The theme of my sermon today is concealment.  Is concealment wise or unwise?

Does it bear fruit or is it destructive?

In today’s Gospel reading we learn from the words of Jesus to his disciples that he does not want them to tell anyone that he is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  He praises Simon Peter for saying that he is the Messiah as it has been revealed to Peter by God, but the Gospel concludes with a stern order from Jesus to his disciples not to reveal this title to anyone.

This concealment of his identity is wise because Jesus, at this particular time, is undertaking his earthly ministry, and only when he has been raised from the dead and ascended to heaven can the word be spread that he is the Son of the living God. Until that time Jesus does not want to apply the title of Messiah to himself because of the implication of an earthly, rather than heavenly kingdom.  Implication, because in popular Jewish opinion the one through whom God would restore the Kingdom of David would be a king triumphant who would not suffer.  Jesus, in this instance, is accepting concealment as necessary in the fulfillment of God’s divine purpose, which takes us on a journey in stages from Creation to the Book of Revelation when we are given the vision of the new Jerusalem.

Setting aside this particular concealment, Jesus runs heavily in the opposite direction when referring to the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  The Pharisees, who distrust him, resent him, and have malicious intent against him, are condemned outright by Jesus, throughout Matthew’s Gospel, for concealing their true intention to bring him down and eventually kill him.  This concealment is unwise because it hides murderous intent. It involves saying one thing whilst meaning another.  We can find an example of this concealment in Matthew chapter 22 when the Pharisees, whilst plotting to entrap him, say to Jesus: ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth..’.  Jesus retaliates with ‘why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?  He sees right through them.

In his earlier chapter 10, Matthew warns the disciples that they will be dragged through the mud before governors and kings but they must not fear because nothing can be concealed from God.  As it is given: ‘for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.  God sees all, even a sparrow that has fallen to the ground.  So you cannot get away with unwise concealment.

In Matthew chapter 23, Jesus denounces the Pharisees and the Sadducees in their placing of heavy burdens on others and doing nothing themselves.  He accuses them of locking people out of the kingdom of heaven because they cannot get in themselves.  All this is concealed by appearances; taking the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues.  Appearing righteous but inside full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  All very unwise.

The Jewish leaders, then, come under heavy fire in Matthew’s Gospel for unwise concealment and this attack on their behavior can also be found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Concealment does not get a good press in the Bible.

Yet there may be times when concealment could be deemed to be wise.  You might want to protect a child from the full knowledge of a traumatic episode.  You might also want to protect a vulnerable elderly person from bad news.  Where concealment becomes, as Shakespeare wrote ‘like a worm in the bud’ is when it is there to cover up ill intentions and malpractice.

Sometimes, in our history, there have been attempts made to conceal dark periods by pushing them underground in a frenzy of merriment.  I think here of the dance floors of the 1920s under which lay the horrors of the first war.  This was understandable concealment generated by fear, but I believe it is better to acknowledge that those bad times happened and let time and tide ease the pain.

Probably, at some stage in our lives, we have all wanted to hide something from others.  One of the most popular children’s games is hide and seek.  There is the excitement of being in a hiding place, provided it is not prompted by fear, but to cover up wrongdoing can generate a succession of problems, sometimes for generations to come.  Let us not go down that path if we can avoid it.  Let us instead be guided by God towards an open minded and honest society for the benefit of all.

 

AMEN

 

 

 

 

It is absolutely wonderful to be here on what I really do think is my last Sunday with you all! Never say never, but there really is no other date in the diary (in the foreseeable future)!

Well, the gospel reading we had today is one that has caused some controversy over the years. And I have to say, I’m not convinced that the language of the King James Bible has helped us today…

It has of course been greatly influential on our history and poetry, but I sometimes feel we need to hear things in a more modern way, and so I’m going to give you again the passage that was read, but in a way that hopefully makes it a bit clearer.

The reason for this, is that some people have concluded that Jesus is racist and sexist in this passage – he calls the foreign woman ‘a dog’! Let me be clear: he is absolutely not being racist or sexist, but our cultural distance from the actual event hides that fact somewhat.

So here goes. What you are about to hear is a terrible translation from the Greek, but I hope it gives you an idea of the actual meaning:

• Jesus, who is a big fan of the England football team, went over to Germany (I should probably say Spain, given that it’s the final of the Women’s World Cup, but Germany came to mind given our long sporting rivalry!) There, a German woman, wearing the colours of the German football team, started shouting for help.
• She said “Help me kind Sir, honourable Englishman”.
• The disciples said “Get rid of her, she is annoying us and she supports the German team. We all know the rivalry between the England and Germany football teams!”
• Jesus said “I was sent only to England supporters”.
• But she threw herself before him and blocked the way. She begged him, “Help me, sir!”
• He said, with a kind smile and a twinkle in his eye “Is it right for me to give my time and energy, which is meant for the England supporters, to you, a supporter of our great rivals, the German team?”
• She replied “Yes it is!”. She recognised his smile and playful tone. “Because even when England win against Germany in the final, we still know that we came second in all the world”.
• Jesus answered with a smile “You have huge faith and have shown it. I will heal your daughter”. And her daughter was healed instantly.

How does that make you feel? In that light, I hope, you can see this is not a rude encounter, but one in which a total outsider is commended and rewarded for her faith. (I also hope my ancient Greek teacher never reads that translation)!

Jesus meets this woman, who is from absolutely the worst possible background. She is a Canaanite, Syrophoenician, gentile! The worst kind of person! The Kings of Israel had a long history fighting these people.

And yet she comes to him, showing amazing faith. This Jesus is someone from outside of her community, outside of her comfort zone. Yet she reaches out to him. It is like a true supporter of the Labour Party deliberately choosing to go to the Conservatives for help – and showing the Conservatives lots of respect at the same time!

Jesus’ first response is as much to the disciples as it is to her. The disciples see her only as a problem, and as an outsider trying to break in on their nice day. “Send her away! She has nothing to do with us!”

Jesus says what they are thinking “I was sent only to Israel’s people”.

The woman comes and stops him in his tracks. She is going to chase the Lord, knowing that if you really want something, you will ask, you will seek, and you will knock. This is general life advice: people who really want things make big sacrifices.

Jesus, with a smile, tests her. Clearly she recognises him as Lord – she uses that word – but Jesus, to use an awkward phrase, plays “devil’s advocate” with her. He says “Should I take the bread for the children of Israel and give it to a dog?”.

She recognises that he is being provocative, and she recognises that he is inviting her to argue with him in an intellectual game. Yes, he has called her a dog, but that is the word all Jews used for non-Jews at that time. Jesus is using a great teaching method, that when your professor argues with you, making the opposite points, it forces you to think and argue and develop your own ideas, and it allows for ideas to be tested and developed.

So she responds with a wise smile, recognising the game Jesus is playing with her. “Yes Lord, but even the dog gets the crumbs that fall from the children’s table”. And Jesus was so delighted with her answer, he healed her daughter.

So what do we take away?

1. The woman passionately believed in a God of abundant blessing. If the Jews were blessed, then God would give them so much that everyone else would also be blessed. In my analogy, if England won, then Germany would still be delighted, as they came second in the entire world! Silver medal – better than no medal! The leftovers on the table would be so much that those down below will also get food! God is seeking to pour out blessing – but he also looks for a faith response!
2. This women is from the outside, with no right to the blessing, sees and understands God better than the disciples do. She knows that the God of the Jews promised to bless Abraham and through Abraham the whole world. The disciples are so insular and self-obsessed, they miss the mission of God to bring the whole world back to him.
3. We also see that Jesus invites the woman to engage, to chase, to argue with him. We see him giving her some barriers, but she leaps over then. She really believes Jesus can give her the answer she wants, and she won’t let the disciples, or being called a dog, or being from the wrong ethnic group stop her getting the healing she wants for her daughter.

This woman is an example of the kind of faith Jesus loves. It isn’t very English, it is about chasing, pursuing and hounding the Lord. Do we, when we pray, really beg God for a response? That is the kind of faith he invites us to have! When was the last time we wrestled in prayer, begging God for an answer? Wrestling in prayer, worshipping him and submitting our lives and our desires to his will?

Because this is the heart of it: this might be the last time I preach here at St Mark’s – unlike last time, there really is no further date in the diary when I am scheduled to be here. So let this be the message I want everyone to hear:

We are like the disciples. We say to people “go away, you are annoying us, you are from the wrong group, you make us unclean”. Yet Jesus is clear – no person can defile you. The problem is in your own heart, not in a different person. And each one of us carries that problem. We call it sin.

Sin leads to death. We can’t avoid that. But Jesus died – and rose from the dead. So first of all we must submit ourselves to Jesus. We must metaphorically die, letting our desires go and laying our hopes on the cross.

Then, we receive forgiveness and begin to let him live his life through us.

Sometimes he will pick up your desires and use them for his glory; sometimes we will have to let them go. That can be painful – death is always painful. But by dying to Jesus and letting him live through us, we bring God’s rule to this earth. We are no longer our own property, we become agents of God’s Kingdom.

So my desire for everyone in this church, and for myself, is that we learn to daily die, to repent and turn from our way to the way of Jesus, and let Jesus live through us.

And then this Syrophoenician Canaanite woman can be a guide to us: to seek the welfare of others with a passion. To pray and worship fervently, with real faith, believing God wants to answer and change us and our situations.

Let us pray:

Father God, we thank you for Jesus, who died and rose from the dead.

We thank you that in him and through him we too can have life.

We repent of our selfish ways, and ask that you will live in us and through us. We give our lives to you. We ask that you will let us be agents of your Kingdom on earth.

Help us to love you and trust you more. Help us to pray with greater passion and urgency, and to know you want to answer us and lead us ever closer to you.

In and through the name of Jesus our Lord,

Amen

From St Luke, chapter 9: v 28 and 29
“And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took
Peter and John and James and went up to a mountain to pray.
And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his
raiment was white and glistering.”
And
From 2 Peter, chapter 1: v 19
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well
that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the
day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

Good morning, and welcome back to the Holy Mountain for the
Transfiguration, an event so radically illuminating and foundational that
we encounter it twice every liturgical year, at two different fixed times.
One sits as the tollgate to the Lenten passage at the close of Epiphany
season, when we can hear its message as motivation and comfort for
the long weeks of penitence and reflection ahead. It uplifts a reluctant
pilgrim with a glimpse of the Christ, the son of God who became fully
man – ie. what he was not – whilst remaining what he has ever been –
fully divine. It is a fit time, between Christmas and Pentecost, to reprise
the miraculous events of Jesus’ incarnation in earthly space and time
and take heart in his glory and redemptive love. Each of these events –
from birth and presentation in the Temple to Passion and Resurrection –
has multiple ties back to the Hebrew scriptures and are deeply
embedded in writings of the Prophets. From Genesis to Malachi, these
steppingstones lead only to Christ, concealed in plain sight in the Old
Testament, revealed in divine purpose and glory in the New.

Some 5 months later, the 6th of August is the date for the official Feast
of the Transfiguration, so it does not always occur on a Sunday. Any
day of the week, I love the word ‘feast’; it creates an anticipation of
bounty, joy, good company and in my mind, fully deserves its own
Sunday. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, ‘feast’ is defined as a
“commemoration of sacred mysteries and events in the history of our
redemption”. It is not a “cunningly devised fable”, not myth or
metaphor, but eyewitness reports from a time and place. Our second
invitation to witness the majesty of the living God comes in Week 10 of
the long season following Pentecost, a stretch of “after Trinity” Sundays
that examine the nature of the Kingdom of God, and the conduct and
mission of his Church. Into a season of instruction and application
drops a shining moment of elevation from this world to that which is
eternal, yet available to be grasped here and now, if briefly. As Jill
describes it in C S Lewis’ The Silver Chair, this experience is “too
exciting and scrumptious for words”. Luke describes eyewitness
accounts of Jesus emerging from a veil of flesh to a metamorphosis so
beyond human understanding it cannot be described as anything other
than ‘altered’ or changed, arrayed in pure light, radiating energy that
literally flames and sparks with self-generated power: the Son of God
as the life-giving, glistering sun.

The Transfiguration is included in all three Synoptic Gospels, and in
Second Peter. The fourth gospel writer, John, also an eyewitness, does
not mention the specific incident. Instead, it seems to have irradiated
his entire book with the message and metaphysical wonder of the
experience. How else could his Prologue speak of “the Word made
flesh” who not only lives amongst us as well as in the bosom of the
Father, and is the Word that expresses the Father as it calls all things
into life?

It is interesting that all three gospels cite the trigger for the
Transfiguration experience as Peter’s confession that Jesus is the
Christ of God. For the first time in nearly 3 years of living and travelling
with Jesus, witnessing him preach, heal, cast out demons, feed the
multitudes, resurrect the dead, subdue wind and water, Peter is moved
to speak as himself and not as others speak. It is an opening of his
mind, a John Donne-like “battering of his heart”, Luke follows it soon
after by recording Peter’s impetuous speech on the Mountain, spoken
from a place of faith beyond his ability or need to understand. Jesus
recognised it as such.

