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Sermon for Sunday, June 1st
Sunday after Ascension
Acts 1:6-14
1 Peter 4:12-14;5:6-11
John 17:1-11

They devoted themselves to prayer . . .

When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
I wonder how many of us have ever had this thought :- ‘how much more straightforward this Christian life would be if we had Jesus with us, in the flesh’ Well there’s a couple of things we should remind ourselves of in that regard, before we boldly pray ‘Jesus be present amongst us as you were with your disciples’.
Firstly we need to ask ourselves ‘how easy would it be to face him with his call to leave our means of making a living to follow him . . .’ Or his call to ‘sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor then follow me?’, or indeed see him look us in the eye as we denied him for not the third but probably the thirty third time before the cock crows. We may well be pleading with him pretty quickly, ‘thank you Jesus for answering my last prayer – would you now please answer another, and disappear into the clouds as you did at that first Ascension?!!’

But secondly take note of this – that there is no sense in the New Testament writings that the first disciples in some sense lacked in terms of their life together because Jesus was no longer present with them. There is no sense of ‘Oh, if only Jesus was still here!!’ Yes they longed for his return, but not because they thought that things would be any clearer.     One of the obvious things that hits us after a few readings of Luke’s gospel and then the second part of his writings are the powerful parallels between the actions of Jesus in the gospel, and the life and actions of the church in The Acts of the Apostles. Jesus is present throughout. There are NO marks of the absence of Jesus – even in the days between the Ascension and the day of Pentecost. Even then no one is saying ‘Oh, if only Jesus was here . . .’ – ‘Oh, if only Jesus was here . . .’  – these are our words, not those of the infant church. So what we might ask is the difference. What are we lacking??

Thursday was Ascension day – Jesus is taken up from the sight of the disciples, and what do they do? We read – they returned to Jerusalem – they went to an upstairs room – all eleven of them, several women also, including Mary and also Jesus’ brothers – and they devoted themselves to prayer. [Before I go any further – I’d like to ask you – what do you see in your minds eye in that room. What do you hear??]
What is the Church’s response to the absence of Jesus? Devotion to prayer. All together in one place – the Greek isn’t straightforward – the way we might think of it is ‘they committed themselves together as one’ to prayer. Together, as one. We might say they devoted themselves together as one to prayer. I’ll come back to this in a minute or so.

But before we think about what they do, note where the disciples go – Luke is very careful in describing the place – returning from the Mount of the Ascension – they go back to Jerusalem – ‘they went to the upstairs room where they were staying’ – why does Luke tell us this seemingly insignificant detail? Why ‘the upstairs room?’ Perhaps it is because it was in an upstairs room, perhaps the very same one – that they had gathered with Jesus. In other words the intention is to continue in that fellowship – Around His table. The upstairs room – away from the street – the place where they know intimacy with Jesus, and there that intimacy is continued for they ‘constantly devote themselves to prayer’

Jesus is not present in body – so now they ‘constantly devote themselves to prayer’
And this is Not purely before the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. – it is not as if the presence of the Holy Spirit exactly replaces Jesus. The enfleshed word of GOd, the Son of God has ascended – the Spirit will be given, but even after the Spirit is given – Jesus’ disciples we read ‘devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching, the breaking of bread and the prayers’;

The intimacy they had known with Jesus around the table before his death upon the cross – they still know – in their devotion to prayer.

When the church so grows that the Apostles are pulled hither and thither looking after the needs of the flock – they appoint deacons – those full of the Holy Spirit and Wisdom – for the task of looking after them – ‘It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables.* 3Therefore, friends,* select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, 4while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.’ What is the Apostles concern? That they are being taken from the task of praying.

Prayer – more specifically the disciples of Jesus praying – is one of the non negotiables. It is through the prayer of the church that the life giving intimate relationship of the church with her Lord is maintained. The prayer of the body. All through the book of Acts, and overwhelmingly in the New Testament, the disciples are found praying – and praying together! That is revealed to be the normative expression of the life of the Church.

And now? And now? Yes, we all know that as Christians we are to read our Bibles and we are to pray – and note I say ‘as Christians’ Do you see? ‘As Christians’, not ‘as the Church’ All around the Western Church we are being taught to read ‘our’ bibles on our own, and that the heart of prayer is to pray is to pray on your own. Books on praying abound, but you will have to search SO VERY hard to find a single book which will teach ANYTHING about praying together. We have taken the exception, praying alone in those painful times when we cannot be with our brothers and sisters in Christ – and turned it into the norm, and largely abandoned Christ’s will for his body, praying together.

In large part, in and through the Reformation and its after effects, the Church in the West has drunk long and deep at the poisoned well of post enlightenment hyper individualism and its toxic results are to be seen everywhere in the church. Not least in our rapid numerical decline as social convention no longer holds the church together. For the heart of the Church is Only OUR intimate fellowship with Our Lord in devotion to praying, and that together – in our devotion to a common life of prayer. And that spoken. What Do you see in that room? What do you hear?? Are the disciples all sat there in silence??? Silent meditation no doubt has its place – not least because it is the place where we HEAR from Christ – as we should. He is ALWAYS speaking. But by and large there is no conversation – no Converse – no Sharing in LIfe with Christ.

Common prayer – where the body of Christ enjoys intimate fellowship together with her head – has all but disappeared. What do We know as the bride of Christ,  of that agape feast of Our self surrendered Love relationship with the Bridegroom in our life of prayer together??

