Thank God for the 'little people'

Here's my sermon from Broughton Town Council's Civic Service earlier this month.  The readings were Galatians 6:7-10 and Matthew 25:31-40:


My wife and I share a common interest in History although we don't tend to like the same periods, nor do we agree on the type of history we're interested in.  For me the best history is about kings and battles – geopolitical history, but Mags is much more interested in people and the way they lived – social history.  So I was in my element last year when we stood on the fields of Waterloo, whereas Mags much preferred it in Beamish a few years earlier.

It's easy to think that the course of history is driven by those kings and battles, by the big people, but as Gavroche reminds us in Les Miserables “the world is big but little people turn it around”.  This song is about how children especially can make a big difference, and it's great to have representatives of the the Rainbows, Brownies and Guides here with us today, reminding us of the many great children and young people that we have in Broughton.  But the meaning of the song is also extended to the 'little people' in the world - those seemingly without power and influence, because 'little people' do turn this big world around.  Those battles wouldn't have happened without the 'little people' fighting in them, and we all know the history of revolutions where the 'little people' can overthrow even the most omnipotent ruler.  Of course the most influential 'little person' ever was Jesus himself: the son of a carpenter, who spent only three years travelling around an obscure outpost of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago.  Yet everything that we can see around us stems from him and the work of his followers – not just the church building but the technology we use, the clothes we wear, the medicines that have kept us alive, the music we sing, the society we live in, the art and literature and sport we enjoy.  Nobody, whether a 'big person' or a 'little person', has done more to shape and influence the world than the 'little person' Jesus Christ.

Of course, God Almighty could have made all those things happen merely by ordering it to be so.  We see in the book of Genesis that that whole universe only exists because God willed it into existence.  But instead he chose to come to earth, to become a 'little person' and change the world through his teaching, and through his life, death and resurrection.  And one of the reasons he did that was to show how important each one of us is. Whether we consider ourselves to be 'big' or 'little' each one of us has a dignity.  And contrary to the ruling of a British court this week that Genesis 1 is “incompatible with human dignity”, in fact Genesis 1 is the only firm foundation for human dignity.  Our human dignity cannot be based on our beauty, or our intelligence, or our skills, or our usefulness to others, or on the 4% of our genes that distinguish us from chimps.  Our human dignity can only be based on the belief that we are made in the image and likeness of God – that is the only thing we cannot lose, that is the only thing that gives us all equal worth, that is the only thing that means that 'little people' count as much as 'big people'.

And because we all have human dignity, the actions we do to and for each other matter enormously.  Our Civic Service gives us the opportunity to recognise the huge amount of work that is done by those who might think of themselves as 'little people' and to say 'thank you' to them.  They are the people who turn this world around and who do so much good for this community of Broughton.  St Paul reminds us in his letter to the Galatian church “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”.  We are in the middle of Harvest season, when we think about the little seeds which were planted earlier in the year that we are now able to harvest and enjoy.  St Paul uses that to illustrate the benefits that result from the 'little' actions of 'little' people.  We have so many people who give their time and energy to help this community and the result is a community that we can be proud of.  The hard work and preparation that go into a lot of community events and projects, and community life itself, is often unseen, but the results, like the harvest, often can.   There are too many people to name individually and there are also many different areas and aspects of the life of this community in which they work.  It would be wrong to start giving examples because either I would miss people out, or because the tea will go cold in the Village Hall!

But there are are also thousands of tiny actions we can do each day that make the world a better place: a smile, a kind word, a prayer.  Most of these will go unnoticed and uncelebrated.  However, Jesus' parable in our reading from Matthew assures us that on Judgement Day, each and every good thing we have done will be noticed and celebrated, and we will see the full effect of them.  And that's an amazing thought!  The same is true of our bad deeds, and that is a more frightening prospect, but the promise of Jesus is that the slate will be wiped clean for those who repent of their sins.

So today we gather to celebrate all those people whose actions both small and large make this community a better place.  Thank you, but most of all thank God for you!

A Peaky look at the afterlife

Here's and extended version of my magazine article this month:

It's taken a while but I've finally jumped on the bandwagon and started watching 'Peaky Blinders'. In one episode the matriarch of the gangster family, Polly, goes to see a medium because she has a feeling that her daughter, who was taken from her at an early age, is now dead. The medium says that her daughter is dead, and despite Polly's daughter-in-law, Esme, warning that the medium is a charlatan, we later find out that Polly's daughter is indeed dead.

The Druid and Celtic feast of Samhain held around this time of year celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of the dark period of winter. The boundary between this world and the world of the dead was thought to dissolve and the dead returned to earth and created havoc by playing tricks on people and damaging crops. Such ideas seem laughable today, but the thinking behind 'psychic' mediums, spiritualists and clairvoyants is similar – they claim to transcend the boundary between this world and the 'world of the dead' so that the dead can communicate with the living. And their continuing popularity is proof that they are offering something that many people want despite their disbelief.

