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.