Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2021

 

Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2021

Lectionary readings: Galatians 4:4-7 and Luke 1:46-55

 

Today we hear again Mary’s song declared before us, perhaps declared over us. The words may be familiar, especially if it is your habitual practice to say or to sing Evening Prayer. And yet the words are rooted in a particular time and place in history, quite alien to our own. These are not, primarily, personal words in response to a personal salvation. Nor do they, primarily, reveal a universal principle of God’s nature, siding with the oppressed against the oppressor. Rather, these words, in the mouth of a young Jewish woman living under Roman occupation in first-century Palestine are a prophetic utterance addressed to the people of Israel at a moment when God steps in to act decisively.

This people, the descendants of Abraham, were called to be a priestly people living among the nations, through whom all the other families on earth would be blessed. Yet they had repeatedly turned away from that calling; had chosen to live in such a way that brought the Lord’s name, his reputation among the surrounding nations, into disrepute. Again and again, their God had sent the prophets to them. Again and again, he had handed them over to the consequences of their unfaithfulness, bringing down defeat and exile and foreign occupation upon themselves. Again and again, the Lord had preserved a faithful remnant; had heard the cry of his people in their oppression and moved to rescue them, to restore them. And now, God was about to act once again, in judgement. The corrupt religious and political elite would be thrown down, and a faithful remnant restored, through whom Israel would be restored as a priestly people.

The fulfilment of Mary’s song would look like the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, when Herod’s palace is burned down (the Herodian ruler of the day actually siding with the Romans in besieging the city) and the Temple destroyed, its stone walls thrown down into the valley below. A literal throwing down. And in the aftermath of judgement, the emergence of a remnant, of the Jesus community, that would grow and spread across the Roman empire, holding out such a light that the pagan peoples were drawn to it, drawn to worship this Jewish God, until the entire Roman Empire would bend the knee and bring their tribute before him. What flows from these words is Christendom, nations shaped, however imperfectly, by a philosophy of the human condition under the sovereignty of God conveyed in the story that unfolds in the Bible, now opened to more fully include the Gentiles; a society within which the Church served as priests, invoking God’s blessing.

That is what is going on in Mary’s song. A prophetic word that looks out over the following thousand years. But it is not our song. Oh, we still sing it, and we do so in order to be formed by it, but our moment in history is not hers. There was a crisis, a moment of profound judgement, and a glorious new chapter; but we are living on the far side of all of that. We are living in a post-Christendom Europe, among neo-pagan peoples who, folk religion rituals concerning babies and brides and the burial of the dead aside, do not much call on us to serve them as a priestly people. So, what, if anything, might these words mean to us today?

And then, the lectionary has paired Mary’s song with part of Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, in which he confronts the desire of the Gentile Christians to adopt the Jewish law. Paul insists that the law has been fulfilled in Jesus, Mary’s son: that is, it has served its purpose, as a guardian over the inheritance of God’s children until they come of age; but now, in and with Jesus, we have come into our inheritance. But, says Paul, that freedom is not an opportunity for self-indulgence or promotion, but rather, we ought to use our freedom to freely take on the role of serving one another, for the whole law is summed up in the command to love your neighbour as yourself. Again, what might these words mean to us today?

Theologian Walter Brueggemann wrote, “The dominant script of both selves and communities in our society, for both liberals and conservatives, is the script of therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism that permeates every dimension of our common life.” That is, we are shaped to assume that life may be lived without discomfort or inconvenience; that there is no problem, however complex, we cannot fix by our own ingenuity; that the resources of the world are available to us without regard to our neighbour; and that we will protect and maintain this system at all cost. This week has seen the publication of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which spells out the global crisis facing us, at least some of which is now inevitable; but we aren’t prepared to give up our cheap flights to the Mediterranean, which is burning. This week has seen city after city in Afghanistan fall to the Taliban; but we aren’t prepared to welcome the refugee. No matter how bankrupt the dominant script, we do not want to change it; we believe that we can carry on doing the same things while hoping for a different outcome. Nonetheless, it will fall, and, in the long term, this may prove to be good for the world, but not before suffering for the poor and the hungry as well as the rich and the proud. Mary is no Disney musical princess.

