Sermon For Trinity 5 - 12 July 09

Sermon for Trinity 5 (Proper 10) Sunday 12th July 2009 St Cuthbert’s, Benfieldside Amos 7. 7-15 Ephesians 1. 3-14 Mark 6. 14-29

Saints sometimes crop up in the strangest of places, don‟t they! In the Outer Hebrides I‟ve encountered chapels dedicated to obscure Celtic saints like St Moluag and St Brianan on distant headlands and remote islands. Last month, while exploring the Pyrenees, in the High Aragon region of Spain, we came across a strange little chapel, way off the beaten track, in a place called the Canon de Anisclo. This is an area not much frequented by tourists. Most people who come here are serious walkers who want to climb the high peaks, such as Monte Perdido, or to explore the rivers and waterfalls of the deep gorges between the mountains. To enter the Canon, or Gorge, of Anisclo is to experience a landscape which could have come straight out of „Lord of the Rings‟! From the narrow lane which runs almost the full length of the gorge, you can peer down from a dizzy height into the clear blue rushing waters of the mountain stream far below.

Or you can gaze upwards, between the rocky overhangs and the dappled green of the birch trees, to the dizzy heights of the cliffs above and the eagles circling in the cloudless sky. The tiny chapel deep in this stunning place is dedicated to St Urbez and it marks the place where he lived, for a time, about 12 hundred years ago. Urbez, it seems, was a Frenchman, born in Bordeaux in 702. At the age of 15 he was captured and taken to Spain, where he suffered first at the hands of invaders from Galicia and later at the hands of the Moors. At length he escaped and fled into the Pyrenees, where he chose to become a hermit, living in a cave and dedicated to a solitary life of contemplation. But this was not to be! Urbez soon gained a reputation amongst the local people for his loving care of anyone who was sick or in need. When Christian refugees, escaping from the Moorish invasion, fled into the mountains, it was Urbez who gave them comfort and support. Eventually, at the age of 50, he was ordained priest and continued to serve the people of the Vio Valley until his death at the age of 103.

Urbez was never officially canonised. But he was held in such high esteem by his neighbours that they built a chapel in the cave where he had lived. People from the local churches still, to this day, visit this isolated spot four times a year to remember him and to pray. It often seems to happen, doesn‟t it, that people who desire only a quiet life for themselves are nudged by God into quite a different situation. Take as another example, Amos, who‟s the subject of our first reading today. Amos was a simple countryman. He lived about 750 years before the birth of Jesus, during the reign of King Jeroboam in Israel. Amos came from the small town of Tekoa in the hill country of Judah, about ten miles south of Jerusalem. He was, by trade, a shepherd, caring for his flock in the hills around his home, and travelling to the lower country on a seasonal basis to tend the „sycomore‟ trees. (They are a kind of fig tree – not to be confused with our own sycamore trees!) From this homely existence, God called Amos to carry His message of judgement and justice to the northern kingdom of Israel. Amos heard the voice of God as a mighty roar from Zion.

“Hear the voice of God!” cried Amos. “You have sold

the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. You have trampled the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and pushed the afflicted out of the way.” Israel had enjoyed a long period of prosperity. But beneath its affluence it was rotten to the core. The rich and powerful had ignored God‟s call to care for the poor and disadvantaged. And so Israel must be punished. God‟s warning to his people was: “The high places of

Israel shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

This was the stern message which Amos, the simple countryman, carried to Bethel, the most sacred place of Israel, some 25 miles to the north of his home. And he delivered it, not quietly amongst those who were sympathetic, but boldly to one of the most powerful people in the country, the priest Amaziah – the priest who had the ear of the King. When the priest treated Amos with contempt and dismissed him you might have expected him to be quaking in his shoes. But Amos stood his ground.

“All I ever wanted was a quiet life” he cried. “I‟m a

shepherd, not a prophet. It was God who called me to speak out for him.” But Amos‟s courageous actions almost pale into insignificance alongside those of John the Baptist in our Gospel reading today. John was Jesus‟ cousin. He was rather a strange person. You‟ll remember that the Bible tells us that he dressed in camel‟s hair, with a leather belt round his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He was a prophet. John‟s charismatic personality and outspoken ways both attracted and challenged people. And he didn‟t pull any punches! At that time, the Jewish ruler was Herod – known as Herod the Tetrarch or Herod Antipas. Herod divorced his first wife and married Herodias, who had been his brother‟s wife. John dared to denounce this second marriage as unlawful. Now, Herod came from a family of cruel and evil people. He was also very powerful. And he reacted to John‟s criticism – and to his wife‟s displeasure - by arresting John and putting him into prison. It seems that Herod was a weak man, rather than an evil man. There was a part of him that admired John the Baptist – or perhaps he was a little

afraid of him. But sadly, his wife and his stepdaughter tricked him into arranging for John to be beheaded. John the Baptist was a man of great courage. He wasn‟t afraid to speak out for God even against a powerful ruler. John lived for the truth and he died for it. It‟s tempting, isn‟t it, to wish for a quiet life! But it‟s clear from the stories we read in the Bible, and in the history of the Church, that God values the contributions of ordinary men and women who can become bold for Him. We can follow the example set by Amos and John the Baptist and St Urbez by being prepared to act and speak out for God – to do and say what is right and necessary. God calls us to „seek the common good‟ – to make a difference to the world we live in today, to influence people in authority and work for positive changes in our own communities and throughout the world. Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:

“The Church of God has to be the salt and light of the world. We are the hope of the hopeless, through the power of God.”

And his words were echoed by Cardinal Basil Hume:

“Whenever the poor are afflicted or neglected, or whenever human freedom and dignity is not respected, then the Church has a duty to sound a prophet‟s note.” There‟s no shortage of problems in the world today. We see them all around us on the television and in the papers. I feel sure that God would want us to speak out about war, climate change, political corruption, Fair Trade, third world poverty and hunger – and many other concerns. We who know the voice of God – the voice of love and compassion and justice – are called to become his voice in this world. If we can all speak out with courage and conviction, then the voice of God may once again be heard – as Amos heard it – as a mighty roar.