Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Sixth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: Ephesians 1:3-14 and Mark 6:14-29

 

The Herodian dynasty was incredibly complicated, and extremely murky. On the death of Rome’s vassal king Herod ‘the Great’ in 4 BC, his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, and his only sister. Herod Archaelus—son of Herod the Great and his fourth wife, Malthace—became Ethnarch of Judea; but he was so poor a ruler that the Romans deposed him in AD 6, sending him off into exile in Gaul and turning Judea into a Roman province overseen by a Roman governor. Herod the Great’s sister, Salome I, became Tetrarch of Jamnia, Azotus and Phasaelis, until her death in AD 10, when her territory was folded-into direct Roman rule. Herod Antipas—the full brother to Herod Archaelus—became Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, where he ruled until he was sent into exile in Spain in AD 39 by Emperor Caligula. Philip—the son of Herod the Great and his fifth wife, Cleopatra of Jerusalem; half-brother to Archaelus and Antipas—became Tetrarch of Gaulantis, Batanaea, Trachonitis and Auranitis, lasting until his death in AD 34.

It is Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, who we find in our Gospel reading today. He had married Phasaelis, daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea (yes, Phasaelis is the same name as part of Salome I’s territory, a name given in honour of Phasael, a brother of Salome and Herod the Great—their mother being a Nabatean). But later, while on a trip to Rome where he stayed with his half-brother Herod II—son of Herod the Great and his third wife, Mariamne II (in his Gospel, Mark wrongly names Herod II as Philip)—Antipas fell in love with Herodias, the wife of Herod II—and granddaughter of Herod the Great and his second wife, Mariamne I. Herod the Great had executed his second wife, Mariamne I, and their two sons Alexander and Aristobulus IV for allegedly conspiring to murder him. Aristobulus IV was Herodias’ father, and his death left her an orphan while still a minor. Herod the Great engaged her to her half-uncle, Herod II. This displeased Herod the Great’s eldest son, Antipater II, son of Herod’s first wife, Doris; Doris and Antipater having been exiled when Herod married Mariamne but recalled when Mariamne and her two sons were executed. Therefore, Herod demoted Herod II to second in succession, behind a restored Antipater; only to have Antipater executed soon after, for allegedly plotting to poison his father; moving Herod II briefly back to the front of the succession line; only to write him out of his will, just days before Herod’s death, on account of Herod II’s mother, Mariamne II, having known about the poison plot of Antipater, son of Doris, and yet not having brought it to her husband’s attention. Fortunately for Herod II, he had been living in Rome, and in this way avoided his father’s tendency to have his sons executed.

Herodias, last seen married-off to her half-uncle Herod II, divorced her husband in order to marry her other half-uncle, Herod Antipas. And he had to divorce his own wife, Phasaelis, an act that provoked his father-in-law, King Aretas IV of Nabatea, to declare war—a war that Herod lost, despite dragging in his Roman allies. But first, Aretas had to secure the safe return of his daughter, the exchange taking place at the frontier fortress of Machaerus. According to the historian Josephus, it was also here, on the border of their two territories, that Herod flexed his muscles by hosting himself a birthday party—it would have made more sense to host such a party, for Galilean dignitaries, at his capital, Tiberias—a party at which his step-daughter, Salome (named for her great-great-aunt) (this Salome would later be married to her step-father’s half-brother, Philip—from where Mark’s confusion might arise) performed seductively, and in return he promised her anything, up to half his kingdom (though, technically, it wasn’t a kingdom). And her mother, Herodias, who herself witnessed the execution of her father and uncle and grandmother as a young girl, calls for more blood, the head of John the baptizer, an influential figure vocal in his disapproval of her second marriage.

John was no fool in warning Antipas against this relationship. Eventually his patron, the Emperor Tiberius (for whom he had named his Galilean capital, Tiberias), died in suspicious circumstances, to be replaced by Caligula. Caligula was an old friend of Antipas’ nephew, Herodias’ brother Herod Agrippa, and Agrippa made a land-grab move against Antipas, resulting in Antipas and Herodias being sent into exile in Spain.

