Sermon at Parish Mass, Fourth Sunday before Lent 2017

Isaiah 58.1-9a;

1 Corinthians 2.1-12;

Matthew 5.13-20

As I’ve mentioned in a previous sermon, back in December I was an invited guest at the Civic Service in Muswell Hill Synagogue. It was the Sabbath service, and the culmination of it is the reading from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, the books attributed to Moses.

The Torah is read with much the same kind of ceremony as we read the Gospel at Mass. The beautifully decorated scroll is collected from its special place of storage, carried in procession and proclaimed from an elevated pulpit. The Torah is read through systematically week by week, but the prophets – what for us are the other books of the Old Testament – are only read in short extracts, as commentary on the Torah. Much as we read short extracts from the prophets and the epistles as commentary on the Gospels.

In Judaism, the Torah is the most important part of the Bible as it is the record of the definitive encounter between God and humanity. Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, and spoke to God “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend”, as Exodus puts it. The other prophets may have had visions, dreams, voices in the night, but they did not speak to God like that. The rest of the Bible is read in reference to that definitive encounter, and as pointing back to it.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus goes up a mountain to teach. This is part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’s extensive teaching about the Kingdom of God. Matthew’s Gospel places this on a mountain. In actual fact the probable site beside Lake Galilee is not much more than a small hill, but it becomes a mountain because of the significance of the message proclaimed on it.

Matthew is drawing a parallel between Jesus and Moses. Moses encountered God on a mountain and brought down the Law. Jesus, too, delivers his law on a mountain. But unlike Moses, who received the Law on tablets of stone, the law that Jesus delivers is himself. The Sermon on the Mount, above all, describes who Jesus is.

Jesus is the law in person. Here is a second definitive encounter between God and humanity. But while Moses spoke to God face to face, Jesus is God and man in one person, the most definitive and complete encounter that there can be.

A Jewish Scholar, Rabbi Jacob Neusner, studied the Sermon on the Mount and wrote an imagined dialogue between himself and Jesus. He recognizes the greatness of what Jesus teaches, and its rootedness in Jewish tradition. Then he imagines himself on his way back from the mountain, trying to explain what he had heard to the Jewish leaders of a nearby town.

He quotes to them from the Talmud, ‘Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses… David came and reduced them to eleven, Isaiah came and reduced them to six, then to two. Habakkuk further came and based them on one, “The righteous shall live by his faith”

‘So, he is asked, “is this what the sage, Jesus, had to say?”
‘Not exactly, but close.’
‘What did he leave out?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then what did he add?’
‘Himself.’

Rabbi Neusner recognizes the claim that is being made, that Jesus is the Law in Person, that he is in himself the new definitive encounter between God and humanity. And this is where Rabbi Neusner, with the greatest respect, says that he has to remain, as he puts it, “with the eternal Israel” and not follow the teaching of Jesus.

Christians must not have any less respect for Judaism than Rabbi Neusner has for Christianity, as it is indeed the rootstock from which have sprung and the stem into which we are grafted. We read the Bible in the same way that the Jewish faith does, as referring to and depending on a definitive encounter with God. But for us that encounter is no longer Moses on the Mountain, but Jesus.

It is Jesus that the Bible speaks of and points to, it is Jesus that the Bible is leading us to. He is the definitive encounter between God and humanity, and we are called into that encounter ourselves.

If that were not true, the Sermon on the Mount would be an idealistic dream, impossible to attain to. “You are the light of the world”, says Jesus to his disciples today. But is not Jesus himself the light of the world? Indeed he is, as he says in John’s gospel. And the Church, alas, through human sin so often obscures that light. But nevertheless, in Christ the Church is the light of the world, because he is the light, and if we are in him then we will be light too. Likewise it is only in Christ that our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, because if we are in Christ then his righteousness is ours.

As we saw last week at the presentation of Jesus in the temple, Jesus is the new Adam, the representative human, who presents the whole of humanity in himself as an acceptable offering to the Father.

So the Sermon on the Mount is a call to righteous living, but it is first of all a call to abide in Christ, the righteous one. By faith and baptism we are adopted in him and accepted by the Father as his beloved children. Our identity in Christ is nourished and strengthened through prayer and the Eucharist. Repentance turns us back to Christ when we have turned away and tried to live apart from him.

True Christian life is life in Christ, neither more nor less. It is sharing in the definitive encounter between God and humanity that Jesus is in person. The Bible leads us and points us to that encounter, but it is Jesus himself, the living Lord, who makes it real. “You are the light of the world”, says Jesus to us. And that is true, insofar as we are living in Christ through faith. The world needs that light, today more than ever. So the world needs us to live and grow and be rooted in Christ.

How are we to do that? It’s the same prescription as always, but it’s never out of date. By faith and baptism we are adopted in Christ; by prayer, Eucharist and repentance we are nourished and grow into him.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, says St John. The light of Christ is transformative. We are drawn to that light ourselves, and so become light, agents of transformation in the world. This is not about ritual observance, but about actually banishing the forces of darkness in the world, injustice, oppression and exclusion.

