Midnight Mass, Christmas Eve 2022

 

Christmas Night: Hebrews 1:1-12 and John 1:1-14

Almost always, when I prepare a sermon, I look to engage with one or more of the readings we have just heard. But tonight, Christmas Night, is a little bit different, from other nights, other days. We have heard the readings, the opening lines from the Letter to the Hebrews and from the Gospel According to John, for their own sake, their beauty of form, as the writers of old reflected on the beauty of Jesus, come into the world. In the dark days of a Winter of Discontent, beauty matters, and most of all the beauty of Jesus.

I do want to draw your attention to the way the writer of Hebrews speaks of when God brings the firstborn into the world, not as a prophet, passing through, but as the rightful possessor of a throne that is for ever and ever, over and beyond the heavens and the earth the Lord founded. I want to draw your attention to the way in which John takes us back to the very beginning, to the creation of the world, and to the one through whom it was created coming to it, coming into it, coming to his people. But then I want to set those readings not quite aside and focus on a different part of the Christmas story. I want to read to you another verse, just one verse, from the Gospel according to Luke:

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7

There was no place for them in the inn.

The (Greek) word for place is topos, from where we get the word topography. A place, or region, or terrain, with its own unique features. Within the biblical imagination, a topos is the place assigned by God to every living creature. The great oceans, with their mountains thrusting islands above the surface of the waves, and their deep, dark canyons, the playground of migrating whales and turtles, and giant squid. The vast, flat grasslands, home to herds of bison and zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle. The rainforests, for tigers and tree frogs, lemurs, and little elephants. The mountains, for lynx and yak and snow leopards. The tundra, for the Arctic fox and Artic hare; and the polar ice caps for polar bears and penguins. We hear, in the first chapter of Genesis, how God made each topos and brought forth the firstborn of every form of life. We hear the echo of that momentous Word in the first chapter of John, and again in the first chapter of Hebrews.

And when Mary brought forth her firstborn son, there was no place for them in the inn.

The word translated ‘inn’ does not refer to a commercial inn, but to a room in any home in the time and place when Jesus was born. Families lived in one shared common room, with their animals corralled at one end at night, perhaps a little cow, or donkey, or a small family of goats, the animals’ body heat keeping the humans warm until the sun returned. The night-manger was a bowl, a feeding trough, carved from a stone slab. But any home had room to offer hospitality to a stranger passing through on their journey, in need of a bed for the night. It was said that some had entertained prophets, or even angels, in this way. The prophets through whom God spoke, the angels called to worship the Son, there in our reading from Hebrews. The ‘inn’ might be a second room, or as simple as a curtain that could be pulled across the far end of the common room, offering some privacy, rolled up like a cloak during the day. It could be a hut, or even a canopy on poles, up on the flat roof, accessed by steps on the outside of the house. A canopy that wears out, like clothing, and gets changed, replaced. But when Mary brought forth her firstborn son, there was no place for them in the inn.

There was no place assigned for them by God in the space set aside for travellers passing through for just one night. The place God assigned for Mary and her son was in the house of David, the shepherd and songwriter, renowned general, sometime outlaw, king. The topos was a kingdom (that threatened Herod). A throne for ever and ever.

Jesus is not the guest, passing through. But perhaps you are. Perhaps you are here because you happen to be visiting family, for a night or two. Perhaps your journey through life doesn’t bring you to the door of a church that often. Whatever has led you here today, and whether the path has been joyful or sorrowful, easy, or arduous, we’re glad you came, you are welcome. There is always room for travellers, in need of rest, of hospitality, before you journey on, whatever the road, whatever the destination. Whether you return this way on a frequent basis, or this will be the only time. There is a place for you in the inn. We welcome you, aware that you might be a prophet or an angel, sent by God.

Or perhaps you are lost and afraid and need to be found, by the shepherd-king? Or angry or sad or depressed and in need of a song to give voice to your emotions, a gift from the songwriter-king? Perhaps you are fighting inner demons and need a brother-in-arms who can give you the breakthrough, a renowned general-king who can slay your giants? Then again, could it be that you find yourself disillusioned and searching for a true cause, in the company of the outlaw-king? Perhaps you are wondering, could this babe in a manger really be a king? Could he really be my king? Perhaps it is not a place in the inn that you come looking for, but a place nearer the night-manger, in the heart of the family. A place with the mother and her son. If so, there is a place for you here, too.

Many years later, this Jesus gathered with his closest friends to eat the Passover meal in such an ‘inn,’ the upper room of a home in Jerusalem. That night, he was betrayed, arrested, tried, and in the morning taken out to die on a cross. His mother took her son, wrapped him once again in strips of linen, and laid him down on a stone slab to sleep, the sleep of death. But on the morning of the third day, he rose again, and reigns, exalted, over every terrain where life finds its place. All this, we celebrate, moments from now, friends and strangers welcome at the family table. Happy Christmas! God is with us. Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end, who was in the beginning and shall be beyond the end. Let all creation rejoice! Let all God’s angels worship him! Happy Christmas! Amen!

