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Faith without magic
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 29th April 2007
Revd. Matthew Vernon
Jn 10.22-30.
There's a lovely scene at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, in the first of the three films.
The wizard Gandalf is driving his horse and cart through the Shire – the Hobbit village.
Some children are running after him saying, "Fireworks, Gandalf! Fireworks!"
He knows he shouldn't, but Gandalf can't resist a few magic crackers and whistles for the children.
They are delighted.
And Gandalf loves that.
We all love fireworks, don't we?
I'm like those children when it comes to films or movies.
I love the entertainment and magic, the fantasy.
Next week Spiderman 3 opens.
On Friday, I saw "Shooter".
• a fun action thriller with lots of guns and explosions.
The hero is set up to look like he tried to assassinate the President.
He sets out to prove his innocence
• against the FBI, the CIA and some dodgy high level Government people.
The conspiracies run deep, including immoral military intervention in a foreign country.
So it's another story based on the myth of the lone hero.
The lone hero who can solve the terrible real problems the world faces;
• a kind of solo world police force.
Magic and fantasy.
It might be action thrillers for you too, or costume dramas or Desperate Housewives or Lost.
We're like the children who say to Gandalf, "Fireworks, Gandalf! Fireworks!"
The temptation is to want magic in our faith too.
It's tempting to believe there are divine, magical solutions to the world's problems and to our personal problems
• quick and easy solutions when God waves his magic wand.
In reality, the solutions that God brings can be demanding and difficult.
Jesus faced this in his dealing with people.
The people often ask for a sign, for proof that Jesus is the Son of God.
A little bit of magic, a little bit pizzazz that would bring them all flocking to him.
It's in today's passage from John's Gospel.
The people '"gathered round him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."'
But God doesn't work like that, so neither does Jesus, for he and the Father are one.
The miracles Jesus performs are never for the sake of it, certainly never for Jesus' sake:
• always to reveal his relationship with God.
As John's gospel puts it after Jesus' changes water into wine, "Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory."
Jesus also had to deal with the temptation to use magic in himself.
Remember his temptations in the wilderness:
• to turn stones into bread
• to jump off the top of the Temple.
The temptation is to resort to magic, rather than deal with the real world.
It would be nice to have a clear sign, wouldn't it?
A bit of magic from God to prove we're right, after all.
Newsweek ran an article just before Easter, "Is God real?" and "The God Debate" between well known American atheist Sam Harris and the famous Christian pastor Rick Warren.
The article included a beautiful quote by the great Rabbi Abraham Jacob Heschel.
He said God "did not make it easy for us to have faith in him, to remain faithful to him. This is our tragedy: the insecurity of faith, the unbearable burden of our commitment. The facts that deny the divine are mighty, indeed; the arguments of agnosticism are eloquent, the events that defy him are spectacular ... Our faith is fragile, never immune to error, distortion or deception. There are no final proofs for the existence of God, Father and Creator of all. There are only witnesses. Supreme among them are the prophets of Israel."
There are no final proofs, but that 'God hunch' that keeps us going.
It's likely that we wouldn't believe any final proof anyway –
• which would stop it being a final proof.
Look what happened in Jesus' time.
The people ask "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
Jesus says, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe."
There are no final proofs because God does not compel or coerce,
• God does not manipulate faith.
God gently invites.
God whispers softly,
• leaving us to respond,
• to make up our own hearts.
Another wonderful fantasy film is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
A wonderful, wonderful book and an excellent film version last year.
You probably know the story.
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan, the Great Lion, is killed by the White Witch. His death parallels Jesus' death very closely, as does his resurrection.
The White Witch thinks that by killing Aslan she is victorious.
But the resurrected Aslan explains,
• "Though the Witch new the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still that she did not know. Her knowledge goes back to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation."
Its wonderful stuff and brilliant story telling by C.S. Lewis.
My father-in-law claims he's an atheist,
• but knows a lot about faith.
After he saw the film, he said, it's not theology,
• its magic and stronger magic.
It is of course a children's story – for children of all ages.
Adult faith though is faith without magic.
The church is not a place of magic, even though we would love it to be.
It's not a place of magic where problems are solved instantly;
• where special revelations answer all our questions and short cut our conflicts.
That kind of magic wouldn't take our questions or our problems seriously.
Our problems and difficulties are real and complex –
• to suggest they could be easily solved is to devalue human nature,
• to diminish ourselves.
Which isn't to say that God doesn't help our questions and problems.
God's presence makes a difference in how we live our lives and deal with our losses.
But as you know, the Easter journey can be a long journey.
Another reason we crave the magic, the fantasy, is in reality life is rather ordinary,
• even boring.
Life is wonderful.
Life is magical - to use the word in a different sense.
But a lot of our existence is mundane:
• from supermarket shopping to business travel;
• from doing the monthly St. John's clergy rota
• to spending 3 days in bed waiting for the diarrhoea to stop.
The trick is to see all this as wonderful and magical,
• to see God in all of that stuff.
• for God is there as much as in the beautiful weather we've been having.
"Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes", to quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
To misquote someone else,
• faith is not a passport to another world; it is a quality of perception for this one.
Faith doesn't magically lift us out of this world with all its complexities and ugliness.
Faith doesn't give an easy set of answers to life's questions.
Faith does help us see life, ordinary, everyday life in a different way.
Faith gives us new eyes through which we see God's hand at work in us and in the world.
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