Second Sunday of Lent 2024

 

Second Sunday of Lent 2024

Lectionary readings: Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16 and Mark 8.31-38

My family likes to watch Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. They are full of comic book superheroes, and many of the characters have aliases by which they are known:

Tony Stark is known as Iron Man;
Steve Rogers is the original Captain America;
Sam Wilson is the Falcon, and later takes on the mantle of Captain America;
Hank Pym was the original Ant Man, a mantle later taken on by Scott Lang;
Natasha Romanoff is Black Widow;
Peter Parker is Spiderman.
T’Challa, prince and later king of Wakanda is Black Panther, a mantle later taken on by his sister Shuri.

The most recent film, The Marvels, has three female – and multi-ethnic – leads:

Carol Danvers, known as Captain Marvel;
Kamala Khan – the first superhero role-model for Muslim girls – who goes by the name Ms. Marvel, as a tribute to Danvers;
and Monica Rambeau, who does not have an alias, and rejects various suggestions proposed by Kamala.

One of the interesting things about the MCU, and the Marvel comics it draws on, is the way they re-imagine characters and storylines, exploring different possibilities. The heroes are also flawed, trying to make sense of things that have been done to them, sometimes misunderstood, usually trying their best, often making things worse as an unintended consequence of their actions, willing to make sacrifices, holding on to hope. All these things are recognisable in our own lives, and in the stories we read in the Bible.

We all have a name, and our name is woven and at times unpicked throughout the story of our lives. This week, I conducted a funeral. The name on the coffin-plate read ‘Robert,’ but as a congregation we knew him by his middle-name, Earnest (his father having also been Robert Earnest Kerr) while his family knew him as Earn. Some of you will have gone by various names over the years, or in different contexts.

Give me a wave if your surname has changed at some point.

Give me a wave if you go by a middle name, or a shortened or nickname.

Give me a wave if you have names in more than one language.

In our reading this morning from Genesis, Abram (‘exalted father’) becomes Abraham, and Sarai (‘princess’) becomes Sarah. What we see here is a shift in dialect. Their names will sound different in the mouths of those whom God will lead them to live alongside. Their names will change because of geography, because they have walked with God and walking with God will take them somewhere they have never been before. Those members of our congregation from Nigeria, or Kenya, or India, will know what it is to hear your names spoken back to you in a way you have never heard them spoken before!

 

In our story this morning, God is also given two names: the personal name, Yahweh, and the known-as name, or alias, El Shaddai.

 

There are names in our Gospel reading, too. There is Peter. In Mark’s Gospel, we first meet him as Simon (Mark 1.16) and are later told that Jesus renamed him Peter (Mark 3.16). It may be that Peter was already one of Simon’s given-names and that Jesus felt it was more fitting – Simon means ‘to hear’ or ‘listening’ and Simon wasn’t the best listener! But in our Gospel reading today, Jesus gives Peter yet another name, Satan or ‘accuser’! Wow!

Jesus has been speaking about the life he has been given – under the alias ‘the Son of Man’ or the mortal one – which will involve great suffering, rejection by those who seek positions of power over others, and even being killed – though this will not be the end of his story. And Peter takes him aside and tries to persuade him to trade-up this life for a better one, one that does not include suffering or rejection or being killed. And Jesus’ response is unambiguous: you are thinking like a human who does not trust your Creator; I will not reject my life in exchange for a different life; and you should not seek to reject being Peter in favour for being Satan. That would be a gamble that cannot pay off, whatever permutations unfold.

Jesus goes on to say to those gathered around him, you cannot trade-up your God-given life for something better – even if you possessed the entire universe to borrow against, your life is worth more. And even if that life is taken from you, by those who trust in violence to save them, it will not be lost, for you belong to God, who can raise the dead.

To be clear: I am not saying that you should ‘accept your lot in life,’ however unjust the distribution of resources has been. I am not suggesting that you should ‘know – and remain in – your place,’ in the unjust structures of society, where humans inflict great suffering on other humans because they believe life to be a competition, in which we fear that any gain for ‘them’ must mean less for ‘us.’ Such an interpretation of Jesus’ words would be thinking in human ways that are set against God’s good will.

Such an interpretation multiplies the tears of the world that God will tenderly wipe away when every wrong is made right.

What I am saying is this: that God knows you by name. That God, who goes by many aliases –

God Almighty;
the God who Sees;
the Lord who Heals;
the Lord will Provide;
the Lord our Righteousness;
the Lord my Banner;
the Lord of Angel Armies;
the Lord is Present;
the Lord my Shepherd;
the Lord my Rock;
and more besides –

that God says to each one of us, ‘Walk with me, walk close with me, that I may be all you need in any given moment, that I might bring you to a place of blessing, that you may be a blessing to others.’

And over time, that will change you; you will grow; your voice will change – whether your dialect changes or not; you will become less who the world tells you that you should be, and more fully whom God has made you to be. And however long you live, it doesn’t come to an end. And however long we live, we don’t get to see the full story. But we get to play our part, a part no one else in all the universe can play for us – or play at all, if we refuse.

You don’t have to be a superhero. In fact, that would get in the way. God invites us to lay down our armour and our weapons and slow our pace to a walk with a friend. This Lent, may we rediscover the sheer relief of that grace.

 

First Sunday of Lent 2024

 

Lectionary readings: Genesis 9.8-17 and Mark 1.9-15

And so, we find ourselves, again, in the season of Lent, and I wonder what you make of this annual pilgrimage into the wilderness?

As an author, Mark has a sparse style. Every word counts. Every word is good news.

