One of the things Vicars do is to take funerals – to bury the dead. This is one of the parts of my ministry that I love the most. People think I’m really weird when I say I enjoy taking funerals – especially when I say I enjoy taking funerals than I enjoy doing weddings. Of course there are wonderful weddings – I’m looking at some wonderfully wedded people right now. And there are some fairly awful funerals – we’ve had one or two in the last 18 months. But generally speaking, I love doing a funeral.
Why is this? One reason is that I love hearing accounts of people’s lives – and you know, no two people are ever the same. It fascinates me that God made us all different – unique. I marvel at this. When I speak at a funeral I like to sniff out what the image of God was in the person whose funeral I’m taking: was it love, compassion, a passion for truth or justice, looking after people, pleasure in the natural world. At my grandmother’s funeral I decided God’s likeness in her was knitting – Psalm 139 tells us that God knitted us – and my grandmother knitted everything it was possible to knit. In the war she used to be sent gloves with no thumbs and socks with no heel which inexpert knitters had made for the troops – it was her job to pull them back and remake them properly. And of course this is what God does with us – he pulls us back and starts again – and again and again.
Later in life my Grandmother knitted vests for the street children of Calcutta as part of her devotion to Mother Theresa. So knitting was also an expression of her love and care for these poor children who had nothing.
I digress – I love doing funerals. So what am I to make of that sentence in today’s Gospel ‘let the dead bury their own dead: go and proclaim the kingdom’. Where have I gone wrong? What on earth does Jesus mean by this? How can we not bury our loved ones? Are funerals unchristian?
As Christians all of us have to decide how we will follow Jesus Christ. My calling is as a Priest and so I do funerals, and do them in such a way as to show kindness and loving care and to proclaim Jesus’ promises of hope. This is all the more important in a culture which habitually and perpetually tends to deny and even run from death and grief and loss. So to me, doing a funerals is not when the ‘dead are burying the dead,’ but when those living in faith and hope are doing so.
But most of us are not ever likely to conduct a funeral. So perhaps we ought to worry a bit more about that other sentence where Jesus tells someone there isn’t time to go home and say goodbye to people before taking the road with him: no one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.
What is Jesus saying to us here? What can he mean? This is a lovely image to explore. Ploughing is a real art and farmers still hold ploughing competitions to see who can make the straightest furrow. If you look carefully you can sometimes still see ploughing trees in hedgerows – if you keep the your plough tree straight ahead you’ll make a nice straight furrow, but if you look back over your shoulder you’ll make a wiggly bit in your furrow and you certainly won’t win any competitions. And wiggly furrows make weeding and harvesting much more difficult.
In the image Jesus is talking about our commitment and single mindedness in following him. For those first disciples to follow Jesus was a huge decision – as we heard in our Gospel today, they left their livelihoods and families and took to the road. These men and women may have paused to say goodbye to their families but they didn’t look back – they were single minded in their faith and commitment to Jesus. After the resurrection these people left familiar places and travelled to the ends of the earth to bring the gospel – the good news – to all people.
But what about us. What are we called to do? What does it mean for us not to bury our dead or look back over our shoulder at the plough? I think what Jesus was getting at was our need to be single minded or purposeful as Christians. Very often our faith comes bottom of a long list of priorities – after swimming lessons or karate and all the million and one things kids are expected to do these days, family, work, hobbies, homework, holidays, money, cleaning the car and so on. I could go on for ever.
In today’s Gospel Jesus is reminding us that our faith should be top priority. In many places across the world to be a Christian is to risk your life – that focusses the mind somewhat. Is faith really that important? For some, it is, and many lose their lives as a consequence. For us it may seem easier to be a Christian – maybe too easy. It’s easy for us to forget what Jesus really calls us to – to live our faith 24/7/365.
Very often this is about HOW we do things, rather than giving them up. Going on holiday and being a Christian are compatible things – maybe you find a church to attend while you’re away, or spend some time reflecting on your life and faith. And so it is with many areas or life – we do these things as Christians – go to work, manage our money, enjoy our hobbies. Our
AMEN
Rev’d Anne Morris
faith can permeate these things – people might even notice that there’s something a bit different about how we do things – they might even ask why this is, which gives a good opportunity to tell people about our faith.
On the other hand, it is very easy for us to fill our lives with so much stuff that our faith gets squeezed out or neglected. I notice this often at St Oswald’s – that doing stuff for the church always gives way to other activities – it becomes the last priority, the least important thing. Sometimes it clearly doesn’t cross people’s minds to put church, or faith, first and let other things wait.
Let me tell you about my Great Grandfather, a fiery redhead, Thomas Bell. I can remember him quite well when he was an old man, sitting in his chair next to the range in his kitchen. He was a miner in hard times. For 6 months of the year, 6 days a week he never saw daylight, going down the pit before dawn, and returning home after sunset. On Sundays he used to play football, until a Methodist preacher came to the village and challenged him to go to church instead. Thomas Bell burned his football boots on the village green as an act of penance, and from then on, he went to church.
This might seem extreme to us, but what had happened was that he suddenly understood God’s commitment to him and he chose to give his all in return. My great-grandfather was not a religious extremist. Nor was he holier-than-thou – very far from it. But he knew of God”s love, he knew that Jesus had died for him, he understood something of God’s love for him. And he responded – he gave something up and made God his priority.
And that is worth thinking about. Have you ever stopped to consider God’s love for you, the lengths God went to save you, God’s forgiveness. Once we begin to comprehend these things our priorities begin to change and our commitment gains new focus. So, this week, stop to consider God’s love and then consider your priorities. What can you give in return? Where should your priorities lie? How can you give thanks for this overwhelming and unending love which refused to hate and so lead Jesus to die a cruel death? Jesus asks us, through today’s Gospel, to consider our priorities, to put our hand to the plough and not look back. Amen.
AMEN
Rev’d Anne Morris
CProper8
All Age Craft Group
Meanwhile our all age group was having great fun making fruit mobiles and learning about the Fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. THey then prepared fruit for us all to share after the service – makes a change from our recent consumption of large amounts of cake!
