Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity 2019

Lectionary readings: Genesis 32:22-31 and 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 and Luke 18:1-8

‘...be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage...’

‘Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.’

The whole of torah, of biblical instruction for living, is expressed in the command that we should love the Lord our God with all of our heart (your ability to choose for yourself) and all of our mind (your ability to train thoughts and feelings) and all of our strength (your ability to act on your choices) and all of our soul (your deepest, truest being); and love our neighbour as ourselves. Everything else is commentary. But chief among the commentary is the repeated instruction to care for the widow, the orphan, and the alien living in our midst; the most vulnerable, who lack or risk losing a stake in the outworking of God’s promises.

And so, the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel reading is quite bleak. For here is a widow, who has an opponent; someone who, therefore, opposes the will of God. Moreover, the person appointed and recognised by the community to arbitrate between them is a man who not only does not actively love God or his neighbours; he does not care; indeed, he takes pride in his self-centredness. Note that by virtue of his position he represents an entire community that puts self-interest before justice. Yet this man, who embodies power, is bested by a woman who embodies powerlessness [in the Greek, though lost in translation into English, he is worried that she will give him a (very visible) black-eye]. And yet, Jesus asks, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

Have you ever wrestled with unanswered prayer? With why a God who, it is claimed, is perfect in love and power, stands by in the face of injustice?

Jacob was a wrestler. Before he was born, he wrestled with his twin brother in their mother’s womb. Esau was born first, with Jacob following, grasping his heel. Indeed, the name ‘Jacob’ means, ‘to grasp the heel.’ His whole life was defined by wrestling, with being unable to let go, unable to accept what had been given to him and what had been given to others. He cheated his brother out of the first-born’s birth-right, and ran away. He sets his sights on his cousin, his uncle’s younger daughter; but is cheated by his uncle, and ends up paying for two brides, two sisters drawn into his wrestling. They become opponents; seek to cheat in order to gain the advantage, to get what they want. Rachel is loved, but barren; Leah, unloved, and so God gives her sons. Rachel responds by exploiting one woman, her maid Bilhah, in order to hurt another woman, her sister. When Bilhah bears Jacob a son, Rachel declares, ‘God has judged in my favour, has vindicated me.’ (Really?) When Bilhah bears Jacob a second son, Rachel declares, ‘With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed’ (Genesis 30:1-8). (Does that sound at all familiar?)

Eventually, Jacob has a large family, by four women, and, having cheated his uncle to wrestle great wealth from him, runs away again. He is met by the angels of God, those beings whom he had seen ascending and descending between earth and heaven years earlier, when God had promised to keep him and bring him back; and from there, he hopes to be reconciled with his brother. And on the eve of their reunion, Jacob finds himself alone, and confronted by a stranger. They wrestle all night, until the sun is about to break over the eastern horizon. Then, to break the stalemate, the stranger strikes Jacob’s hip socket with a major blow, and, as he continues to wrestle, the hip joint is dislocated, with permanent damage to muscle, ligaments, and nerves. But still, Jacob will not let go, unless the stranger first blesses him.

Of course, a blessing is a letting go, a setting free to be what you were made to be. Jacob will not let go of the stranger, until the stranger lets go of him. And the stranger’s blessing is a strange one; for he says, You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; no longer ‘the wrestler who grasps the heel,’ but, ‘the wrestler who has wrestled with gods and humans, and has prevailed;’ has shown yourself to be able, to have power. In other words, the new name is not a new identity, but a fulfilment of his identity. Jacob’s wrestling is not over: in many ways, it has only just begun. His greatest challenges lie ahead of him. He’ll still get things wrong, but he’ll never again run away.

What, then, might we say regarding our need to pray always and not to lose heart?