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2022

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 7:10-16 and Romans 1:1-7 and Matthew 1:18-25

As soon as Halloween is out of the way, Channel 5 starts showing wall-to-wall Christmas Rom-Coms. There is, it tuns out, an endless supply of forgettable feel-good fare — have we seen this one before? — all variations on perhaps three storylines. Plot 1: attractive young woman realizes that she is about to make the mistake of her life marrying her corporate Big City fiancé, returns home to the small town she grew up in for Christmas, bumps into her childhood sweetheart, and falls in love again with all she had thought she wanted to get away from. Plot 2: widowed father with teenage daughter in need of a new mother and a dog. Plot 3: the protagonist, who may be an attractive young woman or a ruggedly handsome widower, help a small town to rediscover what made it special in the first place. Throw in the helping hand of a matchmaking grandmother, best friend, bookstore owner, or Santa, and maybe a hardball antagonist awaiting redemption, and you get the drift. The course of true love never runs smooth, ploughs into the snow a couple of times, but always gets there in the end, just in time to set up the possibility of a sequel set next Christmas.

I want to suggest that the story of Mary and Joseph is a love story. Culturally, it would have been an arranged marriage, but let’s not make the culturally arrogant mistake of assuming that arranged marriages are forced marriages or loveless unions. Here is a young couple introduced to one another by family members, perhaps with wider input, as a likely good match. It is clear to me that theirs is a love story, which, like all good love stories, does not run smoothly but has obstacles to overcome, misunderstandings to get over, the need for help, an angelic advisor for Joseph, wise old cousin Elizabeth for Mary. All the elements of a Christmas love story are there, though this one is not so easily forgettable. This one culminates with God-is-with-us, and sets up the sequel, in which this God-with-us Saves his people from their sins.

I want to suggest that the story of Mary and Joseph is a love story. And I want to suggest that the story of Jesus and Paul is a love story too, not a Rom-Com but perhaps a Bromance. Listen to the way Paul writes about Jesus to the house churches of Rome, words tumbling over each other, on and on. This is how we talk about one whom we love. And when Paul does stop to draw breath, he calls those he is writing to ‘all God’s beloved in Rome,’ God’s beloved. And then he says, ‘Grace to you,’ that is, God reaching out to you, giving himself to you. A love story, between Jesus and the Church, the Prince and his bride.

And the question I want to ask this morning is, what first attracted you to Jesus?

What first attracted you to Jesus?

For me, it was that we grew up together. I don’t mean that I was born two-thousand years ago, or that Jesus was born in the early 1970s. But all of time and space bends back to Jesus. That is why when Paul paints his picture of Jesus, the Old Testament prophets are there, king David is there, people who lived and died many centuries before Jesus was born. That is why all the Gentiles are there, people who live across the whole known world. Time and space, folding back to wherever Jesus, the Son of God, is. And Jesus and I grew up together. In the home I grew up in, there was Mum and Dad and Jesus, and me, and, later, my brother and my sister. And Jesus was as real, as solid, as my parents, even if invisible to the eye or silent to the ear. That didn’t prevent me from seeing or hearing him, because, well, children have yet to be limited to such a narrow world. My world was his world, my timeline, my place, when and where I was folding back to him, my friend. We had adventures, got into (and out of) scrapes together. From before I have conscious memories, I have stories from my parents. One time, they were hosting a student house party, a house full of students due to be sleeping on the floors, and there was a flood in the neighbourhood. The water level was rising, up the steps, about to spill over, into the house, onto the floors. We were an inch from disaster. And, I am told, I stood in the doorway, in my nappy, and told the water to go down, in the name of Jesus. And it did. At that very moment, some streets away, some men managed to unblock a storm drain, and the waters ran away. That was the mechanics of the miracle. But it was a miracle, just one of the scrapes Jesus and I got into and out of again. Best friend ever.

It’s meant to be a love story. It’s meant to find us where we are, perhaps a life that hasn’t turned out as we had expected and sweeps us up in good news. There are plenty such stories around us, just ask those who have risked their lives to belong to Jesus. What about you? What first attracted you to Jesus? And, this Christmas, might you rediscover him all over again?

 

Christ the King, 2022

 

Lectionary texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Colossians 1:11-20 and Luke 23:33-43

Our lives are given us, a gift, from God, thrown into a particular time and place, a family, and circumstances, within the flow of history. I did not have to be born at all, and, given that I was, my life would have been very different had I been born in another century, or body. The call on my life is to join in with God’s saving work, from where I am, as fully as I am able. The life I have been given is given with potential and with constraint, not a blank canvas, but a work already begun by those who came before me, generations before, just as I pass something on to those who come after me.

God did not have to come into the world, but chose to do so, in Jesus. Jesus comes, full of amazing potential. As the Creed puts it: ‘God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.’ Or as Paul writes to the church in Colossae: ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.’

And yet, Jesus comes, accepting the constraints of temporal existence. He is born at a particular moment in the Story of a particular people. Moses comes first, and David, and Isaiah, a Story shaped by liberation and the instruction that enables lives to flourish, by the rise and fall of a kingdom among the empires, by the words of the prophets. Jesus is born of Mary, in Bethlehem, under Roman occupation. As he grows, his ancestors give shape to his own self-understanding. As he meditates on the Law and the Prophets, he understands himself to be sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Why are they lost? Because God has found generations of shepherds sent to watch over his flock to be unfaithful, to be unsafe; God has scattered his flock among the nations for their own safety; and now, God sends another Shepherd King, to search them out and bring them home.

