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Collect

Almighty Father, who in your great mercy gladdened the disciples with the sight of the risen Lord: give us such knowledge of his presence with us, that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life and serve you continually in righteousness and truth; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Risen Christ, you filled your disciples with boldness and fresh hope: strengthen us to proclaim your risen life and fill us with your peace, to the glory of God the Father.

Post Communion

Living God, your Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: open the eyes of our faith, that we may see him in all his redeeming work; who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Readings

First lesson – Acts 3.12–19

When Peter saw it, 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

Psalm 4

1    Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness; ♦
you set me at liberty when I was in trouble;
have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

2    How long will you nobles dishonour my glory; ♦
how long will you love vain things and seek after falsehood?

3    But know that the Lord has shown me his marvellous kindness; ♦
when I call upon the Lord, he will hear me.

4    Stand in awe, and sin not; ♦
commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.

5    Offer the sacrifices of righteousness ♦
and put your trust in the Lord.

6    There are many that say, ‘Who will show us any good?’ ♦
Lord, lift up the light of your countenance upon us.

7    You have put gladness in my heart, ♦
more than when their corn and wine and oil increase.

8    In peace I will lie down and sleep, ♦
for it is you Lord, only, who make me dwell in safety.

Epistle – 1 John 3.1–7

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

Gospel – Luke 24.36b–48

While they were talking about this, 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.

Sermon on Easter 3

Last week we heard the story of Thomas, and today we heard that Jesus said to the disciples, “‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?’” I would like to say that we should take courage from these rather accusing questions Jesus asked his anxious disciples. This narrative goes on, “In their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” For this reason I say, Be bold – we can still have the joy of a deep faith even if we wonder about a lot of the story. I say we need to “de-mystify” our faith, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church and its language. We need to be express ourselves plainly, with joy even if we are anxious.

It is quite clear that much of what we say in this sacred building has nothing to do with what happens outside these rather beautiful four walls. How many of us converse with people about the Christ risen in our lives? Who talks about the God of the resurrection as Peter did in our reading from Acts this morning? Who would dare to discuss the coming of the Holy Spirit openly in Dursley’s market-place?

The Trinity and all the complicated theology it entails does not impact on our daily lives, does it? In the history of the Church we can read stories of ordinary people trying to come to grips with this topic – that bakers would discuss the very complicated theology of the filioque with their customers as they handed over their loaves of bread. [Who besides me has ever heard of the filioque controversy?] Ordinary people are said to be passionately involved in the deepest mysteries of the faith. Today, however, who is interested in the procession of the Holy Spirit from God the Father and the Son (filioque)? Who cares?

What interests us most today? What is the common topic of conversation amongst people when we meet them on the street – apart from the weather? What do we talk about in the shops? It certainly is not matters ecclesiastically theological, is it? Most of the time we hear about how stressed people are, how they cannot cope with the pressures of present-day life, that they cannot come to grips with the enormity of the universe, that everything is just too far beyond their ken. Faith has to start there – where people’s cares are, where their language reveals themselves. Our church language often covers up our concerns and deflects us from the heart of the matter when it comes to our very own selves and cares, as talking about the weather does. Do we often – no, I should say do we
ever
– open up our hearts to one another to express our terrors and our fundamental doubts? How often do we even do this with our life’s partner?

Jesus “said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?’” If we are to be like Jesus in our lives, why don’t we ask this question of our friends and neighbours? Why don’t we speak of anxious doubt with our loved ones?

Rather, we think – “Isn’t it all too complicated? Isn’t it easier to talk about the weather?” In fact, when we tell another how stressed we are, doesn’t that kill any conversation dead? Do we ever try to press on about the fears and doubts which assail another person? It is much too easy to let them stew in their own stress alone with an anodyne, “Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” and move on to a less dangerous or revealing  topic of conversation. Or are dangerous and revealing the same thing? We are reluctant to leap ahead of the other in our dialogue with them to help free them from their terror.

Perhaps we must ask, whether people make those statements in order to distance themselves, to keep you away from them. They place their stress in the way as a barrier to friendship and care. So we oblige them and take another course in our conversation and life with them.

How can we free people up from doubt and fear? Don’t we feel that freedom ourselves? Hasn’t our faith been our reply to the call of conscience which we heard when we stood on the abyss at the edge of our terror? Didn’t Jesus come to us – whatever the guise in which he cloaked himself – and speak our name so that we could be ourselves? Like with Mary in the garden, didn’t Jesus talk with each one of us so that we could be freed from that fear of loss and that confusion of doubt? Can’t we do that for our friends and neighbours – or even a stranger in our midst? Can’t we speak their names as a call to the love of one another? Can’t we finally fulfill the only precept Christ gave his disciples – that we love one another?

This sort of activity is a very different behaviour from that associated with the church, isn’t it? The behaviour of churches does not foster this unconditional love normally, does it? We have pictures of the Church through images of Victorian clergy who move in the upper reaches of society, like those depicted in Trollope’s Barchester, don’t we? Or is it the Vicar of Dibley who is the picture of the church you have? These images of the leaders of the churches in the land need to be revised – they need to be stripped down to the pastoral care of love and from there we need to allow the churches – which is to say, you and me – to spread this gospel of freedom throughout the land, in each parish love should flourish and every person be confident in their own lives. This is the “de-mystifying” I want to pursue.

The freeing up of people for life in all its fullness should be our goal. So what does open up people today? Is it conversations about miracles? Does talk about theological matters create that freedom? What about talk of black holes or the Higgs Boson Particle? What would help you to understand that call of Jesus clearly, when you truly hear your conscience speaking? What settles you into confidence away from fear and doubt?

This radical reinterpretation has happened from the very beginning of the Church. We have the gospels – each of which has a different character, I would say in itself an indication of the struggle with the wonder and doubt of every disciple. And Paul took a very different way of speaking of the Christ-event in his life, didn’t he? The history of the Church shows how so many different approaches have been taken in the project of freeing others for that freedom to experience life in all its fullness, the life of unfettered love for neighbour and God.

When we pursue love, life becomes ever so much richer, don’t you agree? We become ourselves – we have heard our name clearly, though we may not know its source. Maybe this is why Jesus asks his disciples, “‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?’” Perhaps they were trying to figure out the source of that still small voice. So we should be bold and ask those difficult questions of ourselves and our neighbours. That is just what love does for us, isn’t it?  It is the question Jesus asks all of us disciples. – Let us experience life in all its fullness with joy in spite of the fear and doubt in our hearts.

Amen

Collect

Almighty Father, you have given your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Risen Christ, for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred: open the doors of our hearts, that we may seek the good of others and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace, to the praise of God the Father.

Post Communion

Lord God our Father, through our Saviour Jesus Christ you have assured your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him: deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Readings

First reading – Acts 4.32–35

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Psalm

1    Behold how good and pleasant it is ♦
to dwell together in unity.

2    It is like the precious oil upon the head, ♦
  running down upon the beard,

3    Even on Aaron’s beard, ♦
running down upon the collar of his clothing.

4    It is like the dew of Hermon ♦
running down upon the hills of Zion.

5    For there the Lord has promised his blessing: ♦
even life for evermore.

Epistle – John 1.1 – 2.2

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us – we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Gospel – John 20.19–31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Sermon on Low Sunday, Easter ii

Today we are gathered on what is often called “Low Sunday” – when congregations are reduced dramatically and there seems to be a dearth of priests. I think it is because all the celebrations of Easter have exhausted the people of God, both worshippers and their leaders. So many want to have “a day off” – the congregations want to take some time away from church and many of our priests have taken this Sunday off to have their holiday.

