Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton Sunday 1st May 2016 – Easter 6, at St George’s Campden Hill and St John the Baptist, Holland Road
Sermon by Fr Peter
Wolton Sunday 1st May 2016 – Easter 6, at St George’s Campden Hill
and St John the Baptist, Holland Road
Love, peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That is what today’s Gospel is about.
As some of you know, this is my first service at St. George’s
since returning from holiday in Ethiopia. Incidentally, the patron saint of
Ethiopia is St. George. He is depicted in every church that my wife Joanna and
I visited.
Ethiopia is surrounded by troubled neighbours (Somalia, Kenya
and Sudan). The country we experienced was peaceful with remarkable landscapes.
But there is an uneasy peace along the northern border,
maintained under UN supervision between its previous federal state and now
independent neighbour Eritrea, which followed a war between the two countries.
The country of Eritrea is very much in the hearts and minds
of our United Benefice as 400 of our Eritrean Christian brothers and sisters
worship each Sunday in our church of St. John’s.
To return to peace and today’s Gospel. Jesus, living in a
Roman colony understood the true meaning of peace.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give
to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let
them be afraid.”
The “peace” Jesus is talking of, as we have come to learn
through the gift of the Holy Spirit, is not peace of this world. It is not the
peace put in place by treaties following resolution of armed conflict. Jesus’ peace
is achieved by sacrifice rather than surrender, and by love rather than
conquest.
It is the type of peace that enables Christians not to be
afraid and not to let them be troubled.
What Jesus says is even more remarkable when we remember the timing
of this discourse, the night before his death, just before he and his disciples
leave the Upper Room for the garden of Gethsemane. He knew that he was going to
be handed over and would die. In less than 24 hours he would suffer the most
horrible of deaths. His calmness in face of impending death is enabled by the
knowledge of the love of God and the peace that the world cannot give.
It is a peace which is life sustaining for many people and
possibly also lifesaving, not least Eritrean refugees and our Christian
brothers and sisters who are persecuted in Eritrea, where according to “Christian
Today” more than 300 Christians are languishing in Eritrean jails because of
their faith. Furthermore 130,000 have fled the one party state where there is
no independent press and are living in refugee camps in Ethiopia.
In June 2015, a year-long UN inquiry into human rights in
Eritrea found the "systematic violation of an array of human rights to be on
a scope and scale seldom witnessed elsewhere in the world."
"Interference in religious structures and affairs is
rampant," the report said. "Religious materials are confiscated.
Adherents are arbitrarily arrested, ill-treated or subjected to torture during
their detention, and prisoners are coerced to recant their faith. Many
religious followers have been killed or have disappeared."
We are urged by Deborah, an Eritrean refugee in Ethiopia, to
pray for those suffering for their faith.
"Please pray for protection for us as we share our faith
under enormous pressure. Pray for wisdom and for the Holy Spirit to lead us.
Pray for Christian prisoners that God would strengthen their faith while in
jail. Pray too for good health in spite of the terrible conditions and that
they would be released soon. Pray for the church here to be strong in faith,
not to be in fear but to keep on declaring the kingdom of God and sharing the
gospel with others" requests Deborah.
"Pray for justice to come to Eritrea."
So let us remember persecuted Christians around the world and
pray that they may be fortified by the Holy Spirit and receive God’s peace.
I turn now to love. We also give thanks for the gift of
Jesus’ commandment that we should love one another. Our visit to Ethiopia
provided many examples of the love of God and Holy Spirit at work. There was
the CURE hospital (https://uk.cure.org/ethiopia/) run by the UK Christian charity we
visited in Addis Ababa, which specialises in paediatric orthopaedic surgery repairing
damage done to limbs at birth, and also cleft palates. Children with club feet are
able to walk. Last year 1750 operations were provided free of charge at the
hospital to people of all faiths and none.
Words are inadequate to describe the impact on these
children’s lives. On the sermon blog I will put a link to a video, titled in
keeping in this sermon “Jesus loves me” so you can see the before and afters at
CURE:
Then there was Norman and Carole in Lalibela, the town of
wondrous rock hewn churches surrounded by the arid Wollo region.
Over 300,000 Ethiopians live in the Lalibela catchment area,
dependent on subsistence farming, struggling with the inhospitable landscape,
infertile rocky topsoil, floods and droughts. This is the landscape of the 1984
Ethiopian famine.
Great progress is being made. Water harvesting techniques are
being put in place, which also prevents water erosion. We went on a two night
trek to remote villages (no electricity or running water) arranged by TESFA
tours (http://www.tesfatours.com/tour/community-trekking-in-wollo-lalibela/)
sleeping in specially constructed houses. This brings
responsible tourism and money into the villages. The landscape is breathtaking
but water is often situated far from the village and has to be carried.
Norman and Carole are a retired British couple from west
London, except they are not retired. Since 2000, working with the Lalibela
Trust, http://www.lalibela.org.uk/ they have overseen the completion of
more than 60 spring improvement projects around Lalibela in villages where NGOs
and charities do not operate.
And then there is the remarkable Susan, a retired teacher
from Scotland, except she also is not retired. She has built with a local
partner the Ben Ababa restaurant (Ben as in Scottish mountain):
It looks like a cross between an international space station
that has lost its way and our own beloved Spaghetti Junction, and has breath
taking views for miles, a pink view of hills at sunset and has rave reviews on
Trip Advisor.
Susan employs over 40 people and the look of love on their
faces when she spoke to them as we toured the restaurant and kitchens was
something to behold. Mary, who served coffee, had recently returned from
maternity leave. Susan first met Mary in 2008 when she was working as a
labourer building the restaurant. Her beaming optimistic presence made Susan
determined to find a role for her. The problem was that Mary had no education.
Susan put her in charge of cleaning and this was successful. One morning in the
autumn of last year, Mary’s husband rang Susan in a great state. He could not
get in touch with his pregnant wife. Susan knew Mary had arrived at work but no
one in the restaurant could find her. Susan eventually found her resting on a
fence in the garden. Mary explained that her waters had burst that morning. She
had walked two hours to work and now she was in labour. Susan, in the best
traditions of a Scottish teacher, took charge of the situation. The baby was born,
is healthy and Mary has returned from maternity leave, undertaking the not too
arduous role of taking after meal coffee to diners.
In two weeks’ time we will celebrate Pentecost. In today’s Gospel,
as well as learning about love and the true meaning of peace, Jesus introduces
and explains, the role of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter and Advocate.
For the disciples who were still anticipating a very
different culmination of the Messiah’s mission in the forthcoming days, it was very
easy for Jesus’ words to be overlooked. Jesus was all too aware of this. He
underlines his message thus: “The Holy Spirit will teach you everything, and
remind you of all that I have said to you.” It would make those last days in
Jerusalem live again and yield up their life changing secrets for time eternal
and to us today.
For many of us, we have a hazy understanding of the Holy
Spirit, compared the Father or the Son. But we know that it is only through
obedience, built on love, to Christ, that we can recognise the work of the Holy
Spirit in the world today. Everything we are called to do as Christians comes
from the Holy Spirit.
The tales of our Eritrean brothers and sisters remind us of
what Jesus’ gift of peace, given by the Holy Spirit, can do. And the work of
the CURE hospital, of Norman and Carol with their water harvesting programme,
and Susan with her restaurant, show us this too and also that age is no barrier
to displaying love.
We give thanks to God for the examples of all these people,
and pray that we, inspired by the Holy Spirit, may also play our roles in
bringing Earth closer to Heaven.