Angels: Fearful and Friendly, through and through

 

Sermon. 28 September 2025 St Nicholas’ Ashill and St George’s Saham Toney

St Michael and All Angels [transferred]

 

I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream, I Have a Dream

I Have a Dream, a fantasy
To help me through, reality
And my destination, makes it worth the while
Pushin' through the darkness, still another mile

I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels…

(ABBA)

Words of… who knows?...

If any of you think that this is a relatively recent song, I have to tell you, it came out in 1979, which makes it just shy of half a century old. Half a century! Brothers and sisters, your lives are more precious than you realise.

 

It’s a pleasant song (many of us think). What is more, ABBA were ahead of their time, seeing something others could not then see. It is as if they knew how belief in angels was going to explode in the decades ahead. Do you remember when bookshops started having “Mind Body Spirit” sections? Well, books about angels soon became a significant part of that new genre. Angels as gentle, calming, encouraging, on your side, gently nudging you to feel better about yourself.

 

There is something good in everyone I see, including me!

 

It is all well and good. I believe it can be a good thing to attend to our self-esteem, and, yes, seek to have a healthy esteem for yourself. But! But it has to be said that this understanding of angels tells us nothing – nothing – about angels as we find them in the Bible.

 

It can be said bluntly: in the Bible, angels are scary. Angels are scary. I don’t mean, of course, scary like a horror story. Not that. I mean scary in the sense of awesome, and awe-some in the full sense. Today the word “awesome” is thrown around. People say: “that cup of tea was awesome; thank you”. But the original meaning is powerful.

It means: inspiring awe.

It means it is fearful and enormous and powerful and not altogether safe or comfortable. It means fearsome;

causing fear, even while it also draws you in.

This is who angels are in the Bible:

causing fear, even while they also draw you in.

 

How do I claim this? Precisely because…

What is that angels in the Bible most often say?

It is: “Do not be afraid!”

 

A moment’s digression. I warn you now: in Advent, I am going to be on the stricter side of things. I am going to discourage us from celebrating Christmas too much before it comes. However, today I am allowing us just a taste from Handel’s Messiah, to make the point I want to make here.

Remember:

There were shepherds abiding in the field,

         keeping watch over their flock by night.

         And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,

         and the glory of the Lord shone round about them,

and they were sore afraid.

         And the angel said unto them:

         “Fear not…”.

 

So, one thing we can do on this Feast of St Michael and All Angels – also called St Michael and All the Bodiless Powers – one thing we can do – and it is not a small thing – is calmly note that when we have to do with God we are involved in awesome things, with fearful things. A Russian Orthodox teacher, Metropolitan Anthony, once put it this way:

To pray is not to enter the cave of a pussy cat;

it is to enter the cave of a tiger.

We had better believe it.

 

But! But many of you will be ahead of me at this point. You will be thinking: all that is true, but I am only telling half the story. We have already heard the other half, and we had better take that seriously too. That is: the fearful angels say:

Fear not;

do not be afraid;

you don’t have to fear us, we are indeed here for your good.

This is indeed a truth as important as the awesome nature of angels.

They are fearsome, but/and/but/and they come from Loving God, from God who loves us. They come to us with messages from Loving God, God who loves us, God who brings us to better places. So the fear of awe is inevitable, but the angels do not want us to stay in the fear.  

 

So the second thing we can do on this Feast of St Michael and All Angels – also called St Michael and All the Bodiless Powers – is give thanks for the angels that are and will be among us. Give thanks for the angels that are and will be among us.

 

I say they are here, because Jesus himself implies that each one of us has at least one Guardian Angel. In Matthew 18.10, Jesus says that children (“little ones”) have their own angels. By the way, Jesus doesn’t give the details of the numbers. Children must have at least one Guardian Angel, but it might be many more; maybe each have 1,000 angels. And again, if we know anything – anything – about the faithfulness of God, of how God comes to us and stays, then we can have perfect confidence that children don’t lose their angels when they become adults. That would be against God’s ways.

