Fifth Sunday of Easter 2021

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter 2021

‘Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.’

‘The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.’

Acts 8:26-40

 

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.’

John 15:1-8

 

We are still in the season of Easter, still reading through the Book of Acts paying close attention to the aftermath of Jesus’ resurrection, and this Sunday we come to a most amazing story. It concerns a court official from Ethiopia, not modern-day Ethiopia but the Aethiopia of antiquity, the Nubian kingdom of Kush. This was an advanced, cosmopolitan, urban society, to the south of Egypt, a major trade power exporting highly prized goods from the sub-Saharan continental interior across the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean basin, and, in exchange, importing goods from those regions and beyond. Over many centuries, the kingdoms of Egypt and Kush had co-existed, at one time Egypt ruling over Kush and, later, a century of Kushite Pharaohs ruling over Egypt, their cultures overlapping while retaining their own distinctive features. Kush had its own writing systems, architecture, civil engineering technology, even advances in medicine. They had pyramids—smaller and steeper and many more of them than in Egypt, protected now as the world’s heritage. Moreover, theirs was a matrilineal society, and women played a prominent role in public life. The Kandake (kandaakey: Latinised, Candace) was the honorific title given to royal women, who at times were Queen Mother, at times queen co-regent, and at times ruled in their own name outright. The Kandake were the power behind the throne, kingmakers: it is claimed that they could even order their son, the king, to complete suicide—and that he would have to obey—if she decided to appoint another king, or take the throne for themselves. They were also warrior queens, leading armies into battle as well as bearing sons. The Candace referred to in Acts chapter 8 may have been Amantitere, who exercised some form of rule for over twenty years in the mid first century AD. At this point in history, Kush was independent of Egypt, independent of Rome, and centred on its third capital city, Moroë, half-way between the fifth and sixth Cataracts of the Nile.

Eunuchs played key roles in many civilisations in the ancient world, including the personal servants to royal households. They were castrated men, neither male nor female, but overlapping both genders in their distinctive features, sometimes considered a third sex. Their various duties included washing and dressing their master or mistresses, making their bed, cutting their hair, intimate moments giving them the ear to the crown. Castration was considered a necessary precaution, engineering a cutting off, or diverting, of their sexual desire. Not only were they, figuratively-speaking, seedless and fruitless, unable to insert a claimant to the throne; but, without household of their own, they were impotent to instigate a coup. They were simultaneously honoured and humiliated; the cost of being venerated, to be vilified; in order to be unquestionably depended upon, they were disposable without question. They were neither one thing nor another, but formed a different category of being altogether.

We meet this person because they have been to Jerusalem to worship a foreign god at a foreign temple. They have undertaken a journey of over 1,000 miles to do so, following the course of the Nile—past Thebes, and Memphis, sites where black Pharaohs from Kush had expanded earlier Egyptian temple complexes—opting, perhaps on account of physical size, for the Egyptian preference for a chariot over the Nubian preference for horseback. And now they are making the thousand-plus mile journey home again.

The text is as sparse as the wilderness, but we get the impression that this is a journey they have undertaken perhaps many times before. A habitual pilgrimage. And this, in turn, suggests a certain seniority within their court, even for a eunuch, to have the freedom, and the resource, to do so. Yet in the temple, their presence would have caused a certain level of anxiety, even in the outermost court of the Gentiles: a large, soft, effeminate, dark-skinned, queer body. Quite separate from their actions, they would be objectified, by some as ‘exotic’ and ‘alluring,’ by others as a defiling threat. Quite likely, they experienced open verbal aggression from some; the shame of parents pulling their children close as the eunuch passed by; the pain of being studiously ignored by others.

They have probably been here before, have probably bought home scrolls before, and this time, the treasurer who understands the value of trade has invested in the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And this queer librarian is the one whom the Holy Spirit decides will make the perfect parent for sub-Saharan African Christianity. And so, the Spirit sends them Philip.

Why Philip? In its earliest days, the church was almost entirely Jewish, but it was composed of two overlapping but distinct groups: the Hebrews, who kept themselves as separate as possible from their Gentile neighbours; and the Hellenists, who assimilated as much of Greek culture as they could without losing their own identity. One of the earliest challenges the church faced was that, in the distribution of food to the widows among them—a serious obligation—the Hellenist widows were being overlooked. This was exposed as a systemic issue, not simply an unfortunate oversight. The apostles determined to appoint stewards to administer the distribution fairly. Had they been Anglicans, they would probably have sought to have the Hellenists represented on the task group, perhaps even aimed at (eventually) 50% (in all things, the middle way). But they were not Anglicans, and they felt prompted by the Holy Spirit that the way to secure a fair distribution for all was to appoint the task group entirely from among the wronged group, the Hellenists. The appointees included Philip, a Jewish man with a Greek name. In fact, the name Philip means ‘fond of horses,’ and suggests that the Holy Spirit is not only attentive to justice but also has a sense of humour, for, ‘Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.’ (Psalm 20:7). Moreover, Philip had four unmarried daughters who exercised the gift of prophecy within the expanding Christian community: clearly a man at home with women exercising a prominent public role. Why does the Holy Spirit send Philip? Who else is better placed!

