Sermon preached by Deacon Hilary Parsons on his Anniversary 27th June 2009

This was delivered at the Vigil Mass on the Feast of SS Peter & Paul, 2009, by Deacon Hilary Parsons at which the Silver Jubilee of his ordination was celebrated in the same church where he was ordained by Bishop (later Cardinal) Cormac Murphy-O’Connor in 1984.

So what have I learnt in 25 years which is, after all, more than a quarter of most people’s lifespan? As this could well be my last appearance I decided I would use my homily to tell you, in the hope that some of you at least may find it helpful.

I have come to believe that in essence Christianity is very simple and that there is a fundamental distinction between the Kingdom Jesus spoke about so often, and which He came to establish on earth, and the Institutional Church, and indeed between the Kingdom and all organized religions. The Kingdom of God is all-inclusive and is offered to all men and women of good will. All the established religions are to a greater or lesser degree exclusive, because they all think they have more of the truth than the others. Institutions are necessary because we wayward human beings need rules and guidance if we are to function effectively and I cling to the Roman Catholic Church into which I was born and which has been my guide and support throughout my life, but I believe that the Kingdom envisages a wider, more inclusive, Church than the one we are used to.

Back in the Sixties when the Second Vatican Council took place there was little teaching about it in the parishes, either before, during or after it. The result has been that what the average Catholic thought it was about was the abandonment of Latin and the substitution of the vernacular, the turning round of the altars and priests saying mass facing the people, the re-institution of the chalice at Communion and the option to receive the the Sacred Host in the hand. And that was about it. I suggest that these visible changes were in fact peripheral as they changed nothing fundamental but that Pope John did have fundamental change in mind when he called the bishops of the Church to Rome for the Council. The phrases which were coined at the time were that he “opened the window to let fresh air enter the Church” and he “let down the drawbridge, raised the portcullis and encouraged coming and going between the Church and the Modern World.” This latter phrase - “The Church in the Modern World” - was adopted as the title of perhaps the most revolutionary of all the conciliar documents. Listen to this from paragraph 2:
“Now that the Second Vatican Council has deeply studied the mystery of the Church, it resolutely addresses not only the sons of the Church and all who call upon the name of Christ, but the whole of humanity as well, and it longs to set forth the way it understands the presence and function of the Church in the world of today. Therefore, the world which the Council has in mind is the whole human family seen in the context of everything which envelopes it.”

In the immediate aftermath of the Council there was a period of euphoria, both within and without the Catholic Church, when there seemed a real chance that the old rivalries between Catholics and Protestants were to be laid to rest and that the door was open for dialogue which would lead to full unity, and that there would be meaningful dialogue with the other great world religions too and even with the secular world. But gradually, bit by bit, the authorities in the Vatican took fright at what they felt was starting to undermine the foundations of the Catholic Church. The drawbridge may still be horizontal but the portcullis has again been lowered, and much time and theological energy has been spent on, amongst other intellectual things, revising the wording of the mass and on scriptural exegesis. On a personal level relations between clergy and laity of different Christian Churches, and even of different Faiths, are often good, even close and warm, but Unity seems as far off as ever.

I have often wondered why it is that we can sometimes meet people who are non-believers, or perhaps even call themselves atheists, who nevertheless exhibit in their lives many of the virtues we associate with a good Christian life. They are kind, generous, non-judgemental, they are modest, will help anybody no matter how inconvenient it might be for them, they are joyful, optimistic, reliable, honest, trustworthy and are possessed of a good sense of humour. We may also have come across ardent church-goers who would not dream of missing mass on Sundays and Holidays of Obligation, who take an active part in parish life, but if, for instance, they donate they want to be sure they know their money is going to properly used, and somehow they come across as aggressively good. Why this difference? Should we be surprised? In the Gospels did not Jesus admonish the Scribes and Pharisees who were not bad people but who thought that by observing every jot and title of the Law they were fit for His Kingdom, while He Himself was known to break a law or two when He thought it justified and He associated with sinners and the marginalized because, He said, He had come “not to save the just but sinners.” In fact He said prostitutes would get into heaven sooner than some who thought themselves righteous. Don’t get me wrong. To keep the Commandments of both God and the Church is necessary and a good thing, but in the Kingdom this is only for starters. Kingdom life goes far beyond this.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew’s Gospel, which together compose what is known as “The Sermon on the Mount,” and Jesus’s account of the Last Judgement in chapter 25, have become, for me at least, the key passages of Scripture. At the Last Judgement the Just Judge employs only one criterion – how have we treated our neighbour. Moreover, in it Jesus identifies Himself with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked and those in prison. In other words, He comes to us in the person of our neighbour and in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ he describes the lifestyle of those who live the life of the Kingdom. In doing so He turns upside down the typical lifestyle of many of us who live in modern Western countries. It seems to me that the kernel of Our Lord’s teaching is how to conduct relationships, our relationship with God and our relationships with our fellow human beings. The ‘Sermon’ is not a treatise on intellectual theology, yet if you look back over the history of Christianity most of the disputes, heresies and schisms have been concerned with the intellectual interpretation of the Scriptures and liturgical practice. For instance, after more than 600 years the Eastern and Western Churches are still separated, amongst other things, over the interpretation of one word in the Creed – “filioque.” Much of Christian theology has been, and to some extent still is, in my opinion, tainted with Gnosticism. Gnosticism was an early heresy which maintained that the truth is confined to those who are in the know. It is still assumed by many people that the clergy know more about God than the laity because their training has given them more theological knowledge. Yet Jesus exclaimed: “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and clever and revealing them to mere children.” St Paul was to add: “To shame what is strong God chose what is weak. Those whom the world thinks contemptible are the ones God has chosen.” At the time Our Lord was founding his Kingdom there were plenty of learned scholars and rich and powerful people around, yet of the first twelve men He chose as His apostles ten were unlettered working class men, Matthew must have had some clue about money because he was a tax collector, and only one (according to tradition) who was what we would call educated, namely Judas, betrayed Him!

