For richer or poorer

Sermon preached at Whitkirk Parish Church

Palm Sunday (Year B) - Evensong 6th April 2009

Today is the end of the tax year.  Do you feel richer or poorer at the moment?  According to one measure we are now in a period of deflation, so we should be feeling richer as prices drop.  But the Governor of the Bank of England recently had to write another one of those letters to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining why inflation is higher than the Government target, why prices are rising faster than they would like them to.  Confused?  It all depends what’s in your shopping trolley as to whether prices are rising or falling!  The deflation basket includes mortgages and if you have a tracker mortgage you are doing pretty well at the moment with interest rates practically through the floor.  If you rely on savings income, you see a different picture.  This is also the indicator that is used to set index linked pensions and certain benefits etc, so it represents bad news for those looking for increases.  The higher index includes the stuff we tend to actually buy like food and fuel.  So some things are cheaper and some are clearly not.  A wind that brings savings for some brings cuts for others.  Nothing is straightforward at the moment.  We don’t seem to even know whether house prices are rising or falling!

Our psalm (69:1-20) this evening was quite appropriate for these gloomy days.  It began with a cry for salvation because we are drowning and all looks lost.  Admittedly this is about suffering for the cause of right, rather than bad economic fortune, but as a cry for help it seemed rather appropriate.  This is actually more relevant than might seem obvious because there are passages in the Old Testament that interpret bad fortune with unfaithfulness to God’s ways, so for a psalm to lament suffering that is not our fault is quite helpful.  Things are just bad – perhaps because of others wrong doing, perhaps because the tide that directed the course of events was just too strong for us to stop on our own and we find ourselves suffering the consequences despite living faithfully, or thriftily and frugally.

The other readings don’t really offer much hope (Isaiah 5:1-7 and Mark 12:1-12).  The image of the vineyard is vivid, with careful gardening and management.  But rebellion is afoot and it will result in destruction and desolation!  These are readings of judgement and not consolation.  So we are left out in the cold.

Today we stand with Jesus as he makes a triumphal entry into Jerusalem and it looks like things are on the up.  But we know the story already.  We know that everyone will desert him. The Son, the heir, will be rejected and he will suffer.  Good Friday lies just a few days away and its darkness must be faced and felt.  There is a cold wind coming and he will be overwhelmed by it.  Today for many they are Good Friday people.

It could be superficial to say that we also know that Easter Day is coming next week and we will share in its joy, its triumph and its glory.  And there are many who emotionally and psychologically will not travel through this week.  Their mental map does not include Good Friday.  But Good Fridays are real and there is more honesty and reality about a faith that embraces the Good Friday darkness as well as offering the hope of Easter.  The frailty of our lives is embraced by Good Friday and it is only by embracing it that it can be redeemed by the astounding news of Easter.

There will no doubt be a resurgence in our economic wellbeing.  It may take a while to appear but it will come.  Whenever it comes, though, we need to remember that our true security and fortune does not rest with it.  And I think this is why the story and tragedy of Jade Goody, whose funeral took place yesterday, has so gripped so many people.  In this gloom the sadness of her young death directs us to what really counts in life.  I had a similar conversation with a grave digger after I’d buried a baby in our cemetery.  Both us felt that it makes you count your blessings and get life into perspective.  Some things matter more than others and in Christ embracing Good Friday and the triumph of Easter we have a hope that goes beyond them all.

© Ian Black 2009