On the Feast of St Simon and St Jude

Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
Preached at Diocesan House on 28 October 2010
29 October 2010

We find four verses in the Scriptures concerning Simon, and two of them mention Jude who also has his own mention in another verse.  In the face of such scarce biography, why shouldn’t we give full rein to hagiography?

The collect pushes us along a bit, especially the petition where we ask that with ardent devotion, like theirs, we may make known the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.  And I take it that that is a worthy goal of us all.  How do we make Jesus’ love and mercy known?

One of my heroes, Ed Friedman, wrote somewhere that when we push the box of kleenex across the table to someone struggling with a moment of insight or growth, we give the wrong kind of help.  We give encouragement to emotion and pain.  We kiss the victim when we could be waiting to congratulate the person for taking greater responsibility, and for growing into greater maturity and for transcending victimhood.

I think that’s what God does.  God certainly exercises a permissive will: we can sin and make bad choices for ever and a day, and God will permit us to do those things.  That permission comes with many price tags (both God’s and ours), but God seems to think that freedom is worth it.  And giving that freedom to another person represents the love of Jesus Christ, the same love by which he allows us to crucify him again and again.

And following that love, there is mercy, the mercy we ourselves know when we ourselves learn exactly how much God has permitted, how much God has tolerated, and how much God has forgiven.  And giving that mercy to another person represents the mercy of Jesus Christ, the same mercy by which Jesus forgives sinners over and over again.

Perhaps fondly, I believe Simon and Jude knew these things and made them truly and deeply their own.  And just so, I believe that making Jesus’ love and mercy known amount to making him known and amount to maturing “to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).