Sermon at Parish Mass, Christ the King 2020

Ezekiel 34.11-16,20-24

Ephesians 1.15-23

Matthew 25.31-46

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”, said the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. Except it turned out that the little man behind the curtain, working the levers and dials and fireworks, was the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. Appearances were deceptive. When the curtain was drawn aside by Toto the dog, Dorothy and her companions saw what was really going on behind the scenes. That unveiling became a moment of truth telling, and then of new beginnings. 

At the end of the Church’s year, on the Feast of Christ the King, and as we look towards Advent, we read those parts of scripture that are often called apocalypse. In common use, that means some great cataclysmic disaster. But in the Bible, the Greek word “apocalypse” means “unveiling”, a disclosure of the realities at work behind the appearances of world events. 

We think, too, at this time of year, about the second coming of Christ. The word we translate as “second coming” is parousia, which means “presence”. Not just any presence, but an intensified, royal, powerful presence, like a king appearing at a State occasion. 

Today’s Gospel reading is about that presence of Christ, his parousia, and about apocalypse, that is, the unveiling of what has been going on through history. It is the last public teaching of Jesus, the judgement of the nations. 

It is the nations of the whole world that gather before the throne of glory. Human society as a whole, not just individuals, comes under the judgment of Christ. And the basis of that judgement is whether or not the nations have been merciful. What is described are the works of mercy. Feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison. The nations are not asked what gods they have worshipped, or whether they believed the correct things.

What is unveiled to the nations is that Christ has been the ultimate object of the works of mercy all along. Christ, the Word of creation, who hung on a cross for all to see, and now has ascended to fill all things, has always been there behind the story, and now is revealed as the standard and measure by which all things will be judged. 

It’s about seeing. The nations have not known this until this moment of unveiling, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger?” The Son of Man has been concealed behind the veil of ordinary events and ordinary people. But mercy has always been there right on the surface, always present, always possible. Always a choice that can be made. Judgement is simply the truth of things appearing as they really are, in the light of Christ, from whom all things come and to whom all things return. 

Those who have lived mercifully discover, even to their surprise, that they are blessed by the Father. In being merciful, they have ministered to Christ, even without knowing it, and in the final unveiling discover that this means they are inheritors of the Kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world.

Those who have refused to be merciful, however, discover that they are accursed, destined for the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Which is surely a metaphor for what refusing mercy does to us, the misery of being consumed by hatred and the desire to cast out and destroy. 

Today’s Gospel may help us to understand the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ more fully. As Ephesians tells us, Christ has not gone away. He is “the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all”. The Second Coming of Christ is both parousia and apocalypse, the unveiling of his royal presence that has been there all along. Christ appearing to the whole universe as he truly is: the one who fills all things, the origin, the meaning, and the end, of all our actions and choices. All things are then seen in their true perspective as they relate to Christ, who is their ultimate object.

Not just our actions and choices as individuals, but as nations, as human societies great and small. We have to organize ourselves in order to be merciful, or to choose not to be. We have to give our consent to the choices our society makes – or withhold it, and speak out. 

The choices are nothing complicated at all. Feed the hungry. In a nation of tremendous disparity of wealth where some children still starve in the school holidays. Welcome the stranger. Not just when they can stack up points for immigration status, but also when the stranger is in danger of drowning in the English Channel. Care for the sick, which many do heroically, but this time of pandemic reminds us that this means putting other people’s needs before our own convenience. Visiting those in prison means building a justice system that does not forget the possibility of redemption. Care for our planet, real action on climate change, because Christ is the Word of creation, and climate change disproportionately impacts the poorest nations.

Do we do this? Does our nation? To live according to mercy is also to come under Christ’s judgement. We are there in this picture, among the nations gathered before the throne. But, received in mercy, his judgement enables us to be truthful, to confess our sins, and to repent. The judgement of Christ should not bring us despair, but, rather, hope, because it is founded on mercy. 

