The great French writer and prose stylist, Marcel Proust, understood the power of small things - famously, in his case, a little cake - to unlock a great flood of memories. We all know that, of course, though few of us are likely to write about it, or at such great length, as Proust did, in his seven-volume novel, first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past, more recently as In Search of Lost Things.
For many of us, I suspect, words, phrases, stories from the Bible can have a similarly evocative effect. It happened to me when looking at the readings for this Sunday, specifically when I reached the end of today's passage from Matthew's gospel: "Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
For me, the words immediately translated themselves back into an earlier version. Rather like, I suppose, my ears hearing the recent, newly-translated title of Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Things, but my mind hearing the older version, Remembrance of Things Past.
Reading Matthew's words, I was immediately transported back to the village church of my childhood, to the 8 o'clock service of Holy Communion, to the pew in which we always sat under the medieval wall painting of St Christopher wading through a Buckinghamshire stream, to our Vicar reciting from The Book of Common Prayer:
Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him. Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
No longer do I hear those precise words of welcome Sunday by Sunday, but Sunday by Sunday that very welcome is extended to each of us. To each and every one of us the Lord says: "Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
Sunday by Sunday, he welcomes us here into his Father's house, welcomes us into a time and a place of refreshment. He is the perfect host, welcoming all comers, offering whoever enters in the thing they most need, the thing we all most need: relief from the heavy burdens that we all carry - and peace, that most precious gift of peace.
Today's first reading is another evocative passage. This time because it serves as the backdrop to a familiar episode, one of ecstatic, hope-filled welcome: the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem that we recall each Palm Sunday. Then, the crowds sang and shouted "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"; then, they strewed his way with branches and their garments.
Zechariah's prophecy was written when there was no king in Jerusalem; Zechariah's prophecy looks forward to a time when the king would come to his people, to his city. Though riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass, this king would be triumphant and victorious; this king would have stopped the people's enemies, he would have cut off the chariot... and the war horse; this king would bring, above all else, that thing most desired: he would bring peace, peace to the nations.
Today's psalm, verses from Psalm 145, take up the themes of Zechariah's prophecy, celebrating the king, the king who is the Lord:
The Lord is gracious and merciful: long-suffering and of great goodness.
The Lord is loving unto every man: and his mercy is over all his works...
The Lord upholdeth all such as fall: and lifteth up all those that are down.
The Lord upholdeth all such as fall: and lifteth up all those that are down. Again, we hear beautiful words of comfort, something like the 'comfortable words' of the old Book of Common Prayer. The Lord is concerned for his people, cares for his people, offers rest and refreshment, helps with the heavy burdens that cause us to fall.
The Lord does what he can: he offers us rest, but we do not always take up his offer. Sunday is traditionally the 'day of rest', though here in Britain in the early twenty-first century there is often precious little rest for many on a Sunday. Many do not, or cannot - perhaps for fear of losing their employment - take the divine gift of a day of rest that was given to humankind.
Sabbatarianism apart, with its prescriptive, deviant notions of Sunday, the Lord's day faces difficulties other than those posed by work. The day of rest has become, for most people, two days of rest, what Proust probably did not call 'le weekend.' We have become a 'leisure society.' People are so busy engaging in leisure activities that a day of rest passes most people by.
Indeed, going to church can seem like an intrusion in all this leisure. Christine and I were at a meeting of the diocesan clergy last week. We found ourselves in the same discussion group at one time and the subject of offering worship at other times - weekday evenings, for example - came up. At the time we were talking I thought that maybe this is something we should explore further.
Later, I began to wonder if I had, as it were, the wrong end of the telescope up to my eye. Isn't there something wrong if Christians can't - won't - treat this day as the Lord's? That first and foremost, Sunday is for the worship of God, the God who cares for his people, offers rest and refreshment to his people, helps with the heavy burdens that cause his people to fall.
It isn't easy, I know that; especially in families divided between Christians and non-Christians. The family wants to do something, go somewhere on Sunday which means leaving during the morning, which means there is no time for church. It is a familiar situation; it can lead to stress and tension and upset and argument. It can lead anywhere but to the peace and the refreshment that God offers all people.
We should acknowledge these difficulties. Indeed, acknowledging them, naming them, can lessen the stress and the consequent feelings of guilt. It is a good first step. After all, the divine notion of rest is the removal of burdens. So, we are here now; whatever has gone before, we should relax, here and now, in the knowledge that we are loved by God, that God knows and understands the stresses and strains with which we live.
The second step, having stopped and relaxed for a moment, is to thing about this idea of a 'leisure society.' Iain Sinclair, in one of his writings about London, notices a sign pointing the way to a Leisure Complex, somewhere off the M25. He muses on this, wondering just how complex leisure can be. But he is on to something: there is something wrong when leisure time has become as pressured as work time. When we have, in Fr Tom O'Loughlin's great phrase, 'industrialised leisure time.'
What is actually left for leisure and rest if we spend our time desperately racing about ensuring we squeeze the last drop out of each leisure moment? This is not what God intended. "Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
Let me read something of Fr O'Loughlin's thoughts on all this:
Life is greater than our pressures and concerns and work: that is the insight of the Day of Rest being the Lord's Day. Our life is greater than the sum of its parts. Yet, if we do not reflect regularly on this, and be thankful to God for all his gifts - of which life is basic - we lose the plot and lose the leisure. That is why we Christians call on ourselves to stop regularly, relax and reflect on life and work and leisure, and to bless the Father for his goodness. And our word for 'blessing the Father' is Eucharist. [1]
So, let us not lose Sunday, let us not end up with Sunday being simply a Remembrance of Things Past; let us not waste God's precious gift of leisure In Search of Lost Things. This is the day the Lord has made, a day for resting in the Lord, a day for feeding on in Him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving. May the peace he offers each us sustain each of us all the days of our lives.
Sermon by: Jonathan Mason
[1] Thomas O'Loughlin, Liturgical Resources for the Year of Matthew, Dublin: Columba Press 2007, p.164
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