At the culmination of Jesus’ faithful response to the life given him by the Father, he is proclaimed King of the Jews, on order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, passing judgement not on the innocent man he has been pushed into having executed, but in judgement of Jesus’ own people, who did not recognize him for who he was. Like Jesus, like you and like me, Pontius is a person, given life by God, thrown into history at a particular moment, a time, and a place, lost to the record, but likely into wealth and political and social connection, and likely serving in the Roman military before becoming the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judea. While in this position, Jesus is brought before him, for his decision or indecision, one might say a difficult decision, certainly a decision with consequences, whatever his ruling on the matter.

The Jewish leaders question whether this man, Pontius Pilate, is a friend of the Caesar, whether what he does with the life he has been given is faithful or faithless towards his king? What should we say? That he keeps faith towards his emperor, but is faithless towards a god he did not worship? Nevertheless, the Jewish god takes Pontius Pilate’s actions and turns them to good, whereas ultimately, though not immediately, he loses the confidence of the emperor in Rome.

We read, also, of two criminals, executed alongside Jesus, one on either side. And of how one of them joins with those who mock him; but that the other recognises a king. One sees an executioner’s scaffold, the same as his own; the other, a royal throne: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Again, we know nothing of the circumstances that had brought these two men one to Jesus’ left and the other to his right on this coronation day. Perhaps they were simply trying to make the most of the hand they had been dealt. Perhaps they could have done far worse. Perhaps they threw their lives away. But they don’t appear on this page out of nowhere, even if their story is hidden from our sight.

Jesus says to the penitent thief, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’ A Persian word for the royal hunting ground, or pleasure park. In the garden of the king of one of the surrounding nations across whom God has scattered his sheep. Not because this garden is heaven, but because Jesus is the faithful Shepherd King who to the very last has sought and found this lost sheep of Israel, in a far-off place, from where he will bring him home. Today, in Paradise; on the third day, in a reunited Israel and Judah.

We live in a society that tells us, and especially our young people, before it is too late, that you can be whatever you decide to be. But that is a lie, and a paralysing one at that. We cannot be anyone, creating ourselves, out of nothing, a blank sheet. But we can be someone, confronting the life we have been given as honestly as possible, owning it in all its brilliance and bitterness, and offering it back to the Giver of Life, as fully, as faithfully as we are able.

Because he was faithful with the ‘small thing’ of bringing back the lost sheep of Israel, the Father has exalted Jesus and made him King of kings. Not, simply, ruler over all earthly powers, though he is that, but the High King of a family of kings. The Father has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, not as subjects but as fellow heirs, as sisters and brothers of Jesus our Christ. You are a crown prince of heaven. You are a princess royal. You are given a throne to sit beside Jesus, and a crown on your head. Yes, it is a cross-shaped throne, like his, a reminder that we are called to lay down our lives for the sake of others. It is a crown woven of thorns, but thorns crafted of pure gold, for God has taken every hurt you have endured and need yet endure and transformed the darkness into light, the suffering into glory. We do not live our days in a Paradise, a pleasure garden, but participating in the reconciling of all things, whether on earth or in heaven, that it is God’s good pleasure to bring about through the faithful Son, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

God is at work today, through Jesus, transforming you from one degree of glory to another as you gaze upon the King of kings, as we cast our crowns before him in wonder and worship, until, one day, we will be found simultaneously our own unique selves and looking just like Jesus, so clear will be the family likeness. Male or female, Nigerian, Iranian, Chinese, White British, young or old, Jesus standing among his sisters and brothers.

So today, on this Feast of Christ the King, may we be freed to love the Lord our God with our whole being, all that we are, every choice and action, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Amen.

 

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Set readings for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022: Luke 18:1-8 (Jeremiah 31:27-34, Genesis 32:22-31, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5)

This past week I took part in a four-day consultation on Christian Ethics in a Postliberal Age. Ethics is concerned with how we determine how we ought to act towards one another, and how we might proceed when we are unable to choose for ourselves or agree with one another. This is a pressing issue in our society. For some time, at least in the West, there has appeared to be a liberal consensus, perhaps summed up by what have been identified as ‘British values’: democracy, the rule of law, individual freedom, and mutual respect and tolerance for others. But values are morally neutral. A thing is neither good, nor bad, simply because a majority favour it. And from the concerted efforts of Trump Republicans to overthrow a democratic election, to Extinction Rebellion protestors, to tax avoidance, to cancel culture, from the Left and the Right the liberal consensus is being pulled apart.

Is there something distinctive to being a Christian that shapes how we make moral decisions, even if we, as Christians, differ among ourselves in the decisions we make? Is there something distinctive that we can hold out to others beyond the Christian community? Or do our ethics apply only within the Church?

Like Jeremiah wrestling with the faithlessness of God’s people and the faithfulness of God; like Jacob wrestling with the stranger in hope of their blessing; and like Timothy wrestling to apply scripture to the lives of a congregation who had thrown off such moral constraints; so, also, we wrestled together.

One of the key ideas we grappled with was virtue. A virtue is a stable character trait that leads to an outcome. Someone who possesses the virtue of generosity is reliably generous in a range of circumstances; likewise, someone who possesses the virtue of courage can be relied upon to be courageous in the face of circumstances. And unlike values, virtues are not neutral. There was a time when the Church spoke of virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, hope, faith, and charity—and their corresponding vices. Might we profitably revisit such virtues today?

