Gathering 

A sermon for Midnight Communion, Christmas Eve, 2020

The topic for my sermon tonight is gathering.  This seems to be an appropriate topic this Christmas given the prohibitions on gathering because of the Corona Virus.  And to start with I want to remind you of that verse from Matthew’s gospel where Jesus is talking to his disciples about how the church community should act and be.  Jesus says, ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’   Gathering has a human dimension but also a spiritual one.  Tonight I want to suggest that God gathers us and gathers with us in ways we might not expect.

The Christmas story is full of gatherings.  Mary and Joseph are required to gather with other members of their tribe in Bethlehem by the Roman authorities.  This is for the purpose of a census.  Meanwhile some wise men, hundreds of miles away, are gathering together to embark on a journey to Bethlehem because they think a new star heralds the birth of a new king of Israel.   And on the night Jesus is born some shepherds are gathered together on a hill-side, just outside of Bethlehem, until their chatting around a fire is interrupted (as we heard in our reading - Luke 2: 1-20) by some angels.  

These are the sort of gatherings that are the consequence of humans being social beings and which, until recently, we took entirely for granted.   When you are watching tv programmes filmed last year, don’t you find yourself thinking: how come those people are gathering in such large numbers without any attempt at social distancing?   Now, when we are restricted from gathering, how much we miss it?

Gathering has or had a purely practical function.   Meetings of 10 or so people in one room were until last March a routine part of my work.  We gathered together to discuss and agree what work needed to be done before the next meeting.   The shepherds outside Bethlehem were gathered together presumably because it is easier to watch sheep if there is more than one of you and also a lot safer.  Gathering is useful for all sorts and types of work. 

But gathering is also part and parcel of celebration.   When Jesus was born some angels – as the carol ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ says – ‘were gathered all above’.  The shepherds once they had been told by the angels that something wonderful was happening in a stable nearby – that that very moment a Savior was being been born, the Messiah, the Lord – all rushed together into Bethlehem to see the baby – and to celebrate his birth, returning to their sheep ‘glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told’ by the angels.  Just like the shepherds we gather together at services like this one to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas.

 And we also gather together at Christmas meals and parties whether we believe in the story that originally prompted the celebration of Christmas or not.  This need to gather together in celebration also seems hard-wired into our very beings and is why the restrictions on gathering together this year because of the Corona Virus have been felt to be so cruel.

Now of course shared meals are central to celebration.  In a little while we are going to remember a Passover meal celebrated by Jesus the night before his crucifixion.  For 2000 years Christians have gathered together to share bread and wine to remember the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection and what God has done for us through him.   Now gathering at the Communion meal, while it is physical with real bread and real wine, also has a spiritual side.  At Holy Communion we gather with all Christians alive today, across the ages and across the globe – virtually if you like.  At this very moment Christians throughout the UK are celebrating Midnight Communion but also they are also doing so in Iceland, Portugal and Ghana and other countries in our time zone   And at Holy Communion we don’t just gather with one another we gather with God. 

Now this sermon is a sequel to the one I gave at the Carol Service at St Luke’s the Sunday before last.  In that sermon I expressed the view that it was absurd for the Daily Mail or anyone else to think that Christmas could be cancelled.   I reminded people that Christmas cannot be cancelled because of that first Christmas more than 2000 years ago when Jesus was born.   When God became a human that Christmas it was a defining moment in world history.   It meant that Christmas is going to happen forever whether we like it or not.  

That birth in Bethlehem meant that God is still here with us this Christmas.  So however different and difficult it will be for us this Christmas it has not been cancelled, it cannot be cancelled because it not in our power to cancel what God has done for us.

In my sermon at the carol service I reminded people that in C S Lewis’ ;The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' the White Witch had tried, ineffectually, to cancel Christmas in Narnia by making it ‘always winter but never Christmas’.   Here is an extract from near the middle of the book when the White Witch is pursuing the three Pevensee children, Peter, Susan and Lucy, in a sledge drawn by reindeer with Edmund the fourth Pevensee child on board.   At this point the Witch’s power to stop Christmas coming is waning because Aslan the Lion has returned to Narnia.

And then at last the Witch said, "What have we here? Stop!" and they did.

How Edmund hoped she was going to say something about breakfast!  But she had stopped for quite a different reason. A little way off at the foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dogfox, all on stools round a table. Edmund couldn’t quite see what they were eating, but it smelled lovely and there seemed to be decorations of holly and he wasn’t at all sure that he didn’t see something like a plum pudding.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked the Witch Queen. Nobody answered.

"Speak, vermin!" she said again. "Or do you want my dwarf to find you a tongue with his whip? What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence? Where did you get all these things? "

"Please, your Majesty," said the Fox, "we were given them. And if I might make so bold as to drink your Majesty’s very good health—"

"Who gave them to you?" said the Witch.

"F-F-F-Father Christmas," stammered the Fox.

"What?" roared the Witch, springing from the sledge and taking a few strides nearer to the terrified animals. "He has not been here! He cannot have been here! How dare you—but no. Say you have been lying and you shall even now be forgiven."

At that moment one of the young squirrels lost its head completely.

"He has—he has—he has!" it squeaked, beating its little spoon on the table. Edmund saw the Witch bite her lips so that a drop of blood appeared on her white cheek. Then she raised her wand. "Oh, don’t, don’t, please don’t," shouted Edmund, but even while he was shouting she had waved her wand and instantly where the merry party had been there were only statues of creatures seated round a stone table on which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding.

