Sermon. How Creation Groans! How We Groan!

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 19.07.20.

First Sunday with a real-life congregation since lockdown.

Trinity 6 (Year A)

Romans 8.12-25

We spent some time with Paul last week. Let us see what happens if we stick with him.

He tells us: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves… groan inwardly.”

We can relate.

I feel we can relate in many ways.

We sense that all is not well with ourselves, 
or within creation itself.

We don’t have to be an “eco-warrior” to sense this.

Bluntly, it’s long been part of the modern urban experience.

The noises and smells and sights of our life 
are often overwhelmingly human-made, 
and not infrequently harm us.

And we are aware that all is not well with our climate, 
the world’s climate. 
We do pay serious attention to, in this parish, 
and we need to do more.

And, then, yes, of course, there is the virus, 
Coronavirus, Covid-19, which has had such an impact on us,

kept us apart,

kept us (with a couple of exceptions) away from the sacraments,

kept us away from our coffee and toast and chat and ordinary human interaction, through which we care for each other,

still keeps us apart in so many ways.

Is the virus a sign that all is not well within creation itself?

Difficult one.

From the virus’s point of view, all is well, of course.

But from our human perspective, and remembering our duty of care to creation and to one another, especially our vulnerable brothers and sisters,we can only see the virus as another sign of the disorder which is embedded in creation.

Some people on the extreme wing of the politics of this have seen the virus as nature fighting back, clearing out excess human lives to restore balance.

This is a nonsense and that needs saying.

Nature as such does not have a controlling mind, 
does not have a plan, is not playing a strategic game.

Gd, we believe, is a 
mind ultimately in charge, with a plan, over time.

But it’s evident – has always been evident - that Gd gives over some real powers to the natural order, to grow and develop, as, well… as comes naturally.

So we should not say that nature intended Covid-19,

and we are not obliged to say that Gd intended Covid-19.

Really, my point here is that when Paul says all creation is groaning, we feel it.

We get it.

Today of all days.  

*

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves… groan inwardly.”

How we have groaned! How we groan!

We have spoken of a time of exile. And we have felt it.

We have spoken of our time in the desert, confined to our own personal cell (the cell that will teach us everything). And we have felt it.

We have spoken of being overwhelmed by our almost total ignorance about what’s really ahead. And we have felt it.

We have spoken of some frustrations with the powers-that-be, in government and Church. I mean: even when we have agreed with their decision-making, we know we have been at the mercy of others’ best guesses. And we have felt it.

We have spoken of our enormous sadness, 

as people we have known have suffered, and even died,

and as we have come to see ourselves - our own little, Little Ilford, as, for a time, the epicentre of the epicentre of the epicentre.

The sorrow - we have felt it.

We have sought to support each other, through emails and phone calls and parcels left. We (I mean: you) have done well in all that (no question about it), and yet we still feel we offer something meagre, weak, and failing.

Inadequacy - we have felt it.  

How we have groaned! How we groan!

“[N]ot only the creation, but we ourselves… groan inwardly while we wait…”

Yes, present tense. Yes, we are still waiting.

Has there ever been such a bittersweet gathering for us than this one?

It can only be - and we can only feel it to be - a partial gathering.

Some will have no access to this service, either physically or virtually.

We want to invite those livestreaming to participate fully, but there remain all manner of barriers (most obviously to the sacrament itself).

For those who are here in person, we cannot touch.

No tactile peace (not a handshake, let alone the kisses than some of you steal at that point in the service – oh yes, you were always seen!).

No touch at communion, or at the blessing at communion.

And no reassuring hand on the shoulder when difficult - or delightful - news is shared.

For most of us, not even a chance simply to lean over to the person in the next seat just to check what verse we are on in the hymn.

No hymns at all, no song.  

How we groan! We groan while we wait, for we are waiting still!

*

We groan, only we may not groan too loudly.

We are not permitted to project our voices as we’d like to. The ban on singing is the hardest part of this, I know, but it is only part of it. We are to use moderate pitch only, to speak softly and quietly. Again, for our own life-saving safety, and the life-saving safety of others.