First, that God’s will is resisted and opposed. That is, after all, why Jesus tells us to pray that God’s will should be done on earth as in heaven. Yet, as we pray and wait, we hold on to the truth that God remains on the side of justice until justice is accomplished. As we speak truth to power, we draw on God’s strength. As we refuse to give up in the face of hard-hearted self-interest, our own hearts need to remain soft and warm, and so we must draw on God’s love. And when it feels too hard, and God too distant—as will be our experience many times—we need to stand together; so that the Son of Man—that image of the faithful remnant, the community constituted around Jesus, the Body of Christ—will, together, find faith on earth, alive and active in the world.

Second, sometimes our will is not as fully aligned with God’s will as we like to think. We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. We seek, like Jacob and like Rachel, to bend the world towards us at the centre. Sometimes the wrestling in prayer confronts us with this until we cannot ignore it. Sometimes the wrestling in prayer brings us to a point of breakthrough, where God asks us to let go of whatever vindication we have been holding on to, and where we find ourselves willing to do so if God will only bless us first—and then, at last, God is able to do so, setting us free to be our fulfilled self.

Third, the wrestling makes us able, powerful. Unless we wrestle, we remain unskilled, unable to prevail. But each wrestling match prepares us for the bigger challenges that lie ahead. And, sometimes, redeems the sense of failure, the pain of past defeats. We hear in Genesis that the Lord God made us by breathing life into clay. Sometimes the wrestling is ongoing new creation, the laboured breath of a wrestling god breathed-out into clay being remoulded in his hands. You might look like a little old lady on the outside, but be a mighty warrior in the kingdom of God. But that comes with the discipline of repeated effort—which is why Paul writes to Timothy, start young, get into the habit: wrestle to convince, to rebuke, to encourage, when it is going well and when it isn’t. This is a life-long calling; and often, it is as our outer lives are diminishing that our inner lives break out in power.

As you wrestle for climate and environmental justice, as you wrestle for welfare justice and tax justice, as you wrestle for a future for your children and grandchildren—as you wrestle for God’s kingdom to come on earth as in heaven—let us pray always and not lose heart. Amen!

Sixth Sunday of Easter 2019

Lectionary readings: Acts 16:9-15 and Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 and John 14:23-29

It is good to be with you on this the Sixth and penultimate Sunday of Easter. This coming Thursday is Ascension Day, when we remember Jesus’ return to heaven forty days after his resurrection; and ten days later we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Those in-between days are traditionally a time of gathering together to pray, and in recent years the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have called the Church to a renewal of this observation, under the banner Thy Kingdom Come. And so today I would like us to consider prayer, and what corporate prayer might look like here in this place over these days—and beyond?

Our first reading today, from the Book of Acts, recounts how the gospel first came to Europe. It starts with a vision, given to Paul by God. On the day of Pentecost, Peter had reminded the people of the words of the prophet Joel:

‘in the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.’ (Acts 2:17)

Now, I don’t know if there is an exact distinction, but I take visions to refer to those things God calls us to see come into being in our own time, and dreams to refer to those things we shall not see but will sow the seeds of: as Dr Martin Luther King said, ‘I have a dream…’ But Paul has a vision, and shared it with friends who would help him to act on it. And the first thing they search out is ‘a place of prayer.’ Now, it was Paul’s practice to go first to the local synagogue, to find those rooted in the story of God; and that they were searching for a place of prayer, outside the city gate and by the river, indicates that there was not, at that time, a synagogue in Philippi. And that, in turn, indicates that there was not, living in Philippi, the minimum thirteen Jewish men required to have a synagogue.

