Honest to God

Sunday 30^th August – Trinity 12 (Proper 17)

I am presiding at All Saints at 9.30am and St. Michael’s at 11am and Rev. Karen Young is presiding at St. Peter’s at the 10am service.

Jeremiah 15: 15-21. A pained and disillusioned prophet accuses God of misleading him. He endures great suffering and estrangement for preaching God’s word. In God’s response, he assures Jeremiah that if he continues to be a prophet that people will have to respond to him because what he is saying is true. This passage is a profound insight into the mystery of being caught up in God’s plan which can bring pain as well as ecstasy.  

Romans 12: 9-21. Ethical teaching which draws on both Old Testament and perhaps teaching of Jesus (Paul never quotes any of Jesus’ sayings or parables, only relaying the Eucharistic rite). He starts with how Christians in the same fellowship ought to treat each other, and then Christians in other churches, and how to deal with outsiders and outright opposition. Repaying evil with good produces the intriguing sentence “For in doing so you heap burning coals on their head” is not easy to interpret but probably means that it will make them feel ashamed.

Matthew 16: 21-28. “Get thee behind me Satan” has entered the English language to describe someone who tempts one down a wrong path. Peter goes from “the rock” to Satan in one easy move, proving that we all have feet of clay no matter how lofty our intentions. Jesus says that some will not die “before they see him coming in his Kingdom”. What this means is not clear but could be a cryptic reference to the cross, or the coming of the Holy Spirit, but one assumes from Matthew’s words themselves in chapter 28: 16-20 that he thinks it refers to the resurrection itself.

  

The way Jeremiah accuses God of deceiving him is a way of speaking to God almost unknown in Christian churches of all stripes but is quite common in Judaism, where the concept of wrestling with God is part of their DNA.

I have heard Jewish commentators say about the CofE in general that we are far too nice and deferential when addressing God.

Perhaps we could learn something from the Jews here who because of their history of suffering, the holocaust, expulsions, pogroms, exiles, and persecution, probably have more reason than most to question the providence of God.

In private prayer I think that God would prefer honesty instead of a deferential false humility when actually you are seething inside. He is God after all and can tell the difference.

A prayer I have quoted many times before written by Harry Williams, a great influence on me in Mirfield starts,

"O God, I am so hellishly angry;
I think so-and-so is a swine;
I am tortured by worry about this or that;
I am pretty sure I have missed my chances in life;
this or that has left me feeling terribly depressed."

Is so honest you can feel his pain and confusion. He is being honest about how he really is and feels. Why hide from someone who knows where you are at all times? The second half of the prayer seems equally bleak on the face of it.

"But nonetheless here I am like this,
feeling both bloody and bloody-minded,
and I am going to stay here for ten minutes.
You are most unlikely to give me anything.
I know that.
But I am going to stay for the ten minutes nonetheless."

But it shows a profound realistic faith in a God who doesn’t necessarily answer every whim or desire but shows a determination to want to be with God regardless.

Being with God, communion with God, is a good in and of itself and not dependent on what you might gain from it. It is a short step from that position to the heresy and deceit of the prosperity gospel which preaches that faith in God is automatically rewarded with success in this life.

Tell that to Jesus whose faithfulness landed him being flogged and crucified, or any of the martyrs and saints, who endured pain and suffering, and untimely deaths for their faithfulness or the hundreds of thousands of Christians being persecuted in Muslim countries for their faith in Christ.

We are faithful to God, revealed in Christ, because He is the way, the truth and the life and regardless of what flows our way as a result; not because it gives us anything but because God is true, good and Holy and a manifest good in and of himself. Jesus tells us plainly in the gospel today that we need to deny ourselves and take up our cross if we decide to follow him. In another place he counsels us to count the cost first before becoming a disciple.

Of course, the central paradox of the early church is that the more it was persecuted, the more people were killed, the faster it grew. It used to be said that “The church is built on the blood of the Martyrs” and in a echo of that, the church is spiritually stronger when it encounters opposition and weakest where it is most comfortable – in the Western world.

In that encounter in Jeremiah God tells him to stick at it because things will turn. Blessings and answered prayer may indeed come our way, but that is not the reason we pray or worship. We do so because God, made known as father Son and Spirit, is True and worthy of worship and prayer and communion in their own right.