In the light of a Mary-shaped hope, we are called, as God has always called us, to be a faithful remnant. To offer up prayer for our world, for those in power and those whose lives are impacted by those in power. And to act with prophetic voice, in what we say and what we do, in the choices we make for ourselves and as a community, resisting the temptation to believe that nothing we might do makes any difference. As Paul reminds us, to love our neighbour, not fearing the loss of what we might hoard for ourselves but drawing on the resources of heaven to bless others. Not as mighty rulers, but as children of a loving heavenly Father. And as sons and daughters of Mary—sisters and brothers of Jesus. Though not our song, the Magnificat is our mother’s song. May we so hear her words, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may sing a new script in and for our generation, in keeping with hers. Amen.

 

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 and John 6:35, 41-51

Our Old Testament reading this morning recounts the remarkable and tragic death of David’s son, the prince Absalom. It comes as the climax of an unravelling that has occurred in the life of David and his family stemming from his sin of shedding the blood of Uriah. His first son born to the wife of Uriah died only days old. David and Bathsheba’s second son, Solomon, would grow up to become David’s heir to the throne in Jerusalem. But among his other children, by his many wives, David would know even more suffering. David’s firstborn son, Amnon, whom he loved, raped his half-sister, Tamar, and, when David failed to bring him to justice, another son, Tamar’s full-brother Absalom, murdered Amnon in revenge. Growing to despise his father, Absalom went on to have very public sexual relations with David’s concubines, before rallying many in Israel in rebellion against David, in order to take the throne from him. As we heard in our reading, Absalom died in the rebellion, despite David’s desire that he be treated with the greatest leniency. David is recorded as weeping for Amnon twice, and for Absalom seven times. Towards the end of David’s life, when he is bedridden, his eldest surviving son, Adonijah, proclaims himself king, before Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan—who had prophesied such consequences as befell—ensured that Solomon was crowned as David’s legitimate, if not natural, heir.

It is a mess, and that mess is not swept under the carpet but brought into the light, for us to learn from. Sexual relationships are a holy thing, and treating them lightly, or in contempt, or as a weapon, results in great pain, for all involved, whether directly or indirectly. Nonetheless, even amid such pain, God is at work to redeem our lives. We would do well to heed David’s call to deal gently with people’s lives, for the sake of a heart after the heart of God. We would do well to lament, with David; to know in our hearts that it would be preferable for us to be cut off from the future of the people of God than to have to bear the loss of a young life from participation in the future of God’s people. We would do well, also, to learn from David’s failure to instruct his household in how they ought to relate to one another and live together in love and faith.

One of the insights of this passage is that God is faithful to his covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants, and to David and his descendants, that those who blessed them, God would bless, and those who cursed them, God would curse. In other words, God’s hand is raised in blessing to and through his people; and raised against those who would attack them. When Absalom persuades God’s own people to rise in rebellion against God’s anointed king in Jerusalem, God’s hand is raised against their plot. In an incredible and sobering verse, ‘and the forest claimed more victims that day that the sword,’ we see that even the very Land of God’s promise revolts against the rebellion.

At the heart of our passage, Absalom, the son whom David loves, is suspended, hanging between heaven and earth, while soldiers stand below, mocking and striking and piercing him with a spear. A beloved son, bridging heaven and earth; and a father lamenting his death. This tragic young man, the product of the consequences of David’s sin but also God’s faithfulness towards sinful David, becomes a window in time and space through which we see Jesus. Jesus come down from heaven and raised up from the earth, suspended between the two, who dies in order that those who receive him in their hands and deal gently with him for his Father’s sake might live. The one in whom all our hungers and thirsts, all our appetites and longings including those relating to identity and relationships and sexuality, are satisfied. The one who redeems our lives from the Pit, raising us up to life in the fullness God desires for us.

