Sermon at the Sung Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday before Lent 2017

Our Old Testament and Gospel readings make it sound like God is very cross with us today.  In Isaiah 58, the people of God are told that they are being rebellious, like a recalcitrant teenager scowling in her bedroom, refusing to come downstairs and engage with her parents. And in the Gospel reading Jesus chides his followers for not keeping the Jewish Law as they ought, and even for leading others astray. Such people, he says, will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

No-one likes to be scolded, told that they could do much better if they tried – least of all does anyone like being scolded by God. We shrink from it, stop our ears if we can; dismiss such condemnation as being part of the Old Testament and therefore safely ignored. Or, in the case of Jesus, we would prefer to think of his criticism as being something addressed to his first disciples but not to us. And when we do hear the divine scolding and admit that there may be some truth to it, we can try to justify ourselves. At least, that’s what I find myself doing.

So … we gather to worship – surely a good thing? – and our worship is beautifully ordered; the music superb; the welcome offered to visitors well organized; coffee and tea freely available. And we don’t do badly about keeping in touch with members of the congregation who are housebound or ill. We remember them in our prayers. Many of us are deeply committed to good charitable causes beyond St Margaret’s. We do our best. We try to live our lives as far as we can in accordance with Jesus’ teaching and example. It isn’t always easy, and sometimes we fail. After all, we’re only human, just as God has made us to be.

So why are these words of criticism voiced by the prophet Isaiah and by Jesus?

Isaiah was addressing the people of God at a point in their history when some of them, at least, appear to have been putting good ritual before the care of their neighbour. Some, maybe many, priests were more concerned with the niceties of sacrifices, and ritual purity, than with the needs of the poor and vulnerable. And they encouraged the people to follow suit. In short, the people seem to have forgotten what God had called them to do and to be.

Speaking as someone who has spent a considerable part of her ministry writing and ordering good public worship, I have some sympathy for the priests! It is a demanding task to produce and lead worship which gives people space and opportunity to meet with God. And Jesus himself repeats the golden commandment that we are first to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and body, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. So I have to remember that good worship is important; but it is not the whole story.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus takes his followers to task for losing sight of their true purpose: to be salt and light to those around them; to love their neighbour as themselves. In terms of how they live their lives, Jesus’ followers are to be even more righteous than the most righteous teachers of the Jewish law. They are to be holy; perfect even as my Father is perfect, we’re told a little later on in the Gospel of Matthew.

So part of the purpose of the scolding which we hear today in our readings is to make us sit up and pay attention. Have we got our priorities right? Are their ways in which we could cultivate a better care of our neighbour, a more just society? How can we better be salt and light to those around us? Coming to church might just prove to be the easy part. Learning how to make a difference leading to better justice among the poor and the vulnerable is a much more demanding task.

For a start, I hope that in the coming months we’ll have the opportunity to share with one another something of the various ways in which individuals or families are already involved in good causes, where you are already being salt and light to your neighbours near and far. I know that some of you are very involved in work with homeless people on the streets of London; others support medical charities and research. Some of you are committed to promoting educational opportunities among adults as well as children. I’m sure there are many more examples of the generous offer of time, money and skill to help those in need. Some of you are engaged in the development of public policy, with potentially far reaching consequences across the nation and beyond.

Let’s celebrate those good activities, and see whether we might support one another better in them – by prayer and in very practical down-to-earth ways. Let’s learn how we might better develop and be known for promoting generous and merciful justice in our relationships, at a personal level and more widely.

Because it is God’s generous, merciful and unfair justice that lies at the heart of the good news of Christ. We are asked to do all we can to enable the vulnerable, the poor, and those unable to flourish because of their circumstances – we’re asked to attend to them, to do all we can to free them, to enable them to know the God whom we worship and to know the truth of his generous, merciful and unfair justice.

It’s not an easy ask. It’s a lifetime’s challenge. But it’s what following Jesus faithfully means. To do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God – that’s when we can be a light shining on a hilltop; that’s when we can be like salt flavouring a delicious feast; that’s when, with Isaiah, we can know that ‘God is with us’.