Still and secure

Sermon on the Fifth Sunday after Trinity

Holy Trinity Church, Llandudno & St Tudno’s Church, Great Orme; 21 July 2019

Genesis 18:20–32; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:6–19; St Luke 11:1–13

When are you still and secure in the company of Christ?

+ In nomine

“Mary sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks.”

Martha reminds me quite a bit of my grandmother. My grandmother was a proud woman. She had standards, and she had expectations. She had her Sunday best for Church — many versions of it. She had the better china set, that would come out when there were visitors, and the best set that would come out if the visitors were clergy. She showed her love and concern for those of us around her by wanting to make sure that everything was perfect and as it should be. And in that way of life she never stopped, not until she was too ill to carry on.

She was a woman of huge energy and commitment, and I see her perfectionism, her standards, even her pride, in my mother and in me to this day.

Not that all of that made her, I think, an easy woman — as I suspect Martha, in our Gospel story today, wasn’t an easy woman either. Standards, expectations, busy-ness, pride can be born from anxiety, from a lack of stillness and security, and that anxiety can become something that overwhelms us.

One of the saddest conversations I ever had with my grandfather, as he cared for my grandmother during her final illness, was when he said that he had hoped that there would have come a time during their retirement when they would be less busy, when they might have relaxed, when standards and expectations might have been a bit lower, when there would have been less anxiety; and his realisation that this, now, would never happen.

When are you still and secure in the company of Christ?

“Martha, Martha,” says Jesus, “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Martha in today’s Gospel passage.

There she is in the kitchen, working hard, doing all those things that she thinks need to be done, while her sister seemingly does nothing.

And then Jesus says that only one thing needs to be done at that moment, only one thing is needful — to be with him.

Seen like that, Mary isn’t doing nothing — she’s doing the one thing, the every-thing, that matters at that moment. She is spending time, still and secure, in Christ’s presence, being attentive to him.

When are you still and secure in the company of Christ?

Abraham, in our first reading, makes it look so simple — this task of being with the Lord. It comes easily to him. By the oaks of Mamre, in that ancient and holy place, he is able to know God’s presence; to welcome God as a companion and friend; to know, even, what God’s call on his life will look like.

But in our daily lives, of course, it’s not easy. Being still and secure in the company of Christ is one of the hardest things we do. One of the paradoxes, one of the odd things, about the Christian life, is that it takes hard work, perseverance, virtue, wisdom, to be able to do no more than be — still and secure — in Christ’s company.

Mary seemingly does nothing — but her “everything” act of being with Jesus, still and secure in his company, is, for us, the work of a lifetime.

When are you still and secure in the company of Christ?

Over the ages, over the centuries, Christian people have found, have cultivated different ways of coming into the company of Christ.

For some, it has been through reading and meditating on the words of Scripture. Taking a passage, such as our Gospel reading today, and living with it, imagining ourselves in it, allowing it to speak to us, returning to it daily for a while; and in it, finding something of God’s presence.

For others, it has been through marvelling at the work of God in Creation. In the beauty of landscape and sunset, in the awesomeness of storm and evolution, in the delicate beauty of wild flowers or a flock of birds, we can see something of God’s hand and care and immanence and company.

For others again, it has been in places like this — in church, in music, in sacrament — that God feels near and present. Others, outside the walls of church, have come close to Christ in serving others — seeing Jesus in the poor and outcast, in the sick and the suffering — and in being near to them have been near to Christ himself.

For many of us, perhaps, we come closest to being with Christ when we are most aware of our own weakness, or sadness, or loneliness, or need. In times of darkness in our lives we may feel Christ’s presence most closely. In the words of Bishop Timothy Rees’s hymn, “when human hearts are breaking, under sorrow’s iron rod, then we find that self-same aching deep within the heart of God.”

None of us will find Christ’s company in the same way. But in Bible or Creation, in church or in service of others, in self-knowledge and vulnerability, how will you, this week, this summer, seek to find Jesus Christ, and spend time in his company?

When are you still and secure in the company of Christ?

Writing to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul says two important things about being still and secure in the company of Christ — about, in his words, being “mature in Christ.”

First, he says how important it is — it has been the main aim, the main achievement of his ministry to help people to become mature in Christ — to help people to know Christ’s awesome glory in their lives.

Secondly, he makes the point that, when all is said and done, this Christ whom we seek is not something or somebody out there who will come and sit around a table with us, as with Abraham, or at whose feet we might sit, like Mary did.

Christ is in us, says Paul. In our very depth, dwelling in us, and waiting, waiting to spend time in our company.

When will Christ, who dwells in you, be still and secure in your company this summer?