Christmas Fact & Faith, Advent 4

Christmas Fact & Faith

Advent 4: Isaiah 7.10-16; Romans 1.1-7; Matt 1.18-25

“I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

How do we know this boy was born on Christmas Day? Well, here, I have my birth certificate! I was born on 25th December 1949 to Stanley George Mercer and Betty Mercer (nee Steele), at 160 Old Shoreham Road.

So how do we know that the man who bought enlightenment to the world was born on Christmas Day? Well, it’s there in the church registers: Isaac Newton was born on 25th December 1642.

As Alexander Pope wrote: "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, 'Let Newton be!' and there was light."

Well I could go on listing Christmas babies, but one infant that would certainly not appear is Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury said recently, the only thing we can be sure of from the Bible is that Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. No other historical facts are clear.

Luke’s Gospel gives a number of clues which help to guess at Jesus’ birthday. I won’t bore you with the details, but the best and commonest guess is around mid September in 3BC. Or it could have been May, which would allow you to sing:

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Remember, Christ, our Saviour, was born sometime in May.

The early church was never really concerned with the historical details of Christ’s birth. As we saw in today’s Epistle, Paul was convinced of the historical Jesus, who was born of Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose again for us.

Christians were Easter people for three hundred and fifty years before they first had a Midnight Mass to celebrate the nativity of our Lord, on a date which was chosen to coincide with a number of midwinter festivals.

The Gospel writers were historical, but they were always more concerned with the theology of Jesus, than with setting out some short biographical sketch.

So Isaiah’s prophecy about ‘a young woman’ in today’s OT reading, is slightly re-interpreted by Matthew as he translates Isaiah’s Hebrew into ‘the Virgin’. The predominant tradition in the Early Church, made explicit by Luke’s Gospel, was that Mary was a virgin.

There was a certain theological symmetry in this. If Jesus was truly God and truly man, then it made sense that he would be born of a woman, but conceived by the Holy Spirit. (It wouldn’t work the other way round of course!)

And then Jesus’ human lineage is important, as he must be born of King David’s line if he is to fulfil prophecy.

Curiously, it is Joseph who is shown earlier in Matthew’s first chapter to be a direct descendant of King David.

So the connection is through a foster father - there is no direct blood line through Mary (unless you understand Luke 3 as giving a genealogy of Mary rather than Joseph - as a few do).

Here’s another interesting little Gospel detail, that on the three occasions an angel appeared to Joseph, it was always in a dream. Mary met them face-to-face.

It is to Joseph’s eternal credit, that he believed what the angel said in his dream. Most men would require the real thing: a ten foot angel, wings and all, writing in flame on a wall, before they believed that their virgin fiancée was pregnant with a divine child.

Matthew doesn’t labour the point, (if you’ll pardon the pun) because he is again making a theological statement about the nature of this Son of God: Joseph is to name him Jesus, Saviour; and others will recognise him as Emmanuel, God with us.

But Matthew, like all the Gospel writers, wants to take us deeper than history or even theology.

I’m sure you remember that little vignette from Winnie the Pooh?

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…”
(The House at Pooh Corner)

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent on others.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity. And through the incarnation, he draws us into that divine circle of love.

For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he shared our joys and sorrows and so he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

Then he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being 'with' us.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

And this is why I chose my text from the end of Matthew’s gospel.

The disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies. So the end of the Gospel re-echoes the beginning: he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel; he’s there, with us.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

So the Christmas Gospels are not concerned to answer all the factual questions we have about dates and stars and kings and stables.

And they are not even primarily concerned to set forth sound incarnational theology.

But in the words of John’s Gospel “ these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20.31)

In the end, it is in believing that we discover the truth of the incarnation, and come to grasp the fullness of life in the fullness of Christ.

Another Christmas baby, 300 years ago on 18th December 1707, was Charles Wesley. Let me finish by reading you one of his short hymns, ‘Celebrate Immanuel’s name’ which brings together the theology of today’s Gospel, with the warm experience of God’s love and presence in our lives.

Celebrate Immanuel's Name, the Prince of life and peace.
God with us, our lips proclaim, our faithful hearts confess.
God is in our flesh revealed; Heav'n and earth in Jesus join.
Mortal with Immortal filled, and human with Divine.

Fullness of the Deity in Jesus' body dwells,
Dwells in all His saints and me when God His Son reveals.
Father, manifest Thy Son; breathe the true incarnate Word.
In our inmost souls make known the presence of the Lord.

Let the Spirit of our Head through every member flow;
By our Lord inhabited, we then Immanuel know.
Then He doth His Name express; God in us we truly prove,
Find with all the life of grace and all the power of love.

Where is your Security? (2nd before Advent)

Security, 2nd before Advent

Malachi 4.1-2a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19
Hymn “All my hope” (reproduced at end of sermon).

“But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” Malachi 4.2

George was a devout golfer, getting ready for retirement, and one Sunday morning he said to his priest: "Tell me, Father, are there going to be golf courses in heaven? I really have to know."

"Well," said his priest, "I'm not sure, but tonight I'll say a special prayer and see if God will tell me."

Next Sunday after the service George made a beeline for the priest. "Did you get the answer, Father? Are there going to be golf courses in heaven?"

Well, George," the priest replied, "I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Tell me the good news first," George said.

"The good news is that, yes, there are golf courses in heaven. Beautiful courses, where the sun is always shining, the rough is not too deep, there are no sand traps, and you never have to wait to tee off."

"That's tremendous!" exclaimed the golfer. "But what's the bad news?"

"Well, the bad news is that St Peter has you down to tee off this coming Tuesday morning at 8."

Today’s readings as we approach advent, are a mixture of good news and bad news.

But a common thread running through them is: ‘where do you place your confidence?’

Now we all know the correct answer is ‘God’ – the opening line of the opening hymn stated that: “All my hope on God is founded…”

But of course the right answer is not always the honest one.

Like the young boy who was asked by his particularly evangelical Sunday School teacher: “What’s red and has a bushy tail and eats acorns?” “Please miss, I know the answer must be ‘Jesus’, but it sounds like a squirrel to me!”

