Reserved Or Served

Some Thoughts For Candlemas

Luke 2:22-40

One of the advantages of being a Vicar is that I usually get a reserved seat for services.

Here at St Matthew’s my seat is set apart from everyone out the front.

Nobody would dare to sit in it. Not even Rev’d Rosemary.

When I go to other churches for Confirmations or Ordinations or services at which a new Vicar is to be welcomed, you won’t find me arriving ages in advance so that I can get a good seat.

No. I’ll be robed up in all my finery with a reserved seat somewhere up the front.

At one such service, some years ago, all us Clergy processed in with the Bishop and took up our usual seats in the pride of place.

There was a sign on my chair which read “ The Rev Andrew Cunnington - Reserved”

I suppose that could been seen as a description of my character or general demeanour.

But on this occasion someone had placed my hymn book so that it covered up the “RE” at the beginning of the word “reserved” and the service sheet over “D” at the end of the word , so that now it read “The Rev Andrew Cunnington – serve”

I sometimes wonder what we imagine the consequences of our Christian convictions to be?

A reserved place in the kingdom of heaven so long as we don’t do anything terribly wrong?

Or a call to serve and thereby show forth the love of God?

A certain religious status in the community of which we are a part, or a realisation that our rightful place is, more often than not, the position from which we can best help others.

Today the church remembers the presentation of Christ in the temple and one of the things which always strikes me about this incident is the extent to which the Saviour of the world goes unnoticed.

Mary and Joseph and the child in the temple amidst all the other families come to give thanks for their child and offer them to God, and they just mingle with the crowd, unrecognised amidst the comings and goings of the temple until Jesus is scooped up into the arms of two elderly people – the only people to see who this child really was.

They were simply servants too. A devout pair who had lived out their lives unremarkably within the temple precincts. Not seeking seats of honour – simply wanting to serve God and therefore continuously on the look out.

“Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace” cries Simeon.

You see, it took one servant to recognise another.

God’s people were looking out for a Messiah – that was true, but they expected him to be a man of privilege, so that those in positions of religious power could go on sitting in the reserved seats.

What they got in Jesus was a servant king – who was out to reverse the natural order so that the first would end up being last and the last would be first.

Is this a Messiah we really want – or shall we look for another?

The church in our land is increasingly a discredited institution.

We once had a right to be heard, and an authority which people would adhere to without question. We had reserved seats all over the place.

Now we have to earn the right to be heard, there is little authority to which we can now cling and we are pushed to the margins as never before.

This could be just the impetus we need to propel us from the “reserved” mentality to the “serve” one.

“Reserved” or “Serve”. It’s a real challenge to our spiritual outlook.

I visited a convent some years ago now and joined the nuns for tea.

One of them smiled welcomingly as she poured tea into a cup and then added milk.

“O lovely” I said in the way you do.

She made as if to add sugar.

“No, it’s OK thanks” I said “I don’t take sugar”

The sister looked at me confused.

“O no Father” she said “This is my tea and I like a spoonful of sugar, you make your own!”

RH 3.2.08