Seventh Sunday after Trinity 2023

 

The Old Testament reading for this Sunday, Genesis 28:10-19a, continues the story of Jacob.

Last Sunday, we read the beginning of the Jacob story. Jacob is born gripping onto his twin brother Esau’s heel. Esau goes on to make a reputation for himself, but when he comes to the end of his resources he must surrender the life that is his by right, to receive life back from his brother as gift. I suggested that Esau is a type, or representative, for us and our desire to make a name for ourselves in the world; and that Jacob is a type for Jesus, the brother who will not let us go and who holds out his life in us as gift to all who will surrender the life they cannot keep.

This Sunday, we find Jacob in the wilderness, having left his family home. When night falls, he sleeps, and dreams, and in his dream he sees a ziggurat reaching to the heavens. This is the same structure known as the tower of Babel, the first concerted human effort to build a lasting renown. In his dream, the Lord comes and stands next to him and promises never to leave him, wherever he goes, and to bring him home, and to give him many descendants.

I want to suggest that this points us to the temptations of Jesus, where immediately after he is baptised in the river Jordan, Jesus goes into the wilderness and is tested by the satan, or counsel for the prosecution in the heavenly court. Jesus is offered the rule over all earthly kingdoms, but turns this down, choosing instead to trust the Lord God to be with him wherever he goes (even descending into hell) and give him hope of many descendants in the land of the living.

Jacob awakes from his dream and declares that the Lord was present in this place, and he had not known it. God is present in every place—and perhaps especially the places of our failure, our vulnerability, and our wrestling with our motives—but God is only known to us by divine self-revelation.

Where have you been surprised to encounter the living God?

Where do you need to encounter God today?

 

Sixth Sunday after Trinity 2023

Lectionary readings: Genesis 25:19-34 and Romans 8:1-11

The Old Testament reading this Sunday introduces the story of Father Abraham’s grandsons. Twin boys, they wrestled with one another even before they were born.

Esau was the first to break out from the confines of their mother’s womb, a man in a hurry to prove himself. But his brother Jacob refused to let go of him, arriving in the world gripping his brother’s heel.

As they grew up, Esau earned a public reputation as a skilful hunter, a man whose exploits fed bellies and hungry imaginations; while Jacob was a quiet man, a private person, easily overlooked by the wider community.

But the day came when Esau returned from the hunt exhausted and famished. Utterly at the end of himself, his strength, and his resources, to the point of believing he was about to die. Jacob was cooking a stew. Esau asked for some, to revive him. Jacob replied that it would cost Esau his birthright, as the firstborn. Esau responded that his birthright was of no use to him in this moment; but Jacob insisted, and Esau agreed. Then Jacob gave his brother bread and meat, and drink, because Esau had surrendered his right; and Esau was revived and went on his way.

Esau surrendered his life as right and received it back as gift.

And from that day on, whatever Esau did was attributed to Jacob in him.

This account points to Christ, and our relationship with him.

We are Esau, desperate for independence, to earn a reputation, to be master of our own life. “What do you do?” we ask one another, and “Where are you from?” How far have you come from where you started out?

This is the life we build.

Yet, quietly, God and life and circumstance trick us out of the independence we prize. Our bodies age, our strength fails us. As any parent will tell you, just as they have figured out how to parent a three-year old, she is six, or twelve, and the goal posts have moved and keep moving. One step ahead of us.

Saint Paul, writing to the church in Rome, called it living according to the flesh.

‘The flesh’ is a term the Scriptures employ to describe unaided human effort. The flesh is not inherently bad—we are made in the image of God, God’s good creation in whom God delights. But the flesh is inherently compromised—sin invades and affects us like long-Covid. It is perfectly possible to live according to the flesh, for a long time—perhaps even a lifetime—especially with the kinds of resources—the privileges—many of us have, as highly-educated middle-class professionals; and it isn’t a bad thing…but, sooner or later, it will kill you. Eventually, we will run out of ourselves.