Philip approaches the eunuch’s chariot, and engages them in conversation. They are reading from Isaiah (chapter 53), a song of a servant who is familiar with suffering, who knows the stinging humiliation of justice denied, whose life is cut off, such that they can have no children, can leave behind no descendants on the face of the earth. Does the writer speak of himself, or of someone else, they ask—for as they read, they see themselves, seen, noted, recorded in the story of this foreign (to them) god and their people. And just a little further on, as they continue reading, with Philip, in the intimate space of their chariot, they are plunged into this life-changing hope:

‘Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.’ (Isaiah 56:3-8)

And so, the eunuch is undressed, washed, and dressed again, in white linen—the servant becoming the master; the man who fathered four daughters becoming unsexed, a fruitful vine, pruned—and then Philip is removed without question or explanation, and the eunuch goes on their way, rejoicing. Much fruit will be born, to the Father’s glory, as is the way with the Spirit and the Son.

I wonder how the eunuch was received, on their return home?

I wonder how they were received, on their return to Jerusalem, searching for their place among the disciples of Jesus, now to be found in every corner of the known world?

I wonder whether, in subsequent years, they often broke their journey, and bread, with Philip and his daughters in Caesarea, part of the family; or whether their paths never crossed again?

And I wonder where the Spirit would direct us, today?

How the life coursing through the true vine might burst apart our cherished mausoleums?

Where the vine-grower might wield the knife to prune our hearts and minds and strength and will, that we might love our liberating Lord, and our neighbour as ourselves?

 

Fourth Sunday of Easter 2021 (Vocations Sunday)

 

Fourth Sunday of Easter 2021

‘The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, ‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is

“the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;

it has become the cornerstone.”

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’

Acts 4:5-12

‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’

John 10:11-18

‘There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’

 

In the ancient world, a name was more than a label by which to identify one person from another, though it did do that, often rooted in lineage or place of origin. To declare someone’s name before others was to speak of their reputation, to reveal their character. To invoke a name was understood as the manifestation of that person’s character, as if it were that person themselves who was speaking or acting through another. Our reading from Acts chapter 4 begins with several names: Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander. We will return to them; but first, some other names.

Aided by powerful Roman allies, Herod the Great had deposed the Hasmonean dynasty and established himself as Rome’s client king in Jerusalem. On his death, in AD 4, his will provided for his kingdom to be divided between his sister Salome I (the west), and three of his sons: Archelaus (the south), Herod Antipas (the north, and the east), and Philip (the far north-east). Although this was not in Herod’s gift to give, the emperor Augustus chose to respect the will. However, Augustus quickly judged Archelaus—whose portion had been disputed by his brothers from the outset—to be incompetent, removing him and imposing direct Roman rule on Jerusalem only two years later.

In AD 6 Quirinius, the Roman governor of Syria, appointed an ambitious twenty-six-year-old named Annas the first High Priest of the newly created Province of Judea. A decade later, in AD 15, a newly arrived Roman prefect, Valerius Gratus, seeking to establish himself, removed Annas from office, and appointed someone else. Historically, the role of high priest had been a position for life; hence, Annas would always bear that title if no longer officially the role. Having lost none of his ambition, he would become Jerusalem’s eminence grise, despised by the populace for the greed and violence of his household.

A year after removing Annas, Gratus removed the successor, and appointed Annas’ son Eleazar high priest. One year later, he removed Eleazar. Eleazar’s successor held the post for less than a year, before Gratus removed him, appointing Annas’ son-in-law Caiaphas high priest in AD 18. Caiaphas was, apparently, a particularly adroit ally to Rome, retaining his position when Gratus was replaced by Pontius Pilate and remaining high priest until Pilate’s departure in AD 36. Over the following thirty years, four more of Annas’ sons would serve as high priest: Jonathan (AD 36-37, and 44) (this might possibly be the John mentioned in Acts 4; of Alexander, there is no other record), Theophilus (AD 37-41), Matthias (AD 43), and Annas the Younger (AD 63-66) who was assassinated for calling for peace with Rome, in the early stages of the First Jewish-Roman War, a war which would eventually see the destruction of the temple in AD 70.

For sixty years, from AD 6-66, the household of Annas exercised their influence over Jerusalem, trusting in the power of their name to bounce back every time their rivals succeeded, temporarily, in displacing them. And at the very mid-point, they make the prisoners stand in their midst (Greek: mid-point), and Peter declares to them the name of Jesus.

