This sermon is called ‘Where do we belong?’ Well, where do we belong? Consider the facts: here we all are, in mid June, on the longest, balmiest Sunday evening of the year – an evening when normal people are stoking up their barbecues, uncorking their chilled frascati, or towelling the sand out from between their toes – here we are, cooped up in this no doubt very beautiful architectural relic, singing strange songs (that would never make the top 1000, never mind the top 10), and some of us even dressing up (in clothes which normal people probably very rightly think of as very odd indeed). So, I ask you, where do we belong?
Does the thought ever cross your mind that quite possibly we are all quietly loopy? The thought is very likely to cross the mind of our non-churchgoing friends. At the same time as respecting our freedom of choice, they may well also be thinking of us as harmlessly dotty. And, as long as our dottiness remains harmless, I suppose no-one will mind humouring us. But we live in a world where religious dottiness is by no means always harmless. It’s not a new fact: the spiritually unbalanced have always, throughout history, been responsible for causing hideous harm. But with the sophistication and reach that such people now have, we definitely feel the danger more keenly than ever. This adds much weight to the decision many people appear to have made to steer well clear of our kind of dottiness.
But the interesting thing is, that we can think all these thoughts and yet still be here, risking being linked with both dottiness and danger. Now we’re all intelligent people, we can understand the force of those arguments, and yet, against all the odds, there is something that draws us here and keeps its hold on us. That is the fact which we have to accept – and try to account for.
When we go public with our faith, it can be a bit like issuing a challenge. Rather than the comfortable option of ignoring the issue and getting on with ordinary life, other people find themselves in the less comfortable position of having to try and account for our strange behaviour. Are we just eccentric, or is whatever it is that holds us in its embrace actually the truth? This is surely the sword that Jesus said he came to bring. Isn’t this why evangelism so often seems to have an edge of aggression about it; why it so often seems at odds with the love and acceptance of Jesus?
Consider Paul. If there’s one thing that he did 100% throughout his life, it’s that he went public with his faith. Didn’t he?! Both as a persecuting Pharisee, and as an evangelizing Christian, he nailed his colours to the mast where everyone could see them. Everyone knew what he stood for, and the effect he had was always pretty dramatic. At the outset he was – and I’m sorry to have to say this about Paul – a terrorist. Filled with fundamentalist zeal, he spent his time and his energy actively persecuting the followers of Jesus, whom he saw as intolerable blasphemers. Imagine him holding Stephen’s clothes as he watches him being stoned to death.
And this is the same Paul who, after his conversion, devoted himself to building up what he had previously been so bent on destroying. This is the man who writes so clearly and so intelligently to the churches he has helped set up. How hard it must have been for him to come to terms with the knowledge that he had been such a violent and fanatical aggressor! He must have known such a depth of forgiveness that we can hardly guess at! But, forgiven or not, he still did it. Did it prey on his mind? He does refer to it on rare occasions, and you can’t help wondering if, some lonely nights, he lay awake thinking, “I did all that. And look what I’ve got myself into now! I’m not normal, am I? Am I just some kind of nutcase?”
This second letter to the Corinthians is a fascinating document. He’s done all the basic teaching and already dealt with many of the particular problems that the church in Corinth was facing, all in his first letter. This second letter seems more like a blog than an epistle. It’s so disorganized and unstructured, as if, rather than planning out his paragraphs, it’s all just spilling out of him. As one commentator puts it: “It resembles an African river. For a time it flows smoothly on, and one is hopeful of a satisfactory analysis, then suddenly there comes a mighty cataract and a terrific upheaval, when the great depths of his heart are broken up.” What he writes is very revealing. He seems to want to give himself wholly to his Corinthian friends, and he desires them to show him the same openness as a sign of their love for him. And he shares, not just his certainties, but also some of his doubts and weaknesses. And it’s quite clear that he does question his own mental state. “If we are out of our mind,” he says, “it is for the sake of God.” Or to put it another way, “If I am dotty, please don’t blame me. I mean well.”
We have to bear in mind who he’s writing to. Corinth, you see, was one of the crossroads of the ancient world; a place where east met west, and north met south, a busy, bustling metropolis and seaport, where people of all cultures rubbed shoulders, where everything was lively and exciting, where shops sold everything, all sorts of religions were practised, and all pleasures were there for the asking. This was where Paul spoke and formed the little church that was so dear to him: amongst these city-dwellers, with their breadth of experience and all their worldly wisdom. No wonder he was concerned about being taken seriously by them, and not being dismissed as a crackpot.