In our Gospel reading, we listen in as Jesus tells a parable to his disciples, a provocative fiction that, alongside his actions, reveals something about him. In this case, the revelation concerns the life of prayer, something the disciples have observed in Jesus and will continue to observe all the way to the Garden of Gethsemane and even on the cross. There is something about character here, Jesus’ character, which, in turn, shows us what it means both to be (fully) God and to be (fully) human.

A widow has an adversary. We know nothing about the circumstances. It may concern her late husband’s land. She could be a poor widow, whose adversary seeks to swallow up her patch of earth; or a wealthy widow, whose adversary envies her assets. It could be that she is refusing to pay her husband’s debts, that her adversary has a genuine case. We should assume nothing about the circumstances, except that she has an adversary, and no husband to defend her. In the Hebrew scriptures, God is known as Israel’s husband, and so we might even see this widow as the people of God in whose lived experience God feels absent, dead; perhaps they turn elsewhere for justice, to some other god, and find a judge who neither fears God nor is a respecter of humans. Parables present us with a super-abundance of meaning.

This widow seeks justice. Justice is a virtue, possessed by those who are just, who live in right relationship with their neighbours, as far as it is in their gift to do so. Of course, we need not view justice as a virtue, we can demand justice when it serves us and not when it serves others; but the principle of justice is widely recognised as a key facet of goodness, even by those who see goodness as a flaw. The judge, whose role it is to defend the widow, the orphan, and the alien living among God’s people, clearly does not possess the character trait of justice, even as he upholds the minimum letter of the law. But, in truth, we are not presented with the case: we cannot say, for certain, that the widow is in the right, that her idea of justice is just.

The judge is not inclined to respond. Yet, eventually he does so, not out of any obligation, to a shared moral code that has shaped the life of the community, but out of personal consideration: this widow refuses to go away, and he fears that it will not end well for him. While he has the institutional agency, she is not without agency enough to counter his position. And so, he grants her demand.

And Jesus then draws a line between the unrighteous judge and God, the righteous judge, saying, if even the unjust can act justly, if even unjust motives can result in just actions, how much more so will a just God motivated by a stable character-trait of justice, work to bring about justice for his chosen ones, even in the face of great injustice? But as the Son of Man enters these earthly situations, will he find faith? Will he discover a people shaped by persevering prayer, or a people who have given up hope?

The three theological virtues are faith, hope, and charity. They describe a way of being in the world that is faithful, hopeful, and self-sacrificially giving of loving-kindness. The kind of person God is. The kind of person humans are created to be, and the Church is redeemed to be. These three virtues, and most of all charity, give meaning and purpose to every other virtue. And over again in scripture we see women and men wrestle with what it is to be virtuous. For it is in wrestling, with adversity or with an adversary, that we grow, in faithfulness, hopefulness, loving-kindness. It is in wrestling that our vices—our avarice or our laziness, our deceit, our lust or our fear, our gluttony, our pride, our anger, our envy—are overthrown. This is, surely, at least in part why God, who answers prayer speedily, does not answer straight away. We are formed in the wrestling.

Last night I sat in the Ship Isis talking with two other men staring down our sixth decade. We spoke, openly, of how the pandemic had defeated us, one unable to go about his work, the other overwhelmed by too much work, and how that forced us to re-evaluate who we were as grandsons and sons, husbands, and fathers, neither dependent—which denies our dignity—nor independent—which denies our humanity—but inter-dependent. Neither heroes nor failures. We spoke of the things we had done, or sought to do, for our children, to lay down foundations for them: one, wanting for them a better life; one, that they should be happy; me, that whatever my children face, good or evil, they would be equipped to respond for good not evil. We spoke, in other words, of faith, hope, and charity. Of how we had been unmade and given a new start. And, whether they would name it this way or not, our conversation, in the hearing of God who listens attentively to our pain and who responds for our good, was a night of prayer.

 

Harvest 2022, Sunderland Minster

 

Lectionary readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Philippians 4:4-9 and John 6:25-35

It is good to be with you today. I am tired, perhaps more tired than I recall being in thirteen years of this vocation. And to be here, and to have [a colleague priest] declare the words of absolution over us—‘Almighty God, who forgives all who truly repent, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord.’—to have these words spoken over me and to receive them, is bread of heaven and water for my soul.

Today we mark our harvest festival. There is much that could, and should, be said concerning food justice; but that is not what I would like to speak about today. Instead, I want to ask, what is the harvest that God is hoping for us? And how might that harvest come to fruition?

The world of Jesus and his disciples was built on grain. Empires rose and fell on account of the success or failure of their harvests. Jesus himself told stories of farmers planting their crops and spoke of the seed that must fall to the earth and die, rising again and bearing fruit, a harvest of seed many times greater than the volume of seed that had been planted. Writing to the believers in Corinth, concerning the growth of the church, Paul says that he planted, and Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.

In our reading this morning from Paul’s letter to the believers in Philippi, we learn that God longs for us to experience a harvest of gentleness and peace. Gentleness, here, means equity, yielding to one another so that all have as each one needs. Peace, here, means welfare, where, again, each one is enabled to flourish.

If you want a harvest of gentleness and peace, you must plant the appropriate seed, which Paul describes as focusing on whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, anything possessing excellence and being worthy of praise.

And having planted the seed, that seed must be watered, in coming together to pray, bringing our needs before God, with thanksgiving for all we have received.

If we plant, and water, God supplies the growth, a harvest of gentleness and peace.

