Midnight Eucharist for Christmas Eve

John 1:1-14

Let me begin by asking you a question. According to the song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas,’ how many partridges in a pear tree did my true love send to me? One? Any advance on one? The answer is twelve: one on each of the twelve days of Christmas. My true love sent to me 12 partridges and drummers drumming, 22 turtle doves and pipers piping, 30 French hens and lords-a-leaping, 36 calling birds and ladies dancing, 40 gold rings and maids-a-milking, and 42 geese-a-laying and swans-a-swimming: 364 gifts in all. Thank god for eBay…

Now let me ask you another question. According to the Gospels, how many children of God are born at Christmas? One? Jesus, laid in a manger? Well, yes…and no. Listen again to what John wrote:

‘He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.’

How many children of God are born at Christmas? We don’t know the exact number, but it was many, perhaps a whole town full.

We have misunderstood the Gospel story. We all know that there was no room in the inn – as John says, ‘He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.’ But we have misunderstood. There is a word in Greek for a commercial inn – Luke uses it in recounting Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. But the word we have translated as ‘inn’ at the nativity is another word, the word for a guest room, for lodging provided free-of-charge as hospitality to travellers. It is the word Luke will use later to describe the upper room Jesus and his disciples borrow to eat a meal on the night he will be arrested and tried and condemned to death: certainly, his own people, represented by the rulers and authorities, did not accept him. But John wants to tell us about all who did receive him, and though he does not tell us about Jesus’ birth in any detail, he is writing about his coming into the world.

The typical home in Bethlehem was essentially a one-room house, shared by the family, day and night. Almost every family kept a few animals, and these were brought into the house and penned-in at one end at night. This kept the animals safe, and their body-heat provided warmth for the humans. At the other end from the animals, or sometimes on the flat roof, there was a smaller room, provision for guests or travellers. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary are staying in such a room, but it is too small - there was no room – for a woman to give birth, attended to by the women and girls of the house, and most likely a couple more women who acted as midwives to the entire community. So Mary gives birth to Jesus in the main room, the family room, and her baby is wrapped tightly and laid in a manger: in a confined space for comfort – the baby has been used to the womb – filled with straw, which is both an insulator and hypoallergenic: in other words, warm and clean. The manger is not making do with what is to hand; it is the best possible place there is.

And to all who received him – Mary, and Joseph, and their hosts (most likely relatives of Joseph, and quite possibly his immediate family), and the midwives, and the population of the City of David who had welcomed home this son of David and his wife and soon-to-be-born child – received power to become children of God, born of God.

To all who received him. And surely that includes you, who have come here this night precisely in order to welcome the birth of Jesus, to travel back through time and space to be present, to make sure that he is received. But what we find is not what we expected to find, for instead of a baby in the manger there is a whole nursery full of cribs, and one for us, newly born – again – in God’s house, room made for our birth, to receive us. We have been welcomed by God this night.

This is a story of being received. A true story, the truest story of all. So come, and receive Jesus in bread and wine on this most holy night, and find yourself received by God, through and with him. Welcome, honoured guest. Welcome home.

Second Sunday of Advent 2016

Isaiah 11:1-10 (and Romans 15:4-13 and Matthew 3:1-12)

Take a look around this place, where we have gathered today. We are surrounded by symbols. Our East Window is full of symbolism, including imagery from the Book of Revelation and images representing our city and region. On the pulpit, we have the symbols of the four evangelists: Matthew, the human: Mark, the lion; Luke, the ox; and John, the eagle. In the Bede Chapel, a miner’s lamp, that only ever goes out between Good Friday and Easter morning. Last week, we baptised thirteen new believers, using oil and water and candle-light. Every week, we bring and share bread and wine, asking that, by God’s Spirit, it would be for us the body and blood of Christ.

All around us, there are plants and animals and other objects: symbols that not only represent something, but invite us to imagine or understand that thing in a particular way. The lion and the unicorn on the tower, for example, make the claim that the English are brave without equal and the Scottish are fiercely proud and free. The people are embodied by their monarchs, and the coat-of-arms proclaims the Union of the two nations in the person of one king.

Our reading from Isaiah is also full of symbolism. Isaiah’s great symbol of the people of Israel was a vine, a giant grapevine planted by God, that spread out from the Tigris and Euphrates to the east to the Mediterranean Sea to the west, embodied in the descendants of David and their rule from Jerusalem. This particular symbol was so vivid that it became the national symbol of Israel, much as the oak tree is the symbol of England. Jesus lived some 800 years after this vision was first proclaimed. In his day, there was a great vine made of gold on the outside wall of the temple, visible to all the pilgrims as they approached their goal. Jesus himself used the symbol of the vineyard in several of his parables; and even described himself as the true vine, and his disciples as the branches.