Now, a lot of what I’ve said about Paul, could also be said about Jesus. Of course he was 100% public, nailing his colours to every mast he could lay his hands on, and having an effect that was also often very dramatic. There is, of course, never the slightest hint that he questioned his own mental state. But what of other people? How did they see him? With his unworldly ways, and his band of followers, people would have wondered whether he was in touch with the truth, or whether he was just yet another dotty religious freak. If the latter, what mattered was to know whether his dottiness was harmless or potentially dangerous.
Now what really marked out the dangerous fanatic in that complicated Jewish-Roman setup was the one who came with a political agenda to stir up the people’s dreams and fears of Jewish political autonomy. The folk-memory of the glorious era of the reign of King David was a kind of symbol of how Israel could once again be great, with freedom and power under a new dynasty of kings descended from David’s line. So for both Jews and Romans, in different ways, this was a sensitive issue.
So what does Jesus preach about? A kingdom! And this isn’t just an earthly kingdom either! This kingdom is even more potent: it’s the kingdom of God! Oh-oh! He’s going for the big one. We’d better watch out! This means trouble! Now we’ve heard the two descriptions of the kingdom recorded in Mark this evening. But notice what didn’t happen when he finished. He wasn’t arrested, not even cautioned. No-one apparently made any comment at all, certainly nothing Mark considered important enough to mention. With such high hopes of the restoration of Israel, how must it have seemed when Jesus proclaimed, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day … the seed sprouts and grows…” and as soon as it’s ripe it’s cut down?
And he goes on, making the point that he wants to create the right image, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed. … Yet it becomes the largest of all garden plants.” Oh so, perhaps this isn’t trouble after all; maybe he is just doolally. I mean, has he even got his facts right about mustard? Mark’s footnote is really interesting, where he tells us that Jesus spoke many similar parables, “as much as they could understand”, and that it was only when he was alone with his disciples that he explained them. It means that the explanation would have been more than the crowd could understand.
I started by saying that this sermon was called, “Where do we belong?” and I’m afraid all I seem to have done so far is suggest that, wherever it is we belong, there’s a strong possibility that it’s in the same asylum as Jesus, Paul and all the other so-called saints! And that won’t do at all, will it? Because let’s not forget that it’s not a foregone conclusion that we are all dotty, whatever anyone else may decide. The other possibility is, and it always has been, that we are in touch with the truth. That Jesus knew what he was talking about, and that Paul and the rest of us are right to believe in him. And if that is the case, it sheds an entirely new light on where we belong.
I want to bring in something Paul says which sounds rather puzzling at first glance. “We know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord… We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” He seems to be suggesting that it is not possible to be with the Lord during our lifetime, only when we are, as he puts it “away from the body”, i.e. dead. But actually he’s not saying that at all. A lot hangs on the use of that word ‘home’. The question is what do you want to regard as your home? Do you want to feel that you belong to your body/ Or that you see your home as being ‘with the Lord’. Because in that sense of truly belonging, we can’t have two homes. Do we belong to our bodies, to our earthly existence? Our frail bodies, our precarious existence? Or do we belong to God? And Paul is honest enough to his friends in Corinth to reveal to them that, for all he would prefer to be at home with the Lord, he does at times feel at home in the body. The only way he can deal with that is by claiming that, “whether we are at home in the body or away from it, we make it our goal to please him,” Shining through it all is Paul’s clear desire to be accepted by God. That’s where he wants to belong.
When Jesus talks about the kingdom, I think he is leading us to the same idea. The kingdom of God is not a physical kingdom like the kingdoms of this world; but it is still a place where we’ll be properly governed, where we can flourish, and be safe. It is somewhere where, thanks to God’s mercy, we can feel we belong, and be at home. However attractive the idea of overthrowing the Romans and setting up a new kingdom might have been to some of his hearers, it seems very shallow compared to what Jesus is actually offering. Rather than from violence and bloodshed, this kingdom grows from the smallest beginnings, and not through the efforts of man. Nor will its growth be a threat to neighbouring nations, after the manner of earthly kingdoms: that lovely image of the birds of the air perching in its shade is thought by many to refer to the promise that the kingdom of God will reach out to all nations.
As for the kingdoms and political systems that this fractured world has actually produced, well when you consider them, the conclusion is obvious: that there simply cannot be a perfect government. Every system is some kind of compromise: with no system can we be 100% comfortable. In other words, although we live in the world, we can never feel completely at home here – at least not if we don’t shut our eyes to 95% of what is going on around us.
God’s kingdom on the other hand, the kingdom for which we pray, is already within us. And as it grows, we can be part of its glorious growth. That knowledge fills us with hope and a true sense of belonging. And that’s the truth, isn’t it? We do know where we belong. That’s what we are all dotty enough to leave our sun-drenched neighbours for. It’s so that, for an hour or so, we can celebrate that truth together.