I did warn you that it was incredibly complicated, and extremely murky. What contrast, our reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus! Listen again:

‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.’ (Ephesians 1:3-14)

These short verses are full of Father God’s plan that we should have an inheritance as adopted children within the kingdom of heaven, bestowed upon us in love. Not calling for our blood, where we have betrayed God, but bringing about our redemption even through the undoing, the transformation, of human violence through the power of forgiveness. A will—an intention set out, and to be honoured—that will not be re-written, but that is for the fullness of time; not dividing a kingdom into lesser authority but gathering up the entire cosmos in Jesus. Not a paranoid, filicidal ruler; but a wise, generous king who establishes a people, and gives them not what they ask—up to half of his kingdom—but more than we could ask or imagine, the Holy Spirit, God’s active life-bringing presence in the world. Mystery made known!

David, in our reading from the Old Testament (2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19) saw it from a long way off and rejoiced. John ushered it in, and even ushering him out (Mark 6:14-29), the Herodians could not hold it back. If you are a Christian—if you turn to Christ as Saviour and submit your life to him as Lord—then this adoption as a child of God is the foundation of your identity, on which all other constituent parts—gender, sexuality, relationship status, ethnicity, nationality, education, vocation—indeed, every other facet—either rise or fall. It is foundational, from before the foundation of the world. This status—recipients of grace—is not something we have to defend against others, nor scheme to secure. It is freely bestowed, in accordance with divine good pleasure, with the delight the Father has in his children. It is a sharing of blessing, from the Father to the children and the children to the Father, blessing that characterises heaven, and transforms earth as it is in heaven. What a contrast, with the way of the world, the self-serving way exemplified by Herod but entirely recognisable today. In God’s mercy, may we resist such distortion of our souls, to the end of our days; and, instead, participate in God’s boundless love, to the praise of his glory.

 

Fifth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Fifth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 and 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13

This week, the governing body of the Methodist Church voted to permit same-sex marriages, by 254 in favour with 46 against. The legislation comes out of many years of at times painful conversation, and includes provision, through a freedom-of-conscience clause, for those ministers who oppose the move. But, of course, the conversation is not ended: such conversations must continue if covenant relationship is to be sustained; and some Methodists may choose to leave instead of continuing on together. And, of course, this wide-ranging conversation is one that the Church, in all her denominations and traditions, is needing to have; and an ongoing conversation in the Church of England.

This summer, and over the autumn, we are responding to the request of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, that we engage with Living in Love and Faith: Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage. We shall really get into it in the early autumn, with the help of the Living in Love and Faith course; but the most significant thing of this teaching and learning is that it is built around listening to one another, and together discerning what the Spirit of God is saying to the Bride of Christ, the Church. Not top-down—though it is a facilitated process—but in the midst. And as we reflect on our readings this week, I hope to draw out some principles concerning learning together.

Our reading from the Old Testament is a record of David becoming king, after the death of Saul. This was by no means a given, no fait accompli. There were certainly different camps, and undoubtedly those who wanted to see which way the wind would blow and then want to make sure they were seen in step with the direction of travel. And yet, in a time of existential crisis, all the tribes come together, and recognise that the Lord has made David the shepherd of his people, and that they were David’s flesh and bone. For us, as the Church, we believe that Jesus, the descendent of David, is our shepherd and our king; and that we, the Church, who share in his flesh and his blood, are the very mystical body of our Christ, our deliverer. There is both something unique about the one around whom we gather, and something participatory about the experience. As we gather to discern the nature of the rule of Jesus over our shared lives, we, also, should expect such discernment to be corporate, speaking and listening together.

And then, a small detail: when David occupied the Jebusite stronghold to create his new capital, he built from the Millo inwards. The Millo, archaeologists suggest, is a large, stepped stone structure, on which a massive royal palace was built. The Millo, then, is an outward sign of an inward grace: for, as the body of Christ comes together, the rule of Christ is extended in, and through, our lives.

Our reading from the Gospel parallels this. At the start, Jesus is teaching, with his disciples gathered to him. His neighbours ask, ‘From where does this man get his authority? We know his people; they’re just ordinary people. This man is a carpenter, not a rabbi, not a miracle-worker.’ And, indeed, in the face of their unbelief, Jesus was limited in what he was able to do. He moves on, moves beyond the familiar; and he sends out the twelve, his followers, giving them authority to do the things that Jesus has been doing. The mind of Christ, the mission of God through Jesus, dispersed. They are to go in vulnerability, and they should expect to experience both welcome and rejection.