A voice from heaven tells Jesus, ‘You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ And immediately, the Holy Spirit banishes Jesus to the wilderness, to the place far away from distractions. Not as a punishment, but as the gift of a loving parent who knows what we need. This is the invitation of Lent, to get away from the hustle and bustle, from the demands on our lives, to draw breath, to simply be. That is where we discover who we really are – and that who we really are is deeply loved and affirmed by God. We may not be able to take forty days away from those demands, but we can seek to make such space day by day, throughout these forty days.

In the wilderness, Jesus’ character is revealed, as he is tested, as he faces up to the voice of accusation. And in the wilderness, he finds himself with the wild creatures, and ministered to by angels. We join him there. For we are wild creatures, created in the image of the free Spirit, who has joined themselves by covenant with every creature. Wild animals are often timid or cautious and sometimes aggressive when not valued for who they are. We are invited to face down the voice that tells us we must be a good girl, seen and not heard, following the rules, domesticated, if we are really to know God’s approval. God works to bring creation from chaos to harmony, but harmony is glorious freedom, not anxious adherence.

And ministered to by angels. We are invited to face down the voice that tells us that we must be self-sufficient, must serve others – more important than us, or less-fortunate – but deflect those who would minister to our needs, would share our burdens. Jesus, who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, nonetheless received the care of others. Mark doesn’t get much further into his story before he tells of Simon’s mother-in-law ministering to Jesus and his friends, just as the angels had done (Mark 1.13 and 31).

Over the six weeks of Lent, I am inviting us to study the scriptures together using the BBC tv programme ‘Call the Midwife’ as a lens to explore various themes. As most of you will know, this period drama is about nurse midwives working in London’s East End from the late Fifties and through the Sixties and is centred on a community of Anglican nuns.

As an introduction, I am going to show you a clip from the first series. As you watch, think about how the character Jenny is a wild animal; and think about the ways in which different characters minister to one another – including how the nuns minister to one another by stepping away from the 24/7 demands of community nursing and midwifery, to pray seven times each day, so that whoever is on call at any time during the day or the night knows that they are supported in prayer.

Watch clip [series 1, episode 3, 50:00-57.12].

We are wild animals, with Jesus in the wilderness. With him, we are ministered-to.

When Jesus returns from the wilderness, he proclaims, ‘This is the perfect moment; God is right here; change your mind about how you live, and step into this good story.’ May we find this Lent to be the perfect moment, and may it be life to us. Amen.

 

Ash Wednesday 2024

 

The Feast of Booths was one of the three great pilgrim festivals, where everyone who could went up to Jerusalem. One year, Jesus went in secret, knowing there would be people there looking to have him killed. For the first couple of days of the week-long festival, he kept a low profile, getting a feel for the mood. At some point in the middle of the week, he began to engage the crowd in Solomon’s Portico, which was a bit like Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. The clergy kept sending the [equivalent of the] churchwardens to evict him [use churchwardens’ wands as visual aid] but the crowds found him engaging, which made it too awkward.

One of the highlights of the festival was the water ceremony. Each morning during the Feast, the high priest would process to the Pool of Siloam and fill a golden pitcher with ‘living water’ from the spring that fed the pool [use baptismal jug as visual aid]. Then he would process back to the temple, where he would pour the water out into a bowl on the altar. Everybody would join the procession with joyful singing, and shout instructions to the high priest to ensure he didn’t get it wrong. One time, a high priest who didn’t approve of the ceremony, because it was a tradition from the Oral Law and not the written Law, deliberately spilled the water on the ground, and the crowd pelted him with lemons. [Fortunately, you used your lemons on your pancakes yesterday, so have none to pelt me with today.]

On the last day of the Feast, Jesus stood up and declared, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Again, the wardens tried and failed to remove him.

But the next day, there he was, back again, still at it. They hatch a hurried plan and bring before him a woman allegedly caught in the very act of committing adultery – you’d think that would take two, but there we are – and ask his judgement. Would he side against the Law given through Moses, which called for death by stoning, or against the Roman governor, who reserved for Rome the right to pass and act on the death penalty?

Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger [bend down, write]. When they kept pressing him, he straightened up and said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he bent down again and continued writing.

Wouldn’t you love to know what he wrote!?

We’re not told; but I think that the accusers, being expertly acquainted with the Law and the Prophets, knew just what he was doing. There’s a passage in the scroll of Jeremiah (chapter 17) that speaks of the sin of Judah, that will cost them their territory; of the deceit of the heart; and where the prophet cries to the Lord to save him from those who refuse to listen and seek to shame him. And in the middle of the passage, we read:

‘O hope of Israel! O Lord! All who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be recorded in the ground, for they have forsaken the fountain of living water, the Lord.’ (Jeremiah 17.13)

“What on earth is he playing at?”

“He’s evoking the prophecy of Jeremiah against us. Naming this woman ‘Judah’ – naming her as ourselves. If we stone her, we will be enacting G-d’s judgement on us all.”

As the prophets do again and again, Jesus deconstructs our understanding of how to live faithful lives according to the Law. Condemnation is cancelled, and the woman is now free to live fully restored within the community of the faithful, a community of hope and healing.

And what of us? Where do we find ourselves in the story?

Perhaps we are scribes and Pharisees. How often do those we consider rejected by God expose the very sin within us that offends the Lord!?

Perhaps we are the woman. Do we believe we have no place at the table? Do we burn with shame, having internalised the message that we are not acceptable?

Perhaps we are called to be Jesus, to one another. To model trust in God and hold out hope.

I’d like to conclude with a poem I wrote this morning:

You have heard it said that you are too little, or too much, to be accepted;
and, taking those words to heart, you have been consumed by their flames.

You have heard it said that you are more deserving than others;
and, internalising that mantra, you have been razed by its fire.

