St Paul’s Canterbury,8th September 2013, Pentecost 16
Third in a Series of Sermons
on the paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer
The Images used in this Series are taken from Sir Stanley Spencer’s Paintings of
“Christ in the Wilderness”, held in the Gallery of Western Australia in Perth
The Rt. Rev'd John Bayton, AM
COMMUNICATION
STANLEY SPENCER’S IMAGE: He went up into a Mountain to Pray
First Reading: Philemon – The art of letter writing.
I would like you all to close your eyes for a few moments. Now, please put up your hand if you have written a letter on paper with ink or ball-point, this week past. Thank you. Now with eyes still closed, put up your hand if you have written a letter on paper, put it in an envelope with a postage stamp, or even a post-card, sometime during this past month?
Thank you. How do we in September 2013 communicate with one another? By telephone, by e-mail, by fax, by word of mouth?
On Tuesday last I had a conversation with a colleague, the Lutheran Pastor of Footscray. He asked me “What are you going to preach about on Sunday?” I said, “In part, Stanley Spencer’s Image of Christ going up a mountain to pray; Paul’s Letter to Philemon – all in the context of Communication.”
He told me that a week before he visited a young man, a bricklayer in hospital who because of his addiction to his computer and in particular to e-mail the lad had lost the ability to write even his own name! In this context I have noticed how many young peoples’ handwriting is abysmal; due to the same problem.
Some of the greatest literature in the world is contained in letters. Remember Saint Paul and his thirteen letters? Especially his short letter to Philemon, subject of today’s Epistle; Apollos’ letter to the Hebrews [Attributed wrongly to St.
Closer to home we have many famous letters written by equally famous people – King Edward 8 to Wallis Simpson; Patrick White; Stanley Spencer to so many of his friends and lovers; Prime Minister Gladstone; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Shackleton to his Wife; Nelson to Lady Hamilton and so on… Apart from Patrick White, whose letters in our own age are famous in what they tell us about contemporary events.……
I have my own father’s War letters which tell of some of the horrors of his experiences as a Medic..
It has often been said that in his lifetime Jesus wrote nothing. What then do we make of the account in St. John of the Woman taken in Adultery? Jesus bent down and wrote in the dust …. What did he write? The fact that he wrote no letters, no manifesto, does that mean he was illiterate. God forbid. What language did he speak? He was fluent in Hebrew, in Aramaic, in Greek, and in Latin (How did he converse/debate with Pontius Pilate? The conqueror does not speak the language of the conquered – as we know today from our time in Israel-Palestine. Israelis do not speak Arabic, but Palestinians must speak Hebrew!)
In any case, what do we mean by ‘writing’; what do we mean by ‘Communication”? It has often been said that Indigenous Australians had no written language. This of course is not true; they had the most sophisticated language of sighs and symbols and icons of every primitive nation.
Stanley Spencer’s imagery is of profound symbols and metaphor His painting - “He went up into a Mountain to pray” gathers up many of Jesus’ movements in Galilee. What mountains are close to Capernaum where he lived after he left Nazareth? There is Mount Tabor in the Plain of Jezreel where he was Transfigured with Moses and Elijah. . There is the Mount of the Beatitudes which is only about 500 metres above the Lake of Galilee. But maybe the Evangelists mean us to speak metaphorically, not literally. Last week we considered what it meant when Jesus told us to “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret”…today I want to relieve us of the perpendicularity of Prayer – “Go up into the mountain.” ‘Up’ as metaphor. Remember Jesus was received ‘UP’ at the Ascension? Literally? I don’t think so, for there are, in my theology, “Parallel Universes”. In school 4th Grade goes ‘UP’ to fifth Grade? Matriculation students go “UP” to University. People go “UP” to Oxford or Cambridge, or Melbourne or Monash.
You, me here at St. Paul’s go UP to receive Holy Communion. Those whom we elected yesterday will go UP to Canberra even though some will come from North Queensland and go ‘down’ to Canberra. Bills that pass the House of Representatives go UP to the Senate ….and so on.