Where they experience welcome, they are to stay, as a liberating, healing presence. Where they experience rejection, they are to keep moving on, shaking the dust off their feet. In biblical imagination, human beings are dust, stirred-up, animated by the wind of God’s breath or Spirit. Jesus says to his disciples, act this out: stir up the dust with your feet, then let it settle; let them know, the Spirit came to animate you, but you have chosen the stillness of death instead.

Nonetheless, the kingdom of God is extended, as the followers of Jesus step out in faith and exercise their delegated authority, calling for repentance, a change of direction in step with God’s will. Discerning the way forward together, on the way, together. Enabling freedom for those who are demonised, and therapeutic healing for those who have endured long-term malaise.

In our New Testament reading, from the Corinthian correspondence, Paul takes us on a little further. The context is that some other followers of Jesus are discrediting Paul’s teaching, and indeed his character, to his friends. It is something that he clearly found painful. He wrestled with getting caught up in arguments with them, over personal experience; and seems to come down on holding personal experience as important, for sustaining one’s own relationship with God, without placing too much weight on it. Indeed, Paul implies, that disagreement is used by God to curb our own excesses.

Three times, Paul says, he asked Jesus to remove the thorn in his flesh. This is often taken to refer to a physical ailment, but it seems to me more likely to be a reference to Numbers 33:55 (‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they shall trouble you in the land where you are settling.’) and Joshua 23:13 (‘know assuredly that the Lord your God will not continue to drive out these nations before you; but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a scourge on your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.’) In other words, ‘God, please remove from me this group who follow me around, undermining the work I believe that you have called me to!’ But the Lord answered Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’

How, then, might this help us learn together, concerning matters on which we might disagree—perhaps passionately? Firstly, our personal experience matters, but more for our own sake than as a weapon with which to win an argument. We should share our experience with humility, and hear the experiences of other people with wonder at the mystery of our union with God, which is in Christ. We should seek to know one another as ‘a person in Christ.’ Including those who see things very differently. For all we know, these persons in Christ are given to us, a person in Christ, because we need one another, because the truth is not in my ‘me’ or in their ‘me’ but holds us. For all we know, one size does not fit all, and the discernment we seek is of a platform large enough to extend the royal palace of heaven, to draw us inwards, deeper into the divine mystery.

That vision does not remove us from discomfort, but holds us in the place of weakness—even torment, at times—a sufficient grace, for me, for you, for each one of us, in which vulnerability the power of God to transform all is made perfect. In learning together, we are not seeking the right answer, but the shepherd-king, the carpenter-prophet, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, whom we thought we knew, but had failed to honour.

As we commit to learning together, let us commit to doing so to the best of our ability, listening attentively, and choosing to honour one another, that we might grow together into the fulness of Christ, in love, and peace, and joy, and wisdom. And when the dust settles, may it signify a welcome rest on our pilgrimage, not the departure of God without us. Amen.

 

Fourth Sunday after Trinity 2021, 10.30 a.m. service

Lectionary readings: 2 Corinthians 8:7-24 and Mark 5:21-43

You may recall that I spoke recently about the Church of England’s desire to explore ‘Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage,’ under the banner heading Living in Love and Faith, and that this would inform my preaching over the summer months, and that we would be running the five-session Living in Love and Faith course as a way of considering these issues together. Well, the Prime Minister’s announcement pushing back a full lifting of current Covid-19 restrictions deep into July has meant that we will now have to look to the early autumn to run the course; but the rest still stands. And this morning I want to draw on our texts to consider the complex nature of the quality of our relationships.

