Now that Lent is over I am back to using a script (just so that I can meet the challenge to deviate from it when prompted) I can post here the sermon from this morning. It will soon also be available in audio format at the St Mary's Stebbing website.
The readings were Acts 2, 36-41 and Luke 24 13-35
Luke 24 verse 14 & 15
“They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.”
Well this week there has certainly been a lot of stuff for us to talk about in the news, nationally and internationally. From the Royal Wedding to the death of Bin Laden to the elections on Thursday, opinions continue to be divided in homes, shops, pubs, newspapers and across the world via the internet.
“As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.”
I wonder, would our discussions of world and local events differ, if we remembered more frequently that Jesus is walking with us, and wanting to inform how we think and act in response to what we hear.
That’s exactly what he was doing on the road to Emmaus, bringing clarity and understanding, restoring hope and faith and ultimately revealing himself in the breaking of bread.
At Easter I usually teach on counter arguments to objections to the resurrection, and this year was no exception. It was therefore a slightly strange experience this week to be reading of a death, and the non-appearance of a body, leading to claims that the person wasn’t really dead.
Christian voices around the world are saying quite a variety of things about the death of Osama Bin Laden. Almost as soon as it was announced, the internet news media were flooded with various versions of a quotation from a 1963 work by Martin Luther King, who said,
• "Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
He of course was speaking of how the life and ministry of Jesus inspired his own life and ministry, yet those words cut to the heart the uber-patriotism of the chanting crowds at Ground Zero.
And since then both Bishop Tom Wright and Archbishop Rowan Williams have expressed disquiet about the raid on Abbottabad. I am sure they both did that prayerfully and after serious reflection. In other words, they allowed their relationship with Jesus to shape their thoughts. The Emmaus road experience, of having Christ at our side to make sense of things, can be a useful one these days, and not just for Archbishops!
So how do we tune in? How do we access that experience that Cleopas and his companion were blessed with?
Well there are three things we can say about Emmaus.
The first is, “they were talking” – the sharing of thoughts, emotions, worries hopes and disappointments in fellowship with our brothers and sisters, is a way we can learn how God works, how we are the body of Christ. It’s a big reason why Christianity is not am individual but a corporate faith. So an Emmaus principle is “talk to someone about it, and listen to others”
Related to that is “we had hoped” – the two were unafraid (because they didn’t know it was him) to tell Jesus all the things they had hoped for – even as they thought they had lost them. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, that we are the walking wounded, not a triumphant conquering force. The way of the cross is a way of suffering, not of human power and authority. So let us be unafraid to express our struggles, our doubts, our difficulties, for in so doing we may grow in faith and confidence – even if only because we realize “it’s not just me then”.
The second is “in all the Scriptures”. If we want to know how Jesus’ mindset was formed, we need only read the Old Testament. We need Jesus to guide us thought it too, we need New Testament coloured glasses to read the stories of genocide and invasion, otherwise we are liable to fall into the trap of those Ground Zero chanters again.
Jesus explained to Cleopas and his companion how God’s plan was laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures; they shared a knowledge of those scriptures but Jesus gave them new meaning. How often do we share things we have learnt or read in our Bible study with our friends or family? One of the legs upon which our fellowship stands is the Bible. Let us then be accountable to each other in reading it and sharing that experience.
Another of those legs is our tradition. “Then their eyes were opened”. This is the third resource that Emmaus gives us.
The Emmaus story is one of the reasons that I am such a sacramental person. Cleopas and his friend and family had their eyes opened to Jesus when he broke the bread. Now, we don’t see Jesus like that in communion, but I see here a strong encouragement from Christ to his church to break bread together, that we may continue to grow in faith, to tap again into the Emmaus road experience – a knowledge of Christ’s presence with us along the way.
And that final thought brings us to the Acts reading, about which I could go on at great length, but that’ll have to wait for another day. Suffice it to say that here also faith is expressed in what we now refer to as the sacrament of baptism – repent and be baptised. A key verse, which will bring us back to where we started, is verse 39 “the promise is for you and your children and all who are far off”.
I have 2 things to say about this as I conclude.
First, the promise is for you and your children. I don’t think that means “your children when they grow up” it means the children standing next to you now. That’s why I remain an advocate of the baptism of infants, and of the admission of believing children to communion, as well being committed to an all-age church.
Second, “all who are far off”. This is ambiguous to a degree – I’m sure there are missionaries who read this and were called “far off”, but it most powerfully speaks to me of the people who are far off from the gospel, from a knowledge of the love and saving power of God. It is easy to forget, to quote a church poster displayed across Australia in 2006, that Jesus Love Osama.
So let us allow the Emmaus experience to build our faith and our fellowship, that all who are far off may hear and respond to the message we declare.
Who's this then?
- Tim Goodbody
- Chelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom
- The occasional blog of an Anglican priest in rural Essex
Showing posts with label sermons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sermons. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Sermon for 28th Feb, Little Saling and Stebbing
Readings; Genesis 15 and Luke 13, 31 to the end. I am endebted once again to rootsontheweb, but also Mike Breen for the stuff on the chopped upp animals.
We are asked only to trust that the God whom we seek will come to us at the right time. How he come is usually up to him, not us.
In Genesis 15 Abram, too, is charged not to be afraid but to expect the fulfilment of God's promises. Abram's righteousness is his trusting response. He takes courage and waits for the Lord.
Genesis 15 is the first of two accounts of a covenant between God and Abram. This chapter focuses on the two promises of descendants and of land. The covenant ceremony described here is an ancient ritual in which the two parties pass between the slaughtered animal sacrifices as a symbolic action of their meeting and agreeing, accompanied by the threat of the fate of the slaughtered animals to any party who violated the agreement. Of course Abram does not see God here but the passing of the brazier and blazing torch between the pieces of the sacrifice show God’s commitment to the covenant. So in fact the emphasis is on God's action and responsibility.
God passes through the animals as fire and smoke as Abram sleeps. The important thing happened when Abram could not participate actively, he could only receive (presumably in a dream or vision) God’s promise. Abram’s deep sleep recalls Adam's, from earlier in Genesis when God created a partner from Adam’s rib as 'flesh of my flesh' (Gen 2.23). These two similar episodes show how human frailty is never a barrier to the plan of God, which for us I hope is a comfort!
The moving flame and smoke anticipate the cloud of fire that will lead the people through the wilderness back to the land promised to Abram. Even though that is a long way off, God’s purposes are already becoming clear to the reader. Abram is still passive; his part is only to trust that, despite present appearances – a childless nomad, God will fulfil the promise for the future of a land and a people to settle it. Abram does believe, and is not afraid. His trusting response is the righteousness recognised by God.
Our language differentiates between trust and belief; others, including the biblical languages do not; but for the purposes of what God is asking of Abram and of us, to trust is to believe. Even the English translations of the Bible vary in their rendering of verses like John 14 verse 1, some have believe, others have trust. We just need to get used to reading one word and understanding (and doing) two things.
And it is a subtle yet important difference that informs the faith of today’s church, or perhaps more accurately the faith of those who do not attend church.
Because to be a Christian is so much more than just to acknowledge that God exists, which is the question that people are usually answering on census forms and the like, giving the figure of 70% or whatever it is; it involves putting our faith – our trust – in God; not in the vicar, not in the building, not in the liturgy nor the music, but in him.
That is what Abram courageously did, and it is significant that he did it from a position of weakness and uncertainty; he did not think he would have any children, but God promised him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and reminded him that he was the same God who had called him onto this journey from Ur in the first place.
Perhaps it was this reminder that prompts Abram’s faithful response to the Lord, but as we saw, he still has it in him to ask God a question – how can I know for sure you are going to get me this land?
God’s answer is the covenant ritual, and the promise that the people would return to the land, but that it would not be plain sailing. Abram’s courageous faith will need to be passed on to his descendants to accomplish this.
Genesis 15 is about a covenant that starts the story of Israel. Luke 13 on the other hand, is the point when Jesus’ focus shifts to his part in the sacrifice that will inaugurate the new covenant. He now is the one who takes courage as he goes on his way to die in Jerusalem. He must wait for God until the time of his own coming in the name of the Lord.
Just as God and man met in the covenant with Abram, as they both passed through the sacrifice, so also on the cross, Jesus, both God and man, passed through the sacrifice, but as victim rather than priest. So the two covenants have much in common. Both are designed to define a future for God’s people.
Herod Antipas is a 'fox', one of those that ruin the vineyard that is God's beloved Israel (Song of Solomon 2.15, Isaiah 5.1). Jesus continues to announce the prophet's good news for the people of God. The conflict will come to its climax in Jerusalem, at God's 'house', where the cherubim's sheltering wings will give way to those of Jesus, outstretched like a mother hen to include the whole cosmos in his love. He is on his way to Calvary and will be faithful until his death. By the 'third day' he will have finished his work and the world must wait for the God who will raise him to life as the one who will come in the name of the Lord.
And as we wait we too need courage, for just as Abram and Christ’s disciples lived with uncertainty, so do we. Lent is a time to reconsider the resources we have to fule that courageous faith; the scriptures, the traditions and wisdom of the church both now and in the past, and of course supremely our relationship with God in Christ.
We are asked only to trust that the God whom we seek will come to us at the right time. How he come is usually up to him, not us.
In Genesis 15 Abram, too, is charged not to be afraid but to expect the fulfilment of God's promises. Abram's righteousness is his trusting response. He takes courage and waits for the Lord.
Genesis 15 is the first of two accounts of a covenant between God and Abram. This chapter focuses on the two promises of descendants and of land. The covenant ceremony described here is an ancient ritual in which the two parties pass between the slaughtered animal sacrifices as a symbolic action of their meeting and agreeing, accompanied by the threat of the fate of the slaughtered animals to any party who violated the agreement. Of course Abram does not see God here but the passing of the brazier and blazing torch between the pieces of the sacrifice show God’s commitment to the covenant. So in fact the emphasis is on God's action and responsibility.