As Isaiah puts it in our first reading, “your light will break forth like the dawn”, and this happens when you “loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, cover the naked.”

The light shines in the darkness, and we are that light, in Christ. So we are not to be afraid or discouraged even if the darkness seems to be intensifying. The beauty and radiance of the light shines out all the more clearly, and reaches further, as the darkness deepens.

The newly baptized are given a candle symbolizing the light of Christ, and the words spoken at that moment remain valid for us throughout our lives: “You have received the light of Christ; walk in this light all the days of your life. Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.”

Sermon at Parish Mass, Presentation of Christ in the Temple 2017

Malachi 3:1-5
Hebrews 2:14-end

Luke 2:22-40

A couple of weeks ago we welcomed Year One from Hollickwood School on a visit to the Church. It was great fun and the children had a very educational hands-on visit.

Now I knew from previous school visits that one of the first things the children would notice and ask questions about was the great crucifix that hangs over the altar. “Why is Jesus on the cross?”, they would ask, and they did. But it’s not really possible to answer that question without talking about who Christians believe that Jesus is, and the story of his life and teaching.

The Cross is part of that story, but not the whole. So we also got out the figure of Baby Jesus from the Christmas Crib, and the statue of the risen Jesus that stands in the Easter garden.

All of the events of the life of Jesus are part of the story of who he is and how he is redeeming us. The event we commemorate today is part of that, the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, forty days after he was born.

The liturgy takes us through all the events of our salvation, year by year. And the forty days of Christmas are occupied chiefly with Christ’s infancy: his incarnation in the womb of Mary, his birth at Bethlehem, his circumcision, the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and now finally his Presentation. Jesus arrives in the Temple. He is recognized by Simeon and Anna as the Messiah, the hope of Israel and the light of the nations. But he is also the Son of Man, the new Adam, the representative human. In him all of humanity is presented to the Father as an acceptable offering, and by that offering all of humanity is redeemed.

The whole of Christ’s life is redemptive. Not just his atoning death on the cross and his glorious resurrection, though that is the culmination of his work. His incarnation itself is the foundational work of our redemption, God becoming human, God meeting us where we are. It is a truth of faith that in all the events of his life Christ was working our redemption[1].

This goes hand in hand with another truth of faith, that the whole of human nature is joined to God in the incarnation of Jesus, and raised in his resurrection.

In time we experience our lives as sequential moments, one after another. But in eternity all moments are equally present, and God is all in all. It follows then that all of the life of Christ and his whole saving work from beginning to end is included in his resurrection and is present in eternity.

This is why the liturgy takes us through all the events of the life of Christ in the course of a year. We are not simply recalling these as events in the past; we are accessing them by grace as present realities. The virtue and saving power of Christ’s redeeming work is communicated to us as we meditate on all its different aspects through the course of the liturgy.

From this follows a third great truth of faith: because God has joined all of human nature to himself in Jesus, the whole of human life from beginning to end is invested with immense and eternal dignity.

One of the most revolutionary ideas of Christianity was that all human beings equally were invited into the new relationship with God that Jesus makes possible. Including those whom the ancient world regarded as non-people: slaves; subjugated peoples; to some extent women; and children. The slave or the child can attain to union with God just as much as the Emperor on his throne. In fact, rather more easily, as God in Jesus shows himself to be on the side of the weak, the powerless and the excluded. As Jesus said, if you do not change and become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus is presented in the Temple, all of human nature is presented in him and made an acceptable offering to his Father, and in particular those who by faith and baptism are adopted in Christ as children of God.

Children are just as much part of that offering as adults and everyone else. All the baptized are fully members of the Church of Jesus Christ, without distinction. Children just as much as adults. After all, it is Christ the forty-day old child who presents humanity to his Father in the Temple today.

If baptized children are fully part of the new life in Christ, then they should take part in that new life as fully as their age and understanding permits. Especially in the celebration of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Body of Christ.

In ancient times, children were admitted to communion from the moment of their baptism, and this is still the practice in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. But the Western Church moved away from this over the centuries, so it became the normal pattern for communion to follow confirmation, usually from the teenage years onwards.

There has now been a partial move back towards the ancient practice. The Roman Catholic Church for about a century has admitted children to communion before confirmation, from around the age of seven, that is, as soon as they can understand the difference between the Eucharist and ordinary food and drink.

This was also the position of the great Anglican Divine George Herbert in the 17^th Century. “The time of every ones first receiving is not so much by yeers, as by understanding: particularly, the rule may be this: When any one can distinguish the Sacramentall from common bread… hee ought to receive, of what age soever.”[2]

This is now increasingly the practice of the Church of England. Admission to Communion before confirmation is allowed parish by parish, with the bishop’s permission, and following appropriate preparation for the children. Bishop Rob in our own area is very keen to encourage this, and our PCC is planning to ask him for permission. But first it does need to be explained to the parish, and people need to be happy with the idea.

