On Crowns, on Kings, and on the Oil of Mercy

 Sermon. 07/05/2023.

Weekend of the Coronation of King Charles III

·        Isaiah 40:12-17, 25-end

·        Luke 22:24-30

 

And here we are, in our Coronation weekend.

A rare event.

I am tempted to say that few of us expect to experience more than two Coronations, but realise that is not something we’d want to dwell on, for it takes us into the territory of reflecting on the longevity of lives.

But still: a rare event indeed.

A moment of great solemnity.

A moment of great meaning.

A moment of great celebration.

A moment of great reflection.

A moment of great prayer.

A moment of great thanksgiving.

We have so much to ponder.

The nature of our nation.

The nature of our Church.

The nature of our constitution.

The nature of power and authority.

The nature of ritual.

The nature of gathering, gathering as a country,

and as a village (and a group of villages), and as a congregation.

So! No pressure on your preacher, then!

 

In truth, the pressures come from more than one place.

One of the pressures is what the Bible has to say,

to say about crowns and about Kings.
This is something we will surely want to face.

It is not the easiest of teachings.

First, in the Bible, people are crowned,

but the people who are crowned tend to be high priests,

not monarchs [e.g. Zech 6:11].

More problematically still, what the Bible says about kings is… ambiguous.

Kings are permitted in Israel.

That much we can say.

But it is harder to say that God wills there to be kings.

The initiative comes from the people.

And their motives are mixed.

One strand sees it as a loss of faith in God.

To oversimplify, it can seem that God’s own will was for a theocracy,

for rule by God as Sovereign,

with power dispersed

among priests and prophets and chieftains and judges and others.

The centralisation of power in the figure of a King

can be seen as putting a human in God’s own place.

And another thing that is best named:

the Bible is clear that monarchy has to do with military might:

the people want a king to lead them into battle [1 Sam 8:20].

For completeness’s sake, I had better add

that the actual history of the kings in Israel is not a happy story.

After Saul and David and Solomon,

the United Kingdom splits, splits into Northern Israel and Southern Judah,

and their kings mostly fail to trust in God,

and that is recorded with candour in the Bible.

 

What, then, is your manifoldly pressurised preacher to do?

I will do what I very rarely do, and give a three-point sermon.

 

First, let us take all the comfort we can from today’s first reading from Isaiah.

Saying nothing about earthly kings,

it speaks of God’s sovereignty, as Creator of all and guide of all.

“Lift up your eyes on high and see:

Who created these?

[God] who brings out their host and numbers them,

calling them all by name;

because he is great in strength

mighty in power,

not one is missing.”

God created – and creates –

this vast and majestic and complex and beautiful universe,

and it is fitting for us to remember this, with all reverence and with all awe.

But the passage tells us more,

tells us something that may surprise or even shock us.

It says that such is God’s majesty

that it exceeds any human idea of majesty.

This is majesty of such scale and scope

that it cares not only for the most distant star,

but also for every human being.

For King. For Queen. For subject. For you.

God is not too busy or too big to care for you, to pay attention to you,

to meet you at the point of your need.

“He gives power to the faint,

and strengthens the powerless.”

That God cares for and loves persons (King, Queen, subject, you) is a truth proclaimed in the heart of the Old Testament.

This is who the Sovereign Creator God is.

My first point.

 

My second point. From our Gospel reading.

Again saying nothing (or not much) of earthly kings,

Jesus himself tells us plainly that

he is among us as one who serves.

Truly King of kings, he claims none of the pomp or splendour of royalty.

He serves us, that we may serve others.

It’s not something I need expound or explain further.

I will emulate our Archbishop,

for surely this was the import of his sermon yesterday.

He made the point; he did not dwell on the point.

It is not a complicated doctrine.

It is an invitation. It is a call.

One thing all of us can take from this weekend is a renewed will 

to commit to serve others, and thereby be serving God.

My second point.

 

My third point. Here I will focus on the Coronation – at last, you may say.

But not to the crown or the crowning,

nor to the throne or the enthronement,

but, yes, to the anointing.

They called it the most sacred moment,

though of course the service was a eucharist,

and the sacrament holds that place.

The commentators also said that it was

so sacred that we didn’t get to see it.

It was a personal moment between a human person and Personal God.

This does not make it magic, of course.

It makes it sacred, because here is something which does go back to the Bible, and to the kings of the Bible.

They were not (we think) crowned, but they were anointed.

One thing we know:

Zadok the priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon king. 

Anointed with oil.

 

Not only kings were anointed.

Priests were anointed.

Sometimes prophets were anointed.

What is more, you are anointed.

The word “Christ” comes from the Greek, Christos.