It happens that there are religious and spiritual precedents for this. Jewish prayer is often said in a soft, hushed voice. For some Jewish prayer, you should hear what you are saying, but your neighbour should not hear you. And of course in normal circumstances, that means the person immediately to the side of you. The idea may be that this is the best way to concentrate on the words themselves, to attend to the prayer, to intend the content of the prayer. Is that right? Well, now we can test it. We can treat this, then, as an opportunity to pray differently.

The model for this way of praying is Hannah in the Old Testament [1 Sam 1.12ff]. You may remember she prayed in the temple at Shiloh in such a way as to make the priest – the judgemental priest – Eli think she was drunk. He could not make out the words she was mouthing, and so assumed the worst. But she – faithful, confident laywoman – told the priest off. 
She made it clear she was pouring out her deepest longings, her pain and her hope, her hope-against-hope, only in a whispered tone, knowing that a whispered prayer is not less a prayer than a shouted or a chanted prayer.

*

We groan. We speak sotto voce.

And what do we say? 
We too speak of our deepest longings, our pain and our hope, be it hope-against-hope.

And we do more. We may do more. 
We are free to do more.

We are free to place all our longings and pain and hope in a broader context, 
as tear-drops given a home in an ocean.

That ocean can be our confidence that

Gd has not abandoned us;

Gd does not abandon us;

Gd will not abandon us;

Gd is sharing with us in precisely this bittersweet experience.

What makes us have this confidence (or be drawn towards this confidence)?

It is not a philosophy, nor a set of rules, nor an idle tale.

The confidence can be said to rest on one claim.

This is the claim that Gd by Gd’s Spirit has raised Jesus from the dead,

and Jesus Christ remains with us for all time,

in Word and Sacrament and mystical encounter,

as sign and reality of the very presence of Gd.

I’m saying our old friend St Seraphim (who, as you know, greeted everyone, whenever he met them, with: “My joy! Christ is risen!") wasn’t really an eccentric in his core point. 
Every second, minute, hour, day – and most certainly every Sunday – is the Feast of Resurrection.  

So what is to be done?

We go on groaning, with all creation.

We go on all-but-whispering our words, like Hannah.

And (“and” not “but”) we may articulate a heart-felt  [signed] Alleluia.

Like many an alleluia sung in praise, this alleluia does not mean our lives our overflowing with success or comfort or triumph or the resolution of our problems. 
Of course not.

But neither was the first Easter a simple story 
of success or comfort or triumph or resolution 
(think about it).

So, sisters and brothers, let us, here and now, “easter”.

[Signed and then said]

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Amen.

Sermon. How Is There No Condemnation?

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels with St Mary, Little Ilford. 12.07.20

Trinity 5 (Year A)

Romans 8.1-11

(following on from Trinity 4: Romans 7.15-25a)

I am going to do something I have not done before. I am going to speak about a biblical text we have not heard today. And I am going to do something I’ve done only very rarely. I am going to preach on the Second Reading, the Letter, the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. And since this is Paul we are talking about, I won’t manage to be all that brief. I’ll pause for a moment while you all whoop for joy! (You’re doing it inwardly, I can tell.)

Paul is indeed someone it is easy and fashionable to dislike. He is often hard to understand. That’s an understatement. The greatest minds in the history of the Church have struggled to find him consistent. On top of that, he can come across as misogynist and homophobic. And behind that some (many) see in Paul a hatred of the body. As if for Paul the body is bad and to be put in its place (as small as possible) and the soul is good, and to be set free.

I ask you to trust me that the last point (at least) is a plausible but wrong reading of Paul. Most of the time, Paul speaks highly of the body. He it is, after all, who tells us that we are the Body of Christ [1 Cor 12.27]. And he clearly intends that as a great -the greatest - honour. The contrast he draws isn’t really between the body and the soul. It this. It’s between

·        ourselves as embodied human beings as Spirit-filled, and so in a lively relationship with Gd, and

·        ourselves as embodied human beings as seeking to have nothing to do with Gd and Gd’s Spirit.

If we are not in harmony with the Spirit, Paul tells us, then we are flesh. We are, we might say, barely living organic matter. It’s extreme language and an extreme contrast, for sure. But it’s not really to do with preferring the soul to the body.