As Isaiah’s use of the vine symbol unfolds, God, who planted the vineyard, is depicted as breaking down its walls and returning it to wilderness. The vine is cut down, and other trees grow great and tall, providing shelter for wildlife. It is a symbolic way of speaking of God bringing judgement on the kings in Jerusalem for their unfaithfulness, raising up another nation, whom God will eventually also judge.

Isaiah tells his story at a time when most of the territory once ruled from Jerusalem has been lost. First, the kingdom had been divided, with a line of separatist-kings establishing the northern kingdom of Israel, ruled from Samaria. Then, the Assyrians had swallowed-up Israel, and threatened to capture Jerusalem and swallow-up the southern kingdom of Judah. But, facing a new threat of their own – the rising powerhouse of Babylon – the Assyrians withdrew.

Now was a moment. A moment when history could go one way or another. And into this moment, Isaiah calls on the people to imagine a fresh shoot growing out from the cut-back vine-stock. A new king, in whom there is legitimising continuity with the past but also a new departure: the spirit of the Lord will anoint this king, and this king will revere God, and represent God’s reign on the earth.

This king will be a judge, to arbitrate for the community, to enable the whole community to flourish. In particular, his rule will be characterised by justice for the most vulnerable – which will necessarily include judgement exercised against the mighty. And here the symbolism changes from national plants to national animals. Echoing David’s origins as a shepherd of his father’s flock, this king will pass judgement on the surrounding predatory nations, the wolf, leopard, lion, bear, and asp, who pose a danger to God’s people, represented as lamb, kid, calf, and nursing child. And what might it look like, to imagine ourselves as such defenceless, dependent creatures, under the care of such a king?

More symbolism: this king will put on righteousness and faithfulness like a belt, as the things that hold everything together. Right relationship, defined by loving God, and our neighbour – especially the widow, orphan, and alien – just as much as ourselves. And faithfulness: enduring commitment to a community, whether it is reciprocated or not.

Our reading ended with the observation that such a place, such a kingdom, would be glorious. But no such king was found. In our Gospel reading, John the forerunner of Jesus proclaimed that Jesus would show the world what such a king and such a judge would look like. And in our reading from Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome, Paul takes up Isaiah’s prophecy, declaring it fulfilled in Jesus. His key words are steadfastness and encouragement, welcome, hope, joy, and peace.

What might all this mean for us? We live in a world that is in as much turmoil as the world Isaiah knew, with nations rising and falling, a complex web of wars and proxy wars, populations displaced and others fearing that they might be next. How are we to imagine ourselves in such a world as this?

Firstly, we are invited to understand this vision as speaking before all else of Jesus. We are invited to look on him, and see what true wisdom and understanding, counsel and (subversive) mightiness look like; what a true knowledge of God is like – which is an awesome thing.

Secondly, the world that we help create and perpetuate by our words and actions is not to be the world that is created and perpetuated by what we see and hear in the media, or social media: outpourings of hate and fear. Instead, we are to attend to those marginalised and demonised by the world – and we are to do so for the long-term, whatever is going on around us.

You see, we are called to become more like Jesus by embodying his message, in intentional, habitual ways – as habitual as putting on a belt, or getting dressed, each morning.

The Minster has been described as a spiritual heart-beat for the city of Sunderland, and a place of meeting, learning, belonging, and celebrating – these are simple practices – for all her people, of all faiths and none. In the Bible, the heart symbolises the will, or, our ability to choose to do right or wrong. If we are a spiritual heart-beat for the city, by our communal life we are to pose the questions: who are we willing to meet with? who are we willing to learn with, and from? who is welcome to belong here? and what will we celebrate? How we answer those questions is to be radically different from how the world around us answers those questions.

For me, the welcome that Mackems and Iranians share in this place is the clearest example – though by no means the only example – of how we are answering those questions at this moment in our history. And the wonderful thing about symbols is the way in which they transcend language barriers, and embrace cultural diversity.

Jesus is in our midst, as a signal to the peoples. The nations shall enquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. Amen.

Remembrance Sunday 2016

‘See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.’ (Malachi 4:1-2)

Malachi is a dreamer. He dreams of a day that is coming, when all who are arrogant and all who are evildoers are consumed like the stubble of a harvested field, that is set on fire. That day will be a new dawn for all those who revere God’s name, a day of restoration, a healing of all their hurts.

More than 400 years later, John the Baptist proclaimed that the day Malachi dreamed of had arrived, in the person of Jesus, whom John portrayed as coming with the tools of harvest and with fire, to gather the grain and burn up the chaff.

I don’t know how Malachi’s dream sits with you. It is, I think, a dream that echoes in the dream to Make Britain Great Again, or Make America Great Again. We’d all like to see a day when bad people get what is coming to them and good people are vindicated. But then, we tend to like to see ourselves as being, essentially, good people – at least in comparison with others. This is not the hypocrisy of religious people, as some make out, but the hypocrisy – literally, mask-wearing – of human beings.

