August 22, 2010

Carolin Telford

Pentecost 13     
Isaiah 58:9-14     
Luke 13:10-17

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A few years ago, I decided to install a shower in the bathroom of our house in London. Having a bath can be fantastically restorative, but sometimes there is nothing like that feeling of standing under a full flow of water, then emerging clean, invigorated, ready to face the day-or night, as the case may be. I chose one of those overhead kinds of showers, so I could stand directly under it rather than have the water squirting out at me on an angle. The shower was duly installed, and wonderful it was. For a while. After a couple of months, far from the water coming straight down at me, it was shooting out all over the place.

Looking carefully at the showerhead (with the water turned off, needless to say), I noticed little encrustations around quite a few of the holes the water was supposed to flow through. The notoriously hard water of London was slowly, inexorably, blocking up the showerhead.

I got a hole punch and stuck it through each of the little holes, clearing each one and removing the deposits of calcium carbonate which had built up. It was a bit laborious, and I could have done without having to bother, but the attention was well worth it. Result: full flow of water restored, and all was well. For a while, anyway. Slowly, insidiously, the holes started to block up again. So I got out the hole punch once more. This is called regular home maintenance, and we are all no doubt only too familiar with it in some form.

In our liturgy this morning there is much to affirm us in our desire to live lives of faith, to encourage us to take stock of ourselves and to inspire us to renew our resolve to live in response to the claims God makes upon us. There are many words we will sing and say which resonate with the intent of those words from Isaiah. They speak of the mercy and blessing of God and the eventual harvest springing from that blessing as it flows out to become a blessing for others. If we commit ourselves to justice, seek to establish equality, work to 'build peace together', then God will 'satisfy our needs in parched places, make our bones strong, and we shall be like watered gardens.' In that lovely phrase, we ‘shall be called the repairer of the breach.’ We, like the original audience for these words, are to attend to the Spirit of God moving in our world, act in obedience to God's ordinances, and respond to the needs of our neighbour. God's justice is for all, not just for some.

This is familiar ground for our community here at St Matthews. We will shortly affirm that we are endeavouring to be people who 'let love be their compass, compassion their means, and justice their destination.' And thus, by implication, we acknowledge our regret for any previous ‘losses’ of bearing and failures of compassion, and affirm our intention to move away from whatever might stop us being people who do not have justice as their destination. I say 'by implication' because, in my reading, we won't actually be saying any words that directly convey that intent.

If you are an aficionado of Sacra Musica, you might recognise these words from the General Confession, taken from the service of Evensong in the Book of Common Prayer:

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, we have offended against thy holy laws, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us...” The confession is followed by the priest pronouncing absolution, or remission, of sins.

The fact that we are not going to say them, or words which would take us on the twists and turns of the same journey, may in fact be one of the reasons we find ourselves here this morning. For surely if we are to 'find ourselves' we should articulate who we are and how we are seeking to live: is this not more productively a matter of affirming good ‘practice’ than castigating ourselves for bad?

The argument of those who criticised Jesus for healing the woman on the Sabbath was that Jesus wasn't being observant. In this instance, he was failing to attend to those prophetic words of Isaiah reiterating the call to keep the Sabbath holy. The woman was not at the point of death. She was an unworthy reason to break the Sabbath – her healing could wait awhile. She has already waited 18 years, after all. In fact the woman seems to have internalised that pretty thoroughly, and felt herself to be indeed unworthy. But Jesus healed her. To him, she was worthy of attention, of healing and restoration to full life. He healed her of her affliction, and also of her sense of unworthiness. Those words she spoke, 'Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed' are still spoken by some Christians as part of their liturgical preparation just before receiving Holy Communion.

Last year I conducted an on-line, anonymous survey for senior students at the school where I work, and asked them to write about their spirituality, particularly relating their sense of spirituality or religious conviction to their experience of living here, in the city of Auckland. Around 15% of the students chose to respond, a pretty good number, considering how many claims are made upon their time, and also the length (and depth) of the questionnaire. Around 45% of those who responded said that they were atheist or followed no formal religion. Another 45% or so described themselves in some way as Christian. I tried to avoid theologically weighted terminology in formulating the questions, but I did ask about prayer. Surprisingly, all but 3% chose to respond to the question “What does prayer mean to you?”

I found it extraordinary that only one respondent mentioned forgiveness. No-one else said anything about wanting, or needing, to say they were sorry for things they had done, or hadn't done, to God, or to anyone else. For 99% of the girls who took the time to complete this fairly demanding survey, forgiveness just wasn't on the radar. The one student who used the word 'forgiveness' wrote the following: “To me, prayer means giving thanks, repenting, and talking to God. Everyone says different things in their prayers, but personally, when I pray I thank God for all the good things that he has brought to my life, big or small. If I have sinned, I repent, but even when I am not aware of sinning I still ask forgiveness as it is very important for me to have peace with God and not feel like I am being selfish. Sometimes it is hard. You should pray about everything bothering you. Sometimes people feel guilty, including me.”

Recognising and acknowledging a need for forgiveness appears to run counter to the spirit of our times. I think that girl was on to something in what she said about guilt. That kind of generalised sense of failure, feeling guilty all the time: who needs it? I once heard guilt described as 'that most unproductive emotion'. Guilt can spur us to take remedial action, but it can also paralyse us with despair. Christianity has a history of somewhat overplaying its hand when it comes to guilt. We don't want to be made to feel guilty, so we don't call to mind our failings. Sometimes it is hard, as she says. And so consequently, it could be argued, we deny ourselves the opportunity to receive (or acknowledge the receipt of) God's forgiveness. In the words of 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

It seems to me that this is to open ourselves to a process of healing, not one of neurotic self-denigration. While not wishing to advocate a return to the Book of Common Prayer, I have followed too much the devices and desires of my own heart. I feel it is entirely reasonable to say that there is no health in me which is earned or deserved. I am radically dependant, and I desire and recognise my need to be reminded of my radical dependence on the continuing gift of the mercy and grace of God. That is not to overstate things, it is merely to recognise and identify the real state of things. Like the unblocking and freeing up of the flow of water through the shower-head, this is not a once and for all event, but something requiring regular and repeated attention.

We will of course be asking for forgiveness in saying the Lord’s Prayer together today. And even if there is some kind of specific ‘confession’ included in a liturgy, there is not usually enough time allowed to do anything more than make a kind of mental note that this is an important aspect of our spiritual life which we need to return to in a more quiet context. But at least we do have the collective reminder. We recall once more that if we allow the love of God to wash into and drench the parts of us that are parched and dry, miraculous things can happen.

Of course, here in New Zealand, our water is soft, and our showerheads don’t tend to block up with hard deposits. (Maybe this is because we live in Godzone!) Would that the same could be said of our hearts.