It is a mystery indeed, one that sustains us and does not fail. In the words of the Post Communion prayer for this day, according to the Common Worship liturgy,

God of our pilgrimage, you have willed that the gate of mercy should stand open for those who trust in you: look upon us with your favour that we who follow the path of your will may never wander from the way of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Ninth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Ninth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13 and Ephesians 4:1-16 and John 6:24-35

Today’s Gospel reading records a conversation between Jesus and some of those who, the day before, had experienced the feeding of about 5,000 adult men and an unspecified number of women and children. Jesus tells them not to work to produce the meal that gets destroyed, but instead to work for the meal that is lasting, that does not come to an end. This meal is understood, by all, to be at the initiative of God.

Therefore, the crowd ask Jesus, What must we construct to perform this work of God? That is, what are the ingredients, and what is the recipe, for this meal? Jesus responds, The way to create this meal is to believe in me. That is, I am the head chef. They reply, What is the distinguishing mark of the meal you serve, by which we will know that you are the head chef? What is your signature dish?

Jesus responds, My signature dish is bread, bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Bread that satisfies the hunger and thirst of humanity.

This exchange is paired with a passage from Paul’s letter to the Church at Ephesus, the community from where the whole of the Roman province of Asia Minor heard the gospel. In it, Paul speaks of the one who descended from heaven and who is distributed through and to others. The distinguishing marks of this signature dish are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, combined to create something nutritious and nourishing, a meal that sustains and is itself sustained.

This is what it looks like to work to create the heavenly meal on earth. This is the Church, not only as a community that shares a meal—the body and blood of Jesus experienced in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion—but also, the Church as a meal, for the world.

This is a meal as the hospitality of many different cultures, not just one;

meal as bringing people together in good faith, over which enemies may become friends, and friends become allies;

meal as celebration of life in all its goodness;

meal as comfort food, and medicine, for the hurting and heart-sick;

meal as a life-skill passed down from one generation to another, with faithful improvisation.

This is the Church as a meal, as a metaphor and as a core practice for communal living that transforms the world.

In our Old Testament reading from the life of David, when God sends the prophet Nathan to confront the king with his sin, Nathan does so by telling the story of a meal, in which a rich man, unwilling to offer hospitality that cost him anything, took and served up the poor man’s lamb. In his response to the tale, David passes judgement on himself.

Meals are risky. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews encourages the practice of hospitality because, in so doing, some have entertained angels unawares. In the pages of Scripture, when angels are fed, it is a sign that God is about to do something, to intervene, to act in the world, for judgement and deliverance. As we seek to learn from one another, in the diversity of our life experiences, and to discern together God’s will, meals are both a helpful metaphor and a helpful practice.

With the apostles, we dare to enter worlds very different from our own experience, worlds with different textures and flavours.

With the prophets, we dare to admit our own hypocrisy, repent and return to God.

With the evangelists, we dare to create space to celebrate the love that makes life good.

With the pastors, we dare to feed the hungry and honour the heartbroken, whoever they might be.

With the teachers, we dare to discern meaning and curate wisdom for living life well.

As we seek to grow together in Christ, what might happen if we simply prepared meals and ate together more?

 

Eighth Sunday after Trinity 2021

 

Eighth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 11:1-15 and Ephesians 3:14-21 and John 6:1-21

 

Over the summer months we are taking a deep dive into what it means to be human, and how to live in love and faith, in the context of changing understandings of human identity, changing patterns in relationships and families, changing sexual attitudes and activity. These are everyday bodily matters, of everyday flesh-and-blood lives, to which if our faith means anything at all, it must surely have a bearing.

This week, I have been reading a book written by a friend of mine, an Australian woman, Mandy Smith. The book is entitled Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith beyond the Baggage of Western Culture. The author shares her story of rediscovering what Jesus meant when he said that unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. She sees childlikeness as a genuine alternative to the false choice between ‘the anxiety of adultish hyperengagement (we’d better fix this) or … the despair of childish disengagement (we’re beyond hope).’ (p. 5) She writes: ‘I propose that a way forward can be found in Jesus’ surprising invitation to the kingdom through childlikeness. Here’s why: 1. Children identify and engage as whole (thinking, feeling, sensing, embodied, relational) selves. 2. Children know how to engage without taking on full responsibility.’ (p. 3)

