Immortal Longings

Immortal Longings

“claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God... and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator...” (Romans 1.21-25)

‘And what do you want to be when you grow up?’ Every child gets used to that question.

My earliest longings were to be a cowboy - too much Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger!

Then I discovered music and wanted to be a conductor or a famous pianist - and then when I saw it on TV, to be a pianist who conducts from the piano!

And then I longed to be a missionary - my religious phase; and then to be a professor of mathematics - my precocious period.

And the result of all those boyhood dreams? - a Church of England Curate - some might say a combination of all those longings!

It is a part of the human condition to be absorbed by longings and desires. And as we move from childhood to middle age, we fulfil some of those longings, and realise that others are never going to be achievable.

I know for certain now that I shall never be a bishop by 40.

But we begin also to realise that behind all our desires and longings, there is a deeper longing; at once both inescapable, and unquenchable. And very hard to define or understand.

The preacher in Ecclesiastes puts it this way: “God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Eccles 3.11)

In today’s epistle, Paul takes this longing one stage further and describes his own longing to be out of the Body and with the Lord.

In other words his longing to be physically dead – a theme taken up in some of the hymns today and in the offertory motet.

For Paul this longing for death is not just a way of escape from the dilemmas of life in this world, it is also a longing for completion, for fulfilment in the Risen Christ, for eternal life, for immortality.

The Roman Catholic Philosopher-priest Fergus Kerr has written a fine book with the intriguing title: Immortal Longings. (SPCK, 1997)

It looks at the philosophy of Martha Nussbaum, Martin Heidegger, Iris Murdoch... and others, through Barthian spectacles. You will be glad to know that we don’t have time to discuss it this morning.

Suffice it to say, that he examines the various ways in which philosophy has struggled with this universal human longing for transcendence - for the ‘there must be more to life than this’.

Even in the good times, when all is well with the world, the moment is often touched by an inner pain and longing.

We look at a sleeping grandchild or a sleeping lover and know the desire for the moment to last forever, and weep silently with the pain of knowing our mortality will not allow this. And it produces an un-namable longing.

As CS Lewis says “All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status, always reminds, beckons, awakens desires. Our best havings are wantings.”

So we see it also in the realm of beauty and mystery: art, music and the glories of the natural world. There is an inner longing to comprehend their magnificence, which is at times almost painful.

And we see it most obviously in the oh-so-rapid passing of the years. We realise we are getting old and that our doctor looks like he’s about to sit his O-levels. And although we enjoy much of the composure that age hopefully brings to us, we have immortal longings.

The Christian tradition identifies this longing as an inbuilt longing for God – the Source of our being.

So in our Lord’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, it is the pure in heart who will see God, whose longings will be satisfied.

Now we know that the Saints down through the ages are not those who have led blameless lives. They are those who have a pure heart; an attitude of godliness; or as Abp Temple put it ‘a passionate aspiration towards the holiness of God’.

Jesus was always concerned with the direction of the heart, the object of our longings. Do we long for God or for self-satisfaction?

The Scriptures make clear that everything which stifles immortal longings and turns beauty, mystery, love and sex into objects of their own end, fosters ugliness, bitterness, hatred and violence – and the eclipse of our true selves. This was Freud’s mortido.

So Adam and Eve grasp the object of desire that they might become like gods. Their longing is not for God himself, but to usurp his power.

This is what St Paul describes, this human reversal of immortal longings, in our text today: “claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God... and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator...” (Romans 1.21-25)

Or as Shakespeare puts it in the words of Cleopatra – for Shakespeare struggled with the ambiguity of his own longings: “Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have Immortal longings in me.” (Antony & Cleopatra, V/ii/283)

St Paul sees these immortal longings as satisfied partially in this life, but only as we look with hope towards a greater fulfilment in eternity. Heaven is the place where there is no more longing, no more sighing.

And of course Paul doesn’t see this satisfying of our longing as coming from living a life of perfection. Rather he sees our imperfections as fuelling the longing and leading us to a better life here as well as in the world to come.

Scripture is full of examples.

There is Noah, who found favour in the sight of the Lord, and who, shortly after landing the ark, was found naked, drunk and unconscious by his children.

There is Rahab the prostitute who helped the Israeli spies in Jericho, and who finds her way into the genealogy of King David and of Jesus Christ.