These were the same men who, just weeks before, had made Jesus stand in their midst and had named him ‘blasphemer’ on account of assuming the title Son of God. Of course, this was not blasphemy at all, but the title claimed (Psalm 2) for David, and the Davidic line of kings, many of whom proved to be unfaithful sons, the dynasty abruptly ending at the deportation to Babylon (it is interesting to note that Peter quotes Psalm 2 on their release, see Acts 4:23-31). The clear message of the title Son of God is that Jesus’ followers saw him, not as a Rome-appointed Herodian king, nor even a previously Roman-recognised Hasmonean king, but as a God-appointed Davidic king. Jerusalem was swollen by tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pilgrims looking for just such a restoration, to overthrow Roman rule. In such an uprising, the entire, widely despised household of Annas would surely be put to death as collaborators: they had no choice but to act decisively to ensure their interests.

Jesus, for his part, named the house of Annas ‘hired hands.’ They were supposed to be the shepherds of Israel, but, instead, these Rome-appointed hired hands—in league with the wolf—looked to their own good. Before them, Jesus would lay down his life in order to take it up again.

The writer of the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews tells us (that is, those for whom the New Testament forms part of our community library) that Jesus is our high priest, and that we are his household. There is, therefore, a direct parallel between Caiaphas, operating in the name of Annas, and Peter, operating in the name of Jesus. Peter, who would end his days, at around the same time the dynasty of Annas came to an end, as bishop of Rome. Each holds up a mirror to the other.

Like Caiaphas, Peter belonged to a family of privilege, enjoying the patronage of Rome. Dried fish from the inland Sea of Galilee was a delicacy on the most refined of Roman tables. Jonah and Zebedee were partners in a fish export business successful enough to employ workers beyond the extended family: hired hands. Between the two families, four sons—Andrew and Peter, James and John—were disciples of a rabbi, an honour reserved for those students with the greatest aptitude, and economic freedom to study. These were not uneducated men, even if the ruling elite of the nation’s capital saw them as such. But Peter embraces what Caiaphas rejects. Note that even as a re-directed fisher-of-people, Peter continues to oversee workers and export the new family business as far as Rome; whereas Caiaphas, the hired hand who does not care, is left behind as the story of salvation unfolds.

Peter, however, is not only an historical figure, like the rest, but also the representative figure for the Church. And the Church designates today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, as Vocations Sunday. Vocation is often understood narrowly, to describe a call to ordained ministry, as deacons, priests, and bishops, or a life set apart, as a monk or a nun. But vocation refers to the call of God on our lives, and everybody has one. Vocation catches up our background, our family history and place of origin, along with our gifts and skills, our opportunities, and our constraints, and calls us to put all this into loving the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and loving our neighbour as ourselves.

Your vocation may be as a teacher, or an ambulance driver; a hairdresser, furniture-maker, shopkeeper, pint-puller; working in a lab developing vaccines, or being a foster parent; leading the gathered congregation in our prayers of intercession, or decorating the church to the glory of God; serving as treasurer on the Parochial Church Council, or creating space for teenagers to discover themselves. Your vocation will overlap, and engage with, various spheres of life and influence: paid and unpaid roles, in domestic, ecclesial, and societal settings. Not simply what we do, but how we inhabit that. At times set aside for others, and taken up again, for others. Often, we try to hold on too tightly, too long—like Annas—disempowering others, instead of laying our lives down in order that they might be raised up.

To step into our vocation is to learn to know and respond to the voice of the good shepherd, who knows us more intimately than we know ourselves, and seeks us out and draws us close. It is to find our place, as a living stone, in the rebuilt temple, space and form held together by Jesus, the cornerstone. It is to be set free, not only from that which holds us captive but for the good we were created to do, as God works to make the world new in and through and with Jesus Christ his Son our Saviour. It is to renounce the way of Annas, and to proclaim, instead, in thought and word and deed, the name of Jesus.

It is to be and do, in and with our lives, what Jesus would be and do, if he were me, or you.

As we emerge from the profound dismantling of the past year, Vocations Sunday takes on a fresh significance. It may be that this Eastertide the Holy Spirit is prompting your spirit, to respond to the call of God on your life: to step into a new season; or to lay down some role that has been undertaken for so long that it has become mistaken for your identity; or to take up your laid-down life once again. If so, I would love to talk with you about that.

But for each one of you, know this: you are known, you are loved, you are called, you are saved—not least, from yourself—you have been given a voice, and empowered to fulfil your vocation. Where the Church has sought to silence you, or been complicit in that silence, on behalf of the Church, I apologise; may God give us the grace to repent and believe anew, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. And may we all, together, filled with the Holy Spirit, press into our vocation—neither resisting nor running away—today and every day. Amen.

 

Third Sunday of Easter 2021

 

Third Sunday of Easter 2021

‘When Peter saw it [the crowd that was gathering, after he restored a man lame from birth to strength], he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

‘‘And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out…’’

Acts 3:12-19

‘While they were talking about this [the claim of two disciples that Jesus had met them on the road to Emmaus], Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

‘Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’

Luke 24:36b-48

I need to write a sermon. Indeed, I want to write a sermon. But I lack the imaginative energy to write a sermon. And there lies a fitting irony, for my text is Acts 3:12-19.