 

Why do I say they will be here? We actually confess that angels will be here within this service. The claim is hiding in plain sight. Here are some words I think you will know:  

“Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the compony of heaven,

we proclaim your great and glorious name,

for ever praising you and saying

Holy, holy, holy Lord...”

 

Yes, when we gather around the bread and the wine,

to give thanks to the Father,

and to remember the Last Will and Testament of the Son,

and to call down the Spirit,

then we can be most sure that the heavenly host is with us.

So we sing the hymn of heaven, known both to Isaiah and to the writer of Revelation: “Holy, holy, holy!” Adoration. We adore.

 

Here is a prayer which acknowledges that the angels will be among us, a prayer from another tradition (from the Orthodox liturgy):

 

We, who in a mystery represent the cherubim,

and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity,

let us now lay aside all the cares of this world,

that we may receive the King of All,

who comes, invisibly escorted by the angelic hosts.

 

Let us make it our own.

[Prayed again, repeating each line.]

Amen.

Matthew, Evangelist of the Presence of God

 Sermon. 21 September 2025. St Peter’s Merton.

 

Feast of St Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

 

Gospel: Matthew 9.9-13

 

A blessed Feast of St Matthew! What can we say of Matthew? The historically critical among you will say: precious little. There are two references to him. One we have heard, as today’s gospel reading. A certain tax collector is called by Jesus to follow him, and this causes controversy if not consternation. But it happens! And his name is Matthew. A little later [Matthew 10.3] he is named as one of the Twelve. Tellingly, there, too, he is called “Matthew, the tax collector”.

 

And that… well, that is it. No further references in that gospel, and nothing in Mark, Luke, or John, unless the tax collector Levi, called by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel [Luke 5.27ff] is one and the same person (which is possible).

 

We of course feel we know Matthew much better than that. Because we are in the habit of thinking of him as the person who wrote the Gospel which now bears his name, the first Gospel in the ordering of the New Testament (which is not to say the first to be written). The habit of thinking of Matthew as evangelist is ancient. Papias of Hierapolis – remember him? His dates are approximately 60-130 AD. And he wrote: “Matthew put together the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.” That means Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic, and others translated it into Greek. And that claim attached itself to the gospel we know. Linguists now think that is unlikely that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, or Aramaic. There are certainly phrases in Matthew which are structured like Hebrew phrases. But most scholars now think that Matthew was deliberately setting out to sound “biblical” (to sound like the Old Testament), when he wrote these.

 

No matter! The link was made, and Matthew the tax collector has at least in pious imagination (nothing wrong with pious imagination) dissolved into Matthew the writer of the gospel bearing that name.

 

What then can we say of Matthew as the writer of the Gospel of Matthew? Much in every way.

Of the material which only Matthew brings, we might consider:

the mysterious story of the Magi from the East;

or the still-well-known injunction not to cast your pearls before swine;

or how Peter tries to walk on water.

And so on. They say there are 28 passages unique to Matthew.

 

Today, though, let me mention just two.

When it comes to the birth of Jesus, it is Matthew and only Matthew [Matthew 1.23] who quotes Isaiah [Isaiah 7.14], saying

“‘…the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’”

 

Only Matthew calls Jesus “Emmanuel”, which is Immanu El, God-with-us or God-is-with-us. (Or if you want to be yet more literal it is Immanu, with us, El, God – so it is “With us, God!”)

 

So what? So what that Matthew calls Jesus Emmanuel? It’s a passing reference of which nothing is made – funnily enough, much like the passing reference to Matthew the tax collector? I don’t think so.

 

How does Matthew’s Gospel end? It ends with Jesus, risen Lord, at the summit of a high mountain, giving the command to the disciples to teach and baptise among all the nations (or all the peoples), and concluding (concluding his speech and the whole gospel)… how?

 

Jesus says: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28.20b].

 

I, God-is-with-us, am with you always.

 

Brothers and sisters, in the Gospel of Matthew we have

the most direct promises of the presence of God and of Christ,

the presence with us,

the promised presence with us.

With us is God!

 

What to do with

the promise of the presence of God and the presence of Christ,

with us, for all time?

 

I cannot tell you. And there is this:

I dare not even assume that it is something that is necessarily welcome.

