Eleventh Sunday after Trinity 2017

A sermon first preached at St Gabriel’s Church, Bishopwearmouth.

Acts 17:15-34 and John 6:56-69

Last week a small article caught my eye in the Church Times. It read:

Pagans demand restitution

A group of pagans have written to the Archbishops and several bishops asking for a public apology for what they claim is “centuries of persecution”, and that two Church of England churches be given to them to turn back into temples. The Odinist Fellowship, a charity that promotes English paganism, has accused the C of E of attempting a “spiritual genocide” during the conversion of England in the seventh century, and of turning pagan temples into today’s parish churches. “The Church has never come to terms with its past crimes,” the Fellowship’s director, Ralph Harrison, said.

Church Times 18 August 2017

Now, that might sound bizarre or even quite funny, and—at least, as reported—somewhat confused about history, but, given our reading from Acts this evening, I took a closer look at the Odinist Fellowship.

They are registered as a charity and as an official religion in England and Wales, with the legal protection from discrimination that being an officially-recognised religion provides.

They worship the northern European gods we might recognise as belonging to Norse mythology, gods and goddesses such as Tyr, Odin, Thor, and Frigg, after whom we name days of the week. These they consider to be our indigenous deities, brought by the Anglo-Saxons, and as opposed to Christianity and Islam, which they see as hostile immigrant religions.

They believe these gods and goddesses to be “true gods, divine, living, spiritual entities, endowed with power and intelligence, able and willing to intervene in the course of Nature and of human lives” [see odinistfellowship.co.uk] and in the mythologies not as literal figures and events but as human attempts to understand and speak of the real gods that stand behind the stories.

They hold to Nine Noble Virtues of courage, truth, honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, industriousness, self-reliance and perseverance.

They practice sacrifice, of food and drink, understood not as physically feeding spiritual beings but as a sacrament: “that is to say, it is a symbol which effects what it symbolises, and symbolises what it effects. The sacrifice plays an important role in the cosmic conflict between the forces of order and chaos, because the symbolism of ritually offering … life-giving sustenance to the gods actually brings what is symbolically portrayed into effect on the spiritual plane, thereby strengthening the gods’ hand in their eternal struggle against the powers of chaos.” [see odinistfellowship.co.uk].

We might contrast this with the sacrament we will take part in this evening, which we understand to bring into effect in the physical plane what is already determined in the spiritual plane in and through Christ Jesus.

What is at first glance faintly ridiculous is, at second glance, a true and living relationship with the local pantheon of gods. Which is, in and of itself, very interesting, in our post-Christian but also post-secular society.

But at a third glance, we may see something very ugly: the way in which this Teutonic religion sets itself against Christianity as a weak and despised Semitic religion that has failed Britain and left us exposed to the rise of Islam. They repeatedly affirm Odinism as being life-affirming, spiritual, nature-loving, cosmic, ethical, as opposed to Christianity which they present as being none of these things, but, rather, of stealing many of their stories, rites and festivals and debasing them. In Odinism, instead, they proclaim, is the indigenous and true answer to disaffected young people’s spiritual longing.

These are the gods that stand behind the rise of northern European and English nationalism, the resurgence of White Supremacy and its attendant blame-shifting. To be clear, I am not saying that all adherents of Odinism are neo-Nazis; but there is a very strong overlap with far-right fascism, as well as clear parallels with the ‘folk and hearth’ mythos that underpinned the rise of the Nazi movement.

But, you might say to me, these are not gods at all. They are nothing but stories. Not so.

The Bible does not paint for us what might be called philosophical monotheism—the belief that there is only one god; with the correlation that all other gods are either figments of the imagination or alternative approximations of the one god.

Rather, the Bible paints a picture of what we might term creational monotheism—that there is one eternal and creator God, whose creation includes many spiritual beings, or lower-case-g gods, endowed with power, intelligence, and free-will. Some of these choose to love and serve the creator God—Yahweh—while others are in rebellion against him.

Both Old and New Testaments assume a world populated by gods. Many are named, such as Tiamat and Rahab and Chemosh and Baal and the Princes of Persia and Greece; along with others who serve Yahweh, such as Michael, for whom the Minster where I am based is named, or Gabriel, after whom this place is named (we tend to call these gods ‘angels’ but that term comes with a great deal of unhelpful cultural baggage).

Other descriptions of gods include the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of Death, the Council of Heaven, the Sons of God, the satan (which might be a role, rather than an individual), the powers and principalities of the heavenly realms, and the unclean spirits Jesus drives out before him again and again.