God passes through the animals as fire and smoke as Abram sleeps. The important thing happened when Abram could not participate actively, he could only receive (presumably in a dream or vision) God’s promise. Abram’s deep sleep recalls Adam's, from earlier in Genesis when God created a partner from Adam’s rib as 'flesh of my flesh' (Gen 2.23). These two similar episodes show how human frailty is never a barrier to the plan of God, which for us I hope is a comfort!
The moving flame and smoke anticipate the cloud of fire that will lead the people through the wilderness back to the land promised to Abram. Even though that is a long way off, God’s purposes are already becoming clear to the reader. Abram is still passive; his part is only to trust that, despite present appearances – a childless nomad, God will fulfil the promise for the future of a land and a people to settle it. Abram does believe, and is not afraid. His trusting response is the righteousness recognised by God.
Our language differentiates between trust and belief; others, including the biblical languages do not; but for the purposes of what God is asking of Abram and of us, to trust is to believe. Even the English translations of the Bible vary in their rendering of verses like John 14 verse 1, some have believe, others have trust. We just need to get used to reading one word and understanding (and doing) two things.
And it is a subtle yet important difference that informs the faith of today’s church, or perhaps more accurately the faith of those who do not attend church.
Because to be a Christian is so much more than just to acknowledge that God exists, which is the question that people are usually answering on census forms and the like, giving the figure of 70% or whatever it is; it involves putting our faith – our trust – in God; not in the vicar, not in the building, not in the liturgy nor the music, but in him.
That is what Abram courageously did, and it is significant that he did it from a position of weakness and uncertainty; he did not think he would have any children, but God promised him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and reminded him that he was the same God who had called him onto this journey from Ur in the first place.
Perhaps it was this reminder that prompts Abram’s faithful response to the Lord, but as we saw, he still has it in him to ask God a question – how can I know for sure you are going to get me this land?
God’s answer is the covenant ritual, and the promise that the people would return to the land, but that it would not be plain sailing. Abram’s courageous faith will need to be passed on to his descendants to accomplish this.
Genesis 15 is about a covenant that starts the story of Israel. Luke 13 on the other hand, is the point when Jesus’ focus shifts to his part in the sacrifice that will inaugurate the new covenant. He now is the one who takes courage as he goes on his way to die in Jerusalem. He must wait for God until the time of his own coming in the name of the Lord.
Just as God and man met in the covenant with Abram, as they both passed through the sacrifice, so also on the cross, Jesus, both God and man, passed through the sacrifice, but as victim rather than priest. So the two covenants have much in common. Both are designed to define a future for God’s people.
Herod Antipas is a 'fox', one of those that ruin the vineyard that is God's beloved Israel (Song of Solomon 2.15, Isaiah 5.1). Jesus continues to announce the prophet's good news for the people of God. The conflict will come to its climax in Jerusalem, at God's 'house', where the cherubim's sheltering wings will give way to those of Jesus, outstretched like a mother hen to include the whole cosmos in his love. He is on his way to Calvary and will be faithful until his death. By the 'third day' he will have finished his work and the world must wait for the God who will raise him to life as the one who will come in the name of the Lord.
And as we wait we too need courage, for just as Abram and Christ’s disciples lived with uncertainty, so do we. Lent is a time to reconsider the resources we have to fule that courageous faith; the scriptures, the traditions and wisdom of the church both now and in the past, and of course supremely our relationship with God in Christ.
Monday, 12 October 2009
Harvest sermon from little Saling 11th October 09
The readings were Psalm 100 and John 6, 25-35
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.
It is good to say thank you. We bring our children up to do it, we say it ourselves all the time; we say “thank God” when we get some good news for a change, but we probably do that without thinking of it as a prayer, let alone a conversation. Yet God always wants to say, “you’re welcome”.
How do I know this, well, just read John 6, 33, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”. Gives life to the world – our very lives are gifts from God.
In human terms, ingratitude can eventually lead to a drying up of wells of generosity. If tasks are thankless, we are perhaps less inclined to do them. But for God, the well never dries up; his love is infinite and is not contingent on us saying thank you.
So why do we do it? At Harvest, even people who don’t believe in God understand the importance of thankfulness, and even though the food on our tables comes from a little further afield these days than it used to, this is a good time of year to acknowledge our debt both to the land and to those that till it for our benefit. These are all gifts from God too.
Have you ever been given a gift and not known how to use it, or even not wanted to use it?
This harvest, someone gave me a marrow. I didn’t know what to do with it (this is your cue to shout “stuff it”)
The marrow sat in our utility room until it went soft, as I had neither time nor energy to properly research recipes that I could cook and that my kids would eat, which involved marrow.
The story is told of a woman who was asked what she would like as a gift. She particularly liked a set of blue and white china she had seen in a shop window, so she asked to that; over many years her family and friends gave her pieces of this china until she had the full set. But when she died, it was all found in the original boxes, having been so treasured that she never dared use it.
Whether we are unable or unwilling to use them, sometimes the things God gives us go unused. So my question for us to consider this harvest time is what has God given us, that we could make better use of, and thus be truly thankful for.
Of course, if that lady had had her friends and family round to tea more often she might have been moved or encouraged to share her gift and use her china. If I had been brave enough o ask, I might have been able to get hold of those marrow recipes that you are preparing to tell me in a moment before it was too late. It seems to me a key to discovering and using our gifts – the gifts that God has given us both in practical and spiritual terms – is other people.
In the Quaker tradition they have a thing called a clearness group – a small band of people who get together and discuss each others’ gifting, and how to put it to best use.
Jesus said “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. This is a great gift, for which I’m sure we are truly thankful, but as those old words form grace at school lunchtime come back to me I am increasingly convinced that to be truly thankful means we need to properly put to use the thing we have been given.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.
It is good to say thank you. We bring our children up to do it, we say it ourselves all the time; we say “thank God” when we get some good news for a change, but we probably do that without thinking of it as a prayer, let alone a conversation. Yet God always wants to say, “you’re welcome”.
How do I know this, well, just read John 6, 33, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”. Gives life to the world – our very lives are gifts from God.
In human terms, ingratitude can eventually lead to a drying up of wells of generosity. If tasks are thankless, we are perhaps less inclined to do them. But for God, the well never dries up; his love is infinite and is not contingent on us saying thank you.
So why do we do it? At Harvest, even people who don’t believe in God understand the importance of thankfulness, and even though the food on our tables comes from a little further afield these days than it used to, this is a good time of year to acknowledge our debt both to the land and to those that till it for our benefit. These are all gifts from God too.
Have you ever been given a gift and not known how to use it, or even not wanted to use it?
This harvest, someone gave me a marrow. I didn’t know what to do with it (this is your cue to shout “stuff it”)
The marrow sat in our utility room until it went soft, as I had neither time nor energy to properly research recipes that I could cook and that my kids would eat, which involved marrow.
The story is told of a woman who was asked what she would like as a gift. She particularly liked a set of blue and white china she had seen in a shop window, so she asked to that; over many years her family and friends gave her pieces of this china until she had the full set. But when she died, it was all found in the original boxes, having been so treasured that she never dared use it.
Whether we are unable or unwilling to use them, sometimes the things God gives us go unused. So my question for us to consider this harvest time is what has God given us, that we could make better use of, and thus be truly thankful for.
Of course, if that lady had had her friends and family round to tea more often she might have been moved or encouraged to share her gift and use her china. If I had been brave enough o ask, I might have been able to get hold of those marrow recipes that you are preparing to tell me in a moment before it was too late. It seems to me a key to discovering and using our gifts – the gifts that God has given us both in practical and spiritual terms – is other people.
In the Quaker tradition they have a thing called a clearness group – a small band of people who get together and discuss each others’ gifting, and how to put it to best use.
Jesus said “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. This is a great gift, for which I’m sure we are truly thankful, but as those old words form grace at school lunchtime come back to me I am increasingly convinced that to be truly thankful means we need to properly put to use the thing we have been given.
sermon for 11th October at Lindsell
Yesterday's sermon from Lindsell; the readings were Job 23, 1-17 and Mark 10, 17-31.
Last week we met Job for the first time, and the scene was set for his trials and tribulations. This week we meet him at his lowest ebb.There is a strong tone of judgement in today's lessons, balanced by an equally strong tone of empathetic care for the suffering or oppressed.
”With friends like these, who needs enemies?”Much of the Book of Job contains a dialogue between Job and his so-called 'comforters' who in effect add to his suffering by tempting him to question God, and question his own integrity. Their questions include 'Can a mortal be of use to God?' (22.2) and the accusation that Job must have sinned for his sufferings to happen: 'Is not your wickedness great?' they ask (22.5).Job's reply is a lament that in his suffering God appears to be absent. In fact, behind this lies a desire for justice and the opportunity to be judged by a human law. He wants to find God in order to lay his case before him. His hope is for a just judge with whom an upright person could reason, and then he might be vindicated.But of course the very point is that the problem of innocent suffering remains.
I hope we know that when we watch TV or read the papers about Samoa, Sumatra or the Gaza strip, that these circumstances of suffering are not a case of someone receiving their just deserts. God does not answer this kind of question because he is not inflicting the punishment. He only appears to be absent, and will not reply here to the charges, which Job puts.Job claims that he wants to listen to God, saying 'I would learn what he would answer me' but in fact all Job wants is the opportunity to put his case, which he believes, will be self-evident. Mistakenly, Job thinks that God will not simply brush him aside in a demonstration of power, but that is something to be seen later in his story. Now there is only absence, and this makes Job's suffering appear to be meaningless. Here he feels the pain of the injustice of it all, that God will not even reveal the reason why Job suffers so greatly.
