Sermon.
1 June 2025. St John the Evangelist’s, Ovington
Easter
7 (Year of Luke)
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
He
is risen indeed! Alleluia!
[Reminder
about BSL response.]
Yes,
it is still Eastertide! The tone, or the mood, changes slightly, as we have
marked the Ascension on Thursday, and as we must in one way or another be
looking towards Pentecost next Sunday., Nevertheless, it is important that we
remind ourselves that we are still in the Easter season. That we draw upon the
core Christian belief. The one that makes all the rest fall into place. And
that core – that heart – is that Christ is risen from the dead. And, remember
Mary Magdalene: I have seen the Lord. And so we say:
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
He
is risen indeed! Alleluia!
All
of that said, today I am going to do something I have not done yet, in our
time, and something I will do only very rarely (but will do from time to time).
I mean I am going to spring from our readings (set for the 7th
Sunday of Easter season), and refer to another calendar. I do this, because
there is an interesting conflation of calendars today.
You
see, this evening, Pentecost begins. “Wait!” I hear you cry, “you’ve just told
us that Pentecost is next Sunday. How can it begin this evening!” Well, this
evening Pentecost begins, too. Why…
Because
this evening marks the beginning of the Jewish Pentecost, which
goes by the Hebrew name, Shavuot, meaning Sevens, or Weeks. What does
the Jewish Feast of Pentecost/Shavuot/Weeks mark? What does it mean? What did
it mean to the apostles, in the time before the descent of the
Holy Spirit upon them?
In
the Bible, it is clear. This Feast is harvest festival! More precisely, it
marks the wheat harvest. Passover marks the barley harvest, and then the people
count 49 days, and on the 50th day, the wheat will be ripe, ripe for
the harvest. It’s really a practical matter, about he agricultural year in the land
of Israel.
We
can already see why this is a good – a fitting – day for the descent of the
Holy Spirit, and what at least is often called the Birthday of the Church. In
the power, the energy, the liveliness of the Spirit, the apostles are no longer
bewildered mourners (bewildered also by their resurrection experiences). They
are missionaries. And they go out to bring in the harvest. To bring the harvest
home. And that begins on the very day of the Bible’s own wheat harvest.
Well
and good, but there is perhaps something more. It’s not in the Bible but in
later Jewish tradition the Feast of Pentecost/Shavuot/Weeks marks something
more. Another meaning comes to take precedence. It is the Feast that marks the
Giving of Torah at Sinai.
The
Giving of Torah. I am using the Hebrew word (Torah). The usual English
translation is “Law”. The Giving of the Law, to Moses on Sinai. But, well, it’s
not a good translation. And it’s especially not a good translation if we think
of “the Law” as a bad thing, a cold thing, a thing which suggests that God is
distant, that God is a rule-giver first, that God burdens Israel with
apparently countless rules. Have any of us as Christians thought these things
about the commandments that came through Moses? It would be surprising if we
had not.
In
Jewish thinking the commandments of the Torah are a burden in the sense that
they are tasks. The children of Israel do have a lot to be getting on with. But
they are also a great privilege, and so they are also a joy. The giving of
Torah – with all its commandments – is something to celebrate. Indeed you mark
it by eating dairy products, and sweet things. Why? Because a life ruled by
Torah, by the commandments from Sinai is like living in a land flowing with
milk and honey. Law, Torah, milk, honey. Sweetness, and life! In other words, more
than a burden, it is a great privilege to be shown how to live in ways which
please God, by knowing, learning, and practising the ways God Godself shows us.
This is why – in Jewish thinking – the children of Israel at that time at Sinai
shouted out: “we will do and we will hear” [Exodus 24:7]. They
were (on one reading) willing to do them even before they heard them. Law,
Torah, milk, honey. Sweetness, and life!
When
did this idea that Pentecost marked the Giving of Torah enter into Jewish
thinking? We don’t know. I say again: it is nowhere in the Bible. But there is
some evidence it might have been around, maybe by the time of Jesus, or at
least by the time Luke was writing the Acts of the Apostles.
So
that would give us another resonance for Christian Pentecost. If this is right,
we are meant to feel some of the excitement of Sinai. Let me say again: Law,
Torah, milk, honey. Sweetness, and life! A way of life to immerse yourselves
in. A way of life that comes with God’s blessing. That first Christian
Pentecost wasn’t so much a showy magical event, with strange tongues of fire
and strange tongues of speech. No, it was about entering into the way of life
which the Spirit teaches, which, yes, the Spirit commands. Like a Sinai, there
was a meeting with God, who gave us something to do!
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
He
is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I
will say one thing more thing, as a coda. I have learned and reflected on such
as the above, because there has been over half a century of Jewish-Christian
dialogue, Jewish-Chrisian rapprochement, a coming together of Jews and
Christians. This is something to celebrate in its own right. (And it happens
that this year is the anniversary of an important milestone in that journey.
But more about that anon.)
The
thing about good dialogue is that it makes truth-telling possible. We can be
candid with each other. The State of Israel is one thing at the heart of
Judaism for many Jews. Christians have to do the hard work of understanding
that. Judaism is not Christianity without Christ. No. It has its own energies
and focus. And a focus on the Land of Israel, and derivatively on the State of
Israel (as what makes living Jewishly in the Land possible) is most certainly one
such focus.
But!
But that doesn’t ever mean that Jews or Christians must slavishly agree with –
still less support – the policies of any particular government of the State of
Israel, or any particular Israeli politicians. And among both Jews and
Christians many are saying that now is the time when we simply have to speak
out about what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza. Denying food to
civilians. Killing civilians. Engaging in a war that doesn’t seem to have any
goal, any goal, that is, apart from, it seems, removing or wiping out Gazan
Palestinians altogether.
This
sermon is of course not the place even to begin to set out the various
arguments on all sides (there are more than two). But I do urge us all to do
this. To pray for Israelis and Palestinians. To pray for Gazans. To pray for
those in power. To pray for the innocent children. To pray for a solution. And
if you are minded to take action and find out more, or protest, do not, as it
were, sit on that inclination, squash it down, but live it out.
For
we live in the excitement of Easter, yes, and in the excitement of Pentecost
(Pentecosts!), but also in the agony of a real world not yet put right.
Amen.
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