And I wonder how often, when we gather to pray, we can raise a minimum of thirteen men? Easily, on a Sunday morning. But at other times? As when the first church in Europe was established under the oversight of Lydia, so, often, it is our women who take the lead in meeting to pray. And while I want to affirm the women in that—unreservedly—I think it worth throwing out the challenge to our menfolk to step up and join in…

Our second reading, from Revelation, depicts the new Jerusalem. And again, it is a vision, not a dream. That is to say, this vision of a place where the gates never shut, where the river of life flows, where the tree of life bears its fruit and its leaves for the healing of the nations, is not primarily a glimpse of a far-distant future beyond the end horizon of history. It is, first and foremost, a vision of the triumph of God over the Roman Empire, and of the church, set free from persecution. It is a vision of what we are called to be. It is a vision of what we are, albeit imperfectly fulfilled. It is a vision—pray God, a vision, not only a dream—of what the church in Iran might soon be, freed from persecution. It is a vision depicted in our east window—a reminder to us of our calling every time we gather together. Gaze upon it: see the energy with which the river of life flows from the altar to the city and our entire wider region, symbolised by the coats-of-arms of the City of Sunderland and the See of Durham. And note the motto of our city: nil desperandum, auspice deo—do not despair; trust in God—or, as Jesus put it, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.”’

But perhaps we have yet to consider, what even is prayer? The former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, said [I paraphrase] that God sends his blessings, like rain, on all the earth; and that prayer is adopting the posture of a bucket, to receive and know we have received blessing and to carry that blessing to others. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, the river of life flows out to all the earth, and prayer is the posture of meeting by the river, of coming near, of being refreshed, perhaps of digging irrigation channels to carry this river—that does not run dry—to others. Like we see Lydia doing. And, as we see with Paul at the very start of or readings today, such a posture is possible even as we sleep. Prayer is a form of whole-of-life orientation. Nonetheless, it will involve gathering together with others to pray.

What might it look like to see that heavenly vision fulfilled in this place? Well, Carol and Adrian are helping us press into 24/7 prayer—gates never shut. We’re pressing into being a place of welcome—and as part of that, attending to safeguarding. We’re called to pray for those who experience the night of sorrow or bereavement; for those who exist but don’t experience the joyful energy of the water of life. We’re called to pray for and respond to those who hunger—spiritually, and physically—and to trust God that his provision will not run out, but bear fruit in regular season. We’re called to pray for the healing of the nations—including our own deeply divided nation—and to minister healing and reconciliation to our city.

And as we seek to live out such a vision of a corporate prayer life, Jesus, in our Gospel reading, gives us three things that should characterise our experience:

the presence of the Holy Spirit with us, as our Advocate and teacher;

the peace of Jesus, that our hearts might not be troubled, even in troubling circumstances;

and joy, that springs from sharing in the love of God.

Who wouldn’t want to be in on such a vision, being made our reality?

Thy Kingdom Come is a call to prayer, and specifically a call to pray for five friends that they, like Lydia and her household, might come to know Jesus. Five friends. Who might you pray for—and speak to—between now and Pentecost?

On Ascension Day—Thursday 30^th May (this year)—we will gather at 7.00 p.m. And then, on the weekdays between then and Pentecost—on the 9^th June—we will gather together for Morning Prayer at 9.00 a.m. and for an hour of prayer at noon. In the evenings, Carol and Adrian will host a time of prayer in their home, from 7.00 p.m. And from the morning of Saturday 8^th June there will be continuous 24hr prayer until our services on the morning of Pentecost. Finally, on the evening of Pentecost we will gather here at the Minster for a time of prayer and worship. So, come and pray, at whatever time and venue you are able. Since God poured out his Spirit at that Pentecost some two-thousand years ago, he has not stopped-up the flow. So, come.

Fifth Sunday of Easter 2017

Acts 7:55-60 and 1 Peter 2:2-10 and John 14:1-14

Six centuries before Jesus’ birth, Jerusalem had been swallowed-up by the Babylonian Empire [centred on modern-day Iraq] and the population eventually taken off into exile. In time, Babylon was swallowed-up by the Persian Empire [centred on modern-day Iran] and the Jews began to return home, in a succession of waves. The Persian Empire was in turn swallowed-up by the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great, which was divided in two upon his death. Under Grecian rule, many Jewish families dispersed around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Some went south, to Egypt. Others spread north, through what today is Turkey. By the time of Jesus’ birth, the Greeks had been swallowed-up by the Roman Empire.