There is King David himself, who killed 100 philistines to gain one of his wives; who committed adultery and had the woman’s husband killed to gain another. The Old and the New Testament record God’s verdict: “This is a man after my own heart.”

There is the common thief who was crucified next to Christ – “today you will be with me in paradise!”

It was not spotless lives that made these men and women saints of God. It was the recognition that in all the struggles of their lives there is an inner movement towards God.

And here at this altar, we bring together both the desire, and the object of desire: Jesus Christ, the beginning and the end of all longing. “We find no rest until we find our rest in thee.”

In Kant’s words, the object of our immortal longing ‘is not an ‘it’ to be discussed, but a ‘thou’ to be met’. We meet him and turn to him whenever we become aware of these longings. And in this bread and wine we have a foretaste of that banquet where all our desires will be met.

“Like as the hart desireth the waterbrook, so longeth my soul after thee O God.”

Agnostics and Believers

Agnostics and Believers

15th Sunday after Trinity
Jeremiah 15.15-21; Romans 12.9-end; Matt 16.21-end

“Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.” Jeremiah 15.18

The weary traveller in the hot desert makes his way towards the wadi, the stream, with its promise of water and refreshment. Imagine his disappointment and despair when he finds it is dried up and barren.

This is the great prophet Jeremiah’s description of his experience of God. It is a heartfelt accusation against God. It is frighteningly honest prayer.

“Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.”

I want to talk this morning about honesty and integrity, about agnostics and believers, and about Ralph Vaughan Williams who died fifty years ago last week – you may notice that all our hymn tunes today are arranged by him.

In Woody Allens’s autobiographical movie, Stardust Memories, someone calls Woody Allen's character an atheist. He responds "To you, I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the loyal opposition."

Like many in our present western culture, he regards himself as unable to believe, and like many, he sometimes wishes he could believe. He says this in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine:

"I do occasionally envy the person who is religious naturally, without being brainwashed into it or suckered into it by all the organized hustles; just like having an ear for music or something. It would just never occur to such a person for a second that the world isn't about something." [Rolling Stone 1987]

Or here is the great guru of the postmodern novel, author of Generation X, Douglas Coupland in, Life After God:

“My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.” [Douglas Coupland, Life After God (London: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p.359]

And so we could go on, there are so many like them, in our own families, probably some of you sitting here this morning.

And yet, thank God, there are others who seem quietly confident in their faith. Who seem to find the Christian faith a perfectly natural thing to believe and to live their lives by.

Most of us would probably admit that we move, at different times in our life, along the spectrum between 'Devout Sceptics' and 'Ardent Believers'.

The term ‘Devout Sceptics’, by the way, was coined by Sir Leslie Stephen in his book An Agnostic’s Apology of 1931.

Bel Mooney took it up for that fascinating Radio Four series in which she interviewed numerous ‘Devout Sceptics’ such as Clare Short, John Humphrys, Melvyn Bragg, Philip Pullman...

And all this brings us to Vaughan Williams – and we might add Gerald Finzi who died two years before Vaughan Williams; and Herbert Howells and the vaguely mystical Holst…

There have always been men and women who have agonized over the Christian faith, and especially in the twentieth century.

Vaughan Williams and millions more were deeply affected by the two World Wars. And to return to those two ends of the belief spectrum again - as they came to terms with the full horror of man’s inhumanity to man - some people were driven to more fervent devotion and deeper security in their faith in Christ.

And others, like my father and his brothers, were driven to abandon the tenets of their childhood faith. Their experience of God mirrored that of Jeremiah’s in his darkest hours: “Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.”

Yesterday in the church calendar we remembered John Bunyan, spiritual writer. Bunyan was a tormented man in so many ways, and like Jeremiah, pondered in prison what his life of faithfulness to God had gained for him.

During the First World War, Vaughan Williams, at 41, joined up as a private in the Medical Corp – his socialist principals prevented him from using his public school privilege to become an officer – instead he became a stretcher-bearer on the Western Front.

He carried with him at all times a copy of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. (You’ll remember that he arranged the Sussex folk tune Monks Gate to 'He who would valiant be'.)

We can guess that Vaughan Williams and many of his contemporaries who survived the great slaughters of the first half of the twentieth century, wrestled with the idea of faith: longing for it while intellectually rejecting it.