In the Wilderness Jesus goes up into a mountain to pray. Mountains are places of spirits. Valleys are places of souls. Spirit and Soul are two completely different aspects of our eternal humanity. Mary’s Magnificat – “My soul magnifies the Lord; My spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” Before God blew his own Spirit into the lifeless lump of clay there was no such thing as ‘soul’ – only spirit and body. God created the human race in the same way as he created the entire Cosmos – with both ‘seen and unseen dimensions” as we say every Sunday in the Creed. Stanley Spencer’s paintings are to be read as “things seen and unseen” His “UP” is to be read at those four levels of comprehension that I have mentioned to you once before – Literally, Morally, Allegorically (Metaphorically) and Spiritually. He once wrote – “My mind is flying around, restless, agitated and distracted, thinking ahead, lighting on unsolved problems, unable to simply let go of problems…..then a small miracle occurs… I paint it out”. It occurs to me that that is what I am like ! And you? Are you at peace with yourself at all times and in all places? I don’t think so! Even Saint Paul, perhaps the greatest letter writer of all literature, from time to time conveys the thought that he is not always at peace. On the contrary, for in his beautiful little letter to Philemon he is in prison; in chains, suffering from epilepsy and partial blindness; yet he can write in his own hand! Now, once again, this time with eyes open, put up your hand if you have written a letter on paper with ink or ball-point if you have written a letter to anyone during the past week. !
Perhaps I ought to be more charitable – during this past week, put your hand up if you have written an e-mail to a friend? Perhaps, in due course, handwritten correspondence will pass away – like carbon copies, like the fax. Things come and go so quickly that we perhaps overlook the fact that it is in “all things” that the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
I well remember the first time I heard of a Fax. At the time I was Chair of the Board of Governors of St. Michael’s Grammar School – 1987. At a Board Meeting the Headmaster told us that he had, that day received a Fax from the Schools solicitors. He went on to explain what a Fax was. Like others on the Board I was astounded. Then at a Meeting of the Australian Bishops at Gilbulla NSW the Primate had invited a chap to explain to us what Computer was capable of doing especially in the context of e-mail. I had no idea what the good man was talking about.
Last week I signed up to something called ‘Facebook’ or something like that. Inter something or other…. Within 15 minutes I had a phone call from a friend and fellow Bishop in Colorado; and 16 others all within half an hour.
How did Paul write to Philemon? Certainly not by e-mail; nor by Fax; nor by Australia Post. On papyrus? On parchment? Who knows! Everything evolves; particularly theology and our understanding of Holy Scripture.
In my Retirement I am theological supervisor to a man who has come into Anglicanism from another Tradition. Last Tuesday we spoke of Anglican Poility in the context of Tradition. I said that Anglican polity is built on ‘Scripture, Tradition and Reason” He asked me “What is Tradition”. I replied, ‘Tradition is the mediation between key contradictions in a culture.” He said “I’ll have to think about that”, to which I replied, “So will I because I came to that definition only yesterday. In any case, Tradition is about ‘communication’”. Think about it. Communication. My own grandfather would not have a telephone in his house because one day 70 odd years ago a friend of his, talking on the phone in a storm, was electrocuted!
We all have stories. I have many stories about introducing women into the Sanctuary at Eastern Hill. Of introducing new Liturgies. Of bring the Holy Table down from the East end into the Nave….and so on.
So! IN order to communicate with our friends do we have to write letters on paper with ink or ball point pen? Or do we write to them on e-mail. In the long run it doesn’t matter so long as WE COMMUNICATE WITH THEM! Many friendships are lost because of a failure to write a letter; to go up with Jesus into a Mountain to pray. Do we speak of Faith when we write to our friends? Do we tell them what wonderful things are happening here at St. Paul’s Canterbury, and invite them to join us? I remember once asking a couple to join us in Sunday worship. He said to me, “I would love to go to Church but I didn’t know that I would be acceptable or welcome. I was in the army in the war and had to kill other men. I thought Church was only for good people, not for the likes of me..
I had often meant to write to the Syrian Patriarch in Jerusalem whom we got to know and love when he was translated to Damascus, I never wrote to him. Last week I learned that he is one of the two Bishops, missing, presumed killed by Assad’s soldiers. How I regret not having written to him. And so on. How sad. I meant to write to…… then I read of their Funeral Notice; and then one night recently I had a very bad dream about him…
“For the good that have not done: the evil I have practiced… Good Lord, deliver us…”
When you go home today, pick up a pen, take a piece of paper and write a letter to someone you have had no contact for a long time……
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