|
Lent V Christ Church
Morningside A Sermon for Passion Sunday, 25 March 2007 Rev. Michael Paterson If you have ever been in a hotel or public building you will have seen those wee square boxes, often painted red with a key or a hammer inside with the instruction “In emergency break glass.” I was out for a meal with friends this week and with one of those wee boxes positioned on the wall above the table the conversation turned to what each of us would put behind the glass for use in an emergency. One friend wanted a bottle of single malt in his emergency box to drown his sorrows when it all got too much for him; a young mum said she would put enough cash to send the kids off to the pictures for the afternoon to give her a couple of hour’s peace? And another friend wanted the box to contain a plane ticket to some sun-kissed island where no-one could find her? But what about you, what would you want to have available in an emergency? I know for a fact that inside my emergency box, behind that glass would be a pair of walking boots … for nothing puts me back together when I am cracking up as much as a good long tramp around the hills. And if I can do that in such good company as we had on our recent pilgrimage together to Santiago all the better. Despite the blisters, and the alternate snow and sun, it was a wonderful experience which taught me a great deal about God’s glory revealed in the beauty of nature and his grace manifest in the generosity and hospitality of the people we met on the road. Being a pilgrim route the entire 1000 miles from Le Puy in the south east of France to Compostela in the north west of Spain is littered with churches and monasteries and every kind of holy place that you can imagine. [Mind you there are also bars and hostelries and all sorts of less holy places too, which of course we just had to visit for research purposes.] But looking back over the 10 years I have been a pilgrim on that road, one place stands out in my memory above all the rest. It isn’t one of the cathedrals or the great abbeys with special architectural features listed in the guide books. Far from it. In fact its a very simple country church dedicated to St Peter in a tiny farming village in the middle of nowhere and like most churches named after a saint, it has a statue of its Patron inside. Now most often when you see Saint Peter depicted in religious art he has the keys of the kingdom of heaven in his hands - a symbol of the trust Jesus placed in him when he made him the rock on which he would build his Church. But in this particular village, St Peter has neither keys nor any other symbol of authority. Instead his hands are empty and his eyes are not raised towards heaven but are lowered to meet the eyes of a Cockerel looking up at him. In this church, Peter is remembered not for the special rank Jesus gave him at the head of the church, nor for his confession of faith, but for his great fall and his place in the dust: ‘Before the cock crows twice you will have disowned me three times.’ I don’t know about you, but I find that depiction quite shocking. In everyday terms, it would be like going to a funeral and instead of the floral tributes that surround the coffin saying DAD, MUM or FRIEND, people had spent a lot of money to have the florist make up wreaths that said in big letters, TRAITOR, CHEAT or SCUMBAG. Imagine that being the last word on a person’s life. Imagine that being the last word for all to see as your coffin is driven through the streets of Edinburgh at your funeral! Each year as we enter Passiontide we hear those words of Jesus as he sat with his closest friends around the table at the last supper: ‘I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me, one of you eating with me.’ Chilling words which echo these verses from Psalm 55: ‘If this had been done by an enemy, then I could have borne it. If a rival had risen against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, my own companion, my intimate friend! How close was the friendship between us. We walked together in harmony in the house of God.’ (Ps 55: 12-14) Both in the psalm and in the gospel, the one who betrays is not a stranger, someone unknown to us, but a companion in the true sense of that word, one who shares our bread and shares our journey. And that’s the tragedy that the Bible portrays from the very beginning that those who betray each other are not those who barely know each other but those who are intimately involved in each others lives.
Sadly there are plenty of examples both in our own family lives and in the lives of our churches of people who share bread together betraying one another, sometimes through blatant abuse and exploitation; more often, through neglect, indifference and apathy. ‘I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me, one of you eating with me.’ The betrayal of Christ did not end with Peter’s denial 2000 years ago but goes on today when budgets play for votes rather than uphold the poorest of the poor, when billions upon billions are readily available to replace Trident missiles while many in the developing world who lack basic health care and education rely on funding from sponsored walks and Lenten Appeals. And every week is Passiontide when difference of colour or creed or way of life is used to justify condemning or dismissing another person’s point of view. It may well be 2007 but Christ will go once more to his Passion this week wherever people take up hammers and nails and pin others down to keep them vulnerable rather than using their strength to roll the stone away from the tombs that seal us off from each other. The passion of Christ certainly continues, but thankfully betrayal is not the only response open to us, nor is Peter the only character in the story. If we want to, we can join Simon of Cyrene in quietly coming alongside and sharing the weight of another person’s burdens just as he helped Jesus shoulder the weight of the cross. If we choose, we can stay awake, unlike the apostles who slept when Jesus needed them most, and watch even for an hour with those who face the future with fear. And if we have the courage, we can withdraw from the noisy crowd with their alternate cries of Hosanna! and Crucify him! and join Mary and the faithful women who despite not being counted among the top 12 nor listed among the guests at the Last Supper were the only ones to stand by Jesus to the bitter end to waste precious oil on his dead body and to give him a decent burial. ‘I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me, one of you eating with me.’ We who, today will eat bread with Jesus at this communion table, are faced with the same choices as Peter and Judas, Mary and the faithful women - to betray Him or to profess our faith. The extravagant lie of betrayal is the easy option. It would ensure that Passiontide 2007 remains innocuous and predictable. Something that happens in church between polite people who have turned worship into a ‘happy hour’ and the house of God into a ‘religious Jacuzzi’ in which the radical message of the gospel has been drowned out by hymns and chants and creeds and indeed anything at all so long as it prevents us from hearing the call to roll up our sleeves and join in God’s revolution in turning the world upside down. The other option – extravagant love – would have us take the road less travelled and walk the less familiar way and instead of betraying Christ by leaving him here until next Sunday, safely crucified between two candle sticks, do what Mary did in today’s gospel and allow our encounter with Him in this service to change us from penny pinching misers into extravagant lovers, to go the extra mile for others rather than count the cost on our own time and resources, to practice the love and forgiveness and welcome we talk about in church in our homes and workplaces and ultimately to narrow the gap between church and ordinary life, between Sunday worship and the other six days of the week. In that little village on the pilgrim’s way St Peter is remembered for letting Jesus down. How we will be remembered after our death is up to us. But why wait till then when we can do something about that now? The Good News is that, we don’t even have to wait another two weeks for Easter to rise up from our old, dead ways, but that with God’s mercy and his grace we can put an end to betrayal right here and now and start living the profession of faith we are about to recite together. Remembering Mary, ‘let us put our creed into our deed’, ensure that our lives do not betray our confession of faith and ‘speak [no longer] with double tongue’. Amen.
Rev Michael Paterson |