I want to begin with the Gospel, where we meet a woman who has bled from her womb for twelve years, not in menstrual cycles, but continuously and without ceasing. Nobody knew why. The physicians did not understand her body. They acted upon her, some perhaps with great sympathy and care, others, perhaps, with coldness; but not least because they acted upon her rather than with her, her investment resulted in no profit, only greater loss. Her condition is not simply physical, but one of social isolation. She is not welcome within the wider community, for fear that they will be contaminated by her presence, that they or their daughters might catch her disease. And after twelve years of unwelcome, this freak is now also penniless. No husband, no children, no prospects. And then, she heard that Jesus was in town. And hearing, she risks everything, pushing her way through the crowd that has come out in welcome—not of her, never for her—to touch the hem of his cloak. That, she knows, is enough for her, to be made well.

What happens next transforms everything. Firstly, we are told that immediately, the ‘fountain of her blood’ was ‘parched.’ That is, her most painful experience, the cause of her rejection by the community, is transformed into a foretelling of, and mystical communion with, Jesus on the cross, the Son of Man and Son of God who cried out “I thirst!” as his blood flowed for the healing of the world. And secondly, we are told, that she ‘came to know,’ ‘in the body’ [that was hers], ‘that she was healed of her affliction.’ The word for ‘body’ is used both for the physical body and for the Church as mystical body of Christ. The word for ‘disease’ is taken from the scourge of leather thongs embedded with pieces of metal used to punish criminals, used to describe the kinds of condition that carry a tortuous level of pain, and public humiliation. In other words, what is revealed to us by and with and in this woman is that healing is (meant) to be found through participation in the life of the Church. When Jesus declares back to the woman what has taken place, he replaces a word for healing with a word for salvation, for being brought into divine safety from the penalty and power of sin. Through her faith—her active trust, even at personal cost, demonstrating great vulnerability—this woman is seen, for who see is, a Daughter of Abraham, a full member of the family, for the first time in many long years. If the Church is not a place of such finding wholeness, whatever else it might be, it is not the Church.

This story is juxtaposed with that of Jairus’ daughter, a little girl of twelve years old, who dies before Jesus can get to her. And the crowd gathered at her home laugh when Jesus says that she is only sleeping. For they know that things are simply the way that they are, and that you cannot change them, however hard and sad that might be, however much you wish it were different—for there is no doubt that there is considerable and deep-felt emotion going on here, commotion, weeping and wailing. And Jesus responds, We’ll see. Life is given back, relationship restored, not a continuation of what was previously, but a transformation for all involved. And this made-new family is constituted around a table, in the sharing of a meal. Again, the Church, hidden in plain sight in the text, as (mistaken) potential custodians of a lost past or (taken) potential witnesses to the inbreaking future.

With all that in mind, I want to turn to Paul’s exhortation to the church in Corinth. The original context is concerned with the raising of financial support for distribution as there was need. And that in itself is a challenge for us today, who, as a congregation, contribute around half of what we have been asked to contribute towards supporting our sisters and brothers in local churches across our Diocese. But our lens over this summer relates to ‘Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage,’ under the banner heading Living in Love and Faith, and there are principles that can be applied.

Firstly, we are neither self-sufficient nor solely self-determining, as an identifiable gathered community or as individuals. It is not what we say about ourselves, the narratives we tell, that matters, so much as how we are experienced by other people in relationship. This is true of those who say, ‘I am generous,’ but do not actually give generously. It is true of those who say, ‘I chose how I will identify, and be identified publicly’—and it is true of those who dismiss those who make such claims. Within the Church, we are invited and challenged to recognise that we find our truest self, and our healed relationship with others, in Jesus, and as part of his broken body.

To this end, we must be open to one another, in as much as we are able, and not accusing one another over the extent to which we are unable. But self-sufficiency and self-determinism are so embedded in us, and we are all less wise, more easily deceived, than we care to acknowledge. This is why our hearts—‘the genuineness of your love’—must be tested, again and again. This is also why our life must be seen, not hidden—open, proved—just as Jesus insisted that the woman who touched his cloak be seen by the crowd, and by his disciples, and that their own assumptions and prejudices also be seen, for what they are, in the light of her faith.

‘All around us we see changing understandings of human identity, changing patterns of relationships and families, changing sexual attitudes and activity. What does it mean for followers of Jesus to walk in love, faith and holiness today?’ (from the Welcome to the Living in Love and Faith course). As proof of our love, and following the self-giving example of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul’s advice to the church in Corinth, let us not only exercise generosity, according to our means, but also administer generosity, according to the needs of different communities, different people. May we be eager for the wellbeing and full participation of others, as Titus was; and may we become known for proclaiming good news.