Now we might think that our plum puddings, this year, have been turned to stone.  

But CS Lewis’ story doesn’t end with the animals and their feast being turned to stone.   Aslan the Lion, towards the end of the story, releases all those who have been turned to stone by the White Witch and restores them to life.  He restores this Christmas gathering to what it should be: a glorious celebratory feast.

Of course gathering is easier in person – whether it be for Christmas Dinner or Holy Communion - but as I must keep on saying, gathering also has a spiritual dimension that transcends the physical.  Remember those angels at the first Christmas.   And we clearly do not have to be physically present to gather, as this year of Zoom meetings, Zoom social gatherings and Zoom services, like this one, demonstrates.   At the end of the day the Corona Virus cannot and does not prevent us from gathering. It certainly cannot prevent us from gathering with God.

That verse from Matthew’s Gospel again ‘Jesus says, for where two or three are gathered in my name, two note not even six, I am there among them.’     

 

Love came down at Christmas

 

A sermon for a carol service at St Luke's Church, Oxford, 13^th December 2020

The theme of my talk today is ‘Love came down at Christmas’.  This, you might remember, is the first line of a carol with words by Christina Rossetti.   The carol starts:

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine,

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

 Here Christina Rossetti is saying something amazing.  She is of course talking about the birth of Jesus, with angels bringing the good news and a star over the stable, at that first Christmas more than 2000 years ago, but she goes beyond an evocation of the scene to an explanation of what it was all about.

Our first reading from the opening words of John’s gospel – sometimes called it Prologue - is a traditional reading for Christmas carol services and also talks about love coming down at Christmas albeit in a slightly different way.   If Jane had carried on reading our first reading this evening she would have come to the verse ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ 

It may not be immediately obvious who or what John is talking about when he talks about ‘The Word’ in this and previous verses in the Prologue but from the context it is clear that John has in mind two different persons: Jesus and God.   A bit odd I know to think of a word as a person but there it is. 

So ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ can either mean ‘Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us’ or – more surprisingly - ‘God became flesh and dwelt among us.’   That Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us is hardly surprising: a human person when they are born, if not before, becomes flesh, and so too with Jesus.  But John saying that ‘God became flesh and dwelt among us’ still, after all these years, has the power to shock us.   Surely the one thing we can assume about God is that he is not fleshy, he is other-worldly, he is beyond us, up there in Heaven?  But this is not so.  God really is down here with us.

Now when John told us that the Word became flesh he was saying something that had never been said before.   Other Jewish theologians has said things like. ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God’ and ‘by the Word God created the world’ but to equate Jesus – a human being – with that Word was truly shocking, then as it is now. 

This idea of God becoming flesh and dwelling amongst is not only shocking but mysterious.  How can it be?   Now a mystery is something which is difficult if not almost impossible to understand but I think it is at least worth trying to understand this mystery because unlike some other mysteries it has such importance for our lives.

Poems sometimes have the power to reveal mysteries that prose cannot.   Christina Rossetti says that ‘Love came down at Christmas’, not that ‘God came down at Christmas’ as John had said: his  prologue doesn’t mention love at all.   Christina Rossetti however is on safe ground when she says ‘Love came down at Christmas’ because John tells us elsewhere in the Bible that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4: 8) and that ‘Love is of God’ (1 Joh 4: 7).

And the idea that love came down at that Christmas over 2000 years go and indeed is still with us this Christmas is, perhaps, a tiny bit easier to understand than God becoming flesh in the shape of a baby.   Even in these commercialised times Christmas is surely a time for love and for expressing love.  Love within families and between friends as expressed by giving and receiving presents and sharing celebratory meals and indeed sharing our love of God at services like this.    But also, hopefully, extending that love to people less well off than ourselves.  Of course some might just see Christmas as a time to indulge ourselves but I don’t think many of us really do.  

Christina Rossetti, in her poem, makes the connection between divine love coming down at Christmas and our earthly love for one another in the second and third verses of the poem.    John tells us that love is of God i.e. that God is the source of love – all love – and when we love one-another we, like the miracle of that baby born with angels singing and a star overheard – reveal something of God’s love for us and the possibility of our love for him.

Now I was struck by reports in the press about a month ago that our Prime-Minister was intending to cancel Christmas as if that was in his power to do so.  And of course there have been attempts to cancel Christmas in the past – famously by Oliver Cromwell.   The most telling example of someone trying to cancel Christmas, I think, is in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis.  Bear with me for a moment: this does connect up with love coming down at Christmas I promise.

You may remember that, in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy was the first of the four Pevensee children-to get to Narnia through the wardrobe.  There she finds a world all covered in snow and meets a fawn called Mr Tumnus who explains to her that’s it’s a witch – the White Witch - who seems to control everything that goes on in Narnia including the weather

Here is Lucy explaining to her brother Edmund what Mr Tumnus has told her about the White Witch:

‘I’ve been having lunch with dear Mr Tumnus the Faun, and he’s very well and the White Witch has done nothing to him for letting me go, so he thinks she can’t have found out and perhaps everything is going to be all right after all.

The White Witch?’ sad Edmund; ‘who’s she?’

‘She is a perfectly terrible person’ said Lucy.  She calls herself the Queen of Narnia though she has no right to be a queen at all, and all the Fauns and Dryads and Naiads and Dwarfs and Animals – at least all the good ones – simply hate her.  And she can turn people into stone and do all kinds of horrible things.  And she has made a magic so that it is always winter in Narnia – always winter but it never gets to Christmas.'

