Sermon - Stir-Up Sunday

Nativity in the Rubble, Manger Square, Bethlehem, 2023

A sermon given during Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on “Stir Up” Sunday 26th November 2023 (The Twenty Fifth Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from Jeremiah 23.5-8 and John 6.5-14

A population under siege. Vital supplies cut off. Fires blazing. Buildings razed to the ground. People dying of starvation and exposure. Families torn apart through forced migration. 

 

Jerusalem in 587BC.  A year Jeremiah won’t let us forget. The end of a three-year siege of the city. The destruction of its temple. The defeat of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonian empire.  

 

A national catastrophe that Jeremiah had prophesied as divine judgement on the failure of successive Kings of Judah to govern justly - and the failure of its people to keep Gods commandments. Failing to love Him by worshipping other Gods. Failing to love each other by tolerating injustice and inequality - allowing widows, orphans and immigrants to be exploited for the benefit of corrupt leaders.

 

In fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, God made use of the power of the Babylonian forces to destroy Jerusalem and scatter the people, many of whom were taken into captivity away from the promised land. 

 

The great symbols of national, cultural and religious life - the temple, the monarchy, the land that God had promised - all gone. 

 

Without these, who were God’s chosen people?

 

Amidst the desolation of this collective identity crisis, Jeremiah offers hope. God has not abandoned his people - it is the people who have abandoned God. The line of David is not dead. At some time in the future a new King will be raised up. A saviour, whose reign shall be known for its perfect justice and righteousness. 

 

Christians believe that saviour - that King - has come - and has been raised up, but we await the full manifestation of his reign of justice and peace - the coming of his Kingdom. 

 

Jeremiah’s prophecy encourages us to consider what we do while we wait in that hope. Do we carry on like before - failing to love God, ourselves and each other? Or do we turn back to Him? Obey his commandments - and challenge all that is not righteous or just? 

 

 

 

Millions dead through war and famine. Thousands living with the lasting consequences of physical deformities and psychological trauma. Populations displaced. Families torn apart. The economy in ruins. Revolution, rising antisemitism and the growing threat of fascism. 

 

Europe in 1925. In the shadow of the spectacular and tragic failure of earthly power, it was decided to create a new feast - to celebrate Christ the King. Since 1970 it has been marked by many churches on this day - the last Sunday of the church year. A reminder that thanksgiving for our salvation through the Kingship of Christ and anticipation of the coming of his Kingdom is the proper focus of our worship each day of the year. 

 

Celebrating Christ the King offers the opportunity for us to reflect on the power that we have been given - and consider how we choose to gift it. To remember the truth about its source and hear how it is intended to be used. Not through dramatic demonstrations of power and might but through the humility, mercy and grace of sacrificial love.

The Feast of Christ the King was instituted long after our Prayer Book was written, but we recognise it today in song – in the words of our opening hymn. “Awake my soul, and sing of him who died for thee, and hail him as thy matchless King through all eternity.”

 

Nations at war. A death-toll of thousands. Concerns about migration. Kings rowing with their sons. An economy teetering on recession. Concerns about failing the most vulnerable in society. Questions about leadership during a time of global catastrophe.

Just some of our newspaper headlines today, Sunday 26th November 2023. What is known as ‘Stir-up Sunday’.

Cue newspaper articles – and maybe even some sermons – full of folksy tales encouraging us to go home to stir-up our Christmas Puddings. How the thirteen ingredients in the alleged ‘traditional’ recipe signify Jesus and his disciples. The breadcrumbs representing His body. The raisins and sultana’s (made from grapes) His blood. The sprig of holly representing the crown of thorns.

Perhaps in view of todays headlines pudding making is a valid displacement activity as any. And from a cultural history point of view it’s fascinating – and great fun – as we will find out at our pudding evening later today – but that’s not what Stir-up Sunday is really about.

The Collect in the Prayer Book appeals to God to stir up our wills, so that we might “plenteously bring forth the fruit of good works.”

It's God holding that wooden spoon. Not us.

It’s our wills – our souls and bodies that need to be stirred – not Jesus’s.

And why?

Well why do we stir food – or cocktails?

To regulate temperature evenly and to prevent mixtures from splitting and separating.

Our prayer on Stir-Up Sunday is that God might do the same in us.

So let us pray that the warmth – the fire – the power - of God’s love might be distributed evenly across every cell of our being.

Let us pray that our faith isn’t just floating on the top – something we think about for an hour every Sunday – but is witnessed and made manifest through our whole bodies at all times; in the good works that we do to glorify Him.

Let us pray that our compassion, our sense of righteousness, hasn’t sunk to the bottom of our hearts, leaving just a thin, weak imitation on the surface.

Let us pray that we might be stirred-up so that we no are no longer content to accept the injustice and inequality in the world because that’s the way things are - or because we feel we have no power or no agency to change them. May we be stirred-up to remember that we are not prisoners – because we have already been saved.

The challenge for us this Sunday remains the same as that given by Jeremiah over 2,500 years ago – and by those who created the Feast of Christ the King a century ago.

To keep our faith fixed on our true King. And while we wait in hopeful expectation of the coming of his kingdom that we might be stirred-up – thoroughly and regularly - to follow his way of righteousness and to share his light and love in the world.

So as we get stuck in to our puddings this Stir-up Sunday may we remember the real message of today. That we are the stodgy puddings that need to be stirred up by God. And let us pray that every ounce of our fruitness, our spiciness and even our hard bits of peel are evenly warmed by the power of his divine love and put to work to his glory.


Image: Nativity in the Rubble - Manger Square, Bethlehem 2023