Sermon: Changing Attitudes

Probably very rarely do we ask what motivated the compilers of the lectionary to choose the stories they did for us to reflect on.  We occasionally find ourselves frustrated by their whims (especially at Mattins and Evensong when great litanies of Hebrew names leave us floundering unless we be as skilled Hebraists as the Dean), but more often than not we are grateful for the methodical way they seek to expose us to the breadth of Holy Writ.  This is particularly true in the case of the way the Gospel is proclaimed at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.  The creators of the Revised Common Lectionary conceived a three-year cycle: Year A for St Matthew, Year B for St Mark and Year C for St Luke, with St John interspersed in each year to add still greater depth to the story as it unfolds.  A simple concept which is terribly effective.

    At present we are just past the halfway mark of our exploration of St Luke’s Gospel, and in the middle of a section revealing the qualities demanded of Christ’s disciples.  The section began with Jesus’s determination to set out on the journey of faith, marked by his refusal to damn those who were not ready to follow.  In the sending out of the Seventy-Two we encountered a spirit of co-operation marked by simplicity of life.  The imperative to attend to the needs of the stranger from another culture was made quite clear in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Preferring the concentration of Mary over the fussiness of Martha was advocated when Our Lord visits their household.  A boldness not afraid of risking impertinence was the mark of the man knocking on the door when his friend had retired for the day.  And we have been warned not to waste our time heaping up the earthly riches which are so regrettably attractive to us.  And today the demand is attentiveness.

    What strikes me very clearly is that these things, especially attentive, readiness, are not so much to do with out activities as our attitudes, the dispositions which shape what we do.  It is something of which one is acutely conscious on those (disappointingly rare) occasions when one is hearing a confession.  People come with lists, long or short, of the things have done wrong more often than they come to question their motives.  And little wonder.  It is a much simpler matter to name the actions we know to be inappropriate than to examine what gives rise to them.

    One always seeks to reassure a penitent that we are not the finished product.  But the fact that we are work in progress cannot turn into a constant excuse for the attitudes which need to change.  Our dispositions must be caught up in a willingness for them to be conformed more and more into what God wants them to be: dispositions which are clearly taught and revealed in the earthly ministry of Christ and in his continuing life in the Church of which he is the Head.  And this is hard work, as the Scriptures bear witness.  Not even a blinding conversion on the road to Damascus will immediately fit us for heaven, as St Paul himself was painfully aware.

    There may be no quick fix, but there are good habits which will bear the long-term fruits of grace.  The first is our frequent encounter with Holy Writ.  To hear the record of the faith of our fathers and God’s gracious dealing with them, the story of the solidarity of the people of God, the vocalising of the hope that was in them and is in us, is indispensible.  And it is through the wisdom of those who compiled the lectionary in the way I described that we are helped to do this in the broadest way.  At the same time we must be careful not to treat Scripture like a telephone directory, imagining that it always renders immediate and obvious insights.  There are such Christians around: they are generally best ignored!  If Scripture be the precious gift we believe it to be it demands our imaginative engagement and a willingness to find ourselves changed by it.

    The second is the encounter with God himself both in the stillness of the times when we pray alone and in those moments when we hear him in the bustle and busyness where we least expect it.  The intention to listen more than we speak is a virtue which finds its roots in time we set apart for prayer.  Our speaking in that encounter needs to be honest if it is to be fruitful.  Many people try to keep things they think unworthy out of their prayers, preferring the things they think it virtuous to pray about.  We may try to shut out our concerns that we have too much to do today, or that we just don’t know how to do what we have to, or that we are going to have to work with that person we simply cannot bear, because we think we ought to be praying for the victims of fire and flood.  One suspects that God’s short answer to the high-minded prayer is much the same as Jesus’s riposte to the disciples who want him to feed a multitude: you do something about it.  That the answer to our prayers may be that we ought to give £100 to the Disasters Emergencies Committee does not please us when we should rather be badgering God to acquit us of our responsibilities.  It is only by praying about the things we really think are rather unworthy that we let God help us get past them.  Honesty about our shabby motives invites God to transform them.

    The third is our encounter with the sacraments.  By now the importance of our receiving Christ in his Body and Blood, the source and summit of Christian life, ought to go without saying.  But we tend to think that it is our only possible frequent sacramental encounter with him when it is not.  The sacrament of Reconciliation, the making of our confession and the receiving of his forgiveness, is also available to us.  Michael Ramsey used to lament that the joy of this sacrament was still under-appreciated and under-experienced amongst Anglicans, viewed with suspicion as a practice used in other parts of the Church in order to keep people in fear.

    An honest assessment of one’s state of life in the company of a priest to whom the forgiveness of sins has been entrusted is, in my experience as a penitent, a liberating experience of grace.  It is not that one values some kind of ritual humiliation: that could not be the sacrament of Reconciliation.  It is that frankness about one’s shortcomings is the first major part of growing beyond them; the second is the word of absolution which recalls the forgiveness of baptism and renews the wonder of its saving waters.  As a confessor one’s sense of that grace at work bringing the sorrowful still closer to the image and likeness of God is one of the greatest joys of priesthood, as Christ reaches out to raise us from the dust.

    It is difficult for the penitent; it is difficult for the confessor.  One so keenly wants to offer some word of counsel or propose an act of penance which will mend the situation quickly.  But no amount of fishing around in the Scriptures, or trawling the wisdom of the Fathers will provide an instant remedy.  What one keeps coming back to is the very thing which is the fundamental thrust and basis of St Luke’s Gospel: that faith must be faithfully conceived of as a journey.

    If a job worth doing is worth doing properly, then a journey worth going on is worth going on wholeheartedly.  That means that asking ourselves again and again why we’re on it, rejoicing when the reasons are right and being honest when we’re not really sure, or perhaps don’t at the moment care for the route or the mode of transport: it’s not always going to be the Venice Simplon Orient-Express.  But we know that it’s worth committing to.  As Christ constantly reassures us, it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom.  We just need to put in the hard work with him to come to a similarly generous and hopeful disposition.