Coping in crises

Here's the sermon I shared this morning at St Chad’s Vange:

This church has stood here in Vange since 1958. However, it has not aged well and there are, as you are well aware, numerous issues with the fabric of the building. Therefore, if I was to predict that soon every part of this Church would be torn down so that not one stone would be left standing on another, you may well not be particularly shocked or disappointed. However, for those listening to Jesus as he spoke about the Temple in Jerusalem, it was a very different story (Mark 13: 1-8).

Jesus and his disciples had gone to the Temple in Jerusalem and were leaving when one of the disciples remarked on what a magnificent building the Temple was. Jesus’ response was to predict that it would shortly be completely and utterly destroyed. The Temple, at that time, was central to the whole Jewish faith. What Jesus was saying was that the whole way in which Judaism was practised at that time was going to be destroyed. A whole way of life wiped out. It was a shocking claim about a major crisis.

Mark records this for us because what Jesus predicted actually happened. In AD70 Titus, the adopted son of the Roman emperor Vespasian, “entered Jerusalem, burnt the Temple, destroyed the city and crucified thousands of Jews” (Wright). For Mark the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy, although a disaster for all those caught up in it, was the final vindication of all that Jesus had said and been and done. In that day, he says in verse 26 of this chapter, men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. In other words, people will realise that Jesus was who he claimed to be, the Messiah. The destruction of the Temple was proof that Jesus had spoken and acted truly.

We know from history that the destruction of the Temple also meant that Christians in Jerusalem had to flee the city and settle in other parts of the world. They took the message of Jesus with them wherever they went. So as a result of this crisis, news about Jesus spread throughout the region and eventually to the whole world. Truly, people saw the power and glory of the Son of Man.

But Jesus also knew what a terrible day that day would be and he prepared those who listened to him for that day. At the end of this chapter we read of him saying that no one will know the exact day or time when this disaster would come but that it would be within their own lifetimes and he taught them to look for the signs that the day was arriving so that could be ready to flee the city. He tells them to be ever vigilant and watchful so that they recognise when the crisis has come upon them.

So Jesus predicts a crisis, prepares his followers for that crisis and sees that the crisis will lead to the good news about him being understood and believed.

But that was all then. What does this passage say to us now? Well, we all still face crises whether they are personal crises (perhaps caused by crime or redundancy, abuse or family breakdown) or societal (as with global warming, natural disasters, riots or war). How should we react and respond to crises?

There is a realism about Jesus’ teaching. Crises will come, he says. We don’t know exactly when and where but we know that we will not go through life and avoid crises. So first, we need to expect crises and look out for the signs that they may be coming. Jesus in this chapter retells the story of the master going away and says that we need to be like watchmen always ready for the crisis of the master’s return. As we prepare during Advent to celebrate Christ’s first coming, so we must also always have an eye to the future and Christ’s return to bring his kingdom rule and reign throughout the world. Are we looking expectantly for the crisis of our Master’s return?

Second, we need to prepare for crises by being good stewards. Jesus in the story of the master going away said that the servants were left in charge. We know from the parable of the talents what this involves, the servants are to care for and use all that has been entrusted to them so that when the master returns his estate has grown and developed. God has entrusted us with his world, with those people who are our family, friends and colleagues, with money and possessions, and with our gifts and talents and abilities. All these we are to use for his praise and glory as a way of giving back to God in praise and thanksgiving for all he has given to us.

Finally, in crises God is revealed. At some point in the future each of us will meet with God and be asked to account for the use we have made of all that God has given to us. How will we stand in that moment of crisis? But in every crisis that we face God is alongside us and wishes to be known as the one who strengthens and supports us; the one who brings us through. Just as the good news about Jesus went out from Jerusalem as a result of the destruction of the Temple, so in each crisis that we face God wishes to bring good for us and for others. As Paul says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole - Steal Away.

Something greater than the temple is here

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew’s Basildon this evening:

When his disciples were criticised by the Pharisees, Jesus responded by saying “something greater than the temple is here” and “the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath” (Matthew 12: 1-21). What did he mean?

The Temple in Jerusalem was the dwelling of God with his people. Biblical Scholar Margaret Barker writes that: “A temple stood in Jerusalem for over a thousand years. According to the biblical account, the first temple was built by Solomon about 950 BCE and was severely damaged by the Babylonians about 350 years later. It was rebuilt towards the end of the sixth century BCE by people who returned from exile in Babylon, and was rebuilt again by Herod the Great at the end of the first century BCE. The structure was finally destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, but the influence of the temple and its world has far outlasted its physical existence.”

Barker says that: “The Temple was a model of the creation, and the liturgy of the temple preserved the creation. Genesis 1 was not an account of the historical process of creation, but a record of the great vision granted to Moses and others of how the world is made. In the six days when Moses was on Sinai, before the LORD called to him (Exod. 24.16), he saw the six days of creation, and was then told to replicate these when he built the tabernacle …

The holy of holies represented Day One, the state of the angels … The veil of the temple represented the second day, and the table with bread, wine and incense was the third day, when the plants were created. The seven branched lamp represented the lights of heaven created on the fourth day, the altar of sacrifice represented the non human creatures, and the High Priest was the human, male and female as the image of God … The Second Adam [Jesus] was the Great High Priest, and if we are the body of Christ, we all have this high priestly role.”

What happens with the birth of Jesus is that God himself lives with us in our world. God moves into our neighbourhood and, as a result, the Temple is no longer God’s principal dwelling on earth and the meaning of the Temple is comes to be expressed through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

Barker explains it like this: “… the world of the temple was the world of the first Christians, and they expressed their faith in terms drawn almost exclusively from the temple. Jesus and his followers opposed what the temple had become; they identified themselves as the true temple, with Jesus as the great high priest.

When Jesus was arrested by the temple authorities, one of the charges brought against him was threatening to destroy the temple and to rebuild it in three days (Mark 14. 58). Another was claiming to be the Messiah (Matt. 26. 63-64). These were two aspects of the same charge, as can be deduced from the Book of Enoch, a text which the early Christians regarded as Scripture. The Book of Enoch described the judgement of the fallen angels, and then how the Lord of the sheep would carry away the old temple and set up something greater in its place (1 Enoch 90. 28-29). This is the reason for the two questions at Jesus’ trial: Did you claim that you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days? Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? This same passage accounts for the exchange between Jesus and the Jews recorded in John 2. 19-21: ‘Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”’ Later reflection led the evangelist to add, ‘But he spoke of the temple of his body’. Jesus was claiming the prophecy of Enoch, that he was the Lord of the sheep who would destroy and rebuild the temple …”

“Jesus was … [the] great high priest (Heb. 4.14) … raised up by the power of an indestructible life (Heb. 7.16) who had offered the final atonement sacrifice to fulfil and supersede the temple rites (Heb. 9.1-14).” Atonement was the ritual self offering of the Lord to renew the eternal covenant and thus heal the creation. This is what Jesus’ death achieved and is the covenant renewed at the Last Supper.

In this way the New Testament reverses the story of Eden and brings Christians back to the original Temple meaning that the “kingdom of which Jesus spoke was the state of the holy of holies, the unity at the heart of all things which secured the eternal covenant … This must be the original context for ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ and for ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the putting away of sins’ (Matt. 26. 28).”

It is for this reason that Jesus is able to call himself the Lord of the Sabbath because at his death the veil of the Temple was torn in two opening the holy of holies to all people everywhere. Meaning that, through his death and resurrection we can enter into the unity at the heart of all things and the rest that God experienced on the seventh day, which the Book of Hebrews tells us, we are still to enter and which is symbolised for us in this life by the sabbath.

Jesus speaks of something greater than the temple being here and the Son of Man being lord of the sabbath almost as asides in his response to the Pharisees. It is easy to overlook the significance of what he says as a result. I hope, in sharing these brief thoughts, I have wetted your appetite to go away and discover more. Amen.

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Neal Morse - Inside His Presence.

The crisis of Advent

Here's the sermon I'm sharing at St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

St Catherine’s has stood here in Wickford since 1876. It is a wonderful building that those of us who worship here love and which is greatly appreciated by lots of local people who have come here for many key moments in their family history - weddings, baptisms and funerals.

