ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Julian Browning at High Mass on the Second Sunday after Trinity, 13 June 2010
Readings: 2 Samuel 11.26-12.10, 13-15; Galatians 2.15--end; Luke 7.36-8.3.
Luke 7.48. Jesus said to her, Your sins are forgiven.
On Bank Holiday Monday Fr. Gerald and I, and parishioners and priests from this and other parishes, boarded the coach to Norfolk for The National Pilgrimage to The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. On that day hundreds of priests and their people from all over the country descend on the village of Walsingham. The National Pilgrimage is a morale-booster, so long as remains dry which it did, just. It's a great day out. There's an outdoor Mass and a picnic lunch, and then the high point of the afternoon is a procession through the country lanes to the Shrine for Benediction. The laity go first, parish by parish, then the image of Our Lady, and then the priests follow, the priests in columns of four, or as near to that manoeuvre as some of our less worldly brethren can manage. And at the head of that vast procession, floating free, was the banner of All Saints Margaret Street. That's where 150 years' experience of banner waving gets you. A proud moment, and we should say thank you to those of our number who took our banners and a very heavy banner pole to Walsingham on behalf of all of us.
What I like about religious processions is that once they're under way we don't need to think deep thoughts. Just keep singing and follow the person in front. Indeed, our opinions, our views, are of no importance whatever. As the preacher that day reminded us, we are members of a church which has no border control. This was not a march for or against women archdeacons, this was not a march of those who have adopted some superior moral stance, those who know best, those who follow some traditional formula or modern liberal consensus of what is the right thing to do. No border control, and no mind control either. Minds are for thinking with, we make up our own minds. This was a procession of sinners, who know forgiveness, and in the light of that loving forgiveness, know themselves called to be saints and are now walking in the same direction. What matters in a procession is not what we're thinking, but the direction in which we are going, and Who is leading us.
I do hope it's like that here. I know it's like that here. This church welcomes everyone, from the most diehard traditional Anglo Catholics, to the most liberal modernist, to those who are starting, or starting again to a hear a whisper of divine love in their lives. No need for border control. What we do here, is join a procession, a procession from past to future, from death to eternal life, from darkness to light, and we do that together. All are loyal Anglicans by virtue of our baptism, in which we received the forgiveness of sins.
I think we sometimes get this forgiveness business round the wrong way. The Christian way is not to repent, do better, and improve our score so that then we qualify for forgiveness. In the Christian Gospel forgiveness comes first as the means for a changed life. God forgives us as we are, in all our variety, and in the light of that self-giving love, we are able to see that our lives and our world can change to reflect God's glory not our own.
That is what gives unity to our procession, not our views on other churches and other groups, but that all of us are accepted, forgiven by God. And it is acceptance by God which is at the heart of today's Gospel. A woman returns to Jesus to say thank you for the forgiveness, the acceptance, which has turned her life around, and enabled her to see herself in a new light, as God sees her. She says thank you in her own way, with those extravagant gestures of tears, and drying Jesus' feet with her hair, and it was all premeditated because she brought with her that alabaster jar of ointment. This, if you like, was her churchmanship. This is what worked for her, a physical action which helped to express God's closeness to her. Integrity of that sort is always impressive. Integrity of worship attracts others. But authenticity, real-ness, of emotion and its expression, the coming out, if you like, of those who are pure in heart, can also bring to the surface hostility in others. And that's what happened in the story of today's Gospel, and it survives today as a warning to all of us. Simon the Pharisee complains about the woman's actions - actually, he doesn't complain, he only thinks it, but still the damage is done - because it's his house and he's been upstaged by this hysterical woman who is morally beneath him. Simon didn't see himself on the same level as the woman, as a sinner who is forgiven. He had all the right contemporary views, he was part of the current ecclesiastical in-group, and he thought he knew best how Jesus as prophet should behave. But what this criticism concealed was Simon's own meanness of spirit, immediately identified by Jesus. And from Our Lord comes this terrifying statement: "...the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." If we don't see others as part of our procession on equal terms as sinners accepted by God, we won't know how to love them. Or to put that in a positive way. Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.
A joyful procession of Anglican priests and laity through the lanes and cow parsley at Walsingham is a tiny sub section of the Church of God. But it is a metaphor for all spiritual journeys. That procession ended at the Shrine with Benediction. Benediction is the service we have here every Sunday evening. At Benediction we are blessed by Jesus Christ under the form of the Reserved Sacrament held aloft by the priest in a monstrance. A monstrance is a gold vessel with a glass window through which the wafer can be seen. We can look through the glass of the ceremonial, make it transparent, and see what it means. The action of blessing declares, in a physical way, God's openness to us, God's wholehearted acceptance of each of us as we are now, God's equal forgiveness of all of us. the promise of a new start, and food for the journey ahead. It's the offer of a new life, a life with God. The way to get to know God is to live with him. When we start to do that, we are well on the way to passing on the values of the kingdom of heaven to others. That is where our banner is leading us.