|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sermon
|
|
A NEW RACE OF GIANTS At ninety-six my mother said, “Johnny, you’re shrinking.” It may have been the onset of what happens to us in the seventies, or perhaps I’d been surrounded by tall people. I replied, “Mother, I’m never going to be big; my father was a little man.” Mother exploded, “Your father was not a little man. He was a giant of a man!” Physically, that was not the case. Why say he was a ‘giant’? He had been in France and Belgium in his teens, and had been decorated for bravery, although he always dismissed that. He had been a member of Legacy from its early days until his premature death at fifty-one – caring for the widows and kids of deceased comrades. He was a quiet man who believed that actions spoke more loudly than words. Mother had a different concept of ‘stature’, you see. It did not equate with height, weight and chest or collar size – nor for women with the proverbial ‘hourglass’ figure. Stature for her was measured by a different set of statistics – given us by Jesus. I intend to come back in a moment to this, but first a word about ‘status’. Status is where one figures (or would like to figure) in the social hierarchy. It has to do with being looked up to, rather than looked down upon. It has to do with class and with power. It has much to do with what others think of us. If they should decide to strip us of our ‘status’, no amount of bluster and bombast will bring it back. Some years ago a well-known federal politician, who must remain anonymous, was peeved with his treatment in a resort. In a loud voice he said, “Do you know who I am?” A woman who was doing her best to please, and who was not to be put off by this display, said, “Yes, of course I do; I’m very sorry to learn that you can’t remember who you are!” To show that none are immune to this, the papers a few years back reported the unseemly outburst on a US domestic flight of a well known TV preacher with silver-grey hair. Impatient with the cabin service, he stood up and intoned in pulpit voice that he deserved better than this. He considered that his ‘status’ warranted special attention. Jesus would not have been impressed. Luke recounts what he said in the house of a leading Pharisee, where he was eating. He proffered this advice to the guests when he saw how they were choosing the best seats. “When you’re invited to a banquet, don’t sit in the best seat. It might be that someone more distinguished has been invited. Your host may have to say, ‘I’m afraid you must give up your seat for this person.’ Then, with a good deal of embarrassment, you’ll have to sit in the humblest place. “No, when you’re invited, go and take your seat in an inconspicuous place, so that when your host comes in he can say, ‘Come on, my dear chap, we’ve a much better seat for you.’ That’s the way to be valued by your fellow guests. Everyone who tries to make himself important will become insignificant, while the one who makes himself insignificant will find himself important.” This episode is in a section that deals also with hospitality to those described as the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind – who have no way of repaying what we do for them. Hence we do it not for recognition or reward, but because it’s the right thing to do; it’s one of the marks of the coming Kingdom of God. To flesh all this out just a little, let me recall for you three parts in the Jesus formula for being a big person – indeed a ‘giant’ among pygmies. These are wide horizons, scorn for status and unconditional goodness. I
First, wide horizons. We all live conscious of two horizons: space and time. A baby’s space horizon is the walls of its room; its time horizon is the next feed or nappy change. As we grow those horizons widen. Notwithstanding, some live with quite narrow time and space horizons. Something matters to them if it’s in the next few days, and in their general neighbourhood. If it’s further away in time or in space, it matters much less. I want to illustrate what I mean by wide horizons with the story of the Howard League for Penal Reform – probably the best known agency of its kind in the Commonwealth. John Howard (not our PM) was born in 1726. His father was in the upholstery business, but died when John was sixteen, leaving him considerable wealth. Although firmly grounded in ‘Dissenting’ Protestantism, John Howard seems not to have achieved much with his life until his late forties. Then something happened that broadened his horizons and gave him a sense of mission until the day he died. Howard was appointed high sheriff of Bedfordshire, which included supervision of the county gaol. He was appalled at what he found there; he duly visited hundreds of other gaols in England and Wales and found them all the same. Gaolers were not paid but lived off fees paid by prisoners for food, bedding and other requirements. This meant that poorer prisoners lived in terrible conditions. Many gaolers demanded payment before prisoners were released; hence some stayed in gaol even if they were innocent or had served their time. Howard got two significant acts through parliament and then set out over a fifteen year period to inspect prisons in Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. At a time when travel was difficult and dangerous he made seven major journeys, covering about 80,000 kilometres. He wrote a book called “The State of Prisons in England and Wales, and an account of some foreign prisons.” He died in 1790, but his name lives on in the Howard League for Penal Reform, founded in 1866. Born 2nd September (today!) 1726, he is arguably the founder of prison reform. A man with wide horizons. II
The second part of the Jesus formula for being a big person is scorn for status. Around 5½ centuries before the birth of Jesus, Siddartha Gautama was born in northern India, son of a traditional monarch. He was reared in luxury, protected from the hardships of this world and taught to believe this was his right; he duly married his cousin, who gave him a son. Despite the father’s attempts to keep him from the seamy side, Siddartha saw four sights that changed his life: a weak old man, a sick man, a corpse and a monk. When he was about 29 Siddartha left the comforts of his father’s court, left his beautiful wife and child, and rejected earthly ambitions for six years as an ascetic. The night before his ‘enlightenment’ he sat under a bodhi tree, vowing not to rise until he had obtained supreme awakening. According to Buddhist tradition he sat through the night until a glimpse of the morning star provoked a state of perfect clarity and understanding. For the next forty-five years he wandered from place to place, gaining many followers. He died at about 80. The Buddha’s teaching is summarised in what Buddhism calls the Four Noble Truths; the fourth is called the Noble Eightfold Path – a set of spiritual axioms to do with wisdom, right thinking and acting. Many of his teachings, reflecting his scorn for status, sound like Jesus. The Buddha said, I consider the positions of kings and rulers like specks of dust III
The third part of the Jesus formula for being a ‘big’ person is unconditional goodness. This is the good that we do with no thought for recognition, reward, popularity or other personal advantage. When Gordon Powell and I were working on his memoirs, we talked of sermons that worked well and sermons that worked not so well. Let’s just say that some seem to have more impact than others. I asked him if there were a few of his that he felt had greater impact than others. He told me about meeting Clarence W Hall of the Readers Digest. Hall said he thought the first chapter of Gordon’s popular book Happiness is a Habit could make the basis of an article in the Digest. Gordon had his doubts, but they worked on it for 18 months. The sermon had been called “Secret Giving”; it was published as “The Fun of Doing Good on the Sly”. Partly because this one made the Readers Digest, Gordon felt it was a message with a broader and longer-lasting impact. For Jesus, doing good in secret was the key to a dramatic expansion in one’s personality. He said “Don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” In other words, be so secretive about it that there’s no hope of recognition, reward, popularity or other personal advantage. That makes you into a really big person – a great person – in the divine reckoning of Jesus. The church’s business is helping to produce a new race of giants, in these terms we’ve looked at this morning. To God be the praise. This
address was delivered on the 281st birthday of John Howard,
after whom the Howard League for Penal Reform is named. ___________________________________________________
An
address presented by the Rev Dr John Bodycomb at St Aidan's
Uniting Church North Balwyn, on 2nd September, 2007 IT MAY BE
REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. |
|||
Page updated 05/09/07