For over forty years from 1906 until 1949, Vaughan Williams also wrestled with the score of his last opera, The Pilgrim’s Progress. And in between he wrote some of the most moving spiritual music of the century, with a mixture of the simple tenets of the faith shot through with mystery and longing. Think of the Christmas carol 'This is the truth from above'; or his setting of Psalm 42, 'Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks'.

The irony is that for many of us, the music of Vaughan Williams has inspired our faith and deepened our devotion to God. It has helped us through those times when we have cried ‘Lord I believe. Help thou my unbelief’; times when God seems like a deceitful waterbrook.

Archbishop Robert Runcie was a godly man, and in his retirement address to the General Synod in November 1990 he reminded the Synod that the Church of England has always been a church without hard edges.

He could have been speaking of Vaughan Williams when he said:

“Confronted by the wistful, the half-believing and the seeking, we know what it is to minister to those who relate to the faith of Christ in unexpected ways. We do not write off hesitant and inadequate responses to the Gospel. Ours is a church of the smoking flax, of the mixture of wheat and tares. Critics may say that we blunt the edge of the Gospel and become Laodicean. We reply that we do not despise the hesitant and half-believing, because the deeper we look into human lives the more often we discern the glowing embers of faith.”

It is not for us to decide who is and who isn’t a Christian. It is for us to be welcoming, and beckoning; to fan the flames of faith. It is for us to be ‘honest to God’, in our earthly pilgrimage; to live out our lives with integrity.

We rejoice with some of the saints who have gone before, and with many of our brothers and sisters today, who firmly believe and give us an example of joyful devotion to Christ.

Indeed, we must preach for conversion and invite men and women to take up their cross and follow Christ. It is a Gospel imperative. There are many whose lives will be revolutionised by an encounter with our risen Lord.

Yet we must always acknowledge that God is bigger than all of our dogma and human institutions, and that sometimes we can see God more clearly in the lives of others than they can see him in themselves. They dare not believe what is to us, at least much of the time, so obvious.

We are grateful to God for the gifts he endowed on men like Ralph Vaughan Williams, or women like Iris Murdoch; who struggled with any conventional Christian faith, yet continue to nurture the faith of so many of us.

Walking with honesty and integrity was a difficult path for them, as it was for Jeremiah and for John Bunyan, and as it is for all of us as we take up our cross and follow Christ.

The collect we said yesterday for John Bunyan reminds us that, whatever our particular path through life, we will one day, with Jeremiah and Bunyan, and Vaughan Williams reach our true home:

God of peace,
who called your servant John Bunyan
to be valiant for truth:
grant that as strangers and pilgrims
we may at the last rejoice with all Christian people
in your heavenly city; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Hymns:
All creatures of our God and King
Words: after Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
Music: ‘Lasst uns erfreuen’, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Take up thy cross, the Saviour said
Words: Charles William Everest (1814-1877)
Music: ‘Deo Gracias’, English 15th C, arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams
Father, hear the prayer we offer
Words: Love Maria Willis (1924-1908)
Music: ‘Sussex’, trad English melody adapted by Ralph Vaughan Williams
I heard the voice of Jesus say
Words: Horatius Bonar(1808-89)
Music: ‘Kingsfold’, adapted from Eng folk song by Ralph Vaughan Williams

This is the truth sent from above 
The truth of God, the God of love
Therefore don't turn me from your door 
But hearken will both rich and poor

The first thing that I do relate 
Is that God did man create
The next thing which to you I'll tell 
Woman was made with man to dwell


And after that, 'twas God's own choice 
To place them both in Paradise,
There to remain of evil free 
Except they ate of such a tree.

But they did eat, which was a sin, 
And so their ruin did begin,
Ruined themselves, both you and me, 
And all of their posterity.

Thus we were heirs to endless woes 
Till God and Lord did interpose
And so a promise soon did run 
That He would redeem us by His Son.

And at that season of the year 
Our blessed redeemer did appear
He here did live and here did preach 
And many thousands he did teach

Thus He in love to us behaved 
To show us how we must be saved
And if you want to know the way 
Be pleased to hear what He did say.

Where is your Security? (2nd before Advent)

Security, 2nd before Advent

Malachi 4.1-2a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19
Hymn “All my hope” (reproduced at end of sermon).