You see: anthropologists say that an awful lot of religious ritual – in all religions – is actually about keeping God or the Higher Power in its place.

The idea is: if we do this, God won’t come too close.

But that is not how we as Christians are called to behave.

We are called to welcome the promised presence of God and presence of Christ, with us, for all time,

and (crucially) to let that promised presence make a difference to us.

 

I, God-is-with-us, am with you always.

 

I do want to return for a moment to Matthew the tax collector. We have seen that Jesus’ calling a tax collector caused controversy and even consternation. Why? Because tax collectors, in this time and place, were thought to be all collaborators, doing the dirty work of the occupying power, the Romans. In other words, those around Jesus were convinced of what we would call a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy is this: all those who work for the government are crooks, in it for themselves, not on the side of the people; and the government itself is malign. 

 

The conspiracy is this: all those who work for the government are crooks, in it for themselves, not on the side of the people; and the government itself is malign! That claim – and thousands of variations of it – is something claimed on social media every second of the day. We live in a cynical age. It seems that people have never been more distrustful of – more hostile to – the government and those who work for the government. There are all kinds of moves to fight back against the wicked government, the powers-that-be, or the supposed “elite”.

 

And I feel compelled to say that such cynicism is dangerous.

 

Criticism of the government is of course permitted; it is important; it is a right. But cynicism can corrode us. We can come to enjoy just a bit too much looking down on those we feel have let us down.

 

Remember: Jesus saw through the outer “accidents” of Matthew’s life –

his work, his role, his status;

what his taskmasters demanded of him;

maybe (yes) the short cuts he allowed himself to take –

Jesus saw through all of that and saw…

saw an apostle, one called to be with Jesus.

So let us not let criticism of actions become cynicism for people.

There may be – will be - other hidden apostles out there.

 

There are other hidden apostles.

Maybe you are one of them.

Know yourself with the one who is God-is-with-us.  

Amen.

Harvest Festival and the Harvest of our Lives

 Sermon. 7 September 2025. St John the Evangelist’s, Ovington.

Harvest Festival.

Reading: Philemon 1.1-21

 

When was the last time you sat down and read through a whole book of the Bible?...

 

I have some news for you: in a sense, you just did it.

 

This morning’s first reading is the whole of the book of Philemon (there are diverse pronunciations of that word). We heard verses 1-21 of Philemon, but there is no verse zero (of course), and there is no verse 22. What we have is the whole of the book – by which we mean of course the whole of the letter – of Philemon. And by the letter of Philemon we of course mean Paul’s letter to Philemon. Philemon is the recipient; Paul is the writer. (And scholars do tend to agree that this is a letter than genuinely goes back to Paul, by the way.)

 

So, one thing you can harvest today, right away, is a certain satisfaction for having completed a whole book of the Bible. (But just a gentle note, if you ae tempted to move from satisfaction to smugness: there are at least – at least! - another 65 to go.)

 

The letter is short, but profoundly moving. Paul is writing to Philemon, because Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, has run away and ended up with Paul somehow, and Paul wants – no he really, really wants – he really wants Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as a friend. So Paul tries to use all he has, to make the argument. He commands; but no, he resists commanding; he pleads; he reminds Philemon that he could command but doesn’t. So Paul is torn, but torn only about how to make the best case for his dear friend, Onesimus.

 

I suggest what we can harvest here is some real insight into Paul, Paul the man. Paul is often thought of as a “cold fish” (and worse than that). Yet here, here he pours he heart out. He does not hide his passionate, warm friendship, both with Philemon and with Onesimus.

 

As is typical, Paul begins with thanksgiving:

“When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love…”

I always thank my God.

What better harvest theme!

It is time to give thanks, it is time for thanksgiving, for, indeed, all good gifts around us, and for hard work by so many to bring us those gifts, and (frankly) for our peace and ease, freeing us to enjoy those gifts.

I always thank my God.

 

I have said it before and I will say it again: if you want the royal road to God, the swiftest road to God, the most direct, it is not hidden; it is the route that comes from thanksgiving.

I always thank my God.

