Commentary on Torah Portion Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-end)

Our parasha brings to a close the story of Joseph with his death. This narrative is truly a unique genre within Torah; it has been called its one "novella". In this, it also concludes the whole book of Genesis/Bereshit. It is short, but packs a punch. There is never any doubt who is centre-stage. Not Joseph, but his father, Jacob/Israel. 
 
It is Jacob who gives his farewell discourse (Gen 49:1ff), blessing his sons (albeit sometimes entirely negatively), in poetry both beautiful and at times impossible to translate (as one may expect, if the impression of archaic origins is desired). It is Jacob who is expressly mourned by the Egyptians for seventy days (50.3). It is Jacob whose dying wish is fulfilled, as his remains are taken, with pomp and ceremony, to his chosen resting-place, with his ancestors in Canaan (50.7ff). What is more, in the only disagreement between Jacob and Joseph, Jacob prevails. Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons as his own, but, in doing so, privileges the second-born Ephraim over the first-born Manasseh, against Joseph’s wishes. Jacob is clear that, whatever the failings of his eyesight, he knows what he is doing (48:19f). It is Jacob’s agency which counts.
 
There is something instructive here, for any who would make plans to shape their own legacy: it can never wholly be in your control; any effort to steer others may fail, on many levels.  
 
What of Joseph’s own death – without poetic farewells, without explicit mourning, without a journey home? He dies at 110 (50.26). Robert Alter, in his notes to his translation, tells us this is the Egyptian ideal age, over against the 120 years of Hebrew understanding. Joseph is placed in a coffin – an entirely Egyptian contraption within the Bible. Is there bathos here? The story that begins with the expanses of the heavens and the earth ends with its focus reduced to a mummified corpse in a box, a box alien to the corpse, as alien as the land into which the box is laid. Is this a warning against assimilation? Is the stage being set for the Pharoah “which knew not Joseph” (Ex 1.8 KJV), and the wretchedness of slavery?
 
Something may be lost if this is our only reading of the brief account of Joseph’s death. Perhaps there is another character in this passage whose legacy is not fully honoured. I refer to Egypt itself. If we limit ourselves to Genesis, it is only fair to describe Egypt as wholly benign, a place of refuge, of rescue, for Abraham, as for Jacob and his children. We hear Joseph say of his own travails: “God intended it for good, so as to bring about the… survival of many people” (50.20, NJPS). The Hebrew is strong: lehachayot: “to cause to live/to make alive”. That giving of life was brought about by the synergies of wise Joseph, and (let it be said) attentive and responsive Pharoah, and the fertility of Egypt itself. We who know the fuller story may miss here the absence of any strictly religious animosity between Pharaohs and patriarchs. In Christian language, this has been called the time of “ecumenical bonhomie” (Gordon Wenham). So Joseph’s coffin, which is called an “aron”, may in fact be a type of the ark (“aron”) of the covenant to come; it houses a memory of divine providence.
 
Biblical Egypt, like every nation since, is not one thing, neither simply refuge, nor simply oppressor. Just as it is folly to hope – or to fear – that our own legacy will be entirely one predictable and predicted thing. This is to the good!

Written for Limmud on One Leg, 2025. 

Homily. "Hear My Voice"

 John 10:22-30. Homily.

 

At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,  and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.  So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me,  but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.  My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.”

 

They say, in John, when we are told when something happens, and where it happens, we are also being told the mood. What was “in the air”. So not just the When and the Where, but also the How and even the What. Let us see how that might play out here.   

 

Jesus is in the Temple, and it’s the winter Dedication festival, which marks the Dedication of said Temple, Except it doesn’t, not quite. It doesn’t mark the time the First or the Second Temple were first dedicated for use. It actually marks the re-dedication of the (Second) Temple.[1] That was necessary after it was defiled by Syrian invaders, not that long ago, in the 2^nd century BCE. And the invaders had set out to humiliate. It is said they sacrificed pigs in the Temple and poured their fat on the Sacred Scrolls. This, as you can imagine, led to a fight. There was a battle - there were battles - and the Temple was reclaimed. So we can say it: this festival marks a military victory. Memory of military victory is what is in the air.

