Visual Commentary on Scripture - Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love

Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love

This year's Visual Commentary on Scripture Advent programme has a slightly different look than those from previous years. Instead of daily emails for the duration of Advent, they will be sending their Exhibition of the Week subscribers an email every Monday starting December 1st, with links to seven different works of art and commentaries for each day of the week. Think of it as a traditional Advent calendar! Each of the four weeks has a different theme, starting with Hope, then Peace, followed by Joy, and ending with Love in the week of Christmas.

Anyone subscribed to their Exhibition of the Week will receive the weekly Advent emails. They hope you enjoy journeying towards Christmas with the help of these works of art.

Sign up for their Exhibition of the Week

The first week's commentaries include one of the commentaries from my exhibition 'A Question of Faith' which explores Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art. 

Another of the commentaries from this exhibition featured recently in a Bible and Art Daily episode from VCS. This commentary featured in the series on Picturing the Trinity: There are perils and peculiarities involved in visually depicting the Holy Trinity. Christianity insists that divinity is invisible, even if Jesus in his humanity reveals God’s purposes and presence. And the Bible’s multiplicity of images of what God might be ‘like’ forbid settling on any one as descriptively adequate. Some visual art has risked anthropomorphizing God; some has experimented with oblique or abstract modes of signification, recognizing that God ‘dwells in unapproachable light, whom [no one] has ever seen or can see’ (1 Timothy 6:16).

Bible and Art Daily is a new daily email exploring the Bible through art. Through concise but vivid day-by-day encounters, it will take you on a series of journeys through the world of Scripture and the history of art. The VCS have spent the last year bringing together experts in theology and art history to carefully curate a treasury of week-long series, each exploring a particular theme, an artistic medium, or a biblical character. Find out more and subscribe here.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

My other exhibitions for the VCS are:

• 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.
• 'Fishers of People' which uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.
• 'Before the Deluge', a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.
• Reflecting on 1 Thessalonians 2:17–4:12, 'Establishing the Heart' includes works of art by Antoine Camilleri, John Reilly and Stanley Spencer. This exhibition explores how pleasing God in our everyday lives - by living quietly, minding our own affairs, and working with our hands - leads us to see life, work and art as prayer.

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Josh Garrels - Pilot Me.

Visual Commentary on Scripture: Bible and Art Daily

The Visual Commentary on Scripture is launching a brand new daily email exploring the Bible through art. Through concise but vivid day-by-day encounters, Bible and Art Daily will take you on a series of journeys through the world of Scripture and the history of art.

The VCS have spent the last year bringing together experts in theology and art history to carefully curate a treasury of week-long series, each exploring a particular theme, an artistic medium, or a biblical character. Find out more and subscribe here.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The fourth exhibition I curated for the VCS was 'Before the Deluge', a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

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The Ocean Blue - Sublime.

The possibility and the challenge of change

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Imagine for a moment what it would have been like to be Matthew, the tax collector. You would sit day-by-day in a hot little booth waiting for travelers to pay the toll as they passed from one province to the next, just like people used to do at the Dartford Crossing. Just like today people didn’t enjoy paying tolls in order to continue on their journey, and it wouldn’t have been much fun for you either. On top of that, those who come to the toll booth and those in the villager or town where you live were constantly angry with you. Angry, because you were collaborating with the hated authorities and angry, because you were making extra money for yourself by collecting too much. As a result, tax collectors like you are lumped together with ‘sinners’ and ‘outcasts’ in the places where you live and work. And this goes on day by day, year by year for most of your life.

Then think what it would be like to have a young prophet with a spring in his step and God’s kingdom in his heart coming past one day and simply asking you to follow him. How would that feel? Well, we are told in the story itself because when it says that Matthew responded by getting up and following Jesus, a resurrection word is used that means he arose, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. The act of getting up was for Matthew an entry into a completely new way of life. It was a coming alive all over again, a resurrection.

Each of these three stories is a story of resurrection (Matthew 9. 9-13, 18-26). Jesus touches the lives of Matthew, the woman who had suffered from severe bleeding, and the dead girl in ways that transformed their existence and brought them back to life. For Matthew, his work was a dead end. For the woman who touched Jesus, her illness meant that her life-blood was literally draining away and, in the case, of the Official’s daughter, the girl was quite literally dead!