And, you know, whether we understand Paul or not, whether we disagree with him on this or that (which we are free to), let us at least thank him for sharing so much of his inner life with us. Paul feels things deeply. There isn’t another biblical writer whose existential reflections, thoughts, feeling and inner wrestlings we’re let into like we are with Paul. We’d be the poorer without knowing of his struggles, even if, as I say, we don’t always get them.

So, let’s go back to last week’s message from Paul, from Romans. Paul tells us, as bluntly as you like:

“I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me…

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And that’s where we left things last week. And this week, we continue:

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Now, we cannot say that is unclear. It is as clear as it is uplifting.

We can relate. In human lives, we are often “dysfunctional” (to use the modern word). We don’t do what we intend to do. We do do what we set out to avoid. That might be full-blown addiction (which is not rare). It might be those habits we have, (say) of finding someone irritating, who means nothing by it and really can’t help how they are. Or… variations are endless. Whatever it is, we are trapped in this behaviour and can feel desperate. But! But Paul tells us we can turn to Christ, who will free us of these traps, who will free and forgive us, and leave us without any condemnation. Of course we want to say: “Thanks be to God”.

God in Christ frees us from the hold of sin and guilt. It is a powerful message. It is a welcome message. I think we can say without contradiction that it is an orthodox message. There is only one problem with it. It’s this:

it is not what the text of Romans says.

No, I am afraid our lectionary-devisers have edited something out. Just one half-verse, admittedly. We know they often do miss bits out. We can’t pretend to be shocked by that. But here the missing bit… well, if I say it changes the meaning, I’m underplaying the point.

The text of Romans – you’re very welcome to check this now or later – does indeed say:

“Who will rescue me…?... Thanks be to Gd… There is now no condemnation”

But by putting back in the bit left out we get this flow of argument:

“Who will rescue me [from the hold of sin]? Thanks be to Gd through Jesus Christ…

“So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

“There is now no condemnation”

I’ll pause to see if you get a sense of how different the message is, with the bit taken out put back in.

With the bit taken out put back in, Romans seems to be saying that even though with our flesh we are and remain a slave to the law of sin, nevertheless there is no condemnation.

With the bit taken out put back in, the idea is not so much that Christ takes away the big conundrum of our failing to do what we set out to do, as moral or caring people.

No. This way round, the message is that Christ knows that this conundrum is and remains our nature, and Christ loves and forgives us any way.

Two very different, indeed opposed meanings. What do we do with this?

Well, in the first place, if you want to treat this sermon as something like a “Public Service Announcement” - a reminder always to read the bits the lectionary itself misses out - then, well and good. Please do. To be candid, you will find other examples when the change in meaning is pretty much as dramatic by putting the bits left out back in. So I am calling for more Bible-reading outside of the liturgy. Yes.

Second, it’s only fair to say that our lectionary-devisers were not being capricious in cutting out the half-verse. Many commentators see them as words added later, by a scribe, not Paul. They were not, then, part of Paul’s original message. That’s certainly plausible. We have already how much easier Paul is to understand with the bit taken out left out: I sin. I don’t know how to stop sinning. Christ frees me. Thank God. I am no longer condemned. So, maybe that’s right; maybe that is Paul.

Except… Except this isn’t really an abstract point, or one for the experts, a detail only? We can look at our own experience as Christians to test out which meaning actually works.

• Is it the case that by being in Christ we are simply freed from those strange, unwelcome, even agonising pulls to do what is wrong and unkind?
• Is it the case that if we are not condemned, that is because we are freed from sin, are sinless (or virtually sinless)?
• Can it be that Paul, in all his complexity, really Paul meant to say it’s as simple as that?

I am going to say that even if the bit left out put back in was added later by a scribe, the scribe was inspired. The Christian - the devout Christian, the fervent Christian, the wise Christian - every bit as much as the non-Christian, lives life as one who does not do the good they want, but the bad they do not want to do is what they do.

This doesn’t mean there is no change. This doesn’t mean we do not grow as Christians. And indeed along the way (please Gd), we are freed from abiding sins and habits and attitudes that hold us back. But the strange thing is that the more we are freed from some weaknesses, the better we see others. So the dynamic (the conundrum, as I’ve called it) continues.

