ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

A Sermon Preached by Fr Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass on the Third Sunday of Trinity, 20 June 2010

Readings: Isaiah 65. 1-9; Galatians 3. 23-end; Luke 8. 26-39

Legion and The Gadarene Swine. Or 'Gerasene Swine' as this morning's translation has it. I could preach a whole sermon about where this might have taken place but I won't bore you. The philosopher, Bertrand Russell said of this miracle.

'... it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must remember that (Jesus) was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away; but He chose to send them into the pigs.'

For Bertrand Russell this was yet another nail in Christianity's coffin. Great mind though he was Bertrand Russell made the mistake of taking the bible at face value. But if we look at the changing face of preaching over two thousand years then we see a much more multi-faceted picture. An Australian scholar, Dr Tim Gaden has done some interesting research looking at the way in which Legion and the Gadarene Swine has been preached in the past.

In 2C the name Legion would have struck home. Christians were being persecuted by the Roman Empire. They interpreted the story as predicting the final triumph over their oppressors. By the end of 4C Christianity had become the state religion. The force to be overcome was heresy. Heretics were the swine and good riddance. Moving on another seven centuries or so, once Aristotle's mathematics brought via the Muslim incursions into Spain had made their mark, mediaeval theologians who had more time on their hands than Thomas Aquinas asked questions like 'How do you get 6000 demons (the number in a Roman Legion) into 2000 pigs?' In 18C with the European Enlightenment the story had become a bit of an embarrassment. For our Georgian forebears God had made the universe, wound it up and then got on with something else. This miracle really didn't fit.

By 1859 when this church was opened the atmosphere had changed again. All this Victorian busy-ness is a far cry from the cool and plain interior of a Georgian preaching box. All Saints was built to luxuriate in God's interventions and daily concern. Hence the decoration. Hence the daily mass. It was built in what was then a poor part of London. The nuns living opposite made their name as the All Saints Sisters of the Poor. At that time many regarded poverty as the result of moral turpitude. So some thought that Legion and the Gadarene swine was an example of Christ's judgement in his own day. If Jews were supposed to be kosher then they shouldn't have been keeping pigs. Moral: if you're doing what you shouldn't be doing, Watch out! (Although, as this event apparently happened in Gentile territory its unlikely that the swineherds were Jews anyway but that point escaped some preachers 150 years ago.)

Today, many treat the story as a myth: a tale whose truth is not dependent upon historical facts. The emphasis is on the contrast between the condition of the hapless man before encountering Christ (naked, mad and homeless) and afterwards (clothed, sane and restored to the community). So the exhortation: 'As with him so with us.' Indeed, I can just hear more than one trendy vicar giving his sermon the punchline 'Go the whole hog with Jesus!' (Not a gag that I'd dare crack here, of course.)

So there are legions of ways to interpret the miracle of Legion (capital 'L') and they're all dependent on their context: the experience of the Christian community and the presuppositions they bring to the story. When I preach, I prefer to stick to generalities. As Fr Julian said last week much of our religious practice is not based on discussion but on simply doing things together. At the National Pilgrimage to Walsingham, as Fr Julian said we processed through the Norfolk countryside praying the rosary and singing hymns; walking side by side (symbolic of what it means to be church) not falling out with each other. That's why by and large contentious issues are avoided in this pulpit. Even those who would call themselves liberals here are not of the undecided variety. But the ministry and focus of Jesus was specific and sometimes the preacher just has to say something definite and specific even if its uncomfortable. So here goes.

In the last couple of weeks we've had some vandalism here. You may see that there aren't many parish papers available at the back of the church. Usually, there're plenty but not this month and the reason is that someone has been defacing them. So they've been junked. The June edition carries an advertisement for the St Albans Pilgrimage which some of us went on yesterday. The preacher was Canon Lucy Winkett, currently a canon of St Paul's Cathedral and soon to be a near neighbour as Rector of St James Piccadilly. In around sixty copies of the magazine someone had taken a felt tip pen and defaced the advert scratching out Canon Winkett's title and the position that she holds at St Paul's.

Now whatever one thinks about the ordination of women (and most people here have fairly decided views about it) defacing parish magazines is not the way forward. It doesn't help the conversation and its a waste. We don't know who's doing this. It might be someone who never comes on a Sunday or they may be here this morning. I hope that whoever it is will find someone to talk to about how they feel and what they think. On the strength of this morning's gospel I'm not going to label this behaviour 'demonic' but it is leading down a similar path - stripping someone of their public persona and marginalizing them. The ministry of Jesus was the opposite of that. He clothed and included. He didn't deface and exclude.

This parish is a lightning conductor for some of the most intractable problems facing our church. The catholic wing of the church is under pressure and that's causing a lot of anxiety. This is a gay friendly church but one that doesn't allow women in the sanctuary, a position that's not without irony. All Saints has had a golden age but what will its future be? In many ways it was the Holy Trinity Brompton of its day: all those guilds and activities, the convent opposite, church plants in other parts of London. Much of that has gone. So what are we about? Are we just the cherry on a cake that's vanished?

I'd say that we do have a vital role. In a church where many appear to have stopped listening to each other (and dare I say, even caring about each other) a church that has both a strong catholic tradition and rejoices in different people walking side by side - supporting pilgrimages to different places - and talking face to face is crucial. While others are hurtling over the cliff here we're making the case for a way of believing that is reasoned. Here what the catholic faith means is articulated in the modern world. I'm wearing a chasuble: 'chasuble' from a Latin word meaning a 'little house' or a 'dwelling' - God 'dwelling' among us; Jesus talking face to face with everyone even those whom others feared.

So we need to face outwards not inwards because there are more than enough pressures from outside. Last Sunday morning as Fr Julian walked down Oxford Street on his way here he was verbally abused by someone who saw his dog collar. To be people of the gospel means not just coming a to a firm faith (whatever we deem the content of that faith to be) but also to be people who express that faith generously: speaking the truth (as we see it) in love. Its not just about what we say its also about how we say it that counts. Crossing things out won't do.

Our faith and our tradition cannot be taken at face value. None of us can be taken at face value. But we'll only be more than face value if we turn way from defacing things and see the face of Christ in all around us.