Spirit, in ministry – the gifts of the Spirit are like the rich man’s treasure. In use they grow and multiply, buried in the ground, they shrivel and are reduced in value.

Ministry to the people of God requires a great deal of effort from us all, it is not a thing we do on Sunday, it is something we do all the time. Pastoral ministry can be as simple as lending an ear to a distressed colleague at work, and you don’t have to be a Priest or a Deacon to do it. A teaching ministry can be a simple extension of the pastoral care we show each other, or it could be making use of opportunities to discuss and challenge people who hold views we need to challenge, or alternatively to be prepared to help someone who is searching for a faith. What we must not do is let it slide, coasting gently through life, smiling sweetly at everybody and avoiding contentious issues.

I once heard a description of politics, as the art of compromise and perhaps this is the problem faced by Eli, he was too willing to compromise. In the end he had compromised God. It is for this reason that I do not envy the men who must take on the mantle of Archbishop. On the one hand they must find a balance that will hold the church together, on the other they must not compromise God. We should all pray for our Bishops and Archbishops daily as they have a difficult path to walk in this Post Christian Age, and we should pray for ourselves as well, because our path is no less fraught for all that it is not in the glare of the public spotlight.

So, what can we do to answer the call of God to be Apostles, or Prophets, evangelists, pastors or teachers? First, listen to the voice of God, second, try to do as we are called, use our individual gifts to minister to each other and support those who have been called to more difficult and public roles. In this way we can do as Paul writes to the Ephesians:

“Speaking in truth and love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

It is when we embrace the call of God to be his ministers that we are able to obey what Father Peter once called the Gospel Imperative, to love one another and sustain each other in faith. It is when we embrace the call heard by Samuel, that we are filled with the desire to act for Him in ministry, it is when we embrace that call that we also find the courage to face the sneers and the jeers, the stones and the anger and to find the tranquility of the Spirit which comes from being in harmony with each other and the Spirit.

The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel, Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak for your servant is listening.”

Do we have the courage of the boy Samuel? It could be a life changing decision and a life changing experience!

Amen