Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2020

Lectionary Gospel reading: Matthew 18:21-35

In the Gospel reading set for this Sunday, Peter (representing the Church) tries to assert his moral superiority. Jesus responds with a parable that reveals God’s nature as merciful, and calls on God’s people to make that mercy manifest in the world. In this parable, everyone is equal before God; they are all slaves of the king. And this parable of the merciless slave has particular relevance in a year in which we have seen the international rise—and backlash against—the Black Lives Matter movement; and, closer to home, the toppling of statues honouring slave traders. Because, you see, Jesus tells a story, and invites the Church to the work of discerning how to apply it within our community in any given historical context. But as with the preceding verses (indeed, as with so many of Jesus’ parables) those who believe they are more wronged than in the wrong, more sinned against than sinning, are being led into a trap.

Into the story, Jesus introduces a certain slave who is summoned to an audience with the king. On can presume that this slave appears before the king with a certain degree of confidence. After all, to date the king has lent this slave ten thousand talents. A talent was worth more than fifteen years’ wages of a labourer; and so, we can say that this sum was the equivalent of fifteen years’ unpaid labour by 10,000 slaves. This man is, himself, a slave—he is no different, inherently, to anyone else—and yet he is living a life that is unimaginably removed from his fellow slaves. Indeed, as we shall see, he believes himself to be de facto king over them. But the actual king has summoned him to ask that the loan be re-payed.

The slave protests that this is quite impossible. And so, the king determines that the slave be sold, along with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment be made. This clearly implies a broader redistribution of concentrated wealth and power; and has consequences for successive generations. And as the king in this parable represents God, such a solution should be understood to be perfectly just. But the slave pleads for patience to repay—apparently it is only hard, not in fact impossible—and the king, motivated by compassion, moves to write off the man’s debt entirely.

No sooner had the slave departed, but he meets a fellow slave who owes him a hundred denarii, the equivalent of three-and-a-half month’s unpaid labour by one slave (contrasted with fifteen years’ unpaid labour by 10,000 slaves). There is a power dynamic at play. For the slave who lent the money, it is a trivial sum; but not for the one who borrowed. He cannot pay off the outstanding debt in one go—who can survive for three-and-a-half months on no money at all?—and this slave is doubly enslaved paying back the interest on his loan. Now, because the first slave has neither compassion nor empathy, he is about to be triply enslaved, thrown into debtor’s prison, with some physical violence and psychological terror thrown in for good measure.

When his fellow slaves saw what happened, they were greatly distressed. They went before the king and reported the injustice, and, because the king was just, he acted justly. Because the slave who had known the king’s mercy had not participated in the king’s mercy, he would now know the king’s justice. His participation in the king’s justice would be to experience torture until he would pay his entire debt. This, then, Jesus concluded, is what it will be like for those who do not participate in mercy.

In 1791, the French-owned Haitian slaves revolted. In order to prevent territorial loss to the British, the French Republic abolished slavery in 1794, restoring it in 1802. Throughout the 1790s, Britain, who had recently lost her American colonies, fought to capture French territory in the Caribbean and re-establish slavery there, while also crushing slave revolts on her own islands (including the genocide of men, women and children), spending £4 million and losing between 50,000-100,00 men in battle or to yellow fever. In 1804, two years after Napoleon reinstated slavery in French colonies, the Haitians declared independence and abolished slavery. Three years later, in 1807, a bruised British parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Not until 1833, and after ongoing slave rebellions, was this followed by the Slavery Abolition Act. As part of this process, the 1837 Slave Compensation Act paid out £20 million (an estimated £17 billion in today’s money) to former slave owners “compensating the Persons at present entitled to the Services of the Slaves to be manumitted and set free by virtue of this Act for the Loss of such Services”. Freed slaves did not receive any compensation.

The British government—or, the British taxpayers; including the descendants of the slaves—finally ‘paid off’ the loan in 2015. The families of slave owners and the families of investment bankers have been benefitting from slavery from its abolition until the present. Meanwhile, France extorted a debt of 91 million gold francs for the loss of property which Haiti finally paid off in 1947; and Britain systematically exploited her colonies and former colonies; and has treated those we asked to fight for us in two world wars and then to come and help rebuild the motherland after the Second World War utterly shamefully, to this day. This is not history, separate from current affairs.

