Christmas Day

 

A few years ago, my parents very sensibly downsized, from the family home in the West End of Glasgow to a ground floor apartment in Milngavie. When we visit, there is not room for us to stay with them, and so we make use of the Premier Inn a five-minute’s walk away. This is a popular Premier Inn, the starting point for tourists from all over the world who come to walk the West Highland Way from Milngavie to Fort William.

My mother-in-law is a widow. She lives in a two-bedroom ground-floor barn conversion. When we visit her, some of us might get to sleep in the guest bedroom, but if we all go at the same time, some combination must sleep on the living room floor.

Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not born in a stable round the back of a fully booked inn, Premier or otherwise. Jesus was born in a family home, almost certainly the home of relatives of Joseph, quite possibly his parents’ home. Families in Bethlehem lived in what was essentially a one-room dwelling. Plenty of people lived in just that way here in the UK, even post- the Second World War, though we, in our comfortable houses, have largely forgotten such a world. Families in Bethlehem slept on the floor of the communal room, with their small herd of goats corralled at one end or on a slightly lower level at night, providing safety for the animals and warmth for the people, just as families have lived in crofts in the Scottish Isles or chalets in the Swiss Alps. But these homes also had a room or place for guests: the ‘katalyma,’ inaccurately rendered the ‘inn’ in several English translations. The lodging for guests might be on the flat roof, no more than a canopy on wooden poles; or else a small room directly off the family room, at the opposite end from where the animals were kept. In an urban home in nearby Jerusalem, a home that might welcome pilgrims several times each year, Jesus would eat a meal with his disciples on the night of his arrest in just such a katalyma, or upper room; but in Bethlehem, guest rooms were smaller.

Joseph is from Bethlehem, but he has been away in Nazareth, working his dowry to marry Mary, whose relatives are from around Bethlehem but whose immediate family had moved north. So, Joseph, who is a builder by trade, has not had time to complete the home in which he and Mary will start out in their married life. And like many couples since, they begin their married life living with his parents. Probably.

Now, they are family, but they would be offered the guest room, for space and a little privacy. But when Mary comes to give birth, while they are there, there is not a secure space for her in the guest room. Perhaps it is on the roof, and in the later stages of pregnancy she could no longer get up and down the ladder. Perhaps it is simply a room that is too small for a woman to give birth in, attended to by the women of the home and the village midwives. In any event, there is not the necessary space, and Jesus—like both of my sons, as it happens—was born in the main room of the house, in the heart of the home. And laid in the manger, probably a bowl carved out of the stone floor, just the right size to cradle a baby.

The theme chosen by the Church of England for Christmas this year is ‘the heart of Christmas.’ And at the heart of the Christmas story is the birth of Jesus, at the heart of a home, into the heart of a family, in the heart of Bethlehem, in the heart of God’s people in the heart of their history. Jesus is at the heart.

Perhaps you have family living with you this Christmas. Or perhaps you hope, Covid restrictions permitting, to travel to stay with relatives. And it may be that room must be found, or made, psychologically as well as physically, internally as well as externally. For others, this time of year is one spent painfully aware of being alone, estranged from fellow humans, not least by bereavement, perhaps estranged from God. For others still, it is a time of demanding work to serve the stranger, with heart and mind and soul and strength, for love—embodied love—of God and neighbour. Room must be found, for forgiveness, or compassion, for ourselves as well as for others. One way or another, there always seems to be so much riding on this time of year, and our resources and our imagination are flexible, but only to a point.

And it is into the actual circumstances of our lives that Jesus is born, again. Not some nostalgic Nativity play where we pretend to be an innkeeper or a donkey, an angel or shepherd, or want to be Mary. But in the very heart of your life, and mine. Whether it feel too empty a room without him or impossibly full of other things, he comes, in his good time, not ours. This Christmas, may you know the joy that he brings, at the heart, to the heart. Joy that washes away our tears of pain and sweat of exhaustion, our fears, and our sense of inadequacy or of not being ready (you’ll never be ready). And may his felt presence come in time to transform every part of your life, from the heart out. Not as guest but as kin. Happy Christmas!

 

Christmas Eve

 

On the twenty-first of July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong placed a two-foot-wide array of 100 retroreflectors on the surface of the Sea of Tranquillity. A mirror on the moon. The crews of Apollo 14 and 15 also left mirrors at locations on the moon, and in addition to these three there are two further sets of mirrors on Soviet Union unmanned Luna mission robotic rovers parked on the moon’s surface. By firing lasers at these mirrors, scientists have been able to trace the moon’s orbit with remarkable accuracy.

We might imagine the opening move of John’s Gospel as firing a laser at mirrors left on the surface of Genesis chapter 1—‘In the beginning…’—and counting how long it takes for the light to be received back.

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’

(John 1:1-5, 14)

Our home planet is one of eight that orbit our home sun, flung out on the Orion Arm of a spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. Our home sun is one of some 40 billion suns in our home galaxy, which is in turn one of 100,000 galaxies in our home Supercluster, the Laniakea (“immense heaven”) Supercluster. These, in turn, are just some of the trillions of galaxies in the universe.

For all the vast, awe-inspiring grandeur of the universe, it is local place where we find meaningful personal connection to God. Often, when I meet with a family to plan a funeral, I am told that dad, or mum, was christened at ‘my’ church, they were married there, that they were always proud of the place and their connection to it mattered deeply to them. They may not have connected with organised religion week by week, but through their whole life long they knew that they could connect with God while this building stood open.

It is a given in the Bible that God created the world and everything in it. But I do not believe that Genesis 1 is concerned with this. Rather, I believe this to be a text, from the time of the Babylonian exile and the return from exile, that is concerned with the Temple in Jerusalem—for the Jewish people, the very centre of the cosmos—and which describes its catastrophic destruction, and God’s initiative to restore Jerusalem and have the Temple rebuilt.

By the time John writes, that second Temple has been desecrated by the Greeks, retaken and reconsecrated, massively extended by Herod the Great, and—between the Jesus event and the time of John’s writing, and, therefore, being read aloud to congregations—destroyed again by the Romans.

John’s Gospel begins with a statement of intent, that God is, once again, about to restore the meeting-place between God and God’s people. But this will not be a Temple of stone, that, impressive though it may be, will be thrown down. When John writes, of Jesus, that he lived among us, the word he chooses is ‘tabernacled,’ recalling the tent of meeting, the place where God was present in the very midst of the people while they lived in the wilderness, between the exodus from Egypt and their entering the promised land. A touchstone for the displaced.

