Delivered on Sunday 29 January 2012 in St George's Chapel

Epiphany IV: Mark 40:end

'Elementary, my dear Watson'. I remember hearing these words as a small boy and being rather taken with them. What a super detective this Sherlock Holmes must be, to analyse all those clues and come to an answer that he considers 'elementary'. So you can imagine my delight when at Christmas I received a copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. I cannot claim to recall the stories in any detail - I was after all only nine at the time, and that is not today or yesterday - but I can remember both my enjoyment of the book and also my surprise that something was missing. In none of the stories, and in fact in none of the 60 published stories, does Holmes ever utter the words 'Elementary, my dear Watson'. Holmes certainly does describe his deductions as elementary and from time to time he speaks of my dear Watson but never do the two terms come together. It turns out that the one and only thing I had known about Sherlock Holmes - that much quoted phrase - was not a genuine part of the story.

With that modest memory of disappointment in mind, my wife persuaded me, last weekend, to go to the cinema to see the new Sherlock Holmes film. I'm not a great cinema-goer, nor am I the most attentive viewer; either my mind wanders off the subject altogether or I fall asleep. Anna tells me that I definitely missed a good chunk of this particular film. She and everyone around me could be sure of this, as they alleged I may even have snored. I think they exaggerate, for I can remember lots about the film. It is exciting, action-packed, generally well acted, and presented with stunning special effects. My initial reaction to the film as a whole was that the Sherlock Holmes of the big screen is a country mile away from the Sherlock Holmes of the book. In the book he carries a pistol but he rarely uses it; he is a boxing champion and has knowledge of the martial arts; he uses these skills sparingly. In the film he is a fighting expert and fires off his pistol and his fists at a moment's notice. It is as though the English Victorian Detective had been taking lessons from Rambo.

The new image of Sherlock certainly has its roots in the stories but the flowering somewhat different. In the books Holmes is indeed a master of disguise; in the film so masterful is he that can disguise himself as a piece of furniture. In the books Holmes is heard to play the violin; on screen he makes mention only that he has acquired a new bow; we don't hear him play. And again in the stories we find a Holmes who while lax about household tidiness, has we are a told a 'cat-like' love of personal cleanliness; in the cinema his rooms are chaotic but he too appears haphazard, dressed in slovenly clothing and bearing designer stubble. Here, accompanied by full-scale surround sound, Holmes is more dynamic, more physical, and more trendy.

Of course, the cinematic version, even with the frantic action scenes, still depends on Holmes intelligence: his extraordinary observation skills, his exceptional memory, and his powers of so-called deduction. The film builds this image of Holmes the intellectual in a number of ways. For example, the Holmes of the stories does not play chess. In the film he plays a fantastic game against his arch-rival Moriarty. Indeed so adept are they both that after the easy initial moves, they can play without looking at the board. Holmes, of course, wins. It is a swashbuckling game of exchanges, uncovered checks and a queen sacrifice. If you try to follow the moves you will, I'm afraid, come unstuck, as some crucial moves have been edited out. The game, mind you, is rooted in a real historical game. It is clearly based on a classic encounter in 1966 between the Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen and the then World Champion Tigran Petrosian. There is no way that Holmes and Moriarty would have played such a game in 1891: the opening used by Larsen, the Sicilian defence, was at that time considered weak, giving white not much chance of a win. Nowadays, the Sicilian is very complex and a highly regarded opening. By giving Holmes the moves of a contemporary chess player, he is made to look even more intelligent, knowing things that could not have been known to even the most skilled Victorian master.

All in all, then, we have two versions of Sherlock Holmes. We have the one arising out of the pages of the novels and stories and we have one presented to us on the big screen. These two versions are closely related to each other but they are not the same. I suppose we might say the later version exaggerates some of Holmes' characteristics and ignores others. The story tells of Holmes but it is a different Holmes.

I wonder if something similar is going on in today's Gospel story. Here we meet Jesus at the start of his public ministry. By now he has healed many and performed a number of exorcisms. And in this passage he is somewhere in Galilee, when he is approached by a leper. It was no fun being a leper in those days. People suffering from these skin diseases were expected to live apart, and to announce themselves by shouting 'unclean, unclean'. It is reported that they were referred to as the living dead. As I said, it was not a good condition to have. Anyway, this leper approaches Jesus with the confident words: 'If you want to, you can make me clean'. Jesus was deeply moved. He reached out his hand and touched him, and said to him, 'I do want to: be clean!' Immediately the disease left him, and he was clean.

Jesus then sent the man away with two instructions. He was to go and show himself to the priest. In those days it was the priest who diagnosed leprosy and it was the priest who could officially say that the sufferer no longer had the disease. These procedures were all laid down in the law; you can read about them in Leviticus. But he also told the man 'See that you tell nobody'. And what did the man do? I presume he must have gone to consult the priest but he most certainly did not keep his mouth shut. It appears that he went about the entire neighbourhood, telling anyone who would listen the great things that Jesus had done for him. In fact he made the story so widely known that Jesus could no longer go publicly into the towns. Instead he stayed out in the open country. But even there people came out to him from all quarters.

I wonder what it was that the man said about Jesus? We shall never be sure but I suspect he told a beefed up account of Jesus the healer. In his excitement he may well have embellished the story, here and there, giving it a touch more excitement or adding a few extra interesting details.

This instruction to tell no one is not universal in Mark's Gospel. There is another occasion, when Jesus heals a man possessed by demons to 'Go home to your own people and tell them what the Lord in his mercy has done for you'. It is not elementary to understand why in one instance there is an instruction to be silent, and in another to broadcast. But allow me to make a suggestion. The man previously demented by demons had lived among the tombs. His healing takes him out of the tombs and restores him, as the text says, to his right mind. This man knows something of resurrection and the suffering that must be endured before resurrection. The first man, by contrast, is so excited by his healing that he has forgotten the depth of his suffering. His telling of Jesus was the exaggerated story of a miracle-worker. A proper account of Jesus should involve the miracles, of course, but should be balanced by the pain and suffering of the crucifixion. As St Paul told the Corinthians: 'I preach Christ nailed to the cross'.

For us, today's reading leaves us with an interesting question. We have not been instructed to remain silent about Jesus. Far from it, the biblical instruction is to go to all the nations. But what are we to tell them? What are we to say about Jesus? Clearly we will want to give as faithful an account as we are able. It will not be our aim to exaggerate some aspects of Jesus' life and ministry, at the expense of others. To help us get that account right we have the grammar of the gospels. These four books help us structure our account; they give us something against which to measure our own account. But we do have our own account. For in our being we are living out a fifth gospel. We are in relationship to the living Christ, crucified and risen, and made present to us through the spirit of God. So what are we to tell the nations? We are to tell of Jesus life and ministry, of his death, and of his resurrection. And importantly we are expected to articulate just what it is that the Lord in his mercy has done for us, just why it is that our faith in Jesus Christ is not mere lip service but a matter of life and death.