We have to remember that Jesus was talking not to modern sophisticated Westerners but for the most part to simple unlettered people so He had to speak in simple direct language using the local idioms which they could understand. We tend to spiritualise the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ instead of taking it at face value because then it is less threatening to our comfortable lifestyle. The ‘Sermon’ is direct and practical. I am sure you are all familiar with the Beatitudes so let me remind you of some of the other challenging, indeed startling, things Jesus said in His Sermon:
"You have learnt how it was said to your ancestors you must not kill, but I say to you anyone who is angry with his brother will answer for it. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? Even the tax collectors do as much, do they not?"
"You have learnt how it was said: you must not commit adultery, but I say to you if a man looks at a woman lustfully he has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
"You have learnt how it was said: eye for eye and tooth for tooth, but I say this to you, offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well."
"Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone wants to borrow do not turn him away."
"Sell your possessions and give alms. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
"When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not ask your friends, brothers, relations or rich neighbours, for fear they repay your courtesy by inviting you in return. No, when you give a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind; that they cannot pay you back means that you are fortunate, because repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again."
"You cannot be the slave of both God and money. That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life – what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things."
"Do not judge and you will not be judged. Always treat others as you would like them to treat you."

These, my friends, are the words of Jesus, Son of God, and our Founder and Leader, spoken to people who could neither read nor write as well as to those who could. Do we take them at face value or do we regard them as little more than spiritual suggestions? Does taking them at face value mean that we are biblical fundamentalists? I think not, just having the sense, and humility, to take the Son of God at his word.

Personally I have known only five people who have taken poor or distressed people off the streets into their own homes, two were priests who kept open presbyteries, two were a married couple and the fifth a single lady.

My father was a shopkeeper so I grew up among a community of small traders. One old man (or he seemed old to me!) has always stood out in my memory. He owned a corner shop which sold newspapers, cigarettes, sweets and the usual things one finds in corner shops. Some people thought him an old fool and some of his fellow traders thought he let the side down, because when customers said they had forgotten their money and could they pay him next time they called, or could he lend them a quid or two (worth a lot more then) he never refused. Inevitably he not infrequently got ripped off, but he never complained, was always smiling, kind and contented. Old Tom was not particularly religious but he was a living example of the kind of person Jesus had in mind when he composed the ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ Tom died a happy man, loved by his family and his customers, unlike some of his fellow traders who were never satisfied, constantly grumbled and were hardly examples of human happiness even though they were much more successful in business. You see, like Tom, God is constantly being ripped off because He constantly forgives and gives freely of His creation to good and bad alike. Omar Bradley, the five star US general who was one of the architects of the historic invasion of Europe by the Allies in 1944, said as an old man looking back over his life, “We have solved the mystery of the atom and sent men to the moon but we have not understood the meaning of ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ nor put it into practice.”

You and I live in a culture which is obsessed with material possessions and is founded on the belief that the constant aim must be to produce ever more sophisticated material goods. The present economic depression is due principally to greed and over production. In large open areas near our major ports, like Southampton, and outside our car factories lie thousands of new cars and other vehicles for which there is no sale. My guess is that many of them will never be sold because by the time the recession ends they will have been superseded by new models. Many will end up being crushed. When mobile phones and laptop computers were introduced they were considered marvels of the new technology. Now they are so commonplace that thousands upon thousands of perfectly good ones are scrapped every year because users must have the latest models. Our politicians, bankers and industrialists tell us that we must all go back onto the high streets and continue buying because consistent selling and buying is the only way to keep the economic merry-go-round from grinding to a halt. The materialist dream is that at some future time everyone on the planet will have a similar lifestyle to the one we in the West enjoy now. Then the world will have arrived at some kind of earthly paradise. But will it?

Is our western world full of happy people? What of the heartbreak of frequently broken relationships, of children who have to be taught about sex and gay relationships at the age of 7 or 8, and some of whom, even at that tender age, have acquired step parents and step siblings. Consider the distress of teenage pregnancies and abortion, the loneliness of single parenthood, of the constant pressure to buy the latest fashion in clothes, food, drink, holidays and amusements. All these things breed neuroses of discontent and continuous longing for elusive happiness. One day when you have a spare hour walk through a shopping mall in one of our bigger towns and ask yourself how many of the goods on display in the variety of shops are necessary for human survival. How many could we actually do without? I also challenge you, when you get home this evening, to take an objective look around your own living room and assess how many items you could do without at a pinch. Then go into your kitchen, look at the equipment and see how many of the items of food and drink you could dispense with without injuring your health. Then when you go to bed have a look in your wardrobe and cupboards and see how often you have worn the clothes stored in them and so how many you really need.

I am not a killjoy and I appreciate the importance of recreation and the purpose of the arts but when manufacturing is using up the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate and the carbon emissions resulting from our way of life is putting the whole human race at risk, is God not telling us to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously, that He meant what He said and that we dumb it down at our peril? Could the ‘Credit Crunch’ be a sort of heavenly warning shot across our bows? It has been estimated that if the 6 billion people at present living on Planet Earth were all to live simply there would be enough resources to go round. If, on the other hand, the 1 billion people living Western style continue recklessly along the present path a major catastrophe is inevitable. It was, I think, CAFOD which coined the aphorism: “Live simply so that others may simply live.” Amen