As I was reading the news feed on my laptop yesterday, I came across a story about a couple of interviews the Prime Minister had given for BCC Scotland and BBC North East, in which he said that the recent rise in coronavirus infections was due to the lack of discipline and lack of attention to the rules designed to prevent infection, or at least slow-down the transmission rate of infection, that people had shown over the summer. In the BBC Scotland interview, the Prime Minister said that people had become complacent and blasé about the risks of transmission.

I don’t know whether you agree with that or not but personally, I think there’s a lot of truth in what the Prime Minister said because it was almost inevitable that people, some people at least, would start to act in this way. None of us want our lives to be restricted in the way they have been during the last few months and we all want things to go back to normal. And so, once the virus seemed to be coming under control, as it did in late Spring and early Summer, and the lockdown restrictions started to be relaxed, people were bound to think the worst was over, relax their guard too, and at least start to get back to something like a normal way of life.

In one of his interviews, the Prime Minister referred to this in terms of people’s ‘muscle memory’ fading. As I’m sure you all know ‘muscle memory’ refers to our ability to do things almost without thinking because we’ve done it so often or for so long. We often speak about this as ‘practice makes perfect’. The problem with that though, is that once we have done something regularly and for a long time, we can start to think we know all about it and can do it without really thinking about it, and so we don’t think about it, or don’t think enough about it at least. We don’t give it the attention we should, the attention it deserves. We become complacent and perhaps even blasé about what we’re doing. And so we start to make mistakes but, because we’re not really thinking about what we’re doing, because we don’t think we have to, we don’t correct our mistakes and those mistakes become part of our muscle memory. It’s not so much a case of our muscle memory fading but more of our muscle having a bad memory. And when that happens, we go from a situation where ‘practice makes perfect’ to one where familiarity has bred contempt.

That’s a problem we come across in all aspects of life, and not least in our lives as Christians. But then, Christians are not alone in that. It’s part of human nature and so it’s a problem for people of all faiths and none, and it was certainly a problem the Jews of Jesus’ day had, and it’s one of the issues Jesus addresses in the parable we heard in this morning’s Gospel.

In the parable, the landowner is God, the tenants are the Jews, the servants are the prophets, and the landowner’s son is, of course Jesus. The tenants had been put in charge of the landowner’s vineyard, just as the Jews had been given the law and the covenant. But just as in the parable where it’s clear the tenants hadn’t produced the fruit the landowner had expected, the Jews hadn’t done what God expected, and just as the tenants beat and killed those the landowner sent to collect the fruit, so the Jews had beaten and killed those God had sent, the prophets and they would beat and kill his Son too. The problem was that the tenants thought that the landowner’s vineyard ought to be theirs, and the attitude that comes across in the Scriptures is that the Jews thought that what God had given them charge of, was theirs by right. It’s an attitude that’s perhaps summed up in the Letter to the Philippians where St Paul speaks about his own Jewish heritage:

“If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness in the law, blameless.”

The sense of pride that Paul had in being a Jew leaps from the page in those words, but that seems to have been the problem. The Jews seemed to believe that it was enough simply to be a Jew because that made them one of God’s people. And they’d been God’s people for a long time, so they’d become complacent, as Jesus suggested when he admonished the scribes and Pharisees, the very people whom St Paul was so proud of calling himself:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

And the fruit that God wanted from them of course, were the very things they’d let slide and neglected, justice, mercy and righteousness. And they were so convinced that their practice of the minutiae of the law had made them perfect, that they’d treated both the weightier matters of the law, and those whom God had sent to remind them of those weightier matters, and of their obligation to produce those fruits for God, with contempt and ignored them, beaten them and killed them.

Jesus ends this parable by telling us what the punishment for these unfaithful tenants will be, that what they’d be given by God will be taken away and given to those who will produce the fruit God wants, and in his Letter to the Philippians, St Paul makes it clear that the way to do that, is by following Christ.

But if we want to be given God’s kingdom, we have to make sure that we don’t fall into the same trap the Jews seemed to have done. We have to make sure that we don’t become complacent, as many do simply because they come to Church or because they say they’re Christians. We have to produce the fruit God wants, and that means we have to practice what we preach. But we can’t allow ourselves to think that practice makes perfect, because none of us ever are, or will be, perfect when it comes to producing the kind of fruit God wants. So we have to constantly be on our guard against allowing our familiarity with Christ’s example and teaching to breed contempt for his example and teaching. We can’t allow ourselves to beat and kill the words and example of the prophets and saints, and Christ himself, because we’re so sure of ourselves and our ways that we ignore them and theirs. We have to constantly compare ourselves to them, and especially to Christ, and amend our ways and make sure that they conform to God’s ways so that our Christian muscle doesn’t remember badly or lose its memory completely.