Acts chapters 3 and 4 tell the first real story of the Jesus community after they are filled with the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, in chapter 2. Peter and John are heading to the temple to pray, which was for them a habitual behaviour and spiritual discipline. And as they enter the temple, their attention is drawn to a man who sits at the gate, dependent on the compassion of others. Unable to walk since birth some forty years since, he has been carried here day after day for more days than anyone can keep track, brought by a close community of family or friends, lifted up on a sea of humanity. Again, habitual behaviour and spiritual discipline. These things are good, but they only take us so far.

Who knows how many times Peter and John have passed by this man before, have perhaps even donated to his cause? But on this day, God is doing a new thing. Peter reaches out his hand, and draws the man up, to stand on his feet. The man skips and skitters about like a new-born colt, the foal of a donkey. Then, like Peter once walking on the Sea of Galilee, he has a wobble, and clings on to this rock-like disciple. Meanwhile, everyone else is rowing against the wind, struggling to make sense of what their eyes tell them is happening and their minds tell them does not happen. And Peter asks them, ‘Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?’

Our own power or piety. That is the framework for life that is being called into question here. That is how we are trained to operate. It is the preferred modus operandi at work in our church institutions, in our fraternal organisations, in our political parties, in our constructions of race and class and gender and national superiority: so ubiquitous, in fact, that we do not see it until it is called out—and then, we resist. And it is this dynamic that defined the lame man’s life. He was carried to the temple by the power of others to lift his weight, where he depended on the piety of the temple-goers to provide for his material welfare. Moreover, there was a piety to the powerful—they took him to the temple, to God’s house—and a power to the pious—they had financial capital to bring to bear to address the situation. But God is doing a new thing.

I want to tread lightly here. I believe that God heals people all the time, an everyday occurrence, through the skill of doctors and nurses, of physiotherapists and psychotherapists, and by miraculous means. But not everyone receives physical healing. Sometimes the way in which the Holy Spirit leads us is to care for the marginalised, is to address accessibility and justice, is to carry the lame and to give our silver and gold. But it makes all the difference in the world whether we do those things in our own power or piety, or in and with and through Jesus.

Why? Because operating in our own power or piety kills life. Even if it cannot ultimately stop the life that flows from God, it resists it, to death.

Peter makes this clear in what he says to the gathered crowd. Operating in our own power—like Pilate, like Barabbas—kills life. Operating in our own piety—like the religious rulers—kills life. Regardless of how good our intentions are—let alone how muddied are our motives—when we, in our personal capacity or corporate identity, operate in our own power or piety, it results in death. (Notice the impulse writhing within you if I call out power and piety at play in the respectable institutions to which you belong.)

I cannot write the sermon I both need and want to write, in my own power or piety. Whichever way I try to lever these resources, my offering is dead.

Now, dead is not necessarily the final word, with God. Nonetheless, to act in such a way as to result in death—often metaphorical deaths, though actual homicide is surely included, as we only have to follow world news to be aware—to act in such a way is counted against us as sin, of which we are called to repent, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. To die to self, and find ourselves raised up, caught up, in the glorious story being penned by the irrepressible Author of life, in flesh and bone, told in our scars and around our shared tables.

We are called to participate in the life of Jesus, who, having died once, now lives for ever. To participate in his transformative presence, his victory over death in the world; including in our institutions and associations, for, we are called not to withdraw from the world but to bear witness to what God has done in Jesus. By its very nature, such intimate relationship cannot be reduced to a formula, but, if you are looking for a recipe, for the right kind of ingredients, Jesus gives us some key principles in our gospel reading from Luke 24:36b-48

Be present. Fully present to others. As often as you are able (start small, start over).

Move towards, and not away from, those who have let you down. Make the first move in restoring peace, in returning to harmony. This takes time: like discord, peace produces ripples.

Recognise that those impressive-looking walls are put up by people who are afraid—and we are all afraid of something. Even the most defensive reaction hides within it a longing to be understood, to be embraced, for who we are.

Invited or uninvited, all the emotions turn up at the table together: fear and joy; trust and suspicion. Know that you cannot have one without the other, and commit anyway. Welcome the unwelcome, that it too may be transformed, finding its place in our healing-story.

When corona restrictions are lifted, invite appropriate (in most cases, non-sexual) touch. We are not digital ghosts, but embodied souls. Learn to be at home in the space your body occupies. Learn to respect, and honour, your body, and everyone else’s body. This is profoundly counter-cultural in so many ways, by which we objectify bodies, and seek to justify our objectifications. Save me, Jesus!

Be open, unguarded. Learn to be vulnerable, without being naïve.

Tell your story, show your scars. They are a reminder of the ways in which power and piety bring death, and of the ways in which God raises us to life in Christ.

Eat together, whatever is to hand. Not for favour or influence, but because simple food, received with gratitude in the presence of others, is fundamental to being fully human. ‘Give us today our daily bread.’ (Note also that food transforms our experience of place, breaking down walls and building bridges.)

