SERMONS

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Sean Gilbert – 1/11/09
Christ Church

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’d been asked to MC the Ryan Freeman Memorial concert held last Sunday evening at Church of the Trinity. I really enjoyed the experience; emotionally draining as it was, in particular mingling with the musicians, given my back stage pass!  There
      I got talking to Susie Keynes, ex-member of the legendary “Fruit” and a prominent performer around town. My presumption was that she was still playing (I’d seen her at Womadelaide), but in fact until last Sunday she hadn’t picked up her acoustic guitar since April. “I’m studying to be a Dr”, she proudly said, “it’s now time to move on and go into the heart.” Well, I was profoundly impressed; her musical giftedness, excellence and the weighty expectations of others, giving way to a greater sense of being and calling in this moment. Her true voice being in a state of change and development.

                        Whichever text we look at – the ancient Ruth story or the very familiar Jesus teaching and story, the essence is the same, both being that the life-giving choices and responses we make – uncertain and difficult at the time of making – are choices of the heart, choices from the heart; uncertain yet sure all in the same moment.

                        Ruth decides to stay with Naomi, almost counter intuitively.  Her people, culture, religion – the familiar things so needed in times of crisis, all sacrificed for the love she feels, the compassion she has (foolishly we might at first think) for her mother-in-law: “Wherever you go, I shall go; wherever you live. I shall live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”

                        And then in the teachings of Jesus, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength”, squarely locating the religious or spiritual life not in so-called morality – what is wrong or right, good or acceptable – but in the more ambiguous, deeper places, spirit, soul, mind and heart. God of the gaps – God of the yearning and open heart. And it is from that place, and only that sacred place, can an authentic voice arise and be heard gladly. It is the place where the mystery of God is most clearly seen in its veiledness, whereby, a glimpse of the Holy or the Other may sustain and carry us on for years.

                        It is my hope for this coming week, that the vehicles of song and movement, stir us in the depths and give rise to that which is most pressing and true to us individually and communally. For this is the role of all good artists and their art, not to be ends in themselves, but to take us beyond where we presently stand so as to voice a new song.

                        In the words of Jeanette Winterson:
                        “Art is a way into other realities, other personalities. When I let myself be affected by a book (story, painting, poem), I let into myself new custom and new desires.  The book does not reproduce me, it redefines me, pushes at my boundaries, shatters the palings that guard my heart.”
                        Similarly and finally the love we celebrate around this table today, not only would change an idea or leave us a new challenge, but it also would shatter the palings fenced around our hearts, those barriers of fear or shame too long maintained in the name of expectation or even religion. Here we find our true voice, we seek life’s play, our true vocation, in the love of God, the companionship of Christ and in the friendship of the Spirit, now and always.

                                                                                                Amen