The judgement of the nations is a story of the end, the final fulfilment when Christ will appear as the origin, meaning and end of all things. But it is a story told for the benefit of those who are not yet at the end. We are still in this in-between time, the time of mercy, the time of grace. All options are still open, all choices are still available. 

This is the time when we can learn to hear and tell the truth, so the truth will not surprise us when it is unveiled at the end. It is the time given to us to discover God’s mercy towards us in Jesus, and so repent of our sins, and learn to be merciful towards others ourselves. It is the time in which we can learn to see that Christ fills all things, Christ the King of the Universe, whose measure of judgement is mercy.

Sermon at Parish Mass, The Second Sunday before Advent, 15th November 2020

 

A Woodcut from Historiae celebriores Veteris Testamenti Iconibus representatae, 1712, taken from http://www.textweek.com/art/parables.htm. Via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Zephaniah 1.7,12-18

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25.14-30

 

“The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you might lose the original amount invested.” So say the risk warnings, often in quite small print, on ads for investments and stock market apps. Investing, trade, business, all carry risk. But, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Risk gives the frisson to today’s Gospel reading. It is the second of the three last parables of Jesus. Last week, we heard the story of the wise and foolish virgins. This week, the parable of the Talents. Next week, the sheep and the goats.

With these three stories Jesus closes his teaching ministry. All three are about the sudden appearance of an authority figure who brings judgement and reward, to whom the characters in the story have to give an account. Are you ready? Have you done what you were told? How will your actions be judged?

But who is this authority figure, and what is his appearing? We can read these texts and think that they relate to some remote epoch that has nothing immediately to do with us, a “second coming of Christ” at the end of time. But the Greek word that is often translated as “second coming” is parousia, which means “presence”. It is an intensified kind of presence, formal and powerful. The appearance of a king at a state occasion is “parousia”.

So, then, what will the parousia, the presence, of Christ look like? According to Matthew’s account, Jesus tells these parables, his last teachings, “two days before the Passover”, that is, on Tuesday in Holy Week. In two days, Jesus will be betrayed, put on trial, and handed over to be crucified. The figure who is about to appear before the world is the Messiah, the Lord. And his authority will be shown to the world on the cross. The crucified Messiah is the Royal Presence, the parousia, which both judges and saves the world.

At the time that Jesus tells these parables, this is hidden from the disciples. They do not see the looming crisis, the shadow of the cross. Indeed, not until Jesus appears to them after his resurrection will they understand. Then, they will see how they were being prepared, and how they are now to live, in the time that is being judged and saved by the Presence of the Risen Victim.

These last parables need to be read with that sense of urgency, the impending revelation of the Son of Man, the one to whom all will give an account, on the cross. A sign of contradiction that will make many stumble.

Three slaves, then, are entrusted with their master’s property, each according to his ability. A considerable amount is given to them on trust: from one to five talents, a talent being a measure of gold worth about fifteen years’ wages for an ordinary labourer.

It is not, however, the amount of money, but what they do with it, that matters. Two go off and trade. That’s risky business. There is no guarantee of a good outcome, no security. But, they double their money, are entrusted with even more, and are invited into the joy of their master.

The third slave does what Jesus’ audience actually might have expected him to do: he buries the money to keep it safe. He was afraid of the master, but he was also trying to treat the gift he has received as his own possession, something that, if it was used, would be used up. All he can see is the risk of loss. The tragedy for him is that, in trying to turn a gift into a possession, he does indeed lose everything.

We are to read this story in the light of Jesus the risen Victim. Jesus is the one who risked not two or five talents, but everything. He is the one who gave up himself on the cross, in order to gain everything, by his death saving the whole world. And this is his joy, the joy of the Master. Hebrews says, “for the sake of the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God”.

The slaves entrusted with their master’s business are to be like their master, risking everything for the sake of his joy. This is the risky business of the Church in this time after the Resurrection, this time that is being judged and saved by the Presence of the Risen Victim.

