Sermon at Parish Mass 2nd Sunday before Lent 2018

Icon of Holy Wisdom, State Museum of Arts, Almaty

Proverbs 8.1,22-31

Colossians 1.15-20

John 1.1-14

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light.”

The BBC News channel has a rolling programme called “Witness”. Described as “The story of our times, told by the people who were there”, yesterday’s example featured “the son of the man who invented Lego and the biologist who was the first to discover whalesong”.

A witness is someone who tells the truth about what they have seen and heard. John the Baptist was a witness to the light that was coming into the world in Jesus Christ. Other people it seems can be witnesses to Lego, or to whalesong.

These witnesses may seem poles apart, but what connects them is a commitment to the truth. It is discovered that whales sing. Lego is a product of human creativity and ingenuity. Both things depend on truth, on being able to speak reliably about what is seen and done.

John the Baptist witnessed to the light, the Word through whom all things came into being, full of grace and truth. Here is the truth that undergirds all others, the foundation of all others. The universe is rational, consistent and truthful. But why? The universe points beyond itself to a mystery, which is itself truth. Why indeed is there anything at all, instead of nothing?

The Gospel names that mystery as a Word, an utterance, from one who is altogether other than the universe. The Word was in the beginning, and all things came into being through him. The Word through whom all things were made, and the truth of the things that are made, go together. They cannot be contrary to each other.

There can be nervousness in religious circles about science and faith. A couple of weeks ago I was at an event of Sion College, an organisation that attempts to improve the clergy. We had a lecture about the origins of the universe at the Royal Astronomical Society, followed by a discussion.

There were a lot of positive comments about the event and the need to hear more about science and its interface with faith. But there was also anxiety. One priest said to me that we should have an event on evolution, because, he said almost in a whisper, “I believe in it”. Now there’s something not quite right if a clergyman is nervous about admitting to a belief in evolution.

Yes we believe in God as Creator. But when we watch those marvellous science and nature programmes on the TV, or take the children to the Natural History Museum, do we subconsciously shut our faith away in a separate part of our minds? As though, if we look too closely, it might all fall apart? Are we afraid that the truth of our faith might be undermined by the truth we observe in the world?

Faith should tell us that science and faith cannot be contrary. The truth of God as revealed to us in Jesus is not somehow going to speak against the truth of the things that have their being through him, which is what science studies. All truth is from God, whether it is the loftiest heights of theology, or the way in which life evolved, or the discovery of whalesong.

In some years on this Sunday we have a creation story from Genesis, but this year we have the figure of Wisdom from the Book of Proverbs. Wisdom belongs to a different tradition to the Adam and Eve story. She is a personification of God’s creativity. Her characteristics are order and inventiveness, beauty and delight. For the scriptures, it is impossible to speak about God’s creativity without getting personal like this. The creator is not a blind force doing stuff by chance, but a person, with a purpose.

As Jews spread into the Greek speaking world their idea of Divine Wisdom encountered the Greek idea of the Word. Greek philosophers described the logical principle behind the universe as the Word, the Logos. But they did not know what the Word was. They supposed it to be perhaps an impersonal force, like a kind of sorting machine. But, to Jews, it sounded like the Divine Wisdom. This thinking was around when the first Christians were reflecting on who Jesus was, so that the author of the fourth Gospel could say, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”.

The Gospel points to Jesus and says, here is the Divine Wisdom, the creative personification of God. Here is the Word, the rational principle behind the universe. Here is the truth, from whom all truth proceeds, and to whom all truth refers. And he has become one of us. Created human nature has been joined to the nature of the Word who created all things, in one Person.

Other parts of the New Testament affirm this, too, like the passage from Colossians this morning: “Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created”.

The incarnation raises our created human nature to union with God, and sets our rational questing after truth at the pinnacle of creation’s yearning for God. Far from being contrary to faith, the quest for reason and truth leads us to the truth in person, Jesus.