We may find it more difficult to credit such ability to discount a nearly
numberless sequence of miracles! For us, seeing is close to believing,
as in an often-paraphrased quote from a Poe short story “Believe
nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.” The
emergence of deep fake images hint at the danger in such an
assumption. One of the churches in Wittenberg where Luther nailed his
95 Theses to the door now boasts a Chatgpt priest dispensing a
blessing for a donation! Radio 4 reports it does a brisk business.
Both are a reminder we alone can do nothing, create nothing to gain
forgiveness, redemption, and eternal life without a live faith in the living
God.

For the Jews, a deeply imbedded tradition of holy men doing
miraculous deeds as moved by God poses a different barrier to
discerning divinity. Seeing is not believing unless reported by reliable
sources. The bar is high because some their people have seen and
recorded miracles such as Moses parting the waters, ascending Mt
Sinai to receive the Law, feeding the children of Israel for 40 years
wandering in the desert. Or Elijah triumphing over 450 prophets of
Baal, bringing the widow’s son back to life and passing straight from
earth to heaven in a fiery chariot. The prophets acted as God’s proxy
because the Scriptures told them that no mortal can tolerate the sight of
God almighty. Divinity must always be veiled, separate, apart, not
walking about looking like everyone else.

They also believed that the appearance of the Messiah would produce a
total transformation: an imminent restoration of their people to the
Promised Land and reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, fully
aligned with Mosaic Law and the Prophets. Advance organisation
would be provided by Elijah, returned to serve his nation after being
‘taken up’ from Mount Carmel centuries before. The Kingdom would
manifest on Earth as a righteous and triumphant upgrade in preparation
for the Last Day, when God’s people would be resurrected all at once,
soul and body re-joined. They knew that resurrection was possible as it
occurs 3 times in the Torah scriptures, when God brought the dead
back to life acting through the prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Instead, Jesus confuses them by giving strict instructions to keep this
joyous news strictly to themselves until AFTER his time of suffering,
death, and resurrection, to be mirrored in a difficult life for his followers.
At this point, Luke tells us that Jesus withdrew to pray as was his habit,
this time taking Peter, John and James, his closest disciples. In Jewish
tradition, neither sight nor hearing counted for evidence unless there
were 2 or 3 witnesses.

It was while he prayed that Jesus’ transfiguration spontaneously
occurred. Next Moses and Elijah appeared in glory: the lawgiver and
nation-builder with the prophet and defender of the faith, both having
departed the earth centuries before. Here is a mind-bending disruption
of the time-space continuum, a multiverse on a mountaintop, where
Jesus Christ, the patriarch and the prophet discuss what Luke
describes as Jesus’ imminent ‘decease’ which he ‘should accomplish’
in Jerusalem. How will he achieve the ultimate Passover, where his
sacrifice is sufficient to justify the sinner once and for all? Do Moses
and Elijah appear to ask Jesus about his plans and satisfy the curiosity
of ages past, or did they know enough to lend him support before his
passion? After all, Moses did have early form in Passover
accomplishment. Is the scene one from the divine eternal present,
providing a glimpse of each Hebrew’s mountaintop moments
simultaneously from what we would call the past?

We recall the time the Patriarch received the Law from the Almighty on
Mount Sinai. Though cloaked in cloud, divine radiance yet caused
Moses’ face to reflect a glow too bright for Hebrew eyes. However, the
protective veil worn to return to the tribes was soon removed when
reflected glory faded. Moses may represent God’s gift of the Law, the
foundation of Jewish religion, but he was a sinful man with conscious
murder on his hand and display of lethal temper, doubt, and arrogance
as God’s appointed leader of his people that deprived him of entrance to
the Promised Land although the Almighty himself undertook his burial.
Now he stood, redeemed and glorified, once again on holy ground.

The Prophet’s epic battle against the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel
saw him spared death in anticipation of returning to prepare the way for
the Messiah. His role now assigned to John the Baptist’s preaching of
repentance and Baptism; he too stands in the presence of the living
Christ on the holy mountain. Once again, he is empowered by God and
represents the 40 or so prophets who throughout the ages have put
down markers that lead to our redemption through Jesus Christ whose
creative love sustains all life.

All too human, the disciples fail in prayer and fall asleep, so do not hear
the full discourse. Were they overcome by doubt, overwhelmed by the
prospect of the last Passover and Passion? Did they lack the
imagination to grasp the moment as did Thomas Aquinas, who when
confounded by doubt, chose to believe in a bigger God, a more
miraculous salvation? C K Chesterton calls this “believing in MORE
reality, not less”. The shock and wonder of such a spiritual awakening
kept the writer alert to the blessings and pitfalls that beset the Christian,
given imaginative life in The Screwtape Letters, written from a senior to
a junior devil. John Bunyan had written about this territory, the road
from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City in The Pilgrim’s
Progress, hundreds of years earlier. Considerably earlier still was St.
Augustine’s epic “The City of God”. Although the way is unique and
planned for each of us, the path is well known, taking us both higher
and deeper in everyday relationship with God.

When the disciples do wake, Luke tells us simply that they “saw his
glory and the two men that stood with him”. There is no doubt who is
the source of power. No sooner did they spy Moses and Elijah than
they departed, spurring Peter to speak up. “It is good, Lord, to be here”
cried out Peter the impetuous, not knowing what he said, or why, but as
a spontaneous expression of the joy of this mountaintop moment of
communion with God. He wants to DO something to keep it going, build
tabernacles, set up camp, keep eternity present, skip straight to glory
past suffering, death, and resurrection. But we have not yet
accomplished that height in God’s plan.

The words barely out of Peter’s mouth, a cloud comes and overshadows
them with God’s awesome presence, delivering the abiding take-away
from this momentary enlightenment:

“This is my beloved son: hear him.” And believe every word in the
biggest, most direct, most remarkable way. Because of his unique
person within the Trinity, Christ hears God and passes the Word to us.
In turn, God hears his Son’s prayers on our behalf.

The first time we hear God the Father affirm his son’s divinity, he speaks
to John at the Baptism of Jesus. This time, at the Transfiguration, he
speaks to the key disciples. Now that Jesus is crucified and risen, he
speaks through his son to all of us, endlessly available. Enjoy the light
shows and glimpses of the unseen should you be graced with them in
your lived life. And always pay attention to the Word as Christ walks
with you, sometimes to a mountaintop moment, always back down
again, through the spiritual landscape of your life. Stay connected
through prayer and with each other. Tis Good, Lord, to be here. AMEN

Following the Parable of the Sower last week images of seed-time and harvest continue: Jesus is clear “the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.”

Before we look at the Gospel passage, and as we have not been reading much of Romans so far since passages from it have been the NT choice, let us just remind ourselves of what this great Epistle of Paul’s is addressing and then we might see how today’s two readings speak to one another.

Rome in the first century world featured as daily reality as the Church was growing and expanding from Palestine throughout the Mediterranean world. As you know all roads let to it, and it sat at the epicentre of an Empire, the like of which had never really seen. Arguably there was a rather fascinating relationship between the Empire and its Jewish subjects, who rather uniquely were allowed to practise their religion differently from everyone else. In short Jews were exempted the requirement to owe allegiance to the Emperor cult as it grew in the 1^st. c.

St Paul’s other letters were to Christians in churches which he had founded, and of which he was in some sense their spiritual head.

The Epistle to the Romans is different. Paul is writing to Christians who generally have not been evangelised by him, although from the greetings at the end of the letter he seems to know or have met a large number of Christians living in Rome. They are resident in that great City, with all it represents as the seat of imperial governance. If Paul was writing in about 55 AD, he is writing to a community which had been divided for practical reasons, because the Jews of Rome had been expelled by the Emperor Claudius in about 49 AD, following an uprising. Two key people, Priscilla and Aquilla, a couple Paul had met then in Corinth during that exil,e had managed to return home, following Claudius’ death.

About 30,000 Jews lived in Rome, and it seems some of their synagogues in the early 50s AD and before the expulsion were already centres of very early Christianity. Roman non-Jews seem to have been drawn to these meetings. In Rome today there are churches which seem to have been built on the foundations of just these early meeting places which may have been synagogues before they were churches.

One of the key issues for a community which has emerged from Judaism, but itself was decimated the exile of the Jews, is how does the message of Christ sit within the intricate legal framework and demands of Judaism. Gentile proselytes realised the great demands of the Jewish Law, and while some did convert, many remained friends of Judaism but not full initiates. So the questions for them as Jewish-leaning Gentile followers of Christ were comparable with the radical Gospel Paul was preaching of a renewed attitude to the Law and Covenant – which had put him at odds with Palestinian Christians and Judaisers.

What Paul has been addressing in the intense discussion with his readers until this point has about the nature of the Law, which was both utterly attractive for its certainty for non-Jews but impossible to take on in its fullness at the same time. Before that he has reminded his readers of what baptism is about.

Chapter 8 is one of the high points of the tussle which Paul has, because it is so intensely personal for him. At the end of Chapter 7 he says:

I delight in the Law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another Law at war with the law of my mind… Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Chapter 8 begins:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

This is what today’s passage as the Epistle then explores. He wants his friends, and they are his friends and equals not his children or converts to know:

You are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit, when the Spirit dwells in You.

He begins the passage we have heard:

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God… you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry Abba, Father, it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Behind this passage are two themes. The experience of the Children of Israel as they crossed the Red Sea in their flight from Egypt. This was their adoption as indeed God’s children, God’s chosen people. It is more than an adoption. The waters of the Red sea part as they were brought to birth as a new people in God’s eyes. This imagery is strongly implied in the waters of baptism, and Paul has spoken about this insistently in chapter 6. The implications of this are now apparent in chapter 8. We can cry Abba Father. But as the Spirit wells up in us to make this cry, our calling is the voice of Christ in the Garden in his agony. He cries Abba – daddy, dearest Father as his Passion is clear before him. The Spirit gives us utterance as our will and Our Lord’s are united. His death is our death to this world, and so:

…the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

Paul has been saying as much to those he converted. Those in Rome have heard the Gospel and know Jesus already, but perhaps this is new to them: that their suffering and death is their identification with Jesus, and so they are being revealed alongside him. At the moment, following recent persecution, they are hiding. Paul is preparing them for something he knows will befall him and which his own eventual journey to Rome in the few years ahead will make manifest.

….and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly we await adoption as sons, (to wit – know this) the redemption of our bodies.

What of the Gospel passage and the wheat, the weeds and the angels?

God lets the wheat and the weeds grow together. Nothing must endanger the wheat, a premature pruning would be a danger.

Perhaps as Christians we fear that our prayer, our witness is an impure mixture of wheat and noxious weeds. St Paul says “it is the Spirit that intercedes for us”. The Spirit’s leading causes our prayers to join with the essence of prayer and connection at the heart of the life of the Trinity. When our prayer reaches the Father, because our words have been joined with the Spirit’s, the Father listens only to that portion that is true. Our hearts and conscious prayers are refined by the Spirit at work in us. We are not the weeds, the tares, the Spirit bears fruit in us, despite our dullness and helps us to cry, Abba, Father.

 

 

My father, whom I am sorry you did not know, because he died about a year before we came here, was full of funny sayings, which continue make me smile when I think of them.

Dad would not eat pork, ham or sausages without English mustard, French would not do, neither Meaux nor Dijon. The suggestion of mustard with either lamb or beef would always elicit his oft used dictum “Mustard with mutton is the sign of a glutton, mustard with beef is the sign of the thief.”

I was reminded of this and smiled again when recently Beatrice was recommended a thoroughly good recipe website, with really good ideas for supper Mustard with Mutton – Diary of a Glutton – do take this away as a top tip.

Of course, in today’s Gospel Our Lord caricatures himself as glutton:

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”

He goes on to say “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” What’s going on here?

First of all, where are we in Matthew’s Gospel narrative: Jesus’s preaching ministry follows on from the confirmation of the 12. At much this time, John the Baptist is arrested, and John sends from prison his disciples to see Jesus. John’s fate seems to be attracting opprobrium, despite the sensation he had been. Jesus begins today’s reading slightly despairing “What do  people want? On the one hand you had the ascetic Baptist who ate and drank nothing and on the other hand you have me, who is happy to go to outcasts and sinners and enjoy a party, and you’re not happy with either. What’s this like, well it’s like children playing make believe games, who could pretend a jolly game like a wedding

“saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced”

Or one the other hand a sad game, like a funeral procession, which you would probably see every day in the market place, going by, and it would be easy to imitate with the exaggerated dirges of the professional mourners verging on something over the top

“we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.”

Like children (without screens in those days), who just won’t get into the imaginative spirit, nothing is good enough for a bit of pretend or imagine or dream.

And so John is dismissed and Jesus derided. You recalcitrant market-place-children, just won’t dream a little.