If we are honest, we know that our confidence, our sense of security, our hope, is bound up in a complex network of feelings and emotions – and yes, faith.

The Scriptures recognise that, but still warn us about false confidence and misplaced hope.

Today’s Gospel starts with the disciples marvelling at the magnificent edifice which was the rebuilt, Second Temple; renovated by Herod before the birth of Christ and still being decorated and finished (it was completed in 63AD.) Its foundations stretched back a 1000 years. Here was a religious centre that was surely founded by God himself!

But Jesus warns that this is a false confidence. By 70AD, the Temple would be destroyed and never rebuilt.

In the words of the opening hymn again: “what with care and toil he buildeth, tower and temple fall to dust.”

However attached we become to a particular building, or to a particular style of worship, or even to the group of worshippers who meet there week by week; it is a transitory thing.

We should be grateful for this holy place, our liturgy, our music and our fellowship, but never place the weight of our spiritual confidence in them. That is idolatry and we a doomed to disappointment.

Jesus also warns us in this passage about putting too much confidence in human relationships: “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends…”

Now this is not to suggest that we should hold ourselves aloof from any sort of trusting relationships – indeed our Lord teaches us the opposite. But there can be a dependency on others that is nearer to an addiction than a loving, mutually supportive relationship.

Betrayal is always destructive, but if the relationship is basically healthy, either amends can be made, or the break does not leave one or the other party completely debilitated.

And sadly, death betrays us all in our relationships. It was of course in the aftermath of the death of Herbert Howell’s son, Michael, Mick, in 1935, that he wrote the tune (named Michael) to those words of the opening hymn.

They meant a great deal to him at the time, although by the end of his life in 1983, 48 years after Michael had died, aged 9, of polio, he confided in his daughter, Ursula: 'I don't believe there's anything'. I think his music tells us another story, but that’s another sermon.

The prophet Malachi railed against the oldest and commonest misplaced confidence: a confidence in ‘self’ that amounts to arrogance and pride. “The arrogant will be turned to stubble”, he bellows.

Again, this is not to discourage proper self-confidence; appropriate self-esteem. It was our Lord who said that we should love our neighbours as we love ourselves – it is right to have a healthy view of ourselves.

But when we begin to think that we are invincible; that we are self-made men and women; that we have a right to enjoy the best things in life because of who we are, or what we do, or how much money we have – then our Lord says to us: “You fool!”

And where does today’s epistle fit in? The Apostle Paul has it in for those who won’t work. But in context, we see that they won’t work, because they are living in a spiritual cloud cuckoo land.

They are so convinced that Jesus is about to return in the next few months, to bring the universe to a climactic end, that they don’t bother to work.

They busy themselves with church and spiritual affairs while sponging off the less spiritual who still go in to the office every morning.

Strangely, their false confidence is in Christianity itself. Or at least, they are so confident of their own interpretation of Christianity, that they have no time for others who suggest they might have misunderstood.

So neither can our confidence be completely in a particular brand of Christian faith alone, for as yet we see through a glass darkly.

While all these other things then, in their proper place, help to make us feel secure and to give us hope, our ultimate confidence can only be in God himself, and even then we have to acknowledge our inability to comprehend him fully.

So that profound opening hymn has it right again:

God unknown,
he alone
calls my heart to be his own.

It is with this humble, searching faith that we come to God, and in so doing, especially as we come to this Table, we find that his love embraces us and re-assures us of the presence of Christ in our lives:

Christ doth call
one and all:
ye who follow shall not fall.

This was the purpose of Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel which ends with our Lord’s words: “ By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

And it is the hope infusing Malachi’s prophecy, to reassure those who revere and trust in God. The Light of Christ will uncover what is now unknown and will bring a sense of healing and wholeness which is beyond mere human understanding.

Our proper confidence is in God alone, as revealed in Jesus Christ, foretold by the prophets:

“… for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” Malachi 4.2

All my hope on God is founded;
he doth still my trust renew,
me through change and chance he guideth,
only good and only true.
God unknown,
he alone
calls my heart to be his own.

Pride of man and earthly glory,
sword and crown betray his trust;
what with care and toil he buildeth,
tower and temple fall to dust.
But God's power,
hour by hour,
is my temple and my tower.

God's great goodness aye endureth,
deep his wisdom, passing thought:
splendor, light and life attend him,
beauty springeth out of naught.
Evermore
from his store
newborn worlds rise and adore.

Daily doth the almighty Giver
bounteous gifts on us bestow;
his desire our soul delighteth,
pleasure leads us where we go.
Love doth stand
at his hand;
joy doth wait on his command.

Still from man to God eternal
sacrifice of praise be done,
high above all praises praising
for the gift of Christ, his Son.
Christ doth call
one and all:
ye who follow shall not fall.

Words: Robert Bridges (1844-1930); based on the German of Joachim Neander (1650-1680)
Music: Michael by Herbert Howells

True Righteousness - Anger

True Righteousness - Anger

Psalm 137; Matt 5.17-21
Lunchtime series on Psalms, King's College London

This is a sermon that didn’t quite go the way I expected. When I chose Psalm 137 I was going to elaborate on platitudes like ‘it’s alright to get angry with God’; and ‘bashing babies against rocks is wrong!’ And maybe give my own rendition of Boney M’s “By the waters of Babylon…” But then I thought, ‘you know all that’.

So that set me thinking about righteous anger, and that led me eventually to laughter. So let’s set out with a good Gospel text and see where it takes us in exploring raw emotions, which is what this series on the Psalms is about.

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5.20

And from my holiday reading, Euphemia MacFarrigle & the Laughing Virgin (Christopher Whyte, Indigo,1995 p144 - a refreshing and scandalously funny book especially for those who feel the Church has messed up their life):

“Her old beliefs and way of praying were obsolete, and she was uncertain whether this new force was an emanation of the devil or whether a saner, more mischievous and playful deity had entered her life.”

“the devil... or a saner, more mischievous and playful deity”

When you reflect on the straightforward reading of our Psalm, and don’t try to nicify it, it reveals one of the frightening but commonplace observations about religion: that is, it is sometimes hard to tell whether it is good or bad; whether it reflects the character of the devil or the character of God.

