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Experiencing newness
SERMON – Canon Matthew Vernon's first sermon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral
Sunday 22nd February 2009 - The Sunday Next Before Lent
This sermon was taken from the St Edmundsbury Cathedral website.
2 Corinthians 4: 3-6 Mark 9: 2-9
It's a great pleasure and privilege to stand in this pulpit for the first time. Thank you for the warmth of your welcome to Kate, the children and me. We are delighted to be here.
We are experiencing new things on a daily, if not hourly basis. The snow in recent weeks was new for the children. Having been born in Hong Kong, they had not seen snow like that before.
Snow drops in the churchyard are a joy for me as I walk to and from home. As it happens, we lived next to a cemetery in Hong Kong, But it wasn't flat and green. It was on a steep slope and concrete.
Guildhall Feoffment School. The children had a wonderful first week before half term. Dropping them off and collecting them in the playground, I notice that people here wait for you to go through the gate first. They see you and they wait. That does not happen in Hong Kong. Everyone is in such a hurry to get through a door or into a lift that they don't see people, they see the gap between people and push in. Waiting for someone to go first or holding the door open for someone is almost a radical act of Christian witness!
This beautiful church and its wonderful tower. It's a thrill to see the building from afar and know that I work here. We are of course used to tall buildings in Hong Kong – to much taller ones in fact. But after a while living there you stop suffering from skyscraper neck – that neck ache from looking up the whole time. I've had it again since being here and looking up at the tower. St. John's Cathedral used to be the tallest building in Hong Kong. Now it's dwarfed by the Bank of China and HSBC and other temples to mammon. How wonderful that Bury St Edmunds is such a holy place that the tallest building here is a temple to God!
We are experiencing new things on a daily, if not hourly basis.
Some wise men set out on a journey. Though they were wise, they were humble enough to hope that travel might broaden their minds. As they entered a nearby country they saw a skyscraper in the distance. What could this enormous object be? The obvious thing to do was to go up and find out. But that might be dangerous. What if it exploded? The wise men put together various theories about what this tall object might be. Theories based on past experiences and wisdom. Finally, in their wisdom, they decided it must have been placed their by giants. So they concluded it was safer to return to their own country. Which they did, having added to their wealth of experience.
Experiencing newness is central to our Christian faith. New every morning is God's love. In Christ, God makes all things new. Here on Sundays, the day of resurrection, we celebrate the new life God gives to us.
This new life is a new way of seeing things. Awareness of God's presence and God's love for us transforms, transfigures the way we see all around us. It's like putting on a pair of sun glasses and everything being tinted with a shade of blue or brown. Actually, it's more like taking off a pair of shades, several pairs of sun glasses that we wear and that obscure our view – the glasses of preconception, the glasses of assumption, the glasses of judgement. Awareness of God's presence helps us to set aside those shades and see things as they really are. We learn to see God's presence in all things. We learn to see God's presence in all people.
Last Sunday's Collect said: "Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children." We learn to see that the whole world is ablaze with the glory of God. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: "Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries. And daub their natural faces unaware."
This Christian newness is different to the messages of newness that we are surrounded by in our lives. I mean the images and adverts of new products and new looks and new fashions that call out to us from newspapers and magazines, shop windows and the TV.
"New and improved". Get rid of your old appliance (even if it's still working) and buy this new model with extra gadgets and functions (that you don't really need). "Buy this new look", keep up with the fashion… I've had all this in mind in the last few weeks as we've bought various new things for the house: a fridge; a mattress; a cooker... The consumer in me has relished having a "good" excuse to splash the cash. God's newness is something very different to the creed of consumerism. It's not about replacing old with new. It's about transforming, transfiguring the old model and giving it new life. It's about being satisfied with what's in front of us and seeing the glory of God in that. It's about seeing that the ordinary is extraordinary. You don't need to beautify it with a new look. It's about deep relationships and roots, rather than flitting between relationships or places.
When I first moved to Hong Kong, a colleague used to ask "so what's new today?" He was asking what new experiences had I had. There were of course many. His question has been in my mind since arriving here and I've already mentioned some of the new experiences. Moving half way round the world is a rather dramatic way of having new experiences. The reality is we don't actually need to move any where. It's about the way we view the world - about the glasses we wear. We have new experiences all the time. We are aware of this when we meet a new person or when we visit a new place or see something new to us on the TV. But more deeply that than, each moment is a new experience.
Each breath. The shame is that we are usually so preoccupied with activity, with the many things we have to do, with the thoughts flashing through our minds, that we don't appreciate the newness of every moment. But its worth taking the time to appreciate it for that is how we find peace – the deep peace that only God can give and that awaits us each moment and each breath.
There's a wonderful book: called "Present moment, wonderful moment." It gives a short comment for everyday situations: waking up; brushing your teeth; using the toilet; a kind of grace for each situation. "Getting Dressed: putting on these clothes, I am grateful to those who made them and to the materials from which they were made. I wish everyone could have enough to wear."
Life is more enjoyable if we notice the newness of each moment. Food is a good example. It's so easy to eat our meals quickly, or not concentrate on the flavour because we're talking to someone. If you've ever eaten in silence you'll know that you appreciate the flavour of your food much more.
I'll end with the story of the man who went to a spiritual master to learn how to draw close to God. The master told the man to eat an orange. The man was confused. He wanted to learn how to be holy, not to be told to eat an orange. But he did as the master said, peeled his orange and started stuffing it into his mouth. He wanted to finish it quickly and then listen to the master. But half way through the orange the master said, "Stop! You're not eating that orange.¨ "What?¨ said the man, bits of orange falling out of his mouth as he spoke with his mouth full. "No¨ said the master. "To eat an orange you must eat one piece at a time and slowly. Savour the delicious flavour. If you can do that then you are close to God. For to be holy is to notice the newness of each moment and each thing."
Matthew Vernon St Edmundsbury Cathedral
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