Sermon for Notting Hill Methodist Church following the Grenfell Fire.

Sermon: Notting Hill Methodist Church

(with thanks to Rachel Lampard and Roger Walton for their statement, which informed this sermon.)

18 June 2017

Since Wednesday morning many words have been written in news columns and on social media. Words have been spoken on radio and television. Words have been shouted in protest and pain. Words have been whispered by those who have wandered dazed past this building, lost, frightened and bewildered. Perhaps too many words have been spoken and we cannot bear any more but it is the role of the preacher to use words to hold up a mirror to what is happening, to paint a picture of what might be if the kingdom of God were to come to reality and to point people to the glimpses of God’s presence somewhere in all the mess.

I find myself lost for words today – how do we honour those who have lost their lives? How do we do justice to the grief of the bereaved? How can we express our righteous anger? How do we respond to the unholy horror of it all?

The prophets of the Old Testament lived among a people from whom everything had been taken and they responded to horror and injustice by joining in the lament of the people. That is where we as a faith community find the beginnings of a response – to be alongside people and hold silence. To sit with people. To listen to them. To pray and lament for and with them. To offer care and to be silent as we feel the loss, the pain, the fear, the anger. Many people have been doing just that in these last few days. The space outside our church, the public boards and gathering points, covered in candles, flowers, messages, drawings from children – all this is how we join in the lament of the bruised, the broken, the lost and the dismayed.

Listening is no passive thing – listening honours the other person, it allows them to be, it gives space to hear their story, it says “You matter and what you have to say matters to me.” Listening can lead to change. It can motivate action, it can begin to shift the narrative and bring justice and compassion into the centre of the picture. Many people in our community have not felt listened to – have felt ignored – not necessarily by individuals but by the combined weight of a system that seems designed to work against them.

The rich and powerful of the prophets’ time did not listen to the calls of the poor for justice, because to listen would have been to put their own desires aside in order to respond to the call for a righteous society, where the widow, the orphan and the refugee would be offered shelter, would be given access to the law and would have a share in the resources of the land.

We as a community share in the role of the prophets – firstly to share in the lament of the people – to give space for grief, for dismay, for anger. We are also called to share in the prophetic task of speaking truth to those in power, to hold a mirror up to our society that reflects back just how things are. The prophet Amos railed against those who offered empty gestures and platitudes but continued to oppress the poor – he demanded justice, he painted a picture of what the world could look like if people paid attention to the needs of others. He, like the other prophets, was filled with righteous anger.

And today we are angry. Anger is not to be dismissed or condemned. There is much to be angry about. People will feel angry at God. Angry at those who had the power to act, but didn't. At a society which values less those who are the poorest or most disadvantaged.

We are often afraid of anger. We too often cling to an image of Jesus as "meek and mild". But we also see Jesus in the temple, who was angry to the point of overturning tables. Yet this was not an act of violence but a symbolic expression of anger in the prophetic tradition, disrupting the actions of those who would discriminate against and exploit the poorest at the door of God's house.

We should be angry at the kind of injustices emerging from this catastrophe: the underinvesting in the well-being of the poorest and the ignoring of their concerns. And we should all repent where we have been complicit with injustice in the past.

We need to find a way to channel our anger that will give us the energy, passion and commitment we need for the long road towards healing that lies ahead. The anger of Jesus is focused not on retaliation but on the righting of injustice. Matthew tells how, after the overthrowing of the tables, the blind and the lame came to Jesus, the very people who had been excluded from the temple by those with power. They came to Jesus and they were healed. Jesus's anger led to justice. It showed that a different way was not only possible, but was required of the people who followed him.  

In the midst of lament – God is with us, weeping, knowing what it is to watch helplessly as his child was brutally disposed of at the hands of the Roman war machine.

In the midst of anger – God is with us, roaring with pain and frustration that over millennia humanity is still getting this so wrong.

In the midst of our actions for justice and our longing for the world to be different – God is with us.

I know you will want to shout at me – how can God be in the midst of this? I have asked the same question and I do not have a simple answer to that – as a person of faith I can only look for those glimpses of God’s presence in the midst of this godless mess.

I see God in the actions of the firefighters and the police – in the willingness of people to risk their own lives to save others. I see God in the skills and devotion of the medical teams who were on the scene and in hospitals and of those who ran towards the Grenfell Tower to help in whatever way they can.

I see God in the mountains of clothes, toys, toiletries and rivers of bottled water that arrived in this building and other centres, and in the many thousands of pounds people are donating – these are the love gifts of those who like us all feel the need to do something in the midst of helplessness.

I see God in the faces of the volunteers working endless hours to move goods, to drive vehicles, to make gallons of tea, to do what needs doing.

I also see God in the work of those quietly getting on behind the scenes in supporting families, in setting up the infrastructure that will be needed to care for them.

It is not for us as a faith community to offer platitudes about God’s love in this time – those words will seem empty – it is our job to demonstrate God’s love in action. We have done that already, side by side, with this community – our community. It is our job to stand in solidarity with those who call for justice. It is our job to be in this for the long haul; there are wounds that do not heal and we will need to keep tending those who carry the loss and the trauma of these days for many years to come. The cameras will leave, the gifts will dwindle and stop, the strange glamour that draws people to travel miles to stand and watch will fade. We will remain, listening, lamenting, naming injustice and working out how we play our part in making this world reflect God’s desire for a righteous and inclusive community of love.

We know what is required of us – we need the courage to take up the task. What does the Lord require of us, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God? Now is a time to cling to those words, realise that they demand of us repentance for our past actions and present privileges, and to commit ourselves to love without measure, act for justice whatever the cost, and do so whilst walking humbly with a God of love and justice.

Amen.

Michaela Youngson