Catholic Contextual urban Theology, Mimetic Theory, Contemplative Prayer. And other random ramblings.

Sunday 23 February 2014

Sermon at Parish Mass, Second Sunday before Lent 2014




Genesis 1:1-2:3
Romans 8:18-25
Matthew 6:24-34

Well it’s all very well, saying “don’t worry, don’t be anxious”, but which of us can really live like that? Perhaps we might think that maybe, once in a while, we can live like that, in our summer holidays, possibly, if we have any. Or perhaps one day we might win the lottery or the premium bonds, and then, finally, we’ll be able to sit back and not have a care in the world.
That is one way to read today’s part of the sermon on the mount, as an invitation to escapism. But Jesus himself seems to be saying something more rooted in reality. Each day, he tells us, will have trouble enough of its own. 
As we have been seeing over the last few weeks, there are always two ways of hearing the sermon on the mount, and if we hear it directed to ourselves as an instruction on how to behave, then we are mis-hearing it. The sermon on the mount describes Jesus, and describes the community that Jesus draws to himself and transforms into his image. The key to understanding the sermon on the mount is to look to Jesus and see him.
Jesus is not someone who is free from trouble and sorrow. Far from it. He has known and will know hardship and adversity, the opposition of the religious authorities, the misunderstanding of his disciples. He will in the end be rejected and condemned and handed over to death. We need to see that it is the Man of Sorrows, the one who will follow the path of suffering to the cross, who says to us, “do not be anxious”. And the same is true too of the community of his disciples. 
It is generally true in every age that the Church will be a sign of contradiction, misunderstood, marginalised, and in some times and places rejected and persecuted. This was probably the situation of the community in which Matthew’s gospel was written. This was a community of Jewish Christians, weathering the storm after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, rejected and persecuted by the mainstream religious authorities of their day. So it was particularly important for them to record these sayings of Jesus, do not be anxious, your heavenly Father knows your needs, whatever may be going on seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness. 
The community of Jesus can live this way because Jesus describes a deep trust and faith in God in his creation. The creation stories in Genesis, the first of which we heard this morning, describe creation embodying God’s generosity, abundance and goodness. Everything is gift, therefore we cannot grasp and possess but must receive. Whatever adversities may come our way the basic giftedness of our being cannot be taken away, for it is from God. Whereas attempts to construct ourselves, which is what wealth is about, are built on a very shaky foundation, a foundation that we cannot trust - ourselves.
And God is always, in every moment, the creator.  Genesis says “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, and in the Hebrew this means more than just what happened at the start. “In the beginning” means “that which is true in principle”. The ongoing principle of the universe’s existence is that it is created. God is holding everything in being, giving existence from his inexhaustible generosity, from moment to moment.
Faith in God the creator means that even in adversity and suffering, even in the face of death, we can still trust in God’s generous love to give what we need. As St Paul says in today’s extract from Romans, the whole creation will be set free from its bondage to decay, glory will be revealed.
The focus of Jesus is on his Father. He looks constantly to the generous love that will not let him go. So, too, the community of Jesus looks to the Father. Its focus is not on itself. The community of Jesus is a community which is so forgetful of itself that it can be generous. And when it is, its generosity shows what God is like. As Jesus says earlier in the sermon on the mount, let your light shine before others so that they may give glory to your Father in heaven. This saying is paradoxical, because you can only reveal God’s love and generosity in what you do if your focus is not on what you do. It only happens when you have stopped being concerned with yourself because your focus is on God.
Now the Church, which is the community of Jesus, does not always do this very well. Last week, for instance, the House of Bishops issued some pastoral guidance on same sex marriage, in which many things were said in a negative way. Services of blessing are not allowed, people who want prayers must be asked about why they are disobeying the Church’s teaching, the clergy may not enter these new civil marriages. I’m sure it wasn’t the intention of the bishops, but the negative tone of this document has given to some the impression of a Church obsessed with its own internal concerns, so inward-looking and consumed with anxiety that it has stopped speaking a language that the world can hear. 
But we take heart because we see in the gospels that the disciples themselves were always doing this. They were so often caught up in their own concerns and anxieties. There isn’t enough bread for all these people, send them away. Our boat is sinking! Which one of us is the greatest? Can we have the best seats in the Kingdom? 
But Jesus does not abandon his disciples and continues to draw them to him, to form them into his image. His patience with those who are so slow to let go of themselves and trust in him is in itself a showing forth of God’s loving generosity. The attraction of Jesus is so compelling and so beautiful that it can overcome even the self-obsession of his disciples. 
And when the focus of the Church is on Jesus and not on itself then our light shines before the world as his people once again. And in fact the Church mostly does do this, even if it sometimes manages to give the opposite impression. From the network of winter shelters for the homeless, which churches run all across London, to the monks standing in the line of fire in the Ukraine to try to prevent violence, with nothing to protect them except the Gospel they serve, which is the living alternative to a world consumed by violence and sin. 
The love of God in Jesus is in fact constantly shown in his community as we reach out the marginalised, show God’s love to those whom the world forgets, and show that we are prepared to risk everything for the Kingdom. The community of Jesus is a community which is so forgetful of itself that it can be generous. And so, even with the failures and frailties of its members, it becomes the means of showing God’s generous love to the world.