But I say to you, rise up:
by the grace of God
arise from the ashes,
O Phoenix,
dust stirred to life by the kiss of love,
by the breath of God
that gives life to the dead.

You are the phoenix of Christ,
given new beginning in his name.
Neither too little nor too much,
nor deserving nor undeserving,
simply loved to life,
again and again.

Do not fear returning to dust.
Receive this mark upon your head,
a sign of hope, and trust.
And by the grace of God,
arise.

 

First Sunday of Lent 2023

 

Matthew 3.17

‘And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”’

Matthew 4.1-11

‘Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’

‘Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

‘Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”’ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’

 

I wonder what you believe about God?

People tell me what they believe about God all the time. Often, they aren’t aware they are doing it. Often, they are expressing unconscious assumptions: ‘God is angry with pretty much everybody,’ or, ‘God is too busy with important matters to take an interest in me,’ or, ‘If I plead hard enough, God might answer my prayer, even though he probably doesn’t want to, because he knows better and probably finds my prayers foolish…’

These things aren’t true; but we can take lies about God on board and internalize them without realizing it. And so, the Season of Lent is given to us each year as an invitation to notice those lies, and to find them to be false.

 

Here are three commonly held lies about God:

[1] you are not acceptable to God as you are (i.e., God is not pleased with you)

[2] you need to earn God’s approval by your success (i.e., you are not God’s beloved)

[3] God blesses others, but not you (i.e., you are excluded from God’s family)

 

The Season of Lent is an invitation to notice those lies, and to find them, experientially,* to be false. How might we do that? Here are some Lenten disciplines, or practices, to help us:

[1] a stone is not a loaf, and that is just as it should be: slow down; take time to notice, and take pleasure in, the things around you, especially the little things…then take time to expand that circle of wonder at the created world to include you…

[2] heaven delights in you, whether earth notices or not: do something without seeking credit: give away some money: spend time alone with God, away from doing things for God: go for a walk (or a run) together, or to the cinema; take up a paint brush, or knitting needles; try something new, or pick up something that has been crowded out for too long: whatever you choose, envision God there sharing the experience with you.

[3] choose to delight in the ways God has blessed others; if you feel jealousy, or resentment, notice that, confess it, ask Jesus to carry it away. Praise God, the Giver of every good gift; allow a song to well up within you, like a stream in the wilderness: if it helps, play a worship song list to ‘prime the pump’ and get going. As we exercise thankfulness, we become more aware of the ways in which God has blessed us, too.

 

*That is, to discover what we read in Scripture can be true in our experience, too.

 

Ash Wednesday 2023

 

Lectionary texts: Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, and 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10, and Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21.

‘Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain-offering and a drink-offering for the Lord, your God?’ Joel 2:12-14

Joel’s community are devastated. The harvest they depend on has been destroyed by locusts. There are rumours of war, an invasion force massing at the border. Dark days ahead. They are scared, like children; perhaps pretending to be brave, like children. And Joel calls them to (re)turn to God.

Joel reminds them of the time when God revealed to Moses what God is like: gracious and compassionate; slow to anger; abounding in steadfast love.

hannun we-rahum, gracious and compassionate: hannun, from chanan, to show favour; and rahum, compassionate, from the same root as rechem, womb. This God is like a mother, who, moved by a visceral love for the child she carried, acts to help them in their need.

erek appayim, slow to anger, literally, having a long nose, or nostrils. The image is that of breathing in through the nose, when angry; of drawing in breath slowly, taking time. This maternal God gets angry at times, when we mess up, and rightly so; but she doesn’t have a short fuse. She isn’t the kind of mother whose children walk on eggshells, never knowing whether they are going to get nice mam or nasty mam. This God has a tell-tale sign, that drawing in of breath that alerts us to the reality we have a moment, a window of opportunity, to say sorry, when we have pushed her too far in taking her for granted.

hessed, unfailing love, covenant loyalty. This God is committed to us, will always be there for us, whatever we have done, whatever consequences we must live with.

One of the accusations thrown against God is why a loving and powerful being does not intervene to prevent suffering? But we cannot live as if God does not exist, and blame God for the consequences. God is not a maid to tidy up behind us, or a nanny to keep us from harm. But God does intervene, by responding to our cry, our longing, our recognising that we really do want God more than life without God.

The Season of Lent is an invitation to come home, to God, who sees the state we have got ourselves in, envelopes us in strong and loving arms, draws us close and holds us tight, spits on her handkerchief and rubs our grimy forehead with the sign of the cross.

Full disclosure: it isn’t spit, but anointing oil, a sign and symbol of the compassionate grace of God, mixed with the ash of our mortality. And with it, God brings bread and wine, meets all our needs, in Jesus, who draws our suffering into his own, that it may be transformed. For all that hurts or harms us will, in the end, be utterly consumed in the fire of love, until all that remains is a perfectly safe vulnerability, where we are seen, known, and loved, and see, know and love in return.

So come home.

 

Third Sunday of Lent 2022

 

The Gospel passage set for this Third Sunday of Lent (Luke 13:1-9) feels incredibly fresh and current. Jesus receives report of innocent people cut down in a supposedly safe place, murdered while at prayer, on the orders of a political leader. The latest representative of a superpower bullying a small neighbour, a land he sees not as an independent nation but as a province of his own empire; making it clear, your god and your faith cannot save you: in fact, your wrongful beliefs only prevent you from receiving the benevolence of the Pax Romana, the stability ensured by Roman rule.

Why did this happen, the people are left asking? Surely these Galileans must have been unrighteous, their secret sinfulness exposed, for God would not allow the righteous to perish. No, Jesus responds, these were not offenders: this is how politics works. It imposes its benefits, by violence if necessary. And sooner or later, it always finds violence necessary. Put your hope in the power of politics to liberate lives, and in the end, you will be obliterated.

