Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 12th August 2007

Preached by Rev Brian Parker

Play-acting

Martin Clunes is one of the best comedy actors in the business. He made his name in Men Behaving Badly, but now he has flourished in the lead role in the television series Doc Martin.

Doc Martin, for those who watch little television and are probably the better for that, is a character with a very definite attitude. The story goes that he was a top surgeon in London who developed an allergy to blood. At the sight of blood he would faint or at best take a dizzy turn. Consequently his career as a surgeon came to an abrupt end.

So he moved to the picturesque fishing village of Portwenn in Cornwall where he set up as the local GP. However his abrasive attitude soon causes all sorts of agro among the locals. His brand of patient care is direct and at times even brutal. It all makes for a great mix of humour that borders on the ridiculous and yet at times there is a scary sense that Doc Martin could be for real!

A fly on the wall documentary about the making of Doc Martin included interviews with Martin Clunes and various members of the cast as well as the producer.

It turns out the original script had portrayed the doctor in a more straightforward way as simply someone coming to terms with life as a GP in a very quaint and charming fishing village.

It was Martin Clunes who decided to play the character with attitude and in doing so he transformed the plot and opened up a rich vein of humour that has now stretched into a second series.

The producer was delighted with this creative input. She said: “When Martin puts on the dark suit and struts about he becomes Doc Martin.” And she added the fascinating insight that “he doesn’t even realise it but he very often continues to play the part after the cameras have stopped rolling.”

Playing a part. Play-acting. It’s all about pretending, making believe something is true. And of course people who pretend can be very convincing.

When Isaiah looked at the character of the worshiping community in Israel he was far from convinced that their motives and attitudes were genuine and worthy of God. He saw through the rituals and called on them to “stop bringing meaningless offerings to the Lord”.
His point was that they were play-acting, pretending to be something they were not. Their lifestyles didn’t match their claims to be the people of God. Hypocrisy and corruption had crept up on them so insidiously that they had ended up fooling themselves.

“Stop bringing meaningless offerings, wash and make yourselves clean, seek justice, encourage the oppressed, come now, let us reason together says the Lord.”

Isaiah told them bluntly that if their worship and faith was to mean anything it had to be seen in the way they lived. They had to take the Lord seriously, they had to learn to reason and apply their minds to the work of the Kingdom.

I once heard a theologian saying that genuine faith impacts on our lifestyle as if we were putting on flippers to go scuba diving. Flippers can be awkward and even uncomfortable before you get in the water. He was making the point that faith should influence our direction and priorities in life, our manner of walking.

The truth is that faith and worship lays on each one of us a burden of choice. The kind of choices that mould our attitudes and forge our relationships. Faith has consequences.




In the readings from Luke’s Gospel over the past few weeks we have been reminded of the imperatives in Christian living. The imperative to be resolute in the face of persecution, the imperative to beware of being possessed by possessions, the imperative to listen well to the Word of God.

If we fail to recognise these imperatives then we drift into a futile faith of empty rituals and seasonal church attendance. We end up play-acting.

Canon Maureen Ryan of Galway says: “While just making the effort to be there with others, to embrace discipline, to go to church, to pray, to read, to study, to listen, to love mercy and do justice, to make time gladly to wait upon the Lord, are not guarantees of a developing relationship with God; they are almost invariably prerequisites.

“If we are detached, if we let concepts like love or intimacy or holiness remain abstract, then we shouldn’t be surprised if the spiritual path appears effortless but paradoxically leads us nowhere.”

You’ve heard the one about the odd job painter who turned up at the front door carrying a large tin of green paint looking for work.

“Right” said the householder. “If you go round to the back door you’ll see the porch. Paint that and then come back and I’ll pay you.”

An hour later the painter returned to the front door for his money. As he pocketed the cash he said casually: “By the way Mister that wasn’t a Porsche at the back it was a Mercedes.”

The Lord says, “let us reason together”, listen carefully to what I am saying to you, and be alert. Learn to do the right thing.

In Luke’s Gospel there are many images to reinforce this imperative in Christian living.

One of them urges us to be “well dressed” for service. The metaphor reminds us of Paul’s injunction to put on the whole armour of God, to be faithful in our worship, in our discipline and in our manner of living.

When Martin Clunes is dressed in his Doc Martin suit he takes on the character of a GP with attitude. But he is only play-acting. When the Christian is dressed for service in the Kingdom of God he is living and learning the mind of Christ.

May the mind of Christ my Saviour
Live in me from day to day
By his love and power controlling
All I do and say.

Amen.