He says, in a strange inverse echo of psalm 139, 'If I go to the east, he is not there, if I go to the west, he is not there' (23.8) and there is a feeling that God does not even care sufficiently to notice what is going on.Briefly, Job wonders whether all this is just part of a test, for people commonly saw suffering as being a trial by ordeal imposed by God, from which the pure gold of righteousness might emerge (23.10) Indeed this idea is quite prevalent today as well. I myself have sought comfort from that verse in times of trial, not realising that Job’s got the wrong idea; this is not a test, this is just life. Nevertheless, we can learn from Job’s fortitude and faithfulness here; it almost seems as if he has been reading the psalms in verses 8 to 12, so familiar his words seem to us.
In the end though, with the mood he’s in, God's refusal to appear plunges Job into a renewed despair, filled with dread before the Creator. Now, rather than daring to seek God, he wishes only to be hidden. Hidden, yes, but still standing, not silenced by the darkness. This kind of resilience will stand in good stead anyone who faces a tough time in life.I was most impressed to read this week of a number of Christians who have been involved in Anthony Gormley’s fourth plinth project in Trafalgar square recently. These plinthers have done a variety of things, from prayer and worship and mediation to preaching. Some faced opposition, including one Roman Catholic priest, who was asked, “Where was your God in Auschwitz or the Tsunami?” He replied simply “Dying, and drowning”.
The rich man of Mark 10 is devout and interested in inheriting eternal life. He has kept the commandments since his youth. However, he is shocked when Jesus, looking at him and loving him, nonetheless asks him to sell what he owns to give to the poor, thus storing up treasure in heaven; so he goes away grieving. This is an interesting encounter for two main reasons.
First, it is important to note that Jesus in asking him to sell his possessions and give to the poor is not asking him to do something in addition to keeping the commandments; rather Jesus is asking him to keep the commandments through engaging in this radical action.Remember Jesus' declaration that to love God with all the heart and to love neighbour as oneself is to keep all the commandments. This is all that Jesus has asked him to do, as a means of confronting the limited extent to which he has been keeping the commandments thus far.
Second, it is important to note the rich man's response: like Job, faced with an apparently impossible task, he goes away grieving. He is not angry, or appalled, or affronted, but saddened. He appears to recognise the validity of Jesus' radical demand but finds it impossible to follow because he is so attached to his possessions. This is surely a case of the word of God, as mentioned in Hebrews, being sharper than a two-edged sword in judging the heart. Both Job and the Rich young man teach us that going the way of the cross is costly.The disciples ask Jesus, “who then can be saved?” because they are thinking that salvation is something we do to ourselves through our actions; Jesus’ reply stresses the primary action of God – Humanly this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. The riches that Jesus describes the end of chapter 10 are not the kind of thing that people today – perhaps even us – would describe as riches. We tend to think of material possessions first and people afterwards; Jesus as usual inverts the table so that the first is last and the last first.
Last week we met Job for the first time, and the scene was set for his trials and tribulations. This week we meet him at his lowest ebb.There is a strong tone of judgement in today's lessons, balanced by an equally strong tone of empathetic care for the suffering or oppressed.
”With friends like these, who needs enemies?”Much of the Book of Job contains a dialogue between Job and his so-called 'comforters' who in effect add to his suffering by tempting him to question God, and question his own integrity. Their questions include 'Can a mortal be of use to God?' (22.2) and the accusation that Job must have sinned for his sufferings to happen: 'Is not your wickedness great?' they ask (22.5).Job's reply is a lament that in his suffering God appears to be absent. In fact, behind this lies a desire for justice and the opportunity to be judged by a human law. He wants to find God in order to lay his case before him. His hope is for a just judge with whom an upright person could reason, and then he might be vindicated.But of course the very point is that the problem of innocent suffering remains.
I hope we know that when we watch TV or read the papers about Samoa, Sumatra or the Gaza strip, that these circumstances of suffering are not a case of someone receiving their just deserts. God does not answer this kind of question because he is not inflicting the punishment. He only appears to be absent, and will not reply here to the charges, which Job puts.Job claims that he wants to listen to God, saying 'I would learn what he would answer me' but in fact all Job wants is the opportunity to put his case, which he believes, will be self-evident. Mistakenly, Job thinks that God will not simply brush him aside in a demonstration of power, but that is something to be seen later in his story. Now there is only absence, and this makes Job's suffering appear to be meaningless. Here he feels the pain of the injustice of it all, that God will not even reveal the reason why Job suffers so greatly.
He says, in a strange inverse echo of psalm 139, 'If I go to the east, he is not there, if I go to the west, he is not there' (23.8) and there is a feeling that God does not even care sufficiently to notice what is going on.Briefly, Job wonders whether all this is just part of a test, for people commonly saw suffering as being a trial by ordeal imposed by God, from which the pure gold of righteousness might emerge (23.10) Indeed this idea is quite prevalent today as well. I myself have sought comfort from that verse in times of trial, not realising that Job’s got the wrong idea; this is not a test, this is just life. Nevertheless, we can learn from Job’s fortitude and faithfulness here; it almost seems as if he has been reading the psalms in verses 8 to 12, so familiar his words seem to us.
In the end though, with the mood he’s in, God's refusal to appear plunges Job into a renewed despair, filled with dread before the Creator. Now, rather than daring to seek God, he wishes only to be hidden. Hidden, yes, but still standing, not silenced by the darkness. This kind of resilience will stand in good stead anyone who faces a tough time in life.I was most impressed to read this week of a number of Christians who have been involved in Anthony Gormley’s fourth plinth project in Trafalgar square recently. These plinthers have done a variety of things, from prayer and worship and mediation to preaching. Some faced opposition, including one Roman Catholic priest, who was asked, “Where was your God in Auschwitz or the Tsunami?” He replied simply “Dying, and drowning”.
The rich man of Mark 10 is devout and interested in inheriting eternal life. He has kept the commandments since his youth. However, he is shocked when Jesus, looking at him and loving him, nonetheless asks him to sell what he owns to give to the poor, thus storing up treasure in heaven; so he goes away grieving. This is an interesting encounter for two main reasons.
First, it is important to note that Jesus in asking him to sell his possessions and give to the poor is not asking him to do something in addition to keeping the commandments; rather Jesus is asking him to keep the commandments through engaging in this radical action.Remember Jesus' declaration that to love God with all the heart and to love neighbour as oneself is to keep all the commandments. This is all that Jesus has asked him to do, as a means of confronting the limited extent to which he has been keeping the commandments thus far.
Second, it is important to note the rich man's response: like Job, faced with an apparently impossible task, he goes away grieving. He is not angry, or appalled, or affronted, but saddened. He appears to recognise the validity of Jesus' radical demand but finds it impossible to follow because he is so attached to his possessions. This is surely a case of the word of God, as mentioned in Hebrews, being sharper than a two-edged sword in judging the heart. Both Job and the Rich young man teach us that going the way of the cross is costly.The disciples ask Jesus, “who then can be saved?” because they are thinking that salvation is something we do to ourselves through our actions; Jesus’ reply stresses the primary action of God – Humanly this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. The riches that Jesus describes the end of chapter 10 are not the kind of thing that people today – perhaps even us – would describe as riches. We tend to think of material possessions first and people afterwards; Jesus as usual inverts the table so that the first is last and the last first.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
When the tears fall still I will praise you
Here's another sermon; soon I am hoping to be able to at put some audio on here somewhere but for now you'll have to make do with text.
This owes quite a lot to Roots, and also the tag line came from a post on Father Kris' blog. H/t also to AnneDroid for the concluding link
The readings were Job 1, 1 and 2, 1-10 and Mark 10, 2-16
When it comes to suffering, as we going to be BITTER, BATTERED OR BETTER?
Today's readings hold before us both the sovereignty of God and the dignity of humanity among God's creation.If God is good, what is the source of evil? Through the Book of Job we shall explore this great mystery over the coming weeks. It is a book for all times and all people. Job is not an Israelite, and the book contains no references to either the Covenant or to Jewish Law and traditions. Ancient Israelite wisdom was considered a shared international legacy, and the problem that it addresses is a perennial one.
Job is regarded by many as a literary figure. The argument goes that the carefully constructed speeches, which constitute this lengthy work, could not have been composed under the conditions of suffering described here. Satan's exclamation 'Skin for skin' is an evil celebration of the opportunity to inflict excruciating pain, which would drive out all possibility of connected thought. Regardless of how the narrative was recorded though, what we have here is an exposition of the problem of evil and of undeserved suffering. Job is like Noah, the blameless person who survives the deluge – but one of suffering, rather than water.The initial problem presented is the temptation to blame the suffering on God; 'Curse God, and die' as Job's wife graphically puts it. The effect of giving in to this temptation would be to regard a good God as the source of the evil, and in the face of this temptation Job knows that it cannot be so. His initial reply is simply, 'Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?' (Job 2.10). Previously, in response to the loss of his children and property, he had only said, memorably, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord' (Job 1.20).
St Augustine would take up this theme in seeing evil as the absence or corruption of what is good. But if the loss of what was good is total, then the 'evil' has no independent existence. It owes its presence only to the fact that it has good things to destroy. As Keith Ward has said, in “the Puzzle of Evil”, “Evil is parasitic on good.”
The scene is set. Job has seen that God is good and that the perfect human response to such goodness is to reflect this goodness. And, if the good is taken away, this is only a temptation to turn away from God, rather than evidence that God is less than good. For the God-fearing person, the temptation is there to be confronted. To give in to it would be to become bitter; Job does not , so while he is in for a battering, as we shall see in the coming weeks, the outcome in the end is that he ends up better.
In the Gospel reading, from Mark 10.2-16, the twin themes of divine sovereignty and human dignity underpin Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce. When asked whether divorce was unlawful, Jesus' negative response is based on a view that divorce involves a separation of what God has joined together (Mark 10.9) as well as the assault upon human dignity it can bring (vv. 10–12). Jesus' argument is simple – that divorce in his day was a concession to hardness of heart.