If I were to announce that, this year, we will not be marking Remembrance Sunday, there would be uproar. If I were to suggest that ‘it all happened a long time ago, and we just need to move on,’ angry letters would be written to my bishop and I would be the subject of hostile articles in the press. But ‘it all happened a long time ago, and we just need to move on’ is the argument I hear again and again (not seven times but seventy times seven) in relation to slavery, despite the legitimate calls of Caribbean Heads of State for a program of reparations there, and of Black British voices calling for justice here. It strikes me as ironic that, despite the fact that no one alive today fought in the First World War we habitually claim that ‘we’ won the war; but that when it comes to the reckoning of debts relating to slavery, we cannot be held responsible as it all took place before we were born.

But the consequent injustice is ongoing; and for that, we are called to take responsibility. We cannot move on, until justice is done. Regardless of whether wider British society can accept this, the Church of England should. The thing that strikes me most about Jesus’ parable of the merciless servant is the line, ‘When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed.’ They were greatly distressed at the injustice they witnessed. I wonder whether we are even capable of such a response, to the pain of injustice felt by our Black sisters and brothers.

We don’t remember the First World War because ‘if we forget we will repeat the mistakes of the past’—our government hosts the world’s largest arms fair and we profit economically from ensuring instability across the world, while refusing to take responsibility for the lives ruined, let alone for our own veterans. No, we remember the First World War to recognise a communal trauma, passed down the generations; and, increasingly over recent years, to reassert ourselves over others. And, before you write to my bishop, we shall mark Remembrance Sunday. But we are called to recognise the communal trauma, passed down the generations, of our fellow slaves; and to recognise that we are not inherently superior but inherently equal: and to repent of sin and make material redress for injustice, though it be to our cost. Black Lives Matter because our society repeatedly demonstrates that they do not matter, dismissing justice by labelling people Marxists, looters, terrorists, criminals, lazy, disruptive—and allies as naïve self-haters.

The alternative is that we find ourselves tortured until we pay off our entire debt, not to the enslavers and their descendants but to the wrongly imprisoned and their descendants. We do not torture ourselves, but we do bring it upon ourselves. Where we reject mercy, justice demands it. As with all of Jesus’ parables, we ought rightly to be troubled.

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2020

Lectionary Gospel reading: Matthew 18:15-20

As we continue on our journey—our pilgrimage—through Matthew’s Gospel, this Sunday morning we find ourselves in chapter 18. The context is Jesus, not for the first time, teaching on the nature of the kingdom of heaven, or what it looks like to live under the kingship of God in this world. And in verses 15-20, Jesus talks about discerning and participating in the will of our heavenly Father. The presenting issue is one of separation between brothers in need of reconciliation, and there is a process—a sequence of practices—that will help us get from where we find ourselves to where we need to be.

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.” In other words, if someone has acted wrongly [and some of the ancient manuscripts include ‘against you’ while others omit ‘against you’ which suggests to me that this applies whether the wrong is directed towards me or not] arrange a time to speak with them face-to-face in private. Not in the heat of the moment of being wronged; not in (self-) righteous anger vented across (anti-) social media. This is the first step, and, if it works, it works: the matter is resolved.

“But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” In other words, if at first you don’t succeed in reconciliation, bring in a couple of mediators who can help you. Remember, the goal is not that I am vindicated in my sense of having been wronged, but that we are reconciled, and so the primary role of these witnesses to every word is making sure we have heard and understood one another.

“If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church;” In other words, if reconciliation cannot be reached through mediation, the next stage in the process is to attempt to reach reconciliation communally, the whole church community seeking to discern what needs to happen.

“and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.”

At this point we had better pause and reflect on what Jesus has been teaching his disciples, his apprentices, about how they should relate to Gentiles and tax collectors. We should ask, what has Matthew—whose livelihood was collecting taxes within the administrative structures of the Roman (Gentile) empire—wanted the community for whom he writes to understand here? Let us look back over the Gospel.

