Bible Readings: Romans 7.15-25a, Psalm 145.8-15, Matthew 11.16-19, 25-end.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In 1918 an American student, who had been called up to the US army, was sent to England to prepare to fight on the Western Front. He was encamped with his unit up on Morn Hill.
On a day’s leave he decided to walk down to visit this Cathedral. He spent time inside, much moved by its sacred space, and then wandered outside. Back at home he had left a friend, something of a drinker, whose name was Ebby Thacher. Having begin to struggle with alcohol himself, the soldier was struck by a tombstone he saw in the Inner Close, about 50 yards west of the west door:
In Memory of Thomas Thetcher, a Grenadier
in the North Regt. of Hants Militia, who died
of a violent Fever contracted by drinking
Small Beer when hot, the 12th of May 1764.
Aged 26 Years.
The name of that first world war soldier was, as some of you will know, Bill Wilson. Bill soon embarked for France. He survived the first war. But he never forgot Winchester or the tomb of Thetcher. During the 1920s Bill Wilson embarked on a dynamic business career. But his severe struggles with alcoholism affected both his work and his marriage. By 1933 he was hospitalised in the Charles B. Towns Hospital for Drug and Alcohol Addictions in New York City under the care of Dr William Silkworth. In November 1934, he received a visit in hospital by that same old drinking companion, Ebby Thacher. Thacher had finally achieved a period of sobriety, after experiencing a conversion of Christianity. He tried to persuade Wilson to turn himself over to the care of a Christian deity who would liberate him from alcoholism. Wilson had never been a believer, but that night he cried out, “I’ll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!” He later described what followed as the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity.
He testified that he never drank again for the remainder of his life.
When Wilson was tempted to drink again, he decided that to succeed in his own journey he needed to be helping others. Through a church he met Bob Smith. And soon Wilson and Smith together were working with other alcoholics in what they first humbly called their “nameless squad of drunks”. By 1938 they numbered about 100. They decided to promote their work with a book which Wilson was to write titled Alcoholics Anonymous. The book told on its first page of Bill’s visit to Winchester Cathedral – and to the grave of Tom Thetcher.
It has sold something more than 30 million copies.
Today there are around 100,000 AA groups around the world with 2 million members. And many of them come to this Cathedral every year to see the tombstone which Wilson saw – the restored replica in the Inner Close, and the original stone in the Royal Hampshire Regimental Museum.
In Romans 7 St Paul is describing the ‘After Glow’, I suppose, of his own ‘White Light’ experiences, as an spiritual leader of the Jewish faith, and then encountering Christ on the road to Damascus. And how he sees his continual struggle with sin. Like us, Paul knows that his inner self, his truest self, has been taken up into Christ. It knows itself redeemed and is ready to participate in Christ. But like us he still faces a struggle with sin. There is an outer self, which is still falling short, still wrestling with old habits and still being shaped and transformed, as by God’s grace it is healed and made fully whole.
Recognising that this is our situation – that we have a problem, that we struggle – this is an essential step in the spiritual battle. The Psalmist knew that it is when we fall that the Lord upholds us. ‘The Lord upholdeth all such as fall : and lifteth up all those that are down.’ Those, we could add, who are ready to admit that they are down.
It may not be a coincidence that Bill Wilson had his White Light experience when he was at his lowest ebb. It’s then that we realise we need to have trust in something greater. It’s then that we can receive God’s revelation and the safety and healing it brings.
We were tempted to trust the world. But it has let has down. And the world, we realise, lets us down, because it rejects God. As Jesus says, God calls the world to dance with him. But it does not dance with Him. The world says it doesn’t like that kind of dance or those kind of dancers. God calls the world to mourn with him. But it does not mourn with Him. The world says there’s no need to mourn for those things or in that way.
The world thinks that trust in God is childish and naïve, that its worldly wisdom and technical intelligence are enough. But God hides himself from people who rely on those things. And reveals himself to those who know that they are weary; those who know that their burdens are too heavy to carry in their own strength; those who are gentle and humble in heart.
The world’s yoke looks fun to bear; but it turns out to get very heavy, very quickly. The way of wisdom is to look for a yoke which it will be joy to bear; the yoke of a Saviour who can meet our deepest spiritual needs and bring us only light burdens. Wilson cried out in his despair, “If there be a God, let Him show Himself!”. And He did. And He does. Praise to the Almighty, the King of creation.
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
