Sermon Preached at Ss Peter & Paul, Fareham
Sung Eucharist
6.00 pm, Sunday 27th June 2004
Readings: Is 66:10-14/Gal 6:7-16/Lk10:1-11, 16-20
Why are we here tonight? There are two answers, one negative, the other positive. The negative answer is that we had all expected to gather around the Lord’s Table with another aim in view – namely the ordination to the sacred priesthood of David Butcher. But that is not to be; and tomorrow we shall be gathering once more in order to give thanks for his life, pray for his family and those who mourn him, and commend his soul to the Lord he loved and served so faithfully. When Fr Tony came to see me two years ago in order to explain how ill he was, we made a secret pact that – should circumstances work out adversely – he could be ordained early. But again, that was not to be; and in one of those bizarre coincidences, the other Wednesday when I heard how serious things really were, I went to the telephone, found that Fr Tony was out, tried to get Anne, but ended up speaking direct to David. No, he indicated; there would be no early ordination. That was to be the last time I spoke to him; and the rest, as one would say, is history. In time it will come to be seen as yet one more twist in the long, rich and complex collective memory of this ancient parish church, where folk have come to meet the Lord for centuries, in all the circumstances of their lives.
And that leads me to the other answer to the question, why are we here. We have met to offer this Sunday liturgy in order to obey the Lord’s command to ‘do this’, so that the Lord may draw us together both in each other, in all our fragmentedness and confusion, and in Him – the One who knew and still knows more about fragmentedness and confusion than we can ever imagine. Where do we look for guidance? Tonight’s readings supply a divine context; and I might add that when Tony and I realised that there was going to be no ordination, we knew that the set readings that should be used on ordinary occasions were somewhat inappropriate (including Jesus’ command to ‘let the dead bury their own dead’ - Lk 9:60); and it had also been decided to postpone your Patronal Festival of Saint Peter and Saint Paul until next Sunday, so we thought it would be a heavenly kindness to use what would be next Sunday’s readings instead. What a wealth of sustenance they provide!
First we have the passage from Isaiah, with its message that was originally aimed at the People of Israel returning from exile, after years in misery in Babylon, and who now had the prospect of going home to Jerusalem: ‘Rejoice……that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast’ (Is 66:10-11). There is much ordinary human experience that feels like exile. Life in Christ should never deny it; and when it does, real spiritual damage can be done. Next, there is the passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where some ex-Jewish members of the congregation were insisting that every new Christian should be circumcised – and to take on an additional piece of cultural baggage in order to prove themselves to be truly within the fold. Paul warns them all against submitting to anything less than Christ himself, observing that any marks we should have on our bodies should be those of the apostolic mission, in other words, following the Lord in the sufferings of the world He comes to save, which is a far less comfortable and less churchy option.
Then there is the gospel, where Jesus sends out the seventy to take forward the work of this mission. Only in Luke’s gospel, whose turn it is to be read this year, do we encounter this broader, wider group of people: other gospels only give us the mission of the twelve, the inner group, no more. Who are these seventy? We do not know. But perhaps they include us, all of us – regardless of our own successes or failures. For the important truth is that their – our – names might be ‘written in heaven’, regardless of what we have managed to ‘achieve’ in worldly terms. And that includes all those apparently insignificant, unimpressive acts of witness, like taking the time to talk gently to the lady at the check-out point who is being harassed by a busy-body know-all in a hurry – or, indeed, an ordained ministry of a one-year deaconate.
We are all indeed sent, however fragmented and confused we feel at any given time. And yet in that fragmentedness and confusion are often to be found the seeds of new beginnings, as today’s readings suggest, with their themes of divine nourishment, and of discipleship in real rather than abstract terms; new beginnings which could lead to another vocation to the sacred ministry growing somewhere tonight. As we meet around the altar of God, we can do no more than turn to the God not only of all consolation but of redemption – and ask Him to accept us as we are, to bless us in his service, and to look on us – and upon David – only as found in Him.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