This, then, is the account of the cosmos being restored, from its very centre. *

Those scientists with their lasers discovered that the moon is spiralling away from us at a rate of 3.8 cm per year. Imperceptible to the human eye. In Jesus, on the other hand, God is moving towards us. At times, this too may be invisible to the naked eye. But over the years, mirrors have been left that reflect the light—our holy places are such mirrors, as are moments such as the ‘Midnight Mass’ on Christmas Eve. As are our lives, even when our buildings are closed, temporarily, by pandemic, or when, for whatever reason, we feel unable to come. The light and the mirror and the time between pointing to Jesus, God-with-us, full of grace and truth, in the dark dying days of the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-one. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. May you rest confident in that and may your sense of wonder be renewed.

 

*As John would later record Jesus as saying, “For God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish away but have enduring life.” (John 3:16). See also the death and resurrection of Jesus, alluded to by Jesus himself as a destruction and rebuilding of the Temple.

 

Third Sunday of Advent 2021

 

Lectionary readings: Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Philippians 4:4-7 and Luke 3:7-18

‘Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgements against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.’

Zephaniah 3:14, 15

‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’

Philippians 4:4-7

‘As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

‘So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.’

Luke 3:15-18

On the Third Sunday of Advent, the Church remembers John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus, and in keeping with this, the readings set for this day are full of joy. Luke quotes John as saying, of Jesus, that, “His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Good news, right? Well, yes, it is. Really good news. Here’s why.

This is an image taken from the harvest, when a local community gathered in the grain that would feed them until the harvest next year. Grain is composed of a nutritious inner heart, the kernel, and a protective outer casing, the husk. Some of the grain would be set aside for planting, to produce next year’s harvest; and the husks would prevent the grain from rotting in the barn. But the husk is inedible, and before you can turn the grain into flour for making bread, must be removed. This was done on a threshing-floor, a flat area of exposed rock. Grain would be poured onto the floor, and a threshing-sledge dragged back and forth over it: a heavy wooden bar with iron teeth on the underside, pulled by animal-power. This process broke the husks open. Then someone would take a threshing-fork and throw the grain into the air. The heavier kernels would fall back to the ground; and the light husks, now known as chaff, would be blown away by the breeze. Not far, but far enough to sweep off to the side, and pile up for fuel for the fire. Waste not want not. So, this is an image of Jesus separating the husks from the kernels. But what has this to do with joy? As it happens, everything.

The American professor of social work, Brené Brown, states, “When we lose our tolerance to be vulnerable, joy becomes foreboding.” When we lose our tolerance to be vulnerable, joy becomes foreboding. Brown continues, “In moments of joy, we try to beat vulnerability to the punch, by dress-rehearsing tragedy.” What does she mean? Joy is an intense, overwhelming emotion. Those of us who are parents may have experienced joy as we look at our sleeping child. Or perhaps you have experienced joy looking up at the night sky, or when you come upon a particularly pleasing tree, or on seeing old friends for the first time in a long time. But we need to be vulnerable to experience joy: it cannot coexist with anything defensive such as cynicism. Yet we all know what it is to lose our tolerance to be vulnerable. We’ve all been hurt, and perhaps you reach the point where you promise yourself that you won’t allow yourself to be hurt again. We all have our defence-mechanisms against vulnerability, and the cost of that, Brown notes, is that we reach a point where joy becomes foreboding. That is, the moment we experience that intense joy emotion, our response is to contain it. To say, it won’t last. To imagine losing the thing that has given rise to that joy.

There is a neuroscience to foreboding, or the fear of disaster. The more we go down that path, the more well-worn that path becomes in our brain. There is nothing that gives me greater joy than being with my wife, Jo. We are such a good fit, we often have the same thoughts at the same moment, join in to finish one another’s sentences in unison, and laugh at the simple wonder of it. And when Jo is out longer than I expect, I find myself literally pacing up and down the room and wondering how long it is reasonable to wait before calling round all the hospitals to ask whether there has been a serious accident on the A19 and if she is lying on a resuscitation table with a crash team fighting to save her life. It bears no connection to reality, causes me anxiety, and tempts me to withdraw when I am with Jo so that it won’t hurt so much if it happens—though the real tragedy is that nothing can protect you from the loss of a loved one, and pre-emptive withdrawal only robs you of the present. And you can laugh at me, or feel sorry for Jo, but such scenarios are played out in countless minds.

And I am really glad that Jesus comes to break open the protective husks of the grain of my heart and mind, that he gathers up the kernels of joy, and that he has an unquenchable fire so that the chaff is consumed and need not blow grit into my eyes and the eyes of those around me. That really is good news.

There is also a neuroscience to joy, and it is possible to disciple the brain by habitual practices, to enter more often and more fully into the joy Jesus hopes for us (on the night he was arrested, he prayed that the joy his disciples knew might be made complete). Again, Brené Brown notes that those people whose lives are joyful have one thing in common: they regularly practice gratitude. Not some vague ‘attitude of gratitude,’ but actual, concrete disciplines, practices, such as writing down three things each day for which you are grateful; or going round the family at the dinner table and everyone sharing one thing they are grateful for today; or asking friends on Facebook to share something they are grateful for this week. The apostle Paul had a gratitude practice of praying for the churches he knew, calling to mind—with his travel companions—specific people and specific things about them that he was grateful for. And then he wrote letters to let them know he was thinking of them, with deep gratitude, and, therefore, great joy.

Gratitude is the threshing-sledge that breaks us open to vulnerability and transforms foreboding into joy. As we choose to be grateful, Jesus is then able to step in with his winnowing-fork, dealing with the chaff, the defensive mechanisms, the trust issues that prevent us from knowing joy made complete. So, if you want to know the joy of the Lord, take up a practice of gratitude. Try one you like the sound of, or which you think might work well for you in your life right now and give it a go, between now and Christmas, and see how you get on. And then, perhaps in addition to writing down three things every day that you are grateful for, or whatever it may be, you might choose to pause, any time you experience joy, and, instead of catastrophising, respond with gratitude: thank you, God, for this moment, for this sunrise, for this person in my life; I’m grateful for this gift.

