Sermons - March 2023
Sermon 5th March 2023
Sermon 12th March 2023
ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 12th MARCH 2023, 4th SUNDAY OF LENT, 11.00am,
The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask,
“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some were saying, “It is he.”
Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.” John 9:8-9
Among the nominees at last week’s Oscar ceremonies,
two movies offer meditations on seeing and being seen.
In The Whale, which won best actor,
the entire movie is spent in the claustrophobic apartment
of a reclusive English teacher, suffering from morbid obesity,
attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter.
Self-imprisoned within his apartment, by feelings of grief and guilt,
he earns a living, teaching students via the internet.
While he can see his students on screen, his screen remains blank.
He tells them, he must get his camera fixed – but deliberately leaves it turned off.
The film actually with a blank/black screen and just his voice –
which is calm, reassuring, engaging.
You get the impression he is a good teacher.
In time, the students will recoil,
when his shocking physical reality is revealed.
A gentler, more audience-friendly movie, is Stephen Spielberg’s, The Fablemans,
which draws from Spielberg’s own childhood experiences –
“a nostalgic love letter to the movies.”
Young Sammy Fableman falls in love with movies
after his parents take him to see “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
Armed with a camera, Sammy starts to make his own films at home,
much to the delight of his supportive mother.
At one point he films his mother dancing at night-time on a camping trip,
by the light of car headlights – a balletic, free-spirited moment.
Later she says to her son: “You see me.”
In other words – You get me; you understand me at my core.
Two contrasting movie moments:
Camera off. Identity hidden or overlooked.
Camera on. Identity understood, celebrated.
On the road to Jerusalem, on the way to the Cross,
Jesus encounters the man blind from birth;
The story begins with some cruel theology –
The disciples ask Jesus: Who sinned, this man or his parents?
The assumption: blindness/disability is sign of God’s anger and punishment.
The late Jean Vannier, founder of the L’Arche Community,
which works with the severely handicapped says;
it is the question every culture asks.
Why is someone born with a disability?
But he warns, such questioning is talk about a person with disability;
it is not a conversation with that person.
Two different things.
A contemporary prayer/meditation from those with disabilities:
“We are people with abilities too –
we speak with our fingers, we read with our hands, we paint with our feet
…
We love God but are wary of the scriptures,
bruised by generations of preachers and hesitant of the community called church
which so often defines healing and leaves us on the outside of it.”
(An Improbable Gift of Blessing p.84)
Jesus is categorical: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…”
He doesn’t explain away the unanswerable Why?
Instead, takes the things of life, earth and spittle,
then with firm touch and gentle command
sends the man towards the light.
The one blind from birth, judged by his religion, excluded from his community,
is brought back; a restoration, an amazing grace.
Dusted and done, maybe – but in effect, this morphs into a tale
not about the miracle itself, but about how people perceive it –
shining a spotlight on what internal mindsets, permit us to see – or not.
Very soon, a volley of questions - not all of them kind.
His neighbours barely recognise him.
Previously they have seen only his condition,
a beggar, blind from birth.
Now, the people he has lived and worshipped with for years —
apparently, don’t know how to see him without his disability.
When he declares: “I am the man” his word is not enough;
So, the religious authorities are invoked, and intimacy banished.
Interrogation leads to dispute:
This man is not from God – he does not observe the Sabbath.
But a “sinner” couldn’t perform such signs.
The Pharisees - opticians of the nation’s spiritual sight - are divided.
They operate with an awkward truth;
sight to the blind, is one of the herald calls of the Messiah.
If this “sign/miracle” is pukka – Jerusalem, we have a problem.
This is not the Messiah they anticipated; nor the type they desire.
The drama rolls on; parents are summoned reluctantly into the spotlight.
If they validate their son, they support the messiah conspiracy;
eviction from synagogue and community, their reward.
“Not our call. Ask the boy - he is of age.”
Fear casts out love.
How did their son hear those parental words?
Interrogation Part II: vested interest, rising threat:
“Give credit to God; not credence to Jesus, the sinner.”
The immortal reply:
“I do not know whether he is a sinner.
One thing I do know; I was blind, but now I see.”
Strikingly, sadly, there is no voice to raise an Alleluia,
no singing, Thanks be to God. From anyone – neighbour or priest.
Instead, the stewards of the Mystery of Life
reject the miracle as an affront to their preconceived certainties.
Things spiral downwards:
What trickery has he performed or persuaded you to pretend?
How many times must I explain? Are you also eager to be his disciples? (Incendiary.)
No. You are his disciple. We are faithful followers of Moses
and we do not know where this imposter comes from.
Really!? You have no clue about him and yet he opened my eyes.
“If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
And they drove him out.