Sermon at Parish Mass, Third Sunday before Lent 2014




Ecclesiasticus 15.15-20
1 Corinthians 3.1-9
Matthew 5.21-37

If you look at a scene through binoculars the wrong way round then you will see it all wrong. Everything will seem impossibly remote and difficult to discern. But look the right way round and everything is clear. Everything is brought near, into focus, the proportions and perspective are right.
The sermon on the mount continues. And as we heard last week, we need to see it the right way round. We need to see that scene on the mountain correctly. If we think that Jesus is setting out a code of conduct that we must follow, so that we can qualify to be his disciples, we will be getting it the wrong way round. The demands will seem impossibly remote and unattainable. Perhaps, even, impossible for ordinary human beings to observe. How can you never be angry? How can you never even look at someone with lust? 
But if we see it the right way round, we see the sermon on the mount describing Jesus. He is the law in person. His life enacts what God is like. And the sermon on the mount describes how his disciples will live, if they reflect the God revealed in Jesus. Those who are drawn to Jesus will start to live as he lives, because they will start to reflect his light.
We heard last week how the disciples of Jesus were drawn to him, attracted to him, as he went up the mountain and began to teach them. In the Old Testament Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Law, the ten commandments that he was to pass on to the people of Israel. And now Jesus, on the mountain, is revealed as both the lawgiver and the law in person. In place of stone tablets, there is the living revelation of God.
Today’s extract brings out the parallel between Jesus and Moses even more closely, because Jesus quotes some of the ten commandments to his disciples. But Jesus does so to draw out a deeper meaning. The commandments are not to be understood as a code of conduct imposed on us from outside. They describe the community that Jesus draws to himself, and transforms into his image. This is what a community looks like when it lives from the life of God revealed in Jesus. 
And what Jesus is actually doing is to make us look within, to look into our hearts, where our motivations and our desires arise. The ten commandments are not wrong or out of date. But they are more than a matter of behaving because we’re told to. They are more than external constraints. How we live reveals the desires of our hearts. So the external action of murder begins with anger in our hearts. The external action of adultery begins with lust in our hearts. But if our hearts desire differently we will live differently.
A commandment seen as an external constraint is like a flood bank on a river. It might hold in excessive waters for a while, but will fail in the end. A river bursts its banks because there is too much water at its source. If it is swollen and engorged where it arises, it will break free of its constraints downstream. But if the source changes, if it is not excessive, then the river will keep flowing in the right course all the way.
Well we can’t do much to change the amount of water flowing into the Thames and other rivers at the moment. But the desires of our hearts are different. If we draw near to Jesus, if we are attracted to him as his disciples, then we will find the desires of our hearts beginning to be transformed. Jesus reveals what God is like. Jesus makes it possible to desire as God desires. And in this part of the sermon on the mount he is asking us to look within and ask what it is that we most deeply desire.
Human beings from the beginning have tended to desire in rivalrous and violent ways. Desire is infectious: we learn what is desirable by seeing what other people desire, so we come to desire it too. And that can bring us into conflict with the other person who desires the same thing. This is why the ten commandments include a command against coveting: desiring what your neighbour has. Lust and adultery are just a particular case of the same thing, in the area of sexual desire. And murder begins with the anger we feel when we are prevented from having what we desire, because someone else has it instead.
The same applies to Jesus’ teaching on marriage and divorce. In 1st Century Jewish society men had the right to divorce their wives, but not the other way round. This would often leave the divorced woman in a very precarious situation, with little means of support, while the man was free to find a new wife. Desire which is conditional and dispensable, desire which I can change if I feel like it, does not reflect at heart the love and faithfulness of God.
So also Jesus’ teaching on swearing oaths. Why do we swear oaths, for example in court, or to the bishop? Is it not because there is an assumed mistrust of human speech and integrity? We can’t be assumed to be telling the truth unless we’re constrained. But Jesus says, let your yes be yes and your no no. If your heart is truthful, then your speaking will be also. Nothing more is needed. Get it right at source and everything that flows out from the source will be right too.
Jesus’ teaching on the ten commandments shows us what really needs to happen: our desire needs to be converted at source, in our hearts. We need to imitate, not the rivalrous desires of humanity, but the generous and self-giving desire of God. And it is the attractiveness of God that makes this possible. The disciples drew close to Jesus, just as we do. They gathered to him because they felt the attraction of God’s love and desire revealed in him. 
The disciples in the Gospels are described as though they were in love with Jesus. When he calls them by the lakeside, they leave everything behind and follow him. They gather round him on the mountain, thirsting for his words, and more for his presence. He is like a magnetic force of attraction, a tremendous desire, God’s desire, calling them to him. But God’s desire is all love, all generosity, all self-giving. There is no trace of rivalry or violence or envy in God’s desiring. He loves all humanity and longs for all humanity to come to him, the source. He longs for us to abandon our death-bound desires and be caught up instead in his desire, which is the desire to give and expend himself in love.
If we are in love with Jesus, then he lives within us, and he is changing our hearts. We begin to imitate his desire, his love, in place of all the rivalrous and violent desires that have been driving us up to now. The love of God will change our hearts so that they become a source of love welling up within us like pure clear water. And we will be transformed more and more into the image of Christ which is the Church, the people who live according to his life, and who show forth his love in the world.