Where do they all go? Have they all hidden themselves behind locked doors like the disciples? But our reading from John tells us we can’t hide ourselves away – Jesus will appear when we least expect it, even when all the doors are locked and we have a sense of security against all our fears. However, it turns out this self-assurance is false. We are assailed by our own fears, those of our very own selves and the crowd. I would say that behind those closed doors, we are meet our conscience at the very least, an encounter we seem to fear the most.

Even though the doors are locked, we know about the fear of the crowd, don’t we? Well, we should because it is all around us. We have heard of this fear through the media, our conversations with so many who are frightened by everything going on around us – stories range from war and famine to the bullying of the schoolyard. I am sure many of us start out of a deep sleep on account of some night terror. The disciples have this grand fear as well, don’t they? We just read, “the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews.”

That is a rather odd statement, don’t you think? Weren’t they all Jews? Could we say they feared their very own selves – locking themselves away, hiding in dark places. – This behaviour didn’t rid them of their fear. It could have exacerbated it. In the dark, behind a locked door, the disciples would cower and hear every sound as a threat. Don’t we do this when we lie in the dark having woken up in the early hours? Don’t we tremble in the dark before the sun rises to cheer us? We certainly are ill at ease when a nightmare wakes us and we try to calm ourselves in order to regain that stillness sleep requires.

The doors are locked and yet we still quake in our boots because of the crowd which assails our very selves, that crowd which tries to tell us what to think and do, submerging us in that tsunami of lethargy and loss of self which its dominion creates. We are fundamentally a very real part of that crowd at the same time as feeling oppressed by its very real force on our lives.

No wonder we read that the disciples were frightened – no wonder they locked the doors so they might not be assaulted again by that crowd which took away their Lord and Master. Now that the disciples had seen the empty tomb, everything has been disrupted. All their expectations were overturned and they were confronted by doubt, just like Thomas.

Within their own ranks there was an unbelief – a doubt around Christ on the cross. Unless Thomas placed his hand on the wounds of the crucified Lord, he could not believe. This doubt must be the basis of the same fear all the disciples were experiencing. They tried to lock the doors to keep it away, but it was not just an external threat, it was an internal anxiety as well.

Internally and externally, the disciples were assailed. Terrors of the night and a fear of the crowd combined to drive the disciples into an upper room, into a space of perceived safety. It was certainly a place of solitude, but does it provide safety? This upper room does isolate, but does it provide a real security?

If we listen to the news and read the newspapers, don’t we realise that such isolation does not work? Separation from our fellows, whether collectively as a nation or individually as a single person, does not provide that certainty we all crave. Each one of us is thrown alone into the world, but each one of us lives amongst the crowd with one another.

In the isolation of the locked room, in the darkness of our fear, we are thrown back on ourselves. We are disciples. We must confront our doubts about life, the universe and everything. We must see the Lord standing there in front of us demanding that we put our hands in his wounds to make everything about life very real. Jesus asks us to experience life in all its fullness. In fact, I would ask you to consider that Jesus commands us to do so with his one injunction – to love one another.

To fulfill this command, means that we have to unlock all the doors. These doors are not just the barriers between us, but these doors are within ourselves as well. Didn’t Aldous Huxley ask us to open “the doors of perception”? I think Jesus is asking us to do the same thing. When we love one another, we are seeing ourselves and others anew. Our perception grasps new aspects – no longer is each one of us Marcuse’s “one-dimensional man”, but everyone is open to the other and so we round out our character. You might say the three dimensions of what Paul experienced of the love of Christ become our own. We become ourselves by embracing the other, not by isolating ourselves because of our terror of the crowd. We also become ourselves by getting a hold of ourselves by embracing all of our experience.

We have moved out of the isolation of the locked upper room into the wide open spaces of friendship and companionship. We have shed the fear of others and put on that armour of Christ which will protect us from any assault. We have become confident in our very selves because we have entered into the passion and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. There can be no terror to life when we have seen the breadth, heights and depths which the love of God opens up to us as Paul did. The fear and pain of life does not isolate us, but it unites us one with another. More importantly, we are not in fear of our own selves, afraid of the isolation of individuality. No, in our experience of the whole of Easter we have been transformed from individuals afraid of everything to people who care for each and every person we encounter just as each one of them loves us. We boldly go forth.

We are disciples, just like those who hid in that locked room, wondering about the whole of Easter. We keep reciting the passion story which ends abruptly at the empty tomb. And then someone enters our very own locked room, totally unexpected because of our recital of the story and opens our eyes – we no longer need the proof Thomas required. We see right through our own terror. Fear dissipates, and we have a new confidence. We have a strength of character which allows us to encounter and overcome that mortal, existential anxiety in order to live life in its fullness, to find life without fear in the fullness of loving one another.

Amen

Today we recount the story of the passion. – In our religious imagination, we relive the death of Jesus on the cross as the twelve experienced it. As disciples of Christ, let us explore the saving event recounted in the gospel of St John. (Jn 18:1—19:42.)

hymn 295 “let all mortal flesh keep silence”

Let us take these words of St Paul as our guide through this hour at the foot of the Cross –

Christ became obedient to the point of death, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.

Let us pray for the patience and resilience to participate in the gospel today.

With that intention, let us begin recounting the passion of our Lord.

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’, they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus answered, ‘I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.’ This was to fulfil the word that he had spoken, ‘I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.’ Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’

Here in the Garden, in the midst of frantic searchers, soldiers, temple police, men armed with weapons, lighting the area with lanterns and torches, Jesus calmly asks what the anxious search is trying to discover.

We have to remember that everything was to happen in order to fulfil prophecy. In spite of the terror and anger amongst all the people in the garden, Jesus is still calm and asking a reasonable question – ‘Whom do you seek?’ And he replies to them, ‘I am he.’ ‘Put away your swords. My father has given me the chalice from which I must drink’, words implying that we eventually will accept that cup for Jesus and also eventually ourselves.

But no one is listening to this mild reasonableness, are they? Even today we are staggered by simplicity and honesty – and still we do not listen to that moderation, but would rather pursue our obsessions.

In Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, the crowd of the revolutionaries shows exactly this behaviour. The baying for blood, the unreasonable demands and the frantic expression of obsession are what the crowd craves to satisfy.

So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.

So the calm and collected Jesus was arrested in the garden. He was bound by those frenzied searchers and he was dragged away to Annas the father-in-law of Caiaphas.

Caiaphas was the high priest that year. He advised the council that the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the few, so whatever was to be decided about this one man should be for the benefit of all. This is a very political judgement, isn’t it? A judgement we still make today, but perhaps one that is being made less and less as the selfish gene of social media gains sway.

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. The woman said to Peter, ‘You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing round it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

Don’t we all know someone who will do us a favour? One of the disciples knew someone and that acquaintance let him into the courtyard, the garden inside the walls of Annas’ house. The disciple wangles Peter in by speaking to the woman gatekeeper. – Imagine that, a woman keeping people out of this private place, well not so unusual if we have ever heard of gatekeepers in our contemporary society (let’s think on that archetypal person another time). – Now this gatekeeper was pretty sharp: she recognised Peter as one of the disciples, but Peter denied it – Peter denied his own acclamation of Jesus. Didn’t he once say, “You are the Christ!”? And here in the courtyard he joined the crowd around the charcoal fire, slaves and police all of whom had nothing to do with Christ and truth.

Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.’ When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’ Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

As the crowd warmed itself by the fire, the priest questioned Jesus. Jesus was still his calm self over against the authority of the world. He speaks only about his public discourses, that he never was a guerilla, planning in secret to sabotage the power of the state. His words were heard by many and he was happy that those witnesses of his public declarations be interrogated.