I intend this to be a hopeful message. It is a hopeful message. I am not saying we are simply stuck in our sins. It’s not a cycle we endlessly repeat, till we die. The image is not of a circle, a closed circle, but of a spiral, an open spiral. By Gd’s grace we are rising, rising to be fit for the glory and joy and communion of heaven. But the rising up is not a straight line, but, like a spiral, along the way we revisit old themes, among them sin, weakness, stuckness, loss of control, coldness of heart. But by Gd’s grace we revisit them from a new, a higher vantage point.

And if that makes little sense to you (as it might), let me tell you it can be a powerful message for, say, a prison chaplain. Sometimes prisoners can be people of real faith, worked-for faith, but can look at the wreckage in their lives and feel despair. They can feel hopelessly trapped. So that idea, that we do not simply cast off sin, but can still be on that spiral upwards, revisiting our sinfulness, from a healthier place, can really speak. To some, to many, and I think I will say, just perhaps, to all.   

Thanks be to Gd,

·        for Paul’s confused and confusing honesty, and, just perhaps,

·        for our lectionary-devisers, who force us sometimes to preach even on Romans!

Amen.

Sermon: The Corinthians as the Curate's Egg of Congregations

Sermon. St Vedast-alias-Foster, City of London

Epiphany 2 (Year A)

Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

How are you? Here's a piece of advice you can pass on to your new priest for free: it is almost always good to ask people how they are, and if you can ask it, and really care (you know: listen for the answer), you are a large part of the way there to being a pastor.

That also applies to you directly of course, as you continue to minister to one another, and to those who stumble into this church for whatever reason, and indeed as you will minister to your minister. For the idea that the priest dispenses spiritual goods to their flock, who simply receive, is, as well we know, nonsense. You will be pastors to him, and that is as it is meant to be (we are meant to need each other). So never fear to ask him and one another: How are you?

Here is a related question: How would you be, if you were a Corinthian? Let me focus in: How would you be, if you were a member of the emergent church at Corinth in the first century, and the person in front of you was – not me, and not Paul for that matter, but – the person charged with proclaiming to you what Paul had written to all of you, about all of you? How, then, would you feel?

I think you would feel... 'good' (as we now say). Or 'in a good place'. I think you would feel encouraged. You would hear Paul giving thanks to Gd for you, and the grace in you. Here – I'll remind you - Paul is improving - or subverting - the secular Greek letter-writing convention. The convention was to greet the readers with chairein (greetings), and go on to praise them. Paul praises Gd, and offers and speaks of charis (grace), a similar, related word, but with more theological heft. So, as hearers of this letter from Paul – and a letter from Paul is probably a new thing in your church life – a Fresh Expression, we might say – you feel 'in a good place' and encouraged.

Except it is not that simple. We have to dig a little deeper. Yes, Paul is gracious and at heart affirming. There is something of an inclusio in the passage we have; Paul ends as he begins. So Paul begins by saying that you Corinthias are sanctified and called to be saints. You have been made saintly, and will be saintly. Except that the words 'to be' in 'called to be saints' are absent in the Greek... which makes it even better. It means we can say that you Corinthias are called, here and now, already, as saints, as holy ones. And that's all of you, as a collectivity (Paul nowhere calls an individual 'a saint' by the way). And Paul concludes by saying that Christ will strengthen you (this time it is the future tense) to the end, so that you will be blameless, because you have already been called into fellowship with him.

Good news all round! Your salvation is secure. You belong to Christ and Christ's Church. You are valued and of value.

But... but we still need to look at precisely what Paul gives thanks for, in you. It is three things:

• your speech or your words (logos);
• your knowledge (gnosis);
• your spiritual gifts, or your giftedness (charismata).

Now, all of these things seem to be very good things indeed. We want them. A church community is the richer for them.

But... (and I am now coming to the problem)... precisely these things –

• ideas about our own speech,
• our own knowledge
• and our own possession of spiritual gifts –

these are what Paul has hard and harsh words to say about, throughout his letter. He never or rather seldom says they are bad things. He does say that they can be – and for the Corinthians, they are – the right things in the wrong place.