However, the intention of God is that husband and wife should become one flesh and thus complete the other, enabling each to be more than they would be apart. Surely everyone on their wedding day would affirm their desire to be 'one flesh' with the other and to recognise that their good desire was something divinely ordained. Jesus also reminds people that they are to respect the fact that married people belong exclusively to each other: we should not try to break the bonds that God has made.Jesus would have been aware that women were rendered particularly vulnerable in cases of divorce. In the male-dominated Jewish culture of the time women were often reliant upon their husbands for support and protection. The husband could simply dismiss his wife, and she would be powerless to object. In the worst cases, to be divorced could mean penury or being passed round from one husband to another, which was an assault upon the human dignity not only of the wives but also the husbands. We would do well to remember that today Islamic marriage and divorce is operated along fairly similar lines.
It is not my intention this morning to rehearse all the issues and opinions around the remarriage of divorced people, which as you may know the church of England does permit under certain circumstances. I will just say that since we are on the subject of suffering, there are some things we can say about marriage and divorce under the headline, bitter, battered or better.I am in that familiar paradoxical place that vicars often end up in, because I believe that marriage should be for life, but I believe that those who have been divorced should be given grace and mercy, the opportunity for restoration, and ultimately, under certain circumstances, the chance to marry again.
The short version of the force of this argument is that people who get divorced are not worse sinners than people who stay married, and also, as a person who has moral responsibility for the life of a community, I’d rather couples got married – even in a civil ceremony – than just lived together.Aha, you might say, but this passage shows that what you are suggesting is against the teaching of the Bible. Well, I did obviously read it before forming my opinions, and you’ll need to remember a key phrase I have used just now, which is “under certain circumstances”.If we wish to avoid being bitter or battered, there are clearly some circumstances in which we must accept that divorce, though regrettable, is unavoidable, and is sometimes even better for all concerned.
Jesus said divorce was permissible “because of your hardness of heart”. It is a sad fact that it is more often necessary today because of hardness of fists, and hardness of heads.But where the rubber of “under certain circumstances” really hits the road is in the reconciliation of verses 10 to 12 with church of England practice. Look at the text carefully, you will see it says “anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her”.
One of the circumstances in which we say no to marriage requests is if the relationship is the result of one person leaving a marriage for another person, and then wanting to get married to that person. I wouldn’t even do a blessing for that, because that would be to legitimise adultery, or as “Four Weddings and funeral” puts it, “serial monogamy”.In brief, then, like Jesus we celebrate the sanctity of God’s gift of marriage, and like Jesus we seek to bring dignity to the divorced.
I found something on the internet this week on the website of a prison chaplain. If you are feeling bitter or battered, and want to be better, or even of you are not and you need to be encouraged to move on in the faith, listen to this, and consider how our circumstances, even if they are tough, do not compare with how some Christians live today.
http://annedroid-annedroid.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-am-i-here-for.html
This owes quite a lot to Roots, and also the tag line came from a post on Father Kris' blog. H/t also to AnneDroid for the concluding link
The readings were Job 1, 1 and 2, 1-10 and Mark 10, 2-16
When it comes to suffering, as we going to be BITTER, BATTERED OR BETTER?
Today's readings hold before us both the sovereignty of God and the dignity of humanity among God's creation.If God is good, what is the source of evil? Through the Book of Job we shall explore this great mystery over the coming weeks. It is a book for all times and all people. Job is not an Israelite, and the book contains no references to either the Covenant or to Jewish Law and traditions. Ancient Israelite wisdom was considered a shared international legacy, and the problem that it addresses is a perennial one.
Job is regarded by many as a literary figure. The argument goes that the carefully constructed speeches, which constitute this lengthy work, could not have been composed under the conditions of suffering described here. Satan's exclamation 'Skin for skin' is an evil celebration of the opportunity to inflict excruciating pain, which would drive out all possibility of connected thought. Regardless of how the narrative was recorded though, what we have here is an exposition of the problem of evil and of undeserved suffering. Job is like Noah, the blameless person who survives the deluge – but one of suffering, rather than water.The initial problem presented is the temptation to blame the suffering on God; 'Curse God, and die' as Job's wife graphically puts it. The effect of giving in to this temptation would be to regard a good God as the source of the evil, and in the face of this temptation Job knows that it cannot be so. His initial reply is simply, 'Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?' (Job 2.10). Previously, in response to the loss of his children and property, he had only said, memorably, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord' (Job 1.20).
St Augustine would take up this theme in seeing evil as the absence or corruption of what is good. But if the loss of what was good is total, then the 'evil' has no independent existence. It owes its presence only to the fact that it has good things to destroy. As Keith Ward has said, in “the Puzzle of Evil”, “Evil is parasitic on good.”
The scene is set. Job has seen that God is good and that the perfect human response to such goodness is to reflect this goodness. And, if the good is taken away, this is only a temptation to turn away from God, rather than evidence that God is less than good. For the God-fearing person, the temptation is there to be confronted. To give in to it would be to become bitter; Job does not , so while he is in for a battering, as we shall see in the coming weeks, the outcome in the end is that he ends up better.
In the Gospel reading, from Mark 10.2-16, the twin themes of divine sovereignty and human dignity underpin Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce. When asked whether divorce was unlawful, Jesus' negative response is based on a view that divorce involves a separation of what God has joined together (Mark 10.9) as well as the assault upon human dignity it can bring (vv. 10–12). Jesus' argument is simple – that divorce in his day was a concession to hardness of heart.
However, the intention of God is that husband and wife should become one flesh and thus complete the other, enabling each to be more than they would be apart. Surely everyone on their wedding day would affirm their desire to be 'one flesh' with the other and to recognise that their good desire was something divinely ordained. Jesus also reminds people that they are to respect the fact that married people belong exclusively to each other: we should not try to break the bonds that God has made.Jesus would have been aware that women were rendered particularly vulnerable in cases of divorce. In the male-dominated Jewish culture of the time women were often reliant upon their husbands for support and protection. The husband could simply dismiss his wife, and she would be powerless to object. In the worst cases, to be divorced could mean penury or being passed round from one husband to another, which was an assault upon the human dignity not only of the wives but also the husbands. We would do well to remember that today Islamic marriage and divorce is operated along fairly similar lines.
It is not my intention this morning to rehearse all the issues and opinions around the remarriage of divorced people, which as you may know the church of England does permit under certain circumstances. I will just say that since we are on the subject of suffering, there are some things we can say about marriage and divorce under the headline, bitter, battered or better.I am in that familiar paradoxical place that vicars often end up in, because I believe that marriage should be for life, but I believe that those who have been divorced should be given grace and mercy, the opportunity for restoration, and ultimately, under certain circumstances, the chance to marry again.
The short version of the force of this argument is that people who get divorced are not worse sinners than people who stay married, and also, as a person who has moral responsibility for the life of a community, I’d rather couples got married – even in a civil ceremony – than just lived together.Aha, you might say, but this passage shows that what you are suggesting is against the teaching of the Bible. Well, I did obviously read it before forming my opinions, and you’ll need to remember a key phrase I have used just now, which is “under certain circumstances”.If we wish to avoid being bitter or battered, there are clearly some circumstances in which we must accept that divorce, though regrettable, is unavoidable, and is sometimes even better for all concerned.
Jesus said divorce was permissible “because of your hardness of heart”. It is a sad fact that it is more often necessary today because of hardness of fists, and hardness of heads.But where the rubber of “under certain circumstances” really hits the road is in the reconciliation of verses 10 to 12 with church of England practice. Look at the text carefully, you will see it says “anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her”.
One of the circumstances in which we say no to marriage requests is if the relationship is the result of one person leaving a marriage for another person, and then wanting to get married to that person. I wouldn’t even do a blessing for that, because that would be to legitimise adultery, or as “Four Weddings and funeral” puts it, “serial monogamy”.In brief, then, like Jesus we celebrate the sanctity of God’s gift of marriage, and like Jesus we seek to bring dignity to the divorced.
I found something on the internet this week on the website of a prison chaplain. If you are feeling bitter or battered, and want to be better, or even of you are not and you need to be encouraged to move on in the faith, listen to this, and consider how our circumstances, even if they are tough, do not compare with how some Christians live today.
http://annedroid-annedroid.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-am-i-here-for.html
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Eat what you're given
This was my sermon today, on Ephesians 5, 15-20 and John 6, 51-58.
It is a strange but nice co-incidence that as we are adapting to the imposition of a different way of taking communion, the readings this week give us the opportunity to reflect on drinking wine, and on the theology of communion as a whole!
The beginning of Ephesians chapter 5 reminded readers that they should be imitators of God (Ephesians 5.1) and offered practical advice on living in the body – the church. This passage is in the same vein. It offers two contrasts – between foolish and wise behaviour (vv. 15-17) and between being filled with wine and filled with the Spirit (v. 18).
For the Ephesians as for us Wisdom contrasts with the foolishness of the godless environment that is the world around us. Wisdom here is more about a whole attitude to life in Christ than an abstract concept or intellectual achievement. The core value of wisdom is that Christians should not wander aimlessly through life or behave as if they were in a moral stupor. There was for the Ephesian church a constant danger that Christians might be fooled by the attractions of the present age. The times required people to be cautious.
In one sense, nothing has changed. I wonder how much we differ from our neighbours who are not sitting next to us this morning. Do our lives from Monday to Friday reflect what we do and say on Sunday? I suspect they do, but we might not even be aware of why this is. There was in the early church a belief that evils increased as the end of the world neared –Mark 13 is an example of this. Wisdom was to be gained and accessed through discerning God's will (v. 17). The church is the principal means of carrying out this task of discernment. Yes, the Spirit speaks to individuals, and yes, the Bible or a hymn or poem can inspire the individual, but the Church (with a capital C to show I mean the universal church, not just our church) is the filter and sounding board and thinking space for these things.
Today there is also a feeling that things are going off the rails. Fed by media stories of crime and violence, of assisted suicide and of economic meltdown, it is sometimes hard for us to avoid thinking that there is an increase in evil in our world. Even in the Anglican Church things are looking a bit shaky; yet I am confident that in the Church of England at least, the corporate discernment of God’s will is still underway.
