Sermon at Parish Mass Ss Peter and Paul 2017

Zechariah 4.1-6a,10b-14

Acts 12:1-11

Matthew 16:13-19

On the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul we always read that famous passage in Matthew where Peter recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and in return is given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. But of course that’s only half the story. The second part of this scene doesn’t reflect so well on Peter, but perhaps it’s considered impolite to drag that up on his feast day.

What happens immediately after Peter’s confession of faith is this (Matthew 16.21-23):

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

Does this mean that Jesus has now rejected Peter, having just moments before chosen him as “the rock”? Does this mean that Peter has thrown away his chance to be the chief of the Apostles? No indeed. God never takes back his call, however much we may get it wrong.

What has happened is that Peter has misheard what Jesus has said. As with us, so often we hear what we want to hear, not what is actually being said.

What Jesus has said is, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”. But what Peter thinks has been said is, “you are Peter, and on this rock you will build your church”. Having recognized the Messiah, Peter thinks he has been put in charge of the Messiah project, and so intervenes when Jesus starts going off message.

But Peter is not in charge. Jesus is. And Peter is not to build the church, because Jesus will do that. And he will do it in his way, which is to say, God’s way, and not according to human thinking.

But Peter’s error doesn’t overturn his call by Jesus. Peter was always getting it wrong, concluding in the Gospels with his threefold denial of Jesus after he had been arrested. This does not mean that Jesus got it wrong when he named Peter as the rock. Part of what it means to say that Peter is the rock involves understanding how Jesus builds his church with weak, sinful, fallible human beings. Divine grace is not about denying who we are, but is about transforming who we are. In fact Divine grace is so transformative that way Peter gets it wrong again and again is intrinsic to the way in which the church is being built on him.

Part of what it means to be built as the church by Jesus is to learn how wrong we are. Peter the rock is not very strong or stable. The fact that the Church can be built on such a rock shows that it is Jesus who is building it, not Peter.

For Peter to be the rock, he has to learn to confess his sins. Confessing our sins is foundational to being the church. We might think of confession as something to get out of the way at the beginning of Mass, in the hope that we can spend the next hour before communion without being envious of our neighbour or irritated by our partner, and so on, and then go back to normal until the same time next week.

But no. The church is the people who confess their sins, because we are the people who confess that Jesus is our Saviour. Our sins, failures and weaknesses are the very stuff that God transforms by grace into the church. We bring our sins to church, not to forget about them, but to offer them to God as the raw material for his work of transformation.

By grace, a collection of sinners, precisely because they confess their sins, is transformed into the Church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

Confession of sin is not something we have to get out of the way before we can be apostolic witnesses, rather it is the apostolic witness in itself, part of what it means to be “one, holy catholic and apostolic”.

This is as true for the two Apostles we celebrate today as it is for us. Peter, who so often got it wrong, who denied Jesus three times the night he was arrested. That denial was not the end for Peter, rather it turned out to be the essential preparation for Jesus meeting him, risen from the dead, and asking him three times, “do you love me?” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep.” The ways in which Peter had tried and failed to build the church himself, all the ways he went wrong, were part in the end of the way in which Jesus built the church on him anyway.

And Paul, or Saul as he was originally, the violent fundamentalist persecuting the followers of Jesus, until he met the risen Lord on the road to Damascus and his whole world was shattered. He had in effect been trying to build God’s church or kingdom himself, in his own way. But grace came flooding in where Paul had striven for righteousness based on the law. Paul had been entirely wrong, and from then on he could do nothing but proclaim that grace in every nation. The way in which Paul went wrong was part of the way in which Jesus built the church through him anyway.

All four of the gospels speak of Peter’s denial of Jesus, it’s that important. The tale of Paul’s conversion is told three times in Acts, it’s that important. The discovery of our sin is the discovery of where God is meeting us in Jesus. The apostolic faith of course is a great edifice of doctrine, of creed and scripture, sacrament and order. But it begins with the confession of our sins. Because to confess our sins is to discover that Jesus is our Saviour. That is the apostolic faith, the witness of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

There are times when the human element of the Church seems very evident. Its sins and failures, all its attempts to take control and build the kingdom itself. All the ways in which it refuses the path of contradiction and suffering that Jesus calls it to follow. But Divine grace is so transformative that, rather than hindering God’s purposes, the very sins of the Church become the means by which Jesus builds the Church anyway. By hook or by crook, we become the people who confess our sins and so become the people who can tell, and live, the story of grace in the world. And so we are right to celebrate what Divine grace has done, not only for Peter and Paul, but for us too.

Sermon at Parish Mass, Trinity II 2017

The Prophet Jeremiah, Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel 

Jeremiah 20.7-13                    

Romans 6.1b-11                     

Matthew 10.24-39

Today’s readings are not exactly a recruiting campaign that would win a PR company any awards.