Right-and-wrong attitudes to knowledge Paul discusses in chapter eight, for example. This begins: 'Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.' Paul goes on to tread a very fine line over what was evidently a painful and controversial matter in the Corinthian community (strange though it may seem to us), about whether and when Christians may eat meat which may have been involved in some pagan ceremony.

And he rules out 'knowledge' as an arbiter, or at least knowledge claiming to know more than love knows. He even goes on to say that knowledge can destroy your fellow Christians.

And for Paul's questioning or undermining of all three (speech, knoweldge and gifts) we can turn to an old friend – I mean 1 Corinthians 13. That hymn to love begins in a very particular way. We may miss it, as we lose ourselves in the poetry and think, quite wrongly, of romantic love. But this is how St Paul actually begins chapter thirteen: 'If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers [gifts], and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing [outhen eimi - 1Co 13:1-2 NRSV]'

There it is, Paul at his bluntest: right speech, right giftedness and right knowledge without love are nothing.

These are but the two most obvious examples. Paul has a lot to criticise – to express alarm about – in the Corinthians' behaviour. It actually begins in the very next verses after today's apparently affirming passage. Paul goes straight on to say: 'Now I appeal to you... that there be no divisions among you... For it has been reported to me... that there are quarrels among you.' [1Co 1:10-11 NRS] Thus Paul, for all his wordiness at times, can be summed up as simply this: 'Corinthians, for all your speech, knowledge and giftedness, you are a divided and quarrelsome bunch, and you need to begin to learn to love.'

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to be crystal clear that I am not saying that about you. I am not. (I am taking a risk in preaching as I do, lest I be heard as speaking of you. I simply am not. And I certainly did not know your PCC meeting followed and I make no reference at all to the matters connected thereto. No.) I am also not saying that you will need to decipher your new preacher in the way that I have tried to decipher Paul. Again, no. Let him speak with clarity and candour, always.

But I am saying that the absence from today's epistle is powerful, is moving, and can speak to us all. What is absent is love. Paul sees no love (or no love loving enough to be worthy of comment) in the Corinthians. Can we not see this as bitter medicine? I mean: who would like the eulogy at their funeral to be solely about how articulate, clever and gifted they were? So, do we not imagine that the Corinthians also – not of course the first time they heard this epistle, but the second or subsequent times – would themselves feel the absence of the reference to love, and be pained?

It is said that the last words of St John the Evangelist were 'little children, love one another'. And today I take a leaf out of his book.

And another from the book of Rabbi Lionel Blue of Blessed and Righteous Memory. (You knew there'd be a Jewish reference; I did not want to disappoint you.) He said that his mother at one point, prior to his being ordained a rabbi, said something like: 'Lionel, all this religion – will it make you a kinder person?' He took this as a serious, indeed a religious question.

And our own Rowan Williams has said this, in that august theological periodical, the Evening Standard: 'At the very basic level, religion is uncompromisingly committed to not ignoring people. My faith is one which tells me everybody is worth whatever time, attention and love you can possibly give.' (1)

This can come in many forms. It is not niceness or politeness; it emphatically is not about refusing to rock the boat. It can come from a fierce prophet like Isaiah, or an even fiercer more-than-a-prophet, like John the Baptist - kindness in the form of passionate truth-telling; tough love. Call it love, call it kindness, call it serious and committed and costly attention to the other as the other is – it is what we are about, always and everywhere, regardless of circumstance. It's who we are. It is how we are.

Amen. 

(1) http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2530/evening-standard-interview-with-archbishop-rowan-williams

Sermon: Paul Takes on the Foolish Galatians

Sermon. St Vedast-alias-Foster. 29 May 2016.

First Sunday after Trinity (Year C)

Galatians 1.1-12

Luke 7.1b-10

• Have you ever received a letter where every letter was cut out of a newspaper? Gd forbid!
• Have you ever been given a letter written in green ink? I hope not.
• Have you ever had a letter telling you everything you believe is nonsense (or worse) and putting you right by giving you the pure truth? Perhaps you have (if, for example, you have ever had a letter published in the Church Times, which, for some reason, prints your full address - I know whereof I speak).
• Have you ever been on the receiving end of abuse on social media? I think @StVedast may have been spared that aspect of the twittersphere. But if you are especially active in social media, chances are you will have been unceremoniously insulted.