The problem is, if I am honest, that I am arrogant, and an evildoer.

I am arrogant, in that I assume that my experience of life is the same as yours, indeed is normative, and that you can be measured against me. At least, this is my default assumption, which I might be helped to resist. This is what is called white privilege, or male privilege, or the privilege of any number of other things including my upbringing, my education, my sexuality, that it is so easy for me to take for granted. And we all have our assumptions: I am constantly talking with people who assume that I am familiar with the TV or music or football team or technology they love; or that I have the same knowledge of Sunderland they have, even though I have lived here for only three years and they have lived here their whole lives!

And I am an evildoer. In what I think and say and do – and fail to do, that ought to be done – I contribute to that which is wrong with the world. That isn’t the whole story – thank God! – but it is true, for me and for you. That is why when we come together, we begin by placing ourselves in the hands of a God who knows our hearts better than we do ourselves; confessing our sins; receiving pardon for, and deliverance from, our sins; and renewed hope of being kept, and strengthened, in all goodness.

These are important verses to hear on an occasion of public Remembrance, because of the strong tendency to view ‘us’ as liberators and guarantors of all that is good in the world, instead of recognising that we share fully in the folly and capacity for wickedness that is common to humanity. Fully human.

I need my arrogance and evildoing burnt up, rooted out, cut away.

God knows, it will need to be an extreme action. God knows, I need a Messiah.

But I don’t only need someone who will burn up what needs to be burned: I need someone who will then heal my wounds. I need that hope of a future, hope based not on my being right or good, or even on our being right or good, but on God’s righteousness: on God’s ability to relate to us – who were his enemies – rightly.

The verses we heard read out loud ended with an unusual image: those on whom the sun of righteousness dawns shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. I don’t keep a cow in my house, and I guess you don’t either. But in biblical times, many families kept a small cow – much smaller than our cows today – along with a few sheep and perhaps a donkey. At night, the animals were brought into the house, often a one-room home with the animals corralled at one end, their body heat keeping the family warm. One of the first jobs of the morning was to open the door and drive the animals out. But when the cow calved, it was even more crowded; and calves – like human children – are more ready than their parents to get up and out.

This is the image: being contained, in darkness; safe, but restrained; and, all-of-a-sudden, the door thrown open: light streaming in, a wider world beckoning.

Jesus has come. The day of the Lord is here. Not every wrong has been made right, not yet. But we can submit to being brought low by him (which turns out to be a necessary part of healthy, sustainable community; necessary for being a good society). And we can welcome a healing that is as dependable as the sunrise (even if some days the sunrise is hidden by clouds).

Last Sunday after Trinity

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Recently the New Testament readings in the Lectionary have been from the pastoral epistles, and I have taken the opportunity to preach a mini-series which you may recall I introduced as letters from an older Christian to a younger Christian. Letters full of wisdom and encouragement, written with affection to friends wrestling with how their faith relates to their experience of life, with all its challenges. And today we come to the culmination, as Paul shares end-of-life wisdom.

We are so privileged to get to read over Timothy’s shoulder; for we are a congregation where many of us are living in the final years of life – a season, beautiful in its own time, towards which we all journey – alongside others who are both younger and younger in the faith.

The first thing I want us to note are these words: ‘As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.’ (2 Timothy 4:6).

Paul describes the inevitable acceleration towards the end of life as being poured out, as an offering to God. For Paul, approaching death has meaning and purpose, in itself – as well as the hope that life does not end in death, hope that sustains us in our longing to see Jesus face-to-face. This last season is not a diminished experience of life, but a different one. One that comes with great loss, undoubtedly; but also with its own gift, its own calling. As the elderly mother of a friend of mine wrote recently:

‘I have moved to a different country of late: the country of old age, weakness, increasing helplessness, and grief. This is also a country with time for prayer and reflection; of deepening relationships, and increasing sensitivity to the beauty of the world around, to the kindness of others; a place of unexpected gifts, sometimes from what seem the most unlikely places.

‘As I travel around this country, I frequently experience fear, acute anxiety, depression, grief and at times panic.

‘It is also a place where I am trying to learn to trust; to trust that God is a God of love, who cares for us; to try to discern God’s love and care for us all, even though there are many times when I struggle to do so; to not close my eyes and my ears, or “harden my heart”, because if I do that, if I don’t try to trust, God cannot help me.’

The image of being poured out as a libation might call to mind Jesus’ first miracle, as recorded in John’s Gospel, turning water contained in large clay jars into wine, drawn out for a wedding banquet, a sign that revealed his glory (John 2:1-11).

It might call to mind Mary of Bethany, pouring out costly fragrant perfume over Jesus’ feet; in front of Judas, who, caught-up in himself, cannot understand why this is as necessary in its time as public works of service (John 12:1-8).

