"The Church must be as powerless as God"

 Sermon at Parish Mass Lent 2 2022

 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Genesis 15.1-12,17-18

Philippians 3.17 - 4.1

Luke 13.31-35

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus is continuing on his way to Jerusalem, and there is a background of growing threat, which becomes explicit today when some Pharisees – so often cast as the bad guys – warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him. But Jesus is not yet in Jerusalem, and he tells the Pharisees, who seem only to want to help him, that he can’t be killed yet, as it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem.

As so often in the Gospels, Jesus’s prediction of his suffering and death must have seemed bewildering and distressing to those who were following him.

And then he speaks words of lament over the city, like so many of the prophets did of old, speaking not just of his own time but with the voice of centuries, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”. But these words are in one way different from those of the prophets. They passed on the word of the Lord that they had received, “hear the word of the Lord!”. But Jesus speaks in his own person. He, himself, is the Lord who has lamented over Jerusalem down the ages.

And then comes a most extraordinary sentence. “How often have I desired to…” What? If we hadn’t heard this text before, what would we imagine the Lord would want to do to this violent city that kills his prophets and stones his messengers? Punish it? Raze it to the ground? Force them to obey? But no. “How often have I desired to – gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

In the Old Testament, there are many images of God that evoke power and strength, but Jesus does not choose any of those. Instead he uses an image that does not appear in the Old Testament at all. A hen – which is weak, vulnerable, powerless. But totally committed to protecting her chicks regardless of the threat. Constantly gathering them together as they constantly try to scatter. The hen is an image of unconditional commitment and nurture that will not give up. But she is not an image of power.

God is totally committed to the human project. This is God’s creation and God will not give up on it. His mysterious covenant with Abraham will include all those who have faith in every age, who are more in number than the stars of heaven. God constantly desires to gather together a world that is constantly trying to fly apart.

But when Jesus ratifies this irrevocable covenant he does so in vulnerability and weakness. Jesus says that Jerusalem will not see him until you say “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”. The crowds will cheer on Palm Sunday. They will still be expecting a Messiah who appears in strength. Instead, God’s commitment to them will be shown in a man on a cross. Few will understand that this is how God’s love is shown to them.

The Church, like Jesus, is called to witness to God’s irrevocable commitment to humanity. The Church shares in God’s desire to gather humanity together like a hen gathering her chicks, in a world that is constantly trying to fly apart. But, like Jesus, this will so often be shown to the world in weakness, risk and vulnerability. In fragile acts of kindness and love that are always open to rejection. In the testimony of the martyrs down the ages whose weakness and death testify to God’s power. Even in the courageous witness of those Russian Orthodox priests arrested just last week for using their sermons to tell their people about the invasion of Ukraine, and to call for peace.

In the words of a great Russian Orthodox saint of a previous generation, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, “the Church must be as powerless as God”.

In the Diocese of London, we have a vision for the next eight years “for every Londoner to encounter the love of God in Christ”. We need to consider how we will do that in an age when the church has lost the power, prestige and privilege of former times. We can’t control much, any more. But encounters with love aren’t really something that can be controlled, anyway. A church that is in a position of weakness will find it much easier to be like a hen gathering chicks, than like a powerful lord telling people what to do.

We need to be attentive, then, to how our Diocesan vision is referred to or presented. There is nothing in it about power or control. There is nothing that says we want to turn every Londoner into a Christian, or to make everyone come to church. It is about people encountering the love of God in Christ, out there where the people are. Where Jesus has already gone ahead of us and is already meeting people with his love, whether they recognize him or not. 

To encounter the love of God in Christ is a risky, weak and vulnerable thing. It is the desire of a hen to gather her chicks. Not the desire of the powerful to make everyone conform or become like us. The Church must be as powerless as God. Which means to reject the vainglorious delusions of former ages with their power and privilege.

It means, also, to see through the all-too worldly managerial language of success, numbers and growth. Encounters with the love of God in Christ can take so many forms. Acts of kindness for lonely people. Building bridges of understanding between the many cultures and religions in our diverse city. Prioritizing those who are marginalized by a privileged society. Supporting the local foodbank. Giving to refugees whom we will never meet. We can’t really quantify those things. We can’t add them up and report them in our statistics for mission. But they are part of the mission of the Church, nonetheless.