 

There is something we need to note about how Paul describes Onesimus.

First a language lesson, for those who like such.

 

Onésimos [sic] is one word for “useful” in Greek. It comes from ónesis, meaning profit or gain. Paul hints at this, when he says that before The-One-Called-Useful (Onésimos) was useless, but now he is useful. Here he is using different words, it is true. He uses words related to chrestos which means “useful” yes, but “useful” already with a tendency moving towards more than that, towards meaning “good”. “Good and useful” we might say, in English.

 

Now Paul says that

Onesimos was a-chrestos, which means “useless”, “not fit for purpose”,

but has become eu-chrestos, which is stronger even than chrestos.

So we have a hierarchy:

onesimos - useful

chrestos – better than useful, actually good

euchrestos - better than that something or someone who is really good at whatever it is: “just the thing!” “just the person!”

 

Note, then, that

Onesimus was use-less when he was a slave,

and is profoundly use-full as a free man.

And that might seem the wrong way round.

If you could, just for a moment, bracket out all ethical concerns, if you could just think it terms of how it would help you – be honest now – wouldn’t a slave be useful for you?...

After all, they have to do exactly what you tell them to do, when you want them to do it.

Surely a friend is less useful, in that you have to encourage or persuade them to do what you’d like them to do, and even then they may not?

 

The wrong way round.

As a slave, useless;

as a free person, a freed person, useful

(more than useful, more than more than useful, very good, just right).

 

Brothers and sisters, there are harvest themes here.

 

How are we to sow the seed of the love of God, so that we reap the harvest?

 

Today we learn that we can only do it – as Christians, we can only do it – by accepting that we are not God’s slaves, to be bossed around, but God’s friends, God’s free friends, God’s freed friends. It is not that we deserve to be God’s friends. It is not that we have done good deed after good deed after good deed for so long that we cross some line, and God finally relents and says: You have earned your reward; I bestow on you the title of friend. Not that. It is that God has decided, by God’s own inscrutable will, to call us his friends, and to call us as his friends.

 

Not slaves, but friends.

As slaves, frankly useless; as friends, much better than useful.    

 

What kind of harvest are we letting grow to maturity in our own lives?

What kind of harvest are we?

I want to insist it is all right not to know!

Most of the time, we don’t know what harvest we are making possible in the people we meet.

And why should we know what harvest we are making possible in our own lives?

 

You know, from Psalm 23:

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me, all the days of my life”?

I have a friend who insisted strongly on this. He said: That is the point: the goodness and mercy follow you;

you don’t get to see them!

It is meant to be that way.

 

In short, do not worry what kind of harvest you are preparing out there, in the world. Don’t worry what kind of harvest you own life is yielding.

The best way to ask yourself if you are being useless or useful to God is to ask yourself:

Am I living out of a conviction

that I am a slave of God,

or am I living out of a conviction

that I am (I have been made) a friend of God?

 

Blessed harvest to you all.

Amen.  

Caring for Creation with Apatheia

 

Sermon. 31/08/2025. St John the Evangelist’s, Ovington

Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation [transferred from 1 September]

Wisdom 13.1-9

Colossians 1.15-20

Matthew 6.24-34

 

Happy New Year!

 

Those of you who read the Saham Saga or the Ovington Oracle will know what I am talking about, or at least you stand a chance, once I tell you that today we are pretending it is already 1 September (because this is the nearest Sunday to 1 September).

 

1 September is New Year’s Day to some. It is for the Methodist Church, and also for Orthodox Churches. That’s said, it’s not been a major festival in Orthodoxy. It is pretty much just an administrative matter. But!

I bring you a new thing under the sun!

A revolution in its way!

The context is this: apart from the addition of new saints, the Orthodox calendar changes at glacial speed, if at all.

But! But in 1989 the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, who holds a leadership role in Orthodoxy, did a new thing, a radical thing.

He did something like introduce a wholly new feast.

He declared and decreed that 1 September was to be… the Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (the language sometimes varies).  