So, if I was to predict that soon every part of this Church would be torn down so that not one stone would be left standing on another, you would no doubt be shocked (despite the cracks in the building which occurred in 2022). But that is an equivalent to what Jesus said at the beginning of Mark 13. Jesus and his disciples had gone to the Temple in Jerusalem and were leaving when one of the disciples remarked on what a magnificent building the Temple was. Jesus’ response was to predict that it would shortly be completely and utterly destroyed. The Temple, at that time, was central to the whole Jewish faith. What Jesus was saying was that the whole way in which Judaism was practised at that time was going to be destroyed. A whole way of life wiped out. It was a shocking claim about a major crisis.

Mark records this for us because what Jesus predicted actually happened. In AD70 Titus, the adopted son of the Roman emperor Vespasian, “entered Jerusalem, burnt the Temple, destroyed the city and crucified thousands of Jews” (N.T. Wright). For Mark the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy, although a disaster for all those caught up in it, was the final vindication of all that Jesus had said and been and done. In that day, he said, people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. In other words, people will realise that Jesus was who he claimed to be, the Messiah. The destruction of the Temple was proof that Jesus had spoken and acted truly.

We know from history that the destruction of the Temple also meant that Christians in Jerusalem had to flee the city and settle in other parts of the world. They took the message of Jesus with them wherever they went. So as a result of this crisis, news about Jesus spread throughout the region and eventually to the whole world. Truly, people saw the power and glory of the Son of Man.

But Jesus also knew what a terrible day that day would be and he prepared those who listened to him for that day. In our Gospel reading today he says that no one will know the exact day or time when this disaster would come but that it would be within their own lifetimes and he teaches them to look for the signs that the day has arrived so that can be ready to flee the city. He tells them to be ever vigilant and watchful so that they recognise when the crisis has come upon them. So, Jesus predicts a crisis, prepares his followers for that crisis and sees that the crisis will lead to the good news about him being understood and believed.

But that was all then. What does this passage say to us now? Well, we all still face crises whether they are personal crises (perhaps caused by crime or redundancy, abuse or family breakdown) or societal (as with global warming, natural disasters, pandemics, riots or war). How should we react and respond to crises?

There is a realism about Jesus’ teaching. Crises will come, he says. We don’t know exactly when and where but we know that we will not go through life and avoid crises. So first, we need to expect crises and look out for the signs that they may be coming. Jesus here retells the story of the master going away and says that we need to be like watchmen always ready for the crisis of the master’s return. As we prepare during Advent to celebrate Christ’s first coming, so we must also always have an eye to the future and Christ’s return to bring his kingdom rule and reign throughout the world. Are we looking expectantly for the crisis of our Master’s return?

Second, we need to prepare for crises by being good stewards. Jesus, in the story of the master going away, said that the servants were left in charge. We know from the parable of the talents what that involves, the servants are to care for and use all that has been entrusted to them so that when the master returns his estate has grown and developed. God has entrusted us with this world, with those people who are our family, friends and colleagues, with money and possessions, and with our gifts and talents and abilities. All these we are to use for his praise and glory as a way of giving back to God in praise and thanksgiving for all he has given to us. How will we seek to do so this Advent?

Finally, in crises God is revealed. At some point in the future each of us will meet with God and be asked to account for the use we have made of all that God has given to us. Each Advent points us towards that moment. How will we stand in that moment of crisis? 

But in every crisis that we face God is alongside us and wishes to be known as the one who strengthens and supports us; the one who brings us through. Just as the good news about Jesus went out from Jerusalem as a result of the destruction of the Temple, so in each crisis that we face God wishes to bring good for us and for others. As Paul says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” May it be so for each one of us this Advent. Amen.

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St Martin's Voices - Advent Calendar.

Ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out

Here's the sermon I preached at St Andrew’s Wickford during yesterday's midweek Eucharist:

Mark’s Gospel begins a little like an action movie. Before we have completed the first chapter John the Baptist has preached, Jesus has been baptised, tempted in the desert, called the disciples, and healed a man in the synagogue. The pace of action is breathtaking. Read it at home and see for yourself!

So we are still in the first chapter with today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1. 29-39) and, although that is the case, we have here ten verses that show us the pattern of Jesus’ whole ministry. This is what Mark is so good at doing. He doesn’t just tell us the story straight; this happened then that happened. Instead he tells stories that sum up what the whole of Jesus’ mission and ministry were about, so that we can follow in Jesus’ footsteps by doing the same.

The first pattern that we see in this story is the balance been ministry and spirituality. The first few verses of the story describe an intense period of ministry. Jesus returns from the synagogue where he has just healed a man to find that Simon’s mother-in-law is unwell. He heals her and then spends the evening healing many “who were sick with all kinds of diseases and drove out many demons.” We know how busy and exhausted we can often feel through the ministry we do in our workplaces, homes, community and here at St John’s. We can imagine how Jesus would have felt following his day of ministry.

In the morning, everyone is again looking for Jesus but he is nowhere to be found. Long before daylight he had got up, left the town and gone to a lonely place where he could pray. In order to pray effectively and well to needed to get away from the demands of ministry and away from his disciples. He needed to be alone with God in order to recharge his batteries for further ministry to come and this is Jesus’ pattern throughout his ministry; active mission together with others combined with withdrawal for individual prayer and recuperation.

This needs to be our pattern too. The busyness of ministry here and in our weekday lives cannot be sustained if it is not fed by regular times of withdrawal for prayer and recuperation. The two are clearly separated in Jesus’ live and ministry and he is prepared to disappoint people, as in this story, in order to ensure that he has the times of prayer and recuperation that he needs in our to sustain his active ministry.

The second pattern that we find in this story is that of ministry and moving on. Jesus has this time of active ministry with the people at Capernaum and then he moves on to preach in the other villages around this town and indeed across the whole of Galilee. The people don’t want him to go. The disciples tell Jesus that everyone is looking for him. They want more of what he has already given them. But he refuses them and moves on to preach to others.

There are two aspects to the pattern of Jesus’ ministry here. First, is his concern for all to hear. That is why he has come, he says, that he should bring God’s message to all. We need that same motivation. The message of salvation cannot stay wrapped up inside this building or our congregation but must go out from here. That also needs to happen for our own growth and development. We grow as Christians not by staying where we are and being ministered to but by getting up and following in Jesus’ footsteps ourselves; by becoming active ministers of the Gospel ourselves.

That is why Jesus constantly challenges his hearers to take up their cross and follow him. It is not that he wants to condemn all of us to suffering and a hard life instead he wants us to become people who learn how to give more than we receive. If all that we do as Christians is receive then our faith is ultimately a selfish one that is about what we can gain for ourselves. But what Jesus models for us is a way of life based on giving not getting and it is as we follow in his footsteps by giving that we grow and mature as Christians not the other way around. When we get up and go, we are putting our faith into action and genuinely trusting God. In that way, our faith is stretched and strengthened and grows.

William Temple, who was probably the greatest twentieth century Archbishop of Canterbury, famously said, “The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” What he meant is that the Church is not about us members getting our needs and wants satisfied; it is instead about equipping and motivating us, the members, to bless others in the love of Christ. That is what Jesus sought to achieve by moving from town to town, village to village and challenging his disciples to travel with him. 

We need to mirror these patterns of ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out in our lives and our Church. We must be a society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members. As we follow Christ, we cannot simply be about getting our needs and wants satisfied but need to be about being equipped by God through times of prayer and recuperation to be signs of Christ outside of this building, outside of our congregation, out where it makes a difference, out in our community and workplaces.

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Steve Bell & Malcolm Guite - Epiphany on the Jordan.

Ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out

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

Mark’s Gospel begins a little like an action movie. Before we have completed the first chapter John the Baptist has preached, Jesus has been baptised, tempted in the desert, called the disciples, and healed a man in the synagogue. The pace of action is breathtaking. Read it at home and see for yourself!

So we are still in the first chapter with today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1. 29-39) and, although that is the case, we have here ten verses that show us the pattern of Jesus’ whole ministry. This is what Mark is so good at doing. He doesn’t just tell us the story straight; this happened, then that happened. Instead he tells stories that sum up what the whole of Jesus’ mission and ministry were about, so that we can follow in Jesus’ footsteps by doing the same.