Such arrogance in the face of the high priest was punished with a blow. The palace soldier was asking with that cuffing of Jesus, “How can anyone question the assumptions of the high priest? How could any Jew gainsay the authority of the priesthood?” These questions are still being asked publicly today by political leaders and the crowd.

Jesus stood firmly by his public ministry to the people of God. Was it right that the authorities denied the truth which he preached? Was it right that the authorities would deny any expression of that message, especially as it was not wrong?

Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, ‘You are not also one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’ One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with him?’ Again Peter denied it …

Peter was not as innocent as Jesus, was he? He had acted in the same manner as the authorities. After all, he had taken up a sword and cut off an ear. Such a terrible act had been witnessed and remembered. And Peter was recognised as being one of those people in that garden outside the city, that place where betrayal began – when a kiss of loving greeting became the start of the rot, which culminated in the denial of being a believer of a public ministry in which there was no deceit, a denial of one’s true self.

“And at that moment the cock crowed.”

What are we to understand by that statement? We should remember what was said openly for our benefit. We should remember where we stood when we heard the words of eternal life. We are to mind the call of conscience issued by our friend who becomes our saviour. That call may only be the crow of a cock, but we should stand in the sweet innocence of Jesus when he said to the authorities, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong.” Do Jesus’ words here now accuse us – as they do Peter – of mendacity and self-serving behaviour? The cock calls to mind the use of the sword and the denial of truth in life.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, ‘What accusation do you bring against this man?’ They answered, ‘If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.’ The Jews replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death.’ (This was to fulfil what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.)

The crowd stormed round from Caiaphas’ place to Pilate’s headquarters with Jesus bound in their midst, heedless of their desecration of the Passover – though the crowd did not enter the unholy edifice of the Roman Governor of Judea. I would say that it was only a nod to their own ritual Law as the people of God, for their intention was truly unholy, wasn’t it? Can’t we understand how such behaviour is engendered in our own time? We all protest too much, don’t we, when we look daggers at someone and say, “A pleasure to see you”?

Once I read a very long study of the figure of Pilate. Everything in this description of the meeting between Pilate and Jesus was taken to be a confirmation of the worst a politician could be. From the cynical question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” to the washing his hands of the matter of this petty, mendicant preacher must have been written to show the dreadful behaviour of a crowd which has no recognition of the truth nor its own complicity in the debasement of another person. They brought before this worldly politician a man, whose crime Pilate did not even recognise. It was of no significance to his career – it would not bring him advancement – this minor event, the condemnation of a wandering, charismatic preacher to death, was nothing he wanted to take a part in. He was as cynical and sarcastic as any politician might be. So he threw the case back onto the crowd who brought it to him. – That crowd was as shrewd as Pilate, demanding he take responsibility for what they wanted to be done – with the sophistry that it was not lawful for them to put anyone to death.

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’

Here is the central point of Jesus’ preaching – the Kingdom of God. Jesus announced that it is so very near that we should listen to the call of conscience and repent because we have not followed the truth. The Kingdom and the truth go hand in hand in Jesus’ world, but what about Pilate and the crowd – were the Kingdom and truth connected at all in their minds? Jesus condemns those who do not hear truth just before Pilate asks the only question anyone ever remembers about him – “What is truth?”

After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ They shouted in reply, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas was a bandit.

Did Pilate really think Jesus innocent, or was this whole episode just too messy for him as an all-powerful enemy leader lording it over a recalcitrant, conquered people to deal with? In his cynicism, Pilate threw it all back to the Jews in the form of a choice, between this innocent preacher, Jesus, or that revolutionary bandit, Barabbas. Was this a test for the crowd to prove itself as false and inauthentic as Pilate himself?

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Pilate did what every duplicitous politician would do – he humiliated the accused with a bitterly ironic beating and sarcastic dressing up no Jew would have ever countenanced for themselves and presented this comically parodied figure back to the crowd.

“Ecce homo” – “Here is the man” – says Pilate after he had personally insulted him with a blow from his own hand. He thus  dismisses this “man” whom he had just called the King of the Jews and presents him to the people gathered at his door. The crowd speaks the truth as Pilate hauls Jesus out before them. The crowd replies that Jesus claimed the Kingdom of God as his own, that he was the Son of God. So this Jesus has to die because of their own Law’s condemnation of human hubris, that no man might claim to be God.

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’ From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.’

Here we find Pilate in his base humanity, in his fear, a fear the Jews re-enforced by accusing Pilate of not being a friend of Caesar. He knows how the Roman emperors claimed divinity for themselves. Now this Jew has done the same – and Jesus puts a true fear of god in him, no wonder the narrative says that he was “more afraid than ever.” Whatever he does, whether he acknowledges Caesar or Jesus, the ruler will hold him accountable for everything he has done in this incident. He knows the spies are everywhere and he fears for himself even more than he has ever done.

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, ‘Here is your King!’ They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but the emperor.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

As he quaked in his boots, being accused of not being a friend of Rome, Pilate produces Jesus to the crowd yet again. He mocks them about Jesus being their king and whether he should be crucified. The Jews were supposed to be preparing for the solemn feast of the Passover. Here everyone is at the place of judgement, the Stone Pavement, Gabbatha, and there was such an outcry. The Jews were happy that Jesus should be put to death, and that they had sworn allegiance to Caesar even more emphatically, thus condemning Jesus to be crucified.

So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write, “The King of the Jews”, but, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.” ’ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written I have written.’ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfil what the scripture says,

‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’

And that is what the soldiers did.

From the place of judgement to the place of execution Jesus and two other condemned men staggered and were hung up to die. He died under the sign entitled “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” There was no mistake. Like a social media post, once it was written, it was written and nothing could change it. And so Pilate paradoxically confesses Jesus a true king. Truth in mendacity, truth in a web of lies.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

The compassion of Jesus for all is evident here. That Jesus loved everyone assembled here at his death is apparent when he commends his beloved disciple and Mary to one another as a new family, a family which everyone could be. Every man is a son to every woman, and every woman a mother to every man.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

With this last gesture to ensure that love would endure, he accepted the fate of all flesh. Life is love as Jesus showed it through his whole life. Here we can hear Paul’s words again about Christ’s obedience, can’t we?

We must obey the one commandment he gave to the world that we love one another and ourselves because we love God.

Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Are we like Joseph of Arimethea? Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but he was a secret one because of his fear of the Jews. Joseph fears the crowd. He doesn’t want to confront that mob which calls for blood, even though they don’t want to be ritually unclean by a profound blood-guilt, or by dealing with the outcast or the foreigner. Joseph finally steps up to act for Jesus. He, I think, like Peter, has heard the cock crow. I think we should be like Joseph of Arimethea. We must go forward in faith like Joseph, even if ours is a secret faith. Let us do the good we can and testify to the truth. We must prepare ourselves for Easter when truth will out and joy will abound. Until the tomb of our hearts is full of the glory of the Lord, let us sing again.

hymn 295 “let all mortal flesh keep silence”

Collect

God of compassion, whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary, shared the life of a home in Nazareth, and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself: strengthen us in our daily living that in joy and in sorrow we may know the power of your presence to bind together and to heal; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

God of love, passionate and strong, tender and careful: watch over us and hold us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Loving God, as a mother feeds her children at the breast you feed us in this sacrament with the food and drink of eternal life: help us who have tasted your goodness to grow in grace within the household of faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

First reading

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Second Reading

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Mothering Sunday

As they used to say, are you comfortable, so let us begin, as we “listen with mother” today, Mothering Sunday.

“Woman, here is your son.” What a verse we have from the gospel this morning! Jesus looks down upon the Mary’s gathered at the foot of his cross and speaks these enigmatic words. These words give all of us a great deal to think about, don’t you agree?