In the plagues of Egypt, Yahweh takes on and overthrows one member of the Egyptian pantheon after another, culminating with Ra the sun god and the divine image-bearers Pharaoh and his first-born son.

The Ten Commandments assume the existence of many gods. The first is an injunction to have no gods besides Yahweh—and the sin of Israel is always to turn to other gods along with Yahweh, never instead of Yahweh. The second prohibits idols, images behind which gods stand.

Again and again, the Psalms refer to Yahweh judging the gods for the injustice with which they hold humanity in slavery. The gods are real. Many do not hold us in goodwill: we are to avoid them, as a matter of priority. Others, loyal to Yahweh, support us: but we are not to consider them his equal, for they are created beings like ourselves.

When Paul sees that Athens was full of idols, he was deeply distressed: not because they were wasting their time on things that were not real, but because they were exposing themselves to gods that were very real—albeit, as the Odinists understand, bearing no actual correlation to the idols they stand behind—and those spiritual beings were holding them captive.

Indeed, Paul was so distressed that he abandoned his usual practice of going to the local Jewish community before going to the Gentiles, choosing instead to go to both communities from the start.

His message was that there is one creator God, above all the created gods; a God who does not need us to empower him, but who longs for us to know him as our parent. This God stepped decisively into the world he had created, in the person of Jesus, to set us free and call us into relationship with him.

This Jesus has broken the power of the rebellious gods: they exerted their influence over people to crucify him, but God vindicated this Jesus by raising him from the dead; and in so doing has given assurance that there will be a day when this Jesus judges the world in righteousness, dealing once-and-for-all with the injustice of humans and of the gods.

It is a powerful message; and one that is rather strange. Indeed, on hearing about Jesus and the resurrection—in Greek, anastasis—for the first time, Paul’s audience think he is talking of two new deities, Jesus and his goddess-consort Anastasis. As Paul explains his hope to them, some reject his message, others ask to hear more, and still others became believers.

Regardless of how many Odinists there may be in the UK, we live in a society not dissimilar to that of the Athens Paul visited. The good news of Jesus Christ, widely misunderstood and rejected, is no longer familiar to many. Yet there is an impulse to worship, an awareness of—and engagement with—the predominantly unseen spiritual aspect of creation. There is an interest in magic, in healing powers, in divination, in seeing the future or in contacting the dead.

This is not good news. Promising benevolence, the gods provoke people against people, with the goal of devouring one another. By this, I am not diminishing human free-will and responsibility—Jesus will judge humanity—but I am saying that there is more at work than meets the eye—he will judge the powers and principalities too.

The good news is that God—the one eternal creator God—has not left us alone, but comes to seek and to save: to save us from ourselves, and from the gods.

In a world where we see so much going on that we, so shaped by a secular worldview, find hard to make any sense of;

in a world where many, having been persuaded to disbelieve in the gods, are left blaming the one eternal creator God for so much suffering;

this is a hope that, yes, still divides opinion, but one that sets the captives free. As Simon Peter recognised, in Jesus is eternal life—life in its fullness—for he is the believable, knowable, Holy One of God. In Jesus, the one eternal creator God is made known—relationally known—to us. This is not “spiritual genocide” but spiritual liberation.

The population of Sunderland needs to hear this good news. Are we deeply distressed enough by what we see around us to proclaim it?

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2017

I don’t usually publish my sermons until after I have preached them, but am making an exception on this occasion, to participate in communal sermon preparation.

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 and Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 and Matthew 15:[10-20] 21-28

Why does Jesus ignore the Canaanite woman?

Isn’t that just unkind? Certainly, rude? Not at all Christian?

Here’s my best guess, and then I’ll tell you why. Jesus was looking at his disciples, to see what they would do.

And what they do is urge him to send her away, to put an end to her disturbing them. It was a little annoying at first, then pushed its way through being frankly embarrassing, until at last they’ve had enough. Have mercy on us, Lord!

That’s what they did, but not what I think Jesus had hoped that they would do.

Let’s consider the context. Not long ago, they had fed a multitude with a small boy’s packed lunch. Jesus had taken what he had been given, and, having given thanks for it, told the disciples to give it away. And the more they gave it away, the further it went, until there was more than enough.

And then there followed that whole strange story about Jesus walking on the water, a disclosure-story where the gravity-defying penny that has been hanging over the disciples’ heads finally drops and they realise than in the person of Jesus, the God of their fathers is walking among them.