The Prime Minister may well be right when he says that the rise in coronavirus transmission and infection is due to some people becoming complacent and blasé about the risk the virus poses, and a lack of attention to the rules designed to protect us from it. But, while coronavirus is a terrible disease and threat to our health, and something we should take very seriously, in the grand scheme of things, a far more terrible thing is the threat to our immortal souls if we don’t pay proper attention to the rules designed to protect them from harm. So let’s do our best to stick to those rules, and do our best to make sure we never become complacent or blasé about them.

Amen.

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You will find the Propers for the 27th Sunday (Trinity 17) here.

In this morning’s Gospel, we hear about two brothers who have very different ways of responding to their father, and to what their father has asked them to do. The father in the parable, of course, represents God, and the brothers represent two different attitudes towards God. On the one hand we have an example of the person who doesn’t really want to do what God asks of them but who, in the end, does. And on the other hand we have an example of the person who says they will do as God asks of them but who, in the end, doesn’t. And those are attitudes we still see today.

How many people do we know who complain about the state of the world, about how unfair things are, question what God is up to in letting all this go on, and wonder whether it worth living a Christian life, and perhaps at times think it’s not, but who then still do their best to do it anyway? And how many do we know who say they will live good Christian lives, and very often say they do, but who see the state of the world, how unfair things are, question what God is up to in letting all this go on and whether it’s worth living a Christian life, and don’t?

I think the truth of the matter is that we all have a foot in both camps to some extent. The question really, is how much weight we put on each foot. I’m sure there can’t be many people who are happy with the way the world is but, as Christians, how do we respond to that? Do we see the state of the world, don’t like what we see but, nevertheless, do our best to live as Christ said we should? Or do we see the state of the world, don’t like what we see, and decide there’s really not much point in living as Christ said we should?

That really is a question of how we respond to God, and it’s a question we all have to face up to and answer many times as we go through life. It’s a question Jesus had to face up to and answer too. If we read the story of Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness, what is that other than a series of questions about whether he should turn his back on God and ‘go the way of the world’ or do as God his Father asked him to do, in spite of the world?

We read this story as a dialogue between Jesus and Satan, but it’s often interpreted as an inner monologue, Jesus’ internal discourse as he looked to answer this very question of how to respond to God and what God was asking of him, in the light of what he saw and knew of the world around him. And what is the Agony in Gethsemane other than a questioning of God? Not a questioning of God’s purpose, but certainly of God’s methods:

“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”

Jesus could very easily have put that question in different terms and asked, ‘Why do things have to be this way?’ ‘Why do they have to be so hard?’ ‘Why does it have to mean suffering?’ ‘Why can’t there be another way, a better way, an easier way?’

These are questions that we’ve all asked at time and that have probably been at the forefront of many people’s minds over the last few months. As I’ve mentioned before in sermons recently, as we’ve been going through the coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown and restrictions that have been placed on our lives because of the pandemic, quite a few people have asked me, ‘Where is God in all this?’ ‘How can God let this happen?’ A few have said that it’s made them question their faith. And in a sense, that’s understandable. But if we think about it a bit more deeply, how much of what is wrong in the world is really God’s fault? How much suffering in the world can really be blamed on God?

In legal terms, anything that lies outside of human control can be ‘blamed’ on God in a sense because those things come under the term ‘Act of God’ and you’ll probably all have come across that term at one time or another because you find it in insurance policies and other contracts. In that sense, an Act of God refers to natural disasters, things like floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions if you live or work in areas where those might happen, and it can refer to pandemics too. So, in that sense, it refers to something that might happen but to which no human fault can be attributed, and so the responsibility, the blame for things like that, is laid at God’s door. But do we really think that God is to blame for these things? Do we really think that God actually tells this river to burst its banks or tells that fault in the earth’s crust to move, or tells a  volcano to erupt, or a virus to mutate so that it can infect and kill human beings?  

