York Minster

The fast the Lord requires

Date: 2nd March 2008
Preacher: The Revd Canon Jeremy Fletcher

Delia Smith has a new book out. It’s a cookery book, which is why it’s flying off the shelves. You’ll perhaps be aware of her profound Christian faith, and she has written on that too. Because she’s public about her faith some people try to portray her as some kind of saint, and then take the opportunity to deflate that image: she referred in a recent interview to those who said that she would go to Mass each morning and then give her staff a hard time. She replied wonderfully: that she was not holier than thou, and that it might be a whole lot worse if she’d not been to Mass at all.  

Lent is a time to investigate whether our words and our actions match up. This is a theme of both our readings. The prophet Micah, earlier in Chapter seven, has pointed out that his people, the people who call upon the name of God, actually act unjustly, that there is no one who is upright, that the powerful are corrupt. How can they expect to be spared punishment? But lest the surrounding nations see this as an opportunity for them to invade, Micah reminds them that God is the shepherd of his people, and pardons sin when it is confessed. Those who rely on power should beware. The Letter of James is equally dismissive of those who speak religious words but rely on their riches and things they store up for their own security. They may say they trust God, but their actions say otherwise.

No people who oppress the poor can say that they are followers of God. No people who collude with corruption, who turn a blind eye, who feather their own nests, who allow crime and violence to continue unchecked, can say that they are walking in the ways of God. The people who sing God’s praise, who invoke God’s name in prayer, cannot do that as if they live in a bubble, protected from the parts of this nation and this world where such injustice takes place. The church at worship must demonstrate that there is a new world, that there is healing and forgiveness and refreshment and resurrection, but we cannot do that to inoculate ourselves from the reality of a society which is, as yet, none of those things.

Both Micah and James look at people as they are and the world as it is, and say that all need forgiveness and all must confess their wrongdoing. They are clear that such wrongdoing can and will be forgiven in the mercy of God. Both are clear that God brings rescue, salvation, mercy and healing. And both are clear that this is not about the individual alone, but about people together: injustice and wrongdoing are corporate as well as personal. And we demonstrate our understanding of that by seeking forgiveness and by seeking to rid the world of such gathered wrongdoing, of such corporate sin.

It is a great pleasure to welcome to Evensong tonight the Soroptimists who have marched and demonstrated against those who traffic in human lives, especially in the sex industry. Micah would have been thrilled, I think, as would James, for this is an area of life where the powerful destroy the weak, the rich oppress the poor. And it’s one which taints us all: it happens around us, not somewhere else, and there are organisations we can support which will help the victims and assist in ridding the world of what is plain evil. There are other examples too. James and Micah remind us that it’s how a society acts to all its members which will define whether it measures up to the kingdom of God.

If Lent stays with the realm of abstaining from chocolate and alcohol then it’s a pretty poor thing. If Lent reminds us that our actions, and our inactions, affect others, and that our words about justice must be made to count, then perhaps God, in Micah’s words, will have compassion on us, and trample our iniquities underfoot.