Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton, Trinity 5, Sunday 16 July 2017, United Benefice of Holland Park
Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton, Trinity 5, Sunday 16 July 2017, United Benefice of Holland Park
May my word give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so
it shall not return to me empty and accomplish that which God purposes.
I want us to compare the lives of two men in the light of St.
Pauls’ statement:
“There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus” as we reflect on what is to truly free, and to live in the
Spirit.
They both came to mind as I was asking the Spirit to guide me
as I prepared this sermon. Because in their different ways, they were both
condemned – both were deprived of their freedom
- at least in one sense.
(As an aside, I should mention that I have learnt that the
best sermon preparation is to pray.)
Both these men, as I discovered, yesterday afternoon were
born in the same year, within six months of each other, in 1906.
If you have read Julian Barnes’ The Noise of Time you will know one of these men I am about to talk
about, is the Russian composer Shostakovich. Barnes tells the story of how the musician
whose output had been banned, was deprived by the Stalinist system of his
freedom to think or express himself. Yet in one of the bizarre ironies of the
Soviet system, at the personal invitation of Stalin who knew that Shostakovich
had been tamed, Shostakovich attended the Cultural and Scientific Congress of
World Peace in New York in 1949 as the star name of the Russian delegation. He gave
a speech written for him by the system that he detested and praised it publicly
and fulsomely. He had also responded to a question on the influence of the
State on artistic integrity thus:
“Our musical criticism, reflecting the life and movement of
our music, brings me much good, since it helps me to move my music forward.”
Shostakovich returned to Moscow and his family feeling
self-loathing and contempt. A prisoner. A captive of the system.
Contrast this with another man returning to his country from
New York in the summer of 1939. He is 33 years old. He too would become a
prisoner of the state and six years later would be condemned to death in a
concentration camp.
Unlike Shostakovich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor
who many of you will know of, Bonhoeffer’s spirit was undaunted. Yet after years of opposition to Hitler, he
knew that by returning, he was taking a path of suffering and conflict. He
would become a captive of the Nazis but remained a child of Christ Jesus. Bonhoeffer
was the embodiment of someone for whom “there is no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus.”
Bonhoeffer lived in the Spirit but this did not mean turning
his back on the world. Separation from the problems of this world does not lead
to a godly life. Indeed in a letter to a friend from his prison he wrote shortly
before his death:
“I discovered later and I'm still discovering right up to
this moment that it is indeed by living completely in this world that one
learns to have faith. By “this- worldliness” I mean living unreservedly in
life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities.
In doing so we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking
seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world-watching with
Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith ..…that is how one becomes a
human being and Christian.
Let us return to St. Paul, who like Bonhoeffer had his time
in prison. In his letter to the Romans, the city in which Paul would be put to
death, Paul explains the gift of salvation that we have received through God’s
gift of his Son. Paul contrasts the flesh with the Spirit and death with life.
It is dense stuff on first hearing. Yet is when we start to see that Paul’s
meaning of “flesh” is everything that alienates us from God, that we rapidly
gain in understanding of Romans and how we have been truly liberated by God
sending his Son.
“That to set the mind on flesh is death but to set the mind
on Spirit is life”
And in the final verse of today’s reading, a message so
fundamental to our faith that we scarce take it in.
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells
in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies
also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”
We are forgiven and loved. But what does it mean for our
daily lives.
These are sombre times for our own community. Domestic
politics, our relations with our European neighbours, terrorist outrages and
the black spectre of Grenfell. Plenty of
reasons for concern.
Bonhoeffer, as we have heard stressed the need for
“this-worldliness” and how from this comes faith. He also wrote a prose poem
with the title “Stations on the Road to Freedom” setting out what he thought
were the components of real freedom or a Paul puts it, “no condemnation”. It
has four verses titled: Discipline, Action, Suffering and Death. I will draw to
a close by sharing with you lines from Discipline and Action and what he said
could be tools that we might choose to use.
In Discipline, Bonhoeffer wrote:
“If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things
to govern your soul and your senses.”
We can best do this by prayer; that is the foundation of
allowing ourselves to be “in Christ Jesus” and I commend to you, for those who
are able, to make a note in your diaries of the 15 minute daily prayer sessions
we have in this church each morning (Mondays to Thursdays). August
In Action –active following Grenfell is something Kensington
churches under the leadership of Bishop Graham, have sought to be - Bonhoeffer wrote:
“Daring to do what is right, not what fancy may tell you,
Valiantly grasping occasions, not cravenly doubting –
Freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking
wing.”
Deeds and grasping occasions. On Wednesday Fr. James and Fr.
Neil went to a monthly lunch of local clergy. I was left behind (like
Cinderella; note I make no mention of the Ugly Sisters). This was no idle get
together, but a chance to confer, consider and share the lessons post Grenfell.
Grenfell has been a terrible tragedy. But from the ashes there are signs of
hope. Local faith groups (churches, the mosque and the synagogue) who had not
previously conferred are now doing so and are working together as one. And for
the first time a local vicar has been asked by the local school to come in and
address the children.
It is when we work as one in the cause of love, that the
Spirit is harnessed.
So let us be prayerful. Let us be “this-world”, let us be
people who act, and we will be in Christ, in whom there is no condemnation.
Let the seed of the Spirit we have been freely given to “bear
fruit and yield a hundred fold.”
Fr. Peter Wolton 15 July 2017