And that is followed by a confrontation with some Pharisees over what it means to keep the Law, where Jesus says, how is it that you have so fundamentally missed the point of your calling?

What calling? The call to live within the covenant that the Lord had made with Abram, saying, ‘I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis 12:2, 3).

In other words, to be a people who take the blessing God has given them and to give it away in order that everyone else gets to share—to enter-into—the blessing.

But the Pharisees don’t even want to share that blessing with their own parents, let alone with people they saw as undeserving.

By the way, Yahweh is faithful to his character even when his people are not. He keeps blessing his people, in order that through them all the families of the earth shall be blessed, even when they keep the blessing to themselves. Even when they keep the blessing to themselves so long that they come to believe that they are more blessed because they are more deserving. Even when they come to believe that they are so more deserving than all the other families that they come to see those people as dogs. But that faithfulness includes humbling his people, and calling them back to him. Again and again.

So to recap: Jesus has had his disciples take part in a practical exercise of giving blessing away; has shown himself to be the embodiment—we use the term ‘incarnation’—of Yahweh; and has told a group of people who are trying to be in right relationship with God by keeping blessing to themselves that they have missed the point…

…and now the disciples are confronted with the perfect opportunity to join the dots together and jump at the chance to be used by God to bring blessing to this family.

I mean you couldn’t make it up. It is an open goal right in front of them, and all one of them needs to do is tap the ball home.

Send her away, Lord!

It is painfully clear that the disciples haven’t got it (yet). So Jesus presses his point: ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Note that he still isn’t answering the woman. This is his response to the disciples’ request that he send her away. ‘I wasn’t sent to send anyone away; I was sent to find the lost sheep of Israel.’ To restore a people who would be a blessing to others. I was sent to call you, disciples. And you are as wayward as any sheep.

They still don’t get it. And at this point, the woman speaks up again, saying simply, ‘Lord, help me.’ And the question is not one of whether Jesus is willing to help her, but one of how he wants to see her helped.

He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’

Now, bear in mind that this is a time long before Pedigree Chum, long before anyone thought to market food as dog food. This is a time when dogs would eat whatever was set aside for them from what the family members were eating. So why is it not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs?

Because if you do the children won’t have enough to eat? No.

It isn’t fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs because if the adult does that, the children will never learn that the dog needs to have a share in the food.

And, of course, the dog itself will be fine, for as long as the adult is around. But if the adult dies and the children have not learnt to share their food with the dog, the dog—or its pups—will die too.

It isn’t fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs because if the adult does that, the children will grow up so self-centred they think only of themselves. That isn’t fair on the children—and it isn’t fair on anyone else. It would be a parenting fail.

If Jesus shows mercy on this woman and the disciples have not learnt to show mercy on women like her, then that is great for as long as Jesus is around, but it doesn’t fulfil the call on the people of Israel that he was sent to restore.

‘Yes, Lord,’ the woman said. ‘But your disciples are painfully slow. And I need a miracle now. And even if the family forgets to feed their dog, it at least gets to lick up the crumbs that fall from the table. So I’m just going to lie down here at your feet and hope.’

And for that, Jesus changes his mind. (Why? Because Jesus is God, and we read in the Bible that God often changes his mind about what he intends to do, in conversation with people, in response to their response. It’s almost as if God were looking for partners to work with…) Jesus is prepared to risk the disciples not getting it, on this occasion, because to the woman’s need—to which they have failed to respond—is now added her insight—which they have failed to grasp for themselves.

Come on, boys!

And here’s the good news: they do get it, eventually. Later, after Jesus has died and been raised to life and ascended into heaven, Peter has a vision all about dietary laws, followed by an invitation to go to the house of a Roman centurion. And if he experienced déjà vu, that would be because of the debate over food and defilement that preceded meeting a Canaanite woman. Peter goes, and the Gentiles enter-into the blessing of being included within the people of God (Acts 10). And the rest, as they say, is history.

We don’t know what happens to the woman, how her story continues to unfold. We don’t know how fully she took up the invitation to join God’s people. But we can say that she is blessed and that her understanding of being blessed extends blessing to others—to the slow disciples; in time, to the Gentiles.

So, what about us? There are people living on my street, living on your street, who are hoping for a miracle. Lives waiting to be touched by blessing that undoes whatever curse they may find themselves under. The chances are, they are the neighbours you and I find most annoying, the ones we keep asking Jesus to remove. I think of my immediate next-door-neighbour, who pretty much keeps himself to himself, except for the time he swung a punch at me on my doorstep. I have no idea how to reach out to him with blessing, but I’m pretty sure it won’t happen until I want him to be blessed more than I want him to go away.

