When a sword pierces your soul

Today saw the start of our Big Welcome at Highbury with two special services.  This morning it was great to welcome our Beavers, quite a few friends to Highbury and also Robin Radley.  Robin is the inspiration behind Children's Homes in Kerala State, our Christmas Collection.

He told us of his meeting with Mother Theresa, and the way he was prompted to support one of her former nuns in setting up three homes for children in Kerala.

Over the last fifteen years or so our own Sue Cole has been very committed to the project and is out there today.   This last week, in recognition of the contribution she has made as a Vet, a new cowshed was named after her ... Susan  Farm!

You can see more about CHIKS on their Facebook page.

In the first part of the service we lit two candles for Hope and Peace.  I then told something of the story of Mary.   I then picked her story up in some reflections on those moments when everything goes wrong and it feels as if a sword is piercing your soul.

What do you do when things go horribly wrong?

There is a moment in Mary’s story when she is forced to anticipate the pain that is going to come to her through the birth of her son.  It’s the very elderly Simeon who says it to her –  a sword will pierce your own soul too.

When Jesus is 12 he goes missing on a family visit to Jerusalem and the temple – a sword pierces her soul as it dawns on her that she is losing the child as the child becomes a man.  The pain of letting go.

When Jesus’s time is spent bringing healing into hurting people’s lives, a sword pierces her soul as she has to come to terms with the time Jesus devotes to other people outside of her family.

But it is on the cross when at little more than 30 she has to witness the pain of her son’s agonising death that a sword pierces her soul once again.

What do you do when things go horribly wrong?  What do you do when a sword pierces your soul?

Mary’s story is a moving one.  It is a story she shares intitially with Joseph as fear is taken away and she sings that sing – My soul magnifices the Lord, My soul praises God.

It’s a story she then shares, in all likelihood as a widow, with her other children – through misunderstanding she comes to be one of that community of followers of Jesus who share in his resurrection victory.

It’s one of her other sons, James who came to be a significant leader of that community of followers of Jesus in Jerusalem.

He came to write a reflection on the teaching of Jesus.

What do you do when things go horribly wrong and a sword pierces your soul.

Find faith.  Rekindle that faith. Know the presence of God and make that faith real.

Martin Sheen was one who discovered faith.  It was back in 1981 at a time when his addiction to alcohol had threatened to destroy everything in his family.  A sword was piercing his soul:  he discovered in faith. He speaks of the way such faith helped him through.  By 2011 family problems were again threatening to overwhelm when this time it was one of his sons, Charlie, found his career falling apart because of addiction.   A sword once again was piercing his soul.

There was something strangely therapeutic in making a film with his film director son who had retained Martin Sheen’s family name – Emilio Estivez. 

Their family roots were in Northern Spain – and it’s there that the film The Way is shot.  A father walks the pilgrimage way of Compostela de Santiago and in the face of tragedy in his family discovers faith.

I enjoyed Martin Sheen’s portrayal of the fictional President Bartlett of the USA in the West Wing – but it was a foreword he wrote to a wonderful commentary on one of the Bible’s darkest books that caught my imagination.

In 2001 he wrote a forward to a remarkable commentary on Job by someone called Daniel Berrigan. (Daniel Berrigan, Job: And Death No Dominion (Franklin, Wisconsin, 2000)

In that forward Martin Sheen draws on Daniel Berrigan’s insights and suggests that “The haunting story of Job is an image of the world’s poor and our response to it.”

It tells of someone who loses everything and whose soul is pierced.

And yet, suggests Martin Sheen, that story of Job is ultimately

A story of faith despite our doubts,

Of hope despite our despair,

Of love despite our indifference.

It summons us to live more humanly;

to be people of peace, compassion and non-violence,

and to walk in solidarity with the suffering peoples of the world

 so that we may come to know ourselves more humanly as God knows us

and find more of God in each other’s suffering.

It’s a powerful statement of the faith someone discovers when all goes horribly wrong.

So what do we do with this kind of faith?

Santiago is of course St James.

The Pilgrimage way takes us back to that brother of Jesus as he reflects on all that Jesus shared and he suggests that faith needs to be put into action.

⁹Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters! Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry. ²⁰Human anger does not achieve God's righteous purpose.²¹So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you.

²²Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead, put it into practice. ²³Whoever listens to the word but does not put it into practice is like a man who looks in a mirror and sees himself as he is. ²⁴He takes a good look at himself and then goes away and at once forgets what he looks like. ²⁵But those who look closely into the perfect law that sets people free, who keep on paying attention to it and do not simply listen and then forget it, but put it into practice — they will be blessed by God in what they do.

²⁶Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourselves. ²⁷What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.

The St James who gave his name to that Pilgrimage, a brother of Jesus, was convinced: “What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.”

That’s what prompts us at Christmas to have a special Christmas collection, this year for Children’s Homes in Kerala State.  While our own Sue is still out there in India we welcome Robin Radley this morning whotold us all the latest news from CHIKS.