If we cast our minds back some 18 months or so, to the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ll probably remember that, when the scale of the pandemic began to dawn on us and we realised how much our lives were going to have to change, at least for the foreseeable future, people were wondering how we’d all react to this. The question was asked whether the pandemic would bring out people’s better nature and whether it would show that, despite appearances to the contrary, when it came to the crunch, people were much more public spirited, caring, and willing to help others than they often appear to be. And I know that many people did think that this would be the case. But what has actually  been that reality of life with Covid-19? What has the pandemic revealed about people?

We have to say that many people did indeed rally to the aid of others. Many people helped those who were particularly vulnerable to Covid by shopping for them and, in so far as they could, keeping in touch with them to make sure that the vulnerable were not so isolated and alone as they might otherwise have been. Our health service workers went above and beyond the call of duty to care for those who were ill because of coronavirus. In fact, I’m sure we can all think of people who really have shown true concern, true Christian love we might say, for others during the pandemic.

But if many have shown their true colours by helping others, we have to say that many have shown their true colours in a very different way because I don’t think there can be any doubt whatsoever that the coronavirus pandemic has shown many people in our society to be crass and selfish.

How many people have we heard say that it was wrong to impose lockdowns to try to limit the spread of coronavirus? How many people do we know, or know about, who ignored the calls, and even the legislation to socially distance and limit their contact with others? How many people do we know, or have we heard, who’ve said that we were making a mountain out of a mole hill and that Covid-19 was no worse than flu? How many people do we know, or have we heard, who were, and still are, adamant that they will not be vaccinated against this virus? I know quite a few people who’ve said and done all these things and who’ve criticised me and argued with me because I followed the advice to shield at the start of the lockdown, and was vaccinated. I even know some who’ve said and done all these things whilst at the same time criticising others for saying and doing them. People who’ve tried to act as though life was normal, as though Covid-19 either wasn’t real or wasn’t serious, whilst criticising others for doing the same, and acting as though everything was normal. And in the early days of the pandemic there was that other sign of people’s selfishness and lack of concern for others, one which we’ve been reminded of in recent weeks, panic buying.

I said that these things are a sign of people’s true colours, and I said that because I thinks it’s true. Crass selfishness is something that we see so much of in the world regardless of the cause, or reason, or excuse. And because it is so common and so widespread it’s a massive problem for all of us, regardless of who we are or where we live. We’ve seen it during the coronavirus pandemic, and we’re seeing it again now. This time, various excuses are being given for it; supply chain issues, shortage of workers, especially drivers, the energy crisis; take your pick. And all this is still because of Covid, or is it Brexit? But whatever the excuse people use for the way they behave when there’s a problem in the world, time and time again, they behave in the way they do because of crass selfishness, a self-centred attitude towards life and an un-thinking, insensitivity to the needs of others.

Today, we’re having our Harvest Thanksgiving services and so it’s a day when, in addition to thanking God for our food, we remember where our food comes from; that it’s the produce of the earth. And so, as our food comes from the richness of the earth, it’s a day when we should remember and give thanks for the earth, the good earth that God has given us stewardship over. And yet, as we give thanks for these things, we do so in the knowledge that we’ve been bad stewards of the earth; we’ve not cared for it as we should have done and now, the earth is in trouble, and because of that, so are we. And yet, don’t we see and hear the same kind of attitude towards the problem of climate change as we have done towards coronavirus during the pandemic? Don’t we hear people denying that anything is wrong? Don’t we see people carrying on with ‘business as normal’ despite the damage that business is doing to the environment? And what lies behind all this except crass selfishness? People are making too much money to stop what they’re doing. People are too comfortable with the way things are to change. And, of course, someone else is always to blame and it’s always someone else’s problem isn’t it.