But we know from later in the story that the White Witch is only seemingly in control.  And here, incidentally, we might think of Covid-19 really only seemingly ruling our lives at the moment.   In the end Aslan – the lion – comes to Narnia and frees the world from the White Witch and one sign of this is the return of Christmas.

We can be assured that Christmas cannot be cancelled whether by Oliver Cromwell, our Prime Minister, should he have wanted to do so, or the corona virus.   This is because love came down at that first Christmas when Jesus was born.   When love came down that Christmas it was a defining moment in world history.   It also meant that love is still here with us at Christmas.  So however different and difficult it will be for us this Christmas it has not been cancelled, it cannot be cancelled.  Love came down at Christmas 2000 years ago and still is with us today.

Here is the complete poem by Christina Rossetti:

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine,

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

 

Worship we the Godhead,

Love Incarnate, Love Divine,

Worship we our Jesus,

But wherewith for sacred sign?

 

Love shall be our token,

Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

Starting where people are at

Sermon on Acts 17: 16-31 and 1 Peter 3: 13-15

St Matthew's, Oxford, 14th June 2020

Today my sermons is about evangelism: an appropriate subject given that St Matthew’s is about to hold an Alpha course.   Now I confess I have never been a big fan of evangelism.   I have always taken comfort in that verse in Ephesians which goes ‘The gifts he [Jesus] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers[1].  So not all are called to be evangelists then.  Well that lets me off the hook. But of course it doesn’t, or at least not entirely, because as our reading from 1 Peter Chapter 3 today reminds us we should ‘always be ready to make our defence of the hope that is in us.’  That’s all of us and not just some of us.

Our reading from Acts, today, gives us an object lesson in how to give a defence of the hope that is in us and in particular suggests, that in doing so, we need to ‘start where people are at’.  It gives us three tips.  When embarking on a discussion about the good news of the Gospel:

Firstly listen to what your listeners have to say first
Secondly find out what they want and need
Thirdly talk to them in words they understand. 

These are rules to be followed in most conversations.  However you may not want to follow them in some situations such as when shouting at your child to step away from the fire but even then you’ll want to use words they understand.

But before moving on to these tips, let’s go back to our passage from Acts for a moment.  It’s an account of a speech Paul gives in the Areopagus in Athens in around AD 50.  The Areopagus was, by this point, a sort of meeting point where you could catch an interesting public lecture.   A bit like the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.

Luke tells us in Acts Chapter 17 that ‘all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.’  Now this might sound rather sarcastic on Luke’s part.   But on the other hand what Paul had to say to the Athenians was new.   So I think it is better to interpret this verse as Luke telling us that the Athenians were, at least in theory, open to the something new that Paul had to tell them.  I think it is always worth starting with the assumption that people are open to what you have to say, and vice versa, until proved otherwise.

So Tip number 1: Listen to what your listeners have to say first.  

Paul, before he embarked upon his lecture to the Athenians had clearly taken the time to look around Athens and to delve into Athenian beliefs.   And he starts his lecture by saying, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way’.  Now again that might sound as if Paul was being sarcastic.  But I don’t think Paul had much of a senses of humour.  And sarcasm – the lowest form of wit – I am fairly sure wasn’t his bag.  It seems to me more likely that he was being serious.  

We are inclined to think of Greek religion in terms of Gods like Zeus and Apollo and Goddesses like Hera and Aphrodite who gratuitously interfered in the affairs of humans whilst living it up on Mount Olympus   But of course for a long time there had been Greeks who had thought much more seriously about religion and even had a conception of God quite similar to that of Paul.  Here is Plato on God in the Timmaeus:

‘For God desired that, so far as possible, all things should be good and nothing evil; wherefore, when He took over all that was visible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, He brought it into order out of disorder, deeming that the former state is in all ways better than the latter. For Him who is most good it neither was nor is permissible to perform any action save what is most fair.

Plato’s God is not a million miles from our God who Paul tells the Athenians is the one ‘who made the world and everything in it’ (Acts Chapter 17 verse 24) and ‘gives to all mortals life and breath and all things’ (verse 25). And when Paul says God ‘who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands’ (verse 24) he is echoing the Greek poet Epimenides who Paul quotes later in his speech. 

Epimenides had written a well-known poem (in the 6^th century BC) poking fun at some Cretans who had built a tomb for the god Zeus:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one

The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!

But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,

For in thee we live and move and have our being.

The last line could be straight from one of Paul's epistles

So, in discussions about the gospel, it always worth hearing what people already believe rather than making assumptions.  In today’s world we perhaps need to find out more about our neighbours’ faiths before trying to convince them of our own.  And even those who would not subscribe to any particular religion have beliefs and reasons for those beliefs which need taking seriously not dismissing as stupid.

Tip number 2 is to find out what your listeners want and need.

Paul had found, whilst site-seeing in Athens, an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown God.’  Some commentators on this passage argue that the Athenians were hedging their bets here and ensuring that there wouldn’t be some god angry at being neglected.  This is, in my view, to diss the religious beliefs of the Athenians.   Another way to view the matter is that some Greeks had already come to think that God was unknowable and not just super-human as some of the myths about Zeus and the other gods suggested.

