Posted on 05/12/2008 7:45:24 AM PDT by Huber
A sermon preached by the Rt Revd Dr Alan Smith, Bishop of Shrewsbury at a confirmation at Christ Church, Shelton and Oxon on 11th May 2008
As Delivered Scripture: Acts 2 1 - 21
There are inevitably two focuses to our worship today. Gathered here are the candidates for confirmation with families and friends. It’s a joyful occasion as we come to celebrate with them this stage in their spiritual life.
But we’d be kidding ourselves if we don’t face the fact that the other factor behind our worship today is the plight of those people in Myanmar (the place we used to call Burma) which is in very stark contrast to our happiness and celebration.
We have seen on our televisions the effect of Cyclone Nargis as it has raged across the Irrawaddy Delta; which has killed families, destroyed homes, jobs and livelihoods and has left a nation in mourning.
Even more ironic is that we still don’t really know the full story. The official Burmese media outlets were still saying, up to yesterday, that about 23,000 people have been killed. But many experts who know the region well put the estimates at more than 100,000 dead.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of people have no water or accommodation or food or electricity. And it is thought that aid has only reaching about a quarter of the population.
These events make us pause and reflect on the world in which we live, on the nature of God and also on our Christian calling to follow the way of the cross.
Now on these occasions of Confirmation it is normally a jolly sermon that I preach. But actually I feel that I must just spend a few minutes with you this morning, if you could bear with me, trying to reflect on what this Confirmation means in the light of that which is going on in another part of the world.
Three things about it:
1. The nature of the world
Natural disasters are common to many parts of our world and humanity.
Think back to:
* the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD 79 which devastated Pompeii * the Black Death which wiped out a third of the population of medieval Europe in the 14th century * the tsunami that hit Lisbon in 1755 and killed 60,000 people. * the floods in Bangladesh in the 1980s which killed over 200,000 * and then the recent tsumani which, we still don’t know exactly how many people died, but somewhere between 220,000 and 300,00 people died.
Anyone who knows their history and keeps abreast of world news is only too well aware that this is what the world is like. The scale of the devastation in Myanmar shocks us, but the experience of suffering is one which many people and many families will go through at some point. All of us will know individuals who have died of cancer or Motor Neuron Disease or some other terrible affliction.
Indeed, it may be that the experience of suffering is something that one of you here today is going through now.
As a culture we are used to being in control and harnessing the forces of nature to our own use, so that we find these events profoundly disturbing. They cut through the veneer of our sophistication and reveal our underlying fragility and fear. They uncover our vulnerability and our mortality. They remind us that we are part of creation, not separate from it. And that if our faith is going to be a realistic faith and if it is going to really sustain us when we are in times of difficulty, then it will have to be the sort of faith that can look this in the faith.
2. The nature of God
For some people, of course, these events raise questions about whether there can be a God, or if there is a God could he is good. For them it is inconceivable that there could be a God who permits suffering. But nowhere in the Bible; and nowhere in the Christian tradition is it suggested that God is a sort of heavenly puppet master; the sort of god who treats us like robots, who is two steps ahead of us sorting out our lives in front of us.
Faith doesn’t promise us that. Think back to the psalm: ‘When you travel through the valley of the shadow of death I’ll be with you’. Not ‘if’, ‘when’ is what the scripture says.
John Polkinghorne, priest, author and former Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University puts it like this: God does not bring about everything that happens in the world. Because God is a God of love, he allows creatures to be themselves. That sort of valuable, worthwhile, independent creation has a cost. We see that in the terrible cruel choices of humankind. We also see it in the physical history of the world. Exactly the same bio-chemical processes that enable some cells to mutate and produce new forms of life - the very engine that has driven the amazingly fruitful history of life on earth – will also allow other cells to mutate and to become malignant. You just cannot have one without the other. The tragic fact that there is cancer in the world is not because God did not bother – it is a necessity in a world allowed to make itself.
The freedom that enables me to choose to give generously at the moment to Myanmar, the freedom which enables someone to give their love to someone, to go the extra mile to care; is precisely the same freedom which those rulers in Myanmar are using to stop aid coming in. It is part of the way the world is set up. It’s both a wonderful freedom but a terrible responsibility.
The Christian gospel never says that there will not be suffering or evil. And it does not promise us that we will not go through it. And those of you being confirmed today, this isn’t some sort of talisman which will stop you ever experiencing evil. You and I will experience the same suffering that is the common lot of humanity.
But the Christian gospel does at least give us two pointers.
Firstly this: that at his crucifixion we find Jesus enters into the pain and suffering of the world by giving himself totally and unreservedly to God. In his own person he reveals a God who does not stand idly by on the touchlines of the universe, shouting words of encouragement to the poor players on the pitch. This is a God who is on the pitch with us. This is the one who suffers with us and weeps today with those who are bereaved, just as Jesus himself wept with Mary and Martha at the death of their brother Lazarus.
