Fourth Sunday before Lent 2019

Isaiah 6:1-13 and I Corinthians 15:1-11 and Luke 5:1-11

‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’

The whole earth is full of his glory. The whole earth. Full of his glory.

The first people to hear Isaiah’s account of his call, written down and read out, were far from Jerusalem. Indeed, the temple, in which Isaiah had encountered God’s glory, had been destroyed. The first people to hear the song of the seraphs were living in exile in Babylon. Babylon might have had a lot going for it, but it wasn’t home, it didn’t have their best interests at heart. And what they heard, perhaps as an echo, a rumour, was, the whole earth is full of God’s glory.

Isaiah’s ministry covered a span of forty turbulent years, the rising and falling of nations. The blessing and destruction and destruction and blessing of all the nations surrounding Judah. The siege and deliverance and siege and exile of Jerusalem. And the glory of the Lord of hosts is, according to Isaiah, made visible in all of this. And within it all, hope of deliverance and restoration. This is a story about death and resurrection. Let the listener understand where they find themselves in this story: they are in the grave, dead, but awaiting resurrection.

The whole earth is full of his glory, in the breadth of its political geography, and the depth of Sheol where dust returns to dust.

There was a man by the name of Luke, who wrote an account of the life of Jesus and his first followers. He wrote against the backdrop of the Jewish War, that ended with another siege and destruction of Jerusalem, this time at the hands of the Romans. The first witnesses to the events Luke records were already dying, but the community on the Way had begun to spread throughout the Roman empire. This, too, is a story of death and resurrection. Of a coarse fisherman and his partners in their joint family business, who laid down their nets and followed Jesus to catch-up men and women instead.

Simon Peter’s call echoes that of Isaiah: a revelation of the holiness of the Lord, revealed in the person of Jesus and in the response of creation to her Lord; a recognition of personal unworthiness; the tools of his trade— Simon Peter’s net, like Isaiah’s incense burner—repurposed.

Before the Gospels were written down, Paul was engaged in correspondence back and forth between himself and his co-workers and the churches they were planting. We see him wrestling with the saints in Corinth as they struggle to live out their calling. He reminds them that he himself was unfit to be called, and yet, touched by grace, his life was repurposed and transformed. This, too, is a story of death and resurrection. Indeed, the big Story is grounded in death and resurrection, rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in which we have a share.

This resurrection business, it isn’t to do with something ethereal and other-worldly. It has flesh and blood, earthiness. It is to do with the world we know, but not as we currently know it. It is the grounds of hope, as we face the present reality of death. And we are reminded at this time of year that we cannot avoid death.

People die. So do congregations, communities, cities, nations. Indeed, we die a thousand times before our death, and, indeed, as followers of Jesus we are called to take up our cross and die to self every day of our lives. That is profoundly counter-cultural: we expend enormous amounts of energy in denial of death, and, where it cannot be denied, we look for a scapegoat to blame. Our whole current national discourse is consumed with blame and fanciful speculation. But the whole earth is full of the glory of the holy, holy, holy Lord of hosts. Rising, and falling, and rising again are in God’s hands, and the glory of the Lord of hosts is revealed in it all—in drawn-out agonising death and in the emergence of new life from under the rubble.

That is what Isaiah and Luke and Paul want to train us to see, and understand: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ Can you see that glory, touch it, smell it, taste it, hear it here in Sunderland in February 2019?

This past week, I saw God’s glory at a funeral, in conversations with strangers and friends, in the privilege of preparing a group of Iranian asylum-seekers for baptism, and in the life-broken men and women fed by an army of servers here yesterday and the local businesses that contributed to the meal. I saw God’s glory in the manner of my godfather’s death on Wednesday, 88 years old and taking the opportunity of being confined to a hospital bed to tell nurses and doctors about Jesus, right to the end. I felt the awesome weight of holiness among the grieving, including those living in literal exile from their own land.

How about you?

Fourth Sunday of Easter 2018

Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 and Acts 4:5-12 and John 10:11-18

Central to the message proclaimed by the apostles was the news that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Because of this message, they found themselves imprisoned and under genuine threat of death, instigated by the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection. But there are plenty of people who don’t believe in resurrection. They might ridicule us, dismiss us as delusional, even think us wicked for holding out false hope to vulnerable people; but no one is calling for members of the Church of England to be sent to prison for declaring in the Creed that ‘We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’. So why were the Sadducees so motivated? To answer his, we need to understand what resurrection meant.

The most explicit reference to resurrection in the writings we know as the Old Testament is found in a vision recorded in Daniel chapter 12. The context is this. God’s people were serially unfaithful, resulting in repeated cycles of judgement, repentance, restoration, turning away from God, and repeat. They had even been taken away into exile; would return, rebuild the temple—eventually—but once again, having re-established themselves, would prove unfaithful. And so, God would withdraw his hand of protection yet again, allowing the Greeks to overwhelm Jerusalem, desecrate the temple, and put to death many Jews who remained faithful even unto death. In this context, Daniel has a vision in which many are raised from the dead. It is not a universal resurrection, but one that acts as a sign of the renewal and restoration of God’s people following judgement. Those who had been faithful unto martyrdom would be raised to honour; while representatives of those who had brought destruction on Jerusalem would be raised to shame. Resurrection, then, is a sign, first of judgement of the people as a whole; and then of vindication for a faithful remnant. Significantly, Matthew’s Gospel notes that at the moment Jesus died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom (prefiguring its destruction) and the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep (died) were raised (Matthew 27:51, 52).

