Sermon preached at Wood Green Mennonite Church
Sunday 15th February 2015, 3pm.
Reverend Smith was shaking people’s hands at the door.
Sunday 15th February 2015, 3pm.
Reverend Smith was shaking people’s hands at the door.
One
by one the members of the congregation filed past
“Thank
you so much…”
“Lovely
sermon today…”
“very
uplifting…”
“Oh,
you were so helpful today…”
Reverend Smith resisted the urge to
reply
“in
what way?
“how
was it helpful?
“what
area of your life did it challenge?
“how
did God speak to you?
This really wasn’t the time or
place
Not
with another hundred or so hands to shake
Another
hundred or so smiles
Another
hundred or so brief pastoral encounters
“Pastor, thank you so much
for the worship”
said
one elderly lady with grey hair
“you
were really in touch with the Lord this morning.”
As she said this, Reverend Smith
thought to himself “if only you knew”
His
mind was already on how he was going to try
And
sort out the argument he had had
With
his whole family
just before leaving
home to come to church
He looked past her to his wife and
children
All
smiling happily
Keeping
up the image of Happy families
And so the members of the
congregation
Smiled
their way out of worship
With
the rousing tune of the final chorus
Still
ringing in their ears
They got into their cars,
And
set off back to their lives
Back
to the trials, stresses, strains,
And
problems which they had been able to happily forget about
For
the last couple of hours
Reverend Smith sat down,
after
another half an hour on the door,
And looked round at the small
groups
Still
hovering in the corners
He thought back over the service
Yes,
it had gone well
The worship had been uplifting
The
music very professional
The sermon was one of his better
ones
Very
challenging, and assuring people
Of God’s love for them
And suddenly it dawned on him
That through the whole time
Not
one person in the entire church
had demonstrated
the slightest degree of honesty.
He had been operating out of a
façade himself
Forcing
the pastoral smile
While
wanting to curl up and die inside
out
of guilt at the things he had said
only
a few hours earlier
The congregation had, to a person,
Not
been honest with him or each other
If the answers to his often
repeated “how are you today?”
Were
to be believed
One
hundred people were fine, not grumbling, and doing okay
thank you for asking
thank you for asking
Actually no, 99 were doing okay.
John
had indicated that he had a problem
But
there had been so many people queuing behind him
That
there had been no time to talk or pray with him.
Or
even to find out what the nature of his problem was
They had all rousingly sung the
songs
The
volume of the singing
had
been quite up to its usual standard
if
not slightly louder!
The Amens to the prayers had been
resounding
And
the Hallelujah’s during the sermon
Had
been very inspiring
………(Oh,
nevermind!)
Well, thought Reverend Smith
Is
it likely that all those people
Were
really able to worship happily today?
Is
it likely that they were able
To
sing the happy songs
The
songs which told God how much they loved him
Is
it likely that they managed to mean every word
Somehow Reverend Smith thought it
unlikely
After all, if he was in pieces
inside,
And
he was a Reverend
Why
should he expect more from the congregation
What if the truth was more
depressing
What if two hundred people
Had
come together to meet with each other and with God
And had spent the whole time
deceiving
Each
other
God
Themselves!
Surely this couldn’t be the case
could it?
But what if it was?
What if the way the church was
structured,
the
way they always did things
Forced people into behaving a
certain way
Smiling
a certain smile
Singing
certain songs
Praying
certain prayers
When actually most of them could
not
In
all integrity
Mean
a word of it!
What would it take for the worship
of his church
To
allow people the space
to
be honest about
where
they were before God
What view of God would be necessary
For
people to be able to own their hurt,
Their
anger, and their frustrations
before
God
What about those people who were
angry with God
For
the way their lives had gone?
Was it really realistic to expect
them to sit there
and
pray happy prayers, and sing happy songs?
And so Reverend Smith wondered…
What does the Bible say to people
Who
have had it up to here with happy songs?
Who feel that they never want to
sing another happy song again?
And Reverend Smith’s thoughts
turned to Psalm 137…
That
well-known psalm
with
the little-known ending
And it was especially to the last
verse that Reverend Smith’s mind went
Psalm 137:1-9
By the rivers of Babylon--
there we sat
down and there we wept
when we
remembered Zion .
[2] On the willows
there
we hung up our
harps.
[3] For there our
captors
asked us for
songs,
and our tormentors
asked for mirth, saying,
"Sing us
one of the songs of Zion !"
[4] How could we
sing the Lord's song
in a foreign
land?
[5] If I forget
you, O Jerusalem,
let my right
hand wither!