Our Old Testament reading today is the sordid tale of king David raping the wife of a friend and then having that friend murdered in order to cover his tracks. This is, I would suggest, adult behaviour—or what, evoking ‘childish’ behaviour, Smith coins ‘adultish.’ Not that every adult commits adultery, or murder, but representationally adult in several ways. First, David is not present, where we expect him to be present. The natural thing for a king to be doing in the springtime was leading his army into battle, but instead, he engages in restless distraction. Children live in the now, adults fret over the past and the future. Second, David experiences, and surrenders to, the urge to possess what he sees. It is not enough to note beauty in the world and enjoy it for its own sake, far less thanking God for the beauty he has given to another. Children do not need to possess; adults do. It is learned behaviour we are shaped into. Third, as soon as he has taken what he saw, David no longer wants it, discards the woman, for his appetite is satisfied only for a moment. Fourth, when things take an unplanned turn—the woman conceives—David attempts to solve the problem, by increasingly desperate means, ultimately writing a death warrant for an innocent man who has been his faithful friend and servant through bad times as well as good.

In our Gospel reading we hear John’s account of the feeding of a crowd of about five thousand adult men, and afterward of Jesus walking on the water. It is a passage marked by bodies, and by appetite. The crowd has an insatiable appetite for signs, without making the connection to what they point to; an appetite for food, perhaps with a carelessness that leaves twelve baskets of waste; an appetite for a form of liberty, won and maintained by coercive force: ‘they were about to come and take him by force to make him king’—and even the disciples are caught up in this approach, ‘Then they wanted to take him into the boat’ against his will, the boat, instead, immediately reaching the land towards which they had been heading.

Philip sees the problem, the impossibility of satisfying such insatiable, adultish appetites. He moves rapidly from anxious adultish problem-solving to childish despair. But the adult is disarmed by the innocence of a child, a boy who offers up his packed lunch. It is obvious to a child that you feed the hungry, not the appetite. If you are hungry, and I am not, have my food: “Here you are, mister!” It is a whole response, not separating thought from feeling, self from neighbour. Nor does the boy harbour delusions of grandeur, that he can feed five thousand with his lunch: that is not his responsibility; he plays his part, and trusts that it is enough, that someone else will take it up. It is a child’s response.

Jesus’ response is also childlike, as it always is in the Gospels. First [here I am drawing on Smith citing Hans Urs von Balthasar, pp. 35, 36], he trusts in the goodness of the Father, knowing he can do nothing by himself, only join in with what the Father is doing. Second, dependent on his Father, aware of his need—for Jesus gets hungry too—he is thankful for the Father’s provision. He took the bread and gave thanks for it. Third, in childlike humility and gratitude, Jesus shares with others, five thousand of them. Fourth, he lives in the fullness of the moment. We’re told that these events took place near to the Passover festival, the annual commemoration of the exodus from slavery in Egypt. The first Passover meal was eaten standing up, coat on, ready to flee into the night. But on this mountain, Jesus makes the people sit down, rest, eat at leisure: discover satisfaction with who you are, who you are with, what you have. Not ‘know your place!’ within the exploitative rules of the world; but, find your place, in God’s good rule.

What Jesus asks of the crowd, who press after him, is that they share a picnic together. That they feel the grass beneath their feet, tickling their arms as they lie down in the warmth of the sun. That they feel the ground pressing back against their hips, forcing them to shift their pose, their bodies searching for comfort, for a best fit. That they laugh at the way the grass stains skin green, as if drawing on us, human canvas. That they take bread in their hands and tear it and pass it, making sure that no-one is left out, while the little ones wriggle and dance and trust that there is food for their hunger and grass to soften their fall. That they become childlike, for, unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. What Jesus asks of the disciples, who have just had their contracted adult horizons expanded again to that wonder children know in the world without needing to possess what they behold, is that they get in the boat. But even now, it is not long before they are rowing against the wind, straining against where it would carry them, while Jesus goes for a walk in God’s kingdom with such innocence it hardly matters whether it is grass or water beneath his feet. Oh disciples, you cannot enter the kingdom by the grasping means of the empire!