The first pattern that we see in this story is the balance been ministry and spirituality. The first few verses of the story describe an intense period of ministry. Jesus returns from the synagogue where he has just healed a man to find that Simon’s mother-in-law is unwell. He heals her and then spends the evening healing many “who were sick with all kinds of diseases and drove out many demons.” We know how busy and exhausted we can often feel through the ministry we do in our workplaces, homes, community and here at St Martin’s. We can imagine how Jesus would have felt following his day of ministry.

In the morning, everyone is again looking for Jesus but he is nowhere to be found. Long before daylight he had got up, left the town and gone to a lonely place where he could pray. In order to pray effectively and well to needed to get away from the demands of ministry and away from his disciples. He needed to be alone with God in order to recharge his batteries for further ministry to come and this is Jesus’ pattern throughout his ministry; active mission together with others, combined with withdrawal for individual prayer and recuperation.

This needs to be our pattern too. The busyness of ministry here at St Martin’s and in our weekday lives cannot be sustained if it is not fed by regular times of withdrawal for prayer and recuperation. The two are clearly separated in Jesus’ live and ministry and he is prepared to disappoint people, as in this story, in order to ensure that he has the times of prayer and recuperation that he needs in our to sustain his active ministry. This is why prayer and spirituality is prioritised here at St Martin’s.

The second pattern that we find in this story is that of ministry and moving on. Jesus has this time of active ministry with the people at Capernaum and then he moves on to preach in the other villages around this town and indeed across the whole of Galilee. The people don’t want him to go. The disciples tell Jesus that everyone is looking for him. They want more of what he has already given them. But he refuses them and moves on to preach to others.

There are two aspects to the pattern of Jesus’ ministry here. First, is his concern for all to hear. That is why he has come, he says, that he should bring God’s message to all. We need that same motivation. The message of salvation cannot stay wrapped up inside this building or our congregation, but must go out from here.

That also needs to happen for our own growth and development. We grow as Christians not by staying where we are and being ministered to but by getting up and following in Jesus’ footsteps ourselves; by becoming active ministers of the Gospel ourselves. That is why Jesus constantly challenges his hearers to take up their cross and follow him. It is not that he wants to condemn all of us to suffering and a hard life instead he wants us to become people who learn how to give more than we receive.

If all that we do as Christians is receive then our faith is ultimately a selfish one that is about what we can gain for ourselves. But what Jesus models for us is a way of life based on giving not getting and it is as we follow in his footsteps by giving that we grow and mature as Christians not the other way around. When we get up and go, we are putting our faith into action and genuinely trusting God. In that way, our faith is stretched and strengthened and grows.

William Temple, who was probably the greatest twentieth century Archbishop of Canterbury, famously said, “The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” What he meant is that the Church is not about us members getting our needs and wants satisfied; it is instead about equipping and motivating us, the members, to bless others in the love of Christ. That is what Jesus sought to achieve by moving from town to town, village to village and challenging his disciples to travel with him.

We need to mirror these patterns of ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out in our lives and our Church. St Martin’s is a society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members. As we follow Christ, we cannot simply be about getting our needs and wants satisfied but need to be about being equipped by God through times of prayer and recuperation to be signs of Christ outside of this building, outside of our congregation, out where it makes a difference, out in our communities and workplaces. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Morten Lauridsen - O Magnum Mysterium.

The only hope for humanity

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

Desmond Tutu is someone whose life has been shaped by Jesus’ teaching to love your enemies as yourself. For Tutu, Christianity is the religion of the downtrodden and dispossessed in which everyone is equal in the eyes of God and those who follow Jesus are exhorted to love our enemies. He has said that, “It wasn’t easy to love your enemy when they were throwing us in prison or murdering us.” It is the most difficult of all doctrines, he says, but it offers the only hope for humanity.

I mention this because our Gospel reading (Matthew 10.34-11.1) seems to show a very different side to Jesus than that highlighted by Desmond Tutu. Here Jesus doesn’t appear to be saying, “love your enemies,” instead he says that he has not come to bring peace but a sword and that he came to make enemies of the members of families. What is going on here? Are we talking about the same person? Is there a contradiction in what Jesus was teaching? Do we have to make some kind of choice between the two? It all seems very confusing.

The important thing to be aware of in understanding these words of Jesus is that he was talking to his disciples about a mission that was specifically to the people of Israel. Jesus began his instructions to his disciples, as recorded in Matthew 10, by saying: “Do not go to any Gentile territory or any Samaritan towns. Instead, you are to go to the lost sheep of the people of Israel.” Everything that Jesus says in this chapter is in the context of that mission and when we understand that it makes a big difference to the way we understand what Jesus was saying here.

Jesus thought of his own people, the Jews, as being lost. They had moved away from God’s plans and purposes because they had not been bringing the light of God to the Gentiles. Instead, they had turned in on themselves and acted as though God was just a national God for themselves. What Jesus was about to do through his death and resurrection would blow that kind of thinking out of the water. As he said to the disciples in verse 18, they would, in future, be telling the Good News to both Jews and Gentiles. But, for now, before his death and resurrection Jesus sent his disciples only to their own people with the message that the kingdom of God – the day when Jews and Gentiles would come together to worship the one true God – was coming near. Jesus’ mission and ministry in Israel before his death was an opportunity for the people of Israel to come on board and be part of the new thing that God was doing in the world. But Jesus was realistic about the way many would react to this opportunity.

He knew that some would respond positively and embrace his message but that others would be violently opposed. His message would, therefore, bring division among the people of Israel. Some would accept and follow and others would be violently opposed. This is what he meant when he spoke about not bringing peace and the members of the family being divided. He was speaking specifically about the effect that his message, life, death and resurrection would have on the people of Israel.

We know from subsequent events that Jesus was right in his assessment of the situation. Jesus himself was violently opposed and killed by those who did not accept his message despite large numbers of Jews hearing and following him. The early Church was persecuted at the same time that it grew rapidly in numbers with both Jews and Gentiles becoming followers of Christ. Finally, Jerusalem itself was overrun by the Romans and the Temple, the focus of the Jewish faith at that time, was destroyed. That act meant that there could no longer be a solely national focus to the Jewish faith and the early Christians spread out from Israel even more widely as a result.

So Jesus, here, is speaking specifically about what would happen within the people of Israel as a result of his message and mission but he was not talking about the content of that message and mission. His message and mission was to bring the light and forgiveness of God to the whole world, both Jews and Gentiles; a message and mission of peace and reconciliation, not of violence and division. The Gentiles were viewed, at that time, as enemies of God’s people but Jesus was saying that God’s people should love their enemies and that God would bring all peoples into his kingdom. 

The good news of Jesus is peace, reconciliation and love for enemies, just as Desmond Tutu claimed and has practised. It is the reverse of violence and division but its effect in the Judaism of Jesus’ time and immediately after was division. Just as Jesus, the early Church and those like Desmond Tutu gave themselves wholeheartedly and peaceably to this mission despite the opposition and violence that they have encountered, so we must do the same as followers of Christ. That is what it means to take up our cross and follow in Jesus’ footsteps by living all out for the peaceful reconciliation of all peoples. As Desmond Tutu has said, to do so offers the only hope for humanity.

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James Whitbourne - A Prayer Of Desmond Tutu.

Improvising in the Spirit in unprecedented times

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

These words from Jesus, as recorded in our Gospel passage (Matthew 10:16-23), are most probably about events that were in the near future for the disciples. Jesus was talking about a very specific future conflict that would affect his disciples and which occurred in AD70 when the Roman army attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple there. When this happened, as Jesus prophesied elsewhere, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

The destruction of the Temple by the Romans was a time of sudden exile and separation, persecution and loss. There was a sudden attack that resulted in some who were in Jerusalem at the time dying and others separating and fleeing the city; leading on to the kind of events which are described in today’s Gospel reading. The result of this conflict was twofold; the Jewish faith refocused its community life, teaching and worship around the synagogue (a pattern of faithful living which continues to this day); and Christianity, forced to abandon its early focus on the authority of the church in Jerusalem, stepped up its missionary encounter with the wider world to become a world religion. However, in doing so, the Early Church experienced the kind of persecution that Jesus describes here.

