Choices
Preacher: Rt Revd Dr Iain Greenshields, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
Readings: Isaiah 55:1-8; John 4:1-14
(Extracts from the Moderators sermon in note form)
Why give to a good cause? – to this university? To Syria, Turkey, South Sudan? Why?
Why make personal donations to help others – especially, potentially, people you do not know? Why bother?
As we remember today, with thanksgiving, those who have given generously in the past, and still give generously to this University in order to help fertile minds grow and develop, we also look at the spiritual aspect of giving and its basis.
Why did Jesus give himself – what was his purpose in so-doing? What is it He left as a legacy that is so significant – indeed, is it not better described as a living legacy?
We heard read earlier about his conversation with a woman at a well in Samaria and if you go back a chapter in John’s gospel, you will hear a conversation with an eminent Jewish leader and scholar called Nicodemus.
In both of their lives there was something missing which Jesus addresses – He tunes into people’s needs because He carefully listens both to their words and deeply senses their emotions.
The unnamed woman – remarkable conversation:
Samaritan – people who were everything that the Jews looked down on
A Woman – someone that no self-respecting man, never mind religious teacher, would consider worth speaking to
A Woman with a “reputation” – a step even worse
Yet Jesus has a gift for her which he calls “living water” – eternal life – He teases answers out of her until she finally “gets” who He is.
Nicodemus – a moral, well trained religious leader – in many respects a good man – unlike the woman, the type of person you might expect Jesus would warm to and give of his time – and He does, BUT
Nicodemus is immediately challenged – “there is something missing” in your life – at the very core of who you are, says Jesus
It is amazing how people build a life, career, destiny and yet find that what they have invested in can be meaningless.
Deep down in both these people – indeed all of the people Jesus met, is their need to be “held” – to know they are firmly, personally, unconditionally loved.
Listen to Boris Becker:
“I had won Wimbledon twice, once as the youngest player. I was rich….I had all the material possessions I needed…. It is the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. But I had no inner peace.”
Or, Sophia Loren, who many would have considered as a screen goddess when she was interviewed.. She said she had everything – awards, money, possessions, marriage – but this is how she described her life
“In my life there is an emptiness that is impossible to fulfil.”
Finally, David Foster Wallace, when he was at the top of his profession giving a graduation speech: – this is just a flavour of his speech:
“Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
Pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
He goes on to say:
“Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.”
A couple of years after this speech Wallace killed himself and his parting words were – “something will eat you alive.”
All three acknowledge the futility of life whereas Jesus speaks about the fulfilment of life.
His living legacy is a gift offered but not insisted upon or forced upon us.
In it comes grace, forgiveness and eternal life, the purest love and much more besides – offering to us what we do not possess but desperately need
A new identity, a new way of being and a living hope
A gift is not something you pay for – eg of Nick Hornby, in his wonderful book, “How to be Good,” when a guest is invited to dinner and offers to pay at the end of the evening, because that is what he is used to doing when he eats out – he fails to see that this meal and the time spent with the family is a gift.
And just in case we think that all of this, faith “stuff” is just believed by simple ordinary people – some of the intellectual giants such as Auden, Cs Lewis, Tolkien with many before them and many since, have embraced this faith, received this gift, lived this faith, anticipated this hope.
So in remembering the generosity of many to this university in the past and the continuing generosity today, we give thanks
But we look to the ultimate gift and giver who offers to each of us, living water, complete forgiveness, new life, love of a different kind – indeed, eternal life. Now that is worthy of our attention and further investigation.
Rt Rev Dr Iain Greenshields
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland