Sermon from Sunday 27 September

 

Reading(s): Ezekiel 18.1-4, 25-end, Philippians 2.1-13, Matthew 21.23-32. This sermon was given by Christopher Palmer at St Mark.

Well thank you for the invitation to preach for you this morning. It is wonderful to be here. I’ve been at Winchester Cathedral for just six months, and, as well as getting to know the Cathedral and city of Winchester, want also to get to know its diocese. I hope also that you will know the Cathedral. It is your Cathedral and you are always welcome there.

And when you do come to the Cathedral I hope that among its many treasures you take a moment to look at the great west window. This colossal expanse of stained glass appears rather like the patterns of a kaleidoscope, a jumble of fragments of colour, beautifully casting flashes of red and blue and green and yellow around the cathedral in the light of the evening sun. It is quite unlike any typical stained glass window; there are no discernible pictures, except just the sense of a person high up on the left. You might easily be forgiven for thinking that it is an artefact of the 1960s, created under the influence of some psychedelic trip. But no it isn’t. The original window was vandalised by parliamentarian thugs during the English civil war, and the good folk of Winchester, unwilling to lose the beautiful window collected the pieces, and after the monarchy was restored set about restoring the window too. Except the jigsaw puzzle was just too difficult, and so they didn’t try to reassemble the picture, but rather created a window of exquisite beauty, of shimmering colour, and dancing shadows out of the glass they collected. And the window has been admired and brought delight to worshippers and visitors for over 300 years.

It is a parable of loss and renewal, of brutality and vitality, of death and resurrection. Above all it is a reminder that what rises from the wreckage of our defeats, is often greater than what was lost in the first place.

And that, of course, is the story in today’s second reading – indeed it is the story of Jesus which we tell each Sunday in the Eucharist. Christ Jesus was in the form of God… but emptied… and was obedient even to death on a cross… but God exalted him… that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The resurrected, ascended Christ doesn’t merely get back to where he started in the bosom and heart of God – indeed he never left that. But he catches up our humanity, and brings us along for the ride. So that when we look to Jesus we look at one who bears our likeness, and whose exaltation is filled with promise for us also being enfolded within the life of God. Out of the wreckage of human sin and the brutality of the cross is born a beauty and glory that could not otherwise have been imagined.

And this is good news in itself clearly. But it is also a calling, not merely for the next life but for this one also. Paul introduces the song by saying, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...” In other words, the story of loss and renewal, of death and resurrection is the pattern for our living… or as Paul rather more starkly puts it, it is the pattern by which we “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling.”

And there is ‘fear and trembling’, in the sense that God calls us to something great – but not in the sense that we are intimidated. Because what we see in the scriptures is the possibility and challenge that we are not cowed in the face of loss, suffering, and death, because Jesus was not cowed in the face of loss, suffering, and death. It’s not that we become disengaged automatons, disassociated from our emotions or insensitive to the possibility of pain. Rather, we are inspired by something far bigger than these things.

In a sense, Paul is offering an invitation to maturity. So, a child is inconsolable because his or her favourite cuddly toy gets lost, but it would be strange for an adult to react in the same way: the world we inhabit is larger, and the toy seems small by comparison.

But it isn’t just about maturity; it is also about the invitation to sanctity, to become saints, that is people whose vision of reality encompasses not merely our local community and nation and family, nor even the whole of the world God has given – but the whole created order of physical and spiritual beings. We say that we worship “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven”, and when that is the world we inhabit, even our own life becomes small by comparison – and so our own death seems not that consequential.

Paul himself says this in the previous chapter: “I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.” So Paul is open to either possibility; he doesn’t need to cling to one or the other.

It’s not that our life doesn’t matter – we matter absolutely to the God who made us. But God knows – and we come to know – that nothing is lost through our death. If we die, we are as radiant and beautiful in God’s eyes as ever. And our relationship with God is made all the more immediate through our death.

And nor is it that we should be careless of life. The Gospel of resurrection calls for a profound reverence for life and tender care for all of God’s creatures. I should not deliberately smash up a stained glass window in order to create something beautiful; and no more should I throw away my life, or my strength, or my intellect, or my passions, or my time, or my abilities, or my affections on destructive purposes, in order that God will make something more beautiful.

But neither should I cling to these in desperation, turning more and more towards resentment or fear… when God is calling me to relinquish these in order to find myself in God. As Jesus says, “those who want to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it”.

And the strength to follow Jesus in this way comes only from the grace of God. We cannot screw up our minds or our wills to live for God, rather we let go of our trying in order to allow God to work in and through us.

So contemplate the beauty of the broken and recreated window in the Cathedral, contemplate the beauty of the crucified and risen Christ, and contemplate the beauty of who God is calling you to become in his grace-filled desire.