He was telling the disciples that they were going to be living in unprecedented times and was seeking to prepare them for what they would face. We are not living through the same situation as the disciples faced, but we are facing a global situation which is unprecedented in our times, so Jesus’ words here have particular relevance for us. Because we are living in unprecedented times there is no script for what we should do or say. Instead, we need to find ways to be wise and innocent at one and the same time. Combining wisdom and innocence is paradoxical. There are no manuals for doing that and Jesus then goes on to say: “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” We are to trust that Jesus, through his Spirit, will inspire and enable what we are to do and say in this changed and changing world.

What Jesus was commending to his disciples in unprecedented times where there is no script or instruction manual that can be followed is improvisation. He knows that he is going to leave them (as happened at the Ascension) and that he will then send the Holy Spirit to them (as happened on the Day of Pentecost). The Spirit will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus had said to them and the result will be that they will do greater things than him.

Jesus said many amazing things that people still repeat regardless of whether they follow him or not. But his farewell discourse to his disciples must be among the most amazing because in it Jesus says that those who follow him will do greater things than him and will be led into all truth. When you think how amazing Jesus’ own actions were, it is hard to imagine how people like us could do greater things than that, and, when you think how profound his teaching was, how could we be led into deeper or greater truth than that? But Jesus was articulating something that all good teachers think and feel; the sense that all the time he had spent with them and invested in them was not so they would be clones of him, simply repeating the things he did and said, but instead that he had equipped, empowered and enabled his followers to follow him by using their own gifts and abilities and initiative. That would inevitably mean that they would do and say different things from him but it would still be with his Spirit and based on all they had learnt from him. He was saying that each one of us is a unique combination of personality, abilities and potential and, therefore, each of us can make a unique mark on the world. His followers can do greater things than Jesus because they will do different things from him in his name and Spirit – things that only they can do for him because they are that unique package of personality, ability and potential.

Sam Wells has described this in terms of improvisation. He says that we constantly “face new circumstances in each generation that the Bible doesn’t give us a script for.” Instead, the Christian story is like “a five-act play -- creation, Israel, Jesus, church and [consummation]. We find ourselves in Act 4, and the most important events have already happened. Our role is to be faithful in Act 4, because God will do the rest in Act 5.” “The most dynamic gift to the church is the Holy Spirit working amongst people who learn to trust one another and see the abundant things that God can do with limited materials. That’s analogous to what happens in theatrical improvisation.” “Improvisation isn’t about being original, clever, witty or spontaneous. Improvisation is about allowing yourself to be obvious.” People who train in improvisation train in a tradition. The Spirit comes to remind Christians of the Christian tradition by reminding us of all that Jesus did and said, so we embody it in our lives. Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before. It’s about being so soaked in a tradition that you learn to take the right things for granted or, as Jesus put it, the Spirit will teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus said so that we intuitively do those things on an improvisational basis. In this way we can do greater things than Jesus because we will do different things from him, but in his name and Spirit.

The situation in which we find ourselves now is unprecedented in the same way as that of the Jews and Jewish Christians after the destruction of the Temple in AD70. Then there was no going back and Jesus sought to prepare his disciples for that reality. Instead of calling for rear guard actions to preserve as much of what had been as possible, Jesus sought to prepare and enable his disciples to go out into their changed and changing world and tell the Good News by standing firm in their faith. This remains the call of God on our lives and it is a task which requires the same bravery and courage as was shown by the Early Church in its missionary activity. The Early Church saw the spirit of the world transformed by God as they stood firm in their faith and told the Good News. That is how we are called live in this time of pandemic; to stand firm in our faith and tell the good news. The challenge of this passage is whether we have the improvisation skills to do and see that within our changed and changing world.

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Sixpence None The Richer - I've Been Waiting.

God desires love, not sacrifice

Here's my reflection given during today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ (Mark 12.28–34)

Allow me for a moment to take you on a journey through the scriptures to explore the reasons why, in the kingdom of heaven, love for God, others and ourselves is much more important than offerings and sacrifices.

We begin where the Bible begins, in Genesis, with acts of human sacrifice made to appease the gods. People, often children, killed because, when trouble or tension arose in society, the belief was that, by sacrificing one or a few as a scapegoat, order would be restored by the gods for the many. That was the culture which Abraham was called to leave when he left Ur of the Chaldees to found a people that would become God’s people. As a way to create a decisive break with that culture, God took Abraham through a dramatic experience where it seemed that he was, as Abraham would have expected, demanding the sacrifice of Abraham’s firstborn son Isaac. At the very point of sacrifice, God made it clear to Abraham that he did not desire human sacrifice and provided an animal as an alternative. This became part of the founding story for the people of Israel, a people whose ritual sacrifices were of animals and not human beings.

If we then move forward in time, we can pause again for a moment at Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law to Moses. The Law received by Moses contained detailed instructions regarding the sacrifice of animals but also contained the commands quoted by Jesus and the Scribe in our Gospel reading. In addition to the system of sacrifice it introduced, the Law did two things. First, it gave minimum standards for the maintenance of good relations within society – do not murder, do not steal, do not covet etc. Second, in the greatest commandment, it set love for God, others and oneself as the goal to which all the other laws, including those concerning sacrifices, pointed. The Law was given not that people became of obsessed with the keeping of its minutiae but that people moved from the base point of not harming others to the point or goal of the Law, to love God, others and oneself.

We know that many paid lip service to the Law while ignoring it and others did become obsessed with following the minutiae of the letter of the Law and thereby missed the point of the Law. The prophets were the ones used by God to point this out to the people and their rulers. The message of the prophets can in many respects be summed up by these words from the prophet Amos through whom God said: ‘I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ Amos was essentially saying, ‘Love God, others and yourself.’

When God’s people ignored God’s messengers, God eventually took matters into his own hands and, in Jesus, showed us, by entering our world and being with us for 33 years, that what he desires is love and relationship. He longs to be with us and enjoy us for who we are, as we also enjoy him. That is the message of the incarnation. It is a demonstration of love.

Yet we still did not understand and, as we have been doing for millennia, made Jesus a scapegoat to excise us of our troubles and tensions, sacrificing him to relieve our fears and anxieties. The God who does not desire sacrifice became the ultimate sacrifice to show that once God has been scapegoated and sacrificed there is really nowhere else to go. There is now no god to be appeased because God does not desire sacrifice and God himself has been sacrificed. This is the end of sacrifice. The curtain was torn in the Temple at the point of Christ’s death because there was no longer any need for sacrifice and the system of sacrifice, the system that began at Mount Sinai, was itself ended in AD70 when, as prophesied by Jesus, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

‘The Kingdom of God is justice and peace, And joy in the Holy Spirit!’ Like the Scribe we have come close to that kingdom when we realise that God is one, and “besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ ‘God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them’ (1 John 4. 16). That is the story of scripture. That is the place to which all scripture leads. It simply remains for us to pray, ‘Come, Lord, and open in us the gates of your Kingdom!’ Amen.

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GSNY Music - The Sun Will Rise.

The Christ that has come and the kingdom yet to come

Last week I changed my sermon for Advent Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields at the last minute in order to make connections with the theme of the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal for St Martin-in-the-Fields. This is the sermon that I would have preached had I not made that last minute change:

As a teenager I listened repeatedly to a haunting song by Larry Norman based on today’s Gospel reading. It is called ‘I wish we’d all been ready’ and the second verse includes these lines:

‘A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head he's gone
I wish we’d all been ready
Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and ones left standing still
I wish we’d all been ready
There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind’

These images, from our Gospel reading (Matthew 24.36-44), of people being suddenly separated are taken from a block of teaching given by Jesus during his final week in Jerusalem that have become known as his eschatological sermon. This sermon, when combined with the Book of Revelation, has generated a huge amount of speculation about the where, when and how of Jesus’ second coming.