It might also call to mind Paul’s own imagery of our lives being like treasure contained in clay jars, ‘always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.’ (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).

The wine is being poured out. It cannot defy gravity, and flow back into the vessel. Indeed, the clay jar that had contained it is soon to be broken, by careless hands. But not before it has been taken up by loving hands, nail-scarred hands, the life within blessed and transformed, a foretaste of glory.

We enact this Sunday by Sunday, as different members of the congregation bring the wine forward, and it is poured out into the chalice. Yes, we do this to remember Jesus’ blood poured out for us; but we are also offering ourselves, our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice of thanks and praise. The wine is ‘fruit of the earth and work of human hands’ … and it is also symbol of our lives poured out in response to the one who poured out his life for us. This returned love is a holy mystery, and one which surely becomes more poignant as we intentionally face death, whether through aging or illness.

The second thing I want us to note are these words: ‘But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength…’ (2 Timothy 4:17a). In his trial, Paul’s friends deserted him. On the surface, Paul is on trial before the authorities and his friends can’t face it, just as Jesus’ disciples deserted him, out of complex emotions of fear and sorrow. But I think that we can also quite legitimately read these verses beneath the surface: that Paul’s younger companions could not yet face what he had to face, could not go where he had to go – the end of life – and that Paul, while understanding and gracious, did not want Timothy to be so unprepared.

I have been a member of local churches that are made up predominantly of younger people, and I have been a member of local churches that are made up predominantly of older people. Those of us who are younger need those of us who are older, need to learn from you how to experience life in all its fullness even as outwardly we are wasting away. And those of us who are older need those of us who are younger, need your support in a society that withdraws from the elderly out of a pathological fear of aging and dying. One of the beautiful things about the Minster is multi-generational families. And my hope and prayer is that this is a community where the more frail our members become, the more valued they are. Not in false ways that resist the new thing that the Spirit is doing in any given moment, but in faithful ways that anticipate and respond to the Spirit, in prayerful trust and joy, as together we learn to stand with Jesus who unfailingly stands by us.

A week ago, I had the most profound spiritual encounter as I served the bread at Communion. I found myself mesmerised by the hands of each who came forward to receive Jesus, especially the older hands with fingers bent by age. Your hands are beautiful. They shine with future glory that has been seeping into the present over many years. As I ministered to you, you ministered to me; you showed me what it looks like to be poured out as a libation, lives reaching beyond themselves, beyond outward circumstance, reaching out for Jesus where the intangible is made tangible.

And I imagine that I will have a similarly holy goose-bump moment when the wine is brought forward and poured out in just a little while.

So if you are old, or if you are dying, may the Holy Spirit yet again transform the wine of your life, along with the wine in the chalice, that you might carry the presence of Jesus into the world.

And if you are young, and that season of being poured out lies many years ahead, may the Holy Spirit strengthen you again to stand alongside those being poured out, however painful that might be. Amen.

Twenty-first Sunday After Trinity

Genesis 32:22-31 and Luke 18:1-8 and 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Three stories of struggle.

The first is a story of a man coming home. He has been away from home for many years. He ran away from home, because he had dishonoured his family and his brother intended to kill him. And tomorrow, they will come face-to-face again. Imagine what Jacob must be wrestling with, on the inside. He sends everyone else ahead of him, so he can face the darkness alone. But God comes and wrestles with him, all night long, until daybreak. Many years before, on the first night of his flight to safety, God had made a promise to Jacob. A promise never to leave him alone and, one day, to bring him back home (Genesis 28:10-22). God was not going to let Jacob give him the slip now.

The second story is a parable Jesus told, about a widow struggling for justice. The judge in this story is a caricature of the most ungodly person you could imagine, someone who openly disregards the greatest instruction, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4, 5)

and also, ‘You shall not render an unjust judgement … with justice you shall judge your neighbour … you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.’ (Leviticus 19:15-18)

and again, ‘Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.’ (Deuteronomy 27:19).

The appointment of such a man to a position over others is in every imaginable way bad news for anyone of integrity. But if even someone who has removed himself so far from God, and placed himself so far above other people, will eventually do what is right – albeit out of self-interest – then we can be sure that God – who is loving and just – will grant justice, however long he must wrestle, with us, against unjust actions.

Moreover, it is through such struggle – to live out a society marked by love, expressed by justice; to live such a life even against the flow – that faith is kept alive.

And finally, a letter, from Paul to Timothy, full of encouragement to keep struggling: continue … be persistent … endure …

What have you been struggling with this week? For some of us, it has been mental health issues [World Mental Health Day, 10 October]. For others, the inequality faced on a daily basis by girls and women in the world [International Day Of The Girl Child, 11 October; and the US Presidential election campaign]. For some, it has been the pursuit of a place of refuge. For yet others, the journey deeper into growing old, where loss overtakes gain and past overshadows future, and yet even in this strange new land God may be found faithful. For some it has been the demands of work; or the emptying nest; or the uncertainty of our immediate future; or the madness of the world … or any combination of the above. You are not alone.

