Practice, for thy sake, makes perfect.

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on March 20, 2024 by Jolley Gosnold

This reflection was part of a Lent Course exploring the poetry of George Herbert. The poem for this week was The Elixir.

A teacher of mine at secondary school used to challenge the old saying “Practice makes perfect”, it was my PE teacher. He said you can practise throwing a basketball through the hoop over and over again, but if you’re practising with bad technique, it won’t “make perfect” it will “make permanent” and just make your bad technique more and more engrained. Herbert, in his famous poem The Elixer, begins with a plea to his teacher, in order to learn how to see God in all things. He is reaching, I think, for a way into what that PE teacher would prefer to say: “Perfect practice makes perfect.” It is no surprise then, that this poem was originally titled “Perfection”.

As we go about our daily business, it’s very easy to be lured into the belief that praise and thanksgiving are things we do on a Sunday morning or perhaps a Wednesday evening – with words, and songs, and liturgy. However, Herbert wants to learn to do more than that. As Mark Oakley says “Herbert prays that he may see God in all things and so be able to recognize the sacrament of the present moment.” By seeing God in all things, in all he does, he is attempting to live a life of praise and thanksgiving, where each moment of our lives is infused with the presence of God and we learn to do everything as if for Him.

Elixir, of course refers to the art of Alchemy, a process that can take the simplest of things and turn them to gold. But what is this spiritual alchemy? The second and third stanzas of the poem point to two ways in which we can begin to live this life of praise, and the fourth stanza follows up with the ultimate key, the philosophers stone if you will, that will ultimately transfigure our lives.

Slow down. Don’t rush. Don’t, like an animal, run into things with no more than our base desires, needs, and instincts to guide us. So often, when we move quickly and make snap choices as a reaction to what’s in front of us or what someone else has said, we make decisions that don’t at all reflect what we most deeply know is right, or healthy for us or those around us. As Paul puts it so brilliantly in his letter to the Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” A life of praise and thanksgiving requires us to slow down, to look at the world through the eyes of Christ and to love it as courageously and selflessly as Jesus. Any action of ours achieves its perfection when we put Christ at the centre, of ourselves, of our neighbour and of our world. We are, I believe, more than our animal instincts because we have the ability to know and love, and be known and loved by, Christ.

The third stanza offers us an image of a man who looks on glass. Glass here being the word for mirror at the time of writing. Herbert invites us to see beyond the superficial, to see beyond ourselves and to see the divinity in the glimpse of heaven present in ourselves if we have the presence and patience to see it. This is a choice, “If he pleaseath”. We can look at ourselves, we look at our neighbour, and become consumed by our ego and only see ourselves, reinforcing the myth that it doesn’t really matter what I do. Or, by seeing God in all things begin to make choices “as for thee”, for God. As long as we are fixated on ourselves and surface appearances, that’s all we can hope to see. But when we let go of that self-obsession, move beyond our limited sense of identity and humanity, we finally see the wider, divine world of Being we all share. In other words, we must step out of the way, and let the action, whatever it is, flow through us, unhindered by ego or expectation. That’s when magic happens. That’s when we discover the elixir.

And what is that elixir? That famous stone that turns all to Gold? Emphasised in the fourth stanza is a very clear offering from Herbert, three words: “For thy sake.” These three simple words have the power to transform our whole lives and our every thought and deed. If we pleaseth. Again, the power is in our hands to allow these words to be our guide because “All may of thee partake”, we can all do it, and there is nothing so broken, dirty, basic or dull that this alchemic power “for thy sake” cannot transfigure. With those words, the drudgery of our lives becomes divine, not only the outcome but the very act of doing it itself. Our life of praise begins with the acknowledgment that it is not only the clean room at the end of sweeping for thy sake that pleases God, but the act of sweeping itself, with a servant heart that is fuelled by love.

Every Sunday evening, I spend a couple of hours alone in The Connection at St Martin’s following our Sunday International Group. Seventy men and women come each week, share food, wash clothes, have a shower, and build friendships and community. And when they leave, I am blessed to have the singlularly most prayerful moment of my week. Doing laundry. Washing towels, dressing gowns, aprons, tea towels, left over socks and pants. Drying. Folding. Sorting. Doing the drudgery at the end of the day. The bit that people don’t see. The bit that isn’t especially pleasant or fun. The bit that is tedious, repetitive, and monotonous. But as I do it “for thy sake” it becomes essential, powerful, radiant, golden. It’s not about me, or about what I want, or what I would like to be doing with my Sunday evening – because once that clause becomes my prayer – there is nowhere else I would rather be. I am living in the service and praise of God, and offering my life and love to my neighbour. I might not think I want it, but God, God transfigures my thoughts, and desires, as I play my part in his tapestry of love.

I wonder what are the moments in your life that could be transformed by those three words?

I pick up litter, for thy sake.

I hold a door open for people who don’t say thank you, for thy sake.

I stack chairs at the end of a meeting, for thy sake.

I make the tea and coffee at the end of a service, for thy sake.

I give my time and attention to someone in need, for thy sake.

I do the washing up, even though it’s not my mess, for thy sake.

I unblock a toilet, or clear up the faeces or vomit on the steps of the church in the morning, for thy sake.

I offer up my every action, as an act of praise and thanksgiving, for thy sake.

We often sum up the call to a Christian life with Jesus’ command to “Love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And to “Love your neighbour as yourself.” I believe these words “For thy sake” begin to synthesise these commands. Not loving our neighbour and loving god, but loving our neighbour is loving God. When we see God in all things, in all we do, in all people, serving one another, in the simplicity of our daily actions is the practice of devotion, praise and ultimately thanksgiving. As Jesus struggles towards the hill he will die on, carrying his cross, Simon of Cyrene helps him carry the load, he carries the cross “For thy sake”, and in that moment as he serves Jesus who is both fully man and fully God, is loving both his neighbour and God. There is no distinction. So in the same way when Jesus says “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”. What a blessing and a privilege it is for the presence of Christ in me to recognise the presence of Christ in my neighbour, and reach out and love and serve.

Our Journey of the Soul is one of daily practice of simple acts of praise, for thy sake, towards transfigured perfection in God, our ultimate end. This poem, these words and meditations, invite us to practise this way of living. It might not always be easy. As Cole Porter supposedly quipped when asked if there was any truth in the allegation that he was a practising homosexual, “Yes, and the more I do it, the better I get.” It is a process, the more we do the drudgery of our lives “For thy sake” the richer and fuller our life of praise becomes. Practice makes permanent, yes, but practice for thy sake makes perfect.