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September 04, 2005

Sunday sermon

Today I am preaching at the Evensong service in the Abbey and I have had quite a difficult time picking up a subject. The lessons set in the lectionary didn't help and the events unfolding among my many friends in the US aren't helping either. It would seem from the sermons I have heard this morning that the Vicar (Lord Abbot) and the other clergy aren't finding it easy either.

That said, they have all now preached sermons I found encouraging and useful, so I hope mine will help someone as well. I am posting the text in the extended post below, but please do remember that these are simply the notes - what happens when you get up to preach is that the notes provide a frame - the Holy Spirit, provides the words!

Because the frailty of men without thee cannot help but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful”

+May I speak in the Name of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
Amen

As David remarked last week in the introduction to his sermon, having read the lessons carefully, prayed about it and given it a lot of thought I found myself wondering how I would be able to find something to preach on in these! That said, I think there is something to say and which does, in fact continue on from David’s sermon last week.

There must be very few people who have not been appalled by the devastation of the New Orleans area. Every one of us is, I’m sure appalled by the human tragedy being played out in the world’s supposedly leading nation. As the newspapers say, one expects this in a third world country, not in the US. And yet, why not? Just because the US is a developed, wealthy and technologically advanced country does not mean that it to is vulnerable to the awesome power of nature, that its structures and services cannot be overwhelmed by a disaster on this scale. We are, after all, talking about an area bigger than the entire UK to be searched, restored, people found, bodies recovered, the injured found and treated, the dead identified and buried. Humanity is, as our Collect reminded us this evening, frail. All of our science, all of our technology is as nothing in the face of a storm of the magnitude that struck the Mississippi Delta.

I suppose it is inevitable too, that there are those who are now raising the cry on the one hand, “Why does God allow this?” And on the other “This is God’s punishment for the wickedness of the war on Islam.” Personally, I think both are completely and utterly wrong! This is not God striking or allowing anything, this is the result of men exercising choices and as Father Peter reminded us a few weeks ago, to blame God is to abrogate our own responsibility, to assign to God motives of revenge or punishment is to misunderstand his love for us and His creation.

As our understanding of the world around us, and of God and our own relationship with Him grows, our understanding of these events and God’s part in them changes as well. As the Archbishop said in response to the question after the Tsunami; “Where was God in this?”, “God was there beside the dying, the bereaved and the injured and weeping with them.” So he will be with those affected by the Hurricane in America, and so he would be with us if it had happened here.

The writer of our Collect tonight, had a very different view of the world and of the human race. To him – or her – the human race was sinful, disobedient of God’s will and liable to attract the just punishment of a wrathful God. I would like to think that we have moved on from that to a better understanding of the message Paul, Peter and their companions have tried to pass on to us from our Lord, that God is a caring and loving God who allows us to choose – even when it is likely to cause us harm. We still make that choice and must accept responsibility for the consequences when it goes wrong. Owning a gun does not make me a criminal – using it to rob a Post Office does. It is my choice that makes the difference.

Human frailty is a key element in all our choices. If we choose to ignore God, if we choose to turn away from what we know is right and deliberately do wrong, we cannot, as Fr Peter reminded us so clearly a couple of Sundays ago, blame it on God, the Devil or anyone but ourselves. It is our “frailty” that we can and do make bad choices.

In another sense we are also rather frail or fragile creatures, we are easily broken and damaged, and can easily damage ourselves. It is convenient then too to blame someone else, but is it someone else’s fault if we have made the choice to do something or live somewhere? Of course not, we have the ability and the sense to know that living on a volcano, or in a city that is largely below sea level is probably putting ourselves in the way of harm – but we do it anyway.

Our readings tonight from both Ezekial and the Acts make the point that false prophets or even those who think they are harnessing something they have observed to have some power, are exercising another form of “frailty”. They see the true power, but do not understand that it comes not from any individual, but directly from God, that it is available to any who truly seek to be the instrument of God and not to use it for their own self aggrandisement, and they choose to abuse it. They are soon put to rout according to the writers and exposed for the charlatans they are.

The failures of humanity over the Centuries have all arisen from the simple error of getting to big for our own boots. We think we understand, we think we know – and then we discover that we haven’t even begun to grasp the first principles when it all goes horribly wrong. But do we admit we have messed it up? Of course not, we blunder on, re-inventing excuses to hide the fact that we are to blame and pass the blame to God or – if we are Dualists – to something we invest with equality to God, whom we call the devil.

Reading a paper prepared by Fr Charles for the Theological Forum, I was struck by one reference in it to the fact that since the Edict of Milan in 313AD, Christianity has steadily lost its understanding of “healing” and, indeed the ability to perform the miracle of healing. Paul, in Acts is credited with many such cures, in fact the whole Bible contains numerous accounts of miraculous healings, yet, as Fr Charles points out in his paper, the “official” position is that we should not expect a miracle because we are “between Grace” in that the Kingdom is not yet fully come. Thankfully, in recent years there has been much review of this position, because it is an important ministry, one that was central to the spread of the Gospel and to the early Church.