[6] Let my tongue
cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not
remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my
highest joy.
[7] Remember, O
Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem 's fall,
how they said,
"Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its
foundations!"
[8] O daughter Babylon , you devastator!
Happy shall
they be who pay you back
what you have
done to us!
[9] Happy shall
they be who take your little ones
and dash them
against the rock!
The people of Israel in
ancient times were a people of Song
They
had rhythm in the blood;
and
their whirling dancing,
their
praises to the one true God,
everything
about the way they were
shouted
praises to the one true God
They were famous for their praise
songs
throughout
the known world
Other nations looked at Israel ’s
worship tradition
with
awe
But the people of Israel were now
in Exile
The Babylonians had conquered them
And
exported them to a foreign land
And so they sat beside the rivers
in Babylon
Looking
wistfully at the horizon
Remembering
their beautiful land
Their
beautiful temple
Knowing that it was all in ruins
Their places of worship destroyed
Their homes burned
They knew they were never going
back.
So what were they to sing now?
How
did their happy, renowned worship songs help them now?
And all the while the Babylonians
tormented them
“Come
on… sing us a song
“What
about your famous worship?
“What
about your joyful dancing?
“Come
on… Give us a number!”
And the Israelites looked at one
another in despair
And
there by the river, they wept
They wept with grief as they
remembered their homes
Their
temple, their places of worship
They wept that all that had been so
good
had been taken
from them
They wept that God seemed to have
abandoned them…
How
could they cope?
What
were they to do?
They cried out before God of
Their
disappointment
Their
sense of bereavement
Their
loss
They asked how God could have allowed
this to happen?…
And the Babylonians wanted them to
sing a happy song of the Lord?…
So they hung their harps on the
trees
and
said to one another
“how can we sing the songs of the
Lord
whilst
in a foreign land”
They refused to sing their happy
songs,
because
those songs were not the right songs to sing.
Not now, not here.
Singing happy songs now would be
lying
It
would be mocking God
It
would be refusing to face up
To
what had happened to them
But they still sang…
They sang of their sadness
They sang of their anger
They sang of their disappointment
They were honest about their
feelings
Not for them some effort to push
their anger
Deep
down inside
Where
it would fester for years
Before
coming out to haunt them
Not for them some necessity to
pretend everything was fine
When
actually everything was awful
They knew that God could take
whatever they needed to throw at him
They knew that he could absorb
their anger
They
knew that he could cope with their bitterness
Meet
them in their hurts
So they were honest before God, and
with one another
And they sang before God
“happy
is the one who grabs the babies of the Babylonians
and
smashes their heads on the rocks”
---------
Well, you don’t get much more
honest than that, do you?!
These people knew God well enough
to know
That
he wasn’t about to disown them
Simply because they were honest
with him about their feelings
Their relationship with God
Was
such that it could withstand
The
brutal honesty of emotions like this
And I wonder if we could usefully ask ourselves the
question of whether,
if we hated
somebody enough to want their children dead…
we would be prepared to admit it
even
to ourselves,
let
alone to others
or
to God?
Or would we still come along on a
Sunday
To
meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ
To
meet with the living God
And behave like the congregation in
Reverend Smith’s church?
All
smiles and happiness
Fooling
ourselves, others, and God.
What would it take for us to have a
church
Which
modelled the example of the Israelites?
Where we could praise, and sing
happy songs
when
we had things to praise and be happy about;
but where there was also the space
To
be honest and open about our darker emotions.
What would it be like to have a
church
where
the voices from the dark underside of our humanity,
could
be heard from time to time?
What would it be like to have a
church
where
honesty and integrity was more important than anything else?
How can we learn to be
honest in worship?
Honest
with ourselves
Honest
with one another
Honest
with God
The first battle to be won here
is
probably learning to be honest with ourselves
A phrase from my days as a student
at ministerial training college
still
sometimes returns to haunt me:
“never
underestimate our capacity to deceive ourselves”
It is all too easy to kid ourselves
that we are doing fine
to
convince ourselves that we are coping,
that
our relationships are going well,
and
that other people can’t hurt us…
The reality for many of us is that
when things get tough,
we don’t like
facing up to the truth of what has happened to us
or is happening to us
It’s much more comfortable to
pretend
that
nothing is going wrong,
not
admitting even to ourselves the feelings we have
Possibly because they make us feel
guilty…
If I wanted to smash someone else’s
child’s head against the rock
I
think I’d feel pretty guilty about that emotion
Much more comfortable to ignore it,
and
Deceive
myself into believing
That
I am doing fine.
