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Lent - 2005
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 27th february 2005
Revd. Matthew Vernon
Bali.
Not the traditional way to keep Lent, I admit.
But since you all know that I've just been there on holiday,
• there is no hiding the truth.
I understand Father Paul made a big think of this last Sunday!
There is no hiding the truth.
That is what Lent is all about.
In Bali, most of the people are Hindu.
There are Temples everywhere
• and religious imagery everywhere else.
The Temples can be very humble in a poor person's house
• or they can be very grand in a wealthy person's mansion.
They can be a bit cramped and drab in a rural village,
• or they can be set in rock with an elaborate entrance carving and a dark, incense filled cave for meditation.
They can be in the middle of a town
• or they can be on the edge of a volcanic lake with pagodas and trees and grass.
They are everywhere and they are amazing.
The religious imagery is wonderful.
Every morning, before breakfast, people put an offering to god outside their front door:
• a small basket of flowers, rice and incense.
It's to thank God for the new day, for a safe night and for their food.
Each day, along a road, you see fresh offerings.
At major road junctions in the middle of the junction there's usually a big carving of one of the gods.
Some have huge statues of some scene from religious mythology.
In Bali, God is everywhere.
A bit different to Hong Kong!
We have many, many buildings, but only a few are temples.
• At least, temples for God.
Or is it?
We have as many temples to remind us of God's presence with us.
Its just we don't usually think of them in that way.
People are the temples here
• (as they are anywhere).
And in Hong Kong people are everywhere.
• People who are made in God's image.
• People who carry the divine spark within them.
• People that we so easily pass and barely notice, let alone greet or smile with.
Going to Bali in Lent is a wonderful reminder that God is everywhere.
We find it so easy to forget this.
Our lives tend to be compartmentalized.
• We work in one place.
• We sleep in another place.
• We pray in one place.
• We worship in this place.
It's easy to forget that God is with us at all times.
It's difficult to remember our faith in all situations.
But in Lent we seek to deepen our awareness of God.
To grow in faith so that it forms who we are
• and what we think, speak and do
• at all times and in all places.
For God is everywhere.
One day of the holiday we drove to the north of the island to visit various sights.
These included the spectacular "Gitgit" waterfall.
Set in jungle, its may be 5 metres wide, but 40 metres high
• with a temple next to it.
For me, the powerful part of visiting the waterfall was not so much the waterfall itself
• as the shops that line the path to it.
• Shops selling wood carvings and paintings and batiks
• and other goods aimed at the tourists.
It was a depressing experience.
The shop keepers are desperate to sell you something –
• especially as there aren't many tourists in Bali at the moment.
Just a glance into the shop and a price is announced –
• a price that tumbles as quickly as the waterfall if you walk past.
Visiting a beautiful natural phenomenon, the shops seem depressingly materialistic.
But the shopkeepers are only trying to make a living.
Which makes it more depressing as you remember how much wealthier you are than them;
• and how much power that wealth gives.
Their prices are just a tiny fraction of the cost of the whole holiday.
At one point, Samuel was watching some young girls who were selling bracelets and necklaces.
The contrast between Samuel's future and the girls who were school age seemed very great indeed.
It was easy to harden my heart against the adult shopkeepers,
• but I felt moved to by a bracelet from one beautiful little girl.
• And in doing so you might say I was supporting her exploitation.
It is very easy to harden our hearts in those situations.
That is the reality of the world we live in.
It's a hard, uncomfortable reality –
• that most of us are so wealthy compared to so many people in Bali
• and so many other places around the world.
Earlier I said that Lent is about the truth.
Much of the time we can forget our wealth –
• even believe that we're not wealthy at all.
Visiting Bali in Lent is a powerful reminder of the truth.
And a powerful reminder that there are 2 sides to going on holiday:
• the temples that say God is everywhere –
• the romantic side;
• and the people living in poverty that challenge our way of life.
Our Lent book, "The Power of Small Choices", has helped me with these things.
Particularly with the feeling that there's nothing I can do in the face of such poverty and need around the world.
The book says that our actions are very small on a global scale,
• but even small actions can have an enormous impact.
There's a lovely quote at the beginning of the book.
• "If you think you're too small to make a difference,
• You've obviously never been in a room with a mosquito."
It's a good quote for Bali:
• the effort we put into mosquito nets, incense coils, spray!
The book describes various small actions that have made a big difference.
In South Africa Desmond Tutu was a boy in a township.
One day he and his mother we greeted by a friendly priest.
The priest was white.
Desmond Tutu still talks about the impression that small greeting made on him:
• that a white man could treat a black boy with respect and kindness.
The book suggests we notice someone we pass regularly and try to give them a smile;
• even dare to say hello.
It's a good example for Hong Kong.
It's a good exercise for remembering that people are God's temples.
On the economic side, the book reminds us of Fairtrade.
That we can make a significant difference in the choices we make when shopping.
• Particularly tea, coffee, chocolate and other basics.
If you've given up chocolate for Lent,
• it may be better to take up fair-trade chocolate
• that gives the people who make it a higher percentage of the cost you pay
• and so helps them escape the poverty trap.
The fair-trade movement has grown and grown in recent years.
Its even reached Bali.
• Where there's a project to promote local handicrafts.
Have I justified my Lent holiday in Bali?
The truth is I probably never will.
But then Lent is about the truth.
• the truth that Christ reveals.
It's also about hope.
• the hope that Christ brings.
And hope begins with the truth.
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