“But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” Malachi 4.2

George was a devout golfer, getting ready for retirement, and one Sunday morning he said to his priest: "Tell me, Father, are there going to be golf courses in heaven? I really have to know."

"Well," said his priest, "I'm not sure, but tonight I'll say a special prayer and see if God will tell me."

Next Sunday after the service George made a beeline for the priest. "Did you get the answer, Father? Are there going to be golf courses in heaven?"

Well, George," the priest replied, "I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Tell me the good news first," George said.

"The good news is that, yes, there are golf courses in heaven. Beautiful courses, where the sun is always shining, the rough is not too deep, there are no sand traps, and you never have to wait to tee off."

"That's tremendous!" exclaimed the golfer. "But what's the bad news?"

"Well, the bad news is that St Peter has you down to tee off this coming Tuesday morning at 8."

Today’s readings as we approach advent, are a mixture of good news and bad news.

But a common thread running through them is: ‘where do you place your confidence?’

Now we all know the correct answer is ‘God’ – the opening line of the opening hymn stated that: “All my hope on God is founded…”

But of course the right answer is not always the honest one.

Like the young boy who was asked by his particularly evangelical Sunday School teacher: “What’s red and has a bushy tail and eats acorns?” “Please miss, I know the answer must be ‘Jesus’, but it sounds like a squirrel to me!”

If we are honest, we know that our confidence, our sense of security, our hope, is bound up in a complex network of feelings and emotions – and yes, faith.

The Scriptures recognise that, but still warn us about false confidence and misplaced hope.

Today’s Gospel starts with the disciples marvelling at the magnificent edifice which was the rebuilt, Second Temple; renovated by Herod before the birth of Christ and still being decorated and finished (it was completed in 63AD.) Its foundations stretched back a 1000 years. Here was a religious centre that was surely founded by God himself!

But Jesus warns that this is a false confidence. By 70AD, the Temple would be destroyed and never rebuilt.

In the words of the opening hymn again: “what with care and toil he buildeth, tower and temple fall to dust.”

However attached we become to a particular building, or to a particular style of worship, or even to the group of worshippers who meet there week by week; it is a transitory thing.

We should be grateful for this holy place, our liturgy, our music and our fellowship, but never place the weight of our spiritual confidence in them. That is idolatry and we a doomed to disappointment.

Jesus also warns us in this passage about putting too much confidence in human relationships: “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends…”

Now this is not to suggest that we should hold ourselves aloof from any sort of trusting relationships – indeed our Lord teaches us the opposite. But there can be a dependency on others that is nearer to an addiction than a loving, mutually supportive relationship.

Betrayal is always destructive, but if the relationship is basically healthy, either amends can be made, or the break does not leave one or the other party completely debilitated.

And sadly, death betrays us all in our relationships. It was of course in the aftermath of the death of Herbert Howell’s son, Michael, Mick, in 1935, that he wrote the tune (named Michael) to those words of the opening hymn.

They meant a great deal to him at the time, although by the end of his life in 1983, 48 years after Michael had died, aged 9, of polio, he confided in his daughter, Ursula: 'I don't believe there's anything'. I think his music tells us another story, but that’s another sermon.

The prophet Malachi railed against the oldest and commonest misplaced confidence: a confidence in ‘self’ that amounts to arrogance and pride. “The arrogant will be turned to stubble”, he bellows.

Again, this is not to discourage proper self-confidence; appropriate self-esteem. It was our Lord who said that we should love our neighbours as we love ourselves – it is right to have a healthy view of ourselves.

But when we begin to think that we are invincible; that we are self-made men and women; that we have a right to enjoy the best things in life because of who we are, or what we do, or how much money we have – then our Lord says to us: “You fool!”

And where does today’s epistle fit in? The Apostle Paul has it in for those who won’t work. But in context, we see that they won’t work, because they are living in a spiritual cloud cuckoo land.

They are so convinced that Jesus is about to return in the next few months, to bring the universe to a climactic end, that they don’t bother to work.

They busy themselves with church and spiritual affairs while sponging off the less spiritual who still go in to the office every morning.

Strangely, their false confidence is in Christianity itself. Or at least, they are so confident of their own interpretation of Christianity, that they have no time for others who suggest they might have misunderstood.

So neither can our confidence be completely in a particular brand of Christian faith alone, for as yet we see through a glass darkly.