Forgive, as generously as you are able. Ask for forgiveness, for yourself, if need be. And you will need to, often, many times a day.

These are the transformative practices of the resurrection body. In such ways we bear witness. They are startling in their simplicity, and terrifying, and take a lifetime to press into. Life in all its fullness. Given the choice between power and piety, or life, choose life. This Eastertide, choose life. Today, choose life. You will discover that the life that creates and sustains the universe, first chose you.

 

Easter Sunday 2021

 

Easter Day 2021

Lectionary readings: Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18

Happy Easter! The great celebration of the Church, and chocolatiers. But what is it all about!? In our reading from John’s Gospel, we heard that Peter believed (pisteuó) but did not yet understand (eidó). That is, on the evidence he saw when he entered the tomb, he was persuaded that Jesus’ body had not been removed by grave-robbers but had, in fact, risen from the dead; but he did not yet appreciate the significance. Perhaps you can relate to that?

I want to suggest that Easter is an invitation to us to enter more fully into the life, death, and resurrection-life of Jesus. That, whether this is your first Easter or your ninety-first, the invitation of this great celebration is to be drawn ever deeper into Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, into participation in the mystery of divine love. And I want to illustrate this from our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the account of the growth and spread of the early Church.

In our reading, we met Peter, again, and Cornelius. Cornelius was from Italy, a centurion in the Roman army, based at the headquarters of the Roman province of Judea; and his household will become the first gentiles (that is, not Jews) to be baptised in the name of Jesus—to symbolically be joined with Jesus in his dying and rising to new life.

Cornelius had had a vision of an angel, a messenger from God, telling him to summon Peter, and listen to what he had to say. When Cornelius invites Peter to address his household, Peter presents a summary of Jesus, as one anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power, who came to the people of Israel preaching peace; and went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. This was, however, too much for the people to bear, and so they had him put to death. And yet, the story does not end there: for God raised him on the third day, ordaining him judge of the living and the dead, and appointing Peter to testify to this.

Now, here’s the thing: how did Peter testify to this? Not only by words, but by doing the things that Jesus had done. In these early chapters of Acts, we see Peter and the other disciples anointed with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2). We see Peter, as one of ‘the twelve,’ preaching (establishing) peace between the Hebrews and the Hellenists: that is, finding a solution that addressed the tension between members of the church from a Jewish background that kept themselves as distinct as possible from the Greco-Roman culture of their occupiers, and those from a contrasting Jewish background that embraced whatever of Greek culture was not explicitly opposed to their faith (Acts 6:1-7). We see Peter going about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 3:1-10, 9:32-42).

Peter has been drawn into participation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He is about to be drawn even deeper. And, in the end, he too, like Jesus, will be put to death for this.

But there is more. Now, we are introduced to Cornelius. Cornelius is not yet a believer in Jesus, and yet he is already someone who is participating in Jesus, and who is about to be drawn deeper into that life. Cornelius is a Roman centurion, one who upholds the Pax Romana, the peace imposed with violence; and yet, despite who he is and the geo-political-economic structures he is complicit in, he is genuinely concerned for the welfare of the local people. Preaching peace, as not merely the absence of war but the presence of the necessary conditions for human flourishing. Moreover, he is one who goes about doing good, generously funding the needs of the Jewish community. He takes the initiative to set aside the divisions between gentile and Jew, us and them, oppressor and oppressed, seeking to establish a new humanity. And he has been chosen by God to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Though this is the event by which the Church is opened up to embrace gentiles as well as Jews, we do not hear anything else about Cornelius in the account recorded in Acts. But tradition passes down testimony that he left the Roman army, but chose not to return to Italy; that he was appointed by Peter as the second bishop of Caesarea—the very community where he had come to faith, succeeding Zacchaeus the former tax-collector in office—and served as a bishop there and later in the region of Troas until old age, when he, like Peter, was martyred.

Jesus, Peter, Cornelius. Peter believed before he understood. Cornelius understood, before he believed. And what of you, this Easter? Is God calling you, with Peter, to testify to the kingdom reign of God in the world, exercised through Jesus, in whom is found reconciliation with God and neighbour? Or is God calling you, with Cornelius, to covenant relationship, to find your place in God’s family, the Church?

Having focused on the reading from Acts, I want to close by returning to the Gospel reading, and to Mary Magdalene. Jesus appears to her, and is made known to her when he calls her by name, “Mary!” Easter is not about answers to all our questions, but Love’s response to the longing of our heart:

for a community, like Cornelius (‘my Father and your Father’)

or a cause, like Peter (‘my God and your God’)

or simply, with Mary, to be able to declare, “I have seen the Lord”.

This Easter, may you also see Jesus, the Lord. May you hear him call you by name. And may that experience be both reassuringly familiar, and transform everything, for the rest of your days. Amen.

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent 2021

 

‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.’

Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

‘Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.

‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.’

John 12:20-33

Question: do you long for people to know God? to come into a relationship with Jesus?