One of the things Paul tells Timothy is that God breathes life into scripture, to create a wrestling-partner for us: for humans, whom God fashioned from clay and breathed his life into. Here we stand, today, facing this struggle or that: all of which are very real; but none of which are new. And God has given us a wrestling-partner, full of experience, full of records of our ancestors who struggled before us. Full of parables: did you know the word ‘parable,’ describing a story thrown into the mix of our everyday lives, means ‘to throw down beside’? That sounds like a wrestling move to me. And coaches, too, like Jesus and Paul, and others. Teaching us, challenging us, correcting us, training us; with the goal of our being shaped for a life of working for good in the world.

When I go for a run, there are times when I think, ‘Why am I doing this? It hurts too much. Is it worth it?’ In a similar way, sometimes the things we read in scripture knock the wind out of us, pin us to the ground in a painful hold. And at such times we get to cry out, with Jacob, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ There must be a blessing here, however hard it is to see right now. Please, bless me, or else there is just death, not a dying to myself in order to find life in its fullness. Oh, and my limp? My scars? They are my testimony to God’s faithfulness and healing in the past.

What have you been struggling with this week? You are not alone. Today we come together, whether the time is favourable or unfavourable, because God intends to bless the world through us, and will not let us go.

Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

2 Timothy 1:1-14

It has been a few weeks since I preached at this service, and I want to pick up the occasional series hearing Paul’s letters to younger believers. Last time, we considered his letter to Philemon, and this time we’re listening-in on his second letter to Timothy. Here’s the background:

On several occasions, Paul found himself in prison. Most often this was, ostensibly at least, for his own safety. People opposed to his message would stir up a riot, and, instead of imprisoning them for disturbance of the peace, the authorities found it more expedient to detain Paul. Eventually, Paul, a Roman citizen by birth, appealed to the Emperor for his freedom, and so found himself detained, transported, and eventually under house arrest in Rome. It is from there that he wrote to Timothy. Now, there is a school of thought that sees this as being the final months of Paul’s life; and there is another school of thought that thinks Paul was granted his freedom by the Emperor, travelled – as he had hoped to do – to Spain, carrying the gospel there before ending up back in Rome, back in prison, and only then executed for his faith. We simply can’t say, for certain.

Timothy, whom Paul met on his travels, was like a son to him. That is to say, Paul assumed the role of Timothy’s father, to apprentice Timothy up to eventually take over from him, much as Moses had done with Joshua, and Elijah had done with Elisha. They had travelled together, co-authored letters to churches together, and in time Paul had appointed Timothy to be overseer of the church he [Paul] had planted in Ephesus. But with Paul imprisoned in Rome, Timothy was having a wobble.

We’ll come back to Paul and Timothy, but first I want to tell you about Benjamin and Ali. Many of you will know that Benjamin and Ali are brothers from Iran who have become part of our Minster family since arriving in Sunderland earlier this year. Ali was only 17 when they arrived. We celebrated his 18th birthday recently; and the next time they went to Middlesbrough to report to the police, as asylum seekers have to do on a regular basis, they were detained and transported to an immigration Removal Centre in Scotland. You see, they had passed through Germany on their journey to claim asylum in the UK, and so our officials say that they must claim asylum there. So they are currently in detention, awaiting deportation.

Some of you have written to their solicitor and to our MP, and many people are praying for them. The place where they are being kept is by no means terrible – they are not free, but the facilities are good, and the staff seem kind – but being removed there has been a traumatic experience, and we are concerned for their wellbeing. Chris went up to see them last Monday, and Jo and I drove up to visit them on Friday. Our observation would be that Ali is coping better than he was at first – though he still has a one-to-one officer with him at all times making sure he is okay – but that Benjamin is struggling more than he was to begin with. They were both overjoyed to see us, and to hear the love we brought with us from you. We continue to pray for them, that God would somehow be at work in their circumstances to bring about good for them, and to redeem that which has been far from good.

With our brothers and our whole community in mind, let us return to Paul and Timothy. Paul was detained under house arrest, and Timothy was experiencing what we might call a crisis of faith. In response, Paul asks Timothy to look at the situation from a different perspective.

The first thing I want us to note is that Paul sees his circumstances as an opportunity to share in Jesus’ experience; to be able to identify, in however small a way, with what was done to Jesus. You see, Jesus is not only our Saviour but also our Lord, who calls us to follow him, who seeks to conform our lives more fully to his; who does not promise to keep us from bodily harm but in whom we have the promise of being saved even from the clutches of death. Paul sees his imprisonment as a privilege he did not have when he was free. And in the light of that, he asks Timothy to see his own freedom, and Paul’s imprisonment, as opportunity to experience oneness with Jesus through suffering the things he suffered. This is not about seeking out trouble, but rather about expecting it, about not being surprised by it. Benjamin and Ali came to this country to follow Jesus, and find themselves imprisoned and rejected – and Jesus is right there with them.

