Trinity Sunday: Mount up with wings like eagles
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 40:12-17, 27-end, Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians 13:11-end, Matthew 28:16-20
“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Today’s Old Testament lesson is a reading I’ve preached on probably more than any other. It’s the preferred reading of the Parachute Regiment, so at any funerals, remembrance services or battalion field services, it’s what they like to hear. I watched my former brigade’s service of Remembrance for D-Day yesterday and it was read by a General I’ve been to Normandy with several times; this year less glamorously held in Colchester. You might also remember this reading from Chariots of Fire, hearing the drums and synthesisers of Van Gellis in the background, with the trials of British Olympians running and falling over. Perhaps next week we’ll start introducing film clips into our services! Eric Liddle reads it in a packed church in the film, illustrating his principled stand on not running on Sundays, truly now a relic of a forgotten world. But the PARAs love Isaiah because it speaks of keeping on, through adversity, and when all others fail. The Commanding Officer of 2PARA while I was with them, Duncan Mann, was unaffectionately known as the Mangrenade because in his two years he put us through some hellish long marches – 25 miles over rough terrain on the Scottish borders and the Brecon Beacons and then a 50 mile march in under a day on the North Downs way. He wasn’t loved for it but his thinking was simple. If we go to war fitness and resilience will save lives.
The real reason the PARAs love that passage though is the reference to wings. ‘they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint’. What marks out the regiment is their wings. They’re earned through a brutal fitness course and then parachute training. It goes to their purpose in dropping in to enemy territory and marks them out as different from other infantry. It’s a symbol of pride. And if the PARAs have a creed it’s the words of Field Marshall Montgomery, one of the great heroes of the Second World War, who wrote of them:
“What Manner Of Men Are These That Wear The Maroon Beret? They are firstly all volunteers and are toughened by physical training. As a result they have infectious optimism and that offensive eagerness which comes from well-being. They have 'jumped' from the air and by doing so have conquered fear… They are in fact - men apart - every man an emperor. Of all the factors, which make for success in battle, the spirit of the warrior is the most decisive. That spirit will be found in full measure in the men who wear the maroon beret.”
Monty was a Christian and famously said he would sooner go in to battle without his artillery than without his chaplains, believing that it is morale above all that wins battles, the spirit of the warrior.
I wonder how our morale is doing today? I know there are many who have been isolating – more or less completely – for over three months now. Our Thursday cake and soup run is intended more for morale than sustenance, and this week I heard reports that there are some visibly struggling with this continued isolation. It should remind us that our isolation may be different to others. It matters a great deal if you are alone. It matters a great deal if you have no outside space. It matters a great deal if you have poor health anyway. It matters a great deal if you don’t have the internet. It matters a great deal if it is days, weeks, months between a friendly face visiting. But above this some are also not built for isolation. And they may appear to have it easy, but in their souls they feel a devastating disquiet. How is your morale today?
Watching the brigade service live with 200 other people I was struck by the esprit de corps. Many watching may have just done a few years national service back in the 50s, but the sense of brotherhood made concrete in the symbols – the maroon beret, the wings, and the shared words: every man an emperor, the shared experience of hardship and jumping out of planes, is a bond for life.
Today is Trinity Sunday. More than any other Sunday, this Sunday celebrates the unity of the church based in the Christian belief in the Triune God. As St Paul writes: ‘agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.’ We then have the trinitarian grace and in the Gospel the injunction to baptise in the name of the Trinity.
This belief in God, in the revelation of Christ as God with us, and the gift of the Spirit of God alive in the church, is what defines Christianity and maintains a core of unity across nations and cultures. The words of the creed always seem to me the driest part of the service, especially the longer Nicene creed, but they are what connects us definitively through the ages back to the faith of the early church and across the world. These statements matter because as Christians they are a mark of our identity. Part of my belonging, my sense of self, our sense of being St Margaret’s, or Church of England, or Christian, is related to a shared belief, in God, in Jesus, in the Church. I couldn’t find the quotation but someone once said: “in the Church of England you can believe in anything, though of course very few people do” and Elizabeth I promised she would not make windows into men’s souls, but having some shared beliefs is what brings us together.
But that’s not the whole story. Churches and communities are also built on shared experiences. These last few months, how we have pulled together, and where we have not connected, will be remembered for a generation. We’re still finding people who have struggled along with little support. If people are ever going to believe that their local community, their church, has something to offer them it’s now. If the war taught a previous generation the importance of nation and solidarity, then I pray this experience reminds us that we live alongside people who are vulnerable, who need support and neighbourliness; and that there’s great joy to be had in community and service.
Finally, churches and communities are based on commitment. Commitment to look after one another, commitment to making the world better, to not giving up and not losing hope. Earlier this year our church made a commitment to be inclusive; to not discriminate on the basis of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, age or sexuality. The riots and protests now echoing around the world, the data on who in our society has been worst struck by COVID-19, point to inequalities and injustices that demand our attention. Black lives matter. The lives of those mired in poverty matter. I believe as a church and community we have made a contribution in this crisis, we have caught some who may have otherwise struggled more. But we are not an emergency fund, or a pop-up charity. St Margaret’s has been a community for over 100 years and our pastoral care and service, must continue through and after this crisis. It must go deeper and broader. If the Church of England becomes a club for the needs of its members it has lost its vocation. Our commitment is to all of God’s children in Putney and it is lifelong.
There are certain things that bind people together. Beliefs, experience and a shared vision. This sense of belonging, this identity can be powerful in raising morale, in creating a sense of purpose, a fellowship. The church has always offered that possibility to be part of something bigger; something that stretches across millenia and nations, time and space. The Christian faith is odd in that it doesn’t begin from a point of unity, but from a trinity – a comm-unity, a communion. It begins with three coming together; so as we come together this morning, some of us will be down at heart, some at peace, some near, some far away, but we come together with these shared beliefs, shared experience and shared commitment, with the desire to share God’s love with all people. We may not have jumped out of planes together or have fought our way through Normandy; but we are a fellowship. We have friendships which trace back our community over a hundred years. And in these friendships, these beliefs, experience and commitment, I pray that we can find the strength to overcome today’s challenges: to renew our strength, to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. Amen.