Second Sunday of Lent 2019: Choral Evensong

Jeremiah 22:1-9, 13-17 and Luke 14:27-33

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus (Luke 14:27)

I spoke this morning about the deep and terrifying darkness. I do not know what your deep and terrifying darkness, that descends upon you when the sun has set and you are lying in your bed, is; and, unless you choose to tell me, it is none of my business. I do not need to know. But I do know that none of us gets through life untouched by deep and terrifying darkness.

Jesus’ cross was literal, the instrument of execution by the Roman state. Our cross is metaphorical; but I suspect that it is the thing that is our own deep and terrifying darkness, whatever that may be. Jesus cites fear of ridicule, defeat, and loss of possessions as examples; but the deep and terrifying darkness contains many terrors. And Jesus invites us to meet him there, not so that he can lead us by another way that circumvents the deep and terrifying darkness, but in order to lead us through death to life.

Second Sunday of Lent 2019

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 and Philippians 3:17-4:1 and Luke 13:31-35

I don’t know whether you’ve ever had the experience of reading the Bible and being stopped in your tracks? We are in the Season of Lent, the season of entering-into the wilderness with Jesus, the season of echoes of the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness. God journeyed with them in the form of a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. When God moved, the people moved; and when God stopped, they pitched camp. Sometimes God stopped for a night, sometimes for months. Perhaps that is something like what I experienced this week, as I wandered through Genesis chapter 15. I got as far as verse 12—As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him—and the Holy Spirit stopped, and in effect said, this is where we camp out a while.

A deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. This is a psychological darkness. It is not the night. Abram was a tent-dweller. He lived without light pollution. The night was familiar to him. Indeed, for Abram, the day begins at nightfall. The day begins with telling stories around the campfire, followed by sleep, before rising from rest to work. Moreover, not long ago, God had stood under the stars with Abram and challenged him to count them, if that were possible, adding, so shall your descendants be. The dark is good, and God employs it. But tonight, even though sleep comes, a different darkness falls.

What does Abram know of such darkness? Abram has so much others would envy. He was a successful businessman, with many employees and a large turnover and profit-margin. He had strong personal relationships with the local kings, the political leaders—a man of influence and power. He had a deep and loving relationship with his wife: he has neither dismissed her when she was too old to bear him an heir, nor, in a polygamous society, taken other wives; he would do anything for her happiness, at great personal cost. But he cannot give her a child. He has believed God for a child, but that child has not come along.

Abram is haunted—taunted—by the ghosts of all the children he never had. The stars have gone out. There is a deep and terrifying darkness.

He is haunted by the ghosts of all the children he never had.

Into this darkness steps God.

For most people we read about in the Bible, God has needed to come hidden in either inaccessible light or inaccessible darkness: for it is too much for us to see God and live. But not so with Abram, with whom God walked, and ate, as a friend. This darkness is not brought by God; but God steps into it, to face the terrors hidden within.

God does so in the form of a covenant. The corridor of blood we read about seems strange to us, but in Abram’s time it was the familiar ritual by which two kings entered into a covenant agreement, a sharing of identity. What can you give me? Abram had asked God. To borrow words from the marriage service, the only form of covenant many of us are familiar with today, ‘All that I am I give to you; and all that I have, I share with you.’

What changes? Nothing. At least, nothing outwardly. Nothing for a long time. But God’s promise to Abram is that his descendants will possess the land framed by the Nile and the Euphrates. By Egypt and Babylon. By exodus and exile. Framed by covenant: made between God and Abram’s descendants when God brought them out from slavery in Egypt; broken, repeatedly, habitually by them, resulting in exile; but, even then, restored, renewed. Within the deep and terrifying darkness of slavery, of exile, God promises to make room for a blessed life. Not that the deep and terrifying darkness is banished; but that, within it, there is yet a promise to be received.

So, what is your deep and terrifying darkness?

No one gets through life untouched, unscathed, by deep and terrifying darkness. But the God of Abram, the God of Abram’s descendants—and, by the way, that is you, and me; that is us*—comes to us. Amen.

*that is Jews and Christians and Muslims; and, perhaps, all of any tradition who seek to journey deeper into truth.

First Sunday of Lent 2019

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Romans 10:8b-13 and Luke 4:1-13

This morning, I want to speak about confession. I think we are familiar with confessing our sins, the ways in which through negligence, through weakness, and through our own deliberate fault we have failed to love God and our neighbour as ourselves; the times when we have put ourselves at the centre, and viewed others as objects. But I suspect that we are far less familiar with confessing our salvation, of rehearsing the story of what God has done, and locating ourselves firmly within it. We have become detached from our story, our identity as those God has saved.

Our reading from Deuteronomy this morning centred on a confession of salvation. Did you notice how, in confessing what God has done, the words root the confessor within the people of God, and speak of the past in the present tense? In four verses, the confession employs ‘us’ six times; ‘we’ once; and ‘our’ four times (five if you include ‘our ancestors’—but that is speaking of the past as the past, not as the present). Only in the light of this does the confession continue, ‘I’ and ‘me’: grounded.