This is what it means for the Church in this age to engage in the risky, weak and vulnerable business of a hen gathering her chicks. Constantly desiring to gather together a world that is constantly trying to fly apart. Witnessing to God’s love persistently, unconditionally, with irrevocable commitment, come what may. And that is to follow in the way of Jesus, and to make real in our discipleship his covenant commitment to the world God has made.

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

Mount Tabor. Photo: Matthew Duckett, 2010.

 

Sermon at Parish Mass Sunday next before Lent 2022

Exodus 34.29-35

2 Corinthians 3.12-4.2
Luke 9.28-36

A pilgrimage to the Holy land, if you have the opportunity to make one, can bring the stories in the Bible alive in a new way, with the insight that comes from being in the places where Jesus walked and taught, and seeing where the great events of salvation happened.

Some of the pilgrimage sites are well authenticated by history and archaeology. In Jerusalem, the places where Jesus died and was buried were venerated by Christians long before Christianity was officially tolerated, and are still there, in the exact spot, encrusted with the devotion of centuries.

Other pilgrim sites are rather more like representative places. We don’t know where the actual site is, but a shrine has been set up to help us make the connection. The traditional stations of the cross, for example, are marked out in winding mediaeval streets that bear no relation to Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

When it comes to the Transfiguration, which we commemorate today, all the Gospels tell us is that Jesus went up a high mountain with Peter, James and John. The Gospels don’t tell us where this mountain was. But early Christian tradition was quick to identify it as Mount Tabor, near Lake Galilee in what is now northern Israel. Today there is a twentieth century pilgrimage church on top of Mount Tabor, next to the remains of churches from the fourth century onwards.

Now you might suppose that the early Christians just thought, pick any old mountain, it will do as a representative site. Until you go there. Mount Tabor is striking. It is almost conical, rising high above the surrounding plain. Even before you get there it looks like a place of supernatural revelations. But it is where it is that is most significant. The plain it rises above is the valley of Jezreel, the site of the ancient city of Megiddo. Or, as it is better known in Greek, Armageddon.

Those are the most ominous place names in the Bible. Because of their location, Jezreel and Megiddo have been the site of battles from ancient times, a plain where contesting armies collide. And fight. And kill. It’s no wonder that the Book of Revelation chooses this site as the location of the symbolic last battle before the Second Coming of Christ.

From the top of the mountain, you see the whole plain. The landscape itself seems as though it is in turmoil. It is a place for battles, contorted rocks in an inhospitable environment burned dry by the sun. But, on top of the mountain, you experience the shade of trees, peace, silence, and prayer.

If this was the site of the Transfiguration, then it makes perfect sense. Because the revelation of Christ in glory presents the world with a choice. On top of the mountain, there is light and glory, the testimony of the law and the prophets, and the voice of the Father, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”. Below, there is darkness, division, hatred, conflict and war. Humanity, without the light of Christ, plunging into a horror and despair of its own making.

The revelation of Christ in glory tells us that it does not have to be this way. “Listen to him!”, says the Father. Listen to the good news of the Kingdom of God. Repent, turn away from violence, hatred, division and war. And his teaching is not difficult. His yoke is easy, and his burden light.

But the nations do not listen. Now, or then. The revelation of Christ in glory is the prelude to his last journey to Jerusalem, to his suffering and his death. Because the world would not listen, Jesus enters willingly into the darkness below, the place of conflict and death. Because the world would not listen, the redemption of the human race must needs be won at a far greater price than that of our listening, the price of his own blood.

We have looked on at the terrible events in Ukraine this last week with a sense of horror, fear, and helplessness. We wonder what might happen next, and what we can do, as once again we see how fragile civilisation can be. And how much contempt those in power can have for human lives.

And yet this is nothing new. The light of Christ shone from the mountain top onto the darkened world beneath, and shines still. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. It is Christ, the Chosen, the Son of the Father, who faces that world squarely, and freely walks into it to suffer all that it will do to him.

But his call remains, “repent!”. And the voice of the Father sounds in irrevocable command: “listen to him!”.

What can we do? Those things. Repent. Listen to him. Pray. On the threshold of Lent, that great season of repentance, prayer and listening, we realise that our response must begin by turning once again to Christ. The vision of his glory may seem bewildering, incomprehensible, disconnected from the dark world below. But it is precisely that vision which is the hope of the world.