 

Fourth Sunday after Trinity 2021, 8.00 a.m. service

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 and Mark 5:21-43

You may recall that I spoke recently about the Church of England’s desire to explore ‘Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage,’ under the banner heading Living in Love and Faith, and that this would inform my preaching over the summer months, and that we would be running the five-session Living in Love and Faith course as a way of considering these issues together. Well, the Prime Minister’s announcement pushing back a full lifting of current Covid-19 restrictions deep into July has meant that we will now have to look to the early autumn to run the course; but the rest still stands. And this morning I want to draw on our texts to consider the complex nature of the quality of our relationships.

I want to begin with the Gospel, where we meet a woman who has bled from her womb for twelve years, not in menstrual cycles, but continuously and without ceasing. Nobody knew why. The physicians did not understand her body. They acted upon her, some perhaps with great sympathy and care, others, perhaps, with coldness; but not least because they acted upon her rather than with her, her investment resulted in no profit, only greater loss. Her condition is not simply physical, but one of social isolation. She is not welcome within the wider community, for fear that they will be contaminated by her presence, that they or their daughters might catch her disease. And after twelve years of unwelcome, this freak is now also penniless. No husband, no children, no prospects. And then, she heard that Jesus was in town. And hearing, she risks everything, pushing her way through the crowd that has come out in welcome—not of her, never for her—to touch the hem of his cloak. That, she knows, is enough for her, to be made well.

What happens next transforms everything. Firstly, we are told that immediately, the ‘fountain of her blood’ was ‘parched.’ That is, her most painful experience, the cause of her rejection by the community, is transformed into a foretelling of, and mystical communion with, Jesus on the cross, the Son of Man and Son of God who cried out “I thirst!” as his blood flowed for the healing of the world. And secondly, we are told, that she ‘came to know,’ ‘in the body’ [that was hers], ‘that she was healed of her affliction.’ The word for ‘body’ is used both for the physical body and for the Church as mystical body of Christ. The word for ‘disease’ is taken from the scourge of leather thongs embedded with pieces of metal used to punish criminals, used to describe the kinds of condition that carry a tortuous level of pain, and public humiliation. In other words, what is revealed to us by and with and in this woman is that healing is (meant) to be found through participation in the life of the Church. When Jesus declares back to the woman what has taken place, he replaces a word for healing with a word for salvation, for being brought into divine safety from the penalty and power of sin. Through her faith—her active trust, even at personal cost, demonstrating great vulnerability—this woman is seen, for who see is, a Daughter of Abraham, a full member of the family, for the first time in many long years. If the Church is not a place of such finding wholeness, whatever else it might be, it is not the Church.

This story is juxtaposed with that of Jairus’ daughter, a little girl of twelve years old, who dies before Jesus can get to her. And the crowd gathered at her home laugh when Jesus says that she is only sleeping. For they know that things are simply the way that they are, and that you cannot change them, however hard and sad that might be, however much you wish it were different—for there is no doubt that there is considerable and deep-felt emotion going on here, commotion, weeping and wailing. And Jesus responds, We’ll see. Life is given back, relationship restored, not a continuation of what was previously, but a transformation for all involved. And this made-new family is constituted around a table, in the sharing of a meal. Again, the Church, hidden in plain sight in the text, as (mistaken) potential custodians of a lost past or (taken) potential witnesses to the inbreaking future.

With all of that in mind, I want to turn to David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan, The Song of the Bow (or, possibly, ‘difficult things’: so, the text can be read, ‘He ordered that The Song of the Bow be taught to the people of Judah; it is written in the Book of Jashar’ or ‘He ordered that difficult things be taught to the people of Judah; it is written in the Book of Jashar’ and of course, bow skill requires mastery of a difficult thing, as does lament). Here, also, is a blood-soaked text, women clothed with flowing crimson, and a lost child, a community in mourning. Here, too, are professional mourners ordered to be silent, and a mystery to be handed on. David sings, ‘Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely! In life and in death they were not divided;’ Saul, who sought to kill David, on more than one occasion. Saul and Jonathan, who were all-but-estranged, the father having tried to kill his own son on more than one occasion.

