Author: theelvesareheadingwest

The Vicar writes . . .

Recently, as I’m sure we’re all aware, the Diocese has been facing up to the fact that its future is looking increasingly uncertain. To use a phrase which seems to crop up often in our shared discourse, we are facing a ‘Perfect Storm’ of circumstances, which in many people’s eyes call into question the viability of the Diocese of Dunedin.

Diocesan Synod met last month, and there we gave much time over to prayer and Bible study as we pondered what the Spirit might be saying to the church in the midst of this ‘Storm’. Interestingly I don’t remember any of us crying out ‘Save us! Don’t you care that we are drowning??’. Whilst our minds may been attentive to Scripture, perhaps there was too much confidence in our own ability somehow to navigate these threatening waters?

I don’t think I would have noticed this, but for a comment in a debate on a topical issue, which filled much of the rest of our time. In it the speaker said, almost in passing, ‘The Church disregards the teaching of Jesus in regard to this matter . . .’, but without any note of censure or concern. As if it was a matter of no import. As if, as with thinking about the future of the Diocese, we didn’t need, indeed desperately need the Wisdom of Christ. As if we can figure this out for ourselves. And I cannot help but think that the state of the Diocese may well be in part down to a deep rooted sense that we can figure this out for ourselves. [An attitude which it must be said has pervaded most of Western Christianity since the Enlightenment]

Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel says ‘take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’. It is plain from speaking with many people about the future of the Diocese that our souls are far from being ‘at rest’ in this regard. Perhaps that is because we have not taken the yoke of Jesus? But, what is that yoke? This figure of speech is deeply embedded in the history of the Jewish people – for they had a King, Jereboam who laid a heavy Yoke upon the people. This was a Yoke of obedience, but one which was harsh. He was the King, but he did not care for his people. [1 Kings 12]. Jesus Yoke is easy – but it is still the yoke of obedience. In ancient times, the yoke would be put across the shoulders of two oxen. It was a means of ensuring that they worked in harmony with one another, for the Yoke would chafe if they did not. As Christians we are called to ‘the obedience that comes from faith’ [Romans 1:5] obedience to Christ. We gladly take up this yoke of obedience for we Know that he Loves and cares for us and that His Life is our Hope. So we are yoked to Christ and over the years learn obedeince (as he himself did – Hebrews 5:80) – to adjust ourselves in Eugene Peterson’s beautiful phrase, to ‘the rhythms of unforced grace’, the movements of Christ as we learn to live in obedience to him.

Of course we tend to read these things ‘individualistically’ as if their prime application is to the solitary Christian – but there is no such thing. Jesus here as throughout all his words addresses himself to the community of disciples, the infant church. He is saying to his church – take my yoke upon you and learn from me, that you, the church might find rest for your souls.

Following Jesus in obedience is not always convenient or easy. the winds of cultural change blow strong and we are easily deflected. When the Ox is deflected off course, the Yoke chaffs – and the Ox may wish to toss its head and leave the yoke behind – to ‘disregard the teaching of Jesus’ in this or that matter. But no longer yoked it all too easily loses its way, and even forgets, or perhaps does not have the faith in its distress to cry out ‘Lord! Save us! We are perishing!’  Lord, have mercy.

Bible Study notes for Sunday September 23rd – Theme “There are more things in heaven and earth . . .”

Old Testament : Proverbs 31:10-31

Psalm 1

Epistle : James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

Gospel : Mark 9:30-37

This weeks readings are So full of riches it is very hard to know where to start, but as we are going to spend time meditating upon the Word – begin by reading slowly and meditatively the Psalm, Psalm 1. [If you are following these notes alone, then read the words out loud to yourself – it is more helpful than reading in your head. If reading in a group, then perhaps a couple of people could take turns to read it through slowly, so everyone has the chance to Hear the word]

¹ Happy are those

   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,

   or sit in the seat of scoffers;

² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

   and on his law they meditate day and night.

³ They are like tree planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season;

   and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

⁴ The wicked are not so,

   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,

   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

   but the way of the wicked will perish.

