{"id":3289,"date":"2019-09-02T14:14:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T14:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pattinghamchurch.org.uk\/web\/?page_id=3289"},"modified":"2019-09-02T14:14:14","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T14:14:14","slug":"sermon-1st-september-2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.pattinghamchurch.org.uk\/web\/information\/sermons\/sermon-1st-september-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Sermon – 1st September 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sermons index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity \u2013 evening<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Sunday 1st September 2019 <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Maureen<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Trinity 11 – Proper 17 \u2013 evening
\nIsa. 33. 13-22
\nJohn 3. 22-36<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n

Does anyone recognise this example of religious iconography?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Isenheim<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\nYou may well react to it\ndifferently \u2013 as with any great work of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSome will love it \u2013 others\nwill hate it for the gruesome and graphic portrayal of Christ\u2019s\ncrucifixion. It is known as the Isenheim altarpiece and was\noriginally painted between 1512 and 1516 by an artist called Matthias\nGr\u00fcnwald, and was originally commissioned for the hospital at\nIsenheim run by the Antonine monks. This hospital specialised in the\ncare of patients suffering from what was called St Anthony\u2019s Fire,\na terrible infection that led to gangrene and was accompanied by\nterrifying hallucinations. We now know that the underlying cause of\ntheir illness was egotomine poisoning \u2013 derived from a fungus that\ncontaminated rye bread, their staple foodstuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe patients looked from their\nbeds towards this altarpiece \u2013 and you may well think that if the\ninfection did not cause them to have nightmares, then this painting\nmight do the job equally well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is a harrowing, shocking\nportrayal of Christ\u2019s agony. The body contorted in pain from the\nnails. To one side of the crucifix you will see the figure of Mary,\nhis mother, swooning in grief and being supported by John, the\nbeloved disciple. Kneeling on the ground is Mary Magdalene, hands\nknotted in an agony of beseeching prayer. But I want to focus more on\nthe figure standing to the other side, for this is John the Baptist,\nholding a lamb carrying a cross and pointing with a strangely\nelongated finger towards the figure on the cross \u2013 and painted on\nthe canvas behind him are words from this evening\u2019s reading… He\nmust increase and I must decrease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is undoubtedly a powerful\nwork \u2013 the more so that when it was painted, it was the practice of\nthose who could read, to read out loud \u2013 not under their breath or\nsilently in their minds. So imagine those poor souls who looked on\nthis work daily from their beds. Those words would have had a\nspecial, rather dreadful resonance. The chances were very high that\nbecause of their illness they would indeed decrease; most of them\nwere moving inexorably towards death!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nNow try out those words for\nyourself…. They do not fit very easily, do they, into our culture\nwhere everything is focused on growth and improvement, where\n\u2018increase\u2019 seems to be of the essence? Those who argue for the\nneed for action to counter the climate change that seems to be ever\nmore real in our world, are battling against this culture.\nExponential growth may be the very thing that is killing us \u2013 both\npersonally as the obesity epidemic gets more significant, and even as\nfar as our planet is concerned. \u2013 Those who have set fires to the\nRainforest in Brazil are largely doing so in the interests of\ncommercial gain and increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nEven our cars have grown\nsteadily larger over recent years, such that many vehicles can no\nlonger be parked in a domestic garage, even if we had not taken over\nthat space to store all the surplus stuff that we seem to have\naccumulated with passing years… the curse of growth once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSome of the cult of increase\nis a sign not simply of the pathology of capitalism and consumerism,\nbut, at a deeper level, is a sign of our unwillingness to consider\nour own mortality. The raw reality is that we will all die, and\nperhaps we should all spend rather more effort in considering how we\nare going to approach that inevitability? If, as a society we make\ngreat preparation \u2013 quite rightly \u2013 when a birth is imminent,\nshould we not do more to prepare ourselves for death? If in the\nlong-term, we are all destined for decrease rather than increase,\nshould we not take time to consider how we might approach the\ndecrease\u2013time of our lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhen the Isenheim altarpiece\nwas first created, many churches \u2013 probably this one included,\nwould have had rough and ready frescoes on the walls about facing the\nreality of death. That doesn\u2019t suit our modern sensibilities when\nwe have largely tried to banish all such thoughts from our minds \u2013\nand the result is that people today, have really big issues in\ndealing with grief and loss. From the perspective of our faith, we\nhave many rich treasures to help people faced with such issues, but\nperhaps our squeamishness has led us to hold back when we should be\ndisclosing and proclaiming these?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThrough the death and\nresurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that death is not actually the\nend \u2013 whatever the humanists try to tell us. Beyond the grave there\nis an abundance of life and joy to come. John points the way \u2013\nthrough his words as recorded in this evening\u2019s reading. Through\nhis pointing finger in the painting. Look to Jesus for our\ninspiration. He will only increase even if all of us, eventually,\nmust decrease… And that is worth, at the least, a gentle Alleluia,\nsurely?<\/p>\n\n\n


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\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity \u2013 evening Sunday 1st September 2019 Trinity 11 – Proper 17 \u2013 evening Isa. 33. 13-22 John 3. 22-36 Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs Does anyone recognise this example of religious iconography? You may well react to it differently \u2013 as with any great work of art. Some will love it \u2013 … <\/p>\n

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