Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 11 2013

Genesis 15:1-6

Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16

Luke 12:32-40

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “Faith is believing in something you know ain’t true”. I wonder how many people today think the same: that faith is wishful thinking, talking to an imaginary friend, pie in the sky. Whatever you can’t pin down and prove scientifically isn’t real.

But that I think is to do a disservice to faith, and indeed to science. Our ordinary human experience tells us something more. If you stand before a great painting, such as Cezanne’s Mont Saint-Victoire, chemistry can tell us about the composition of the paint and pigments, where they came from, the spectrum of light they reflect, and so on. Geology can tell us what rocks the mountain in the picture is made from, and how old they are. But the truth of the painting is something else: an intense, immediate experience of a mystery that stands before us, both earth-rooted rock and transcendent height, glowing with colour and light, drawing us in. Cezanne is telling us the truth about a mountain in a way that science never could.

Faith is access to another kind of truth again, truth revealed by God. This is not contrary to the truth of science and human experience, but exists in a different order. So the Letter to the Hebrews says, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.

What is it that is hoped for but not seen? Abraham hoped for descendants and a homeland, and he believed, even though this seemed impossible. Hebrews says this was a heavenly homeland, not the earthly ‘promised land’ which kept going wrong. He was seeking a homeland founded by God.

When and where is that? Today’s gospel reading speaks of the coming of the Son of Man. Does this means the end of the world? Is that imminent, or is it not now? How long have we got? 

Well, an aspect of the teaching of Jesus is about the End, the completion of God’s saving work, when his judgement on all human life will be made known, when Christ will be all in all and the redeemed will be gathered into his Kingdom. But Jesus says his coming is unexpected: if we think this is all about some remote future, far from where we are, we are missing the point. 

Jesus is talking about something for which we need to be alert and ready now.  He says to be “dressed for action”. That’s a quotation from Exodus 12:11, and it’s the instruction for the Passover. The Passover, you’ll remember, was a meal to be eaten in haste, because it was that very night that the Israelites were to leave the land of Egypt. So the bread was unleavened, because it’s quicker to cook, and the dress code was: have your girdle round your waist, your sandals on your feet and a staff in your hand. The girdle round your waist was to hook up your long robes so you could actually run. 

The Passover was urgent and hasty because God was coming to deliver his people right there and then, no time to waste. And Jesus is saying exactly the same thing to his disciples in this passage. He is saying, here and now, God is delivering his people. Can you see what’s happening? Are you ready? 

This is something that Jesus has been drawing attention to over the last few weeks as we have been reading through Luke’s gospel. The Kingdom is happening now. Be attentive. Be aware. 

Two weeks ago we heard how the Lord’s prayer described what God was doing in Jesus, there and then. Prayer takes us into the place where the Kingdom is happening. The parable of the rich fool was about someone whose attention was in the wrong place: on his possessions, his self-constructed image, so he missed the Kingdom. 

Faith is about spiritual awareness. Awakening our inner vision so we can see what God is doing. And Jesus tells two little parables about awareness, one reassuring, and one disturbing, but both are strange. There is something Zen-like about the parables of Jesus. They describe a world which is never quite like the one we know. They challenge our assumptions and expectations. Parables are about probing and deepening our awareness.

The master returns from a wedding very late - and swaps roles with his servants, serving them, waiting on them at table. That is not how the world we live in works. Clearly the Kingdom that God is giving to his little flock is very different from human expectations. This Kingdom belongs to a new order in which the most important thing is service, not power. And Jesus will make exactly this point again at the last supper when he says “I am among you as one who serves”. We have to unlearn everything we know about how human society works if we are to enter the Kingdom. 

Then Jesus shifts the imagery from that happy but unexpected scene. Suddenly, there’s a thief coming, but because this is a parable even the thief behaves strangely. Instead of breaking through the door or a window or the roof he literally digs through the wall. This is the Incredible Hulk of burglars!

Parables present us with a challenge, an obstacle to our understanding, to jolt us out of our old way of seeing things. Jesus tells these two stories, one which is strange and has a happy outcome, and the other which is strange but disturbing and upsetting. But both stories are about the coming of the Kingdom, and about our awareness. Can we see what is going on? Can we see how we need to change? Can we see where God is at work? 

In this Gospel passage we are at the scene of a break-in. God in Jesus is visiting his people, but unexpectedly, and in a way which  shatters our pre-conceptions about how human society works. Just as the thief demolishes the walls of the house, so Jesus breaks down the whole framework of how we thought we were meant to live. Masters become servants. Roles are exchanged, boundaries crossed. The Son of Man comes like a thief, like an outsider, to break down the walls which we thought we needed to keep the insiders in and the outsiders out. The city “founded and built by God”, as Hebrews puts it, is very different from the city we human beings construct for ourselves if left to our own devices.

So, the story of the master who serves his servants, and the story of the thief who comes crashing through the wall of the house, are about the same thing. They are about leaving off the way we used to live, and beginning to live in the new and different life of God’s Kingdom. And that happens when we become aware of the Kingdom, attentive to a spiritual reality that we discover by faith. 