The word “Messiah” comes from the Hebrew Mashiach.

And both simply mean “anointed”, “the Anointed One”.

And – a point we may not stress enough –

to be baptised is to be another Christ.

It is to share in the anointing of the Anointed One, Jesus Christ.

And at baptism, and at other points in life, we can be literally anointed, anointed with oil, with finest sweetest, olive oil.

 

The Greek for olive oil is elaion, from elaia, olive tree.

And there is a school of thought

– linguists do not necessarily agree that it is accurate,

but it is a school of thought which is ancient –

and this school of thought says that

the word elaion is related to the words for mercy,

the noun eleos and the verb eleeo.

Elaia, elaion, eleos, eleeo.

You can see why people made the connection.

The underlying idea is that olive oil is a mercy in the form of medicine:

it is the healing balm, used to bind up wounds.

And in the ancient world olive oil was also the primary way of making light: before electricity, and before even wax, lamps had oil in them.

So oil is also the mercy of illumination, of brightness itself.

 

These themes and more are present when we pray

“Lord, have mercy” (as we already have).

Lord, have mercy – in Greek, Kyrie eleison.

Eleison – that verb again – it comes from eleeo.

Lord, have mercy. Kyrie eleison.

You see, then, that “Lord, have mercy” is a rich prayer.

It is broad and it is deep.

It includes forgiveness, for sure, but it goes beyond that.

It doesn’t just mean “Lord, forgive me my sins”.

It means:

“Lord, give me the healing balm I sorely need;

heal me in the ways I need to be healed;

illumine and enlighten me in the ways I need;

be light and be medicine and be nourishment to me;

feed me.”

Kyrie eleison.

My third point.

 

Now you know as do I that many a three-point goes on beyond the third point.

There is often what we might call, if we are being kind, a coda.

Well, this sermon will be in that tradition.

I will finish by commending to you a prayer, t

he Jesus Prayer, loved and prayed in Orthodoxy especially,

and held to have spiritual power and healing, when sincerely prayed over time.

There are different versions. But the one I want to bring today says:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.”

 

I invite you to try out this prayer for size, taking “have mercy” in the fullest sense.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, give each one of us your healing balm.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, anoint each one of us”,

just as you anoint prophets,

and priests,

and kings.

Amen.

God's Human Presence: With Us To Serve, To Help?

 

17 October 2021: Trinity 20, Year of Mark

 

Gospel: Mark 10:35-45

Reflection (Sermon)

 

Sometimes the gospel passage we are given is complicated. Then we have to spend a fair bit of time trying to work out what it might be saying. Not always. And not so today. Today the message is, I suggest, simple. Plain and simple.

 

James and John come to Jesus, with a request. Can they sit at his right and left side? Can they, in other words, share in his status, power, and glory – more than all the rest, more than the other disciples? Jesus says No. But he says more. He says that they came to ask that, because their way of thinking was wrong. They need to change, but the change isn’t a gentle nudge. It is a complete turnaround in how they think. How they think about such things as status, power, and glory.

 

So far, so bad, at least for James and John. But it doesn’t get any easier when Jesus addresses the disciples as a whole. He tells them – and so he tells us – three things:

1.     You have to serve one another (be each other’s servant).

2.     You have to be slave of all people.

3.     This, because Jesus himself came not to be served, but to serve. To help others, and not to have others wait on him.

 

Jesus says we are not only to be servants (where a comfortable-enough life is at least thinkable), but slaves (and it’s hard to think of a comfortable slave). But here I can bring a little morsel of good news: the Greek is actually not as strong as the English. The word here translated as slave [doulos] can also be another word for servant.

 

But! But, even allowing for that:

1.     You have to serve one another.

2.     You have to be servants or slaves to all people.

3.     Because that is what Jesus himself did.

A simple message. Not an easy message. But easy to summarise, in its sharp challenge.

 

When the message comes to us as straightforward - as if straightforward - there is something we can always do. This: we can ask ourselves if we believe it. 

No, really, we can either talk it through with others, or just sit with the question, of whether we believe this simple, sharp shock of a challenge. Remember, when we ask ourselves this question, it’s not necessarily a Yes or a No. It’s perfectly possible, and often right, to answer (say): I feel I am coming to believe this.

 

We are here to help one another. I think at one level we all know that. There are two aspects to this. One is that pretty much every worldview says as much. It’s a message heard and known the world over. If we are here (and here we are), it is because some people helped us grow up from helpless baby to adult. And we can now care for others in turn. The other truth is that a life dedicated to simple selfishness may sound exciting. But the evidence is that it can soon turn into something dull, tedious, and strangely frustrating. What makes life worthwhile is a rich pattern of links with others, links that are made naturally, and become strong, when we help each other.

