Sermon at Parish Mass Lent 5 2016

St Peter le Poer Altar Book, 1923, on a marble altar from the old church of St Peter-le-Poer in Old Broad Street (demolished 1907) - two of the exhibits in "A History of St Peter le Poer in Twenty Objects"

Isaiah 43.16-21

John 12.1-8

“Do not remember the former things,

   or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;

   now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

Gerhard von Rad, who was one of the greatest Old Testament scholars of the 20^th Century, described that passage of Isaiah as the “pivot verse” of the whole Old Testament. This is the point at which the whole story turns.

And what a story it has been – from the Garden of Eden through the Patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, the 40 year journey to the promised land, the judges, the Kings. And then the story of Israel’s unfaithfulness, going off after other gods, the judgements and warnings of the prophets, foreign invasion, disaster, destruction and exile.

And this is where the people are, in this bit of Isaiah. In exile in Babylon. The holy temple in Jerusalem is in ruins, their land is far away and desolate.  Isaiah speaks to them, comfort my people, says the Lord, your exile will be ended.

But – and this is where the story turns – the end of exile will not mean going back to how things were before. No, the Lord is going to do a new thing. And indeed what else would we expect of the Creator God, who is always bringing new things to birth? The past is what has formed Israel. It is their story, it tells them who they are. But they are to receive that story in the new moment in which God is doing a new thing. They remember their story, not to draw them back into the past, but to open the present moment to God’s creative future.

And so we come full circle, in our Lenten journey. We have been looking at tradition, and we began Lent with Jesus, in the wilderness, being tempted by the Devil, but placing his story firmly in the context of Israel’s story. Tradition, we were reminded, is not nostalgia, but a living stream, ever adapting itself to the place and time through which it flows. Tradition means “handing on”; it is a present tense word that looks to the future.

Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour, but to know what that means we have to know how God has been working as the Saviour of Israel from the beginning. Because Jesus is the new thing that God is doing, through his obedience to the Father opening God’s creative future in the moment of salvation he has come to enact.

But God’s new thing means letting go of the past. It is not, and can never be, going back to some safe secure place that we knew long ago.  So it is unsettling and challenging. It means that we need to trust God for the future, a future we cannot secure or control ourselves. It means we cannot defend the present as a safe secure little fenced off place. Rather we have to live in the present moment as the undefended threshold that opens onto the unknown future where God is doing a new thing.

That trust, stepping into the future with nothing to rely on at all except God, is what Jesus did. In today’s gospel reading he is in Bethany, on the threshold of returning to Jerusalem where in six days he will be killed. Death hangs in the air of this intimate scene. Mary anoints his feet, lavishly, with outrageous abundance. She must sense, somehow, what is coming. The disciples are unsettled, anxious. Jesus interprets her action: she did this for my burial; you will not always have me with you.

To receive the new thing that God is doing we need to let go of any kind of security or safety we might want to construct for ourselves. It is by the death of Jesus on the cross, and in no other way, that God will bring the new creation to birth. It is only by actually dying that Jesus can rise again and open the resurrection to all believers. “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

As with Jesus, so with his Church, which continues his presence and mission in the world. The pattern of dying and rising is marked on us by our baptism, and it is how the Church lives. This is what tradition means: a living stream, the present moment of salvation that opens onto God’s future, an arrival and a departure at the same time, with nothing to hold on to except faith in the God who has always shown that his promises are sure.

What is true for the universal Church is true locally, too. We conclude our Lent Programme today with what I decided to call “A History of St Peter le Poer in 20 objects”. There are various objects that tell part of our story as the people of God in this place, and you’ll be invited to explore them after Mass. But what emerged in many ways as I was preparing this was not that the tradition has always been the same here at St Peter’s, but rather that it has always been changing. And of course it has, because this is a living church, and tradition is a living stream, fed from the past but moving into God’s future. As Cardinal Newman said, “to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”.

We are here as the Church, ambassadors for Jesus Christ, standing on the threshold of God’s future. But we do so in the midst of a society that has seldom seen such rapid and confusing change. We live in an anxious and distracted world. What are we to do? The Gospel does not change, but the Church is called upon to proclaim it afresh in each generation.  The challenge that brings for us in our day may seem daunting. But in truth all we are called to do is to be the Church, the holy faithful people of God, trusting him for the future and not clinging on to anything that will hold us back.

What will St Peter le Poer be like in twenty years’ time? I don’t know. And that’s the point. Because this is a living church, and to live is to change. 

