Sermon preached at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
Sunday 14 August 2016
Psalm 137
John 4.7-26 - The Samaritan Woman at the Well
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2016-08-14-simon-woodmanmp3#t=18:05
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2016-08-14-simon-woodmanmp3#t=18:05
May the words of my
mouth
and the meditations of all our
hearts
be acceptable in your
sight
O God our strength and our redeemer.
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 generic 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 Manse Family.
And so the members of the congregation
smiled
their way out of worship,
with
the rousing tune of the final hymn
still
ringing in their ears.
They got into their cars,
jumped
on their buses, and boarded their tubes and trains,
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, while assuring people
of God’s unconditional 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
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 ‘Hallelujahs’ 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 all able
to
sing the happy songs with integrity,
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 a hundred people
had
come together to meet with each other and with God,
and had spent the whole time deceiving
each
other
God
and
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,
and
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 their 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
deported 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”
And 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 oh-so-British 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
and 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?
We live in a world where children are killed
in war on a regular basis,
with
airstrikes against ISIS strongholds in Syria
reportedly
disturbingly indiscriminate in their targeting. [1]
And none of us are immune from complicity
in
systems where children are exploited for our benefit,
with
around 6 million children worldwide
used
as forced labour within the clothing and fashion supply chains,
many
of them in life-threatening conditions in factories.[2]
We may not actively wish them dead,
but
our buying choices all too often condemn the innocent
and
our lack of action incurs guilt by association.
And yet we still come along on a Sunday
to
meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ,
to
meet with the living God,
and all too often we 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,
where
we could own our guilt and complicity.
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.
I can still hear Brian Haymes’ voice
exhorting us to
“never
underestimate your capacity to deceive yourself”
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…
But 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 often much more comfortable to pretend
that
nothing is going wrong,
not
admitting even to ourselves the darker feelings we have.
Possibly because they make us feel guilty…
I mean, 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 just 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.
His meeting with the Samaritan woman by the
well
broke
taboos relating to ethnicity, gender, and social class.
But I fear that sometimes we are so dishonest
with each other,
in
our attempts to appear holy and happy,
that
we alienate those whom 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 with
one another 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 a 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.
Seek
help, ask for 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 prayers?
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.
One of the prayer practices that we have used
over
the last few years in our evening services
has
been to intentionally create the space for honesty with God.
We have framed this around two questions
–
the first being an invitation to pause and reflect on where,
over
the last week,
we
have been particularly conscious of the presence of God.
This is often an opportunity to give thanks
to God,
and
to bring to mind those moments of grace
where
God has reached out into our lives to comfort or strengthen us.
But the second question, and much the harder
question,
has
been an invitation to reflect on where, over the last week,
it
has felt as if God is absent from our lives.
The experience of the absence of God
is
not something to be ashamed of,
nor
is it something to be denied.
Rather, even the greatest spiritual writers
talk
of their journey through the valley of the shadow of death,
of
their sense of being God-forsaken.
And it is these dark moments,
when
God seems impossibly distant,
that
invite us to our greatest honesty before God.
Whether it is our sin, or our circumstance,
or the actions of others,
the
absence of God can point us to those places in our lives
where
God is asking us to have the greatest courage of deep honesty.
It is in the dark and lonely spaces our souls
that
we confront our inner demons of self loathing and hatred,
where
we discover the truth about our identity, sexuality, and sinfulness.
And it is here that honesty is hardest to
achieve.
Again, I have often found that talking to
others can help here,
as
we seek to understand how we are relating to God.
So 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 sometimes we have tendencies in that direction!
Christians, of all different worship
traditions, can 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 or intellectual 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
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