Perhaps you do, but you just don’t know how that might happen. After all, most of our neighbours have better things to do with their Sunday mornings than to gather in this place. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe it has never crossed your mind that you should. After all, faith is a very personal thing; God might not be everyone’s thing, and even for those who do believe in a god or gods, Jesus might not be their cup of tea, or salvation. Or perhaps you yourself are still searching, longing for more of God, of Jesus, in your life? After all, the world we knew has been violently shaken of late, from Brexit to Coronavirus to BLM to the storming of the US Capitol, calling into question all manner of beliefs and assumptions about how we order our world.

In our Gospel reading we meet some Greeks, who had come to the Passover festival in Jerusalem. To the memorial of the triumph of the Jewish god over the gods of ancient Egypt. On the surface, nothing to do with Greeks. But here they were, spiritual seekers, for whom the values and answers to life’s big questions they were raised within no longer satisfied, no longer scratched where they itched. So here they are, in Jerusalem, quite likely somewhat overwhelmed by the crowds of pilgrims.

And somewhere in that crowd, they happen to meet Philip. They discover that they have something in common: he has a Greek name. Perhaps he has a Greek parent, or his parents admired Greek culture; we don’t know. But there is a connection, perhaps a pre-existing connection. And they ask him a question: ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ It seems strangely polite, very formal. Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to request…

That word ‘sir.’ The Greek is kyrie, Lord. Lord, we wish to see Jesus. Lord is the title by which Jesus himself is addressed. Lord, we wish to see Jesus. That word ‘see.’ The Greek word conveys the sense, we wish to experience for ourselves.

In other words, when they see Philip, they see Jesus…and want to experience Jesus for themselves.

When they see Philip, they see Jesus…and want to experience Jesus for themselves.

Question: what aspect of Jesus do people see in you; in me? and, how do we bring them to experience that for themselves?

Perhaps people see Jesus, when they see me, in how I walk into the unknown or scary future, unafraid. In how we carry ourselves in the light of that diagnosis, or unwelcome change in circumstance. Perhaps they see Jesus in my commitment to justice, for the most marginalised, ignored, silenced. Perhaps they see Jesus in the way I bring good news, not naïve optimism but encouragement, counter to the seeming addiction to bad news. Perhaps they see Jesus in my being a loving presence in their lives. Perhaps they see Jesus in the way I invest what I have learned in the lives of others.

For any one of us, they won’t see all there is to see of Jesus in us alone—that takes a community, a church. And some people will see nothing of Jesus in me, with which they connect, but might see something in you. Again, it takes a community: that is why Philip went to Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went to Jesus. But there will be someone, or some several people, who see something of Jesus in my life, and in your life, at the very time and place they themselves are going through some moment of crisis and opportunity.

And if we have any longing to see that happen, or if we want to grow that longing, whether for the very first time or because we knew it in the past but it has grown cold, if we long to see people move from seeing Jesus in us to experiencing Jesus for themselves, we do well to join with Jesus’ own prayer, ‘Father, glorify your name,’ Father, glorify your name in and through my life today, in and through my trials and sufferings.

Father, glorify your name, in whatever hour you have brought me to. That is a soul-troubling prayer: one that stirs us where our hearts have grown cold, towards God, towards our neighbour; where our minds have turned inward; where our strength has run dry. ‘Father, glorify your name’ is a prayer that will always be answered, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’

How do we bring those people into that personal experience of Jesus for themselves? First and fore-most by connecting them to other followers and friends of Jesus, both those we know personally and the stories of our sisters and brothers down the centuries and around the globe. Introducing friends to friends. We do not need to wait until we think we have all the answers to life’s questions, or have triumphed over our sufferings. God has chosen to glorify his name and draw people to Jesus through simple, trusting, faithfulness.

But don’t assume that personal experience of Jesus will look the same, for them, as it has done for you. Philip had three years of being one of Jesus’ disciples in Galilee and Judea that the Greeks who arrive days before his death, burial, and resurrection would never have. Theirs would be, instead, a man dying an unimaginable death, and a Pentecost experience of the Holy Spirit poured out. Even Philip and Andrew’s relationship with Jesus would look entirely different to what they had known and loved, just days from then. As we emerge from the tomb of coronavirus lockdown, God’s intention is that everything is transformed, not superficially, not simply business-as-usual on-site but now also available on-line, but as fundamental a transformation as the grain that dies in order to bear much fruit.

That is where Jesus is heading, whether we come along or not. But there are Greeks wishing to see Jesus. Will you pray for them? Father, glorify your name.

 

Mothering Sunday 2021

Mothering Sunday 2021

Lectionary readings:

‘Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

‘The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. ‘This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,’ she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Yes.’ So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.’ So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, ‘because’, she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’

Exodus 2:1-10

 

‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.’

2 Corinthians 1:3-7

 

‘And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

Luke 2:33-35

 

This Sunday is both Mothers’ Day and Mothering Sunday. The day on which we remember, before God, our experience of motherhood and of the Church as our mother in God. And that inevitably requires of us, as a community, to do careful work, honouring one another in our multi-storied personal histories, forgiving one another where necessary. Today is a day for more than a bunch of daffodils, or any other token gestures.