The next thing I want us to note is that Paul turns his circumstances completely on their head, as an opportunity to embrace a greater understanding of the gospel. He uses the very language of imprisonment under guard to encourage Timothy to entrust himself to God as the one who will guard his life – remember, Paul has been turned over to a guard for his personal safety. Moreover, God has asked Timothy to be guard over the life God has entrusted him with, with the help of the Holy Spirit. In verses 12-14, Paul uses the words ‘trust,’ ‘guard,’ ‘entrusted,’ ‘guard,’ and ‘entrusted’ again, to fully develop his point: even prison can be used by the Holy Spirit for our spiritual growth, and that of others. It is an unexpected and frankly an audacious move! Far from a disaster, God is at work to bring good out of circumstances that are not great. Likewise, what has happened to Benjamin and Ali ought to encourage us to reflect on our lives and ask what we need to entrust to God, what good treasure has been entrusted to us.

Leading on from that, the final thing I want us to note is that Paul encourages Timothy to rekindle or fan into flame the gift that God has given him, which was publicly recognised when Paul laid hands of blessing and commissioning on Timothy. We’re not told what the gift was – wouldn’t you like to know? – but Paul does tell us about how he has stirred up his own God-given gifts of being a herald and an apostle and a teacher, even while under house arrest. In these circumstances, the herald gets to proclaim the gospel to the household of the Emperor, the apostle is sent to the very heart of the Roman Empire, and the teacher has opportunity to write to his disciple. God has given each one of us a gift or gifts with which to play our part. How will we rekindle them when they die down, as will happen again and again? Benjamin has practical, hands-on gifts, and he is hoping to make a wooden holding cross in the workshop. Ali is more academic, hopes to be a doctor one day, and we encouraged him to make whatever use he can of the library. And what of you?

It has been a challenging week. Today is a gift, an opportunity to renew our faith in God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; God who is Creator, Redeemer, and Life-giver. To be made-anew; to be delivered once again from whatever would hold us captive; to be enlivened to follow Jesus all the way home. Let us not lose hope, but receive power and love and self-discipline, to live within grace, mercy, and peace. Amen.

Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity

Philemon 1-21

After our summer break, we’re back to following the Lectionary, the set readings that help ensure that over a period of time we hear the Bible widely and together. This autumn, when I’m preaching, we’ll be looking at letters written by the apostle Paul, not to congregations but to individuals. We’ll be listening-in as a follower of Jesus, who is closer to the end of his life than to the middle, passes his wisdom on to the next generation. In Olympic Games terms, we’ll be thinking about legacy: both Paul’s, and our own.

We begin, this week, with Paul’s letter to Philemon. It’s a short letter, only 25 verses long (for some reason, the lectionary leaves out the last 4). Here’s the background, as best we can piece it together:

Often when Paul and his travel-companions came to a city they were met with welcome and rejection, seeing households come to faith in Jesus before having to move on very quickly, continuing the relationship by letter-writing. But when they come to Ephesus, something different unfolds. After three months of talking about Jesus to the resident Jewish community, to mixed reception, Paul relocated to the lecture hall of a teacher known as the Tyrant – you can imagine how he got that nickname! For two years, Paul’s time is occupied in three ways:

firstly, he is working, alongside companions who share his trade, to support themselves by making tents, possibly for Silk Road traders or Roman legionaries;

secondly, during the mid-day siesta hours, he is talking about what it looks like to be the church, to anyone who was interested, at the Tyrant’s school;

and thirdly, both of these activities are interrupted by at least one spell in prison, during which time Paul is dependent on his friends for food and clean clothing, and occupies his time writing letters.

Now, so many people were interested in Paul’s lunchtime workshops that, without his leaving Ephesus, the gospel spread, and churches were established, right across the Roman province of Asia, which we know today as Turkey.

One of those people was Philemon. One of those churches was his household in Colossae – the church to whom Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians. And with that letter, Paul sent the little letter to Philemon.

Now, Greco-Roman households were made up of the family, and their slaves. The whole Empire was built on slaves; they were as ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ and ‘everyday’ as car-ownership is today. In many ways their lives weren’t terrible, but ultimately they were possessions and their lives were held in their master’s hands. The whole of the Bible can be read as humanity held captive and God coming to set the captives free. In his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul tells Philemon’s household that the slaves have a share in the inheritance, and the freeborn belong to Jesus the master: in other words, there is neither slave nor free, because all are simultaneously free children of God the Father, and slaves of God the King.