Within thirty years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the good news had spread far and wide. Churches had been established across the Roman provinces that made up what we know as Turkey. Many of the new Christians were of a Jewish background, part of the Jewish Diaspora or dispersal (those carrying the message of good news always went to the Jewish communities first). Others were of Gentile background, from the peoples among whom they had found a new home. At some point in the AD60s, not long before being executed in Rome, Peter wrote a letter that circulated among these ‘exiles of the Dispersion,’ those living as ‘aliens and exiles’. To people far removed from the temple and priests in Jerusalem, he wrote that they were called to be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.

Within a few years – time enough for the letter to become well-established within these communities – the population of Jerusalem had rebelled against Rome, and the Roman army had destroyed the temple [AD70] – just as Jesus had predicted would happen. Now there was no temple in Jerusalem. And that must have changed the context in which this letter was understood. There could be no going back to how things were in the past. Now they really were the house of prayer for all nations.

Two thousand years later, we still read Peter’s words. We do so as a community that includes those who are living in a foreign land as aliens and exiles. But in another sense, this is our common identity. These are not just words on a page. This is the story of our family. This is our story.

And God is still committed to building us into a spiritual house. What might that look like for us, for the church at Sunderland Minster? How might we submit ourselves, enter-into the process? Because if we won’t do that, we may find ourselves like the religiously-motivated crowd who used their stones to bring life to an end.

‘While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed…’ Acts 7:59

‘like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood…’ 1 Peter 2:5

“I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” Jesus, John 14:13, 14

It seems to me that the mechanism by which God will build us, and by which we will allow ourselves to be built, is in our coming together to pray. And we are not good at that. Yes, many of us pray; but as individual stones, lying around here and there. It could not be said of us that we are a spiritual house whose floors and walls and ceilings are constructed of prayer, and continually maintained by prayer.

God has sent us a great many Iranians. Can we imagine coming together to pray for Iran, on a regular basis? To pray, until our brothers and sisters are free to return home without fear, and some of us get to go with them, to visit their homes and meet their loved ones?

As a church community, we have ongoing financial needs. Can we imagine coming together on a regular basis to ask God to provide what is needed?

There are many families who come to us asking that their children be christened. Can we imagine coming together on a regular basis to pray for those families, those children? Can we imagine there being an opportunity of gathered prayer going on in the Minster at the same time as the toddler group, perhaps drawing-in some of the parents or grandparents or at least gathering prayer requests?

Can we imagine a spiritual house being built within the shelter of this physical building, where the city of Sunderland is held in prayer morning by morning, or the needs of the world are held in prayer evening by evening?

Can we imagine a vision of being built into a holy priesthood – not just the few with collars who have been set aside as servants, but all of us who have been called out from the people and set apart to proclaim the mighty things that God has done?

Can we imagine our being changed as we pray? Our being built into something that could be truly described as a spiritual heart, or heartbeat, for the city? Can we imagine our meeting together to pray, our learning together how to pray, our belonging to a household of prayer, our getting to celebrate answers to our prayer? That would make us a spiritual house of meeting, learning, belonging, and celebrating – four words that we chose to describe the Minster – and not just a place of social or cultural meeting, learning, belonging, and celebrating (good though those things might be).

This is not something that I can make happen. It isn’t even something that we can make happen. It is something that only God can do, and that we might join-in with. And it would probably mean stopping certain things and starting others. It could mean stopping Morning Prayer at 9am, and starting an earlier time some could get to on their way to work in the city centre; and a later time because, let’s face it, why would you come into the city centre for 9am if you aren’t working there? It might mean discerning a pattern of prayer that we could join-in with even if we couldn’t get to the physical building.

But it begins with coming to Jesus, seeking to know the blueprint he is working to, what space he wants to give form to. With Thomas, we might ask, ‘How can we know the way?’ And Jesus reminds us that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. What is the way-revealing, truth-revealing, life-revealing word that he is speaking to us – and how will we respond?