Sermon. St Mary’s, Little Ilford (live-stream only). 27.12.20
St John the
Evangelist
John 21.19b-end
Have you ever
had a conversation with a hermit?
It’s a
serious question. I am not pretending for one minute that John the Evangelist
was a hermit. I am taking us round the houses. I admit that. But bear with me.
So I ask
again: have you ever had a conversation with a hermit? You may well say:
Of course not. Hermits live in solitude. They don’t have conversations.
Well, I say: that is half right.
It is right
that hermits don’t do conversations in the sense of chatting, gossiping,
debating, or small talk. There’s no point inviting a hermit to your dinner
party. It is also right that hermits choose silence, a great deal of
silence. They are at ease with stillness and silence. They pray, out loud at
times, speaking words at times, but the words of prayer are set in the context
of silence, in a sea of silence, in an ocean of silence.
But! But that
does not mean that hermits do not have to do with people. Hermits do talk.
People visit hermits, and hermits are up to being visited. Hermits have
not so much cut themselves off from people as cut themselves off from what get
called “civilisation”, and all the comforts and pointers of what is considered
a “normal” life. You know: job, career, partner, children, status in the
community. All of those perfectly natural – and intrinsically good – markers of
identity. A hermit is one who is, as it were, an embodied experiment in
what it might be to be a human being, when all the ways human beings “fit
in” are taken away.
I used to visit
a monk in the Lowlands of Scotland. (I have mentioned him before – Brother
Roland Walls of Blessed and Righteous Memory.) He himself was not a hermit (we’re
still around the houses). He lived in community. But, to be fair, the community
was often a community of two. So we might perhaps think of him as a “semi-detached
hermit”. He’d taken a vow of poverty, but someone gave him some money as a
gift. He immediately made mental plans to spend a fortnight in Lanzarote or
somewhere like that. But then he felt called to go and visit a hermit (a
particular hermit he’d heard of), as hermits are, as I say, up for being
visited.
It is not
that easy to visit a hermit of course. Living away from civilisation, they can
take some tracking down. It can take an arduous journey to get to them. In
other words, it takes a pilgrimage. And it’s a pilgrimage which has a
definite goal, a definite end. On meeting the hermit, the pilgrim makes a
particular request. They say: “Speak to me a word, Father, that I may live.”
“Speak to me a word, Mother, that I may live.” It’s as solemn and as straightforward
as that.
Typically the
word that the hermit gives is simple. They may say: “Pray constantly.” “Weep
for your sins.” “Love your enemies”. Sayings like that. The pilgrim may
even feel cheated. They wanted someone to reflect their life-story back to the
them, and instead what they get are pithy sayings that they might as easily get
by opening the Bible at random. But of course this word is deceptively
simple. The hermit distils what the pilgrim most needs to hear.
I told you I
was taking you round the houses. Thank you for indulging me (not that I gave
you a choice). But all is now set for the point. The point is that when Brother
Roland met the hermit he did indeed say: “Speak to me a word, Father, that I
may live.” And the hermit responded with this (and only this – this was
it): “St John was so close to our Lord he could
hear his heart beat.”
”St John was so close to our Lord he could hear his heart beat.”
I imagine
you’ll get the reference. Indeed, as we have just been reminded, in John’s
Gospel, when Jesus reclines for his last meal (not a Passover meal in John, by the
way), the Beloved Disciple, whom we call John, was next to him. Here’s a rather
literal translation of the Greek [John 13.23]: “There was, reclining, one of
his disciples in the bosom of Jesus, the one whom Jesus loved.” [En
anakeimanos heis ek ton matheton autou en to kolpo tou Iesou, hon egapa ho
Iesous.] Yes, it is as close as that, as intimate as that.
If we
remember this detail, we are unlikely to consider it important. But now we have
heard the life-giving word of the hermit, we are encouraged to pay
attention.
”St John was so close to our Lord he could hear his heart beat.” This is to say: extremely close.
About as close as you can get. I think there is something here for us,
something somewhere between an invitation and a challenge.
I said on
Christmas Day that preachers often preach on Love – so often that the words
become too familiar. We expect them. They wash over us. We are of
course at heart glad that the words of love are there. We hear that Gd loves
us. We know that Gd loves us. But these words don’t cut through. It is,
bluntly, hard for us to listen to the love-song Gd is singing, as
it’s commented on so repetitively, and perhaps so unimaginatively.
Well today
I’d like to speak of the love of Gd in a different way. Not, for once,
Gd love for us, but our love for Gd. Our love for Gd in Christ. Our love for
Christ. Dare we… no, really, dare we place ourselves in the bosom of Jesus?
I want to suggest that two things are
true:
1.
It
is true that our love for Gd and Christ is an organic response to our
sense of Gd’s and Christ’s love for us, and
2.
It
is just as true that our love for Gd and Christ is a task we are
called to.
There is no technique that brings about love for Gd and
Christ. It is not something than can be taught as things are taught. But the
solemn invitation or command can still be delivered: find your way of loving
Christ. Loving Christ intimately. Nurture it. Nurture it always. Place
yourself, over and over, in the bosom of Jesus. Be so close to our Lord that
you can hear his heart beat.
We have heard that John’s Gospel ends by owning that “there
are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written
down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be
written.” Most assuredly we can say that there are many other things that
can be said about John, the Evangelist, the Evangelist of Gd as Love, the
Beloved Disciple. Fear not: I do not propose to attempt to list them.
I return to the heart of John’s message, yes, to its
heart-beat. For he was close to our Lord’s that he could hear his heart
beat. Into this place we are invited, and the invitation stands,
in season and out of season. It will not be withdrawn. Let us make it our own.
Blessed Feast Day. Amen.