Faith is a gift from God. Science and reason can take us to the borders of mystery; but to go further, that mystery must reveal itself to us. Christian faith says that Jesus is that revelation, the culmination of all that has gone before in the law and the prophets, and in all the insights and feelings after God that every human culture and religion has known, as Paul says to the Athenians in Acts 17.

This invests human nature with an exalted dignity that comes not from ourselves but from God. The mysterious saying of Genesis, that humanity is made in the image of God, is fulfilled in Jesus who is God’s image of himself. This compels us to attend most carefully to the truth of the human person. Every human being bears the image of God, even if impaired and obscured case by sin. Every human being shares the human nature that was united to God in the Word made flesh.

Therefore truth, human truth, really matters. Equality and inclusion are not, for Christians, founded in political correctness, but in the incarnation. Every human being, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, disability or age, is called into union with God in Jesus. Every person at every stage of life shares in the human nature that has been united to the Word.

And the truth that we speak and live really matters. Can we trust our politicians? This really matters. Can I know that so-and-so loves me? This really matters. Can I trust in the Creator’s holding on to our lives even in the face of death? This really matters. Both faith and reason require a commitment to truth. A lie is a tear in the fabric of the universe, and ultimately a denial of God.

So, then, trust in the truth, and bear witness to the truth. That is, be truthful, and do not be afraid of the truth. Do not shrink back from new discoveries and knowledge, which can only bear witness to the Creator, even if in ways we did not expect. Hold all human life in profound reverence. All truth comes to us from God, revealed in Jesus, and leads us back to him. And every new discovery, whether in the world of science or in our lives as human persons in relationship, is a wonderful affirmation of the truth who called us into being, and calls us into union with himself.

Sermon at Parish Mass Epiphany 2 2018

1 Samuel 3.1-10

Revelation 5.1-10

John 1:43-51

We’ve tidied away the Christmas tree, tinsel and lights, but for the Church the season of Epiphany continues until the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, in two weeks’ time. The theme of this season is revelation: God reveals himself.

This is part of God’s character. God is not a remote being who set the universe into motion and then left it to get on with things. God is the creator who remains intimately involved in the creation, calling creation into relationship with himself. God speaks. God makes himself known. But God turns out to be quite unlike human suppositions of what gods must be.

God’s unexpected revelation is a theme that connects our readings today. “The Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’”. But he did not know that God was calling him; he assumed it was Eli. God’s call came to him as something unknown.

In the book of Revelation the mystical scroll with its seven seals cannot be opened except by the Lamb who has been slaughtered. Humanity thinks that the gods demand sacrifices, and the book of Revelation is full of the ensuing violence. But it is the victim of sacrifice who opens the scroll and reveals God, the victim who appears in heaven on God’s throne, reversing human expectations.

Nathanael thinks that nothing good can come out of Nazareth. But Jesus tells him that he “will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”.  He is promised a vision like that of Jacob, the founder of Israel, who saw a ladder ascending to heaven. But in this case, Jesus says the ladder is himself. Even though he comes from the dull backwater of Nazareth, the last place Nathanael would expect.

The revelation of God is unexpected. God turns out to be unlike our human expectations of what a god must be. This is why Israel’s God was always so distinct. The gods of the other nations could be depicted and described: you knew what they looked like, what their job was, and what you had to pay them to do it. Not so the God of Israel, who could not be depicted or controlled, who remained a mystery.

The only image of God that could be accepted is the one that God produces of himself: his Word, his self-expression, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of the Father, who alone can truly reveal God because he is God. As John puts it in the prologue of his Gospel, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

Jesus says in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” St Irenaeus, commenting on this verse, says that it refers to all time, before and after the Word was born of Mary. “From the beginning the Son is present to creation, and reveals the Father to all.”

God has always revealed himself though his Word: in creation; through the inklings of the Divine that have come to all nations, religions and cultures, even if in obscure and partial ways; through the law and the prophets given especially to Israel. And lastly through the incarnation of the Son of God, God’s revelation of himself come among us as one of us.