Esau says to Jacob, the brother who would not let go of him, ‘Give to me of the food you have prepared.’ But Jacob will not be ignored, turned to only in crisis: “Oh, God, if you only do this one thing for me, I will go to church every week, for ever!” You cannot bargain with God. Jacob has what Esau needs, but for Esau to receive it will cost him his self-sufficiency.

This is the life we surrender.

Jesus is the brother who will not let us go, whose grasp on us will not be broken, though we pass from the womb to the world, or the womb of this world into the world to come. This Jesus possesses the food that revives both body and soul, and it is ours to have. This is both a free gift, and a prize that costs us everything. For though we cannot buy this food, it is ours when we surrender the life that is ours by right—

a life that is dying, and of no use to us—

in exchange for the life of God. The Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead—

when he laid down the life that was his by right—

living Christ’s life in us.

This is the life we receive.

That’s a hell of an heavenly exchange.

Until you run out of yourself, you will have no need for God. I don’t mean that until you run out of yourself, you won’t perceive your need for God. I mean, you won’t need God. God has built enough blessing into creation. But when you come to the end of yourself, you arrive home at last. To the aroma of home-cooking, and a choice to make.

Come and eat. Everything is ready. We were just waiting for you.

  

Third Sunday after Trinity 2023

 

I have been sitting with this verse over the past week:

‘Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’

Jesus (Matthew 10:39)

It seems to me that this verse is key to understanding the gift of life, the purpose of life, and the redemption of life.

Life, here, is the vital breath. That gift both given to you, and that you are to the world; a gift never given before, or again. The God who created the universe, who holds all of time and space, did not want a universe that you were not part of.

The first invitation of life is to find your life, to discover the unique nature of the gift you have been given. This takes time, learning, searching. Trial and error. Having a go. Missteps, and retracing our steps.

We discover that we are good at cricket. Or that we are terrible at cricket, but good at playing the cello. One member of our congregation found something of his life crawling through potholes. Not for me. We are all unique.

Perhaps we get married. Perhaps we have children. Perhaps we are the first person in our family to go to university or join the army and see the world. Perhaps we move from one workplace to another.

It is tempting to think that the invitation to find our life is an invitation for youth, but no. If you are still alive, life is still holding out that invitation. Indeed, it is essential, for life to be renewed, just as the seasons and cycles of nature renew the earth. It is never too late to discover a love for something new, something life-giving, revealing, or sustaining. The invitation to find life is not time-limited (indeed, I have a hunch we will carry on finding our life for all eternity). But the things we find are time limited.

If to find means to learn or discover, especially after searching, to lose means to utterly destroy. And this, too, is part of the experience of life. A time to search and find, and a time to lose; a time to be born and a time to die. Both/and. Neither one without the other.

Everything we find, we shall lose. Perhaps all of our peers have married, and we are not married. Perhaps all our peers have children, and we have not had children. Or we have had a child with profound medical needs. Or we had a child who died. Perhaps we went for a promotion or another job and didn’t get it. Perhaps we were good at sport, but injury forced us to stop playing. Perhaps we have retired, and who are we now, without the structure and status of work? Perhaps our children have left the nest. Perhaps we have been widowed. The life we had, or the life we had hoped to have, utterly destroyed.

Just yesterday someone said to me, ‘Life can feel very unfair at times.’ And I suppose that it can. Though I wonder whether our sense of un/fairness is skewed, towards those we know personally, or by a sense of entitlement, or by God’s refusal to conform to our expectations of what a god should be and do. In any case, I know it to be true that the more firmly we try to grasp what we can never hold on to, the more pain we inflict upon ourselves, and others.

Jesus says, those who lose their life for my sake shall find it. What does that mean? ‘For Jesus’ sake’ means that we set Jesus as the end of our life, not the means to some other end. Not the ticket to heaven so we can be reunited with our family. Not the escape from fear of hell. Not the guarantee that God will spare us the suffering common to all life. Not the means to any other end. Jesus, the all-in-all, with us and for us, sharing our joys and our sorrows.