But although this is a spiritual reality it is not disconnected from life here and now. Quite the reverse: be alert, be dressed for action, says Jesus. The kingdom is happening here and now. An authentic spiritual awareness of God’s Kingdom will always change how we live in this world and how that world lives around us. The kingdom is becoming real through us.

Justice and liberation, good news for the poor, the marginalised brought into the centre. All these are true signs of God’s kingdom breaking in to this world. But it begins with the Kingdom breaking into our hearts. It begins with awareness and attention to God in the ground of our being. It begins in prayer, and meditation on the scriptures, and the practice of the sacraments. But it ends in breaking down all the walls that this world builds, so that all people can be set free to enter their true home, the City founded and built by God.

Sermon at Parish Mass and Baptism Trinity 10 2013

Ecclesiastes 1.2,12-14;2.18-23

Colossians 3.1-11

Luke 12.13-21

So, Lloyd’s bank is back in profit - and RBS is on the way. Good news! Especially since these two banks are largely owned by us. Though, I have to admit, I’m still awaiting for my dividend cheque in the post. Not such good news is the proliferation of pay day lenders, and the embarrassment that the Church of England was discovered to be indirectly investing in one of their backers. For the few who enjoy bumper profits, there are the many who are being driven deeper into debt. 

The Bible takes a long hard look at riches, money, property and profit, and generally is highly skeptical of them all. We’re reminded of that by Ecclesiastes this morning; this is part of the ancient Jewish wisdom literature,  and is brutally honest about what life can sometimes be like. We’re to suppose that the author is a King of Israel in a great palace full of gorgeous things, and yet he clearly sees that true life and happiness are not to be found in them. 

Yes, the Bible affirms that abundance is a blessing from God - but a blessing to be shared. God is generous so that we can be. Everything we have and everything we are comes from God. It is a gift, not something we create for ourselves. This is why attachment to possessions is regarded as idolatry - worshipping a false God, imagining that we can create ourselves by what we can grasp hold of. This is why those who have received an abundance of God’s blessings have a solemn responsibility to look after the poor. 

And if we don’t understand that basic perspective, that all things come to us from God’s generosity, then these things can so easily become a snare, a trap, possessions that end us possessing us. The encounter in today’s gospel reading illustrates this snare of possessions. 

A man asks Jesus, “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me”. It was not unusual for a rabbi to be asked to adjudicate in disputes and interpretations of the law. But Jesus refuses to go along with that. He sees to the heart of the matter. This man is trapped in desire for the family inheritance, not because he needs it, but because his brother owns it instead of him. 

This in fact is a basic human trait - we imitate one another’s desires. We desire what other people desire, not what we need. And usually we do it quite unconsciously. It’s how advertising works. But the imitation of desire has huge consequences, from Eden to Calvary. It is constantly working to divert us away from God, the source of all we truly need, into rivalry with one another for things we want to grasp and possess.

So Jesus does not adjudicate in this man’s dispute. He simply refuses to be complicit in human rivalry and greed. Instead, he tells the parable of the rich farmer - a caricature, an almost comic figure, but in the end one told with compassion. You end up feeling sorry for him, because he has missed what really matters. 

This is a man who desires more than he needs. He already has barns which presumably he has been using for many years. They are therefore enough, they contain what he needs to carry on the business of the farm for the coming year. But he has a bumper harvest, so what should he do with the surplus? Jewish tradition and the Bible are quite clear: if God has blessed you, you should bless others. Give what you don’t need to those who don’t have enough. St Augustine, commenting on this passage, said, “The safest storehouse for surplus grain is the bellies of the poor”. But for this rich man, enough is never enough. He knows no limits, He has to keep grasping and holding on to more and more. 

In fact this grasping and greed and possessiveness has swollen up to such an extent that he has forgotten who he is. He regards his soul, that is his true self, almost as a different person. He speaks to his soul as though it were someone else. “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.’” This is a man who is literally ‘beside himself’. He has constructed a huge all-demanding false self, ever swelling up with more and more possessions, and has come to mistake that illusion, that construct, for who he really is.   

In fact he is experiencing what St Paul describes in our reading from Colossians - ‘wrath’. Wrath is an important concept in the Bible, one we need to pay attention to. It’s a bit of an old fashioned word, and we might think it means just anger or rage or losing your temper. But in the Bible wrath and desire are closely connected. The Greek word for wrath is orge. “Orgy” comes from the same word. It speaks of desire which is never satisfied, desire swollen up out of control, desire collapsing in on itself in a spiral of self-destruction. Wrath is, if you like, the flip side of our rivalrous desires, what those desires do to us if we are not saved from them. Instead of receiving our true self as God’s gift we keep trying to feed the false self more and more, like an addict needing ever higher doses of a drug. But this in the end will never satisfy us, it will always, ultimately, fail. And so we experience wrath, rage, frustration. 