 

So far, so normal. I say again: that we are made to help each other is a claim made by every religion or school of thought, worth its salt. It is said by evolutionary biologists, for that matter.

And we try.

Often we try.

Sometimes we try…

It’s not always easy. In our lives it is easier to ricochet between 

really exerting ourselves to help those around us, 

and 

falling back into selfishness, greed, and resenting others for not serving us up with what we think we want.

This is natural. This is natural, and God knows our natural selves, and can and does forgive us those lapses into selfishness.

 

But there is more to Jesus message. So we need to ask ourselves if we believe something more too. Do we believe that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve”?

 

Do we believe that God’s human presence in the world came not to have others serve him, serve him delicacies on some golden throne, but to get his hands and feet dirty, helping others out, helping out those in need, those in bitter need, those who may feel helpless, despairing, and lost?

 

Now, that is not something that every worldview says. And it’s not a natural idea. God’s human presence in the world as one who serves, who helps out, who goes out to the forgotten. It is hard to find words to show how shocking this idea is. (I am not saying it is unique to Christianity. I am saying it is shocking for all people, Christian or not.) No doubt I have failed to shock you. But I will dare to ask you again:

 

Do you believe it? That God’s human presence is there to help others?

 

Well, to work out if you believe it, you may well ask the Why question. Why is it, that God’s human presence is there to help others? And here different answers are possible. The most obvious answer is: God does this, because there is so much need in the world. But I think that doesn’t really work.

 

It is quite possible to imagine God’s human presence in the world being waited upon, and from his throne giving orders about how his subjects are to obey him by caring for one another. And from his throne he could threaten us all with terrible, terrible things, if we don’t put the world right by our efforts. With clear enough divine instructions, and promises and threats, would we still be astray? It’s a question we can’t necessarily answer, but we may feel it might work.

 

But that is not what God’s human presence does. 

And, as for why God’s human presence is here to help… funnily enough, the deepest Christian answer is really this: it is 

because that’s what God wanted to do. 

That’s it. God, in other words, is so keen, so eager, so desperate-as-it-were to be with us, that God will be with us in the way that works best for us.

 

God wants our company. God sees our need.

God sees our need. God wants our company.

God, who loves us and who is Love, brings the two together.

(How would Love not?)

So God comes to us and meets us in our need.

And then, then we are really freed to meet others in their need.

It is shocking. (I stand by that.)

But it’s also the greatest comfort we might have.

Now... do we believe it?

Amen.

Sermon. Jesus vs Commonsense?

28 August 2016. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford

Trinity 14 (Year C)

Luke 14.1, 7-14

I don't very often give practical advice in sermons. That's deliberate. I tend to think it is often for each of us to work out for ourselves the practical consequences of Christian teaching. But, here I go. Can we do this...? Can we do our best to invite and bring to church, on at least one Sunday between now and the end of the year, someone who does not normally go to church or another house of prayer?

This isn't a novel idea, of course. There's a whole 'Back to Church Sunday' theme out there. This year's 'Back to Church Sunday' may be on 18 September - though interestingly, it wasn't easy to track down on the internet. But, whenever we do it, let us try to bring to church one friend, colleague or acquaintance who hasn't been to church for some time, if at all.

I'm suggesting this for two reasons. First, we might hope that it will be a good thing for them. They will realise that we Christians are not all weird – or, more realistically, no weirder than anybody else. They may, Gd willing, get a sense of what we are about, which, in case there is any doubt, is the love of Gd,

• our intimations that Gd loves each of us,
• in all our mess,
• and them in all of theirs,
• more than we/they could ever yearn for,
• more than we/they could ever imagine.

But also for a second reason. Those of us who do come to church a lot can learn from the questions of those who don't. You know:

• Why do you do that?
• What does that mean?

And especially...

• What on earth is going on in that Bible reading?

I'll say it again: those of us who do come to church a lot can easily let the Bible readings wash over us. For what it is worth, I don't think that's laziness, really. I think we sense that there are such difficult things in the biblical texts, and we feel we cannot 'do justice' to them. We feel, as they say, 'under-resourced'. That is a shame. But it is also a call to do this: with or without our non-churchy friend next to us, let us hear Bible readings as if for the first time. Let us turn our attention to Bible readings -

• expecting not some gentle waves to wash over us,
• but rather that we are entering a minefield,
• and mines may go off at any minute.

For, sisters and brothers, that is, in truth, what the Bible is like. It is like a minefield, and the mines may go off at any moment. What do I mean? Well, you'll have guessed I am suggesting there is an example of an explosive in today's readings, in particular in today's gospel.