I say this not as an expert witness who has got it all worked out, but as one who needs to hear the good news, yet again, on this Third Sunday of Advent as we prepare ourselves for Jesus to come in glory. As one who has habitual patterns of thought that need re-wiring, but who knows that this is possible, by the grace of God and the wonder of the mind and the decision to follow Jesus and be a disciple, to live a disciplined life, a joyous life. Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

 

Christ the King 2021

 

Christ the King 2021

Lectionary readings: Daniel 7:9-10, 13, 14 and Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-37

Today is the Feast of Christ the King, the culmination of the Church year. Next Sunday, Advent Sunday, marks the new year, the beginning of a new cycle through the story of Jesus and his people in season and out of season, feasting and fasting, and in the ordinariness of our days. To proclaim that Christ is King is to acknowledge that he has been appointed by God as both Lord of the Church and Judge of the Nations. In our Gospel reading today we are reminded that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, but it is in this world, at work, according to a different value-system and despite appearances. The Bible ends with Revelation, which is not a forecasting of a far-distant future but (like parts of Daniel) an apocalypse, a pulling back the veil to reveal what is really going on beneath the surface in the present, as John writes his coded message to encourage a Christian community heavily persecuted towards the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian. But what does it mean, for us, to declare that Christ is King? What difference does it make, and how do we see that reality worked out in the world?

We are part of Durham Diocese, a family of around 300 Anglican churches in this part of the northeast, between the Tyne and the Tees, the Dales, and the Sea. Our mission, together, is to ‘bless our communities in Jesus’ name for the transformation of us all.’ And we listen together, to one another, to discern what it is that Jesus is calling us to do, through which his kingship is manifest. Together we have discerned our common priorities, as Durham Diocese, for 2021-26. Together, and in partnership with others, we will challenge poverty, energise growth, care for God’s creation, and engage with children, youth and 18-25s. We will seek to do this by rising awareness, responding practically, and working together to reform the wider context of each of our four priorities.

We are committed to challenging poverty by working together to address child and youth poverty; responding to isolation, particularly among the elderly; and reaching out and responding to the needs and gifts of asylum seekers and refugees.

We are committed to energizing growth by growing in reach and influence, transforming our communities through the transformation of our churches; growing in depth, strengthening discipleship, serving Jesus by using our gifts in his mission in every part of life; and growing in breadth and number, growing the number of people identifying as Christian.

We are committed to caring for God’s creation by cultivating a shared Christian vision for God’s creation and our call to steward, nurture, protect it, in Jesus’ name, for the good of everyone, everywhere; promoting responsible consumption, choices and behaviour as individuals and churches; and working together to challenge wider environmental indifference and injustice.

We are committed to engaging with children, youth and 18-25s by: developing pathways for more children to become lifelong disciples of Jesus; resourcing youth for mission (and extending our engagement with them); and extending the engagement of 18-25s.

Clearly, what that looks like will vary from local church to local church, depending on context, opportunity, and resources. The kingship of Christ is not a monoculture, where every community looks the same, but an ecosystem within which unity is expressed in diversity flourishing in mutual harmony. So, all our local churches are called to challenging poverty, energizing growth, caring for God’s creation, and engaging with children, youth and 18-25s, recognizing that this will look different from place to place, and that for any given local church one or other of those four priorities may take the lead. For example, Sunderland Minster has a well-established ministry of reaching out and responding to the needs and gifts of asylum seekers and refugees; whereas St Nicholas’ is well-placed to respond to isolation, particularly among the elderly.

These four priorities are not about driving us to do more but helping us clarify what we do and focus on what Christ the King is doing in and through us, and so to set aside distraction. And so, having looked at what it means in practice to proclaim that Christ is King in our context, let us draw on what John wrote to the churches at the turn of the first century. He writes:

‘Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come’ [that is, Jesus] ‘who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.’

Christ is King, and we are his kingdom, a kingdom began, continued, and brought to completion in Jesus’ acts of loving us, freeing us from all that holds us back from that love, and making us into something we were not, previously. “God loves you” is a key part of the Gospel, but it is not the whole Gospel: God loves you, brings freedom to you, and makes you into something new. He makes us all priests for the world—to bless our communities in Jesus’ name, for the transformation of us all, as we say in Durham Diocese—and within that royal priesthood we believe, in keeping with many but by no means all Christians, he calls some to be priests for the church. But we are all loved and freed and made to serve God as priests, proclaiming blessing in word and service.

And we do so as those who know both grace and peace. Grace, the gift given us by Jesus; the gift we are, given to others, to the church and the world. And peace, that centering wholeness that guards over our hearts and minds, that keeps our will aligned with Jesus’ will (which is perfectly aligned with his Father’s will) and enables us to see as he sees and hear what he hears. As we work out what it looks like in this local context to challenge poverty, energise growth, care for God’s creation, and engage with children, youth and 18-25s, the knowledge of grace and peace—or of a growing distance from them when we lose focus—will keep us rooted in Christ the King.

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. We end the Church year reminding one another that, despite all appearances to the contrary, whether disunity within the Church or rising tides of secularism and nationalism in the world around us, God is at work through Christ in and through us. Reminding one another that there is much to celebrate, and the need to be strengthened in word and sacrament for the much more yet to come. Reminding ourselves that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. And next Sunday we turn once again to Advent and preparing our hearts to be ready for his coming again in glory.

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. The table is set. Come, all who are hungry. Come, you who are thirsty. Come, and be satisfied. Christ is the host, in every sense. So, come.

 

Remembrance Sunday 2021

 

Hebrews 10:24

‘And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.’ (NRSVA)

‘And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.’ (NIV)

‘And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.’ (KJV)

Recently Jo and I went away for a couple of nights to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. The weather wasn’t great, and we spent some of the time sitting in the hotel lounge reading novels. Every so often a member of the hotel staff would come in, poke the fire into life, and go away again. After a while, the fire would die back down and, before it went out completely, the member of staff would appear again, prod it back into flame, and disappear once more.

We live in a time when our collective anger is regularly poked, lest it should die down and go out. We know what it is to be provoked by the sight of other people, whom we are trained to see as a threat. All the necessary conditions are in place, that lead us into conflict; past, present, or future. But the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews employs the striking image of provoking to love and good deeds, or, literally, to making something beautiful. What might that look like?

The word translated ‘to provoke’ means to jab, such that the person being jabbed has no option but to respond. The NIV expresses it well with the image of spurs. The King James Version draws out another aspect: not, let us consider how we might provoke one another to love and to making something beautiful, but let us consider one another, not as threats to provoke anger but as examples to inspire us to love and to make the world a more beautiful place. When we look at one another, let us do so through eyes of love that see beauty.