Why do I ask these questions? Well, I want to suggest that St Paul's letter to the Galatians has some (I emphasise: some) of the qualities of a letter written in green ink. He is being blunt to the point of rudeness. But we may miss this if we don't know the conventions of letter-writing which Paul is breaking.

Today's Second Reading is the opening of the epistle. Paul introduces himself, according to convention. (You sign in rather than sign off.) He then gives his characteristic greeting 'grace to you and peace'. Grace is charis in Greek which may be taken as a homophonic adaptation of the secular opening, 'chairein', or 'Greetings'. 'Peace' (eirene in Greek) resonates with the well-known Hebrew greeting, 'shalom'. So it it likely that Paul is here implicitly insisting that Christianity is a blending of the best of Greek and Hebrew/Jewish traditions.

Crucially, though, what his readers would then have been expecting from him would be a hymn of praise to Gd mentioning them, thanking Gd for their existence, and for their gifts and virtues. For example, this is from the opening of Paul's letter to the Philippians:

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. [Phil 1.3-6]

If you had grounds to expect something as affirming as that, just imagine how shocked you would be when, instead, you hear this:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel... there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Perhaps you see now why I say Paul is being blunt to the point of rudeness. St Paul is not a cruel writer (though I realise I may have to convince some of you of that over coffee). So what is so exercising him? It is not hard to discover.

Some in the community in Galatia were urging male gentile participants to be circumcised. And this meant much more than a moment's ritual - and rather more moments of pain. No, it meant that the one circumcised, and his female companions, were committing to keep the whole of Torah, all the 613 commandments which Jews believe originated in the meeting with Gd on Sinai.

St Paul thought that was wrong. Very wrong. Dangerous. Undermining. So he is strong in his opposition. Later, he calls the Law/Torah a curse [3.10-14]. And later still he even says: 'I wish those who advise these things would castrate themselves' [5.12]. Or mutilate themselves. He seems to be saying: let those who seek the circumcision of male gentiles rather endure an extra circumcision themselves! Brutal stuff.

And it gets worse. For it is in no small part because of this letter that later Christians saw an unbridgeable chasm between

• on the one hand, Moses and Sinai and Torah and Law (bad),
• and on the other hand Christ and the Cross and freedom and grace (good).
  Judaism and all its ways – many have understood Paul as saying – is passing away, its purposes fulfilled in Christ. As no one needs a guardian or satchel-bearer or nanny as an adult, so now all those specifically Jewish commandments – which no one ever kept fully any way – serve no purpose. Bluntly (on this reading), Judaism and Christianity are against each other.

It is worth pausing here to take full cognizance of the radically different message from today's gospel, from Luke. Here we have what we must surely call interfaith harmony. And note that the harmony actually precedes the arrival of Jesus on the scene. Already the centurion, although from the occupying power, has got to know both Jews and Judaism, and is evidently profoundly sympathetic, to the point of building a synagogue. The centurion and the Jews around him show mutual respect, understanding and empathy. Indeed, the text itself speaks of love. Thus the centurion already has the insight he needs to see in Jesus an impressive figure from the faith he loves, who can heal. Yet he apparently has seen no need to convert to Judaism, and was apparently under no pressure from Jews to do so. So indeed: interfaith relations at their richest and most hopeful.

Back to St Paul. And the good and hopeful news is that the oppositional reading of Galatians I've just presented – that Judaism and Christianity are opposed to one another – has been severely criticised over several decades now, and has been undermined.

Scholars have noticed that nowhere – not in Galatians, nor elsewhere – does Paul suggest that Jewish boys should avoid circumcision. Indeed, twice in Galatians Paul says that neither cirumcision nor uncircumcision count for anything. But that cuts both ways (no pun intended). It means there's no special virtue attached to being uncircumcised either. It follows that Paul's argument must be that Jews - but only Jews – should circumcise their sons. And the whole question is entirely irrelevant when it comes to the matter of salvation. You don't need to be Jewish to be saved.