Don’t we Christians think that God was largely unknowable until revealed in the person of Jesus.  And even now there is some unknowability to God.  Paul takes the inscription seriously, rather than sneering at it, and addresses the longing for the unknowable to be known when he tells the Athenians that God has made us ‘so that [we] would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us’(Chapter 17 verse 27).

However in defending the hope that is in us we cannot assume our hope is what others hope for.   In my youth evangelists had a tendency to explain the Gospel merely in terms of sin and repentance as if we all must feel ourselves to be unworthy and in need of being saved from that feeling.   These evangelists assumed that if we didn’t feel unworthy we needed to do so and that if we felt unworthy that was right and proper because we were.   This, in my view, can get very close to saying that all shame is justified and good, even if that shame comes from others’ abuse.    

For me God’s saving work in Jesus is as much about restoring meaning to my life as it about me feeling better about myself.   But I think God saves people though Jesus in many different and glorious ways.

Tip number 3 is to use words that make sense to your listeners.

Paul’s speech to the Athenians in the Areopagus in Acts Chapter 17 is very different to his speech to the Jewish members of the synagogue in Antioch in Acts Chapter 13.  Both speeches start where his listeners are at.  In Antioch. Paul addresses his listeners as ‘My brothers, you descendants of Abraham’s family’ In Athens he associates himself with his listeners by telling them that, ‘From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth. In Antioch Paul quotes the Psalms: in Athens he quotes Greek poets.

Now you could see these differences in the speeches as demonstrating Paul’s rhetorical skills, as different devices to achieve the same end of conversion but I think they demonstrate Paul’s sensitivity to using words that his listeners will understand.   The gospel message has always needed translation from its original Aramaic, but more than just translating from one language to another, it needs translating from one culture to another.

Now the words that we Christians use, often as shorthand, to discuss the gospel within our community - words like sin, repentance, salvation, etc. - don’t mean the same to people outwith our community as they mean to us.   I think there is a case for avoiding words like sin when giving a defence of the hope that is in us.   At the very least we need to recognise that words like repentance will need, a lot of unpacking, to explain that it doesn’t just mean feeling sorry for the bad things you have done recently

But of course there is a limit to just using words that make sense to your listeners when defending the gospel.  Paul in his speech in Athens ends with the resurrection of Jesus (as he does in his speech in Antioch).  Now unlike the belief that God created the world and everything in it, which Paul and many of the Athenians shared, Jesus’ resurrection and the significance of that to Paul was something that most of the Athenians were not going to accept.   Paul, elsewhere, in his first letter to the Corinthians says ‘For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.  Wisdom in the shape of rational argument, such as the Greeks treasured, will only get you so far when it comes to being convinced of the life-changing good news that is the Gospel.

Now it is interesting I think to note that while, as I said, Paul’s speech to the Athenians, gives us an object lesson in how to give a defence of the hope that is in us, Luke tells us that, in response, only a few joined Paul and became believers: one, a man called Dionysius the Areopagite and the other, a women called Demaris.  Contrast this with the 3000 who became believers after Peter’s speech in Jerusalem at the first Pentecost.

And yet Luke sets aside over half a chapter of his Acts of the Apostles to record what was Paul said in this lecture  in the famous university town of Athens and to tell us that for two people at least the lecture changed their lives.

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[1] Ephesians 4: 11

Sermon for the Sunday after Easter, St Matthew’s, Oxford, 2020

Readings: Matthew 28: 16-20 and Acts 2: 14a and 22-32

My sermon today is about the Resurrection as is suitable for the first Sunday after Easter and hopefully it will be relevant to the strange situation we all find ourselves in. I will also say something about Jesus’ last words to his disciples as recorded in our reading from Matthew’s Gospel and how these were acted upon by Peter in our reading from Acts.

But first: resurrection.   I want to share with you something that has particularly struck me about resurrection this Easter and to reflect on how that relates to our current situation.  The thing that has struck me is how closely connected are the crucifixion and the resurrection.   Somehow we have got into the habit of seeing them as separate events: perhaps because we celebrate them on different days, but in reality they are so interconnected as to be almost one and the same thing. 

And this has been impressed upon me by some of the pictures I found to illustrate my reflection on the Stations of the Cross which was first streamed on Good Friday from this Facebook page.  But also by some of the pictures I have been looking at, for a possible reflection on the Stations of the Resurrection, on which perhaps more anon.  I am struck by the way some pictures of the crucifixion are very similar to pictures of the resurrection.

The two pictures I chose to illustrate the tenth station of my Good Friday Reflection are these [x]   The picture on the left is by Emil Nolde and painted around 1912.  The painting on the right is by Antonello da Messina painted in about 1500 [x]

The painting by Nolde depicts the crucifixion as recounted by Matthew, Mark and Luke, the painting by Antonello depicts the crucifixion as recounted by John.   How do I know that?   Well Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that the sky went dark when Jesus finally died on the cross and Nolde has a dark background.  John makes no mention of darkness and Antonello’s’ sky is the clearest blue.  

For another thing John tells us that the John the disciple, the disciple that Jesus loved as he describes him, stood at the foot of the cross, together with Mary, Jesus’ mother, and some other women.   In Antonello’s painting you can see John and Mary sitting at the foot of the cross and three women approaching from a distance: you can just see them coming over the small hill behind the cross.   

Matthew, Mark and Luke make no mention of John or Mary the mother of Jesus but they do say that there were other women disciples standing there.  In Nolde’s painting you can see that there are three women standing on the left.

