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Rev.Dr. Peter Jenner

St T  18/7/10

 

Here’s a story, about one of those characters from the early church who had a very memorable name, in this case, Macarius the Egyptian. So if you’re all sitting comfortably, I’ll begin:

 

The story is told, [in the apophthegmata,] about a brother who came to Macarius the Egyptian, asking the great abbot of the monastery at Scete how to become holy. The older monk told him to go to the cemetery nearby and to abuse the dead, yelling at them for all he was worth, even throwing stones. The young man thought this strange, but did as he was told and then returned to his teacher.

“What did they say to you?” Macarius asked.  

“Nothing,” the brother replied.  

“Then go back again tomorrow and praise them,” answered the abbot, “calling them apostles, saints, and righteous men. Think of every compliment you can.”

The young man once more did as he was told, then returned to the cloister, where Macarius asked, “What did they say this time?”

“They still didn’t answer a word,” replied the brother.  

“Ah, they must, indeed, be holy people,” said Abba Macarius. “You insulted them and they did not reply. You praised them and they did not speak. Go and do likewise, my friend, taking no account of either the scorn of men or their praises.” This is what it means to learn the dying to neighbour that the desert teaches.

[from: The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, p169]

 

Some of you have heard that story before. The Contemplative Group read it a while ago at that evening when we got bogged down a bit, not least with that story. I’ve quoted it from this book, ‘The Solace of Fierce landscapes’, which I’ve mentioned in sermons and other places more than once since the beginning of the year. Some of you might think I’ve referred to it just a little too much. If so, it’s because I’ve found it a wonderful source of thought-provoking stories and reflections. And here is one last insight from it, before I put it aside, never to mention it again - possibly.

 

That story is one of many told about the so-called ‘desert fathers’. (There were also a few ‘desert mothers’.) If you like dates, Macarius the Egyptian died in the year 391 and he was one of quite a few strange characters in the 4th century who took themselves off into solitude in the deserts of the Middle East to live an austere life of prayer and devotion. By all accounts they were often pretty weird and wacky individuals, or so they might appear to us. But the stories told about them and their surviving homilies and collected sayings show some very profound insights into both the human spirit and God.

 

Living in isolation with little or no human contact for long periods, the desert fathers and mothers learnt to rely on their own resources, both for the things they needed for physical survival and for their emotional and spiritual and psychological survival. And that story about Macarius illustrates something that they found happened as their inner resources were strengthened by their austere solitary lifestyle, namely that they were swayed by neither the praise of other people nor their criticism. I’m sure Macarius didn’t mean that we should take no notice of other people’s thoughts and opinions about any matter in hand. Rather, he’s saying that we shouldn’t set out after self-aggrandisement; we shouldn’t let ourselves be dependent on the approval of other people in order to be able to function properly. And likewise we should learn not to be devastated by other people putting us down.

 

This book puts it like this:

[The desert fathers and mothers] were no longer centred out there in the endless expectations of others. ... They no longer needed others to manufacture a sense of inner well-being, to secure an identity. Relationships did not have to be marked by manipulation and neurotic need. Genuine love is ultimately impossible apart from such indifference.    [S of F L p171-172]

 

In other words, if, for instance, we set out to help someone because that makes us feel good, we haven’t really got the interests of the other person at heart; if we avoid someone because they make us feel bad, they have the hold over us which they probably want to have. To ignore ‘scorn or praises’ is to have a right detachment from other people who want to tell us how we ought to be. And that sense of independence can be quite threatening to the person who wants us to be dependent on them. Some people don’t like being ignored and there are stories which show that the desert fathers and mothers were seen as quite a threat to authority. But there are also lots of stories told of people who went into the desert to seek out one of these characters. The hermits were known to be fair and impartial and insightful, precisely because they didn’t care what people thought of them. It was known that the answer they gave to a question would be truthful and not what they thought someone wanted or expected to hear. Many asked for their guidance and counsel and valued the uncomfortable truth they needed to be told. And the hermit could be an honest broker in settling disputes, unswayed by attempts at manipulation by one or both parties to an argument. In all these things, detachment was the key.

 

And how did the fathers and mothers learn this detachment? In the desert, the fierce landscape makes no provision for human survival. As in a blizzard on the mountaintop conditions couldn’t care less about the survival of an explorer, or in the middle of the ocean, the sea does not help the lone sailor in a small boat. Every evening the writer of this book goes into his garden and looks up at the stars to remind himself that they are there all the time, oblivious to his existence, not aware and certainly not caring that he’s watching them. Through all these things, we can learn to know our place in the great scheme of creation; we can learn that, apart from the grace of the creator, we are nothing in the world. The world does not exist for our benefit; creation does not revolve around us. Surviving in a fierce landscape opened the eyes of the fathers and mothers to understand and accept that they, like all of us, are nothing. Only then, when their delusion of importance had been removed, could they appreciate the infinite value God placed on them, and places on each of us, through true love and grace alone.

 

This book sums it us in this sentence:

We are saved in the end by the things that ignore us. [S of F L p54 etc]

 

‘We are saved’: that is, we are made whole, made a more complete person, and so able to know who we are and how we can fulfil our calling,

‘... by the things that ignore us’: that is, by realising our place in creation and accepting that the world does not revolve around us.

But the ‘in the end’ is important too. This is not about the beginning of our journey and the totally vital need to be affirmed and disciplined in childhood. This is about the end of the journey, when we might possibly get to the point of constructively accepting that our worth comes from living in the grace of God alone. Perhaps that’s possible in the end only when we’ve tried to be the centre of the universe and found that we’re not; or when we’ve convinced ourselves we are the centre of the universe and then found that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It took time for the desert fathers and mothers to learn that ‘We are saved in the end by the things that ignore us.’

 

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken quite a bit about the desert fathers and mothers. And sometimes when I’ve mentioned them I think I might have been a bit misunderstood. I certainly don’t advocate every one of us going to live as a hermit in an isolated place in a fierce landscape. That would be neither possible nor desirable. But it does seem to me that these weird and wacky people who were called to a lifestyle we’d probably consider very bizarre, discovered things which are immensely useful to us who live in what some might misleadingly call ‘normality’.

 

That makes me think of something I would hesitate to mention if younger choir members were still in church with us at this moment. This is probably best kept away from young ears. I once saw a slightly obscure television series called Brainiac. It was presented by Richard Hammond and it was at the same time both very good science education and very good entertainment. At one point Hammond described how conkers have a very high water content and also a skin which seals the water in very effectively. So Brainiac put a big bowl of conkers in a microwave and switched it on. The demolition of the microwave was very spectacular; bits of microwave were shooting all over the place. It was a surprisingly easy way to make a very impressive bang. And when Hammond said the statutory, “Don’t try this at home,” – and please don’t - the way he put it was like this: he said, “Remember. We do these experiments so you don’t have to.”

 

I’m glad the desert fathers and mothers did an experiment that I’ll never have the opportunity to repeat. Through their experiment in isolation and silence and prayer they observed and learnt some things which I feel benefit me, such as the realisation that “we are saved in the end by the things that ignore us”.

 

And that’s where I’ll finish this morning. If you have any reaction to this sermon, do tell me at the end of the service. And whatever you have to say, I’ll do my best to ignore it completely.