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”.

What stories will we tell about this time, when it is over?

Sermon at Parish Mass, the First Sunday after Trinity 2020

Vincent Malo  (1585–1649): Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt
Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie de Châlons-en-Champagne
Via Wikimedia Commons

Exodus 19.2–8a                     

Romans 5.1–8                        

Matthew 9.35 – 10.8

What stories will we tell of this time, when it is over? What will those stories tell about who we are?

I remember my parents’ stories of the war, and my grandmother’s, too. Stories of resilience, hopefulness, comradeship. Stories of everyday life, keeping going, make do and mend, the inventive recipes of rationing. The time when all the windows got blown out, but the family was ok in the Anderson shelter. Not much about the dark times, the terrible threat of Nazism, or the global struggle. Historians tell us that there was a lot of crime and disorder in society at large, that the “blitz spirit” was largely a myth. But those weren’t the stories that I heard. The stories we tell about ourselves are about remembering who we are, and when people go wrong it’s because they’ve forgotten who they are.

What stories will we tell about this time, when it is over? What will those stories tell about who we are? Yes, there’s a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty in our lives at the moment. Yes, there’s tension, threat and violence on our streets, a cry for justice amid racism and inequality. But I hope the stories we’ll be telling in 20 or 40 years will be about how we got through, how things got better, and how in the midst of it we didn’t forget who we are. We will have learned more about who we are in this testing time., and our stories are about remembering who we are.

The people of Israel knew who they were because of the stories they told. The story of Exodus, liberation from slavery in Egypt, yes, but liberation into 40 years of wandering in the desert. Not knowing where they were going or when they would get there. Following Moses like sheep following a shepherd. And not always making a very good job of it. But learning to follow, learning to trust the one God who had revealed himself to them, learning to believe even in the darkness and the unknowing of the journey.

Exodus is the story that has been passed on. It’s what tells the people of Israel who they are. It’s not all of what happened. Archaeologists tells us that the arrival of peoples in the land that became Israel was more complicated, a series of migrations over a long period. But the identity of the people, as they looked back, is found in the story of slowly learned trust that was the story told in Exodus.

Cut forward many centuries, to the time of Jesus. The story is the same. The identity of the people of Israel is found in the slowly learned trust of the time of wandering and testing. But they had lost the thread of their own story. Occupied by the Romans, the ordinary people abandoned by the religious leaders. The crowds were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. They didn’t know who they were or where they were going. And Jesus had compassion on them. Like Moses of old. It’s a comparison that Matthew’s Gospel often makes, Jesus is the new prophet like Moses of old, the new Shepherd sent to guide and save the sheep of Israel like Moses in the Exodus.

So, Jesus sends his disciples, and they are named, twelve of them. Just as the twelve tribes of Israel had been named in their story. Naming them is the first part of giving them back their story, so the people can remember who they are. They are sent to the lost sheep of Israel, not to the Samaritans or the Gentiles. Those will come later, they will be included in Israel’s story, the revelation of the one God, the salvation that will reach to the ends of the earth. But Israel has to remember its own story first, before other nations can find their place in it.

The disciples are sent to cleanse, to heal, to cast out demons, all those powers of division and destruction that work against human flourishing. They are sent to raise the dead. Like Ezekiel of old, in the valley of dry bones that were the people of Israel, the people will be raised up, they will live. And because God’s Spirit moves, and they live, others will live as well.

The people will find their place once more in their own story. They will remember who they are.

Remembering. The word is the opposite of dismembering. Like the bones that came back together in Ezekiel’s valley, remembering is putting back together a body that it might live.

The Church continues that task of re-membering. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of re-membering, do this in remembrance of me. Putting back together and raising the dead, the story told at the altar that is our story, in which we find our place, in which Christ the good shepherd remembers who we are, making us his body, his ongoing story.

Healing, cleansing, casting out the demons of society. Which are very much in evidence at this time. We are broken divided, scared. The people are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. We need to remember our story, to remember how to trust in wandering and affliction. 

What stories will you tell of this time, when it is over? Anger? Violence? Fear? Division? I don’t think so. Those things are all around us, but they are not who we are. There are others stories to tell. There will be stories of sorrow and loss, of course, people gone from us, and fondly remembered. But they will be framed by stories of goodness, of remembering that things can be better, of kindness, good neighbourliness, love, clean air.

And there will be the ordinary human stories, of keeping calm and carrying on. Stories of empty tube trains, bad haircuts, and face masks as fashion statements. Going to church in your pyjamas. All the stories we tell, the great and the ordinary, will remind us who we are, all will be stories of learning to trust in the darkness of unknowing.

What story will we, the Church, tell of this time, when it is over? The story we always tell, the story of who we are, of who we are in Christ. Found, gathered, healed, cleansed. Re-membered. Redeemed. God’s people. In all this, still.

