Month: October 2014

Chastity: Of the right ordering of affections. Sermon for Sunday October 26th – 26th Sunday in Ordinary time, 2014 – Year A

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Sermon for Sunday October 26th 2014
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
20th Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:34-46

‘Chastity. On right ordering of the affections’

It’s always useful to have, shall we say a ‘suggestive title’ for a sermon 🙂

A few weeks back I spoke about ‘the priesthood of all believers’ – that my priesthood was only always and ever an expression of the shared priesthood of the Body of Christ, the Church. That we are a Priestly community – and in a sense anything we ever say about Church must be capable of interpretation in this respect. This is very important to us as Anglicans, for we are at once a Catholic Church, and also a Reformed Church. We seek always to be faithful to the deep tradition of the Church and therefore where unhelpful emphases arose in the Roman Catholic Church, the church was called to express a more truthful apprehension of the Gospel made known to us in and through Jesus Christ.
And so when Thomas Cranmer wrote the prayer book we now know as the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, he took a prayer which to that point was only said by the priest before the Mass – and included it as the first prayer we have until of late always said at the opening of the Eucharist. the prayer known as ‘The collect for purity’

It is a most beautiful prayer and hopefully we all know it by heart, either in 1662 English or its contemporary form. We should know it by heart – and pray it from there also. Yet I wonder how many of us have as it were paused and taken time to PRAY it. It is a prayer of the Church down through at least a thousand years, and like all good liturgy it should bring us into a deeper and more truthful apprehension of our Life in and before God

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

And I want this morning to take a few moments to meditate upon one clause in particular – ‘that we may perfectly love thee . . .’ We come to worship – before the Living God – in a few minutes we will partake of the Bread of Heaven in the Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus, our Saviour Redeemer, our friend and brother. So we pray in preparation that God will prepare us – we remember before God that we are utterly known by him – and in that light we pray that as we inspire – breathe in The Holy Spirit – our hearts might thereby be cleansed in order that as we move deeper into the sacred mysteries our love for him might be perfected and thus worthily we might praise his name

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadduccees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

And Jesus orders these two commandments. He does not put them side by side the second is ‘like’ the first. But it is not the same. And the order matters

Jesus says “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment – if we are to keep any commandment we must first keep this one. We say, well there are so many – I take tiem to try and concentrate at one at a time. But This commandment is First – There is a heirachy and it is one of Life giving necessity. It illuminates all of the others, even the second, indeed we cannot begin to keep the second if we do not seek to keep the first, to Love God with all of our heart, soul and mind, or as I sometimes paraphrase it – To Love God with all we have and all we are.

These words of Christ to the Church in Ephesus illuminate our predicament
1 To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lamp stands:
2 I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. 3 I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. 4

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

You have abandoned your first love – That primary Love – for God in Christ with all you have and all you are.

But what is it to Love God with all we have and all we are??

I want to offer rather than some words, a picture

childicon

And I invite you not to think about, not to be watching, but to put yourself in the place of this child – absorbed in  contemplation

For this child this is their Reality – like looking into the face of a parent – Our First Love. That when we first knew Christ – he was our reality – he was our night and day – everything we saw reminded us of him . . .

And then we grew up and many things crowded in – many of them good – many of them praiseworthy . . . but we have lost the love we had at first . . .

And what does Christ say? I – Christ Jesus, have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember then from what you have fallen; Remember – Come back to your senses – Repent – reorient your life to that total absorption in God – and do the works you did at first. Do the things that come naturally to one who loves God

you see all the other commands – they all come naturally to those who love God
What does Jesus say? ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ – not with a stern wagging finger – That manipulative word that says, ‘if you really love me . . .’ Rather he is stating a purely existential truth, that as we orient our lives towards God in Jesus Christ, so that a at first we are absorbed in him, He is our Life – then His Life flows out through us.