(NRSV)

1. Our first reading is a little unusual – it is if you like a Coda to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs contains of course many ‘proverbs’, short pithy sayings, many attributed to Solomon. It is also perhaps the most explicitly ‘gendered’ text in the Scriptures. As we have increasingly sought to use inclusive language, the book of Proverbs provides quite a challenge!
   1. Read the passage quickly through and speak out your first impressions
   2. Now pause – read again more slowly – ponder the words. Does a second reading lead you to a different place than first impressions?
   3. This ‘Coda’ is actually all of Chapter 31 – read the ascription (Verse 1) – Does this in any sense affect the way you hear the passage?
   4. Is this text in direct opposition to
      1. Contemporary culture
      2. the culture of the church
      3.  The Gospel??

                                                . . . or is it more complex than that?

[If you would like to take a little more time to think about Gender in the Scriptural account, another passage from Proverbs might be worth considering – Proverbs 4:1-9. try and take all the Gendered language out of it, so father and mother becomes parent, and Wisdom is no longer ‘She’ but ‘It’. What happens to the text when you do this? ‘Male and female you created them’ we say in our liturgy – are gender differences of any consequence? ‘Moving away from acknowledging Gender differences enriches our common life’ – Discuss]

1. Now move on to the Epistle – I suggest you ignore the omissions from the text set in the Lectionary and read right through from 3:13 to 4:8, in two parts, first Ch 3:13-end
   1. We move from ‘the Good wife’, with Wisdom personified as female in the background, to the letter of James – in some respects the most practically hard hitting of all epistles. It is about Wisdom for Life as are the Proverbs (despite Martin Luther calling it ‘an epistle of Straw!’ {note here by the way that even the Reformers had a more finely nuanced view of scripture than modern fundamentalist interpreters allow}. James 3:13 – are there echoes here of the Proverbs 31 reading?
   2. Remembering that James first calls us to pay attention to the use of the tongue and that we should be ‘slow to speak’, and that the tongue is a fire – how do these notions feed into the teaching on Wisdom in verses 14-18?
   3. James suggests that there are two types of Wisdom vs 14-18. What are they? What are their different fruits (the evidences of the two different types of Wisdom)? [Note: James mentions lack of partiality as a sign of Wisdom from above – a back reference to earlier in the epistle, Ch 2:3-9]
   4. Now read Ch 4:1-8 James begins to home in on the source of false wisdom, that leads to all the negative consequences of which we have read. This is one of the most compelling passages of spiritual diagnostics in all of Scripture. Contrary to Luther, James shows himself to be a Doctor of the soul. What does he see is the root of evil?
   5. When people are asked to list the ten commandments, there is a slight tendency to remember the ones we keep 🙂 We also have a tendency to forget the first few – that refer to God, and the last one. What is the 10th commandment??
   6. Think back to the old story of the man and woman in the garden. ‘Covetousness is the root of all our troubles. Being dissatisfied with our life in God and wanting ‘more’ is the root sin’ Discuss
   7. Read verse 4 in the light of verses 1-3. What in this context do you think enmity with God means? Is covetousness enmity with God? Remember this passage is all about the desires of our heart
   8. What does it mean to ‘cleanse our hands and purify our hearts’? What in this context does it mean to be ‘double minded’?

1. Finally we come to the gospel which returns to the theme of last weeks reading after a few verses
   1. Read Mk 9: 30-32 What strikes you about these verses?
   2. A theme of Mark is ‘the hidden Messiah’ [a theme also found in John, but in a different way – ‘you cannot come where I am going’, ‘Where are you from?’ ‘”I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” etc. ] Why does Jesus seem to hide? Why does he seem not to want people to know who he is?
   3. Why were the disciples afraid to ask him?
   4. Read vs 33-37. ‘Jesus does not do away with heirarchy, he turns it upside down’ – Discuss
   5. Who is ‘the last of all’?
   6. This is the first time that Jesus mentions children in Mark. In the wider culture n which jesus lived, children were ‘no persons’. Here he stands a child literally ‘in the middle of them’ How does his action interpret his words about Welcome?

