THE DEPTH DIMENSION

 

Sermon delivered on the Feast of S. James the Apostle, the 25th July 2010 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England (Cayman Islands) in the service of the Holy Eucharist.

Scriptures:            Jeremiah 45: 1-5                      Acts 11:27 - 12:2                 S. Matthew 20: 20-28

 

S. Matthew 20: 23 Jesus said to the Zebedee family: "You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom is has been prepared by my Father."

 

THE CROWN JEWELS QUEUE

About nine years ago about this time Winnifred and I had just returned from a holiday break abroad.  An image that always stays with me and helps me to remember that holiday is from a day in which we decided we would behave like a couple of tourists. We took trains from my son's flat where we were staying to Tower Bridge, took a tour of the Tower of London guided by a Beefeater and then joined the line to see the Crown Jewels. The line was long, and they used the Disneyworld style of lining up in which the queue snakes around a particular area before passing into the next area. What impressed me about the Tower arrangements was the way in which the time spent in the queue was made interesting by a series of movie segments showing coronation scenes, in which the various crowns or orbs or sceptres we were about to view played their respective roles. Here we were as tourists in secular London listening to the most exalting concepts and language of coronation services expressing the abasement of the Head of State and Church before the Christ, "For in Him", says S. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians, "the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority." As we made our way steadily along the snaking line, I seemed to watch the modern myth of the separation of Church and State being  dissolved. I saw as if in vision how a community such as a modern state can only regain its wholeness if, as expressed in the coronation service, it acknowledges in humility its own abasement before a higher majesty than its own and its own commitment to His service. We come to fulness of life in Him who is the Head of all rule and authority. We don't come to fulness of life through our conformity to human concepts, even to the great human rights conventions. Yes, these may express human idealism of one kind or another, and they can be seen to be a mirror image of many failings in the past. But for fulness of life something else is necessary. Snaking along the queue we were being restored in our minds to the direction from which that "something else" can be successfully sought. Our life without that, is like a life of only two dimensions lived by beings that are potentially three-dimensional. On that day in the Tower, for a few moments we were once again shown what human culture actually was and where its commitment lay.

 

BARUCH AND S. JAMES

That three-dimensional depth-commitment of faith, it seems to me, comes out very well both in the words to Baruch in our Old Testament lesson today, and in the words of our Lord to the Zebedee family that formed part of today's Gospel. Baruch, the prophet Jeremiah's assistant, had shared some of Jeremiah's ministry, and the persecution of the prophet had affected his life as well. So like an individual today caught by some or other aspect of the general economic and social downturn, Baruch feels sorry for himself and is complaining to God about his lot in life. "Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest." But Jeremiah says that the Lord had a special word for Baruch. Baruch might have been blaming and accusing God. Here he was, an assistant to God's prophet, and instead of being rewarded for it he was exposed to extra danger. I can't help being reminded of John Mark in the Acts of the Apostles, the assistant to Barnabas and Paul on their missionary journey, when he unilaterally dropped out of the venture and went home. But Jeremiah in effect says to Baruch: you think you have things to be upset about; what about the Lord Himself? The Lord has to be breaking down what He had built up, and plucking up what He had planted. That is to say He had to send His own special people into exile away from the land He had given them. Was this really a time for Baruch to be seeking great things for himself, when even the Lord had to do an about-turn from His original intention? No, this was a time for disaster upon all flesh, but you Baruch should be thankful that through it all, your life was going to be spared. I remember that I used to have a Bishop who liked to use the saying, “Do not despise the day of small things.” If we have that depth-dimension of faith, we can be truly grateful for what might seem small things to a mind that seeks great things for itself.

 

The S. James whom we commemorate today is not the James that was the Lord’s brother and became spokesman for the Church in Jerusalem, but it is the brother of S. John the apostle and evangelist, and he was the first apostle to be martyred. St. Luke tells us in Acts ch 12 that he was martyred under Herod Agrippa I, who was a grandson of Herod the Great, who also was about to kill Peter when Peter was miraculously rescued from prison and then departed to another place outside Agrippa’s jurisdiction. As we have heard already, Jesus had said to the Zebedee family, the mother and the two brothers James and John, "You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom is has been prepared by my Father." Like Baruch many years before, they had all been seeking great things for themselves. According to S. Matthew, the mother had pleaded to Jesus to put her sons in the pre-eminent places in Jesus’ coming Kingdom, one at Jesus’ right hand and one at his left. But was this really a time for them to be seeking such things, when their whole world was about to come crashing down upon them with the condemnation by the state of Jesus?  This was not the type of blessing that was going to happen at all. If they could have prayed for the blessing of being a servant and indeed first in service, that would have been approved. For indeed, in the fullness of his personal vocation, S. James did bear the responsibility of being the first of the Twelve to be martyred for His Lord, and as it happened possibly, by so taking that first place allowing Peter’s death to be long delayed.

 

THE BASIC FAITH RADICALLY AFFECTS THOUGHT

Of course it is impossible to think in these terms without the faith that God is the good Father in comparison with whom we are all evil. A good deal of the time we do not in fact see this. Without faith, what we want is often unreceived, and certainly in the short run. If we want fulfilment, therefore, we had better keep away from the flat life, life without the faith-dimension. That is the life without a heavenly Father to ask, or a life in which God is absent or uninterested. Jesus never spoke of such a God. Why then are we in the West so accepting of the idea that our societies can be stable and prosperous and its members can be happy through our being accountable to man rather than God? Is it not surprising that in such societies, a want becomes a deprivation and an outrage, rather than a prayer? "Father", Jesus taught us to pray, "hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come." That's worlds away from what today's authorities teach us is basic to society today.

 

THE NECESSARY CONFRONTATION

One aspect of the Church's task is to oppose the three-dimensional faith-judgements to the flat-life judgements of our contemporary mouthpieces. It's a hard task, but it is one that must be attempted, and we are given the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail when they are rightly stormed. There is only one alternative to this, and that is to lose a long war of attrition. If we do not use the mind of Christ with which the Spirit equips us, we will ourselves become flat-lifers, and that is a far worse scenario than the wounds that faith will incur.

 

THE LONG-TERM PROJECT

Also, we should reflect that God's timing, which also can only be discerned by faith, is different from flat-life timing. The faith-project in which we are engaged is a long-term project. When there is action, it is sometimes very fast and very decisive, but it is never precipitate. Let us indeed pray to our Father, therefore, to prevail, and let us first be thankful that because we pray the heavenly Father will supply us from the beginning with the Holy Spirit to enable us to carry the project to completion.

 

BIBLE STUDY QUESTIONS

 

1.                  “The loss of faith for the English is actually the loss of their culture as well.” This is opposed by those who see England as essentially multicultural.  Show how the loss of faith can predict a loss of culture.

 

2.                  Give examples in the New Testament of the role of the Holy Spirit in linking divine fulfilment to our current situation.  How do our prayers become changed by the gift of the Holy Spirit?\

 

3.                  With regard to the present ideological climate, how do you see any response of the Church to its continuing development?