Last Sunday afternoon, we had a picnic for the families who come to Messy Church. A first step back, after eighteen months unable to gather-together. We didn’t advertise it wider than the regular crowd, a crowd of about thirty rather than about five thousand. But it was good. Really good. Perhaps this summer we need to picnic more. Or even go outside to receive communion bread in our hands. Perhaps in such small steps, our bodies will teach us what we knew once before and need to rediscover, to be more fully human.

After all, as Paul knew, and dared to proclaim to the church in Ephesus, Christ dwells in our hearts, makes himself at home in our bodies, in God’s love fleshed-out in the breadth of our hipline, the length of arms stretched wide to invite embrace, the head-shaking height of children who have grown so much—how much!?—over the past eighteen months, and in the deep-seated response of unruly emotion. Childlike, whole, made to be filled with all the fullness of God.

 

Sixth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: Ephesians 1:3-14 and Mark 6:14-29

 

The Herodian dynasty was incredibly complicated, and extremely murky. On the death of Rome’s vassal king Herod ‘the Great’ in 4 BC, his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, and his only sister. Herod Archaelus—son of Herod the Great and his fourth wife, Malthace—became Ethnarch of Judea; but he was so poor a ruler that the Romans deposed him in AD 6, sending him off into exile in Gaul and turning Judea into a Roman province overseen by a Roman governor. Herod the Great’s sister, Salome I, became Tetrarch of Jamnia, Azotus and Phasaelis, until her death in AD 10, when her territory was folded-into direct Roman rule. Herod Antipas—the full brother to Herod Archaelus—became Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, where he ruled until he was sent into exile in Spain in AD 39 by Emperor Caligula. Philip—the son of Herod the Great and his fifth wife, Cleopatra of Jerusalem; half-brother to Archaelus and Antipas—became Tetrarch of Gaulantis, Batanaea, Trachonitis and Auranitis, lasting until his death in AD 34.

It is Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, who we find in our Gospel reading today. He had married Phasaelis, daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea (yes, Phasaelis is the same name as part of Salome I’s territory, a name given in honour of Phasael, a brother of Salome and Herod the Great—their mother being a Nabatean). But later, while on a trip to Rome where he stayed with his half-brother Herod II—son of Herod the Great and his third wife, Mariamne II (in his Gospel, Mark wrongly names Herod II as Philip)—Antipas fell in love with Herodias, the wife of Herod II—and granddaughter of Herod the Great and his second wife, Mariamne I. Herod the Great had executed his second wife, Mariamne I, and their two sons Alexander and Aristobulus IV for allegedly conspiring to murder him. Aristobulus IV was Herodias’ father, and his death left her an orphan while still a minor. Herod the Great engaged her to her half-uncle, Herod II. This displeased Herod the Great’s eldest son, Antipater II, son of Herod’s first wife, Doris; Doris and Antipater having been exiled when Herod married Mariamne but recalled when Mariamne and her two sons were executed. Therefore, Herod demoted Herod II to second in succession, behind a restored Antipater; only to have Antipater executed soon after, for allegedly plotting to poison his father; moving Herod II briefly back to the front of the succession line; only to write him out of his will, just days before Herod’s death, on account of Herod II’s mother, Mariamne II, having known about the poison plot of Antipater, son of Doris, and yet not having brought it to her husband’s attention. Fortunately for Herod II, he had been living in Rome, and in this way avoided his father’s tendency to have his sons executed.

Herodias, last seen married-off to her half-uncle Herod II, divorced her husband in order to marry her other half-uncle, Herod Antipas. And he had to divorce his own wife, Phasaelis, an act that provoked his father-in-law, King Aretas IV of Nabatea, to declare war—a war that Herod lost, despite dragging in his Roman allies. But first, Aretas had to secure the safe return of his daughter, the exchange taking place at the frontier fortress of Machaerus. According to the historian Josephus, it was also here, on the border of their two territories, that Herod flexed his muscles by hosting himself a birthday party—it would have made more sense to host such a party, for Galilean dignitaries, at his capital, Tiberias—a party at which his step-daughter, Salome (named for her great-great-aunt) (this Salome would later be married to her step-father’s half-brother, Philip—from where Mark’s confusion might arise) performed seductively, and in return he promised her anything, up to half his kingdom (though, technically, it wasn’t a kingdom). And her mother, Herodias, who herself witnessed the execution of her father and uncle and grandmother as a young girl, calls for more blood, the head of John the baptizer, an influential figure vocal in his disapproval of her second marriage.

