Sermon preach at Evensong on the Fourth Sunday before Advent 2024

'The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.' Revelation 7:17

I love the month of November - the month of remembrance; of All Saints, All Souls, Remembrance Sunday. Even the moving back of the clocks seems to prepare us for the particular character of this month. As a boy, growing up in Yorkshire, I remember this month vividly, especially the huge piles of leaves that had fallen from the trees in the streets; the building of massive bonfires ready for Guy Fawkes Night; and the smell of the thick, pungent smog-like smoke rising from my own father's garden. Those themes come together most vividly every time I hear Laurence Binyon's First World War poem 'The burning of the leaves:'

Now is the time for the burning of the leaves. They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke Wandering slowly into a weeping mist.

November is a month for remembering in particular.

It is said that dog's do not have short-term memories, that they do not remember like us. It certainly is true of my Cairn Terrier, Bertie. When I come back home after being away for a few hours, I get the exact same welcome as when I come back after being away just a few minutes having forgotten something. For humans, whose lives are dominated by time as well as space, memory is crucially important. I guess that is why dementia or Alzheimer's is so distressing, for memories not only fade, they get jumbled and mixed up.

Remembering is not only what makes us human, it also forms bonds that create community; and communities use ritual and liturgy in order to connect with the remembrances of the past in a vivid and beautiful way. That is what we do in this month of remembrance.

We live in an age when many funeral customs have all but disappeared in many societies. Gone are the days of washing and preparing the body, gathering with the body, sharing stories, and even feasting around the body. Many funerals, these days, do not even have the body present. In spite of the development of palliative care and the hospice movement, so many avoid even talking about death. I found it very sad that there was such a negative reaction in the press to the idea of teaching children about death in schools recently. My experience of working with children and grief is that, usually, it is they who have the most wisdom to give to us! I will never forget when I was at Exeter Cathedral, and one of our nine-year old choristers died suddenly and unexpectedly from acute leukemia. It was the children at the Cathedral School who ministered most profoundly to we adults who could not cope, and helped us in our remembrance of young Noah.

Bishop Richard Holloway suggests that Christian remembrance is not simply about memory but is an active engagement with the past and its effect on present realities; he suggest that Christians are, to use his term, remembrancers. In his book with the most cheerful of titles - 'Anger, Sex, Doubt, and Death' - he says this:

"We would be remembrancers even if we lived for ever, but it seems to be the presence of death that provokes the keenest remembrance. The living we can revisit, but the dead we can only remember. And we do: sometimes in little glimpses, like the credit flashbacks at the end of a film; sometimes in more elaborate sequences, in which we reconstitute as much about a person as we can. It is death that makes us look back in sorrow, makes us remembrancers.

But it is also death that makes us look forward in dread." 1.

In the prophecy of Isaiah there is a beautiful image of a person's life journey described as a tapestry or carpet. When a carpet or tapestry is being woven, as it grows in size, it is impossible to carry on without rolling it up, and the roll becomes bigger and bigger and the pattern becomes obscured. It is only when the rug or tapestry is complete that the weaver cuts it off from the loom and unrolls it. Isaiah says: "like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom." (Isaiah 38:12) Being cut off from the loom that was essential

to the creation of the tapestry in the first place is a process of separation; it is an image of death, yet it is necessary in order for the tapestry or the rug to be of any use. But the most beautiful thing of all is that, it is only when it is cut off from the loom that the carpet can be unrolled, and the rich tapestry with its unique pattern can be revealed.

Of course, now that the beautiful tapestry with all its rich colors and pattern is spread out for all to see, it is also now possible to see the flaws that were created during its making. We fear our flaws being revealed, but they are what makes the tapestry so precious. The process of coming to terms with the entirety of the pattern that is our life is what we call judgement - which, for the Christian, is not something to be feared, but a means of growth into the loving embrace of God - into accepting all that I was, all that I am, and what I shall be.
As Cardinal Basil Hume loved to say, "Judgement, is whispering into the ear of a merciful and compassionate God the story of my life which I had never been able to tell."

Judgement, is whispering into the ear of a merciful and compassionate God the story of my life which I had never been able to tell.

I am grateful to Mr. Nethsingha for choosing tonight's anthem because it has evoked a profound memory for me. At Exeter Cathedral, where his father was once Organist and Master of the Choristers, Blest Pair of Sirens by Parry was regularly sung at Valedictory Evensong, when we bade farewell to the choristers leaving us. Music can help us remember so keenly; it is also a means of living in hope.

O may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long To his celestial concert us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.

1. From 'Anger, Sex, Doubt, and Death' pub. SPCK 1992