Gulliver's View - A Meditation on the Coincidence of the Start of the Triodion with the Eve of the Meeting

I suppose Gulliver’s Travels, by Dean Swift, must be one of the best (certainly one of the best known) satirical works in English. Some of you may have read it - at least the first part of it - as children. The story of Gulliver’s visit to the kingdom of Lilliput makes a good children’s story when somewhat watered down. But the book, which includes accounts of visits to several other imaginary countries, was written for adults, and its purpose was to satirise life in England in the early 18^th century.

But the story about the visit to Lilliput, or rather Lilliput and Blefuscu, two nations of people only six inches tall that were at war with each other, is what I want to talk about. To reduce the people you are criticising to creatures only six inches high , being observed by a person around six feet tall, is a particularly effective way of satirising them.

The posturing of politicians and military people simply looks ridiculous if you think of them as only six inches tall, being looked down on by an observer (representing yourself) who is getting on for six feet tall. We have experienced a lot of strutting and ranting by politicians and media people over the last few days. If we can think of them as little creatures only six inches high, we shall view recent events very differently!

Politicians, generals and even scientists are very fond of boasting; but it just sounds ridiculous if you think of them as midgets. You can make the ridicule still more effective by making the gap wider. Think of the great public figures as the size of the little lead toy soldiers you used to be able to buy at Woolworth’s. Then think of the observer as a giant looking down from the sky. Of think how insignificant anything on earth would look to a superhuman observer in outer space!

Now go a stage further, and think how we, his tiny, insignificant creatures must look in the sight of God! We are insignificant creatures occupying a tiny part of the vast universe God has created. There can surely be nothing more ridiculous than boasting to God. Yet people do it.

It was what the Pharisee did in today’s Gospel story. He liked showing off (don’t we all, at least to some extent?). But you can’t show off to the Creator of the whole universe. The proper approach to God is to do what the Publican did. He crept into a corner and said: “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner”

We are reminded of that frequently throughout Lent; and beginning today, because this is the first of the four Sundays of preparation for Great Lent - the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, the Sunday of Meat Fare and the Sunday of Cheese Fare.

I am not, however, going to talk about what you should do during Great Lent. Because if you don’t know how to observe Great Lent, after some eight years, then you never will! Anyway, the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee this year is rather special. It is the beginning of the Triodion as usual, but this year that is not the main celebration. The principal feast today is the eve of the Meeting of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Temple.

The feast of the Meeting represents first of all a traditional Jewish custom. Mary and Joseph take Jesus into the Temple at Jerusalem to offer him to God, and to offer a sacrifice on his behalf, as their first-born son. But for Christians the event stands for much more than that, for Jesus is God incarnate - become flesh. The Mother of God, the virgin Mary, immaculate, offers Jesus, the Son of God, as man to his Father. So that he can be offered back to us as God.

We are reminded that in Jesus God became what we are to enable us to become what he is. We are tiny, insignificant creatures, occupying a tiny, insignificant part of God’s universe. Yet we are assured that God made us in his own image and likeness. Tiny, insignificant copies we may be, but we have the potential to become like Jesus; that is, really like God. Now that is something to boast about.

Reader Peter Sizer