Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity – evening
Sunday 2nd July 2017
1 Samuel 28. 3-19
Luke 17. 20 – end
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
If you have come to church seeking words of comfort this evening, I fear you are going to be disappointed if our evening readings are anything to go by!
It seems a pretty unremitting tale of doom and gloom… I am minded of Private Fraser in Dad’s Army… do you recall the rather parsimonious Scottish undertaker? “Doomed I tell ye – we’re all doomed!” (with apologies to all the Scots in church this evening!)
But rather than focus on the despair you may be feeling, let’s turn our attention to a spot of gardening. – After all, we are now properly in summer (or what passes for it in Britain!)
I am no great gardener, but even I know that – if you want your roses and other shrubs to go on flowering through the summer, you have to dead-head them.
That means recognizing those blossoms which are now effectually dead…. even if a few faded petals remain, and nipping off the dead bits with secateurs or with your fingers (watch out for the thorns!)
Now, if the rose plant were a human being, you would describe that as cruel and heartless. Fancy cutting off a person’s hope for the future, just because they are a bit past their best; a bit unsightly. But roses don’t feel things in the same way we do – (at least I hope not!) – so any reservations we might feel at the way God, through the ghost of Samuel, deals with Saul, need not bother us when we contemplate the roses…
If you leave the dead remains of the flower on the plant they will try to set seed and form a rose-hip. That may of itself be quite attractive of course, but it will use up a lot of the plant’s energy and restrict it’s growth next year. And nobody grows roses from seeds these days – it is always from cuttings. So – unless you are a rose breeder like David Austin, – leaving the useless seed pods still on the rose bush is hindering the growth of next year’s flowers, and next year’s growth. You could say it was cruel Not to dead-head a rosebush.
Which helps us to understand what we mean by punishment. When somebody does something wrong…. say the Leader of a Council fails to consider the needs of people in the community – then there is harm caused to themselves and to others. Of course the harm may be mental or spiritual rather than physical, but it is nonetheless destructive.
Religious people are supposed to be compassionate and forgiving. But if we pay no attention when somebody harms another person – maybe by refusing to believe the stories of those who claim they have been seriously abused by figures in authority, for example, that too is cruel; because it appears that we don’t care about the harm the bad person has done.
- So offenders should be asked to say they are sorry and – as far as possible, to make restitution to those whom they have hurt. We give as light a punishment as we dare, not to seek revenge, but
- to deter the criminal and others from ever doing that action again.
- To give them a chance to learn how to live a better life
- And to bring closure to their own feelings of guilt.
So compassionate punishment is a bit like deadheading the roses: it gives them a better chance of growing and flourishing in the future.
Today’s readings seem to be full of God punishing his people – whether an individual like Saul, or a community as Jesus was explaining to his disciples.
Not that I think God meets out punishment on us per se – even though it might feel like that at times when life gets particularly difficult or painful. No, most of the time we are quite capable of hurting ourselves by our own actions and the consequences that result. So in the second reading this evening, Jesus reminds us that when the kingdom of God comes – a time of judgment on us all – it may appear rather arbitrary who is taken and who is not – but there will be underlying reasons.
Now all these readings at one service might give the impression of a very harsh God. But remember that often – our sufferings are a judgment we bring upon ourselves, and a severe warning of the danger of our wrongdoing. God is only deadheading the roses he loves – metaphorically speaking, to make them grow better.
So maybe you will find a message of comfort in that – in a funny sort of way – after all.