Sermon 15th July 2012

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, continues our study of The Lord's Prayer.

Deliver us from evil

(Matthew 6: 5-15)

15 July. Who can tell me what’s significant about the date?

Yes, it’s St Swithin’s Day.

St Swithin was the Bishop of Winchester in Saxon times. He was famous for charitable gifts and building churches. He died on 2 July 862. According to tradition, he asked to be buried in a humble grave, and so he was. However, it was thought that his grave was not fitting for someone of his status so it was decided to move it to a special shrine in the Cathedral. And so on 15 July 971 Swithin's remains were dug up and moved to the shrine. However, the moving of his remains was accompanied by heavy storms that lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. The storms were said to be a sign of his displeasure at being moved. And from this comes the saying that if it rains on St Swithin's Day (today), it will rain continuously for 40 days. And if it doesn't, then there will be clear skies for 40 days. In view of the weather we’ve been having this summer, ...comment on today’s weather.

There is actually, however, a more personal reason why 15 July is a noteworthy date for me. It was my father’s birthday, and indeed today is the 100^th anniversary of his birth. He was born on 15 July 1912. Amongst other things, he was a lay reader, so when Cameron circulated the current preaching rota, it struck me as very appropriate that I was down for today’s sermon.

Although I have started today’s talk on a personal note, there is a link I can make with today’s sermon title – Deliver us from Evil. In his lifetime, my father did see great evil, as in WW II, as part of the British Army’s legal team, he arrived at Belsen concentration camp shortly after it had been liberated from the Nazis. He saw evil and its effects at first hand. Human beings are capable of great evil, as the Holocaust so terribly demonstrates. And so when we reflect on these words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil,” we need to acknowledge the reality of evil and its consequences.

Earlier in this series on the Lord’s Prayer, Gill explained that heaven and earth are the two interlocking arenas of God’s good world. Heaven is God’s space, where God’s authority rules and his future purposes are waiting in the wings. Earth is our world, our space. The two are separate, but touching, for now. But there’s a marvellous vision at the end of Revelation, where the holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down from heaven to earth. When Jesus comes again, he will join together heaven and earth in an act of new creation. God’s space and ours, heaven and earth, will finally be integrated, and God and his rule will be central. That is what we can look forward to for all eternity.  But we are not there yet. The world is still full of pain and suffering. Evil still abounds.

God’s new world isn’t simply going to happen. It requires evil to be confronted head on, and that is what Jesus did when he came to earth; he confronted evil and all the powers of darkness, and defeated them through his death on the Cross and resurrection.  God’s new world was to be born through Jesus’ pain and suffering. It was in that context, that he knew that he was going to confront the power of evil head on, that Jesus said we should pray;

“And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one.”

“Lead us not into temptation.” That does sound rather strange in some ways, doesn’t it? It almost sounds as if God himself might cause people to be tempted. But Tom Wright and other scholars assure us that it doesn’t mean this.  The Greek word used for temptation is sometimes translated ‘test’ and sometimes ‘trial’. This means that we are praying that we are spared from temptation that we cannot bear and praying that we pass safely through the tests or trials of our faith.

Life is filled with tests – little ones and huge ones. And to get through them, we need to go to God and regularly say, “Deliver me from evil in these tests of life. I am going to come into these tests, I am going to face these trials. I ask that they don’t devour me.”

At school I suspect that most of us did tests – Maths tests, History tests, Geography tests and so on. If we had worked hard during the course and revised well, then we could hope to pass the tests and get a good mark. But if not – well, we would probably fail. The tests showed us where we stood, whether we had worked hard and understood the subject. The tests of life also show us where we really are. If we are out of touch with reality, then the tests of life can be devastating. If we are harbouring wrongdoing and sin in our lives, tests are traps. We need to ask God, “Don’t let the tests in life be traps.”