I have been a pastor for too many years not to know that people use Christianity constantly to screw themselves up - or others - or usually both!

And such people are often quite unable to see in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “a saner, more mischievous and playful deity.” Indeed, for many of them the very idea is blasphemous. God is austere and demanding, and never laughs. They are the sort who take the swing out of the budgie’s cage on a Sunday.

And those who worship this humourless God, constantly misinterpret the Bible’s call for righteous living.

They listen to the typically Jewish, hyperbolic language of our Lord in the Gospels, and are unable to supply the undercurrent of mirth which is present in all God’s dealings with the pride of man.

In taking themselves too seriously, they fail to take God seriously. I think Jesus might have agreed with Malcolm Muggeridge that: “Next to mystical enlightenment [laughter] is the most precious gift and blessing that comes to us on earth.”

So how does this assertion that the pervading humour in our human condition is a reflection of the playful creativity of God help us to interpret our text today?

“unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“Righteousness” here in Matthew means faithfulness and obedience to the law of God. Our Lord said as much in the previous verse: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments… shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven…” (v19)

The Scribes (some of whom were also Pharisees) were the legal eagles: the solicitors and lawyers who developed the law and practised it in court.

The pharisees, on the other hand, made the law’s demands less demanding and the law’s permissions more permissive. They were casuists. They were spinners. They were like most of us.

And they were not popular with Matthew who probably agreed with the Qumran sect that they were ‘the seekers of smooth things’.

Nonetheless, they still only managed to narrow the Mosaic law down to 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions. And they kept most of them.

So what did Jesus mean when he told his followers that their righteousness was to exceed that of the scribes and pharisees?

That we should add a few extra prohibitions - Number 366: musicians may not slip out for a drink & a ciggy during the sermon… Or that if the Pharisees broke 5 commandments, we should go for a maximum failure rate of say, 4?

If this is what he meant, then what hope is there for any of us? Like the man standing in church staring at the Ten Commandments on the Wall, muttering: “well at least I haven’t coveted my neighbour’s ox…”

Jesus goes on to illustrate what he means by a ‘greater righteousness’ with six antitheses; six contrasts introduced with the formula: “You have heard that it was said… But I say…”

You will be relieved to hear that we are only looking at the first antithesis today.

“You have heard it said - thou shalt not kill (better - commit murder)…”

Now there’s a box we can probably all tick.

“But I say… Do not be angry with one another without cause”

This is not just getting angry. Our Lord became angry at times. Like the psalmist weeping in Babylon, we know that’s ok. This is that anger that stems from pride and malice, selfishness and spite, frustration, revenge and jealousy… It’s a killer and destroys families, communities, churches… not to mention the disintegration of the self.

And then there is the matter of insults. “Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Raca - the commentaries are full of possible translations of this Aramaic word: nitwit, blockhead, numskull, bonehead - I think most of the commentaries are too polite to use the obvious contemporary phrase for a man who thinks with an inappropriate part of his anatomy.

‘Fool’ is from the same root as moron. In fact the pair of words perhaps refer to someone’s intelligence and character. “You’re a stupid scoundrel.”

So may we not call each other names? How dull life would be. And lovers’ tiffs would be so colourless and unsatisfactory.

No. This is name-calling that stems from arrogant sneering. This is verbal abuse that wounds the soul. This is linguistic sadism. It corrupts both speaker and hearer. This is sarcasm – from the Greek sarx, flesh; the rending of the flesh.

So what is this righteousness that outdoes the pharisees?

It is a deeper obedience of mind and motive with a constant undercurrent of self-mockery, to save us from the deadly pride. It is honest about feelings, like the psalmist, but with a more Christ like understanding of ourselves.

It is not the abolition of the law. The Mosaic law informs many of our decisions and legal codes and is still the well-spring of our ethical choices. But in Christ’s fulfilment of that law, and with the help of his promised Holy Spirit, we enter more deeply into the loving heart of God and of his laws. And he enters more deeply into us to bring healing and wholeness.

We see that the way we live in a world still torn and disfigured with evil, is important. And it must be Christ like, especially in our relations with one another.

The Psalmist is right to express his anger and grief to God about the brutal Babylonians who had subjected his people. But as a stand-alone Psalm, he was wrong in proposing a solution that simply continues the cycle of violence.

The true righteousness which our Lord calls us to, is a deep inner orientation to love God and neighbour and not to treat enemies as they have treated us.

Like the Psalmist, we will sometimes get it wrong in the heat of the moment.

But as we reflect in God’s presence, as the Psalmist often does, for instance in Psalm 73: “When my soul was embittered... I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast towards you.” (vv 21f) - when we reflect on our outburst of anger, we see it requires a deep inner humility which is fuelled, in all the greatest saints, by the gift of self-mockery and laughter.

Let me end with a creation poem by Paul Bunday:

In the beginning… God laughed
And the earth was glad.
The sound of laughter
Was like the swaying and swinging of thunder in mirth;
Like the rush of the north on a drowsy and dozing land;
It was cold. It was clear.
The lion leapt down
At the bleating feet of the frightened lamb and smiled;
And the viper was tamed by the thrill of the earth,
At the holy laughter.
We laughed, for the Lord was laughing with us in the evening;
For the laughter of love went pealing into the night;
And it was good.

All Souls Day Solemn Requiem

All Souls Day

Duruflé Requiem

“I will raise them up on the last day.” John 6.40

I fell into conversation with a woman while I was on holiday this time last week. When she discovered I was a priest, she started asking me questions about the recent death of her young mother and about her miscarriage a few months later.

Why had this happened? Was it punishment for something she had done wrong? Was her premature baby in heaven? What age were people in heaven?

All Souls and All Saints tide is one of the times in the church calendar when we are encouraged to ponder these questions which affect us al.

‘Why did this happen?’ the woman asked. We can answer that question. We don’t know. Bad things happen. It’s the experience of life we all share in one way or another. And some people, for no apparent reason, endure more than their share of bad things – and we don’t know why.

What about the other question: what happens after death? Here, we don’t know all that we’d like to know, but as Christians we share a hope that has been given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Because we believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus - what we celebrate at this mass tonight - we believe in the resurrection of the dead.