But one of the most striking differences between the two paintings is the height of the cross.  In Nolde’s painting Jesus is crucified with his feel just off the ground.  In Antonello’s painting it is almost as if Jesus is half-way to Heaven already. 

Nolde’s painting is in the grand tradition of paintings that focus on the suffering of Jesus and the distress of the onlookers who are his friends or family.  Just one more picture [x] to illustrate this tradition: Picasso’s picture of the crucifixion.  Here you can see Jesus on the cross against a black patch of sky, a smirking person on the right – presumably not a disciple – and two figures - one to the left and one at the base of the cross – in extreme grief.  The figure on the left is male and is presumably John, the other figure is female and is presumably Mary the mother of Jesus.  I think this picture powerfully evokes the suffering of the crucifixion.  But it seems to miss the point that that suffering was for a purpose.

In Antonello’s painting Mary and John, quite frankly, don’t look that distressed.  John in particular, seems to be gazing at Jesus in wonder.  

Now all four gospels emphasize the suffering of the crucifixion.   There is absolutely no doubt that this was a horrible way of dying.   But in John’s gospel Jesus is in control of what is happening to him – even at his arrest and right up to his death.   The last words of Jesus as recorded by Matthew are ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’.   The last words of Jesus as recorded by John are ‘It is finished’.

In the first half of John’s gospel Jesus says three times that he must be lifted up when he comes to die.  The third time he says this is in Chapter 12 verse 32.  Here he says ‘And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself.’  In saying this Jesus is clearly referring to his crucifixion but perhaps also his resurrection and ascension. 

Jesus in his final discourse with, and prayers for, his disciples at the Last Supper talks about the glory of his final hours.   He prays (in Chapter 17 verse 1) ‘Father the hour has come: glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you’.  We are used to thinking of the resurrection as somehow glorious but here Jesus is not just speaking of his resurrection but his crucifixion as well. 

  

So perhaps it is not surprising that some artists portray the crucifixion as both a raising up and glorious – just as the resurrection is both a raising up and glorious.   Here is a picture of the crucifixion by Raphael [x] and here is his picture of the Resurrection [x].Raphael has even moved the two angels that are described by Luke as being present at the tomb early on Easter morning from his resurrection scene to his crucifixion scene.

Now we might prefer the crucifixion scene as portrayed by Nolde or Picasso as being somehow more realistic.   But Antonello and Raphael also show us something real: God’s ability to transform suffering, in order to defeat it.   In their paintings there are still nails and blood but there is also ‘glory’.

Now I think this close connection between the crucifixion and the resurrection, between suffering and its transformation in the story of Jesus, is related to the situation we find ourselves in today.  The realisation of the connections should help us to develop a clearer perspective on the suffering caused by the virus and its meaning.  I think many of us are searching for a clearer perspective on the pandemic.  And there are lots of Christians happy to venture their take.  I suppose they/we must try.   I hesitate to do so.

Some of the Christians perspectives you can read or hear are simply wrong.  In particular the view that the pandemic is God’s judgement on us as if it was one of the seven plagues contained within the ‘seven bowls of the wrath of God’ as described in Revelation Chapters 15 and 16.

A more nuanced view, along the same sort of line, is that the emergence and spread of the virus is a consequence of our broken relationships with the natural environment.  As two Christian writers put it and I quote:  ‘God’s original intention was peace between all things – but this is not how we’re living. He created a world in which everything is connected, and there are natural consequences when those connections are broken.’  Here the implication is that we have broken those connection so the pandemic is our fault and now we see the consequences.  This, to me, doesn’t seem a million miles away from the pandemic as judgement idea.

Then there is the view that the pandemic is an opportunity.  At the extreme the idea here is that we Christians should take this opportunity to demonstrate that we are not afraid of death – even to the point of meeting together physically to worship, in contravention of public health advice – or the law in this country.  

A more subtle take on the pandemic as opportunity is that we as a church should, in this situation, be a brighter ‘light of the world’, demonstrate more clearly our compassion for the troubled in body, mind or spirit and be even more ‘prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have’[1].   I am somewhat suspicious of this version pandemic as opportunity idea.  Shouldn’t we have been doing all these things before? 

Without wishing to minimise the suffering caused by the corona virus I do think there is plus side to the pandemic, if only to make us, Christians and non-Christians alike, think more about how we should be leading our lives.  But, more importantly I think, a first step in developing a truly Christian perspective on the virus, would to be as humble and open as possible.   But also to recognise the mystery: the mystery that God, while powerless to eliminate suffering, can transform it.

As with our review of pictures of the crucifixion we can see the pandemic in contrasting ways and in that connection it might be worth asking ourselves whether this is a time of crucifixion or of resurrection or of both.  The suffering of the crucifixion is transformed by the resurrection and this is surely also true of the pandemic.  From one perspective it can be viewed as a crisis but it also can be seen in a different light just as Antonello and Raphael could see the crucifixion.

So finally to our readings today.  The first was from Matthew’s Gospel and records his version of Jesus’ last resurrection appearance, his last words to his disciples and his Ascension into Heaven.  A third lifting up if you like.    In his parting words to his friends Jesus commands them to: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you’.  The disciples follow this command and Luke gives us an example in Peter’s sermon to the people,  from all nation, gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost.  In this sermon Peter gives his hearers the good news about the resurrection which is why it is the lectionary reading for this the second Sunday of Easter.    The good news that Jesus’s resurrection transforms suffering, gives it meaning, if not purpose, is surely as relevant today as ever.