What strikes you as the meaning of these words? There seem to be a number of obvious meanings – but, I feel none are right and none are wrong. But we do have to hunt for them as we read the verses, or hear them as they are declaimed from the lectern. We do have to engage with these words somehow, don’t we? Don’t we have to make sense of them?

In our reading, Jesus is talking to the disciple whom he loved and his own mother. We are told that, from that hour, the disciple took Mary into his own household.

This fact seems very curious to us today, doesn’t it? Why did the disciple take this woman into his home? – Was it because it is Jesus’ mother? Was it because these words Jesus uttered from the cross were his last? Why take in a woman whose son has just been executed in such a horrific manner?

Was it guilt – the guilt of a survivor? Did the disciple feel responsible in some way for Jesus’ death, or guilty that he survived the man who loved him? Or, more likely, did the disciple feel that this woman now had no family to care for her – after all, her son had just been killed in excruciating pain. Who was now to care for her? She had no one to support her. There was no welfare system then. Widows and orphans were on their own, as they have always been until universal social care began. They usually starved unless they were lucky with friends and family, or they were able to pursue some sort of trade.

Widows surviving on their own were unusual in the ancient world; after all, the west’s nuclear family was not part of that society’s norms. Families were large and integrated. So, we should think that the disciple whom Jesus loved must have been like a brother – why else would they become part of the same household? Wasn’t he a beloved brother to Jesus and so it was natural that he should care for Mary and Mary’s care devolved upon him?

Another possibility is that Jesus shamed the disciple into such action. Jesus “blackmailed” him, as it were – a gentle coercion to be sure, the metaphorical twisting of the arm as it were.

Perhaps the words, “Here is your mother” were even addressed to Mary – what if Jesus was actually telling his mother to regard that disciple as her son? – Not to coerce the disciple, but to draw Mary’s attention to another young man to take his place. The disciple would have adopted this woman as his mother, if she recognised that the disciple could act as her son. Is Jesus enabling his mother not to become obsessed with these last moments, that she should not think of him only, and of his death at the hands of murderers, those Roman legionnaires. Jesus wanted to heal his mother in extremis, for he knew it was possible that she might never move on from his death, like so many mothers mourning their dead children.

Could these be the only scenarios to make sense of these words of Jesus as he drew his last breath? I don’t think so. I think Jesus was referring to himself as he spoke to his family, friends and disciples gathered there to witness his last few moments on earth. I think Jesus was saying to Mary that her son was hanging on a cross, there were no angels or armies to rescue him from the hands of the hated Romans.

I think Jesus was re-establishing the loving interdependence which exists all around us. On the one hand he was taking himself out of the equation, and, on the other, he was pointing people towards the living. As he was being lifted out of life, he pointed down to those who loved him and those whom he loved, to hold the living precious, and to love one another. Even at the last, the one commandment which he handed on to us is directing his whole being.

I don’t think these thoughts are anything new. But I think they all arise from the text we have heard and read so many times. Why does he call Mary (whichever one he was talking to doesn’t matter) “Woman”? It is a stark address to one of those who were so attached to him. Imagine you yourself looking at your mother and saying, “Woman,” to her. Is this a universalisation of these last few words Jesus spoke from the cross? Are we supposed to be addressed directly in such a declaration? If I were that woman, Jesus would have been challenging me to take care of this man standing beside me – I am being told that I have to care for this man as if he were my son. And, as a man, I am to take this woman – any woman – as if she were my own mother. This is an affront to all normal sensibilities. But Jesus always did strike at the heart, didn’t he? I have talked about the sleepy-headedness of the crowd, their unthinking and uncaring attitude toward the world in which “they” live with “their” “normal” everydayness.

This final episode with his mother and the beloved disciple turns our normal world on its head. When Jesus utters these words, doesn’t every single one of us become someone of importance? The disciple takes the woman to his own home, she becomes part of his family. I would like to say that the disciple “appropriates” this woman, he makes her his own, as he takes her under his wing and into his home.

If we hear and act on these sayings to the people gathered at the foot of the cross, Every man becomes a son – and every woman becomes a mother. Sons and mothers without the tie of blood – I would say that is the core of Jesus’ message to us – we are all part of this family torn apart by death, but a new family reconstructed by Jesus’ only commandment, “Love one another.” This tie of love is what distinguishes the christian community.

Everyone can experience this compassionate care of absolute love when they enter the doors of a church. The building can offer the place where the silent brooding of our God can be experienced in a new creation – if we are open to it. The busy fussing of God can be given when the congregation welcomes the stranger of a morning, just as the Holy Spirit agitates with those so very valuable gifts for every one of us.

Love should define us, especially in those last moments of life, which the philosopher says is every moment of life. The sayings, “Woman, behold your son,” and “Behold your mother,” should regulate all our actions, from that moment, like a heartbeat.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Merciful Lord, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Exodus 20.1–17

Then God spoke all these words:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Psalm 19

1    The heavens are telling the glory of God ♦
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

2    One day pours out its song to another ♦
and one night unfolds knowledge to another.

3    They have neither speech nor language ♦
and their voices are not heard,

4    Yet their sound has gone out into all lands ♦
and their words to the ends of the world.

5    In them has he set a tabernacle for the sun, ♦
that comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoices as a champion to run his course.

6    It goes forth from the end of the heavens and runs to the very end again, ♦
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

7    The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; ♦
the testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple.

8    The statutes of the Lord are right and rejoice the heart; ♦
the commandment of the Lord is pure and gives light to the eyes.

9    The fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever; ♦
the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

10    More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, ♦
sweeter also than honey, dripping from the honeycomb.

11  By them also is your servant taught ♦
and in keeping them there is great reward.

12    Who can tell how often they offend? ♦
O cleanse me from my secret faults!

13    Keep your servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get dominion over me; ♦
so shall I be undefiled, and innocent of great offence.

14    Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, ♦
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Epistle – I  Corinthians 1.18–25

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.

Gospel – John 2.13–22

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.

Sermon on Sunday, Lent iii

I would like to paraphrase some words from Paul’s letter which we read this morning.

For some demand signs and others desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to the former and foolishness to the latter, but to those who are the called, everyone who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Everyone who is “the called” gets the best of everything, don’t they? But who are the called? Do some of us want only miracles which speak of some unearthly power? Do others among us want only revelatory pronouncements that will become statements which will never be questioned? The third way denies the power of the crowd, some of which are seekers of the magical and the others who rely on the words whispered by no one, both ways are flawed, don’t you think? For both ways take away one’s autonomy, one’s own self. After all, I have no part in the crowd’s deliberations. The crowd will take over my whole being, if I let it. Either the miraculous or the siren song becomes the arbiter of all I would do in my everyday, normal life in the world. One or the other part of the crowd will overwhelm me.

The third alternative, that stumbling-block, which Paul reveals, is never considered, is it? We pass over this third way because it doesn’t conform to what we in the crowd expect – it is neither miraculous nor is it a set of words to keep us quiet. The crowd doesn’t think about this third way at all, does it? Paul tells us that Christ is the power of God and that Christ is the wisdom of God. Christ is both together. Christ is the miraculous and the wise incarnation of God in the world. Christ is a challenge to our unthinking. Christ confronts the crowd and its expectations. Christ makes us stub our toe.

So, if that is right, if we are always stubbing our toes, it is no wonder that no one wants to take this third way. It is so much easier not to answer a challenge, to slide along as we always do, without conflict in relation to ‘natural’ expectations, we are part of that crowd which drowns out all our very own thoughts. We don’t listen to the call of our conscience which questions the chattering of the crowd and wakens us from that soporific chuntering of those around us.

