ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
SERMON PREACHED BY THE VICAR AT HIGH MASS ON ADVENT 3, 2009
Fr. Andrew Greaney, the Vicar of Little Saint Mary's in Cambridge, told me when we had lunch a few days ago that a lady had stopped him in the street and said that someone of his calling ought to be smiling! She must be one of those who think the clergy are meant to look jolly at all times - presumably in order to show the transforming effect of the Gospel.
In fact, St. Paul teaches us in the Letter to the Romans (12:14), that we are "Rejoice with those who rejoice" and to "weep with those who weep". Parish priests encounter enough of the sorrows of this world to know that superficial jolliness is not the Christian response to every situation.
But St. Paul does tell us this morning, "Rejoice in the Lord, always". This 3rd Sunday in Advent takes its ancient name "Gaudete" from the Latin of those words from the Letter to the Philippians which are used as the entrance chant at mass. The prophet Zephaniah says:
"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion:
Shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!"
More than one commentary, of American origin, warned me against a "Pollyanna" approach to life. It's a long time since I've read that American children's classic, or seen the Disney movie with Hayley Mills. Do you remember it?
Pollyanna is a young orphan taken in by a wealthy but severe aunt in a town in Vermont. Pollyanna's approach to life centres on the "The Glad Game": finding something to be glad about in every situation. It began one Christmas when Pollyanna was hoping to get a doll from the missionary tub - what we would call the bran tub. She got a pair of crutches. Seeing her disappointment, her father made up the game there and then, to teach her to look on the good side of things - in this case to be glad about the crutches because she didn't need them!
With this philosophy, her sunny personality and sympathetic nature, Pollyanna brings so much gladness to a dispirited town that she transforms it into a pleasant place to live. "The Glad Game" also shields her from her aunt's sternness. Given a bare attic room she rejoices in the view from the high window. Punished for being late for dinner with bread and milk in the kitchen with the servant Nancy, she thanks her aunt because she loves bread and milk and Nancy.
But even Pollyanna's robust optimism is put to the test when she is hit by a car while crossing the street and left unable to walk. After she overhears an eminent specialist say she will never walk again, she lies in bed, unable to find anything to be glad about.
Then the townspeople call at the house, eager to let Pollyanna know how much her encouragement has improved their lives; and Pollyanna decides that she can be glad that she had had legs. The novel ends with Aunt Polly marrying her former sweetheart, a doctor, and Pollyanna being sent to a hospital where she learns to use her legs again and comes to appreciate here legs all the more for their temporary loss.
The story inspired a cynical academic to coin the term "Pollyanaism"; meaning excessive optimism, naivety, refusal to accept reality.
That is perhaps unfair on Pollyanna who had suffered the loss of her parents, found herself in the care of a not very sympathetic aunt; and would then lose the use of her legs.
When we read those exhortations to rejoice in Zephaniah and Philippians today, we also need to be aware of the context from which they come; lest we dismiss them as no more than injunctions to "always look on the bright side of life".
Zephaniah is one of the darkest books in the Old Testament, The corruption of Jerusalem has brought the priest-prophet to the brink of despair. Things were so dreadful it seemed God had no option but to destroy everything. There will be a terrible day of judgement, a "bitter" day of "distress and anguish", of "ruin and devastation", of "darkness and gloom", of "clouds and thick darkness", "of trumpet blast and battle cry". More than a millennium later, in another dark and despairing time, this would inspire the "Dies Irae": "Day of wrath and doom unending" the hymn which became part of the requiem mass.
(An Historical Note: The first English translation of this hymn appeared in a collection ff chants and hymns for Advent published for the Margaret Chapel. The translator had heard it sung at the funeral of the Archbishop of Paris who had been shot on the barricades during the revolution of 1848.)
But our passage today is the climax of the book and sounds a very different note; not doom and despair, but hope and joy. It is as if the prophet has drawn back from the chasm of judgement at the very last minute, so that the joy is rendered all the more intense because of the hopelessness out of which it has come. This passage may have been added after the return from the Exile, when a terrible price had been paid for Jerusalem's disobedience. But in the text as the tradition has given it to us, that word from God which began as irredeemable judgement has been transformed into transcendent gladness; that which once anticipated the people's cries of sorrow, now celebrates their choruses of joy.
The roots of this joy lie not in the strength and goodness of the people, but in the grace and benevolence of God. The God who is Israel's judge is also Israel's lover and covenant-partner. "The King of Israel is in your midst". So the people should replace their fear with confidence and strength, because God is like a mighty warrior who has championed the cause of his people. Since Israel's warrior God will now "rejoice" and "exult", so may Israel be caught up in the same celebration. Since God will "renew" Israel "in his love", Israel may accept this love in gladness.
Paul's injunction to rejoice is written not from an Episcopal palace but from prison. His readers are either already experiencing persecution or are expecting to soon.