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[1] 1 Peter 3: 15

Trust and the everlasting arms/wings of God

Sermon for Sunday 22^nd March 2020, St Matthew's, Oxford

Readings: Luke 13: 31-35 and Isaiah 49: 14-18

Today it is, of course, impossible to give a sermon without mentioning the Corona Virus and the extraordinary situation we find ourselves in because of the pandemic.   It is also, of course, Mother’s Day and the fourth Sunday in Lent: three weeks before Easter: the day we would normally give out daffodils here at St Matthew’s.   We are now also two weeks away from Palm Sunday when we remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and our gospel reading today records an incident on the way to Jerusalem. 

Today my theme is ‘Trust’ prompted by our readings, which are about motherly aspects of God and the trust we can have in God’s mother-like protective arms, but also by a phrase in a song that you can find at the end of Deuteronomy where Moses sings about ‘ the everlasting arms of God.’  I should also say that some of my reflections comes from a Thought for the Day, on Friday, from Richard Harries.

So we find ourselves in a strange new world where church services have to be conducted via the Internet rather than in person.  Now all new situations provoke anxiety even if the change to our lives is relatively minor.   And the Corona Virus pandemic promises to lead to major changes to our lives whether we catch it or not.   And of course these changes are not just to our holiday plans but to our very health and wellbeing.

Now anxiety about the future is to some extent a good thing: it prompts us to plan and to take control with the rational part of our being.   In this situation we can do sensible things like washing our hands regularly, avoiding physical contact with others as much as possible, self-isolating if we catch the disease, etc.   And the Government too, can take measures to protect us.

But planning only takes us so far, firstly because we are not just rational but emotional beings and secondly because we can only rationally plan for the future in as much as we can predict what will happen.   The emotional side of our being means we are affected by anxiety about the future to different degrees.   Some are overcome by anxiety, some seem not to worry at all, even in the most normal of times let alone in times of crisis. .

But it is also the case that what will happen is always inherently uncertain and unpredictable to a larger degree than we may care to admit to ourselves. As the write of Ecclesiastes says:  ‘No one knows when their hour will come.’[1] And Jesus also says something similar when he talks about his second coming.  He says in St Matthew’s Gospel ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’.

So there are things about the future we just cannot know or predict.  And let us remember that we might not know our own future but God does: the hour Jesus’s return my not be known to him but it is known to the Father.  Furthermore the uncertainty inherent in life – revealed in situations like the one we find ourselves today - makes us realise that ultimately we are not in as much control of things as we might think we are. 

Now again, people react to uncertainty in different ways.  Some adopt a resigned fatalism, some a cheerful stoicism.  But the message of the Bible, and of our readings today, is that we should go beyond pessimistic fatalism or over-resigned stoicism. 

The scriptures, in both Old and New Testaments, urge an ultimate trust which, far from merely propping us up like a crutch, should empower us to take action.   Beyond what might seem immediately apparent, the Bible says, are the purposes of God.   Paul say: ‘We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.’    And Moses sings: ‘The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms’ [2].   Note that the arms are everlasting: they don’t run out, unlike the proverbial toilet roll. 

These everlasting arms are invoked by Isaiah when he says, in our Old Testament reading today: ‘Can a woman forget her nursing-child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I [the Lord] will not forget you’[3]   And the Psalmist[4], extending the image of the all-powerful arms to the protective wings of a mother hen under which her chicks can hide in times of danger, says:

‘You who live in the shelter of the Most High,

    who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,

will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;

    my God, in whom I trust.”

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler

    and from the deadly pestilence;

he will cover you with his pinions,

    and under his wings you will find refuge;’

Jesus, in our Gospel reading today, is put into a risky situation where he must trust God.  On his way to Jerusalem he is accosted with some friendly Pharisees who warn him of a threat to his life from Herod – the ruler of Galilee.  Jesus tells them that he is set on a course of action from which he will not be diverted.  He tells them that he has work to do – casting out demons and performing cures – which he intends to complete and then, instead of reassuring those around him that he will avoid danger, tells them he must be on his way to Jerusalem – the city that kills its prophets – and the place of greatest danger for him.

This wasn’t to say that Jesus wasn’t acting rationally in the situation he found himself in, or even that he wasn’t concerned about the threat from Herod.   It is just that in the end he felt, he trusted, that some things were more important that his own personal safety – as those who are working for us in our National Health Service today must also feel.

The value of this ultimate trust in God is that it directs us away from worrying too much about the future and directs us towards living fully in the now.   The eighteenth century priest Jean-Pierre de Caussade talked about the “sacrament of the present moment”.  He believed that receiving the present moment, just as we receive the body of Christ at Communion, and giving ourselves wholly to it, constitute life’s highest and holiest calling.   

One of the unexpected results of the Corona Virus pandemic might be that we come more fully to recognise that living for the now is more important that living for an imagined future.  And in this begin to discover a new joy and a deeper compassion for those around us as we trust in the everlasting arms of God.

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[1] Ecclesiastes 9: 1

[2] Deuteronomy33.27

[3] Isaiah 49

[4] Psalm 19

'Is this it?' A sermon about the Church

A sermon give at St Matthew's, Oxford on 16th February 2020

Readings: 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31; John 15: 1-17.

My sermon today is really just a continuation from my sermon two-weeks ago.  My main message then was that the Holy Communion is not a rehearsal.   I tried to explain what I meant by that.   Today my main message is that the Church is not a rehearsal either.  Look around you.  This is it. 