Norman’s song was first released in 1969 and was followed in 1970 by the best-selling book ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ by Hal Lindsey. Both were based on the understanding that Jesus’ second coming was imminent and would involve a rapture with Christians being caught up to meet the coming Christ in the sky and non-Christians left behind. Lindsey’s book was influential – a best-seller – and, for a rock fan like me, was encountered again in 1979 when Bob Dylan released ‘Slow Train Coming,’ his first album after his conversion to Christianity. Dylan studied Lindsey’s book in the Bible classes he attended at the Vineyard Church. The slow train coming of his title was Christ’s second coming and the final song on the album was called ‘When He Returns’. 1979 was also the year in which a film of ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ was released.

These ideas appealed as a way of understanding current events, as Lindsey tried to fit political decisions and actions to biblical prophecies, and also as a way of emphasising the urgency of making decisions about salvation. If Christ’s second coming and the end of time were just around the corner then decisions about our eternal future should not be postponed. These were appealing ideas to a newly fired up Christian teenager like me.

I now see these dispensationalist approaches to the second coming as constituting an instrumental understanding of salvation. In the same way as the fires of hell have been used as a scare tactic to frighten us into the kingdom of God, so too with the threat of being left behind in the rapture. These understandings of the second coming lead us to view salvation as a transaction that is about our own survival and not about knowing God for God's own sake. They also promise to lift us up out of this world in order that we leave it and those who are unsaved behind. In other words, as Larry Norman expressed it in the title of one album on which ‘I wish we’d all been ready’ appeared, we’re only visiting this planet.

Yet Jesus was most probably talking in this passage, and in the rest of his eschatological sermon, about this-world events that were actually in the near future for the disciples. While the disciples themselves, on the basis of what they understood Jesus to have said, expected his second coming within their lifetime, not at some point in the far distant future.

In my view, as N.T. Wright has argued, Jesus’ eschatological sermon was not actually about the end of the world but rather about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which occurred in AD70. The destruction of the Temple by the Romans was a time of sudden exile and separation, persecution and loss, as graphically described in today's Gospel reading and as it affected the majority of Jesus’ disciples. There was a sudden attack that resulted in some who were in Jerusalem at the time dying and others separating and fleeing the city; just the kind of events which are described in today’s Gospel reading.

The ultimate proof that a person was a prophet was understood, at the time, as being found in the extent to which their prophecies came about. So, when the destruction of the Temple occurred in AD70, it was proof to Jesus’ disciples that Jesus was a true prophet. This was, for them, the vindication of Christ; he was not a failed Messiah that had been killed on a cross, instead events had proved him to be a true prophet. That meant all he had said about being God’s Son could also be trusted and believed. The destruction of the Temple was, therefore, also a sudden sign of Jesus vindicated, revealed and come again as the Son of Man, the Messiah, God’s Son.

In addition, we heard last Sunday in the reading from Ephesians 1.15-23 and in Sally Hitchiner’s sermon that Jesus is the head or source of the Church and we are also told, particularly in Paul’s letters, that the Church is the Body of Christ. On that basis, I think, we can then understand Christ to have returned within the lifetime of his disciples when his Spirit filled them on the Day of Pentecost and the Church was born. The Spirit brings Christ to the Church and the Church becomes Christ for the world. So, as Christ’s renewed Body on earth, the Church became, in the words of Teresa of Avila, the hands and feet of Christ, with which he walks to do good and through which he blesses all the world.

These understandings would then seem to give us two ways in which Christ returned to the disciples within their own lifetime. First, when he filled them with his Spirit giving birth to the Church as the Body of Christ in the world, and, second, when he, and his teachings, were vindicated and proved to be true by the destruction of the Temple in AD70.

The word ‘Advent’ is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning ‘coming’. Advent has traditionally been observed as a time of preparation for both the celebration of the first coming of Jesus at Christmas and as a time of prayer for the return of Jesus at the Second Coming. It is this second aspect to Advent which results in Jesus’ eschatological sermon featuring heavily in the readings during this season. Advent asks us to reflect on the nature of Jesus’ first and second comings and on how we are to live in the time in between. But, if Christ has already returned, as I am suggesting, what is still to come?

The answer I would give is that the kingdom of heaven is still to come. The Church, although it is the Body of Christ, is not the kingdom of God. The Church only creates signs of the coming kingdom. It was the kingdom of God that was at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It was the kingdom of God that was demonstrated to us through his birth, life, death and resurrection. Jesus’ incarnation, his first coming, introduced the kingdom of God into the world. Christ's Spirit now teaches us about him, so we can live like him and thereby show others what the kingdom of God looks like. As his Body animated by the Spirit, Jesus is with us enabling the Church to continue to create signs of the kingdom that is to come. However, as it is still to come, it is the kingdom, not Christ, for which we now wait. This is why we are taught to pray for the kingdom to come on earth as in heaven. Rather than looking for ways to escape this world through a second coming and rapture at the end of time, instead we look to see how we can bless the world as Christ’s Body in the here and now.

With this understanding of the second coming we can then see Christianity as an alternative society, overlapping and sharing space with regular society, but living in a different time – that’s to say, modelling God’s future in our present. As Sam Wells has said: ‘It’s not enough to cherish the scriptures, embody the sacraments, set time aside for prayer, and shape disciples’ character in the ways of truth, if such practices simply withdraw disciples for select periods, uncritically then to return them after a brief pause to a world struggling with inequality, identity, and purpose. The church must also model what the kingdom of God (its term for the alternative society, its language of God’s future now) means and entails in visible and tangible form.’

I want to suggest, then, that these are the comings we remember and on which we reflect in Advent. As a result, to reflect in Advent is to reflect on the whole of salvation history from Christ's first coming to be God with us to the coming of his Spirit at Pentecost that we might become his Body to our future with God in a kingdom where there is no fear and no transactions, only love. Our Advent reflections here this year enable us to focus on both these comings. Inspired to Follow focuses on Christ's first coming, his incarnation, by looking at significant characters in the story of his conception and birth. Our Advent booklet then focuses our thoughts more on the coming kingdom through our prayer for light to come in our present darkness.

Our waiting for the coming kingdom means that there is always more to come where God is concerned. Another singer-songwriter, Carolyn Ahrends, uses a memory of herself as a three feet tall four year old trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar with both being out of reach, as an image of heaven. She writes of a yearning deep within telling us there's more to come:

‘So when we taste of the divine
It leaves us hungry every time
For one more taste of what awaits
When heaven's gates are reached.’

As we reach for the future this Advent, reaching for what is yet to come and therefore just beyond our grasp, may we realise that the something more which is yet to come is what Christ has already revealed, what we, as the Body of Christ, can sign, and what the coming kingdom of heaven is for.

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Carolyn Ahrends - Reaching.

Eastertide exhibition: Leaves for Healing

Leaves for Healing is a two-part exhibition organised by the artist’s and craftspersons’ group at St Martin-in-the-Fields. During Lent the exhibition ran from 6 March - 20 April and now in Eastertide from 21 April - 9 June.

The theme is taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12, a vision of a transformed desert landscape. 18 artists from the congregation are showing work, some of which was created in the Drawing Club and art workshops organised by the group.

Ezekiel 47:1-12 is a marvellously evocative passage using much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. The temple, as the place where God’s presence was very real, is seen as the source of new life, water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. In a barren landscape the passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from the trees that grow being food and the leaves used for healing. We have here a vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time and encouragement for us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context.

The exhibition utilises this imagery to explore themes of flourishing, growth, healing and worship. The two halves of the exhibition reflect the transition from wilderness to fertile land.

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Jeff Buckley & Elizabeth Fraser - All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun.

Tearing down, raising up, at the heart, on the edge

Here is my sermon from this morning's Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Picture a massive road building project cutting through hills and valleys to create a new straight, level road. The vision from Isaiah that John the Baptist quotes in our Gospel reading (Luke 3: 1 – 6) is one that seems to require bulldozers. It reads like the specification for a new motorway or by-pass. “Get the road ready … make a straight path for travel.” “Every valley must be filled up” and “every hill and mountain levelled off.” It doesn’t sound very environmentally friendly but, like the current project on the A14, may result in major archaeological finds.