Here at the Minster, we have plenty of needs to bring before God. We have very significant financial challenges. It costs over £100 a day simply to open the doors, and that is before we can make any contribution towards the cost of ministry in this diocese or pay any staff in roles that support the life of this place. Our financial situation is really very serious. We can worry about that, or we can lift our voices in prayer, giving thanks for all that we see God doing in this place, the broken lives lifted-up, the outcasts finding welcome. What else? We need a new Provost, someone who can come and oversee the life and work of this community, whose appointment can unlock resources that are currently unavailable, whose arrival will be a sign of hope for the city. The process is taking far longer than we had hoped, and it is placing too great a burden on others who are carrying additional loads. Again, we can allow this to tear us apart, heart and mind and soul and strength pulled in every which direction, or we can lift our voices to pray. The Lord is near, and his presence guards our hearts and minds so that we are not pulled apart, so that we know that wholeness or welfare.

As we pray, we should expect to hear the voice of Jesus, commanding the storm be still, calling us to follow him, to come away and rest, to go out and make disciples, to sow in tears and reap in joy. For, to draw on a different agricultural metaphor, Jesus’ sheep know his voice, and, hearing his voice, his little flock need not be afraid.

To think about ‘whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable…any excellence and…anything worthy of praise’ is deeply dissonant for us, who are daily shaped by a surrounding culture that focuses on anything but. That is why we do these things together. Pray on your own last thing before you go to bed, by all means; but pray with others too. Give thanks, together; together, present our requests to God. Let us encourage one another, by example. And the God of peace will be with you.

 

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

‘These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.’

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

These are the words. Words that are both heavy on the heart, and laden with grace.

A little history. Empires rise and empires fall. The Neo-Babylonians defeated the Neo-Assyrians. Alarmed by this shift in power, the Egyptians moved north to support their Assyrian allies. To do so, they had to pass through the territory of Judah. King Josiah rode out to turn them back and was killed in battle. His younger son, Jehoahaz, succeed him; but just three months later the pharaoh, Neco II, on his way home from war, deposed Jehoahaz, carrying him off captive to Egypt and appointing his older brother Jehoiakim king in Jerusalem in his place. So, when the Babylonians went on to defeat the Egyptians, Nebuchadnezzar II laid Jerusalem to siege. To save the city, Jehoiakim switched allegiances. Even so, Nebuchadnezzar extracted a hefty tribute, including taking members of the royal family and court hostage in Babylon. The Babylonians tried to build on their victory over the Egyptians in battle, attempting to press on to take Egypt itself, but they were unsuccessful in their ambitions. Their failure to capitalise undermined their control in the region, and Jehoiakim, ever the politician, switched sides again, hoping that the Egyptians might rid him of Babylonian interference. Instead, Nebuchadnezzar, incensed at losing tribute income, laid siege to Jerusalem again. Jehoiakim died and was succeeded by his son Jeconiah. Within three months, Jerusalem had fallen. The Babylonians carried anyone who might resource an insurgence—including influential leaders and those who could make weapons—off into exile and put Jeconiah’s uncle on the throne, a puppet king to whom they gave the name Zedekiah.

A decade later, Zedekiah made an alliance with the pharaoh, Hophra, and revolted against Babylonian rule. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem yet again. This time the city held out for thirty months before falling, at which point Nebuchadnezzar had Zedekiah’s sons killed in front of him, before gouging out his eyes and carrying him off to captivity in Babylon. As for Jerusalem, the city was burnt to the ground, and Solomon’s Temple destroyed.

Jeremiah 29 is set soon after Jeconiah and the first wave of exiles are carried off to Babylon. As Zedekiah takes up office (chapter 28) a certain self-styled prophet, Hananiah, proclaims that this was a temporary setback and that the exiles would return within two years, restored by the Lord of hosts, who would liberate them from the Babylonians. This message fuels hope among both the citizens of Jerusalem and the newly captive exiles in Babylon. But Jeremiah counters that Hananiah is a false prophet, holding out false hope. Hananiah dies, thus shown to be under the Lord’s judgement. Jeremiah writes to the exiles, telling them that their captivity will be a lengthy one, several generations long. Therefore, they must put down roots that will sustain them. Crucially, they must also intercede to the Lord on behalf of their Babylonian overlords, for their own welfare is now tied to the welfare of their enemies.

These are the words. Words that are both heavy on the heart, and laden with grace.

Jeremiah’s advice, originating in the Lord of angel armies and God of the descendants of Israel—who wrestled a full night with an angel of the Lord, and thereafter walked with a limp—is deeply practical, and ordered for fruitfulness. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have children, to the third generation—for when the Lord places constraint (curses) on people in judgement for abandoning the covenant, places limits on the damage they can cause, he does so to the third generation. In any event, all three actions—build, plant, marry—participate in the work of making the community complete or sound: live, eat, multiply. This, for the Babylonians as well as for the Jews. And as it turned out, the Jewish community does this so well that when, a long time later, Babylon falls to the Persian empire and Cyrus permits the Jews to return to Judah, many freely choose not to go. Babylon is home now. Their God is not tied to Jerusalem but is Lord of all the earth.

These are the words. Words that are both heavy on the heart, and laden with grace.

What might these words have to say to us in our day?

What might it look like for us to accept that our present state, a church exiled from being the heart of our communities, is not a passing moment but our future for several generations?

What do we need to let go of? (Expect to have to wrestle with this question.)