Scholars have also noted that this understanding – that you don't have to be Jewish to be saved – is actually itself very Jewish. It's part of rabbinic Judaism – that's much later than Paul but probably with very early roots. Let me remind you of the Tosefta (Sanhedrin 105a), which insists (and I quote): 'The righteous of all the nations have a share in the world to come'.

Further, even the idea that Torah is something like a curse, an all-but-unbearable heavy burden, is something rabbinic Jews might themselves say – when engaging a potential convert. Within a Jewish circle, Torah is hard work, but also a huge privilege, offering real intimacy with Gd. But when discussing it with someone who says they want to convert, in order to be sure that their motivation is pure, you present the Jewish way at its most negative. Let me, again, refresh your memory of the process of accepting a convert set out in the Talmud (Yevamot, 47 a & b). The Jew says: 'Do you not know that Israel is now afflicted, persecuted, humbled, distracted and suffering chastisements?' and goes on to make clear all the penalties for disobeying laws the gentile currently does not have to keep. (By the way, the successful convert says in reply only: 'I know, and am not worthy'.)

It is certainly possible that Paul is standing near the beginning of this rabbinic Jewish tradition of presenting Torah as negatively as possible to those who are drawn to it. So his argument is not at all that Judaism is done-away-with. Rather, it is that the Church must be an internally diverse community. I'd say the Church is necessarily a multinational body, but I don't want to be heard as commenting on any imminent referendums.

What I must say is this: for Paul, the Church is a community we join as we are. No one need 'cross the floor'. No one need pretend to be something they are not. The one thing that is absolute according to Paul is Christ's welcome. It is for all. It is for you.

'Just as I am without one plea

save that thy blood was shed for me'

Charlotte Elliott's Edwardian sentiment actually echoes down through the centuries right back to Paul and the Galatians. Paul's rudeness – ruder than we should ever dare to be in our church discourse, even with recalcitrant bishops or archdeacons, I hope – is because he felt in his bones that this universal acceptance was being obscured. Indeed, lost.

As we now enter into the great period of Ordinary Time, green after green, perhaps we can forgive Paul his metaphorical green pen, and with him, with Charlotte Elliott, with the centurion, make Christ's welcome, and Christ's healing, our own. Just as we are, without one plea. 

Amen. 

Sermon. Lent 3: Kierkegaard &co

Sermon. St Vedast-alias-Foster, City of London. 28.02.16

Third Sunday of Lent (Year 3)

Isaiah 55.1-9

1 Corinthians 10.1-13

Luke 13.1-9

Genuinely a privilege and pleasure to be with you again. And I assure you of my ongoing prayers for you in your communal discernment process, hoping the diocese is helping energetically! When I was last here, much comment was made on the high standard of the sermons from visiting preachers. And, further, you were kind enough to be kind about my own effort. This of course means there might be for me, in my preparations and right now, the pressure of meeting great expectations. Imagine my delight, then, when I came upon these words from Soren Kierkegaard [1813-1855]:

'People have an idea that the preacher is an actor on a stage and they are the critics, blaming or praising him. What they don't know is that they are the actors on the stage; he (the preacher) is merely the prompter standing in the wings, reminding them of their lost lines.'

A wonderfully incisive Kierkegaardian insight.

A different but related point is this: my Jewish friends do not tire of telling me that the Hebrew verb 'to pray' is a reflexive form of the verb 'to judge'. To pray is to judge oneself. But (let me stress) not in the sense of 'to condemn' but rather 'to discern the truth' about oneself. You know, even without this linguistic prompt, we know this is right. If we pray - and pay attention (that is: we don't simply enjoy someone's cadences, or hope for gossip on Mrs Brown's bunions...) - if we pray and pay attention to our praying, we will soon notice what moves us, what does not move us, how much resistance to prayer there is inside us (there will be some), what draws us in, and what, if we are honest, we are not drawn to pray for at all. We will be discerning truths about ourselves.

And here we are, and it is Lent. Lent: the season in the church calendar when the call to be self-discerning is at its clearest and most insistent.

