Mysterious Goings on in the Pulpit

Today's sermon - a little harsh if I'm honest, but I hope stimulating.

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Swanscombe on Sunday 19th February 2006 based on St John i:1-14.

Hercule Poirot stands in the drawing room
examining carefully
the various characters sitting before him

- Miss Josephine Johanssen
who stood to gain a fortune
by Dr Freeth’s death,

- Colonel Smedley,
Dr Freeth’s bitter rival,

- Dame Maude Packington-Smythe
who always blamed Dr Freeth
for the accidental death of her
husband,

- the Honourable Theobald Carrington
who had his eye on Dr. Freeth’s
fortune to pay off his gambling debts,

- and the Reverend Thomas Grant,
who despised the nature of
Dr. Freeth’s biological research.

So who did it?
Who murdered Dr. Freeth?
Who was it who snuck into his room
in the dead of night
on the 23rd with a kitchen knife?

Hercule coughs slightly,
flicking a minute speck of dust from his lapel,
curling his moustache
and prepares to enlighten us all.

"Mes amis," he says
scanning the group coldly,
looking each one in the eye.

Miss Johanssen looks nervous,
the Reverend Grant is sweating profusely,
Dame Maude takes another swig of sherry,
all agog waiting for Hercule’s famous
deduction.

"Mes amis," he repeats,
"I am utterly stumped"
and scuttles out in embarrassment.

[PAUSE]

Hmm.
Not much of a murder mystery is it?

All the ingredients are there:
the victim,
the murder weapon,
the time and the place,
and a motley crew of suspects,
all with good motives
and probably a highly
complicated system of alibis.

So what’s wrong with this mystery?

Well, you can see it a mile off,
can’t you?
There’s no solution to this problem.
With Hercule Poirot gone,
there’s no chance
that we’ll ever find out
who killed Dr. Freeth
unless we send for Miss Marple,
or Sherlock Holmes.

But why do we need to know the answer?

[PAUSE]

Aside from the fact that
we can’t let a killer get away
undiscovered,
we love a mystery
because for the very simple reason
God made us complete
with an enormous curiosity.

We tune in to the next whodunit on telly
because we like to think that
we can guess who the murderer is
before Inspector Morse does.

After all, the clues are all there,
aren’t they?

But mystery isn’t just about whodunits.

There are a thousand
unsolved mysteries out there ranging from

"is there intelligent life out there in space?"
to
"where on earth did I put my car keys?"

Whilst many of us don’t lose much sleep
about the inhabitants of distant planets,
a mystery closer to home can be difficult,
like the loss of the car keys.

An unsolved mystery makes us uncomfortable,
doesn’t it?

When we are kept in the dark about something,
we struggle to understand it for ourselves.

We long for that final clue
that will switch on a light
and show us the whole picture.

Do you have a mystery
that’s driving you bonkers
at the moment?

[PAUSE]

Some mysteries are much darker than others.

Sophie is 27,
has a lovely husband,
a new baby boy,
and leukaemia from which
she will probably die.

The first thing she thought
when the doctor told her about this was
"Why?"

It isn’t so much fear,
panic or grief that affects her the most,
it’s the struggle to understand
what she could have possibly done
to prevent this,
or whether there is anything
that could be done
to save her.

Is there something out there
in the world that can stop
the cancer in its tracks?

Is there a discovery that
scientists could make
that will help Sophie to turn the corner?

It’s the mystery that hurts Sophie the most,
the darkness of not knowing.

Sophie feels utterly overwhelmed by this darkness.

[PAUSE]

One thing that we can be certain of in this life
is that there will always be things
we cannot understand.

There will always be questions that
neither the Government,
the Scientists,
nor the Church will be able to answer.

This can be so disheartening
for anyone who,
like Sophie,
are trapped in an agony
of not knowing.

There is however a light in the darkness.

The Church may not have all the answers,
but it does have a pretty good way
of helping people through
the agony of not knowing.

The Church points to a light,
so strong, so powerful
that the darkness
cannot overwhelm it,
cannot understand it,
cannot grasp it.

This is the Light of Christ.

[PAUSE]

But it’s not only the darkness
that cannot understand this light,
neither can we.

Yet we,
the Church,
are called to bear witness to this light,
to point it out to those
who aren’t aware of it,
like Sophie.

How can we honestly bear witness
to something we cannot understand,
to a Mystery which has no solution?

The Church should be used to this.
We have a mystery occurring each week.

Just how can Christ
be present here with us and now
at Mass?

In days past,
we used to voice, all as one body,
what little we understood of God
weekly in the form of
the Apostles’,
Nicene
and Athanasian Creeds.

We don’t do this as regularly now
since the Church of England
revised its liturgy
and gave us Affirmations of Faith,
which seem to take out the bits
we don’t understand.

The Creeds as they are written
are terribly complicated,
and impossible to understand fully.

But so is life and so is God,
and that's the point.

If we make no attempt
to embrace the Light that we believe in,
even though we don’t understand it,
how can we hope to bring that Light
to people like Sophie who have none,
just the darkness
of not understanding.

Is the simple phrase
"Jesus loves you"
going to be enough for Sophie to hear
if it isn’t accompanied by
some appreciation of
the not-knowing
she is going through?

Does a simple
"I believe and trust in Jesus,"
go any way to bring light into the life
of someone in pain
if the person who says
"I believe and trust in Jesus,"
hasn’t taken pains to find out just
how s/he believes and trusts
in Jesus
or what it means
to believe and trust
in Jesus?

[PAUSE]

As human beings,
we are not called to understand,
we are called
to begin to understand.

The Creeds help us on that path.
They point to the light
that shines in the darkness,
but unless we realise
how little we understand
in the first place
and ask questions of God,
of each other,
and of ourselves,
these Creeds will be meaningless,
and so will our faith.

How is the mystery of God
expressed in your life?

Do you allow it to shine
as a light in the world to the glory of God?