“be perfect”
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A sermon preached Readings:
Philippians
3:12-21, Matthew 5:43-48 |
Mt 5:48 “Be perfect”
1. WORLDLY
HOLINESS V RESPECTABILITY
In November
1739 John Wesley was visiting his sister in law in Tiverton.
Whilst there he was invited to preach in Exeter.
So on Sunday 25 Nov 1739 John Wesley preached in the city.
I like to think it was just around the corner at St Mary Arches –
although it could have been a yard or two further away
at St Mary Major.
Either way, John Wesley preached on Romans 14.17
“The
Kingdom of God is not meat and drink
but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost”.
Wesley was to
preach again in the afternoon,
but the Vicar had heard enough –
“Sir,” he said, “you must not preach in
the afternoon.
Not that you preach any false doctrine.
I allow that all you have said is true.
And it is the doctrine of the Church of England.
But it is not guarded. It is
dangerous.
It may lead people into enthusiasm or despair”.
(John Wesley’s Journal 24 Nov 1739)
So that was the end of Wesley’s Parish
Church preaching.
Why?
A variety of reasons doubtless,
but the Vicar quickly recognized that Wesley posed a problem -
was expecting people to take religion seriously.
It wasn’t enough to call yourself a Christian and live a respectable life –
John Wesley said that having found faith
you should spend the rest of your life not just going to church and being
respectable
but actually seeking perfection.
As the old saying has it –
“Going to Church doesn’t make you a Christian
any more than standing in a garage makes you a car” –
which isn’t quite how John Wesley would have put it,
but I think he would have agreed –
at least he would if he’d know what a car was.
This was the sort of radical life
changing recipe
which the 18th Century Christianity wasn’t ready for.
Historically the Church had always
divided Christians into two categories –
those in the Premier League,
who sought holiness and saintliness (in deserts or monasteries)
and those of us in the Nationwide League –
the ordinary people who got on with daily life at a lower less holy level.
But John Wesley said to the ordinary
people in the streets of Exeter and elsewhere –
you are called to be perfect,
and that means not withdrawal from the complexities of everyday living,
but seeking to work out “scriptural holiness” in everyday dealings.
You know about the lady complaining about
Carols
being played in the department store during December –
Whatever next, she said, they’re even bring religion
into Christmas now.
Well John Wesley said in effect – We’ve
got to bring religion and the search for holiness into everyday life.
2. PERFECTION NOW OR VISION FOR HEAVEN?
People criticised John Wesley for seeming
to say
that some form of Christian perfection could be achieved in this life.
There are some deep theological waters here –
and if you want to fathom the deeper aspects of the subject, please ask over
coffee,
and I’ll happily pass your question on to John Lawson.
In a nutshell,
John Wesley did not expect people to attain perfect sinless lives in this world
–
but he did believe that there was a level of saintly wholeness and maturity
which was achievable in the power of the Spirit
and which should be out guiding aim throughout life.
“Be ye therefore perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect”
I don’t want to say a lot today about the
ongoing Anglican debate on sexuality –
not least because we thought quite a bit about that a couple of weeks ago.
Suffice to say this here –
Being perfect isn’t about keeping a set of rules -
it is about being whole and complete and fulfilled
in the power of God’s love. -
Sexuality – like anything else –
is holy and Godly precisely, only and always
when it makes people and partners and societies more loving and whole.
Maybe in terms of sexuality and every
other part of life
we should spend less time throwing stones and more time asking
how God’s spirit can enrich and fulfil the potential for love and wholeness.
And who knows what we may not be able to
do and be in God’s power?
John Wesley had a huge belief in the power of the God in our lives –
and so he refused to limit the power of the Spirit –
and hence said we should aim at nothing less than perfect holiness –
The trouble of course is that we stop
expecting God’s power to be at work
in ourselves, the Church or the world.
Here is a piece by Gordon Rupp talking
about very down to earth matters-
“One has the impression that many modern
Christians
have simply ceased to believe that perfection is the divine goal for them….
We come easily to accept the defects of character in fellow Christians
,
to suppose that they will never be any different.
We become accustomed to the jarring pettinesses
which mar our Christian fellowship,
we almost expect that five years hence (unless providentially removed
elsewhere)
the same awkward squad will upset the leaders or the Society Meeting
(Mr Grouser, Mrs ‘I-Don’t-Want-to-Criticize-But’, Mrs Gossip,
Mr ‘Righteous-Indignation-Unconfined’, and Mr
‘Speak-the-Truth-without-Love).
We have lost the glad assurance that
if the Church is a hospital it is a place where, by the grace of God, cures
take place,
and where men and women can grow into the mind of Christ towards one another….”