In response to the question ‘Where is God in all this?’ the gospel tells us that God is the crucified one, the one who is in the midst of the pain, not separate from it. And so in response to a disaster like this as Christians we give time to meditate in silence upon the cross and on the broken body of Jesus which is nailed to it.
The second pointer is this: As Christians, our faith doesn’t just tell us of a suffering God but in a God who is into resurrection. What the resurrection promises us is that there is no suffering which is outside of the redeeming love of God. We may not yet be able to understand it or comprehend it. We may not even begin to glimpse how the eternal purposes of God work. But his assurance is this: that nothing is outside of his redeeming love.
Let me just give you a homely example of that - and funnily enough there was a picture of precisely this on the television this morning as they were talking about the MMR jabs - you are called to take your little child to hospital because you know the baby needs immunising. And you take the child along and you say ‘there is nothing to be afraid off’. And you even say - God forgive us - ‘it won’t hurt’. That’s not true of course. And you hold that child in your arms and you say ‘it’s going to be alright’ and then suddenly a doctor comes along with a great big needle and stuffs it in the child’s arm. And the child yells and cries out and kicks you and says you don’t love me. And really genuinely can’t understand how you can be a loving parent until much later. And of course as that child grows up he’ll realise how painful it was for the parent who hated every minute of it. But you knew it was the loving thing to do.
Sometimes there is a point in our lives when we can’t begin to understand why something is going on. It is only at a much later point that God promises us that someday we will see his perfect love.
The resurrection of Christ is God’s promise to us that his love and his purposes are greater than we can ever imagine and that nothing can separate us from his love. But in the meantime we have to wait and trust.
3. The Christian way of life
What does it mean for those of us who call ourselves Christians and seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ? And what does it mean for those about to be confirmed in a moment?
Well, on this day which we call Pentecost we are reminded that after Jesus left his disciples he promised that he would send the Holy Spirit. We have just heard an account of what happened on that day. The result was extra-ordinary; not just that people began to speak in different languages but much more fundamentally - and I think a far greater miracle - is they began to share their lives in a world that was far more vulnerable and where people were under far greater threat than we are; these people began to share their lives, their possessions, their times and their talents.
They began to practice the most extraordinary gifts of altruism and generosity. They were fearless in the face of death because they were convinced that, actually, God’s love could not be thwarted; and they were scattered in the power of the Spirit across the face of the ancient world.
And they started to care for people in that ridiculous love which doesn’t ask for anything back but simply pours out love. And as people saw it they glimpsed a new way of living. They glimpsed what it was to be truly human. They suddenly saw that when people started living like this it actually elicited a response from other people. It began to set a train of events off which acted like wildfire, setting people afresh with a vision of what it was to be living fully and humanly in this world.
And still today, one of the great encouragements is the Christian response where there is tragedy and where there is evil.
So you see the love of God is demonstrated in the hands of those who this very day are helping to bury the dead, who are bringing clean water to the living, who are administering medicine to the ill and who are offering counsel to those in darkness.
By such practical acts of compassion we refuse to give into helplessness, hopelessness and despair. We act in defiance and in faith against those who say that everything is ultimately meaningless. No it isn’t. And by such care we imbue human life, as best we can in the grace of God, with value and dignity, because we believe we are made in the image of the living God.
That’s why this week I and my fellow bishops in this diocese have issued a call to all 580 churches for today and next Sunday to pray and also to generous, sacrificial giving.
We have already been in close contact with our partner dioceses, and of course there is an Anglican Church there in Myanmar with six dioceses out there. And our companion diocese in Malaysia has already sent people into that country. We have the channels to get money and resources in there. And within day we are praying that tens of thousands of pounds will be going directly to alleviate suffering.
How does all this relate to confirmation? It reminds us of what we are doing in a few moments. It is not simply a rite of passage, not simply a good chance for a family get together (although I hope you will have a good family time today). But at the heart of this service we are invited to face afresh the world as it truly is – both with its beauty and with its tragedy;
* to give ourselves afresh to God and to offer all that we are to him; * to be willing to let go of our securities and identify with those who are suffering; * to have so reflected on the suffering in the world, that when we come across it we will have the inner strength to sit with those who mourn, those who are dying; to feel their pain and not flinch from it; * and to be the sort of people whose lives and actions solve problems by our generosity, by our time, our talents and our energies.
And so today we pray for ourselves, that we might have grace to follow the example of Christ. And we pray for those to be confirmed that they too may receive God’s grace to equip them for this life of service to His praise and honour.
Amen
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Personally I believe the numbers are massively inflated. The relief and humanitarian aid business that was created for the tsunami needs a new host and a couple hundred victims or less just won’t bring the cash like a 100k body count would.
Compassion overload. We have tornado victims to worry about here.
Unfortunate but true. Charity begins at home, where there is no paranoid junta stealing all the donations and letting their own people die.
Its time for these people to start trying to help themselves.
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