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