And yet, David is not ashamed to own Saul, as much as his friend Jonathan. Those whom we love, in a variety of ways, give themselves to us, complete with complex family histories. Those of us who help families navigate funerals know just how much diplomacy can be required, how much pain held inside, as much as shared before onlookers. And yet, there is more than diplomacy going on here; there is at least the potential for the relationships between David and Saul and Jonathan to be transformed, in the next world if not in this—and for others to embrace healing before it is too late. Jonathan’s bow and the sword of Saul might yet pierce our hard hearts for good.

David exposes his own heart, his anguish over Jonathan’s death: ‘I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.’ Concerning complex relationships, some have argued that this verse reveals a homoerotic relationship between the two men. I find that unconvincing, and, indeed, unnecessary to the case for affirming same-sex relationships. What I do see in David’s history is the complexity of sexual relationships between men and women; and of friendship—including its limits and its betrayals—between men. As we reflect on the quality of relationships within (or, indeed, outside of) the life of the Church, can we say that we have friendships of the depth and intimacy of that between David and Jonathan? Or do we shy away?

It is, David laments, death that defiles, and scorns a place as well as a people; and love that covers over a multitude of sins, of shortcomings and compromise and even wilful hostility. In the midst of battle, even the mighty end up fallen, no longer anointed by God (words worth heeding before we march into culture wars). But as the mightiest Prince of all, and Lover of our Soul, lay slain, the weapons of war perished! And in teaching this song, there is hope.

So, may we learn to lament, and, through our tears, to see Jesus, to see one another, to see ourselves, anew.

 

Fourth Sunday after Trinity 2020

Sunday 5 July: Fourth Sunday after Trinity 2020

 

Today, we meet from our own homes, from 10.20 a.m. for a 10.30 a.m. start via Zoom meeting ID: 664-485-330. You’ll also need a password code, which you can get from Revd Andrew Dowsett in advance by calling or texting him on 07783-760-012.

 

We greet each other in the Lord’s name

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Lord be with you

and also with you.

 

We confess our sins and are assured of God’s forgiveness

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:

The first commandment is this:

‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your mind,

and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

There is no other commandment greater than these.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

 

God so loved the world

that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ

to save us from our sins,

to be our advocate in heaven,

and to bring us to eternal life.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith,

firmly resolved to keep God’s commandments

and to live in love and peace with all.

Most merciful God,

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

we confess that we have sinned

in thought, word and deed.

We have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.

In your mercy

forgive what we have been,

help us to amend what we are,

and direct what we shall be;

that we may do justly,

love mercy,

and walk humbly with you, our God.

Amen.

 

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.

Amen.

 

The Collect

Gracious father,

by the obedience of Jesus

you brought salvation to our wayward world:

draw us into harmony with your will,

that we may find all things restored in him,

our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen.

 

We proclaim and respond to the word of God

 

Romans 7:15-25a

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

 

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

 

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.

Glory to you, O Lord.

 

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn.”

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

 

At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

 

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

 

Sermon

 

The Creed

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is,

seen and unseen.

 

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,

was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

 

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

 

We pray for the Church and the world

 

We pray for God’s faithfulness to be known in our world.

Faithful God

glorify your name.

 

In a world of change and hope,

of fear and adventure;

faithful God

glorify your name.

In human rebellion and obedience,

in our seeking and our finding;

faithful God

glorify your name.

In the common life of our society,

in prosperity and need;

faithful God

glorify your name.

As your Church proclaims your goodness in

words and action;

faithful God

glorify your name.

Among our friends

and in our homes;

faithful God

glorify your name.

In our times of joy,

in our days of sorrow;

faithful God

glorify your name.

In our strengths and triumphs,

in our weakness and at our death;

faithful God

glorify your name.

In your saints in glory

and on the day of Christ’s coming;

faithful God

glorify your name.

 

Make your ways known upon earth, Lord God,

your saving power among all peoples.

Renew your Church in holiness

and help us to serve you with joy.