Jesus meets us where we are. This is good news for those who are finding their life, because finding your life is difficult. It takes effort, commitment to searching. Steps, missteps, repentance (turning around, retracing steps, trying again) and forgiveness (of ourselves, of others). Finding life can be hard work, and sometimes it is tempting to give up, to settle for less, for existing but not living, to breathing but not the vital breath. But Jesus draws near, and in his presence there is healing, rest, a lifting of those burdens that can be lifted and a sharing of those burdens that cannot. In his presence there is power to keep going, and someone to share the joy with.

And this is good news for those who are losing their life, too, which is all of us. Jesus does not shy away from suffering but embraces our humanity—and in so doing saves us from our inhumanity—drawing us to God and neighbour, so we can say, with the apostle Paul, ‘I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8:38)

Where are you finding your life today? Take a moment to give thanks, and share the joy, with Jesus.

Where are you losing life today? Take courage. Bring your fears to Jesus, and love will rescue you, bring you to well-being. Glory follows suffering, resurrection life follows the surrendering of our life. Those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.

First Sunday after Trinity 2023

 

Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Have you ever felt ‘really alive’? Or do you have days when you feel you are merely existing? Of course, in a material sense this doesn’t make any sense: the very fact that you can feel more, or less, alive is because you are alive, not dead. And yet, we can probably all relate. There is more to the world God made than what can be seen or understood logically.

Again and again in the Bible, we are implored to choose life. Jesus said that he was sent into the world that people might experience fulness of life. Another word for life is holiness, or union with God, the Maker and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible.

For Jesus’ people, the material world that God has created points beyond, to the invisible dimension of the world. So, certain things were considered more holy—fuller of life, and the potential for life—than other things. For example, the Sabbath is more holy than the other days God as made: the week flows from it and builds towards it again. Conversely, certain conditions, that spoke of absence of life, made a person ritually impure (not morally evil) and thus temporarily excluded them from holiness, considered unable to receive or transmit the divine presence. For example, a woman is ritually impure following menstruation or childbirth, not because these things are ‘unclean’ or defiling, physically or morally, but because women are like God in the ability to create life, and the empty womb points to the potential of absence of life—of holiness—as the contrast. Anyone who touched her, or anything she had touched while ritually impure, became ritually impure themselves.

In the Gospel set for today we see Jesus in three situations where people are ritually impure. The first is Matthew and his syndicate of tax gatherers, who would at least be suspected of breaking the ritual pure/impure dietary regulations on account of their partnership with gentiles. The second is a man who is temporarily excluded from the synagogue where he has responsibilities as an elder of the community by the death of his daughter, and of course the daughter herself, for a corpse and whoever touched a corpse (and he would have both held her and overseen her being washed) was ritually impure. The third was a woman who had bled, not on a monthly cycle but continuously, for twelve years—as such she would have been excluded from the life of the community for that entire time—and the crowd she moved through—for anyone who had any physical contact with her would have been excluded, temporarily, on each occasion.

Three situations where the received wisdom, where the way in which the material world pointed to greater invisible realities—the choice between life and death; holiness, and separation from God—meant it was understood that the blessing of God’s presence could not be received or passed on to others.

And in these three situations, Jesus—the embodied Word of God, having become human, one of us, the very epitome of the material pointing to the invisible—does something that is both ordinary and incredible. He willingly takes on ritual impurity in touching, and being touched by, those who are ritually impure. This is ordinary, he is not unique in the story in this regard, for humans know that it is impossible to keep ritually pure while having any kind of relationship or interaction, while being human. But in the very place where God’s presence had previously withdrawn—as the days of the week withdraw from the Sabbath, only to return; as the full moon wanes away, only to wax again—God’s presence returns with life in all its fullness. Jesus is the Sabbath. Jesus is the full moon.

