Sermon preached for the Second Sunday after Trinity, 21st June 2020: Jeremiah 20, 7-13; Matthew 10, 24-39

Revd Canon Leonard Doolan

‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song: in a strange land?’

Across the world the year 2020 will be remembered for the devastating effect of the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, over a million people affected. Those near to death have had to pass from this life without the nearby comfort of family and loved ones; health services have had to deal with unimaginable numbers of sick people. From global companies to small corner shops businesses have been brought to the very brink of financial viability. For some countries, such as Greece, the reliance on tourism has been shown to be too fragile a dependency for a national economy. Let’s pray that the need to kick start tourism is not done at the expense of human health.

As the pandemic is global, so are its consequences in every aspect of life. St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Athens has not escaped the devastating consequences of the virus.

The income from our core congregation alone is nowhere near enough to maintain our church and ministry year by year, though we are grateful for continued generosity from our membership.

We have a dependency on income from hiring out the church for concerts and cultural events. Our monthly patterns of Coffee Mornings and Quiz Nights provide lovely opportunities for social gathering for church members and friends but are also essential sources of income. Our Spring and Christmas Bazaars are fundamental to our financial health every year. Our dependency on income from all of these has proved to be our highest risk, our greatest liability. Longer term, radical changes will be needed to ensure we survive and thrive.

2020 will be a financial catastrophe for us. 2020 will be a catastrophe for so many millions of people – but also for us. We will remember 2020 as a disaster at so many levels.

Some years in history are remembered as catastrophic. For our friend, the prophet Jeremiah, it is the year 587-586BC, for this is the year that the Persian King, Nebuchadnezzar, occupied Jerusalem, destroyed the magnificent temple built by Solomon some 400 years before, and forced the more educated and professional elements of Israelite society to live in exile in far off, pagan Babylon.

The year is a pivotal year for our appreciation of the writings of the prophets. We refer to the category of prophets as ‘pre’ or ‘post’ Exile. One or two of them lived during the period of destruction and catastrophe, experiencing the horror of a pagan king’s forces destroying their city, their temple, their lifestyles, and their culture.

Jeremiah is among that small group of prophets who straddled the pre and post exile years. He is both a prophet of impending judgement and a prophet of hope. He both exhorts the people to acknowledge the realities of their faithless lives, but also provides some of the most beautiful images of the restoration of the exiled peoples, giving them hope of their return into the bosom of their homeland and of their God. The destruction was a deeply painful wound, and the exile was a sorrowful sojourn.

By the water of Babylon we sat down and wept: when we remembered thee, O Sion. As for our harps, we hanged them up: upon the trees that are therein. For they that led us away captive required of us then a song, a melody in our heaviness: Sing us one of the songs of Sion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song: in a strange land?’ (Ps. 137, 1-4)

 This beautiful but melancholic psalm comes from this period of exile. It asks very concisely the question about joyful faith in time of adversity. It seems appropriate to our present circumstances both at the worldwide level, honing down even into our own domestic church challenges.

 

If anyone, though, can sing the Lord’s song in these strange and troubling times – times of estrangement and uncertainty, and even psychological unease for everyone, it must be those who have faith in God. Thoughout history he has remained faithful, and his will is that we should all be restored. Just as we rebelled and were expelled by our sinfulness from Paradise, so his will is to place us back into the Garden of Delight. This is the unending sub-text of the whole of scripture, at times latent but at other times bursting through pain, grief, wars, destruction, even death itself. This surely is THE revelation of the Cross and the Resurrection.

 

We sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. We join our voices to the endless song of heaven – Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

 

Our Lord acknowledges that following him will not be plain sailing – far from it. It will make demands of us. We will find that we are often out of step with prevailing political ideologies; we cannot just accept entirely what the world accepts, though this cannot be expressed in withdrawing from the world, because we are called to be the ‘light and the salt’ for the world. Things happen that may make us tremble; our confidence is shaken; maybe even our faith begins to be infected by doubts. Time and again we are told not to be afraid. Jesus tells us that even the hairs of our head are counted – that always worries me, for I will account for very little!

He warns us that even between families there will be division. We can’t just put up with anything in our families because of that old adage, blood is thicker than water. I would suggest that the water of baptism is thicker than family blood. So yes, we may have to divide ourselves off from our families for the sake of what is right – to follow Jesus.

 

Can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? Of course, so long as we remember the theme of the song.

My song is love unknown,

My Saviour’s love to me,

Love to the loveless shown

That they might lovely be.

O, who am I,

That for my sake

My Lord should take frail flesh and die.

 

(words Samuel Crossman 1624-83. Hymn tune Love Unknown, music John Ireland (1879-1962)