Despite the seemingly accurate reading, Esme's warnings that the medium is a charlatan are very plausible. Indeed Polly gives the medium all the information: what happened in the past, how she feels now and that she wants to know if her daughter is alive or not. The medium has a fifty-fifty change of being right (although with mortality rates it is more likely she is dead), and clearly Polly is expecting to hear that her daughter is dead. Even if the medium is wrong it is better for her to have given bad news than false hope.

Derren Brown in his book 'Tricks of the Mind' exposes some of the tricks and tactics used by charlatan mediums, such as 'cold reading' (starting with vague, general statements and through educated guesses and questions getting more specific) and 'hot reading' (gathering information beforehand). Other techniques are to explain incorrect guesses by saying that they are only passing on what they hear, or blaming the client for not remembering or understanding. They also rely on the suggestibility of vulnerable, grieving people and the human capacity to put meaning onto ambiguous statements, as well as ignore the many inaccurate guesses.

Brown would probably say that all mediums use these techniques. Some will do it knowingly; justifying their fraudulent actions by claiming they are bringing comfort to their clients, or that's it's just for fun, or that they do it for charity. Others will be doing it unconsciously; genuinely believing they have a psychic gift, a belief that's reinforced every time they get a guess right. But can they actually make contact with the spiritual realms?

Brown doesn't believe in anything supernatural or paranormal and so his analysis fails to take into account something very important. There are very real spiritual beings and forces and any attempt to contact them, whether serious or not, can have very damaging consequences. As God has forbidden these practices (e.g. Leviticus 19:31, Deuteronomy 18:9-12), no force for good would use them, despite them seeming to be harmless or even caring. St Paul warns us the “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).

The reality of malevolent forces also explains a common 'proof' that mediums are really in contact with the dead; i.e. the client saying that “the medium told me things only I and the dead person know”. It may be true that no human could know those things but as these forces are supernatural, they have knowledge that humans don't. A medium, whether 'honest' or not, opens themself up to these forces which can then exploit this opportunity to trick people into believing that contact is being made with the dead. However the question may be asked; why would evil forces want to trick people in this way? The answer is that it is mainly to stop people believing in the the true God who reveals himself in the Bible and to stop them responding to the good news of Jesus.

The 'trick' of mediumship and other occult practices is to claim that the spiritual realm (and by implication God as well) are able to be controlled by humans: spirits can be summoned and also, via spells, be utilised. The Bible reminds us that not only is God is greater than we are (Isaiah 40:13; Job 38-41) but he is also far superior to any other spiritual being (Psalm 97:9). It also warns us that evil spirits are prowling around “like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

But mediums also purvey a false view of life after death. We do not become spirits after we die and we will not spend the afterlife waiting for a loved one to summon us via a medium. Jesus' physical resurrection proves that we too can be raised with a physical (but improved!) body. And worse than that they offer a false hope. Unlike Polly, most people don't go to mediums wanting to know if their loved one has died. Most go because a loved one has died and they want to know that their loved one is happy or 'OK'. Jesus taught clearly that on the Day of Judgement humanity will be split into two groups (Matthew 25:31-46). Jesus said that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16), and John the Baptist said “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them” (John 3:36). This tells us that belief in Jesus does not mean simply believing that he existed but that it has something to do with God's wrath, his righteous anger and judgement of sin. Paul explains the link: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:8-10).

Belief in Jesus means to repent of our sins and to accept his call to follow him as our Lord. This is the good news: that we can have eternal life because Jesus died for us. But this happy state is only for those who repent and believe. I've yet to here about someone who has been to a medium and heard from a 'loved one' who is not in that happy state, but who instead warns their relative to repent and believe in Jesus! Nor have I heard talk of a 'loved one' in that happy state who encourages their relative to repent and believe in Jesus in order to share in that eternal life. The message that mediums give is that everyone, regardless of whether or not they believe in Jesus, attains a happy state after death. If this is true then Jesus is a liar.

Both charlatan and 'honest' mediumship are always unethical because they exploit people's vulnerabilities and expose them to dangerous spiritual forces, who seek to prevent them responding to Jesus' offer of eternal life. There is only one person who has spoken from 'beyond the grave': Jesus Christ who died and was raised to life again, and now reigns far above all powers. And he invites you to repent and believe now, before it's too late, so that you may join him for all eternity.

Almighty God,

give us grace to cast away the works of darkness

and to put on the armour of light,

now in the time of this mortal life,

in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility

so that on the last day,

when he will come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead,

we may rise to the life immortal,

through him who lives and reigns with you

and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.