Paul’s second contrast in this passage is about alcohol, and about self-control, but the text continues to address the difference in moral attitude between the Christian and the non-Christian. Being filled by wine and being filled by the Spirit might both lead to singing, but there was and is a difference – in the first instance the alcohol is in control, in the second, it is the Spirit, when the Christian allows him control of their life. We have a glimpse here of the worship of early Christian communities who continued to sing the psalms of their Jewish heritage and added hymns and spiritual songs. There is no reason to suppose that the purpose of these verses was to address problems relating to the common meal of the community. They are making a pointed contrast rather than a targeted point. The note of praise and worship at the end of this passage is an important counter-balance to a view of wisdom that is worthy and dull. The wisdom that threw a party in the passage from Proverbs is the same wisdom that discerns the will of God.
Our second reading however is of course much more directly about communion. In the readings from John 6 set over the last two weeks, we have seen the unfolding of Jesus' understanding of himself as the bread of life, not just in a symbolic way, but in the flesh. We have also seen the desire of the crowd to keep the discourse about real (in their terms) bread so that Jesus would repeat his sign of feeding them. Now they were discussing how anyone could give their flesh to be eaten (v. 52). It was probably a heated discussion. What did Jesus mean exactly? Was this cannibalism – a charge frequently levelled against early Christianity? As people familiar with the Lord's Supper, Communion or Eucharist, we may be so familiar with the idea of eating the body of Christ that we find it difficult to understand how offensive this might sound to others. We can also become acutely aware of how entrenched our attitudes can become, to things like the cup, the nature of the elements and so on, or even about whether or not we should partake. This is one of my favourite Bible passages, and I would not be exaggerating to say that studying it totally transformed the way I understand and experience the grace of God in the Eucharist. However, I will try in what follows to avoid too much self-indulgence.
In John 6, verse 51, Jesus re-emphasises his claim to be the bread from heaven. Everyday bread has life-giving properties and the only way to get that nourishment is to eat the bread. In the same way, the only way to receive the life-giving potential of the bread from heaven was to eat. Does that mean we can’t truly be Christians unless we are communicants? That’s a tough question, and I would like to answer it gently and deliberately so as to challenge, but not exclude.
First a bit of background; John’s gospel dos not have a last supper account, as the others do, from whence we derive a lot of our communion theology, along with 1 Corinthians 11. Chapter 6 then is the main source of Eucharistic theology for this gospel. In it Jesus clearly identifies himself with the saving provision of God in Israel’s history – the manna from heaven. He also prophetically identifies himself with the elements of the Passover meal that tell of Israel’s deliverance. Thus far, we are in the same territory as the other gospels. John 6 is a little bit more mystic, yet we should always read it in the light of the other three.
Read in isolation, and without care, it can appear that this passage indicates that salvation is achieved through the consumption of bread and wine as body and blood at communion. That would be the conclusion of some scholars who understand this text to be a later insertion to justify and explain the origins of the Eucharist in the early church. However, we need to return to that concept of corporate discernment of God’s will; as a whole, the message of Scripture is not that salvation, our identity as Christians, or even our capacity for relationship with God, is a matter of eating and drinking bread and wine. It does say that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus’ sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. Church practice entails that this faith is expressed by, but not entirely defined by, our participation in the Lord’s Supper.
Having said that, there can be no doubt that the eating of Christ’s body and the drinking of his blood are central to Christian faith and practice. In Church history there has always been a graduating tendency whereby the child, the newcomer or the new convert are gradually drawn into the Eucharistic fellowship. That is not to say (even if the impression is sometimes strongly given) that the catechumens – to give them their traditional name – are in any way less of a Christian than someone who’s been taking communion for decades. Let us remember that at the Last Supper, the denier and the betrayer shared the bread and the cup. It is therefore dangerous to presume that we know who should and shouldn’t take communion. Children, occasional attenders or people who for whatever personal reasons have decided not to take communion, are not a lesser part of the church.
What I think I’m trying to say then, in answer to my own question of a few minutes ago, is that not taking communion does not exclude you from being a Christian. However, being a Christian is about a journey together, towards God in Christ, and we as a church express that journey in our worship by partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the communion. We understand communion in the Anglican tradition as being among other things a means of meeting with God and receiving his grace, a means of reviving and encouraging our faith, and ultimately as an act of worship we were commanded by our Lord to do, in anticipation of his return. The Eucharist does define us, but I hope never in an exclusive way. So I hope to have fulfilled my promise not to exclude anyone; here comes the challenge.
John Wesley, when he was an Anglican minister, called the Eucharist “a converting ordinance”. His heart was strangely warmed by the exposition of Scripture, as I expect ours are too. Yet my heart is warmed by communion. I am so blessed to be your priest because I get to preside here – we all celebrate communion, let’s remember, I am just the president. My heart is warmed because it is where I meet with God, it is a big part of how my faith grows and is sustained, and mostly because I therefore know how much God loves me even though I do not deserve or understand why he should. Let’s be clear that you do not have to fully understand how communion works to be part of it; if that were true, none of us would be able to take the bread and the wine. Neither do you have to be perfect or even nearly so to take the bread and the wine.
I am blessed by those of us who come but do not partake; I just want to say that if ever anyone wishes to change their status from non-communicant to communicant, I would be equally blessed;
“Live not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity …”
It is a strange but nice co-incidence that as we are adapting to the imposition of a different way of taking communion, the readings this week give us the opportunity to reflect on drinking wine, and on the theology of communion as a whole!
The beginning of Ephesians chapter 5 reminded readers that they should be imitators of God (Ephesians 5.1) and offered practical advice on living in the body – the church. This passage is in the same vein. It offers two contrasts – between foolish and wise behaviour (vv. 15-17) and between being filled with wine and filled with the Spirit (v. 18).
For the Ephesians as for us Wisdom contrasts with the foolishness of the godless environment that is the world around us. Wisdom here is more about a whole attitude to life in Christ than an abstract concept or intellectual achievement. The core value of wisdom is that Christians should not wander aimlessly through life or behave as if they were in a moral stupor. There was for the Ephesian church a constant danger that Christians might be fooled by the attractions of the present age. The times required people to be cautious.
In one sense, nothing has changed. I wonder how much we differ from our neighbours who are not sitting next to us this morning. Do our lives from Monday to Friday reflect what we do and say on Sunday? I suspect they do, but we might not even be aware of why this is. There was in the early church a belief that evils increased as the end of the world neared –Mark 13 is an example of this. Wisdom was to be gained and accessed through discerning God's will (v. 17). The church is the principal means of carrying out this task of discernment. Yes, the Spirit speaks to individuals, and yes, the Bible or a hymn or poem can inspire the individual, but the Church (with a capital C to show I mean the universal church, not just our church) is the filter and sounding board and thinking space for these things.
Today there is also a feeling that things are going off the rails. Fed by media stories of crime and violence, of assisted suicide and of economic meltdown, it is sometimes hard for us to avoid thinking that there is an increase in evil in our world. Even in the Anglican Church things are looking a bit shaky; yet I am confident that in the Church of England at least, the corporate discernment of God’s will is still underway.
Paul’s second contrast in this passage is about alcohol, and about self-control, but the text continues to address the difference in moral attitude between the Christian and the non-Christian. Being filled by wine and being filled by the Spirit might both lead to singing, but there was and is a difference – in the first instance the alcohol is in control, in the second, it is the Spirit, when the Christian allows him control of their life. We have a glimpse here of the worship of early Christian communities who continued to sing the psalms of their Jewish heritage and added hymns and spiritual songs. There is no reason to suppose that the purpose of these verses was to address problems relating to the common meal of the community. They are making a pointed contrast rather than a targeted point. The note of praise and worship at the end of this passage is an important counter-balance to a view of wisdom that is worthy and dull. The wisdom that threw a party in the passage from Proverbs is the same wisdom that discerns the will of God.
Our second reading however is of course much more directly about communion. In the readings from John 6 set over the last two weeks, we have seen the unfolding of Jesus' understanding of himself as the bread of life, not just in a symbolic way, but in the flesh. We have also seen the desire of the crowd to keep the discourse about real (in their terms) bread so that Jesus would repeat his sign of feeding them. Now they were discussing how anyone could give their flesh to be eaten (v. 52). It was probably a heated discussion. What did Jesus mean exactly? Was this cannibalism – a charge frequently levelled against early Christianity? As people familiar with the Lord's Supper, Communion or Eucharist, we may be so familiar with the idea of eating the body of Christ that we find it difficult to understand how offensive this might sound to others. We can also become acutely aware of how entrenched our attitudes can become, to things like the cup, the nature of the elements and so on, or even about whether or not we should partake. This is one of my favourite Bible passages, and I would not be exaggerating to say that studying it totally transformed the way I understand and experience the grace of God in the Eucharist. However, I will try in what follows to avoid too much self-indulgence.
In John 6, verse 51, Jesus re-emphasises his claim to be the bread from heaven. Everyday bread has life-giving properties and the only way to get that nourishment is to eat the bread. In the same way, the only way to receive the life-giving potential of the bread from heaven was to eat. Does that mean we can’t truly be Christians unless we are communicants? That’s a tough question, and I would like to answer it gently and deliberately so as to challenge, but not exclude.
First a bit of background; John’s gospel dos not have a last supper account, as the others do, from whence we derive a lot of our communion theology, along with 1 Corinthians 11. Chapter 6 then is the main source of Eucharistic theology for this gospel. In it Jesus clearly identifies himself with the saving provision of God in Israel’s history – the manna from heaven. He also prophetically identifies himself with the elements of the Passover meal that tell of Israel’s deliverance. Thus far, we are in the same territory as the other gospels. John 6 is a little bit more mystic, yet we should always read it in the light of the other three.