Jesus is pretty clear that “this generation” is not just missing the point, it’s going to miss the boat too.

There’s something self-conscious about this reference to himself as a glutton and drunkard, which is not just about Jesus liking his food, or his mustard with 1^st century mutton.

Bear with me, this glutton and drunkard saying has a pre-history: There’s a rather chilling example of what happens to rebellious sons in the Book of Deuteronomy chapter 20:

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father and mother…. they shall say to the elders of the city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death.”

It is not just that Jesus loves a good dinner; he realises that he is being cast as THE stubborn and rebellious SON, the inaccurate and inexplicable euphemism for this is gluttony and drunkenness. Thus, forebodingly Jesus foresees that he will be rejected and put to death.

There are several ironies in this passage. The children at the start of the reading just won’t play. They’re so busy with other preoccupations, that they won’t dance to either the tune of JBAP or Jesus, both of whom exemplify the truth at the heart of the dance. But they are not really the children this is all about, they are really the adults – this generation, the Children of Israel, who will not see perhaps because they are so caught up in their righteousness and sense of self importance what the Kingdom’s message is proclaiming.

But there are other children referred to in this story this morning. Not children actually, but infants – very little ones, about them Jesus says:

I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. 

The market place children are too full of care, they are the wise and prudent. It’s the babes that all truth is being revealed to. They who should not understand are being offered it all on a plate, indeed their burdens are in the process of being lifted.

It’s no accident that in the first lesson that the Messiah appears as a humble man, on an equally humble beast of burden. This sets the tone for what the Lord’s coming kingdom will be characterised by, and made evident, as Jesus himself enters Jerusalem in like manner in the time ahead. In the meanwhile Jesus says to the infants:

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The irony here of course is not just about the children not being children but grown ups, but what Jesus is offering rest, and an easy burden, is actually rather more than that. His light burden which he offers his infants, is his cross, he’ll tell us this very directly in chapter 16 “if any will come after me let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”

But because Jesus takes this freely, willingly and lightly himself, so he is strengthening our arms and our shoulders, and most importantly our resolve so that we might

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

 

 

Last weekend I spent some time with a farmer relative. He’s the son and grandson of generations of farmers who loves the land enjoys explaining what his life and work consists of. His favourite occupation is using his rather splendid tractor to plough, tend or drill his fields. It’s so state of the art it can calculate the precise quantities of fertiliser or seed needed according to the drainage or quality of the soil – it’s something to do with satellites. It’s all very mind-blowing.

I don’t think the sower, whom Jesus almost certainly would have seen going past, was able to calculate soil depth and drainage with anything like that degree of accuracy! We’ll come on to the story in just a minute. It’s one of the greats for good reason, it connects with something pretty primitive in all of us. The idea of seed-time and harvest has multiple resonances, and for all our disassociation with nature, especially in Town perhaps, it situates us hearing Jesus’s words alongside one of the most fundamental exercises of the stewardship of God’s creation.

I have good news and bad news for you. Let’s save the good news till the end.

This last week the General Synod met in York. I have very mixed feelings about Synods and I don’t tend to follow them with huge interest or to report on them.

On the hand lots of people sitting in hot rooms for a very long time (five full days – over a weekend in July) is just incredibly off-putting; on the other, a national Church, which has always set store by a fully engaged discussion between Bishops, Clergy and People has to have a mechanism for this to happen.

What took place there over last weekend and into this last week might merit some telling. There was nothing boring about how it conducted its business, indeed, for many of the wrong reasons, what went on managed to attract a considerable degree of press interest.

It did not start well. The Archbishop of York managed to give the impression in an unscripted remark that there were problems with calling God Father. It was something of a storm in a teacup but before things had got started there was unfortunate press interest. It all got a lot worse on Sunday, when for any who did not already know, a really grim administrative falling out became uncontainable and the optics of it have been terrible.

If I try to pot the story, forgive inevitable omissions of detail.

• In the fallout from the many abuse scandals, the Independent Commission on Child Sexual Abuse urged the Church of England to appoint an independent safeguarding standing body to call the Church to account in relation to this area.
• In early 2022 a Commission was appointed comprising 3 members. They were given until the end of 2023 to define their terms of reference.
• One of the three, the chair was responsible for a databreach and had to stand back during an investigation. The two other members continued to work on the terms of reference. A new interim chair was appointed whom they did not get on with.
• Eventually in June this year things were so bad that the situation became irretrievable. As things unravelled the two original members let their situation be known on social media and they were asked to leave.
• Because they had seen their task as primarily the understandable championing of the rights and grievances of survivors, those groups and other supporters were vociferous in the defence of the two who were let go. The Archbishops’ Council were clearly saddened by what had happened but felt they had no choice but to begin constituting the Independent Board afresh.
• Those who left have reported their concerns to the Charity Commission.
• For what it’s worth my view is that the lack of absolute clarity from the Archbishop’s Council at the outset allowed the group to start its work before the terms of reference were in place, and it is hard to see how this was not going to become complicated.
• There is no question that abuse in and the connected with the Church has been catastrophic and ruinous to people’s lives. The Church needs help in making sure that it endangers no one and helps everyone. Abuse comes in many forms, and because the faithful are at their most vulnerable when before God, they are most easily exploited, and power in the hands of the unconscious or the perverse is most lethal.
• There was a failure in getting this group’s work started. Clarifying the difference between the process of its establishment and the group’s eventual tasks was not effective. The group started its work when it was not ready. Because its outreach to victims and survivors was so nurturing and good, sight seems to have been lost of how that might have been better timed.
• Sacking good people, well intentioned people always looks bad.
• It was all utterly awful, and would have been better avoided if possible.
• I hope this helps disentangle some of what you might have seen reported.
• While occasionally taken aback by some of what goes on “at the centre” of the Church of England, this was not its finest hour, but let it not be misunderstood, the Church dearly wishes to be accountable and safe, and I hope it can achieve that this time.
• Bureaucracies don’t like admitting they were wrong or did not communicate well. They were wrong to lack clarity and to communicate expectations with directness. I hope they learn in future.
• The second excitement at Synod was the update on the status of services of blessing for same sex couples.
• In February the House of Bishops did two things at once.
• They offered an abject apology to gay people for appalling behaviour towards them on the one hand – it was grovelling in the extreme, and almost just a fraction embarrassing.
• After issuing that, they then let be seen the draft sets of prayers for blessing ceremonies. On this hand the services were unusable and also embarrassing.
• At some level this was all politics.
• We cannot pretend that the Church of England was not born of politics and there is no pretending it does not live by and through a constant trade-off or compromise between two irreconcilable visions of the Church. Of all Churches, for all is bumbling and chaos (as just cited), it is a meeting point of mutually exclusive ways of being, and this will mean abrasive and ugly rows. Playing or being involved in politics over issues which really matter, especially at the moment, when issues about gender and sexuality are contested in extraordinary ways in our society, will be costly and if we are in this organisation we are not going to be untouched by this.
• While I struggle with the prayers as proposed, I cannot help but see how they came about. The small print allows clergy a bit of latitude to add and supplement, which as the time comes I will be inclined to do.
• At Synod, the update led to fierce discussions in and out of the chamber. I don’t do social media, there was a storm there too, which I have been spared.
• It seems no one is happy, and in November this will be repeated when the Synod will meet again. They’ve got in a tangle now over whether or not there should be a vote about it.

Synod also discussed whether or not there should be charges for marriage, and I must admit I am with those who thinks that as with baptisms, we should not charge statutory fees for marriages. Clearly musicians must be paid, but fees for pastoral offices were waived during the pandemic and I think this was a positive innovation.

I said there would be some good news, at the end. Waiving marriage fees might be good news for some, but I can offer better than that.

Today’s Parable of the Sower Gospel, and its precursor from the prophet Isaiah present the best possible news. There’s something I saw in this reading that I had not seen before. I don’t know if my farmer relative and his tractor might have helped.

It’s about the maths.

Seed is sown a bit indiscriminately as hand sowing is probably wont to do. The seed goes in four directions: the path, rocky ground, thorns, and good soil. We don’t know what proportion went to which soil type – but that is not the point. When the harvest came, from the good soil, even if it was only a quarter of the total sown, some gave a hundredfold, some sixty, and even the worst thirtyfold.

Any farmer would be pleased that after an inauspicious start. Isaiah foresaw this “My word…shall not return to me empty, it shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” He carries on and underlines the word he sends out and waters and tends like seed is in fact his people. He continues speaking to the seed “You shall go out with joy and be led back in peace, and the mountains and hills shall burst into song and all the fields shall clap their hand.”

I am sure as Jesus saw the sower, he was reminded of this passage and wished to confide in his disciples a truth they would come to see only much later.

So many realities obscure our vision of God is doing, of what a rich harvest he is preparing. Let not human error, bureaucracy and fallibility renew our vision, of the whole of creation, fields of corn on the hillside, clapping hands and singing for joy.

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

At present, if we look at the state of the world today, you could say that joy is in short supply.  So many disasters; the terrible rail crash in India, the death of 800 people at sea, the implosion of the Titan sub that led to the deaths of its five passengers who wanted to plumb the depths of the ocean to explore the wreck of the famous ship, Titanic, that sank in 1912. Then there was the random murder of the two students in Nottingham who had been enjoying a night out.

These are just samples of the tragedies that go on time after time.  Now accompanied by climate change, the after effect of the pandemic, which has left many people grieving, and the cost-of-living crisis causing anxiety and despair.

You could say, then, that we are in a joyless world.  Yet all is not lost.  We, as Christians can, despite all the horrors, keep joy in our hearts.  We can keep singing praises to God for offering us his son, Jesus, as our hope of eternal life and salvation for us all.  Our joy rests not only in any happy present moments that continue to exist in our troubled times but also in this message of eternal salvation.  This does not mean that we do not feel devastated when tragedy occurs, but we have faith, when we feel we are in the dark, that nothing can separate us from the Divine plan that God has for all of us to share in his eternal kingdom. It is a plan rooted in love that will always triumph in the end over fear.

For an affirmation of this joy in God’s purpose for us we can find it expressed loud and clear in today’s Gospel reading which describes the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah.  When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, she is filled with the Holy Spirit and blesses Mary and the fruit of her womb.

Elizabeth’s unborn child, to be known as John the Baptist, leaps in her womb for joy. Mary then gives us her Song of Praise in which her spirit rejoices in God.  The role of the Holy Spirit is evident here.  Mary’s spirit is the source of her joy and Elizabeth’s blessing upon Mary is prompted by the Holy Spirit. Joy all around then, brought about by the activity of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit can do this because it is the messenger from God, offering us the love of God.  If we look at St Paul’s letter to the Romans, in his Chapter 12 he urges true Christians to be ‘ardent in spirit’. In verse 15 he says ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep’.  If we allow the Holy Spirit to be our inspiration and guide then we too can find joy in a troubled world.

The Holy Spirit was active in Mary and Elizabeth as they were both women of faith in God.  Elizabeth ‘believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord’.  Belief, despite being barren and in old age, that she would conceive a son.  Mary, having been told by the angel Gabriel that despite being a virgin she would conceive also, submits herself to God’s will.  Initially perplexed she then says: ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’

Such is the huge significance of this rejoicing that it is expressed whilst Jesus and John are still in the womb.  In the old age of Elizabeth and the virginity of Mary, the circumstances of these two impending births are unique and the narrative that describes these two women coming together to rejoice is also unique in that it only features in Luke, nowhere else in the New Testament.  You could say that Elizabeth and Mary were able to rejoice because of their unique status as the mothers-to-be of John the Baptist and Jesus the Son of God. That may be so, but we can all rejoice in pregnancy and birth.  We can also find in today’s Gospel reading a value put upon unborn life.  When reading articles on the Visitation on the internet, I came across an article by the Bethlehem Lutheran church which says that in Luke’s text ‘we learn to care for unborn life’.  The circumstances in which Elizabeth and Mary find themselves is unique in one sense but their meeting each other as two pregnant women is an everyday happening that might apply to any woman living in any age.  What is happening is that Elizabeth is helping us to recognise salvation and Mary, whilst standing for continuity and history, inaugurates a new era.  Nevertheless, as given in the Commentary on Luke by James Woodward, Paula Gooder and Mark Price: ‘salvation is also expressed in everyday life’.

Another characteristic of both Elizabeth and Mary is that they are both humble.  In this manner they find favour with God.  They are both the mothers-to-be of two men, Jesus, and John, who will also live a life of humility and service to God.

I would like to conclude my sermon by reflecting upon images of the Visitation in art.  Many of the images I looked at depict Elizabeth as an old woman, but I found it interesting that in the ancient icons of the Orthodox church both Mary and Elizabeth look of the same age.  Was there a religious motive for not portraying Elizabeth in old age?  I do not know but we do know from the Bible that Elizabeth was in old age and her husband Zechariah loses his speech temporarily for not believing it possible for his wife to conceive at her age.  He did not, at that moment, see that ‘nothing is impossible with God’.