Where do we need to focus our energy? (Expect to have to wrestle with this question, too.)

What does building houses and planting gardens and marrying look like here, now?

What does ‘live,’ and ‘eat,’ and ‘raise children’ look like, as the way we nurture a community that is healthy and whole, that embodies welfare?

 

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Lectionary set for Holy Communion today: 1 Timothy 6:6-19 and Luke 16:19-31

The readings set for today are timely, given Friday’s mini-budget here in the UK. I want to reflect on the correspondence between Paul and his co-worker Timothy, and what it might mean for churches today.

‘Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;’

Godliness is devotion to God. Contentment, here, refers to sufficiency for all, or, that everyone has what they need to live. It does not mean, ‘Sit down, be quiet, and learn to cut your cloth according to your means.’ There is a rhetoric abroad in our nation arguing that enabling the rich to become even more wealthy benefits everyone—trickle-down economics—but when increasing numbers of people in work highlight years of real-terms pay cuts and demand this be rectified, they are accused of being greedy and unreasonable. Devotion to God is of little benefit without commitment to sufficiency for all. Likewise, commitment to sufficiency for all without devotion to God leads to ideological impasse. But there is great gain to be had in godliness combined with contentment, which is precisely the contribution our churches, working together across tradition and denomination, bring to political debate.

‘for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;’

Here, Paul is playing on the idea of carrying in and out, and that in the end we all get carried out in a box, whether we are given a State funeral or come to our local parish church. There are no self-made men, nor is wealth the consequence of hard work and poverty the evidence of laziness; but we are all carried by, and carry, one another.

‘but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.’

Key, here, is food that is nourishing; and covering that is focused on, but goes wider than, clothing. Here, I want to commend the work of local churches not only to run food banks and clothing banks, but also to feed people—for eating together nourishes the soul, as well as the body—as well as working in partnership to identify warm spaces (not every church building is appropriate) this coming winter.

‘But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.’

Ruin, here, means being undone in the present; while destruction refers to being destroyed in the age to come, both in terms of the bright new era politicians love to proclaim, and in terms of eternity. As Christians, we believe that poverty is material, social—and spiritual. We believe that inequality is bad for those who are rich, as well as for those who are poor, for those who have more than they need as well as for those who have less than they need. Unlike Left/Right ideological difference, we do not see enemies to be destroyed, but enemies to pray for, whose souls we have care of.

‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.’

This verse is famously misquoted as ‘money is the root of all evil.’ In fact, the love of money, that is, avarice, excessive greed, is a root of all kinds of evil. For much of the history of the Church, avarice was seen as a deadly sin, a social evil. Reaganomics and Thatcherism proclaim avarice to be a social virtue.

How, then, ought we to respond? Paul addresses Timothy:

‘But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.’

Man, here, means human: and while it is directly addressed to Timothy, a man of God, Paul’s instruction is for all who would consider themselves to be a man, woman, or child of God.

We are to shun the temptations of wealth. The original impact is, flee. One member of my family has such a phobia of spiders, they cannot remain in the same room as one: that is the import here.

Instead, we are to pursue, not wealth but true riches, chasing after these things, desiring to take hold of them. There is no half-hearted commitment to this.

Righteousness means justice. We are to pursue justice, working and praying for, advocating for, justice, for that society where each person has what they need to live well, free from fear or exploitation.

As already noted, godliness means devotion to God, giving all that we are and all that we have to God’s service. It carries a sense of responsive generosity: that we are to be generous because we have known God’s generosity towards us. We are to pursue generosity—traditionally, the Church has seen good works as the social virtue that heals us of the social vice of avarice: works that do not earn our salvation but, rather, are the fruit of our salvation. Here, I would commend the volunteer hours given by church members to their community, the number of neighbours served, the weight of food distributed. Here, I would thank those who give of their time, talents, and money. Here I would also want to encourage people to review their financial support of the church: to amend it as necessary; and also to consider prioritizing their giving to the church over (not instead of) their giving to other good causes, who draw on a wider pool of donors.

Faith refers to knowing God’s will. We learn what God’s will is through reading the Bible, with prayerful, communal discernment. It bothers me that many Christians read a daily newspaper, but don’t read their Bibles daily. This is where we learn what God’s will is, for how we order our society.

If faith is knowing God’s will, love is choosing what God prefers. Again and again in the Bible, God insists on justice for the most vulnerable among us, the widow, the orphan, and the alien living in our midst.

We are to pursue endurance. Jesus taught his followers to pray, ‘Our Father in heaven…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven…’ Why? Because God’s will is contested, opposed. We need endurance because we live in a society, a world, where injustice continues. We are called to pursue the endurance God gives; and prayer is the gift by which we receive that endurance afresh each day.

And finally, gentleness. Meekness, or strength under control. If we try to see the world changed in our own strength, we will become overwhelmed, exhausted, and bitter—and quickly so. We are called to participate in the transformation of society in God’s strength, not ours. As we face a difficult winter, we do not do so alone.