It is that vision which strengthens the disciples before they follow Christ on the way of the cross. The way that will lead them through darkness they could not imagine. To fear and denial and hiding behind locked doors. But, beyond the darkness, their path will bring them in the end to the light of the resurrection. To the definitive encounter with Christ, the Risen One, once and for all triumphant over sin and death. To the one who breathes on them the gift of his Spirit, and says to them, and to us, always, until the end of time, “peace be with you, do not be afraid!”

Sermon at Parish Mass 2nd Sunday before Lent 2022

 

Genesis 2.4b–9, 15–25

Revelation 4

Luke 8.22-25

Our readings today take us from a garden, to a storm, by way of a scene of heavenly worship. I suppose, after Storm Eunice, and the chaos it has caused in our gardens and parks, we might find readings about gardens and storms resonate with us today.

The Church of England, in these two Sundays before Lent, chooses readings along the themes of creation, this week, and Transfiguration, next week. These help to remind us that the Christ, whose footsteps we will follow through Lent and Passiontide, is the Word of creation through whom all things were made, and is the Light of God who has come into the world.

And, so, the common thread running through these readings is that they speak to us of Christ. Indeed, it is Christ himself, the Word of God, who speaks through all the words of scripture when they are read in the community of the Church. But, of course, the words of scripture are very diverse. There are many different kinds of writing in the Bible and we need to be attentive to what sort of thing it is that we are reading, and how we can hear the voice of the living Christ speaking through them.

We began today with the reading from Genesis about the Garden of Eden. This is the second of two different creation myths recorded in Genesis. A myth, as a kind of literature, is not something that is false, but something that seeks to convey true meaning under the form of a grand symbolic narrative.

The Garden of Eden is a place of harmony and peace. Everything that is created lives and belongs together, all is good and pleasant. The one thing that is not good is that the man should be alone, and so the Lord God makes companions for him in the animals, and finally in the woman who is born from his opened side.

This is a companionship that seeks union: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh”. And yet, as we know, sin and division enter in through the disobedience of Adam and Eve. These destroy the original harmony of creation, and create an obstacle to the return to union that human beings seek.

Creation, in the scriptures, is not so much something that happened at a point in time long ago, but is more an ongoing project, a work in progress. The “In the beginning” of Genesis has a rich meaning in Hebrew: it is that which is true in principle, and continues to be true even when it is obscured. What is “original”, in the Genesis myths, is what creation is striving to be.

We see this continuing work of creation when we read the Gospels. The Word of God through whom all things were made has come into the world, to complete the work of creation and to restore that unity and peace for which we were created, and for which we long. The ancient story of Eve being born from Adam’s opened side is echoed in John’s Gospel, when the side of Christ the new Adam is opened on the cross, and out flow blood and water, the sacramental tide of Baptism and the Eucharist that gives birth to the Church, the new Eve, represented by the Mother of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple who stand beneath.

The unity and peace for which we were created are finally made possible in Christ, who unites all things in himself. The healings and miracles that were the signs of his presence in the world show that, in Christ, the work of creation is being healed and brought to perfection. So when Christ, in today’s Gospel reading, rebukes the wind and waves and saves the terrified disciples, he restores the original harmony and peace of creation. “In the beginning”, that which is true in principle, creation is good.

But the word of Christ, who speaks through the scriptures to us, comes to us with a challenge: “where is your faith”? Our recognition may be slow, as it was with the first disciples, but in Christ the creator and redeemer are one and the same. As the scriptures are read in the church, at the gathering for the Eucharist, he stands before us, the living one, the conqueror of death. We are invited not simply to learn about him, but into a living relationship with the risen Lord. In him we are indeed made one; in him we are indeed saved from sin and death.

And this is true whatever is going on for us. With the eye of faith, we can look back at Genesis and see God preparing our redemption even before everything went wrong. In the beginning, God is the redeemer. And, in the midst of the storms of life, God in Christ is with us, still.

There will be storms in our lives. Creation is still a work in progress. We look forward to the final vision where all creation is gathered in worship, in the new heaven and the new earth. But in this life, as Our Lord tells us, we will have troubles. Storms and crises can come upon us unexpectedly, and we can find ourselves feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

But in the midst of these times, Christ is still with us. He may seem to be asleep in the bottom of our rickety boat that is in danger of sinking. He may seem even to be absent or uncaring. But he is there, still. Christ, who is the Word of creation and the redeemer of the universe, is with us, no matter what. He stands before us, and asks “where is your faith”?