 

So the question some Jews put to Jesus here is probably not abstract. It is pressing; it’s intense. Is Jesus Messiah? Is he a hero, at least like the heroes of old? Is he the one through whom Gd will overthrow today’s invaders, the Romans, so that the Jewish people can live in freedom?

 

“How long will you keep us in suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”

 

We know – from our passage and from the gospels as a whole – that Jesus gently, or not so gently, says he is just not starting from there. He is staring somewhere else. We get it. We’ve caught on. We may well think that the people then and there who didn’t get it or catch on were not just confused, but wilfully, perversely wrong-headed.

 

But not so fast!

 

“How long will you keep us in suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”

 

I suggest these urgent questions resonate throughout time, and throughout space. Not just for us, but for the people we care about. For everyone, the world is big, and we are small. For all of us, in times of crisis, we may want to cry out to someone:

 

“How long will you keep us in suspense? Are you our hero? Will you rescue us?”

 

So, for us, too, here, now, it can be hard, hard to hear Jesus saying that he just does not start from there. He is starting from a different place. He promises to look after us, and that’s good of course. But he does not promise heroic victory, does not promise that kind of rescue.

 

Instead? Instead, Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice”.

 

My sheep hear my voice. And my voice is the voice of my Father. To hear my voice is to hear the voice of Gd the Father, for the Father and I are one. To hear my voice is to hear all the wisdom, the vision, the grace, the strength, the forgiveness, the love, the generosity, and the compassion of Gd. And the question Jesus puts back to us is:

 

Are you willing to place

all your hope in this and this alone?

To live by hearing my voice,

whatever you have to face?

 

How to begin to hear this voice, the voice of Jesus, which is the voice of Gd? The beginning is not hard. We only have to shut up. To stop our bleating, if you like. We must rededicate ourselves to silence.

 

[SILENCE]

Amen.

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[1] The Greek is enkainia, which can be translated “Renewal” and so “Rededication2.

Homily: What is the Kingdom of God like?

 Luke 13: 18-21

 

¹⁸ [Jesus] said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? ¹⁹ It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” ²⁰ And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? ²¹ It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

 

Jesus speaks in parables, sometimes mysteriously, sometimes clearly. Here surely he is clear. The kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed, which becomes a huge tree - just by doing what it does. The kingdom of God is like a little lump of yeast, which makes wheat rise to become bread - just by doing what it does. The message is clear. We get it.

 

What we may perhaps miss is that it seems Jesus is exaggerating. The tiny mustard seed in question doesn’t really grow into a tree; it’s a shrub. A little lump of yeast cannot really make the… 40 or so loaves of bread, that seem to be implied in the original Greek. So, Jesus is clear, and exaggerates to make his point clearer. We can get it.

 

There’s something else some commentators stress. They think these parables are subversive. They think Jesus intends to shock. They say the mustard shrub in question was more of a weed than a delicate garden plant. It’s not normally something you’d want. And a lump of yeast… well,  remember there are no sachets of grains involved here… a lump of yeast is well… at least it’s not pleasant. It is… slimy. I don’t know if Jesus is setting out to shock here. It is perhaps worth pondering.  

 

In any event, taking these parables as a whole, we can surely take heart from them. Take heart! If I/you/we, here, feel as small and overlooked as the tiniest seed… If I/you/we, here, feel as unsung and unvalued as a lump of something slimy… no matter! Jesus is reassuring us that it does not matter. Jesus is reassuring us that we can still do what is necessary to have the Kingdom of God grow among us. Remember: the seed and the yeast rise to great things… just by doing what they do.

 

So far, this may sound like optimism; it isn’t. So far, this may sound like naivety; it isn’t. This isn’t saying our plans are bound to work out eventually; Jesus has promised it. No. What then?