This is what it is to be born again – We return to our true parent, God our Father in and through our brother Jesus – Repent – and then it is as if we have awoken from a bad dream – we see our brother, who has no food, and we have food, so we feed him – we see our sister who has no home, and we have a home so we welcome them in – we see our brethren poor and out of our abundance we bless them – why wouldn’t we?? Why is this so hard?? Because we have lost the love we have at first. Why is it so hard to do what God calls us to? Because we are so tied up in everything else – we have many many loves and try and fit love of God in and amongst the rest. This is what we call religion. Fitting God into our otherwise busy days – for many of us this is what we call prayer – fitting God into our otherwise busy days and often not for there are more important things, more pressing demands . . . we are upset and worried about many things and wonder why Jesus doesn’t send someone to help us, so absorbed are we in these things – so absorbed in our crazy busy lives

Love the Lord your God with all you have and all you are? This is either utterly impossible – or it is the only possibility.

Chastity – our total devotion to God in Christ is the vehicle by which our disordered affections are re-ordered. It is the means by which we enter the life we were always meant to have – as Children of the Living God. And thus absorbed in God, like this child gives utter delight and joy – and how much children are vehicles of delight and Joy – thus absorbed in God we become vehicles of blessing to the world.

In this age over and again we hear ‘the church must be outward looking’ – no ‘but then surely it can only be inward looking?? No. The Church is always and everywhere called to be Godward looking – we are called back again ad again to our first Love, the Primal Love. The Source of Life. For the World – for it is only in our paying rapt attention to God, that we can know what God calls us to

To you I lift up my eyes,

O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

2 As the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maid

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

until he has mercy upon us.

Amen

Sermon for Evensong – Sunday October 19th 2014 – ‘Of inheritances . . .’

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Sermon for Sunday 19th October 2014
Evensong

Proverbs 4:1-12
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:12

‘Of inheritances . . .’

Listen, children, to a father’s instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain insight;
for I give you good precepts:
do not forsake my teaching.
When I was a son with my father,
tender, and my mother’s favourite,
he taught me, and said to me . . .

As most if not all of you know, when in England I was a very keen walker of the Lake District fells – knowing most of the 200 of them well enough to be able to wander around them in the mist without map or compass. The irony is that I had grown up very close to the Lakes but only rarely ventured out upon those hills in my youth, even though amongst my prized books were beautifully hand drawn guides to all of those hills. It was only when I lost contact with them, moving away for college and work, that I started to feel their draw.

And how much those sentiments echo what we all to often sense in remembering ‘those whom we love but see no more’. Of late my thoughts have returned often and with increasing frequency to the person of my father – and specifically to the months, days and hours leading up to his death at the age of 63, and it ha been a journey of unearthing treasures I had not seen, or seen and discounted.

Six months before his death, my father had major heart surgery. the surgeon had intended to do a triple bypass, but on closer inspection ended up bypassing all four coronary arteries. He also noted some severe damage to various valves. My father recovered very well from this surgery, so well that his own doctor expressed her great surprise with how well he was doing. So it was that he was fit and able to come to my maternal grandmother’s 80th birthday celebration. I was there too, but very very unwell . . . which as it turned out was no bad thing.
I had been, and to some extent remain a not untypical ‘eldest son’. And as the scriptures remind us, the relationship of the eldest son and the father, from Adam on through, Esau, Absalom and of course the characters in Jesus’ parables, well they are not always the easiest. My father was a very frequent business traveller, and especially in my teenage years his absence allowed me space to flex my muscles as the Alpha male of the pride, taking over the territory. Many of my memories of my father in that period are of him being very tired, and of how his return frequently led to small scale, but not insignificant conflicts as we battled over the space.
Thus I at least had had difficulty being in any sense close. And it was at my Grandmothers’ party the Lord kindly supplied me with a fairly drastic dose of food poisoning, brought on I suspect by a large plate of whitebait. Thus incapacitated and weakened, my father came to sit with me, and with my strength for a while subdued managed to speak with me in a way I suspect he had often wanted to. How much we need to be weakened to truly hear.

I remember how he told me, he wished he had made much more of his Christian faith as he told me he had seen me do over the years. Foolish pride blinds you to many things – I was heart blind and so I confused gentleness and deep humility for weakness. My father’s comments strengthened my pride and reinforced my self perception as the stronger of the two of us. I never stopped to ponder ‘Where did my faith come from? What was its root?’

Less than two months later, he was dead. I still remember that night, more than 20 years ago now, in great detail . . . but that does not mean that I had necessarily attended to the details.

It was about 11:30 on the night of August 5th, 1993. I’d gone to bed as usual at about 10:30. I wrote up the day in my journal (which I still have) – pondering God’s movements in my life, reflecting on the scriptures I’d been reading, and wrote some words, about the NT reading we had this evening to which I shall return momentarily.