Many of you know that Jo and I are members of the Sunderland Strollers running club. We run in packs, according to ability. But sometimes we have whole-club sessions. Once a month through October to February we run the Winter Handicap, a whole club 5km (or just over 3 miles) along the sea front between Roker and Seaburn. Runners set off at 30-second intervals, the slowest starting first and the fastest, last (the first shall be last and the last shall be first). We set off from Sue’s Café and run along to Grannie Annie’s, then turn back on ourselves and head up the steep bank to the Bungalow Café on the road above. There, we turn right and head down the long gradual hill to Seaburn and the House of Zen restaurant. By the time I get there, I don’t feel very Zen. There we turn round and retrace our steps, up the long drag to the bus stop opposite the entrance to Roker Park, and on to the Bungalow, sharp left turn and down the steep bank, keep going to Grannie Annie’s and then turn back on ourselves for the final effort back to Sue’s Café.

Because we set off at a stagger, and because it is an out-and-back, for the whole of the run, runners are passing one another, catching up or being caught, slower runners passing you on their way back as you approach half-way, faster runners approaching that mark as you are now making your way back up the hill. And whenever we pass one another, we call out encouragement. Faster runners say something like, “Well done! Keep going!” to the slower runners; and slower runners say something like, “Keep going! You’re flying!” to the faster runners.

No-one says, “Huh, they’re not very good; they shouldn’t be in our club” or “They are so much better at this than I will ever be, I’m thoroughly discouraged”. As we consider one another, we choose to be inspired by one another, to share in love between us—and these really are some of the best friends I have—and together to create something of beauty (albeit not obvious beauty at the end of the run, as I gasp to draw breath).

That might seem like a very small and insignificant illustration, but it is the repeated small habits that train us, over time, to be provoked to anger or to be provoked to love; to view others as threat or as persons whose presence in the world makes it a more beautiful place.

Who can you recall who by their life inspires you to love better, and to strive to make the world more beautiful?

And is there anyone in your life who is, in turn, inspired to love more fully by your example?

Why not contact them today, and so encourage one another?

 

Third Sunday before Advent 2021

 

Lectionary readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10 and Hebrews 9:24-28 and Mark 1:14-20

Our Gospel reading today is the summary statement of Jesus’ ministry, and the mission he calls his followers into. Jesus proclaims, the time is fulfilled. You will recall from the account of the wedding at Cana, the first of the great signs recorded in John’s Gospel, that when Jesus’ mother asks him to intervene, he says, my time has not yet come. Why not? Because it is still John the forerunner’s time. But now his cousin John has been handed over, and Jesus’ moment, Jesus’ opportunity birthed of this crisis, has come.

The time has come, the opportunity is here: the sovereignty of God has drawn near. John’s arrest is not evidence that the world is going to hell in a handcart; not only is God still on the throne of heaven, but God is here, now: you are ushered into God’s presence. Therefore, repent, and believe the good news.

Repent means to change one’s mind, and because of changing one’s mind, to act in a different way. We see this in the Old Testament reading for today, from the story of Jonah. God sends Jonah to proclaim to the citizens of Nineveh that they have been judged and found wanting, and in forty days from Jonah’s proclamation, Nineveh would be destroyed. When they hear this, the king of Nineveh leads his people in repentance: they express that, outwardly, according to the customs of the time, in putting on sackcloth and ashes, and fasting. And in response to their repentance, God also repents: God changes his mind about his decision to act in judgement, and changes his intended actions, so that the city is spared. Mercy triumphs over the consequences of judgement. This dynamic is intended to mark our relationship with God, repentance, a changing of mind, on both sides, for that is how genuine relationship and meaningful partnership is possible at all.

Repent, and believe in the good news. To believe means, have confidence in. And when Jesus says, have confidence in the good news, he means—as we see straight away in his calling Simon and Andrew and James and John to follow him and fish for people—he means, change your mind, and have confidence in proclaiming the good news.

And that is the very heart of what we need to hear today. Have confidence in proclaiming the good news. Why? Because in Jesus, the opportunity is here, and the sovereign God draws near, to the men and women and children we meet day to day.

Therefore, repent, change your mind. Why? Because we have lost confidence in the goodness of the good news, have lost confidence that anyone is interested. We have told ourselves that there is no point in proclaiming the good news, because people aren’t interested in hearing it today.

We have told ourselves that faith is a personal and private matter, and that it is not my place to impose my faith on anyone else. And yes, there is a kernel of truth in that: we are not called to impose anything upon anybody. But if we claim that Jesus is Lord and Saviour, the one in whom we are reconciled to God, then we are called to proclaim the good news that is embodied in him.

Or we tell ourselves that we aren’t qualified to tell others, that doing so is the vicar’s job. Indeed, we experience, in our churches, a profound crisis of confidence, which is a crisis of belief, not out there in the world but here, in our hearts and minds. And yet, while it is true that more and more people are outside of the church, it is nonetheless also true that many people are coming of returning to faith, are changing their minds about God and life and what truly matters, are gaining or regaining confidence in God’s faithfulness towards them. And as the Bishop of Durham never tires of saying, do not despise the day of small beginnings.

It may transpire that the moment of crisis is the only kind of moment which is opportune. In the wake of John’s arrest, Jesus calls some seemingly unqualified followers to an enigmatic task, and over the following years they grow in confidence until they are proclaiming the good news boldly before all who will listen.

Perhaps it is not so much about learning a formula, far less imposing a one-size-fits-all claim, as taking the opportunity to introduce people to Jesus.

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.

 

All Saints' Day 2021

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 25:6-9 and John 11:32-44

From the Introduction to the Season of All Saints to Advent, from Common Worship: Times and Seasons:

‘No Christian is solitary. Through baptism we become members one of another in Christ, members of a company of saints whose mutual belonging transcends death…

‘All Saints’ Day and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed on All Soul’s Day both celebrate this mutual belonging. All Saints’ Day celebrates men and women in whose lives the Church as a whole has seen the grace of God powerfully at work. It is an opportunity to give thanks for that grace, and for the wonderful ends to which it shapes a human life; it is a time to be encouraged by the example of the saints and to recall that sanctity may grow in the ordinary circumstances, as well as the extraordinary crises, of human living. The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed celebrates the saints in a more local and intimate key. It allows us to remember with thanksgiving before God those who we have known more directly: those who gave us life, or who nurtured us in faith…’

(Times and Seasons, p 537)

On All Saint’s Day, we give thanks for the grace of God, and the wonderful ends to which it shapes a human life. And as we do so, our Gospel reading (John 11:32-44) is the account of the raising of Lazarus.