Jesus is the life that pays life forward (in contrast to the tax gatherers who levied a retrospective charge).

Fully human, Jesus is routinely ritually impure. Fully God, he is life, and health, and community; he is wholeness.

In the days when I feel temporarily excluded from being alive—for we may have set aside ritual practices, but our bodies keep time with eternity, the material with the invisible—on such days Jesus draws near, bringing healing. And on the days when I feel fully alive—for life is not observed from the stands but played out on the pitch—on those days Jesus rejoices with me.

Either way, he is to be found and followed, leading us from death to life, always and everywhere.

Where will you encounter him today?

 

First Sunday of Lent 2023

 

Matthew 3.17

‘And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”’

Matthew 4.1-11

‘Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’

‘Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

‘Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”’ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’

 

I wonder what you believe about God?

People tell me what they believe about God all the time. Often, they aren’t aware they are doing it. Often, they are expressing unconscious assumptions: ‘God is angry with pretty much everybody,’ or, ‘God is too busy with important matters to take an interest in me,’ or, ‘If I plead hard enough, God might answer my prayer, even though he probably doesn’t want to, because he knows better and probably finds my prayers foolish…’

These things aren’t true; but we can take lies about God on board and internalize them without realizing it. And so, the Season of Lent is given to us each year as an invitation to notice those lies, and to find them to be false.

 

Here are three commonly held lies about God:

[1] you are not acceptable to God as you are (i.e., God is not pleased with you)

[2] you need to earn God’s approval by your success (i.e., you are not God’s beloved)

[3] God blesses others, but not you (i.e., you are excluded from God’s family)

 

The Season of Lent is an invitation to notice those lies, and to find them, experientially,* to be false. How might we do that? Here are some Lenten disciplines, or practices, to help us:

[1] a stone is not a loaf, and that is just as it should be: slow down; take time to notice, and take pleasure in, the things around you, especially the little things…then take time to expand that circle of wonder at the created world to include you…

[2] heaven delights in you, whether earth notices or not: do something without seeking credit: give away some money: spend time alone with God, away from doing things for God: go for a walk (or a run) together, or to the cinema; take up a paint brush, or knitting needles; try something new, or pick up something that has been crowded out for too long: whatever you choose, envision God there sharing the experience with you.

[3] choose to delight in the ways God has blessed others; if you feel jealousy, or resentment, notice that, confess it, ask Jesus to carry it away. Praise God, the Giver of every good gift; allow a song to well up within you, like a stream in the wilderness: if it helps, play a worship song list to ‘prime the pump’ and get going. As we exercise thankfulness, we become more aware of the ways in which God has blessed us, too.

 

*That is, to discover what we read in Scripture can be true in our experience, too.

 

Ash Wednesday 2023

 

Lectionary texts: Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, and 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10, and Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21.

‘Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain-offering and a drink-offering for the Lord, your God?’ Joel 2:12-14

Joel’s community are devastated. The harvest they depend on has been destroyed by locusts. There are rumours of war, an invasion force massing at the border. Dark days ahead. They are scared, like children; perhaps pretending to be brave, like children. And Joel calls them to (re)turn to God.

Joel reminds them of the time when God revealed to Moses what God is like: gracious and compassionate; slow to anger; abounding in steadfast love.

hannun we-rahum, gracious and compassionate: hannun, from chanan, to show favour; and rahum, compassionate, from the same root as rechem, womb. This God is like a mother, who, moved by a visceral love for the child she carried, acts to help them in their need.

erek appayim, slow to anger, literally, having a long nose, or nostrils. The image is that of breathing in through the nose, when angry; of drawing in breath slowly, taking time. This maternal God gets angry at times, when we mess up, and rightly so; but she doesn’t have a short fuse. She isn’t the kind of mother whose children walk on eggshells, never knowing whether they are going to get nice mam or nasty mam. This God has a tell-tale sign, that drawing in of breath that alerts us to the reality we have a moment, a window of opportunity, to say sorry, when we have pushed her too far in taking her for granted.

hessed, unfailing love, covenant loyalty. This God is committed to us, will always be there for us, whatever we have done, whatever consequences we must live with.

