Sermon
‘Who do you say that I am ?’
Sermon looking at Peter’s confession of faith and our spiritual capacity to
know God
This week has seen the usual annual increase in examination results. Corinne
was delighted that Bedford High School once again achieved 100% pass rate at
A levels and congratulations to everybody who has done well in their A Level
examinations.
In our reading from Romans today Paul encourages his hearers to be
transformed by the renewal of their minds. I do not think that Paul was
talking about educating ourselves about God in the way that we swat for
exams. It is important to have clear rational thinking in our faith, to
understand and be able to give an explanation for what we believe.
But this is not all there is to be renewed. We deliberately started our
worship today with a verse which is taken from the Roman Catholic lectionary
which today is Romans 11
'How unsearchable are his judgements, and inscrutable his ways'
If we think that God is to be known by learning bits of information, like we
revise for an exam, then we will seek and never find. Here Paul acknowledges
the awe and mystery of God, which can never be understood in the sense that
we can know our algebra or our history of Britain.
The best things in life are never understood, they are the source of wonder
and amazement. Have you this summer been able to wander and see mountains,
or seas, sunsets and stars? These are things which we cannot understand any
more than we can explain what love is.
The modern school curriculum is great for a certain level of learning, but
there is a danger that it is more suited to turning out accountants than
artists. Sadly the National Curriculum does not provide either the time or
the space to help children to grow as they should in appreciation of the
majesty of our wonderful universe. And so many teachers seem completely
unaware of the importance of developing the spiritual, so that teaching is
purely utilitarian. It advances the mind in so far as it needs to be able to
pass exams, but it leaves the heart cold.
The most important kind of education is that which seeks to help capture
amazement and wonder, such which led Paul to exclaim
'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.'
Listen to what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians. It is an expression which
helps us to understand that he believed the most important truths were
understood not simply by academic study, but with a different level of
discernment .
Ephesians 1:17
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father,
may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him
better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in
order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of
his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for
us who believe.
In the marriage service in the Prayer Book, it speaks of ‘the mystery of one
flesh.’ The word mystery is used of the way that two people grow together
and know love in its many ways and know a special relationship.
The word mystery is an interesting one and it is also an entirely suitable
way to speak about spiritual truths.
Mystery is a very spiritual world, but that doesn’t mean that the importance
of such things is marginal. It is vital for our lives that marriage works
and that two people are able to have that depth of relationship. At the
heart of what it means to be human lie important spiritual principles of
which we need to take heed. Indeed it is only when we discover the mystery
of our spiritual being that we are able to be fully human.
If our lives only have regard for facts which can be measured, then we are
reduced to machines. To describe great art or music only in factual terms is
to miss the point. What makes Mozart special is a quality which cannot be
expressed merely by analysis and it transcends our attempts at explanation.
In the same way if we start to dissect a magnificent painting it will lose
its spiritual quality.
Our five senses will take us so far, but beyond that there is another
dimension, a more transcendent place. The German mystic of the middle ages,
Meiter Eckhart, a Dominican Friar, spoke of a ‘transcendent abyss’ within
ourselves. We are not machines but extraordinary people created beings made
to know spiritually things not just physical ones. We have within us the
capacity to go beyond that which is physical and know another level of
existence. D H Lawrence wrote
‘The sense of wonder
that is the sixth sense.
And it is the natural religious sense.'
We can reduce ourselves to the physically reality of what we know, but if we
do we loose the sacredness of our being, our spiritual selves.
This other dimension to life, is something over which we spend too little
time. Everything that exists depends upon God for its existence, but so
often we do not take moments to draw breath and know God’s presence in all
that he had made.
God is not limited by his creation in any way, but undoubtedly the presence
of God penetrates the universe. Isaiah wrote
‘the whole earth is full of God’s glory.’
The world is so much more than atoms and molecules. Gerald Manley Hopkins
said that
‘the whole world is charged with the grandeur of God.’
God is the author of life and all of life bears his signature. God is
everywhere. However we may fail to see God. God invites us, but he does not
impose. God appears reticent, leaving suggestions of his presence to engage
us and draw up deeper, not miraculous and compelling signs.
Julian of Norwich describes God as
‘utterly kind and unasuming’
The unique nature of Christianity is that it says that in Jesus this can be
taken a step further, we can encounter God in a human person.
The Greek word mysterium is the equivalent of the Latin word sacramentum
which began to be used about the third century. Mysterium means a hidden or
a veiled reality. But the word sacramentum was applied to actions or things
which helped us to approach the divine. It conveys the belief that material
things can draw us into spiritual things, spirit speaks through matter. So
it is that a ring may be a band of gold, but its meaning is so much more
when used for a marriage.
This was how it was with Jesus too. The disciples could be with him, people
could see his love in action and yet still recognise only Jesus the man. It
was only as the disciples opened their minds to Jesus that they recognised
who he really was. God’s self portrait in human form. We don’t really get
from the NIV translation the full impact of the reply made by Jesus to Peter
after the confession of faith. The NIV says
‘this was not revealed to you by man,’
The Greek from which it is translated said
‘‘flesh and blood did not reveal …’
The Christ who Peter confessed can be confessed by us too, but only as we
allow our spirits to be open to the mystery of God. The majority of people
do not take time to attend worship, read scripture or pray. It is through
such spiritual exercises that we enter into an awareness of God. Our five
senses alone, academic study, flesh and blood cannot awaken our spiritual
sight. However we all have the capacity for inner spiritual sight by which
we may discover not just the man Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago, but Jesus
the risen Messiah who alive today.