A sermon given by Revd Jan Kearton
SERMON FOR CANDLEMAS
Throughout the whole season of Epiphany this year I’ve become very conscious of the call to holiness – it’s been there in the readings on Sundays, and in the daily office Tessa and I have either been scourged by the prophets or encouraged by them according to your view of these things.
Perhaps that call has been sharpened this year by our recent loss of dear parish friends and also by the privilege of sharing their lives and spiritual journeys. As I’ve written funeral sermons and reflected on the goodness of our friends’ lives I’ve been struck by their responses to the encouraging call of God.
And that’s the point really – each of our friends responded to the call of God and kept on responding. Their lives showed their listening and devotion, their study and progress, and the fruit that they bore in their developing holiness.
There’s so much to admire there, and so much to feel encouraged by.
God’s call to his people to become holy reaches a peak in the readings today. Micah compares the Lord to everyday objects of his day – the fire that releases precious metal from crushed ore, and the caustic soap that cleanses dirty fleeces before they’re made into cloth. The psalmist calls us to have clean hands and pure hearts – to be responsible for our conduct and to become obedient to the demands of God.
At the heart of both those calls is the call to become open to the grace of God, to allow ourselves to be changed as we look with God at the way we live, as we undergo God’s judgment. We may not find the idea or experience of judgment pleasant but it is to be welcomed because it’s God’s way of encouraging us to live lives in right relationship with God, his people and the world he created. Holy Lives, in other words.
Holiness comes about because of God’s grace, it’s his gift to his people. We don’t have to be free from sin to receive it, but we do have to become aware of where we fall short of the glory of God and to be able to trust the mercy of God to lift us up when we’re wrong. Holiness isn’t about getting lots of ticks in red pen for getting our lives right first time, it’s more like a great, Eucharistic thank-you to God, our own response of joy and gratitude to God’s offered graciousness.
Simeon’s holy response to the appearance of Jesus in the Temple was excitement and gratitude. God promised him that he wouldn’t die until he’d seen the Lord’s Messiah and Simeon had believed and trusted that promise ever since. He knew that Jesus would bring judgment by helping us to see what motivates us and the traps we can fall into as we persuade ourselves that wrong is right, but he also knows that when we see our failing clearly, Jesus will help us to rise, to overcome our sinful tendencies and to take another step forward towards holiness.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is excited too, but the focus is different. This time it’s Jesus’ sharing of our human life that really speaks to them. Jesus’ mercy is tempered by his humanity – he knows firsthand what it is to be human. That gives us hope that we’ll be understood, that our frailties won’t come as any great surprise to him. Jesus suffered in his lifetime and knows the difficulties of being human and his mercy is based on that experience. He won’t condone our wrongdoing but he will forgive us and help us to learn - and that’s another important step in the long process of becoming holy – discovering the many ways in which we need forgiveness and learning to accept it when it’s offered.
Mary went to the Temple to be declared clean and holy – we go to Jesus. Each time we go in thought or prayer, in shame or trembling, the wounded and spoiled image of God in us is freshened and re-made and we light up with his glory, with the beauty of his holiness. As I think back on our parish friends I know that Elsie was lit by Jesus’ kindness and courage, Eddie by his gentleness and devotion and Pat by his trust and surrender to God the Father. Each of them had their own special grace from God, their own holiness graciously gifted by God as they lived closely with him.
Lent will be with us soon, a season when we particularly give time to God and ask him to show us the changes he would like to make both in ourselves and in our life together as his family. God has shown us a glimpse of the good that he brought about in the lives of our three friends, and that should give us hope and energy and courage to renew our journey together into holiness. As we thank God for our friends, let’s ask him to give us grace like them to light up with Christ’s holiness. AMEN.