BIble Study notes for Sunday September 2nd

Texts

Song of Songs 2:8-13

James 1:17-27

Mark 7:1-23

The theme of this week’s service is ‘The Life of Slavery and the Life of Liberty’

Read through each text slowly, whilst everyone else listens – (not following in your own bibles) – asking ‘what catches your attention in this passage? Does it leave you with questions?’

[At whatever point you have but a few minutes left for Study, Make sure to leave time at the end to read through in this way at the end – ‘What is Christ saying to his church in these verses?’ is there a message for us at St John’s? Respond in prayer]

Questions

1.Our first reading comes from the Song of Songs. This is Love poetry of the highest order. It’s place in the canon of Scripture was debated at length (the imagery it uses is at times, quite erotic). However there is a long tradition reaching back to the earliest days of the church to understand the passage in the light of the relationship between Christ and the Church. The passage we have today gives us the words of the female – which we might understand as the Church, the bride of Christ as she apprehends her lover (Christ) and hears his words.

a.What are our thoughts on this? May we understand the relationship between Christ and his church in these terms?

b.What might be the implications for the church to understand itself as the object of such love?

c.Bernard of Clairvaux (the founder of the Cistercian monastic order) wrote a commentary on Song of Songs (a series of sermons). In it he speaks of the lover as Christ and the beloved not as the church but as the individual Christian. Reading the passage in these terms, what if anything changes in our apprehension of it?

d.Bernard counsels that we cannot understand the message of Song of Songs unless we have been instructed in two other books of Wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. The first teaches us the folly of seeking the meaning of our lives in Love of the World. (The author follows all the paths of the world, seeking meaning in Work, in Money, in hedonistic pleasure and finds them all Vanity ‘empty’). The second is as it were a book of disciplining, of teaching, the purpose of which is to turn us from love of ourselves. Finally and only then, having been freed from false affections can the soul learn to love Christ.

i.How does love of the world and love of ourself keep us from the love of Christ?

ii.Bernard speaks of three kisses, the kiss of the feet, the kiss of the hands and the kiss of the mouth. (paralleling the three books) The first, echoing the actions of the woman who wiped Jesus feet with her hair, is where we discover foregiveness (turning away from the way of the World). The second, of the hands, is where we turn from ourselves to active service. The third is understood in terms of the union of the believer with her Lord, by the bestowal of the Holy Spirit (Jesus breathing on the disciples is in view here). The language of ascent to union with Christ is common throughout the churches history.

a.Is it a language which we know something of?

b.How helpful is it to understand this in terms of the individual as opposed to the whole body of Christ, the Church?

c.How might we understand these three kisses as expressed in the life of the church?

2.Spend a few moments now meditating in silence, first upon the Song of Songs passage and then upon James 1:17-18

d.What is the gift the Father has given us? (See 1 John 3:1, John 1:12-13)

i) Note how James starts by describing the Father as the giver and then moves on to describe the gift. Did we note that James specifies the gift, or was our initial answer to 2a in terms of other gifts? (This is a reminder that we always have to read the text closely, or we too easily read our own answers into the text)

b.Read James 1:19-20

i) Why does James insist on being quick to listen and slow to speak?

ii)This is just one example of ‘escalation’, a recurring theme in the letter – look at James 4:1-3 – all of these have their roots in our hearts. Read the gospel passage set – Note how the teaching of James closely follows that of Jesus in terms of the heart

iii)Think back to the Song of Songs passage with its theme of the love of the Church and the believer for Christ – what is the cure for the condition of our hearts?

iv) James concludes If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. So if we are to be quick to listen, to what should we be listening and how should we respond? What does it mean to ‘keep oneself unstained by the world’? ( A minor theme in contemporary Christianity??)

John VIII

Chapter 4 – the woman at the well

Lectio Divina vs 16-26

As we have been making our unsystematic explorations in John’s gospel, one image that I have repeatedly come back to is that of the Gospel as a Rich tapestry. That through it runs theme after theme like the threads and that at times these threads surface in such a way as to bring out a particular motif. So we explored how ‘The Good Shepherd’ – understood as it must be in terms of Christ the Kingly Priest, is one of combinations of threads, drawn together in  Jesus teaching in John Chapter 10.