And these stories raise the same questions for us this morning. Are there places in our lives where we are at a dead end? Are there things in our lives that drain the life-blood from us? And are there areas of our lives where we feel dead, as though life itself has come to an end for us?

Jesus brings the life of God into all that was dead about these people’s lives. He is the catalyst for change. His arrival on the scene brings the opportunity for hope and faith and so we see Matthew getting up, leaving his work but not his friends, and following Jesus. We see the Jewish official coming to Jesus believing that his daughter will live and we see the woman with severe bleeding reaching out to touch the very edge of Jesus’ cloak believing that if she can only touch his cloak she will get well.

Jesus’ arrival and presence are the catalyst and opportunity for change and for the faith that life can be different, can be better than it is now. How will you respond to Jesus this morning? We are in the presence of Christ as we come together to worship, how will we respond? Will we ask for his help, reach out to touch his life, and get up to follow him this morning? He is here and his presence can be the catalyst for our change in our lives and communities. What change is it that we need to see?

Jesus becomes a catalyst for change because he crosses boundaries. Each of these three people was an outcast in some way: Matthew was a hated collaborator and the woman and girl were because they were considered ritually unclean. By touching a dead body and by being touched by an ‘unclean’ woman, Jesus would have become doubly ‘unclean’ and should have had to bathe himself and his clothes and wait until the next day before resuming normal social contact. But instead of becoming contaminated himself, Jesus’ touch brought the opportunity for change, for health and life. People asked, ‘Why is Jesus eating with outcasts, with tax collectors and sinners?’, and the answer was the same; that by crossing those boundaries he brought the opportunity for change. His work was not to protect himself from ‘outcasts’ or those considered ‘unclean’ but to bring the possibility of change into the lives of such people by crossing the barriers that kept other people out.

It was into this way of life – the crossing of boundaries in order to bring the possibility of change – that Matthew was called. Jesus called him to be a disciple. In other words, someone who sat at the teacher’s feet to hear his words and who followed the teacher everywhere to see his actions in order to learn what to say and do himself. As followers of Christ, we have the same calling; to see what Jesus does and get involved ourselves. As such we need to ask ourselves, ‘Who are the people considered as ‘outcasts’ or ‘unclean’ in our workplaces, communities and nation?’ We need to know because, if we are to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, those are the very people with whom we should be meeting, eating, and seeking transformation. We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are the boundaries and barriers separating people from others?’ We need to know because those are the boundaries and barriers which we need to cross in order to bring the possibility of change?

And so, these stories bring us both the possibility and the challenge of change. What are the dead-ends and dead aspects of our lives that need to be brought back to life? What are the boundaries that we can cross to bring the possibility of change to those who our outcasts in our day and time?

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, you were despised and rejected by human beings, so we bring before you the needs of those who are despised and overlooked in our world, including ourselves. You value all and call us to put aside our sinful tendency to scapegoat and ignore others in order that we see what is unique and especially valuable both in those who are other than us and also in ourselves. Amen.

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U2 - Get Out Of Your Own Way!

Close to nature: Life in Lenten environments

Sermon preached at All Saints Church, Tooting on the first Sunday of Lent and the beginning of their Lent in Pictures project.

Readings: Job 38.1-7, 25-29, 36-41, 42.1-6; Revelation 22.1-5; and Matthew 4.11-17, 24. 1-3

Around the mid-point of his life, my father switched careers from community work to retrain as a landscape gardener. We moved from the city of Oxford to a village in Somerset and, although the change was to some extent forced on him and caused financial difficulties for us as a family, he came to greatly appreciate the enhanced sense of being in nature and of living closer to the natural rhythms of the seasons and the circle of life.

