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

Monday 7 July 2014

Sermon, Trinity 3 2014


Zechariah 9:9-12                    
Romans 7:15-25a                   
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

On Thursday evening I was at a meeting of local Christian representatives and Jews called on the initiative of Rabbi David Mason of the Muswell Hill Synagogue. He wanted to learn about Christian perspectives on Israel and Palestine and their ongoing conflict, and to share the views of the Jewish community with us. It was a very valuable meeting and I think a lot of important sharing and learning went on.
One insight that Rabbi David shared with us was how the stories of the Israeli and Palestinian people seem to mirror one another. They both have stories of oppression, loss and grief, histories of conflict and opposition. But their stories don’t converge. It seems so very difficult for each side to understand the other, and to see how similar they are. They are caught in a dynamic of opposition. It’s a blame game. The experience of each side is that bad things are always being done to them by the other, and however far back you go it’s always the other side that started it.
If you’re in that blame game you can’t see that the other side is actually the same as you. It takes real cost and courage to break out of the deadly game. Someone at the meeting shared the story of an encounter between two bereaved mothers, one Israeli, one Palestinian, both had lost children, killed by the ‘other side’. But in meeting and telling their stories to each other they discovered that their grief was the same. They were able to move beyond the blame game and recognise each other’s humanity, a story they could share, and find themselves on common ground instead of in opposition.
The same thing is at work with the children in the market places, whom Jesus mentions today. They are just playing a children’s game, one group plays the flute or wails, the other listens and then acts out the behaviour the sound is associated with. But the game has gone sour. “We played the flute and you didn’t dance, we wailed and you didn’t mourn.” It has become instead a game about identifying two groups, insiders and outsiders, those who keep the rules and those who don’t.
Jesus is saying that this is what his contemporary society was like. People have responded to John the Baptist and then to Jesus by opposition and rejection, because both John and Jesus haven’t followed the rules that society wanted them to follow. And they haven’t done that because their message was meant to change society. They preached repentance, a change of heart and direction. Human society has to give up the blame game, has to give up that destructive dynamic of us against them.
Now there’s a bit left out of our gospel reading this morning, where Jesus goes on to warn the lakeside cities he was preaching in, because they would not repent, in other words they would not give up this game. It will be worse for Sodom and Gomorrah, says Jesus, than for these cities. Because the blame game in the end is corrosive and death dealing. It poisons and destroys relationships and lives. It does not get rid of your “enemy” but in fact turns them into an obsession, a stumbling block, something you keep falling over but can’t tear yourself away from. And it is a fact that not one of the cities Jesus mentioned exists any more. They are all just archaeological sites. Human societies that would not repent and did not survive. They would not give up the blame game, the dynamic of opposition and casting out.
This is an enduring problem in human life. My trips to the gym are usually fitted in mid afternoon, and there is a row of television screens down the wall facing the cross trainers. So whether I like it or not I quite often end up watching the Jeremy Kyle show. The premise of the show is that people in conflict-riven families and relationships come on and are able to tell their stories and air their grievances, and the aim is to try and seek resolution.
When it works it does so by helping people to move on from blame. In other words to forgive, to let go of the hurts of the past, those endless variations of “we played the flute and you wouldn’t dance”, and to recognise that the other person you’ve been so opposed to is actually the same as you. It enables people to recognise their common humanity.
Well Jesus offers the radical alternative which can break anyone out of the blame game, and that is knowledge of God. God doesn’t play the blame game. God offers instead love, mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation. We can learn from Jesus, who learns from the Father. And this is rest for our souls, a light and easy yoke. It can be costly, yes, but it is also healing. It is in fact the path of life.
We need this in society, in our relationships and in our own lives. Blame and division is something we internalise, and it becomes part of the workings of our own sin. It eats away at us from within. As someone has said, when you point the finger of blame at another person there are three fingers pointing back at you.
And St Paul says in today’s extract from Romans, “I do not do what I want, but the very thing I hate”. “I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members… the law of sin.” It’s almost as though Paul is saying, I played the flute and I wouldn’t dance. Well blame will destroy us in the end, internally or externally. But we will be saved if we turn to the Lord. Who will rescue us from this body of death, says St Paul? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Jesus reveals God to us, and enables us to share in God’s life. This alone can move us on beyond the deadly trap of blame and opposition, whether in our own selves or with others. God is not like that, so if we come to know God we will be changed and made new.
This is really very simple, a child could do it. But so often we are too complicated to do the one simple thing that we need. It has been revealed, as Jesus says, to infants but not to the wise and learned. But if we will become like little children then we can begin to know the Father. Division, conflict and blame will be overcome within us and without. This is what it means to repent. And if we do so we will find rest for our souls. 

