Living Symbolism: Trinity 2: 1st June 2008:
Deut 11:18-21, Matt 7:21-27:
St. Mary’s at 9.30: Susannah Underwood

Our reading from Deuteronomy:

“You shall put these words of mine in your heart and your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates…”

If I was looking for a combination of passion and law, then I think I would be more likely to have looked for it in an episode of Ally McBeale, that American drama full of drop dead gorgeous lawyers, than the Old Testament law book Deuteronomy. But here in this passage is revealed, through urgency and symbolic gesture, the passionate intimacy that God wants between his law and his people. The law is to become such a deep and integral part of the Israelites faith that it is to be written on their heart and soul. And the physical reminder of this is the symbolism, which Orthodox Jews still practice, of binding it on their arms and fixing it foreheads, of having it written on their gates and nailed to their doorposts.

Symbolism, which I would like us to consider this morning, runs throughout our lives. Kisses, presents, tears, football shirts, wedding rings, the well timed offer of a cup of tea, can all be symbols of something otherwise unseen, a feeling from inside that attempts to be expressed on the outside. And if this is the case it is perhaps no surprise that in religion symbolism plays such a major part. For how else can we express the indescribable? How else can we display the great mysteries? Our church buildings, liturgy, music, gestures are all steeped in symbolism. Symbolism is a two way street – it is both an expression of our faith, and also feeds our understanding of that faith.

Symbolism within our worship is a reminder that our faith is not a 2D affair. The term ‘belief’ sometimes seems to suggest that this is a matter of the brain that faith is a choice in believing in a God or not, and there it ends. Or indeed it can be seen as a private spiritual affair, that is detached and has no impact in the real world. But the symbolism we have inherited within our church tradition, of images, music, incense, bread and wine, the movement of our bodies, embraces all our senses. Faith is brought into the physical. Through every day things suggestions of the holy are given, and we can be reminded that traces of God can be found in the most ordinary things. To put it another way - if you’ll excuse the finger gestures that my youngest daughter consistently uses – God and ‘real’ life do mix.

Of course symbolism is open to change and differing interpretations. I have inherited quite beautiful stoles from my grandfather, embroidered with gold thread, but somehow the swastika’s embroidered on the front tell me I won’t be wearing them. I can assure you my grandfather was no Nazi, the swastika was a sign of peace and harmony long before the Nazis highjacked it, there’s rather a lot of them above Eunice’s head here in the chancel in fact, but meanings change and we need to be aware of when our symbols are out of date, or become offensive or irrelevant.

Within different church traditions there can also be snobbery or superiority over the use of symbolic actions. But I wonder if there is as much difference as we might sometimes like to believe between a church which worships with all arms raised and flags waving, and a church where the priest may raise his or her arms in a gesture of praise during the Eucharistic prayer, and where the incense is waved about the altar. Both surely are trying to express something similar of the glory and holiness of God. Different outward expressions of a similar inner reality perhaps.

But all traditions need to heed the warning of our gospel reading this morning, that religious practice and appearance is valueless without the kind of faith which impacts our lives. “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven” says Jesus, “but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven”. It is not enough to call Jesus Lord, it is not enough to tie the law to our heads, it is not enough to stand reverently for the gospel reading, it is not enough to kneel when we pray, if we refuse to remain unchanged by the encounter. It is not enough to engage with ritual and symbolism in church if we fail to let it affect our faith and our lives. If we refuse to connect these outer expressions, with a growing inner reality, which in turn effects our actions. In other words God’s law is still to be written in our heart and soul, and visible in our lives.

Perhaps the clearest example of a Christian understanding of the relationship between outward symbolism and our inner lives is demonstrated especially in the church’s understanding of sacraments. Sacraments, such as Baptism and the Eucharist, are often described as an outward expression of an inward reality. (I can say that with complete confidence because I remember learning it in **Michael’s study!) Through the presence of words and gesture, symbols and ritual, something unseen but no less real, something spiritual but effectual, takes place.

And in the next part of our service, we will be entering into the sacramental act of the Eucharist. Full of gesture and imagery, multi-layered symbolism and ritual, it would be impossible, and I am not confident enough, to attempt to explain or unpack it. Besides if symbols in someway express that which words alone can’t, then I think I would only limit or deny the full meaning. However there is one aspect of it that I think might help our understanding of how symbolism relates to our inner lives and outward actions. The Eucharist is an active event. We are not merely onlookers, we become participants. And it is the physical action in the Eucharist which engages our bodies from the inside and out that I think can serve as a reminder that encountering Jesus in symbol and sacrament should be an event that is transformative to the whole of our lives.

And so to finish, I wondered if it might be of help to allow a little space for imagination and reflection on a personal level of what your actions in the Eucharist, if you are to partake this morning, might mean. What they might mean to your understanding of your faith, and what this might mean to your life outside of here. And so for a moment, in your imagination, I want to take you approximately fifteen minutes into the future to the very final part of the Eucharist when you are invited to accept Christ’s invitation to His table.

You may wish to close your eyes for a moment.

Can you see yourself? You are still sitting in your pew. You are invited to Christ’s table and you respond. When you stand and move forward. And whether you come for a blessing or to eat the bread and drink the wine, ask yourself what lies behind your physical movement, your choosing to come to this table? Gratitude? Habit? Need? Obedience? Don’t judge your motivation just recognise it. As you walk down the aisle, from where have you come and to where are you going? From which life are you walking from and to which life are you going to? And when you kneel at the altar, who are you kneeling before? Who is this God that reveals himself in bread and wine? Why are you on your knees? And when you stretch out your hands to receive the bread, or bow your head for a blessing, what does this mean?

And if you are to take communion, when the bread is finally pressed into your hands, and the wine is raised to your lips, and you consume as Jesus commanded “take eat this is my body, this is my blood”, as you are drawn into the narrative that we have heard so many times, as you receive Christ to dwell in you, as you are united with the whole of the Body of Christ, within these walls and outside, what does this mean? As Christ in broken bread enters you in your brokenness what does this mean? What does this mean to you in this place, what does this mean to you when you go home? What does this mean in your week ahead?

You can open your eyes.

Jesus could of course have commanded us to tell the story, or we could merely look at the images of bread and wine and ponder their significance, but rather Jesus commanded that we do. “Do this, in remembrance of me”. Through symbolic action we are about to participate in the deepest mystery of all. How could words alone adequately express what this means? The question now is how is this mystery expressed in your life?