I heard a story about an interview with a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment following a hit and run accident in America. Let’s call the man Max. Max had run over a small boy, drove off and the boy died. In the interview, Max said he had started on the slippery slope downhill when he was a young boy. His father owned a valuable watch which he kept in a drawer, wrapped up in a cloth. One day, when his father was out, Max opened up the drawer, unwrapped the watch and broke it while he was looking at it. He put it back in the drawer, and told no one about it. A few days later, Max’s father discovered what had happened and summonsed all his children and asked the culprit to own up. Max kept quiet, and got away with it. And from then on Max said he lived his life avoiding the consequences of his actions. And then came that fateful night when he ran over a small boy, and his instinct was to drive off, to avoid the consequences of his actions. If he had stopped, then there’s a good chance the boy’s life might have been saved. But instead he drove off and the boy died. The police tracked Max down and he was gaoled for life – the Americans go in for long sentences. Max’s downward spiral started with something relatively small, but ended up with something huge.

Delivery from evil in the tests of life; we need to pray that we will not be devoured by them. How are we handling the tests of life? Might we be failing a small test right now that will set us up for a bigger failure later, like Max did with his father’s watch? And if we are going to stand up to the tests of life, we should expect them.

As Christians, we should not be shocked if we face tests and trials. The Lord’s Prayer is a model for what we pray, and it tells us that we should be constantly praying about the trials and tests we will face. We should expect to face tests. Sometimes we miss little tests, because we don’t see them as tests. The Lord’s Prayer is a way of getting us to focus and look at our lives and to see the tests that are there. We may think they are irritations; “Why do I have to have a boss like that!?”  Or we may think that they are choices of little moral consequence, like going above your duty free limit when bringing back goods from abroad. These are tests. We may think they are irritations or don’t matter, but they are tests. We should see them for what they are – ways of keeping us honest, ways of keeping us on our toes. Recognising them for what they are – and dealing with them – will help us when the big tests come.

We should not only recognise the little tests, not be blind to them, but we should also expect the big tests. In 1 Peter 4, Peter writes; “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” The fiery ordeal. Yes, we should not be surprised if we are having troubles.

I think some Christians are surprised when they face troubles. It’s nice to believe that good people who live a good life will have pleasant lives, and bad people who lead bad lives will have unpleasant lives. That’s the way it should be. But I think in our Parish we know that it’s not like that; life isn’t that simple. It’s just over two years since our Lazarus sermon series where there were several sermons which dealt directly with the pain and suffering many members of our church family have faced. If you want to read some good and very personal counsel on how to face up to the fiery ordeal, it’s well worth reading those sermons. They are on the Parish blog – April and May 2010 – or you can ask the Parish Office for a copy.

Look at the life of Jesus – the only 100% good man. He was rejected and suffered an excruciating death. In his own life he faced extraordinary trials. During Lent we reflect on the 40 days in the wilderness when the Devil tempted him, and on Good Friday we remember the agony he experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane when, just before he was arrested and then crucified, he prayed, “(M)ay this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

In the hands of God death leads to resurrection, the seeds die and come up as flowers and mighty oaks.  Remember the Cross. Jesus Christ the best had the hardest life.

Yes, we should expect tests, and we should realise the real enemy is evil. That is why we pray, “Deliver us from evil.” Evil is real and it exists. The Bible personifies evil in the form of the Devil, or Satan, and I believe evil is at work in the world as an active and personal being, attacking everything that God wants to achieve through his people. We need to pray that we will not be devoured by evil. Evil is real and powerful, but so is Jesus’ victory over the Devil and evil. Jesus defeated all the forces of evil on the Cross, some 2,000 years ago, and we share in that victory.

We follow Jesus, the Son of God who was crucified to save the world. We cannot expect to avoid darkness in our own lives. We will face tests and trials, but we can face them knowing that God is with us. God has triumphed over evil, and one day his Kingdom will come.

Let’s pray.

Lead us not into temptation. Lord, give us strength as we face the trials and tests of life. May we stand firm when facing small tests, so that you may lead us through the big tests.

Deliver us from evil. Lord, protect us from the forces of evil so that we may not be devoured by them. Thank you that you have defeated evil. May we share in your victory.

In Jesus Christ’s name.

Amen.

---

[i] 15 July 2012