Jesus’ favourite way of speaking of his own death and resurrection—both before his death and after his resurrection—was to quote Hosea, who paints a picture of God having torn and struck down his people, yet counsels repentance, for ‘After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him’ (Hosea 6:2). And Jesus also cites Jonah, the prophet who spent three days and nights in the belly of a big fish: a prophet, representing Israel, judged for being unfaithful, and then restored, to declare God’s judgement on Nineveh, that is on one of the surrounding nations, an enemy of God’s people. Again, the significance of death and resurrection is judgement (, renewal,) and vindication.

Jesus’ death and resurrection are to be understood, in the light of the prophets, as notice of an imminent destruction of Jerusalem followed by the vindication of those who remained faithful to God—those who recognised that God had sent Jesus to them. In short, notice has been served on the social order over which the priestly class ruled, with the strong implication that in the new world order they would be replaced by this rabble of uneducated northern fishermen. That is what was so offensive to the Sadducees; so dangerous a message that it must be silenced at all costs. But the message came to pass, in the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in AD70, the collapse of their world, and the emergence of something else from the rubble: a Christian community spreading across the Empire like wildfire; and a Jewish community centred on the synagogue and not the temple.

We have domesticated the resurrection. We have made it about my personal continuation beyond death; my being reunited with members of my family. But while I believe that I will sleep with my ancestors and, when God makes the whole world new, we shall be raised imperishable, this is secondary to the biblical narrative (and it certainly won’t get me imprisoned). Interestingly, in the service for the burial of the dead in the Book of Common Prayer—the rite by which all Church of England funerals were conducted from 1662 until 1980—the deceased is not once mentioned by name, nor is there any pastoral acknowledgement of their family. The focus is entirely on the rightful judgement of God on humanity, and on God’s provision for the vindication of the elect, even beyond death, through Jesus Christ our mediator and redeemer.

This is, in effect, the story of the Great Flood, and of God’s instruction to Noah to build an ark, to preserve life so that the world can begin again. It is the story of the Passover. It is there in Jesus’ image of a hired hand who flees at the first sign of danger, and the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and takes it up again. It is the same story repeated over again in the Bible. A story that reveals certain consistent truths about what God—specifically, the god Yahweh—is like.

Firstly, we are invited to see God at work to bring judgement, through the disasters that befall us, both ‘natural disasters’ and war. This is incredibly difficult for us, because we want to present a god of love, not wrath; because we are appalled at the way in which ‘the innocent’ are most impacted by disaster and those ‘most guilty’ are least affected; and because of the danger of claiming that ‘God is on our side’ to justify gross injustice. And yet the world is so full of injustice, at the deepest level we need a God who will not stand by. We need a God who is slow to anger, yes; but who will say, Enough! The irony is that we place more hope in the rough justice of the mob than in the considered judgement of God: as a society we are truly a Good Friday people. Disaster does not come from the hand of God, but from God withdrawing his hand, for a time, and for a purpose: and that might help us to reframe the events we hear of in the news, from a narrative of fear to a narrative of faith and hope and love.

Secondly, we are invited to see God at work to provide for mercy, to bring a community through The End Of The World As They Know It and out the other side. A community that is so small it can never say, “We survived because of our strength, or our effort.” A community that gets to say, “We have lost everything that was familiar and comforting, and in our disorientation and discomfort we hold on to the faithfulness of God.”

And thirdly, we are invited to see judgement and vindication, death and resurrection, as demonstrating God’s steadfast lovingkindness and covenanted commitment to all creation. It is a matter on which God has staked her reputation, for us to discover. The faithful community is for the world, because God is for the world.

Our Persian community is a sign to us of death and resurrection. But I think we need to note that they are here, in our midst. They are not simply a sign that God will bring about change in Iran, but that God will bring about change here in the UK. They are part of a great mass of displaced people who are a sign that God is once again going to judge the nations in great upheaval; and, in preparation, is calling people into a community of grace, a community of trusting, costly faithfulness; whose vindication will be seen (only) on the other side of what is heading our way.

Now, I have conversations with many of you. I listen to you; and I know that many of you are afraid at present—and understandably so. I know that there are older members of our congregation who fear for your grandchildren, for the state of the world they must grow up in, which appears to be more unstable than it has been in a long time. Although that may have more to do with perception than reality. I know that there are members of our congregation who cannot bear to watch or read any news at present, because it is so bleak. I know it is not only the elderly who are afraid: I know that there is a widespread hysteria among the pupils at my boys’ school that the world is going to end imminently in a nuclear holocaust; I know that even the less excitable are exercised by bullying, or the massive uncertainties of a post-Brexit future. I know that many of our Iranians live with the fear that they will be refused leave to remain in this country, and that they will be deported. I know that some of you are fearful regarding what we, collectively and especially in the West, are doing to the environment.

Such fears should be taken seriously. There is no reason, for example, why we should not see what has overtaken Syria in recent years, overtaking our own cities; let alone our capacity to sabotage the economy. Only a false prophet cries, “Peace! Peace! All will be well!” when there is no peace. Nevertheless, we are not called to fear, but to faith and hope and love. We—together, helping one another—look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come—in history, first and foremost, as well as ultimately beyond that horizon.

And so my word to you today, on this the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is: Jesus. Look to Jesus. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, put to death by human hands and raised to life by God. Jesus, who takes up in his body the judgement and the vindication of God, rejected by men of power but made the keystone that locks judgement and mercy in position. Jesus, in whose name alone there is salvation. His name: not in my name, nor in neo-liberal philosophy and politics and economics. Look to Jesus, who, on the day God raised him from the dead stood among his disciples and said, “Peace be with you!” and, “Do not be afraid!”—look to Jesus, who still does.