We do not believe in re-incarnation or the transmigration of souls;
We do not believe in the absorption of the soul into the great soul of the universe, like a drop of water returning to the ocean;
We do not believe in existential oblivion – in Sartre’s words: “There is darkness without, and when I die, there will be darkness within."

These are all respectable beliefs, held by many people, but they are not Christian beliefs.

Jesus said to his disciples and to all of us who follow in their footsteps: “I will raise you up on the last day”. He has already blazed the way for this.

Jesus appeared in a resurrection body; there was continuity with his old body and he was still the same Jesus – not a disembodied spirit, recognizable to his disciples.

I was listening to some tapes of my father the other day. He died five years ago. He was a radio ham and one of my earliest memories is of my father sitting in his ‘shack’ – in fact the larder of our little terraced house – surrounded by huge radios with glowing valves, tapping out in Morse code ‘This is G2DPY – George, two delta, Peter, yoke. The handle is Stan, the location is Sussex…’

50 years on, when he was in his 80s, and I in my 50s, he sat with his compact little solid state transmitter, sending out the same message, only by voice now rather than Morse (although he still used Morse with his old friends as it was quicker than talking!): ‘This is G2DPY – golf, two, delta, papa, Yankee (the new politically correct phonics). The handle is Stan the location is Sussex…’

It was the same message, the same Stan, but expressed through different media – a new transmitter, and the body of an old man.

Now, as they say in the world of Amateur Radio, he is a ‘silent key’.

Although there is much we cannot grasp about heaven, and much we cannot understand about the meaning of our lives here on earth…

Jesus shows us that there will be personhood; there will be recognition of one another; we will be raised up and not simply absorbed back into some universal life force.

From the point of view of our loved ones who have already died, many of whom we shall remember in a few moments, it is already the last day and they are raised up: a little sleep and then the dawn.

From our perspective, we still await the last day.

But the assurance is that whether we are alive, or as St Paul puts it, asleep in Christ; we shall all be raised up.

This is the Christian hope in the face of the death of our mortal body; what the former Dean of Westminster, Michael Mayne in the title of his book calls ‘The Enduring Melody’, the cantus firmus of our lives, the tune that weaves through all the changing scenes of life, and eventually, of death and new life.

Here is John Donne using different imagery, but making the same point. (It’s earlier on in that passage with the familiar words, ‘no man is an island’ and ‘ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’)

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

Or in the words of our Lord:

“I will raise them up on the last day.” John 6.40

Wrestling with God

Wrestling with God

Baptism of Rex William Snow Armstrong

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32.26

I thought I could do no better today than to start with those opening lines of that wonderful Alan Bennett sermon from Beyond the Fringe. It let’s me get the rugby done with and an introduction to Jacob and Esau all in one go. (I’ll try and use his mocking, parsonic voice.)

First verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings: 'And he said, "But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man."' Perhaps I might say the same thing in a different way by quoting you the words of that grand old English poet, W.E. Henley, who said:

When that One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name;
It matters not who won or lost,
But how you played the game.

This is a wonderful and mysterious story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel. His name, Jacob, means ‘hold the heel’ and came to mean twister, or cheat. (Although in those name-your-baby books, they generously say it means Conqueror.)

He followed his twin brother, Esau, out of the womb, grasping his heel, and eventually cheated him out of his birthright as the firstborn.

Jacob’s parents, Isaac and Rebekah, and his grandparents, Abraham and Sarah, represented two generations of dysfunctional family life. Hollyoaks and Eastenders are tame in comparison.

Now 20 years after the grand swindle, Jacob’s returning to face his brother Esau. He’s become very wealthy by more cheating and lying and at the expense of his cheating and lying uncle, Laban.

Life with his two cheating and lying wives is not surprisingly complicated. Rachel stole the household gods when they ran away from uncle Laban’s boys; hid them in the saddle bags of her camel, sat on them and said she couldn’t get up to be searched because it was the wrong time of the month. (Gen 31.33ff.)

But now Jacob is afraid as he hears that his brother Esau is heading towards him with 400 armed men. It’s not looking like a kiss and make up party.

Jacob is a bad man; but strangely devoted to God. So he calls out to God, remembering the vision he had 20 years before at Bethel, when God showed him a glimpse of heaven and promised him the earth:

Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mothers with their children. And thou saidst, I will surely prosper thee, and make thy descendents as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. (vv 11,12)

He waits for an answer to his prayer, for another vision, for a voice from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And there is nothing.

So he uses his brains, charm and cunning. He sends plenty of bribes on ahead of him, and eventually, the women and children.

Finally he is on his own in the night, by the ford over the river Jabbok. He’s probably contemplating doing a runner at this point, but he knows he’d miss the money, the servants and the women.

And then, there is the Curious Incident of the Man in the Night-Time. It reads as if it’s the most natural thing in the world: “So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (v.25)

They are evenly matched and it’s looking like a draw, when the stranger cheats, and hits him below the belt. (Probably the meaning of this rather strange business about the hip or the thigh.)

Lets now go to the Tate Britain and take up the story. For there is the magnificent alabaster sculpture by Sir Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel, created in the middle of the Second World War.

The two great seven foot, endomorphic, naked men, who look as if they have walked out of a Beryl Cook painting, are in an ambiguous embrace. We can clearly see that the Angel is holding Jacob up, and yet Jacob might suppose that he is clinging to the Angel.

The man wants to be off before the dawn reveals his identity. But Jacob is persistent. Like the woman with the unjust judge in today’s Gospel parable, he will not let God go until he blesses him. For by now he is realising that this wrestling match is the continuation of his apparently unanswered prayer to God.

Jacob is a cheat and a twister and now God has won by fighting foul. He has always wanted to bless Jacob, but Jacob would not let him. He would not become naked and vulnerable. He wanted to stay proud and independent.

The embrace of struggle is the embrace of love. It is a life-changing encounter that leaves Jacob both wounded and blessed.

And to remind him forever after of this, he is given a new name, Israel: Yisra’el, the one who sarahs — the one who strives — with El — with God himself.