The religious life in every culture is no simple thing. Rather it is like that stumbling block which Paul reveals. Even the philosopher falls prey to the crowd when he joins in the crowd’s opinions. And that is despite the fact that she decries the unthinking, baying crowd because no one in it ever hears, let alone listens, to the call of conscience.

What if we do listen? What if we find that stumbling-block more persuasive than the siren-voiced crowd? What if the course of our lives takes a turn away from the simple non-choices the crowd offers us? Wouldn’t things be very different? I wonder, could we say the stumbling block is to be our mountaintop? Does it allow us to see above the crowd milling all around us? Is this stumbling block our own cross?

If so, I think we would be careering through the whole of our lives, always hitting our toes on what might be considered a foolish stumbling block by everyone around us, everyone who does not hear their inmost self crying out to let it be its authentic self. That is the crime the crowd commits – that the crowd does not accept the other as he or she needs to be cherished.

Don’t we see this all the time, when the crowd bays for the blood of someone, a politician of strong character or a leader of no quality at all? We can even see it when we go out in public. We see it in the way people rush by someone in pain, not seeing the very evident pain of homelessness or depression or even delusion. We do not let empathy have a hand in our lives, because sympathy would have us feel for the other and do something for that person. Alas, we do nothing because the crowd has diminished us.

The crowd does not want us to be different from what “they” persuade us is the case. The crowd empowers us to be like itself. I ask, whence comes our strength in the face of this overwhelming weight of the crowd by which we are immobilised? The psalmist says “my strength comes from the Lord”, doesn’t he? But who of our acquaintance would dare to say such a thing to us or who among us would dare say such a thing to anyone else today? If we listen to the crowd, we are to raise ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or get on our bikes, or some other cliché which means nothing. All these tropes assault us and weaken our resolve to do what is different, to do what is morally responsible. The crowd wants us to take an easy path, one that has been smoothed by the crowd’s unthinking and unfeeling erosion in the course of life.

When Amos reported God’s word, “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” did he have a crowd in mind? No, he was talking to you and me, individuals who would choose how to live well in the world. Amos was talking about Paul’s third path, wasn’t he? The path which ultimately is one of painful suffering, if only of the ego. Amos and Christ knew the sacrifice of a pure heart, a suffering in front of the eyes of the world, a life of constant stumbling against the blocks of moral behaviour.

The crowd has swept away the stumbling block because it looks elsewhere for its sense. It concentrates on only one thing and can see nothing else. Either it is looking at miracles or worldly wisdom. Paul suggests to his hearers that both are necessary for the good life. Both the power of God to do miracles and the wisdom of God to guide through all life’s difficulty are integrated in Paul’s third way. It is a balanced mode of life.

The christian can extol the power of God in the world and her own life – that is, the wisdom of God can be discerned. The christian does not limit life to one aspect. The christian lives in power and wisdom, what has been given to us all. I would like to say that the christian can engage with all of creation because of the balance of faith, the life of moderation.

We can stand alone because we know about power and wisdom. Perhaps the christian stands atop of those stumbling-blocks and can see more in life than the crowd might see in its blinkered imagination in the valleys between those blocks. Paul recommends to us a way that we have to make our own. It must be made real in every single life because nothing stands still in space and time. Each of us has to live out our conscience for ourselves. This is not something a crowd can do! The crowd becomes our ownmost possibility for the individual paradoxically. We stand alone in the midst of the crowd to become ourselves as we stumble and we must encourage the person beside us, who will have to struggle, just as we did, long after our own battles are over and the victory is won.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth, that they may return to the way of righteousness: grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Almighty God, by the prayer and discipline of Lent may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings, and by following in his Way come to share in his glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Almighty God, you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Genesis 17.1–7, 15, 16

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.’ Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’

Psalm 22.23–31

23    Praise the Lord, you that fear him; ♦
O seed of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, O seed of Israel.

24    For he has not despised nor abhorred the suffering of the poor; neither has he hidden his face from them; ♦
but when they cried to him he heard them.

25    From you comes my praise in the great congregation; ♦
I will perform my vows in the presence of those that fear you.

26    The poor shall eat and be satisfied; ♦
those who seek the Lord shall praise him; their hearts shall live for ever.

27    All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, ♦
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.

28    For the kingdom is the Lord’s ♦
and he rules over the nations.

29    How can those who sleep in the earth bow down in worship, ♦
or those who go down to the dust kneel before him?

30    He has saved my life for himself; my descendants shall serve him; ♦
this shall be told of the Lord for generations to come.

31    They shall come and make known his salvation, to a people yet unborn, ♦
declaring that he, the Lord, has done it.

Epistle – Romans 4.13–25

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Gospel – Mark 8.31–38

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

Sermon on Sunday, Lent II

Who likes to read? And what sort of thing do you like to read? I know most people have to read set books as students. I wonder if you have ever picked them up again and tried to read them with new eyes, seeing the motifs, the language and the whole course of the story as if it were the first time, with the literary eye which your teacher tried to develop in you when they were trying to teach you.

I ask this question about reading because the gospel of Mark began what is called the critical study of the bible. A few weeks ago we read the story of the transfiguration and Jesus’ admonition to the disciples not to tell anyone anything about what they witnessed on the mountaintop. This week we hear that Jesus spoke openly. His words were heard by ordinary people, Pharisees and Sadducees, Samaritans and even pagans (the foreign merchants and all those Roman soldiers occupying Jerusalem, for instance). This seems to be a contradiction in the narrative, doesn’t it? Silence and openly speaking? 150 years ago a German scholar, William Wrede, investigated it. He began, it seems, the literary study of the bible, for he examined the book of Mark as a literary artefact. As a consequence of his endeavours, he gave the world a number of scholarly gems – the most important being his view of the synoptic gospels and the conclusion that there was a priority of Mark.

Wrede’s work on what he called the messianic secret opened rich veins of investigation by scholars and a way of reading documents with a clarity from which we have all benefited. Part of that benefit is that we can all employ these scholarly techniques ourselves in our own reading of literature.

For instance, if we read the newspapers, rather than just being entertained by the different opinions expressed by the leader writers, we can put the articles next to one another and see what different language is used in reporting the statements of the main characters in a news item.

We can benefit from form criticism, one of the many modern disciplines of literary theory. How statements are made reveal a lot about the speaker and audience, and if there are different reports of the speech, we can investigate just why the writer expressed the news in a particular way. This is the same thing the early biblical scholars did when they placed Matthew, Mark and Luke side by side to see the similarities and the differences in the stories reported in the gospel narratives. We can hone our literary acumen by looking at our daily papers. Such an exercise can render our politicians’ words – or even their spin doctors’ presentation of his principal’s words – with a lot more clarity.

One of my teachers was a biblical scholar who compared secular and sacred sources in his work on the bible and patristic literature. He took on a project which seemed to have no relation to his academic work. He used secular sources to see whether these methods of textual criticism worked in what we call “the real world”.  Just after the war he took some public documents about the sinking of ships and submarines during World War II. He examined all the disparate and contradictory stories which were in the public domain in the same way he investigated the ancient literature. He eventually wrote up his conclusions, went into the German Navy Archive and compared his findings with the facts as the Navy had them in their private records. He went into the archive and began checking his results. His wife was waiting for him at the door at the end of his exercise and she was startled to see him emerge from the archive, because his face was pale and he was trembling. “What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously. He replied, “I was right.”

This story was told to me by a fellow student who was a great friend of the scholar and his wife, so I don’t doubt the veracity of it. I saw the man at work in the classroom, so I can also see that the story had to be true. He had a way of making the history of the church immediately relevant. He spoke of the Nicene Council as if it were a meeting of the G20. He said that the Church Fathers were herded into the building and told that they had to come up with a solution to end the controversy on the streets about expressions of the faith, as if there were flashing blue lights outside, pressuring them to come to a conclusion.