In chapter 4:12-17, Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah, to locate Jesus’ light-bringing vocation in ‘Galilee of the Gentiles,’ and, in this context, Jesus summarises his mission by proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

In chapter 12:15-21, Matthew again quotes Isaiah to describe Jesus’ activity as proclaiming justice to the Gentiles, thus being the one in whom the Gentiles will hope.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus confronts the self-righteousness of those who saw themselves as being a divinely chosen and special people, pointing out that they are no different to—and certainly no better than—the Gentiles and tax collectors they looked down on (Matthew 5:43-48).

In chapter 9:9-13, we hear about Jesus calling Matthew the tax collector to follow him, and see Jesus eating in the house [as guest, as host?] with tax collectors. When asked why he is doing something so scandalous, his response is, I am practicing mercy.

In chapter 10:1-4, Matthew the tax collector—that is, not to distinguish him from Matthew the fisherman, but, rather, to underline and circle and highlighter pen that he was a tax collector—is one of the twelve apostles, or sent ones.

In chapter 11:7-19, Jesus reminds the crowds that he has been derided as a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners—and yet, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

All this, we have already come across before arriving at chapter 18. And, just to bring the point home, in chapter 21:2346, Jesus tells a hostile assembly of chief priests and elders of the people, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you. For John [the baptiser] came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”

“and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.” In other words, if you have spoken with them face-to-face, and with mediators, and, ultimately, the counsel of the church has not persuaded your brother or sister that they have wronged you, perhaps you are the one who is in the wrong.

I’ll say that again: if it has got this far, and they have stood their ground, perhaps you are the one who is in the wrong. Maybe you are the one—indeed, by this stage, the community—who needs to repent. Because maybe, just maybe, the brother you think has wronged you has gone ahead of you into the kingdom of God while you refuse.

If, at no point in the process of discernment they have come to see things as you do.

Jesus continues:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

The goal is to be free of the things that prevent us from entering the kingdom of heaven. The warning is that Jesus takes our agency seriously enough to allow us the chains we bind ourselves in. The good news is that Jesus takes our agency seriously enough to allow us to free one another. And that, whether in chains or free, he is with us.

Where the church has chained herself—to those who promise earthly power, to patriotism, to institutional racism, to any dogma opposed to the kingdom of heaven—Jesus shares our chains. He has been here before, a light dawning on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, proclaiming justice, keeping hope alive, practicing mercy.

That is, I think, what Matthew would have us realise today.

 

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.

 

Remembrance Sunday 2019

Lectionary readings: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 and Luke 20:27-38

Lest we forget, they say, as we come together each year to lay wreaths and give thanks for those who laid down their lives for us and to commit ourselves to live as peacemakers in a violent world. Lest we forget, the old hand down to the young. Which is not a million miles removed from Paul’s injunction to the early community of Christians in Thessalonica, ‘stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us’...

Those words come from a letter written to a community made up of Jews and Gentiles, of former enemies now reconciled in Christ. A letter written by Paul and Silvanus and Timothy: a Jew, a Gentile, and the child of a mixed marriage. A letter that begins, ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ The word ‘grace’ takes the common Gentile greeting, a salutation that you might find favour from the gods, and gives it a new twist: favour, from the Jewish creator god. The word ‘peace’ takes the common Jewish greeting, the invocation of rest from fear so essential for human flourishing, and gives it a new twist: rest from fear, because in Christ enemies have become friends.

A Gentile greeting and a Jewish greeting, brought together, both transformed. A new tradition, established.

And the amazing thing was the context. The Jews and their neighbours had always been enemies. Within the lifetime of the people who wrote, and received, this letter, the First Jewish Roman War broke out, as Judea tried and failed to declare independence from the Roman empire, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem.

In other words, the focus of this letter was, how can we experience favour in profoundly unfavourable circumstances, and rest from fear in the very midst of fearful times?

For, to paraphrase Jesus’ response to the Sadducees, it has far less to do with God as insurance for after we die, and far more to do with whether or not we walk with God in this life.

There is a contrast between the man of lawlessness, the world leader who opposes and exalts himself above all else—Trump and Putin, and, dare I say it, political leaders closer to home who claim to be the one who will restore our place as the greatest nation on earth—a contrast between such warmongers and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived their whole lives as gers, that is well-respected resident aliens, whose presence in a host culture was seen as a blessing.