Sermon at Parish Mass Lent 4 2016

Joshua 5.9-12

Luke 15.1-3,11b-32

Like many popular Bible stories, that passage, the Parable of the Two Sons, may be something we’re very familiar with. But let’s imagine we were Jesus’ audience, in the gospel, hearing it for the first time. When we heard the story of the younger son, what would we imagine would become of him? What would we want to happen to him?

He’s an unpleasant individual. Asking for his share of the inheritance in advance is the equivalent of wishing his father dead; and in the law of Moses cursing your parents was a capital offence. He has run off to a distant country, heedless of his family, and squandered their inheritance – which he ought to have passed on to future generations – on dissolute living and prostitutes. Add to that, the final touch for a Jewish audience in depicting how low he has sunk, he ends up hiring himself out to feed pigs and wanting to eat their food. 

So, hearing this for the first time, what we would expect to happen to him?

The best this son can imagine is that his father might consent to treat him as a hired servant, if he returns and confesses his guilt. It’s risky, of course. His father could just throw him out on his ear, or even have him killed for the shame and dishonor he has brought on the family. But he’s starving, so he takes the risk.

And what happens? “While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.” Filled with compassion, for such a son as this! That is what the father is like! The father embraces and kisses him, ignoring his prepared speech about no longer being worthy, instead ordering the very best celebration he can manage.

What a revelation this must have been to his son! He has discovered what mercy means, and has discovered this by means of the father showing it to him. Mercy is not a grudging settlement, a “well alright I’ll give you another chance”. No, mercy is a feast, lavish generosity shown to the worthless son, not because of anything he has done, but simply because that is what the father is like.

But this is a parable of two sons. What about the other one? The younger son’s return leaves him resentful and angry. He refuses to go in, and complains that he has worked like a slave for years and the father has given him nothing. He refuses even to acknowledge the other son as his brother, “this son of yours”, he says to his father.

This son may never have left home, but he has never come to know his father. He does not recognise or understand mercy. He has lived there all those years, but he has never been at home. Because the house is the house of mercy, and unless he becomes merciful himself he will never belong. To take part in the feast of mercy his eyes must be opened to the father’s generosity and love, which are the only basis on which both he and his brother belong.

As with all the parables, a seemingly everyday scene changes our expectations, and challenges us to ask where we belong in this story. Who do we identify with? Are we the younger son, straying and wasting what our father has given us? Are we the older son, regarding ourselves as slaves, never really belonging, trying to bargain for our father’s favour, resenting our own existence and the father’s generosity to the brother we hate? Are we, even, the father, because Jesus tells us that we must be merciful even as our father is merciful?

The truth is, we are all these people. The parable questions us, probes our consciousness, reflects back to us the truth about ourselves, and shows us how we need to change to enter the kingdom that is founded entirely on God’s gratuitous generosity and love.

If we come home to the Father we will discover what his mercy is, and be changed by it so that we become merciful ourselves. Mercy is a feast, a great celebration! Mercy is falling into the arms of our Father who embraces us and kisses us! Mercy is allowing him to put on us the best robe, which is none other than Christ himself, in whom we are adopted by grace as sons and daughters of God.

One dimension of the feast of mercy is how it becomes real in our lives: “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”, says Jesus. And that is something we shall explore in our Coffee and Chat today after Mass.

Another dimension is how we receive the Father’s mercy ourselves. Primarily we do this through the sacraments. By baptism we are washed clean of our sins and adopted into Christ so that we can enter the feast. In the Eucharist we share in it. And the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession, is available, too, for sins committed after baptism. This is not some Anglo-Catholic niche thing. It is central, bedrock, Church of England, there in the Book of Common Prayer, and especially recommended at times of sickness and in preparation for Holy Communion.

When the Book of Common Prayer was compiled people didn’t receive Communion very often, but now we receive frequently we can still use Confession as part of our preparation for our Easter Communion, for example.

Now, as is often said, the Anglican rule of confession is “All may, none must, some should”. Unfortunately, what many people remember is only the, “none must” bit.  This is a neglected but powerful means of grace, and because it is sacramental grace, guaranteed by Jesus, it has a cleansing and strengthening effect beyond that of private confession to God alone. Of course, confession to God in our private prayers suffices for forgiveness, if we are contrite. But is our Father one to be content with what merely suffices?

I still remember my first confession, I was 22 and had finally plucked up my courage somewhat reluctantly to “give it a go”. And when I came out of church afterwards I felt like I was walking on air. A great weight had been lifted from me that I hadn’t even known I was carrying around. The joy and peace that comes from that definitive absolution, given with the authority that Christ imparted to his church, is part of the Feast of Mercy, and we are all invited. What is holding us back? Or we might ask, reflecting on this morning’s parable, which brother are we? The feast of mercy is ready for us. Will we go in?