And so I find myself in exactly the same place as Jesus’ first disciples. Needing to be humbled, needing to repent. But also in the presence of God-with-us, the one whose character is compassion and mercy—towards me and those who I find difficult—who is faithful forever, who is slow to express anger at my hard-heartedness and quick to respond to my desire to be more like him, but to whom I will one day need to give account. And that is not always a comfortable place to be. But there is no better place, no better person to follow.

Allow me to end where I began. Why does Jesus ignore the Canaanite woman?

Next time you hear someone ask, Why does God ignore this affliction, that loss, in my life? why not ask Jesus, How might we bring blessing to this person, Lord?

You never know what might happen.

Ninth Sunday after Trinity

1 Kings 19:9-18 and Romans 10:5-15 and Matthew 14:22-33

Well, it is good to be with you today, having been away for our summer holidays. We spent a week sightseeing in Amsterdam, an amazing city drawn out of the sea by channelling the waters, and filled with creativity; followed by a week with 15,000 other people attending week 2 of New Wine, which is one of the major Christian gatherings in the UK. In fact, this evening’s Songs of Praise was filmed at week 1, if you’d like a taste of what we were up to. And in that second week I’ve been listening to and reading a young American pastor called John Mark Comer, and reflecting on what the Bible tells us about work and rest.

In the beginning, God created, and then took the time to enjoy the fruit of his work. And God made humans to share in that pattern. To take the raw materials of the world and bring creation to its fulfilment. To cease from work at the culmination of each week, on a day God blessed—that is, gave the ability to create life. And we came up with tools and agriculture and architecture and music. But we failed to trust God, and so we also came up with murder and rape and war and slavery. The blessing of work was frustrated, cursed, to limit destruction and in the hope that it might bring us back to God. And every so often, God would intervene to re-set the world, as in the story of the great flood. But it never lasted.

Later, in the writings of the prophets such as Isaiah, we see glimpses of a day when God will act decisively, once-and-for-all, after which the people will experience work and celebratory rest from work as God intended, without frustration.

Elijah, exhausted from his work and finding nothing life-giving in his rest, is graciously given a foretaste of the future. The earth—or at least that bit of the earth on which he stood—is scoured clean by fire that consumes everything in its path; and then, after stillness and silence—after rest—God begins again, choosing new humans to exercise their rule over creation. But this is not yet the decisive, for-ever, new beginning. It is only a foretaste.

Jump forward with me to our Gospel reading. The disciples are in the boat surrounded by a stormy sea. The imagery resonates with that of the flood story: God saving a few people with whom to begin again. But the episode also contains a revelation of who Jesus truly is, the human faithfully ruling over creation for God.

Years later, in a letter to the church, Peter looks back to the flood event and forward to a future day when God will visit not with flood but fire, to consume all miss-rule—all exploitation of the earth’s resources, all injustice and oppression, all that is sorry and sad and scary in the world—and reveal the earth as it has not been seen for millennia, in all its beauty.

Then Jesus, who is the first fruits of the Resurrection, will return; and with him in the Resurrection all those who have died and rest in him. And we will rule with him, as kings and queens, working and resting, for eternity.

And no, I don’t believe that God needs a helping hand—or, his hand forced—a nuclear Armageddon.

But I do believe that the church is also meant to be a foretaste of this future. The church upon which fire fell at Pentecost. We are not yet brought to perfection, nor is the world. But we are called to live in the present in the light of the future.

It is easy to lose focus, like Elijah, like Peter on the water. But we are all called to live in such a way that glorifies God and serves our neighbour, by joining in the divine narrative, through our work and our rest, through our witness and our investing in others.

Writing to the church in Rome—the very centre of a civilisation built on military technology and endless cheap labour—Paul says we are not called to be demi-gods who ascend the seat of the gods or descend into the inner pit of hell reserved for monsters, to fetch or rescue Jesus. No, we are already kings and queens; and it is through Jesus that God not only rescues us but recommissions us.

What you do matters, not only now but, potentially, into eternity. Tomorrow I am conducting the funeral of a woman who was a seamstress. In the Age to Come, our imperishable resurrected bodies will need clothes, not made by children in sweatshops or women working in firetraps so that a man can be rich; but the skilful work of taking materials and making something beautiful. This is a story worth telling, a hope worth living into. Will you step into it? Will you go, to tell others?