Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Flying

Texts

Luke 12.13-21

1 Corinthians 13.1-13

Last Sunday we talked about the concert for Princess Diana and to show our egalitarian stripe we need today to mention the live earth jamboree of last Saturday. Yet even before this musical marathon started, it faced controversy. For many of the performers arrived in their private jets only then to wave the ecological banner and counsel abstinence. Although I have to say that I would have rather reduced their carbon footprint by switching off the amplifiers they were bellowing through.

 

But thinking about it - any sort of air travel has gone through a significant change of status in my lifetime. Because when I was a boy, flying whilst not entirely limited just to the rich and famous was a commodity carefully eked out in our lives.  Now with Ryanair and its ilk, we can fly to wherever we want, whenever we want and all for not much more than a dish of strawberries and a glass of Pimms at Wimbledon.

 

However, there is no doubt that air travel more than most indulgencies illustrates many of the paradoxes of modern western living. Other contradictions can buy clothes cheaper than we can often get them cleaned much of it shipped in by air from countries where even a bus fare is a ransom; Also coffee which we can buy for less than a living wage for its growers. Not only that but flying can allow the prosecution of wars over vast distances and deliver aid to a disaster area in hours. Moreover, flying being just over one hundred years old demonstrates the shear ingenuity of humans but it then begs us to ask - is our resourcefulness being applied to the most crucial problems?

No wonder then we see an airliner overhead and feel a range of emotions; we feel wonder at it being there; interest in where it is going and even envy for those up there.  Yet maybe we should also feel guilt.  And from that angle alone there is a song that is far more challenging to thoughtless consuming jet-setters than any of the racket from Wembley. Indeed for that reason, it was once described as the most envious pop lyrics ever written.  

Certainly, instead of the usual slushy lovers’ angst that is pop music, it has a knife to turn and it goes:

You talk like Marlene Dietrich
And you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire
Your clothes are all made by Balmain
And there's diamonds and pearls in your hair

You live in a fancy apartment
Of the Boulevard of St. Michel
Where you keep your Rolling Stones records
And a friend of Sacha Distel

When you go on your summer vacation
You go to Juan-les-Pines
With your carefully designed topless swimsuit
You get an even suntan.

When the snow falls you're found in St. Moritz
With the others of the jet-set
And you sip your Napoleon Brandy
But you never get your lips wet

That was of course’ where do you go to my lovely’ by Peter Sarstadt.

And Luke too has some challenging words to those who are unthinkingly today’s hedonistic jet set. For he above all asks – quo vadis - where do you go?

 

Let us now read Luke 12.13-21

 

 

As thinking Christians then the modern world challenges us to hear the warning in Luke. For sure, that gospel demands we are conscious of being jetsetters and the need to be wise rather than rich in our riches. More sharply, it threatens us into asking - should we, will we and should I not have done. But what is the alternative? Does God really expects us to live as hermits, as puritanical luddites or those who would wish to turn the clock back to medieval times. What more then has scripture to tell us. Well, lets listen to Paul who had always to deal with haves and have nots and make them into one broad church as we read 1 Corinthians 13.1-13

 

 

 

I don’t suppose you could miss the stories in the press this week with regards the ecological damage being done by sheep and cows. But leaving that windy subject aside we are aware that modern air travel is having a significant effect on the global climate.  A point made crystal clear by a recent German study which estimated that one ton of carbon dioxide pollution is discharged for every 4,000 passenger air miles. Nevertheless we are also very conscious of the considerable benefits in world travel when carefully and thoughtfully used. The possibility, for example, of understanding other cultures better, or learning of another country’s outlook and problems and also the inevitable broadening in our tolerance by grasping we are all jock tamson’s bairns. More to the point, there is no doubt that our visitation allows the survival of remote communities that would have died due to lack of work and engenders our concern for the poor of the globe.

So how then do we square this circle and live as observant Christians whilst enjoying all God’s gifts in this modern world?

