Merciful God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as pass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love toward you that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Loving you in all things and above all things.
Really, I think that this is what it is all about…the
Eucharist, the Cathedral, ordained ministry, the whole Church in all its wild
wonder and terrible pain. It’s why we are here – not just here in the cathedral
this morning, but why we were created in the first place. That we might learn
to recognise God wherever we turn, and recognising, love with all our hearts
And put like that, it sounds so deceptively easy…not least
because the Collect frames that love in terms of aspiration to a reward –
because, of course, that’s how humanity functions. The need for future promises
is never part of God’s identity. God’s love does not depend on our response, -
not for one moment., - and as we reflect on this morning’s gospel, it’s
probably good to remember that.
You see, I suspect I’m not the only one who has spent
anxious hours (perhaps not at a stretch – I’m not that pious) wondering what
kind of soil I might be. Usually, I land myself somewhere midway between the
rocky and thorny ground, conscious that many a promising beginning in my
journey of faith has been curtailed because I’ve been just too preoccupied with
other things – sometimes, even with doing things FOR GOD as a priest in God’s
Church. Then there’s time for a bit of self-recrimination, wailing and gnashing
of teeth (I'm good at that) before I am gently reminded that maybe Jesus didn’t intent this
parable as a motivational tool, but simply a reminder of how God is.
Here’s the thing. The sower keeps on sowing. Wildly profligate, flinging the seed- that message of reconciling love – recklessly far and wide, regardless of the success or otherwise of the process…It’s bonkers by any human standard. Such a waste! And yet, God keeps on doing it…because it’s part of who God is. Not just love but outrageous EXTRAVAGANT love.
Let anyone
with ears listen…
You see each seed is always, without fail, a sign of hope.
That something so small should carry within it such
potential is never less than miraculous, even when our focus is the relatively
ordinary…And yet time and again, despite the inherent risk of sending, perhaps,
a dandelion blowing every which way on the breeze, that potential is eventually
realised. Maybe not in the way we expected, or where we had planned – but
nonetheless, realised as something new comes into being.
We’ve all watched seeds of hope flourish here in this
place…The hope that Provost Howard voiced in that extraordinary Christmas
message – that his community, shocked, battered, grieving, - would TRY to
banish all thought of vengeance from their hearts and set out to build a
kinder, more Christ-child-like world. Who would have guessed we would still be
telling that story 83 years on? Or what kinds of reconciliation plant would
grow from his vision. Clearly he had both heard and received God’s seeds of
love…
But there have been times, too, when we’ve felt the
disappointment of a world and a church that seems largely oblivious to the
words we share day by day, as years have passed without us being noticeably
different from any other community that aspires to much but falls over its own
feet repeatedly. We long to be a reconciled and reconciling people – but
sometimes its hard even to be reconciled to ourselves.
“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted…”
We know that the plant of kindness doesn’t always grow as
well as it might in our own hearts and souls. Does that mean that we need to
return to that cycle of self-doubt and recrimination which can sometimes trap
us?
Surely we can trust that the seeds that have been planted will come to fruition, because they are not ours but God’s…There’s so much inevitability in our first reading. God speaks…
My word shall not
return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
It’s not down to us, not
dependent on our efforts, our determination to transform ourselves into more
fertile, more productive ground. It’s all going to happen, as surely as the
cycle of the seasons.
During that first spring of
the pandemic, when I’d imagine most of us spent at least some time
contemplating our mortality, I found the sheer beauty of life returning to our
city, the sunshine, the birdsong, the hawthorn blossom, deeply reassuring. It
helped me to remember that while my time here had always been limited, that was
exactly how it should be, that I was only the tiniest part of the great cycle
of creation in which we could recognise God, and that God’s self-revelation in
everything had begun long before humanity and would continue beyond us, in
every corner of the universe, and beyond the farthest star. That’s the promise
we hear expressed in Isaiah…
12 For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the
thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for
a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
An everlasting sign.
God in all things – there for
us to recognise, there for us to love, - in all things and above all things.
Over my years here, there have
been so many moments of recognition for me – yes in our worship, the alchemy of
word and music that transforms again and again; in the beauty of our building and its power to
surprise and subvert…But even more in the stories of fragile hopes and broken
lives entrusted to me along the way…in random acts of kindness from friends and
strangers…in shared moments of silence when we knew beyond doubt that God was
close…
I’m so very grateful for all
those glimpses – and for your part in them, as God’s beloved people here. Long
long ago, Augustine wrote “Life is for love…Time is only that we may find God”
– so let’s pray that Collect once more today, but try to live it every day, to
the glory of God’s name.
Merciful
God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all
things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
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