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Sermon: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year C - 12th September 2010
St Alban's Anglican Church Epping 7 am and St Aidan’s West Epping 8.30am
Readings: Jeremiah 4:1-12, 22-28 Psalm 14 1Timothy 1:1-2, 12-19a Luke 15:1-10
Probably my favourite author is Graham Greene. I have read a large part of his writing. In fact last year while I was away and it was my birthday, Christine went to the local second-hand bookshop in London and purchased three or four copies of Greene’s books.
The reason that I like his writing is because it portrays people as they really are, with all their good and not so good bits. The book that introduced me to Greene’s writing was “The Power and the Glory”. In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.
The novel tells the story of a priest in the state of Tabasco in Mexico during the 1930s, a time when the Mexican government, strove to suppress the Catholic Church. The persecution was especially severe in the province of Tabasco, where the anti-clerical governor had founded and actively encouraged fascist paramilitary groups and succeeded in closing all the churches in the state; forcing the priests to marry and give up their clerical dress.
The main character in the story is a nameless whisky priest who combines a great power for self-destruction with pitiful cravenness, an almost painful penitence and a desperate quest for dignity. By the end, though, the priest acquires a real holiness.
The story starts with the arrival of the priest in a country town in an area where Catholicism is outlawed and then follows him on his trip through Mexico, where he is trying to minister to the people as well as he can. He is also haunted by his personal demons, especially by the fact that he had fathered a child in his parish some years before. He meets the child, but is unable to feel repentant about what happened. Rather, he feels a deep love for the evil-looking and awkward little girl and decides to do everything in his power to save her from damnation.
During his journey the priest also encounters a man who later reveals himself to be a Judas figure. In his flight from the police, the priest escapes into a neighbouring province, only to re-connect with the Judas figure, who persuades the priest to return in order to hear the confession of a dying man. Though the priest suspects that it is a trap, he feels compelled to fulfil his priestly duty. Although he finds the dying man, it is a trap and he is captured. The capturing officer admits he has nothing against the priest as a man, but he must be shot as a danger. The officer is convinced that he has cleared the province of priests. In the final scene, however, another priest arrives in the town; which, among other possible readings, suggests that the Church cannot be destroyed.
The thing that attracts me to this story is that the priest is human through and through. His failings were all too obvious and yet he, in his frailty, was still able to serve God.
In the first reading, God is fed up with the people of Jeremiah’s time. “For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good”. Yet we know that God continued to forgive and forget their continuing misdemeanours, so that they could continue to bear witness to the one true God.
In the reading from the First Letter to Timothy, Paul describes himself, and his less than perfect life. He was a blasphemer, a persecutor and a man of violence and yet God used him mightily. In the middle of the reading we read those words that were recited in the Holy Communion service in the Book of Common Prayer, that I remember so well, “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. Jesus did not come into the world to save the good people. He came to save those in need of salvation; the ordinary people.
In the Gospel we see Jesus being criticised for being friendly towards ordinary people, who were less than holy. These were the people that he came to save, good or bad we are all God’s children. We are all called to live as disciples of Christ. Not one of us is unacceptable to God. We all have a role to play in extending the boundaries of the Kingdom and not only us but other people that we may have difficulty in liking or accepting.
That is what I find so attractive about the priest in The Power and the Glory. In spite of his shortcomings he still struggles on with his calling, even to his death. None of us can say I am not good enough, young enough, old enough, trained enough, wealthy enough, … to be God’s ambassador. Too often we try to wriggle out of our responsibilities as Christians. One verse that I learnt off by heart for my Confirmation is found in Romans chapter 3, still stands to remind me of my shortcomings. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. No one; popes, archbishops, jailbirds or ordinary people are perfect. We are all to be counted amongst the tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus' parable of the lost sheep confirms that even when we have turned from God, the desire to be reunited is by itself enough for God to stretch forth his hand in love. The very idea that each one of us is worthy of saving may be beyond our comprehension
Our community is a "Who's Who" list of sinners who chose to come home, each more lovingly welcomed than the last. The fibres of our faith were woven by the imperfect; people like Paul. Forgiveness of self as well as of others is a powerful and necessary source of renewal and through it we are called, again and again, to new life. Through it, we are also given the means to be sources of new life to others. The one who has been forgiven also forgives much. Our church, as a Church of the Imperfect, must model God's mercy and love to the world and to ourselves because while it is relatively easy to forgive others, to forgive ourselves sometimes appears well nigh impossible as well as being a convenient barrier behind which to hide. We who have been mercifully treated have no reason to remain in exile and every reason to forgive others as we have been forgiven. We will go on making mistakes and failing like the whisky priest but the wonderful thing is God still accepts.
This sermon produced using material from www.wikipedia.org and www.sojo.net.