He does not ask us for certainty. We are not asked to pretend that we don’t have troubles. We are not asked to be strong when we are weak. We don’t have to know how it will all end. But Jesus does ask us to have faith. Faith that the creator and redeemer are one and the same, that he is the living Lord, Jesus Christ, who is with us even in the darkest storms of life. And faith, as St Paul tells us, that all things in the end will work together for good, for those who love God.

Levelling Down

 

Chrispijn van den Broeck  (1523–1591): Christ Healing the Sick (Royal Collection)

Sermon at Parish Mass 3^rd Sunday before Lent 2022

Jeremiah 17.5–10

1 Corinthians 15.12–20

Luke 6.17-26

 

You have probably had the experience of watching a film or TV series adapted from a book that you already know – an Agatha Christie mystery, perhaps, or the Lord of the Rings. You think you know the story but then you watch someone else’s interpretation and think, “it didn’t look like that in the book!”. But someone else’s view of the story can be enlightening, it can open up to us new perspectives and insights which we hadn’t seen before. How it looks to someone else can add to what the story says to us. And perhaps then we might go back to the book and read it again with new eyes.

So let’s try and visualise the scene in today’s Gospel reading. What do we think this scene looked like?

When we hear the Beatitudes, the sayings of Jesus that begin, “blessed are you who are poor”, and so on, we might think straight away, “ah, it’s the Sermon on the Mount”. Because, in Matthew’s Gospel, it is. But not in Luke. Luke records these sayings of Jesus slightly differently, and also adds the “woes” to those who are rich and full. But he also has a different account of where Jesus gives this teaching. In Luke, this scene does not take place on a mountain, but on a level place that Jesus and his disciples come down to.

The different scene in Luke adds to our understanding of what Jesus is teaching. A level place is an accessible place, and it needs to be because so many in the crowd have come to be healed. We have the little detail, that Jesus “looked up at his disciples”. If people are sick and coming to be healed they probably need to sit down, or even lie down. So, when Jesus has healed them he looks up to speak to his disciples. He is down there on the level ground, sitting or kneeling himself with the people who have come to him for healing.

A level place is a place which is accessible to all, a place where all are equal. And this levelling place sets the scene for Luke’s version of the Beatitudes – and the Woes.

The contrasts are sharp. “Blessed are you who are poor”, and that means materially poor, not the “poor in spirit” as in Matthew. “For yours is the kingdom of God”. But, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation”.

Jesus proclaims this great reversal, a theme of Luke’s Gospel, in the level place. The powerful, the privileged and the rich are brought down, but the powerless, the marginalised and the poor are raised up, for the Kingdom of God belongs to them. It is a Gospel of liberation for the oppressed, but also a Gospel of judgment for those who have had their fill.

If we hear this as revolutionary, then we are hearing rightly – it is. But it is not a revolution as human beings tend to arrange them, where the structures of oppression stay the same and you just change who is charge at the top. God’s judgement, here and throughout the scriptures, is a call to repentance, to change. God’s judgement always offers hope. The Gospel of liberation for the poor is also the Gospel of liberation for the rich and powerful, because it is their judgement. They, too, need to be saved from the tangled web of power and privilege from which they cannot free themselves.

The Gospel of liberation brings us all down to a level place, where all are brought in as equals, and Jesus our liberator looks up at us to teach us how to be blessed. He frees the oppressed from their oppression, and the powerful from their power.

We need to hear this call to repentance, to be challenged by the Gospel of liberation, constantly. The imbalance between human beings, the un-level place of power and oppression is everywhere. Jesus summons us out from there to a level place where all are welcome and all are equal.

We need to hear it in the Church, as well as in society at large. Father Brian and I have just been doing the safeguarding training that clergy have to undertake every three years. Part of that training is a reminder of how badly the Church has got things wrong in the past. Not only in the appalling crimes of abuse themselves, but also in the ways that Church authorities, bishops and establishment figures, have covered things up, ignored complaints, let abusers go back to abusing, and abandoned the victims. It is a shocking and tragic history. It is also a failure to hear and to live the Gospel of liberation for all.

