Saint Michael’s Church
Serving God and Bishop’s Stortford
Sermon 04 July 2010
|
St Michael's Church 4th July 2010 Fifth Sunday after Trinity 8.00am Rev'd Toby Marchand |
|
ORDINATION OF ANTHONY SEARLE TO THE DIACONAT
Today is American Independence Day. Not having anything particularly to say about the readings today, and because I will not be preaching later in the day on account of the Ordination service at the Cathedral this morning I have decided to do a minor reflection on that word Independence.
On the 4th of July 1997 (13 years ago) an American spacecraft called “Pathfinder” landed on the planet Mars. It was unmanned and was designed to bounce on landing which it did. It later released a moving vehicle the size of a skate board. It analysed the soil and atmosphere and then automatically transmitted the results back to earth by radio signals.
Nearly a century earlier, in 1908, the astronomer Percival Lowell announced that he had discovered canals on Mars. He said they were red and seemed to move. We realise now that there are NO canals on Mars. The great astronomer had a rare eye disease—now known as Lowell’s Syndrome—which made him see the red veins in his own eye.
Lowell was so famous and such an expert in astronomy that no-one dared to contradict him. Older school atlases still show detailed maps that Lowell charted of his supposed “canals” on Mars.
A prayer written as a result of the eye incident goes like this:
Lord I can think of mistakes I have made and the attitude that I have sometimes had. May I not become so independent that I think I know it all and no longer need others, but may I always have true friends around me who are willing to point me in the right direction.
A case of independence being a bit of a block on progress.
Independence is two edged.
In some ways it is a virtue and is necessary. Children learn independence as they grow up. To start with they are totally dependent on their parents, especially their mother, for their well being. But gradually they need to learn to become independent. That series of “firsts” in childhood.
The first time they dress themselves;
the first time they tie their own shoe laces;
the first time they ride a bicycle without being helped,
and so on.
But as time goes on and as children become adults there is a great danger that Independence becomes an addiction. “I will do it my way”; “No one is going to tell me what to do or how to think”; I will make MY own way in the world”
Independence can become self-centredness. How many marriage relationships founder for that very reason?
How many business leaders become unpopular and isolated for that very reason?
In terms of the religious or spiritual life, the way to God is only to be found when the individual is prepared to give up independence.
In what is sometime called the Path of Descent the Christian believer has to learn that the giving up of the self-centred ego and the acceptance of love and gifts from others, especially God, is the way to growth and maturity. The more we try to do it my way the less we are likely to come close to God.
The Kingdom of God has been won for us by Jesus Christ. We can do nothing to earn it for ourselves. Our job is to receive it, gratefully, for what it is, a gift of grace from God Himself.
I could go on. It is after all a favourite theme of my preaching which you may have noticed over the years!
But I won’t. I will conclude with one comment about the Oberammergau Passion Play that some of us witnessed last Tuesday in Bavaria.
In nearly 6 hours of stunning visual and audio presentation of the Christ story one of the many things that struck me was this:
Jesus was in the first part of the pay in control of events. He was teaching, leading, healing, arousing controversy, and generally was the centre of attention. Never more so than when he made a whip of cords and violently overthrew the tables of the money changers in the Temple, and angrily cleared the place of traders and trading.
But form the moment of his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane he became the passive recipient of all that the chief priests, the Jewish Leaders, and the Roman officials, especially Pontius Pilate, did to him. He gave up voluntarily his independence. He could have called upon his powers and upon his Father to intervene but He did not. He chose not be independent, but to do his Father’s will.
The result was suffering and the loss of life. The result also was the salvation of the world and life eternal for all who believe!
On this Independence Day let all of us who carry the name Christian be ready to give up our personal, self-centred, independence, and learn to be dependent on God a little more each day.
That way we will grow in faith and love.
That way we will inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the beginning of the world.
Amen.
Toby Marchand
Office Address:
Saint Michael’s Church
Windhill
Bishops Stortford
Hertfordshire
CM23 2ND