• Home
• Services at Saint Peter’s
• Theology
  • What We Believe
  • The Pulpit
  • The Caversham Lectures
• News
  • News and Opinion
  • The Rock Archive
  • News Archive
  • Our Printed Heritage
  • Photo Gallery
• People
  • Friends of Saint Peter’s
  • External Links
• About
  • Music at Saint Peter’s
  • Saint Peter’s Character
  • Our History
  • Church Groups
  • Staff and Contacts
  • How to Get Here
• Login
  • Parishioners’ login
  • Vestry Members’ login
• Search Saint Peter’s

The Deepest and Darkest Word in Scripture

14th Sunday : 6 July 2014   :  Matthew 11: 25-30

Motivational speakers have become a feature of the work place in our time. Many managers see them as a way of getting more out of the workforce. They hope that the workers will want to stay at the office longer, and do more with greater effectiveness. So they bring in a plus personality, usually from the sporting world, who will give the workers a gee up. Part entertainers, part revivalist preachers, these highly paid performers are there to infuse inspiration and enthusiasm into the troops.

Drive, commitment, the desire to succeed. These are highly desirable traits in any organisation. And it is a pleasure to work with people who have enthusiasm and a positive attitude. But a follow on effect can be that you can be surrounded by highly competitive people with a pushy attitude in your work place.

Before motivational speakers there were the people who ran assertiveness courses. They told people how to stand up for themselves, how to present themselves in a confident manner, how to have courage in public situations. There were techniques for teaching this. I remember one book which recommended going into a cafe, asking for a glass of water, drinking it straight off, thanking the staff, and then leaving without offering to pay. It was all a question of nerve.

For many unconfident people these courses were a God send. It gave them the edge they needed to sell themselves in the job market, and to tackle difficult situations in their personal lives. We became a nation of people who wouldn‘t stand for any nonsense from overbearing others.

But sometimes I wonder where all this has taken us to. I notice at some of the meetings I go to outside the parish how people can constantly interrupt one another. There is sometimes a competitive atmosphere of people vying for centre stage, determined to grab the floor and keep it in a display of motor mouth virtuosity. Subtle put down techniques abound. Sometimes I feel as though I have entered a jungle of competing egos.

Maybe what we need now are humility classes. Learning the techniques of giving everyone a say at meetings, listening to one another with respect, deferring to one another on inessentials. Perhaps we have got a bit too much attitude now. Bossiness, and high dominance needs are so unattractive. But humble acts of service and giving way to one another in love – this is more and more appealing to me as the years roll by.

I say this by way of introduction to considering what Karl Barth called, "the deepest and darkest word in Scripture." "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one fully knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Puzzling words because surely God is in the business of clear communication. Wasn‘t the point of the Incarnation that human beings would come to a new depth of understanding in their relationship with God? And how capricious can you get to only let certain people into the secret of who God is and how you can get in contact. It all sounds rather darkly predestinarian.

One thing is clear from this text. Faith is a gift from God. It isn‘t just something that we work out for ourselves. That seems to ring true to experience. Why some people are tone deaf to religion, while others get it right from the start. And it helps to explain why some people turn around from a life without God, and quite unexpectedly make faith a very important part of their life. Faith is a gift that God is trying to give. Are we open to receive it?

For our inner attitudes predispose us to accept or reject the gift. The humble and lowly of heart are the ones who get it, what the King James version called "babes," and it didn‘t mean it in the modern sense of gorgeous babes. God loves humility, loves humble people, puts them first in the queue to receive faith. But the proud and the arrogant, referred to somewhat ironically in this morning‘s text as "the wise and intelligent," they are far from God‘s favour. They are so full of themselves that there isn‘t room in their lives for the living God. And besides, God isn‘t terribly keen on them while they are at this insufferable stage. God can cope with a bit of cheek. But arrogance and pride he cannot abide.

There is a reason for that. Nothing destroys community faster than arrogant behaviour, particularly when it has infected the tone setters. And God has chosen to tabernacle in the midst of community. That fragile project called the Church is where God is taking the risk of walking alongside us. Nothing besmirches his reputation faster than bossy boots behaviour on our part. It isn‘t the way the members of the Trinity treat each other. There is community right at the core of God. The three identities of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit defer to each other, and treat one another with gentleness, courtesy and respect. So there is a quality control issue here.

And the quality of life within the Christian community is an issue raised by the final words of this morning‘s Gospel. These are the famous "comfy words" of the old Prayer book. "Come to me all you that are weary and heavy laden–Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me–.For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Jesus is talking about himself as the revealer of the new law, a law which is easy to keep, unlike the law of the Scribes and the Pharisees, because it is the law of love.

In any community of faith which is worthy of the name we should always be asking ourselves whether we are loading burdens onto people that are of our own making, or whether we are putting them in the way of being yoke bearers who are being drawn into adult maturity through a due measure of responsibility and challenge.

At the end of his fascinating book on "the Pentecostals" Walter Hollenweger asks these penetrating questions of any Church. "Is the function of a particular religious practice or doctrine in the social context in which it occurs that of healing and integrating people, giving them a fuller humanity and helping them to reach a critical maturity? Does it set people free from pressures and fears? Does it help them to have an evangelical commitment to help the world and the whole of Christianity? Or does it narrow their horizons, maim them and make them immature?"

These are questions for any Christian community to ponder on about their life together in Christ. Are we humble and lowly bearers of Christ‘s yoke, or is it another kind of burden we are carrying?