 

There is something else we must attend to. Jesus says the Kingdom of God grows when it is first hidden. To plant a seed is (by and large) to hide it. And as for the yeast, well the Greek explicitly says that the woman hides the yeast in the wheat [enekrupsen]. So, before we can ask how we are to show forth the Kingdom of God, we have to ask how we are hiding the Kingdom of God.

 

Don’t misunderstand me. Hiding the Kingdom doesn’t mean being reluctant to speak of God or Jesus. Hiding the Kingdom means making sure we are taking it as deeply into ourselves as can be, making it our own... making it our own, so that in the end no one can tell when we end, and the Kingdom begins. That’s quite a challenge. It is meant to be.

 

How to begin? We can begin by asking this question: How might I take something of the Kingdom of God, be at as small as a mustard seed, into my very self, today?

 

But I must warn you: it is one of those questions which, if you ask it, may give rise to an answer.

 

Amen.

Sermon. Christmas 1 and New Year's Eve. A Prison.

 

·        Isaiah 61:10-63:3

·        Galatians 4:4-7

·        Luke 2:15-21

 

Who remembers Christmas Day? It was only on Monday. As on Christmas Day, I will thank you for being here. I will say again that you do not have to be here. I have to be here. You do not. (And, as I said before, that is unusual in prison.) So, again, thank you for choosing to be here, and choosing to begin your week with worship.

 

I said on Monday that Christmas can be hard in prison. We all know it. I am not telling you anything you do not know. But it is sometimes – often – worth naming these things.

 

Well, today comes with difficulties of its own.

 

First, it is still Christmastide in the Church calendar. Our Gospel reading shows this most clearly. We are back with the story of the birth of Jesus.

Second – and again I am naming what is obvious – we meet on the last day of the year (the “secular” year – the year of our everyday calendars). Today is New Year’s Eve, and tomorrow is New Year’s Day. What, if anything, can we make of that?

 

Yet another obvious point is that many outside of prison will be partying hard this evening, and into the small hours. That’s not an option for you. Don’t get me wrong: we know you can find access to substances. But they won’t give you what they seem to promise. They won’t really provide a party atmosphere. So you may well be feeling a sense of loss, and additional one, on top of other senses of loss. (By the way, I am certainly not going to party; I am here again tomorrow.)

 

But New Year’s Day is about more than partying, or recovering from partying. New Year’s Day can be when people sit down and think about their lives. They may have great hopes for the year ahead. They may have great plans for the year ahead. They may make New Year resolutions. They may feel a real sense of freedom. They may say: “I am free to do what I want in this new, fresh, never-before year. I am going to claim my freedom this year!” And these things are… not impossible in prison, but they are harder to say in prison. So you may be feeling an additional narrowness (constraint) here, along with all the other narrownesses (constraints) you feel here.

 

Or perhaps these days mean nothing to you, and you wonder why I am going on, in this way. That would be perfectly fair. After all, it is not New Year in the Church calendar. New Year’s Day is Advent Sunday, which was back on 3 December, this time around. Tomorrow is the 8^th day of Christmas, where we also mark the naming and circumcision of Jesus. If we want to let this New Year go unmarked, we are perfectly free to do that.

 

There I go again, saying: “we are free”. You may well say: “Be honest, Patrick. You are free, and we are not.” I get that. I do get that. But there are different kinds of freedom. And some freedoms (the freedom to think, the freedom to orient your life as you see fit)… these can be yours too.

 

Let us consider today’s readings. In the first reading from Isaiah, the prophet rejoices in Gd, praises Gd. You are free to do that. Christians believe that we are made to praise Gd – we are worshipping animals – and no person and no system can stop you from praising Gd.

 

One thing that many people of faith find really helpful is to begin each day thanking Gd. I invite you to do this. Begin each day thanking Gd that you are alive, and then find at least three other things to thank Gd for, They will be there, if you look for them. Even when things are really hard, there will be things to give thanks for. The freedom to do this is yours, here and now. Claim it.  