Good safeguarding practice in Church is not only about responding to disclosures of abuse. It is, even more, about creating a culture where abuse is much less likely. And that means a culture where there are no imbalances of power, where everyone is welcomed and valued as equals. Where children and vulnerable adults are placed at the centre of our care, not ignored on the margins. Where those who have authority realise that it is given them to serve, not to lord it over people. Authority to be down on their knees in the level place, attending most to the people who are most in need.

The recent history of the Church of England shows us that we still have a long way to go to create a good safeguarding culture, but we are learning. As I hope we are also learning in other areas such as race, gender and sexuality. We must not turn back or become complacent. It is Jesus who proclaims the Gospel of liberation for all. It is Jesus who calls us to come down with him to the level place, the accessible place where all are welcome and all are equal. The place where Jesus our liberator brings healing to those most in need, and where he looks up at us to teach us how to be blessed.

Sermon at Parish Mass 6 February 2022

 

Isaiah 6:1-8

1 Corinthians15:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

 

The Queen has said many memorable things in her long reign, but among the words that come to mind particularly today, the 70^th anniversary of her Accession, are some that she spoke while she was still Princess Elizabeth, in 1947:

“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service... But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do... God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.”

The Queen’s sense of calling and duty are something that come through clearly in her life. Illuminated by her Christian faith, she conceives of her role as one of service to the Nation and the Commonwealth. And all that is bound up in prayer and dependence on God. She believes that God called her to her role, and in her Coronation she was consecrated to it for life.

This morning’s readings are all in one way or another about people being called by God, to the particular task or vocation that God gives them. In all three readings, we encounter someone who is called by God but who feels inadequate for the task. Isaiah feels overwhelmed by a sense of uncleanness at the vision he has seen. Paul protests that he is unfit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church of God. And Simon Peter, realising the divine power that is at work in Jesus, cries out, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’

Nevertheless, all three were called by God, all had a specific task to do. And, by the grace of God, they carried out their task. Speaking God’s word to God’s people, making disciples of the nations. Isaiah and Peter and Paul protested their unworthiness, but worthiness had nothing to do with it. It was all grace. God’s calling is God’s gift. And it was undertaken not in their own strength but in the power and strength that God gave for the task.

The calling to be an apostle or a prophet is rare. As St Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets?”. Likewise, the calling to be a Christian monarch or national leader is rare. But we all do have a particular call from God. Christian discipleship, for every follower of Jesus, is in one way or another about hearing his call in our lives and responding.

For most of us this will be discerned and lived out in the ordinary circumstances of daily life. Being a parent or a carer or a partner. In our work which one way or another serves other people’s needs and helps to build up community. In hidden lives of prayer in which we lift to God all those in need, known and unknown. The everyday-ness of these things does not make our lives any less a response to God’s call, and does not mean that we are any less dependent on God’s grace. St Paul says in Colossians, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”.

God’s call to us is God’s gift, and with it the strength and the grace needed to follow that call. God’s call assures us that we are loved and valued for who we are. Jesus said to the disciples, “you did not choose me, but I chose you”.

It is all grace. Worthiness has nothing to do with it. We do not need to earn God’s favour or approval. God’s call came to us first as God’s gift. Our response also is God’s gift. It is Simon Peter, who knows how sinful he is, who is called by Jesus to be a leader of his Church. Simon Peter, who will fail and deny Jesus, is called, anyway, and given grace to respond to his calling. Paul, unworthy to be called an apostle, became by God’s grace the one whom we often just call The Apostle, the messenger of Christ to the nations.

Whatever our particular vocation may be, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus gives joy and thankfulness to our lives. It makes daily life in a way sacramental, a breaking through of grace in the daily round and common task undertaken for God’s sake.

Cardinal Newman summed this sense of being called in the ordinary things of life:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

“He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

“Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.”

Jesus calls us, every one of us, “follow me”. He has chosen us. We are loved and valued as we are. His calling is his gift. Our response is his gift. The strengths and graces we need to follow are his gift. We do not need to see the outcome. His call in our lives is his gift, and the outcome will be, too. And as we follow along the path he calls us, we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Bearing fruits worthy of repentance

 

Sermon at Parish Mass, Advent 3 2021

Pieter Breughel the Younger  (1564–1638), St John the Baptist Preaching, 1601

 

Zephaniah 3:14-18

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:7-18                                   

 

Three years ago, on the third Sunday of Advent, I preached my first sermon here as your interim Priest in Charge. On Friday, that interim appointment came to an end, and today I am preaching my first sermon here as permanent Priest in Charge.