Christianity has never been easy-believism. An encounter with the living God, now as then, leaves us both wounded and blessed.

Jesus makes this crystal clear in his teaching. We are to take up our cross and follow him.

For young Rex we hope a long, happy and contented life. But we know that that, however much we try to protect him, there will be the childhood scrapes and bruises.

And as he grows into a man, he will also gather emotional and spiritual bruises, which as he learns to handle them, will add to the richness of his life.

Our ability to grow mature emotionally and spiritually is determined by the degree of woundedness in our lives. And more than that; the degree to which we have processed and wrestled with those wounds.

Here at this Table we come to celebrate the wounds of the one who loves us and who was wounded for us.

I hope you read stories to Rex. And that sometime you might read him Oscar Wilde’s lovely story, The Selfish Giant. The Giant too has been searching for God, and like Jacob asks: ‘Who are you?’

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?"

For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32.26

Servant & Evangelist - Deaconing

Servant & Evangelist - the Ministry of a Deacon
Ordination to the diaconate of Rosy Barrie, Margaret Legg & Bill Radmall
by the Bishop of London

“… do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.” 2 Tim 4.5

I had just finished a primary school assembly about Noah’s Ark – not a subject I would have chosen myself - and explained that I couldn’t stay for the usual class awards because I had to go off and meet with some deacons.

“Who knows what a deacon is?” I realised immediately what a stupid question that was to a bunch of five to ten year olds. Two hands went up however. A very young girl in the front row who it turned out was still troubled by the Ark story: “Were you in the ark, sir?” The older ones laughed and I said “No”. She looked puzzled and said: “So why weren’t you drowned?”

The other hand was that of an older boy who I guessed might just know what a deacon was: “Is it something you put on a hill and set fire to?” Only a letter out!

There are so many rich themes in tonight’s readings for St Luke’s Day, and many of them relate to that question ‘What is a deacon?”

Strengthen the feeble hands, says Isaiah, tell
the good news of Redemption as Streams in the Desert.

Paul sets an example to Timothy of the values of companionship and collaborative ministry – Luke is with me; bring Mark to me – the same Mark whom years previously Paul had all but written off as too whimpish – but now, bring him, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.

Although Paul knows his martyrdom is just around the corner – and that always made the New International translation of our verse a particularly unfortunate rendering of the Greek: ‘keep your head in all situations’. So although Paul was about to lose his head, he wanted the scrolls and the parchments. Study is a responsibility at all times for all who minister in the church of Jesus Christ.

Paul also speaks of those who desert when the going gets tough, and Christian ministry although always rewarding and a great privilege, is sometimes very difficult – not least because of the very people we are trying to serve. As the old adage has it;

To dwell above with those we love,
O that will be glory.
But to live below with those we know
Is quite a different story!

But Paul points to the comfort and strength he receives from God as well: The Lord stood at my side.

More themes in our Gospel; Jesus sends us out as, ‘Lambs among wolves’, and ‘Labourers in the harvest’ to demonstrate and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

It’s a comfort to many of us that he also tells us to accept hospitality as part of our Gospel ministry. He warns us, however, about being too choosy. Don’t turn down the Athenaeum for the Garrick!

In Luke’s other great book, the Acts of the Apostles, he makes further links between the ministry of the Deacon especially and showing hospitality to the needy and the neglected. So much pastoral succour and love may be offered around the table. It can be a very demanding ministry. I think it must have been a weary deacon who defined hospitality as the art of making people feel at home, when you wish they were!

So there are many rich themes in our readings, but two more which are the basis of all the others.

From our text:
“Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfil your ministry.”

The root of the word ministry and deacon is the same. Paul tells Timothy that he must fulfil his diakonia, his servanthood.

You are being ordained deacons in the church of Jesus Christ who came to us as the deacon King; who washed his disciples’ feet and commanded them to love one another as he loved them.

The high calling to which you are being ordained, for the rest of your life, is that of deacon, servant. Whatever other ministry you may go on to exercise, the diaconal ministry remains the foundation.

When the Bishop goes to old fashioned churches like St Mary’s Bourne St, and his vestments are laid out, there is a dalmatic set out for him, the liturgical vestment of a deacon – Andrew is wearing one tonight - and whatever other grand and symbolic vestments he puts on over that, it remains the first and foundational garment, to remind him that he is always deacon as well as bishop. English Monarchs wear a dalmatic at their coronation.

In one sense all Christians are to ‘fulfil their ministry’ in what is called the priesthood of all believers, or of all the baptized. But deacons provide a particular, sacramental focus for servant leadership.

I know that all three of you have already been involved in ministry for many years. But today signals a public recognition and a transition from being ministers in general to deacons in particular.

You yourselves become signs of the kingdom, a proclamation of the Gospel, marked servants of Jesus Christ. Whenever you feel put upon, taken for granted, pre-occupied with trivia that someone else should be doing; then as well as kicking the cat and taking it out on your spouse, you must also give thanks to God for your diaconal charism. (And you may need to run a course for your church members on collaborative every member ministry!)

The second foundational theme in our text is encapsulated in Paul’s phrase ‘do the work of an evangelist!’

Evangelism is a word that has been laden with so many other associations over the last century that it has been quietly dropped by some parts of the Christian Church. As one of my evangelical friends told me the other day – ‘I thought evangelism was something I shouldn’t even do to my dog, let alone my friends.’

Indeed, on the way here I and everyone else in my carriage were evangelised – given this tract, which tells us how to be sure of heaven, and for good measure, how to be sure of hell! (I’m reminded of a church notice board I saw near here years ago. It said in big dayglow letters: ‘Are you tired of sin? Then come inside.’ And some wag had added in felt tip underneath: ‘If not, phone Bayswater 2372.’)

But Paul’s understanding and command to Timothy was simple and clear. He did not tell Timothy to be an evangelist – or to give tracts out and embarrass people on the tube – but to do the work of an evangelist. And that is simply to make the good news of Jesus Christ known in everything that we say or do.

To go back to those beacons burning on hilltops, our Lord reminds us that we should not hide our light under a bushel, or inside the four walls of our churches.