Sermon, Ss Peter & Paul 2014


El Greco - Saints Peter and Paul


Zechariah 4.1-6a,10b-14
Acts 12:1-11
Matthew 16:13-19

It’s always lovely to be given a present, all the more so if it’s a surprise. But sometimes surprise presents can be a little unexpected, and as we peel off the wrapping paper and smile and say thank you, inwardly we might be wondering “what on earth can I do with this?” 
Today Peter gets a surprise present. He has just correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah. And Jesus says to him, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you...”
What? What might Peter be expecting at this moment? He’s probably feeling quite chuffed with himself, he’s gone out on a limb to identify Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus has said, “well done! you’re right!” Some reward must be coming. But, as we find out later, Peter’s idea of the Messiah is the one that was quite common at the time: a military hero, a leader of Israel’s armies, conquering and driving out the occupying Romans. Not to mention putting the corrupt Temple elite in their place. 
So, I will give you, Peter - what? Charge of my army, perhaps. Squadrons of angels to command in the forthcoming battle. At least, a sword and a suit of armour. (Peter certainly thinks swords will be part of the Messiah project, as he will use one on the High Priest’s servant when Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.)
Well, it turns out the present is none of those things. Jesus says, I will give you - keys. The keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. A curious gift for a project of conquest. Perhaps Peter is a little disappointed. But after all keys are useful, perhaps to lock up your prisoners, or the booty of war.
And that’s what keys are about, isn’t it? They are used to lock things up - things we don’t want stolen, doors to keep out (or in) people we want to be protected from. 
So Jesus says, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven”, and so far that might be what Peter expects, with a gift of keys. “And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” That is not so expected. Keys are not about loosing things, surely, but about locking things up?
In fact, if you think about it, keys only exist because of sin. If people didn’t steal, or act violently, or break into homes, there would be no need for keys at all. So the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven has keys is a bit problematic. There is no sin in the Kingdom of Heaven, by definition, because that Kingdom is the rule of God’s perfect justice and righteousness. So why does it have keys, which only exist because of sin?
The key (as it were) is that these are keys of loosing as much as binding. They are not about locking anyone away, but are about opening up the Kingdom, undoing the locks and bolts that keep us from entering. The keys of the Kingdom are about undoing sin. 
Therefore, they are keys that are only needed if you are outside the kingdom, wanting to come in. Inside the Kingdom, there are no keys at all. The keys are given to Peter to undo the bondage of sin. Once they have done their job they are no longer needed. They are keys that are meant to become obsolete. 
True, they are also keys of “binding” as well as “loosing”. But this, as Peter will discover, is about being given authority to serve, not to lord it over people. It is not the authority to shut people out, but to look after the good order of God’s people. This does need a certain amount of discipline, but it is discipline for the well being of the Church and the propagation of the gospel. The key of binding is not about shutting people out of the Kingdom, but about keeping the way in clear of obstacles.
So the keys that Peter receives are rather subversive keys. They are keys to open the Kingdom and enable everyone to enter in. They are keys that only exist on the outside of the Kingdom, and then are left behind as we enter. The keys exist because of sin, but they exist to undo sin, and we will leave them behind as we leave our sins behind.
What does this mean for us? 
It means, firstly, forgiveness, freely given. The bonds of sin are undone in the gift of the keys, freely given to the Church in the person of Peter. The Church has been entrusted with the task of declaring God’s love, mercy and forgiveness to a world so much in need, so that the world might leave its sins behind and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 
It follows that the Church is not the community of good people, but the community of forgiven people, set free from sin and rejoicing in God’s love and mercy. The Church is the forgiven and forgiving community that is entering the Kingdom of heaven. 
It means also that the Church has the power to serve, not to conquer. Triumphalism and oppression are constant temptations in the Church, and in some times and places have almost obscured the gospel vision. Peter himself will exemplify this in parts of the gospel story, with his violent reactions and his resistance to the path of suffering that Jesus the Messiah will follow. That the Church fails in this way is always a call to repentance and watchfulness. 
Thirdly, it means that sin is what we are leaving behind. Not just our individual sins but the whole way of living and thinking that requires keys: possessiveness, rivalry, desire for what other people have, violence and conflict. All these things require keys and locks, to control them, as long as we are in the world of sin. But as we are entering the Kingdom, we leave all that behind.
Entering the Kingdom means God’s righteousness, justice and love becoming the governing principle in our lives. It means renouncing our rivalrous desires and learning to live instead from our deepest and truest desire, the desire for God, who himself will satisfy us eternally with his boundless generosity and love. And the keys that Jesus gives open up the way into the Kingdom for Peter, for all the disciples, and for all of us.

Sermon, Corpus Christi, 2014


The Mass of Bolsena - Raphael


Genesis 14.18-20
1 Corinthians 11.23-26
John 6.51-58

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.