The Church’s task of evangelism, being good news, is not about snatching individual souls from the wreck of a doomed world into the safety of a holy club. It is both more risky, and more joyful, than that. Evangelism was once described by the Pope’s Preacher, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, like this:

“Christian evangelization is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is the gift of God to the world in his Son Jesus. It is to give the Head [Jesus] the joy of feeling life flow from his heart towards his body, to the point of giving life to its most distant limbs.”

This is the joy of the Master, the joy for which he risked everything on the cross. If we try to keep the Church as a pure sect of the saved, walled off and safe from the dark and sinful world around us, then we end up like the slave who buried his talent in the ground. Not risking anything, not gaining anything, shutting out the possibility of entering into the Master’s joy.

The great gift of love is given to us, to be given away. Just as Jesus gave up everything out of love for the world, giving away everything to the furthest extent, to gain everything and so to enter into his joy. Love, the Love of the Master, is given to be risked and expended. Not hidden away and kept safe. You can’t do that with love. If you try, it stops being love.

The parable of the talents tells us what the task of disciples is, in this time that is being judged and saved by the Presence of the Risen Victim. Risk, because the gift we are given is love, to be expended. Joy, because by doing so the Master’s love flows out and brings life to the most distant limbs.

That is our task in this present time. The last of the parables of Jesus is about the ultimate value and meaning of this time. That is the story of the sheep and the goats, and we will hear that next week.

Sermon at Parish Mass Dedication Festival, 25th October 2020

 

1 Kings 8.22–30
Hebrews 12.18–24
Matthew 21.12–16

 

“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” – 1 Peter 2.5. The readings given to us for our Dedication Festival, and also, this year, for our annual meeting, give us three key messages about what it means to be built as living stones into a spiritual house.

Firstly, we are to be a community of welcome and inclusion. When Jesus entered the Temple and turned over the tables of the money changers, that was the action of a prophet. Instead of being a house of prayer for all nations, the Temple had become a robbers’ den. But, we are told, after Jesus had driven out the money changers, the blind and the lame had come to him in the temple and he healed them.

Now, according to the purity laws, the blind and the lame weren’t allowed in the temple, but here they are anyway. Jesus is showing what the Temple really should be about, the place where God is present and accessible for all people to heal and restore them. The corrupt money changers are driven out, those who should be in the temple are welcomed in. They come to Jesus anyway, and the religious authorities, who want to retain control, can’t do anything about it.

As our readings and the liturgy remind us today, this building, this house of prayer, is an outward sign of true Temple of God, which is a living temple, formed of all those whom Jesus is drawing to himself. He establishes a living temple in which there is no barrier to inclusion and welcome.

This is the first message to us as a Church: we are to ensure that there is no barrier to welcome and inclusion. We are to welcome all those whom Jesus is calling to himself. Before the pandemic we had been thinking about new ways of welcoming people, and discerning where we needed to become more inclusive. We will pick this up again as we adjust to this “new normal”.

The second insight is that we are to be a community committed to justice and the transformation of the world, when the experience of so many people is exile and alienation.

We heard today part of Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple, as it is imagined in the first book of Kings. In fact 1 Kings was written many centuries after Solomon, and his prayer reflects the experiences of Israel in that intervening time. In his prayer, Solomon goes on to ask that the Temple will always be the place where God hears the prayers of his people, even if they have been defeated by enemies, or there is drought or famine. He prays that foreigners, too, will have their prayers answered there. And even when God’s people are carried into exile far away, he prays that they can still turn to the Temple in their hearts and minds, and be heard.

Exile is a persistent theme in the Bible. The historical exile of the Jewish people in Babylon inspires much of the prayer and reflection, the lament and the praise, of the Old Testament. But it’s set in a bigger story of exile, humanity driven out from Eden, wandering on the face of the earth, seeking a true homeland that only appears at the end of the Bible, when the City of God appears from heaven for all the nations to be gathered in.