It’s important to note that there is no wrath in God. The Bible sometimes talks about “the wrath of God”, and sometimes just about “wrath”. But this is metaphorical language. God is not an organic being like us. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. There is no change or alteration in God, no passions or moods. The “wrath of God” is not something in God, but is what we experience when we try to hang on to our false selves and resist receiving our true self, our true life, as God’s gift. Wrath is something that happens in us, not in God. And it is something that God is saving us from.

Our true life is in God and from God, who gives without limit and without being diminished. Life we cannot grasp at or claim as our own. But to receive that means letting go of our rivalrous desires and attempts to construct ourselves. In theological language this means dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ. These are words which we will hear again in a few moments, addressed to the parents and godparent as we prepare to baptise Kareena and Kiera. “To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him.” But they are words which are, really, addressed to all of us. We are all followers of Christ. Baptism is a life journey. It is a call to all of us to turn away from everything that would hold us back from finding our true self in God.

St Paul describes that life of the baptised today, in the extract we heard from the letter to the Colossians. Our new life, our true self, is Christ and is in Christ. It is entirely God’s gift to us, something to receive with thanksgiving, not something we can construct or possess. And it means putting to death whatever in us belongs to the old life. That’s strong language, but new life in Christ means sharing his resurrection and therefore his death. The old false self has to die if we are to truly live. That is why baptism, for all of us, is a life long commitment to follow Christ and to turn away from sin. A commitment to let go of all our attempts to construct ourselves, and instead to trust Christ to renew us in his image. And in that renewal all human greed and rivalry and division and conflict is overcome.

“Set your minds on things that are above,” says St Paul, “not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory... you have stripped off the old self and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

That is the life of the baptised, which we celebrate today with Kiera and Kareena. But it is also God’s call for each and every one of us: to find our true self, our real life, as God’s gift in Christ.

Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 9 2013

Genesis 18:20-32

Colossians 2:6-15

Luke 11:1-13

Well there’s been quite a lot in the news about fatherhood this week - and motherhood, of course. The birth of the Royal baby produced a frenzy of excitement in the media, here and abroad - in Italy I had a choice of live coverage from Paddington in French, German and Italian. And the new arrival has turned people’s attention to the joys and challenges of the family and parents in general, as well as the royal family and its history.  

Now I’m sure that William and Kate will do their very best for Prince George, as most families do. But we know that the human family isn’t always perfect, and the Bible knows this too. Both Luke and Matthew introduce the life of Jesus with a genealogy, a list of ancestors - entirely fathers, in Luke’s case. And if you check them out they are really quite a mixed bunch, there is a lot of human frailty and failure and sin that make up the human family. And that family, all those fathers and mothers from the beginning, is the background to the coming of the Messiah. The Bible is quite clear: it is the human race as a whole which is in need of redemption. 

So when Jesus teaches us to call God “Father” he is both revealing something new about God, and showing us what it really means to be a father. He is inviting us into a new and unconditionally loving relationship with God in which our own human relationships, too, will be taken up and redeemed.

Up until this moment in Luke’s Gospel, only Jesus has known this relationship with God. It is Jesus alone who has called God “Father”. It is Jesus alone who has gone off to lonely places to pray in deep communion with the Father. But this is a relationship which Jesus has come to reveal and to share. In the previous chapter he said:

All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

But now the time has come for that revelation. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and perhaps they are expecting a method, or some kind of training, like you might get if you were practicing meditation or yoga. But this is not what they get. They get a prayer which is uniquely great, and all encompassing, and simple: the Lord’s prayer. Both Luke and Matthew give an account of this prayer: Matthew’s version is the one we are used to praying in the Liturgy, Luke’s is shorter and punchier in style, almost telegraphic. Not one word to excess. 

But look at the words carefully, and think of them in the context of the story that Luke tells of the ministry of Jesus. The words of the Lord’s prayer describe, in a nutshell, what Jesus has been doing. They describe his mission and ministry as Luke has been telling it. And throughout Luke we see, again and again, that what Jesus is doing is what God is doing. 

“Father.” Jesus is the Son of God who has come to call all humanity into that relationship of sons and daughters. Jesus reveals that God is our Father - not a father in the old human way tainted by failure and sin, but Father of a redeemed and restored relationship of unconditional, unfailing love.  

“Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.” God’s name being hallowed is about God’s good name or reputation being upheld. God is love and justice and integrity, and human society is not. So by restoring love, justice and integrity to human society, God’s name is hallowed. This is the preaching of the Kingdom, what Jesus has come to do.

“Give us each day our daily bread.” The Greek word translated as “daily” is unusual and really means something like “super-substantial”. This is the bread of ultimate and deepest necessity. This speaks not so much of bodily sustenance, though we need that, as of the spirit, the food that nourishes to eternal life. “Super-substantial” bread of course calls to mind the bread of the Eucharist, which is the substance of Jesus himself under sacramental signs. But it speaks also of the bread of prayer and God’s word, the daily need of our spiritual sustenance. 

“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” Again and again in the gospels Jesus says to someone in need, “your sins are forgiven”. The key to restoring health and wholeness, a society at rights with God and with itself, is the forgiveness of sins. Know yourselves to be forgiven, because you are loved. And because of that, forgive others yourself. 