However, while our awareness of nature is undoubtedly enhanced by times in the countryside, we don’t need to live in a rural area in order to aware of and affected by the natural world. Those who live here in Britain are, for example, well known for being obsessed with talking about the weather. According to research, 94% of British respondents admit to having conversed about the weather in the past six hours, while 38% say they have in the past 60 minutes. Kate Fox, who performed the studies in 2010 for an update of her book Watching the English, says “This means at almost any moment in this country, at least a third of the population is either talking about the weather, has already done so or is about to do so.” This is because there are several features of this country’s geography that make our weather the way it is: mild, changeable, and famously unpredictable. For many the changing seasons and weather affect our mood and can, for some, cause depression with Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), for example, being a type of depression that comes and goes in a seasonal pattern possibly linked to reduced exposure to sunlight during the shorter autumn and winter days.

Our theme for today, based on your Lent project, is relationship with the natural world, thinking especially of the environments in the Lenten stories. Our readings illustrate key aspects of that relationship – challenge, awe, mission, healing. In fact, these readings can be ordered to suggest a journey through the environments of Lent and life, involving environments of remove, ruin, renewal, and recuperation.

The readings from the Book of Job are about the expansive nature of the universe in which we find ourselves; both the breadth and depth of creation in macro and micro dimensions. We move through a series of questions that range from the earth’s foundations in creation through the patterns of the weather to the hunting practices of predators. Job is asked whether he was present at creation, how creation occurred, whether he understands the workings of the natural world, and whether he can provide for the creatures of the world. The answer to all these questions is clearly ‘No, he does not’ and that realisation brings him to his knees with a sense of awe towards the God who can answer such questions and a sense of humility through a realisation of his place within a world that is immense and teeming with myriad forms of life.

Job has an experience of the vastness of the universe and the awesome nature of the God who created; a God who is removed from us because we have no means of comprehending the length and breadth, height, depth or diversity of his nature, activity and potential. All Job can do in the environment of remoteness is to stand in awe and wonder, aware of his insignificance in the face of such expanse.

I wonder whether you have had such an experience; maybe lying on a hill contemplating the night sky or at the peak of a high mountain on a cloudless day seeing what seems to be the whole earth laid out beneath you or in the depths of a wood or forest surrounded by an amazing array of flora, fauna and creatures. That same sense of immensity can also be found in the micro as well as the macro if we learn to look with attention; the beauty of a snowflake or the intricacies of a cobweb, the patterns of a leaf or the hues of a petal. I wonder whether you can find an environment – literal or virtual – in which you can experience a sense of remove bringing awe and humility. I wonder too whether you can capture something of that sense of remove in a photo, poem, painting or other creative work for your Lenten project, exhibition and film.

In Matthew 24 we hear Jesus conjure up an environment of ruin for his disciples. His disciples came to point out to him the magnificence of the buildings of the temple and he assured them that, in the near future, not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down. All human environments are subject to decay yet the natural impermanence and temporality of our constructions and creations was not the point that Jesus was making here. His statement was a prophecy regarding events that would occur within the lifetime of his disciples – the fall of Jerusalem in AD70 – which would be a confirmation to those disciples of the truth of Jesus’ words and a vindication of him as a true prophet. His words were also a warning preparing his disciples for a time of trauma and trial when their lives would be at risk and their faith tested.

The environment of ruin – whether physical, emotional, spiritual or all three – is a place of real trauma which can nevertheless become the place where God becomes more real to us than ever was the case in times of prosperity. That was the experience of the Israelites in exile as Babylon was the place where their scriptures were written down and compiled. For Christ, the letting go of life through the agony of the cross was inextricably united to the astonishing renewal of resurrection. For the first disciples, the destruction of the Temple and the perils of persecution were the crucible in which the Early Church was fashioned.

This lockdown Lent it may be that the pandemic has formed an environment of ruin for us and for our world as economies have contracted, jobs have been lost, restrictions enforced, and millions have died. As we survey the devastation that has been caused, can we encounter God with us in new ways and in new depths of experience as we see the myriad ways we can find at this time to be with others through in-person care and virtual connections. I wonder how you can reflect on the environment of ruin through your Lenten project and Lenten experiences.