 

In the West, things have been a little different. Western Christians have long had a fondness for St Francis, who was committed to the simple life, and a life close to nature. You might think that St Francis was a saintly Doctor Doolittle, who talked to the animals. If he did, that’s actually a small part of his life and witness. But his lifestyle, including (let us not forget) his embrace of “Sweet Sister Poverty”, made him a natural saint for us, if we want to care for creation.

 

We can say that both these streams (East and West) came together. And, to skip over a few decades, where we are now is that we can have – if we want to; it is not compulsory – we can have a certain “Creation-tide”. And Creation-tide lasts - you will have guessed - from 1 September to 4 October. It’s been part of Churches Together since 2008. It’s not really a full “season”; it doesn’t have its own set of readings and so on. But it is a chance to focus on creation and nature in a special way.

 

You might well say: we already have that; it’s called our Harvest Festival! But at Harvest Festival the prime emphasis tends of be on thanksgiving, for “all good gifts around us are sent from heaven above”, and the other themes constellate around that. And that is good. Yes, that is good.

 

But… this is different. On the Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation the main notes of our prayers are for the needs and flourishing of the natural order.

We make our petitions to God,

and we plead with God,

plead especially for right discernment about the changes we must make,

to live simply, that others may simply live.

 

Our readings are along these lines. To take them in turn.

 

The first, from the Book of Wisdom weaves an argument that the majesty of God is to be found in creation, in the beauty of creation. That beauty – in myriad abundant forms – can lead us to God, so that we honour God in right use of the things of creation, or it can distract us. We can be distracted, and think of any created thing as a god in its own right. But… that may be only one way of getting it wrong. It may be that it is just as bad to think of them as worthless, just lifeless lumps of stuff, that we can exploit and use up as much as we want.

 

The second reading, from Colossians, enters more deeply into this mystery. It tells us unapologetically that the mystery of God within and under creation (of which Wisdom speaks) is Christ. It really is Christ himself. We may be used to thinking like that, or we may not. I know such words can flow over us. But we had better note what it means. It means we cannot claim to be a servant of Christ, or a follower of Christ, or a friend of Christ, if we do not care for nature itself. Christians are obliged to care for creation, and to nurture the beauty within it. To nurture, and not to exploit or use it up.

 

The Gospel reading emphasises a lot of this. It draws us back to the beauty. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field, no less! But we mustn’t get lost in any naïve sense that the point here is that God wants us to find nature pretty. It is not that we are supposed to imagine ourselves in some Constable painting. No. We mustn’t overlook the simpler point: “You cannot serve [both] God and wealth.”

 

So the themes of prayer for the care of creation are demanding ones.

They call for real change from us.

I very much doubt that this is a new idea to you. Indeed, I know that it is not. But the fact that we’ve heard it before doesn’t mean we can avoid the question, the question:

 

How am I going to live, in ways that exploit nature less?

How I can I exploit less, for the sake of my sisters and brothers throughout the world, in this and in future generations, and for creation’s sake itself?

Really: How?

 

For all the Feast is new, the ideas, the demands, the questions, are as old as Christian faith itself. We know that Genesis begins with God calling creation very good, and with human beings put in charge of caring for the natural world (it is more that than “subdue” nature, but that is for another time). We know that God calls us to love our neighbour, to love the stranger, to love the widow and orphan - standing for all in desperate need, and that Christ adds that we are to love our enemies too. Truly, this means: global love.

 

And I might stop there. For a church-sermon to church-people, I believe I have set out the case for a day of prayer for the care of creation more-or-less to the best of my ability. But I am going to continue! Even worse, I am going to suggest that I need to say more, on moral grounds. That has to be wrong. It is never moral for a preacher to bore their congregation! I agree. But my issue is that, given where we are, I fear that to stop here would be saying something that is true in itself, but ends up being false.

 

Because we have to say a word about how the word is struggling to hear any case for the care of creation. There are other voices, other noises, other shouts and clamours. They are loud, and they are and growing louder. They are angry and they are growing angrier. They would have us limit our care to those perceived to be in the in-group. The feeling seems to be that our care and attention can only go so far. If others are cared for, it must be at our expense.