The disciples weren’t saying ‘Oh, if only Jesus were still here, for in their devotion to prayer together they were with Him, he speaking with them, and they with Him. Just as Jesus knows the intimate presence of the Father in prayer

Here in New Zealand,very creatively I believe, we observe the ‘Week of prayer for Christian unity’ between Ascension and Pentecost. Thus today hear these words of Jesus as he in that profound intimacy, in Union with the Father prays – ‘I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one’. Our thoughts are trained towards the unity of the various denominations – perhaps the unity within our own denomination – but amongst ourselves?? We are so distracted by the ‘out there’ that we don’t beleve that the Father ALWAYS gives the Son what he asks for. That in Christ we are one – and that unity is most profoundly expressed in our praying together, and in being with Jesus around the table – where as in prayer we know him, in the breaking of the bread.

We are so trained in individualistic relating to Jesus in prayer, that we don’t realise that that is not the deepest of relationships we are called into. To adapt some words of CS LEwis, our so called intimacy with Jesus on our own, is as it were ‘playing with mud pies on a rainy day, when we could be playing with sandcastles on the beach as we feel the sun and the wind and hear the roar of the surf’, would we only devote ourselves to prayer together.  Oh yes, when we have no choice but to pray alone – if we are sent into exile like our beloved patron Saint. Yes THEN he comes to us in full brilliance – but under no other circumstances. And so most of us most of the time can’t understand why the disciples weren’t saying ‘Of if only Jesus were still here’ For less and less do we venture into the far more profound, far more intimate prayer which we know as the bride in her encounter with the bridegroom. That we discover the glorious answer of Jesus prayer ‘that they may be one as we are one’ in our Life of prayer together. We are the Church, we are the bride of Christ – in prayer together we know the deepest intimacy with the One who loves us and has died for us.

As we consider our future Life here at St John the Evangelists – I have suggested various themes which might shape our Life in the form of what I call an Open Rule. I will speak much more to this over the months to come, but Firstly Prayer. Prayer is THE foundation, and Prayer is first and foremost praying together. Without praying together we will go nowhere. St Peter says, ‘God . . . gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God’.
To pray together, especially when we have been deceived into thinking the most intimate expression of prayer is solitary, requires great humility. It requires acknowledging we were wrong in this matter . . . and worse 🙂 it requires the difficult work of setting aside all those so important things so important to us as individuals to submit our wills to the glorious work of praying together. It requires the humility perhaps of praying with those whom we do not find amenable – and hearing that we recognise of course that one of the  deceptive ‘joys’ of solitary prayer is this, that we are praying with the person we most love – ourselves 🙂

Last Sunday, if the weather hadn’t intervened we would have begun exploring what a shared life of prayer – Praying together might look like. But there will be further opportunities – and I pray flourishing opportunities to pray together in the coming months and weeks. Please come and join in – to know Jesus amongst us in profound intimacy – and what is that???  ‘This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ To know HIm, present amongst us – this is eternal life. What more could we possibly want?

Now to the One who by the power at work amongst us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to Him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Evensong Sunday 18th May 2014 – Easter 5
Zech 4:1-10
Rev 21:1-14

AUDIO FILE HAS SIGNIFICANT CHANGES FROM THE TEXT

This is the Word of the LORD to Zerubbabel
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord”

I often joke that NZ is far from perfect for visitors from England, for the two things most English holidaymakers treasure most, Sun and Sea are the only things likely to kill you, here, so benign is the country 🙂 Of course that omits both earthquake and Tsunami – perils I have to admit we didn’t face in the landlocked and grey parts of Lancashire from whence we came.

Obviously Tsunamis must have been playing on my mind, for a couple of weeks ago I was awoken by the most vivid nightmare – standing on the shore at St Claire, and looking out to sea the horizon filled with an evilly yellow wall of water on the Horizon, and the air turning dark and tangibly moist as it moved ominously closer. It was the only time I can recall having a dream where I could feel moisture, as if the air were thick with it, and no I wasn’t sleeping in the bath again 🙂

Of course, the perils of the sea were on our agenda at General Synod. Yes, thankfully, we did consider more weighty matters than sleeping rights. Archbishop Winston gave a rich an at times incomprehensible address on ‘Moana’ theology. The theology of the Ocean – with the telling line – our vulnerability is yours also. And Bishop Api in a long speech on a fossil fuel divestment motion paid harrowing testament to sea level rise. Invited by his flock to visit their burial ground, now below water.

I have more than a degree of sympathy with one commentator on Synod who complained at receiving 30 emails regarding the sexuality motion, and none on the motion on Mission. But I wonder what our brother and sister Christians from Polynesia – quite literally the marginal partners in our church – made of the use of our time, given their situation. The word Apocalyptic would not seem to be out of place. Apocalyptic – and most timely for our readings this evening.

In the Salvation Army – they have a practise which I quite like. At each service, people are chosen at random to bring a word to the gathered congregation – I wonder how any of us might feel about having to do that tonight, with our two readings 🙂 From the prophet Zechariah ‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.
‘These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.’
Or  From the better know Book of Revelation, immediately after the passage widely used at funerals about the new heaven and the new Earth, But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.’ Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’

What might you say? 🙂

Both of our readings come from what we call ‘Apocalyptic’ literature in the Scriptures – And ‘Apocalyptic’ does not have a good name amongst us. We might well think that these are quite bizarre Scriptures, written by people with serious psychiatric problems.