It is the same, Jesus says, with the market. If politics is concerned with violence, the market is concerned with money, at any cost. And here, Jesus reminds them of a tower that had collapsed, after corners had been cut in its construction, to maximise profit. Eighteen innocent people had died when it fell. Not because they were under the judgement of God, but because Mammon is a cruel god. Put your hope in the power of the market to liberate lives, and in the end, you will be obliterated.

And then Jesus told a parable. Of a man who owned a vineyard, and who had planted a fig tree in it. After three fruitless years, he decided to cut his losses and instructed his gardener to cut the tree down: not only was there no harvest of figs, but the tree was taking up space that prevented the soil from being fruitful in some other way. However, the gardener pleads for a stay of execution, while he excavate all around the tree and fill the channel with animal dung and leave it one more year. If then, there was still no fruit, cut down the tree.

This is such a beautiful illustration of repentance or changing our mind because of having been with someone. Consider this dynamic at play between the man and his gardener. The vineyard owner sees no fruit, over not one but three years, and determines that the tree must go. His gardener makes a counterproposal. Perhaps the man does not know much about horticulture; after all, that is what he employs a gardener for. A young tree can take several years to produce fruit, and perhaps the gardener does not expect a harvest for another year. But the gardener does not simply dismiss the vineyard owner’s concern; instead, he sees it as an opportunity, and takes the time to teach him the ways of the garden. The job isn’t done when you have planted the tree, it is only just begun. Fig trees do well when their roots are contained or somewhat restricted, and they need an annual mulch of well-rotted manure, not to mention pinching-out half of the growing tips each summer and pruning dead or weak branches each winter. “Here, sir: let me show you how to dig out a channel all around the roots and pack it round with a wall of manure. And if there is no fruit next year, I’ll show you how to cut down the tree yourself. Full circle, from planting to uprooting.”

And, having been with the gardener, the owner changes his mind. He turns away from the political solution, to go in with summary execution; and from the market solution, to replace something failing with something more profitable. And instead, he embraces patience, which is not to do nothing and hope for a different outcome, but to put in the hard work of partnering with God.

Everything in this parable speaks of interdependence. The owner depends on the gardener, and the gardener on the owner. The tree and the soil and the manure are all connected. Animals eat plants for nutrition, and what they cannot process and absorb is dug back into the ground to be nutrition for plants. Life is interconnected, and interdependent. Life comes from the soil and returns to it again. And parables, likewise, work in this way: we are the man (the adam) who owns the vineyard, and the gardener (the Adam) and the vineyard itself and the fig tree within it. And Jesus is the master storyteller weaving all things and every element together.

Lent is the season of repentance, the annual mulching, the sitting together in the dirt with dust and dung stuck to our foreheads, sweat carving rivulets through the muck, arms aching from honest labour, trusting in a harvest in due course of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Or else we can carry on regardless, business as usual. And a year from now, what will the continuation be?

 

Second Sunday of Lent 2022

 

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

The Season of Lent is a time when we are invited to learn again how to be God’s people, or what it looks like to be fully human within God’s family. And learning involves unlearning, involves putting down burdens we have picked up that we have no business collecting. Burdens such as shame and humiliation.

Shame is what we feel when we feel bad about who we are. That is different from guilt, which is what our conscience feels when we have done something wrong that has impaired our relationships. We address guilt by confession, repentance, penance, and forgiveness: that is by owning up, coming back (to God, and where appropriate—and it is not always appropriate—to the person we have wronged), making amends (where that is possible), and receiving a fresh start (sometimes this must have conditions placed upon it). But shame is something we feel about ourselves, not our actions. Abraham feels shame, because he is unable to produce an heir, unable to give his wife children. There is shame at play, too, in our Gospel reading: we can’t be certain of the motive of the group of Pharisees, but it is likely that some of them wanted to see Jesus safe and felt shame at their powerlessness in face of Herod.

Shame is when we feel that we are not good enough, for others, not good enough to be acceptable to God. And shame can cause us to not have self-compassion, which in turn can stop us from having compassion for others. Shame prevents us from being able to respond to God’s commandment that we love our neighbour as (or in the same way we love) ourselves. And that can lead to actions or inaction that result in guilt. But shame itself is not guilt. It is not addressed through repentance, but through cleansing, through being washed away by the God who, in Jesus, removes his cloak and stoops down to wash our feet.

Another experience, related to shame, is humiliation. Humiliation is what we feel when we are belittled in the presence of others, and for reasons that we believe are unjust. Shame is where we feel that we are unworthy; humiliation is the burning sensation when we feel that we are worthy but discover that others do not think we are. Abraham is humiliated when he lays out a corridor of sacrificed animals as God instructs him, and the birds of prey come down and try to have their fill of the carcasses. Again, in our Gospel reading, it is possible that some of the Pharisees wanted to see Jesus run from Herod, to mock him for being a coward. (It is clear in the Gospels that the Pharisees as a group include those who are for Jesus and those who are against him.) Humiliation is where an awkward teenage boy asks a girl to go to the prom with him, and she not only turns him down, but everyone finds out and laughs at his expense. And humiliation is dangerous. Research shows that the thing high school shooters in the USA have in common is that they had experienced humiliation. Clearly, not everyone who is humiliated turns to violence, but humiliation is very often a key step on that path. That is why the mocking of Mr Trump on social media for having tiny hands, or of Mr Putin for being a closeted gay man, contributes to a spiral of violence against others. And yes, Jesus calls Herod a fox, but that is not humiliation: he is not laughing at or belittling him for being sly, he is calling him out on account of his actions.

