FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2014    MATT 18:21-35

 

I remember Nicholas’ sermon very well.  Because he preached it every week.  The same one.  Week after week, month after month, for the full fifteen years he was rector of the parish.  But that didn’t matter.  He was never one for poignant illustrations or memorable soundbites or those other devices that we preachers who are lesser people than Nicholas have to employ if we’re to have any chance of people listening to us.  Nicholas didn’t need fancy rhetoric because his message oozed out of him in a way that made you know you were in the presence of holiness.  You almost wanted to take your shoes off.  He didn’t need more than one sermon because you could listen to Nicholas read the phone book and still his words would touch you in a way that you knew this was God reaching down into your soul and giving your heart a great big hug.  He had been to seminary, because this was the Church of England, and we don’t ordain just anyone, but you wouldn’t think so to listen to him.  In seminary they like to fill your head with book knowledge and test you in academic disciplines.  But you felt that Nicholas didn’t get his accreditation from an institution, but from the Holy Spirit.  What he had could not be learned in a classroom, and what he shared was not gleaned from a book.  You could say he was born to be a shining star in the Established Church of the nation.  He inherited the title of Baronet from his father – which made him minor nobility and allowed him to call himself ‘Sir’ Nicholas Rivet-Carnac, which he never ever did.  He also inherited some money, but you wouldn’t know it, because he’d given it all away.  He had had a short but glittering career as a major in the British Army, but Nicholas never thought that was worth mentioning.  What Nicholas did think was worth mentioning was Jesus.  And he spoke about him all the time.  Not in a nauseating or false fashion, but in a way that made you know that the person he was talking about was a personal friend.  And so the substance of his one and only sermon was how much God loved you, shown supremely in the cross of Christ.  And that was it.  And It was spellbinding.  You could not stop listening even if for some unfathomable reason you might want to.  Nicholas was the parish priest of the last church I attended as a lay person, and the church which sent me off to be ordained.  So I wouldn’t be here today of it were not for Nicholas.  He has a lot to answer for.

 

Read the full Sermon here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3197742/Matt_18v21_2014.htm