Sermon at the State Funeral of John Laws, CBE

The Rev Dr Michael Jensen

In the months after Caroline died, I had the honour of a ride on the golf cart to table 53. John was weary with grief. 

Over lunch, I gave John a Bible, and suggested he read again the Gospel of John.  I mentioned Johnny Cash had recorded it. John said ‘Johnny Cash was a good friend of mine’. He said ‘I could do a recording of the Bible, too’. 

I don’t know what became of the idea. But what a treasure it would have been to our country: Golden Tonsils reading the Word. The Gospel of John in the voice of John Laws. In memory of that unfulfilled dream, I have chosen as our text the opening of John’s Gospel. Today we remember the voice that shaped a nation and listen to the Word that shaped the universe.

Before voices, there was the Voice. Before words, there was the Word. In the beginning, we read, was the Word – the Word who was with God and who was God. All of reality starts with the Voice of the one who calls us into existence and gives us purpose and meaning. The world that John would famously greet each day was spoken into being by God.  But this Word is not far off. 

We heard John’s voice in the everyday: in our kitchens, our cars, our offices, even our hospital beds. Surprisingly for a man who had a chauffer, he spoke as an ordinary Australian to ordinary Australians.  John Laws was extraordinary, but particularly in the way he spoke ordinary. 

God also speaks ordinary. That is the scandal of Christianity: the eternal God speaks in ordinary human words, as familiar as John Laws on the radio. It’s a long way from Woolloomooloo to Walgett, but John spoke Walgett fluently.  It’s even further from eternity to today, but God’s Voice is speaking to us here and now.

And how does God do it? 
In our passage, which starts at the dawn of time itself, the punchline is:
The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word made flesh? This is of course Jesus of Nazareth. 

John told me that he thought Jesus was ‘a good bloke’. I think that John meant he felt he could relate to Jesus. And I think he meant that Jesus was not unlike him. And he’s right, in part. The goodness in Jesus was not unlike the goodness in John. Jesus was a man of truth; a straight shooter; he cared for the little people, though he mixed with the big end of town; he was not particularly religious; he was not impressed by titles or by pomposity; he liked food, wine, and good company. He was profoundly kind.

But Jesus was also what none of us can ever be. 

John Laws was honest enough to see this in himself. He had his regrets and sorrows, in personal and public life. He was flawed, as we all are. But Jesus was good without the shadows. Kind without the limits. True without the contradictions. Jesus shared our humanity, but not our sin.  Jesus was indeed a good bloke: but in him that goodness meant going to the cross. The Word who calls us into life came to rescue us from death — and to forgive the sins that cling to every one of us, John Laws included.

“The Word became flesh” means that God did not simply visit us with a message; he stepped into our world with a mission. He came not only to speak truth but to shoulder our guilt, to carry our regrets, and to bind up our griefs – even to die our death, so that might stand forgiven, and alive. As Les Murray put it, in a poem as spare and sharp as bush light: The true God gives his flesh and blood;
Idols demand yours off you.

The Voice from eternity announces to us that God has been beyond kind to us. He gives us grace and truth: an open invitation to return home, to find in him healing for our life’s wounds, peace in our disquiet, comfort for our sorrows, and hope in our despair. He lifts from us the weight of guilt and shame.  This is the true glory of God. 

John signed off each day by calling us to be kind to each other. 

The Voice from above broadcasts God’s kindness to us. If we are shown the kindness of God himself, it presses on us more urgently John Laws’ daily challenge:  Are we a kind nation? Or have we become more mean, more cruel, more greedy, and more judgmental? Do our politicians and media figures call us to greater kindness, or do they awaken our resentments?

I think Lawsie’s call to us is more pointed than it seems. We have received more than we deserve – amazing grace, indeed. How could we not be kind? 

Now John Laws has made his last broadcast. We cannot hear his voice again. But we can tune into another Voice – the Voice from above. We can pick up today the gospel of this other John, the one who tells us of the man John Laws admired. We cannot hear it read in the voice of John Laws! But we hear in these pages the Voice that offers to us the eternal kindness of God in Jesus, and the hope of eternal life with him. 
Amen. 
 

Photo:Courtesy NSW government