His Name Was Aylan - Today's sermon

I don't usually write sermons. I wrote this one. You can listen to the recording here.

Here is the text. Check against delivery.

Sermon Notes: His Name Was Aylan

The Venerable Malcolm French, SCP

St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, Regina SK

September 6, 2015

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

None of us who saw that picture this past week will ever forget it: the little toddler, lying on the beach in that pose we’ve all seen – the exhausted toddler, sleeping where he fell, in his red t-shirt, his blue shorts, his little shoes.

But he wasn’t sleeping. He was dead, lying in the sand where the Mediterranean Sea had spat him up.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

One friend of mine, a cynical reporter in Saskatoon, tweeted: 

That little boy. I can’t unsee that little boy, 

and I tweeted back: 

I pray to God none of us can ever unsee that little boy.

The picture is too heartbreaking to look at, too important not to see.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

We couldn’t help but see, in his lifeless body, the heart-rending image of our own children, our own grandchildren, our nieces and nephews. There but for the grace of God . . .

For most of us, that was a notional construct, a hypothetical. But for us at St. James . . . it could have been Mimi; it could have been her cousins. This is real for us.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

His brother’s name was Galip. He was five.

I know how Oliver was so chuffed to be “a big bruvver.” I expect Galip was a proud big brother. And like Sullivan sometimes follows Oliver around like a little puppy, I expect Aylan followed his big brother too.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

What sort of hell must one be escaping for it to make sense to risk your life – to risk your family’s lives – to risk your children’s lives – on a flimsy raft on the open sea with not enough life jackets? One does not do this lightly. One has to be fleeing a special kind of hell.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

We’ve read how his father clung to them after the raft capsized, holding his wife and his sons with all his strength . . . until the strength of the next wave swept them to their deaths.

And now, their father has taken them all back – back to the hell they’d fled – to lay them in their graves, wanting nothing more than to lay down next to them and die.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

They wanted to come to Canada – a nation of immigrants and refugees. His aunt lives in Vancouver.

While the initial reports were incorrect that an application for Aylan and his family had been rejected, we do know that his aunt wanted to sponsor her brothers and their families. It was the application for her other brother’s family that had been rejected. But the rejection of that application deprived both families of hope.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

The media have been calling them migrants. The word disguises the fact that they are refugees, fleeing violence and persecution, from Syria, from Iraq, from parts of Africa. The word disguises the fact that they are human beings fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

The picture plays on our consciences. It has already become iconic – like the piercing blue eyes of the young Afghan girl staring out of the pages of National Geographic – like the picture of Kim Phúc, her clothes burned away, her flesh burning with napalm fleeing toward the camera.

How could this have happened? How? How?

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

In Deuteronomy, the children of Israel are told: 

You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Matthew tells us that Jesus and his family fled the wrath of Herod and were refugees in Egypt.

And later, Matthew assures us that we will be judged on whether we fed the hungry, whether we gave drink to the thirsty, whether we clothed the naked, and whether we welcomed the stranger.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

In today’s reading from James, the Lord’s big brother, we are told: 

For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.

Nothing we can do now will restore Aylan to life – to this life. He rests now, with his mother and his brother and countless other Aylans, in the arms of a merciful God.

Your support for our Diocesan Refugee Fund can help one family. Your support for the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund can help more families. You can ask the candidates who come to your door what they are prepared to do for refugees.

There are yet still more thousands of other Aylans. It is not too late for them.

His name was Aylan. He was three years old; fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God.