Blessings and answered prayer happen but they mustn’t become the reason we pray or worship, making God a heavenly slot machine that pays out every time.

To find ourselves wrapped up in the mystery of God, like Jeremiah did, can lead us down many different paths, some painful and upsetting, and you wouldn’t choose to go down those paths yourself given a free hand, but follow God he did, regardless and so should we.

I am who I am

Sunday 23^rd August – Trinity 11 (Proper 16)

This Sunday I am presiding at St. Peter’s at 10am and Rev. Karen Young is presiding at All Saints and St, Michael’s – 9.30 and 11.00am respectively. The lectionary readings are as follows.

Isaiah 51: 1-6. Written to a small remnant in exile, Isaiah reminds them that though they are few in number, their whole story started with just two people – Abraham and Sarah. That God produced a nation from such small beginnings he can do again. The creation story is cited referencing creating a new Eden from the ashes but then the lection takes a surprising turn by stating that creation is only temporary. It will “wear out like a garment”. The only reality that will remain in the end is God.

Romans 12: 1-8. A passage from Paul that sets up some ethical teaching to come, which says that we should be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”. This is a good description of “Metanoia” the process of being “born again”. Seeing and perceiving things from the perspective of a loving creator God rather than a purposeless pointless accident of nature, leading to a change in the way we act towards each other. Paul introduces the notion of the Christian community as a body, equal as fellow children of God but with different gifts and attributes to contribute to the body as a whole.

Matthew 16: 13-20. This is the turning point in the gospel narrative when Peter, or using his Jewish name “Simon son of Jonah” speaking on behalf of the disciples recognises the true significance of Jesus as being more than a prophet or great religious teacher but is the “Christ”(Greek) , which means the Messiah (Hebrew) which in turn means the anointed one. In a distinctive Christian re-working of that Jewish title Matthew adds “the son of the living God”.

The readings this week fit together perfectly. They are supposed to of course but some weeks fit together better than others.

We start with having to confront the reality that one day every single thing in the universe will die. Everything.

Us, our world, our sun, our solar system, our galaxy, the entire cosmos, will pass away.

Isaiah renders this prospect poetically by saying that “the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and those who live on it will die like gnats”

This idea is amplified in the gospels where Jesus confirms that “heaven and earth will pass away” (Matthew 24:35, Luke 21:33) and this is underlined in the book of revelation several times but most famously in Revelation 21 when John considers the end times – a reading often read at funerals.

So is that it? Does anything remain?

The Biblical revelation is quite sure that one reality does remain.

After the prophetic words in Isaiah foretelling our ultimate end Isaiah says

“But my salvation will be for ever, and my deliverance will never be ended”

Jesus says in the gospels that while heaven and earth will pass away, “my words will never pass away”

In revelation John prophesies “I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away”.

The only reality that is eternal is God himself, so the only way of ensuring our continuing existence is to find ourselves joined to that one eternal reality – the only thing that is good and true and eternal – God himself.

But How? In the Christian revelation, the way to unite ourselves with God has been revealed to us uniquely in human form. Our way to the Father in classic Christian terms “through Jesus Christ, son of the living God”.

The transcendent eternal God reveals himself in time and space in a human form and that recognition that he is God incarnate is our gospel story today.

Peter’s famous confession “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” is the solid rock on which the church is built.

This mind-expanding leap in consciousness is the subject matter of Paul’s letter today when he writes of being “transformed by the renewing of your minds”.

I love that phrase. It recalls for me Jesus telling Nicodemus that he can’t even see the kingdom of God unless he is “born again” from above.

We are the community of believers - the church - conforming ourselves to God’s will and as Paul writes today in words that are echoed in our Eucharistic prayer today “presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice”.

The way to the Father is through God-in-Christ who ordained the use of material things to make concrete our spiritual joining with the Father using bread and wine.

We are connecting our mortal selves to the eternal Father through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

What we do every time we break bread together is mind expandingly, extraordinarily profound.

We are joining ourselves with the only eternal reality in the universe that will survive the death of all material things and ensure our salvation, a salvation that is eternal, because God is eternal.