And exile, too, haunts our world. Refugees and migrants seeking a homeland. The sense of alienation and disempowerment, that afflicts so many in our society. It is true, as the Bible says, that here we are strangers and pilgrims, seeking a better country, the City that is to come. But it is also true, as Jeremiah says to the exiles in Babylon, that we are to seek the welfare of the city of our exile, to make it a good place to live in.

So the second message for us is that the Church, the living temple of Christ, is to be a refuge and a strength in this time of exile, known as somewhere where God is always present to hear, to save. The Church is called to contribute to the welfare of this present age, to be a voice for the voiceless, a presence to help build a fairer and more just world.

The third insight for us is from the reading from Hebrews, which tells us that we have come to what cannot be seen, the living kingdom of God.

Hebrews is all about signs and types, shadowy things, giving way to the reality they represent. The sacrifices and rituals of the old law are fulfilled in Christ. He initiates the new covenant in his own blood, the Eucharistic cup which is his life for the world. When we gather at the altar we are joining in Christ’s worship of the Father, which is why we can say that we join with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven, not visible to our senses, but the greater reality of which the Eucharist on earth is the sign.

But because we have come to what cannot be seen, Hebrews calls us to stay faithful. The first two insights for us were about what the Church does in the world: making inclusion and welcome, building a juster and fairer world. The third word is about what the Church is, the Body of Christ, the Eucharistic community living from his life.

This is the heart of the Church. If the Church becomes just a social enterprise, a human activity, then it withers and dies. “Cut off from me, you can do nothing”, says the Lord. Transformation comes from Christ, and begins with us. So above all we must be faithful and persistent, in worship and sacrament, to draw strength from what the Church is in Christ, for the tasks that the Church is called to do.

When we gather for the Eucharist we come to what we cannot see, but do believe, the living Kingdom of God, the thousands of angels and the saints made perfect. We are to persist, and stay faithful, in that heart of our life and worship. Confidence in our faith, in our worshipping tradition, in being living stones built into a spiritual house acceptable to God, that is where we will find the confidence to do, to welcome, to include, and to transform.

Location, location, location.

Sermon at Parish Mass Saints Peter & Paul 2020

 Banias (Caesarea Philippi), with niches for statues of deities: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Zechariah 4.1-6a,10b-14

Acts 12:1-11

Matthew 16:13-19

“When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’”

Location, location, location. Why ask that question, there?

Jesus travelled around quite a lot in the gospels, but most of the time he was either in Jerusalem in the south, or Galilee, in the north. Caesarea Philippi was further north than that. Jesus has taken his disciples deep into Gentile territory, and not just to any old Gentile town. Caesarea Philippi was an in-your-face celebration of pagan gods and the Roman Empire. Built around an ancient sanctuary of Pan, the horned god of nature and wildness, by the time of Jesus it was full of temples and shrines, cults and priesthoods serving the gods and offering sacrifices to their images.

It was also a place for the rich, full of luxury villas, in a cool valley watered by a mountain river, the perfect summer retreat. Philip the Tetrarch, the local ruler, had named it “Caesarea Philippi” in honour of Caesar Augustus and himself, and had put up the biggest and newest temple of all, in gleaming white marble, dedicated to Caesar. The Emperor, a mortal man who lived in Rome, was worshipped at Caesarea as a god.

To devout Jews, Caesarea was alien and shocking. But it was here that Jesus brought his disciples to ask them the crucial question: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ By asking that question there Jesus shows what is at stake. The disciples are faced by a choice, a decision. What is it that is ultimately true about the world? What are the highest values that we can embrace?

On the one hand, there was everything that Caesarea stood for: the worship of riches and power. In the Roman Empire might was right, and anything that you could achieve by power and force was permissible. There was no higher authority. The weak and the poor didn’t count.

But if Jesus is the Messiah, that is, God’s anointed leader, then the Roman Emperor is not. If Jesus is the Messiah, then the one he called “Father” is the one true God, the creator of all things, and him alone must we serve. If Jesus is the Messiah then his law is the highest authority: the law of love and compassion, especially for the poorest, the weakest, the most marginalized.