Jeremiah, enticed by the Lord – or perhaps “seduced” – has become a laughing stock, the words he must speak a reproach and derision all day long. St Paul says that “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death”. And Jesus says that his disciples can expect to be maligned, even killed, and will find themselves at the centre of a storm of division and conflict. God, it seems, does not promise anyone an easy ride.

And yet Jesus says, “do not be afraid”. Do not be afraid, even, of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. There is a lot about fear in today’s readings. Jeremiah says that “terror is all around”. Yet he speaks anyway, confident that the Lord who has given him the words to speak will also deliver his life.

What we are most afraid of tells us about our attachments, our priorities. What we most fear is the loss of what we are most attached to. Jesus tells us that we should be least willing to lose God, the giver of life, rather than the life that God gives. For what God has given once, God can give again.

This is part of what St Paul means when he says that we have been baptised into the death of Jesus, in order that we might be united with him in his resurrection. Those who follow Jesus are not to be afraid of death because, being identified with Jesus through baptism, they have already died. 

This is just as well, because those who are identified with Jesus will find, like him, that they are the centre of conflict, opposition, and division.  He has come to bring not peace but a sword. What does this mean? Surely Jesus preaches non-violence? Indeed he does, but that in itself is the cause of division.

Jesus speaks in a society that is ordered and controlled by fear and violence. Death is ever present as the ultimate social control. You upset the established order at your own mortal peril.

So what are you to do in such a world? Well you can accept that it is as it is, and be afraid as others are, and keep your head down. Nothing will get any better, but you might survive, even if you never actually really live.

Or you can oppose it in its own currency. Set violence against violence. How many revolutions, intent on creating a better world, have ended up simply replicating the old order of oppression under a new name?

Or you can choose a different society, a new way of being human, which is not controlled by fear, violence or death. This new society has as its deepest trust and enduring hope not any human construct or mechanism of control, but God, the Lord and giver of life. This society, which is called the kingdom of God, is what Jesus has come to preach. By its very non-violence, by its radical trust in God who cannot be killed, it stands as a reproach and a threat to all human societies ordered by fear and death. No wonder it is opposed.

Jesus is not himself the cause of division, rather he uncovers it. Division and violence have always been at the heart of being human. Even the family displays this. Jesus warns that he has come “to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law”. It sounds like an episode of the Jeremy Kyle show, but it is simply saying what being human has always been like.

This is not something outside ourselves, it is part of our story, part of what the Church calls “original sin”, common to all humanity. Attachment to the family, instead of God, risks simply trapping us in the old way of being human. I do wonder if those preachers who go on about the importance of marriage and the family have ever actually read the gospels. The family, as the smallest unit of human society, needs to be redeemed just as much as does a city or an empire. The Kingdom of God establishes a new family, whose principle of being is God’s self-giving love, and that is where our true identity is to be found.

Fear violence and division are still present in our world today. Even for people like us, who have the great blessing of living in a free and democratic society, that basic human mechanism of scapegoating and casting out is ever present. The peace and order of society are fragile. Where there is disagreement, we need to express it well, but with respect, and not demonise those with whom we disagree. In many ways our country is deeply divided, and needs healing. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury is advising the Prime Minister to set up a cross party committee on Brexit, in his words “to draw the poison out of the debate”. It is indeed troubling if negotiations that will deeply affect everyone in the country are being conducted in a spirit of acrimony and rivalry, instead of seeking the common good.

Similar things apply in our workplaces and family and personal relationships. The values of God’s kingdom teach us not to be attached to ourselves and our own interests, but to model the love of God by loving one another. The teaching of Jesus, again and again, is to give way to one another, serve one another, live out sacrificial love instead of dominating control.

To do this is simply to remember our identity with Jesus in his death and resurrection. This is absolutely true for all Christians through their baptism, but that sacramental reality is lived out in many ways. For many believers in the world today their identity with Jesus may actually mean persecution and death, and we must never forget that we are one with them in our prayers, even if not in our sufferings. And we will all die, one way or another. Our conformity to Christ will be perfected in the death of our bodies, even as it is also shown forth in the many metaphorical deaths and times of suffering that will come our way before then.

In all this, Jesus says do not worry. Do not be more attached to life than you are to God, the giver of life. For those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for the sake of Jesus will find it.

Sermon at Parish Mass, Corpus Christi 2017

Genesis 14.18-20

1 Corinthians 11.23-26

John 6.51-58

Before I was ordained I attended a church called All Saints Margaret Street, in the West End of London. It maintains a high standard of Anglo-Catholic practice and liturgy. One of the customs there is that, if someone cannot manage the steps up to the altar, the Blessed Sacrament is carried to them in their place at the time of communion. And when this is done, the people all kneel, in silence. No-one has told them to do this, they just do it anyway. It is a profoundly impressive act of wordless piety.

