Growing up in worship

Sermon preached at Solihull School Chapel, 6.30pm Eucharist on Sunday 7th June 2009.
Choir present: boys and men. Trinity Sunday – Year B

Readings: Isaiah 6: 1-8 and John 3: 1-17


I would like you to cast your minds back to when you were little, when you were about three and used to play at being like the grown ups; play at being like Mum and Dad. And perhaps you had some toys to help you to do that. Did you have one of those little plastic vacuum cleaners so you could walk round behind Mum, doing the cleaning? I am sure that some us here had those little plastic lawnmowers that you could push round and they would throw up some green beads that looked like grass clippings. And then there are those red and yellow Little Tikes coupe cars you could ride around in – how cool were they?
Now someone might say, “It’s very silly for the children to play at being grown ups, because they are not grown ups, and that’s not a real lawnmower; its made of plastic.” And in one way this is quite true, but in another way it completely misses the point. Children are pre-programmed to grow up into adults. Playing at being an adult is an important part of growing up. It shows that the children understand their destiny, their calling. It shows that they want to grow up to be adults; they want to be part of the adult world, to share in the adult world, and to make their contribution alongside the other adults. And this is a very good thing. It gives us good grounds for hoping that these children will indeed one day grow up and take their right place in the adult world.
Now, what I want to suggest to you this evening is that rather like children, who are pre-programmed to grow into adults, we Christians on earth are pre-programmed to grow up into saints in heaven. This is what God created us for. This is our true destiny. This is where we find fulfilment, the full realisation of God’s creation in us. And just as it takes time for a child to grow into an adult, so it takes time for a Christian to grow into a saint in heaven. And just as children need a lot of love, encouragement, teaching and example to grow up into adults so Christians need love, encouragement, teaching and example from God, and the saints and from good people in order to grow up to become saints in heaven. And just as it is natural and good and helpful for children to play at being adults, so it is natural and good and helpful for Christians to play at being saints in heaven.
In our gospel today Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to believe about earthly things before he has any chance of believing about heavenly things. In the same way we Christians have to live good Christian lives on earth before we can hope to live the lives of the saints in heaven. And there are many different aspects to living a good Christian life on earth. But today I would like to focus on just one aspect of our earthly Christian lives; our worship of God.
On Trinity Sunday we often sing my favourite hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.” The hymn presents us with a vision of God seated on the throne of heaven in his power and glory, being worshiped by all the angels and saints:
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.
This description of the worship of the saints in heaven is mainly based on chapters 4 and 5 of the Book of Revelation, the last book in the bible. But today we heard, in our first scripture reading, of another vision of heaven coming from the prophet Isaiah, probably in the eighth century BC. Yet the similarities are striking. The seraphs are in attendance. Those words “Holy, Holy, Holy” crop up again. There is great power and splendour and majesty and the pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
And for Isaiah, a mere human, in mortal flesh, aware of his sin this is an overwhelming experience. He is filled with a perplexing mix of awe and wonder and fear. These are the emotions of our Anthem, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”. We are painfully aware that anything as earthly as human flesh might simply melt aware before the mysterious majesty of God’s presence. Isaiah says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips”. But the seraphs purify Isaiah from his sin using a burning coal. Nothing is said, but I imagine that the burning coal was very painful. Certainly our experience of the Christian life is that there is usually a cost, some kind of suffering or pain or hard work associated with being purified from sin. But them suddenly it seems that Isaiah can stand in the glory of heaven and can respond positively to the Lord’s invitation. “Here am I, send me” he replies. The worship of heaven and the presence of God have transformed him. They have given him his role, his identity.
These visions (and others in the bible e.g. Daniel 7 or Ezekiel 1) give us some insights into the life of heaven, and the worship that takes place there. And there is a sense in which our worship on earth is seeking to copy this, the great worship of heaven. Many of the visions of heaven talk about music and singing and certainly we do this in our worship on earth. In this chapel a great deal of effort and energy goes into the organ and singing and we do our best to do these things very well, in order to worship as well as possible. And in our worship we have a rite of repentance and forgiveness, so that like Isaiah we can be purified and made whole. We have periods of silence, in which we seek to be aware of our own nothingness before the awesome presence of God. Sometimes we copy the worship of heaven with loud singing, maybe even enough to make the pivots of the thresholds shake! Sometimes we use incense and we do our best to fill the house with smoke, as in the Isaiah vision. Certainly we use those words Holy, Holy, Holy in every Eucharist, often singing them in Latin: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.
Now we know that all this worship on earth is a bit like child’s play compared to the great worship of the saints in heaven. But just as children who play at being adults do eventually grow up to be adults so we hope and aspire that through our worship on earth
we will eventually grow up to become saints in heaven. We will be joined forever in that great and eternal worship of heaven. Amen.