Sermon: ‘Ask for the ancient paths’

Sermon: Durham Cathedral: Trinity 1 2012, Choral Matins

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Jeremiah 6.16-21

Last evening I preached at St Giles’ Church here in Durham as part of the celebration of the 900^th anniversary of the dedication of the Church on 11 June 1112. It was built by Bishop Flambard for the monks who cared for the sick in the Kepier Hospital. The north wall of St Giles’ has survived from the original church. 900 years is a remarkable and moving mile-stone, and it illustrates something that we know instinctively here at the Cathedral, that we are heirs to a remarkable continuity of faith, a faith that has been worked out in history, in the crucible of human experience, through countless quiet years and countless turbulent years, times when the flame of faith has burned low and times when it has burned brightly. And it witnesses to a church that is set in its community; St Giles’ began as a church that served a hospital, and developed into a parish church, serving the people of Gilesgate for almost half the Christian era. This sense of continuity, of a church that is rooted in history and community, is important. Over the last thirty years we have seen the burgeoning of countless Christian communities who seem to say; we have the New Testament and we have today and it’s a pity about what went on in between, as if history counts for nothing, and with it a gathered, eclectic approach to church life that divorces church and community, as if there is no wisdom to be gleaned from the catholicity of the Church or from this sense of historical continuity and little understanding that the Christian faith, the Christ-ian faith, is by definition incarnational.

The Prophet Jeremiah ministered in the period leading up the fall of Jerusalem in 587BC. The book that bears his name, as we have it today, probably dates from the time of the Babylonian exile that followed Jerusalem’s fall, incorporating Jeremiah’s prophecies that had been recorded during his ministry, and later sections of narrative that reflected theologically on his ministry. The point was that history had proved Jeremiah to be right; history had vindicated God’s prophet, and therefore, lessons had to be learnt. If the exile was God’s retribution for the waywardness of his people, then the same mistakes must not be repeated.

And some of those mistakes are set out in today’s Old Testament lesson. And it has that arresting beginning:

Thus says the Lord:

Stand at the crossroads, and look,

and ask for the ancient paths,

where the good way lies; and walk in it,

and find rest for your souls.

It’s an image we can identify with, especially if you like fell walking; paths cross, there is a choice, but which is the old, established way, the way that is dependable, that has stood the test of time, that will bring us safely to our destination? Or which is the uncharted, new-fangled, brave new world option, a path that might run out or prove to be a dead end, or be full of stumbling-blocks or lead us into danger, disorientation and even disaster? Of course, the problem here is that it’s easy to get a bit nostalgic. I found myself doing that a little bit last week, watching quite a lot of Jubilee footage from the 1950s and 1960s, of a Britain that has passed away, but that had a sense of the good old days, a united nation, emerging courageously from the war, with the cringingly optimistic and up-beat Pathé commentary to boot. But it wasn’t long before other news-reel snippets told a different story: slums, poverty, hard and dangerous working conditions, and a nation divided by class and privilege. And that perhaps brings us quite close to Jeremiah’s day; where the elite, the privileged, the court and the cult, had departed radically from what the Lord required, and had led the people astray.

So what are the ancient paths, wherein does the good way lie, the way that brings rest to our souls? For Jeremiah, this comes from fidelity to God’s word, to the values of God’s good law, of love of God and care for the neighbour, of honesty, of heeding the needs of the many, not simply the privileged few. In other words, it means heeding the accumulated, community wisdom, worked out over time and in history, inspired by a conviction that Israel’s God is just and compassionate, merciful and loving.

