A sermon by Bishop John Roundhill for the commissioning of Deb Bird with Kenmore-Brookfield parish on Saturday 16th November 2024.
In the Psalm we heard this afternoon we had:
“When I look up at the heavens, at the work of Love’s creation, at the infinite variety of your plan.
What are we that you should be mindful of us? the woman-born that you attend to them?”
They are rather beautiful words, and I reckon that a whole sermon can quite easily come from just those 5 lines. Well I am going to try. – I might just try the phrase “the work of Love’s creation.
We live in a beautiful world, and we live too in a rather marvellous galaxy (the milky way) and for those inclined we live too a very beautiful Universe. But let me start here on Earth. Just how beautiful the earth is.
Rather like Slartibartfast in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, many of us have a fondness for the fiddly bits of the fjords.
There is a thing call the coastline paradox. This paradox was uncovered in the post WW2 period when in 1951 mathematician and pacifist Lewis Richardson was working on a theory that the likelihood of countries going to war was related to the length of their shared border. (Aren’t you glad you live in Australia!) discovered that Portugal and Spain recorded a different length to their shared border. He realized that the length of the border depended on the size of the ruler used to measure the border
He then extended his idea to coastlines.
Some time ago when the presentation board for the vacancy here was meeting a conversation arose about how a fractal could be used to describe the growing seed to represent the Kingdom of God. Fractals are patterns that repeat themselves at different scales. But that conversation of fractals set alight our Presentation Board. It is one of the reasons why we are all here this afternoon.
So just back to the coastlines. What is the length of the coastline of Australia? It doesn’t have a simple answer because of the fractal nature of the coastline – or coastlines have fractal dimensions. It was this fractal quality that was discovered by Lewis Richardson.
This is serious study. How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension“, published on 5 May 1967,[12] Mandelbrot
Marvelous!
But then I wondered if we saw that same fractal nature in the Gospel? The Gospel has a fractal quality, I think, and as you zoom more deeply down into it, it is about love, love of individuals, love of the poorest of the poor, love of the littlest of children, but then as you zoom out to grand scales love too seems to be the name of the pattern and purpose ; “as I look up at the heavens, I see the work of Love’s creation” to quote from our psalm.
That is a quality of fractals. Love manifest at every level of the creation.
It is the same deep love that is the patterning purpose and meaning of the Gospel. Iit is one of the more curious things that we believe about God, that God in God’s infinite majesty has concern for you, little, miserable, at times self-loathing you. You are loved by the same purpose and the same loving creator who is behind and within this vast expanding universe. Crazy isn’t it?
To use the line from the hymn, The Servant King.
Come see His hands and His feet
The scars that speak of sacrifice
Hands that flung stars into space
To cruel nails surrendered
The God of galaxies is the God of your very being and is the God of Grace. Love at ever level of creation.
From the Gospel reading we had today: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
That purposeful love that you know f your deepest prayers, is the love that undergirds the two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. We live with a fecund God.
Thomas Traherne wrote in 1660s – long before we knew of other galaxies: “You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because humans are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.
So Deb enjoy this world, and know it aright. Delight in the ever-expanding Universe, in its wonders, charms and mystery and know that your care here of these people at Kenmore reflects the same love that is in the heavens.
We folk here in 21st Century Australia face many challenges; we are not doing a very good job of loving the world, or loving our neighbour, but knowing in our hearts the purpose of the wonderful universe around us, might help us keep at it, keep our heads high.
Treasure these words:
When I look up at the heavens, at the work of Love’s creation, at the infinite variety of your plan.
What are we that you should be mindful of us? the woman-born that you attend to them?