Sermon for New Year's Eve

Sunday 31st December 2006

Preached by Rev Paul Hewittwittwitt

On Boxing Day I received just two phone calls. One was to tell me about the death of George Gordon, a long-time member of Glencraig Church, whose funeral was on 29th December. The second phone call was from another parishioner whose first son had been born that day; actually another Oliver (Oliver Park)!

I thought how life keeps going and the wonder of birth and death is never far from any of us.

I was scanning the newspaper yesterday to try and find some inspiration for this evening. I’m afraid with no success. The only thing that resembled some vague Christian reference to the approach of a New Year was an article written in The Times by Katharine Jefferts Schori who, seemingly, is Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church and it was entitled ‘A new year is a fine time to search for Shalom, Isaiah-style’. It was a comment, really on the ‘MDG’s’ – the Millennium Development Goals set forth by the United Nations in 2000 and likened them to the Shalom for which God created us through Jesus Christ

And, absolutely, I am all for eradicating poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, combating HIV/Aids, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases, as so the list goes on and on. Any right-minded person would be in favour of all these things, but the whole article reminded me of a Miss World contestant being asked about her personal wishes, and she would answer some wonderfully high aspirations about helping to achieve world peace or getting rid of poverty...

A new year is a fine time to search for Shalom, but can we try and ground this in reality. I sometimes think that Bishops come from a different planet, whether they be male or female. (Wait until we have our first female bishop in the Church of Ireland; imagine when she is the primate!)

The truth is that even the great and the good, as well as ordinary mortals, are affected mostly by the people who are immediately around them and closest to them; the people who really love them for who they are.

Now, just before we all start getting sentimental, New Year’s Eve is always good for a bit of a joke.

A doctor was addressing a large audience on the subject of food...

“The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fats can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by germs in our drinking water.

But, there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all. We have nearly all eaten, or will it, at some time.

Can anyone here, tell me what food it is that causes most grief and suffering for years after eating it?”

After a short pause, an old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said... “Wedding Cake?”

Or, if “I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language, could it be that “I do” is the longest sentence?

Richard Curtis, I think, has done more for British cinema in recent years than anyone else. A couple of weeks ago I saw through, in its entirety, the film “Love, actually”. I had seen bits and pieces of it before and also I saw the ending once. I wasn’t particularly taken with any of what I had seen, but there it was in front of me one evening. And, I have to say it was very good. It all starts in the Arrivals at Heathrow airport; a place where anyone should go if they need their faith in human nature restored. People greeting people, but not any people; people who actually love one another.

We can all pray and work for the day when third-world poverty is eradicated and disease and sickness is a thing of the past. Let us never stop praying and working for those kinds of goals, but, please, bishops, etc., could we please ground all of this in everyday reality, which you do not seem to live in, and realise the wonder and love of birth and death of those we love so much. It is all about love, actually.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”

There is nothing else in this world that teaches us this better than the pages of the New Testament; it is a treasure, it is, “The most valuable book that this world affords”.

For this New Year, read it and live it and you just see.