And when these ‘Acts of God’ occur and they cause suffering, and death, why do people blame God for that? Is it God’s fault that people live on flood plains or in earthquake zones or in the shadow of active volcanoes or, dare I say, ignore advice and health warnings during a pandemic? People often choose to live in these dangerous places because, usually, they’re good places to live, they’re very fertile places and so they produce good crops. But they are inherently dangerous places to live too and so when the dangers of these place become real and actual, why do people blame God for the suffering that causes? That’s not to say that we don’t care and shouldn’t care when natural disasters cause suffering and death, of course we care and should care, because we wouldn’t want those things to happen to us and so caring about these things is part of loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. It’s simply to say that we shouldn’t blame God. We’re not too far away from 5^th November now, so let me put it this way. If you bought a firework and, ignoring the manufacturer’s warnings and safety advice, stood right next to it or held it your hand after you’d lit it, and were burned as a consequence, would that be the fault of the person who made the firework? To those who want to blame God for the trouble and suffering in the world, the answer would seem to be ’Yes’. What do you think?

When we think about the state of the world, some of the terrible things that happen in the world and the suffering they cause, we don’t have to scratch very far beneath the surface appearance of these things to realise that we really can’t blame God for them. Sometimes we can’t really lay blame at anyone’s door for trouble and suffering and death, but the vast majority of trouble in the world and suffering in the world is caused by human beings, and very often it’s caused by the direct action of people who don’t care about the consequences their actions have for others or the suffering their actions cause others. And how much of that trouble and suffering and death could be avoided if nations and their governments were prepared to put as much effort into finding ways to save life and improve life, as they are to find more efficient ways to destroy life, to kill?  And if people generally were more inclined to care for each other than they are to make money regardless of the consequences that has for other people? Is that God’s fault too, that they’re not?

Of course, as we look at what goes on in the world, and especially at the trouble and suffering in the world, it’s only natural that we ask why things are the way they are and have to be this way; only someone who doesn’t care wouldn’t ask questions like that. But there’s no reason to blame God for what we see in the world; it’s not God’s fault, so the trouble and suffering in the world shouldn’t give us any reason to decide that we can’t or won’t do what God asks of us and live as Christ taught us.

So, when we’re faced with this question of whether to do what God asks of us or not, what will we do?  Will we question God and maybe even object to what God asks of us but then think on it and do it, or will we say we’ll do as God asks of us without a moment’s hesitation, but then think on it and not do it? In the Gospels, Jesus warns us about starting something we can’t finish, so both by teaching and example, his response was to question first, to think on it, and then do what God his Father asked. All the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Agony in Gethsemane tell us that he prayed several times that this ‘cup’ might pass from him, that there might be another way, but in the end his answer was,

“My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

Jesus didn’t blame God for the trouble he was in, or the suffering and death he was about to go through, because it wasn’t God’s fault. Was it God’s fault that that a sacrifice for sin was needed at all, or was it the people’s fault that they needed a sacrificial system because they couldn’t or wouldn’t keep their God given law? Was it God’s fault that the people wouldn’t listen to Jesus, and repent and do as God asked, or was it theirs? So Jesus objected to what was happening and questioned God about it. But he didn’t blame God, and he did what God had asked of him. And if that was Jesus’ answer, it should be ours too.

The Gospels tell us that when Jesus was thinking about which way to go, the way of the world or God’s way, once he’d made his decision, angels came to support him. So we can take encouragement from that. When we’re doing this balancing act, wondering which way to go, which way to lean on the see-saw, if we choose God’s way, we can be supported and held up by the angels. But, if we lean the wrong way, we might start to slide down and there might well be a pit waiting at the end of the slide for us to fall in. And we won’t be able to blame God for that, it won’t be God’s fault because it will be a pit that we’ve dug ourselves and freely chosen to fall in to.

Amen.

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You will find the Propers for the 26th Sunday (Trinity 16) here.

Entrance Antiphon

I am the Saviour of all people, says the Lord.
Whatever their troubles, I will answer their cry, and I will always be their Lord.

The Collect

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit upon your Church
in the burning fire of your love:
grant that your people may be fervent in the fellowship of the gospel that,
always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings

Missal (St Mark’s)       Isaiah 55:6-9
                                  Psalm 145
                                  Philippians 1:20-24, 27
                                  Matthew 20:1-16

RCL (St Gabriel’s)        Jonah 3:10 – 4:11
                                  Psalm 145:1-8
                                  Philippians 1:21-30
                                  Matthew 20:1-16