<html><body><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Here we go - I finished the first draft on Tuesday but, with some advice, I reworked it and caught some mistakes. I'm sure there may be others - feel free to point them out!</div><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></div><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Happy happy!</div><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></div><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Bob</div><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></div><div style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST</span></p><p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><font face='"Arial","sans-serif"' style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="2" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">1<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> SAMUEL 15:34 – 16-13<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>PROPER 6 b</span></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">2
CORINTHIANS 5:6-17<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>17<sup>th</sup> JUNE, 2018</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">MARK
4:26-34<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 20</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>What I’m going to offer for our
reflection this morning concerns a difficult subject: suicide. It might be
considered dark, sad, or with more than a tinge of regret and feelings of
helplessness. If nothing else, though, from cover to cover, the Bible invites us
to wrestle with what is difficult as well as with what is joyful, to engage
with sadness and frustration as well as with pleasure, because the Bible deals with
realities that our lives are filled with all sorts of situations. All sermons
are supposed to challenge, to disturb, to bring us to wrestle with where we
find our lives with God and with one another.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>I say this, not to give the sermon
an “R” rating, or what we used in Britain as an “X” rating – neither of which
imply in this case something sexual, or necessarily gratuitously violent, but
to indicate that there is something in a film which adults are invited to
confront. It’s this latter to which I make this preface today.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps what adds to this is, again,
like other sermons, that we may feel that we’re without a definitive answer,
not because God isn’t there or listening to and engaged with us, but possibly
because we ourselves are still struggling with the questions and so coming up
with answers is made more complicated.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>In the last two weeks, two fairly
high profile celebrities committed suicide. This is sad – on all sorts of
levels – and should make us aware of everything that’s going on in our own
lives, but especially in the lives of those around us. One response has been
for people to say, “If only she, if only he, had reached out, I’d have tried to
have helped.”</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>The reality is, in the vast majority
of cases, people who have crises in their lives simply become incapable of
reaching out. It’s the last thing on their minds. Whether it’s because of
mental or physical illness, or a personality that may not have been very
outgoing to start with; whether the person was introverted by nature, many
times the person wouldn’t make much of an effort or a fuss even in the best of
times, and when things are dark and there’s such a feeling of hopelessness,
then some people simply won’t talk about it. They may even put on a front that
seems perfectly normal.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>Health – whether it be mental,
emotional, spiritual, or physical – can be tremendously fragile. There are many
times when we simply can’t imagine with what others are having to deal. What is
more dangerous to us and to society is that there are many times when we simply
don’t <b><u>WANT</u></b> to know what’s
going on with others. We seem to have lost the ability to be empathetic or
sympathetic. We may feel that we have enough on our own plates without having
to be sorry about anyone else. Or, quite frankly, our nature may, at times,
simply be to be too controlling so that others don’t want to make any sort of
indication about what’s going on in their lives, bad <b><u>OR</u></b> good.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>Crises like these go on all the
time.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>What many have mentioned, though, in
addition to the deaths of these people, is that there is a “celebrity copycat”
effect. When one person, especially someone who’s in the news, on TV, in films,
and so on; when someone well-known takes his or her life, somehow this provides
the stimulus to others to take their own lives.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>It’s quite a commentary on society
if there are people who seem to have come to the end of their tolerance, who
feel that there’s no one to whom they can be completely open about what’s so
difficult or dangerous to them, and if there are so few willing to listen, to
reach out, to those in such pain and anxiety.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>I know that one can oversimplify,
that we can think we can come up with a “one-size-fits-all” sort of an answer,
but it’s hard to overemphasise the need that we have to listen. Not the sort of
listening we do by having someone on the radio or TV talking constantly while
we do everything from cleaning the bathroom grout to frying up breakfast. It
doesn’t take too long to tune such talk out so that it becomes a pretty
worthless exercise both for the talker and for the listener. But we – and I
mean congregations of Christian <b><u>AND</u></b>
all other religious groups – we need to develop the skill of being intentional
listeners.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>Many years ago I went to a
conference where I met the author of a book called “Listening Hearts”. She had
just published it and already she and a group of others beginning in the
Baltimore area were looking for ways to reawaken people to the skill and
vocation of being able to listen to others with passion and compassion, to try
to hear what was on the heart of the speaker, and how that person might
identify and fulfil her or his vocation from God.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span>The group is really thriving those
thirty-some years on.</span></p>
<p style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.33px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> </span></span></p>
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