What indeed might we ask has anything of This to do with us??? We think of the Book of Revelation and those strange cults which use it as a prophecy for the end of the world – we imagine perhaps it better left alone.

But we would not do well to do so, for our faith is an Apocalyptic faith [Those thinking the Vicar has finally lost all touch with reality may if they wish leave at this point 🙂 ]
Our faith, I say again is an apocalyptic faith, and perhaps the at times incomprehensible nature of Archbishop Winston’s speech is that we have ourselves long ago forgotten that.

But why you might ask?

Firstly Christian faith is birthed in a Jewish culture where Apocalyptic writings were one of if not the chief form of religious writing. Since the time of the exile such writings had become increasingly prevalent. Following the Old Testament as we have it – we have the writings of  Ezekiel – from the time of exile of the Jewish people to Babylon – with its vision of the glory of God in unreproducible imagery -then Daniel (we know Daniel mainly for the stories of the lions den and fiery furnace, stories in themselves Revealing, but in Ch 9 to the end the writing is all openly apocalyptic) On into the minor prophets and perhaps especially Zechariah – our reading for this evening and a book of strange vision after strange vision

Secondly we know of Many books of such a type written about the time of Jesus and just before. Several of which, such as the books of Enoch were very important influences in the church of the first three centuries, until St Augustine amongst others put a stop to that thank you very much – I’ll come back to Augustine in a moment

Third –  the New Testament itself – yes of course we know of Revelation, but the gospel of Mark and indeed of John bear powerful witness to being birthed in apocalyptic imagery. With regard to the authorship of Revelation we tend to read Revalation in the light of John and so think they cannot possibly be authored by the same person, but if you read them the other way round, that is read John in the light of your reading of Revelation . . . well I’ll leave that with you for homework 🙂 ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord – he hath cast down the mighty from their seat and hath exaled the humble and meek’ Apocalyptic in the heart of Evensong!

And most clearly we see this in the very words of Jesus – Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of heaven! Blessed are you meek, for they shall inherit the earth!

Well – you may well say – you have made a case for the Scriptures being apocalyptic, and perhaps thus driven us thus further away from reading Anything in the BIble – I hope not – but surely our faith is not apocalyptic??

Well – lets go back again to the writings. What is the context for this writing? It is all rooted in a people who are under immense pressure – in exile, in prison, under occupation – it is a writing rooted in people who live in fear of their name being totally wiped from the consciousness of history. It is thus a writing from people under the harshest extremes of living – it is the language of hope when all hope seems to have been lost – it is Dream like in its nature, for to those whom it addresses it must have seemed like a dream. Those who have sat down by the streams of Babylon, taunted by their persecutors to sing the Lord’s song in a strange Land, are given through for example Ezekiel a vision of the restoration of all things.

And then finally one comes
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus is an Apocalyptic figure. This sign of hope from Zechariah, the book we have heard from this evening – makes no sense on our terms, none at all

Who amongst us takes with any degree of seriousness Jesus in his humility as the pattern for our lives. We live in a ‘get things done culture’ – we seek people who will achieve – and our King comes humble and riding on an donkey

So we hear from our reading this evening – This is the Word of the LORD to Zerubbabel
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord” . . .

I said earlier that it was St Augustine in particular who had been the one to eliminate the reading of the apocalyptic literature such as Enoch from the life of the church – Augustine who was also the first apologist for Christendom. That move of the church from the margins – clinging on like moss to a stone in a storm, yet flowering abundantly – growing not by might, not by power, but by the Spirit of GOd – moving from that to taking the reins of power. no longer the reins of the donkey, but that of the mighty steed – indeed the warhorse as Augustine makes the case for just war. Christian faith moves from being Apocalyptic, dependent on God – learning Hope, to denying Apocalyptic, taking power into its hands to write its own story. And now? And now??

One of the tremendous priveleges of this past week at Synod was a boat trip to Oihi bay, accompanied by some of ArchBishop Winston’s denizens of Moana – as we sailed amongst a pod of dolphins . .  finally we came to the new Marsden Cross interpretation centre – set up upon a hill, overlooking Ruatara’s Pa – from where away in the distance, tiny on the shoreline we could see Marsden’s cross – that place where the gospel was first preached in these lands just 200 years ago.

  Marsden’s Cross ‘seen’ from Eagle Hill

From the viewing sight it looked so small and insignificant – one had a real sense of how those early missionaries were as it were clinging to the edges of existence. We reflected on how they were utterly dependent on the Manaaki Tanga of the Maori – the hospitality – like those first disciples of Jesus who went without bag or purse or sandals. People on the edge, people of the edge – the place of dreams and visions, the place of Apocalyptic.

That is our faith – our story – living in dependence – not by might (strength), not by power (ability to control things) but by the Spirit of God

Apoclayptic writings we find strange and threatening – yet they are the root scriptures of our true story. The challenge for us is to live deep into the reality of them – as Jesus tells those who follow him – giving up our possesssions to become his disciples, people of the edge, between heaven and Earth – people who See the Revelation – people of the Apocalypse.

Amen

Sermon for Easter 2

The Community of the Resurrection

John 20:19-31

The Church in her wisdom keeps us in the season of Easter for just as long as we participated in Lent, that is seven weeks, separated by Holy Week, the week in which the Work of God in Christ comes to its fulfillment, in the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus.