Read in isolation, and without care, it can appear that this passage indicates that salvation is achieved through the consumption of bread and wine as body and blood at communion. That would be the conclusion of some scholars who understand this text to be a later insertion to justify and explain the origins of the Eucharist in the early church. However, we need to return to that concept of corporate discernment of God’s will; as a whole, the message of Scripture is not that salvation, our identity as Christians, or even our capacity for relationship with God, is a matter of eating and drinking bread and wine. It does say that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus’ sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. Church practice entails that this faith is expressed by, but not entirely defined by, our participation in the Lord’s Supper.
Having said that, there can be no doubt that the eating of Christ’s body and the drinking of his blood are central to Christian faith and practice. In Church history there has always been a graduating tendency whereby the child, the newcomer or the new convert are gradually drawn into the Eucharistic fellowship. That is not to say (even if the impression is sometimes strongly given) that the catechumens – to give them their traditional name – are in any way less of a Christian than someone who’s been taking communion for decades. Let us remember that at the Last Supper, the denier and the betrayer shared the bread and the cup. It is therefore dangerous to presume that we know who should and shouldn’t take communion. Children, occasional attenders or people who for whatever personal reasons have decided not to take communion, are not a lesser part of the church.
What I think I’m trying to say then, in answer to my own question of a few minutes ago, is that not taking communion does not exclude you from being a Christian. However, being a Christian is about a journey together, towards God in Christ, and we as a church express that journey in our worship by partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the communion. We understand communion in the Anglican tradition as being among other things a means of meeting with God and receiving his grace, a means of reviving and encouraging our faith, and ultimately as an act of worship we were commanded by our Lord to do, in anticipation of his return. The Eucharist does define us, but I hope never in an exclusive way. So I hope to have fulfilled my promise not to exclude anyone; here comes the challenge.
John Wesley, when he was an Anglican minister, called the Eucharist “a converting ordinance”. His heart was strangely warmed by the exposition of Scripture, as I expect ours are too. Yet my heart is warmed by communion. I am so blessed to be your priest because I get to preside here – we all celebrate communion, let’s remember, I am just the president. My heart is warmed because it is where I meet with God, it is a big part of how my faith grows and is sustained, and mostly because I therefore know how much God loves me even though I do not deserve or understand why he should. Let’s be clear that you do not have to fully understand how communion works to be part of it; if that were true, none of us would be able to take the bread and the wine. Neither do you have to be perfect or even nearly so to take the bread and the wine.
I am blessed by those of us who come but do not partake; I just want to say that if ever anyone wishes to change their status from non-communicant to communicant, I would be equally blessed;
“Live not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity …”
Monday, 20 July 2009
Seermon for 19th July at Lindsell and Stebbing
The readings were Ephesians 2,11 to the end and Mark 6, 30 to 44 (I know, playing fast and loose with the lectionary, but what an empty reading if you stuck with the allocated gospel passage!)
Some material from rootsontheweb.
Today’s sermon might be titled “predestination, what’s all that about then, part 2, or, what does it mean to be untied in Christ?” I’m inspired mostly by international events, but if what I share with you helps us on a local level, all the better. The two things in my mind that kicked off this line of thought were the decision this week of the General convention of the TECUSA to overturn a ban on practising homosexuals in holy orders, and the decision of the Greek orthodox church to declare that other churches’ baptism is not valid.
The first part of chapter 2 of the letter to the Ephesians (vv. 1–10) had reminded readers of their liberation from forces beyond their control and their place with Christ. God's grace had saved them, not their own efforts. Today's reading moves on from that to reflect on the unity that Christ brings.
There was in Christ no division between people because of ethnicity, culture or religious background. Gentile believers were first asked to imagine themselves as they might be perceived from a Jewish perspective (vv. 11–12): they did not belong to the elect nation and had no hope. However, Christ has drawn them in (v. 13), not into the old religious context but into a new relationship of peace (vv. 14–18). Christ not only reconciles people to God, but also to one another. Assurance of this double reconciliation is a special contribution of Ephesians. Those who are predestined, then, are not passive but active in relating to each other within the Kingdom of God. In other words, being predestined is not just about sitting back and soaking it up, but about actively proclaiming the unity that has been wrought for us by Jesus.
Even if churches seem sometimes to go into meltdown, we can be assured that the more important body, the Kingdom, remains intact. Once again we a strong illustration of how God’s sovereign will overarches our human understanding of things like time; Paul exhorts his gentile readers to look back at what they were before they came to faith in Christ – and it is that faith in the blood of Christ that has brought them near to God. Yet for God, this perspective has no meaning, as both before and after their conversion he was with them and had chosen them. Their recognition of his choice, and their own submission to his rule and authority brings into effect the power of the Cross.
And the Kingdom, the new temple, the family of God, whatever we call it, is founded in order to bring about a unity among believers – a good thing to remind ourselves of this week.
Although the divisiveness of Old Testament legalism was abolished at the cross and resurrection of Jesus, says Paul in v. 15, the underlying values were not – verse 20 is clear that the prophets play a part in the foundation of the new covenant. Christianity was more than a reshaped Judaism, but God had not given up on the foundational ideals proclaimed under his inspiration. The final verses of the passage use some strong images. Christians are not aliens but citizens and are members of God's household (v. 19). Together they are built into a new temple (vv. 20–22). In this building image we can see a contrast between a dividing wall (v. 14), which kept people apart, and the new structure, which incorporated them and gave them all access to God. Buildings were important symbols of power and glory in the Roman Empire. This new structure symbolised a different reality. It is not a matter of architecture designed to dominate and rule, but of a united community all seeking to serve the cornerstone, Christ.
How we read chapters like Ephesians 2 will be affected by how we interpret the scope of the pronouns – I mean, who we understand the “you”, the “we” to be. If Paul is distinguishing between groups within the church, it is only to make the point that the work of Christ is to unite them. These people he refers to as “you” are not outside the church, they are simply not from a Jewish background – and yet God has chosen to include them in his family. So both we (the Jewish believers, from Paul’s perspective) and “you” – the gentile converts, are united by hope in Christ.
So that’s fine for the first century, but who are “you” and “we” today? If we are talking about different groups within the church, I guess worldwide you can take your pick as to what issue might be dividing God’s people. It isn’t circumcision any more, but it might be sacraments, sex, money, bishops or other aspects of legalism, such a fundamentalist attitude to and reading of the Bible. It might on the other hand be too liberal an attitude to traditional Christian morality. Locally it might be something trivial like those who like one kind of service and those who like another; those who like formality and those who prefer to get messy. Those who like pews, those who don’t.
But don’t spend too much time wondering which group you fit in, just remember that the unity of the church is not something we have to work for, it is something that has been done for us by the grace of God upon the cross of Christ.
The passage emphasises the work of Christ in making one humanity, with the abolition of the fundamental categories that divide people. It also removes the grounds for the division of the Church into multiple sects. Like I say, if you’re at all concerned about what you might be reading in the papers, just hold on to the truth that the Kingdom is not of this world but we are nevertheless citizens of it. And I’m pleased to say that this benefice is enriched by our diversity; we need to remember that the heart of Paul’s’ message to the Ephesians is that you do not have to be the same to be united.
There is a saying that you can choose your friends, but not your family; in the worldwide church right now it would be a good thing if that could be remembered. Of course, alongside it goes the sovereignty of God; churches might be fallible human institutions, but they contain those whom God has chosen. We might not get on with all of them, but they are God’s chosen people – and if we start saying, “no they’re not”, we run the risk of being excluded ourselves – but that’s another sermon.
The opening verses of our gospel reading carry on the story from the mission of the twelve (Mark 6.6b–13) which we looked at last week. We can imagine the excitement of the disciples jostling round Jesus, each wanting to tell their story. What a great picture of unity – all wanting to share, all excited about what Jesus has done in a d through them. That’s the kind of expression of God’s family, God’s chosen people, that I like.
Add to that the crowds attracted by Jesus and there was no space even to eat. Little surprise, then, that Jesus decided to take the Twelve off to a quiet place for debriefing and rest. This is the only time in Mark's Gospel that they are called 'apostles', perhaps emphasising that they were acting in their mission as authorised representatives of Jesus.
Then of course we come to the famous feeding of the 5 thousand. What more can be said about this? Well I’ve been wittering on for a while now so briefly, a few things resonate with me on the topic we address today from these verses.
First, and I’m sure I’ve said this to you before, though Jesus gets the credit for this miracle, it is the 12 disciples who actually have to turn and face the crowds with a few crumbly bits of food in a basket and start sharing them out. This is a picture of how the family of God should be – reliant on God, yes, but not passive, not backward in coming forward to take risks, so that others might have their needs met and so be drawn closer to God.
Second, it is important to note the context of this miracle; these people were not starving for food, but for leadership, for teaching, for knowledge of God; Jesus’ compassion is not initially there because they are hungry, but because no one has told them the good news - perhaps in contrast to those who received the ministry of the 12 in their recent mission. I will never rule out practical and social aid and development as a core part of the mission of the church, but let us not lose sight of the fact that what most people lack is a basic understanding of who Jesus is, and what he has done for the world. Like the disciples with their baskets of food, it is our task to meet that need.
And third, and finally, let us take courage from the tiny amount of resources Jesus used to meet an enormous need. We are a small Church in a small community, but we are God’s family, God’s people here, and we must trust that he will continue to use us for his work, even if we feel inadequate for the task.
Some material from rootsontheweb.
Today’s sermon might be titled “predestination, what’s all that about then, part 2, or, what does it mean to be untied in Christ?” I’m inspired mostly by international events, but if what I share with you helps us on a local level, all the better. The two things in my mind that kicked off this line of thought were the decision this week of the General convention of the TECUSA to overturn a ban on practising homosexuals in holy orders, and the decision of the Greek orthodox church to declare that other churches’ baptism is not valid.
