Sermon on the Second Sunday Before Lent - Don't Worry - The Ven. Peter Sutton

When Jesus says don’t worry, the first thing I do … is worry. I just can’t help it.

At the moment there’s a lot to worry about.

Thankfully, in the same passage Jesus used another word which helps us worriers. That’s the word ‘strive’.  It means more than just doing; it means to making a real effort, to struggle for something, or to fight vigorously for something.  It says to me, don’t just worry about the minor stuff; strive, make a real effort or fight for the things that really matter – and then let God be God.

But then, feeling helpless about Gaza, Ukraine, South Sudan, the DRC, world politics or whatever, I worry that I haven’t been striving enough … which is the right moment to open up the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.

There we have a beautiful story of creation. In this story God does a week’s striving like no other. God has strived to create something beautiful.  God has strived to create something that all holds together in a kind of perfect harmony. The story of creation to this point at least presents a picture of peaceful coexistence.

Just worrying about how the world is falling apart won’t change anything, but in striving to protect what God has made we are reminded that, as humankind made in God’s image, we are co-creators with our own part to play.  When worrying is transformed into doing, into striving for that which is right, then we play our part in restoring the beauty and the harmony of what God has made.

At the moment there is so much disharmony.

Two weeks ago the Choir came out to sing evensong at Greatham, one of my four churches. Thank you choir, thank you David, Sachin and Jo, thank you Cathedral, for coming up to the pointy end of the diocese and for creating the music through which the wonderful harmony of God is proclaimed. Voices working together for the glory of God. Thank you.

It was an extra treat because there was no need for me to play the organ as well as lead the service which I often do  because organists are in short supply up there in rural Hampshire.

One of my strategies to reduce the worry about playing the organ and leading a service, is to play a disruptive game.  The game is called one hymn to the tune of another. It’s a good game for long car journeys or boring sermons – just  to contemplate, for example, what it would be like if I played a completely different tune to the one the congregation are expecting. Of course, some hymns work to many tunes but usually when the hymn is announced there is just one tune that people are expecting. For the disruptor in me to contemplate a tune to which the words won’t fit is oddly amusing but it comes with the challenge of making us work even harder at the task in hand.

The words and the tune really matter. Sometimes I suspect, the tune matters even more than the words …. But whichever is the greater, they do need to work together. The metre of the words needs to fit with the structure of the melody; and the key and the pitch of the music all matter.

I wonder for example what it would be like to sing our last hymn this evening ‘The duteous day now ended’ to the theme tune of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. Or perhaps, what would it be like to try and fit the words of the Trinity Hymn ‘Holy, holy, holy.’ to the music of Abba’s ‘Money, money, money.’  Just thinking about it reduces my worry, makes me smile and affirms my belief that singing the right words to the right tune really does matter.

For the worship to be the very best we can offer, which should be our goal, then the tune and the words interlock. The beauty, the harmony, the coexistence of things being in sync matters.  Just worrying about it not working doesn’t help; striving to make sure we sing the right words to the right tune in church and in every aspect of life is important – it is part of the ongoing work of creation.

Often, and especially at the moment, it feels to me that both the world and the Church are out of sync with themselves and with each other. The world in its failure to honour the beauty and integrity of what God has made; the church in its failure to be and do what matters most to God and in looking inwards rather than out.

As a theological student in Lincoln, I made friends with a gargoyle high up in the Cathedral’s Angel Choir.   The Lincoln Imp, as it is known, is a grotesque which according to legend was blown into the cathedral by the devil.  It became what we would call today a disruptor, a legendary causer of chaos, an influencer of change by creating havoc rather than harmony. The legends surrounding the Imp are numerous though originally, I suspect, it was just a stone mason having a laugh, and in the process telling an important truth which could be seen from below but not altered.

For me the Imp has been a reminder that striving can be done in surprising, creative and sometimes disruptive ways if Jesus, the greatest disruptor, is our guide; helping us to see the wood for the trees, or in other words, the Kingdom of God.  The Lincoln Imp, or the stone mason that created it, was the original disruptor strategically placed to be out of reach but never out of mind. There to take a pop at the pompous, a ping at the precious, to make fun of the fundamentalist and to dig at the dogmatic. All in the Angel Choir where the music, the harmony of words and music working together, speak of God’s perfect creation, God’s perfect Kingdom which Jesus, by our striving, invites us to co-create.

The Lincoln Imp, or the stonemason who created it, was a disruptor in a good sense because he invites us to strive for the truth. He is unlike the disruptors leading the world powers today, the criminals and the bullies who distort Christianity to suit their own ideological ambition and for whom truth is what they decide it to be. The 13th century disruptor’s Imp above the choir of the angels reminds me of the importance of the words and the tune working together; of our striving for harmony, of striving for God, of striving to live out the Gospel imperatives not for our own selfish interest, but for God.

Strive for the Kingdom. Think about what that Kingdom is and what it might look like if we worried less and strived more. Think about the harmony and the beauty, the coexistence of God who is love, truth, mercy, peace and justice. Don’t just worry about those who distort the Gospel truths to suit their themselves and strive to tell a different story. Don’t just worry about those who want a Church which excludes people from the Church’s ministry and sacraments; instead, strive to make the world more Christlike, strive to make the Church more Christlike, more welcoming, fully inclusive and safer than safe can be.

Being a disruptor comes at a cost; being a disrupting striver for good can be even costlier, especially in the Church, as those of us who have spent time on the Diocesan naughty step can attest, but sometimes the perfect harmony is only made after the discords have sounded first.

Do not worry. Do a bit more striving; strive for the Kingdom, strive for what is right, strive for God.

Be an Imp, a disruptor in a good way so that God wins, harmony is restored, and we, with the angels, get to sing the right words to the right tune.