Unlike Lent however, I think we have quite a lot of difficulty answering the question, ‘Why?’ The reason for the Season of Easter, as opposed to the celebration of Easter Sunday itself is not clear. In Lent, it is at least fairly obvious, that it is a season of preparation for Holy Week and Easter Sunday, but what of the season of Easter?

Well, its immediate referent is the forty days Jesus spent coming to the disciples over and again before his Ascension, and then the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. But what was he doing in this time? Well the simple answer was that he was teaching them. Primarily he was teaching him about Himself, then and now The Focus of all of our teaching.
The gospels prior to the resurrection find the disciples failing over and again to comprehend who Jesus is. Certainly they do not depart from the Cross on Good Friday with Any expectation of the Resurrection. They are sorrowful, they are ashamed, and in summary their lives have come to an end. They had invested their all in Jesus of Nazareth. As those disciples said on the road to Emmaus, ‘But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.’, and so poorly had they learnt Jesus (and I use the words advisedly) that they did not even recognise that they were making this confession TO Jesus . . . who rebukes them thus ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.’ And here we find the core of Jesus’ teaching over those 40 days – opening the eyes of his disciples to Who He Is. But, like an apple, the core has a body. The Essence of the teaching, needs a container. The Resurrection life needs a vessel. And that is The Church.

In teaching the disciples about who He Is – Jesus Christ, the Risen One is also teaching us about who we are . . . about what it means to BE the body of Christ.
Last week I said that ‘if the Resurrection is ‘beyond belief’, then surely its consequences also lie beyond categories that we can simply lay hold of.’ If the Resurrection of Jesus is announced with Earthquakes utterly re-ordering the geography, not only of our lives but of the entire Cosmos, then its consequences for those who hear and respond to this Good News – cannot be less than staggering to those amongst whom we live. As St Paul puts it, ‘If anyone is in Christ, THERE is the New Creation. The Old has Gone, the New has come.’

Last week I quoted the writer Baxter Kruger on what God was doing in and through the death and the resurrection of Jesus and I repeat that today. Kruger says that God was doing nothing less than ‘recreating the human race through death and resurrection’ Recreating the human race. But that recreation, like the earthquakes that announced it is utterly disruptive of our lives – which of course it was meant to. The Cross announced The End. The End of Our story of Sin and Death. The Resurrection announces God’s Life, freely available now for the only story going, that is His Life. So now one is either dead in sin, or alive to God in Jesus Christ. There is no other reality . . .
. . . but as I said, that Gospel, that Good News also supremely disrupts our plans for our lives. And so the twisted genius of Christendom was to suggest – ‘you can have it all’ – Life on your own terms for now, and Life on God’s terms after you die. It as it were defused the Resurrection of Jesus, undoing its disruption of a world where we called the shots, and turned it into a story about hope for after we die. It turned the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ into ‘just another god’, one who looked more or less benignly upon our life struggles, to whom we might appeal, with greater or lesser effect, for a change in our circumstances. For all our denials and words to the contrary, faith became radically focussed on us and our lives. ‘Jesus’ is reduced to a kindly friend who was there to help us live our lives – and as peripheral to our everyday existence as the Risen Jesus became, so also became the church became peripheral to faith. In our Consumer culture, the church is understood as a resource on My Journey – the church is more or less helpful in regards to My Faith.

For all our attempts to explain it otherwise, the parlous state of the church is solely down to one thing – our abandonment of the utterly disruptive Life of the Risen Jesus. Of course this wasn’t immediately apparent, for life for so many was so poor for so many years that the ‘religious’ understanding of Jesus and ‘God’ as one to whom we went to seek help for our lives pertained for many many years – but it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. So as we in the West have become increasingly wealthy and comfortable, our need for that kindly old figure on a cloud has vanished as readily as the illusion that it was . . .

We stand in the last death throes of the Christendom church. All around we see signs of people in desperation trying to keep the corpse alive. Endless conferences – new patterns for ministry, new models for church . . . just this week I received an email from the UK from clergy wishing to study ‘Local shared ministry’ and ‘Enablers’ to try and help them in their context. I haven’t yet had the heart to tell them that these things have all but expired at least in our context. Yet what is lacking in all of this is one question ‘What Exactly IS the church?’ In other words all of this flailing around singularly refuses to ask whether our understanding of church is right – and it isn’t for in almost all regards the understanding of church that pertains is that of the Christendom Church – which relied on anything EXCEPT the Spirit of the Risen Christ

John in his gospel is of course Utterly focussed on the Person of Jesus – we struggle to read John and come away with a sense of Jesus as ‘just another decent human being going around trying to be kind to people and ‘doing good’’. Instead Our John’s gospel is Apocalyptic, revealing Jesus Christ as the Incarnation of the Living God – who announces from the Cross ‘It is finished’ – declaring God’s gracious judgement on life on our terms – and, being raised from the Dead ‘Sends’ his Life upon his church. The vessel of the Life of the Living God. The Body of the Risen Christ.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” [Once more we note – Fear is Not part of the Life Jesus announces] 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

As the Father has sent me, so I send you . . . all through Lent and Holy Week our theme has been ‘Participation in the Life of Jesus’ – We walk with him through Lent – through prayer and fasting stripping away all that is not of him in humbling ourselves – laying aside our pretensions. Then through Holy Week we walk in that humility, with our Donkey riding King – Glad to acclaim him as Our Lord in happy denial of the world’s story that we need power to achieve things. Washing one anothers feet as participating in the humble service of one another, that love which is the outworking of our life in Jesus – to the Cross. Saying farewell to our lives – waiting through Holy Saturday to receive Christ Our New Life – the Everlasting One. So now as He, the eternal LAmb of God is sent – So he sends us – to continue to live out His Risen Life.

