Sermon - An unattainable ideal or a living reality?

Instant City, Archigram/Peter Cook, 1969 

A sermon given during Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 17th September 2023 (The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from Galatians 6.11-18 and Matthew 6.24-end. In this sermon I explored the notion of challenge in preaching, as part of my curacy training.

About a hundred years ago, a group of five Finns arrived on the other side of the world in response to a call to establish a model community.  

 

Seeking to live closer to nature and hoping to demonstrate that poverty and injustice can be overcome by living differently, they had raised funds to acquire a former coffee plantation in a remote part of Brazil.

 

As the colony grew, new homes were built to a uniform size and design. No fences or hedges divided the land because this strictly vegetarian community had no livestock to protect. Neither, it is claimed, were there any social divisions between members of the group - their limited financial resources held in common, each person using their skills for the benefit of the whole community, decisions made collectively. 

 

An Australian journalist visiting in the early days, reported how happy and worry-free the community seemed.  

 

But, it didn’t last. 

 

Over-farming of the coffee plantation had denuded the soil of nutrients. Almost nothing would grow. The community was increasingly reliant on financial support from overseas which also started to dry-up as the Second World War loomed. Most of the colonists left. 

 

The original settlers died of malnutrition. When it was discovered that citrus trees could thrive on part of the land, donors began to demand a return on their investment. The plantation was sold off.

 

Today the settlement survives as a curiosity - an enclave of Finnish culture in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest. The most popular tourist attraction is not the first sauna in South America but, in a cruel twist of irony, what some call the patron saint of capitalism. The tropical home of Santa Claus. 

 

Penedo has been chalked up as yet another of humanity’s failed attempts to build utopia - a perfect society. 

 

An unattainable ideal. 

 

 

About twenty minutes ago, thirty people from across the City gathered together as a community of faith. 

 

Drawn by the grace of God and seeking to know Him and each other better and to live according to the example of his Son, Jesus Christ.

 

Their ancestors had met to worship in each other’s houses, often at great risk. Generations later, the faithful sat in a beautiful building that had been specially designed as a place for prayer and worship and to hear the scriptures.

 

This morning, they heard a passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Teaching which sets the moral and ethical standards for the perfect Christian life. 

 

You cannot serve God while being a slave to riches - what the scriptures call ‘Mammon’.

 

Instead of being trapped by the pursuit of material wealth, Jesus calls his followers to look for the kingdom of God - that place of peace, love and equity - where God’s glory is fully revealed. If we live our lives searching for that place - living righteously - there will be no need to worry about what to eat, to drink or what to wear. Because God will provide.  

 

 

Like those adventurous Finns a century ago, we are all here in response to a call to live differently. But how do we avoid our model community - St Giles - from becoming a mere curiosity like Penedo - where the biggest attraction is Christmas? 

 

How do we realise that perfect Christian life?

 

Perhaps we need to begin by treating the Gospel vision of the Kingdom not as am unattainable ideal, but as a living reality.

 

 

Some of us recently returned from Saint Gilles in the south of France where we discovered that there is much we can learn from our patron saint about how to do just that. 

Saint Giles knew all about the reality of serving God rather than Mammon – and had the scars to prove it.

 

The son of a Greek King, from a young age Giles is portrayed as being ill at ease with earthy power and wealth. On the death of his father, he gave away his family fortune to lepers, the sick and the lame. 

 

The barons at the Royal court went ballistic. Their income, status and power relied on royal patronage. Without it, the whole feudal system was in jeopardy. The barons tried to persuade Giles to marry a rich woman to maintain the status quo. The idealistic young king refused and set sail for France, where he lived in splendid isolation as a hermit.

He squatted on a royal hunting ground - perhaps itself a deliberate act of protest against the economic system of the time. Praying in a cave and sustained by the fruits of the forest, Giles drank milk from the only deer to have survived the aggressive hunting practices.

 

For a time he lived in harmony with nature.  As carefree as the birds of the air and the lillies of the field. But the tentacles of Mammon were closing in. The Kings huntsmen eventually tracked down the deer. In an act of sacrificial love for the animal, Giles took the arrow himself. It pierced his hand. The deer was saved.

 

Mortified that his men had wounded such a holy man, the King offered Giles food and money - pleading with him to accept it, if not for himself then as a donation to the poor. 

 

Had the example of charitable giving that Giles had established all those years ago finally taken root at the heart of the system? 

 

Not quite. Giles refused to accept alms as penance - the price for guilt. Instead, he agreed to the King’s request to become the abbot of a new monastery. 

 

It was in this new community that Giles put into practice the skills he learnt in his hermitage - how to live and farm more sustainably. Goods were traded with the local community but the proceeds were held in common; resources distributed to each according to their need. The monastery grew as people saw the benefits of living a more humble life. Giles’ influence was spreading.

 

The life of St Giles shows that it is possible to change the most entrenched systems and structures in society by serving God rather than Mammon. And that this is best achieved not by withdrawing from the world but by actively participating in it, as part of a community of faith.

 

The mark on Giles hand - like the marks on those of our Saviour - testify to that living reality. As St Paul writes in his own hand, as he signs off his letter to the Galatians. The burnt fingers, the wounded pride as we seek to live by the kingdom values of peace, love and equity in an imperfect world; these are the true marks of discipleship. 

 

We are gathered here to renew our commitment to live life anew in the name of our Living Lord. To seek to serve God rather than Mammon. Before worrying about how to use our time, money, land and buildings in pursuit of the values of the Kingdom, the most important choice we have to make today is whether we regard the Good News of Jesus Christ as an unattainable ideal, or as a living reality. 

Image : Instant City, Archigram/Peter Cook, 1969