Shame and humiliation are both experiences you can likely relate to. And God wants to set you free.

Our other reading today is from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi. In Philippi, Paul had planted a church in the household of the city gaoler after Paul and his mission partner had been beaten in public and imprisoned without trial and then prevented the gaoler from completing suicide when an earthquake compromised the jail and the gaoler mistakenly assumed that his prisoners had escaped. Paul experienced humiliation and the gaoler experienced shame. Now, later, writing under house-arrest in another city, Paul writes:

‘… our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory …’

Now, the term ‘transformation’ refers to a change in form or outward appearance, in how we are perceived, by others as well as by ourselves; and the term ‘conform,’ here, refers (not to an outward uniformity, but) to sharing the same inner, essential identity or nature. An acorn transforms into an oak tree because an acorn conforms to an oak.

We have already thought about humiliation, and Paul contrasts our body of humiliation with Christ’s glorious body. ‘Glory’ refers to the intrinsic, inherent value or positive worth of God’s nature.

He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.

Humiliation is destructive. It is never transformative, in a positive sense, because it does not conform us to God’s glory; for it is not in the nature of God to humiliate anyone. The failure to recognise this is behind so much abuse meted out at the hands of the Church, such as when humiliation has been used by teaching orders of nuns as a tool to (a false, external) conformity among pupils. Instead, God takes on our humiliation, and our shame, and extends glory to us in return. This is what is taking place in the reading from the life of Abraham, where the Lord instructs him to lay out a corridor of blood. From what we can tell, this was the ritual by which two kings entered into a covenant agreement, each standing at either end of the animal sacrifices and passing between them, exchanging places, and returning to their own place again, to symbolise that what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine. God the Creator takes Abraham’s low sperm count and exchanges it for more descendants than the stars of the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.

And in the Gospels, Jesus, tortured, mocked, hung naked on a public execution scaffold as a lesson for others to learn not to step out of place (those who come from Galilee are inferior to those based in Jerusalem) takes up the body of our humiliation into God. And in so doing, the body of humiliation is fundamentally changed from the inside out. For his body is revealed to share in God’s glory, to be, in its essential nature, good and worthy of praise. That transforms how we see the outside, streaked with blood and sweat and faeces, and radiant. As we gaze on this body, the divine presence is made manifest among us: the God who is fully, unashamedly human. And Jesus saves those who hope in him, in precisely this way: as we say when we commit bodies to be cremated, ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our frail bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body, who died, was buried, and rose again for us. To him be glory for ever.’ This eternal life, this life of divine quality, already exists, now. We share in the divine nature that Jesus fully shares: as he is the Son of God, so we, too, are sons and daughters, children, of God.

In him, our bodies are glorious, share in and reflect the nature of God. Our black and our white bodies. Our male and our female, and non-binary, bodies. Our youthful and our elderly bodies. Our LGBTQ and our straight, cis bodies. Our Ukrainian and our Russian bodies. Our body of humiliation, transformed, not by humiliation but by being conformed to the body of his glory. And that changes how we perceive our neighbour when we look upon them, and how we perceive ourselves. God, we need to experience this saving grace in our lives today.

The Season of Lent is a time when we are invited to learn again how to be God’s people, or what it looks like to be fully human within God’s family. If you have been carrying the mire of shame or the burning of humiliation, Jesus comes to cleanse and to heal. To cast out demons, today and tomorrow. If you would like that, if you would like to say yes to that process of transformation—and it is a process—then I would love to pray for you today, and to anoint you with oil of Chrism, the symbol of our sharing in Christ’s glory.

 

First Sunday of Lent 2022

 

Lectionary readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Romans 10:8-13 and Luke 4:1-13.

Jesus is in the wilderness. He has been there for forty days and nights, reading and mediating on the Book of the Law, which we know as Deuteronomy, Moses’ great exposition of the covenant between God and the people of Israel on the eve of their entry into the land God had promised to Abraham’s descendants. Forty days reflecting on the covenant faithfulness that bears the fruit of life, and covenant-breaking infidelity that bears the fruit of death. Savouring the taste of the sweet and the sensation of the bitter on the tongue. And after forty days, he still hungers. He knows that this is nourishment for his understanding and his very being. And after forty days, one of the angels is sent to test him.

The first test is to turn a stone into bread. Jesus passes the test, not by transforming a stone into a loaf, but by reciting Deuteronomy chapter 8, a passage where Moses speaks of how God trained his children in dependence in the wilderness, by feeding them manna from heaven. And once they were settled in a fertile land, they were not to forget, not to allow themselves to be seduced by the idea that the abundant food they enjoyed was somehow no less than they deserved. It remains a vital lesson, for those of us who simply need to say the word and our weekly groceries are delivered at our door.

(It is salutary to see women and children pouring out of Ukraine; to see crowds of people turning up at the central railway station in Berlin to offer strangers room in their homes. We have seen nothing like that in our nation since the evacuation of women and children to the countryside, 1.5 million in the first three days of September 1939, with subsequent waves in 1940. Those who know what it is to be dependent on such provision do not quickly forget. But, eventually, over time, we do.)

Here is a question: How do you turn a stone into bread? The answer: You don’t.

In the New Testament reading set for today, Paul writes to the house churches in Rome that ‘if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Immediately beforehand, he quotes from 2 Esdras (a book found in the Apocrypha, Jewish writings from between our Old and New Testaments; Paul quotes from 2 Esdras often, and here he references chapter 4, which concerns the limits of human knowledge) applying the reference to Jesus (as Paul does when he quotes from the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament).

