This is Cloud Atlas. [show a physical copy of the book]. I wonder, have you read it perhaps? Or perhaps you heard about it when it was shortlisted for the booker prize.
I remember when I read it - it’s not a book you forget. There are six stories in it, and each story breaks off half way through. The first is set in 1850s New Zealand and the Pacific Ocean, the next in 1930’s central Europe, the next in 1975, the next today and the final two at different stages in the future.
I remember reading this novel gripped, always wanting to know what happened next. What would happen to character Adam Ewing? What would happen to character Robert Frobisher? And just at that point that story would be interrupted and the next one would beginning, both leaving you hanging but also tying in to a previous narrative.
I had always known it, but Cloud Atlas reminded me how powerful stories are at communicating meaning.
What about the Bible for example? So much of what we learn in Scripture is not through sermons or commandments, but through stories. For example the story we heard in our Gospel reading.
Simeon is in the Temple. The familiar stone pillars and floors where he has been coming day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Some days it is full and bustling the noise of lambs bleating; poor people’s pigeon’s squawking; young Families coming to present their first born sons in the ancient rite that goes back to Moses. Other days the Temple is quiet, almost empty, but still Simeon is there, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Some days are feast days with the inevitable bustle. So many people crowding in for Pesach, Yom Kipor, Chanukah. It’s hard to squeeze in past the crowds. But still Simeon is there.
There’s someone else who is there day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Her name is Anna, an old lady, wrinkled and bent. She has been coming at least as long as Simeon. Each morning they look at each other across the courtyard. Will it be today? And each night they go back home. It wasn’t today. They are waiting.
Until today. Simeon gets up in morning, just as he has done so many days for so many years. washes. Puts his clothes on. Eats a bagel. And heads to the Temple. He gestures hello to Anna as he does every day. And then he sees the couple. There are so many young couples coming in with their babies. Each family is special, so full of joy, so proud of their firstborn son. But Simeon knows. This child is different.
It’s not a rich family. They haven’t got a lamb to sacrifice, just the two turtle doves. Simeon is nervous. Is this really it? He walks up to family and looks straight into the eyes of the baby. he reaches out to pick the baby up- then he’ll know for sure - Is this it? Is this the Light of the Nations? He reaches his hands out to hold what might be the light of the world.
But before we find out what happens next, let’s think about light. I read a wonderful story the other day about light. It was about one of these big fluorescent lights (hold one up - use it to mime the actions while describing the story that follows). There’s a man in New York, we’ll call him Chuck. And the light in Chuck’s office breaks. Now of course with modern health and safety legislation, you can’t simply drop a fluorescent light in the bin. There’s dangerous chemicals inside these. You have to dispose of them properly. Like many of us, Chuck is fed up with Health and Safety Legislation. Why should he have to pay this silly fee just to get rid of a fluorescent tube? I’m not saying you should- but have you ever felt like that? There’s so many forms for Chuck to fill in. So many ratios and rules and regulations. Is Chuck mean and penny-pinching or is he just fed up? You’ll have to decide that. But Chuck decides he is going cheat. Rather than paying the fee, and filling the forms in to dispose of this light, he is going to dump it somewhere at the side of a road.
He takes the broken light out of it’s socket, puts his coat on, shuts the office , goes out the door, in the elevator. Out into the cold New York air. He walks down the block to the subway entrance. He descends into the subway, holding his fluorescent light. Its after work, it’s rush hour, so he’s holding his light like this [ie model it upright vertically] and he get’s on to the crowded subway train.
Train rides are strange things aren’t they? It reminds me of a story I heard in a sermon, well it must have been twenty years ago, when I was a student at St Aldate’s church. It was a good story, because I still remember it. Diana Nairn was preaching and she told a story of how she got on a train, a bit like the Subway train that Chuck get’s on. Except of course this is England , so it’s a tube train. I’ve told this story before, so you may remember it. Anyway, my friend Diana is catching the tube somewhere., I think it was the Piccadilly line. She’s fortunate. She manages to get a seat. The seats soon fill up. The carriage get’s crowded. It’s a typical squashed tube journey, nobody talking to one another, everyone got their eyes down. They’d have been reading their kindles and listening to their ipods, but this was 20 years ago. So Diana’s sitting there.
And then a Street preacher jumps into the carriage just as the doors are closing. “Have you seen the light! Have you been washed in the blood? Do you know that you are a sinner and the only thing that can save you is Jesus’s death on the Cross.” Diana feels incredibly embarrassed. Why do people like that give Christians a bad name? She can see everyone else in the carriage is feeling very embarrassed too. Tube journeys are meant to be boring. And then this happens. Thankfully it only lasts one stop. Then the preacher gets out of this carriage and gets into the next one to repeat his mission. As the street preacher leaves and the tube door closes behind him, the man sitting next to Diana turns to her and says... And says...
But before we get to that. Just an aside about things that are meant to be boring. Tube journey’s are meant to be boring. This one certainly wasn’t for Diana and her fellow passengers. Meetings are often boring too, and Deanery Standing Committee meetings are right up there in the boring stakes. But there is one deanery Standing Committee I will never forget.