Sunday 9 February 2014

Sermon at Parish Mass, Fourth Sunday before Lent 2014


The Mount of the Beatitudes


Isaiah 58.1-9a
1 Corinthians 2.1-12
Matthew 5.1,13-20

That gospel reading was part of the beginning of the sermon on the mount, which occupies three chapters in Matthew. The fact that this key teaching of Jesus happens on a mountain is significant. In the Old Testament Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai. So now Jesus, the new and greater Moses, also gives his law on the mountain. 
But there is a key difference between Moses and Jesus. Moses was the messenger. He had the law given to him, words for him to carry down on stone tablets. But Jesus appears on the mountain as the law in person. He is himself both the messenger and the message. 
In the sermon he gives what are called the beatitudes: the “blessed are you” sayings. “Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the meek, the pure in heart, those who mourn, those who are persecuted”, and so on. And those sayings describe Jesus. He models the law he preaches. In place of a written law on stone tablets there is a person. The law is no longer instructions from a distance - behave this way because I say so. In Jesus it is seen that the law is what God is like, revealed in person. The person and the teaching of Jesus cannot be separated. 
And Jesus draws his disciples to him on the mountain. They gather to him as he is revealed as the law in person. He takes his seat - the position of teaching authority - and teaches them. And says to them these astonishing words:
You are the salt of the earth... You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden... let your light shine before others.
We might perhaps expect Jesus to say something like this of himself. Indeed in John’s Gospel he does, “I am the light of the world”. But here he also says the same thing about his disciples. “You are the light of the world.”
Those who go to Jesus up the mountain are drawn to him by some great power of attraction. This is part of the great revelation of God in Jesus. God is attractive! His love and light draw people to him, when he is revealed in person. 
And those who are drawn to the light shining from Jesus reflect that light. They, too, begin to show what God is like. And they show it in a way that the world can’t help but notice. The light of the world. The salt of the earth. A city built on a hill that cannot be hidden. 
This is the Church, the people that Jesus calls and draws to himself. The first Israel was formed around the law revealed on Sinai. The Church of Jesus is the new Israel, not a denial of the old but the original Israel expanded to embrace all nations, formed by the revelation of God in Jesus, drawing all people to himself.
This is the key to understanding the sermon on the mount. The sermon is not a set of ethical instructions: live like this and you will become a follower of Jesus. It is the other way round. Those who are attracted by Jesus and drawn to him will begin to reflect his light and therefore will live like Jesus lives. The sermon describes how Jesus lives, and how his Church will live. 
So the Church of Jesus, also, cannot be separated from the person and work of Jesus. The three go together, drawing their life from the inexhaustible well which is the communion of Jesus with the Father, God’s revelation of himself in person. The first disciples drew near to Jesus on the mountain and were transformed into his image. In the same way disciples today draw near to Jesus, on the mountain of prayer, and above all in the Eucharist where we touch and receive his living self, the summit and source of the Church’s life.
The Church cannot be cut off from Jesus and still be the Church. As Jesus says in St John’s Gospel, I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me, for cut off from me you can do nothing. The source of the Church’s life is not itself; it is Jesus. 
Now it is all too true, and tragic, that sin and failure in the institution of the Church can obscure this truth. But nevertheless the divine source of the Church’s life remains, even when buried is the all too human mess. And the Church is, necessarily, visible. It is not an idea or an aspiration, but a concrete reality, an actual people making a difference in the world. Jesus names his Church the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city built on a hill which cannot be hidden. 