But alongside this, Paul writes personally to Philemon, and his kin Apphia and Archippus, concerning Onesimus. It would appear that Onesimus was one of Philemon’s slaves, and that he had run away, from Colossae to Ephesus. And there, somehow, he had come across Paul, the prisoner, and found himself in serving Paul’s needs. You see, the name Onesimus means ‘useful’ – and before, he was perceived as useless. Paul asks Onesimus to carry these letters back home, and advocates on his behalf: Onesimus and Philemon are both partners with Paul in the gospel. They are brothers in God’s household, and – more – they are both like-a-son to Paul. They are both slaves of God, and – more – they both owe themselves to Paul, as a master holds his slave’s life in his hands. The whole household dynamic, on which the very Empire rests, is completely deconstructed; and God’s household constructed in its place. This is what is at stake in Paul’s asking Philemon to receive back Onesimus.

So, where are you in this letter? And where am I?

Perhaps you identify with Onesimus. Perhaps you have been running away from something, from a situation that makes you feel useless – only to discover that you can’t outrun God, and that God is challenging you to discover yourself anew as useful in the divine economy? Or – even more fundamental – inviting you to discover that your new status as son or daughter is not dependent on your useless/fullness, but on the grace and peace given by God our Father?

Perhaps you identify with Philemon. Perhaps you enjoy the privileges of being a son or daughter without thought, and God is challenging you to use that privilege to set others free, from the ways in which you have judged them or they have judged themselves? Or – even more fundamental – inviting you to discover that you are not master of your own life, but God’s bought slave, serving others not in your own strength but in the grace and peace given by our Lord Jesus Christ?

Perhaps you identify with Paul, and God is prompting you to speak up on behalf of someone else, to seek to see two divided parties reconciled? Or to recognise the constraints you live within – constraints you would not have chosen – as the opportunity to partner with God rather than the excuse not to?

What the Spirit is saying to you will be different from what the Spirit is saying to me; but the same Spirit is speaking to us, together. We have been bound together, and it is in our common life together that we are transformed into the likeness of the only begotten Son who came as slave of all. Don’t try to make this a private matter between you and God. Let’s speak, listen, and minister to one another as we work out our salvation together.

Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Isaiah 66:10-14

The world, it would appear, has gone quite mad. Some people have lost their head. Others are numb or angry with grief. Yet others are fearful, and with reason. No one seems to have a plan, and no one knows what lies twenty-four hours ahead, let alone in the coming months and years; but it doesn’t look good, whatever it may be. We are in a mess. How ought we to respond? Today we turn to Scripture and to Sacrament, to the words and the actions that remind us who we belong to and for why. And I’d like us to focus on the passage from Isaiah.

The purpose of biblical prophecy is not fortune-telling but helping a community of people to hold on to God’s faithfulness, and respond faithfully, in challenging circumstances. The book of Isaiah is a collection of prophetic writing that seeks to do this in three unfolding moments in history. The first part is concerned with preparing Israel’s elite for the devastating experience of being carried off into exile in Babylon. The second part is concerned with preparing some of them and their children and grandchildren for the challenging upheaval of returning home a lifetime later. Not all would choose to return. And, of course, for those who had been born as second- or third-generation immigrants, returning to their homeland was not only a return but also – and perhaps more so – a totally new departure. As for those who remembered Jerusalem from their childhood, it would be no less a shock: rebuilding would take years. The third part of Isaiah, then – the part from which our reading this morning comes – is concerned with preparing the discouraged community to take up the abandoned task of rebuilding. They are discouraged because things had not turned out the way that they had expected. The economy was really very badly broken. Political leaders were divided, plotting treacherous plots and scheming devious schemes. Things were pretty devastating, to be honest.

We find ourselves living through not entirely dissimilar times, and will do for some time. But in our Scriptures we have an incredible resource for just such a challenge.

The verses we have heard read, and those that come just before them, employ the images of a woman in labour, and a mid-wife; a wet-nurse, and a mother. The images are fluid as milk, relating to Jerusalem (as place and people) and to God, so closely does God identify with the people it is hard to tell them apart.

These verses speak of rejoicing; but they don’t say, ‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine, in fact better than fine.’ Look again. They speak of mourning, of the deep need for consolation. In verse 13 alone, the need to be comforted is underlined three times.

A woman and a child in labour are both going through a crisis. A mother who is unable to feed her baby, or who has reached the end of her tether in the face of a baby who refuses to be consoled but cries and cries and cries, knows in her very body what it means that, ‘This is not how I expected things would be…’

These verses are written that God’s faithfulness might be discerned in difficulty; that our dark days and nights might hold out to us an encounter with God that simply isn’t available when all is right with the world. Rejoicing and mourning are not opposed to one another, with rejoicing meant to triumph over mourning, so that we might say that those who mourn lack faith. They are both means of God’s grace in their time.