In today’s passage, the invitation to seek the ancient paths, to ask for the good way, was spurned. The people responded, ‘We will not walk in it’. A sentinel blew the trumpet, and shouted, ‘listen’, but the people said, ‘we will not listen’. And therefore, because they refused to give heed, to pay attention, to choose the good way, the result would be disaster, ultimately the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of the people into captivity. The strange thing is, of course, that it seems that the people were not short of religion. They kept on offering their incense, their sweet offerings, their regular sacrifices; we might even say, they continued going to church, but they rejected God’s teaching. This is a theme that runs through Scripture. It’s a constant reminder that the cult - Temple, sacrifices, offerings - was not necessarily bad in itself, but only if it became a cover, a veneer, without the obedience that underlies true religious practice. Or in Jesus’ teaching, where God’s good law was overlaid by countless human rules and regulations, many of which actually contradicted the spirit of the law and so resulted in crushing legalism rather than true freedom. ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’, but if we show mercy, then our sacrifices become acceptable to God.

Behind all of this lies arrogance, the arrogance that says ‘we know better’. This attitude is what needed correcting and that is why Jeremiah’s words were preserved.

The history of the church is both heroic and devastating, heroic in terms of its faith, traditions of theology and spirituality, social care, and millions of sanctified, sacrificial lives, and devastating in its sins, its courting of temporal power and privilege, its exaltation of cult above obedience. But a church that lives in history, and that takes history seriously, opens itself up both to how it is enriched by history and tradition, and how it is able to be self-critical by learning from history, and where necessary where it needs correcting and reforming. My fear about many twenty-first century emerging Christian traditions is that they are careless of history, inward-looking, sectarian, fundamentalist, arrogant, and triumphalistic. Now of course any of us can fall prey to any of these, which is why we need to pay attention to the ancient paths. For if we allow ourselves to become inward-looking, sectarian, fundamentalist, arrogant and triumphalistic then somehow we seem to end up miles away from God’s true prophet Jeremiah, or his afflicted apostle St Paul, and even Jesus himself, who took up his cross and came not as one to be served but to serve. So the invitation comes to us once again,

Thus says the Lord:

Stand at the crossroads, and look,

and ask for the ancient paths,

where the good way lies; and walk in it,

and find rest for your souls.

Sermon: St Giles’ Church, Durham, Saturday 9^th June 2012

I was absolutely delighted to be invited to preach at this service of celebration – thank you, Alan - and for all kinds of reasons. There is a direct link between the Cathedral and this Parish, both in its foundation by Bishop Flambard who was Abbot of the Cathedral when it was a monastery and in the ministry of the Kepier monks of Durham who served here at the beginning, and so the Cathedral Chapter has continued to be patron of this church, And I was honoured to present your latest Incumbent on behalf of the Chapter, and I bring the congratulations and prayers of the Cathedral at this remarkable land-mark in your history. As Cathedral Precentor, I have much involvement with music, and how good it is to see the Choir of St Giles joined by the RSCM Northern Singers, and on this special occasion for Gordon Appleton as we honour his work with the Royal School of Church Music in this region. But most of all today, we give thanks for 900 years of worship at here St Giles’; that’s a pretty amazing statement; it witnesses to a remarkable continuity, to something that has prevailed amidst all the changes and crises and uncertainties of 9/10s of a millennium.

I love historic churches, and sometimes I try to imagine people walking up this aisle. I picture the monks processing and singing their services; I picture men, women and children in their medieval, Elizabethan, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and modern clothing, reflecting changes in fashion, hair-styles, economic circumstances. I think of the time when worship here would have been in Latin, and then how the Church was changed at the Reformation, and how styles of worship have developed over the years. I think of people coming here for baptisms, weddings and funerals for 900 years; of people coming into this building to pray, to say thank you, to remember, to say sorry, to weep. I think of how Gilesgate has changed. I wonder what people who lived here 100, 500, 900 years ago would think? How different it all seems, not least in the long queues of traffic that clog it up both morning and evening - until they see St Giles’ Church - well hidden though it is - and look to the south and see Durham Cathedral. Everything has changed, and yet in a sense, nothing has changed.