By contrast our reading from Matthew 4 sees Jesus leave the place of trial and restriction to make his home in Capernaum by the sea and to go on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, to Galilee of the Gentiles proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven has come near and that light has come to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

This is the environment of renewal; a place of activity and vocation, of gatherings and shelters, of journeys and arrivals, of farming and fishing. In three short years, Jesus travelled throughout Galilee and beyond, calling and training disciples sending out 12 and then 72 while others supported them financially from their homes. This is the environment in which his teaching was shared; whether sermons on mountains, stories from boats or acted parables in upper rooms. The stories he told were also set in this environment and peopled by farmers and fishermen.

This environment is one of daily life and work. It is ordinary, everyday and mundane yet the kingdom of heaven is near and the light of illumination is at hand. I wonder what you will find of heaven in your everyday life and work this Lent. How will your stories and sharing, your activity and travel – whether literal or virtual – be blessed and broken for revelation and renewal? How will you picture or describe the in-breaking of the kingdom in the environment of renewal for your Lenten project?

The final environment in our readings is that of recuperation. Our destiny, our destination, is a city where the river of the water of life flows through the middle of the street with the tree of life alongside and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. This is a place of restoration where nothing accursed will be found any more, where God will wipe every tear from our eyes and death, mourning and crying and pain will be no more. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. They will not hurt or destroy for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Our experience in this world is of being led to green pastures and of being led through the valley of the shadow of death, but our ultimate end is to dwell in the house of the Lord forever where goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives. I wonder where are the green pastures and still waters to which we can be led this Lent in order that we experience a taste of the restoration we shall experience in that final environment of recuperation. What images and words can we find to illustrate and illuminate that experience for those that will see your Lenten project, exhibition and film?

If you seek out these environments and experiences this Lent and if you share them through pictures, photographs, films for your Lenten project, then you will have the experience that my father knew, in moving from community work to landscape gardening, of coming closer to the natural rhythms of the seasons and the circle of life. By coming into these Lenten environments of remove, ruin, renewal, and recuperation, you will experience challenge, awe, vocation, and healing while coming closer to the pattern of death and resurrection, letting go and receiving back that is the natural rhythm of the spiritual life. It is my prayer that that may be your experience this Lent. Amen.

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John Tavener - Eternity's Sunrise.

Crossing boundaries to bring the possibility of change

Here's the reflection that I shared during today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields: 

Imagine for a moment what it would have been like to be Matthew, the tax collector (Matthew 9. 9-13). You would sit day-by-day in a hot little booth waiting for travellers to pay the toll as they passed from one province to the next, just like people used to do at the Dartford Crossing.

Just like today people didn’t enjoy paying tolls in order to continue on their journey, and it wouldn’t have been much fun for you either. On top of that, those who come to the toll booth and those in the villager or town where you live were constantly angry with you. Angry, because you were collaborating with the hated authorities and angry, because you were making extra money for yourself by collecting too much. As a result, tax collectors like you are lumped together with ‘sinners’ and ‘outcasts’ in the places where you live and work. And this went on day by day, year by year for most of your life.

Then think what it would be like to have a young prophet with a spring in his step and God’s kingdom in his heart coming past one day and simply asking you to follow him. How would that feel? Well, we are told in the story itself because when it says that Matthew responded by getting up and following Jesus, a resurrection word is used that means he arose, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. The act of getting up was for Matthew an entry into a completely new way of life. It was a coming alive all over again, a resurrection.

This is a story of resurrection. For Matthew, his work was a dead end. Jesus touched the life of Matthew in a way that transformed his existence and brought him back to life. And this story raises the same question for us this morning. Are there places in our lives where we are at a dead end?

Jesus brought the life of God into all that was dead about Matthew’s life. He was the catalyst for change. His arrival on the scene brought the opportunity for hope and faith and so we see Matthew getting up, leaving his work but not his friends, and following Jesus.

Jesus’ arrival and presence was the catalyst and opportunity for change and for the faith that life can be different, can be better than it is now. How will you respond to Jesus today? We are in the presence of Christ as we come together to worship, how will we respond? Will we ask for his help, reach out to touch his life, and get up to follow him this morning? He is here and his presence can be the catalyst for our change in our lives and communities. What change is it that we need to see?