John was no fool in warning Antipas against this relationship. Eventually his patron, the Emperor Tiberius (for whom he had named his Galilean capital, Tiberias), died in suspicious circumstances, to be replaced by Caligula. Caligula was an old friend of Antipas’ nephew, Herodias’ brother Herod Agrippa, and Agrippa made a land-grab move against Antipas, resulting in Antipas and Herodias being sent into exile in Spain.

I did warn you that it was incredibly complicated, and extremely murky. What contrast, our reading from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus! Listen again:

‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.’ (Ephesians 1:3-14)

These short verses are full of Father God’s plan that we should have an inheritance as adopted children within the kingdom of heaven, bestowed upon us in love. Not calling for our blood, where we have betrayed God, but bringing about our redemption even through the undoing, the transformation, of human violence through the power of forgiveness. A will—an intention set out, and to be honoured—that will not be re-written, but that is for the fullness of time; not dividing a kingdom into lesser authority but gathering up the entire cosmos in Jesus. Not a paranoid, filicidal ruler; but a wise, generous king who establishes a people, and gives them not what they ask—up to half of his kingdom—but more than we could ask or imagine, the Holy Spirit, God’s active life-bringing presence in the world. Mystery made known!

David, in our reading from the Old Testament (2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19) saw it from a long way off and rejoiced. John ushered it in, and even ushering him out (Mark 6:14-29), the Herodians could not hold it back. If you are a Christian—if you turn to Christ as Saviour and submit your life to him as Lord—then this adoption as a child of God is the foundation of your identity, on which all other constituent parts—gender, sexuality, relationship status, ethnicity, nationality, education, vocation—indeed, every other facet—either rise or fall. It is foundational, from before the foundation of the world. This status—recipients of grace—is not something we have to defend against others, nor scheme to secure. It is freely bestowed, in accordance with divine good pleasure, with the delight the Father has in his children. It is a sharing of blessing, from the Father to the children and the children to the Father, blessing that characterises heaven, and transforms earth as it is in heaven. What a contrast, with the way of the world, the self-serving way exemplified by Herod but entirely recognisable today. In God’s mercy, may we resist such distortion of our souls, to the end of our days; and, instead, participate in God’s boundless love, to the praise of his glory.

 

Fifth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Fifth Sunday after Trinity 2021

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 and 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13

This week, the governing body of the Methodist Church voted to permit same-sex marriages, by 254 in favour with 46 against. The legislation comes out of many years of at times painful conversation, and includes provision, through a freedom-of-conscience clause, for those ministers who oppose the move. But, of course, the conversation is not ended: such conversations must continue if covenant relationship is to be sustained; and some Methodists may choose to leave instead of continuing on together. And, of course, this wide-ranging conversation is one that the Church, in all her denominations and traditions, is needing to have; and an ongoing conversation in the Church of England.

This summer, and over the autumn, we are responding to the request of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, that we engage with Living in Love and Faith: Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage. We shall really get into it in the early autumn, with the help of the Living in Love and Faith course; but the most significant thing of this teaching and learning is that it is built around listening to one another, and together discerning what the Spirit of God is saying to the Bride of Christ, the Church. Not top-down—though it is a facilitated process—but in the midst. And as we reflect on our readings this week, I hope to draw out some principles concerning learning together.

Our reading from the Old Testament is a record of David becoming king, after the death of Saul. This was by no means a given, no fait accompli. There were certainly different camps, and undoubtedly those who wanted to see which way the wind would blow and then want to make sure they were seen in step with the direction of travel. And yet, in a time of existential crisis, all the tribes come together, and recognise that the Lord has made David the shepherd of his people, and that they were David’s flesh and bone. For us, as the Church, we believe that Jesus, the descendent of David, is our shepherd and our king; and that we, the Church, who share in his flesh and his blood, are the very mystical body of our Christ, our deliverer. There is both something unique about the one around whom we gather, and something participatory about the experience. As we gather to discern the nature of the rule of Jesus over our shared lives, we, also, should expect such discernment to be corporate, speaking and listening together.