Well tonight I want to do something a little different, for whilst undoubtedly the idea of a tapestry of themes is one way we can image John’s gospel, another is to realise that the whole gospel is multi layered – that there are levels of meaning and indeed that this is made very explicit in several places. [ Just as an aside, one place where that does not apply is the gospel from this morning, where Jesus says Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. As I said this morning, this is where quite starkly we are faced with at one and the same time a lack of levels of meaning, that the words of Jesus are not open to levels of interpretation, there is but one meaning, yet at that time, that meaning is of the profoundest significance. To be clear I am not saying that the text is open to many different interpretations, although that is difficult, the sheer variety of understandings of the Eucharist reveal most clearly that the church down through the ages has like the disciples struggled with this teaching of Jesus – but that that those interpretations are our attempts to wrestle with the only meaning in the text. This text in and of itself is not replete with levels of meaning ]

So to come back to the multilayered nature of the Gospel, there are places where not only can Jesus be understood on different levels, but that this is made explicit in the text. So Nicodemus understands Jesus in one way, but Jesus wants to open to him another layer of meaning, and it is so with our text this evening. The Samaritan woman is thinking in terms of physical water, Jesus will take her to another level of meaning and understanding.

And this text is SO full of layers, layer upon layer, that we can do only the most cursory survey this evening.

Firstly however, I Do want to connect this passage to the rest of the gospel. John’s gosepl is a whole and we can never hope to do credit to it without having the whole in view as we listen to even a few verses. So I will first briefly highlight three threads present throughout John’s gospel and running through this passage [there are more]. Firstly that of marriage. Now of course we might think that Marriage only comes to the fore in the wedding at Cana – but that is of course a motif – the threads are seen elsewhere and indeed there is a second motif. Indeed we might look at each part of the gospel in this way , seeking out where the motifs are present in the trheads that make up the whole.
In the wedding at Cana, Jesus is portrayed as the true host of the wedding. Here also another thread is found which I will return to in a minute.
Again the motif of marriage and indeed I think given our current turmoil, a far more helpful one than the wedding at Cana, for it reveals Christian marriage to be a sacred and holy mystery, is the encounter of Jesus ‘the gardener’, or to use an older more biblically informed title, the husbandman, with Mary Magdalene. Here in the Garden we see the restoration of the male female complementarity, and also a picture of the union of Christ with his bride the faithful church, the one who defers to him as Rabboni, or teacher.

Well of course we know that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute and so when we come back now to chapter four, we find a woman who as we read the text on the surface level is an adulteress, she has had five husbands and the man she has now is not her husband’. So once more the issue again is marriage, and we should not forget the Old Testament background of the prophets where Israel itself is seen as the faithless bride of God, explicitly in the prophet Hosea.

Well it might seem thus that I am as it were stretching a point here, but not if we remember that John’s gospel must be understood against a rich background of texts and in this case, as I have said before, we cannot read John without at the same time allowing the Revelation of John to inform our imagination and so we may well hear echoing deep in the background of these allusions to marriage in the gospel, these words:

