Sun, Moon and Stars
And so we come to the sun, the moon and the stars, the fourth day of God’s creation of this wonderful world that He made to place us lovingly into...and the fourth in our Sunday morning series on creation. It also happens to be my last Sunday here at Saint Mellitus, so I hope you will forgive me if I take a few liberties!
In the beginning...God created. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit danced together as they saw that everything they made was good. In the beginning, which was on Sunday 26 June 2005, I came to St Mellitus as a full-time curate – someone called with a responsibility for the ‘cure of souls’. When I was called to come to this church, I didn’t consult my horoscope or my local psychic. I trusted God. As Psalm 13, the Psalm for that day in 2005 put it, ‘But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.’ The Lord has had wonderful plans for me, and those plans included three wonderful years at St Mellitus - wonderful because of all of the wonderful people that I have come to know and love. The Hebrew Scriptures love repetition to make a point...did you pick up that it’s been wonderful?!
So I turn to my three point sermon about God’s creation of the sun, moon and stars!
Firstly, Jesus is the Light of the World
Over and over, as I have asked the Lord what I should share with you today, the answer has been, ‘Focus on Jesus! Glorify Jesus! Share the joy of Jesus’ salvation! I would be letting you down if I didn’t go away leaving you with that message. Jesus says, ‘I have come that they may have life – life to the full.’ – that has certainly been my own experience and I want with all my heart for it to be yours as well. It’s amazing that God created the sun to give us light and warmth by day and the moon to shine by night. It’s beautiful to lie out on the soft grass at night, as we do in France, and look at the sparkling stars in the sky and the ‘shooting stars’ that surprise from time to time. Those are wonders that anyone with physical sight can see and marvel at. But what gives light to the darkness that pervades our inner being? Only God Himself! The Gospel of John tells us another creation story. ‘In the beginning was the Word – the creative Word that was with God and was God - that made the whole world.’ It takes a while to work out that this Word is, in fact, Jesus. John keeps us guessing. ‘Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Later, Jesus explicitly says, ‘I am the light of the world.’ This is monstrous arrogance, a delusion, a lie, or the truth. For those of us who know Jesus, the truth is that he brings light to every corner of our being, if we give Him permission to (He never forces Himself on us) – and sometimes it can be jolly uncomfortable, because there are some ugly things in those recesses! But I wouldn’t have it any other way, because that is what has set me free – over and over again.
Secondly, we have a choice between Slavery and Freedom – choose freedom! (Romans 6.12-end)
The sun and the moon have often attracted the worship of people. It was imagined that they were divine beings. In the Inca Empire, for example, the sun and the moon formed two parallel lines of divinity, the sun male and the moon female. These divinities were said to have come to earth in the forms of Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo. They in turn together produced the divine royal line of the Incas. These elite rulers in turn could only marry each other’s sisters and brothers, to maintain their own divinity. This is what the Bible would call idolatry – it is putting anything created in the place of the creator. And the Bible calls an ‘idol’ literally a ‘nothing’! An idol is not a living being, it is a created thing, whether created by God, or created by human beings. But there are many advantages to an idol!
· An idol can be controlled – giving people the illusion of great power
· An idol ‘serves’ the person who worships by giving them a false sense of superior identity
· An idol can be used for one’s own purposes
· With an idol, we can avoid relationship – relationships always carry with them elements of pain as well as joy, because we get to see ourselves through the eyes of other living beings – especially God – who can then make demands on us.
I could go on. Ultimately, idols enslave. But it is in fact we ourselves who allow ourselves to be enslaved by our own desires for power, prestige, superiority and so on. All these are what the Bible calls sin, because in turning away from God to idols we are putting ourselves in God’s place – and that is the beginning of all sin – when we are in control rather than God. This is what it says in a passage read on 26 June 2005, ‘in the beginning’ of my time here at St Mellitus: ‘But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.’ God alone lives, and in sharing His life with us we choose to accept it or not. Or, to put it another way, in sharing Jesus, who is our life, with us, we choose to accept Him or not – and live or not, according to our own choice. In and of ourselves, we have no life – it is the gift of God.