Here we have a biblical scholar who used his discipline to make sense of the world around him – literature of all sorts was examined and its truth and falsehood was exposed, warts and all.

I think we can learn a lot from biblical studies for our own benefit in contemporary culture. If we take time to carefully inspect the words of everyone around us, we can come to a better understanding of life in all its complexity.

We might even come to the conclusion that people have secrets that need to be kept, but they also speak openly about so many other things. If we put together their whole narrative, we might be able to reveal some of the secrets of the heart which they want to keep hidden. But if we carefully read their narrative with the skill of our biblical scholars, we could begin to understand what they reveal about themselves.

I believe that religion should wake us up to what is right and good, that God was at the core of our lives. I have always wanted the faith to be intellectually respectable, that it should be something to be examined in any way that is acceptable to reason and faith together.

I once spoke with some people about whether they went to church, and one replied, “Oh, I left that behind a long time ago, for it seemed so childish to me.” But what if he had the idea that faith and its documents could be examined with an eye to truth which could be revealed by examination? What if he had a set of tools which made sense for a twenty-first century schizoid man, he could have left those childish things behind and looked at everything in a new way. He could have entered into a world of maturity.

It is not a big leap from examining ancient documents to scouring social- or multi-media to extract some meaningful material for our own benefit here and now. Studying the bible is as good for us as examining a school text, the newspapers or even FaceBook. Everything should become grist to the mill of minds eager for clarity in the world around us. – I think we should watch with untiring eyes to see just what will be revealed about the reality of our own world, whether it is found in the open chattering of the crowd or in the silence surrounding a secret.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness, and was tempted as we are, yet without sin: give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit; and, as you know our weakness, so may we know your power to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Heavenly Father, your Son battled with the powers of darkness, and grew closer to you in the desert: help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer that we may witness to your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Lord God, you have renewed us with the living bread from heaven; by it you nourish our faith, increase our hope, and strengthen our love: teach us always to hunger for him who is the true and living bread, and enable us to live by every word that proceeds from out of your mouth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Genesis 9.8–17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’

Psalm 25.1–9

1    To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
O my God, in you I trust; ♦
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies triumph over me.

2    Let none who look to you be put to shame, ♦
but let the treacherous be shamed and frustrated.

3    Make me to know your ways, O Lord, ♦
and teach me your paths.

4    Lead me in your truth and teach me, ♦
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you have I hoped all the day long.

5    Remember, Lord, your compassion and love, ♦
for they are from everlasting.

6    Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions, ♦
but think on me in your goodness, O Lord, according to your steadfast love.

7    Gracious and upright is the Lord; ♦
therefore shall he teach sinners in the way.

8    He will guide the humble in doing right ♦
and teach his way to the lowly.

9    All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth ♦
to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

Epistle – 1 Peter 3.18–22

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you – not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Gospel – Mark 1.9–15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Sermon on Sunday, Lent 1

“Forty days and forty nights” – with that phrase we have begun our great fast in preparation for the events proclaiming our salvation, in preparation for Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.

But why forty? What is the significance of that particular number? A teacher of mine in Vermont told his class – “Forty is a perfectly long time. Four is the perfect division of all things. Quaternity is the perfect partition of space – the four compass points. And ten times four is a very long time.” You get the idea. My teacher wanted us to think poetically about the statements in the bible. I still do that. So what do we imagine the forty days and forty nights is all about? Do we think about perfection at all? Or do we hurumph and complain ‘when can I have my chocolate and wine again?’

Forty days is such a long time in our lives, isn’t it? Imagine fasting for forty days! I can’t because I love my food too much. But we can symbolically fast for such long times, can’t we? Can’t we abstain for the whole of our lives? I know people who have taken “the pledge”, don’t you? I know people who have never taken drugs for pleasure – they have taken drugs only when the doctor told them.

We all know that it is possible to live the great fast, don’t we? We have seen others do it. We ourselves might have been able to do it. The great fast is something more than the ascetic foregoing of pleasure. I think we can all agree about that, can’t we? The great fast is the transformation of our lives. We make the great fast the starting point for a new life. We begin to forsake the horrible for the noble. We begin to value what is good in life.

The great fast is the point at which we change our worlds. We move from the everyday forgetfulness of the honourable to the extraordinary care for each person we encounter around us. I would like to suggest that the great fast gives us so much more than we could possibly give up.

Coincidently, the other night I was exploring Search Engine Optimisation and the writer was talking about an exercise to see how to get better search terms – he talked about “voluntary fasting” – and it led to a lot of information about giving up eating for periods as opposed to “involuntary fasting” which is another way of saying “starvation”.

Maybe we should think about that distinction when we think about our Lenten discipline. Is our fasting seen to be like starvation? Do people outside the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church see our fasting for Lent to be something that is involuntary and akin to starvation when they consider it in relation to their everyday lives? Do people inside the Church think the same? – I don’t know. These are just questions that pop into my head, exactly as they appear in your minds when you think about faith and its expression in your own lives.

So, imagine my surprise when I realised that even my Search Engine Optimisation research could impact my reflection on faith – on this talk I am giving today.

But should we be surprised? Doesn’t everything connect with everything else? Don’t we realise that in or everyday lives? We have all heard about “the butterfly effect”, haven’t we? The effect of when the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings will have some bearing with an event on the other side of the planet. – I always remember a science fiction story in which people go back in time to go dinosaur hunting. They are told to stay on the path. However, one person did not and he stepped off the path for just one step which landed on a butterfly. No one thought much about it until they returned. Not much had changed, except there were nazi insignia everywhere and everything was just so subtly different.

This is the sort of effect that I think the great fast can have for the world. If lots of people – if the majority of the people in an area took on the discipline of the great fast, imagine how things could change!

If our great fast was not just about giving up chocolate or wine for forty days and forty nights, but if our great fast was to do good deeds for forty day and forty nights or even the whole of our lives, imagine the changes that might occur. We would have changed ourselves a bit – we would become aware that doing good is not an extraordinary thing, that we could do it day in and day out for the rest of our lives. Imagine how that would change everything around us! Life would be better for everyone, starting with ourselves. Every year during Lent we should be transforming our world. The perfectly long time of forty days would have an impact on the world – we might even be able to perfect the world in which we move and have our being.

We christians should be taking a longer view. Imagine the forty days as forty years, like the wandering in the desert which the Hebrew people did, the Hebrew people who are the foundation of Jesus’ life, the foundation of our Lord’s life here on earth.

Imagine if we made that period the great fast of our discipline. Imagine how strong our resolve would be! We would be able to do good at every moment of our lives. Our world would be one in which the poor and widow would not be ignored. Our world would be one in which everyone was cared for because we loved one another. Self would be left behind and the other would be the focus for all our activity. Because we would take care of others, others would take care of us. No one would be unloved.

Imagine that our great fast of Lent could transform the world in which we live like that. Wouldn’t we gladly participate? It could, don’t you think? So why don’t we fast greatly? Do we listen to what “they” say, those who say “it doesn’t make any difference,” or “this is the way it is.” Why do we listen to those voices without love? Shouldn’t we hear the word of love as it sounds all around us? Or do we turn a deaf ear to the joyful message of universal salvation?