Today's readings bring this home to us. First, from the prophecy of Isaiah, a question which resonates through the centuries: 'Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?' Indeed, why do we? Surey there has never been such a wasteful generation and culture as ours?

If we were asked in the abstract what our greatest sin was, we might say 'selfishness'. But this question challenges that. A range of Christian thinkers insist that our root problem is actually that we are not selfish enough. We do not sufficiently will our own happiness. We do not seek to be unhappy - true. But we are willing to postpone or marginalise our happiness and act out of fear, habit, compulsion, pride (keeping up appearances), and so on. Naturally, marketing and advertising departments are acutely aware of this, and manipulate us to buy more, though it nourishes us not.

This is a good place to return to, again and again, in Lent. How can I be more selfish? More truly selfish. We know that being purely pleasure-seeking promises happiness but does not deliver. (If you don't know, give it try, and get back to us.) We stand a better chance of sustaining proper, authentic selfishness (as it were) if we order our lives to fit with our sense of our own unique vocation, our call from Gd. And if you don't yet know yours, or have lost confidence about it, don't panic.

Isaiah again: 'Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.' This means not that Gd is about to disappear. Rather it means it is always good to have a sense of urgency in our search for Gd. The claim is that by seeking Gd (in the very seeking), we become more ourselves, the more free to feed on what really feeds us, to receive what really benefits us.

Our second reading, from St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, however, warns us that it will not be that simple. Yes, there is a form of wrong desiring, from which Gd can deliver us. But however 'healed' we are, there is a proper form of testing, of temptation, which will abide, which is ours to deal with. Even the saints – one may well say especially the saints - experience this. But this testing is to renew our conscious reliance on Gd, who alone brings the way out of such testing.

About today's gospel there is an ambiguity. It refers to calamities which have fallen on some people in Jesus' day (though if you want to know more about Pilate's Galilean blood or the falling tower of Siloam, I cannot help you; there just is no evidence outside the gospels). Jesus relates these to other tragedies in his people's past. But the question is: does he mean

• that all disasters, including untimely deaths, are random, and the main thing is to live fully, not ever putting off the repentance you need?
• Or is the main point that life is about to become more and more disaster-laden, as the end - the final cataclysm – approaches?

Unfortunately, the following parable of the fig tree can itself be interpreted in either way.

Now, part of Jesus' message was that the world is about to end – so-called apocayptic. I suspect that if we deny that outright, it may come back to bite us. But we can fairly add that in the history of the Church, too much insistence that 'the end of the world is nigh' has not made for a happy story. On the other hand, wisdom surely involves a profound if painful acceptance that life throws random events at us, both good and bad, both life-giving-and-preserving, and life-denying and deathly, and the main lesson to learn from these is to live as well as you can, in each day. In each moment.

And so back to Kierkegaard: you are the actors, the do-ers; I am your prompt. I am, then, prompting us to remember

• to seek out our own ways of being better at being selfish,
• to act towards fulfilling our own calling (which is how we get to right selfishness), and
• always to remain urgent in our underlying search for Gd, both when life is broad and pleasant, and when it is narrow and in-human-terms impossible.

I want to end on a different note. Kierkegaardian challenge is always good. But it is not everything. It may need tempering by some warmth from the East. St John Chrysostomos of Antioch [fourth century] said: 'The Church is not a courtroom but a hospital for our souls.'

So, yes, when we worship, we have a task to do, a task of self-reflection. And, yes indeed, we worship in order to equip ourselves for the greater task, of being Christians in the world. But! But alongside the tasks, there is also the sheer abandonment to Gd. Like patients in hospital, we are patiently to trust in the process of being made well by Gd.

At the heart of all our overcoming of temptation lies – not some great project of self-improvement (though that might have a place from time to time) – lies rather our willingess to stop, stand, and gaze on Gd in Christ and the saints.

Or, to put it slightly differently: yesterday we Anglicans had occasion to commemorate our own George Herbert [1593-1633]. So my final reference is one you will I am sure know, but which bears repeating:

Love bids us welcome...

We must sit down, and taste his meat.

Alongside all our testings, that too is Lent.

Alongside all our tasks, that too is Church.

Amen.