If you are drawn to Jesus and follow him, then you are going to be that light and salt and city too. You can’t be an invisible follower of Jesus! You can't be a follower of Jesus and not make a difference!
To take two examples from events this last week. At Stratford Magistrates’ Court five Christian peace activists were on trial. They had been arrested after praying and protesting outside the arms fair held at the Excel exhibition centre last year. Various international arms dealers had set up their stalls selling their wares and wanted to get on with making a killing, so to speak. And these Christians were getting in the way. So they were arrested. Two firms at the fair were as it happens selling illegal torture equipment, but they were not arrested. In court the activists were accused of such terrible activities as “shouting loudly in a religious manner”. Fortunately the magistrates showed sense and discretion and acquitted them.
Another event last week was the sixty-second anniversary of the Queen’s accession. The Queen has spoken many times of her understanding of her role as one of service, often making the point that as Christ came to serve so his followers must do the same. We may be used to such language, but we shouldn’t forget how radically different that idea was when Jesus first taught it. “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first must be the willing slave of all.” Yet here is a ruler, not ashamed to own that she is a Christian and to speak of her role as one of service. 
In both of those very different examples we see Christians taking their faith seriously, being visibly different and making a real difference in the world.
Today over coffee after Mass we begin our ‘big conversation’, seeking the views of all our members on our mission as a church as we prepare to renew our Mission Action Plan. What it may mean for us at this time and in this place to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city built on a hill which cannot be hidden. We’ll be exploring this under the headings of Capital Vision 2020, the Diocese of London’s mission programme, which is about being confident, compassionate and creative in our discipleship. 
But we need to get this the right way round! If we don’t it will just be a box ticking exercise to help fill the diocesan filing cabinets. Everything we do flows from Jesus. It is because he draws us to him, and we respond to his call, that we reflect his light. Our mission is his life flowing through us into the world. 
At the end of last year we spent some time reflecting on the call of Jesus to us in our month of prayer, returning to that source of our life and our mission. Now we turn our gaze outwards to the world, not to turn our backs on Jesus but to share his light and life with others. But we can only do so by remaining deeply rooted in him. Our life is his life, or it is no life. Our light is his light, or it is no light. 
But rooted in Jesus, drawing our life from him, staying close to him, we will explore and discover what it means in this community, at this time, to be his Church. Which is the particular way in which we are called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city built on a hill which cannot be hidden.

Saturday 8 February 2014

Sermon at Parish Mass, The Presentation of the Lord 2014




Malachi 3:1-5
Hebrews 2:14-end
Luke 2:22-40

Although we are in the year of Matthew, today we have a little detour into Luke, as it is only Luke, the custodian of the childhood of Jesus, who gives us this story of the presentation in the temple, forty days after Jesus was born.

And there is much going on in this reading. The aged prophets Simeon and Anna are as it were representatives of Israel, faithfully waiting down the centuries for the promises of the Lord to be fulfilled. And today they see that promise, in person, entering the Temple. Jesus is both God’s presence in person, and the messenger of the covenant, suddenly coming to his temple, as the prophecy from Malachi foretold.

And Simeon responds in the beautiful hymn of praise which used to be so very well known, in the days when most parishes had choral evensong: the Nunc Dimittis. “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace: according to Thy word”. 