That sentence is very uplifting, and we can keep it in mind when we are going through hard times.  So let us take heart and continue to rejoice, as Elizabeth and Mary did, in the love of God.

“And now, the end is near, the time has come, the final sermon…” 

If someone had said to me in 2018 that I would have to sing in public (I admit, badly!), then I don’t think I would have even continued talking to William about priestly ministry. I don’t sing.

And yet here I am, and William I am sure remembers perfectly well my horrified reaction when he told me I would have to sing at the eucharist!  “Sing” of course is a strong word for my efforts… I do heartily apologise to the amazing choir for my noise! I am not gifted in the vocal department, but thanks so much to Mike and Simone for giving me a few lessons, and helping me to lose the immense fear I had.

This is my last regular Sunday at St Marks. But I’ve learned that in God’s hands, never say never. I said goodbye to Moscow in 2018, only to end up back there in 2021. I’m not ruling out, however unlikely, another return…though I fear it will be a long time before anything changes in that situation.

Since I left Russia, it’s been an adventure. I arrived in Primrose Hill in March 2022, a little lost and confused, but equally slightly excited. I felt totally cared for, and that is credit to William and Beatrice, and the church, who really did welcome the stranger at short notice!

Though William doesn’t believe it, I spent 3 genuinely lovely months in his basement. Then 3 equally lovely – though very hot – summer months with Judy, who kindly opened her house to me. I woke up every day thinking “how on earth did I get to live in Primrose Hill? I’m so blessed!” And finally I found a bit more stability in an office block with some rooms attached to it, near Westbourne Park.

And on top of all that, I also got to attend the Lambeth Conference, spend 4 months studying in beautiful Annecy in France, visit Geneva, do some training in Cologne (and Woking!), get priested, and – oh yes – get engaged to be married!

If ever I thought joining the church would be nice boring tea parties in the garden of a village vicarage, that idea is long gone…

I’ve been trying to think what the key takeaways are – what have I learned? Of course, I’ve learned so much about vestments – chasubles, dalmatics, stoles, maniples, burses and copes. I could go on. But what has been the real, more deeper learning?

First, I like that sparrow in today’s reading. God knew where I was, where I fell. And God saw, and God cared. And God said, “in this difficult time, I will test you. But if you respond well, you will grow so much!” I really think, in all the experiences of life, it is how we respond that makes us. Every situation offers a choice: humbly continue to love, try to care, be honest and open; or attack the other person, be selfish, cynical and self-seeking, and blame everyone else.

Adam and Eve: eat the apple, or obey God. Abraham: obey or disobey God’s request to sacrifice Isaac. Would he trust that God knew best? Joseph: stay with the Potiphar’s wife, or do the right thing and run. The Bible is full of key moments where how we respond is what makes us.

I’ve done some stupid things this last year, but also some good things, and I know its the challenges I have embraced that have made me a much better person.

Some of you are aware as well that I have been working part-time for the Anglican Communion, the global network of Anglican churches across the world. This has been fascinating. But the key issue facing us all is one of unity.

There are movements in the global church to separate from the Communion because of disagreements over practice and theology. I completely agree that these things are important, but do disagreements really mean we have to start a new denomination? Cannot we continue to sit in the same room, the same family, and do the harder work, of continuing to talk? I can’t get rid of my cousins – they are my blood family! I might not speak to them, but the genetics mean they are always my cousins.

The same with our faith: if we still hold to Jesus Christ as central, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, and if we still stand in the footsteps of our Christian ancestors, knowing that the path of following Jesus is not the easy way – it will produce difficulties for us if we do it rightly – then surely we can support and encourage each other rather than going to sit in different rooms!

Our gospel reading today talked of this: if we are disciples, we are not above our master. We must realise that God is holy and all powerful: fear only him, not people! Because yes, this world will mock us.

And if we are disciples, then that can have a deep personal cost. The gospel reading says if your family reject you because you follow Jesus, you ought to choose the harder choice of staying with Christ. Discipleship can be costly.

But the gospel says continue to worship God, for he alone can destroy body and soul in hell. Think on that: it is an amazing bargain for us! All we do is say before temporary, fallible people, that we belong to Jesus – and we get claimed before almighty, eternal, infallible God! It’s a bargain!

And who are we to judge? Jesus calls us to humility. Ought we not to worry about our own sins rather than those of someone else? God is the judge of the other person, just as he is the judge of you and me. It’s like the sheep and goats: in the Middle East they all look similar, but God knows the difference. When time is called, God will separate them and he will decide who is truly his, and who is not. It’s not our call to judge one another! If we do, we steal God’s job!

So let us not argue, judge and fight. We have that in Parliament every day – and have you ever seen a Labour MP eviscerate a Conservative and the Conservative respond by saying “Oh, you are right! How silly I was, I will change my mind”. Of course not! Attacking and blaming does not work!

Real change comes from dying to our own desires, and learning to walk together, listening to the other, and learning to trust.

So they are my two take aways from the year, two ways I have been formed. Embrace the strange challenge of the new. Thuribles, chasubles, choreography around the altar – for me it was all new. I could have said “no!”; I could have offended lots of people being stroppy, sticking to the comfort of what I knew from my limited experience. Instead I have mostly tried to learn, and what a reward it has been. Thank you to all of you – even in your weak moments, you have taught me!

And stick together in love. Yes we will disagree, but the world is full of people who disagree. The church ought to be different, saying loudly and clearly “we disagree but we are still committed to each other!”

And Yes, you might be right; but Jesus never asks us to win arguments; he calls us to serve him, sacrifice our lives to his goals, and to serve each other. Find your life to lose it; lose your life to find it.

I went to Russia to a life I knew; I lost it. A new life was given to me here – and I feel like I have found so much. So, to all of you, thank you.

 

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

It gives me much pleasure to have this opportunity to preach to you this evening here at St Mary’s.

An evening that is of great significance in our Christian calendar as it is the evening of Ascension Day.  The Ascension marks the culmination of the earthly existence of Jesus as he is swept up into heaven to sit at the right hand of God and be glorified. Preceding this great event was the commissioning of the disciples and here I take my text from the Gospel of Mark.  ‘Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation’.

Reading through other references to the Ascension in the New Testament, whilst we can find it in the Gospels of Luke and John and the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, there is no reference to it in Matthew’s Gospel.  Matthew’s finishing point is the commissioning of the disciples on the mountain of Galilee.  Perhaps this is because it has coincided with the Resurrection.  Luke tells us that Jesus leads the disciples to Bethany, then lifts up his hands and blesses them ‘withdraws and is carried up to heaven’.  This blessing, according to the Jerome Biblical Commentary, is the only mention in the Gospels of Jesus blessing people.  The only mention, but not so in art. By the 9^th century, in the domes of churches we can find Christ making a blessing gesture with his right hand.

In John chapter 20 we have the powerful scene in which Mary Magdalene, having wept by the empty tomb where Jesus was laid, sees Jesus and tries to hold on to him.  Jesus replies: ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father to my God and your God.  Here we find the universal application of the Ascension; it is there for all of us.  Finally, in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that the disciples will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be witnesses to the ends of the earth.  Jesus was then ‘lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight’.  Two men then appear to the disciples in white robes telling them that Jesus will come back the same way.  We can take this to mean that the Ascension will eventually be followed by Jesus coming again in glory.  As the Nicene Creed gives it to us: ‘he shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead: whose kingdom shall have no end’.

The New Testament, then, is telling us of the commissioning of the disciples by Jesus and his ascension to heaven.  Looking at these texts, though, I would say that it is a bit of a bumpy ride in terms of some uncertainties. Let us have a look at these uncertainties. First, there is a question mark over the Ascension narrative in the Gospel of Mark.  If some of the most ancient authorities are right, then Mark ends at verse 8 of chapter 16 which would omit his Ascension narrative of verse 19.  It is not certain but I think it is probable that verses 19 and 20 can be included because verse 20 contains the words ‘good news’ which is the expression used by Mark at the outset of his Gospel. His opening sentence reads: ‘the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. These words ‘good news’ are I believe the defining words of Mark’s Gospel.

The ride gets bumpier when we look at the writings of the third century philosopher, Origen, who concluded that the Ascension was an ascension of the mind not body.  Following the questioning posed by philosophy, if we look at today’s world, with its developments in science and cosmology, they do not sit easily with the concept of a physical heaven.  In his book ‘Meeting God in Mark’ Rowan Williams responds that there is no evidence from heaven that God exists, but God changes things from the heart of the world, not by intervention from the sky.  He does not need a banner in the sky to proclaim his existence.

The debates will no doubt continue but what stands out in my mind when reflecting upon the Ascension, is the cloud. The cloud that, according to Acts, lifted Jesus up and took him out of sight. This text would not make sense if it were an ascension of the mind rather than the body. The cloud features in depictions of the Ascension in art and the cloud of incense in our worship demonstrates that God is present but cannot be seen by us in our earthly life.  As St Paul puts it, we cannot yet see God face to face, only in the mirror darkly.  The Old Testament also gives us the cloud.  In Exodus, God leads Moses and the Israelites in ‘a pillar of cloud by day’ to guide them on their way.  The cloud means that which is above us, present, but we are to rely upon faith in God not the bodily presence of God.

When we look up at the clouds, climb mountains and send rockets into space, I believe that we are affirming that ascension is life affirming, exciting and joyous.  In a ninth century manuscript, known as the Drogo Sacramentary, we see Jesus on his last step to the top of a mountain and God holding out his hand to lift him up.  With this joy in mind, let me finish with the joy of the Psalmist who wrote in Psalm 47 that ‘God has gone up with a shout’.

AMEN

“To the unknown god” – perhaps it should be ‘to the unknown song’ given Britain’s latest Eurovision disaster! But it was “to the unknown god” that the words inscribed on an altar in Athens 2000 years ago appealed, and they are the words St Paul leapt upon. The unknown God: this is the God I preach to you!

Paul said: God is not unknown! God has revealed his character to us: God saved his people from slavery in Egypt. He made them into a mighty nation. He makes promises with us – and keeps them. His love extends to every person on earth. He will bring judgement and fairness to the earth.

It’s judgement and Love. Many people find those two idea hard to sit together – if you love me, you won’t be angry at me. Instead, you will give me what I want and make me happy.

But in the gospel today, Jesus said “If you love me, you will obey my commandments”. If you love someone, you will listen to them, and trust them. If you trust them, you will obey them.

Parents are given to us to help us and lead us. Parents have to balance love and judgement all the time. If parents don’t use discipline, their children grow up without structure, become selfish and ruin the lives of other people. If parents don’t use love, their children feel unwanted, insecure and lost.

So we listen to our parents and we obey them, because we know that they want to help us, that they have our best interests in their hearts. The same with God: his desire is that we become loving and compassionate and follow his lead. Look at the world today: it is a mess. This is what happens when we follow our plans. But if we stop, and say to God “we will follow your plan”, then we begin a new abundant life.

So love and obedience are very much linked! If we love our parents, we obey them. If we love God, we obey him. They want “what is best for us”, and this means character formation, making you more like Jesus. You might think a shiny Lamborghini is best for you, but without the right character, it really is not!

Baptism is a moment when we stop our lives and say “we recognise that when we do our thing, it is not so good. We want to follow God’s way, God’s path. So we want to start again”.

So the water is like washing ourselves: we wash the old dirt and old me away. And then we are clean and fresh, ready to start again: symbolic of a new life, a new decision to trust God, to follow God, and to love and obey God.

But we also become part of a bigger family. Baptism is like the entrance into the Christian family. Everyone here, if they are Christian, become like extended family.

So this message is to everyone here: it is also your responsibility to love and care for these children. So make sure you love, protect and nurture them and their families as much as you can!

It is our responsibility to teach and train these young lives in how to live a life pleasing to God. So let us make sure that when they see us, they see us doing the right things!

It is our responsibility to support and pray for these children and their families. So make sure you do that and offer your support and kindness, and hold them in prayer.

So let us now bring these children before God as we pray for them and their families at the start of this journey.

Well, I received a phone call at 8.30pm yesterday asking me if I was free to help out, so apologies if this is a little ill-thought out!

There is a bumper sticker somewhere along the lines of “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”

The aim of the game of life is to acquire as many toys – a cars, partners, clothes, jewellery, money – as one can. The winner is the person who dies with the most.

On this account, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates could be the greatest. But then again, Pharaoh Khufu’s pyramid is still standing as a memorial to his power and might 4500 years after Khufu passed away, and it’s still drawing tourists to it. That’s a high mark to beat! They say if humans disappeared overnight, one of the few structures to survive the onslaught of nature would be that pyramid!

Or perhaps the answer of who is greatest is closer to home: King Charles III is said to have private wealth of some £600 million – though John of Gaunt, who lived 700 years ago and is a distant ancestor of King Charles, in modern money had a net worth of around £100 billion.