Forty days and forty nights – the great fast of Lent – we have started it. Let us continue with it, transforming the giving up of Lent to the giving the good over to the world. Let us pray that our Lent becomes the making over of the world. May Lent make us engage with everyone we meet. May Lent be the means by which Love becomes incarnate in us. Let us fulfill Christ’s wish, to show that we have the faith, because we love others as Jesus loved his disciples. I want us to be the presentation of Christ now, as Jesus loved the world that he became nothing for all. We can become the image of Jesus Christ to our neighbours because we love one another in the way a true family has affection for each and every one without concupiscence, warts and all.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.

or

Almighty God, give us reverence for all creation and respect for every person, that we may mirror your likeness in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Epistle – Colossians 1.15–20

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Gospel – John 1.1–14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Sermon on Second Sunday before Lent

Recently, I have been reading two novels which had to do with murder and the mayhem such an event engenders. In both the victim was a young girl. The horror which all felt at such a crime was on every page. The pathos everyone feels when hearing such news draws out the character of the sleuths. They show their humanity in their behaviour, evoking in the reader a sympathy with victim and detective. The author is trying to describe just how the lost life affected all the world around each of them.

One of the detectives described his emotions quite precisely. It seemed to me that he was in the throes of grief. The investigator kept thinking, “What if … ?” He wondered how he would be able to cope if this dead young woman had been his daughter. That thought drives him in many directions, but the most important thing is the eruption of compassion for the bereaved and the lost girl. It was as if the dead girl were actually his beautiful daughter. He began in anger, and proceeded in guilt – that “What if …?” haunted him to ever greater exertions. Eventually, with the solution of the murder he became reconciled to the loss of the girl’s life and both could rest in peace.

The important thing, I thought, is the observation that the inspector’s world had collapsed in on itself when he imagines his daughter as the victim, just as his world has revealed itself as a nexus in which everything is connected with everything else. We all experience this, don’t we? When something dreadful happens, don’t we begin to question everything? Like the sleuth, we realise that everything may not be what it seemed to be just a little while ago.

Our world is a Gestalt – a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. The detective realises, just as we do, that when a part is missing the whole is diminished by more than just that small part. The girl’s death throws many personal worlds into disarray, that of the detective with his “What if …?” and the world of each of those who mourn the murdered girl. Everything has become disjointed, the cohesion of everything we know has been dissolved. We all wonder how anything can become “normal” again, don’t we? The detective is in the midst of this chaos until the one part is fitted back into the events and a new world is created, one in which justice is found for the victim and everyone’s worlds are created anew and a new normal can begin. Everyone’s life is renewed by the solution of the murder. The world may not be what it was just a little while ago, but it has become a whole again, greater than the sum of its parts and new.

Our readings from John and Paul talk about the character of a believer’s world. Both speak of the Creator in terms so fulsome that we are comforted in a way that our ordinary understanding often doesn’t accomplish.

When I consider the Creator God, the Lord whom Paul extols in our reading, I have to look upon the world in an entirely different way, don’t I? The early spring flower struggling up through the terrible weather of winter and its aftermath is a very different creature for me when I see it through the prism of Paul’s thought that “all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” How can that blossom rising from the detritus of storm and flood be anything but fantastically beautiful, when I consider that in God everything is held together?

Don’t I know the truth of this chaos of interconnection myself? Don’t I know that because I love my wife so much everyone becomes precious to me in some way? Even the fellow with whom I have such difficulty, don’t I treat him differently because I know how to love him because I love my wife? Or because I know love as a child,  doesn’t that transform my feelings for all those squalling children flooding the pavement as they stream home at three o’clock? Doesn’t that happen for all of us?

I hope we can acknowledge how we transform our environment, trying to make the best of all possible worlds amidst those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Just like me, everyone else is looking at the world through spectacles, which may be tinted rose but some may be some dark shade.

One hundred years ago, the deepest depression oppressed the world, when the shilling would not buy very much, in some countries even hundreds of shillings would not buy enough for survival. Their lives were filtered through the poetry of men mired forever in the stench of the trenches. That filter produced the next generation, those people who flapped about in excess, whose thoughts gyrated between colourful joy and black sorrow. That filter produced all the parents of the 1920’s. Now we are doing the same for our children as we pass on our own filters of tradition and attitudes.

Here we are producing the world, with those filters which allow us to function amongst all around us. Just as previous generations left us their attitudes, so we leave ours to our children. What have they learned from us? What have we handed over from the generation before us? What will our children give to the future?

This is an observation about society as well as individuals. Culturally we are handing on something we may not be aware of. Is it a culture of the bully or the culture of the caring shepherd? Only our children will  show what we have handed on … and only the future can tell what we and our children have done. I would say that love reveals the connection of everything. I think that we reveal ourselves completely in love, and that love can help us understand the world as Paul does in our reading. Or to paraphrase John, “Love became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen its glory, the glory as of the parents’ only child, full of grace and truth.”

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, in Christ you make all things new: transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Eternal Lord, our beginning and our end: bring us with the whole creation to your glory, hidden through past ages and made known in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

God of glory, you nourish us with your Word who is the bread of life: fill us with your Holy Spirit that through us the light of your glory may shine in all the world. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Epistle – Revelations 5:1-10

Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals; and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’

Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song:

‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.’

Gospel – John 1: 43–51

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

Sermon on Epiphany 2

‘A mighty angel proclaimed in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”’ We have just heard this question, haven’t we. If that were all we heard of our lesson, what would we answer?

We might be like the narrator, “I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.” That scroll had writing on the outside and inside, but it was sealed with seven seals. Who would be able to break those seals in order to reveal the contents of the scroll?

An elder spoke, cutting through John’s despair, saying that he should not weep. “See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” We all ask – Who is this Lion? What will he be like? In the proceeding chapters of the book of Revelations, we have already read about figures which terrify with their feet of clay and arms of bronze, one had a head of a man with long flowing hair and beard with a sword emerging from his mouth, … then there are the four creatures standing around the throne, but also standing in the presence of the throne are the elders and the saints. If they are not worthy, who is? We must ask ourselves – Why is the question asked?

The first four chapters tell us of John’s vision, the vision which he is to record for the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church’s benefit. They tell of the danger and terror about to be unleashed in the world, but especially on the church, as the letters to the seven churches make clear. Amidst all this chaotic vision, wouldn’t we weep? – because no one is worthy to look upon this scroll, held in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne in the middle of all these heavenly witnesses to the power of this throne before which John falls down in terror and awe? The implication is that this scroll contains the answer to all our fears. Who is to open this scroll?

Who is this promised worthy one? Who is this Root of David who has conquered? What is his countenance? Will he be so fierce no one can stand in his presence? That is what we expect, isn’t it? In our everyday understanding, don’t we have hopes of a warrior of terrifying mein? A champion worthy, because of his triumphs, to open the seven seals of the scroll and to reveal all to us?

These are the thoughts of everyone who expects the coming of the final kingdom, that the one who is to come will be mighty and powerful, so strong that none can stand against that agent of the final change. These are the thoughts of so many throughout history. We need only look at the hopes and fears of all the generations after Moses, and from Isaiah and all the other prophets – the coming King of Israel will subject all to fealty to his God. We all know how disappointed so many generations were in those expectations.

Even christians have harboured such grand hopes. Many preachers and modern prophets have had their hopes dashed too. But then there are those who turned to John’s apocalyptic visions and read the chapter we began this morning. We read of the revelation of the Lamb of God, the one who is worthy of opening the scroll – the one who would be able to break the great seals and open up the secrets of God for all.

‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth.’

But what does this worthy one look like? Is his visage strong and commanding? Everyone who now stands in that kingdom as priests serving God, even they were not worthy to open the scroll. Who do we see now approaching the seven seals?

A Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

What a bewildering image to have of one who is worthy to open that scroll! – A slaughtered lamb, dismembered, with seven horns and seven eyes – who would accept this monstrosity as the one worthy to open the scroll and to read its contents to the world? But we proclaim Jesus dead on a cross and buried, to be our saviour, don’t we?