I was on the edge of sleep when the phone rang. It was my mother and the tone of her voice told me something was terribly wrong. My parents had been out for an evening walk in the Dorset countryside – there had been a somewhat unusual encounter which I may relate at another time, but they had not made much of it – they had returned home – my father had read the paper, gone upstairs, knelt down by the bed to say his prayers as was his custom, got into bed and suffered a massive heart attack which killed him almost instantly.
It was very difficult to say much – I remember saying I’d come straight down, and hanging the phone up. Immediately the Alpha male kicked in. I remember saying to Sarah, ‘big brother time’ – now was the moment that my life thus far had prepared me for. I was the one who was to run things, and of course first of all I needed to be the one to see to my mother’s needs and to look after the funeral details.

I remember lying in bed, praying. And the most profound Gift, God saying clearly to me ‘It is OK’ – I KNEW in that instant something of the Joy which passes all our understanding – which keeps our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ – followed by a terrifyingly intense sense of the profoundest grief and loss – but how oft do incohate sobbing and howls come from places we have not yet explored?

As the days unfolded, I was wondrously upheld – there was in some sense an incredible joy that made no sense at all to me, but was very real. In the midst of grief Joy. As my brother and I did the rounds of banks and funeral directors – making arrangements, tying up knots – both of us knew something which seemed to flow out of us and at times had a profound impact on those we met. One poor young bank teller having to flee the room in tears. In a sense we’d lost so much, yet in that emptiness, God seemed to flow out like a river.

It was actually only two or three years later, looking back in my journal that I uncovered some of the treasure. The night my father had died, as I said, I had been reflecting on the passage from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians we heard tonight. Where Paul describes the Apostolic life thus : We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing . . . I had written ‘I am not sure I know the reality of this in my own life’ Searching back over the chronology of the evening, I realised that I had been writing and reflecting on that passage as Dad had died . . .

Of late as I have been connected back to elements of the faith of my youthfulness – I have been forcibly reminded once more of my own weakness, that this isn’t ‘my faith’ as much as something that has been granted to me as gift, and that God used my father in ways I had not seen in that specific regard.

Just this last week I was out praying, in particular over this stage in the life of our church, I having a cup of coffee and reflecting that my father had constantly told me, ‘The Lord will provide – he always has done – he has never left us destitute’. His gentleness – his humlity had made his life very very uncomfortable – he was ‘a businessman’ – hence his frequent overseas trips and so much of what he encountered in the world of business grieved his soul. Despite his amazing gifts, he could more than get by in a wide range of languages from French to Arabic, from Swahili, to Greek –  he never ‘got on’ in the business world, precisely because of his Christian faith. At one juncture he knew that he would have to leave his job. What was being demanded of him, he could not do. But as he said, at that very moment, God sent a visiting African bishop to our church. He needed a lift to a nearby town and my dad on an impulse went to visit someone he hadn’t seen for many years, who told him ‘I don’t know if you are looking for work, but my company has something that may very well suit you . . .’ God always provided – he always does. I know that deep within, otherwise we would not be here, but where does that faith in me come from??

As I further reflected I went back in my mind over the events of that night in 1993 . . . they had returned home – my father had read the paper, gone upstairs, knelt down by the bed to say his prayers as was his custom, got into bed and . . . I was stopped in my tracks. I had always known but not Known, always seen but was so blind ‘he knelt down by the bed to say his prayers as was his custom’ – And I saw him there, 63 1/2 years old – doing what he had always done – kneeling by his bed to pray . . . and I thought of how many times he must have gone to bed wearied by his eldest son, and prayed . . .

And I saw that I’d been blind. For the first time for many many years, I saw him in a completely fresh light, and my heart was filled with deep deep gratitude for my father, which as I left the coffee shop I was expressing to God in prayer. Turning towards home . . . I lifted my gaze to see a red sports car, registration THXDAD. And I rejoiced in a gift that cannot rust or fade or be stolen by thieves . . .

