When I was a small child, I think about 4 or 5, my Parents, sister and I made a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon where my grandmother lived. We took her to a teashop and had tea. My parents and sister then decided to walk into the town centre to do some shopping and I stayed in the tea shop with my grandmother.
Time passed and I began to wonder whether my family were ever going to come back. I decided to open the tea shop door, which seemed huge at the time, to look outside where the car was parked. Well, the car had gone and I drew what seemed to be the only conclusion any reasonable person could draw. My family must have decided to make a quick bid for freedom and to leave me alone in a tea shop for ever.
I sat back down and stared my future in the face and as I did so I began to cry. As I cried a very kindly middle-aged couple came to my table and asked me what was wrong. I explained that my family had driven home to Surrey without me. They were sure my family would come back but I wouldn’t be comforted. The couple left but returned a little while later with a Terry’s chocolate orange for me. I left the Terry’s chocolate orange. Instead I confined myself to the task in hand: Mourning the loss of my family.
Well, a little while later my family, needless to say, did return. I didn’t grow up in a Stratford tea shop. They found me exactly where they had left me, sitting at a table, crying but strangely with a Terry’s chocolate orange in front of me. The elderly couple then reappeared. They had sat in a different part of the teashop, quietly keeping an eye on me to ensure that my family did come to reclaim me. The afternoon ended; we all drove home and I remember that journey as one when I basked in the fact that not only was I returned to the bosom of my family but also that I had a Terry’s chocolate orange. Not only that, I had a Terry’s chocolate orange and my sister didn’t.
What surprises me now, when I look back on this incident in my childhood, is the fear I had of being abandoned; almost the lack of trust I had in my family; a lack of trust that was entirely undeserved. We might say that every child has, in some part of themselves, a fear of being abandoned, a sense of doubt. I don’t think however, that this stops when we grow up. We all, on some level, and to varying degrees, find it difficult to trust others, to have confidence that life is OK or in the words of Julian of Norwich, that all shall be well, all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
We live in a society where trust seems to be in danger of losing its currency; our trust in public institutions has been eroded. Many people now feel that we can no longer trust a government who misled us about the war in Iraq.
We suspect that the education system or the National Health Service, no longer works in our best interests. We believe that we need to be much more savvy than we were in the past. We need to be alert to spin, to civil servants who might bury bad news. We might even be tempted to put the Church in this category of an organisation which can’t automatically be trusted. The structures which determine the direction of the Anglican Communion might be being swayed by bishops whose religious and cultural agendas are very different to our own.
Alongside the erosion of our trust in public institutions is our trust in God similarly fragile? Do we believe God to have hidden agendas which we might find difficult, or uncomfortable, to accept?
Well, if so, this is nothing new. Scripture charts humanity’s relationship with God as one where humanity repeatedly fails to put its trust in God. In the Old Testament the Israelites put their trust in the gods of other nations, or try to avoid God altogether. In contrast God, as we heard in today’s reading from Isaiah, is seeking to be in relationship with his people:
“I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that did not call on my name.”
Israel, God’s chosen people, seem to regard God as a hostile presence that needs to be appeased with sacrifices and burnt offerings. She is disloyal and turns to the gods of other nations who are perhaps more easily appeased.
The effect of not putting their trust in God means that the Israelites find themselves neither in right relationship to God, nor to other people nor to themselves. They have created a false image of God which prevents relationship with Him and with this they have created a false sense of self; they perceive themselves as too holy to be in relationship with others.
They say Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you’
Of course their holiness is unreal; they sit in tombs, eat swine’s flesh; these are markers of profanity not holiness. They do all the things that would have been taboo for the Israelites.
Trust is the subject of Archbishop Rowan William’s most recent book entitled Tokens of Trust’. In it he examines the Creed not as a doctrinal statement of belief, but rather as declaration of where we, as a Christian community, place our trust.
In the early Christian community creeds, as we perceive them, were very much in their infancy. The earliest Christians were still working out what they did believe and how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ altered their sense of trust and their beliefs about God, the world and themselves.
They came to believe that God has made his purposes clear for us in the person of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that remains undisclosed, there is no spin. We do not need to wonder if God has other plans which aren’t to our benefit or that if only we were savvy enough we could penetrate God’s truth.
God has revealed his purposes for us in Jesus Christ, and the story of the possessed man in today’s gospel reading makes this clear. Rather than creedal statements the early church retold the stories of Christ’s life; these stories served the same function as the creed we repeat week after week. They represent a proclamation of where we might lay our trust, and how our identities are formed through our trust in God.
The Garasense demoniac begins this story possessed and outside his community- he dwells in the tombs- a place of uncleanness and taboo. He has no identity and no voice of his own- rather the demons within him speak to Jesus, he is merely the vessel for these evil spirits. The spirits recognise Jesus and submit to his power and the man is liberated from the forces which have taken him over. He ends the story clothed and in his right man’ and his identity is that of a disciple of Christ. He sits at the feet of Jesus and begs to be allowed to follow Jesus. Jesus instead commissions him to proclaim what God has done for him and in a sense, to proclaim where he now places his trust.
One of the most interesting things about this story is the reaction of the people of the district. They are filled with fear and ask Jesus to leave. Their fear must be partly related to the divine presence breaking in on their ordered existence. When we are faced with change fear is a natural response. Placing out trust in God however, means that we can face this change and not simply exclude the cause of change which might, as in the miracle, be a source of liberation.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a further working out of what all this might mean. Paul asserts that God’s purposes have been finally revealed; we are no longer subject to the law but we are all children of God through Jesus Christ. There is no longer division but we are all one in Christ. Through faith, or through trust in God, we are put in right relationship with God, with one another and with ourselves.
Through trust in God we live out God’s original purposes for us, which Archbishop Williams defines as peace and praise. We are liberated to be at peace and to praise and proclaim God just as the healed demoniac does. This doesn’t happen to us as individuals – rather we return once more to the bosom of our Christian family. We might even find ourselves the recipient of unexpected gifts- be it a Terry’s chocolate orange or possibly something more profound. Amen