Paul’s purpose is to highlight the proper place of human beings as those called to live trusting in the wisdom of God and in dependence on the goodness of God. This, Paul proclaims, is for the Gentile peoples as much as for the Jews, and for the Jews as much as for the Gentiles.

How do you turn a stone into bread? You don’t. It is not our efforts, but God alone who changes death—represented by the great stone rolled across Jesus’ tomb—into life—fulfilling Jesus’ claim, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’ (John 6:35). The stone does not become a loaf but is exchanged for a loaf. The gift of life. Will you receive that gift, for the first time or the fortieth (-plus) time, today?

The Extended Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer in the Season of Lent includes these words:

‘…For in these forty days
you lead us into the desert of repentance
that through a pilgrimage of prayer and discipline
we may grow in grace
and learn to be your people once again.
Through fasting, prayer and acts of service
you bring us back to your generous heart.
Through study of your holy word
you open our eyes to your presence in the world
and free our hands to welcome others
into the radiant splendour of your love.’

May it be so. Amen.

 

Ash Wednesday 2022

 

Isaiah 58:1-12 and John 8:1-11

John’s Gospel is quite unlike those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is centred not on Galilee but on Jerusalem, and on Jesus’ participation in the great annual cycle of Jewish pilgrim festivals; on his debates, at those festivals, with his fellow Jews concerning the interpretation of Torah, the Law or instruction for living given to the people by God through Moses. From early on (chapter five, of twenty-one) and recurring throughout, it is made clear that there are those, among his own people, who are so offended by Jesus that they seek to kill him. There is no hiding from this: what they conspire to do in the shadows, Jesus, and John, shine light on. Indeed, there is a clear contrast between light and darkness, day and night, and activities that pertain to one or the other, that runs throughout the gospel. And then there are the signs, by which Jesus reveals his glory; and the ‘I am’ sayings, by which the nature of God is revealed in the person of Jesus, through their perfect union. Jesus is clear and true, like the bright sunshine on a spring day, and we must decide what we will do in light of this.

Picture the scene. It is the day after the seven-day pilgrim festival of Booths. Jesus had attended the festival, arriving late and in secret, beginning to teach in the temple from the middle of the week to its culmination. He has spent the previous night sleeping in the makeshift pilgrim camp on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the temple. This morning, most of the pilgrims are heading home—some have already done so—but Jesus rises early and makes his way across the Kidron Valley and back into the temple as the new day begins. The day before, there had been a botched attempt to arrest him—an unholy alliance of elite Sadducees and populist Pharisees, frustrated by the concerns of the temple police not to incite a riot—followed by a debrief at which Nicodemus, a respected Pharisee and secret disciple of Jesus, insists that the Law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing, for which he is derided.

At least some of this, Jesus would be aware of. And yet he comes into the temple at first light, and everyone else who is also coming into the temple that morning gathers to him, and he sits down—the posture of calm authority—and begins to teach them. Unintimidated, he continues to do the very thing that provokes his enemies. And, again, they seek to disrupt him.

From behind the crowd, the sounds of a woman crying out, men shouting harshly in reply. Others are pushed aside, and a woman flung into the space that has opened in front of Jesus. She has, it is claimed, been caught in the very act of committing adultery. The law of Moses commands that such women be stoned. What does Jesus have to say about that?

It is, of course, a trap. An attempt to provoke moral outrage among the devout assembly of those who turn up at the temple early in the morning on the day after a seven-day festival. An attempt to force Jesus into trying to justify the indefensible, and so to turn the crowd against him, or at least divide them against one another. It is explicitly the opposite of Nicodemus’ stand: there is no evidence to support the headline. No man with whom this woman is alleged to have committed adultery, no hearing. This could be the media and social media of today, demanding our outrage, provoking us to feel morally superior, for we are not sinners, are we?

Notice the wisdom of Jesus. Invited to respond in the heat of the moment, in the absence of evidence, without due consideration, he simply refuses to play their game. Already seated on the ground, he stoops even lower. He does not gaze upon the woman as an object of scandal and titillation. He does not get in the face of his enemies, either. He gives himself space and time to breathe, to consider, to pray. He writes on the ground. And don’t you want to know what he wrote? But we are not told. It is not for us to know. We do not need to know. Our knowledge is always limited. It is not knowledge that will save us, but Jesus.

In his own time, Jesus straightens up—remaining seated—and simply states, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’

Adultery is a serious business. It tears apart the fabric of society. It is not a trivial thing. There is no room in Jesus’ response for the lie that no one gets hurt so long as no one finds out, or that hurt caused another party by the actions of consenting adults is regrettable, but the relationship was clearly already doomed so finding out now rather than later is, if anything, a mercy. The law of Moses is clear on adultery—even if Jesus’ enemies are playing fast and loose with it here. If this woman is guilty of adultery, it is best that you get on with it and stone her. There is a foreshadowing here of Jesus’ own death, of his words to his betraying friend, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do’ (John 13:27).