Thirdly, Time Moves On...my three years are up!
The sun, the moon and the stars help us to tell times and seasons. Psalm 104.19 tells us that ‘He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.’ [Papa fishing by the lunar tables.] They are the outward signs of another creation – TIME. We are created as creatures limited by time, placed in the middle of a good creation made especially for us, and we ourselves declared ‘very good’ by God, but with ‘eternity in our hearts’ – we have the capacity to be welcomed into eternity, but only on the basis of relationship – both with God and with others. In acceptance of who God created us to be is our eternal meaning. Hear Psalm 8: ‘When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.’ The Psalmist’s response to all this is not, ‘WOW! Isn’t God’s creation wonderful!’ That is an observer’s response that avoids addressing God Himself. The Psalmist is much more personal. ‘Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!’ God, the Word, is more important. His creation speaks of Him, the one who spoke them into being, and in turn elicits words in response from us.
Time will end, just as my time here has come to an end. In Revelation chapter 21, at the end of the Bible – that wonderful time-encapsulated story of God’s dealings with human beings – we have the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth. There it tells us that the apostle John ‘heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ It goes on: ‘The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb [that is Jesus] is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. On no day will its gates ever shut, for there will be no night there.’ That is our future hope, when the sun and the moon are no longer needed.
But what about in the meantime? I leave St Mellitus with enormous gratitude. It is a strange thing to be a curate. One comes knowing that it is for a fixed period of time. And everyone else knows that, too! You arrive in the middle of something and you leave in the middle of something else! I am so thankful for the love and welcome I have experienced from the first moment I stepped foot in this place. I have had enormous fun being involved, both in areas that I previously had some experience of, and other areas about which I knew nothing! Most of all, I take away with me those new friendships that I know will grow and develop in the years ahead. As 12th century Aelred of Rievaulx would put it, they are ‘blessed friendships’ because they are ‘spiritual friendships’. Thank you. I rejoice in adding one more God-son! Bless you, Jonny. I am also grateful to John, my vicar, for the freedom he has given me to pursue much more than my role here at St Mellitus. Some of you already know, but during the three years with you God has graciously helped me to complete a PhD, develop the ministry of spiritual direction that I so love, continue my involvement with the North Thames Ministerial Training Course for ordinands, work with the youth of a Roman Catholic parish in Willesden Green where my chaplain colleague at St Dominic’s 6th Form College, Father Hugh, now serves and share in a joint ministry of quiet days for churches with my husband John.
As I move on to another ‘time-encapsulated’ period at St Hugh in Northolt, I need your prayers – especially in three areas.
· Youth Work – Becky and Cosie have been called by God in an area that has hundreds of young people. Pray for wisdom as to how best to reach these young people with the love of Jesus.
· Healers are always wounded healers – there is great power in relinquishing bitterness and allowing God to heal us so that we can in turn be the means of healing for others. That is a big part of the nature of St Hugh. It is a healing church. Pray for continued ministry in that area and for protection.
· Pray that the members of the church will continue to grow in confidence as they use the gifts that God has given, especially those who have recently become Christians.
St Hugh is a church that re-opened at Easter in 2005 with 23 people. It is a small building that holds about 100 people comfortably, and now has a membership of just over 80. The members come from 17 different countries! As our experience in Papua New Guinea, a country with over 1000 different languages showed us, there is a great benefit in not having any group be a natural majority! It is a microcosm of our world, praising God together. Please pray that that strength will continue to be a means of growth and deepening of faith in Jesus.
Please stay for lunch in the vicarage garden after the service – I’d love to be able to share more with you then. And don’t forget – Jesus is the light of St Mellitus – choose freedom in Him – and remember: time isn’t everything - our relationship with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is what sums us all up!