Deacons have traditionally been those who have gone out to the margins of society; to the unchurched, whether rich or poor, and to the marginalised whether within the church community or outside. Deacons have been the go-betweens for priests and bishops, representing them to the world and bringing the needs of the world back to the church in prayer.

This is why liturgically a deacon (Andrew today) reads the Gospel, the good news; and why he will lead the prayers – bringing the needs of the world to God in prayer. And why he sends us back out into the world at the end of the service.

And this is all part of doing the work of an evangelist. It is brokering a meeting between those who need God, and a God who loved the world so much that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins, to be our advocate in heaven and to bring us to eternal life.

Deacons, you, are to remind the church when it becomes self-absorbed, that we are to fulfil the Eleventh Commandment of our Lord – to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. This is not an optional extra for evangelical Christians; it is the calling of the whole church of God.

We should all listen to the next words that the Bishop will read to us, and remember, that the call to be servants and proclaimers of the Gospel, focussed in the ministry of these almost-deacons, is the calling of all of us who love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Fulfil your ministry. Do the work of an evangelist.”

Faith, Trinity 18

Faith

“Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” Mk 9. 24
Trinity 18 (Harvest): Habbakuk 1.1-4; 2.1-4; Ps 37.1-9; 2 Tim 1.1-14

So the man comes home from church one evening having just heard a stirring sermon on ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’

There is a large sycamore tree right outside his window that obscures a beautiful view of the sea. Before he goes to bed he looks at the tree and says: ‘Lord, I really have faith that you can remove this tree and throw it in the sea.’ He pulls the curtains and goes to bed.

First thing in the morning he leaps up and pulls back the curtains. He looks at the sycamore tree and says: ‘I knew it would still be there!’

At first sight this saying of Jesus might seem to suggest that if we only had a tiny amount of real, genuine faith, then we could move mountains or replant trees in the sea.

This is obviously the sort of thing that the disciples have in mind when they ask him to increase their faith.

You can almost imagine Peter saying to the Lord after this statement about tree replanting, ‘Really Lord!?’

And the Lord saying unto Peter: ‘Don’t be so daft!’ – or words to that effect.

Jesus is pulling their leg. He’s teasing them. He’s using humour and hyperbole again to show them how they’ve got it all wrong.

We still often talk about faith as if you can have it in varying amounts. ‘He has tremendous faith’ can either mean he’s very devout, or, rather naïve, or even, particularly stupid.

Like the schoolboy definition of faith: faith is believing something you know isn’t true.

It is not the quantity of faith that is important. It is the nature of the faith, and what you have faith ‘in’, that is paramount.

By the ‘nature of faith’, I mean that it must be a belief that affects your actions? I believe that wasting energy is bad for the environment, so instead of driving to the shops, I walk.

But belief that affects actions is not enough. Young children who believe in Santa Claus can behave in significantly different ways for at least a few days before Christmas. But there is no Santa Claus.

More tragically, suicide bombers sincerely believe they will go straight to heaven. It is a defiant act of faith.

No, it is not just the nature, or sincerity, or depth of our faith that is critical. It is also what we have faith ‘in’ that is crucial.

My uncle had great faith in number 7 running in the 2.30 at Doncaster; and in many other horses throughout his long life. It was nearly always misplaced faith.

I must have told you about the strict Baptist minister visiting Newmarket. Out of curiosity he goes to the races, and knowing that nobody knows him there, decides to have a flutter. He goes to the paddock first and is intrigued to see a Catholic priest praying in Latin over a horse. He is even more surprised when it wins. The priest prays over two or three more horses and they all win.

So finally he lays half the church funds on the horse the priest next prays over. The horse starts well but then keels over before the first fence and dies. The minister is distraught and rushes to ask the priest what happened. “Ah that’s the trouble with you Baptists,” the priest replies, “you don’t know the difference between a blessing and the last rites.”

So before faith leads to actions, we need to be assured that the content of our faith is sound and will not lead to foolish actions.

This is why Christian theology, which down through the centuries has tried to wrestle with what the Bible teaches us, is so important. In Anselm’s phrase, it is faith seeking understanding. Othodoxy leads to orthopraxis. Right belief leads to right actions.

Many of the struggles of the Anglican communion at the moment are centred on this very thing.

As we use Richard Hooker’s three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition & Reason, we come up with different answers to the question: how should I act in response to my faith?

We have a guide in conscience, and in the peace of Christ, which is supposed to rule in our hearts and minds. But Scripture warns us that the human conscience can be seared, and that selfish desire can lull our heart into a false sense of peace.

This is why Christianity is essentially a communal faith. We need each other to save us from ourselves, as we try to act out our faith.

So the lives of the saints, and of our brothers and sisters around us and around the world, help to form the content of our faith and encourage us to act on that faith, to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’

Occasionally there will be some incident in our life or in the lives of those close to us, which acts as a fillip to our faith. It gives us a sense that God really is there and that our relationship with him is not just wishful thinking. It is never ‘proof’, but it is an encouragement to go on believing.

When I was young, I ran a youth club on a barge on the river Adur in Shoreham. A number of the teenagers became Christians and exhibited that naivety of faith which can often be such an inspiration to us old cynics who’ve seen it all and are more prone to put things down to co-incidence than prayer!

We outgrew the one barge and needed another one. They prayed and we found another barge, floated it and claimed it. We needed timber, pitch pine to be specific. They prayed and the old Palace Pier in Brighton was being scrapped and they gave us all the timber we needed.

And most strangely, we needed coach screws – huge screws for fixing the timbers together. Their faith was all stoked up and they prayed for coach screws. As we went on a Sunday afternoon walk up the riverbank, through the south downs valley, incredibly, we found coach screws in the grass along a hundred yard stretch, far more than we needed.

God had not rained them down like manna from heaven. That would have been a bit irresponsible of the Almighty. They had been thrown there a decade before, by the railwaymen taking up the old Horsham line which was axed in the Beeching cuts, that many of you will remember. Whether co-incidence or not, certainly it was an encouragement to faith.

But what if acting on our faith does not lead to greater blessing, but seems to add to the difficulties of our life. Or what if, however much we believe and pray, the horrors and messiness of life do not go away?