As we seek to learn from God’s word, and from our own past in the light of God’s word, lest we forget what we need to remember to live well in the present moment, what might we emphasise? Firstly, we need to recognise the violence in our own society, the deep and partisan divisions between the old and the young, Brexiters and Remainers, England and the rest of the United Kingdom. Then, we must insist on what we say we agree on, that we are leaving the EU, not turning our back on Europe and our European neighbours. And so, in the Church, we must proactively seek ways of bringing enemies together, of seeing and affirming good in what those we disagree with value, and of being open to being transformed by the experience. We will need grace and peace for this. The good news is that the favour and rest from fear we so desperately need are already ours, if we will receive them.

Furthermore, we must speak out against hate speech, and xenophobia; we must affirm and honour the resident aliens living among us, both EU citizens and those from further afield, recognising that they are a blessing to us and not a threat. We are all strangers in a strange land; we are all children of God. We must pursue active partnerships that model what salvation looks like, such as the link between Durham Diocese and the Lutheran Nordkirche. Over the past days, we have joined in consultation, learning from one another about how we might better engage with children and families; and we are honoured to have Pastor Björn Begas, who has been staying with us at the vicarage, with us today.

You see, God does not give us grace and favour as abstract ideas or warm feelings, but in the form of flesh-and-blood as we truly welcome one another. This is how we can experience favour in profoundly unfavourable circumstances, and rest from fear in the very midst of fearful times. This is the way of life we recommit ourselves to afresh today, even laying down our lives for others. Lest we forget. Amen.

Fifth Sunday of Easter 2019

Lectionary readings: Acts 11:1-18 and John 13:31-35

Sermon notes on pigs in blankets:

Our reading from Acts is about food, and listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and unity and diversity.

In our reading, Peter recounts the vision he was given from heaven in which he is instructed to prepare for himself a meal, using unfamiliar ingredients.

Eating is a universal need, one that speaks to us of our dependency on others. Food is a gift from God, to be received with gratitude and enjoyed with pleasure. That gift is for all: unity.

Food is also an expression of culture: diversity. For the Jews, what they ate and didn’t eat, and how they prepared what they ate, were markers of identity, means of knowing themselves as distinct from all other people. And that, too, was a gift from God: of all the peoples, they were called to know a particular blessing and to be the means by which God would bless everyone else; and so, it was important that they didn’t lose that distinctive identity. The rules relating to food helped guard that identity.

But here, in Peter’s critics, we see a pattern that recurs over and over again. The good gift that helps us to know who we are in the world becomes more important to us than the thing it signifies. And then it becomes the basis by which we progressively judge other people. They don’t eat the way we eat, so they are different…they are inferior…they are bad…they are our enemies…

We lose sight of the unity that underpins our diversity.

We live in a deeply divided society. Consider voting. We have moved from a society in which democracy is valued and it is recognised that people vote for various parties, to a society where we are encouraged to believe that people who vote differently to us do not deserve the vote. Democracy is undermined, not by a considered process that replaces it with something better, but by a process of dehumanising the other.

Through the vision he was given from heaven, Peter came to believe that God was including the gentiles within the new humanity. And the first step was to ask Peter to sit down and eat with people whom he would never have thought to sit down and eat with. To step from his world (Joppa) into theirs (Caesarea Maritima).

We should note that this works from both sides, and in complex ways. In Luke’s Gospel, of which Acts is the sequel, we hear about a centurion, very much like the one who sent for Peter, approaching Jesus for help. But this centurion won’t invite Jesus into his home, not because Jesus is the enemy but because the centurion does not believe himself worthy to have Jesus come into his home. The reality that he is by virtue of being a Roman centurion, the occupier—even if, by personal conviction, not the oppressor—is almost certainly at play here.

Food matters. What we eat, and how we eat, and who we eat with are issues of justice, questions that we need to attend to as the new humanity living within the old.