Who is the greatest? Khufu? John of Gaunt? Charles? Elon?

If you don’t have that much money, maybe you are more like the disciples of Jesus, squabbling over who they thought should be considered the greatest among them. When you don’t have money, you often use another currency to show how good you are – maybe the disciples were arguing over how many hours they spent praying, or who could preach the longest (maybe I could win that…!).

And Jesus replied “you have not understood. It’s not about being great. I have come not to be served, but to serve”.

Yesterday at the coronation of King Charles III, we saw a spectacular show of power. King Charles has the power and authority to declare war. Our brave servicemen and women are loyal to the sovereign (thankfully not the government!). And yesterday we saw the massed ranks of some of the forces that Charles can call upon. It was a display to the world that you don’t mess with Britain; you don’t mess with the King.

And in this world, where dictators invade other countries, and steal billions from their own people; where other dictators threaten nearby countries and global war; in this world, you need to be wise as serpents. Until the Kingdom of God is fully here, peace is secured for us because burly men are prepared to do violence on our behalf to keep us safe should the need arise.

The Christian church works to bring peace into this world. It is the mission of each and every one of us, if we call ourselves Christian, to try and bring peace to this world. But until the world submits to the lordship of Jesus, peace will not happen. That is why the gospel message is REPENT, turn from your ways, and follow Jesus. Obey Jesus. Only by doing that will the world find a new way of living.

And that is the great juxtaposition we saw yesterday. In the midst of the glory, pomp and power, where the world’s leaders and representatives had gathered to honour King Charles III, we had the monarch, the sovereign, the source from whom authority comes in this realm, submitting all of it to the authority of God. All the power of the world, handed over to Jesus.

The King was presented with the Bible, and told:

“to keep … ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes.”

Charles was given the Bible. He was offered it. God’s Word, offered to him, as it is offered to us:

“receive this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; This is the royal Law; These are the lively Oracles of God.”

The Bible, which tells us to flee worldly wealth; to serve one another, to especially think of the poor and suffering; is not going to help anyone increase their earthly glory. It instructs us that in this life humility is the path God leads us on.

The monarch, having been pointed at the Bible, then answers this question:

“Will you…cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?”

Yet if you use your power to cause Law, Justice and Mercy to be executed, you will deprive yourself of many opportunities for self-enrichment!

The monarch was then given a sword with the words “receive this kingly sword…a sign…of justice; not of might, but of mercy. …With (it)…do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect…help and defend widows and orphans…”

In the midst of the ancient Abbey, surrounded by the most powerful people on earth, Charles III was told to only fight to protect the weak, widows, and orphans.

The coronation thus shows us a new way of being King. Yes, there are palaces, grandeur, homage and lots of money. This is the ‘world’ part – it is needed as part of this corrupt and fallen world. Dictators will only pay attention to myriads of soldiers marching.

But King Charles III, at the heart of the ceremony, as the disciples were, was commissioned for a servant role by Jesus. Yes, he has power. But it is not for him. It is for the widow, orphan and victim. The coronation is a Godly contract: you, Charles, are given power and authority. But in return, you must fight all your life for the cause and welfare of those who have so little.

You, too, if you are a Christian, have been given a commission. As Charles embodies the nation, we too were in that coronation. We too are commissioned to use our power, influence, money for the benefit of the orphan, widow and victim of injustice. We are commissioned to serve.

I believe King Charles III has shown and modelled to us in his past campaigning to reduce emissions, in his construction of a town that is beautiful and well-designed, in his advocacy for sustainable farming, that he has been somewhat of a maligned prophet. That is what happens in this world. When you stand for the principles of God, you become a target for those in opposition.

We will face persecution for doing right, but we have been commissioned to go forth for our King’s King. We have been given the gospel message, calling people to repent, to stop their selfish ways and to follow the humble way of Jesus, speaking for the poor and lonely.

He that is greatest, let him be as the servant.

Let us pray for ourselves and for King Charles as we embrace this call to serve.

 

 

St Mark 13:5 And Jesus answering them began to say, “Take heed lest
any man deceive you…:10 And the gospel must first be published
among all nations … :13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s
sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

Welcome to a theological portmanteau on the last day of April, when we
celebrate our patronal festival, the feast of St Mark the Evangelist. It is
also the 4th of 6 Sundays of Eastertide, inviting us to bask in the wonder
and welcome relief of the resurrection, and this year only – to anticipate
the imminent 6th May Coronation of King Charles III. Given such a
dazzling array, there is no time to waste.

How action-packed, how like St. Mark, who writes in active voice,
largely in present perfect tense, and employs the Greek word for
‘immediately’ at least 40 times in 16 fast-paced chapters, the shortest
of all the gospels. The work is also now acknowledged as the first and
earliest account of Jesus’ life, ministry, passion, and resurrection.
Though a seed-bed for St. Matthew (26 chapters) and St. Luke (24
chapters), Mark’s gospel is in high contrast to St. John (21 chapters)
where a highly structured theology informs the report of “the disciple
that Jesus loved.” Mark’s episodic narrative strings together a selection
of miracles, signs, and parables with over a third of the book focused
on his last week of life on earth. Its chronology is vague (lots of “ands”
“afters” “in those days”); its original ending may leave the reader on a
cliff edge, longing for more.

There is something about Mark that conjures art-based comparisons –
last year a Broadway musical involving a scheme to build morale and
resistance to temptation and this year, perhaps a film that depicts a
behind-the-scenes look at someone and something the film-maker
loves very much, and wants his audience to understand, as well – Mark
as the mature Spielberg or Sam Mendes perhaps.

He enters apostolic history as John Mark, appearing in the Bible as the
son of Mary Mark, a wealthy Hebrew widow of a Roman citizen (Coptic
records name him as Aristopolus Marcus) late of Cyrene in North Africa.
We meet this cosmopolitan and devout lady in a dramatic incident in
Acts 12, when Peter turns up at her front door in Jerusalem following an
angel-enabled escape from Herod’s prison; inside, many believers were
gathered to pray. The servant who answers the door leaves the fugitive
outside whilst she relays his arrival! Fortunately, Peter gains safe entry
in good time.

From this report, we understand that Mark’s mother made her evidently
large and staffed house available as a church and refuge; this puts Mark
squarely within apostolic and earliest Christian circles, most likely
involving contact with Jesus and developing a student/disciple/paternal
relationship with Peter. His home is the probable location for the Last
Supper and a teenage Mark most likely the man with a water jug who
escorts Jesus’ two trusted apostles to the Upper Room to begin
Passover preparations. Later that momentous night, he appears as an
unnamed young man who fled naked from the scene of Jesus’ arrest
when his robe was lost in the scuffle.

As you would expect, more than one image of our patronal saint is
available at St Marks, and each reflects a different aspect of his work
and character. Taken together, they instruct us in his life and theology
in a typically Marcan fashion – vivid, compelling, committed to his
stated mission to convey “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”
in emphatic style.

These accessible works of art do more than bring us into the presence
of our patronal saint; they form a gateway to other symbolic realms
present in our worship for today. You will find this expressed in the
words of special prayers compiled from a rich seam of previous Orders
of Service for the Coronation by Rev. Joanna to bless replica regalia
crafted by the children of St Mark’s. As symbols of service, advocacy,
and power, they represent the crown jewels bestowed upon the new
sovereign once he has taken the oath to uphold the law and the people,
been anointed with holy oil, and consecrated king. The form and
meaning of this treasure dates to Edgar, crowned the first Anglo-Saxon
king of Britain in 959, and also acknowledged by the Welsh and
Scottish kings. Sadly, the original items did not survive the upheaval of
the 17th century English Revolution, save for the anointing spoon. The
rest of today’s regalia dates from the Restoration of the monarchy.

Read or listen carefully to the prayers to appreciate their significance:
the Orb is set under the cross to remind the anointed king that he and
all the world are subject to God’s kingdom through Jesus Christ; the
Sceptre represents kingly power to be used with justice and mercy for
the welfare of all; the crown signifies royal majesty through God’s grace.
As Canon Charles Gore once observed, Anglican theology is best
revealed in its spoken prayer, which aspires to order and connect this
earthly kingdom to a higher realm. Enthroned between the two is the
sovereign, sworn guardian of the nations and its laws, a defender of
faith, and a reflection of God’s plan and peace to the extent of his or her
princely virtues. That is the structural position of kingship, the pattern
for beginnings and endings throughout history, a point of intersection
between time and divinity. Inhabiting the role is a very particular
individual, who can only be alive in the shared present moment that
daily challenges those of faith, of any faith, and those of none.

Let us too start with the present familiar. Behold, the figure of Mary
Mark appears on the high altar reredos with her son depicted as a
young boy who carries one of his attributes like a schoolbook, a fitting
tribute to the Christian education Mark received from his mother. The
volume represents his future Gospel, often lettered with the Pax Tibi
(Peace be with you Mark my Evangelist in full translation.) This angelic
greeting of his relics upon safe arrival from Alexandria to Venice in the
11th century demonstrates that the Evangelist was on the move in the
name of Christ, even after death.

In the centre of the stained glass rose acting as a glorious giant halo for
the ascended Christ high atop the reredos is the head of the Lion of St
Mark; his customary wings are not visible, but his green colour is
striking and perhaps invokes the hue of a Venetian lagoon. It may also
image Mark’s apocalyptic perspective of radical evil received at Peter’s
knee, as stated in 1st Peter: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he
may devour”. It is a cosmic battlefield out there, and Mark is all about
preparing and strengthening Christian troops. Visually, if Mark is
depicted with red robes, holding a red-bound book and sometimes with
red hair, then green must represent the opposite force. To Mark’s
passion and mission, evil matches its demonstrable ability to renew
itself in human behaviour and events; it is evergreen in a fallen world.

John Hayward’s design above the All-Saints chapel visualises Mark
being taught by Peter, whose curiously enlarged mouth speaks to
Mark’s disproportionate ear. Peter’s disciple takes the message to
defend the faith and the faithful to heart, and it becomes central in his
ministry and gospel. Scholars and historians from the 1st century to
contemporary theologians acknowledge Mark’s Gospel is an accurate
record of Peter’s teaching, pulsing with the lifeblood of direct testimony,
a collection of episodes in an “oral tradition” serving the needs of the
church of the day. Its pre-eminent position superseding Matthew was
not generally agreed until well into the 19th century; now 20th century
theologians such as Professor Morna Hooker assert a considered
theological backbone hides in plain sight: Jesus does not just
announce the coming of the Kingdom, he brings it as irrevocably as an
old wineskin will burst if new wine is added. The new covenant with the
living triune God is a total gamechanger, available immediately!

On the eve of St Mark’s liturgical feast day, we were treated to a live
performance of his gospel, set in Rome shortly after the trauma of
Peter’s crucifixion, under ongoing threat of violent persecution. It is
devised as a two-hander, with an anxious and grieving Mark dictating to
a Roman scribe-for-hire just doing his job until words of Jesus Christ
begin to sink in, working a transformation to conversion. Time is of the
essence. Fledgling Christians drawn from non-Jewish communities
were beset by false prophets and deceivers from within and statesponsored
oppression from without. Their continued existence
demanded a gospel to show them how to live in truth and light until
Jesus returns to usher in kingdom come. As the evangelist sifts
through his memories, the selection process favours forthright accounts
of Jesus in action, showing not telling how the Son of God delivers
redemption and new life with authority and supernatural mastery as
incarnation of the triune God.

He intentionally avoids extensive reference to Old Testament tradition
with its legalistic approach; it is for the other gospel writers to see to
that, although Mark personally had full access to Jesus in his aspect of
Hebrew Christ or Messiah as son of a Jewish mother and one of the
first battalion of 72 apostles post-crucifixion, accompanied by his older
cousin and evangelism-mentor Barnabas. He served St. Peter as
disciple, scribe, and gospel writer, and later, was also of service to St
Paul although it took many years to recover Paul’s confidence after
Mark went AWOL, returning to the comfort zone of his Jerusalem base.
Mark knew first-hand about the pain of failure and the value of second
chances and family support when “enduring until the end”.

That is some pedigree. What sort life did Mark make of it?

Let’s apply Marcan method and view for ourselves in another John
Hayward window, found above the St Mark’s Altar on the south wall of
our church. It is crowned with a golden image of St Mark’s lion, wings
present and folded, a lion gone over fully to the light! Beneath him are
two sections, like tablets, starting on the left with the distinctive
architecture of his North African birthplace and childhood in Jerusalem,
faint outlines of a presiding maternal figure and a running boy who has
lost his clothes. Instruction during youth with St. Peter takes centre
stage (note the way Hayward identifies Mark with red hair, boy and
man, and ultimately, with red wounds). Later, he ministers to the apostle
when he stayed in Mamartine Prison awaiting gruesome crucifixion.
This vignette also puts us in mind of Mark’s subsequent work for St
Paul, incarcerated for the second and final time in the same grim prison
prior to execution during the persecutions of Nero. (A Roman citizen,
Paul would not have been crucified.) The right-hand section depicts the
winding path of evangelism, followed by a sacred ministry as leader in
the early church and first bishop of Alexandria, ending in a gruesome
martyr’s death after two days of public torture.