Lazarus’ story is remarkable, and not simply because he is raised from the dead. Here is an adult man who lives with his adult sisters, Martha and Mary, three of Jesus’ dearest friends. And yet, Lazarus never once speaks. Moreover, it is Martha who is the head of the family. This has led some commentators to ponder whether Lazarus might have had some physical and learning disability, causing him to be dependent on his sisters, and this, in turn, negatively impacting upon their own marriage eligibility. In a society where women were far more dependent on men than in our own, theirs truly is a remarkable family arrangement.

In addition, some commentators wonder if Lazarus might be the un-named disciple John refers to as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ (traditionally taken to be John’s way of referring to himself) whom Peter communicates with by use of a simple form of sign-language at the Last Supper, and who asks Jesus a simple, three-word, question; one who, perhaps, is more able to understand what is going on than able to express themselves conventionally. This is, of course, more speculative. Either way, the case for Lazarus having some form of disability is much stronger.

Yet in the lives of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, in the all too ordinary challenges of daily living and the extraordinary crisis of Lazarus’ short illness and untimely death, they experience—and we witness—God’s grace, and the wonderful ways in which it shapes a human life, even lives held in suspicion by others.

I reflect on this story, which culminates in Jesus calling Lazarus, alive, from the tomb, and, taking command of the situation, ordering those standing by to ‘unbind him, and let him go’ in no small part as the father of two (out of three) children on the Autism Spectrum. As the father of a son who will not get up and go to school; a father who, along with his mother, is regularly found in meetings with school staff and a host of other support agencies, some of whom are more helpful than others, all of whom are over-stretched, because the society we live in is not as enabling as it might be. So many tightly bound strips of cloth binding him, binding us.

And yet, the grace of God. The grace of God, and the wonderful ends to which it shapes a human life.

With Martha and Mary, there are times, present moments in the process, where I cry, Lord, if only you had been there, if only you had got here earlier, before it came to this, or if only you would at least raise the dead now, today, not in six months’ time from now.

And yet the grace of God powerfully at work.

And I know that, in the words of Jesus in a vision given the anchoress Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” but for now, Jesus simply asks to watch over him where he is laid, and to weep, with me.

And that is why I need the Season of All Saints to Advent, this year, as every year. To remember, and give thanks, and be encouraged.

 

Twentieth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Lectionary readings: Job 38:1-7 and Hebrews 5:1-10 and Mark 10:35-45

There’s a story concerning Abraham, our father in faith. Abraham, or Abram as he was still known at the time, had left his homeland on the Persian Gulf and migrated northwest following the Tigris and Euphrates until he reached the mountains between modern day Iraq and Turkey, then turning south down through the corridor of land that lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the northernmost end of the Great Rift Valley that runs all the way down through Africa. He travels as a nomad, herding his flocks, and making alliances with more settled communities. He has undertaken this migration with his nephew, Lot; but the place where he has found some degree of rest is unable to support both men’s flocks and servants, and so they part company, Abraham giving Lot first choice on where to settle. And Lot chooses the fertile floor of the Rift Valley.

Now the Rift Valley itself, and the rolling hills rising to its east, are populated with settlements, each with its own king, or chieftain. And these chieftains form alliances, to secure trade and a measure of peace. The most powerful of these was Chedorlaomer, who lorded over eight other vassal kings. Now, after twelve years of this, five of the kings formed an alliance and rebelled, including the king of Sodom, under whose patronage Lot lived. After a stand-off of over a year, Chedorlaomer and three kings who kept faith with him went to war, four kings against five, and they prevailed over the rebels, carrying off goods and people, including the household and goods of Lot.

When Abram heard of this, he gathered his own trained men, and those of three allies, and set off to bring Lot home. He defeated Chedorlaomer and his allies, liberating Lot and bringing back the goods belonging to the king of Sodom. And as he returns, another king enters the story: Melchizedek, king of Salem, later Jerusalem. ‘Melchizedek, king of Salem’ means ‘King of Righteousness, King of Peace.’ This king is also a priest, priest of God Most High. Not of the later line of Aaron, a priesthood that made sacrifices for sin, but a priest whose ministry existed completely outside of such systems. And what Melchizedek does is to serve Abram. Literally, to serve a meal. Melchizedek brings out bread and wine and sets them before Abraham, saying: “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” It is, in other words, a Eucharist, a thanksgiving. An act of service that enables Abram to see and respond to God’s act of salvation, even if Abram lives with unanswered questions, even if Abram still lives with the unanswered prayer for an heir to inherit all that God has blessed him with, and to carry on the alliance between them.

This is what we might call a foundational story. Foundational to the world that God has ordered, and foundational to the identity of Jesus the Son, and foundational therefore to the vocation of the Church, the Melchizedekian priesthood of all believers.

What Melchizedek does for Abram, as he serves him, is create the conditions for righteousness and peace to flourish. Peace is not merely the cessation of hostility—which Abram has already accomplished—but the transformation of relationships, enemies becoming friends over food, the establishing of right relationship, of righteousness. And this transformation is as fundamental and profound as the transformation of grain into bread and grapes into wine. And of course, such transformation is irreversible: bread cannot become grain, nor wine be turned into grapes; though bread can go moldy, and wine turn to vinegar, if they are left, if the meal, the commitment to serve one another, is abandoned.

Abram is active in his faith, stepping out to bring Lot home. But he must also learn to be attentively passive, to receive the gift of Melchizedek’s service and to encounter God in it. Likewise, Jesus learned through his suffering—that is, through those things done to him by others, for good as well as for ill—to hear and respond to his heavenly Father. Not least, Jesus learned how to serve by reflecting on his experience of being served, both lovingly and lacking love. For ultimately, he comes to serve, to offer up his life that others may more fully live; but he can only do what he sees the Father doing, only give what he has first received.

Because of Jesus, our high priest in the order of Melchizedek, we are called to this vocation: to be those who through our lives and our service promote righteousness and peace. That being so, come to the table, on which is set out bread and wine, and with it, receive the life of Christ afresh. May it bring clarity to your days and empower you to praise God’s holy name.