As I wrote these words, my mind went to words of St Paul to his ‘true son in the faith’, Timothy – I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. Where did that faith come from? From my father – on who’s knee I learned to pray, who’s last act was the act of his life, to kneel in gentleness and humility, and to pray

Listen, children, to a father’s instruction,
and be attentive, that you may gain insight;
for I give you good precepts:
do not forsake my teaching.
When I was a son with my father,
tender, and my mother’s favourite,
he taught me, and said to me . . .

What did he say? What is your inheritance?

Many are called, but few are chosen. Sermon for Ordinary Time 28, Year A

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Sermon for Sunday October 12th, 2014
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

“For many are called, but few are chosen.”

The writer to the Hebrews says this, “But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.” Last Sunday we were blessed, and I use that language advisedly, we were blessed by the presence with us of Mother Keleney and her friends from the Community of the Sacred Name. Once more we were confronted with the truth of Jesus’ brother James observation ‘Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?’ People who have little, and indeed since the Christchurch earthquakes far far less, yet RICH in faith, as exemplified in Mother’s preaching urging us ‘Church, push on into God and his Kingdom!’
A group of people who in our terms have EVERYTHING to worry about, a living example of lived obedience to St Paul’s words ‘do not worry about anything!’ Fearfulness throughout scripture is revealed as Sin. Those who shrink back are lost. Like the man who hid his talent – Jesus asks can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? One of the reasons we worry is not because we have so little, it is because we have so much! Our home contents insurance renewal has just come up – and once again I am asking myself, why??? After all, nothing I particularly value is replaceable 🙂 Whilst there are hungry to be fed, and naked to be clothed, what am I doing spending money insuring my possessions?? What exactly am I afraid of? Perhaps not The One who commands me to live with an open hand to the poor??

If you remember Mother’s sermon, you will remember that she spoke of the leadership of Moses – and his singleness of vision and purpose. Such it was that he was more than prepared to leave the people at the foot of the mountain for what seemed to them a complete age to learn from the Lord upon Mount Sinai – a reminder again to those who are ordained that their work is not  to be rushing around ‘holding things together’ but primarily to do with God.  When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” I must admit, hearing these words again, and the call of the people, I can’t help acknowledging my own anxieties about taking Sabbatical next year. Setting off on a journey with a community and then disappearing for three months! The echoes are clear 🙂 Will I come back to find the people running riot? Will Andrew have erected a golden calf in my absence!! 🙂 Clergy and I cannot say I am immune to this, all too often live responsively to the anxieties of those they are called to lead – rather than in faith, especially when the journey of the Church is one into uncharted territory, as we are currently exploring. God does his most important work with his people in the context of such uncharted territory – where we have nothing but Him – It is there that we learn faith. Of course it is so often the Poor that have vibrant faith, for they have no-one else in whom to trust
So it is in the uncharted territory of the wilderness of Sinai, away from  comforts that God tests his people – tests their metal – sees if for all their words of faith, their faith is enacted – performed – lived out. Whether they trust in the LORD, or whether their faith is a sham, idolatry masquerading as faith. ‘Having the form of religion, but denying its power’ They can say they trust God until the cows come home, but never step out to show that that is true.

The temptations are always the same – in the absence of a visible God to put your trust in what you can see. This story of Aaron in his anxiety throwing in his lot with the people is one which is not only old, but ever new. We might read this and think, what on earth has this to do with us? A golden calf??
But as St Paul reminds us, using this very incident ‘I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. [What is Paul saying here?? He is pointing us to a profound mystery, they like us were baptised into Christ, they like us partook of the Eucharist, the life of Christ, even though in temporal terms this was long long before] Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.’

This story has EVERYTHING to do with us.  Idolatry is always the way of false faith, cross avoiding faith, faith which knows nothing of sacrifice. Faith which does nothing. But here also is the twisted genius of Idolatry – that it masquerades as the real thing. Listen again to the reading from Exodus Aaron said to [the Israelites], “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”

The memory of the Exodus is still fresh – they cannot deny that a god  or gods have rescued them from the Egyptians So Aaron making the calf says – ‘Here they are!’ How much easier to believe in a god you can see and feel and touch . . . and of course as the years go by and the memory of what The LORD had done for them, how much easier to begin to believe it was all a dream, and not to be trusted . . .  indeed one might speak thus of the Church in our day – how long is it since we have seen the mighty hand of God acting amongst us?? Have we forgotten? Has it all become nothing more than a half remembered dream?? Who will stand up amongst us and give testimony to the saving power of God amongst us? Mother Keleney and the sisters? Did not the prophetic word leave its mark?