As God in Christ was reconciling the World to himself – so we enter into that work of reconcilaition. As Christ forgives eevryone for everything, in forgiving those who Crucify him – so that now is our life. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any they are retained. Still the choice – still you can us you wish deny the life of Jesus – the Holy Spirit in and amongst you, is what he says. God is Gentle and humble of heart – he will not coerce us to be vessels for his life.

This matter of forgiveness is the essence of Christ’s work, and thus his life in us. Thus it is also the focus of the difference between Christendom faith and Christian faith. Christendom faith leaves us in our old lives, where we were – children of God only in name but not in lived reality -for Children of God turn the world upside down and we don’t want that. So endless sermons on how difficult it is to forgive, for we deny that God in Christ has forgiven everyone for everything, and that we have laid down the old self willed life. We did not participate in Jesus’ death, so we are unable to participate in his resurrection life.
If the Gospel is True, then we, the Church are nothing more nor less than the Community of the Resurrection – this is where the Life of God is encountered, this is where Everyone is forgiven for Everything, for here we meet, not the chaplain God of Christendom, but the Living God who raises the Christ and gives power to his Body to forgive everyone for everything. Here we are trained to See everyone through the pitying eyes of Jesus Christ – with the Love of the Father.

Through Lent – a good number of us gathered to consider what it meant to be the church and what it might possibly mean for us as we face the future together. +Kelvin in his latest blog said that following the Hikoi it was clear that we couldn’t go on as we are – indeed that is the message of Good Friday. But the message of Easter which we continue to walk through for five more weeks, is not only that we cannot, but that we do not have to. As I said earlier, the question that we think we do not need to answer needs urgently to be addressed – that is ‘What is the Church?’ Jesus in revealing who he was to his disciples was also revealing the nature of the Church, in truth His Body. We are the BOdy of Christ – His Holy Spirit indwells us – for the sake of the reconciliation of the whole world with God.

When our ancient forbears, the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt, as one writer I saw put it this week, God was saying to Pharoah – ‘They are not yours, they are mine’ – So on the Cross God says to ‘Sin and Death’ – ‘They are not yours, they are mine’ We are no longer our own – in the death and resurrection of Jesus, there is only one life, that of limitless forgiveness reconciliation and Love. We are the Community of that Life – The Life of The Resurrection. To say otherwise is to deny our faith, it is to desire to return to captivity, it is to deny who we are, and thus to deny the Holy Spirit. May God give us Grace to Live in the Reality of what in Christ He has done – for His Glory and the Healing of the entire cosmos.

Good Friday

This Is the End

‘It is finished’

Since last Sunday, some words have been quietly working through my consciousness. They came unbidden whilst I was at prayer on Sunday morning and haven’t left me. The words are these: ‘The End of all things has come’.

Throughout the week, we have been asking the question ‘What do you See?’ It is a question with which the gospel of John is intimately concerned. The gospel which right in its centre contains that lengthy story of the man born blind. For the other gospel writers, the healing of say Bartimaeus occupies a few verses, but in John the healing of ‘the man born blind’ – the man with no name for like the beloved disciple, he might be a cipher for anyone and everyone – his healing occupies a whole chapter.

Ultimately, what do we See in the Crucified One, the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world? St Paul says For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. What we behold in The Death of Jesus upon the Cross is The End. Our End. One has died for all, therefore All have died.

This is the meaning of the words of Jesus from the Cross ‘It is finished’ – Everything. In the Death of the representative Human, all have died. Human history – that is the History made by humans trying to live their own lives, trying to tell their own story has been Judged in Christ and Him Crucified.

The early church knew this well. Hence so much of the preaching and teaching of the early years reminded the Christians that they were NOW citizens of heaven. The End of all things had come . . .

Why do such thoughts seem so alien to US now, as what we call C21 Christians? If not because the temptation to live life on our own terms caused us to in effect renounce the End that God had declared in the Cross of Jesus. To refuse God’s judgement upon us in Jesus. To allow us to live our own lives and then, hopefully, to become citizens of heaven in our own time. To reduce God to a kindly chaplain who oversees us living our lives. To reduce the Cross from being The Judgement upon us and lives lived on our own terms, to being a sign that God was with us in Our Suffering – that God was ‘with us’. In other words once more to seek to make ourselves the centre of all things.

Thus the Offence of the Cross – for it says ‘No’ to our lives. As Christ lays down His Life, All life is judged. One has died for all; therefore all have died.

As we noted upon hearing the story of the man born blind, God is at work in Jesus, separating out Light from Darkness. The Blind Pharisees drive from the synagogue the man who can now See. ‘And he divided the Light from the Darkness. And the Light he called Day, and the darkness Night’

Seen from the perspective of Our lives lived as we want them, the only way to See the Cross is as Night, Darkness and Death. The Cross Is the negation of Our lives. We want lives that are all about Us and our goodness, but as Jesus tells us ‘Only God is Good’ ‘Only God is Good’ The Cross is that separation of Light and Darkness. It reveals in Dazzling brilliance that Truth – That God Is Good – and His Glory is the only Glory. The Cross is the End of human glory.