 

In the second reading, from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Paul gives us some of the most encouraging words in the whole Bible. He says that as Spirit-filled Christians we have what we need to call Almighty Gd, Creator of heaven and earth… call Almighty Gd “Father”, “my Father”. Yes, this is one of the things you can give thanks for. “Thank you Gd, that you are my true Father; you love me with fatherly love; you will always love me with a fatherly love; you long for nothing more than for me to call you Father.” The freedom to say this and mean it is yours, Claim it.

 

And in today’s gospel we can give thanks for Jesus’s birth again, and for faithful Joseph, and the rejoicing shepherds. But let us pay attention especially to Mary. Mary

“treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart”.

Again, here is something for you. You can imitate Mary. You can ponder the words of Gd, and the things of Gd, in your heart. How to? It is not a puzzle. I say start in this way: on your own, sit still. Sit still, on your own. Say to Gd: “Gd, my Father, I am here. Be with me in the way that you want to be with me, and in the ways that are good for me. I am in no hurry.” And see what happens. You are free to do this. Claim it.   

 

And, look, we are also free, free to do something creative with the fact that tomorrow is called New Year’s Day. Some traditions do use New Year as a time to recommit to Gd. They may even speak of “renewing the covenant”. A covenant in the Bible is a binding commitment. And in the Bible Gd makes covenants with Gd’s people. Gd commits himself to us, so that we can commit ourselves to him. That’s quite something, if you think about it. Gd commits himself to us, so that we can commit ourselves to him.

 

I am going now to read the words of recommitment, of the renewal of the covenant. I invite you to say them after me. At the moment, I am inviting you to say them, just to see how they feel in your mouths, to see if they form something you want to say Yes too. Because this is a serious prayer. It’s the opposite of a throwaway: “Gd, please give me what I want”. Listen out for the seriousness. There will be a chance to say them as a prayer, later in the service.

 

I am no longer my own but yours.

Your will, not mine, be done in all things,

wherever you may place me,

in all that I do and in all that I may endure;

when there is work for me and when there is none;

when I am troubled and when I am at peace.

Your will be done

when I am valued and when I am disregarded;

when I find fulfilment and when it is lacking;

when I have all things and when I have nothing.

I willingly offer all that I have and am

to serve you, as and where you choose.

Glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours.

May it be so for ever.

Let this covenant now made on earth

be fulfilled in heaven.

Amen.[1]

 

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[1] Common Worship: Times and Seasons, p 111. © Archbishops Council 2006

Sermon for Christmas Day - A Prison

Gospel: John 1:1-14.

I will be honest with you. I am not sure whether to begin with “please” or with “thank you”. But, actually, now I think about it, a good motto for life is: if in doubt about what to say, say thank you. It applies to human beings often, and to God always.

If in doubt about what to say to God, say thank you.

And I want to say thank you to you, my brothers. Why? Because you are here. You do not have to be here. In prison life (we know) you often have to be in certain places at certain times, or penalties follow. But none of you has to be here. The only one who has to be here is me (well, and the Officers who are kindly assisting us). That’s worth thinking about.

You have chosen freely to come here, and together we mark Christmas as one. We mark Christmas not with great feasting – I don’t have turkeys and mince pies hidden away – not with feasting, but with worship. We are here to worship. And I thank you for it. Thank you.

Christmas in prison is hard. We do not have to hide from that. I am not going to say it is a good thing to be a prisoner in prison on Christmas Day. I won’t insult you. Only, there is just this one thing, one aspect of Christmas in prison:

it just is easier to strip away the false layers.

The voices that say it is all only about partying and excesses, and getting on with everyone without any effort “because it’s Christmas”. These voices we can shut up. Or we can let them fade away.

What is left? I am going to put it simply:

what is left is the truth of the Christmas story,

the earthy story of the birth of Jesus.

You know, you know already that the story is of difficult times:

·        a difficult announcement by an angel,

·        difficult journeys,

·        a difficult search for a place to rest,

·        a difficult ruler

·        making for a difficult flight.