As for Aaron and his anxieties mirroring those of the people, the  amazing saving act of God was only five minutes old – only a few weeks ago had the horse and rider been thrown into the sea and slavery in Egypt become something that had been definitively been left behind. So the memory of The LORD is still strong for all that , and Aaron invokes the Divine name over the gold calf “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD” By sleight of hand, the people are now not worshipping The LORD, but a calf whom Aaron calls The LORD. He fears the people more than he fears God . . . which is always the way of it. The people of God have an alarming predisposition for the comforting narcotics of idolatry, rather than the challenge of life changing faith. Easier to stick with what we know than face the difficult realities of living by faith . . . inconvenient faith. After all, a golden calf won’t ask any difficult questions of you, won’t require you to go on life changing journeys. It is a pale and ghastly imitation of The Living One.
And this golden calf cannot save us. Oh the irony of those churches in this diocese, and indeed across the Province and the Western world that have closed their doors with a healthy bank balance. Oh the mountains of chalices tarnishing away locked up in safes – oh the glorious robes which the moths are eating away at. All the idols, turned to dust.
Two weeks ago I preached on the theme ‘No Buts!’ The word BUT  is a hallmark of an idolatrous heart – Of course we trust God, BUT . . . Everything before the But . . .

Jesus Life is Invitation – Invitation to a life unknown to those who live not by faith but by trusting in what they can see. And perhaps here is a huge challenge for us – if we have never known what it is to live by faith – And this Life is expressed in terms of a marriage. What more can we ask than to be United with The One who calls all things into being?? God comes to his people and the metaphor is marriage – so a King ‘gave a wedding banquet for his Son’ He sent out the invitations, Everything is Ready!! But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, [Too busy for the demanding life of discipleship . . . How often is the word of life held out and people make light of it??]  ‘while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.’ Let us never forget that the world crucified Jesus. The Crucified One is a ever present reminder of what the World thinks of the Kingdom of God, which is why the Church in its anxieties is continually tempted to come up with a more palatable version of The Kingdom of God, an idolatrous and perverse sham, rather than the call to the Obedience that comes through faith, which calls all of our lives into question. That calls forth from us a totally new way of living . . .

This Kingdom invitation is denied. The messengers murdered – The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. it not the case that we get all squeamish about the wrath of God, because we have such a vapid bland perception of the Love of God? A love which requires nothing of us – a wrath that cannot harm us?? Eternal life a vague wish, but nothing worth changing the path of our lives for, and Eternal perdition? Well who believes in that anymore??

But This Love will not be denied!! The World Crucifies Love – THERE is the figure of our failure to understand Love. But God Raised Jesus from the Dead! The Wedding Banquet Will take place he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. This gift requires a response, the response of faithful obedience – as the Kingdom is announced by John the Baptist and the Jesus, the message is the same “The Kingdom of God is at hand – Repent and believe the Good News” This LOVE requires a changed life!! You were following in the way of death – your Life has to change . . . And one who has turned up hasn’t got it – when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ As our own St John puts it in the Apocalypse And from the throne came a voice saying, “Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him, small and great.” 6Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; 8to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Without the response of faithful obedience, no one will enter the Kingdom of heaven . . .

And it is all there in the story of God’s people in Exodus who all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink . . . Not long after the incident at Sinai with the Golden calf they came to the borders of the Promised Land. The rescue from Egypt fresh in their memory, they sent spies into the land, amongst them Joshua and Caleb. When they came back they were full of all the wonders they had seen . . . but, there were giants in the land. The anxieties kicked in – faced with potentially costly Obedience to the LORD, or playing it safe, they chose safety. And the LORD said to them, have it your way, none of you (Except Joshua and Caleb’s families,) will enter the Land – you can stay put here in what you call your safe place until you’ve all died. Well as this message is conveyed back to them, they think – perhaps we ought to give it a go – but the door is shut – remember the foolish virgins with no oil??

Many Many were called out of Egypt – Many many were called to learn faith through obedience in the wilderness, but only a few were chosen to enter the Land. God’s banquet, the fullness of Life in the Kingdom, a life of obedience and faith is set, many are called, but some make light of it, others think they have more important things to be doing, others get angry with the messengers – still others turn up, not thinking that the invitation requires anything on their part . . .