Yesterday evening we reflected upon the epitome of human glory, what St Luke calls ‘Benefactors’ Those who try to do good, but on their own terms. Those perhaps who will have lengthy tribute and eulogy paid to them at their funeral – But Jesus says to those who would follow him, it is not to be so amongst you . . . you must follow in my way. Like me, make yourself Nothing in the eyes of the world. ‘We are unworthy servants’ All the Glory belongs to God.

It is in such ways that the offense of the Gospel, the offense of the Cross becomes most sharp – when it calls radically into question what we call the Good Life. We are happy enough for it to judge those parts of our lives of which we are ashamed, but we don’t want ALL of our lives to be taken to the Cross. The Offense is that ‘good life’, the things of which we are proud – the things which we have done which we want God to reward us for – those things are judged at the Cross. Everything is. This is The End of All Things.

To live for the Glory of God leads in human terms to humiliation and death. The Cross is The End of all of our attempts to ‘make a name for ourselves’ – to live a ‘good life’ within terms that we set out. To keep anything for ourselves – to try and steal the only Glory, that which comes from God.

Yet the flesh doesn’t want to die – it thinks if it keeps wrestling on and on, it will win out – but there is no on and on. ‘It is finished’ – The Cross is the End.

What do we see in Christ crucified? The judgement of our lives in their entirety? The End of our Lives?

Let the same mind be amongst you as was in Christ Jesus . . . who made himself nothing, taking the form of a slave, and being found in likeness as a man, became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave to Him, the name that is above every name . . .

 

Maundy Thursday 2014

As we have followed Jesus through Holy Week, we have been encouraged not to act as spectators but to participate. But participation requires that we see clearly what Jesus is doing.

At Compline, following the theme of ‘Light and Life’ we have taken time to ask ‘Do we See?’ – truly do we Behold the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world? For to the World the Cross towards which Jesus walks is a place of Darkness, Human hatred and Death – yet for us who believe it is the Wisdom and the Power of God. To truly See the Cross is to behold the Glory of God.

So much contemporary theology seeks to make the Cross all about us. That somehow on the Cross, Jesus is participating in the suffering which is the commonplace of all of our lives. But this is not the view of the Scriptures, nor indeed until very lately has it been the view of the people of Jesus. Rather the Cross is entirely about the Glory of God. As we considered on Palm Sunday, God vindicates those who serve Him, by making them the place where His Glory is revealed. So in Jesus, the servant of the Lord, and Him Crucified, God reveals his Glory.
But, do we See it? Certainly the disciples were at best unclear. There were to be sure moments of illumination, but weeks and months of wandering in the dark. Do we Behold the Glory of God in this gospel of Jesus washing his disciples feet?

Our gospel reading from John, the traditional reading for this evening, has an interesting parallel in Luke. In Luke, the Lord’s supper is the occasion of the disciples arguing over ‘which one was to be regarded as the greatest’. Luke describes what happens next ‘Jesus said to them ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.’ Listen carefully to those words again – ‘the Kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.’. How similar this is to our way of seeing things. Even in the Church . . .

One of the churches in my care in England was very old and up on one of the walls, amongst many plaques was one listing the church’s ‘benefactors’. Those who had given significant monies to the church. We know how much the powerful like their largesse to be recognised, plaques here and there setting out the contributions the powerful make – but it seems it is so in the church also. Benefactors. We know who they are, everyone does. They are prominent members of society and often churches . . . but what was the name of the widow?

The widow?? Yes the widow. The one who put her last two pennies in the treasury of the Temple? Benefactors who put in out of their abundance, receiving human glory – but giving and receiving far far less than the one who out of her poverty puts in everything she has. She will not be lauded with special celebrations, or a plaque. The world has forgotten her.

And perhaps Peter sees where all this servant stuff is leading. There is no opportunity for ‘acts of service’, for which we might receive a reward, or indeed take a break. ‘I am among you as one who serves’ ‘As one who serves’. Not ‘I am doing these acts of service’, no ‘I am As one who serves. The Benefactor ‘does their bit’, puts in their hours, and retires in the warm glow of admiration and respect. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, they have received their reward, the glory from human beings. No doubt many will appear at their funeral and bear handsome witness to their lives. Unlike the widow. And unlike Jesus who as The Servant goes to a criminals death.

Jesus IS a servant. It is his very being. It is his Existence – One who serves. It is no act, it is not ‘for the moment’, His Life is service and so he washes the feet of his disciples, not to make a teaching point, but because he is revealing his Glory to them. He is showing them ahead of the Cross Who he is, the one who lives by laying down his life – he is The Human. The Second Adam. Revealing what it really means to Live – his Life like streams of living water, Giving Life. Serving All.

‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.

The Benefactor performs an act – then returns to life as it was. The Servant is one who has no life of their own – their Life is at the disposal of those whom they serve. The Benefactor uses their freedom to serve whom they want, to live the life they want. The Servant gives up all freedom and acts purely out of obedience to the one who has sent Him to Serve.

‘Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink”? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”

Jesus exemplifies this. Washing the feet of his disciples was no mere Act – it was Jesus revealing who he was.