There weren’t any crackers or tinsel or sparkling lights. There probably wasn’t even a party, at least not one that took weeks to plan. So be it! This is the reality. And we, even here, even now, are free to embrace that reality. The real Christmas can be ours, can be yours, even here, even now. Thank you for being here. Here, where the real Christmas is.

And so to my “please”. I want to say “please” to you, brothers.

“Please… forgive me”.

Please forgive me, if you came here today expecting the whole Christmas story I have just referred to – you know, with angels and shepherds, and journeys, and Mary and Joseph, and the manger.

It’s perfectly fair that you might expect that.

Now, you do get a lot of it in our carols. But it is true that you don’t get any of it in our readings. And I am sorry about that. Sorry, but it had to be. Had to be, because in my Church the one reading you simply have to have at Christmas is the Gospel reading we have had. And that is the opening of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…” and so on. Why? We’ll come back to that.

After my thank you (thank you for being here)

and my please (please forgive me),

I want to add one other thing.

That is: “I wonder”.

I wonder… if you can tell me something.

I wonder if you can tell me where Jesus was born?

[Participation]

There are many answers you can give: in Israel/Palestine; in Judaea; in Bethlehem; within the family of Mary and Joseph; in a manger. But, sure, among the answers that people tend to give, we’ll always have:

in a stable.

But! But you will not find any mention of a stable in the gospels, or anywhere else in the New Testament for that matter. We in the West have tended to think about a stable, because of that reference to a manger.

What is a manger? ... A feeding trough. So animals are around. If they are not right there (they too are not actually mentioned), they must have been near enough by. As they would be in a stable.

But! But there are other possibilities.

One is that Jesus might have been born in a cave. There are caves around Bethlehem to this day, and a cave is, of course, a good place to shelter animals. It’s a natural shelter. All you may have to do is put a feeding trough in, and, there you are: an animal shelter. So was Jesus born in a cave?

Another thing to bear in mind is that, in the ancient world, families and animals often stayed under one roof. People didn’t have the money for more than one building. So, when the weather was bad enough for animals to need shelter, the animals slept in one part of the building, and the people slept in another part. What this means is: Jesus gave birth in a back room which animals would also use, not in the guest room, a guest room with some luxuries, some comfort.

So, I wonder. I wonder what you think?

Was Jesus born in a stable, a cave, or a back room?

I cannot tell you. But I also wonder this: I wonder if it makes any difference. I myself think it makes little difference. What is important is what Luke’s gospel makes very plain: Jesus was placed in a feeding trough,

because otherwise there was no room for him.

That is, I think, the most difficult part of the difficult story of Christmas.

God comes to us, to us, human beings, and we have no room for him. We give him no room. He is pushed out, pushed to a place which will do, but only just. There is no room for Jesus, who has come to help, guide, and heal us. We human beings say – all of us in different ways – to Jesus:

“No. Not here. Not with me. Go over there.

I am giving you no room.”

And there is this. This of course means that Jesus is from the beginning close to those who are also told that society has no room for them. I won’t labour this point. You get this point. It means

Jesus is from the beginning especially close to you, brothers.  

So, why must we hear, today of all days,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh…”?

There is a reason. A good reason.

Today (and every day) we need to hear that

the Word was (and is) God, and the Word became flesh.

Became flesh and blood like you and me.

God is God as God is God.

And God is a human being as human beings are human beings.

So what?

What this means is that when we meet with God in Jesus,

it really is God.

It is not a faint echo of God.

It is not some idea of God.

It is not even some teaching from God.

But it is God as God is God.

 

You see, Christianity is all about intimacy.

We meet with God.

You meet with God.

You are invited,

here and now (and always) to meet with God.

You are invited to be with God.

That’s the best Christmas invitation of all.

And it is for you.

 

We can say “thank you” to God in Jesus for this closeness.

We can say “please” to God in Jesus, 

that we will be helped truly to make the most of this.

We can say “I wonder” –

I wonder how God can love us so much

that God freely comes to a place where there is no room for him.

Amen.