Come, those who have migrated to this place and met hostility as well as welcome.

Come, those who have put their hope in God, only to carry the pain of unanswered prayer.

Come, those who want to do great things for God, and those who believe you never could.

Come, those who have been trodden underfoot, and those confessing their own tyranny.

The table is set.

Come, let us eat together.

 

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Lectionary readings: Esther 7:1-6, 9, 10; 9:20-22 and James 5:13-20 and Mark 9:38-50

Our Old Testament reading today is taken from the Book of Esther. After the people of Jerusalem were carried off into the Babylonian exile, and had lived as exiles for some seventy years, they began to return home, in successive waves. However, some chose not to uproot and return. The story of Esther concerns the Jewish population that had made its home in Susa. It is a story that Jewish congregations listen to, in one sitting, each year, as a kind of pantomime, complete with a spoilt king; not one but two brave queens; a poor but wise uncle; and a wicked villain who is booed each time he appears. It is a story of a people saved from genocide; and it invites us to sit with the tension that not every genocide is averted…

Our New Testament reading today is taken from the Letter of James. In it, we are exhorted to pray, at all times. When things are tough, pray. When things are going well, pray. When someone among us is sick, pray. Because prayer, at least the prayer of a righteous community, is powerful and effective. But not every prayer is answered in the way that we hope for. And so, again, we are invited to sit with tension, to accept complexity, to embrace and allow ourselves to be embraced by mystery. To wrestle with the fact that every person in the Gospels who asks Jesus for healing is healed; the fact that there is only one occasion when the disciples were unable to deliver a boy from demonization, and even then Jesus instructs them where they went wrong. Our understanding of unanswered prayer must lie on the far side of this presentation of the gospel, not fall short of it.

Our Gospel reading today is concerned with scandals in the Church—Greek, skandalizó, to cause to stumble—and how to deal with them. The scandal that precipitates Jesus’ teaching is that John informs Jesus that he saw a man driving out demons in Jesus’ name and told him to stop, because he was not one of the Twelve. John is clearly anticipating a reward but receives a rebuke instead. Jesus declares, anyone who is not against us is for us. The scandal in question here is that John was determined to exercise a simplistic understanding; to rule on who was in and who was out—in such a way that maintained his own position and place of influence. But Jesus will have none of it. Better for John and for the Church that he be cut off than that he continue cutting others off.

The Eastern Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware wrote, “…it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.”

Our readings this morning are given not to provide easy answers but in order to inform our awareness of a mystery. To encounter the God who is with us, in every circumstance, whether joyful or sorrowful, often hidden from our sight by our determination to be satisfied with the limits of what we can know or understand. And, encountering this God, to find ourselves caught up in wonder, lost in worship. Amen.

 

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Mark 7:24-37

We’re driving (well, Jo is doing the driving part) back Up North from Down South, where we have been celebrating my uncle S & aunt P’s golden wedding anniversary. And once again I’m writing a sermon on my phone (another uncle asked, can’t you stay another night and do your sermon by Zoom?).

S & P are the most gracious of hosts, and were in their element welcoming their guests, family and friends from far and wide, after so many months of restrictions. Their garden was set out with chairs around small tables, each one furnished with an assortment of glasses and bottles of wine. Between them, aunt P and my cousins H and B laid on the most amazing spread, a buffet table to return to again and again, and somehow never running out.

It was a lovely, relaxed gathering, and we so appreciated both seeing relatives we don’t get to see often enough and meeting others for the first time, including cousins’ children and my cousin’s dog, Megan, an adorable springador (springer spaniel - black labrador cross) who sat under a chair and occasionally risked a sneaky inching forward towards a discarded plate. “She’s very good, so long as you keep an eye on her.” “Your dog, or your daughter?” “Hah! Both.”

In our Gospel reading this Sunday, from Mark chapter 7, we hear an account of Jesus in conversation with a culturally Greek, ethnically Syrophoenician, woman. Her daughter is afflicted by a demon, and she asks Jesus to help her. Jesus responds, it is not fair to take the children’s food before they have eaten their fill, and throw it to the dogs. The woman replies, yes Lord, but even the dogs beneath the table get to eat the crumbs that fall from it. For this, Jesus does as she asks. When she returns home, she finds the demon gone.

It is an exchange that centres on the imagery of food shared, of children and dogs, against a background of undeserved, unwelcome pain.

In the culture of the time, dogs were not pets, like Megan, but scavengers. There’s a verse in the Law of Moses that instructs that any meat come upon in a field mauled by wild animals should not be taken up for human consumption but given to the dogs. What the lion leaves behind, the dogs clean up. That scenario, however, is in almost every detail the opposite of Jesus’ scenario. But there is a book in the Hebrew Bible, one that would be familiar to Greeks, that includes a memorable image of dogs and shared food.

Ecclesiastes chapter 9 opens by observing that time and chance impact upon the righteous and the unrighteous, the clean and the unclean, without distinction. This is vexing (evil, though not in a moral sense). The end of all is death. ‘But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.’ (9:4) This being so, the best advice is ‘Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.’ (9:7)

Time and chance impact us all. That was clear as we gathered together, to celebrate fifty years of marriage, the joys of having girls and raising them to become strong and compassionate women, the joy of grandchildren. But alongside that, coming out in conversations around the garden and across the afternoon, the weight of time and chance. The impact of a pandemic on our children. The impact of Brexit and the pandemic on the provision of care support for the elderly. Memories of relationships that had broken down; and affirmations of new beginnings, second chances. Family members in hospital, under investigation, awaiting a diagnosis that itself may be unwelcome. Time and chance.

And in the face of all that, how precious to join together, to attend to the making and mending of connection with all the living; for whoever is connected to all the living has hope. Some days—months, years—you’re living a dog’s life, scavenging what you can get. Living off the memories of the last time I saw uncle S and aunt P, at my parents’ golden wedding anniversary, the weekend before the first lockdown. But a living dog is better than a dead lion. Because, hope. We come through the ravages of time and chance, not unscathed, but carried by hope. By the knowledge that life goes on, fleeting but good, so much gift, so much worthy of celebration. Yes, there we acknowledged the challenges of life, but we shared warmth and laughter, so much laughter.