Taken out of context, the exhortations might suggest an unrealistic attitude toward life, a religion that ignores tragedies and calls for that forced jollity that lady in Cambridge demand s of the clergy. But knowing the stories of the author and the readers, we can take the injunctions seriously. They emerge from and are directed to the dark side of human experience.
Between the first two instructions "Rejoice in the Lord always...." and "Let your gentleness be known....", and the third, "Do not worry about anything....", Paul writes, "The Lord is at hand."
This could mean that he is close by or coming soon; or both. If it is "near" in time, then believers are to rejoice, live gently, and be free from anxiety because the advent of the Lord is just around the corner, an advent that will right the wrongs of the present and fulfil God's purposes for the world.
If "near" is read in spatial terms, it reflects the language of the psalms, where the Lord's constant nearness reassures the broken-hearted and those who seek him.
If we are honest, the third injunction is the one we find most disturbing. Just as when we hear Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount telling us to "take no thought for the morrow", we tend to respond - "Not worry? But you don't have children to rear, bills to pay, elderly parents to look out for, stressful jobs to do, old age to worry about."
Paul does not promise that we will be spared hard times or pressured lives. He does not minimize those hard times as if his readers might be making mountains out of molehills (although that is a temptation for some of us!). He describes the hard times elsewhere in the letter. But, in the light of the nearness of the Lord, we are not to be overcome with anxiety, as if events were out of control and the ultimate outcome of things were in doubt; rather than in God's hands.
The antidote to worry is prayer: petition and thanksgiving. In hard times (in everything), people are to keep on making their requests to God, surrounding their petitions with thanksgiving.
Christian worship is marked by a tension between praise and lament, thanksgiving and supplication. The promises heard in Scripture are followed by our voicing of the needs of the world in the intercessions. The thanksgiving prayer at the altar also cries out for a hungry world. The praise of God over bread and wine begs for the coming of the Spirit on gifts and people.. Sermons speak of our need before announcing that mercy of God which invites us to faith. The Lord's Prayer cries out for the reign of God, as we ask for bread and forgiveness as the presence of that reign.
In this tension we are given a way to live, an orientation in the world; though not concrete answers to every question. There is no promise that our petitions will be granted in just the way we (or Paul or the Philippians) would like, such as release from prison or avoidance of suffering. What is promised is the peace of God to stand guard, like a sentry, at the doors of our lives (our "hearts and minds"). In place of paralyzing anxiety is God's peace, given in the midst of and in spite of the hard times. Such a promise is hard to fathom, since our tendency is to connect peace with the absence of strife, with a quiet life. So we are reminded that this is - the peace that "surpasses all understanding". The nearness of the Lord invites us to experience life differently, to meet worry with prayer and thanksgiving, and to discover our lives protected by God's inscrutable peace.
I haven't said anything yet about today's Gospel and John the Baptist. It would have sounded harsh and finger-wagging if my first words to you after returning from the wilds of Spain and the Fens , although Cambridge hardly counts as a wilderness, likened you a "a brood of vipers".
John's indictment is clear. Judgement is imminent; the axe ready to strike. The crowds respond: "What then should we do?. They acknowledge their guilt and this opens the door for concrete and specific instruction. It calls for practical repentance which has less to do with how fervently we pray or how faithfully we attend services; instead, it has everything to do with how one handles riches, carries out public service, and exercises stewardship; with fairness and justice. Generosity and unselfishness were the proper "fruit" of repentance.
What then must we do? Well our repentance must be equally practical. Some of its manifestations will be in our use of this worlds goods, in the carrying out of our duties in society and family. Some of it will be in the life and mission of our Christian community here; how we treat those who come to us.
Some people will come to us full of joy. They are in love and want to get married. They have just had a baby and ask for baptism. We rejoice with them, we make them welcome, we lay aside scepticism about their motives.
Others come with their hearts aching because of sickness, bereavement, broken relationships, failure and despair. They do not need make-believe jollity. They need to know the compassion of God and one of the principal means by which they will know it is through us. But just because we are not to go around grinning inanely all the time; that does not mean that we are to go around looking doom-laden; or worse still, sour and bad-tempered. Those people who come to us fragile and wounded, and never forget that one day that might be our situation, need to know the love of God; need to know that it makes a difference; that there is something to celebrate as well as something to lament. People whose conversation is all complaint about the state of the world and the church are hardly likely to communicate that God's love or be God's agents in transforming lives.
That lady who ticked off Fr. Greaney may not have been right, but perhaps she was half-right; she was on to something. Our faith ought to show; the fact that we believe that "the Lord is at hand", that he comes to us in word and sacrament and fellowship ought to make us more generous, more compassionate, and yes, more joyful people. The Eucharist and the Glad Game are not so far apart.