The first part of chapter 2 of the letter to the Ephesians (vv. 1–10) had reminded readers of their liberation from forces beyond their control and their place with Christ. God's grace had saved them, not their own efforts. Today's reading moves on from that to reflect on the unity that Christ brings.
There was in Christ no division between people because of ethnicity, culture or religious background. Gentile believers were first asked to imagine themselves as they might be perceived from a Jewish perspective (vv. 11–12): they did not belong to the elect nation and had no hope. However, Christ has drawn them in (v. 13), not into the old religious context but into a new relationship of peace (vv. 14–18). Christ not only reconciles people to God, but also to one another. Assurance of this double reconciliation is a special contribution of Ephesians. Those who are predestined, then, are not passive but active in relating to each other within the Kingdom of God. In other words, being predestined is not just about sitting back and soaking it up, but about actively proclaiming the unity that has been wrought for us by Jesus.
Even if churches seem sometimes to go into meltdown, we can be assured that the more important body, the Kingdom, remains intact. Once again we a strong illustration of how God’s sovereign will overarches our human understanding of things like time; Paul exhorts his gentile readers to look back at what they were before they came to faith in Christ – and it is that faith in the blood of Christ that has brought them near to God. Yet for God, this perspective has no meaning, as both before and after their conversion he was with them and had chosen them. Their recognition of his choice, and their own submission to his rule and authority brings into effect the power of the Cross.
And the Kingdom, the new temple, the family of God, whatever we call it, is founded in order to bring about a unity among believers – a good thing to remind ourselves of this week.
Although the divisiveness of Old Testament legalism was abolished at the cross and resurrection of Jesus, says Paul in v. 15, the underlying values were not – verse 20 is clear that the prophets play a part in the foundation of the new covenant. Christianity was more than a reshaped Judaism, but God had not given up on the foundational ideals proclaimed under his inspiration. The final verses of the passage use some strong images. Christians are not aliens but citizens and are members of God's household (v. 19). Together they are built into a new temple (vv. 20–22). In this building image we can see a contrast between a dividing wall (v. 14), which kept people apart, and the new structure, which incorporated them and gave them all access to God. Buildings were important symbols of power and glory in the Roman Empire. This new structure symbolised a different reality. It is not a matter of architecture designed to dominate and rule, but of a united community all seeking to serve the cornerstone, Christ.
How we read chapters like Ephesians 2 will be affected by how we interpret the scope of the pronouns – I mean, who we understand the “you”, the “we” to be. If Paul is distinguishing between groups within the church, it is only to make the point that the work of Christ is to unite them. These people he refers to as “you” are not outside the church, they are simply not from a Jewish background – and yet God has chosen to include them in his family. So both we (the Jewish believers, from Paul’s perspective) and “you” – the gentile converts, are united by hope in Christ.
So that’s fine for the first century, but who are “you” and “we” today? If we are talking about different groups within the church, I guess worldwide you can take your pick as to what issue might be dividing God’s people. It isn’t circumcision any more, but it might be sacraments, sex, money, bishops or other aspects of legalism, such a fundamentalist attitude to and reading of the Bible. It might on the other hand be too liberal an attitude to traditional Christian morality. Locally it might be something trivial like those who like one kind of service and those who like another; those who like formality and those who prefer to get messy. Those who like pews, those who don’t.
But don’t spend too much time wondering which group you fit in, just remember that the unity of the church is not something we have to work for, it is something that has been done for us by the grace of God upon the cross of Christ.
The passage emphasises the work of Christ in making one humanity, with the abolition of the fundamental categories that divide people. It also removes the grounds for the division of the Church into multiple sects. Like I say, if you’re at all concerned about what you might be reading in the papers, just hold on to the truth that the Kingdom is not of this world but we are nevertheless citizens of it. And I’m pleased to say that this benefice is enriched by our diversity; we need to remember that the heart of Paul’s’ message to the Ephesians is that you do not have to be the same to be united.
There is a saying that you can choose your friends, but not your family; in the worldwide church right now it would be a good thing if that could be remembered. Of course, alongside it goes the sovereignty of God; churches might be fallible human institutions, but they contain those whom God has chosen. We might not get on with all of them, but they are God’s chosen people – and if we start saying, “no they’re not”, we run the risk of being excluded ourselves – but that’s another sermon.
The opening verses of our gospel reading carry on the story from the mission of the twelve (Mark 6.6b–13) which we looked at last week. We can imagine the excitement of the disciples jostling round Jesus, each wanting to tell their story. What a great picture of unity – all wanting to share, all excited about what Jesus has done in a d through them. That’s the kind of expression of God’s family, God’s chosen people, that I like.
Add to that the crowds attracted by Jesus and there was no space even to eat. Little surprise, then, that Jesus decided to take the Twelve off to a quiet place for debriefing and rest. This is the only time in Mark's Gospel that they are called 'apostles', perhaps emphasising that they were acting in their mission as authorised representatives of Jesus.
Then of course we come to the famous feeding of the 5 thousand. What more can be said about this? Well I’ve been wittering on for a while now so briefly, a few things resonate with me on the topic we address today from these verses.
First, and I’m sure I’ve said this to you before, though Jesus gets the credit for this miracle, it is the 12 disciples who actually have to turn and face the crowds with a few crumbly bits of food in a basket and start sharing them out. This is a picture of how the family of God should be – reliant on God, yes, but not passive, not backward in coming forward to take risks, so that others might have their needs met and so be drawn closer to God.
Second, it is important to note the context of this miracle; these people were not starving for food, but for leadership, for teaching, for knowledge of God; Jesus’ compassion is not initially there because they are hungry, but because no one has told them the good news - perhaps in contrast to those who received the ministry of the 12 in their recent mission. I will never rule out practical and social aid and development as a core part of the mission of the church, but let us not lose sight of the fact that what most people lack is a basic understanding of who Jesus is, and what he has done for the world. Like the disciples with their baskets of food, it is our task to meet that need.
And third, and finally, let us take courage from the tiny amount of resources Jesus used to meet an enormous need. We are a small Church in a small community, but we are God’s family, God’s people here, and we must trust that he will continue to use us for his work, even if we feel inadequate for the task.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Sermon for Stebbing and Lindsell, Trinity 5
I've rather let my sermons blog go cold, perhaps in anticipation of podcast capability on the imminent but as yet unlinkable-to new Stebbing Church website. However this sermon took a lot of effort to write and deliver so I thought I'd stick it here.
The readings were Ephesians 1, 3-14 and Mark 6 14-29. The background to the opening remarks is that I had just announced 2 deaths, one a teenager with brain cancer.
On the face of it I think you might excuse me, had I decided to choose a gospel reading other than the one we have just had, especially after the news we have shared this morning. However, I do believe that the lectionary is there for a reason, and we have been working our way through Mark’s gospel, so I decided to continue. You might also be wondering what I can say to connect these two readings together, and build up our faith.
Well, they are both about power; not necessarily the same kind of power or the same attitude to power, but power connects them.
Ephesians 1, 3-14 is a prayer of blessing and praise of our powerful God. The blessings received by the recipients of the letter come from God, their greatest benefactor, who consistently works for good and offers salvation through Christ. He may appear distant when described as the ruler of the universe but we know he is near to us as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so also our father.
These verses introduce some themes that run through Ephesians – the relationship of God to the universe, the holiness of God's people and the joy of redemption. The passage includes the astounding claim that, in the end, all 'things in heaven and things on earth' will be brought together in Christ (v. 10 – compare this with Colossians 1.20 which says, “through him [that is Christ] to reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through h s blood shed on the cross). This stretches our imagination beyond our limited horizons, and ultimately shows us how far the power of God can go. It also helpfully focuses our attention on the fact that the power – or for that matter the love – of God is most clearly expressed in the cross of Christ
.
We can read this passage in three ways.
The first is chronological: the Father's original and eternal purpose was worked out in history through Christ and realised later in human experience. It moves not only through time but also from the universal to the personal.
Secondly, we may opt to see it liturgically. The poetic features of the passage indicate that it may have been adapted from an early Christian liturgical format. The pattern is Trinitarian – the Father chooses his people, Christ the Son brings redemption and the Spirit works that out in God's people.
Thirdly we may see it as disputational. It may have been written or compiled to counter claims of Jewish believers that they were superior to non-Jews who had come to faith in Christ: the choice and the power to redeem rests in God, not in the believer. There’s that word again, power. God has the power to redeem humanity, whoever we are, whatever we have done.
These three approaches are not mutually exclusive. We live in Christ because of God's choice. The passage speaks of God's eternal purposes with words like 'chose' (v. 4), 'destined' (v. 5 and v. 11) and 'adoption' (v. 5). There are none of the negative aspects of election. God's choosing is to be celebrated as an act of generosity and love.
Let me just spend a little moment on the concept of predestination. Millions of words have been written and preached about it, especially based on verses such as these. Not all of it has been helpful, and so I digress slightly from the theme of power.
I want to say that it is good to know that God has chosen us, that he knew us before the creation of the world and he has a purpose for us; this is a foundation of our trust in God, even when things seem horrible.
But we must not let our predestination – our chosen-ness, make us complacent; I have often felt that the strange complexity of predestination is well summed up by the Matt Redman song “I found Jesus”, in which we sing “I was lost but Jesus found me, I found Jesus”. It may be true that God chose us, but we still have to choose him; he has worked out our salvation in Christ, but that is ineffective in our lives until we respond to him and are open to his transforming power. In the same way sometimes I feel that the church can be infected with complacency in mission by thoughts of predestination – I guess logically one might conclude that if we were chosen then that’s all great, everyone else will be chosen too, we don’t have to worry about it.
But of course the great thing about predestination is that it is not exclusive. Everyone who hears and responds to the message of God’s love in Christ finds himself or herself included among the chosen. We read that in verse 13. There is no fixed list, with God ticking off names until he gets to the end; rather, he is joyfully adding to the list those who he knew all along would be choosing Christ. Unlike the Jehovah’s Witnesses, we Anglicans do not believe that that hypothetical list in finite.