It's a gospel passage of two halves. Jesus is dining in a Pharisee's house. The Pharisees, I'll remind you in passing, are the Jewish group probably closest to Jesus and his disciples (but that's for another sermon). Jesus gives some advice to the company.

I paraphrase: When you're invited to someone's home, think of yourself as the least important person in the room. Then, if your host wants to honour you, giving you a special place, or cup, or whatever, then that will be a real honour. Whereas if you presume you are the special one, and your host then treats someone else as more special, you'll feel humiliated, and probably look humiliated to others.

This we can, I guess, all get. It is good, practical advice. It makes sense, because it is commonsense. It is a reminder about manners. Manners work; they 'oil the wheels' of all our interactions. We'd be lost without them. Every culture throughout time says as much. Not least Jewish culture. And so we have already in Proverbs [25.6f], before Jesus:

Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence

or stand in the place of the great;

for it is better to be told, 'Come up here,'

than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

So far, so calm. Jesus expands on the point: in any circumstance, it is good to be humble, not exalted. Still calm. No explosions here.

But then! Then Jesus says... what? He says (my version again):

When you're having a party, don't invite family, friends, or neighbours or others you want to impress. Invite people who are poor, or very ill, or can't get around easily, or who are considered a problem or failures in some way. Invite them, precisely because you know they cannot repay you in any obvious way. That way, you'll get a different sort of repayment.

Now... Do you get it? Do you see how that is a mine going off before your eyes and ears. No commonsense here! Commonsense says you hold a party in order to bring friends together, and/or to impress people. Commonsense says you don't invite people you don't know, may not get on with, and are considered problem people, Commonsense says that's a recipe for disaster. If word gets around that you hold those kinds of parties, things can only get worse for you,- says commonsense.

Yet this is what Jesus calls us to do.

It's also something his disciples have said, through the centuries. Let me quote one contemporary writer (he just died in 1996). He was a European. He was a Henri-spelled-with-an-i-not-a-y. As such people often thought he was French, and so pronounced his name [French pronunciation] Henri Nouwen. But in fact he was Dutch. So his name looked like it was [English pronunciation] Henri Nouwen, and in Dutch was pronounced [same] Henri Nouwen. It's a long quotation I want to share. Here goes.

My whole life I have been surrounded by well-meaning encouragement to go 'higher up,' and the most-used argument was: 'You can do so much good there, for so many people.' But these voices calling me to upward mobility are completely absent from the Gospel. Jesus says: 'Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life' (John 12:25). He also says: 'Unless you become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven' (Matt 18:3). Finally he says: 'You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them... this is not to happen... anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave...' (Matt 20:25-28).

This [it is still Henri Nouwen speaking] is the way of downward mobility,

the descending way of Jesus. It is the way toward the poor, the suffering, the marginal, the prisoners, the refugees, the lonely, the hungry, the dying, the tortured, the homeless - toward all who ask for compassion. What do they have to offer? Not success, popularity, or power, but the joy and peace of the children of God.

(End of quotation.)

So... invite people you don't know and have no reason to like to your parties, people who can do you no favours? And try your best to be, throughout your life, downwardly mobile? Is this the gospel message?

If it is, can we, after all, invite non-churchgoing friends to church? Are we not embarrassed and discomforted by this message which is about as far from commonsense as it is possible to be?

Maybe. And of course, how we imagine another person reacting to these commands is surely how a large part of us reacts. We too will be thinking (in part): It's just not a serious message. It sounds good, radical and challenging. Fine for a sermon, but not seriously for living. We are not meant to actually do it. But... are we?

Well, to cut a long story short, I think I can genuinely offer some reassurance. I'd say Jesus here is speaking in prophetic mode. And the prophets loved to see everything in black-and-white terms, to exaggerate, to say: 'no x, all y' when they were really talking about getting a balance in life. So in fact I do think we are allowed to have parties where we invite our friends. I also think we are allowed to be ambitious about our careers and so on; there's nothing intrinsically sinful about having ambitions and in that way being upwardly mobile.

But! But we get it wrong if we allow ourselves to shake off Jesus' message to his disciples then and now. This is saying that commonsense (including about how to behave at parties, and about how to develop your career) is just fine. But even more important is that we are ready to put commonsense aside, even if it be just for a moment, for one encounter

• when we help someone who cannot possibly help us back
• when we do so unseen, so that no one else is going to praise us
• when we do so uncomplainingly and eagerly
• when we do it even if the person we help is a thumping crook (because Jesus nowhere says we are only to help people in need who are also saints or well-behaved)
• when we do so purely and simply because we know that in such an encounter, Jesus is among us
• and (if we can here it) joy is among us too.

Amen.