Patronal festival

1993 (Year B), 1 November (All Souls Day)

All Souls Overbury Street

It’s good to be here today amongst such marvellous gathering of people. Such a gathering deserves a story.

There was once a very rich woman who had a butler called Jenkins. She called him, very sternly, one day saying ‘Jenkins come to my bedroom.’ ‘Certainly, madam,’ he replied. ‘Now Jenkins, come and sit by me here on the bed.’ ‘Certainly, madam.’ ‘Jenkins,’ she said, ‘I want you to take off my shoes.’ ‘Certainly, madam.’ ‘Now Jenkins’, she said, ‘I want you to take off my stockings.’ ‘Certainly, madam.’ It’s at this point that Father John wished he’d never asked me here today and is starting to sweat a little and the rest of you begin thinking that I might say something that will get me into the Hackney Gazette. ‘Now Jenkins’, she said, ‘I want you to take off my dress.’ ‘Certainly madam.’ ‘And one more thing,’ she said. ‘Yes madam?’ ‘Don’t ever let me catch you wearing my clothes again.’

You laugh, partly out of relief that it didn’t end as you thought it might, and partly out of surprise, because not many of you could’ve guessed the ending. The punchline was well hidden just like the masks which hide so many of the faces today. And the point, well that’s easy. Masks, like the story can give us a marvellous surprise. And the God we come here to worship today is a above all a God of surprises.

Here’s another surprise. You’ve all got to take part in this sermon. You’re very good at it here I know. You need to help because we’re going on a journey. And the journey starts like this.

They sailed away in a Sieve they did. In a Sieve they went to sea
In spite of all their friends could say On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day In a Sieve they went to sea!
And everyone said who saw them go ‘0 won’t they soon be upset you know!
For the sky is dark and the voyage is long And, happen what may, it’s extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast.’
Far and few, far and few
Are the lands where the Jumblies live.
Their heads are green and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

I guess we all started our journey here today with some excitement but also with some anxiety. I can tell you right now that mine did. The Jumblies journey starts, not in a very suitable craft it has to be said. But that doesn’t matter, what is important is that they set off. And they set off with a great deal of gay abandon and in the face of prudent warnings and respectable advice they called aloud ‘Our Sieve ain’t big, but we don’t care a button, we don’t care a fig, in a Sieve we’ll go to sea.’

There are of course those who always stay at home and ‘tut tut’. Those who pour scorn on the daring travellers. ‘Fools.,’ they say, ‘Should never’ve gone’. You meet them every day. They might even try to persuade you that the journey should never start and the Jumblies had to listen to them too:

And everyone said who saw them go o won’t they soon be upset, you know
For the sky is dark and the voyage is long And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast

Far and few ...

This journey provided the Jumblies with opportunities to do things they’d never done before. All journeys provide us with new experiences. The journey of your life is a list of such things. Some you will have seized, others will have slipped away. A few people are given the opportunities that have changed the course of history.

Journeys are not easy. The ones you’ve made to get here today, why some of them started years ago in a different country. And the immediate ones even started yesterday – we’ve got clowns here from France. The Jumblies’ journey wasn’t easy either.

The water it soon came in, it did
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In pinky paper all folded neat
And fastened it down with a pin
And they passed the night in a crockery jar And each of them said ‘How wise we are Though the sky be dark and the voyage be long Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong While round in our sieve we spin.

Far and few ...

So things have started to go wrong and they’ve got water lapping round their feet. I bet there have been several times when you’ve thought that maybe you should never’ve started and that the thing to do was go back home. The same thing: happened to the Jumblies. They went back home:

In twenty years they all come back, In twenty years or more.
And everyone said, ‘How tall they’ve grown
For they’ve been to the lakes and the Torrible Zone And the hills of the Chankly Bore’
And they drank their health and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of a beautiful yeast
And everyone said, ‘If only we live,
We too will go to sea in a sieve
To the hills of the Chankly Bore.’

Far and few ...

The incentive for this daunting journey is the possibility and promise of finding ‘a land covered with trees’ furnished with useful and delightful commodities and returning mysteriously taller from ... the lakes of the Torrible zone, and the hills of the Chankly Bore.

We are all on a journey. It a Magical Mystery Tour organised by the Lord of Surprises. That’s what it is. A journey into God. We may not have to cross the sea to another island but we, like the Jumblies are all on a journey.

And just like the Jumblies our journey’s end will be to arrive back at the place we first started from. Although now it will be different because we will be looking at the place anew, through the eyes of God. A poem has these words. ‘The end of all our exploring, will be to arrive at where we started, and know the place for the first time’.

The gospels are littered with stories of journeys, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, Jesus himself is constantly on a journey. His first began before he was even born. And the journey is always to God. And the Christian journey is unique because we’ve already seen and tasted the God whom we seek. A famous quotation you’ll all have heard is this:

‘You would not seek me unless you had already found me.’

God is present in our lives in all kinds of ways, we do not have to wait till death to reach our end. So may the God of Surprises constantly shock us out of our complacency and bring us to the delight and glory of his kingdom where he waits to embrace us. AMEN