Our faith is full of paradox and mystery – and even confusion. The book of Revelations has always been one such instance. Can you say, hand on heart, that you understand this book? I cannot – I rely on commentaries to comprehend the ins and outs of this book of the bible. However, I think it encourages our imagination to soar freely, to incorporate dreams into everyday reality. Thus we can see wars and rumours of wars around us as part of that divine plan for the whole of creation.

However, it has also allowed the demons of our imagination to gain a hand-hold in our lives as well. When the excess of fear grasps at our throats and our propensity for violence against our enemies holds our hearts so tightly, I see that the dark side of apocalyptic visions may have taken hold of our lives.

Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose, shows us that it is possible to be overwhelmed, as the librarian is, by the visions of evil in the world and become obsessed with rooting out all that we consider dangerous. The librarian found that laughter was so dangerous that all the books which expounded comedy and explained the power of laughter to turn everything into something to be embraced for its absurdity, they had to be hidden away. The librarian was convinced that even Aristotle’s book on comedy had to be kept within the seals of his secret library. Eco’s novel shows us just how easy it is to succumb to temptation. We can see it in our own lives, can’t we? Haven’t we acted without moderation from time to time? Haven’t we let fear rule our actions now and again? I am sure you can think of times when this has happened in your lives. I can think of many in mine – a fear that keeps me from acting boldly to do what is right, a fear which prevents me producing the good for all those around me, which in my enlightened moments I know would be right.

Who is worthy to reveal all these secrets in our hearts? – The Lamb of God, we answer. Perhaps, I am like that slaughtered lamb after all, I am a broken human being – perhaps I like the lamb can break the seals of ignorance and misunderstanding, perhaps I can read the scroll and comprehend and teach its reality. Perhaps, you are like that slaughtered lamb – perhaps you can, like the lamb, break the seals of ignorance and misunderstanding, perhaps you can read the scroll and comprehend and teach its reality. — Sadly, we will have to continue reading this prolix and confusing book to find out just what message those seals were keeping safe. I encourage you to continue reading John’s Revelations, but moderate your imagination by obeying the Lord’s only command, that we love one another so we won’t succumb to the many excesses found in history. I think these visions reveal the truth and we must see them through love for the sake of universal salvation.

Amen

Collect

O God, who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: mercifully grant that we, who know you now by faith, may at last behold your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Creator of the heavens, who led the Magi by a star to worship the Christ–child: guide and sustain us, that we may find our journey’s end in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Lord God, the bright splendour whom the nations seek: may we who with the wise men have been drawn by your light discern the glory of your presence in your Son, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Epistle – Ephesians 3:1-12

This is the reason that I, Paul, am a prisoner for Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles – for, surely, you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace, that was given to me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

Gospel – Matthew 2:1–12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

    “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Sermon on Epiphany

What does the word “epiphany” mean to you? I think it is a strange word in English. We take it to mean the birth of Jesus as it is linked with the magi. However, just as a word it does not mean that – no, it merely means “manifestation”, when something shows itself as it is. Wikipedia says:

Epiphany in literature refers generally to a visionary moment when a character has a sudden insight or realization that changes their understanding of themselves or their comprehension of the world.

And at another place,

Epiphany is an “Aha!” moment. As a literary device, epiphany is the moment when a character is suddenly struck with a life-changing moment of clarity.

Let’s incorporate that newer meaning into our christian understanding of the word – that moment when the magi appeared in Bethlehem. When we put these two meanings together, don’t we get a more interesting understanding of this wonderful feast of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church? When we see these iranian magicians at the manger with gifts so symbolic, don’t we see the story anew? Don’t we comprehend a greater significance because of the whole of this story of the strangers at the birth of Jesus? We are with these strangers and see a new relation with the divine just as they did. We can now understand why Eastern Orthodox christians celebrate the Incarnation more fully on this day than on what was Saturnalia in the Roman calendar, the West’s December holiday.

Christians have transformed that pagan celebration by associating the birth of our Lord and Saviour to the 25th of December. Now we are confronted by the appearance of the divine in the world. It is revelation, pure and simple, as Paul says. We see Jesus Christ as the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Light of the world, the Comforter, the Prince of Peace … and ever so many other names associated with Jesus, the Christ. However, all of these names must be collected into the image we have of our Lord and become what we understand to be God in our lives – Emmanuel. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians tells us that everything he knows about his Lord comes from revelation – that moment of epiphany if we would like to use that term to explain just how radically Paul’s understanding of Jesus Christ had been changed. However, I think we should make use of another word to emphasise the extraordinary nature of this moment of insight which we have on this feast?

I would like to introduce you to a new word, “theophany.” It is the word the historian of religions uses for the appearance of a god in the myths, symbols and rituals of any religion. It is a word which denotes the majesty the believer experiences in the life of faith – whatever that faith is – when there is the awakening  to the wonder of the god amidst the things of the ordinary world, a moment when the world is transformed into a sacred envelope into which the believer is inserted. Can’t we understand how this happens when we celebrate this feast of the Church?

This technical, academic term should help us come to a new understanding of this traditional christian term, epiphany. No longer is it merely a day in the calendar when we remember three persian magicians arriving in Bethlehem because they were led by a star. We have to ask ourselves, does that story make any sense to us today? But can it make sense when we understand that this is one way we might experience how the divine revealed itself to the world? That, I think, is the way we have to understand “theophany”. Theophany is how the divine manifests itself in the history of our tradition. We must comprehend that it has happened. We should celebrate the feast of the Epiphany with a completely new sense of its significance.

We have the notion that God has entered into our world in a very specific way, through incarnation. God manifests himself in the world through flesh and blood. This is what the beginning of the Gospel of John tells us, isn’t it? With the words, “and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld the glory” doesn’t the evangelist reveal this reality? Further evidence of the divine among us are all those miracles attested of Jesus in the gospels and the many traditions that did not make it into the canonical bible. John the Evangelist does in fact say that the whole world could not contain the miracles God has wrought, doesn’t he?

The believers’s eyes are open to see, just as their ears are open to hear. The faithful looks around at a sacred world and sees evidence of the divine everywhere. It changes everything. Since we have experienced the theophany, existence has been made even more real, it has touched the everyday moment and transformed all time into a different sort of time – it is sacred time – and all space becomes sacred space because our God is here with us – here and now.

All our celebrations on the streets and on television can be seen as cute recitations of the story of the birth of Jesus, when we happily see the scrum of our children around a girl we call Mary and her doll on the school stage. They sometimes wear costumes, sometimes they carry their own dolls of sheep, donkeys and cows as they act out their roles. Then for the older children and adults we proclaim the story in the nine lessons and carols services, or watch this spectacle on television as it is acted out at that college in Cambridge. — I would like to say that our Christmass celebrations become the re-enactment of the holy birth and we understand just what the incarnation really is. You might say that we have seen the star and we are making our journey to the nativity with eyes wide open to see the babe. We travel with ears unstopped ready to hear the angelic host. We see and hear the declaration of the divine in all the voices around us, young or old, traditional or completely untamed.

Here we are beginning the new year. We are celebrating the Feast of the Incarnation still, especially as we journey with the wise men to the baby Jesus, the babe who holds the promise of universal salvation. That is the miracle we all long for in our retelling the story of this remarkable event. We make this magi/magic journey for the sake of confirming the reality of our lives. We know we can see it there and then, here and now – in the time which was before and now is. We journey to Bethlehem with the magi and comprehend that we have travelled over half the earth in order to stand by the manger as the poor babe sleeps – the stoic child now awake without crying he bears the world’s suffering for its redemption. This child makes all things new and returns us to Eden, both in time and space. There in the garden of innocence we stand without stain and experience life in all its fullness, a life we should share with, and give to, others.

Amen