This was a couple of years back. Chris Abbess, a lovely guy in his 60s with a wonderful bushy beard, was the lay chair of standing committee at the time and we were meeting in his house. Around a dozen of us are crowded around his dining room table. We’ve been given the compulsory coffee in mugs that are far too small, with beautiful looking mouth watering biscuits put on the table. As always that no one is touching them and you feel embarrassed if you are the first person to do so. But we have in front of us piles and piles of papers and folders. And just like Diana Nairn’s journey on the tube, at first the meeting is just as boring as it is meant to be. Am I supposed to remember for you exactly which budget or LOB application or parish vacancy we were discussing? Well I don’t.
But then we turned over the next sheet of paper. And I noticed something. It was comparison of the parish attendance in 2003 with the present. Several parishes had declined in numbers. But Holy Trinity had grown. What jumped out at me was quite how much. Across our 4 congregations, Holy Trinity had grown from being 13th largest parish in the deanery to being 4th largest. Now part of that is because other parishes have shrunk. But part of it is because so many of you have on so many occasions invited people to church or to church events. You are good at inviting people to church.
Have you thought about who the next person will be who you will invite to church? We have different ways we like to do it, don’t we? What’s the way you are most comfortable doing it? Say you are inviting someone to church for next week, how do you like to go about it? Will you sit there this afternoon giving them a proper phone call? Or will you feel more comfortable if you send them a text or email? Or are you someone who would prefer to wait until tomorrow when you see them face to face at the shops or the school gate. And then you say “You know the church I go to - I think you’d really enjoy it. I do. Why don’t you come and join me there on Sunday? It’s at 8.00/9.30/4.15.
That’s the sort of thing you do. I hadn’t realised quite how much of that you do until that meeting in Chris Abbess’s dining room. I was expecting that meeting to be as boring as all the rest, another coffee drunk, another biscuit not eaten, another foot-deep pile of papers discussed - until those figures leapt out at me. And it was anything but boring to realise just how good you have been at sharing the light to the nations with your neighbours in Barkingside.
Which brings me back to Diana Nairn sitting in her tube carriage. “Have you seen the light? Have you been washed in the blood”. Everyone’s desperately trying not to make eye contact. The preacher leaves the carriage. the door slams behind him. And the man next to Diana turns to her and says. And says - “what a nutter!”
“Well actually” says Diana (feeling highly embarrassed, but trying to be a good Christian) “Well actually I would never put it like that, but I do actually agree with everything he has just said.”
“You don’t?”
“I do...”
“Really?”
And they get into an incredible conversation about what it means to be a Christian. And this time everyone else in the carriage isn’t staring down at their feet. They are listening intently to hear what Diana has to say.
It wasn’t the tube journey Diana expected to have, but isn’t it amazing how God gives us opportunities we don’t expect to talk about our faith?
Twenty years later I still remember sitting in a packed St Aldate's church hearing Diana give that sermon about her tube journey.
What about Chuck’s journey on the New York Subway? You remember, he’s on his way home, planning to dump the fluorescent tube by the side of the road somewhere.
Te gets into the subway train, he’s holding the light vertically like this. And it is so crowded that people can’t see what is going on. Somebody, thinking it is the pole you hold onto - you know, to stop yourself falling over - puts their hand round it.. Then, again without looking, somebody else does. By the time Chuck gets to his own station, 5 or 6 different people are all holding onto the fluorescent tube, all thinking that it is the pole for holding onto. So quick thinking Chuck just detaches his hands and walks out of the train leaving them all holding it. It’s one way to share the light.....
Simeon has been waiting for this moment for decades. Day after Day he has come to the Temple because God has told him that the Messiah will come. That before he dies he will see the Messiah. That Simeon’s story will become part of the ultimate story, the story of the falling and rising of many. So before the young Mary can stop him, Simeon has picked her baby. See the astonished look on Mary’s face. Some people have clearly got a knack with babies - little Jesus gurgles contently as Simeon holds him. Simeon gazes into baby Jesus’s eyes and sees the one he has been waiting for. And as he looks at Jesus he knows that this is is not just a Messiah for the Jews but one who will hope and meaning and clarity for people of every land - light for Woodford committees, light for students in a packed St Aldate's church, light for those travelling on the Underground and New Yorkers on the Subway, light for people in Barkingside England.
And Simeon exclaims
Lord now Let your Servant Go in Peace
Your word has been fulfilled
a Light to lighten the nations
And the glory of your people Israel
One story about an old man called Simeon sharing the light woven in with stories from 20 centuries later about sharing the light. Just as Cloud Atlas weaves together the stories in a Gothic castle of mittelEuropa, the detective yarn of Luisa Rey uncovering nuclear cover-ups, and the science fiction of Hawaii after the Apocalypse. Stories are powerful things. And we each have a story- the story of what Jesus has done in our lives. And as I reflect on Cloud Atlas with its interwoven stories, I realise that our stories are interwoven. My story is interwoven with those of people I never met who were part of Holy Trinity before I came here. You never met my friend Diana Nairn, yet your story is now interwoven with hers. And all our stories are interwoven with THE STORY - not just words, but THE WORD who came 2000 years ago to bring light and meaning to all the world. A light that we continue to share today.
