John 12.17-33 Lent Series ‘No commitment without action’
Leading a life which draws others to God
So what might draw David Cameron into more than a ‘vaguely practicing’ relationship with God? If you’ve read the Lent booklet and the parish magazine you will know that David Cameron’s speech in Oxford has led the vicar to our theme for Sunday mornings in Lent, ‘No commitment without action’! We cannot both say we are committed to something and do little about it! This morning we think about how we might draw people to God!
The man Jesus was certainly someone who drew people to God as they were drawn to him. Even his enemies wanted him at their dinner parties! For dinner parties in Jesus’ day were public events, and very much part of the rigours of addressing, to use Alain de Botton’s idiom, your ‘status anxiety’! The standing of who came to your table determined how others would regard you! There must have been a lot of power about Jesus for high-ranking Pharisees to risk their own reputations by eating with a man who also ate with sinners and tax-collectors! Something about him made it worth their while to take the risk!
And now, some open-minded, knowledge-seeking Greeks, up in Jerusalem for the festival, are determined to meet with Jesus! Jesus’ response to this flattering request is to point his disciples towards the cross which he knows is coming, and which he has been at pains to explain to them, albeit they do not want to understand this part of his teaching, and all that follows from it.
Jesus could easily have avoided any such fate. He would have won the popularity stakes hands down! It appears to the religious authorities in Jerusalem that the whole world is going after him! This is what made him such a threat, and made them determined to get him killed.
Astonishingly, the gospel writer John declares that this utterly degrading, terrifying death, Jesus’ dereliction on the cross, this is nevertheless, Christ’s glory! Indeed, it is this very death, the lifting up of Jesus on the tree, that shall draw all men and women unto him. How astounding and unlikely this must have seemed to Jesus’ friends! For this is no glorious battlefield death to be told over again in yarn and fable. It is utterly ignominious. A death reserved for low-life criminals. How can it be that the cross is the glory of Christ, the glory of God? How can the cross be that which will draw all people to Jesus?
Of course it is not the horror of the cross that draws people to Christ. It is the love and the revelation of God’s purposes which the cross demonstrates, it is these things that are attractive. Jesus’ willingness to stand by his position on the utter God-given dignity of all people, his determination that all should know the possibility of fullness of life ~ even if it would cost him his life. In the cross we see the power and depth and fullness of God’s love for us. In experiencing this love, which no wrong-doing may overcome, we ourselves are drawn into life-giving hope and endeavour.
I wonder if you watched the new series on television this year, ‘Call the Midwife’? The TV drama was warm and embracing, and probably the presence of the usually comic actor Miranda Hart, added a sense of light-heartedness to the stories. Be this as it may, the book behind the series is a far more searing account of life in the East End of London in the 1950s: the vice, exploitation and abuse that inevitably follow in the train of abject poverty.
And although of course, we were shown the work of the mid-wife nuns, neither did the television version show us anything of the spiritual impact the convent had on the people who engaged with its ministry. Jenny Lee as she was then, had believed Nonnatus House to be a private hospital not a convent! If you saw the series you’ll know why Jenny was wary of religion and nearly didn’t stay! But as time went on, her close contact with those in the religious life was slowly bringing about a change within the young woman to whom at first it was so unwelcome.
Jenny deeply loved music. While at Nonnatus House she and a fellow midwife took the eldest of the nuns, born into an aristocratic family but now probably somewhat losing it, to a concert at All Saints, East India Dock Road, a prestigious church with an amazing acoustic. A world-famous cellist had been persuaded to perform. Sister Monica-Joan insisted on taking her knitting. I leave the rest to your wildest imagination!
Jenny was furious, and could not bring herself for several weeks to even look at Sister Monica, let alone talk with her. But then Sister Monica Joan ventured forth one day into the East End barefoot in her nightie. The House was called to get her. Jenny writes:
Without her veil and habit she was almost unrecognisable, and looked vaguely grotesque. Her rheumy red-rimmed eyes were watering. Her nose was bright red and a dew-drop hung on the tip. My heart gave a lurch and I realised how much I loved her…. Now and then this life catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with a radiance. Once in a while you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault. As I cycled that morning, I knew that I loved not only Sister Monica Joan, but all that she represented: her religion, her vocation, her monastic profession, the bells, the constant prayers within the convent, the quietness, and the selfless work in the service of God. Was it perhaps – and I nearly fell off my bike with shock – could it be: the love of God?
In answer to Jenny’s many questions, Sister Monica Joan would say: No one can give you faith. It is a gift from God alone. Seek and ye shall find. Read the gospels. Go with God child, just go with God. Jenny concludes her book with these final words: Her constant phrase, “Go with God” had puzzled me a good deal. Suddenly it became clear. It was a revelation – acceptance. It filled me with joy. Accept life, the world, God, and all else will follow. These three words, ‘Go with God’ were for me the beginning of faith. That evening I started to read the Gospels.
What was it that transformed Jenny Lee in her time at the convent? What is it that will make our Christian community here in Hampstead both attractive to the outsider and transformative? The commitment to prayer and to serving one another, in our church, in our communities. The dying to self, which will allow the seed to bear fruit in our lives. The determination to live with endeavour, to stretch ourselves. These are not things that happen overnight. It is as we go on praying, go on opening our lives to God, go on reading the Scriptures, coming together in worship, it is as we do these things that the Spirit is quietly at work transforming us, empowering us to let go of ego and receive the peace and joy – and power – of standing in God’s love. It is as we cease from seeking to be rich on the outside, and rather seek the inner riches of the heart, that we, as Jesus, will become those whose lives, and the life of our community, are indeed, deeply attractive to others.
We are mistaken if we imagine we can grow in Christian virtue without committing ourselves to belonging, taking our place, within the Christian community. If we go only occasionally to church we will not discover the spiritual riches that are waiting for us, as Jenny Lee did. What might happen if we too, make that commitment to stay? Amen.