Sermon given at Sung Eucharist on Sunday 6th May 2012

6th May 2012 at 11:00 am

The Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Canon of Westminster and Rector of St Margaret's

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

‘La Reyne le veult’.

Tuesday saw one of the more arcane, enchanting, but nonetheless significant happenings in Parliament when the current session, which started in May 2010 following the last Election, came to an end and both Houses were Prorogued.

It is political theatre as only the British can muster: in the absence of Her Majesty the Queen, five Royal Commissioners – including the Lord Speaker and the Leader of the House of Lords – are empowered to summon the House of Commons and draw the session of Parliament to a close. Black Rod, or more properly, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, is dispatched to the ‘other House’ where he bids members of the Commons to attend.

Standing at the Bar of the House of Lords, the Speaker, Serjeant-at-Arms and others attend while Rhodri Walters, the Reading Clerk, runs through the list of Bills which have received Royal Assent and passed into Law in the lifetime of this Parliament.

Accompanied by much doffing of bicorne hats, there is a memorable foray into 12th-century Norman French: ‘La Reyne remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult’, handily shortened to ‘La Reyne le veult’. The Queen wills it.

Members of Parliament then make their way back to the Commons, and then are dismissed by standing in a long line and shaking the Speaker’s hand. He bids them each farewell, though of course it will not be for long.

This elaborate ritual is a way of drawing a line under one session of Parliament, before the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening announces the legislative programme in the next session – which takes place on Wednesday.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

In a ritualised, formal and staged manner this is about a day of reckoning, of giving an account. It is a black and white statement for - and by - our politicians of what the fruits of their labours have been:

• Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Act

• Protection of Freedoms Act

• Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act

• Scotland Act

• Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Act

Over 2 years this amounted to 49 Acts of Parliament and a further 7 originating as Private Members Bills.

So much for the ‘Houses over the Road’. But we ought to be asking about our own fruits. Have we been faithful stewards, careful tenders of the Vine? because this morning’s Scriptures hold before us three ways in which we will be held to account.

First of all, 1 John 4 makes the basic connection between God’s love for us and our actions towards other people:

‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love’.

If you want to know the fruits of the Christian life, the first place to look is in our relationships. Put plainly and simply, God has shown his love for us in giving us Christ Jesus. Our response to that loving graciousness should be seen in our love for others. Easy to say, harder to do.

And the reading from the Acts of the Apostles shows just how much of a challenge this can be. Acting in a loving and just manner seems so much easier when it is planned in advance, programmed in and the boundaries set. But the intervention of God in our lives does not run so predictably as Philip soon found.

Directed by the Spirit of God onto the Wilderness Road he found himself with a complete stranger. More than that, though quite likely a Jew or at least a proselyte from the Ethiopian diaspora, he was from a very different culture, ‘exotic’ is probably how we would best describe him.

There is an opportunism about the scene: Philip is directed to the place when the Eunuch just happens to be reading the prophet Isaiah. What, in ministry, I have tended to call serendipity. This could not be planned or arranged beforehand, but the challenge is how then to respond.

Philip’s response is one of openness to the prompting of the Spirit, an awareness that God has called him to this particular time and this particular place, that God has a plan and purpose in his life. And from this seemingly chance encounter fruit is borne – more quickly than perhaps could ever have been expected. The eunuch asks to be baptised there and then.

But the third dimension of bearing fruit is altogether more sobering and brings us back to this morning’s Gospel reading. Having given the immense encouragement that ‘Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit’, Jesus then continues:

Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

So, please don’t speak to me of ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’. This is Jesus the Old Testament prophet, the one who sees the truth of what is happening around him. Who speaks God’s judgement.

In the eyes of Jesus and the early church, ‘bearing fruit’, then, was not a passive activity simply allowing the sun to shine, the blossom to bloom and the fecundity of nature to reveal itself.

‘Bearing fruit’ means living lives that mirror the love of God in our love of neighbour. ‘Bearing fruit’ means responding to the call of God as and when it arises, being open to the prompting of the Spirit. ‘Bearing fruit’ means abiding, being viscerally and arterially joined to God, doing the very will of the Father. Not so much ‘La Reyne le Veult’ as ‘Le Roi le Veult’. The King of Heaven wills it.

I end with the wonderful prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake, a fellow West Countryman:

Lord God, when you call your servants to endeavour any great matter, grant us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same, until it be thoroughly finished, which yields the true glory; through him who, for the finishing of your work, laid down his life for us, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.