After some campaigning Juliana managed to persuade the Pope, Urban IV, to institute a Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, for the whole Church. And as this was while the Church of England and Rome were still in communion it forms part of our common heritage. Though today, in countries like ours where sadly it isn’t a public holiday, we tend to keep it on the next Sunday.

The Eucharist was of course instituted by Jesus on Maundy Thursday, at the Last Supper. But that day is overshadowed by the suffering and sorrow of Good Friday, so the first available Thursday after Eastertide was chosen as a day when the gift of the Eucharist could be celebrated with unrestrained joy.

What is it that we are celebrating?

Firstly, under the signs of bread and wine, Jesus gave his body and blood to his disciples, to make present and effective for all time his saving death on the cross.

The sacrifice of Christ is once for all, it cannot be repeated, it does not need adding to. But in the Eucharist the Church pleads that one sacrifice before the Father, making it present and effective for every time and place. In the Eucharist the Church offers Christ’s perfect worship to the Father, and brings into his saving work the needs of the Church and the world, and the intentions that the celebrant and people bring with them.

Secondly, the Eucharist makes us the Church, the holy people of God. We become what we receive, the body of Christ. We are, through the Eucharist, members of Christ, joined to him as our head. Jesus remakes the human race, freeing us from the old order of sin and death and enabling us to live with God’s life and love and limitless generosity. We are, together, made into a new human nature, a “new Adam” in Christ.

Thirdly, Jesus truly gives himself in this sacrament. He who is the truth, who cannot deceive, took bread and wine and said, “this is my body… this is my blood”. Why should the faith of Christians doubt what he said? The Church in every age has believed that in the Eucharist the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ, together with his soul and Divinity, though in a manner that surpasses our understanding. To our outward senses the appearances of bread and wine remain unchanged, but faith perceives the deeper spiritual reality.

From the very first Christians reserved a portion of the consecrated Bread to give holy communion to those who could not be present at the celebration of Mass, such as the sick or those in prison. Just as we do here in the tabernacle on the High Altar.

But Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament all the time, not just when It is being received in communion. So reservation of the Sacrament gave rise to devotion and worship of that special presence of Christ, even when Mass was not being celebrated.
Now of course Jesus did not institute the Eucharist so he could sit in a tabernacle being worshipped, he instituted it so that people could receive him and be transformed into his body and live with his life. But nevertheless, the generosity of God overflows all boundaries. Devotion to that sacramental presence is not an essential part of the Eucharist, but belongs to the overflow of God’s generosity and love. God does not give just enough, but more than we can ask or imagine.

The gift of the Real Presence is one that has inspired love and devotion down the ages. On Saturday we will celebrate the anniversary of the dedication of this Church as a house of prayer for God’s people. And what makes this church holy, above all, what makes it a place of prayer, is the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus is here, day and night, whether people realise it or not. His love radiates from the Tabernacle, his presence warms cold hearts, converts sinners, comforts the troubled, sets the hearts of secret saints ablaze. And always he draws us to himself, to that most intimate and necessary union with him in Holy Communion.

So at the end of Mass today we will celebrate that real presence in our devotions to the Blessed Sacrament, which you’ll find in the weekly bulletin after today’s readings. A consecrated Host will be placed on the altar in a display case called a monstrance, so that we can focus our attention on the abiding presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of his love. It’s traditional to kneel or sit reverently while the Blessed Sacrament is exposed. There will be a hymn, then a time of silence, some prayers, and another hymn. Then there is 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? 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?

Today we celebrate the gift of the Eucharist with childlike joy. Corpus Christi 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 God’s generosity does not lead to greed or surfeiting but to the increase of our joy and 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.

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 increases our joy, and it should also increase 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.

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.

Sermon at Parish Mass, Trinity Sunday 2014


14th Century Fresco of the Trinity, Church of St Gothard, Carmine Superiore, Lago Maggiore

Isaiah 40.12-17,27-31            
2 Corinthians 13.11-13           
Matthew 28.16-20

