sermon on the Baptist and Benedict

Sermon. 15 July, 2012. St Anselm’s Hayes.

Trinity 6

Mark 6.14-29

‘As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted’. That’s the first time I’ve said that as a ‘joke’ (that is really not worthy of the name). But what do I mean? I mean that the last time I had the privilege and pleasure of being with you, we were celebrating the Feast of St John the Baptist. On that occasion, it was his birth. And here we are together, and what are we marking - not in the day itself but still - in today’s gospel? The other birthday of St John the Baptist. His heavenly birthday. I mean we are today hearing of his death.

When we celebrated his birth together, I said that that was an occasion for great rejoicing. Remember, the child John leaped for joy already in the womb. Today, when we hear of John’s death, it is a time of deep, deep sorrow. You might say that all deaths are occasions for sorrow. They are a parting, an end, a goodbye with no prospect of a reunion in this life. Yes. But not all deaths are tragic. In some languages (Polish is one) it can be – no, it is – a blessing to say ‘May you have a good death’.

There is such a thing as a good death, when the person dies of natural causes at the end of a long life well lived, with their affairs in order and –more importantly – their loved ones around them, so that all present are able to hear and say the simple, simplest words of love. Actually, a good death may consist of just some of those things. There is such a thing as a sad-but-good death.

The death of John the Baptist is not like that. I am not going to repeat the story here and now. If you did not take it in, when I read it just now (or even if you did), take home the sheet and read it during the week. It is clearly a nightmare. The causes of John’s death are a painful mixture of

• error of judgement
• rash promises
• exuberance, probably drunkenness
• manipulation of a minor
• embarrassment
• bloodymindedness
• political machinations
• and, yes, wilful murderous violence.

A nightmare! Wherever you put the emphasis in the story, it is a nightmare.

So, John the Baptist was an extremist. He had an extremely happy birth, even by the happy standards of birth. He had an extremely tragic death, even by the sad standards of death. He lived an extreme life, with extreme clothing and diet (look it up, if you don’t know what I mean). And he was extremely confrontational, telling the well-armed and well-protected they were doing wrong and were far from God.

Here is a question: Is St John the ideal for us, either as the Christian disciples we are, or as the Christian community we are called to be? There is no one answer. I know that some people say there is a balance in life, in the universe even. They say this: Some of us live lives of moderation. We are then spared the great lows, but we also miss out on the great highs. Some of us do know the deepest lows, but then we are also able to feel the fullness of the most momentous highs. Is that right?

You see, I began my earnest reflections on this sermon on Wednesday. What could be less interesting than that, you might ask? Well, it is just that Wednesday was 11 July, and 11 July is the Feast of St Benedict. And St Benedict, it seems to me, makes for a striking contrast with St John the Baptist. St Benedict is not about extremism, but about godly moderation. Now, he was a saintly person, and we certainly have stories of miracles associated with him. Tellingly – and in this he may not differ from the Baptist all that much – his most-famous miracles concern what happened when those who lived with him tried to poison him! He blessed some wine, which had been poisoned, and immediately the cup shattered. He blessed some bread, also poisoned, and immediately a raven flew in and took it away.

Make of that what you will. His reputation does not revolve around such incidents. Rather his reputation in the Church is as the founder of Western monasticism, because of the Rule he wrote for monastic communities. He did not write it from scratch. It is a serious re-editing of an earlier text (or texts). But he shifted the emphases in different ways, and so it is rightly called ‘the Rule of St Benedict’. It was adopted by most monastic houses (monks and nuns) in the Western half of Christendom.

But why? Because it is a document calling for moderation. It is not full of promises that God will come to you through miraculous fire, or ecstatic song, or instant healings, or words of prophecy and superhuman power. Quite the reverse. It is all about regulating mundane life. I’ll say that again: it is all about regulating mundane life. Doesn’t sound very exiting? Well, remember that ‘mundane’ simply means ‘of the world’. If you live in the world – and you do, I have to tell you – you are living a mundane life. And Benedict gives you some tips, some guides, as to how to live it to the glory of God. How to sanctify the ordinary. It might even be called, without any disrespect, a spirituality of plodding on. As another monastic put it: ‘You get up, you fall down, you get up, you fall down, you get up, you fall down…’ as often as you need to, letting God change you in imperceptible ways, all the time. The sanctification – the making holy – of the ordinary.

So, rather than have great esoteric texts of heavenly visions, the Rule of St Benedict has concrete advice about what psalms are said at each of the services, what the monks’ bread allowance (wine allowance, clothing allowance) is. And so on. Oh, and advice about how to honour the guest, the stranger, and the person in need, the sick person: You honour them as Christ. They (like, differently, Father Abbot) are Christ to you. People can be disappointed when they read the Rule for the first time, because so much of it is about how to regulate life, and so little is about any experience of God – or even, for that matter, experience of the sacraments, which are intriguingly barely mentioned either.

But I think that disappointment can be overcome, when we catch the spirit of Benedict’s intention to offer a little rule for ‘a school of the Lord’s service’ for beginners. It is about choosing life in the most concrete of ways. Choosing a community, and those who come to the community, and choosing to live after a certain pattern, with precisely those people, for all time, come what may. It is about a big experiment in love made real, with strangers as much as friends.

I commend the Rule of St Benedict to you. And also his vision. I also – of course, of course – commend the vision of St John the Baptist to you. The truth is, the Church needs people who, out of their own integrity, can preach godly moderation. And the Church needs people who, out of their own, different integrity, can preach godly extremism. I am not going to ask which you think you are. After all, it may well be that you will be nearer to Benedict at one point in your life, and nearer to the Baptist at another. And that is fine. Necessary even.

Indeed, if you see yourself as a Benedictine character, who lives a life of stability and reliability, do be prepared for God to provoke you into being precisely the awkward person who takes a stand on some vital-and-thorny issue (there are enough of them around!). If you see yourself as a vocal John the Baptist figure, always willing to tell the Church and the State where they have gone wrong, in righteous indignation, do be prepared for God to drop a big hint, that what God wants is for you to say your prayers, perform your tasks diligently, be kind, and come to enjoy obscurity for the sake of the gospel.

In all of this, it is not that God is cruel. It is that God’s vision for us is that we break out of all the stories we tell about ourselves, to become more fully the people we are called to be. That way, we can, over time, come closer to becoming the saints we are called to be – the kind of saint who only you can become. And thereby we come closer to the blessing of a good death. For this, and for all God’s mercies, too many and too great to name, may God be praised. Amen.