While all these other things then, in their proper place, help to make us feel secure and to give us hope, our ultimate confidence can only be in God himself, and even then we have to acknowledge our inability to comprehend him fully.

So that profound opening hymn has it right again:

God unknown,
he alone
calls my heart to be his own.

It is with this humble, searching faith that we come to God, and in so doing, especially as we come to this Table, we find that his love embraces us and re-assures us of the presence of Christ in our lives:

Christ doth call
one and all:
ye who follow shall not fall.

This was the purpose of Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel which ends with our Lord’s words: “ By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

And it is the hope infusing Malachi’s prophecy, to reassure those who revere and trust in God. The Light of Christ will uncover what is now unknown and will bring a sense of healing and wholeness which is beyond mere human understanding.

Our proper confidence is in God alone, as revealed in Jesus Christ, foretold by the prophets:

“… for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” Malachi 4.2

All my hope on God is founded;
he doth still my trust renew,
me through change and chance he guideth,
only good and only true.
God unknown,
he alone
calls my heart to be his own.

Pride of man and earthly glory,
sword and crown betray his trust;
what with care and toil he buildeth,
tower and temple fall to dust.
But God's power,
hour by hour,
is my temple and my tower.

God's great goodness aye endureth,
deep his wisdom, passing thought:
splendor, light and life attend him,
beauty springeth out of naught.
Evermore
from his store
newborn worlds rise and adore.

Daily doth the almighty Giver
bounteous gifts on us bestow;
his desire our soul delighteth,
pleasure leads us where we go.
Love doth stand
at his hand;
joy doth wait on his command.

Still from man to God eternal
sacrifice of praise be done,
high above all praises praising
for the gift of Christ, his Son.
Christ doth call
one and all:
ye who follow shall not fall.

Words: Robert Bridges (1844-1930); based on the German of Joachim Neander (1650-1680)
Music: Michael by Herbert Howells

Dead Dogs & Assurance

Dead Dogs and Assurance

Luke 16.19-31 (Dives & Lazarus), Trinty 17

"What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?" 2 Samuel 9.8

I am reminded of the agnostic, insomniac, dyslexic, who lay awake at night thinking: “Is there a Dog?”

Another question that has worried Christians down through the centuries has been: “Am I a Christian?”

The doctrine of predestination was an unsuccessful attempt to try and give reassurance to the doubting soul, and we have looked at this together in a past sermon.

We saw that if you pursue this doctrine with too much rigour, you end up with a capricious and almost vicious god, and a view of life that is fatalistic. (You remember the Calvinist who fell down stairs and said, “Thank goodness that’s over with!”)

And of course the question is simply transferred to “Am I among the elect?” I knew a number of strict Calvinists in my younger days who were plagued throughout their lives by terrible doubts that, after a life of godly devotion, they might after all, not be among the elect.

Tomorrow the Bishop installs the new Dean in St Paul’s Cathedral, Bishop Graham Knowles. One of his predecessors, John Donne, who became Dean in 1621, was greatly influenced by this strand in Calvinism. You see it in some of his poems as he pleads with God for assurance.

Do you remember the last verse of ‘A Hymn to God the Father’?

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore:
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.

Others have taken a different route to assure themselves of their eternal salvation. They have placed an almost magical emphasis on the sacrament of Holy Baptism. As long as the water has been applied and the words said, then you’re ‘in’. No more worries.

Scripture, however, deals with this question of assurance in a very different and much simpler way: showing kindness and love to others is a sign and a confirmation that we have responded well to the love of God shown to us.

And this is the burden of today’s Gospel.

First let’s remind ourselves of the background to our text. It is taken from the OT reading that is suggested to accompany this Gospel reading in the Book of Common Prayer, where it is set for the first Sunday after Trinity.

Mephibosheth was a rather sad figure. His grandfather King Saul had killed himself after a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Philistines. His father, David’s beloved best friend, Jonathan, had also been killed in the battle. And so had Jonathan’s two brothers, Mephibosheth’s uncles.

But he had a forceful and protective nanny. She knew what would happen to young heirs to the throne when the royal dynasty of Saul was giving way to the dynasty of king David.

She took up the 5 year-old boy and fled. In her haste, she fell and somehow the boy’s ankles or feet were broken. He became lame. (2 Sam 4.4)

She had misjudged David, who rarely acted as other ancient near eastern rulers did nearly three thousand years ago.