I think perhaps these things can be summed up by some comments that were made during a conversation I had about climate change some time ago now. A group of us were discussing the problem and talking about what changes we’d like to see and what changes we’d be prepared to make ourselves to do something about the problem. Some people said they weren’t prepared to do anything because it won’t make any difference what we as individuals do, governments and big business had caused the problem and so it was up to them to do something about it. And one person said they weren’t going to make any changes to the way they live because of climate change because, and I quote, “it’s a problem for the future and with a bit of luck, I’ll be dead by then.” It’s not my problem, why should I do anything about it? How crass, how self-centred can anyone be about anything, let alone a problem that affects each and every one of us, and will do for generations to come? 

Isn’t it just that kind of attitude though, that Jesus warns us about in our Gospel reading this morning? At St Mark’s this morning we heard the parable of the Rich Fool, a man who was happy and content with the way things are. And why not, he’d done well for himself, thank you very much, so why should he want to do anything other than enjoy what he had. Why should he want to do anything but eat, drink and be merry? He was a man who already had enough but wanted even more and, when he got it, he wanted to keep it all for himself. Why should he care about those who didn’t have as much, or even enough? That was their problem. (Does this sound a bit like panic buyers by the way?).  We have a saying based on the parable of the Rich Fool, don’t we, ‘Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.’ But for the man in the parable, tomorrow never came, he was to die that night and so he never got to eat, drink and be merry as he’d hoped to. But his bigger problem was that he now had to answer for his crass selfishness, for his greed and lack of concern for anyone but himself. And that’s a lesson that so many people today need to learn. The problem is, of course, that so many people today don’t seem to believe they ever do, or will have to answer to anyone, for anything they do.

And in our Gospel reading at St Gabriel’s this morning, Jesus urges us to stop worrying about earthly matters; to let go of our obsession with earthly riches. To stop thinking in terms of how much can we have and get and instead to strive for God’s kingdom and his righteousness. To put all our efforts into living as God wants us to live. And if we do want to live that way, there can’t be any room in our lives for the crass selfishness that so many people seem to show in their lives. Because to live as God wants us to live means that we must think every bit as much about others as we do about ourselves.

Harvest Thanksgiving is a time when we’re reminded of the importance of doing that. It’s a time when we give thanks to God for our food, for the riches and richness of the earth, and for all his goodness towards us. But it’s also a time when we are asked to think about others and our Harvest gifts are a sign and symbol of that. So, let’s make this Harvest Thanksgiving a reminder of our need to show our true colours as Christians. Not just at Harvest Thanksgiving time, nor at any other time or day of the year, but all the time on each and every day of every year. To show that we’re not rich fools but people who strive each and every day of our lives for God’s kingdom and righteousness.

Amen.

---

The Propers for Harvest Thanksgiving can be viewed here.

Anyone who’s ever taken up something as a hobby or pastime, or who’s taken up something for a more serious purpose such as a sport with the intention of entering into competition, will know that, in order to improve at what we’re doing requires at least some dedication to the activity in question. We may find that we have some natural ability at what we’ve decided to take up but, unless we practice what we’re doing, we’ll never be as good as we could be at that, or indeed any activity we engage in. 

We usually take up hobbies and sports, of course, because we want to do them and enjoy doing them and so practice isn’t usually too much of an effort for us; or at least, up to a certain point it isn’t. But what happens when we’ve reached as far as our natural ability at an activity will take us? If we want to improve beyond that level, practice becomes harder. It’s not so easy for us anymore because we’re having to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone, probably both in terms of what we’re having to do in practice and the amount of time we’re having to spend in practice. And that can make something we took up for pleasure, not so pleasant as it once was. Once we’ve reached that stage, what we’re doing becomes just as much about hard work and dedication as it is about pleasure and so it’s usually when we reach that stage in our progress at an activity that we have a decision to make. Do we settle for the level, the standard, we’ve managed to achieve already and simply do what we need to do to maintain that standard? Do we give up on that activity and look for something else that’s easier and more enjoyable? Or do we knuckle down to the task in hand and put in the work and the time we need to, so that we can carry on getting better at it?