The power of the cross was not just for a select band; that power has the potential to save every human; the fact that some are perishing is an indictment of the church, not a sign of the cruelty of a selective God.
So we rejoice in the power of God, but let us not be complacent and keep it to ourselves; God is waiting for us to help others choose him. That’s what our vision process has been about, and from what I’m hearing and seeing, it is already beginning to bear fruit.
So, you’re wondering, what on earth is he going to say about the death of John the Baptist?
Well, here we see how people abuse power; this is an example of learning by saying, “don’t do that …”
Herod and his completely dysfunctional family have obtained a degree of political power, though they are effectively puppets of the Roman regime. Perhaps because of this Herod likes to throw his weight around and pretty much takes what he wants – even his brother’s wife.
He’s not completely without redeeming features, though, for the text suggests John was in protective custody to prevent Herodias from having him killed. Clearly, the Baptist’s ministry had reached his ears and he liked to listen to him, we read. But actually we need to remember that this episode is in effect told in flashback, because now the ministry of Jesus and his disciples has come to his attention. People were saying Jesus was John risen from the dead, so we then get Marks’ account of how John came to die.
In the preceding paragraphs we read that Jesus' ministry was being extended through the mission of the Twelve so it was not surprising that he came to the attention of Herod. The parallels between Jesus and John obviously touched a raw nerve with Herod – was this John come back to disturb him? Significantly, in verse 16, when Herod says, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” it is not a question, it is a statement – he obviously believes it to be true.
We can see in Mark's account some parallels with stories in the Jewish Scriptures – e.g. Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings 17 and 18) with John playing Elijah and Herod and Herodias as Ahab and Jezebel. John did not just suffer the consequences of his bold preaching; he also fell foul of the sexual and power politics of the court. Herod, like many leaders before and after him, was willing to sacrifice others in order to maintain his own prestige, honour and power. This stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of life of the twelve in their mission.
In Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome”, which dramatises this incident, Herod says, on hearing of the possibility that Jesus has been raising people from the dead, “I will not allow this man to raise the dead!” This is a fine example of how humans think they can tell God what he can and can’t do. I read about that play on an Internet site discussing the dogmatic, even fundamentalist attitudes of militant atheists like Richard Dawkins. They are so determined that Christianity cannot be true that they behave like Wilde’s Herod, and end up making ridiculous statements that show only their prejudice and none of their wisdom.
On the other hand, the sort of person we are most likely to encounter in our daily lives is more like the Biblical Herod than the fictional one. These are the people who have heard of Jesus, just as Herod had, and who might feel protective of the church, even the Christian faith, even as Herod enjoyed listening to John and protected him.
However, like Herod, they just don’t know the full story; Herod thought Jesus was John raised to life, and our neighbours and colleagues, even our family, may have similar misconceptions about the Christian story and the Christian faith.
Because we enjoy the kind of life in Christ that our first reading from Ephesians describes, ought we not to endeavour to overcome some of these misconceptions? Sometimes the first step on a journey of mission is to say, “Actually that’s not quite what happens”.
Let us then pray for confidence
Some material by Simon Oxley from www.rootsontheweb.com copyright © Roots for Churches Ltd 2009.
The readings were Ephesians 1, 3-14 and Mark 6 14-29. The background to the opening remarks is that I had just announced 2 deaths, one a teenager with brain cancer.
On the face of it I think you might excuse me, had I decided to choose a gospel reading other than the one we have just had, especially after the news we have shared this morning. However, I do believe that the lectionary is there for a reason, and we have been working our way through Mark’s gospel, so I decided to continue. You might also be wondering what I can say to connect these two readings together, and build up our faith.
Well, they are both about power; not necessarily the same kind of power or the same attitude to power, but power connects them.
Ephesians 1, 3-14 is a prayer of blessing and praise of our powerful God. The blessings received by the recipients of the letter come from God, their greatest benefactor, who consistently works for good and offers salvation through Christ. He may appear distant when described as the ruler of the universe but we know he is near to us as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so also our father.
These verses introduce some themes that run through Ephesians – the relationship of God to the universe, the holiness of God's people and the joy of redemption. The passage includes the astounding claim that, in the end, all 'things in heaven and things on earth' will be brought together in Christ (v. 10 – compare this with Colossians 1.20 which says, “through him [that is Christ] to reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through h s blood shed on the cross). This stretches our imagination beyond our limited horizons, and ultimately shows us how far the power of God can go. It also helpfully focuses our attention on the fact that the power – or for that matter the love – of God is most clearly expressed in the cross of Christ
.
We can read this passage in three ways.
The first is chronological: the Father's original and eternal purpose was worked out in history through Christ and realised later in human experience. It moves not only through time but also from the universal to the personal.
Secondly, we may opt to see it liturgically. The poetic features of the passage indicate that it may have been adapted from an early Christian liturgical format. The pattern is Trinitarian – the Father chooses his people, Christ the Son brings redemption and the Spirit works that out in God's people.
Thirdly we may see it as disputational. It may have been written or compiled to counter claims of Jewish believers that they were superior to non-Jews who had come to faith in Christ: the choice and the power to redeem rests in God, not in the believer. There’s that word again, power. God has the power to redeem humanity, whoever we are, whatever we have done.
These three approaches are not mutually exclusive. We live in Christ because of God's choice. The passage speaks of God's eternal purposes with words like 'chose' (v. 4), 'destined' (v. 5 and v. 11) and 'adoption' (v. 5). There are none of the negative aspects of election. God's choosing is to be celebrated as an act of generosity and love.
Let me just spend a little moment on the concept of predestination. Millions of words have been written and preached about it, especially based on verses such as these. Not all of it has been helpful, and so I digress slightly from the theme of power.
I want to say that it is good to know that God has chosen us, that he knew us before the creation of the world and he has a purpose for us; this is a foundation of our trust in God, even when things seem horrible.
But we must not let our predestination – our chosen-ness, make us complacent; I have often felt that the strange complexity of predestination is well summed up by the Matt Redman song “I found Jesus”, in which we sing “I was lost but Jesus found me, I found Jesus”. It may be true that God chose us, but we still have to choose him; he has worked out our salvation in Christ, but that is ineffective in our lives until we respond to him and are open to his transforming power. In the same way sometimes I feel that the church can be infected with complacency in mission by thoughts of predestination – I guess logically one might conclude that if we were chosen then that’s all great, everyone else will be chosen too, we don’t have to worry about it.
But of course the great thing about predestination is that it is not exclusive. Everyone who hears and responds to the message of God’s love in Christ finds himself or herself included among the chosen. We read that in verse 13. There is no fixed list, with God ticking off names until he gets to the end; rather, he is joyfully adding to the list those who he knew all along would be choosing Christ. Unlike the Jehovah’s Witnesses, we Anglicans do not believe that that hypothetical list in finite.
The power of the cross was not just for a select band; that power has the potential to save every human; the fact that some are perishing is an indictment of the church, not a sign of the cruelty of a selective God.
So we rejoice in the power of God, but let us not be complacent and keep it to ourselves; God is waiting for us to help others choose him. That’s what our vision process has been about, and from what I’m hearing and seeing, it is already beginning to bear fruit.
So, you’re wondering, what on earth is he going to say about the death of John the Baptist?
Well, here we see how people abuse power; this is an example of learning by saying, “don’t do that …”
Herod and his completely dysfunctional family have obtained a degree of political power, though they are effectively puppets of the Roman regime. Perhaps because of this Herod likes to throw his weight around and pretty much takes what he wants – even his brother’s wife.
He’s not completely without redeeming features, though, for the text suggests John was in protective custody to prevent Herodias from having him killed. Clearly, the Baptist’s ministry had reached his ears and he liked to listen to him, we read. But actually we need to remember that this episode is in effect told in flashback, because now the ministry of Jesus and his disciples has come to his attention. People were saying Jesus was John risen from the dead, so we then get Marks’ account of how John came to die.
In the preceding paragraphs we read that Jesus' ministry was being extended through the mission of the Twelve so it was not surprising that he came to the attention of Herod. The parallels between Jesus and John obviously touched a raw nerve with Herod – was this John come back to disturb him? Significantly, in verse 16, when Herod says, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” it is not a question, it is a statement – he obviously believes it to be true.
We can see in Mark's account some parallels with stories in the Jewish Scriptures – e.g. Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings 17 and 18) with John playing Elijah and Herod and Herodias as Ahab and Jezebel. John did not just suffer the consequences of his bold preaching; he also fell foul of the sexual and power politics of the court. Herod, like many leaders before and after him, was willing to sacrifice others in order to maintain his own prestige, honour and power. This stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of life of the twelve in their mission.
In Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome”, which dramatises this incident, Herod says, on hearing of the possibility that Jesus has been raising people from the dead, “I will not allow this man to raise the dead!” This is a fine example of how humans think they can tell God what he can and can’t do. I read about that play on an Internet site discussing the dogmatic, even fundamentalist attitudes of militant atheists like Richard Dawkins. They are so determined that Christianity cannot be true that they behave like Wilde’s Herod, and end up making ridiculous statements that show only their prejudice and none of their wisdom.
On the other hand, the sort of person we are most likely to encounter in our daily lives is more like the Biblical Herod than the fictional one. These are the people who have heard of Jesus, just as Herod had, and who might feel protective of the church, even the Christian faith, even as Herod enjoyed listening to John and protected him.
However, like Herod, they just don’t know the full story; Herod thought Jesus was John raised to life, and our neighbours and colleagues, even our family, may have similar misconceptions about the Christian story and the Christian faith.
Because we enjoy the kind of life in Christ that our first reading from Ephesians describes, ought we not to endeavour to overcome some of these misconceptions? Sometimes the first step on a journey of mission is to say, “Actually that’s not quite what happens”.
Let us then pray for confidence
Some material by Simon Oxley from www.rootsontheweb.com copyright © Roots for Churches Ltd 2009.
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