Our modern translation sounds a bit more technical: “Master, now you are dismissing your slave in peace, according to your word”. Because in Greek it is “slave”, not “servant”, and this rather technical language uncovers the meaning. This is a formula spoken when a slave has been set free - which was quite a regular piece of business in the first century.

So the appearance of Jesus causes Simeon to proclaim that he has been set free from slavery, that is, he has been redeemed. This is one of St Luke’s “reversals”, as Jesus has been brought to the Temple for his own redemption. As part of the law of Moses, all first born sons were to be redeemed, bought back, from the Lord. This was to remind the people of Israel that they were set free from slavery in Egypt by the Lord, and that freedom is God’s gift.

So Jesus has come, under the law, to receive in a figurative sense his own freedom from slavery as a son of Israel. But once he is there he is revealed as the one who will bring about that freedom for others.

There is another reversal here also. Mary and Joseph have come to offer a sacrifice according to the Law of Moses - a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, which was the option allowed for the poor, in place of a lamb. But that sacrifice gives way to the greater offering, which is God’s offering of himself. Jesus himself is as it were offered to God in the Temple, just as God has given himself for the world in the coming of his Son.

This is the new “sacrifice of atonement” which our reading from Hebrews talks about, reconciling humanity and God. This is not a sacrifice inflicted on someone or something else, like the old sacrifices were. It is the Son freely offering himself to the Father, pouring himself out in love, just as God has emptied himself to take the form of a servant, being born in our human nature. 

When Jesus is presented in the Temple our human nature is presented with him, because he is both Divine and human in one person. Humanity is taken into the Divine outpouring of love of the persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And this presentation of Jesus as a child prefigures a greater and later return to the Father. In the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus our human nature is definitively and for ever taken into the life of God.

So the light of God shines in Jesus as he is presented to the Father. This light brings freedom from slavery, liberation from sin and death. It illuminates the types and shadows of older forms of worship, showing their meaning in the full light of God’s presence as he suddenly appears in his temple. 

And this light is not only for Israel. Simeon proclaims that Jesus is the Light for revelation to the Gentiles. According to the prophet Isaiah God’s light would one day shine from Israel and reach to the ends of the earth, to gather all peoples in to God’s kingdom of justice and peace. And Simeon proclaims that this is happening here and now with Jesus.

But the light of God does not only bring liberation. It also causes division: “‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed”. Why is this? It is because “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed”. The light shines in a sinful world. Jesus brings conflict because atonement - being reconciled with God - means becoming like God by accepting and reflecting his self-giving love. Which means rejecting self-will, the assertion of the self over against others, hatred, violence, envy. Which is how the world tends to run, but doesn’t really want that to be seen for what it is.

For those who stay faithful to the light this brings suffering and sorrow. Mary is told “a sword will pierce your own soul too”. She who stands in the Temple today is destined to be the sorrowful mother standing at the foot of the cross. She will receive the dead body of her Son in her arms, when finally the work of love is done in the only way it can be in a world that is deeply resistant to love. 

The light of Christ is like a double edged sword: it cuts both ways. It shows the path to liberation, to reconciliation with God. But it also reveals the fallen nature of humanity and the ugliness of sin. Once the light has come you cannot remain neutral. Once you see yourself in the light of Christ you face the choice to turn to him or to turn away. 

But Jesus has come as the Saviour. The Lord has entered his temple, the light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel. A light that will not be put out. 

Jesus has come to redeem humanity from the slavery of sin and death. He has come with God’s gift of forgiveness, breaking the chains that have held humanity captive down the ages. He has come that the light and glory of God may shine in the hearts of all. He has come that all may forsake their sins and dwell in the love of God. We celebrate the coming of that light today. 

We know that following the light of Christ means that we must be prepared, like Jesus, to be a sign of contradiction in the world. We know that must be prepared, like Mary, for the suffering that may come when we commit ourselves to love come what may, whether the world wants to accept that love or not. But we know also that the light of Christ is the true light of liberation and freedom, that he is the way by which we, with all the world, are called to enter in to the life and love of God. So we do not need to be afraid to follow Jesus, and today as we celebrate the coming of his light we renew our decision to turn to him and open our hearts to that light, the light of God’s love shining in the darkness of the world.