‘Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
   the Almighty reigns. 
Let us rejoice and exult
   and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
   and his bride has made herself ready; 
to 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.
And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’
Now of course we need to be warned at this point. For how easy it is to take the texts of Scripture  which are all about Christ, and make them all about us. Yes Marriage is to the fore, but this Marriage in the eschatalogical, final and perfect sense, that is the Union of Christ and the Church. We may begin to make inferences then about what marriage between a man and a woman might perhaps look like, but this is derivative. Unfortunately it seems that of late and indeed through much of history, this fundamental ordering has been reversed. The human is the Image of God, Not God. Human marriage is the image of the Union twixt Christ and the Church, it is Not the lasting fundamental reality. Human marriage is until death do us part – there is NO ‘Re-united’ in Christian theology as marks many gravestones. There is Only the final union twixt Christ and his church. That as much as anything suggests to me that the church at least has No business fooling around with definitions of marriage.
So we must beware of making the Scriptures fundamentally textxs about us, about our lives and not about God and only in that Light about our lives. We struggle not to look at the text through the spectacles of our own culture and we need as far as possible to remove them in order to See what is before us. And so it is with regard to the relationship of Jesus with Women. If this is all we see in this passage, then we miss much.
Not least that most Intriguing characteristic of Jesus’ encounter with women in John’s gospel is that they all have a common theme running through them – they all without exception evoke ‘fruitfulness’. The new Adam encounters a woman and new life comes into being. First at the wedding feast, where Mary incites Jesus into action and the New Wine is Created – to the Samaritan Woman – where the result is that there is a harvest of new life – we read in John 4:35- 42 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” Again – fruitfulness.
Then Martha at the grave of Lazarus – Jesus encounters her and calls her to faith and her faith is then the trigger for the Resurrection of Lazarus – Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Finally at the tomb she falters – Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out.
Again Life and then finally in the garden, Mary Magdalene rushes to tell the disciples, I have seen the Lord, the announcement of the Life of Christ set free in the world.
So reading the text with regard to Jesus and women we see far more than our limited contemporary agendas will allow. Again I say, the Scriptures are not primarily about us, they are about God. Our understanding of marriage and the relationship between men and women must tak as its point of reference the life of God and the relationship of Christ to the church.
The third and final thread is that of Life and abundance in regard to spiritual goods. The Wine runs out, the bread does not satisfy, the water leaves you thirsty. In this passage Jesus points through the material to himself, that he in his materiality, in his flesh he is the source of New Wine, bread that does not leave you hungry and a spring of eternal life -and in these three elements revealing the fulness of Life in and through the Spirit of the risen Christ. Christ in and of himself throughout the gospel of John reminds us that we cannot separate out as it were the ‘spiritual Jesus’, the Christ of faith, from Jesus who comes from Nazareth whose flesh we must eat and whose blood we must drink.
And so to the story. As I said it is multi layered and some of these I have now alluded to in exploring three threads amongst many with which this encounter is woven. So for the rest of the time I want to look at the story in two different dimensions. Firstly there is the simple story of the encounter of Jesus with a woman and how that encounter leads to life for her fellow Samaritans.
Firstly we find Jesus at the well. It is interesting to note that there may be a Moses parallel here – we read that Jesus is retreating from the pharisees at this point who have heard he is baptising more than John the Baptist. When Moses flees from his own in Exodus, he too comes to rest by a well where he encounters the daughters of the priests of Midian and draws water from the well for them. So when the woman gets over her shock at being addressed by this Jewish man, Jesus engages her and says ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you ‘give me a drink’, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water’ But you have no bucket and the well is deep. Moses drew water from a well, but Jesus is himself the Well – the Law came through moses, Grace and Truth through Jesus Christ.
The disciples have disappeared ‘ to find bread’ (we may think ahead here about Jesus words – they do not yet recognise the Living Bread) and Jesus weary from travel asks the woman for a drink – the woman having got over the shock of being addressed by this Jewish man  – Jesus then goes on to say that if she knew who it was who was asking  – he would have given you living water. As I pointed out this morning, the woman misunerstands and Jesus rapidly corrects her – Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, she asks? (another layer here to which I shall return) – Jesus responds that those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The woman understanding that more is afoot replies ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
At which point Jesus seems to divert the conversation – with a discussion of her far from unchequered history – she has been married to four or five different men. NOw of course on the surface as many commentators suggest, in the terms of her time she is the classic ‘fallen woman’, but there is more here. She keeps having to come back to the well, she keeps having to find a new husband – the two I suggest are related. Not because she needs to marry a man who will come to the well himself 🙂 but rather because she has not found ahusband who is Life giving to her. I suggest that here in view is the idea of the husband as the head of the wife, in the sense that he is the Source of Life – that the husband is the one who is to release the wife into the fullness of who she is, in the same way that it is the Life of Christ freely given which allows the church to be the light of the world. The word ‘Head’ in the New testament is also the word for the source of a river. COnservative commentators missing the double meaning and also igniring Christs own words that the one who is First must be the servant of all, refuse to allow the double meaning of the husband who is the head and lays down his life that the wife might come to fulleness of life.
So Yes, she is a sinful woman, but she is searching for life and in Christ she has found it. The discussion then moves to Worship. Some people suggest that the woman, having been found out is trying to dodge the issue, but in fact no. For the site of worship was seen as the place for forgiveness and also the source of life. We remember that Ezekiel vision of the Temple as the source of the River of LIfe, as was Eden, and most importantly, as Christ himself declares himself to be in John 7:38.
The Jews worship God in Jerusalem at the Temple, the Samaritans at Mt Gerizim – where must I go to find forgiveness and life she is asking? What you have said is true, JEsus responds – Salvation does come from the Jews, but that does not mean that you must go to Jerusalem, rather the hour is coming, and is now here, [Time reference] when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
The woman is transformed – she has encountered Christ – she rushes to tell her people, come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done, he cannot be the Messiah, can he? The Samaritans come to Jesus and many believe in his name.
So the surface story, but even this has depths we may miss
Briefly to the underlying story. We may well have noticed that the woman has no name. This is not insignificant. we can come up with lots of reasons for this, but they tend to fail the test of the whole gospel. It cannot be that John has a negative attitude to women as he names several and gives them key roles. No. She has no name because her personal story stands for another story. She is a Samaritan  – she lives in the Land of Jacobs well. It is interesting, but I haven’t gone any further than this, that the Samaritan woman’s story focusses on JAcob – we remember that Jesus quite possibly alludes negatively to Jacob when he says of NAthaniel, an Israelite (not a jew mind you, an Israelite0 In whom there is no deceit. JAcob the deceiver. Jesus tells the woman that Salvation does come from the Jews. When JEsus is in conflict with the Jews and it reaches its peak the conflict is around Abraham – If abraham were your father . . .