Perhaps on subsequent Patronal Feasts, I can paint St Mark’s gospel’s
theological portrait … from its blockbuster first 13 verses of prologue
that take us from Jesus’ sudden eruption into history by the Jordan to
temptation in the wilderness…its 22 miracles and signs, 10 parables of
which 3 are unique…the ministry and passion in Jerusalem…abiding
themes and structure. For now, I will fast forward to its end, chapter 16:
1 – 8, where the original manuscript ends in the empty tomb.

The stone has been rolled away by the time the women arrive, the body
has vanished and, in its place, sits an angel who confirms that Jesus of
Nazareth has indeed risen. In the penultimate verse he says: “But go
your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into
Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.”

Direct, brief, just the facts, ma’m. You’re good to go. Then the final
verse tolls, the human reaction to the horror, grief and awe experienced
over barely 3 days when only the women remained on the scene as
witness and to minister as best they could. They could not yet do
anything for they were afraid. Here is the very essence of human
suffering: to possess good news and dazzling prospects yet struggle to
connect with them. For the experience of connection marks both the
point of departure and the finish line. Mark dramatises this principle; it
shapes the coronation ceremony and T S Eliot expresses it this way:

Little Gidding, Part V. from T S Eliot’s “The Four Quartets”

We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

In a few days’ time, the machinery and memory of church and state
meets at that point, the core of our most profound heritage, where we
find one who is neither English nor British but a Palestinian infant from a
young migrant family displaced by political oppression; in adult life, he
was condemned as a convicted criminal and put to death — Jesus of
Nazareth.

Today, and on Coronation Day, we can celebrate our fellowship in the
Church of England. We claim what we can love about this heritage. Let
us rejoice, always confessing our sins. Let us abide with the king of all
who calls us to love one another as he loves us and be fruitful to the
glory of God. Long may our beginnings and endings connect us through
his grace.

Alleluia. Amen. And God Save the King.

We are continuing a study of the Coronation rite. Last week we covered the early part of the service.

This week we shall explore three things:

1. The reality that this rite takes place within a Eucharist, which connects nicely with today’s Gospel passage about the Road to Emmaus.
2. Secondly we shall look at the readings.
3. After that, at the very heart of the rite – the anointing takes place, and I want to unpack that and the crowning.

What does our Eucharistic prayer pray?

It is very meet right and our bounden duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks.

What does Jesus do when he meets his confused disciples on that first Easter day at evening on the road to Emmaus? He takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it. The fourfold act of thanksgiving is seen here in the instant before Jesus vanishes. The Eucharist, this action for all times and in all places, is the crowning celebration of our Christian life. It is how we know Jesus, and how he comes to make his home in us. It is not surprising that a Christian action of supreme significance should be situated with the Eucharist. I have been making something of a study of the Coronation rite and it developed from the early 8^th c, with more ancient precedent still, and what its compilers were reaching for was ordination. A special sort of ordination, but an ordination nevertheless. And just as deacons, priests and Bishops were consecrated within Eucharistic celebrations it was perfectly natural that Kings should be too.

We are sure that the King’s personal preference for the use of the 1662 Prayer Book will mean that it has the same cadences as the rite we use here.

There are two readings which follow. Normally they are read by the two Bishops who carry in the chalice and patten during the procession of the regalia at the start. Incidentally they are both made of solid gold, and along with most of the rest of the regalia were all made from scratch in 1661, after Oliver Cromwell broke up, melted down or sold off the contents of the Jewel House in 1649. We’ll discover more about the regalia next week.

The readings are rather unusual. The first reading has been read at every coronation from the Coronation of Edward III, I Peter 2: 13-19. The tone of this reading, alongside Matthew’s account of Jesus’s injunction to “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”, reads strangely today. Hearing this apparent double-whammy of requirement to submit to temporal rule might seem coercive in the modern age.

First, we might need to underline that these two New Testament texts issue from a time fraught with primitive Christian suffering and persecution. Peter and Matthew were victims themselves of the savage treatment of leading Christians in the first century. These readings are more subtle than a quiescent acceptance of the validity of secular authority, come what may.

They seem to share an underlying grasp that Jesus’s call to Render to Caesar, has more than a dose of irony implied in it. There have been scholars who have proposed that Jesus was linked, through the surnames of two of the Twelve, with first century anti-Roman insurgency. Judas Iscariot may have been one of the notorious sicarii – first century brigands, known for their indiscriminate knife attacks. Simon the Zealot was almost certainly connected with another brand of active freedom-fighting. How far we can suggest Jesus was directly associated with either terrorist cell, when his message of peace and non-violence characterised his ministry (and note particularly Jesus’s arrest), is hard to say, but there was ferment on every front at the time of Our Lord’s ministry.

We know that a Roman denarius in the first century bore the Latin inscription Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus Pontifex Maximus (Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest).

In Matthew’s account, Jesus is goaded by the Herodians to declare either for the freedom movement generally, or the loathed status quo of cooperation with the Romans. In answer, Jesus does not declare as particularly cooperative with Rome. Matthew may have been more interested in Jesus’s adroitness in avoiding being trapped by his hostile questioners. The Gospel writers’ aim is to underline most firmly that Jesus’s challenge is to concentrate properly on the things of God, rather than anything of Caesar’s.

You might be pleased to hear as the clock is about to ring 11 am, that at the Coronation there has not been a sermon since 1902! In the ancient manuals there is a rubric – a short sermon is preached. These are long services, and there is not much getting away from that.

Where the sermon might have been, we move into the ritualised parts of the proceedings.

Just as at this point in the 8^th c. AD a Bishop would then be clothed specially and ordained, so issues to do with vesture, anointing and investiture come to the fore.

So, the king will then divest himself of his rich crimson outer robes.

We are witnessing a death.

Just as in baptism the candidate wears white – the symbol of purity and new life, so the king’s outer garments will reveal probably a loose linen shirt openable at the top. A canopy will be brought forward, possibly one held by children, there has been talk there may be pupils from Christ’s Hospital in their paupers’ uniform of yellow stockings and long blue frockcoats. Whichever way, the anointing is shielded from view. One person I interviewed for the podcast I have done suggested that in the televisual age not to film something was as bold a statement as it might be possible to make.

I have made comments perhaps already about the anointing oil, but given the intensity of events in Jerusalem it bears repeating.

The Mt of Olives in Jerusalem sits opposite the Temple Mount, the place of the Dome of the Rock. Jesus rose to heaven from there, according to most of the NT accounts. Looking from the central part of the Jerusalem Temple to the rising sun at morning, the Mt of Olives is utterly in shade with the sun behind it. It is a magical site. The prophet Ezekiel sees the glory of God leaving the Temple and its first place of rest is over the Mt of Olives. The later prophet Zechariah sees further cataclysms, and the Mt of Olives cut in half and a place of rescue for the faithful that pass through it. The southerly slope of the ridge is covered in Jewish graves, the most sought after place to be buried, because of the beliefs associated with the end of the age. The ridge itself is quite simply breath-takingly beautiful. Part of Jerusalem’s pain is its exquisite majesty.

Ten measures of beauty gave God to the world, nine to Jerusalem and one to the remainder. Ten measures of sorrow gave God to the world, nine to Jerusalem and one to the remainder.

The oil to be used in 2023 was from olives harvested on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem, which is part of the Garden of Gethsemane. The link with Our Lord’s Passion is of singular character. In the same tranquil garden are buried in the Russian Monastery of St Mary Magdalene, two Orthodox religious. St Elizabeth of Russia, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and sister of the last Tsarina of Russia, and Elizabeth’s niece and goddaughter, Princess Alice of Battenburg and Greece, our King’s grandmother. Both women were brave and remarkable and are remembered for their courage and their reward is to rest in a place of the greatest sanctity. The French kings have a tradition that when Clovis was converted in 496, Oil from Heaven was passed down to be used in perpetuity. It was preserved in the Sainte Ampoule. Much later on a tradition arose that the BVM gave oil to Thomas Becket, while in exile in Sens. This oil was kept in an ampulla, where it got forgotten. Richard II discovered it and used it as a talisman in battle. It was then used for four coronations. Thereafter at different intervals the Oil has been prepared and mixed. There are differing recipes. All of them include balsam a rich aromatic fragrance, which was famously expensive – the balm in Gilead.

This Oil, which, as you know, we use following baptism, symbolises the descent of the Holy Spirit to each of us. It is a personal Pentecost and it effects a change. It is sacramental. This is why the coronation is such an unusual rite. There were many reasons for the reformers to do away with it in the 16^th c, and the Papacy was pretty keen it should cease to be used in the 13^th. The German Protestant Georges only kept it in use because of Handel’s remarkable music to accompany it. They had none of that sort of nonsense in Hanover.

The blessing by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the direct successor to the James the brother of the Lord, and a Bishop of the faith of the King’s grandmother and her aunt and of his course his own father, was a profoundly new departure ecumenically.

Patriarch Theophilus’s willingness to undertake this, with his Palestinian colleague Archbishop Hosam, in the city David made his capital and in which Solomon built the Temple, the site of which is now a most holy Muslim site, causes this aromatic oil to hold within it the beauty and pain of that aching place of so many of our hopes and aspirations. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem the Psalmist says and the choir will sing as part of Parry’s I was glad. Praying for peace, when such a prayer seems impossible is what Christian hope has at its heart.

The King’s crowning, which follows soon after the anointing, is the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible truth of this personal Pentecost. The crown, while a sign of Kingship, holds within it symbolism of priesthood from the Old Testament as well, and the Crown of Thorns with which Our Lord was crowned.

Come back next week for the next thrilling instalment.

 

 

 

 

 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.” I Peter 1: 3.

This promise encapsulates rather beautifully the hope of Easter.

St Peter continues:

Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

On the one hand the suffering in imitation of Christ of the Christian martyrs – who have been purged like gold in the fire, is brought to mind in this reading, and in today’s Gospel, with the various greetings of Peace by the risen Christ, we are called to think about the gift of Peace.

The references to both gold and peace are springboards to discussion of the Coronation.

I thought over the next four Sundays, the three before and the one after the Coronation, we might look at the Coronation Rite. It is quite long, in some ways quite dense, but very special.

The service has 17 episodes, and within each one we find various processions, gestures and actions.

I hope it will be helpful to go through each to make Christian sense of what could be a right Royal pageant, but in fact is something far richer and more mysterious. I use that word with care because the Greek word mysterion is translated as sacrament, and for several hundred years from about 1000 AD there was those that viewed the Coronation rite as the 8^th sacrament.

Just very briefly, this will be the shape of the four studies we shall do:

1. The first part of the service which includes the Introit, Recognition, Oath and gift of the Bible. I will also look at the architectural context of the service, in the Abbey, and the design of the building.
2. The beginning of the Eucharist proper, and the readings used. We will also begin to look at issues of anointing and coronation and the vesture worn.
3. The Sunday before the service is our Patronal festival and our preacher will make reference to St Mark our Patron, and explore issues of Kingship and the regalia in terms in which we find them in his Gospel. We will use extended prayers of blessing, which were commended in 1953 and which tell of the symbolism of the regalia – this reminds us that material things speak of spiritual realities.
4. The day after the Coronation, as we celebrate this rite, there will be an overview of what has taken place and what it might mean for our generation.

Henry III redesigned the Abbey, which sat more or less on the foundations of the Edward the Confessor’s church, which was finished in 1065. By then the Confessor had been canonised, and his royal tomb was rebuilt as an ornate shrine of a saint. The High Altar of the Abbey, the Tomb which sat behind it, the pavement before it and even Henry III’s tomb, were covered in 1268 in the most ornate and beautiful Cosmatesque mosaic.

The intricacy of the work and the quality and variety of the stones and materials used, all combine to suggest the connection between Westminster Abbey, Rome (the Abbey Church’s dedication to St Peter is part of this), and the place of Coronation, before the Shrine of St Edward. The central roundel of the swirling design is central point of the cosmos – here it is the King is anointed and crowned. Allusions to the Temple in Jerusalem compound intensify the symbolism further, and are designed to leave the faithful speechless before this work of wonder.

In the Abbey, the sovereign takes his place successively on three chairs in order. Their chair of estate, their place for the beginning of the rite. The Coronation Chair, which while grand is not really a throne, its origins are that of a bench, where now the anointing and crowning take place. This sits right in the middle of the pavement – where in the design heaven and earth meet. The final chair is the actual throne which sits between the transepts in what has always been called “The Theatre”. Theatre – less in the sense of drama and more a place to be seen, where actions happen. Henry III designed the abbey to have tiered seating, and the throne itself to be as high as 13 feet, so the lower tiers and the throne itself were almost at the same level. There is something of heaven and earth meeting once again at the enthronisation, about which I will say more on another occasion.

