Romans 8. 35, 37 – 39
John 14. 1 – 6
St Margaret’s Sunday
Fr Alex
Little Bobby wanted a red bicycle. The problem is, Bobby was a naughty boy.
So when he asked his parents, they refused. Bobby thought, I need to go to someone with a bit more authority. So he went up to his room and started writing a letter to God.
“Dear God,” he started. “I’ve been a good boy this year.” No, God won’t believe that, he thought. So he ripped it up and started again.
“Dear God, I’ve been an okay boy this year.” No, that wouldn’t make it through either. So Bobby thought long and hard, and decided to go to his local church for some inspiration.
While he was there he saw a beautiful little statue of Our Lady sitting near the altar. He looked around, saw he was alone, and quickly grabbed it, shoving it under his coat.
Bobby ran home, upstairs into his room, and put the statue on the table. Inspired by his visit, he started another letter to God; one he was sure God would listen to.
“Dear God, I have your mother. If you want to see her again, send a bicycle. Make it a red one.”
I wonder what it is you ask of God on your Christian journey. Or are you a bit like Bobby, and don’t think God will listen to someone like you? Please don’t resort to theft and threats, if so!
Because when we celebrate the saints like we do today, I often wonder, “did they ask for any of this?”
Did the missionaries ask to be called away into distant and dangerous lands? Did the mystics and contemplatives ask to be drawn out to the deserts and the lonely mountains?
Did the martyrs, like young St Margaret, ask to have their lives so cruelly taken away from them?
We know that the disciples certainly didn’t ask for the kind of Saviour that Jesus turned out to be. They were expecting a military Messiah to chuck out the Romans, and places of honour in the new government.
Instead, their Messiah went to the cross. Even after he came back to them, they were sent out into the world with almost nothing, and many found rejection and death.
Our faith certainly is a faith of surprises, and upturned expectations.
And of course it’s not just the saints. I wonder what all the persecuted Christians of our own time ask of God. More than 300 million Christians around the world continue to be persecuted for their faith today.
It must be so incredibly hard to keep the faith. Even Jesus asked that the cup of sacrifice be taken away from him, in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But what kept Jesus going – and what kept the saints, and keeps countless Christians around the world going now – is not knowing the right things to ask of God; but rather, praying that his will be done.
Jesus follows his human cry of fear in Gethsemane with the simple prayer to his Father, “yet not my will, but yours be done.”
And this, to me, is what makes a saint a saint. It’s becoming so close to God that our will and his will become one; as Jesus and his Father were one. That when we come to ask something of God in prayer, we find that it’s something he is already giving to us, pouring out upon us, through his Spirit.
His love, and his peace. And with the love and the peace of God within us, we can overcome anything.
We heard it in our readings just before. St Paul is convinced that nothing at all, not hardship, distress, persecution – not even death itself – can separate us from God’s love. And because of the never-failing power of that love, “we are more than conquerors” in the dangers of this world.
He doesn’t ask for the hardship and distress and so on to be miraculously taken away from us. That’s not being honest about the experience of life. But it’s finding, in a deep closeness with God, that through all of the difficulties we face, the love of God remains steadfast, and powerful.
Jesus, in our Gospel reading, calls his followers not to be troubled or afraid. He reassures them that he goes before them, through the darkest place of all, to bring them into the light of his Father’s house. And when he returns to them after his resurrection, he gives them the gift of his perfect peace.
He doesn’t sugar-coat it, or wrap them in cotton wool – he’s quite clear with them about the dangers they will face. But he wants them to know that he is with them; and they can still know his peace, even in the greatest of challenges.
Saints like St Margaret triumphed as they did, not because they knew the right things to say, or how to get what they wanted from God. And it wasn’t because they were particularly strong, or even especially holy, in some cases.
They triumphed because they prayed that God’s will be done; and in that prayer, they could become people in whom God’s will was done. They could become Christ’s body in the world, showing people God’s love and peace, as Jesus had done.
And that is what all Christians are called to do, in our ministry as the body of Christ. To come so close to God in prayer that our will and his will become one: that we show God to those we meet, and the wonderful possibilities of the great power that comes from his love, and his peace.
May our prayer as a church family be that God’s will be done: in our own lives, in this church, in this town, and throughout the world. And may we remember that he is with us, always. Amen.