Sermon: Evensong - Eleventh Sunday After Trinity

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 19th August 2012

Service:

Evensong

There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.

(Exodus 3.2)

There are few things more terrifying, impressive and majestic than a flame.  Just think how captivating the fire breather is. No wonder Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up’ (Exodus 3.3). Flames of fire have longed intrigued human beings; right from the very beginnings of time the ability to kindle fire and in some way to control it has been a mark of human ingenuity over that of animals. In the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book it is Mowgli’s ability to deal with fire that repels Shere Khan the tiger and attracts King Louie the orang-utan who would have an insight into what humans have; the power over fire.

We are all too aware though that fire isn’t simply something we can control. Even with modern fire control strategies and our courageous fire fighters, fire has the power to take hold of us in ways that cannot be controlled and are deadly and destructive. There are few things more devastating to a families and communities than a house fire in which people, often the young are trapped.

It is little wonder then that the ancients invested in fire divine attributes; and that continues today: in the Zoarastrian religion fire is central as a sacred presence, so too elements of Hinduism with the god Agni who is seen as both creative and destructive. And for us the flame of the Holy Spirit is a powerful and compelling image of the presence of God.

It was around a colossal and dominant flame that the world gathered some three weeks ago at the beginning of the Olympics. The debate leading up to that was about who was worthy enough to light the flame, kindled you’ll recall from the light of the sun on Mount Olympus and paraded through the streets of the whole land, even passing along the bottom of the Cathedral Hill. The quasi-religious flame is emblematic of the Olympics in progress and its extinguishing at the end was a visible reminder that the games were over, before nations reconvene around the flame again.

So much then for a brief ramble through the significance of fire in human lives and comparative religion: where does this take us in our worship now, in our journey of faith and how might it illuminate what we get up to tomorrow morning?

Moses encounters a flame, a mysterious fire, the fire of the Burning Bush. Mysterious not because it is an apparently unkindled fire, but that it was a fire that did not consume its fuel. From that moment the flame becomes a metaphor of the presence of God in worship and daily discipleship. We give a flame of fire to the newly baptised. And every morning at Morning Prayer the opening prayer goes as follows,

As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you,
now and forever. Amen.

This Cathedral Church with its dedication to the Holy Spirit is an exemplar of this. We, in common with the whole Church throughout the world, do not hold a flame akin to the Olympic flame, one that we kindle and extinguish at times and seasons of our choosing; we cannot ignite and make our flame flare up as the fire breather does to delight and tease an audience; we do not have flame bursting up like the oil rigs burning off surplus gas. For the flame entrusted to us is the flame of the Holy Spirit: gentle and yet powerful, searing and not destroying; a flame we can hold gently in our hand and tend and yet a flame that will scorch us lest we try to clench it or control it.

If there was an Olympic gold medal to be awarded in hyperbole then the competition this summer has been fierce, and will be in the Paralympics too; and in many ways it is well deserved. More striking has been theapparently inarticulate and breathless response to success: ‘it’s unbelievable’, ‘I just can’t believe it’. But what sounds like inarticulateness nudges towards quasi faith language too: ‘It’s awesome’, ‘Oh my God’.

I wonder if Moses muttered under his breath, and not recorded in Exodus: “I just can’t believe it. It’s unbelievable. It is awesome. Oh, my God.”

The flame takes us deep into the mystery of faith. God is in the flame, but the flame is not God. “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3.5). At this flame, Moses hid his face, ‘for he was afraid to look at God’ (Exodus 3.6). Where is that holy encounter for us today?

In our worship and lives we all too often understate the sheer striking wonder, joy and awe-full-ness of encountering God, or worse we fail to remove our sandals, a wonderful metaphor for taking off our presuppositions, and a vivid response to the invitation to walk where the flame of God will have us go. Moses’ encounter was a searing and demanding one, and he was to follow the fiery column by night and pillar of cloud by day.

And day-to-day holiness, ‘Heaven in ordinarie’ George Herbert puts it, calls us to see our daily task as ignited and fired by God’s abiding presence within us. The Letter to the Hebrews reflects deeply on the holiness of God and of worship, but never understates the holiness of God reflected in human living, ‘Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers…remember those in prison…honour marriage…be free from the love of money…remember your leaders (Hebrews 13.1 passim). The Rule of St Benedict enjoins treatment of the ‘holy’ vessels of the sacristy to be the same as the mundane vessels of the dining room. Where is holiness to be found by you, tomorrow morning? Can you find it in your encounters with other people and places?

Holiness dwells in the ordinary as much as in the ‘wow!’ Moses was getting on with the ordinary business of being a shepherd; Mary was an ordinary Israelite girl who hosted the holiness of God in the incarnate Christ. And what of us? Love calls us beyond our fear that we will miss God’s holiness; may we be drawn to it, our hearts warmed by it, and lives purified by it.

‘Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people,

And kindle in us the fire of your love. Amen.