 

Well, that was near enough the problem that is given to our children at school key stage 2. For they are required to imagine themselves going on a holiday to a Caribbean island. They then have to think about how much they would spend and what proportion should go to the host country and local workers. After that the children decide whether or not this was a fair distribution of the money and if they thought it wasn't fair, they put forward proposals to make it more equitable.

Surely here then is how we should start to enjoy our gifts from God across the whole scope of our consumption. Here is the initial basis of expressing our loving Christian responsibility. And it is to think how our indulgence can better benefit those who are exploited to provide it; it is to think what we are using up and whether we use it better; it is to think through how what we are taking for ourselves can then converted into a gift for all.

 

Its amazing how time flies. For it exactly a year ago that Israel invaded south Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah that had kidnapped one of their soldiers. Soon as we saw, ….., the Israeli air force was attacking targets across that beleaguered and far from stable country. And so a war was launched that benefited no one except the extremists. Yet who can claim other than that the ability to fly allows the conduct of what is perceived as safe conflicts at least from the perspective of the air empowered government. And so even the act of flying reminds us of the fragility of human beings and the peace upon which all of us rely simply to get on our lives. A fragility that is far more imminent than global warning is to those innocents caught up in an air attack. On the other hand we cannot forget the huge airlift that went on to help the tsunami victims. For air travel allows tents and food and medical supplies to be rushed to the poles of the earth at unimaginable speeds. How too it assists aid workers, diplomats and peace-keepers to move with ease upon their God blessed missions.

Let then our own ability to fly from here to Timbuktu in a few hours, remind us of the alacrity that nations can fly to conflict or assistance. Let our air travelling force us to recall that for ordinary folk, just like you and me, death or life can come from the air very swiftly indeed. And then let us counsel our leaders and ourselves to choose life when even the remotest chance that jaw jaw is better than war war. Because that alone represents the love of Christ. The love of which Paul said always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres; the love of given riches for God.

 

Just this week the American aircraft maker Boeing unveiled its new 787 Dreamliner.  It is a wonderful creation of human hands. Built mostly of carbon fibre it can go from New York to Taiwan without stopping; it cruises just below the speed of sound very economically and there isn’t even a single light bulb in the whole contraption; all lights are of the sort of device that make kids trainers flash.

Is there then no end to man’s inventiveness? But you know that isn’t really the question for today. The real one – what should be applying human abilities towards? What should we invest the riches of our races’ abilities into? Where should be investing the inventive riches freely given by God?

 

And surely it is in solving the down sides of the various riddles set to us by flying and air travel. For if collectively we applied our common purpose in love to global warming we will find a solution that still allows the temperate enjoyment of God’s modern gifts to us. If we are inspired by a common concern for all who work in the provision of these gifts we can also find the ways insure their decent standard of living. If our skills of negotiation too were applied with love rather than self-interest we could be certain no one would look up to the skies in fear of warplanes. But rather gasp at the opportunities that flying offers to their lives. Because then air travel will be the promised source of mutual understanding, wealth and hope in time of need like no other before it. For then the deeply Christian Wright brothers would have risked their lives for a universal and more godly blessing. For then our and their lord would not have lost and regained his life in vain love.

 

It is quite a scary process learning to pilot a plane. For humans are not naturally at home in the air despite the natural exuberance. Also some of the actions that must be taken are counter intuitive yet must be executed with split second promptness. No wonder the tale of Icarus still strikes a cord in the day of the intentionally banally named airbus.

Flying then more than any other human activity give rise to excitement and glamour and even audacity more than any other activity yet it reminds us also of danger, greed and human fragility. In essence, flying sums up modern living. For, who can doubt that the human race faces today both immense opportunities and equally large difficulties? Moreover, just as it seems hard to believe that we can fly through the air so it is equally hard to believe we will ever solve these problems. But just as humans gained mastery over gravity we will also conquer global warming, global poverty and global war – nut only if we truly want too – but only if we truly have love – but only if we truthfully ask for God’s help. Because then we together can do anything; we can fly anywhere; and we can disentangle every conundrum. In fact, we can honestly take wings in the joyful eternal possibility of Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee poem high flight.

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.