A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Sunday 4 July 2021 by Revd Richard Carter.
Readings of address: Mark 6.1-13
Well if you thought you were going to escape the football by coming to church, apologies- because you can’t be part of a church on the edge of Trafalgar Square and ignore the constant shouts and excitement of the last week and which continued all last night until 5.00am this morning. On Tuesday last week in case you haven’t heard 100 times over, England won their first victory over Germany in competitive football since 1966. I like many of my age can still remember the thrill and excitement of that Geoff Hurst goal in extra time. It’s been a long time waiting. Last Tuesday night though initially sceptical of the tribalistic nationalism football invokes, and the racism players like Rahim Stirling and Marcus Rashford have so bravely tried to challenge, I too found myself shouting and jumping up and down in front of my TV, along with all in Trafalgar Square and most of the nation- when Rahim Stirling proved all his critics wrong and with his usual humble brilliance scored the first goal later followed by Harry Kane who made it 2-0. Victories are seldom so sweet. And then last night it happened again this time 4-0 against Ukraine. And we began to dream again.
Out on the town in around St Martin’s everyone is singing and there are horns blowing. Social isolation is blown too as the Square explodes with joy.- “Footballs coming home,” they sing- they are celebrating as if it is them themselves that had scored the goals. What an earth the victory of this team has to do with the middle aged, overweight drunk man who is singing at the top of his voice on the pavement outside my flat or the crowd jumping up and down in the square- “ I have no idea. But think again- a nation so used to losing, after over a year of not being able to meet another human being outside your bubble is celebrating with one another in the streets. It has to be said there is still a semi-final and final to go But before I get cynical- last night it felt difficult not to be caught up in the excitement of such a diverse group: all ages, genders, ethnicities, colours, sexualities, who actually in real life have probably very little in common are for this one moment united in joy- Life for this brief moment seemed to have got a whole lot better and we were efficaciously sharing the success skill and talent of our football team as if it were our own. Footballs coming home. I wonder what it means to really come home. I wonder how we have discovered at least in a game of football that elusive thing called confidence and begun to play without fear but with genuine hope.
The grown men in the commentary box in their analysis started talking about the players natural humility, their inner discipline and the way that had become a team so much through the guidance and example of Gareth Southgate. Confidence breeds confidence- it grows. And once you score and begin to believe in yourself and your team then anything is possible. A different story begins, no longer one of deficit, and failure and constant focus on weakness and mistakes but one that tells the story of the Spirit of hope. It takes very little to change the story. In football it takes a goal. And we know from bitter experience how fast things can turn the other way- it only takes a
goal against for the story of failure to begin again. “It’s not the failure that makes you so anxious,” said one of the commentators last night- “it’s the hope.” We live in a culture which perhaps finds it much easier to see the weakness and the failure than live with hope. We are all too used to discovering that our prophets and heroes and our leaders are hypocrites who have furthest to fall, we are all too used to losing. We have become cynical of our rule makers.
Yet our Gospel, though we are told prophets are not recognised in their own home- is a story of amazement and hope. It is a story in which alongside all the scepticism and unbelief there is astonishment and a growing sense of confidence among those Jesus has called. Today that story of hope began for Rupert Thomas Walker surrounded by those who are called to love and support him.
When Jesus calls his disciples they are being called to live new story- not to seek out the bad, not become the judges of failure and shame- but those who proclaim a new way of living. It is a story of transformation-
To live a story of trust and faith is not an easy thing to do. We all know that its quite easy to trust when things are going well and we are winning. But can we still trust when the going gets tough. Can we still be there steadfast in the midst of loss or seeming defeat? This has really been our lesson in the last year. Can we still live our faith even when certainty is taken away and we do not know what the future will bring? Jesus call of the disciples requires that they strip away all the usual securities we long for, the defences that keep us safe. It’s a call to step out unashamed of our faith and trusting in the authority of Christ. There is a radical simplicity about this call. A letting go and an opening up. It is a risk. Its not all going to be about back passing and defence they are going to have to seek a goal, to risk failure. Ultimately you can’t fully love without risking all.
But this is where our football analogy parts company with our Christian journey of faith. Because the Christian journey moves us beyond success or failure into the hope of God which is eternal. A hope not dependent upon us, but the gift of Christ. Last night the footballer Rahim Stirling was interviewed and as he spoke I was aware of both those stories. He spoke of football and how tough and painful it often was. How the critics and the public who sometimes praised you could turn against you. Worse the wounding prejudice and hatred and racism he had faced. How he had had to learn not to listen or be dependent on either the praise or the hurtful attacks but to give his best despite the opposition. As his spoke his face showed his defensiveness and a refusal to let his head be turned by the praise now being lavished upon him. But then he was asked about his young son in the crowd, and suddenly his whole face changed and he smiled warmly as though his heart was opening up- “My son loves me” he said- “I’m his hero.” And one felt yes no matter what. That’s the Christian calling. That’s the meaning of God’s love. A confidence and a hope beyond success or failure. A love no matter what. That’s what Baptism means God with us no matter what.
That’s what we see in todays Gospel. The disciples in today’s story are still going to have to learn to hope even in times of seeming hopelessness. We hear in todays reading of their initial successes how they cast out demons, anointed many who were sick and cured them. But we know too the story does not end there. True discipleship will also involve rejection, loss and seeming utter desolation and failure. But in all the struggle and the pain the dawning realisation of God with us no matter what. God with us when the crowd turns and the praise becomes derision. This is the true call of discipleship as St Paul will explain to the Corinthians -a love which is unconditional no matter what: when we are honoured and disgraced, insulted and praised, when treated as liars and yet speaking the truth, as dying yet living, as punished yet not killed, as sorrowful yet rejoicing, as poor yet making others rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything- as those opening wide our hearts.
I have been thinking about this true meaning of discipleship since the death of Alison Hardwick two weeks ago. Alison who served this congregation so devotedly and yet with such courage and wisdom for more than 45 years. Even if you did not know her personally, you will have drunk the coffee she so faithfully prepared or the hot cross buns she so generously buttered. “Alison had such a tragic life” someone said to me. But tragic was not a word I recognised in Alison. Yes she lost her beloved husband David who in his last years went into a faraway place with a difficult for form of dementia, she faced the grief of the death of her beloved daughter through sickness and a son at birth. But her life was never defined by tragedy. It was defined by faith. There was no bitterness, only hope, only and always a continuing ability to see and rejoice in the goodness of God- in the blessing. Alison lived hope, and saw it in others and in the world. There is a word for this, it is grace. Alison lived grace.
Today we saw another story enacted at the other end of life with – the beginning of that journey of hope and grace for Rupert Thomas Walker – a journey that will last the whole of his life no matter what. We who have been baptised into the love of God- will live with God forever. What a wonderful sign of hope not just for Rupert’s family and Godparents but for us all, through all of life. Because in baptism we affirm our home in God.
I wonder how we can live God’s hope and God’s joy long after the supporters have left and the celebrations are over. Can we even live that hope through the difficulties of life and even in seeming defeat? Can we find God’s abundance in scarcity and his presence even , perhaps most of all, in our inner poverty and need? Can we discover God’s grace no matter what? Have we not in this last year begun to do just that? Have we not begun to realise that when human possibility fails God’s possibility begins? Perhaps its not football that’s coming home. But perhaps it’s we who have begun coming home to the One who is at the very centre of all that is and all that his love makes possible. We’re coming home.