Furthermore Where you worshipped was a Key area of disagreement between the Jews and the Samaritans. THe Samaritans, tracing their story back more to the patriarchs than to Moses as ‘the Jews’ did (remember that ;The JEws’ also refers in large part to the Pharisees and their attempts to shore up the national religion and sense of citizenship)
The Samaritans claimed that the shrine at shiloh presided over by Eli was a place of false worship and that Mt Gerizim, where they said that Abraham had gone to sacrifice Isaac (mt Moriah) was the true place of worship. HEnce quite possibly the multitudinous references to worship at the high places in the Old Testament, particularly in reference to the Northern Kingdom, whose territory the Samaritans now inherited
Thus the woman can also be understood symbolically as the unfaithful Samaritans who have had many ‘husbands’ – their allegiance has been far from the living God, atleast in the eyes of the Jews, a view Jesus seems to uphold by asking her where ehr husband is and the number five is not insignificant here 2 Kings 17 24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria, and settled in its cities. 25When they first settled there, they did not worship the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. 26So the king of Assyria was told, ‘The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them; they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.’ 27Then the king of Assyria commanded, ‘Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him go and live there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.’ 28So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord. Settled by the people of BAbylon, Cutha, Avva, HAmath and Sepharvaim. Suffice it for now to say that we have five areas ruled over by five kings. The link between Kings and worship is far stronger than it is for us – (cf The Kingdom of God is primarily about worship)

And so we come to a close – with words of Ignatius of Antioch whom I quoted this morning, one of the earliest bishops of the church, made a bishop in AD 67, perhaps even before JOhn wrote is gospel, and someone whom JOhn knew – regarding the sufficiency of the water – however fascinating all the threads and layers – the whole is a portrait of Christ the one whom said those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’

Ignatius says this tying together todays gospel and this evening s text ‘My lust hath been crucified, and there isin me no fire of love for material things, but only water living and speaking in me, and saying to me from within “Come to the Father”. I have no pleasure in the food of corruption or in the delights of this life. I desitre the bread of GOd which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David, and for drink I desire his blood which is love incorrubtible’
And all God people said ‘Amen’

Sermon for Sunday August 26th – 13 after Pentecost

AUDIO RECORDING OF SERMON

1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

“Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him”