Blessed assurance Jesus is mine

Sunday 16^th August – Trinity 10 (Proper 15)

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8. A giant olive branch to all the foreigners and outsiders offering inclusion and salvation to them even while they are not part of the “chosen people” of Israel. “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”. That this was written at all presupposes that there were many foreigners living in Jerusalem at this time (Just after the return from exile in about 515BC ) and disputes amongst the Jews as to whether they could be included in their religious and community life. Isaiah says yes and one of the main requirements for followers of God’s ways, recognising that the covenant with Israel was ultimately for the whole of mankind (Israel was to be a light to the gentiles – Isaiah 42:6 and quoted in Luke 2:32), was to maintain Justice

Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32. Paul continues to wrestle with the position of Jewish people by reminding people that he himself is a Jew. In the intervening passages (omitted in our lectionary) Paul warns Christians against any sense of having replaced the Jews by noting that we have rather been “grafted in” to the Israelite people (v. 17). The covenant made with Israel is irrevocable, but God’s grace is boundless.

Matthew 15: (10-20),21-28. The longer version of this lection includes the accusation that the pharisees are “blind guides” and that what defiles a person is not unclean foods but unclean hearts. The main lection continues the day’s theme of inclusion in God’s salvation with the story of the Canaanite woman (Mark calls her a Syrophoenician). It is not impossible that Jesus used the term “dogs” to refer to gentiles, as he was fully human so his outlook and sympathies would be conditioned by his Jewishness. What can’t be translated of course is his tone of voice or demeanour, and the smart reply from the woman suggests that she was far from taking offense.   We the reader of this gospel are invited to join with Jesus and cross the barriers of race and culture.

In all my years of being a Christian I have yet to hear anyone worry about whether they were included in God’s salvation because they weren’t Jewish.

I have heard a few people wonder aloud where God’s revelation of himself in Christ leaves Judaism. These and other questions were live issues for Paul and the early church.

Questions of inclusion and exclusion take different forms at various times in various cultures but the most common question that I have encountered is people who think God’s action in Christ doesn’t include them because they think they are “unworthy”.

Note, it is not God excluding them but they exclude themselves because they have a very low opinion of themselves.

We can address that dilemma of two levels.

On the one hand, in Christian terms they are absolutely right. They are not worthy by their own merits but then no human being is or ever has been.

It is axiomatic that we are all sinners. All unworthy. That God pours out his love and grace on all people anyway is a source of gratitude. Grace is known as “Amazing” for just that reason.

In that famous hymn, former slave trader John Newton describes himself as a Wretch, but a wretch who had been saved by the amazing grace of God. That same John Newton later became an Anglican clergyman.

None of us deserve to be saved by who we are in the world’s eyes or what we’ve done but we are all the grateful recipients of God’s love poured out onto all flesh. We are all repentant sinners.

But also, and our society encourages this, is that people are continually grading and comparing themselves against other people and believing that other people deserve salvation more than them because of their upbringing, social position, religious conviction, education, how intelligent they may be or what job they do.

A lot of people have an inferiority complex because they grade themselves unfavourably against other people.

But let us look at the Golden rule that Jesus said was the fulfilment of all the law and the prophets.

The first is Love God which is simple enough.

The second is Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

That implies that you can only have the capacity to love others as much as you love and accept yourself. Another way of putting it is that you love others as you love yourself not love others instead of yourself.

This entails a uniquely Christian shift in emphasis in the way you understand yourself. How you look through God’s eyes.

When you became a Christian, in John’s famous prologue, he writes,

“But to all that received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, by God’s will. (John 1:10)

Your status in this world is not determined by class, race, education or anything else for that matter.

Your human identity appropriated by faith is a child of God. Loved as a child, cared for as a child, disciplined as a child, saved because you are a child of God.

Nothing can exclude or disqualify you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The Sound of silence

Sunday 9^th August – Trinity 9 (Proper 14)

I will preside at St. Peter’s at 10am and Karen will preside at All Saints at 9.30am and St. Michael’s at 11am. The lectionary readings are as follows.

1 Kings 19: 9-18. Old Testament theophanies (encounters with God) don’t come any more thought provoking or mystical than this. God is not in the earthquake or fire on Mount Horeb (another name for Mount Sinai) but is “heard” in the sound of sheer silence, as the NRSV Bible translates it. Hearing God in the silence has been equated with a person’s conscience guiding their actions and also interpreted as meaning that God’s purposes will not be achieved by spectacular physical phenomena, but by people quietly carrying out God’s will.