So much for the context of the Coronation rite.

What about the first three key episodes.

Just before the King arrives the choir will sing the Litany, which we sing here on the first Sundays of Advent and Lent. This long prayer of is a reminiscent of early Christian invocatory prayers. The one we use by Tallis is the composition of a life-long Catholic whose career in the Chapel Royal spanned the reigns of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. It is hard to avoid hyperbole in relation to Tallis but he was a musical great, alongside whom the younger William Byrd would also excel. To some extent they are grandparents of the English choral tradition. They effect the transition of choral singing from its Latin pre-Reformation origins to the modern age. Arguably the Cathedral tradition of music making was one of the keenest brakes on whole-sale Reform in England, and thank God for that.

This is a nice segway into what comes next, the actual Introit, words from Psalm 122 I was glad when they said unto me. The words have been used as the Introit from 973 AD. They are the words of any pilgrim travelling up to Jerusalem. Parry set them to music in 1902 for Edward VII and they have been used ever after. The service begins with a crescendo, which seems hard to beat, and within that are the shouts of the scholars of Westminster School Vivat Rex Carolus. A blend of old and new, singing and shouting, praise and acclamation.

It is followed by an echo from Saxon precedent. The King stands forward of the altar on the Gospel candle side, as the Archbishop and the Great Officers of State go to the four corners of the compass in the Coronation Theatre to acclaim “Your undoubted King.” The onlookers reply “God save the King!” Saxon dynasties which had no primogeniture, this was the Accession Council, here that precedent is remembered. The King is reminded that his rule is of the people. The English tradition has always been wary of notions of divine right.

This is then underlined as the King takes his place in his Chair of Estate to have administered (once again by the Archbishop) the oath.

There are those who compare coronations to weddings, there is certainly a ring to be worn in due course, but like any solemn undertaking, and this is really more parallel to an ordination, the candidate must make that undertaking.

Sir, is your Majesty willing to take the Oath?

I am willing.

The Archbishop shall minister these questions; and The King, having a book in his hands, shall answer each question severally as follows:

Archbishop. Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?

King. I solemnly promise so to do.

Archbishop. Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?

King. I will.

Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

King. All this I promise to do.

Then the King arising out of his Chair, supported as before, the Sword of State being carried before him, shall go to the Altar, and make his solemn Oath in the sight of all the people to observe the premisses: laying his right hand upon the Holy Gospel in the great Bible (which was before carried in the procession and is now brought from the Altar by the Arch-bishop, and tendered to him as he kneels upon the steps), and saying these words:

The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.

Then the King shall kiss the Book and sign the Oath.

Politically, the wording of the Coronation Oath dates from the Coronation Oath Act of 1688, following the so-called Glorious Revolution at the end of the reign of James II.

The Coronation Oath was supplemented by the Accession Oath under the 1689 Bill of Rights Act, whose tone underlined the principles of the new regime. The 1689 Bill of Rights Act required the sovereign, to begin with at the Coronation and then later on accession, to swear that:

[I] do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever…..

In 1910 this Oath was amended. King George V, and his father before him, felt very strongly that such incendiary anti-Catholic rhetoric risked utterly alienating their Roman Catholic subjects, at a time of heightened unrest in Ireland.

The amendment was considerably tempered and now reads:

I [here insert the name of the Sovereign] do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.

The Coronation Oath, therefore, has been a loaded text. Behind it is a history of vehement opposition to Kingship beholden to external power and Roman Catholic doctrine. This ecumenical age sees the coming together of peoples of faith, and a mutuality amongst Christians, in social action and witness, which the King’s role as Defensor Fidei stands for in a unique way.

Queen Elizabeth II said of the Church of England, in a speech in February 2012 at Lambeth Palace:

Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country. It certainly provides an identity and spiritual dimension for its own many adherents. But also, gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely. Woven into the fabric of this country, the Church has helped to build a better society – more and more in active co-operation for the common good with those of other faiths.

In 1953, there was then (shock-horror) an innovation at the Coronation.

For the first time, someone who was not a prelate of the Church of England got a solo-speaking part. The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, got to hand the Bible to the Queen. Previously the Bible was presented after the Coronation and before the Coronation blessing. In 1953 it was decided, logically, it would be presented before the collect and readings.

There was a considerable discussion about this, and even a fair amount of hoity-toitiness. Archbishop Fisher began by saying the Moderator could hand the Bible, while remaining mute. Fisher perhaps afraid Celtic tones might spoil the uniformity of voice began obdurately to refuse the Moderator a speaking part, but he eventually stood down, and actually allowed the Moderator the simple and wonderful words, distilled from Bishop Compton’s rather longer original in 1689:

Here is Wisdom; (Rev 13: 8; Proverbs, constant search after Wisdom)
This is the royal Law; (James 2:8)
These are the lively Oracles of God. (I Peter 4: 11)

This innovation in 1953 was quite something then. It was clear it was only because of the monarch’s particular direct relationship with the Kirk, as we all saw at the Accession Council. There was firmness on the part of Fisher there was no warrant for other Church leaders either to be present or have any sort of role – it was not their service!

But the memory of that innovation has spelt a desire, openness and active interest in giving space not only to other Church leaders, but other faith communities and their clergy at this Coronation in 2023. So, something so distinctively Christian as the gift of our Scriptures has spelt the opportunity in a very different society now, for leaders of other faiths to be present at this Coronation.

The King’s particular interest in the related questions of Freedom of Religion, Interfaith Dialogue, and support for all people of faith, mean, it is clear he celebrates other faiths being represented, while not diluting his own very strong and deep faith. The day the date was announced, an invitation was issued to the Chief Rabbi to stay at Clarence House so he would be able to walk to the Abbey to be able to attend the Coronation.

Come back next week for the next thrilling instalment.

As we ponder the purging of the Church as gold is tested in the fire, spare prayers for the King and Queen in their self-offering. This is no easy task to which they are called and about which they have so little choice, other than to renounce, not easy either. Let us pray that we may know the gift of ultimate peace, shalom, the peace of the age and kingdom to come, which the risen Christ offers to those who follow him in faith.

 

From today’s reading of the Gospel of St Matthew, 17: v5
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and
behold a voice out of the cloud which said,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
And 2 Peter 1: v19
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well
that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the
day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.
A year ago we met at the same mountain on the same day – the last
Sunday before Ash Wednesday. Now as then, we are buffeted by
extreme politics and conflict, by natural disasters and self-induced
climate change. Uncertainty and inequality shred our social contract and
too few birds sing. Now as then, we find community, meaning, and
pastry in this beautiful and beloved place. Surely there is no better time
to open our hearts to today’s gospel, an exquisite and sufficient
illumination of our Christian faith and heritage: past, present, future,
eternal.

All three synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke –report the event:
it is important that Christians know and remember this story. But what
about John? After all, he was one of the three eyewitnesses. Is he silent
about the Transfiguration?

On the contrary, I believe we can read the Prologue from St. John as a
glorious poem of transfiguration, from “in the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God”; including “In
him was life, and the life was the light of mankind”; and conclusively,
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and
truth.” As such, John’s passage is no less a powerful testimony due to
its lyrical and figurative expression. His words speak to the eternal truth
at the heart of the story and shine as brightly as Matthew’s vivid report or
glowing icons that seek to recreate theological narrative as seen
experience.

Like the three apostles on the mountain and as featured in our spotlight
verse introducing this sermon, we learn truth and grow in faith through
our senses and within our hearts…when we listen to and heed their
message. We are wired by a loving God to long for and turn to the light
of salvation, and to hear the living God speak through his word.
Otherwise, we are incapable of improvement. Paradoxically, Jesus is
not the one who undergoes metamorphosis atop the Mount of
Transfiguration: he is ever and always fully God and fully human. It is
our eyes and ears and hearts that must be transfigured and opened to
behold him, both in his majesty and as the sacrificial lamb of our
salvation.

That is the aim of the stunning and intricate icon on the cover of the
Order of Service, particularly as reproduced in full colour on this week’s
parish e-mail. Painted by a 14th century priest and poet, Theophanes,
the composition moves the eye through time, place, and
event…simultaneously inhabiting metaphysical and physical realms: it is
literally a sermon in paint.

An image of the Transfiguration also appears on the central panel of the
reredos, itself a degree programme in theology. Here Christ is joined by
Moses and Elijah in a supernatural gathering before three awe-struck
apostles. This image shines forth behind the high altar every day of the
year…except when concealed during Lent, now looming. It is good to
give it some attention before the beauty of our sanctuary is veiled for the
duration; perhaps it will be food for contemplation of our shared
experience of the transfiguration, available and active within us even
when removed from sight.

One year ago, St. Luke was our guide to the mountain top; this year St.
Matthew leads the way for our bi-annual Transfiguration retreat. Though
its official Feast Day is 6 August, closer to the historical real time the
biblical event takes place, the Transfiguration is twinned with the last
Sunday of Shrovetide – today – about 6 months earlier in the calendar
year, on the cusp of Lent, and some 50 days before Easter Day. Its
position on the liturgical calendar gives rise to the name –
Quinquagesima or literally ‘fifty days’ in that language so excellent for
sequence, Latin. It also ensures that each half of the calendar year
includes a day to bask in transfiguration glory, which radiates blessing
for all. Not least because it is day 1 of a 3-day final countdown of pre-
Lenten indulgences, should your larder be fortunate to hold stocks of
any foods or treats you now plan to restrict during 40 days of fasting and
penitence in preparation for Holy Week, Passion and Resurrection.
For those with maths brains calculating how to divide 40 fast days into a
50-day period culminating in the Paschal Feast, and for others with keen
appetites and high anxiety, rest assured that all goodies are welcomed
back on Sundays, as they have been on an occasional Thursday or
Saturday when different rules regarding pre-Paschal fasting have come
into and gone out of practice. These days, media outlets and best seller
lists are populated with the benefits of an extended period of intermittent
fasting or “going dry” on usual indulgences, from meat to merlot,
together with structured self-examination – which could be likened to
journaling or mindfulness or self-help. Lenten discipline is not an
attempt to drag you back to the Middle Ages, but to engage you with
healing and drawing closer to your true self by moving closer to the God
in whose image you were made.

As a prospective Lenten pilgrim, welcome to Quinquagesima Sunday
2023 when thoughts of pancakes, butter and cream; meat and cheese;
sugar and alcohol, may be permitted to dance in our heads, so long as
you have packed your metaphorical knapsack and renewed your faith in
the gospel roadmap for God’s plan.

Let’s start at the bottom of that high mountain. On second thought, let’s
start at the end of the previous chapter of Matthew, remembering that
time points to meaning from Genesis 1:1 to Revelations 22:21. In its
closing verses (not really a cheat as the division of text post-dates its
writing plus Mark includes it within his account), Peter “confesses” for
the first time that Jesus is “the Christ, the son of the living God.” In
reply, Jesus tells the apostles for the first time that he must die and be
raised again on the third day. This is a contravention of the one-anddone
Messiah favoured by first century Judaism as the God and king
who comes in triumph to restore the temporal power of the Hebrew
people.

There are passages in the psalms and Zechariah that describe
crucifixion hundreds of years before Jesus appears, plus Isiah’s wellknown
depiction of Messiah as the Suffering Servant who bears the
disease and punishments for Israel’s sins. However, this aspect of
messianic function isn’t in the foreground; equally, a promise to rise
again elicits scant acknowledgment from Jesus’ disappointed disciples.
Rebuffing Peter’s indignant protest against a suffering and slain
Messiah, Jesus further promises “verily” that some of those present will
not die “till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”. Soon
enough, seeing will be believing, at least for some.

The very first line of the following verse picks up this timeline, setting the
Transfiguration “after 6 days” when Jesus calls Peter and the brothers
James and John to come with him up into a high mountain. Here are
echoes of the Genesis creation account, where on the 6th day, God
made man and woman in his own image. Yet the process was not
complete until the 7th day, when he “blessed and sanc

The rest of the disciples are left at the bottom of the mountain, and later
in the chapter you may read Jesus’ review of how well their time was
spent! Of course, he knew that all his disciples were truly stuck in 6th
day limbo, and it was time to breathe life into their faith, starting with his
top team. He would combine all that was familiar to them about the Law
and the Prophets, the Messiah and the Kingdom into one unforgettable
experience of his godhood within the triune godhead. It will embody and
illuminate the Cross, the Resurrection, and the glory of God’s Kingdom
as perfect and inevitable fulfilment of divine plan to redeem creation from
its fallen imperfection. No wonder it is a story told twice each year! We
could benefit from remembering it every day.

Location, like time, signifies meaning throughout the Bible, and high
mountains are where God interacts with his messengers on earth, the
prophets. Other signifiers include light and dark; natural phenomena
such as cloud and waters; physical manifestations such as voice, fire,
and wind; appearance of otherworldly beings or those from the past or
future –something from all categories appears in the Transfiguration
narrative and many feature in Theophanes’ icon.