 

I have always been intrigued by a poster that was outside a church I passed on my way to work for a while.  The poster posed the question: ‘Is this it?’   It was something like this poster [left].  I guess the originators of the poster expected the passer-by to say ‘no’ but I wanted to say ‘yes’.  But of course the question depends on what you mean by ‘this’.  If by this you mean the church, outside which the poster stood, then I think the answer to this question is definitely yes.

In this sermon I will try and explain what I mean by saying that the Church is not a rehearsal.  In this it is helpful to think about what Paul meant by saying to the Corinthians, in the epistle reading we heard just now, ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.’ [12: 27]. But of all the verse in today’s epistle reading I want to concentrate on his contention ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one members is honoured, all rejoice together.’ [12: 26]

In our gospel reading Jesus talks about himself and the Church – not as a body – but as a vine.   And I want to look at that passage too in the light of my contention that the Church is not a rehearsal 

But to begin with I thought I would re-cap on some of the things I said in my sermon two weeks ago.  My sermon then was on 1 Corinthians 11 and this week we are thinking about 1 Corinthians 12.  Now the subject matter of the two chapters is clearly connected.  1 Corinthians 11 is about how the Corinthians should celebrate Holy Communion: 1 Corinthians 12 is about how the members of the Church should behave towards one another. 

In Chapter 11 Paul talks about the bread we eat at Holy Communion as being the Body of Christ.  In Chapter 12 Paul talks about the church as being the Body of Christ.  In other words, as Pope Benedict put it: ‘The Church is the celebration of the Eucharist, the Eucharist is the Church, they do no simply stand side by side, they are one and the same thing.’  So if Holy Communion is not a rehearsal, then then it follows the Church is not a rehearsal either. 

I hope I said enough two weeks ago to convince you that Holy Communion is not a rehearsal.  A rehearsal is for a final performance and I hope you can see that celebrating Holy Communion is not just a foretaste of a heavenly banquet but somehow that actual banquet itself.  Because as T S Elliott puts it:

               ‘Time present and time past

               Are both perhaps present in time future? 

               And time future contained in time past.

But my saying that the Church is not a rehearsal may seem to you a step too far.  The writer of the letter to the Hebrews describes the Church, in the present tense, as ‘the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven’ and ‘the spirits of the righteous made perfect’ who ‘have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, … and to God the judge of all … and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant.’ [12: 22-24]

But if we think of the Church as we experience it, we might be tempted to see it merely as a rather old fashioned institution, whose leaders dress rather oddly, with buildings which are cold and with leaky roofs, but where you can get to chat with some of your friends over a cup of instant coffee on a Sunday morning.   And of course I do not mean St Matthew’s here: the coffee is real for a start.   Surely the Church as we experience it just a foreshadowing, a rather unimpressive foreshadowing - of something a lot better.  I know we all think St Matthew’s is something different, but is it really it? Well yes I think it is: it is the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.

It may seem what it seems but Paul assures us that the Church is the Body of Christ.   The Body of Christ is already perfect, made perfect by suffering on the cross and still bearing the marks of that suffering.  And note that Paul says that Church is the actual body, not just like a body.  Paul frequently describes the Church as the ‘Body of Christ’ so, for example, in his letter to the Romans he says ‘For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.[12: 4-5]

It is difficult not to see Paul’s saying that the Church is Christ’s body as him merely suggesting that the Church is like a body: a metaphor in other words.   And at times he encourages this metaphorical reading: in today’s reading, for example, by dwelling upon the physical parts of a human body: the hands, feet, etc.  And indeed, let’s be clear, if it were just a metaphor it would be a good one.

The reasons why Paul restates his view that the Church is Christ’s body in  I Corinthians 12 is because he has heard, as he says, in Chapter 11 [18], that there are divisions and factions amongst the members of the Corinthian church.  These divisions and factions seem to take various forms.

In the first part of Chapter 12 Paul seems to be responding to a controversy about spiritual gifts and which of those gifts are most important.  It is difficult to pin down the precise issue Paul is addressing and in any case I think many of us have difficulty in relating to the whole concept of spiritual gifts and therefore understanding why they might be divisive.   Certainly this is the case at St Matthew’s if not elsewhere. 

On the other hand we are well aware that there can be divisions in a church over many issues ranging from the arrangement of the pews to the appropriateness of gay people marrying.

In my Bible the section of the 1 Corinthians 12 that is our reading today is headed ‘Unity in diversity’.   I am not sure that is a particularly good tittle. To my mind ‘Mutual dependence’ would be a better summary of what Paul is saying.  Of course unity is better than division and diversity does not preclude unity. But surely Paul is saying a lot more than that.

Paul does emphasise, in Chapter 12 verse 13, that, in any church, you will find people with different backgrounds (e.g. Jews and Greeks) and of different status in the outside society (e.g. slaves and free) because all are baptised into one body by one spirit.   And this brings me back to something I said two weeks ago.