I close where I begin, with that encouraging word from Hebrews – Encouraging – giving Courage – Giving a New Heart – a Heart of Faithful Obedient Love – This is the heart of the Church – the heart of God’s people – Faithful Obedient Love. Hear this word

“But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost,
but among those who have faith and so are saved.”

‘Church! Push on into God and his Kingdom!’

‘The moon will turn to blood . . .’ – of signs and inheritances, amongst other things

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Last night both sides of the Pacific Ocean saw one of the great astronomical wonders,

a lunar eclipse

 

I was dragged from my slumbers by one of my daughters at around midnight to share (be it briefly) a moment of wonder as the incredible brightness of the directly reflected sunlight disappeared and all the moon was red-orange, with accompanying improved 3D perspective.

As a physicist and also as someone of relatively advancing years, this was nothing ‘out of the ordinary’. In physical terms, the moons orbit took it briefly into the full shadow of the earth, directly opposite the sun. So whilst not in shadow the radiance of the moon was at its highest, sunlight being almost directly reflected of it to the eye of this sleepy observer.  Then, the moon being at a fairly average distance from the earth, a fairly broad spectrum of longer wavelength light was refracted through the earth’s atmosphere, making the moon more orange than the deep red associated with the biblical image of ‘the moon turning to blood’, which would require the moon to be closer to the earth allowing only the longest visible wavlengths, red, to curve round the earth. Just another lunar eclipse . . .

Of course given this ‘explanation’ – the apocalyptic biblical account – Acts 2:20, drawing on Joel 2:31 expanded in Revelation 6:12, seem at best silly, to our way of thinking. Even though some seem to continue to think otherwise. It’s ‘just another lunar eclipse . . .’ after all. Yet, immediately one may well ask – what happened to ‘Wonder’? Put another way, our faith actually teaches us that Creation is ablaze with the Glory of God, ‘every common bush afire . . .’ so indeed it is not that these things do not signify, but rather that everything signifies. Literally everything is freighted with significance . . . a view which since the unravelling of the sacramental understanding of the world, begun about a thousand years ago, has gradually become more and more elusive, and those seeing things in ‘the mundane’ are readily dismissed as ‘lunatics’.

One of the aspects of Christian faith which most disturbs is precisely that which is meant to, its apocalyptic or revelatory nature – a tearing back of the veil from our eyes that we might see things as they are in their essence, rather than as they have been translated to us through the dulling lens of culture, in our case one which keeps the spiritual and the ‘real world’ poles apart. And it is disturbing for these aspects find their focus, not in the outer reaches of biblical strangeness, Revelation and the latter part of Daniel, but in Jesus himself. [Those struggling with the end of this coming Sunday’s gospel, might do well to read Revelation Chapter 19:6-9 for a clear interpretation ] It is after all Jesus who speaks most of uncomfortable realities which we would rather not see. Jesus who speaks of Hell – Jesus who declares woe to the Rich. And Jesus who speaks of signs . . .

I remember as a young Christian – not yet fully conversant with Jesus’ words regarding signs, that they were for those who were barely believing, not the provenance of those who had fully cast in their lot with the man from Galilee – asking for a sign and getting one. The small, but faithful and lively Anglican church of which we were part in the English city of Bradford had several home groups and also wanted to tell people about Jesus through the Alpha Course. The then Vicar, I am sure more than aware of the juvenility of my faith, all the same asked me to either co-ordinate the groups, or set up Alpha. I duly agonised over this for several weeks. They both seemed good to me, and I hadn’t the faith just to cast lots, so on the way to work on the bus I asked the Lord to give me a sign . . . I stepped off the bus and setting off to walk up to my workplace, lifted my gaze to see a car pass by, registration A1PHA . . . which pretty much sealed the deal 🙂

I had cause to remember that this morning when, crawling from my bed after a disturbed night, I went off to do what is necessary at that hour, drink a huge coffee and go for a walk to pray in the new days light. As I walked along, I was thinking about the point in life of the church of which I am privileged to be the Priest. The sense that we are being called to learn more deeply what it is for the Lord to provide for our needs. And so my thoughts turned to my dad, who died more than 20 years ago, and his constant testimony ‘we have never had much, and there were moments where I had no choice but to leave my job and didn’t know how I might continue to provide for you all [business life was often desperately hard on his good and gentle soul] , but God always provided’ And I was caused to give great thanks for that inheritance of faith, that had caused us to live with little thought to our own needs over the years and rather be available for what God was calling us to . . . however hard at times those choices had and have been. But that was not all . . .