The story is told there of a member of the congregation who brought her friend, who was not a believer, to High Mass, to see what she made of it. Well she didn’t respond at the time, but years later, as she lay dying in hospital, that memory kept coming back to her: the people kneeling, in silence, as the Blessed Sacrament was carried into their midst. And as the image would not go away, she finally gave in, and called the Chaplain, and received the Blessed Sacrament before she died.

We have seen great tragedies recently, terrorist outrages and the terrible disaster at Grenfell Tower. As the Queen has said, “it is difficult to escape a very sombre national mood”. Amid so much that reminds us of the fragility and transience of life, we instinctively seek a life that is more than this life.

Down the ages countless souls have found that life hidden in the Eucharist, in the sacred host and the chalice. Scorned by the world, despised by its enemies, the secret source of life in the Eucharist continues undiminished through darkness and storm, the beating heart of the Church’s life, our bread for our pilgrimage, our food for eternity.

We do not have to understand or analyse – how could we? These are divine mysteries whose depth we can never exhaust. But, like the woman dying in the hospital, we know that here is what we need, more than anything in this world. Although the teaching of Jesus seems scandalous and incomprehensible to some, experience and belief teach us that here in the Eucharist is the eternal life we seek and need.

Through this food and drink we receive eternal life, for by it we abide in Jesus and he in us, and he abides in the Father who is himself life inexhaustible. Here is the bread of eternal life, the “medicine of immortality”, as St Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, cheerfully called it, while on his way to be eaten by lions in the Colosseum.

So we celebrate with joy and bring the best that we can to this, the one act of worship that Jesus gave to his church. This is the highest act of worship, for it is the worship that the Eternal Son offers to the Father, in which we participate. It is the world’s salvation, the perpetual memorial and making effective in every time and place of Christ’s offering of himself. As the prayer over the offerings on Maundy Thursday puts it, “as often as we celebrate the memorial of this sacrifice, the work of our redemption is accomplished”.

We do not do this for ourselves alone, but for the whole world. We offer material gifts of bread and wine, the work of human hands, and by that offering the whole world is embraced in Christ’s redeeming work. So we rightly offer the Eucharist not only for ourselves, but for others, those in all kinds of needs, the living and the departed.

Our celebration today expresses our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which is the belief of the Church in every age. Even Luther never doubted it. Without the Real Presence the Eucharist would be no more than a subjective act, like looking at an old picture or reading a historical novel: not actually an engagement with something real, but a mere reminder or commemoration of it.

We know that we cannot save ourselves, and something that happens simply in our minds cannot save us either. Jesus has to save us, and he does that in and through the Eucharist that he gave us, in which he is really, truly and substantially present. If Jesus isn’t in the Eucharist, he can’t save us through it. That he does, is assured us by the Prayer Book Catechism which tells us that the Eucharist is “generally [that is, universally] necessary for salvation”. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood”, says Jesus, “you have no life in you”.

And if there are those who turn aside from this teaching, who demand “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?”, we can answer, firstly, that this man is God, so he can do it, and, secondly, that he is the Truth, so we believe him when he says it.

The special rites we celebrate today, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction, are not indeed essential to the Eucharist. But they are part of the way in which our celebration and joy at this great gift overflows. This is a particular development in the Western Church, where things tend to be done more visibly than in the East.

It is a beautiful instinct that has led the Western Church to fashion the monstrance, for exposition of the Sacrament, in the form of a star or sunburst. Because here truly is the Daystar from on high, the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus himself, hidden under the outward signs of bread and wine for our salvation.

I recently read the novel “Laurus”, by Eugene Vodolazkin. Set in mediaeval Russia, though with some fluidity of time and space, it is an age of great peril and uncertainty, murder, plague, famine, violence and sudden death. But also an age of faith. Laurus is the life story of a man told in phases that pass from sinful youth, through penitence, to the wanderings of a holy fool and pilgrim, and finally that of a hermit living in a cave, with a tame bear for company.

The hermit gained a reputation for sanctity, and many people came to him for prayer, spiritual guidance, and healing. A rumour went round that he kept in his cave a supply of the elixir of life, the magical potion that confers immortality. And the more he denied this as nonsense, the more people believed it.

Eventually he gave in, admitted that he had the elixir of life, and told everyone to gather the next day, and bring their friends. A huge crowd assembled, anxious and jostling to get to the front, wanting to claim their dose of the magical elixir before it ran out.

The hermit emerged from his cave, beckoned everyone to follow, and led them through the forest, to the nearest church. He entered just as the morning service was reaching its climax, and the priest appeared before the altar carrying the Eucharist for Holy Communion. The hermit stood in front of the crowd, and pointed to the chalice. “The elixir of life is in there”, he said, “and there is enough for everyone”.