Sermon at the Sung Eucharist on the Second Sunday after Trinity 2017

Imagine, if you will, Jerusalem.  Not the sprawl of modern Jerusalem of today; but a Jerusalem the size of small town.  A huddle of stone-built houses, shops, alleyways, and the noise and smells of a middle eastern souk.  The hustle and bustle of buying and selling, the clack of the weavers’ looms, the cries of small children –  you can hear them all.  Fresh bread is being baked; tomatoes and cucumbers and coriander are being sold at the gate. 

And at the centre of the city are two magnificent stone buildings: the king’s palace, and the Temple of God.  The royal officials come and go, busy as usual about their business.  And the priests are fussing in the temple courts.  The daily sacrifices of pigeons and incense need to be offered.  Everyday life looks normal.

Jerusalem stretches over the top of the south and east sides of a hill; one hill among the many that make up the countryside of Judah.   And around this little stone town is a high protective wall, pierced by stout wooden gates.  That’s when you begin to notice that something seems to be amiss.  Soldiers, swords in hand, are stationed along the top of the walls keeping lookout.  Archers are checking their arrows.  These, it seems, are dangerous times.

The gossip on the streets is of the threat from the north.  Some years before, the Babylonian army had come to Judah, had entered Jerusalem, and had captured some of its leaders.  And now rumour has it the army is on the move again, marching south; marching, marching once again towards Jerusalem.  But the priests and the royal officials are confident that this time they will be safe.  For hasn’t God promised that he will always be with them in his temple?  Hasn’t God made promises that this kingdom of Judah, and the successors of King David, will last forever?  They are God’s chosen people, after all.  So they post their lookouts and guard the walls, but get on with their everyday business as normal.

This is the Jerusalem of the prophet Jeremiah.  These are the people to whom he tries to speak.  A people living under threat but who prefer to ignore that threat and what it might mean for them.  A people who do not want to hear the truths which Jeremiah feels impelled to speak.

For Jeremiah is a man with a mission. In chapter one of the book of Jeremiah we are told how the young prophet is called by God and given his task:  ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,’ says God to Jeremiah.  ‘I appointed you a prophet to the nations…No excuses now.  You can do this task because I will be with you.  You shall speak whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid.’  And the task which Jeremiah is given is to speak the truth, to tell it as it is, to the leaders, the priests and the people of Jerusalem.  It’s an unavoidable God-given vocation to be a truth-teller.  And because Jeremiah lives in dangerous times, and is speaking to people who do not want to face the truth, he has a hard time of it.  For he understands that the Babylonian threat to Judah is not simply a military threat, but is the means by which God is choosing to teach his people a very hard lesson.  The people of Judah have consistently disobeyed God’s law and broken the covenant promise they had made with God.  The inevitable result is that they will be punished, their leaders all the more so. For the leaders have lied to the people and pretended that all is well when  in fact the whole community has strayed far from God’s purposes.

So Jeremiah had no choice, but to speak the truth and bear the consequences.  It is not easy.  The leaders and priests in Jerusalem turn on him for saying things they do not want to hear.  They mock him, throw him into prison, try to silence him.  Today’s Old Testament lesson is one of the many prayerful laments which the prophet cries out to God when he’s in the stocks as a punishment for proclaiming uncomfortable truths.

Jesus also has an unavoidable vocation as a truth-teller.  Our Gospel reading today has Jesus briefing his disciples before sending them out to preach, teach and heal.  And the Gospel words are not easy for us to hear.  For it turns out that Jesus’ own vocation to be a truth-teller is also to be his disciples’ vocation.  They are to be fearless in challenging falsehood and hypocrisy.  They are to be like Jesus himself: ‘It is enough’, he tells them, ‘for the disciple to be like the teacher’.  And the disciples are not to be surprised if they encounter opposition.

There is a deep awareness in today’s Gospel reading that to live and speak the truth as Jesus does may well set people at odds with one another.  The Christian gospel is a gospel of tough, life-changing divine love.  It’s a gospel which challenges many of our commonly held assumptions, the ways we choose to behave, the ways our families and society are organised.  So, when Jesus encounters a rich young man who wants to follow him, Jesus sees to the truthful heart of the matter and gives him a tough choice:  Which is more important to you, your riches or me?  The young man knows that Jesus has struck home.  Sadly he shakes his head, and walks away in the opposite direction, preferring his own wealth to the risks and joys of following Jesus.

The Church today inherits that unavoidable vocation to discern and speak truth as it is.  Like Jeremiah, we live in uncertain times; and, like Jeremiah, we sometimes have to take the consequences. Here at St Margaret’s, what might it mean for us, as a Christian community, to tell the truth as it is? And to interpret what’s happening in the light of the gospel? There are homeless people on the streets around this part of Westminster. Like North Kensington, we have people living in Westminster who are immensely wealthy cheek by jowl with those who have virtually nothing. Inequality of opportunity and choice is part of our everyday life, so that we barely notice it. Or what of those who are addicted to drugs? Those who live on their own, not by choice, but because no-one cares for them and Where these problems or similar ones are being ignored, that’s when it can be very important for the Church to be the truth-teller, to raise public awareness, get involved, offer support or whatever.  Put that tough, truthful Christian love into practice.  Where good things are happening and not being noticed – where people are being kind, offering care day by day, sacrificing time and effort on behalf of others – tell the truth of it.  Be thankful and celebrate! To be truth-tellers is our unavoidable Christian vocation.

Or how about our Christian vocation to tell it as it is on national or international issues?  Church leaders have been swift to stand with the leaders of other faith groups in the face of recent terrorist attacks. It is vital that we support, and commit ourselves to developing, close working relationships with those of other faiths here in the UK. To quote the late Jo Cox MP, we have far more in common than that which divides us. Let’s act as we speak – get to know our neighbours, build trust based on friendship networks. Give the lie to those who seek to divide and sow fear among us.

By way of contrast look at the Church’s contribution to the debates on climate change, on the remission of international debt, on tackling sex trafficking, on countering racism … the list goes on and on.  This is not the Church ‘meddling in politics’ as some like to rubbish it.  This is the Church telling it as it is, and inviting us to bring Gospel values to bear on how we live our lives.  It is our unavoidable vocation.

And perhaps most painfully, how about our Christian vocation to tell it as it is about ourselves?  I don’t simply mean being honest in bringing our own sins and failures to God and seeking God’s forgiveness.  I mean, how about the Church being prepared to be truthful about the occasions of its own blindness and hypocrisy?  It took hundreds of years for the Church to learn to be truthful about our involvement in persecuting Muslims in the past.  It took a long, long time for the Church to acknowledge that the slave trade provided the money to build many of the churches where we worship in today.  What are the issues within the Church today about which we need to learn to be more truthful:  the increasing marginalisation of the Church in our society perhaps?  We can’t carry on as we are.  Or perhaps we could be more truthful about the fact that diminishing resources mean that the shape of the Church’s ministry is inevitably going to change over the next ten, twenty years or so?  The Church has an unavoidable vocation to be truthful about itself.

Remember the story of the Emperor with no clothes?  It took a small boy who wasn’t afraid to be truthful to show up the Emperor’s vanity, his courtiers’ hypocrisy and his subjects’ fear for what they were – with hilarious results.  In the story, it is the boy’s unavoidable vocation to be truthful.

Like that small boy, like Jeremiah, like Jesus himself, the Church has an unavoidable vocation.  We are to tell it as it is, to speak the truth.  To paraphrase the Gospel according to St John:  If you are truly Jesus’ disciples…you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.