Rather than admitting it to myself
Facing
the guilt
And
beginning the path towards healing
Of course, being honest with
ourselves is only the first step
We may know deep down inside that
things are far from right
But that doesn’t do anything about
the public face.
The
happy smile
And
the twinkly eyes
That
belie the pain underneath
The problem with being honest with
one another
Is
that we can’t be honest with one another all the time
We would never cope!
We don’t really want to hear everybody
else’s problems
We are too damaged ourselves
To
be able to cope with everyone else’s honesty
But one thing that is worth
thinking about here
Is
that one of the main criticisms of Christians
By
people outside the church
Is
that we are a bunch of hypocritical, self righteous whatsits
And if we go round giving the
impression that we are eternally sorted
Always
having a happy smile
with
all our problems in the past
Who can blame people for finding
that off-putting?
A bit of honesty from time to time
Would
go a long way towards rectifying this
If we could be honest about he fact
that
All
we are is a bunch of sinners
Who
just happen to be forgiven
Maybe others wouldn’t find God so
intimidating
Jesus, after all, didn’t hang
around with the religious, sorted, people.
He said that they didn’t need him
Jesus hung round with prostitutes
& foul-mouthed fishermen
He
took drinks with adulterers
He spent time with people
whose sinfulness
was so obvious
that
it offended the church-going types of his day.
And I fear that sometimes we are so
dishonest with each other,
in
our attempts to appear holy and happy,
that
we alienate those who Jesus died for?
And my worry is that if this is so,
we
might find Jesus not wanting to spend much time with us
Leaving us to our singing
Whilst
he is off spending time with those who need him
But the truth, of course
Is
that we need Jesus just as much as anybody else
We still sin
We still hate people
We still have broken relationships
If only we could find a way of
being honest about it
For some of us that place of
honesty
will
be found through involvement in a small group of Christians who meet regularly,
a place where we can build the kind
of close relationships
where
honesty becomes possible
and where we can
find the support from our sisters and brothers
That
will help us through the tough times
Some of us will find the place of
honesty as we meet with another Christian for prayer
Being
honest together about what we hear God saying to us
My own journey has found great
honesty in the wise counsel of my spiritual director…
a
companion on the journey…
who
has helped me to learn to be honest with God
and
so to grow in my relationship with him
At a simple level, we can find
honesty in the opportunities for prayer
that
are on offer at church week by week.
If
only we learn not to leave, pausing only to pick up at the door
our
coat and the burden we put down when we walked in
If
life is awful, be honest with someone.
Get
some help, ask for some prayer.
Maybe in these and other ways
We
can be able to learn how to be honest with one another.
And a word of caution.
If someone
trusts us enough to be honest with us
We
must treat them sensitively
Because
there but for the grace of God we go
But finally, let us seek to be honest
with God.
And
in many ways this is the hardest thing
Being honest with ourselves is
tough, and with others is difficult
But admitting our darkest feelings
before God
is
a terrifying prospect
How is God going to react
If
I tell him I want to kill my enemy’s baby?
Well, the Israelites told him
And
he didn’t disown them!
Let us look at how we relate to God
And
consider what the opportunities
for honesty and
dishonesty are…
What about our prays?
How we pray, and whether we pray,
may
tell us a lot about our relationship with God.
Do we always seem to be saying the
same stuff to God
or
finding ourselves not bothering to pray any more,
or
only praying in the same old ways?
Maybe we might start to pay
attention
to what it is
that we are not saying to God
We may find that we are not being
honest with God
About
some area of our lives
Maybe the time is upon us to own up
to who we are before him
And
to receive his forgiveness and healing
Again, I have often found that
talking to others can help here
as
we seek to understand how we are relating to God
And what about in our Sunday
worship
How
do we do there?…
What are the opportunities for
honesty or dishonesty
that Sunday
presents us with?
We may not be quite up to Reverend
Smith’s congregation’s standards
But
I wonder if we often we come close!
Many Christians have a tendency
to
expect victorious, joyous, Christian living
Which is fine - until their lives
fall apart.
So sometimes we need to get real
ourselves
and
ask just why we think we’re here on a Sunday.
Is it get an emotional lift out of
the service
that
will see us through until at least Monday lunchtime?
Or is it to meet in honesty
with
ourselves,
with
others,
and with God
Who loves us, and longs to forgive
us
to
heal us
to
renew us
to
refresh us
And
to comfort us
And to teach us to worship him
in
Spirit and in truth.
