It is impossible to think about this text without recalling the picture of Christ knocking at the door by Holman Hunt, known as The Light of the World.’ You can see one version, of the several painted by the artist, in S Paul’s Cathedral. Remarkable among the many careful details in that typical Pre-Raphaelite picture is the way the door is covered with vegetation. It has never been opened. There is doubt whether it will be opened now. You get the same impression from the text of Revelation. Despite the harsh condemnation of the indifference of the Laodiceans, there is no suggestion that God will force them into better behaviour. In fact, the story is one of God as a suppliant. God is not going to open that door without our permission; he is willing to come in and join us in our daily activities, but only if invited. He is not going to push in.
Why should this be? After all, he made us, and he is all-powerful, or so we say. As I understand it, God is not actually all-powerful, in the sense that he will not do anything contrary to his nature, which is love. Forcing a human being into a relationship with himself would mean stripping us of our essential freedom, in effect, making us less than a human being. God is unwilling to do this because he loves us. People often suppose that being omnipotent means able to do anything. But there are all kinds of things God might be able to do, but has decided not to do. We have considered recently the way he allows the Universe to travel on the lines he set down at the Big Bang, even if that means permitting a tsunami to kill thousands of human beings and rains to cause disastrous mudslides. He doesn’t interfere because his concept of love is deeper than ours. Once he stepped in, we would have lost our independence. At first sight, we would not care particularly, but as time went by, we should find we had lost, not just the power of initiative, but the will to take decisions. Primitive religion was like that. You did not know who was in charge. An appeal to a god might turn out to have been wrongly addressed and the results might be disastrous, but you had no alternative but to seek some kind of divine intervention, however uncertain. I believe that we remain in charge, and that God wants it that way. That does not totally exclude divine intervention.
Am I saying that God never intervenes? I think I have made my beliefs in this field clear on other occasions. I do not believe that God intervenes in the material world. I do not think he will divert avalanches in answer to prayer. I believe that he is willing to enlist human beings in the service of others, or even themselves, if they are willing to cooperate.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ If you ask him for a job, he can point out the lonely person round the corner. If you tell him you’re too busy, he’ll cross you off his list. It’s as simple as that. But, of course, you will be congratulating yourself on your perspicacity and human sympathy in noticing the lonely person. You won’t give God the credit. That doesn’t matter. It is if no importance to him who gets credit, though he might start worrying about your self-satisfaction and self-importance.
He is also willing to help you improve yourself and get less self-centred, but only if you lay yourself open to him. Opening that door takes a push, I know. Most of us feel we do not know what to ask for; a few of us know all too well why we have locked the door. To those who need help, but mistrust it, I repeat: God will not force you to do anything. You don’t have to run faster than you can; it is just that God is ready to strengthen your motivation. To those who don’t know what they want, I say: Don’t worry! Let God guide you, and relax! There are no guarantees of winning in this game, but you will find it doesn’t matter. If God is guiding you, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have one of those wonderful satellite direction finders in your hand; you may have difficulty in hearing anything. The important thing is not to worry. If you have confided the direction of your life to God, then you have made your decision, and that is over and settled, and you can leave the rest to him, even the biggest decisions, like when and how you are going to die. There is nothing more to trouble you.
But supposing you have not decided, supposing he is still knocking at the door. I assume that you can still hear him knocking because you are listening to this sermon, or reading it on the Internet. You do not want to open the door, primarily because you are frightened of God, secondarily because you are bored with the Church. Good heavens! Don’t you know that most Christians are frightened of God and bored with the Church? The service of God is alarming because you can never be quite sure where it will lead you or what demands it may make, even though you can be confident that he will go with you every step of the way. As for the Church, it is, of course, often disappointing. I get particularly annoyed by the insistence of Bishops that sex is more important than anything else, more important than love. But you don’t get that message here. In our reading, God offered to eat with the Laodiceans; that is an offer he still makes to us. Every Sunday morning, you can meet God here in the Eucharist. It is a startling assertion, but it is what we are here for. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ It is a simple message, but we are so inclined to complicate it with our worries and fears. Let me urge you to take it as it is offered, and put your fears aside.
Amen
Alan Goodison