 

Our Gospel reading highlights for us the reality that motherhood is costly, that what sons and daughters experience—even from the very outset—affects and may well wound mothers deeply. It should not surprise us when mothers respond in reaction to their deep wounds; nor should we ever take for granted the miracle of mothers loving from the place of healed and beautified wounds. It is costly, also, for mother church to witness our children leave, too often a sign opposed by us, revealing our inner thoughts to be out of step with the Spirit.

 

Our reading from Paul’s second extant letter to the church in Corinth speaks eloquently of affliction and suffering and consolation. These things, also, are pertinent to Mothers’ Day and Mothering Sunday. ‘Affliction,’ here, relates to that internal pressure that holds us where we feel trapped, without options or choices. That would relate to so much of our collective experience of motherhood, from standing by a child whose actions we cannot condone; to feeling tied to a mother who for whatever complex reasons was unable to care for us; from overwhelming guilt or shame at believing yourself to have been a bad mother, or perceived as such; to the deeply unsettling and often isolating lived experience of infertility. ‘Suffering’ relates to that which is done to us, for good or for ill, such as the complicated dance by which the child who was dependent on you becomes the adult on whose care you are increasingly dependent in old age. In such real-world afflictions and sufferings, the consolation and salvation of God is worked out, as God in Christ draws close by the Holy Spirit, encouraging us, rescuing us from ourselves. Consolation: God draws close alongside us, and draws us deeper into the transforming presence of love.

 

But I want to return to our reading from the Old Testament, because it tells for us a story, of motherhood. It is, of course, the story of the birth and infancy of Moses, born at a time of genocide. Moses’ people were living in Egypt, shepherds taken from the flock and conscripted into service as builders of an empire—and, inexplicably, the more they are oppressed, the more God blesses them. Still, they are treated increasingly harshly, to the point of a governing edict instructing the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, that they should kill Israelite boys as they were being born, and claim they were stillborn. At great personal risk, the midwives defied Pharaoh. Moses is born to Jochebed, who initially hides her son at home, and when that is no longer possible, waterproofs a basket and entrusts him to the Nile, and the watchful eye of his seven-year-old sister, Miriam. Makes for him a basket of reeds, and hides him among the reeds from which she made the basket: that is a pleasing detail. When he is discovered, by an Egyptian princess and her maid, Miriam offers to find a Hebrew wet nurse, and the Egyptian agrees. It is clear that this is women’s work: that Jochebed and Miriam and the daughter of Pharaoh all know exactly what it is that they are doing, for this boy-child with multiple mothers, one who was delivered of him through broken amniotic waters and another who drew him out of the water of the Nile and of the chaos of genocide that threatened to overwhelm life. There is a clear understanding in which the women are complicit, a pragmatic arrangement on the side of justice. But it is also true that human family arrangements are often complex, as complex a story as this one.

 

Question: what do you need to let go of, today, that you have kept inside for as long as you are able without the sound of crying and the furtive hiding giving you away? What do you need to turn over to God, to hold for you?

 

That longing, that fragile hope, which has grown within us, cannot be ignored, or abandoned, cannot just be pushed out to die. After all, it was given life by God. Even when our circumstances, our history and our present, have been overwhelming, God is at work, to raise up those who have fallen, to bring good out from evil. And yet, key to Moses’ survival was a container woven of papyrus reeds, woven of flexible strands, bound tightly together, in love, to form an ark on the waters.

 

We are yet to know what the long-term impact of the past twelve months will be, on our communities, on the lives of our neighbours, their children, and grandchildren. But we know enough to know that the local church must be an ark, within which we can entrust them, and their hopes and dreams, to God’s care. We must attend to making that ark waterproof, through careful Safeguarding principles and practices. But, fundamentally, we must weave our lives together, as a tight-knit, hopeful, loving, adopted family of God. Where we have failed to do that, we must repent and believe, must learn again to be God’s people. It is interesting to note that this is often done best mediated by a shared activity, that occupies the hands and opens up room to talk. A craft-based approach, the passing on of skills, may be key to rebuilding robust community beyond the pandemic.

 

But there is a stage even before basket-making, and that is cutting and gathering-up reeds. If we are to weave a community together, it starts with prayer, as an act of noticing with God. Each school, each class, a reed bed; each teacher and each child, a reed, at least in our imagination, whether we know them by name or not. Each home, each shop, each public park, each nursing home, each hospital, a reed bed. In this way, we increase our capacity, to receive God’s love and to enfold others into that care; for if we cannot prayerfully imagine any given part of the community gathered in, we will not see them gathered in. In this way, we learn where the reeds grow, that are ready for harvesting, that are good for basket-making. It is an observable brain phenomenon that for many of us, our imagination has shrunk in lockdown, and our prayers with it. Let us encourage one another to flex our prayers again.