On the other hand, if this woman is innocent of the charge against her, a threatened pawn to bait a trap, which of you wants to throw the first stone, to be the one responsible for shedding innocent blood? It is a matter of nerve, of who will back down first. The way forward, that brings us to the father-heart of God, or the path of destruction. The truth, or a lie. Life, or death. And one by one the accusers go away, beginning with the elders, with those who have known suffering, those whose hubris is modified by some awareness, at least, of the distance between themselves and God and their neighbour, and of the pain that results. Eventually, even the young guns back down. And Jesus, who has shown the woman the dignity of not gazing on her, shows these men—his enemies—the same dignity. He takes no delight in their humiliation, only in the truth. And so, his question is genuine: ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir.’ she replies, and Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Not, do not commit adultery again, for this is never established. But do not sin again, for each one of us has fallen short in one way or another. Go your own way, and from now on do not sin again. Not someone else’s way, not avoiding someone else’s sin. It is your own sin that you must turn away from. Then again, being shown dignity and the removal of condemnation, Jesus believes that the woman can do this thing, can go on her way, and not sin again. Can choose to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself—and can know what it is to be empowered to live this way. Jesus believes that this is possible, indeed imperative, for this woman. For me. For you. As Isaiah puts it,

‘Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.’ (Isaiah 58:9-12)

Moral outrage feels good, in the moment. It does not last, which is why it must be endlessly stoked, against new victims, whether innocent or guilty. It feels good to be part of a tribe, who will stroke our ego and affirm us—until the moment that they turn on us. And yet, in denying the truth about ourselves, as much as the person or people in the target of our gaze, moral outrage dehumanises us all. In hiding ourselves for fear of being seen, the shame of being seen for who we really are and derided for it, we refuse the gift of the breath of life, and disintegrate. Flesh returning to dust, before our time. Hearts turning to stone. Moral outrage allows us to feel superior, even as we stand by and allow others to be robbed of life.

We can learn from Jesus, make the choice to act rather than react, to uphold truth, even to love our enemies as much as those we hold near to our hearts. But more than that, we must come to him, as those who believe that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we possess life in his name. The kind of life that rebuilds ruins, repairs breaches in protective walls, restores streets people can live in—communities people want to be part of. The kind of life our sisters and brothers in Ukraine and Russia and around the world are praying and working for, blessed be the peacemakers.

This Lent we are invited once again to come and receive the imposition of ashes, the outward reminder of our dustiness, of our frail and beloved nature, potentially fruitful, potentially bringing forth weeds and briars, one with all humanity, reconciled to God by and with and in Jesus. We are invited to ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’ And then we are invited to go our way, free of condemnation, confident in God’s salvation, whatever may become of us, even should we die. Sent out, as signs of Jesus’ glory, bearers in our bodies of the good news.

It is early in the morning. The night, though dark, is passing. It cannot resist the light.

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent 2021

 

‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.’

Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

‘Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.

‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.’

John 12:20-33

Question: do you long for people to know God? to come into a relationship with Jesus?

Perhaps you do, but you just don’t know how that might happen. After all, most of our neighbours have better things to do with their Sunday mornings than to gather in this place. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe it has never crossed your mind that you should. After all, faith is a very personal thing; God might not be everyone’s thing, and even for those who do believe in a god or gods, Jesus might not be their cup of tea, or salvation. Or perhaps you yourself are still searching, longing for more of God, of Jesus, in your life? After all, the world we knew has been violently shaken of late, from Brexit to Coronavirus to BLM to the storming of the US Capitol, calling into question all manner of beliefs and assumptions about how we order our world.

In our Gospel reading we meet some Greeks, who had come to the Passover festival in Jerusalem. To the memorial of the triumph of the Jewish god over the gods of ancient Egypt. On the surface, nothing to do with Greeks. But here they were, spiritual seekers, for whom the values and answers to life’s big questions they were raised within no longer satisfied, no longer scratched where they itched. So here they are, in Jerusalem, quite likely somewhat overwhelmed by the crowds of pilgrims.

And somewhere in that crowd, they happen to meet Philip. They discover that they have something in common: he has a Greek name. Perhaps he has a Greek parent, or his parents admired Greek culture; we don’t know. But there is a connection, perhaps a pre-existing connection. And they ask him a question: ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ It seems strangely polite, very formal. Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to request…

That word ‘sir.’ The Greek is kyrie, Lord. Lord, we wish to see Jesus. Lord is the title by which Jesus himself is addressed. Lord, we wish to see Jesus. That word ‘see.’ The Greek word conveys the sense, we wish to experience for ourselves.

In other words, when they see Philip, they see Jesus…and want to experience Jesus for themselves.

When they see Philip, they see Jesus…and want to experience Jesus for themselves.

Question: what aspect of Jesus do people see in you; in me? and, how do we bring them to experience that for themselves?

Perhaps people see Jesus, when they see me, in how I walk into the unknown or scary future, unafraid. In how we carry ourselves in the light of that diagnosis, or unwelcome change in circumstance. Perhaps they see Jesus in my commitment to justice, for the most marginalised, ignored, silenced. Perhaps they see Jesus in the way I bring good news, not naïve optimism but encouragement, counter to the seeming addiction to bad news. Perhaps they see Jesus in my being a loving presence in their lives. Perhaps they see Jesus in the way I invest what I have learned in the lives of others.

For any one of us, they won’t see all there is to see of Jesus in us alone—that takes a community, a church. And some people will see nothing of Jesus in me, with which they connect, but might see something in you. Again, it takes a community: that is why Philip went to Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went to Jesus. But there will be someone, or some several people, who see something of Jesus in my life, and in your life, at the very time and place they themselves are going through some moment of crisis and opportunity.

And if we have any longing to see that happen, or if we want to grow that longing, whether for the very first time or because we knew it in the past but it has grown cold, if we long to see people move from seeing Jesus in us to experiencing Jesus for themselves, we do well to join with Jesus’ own prayer, ‘Father, glorify your name,’ Father, glorify your name in and through my life today, in and through my trials and sufferings.

Father, glorify your name, in whatever hour you have brought me to. That is a soul-troubling prayer: one that stirs us where our hearts have grown cold, towards God, towards our neighbour; where our minds have turned inward; where our strength has run dry. ‘Father, glorify your name’ is a prayer that will always be answered, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’

How do we bring those people into that personal experience of Jesus for themselves? First and fore-most by connecting them to other followers and friends of Jesus, both those we know personally and the stories of our sisters and brothers down the centuries and around the globe. Introducing friends to friends. We do not need to wait until we think we have all the answers to life’s questions, or have triumphed over our sufferings. God has chosen to glorify his name and draw people to Jesus through simple, trusting, faithfulness.