It is the nature of God to reveal himself through his Son, and he has always done so. But that revelation is not simply imparting information about God. It is an invitation into relationship with God. “You will see”, says Jesus. In Biblical times, to “see” someone meant sharing in deep communion with them, an opening of the inner being each to the other. To see heaven opened, to see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man, is to be invited into his Divine life.

The promise that Nathanael would see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man refers back to Jacob’s ladder, but also looks forward, and foreshadows another wooden structure planted in the earth and reaching up to heaven – the cross. Because it is in the cross that we see heaven fully opened. As the Book of Revelation tells us, it is the slaughtered lamb who reveals God. It is on the crucified victim that we see the angels of God ascending and descending.

God places himself at the heart of our human violence as its victim, in order to undo our human violence. Out of the ruin that we have made, out of our insatiable pact with death, Jesus reveals the resurrection, the Father’s endless life pouring into the new creation. This is not what humanity has imagined that gods were like. Cults of sacrifice and violence have struggled with and obscured the revelation of God’s self-giving love. But on the cross the Word, God’s full and complete revelation of himself, once and for all disposes of those false accounts of God.

God’s revelation of himself is a call into relationship, a summons to follow. “Follow me”, says Jesus to Philip. And Philip not only follows but shares the invitation, he goes and finds Nathanael to tell him about Jesus. It is a summons to follow into the revolutionary change that comes from knowing the true and living God, made visible in Jesus, crucified and risen.

Followers of Jesus see heaven opened, and the love of God made visible in him. Jesus the victim, Jesus the Risen One, is the one on whom the angels of God ascend and descend. He is the ladder joining earth and heaven, he is the true and living way to the Father. It is he who calls to us, “follow me”.

And as the love of God draws us to him so it must draw others too. “Come and see”, says Philip. How much do our lives say that to others? How much do our lives speak of the attractiveness of Jesus, the compelling power of his love? Do our lives demonstrate the revolutionary change that comes from knowing the true and living God in whom there is no death?

“Come and see”, says Jesus. Come and see Jesus, heaven thrown open, the love of God made visible. Our lives, too, need to say, “come and see”. Like Philip, we are to share the good news of Jesus with those around us, not by empty rhetoric, but by a demonstration of lives changed by knowing Jesus.

In word and action, we are to give priority to the victims and the outcast of this world, because in Jesus we see God taking the place of the victim. In word and action, we are to live as those who believe in the resurrection and eternal life, because we are those who already share in that life through the sacraments and the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Those who follow Jesus will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. That is not a vision we can keep to ourselves.

Sermon at Parish Mass Epiphany 2018

Isaiah 60:1-6

Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6

Matthew 2:1-12

Who are they, these strangers from the East? We often see them dressed as kings, or at least as medieval people imagined foreign kings might look. But that is only because of the text from Isaiah this morning, about kings coming to the brightness of Israel’s dawn, and nations bringing gold and frankincense, a text that suggests a connection with the visit of the Magi.

In art, it is common to see one of them depicted as African, one Asian and one European, representing the three continents known at the time of Christ. But we are told only that they come from “the East”, or more poetically “the land of the sunrise” – which could be anywhere far away.

Look again at Matthew’s account. He doesn’t say that they were kings, or indeed that there were three of them. Our translation renders “Magi” as “wise men”, though even that is open to question – a plural word like this in Greek could mean a mixed group of men and women. 

The Magi are mysterious characters. Legend and art have built up a great deal of stuff that might be true, but all we know of them for sure is what we read in today’s Gospel reading. 

“Magi” is a term hardly used in the Bible, and when it occurs it refers to gentile practitioners of occult arts, like Simon Magus in the Acts of the Apostles or Balaam, he of the talking donkey, in the Book of Numbers. And indeed it was Balaam, ages before, who had prophesied the star that the Magi of Matthew followed: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near - a star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” . 