[“Christian perfection” in the Methodist
recorder 1 Dec 1949, quoted in “Wisdom and Wit: an anthology from the Writings
of Gordon Rupp” MPH,
n.d.]
3. INDIVIDUAL OR SOCIAL HOLINESS?
So are we called towards perfection -
and note the perfection we seek is for the whole of society,
not just our private souls.
During the Russian uprising of 1905
Tolstoy was at the height of his powers and urging people to individually
perfect characters.
Gorky wrote to him reminding him of all the people who were tangled up in the
social conflict –
“But think, Lev Nicholaevich,
is it possible for a man to occupy himself with morally perfecting his
character
at a time when men and women are being shot down in the streets?”
(quoted in Orlando Figes, A People’s
Tragedy, 1996 p.182)
And this was John Wesley’s message:
purity of the individual soul and the perfecting of human society.
Look around the Church at our
tercentenary displays
& you will see plenty about Wesley’s preaching and his evangelism and
converting power –
but see also the practical determination to work for a better world
Look here at all his medical apparatus
and remedies –
his medical book was called “Primitive Physic” and some of it is pretty
primitive:
”I don’t know of many Methodist men, for
example,
who rub onions onto their heads to cure baldness”
But, as Donald English used to say,
“That may be why we have so many bald headed Methodist men!”
(Donald
English, From Wesley’s Chair, 1979 p 89; Wesley Primitive Physic 1747 para 57.)
But – when we have finished smiling at
his cures,
we remember that within the limits of his age
here was a man who was making serious attempts
to bring health and wholeness to body mind and spirit.
And so we find John Wesley playing Doctor
and prison Visitor and Educationalist.
We find him campaigning on behalf of French prisoners of War at Knowle –
his equivalent of Guantanamo Bay –
and his very last letter is to Wilberforce encouraging him in the fight against
slavery.
And so we could go on – personal holiness manifested in social righteousness.
Its all part of what Nancy and Harriet
and Trevor were singing about –
being held by God is just the beginning –
we are then called to lead holy lives in which we offer that hand to others.
I am delighted that at the heart of our
display we have the world as Wesley’s parish
and modern posters about our mission and service
And how good this week to receive a
bundle of papers from Ben Bradshaw MP
in response to the lobbying organized by our young people about Third World
debt.
Personal holiness cannot be divorced from
wholeness and harmony of the whole human race.
4. INHERITING WESLEY’S LEGACY
And so as Christian and as Methodists
we are called to seek scriptural holiness,
social and individual sanctity in the world.
It was Frances de Sales writing 150 years
before Wesley
who commented on how high was the mountain of Christian perfection.
How could we ascend such dizzy heights?
Then he looked at some young bees –nymphs –
hardly yet able to fly over a flower.
But in time their wings will grow
and then they will fly high up and over the mountainside.
And yet, he says, we are spiritually like
young bees –
not yet able to attain the summit of perfection.
But in God’s power may our wings grow until we too may fly.
“And meanwhile” he says
“let us live on the honey of the precepts
which devout people of old have left us in such large quantity”
(from
“Introduction to the Devout Life by Francis de Sales, quoted in Victor Gollacz, A Year of Grace, 1950)
So today, saved by grace, we strive for
perfection
and give thanks for the saints who have gone before us –
not least John and Charles Wesley.
And a final picture from Pilgrim’s
Progress.
At the end of life’s pilgrimage lame and
hobbling Mr Ready-To-Halt
finally reaches the river of death
and is called to the Lord’s table on the other
side.
As he goes he makes his will.
All I possess, he says, are my crutches –
“ ‘These crutches I
bequeath to my son that shall tread in my steps;
with a hundred warm wishes that he may prove better than I have done.’
When he came at the brink of the river, he said,
‘Now I shall have no more need of these crutches;
since yonder are chariots and horses for me to ride on.’
The last words he was heard to say were,
‘Welcome, life!’ So he went his way.”
Today we thank God for John Wesley and
for the vision he has left us.
And we his spiritual heirs claim his
inheritance.
May we walk in the path of discipleship
with such help as John Wesley has bequeathed to us.
In this life may we be permanently and
profoundly
dissatisfied with what we are and the world is -
and strain towards perfection.
And when our earthly pilgrimage is
finally over,
and with angels and archangels and John and Charles and Susannah and all the
saints
we have finally crossed over
and gathered around the throne of the lamb,
then may we sing the songs of Zion at last in perfect harmony and
“Enter into the promised rest,
The Canaan of thy perfect love”
[HAP 726]