AGM and Passion Sunday
1989 (Year C), 19 March /
Lent 6
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
‘I have no fear of dying – my greatest fear is of my husband dying first and leaving me on my own.’ ‘My fear is of becoming dependent on other people – of not being able to look after myself. That would be awful – when it comes my time to go, I want it to be quick’. Two expressions of people in Lent Groups this year as they were invited to look forward to old age and death.
Others, as they recalled their youth and first years, spoke of sleeping under the bed for that was the coolest place in the house and of prayers with the whole family as they got up and prepared for the day. Others spoke most movingly of confirmation and first communion when for just a short time everything seemed to be right with the world and they were one with it.
For those privileged to be present as these stories were told and memories recalled it became clear that God has figured prominently in both important and at first glance very ordinary times in our lives. We can all look back and point to specific events when we felt close to the divine. It was also clear how very different that to begin with there seemed no common thread running through the stories we told. How can the experiences and feelings of a childhood in Hackney over seventy years ago relate to one in Jamaica in the 1950s. And how does that person’s view of God compare with our children now.
The memories and stories are ours – they are supremely personal, but it’s been quite amazing to sit and listen to one story and find that they are jogging other people’s memories – ‘That’s what it was like for us too’ people would say, or ‘Did you really have to do that, we were never made to do all that we just had to ...’ and out came another story.
At times the only apparent theme has been our differences and looking at you all now that’s the first thing that strikes me – we look different, we behave differently, we see God and experience him differently.
Now there was a time, and it wasn’t too long ago, when our differences and therefore our isolation from one another could’ve been seen in our services. Those who did go to church saw their relationship to God in terms of just themselves and their Divine Father. Nothing else, and certainly nobody else was allowed to break this cosy little twosome up. So, more often than not, you came to church on your own, prayed silently on your own before the service started and left without speaking to anyone except the Vicar or Curate.
Things have been stirring and slowly changing. There is noise and bustle before and during our services. And an indicator as to how far we’ve moved has been this year’s Lent Groups. For over the past few weeks people have been meeting to share this most personal of relationships with others, some of the stories we’ve told and those we’ve listened to, have expressed profound truths about the nature of God. They’ve not been told in the language you might expect to find in great theological books, but that’s only because theologians tend to express themselves badly.
At no time have our very real differences been glossed over but at the same time we have found that we have many things in common. Times of thankfulness, times of grace and blessedness, despair and loneliness, times of being dependent and times when we’ve found others dependent on us. All these can be shared with one another for we share them in God.
What follows after this service is another example of our differences and our unity. It is right that the new church council which we elect in a few minutes, reflect our many differences, but that council must work together to strengthen those things we hold in common and further the kingdom of God in this place.
And finally, lest we think that what we’re going to do is appoint the good and the great to sit on some exalted committee and lord it over us let me read again the final words of today’s gospel reading. Jesus said ‘You know that in the world the recognised rulers lord it over their subjects, and great men make them feel the weight of authority. That is not the way with you; among you, whoever wants to be great must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the willing slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give up his life as a ransom for many.’ AMEN