The Magi were gentiles, people from outside Israel’s story, strangers to the Law, the Covenant and the Prophets. And yet Israel’s story needs them for its completion. Called from outside, they become the first of the gentiles to find the fullness of life and truth that was promised, through Israel, for all the world. 

And they were learned people. They were both astronomers and astrologers, scientists who studied the heavens, and philosophers who sought the meaning of what they saw. In pre-modern times learning was not fragmented into separate branches the way it is today. They studied the universe as a whole, seeking meaning and purpose. 

These people who sought the meaning of creation were led by their studies to the Word made flesh, the Word through whom all things were made. These people who sought truth in their studies found him who is in person the way, the truth and the life.

But their journey required faith. They had to set out believing that there was more truth to be found by journeying, than by staying at home. Faith was needed to leave behind the culture in which their knowledge was the pinnacle of human achievement. Their assumptions took them to Herod’s court in Jerusalem – where else would a king be found? But faith was needed to move on from there, to leave behind the glittering palaces and strong towers, to turn their backs on the centre of power and seek an ordinary humble dwelling. Faith was needed to bow down in worship before a baby.

Yet this is what they did. Their science and their faith worked together, and brought them to Jesus. 

For them, as for us, there is only one source of truth, and that is God. All truth is from God, whether it comes to us through divine revelation embodied in the scriptures, or through science, philosophy, art, or everyday lived human experience. And because all truth is from God, it is nowhere contrary. And all leads back to him. The science of the Magi led them to Jesus, not away from him. 

Like the Magi, we need to be open to the truth, and not afraid to follow wherever it leads. When religion seeks to turn its back on truths that seem unexpected or unwelcome, it is making a fundamental mistake. All truth is from God. The chief priests and the scribes in Jerusalem knew the prophesy of the Messiah’s birth at Bethlehem. But they didn’t go there. The truth of Scripture should have converged with the truth uttered by these mysterious foreign visitors to lead them to Jesus. Instead they stayed where they were. Perhaps they were afraid, like Herod and the rest of Jerusalem, that a new king would threaten their place of power and privilege. 

This goes on, of course. When Darwin published his theory of evolution some Christians were very perturbed by what they saw as a contradiction with the doctrine of creation. And indeed some still are. But the best theologians accepted at once that the doctrine and the science were both true, testifying in different ways to the Word through whom all things were made.

Fundamentalism is a disorder that afflicts all religions. Its error is not so much that it is wrong, as that it isn’t right enough; it refuses to follow the path to the fullness of truth, because it thinks it has it already. Yesterday I saw a street preacher haranguing passers-by outside a shopping centre. His message seemed mainly to be rejection of anything that conflicted with his reading of the Bible.

But if we believe that all truth is from God, then that demands of us a deep and faithful engagement with all truth, whether it is familiar to us, or comes to us in the guise of a stranger from afar. Whether it is scriptural, or comes from science or lived experience, or the insights of other cultures.

At the start of the new year we are summoned by a star to embark on the quest for truth, which is the journey of faith. Truth brings us to Jesus, to fall down before him and worship. Of course truth does this, for worship, according to St Paul in Romans 12, is “logical”, worship in accordance with the Logos, the Word . All truth converges on Jesus, however strange or unexpected the path to him may seem.

But this is also a journey of transformation. Paul goes on to say, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds”. It’s no good knowing what the Bible says, or having any other accomplishment of knowledge, if we stay in Herod’s court, prisoners of our fear. The first journey of faith in the Bible was that of Abraham, and he was told “‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” . He wasn’t given a map or a timetable, and his journey had many unexpected turns and testing times. 

We do not know what lies ahead of us this year. The path we follow may take unexpected turns. We may be tested in ways we cannot foresee. But our call is to follow in faith, to follow the star of the truth’s unfolding, which will bring us in faith and worship to the fullness of truth made known in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

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[1] Numbers 24.17

[2] λογικὴν λατρείαν – Romans 12.1

[3] Genesis 12.1