John the Baptist uses this image to describe his role in preparing for the coming of Jesus. His aim is for the whole human race to see God’s coming salvation. The idea is that everything that would obscure or obstruct sight of God’s salvation would be torn down or raised up so that throughout the entire world there would be no obstacle able to prevent people from seeing God’s salvation. Everyone should be able to see Jesus because there would be nothing impeding our view; no mountains blocking our vision and no valleys from within which we would be unable to look out. The purpose of John the Baptist’s ministry was that everyone should clearly see who God is and what God does. Picture a vast flat expanse across which the light of Christ can be seen from wherever you stand and you will get the intended idea.

By quoting from Isaiah, John is making clear that he is recovering the original vision for God’s people to be a light to the nations. When Abraham was called by God he was told that he would become a great and mighty nation and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him. The nation founded through his obedience to God’s call was to be a blessing to all nations. The people of Israel were reminded periodically of this call, as in Isaiah 49:6 where we read:

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

The prophecies collected together in Isaiah also show the kind of place that Jerusalem was intended to become; a place to which all nations could come to hear from God:

“Many nations will come streaming to it, and their people will say,
‘Let us go to up the hill of the Lord, to the Temple of Israel’s God.
He will teach us what he wants us to do;
we will walk in the paths he has chosen.
For the Lord’s teaching comes from Jerusalem;
from Zion he speaks to his people.” (Isaiah 2. 2b & 3a)

Instead of that vision coming to pass, by the time of Jesus, the Temple had become a symbol of Jewish identity with all sorts of people excluded from worship unless they conformed to the detailed requirements of the Mosaic Law. The Temple and the worship in it prevented the free access to God that God wished to see for people of all nations.

In Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion and post-resurrection commission to his disciples, we see him tearing down barriers that prevented sight of God and raising up those whose position in society excluded them from worship. In his ministry Jesus expressly went to those who were excluded from Temple worship, including them both by accepting them (and teaching that they will enter the kingdom of God ahead of the religious leaders) and by healing them so they could actively return to the Temple worship. When he died the curtain separating people from the most holy place in the Temple was torn in two, showing that access to God was now open to all. Jesus also prophesied that the Temple itself would be destroyed and that when this happened his disciples should take his message of love to all nations.

As an Iona Community liturgy puts it, Jesus was ‘Lover of the unlovable, toucher of the untouchable, forgiver of the unforgivable, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, writing heaven’s pardon over earth’s mistakes. The Word became flesh. He lived among us, He was one of us.’ As Christ’s followers today, we inherit the task of putting into practice what Jesus has achieved through his life, death and resurrection. We are the people today who are called to work towards that Isaianic vision of nations streaming to learn what Israel’s God wants them to do, settling disputes among the great nations, hammering swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, and never again preparing to go to war. To do that we follow the up and down vision of Isaiah and John the Baptist; taking down barriers and raising up those who have been brought low.

As was the case for Jesus hearing John the Baptist quote the vision of Isaiah, we too stand at a point in history when the need of a broad and challenging vision for change is placed before us. Our Vicar Sam Wells has suggested that we live in a world that is pervaded by beauty, goodness, energy, creativity, trust, gentleness, joy and love but which is poisoned by violence, hatred, cruelty and fear. What our world needs most of all are communities of trust and support and love that show the kind of life that is possible when we believe that God is with us and rest in the hope that God’s ways will finally prevail.

We don’t have to invent these communities because God has already done so – in the call of Abraham and Jacob to be God’s people Israel, and when the Holy Spirit was sent on the dispirited apostles on the day of Pentecost. We’ve been given thousands of them all round the country and millions all round the world. We’ve been given the church. Yet we also live at a time and in a society where the church is getting smaller; and the church is getting narrower. Those who regularly attend worship are much fewer; and the church’s reputation and energy are becoming associated with initiatives that are introverted and often lack the full breadth of the gospel.

The vision that John the Baptist shared with Jesus in his time was an up and down vision of tearing down and raising up. That vision was necessary preparation for seeing Jesus but when we see Jesus we gain a different vision; an in and out vision, a vision of centre and circumference, of being at the heart and on the edge. By being in the godhead, Jesus was in the heart of God but chose to be on the edge by becoming a human being. Although he remained in the centre of God’s will by being the embodiment of the very heart of God, that led him to place himself on the edge as he took onto his shoulders the weight of the world’s sorrows and found himself temporarily separated from God. Jesus gives us a vision of being both at the heart and on the edge.

We have claimed that vision for ourselves here at St Martin’s seeing ourselves as being at the heart of London, the nation, and the church, while also seeing our calling as to be alongside those on the edge through being excluded, ignored or oppressed by society or church. We have then created in HeartEdge, our ecumenical network of churches, a means of sharing that vision more widely by fostering, catalysing and facilitating renewal on a national scale.

HeartEdge seeks to catalyse kingdom communities – i.e. it aims to foster, not to impose; it sees the kingdom as God’s gift to renew the church, rather than as a mission-field to be conformed to the church’s image; and it sees churches as lively and dynamic communities, rather than defensive and narrow congregations. At over 50 churches, HeartEdge is already big enough for communities to mentor one another, to offer consultancy days to one another, and for larger gatherings to offer an exchange of ideas, encouragement and challenge. We aspire for it not to create clones of St Martin’s, but to become the national embodiment of those committed to the vision to be ‘At the heart. On the edge.’

HeartEdge seeks to share the vision that the heart of the gospel is that God is most often made known among those on the edge and that the church is at its best when it speaks to the heart but takes risks on the edge. This vision not only renews the church but, through that renewal, speaks into the ways in which our world is poisoned by violence, hatred, cruelty and fear offering renewal of society more widely.

The visions of taking down and raising up and of being at the heart and on the edge are Advent visions; visions that that enable us to see Christ’s coming. Isaiah and John the Baptist tell us that God is seen when barriers that exclude are taken down and those who have been brought low are raised up. Jesus’ revelation of God shows that those at the centre can be alongside those on the edge and will be changed as a result.

So, God is seen through an up and down vision that has a vertical axis and also an in and out vision which has a horizontal axis. Pushing these analogies as far as possible the vertical axis equates to the north-south axis on a compass while the horizontal axis equates to the east-west axis, meaning that all the points on the compass are encompassed by these visions. As Isaiah prophesised, all people will see God’s salvation, or, as John Oxenham has it, ‘In Christ there is no east or west, / in him no south or north; / but one great fellowship of love / throughout the whole wide world.’ May that vision become reality for us. Amen.

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Christ's Hospital Choir - How Shall I Sing That Majesty.

Ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out

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

Mark’s Gospel begins a little like an action movie. Before we have completed the first chapter John the Baptist has preached, Jesus has been baptised, tempted in the desert, called the disciples, and healed a man in the synagogue. The pace of action is breathtaking. Read it at home and see for yourself! We are still in the first chapter with today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1. 29 - 39) and, although that is the case, have here ten verses that show us the pattern of Jesus’ whole ministry. Mark tells us stories that sum up what the whole of Jesus’ mission and ministry were about, so that we can follow in Jesus’ footsteps by doing the same.

The first pattern that we see in this story is the balance been ministry and spirituality. Mark describes an intense period of ministry. Jesus returns from the synagogue where he has just healed a man to find that Simon’s mother-in-law is unwell. He heals her and then spends the evening healing many “who were sick with all kinds of diseases and drove out many demons.” We know how busy and exhausted we can feel through the ministry we do in our workplaces, homes, community, and here at St Martin’s. We can imagine how Jesus would have felt following this ministry.

In the morning, everyone is again looking for Jesus but he is nowhere to be found. Long before daylight he had got up, left the town and gone to a lonely place where he could pray. In order to pray effectively and well to needed to get away from the demands of ministry and away from his disciples. He needed to be alone with God in order to recharge his batteries for further ministry to come and this is his pattern throughout his ministry; active mission together with others combined with withdrawal for individual prayer and recuperation. It needs to be our pattern too.

The busyness of ministry here at St Martin’s and in our weekday lives cannot be sustained if it is not fed by regular times of withdrawal for prayer and recuperation. The two are clearly separated in Jesus’ life and ministry and he is prepared to disappoint people, as in this story, in order to ensure that he has the times of prayer and recuperation that he needs in our to sustain his active ministry. This is why prayer and spirituality is prioritised here at St Martin’s, as can be seen with our current adverts for the Silent Retreat and Lent Course; but also in many other ways.