When a community celebrates a new beginning, a preacher wants to find something uplifting and encouraging in the readings. So, let’s see what we have, in the Lectionary from three years ago, and again today:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

John the Baptist is an uncompromising character. The way he’s described, living out in the desert, wearing camel skins and eating locusts, is wild and alarming. And his preaching is not exactly understated. He tells the truth, to power, with power, and doesn’t care whom he offends.

And, yet, there is something about him that is hugely attractive. The people go out to him in crowds to be baptized. They recognize that John has a message that that they need to hear and to do. He preaches integrity and righteousness, a demanding message. But they recognize that he is a person who practices integrity and righteousness, and that give authority to his message.

The people ask him, “what then should we do?” John has announced the coming of the Lord to redeem Israel, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”. And this means repentance, changing the way we live. The Lord is a God of justice, and the people must reflect and enact that justice.

This is not just about our interior personal lives, but is to do with how we live together. Social justice is at the heart of John’s message.

Notice who John is proclaiming the message to. People who have two coats - that is to say, people who have more than they really need. Tax collectors, who raised money for the Romans but were in the habit of charging higher than the official rates to line their own pockets. Soldiers, who clearly at this time extorted money by threats.

John is not saying to those who are already poor, “be content with what you have”, rather, he is speaking to those who have been causing poverty by their own greed. He is calling them to renounce their greed. His call to repentance is very much about how people’s actions impact on the community. And this is very much in harmony with the rest of Luke’s Gospel, where sin is never an individual private thing, but always bound up with how we live in the world, how our choices affect and shape the society around us.

This message of repentance, although it is challenging, is attractive. It is indeed good news, and the people recognize this, even though it means giving up greed and excessive riches. There is something much better on offer. Forgiveness of sins, a new beginning, a fresh start. A way of living together in world that is life-affirming for all, rather than life-denying for many. And this is to prepare the way of the Lord, to open the way for God’s kingdom to come in. In our lives, and in our society.

How we live together in the world matters. There is a great focus in the news at the moment on integrity and standards in public life. Much of what has been done by those who have authority has been laid open to question. As it was indeed it was with those in authority at the time of John the Baptist.

But the call to repentance has to begin with us, in our own lives. Are our choices, our actions, helping to build a just society in which all can take part? For example, if I buy some coffee or a shirt which are really cheap because they have been made with exploited labour in some other part of the world, do I not need to repent? Do I not need to see what I am doing, and turn around? The sobering edge of the Advent message is that we need to hear God’s judgement in our lives if we are also to receive his salvation.

We want to see integrity and uprightness in public life. We want to see those in high office holding to truth and high standards of personal conduct. But we will not make that attractive by pointing the finger of blame at others. We need to model it ourselves. We need to be the change we seek. Can people see, in our lives, an integrity that might be challenging but is also attractive, a little glimpse of the way the world could be better. And if there are many little glimpses, in the lives of people of faith and all those of good will, then they will all build together until we start to see that better world.

Christ comes to us with the command to model God’s righteousness in a world which tends deeply to resist that righteousness. With his truth, in a world that often turns away from truth. The Gospel calls us to conversion, to repentance for the forgiveness of sins, not only for our own sakes, but so that God’s kingdom can grow in the world. And that is the true way to prepare for the coming of Christ, and the feast of Christmas. As someone is said once to have prayed, “O Lord, convert the world - and begin with me.” That’s a good prayer for Advent. Amen.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

 

Sermon at Parish Mass, Advent 2 2021 

Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598–1657): The Preaching of John the Baptist. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

Baruch 5

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

 

Where are you from? Oh, that’s interesting. How often do you go home?

In a global city, these are questions we might hear quite a lot. But they’re complex. The simplest answer is to say, well, I’m from Colindale, I go home every day. But Colindale, for many of us, is a long way from where we were born and grew up. Never mind a global city, we have a global congregation. Where do we really belong? Where is our sense of identity? What place pops into our heads when we hear the word “home”?