Some years later, when he discovered the young man was still alive, King David welcomed him into his household and made provision for him for the rest of his life.

Now some would say this was just a shrewd move by David - keep any possible rival to the throne where you can see him!

But this is a cynical view of a passionate man who valued friendships and tried to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

The NT records that God says of David, “This is a man after my own heart”. (Acts 13.22)

Mephibosheth’s response is grovelling, even by ancient near eastern standards: "What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?"

Perhaps he was simply trying to reassure David that he posed no threat?

Whatever, history remembers Mephibosheth for these words, and these words alone, that have come down to us over the millennia: "What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?"

We will return to Mephibosheth later.

The parable of Dives and Lazarus is more specific in addressing the issue of assurance that we are Christians. And of course dogs have a walk-on part in that story as well: the graphic image of dogs licking the sores of Lazarus.

Incidentally, this is the only parable where proper names are given, but this is probably to do with their meaning: Dives means ‘rich’; and Lazarus, or Eleazar, means ‘God is my help’.

It’s such a gruesome parable to the modern ear, that we can get too easily sidetracked into a discussion about the afterlife – torment and fire. But that is not the point of the story and certainly, as in other parables, the details may not be pushed to form a credible theology of the life hereafter.

However, neither is the parable primarily about the rich and the poor, although it fits in with other teaching of Jesus about this.

It is about unbelief and hardheartedness, and because of this, it is also about personal re-assurance concerning our own faith.

Dives exhibits four ‘symptoms’ of the disease of unbelief; although these should not be mistaken for the disease itself. As Archbishop Trench of Dublin remarked about the symptoms: “the seat of the disease is within; these are but the running sores that witness the plague.”

The marks of unbelief seen in this parable are:

the pursuit of wealth for its own sake
pride - the costly purple and fine linen of dignitaries
callousness - he just ignored Lazarus
and spiritual hardness of heart – not even someone returning from the dead could raise the spiritually dead.

So the parable seeks to emphasise that our spiritual state is reflected by our inner attitude and outward actions.

The constant refrain of the prophets, of the epistles and of Our Lord himself is that our hearts must be right. Christianity is a heart religion.

The epistle of John, which accompanies this Gospel in the Book of Common Prayer, puts it very bluntly: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar!” John is concerned with how Christians can be assured that they are in fact children of God, and not deceiving themselves like Dives and his brothers.

And as in our Lord’s parable, the answer is simple. Loving actions as we respond to the love of God, should confirm and convince us in a way, that even someone returning from the dead, would be unable to do.

The five brothers whom Dives wants to warn, would not so much as ask the question ‘Am I a child of God?’ They had the arrogant confidence of the proud and self-satisfied: ‘We are the children of Abraham!’

What is the opposite of faith? Is it doubt? No! It is certainty.

Assurance of salvation is not certainty. It is rather a reasonable and proper confidence in the Gospel.

Intellectually we should be convinced, as we shall say at the altar in a few minutes, that Christ has done all that is necessary to make us one with God; accepted in the Beloved.

But although Scripture encourages us to be assured that we are saved by grace alone, it nonetheless wishes constantly to unsettle us from too arrogant an assertion of that saving grace, lest any man should boast. (Eph 2.8f)

This is where sometimes we find some of our brothers and sisters in Christ a little too sure of a little too much. There should be a godly reticence about our claim to be Christians – to be followers of Christ.

To go back to where we started, the question should be, not so much, ‘am I a Christian’ as, ‘am I living a Christian life?’

And the answer is always to look at the ways in which God is enabling you to love others, with kindness and good deeds.

Of course there will always be failures and inadequacy, and it is a healthy spiritual sign that we are aware of these. There will always be room for improvement. But we must not be too hard on ourselves, for if our love for God results in a practical love for others, then we should not fear as Dives did.

For Mephibosheth there was a degree of astonishment at the King’s love lavished on him, a crippled man, fallen from greatness. Yet there was proper confidence because of all that he had seen of the King’s love and loyalty.

No less for us, as we stand in humility before our great King, with confidence in his love, lavished upon us in this feast, we can say with the wonder, and indeed assurance, of Mephibosheth:

"What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?" 2 Samuel 9.8