Depressingly, it is the professionally religious/those labelled faithful
who make all the wrong moves in this story.
Cynical about eye-witness accounts;
more concerned with ritual rules than individual well-being;
rejecting the one with whom, they might have rejoiced;
in indignation, excommunicating.
“How dare you lecture us!”
With that, the real blindness is confirmed,
Just as previously the cup of water at the Samaritan well
became a metaphor/launchpad for the reality of spiritual thirst –
The restoration of sight becomes a metaphor or launchpad
for the reality of spiritual blindness –
a shortcoming of humanity, a dearth of kindness.
Jesus’ verdict: “I came into this world for judgement
so that those who do not see, may see,
and those who do see, may become blind.”
Here is warning - of the danger/ delusion that spiritually-speaking, we are full-sighted.
Reminder that sometimes it is our certainties,
that render our encounters dry and barren.
Unwillingness to consider the viewpoint or life experience of another.
“The more convinced we are that we have full insight, comprehension, and knowledge, the less we will see and experience of God.” (D Clendenin)
A minister who asked a member of the church to consider ordination to the eldership, received the reply:
“I don't feel I would be worthy in either a moral or a spiritual sense
when considering the vows.”
The minister replied, “Feeling spiritually and/or morally unworthy is exactly the right place from which to start considering eldership!”
In C18th New England, theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote:
“I make my business, to lay hold of light, no matter who is bearing it.”
How does the story end for the one blind from birth,
who on his first day of sight
has witnessed face to face ugly and angry prejudice?
A world so spectacularly released, yet a new solitariness confined.
Now, the Shepherd, seeks the left behind.
“Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
One more question, to be tripped up by?
No - the voice is different.
And the listener has a lifetime of weighing voices.
The question sounds like an invitation, not an accusation;
This sounds like conversation with, not talk about.
“Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
Tell me who he is, that I may believe.
You know him – he stands before you – camera on.
Lord, I believe.
Ah, you see me.
Sermon 19th March 2023
Sermon 26th March 2023
MORNING WORSHIP
ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 26th MARCH 2023, 5th SUNDAY OF LENT, 11.00am
Then God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal,
and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God:
Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them,
and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” Ezekiel 37:9-10
Last weekend, if blue is your colour and rugby is to your game,
you were treated to one more rollercoaster of emotion,
that is the gift that keeps on giving
to the follower of the fortunes of Scotland’s national sports team.
On this most recent occasion, a nail-biting Murrayfield conclusion –
wondrously - rather than a suffocating, dispiriting defeat –
the great gallop of a glorious, length of the pitch, last-minute try, to seal victory.
Those fortunate to be there, shared the euphoric moment:
WhatsApp messages ran:
“Phew! Great finish! Wow, that was stressful.
Another: I feel sick and elated in equal measure.
Which drew the response: And the life of a Scotland fan summed up right there!!!”
As John Cleese’s character, in the 1980’s British film comedy, Clockwise, spoke for many:
“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair.
It’s the hope I can’t stand.”
Sick and elated; hope and despair;
contrast or contradiction; Ying and yang?
Most days, most weeks, most lives – we are a weave of both;
a St Columba’s week no exception.
On Wednesday these steps were lined with the reception class pupils at a school assembly,
premature perhaps but sporting homemade Easter bonnets.
Among the company, one remarkable confection topped with Christmas lights –
they didn’t flash, but you felt, they should have!
Their song: Peace is flowing like a river,
Flowing out through you and me,
Spreading out into the desert,
Setting all the people free.
Complete with actions: Then:
Love is flowing like a river,
Joy is flowing like a river,
Hope is flowing like a river:
A sight/a moment, to ease and enliven the spiritual arthritis of even the most jaded.
Yet, as those youngsters sang of flowing things,
in the same week, images of last week’s devastation in Malawi –
rivers bursting their banks, following Cyclone Freddie –
bridges that permit schoolgirls to get to school in Blantyre, gone;
homes swept away before anguished eyes.
In the same week, one first-time visitor
tells me of a powerful experience of prayer in this sanctuary;
the same day, another, is worried sick for the future of a child excluded from school.
Hope and despair; despair and hope.
Our scriptures too, veer from the boneyard desolation of Ezekiel,
to the un-shuttered tomb of Lazarus; departure cancelled, to flight boarding.
Six hundred years before Christ (597BC) the Babylonians overran the Israelite kingdom,
transporting many from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon; amongst them Ezekiel.
Some ten years later, further appalling news –
the invaders had now sacked Jerusalem.
Any hope of an early return, to an unchanged homeland, vanished.
Ezekiel, far from home, dwells among a people in despair –
the living dead, skeletons in the valley of bones.