The second pattern that we find in this story is that of ministry and moving on. Jesus has this time of active ministry with the people at Capernaum and then he moves on to preach in the other villages across the whole of Galilee. The people don’t want him to go. The disciples tell Jesus that everyone is looking for him. They want more of what he has already given them. But he refuses them and moves on to preach to others. There are two aspects to the pattern of Jesus’ ministry here. First, is his concern for all to hear. That is why he has come, he says, that he should bring God’s message to all. We need that same motivation. The message of salvation cannot stay wrapped up inside this building or our congregation but must go out from here. That is the motivation behind the HeartEdge network of churches we are currently building and other partnership and mission activities with which we are involved.

This also needs to happen for our own growth and development. We grow as Christians not by staying where we are and being ministered to but by getting up and following in Jesus’ footsteps ourselves; by becoming active ministers of the Gospel ourselves. That is why Jesus constantly challenges his hearers to take up their cross and follow him. It is not that he wants to condemn all of us to suffering and a hard life instead he wants us to become people who learn how to give more than we receive.

William Temple famously said, “The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” What he meant is that the Church is not about us members getting our needs and wants satisfied; it is instead about equipping and motivating us, the members, to bless others in the love of Christ. That is what Jesus sought to achieve by moving from town to town, village to village and challenging his disciples to go with him.

We need to mirror these patterns of ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out in our lives and our Church. St Martin’s is a society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members. As we follow Christ, we cannot simply be about getting our needs and wants satisfied but need to be about being equipped by God through times of prayer and recuperation to be signs of Christ outside of this building, outside of our congregation, out where it makes a difference, out in our community and workplaces.

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John Dunstable - Quam Pulchra Es.

Inspired to Follow: Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story is a programme of hour-long gatherings at St Martin-in-the-Fields over three terms covering the Biblical story from Creation to Apocalypse. It uses fine art paintings that can be found on St Martin’s doorstep as a springboard for exploring these two questions - What does it mean to follow Jesus today? How can I deepen my faith in God?

Today's session was entitled Jesus Cleanses the Temple and explored Mark 11 through ‘Christ driving the Traders from the Temple’ by El Greco. I gave the following reflection:
El Greco, which means 'The Greek', was born in Crete, which was then a Venetian possession. He “was trained as an icon painter … before he set about transforming himself into a disciple of Titian and an avid student of Tintoretto, Veronese, and Jacopo Bassano.”

He “moved to Venice in 1567, where he developed his intense, colourful Mannerist style” after first “mastering the elements of Renaissance painting, including perspective, figural construction, and the ability to stage elaborate narratives.” “He was in Rome in 1570 and studied the work of Michelangelo and Raphael.” “By 1577 he had settled in Toledo, Spain, where he lived the rest of his life, executing mostly pictures for local religious foundations.”

His art made a “radical assault on expected ways of depicting the body in space.” “He made elongated, twisting forms, radical foreshortening, and unreal colours the very basis of his art … [and] made these effects deeply expressive”.

In the face of the Protestant Reformation, “the Catholic church sought to reform its practices and reinforce belief in its doctrines. Spain put its vast resources … at the service of the church, and Toledo, because it was the seat of the archbishop, played an active role. The Council of Trent, which met in the mid-sixteenth century to clarify Counter-Reformation goals, explicitly recognized the importance of religious art. El Greco, whose patrons were primarily learned churchmen, responded with intelligent and expressive presentations of traditional and newly affirmed Catholic beliefs.” “In the 16th century the subject of [this painting] the Purification of the Temple was used as a symbol of the Church's need to cleanse itself both through the condemnation of heresy and through internal reform.”

“The most influential mystics of the Counter-Reformation were Spanish: Saint Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross and [Ignatius of] Loyola.” Teresa and John both worked “for the reform of the Carmelite order to bring it back to its primitive roots.” They transmit “to us profound spiritual experience; experience that is shaped by the Word made flesh, the self-emptying of Christ on the cross and his exaltation in resurrection.” They draw on a mystical theology exploring “that hidden state of experiencing God without images or concepts.”

“El Greco's heightened experience in his paintings makes you wonder if he, too, underwent … [similar] contacts with the divine.” “The personality [or emotion] of El Greco's painting is [ultimately] what is irreducible about it … but is the energy that shudders through it love, or anger?” Let’s think about that question in relation to this painting?

“In the time of Christ, the porch of the Temple in Jerusalem accommodated a market for buying sacrificial animals and changing money. Christ drove out the traders, saying, 'It is written "My house shall be called a house of prayer"; but you make it a den of thieves.' (Matthew 20). This episode is known as the Purification of the Temple.”

“Passover meant big business for Jerusalem-based merchants … Since it was impractical for those traveling from distant lands to bring their own animals, the merchants sold them the animals required for the sacrifices—at greatly inflated prices. The money changers also provided a necessary service. Every Jewish male twenty years of age or older had to pay the annual temple tax (Ex. 30:13–14; Matt. 17:24–27). But it could be paid only using Jewish or Tyrian coins … so foreigners had to exchange their money for acceptable coinage. Because they had a monopoly on the market, the money changers charged an exorbitant fee for their services (as high as 12.5 percent)." [F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 74].

“Watching in amazement as their Master dispersed the temple merchants, His disciples remembered that it was written in Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” Jesus’ resolute passion and unwavering fervor was clear to all who saw Him. His righteous indignation, stemming from an absolute commitment to God’s holiness, revealed His true nature as the Judge of all the earth (cf. Gen. 18:25; Heb. 9:27).” (The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel [Reprint; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1998], 207)

In the picture, “The scourging figure of Christ stands exactly centre stage. The merchants and traders have been placed to the left, a group of Apostles to the right. A crowd divided [like this] into good and evil halves is liable to bring the Last Judgement to mind. Two stone bas-reliefs in the background reinforce the association of the traders with sin and the Apostles with redemption. The relief above the traders shows the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, while the one above the Apostles shows the Sacrifice of Isaac, traditionally understood as a prefiguration of Christ’s own redemptive sacrifice on the Cross.”

“The figure of Christ … resembles a flame, and perhaps the painting as a whole should be understood in the light of mystical experience – not as a depiction of a physical act, but as an image of a spiritual state, the culmination of prayer and meditation, when the radiance of Christ suddenly floods in on the individual at the moment of illumination.” In the words of St John of the Cross, as “The Living Flame of Love.”

So we have a painting in which elongated, twisting forms, foreshortening and unreal colours are deeply expressive of energies and emotions which inform the fiery expression or reform of the faith, in both institutions and individuals. A painting which seems to depict prayer and meditation culminating in emotions and actions which seek to reform and renew but do so through judgement and punishment.

The painting and the story raise profound questions for us:

• Are love and anger separate emotions or can they be combined?
• Are love and anger primarily emotions or are they also shown in actions?
• Can loving actions include an element of violence?
• Should our passion for God and for the reform of the Church or society involve a degree of anger; in other words is a righteous form of anger possible?

The songwriter John Bell has described Jesus as “A Saviour without safety” who is “inspired by love and anger” in addressing injustice. His hymn wants us to be as “disturbed by need and pain.” Yet, living, as we do, in a time when religious extremism extends to acts of decapitation, we may worry that this kind of ‘righteous anger’ can easily lead to justifying the kind of atrocities perpetrated by ISIS or, through theories of ‘just wars’, to disproportionate or illegal military interventions by the West.

The painting and the story may not fully answer all these questions but they certainly bring them vividly to life. Passion is clearly expressed; but is it love or anger or both that is being shown? Discuss.

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St John of the Cross - The Living Flame Of Love.

Candlemas: Patience has formed itself in me a virtue

Tonight we were please to celebrate Candlemas at St Stephen Walbrook with our patrons, the Worshipful Company of Grocers. Here is the sermon that I preached as part of their Candlemas Service:

50% of mobile users abandon a page if it doesn't load in 10 seconds. 3 out of 5 won't return to that site. 1 in 4 people abandon a web page that takes more than 4 seconds to load. T-shirt slogans say, “I want instant gratification and I want it now” and “Instant gratification takes too long.”