Eldest sons traditionally have a difficult time with their dads. I was no exception. He was frequently out of the country on business, leaving me as the Alpha male ( 🙂 ) until his return, when the territory had once more to be disputed. One of the losses of this was that I had difficulty seeing him for who he was – and thus I missed Signifiers . . .

As I gave thanks I continued to pray and walk and the Lord reminded me of something to which I hadn’t attended, another burning bush. On the evening he had died, he had gone out for a walk with my mother, and then come home, retiring to bed at about 10 as was his custom, and as he did every night, kneeling down beside the bed in prayer. He then got into bed and died.

I knew this but didn’t SEE. This morning I saw. And my heart was filled with Deep gratitude and I know I have a long journey ahead of me to mine this treasure, this Gift . . .

Setting off to walk home, I lifted up my eyes to see a car coming towards me, registration THXDAD . . .

So I walked on, pondering Inheritance. On the one hand a financial gift which had been converted into a car, which was already showing signs of dilapidation and like all things will turn to dust – and then this miracle of Life . . . and I thought of all those years of kneeling at the bed to pray, and Wondered at the Inheritance beyond my finding out my dad had bequeathed me in and through that . . .

Jesus told a story about inheritance

One day he was out and about when someone came up to him and demanded ‘Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me’ Jesus, the one who embodies the Mishpat, the Justice of God, seems less than enamoured at this request – his response a rebuke to the one who seeks ‘fair shares’

‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’

He then goes on to use the occasion for a parable, one the power of which may elude us, as we do not often read the Scriptures with the story of the people of God as narrated to us thus far, in view.

It is a familiar tale, uncomfortably so for we who are wealthy . . . ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” So far, so familiar. He has a good year – made good profits we might say – the odd thing in our ears is his question ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ If we do well, we seldom ponder what we will do – the answer our culture gives us is clear – store it up against unknown futures . . . but to Jesus listeners, his response is scandalous. For the righteous, the question does not even enter their head – your barns are full? You have excess?? Everyone knows the answer – Love your neighbour as yourself! You have done well, feed those who have not, your Life is with your neighbour. This was written DEEP into Israel’s story, and everyone knew it. When John the Baptist comes, his message of repentance is simple. Your brother has nothing, you have more than you need – it is a no brainer for anyone who loves God, or claims to love his fellow man. No one argued with John. He was only setting forth what the people of God had ALWAYS been called to.

With that in mind, as Jesus goes on, the crowd must have gasped ‘Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” How is it I ask that we do not see ourselves in this response?? I’ve had a good year, I am going to enjoy the fruit of my labours for many years to come . . . We do not gasp in horror at the man’s response, for it is our response . . . our culture has not only disconnected the physical from the spiritual, that disconnection has bored deeply into our souls so that we see no problem with the fact that some starve whilst we ‘eat, drink and are merry’ The disconnection means we no longer see our life is with our neighbour, and like the Pharisees with their interpretations of the Law, we have developed ways of interpreting Jesus’ words to make sure we don’t have to take them literally. Physical and Spiritual cast asunder . . .

. . . as we see when we interpret Jesus’ final line . . . But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’ We ‘spiritualise’ the last response – for those of Jesus’ time, this was impossible. Jesus’ hearers knew his meaning – to live with an open hand towards those in need – to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked etc. was to be rich towards God. Jesus makes this utterly explicit in the parable of the sheep and the goats . . . this night your life is being demanded of you.

Jesus’ message is clear. Terrifyingly so.

This message remained the teaching of the church long after the Resurrection, indeed it was a signifier of the Risen one amongst his people. That the teaching of Jesus was continued, whereas now it is abused and ignored. To have faith is to liv in obedience to Jesus words.

If we have so little faith we need a sign (John 14:11)??

Well, last night the moon turned to blood . . .

Everything signifies

Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison

Thoughts on the Bible, Quran, Islam and the Western Christian ‘tradition’

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