This weekend, I have eaten bread—and salads and quiche and vegetarian coronation and lemon and lime cheesecake and banoffee pie—with enjoyment; and drunk wine—and Pimms and vintage port—with a merry heart. And today, simpler fare, bread and wine. Both occasions, a celebration of life; a grateful participation in the sheer gift of life; a renewing of hope, empowering us to face time and chance. Even the crumbs, communion wafers, are enough, bringing us from our scattered and at times troubled lives, back to wholeness.

I’m thankful for the sermons of scripture, and the sermons of life. Thankful for the sacrament of Communion, and for the sacrament of Marriage, for how they gather lives together and refuse to distinguish between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ spaces, between churches and gardens. Between the religious, and those who aren’t. This is the wisdom of God, who from long ago approves of you.

  

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14, 15, 21-23

This Sunday’s Gospel is a passage from the Gospel According to Mark. At face value, it appears to recount a confrontation between the Pharisees, who are hung up on rules, and Jesus, who advocates personal choice. But if we take a second glance, look beneath the surface, that might not be what is going on after all.

It is worth noting that the Pharisees have not come looking for a fight. They have come, a distance, to see Jesus, exploring the idea that this might be one sent by God. And when they witness Jesus’ disciples doing something that causes them cognitive dissonance—if this man is from God, why are his disciples flouting the rules?—they ask Jesus for clarification. On all counts, we would do well to learn from them.

Jesus responds by calling them hypocrites. Literally, people who wear masks, face masks. Actors, playing a part. But not a word that necessarily carries the negative value judgement that it has come to convey since.

The conversation centres on the idea of ‘defilement’—koine, literally making something common, stripping it of its specialness, its sacredness. And here it is worth noting that the entire of the New Testament was written in defiled Greek, koine Greek, as opposed to high, classical Greek. Written in the common tongue, of Gentiles and Jews, of the common people.

The Pharisees ask, why do your disciples eat in the way that is common of all the surrounding peoples, and not in the way that marks us Jews as set apart? The Jewish laws concerning hygiene were inspired, and deeply practical. Centuries later, when bubonic plague swept through Europe, Jewish hygiene observance kept them safe—set apart—from the devastating loss of lives suffered by their Gentile neighbours. Why forsake that kind of literally life-saving practice?

That’s when Jesus calls them hypocrites—mask-wearers—not because of the rules they kept, but because the outward observance or appearance was not aligned with their inward attitude. Though their actions were aligned with the wisdom of God, as shared with humanity, their hearts were not aligned with the heart of God towards humanity.

Jesus goes on to make it clear that nothing that goes into a person can defile them, can strip them of their specialness, their sacredness. But what comes out of them can.

Nothing that goes into a person can strip them of their God-given specialness. Not even a virus. This weekend, I stepped in to cover a wedding that was supposed to have been taken by another vicar in the deanery, who, the day before, had discovered that he had Covid. He is presently unable to do the things he is set apart to do; but Covid does not negate his vocation. And even if, in the most extreme of instances, Covid should kill us, it cannot separate us from the love of God.

That said, what comes out of us can defile us. The belief that we are more important than others, that we can act with impunity, exercising our rights in our self-interest, without concern for our neighbours.

Until recently here in the UK, it was legally mandatory to wear a mask in public, for the common good, in a pandemic. Since then, the rules have changed. The law has been stripped of its special status, its sacredness. Now it is down to the individual to exercise their own judgement, their freedom of conscience, to wear a mask or not according to their own personal choice. Under such circumstances, what ought we to do? At the wedding I took, for my friend who had Covid, not one of the sixty + guests chose to wear a mask.

It should be clear by now that we cannot simply read off what to do by how we read a particular passage from the Bible. What such a passage might do, however, is help us to navigate complex and confusing circumstances, from a faith perspective.

We continue, for now, to wear masks when we gather, out of love for our neighbour. But masks are not enough. The outward expression must be in line with our heart, which in turn must seek to be in line with God’s heart. If we wear a mask, but despise those who don’t, we miss the mark. We might protect them from Covid, but not from the virus of our hatred. We wear a mask, and sanitise our hands, and keep our distance, for the common (koine) good of a defiled (koine) people.

On the other hand, to refuse to wear a mask, and take other simple and reasonable precautions for the common good, because we see these things as a taking away of our liberty, is to abandon the law of God, which is summed up in the command to love our neighbour as ourselves.

As we navigate a season where we will wear a mask on some occasions, and not others; where we will wash our hands, perhaps more often than before Covid but not as often as we have become accustomed to; whether we choose observance or not to observe certain practices, our guide should be the law of love. May we continue to grow as such disciples. May we, like the Pharisees, continue to seek Jesus, to see him more clearly, to love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly, day by day.

Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2021

 

Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2021

Lectionary readings: Galatians 4:4-7 and Luke 1:46-55

 

Today we hear again Mary’s song declared before us, perhaps declared over us. The words may be familiar, especially if it is your habitual practice to say or to sing Evening Prayer. And yet the words are rooted in a particular time and place in history, quite alien to our own. These are not, primarily, personal words in response to a personal salvation. Nor do they, primarily, reveal a universal principle of God’s nature, siding with the oppressed against the oppressor. Rather, these words, in the mouth of a young Jewish woman living under Roman occupation in first-century Palestine are a prophetic utterance addressed to the people of Israel at a moment when God steps in to act decisively.

This people, the descendants of Abraham, were called to be a priestly people living among the nations, through whom all the other families on earth would be blessed. Yet they had repeatedly turned away from that calling; had chosen to live in such a way that brought the Lord’s name, his reputation among the surrounding nations, into disrepute. Again and again, their God had sent the prophets to them. Again and again, he had handed them over to the consequences of their unfaithfulness, bringing down defeat and exile and foreign occupation upon themselves. Again and again, the Lord had preserved a faithful remnant; had heard the cry of his people in their oppression and moved to rescue them, to restore them. And now, God was about to act once again, in judgement. The corrupt religious and political elite would be thrown down, and a faithful remnant restored, through whom Israel would be restored as a priestly people.

The fulfilment of Mary’s song would look like the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, when Herod’s palace is burned down (the Herodian ruler of the day actually siding with the Romans in besieging the city) and the Temple destroyed, its stone walls thrown down into the valley below. A literal throwing down. And in the aftermath of judgement, the emergence of a remnant, of the Jesus community, that would grow and spread across the Roman empire, holding out such a light that the pagan peoples were drawn to it, drawn to worship this Jewish God, until the entire Roman Empire would bend the knee and bring their tribute before him. What flows from these words is Christendom, nations shaped, however imperfectly, by a philosophy of the human condition under the sovereignty of God conveyed in the story that unfolds in the Bible, now opened to more fully include the Gentiles; a society within which the Church served as priests, invoking God’s blessing.

