This is my sermon text for Sunday 4th November at St Clements Church, Mastrick. We traditionally set November aside for reflecting on death, remembrance,All Souls, etc.
I love that scene in Only Fools and Horses where Rodney and Del Boy dressed as Batman and Robin burst into what they think is a fancy dress party but instead is a funeral reception. Naturally, they feel like complete 'plonkers'. In thinking about how we as Christians should respond to death I feel a bit of empathy with the Peckam's dynamic duo. Theologically speaking, in the arena of ideas and culture I sometimes feel as if I have crashed into a gathering with totally the wrong costume. This is because with secularisation a large part of our nation's Christian heritage has fallen away and the message of good news falls largely on deaf ears. Death has become a taboo, if not the ultimate consumer inconvenience. Yet I want to argue that as Christians we have a wonderful opportunity to speak positively about death and in doing so we are revealing a wonderful dimension to the good news of Jesus Christ. I want to reflect on this by looking at death in three guises; politics, spirituality and healing.
Politics.
In first century Judea and Galilee a persons opinion on death was highly contentious. What you thought about the next life affected spoke volumes about your politics in this life. For instance many ordinary Jews believed in a resurrection of the dead. On the day of Judgement God would raise poor and marginalised along with the holy martyrs. They and only they would share in the kingdom of the Messiah where heaven and earth are merged into a new Jerusalem. The ruling elite, the Sadduces, refuted this and the Gospels tell us clearly that they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. In playing it political and theologically safe the Romans allowed them to remain in power. In this light, we can see why Jesus' teaching on the resurrection, judgement, and his own Easter event, where hot potatoes.
Our 21st Century Western way of life could not be more different. But there is a sense in which a healthy Christian vision of the after-life has been sidelined in our consumerist culture. There is a little bit of the Sadducees still in our mindset. Marx sneered at religion by saying that it was the opium, the drug, of society. But is not our consumerism which is real drug, the opium which passifies us, stops us from being truly ourselves?
For me belief in the resurrection of the dead is about seeing purpose and direction in this present life as well as the next. It is about understanding that God will conquer, good will previal over evil and to quote Jesus' mother, the lowly will be exalted and the mighty brought down.
Spirituality
Many people go to spiritualists to seek comfort and get messages from the dead. Personally I largely think this is a parlour trick and a money making exercise. I also think its dangerous to dabble in the occult. However, my main gripe with these people is that they offer the most bland version of the next life. The souls largely appear to be drifting in a rather diffuse airport lounge. God is nowhere to be seen and there is certaily no mention of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. There is no also judgement so we can all expect to bump into Adolf Hitler and like Basil Fawlty we must remember 'not to mention the war'.
People are aching for spirituality. Major church studies have revealed this over and over again. And so it is important for Christians to speak spiritually, just as Jesus did. What this means is that we must touch people's hearts, open their imagination and enchant them with the Gospel. So when people ask us about death, even our own dying, our own funeral, we can inspire them. We can speak of death as St Francis did, as a friend, a brother. We can describe death as part of our spiritual journey into the heart of God. We can hopefully move hearts by describing just how much God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, wants to embrace the depth of our being for all eternity.
Healing
A more positive outlook, a deeper spirituality rooted in the Christian truths can but give us comfort and strength in grieving, dying and putting together a funeral service. We cannot glibly ignore pain, suffering and grief. These are part and parcel of life and there is no Easter without Good Friday. It is true that Christians in the first millennium wore white instead of black. But even in this wonderful act of faith they did not squash grief. Not only did the grieve for the deceased but they grieved for the world, that it is was not as yet as it should be.
Personally I have to say how humbled I am when I hear of how numerous folk cope bravely with bereavement. All my ideas and opinions feel like nothing in the presence of these spiritual giants. I just cannot begin to put myself in some of these situations and I only hope and pray that if such an occasion arose the Holy Spirit would hold tight on to me.
If the outside culture seeks spirituality how true it is that there is a contemporary hunger for healing. I know that this is where the Church can speak of the living Lord reaching out to us with an invitation for authentic healing. Not the quick fix of the spiritualist, or the anodine gospel of consumerism but genuine search for healing and wholeness in Jesus Christ.
Let me give you an example. Many people who have lost someone find that the first two weeks are unreal and hectic; a whirlwind of preparations and busy-ness. But afterwards everything can go quiet. If we are honest the British are not very good at mourning and we bottle it all up. When my grandfather, who adopted me, died my schoolmates tiptoed around me and some even crossed the road to avoid me. From a young age we are inculturated into dismissing the reality of death. And so we often need counsellors to accompany us through grief because others will not or cannot.
Yet the good news is that death can be healing. We should not ignore it but embrace it as we should embrace grieving. Death can be part of our transformation, the gateway to experiencing the resurrection with all the saints, and the indescribable joy of God's presence. Now in meanwhile with hearts open to the Spirit we can taste paradise NOW in the broken bread laid before us, Good Friday made into Easter, the Holy Eucharist.
1 comment:
I remember from my youth (before I was kicked out of the church for being gay) that man was commanded not to bear false witness against his neighbour so I was surprised to see Daniel French traducing Karl Marx by saying that he “sneered” at religion. Far from sneering, Marx wrote compassionately in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right:
“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.”
Could it be that Mr French has not read and understood the Critique? Obviously not. Could he have deliberately redacted the quote so as to bear false witness? Equally obviously not. It must be then that Marx is not his neighbour and Mr French is entitled to bear false witness against him if he so wishes. It is an interesting ethical position – but not one, I am glad to say, shared by secular ethicists.
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