 

We may perhaps be thinking of foreign presidents. But that won’t do either. It is not a secret that some of these voices are those of our neighbours, are those of people we rub up against, are those we care about it and should care about. So we do need to listen to the fears behind the shouts and the clamours, and, yes, behind all the flags and all the rest of it.

 

How then to proceed? There is one more thing I want to bring to the table. I want to commend to us all the monastic virtue of apatheia. I’ll say it again: apatheia. Yes, it does sound like “apathy” (and is the origin of the word). But you will already have guessed that its meaning is different. It means to think and reason and discern and reflect without passion, without passion not in the sense of not caring about things, but in the sense of not being ruled by the emotions that bubble up or explode in all of us.

 

It means noticing when we are angry, and then not acting on the anger, but letting it pass, drawing from it the part of it that is true and carries truth, freed from the passion of it.

 

It means noticing when we are resentful, and then not acting on the resentment, but letting it pass, drawing from it the part of it that is true and carries truth, freed from the passion of it.

 

It means noticing our fears, but not acting on them. And it’s the same with all the rest of the passions. All of those passions which, frankly, seem to dominate our public discussions at the moment, locally, nationally, and internationally.

 

In other words, when it comes to the anger and the fear, God forbid we fight fire with fire.

 

I did say that was my last point.

So, now my prayer is that

we will never be apathetic about our prayer for the care of creation,

but, when we reflect on how to live well and live well with others,

we will do so with all godly apatheia.

Amen.

More (and more) on the Prophets: God as passionate

 Sermon. 10 August 2025. St George’s, Saham Toney.

Trinity 8 (Year C. Continuous Reading for Old Testament)

 

Isaiah 1.1; 10-20

Luke 12.32-40

 

Let us reflect on today’s first reading, from the Old Testament. I’ll just remind you why there’s a strong case for doing this. We are now in the long Green season of Sundays after Trinity (also called Ordinary Time), a season which extends all the way to All Saints (to keep it simple). And this year one of the things we are doing in this long season is working our way through edited highlights of certain Old Testament books. Concretely, edited highlights of the Prophets. Today, we begin our look at Isaiah. This is an in-depth study of the longest book of prophecy in the Old Testament (by some distance), and this deep dive is going to take us all of… two weeks. (To be fair, we do pretty much rely on Isaiah in important seasons of the Church year.)

 

Isaiah helpfully tells us when he was active. We’ve just heard. It was from the reign of King Uzziah to the reign of King Hezekiah. These are kings of the Southern Kingdom, of Judah, and Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem, is Isaiah’s focus. Later Isaiah clarifies that he had his dramatic vision and commissioning in the year that Uzziah died (see chapter 6 for details). Uzziah came to the throne somewhere around 790-780 BCE and died about 750-740.  Hezekiah died in 687. That gives us a span of some 60 years or so when Isaiah prophesied. Is that possible?... I say it is. It’s true some historians say that average life expectancy in the ancient world was around 35. But that’s the average, the arithmetic mean. We get that figure because so many people died in childhood. A significant proportion did live to a ripe old age.

 

You may have noticed that all this means that Isaiah is a younger contemporary of our old friend… our old friend, Amos (and also of Hosea, who we have also been looking at in our cycle of readings). You may also have noticed that Isaiah’s message is remarkably similar to Amos’s. For all Amos was speaking to the Northern Kingdom (Israel), and Isaiah is speaking to the Southern Kingdom, Judah, the core message here is the same. It is and remains a challenging, a sharp message. So, brace yourselves all over again.

 

The message:

¹² When you come to appear before me,
    who asked this from your hand?
    Trample my courts no more!
¹³ Bringing offerings is futile;
    incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation—
    I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
¹⁴ Your new moons and your appointed festivals
    my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
    I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you stretch out your hands,
    I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
    I will not listen…

… ^16b cease to do evil;
¹⁷     learn to do good;
seek justice;
    rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
    plead for the widow.

