Incarnation - the Sacramental tradition

Incarnation - the Sacramental tradition

Sermon for 2004 July 11, St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Bible readings: Exodus 31:1-11, Luke 1:26-38

Note: This sermon was the last in a series given by various clergy and lay ministers on the subject of six great traditions in the Christian church, the others being Holiness, Prayer, Social Justice, Evangelical and Charismatic. Of all the sermons I have preached, this one perhaps has been the most personal, the one I struggled and prayed about the most, and the most appreciated, but also the most misunderstood (I was told off for using poetry and even accused of pantheism). But I stand by it. It is the nearest I have come to giving a testimony.

It’s a bit early in the day, but I want you to picture a cocktail or any mixed drink. One of my favourites is Kir Royale, a mixture of cassis and champagne. Not an everyday drink, I hasten to add. If someone fixed me a Kir Royale and then I said, sorry I don’t want the cassis, it would be too late. Once mixed up, those two drinks cannot be separated. They have become something new and there’s no going back.

There is a prevailing feeling in the world that religion has had its day, that we can dismiss it (except where we have to be politically correct.) The shocking truth is that that is actually what the Incarnation is all about. The abolition of religion. This is the seventh great tradition we are looking at in our sermon series – the Incarnational tradition, discovering the sacramental life.

What is the Incarnation and what does it mean to us? Our gospel reading gives us an answer to both questions. This is where Mary, by all accounts an ordinary young woman, learns that she is to give birth to the Son of God. This is the mystery of the Incarnation, the midsummer miracle of Christmas. God becoming man. But the reading also gives us a wonderful example of what it means to live out the Incarnation in a practical way. Mary was to become a mother, to do what millions of women all over the world do, with all the pain, the hard work, the worry and the joy. An ordinary mum. And that very ordinariness is the key to it all. What was it that made the ordinary life of Mary special? It was one simple word, Yes! It was her "Yes" to God.

The Incarnation, living the sacramental life, is as simple as saying "Yes" to God in the ordinary moments and places of everyday life. It’s about every moment and everything being important to God. In the Incarnation God has nailed his colours to the mast and the message is "I love this physical world, it is very good".

The thought of God being involved in everything we do can be hard to cope with. But there is no going back on it. It’s like the Kir Royale. God has got himself mixed up with this world and the two can never ever be separated again. I have found it a hard concept but I have taken great inspiration from another obedient woman, Julian of Norwich. She wrote in the 14^th century:

God is the still point at the centre.
There is no doer but he.

All this he showed me with great joy, saying, "See, I am God. See I am in all things. See, I do all things. See, I never take my hands off my work, nor ever shall, through all eternity. See, I lead all things to the end I have prepared for them. I do this by the same wisdom and love and power through which I made them. How can anything be done that is not well done?"

The Incarnation is a mystery and I would like to share with you the work of someone else who has illuminated that mystery for me – I want to read some of the poetry of T.S. Eliot – someone who was also inspired by Julian of Norwich. In his Four Quartets, he writes:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Four Quartets is a lot about time and eternity, and the Incarnation is about human time and God’s timelessness becoming one and the same thing. Eliot writes

…There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.

and later

Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint –
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,…

In the last quartet, Little Gidding, there is a wonderful passage which I first read at Little Gidding which is near Cambridge, just after one of those rare unattended moments God gives us – emerging into the spring evening sunset over a very ordinary bit of English countryside. Nothing spectacular but for me that was the moment of half understanding the gift that is the Incarnation.

Rejoice in the present moment, delight in what is ordinary. We sang "Teach me my God and King, in all things thee to see"]. The Incarnation means that whatever we do, whether or not it is covered by a pay cheque, whatever we do, can be our calling. The exercise of our skills for God in whatever arena we find ourselves in is sacramental living. I chose the Old Testament reading because it speaks of an artisan:

Then the Lord said to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel … and I have filled him with the spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship.

This is the first time anyone in the Bible is referred to as being filled with the Spirit of God – and it’s not a priest or a king, but a craftsman. God sanctifies ordinary work.

When I should have been listening to Rob’s sermon on the evangelical tradition I was actually walking in southern Spain. We visited the Alhambra Palace which is truly one of the wonders of the world. It’s a place of exquisite beauty, art and craftsmanship, and I make no apology for taking an example from the Islamic world. What is really striking is its scale. It’s not a gigantic statement in stone, soaring to the heavens or scraping the sky; it’s on a human scale. In that kind of work there is something of the truth of the Incarnation. Size isn’t everything, there is no need to glorify God by having a bigger building than anyone else, you can also honour him in a humbler, gentler way.