This feast day seems a good occasion for setting out the thinking behind this. After Mass, please join us for coffee and we can talk through the practicalities, and answer any questions that people may have. For now, we continue with our celebration of the Eucharist. Today Jesus the child presents the whole of humanity to his Father as an acceptable offering. The whole church, in him, is called to participate as fully as possible in the life of grace. And that includes our children.

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[1] As set forth, for example, in the Litany in the Book of Common Prayer:

‘By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, Good Lord, deliver us.

‘By thine Agony and bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, Good Lord, deliver us.’

[2] George Herbert, “The Country Parson”, Chapter XXII.

Sermon at Parish Mass Epiphany 3 2017

Isaiah 9:1-4

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23

It was an inauguration, but not like any seen before. The people there were not the usual suspects you would have expected to see, in former times. The new leader broke with precedent, speaking with blunt directness to the crowd, calling to anyone who would listen. What did he say? “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!” Who was he? Jesus, the Messiah. Where was he? Not in the centre of power, not in the sacred city of Jerusalem, but out in the provinces, up north. Specifically, in Galilee.

We heard today the account from Matthew’s Gospel of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. One of Matthew’s trademarks is the way he connects everything that Jesus does with the Old Testament scriptures, and he sees the move of Jesus to Galilee as fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah that we heard as our first reading.

That passage of Isaiah is a wonderful poetic passage, but also a bit unexpected. Galilee of the nations, that is “of the Gentiles” was regarded by the religious elite as not quite proper. It was a melting pot of cultures and peoples, with open borders, and through it ran the “way of the sea”. That’s not a piece of poetry but the real name of a road, just like the M1 or the North Circular. It was the most important trade route connecting Syria and Asia in the north with Egypt and the prosperous African coast in the south. And along that trade route came all sorts of people from every land.

It’s really significant that Jesus inaugurates his ministry there, a long way from the centre of power in Jerusalem, but right in the middle of a mix of cultures and peoples, a place with open borders with people coming and going from all over the world.

Trade routes, like the “way of the sea”, were very important to the spread of the gospel immediately after the time of Jesus. Trade was the main reason for travel, and some of those who travelled were believers in the Gospel, ambassadors for Jesus Christ. Christianity spread out on the map, fanning out along the main trading routes and becoming established in every major city on the way. And then each city where a church started to grow became a new hub from which Christians travelled to new places.

As the Gospel travelled, it adapted to the new cultures it encountered along the way. The essential truth always remained the same, the world is saved through Jesus. But that truth was expressed in ways that people could relate to, as the frontiers of the gospel expanded further into the world.

We can even see this in the four gospels themselves, which were written down around forty to sixty years after the time of Jesus. The gospels were written in Christian communities in different places, with different cultures, facing different issues. This week we heard Matthew’s account of the call of the first disciples, and you may have noticed that it’s different to John’s account which we heard last week.

We can infer from John’s gospel that its community included former disciples of John the Baptist, as well as Samaritans and Greeks. It’s a community in which those people are significant. So John’s gospel tells the story of how those people come to be disciples of Jesus, and the first of them do so when John points out Jesus to them.

But Matthew’s gospel was written in a more Jewish community facing opposition from the religious elite, so Matthew is concerned to explain how faithful Jews can also be followers of Jesus, even if that comes at a personal cost. For Matthew it is the compelling attraction of Jesus himself and his message that is enough for people to leave everything and follow him.

Like the first disciples, our call is to follow Jesus, and make the gospel known, in the culture and context in which we find ourselves. The frontiers of the gospel are all over the place today, and its expression needs to be clear and accessible for all of them. London is in many ways a global city, a bit like Galilee of the nations. People come here from all over the world, and go out to the world from here as well. And Christians come and go carrying the gospel – alongside those who live here full time.

Today trade is still very important of course, but alongside trade routes like the “way of the sea” there are new highways along which people travel. The networks in which we are involved extend beyond the places in which we live. Like the first disciples in Galilee work and business can take us to many places. But we also have the internet and social networks that connect us to the whole world. We are Christians in those networks, as well as when we are in Church on Sunday. We are ambassadors for Jesus Christ wherever our daily lives take us, 24/7, following him where he calls as did the first disciples.

We are to attend to the culture and context in which we find ourselves, to make sure the expression of the Gospel is suited to our times, so that the eternal truth of salvation can be heard, and is accessible, to the people we encounter. The frontiers of the gospel are not far away on the edges of the Empire, but right where we are.

Like the first disciples, we do not know where we will end up. Or call is to follow. Whatever may happen in the world in the next few years, the Gospel has open borders, and disciples are to follow Jesus everywhere. And whatever threats or anxieties may menace our world, we have a different message, a message for every place, every culture, every time. For the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.