Sermon Archive
Reflecting on journeys
Sermon preached by Clephane Hume at Evensong on 14 March 2004
Lent is a time for reflecting on journeys and I have had several this past week, some of which have demanded concentration on the motorway traffic, but others have given space for thought. If we don't stop, sit still and listen, we are never going to hear the word of God. And that is part of my attempted Lenten discipline.
The new testament reading is a familiar story - the rich man, Dives, and the beggar at the gate. After good things in his lifetime, the rich man is torment and across the great chasm the beggar receives care. This is often used to tell people that the life you lead on earth is the one you will be judged for later. That is a bit threatening and potentially punitive and judgemental. To my mind it doesn't fit with the God of grace who forgives all. But at the same time it is a message which reminds us of the commandment to love our neighbour.
I would like to consider it in the light of human relationships, and awareness of the needs of others. It is all too easy to be unaware, not through any particular act of malevolence, but in what are sometimes called the sins of omission. We may literally not see things, because we are not in the right place at the right time, or because what we are seeing makes no impact. Equally we may disregard them deliberately, or perhaps unconsciously in a kind of selective blindness. In the days of apartheid, I remember talking to a fellow student who told me that I did not know what I was talking about. She lived in South Africa and she knew. I couldn't really argue with that - I had never been there. But I had read about things which she simply could not see - a sort of social blindness which made an otherwise perfectly reasonable person unable to see the reality of poverty and segregation. We don't know if Dives walked through the gate, saw Lazarus and deliberately ignored him. If he was so wealthy, he might have been carried past, unable to see, though I feel that the story indicates otherwise.
We can behave in the same way. I behave in the same way. There are problems in Edinburgh that I am ignorant of because I do not go to the relevant part of the city. I may read about things, but that is not the same as seeing for myself and thereby gaining an understanding. Entering a multi-storey block and seeing the state of the interior, hearing the altercations going on in some of the flats, feeling apprehensive going alone into the lift, is not the same as driving past. Though I have heard quite a lot from my patients, I have seen more of poverty in other countries.
One of the Lenten studies this year is called Face to Face. Some of you may be attending the groups. Two of the sessions focus on Facing ourselves, living in hope I would suggest the additional theme of seeing each other through the eyes of God. We are sometimes advised to see difficult people through the eyes of their mother, but this takes it one step further, for God loves us all, whoever and however we are. And that is something to consider at a personal level. The Hebrews took time to realise that God was with them. The rich man realised too late. We have the advantage of their experience, documented for us.
In the reading, Abraham says that there is a great chasm. We have been warned. Don't leave awareness too late.
Growing awareness of relationships through our Lenten studies is one way of tackling that. As I already said, Lent provides us with an opportunity to consider our life's journey as we prepare for Easter. For some people life feels like a burden, the end of the world, for others there are more easily seen signs of hope. A way out of the struggle. And sometimes that means dealing with memories.
Yesterday I saw a floral display in a shop window, commemorating the children of Dunblane. Last Monday I was taking a lunchtime break from a meeting and walked round Dunblane Cathedral. There on the grass, is a cross, planted out in crocuses, flowering just at the time when they remember the awful events of the children being shot. A terrible memory. A real experience of the time in the desert. And an incident which touched the nation's heart. But the thing is that spring always happens. We are given an annual example of hope and regrowth.
How can we say that to the people of Spain? The events of this week are such that we cannot ignore the massacre in Madrid. The subsequent demonstrations where millions of people came together in solidarity, against the havoc wreaked by terrorism. We must pray for them in their loss and anxiety and pray too that all those involved may be inspired to work for peace and not vengeance. Like all the terrorist attacks of recent times, those memories will remain for many years. Long after the media have gone home.
Where are relationships in the midst of such events? Amidst the fear and the pain of grief it is all too easy to desire revenge. We know that Jesus taught us not to give an eye for an eye. To turn the other cheek. I would love to think that there might be dialogue, which would lead to mutual understanding, and reduction in scare tactics.
Death will be a reality for us all, but like the people of Madrid, most of us will not know when it will be. Lent is perhaps a time to prepare ourselves. To review our lives so that no-one can regard us as being like the rich man. As one chaplain put it, 'clear out the attics' of our relationships, for they are a critical aspect of our journey through life on earth to everlasting life in heaven.
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