Collect
O God, forasmuch as without you we are not able to please you; mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Faithful Lord, whose steadfast love never ceases and whose mercies never come to an end: grant us the grace to trust you and to receive the gifts of your love, new every morning, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post Communion
Holy and blessed God, you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son and filled us with your Holy Spirit: may we honour you, not only with our lips but in lives dedicated to the service of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Old Testament – Genesis 2.18–24
The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.’
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Psalm 8
1 O Lord our governor, ♦
how glorious is your name in all the world!
2 Your majesty above the heavens is praised ♦
out of the mouths of babes at the breast.
3 You have founded a stronghold against your foes, ♦
that you might still the enemy and the avenger.
4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, ♦
the moon and the stars that you have ordained,
5 What is man, that you should be mindful of him; ♦
the son of man, that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him little lower than the angels ♦
and crown him with glory and honour.
7 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands ♦
and put all things under his feet,
8 All sheep and oxen, ♦
even the wild beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea ♦
and whatsoever moves in the paths of the sea.
10 O Lord our governor, ♦
how glorious is your name in all the world!
Epistle – Hebrews 1.1–4; 2.5–12
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,
‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honour,
subjecting all things under their feet.’
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,
‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’
Gospel – Mark 10.2–16
Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Sermon, Trinity 19
Last week Graham asked the question, “Why do people stay away from church?” Why don’t church congregations wrap everyone in love so that they want to join in worshipping God? These questions about churches led me to another, more general, question. Why do people not love one another? I don’t think the problem of people staying away has anything to do with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, because I see people still coming to this building in spite of the fact that they don’t consider its significance to them, or its mission in their community.
So, when do I see them come? They come when there is a “Life Event”. “What is a Life Event?” I hear you ask. Life events are what some used to refer to as “hatch, match and dispatch” – or, more correctly, baptism, marriage and funerals. People want to celebrate a new state of their world, for instance, when their children are born, or when a couple want to declare their everlasting love for one another in a very public manner. Or, more sadly, people want to recognise the passing of a loved one – they open the doors of their grief to everyone when there is a funeral in Church.
These Life Events occur at a stark change of life, they are celebrated amongst a greater family, siblings and blood relations share their recognition of a new life with friends and neighbours in a building so much larger than their own two-up–two-down, where all their acquaintances can gather together. They want everyone they know to meet together for those most significant times in their lives, and a church building can afford the space and traditions which everyone expects for those times.
When we celebrate these life events, what happens to the individual? What has fundamentally changed so that they can enter a building which they ignore every other day of their lives? I think their heart has changed – they are happy to share something with people they may not have been engaged with for a long time. Not that they have consciously ignored them, but they may just have been too busy with all those other things in their busy-ness to include them. In these special times, people are open to everyone, for joy has transformed them. They may even show a deep love for everyone they know.
We have all seen how the unfeeling barriers of the everyday disappear at these events, haven’t we? Why, we may have even dropped our own defences when we have been at a wedding or funeral and talked with people whom we may have shunned at other times. When we wet the baby’s head, we see the parts of the family from which we are estranged. We may even have conversations with people whom we don’t know – those strangers from the spouse’s family who are invited and come because they too want to celebrate life’s change.
We may even begin to have deep conversations about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with strangers at funerals – and I don’t think that it is the drink that is doing all the talking, although we have seen that happen as well, haven’t we?
I think we are all genuinely happy at a wedding. We are celebrating love and a new, full life-partnership for those newly-wedded people. We are happy for, and with, them, and that happiness overflows into our own behaviour. Our hearts, I believe, are full of a real joy and we are without barriers against others, if only for the duration of the event, which nowadays is a whole day, if you don’t count the trips abroad for the stag or hen do’s. I am convinced our hearts are open in joy – they can enfold the stranger, if only for a moment. I think a good heart is what keeps people coming into church buildings
Life events reveal so much about ourselves and others – this is particularly true of a funeral, we learn things about the departed which we had never known. Whether we are the subjects of the events or witnesses about those lives, we see and hear anew. We have opened ourselves up to the possibility of loving one another.
That brings me in a very round-about way to our gospel reading. Jesus speaks about the demise of marriage – he speaks of divorce. Jesus doesn’t deal with the legality and the technical issues of divorce. Rather, he drives right to the heart of the matter. Sure, Jesus says, Moses made divorce part of the Law, but let’s speak about the reason he did so. Moses allowed divorce not for this or that reason, but for an underlying cause deep within those people who are drifting apart.
Jesus states that fundamental reason for divorce has to be the hardness of the human heart. The calcification of the centre of one’s being is beating love away. No longer can we have those deep, meaningful conversations with strangers or even our nearest and dearest. The distance between hearts becomes a “no man’s land”. We can no longer touch each other either literally or metaphorically. We cannot reach out and grasp the reality of being with a loved one.
When our hearts harden because of this distance, we lose more than the opportunity to speak with each other, we lose the chance to love ourselves. The only thing Jesus wants us to do is apparently no longer even possible for us. We have distanced our very own selves. We are alienated. We have lost touch with our ownmost possibility.
When we are at a life event, we have stepped out of our insulated selves, a self that has nothing to do with anyone or anything else. We are tempted to join in, to lose ourselves in the Life Event.
When we are at a wedding, we are full of joy at love being there before us. When we are at a funeral, we are full of sadness because the object of our love has been taken from us. At a baptism, we begin to see life anew with the infinite possibilities open to the child in the priest’s arms as the child is washed of sin and welcomed in innocence into a wider family and into the wider worshipping community through the witness and commitment of godparents. In all of these life events, whether we are church-goers or not, our hearts have been revealed as soft beating organs of love. We can feel that our hearts alive, ready to live and love.
The heart beats when there is a profound being with each other. A beating heart cannot be a stone – because it just can’t beat. The prophet tells us that the Lord will transform those hardened hearts into hearts of flesh, hearts beating with life. Let us remember that every heart-beat is a life event during which our hearts can love. Jesus’ heart beats for us even now. That sacred heart beats within life, especially when the cup of joy is shared in a life event.