Sermon Archive
The Angel and the Boulder
Sermon preached by John Armes at Holy Communion on 16 May 2004
Acts 16.9-15 ; Revelation 21.10, 2.1-22.5 ; John 14.23-29
An angel was walking with a holy man along a rocky mountain path. As they talked the man noticed the angel walk straight through a large boulder in their way. 'You may be an angel,' said the holy man, 'but that rock is more substantial than you are?' 'What a strange view of reality you have,' said the angel. 'Which is more substantial, you or a cloud?' 'Me, of course,' replied the man. 'And yet,' answered the angel, 'you have been walking through cloud on this mountain for the last hour. You have more substance than a cloud, I have more substance than a rock.'
I always reckon that I was a couple of years too young for the 1960s - everyone else seemed to have so much more fun than I did. But flower power and psychedelic trips apart, I do remember the decade as a time of growing spiritual awareness for many people - but not conventional spirituality. The Beatles, for example, headed off to India to visit the Maharishi and delve into the mysteries of eastern religion.
Clearly they were partly attracted by the novelty; it was different, non-establishment. But they were also entranced by the religious wisdom of a tradition stretching back 5000 years. Christianity, on the other hand, was then as it still is, a heavily credal religion. That is to say it tends to rate doctrinal orthodoxy very highly, it is suspicious of heresy, it seems to emphasize the importance of saying the right thing in terms of belief as much as it does being or doing the right thing. Christians through the centuries seem to like order, solidity, permanence, predictability. Rocks are rocks, they are more solid that we are.
Yet nevertheless since the 60s things have begun to loosen up. Over the last forty years, many people have found motivation in Hinduism without realizing it - through Transcendental Meditation or Yoga. And, perhaps because of this turn to the spiritual, many others have begun to discover that the Christian faith too contains, has always contained, traditions of meditation and prayer that can take us way beyond the wordy collects we produce on a Sunday morning, or the rather self-conscious mutterings of the open prayer meeting.
There has been an awakening to the Holy Spirit as ever-present inspirer, companion and guide. One's body too, breathing and posture, has become an aid to prayer. We have realised that the bible, used in a particular way stimulates meditation. So, our congregational retreats, the Retreat in Life, the regular prayer times that many of us adopt, the practising of the presence of God as we go about our daily occupation, all these allow the resurrection life to live and grow within us. Such prayer gives us a real sense of the eternal, God's presence intimately intertwined with our deepest being, and it feeds and nurtures us more thoroughly than any creed could ever do.
For let's face it, the resurrection was an experience before it was a doctrine. I mean that the early disciples encountered a mystery after the death of Jesus which they could only articulate in terms of a person risen from death. It was only much later that their experience was taken and solidified, petrified into a doctrine that said 'This is what happened - this is what it means.' As St Augustine said, 'Dogma is the fence around mystery.' A fence note, not a stone wall! He didn't mean that the fence was to keep mystery in or us out - the fence was simply a way of defining the limits of our knowledge, the limit of our ability to articulate the inexpressible. And hundreds of years later we're still trying to get a handle on what the inexpressible mystery behind the resurrection really means.
All this, I believe, helps us to set our own faith, the Christian faith, alongside others. For with so much mystery filling the heart of our believing, how can we glibly reject the wisdom of other faiths? Of course, we can find things to question and wonder about. The caste system in Hinduism, for example, or the apparent fatalism inherent in the relentless cycle of reincarnation that feeds on Karma - our performance in this life determining the fate of our next incarnation. Yet in spite of this, Hinduism also offers pathways towards perfection, it offers liberation from the cycle of reincarnation, and it expounds an understanding of a God who is both transcendent and personal, and who is ultimately one not many.
Im not proposing that we should all try to understand everything about every religion. That way we should become mere dilettantes, paddling at the edge of the ocean of faith. We have more than enough mystery of our own to explore, thank you. Nor am I trying to suggest that every religion is essentially the same. That would be a foolish and indeed disrespectful comment.
But William Temple offers a way of seeing other faiths in the light of Christian insights. He said: 'By the word of God - that is to say by Jesus Christ - Isaiah and Plato, and Zoroaster, and Buddha, and Confucius conceived and uttered such truths as they declared. There is only one divine light; and every man in his own measure is enlightened by it.' [Readings in St John's Gospel, p10]
Perhaps we can even go one step further and accept the notion that the mystery of God is like the hub of a cartwheel with many spokes leading to it. We don't want to waste our time dithering around on the rim. Instead our faith offers us one pathway into the mystery and by taking it we find ourselves drawing closer to others travelling down the other spokes of the same wheel.
But if this is so, does this mean that its pointless to try to win converts from other faiths? Yes and no. After all, if Paul hadn;t answered the invitation to 'Come over to Macedonia and help us' there might have been no Christian church at all. I believe that we do have a responsibility to share with others all good things that come from God, and that must include the inspiration and strength that comes from our faith. The fact is we are Christians, and because we are Christians we are called to live a faith and to share it. We have Christ to share. But this doesn't mean we should do so with triumphally or arrogantly. We should share Christ as Christ shared himself, humbly, honestly, sacrificially, as much by who we are as by what we say. And as we offer so we must be willing to receive what those of other faiths have to share with us. Then it is up to God.
The reality of my experience here at St John's and elsewhere is that as we share our faith in this way others will come to join us. Some come from no faith at all, others from a different faith; some travel with us for a short while, others stay and make a full commitment to Christ. But whoever they are and however long they stay they bring with them the treasures of their life so far, and that may well include the wisdom drawn from other cultures and faiths.
Besides, we should remember that the Church, the Christian faith, is not the same thing as God's Kingdom. It is in this Kingdom that true peace is to be found, the peace Jesus leaves with us in the Gospel reading today. And, as we read in the Revelation passage, in this new Jerusalem all nations will be healed, honoured and enlightened by the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
The ultimate vision of our faith, in common with other faiths, is an inclusive vision - we shall all in the end be embraced by the incomprehensible being of God. And if that seems to defy our sense of reality, if at times there seems to be an insurmountable stone wall between us and people of other faiths, just remember the angel who walked through the boulder.
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