Jesus becomes a catalyst for change because he crosses boundaries. Matthew was an outcast to his community because he was a hated collaborator with the Romans. People asked, ‘Why is Jesus eating with outcasts, with tax collectors and sinners?’, and the answer was that by crossing those boundaries he brought the opportunity for change. His work was not to protect himself from ‘outcasts’ but to bring the possibility of change into the lives of such people by crossing the barriers that kept other people out.

It was into this way of life – the crossing of boundaries in order to bring the possibility of change – that Matthew was called. Jesus called him to be a disciple. In other words, someone who sat at the teacher’s feet to hear his words and who followed the teacher everywhere to see his actions in order to learn what to say and do himself. As followers of Christ, we have the same calling; to see what Jesus does and get involved ourselves. As such we need to ask ourselves, ‘Who are the people considered as ‘outcasts’ in our workplaces, communities and nation?’ We need to know because, if we are to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, those are the very people with whom we should be meeting, eating, and seeking transformation. We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are the boundaries and barriers separating people from others?’ We need to know because those are the boundaries and barriers which we need to cross in order to bring the possibility of change?

And so, the story of Matthew’s call brings us both the possibility and the challenge of change. What are the dead-ends of our lives where we need to be brought back to life? What are the boundaries that we can cross to bring the possibility of change to those who our outcasts in our day and time?

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, you were despised and rejected by human beings, so we bring before you the needs of those who are despised and overlooked in our world, including ourselves. You value all and call us to put aside our sinful tendency to scapegoat and ignore others in order that we see what is unique and especially valuable both in those who are other than us and also in ourselves. Amen.

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Moby - God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters.

Restoring relationships

Here is my reflection from today's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The rock band Good Charlotte have a song called 'The Story of My Old Man'. It begins like this:

‘I don’t know too much, too much of my old man.
I know he walked right out the door and we never saw him again.
Last I heard he was at the bar doing himself in.
I know I got that same disease, I guess I got that from him.

This is the story of my old man,
just like his father before him.
I’m telling you do anything you can,
so you don't end up just like them.’

In today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 18: 15-20), Jesus says the church is like a family and he is realistic and recognises that in a family brothers (and sisters and parents will fall out). The song was about a real family and in the song it is the Dad who has broken up the family. In all these situations there is real hurt and when people are in these sorts of situation they react with anger saying “don’t end up just like them” or treat them “as though they were pagans or tax collectors.” In other words don’t have anything to do with them because of the hurt they have caused.

Good Charlotte also have a second song on this same theme which is called 'Emotionless':

'Hey Dad, I'm writing to you
not to tell you, that I still hate you
just to ask you how you feel
and how we fell apart, how this fell apart …

I remember the days, you were a hero in my eyes
but those were just a long lost memory of mine
I spent so many years learning how to survive
Now, I'm writing just to let you know that I'm still alive
And sometimes I forgive.
Yeah, this time I’ll admit that I miss you.
I miss you. Hey Dad.'

You see the difference between the two songs? They’re both about the singer’s Old Man. In both he’s been hurt by the things that his Old Man has done. But in the second song, he’s writing to try to restore the relationship, even, at the end, to say that he forgives and misses his Dad. It’s clearly not easy because of the hurt but it’s also very much what he needs to do.

And it’s a similar story in our Gospel reading. Jesus is not giving the disciples these instructions so that they can reject those brothers and sisters in the Church who do something wrong. He is giving these instructions so that these brothers and sisters can be won back; so that the relationship can be restored.

When Jesus says treat people like pagans and tax collectors, he doesn’t mean reject them. Matthew was a tax collector. He knew from personal experience how Jesus treated tax collectors and outcasts. He went to their homes, ate meals with them and said that he had not come to call respectable people, but outcasts. He did all he could to restore the relationship and heal the wounds.

And that is also what we see in the parables before and after these instructions. In the parable of the lost sheep, the point is that we do everything possible to find those who are lost and the parable of the unforgiving servant was told to illustrate the point that we should not put limits on forgiveness but forgive again and again, just as God forgives us.