 

On Mothers’ Day and Mothering Sunday, we bring out our baskets, perhaps attend to any necessary repairs, give thanks for the good things that they have cradled over the years. And we look to the future, with unshaken hope, to new baskets, to more people discovering what it is to be consoled by the God of all consolation, in which we share, together. May the Spirit of God birth something new in us today. Amen.

 

Third Sunday of Lent 2021

 

Third Sunday of Lent 2021

 

‘For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

 

‘The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

John 2:13-22

 

 

In our Gospel reading today, we find Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. The temple Jesus knew was not so much a building as a complex made up of successive spaces, a journey into God’s presence. The outermost space was known as the Court of the Gentiles, a space open to anyone. A place for enquirers to draw near, to pray to the god they had heard of but had not been raised to know. But at pain of death, gentiles were not permitted beyond a partition wall. Only Jews could enter the middle court, or Court of the Women, a large space that was home for various activities, including: the temple treasury; storerooms for essential supplies; provision for the fulfilling of vows made to God; provision for lepers—usually excluded from society—to draw near to God; the public reading of scripture; and activities relating to certain festivals. Beyond again was the Court of Israel, a space open to Jewish males and itself part of the Court of the Priests, where the round of ritual sacrifices was made. At the heart of the Court of the Priests was the Sanctuary building, itself a succession of spaces from vestibule to Holy place to the Holy of Holies, a space where only the High Priest could go, and then only once a year.

These successive spaces were not, exactly, mandated by scripture, so much as a cultural interpretation and application of the instructions found in scripture for approaching God. We have our own architecture: our narthex and our baptistry; our nave and our chancel, the chancel itself sub-divided by the altar rail; our sacristy and our Lady Chapel. We have our own flow through spaces, public and private, from birth to death, from earth to heaven and back again, sent out into the world to proclaim the good news afresh in every generation. Each space has its place and its purpose, and we note the disruption of the pandemic: most of the chairs have been cleared out from the nave, their temporary home blocking-off the baptistry; the Lady Chapel, a space so meaningful to so many of us, has been out-of-bounds for a year now. These spaces work for us, and we have had to find ways to ‘make do,’ such as my relocation from the high altar to the chancel step…

And in our reading this morning, Jesus is in the Court of the Gentiles, a space provided for the outsiders to pray. But this space has become a permanent market, where goods and services are exchanged. Here you could enquire as to what animal you needed for a particular offering, and then buy the animal, certified unblemished, addressing all of the risk of bringing your sacrifice with you. But first, you needed to exchange your money. The universal Roman currency was not acceptable to the temple authorities, due to its low silver content. But the Romans did not permit the Jews to mint their own coins; so, the temple authorities had secured an arrangement by which they could use Tyrian coins, which had a high silver content, but which bore the image of the Canaanite god Baal, or Beelzebub. I guess you choose which hill you are prepared to die on, and which compromise you are prepared to live with. Money changers, animal wranglers; in this market you could also buy tours of the temple complex (various levels of access), and souvenirs to enable you to take the encounter with God home with you—with proceeds going towards running costs. None of these things are bad things. Indeed, the system worked acceptably well enough for those for whom it worked; but it did so at a cost. And the largest cost was borne by outsiders who wanted to come and take part, by those who were not part of the congregation of Israel, who were forced to fit in where they could, and be grateful.

In the other Gospel accounts, Jesus disrupts this space at the very end of his ministry; but in John’s Gospel, he does so at the very outset. His first public act is to disrupt the status quo. He ‘causes a scene,’ behaving in such a way that demands the social contract of Acceptable Behaviour in a Given Setting be restored: I can almost see the veins throbbing in the necks of those looking on, apoplectic. And I wonder, how would Jesus kick off, make a scene, in this place? What ways of doing things, that work for us, make it hard for those who are beyond the congregation to draw near to God, in this place? What, for that matter, distracts us from hearing Jesus speak, and responding with faithful obedience?

The past year has been extremely disruptive to our patterns of worship. It might even feel like we have been driven out, that all the familiar tables, the patterns and structures that help us approach God with confidence, have been tipped over. Coming back into this space, and finding it not the familiar space we long for, may be less than comforting. And yet, in all this, Jesus comes to us with both invitation and challenge. The invitation is no less than to see his body raised up in God’s new beginning, the resurrection life of the Church. The challenge is that we will need to let go of our preconceptions, and die to a past that was beautiful in its time. Now is not a moment to restore things just as they were, but to recognise Jesus in our midst—the one in whom the partition wall between Jew and Gentile, between insiders and outsiders, has been torn down. Now is the time to take up our cross and die to self, to embrace the foolishness and the weakness of God—stumbling-block though that is to those of us who are ‘the new Israel.’

Perhaps, with the best will in the world, we overcomplicate it all. Perhaps we just need to throw the doors open, and invite everyone we meet to come in; not offering answers to life’s unanswerable questions, but room within the mystery of divine love.