If today’s readings have any common thread, it is, how do you keep faith, when all around you wickedness and chaos seem to go unchecked, and the task ahead of you as a disciple of Jesus Christ seems impossible and unrealistic?

So Habakkuk complains to the Lord: “Why do you tolerate wrong? …The law is paralyzed and justice never prevails!” (1.3f) The Psalm (37) takes up a similar theme.

In the reading from Luke, the disciples begin to grasp the enormity of the Gospel project and ask simply: “Lord increase our faith.” (Lk 17.5)

At the end of Habakkuk’s short prophecy, he sums up the Christian position:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.” (Hab 3.17f)

It was refreshing to hear on the radio this harvest Sunday morning, a farmer whose crops had been decimated by floods, expressing just this same thought.

Acting in faith is a statement that we do believe that God is good; that right will triumph over evil; that saving the world is a project worth giving our life to.

In Stanford’s anthem (at the offertory - see below) based on Habakkuk’s prophecy, you will hear how he turns the gloom into an assertion of faith as we come to the Altar of God.

For every time we come to this Table and taste the food of heaven, we are offering a Eucharist, a thanksgiving for God’s sustaining harvest in our lives.

And we bring our mustard seed of faith, seeking to understand what God is doing in our lives and in our world.

It is not always easy to believe and to shape our actions to our belief, but whenever we come in penitence and faith to the bread and the wine, we can say with honesty:

“Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” Mk 9. 24

Offertory Anthem

"For lo I raise up"

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

For lo I raise up that bitter and hasty nation,
Which march thro' the breadth of the earth,
To possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful,
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
And are more fierce than the evening wolves.
And their horsemen spread themselves,
Yea, their horsemen come from far.
They fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour,
They come all of them for violence;
Their faces are set as the east-wind,
And they gather captives as the sand.
Yea, he scoffeth at kings,
And princes are a derision unto him.
For he heapeth up dust and taketh it.
Then shall he sweep by as a wind that shall pass over,
And be guilty,
Even he, whose might is his God.
Art not Thou from everlasting,
O Lord, my God, mine Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, thou hast ordained him for judgment,
And thou, O Rock hast established him for correction.
I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower,
And look forth to see what he will say to me,
And what I shall answer concerning my complaint.
And the Lord answered me and said:
The vision is yet for the appointed time,
And it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie,
Tho' it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come.
For the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
But the Lord is in his holy temple:
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

Habakkuk 1.6-12; 2.1, 3. 14, 20

Dead Dogs & Assurance

Dead Dogs and Assurance

Luke 16.19-31 (Dives & Lazarus), Trinty 17

"What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?" 2 Samuel 9.8

I am reminded of the agnostic, insomniac, dyslexic, who lay awake at night thinking: “Is there a Dog?”

Another question that has worried Christians down through the centuries has been: “Am I a Christian?”

The doctrine of predestination was an unsuccessful attempt to try and give reassurance to the doubting soul, and we have looked at this together in a past sermon.

We saw that if you pursue this doctrine with too much rigour, you end up with a capricious and almost vicious god, and a view of life that is fatalistic. (You remember the Calvinist who fell down stairs and said, “Thank goodness that’s over with!”)

And of course the question is simply transferred to “Am I among the elect?” I knew a number of strict Calvinists in my younger days who were plagued throughout their lives by terrible doubts that, after a life of godly devotion, they might after all, not be among the elect.

Tomorrow the Bishop installs the new Dean in St Paul’s Cathedral, Bishop Graham Knowles. One of his predecessors, John Donne, who became Dean in 1621, was greatly influenced by this strand in Calvinism. You see it in some of his poems as he pleads with God for assurance.

Do you remember the last verse of ‘A Hymn to God the Father’?

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore:
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.

Others have taken a different route to assure themselves of their eternal salvation. They have placed an almost magical emphasis on the sacrament of Holy Baptism. As long as the water has been applied and the words said, then you’re ‘in’. No more worries.

Scripture, however, deals with this question of assurance in a very different and much simpler way: showing kindness and love to others is a sign and a confirmation that we have responded well to the love of God shown to us.

And this is the burden of today’s Gospel.

First let’s remind ourselves of the background to our text. It is taken from the OT reading that is suggested to accompany this Gospel reading in the Book of Common Prayer, where it is set for the first Sunday after Trinity.

Mephibosheth was a rather sad figure. His grandfather King Saul had killed himself after a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Philistines. His father, David’s beloved best friend, Jonathan, had also been killed in the battle. And so had Jonathan’s two brothers, Mephibosheth’s uncles.

But he had a forceful and protective nanny. She knew what would happen to young heirs to the throne when the royal dynasty of Saul was giving way to the dynasty of king David.

She took up the 5 year-old boy and fled. In her haste, she fell and somehow the boy’s ankles or feet were broken. He became lame. (2 Sam 4.4)

She had misjudged David, who rarely acted as other ancient near eastern rulers did nearly three thousand years ago.

Some years later, when he discovered the young man was still alive, King David welcomed him into his household and made provision for him for the rest of his life.

Now some would say this was just a shrewd move by David - keep any possible rival to the throne where you can see him!

But this is a cynical view of a passionate man who valued friendships and tried to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

The NT records that God says of David, “This is a man after my own heart”. (Acts 13.22)

Mephibosheth’s response is grovelling, even by ancient near eastern standards: "What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?"

Perhaps he was simply trying to reassure David that he posed no threat?

Whatever, history remembers Mephibosheth for these words, and these words alone, that have come down to us over the millennia: "What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?"

We will return to Mephibosheth later.

The parable of Dives and Lazarus is more specific in addressing the issue of assurance that we are Christians. And of course dogs have a walk-on part in that story as well: the graphic image of dogs licking the sores of Lazarus.

Incidentally, this is the only parable where proper names are given, but this is probably to do with their meaning: Dives means ‘rich’; and Lazarus, or Eleazar, means ‘God is my help’.

It’s such a gruesome parable to the modern ear, that we can get too easily sidetracked into a discussion about the afterlife – torment and fire. But that is not the point of the story and certainly, as in other parables, the details may not be pushed to form a credible theology of the life hereafter.

