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Sermon on Trinity Sunday 2004
in Holy Trinity Street
A festival called TrinityFest ended with this evening service in the restored Parish Church.
This festival has been about a number of things: It's been about discovering the possibilities - and a few limitations - of this building, renewed through the generosity of Joyce and many others, and the vision of John our Rector. It's been about celebrating God's wonderful creation in this flower festival. It's been about working together and getting to know people we have only known to nod to. It's been about discovering gifts and talents that people have been a bit shy to offer. It been about worshipping God in ways that may be new to some of us. It's been about offering the building and the welcome of Christian fellowship to the people of Street, so that the present generation may come to feel that this is their church, as Mr Taylor, who visited the Flower Festival yesterday at the age of 101, did in his days as a choirboy.
Some people may be critical when they see
pictures of a clown and dancers in the church, and a barbecue and children's crafts in tents and gazebos in the churchyard. They may say we are cheapening the Gospel, dumbing down our Christian heritage. We must be ready to listen to such views. The Christian Church is not primarily there to entertain or to baby-sit. The Church is there first of all to worship God and to share the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ with everyone around. We must never lose sight of this chief purpose. But if, through something like this TrinityFest, people come to meet the worshipping congregation and discover that we Christians do not talk in Gothic letters as the tabloid press would like them to think, that we are not all a bit cold and peculiar like almost all so-called Christian characters in TV soaps, that we have a love and joy among us that is attractive, then some of the prejudice against Christianity that our media have been busily promoting these last ten years and more may be shown up for the misrepresentation that it is. One of the research findings of recent years is that people usually come into a Christian fellowship before they come to Christian faith for themselves. The faith is caught, rather than taught, as the old catch-phrase went. It may be that you are yourself on that particular journey. You have found the fellowship, but you have yet to find a personal faith for yourself. That's good. Stick around, I say! No one is going to look down on you because you have your reservations and doubts. In fact, if there's anyone here who claims never to have had any doubts about their Christian faith, I shall be very worried about them.
But there comes the time when each one of us will want to try and sort out what we are going to believe, what we are going to commit ourselves to. On this, the name-day of our Church, Trinity Sunday, we have the opportunity to look at the broad sweep of the faith, and check up where we stand with regard to it.
Now the way we run our checks may vary from person to person. It's been said that people of my age are most concerned with the question "Is it true?" We want to know whether, for example, the hostility of the biologist
Richard Dawkins, the high-profile TV pundit and Professor for the Understanding of Science, to all forms of religion is a sign that there really is a hostility between scientific findings and religious teaching. Is it really a choice between Darwin and Christianity? Does greater understanding of the origins of the universe do away with a Creator God? Do we Christians have what has been called a 'god of the gaps', a god who is only called in to account for things that science can't explain, a god whose role shrinks with every new discovery? We'll come back to those questions in a minute.
People of my children's generation, so I've heard, aren't so much concerned with the truth or otherwise of Christianity. Perhaps in our shrinking world they've been exposed to so many different belief-systems that they feel it's a waste of time trying to sort out which could be true, which must be false. Instead, the important question to people like these is: "Does it work?" If I throw in my lot with the Christians, will it bring me a happy family? Will it give me a purpose for living? Shall I have the inner strength to overcome my weaknesses and live a positive life? And maybe, just maybe, there's the further question: Will the Christian faith be able to ensure eternal life with Christ in heaven?
Now you might think that these two questions, is it true, and does it work, cover the ground. But my informant says there's a generation younger still, who sit loose to both these questions, and instead ask: "Does it feel good?" The Independent newspaper every Saturday publishes one of those lists of "The 50 Best ...." Yesterday it was "The 50 best ways to keep a teenager happy." Strangely, the list didn't include "A course of organ lessons" or a set of juggling balls. No hobbies, no skills. There were 10 best gadgets, of course, like a £369.99 iPod, 10 best fashion accessories, like a £73 pair of sunglasses, 5 best tickets, 5 best computer games, 10 best CDs and so on. They struck me as all being instant experiences, ways of making you feel good, if only for a short time. Can Christian faith and Christian worship and fellowship provide, in a lasting way, a kind of good experience? (As an aside, perhaps last Sunday evening's worship here would have struck many an experience-seeking younger person as an experience to be treasured. Those who were there will know what I mean.) [On Whit Sunday evening a time of worship using chants and prayers from Taize had been held.]
Now as I thought about these three approaches, these three questions, is it true, does it work, does it feel good, and I thought of Trinity Sunday, it seemed to me that each of the persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, had something special to say to one of these questions. I'm going to oversimplify violently, and there will be enough loose ends left over to knit an overcoat for an elephant, but there may be something worth while in it, so here goes.