To which comes the voice of God:
“Prophesy to these bones – their bodies and their breath will be restored.”
Ezekiel finds his voice – prophesies –
so that in his vivid dream-vision,
with the sound of a tide churning a million pebbles,
the bones, rattlingly come together –
flesh and face, rebirth, where before there had been only decay.
Eventually, breath - summoned from the four corners of the earth -
that those re-fleshed – “lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”
Surely, one of scripture’s most vivid images – this boneyard transformation –
the promise and power of hope.
Two and a half millennia later, a descendant of Ezekiel’s tradition,
a rabbi in the horrors of the Holocaust concentration camps;
humanity degraded, starvation rations.
As Hannukah, the Jewish festival of lights, approaches,
the rabbi defies his place of death.
The daily ration is bread and a little fat or grease to spread upon it.
Forgoing his own food, bartering, hoarding,
he garners enough to fashion a crude candle, lit at the appropriate hour.
Amazed at the hardship endured, the rabbi is asked:
“How in this place can you live without food?”
His reply: “Without food I can live a few days; without hope, I would not survive one.”
The Lord set Ezekiel down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
He led me all round them… asking: “Mortal, can these bones live?”
Ezekiel answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
Where are the bone-filled valleys of our own time and place?
Where all hope seems lost?
Recent days have marked twenty years since Allied forces went into Iraq,
ostensibly in the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
and to depose Saddam Hussein.
The unforeseen consequences of that action continue to reverberate,
long after the departure of our troops.
The collateral damage is unimaginable –
the cost borne primarily by the people of Iraq, an uncountable loss of civilian life.
Listening to the account of one who lived through it,
the breakdown of society in the aftermath of the war,
she summed up: It was the abyss.
Aleppo/Mariupol – graveyards of other names and nations –
and plenty we don’t even know the names of.
Nearer to home – less newsworthy – there are the daily battles fought or endured,
Graveyards, real or imagined.
Illness, bereavement, relationship breakdown at work or in the home.
An addiction. A truancy. A taking of life because of despair.
Seemingly, so many places short on hope.
If we are honest to acknowledge the reality,
“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”
Can we endure long enough also to detect the whisper/promise of God’s breath?
I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves,
I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…
A friend reflected on his recent experience of Lent.
In basic terms, despite good intentions, he has completely ignored it.
It has coincided with a period of over-work and loneliness,
leaving him stressed and angry.
Yet he also reflected that amid these generally negative days
he has experienced unexpected moments:
assistance with a flat tyre, a surprise invitation to share a meal,
a message from his church community,
digging in his garden, leaving him exhausted but able to sleep well.
He summed up: “Today, I feel refreshed and renewed.
While I failed to notice, Lent was happening all around me.
While I am in this story, I am not the story. The story is about others…
It concerns their small acts of kindness, openness, humanity, and community.”
When I asked a primary school pupil if they had ever had an experience of being without hope, I was given the answer:
“When I was recovering from a big operation.
I was so uncomfortable; it was awful. I could only sleep an hour at a time.”
What helped?
“TV. And nice messages from family.”
“This resurrection is a process that begins every morning, every night, every day.
We are called on a journey of resurrection
to do the work of God,
to bring love into our families, our communities and the world.”
Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John, J Vannier
Market town of Velyka Novosilka. BBC correspondent, Quentin Somerville:
Before the war, the town had a modern school,
a tidy fire station and a three-storey kindergarten.
Now, it stands forlorn and battered.
Some 10,000 people used to live here - now there are fewer than 200.
An escorting soldier joked:
“Only mice, cats and dogs thrive here now and they also hide from the shelling.”
At one of the shelters, Iryna Babkina, the local piano teacher
tries to hold together the remaining threads of her town.
With blazing red hair, she is quietly determined to remain there.
Before leaving, Iryna Babkina took the journalist through the town's school.
Its lilac-painted corridors are scattered with debris, its windows blown in.
Children's jackets still hang on coat pegs
and homemade Christmas decorations stand uncollected on a shelf.
On a wall above a pale blue radiator,
a group picture shows the kids football team celebrating a win.
Outside the window, the same pitch is cratered,
and the nearby climbing frames mangled by shelling.
The tail fin of an unexploded Russian rocket
sticks out from the playground asphalt.
A piano stands in the corridor and Iryna sits down to play.
But no tune comes, the piano is too badly damaged.
She has no music to play and no children to teach.
The last of them were forcibly evacuated from the town by police last month
and taken to somewhere safer.
Her own daughter was among them.
“There's only the sounds of shells,” she says.
“The school is smashed, instruments are ruined,
but it is fine –
we will rebuild it, and the music will sound again –
along with the children's laughter.”
He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”