Here is an image of people who are distressed, who are very sad, who are not at peace; not only comforted but nurtured, strengthened in body, mind, and spirit by the Lord and the Lord’s people. We might say that the comforted become those who comfort; the consoled become those who console others. It is a beautiful image.

It is an image that says, this will take years. Childbirth is just the beginning. There will be a lot of rejoicing and a lot of mourning in the years ahead: and God is faithful through it all.

This is a wonderful passage to have read on a day when new deacons are ordained at the cathedral, to help us all be a sent people who bring the needs of the world before the Church and the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world.

Hear the word of the Lord, then, all you who mourn this day: Jesus proclaims, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ (Matthew 5:4). As we come together, may this be a place, and may we be a people, from which such milk flows.

Third Sunday after Trinity

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15 and Galatians 2:15-21 and Luke 7:36-8:3

Jesus asks one of the Pharisees, ‘Do you see this woman?’

Do you see this woman?

Do you see this woman?

Do you see this woman?

Do you see this woman?

Do you see this woman?

Roughly a thousand years earlier, another woman was having a bath. Her neighbour’s property overlooked her home, and he is watching her. He is looking without seeing. He does not see her. He does not see the wife of Uriah. And to be clear: the text does not refer to Bathsheba as ‘the wife of Uriah’ because it is written from a patriarchal point-of-view (though it may well have been) but because it is written from the perspective of covenant relationship. Bathsheba is more than ‘the wife of Uriah,’ but she is not ever less than ‘the wife of Uriah.’ And this is what David fails to see, before him.

Uriah was one of David’s closest friends, one of his ‘mighty men’ who rallied to him when David, who had been king Saul’s great general, had fled for his life before the mad king. David and Uriah had lived side-by-side as outlaws and mercenaries, even hiding in caves in the wilderness; and now David lived in a palace, his faithful friend still lived by his side. While Uriah was away fighting one of David’s military campaigns, his friend took his wife. When, as a result, she discovered that she was pregnant, David called Uriah home, on the pretext of throwing a banquet in his friend’s honour, plied him with wine, and encouraged him to enjoy the welcome-home attentions of his wife. But Uriah was a man who identified deeply with others, and therefore he determined not to enjoy with his wife what his fellow fighting men were currently unable to enjoy with their wives. In desperation, David resorted to Plan B (for Betrayal): his faithful friend carried back with him a sealed letter to the Commanding Officer, a letter that sealed his own fate. It read, Attack the enemy, making sure that Uriah is in the front line, and then retreat, cutting him off.

David did not see Bathsheba. He did not see Uriah. He did not see himself. He saw only what he wanted to see.

David is portrayed as the greatest king Israel ever had. In contrast, Ahab is portrayed as the most wicked king Israel ever had. Interestingly, David’s actions in relation to Uriah, and Ahab’s actions in relation to his neighbour Naboth, mirror one another. David is described to us as ‘a man after God’s heart,’ one who sought unimpaired closeness to God. He is also shown to us as a sinner, one whose relationships are repeatedly impaired through negligence, through weakness, and through his own deliberate fault.

Now, back to the Pharisee and the sinner woman. If we are honest, it is hard for us to see either of them. For if Jesus is the Word [who] became flesh, they are flesh-become-word: real people, shaped by particular circumstances and experiences and with complex motivations, who have become characters in a story. We can’t see them directly, and the temptation is to see only what we want to see. Do you see this woman, and this man? Or do we only see a sinner, and a Pharisee?

Both this man and this woman desire to be close to Jesus, to spend time with him, to do something for him, to know and be known by him. If we can see past a ‘Pharisee’ – who must surely have false motives, we tell ourselves – to ‘Simon,’ we might discover someone who respects Jesus as a rabbi, an interpreter of God’s Law, and who wonders whether he is more than that, a prophet speaking directly for God. We might hear Jesus’ words as if for the first time, not ‘putting this Pharisee in his place’ but gently helping Simon to make sense of his own questions, his currently-perplexed assumptions and expectations concerning prophets and sinners. Like Nathan telling a story to David, helping him reach conclusions for himself, including accepting consequences and the need to make restitution.

We might notice that both Simon and this woman have already been forgiven; that far from judging Simon for his failings Jesus is absolving him, as surely as he is reassuring her that she is forgiven. Jesus is good news for the respectable and the disrespected alike. Nonetheless, while we are all forgiven everything already, the more we realise this the more love we will show. Note that the woman is not forgiven because she has shown great love, but has shown great love because she has been forgiven much.

Such love does not spare us from suffering – if anything, it will lead us into more, both an awareness of our own sin, with its impact on others, and a refusal to walk away from those who sin against us. No, love does not spare us from suffering, but rather, it drives out fear, enabling us to carry on in peace, to do what is right even at great cost.

And in a little while we will share that Peace, symbolically. As we do so, do you see this woman, do you see this man, whose hand touches yours?