Sermon at Parish Mass, Trinity Sunday 2020

#BlackLivesMatter

Genesis 1.1-2.4                       

2 Corinthians 13.11-13           

Matthew 28.16-20

In a troubled and violent world, we might wonder, what is the use of Trinity Sunday? It can seem rather academic and abstract.  Is it a distraction from the real issues that affect real lives? Is it a puzzle to be solved, a cryptic crossword clue? Two across: “One and Three: seven letters.”

No. Trinity Sunday is not a puzzle, but an invitation to worship, to encounter the mystery of God who surpasses our understanding. Far from being distant from real life, this opens to us a true understanding of what life is all about.

The mystery of God speaks to us through creation, through the scriptures, through the readings we heard today. Genesis tells us, under the symbolic language of myth, the truth that God is the creator of all things, and that all things are good. The culmination of that goodness comes in the creation of humanity, “in God’s image and according to God’s likeness”. Male and female, in plurality and diversity, humanity bears God’s image.

The image of God in humanity means many things, and one is that plurality is an essential part of what God is and what humanity is. One nature, many persons. As God is a communion of perfect freedom, equality and love, so too humanity is meant to be. God’s purpose is that all humanity should come to share and reflect the life of God.

And yet our history tells us another story. Division, sin, greed, inequality, violence. One person dominating and oppressing another. And this is the tragedy of Genesis: the story of our fall. Created for freedom, freedom abused leads us into slavery. Slavery to our own passions, to our hatred. Slavery of one human being to another. This is not how it was meant to be. This is not the goodness for which we were created.

But the scriptures tell us that the Creator is also the Redeemer. The Father sends the Eternal Son to take our human nature to himself, to become the new Adam, to re-found humanity and so restore the image of God that was lost. And even to add to it what it never had before, participation in the Divine nature.

And the Eternal Son sends his Church into all nations, to gather all peoples into unity. “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The name of the Trinity is to be imprinted on humanity through its participation in Christ, restoring that communion of freedom, equality and love for which we were created, as we read in Genesis, by which we reflect God’s image.

Getting our worship of God right, and getting humanity right, go together. Although God surpasses our understanding, nevertheless, what we say about God matters. This is why we speak in very specific terms of the Trinity. One God, Three Persons. Each Person equal to the others.

This is why the Creed says some very specific things, too. About the only Son of God, for instance, we say that He is:

“Eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”

You might wonder where these words come from. Well, the Church, around the fourth Century, found it necessary to say these very specific things as a correction to understandings of God that had become distorted, unbalanced and wrong. And the danger is that if you get God wrong, you get humanity wrong, too.

Quite a number of people wanted to say, for instance, that the Son was inferior to the Father. He wasn’t really God on the same level, and had a subordinate role. This idea of God was particularly popular with emperors. If humanity reflected the image of God, then they wanted a God who was more like a chain of command than a communion of freedom and equality. One monarch at the top giving the orders, those beneath obeying.

And against that the bishops of the Church had to insist, in the words we now read every Sunday in the Creed, that this was not what God was like. The Son is equal to the Father. The Son obeys the Father’s will, yes, but in perfect freedom. And this was not just an abstract or academic question. It matters, because if you get God wrong, you get humanity wrong, too. These things had to be said, as a correction to things that had become unbalanced and wrong.

Emperors, then and now, have tried to co-opt God to support their own erroneous view of power. So there is nothing particularly new in a President clutching a Bible for a photo opportunity in front of a church he’d just cleared with tear gas. But grabbing the power, one way or another, is getting God wrong, and so getting humanity wrong, too.

We’ve focused very much on one particular way in which humanity has gone wrong in these last two weeks. George Floyd was a precious member of humanity made in the image of God. His killing damages all of humanity. As with so many other black and minority people who have suffered violence and oppression, it is the very image of God that is insulted and abused when equality and freedom are denied. Black lives matter. That needs to be said. It isn’t enough to say that all lives matter, because that is to avoid the place where our understanding of humanity has become unbalanced and wrong. Just as every clause in the Creed needs to be said, to stop us getting unbalanced and wrong about God.

Black lives matter. To say that is to affirm the image of God in humanity, and therefore it is Christian doctrine. Non-negotiable. Absolutely so, in the face of systemic racism, violence, and oppression. But, also so, in the more general and subtle ways in which society tends to order itself to the advantage of those who are already privileged. And that is all around us.

In these troubled times, for example, hard questions will need to be asked about why the death rate from Coronavirus is so much higher in black and minority communities. A question that cannot be addressed without looking also at issues of opportunity, exclusion, and wealth distribution. Black lives matter. That needs to be said. Because if we fail to see that black lives matter, then we fail to see the image of God in humanity, and we fail to co-operate with Christ in restoring that image. Because freedom, equality and love, for all people, is the image of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Church can never compromise or give up on that vision.