Once again our gospel confronts us with the hard words of Jesus, Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. So I would like to spend a few minutes today thinking about the connection between Jesus and the words of Jesus.
You may perhaps remember a few weeks back our readings had the theme of ‘Peace’, and I spoke about how Christian faith had given certain words to the wider culture, Justice, Grace, Mercy, Peace, Love etc. and that the World had taken them, changed their meaning so that it were no longer necessary to believe in Jesus to understand them, and given them back to the church, and how many in the church now used these words as the World used them. To put it at its most sharp, that the church often now spoke as if it did not believe in Jesus.
You may perhaps like to give yourself a little test. Ask yourself the question, ‘is it possible to live the Christian life without belief in Christ?’. There are many in the world in which we live who would say, ‘why yes, it is perfectly possible, one does not have to believe in Jesus to embrace Christian values’. Yet this is not what Jesus says, he says ‘apart from me you can do nothing’ – apart from me you have no life. We are confronted, indeed rebuked by the words of our Risen Lord, that we even entertain the notion that Christian Life can be lived apart from Christ. Yet many in the church eagerly embrace this notion, and the net result has been the collapse of the Church in the Western world.

As we have done with the language of our faith, we have done with the very heart of our faith, Christ himself. It is impossible to describe Grace, or Judgement, or Wisdom, or Peace or Justice without reference to Jesus Christ. We must point to our crucified and risen Lord and say ‘THIS is what we mean when we say these things!’. But we have not. We have taken these things and turned them into ‘values’, as principles for living apart from Discipleship and Obedience to Christ. We have offered the world something which all are free to embrace without faith in Christ, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls ‘cheap Grace’. That as long as you believe in these values, you can if you so wish call yourself Christian – you do not have to believe in or follow Christ. And the fact that so many think that that is True and that it is odd at best and bigoted at worse to think otherwise, merely shows how effectively many in the the church has moved away from faith in Christ. And of course over the past hundred years or so there have been those within the church who have followed this move to its logical conclusion by saying, we can have Godless Christianity. We just need the values.
Living as a Christian cannot be disconnected from Christ. And this move away from Christ begins when we try to separate out ‘Jesus’ from his Words. He is the Word made flesh and yet we all too readily try NOT to identify Jesus with his Words. We create what I referred to a couple of weeks ago as ‘the Fake Jesus’, the reasonable Jesus. Like those disciples, we find his words too strong, too hard and no longer go about with him.
To give an example of how this works, one might say ‘I do not believe in Hell’ – to which the only proper response is, ‘well Jesus certainly did, indeed he is the one who speaks more about hell than any other person in the biblical record.’ ‘Ah!’ comes the response, ‘but I cannot believe ‘Jesus’ would have really said those things.’ We create an idol, a Jesus whom we can worship, because he agrees with us. A Jesus who has no connection to the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth, a ‘Spiritual Jesus’ – a phantasm of our own imaginings.

And this is for the church a fatal step, separating ‘the Christ of faith – ‘Jesus’’ from the words of Jesus of Nazareth recorded in the Gospels. And it Is Fatal, for it is to separate us from He whose very words are eternal life –  and thus it is death to the church that no longer bears his name. For as people separated out the Concrete revelation of Christ in the Scriptures from a ‘mystical’ or if you like a ‘spiritual’ ‘Jesus’, so too they widen the gap between Christ and his church. We are ashamed of the Son of Man in his flesh and his words which are too hard for us, and we are ashamed of the Church that bears his name and clings to Him and His words. As we are required to believe in a ‘mystical Jesus’ who is not represented in the words of Jesus of Nazareth, so too we are no longer believe it when St Paul says ‘You are the Body of Christ’ – but of course if we will not bear his words, then in what sense do we bear his name. The Church fails to be the church when it denies her Lord’s Words. For the Word is the bearer of Life, however hard. to deny the Words of Jesus, is to deny the LIfe of Jesus.