Listen again: ‘... When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt ... and he brought us to this place and gave us this land ... So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’

The confessor is to fully identify themselves with events that took place long before they were born, to find themselves inside the salvation God has wrought. Centuries later, Jesus was one of the people whose lives were formed by this confession. This morning, our readings invite us to consider the temptations he faced against that backdrop.

First, the temptation to turn stones into bread—contrasted with experiencing ‘the harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you’. We can strive to meet our own needs, or discover God to be our provider; but not both. And we can shape society in such a way that work involves dignity, or desperation. In what ways does this part of the story resonate with you?

Next, the temptation to receive all the kingdoms of the world—contrasted with ‘the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess’. The history of God’s people is one of seasons of journeying beyond the known, and seasons of settling and being settled. Both are meant to be experienced with God. In what ways does this part of the story resonate with you?

And then, the temptation to ‘throw yourself down’ from the pinnacle of the temple—contrasted with the instruction, ‘you shall set [the basket] down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God’. Worship that is grounded in the rhythms of our lives and on the human scale, not in seeking to make an impression. Humbling ourselves, experiencing gratitude. In what ways does this part of the story resonate with you?

Thirty years or so after the resurrection, the church had spread across the Roman empire. There were several congregations in Rome itself, the very centre of all the kingdoms of the world. Moreover, the church had reached beyond the Jewish diaspora and embraced gentile believers. Rome was a mega-city, cut-off from farmland, in which grain was doled-out to every citizen. The emperor was the Lord, who provided bread to keep hoi poloi from revolting. Bread, and circuses: spectacular entertainment to distract and sate, and so control.

Paul wrote to those Roman congregations about what it meant to declare that Jesus was Lord. For the Jewish believers, it meant recognising that God willed this to be. For the gentile believers, it meant that Caesar was not lord after all. Moreover, believing and confessing are meant to be inseparable, working together as do breathing in and breathing out.

Some of us have been holding our breath for a long time. We took a big gulp of Jesus once, and hope that will get us over the finishing line. But it isn’t meant to be like that. The gift of the season of Lent is the opportunity to learn to breathe again. To release our breath, in confessing Jesus is Lord: the one who blesses, and settles, and receives us. And so, to be able to oxygenate every fibre of our being again, with fresh vision of the risen Jesus; fresh experience of being blessed, settled, and received. Breathe out. Breathe in. Confess salvation, receive salvation. Amen.

Ash Wednesday 2019

Isaiah 58:1-12 and John 8:1-11

Jesus is in Jerusalem for the festival of Booths, or Sukkot. Sukkot was one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, when the whole people went to the temple. These were Pesach/Passover, celebrating the exodus from slavery in Egypt; Shavuot/Pentecost, celebrating the giving of the Law at Sinai 49 days later; and Sukkot/Tabernacles, or Booths. This week-long festival recalls the forty years the Israelites lived in tents in the wilderness, between the exodus from slavery in Egypt and entering the land they were to settle; and celebrates the ingathering of the harvest in that settled land, as for the duration pilgrims slept in the kind of temporary shelters farmers lived in while gathering-in the harvest.

As part of the celebrations, and unique to Sukkot, water was carried from the Pool of Siloam—fed by the Gihon spring—up to the Temple, and poured out as a libation on the altar. (It was the Gihon spring that made it possible to inhabit Jerusalem, and establish a settlement there.) At Passover and Pentecost, wine was poured out; but at the festival of Booths, both wine and water were poured out.

And so, we might say that it is a festival that celebrates the soil, and our dependence on God, in whose mercy life springs forth from the dry ground. In the words of Isaiah, the conditional promise that if the people will ‘loose the bonds of injustice’ and ‘let the oppressed go free,’ then ‘the Lord…will satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.’

On the last day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-39) The crowd is divided in their opinion of him (John 7:40-44), as are the authorities and the Pharisees (albeit that Nicodemus appears to be in a minority of one, John 7:45-52).

(Interestingly, it is John who records Jesus attending Sukkot, and it is John who tells us the detail that, when the crucified Jesus’ side is pierced, blood and water came out, John 19:34-35.)

It is against this backdrop that the scribes and Pharisees drag before Jesus a woman caught in the very act of adultery. It is against this backdrop that Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. They come, in the words of Isaiah, asking of the Lord a righteous judgement; and are given one, albeit not what they expect. And they come fasting only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist; whereas Jesus stoops to loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke: ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ … ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ … ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Our stories are not set in stone, but written in dust. In dust, animated by the wind or breath of the Spirit; dust, watered by the Spirit, the River of Life, with the purpose that our lives might be fruitful. We are co-authors of our stories with Jesus, in whom every dead-end, arrived at through negligence, through weakness or through our own deliberate fault, may be redeemed, to God’s glory.

Jesus comes to lead us (corporately, not only personally) out from slavery to sin into the wilderness—the place of encounter with God—and there to train us for hope and a future; for belonging and rootedness, in place and community; for fruitful living.

We cannot do this on our own. We are the dust, he is the source of living water.

But dust, soil, earth, matters deeply to God. Deeply enough to have its own celebration, its own pilgrim festival.

So, come. Come to your senses. Return to your true self. Return to your God.

Come and receive the sign of the cross, written by a finger in ash on your forehead. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our frail bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body, who died, was buried, and rose again for us. To him be glory for ever. Amen.