I said that the message of 1 Corinthians 11, and indeed elsewhere in the Bible, is that all should be invited to the meal that we call Holy Communion.   All should be invited, all are already invited by God, regardless of wealth, income, age, gender, sexuality, physical and mental abilities, even beliefs.   I should perhaps have elaborated on what I meant by all are invited regardless of beliefs.    It is my view that the invitation is made regardless of our desire to attend and even our beliefs about the inviter and the invitation.  So for example, I personally think that children should be invited regardless of what they yet know about Jesus and old people should be invited regardless of what they have forgotten or indeed ever known.  It is not for us to judge who is worthy to come.   And of course, even if a person is invited, it’s up to them whether they come.  They may not come for a variety of reasons including beliefs.  And all of what I have just said about Holy Communion also applies to the Church.   All should be and in fact are invited to be a member.

Paul also points out, in 1 Corinthians 12, that in any church there will be people with different skills and therefore different jobs to do.   He makes this latter point by joking about feet, hands, head, eyes, ears, nose, etc. and how ludicrous it would be for any one part of the body to claim that it is more useful or indeed more important than the others.  

But he also, and in my view more importantly, says that no one part can survive without the others: Chapter 12 verse 21: ‘The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 

Commentators point out that Paul is here making a similar point to the ancient parable of the stomach as told, for example, by the Roman historian Livy in around 30BC.  This goes something like this:  “One day various part of the body got fed up with the stomach taking all the food but apparently doing nothing in return, so they conspired together.  They agreed that the hands would not carry food to the mouth, nor the mouth accept what was given it, nor the teeth grind up what they received, in order to starve the stomach into submission.  But of course they found that they themselves and the body as a whole were reduced to the utmost weakness. And they and the other members of the body were forced to recognise that the stomach makes a crucial contribution”.  And in similar vein this is what Paul means when he says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 verse 22 ‘On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.'

So our passage from 1 Corinthians today may be about unity in diversity but it is also about mutual dependence.   And it is not just that within the Church we need one another, with our diverse backgrounds and skills, it also the case – as Chapter 12 verse 26 says:  ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.’   Here, I think, Paul is no longer thinking just about the Church being like a body but about the Church as the actual Body of Christ.

So as members of the Church we are to share in one another’s suffering but also in one another’s joys.   This is simple to say but what does it mean?  I think we begin to understand when those that we love suffer.  At that point we too suffer and perhaps the suffering of the one who suffers is lessened by our suffering.  And when someone we love has something happened to them that causes them joy – is honoured perhaps – then we too feel joy.  The key here is of course love.   Without love it is impossible to share suffering or joy.  And love not just as feeling but as a practice.   If we practice love in the shape of taking time to be with the sufferer or the one who is experiencing joy, we are more able to share their suffering or their joy.

Of course Jesus is our example here.  He not only shared our suffering with us but suffered on our behalf.  He not only came to share our joy but to bring us joy.   He says, as recorded by John in his gospel:  ‘I came so that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ [10: 10]

In the gospels, Jesus does not say, in so many words, that the Church is or even will be his body.   But he does, like Paul, often talk about his friends and disciples being somehow in him and his being in them.  In today’s reading from John’s gospel Jesus talks a lot about abiding in him and him abiding in us.  He urges his disciples at Chapter 14 verse 4 ‘Abide in me and I in you’ and ‘you cannot bear fruit’ i. e. fulfil your purpose in life ‘unless you abide in me’.

Abide, meno in Greek, is not a word we use much to day. It means much more than just stay with but also to accept and act in accordance with.  And, in other words, we as members of the Church embody Christ when the body of Christ incorporates us.

In our gospel reading Jesus talks about himself and the Church – or at least the embryonic Church – not as a body – but as a vine.   He says that ‘He is the true vine’ [1] and urges his disciples to ’Abide in me as I abide in you’ [because] ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. [and] Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.’ [4 and 5]

So just as in Paul’s account of the Church as the Body of Christ, Jesus here, in the parable of the vine, is describing a mutually dependant relationship between the separate parts of the Church.  And also he claiming that he is that vine which is the Church.   

Now both a body and a vine are living beings with diverse parts but unified into one whole:  hands, feet, etc. for the human body; branches, roots, leaves, fruit for the vine.   The relationship between the diverse parts, of the one living being, is one of mutual dependence because when one part suffers so does the whole.   When one part feels joy so does the whole.

Just after the parable of the vine Jesus talks about the necessity for sharing suffering and joy if you are part of the vine/Church.  Verse 12: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’  So just as Jesus has suffered, we who are members of the his body the Church can expect to suffer and suffer on behalf of other members of the body.  But not just to suffer to experience joy as well. Jesus say, verse 11, ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete ‘. 

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, just after talking about the Church as the Body of Christ, Paul breaks off proclaim the importance of love in his famous hymn to love beginning, ‘If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ‘ And Jesus in his parable of the vine points out that love is the glue that holds the vine/church together.  Self-sacrificial suffering is a result of love.   Joy comes with love.

At this point you might be saying: well this is all well and good but what is the Church for?  In his parable of the vine Jesus talks about some of the branches bearing fruit.  So what are these fruit?   I haven’t left myself any time to go into the purpose of the church today.   Sorry.   But suffice it to say that I think that just as Jesus saves his people in his Church, so the Church saves the world.

So finally to return to my contention that the Church is not a rehearsal: it’s clear that the Church may seem to be a weak human institution struggling to make headway in a world which pays it little regard, and that we can but wait until the true church –‘the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven’ as the writer to the Hebrews puts it meets on Zion.  But this is not the case. The world is already transfigured by the presence of the Church because the church is the resurrected body of Christ bearing the marks of the crucifixion.  Without the Church there is no past, present and future for humanity. To put in boldly. In us the Church, the universe has attained, attains and will attain its destiny.