Epiphany: time to worship

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 1 Samuel 3.1-10, Psalm 139:1-5, 12-18, Revelation 5:1-10, John 1:43-end

If you’re cheered up by hearing of someone who’s got it worse than you, consider reading the book of Job. Everything is taken from him, his wealth, his family, his health; He’s left in poor company with nothing but sores. We’re told: ‘Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshipped.’ In the words the funeral service has adopted, he pronounces: ‘the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ His response to all the evil that has come upon him, to fall to the ground and worship.

Well it’s January. Lock down. Raining. Fulham lost and are again in the relegation zone. Tear your robes, shave your heads, it’s time to worship.

But have we not even in church had the things we love, the things we value, taken away. People come to church for different reasons. For community. we can no longer socialise. For the religious education of our children, or at least to occupy them. No Sunday School. For the delights of music, but our hymns are unsung, our choir is forbidden, our organist is isolating. [We still have Mark and Emily. All is not quite lost.] For a place of calm and lack of distraction, but we must wear facemasks and sit in the cold with the doors open. For the beauty of our building, but most of us are now watching services at home. For the tea and biscuits afterwards? Not seen in a year. Like Job, St Margaret’s is stripped and shorn; now is the time to worship.

And many churches have voluntarily closed. We’re in the minority. There is great pressure to close. I’ve been reassured by the sacrifice of many staying away, mitigating risk. The Telegraph and Spectator have lamented the timidity of the church – but who can really accuse pastors for protecting their flock?

And yet. We’ve just celebrated Christmas – the Word made flesh. Who dwelt among us, or better who tabernacled, who pitched his tent with us. Our religion is incarnate. In carne – In meat. Christianity is spirituality embodied. Raw and wriggling. Its sacraments wash you, then feed you.

Theology here corrects philosophy. Philosophy since Plato worked to make God more and more abstract. God is very far away, God is eternal, outside time; God is neither male nor female, sexless, God is powerful and good, but has no personality, no preference; does not suffer or change; the still point of the turning world; the unmoved mover. Christianity nails down God in time and space. He suffers, he is with us. And God is in the heart of your brother and sister. in frost and fire; God is closest to you in your neighbour in distress, in the least of these. God is incarnate. In person. Christianity requires connection – which is at present difficult, if not dangerous.

Whether we’re here in person, or in another time and space, we have had the good things of this life taken away. In the face of this unprecedented – aren’t you bored of the word – suffering and privation, like Job, we are called to worship. And what is our claim here in our impoverished church? Why should we risk coming to church? Why do we participate online and not binge-watch awful Bridgerton? ‘Forgive us all that is past’, ‘keep you in life eternal’, ‘transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace’, ‘God has made us one in Christ’, ‘you take away the sins of the world’.

The church finds itself in the eyes of governments and outsiders in the strangest position. It’s either the most important or the least important thing in the world. It’s either the point of connection between earth and heaven, or nothing at all. It’s fascinating both that governments have allowed public worship to continue, and that churches have voluntarily closed their doors. I say this not to criticise other churches, nor to encourage more to attend in person. But I think two things are worth pointing out.

Firstly, that right now, our worship is stripped back; refreshments, music, singing, friendship, company, gone. All the good bits. And even Emily and Mark suffer a little through transportation onto small screens – and that’s without microphone issues. But still over 100 devices streamed our services last week. And some I know are watched by 5 people. It may be that Prime and Netflix are utterly exhausted, but there’s something in the liturgy, in knowing you are watching with friends, something in this space that connects us – that brings hope and meaning.

And the second thing follows. That this act, individual and corporate, is the most important thing we do. To receive forgiveness. Grace. Blessing. To be joined to each other in Christ. To be fed. To be sent out in the Spirit.

It’s easy to get hung up on the privations of lockdown. It is also an opportunity. I hope we’ll never again be this fearful, this bored, this restricted. But we know better our priorities. If you haven’t helped a neighbour by now, you probably won’t. If you’re not concerned about the homeless and the elderly, your empathy has got choked. If you haven’t searched your depths on a lonely, tedious evening; you probably don’t have any. One pillar of Western civilisation stands on the simple phrase: ‘know thyself!’ If this year has given us anything it has helped with this task. For better and for worse. As we have torn our robes and shaved our heads, (or stayed for days in our dressing gowns and become a shambles,) Now is the time to worship.

And it’s not about being a saint. In my dining room there’s a whiteboard that still has a calendar for December littered with services, weddings, funerals, carols, concerts, to help prevent me not showing up. On the 12th when we again had to needlessly isolate because of some unfortunate circumstance, someone has written: ‘We are all sad apart from Rhi who cooks’. It’s a year where small kindnesses have made a big difference.

This Sunday is about our calling. Our calling is our response to the meaning we find in the world. Whatever it is that you have decided the world is about: people liking you, power and influence, being good at something, money and stability, desire, loving God and your neighbour; your calling is your response to that. Samuel heard, but it took time to realise it was from the Lord. The disciples followed but it wasn’t until Jesus had been pushed out of the world onto the cross that they understood their calling. Finding our vocation is always a stripping away of the world. A peeling back of the surface to reveal what’s really there. Our experience in the last year will be very different, depending on our situation. But all of us have experienced this stripping, and with it a call to help others, to question more deeply and with this the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away.

I hope that we are not as beset as Job; or Fulham. But when all is taken away, when we are left bereft and shorn; when the world has pushed us out on to the cross; we know that Christ has gone before us, and that the love of God reaches further than this world has power to take us. And that it is in this time that we may find that all that is left to us is to fall to the ground and worship. Amen.