The advertising slogan once used by the credit card Access – "take the waiting out of wanting" – illustrates how many people want to possess things the minute they decide they want them, whereas waiting is seen as passive and boring. At the time it was first used, that slogan would have seemed perfectly acceptable. Now, it seems to sum up all that has gone wrong with a culture built on credit.

Simeon had been waiting throughout his life to see Lord’s promised Messiah, as the Holy Spirit had assured him that he would not die before the promised event occurred. His wait had been and it must have felt to him like a long time. He was tired from waiting and so ready for death that, as soon as he had seen Jesus, he prayed, “Now, Lord, you have kept your promise, and you may let your servant go in peace.”

Why, I wonder, should we wait? As we have just seen, often we don’t like it and we can’t see the point. And yet the Bible is full of waiting. Abraham is promised that he will be the father of a great nation and that promise is fulfilled but only many years after Abraham himself has died. The children of Israel spend 40 years waiting and wandering in the wilderness before they enter the Promised Land. Later they spend 70 years in exile in Babylon waiting to return to Jerusalem. There were approximately 400 years between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New, with the birth of Jesus. Why so much waiting?

One reason is that waiting can lead to revelation. Anna was in the Temple every day looking and listening for all that God would reveal to her. Simeon, too, was alert to the prompting of the Holy Spirit who led him into the Temple to see Jesus. As we wait for God, are we looking and listening for all that God wants us to see and hear while we wait?

W. H. Vanstone wrote a wonderful book called The Stature of Waiting in which he argued that it is only to human beings as we wait that “the world discloses its power of meaning” and we become “the sharer with God of a secret – the secret of the world’s power of meaning.” For many of us because we don’t stop and reflect the world exists for us simply as a “mere succession of images recorded and registered in the brain” but when we do stop, wait, look and listen then we “no longer merely exist” but understand, appreciate, welcome, fear and feel.

Waiting can also grow the virtue of patience in us as to wait is a test of our patience and an opportunity to build patience. We would like God to solve all our problems right now, but our patience and perseverance is often tested before we find answers to our prayers. How would we actually practice patience if there were not times when we were called to wait upon the Lord?

We all know the saying that good things come to those who wait. Waiting can sharpen our sense of anticipation and also our sense of relief and appreciation when we receive that for which we have been waiting. We can sense something of this in Simeon’s prayer:

“Now, Lord, you have kept your promise,
and you may let your servant go in peace.
With my own eyes I have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples:
A light to reveal your will to the Gentiles
and bring glory to your people Israel.”

When the Bible mentions waiting, patience, perseverance or longsuffering, it is often in connection with trusting in God. Waiting reinforces for us that what is achieved is achieved through God and not primarily through our own ability. As a result, we learn to trust fully in him. If we will not wait, we will inevitably trust in someone or something other than God - usually our own abilities or righteousness.

I imagine all these to be thoughts and insights which became part of Simeon’s experience, as they can also be for us. I also imagine him finally saying something like this:

I have passed my days in expectation,
anticipation of a time which has not come.
Not yet come. Through long years of watching,
waiting, I have questioned my vocation,
understanding, calling, yet patience has formed
itself in me a virtue and I have been sustained.
And now in wintertime when the seed of life itself
seemed buried, my feet standing in my grave,
at the last moment, when hope had faded,
then you come; a new born life as mine is failing -
now, Lord, let your servant depart in peace.
Hope, when hope was dashed. Wonder, where
cynicism reigned. Spring buds in winter snow.
Patience rewarded. Divine trust renewed.

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Bruce Cockburn - Waiting For A Miracle.

Looking for the signs

Click here for the link to the Christmas Newsletter for St Stephen Walbrook. We warmly invite you to:

‘Carols for All and Blessing of the Crib’ by Candlelight

Our traditional candlelit Carol Service will be on Wednesday 16th December at 6.00pm and it is always a great occasion when neighbouring businesses and friends of St Stephen Walbrook come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The music will be led by our ownchoir of St Stephen Walbrook with organist Joe Sentance and there will be well-known carols to sing, including ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, ‘While shepherds watched’, ‘The first Noel’ and ‘Hark the herald angels sing’.

During ‘Away in a Manger’, children will be invited to gather round the crib for its Blessing and there’ll be a carpeted area in the church for them to sit at other times. The service will be followed by mince pies, mulled wine and soft drinks. Last year, the church was full so do arrive early to ensure you get a seat.

Christmas Eve Midnight Eucharist

The first Communion of Christmas will be celebrated on Thursday 24th December starting at 11.30pm. The choir of St Stephen Walbrook and organist Joe Sentance will again lead the music and the setting will be Schubert in Bb. Mince pies and hot drinks will be served after the service.

Please see our Christmas newsletter for details of other services during Advent. Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook (see the 'Sermon' section of the London Internat Church site for more sermons from St Stephen Walbrook):

How many of the early signs of Christmas have you spotted?

They begin in the shops with displays of Christmas gifts from early autumn while, at work, the Christmas meal or party is being booked. Into November, and the displays of Christmas decorations and foods begin appearing. Then the Christmas displays in shop windows go up and the Christmas lights are put up in Town Centres. Before long the first Christmas decorations go up in a home near you triggering the annual competition to see who can cover their house in the most lights or have the largest illuminated Snowman. Bets begin to be taken on whether we will have a white Christmas and you are given the name of a colleague to buy a Secret Santa present for. Before you know it there are children on your doorstep singing the one carol that they know and people start saying there only X number of days to go. These are some of the signs that Christmas is coming and we all recognise them, probably with dread!

Natural and human signs of coming events are around us all the time. But do we spot them or spot them early enough? In the City this is why economic analysts are employed, to try to identify signs of where markets and the economy are headed. Even though experts are analysing trends on a daily basis, they don't always get it right, as we saw in relation to the last stock market crash and the result of the last election where the polls were all out of sync with the result.

In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples to be actively watching for the signs of a particular coming event; that is the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which Jesus prophesied, as can be read at the beginning of Luke 21, would occur and would happen within the lifetime of his disciples.

They needed to watch for the signs of this event because some of them would be in Jerusalem at the time and would need to escape. For all of them, however, it would be an important sign that Jesus was a true prophet and that all he had said and done was from God and of God.

In AD70 Titus, the adopted son of the Roman emperor Vespasian, “entered Jerusalem, burnt the Temple, destroyed the city and crucified thousands of Jews” (Wright). For Luke the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy, although a disaster for all those caught up in it, was the final vindication of all that Jesus had said and been and done.

The Biblical measure of whether or not a prophet was a true prophet or not, is, obviously enough, whether or not the things they said would happen did happen. Jesus prophesied that the Temple would be destroyed within the lifetime of his disciples and that is what actually happened in reality in AD70.

It that day, he says, people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. This refers to a prophecy in Daniel 7 about the vindication of the Messiah. In other words, he is saying that by being vindicated as a true prophet, people will come to realise that Jesus was who he claimed to be, the Messiah. The destruction of the Temple was proof that Jesus had spoken and acted truly. He was vindicated by the coming to be of his prophecy about the destruction of the Temple.

In the years after Jesus' ascension when, at times, the disciples would naturally have doubted whether the things Jesus said and did were true, this confirmed prophecy would have been an important reminder to them that Jesus spoke truths from God; truths that they could and did rely on, even in times of real confusion, struggle and despair.

We face similar doubts and times of struggle. Again, the fact that Jesus met the Biblical test of true prophets in a way which is factually documented historically can then be a source of encouragement and help to us when our faith and trust in him is tested.

Our vindication will come when Jesus returns and the kingdom of God comes in full, on earth as it is in heaven. Until then, just like the Christians in Jerusalem prior to AD70, we are called to be patient, to be faithful, to be alert, to be watching and witnessing and praying. “Be on your guard!” Jesus said, “Don’t let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life … Be on the alert and pray always that you will have the strength to go safely through all those things that will happen and to stand before the Son of Man.”

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Over The Rhine - The Trumpet Child.