That is what is going on in Mary’s song. A prophetic word that looks out over the following thousand years. But it is not our song. Oh, we still sing it, and we do so in order to be formed by it, but our moment in history is not hers. There was a crisis, a moment of profound judgement, and a glorious new chapter; but we are living on the far side of all of that. We are living in a post-Christendom Europe, among neo-pagan peoples who, folk religion rituals concerning babies and brides and the burial of the dead aside, do not much call on us to serve them as a priestly people. So, what, if anything, might these words mean to us today?

And then, the lectionary has paired Mary’s song with part of Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, in which he confronts the desire of the Gentile Christians to adopt the Jewish law. Paul insists that the law has been fulfilled in Jesus, Mary’s son: that is, it has served its purpose, as a guardian over the inheritance of God’s children until they come of age; but now, in and with Jesus, we have come into our inheritance. But, says Paul, that freedom is not an opportunity for self-indulgence or promotion, but rather, we ought to use our freedom to freely take on the role of serving one another, for the whole law is summed up in the command to love your neighbour as yourself. Again, what might these words mean to us today?

Theologian Walter Brueggemann wrote, “The dominant script of both selves and communities in our society, for both liberals and conservatives, is the script of therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism that permeates every dimension of our common life.” That is, we are shaped to assume that life may be lived without discomfort or inconvenience; that there is no problem, however complex, we cannot fix by our own ingenuity; that the resources of the world are available to us without regard to our neighbour; and that we will protect and maintain this system at all cost. This week has seen the publication of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which spells out the global crisis facing us, at least some of which is now inevitable; but we aren’t prepared to give up our cheap flights to the Mediterranean, which is burning. This week has seen city after city in Afghanistan fall to the Taliban; but we aren’t prepared to welcome the refugee. No matter how bankrupt the dominant script, we do not want to change it; we believe that we can carry on doing the same things while hoping for a different outcome. Nonetheless, it will fall, and, in the long term, this may prove to be good for the world, but not before suffering for the poor and the hungry as well as the rich and the proud. Mary is no Disney musical princess.

In the light of a Mary-shaped hope, we are called, as God has always called us, to be a faithful remnant. To offer up prayer for our world, for those in power and those whose lives are impacted by those in power. And to act with prophetic voice, in what we say and what we do, in the choices we make for ourselves and as a community, resisting the temptation to believe that nothing we might do makes any difference. As Paul reminds us, to love our neighbour, not fearing the loss of what we might hoard for ourselves but drawing on the resources of heaven to bless others. Not as mighty rulers, but as children of a loving heavenly Father. And as sons and daughters of Mary—sisters and brothers of Jesus. Though not our song, the Magnificat is our mother’s song. May we so hear her words, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may sing a new script in and for our generation, in keeping with hers. Amen.

 

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 and John 6:35, 41-51

Our Old Testament reading this morning recounts the remarkable and tragic death of David’s son, the prince Absalom. It comes as the climax of an unravelling that has occurred in the life of David and his family stemming from his sin of shedding the blood of Uriah. His first son born to the wife of Uriah died only days old. David and Bathsheba’s second son, Solomon, would grow up to become David’s heir to the throne in Jerusalem. But among his other children, by his many wives, David would know even more suffering. David’s firstborn son, Amnon, whom he loved, raped his half-sister, Tamar, and, when David failed to bring him to justice, another son, Tamar’s full-brother Absalom, murdered Amnon in revenge. Growing to despise his father, Absalom went on to have very public sexual relations with David’s concubines, before rallying many in Israel in rebellion against David, in order to take the throne from him. As we heard in our reading, Absalom died in the rebellion, despite David’s desire that he be treated with the greatest leniency. David is recorded as weeping for Amnon twice, and for Absalom seven times. Towards the end of David’s life, when he is bedridden, his eldest surviving son, Adonijah, proclaims himself king, before Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan—who had prophesied such consequences as befell—ensured that Solomon was crowned as David’s legitimate, if not natural, heir.

It is a mess, and that mess is not swept under the carpet but brought into the light, for us to learn from. Sexual relationships are a holy thing, and treating them lightly, or in contempt, or as a weapon, results in great pain, for all involved, whether directly or indirectly. Nonetheless, even amid such pain, God is at work to redeem our lives. We would do well to heed David’s call to deal gently with people’s lives, for the sake of a heart after the heart of God. We would do well to lament, with David; to know in our hearts that it would be preferable for us to be cut off from the future of the people of God than to have to bear the loss of a young life from participation in the future of God’s people. We would do well, also, to learn from David’s failure to instruct his household in how they ought to relate to one another and live together in love and faith.

One of the insights of this passage is that God is faithful to his covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants, and to David and his descendants, that those who blessed them, God would bless, and those who cursed them, God would curse. In other words, God’s hand is raised in blessing to and through his people; and raised against those who would attack them. When Absalom persuades God’s own people to rise in rebellion against God’s anointed king in Jerusalem, God’s hand is raised against their plot. In an incredible and sobering verse, ‘and the forest claimed more victims that day that the sword,’ we see that even the very Land of God’s promise revolts against the rebellion.

At the heart of our passage, Absalom, the son whom David loves, is suspended, hanging between heaven and earth, while soldiers stand below, mocking and striking and piercing him with a spear. A beloved son, bridging heaven and earth; and a father lamenting his death. This tragic young man, the product of the consequences of David’s sin but also God’s faithfulness towards sinful David, becomes a window in time and space through which we see Jesus. Jesus come down from heaven and raised up from the earth, suspended between the two, who dies in order that those who receive him in their hands and deal gently with him for his Father’s sake might live. The one in whom all our hungers and thirsts, all our appetites and longings including those relating to identity and relationships and sexuality, are satisfied. The one who redeems our lives from the Pit, raising us up to life in the fullness God desires for us.

It is a mystery indeed, one that sustains us and does not fail. In the words of the Post Communion prayer for this day, according to the Common Worship liturgy,

God of our pilgrimage, you have willed that the gate of mercy should stand open for those who trust in you: look upon us with your favour that we who follow the path of your will may never wander from the way of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.