Perhaps “home” evokes a sense of belonging in terms of the kind of society we want to belong to. Much of our national politics in recent years has been driven by competing visions of where we feel truly at home. But, whatever ideal we may have, the reality usually falls short. So many are displaced, migrants in a risky search for a better life, refugees in search of safety.

And then there are those who feel dispossessed and alienated in their own land. Those who feel left behind, abandoned, while so many prosper. It can’t be right that food banks are seeing ever higher demand in a country that has some of the richest and exclusive neighbourhoods in the world – often just a stone’s throw from deprived estates with endemic poverty and unemployment and all the social problems that those bring.

There’s a sense of exile in so many places. Those on the move from their own homes, but also those who feel they don’t belong even in the place that in theory is their home.

John the Baptist speaks to a similar situation. When asked who he is, he says he is “a voice crying in the wilderness”, quoting the prophet Isaiah. What a haunting and evocative phrase. The wilderness is nowhere, no-one belongs there. Nobody could call it home. The land of Israel felt like that, as the announcement at the beginning of John’s ministry tells us – it was occupied by the Romans, and divided up. Yes, geographically, it was the ancient land of the Jewish people. But they didn’t feel they were at home.

Exile and alienation are huge themes in the Bible. The historic exile of the Jewish people in Babylon was perhaps their greatest formative experience. Many of the distinctive observances of the Jewish people date from that time, it was how they kept their identity as strangers in foreign land.

And the prophets speak about exile and return a lot. The beautiful passage from Baruch this morning is one such promise of return. But a curious thing happens in the later prophets. Those who were active after the return from Babylon speak as though the people were still in exile. They had come back to their land, but they weren’t really home. The last chapters of Isaiah, for example, which date from that period, hint at a new, spiritual, sense of belonging, of being rooted and abiding in the homeland that is God himself.

The sense that the people are still in exile is picked up, particularly, in Luke’s gospel. It’s something to listen out for as we read through Luke this year, that sense of still being in exile and waiting for the Lord to come and take his people home. And it’s there in today’s reading, too.

Because it is in the wilderness that John the Baptist speaks. The herald of the Lord proclaims his word in the place of exile, in the wilderness where no-one belongs. The wilderness that is an image of the people of Israel, and of the peoples of all the world, still awaiting their true homeland. It is right there, in the place of alienation and exile, that the word is proclaimed: the Lord has not forgotten you. Your exile will be ended.

This is good news for all the people of the earth. Jesus has come to restore Israel, the chosen people, and through Israel to extend the blessings of God’s kingdom to all people. All flesh shall see the salvation of God, says Isaiah. God’s promise, that all will find their true home in God’s kingdom, is for all people, and Jesus has come to deliver on that promise.

This is the grand movement of Luke’s story, as he tells it in his Gospel and in Acts. Jesus is the Lord and Messiah who has come to restore his people Israel, and through Israel to bring all people, all nations, home from their exile into God’s kingdom. And the way into God’s kingdom, as John proclaims, is repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That is, turning away from all the ways of exile, of oppression and alienation, from everything that dispossesses, and learning instead to reflect God’s righteousness in the world.

That call and good news is for us too. The experience of exile is both around us and within us: all the ways in which sin and loss and dispossession affect us and our world. In Luke sin is never just an individual private thing, it is always bound up with how people live in the world, how our relationship with God affects and shapes society. But the call to repentance comes in the wilderness, on the margins, away from the centres of earthly power, because that is where God’s attention is, too. Where are the voices crying in the wilderness in our own day, and what are they saying?

Exile, alienation and dispossession are the desperate reality for millions of people in the world today. And the gospel tells us clearly that the solution has to begin with repentance. Repentance of the inequities and injustices that keep poor nations subjugated to the rich. Repentance of the hardness of our hearts in the face of so much human need. Repentance of the violence that mars our world. We must believe the Gospel! There can be no end to violence without a radical change of heart.

The Gospel calls every one of us to that change of heart and repentance, not only for our own sakes, but for the sake of the world. God in Jesus offers to all humanity a new beginning, the forgiveness of sins, the end of exile, finally coming home to God who has always awaited us. This is the true good news, and, like John the Baptist, God’s church and people are called to go ahead of the Lord and prepare his way, even in the wilderness of exile and alienation. Because the good news is for everyone who longs for something better than the present state of the world.