Smooth Sailing Saints

Short Commentary and Sunday Sermon on Romans 7:15-25 and Matthew 11.16-30

With lots of conference space the seminary held a weekly AA meeting to which some students went along as part of their pastoral placement. In the introductions one member talked about his struggles to keep to his work - he was a guitarist. A new member, a rather goofy local vicar, invited him to come and play at their church and join the choir "We'd love to see you for the family service!" This quiet humble man gently mumbled that he might just do that. The group went silent. People began to roar with laughter. The vicar had invited to his Sunday liturgy - Eric Clapton. Probably the world's most celebrated guitarist.

Listening to chapter seven of Paul's letter to Romans much of it seems foreign to our modern ears. "I do not do the thing I want to but I do the thing I hate." We might think that Paul had a problem with self-esteem and that he really needed to go on a course to build himself up? It is a shame that we did not begin with verse 14; it reads, "We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am un-spiritual, sold as a slave to sin. " Again, I cannot imagine that if one went to a New Age practitioner, we would get that, since the Mind, Body and Spirit philosophy, is that we are all somehow "spiritual".

If you have ever read Cold Comfort Farm, or seen the TV adaption, you may think I am about to deliver an impression of the fiery preacher of the Quivering Brethren, "Are you quivering yet brothers? Do ye not feel the scorching flames of hell licking?" I don't think I would pull this off with much authority since even my toddler son giggles when I tell him off. But I think the gentler wisdom of Dickens would be good to reflect on. "Know your debts!" The words of advice given to David Copperfield at the beginning of his adventures. The debts here, are more than just money, but about knowing ourselves as we really are - not kidding ourselves. The Proverbs say, "A wise man knows himself". In Scotland, people say in the Our Father, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us."

So within Paul is a spiritual warfare. Not because he is a doom and gloom preacher or self-tortured but because he has come to know the glory of God. The difference between Paul and the modern man, is that Paul measures goodness by Jesus Christ alone. We tend to think of ourselves as good on a scale of averages. "I'm as good as the next bloke" But what if the bar was not some statistical average but Jesus Christ? Then as Paul says, we realise that "All have fallen short".

The AA programme I mentioned at the beginning starts its 12 steps with step 1 as "We admit we are powerless over alcohol (or whatever)—that our lives have become unmanageable." You could replace the word alcohol with any addiction and even with the word 'sin'. And let us not imagine sin as an unhelpful word but as about understanding ourselves as we are. Sin surely then means the separation between God and neighbour? "Am I my brother's keeper?" said Cain of Abel who he secretly murdered. Sin then describes a compulsion we all have to pull ourselves away from communion with God and our fellow human beings.

Many alcoholics never get to step 1 because they cannot admit that they are powerless. In doing so , they never receive power. This I believe is a key to living a grace filled life. In my last parish George (I have changed his name) was a chronic alcoholic. He drank litre bottles of cheap cider every day, his liver was barely functioning, he lost his wife and his employment. He looked like a skeleton and an old man. Yet he was younger than me. It took him years to hit rock bottom. It happened one night, when he rang our door at 11pm in floods of tears, scared witless because he was booked in for an intense AA residential programme. Thank God. Months later we met him again. He was a changed man when he walked through the doors of the church. He still retained the scars but he had stopped drinking. It was only by admitting that he was powerless had be been able to receive power. He isn't morose, he's full of joy, yet he understands his addiction, his sin. George took me to his house and up in his bedroom he showed me a poster that had helped me survive. It was the famous footsteps dream.

Jesus harshest words are for the smooth-sailing saints. We missed verses 19 to 24 in Matthew which listed the towns and villages. But they rejected any thing that rocked the boat; John the Baptist - too gritty pious - Jesus Christ - a drunk and a glutton who mixes with sinners. They were the sinners and it was people like them who stitched him up on Good Friday. We also missed verse 14, one of my favourites, which tells us that the kingdom of Heaven is being stormed by violent men and violent men are seizing it. Who are the violent men?

The Greek for violent can also be interpreted as enthusiastic. So what Jesus is probably saying is the ultimate insult to the religious self-righteous. They are being taken out of God's plan and are no longer in the front-line. The front-line of God's revolution is these new enthusiasts, people in other words, who have become spiritually powerful by acknowledging that they are powerless. They have experienced rock bottom and been lifted up.