And so let us once more offer up hearty thanks to God for St Peter. There is no sense that Peter finds the hard words of Jesus any easier than those disciples who are deserting Jesus, but he Knows that Jesus is the very Author of Life – “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Peter speaks for the haltingly obedient Church, the Church that struggles to believe and yet Knows that for its Very Life it Must ‘You have the words of eternal Life, You are the Holy One of God’. Peter realises that he has found Life and that the Words of the Living one are Life in and of themselves. That All of God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth is Life, in him ‘there is no darkness at all’. He is Life – hIs Words are Life – there is no disconnect between Christ and his Words – he is ‘the Word made flesh’

‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ We have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God’ Note this that St Peter says this immediately after Jesus most indigestible teaching, ‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.’, and just a little while later we hear these words, “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” But Jesus does not go running after them. The Living word of God is in himself Judgement upon the world, His words are Life to those who believe, and condemnation for those who do not  ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God’. Those who hate the Light depart from his presence. Jesus’ words sift out wheat from weeds, those who struggle to apprehend what he means yet cling to Him like Peter, from those who reject him because of his words, or in our day those sophisticated types who use every tool at their disposal to create a sham faith which constructs a Jesus of their own imagining, with an existence apart from his recorded words.

But, assuming that that is not what we believe, and hearing those hard words, what are we to make of them? We speak readily nowadays of the Journey of faith – but the only valid journey is that like Peter’s – we can only begin by accepting Christ as the one who gives life, and then we must journey into deeper understanding.
We might say that those who departed just misunderstood Jesus’ words, and there are several occasions in John’s gospel where Jesus is clearly misunderstood. For example Jesus encounter with Nicodemus where Nicodemus thinks Jesus is saying one must enter a second time into his mothers womb, and Jesus corrects him saying unless one is born of water and the Spirit – and again with the Samaritan woman, She thinks Jesus is referring to real water and he clarifies for her that he is referring to Spiritual water one will drink, if you believe in Him. Jesus speaks, people misunderstand – Jesus corrects them.

But then these words of Jesus ‘56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.’ And here Jesus provides No alternative explanation.
Last week we heard Christ speak these words amongst us “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Then they complained – How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So at this point you’d expect Jesus, like he did with the Samaritan woman, like he did with Nicodemus, to explain it. But he doesn’t. In fact he Intensifies it – he drives the point home – in the gospel this week he says literally  ‘Those who munch on my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever munches on me will live because of me.’

Rather than saying, ah you’ve got me wrong, let me loosen it up a bit, he says – I meant what I said, you really need to eat my flesh and drink my blood, munch on it.Get it? “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him”

Now of course there is a Lot one could say about the Eucharist here; that the Eucharist is here set forth as the source of the Life of the Church, that in the material and physical bread and wine, Christ gives himself to us spiritually; that as some early Christians said when one of the Roman Emperors forbad the Eucharist, ‘you may as well kill us – for this is our Life’; that the Eucharist is the profoundest Identification of the Church with its Lord – we gather round his table and he gives us himself in bread and Wine. The Eucharist effects the sacred Union betwixt the Son of God and those who believe on him. ( after Hoskyns ‘the Fourth Gospel’ )

I could also say that this is why we spend quality time each week hearing the scriptures, especially the Gospel, although Christ is the subject of all the Scriptures; we feed on his words, His Words are our Life – we feed on his body and blood – there is no Difference between Christ and His Words, He is our Life. If people ask ‘why do you do this?’, we have to say, to whom else can we go, where else can we go, but to be with his brothers and sisters, to be with Him who is our Life.

And that is the point. Christ is the Life of the church, we are his body, animated by his Spirit. Apart from him we can do nothing. THe church that imagines it can separate out Jesus form the words of Jesus is on the path of destruction. Apart from Christ made present to us in Word and Sacrament, the church has no life. To whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Some words of St Paul. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The days are evil as St Paul tells us, nothing else but wholehearted identification with the word made flesh will do for the days in which we live. As that old saint Malcolm Muggeridge put it, ‘I have a longing past conveying . . . to use whatever gifts of persuasion I may have to induce others to see that they must at all costs hold on to [the reality of Christ]; lash themselves to it as, in the old days of sail, sailors would lash themselves to a mast when storms blew up and the seas were rough. For indeed storms and rough seas lie ahead’ I would say that they not only lie ahead, we are in the midst of them. May God so open our eyes to the truth of Christ that hard though his words are, we with Peter realise that there is nowhere else to go for He and He alone has the words of eternal Life, that he is without doubt the Holy One of God – and let us Hold fast to Him. Apart from Him we have Nothing.

Amen