This is the offense of Jesus. We want Jesus to be up there – reinforcing our sense of that pile which we spend our lives trying to climb – moving up the ladder – advancing our lives. Turning his commands to lay down our lives for the brethren into opportunities of choice – to make something of our lives – And Jesus, The Human, empties himself, becoming Obedient – submitting Himself. ‘You will never wash my feet!!’ But if I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me . . . and if I do wash your feet, then you must live in the same way, for I am your Lord and teacher.

Earlier this evening we washed one anothers’ feet. I must admit I am never too sure of this as a practise – is it an outworking of our shared life – or is it pure act? Do we rise from the floor to assume our usual position in the pecking order, or does it change everything?

If the True Human loses everything – lays aside any sense of entitlement – to Be The Servant. Then everything is upside down. The wealthy will have their plaques and elegant soirees in honour of what the world calls generosity – but God is Glorified in a nameless widow and her two pennies, who follows the one who made himself Nothing. Ultimately Glorified in the one who in the words of St Paul, made himself . . . Nothing, that God might be all in all. After All, where is the glorification of God in those plaques, in those elegant funeral eulogies [sic]

What Do we See in Jesus? A Benefactor? Someone who ‘went about doing good’?

Or one who ‘made himself Nothing. Friederich Nietzche, the prophet and spokesman for the age in which we live utterly despised Jesus – all he could see was nothingness. For him it was obvious that man should be glorified – and that we should live lives that sought that glory – He was blind to the glorified Man who set aside everything to serve.

our final reading from Compline came from John Chapter 12

Although Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. This was to fulfil the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
‘Lord, who has believed our message,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’
And so they could not believe, because Isaiah also said,
‘He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’
Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him. Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.

Human glory is on offer all around, Benefactors are glorified – Glory which can be bought and which finally rusts. The Glory of God is invisible to the world – yet nothing can take it away.

‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader must become like one who serves.

To all who believe in his name, he gave the right to become . . .

Benefactors? Or servants?
What do we Love? Human glory, or the Glory that comes from God?

The Cross – with its shame, its emptiness and nothingness – the Glory of God

What do we See? What are we looking for?

Reflection for Holy Week – Tuesday

Light and Love II

“the light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in darkness you do not know where you are going.
While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become children of light”
St.John 12:34-35

Last night, in effect we reflected on the question ‘what do we see in the Crucified One?’; the One who graciously invites us to lose our own life to participate in His Life.
In what I termed ‘the Great Contradiction of our faith’: that God who is Light and Life and Love is revealed in and through the Darkness, Death and Hatred of the Cross; we understand that a different way of Seeing is involved. We recall that John in his gospel highlights this Seeing, this comprehending of the Truth with the use of a word which our more traditional translations render ‘Behold!’. Behold the Lamb of God! We might call this ‘seeing with the eye of faith’, for surely it can only be that faith which God grants to us which reveals the One through whom all things came into being – the One without whom not one thing came to being – in the Crucified One. To Behold God’s Glory in the One lifted up from the Earth.

That seeing, that believing Is New Life. As John puts it ‘through believing we have Life in His name – not purely a new understanding, but New Life. And new Life is revealed in works which announce that New Life. Jesus in his actions announces the New reality of the Kingdom of God. If we are born anew in Him, then our lives are expressions of that New Life, that New Self, our participation in Him, in God-Self. Our Actions reveal us as children of Light; our lives at once judgement and hope for the World.

Tonight we take a step back – indeed if John is right then we step back in time before Palm Sunday, to an incident which happens in Bethany, but which Matthew and Mark record occurred during that first Holy Week.

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)

Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’

Here I want to suggest is another aspect of the Great Contradiction of our faith – our faith which is in, through and known in its entirety in Jesus. This Contradiction takes us from the realm of the nature of our Life in Christ, to its concrete Works.
And it is this. That in the Presence of the One who has nowhere to lay his head, in the Presence of the One laid in a manger for there was no room in the inn, in the Presence of the One whose parents offered the sacrifice of the poor, two turtledoves or two young pigeons – That is in the Presence of the One who is Poor – there is Always Abundance. The Presence of the Poor One is always the occasion of the manifestation of Abundant Life. So Mary correctly accuses Jesus after the death of Lazarus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would still be alive!’. Death cannot be present in the presence of Jesus, who Is Life. And again, in the Presence of Jesus, who is Bread, there are non hungry. All are fed and to Abundance. Yet Jesus Has nothing . . .

So Judas, who does not See – who does not Behold the Lamb of God – only sees what to him is poverty and waste. How readily we accuse the poor of wastefulness . . . and thus deny them life. He does not realise that in front of him sits one who Is Abundance – so blinded is he by Jesus’ material poverty. Hatred or Love? Darkness or Light? Death or Life? Poverty or Abundance? What do We See in Jesus? How do We Live as a result?

It is surely important to note that the only miracle Jesus performs which is found in all four gospels is the feeding of the 5000. John tells us the meaning of this Sign – that Jesus IS bread – He is The bread of Life. In his presence none can be hungry, just as in his presence none can ever die.

But there a couple of further intriguing points here in this incident, things which direct us to the nature of that New Life and its actions.
Firstly – that John, uniquely in his gospel quotes words of Jesus which are common to two of the other three gospels . . . I wonder if we noted them? John’s Gospel is SO different – surely if he quotes but One saying of Jesus which is found in other gospels, it must be of Great significance?
It is this. ‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me’ (Matthew and Mark also record this saying of Jesus – Mark adds the parenthetical comment – ‘and you can show kindness to the poor whenever you wish’. Luke of course has no need to record this, the announcement of the Life of Jesus as ‘Good News to the Poor’, and the warning parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus does the work for him amply.)