Today we give thanks especially for the continuity of worship. Each of today’s Bible passages reminds us of basic truths. So we sang together Psalm 84. Here the author is longing to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps he is in exile; he envies the birds who are able to nest so close to God’s altar; he envies the priests and the Levites who continuously sing God’s praises. But his delight is in God. And that is the very heart of worship; we express our delight in God, our love of God, a love that holds us in good times and bad. The Psalm hints that its author is in difficulty; he talks about walking in a vale of misery, a place of intense thirst – that’s hard and difficult stuff, and yet in worship, God sustains us with living water that quenches our thirst, that comforts our affliction. And notice, he would rather spend one day in church, than a thousand days in a place where ungodliness dwells; he’d rather be the humblest door-keeper in God’s house than have the very best seats in a house of wickedness. It’s a beautiful thought that this Church has been a holy place for the people of Gilesgate; a place where there is no profanity, foul language, depravity; rather, a place of beauty, holiness, a place where we think upon, as St Paul says, whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise.

And then the Old Testament lesson, King Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, a magnificent and stunning house, overlaid with gold, a wonder of the world. And yet, even Solomon’s Temple in all its splendour, fell short. ‘Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built’. And yet, God deigns to dwell among us. I’d like to invite you to think of St Giles’ as a place where heaven and earth meet. We say at Communion, ‘Lift up your hearts’: ‘We lift them to the Lord’. When we worship we use our imperfect building, our imperfect words, our imperfect voices, our imperfect attempts at ceremony, but because God meets us, we experience something far beyond our words and music and actions. Even a building as beautiful as this is simply a pointer to a greater beauty. And so long as we offer our worship in sincerity, so long as, in Solomon’s words, we make here ‘our prayer and plea’, Jesus our Lord, through whom we worship and pray, who stands at God’s right hand, takes our imperfect words and music and actions and makes them part of his perfect worship to the Father; he perfects our worship and prayer for he is the true Worshipper, the true Pray-er. That is why we offer our prayer and worship ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’. And therefore, our worship, Sunday by Sunday, day by day, is lifted by Jesus into the very life of the Trinity itself. What seems earthly, imperfect, weak, insignificant, touches the very heaven of heavens.

And finally, the New Testament reading from St Peter first letter. It reminds us of a simple truth. St Giles’ Church is a building of stone, and St Giles’ Church is a building of people or ‘living stones’ as Peter calls them, built on the sure foundation of Christ himself. You know the stones which make up this building have a story; they’ve seen a lot, especially the stones of the Northern wall – they’ve seen the lot. What story would they tell? Well, I guess like any church, they would tell of the ups and the downs, times when the church was full and times when perhaps not so full. I hope, most of all, that they would tell a story of God’s faithfulness and goodness, a story of God’s greatness and gentleness, a story of Jesus Christ, who is ‘the same yesterday, today and for ever’. A story of unchanging glory, ‘as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end’. So, St Peter reminds us the living stones have a story to tell, a story of the wonderful deeds of him who called us out of darkness to his own marvellous light; a story of what it means to receive mercy. In worship, we tell and re-tell the story; we receive, week by week, mercy, which deals with yesterday and helps us to live as people who are forgiven, loved and free. That’s why worship spills out into the streets and estates of this parish as we say to everyone, we have experienced a love, a faith, a hope that has changed and transformed our lives. And that’s why we sing in worship; Christians sing because we have something to sing about, and from church we carry out from here a continuous song in our hearts.

In worship, as we come to God in love and in devotion, God comes to us and gives loving attention to us. And that’s why I’m pleased that today’s service took us to the font, the altar and the lectern, those places of visible grace, where living water washes us in baptism, where transformed bread and wine feed us in the eucharist, where a living word is proclaimed and preached; where grace becomes tangible and visible; we see it, we feel it, we taste it, we smell it, we handle it, we hear it. The same grace that has been bestowed over 900 years and the same grace that will be bestowed to generations yet to come. Yes, Gilesgate has changed, society has changed, fashions have changed, the church has changed, but the important things endure and will endure, ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and for ever’. So, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.’