Today, the themes of our readings and the ordinations in Worcester Cathedral, as we worship here, revolve around the idea of a God who is on a mission, who is not content to leave things as they are and a God who calls people to share in that mission. The mission of setting everything right.
Let's start with a poem. This is R.S. Thomas
"A little aside from the main road
becalmed in a last-century greyness
there is the chapel, ugly, without the appeal
to the tourist to stop his car
and visit it. The traffic goes by
and the river goes by, and quick shadows
of clouds too, and the chapel settles
a little deeper into the grass
But here once on an evening like this,
in the darkness that was about
his hearers, a preacher caught fire,
and burned steadily before them
with a strange light so that they saw
the splendour of the barren mountains
about them and sang their amens
fiercely, narrow but saved
in a way that men are not now."
"saved in a way men are not now"....
Let's do some bible study and come back to the poem.
The Old Testament first.
Who is it that needs God in the Old Testament?
In the early stories, it is the people of Israel who need rescuing, firstly from Egypt and then later from themselves. But when they are settled in the promised land, another group are constantly presented as the people who God is looking out for. He is looking out for them because God's mission is that all the people of the earth might be blessed through the obedience and example of His especially called people, the Jews. God wants to bring blessing and healing and deliverance to everyone, to all people, and He does this through choosing a particular group to be a conduit, a means that this might happen. Israel and later on the Church.
The group God gets concerned about when they are settled in the land are called by the textbooks those in the triangle of vulnerability. The widow, the orphan and the refugee. Over and over again they are mentioned. The widow, the orphan and the refugee. People who had no rights, people who had no safety, people who were vulnerable. And they were a symbol of the "everyone" that God wanted to reach. If we look at Psalm 146 the message is very clear - don't ultimately trust in the imperial power to put things right, "do not put your trust in the rulers"- that will just let you down. Trust in the God who is looking out for you.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
God is faithful to care.
God is forceful enough to bring justice and God feeds the hungry. And then another triangle of vulnerable people are mentioned and a group that all of us have been in or will be a part of at some point in our lives.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
This God has a special care for those who are bound and those who are blind and those who are burdened. This is what it means to be in need of the God who saves.
Eyes that are blind.
Hands that are bound.
Hearts that are bowed down or burdened.
So when we feel like this we can lift our heads up a little already because this God, who tells us to be a bit sceptical about the human effort to make everything right, is looking out for us. Blind and bound and burdened. Can't see, can't move and can't feel good anymore.
Now let's turn to the New Testament.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."
The good news is that something new is happening, the good news is that the moment has arrived. And if your eyes are blind, and your hands are bound and your heart is bowed down then it's great good news. You see, there are two Greek words for time, chronos and kairos. Chronos is just ordinary time, one minute, one hour, one day, one week.
But kairos was the word they saved for special moments. The hour has struck! Kairos. In our history there have been some notable kairos moments. The assassination of John Kennedy, the Good Friday agreement, the freeing of Nelson Mandela, 9/11, 7/7. We remember where we were on those days. Do you remember where you were? I remember on the 7th of July being in bus with a group of clergy, driving from Durham to do a pilgrimage over the sands to Holy Island. It had been raining and suddenly the murk cleared and all that lovely view across the sea to the Farne Islands was revealed. Perfect and peaceful and tranquil. And then the mobile phones started ringing and in our minds we were with the horror and the violence in London. I wonder where you were?
Well, this was a moment the disciples never forgot . It was the moment the world had been waiting for. Kairos. Jesus said this is it, this is the hinge on which the new day turns, this is the day you will never forget. This is the universal kairos moment. "The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand". Chronos ends here and now. And in one sense it never got started again. The writers of the letters of the gospels kept saying, this kairos moment is still happening... in these last days God has spoken to us by his Son... while it is still called today have faith in Him, it won't go on forever. The good news is that God is still breaking in. At a universal level Jesus is saying bring me the blind eyes, bring me the life that you can do nothing with, bring me the heart weighed down and burdened and bowed down. I can do something. And we are a part of it, called to be the heart through which God comforts the broken, the eyes that are open for everyone, the bringers of release from prisons of despair and grief and memory.
So that's the theology behind the readings. A God of vast compassion. That Christianity is not primarily about human beings who are seeking God but a God who is seeking them. That God has broken into human history in Jesus Christ at a universal level and is seeking us out. It's the framework of a vast and wonderful story.
Let's put all this to work for us.
Theology is all well and good. My wife at this stage will be muttering Yes, but what are we to do with it all. Quite right too.
I firstly want to say to myself that if this is true there is nothing to be afraid of. I am met with a kindness so great and so understanding and so tender it is heart breaking. It melts our distrust and our scepticism.
I was brought up in a home in which I experienced a good deal of theological variety - cool Anglo Catholicism from my father, passionate primitive Methodism from my mother, Baptist grandparents and a Pentecostal Sunday school. So I have a wide repertoire of hymns! And many from Sankey and Moody and the Redemption hymnal which I still appreciate. I remember singing Rescue the Perishing in a downtown mission hall in Liverpool with my grandparents when I was a child. The third verse goes like this
Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.
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Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness.
There have been times when my eyes were shut - sometimes by wilful ignorance but mostly through grief. I suffer from hay fever this time of year and my eyes blur over. I cannot see easily to read - I strain to see. There are times like this for all of us. The grief and sorrow of life are near us. The un-grieved sorrows. We cannot see our way. Our eyes seem unfocussed. Life makes no sense. Yet the wounds and broken places in us even now may feel the touch of that loving heart and we can begin to see clearly, the world becomes transparent again. We can see our way, we say. His love opens our eyes.
There have been times when I was like a man in prison, my will seemed to me to be bound. It was as though I could sense all that might be but had no power to move forward - the habits of low self esteem, taking the easy, lazy way, the fearfulness that would not let me risk either success or failure. Wakened by the kindness of Christ in my twenties, it was as if chains fell away, as though duct tape around my wrists was snapped and I was free to serve a good purpose. His love sets us free.
There have been times when my heart was bowed and burdened with a coldness and an indifference that froze me, made me callous to myself, made me controlling and careful and guarded. Wounds deep beyond feeling. But the hymn was correct. Feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Love and wonder and a child like thankfulness. Joy in life and unafraid to be. His love brings us back to life.
The human condition you see- so often it finds us blind, bound and burdened.
So when R.S. Thomas talks about being "saved in a way men are not now", I think this is what he means. We do not enter into this enough, we are too timid, too cautious to allow God to do all that he might do for us.
To be saved is have this Jesus touch our lives. Salvation means that the blind can see again - sight restored to see the wonder of a world enfolded in God's love. Salvation means that the bound are released, they find courage and energy to live for God and others. Salvation means that those bowed down and burdened hear a loving voice, a heavenly voice which says Come to me all those who are worn out carrying life's heavy load. I can give you rest. I can do something.
Tim Marks
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