2010   Version 2. Trinity 
" Help us Lord to become masters of ourselves that we may become the servants of others.  Take our lips and speak through them, take our minds and think through them, take our hearts and set them on fire. " 
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Our passage from the gospel reading today contains two important thoughts for Christians. The injunction not to get carried away by material things, but rather to follow a life that will store up riches in heaven.  That thought  is underlined by  that famous saying  that appears twice in the gospels, once in St. Matthew and here in St. Luke   "  For where your treasure is there will your heart be also. "    That's one part of our lifestyle to cultivate. 
The second thought is  about being ready for the second coming.  "Be ye ready also therefore, for the Son of Man  cometh at an hour when ye think not. " 
But, this verse also seems to speak to us  about the end of our  own life here on earth.   When I read Chapter 12, verse 40, it made me realize that not only do we not know the day or hour when Jesus' 2nd coming will be.  We also don't know the day or the hour of the end of our life either.  So...  this verse then says to us clearly - we must be ready all the time!  I don't view this as something to be anxious  about.   But it is about preparing through our lifestyle. 
John Donne put it famously :
" No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent a part of the main" and he goes on to say " Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind And therefore never send to know for whom, the bells tolls : it tolls for thee. "     We could, then, be dead inside, with the metaphorical bell tolling for us without even knowing it.   
And in thinking about  lifestyle I'd like t hark back to the previous chapter in St. Luke where Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. Because that is the bedrock on which our lives should be based. 
 I suppose the Lord's Prayer, the Paternoster, contains some of the best known, if not the best known words in the whole of Christian, indeed English, literature.   It's few brief sentences of 66 words are simple and can be understood by a child.  Yet when one comes to think o=about them, one realises the profundity of the message.  For the Lord's Prayer not only states all that a human being should ask from his Creator, but indirectly throws light on several fundamental questions as to the meaning of life itself., our relation to God and the universe in which we live. 
We repeat the prayer so often the danger is that it loses meaning. 
This morning I'd like to dwell a little on the forgiveness side of the prayer 
The Luke and Matthew King James versions differ slightly in that  Luke's says " Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us" 
Matthew says " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" 
And in Tyndale's version of St. Luke it comes out as " forgive us our sins; for even we forgive every man that trespasseth us.
Whatever way the translation goes, Jesus is here stating a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith: that we need to forgive, as God forgives us.    After Matthew's version of the Paternoster, Jesus goes on to spell it out more explicitly: "for if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you"    - and vice versa. 
Well that's clear then.  
However, it is the practical, day to day, application of forgiveness that it so much more difficult. 
Last month  saw the 100 anniversary of one of Winston Churchill's speeches that is not so well known as his stirring wartime broadcasts, with or without his dentures.   Or at least not so much remarked upon until it was mentioned in Parliament recently  
In July 1910 he was Home Secretary speaking in a debate on crime and punishment. I first came across his  contribution when reading a book by the former Inspector General of Prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham entitled "Prisongate"  in which he discussed what was wrong with the prison system in this country. What Churchill asserted a century ago was that 
"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilization in any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state, and even of convicted criminals against the state, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man  -  these are the things which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it."

I am sad to say that in 2010, we in this country have singularly failed to live up to those high ideals. We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.   Almost everyday in the last three weeks-  I have been monitoring the media  -  we have heard stories about the inadequacies of the Justice System n this country. 
" Tireless efforts towards the discovery of regenerating processes "    How one has to ask did Jon Venables, who was sent back to prison 3 weeks ago,  become the boy and man that he did ?   The tabloids  -  and some broadsheets  -  called for his even greater punishment.  
 "Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" was in my view one of the most pernicious slogans coined by a mainstream politician.   As a result of it, we have doubled the prison population in ten years at enormous expense to the taxpayer.  
And here's another trite slogan for you  -  "prison works".   
 Of course it works in one sense: locking people up does get them out of the way.  And if you lock up enough bad hats the number of offences will fall.    But that does not solve the fundamental problem of how to prevent crime or rehabilitate offenders.   In short we don't really do rehabilitation. We devise courses on anger management etc and cross our fingers.    
Well, let's say we don't do it very effectively.  We don't look  very hard for the treasure, as Churchill put it, that lies in the heart of everyone.   
The figures show that 49% of people released from jail re-offend within 12 months.  In this respect we have dismally failed.  We dish out ASBOS ( hopefully not much longer) ; overworked and undertrained social services fail regularly, the police are seen as oppressive overburdened with paperwork; our leaders bemoan the situation.  
But they allow  Parliament churn out imprisonable offence, over 1300 new ones, I read, since 1997.  
Selling game birds on a Sunday or Christmas day; selling animals or flora and fauna not native to this country i.e ruddy ducks, grey squirrels and Japanese knotweed. 
Since 1998 causing a Nuclear explosion will get you jailed.  

England..........., is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Next week  I'll  meet a man who after 4 years is coming out of prison.  You'd have thought that he's be infused with a joyous, even end of term, feeling.  When I saw him two weeks ago he wasn't; he didn't know where he was going: no one would tell him.  And he had no idea of what he was going to do with his life.  He felt an outcast, from his family and from society at large. He was wearing a crucifix and may be  -  though we didn't talk about that -  he felt an outcast from God.   There were tears in his eyes. 
As I drove home, I remembered a poem that I'd been given: [ read Mr Nobody] 
What we have to do as Christians it seems to me, is spread that word and try to create a forgiving society.  That's a lifestyle thing, part of the treasure on earth that we can also store up in heaven.   
And then we need to do the practical things  -  the jobs,  the bicycle to get to the job, the bank account opened, the hobbies, the counselling, the friendship offered : in short the things that make it easier for prodigal sons to return to the fold and feel wanted.   
"  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us needs to mean something more substantial.  If we could get that into our national lifestyle and make this country a better place as a result,  at  least when the bell tolls for us or indeed the last trump blows,  we'll be ready stand up and be counted. "  
Teach us good Lord to serve three as thou deserves, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds to   suffer and to ask for no reward save that of knowing that we do thy will.   
 