And then, a small detail: when David occupied the Jebusite stronghold to create his new capital, he built from the Millo inwards. The Millo, archaeologists suggest, is a large, stepped stone structure, on which a massive royal palace was built. The Millo, then, is an outward sign of an inward grace: for, as the body of Christ comes together, the rule of Christ is extended in, and through, our lives.

Our reading from the Gospel parallels this. At the start, Jesus is teaching, with his disciples gathered to him. His neighbours ask, ‘From where does this man get his authority? We know his people; they’re just ordinary people. This man is a carpenter, not a rabbi, not a miracle-worker.’ And, indeed, in the face of their unbelief, Jesus was limited in what he was able to do. He moves on, moves beyond the familiar; and he sends out the twelve, his followers, giving them authority to do the things that Jesus has been doing. The mind of Christ, the mission of God through Jesus, dispersed. They are to go in vulnerability, and they should expect to experience both welcome and rejection.

Where they experience welcome, they are to stay, as a liberating, healing presence. Where they experience rejection, they are to keep moving on, shaking the dust off their feet. In biblical imagination, human beings are dust, stirred-up, animated by the wind of God’s breath or Spirit. Jesus says to his disciples, act this out: stir up the dust with your feet, then let it settle; let them know, the Spirit came to animate you, but you have chosen the stillness of death instead.

Nonetheless, the kingdom of God is extended, as the followers of Jesus step out in faith and exercise their delegated authority, calling for repentance, a change of direction in step with God’s will. Discerning the way forward together, on the way, together. Enabling freedom for those who are demonised, and therapeutic healing for those who have endured long-term malaise.

In our New Testament reading, from the Corinthian correspondence, Paul takes us on a little further. The context is that some other followers of Jesus are discrediting Paul’s teaching, and indeed his character, to his friends. It is something that he clearly found painful. He wrestled with getting caught up in arguments with them, over personal experience; and seems to come down on holding personal experience as important, for sustaining one’s own relationship with God, without placing too much weight on it. Indeed, Paul implies, that disagreement is used by God to curb our own excesses.

Three times, Paul says, he asked Jesus to remove the thorn in his flesh. This is often taken to refer to a physical ailment, but it seems to me more likely to be a reference to Numbers 33:55 (‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they shall trouble you in the land where you are settling.’) and Joshua 23:13 (‘know assuredly that the Lord your God will not continue to drive out these nations before you; but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a scourge on your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.’) In other words, ‘God, please remove from me this group who follow me around, undermining the work I believe that you have called me to!’ But the Lord answered Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’

How, then, might this help us learn together, concerning matters on which we might disagree—perhaps passionately? Firstly, our personal experience matters, but more for our own sake than as a weapon with which to win an argument. We should share our experience with humility, and hear the experiences of other people with wonder at the mystery of our union with God, which is in Christ. We should seek to know one another as ‘a person in Christ.’ Including those who see things very differently. For all we know, these persons in Christ are given to us, a person in Christ, because we need one another, because the truth is not in my ‘me’ or in their ‘me’ but holds us. For all we know, one size does not fit all, and the discernment we seek is of a platform large enough to extend the royal palace of heaven, to draw us inwards, deeper into the divine mystery.

That vision does not remove us from discomfort, but holds us in the place of weakness—even torment, at times—a sufficient grace, for me, for you, for each one of us, in which vulnerability the power of God to transform all is made perfect. In learning together, we are not seeking the right answer, but the shepherd-king, the carpenter-prophet, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, whom we thought we knew, but had failed to honour.

As we commit to learning together, let us commit to doing so to the best of our ability, listening attentively, and choosing to honour one another, that we might grow together into the fulness of Christ, in love, and peace, and joy, and wisdom. And when the dust settles, may it signify a welcome rest on our pilgrimage, not the departure of God without us. Amen.