Front and centre is the pure white light of Christ in full glory, a white that
outshines the glimmering gold of the highest heavens. Its beams create
a star-like structure of radiance connecting above to below with precise
geometry. His right hand is raised in blessing, two fingers aloft and
three together symbolising the trinity. A cloud tinted celestial blue
descends, approaching Christ like a wing-shaped embrace as symbol of
God the father’s presence; it also serves as protective shield for the
apostles. We can now visualise the mystical unity of divinity, with Jesus
Christ at its centre: as perfect sacrifice, great High Priest, and
indestructible Temple for the children of God below; as only Son to the
Father above; as the one who sends the Holy Spirit to comfort, protect,
and give life.

The lower slopes and the apostles themselves are shaded and earthtoned,
deeper on the left side to represent the past and ascent of the
mount, brighter on the right side to light their descent after witnessing
Jesus’ radiance before travelling into the future. Darkest are small cavelike
openings into the mountain, the larger ones to the side like tunnels
through the mountain, the smaller central ones foreshadowing the
passion in Gethsemane Garden and the empty tomb.

The men themselves do not reach the summit and appear overwhelmed
with exhaustion and awe, perhaps just waking from end-of- journey
sleep well below the level of their transfigured Lord’s feet. Standing to
the left is the prophet Elijah, taken into the heavens some 800 years
ago, and to the right, patriarch Moses, the lawgiver resting in a burial
place known only to God almighty these past 1500 years. Both are
instantly recognisable as they bow to the Lord, attended by angelic
beings on a small cloud floating above them, dim in comparison to the
shekinah of God’s presence. Neither eminence is a stranger to
mountain top summits with the Almighty, and Elijah is foretold to appear
just before the coming of the Messiah.

Though John averts his eyes and brother James covers his, Peter raises
head and hand in emphasis, for he has something to say! To him, the
scene looks like Jesus appearing in glory, attended by Elijah as foretold,
accompanied by Moses, occurring at the time of Sukkot when Israel
commemorates 40 years in the desert on the way to the Promised Land.
Why, this is a perfect opportunity for the Messiah to appear in majesty
during a high holiday without the need for suffering and death. “Tis
good, Lord, to be here”! Let us build 3 tabernacles, (tents or temporary
structures) one for each of you…effectively, let’s bring the Kingdom
home right here, right now.

He is interrupted before he can finish as the cloud overshadows them
and the voice of God speaks from its depths:
“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him.
The cloud vanishes, Jesus appears on his own in his familiar form, and
there is nothing to do but arise and go with him down the mountain,
across the plains, to the appointed time of Calvary. Further, to heed his
words to fear not and to say nothing about what you have seen and
heard until the resurrection. For the Son of God is the eternal
embodiment of prophecy AND the new Moses, sent to lead people
everywhere out of the slavery of sin, according to his Father’s plan.
For us today as it was over 2000 years ago for Peter, James and John,
spiritual rebirth is sorely needed. In the Transfiguration, Jesus takes us
to that place where we are again connected to the sight, voice, love, and
certain knowledge of the ever-loving triune God. After all, it is good for
us to be here. AMEN

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.  In my sermon today I am going to explore the meaning of Lent.

The first thought that comes into my head is that Lent is a time when we feel we should give something up that we like and in that period to resist the temptation to return to it.  Many a time and oft I have tried to give up eating chocolate but not very successfully.

This attempt to give up something we like appears to be superficial in comparison with what find in today’s Gospel reading.  Here, Jesus resists the offer made to him by the Devil to have ‘all the kingdoms of the world, and their splendor’ because he will not worship any other than God himself.  I would hesitate, though, to dismiss our attempts during Lent to give up something we like as superficial. It is, I believe, a mistake to be too grandiose about what we do in our ordinary lives and God is, I believe, the God of ordinariness. I say all this because such attempts can reflect what is going on at a deeper level and not everyone has the time to engage in profound thought and reflection about what they do, particularly in today’s non-stop 24/7 busy world.

In days gone by, when the pace of life was slower, this gave more opportunity for engagement in reflection on our deeper level of being.  So to explore the meaning of Lent at that deeper level we can look at the writings of those who in the past had that opportunity for profound thought and reflection.

One such was Thomas à Kempis, the German-Dutch canon and author who, in the fifteenth century, wrote his famous work ‘the Imitation of Christ’, Thomas wrote that good Lenten practice means to resist the attempts of the Devil to turn you away from ‘exercise of devotion, reverence for the saints, remembrance of your sins, vigilance over your own heart and your ‘resolve to make progress in goodness’.  A tall order, particularly for us in today’s world.  Yet when we worship today we do ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness and many people all over the world are striving for a better state of affairs for everyone.

What Thomas is asking us to avoid is being distracted by the Devil. What makes all this harder for us today is that we are constantly distracted by a bombardment of offers and rewards from companies and organizations. I am not quite sure whether they are kindly meant or purely commercial and I think it may be a mixture of both; some for our health and welfare, or to help us in the cost of living, or enjoyment, all with good intention, others simply to make money out of us.  If, though, we can shift away, not from enjoyment of what life has to offer us, but from excess then I believe we are on the path that Thomas would like us to be on in relationship to God.  It is one which by-passes the Devil’s path of restlessness and disturbing of the good state of our desires and allows space for prayer and Bible study.

If we can stand firm against the wiles of the Devil then we imitate Christ as he stood firm in the wilderness.  His was a mighty resistance as an offer of kingdoms and wealth after 40 days and nights in the wilderness must surely have been a massive temptation.  This ultimate resistance gives us a model for our attempts to shift away from temptation in Lent.

The deeper meaning of Lent is also found in the activity of the Holy Spirit.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. In Mark’s Gospel there is an urgency; Jesus is driven by the Spirit, immediately, into the wilderness.  What does this mean?  According to Reverend Harry Williams, priest and theologian, in his sermon given at Trinity College Cambridge in 1965, the Spirit is ’God in us’.  It is from that place that we can be, as Jesus was, thrown out into the wilderness as part of our call to God’s service.  This leaves us isolated but in that isolation we are losing shallow communion with God ‘and new powers of communion with our world are being built up within us’.  Isolation does not necessarily mean being alone in the desert as it can take many forms; it is, Harry writes, a sense of being alone, saddeningly alone or alone and frightened. Isolated from friends or family or from those who you feel have achieved success that you have not achieved.  For Jesus it was isolation in the actual wilderness but I would say that, in spite of loving parents and some acceptance and praise of others, he was isolated from cradle to grave because of his unique destiny. Yet the time spent by Jesus in the wilderness in isolation shows us what happens to ourselves.  We see in his life the meaning of our own.

In his resistance to the Devil in the wilderness, Jesus shows himself to be, as Jerome’s Biblical Commentary gives it ‘the perfect lover of God’.  We may not feel that we can reach that height of perfection but the author of Psalm 32 reminds us that if we confess to God then God forgives us as our protector and deliverer whose steadfast love surrounds us always.

 

AMEN

 

Our gospel reading today comes from the Sermon on the Mount, a foundational text of teaching for what it means to live life as a Christian. The verses we heard today break into three sections: First, the importance of Salt and Light; Second, the Law and the Prophets; and Third, our expected level of righteousness.

I’m actually going to work through this back to front, so bear with me!

Exceed the Pharisees!

At the end of the reading, Jesus says “…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom…” of God. This is the baseline for disciples. The scribes and pharisees were the ones criticising and opposing the first Christians. Jesus marks them out, and says “These are your targets. If you can be more loving, more generous, and better people than these, then you are going to enter the kingdom of God”.

Dare I say it, the bar is actually set quite low!

“Righteousness” is one of those church words that we all hear but don’t necessarily understand. In Matthew’s gospel, it basically means “doing things rightly”. If you can do the right things more than the pharisees, then you are doing well!

But what are the right things?

The Old Testament today

Moving up, we have a discussion on the Law and the Prophets. For us, this means the Old Testament. What exactly is the point of the Old Testament? Just an historic document? Just background information? Or is there a relevance? Very often we don’t read it, we skip over it – indeed today I chose the New Testament reading over the Old!

Bad me! Because in Matthew’s mind, and at the time Matthew was writing, the only Holy Scriptures anyone had, the only source of guidance, was the Old Testament!  He thus fully assumed that every single Christian would be studying the Old Testament in a group of people to understand it.

Sadly, this is very much not what we do today. But when I was in Moscow, I visited a synagogue once, and it amazed me to see Jewish men after the service sitting at tables opposite one another, reading the Old Testament and discussing it; challenging each other with questions; debating the meaning. And as they were doing that, they were entrenching it deeper into their minds and bodies, and discovering the living meaning of the Word of God.

Personally, I wish we would learn to do that in our culture! And I hope in a little way that the Tuesday Pre-Lent course is helping us do that – yes, that is a plug for the course on Tuesday at 6.30pm on Zoom!

The problem Jesus had with the Pharisees and Scribes seems to have centred around interpretation. Of course this issue is very much alive in today’s church as well – how do we interpret some of the Bible? The Pharisees had taken the law and made each and every rule sacrosanct, and added a whole load of extra teaching to make sure that you were always behaving in such a way that you could not possibly break the Law of Moses.

Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to read beyond the laws themselves into where they were pointing. Thus a law like Leviticus 19:32, which says “You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old” to a pharisee would mean that when someone older than you came into the room, you literally stood up out of respect. To Jesus, it meant that, yes, you show respect, but mainly you help them sit down, make a space for them, offer them a drink or food, and listen attentively and with respect to what they say.

Indeed, later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “You have heard that it was said ‘you shall not commit adultery’…but I say to you that everyone who looks with lust has already committed adultery”.

Thus the difference is pharisees observing the laws, but Jesus and Christians following and fulfilling the deeper meaning. It is one of ritual obedience and tradition verses heart motivation.

And this requires intense study, lots of asking and questioning, lots of reflecting on how the law applies to us nowadays, and discerning of the general thrust of scripture. Does Deuteronomy 25:4 just ban muzzling oxen when they are treading grain, or does it actually point to us caring for animals? Of course the latter!

We see later in Jesus’ life that if it meant caring for someone, he would break laws lower down the list in order to keep those higher up – he bends sabbath laws, because he was doing so for the greater benefit of others. But the point remains: the Law of Moses, the Prophets, the Old Testament, all still stand, and should be studied and discussed with others. Those who teach it will be called great.

Being Salt and Light

Thus we arrive at the top – salt and light! You are salt! Don’t lose your flavour. You are light! Don’t hide under a hat. Being a shining light, or being salt, means doing the good works of a disciple. Remember this passage comes after the beatitudes, when Jesus says Blessed are the peacemakers, the humble, the merciful, those who want right things to be done.

These are the good things and good works of being a disciple. Those who make peace, who show mercy, and who want the justice of God enacted, those are the ones who are salt and light and who are blessed.

When I was at university and learning about Thatcherism, we had a lovely but very stereotypically left-wing professor, Dr Strange. I asked him once “If the communist revolution is inevitable, surely people should encourage hyper-capitalism, globalism, and all the rest? It will hasten inequalities and lead more quickly to the revolution?”

He said that yes, there were indeed a group of hard-line Marxists in the 1980s who said communists should actively support Thatcherism and neoliberalism, because this would indeed just make thing worse, and thus cause people to rise up and overthrow the government, bringing about the communist paradise.

But Jesus is calling us Christians not to political revolutions that may or may not improve society. His call is that we serve him, and do good in the times in which we live. And that means, the presence of our care and love, of our ‘salt’ and our ‘light’, will have the effect of stopping society becoming as bad as it could be.

If you removed Christians from the United States, healthcare would collapse. If you removed Christians from the UK’s history, we would still have slavery and very likely still be feudal. Most of our schools would disappear. We would unlikely have many hospitals. Indeed, life would be so much worse that it’s hard to imagine.

Our salt and light blesses society. Sometimes, society will recognise it. Sometimes society will not; but either way, we are called to serve Jesus, not society. The outworking of our worship and obedience to Jesus blesses those around us.

That’s a lot of information! So let us recap:

Our level of righteousness needs to exceed the rather low baseline of the pharisees, who were quite hypocritical.

We need to embrace the Old Testament and really take joy in studying it, but do so in a group, so we can draw out the deeper meanings and the general thrust of teaching. We need to look for the heart motivation and avoid the ritual obedience.

And that helps us be Salt and Light. When we know which direction the scriptures of God are pointing us, then we can be salt and light in our society. And the influence of us doing the right things in our daily lives is actually having a huge impact on our wider society.

So let us ask ourselves – is there enough light coming from our lives? If someone put me under a basket, would anyone notice?

Are we makers of peace?  Do you show mercy to people in difficulty? Can I say I live my life in a humble and respectful way?

Or am I a pharisee…? I must exceed them to enter God’s kingdom…and it is so easy to become one of them. So let us stay vigilant, and ensure we are being salt and light.