In this choice there is no middle ground. It is one or the other. So when Peter says to Jesus, “you are the Messiah”, he is making a bold and risky statement of faith. He is rejecting Caesar’s claim on the world, and choosing to follow Jesus as God’s true anointed leader. And he was doing that right there where Caesar was worshipped as a god.

Even so, Peter’s faith has not yet led him to full understanding. He sees that Jesus is the alternative to Caesar. But as the gospel goes on we will see that he does not yet see how very different those alternatives are. So when Jesus goes on to tell the disciples that he must – must – “undergo great sufferings… and be killed”, this to Peter seems to be nonsense, and he rejects it.

Peter imagines that if Jesus is to oust Caesar from his place of authority, then he has to operate in the same way as Caesar, only more powerfully. He has to be a stronger “strong man”, and conquer by force.

But Jesus is the love of God in person, come into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved. And the world needs saving, because the world is deeply resistant to love. The world, in the words of Saint Paul, is in slavery to sin and death.

Love, come into the world, can only win the victory and remain love by freely suffering what the world inflicts. Love has come to suffer the consequences of sin, so that the world might be freed from sin. And this means that Love, in the world as it is, must follow the way of the cross.

And so, too, must his disciples. Those who make the choice to follow Jesus, and not the powers of the world, are choosing to follow in his path of rejection and suffering and death. But we do so in faith that by sharing in Christ’s sufferings we will share in his resurrection. The way of the cross is none other than the way of life and peace.

This is the pattern that is marked on every Christian life, in one way or another, the truth that every person lives who has made the choice to follow Jesus. The choice for Christ. The choice for who will be Lord. The way of love, not the way of might.

This time next week we will be beginning to emerge from three months of isolation, beginning to re-engage with the world around us once again. We have lived through a time of great challenge and anxiety, but also a time of reflection on what our values are, on how we are going to live. A time to re-evaluate how we cherish both one another and this good earth that God has given us.

The way of Jesus, the way of love and self-giving, is something, then, that should permeate our daily lives and decisions as we take them up again. A conscious choice that we make as we go out into the world once again.

For example, in how we notice and care for the poor and marginalized. In being kind to others, especially when that’s an effort. In what we do with the power that money gives us. In our personal relationships, in how we seek the other’s good and deny ourselves. If we have authority because of our role at work or in our family, let us remember that authority in Christ means to serve, and never to exalt ourselves over against someone else.

As we resume daily life, every day will be full of choices, small but significant, little forks in the road. We can go one way and seek power and self-exaltation and our own satisfaction whatever the cost to others. Or we can go the way of Jesus, the way of love and compassion and self-giving. That is the way of the cross, even in little things, because it always costs us something, always involves self-emptying. But that is to choose what is ultimately true about the world. And that is to embrace the world, as we return to it, for the sake of Jesus, in faith, and hope, and love.

There is nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered

Sermon at Parish Mass, Trinity 2 2020

Planned monument to enslaved people in London. Not yet built. Source: bbc.co.uk

Jeremiah 20.7-13                    

Romans 6.1b-11                     

Matthew 10.24-39

About thirty years ago, I used to attend a church in the City of London, a church well known for its commitment to inclusion and social justice. In the baptistery, prominently looking at you as you went in, there was a bust of a local dignitary and philanthropist called Sir John Cass, who died in 1718, and with his wealth founded a school and a charitable foundation which are still going. I must have walked past that bust very many times without giving it a second thought.

On Thursday last week, the bust was removed from the church, after an emergency meeting of the PCC and a very rapidly granted Faculty from the Chancellor of the Diocese. Sir John Cass had made his fortune by trading in enslaved people. The sudden focus on public memorials has put figures like John Cass in the spotlight, and aspects of our history are being revealed that are deeply painful to acknowledge.

Jesus says in today’s gospel reading, “nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known”. But he warns that this uncovering will lead to conflict. Truth telling is not popular, the powers that be very often don’t want the truth told.