“Do not bring us to the time of trial.” This is the prayer which Jesus will pray in Gethsemane the night before his death. And yet he will add, “not my will be done, but yours”. Jesus subjects himself to the time of trial so that we can be freed from sin and death. From now on, even in life’s darkest moments, even when we pass through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not be alone, for Jesus has passed that way before and is with us to guide us on our way.

Jesus gives his disciples a prayer which describes what he is doing, and that is the same as what God is doing. This is prayer: know that God is your Father, and that you are loved. And attend to what God is doing.  Will what God wills. Desire what God desires. Do what God does.

The essence of prayer consists of locating ourselves in what God is doing. Prayer is not so much telling God what to do or trying to change his mind, still less is it informing God of the needs of a world he would otherwise be neglecting. No, prayer first of all means centring ourselves in God to seek his will and be attentive to what he is doing.   

This is not something that we have to achieve ourselves - it is God’s gift in Jesus. It is the Son who knows the Father and reveals him to us. Through prayer we are drawn into that relationship, so that our prayer is really a sharing in the eternal communion of the Son and the Father in the Holy Spirit. Through that prayer, which is God’s gift to us, we participate in what God is doing, and become co-operators in the building of his kingdom. Through intercessory prayer, prayer for others and the world and its needs, we bring those people and those needs with us into the still centre where God is doing everything. 

Now this needs, of course, attention, and discipline, and persistence. Keep on praying.  

We do need a regular discipline of prayer to sustain and support our lives, but there isn’t a one-size-fits-all prayer life. We need to ask what is appropriate for us with whatever the demands are on our time, and whatever our duties and responsibilities are. But a regular time of silence and stillness, of attention to God, rooted in the Eucharist and in prayerful reading of sacred scripture, are vital. That way, in times of stress or distraction, when we fire off our arrow prayers for help, those little prayers will be rooted in a deep practice of the presence of God.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” The response that Jesus gives is not so much a method as an invitation into the mystery of God. Our prayer is to be drawn into the prayer that Jesus is continually offering, his communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. All that we need and all that the world needs flows out from that deep communion, from that still centre where God is doing everything. 

Father, hallowed be your name.
   Your kingdom come.
   Give us each day our daily bread.
   And forgive us our sins,
     for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
   And do not bring us to the time of trial.’ Amen.

Sermon at Parish Mass and Baptism Trinity 6 2013

Isaiah 66:10-14

Galatians 6:7-16

Luke 10:1-11,16-20

The movement of liberation is escalating! Through our reading of Luke’s gospel at Sunday Mass we’ve seen how Jesus has been healing the sick, preaching peace and proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near. And often he crosses boundaries to reach out to people who have been excluded or marginalised in some way. 

But that has all focussed on Jesus, and to some extent on the twelve Apostles, the first disciples. The twelve were called by Jesus and gathered round him, but spent some time just staying with him, listening, learning, watching what Jesus was doing, before being given authority to go and do the same themselves. But now Jesus appoints 70 more people to join him in this work. 

The big story that Luke is telling, through his Gospel and through the Acts of the Apostles, is that God is in Jesus and has come to redeem Israel, to reconcile God’s chosen people to himself, and then to extend that salvation to all the nations. There is a feeling in Luke that Israel is in captivity, in exile, and needs to be liberated. Just as the Hebrew people were kept in slavery in Egypt long ago, until they were freed by Moses. And in Luke Jesus is often compared to Moses, because the people of Israel were expecting a great prophet, a “prophet like Moses” to appear and save them. 

So Jesus appoints 70 helpers, just as Moses did. In the book of Numbers, chapter 11, Moses appointed 70 elders to help him in his work, and the Spirit of the Lord came down on them, and they received a share of his power. 

So Jesus is doing the same thing that Moses did. It is another exodus, another movement of liberation. Liberation from what? Moses led the people to freedom from slavery in Egypt. But Jesus brings a greater exodus, a greater liberation, because Jesus gives freedom from the spiritual slavery of sin and death. 

And this is what the 70 celebrate when they return from their journey. Particularly they notice that the demons submit to them, and Jesus responds that he saw Satan “falls from heaven like lightning”. 

“Heaven” here refers to the whole realm of the spiritual and the sacred, the unseen powers at work behind events in the world. When Luke focuses on Satan and the demons he is saying that the experience of people up till now has been that the hidden power at work in their lives is destructive and evil. “Heaven” is the place of spiritual power.

Now the name “Satan” means “the accuser”. So if Satan is thought to be in heaven this means that the world is being run by a principle of accusation, division, violence, and casting out. 

But the coming of Jesus shows definitively that this is not true. This is the good news of the Kingdom of God. God is not like that. God is not the accuser. God is not the one who victimises and casts out. And God is the one who is in charge. It is God, not Satan, who reigns in heaven. 

And in Jesus God has come to establish that reign on earth. He has come to save us from the whole mechanism of sacred violence which has been running the world up to now.  And when this is made known then it is seen that Satan has fallen from heaven. The principle of accusation, of victimising and casting out, is no longer in the place of spiritual power. 