 

In other words:

You, the people of the covenant, the people of my choosing, are good at coming to do what you think is worshipping me. You positively enjoy doing the very things I have set out for you to do, as worship of me. I have no complaints about your enthusiasm, your religious enthusiasm, your religious commitment. You love calling upon me. You love prayer. But, however much you relish it, and however much you think you are addressing me and pleasing me, I say you are frauds. The whole thing is a lie. And I haven’t hidden from you why it’s a lie. I will spell it out again: you have to care about justice. You have to live care-fully. You have to care about the people who you push out.

 

Do you remember Amos saying just this a few weeks ago? Also like Amos, Isaiah has God say both

·        on the one hand: I am judging you for this, and condemning you, and you have lost it, and

·        on the other hand: all you have to do is change your ways, and I will forgive you, and we will be reconciled.  

 

Remember also that the point is not that the people who come to worship come as sinners. We all do that. That’s something like the human condition, this side of Kingdom Come. The point is that the people had become blind to their own sins. They were so convinced they were pleasing God by being the people who did the religious things with fervour, that they’d stopped thinking about how they live their lives. They shut God out of all of that. That truly is a warning to all of us.

 

In general, I do not like to repeat myself. Well, maybe I do indulge in repetition too often, over the years. But not normally every four weeks. I’d understand if you feel there is little new in what I have said here, given what I said about Amos, four weeks ago. But in my defence, sometimes the texts over different weeks mesh so closely together, that it would be simply wrong to say they differ in their import. (But notice one difference, for all that: I am not – I am not - suggesting you sit down this afternoon and read the whole of Isaiah. That’s a rather different task from reading the whole of Amos.)

 

Throughout these weeks, these weeks of the Prophets, we have to come to know how prophetic rhetoric works. It tends to be:

judgment; condemnation; judgment; condemnation; judgment, condemnation; promise, mercy, restoration, feasting.

All together. No intervening stage. Rather, hand-break turns.

The Prophets were not what we might call “systematic”; they did not have a system of how God is. They did not even seek consistency, not even from God. They make us do the work of looking for the golden thread among all their messages. It is we who have to see how it might all cohere.

 

I am confident that the golden thread is that promise, that mercy, that restoration, and that feasting, which I have just mentioned. I see it this way. Even when the Prophets say God is angry, they are saying that, if it ever comes to it, God would rather be thought of as angry, than be thought of as cool, cold, indifferent, or uninterested.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I accept that this in itself is hard. Some of us here will have been hurt by people saying: “I only got so angry with you, because I care”, and that can be abuse (let’s name it). But here remember it is rhetorical anger, from God, at one remove, and addressed to the whole people. Nowhere does God say: “I am so angry with you, and I want you to be angry in the same way with those you care for.” The Prophetic word just does not have that sort of consequence. This doesn’t make anger safe or easy, and questions remain. But I say again that the emphasis is that, if it ever comes to it, God would rather be thought of as angry, than be thought of as cool, cold, indifferent or uninterested. God is always close to us, involved with us, tied up with us. God does not want to have it any other way. God feels deeply about God’s people. When it comes down to it, God desires God’s people. God desires us.

 

This is something we also see in today’s Gospel. I am referring to the very opening:

“Do not be afraid, little flock,

for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

This is a reassurance only Luke has Jesus give us.

Some details. The word for “flock” here (poímnion) is a diminutive of the normal word for flock. So some would say – though others would say it’s not as big a deal as this – some would say it means something like “flock-let” in English. In itself, it may mean “little flock”. But to this Luke has Jesus add the word for “small” (mikrón – as in mikro-skope or microscope). If I were to translate: “my dear little bunch of lambkins” I am doubtless exaggerating, to make the point. But it is undoubtedly a term of tenderness, of endearment.

 

Then we come to “good pleasure”. That’s a slightly staid expression in modern English. It is close to the original, especially if we think about etymology, about how the word is made up. The Greek (eudókesen) might mean something like “the Father has thought it proper, and seemly, and good, and right”. But I say in context it is closer to: “the Father desires you and delights” in giving you all good things.

 

Can we hear that? Can we hear this, as the message of the Prophets, if we seek out that golden thread from all the other threads?

 

Dear little lambkins, the Father desires you, delights in you, and longs to give you good things.

 

Amen.