What has all this to do with sacramental living? Our sacraments celebrate the Incarnation by using physical objects and substances. The Eucharist, bread and wine, the humble work of the baker and the farmer. And the water of baptism. We think of baptism as about washing away sin, but another picture of Jesus’ baptism is of him immersing himself in this material world, in that most basic substance of water. People can also celebrate the Incarnation in many other physical actions, like saying grace at meals, making the sign of the cross before going on to the football pitch. When walking in Spain we got to the top of its highest mainland mountain, Mulhacen, and there was a shrine, as there often is in those settings which have been called the "thin" places of the world. Physical signs and rituals are sometimes called "sacramentals" and we might sometimes dismiss them as little bits of superstition, but they do remind us of the truth of the Incarnation, they do fit..

[Perhaps this is a moment to mention the dangers there could be in the sacramental life. I feel I should because I feel so immersed in this way of thinking to it that I’m aware of these dangers.

Idolatry. We do have to be careful we don’t confuse God’s love of the world of time and space with worshipping the things in it. Our worship is for God and only Him

Being control freaks. The physical paraphernalia of the sacraments, and the rituals associated with them, can become a mechanism for saying "if you don’t do it this way, you’re not in the club"
Complacency. Rejoicing in the ordinary could mean not expecting great things from God. It’s important to be open to God doing something out of the ordinary. Remember those words of Eliot, Every moment is … new and shocking.
Last danger: A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine is not a justification for oppression. God’s demand for justice is no less just because every life is valid. In fact the need to get stuck into politics, to fight for the cause of the oppressed, is part of what the Incarnation is all about.

I think that’s enough of the dangers. It’s enough to be aware of them and keep a balance. I am absolutely sure that what God is giving to us in this way of living is far, far bigger than any dangers. So ]

What does the Incarnation mean for how we live our lives?

Firstly, in the mystery of the Incarnation we have a pattern for living. God is concerned about all these areas of our lives: our family, our marriage, our friendships, our work. In Jesus he lived not exactly the same lives as we do, but he lived our life, our human life
Secondly, God is interested and concerned about the environment and social justice. We are free to invite him into our political gatherings and our campaigns, nothing is too messy for him to experience and share with us.
Third, we are free to live for the moment and not worry. It really isn’t that we bear our burdens of busyness and difficult relationships and work all week and then bring them to God in a sack on a Sunday and plonk them on the altar, or even every day in prayer. No, God is absolutely right there in the thick of all those cares. He is there to shoulder them before we even know there’s something to worry about!
Fourth, We are free to be happy, to rejoice in the tiniest mercies and the humblest beauty. We are able to be tuned in to what is around us, knowing that God is there. This is a big contrast to our culture which always wants a bigger hit, from drugs, video games, films, where box office records have to be broken all the time
Fifth, there’s no room for hypocrisy. Hypocrisy comes when life gets compartmentalised into sacred and secular, religious and "ordinary". It allows double standards to thrive. Say one thing from the pulpit, do something else the rest of the week. Sacramental living is a seamless garment and demands integrity.
Sixth, there’s no room for fear! Here’s an example – we are thinking about healing a lot in our church especially this month. Now the thought of God intervening to heal in a miraculous way might be a bit scary to some. But the Incarnation takes away fear about what God might do. I’ll tell you why. You want to know how God works? Look around you and you’ll see how he works. Don’t be frightened – he knows about human emotions and fears, he has been here!

I’d like to end with some quotations from a man who was a very good example of the sacramental way of life. Possibly the greatest Secretary General the United Nations has ever seen was Dag Hammarskjõld. Unknown to many, this man of action and diplomacy and peace kept a diary, a Christian testimony which almost literally explained what made him tick. His was a sacramental life in that he felt his work to be a calling and he lived his life in that light. He did not have an ostentatious faith – and perhaps for someone in such a politically sensitive role this was right. The United Nations website’s biographical notes say nothing about his Christian faith. But this is what he wrote:

I don’t know who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender had a goal. From that moment I have known what it means ‘not to look back’, and ‘to take no thought for the morrow’.

When the Suez Crisis was resolved, he said that our own efforts do not bring success, but only God – but (he said)

Rejoice if God found a use for your efforts in his work. We act in faith, and miracles occur.

And towards the end of his life

Night is drawing nigh –
For all that has been – Thanks!
For all that shall be – Yes!

I would like that to be our closing prayer, an offer to say Yes to God for the 24/7 calling he has given us in this, his world.