I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves in that situation at some time in our lives. I know I have. At one time, I was learning to play the piano and, at first, I’d happily put my ‘hour a day’ and more. But once I’d reached a certain level, things started becoming a bit harder. For one thing, I was having to play pieces of music that I didn’t really like. My piano teacher said it was what I needed to do to take my playing to the next level but, because I didn’t like the pieces, I didn’t enjoy learning or playing them and so I began to find practice hard work and did less of it. At the time I was also quite keen on a young lady I was seeing. She’d always thought that I spent too much time on the piano and not enough with her and, as piano practice became harder and not so enjoyable, I started to come round to that point of view myself. Obviously, that didn’t please my piano teacher because I wasn’t progressing as he thought I should have been. He thought the young lady in question was holding me back, and he told me so in no uncertain terms! So, in the end, I felt that I was faced with a decision; the piano or the girl? I chose the girl, which in hindsight wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made, but that’s another story!

To be honest, I don’t think I’d have ever been a great pianist, no matter how much practice I’d have put in; I started too late for one thing, I was 20 before I took my first lesson, but it doesn’t matter how good we are at something, there’s always something we can do to be better at it. For example, I remember once reading an article written by an England international speedway rider of the 1970s in which he spoke about his early years in the sport during which he was a team-mate of one of the true greats of the sport, a man who was a 5 times individual Champion of the World. What he said was that while he benefitted enormously from those years, they also taught him that he, himself, would never be a world’s champion. Not because he didn’t have the potential, in fact he went on to win world championship gold medals at team events 3 times. No, he realised he would never be an individual world champion because he saw just how hard you had to work to achieve that standard and the sacrifices you had to make to get there and stay there. And he decided that level of work and dedication was something he simply wasn’t prepared to take on.

So whatever we do and whatever level we reach at a particular activity, there’s always something more we can do to be better at it. But, if we really do want to be better, we have to be prepared to do what it takes, whatever that might be, to improve. We have to be dedicated enough to what we’re doing to put in the hard work that’s necessary to improve and to carry on putting in that hard work to make sure that our standards don’t slip, and we don’t backslide into bad ways or errors. And just as it is with anything else we do, the same is true of our lives as Christians too, as Jesus makes abundantly clear in this morning’s Gospel.

The standard we’re all trying to achieve as Christians is the standard of Christ himself. That’s a very high standard indeed and one we can achieve on perhaps only a very few occasions but, nevertheless, that is what we should all be aiming for.

And we do need to aim that high because that is the standard, the level of performance if you like, that we need to achieve if we’re going to be sure of winning the gold medal, the prize of a place in the kingdom of God. And in this morning’s Gospel Jesus sets out in very vivid terms just what we have to be prepared to do in order to reach that standard;

“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off…  And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off….  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.”

And we have to do all these things because it’s better for us to enter the kingdom God crippled, lame and blind, rather than not do these things and be thrown into the unquenchable fires of hell. Which is really just a very vivid way of saying that we have to be prepared to do whatever it takes to live as God intends us to live and Christ taught us to live if we really do want to have a place in heaven.

I’m sure we can all think of ways in which our hands, feet and eyes cause us to sin, but I’ll give you a few examples. Do we use our hands to write unkind, or even worse, untrue things about people in letters, emails, texts or any other media? If we do, we should stop. Do we use our feet to walk away when we see people in need, or to walk, or perhaps use the pedals in our cars to go to drive to places in preference to coming to Church or attending Church meetings? If we do, we should stop. Do we use our eyes to feed our greed? In other words, are our eyes bigger than our bellies? Do we see something, want it and have it, not because we need it, but simply because we can have it, even if we then waste it because we don’t need it? That’s a very common way our eyes cause us to sin around Christmas time, isn’t it? How much food, for example, do we buy simply because ‘it’s Christmas’ but then waste because we’ve bought far more than we need and can eat? If we do things like that, we need to stop.