Perhaps this is yet another “frailty” we should pray for strength to overcome, that we can be restored to the belief and understanding that healing is both a gift of grace conveyed through anointing and laying on of hands, and of the recipient accepting it in faith and in readiness of expectation. Remember the woman whose faith healed her though she only touched Christ’s robe – that is what we have lost through frailty and need to recover. That is the faith that brings mountains to do our bidding, yet it is a fragile thing, easily damaged through ignorance, wrong choice and deliberate denial.

The language of the reading from Acts suggests almost a Dualistic position with its references to demons and casting out spirits, but we should also remember that this is probably the only way it could be described. What underlies this is clearly the belief and understanding that all things, all matter, all creation are subject to God. It is God, who converts through Paul’s words; it is God who heals through Paul’s ministry.

Human frailty takes many forms and has many faces. We should pray that our frailty does not separate us from the glorious grace of our loving God, that we may continue to seek to understand Him better, to understand the tragedies that happen around us and too us, and to understand that he is there beside us as we grope through the mists of our own ignorance. As I was reminded recently, the reason we meet Sunday by Sunday is to share that faith and to grow in faith. We need also to rediscover the faith the Apostles and their congregations knew and understood, then, and probably only then, will we be able to overcome the frailties of our faith and truly build the faith of those who walked with Christ to the Resurrection.

The physical frailty of humanity has been all to graphically demonstrated in this week. Our frailty of faith is equally fragile and needs to be constantly nurtured and renewed. We need a disaster relief programme too for those times when it really takes a hammering, when we have got it wrong and need to step back and say, “sorry, got that wrong, where to from here?”

As the Collect concluded:
“Lead us to all things profitable for our salvation.”

Amen

Posted by The Gray Monk at September 4, 2005 03:01 PM

Comments

Thank you for sharing this online. It gave me chill bumps. It said so much that I have been unable to verbalize. But have been thinking about. Particularly the part of "Why did this happen God" question that comes to me. I did not know how to answer others, but if you don't mind, I will quote you now.

Posted by: vw bug at September 5, 2005 12:58 PM

For some reason best known to itself, the MT Comments Monitor would not allow Tessa to post a comment on this - so I am posting it for her.

"You are right about human frailty taking many forms and having many faces. Pride, cowardliness, prejudice, contempt has been rampant in New Orleans. So much of the suffering could have been avoided.

In the UK, we have not heard the full truth of what has been going on. Joanna, who lives in the United States, has put a comment on my recent blog rant re 'Hurricane Katrina' which is unbelievable - how aid donations were turned away because they "had not been authorised" by the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And "how ignorant and misguided" the people who stayed in their homes were. Ignorant, misguided and, most of all, black.

Tessa"

Posted by: The Gray Monk at September 5, 2005 03:32 PM

Hi - I'm struck in your postings by your free use of "cretin", which you obviously use metaphorically. The derivation, as you may know, is interesting: the OED says "[a. F. crétin (in Encycl. 1754), ad. Swiss patois crestin, creitin:{em}L. Christi{amac}num CHRISTIAN, which in the mod. Romanic langs. (as sometimes dial. in Eng.) means ‘human creature’ as distinguished from the brutes; the sense being here that these beings are really human, though so deformed physically and mentally. (Cf. natural.) So, according to Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, the Cagots are called in Béarn crestiaas.]

One of a class of dwarfed and specially deformed idiots found in certain valleys of the Alps and elsewhere. Also in weakened sense (esp. in form crétin): a fool, one who behaves stupidly. Also attrib. and transf."

Posted by: Rob at September 5, 2005 03:46 PM

Rob, thanks for the definition of "cretin". Yes, I do use it metaphorically to describe people in power who use their power foolishly, or unintelligently and who are often people who could be described as "intelligent", yet refuse to allow facts to interfere with their prejudices or their ideology. You will also have noticed that I generally apply it to officials in Whitehall or politicians who initiate stupid and damaging actions or simply refuse to allow reason or even common sense to be applied.

My dictionary actually gives a simpler version of the definition, it is obviously not as comprehensive as yours - it states that a "cretin" is "a deformed idiot" or "someone of less than average intelligence." It is an old school dictionary though so perhaps I should revise my epithets for the Whitehall denizens!

Posted by: The Gray Monk at September 6, 2005 10:00 AM

Yes, I suppose I was trying to make a distinction between foolishness, which is committed by people with no congenital defects, and cretinism, which is a birth defect.

Posted by: Rob at September 6, 2005 11:30 AM

There are those who would probably argue that the inability of some of the denizens of Whitehall, who show all the outward signs of intelligence, to employ common sense or to consider facts before implementing their fantasies, is a "birth defect".

Perhaps it ought to be considered a registerable disability?

Posted by: The Gray Monk at September 6, 2005 02:34 PM

Hmmmm... To be serious, isn't using cretin as a term of abuse not too far removed from those twin insults of my childhood "spas" and "mong"? And you wouldn't use them or their cognates would you? I just think you overdo the cretinism. It devalues, in my opinion, your very sharp commentary on current events.

Posted by: Rob at September 8, 2005 01:09 PM

Thanks for the compliment and for picking me up on this, careless use of words can become a habit. Yes, perhaps I should find another, more apt epithet for my favourite targets. I feel a visit to the Thesaurus coming on!

Posted by: The Gray Monk at September 8, 2005 05:25 PM