Sermon-"I don't believe it!"

Traffic Jam by Peter Saul, 2002 (produced for the 50th Anniversary of Greenpeace)

A sermon given at Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 25th August 2024, drawing on the work of poet and hymn writer William Cowper (and Victor Meldrew’s screenwriter David Renwick)

Victor Meldrew claimed that a bank holiday traffic jam is the perfect metaphor for our journey through life. This bank holiday eve, the work of poet and hymn-writer William Cowper offers us a more sanguine – and realistic - metaphor to challenge Victor’s hopeless, Stoic philosophy….

On a trip to Whipsnade Zoo. Stuck for four hours staring at the rear end of a horse poking out of the trailer in front and getting increasingly irritated, not only by his fellow passengers - particularly Mrs Warboys - but also by the occupants of the horn-honking cars all around him. Victor Meldrew concludes this classic episode of the British sitcom ‘One Foot in the Grave’ with a philosophical monologue. 

A bank holiday traffic jam, Victor claims, is the perfect metaphor for our journey through life. You whizz along, roof down, hair blowing in the wind for the first fifty years, then things begin to slow to a frustrating crawl. And you realise you can’t turn back to take that other road you passed a few miles ago. You’re stuck, destined to go one way only. And it’s not long until everything comes to a complete stop!

According to an article published this week - on the Debretts website of all places! - the Bank Holiday Blues are not just the construction of a sitcom caricature, but a phenomenon experienced by an increasing number of people.

The holiday season coming to an end, no more time off until Christmas, the weather has been terrible so you didn’t do all the things you had planned and yet somehow you’ve overspent - tightening the belt is even harder after the summer indulgences; the days are getting noticeably shorter, the evening air has a chill, and the looming back-to-work routine leaves you cold with dread. And to cap it all, you’re surrounded by pictures and stories of people who seem to have had a much better time off than you. 

For some, the changing season is not just mildly melancholic, but a trigger for a mental traffic jam that can lead to serious depression.

This bank holiday Evensong, through the talents of the poet and hymn-writer William Cowper, we are offered a realistic alternative to Victor Meldrew’s hopeless Stoic philosophy.  

The texts of his hymn-anthem ‘O for a closer walk with God’ and the hymn we are about to sing together ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ offer a more sanguine assessment of our path through life. Cowper’s assured optimism seems even more astonishing when we discover that both works were composed during particularly severe bouts of depressive illness. 

Speaking at Cowper’s funeral at St Mary Woolworth in the City of London, his friend and mentor - the former slave trader turned priest John Newton - said that Cowper “was afflicted with what is called a nervous complaint to such a degree as might justly be called insanity.”

His mental health challenges began at a young age. After boarding school he worked as a clerk in Holborn and began training as a lawyer. He fell in love with his cousin who lived on Southampton Row, just down the road. His father, a priest, was against the relationship and Cowper attempted suicide before his examinations. It was in the asylum at St Albans, where prayer was part of the treatment for his increasingly otherworldly visions, that he was introduced to evangelical Christianity. 

After being discharged he moved in with a friend whose mother, Mary Unwin, became the mother he never had. On the death of his father he moved with the Unwins to Olney, where he met John Newton who was then the curate there and was encouraged by him to start composing poetry. Together they wrote several well known hymns. 

O for a closer walk with God was written by William Cowper whilst Mrs Unwin was near death. His anxiety was nearing breaking point and he began to question his faith. Stanford’s setting of the hymn (that the choir sang as the anthem earlier) omits his two most searching verses;

“Where is the blessedness I knew
when first I sought the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view
of Jesus and His Word?

What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!
How sweet their mem'ry still!
But they have left an aching void
the world can never fill.”

In 1773, William Cowper suffered another major breakdown. He felt forsaken by God, stopped attending church and would not leave the house.

In his sermon at Cowper’s funeral, John Newton explains how William would point at the church across the road and speak of the joy he had found there - and was adamant that until he felt able to set foot inside the church again, he would not go anywhere else. 

Newton and Mrs Unwin eventually persuaded him to go out and walk in the countryside. It was at this time, after some particularly severe weather, that Cowper composed ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ :

“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head."

Like ‘O for a closer walk with God’ this text seeks to offer hope and encouragement for life’s journey, whilst acknowledging the unpredictability of the emotional storms that we all face. 

The hope and assuredness in God’s providence we hear in William Cowper’s writings is not some naieve, saccharine conceit but comes from the heart of someone who knew despair and anxiety - and battled with frightening delusions all his life - which forced him at times to doubt his faith.  

In contrast to Victor’s famous “I don’t believe it,” William Cowper did. Or perhaps, more accurately, he spent much of his life struggling to understand what it means to believe. Perhaps like many of us?

This Bank Holiday weekend let us give thanks for the life and example of William Cowper. And next time we find ourselves stuck in a traffic jam - physically, mentally or spiritually, may we find consolation in his words. 

“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”

Amen.


Image: Traffic Jam by Peter Saul, 2002 (produced for the 50thAnniversary of Greenpeace)