Above all this is seen in the cross, the crucifixion of Jesus, where God takes the place of the victim, not the victimiser, and speaks only of forgiveness for his enemies, not of vengeance.

This is what Jesus has been preaching, and the message that the 70 disciples have been given as well. God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself and not counting our sins against us, as St Paul says in 2 Corinthians. 

But the preaching of the Kingdom, the revelation of what God is really like, brings a moment of crisis and decision. Are we to accept or reject this message? Because once you see what God is doing, you can’t continue undecided as though it doesn’t matter. It is a revelation which makes possible both faith, acceptance of Jesus and his message - and rejection. That’s alluded to in our reading, although the passage leaves out some verses in the middle where Jesus says some uncompromising things about the lakeside towns which had heard his message and rejected it. But, one way or the other, when you hear about the Kingdom of God that brings a moment of decision.

Now moments of crisis and decision don’t necessarily come to us just once. In fact the disciples had many moments of crisis following Jesus, especially as he turned towards Jerusalem and his forthcoming Passion and death. And each crisis prompts a renewed decision to accept Jesus and follow in his way - or to turn aside. 

So it is for us. In the baptism today there is a moment called “the decision” which is precisely this - we have heard the Good News of God’s Kingdom, how do we respond? Do we accept Jesus? Do we reject the devil? That decision was made for most of us when we were baptised as children, but it is one we will need to renew and make our own, not just at formal moments such as our confirmation, but many times in life. 

The grace of baptism is a real gift of the Holy Spirit, rebirth to new life as children of God, but it remains in us like a seed in the ground awaiting the right moment to grow and flourish and bear fruit. This comes when we become conscious of God at work in us and in the world, and we make our own decision to turn to the Lord and follow his way. 

In fact the life of a Christian should be a continual conversion, a turning to the Lord in the ordinary stuff of daily life, in our discipline of prayer and the sacraments and living a good Christian life. But there are also distinct moments of renewing our commitment, our decision for Jesus. At the liturgy on Easter day for example we all renew our baptismal promises together. 

And there are also moments of crisis in life, which bring us back once again to Jesus and his message of salvation. Times of loss and darkness and challenge will come to us. But these can work for good if they strip away our illusions and self-reliance and bring us back to the Lord to believe and trust in him more fully, more deeply. 

Because we too, like the 70, are called to be his disciples, to work with him in spreading the good news of the Kingdom of God. Arjun and Raya join us today as the latest new disciples, called and chosen by Jesus to follow in his way. And they are a reminder to all of us of our own calling and the work we have to do for his Kingdom.

Sermon at Parish Mass Ss Peter and Paul 2013

Acts 12:1-11

2 Timothy 4.6-8, 17-18

Matthew 16:13-19

One of the things you have to get to grips with as a new parish priest is the enormous number of keys that come with the job. Keys to the church, to the safe, to this door, to that cupboard, to the other notice board... And then there are keys which open up boxes containing - more keys. It is a surprising number. But you need the keys to do the job. And handing over keys is a sign of empowerment. 

That occurs in other areas of life as well. You might be handed the keys to a car as a gift, or to the front door on your twenty-first birthday (do people still do that?). To have the keys is to be in a position of power and trust.

And Jesus today says to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven”, a text which has had a lot of weight put upon it over the years, about what is called “the power of the keys” in the Church.

But this is Matthew’s Gospel, and Matthew likes to make lots of references to the Old Testament. He is always keen to show how the new movement initiated by Jesus is in continuity with God’s promises to Israel of old. So here Matthew is making an allusion to one of the prophets, to chapter 22 of Isaiah. In that passage a righteous man called Eliakim is appointed steward of the Royal Household of King Hezekiah, the descendent of David (a post a bit like a Prime Minister). And the Lord says through Isaiah:

I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.

So what Matthew is saying is that Simon, renamed Peter, is to be given charge of the Royal Household of Jesus, the Son of David. He is indeed being given power, and a unique position.

But what sort of power? That is something that we come to see as the rest of the Gospel unfolds, but it is something that Peter and the other disciples don’t at first understand. Power and authority, in the Kingdom of Heaven, are radically different from the power and authority of the world. 

The second part of this Gospel story is not read today, perhaps because it is St Peter’s feast day and the Lectionary is being kind to him. Because the second part of this story is where Peter gets it all wrong. Straight after saying these things to Peter, Jesus immediately talks about his rejection and his death. This is the power not of domination or control but of self-giving love, which in the world as it is has to take the place of the victim. 

But Peter doesn’t understand this. In his mind Jesus is the Messiah - he has got that right! - but he doesn’t understand what that means. He is probably thinking, as many did, that the Messiah would be a leader who would rule as the world does, by domination and control and force. He would drive out the foreign occupiers of Israel and re-establish his capital city in Jerusalem. That is the kingdom that Peter thinks he is being appointed Prime Minister of. 