The issues around statues and public monuments are complicated of course. Everyone has done good and evil in their lives. But if a monument in a public space is effectively concealing the truth about exploitation and oppression, then the demand that the truth be told still needs to be addressed, somehow. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered.

The truth must be told. But that will not always be popular. It will lead to opposition, as Jesus clearly warns. In only a minor example, the church in London that removed the bust last week has been subjected to a storm of abuse on Twitter.

There is nothing new in this.  Jeremiah laments in the first reading today, complaining that God has overpowered him, and made him tell the truth that no-one wants to hear. Violence and destruction are at hand for the wayward people of Jerusalem, but they don’t want to see it or hear about it. If only they would repent and mend their ways. God wants to save them, but they won’t listen.

And in the Gospels, Jesus, the prophet who is the Truth in person, meets opposition. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Not a literal sword, of course. Later in the Gospels Jesus rebukes Peter when he tries to use an actual sword. In Luke’s version of this same passage Jesus says instead “I have not come to bring peace, but division”, which helps us understand the meaning as we read it in Matthew. A sword is a thing that divides, a symbol of division.

The mechanisms of oppression in the world tend to work in secret. There are the secret police of authoritarian states, and plans for persecution hatched behind closed doors. But there are also the secret mechanisms in our own hearts by which we collude with oppression, and don’t even know we’re doing it.

Do we see the victims of oppression? Do we see what we are doing, and our own need to change? The call to repent, to change, is the beginning of the gospel. To examine the depths of our hearts in the light of God’s searching but kindly Spirit, to uncover our own sin in order that we can know the deeper truth that we are loved. If we read the scriptures only as addressed to other people and their need to repent, then we are missing step one: what is this saying to me?

Jesus, the Truth in person, has come into a world of falsehood and oppression. His truth exposes what the world is, uncovers its division and violence, all the ways in which its security is maintained, precariously, not with peace but with a sword. His truth calls the world to repentance. His truth calls us to repentance.

And Jesus forms around him a community whose task is to tell the truth. First of all, the truth that involves searching our hearts, confessing our sins, and following the path of repentance. But then, also, because we have learned to tell the truth about ourselves, we are called also to tell the truth about injustice and oppression. In spite of the risks and the opposition. And Jesus promises his community of truth-tellers that we will know the truth, and the truth will make us free.

The Church fails in this, often. Most recently we may think of the ways in which many senior figures in the Church ignored or covered up allegations of sexual abuse by clergy. And the current debate about statues reminds us of the past collusion of many prominent church figures in the slave trade. In Germany in the 1930s many Christians seemed to sleep-walk into the rise of Nazism, not noticing or wanting to notice what was going on.

Many, but not all. In every generation the Spirit of Jesus in his Church raises up some who are valiant for truth, who speak out prophetically in spite of what it might cost, for it might indeed, as Jesus says, cost them their lives.

The first stage in following Jesus in the path of truth, is to examine ourselves, to let ourselves be examined and judged by the Spirit speaking through the scriptures. We can’t just look back and say, well, they got it wrong in the past, but we are better than that.

We might ask, how will we our generation be judged, in a century or two? Whose statues will be taken down in years to come? Yesterday the Pope added a new invocation to the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Comfort of Migrants, pray for us.” A fitting title for Mary, who with Joseph carried her Son into Egypt, a refugee from Herod’s murderous rage. But are we, is our nation, a comfort of migrants?

Again, are we listening to those prophetic voices who warn us about the consequences of climate change, and the abuse of the environment? Or about the relentless rise of inequality and exclusion? Those voices that lament, “all is not well with you”, the voices like Jeremiah that society does not want to hear.

But the Gospel is good news, and the good news is that truth-telling is the beginning of repentance. And repentance is the only sure beginning of true and lasting peace, for building that justice in which all may live. The voice of truth calls us to repent, but also says to us, “Do not be afraid… What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops”.