To stop doing these things though, requires dedication. We might be very tempted to say something unkind about others; we might truly believe that what we’re saying is true and justified, but how would we feel if someone were to say similar things about us? And so, no matter how much more difficult it is for us not to say those things than to give in to the temptation to say them, we have to have the dedication to our faith to do the difficult thing.

No matter how much easier it is for us to walk away from those in need than to help them, we have to have the dedication to our faith to do the difficult thing instead. No matter how much more we might want to watch the football, or whatever else it might be that we’re interested in that’s on the TV, than to come to Church, we have to have the dedication to our faith to put our faith first. And no matter how much more enjoyable it might be to meet friends, go for a drink or a meal, or even just watch something on the TV than to attend a Church meeting, we have to have the dedication to our faith to do the less pleasurable thing.

And no matter how much we might be tempted by what we see, no matter how much we might want what we see, we have to have the dedication to our faith to stop and think before we give in to temptation and take what we want. To ask ourselves whether we really need what we’re so tempted by or whether we’re just being self-indulgent, greedy and wasteful. We have to have the dedication to our faith to stop ourselves from doing what we want to do if what we want to do isn’t the right thing to do.

Like everything else, these things are a matter of practice. The more we practice our faith, the better we’ll be at living it out. The more often we stop and think before we speak, the more likely we’ll become to stop and think before we speak, all the time. The more often we put our duty and responsibility to the Church first when it comes to deciding what to do, the more likely we’ll be to put our duty and responsibility to the Church first whenever we have to decide what to do. And the more often we follow Christ’s example of resisting temptation, the more likely we’ll be to be able to follow his example and resist temptation at all times. 

We all want to be good disciples of Christ, we wouldn’t be here in Church if we didn’t, and I’m sure we all want to be better disciples of Christ than we are now. So let’s have the dedication we need to put our faith into practice however hard, and even unpleasurable that might be at times. We all want to win the gold medal, the prize of a place in God’s heavenly kingdom, so let’s cut out and cut off anything and everything that’s holding us back from achieving the level of performance that we need to win it.

Amen.

---

The Propers for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure and privilege to conduct a wedding at St Gabriel’s and, as is very often the case at Church weddings, the Bible reading we heard was chapter 13 of St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. I’m sure that’s a reading that we’re all familiar with. In it, St Paul speaks about love; he speaks about the indispensability of love, and says that whatever we do, even the most supreme acts of self-sacrifice are worthless unless they stem from love. And he speaks about the nature of love saying,

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Those words are very fitting for a wedding, any wedding, not just a Church wedding because, as I always say to the happy couple when this reading is used, if your love for one another can be like that, you’ll be well on the way to enjoying a long and happy married life together. But, as well as being very fitting for a wedding, I think those words fit in very well with the theme of our readings this morning.

Strictly speaking, the theme of our readings today is wisdom, the wisdom that comes from God. The Scriptures tell us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. To fear God means to know and follow his ways and those ways are made known to us most clearly through the teaching and example of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who summed up those ways in the Great Commandment to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. So wisdom and love go hand in hand. We could say that the beginning of wisdom is to know that we’re called to love, and the wise, those who have and practice wisdom, are those who do love, whose lives and actions are motivated by love.

In speaking about love in his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul is addressing his concerns about the less than loving ways of the Corinthian Church. He seems to be particularly concerned with the pride and arrogance that some members of the Corinthian Church are showing, and the divisions, arguments, snobbery and one-upmanship that this is causing in the Church. Essentially, St Paul is saying that this is not the way true Christians behave because this is not what it means to love as Christ taught us to love and showed us to love by his own example. And isn’t this very similar to what St James is saying in our New Testament reading this morning?

