In a few minutes we shall welcome a little child in his name. Lucy will receive the sacrament of Holy Baptism in this church where her parents, Miriam and Gregory, were married and where her grandparents, Cindy and Paul, have long been members. Lucy is already part of one family, her kith and kin; now we welcome her into that family of which we are all part: the family of the Church, Christ's body in the world.
And what a world she has entered: a world of great beauty and also of terrible suffering. The beauty and the suffering are summarised in just a few words of that first reading from the prophet Jeremiah: those who devised schemes, said, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit." God's wonderful creation is in constant danger of being destroyed, whether we think of that tree with its fruit as the natural world or as the people who inhabit that world.
And who does the destroying? Who are these people who devise schemes? Potentially, sad to say, all of us; each one of us who is about to welcome Lucy into this family of the Church is more than capable of devising schemes and of destroying the tree with its fruit.
Sad to say, the second reading - from the Letter of James - is all too relevant today, two thousand odd years after it was written: What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? [...] You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. This is strong stuff, but who does not recognise that the writer is saying?
Look at the world we live in, the world into which Lucy has been born. Look at the world and ask why, in this day and age, the only way we seem to be able to deal with problems among the countries of the world is to supply weapons, mostly to the poor, and then encourage the use those weapons until someone gives up or one side has no one left standing. If this doesn't sound familiar, then you do not read the newspaper or listen to the news.
Of course, it's not just in the world news: look at the Church itself, this family into which we are about to welcome Lucy. What causes fightings among you?, asks James. Thinking about the Church for a moment, what indeed? What is it about people in the Church that makes it so much easier to exclude than include. Shouldn't members of this particular family know better. After all, who doesn't know the two great commandments: to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself? What is it about these few words that is so difficult to understand?
It is interesting that the lectionary omits a few lines towards the end of this morning's passage from James. The excised lines underline in even stronger terms what the rest of the passage is saying:
Adulterers! he writes, Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, 'God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us'? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'
This is strong stuff, though Jesus says pretty much the same thing in the gospels - but adulterers? That seems a little harsh. And what's so wrong with the world? As I said a moment ago, the world is a thing of great beauty, this tree with its fruit. The world is a gift from God, not something that should make us an enemy of God.
But that's not what James or Jesus are talking about when they use the word world. They are referring instead to what, in these computer-driven times, we might call the operating system of the world. They were referring not to the world itself, but to the way people interact with one another, the systems people set up to run the world, the rules that people devise. That's where the trouble begins. That's where conflicts and disputes, cravings and selfish ambitions prevent people from truly living out those two great commandments.
It is important for Lucy and for all the other children being born into the world, that we understand this: as long as there is oppression, as long as there is disregard for anyone, whether old or young, black or white, gay or straight, of this religion or that, as long as there are laws that ensure only the powerful get ahead, as long as God's people are at enmity with God's people, we're a part of it. We can't opt out: we share in the life and behaviour of all God's people.
As John Donne famously wrote, in from 'Meditation XVII' in the collection Devotions upon Emergent Occasions:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..
What can we say to Lucy, what can we do for Lucy? Is there any good news we can share with her and her generation? First of all, while there are plenty of bad things going on in the world, there are good things too. There are innumerable good things being done by people in this country and in other countries, in this church and in other churches - there are good things that each of us does.
When James says, Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom - that says to us that James knows there are those who are wise and understanding among his hearers. We know the same about ourselves and the communities of which we are a part.
Let us warn Lucy - and thereby remind ourselves - of the dangers: the dangers of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition and all the rest of it. Let us warn Lucy and let us teach Lucy that there is another way: the way encapsulated in the two great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour.
Let us encourage Lucy - and thereby encourage ourselves - to be open to what James describes as the wisdom from above which is peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits. Let us show Lucy that the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Above all, let us share with Lucy - and thereby with one another - the truth with which the passage from James ended: Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Sermon by: Jonathan Mason