ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

A Sermon Preached by Fr Gerald Beauchamp at Evensong & Benediction on the First Sunday after Trinity, 6 June 2010

Readings: Genesis 8. 15 - 9.17; Mark 4. 1-20

This evening's lessons introduce us to two well-known biblical characters: one known by his name and the other known by his occupation - Noah and the Sower. The question is: How do we relate these two characters to reality, the world that we inhabit?

To take the latter (and the easiest) first. The Sower is a character in a parable, the stories created by Jesus that carry his message. The Parable of the Sower is comparatively straightforward. The message is that human beings are to be grounded in listening to God and putting God's word into action. The Sower is God, the one who is for Everyman and Everywoman. But the presentation of the message is pre-modern. Townies (like me) tend to think that the country is all rural bliss where the pace of life is slower and everyone lives in harmony with nature. But the reality is quite different. Those sowing crops today are not walking the fields broadcasting the seed as they did in biblical times. Instead, sowers (farmers) are seated high up in a tractor cab staring part of the time at a computer screen and drilling the seed into the ground hi-tech fashion.

For us 'broadcasting' is more associated with what's happening round the corner at the BBC: the British Broadcasting Corporation. I doubt if the BBC will ever change its name but perhaps in the 21C it should call itself the BNC: the British Narrowcasting Corporation. The days when there was just the Home Service and the Light Programme on the wireless and a couple of channels on the TV have long gone. Broadcasters are targeting their niche markets through a range of media. The digital world enables a vast array of output all of which is searching for its own target audience. Whether 'More is More' remains to be seen but the Sower broadcasting his seed is a very alien figure to a 21C Londoner.

Then there's Noah. He has a name but he's probably not an historical figure like you and me. In the 19C and more recently there have been attempts to find Mt Ararat on which Noah's Ark came to rest. The mountain was thought to be somewhere in Southern Turkey. There were some pretty fanciful notions about particular ground formations looking like the outline of an ancient ship. This crude scriptural literalism was a velvet glove cloaking the iron fist of biblical inerrancy. This was used (and still is by some) for all the usual purposes: the retreat from the modern world, insular dogmatism and the creation of a controlled and controlling church.

The reality (if such it is) is much more interesting. Stories and myths of an ancient deluge are to be found in most of the world's religions and cultures. We know now that the world is a fairly unstable place. Its hundreds of millions of years old. The geological record shows us that there have been massive shifts in sea levels and temperatures in the past. These have caused lands to rise and fall. Dig up the Sahara and you'll find seashells. The story of Noah is probably a trace memory of this formative process.

The story is made more poignant when it resonates with our own personal experience. At some point in our lives we find ourselves overwhelmed. We weep with sorrow. We weep with anger. We weep with frustration and indignation. The tears well-up. We dissolve in floods.

Noah and Sower. They are the backdrop of our existence: what it means to be part of the created order; what it means to be part of the moral universe and how we bind the two together. They are bound together by Christ who interestingly according to Mark preached the Parable of the Sower from his pulpit of choice: the prow of a ship. From the water Jesus tells of the land. From chaos represented by the sea Jesus has good news about the potential for stability and flourishing. The land on which we are to stand (morally-speaking) will be terra firma only if we know our strengths and weaknesses. The categories of 'rocky soil' or 'choked with thorns' or 'good soil' may be a bit hackneyed but in reflecting on our lives its worth pausing to ask ourselves again Where do we go wrong? We'd all like to think that abundant life shines out of us all day long but that's rarely the case. Temptation is never far away.

Even if we don't go to confession we all know what it is to have our consciences pricked. And if we're honest with ourselves we know that we tend to do the same thing over and over again. Besetting sins are the bane of most of us. So how about this week taking some time out to think through why we do what we do and make a plan to do it differently? One of things that I often hear in the confessional is 'I don't make time to pray'. Sure. That comes as no surprise. But we do make time for all sorts of things. That's why we keep diaries. All of us find time for our passions be they creative or destructive. So if we're bothered about not making time to pray then we should write it in the diary.

We need to choose our best time. By 'best time' I mean the time when we're most awake not the fag-end of the day. We choose our best time and write it in: Monday 7 June, 4.15pm: 'I will pray.' That encourages us and we may find that it works. And we can use the same technique for other things. Monday 7 June, 8.00pm: 'Pub.' We can then write in: 'But I'll leave at 10.00pm after three drinks and not get chucked out after closing time having had a skinful.'

Doing this is a way of listening: listening to ourselves and listening to God. That bears fruit. When we listen to ourselves we begin to hear the distance between who we are and what we sense God desires us to be. We only have to read 1 Corinthians 13 (St Paul's great hymn of love) to get a broad outline of the Christian life. It isn't rocket science. The tough bit (usually made tough by ourselves rather than anybody else) is to close the gap. And we'll only do that if we consciously and lovingly and visionally and patiently embark on the task. We won't do it by fear. Preaching 'You're all doomed' on the basis of Noah's Ark and the Flood never helped anyone. It only makes people neurotic.

The church's liturgical year divides neatly into two halves. In the first half from Advent to Trinity we rehearse the building blocks that make up the Christian faith in glorious technicolour: the purples of Advent and Lent; the whites and golds of Christmas, Easter and Trinity; the red of Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Pentecost. But now, stretching into the far distance like a classic English landscape we have the rolling greens of all the Sundays after Trinity. 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' now has to become our story. The Good News has to become our good news. The gospel has to make the journey from the altar to the heart and from the heart to the heart.

We make the journey with many companions. Among them are Noah and the Sower. Noah wasn't perfect. Had we read beyond what the lectionary requires this evening we would have heard something that Children's Bibles leave out. Having saved a remnant of creation Noah is the first person to plant a vineyard. On its produce he gets very drunk and disgraces himself. He 'uncovered his nakedness'. (Binge drinking, it seems is nothing new.) So we aren't traveling with people who show us up because their halos are so shiny. No, we travel the Christian way across our landscape with a motley crew. We travel patiently with the Sower: developing a natural rhythm to our lives and bringing forth the harvest that God earnestly desires.