Guide the leaders of this and every nation,

that justice may prevail throughout the world.

Let not the needy be forgotten,

nor the hope of the poor be taken away.

Make us instruments of your peace

and let your glory be over all the earth.

 

We depart with God’s blessing

The peace of God,

which passes all understanding,

keep your hearts and minds

in the knowledge and love of God,

and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord;

and the blessing of God almighty,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

be among you and remain with you always.

Amen.

 

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

In the name of Christ. Amen.

 

 

Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England, material from which is included in this service, is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2000.

New Patterns for Worship, material from which is included in this service, is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2002.

Common Worship: Times and Seasons, material from which is included in this service, is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2006.

Sermon for Third Sunday after Trinity 2020

On Thursday evening just gone, I attended a Black Lives Matter vigil in Keel Square. It had been organised at the request of community organisers within the BAME (Black, Asian and Minority-Ethnic) community in Sunderland. I went as their guest, and in response to their invitation to stand in solidarity with them at this time. I went to hear local Black and mixed-heritage speakers share something of their experience of living here, in the city where I live. About 200 people came to a well-organised and peaceful event, maintaining spatial distance, most wearing masks. Many local church leaders were present. As part of the vigil, we were invited to take the knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. A humble, prayerful posture that connects us to Martin Luther King, Jr, and the ongoing civil rights movement; and a length of time that remembers the murder of George Floyd by a police officer who knelt on his neck for that long.

 

Some say that it is humiliating for a White man to take the knee; which causes me to wonder why humbling ourselves should be seen as (is) humiliating by White people, and White men in particular? Some dismiss it is a token gesture, which causes me to ponder the difference between symbolic actions and token actions, and how action can sustain us and empower transformation or sedate us and disempower transformation. Some will undoubtedly dismiss it as ‘woke,’ which makes me wonder why alertness to injustice should be something to vilify people for, and whose interests that serves?

 

There was a small but vocal demonstration protesting the vigil. One man waved a Union flag. Now, to be clear, context is everything. Despite our colonial history, the flag is not inherently racist. Flanking a member of the Cabinet giving the daily Coronavirus briefing, not racist. Flying from public buildings, not racist. Waved at the Olympic Games, not racist. Fluttering as bunting at the village fete, or adorning tea towels and cushions, not racist. But held aloft in protest of a Black Lives Matter vigil, the point being made is, “If you are not White you don’t belong in this country: go back home where your people come from.”

 

Again and again, as Black and mixed-heritage speakers addressed those in the square, the protestors tried to drown out these not-White voices with chants of ‘All Lives Matter’. And yes, all lives do matter. But, again, context is everything. If your first response to Black Lives Matter is not to listen, to hear why it is that such a statement needs to be made; if your response is the paternalistic corrective, All lives matter, then what you are actually saying is, Black people need to get back in their box—and, they need to accept that it is a far better and more comfortable box than it used to be. And if your response is to stand on the pavement and attempt to drown out not-White voices, that reveals a desperate attempt to silence the Other, and, frankly, demonstrates just why we need to insist that Black Lives Matter. For if all lives truly matter, then by definition Black lives matter; and if Black lives matter, then we should listen to them. We should acknowledge the injustice people experience because of who they are, and, with them, seek to address it. And yes, if all lives matter, then White lives matter too; but no one in this nation experiences wearying prejudice on account of being White, just as no one experiences wearying prejudice on account of being ‘able-bodied’ or ‘straight’.

 

How incredibly apposite our readings this Sunday are to the upheavals we are living through! And what a gift to wrestle with these words, and the story they unfold, and our place within it.

 

Paul’s letter to the Christian community in Rome—Romans—was written to be circulated around multiple congregations. Some were predominantly of Jewish background, and others were Gentile-majority churches; and, while they were all Christians, the Jewish believers looked on the Gentile believers, and treated them, as second-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven. This was the issue Paul sought to address. And he did so with brilliant contextual theological reflection, which has often become problematic when read in other contexts.