One of the accusations thrown against God is why a loving and powerful being does not intervene to prevent suffering? But we cannot live as if God does not exist, and blame God for the consequences. God is not a maid to tidy up behind us, or a nanny to keep us from harm. But God does intervene, by responding to our cry, our longing, our recognising that we really do want God more than life without God.

The Season of Lent is an invitation to come home, to God, who sees the state we have got ourselves in, envelopes us in strong and loving arms, draws us close and holds us tight, spits on her handkerchief and rubs our grimy forehead with the sign of the cross.

Full disclosure: it isn’t spit, but anointing oil, a sign and symbol of the compassionate grace of God, mixed with the ash of our mortality. And with it, God brings bread and wine, meets all our needs, in Jesus, who draws our suffering into his own, that it may be transformed. For all that hurts or harms us will, in the end, be utterly consumed in the fire of love, until all that remains is a perfectly safe vulnerability, where we are seen, known, and loved, and see, know and love in return.

So come home.

 

Second Sunday before Lent 2023

 

Lectionary: Genesis 1.1-2.3, and Romans 8.18-25, and Matthew 6.25-34

I love the opening chapter of the Bible. It is, I believe, foundational for everything that follows. And while I believe that the universe came into being because God willed it so, I don’t think that is what this text is primarily concerned with. I want to suggest that it is primarily concerned with what it means to be human and how to live in the world. Moreover, though this is an account passed down in storytelling from generation to generation for centuries, I share the view of many biblical scholars that it was written down much later, after Jerusalem was destroyed and her population had been carried off into exile in Babylon, deeply traumatised and trying to find their bearings, to make sense of their world, which had become a dark and formless void. And I think that we can relate to that, as asylum seekers who have fled their country and community of birth, or international postgraduates far from home, or those who have been bereaved by the death of a dear one, and all of us as a Minster community through the protracted vacancy, or void.

This ancient text is a gift. It is a gift that draws us in, to a world that is, or has become, formless and disorienting, and which is loved by God, who watches over this world, this life, in love. God pays close attention and invites us to do the same. Taking far more time than we have in the sermon slot of a Sunday service. For timeless days, God focuses attention on one thing at a time, until God can declare it good. The first thing God attends to, and invites us to pay attention to, is light and darkness.

Light and darkness. Our days and nights. At an approximate latitude of 54.9° N and longitude of 1.4° W, we are currently getting two minutes more light morning by morning and two minutes more light evening by evening. Today, sunrise was at 07:35 and sunset will be at 17:05. Tomorrow, the sun will rise at 07:33 and set at 17:07. On Tuesday, 07:31 and 17:09. Incremental changes. Easy to miss, not least if the sky is overcast. Not least because we don’t want to know, want to make every morning and evening the same by means of artificial light from a bulb turned on or off with the press of a switch. Yet God calls us to pay attention. We all know that here on the east coast we get some amazing sunrises and sunsets, but we can take them for granted, or try to capture them in a photo to share on Facebook. The sun is literally rising before our eyes, and our eyes are looking at a smartphone screen. But there is something inherently good for us—heart and soul and mind and strength—in standing in the cold of the passing night and watching the sun come up, watching the sky being transformed through a palette of colours. Likewise, there is something inherently good for us—heart and soul and mind and strength—in standing still and watching the stars trace across the night sky, the dance of the planets. Shifting night by night, as well as through the night. Detail, detail, until the goodness of it all settles within us enough for us to say, with God, this is good.

There is not time for me to continue through the story. It is for me and for you to enter, anew, each day until the Day of the Lord, when Jesus comes to us to take us to be with him in his Father’s house. But trust me that there is healing and wholeness to be found in such practices as make us fully human, in union with God. May this be your testimony. May it be mine.