Secondly that this story of Abundance and that of the feeding of the 5000, are the only places in John where money is mentioned. First in relation to the disciples who do not See Jesus Is the Bread of Life, and here in relation to Judas. John does not even trouble himself to mention the betrayal ‘Reward’ – the mention of Judas and money here does that for him.

Judas only sees limited resource – he is a thief – but there is more going on here than just Judas’ character. ‘He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.’ The two go hand in hand – for in the Light of God’s abundance – treating that which is for all as your own, is to steal. God has provided for all – thus we share so that there are no poor amongst us – but most do not live by this – thus the poor are always present. Not to live with an open hand to the poor is to be nothing less than a thief – one who comes by night – one who is in darkness. It is to deny that we have received daily bread from God, for the sake of the world. It is to refuse to participate in the abundant Life of Jesus, which receives only to Share that Life with All.

To live with an open hand to the Poor who are always with us, is to live with an open hand to the One who for our sake embraced poverty. To live with a closed hand to the poor is, with Judas, only to see scarcity, to so love our lives that we finally lose them, failing to see that our Life is with The Other – Blind to the Abundant One. To steal the Life which God has given for All. To live with an open hand is to freely give for we have freely received. It is to release the Life that is within us. It is to know that  the bread of heaven which is daily given – is given for the life of the world. Not to Share what He has given is to hoard the Bread of heaven. And stored manna  rots. It is to hate our brother whom we can see, because in Truth we have not beheld Christ. He is a stranger to us. His Life just a pretty idea.

“the light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in darkness you do not know where you are going.
While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become children of light”
St.John 12:34-35

 

 

Reflection for Holy Week 1

Light and Love I

“the light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in darkness you do not know where you are going.
While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become children of light”
St.John 12:34-35

On Sunday we concluded our journey with Jesus through Lent and began our journey with him through Holy Week. And we undertake this journey not as spectators, but as participants.

Through Baptism – we exchange our life for His Life – and so to live truthfully as Christians, we must live with Jesus, in Jesus, and through Jesus. We must remind ourselves daily that we have no other life. This is what it is to ‘walk in the light’. To participate and share in the Life of Jesus, our Crucified, Risen and Ascended Lord.

This week at Compline we are to reflect on three passages that tell the story of Holy Week as recorded by St John in the twelfth chapter of his Evangel. Each one has a double theme – that of Light and that of Love – although in each case these themes are expressed in different ways.

We begin with these verses

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.

John’s account of Jesus entry into Jerusalem closes with the Pharisees all but in despair, saying to one another “You see? You can do nothing. Look! the world has gone after him” That theme of Sight is key to John’s Gospel. The world is now divided into those who See and those who do not and it is clear that here the Pharisees DO See. John uses the strong word for Look! Which our traditional translations read as Behold! Behold the Lamb of God! the other disciple entered the tomb, he Beheld [the empty tomb] and he believed! John uses this word for as it were truthful sight. Behold, the world has gone after him. And so Greek converts to Judaism have come to Jerusalem for the Passover and ask Philip – ‘Sir we wish to Behold Jesus . . .’

Philip and Andrew, the two Greek named disciples who had been responsible for bringing the boy with five loaves and two fish to Jesus – Philip who is always bringing people to Jesus – report this to Jesus.

How do we Behold Jesus? Now is the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified – Now is the hour for him to be lifted up from the earth.

It is in Seeing Christ Crucified that we Behold Jesus – we see him in his Glory. And Seeing Is to believe. To Believe in Jesus, is to believe in the Crucified one – to have our eyes enLightened – to Behold the Love of God. To Know it in truth.

Herein is the Great Contradiction of our faith. As St Paul puts it Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. To Believe in Jesus is to look into the darkness of the Cross, and Behold the Dazzling glory of God. Light In Darkness. In this apparent Utter negation of life – Life is revealed. Love springs as it were ‘ex nihilo’ – the New Creation – out of the Nothing of the Cross – Everything bursts forth. Light, Life and Love – the triumphant fruit of what can only seem to be Darkness, Death and Hatred.

Amen and Amen! I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

John as we know, announces the gospel in a different manner to his fellow evangelists. Yet it is the same Gospel. In Matthew, Mark and Luke – Jesus says ‘whoever would be my disciple must take up their cross and follow me. In John, the invitation to participation is even clearer. Having announced his glorification in being lifted high over the world on the Cross, he declares Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

This Gospel of Light in darkness is also The Gospel of participation. We Behold the Love of God in the Crucified One. We Participate in this Love by laying aside all other loves. We shall see this more in the coming nights – but for now we hear the clearest expression of it. We, beholding the Love of God in Christ, Beholding Love, Seeing Love are graciously invited to participate in the LIfe and the Love of God, by hating our lives in this world – by laying them aside. As we heard yesterday – to lay aside all our agendas – To Seek the Kingdom of God in purposeful manner – in the words of the writer to the Hebrews ‘looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the Joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of God.’

And thus we know the blessing of God – ‘Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour’ the LIfe that God blesses is the Life of Jesus and the lives of those who follow him in Truth.

God glorifies himself in the one who lives solely for the glory of God.

“the light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in darkness you do not know where you are going.
While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become children of light”
St.John 12:34-35