But don’t assume that personal experience of Jesus will look the same, for them, as it has done for you. Philip had three years of being one of Jesus’ disciples in Galilee and Judea that the Greeks who arrive days before his death, burial, and resurrection would never have. Theirs would be, instead, a man dying an unimaginable death, and a Pentecost experience of the Holy Spirit poured out. Even Philip and Andrew’s relationship with Jesus would look entirely different to what they had known and loved, just days from then. As we emerge from the tomb of coronavirus lockdown, God’s intention is that everything is transformed, not superficially, not simply business-as-usual on-site but now also available on-line, but as fundamental a transformation as the grain that dies in order to bear much fruit.

That is where Jesus is heading, whether we come along or not. But there are Greeks wishing to see Jesus. Will you pray for them? Father, glorify your name.

 

Third Sunday of Lent 2021

 

Third Sunday of Lent 2021

 

‘For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

 

‘The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

John 2:13-22

 

 

In our Gospel reading today, we find Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. The temple Jesus knew was not so much a building as a complex made up of successive spaces, a journey into God’s presence. The outermost space was known as the Court of the Gentiles, a space open to anyone. A place for enquirers to draw near, to pray to the god they had heard of but had not been raised to know. But at pain of death, gentiles were not permitted beyond a partition wall. Only Jews could enter the middle court, or Court of the Women, a large space that was home for various activities, including: the temple treasury; storerooms for essential supplies; provision for the fulfilling of vows made to God; provision for lepers—usually excluded from society—to draw near to God; the public reading of scripture; and activities relating to certain festivals. Beyond again was the Court of Israel, a space open to Jewish males and itself part of the Court of the Priests, where the round of ritual sacrifices was made. At the heart of the Court of the Priests was the Sanctuary building, itself a succession of spaces from vestibule to Holy place to the Holy of Holies, a space where only the High Priest could go, and then only once a year.

These successive spaces were not, exactly, mandated by scripture, so much as a cultural interpretation and application of the instructions found in scripture for approaching God. We have our own architecture: our narthex and our baptistry; our nave and our chancel, the chancel itself sub-divided by the altar rail; our sacristy and our Lady Chapel. We have our own flow through spaces, public and private, from birth to death, from earth to heaven and back again, sent out into the world to proclaim the good news afresh in every generation. Each space has its place and its purpose, and we note the disruption of the pandemic: most of the chairs have been cleared out from the nave, their temporary home blocking-off the baptistry; the Lady Chapel, a space so meaningful to so many of us, has been out-of-bounds for a year now. These spaces work for us, and we have had to find ways to ‘make do,’ such as my relocation from the high altar to the chancel step…

And in our reading this morning, Jesus is in the Court of the Gentiles, a space provided for the outsiders to pray. But this space has become a permanent market, where goods and services are exchanged. Here you could enquire as to what animal you needed for a particular offering, and then buy the animal, certified unblemished, addressing all of the risk of bringing your sacrifice with you. But first, you needed to exchange your money. The universal Roman currency was not acceptable to the temple authorities, due to its low silver content. But the Romans did not permit the Jews to mint their own coins; so, the temple authorities had secured an arrangement by which they could use Tyrian coins, which had a high silver content, but which bore the image of the Canaanite god Baal, or Beelzebub. I guess you choose which hill you are prepared to die on, and which compromise you are prepared to live with. Money changers, animal wranglers; in this market you could also buy tours of the temple complex (various levels of access), and souvenirs to enable you to take the encounter with God home with you—with proceeds going towards running costs. None of these things are bad things. Indeed, the system worked acceptably well enough for those for whom it worked; but it did so at a cost. And the largest cost was borne by outsiders who wanted to come and take part, by those who were not part of the congregation of Israel, who were forced to fit in where they could, and be grateful.

In the other Gospel accounts, Jesus disrupts this space at the very end of his ministry; but in John’s Gospel, he does so at the very outset. His first public act is to disrupt the status quo. He ‘causes a scene,’ behaving in such a way that demands the social contract of Acceptable Behaviour in a Given Setting be restored: I can almost see the veins throbbing in the necks of those looking on, apoplectic. And I wonder, how would Jesus kick off, make a scene, in this place? What ways of doing things, that work for us, make it hard for those who are beyond the congregation to draw near to God, in this place? What, for that matter, distracts us from hearing Jesus speak, and responding with faithful obedience?

The past year has been extremely disruptive to our patterns of worship. It might even feel like we have been driven out, that all the familiar tables, the patterns and structures that help us approach God with confidence, have been tipped over. Coming back into this space, and finding it not the familiar space we long for, may be less than comforting. And yet, in all this, Jesus comes to us with both invitation and challenge. The invitation is no less than to see his body raised up in God’s new beginning, the resurrection life of the Church. The challenge is that we will need to let go of our preconceptions, and die to a past that was beautiful in its time. Now is not a moment to restore things just as they were, but to recognise Jesus in our midst—the one in whom the partition wall between Jew and Gentile, between insiders and outsiders, has been torn down. Now is the time to take up our cross and die to self, to embrace the foolishness and the weakness of God—stumbling-block though that is to those of us who are ‘the new Israel.’

Perhaps, with the best will in the world, we overcomplicate it all. Perhaps we just need to throw the doors open, and invite everyone we meet to come in; not offering answers to life’s unanswerable questions, but room within the mystery of divine love.