 

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Lectionary epistle: 1 Timothy 2:1-7

On Sunday afternoon gone, I stood on the square in front of the Minster as the Mayor of Sunderland, wearing her chain of office, delivered the Proclamation of Accession of King Charles III. This ancient process ripples outward, from St James’ Palace where His Majesty the King was formally proclaimed at the Accession Council, after which the Principal Proclamation was made from the balcony overlooking Friary Court at St James’ Palace by the Garter King of Arms, accompanied by the Earl Marsal, other Officers of Arms and the Sarjeants at Arms. The Proclamation was made in Scotland by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, in Wales by the herald of arms extraordinary, and in Northern Ireland by the Norroy and Ulster King of Arms. It was made in the City of London and in every county seat in England by the High Sheriff, in the presence of the King’s Lord-Lieutenants, and from there delegated onward to Mayors and was read out also in universities and cathedrals and, finally, if so desired, in every civic parish. The Proclamation was also made by senior officials across the Commonwealth nations.

The purpose, of course, is that this important news, that we have a new king, is carried to every citizen, to the furthest corners of the kingdom, and the farthest reaches of the Commonwealth. But this time, for the first time, we were able to watch the pebble be dropped into the pool, live, on our television scenes, long before the ripple reached us.

Between the formal proclamation at the Accession Council and the Principal Proclamation made by the Garter King of Arms, the King held his first Privy Council meeting, where he made a personal declaration which included these words:

‘I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me. In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these Islands and of the Commonwealth Realms and Territories throughout the world…

‘And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God.’

The King also read and signed an oath to uphold the security of the Church of Scotland:

‘I understand that the Law requires that I should, at My Accession to the Crown, take and subscribe the Oath relating to the Security of the Church of Scotland.  I am ready to do so at this first opportunity.

‘I, Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of My other Realms and Territories, King, Defender of the Faith, do faithfully promise and swear that I shall inviolably maintain and preserve the Settlement of the true Protestant Religion as established by the Laws made in Scotland in prosecution of the Claim of Right and particularly by an Act intituled “An Act for securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government” and by the Acts passed in the Parliament of both Kingdoms for Union of the two Kingdoms, together with the Government, Worship, Discipline, Rights and Privileges of the Church of Scotland.

‘So help me God.’

Paul writes that he has been appointed a herald and apostle. That by royal seal affixed, he is a town crier, charged with communicating news of critical importance to the public; and an envoy, commissioned by another to represent them to the nations.

His proclamation is this:

‘There is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.’

This is the proclamation, ringing out around the Roman Empire, that the God who created all things has anointed Jesus as the one who guarantees the performance of all terms and conditions stipulated in the covenant God has made with humankind, in recognition that this Jesus had given his life to secure our freedom. Paul is making the public proclamation that Jesus will freely uphold the duties and responsibilities laid upon him. Indeed, in the person of Jesus, the responsibilities of God towards humankind, and the responsibilities of humankind towards God, are guaranteed.

That is far greater news than the accession of any earthly sovereign. And yet, we act as if it isn’t fit for proclamation, as if it is an entirely private matter of individual belief, personal choice between many gods (or none) and any number of mediators (or none).

Perhaps you think it isn’t your place, that, unlike Paul, you aren’t a herald and an apostle. You are, however, called to pray. Paul urges that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, including kings and those in high office. Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings aren’t simply four different ways of saying the same thing. Supplications, or entreaties, refer to urgent personal need. Prayers include a recognition that we are addressing God, in community, in a place set aside for prayer. Intercessions refer to approaching a king, to receive his instructions, to know what his will is. And thanksgivings are the expression of gratitude for God’s grace.

We are called to pray, that all might know life free from disturbance, experiencing, instead, an inner calm; a life of reverence where all, whether those of high estate or lowly birth, are considered worthy of veneration, worthy of respect, possessing a gravitas and dignity of their own.

This is the prayerful life the late Queen modelled to her son and heir, and to all her subjects. And it is how we should pray for our new King, and for all people everywhere. For their urgent personal needs: for the Royal Family and for all families grieving the death of a loved one at this present time. That they might know the Spirit, the Comforter, draw near to them; even as we draw near to listen to any words the Spirit might give us to say to them. All the while, expressing our thankfulness for all that God has done for us in Christ Jesus, the forgiveness of sins and all other benefits of his passion.

This month marks a new beginning for us as a nation, whether we choose to embrace it or not. And, yes, it will take time to get used to; we shall find ourselves, to begin with, in a period of transition. Might it also be a new beginning for our prayer life? A learning to pray? The new King has made a personal declaration, concluding:

‘And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God.’

May this be your prayer too, and mine. So help me God.

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Lectionary readings: Exodus 32:7-14 and 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10

In our Old Testament reading, we see the Lord God and Moses in conversation. The Lord has appointed Moses to lead his people, whom the Lord has delivered from great distress in Egypt and brought out with the intention of establishing them in the land God had promised to Abraham’s descendants. But even as the Lord grants Moses a private audience, as our late Queen met with fifteen Prime Ministers in private audience, the people are quick to turn away from the One who had delivered them from evil. In the Hebrew, the Lord says to Moses something to the effect of, ‘Let me draw in my breath through my nostrils,’ the idea that we live because God’s breath is in our lungs and when the Lord breathes that breath back in, we are unmade. The Lord says, ‘Depart from before me, Moses, that you may be spared, for I am about to recall the life breath of the people.’ But Moses does not depart. Instead, he intercedes for his people before the Lord, pleads that they might be spared, and, indeed, flourish, to the glory of the Lord’s reputation.

