Sermon for Sunday 28 June, Trinity 3
Whoever gives even a cup of cold water – that’s pretty simple to do, isn’t it. Offer a cup of cold water to those who are thirsty. We might even extend this instruction to include dropping off food at a food bank, donating to a charity, ‘phoning someone who is particularly vulnerable and needing a chat.
It would be very easy to walk away from these verses thinking, ‘Great. Done that.’ Box ticked. ‘What’s next?’
But Jesus’s message isn’t that simple. The instructions he gives his disciples in today’s Gospel are not about extending welcome. They’re about receiving welcome. They’re about what it looks like, and feels like, for followers of Jesus to accept welcome in Jesus’s name. More specifically, the fascinating story in Jeremiah is about welcoming prophets. It’s about the risks and rewards of extending hospitality to God’s provocative, truth-telling messengers.
It’s one thing to offer water, to offer hospitality, to offer help; many of us quite like that. However, it’s quite another thing to receive help. It’s another thing entirely to recognise our ‘poverty’ – be that physical or spiritual, emotional or psychological poverty. In a cultural that prizes self-sufficiency, the self-made person, the strong and the powerful, it’s very challenging to recognise that we ourselves are broken and in need of help.
Recognising our need of help is examined rather wonderfully in a recent book. I wonder how many of you have the best-seller by Charlie Mackesy entitled: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. It’s a fantastic book that’s been the Times no.1 bestseller for several months.
For those unfamiliar, the book is mostly sketches with some dialogue. The characters in the book include an inquisitive boy. There’s a mole who’s enthusiastic but a bit greedy. The fox has been hurt by life so is withdrawn: he’s slow to trust but wants to be part of things. And then there is the horse – the horse doesn’t say much but is the wisest one.
These diverse characters discuss life, forgiveness, and the journey we all take on this earth. They express their hopes and dreams, fears and desires, questions and advice for one another.
In an interview, Charlie explained that when he sat down to draw the boy talking to a horse, he was working out his own feelings.
[SLIDE] His drawing is of a horse confessing the bravest thing he's ever said: “Help”. This image in particular became an online sensation
[SLIDE] ‘Asking for help isn’t giving up’ said the horse. ‘It’s refusing to give up’.
What’s wonderful about it, is simply acknowledging the difficulty of asking for help. To be in a position of need. Whether it's mental health, grief, depression, struggling to bring up children, difficulty with a loving relationship, spiritual crisis. Charlie’s sketches are permission giving – affirming that it's okay to ask for help. The central message in the book is about the importance of kindness, and that love exists in unexpected places if, and it’s a big if, if one is brave enough to let it in.
Returning to the gospel, when Jesus sent out his disciples, they didn’t go from a position of power and influence. The early followers of Jesus inhabited the margins of society. We western Christians are not used to occupying the margins; for centuries we have occupying the centre. The Church of England is the established church, with bishops in the House or Lords. We are the ones who wield institutional and cultural power over the people we set out to help. But for Jesus disciples, they were sent out as vulnerable outsiders. They had no religious institutions to back their efforts. No political tools to wield. No cultural capital to spend. They had no power at all. They had no power save the power of the Holy Spirit moving through them to heal and serve.
For us 21st century Christians, perhaps we need to re-examine our cosy relationship with power, and redefine our place in the world Jesus loves. Jesus wanted Christian witness to flow from humility and vulnerability — not from complacency and comfort.
Being aware and honest about who we are and being vulnerable isn’t easy. Yet judging by the success of Charlie’s book, it’s clearly resonated with millions of people.
Two other slides I’d like to share:
[SLIDE] ‘Is it the moon’; asked the boy. ‘it’s a tea cup stain’ said the mole. ‘And where there’s tea, there’s cake’.
Tea and cake are clearly significant features in Charlie’s life
[SLIDE] ‘Is it ruined?’ ‘No’, said the mole. ‘Look at the music – it often comes through where things are broken’.
The last two illustrations are deliberately messy in places. I think Charlie was trying to reflect upon how imperfections are a part of everything in nature, including ourselves, and that beauty can be revealed through this. There is no shying away from recognising that life can be difficult.
So, a message of hope in these uncertain times. For the lonely, the anxious, the sad and those who feel out of place; for the worried who look at our world and despair; for those in this pandemic whose worries feel overwhelming, this book affirms a profoundly Christian theme that all its not lost. There is hope. There is love in unexpected places. We have to acknowledge our need, our brokenness, and be brave enough to ask for help.