So he simply cannot grasp what Jesus is talking about. He cannot imagine that the true Messiah will be one who is betrayed and handed over to death. Probably he is also afraid at what seem to be ill-omened words. And he remonstrates with Jesus, and Jesus rebukes him. Because Peter hasn’t yet understood the power of the Kingdom which Jesus is establishing, the power not of domination or control but of self-giving love. So the keys come to Peter both as a gift and as a test - do you get it? do you understand what this kingdom is about - which here he fails. 

He fails later, too. He fought back with his sword in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was betrayed, and was rebuked by Jesus again. And what is another symbol of St Peter? The cock, which crowed at his denials, later that same night. The cock which crowed when Peter, for all his bluster and bravado, was too afraid to admit that he even knew Jesus. Here it is on top of our church and on the warden’s staves. The symbol of Peter’s ultimate failure! What’s that about? Why do we use that sign, as though it was something to be proud of?

Well we use it, it is the symbol of St Peter, because that failure was followed by Peter’s threefold confession of love, which we read about in Chapter 21 of John. Peter had failed again and again but it was that very failure which stripped away his illusions. His illusions about himself, that he was brave and powerful and in control. And his illusions about God, that God’s Kingdom will be like the kingdoms of this world, imposing itself by domination and force and violence. 

And when all that had fallen away, what was left? A wretched, fearful failure who then discovered the most wonderful thing of all. That God was not about violence and control, but about love. And that he, Peter,  was loved, anyway. Loved beyond his imagining, right there in the mess that he had made. And indeed if he hadn’t made such a mess of his attempt to follow Jesus he wouldn’t have known quite how much he was loved. Jesus had known entirely what Peter was like before he called him. And he chose him and called him anyway.

You see, the Gospel is not about being good, but about being forgiven. It is not about persuading God to like us, but about discovering that he loves us regardless of what we do. The Gospel is about doing the worst that we can do, making the greatest mess of it, and then finding that God is waiting to meet us right there in the mess we have made. It is about discovering that God has called us and chosen us as we are, knowing entirely what we are better than we do ourselves. Julian of Norwich, in a statement of profound doctrine, said, “First came the fall, then came the recovery from the fall; both are the mercy of God!”

There is another symbol of St Peter, besides the cock and the keys: the inverted cross. That is the sign of his martyrdom, the triumph of God’s love in him, the fruit of the Holy Spirit who has worked on Peter through his lifetime, remaking him from within so that he could live entirely from the power of God’s Kingdom, the power of self-giving love. So that in the end he could give his life for the Gospel, freely, out of the love that had transformed him. So the story told against himself, the story of his failures, is the story of the triumph of God’s love. A story which is only possible because of that transformation. 

So this is a day of great joy as we rejoice in our heavenly patron, Peter. The mendacious fearful failure who was chosen and called and loved into the person he truly was, out of the ruins of the false self which could not endure. And what was good news for Peter is good news for us, too.

We, every one of us, have been called and chosen, just like Peter, just as we are. Whatever our lives have been and are - God knows it all, and loves us anyway! Called to discover our true selves in the joy of God’s love and forgiveness. Called into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the discovery of what God is really like - not remote, disapproving and controlling, but vivacious, overflowing love, come to meet us where we are. Empowered by the Holy Spirit to live according to that kingdom of self-giving love. God’s love and forgiveness are offered to us today, through Jesus, without condition. And the Holy Spirit will transform us, throughout our lives, just as he did Peter, if we will but let him. 

Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 4 2013

Isaiah 65:1-9

Galatians 3:23-end

Luke 8:26-39

“They found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.”

Why were they afraid? This seems a strange reaction when a good thing has happened, someone has been healed and restored to his place in the community. And yet, the community is afraid.

There is a curious reversal here. At the start of the story, it seems that it is the man himself who we should be afraid of. He is scary, uncontrollable, living naked among tombs. And yet it seems that the fear of the community had been dealt with by the fact that he had been driven out from their city. He has been excluded, so their fear has been excluded with him. But when he returns, suddenly they are afraid again.

This in fact is how human communities often function: what is threatening, what people are afraid of, is dealt with by its being projected onto a scapegoat, someone who is different or an outsider in some way, who can be victimised or excluded. The problem isn’t with us, oh no; it’s that person over there, the one who is different from us, they’re the source of all our troubles - so get rid of them. 

So this man at Gerasa, who is described in the language of Luke as having demons, has been cast out from his society, a scapegoat for their underlying fear. What was that fear? What was it that was really threatening and oppressing that society? The man himself gives us a clue: he says his name is “Legion”. That’s an odd word for a large number. It’s not “crowd” or “mob” or “tribe”. It’s a specifically military word - a legion was a large unit of the Roman army, several thousand men. 

And the region where the man lived was a heavily militarised area, as it is today - it’s roughly where the Golan Heights are. Then as now it was a border zone, where different races, cultures and religions rubbed up against each other. The tensions between those communities, which were real, were kept under by Roman military might, which could be brutal and ruthless. 