God the Father and the question "Is it true?" I may have told you about the infant school head who asked me to come and talk to her children about the Creation story "before they are old enough to know it isn't true." I think that what she meant - I hope that what she meant - was that she'd like them to hear the version of the Creation story that we find in Genesis chapter 1, or maybe the other version we find in Genesis chapter 2, rather than the one we find in Psalm 104 or the one in Job 26, or any of the other ones in the Bible. And she'd like them to hear the story as the sparkling, imaginative story that it is, without having to stop and explain that no one, from the first storytellers
up perhaps to the 1920s, expected this wonderful prose poem to be taken as science. The story in Genesis chapter 1 tells us that we are here, the universe is here, because of the creative power of God, who cares for you and me. And the writer found a way of putting that great truth that we love to hear and read two or three thousand years later. In a similar way the writer of Job found another way of explaining how God made a universe that works by strict laws of physics and chemistry; that writer pictured it as a mighty battle in which God overcame the monster of chaos, called Rahab. If you like to follow up that thought, then you can read one of Professor John Polkinghorne's books where he explains what would happen if you were put in charge of a machine for making universes, with all the various controls turned to the settings that God used in our universe. Size of universe, strength of gravitation, proportion of carbon, hydrogen and so on. He explains what would happen if you changed any one of those controls, even minutely. We live in a finely-tuned universe, and many of us find it far easier to believe that it is so because of a wise, loving God, than that it somehow came about by sheer mindless chance. Our own
Norman Parker, who has a wonderful way with words, once described the faith of some dear Christians as "Isn't God wonderful - look at the daisies!" If that is your faith, then that's great. If you keep worrying "Is it true?", then for God's sake do some deep study, question, read, think, pray, discuss, until your mind and your heart are satisfied with the same truth. God the Father, the loving Creator, is, I believe, One that we can trust as true.
God the Son and the question "Does it work?" Dick Sheppard was an outstanding early 20th century Rector of St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square, and started the work with the down and outs in the crypt. He wrote a book called "The Human Parson." In it he wrote something like this: "What happens when the parson tells people that there is a wonderful man called Jesus Christ who is remarkably effective at changing people's lives and making them glow with love and joy, and then the people look at the parson and see someone whose life doesn't seem to be like that at all?" People want to know that Christianity works. For some people that is more important that being intellectually convinced that it is true. What damage has been done by revelations of child abuse by priests and nuns in Ireland, for example. Now in an immediate way it's those of us who call ourselves Christians who have to be the answer to that question, Does it work? We are the shop window for Christianity. But let me step back a little and think of Jesus, God the Son. People who look at us and may be disappointed because our lives seem rather ordinary, rather like the rest of the world, not bubbling over with as much love and joy and peace as they had expected, can still look at Jesus, as the Gospels present him, and find a life and a faith that really work. What is more, Jesus, God the Son, achieved something by his death and resurrection that is really effective, that really works. Through his death we really can find life. As I said to those who ask the question "Is Christianity true?" study hard and find out, so I say to those who ask the question "Does Christianity work?", try it and see, give it your wholehearted commitment and test whether Jesus, God the Son, becomes real in you, whether your life changes as a result.
And God the Holy Spirit and the question "Does it feel good?" I think there's a real division between people over this. Some of us have been schooled to maintain the stiff upper lip. We distrust feelings. We may even feel uncomfortable when everyone around is being kind and loving. Where's the hair shirt? we cry. If it isn't hurting it can't be good for us. Others of us are very happy to bask in an ocean of love and acceptance. Indeed, we may even shy away from parts of life, parts of the Christian faith, that are uncomfortable. Now I believe that God the Holy Spirit brings us good experiences without number, and that this is right, something we should look for - without avoiding the tougher parts of the Christian faith and life. It's the Holy Spirit who lets us feel like little children with a heavenly Daddy.
(See the carving of a baby in God's hand, used in the Flower Festival)
By him we cry 'Abba!' The Spirit allows us to snuggle up into the love of God and be safe and happy and content. It feels good. It's the Holy Spirit who takes over when we can't pray, when we can't find the words, and he prays for us. Perhaps some of us experienced that last Sunday as we repeated a simple prayer again and again, letting our minds hang loose, as it were, and letting the Spirit take over. It feels good. Then again, it's the Holy Spirit who makes Christian fellowship, gives us a warm, accepting, loving family where we can unfold like a flower. People who come into a fellowship like that for the first time can sometimes hardly believe that such a fellowship can exist. It feels good. To those who ask "Does it feel good?", then, I say, let yourself go. Let the love of God enfold you. Don't fight against it because you think you don't deserve it - of course you don't, none of us does. It's the loving gift of the Spirit.
TrinityFest. A celebration of the whole stupendous marvellous truth of God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, a truth to trust in, a power that works, an experience to delight in. This is our God, and we join with the worship of heaven as we praise him. (Part of Revelation chapter 4 ended the sermon.)
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Thursday 20th of November 2008
