St David’s Day

Date:1st March 2009

Preacher: Revd David Carpenter

God saw all that he had made, and behold it was good.

IN THE NAME OF GOD: OUR WISDOM AND OUR TRUTH.

Let me ask you this, “Are you a good person?”

Already a spark of an answer has occurred to you in your head. You perhaps said any one of the following:

• Yes, of course I am, what a rude man for asking. Or:

• Well, I try my best, I know I fail, but I do my very best not to hurt people. Maybe you thought:

• Well, I’m a darned sight better than Jack down the road ... I haven’t done a Sir Fred Goodwin, have I?

• And one answer that many people give, more privately than most of us know: no, I’m not. They do this because inside they are insecure and carry a sense of having failed a lot.

The first reading, this evening, is from the opening chapters of Genesis, and Genesis isn’t about how the world was made. It’s not a pre-science primer for pre-modern man, much less is it intended to be a factual resource for today’s scientist to ponder. Neither is it a book which strictly belongs in the history section of the library.

So if it’s none of these things, what is it?

It’s a theological statement about the world in which we find ourselves. More correctly, and in common with all of scripture, it is an unfolding story about God and us; the connection that exists, and the relationship which ebbs and flows between these principle players. It’s about living with with God, and how that courses into, and affects, our living with each another and of course it’s about being good and being bad. It’s about being holy and about being corrupt; it’s about being free and being bound.

So back to the first question: are you a good person who has the freedom to go wrong, or are you a bad person who needs to be won back?

It was the great bishop and theologian Augustine who developed the idea of Original Sin, the sin that drove out the holy, brought estrangement and subsequent death into the world. It is the sin, he argued, in which we all share: culpable, not by any specific act, but simply by sharing in being human. We are bad, and in this state of badness we can only flounder, each sinful action compounding another. All we can do is wait to be rescued, and on this is built a whole theology of falling apart, and finding our way back to God.

A sense of rottenness, and the guilt which it often engenders, and which the church has often capitalized upon, is deep seated, and sometimes manifests itself in personality disorders, and a sense of inferiority or worthlessness, along with a sense of the inescapability of our human lot that requires some external action on behalf of a God in order to put things right.

Importantly, this however, is not the only strand in scripture. There is another voice that often, regrettably, followers of the Augustine model, have largely ignored, or to be kind, have knocked out of focus.

Instead of starting with sinfulness and fall, we must begin with blessing: the Original Blessing of God’s outpouring creativity in love. So it becomes possible to speak of Original Goodness.

A Native American elder summarizes it in this way:

Goodness is the natural state of the world. The world is good even when it seems evil, it’s good. There’s only goodness in God. And that same goodness is in us all. You can feel it in yourself. You know when you feel good inside.

Yes, you’re God’s child, too. You are good. You are sacred. Respect yourself. Love the goodness in yourself. Then put that goodness out into the world! That’s everybody’s instructions.

Travels in a Stone Canoe: The Return to the Wisdomkeepers

Tonight, I want to affirm this original goodness, this original grace.

Another more contemporary theologian pursues a modern counter to Augustine’ position: in his book Original Blessing he says this.

The forces of fear and pessimism so prevalent in society need to be countered by an increased awareness of awe and goodness...... This goodness is inherent in the beauty, wisdom, and wonder of creation...... Goodness and creation go together as do goodness and God.

If you remember only one thing to take away from this sermon tonight, I hope it would be this. God looks at you and me and says: you are the work of my love, and behold the work of my love is good.

I would argue that sinfulness, by that I want you to understand I mean, that we manifestly often demonstrate actions that do not always flow from the goodness that is God, is not the result of some deep, inherent rottenness, some inalienable condition that consigns us to a damnable state, but rather the flaw in the mirror that distorts the image, but, a mirror none the less, that still reflects, although imperfectly, the love and goodness of God.

In other words, as a child of God you bear the creators image and it is your life’s work to reflect that for good, to all who you meet, and to the world in which you live. It is an image that when distorted does injustice to the good creativity of God, and is a wounding of his love and loving creativity. If it does dam us, it dams us in the sense that it consigns us all to being less than we truly are and can be.

Jesus reflects purely, and truly, the openness of God’s love and creative beauty. He mirrors perfectly for us that relationship that God both wants and actively seeks with us, but still more, he also offers back to God a life, sacrificially lived, freely and entirely in God. When we abandon ourselves to the goodness of God’s creativity in our lives we like Jesus become that same mirror and are both blessed and a blessing.

What I suggest then, we may understand from S Paul in today’s reading, is that the extent of our wrongdoing doesn’t affect God’s loving action on our behalf. Everybody is touched by Jesus, God’s gift of love. God’s gift upsets the principle that wrongdoing must be followed by a verdict of “guilty” because guilty brings the full force of the law, which is condemnation, but in Jesus, there is no condemnation. Indeed we have a link with Jesus that means God’s love is being given to us in a new relationship and in a new life, day by day, moment by moment.

We can and must make something of our lives, remembering that God’s love was, and still is, always one step ahead. Our repeatedly missing of the mark may make it look as if failure has the upper hand, but God’s goodness has won through to put things right, bringing life to the full through Jesus and to remember that this love, is immeasurable, unsurpassable, unconditional and always gifted freely.

You are blessed certainly, but more than this, you are God’s blessing to others.

The question, if you agree with me, is do you believe this inside yourself?

Amen.