In this morning’s reading from St James we hear him speak about jealousy and ambition causing disharmony and wickedness, and he contrasts this with the pureness of heavenly wisdom which makes for peace and is kind and considerate, similar qualities in fact, to those which St Pauls says are indicative of love. And St James is in no doubt about the cause of such troubles for he says,

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

And we see the same thing at work in the disciples in this morning’s Gospel reading. There we read that the disciples had been arguing amongst themselves about who was the greatest, the most important. They must have known what they were doing was wrong because when Jesus asks them what they were arguing about, they won’t say. And so Jesus takes a little child and tells them,

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

What Jesus was saying to them was, no matter how important you might think you are, none of you are any more important to God than this little child, and so you should treat each other, and everyone else, even little children, with equal importance.

In St Matthew’s Gospel, we find a slightly different version of this story. There Jesus tells the disciples that if they want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, they must become like little children. In fact, he tells them that, unless they do that, they will never even enter the kingdom of heaven. So we know that, as Christians, we’re called to be like little children. In other words, we’re called to be humble because, just as a child needs the guidance, help and support of parents, grandparents, teachers and so on, so we have to accept our need of the help, guidance and support of God, our Father, of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. Just as a child trusts what parents, grandparents, teachers and so on tell them, we’re called to trust what God tells us, whether that be through the Scriptures, especially the words of Jesus, or the guidance of the Spirit. And just as a child is vulnerable, we’re called to make ourselves vulnerable, because loving others always does make us vulnerable. It makes us vulnerable to being hurt when our love is rejected and it makes us vulnerable to being used and abused when our love is taken for granted, when our love is taken but not returned, or when our love is taken but repaid with malice, hatred and evil.

We do have to make a distinction though, between being child-like and childish. Children, because of their humility, trust and vulnerability tend to be very loving, especially when they’re very young. As they grow older and less humble, trusting and vulnerable, they tend to become less loving, or at least more partial in who they love and more particular in who they show their love to. For example, in every school I’ve ever been in as a deacon or priest, I’ve had lots of young children running up to me shouting ‘Fr Stephen!’ and throwing their arms around me. But that only happens with the very young children. As the children become older, those innocent, child-like displays of love tend to be replaced with a ‘Hiya Fr Stephen’ and a smile.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that, as people get older, they tend to become less childlike. Unfortunately, we can’t say that as people get older, they always become less childish. We all know how selfish children can be. We all know that children very often want their own way and not getting it can end up in either a sulk or a tantrum. But, as children grow older, they can become even worse. In the ‘Terrible Teens’ they can have still have sulks and tantrums but, at that age, they seem to lose the ability to speak, and so we don’t even know what the sulk or the tantrum is about half the time! And adults can be every bit as bad as babies when it comes to petulance if they can’t have their own way. We have a saying that sums that up very well, don’t we? It’s a saying that applies to something babies do but we apply it to adults when we say that they’ve ‘Spit their dummy out!’ And doesn’t all this usually stem, among older children and adults at least, from a belief that they know best?

If we think about this kind of petulant, childish behaviour though, impatience, arrogance, irritability, resentfulness, aren’t all these things the very opposite of the way St Paul describes love? Aren’t these the very things that St James says are the cause of disharmony and wickedness, even of wars and battles between people? And aren’t they the very things Jesus is warning us against when he tells us to be like little children, to be child-like?

When he writes about love, St Paul says,

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

So it is childish ways we’re called to give up, not child-like ways. It’s the cocksure arrogance that we’re right and should have our own way, and the petulant attitude we can all too often show if we don’t get it that we need to give up if we’re going to even enter the kingdom of heaven, let alone be great in the kingdom. We need to give up childishness and replace it with child-likeness; with the humility to accept that we don’t always know best, and with trust in God, that his ways are better than our ways.

And with love. The courage, and the wisdom, to love in the way St Paul describes in his First Letter to the Corinthians. If we can do that, then we have Jesus’ assurance that we will be worthy of a place in God’s heavenly kingdom. Who knows, we might even be great in that kingdom. But then, if we are truly child-like in the way Jesus says we should be, we really won’t care about greatness. Will we?

Amen.

---

The Propers for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.