Sermon at the Sung Eucharist on the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity 2017

I first went to Taizé in 1979.  Apart from its glorious countryside and wonderful Burgundian wine, Taizé is best known for the remarkable monastic community which is to be found on the hill above the village.  Back in 1942, at the height of the second world war, a young Protestant Swiss man decided to settle in Taizé with some like-minded friends and to try the experiment of living together as a Christian community.  Brother Roger, as he became known, was passionately committed to two ideals.  First, he wanted to live among and serve the poor and dispossessed: in 1942 that meant giving shelter to Jewish refugees fleeing the horrors of the Nazi occupation of France.  Brother Roger’s second priority was to work for greater unity among Christians of all traditions and backgrounds.  From the outset this tiny community in Taizé included all manner of Christians from Protestant and Catholic traditions alike.

The community continued in its life after the end of the war, and soon attracted thousands of young people who came on pilgrimage.  The openness of the Brother Roger and the other monks, the simplicity and beauty of their worship, and their willingness to stand firmly with the poor and to run counter to the limitations of the institutional churches was and is immensely attractive.  I remember camping one Easter at Taizé in freezing and very muddy conditions; and queuing for what seemed like hours to receive a piece of French bread, a dollop of tasty bean stew and some fruit in a plastic bowl.  The conditions were terrible, but it was still a piece of heaven itself.  The work of Brother Roger and the community at Taizé has since come to be widely recognised as visionary – leading the way in deepening understanding between different Christian traditions, and enabling hundreds of thousands of young people to begin to explore their faith in ways that simply aren’t possible in small local churches.

Shockingly, the man who started it all – Brother Roger – was murdered some twelve years ago by someone who was suffering mental illness; stabbed in the neck whilst he was at prayer with hundreds of youngsters in the community’s church at Taizé.  Roger’s funeral was attended by bishops and dignitaries from around the world. He was buried to the sound of the simple chants for which the community is famous.  Here was a man who changed the lives of thousands of people by his utterly winsome smile, his passion to serve the poor, and his unwavering commitment to prayer.  Here was a man who was never successful in the terms the world measures success – he never had much money, he didn’t dress well or own a house, he never married or had his own children.  Yet here was a frail wisp of a man who, without setting out to do so, changed the world. 

Our Gospel reading this morning finds Jesus at the height of his ministry of teaching and healing. He has turned aside from working to gain a regular wage, he has not married or had children, he hasn’t even settled in one place that he might call home.  To the evident confusion of his mother and brothers, Jesus has taken the path of becoming a travelling teacher and healer, supported simply by his followers, with no apparent thought for the future – until now, that is.  For today’s Gospel reading tells us of the crucial turning point in Jesus’ ministry.  And I mean literally crucial, for today Jesus begins to speak to his disciples of the cross.  As Jesus begins to teach his disciples about the way ahead, and the need for his own suffering and death, they are at first puzzled and then protest strongly.  Peter is their spokesman.  ‘God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you.’  But Jesus is quite clear about the way ahead, not only for him, but for his followers too.  ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

For three years Jesus has taught by personal example, by story-telling and explanation, by his actions as he healed the sick, fed the hungry, challenged the rich, honoured the powerless and vulnerable.  He has not lived the comfortable life of the well-educated scribe or Pharisee, he hasn’t been on the career ladder of a Temple prophet; Jesus is a bit of an outsider, someone who refuses to conform to his society’s view of success.  And now he speaking of what looks like utter failure – he is speaking of his need to suffer and to die.  This is a complete contradiction of what his disciples have come to expect of Jesus.  He is supposed to be God’s chosen one, the Messiah, the one who will be their king.  He’s meant to be acknowledged as the Messiah by everyone, including the chief priests and the elders.  As far as Jesus’ followers are concerned, they’re just waiting for the time when Jesus’ true identity will be revealed for all to see, so that he can save them from Roman oppression. That’s their hope. That’s their expectation. Suffering and death are simply not on the agenda.

So it’s not surprising that Peter and the others protest vehemently.  We would protest too.  But Jesus will have none of it.  He goes on – look, it’s not only me who must lose his life.  It’s you as well.  ‘Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. It’s all riddles to the disciples. They simply do not, they simply cannot, understand.  Success is not to be measured as the world measures it. Death is not failure, but fulfilment. The cross is not shame and rejection, but glory and love.

Paul understood this truth and tried to live his life by it.  In the first eleven chapters of his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul writes about the free and unearned love which God offers to each and every one of us.  Then, in chapter twelve, he begins to spell out what this means for how we live together.  And in effect he writes:  Don’t live as the world would have you live.  That’s not success.  Live like Jesus Christ.  Stand up for what you believe in.  Go on, don’t take revenge on people when they hurt you; bless them instead.  Don’t always try to mix with your nice respectable neighbours.  Go out of your way to get to know those who are poor and in need, those whom everybody else despises and thinks of as losers.  Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Success as the world counts it is not success as God counts it. I’ve been asking myself over the past few days, how do we judge success?  What would a successful St Margaret’s Church look like?

According to today’s epistle and gospel, success here at St Margaret’s isn’t about restoring or improving this beautiful building, important though those things are.  Nor is success to measured by how much money we raise – though we could always do better on that count. Nor is success to be measured by how faithfully we uphold the traditions of St Margaret’s. Good though they are, none of these count as ‘success’ in gospel terms. No. What counts as success has to do with people, with us and with the people whom we encounter and have dealings with day by day. We will be living the gospel when we learn to live with one another in generous and openness of heart. We will be living the gospel when we welcome among us the poor and the needy, the people whom everyone else fears and despises. We will be living the gospel when we look the values of the world in the eye and deliberately choose to put Jesus’ values first.

When Jesus tells his followers to ‘take up your cross and follow me’, he’s not calling them to literal martyrdom – at least, not many of them.  What he’s calling them to is in many ways much more demanding:  the daily decisions to live by gospel values, to be thought a failure and maybe a bit off-beam by the world around us. We’re asked not to conform, not to seek success as those around us seek it. 

When Brother Roger made his decision to settle in Taizé sixty-five years ago, he was making a decision not to be successful in the world’s eyes, but to be faithful to Christ as he understood it. When Jesus decided to turn towards Jerusalem and head to towards certain death, he was making a decision not to be successful in the world’s eyes, but to be faithful to his Father as he understood it. The choice is still ours today. What then is to be the measure of our success here at St Margaret’s, and of your and my success in our own lives?