 

Paul begins his letter by painting as black a picture of the Gentiles as is imaginable. He quickly focuses on sexual practices that, from a Jewish outlook were beyond the pale to the point of being unnatural in their desires and actions. He builds a caricature his Jewish audience would agree with whole-heartedly, until he springs a trap: the respectable Jewish Christians are by nature every bit as separated from God as the Gentiles. Indeed, Paul even ascribes unnatural desire and activity to God, saying that God has cut the Jewish people from the vine of their heritage, has grafted the Gentiles into that vine, and will graft Israel back onto the vine from which he had broken it. Throughout the letter, Paul labours the point that there is one new humanity, and seeks to deconstruct the divisions that exist in the minds of the believers, and to foster the construction of something new and mutually uplifting. A community that will ultimately subvert Roman civilisation not by revolt, but by a better alternative.

 

And in the passage before us today, Paul takes up the imagery of slavery, as an analogy that his audience would be familiar with. Around 90% of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves, owned by a master. This was not necessarily the most abject slavery the world has ever known, but all empires are built on the backs of slaves, on men, women and children seen as property. For the Jews, being a slave—certainly, being a slave to a Gentile—was especially demeaning. Even though they were a nation occupied by a foreign army, and ruled over by the Roman Empire’s local puppet king, they had won for themselves certain exemptions, and rejected the notion of being slaves. On one occasion, a group of Jewish community leaders, confronting Jesus, declared that as a people they had never been slaves to anyone. This is quite extraordinary, given how foundational the story of God liberating his people from over four centuries of slavery in Egypt was to Jewish identity. But then, when we are confronted with our present, we reframe our past to suit.

 

In this passage from Romans 6, Paul employs the language of sin exercising dominion over us, to make us obey those passions within us that separate us from God rather than the desire within us to please God. Paul goes on to state that, according to this analogy, we are all slaves to something, either to impurity or to righteousness. Recognising ourselves as enslaved to God does not imply that God is a tyrant, but that we are not masters of our own destiny. Even if we believed ourselves to be the ones who were free, we were only free in regard to righteousness: that is, our freedom was built on sin, on the breakdown of relationship with God and neighbour. A freedom that, pursued, ends in death, that is, in the very opposite of all that is life-giving in and to and for the world.

 

Paul also points out that the unexamined default of his audience was to present themselves—both personally, and as a deeply interconnected community—to sin as instruments of wickedness. That is, their unexamined way of being in the world was complicit and instrumental in wickedness. Instead, and in marked contrast, they were to present themselves—both personally, and as a deeply interconnected community—to God as instruments of righteousness. That is, by ongoing intentional choices and actions, they were to be instrumental in the mending of the world, the flourishing of human relationships.

 

And while Paul is addressing both Jewish and Gentile believers, the primary challenge in much of this letter is to the Jewish Christians regarding their view of their Gentile sisters and brothers—and, indeed, their overly-inflated view of themselves.

 

All this, as I say, feels very apposite, for a predominantly White Church of England needing to reconsider our relationship to BAME Christians, including Black Majority churches; and for White British Christians needing to relearn our history and its impact on the world as it is today, in terms of the sin of racism. For people needing to de-construct and re-construct our identity. Until and unless we face these things, we will be slaves of sin. We have nothing to lose except our chains.

 

In closing, let me return to our Gospel reading, those short verses from Matthew 10, the church sent out into the world. Jesus calls us to be prophetic—and to connect with other prophetic voices in the community—and to embody justice in our dealings—and to connect with others doing likewise—and not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the task or to dismiss the significance of starting where we are, with even the smallest of actions. It is not enough to not be racist, we must be anti-racist. We are not only set free from something, but also for something. This is a matter of our Father’s kingdom continually breaking into the world, of his will being done on earth as it is in heaven—and of that will being resisted.

 

And perhaps for us the starting-point needs to be that we welcome Jesus come-to-us in the BAME prophets—whether nurses or students or professors or church (and other religious tradition) leaders or asylum seekers—whom he has sent to Sunderland? There is an ongoing work of learning to see people through Jesus’ eyes that needs to be done, of which the recent vigil in Keel Square was a part. It isn’t easy; and we will get it wrong, as the Church has been getting it wrong from the beginning. Yet in the hope that, as from the beginning, God is at work to redeem, I commend it to you.