Sermon for the first Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 29th May 2005

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

I hope you’re not expecting any great pearls of wisdom this morning, cause I think we’re all a bit drained out!

It has certainly been a very hard time over the last few days, indeed, I could say the last few years. Most of you, I’m sure, know the very sad circumstances over the last week that we have had to deal with, and if you don’t know, I don’t want to dwell on it all now. Let’s just suffice it to say, that it’s good to be here this morning!

Somehow, yes, we’re back! Good ol’ straightforward Morning Prayer. There’s no doubt that there’s a security about that. And I have to say that the liturgy we say week in and week out, certainly helps when everything else seems to be going haywire. I wonder is it because the liturgy in our Prayer Books constantly and forever states all the truths about our Christian faith. Whatever may be happening around us, certain truths stay the same. Knowing that gives us a stability and a kind of anchor to hold on to when the sea is very rough. It’s our rock!


The Anglican Church has always loved its Prayer Books ever since Cranmer came up with the very first one in 1549. And Anglicans can be ridiculed because they seem to be able to produce a ritual for anything! Wonderful in so many ways, but the result can be, sometimes, that our worship is quite formalised, and doesn’t always allow itself the flexibility that other forms of worship can offer.

One thing for sure is, however, that we always get our facts straight. That is a huge strength in itself. The truth of the Gospel is never compromised in worship. The creeds of the ancient Church are always upheld. And all these kind of things were all the reasons for putting the Prayer Book together in the first place. We hold on to the facts, even when all around seems haywire. Facts first, faith next and feelings last of all. I’ll explain that in a few moments.

But first of all, what is one of the main ‘facts’ that we hold on to?

There was a famous evangelist who came to a town for an evangelistic crusade. On the way to the stadium where the crusade was being held, the evangelist wanted to stop off at a post office to post a letter. But he got hopelessly lost and finally decided to ask someone for directions.
He noticed a small boy walking on the pavement, so he pulled over and said, “Excuse me, son, but can you tell me where the post office is?”
The little boy said, “Sure. Turn around and go back down the street to the first light, turn left and then it’s on the corner of the next crossroads.”
“Thank you very much, young man,” said the evangelist. “By the way,” he added, handing the boy an announcement for the crusade, “I’d like to invite you to come to a meeting later today where I’ll tell you how you can find Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour.”
“Fat chance,” said the little boy, “You can’t even find the post office!”

The fact is, that we don’t have to find Jesus at all. Jesus finds us! Perhaps one of the most important facts of all; that it is not about us trying to reach God, through all our useless efforts, it’s about God reaching us. We’re here not because of us, but because of Him!

It’s facts not feelings that keep our faith on an even keel. Facts are sure like the rock that Jesus’ famous parable talks about in our NT reading this morning. It is the foundation on which we build our faith. Feelings go up and down, in and out, high and sometimes very low, as we have all experienced at some time or other. It’s not feelings that our faith is dependant upon, it’s facts, it’s the rock, the foundation upon which we build:

Three men were walking along the top of a wall. The first was called Facts, the second was called Faith, and the third was called Feelings. The point of this little illustration is that providing faith keeps looking to facts, he will stay on the wall and feelings will follow. But if Faith makes the mistake of constantly turning around and looking at feelings, then he may begin to wobble, and he may even fall off the wall. The moral of the story is to keep looking at the facts. The facts are the rock, the foundation on which we build our faith.

Whatever our feelings may be over these days, we know that heaven will be a place of intense joy and delight, which will go on for ever. We can’t really imagine it. It’s not time going on and on, it’s the absence of time. Isn’t that a blissful thought in itself? For, as it says in First Corinthians, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”.

As C.S. Lewis puts it in one of his Narnia books: (I think it’s from ‘The Last Battle’)

‘The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning...all their life in this world...had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before’.

That’s a fact we need to hold on to, even when our feelings might want to tell us something else.