When you read Luke’s gospel you can see that he is very conscious of the political realities of first century Palestine and the Roman Empire, and he often links the oppressive power of the Empire with that of Satan or the demons - it’s as though he can see the spiritual realities behind the facade of events.

So this man at Gerasa, who has demons, in his disorder and illness acts out and names the real nature of the oppressive power which is affecting his whole society. And perhaps the fact that he names it is too dangerous for them to deal with, naming it brings that power too close to the surface. Perhaps that is why he was selected as the scapegoat to be driven out.

We in our context might ask about fear in our own communities. We might ask how people are made into scapegoats for the ills and oppressive powers of our own day. When an Islamic cultural centre is burned down, or a British soldier murdered in the streets, these are of course terrible things which can never be justified. And we must work to build strong and cohesive communities, to grow closer to our neighbours, as different faith communities have been doing in Muswell Hill these last two weeks. We will have an opportunity today to take part in such an act of building a good and human society with the solidarity walk to the Bravanese Centre.

But Luke’s gospel also teaches us to look behind the scenes, to ask what is the oppressive power at work behind events in the world. To ask, in his terms, what is Satanic or demonic in our own society. That is, what it is that keeps people trapped in mechanisms of violence, that prevents them from being human, from flourishing in peace and love. 

So we need to look behind the scenes. If extremist groups such as the EDL become more significant and threatening, that shouldn’t stop us also noticing how sections of the working class are being ignored by politicians and vilified in the tabloid press, when the reality for many is poverty, bleak hopelessness and lack of opportunity. And incidents of Islamist extremism shouldn’t stop us attending to the effect of Western policy and interventions in the Middle East on increasingly disempowered, alienated and traumatised populations. Of course, none of this justifies a violent reaction. But like the Gerasene man it is those on the pathological extreme, those who have become demonised, who enact their fear with violent results.

But of course, we are reading the Gospel, and “Gospel” means “good news”. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be like this. The good news is that Jesus frees us from fear and violence and makes it possible to be human again in a wholly new and creative way. 

Because Jesus has conquered the powers that demonise human communities and destroy human lives. The Gerasene man is not simply healed of his demons, he is re-humanised: seated, clothed, in his right mind, not afraid. In fact, he is seated at the feet of Jesus, which means he is a disciple. A very important figure, actually: he’s the first Gentile disciple. And Jesus makes him stay with his people. 

He wants to follow Jesus, of course, as most people do in the gospels. But unusually Jesus says, no, stay here with your people. The people who are now afraid of him. The people who are unable yet to believe in the Creator God who is simply overflowing love and generosity for all. But they have to learn not to be afraid, they have to learn the new way of being human that Jesus makes possible, free from fear, free from the need to find scapegoats, free from the demonic powers that turn human communities into destructive machines. And they can only learn that from him. So he has to stay with them, and tell them all that God has done for him. 

This is radical and demanding discipleship! Not to retreat into a comfort zone, but to stay with the people who need to hear the Good News and can only hear it from him. For him, to run off after Jesus would simply reinforce their casting out of him when he was ill. They would not then learn about the new life that Jesus makes possible, free from the old mechanisms of violence and exclusion. So he must stay.

There is a deeper meaning to this story, too, for it contains an image, a prefiguring, of the Resurrection. How do we know that Jesus has conquered the powers of death and hell? Because he was raised from the dead. Jesus too, on Good Friday, was cast out, naked, placed among the tombs. He too returned to his community - who were afraid, hiding behind locked doors - with the greeting of peace, to free them from their fear. It is the Resurrection which shows us that we do not need scapegoats, that God is on the side of the excluded and the victim. The Resurrection shows us that we can make the supreme adventure of being disciples of Jesus, of following in his way which trusts completely in the overflowing love and goodness and creativity of God. 

And this is our task as disciples of Jesus in our community - to be not afraid, to enact the Resurrection in our lives instead of the community’s fears. To enable those who are afraid, who do cast out, to be healed and fully human too. This is radical and demanding discipleship! But we can trust in the great things that God has done for us, and not run away, but tell them in the world in which we live.

Sermon Corpus Christi 2013

Genesis 14:18-20

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Luke 9:11-17

Like so many things in life which are really great fun, the feast of Corpus Christi started with a nun having visions. (Think of The Sound of Music if you want another example.)

The nun in question was Juliana of Liège, a Canoness in Belgium in the 13th Century, who started seeing visions of the moon disfigured with a single dark spot. After puzzling over this for some years, Christ revealed to her that this represented the Church, luminous with many feast days but sadly disfigured by the lack of a solemnity in honour of the Holy Eucharist.

Juliana then started to campaign for such a feast, as you would, and after much opposition eventually enlisted the support of her bishop and her archdeacon, who providentially became Pope Urban IV. But the Pope was distracted by political intrigues and failed to give the matter his full attention until a Eucharistic Host at Orvieto, where he was staying, started bleeding during Mass. The Pope soon readjusted his priorities and quickly established a Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, for the whole Church. 