This is not easy. Another songwriter, Leonard Cohen, has said that, “Of all the people who left their names behind, I don’t think there’s a figure of Christ’s moral stature. A man who declared himself to stand among the thieves, the prostitutes, the homeless. His position cannot be comprehended. It is an inhuman generosity … (which) would overthrow the world if it was embraced.”

There is a divine generosity in Jesus which we are called to emulate. We will find it hard to forgive, just as the person in the two Good Charlotte songs found it hard to forgive his Dad. But that is where Jesus wants us to do and that is the point of these instructions that he gave to the disciples. They are about restoring relationships not about rejecting those we think are in the wrong. When we struggle to forgive, struggle to restore, struggle to reconcile then we are coming together in the name of Jesus and he is right there with us.

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Good Charlotte - Emotionless.

Start:Stop - None are excluded from Jesus’ friendship

Bible Reading

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Mathew 9. 9-13)

Meditation

This week we have at St Stephen Walbrook the Diocesan icon of hospitality. Commissioned in 2007 by the Bishop of London, Revd Regan O’Callaghan depicts three smiling women from the congregation of St John on Bethnal Green Church, seated around a table. The triptych was a commission on the theme of welcome and 3 Mothers was blessed by the Bishop and installed in the reception of Diocesan House, London where they resided for a few years. After this they have been on the move and have been installed in different places, now coming to St Stephen Walbrook.

The women reflect the diverse nature of the congregation at St John’s as well as the local East End community. Each woman is a wife, mother, and grandmother, a person of faith and a committed hard working member of their church, something the artist wanted to celebrate. The three women also symbolise in part the important role of women – particularly older women – in the Church of England. The opened hand of Mother Pearl is held out to greet the viewer to the table, a place of fellowship and hospitality while Mother Becky and Mother Miriam look on.

This icon has relevance to our reading today because in his homily based this reading Pope Francis says that none are excluded from Jesus’ friendship. Pope Francis notes that in this reading Jesus welcomes into the group of his close friends a man who, according to the concepts in vogue in Israel at that time, was regarded as a public sinner.

Matthew, in fact, not only handled money deemed impure because of its provenance from people foreign to the People of God, but he also collaborated with an alien and despicably greedy authority whose tributes moreover, could be arbitrarily determined. This is why the Gospels several times link "tax collectors and sinners" (Mt 9: 10; Lk 15: 1), as well as "tax collectors and prostitutes" (Mt 21: 31).

A first fact strikes one based on these references: Jesus does not exclude anyone from his friendship. Indeed, precisely while he is at table in the home of Matthew-Levi, in response to those who expressed shock at the fact that he associated with people who had so little to recommend them, he made the important statement: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mk 2: 17).

The good news of the Gospel consists precisely in this: offering God's grace to the sinner! Elsewhere, with the famous words of the Pharisee and the publican who went up to the Temple to pray, Jesus actually indicates an anonymous tax collector as an appreciated example of humble trust in divine mercy: while the Pharisee is boasting of his own moral perfection, the "tax collector... would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!'". And Jesus comments: "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 18: 13-14).

Thus, in the figure of Matthew, the Gospels present to us a true and proper paradox: those who seem to be the farthest from holiness can even become a model of the acceptance of God's mercy and offer
a glimpse of its marvellous effects in their own lives.

Intercessions

We pray for the Church throughout the world that she may be a living example of a loving community, and a voice for those who are hungry for justice. Enable St Stephen Walbrook to achieve its mission of providing, without prejudice or expectation, a safe and welcoming place where people of all religious faiths or none can find spiritual inspiration, guidance, encouragement & support. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God of hope, in Jesus you made heaven visible to earth and earth visible to heaven: make St Stephen Walbrook a community at the heart of your kingdom alongside those on the edge of society that each day we may seek your glory, and embody your grace. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for the world’s leaders, that they may work to overcome the barriers between peoples and foster a spirit of global community. We pray for our own local community here in the City of London, praying for any who may feel excluded through poverty, disability, illness, discrimination or prejudice. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

The Blessing

God our Father, in love you sent your Son that the world may have life: lead us to seek him among the outcast and to find him in those in need, and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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John Tavener - Apolytikion of Our Holy Father Nicholas.