Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Lectionary epistle: 1 Timothy 2:1-7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘So help me God.’

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

His proclamation is this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Trinity 2022

 

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Wisdom is the overflow of God’s nature. Of that overflow, all creation springs into being, and is empowered to exist in harmony, without God’s nature being in any way diminished. And this giving-away, and its fruit, delights God. For humans to seek wisdom is not to gather and possess abstract knowledge, but to be known and to know, to respond to delight with joy, to join in rejoicing in God’s inhabited world—inhabited by every living creature—and to delight in the human race. Any learning that causes us to look down on others, or envy others, is not wisdom but to be schooled by folly.

Today, as every day, is an invitation to enter more fully into a relationship with God, our neighbour, and indeed our self-understanding, that is defined by rejoicing and delighting. By breath-taking joy, found as we look in the face of the other. This is not to deny the sorrows of life, or the wounds inflicted by folly, but to triumph over despair. To tread lightly, and in awe and wonder.

People are amazing, and what they are doing all around us today makes this world liveable, as God intended. And if you are not sure that you are amazing, all that you need to (be) know(n) is available to you, a gift given to you by God, along with the Holy Spirit. So, what aspects of human nature or endeavour are giving you joy and delight today?

For me, and my family, Jo and I have been working in our garden, trying to bring order and beauty to something that has been neglected for some time. We are no experts, but we’re learning. With our son, our last remaining child living at home fulltime, we’ve been enjoying some great tv series, displaying a vast array of skills, enormous crews of people working together to tell a story to the best of their ability. Last weekend, we joined with many others in enjoying the concert for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, everyone invited to a party, to lift our spirits.

Think of that song that never fails to put a smile on your face when it comes on the radio. Or that feat of incredible engineering, or stunning architecture, that you find yourself compelled to stop and admire, and enjoy. To delight in.

Yesterday, I was at Sunderland Pride. There was a real festival atmosphere down at Sunniside, full of joy and delight, in being human in humanity’s diversity. The Minster had a stall, giving away button badges and key rings and lollipops, reminding people that God loves them, hearing their stories, receiving their hopes and their anxieties and promising to hold them before God in prayer. Most of the people I spoke with were my children’s generation. Some from homes that had made them feel judged and rejected; some there with parents who made them feel loved. And over all the vulnerable emerging works of creation—human beings made in the image of God; and works in progress—the Spirit of God was hovering, watching, delighting, desiring to lead them into all wisdom, to know themselves and to know the God who is fully revealed in Jesus, in whom heaven and earth dwell together in harmony. What might these young people do, as they offer their lives to the world?

Perhaps the greatest folly of the past three hundred years has been the false dichotomy of the sacred and the secular. Secular refers to any human activity, however mundane, occurring within time and space. Sacred refers to the claim that God is connected to, and takes interest in, anything, everything. We’ve swallowed the lie that God is only interested in our turning up to church on a Sunday morning; or that what matters is the life beyond this one. The revelation of Wisdom held out to us in Proverbs is that every secular activity is a sacred activity. That every human activity in this world is meant to be a joyful partnership with the God who is fully revealed in the joiner—the master housebuilder—of Nazareth.

What will Jesus and you delight in together today?

 

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.

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.