It may be sheer coincidence that the Lectionary invites us to reflect on this portion of Scripture this Sunday, but it is deeply fitting, for Elizabeth II was a Queen who interceded on behalf of the people she believed God had appointed her to lead, at the end of every day, for over seventy years. At the time she came to the throne, it was the consensus that the Lord had delivered us from the horror of a second world war within a generation. By the time of her Silver Jubilee, that consensus was long gone; how soon we forget and turn away from the Lord. And yet, she continued to intercede for us; and we will never know what enormity of loss was held back on account of one prayerful woman not much more than five feet tall.

In our Epistle from the New Testament, we hear the apostle Paul reflect on his gratitude to Jesus Christ his Lord, ‘who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service,’ despite his own deep awareness of his own shortcomings.

And, again, this was likewise the repeated public testimony of our late Sovereign Lady Elizabeth. In different ways, we are all called by Jesus into his service, however unworthy, unprepared, or unlikely we feel; and this can be your testimony, too.

But it is on the Gospel that I would like to focus today.

We are created to be integrated beings. When we read in the law that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself” (see Luke 10:25-37) this is not an injunction, but a promise: you shall love, in this fully-integrated, all-encompassing, way, even if that is not yet your experience. This is the Word speaking something into being, just as that same Word declared, ‘“Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.’ (Genesis 1:3, 4).

We are created to be integrated beings. And yet, in our formative years, we might experience things that cause us to push away parts of the person God is calling into being, deep down into our subconscious; or to fragment ourselves, at the physical level of the connections within our brain. We are created to be integrated beings. But in these past few days, since the announcement of the Queen’s death, and the Proclamation of our new King, Charles III, many will have found themselves somewhat discombobulated. For most of her subjects, the Queen has been the only monarch we have known, a constant in change, including the change in our purses and pockets. Her passing has resulted in a slow-motion explosion in our common life, in which the weight and cost of the pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis, and a nonstop news cycle, as well as our own personal losses of loved ones, are, also, all caught up. So, we may find ourselves, our heart and soul and strength and mind, blown apart.

The search for meaning, for an integrated life—whether looked for in work, or financial security, or pleasure; or in an ever-present monarch—is, ultimately, the search for God in our lives: the object of our love, around whom all our desires find their homecoming.

In Luke chapter 15, we see both observant Pharisees and scribes, and divergent tax collectors and sinners come to Jesus. Each, in their own different ways, live fragmented lives. One group is afraid of losing God’s favour; the other believes they do not deserve God’s favour. One group has known inconsistent care, perhaps through loss or hardship; the other, an absence of safety, perhaps through more and greater losses. One is risk-averse; the other, reckless. Both groups are intrigued by Jesus, and whether he is good for them or not. And when the Pharisees grumble on account of Jesus welcoming sinners and eating with them, he responds with stories, about sinners.

A sinner is one who falls short. Jesus tells a story about a shepherd, a story about a woman. The shepherd has a hundred sheep and loses one. The woman has ten silver coins and loses one. In each instance, their wholeness is broken. Not utter disintegration, but crisis enough to cause agitation and cry out for resolution.

Shepherds did not own sheep; they were responsible, for the sheep, to the owner of the sheep. The woman’s coins are her wedding dowry, and she was accountable to her husband. Each has fallen short. Each is a sinner. And each repents, or turns around, retraces their steps, finds what they have lost. Then each one calls together their friends and neighbours to rejoice with them. Both the shepherd and the woman are restored to wellbeing.

The tax collectors and sinners are finding Jesus—the lamb of God; the coin bearing the image of the king—and calling their friends and neighbours to rejoice with them, in joyful, celebratory feasts. The Pharisees and scribes are also searching, are so close to the end of their searching, and yet, there is something holding them back. They are not, yet, able to enter the experience of joy. Jesus goes so far as to imply that they ‘need no repentance’ to do so: it is they, themselves, holding themselves back from taking the final step to the table.

Telling them directly won’t help them: they’ll deny it, and walk away; or agree, but still be unable to find joy. Jesus needs to find a way to help them integrate their experience into a coherent story, for themselves. He does so through the telling of stories: stories that are quite open-ended, and thick with multiple layers. If their upbringing has caused them to see God as distant and austere, waiting to pronounce disappointment or disapproval, then here’s a story set in the wilderness, the austere place where God provided manna and quail day after day, week on week, month on month, year on year. Give them a story that allows them to take up the fragments of their own stories and present them as a coherent whole. If their upbringing has caused them to see God as a husband to be tip-toed around, here is a story open enough to see themselves as beloved, adorned, honoured. Here are stories in which you might search, until you find what you need: meaning—given by Jesus.

And this, according to Jesus’ stories, integrates all creation: heaven and earth, angels and humans, sinners and friends and neighbours.

Her Late Majesty the Queen knew that she was a shepherd, entrusted with the care of the Lord’s sheep. That she was a woman entrusted by God with a crown, just as the woman in Jesus’ parable had been given a string of silver coins by her husband to wear on her forehead. That she was a sinner, who fell short of what was entrusted to her care, but who nonetheless was determined to search until she found Jesus in every circumstance; Jesus, who strengthened her, having found her faithful in the service to which he had appointed her. And in this mutual trust, she found great joy—and threw a lot of parties. Over her ninety-six years of life, though touched by tragedy, she grew into God’s promise that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” You can know the same.

May God give you grace to gather up the fragments of your being, and of these strange days we are living through, and to know the wholeness found in being caught up by Jesus, as we draw near to him. Amen.