As a family, we are on a journey with food. We seek to be attentive to fair trade. To air miles. To seasonality. To packaging. We do so imperfectly, because there is no other way. We’ve gone from an omnivorous diet to a low-meat diet, and since Easter, as part of pressing into life in its fullness for ourselves and our neighbour and all creation, we have gone vegetarian at home. But we have chosen to eat meat when we are guests in someone else’s home, as a principle of receiving their hospitality. Because it isn’t about judging other people, it is about our all being on a journey, from different starting-points and at different speeds. We haven’t arrived at a destination. Some of my friends are vegan, and I can’t go there yet…but it may be that the Holy Spirit leads us there at some point on the way that lies ahead. It is not that eating meat is wrong in itself, but it is about attending to the impact of our current eating habits on the environment and on the lives of our fellow human beings around the world, and especially in poorer nations. The world cannot sustain our present levels of consumption, including but not restricted to, food. Nor can it sustain our present levels of division.

This week, we will eat many meals. Some, alone, with God. Some, with family, or friends. Some, perhaps, with people we don’t know and may not even be sure of. But we begin, gathered around the Lord’s table, sharing bread and wine.

Second Sunday before Lent, 2018

Proverbs 8:1, 22-31 and Colossians 1:15-20 and John 1:1-14

“…then I was beside him, like a master worker [another reading is ‘like a little child’: isn’t that interesting?]; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” [that’s the voice of Lady Wisdom, Proverbs 8:30, 31]

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things…” [that’s Paul and Timothy, speaking of ‘our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Colossians 1:19]

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” [and that’s John, speaking of Jesus, John 1:14]

Delight. Rejoicing. Pleasure. Reconciliation. Glory. Grace. Truth. Our readings today fizz to bursting with these good things.

The Church year is rooted in ‘seasonal’ time and ‘ordinary’ time. The goal of seasonal time—Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter—is to form us, as a community, into the likeness of Christ, according to the story handed-down to us in scripture. The goal of ordinary time—the short window between Epiphany and Lent, and the much longer portion that sprawls across our summer and autumn—is to train us to encounter God in our everyday lives.

Today, we are in ordinary time; and our three readings are all concerned with creation. Our first, from Proverbs, retells the story of God creating the world from the point-of-view of wisdom, which is personified. Wisdom, we discover, is expressed in delight and joy flowing back and forth.

Our second, from Colossians, is an outpouring of praise for Jesus, but the context is another creation-retelling or recalling: this time repeatedly describing the gospel—or, good news—as bearing fruit and growing in the whole world; describing what has happened in the lives of the saints as the separating-out of light from darkness; and describing Jesus as the means by which God exercises life-giving, ordered rule over the rebellious forces of chaos.

Thirdly, our gospel reading, that introduction—or, Prologue—to the Gospel According to John, recalls and reframes Genesis chapter 1—with it’s repeated ‘And God said’—with a fresh focus on the creative Word itself, still creating light, and life, and a new humanity.

Earlier this week, we had an un-seasonally warm afternoon, and I went for a walk I Backhouse Park. I think it is my favourite park in Sunderland, and this time of year, with the snowdrops and crocuses bursting out, is my favourite time to walk there. The park was full of dog-walkers and birdsong; couples, both young and old, hand in hand; grandparents with their grandchildren; a father with two young daughters.

In Proverbs, Wisdom and Folly are personified as female characters, women with agency to build-up or to destroy. And when Lady Wisdom is recalling her own beginnings, it is as a little child, a young girl out for a walk in the park with her father, delighting in discovering a world bursting-forth with life, delighting in one another.

Sometimes we awake, as from a hibernation, to the realisation that we have forgotten all that. Left it far behind, long ago. Like Susan Pevensie, for those of you who are familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia. We have outgrown that childish innocence—and lost much; though, like the 21-year old Susan, we need not be lost forever.

Sometimes we have much to learn from the very young, and the very old—those who have found their way back to childhood. And sometimes God comes to us, in the mystery and wonder of the world that has sung of its creator through all human history, and says, “Why wait? This is the day I come to you. Will you receive me?”

So, when you go out from this place, go expectantly. May you know delight and joy in your encounters, whatever you come across, and whoever crosses your path; may you know more day-by-day of the depth of the Father’s pleasure; and may your eyes be opened to see traces of glory, grace and truth, the footprints of Jesus in the world.

And all the people said, Amen.