Romans 10: 5-15. Interpretation of this piece is fraught with difficulties regarding context and meaning. The overall context is clearly on the relationship between Jews and Christians and whether God’s promises to the Jews are still extant. What is interesting is that Paul quotes extensively from the Hebrew scriptures (Old testament) without any regard for the original context. He is in a lively dialogue with the writings which is far more akin to Jewish engagement with scripture than with modern Christian interpretation. Within the wider context of Jewish/Christian conundrum Paul stresses that the gospel knows no barriers (verses 12,13) though of course it has first to be preached before it can be believed.

Matthew 14: 22-33. The deepest meaning of this acted parable is that one who often appears to be absent in the storms of life is yet in truth always present. Peter too can also walk on water all the while he keeps his eyes on Jesus, but the moment he is distracted the “rock” starts to sink like a stone. He is saved from drowning by the strong arm of Jesus. The theological point is obvious, and this episode follows a time when Jesus retreated to a mountain by himself to pray. The juxtaposition of this walking on water story with the feeding of the 5000 has long been a part of church tradition because they recall the twin Exodus themes of the manna in the wilderness and the parting of the red sea, presenting Jesus as the new Moses to a largely Jewish congregation.   

People love the spectacular. Signs and wonders that evoke an ooh or an aah!
One of the problems Jesus consistently encountered in his ministry was that people loved a show but weren’t quite so quick to absorb the spiritual teaching.
He upbraided people in John’s gospel for only looking for spectacular events like the feeding of the 5000 and not seeing that these miracles were just signposts to something greater.

The key to unlocking today’s readings is found in the story of Elijah on the top of Mount Sinai. God told him that he - God himself - was going to pass by, so you can imagine how nervous and full of anticipation Elijah would have been.  

But God didn’t reveal himself in anything dramatic like an earthquake or a mighty wind, something that could be marvelled at or measured, he made himself known in one of the most enigmatic verses in the whole Bible.

God made himself known in the sound of sheer silence.

That phrase can be interpreted in different ways. Now the sound of silence isn’t just a beautiful song by Simon and Garfunkel.  Some have interpreted the “sound of silence” as a spiritual prompting from within – some equating that with your conscience and this has led others to conclude that the true voice of God can only be detected in the silence and this has led them into various forms of quiet contemplation or meditation.

John’s gospel famously speaks of signs rather than miracles and this is significant because it leads us to try and understand the deeper meaning or significance of something like a miracle. It is a sign - What is it pointing us towards?
The walking on water episode is a good case in point.

Water symbolised chaos for the Jews in any case. Creation itself in the book of Genesis was the bringing of order out of chaos. The world was created by the parting of the waters.
These waters of chaos in the story take on added significance by the fact there was a storm. We can justly make that leap of perception and say that this storm as well as being a true storm at a certain time and place stands for the trials, pains, regrets, Illnesses and death that all people experience at different times in their life.

And in the midst of these storms Jesus comes to us, walking above the chaos of this life.
I’m reminded of a poignant saying of Jesus here when he said. “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world”(John 16:33)
The significance of Peter walking on water is the same. We can weather the storms of life when we have faith in the one that has authority over the forces of chaos.

When Peter lost his focus and took his eyes off Jesus, Peter the rock started to sink like a stone.

The trails and storms of life started to overwhelm him, but even then Jesus grabbed him by his arm to pull him out.

Jesus is always there to save you from being immersed by all of life’s troubles up to and including death but many people leave depending on him until the last minute  - a bit like a death bed conversion – but surely it is preferable to not let it get to that point if you can help it and have your faith supporting you through your life especially when times are hard.

That is the truth contained within and signposted by this miracle. It is why I try and see all miracles as signs to see where they lead. In this way I think a good practice is to try and see the miracles of Jesus as acted parables.

A parable is almost always really about something else that lies behind the surface meaning of the story. Think about some well-known parables – The prodigal son, the mustard seed, the talents, the sower, the yeast. The underlying meaning is not the surface story

This way of understanding the walking on water story doesn’t confirm or deny the historicity of the miracle itself but seeks to understand the meaning for all of our lives.
Jesus is the Lord of life, who has authority over the outward chaos of life, and is there to help us through those storms.