Sermon ideas

• Recently we have seen many military homecomings. The cortèges passing through Royal Wootton Bassett have marked a succession of terrible tragedies, the deaths of young people cut down in their prime. But there have been many other returns – of units and regiments restored to their families – marked by great joy, both personal and communal. There have been no winners in the wars fought by the service personnel, but there have been great achievements. We might consider that such celebrations, which, in the 1940s might have marked triumph, today rather mark a kind of fulfilment.

• Every great achievement is an accumulation of smaller achievements. In restoring an old car, for example, or a house, the worker has many small triumphs, sometimes arrived at with great patience, before the whole job, which may take months or even years, is fulfilled. Psalm 126 embraces both the past and the future. The psalmist recalls the Lord’s activity, condent that it will be experienced again.
• How can we define joy? In what he called his ‘spiritual autobiography’, CS Lewis describes being Surprised by joy (see Further Resources). In his critical summary of the book, Bruce Edwards suggests that by ‘joy’, Lewis meant not mere pleasure but the sublime experience of the transcendent, the glimpse of the eternal that is only fleetingly available in earthly loves and aesthetics’.
• What will be discovered by the government’s ‘happiness agenda’, and its attempts to measure how happy Britain is? One opposition politician suggests there is a ‘danger ofpromoting “middle-class” materialistic aspirations and ignoring the urgent need to help people cope with life’s peaks andtroughs’. Might a ‘joy agenda’ be a better aspiration?
• Total fufillment can be only a future event, of which the present will sometimes offer glimpses, often drawn from past experience. Psalm 126 captures this, rooting it in the experience of exile and return and an ongoing journey. The event recalled here, and the memories we have of fullment and restoration in our lives, all lead us to consider what Jesus would describe as a concern for the kingdom, the overarching concern of the lectionary gospel readings for November, as we approach the end of the year.