A week ago I had some concerns about my cat, who was behaving strangely and, I suspected, might have eaten something he shouldn’t. However, a couple of days of careful observation, which I won’t go into, showed that all was well. But I did at one point catch myself saying, “cat, if only you would learn to speak, you could say what’s going on inside!” In response to which he just looked at me in that superior way that cats do.
Speech, or communication of some kind, is invaluable in telling someone else about what’s going on inside. Cats don’t have that so we rely on subtle clues, guesswork and X rays.
People, human beings, do have speech, and so we can tell people when we think we might have eaten something we shouldn’t. And we can also speak about the deeper and more mysterious things: emotions, feelings, thoughts, desires. Through the gift of speech we are able to let other people know about our interior lives. And if we don’t talk about these things other people can find us quite mysterious, not knowing what makes us tick, what drives us, why we react and respond the way we do.
And what is true of us creatures must be even more true of God. God is the creator, the act of being underlying all things that exist, through whom all things exist. If we try to understand how God creates the universe out of nothing we are reduced to awe and wonder, as the beautiful poetic passage from Isaiah this morning so well expresses. How then can we possibly hope to know anything of what goes on inside God, so to speak, how can we know the interior life of God? Unless God speaks, and tells us.
Well we are here this morning as Christians, gathering for the Eucharist on the Lord’s day, the day of resurrection, because we believe that God has spoken. He has spoken in Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God, as John’s Gospel tells us, God’s revelation of himself. Jesus is God’s speech; but speech in a language we can all understand, the language of a human life.
It is Jesus, the speech of God, who opens to us the interior life of God, and tells us what is going on. And what he tells us is that God is love.
Now you can’t love all on your own. Love requires that there be someone to love. Love can only exist in relationship with another. And love, if it is truly love, has to be mutual, and self-giving: each pouring out to the other in generosity and joy. So when Jesus reveals that God is love, he tells us that relationship is the heart of God. If God is love, then God is relationship.
Who is this relationship between? Jesus tells us, it is the love that exists between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus, in John’s gospel, says that the Son abides in the Father and the Father in the Son, in mutual love. And it is the Son himself who tells us this. Jesus, the human being, is God come among us. He has been and is God the Son from all eternity, but in Jesus he has come among us as one of us.
And the reason why he has come among us is so that all human beings can come to call God “Father”. So that all human beings can enter into the love that the Father shares with the Son in the Holy Spirit. So that human beings, in Jesus, can be partakers of the divine nature. And to enable this to happen he has sent his Spirit into the hearts of believers.
Now the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are in God, and so are God, because whatever is in God is God. God is relationship, and Jesus names that relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This does not mean that there are three gods. God is one, absolutely and indivisibly. Christians need to be clear about that, especially when our friends and neighbours may be genuinely curious about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. God is one. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the relationship that is the interior life of the one God. Traditionally, these are called the three “Persons” of the Trinity. But “Persons” does not mean “people” or separate individuals. It names the participants in the relationship that is God.
The Greeks, as usual, have a long and complicated word for this: perichoresis. But don’t worry, perichoresis just means “dancing in a circle”. God is a dance. The three Persons of the Trinity are God, but there is only one dance, in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternally give each other in love and delight.
The Trinity is not an explanation of God. It is a mystery, which doesn’t mean that it is a puzzle to be solved. A mystery is a truth revealed to us, a disclosure from the heart of God which surpasses our understanding.
This same God has created us to enter into the relationship of self-giving love that we call the Trinity, and in union with Jesus, who is fully human and fully divine, has made that possible.
This takes us back to the mysterious saying in Genesis that humanity is created “in the image and likeness of God”. Now of course God has no physical form. We shouldn’t imagine that God has two eyes and ears and a nose, for example, as the nations that surrounded Israel tended to do. God is not in our image. What Genesis 1:27 says is:
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
It is humanity, plural, in all its diversity, male and female, that is in the image of God. Jesus reveals that God is a relationship of love, a dance of delight. That is the image of God that humanity is called to reflect, many persons in a perfect communion of love.
But we acknowledge of course that humanity so often fails to show the image of God. This world of sin, disfigured by war, terror, violence, greed and hatred, is far from being a relationship of self-giving love.
But Jesus, who reveals God, is also the saviour. By his living a human life, by his death in this world of sin and his resurrection to eternal life, he has saved us. With our sins forgiven, reborn into the life of God, we can begin to reflect the image of God once again.
We are baptised into the Trinity, as Jesus instructs the disciples in today’s Gospel reading. That is the task of the Church: to draw people into the communion of love with God who is love. By Baptism we are reborn into the life of God. By the Eucharist we become one communion of love. And so we become the Church, which is humanity being renewed in the image of God.
St Paul this morning sums up this new life in his final greeting to the Church at Corinth:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
The love of God which surpasses all human knowledge draws us, in Jesus, into God’s very life, and restores us in his image. In Jesus we have received the Spirit of adoption by which we, too, can call God “Father”, and by which God calls us sons and daughters.
We cannot understand God. But love goes where understanding fails. God opens the heart of his love to us and invites us in. In Jesus, God calls to us as our Father. Jesus is God’s speech saying to humanity, not only that God is love, but that we are loved. Loved by the heart of our loving God, our creator and redeemer.
Loved so that we can become loving. Loved so that we can be drawn into the communion of love that is God. Loved so that we can by grace be transformed into God’s image. So that these words are addressed not just to Corinth but to the whole Church, which includes us:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.