Portsmouth Festivities Sung Eucharist 2005
Portsmouth Cathedral
SUNDAY 19th JUNE 2006 AT 11.15 A.M.
Readings: Jeremiah 20: 7-13; Romans 1: 1-11; Matthew 10: 24-39
The longer human beings are on this planet, the more opportunities there will be for anniversaries and centenaries. 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War ll, as well as the second centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar – both of them events which have a specific Portsmouth connection. Less known is the fact that 2005 is the centenary of the independence of Norway from Sweden (which admittedly has no local association here whatever). It is also the centenary of the Treaty of Portsmouth - I joke not! – which marked the end of the Russian-Japanese War, a shock to the Russian Empire as it then was, when challenged by the new commercial might of its then Far Eastern enemy.
This morning’s Gospel at first sight is a bit grim and a bit of a stranger to a ‘Festivities’ celebration. But on closer inspection it is bang on target. It speaks of things that are covered up, being uncovered, and nothing secret being unknown (Mt. 10: 26). In other words, as Jesus frequently reminded his disciples, don’t expect everything to be obvious; always try to probe beneath the surface. For us, that surface is not just about the less known facts, people, musicians, and past events that we are aware of, but also about fresh perspectives on those events. Just think of the less-known composers and pieces of music that the Festivities programme has on offer, to say nothing of the new perspectives that are going to be brought to light on Admiral Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. For example, I didn’t know that the musket shot that was to kill our national hero was indeed a stray shot, even though it happened to come from a French ship, which, very unusual for the time, specialised in exceedingly well-trained and plumb-accurate sharpshooters.
All this provides yet one more reminder that the world we live in continues to open up new mysteries. It is also saying something much more significant, but not always that palatable, namely that we human beings are not capable of grasping of holding within even our collective consciousness at any one time, the whole truth about complex events. It is as if life as we know it is a musical score, that is played in contrasting ways, in order to reveal different interpretations. Such an approach as this has much to commend it. An age like ours can then relish sheer variety, if only to relativise people and events, even ideals and beliefs out of any objectivity, so that one is left with a post-modern selection for everything: if you come from that school, then you will want authentic instruments (but not, one hopes, the powdered wigs and even the snuff that go with them!), and if you are of that school, then the big band approach to Beethoven is yours for the taking, some would say, regrettably! All this is interesting, and it is costly. It is interesting, because it helps us enjoy these fresh perspectives. It is costly because it stretches us – taking us away from the familiar, the routine, the symphony I think I know so well, or the view I might have of an apparently well-known detail of the Battle of Trafalgar, which is either no more than a prejudice, or else, frankly, much more negotiable now than it once was.
With music, of course, a bishop preaching in a cathedral has to walk with care. People flock to cathedrals these days because they provide space for a degree of anonymity often impossible in smaller churches, but also, frankly, because of the music. If anyone has a view of heaven that is a choice between a sermon and a choral work, you can bet your bottom dollar that it won’t be the sermon that wins! And yet, as the preacher is apt to say when feeling the need to go against the grain, the sermon in even the most elaborately musical, cultural occasion such as this morning has to emerge as a gentle protest against the whole occasion becoming an exercise in self-indulgence. For however much the post-modern variety, what might be called the ‘multiculturalist agenda’, may be in the ascendant in contemporary British culture, at the end of the day, the music, the event commemorated, even the historical biography, will have some kind of meaning.
For the Christian this must involve a bit more than the promise, however challenging, that (to echo today’s gospel-reading) what is covered up will – some day - be uncovered, and what is hidden will perhaps no longer remain a secret. Anniversaries do have the tendency to locate us in time, just as the second part of the Lord's Prayer, which we shall be saying later in the service, elaborates on that truth, with its recurring plea for bread for today, forgiveness for yesterday, and protection from temptation and evil in the future. These are basic, spiritual needs, about sustenance of whatever kind now, the healing of hurts, personal and communal, Trafalgar included, and our collective fear as a human race about the future. So the unfamiliar, the covered, the hidden and concealed – this is where meaning and challenge are to be found, because God will always have fresh perspectives and new challenges with which to confront us; and if this is not the case, then the God we are speaking of isn’t God at all, but a human construct, however ecclesiastically elegant or, for that matter, politically correct, he, she or it might be!
Which is why today’s gospel passage does indeed speak of the uncovered, the secret revealed. But it also ends with even more challenging words which warn us that those who find their life, who are cosy and comfortable with themselves and their environment, will lose it, and those who lose their lives, who are ready to take risks, push away at boundaries, and dream fresh dreams, will indeed find it. (Mt. 10: 39) And what are those boundaries? In our kind of society they are about self-deceit, and seeing ourselves as consumers rather than stewards of all that is about us, from the environment to our day-to-day relationships. And what might those dreams be about? The truth, beauty and majesty of God, no longer concealed, but openly revealed, and revealed not just in grand centenaries of one kind or another, much as we may need them, but in the smallest gesture, the tiniest action, the apparently most insignificant event – like the children at schools not all that far from here, in Portsea and Somerstown, who will be given a meal on arrival tomorrow morning, because through sheer domestic poverty they won’t have eaten a proper meal over the weekend. On that basis, and that basis alone, may ‘Festivities’ inspire us towards more faithful – and questing – lives.
+ KENNETH PORTSMOUTH