The idea was to give thanks for the gift of the Eucharist in a more celebratory way than was possible on Maundy Thursday, the day of its institution, overshadowed as that day was by the suffering and sorrow of Good Friday. And soon the feast took the form that we recognise today, a festal celebration of Mass followed by devotions to the reserved Sacrament. In countries with more reliable weather, the Sacrament might be carried in an outdoor procession, with music and fireworks and rose petals billowing in the wind. And the celebrations conclude with benediction, which is a blessing given from the Real Presence of Christ himself in the consecrated Host.

Now we might think that’s all very well, but isn't it just a bit far from the last supper in the upper room, that straightforward meal with Jesus and his disciples together? Or the Apostles meeting for their simple gatherings to break bread together on the Lord’s Day, as we read in Acts? Isn’t it just all too complicated, too fussy? Aren’t we drifting away from the simple commandment of Christ to eat the Lord’s Supper in memory of him? 

But I wonder. What do children do, when someone who loves them enormously gives them a really great present? Do they scrupulously fold up and discard the shiny wrapping paper and ribbons? Do they carefully read the instructions to the letter in order to make sure they only do exactly what it says on the box, and nothing more? Do they then put the gift away in the cupboard, and get it out, say, just once a month, for fear that otherwise they might be making too much of it? Do they indeed. And if they did, wouldn’t the person who loved them enormously, and gave them such a wonderful gift, be rather disappointed?

The Eucharist is a gift from the loving and generous heart of God in Jesus. And God’s generosity is huge! We see that in today’s Gospel reading, the feeding of the five thousand, where from just five loaves and two fishes everyone had as much as they wanted - and there were twelve baskets of broken fragments left over. What use were those scraps? Was that just waste? Or was it rather a sign of God’s abundant generosity, giving more than anyone can possibly need or want?

We know, of course, that the Gospels were written originally not for private study but to be read aloud in the weekly assembly of the faithful for the Eucharist, in addition to the Hebrew scriptures which were carried on from the synagogue meeting. And that’s just how we read the gospel this morning. The Gospels contain many scenes whose layers of meaning emerge more fully as they are read at the gathering for the Eucharist.

The story of the feeding of the five thousand does just that. It is the story of a great crowd, of all sorts and conditions - just like the Church spread throughout the world. It tells of miraculous feeding, without limit. It tells of food which is inexhaustible because it is Jesus who provides it. It tells of the Apostles, the Twelve, literally “spreading the table before the people”, finding their mission by presiding in service, in giving to all, just as Jesus did. And even the word used in Greek for those baskets of scraps, klasmaton, is the same word used in the earliest Eucharistic liturgies we know, for the fragments of consecrated bread kept for the communion of the sick. 

The feeding of the five thousand is a Eucharistic meal in the broadest sense, a thanksgiving, a joyful celebration of God’s abundance which never runs out, in which all eat and have enough. It is a prophetic sign of the banquet in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus enacts that prophetic sign with the crowd in that desert place, to show them that he has come to open the way to God’s Kingdom of generosity, love and peace. And Jesus at the Last Supper instituted the Eucharist to be the sacramental sign and foretaste of the same banquet, in which in fact we already begin to partake of the joys of the Kingdom.

Today’s feast in honour of the Eucharist invites us to celebrate with unrestrained joy the unrestrained generosity and love of God. It invites us to go beyond the merely necessary, and to delight in the exuberant abundance which God delights to give to us. There is more than enough for everyone, but still there is no excess, for the enlarging of God’s generosity does not lead to greed or surfeiting but to the enlarging of our joy, and the increase of our thanksgiving.

There is so much we do in church that we don’t actually need to do. We don’t need beautiful buildings to celebrate the Eucharist, we don’t need candles, incense, vestments, music and all the other things with which we adorn our liturgy. But our delight and generosity reflect God’s delight and generosity. The special devotions of this day are part of that exuberant delight. They are not indeed essential to the Eucharist, but they are if you like the baskets that we weave for the fragments left over.

The joy and grace of the Eucharistic celebration is not meant to be contained within tight boundaries. It is meant to spill over, and does so in all the extra devotions with which God’s children like to adorn this wonderful gift.

It is meant to spill over, too, into the rest of our lives. The Eucharist is a sign and foretaste of the banquet of the Kingdom of God, in which all of human life is to find its fulfilment. It enlarges our joy, and it should also enlarge our charity, our generosity, and our justice. The Eucharist breaks open all boundaries so that those on the edge can be welcomed into the centre as the most honoured guests. The Eucharist refashions human society, transforming the world into God’s Kingdom just as it transforms bread and wine into the risen Lord.

This feast invites us to rediscover a more childlike joy in the greatness and goodness of God’s gifts. It invites us to trust and rejoice in the promises of God. It invites us to great joy and celebration. Because joy is infectious. Because if we celebrate others will want to join in. 

God has invited us into his Kingdom, and given us a foretaste in this holy meal. This is not just for when we are in church, but for the whole of life. It is not just for us, but for the whole of humanity, all sorts and conditions, the whole motley crew of them. And we, the disciples of Jesus, we are to spread the table for the feast. Welcome to the party.