However, neither is the parable primarily about the rich and the poor, although it fits in with other teaching of Jesus about this.

It is about unbelief and hardheartedness, and because of this, it is also about personal re-assurance concerning our own faith.

Dives exhibits four ‘symptoms’ of the disease of unbelief; although these should not be mistaken for the disease itself. As Archbishop Trench of Dublin remarked about the symptoms: “the seat of the disease is within; these are but the running sores that witness the plague.”

The marks of unbelief seen in this parable are:

the pursuit of wealth for its own sake
pride - the costly purple and fine linen of dignitaries
callousness - he just ignored Lazarus
and spiritual hardness of heart – not even someone returning from the dead could raise the spiritually dead.

So the parable seeks to emphasise that our spiritual state is reflected by our inner attitude and outward actions.

The constant refrain of the prophets, of the epistles and of Our Lord himself is that our hearts must be right. Christianity is a heart religion.

The epistle of John, which accompanies this Gospel in the Book of Common Prayer, puts it very bluntly: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar!” John is concerned with how Christians can be assured that they are in fact children of God, and not deceiving themselves like Dives and his brothers.

And as in our Lord’s parable, the answer is simple. Loving actions as we respond to the love of God, should confirm and convince us in a way, that even someone returning from the dead, would be unable to do.

The five brothers whom Dives wants to warn, would not so much as ask the question ‘Am I a child of God?’ They had the arrogant confidence of the proud and self-satisfied: ‘We are the children of Abraham!’

What is the opposite of faith? Is it doubt? No! It is certainty.

Assurance of salvation is not certainty. It is rather a reasonable and proper confidence in the Gospel.

Intellectually we should be convinced, as we shall say at the altar in a few minutes, that Christ has done all that is necessary to make us one with God; accepted in the Beloved.

But although Scripture encourages us to be assured that we are saved by grace alone, it nonetheless wishes constantly to unsettle us from too arrogant an assertion of that saving grace, lest any man should boast. (Eph 2.8f)

This is where sometimes we find some of our brothers and sisters in Christ a little too sure of a little too much. There should be a godly reticence about our claim to be Christians – to be followers of Christ.

To go back to where we started, the question should be, not so much, ‘am I a Christian’ as, ‘am I living a Christian life?’

And the answer is always to look at the ways in which God is enabling you to love others, with kindness and good deeds.

Of course there will always be failures and inadequacy, and it is a healthy spiritual sign that we are aware of these. There will always be room for improvement. But we must not be too hard on ourselves, for if our love for God results in a practical love for others, then we should not fear as Dives did.

For Mephibosheth there was a degree of astonishment at the King’s love lavished on him, a crippled man, fallen from greatness. Yet there was proper confidence because of all that he had seen of the King’s love and loyalty.

No less for us, as we stand in humility before our great King, with confidence in his love, lavished upon us in this feast, we can say with the wonder, and indeed assurance, of Mephibosheth:

"What is your servant, that you should look upon a dead dog such as I?" 2 Samuel 9.8

War against Terror

The War against Terror

“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9

This is one of those Sundays when the readings are fairly straightforward and can be summed up, more or less, in two sentences. ’Let’s not fool ourselves and think that we were clever enough or good enough to have found God. He finds us, and he has a party in heaven when we finally realise he has!’

So that clears the way for me to spend the remaining 10 minutes talking about the War on Terror.

I was at a dinner on Thursday with Shami Chakrabarti, the Director of Liberty, the civil liberties organisation. She was answering questions on a broad range of subjects, and as you might expect, was fairly provocative.

She spoke particularly about the dangers of putting western society in a permanent state of emergency – a permanent war footing. During the Second World War, (this weekend marks the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Britain) there were emergency powers and the restriction of some civil liberties, but when the war was over, the powers were removed and freedoms restored.

‘But when will this War end’, she asked, ‘and what might be done in its name and so become virtually permanent emergency powers?’

I don’t wish to get involved in the political issues here, but I want us for a few moments to look at part of the Biblical analysis of our predicament.

Back to our text from Genesis: “But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"”

It reminds me of a week I spent with other trainee chaplains in a large psychiatric hospital when they still existed in the mid 70s. The Chaplain was explaining to us the dangers of asking rhetorical questions in sermons. He said he had once started a sermon in the hospital chapel by posing the question ‘why are we all here?’ – a man at the back shouted ‘because we’re not all there!’

God’s question must be rhetorical, or otherwise the incident paints a strange picture: the almighty, the omnipotent, the omniscient Creator of all things, playing hide-and-seek in the Garden.

“Where are you Adam?”

“Coming ready or not!”

And Adam is not ready. He is naked, and ashamed, and confused, and angry with Eve and with himself. And he has become afraid of the God who is Love. He has believed the Lie

“Where are you Adam?”

This is not a question about location. It is a metaphysical question.

Adam is lost. And so the war against terror begins.

“Where are you Adam?”

I am plotting mayhem and revenge; the slaying of Abel; the atrocities of humanity before the flood; the wickedness of the cities before the scattering from Babel;

I am plotting nationalism and weapons of destruction; infanticide and torture; oppression and racism; inquisitions and discrimination; religious hatred and world wars; holocausts and ethnic cleansing; acts of terror and global injustice.

The third chapter of Genesis is an ancient aetiology of human evil: an attempt to explain why the world is as it is.

Since the dawn of civilisation, humans have wrestled with the terror that is within, and how it expresses itself without.

Humans have experienced great goodness - the simple pleasures of walking with the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day.

And they have witnessed great evil - the exercise of godlike powers to humiliate and destroy those who are ‘other’.

I think the Archbishop was right this week to point out the insidiousness of reality TV which promulgates a culture of humiliation and mockery.

And so in this war against terror we are sometimes in danger of assuming that ‘the other’ against whom we fight, is somehow inherently different from us.

But we are all earthlings and tainted with Adam’s sin. We are all children of Eve and under our mother’s curse.

Solzhenitsyn, who certainly had his share of suffering at the hands of evil men and women, was wise enough to write:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” (Quoted in Mayne, Learning to Dance, DLT 2001, p166)

War can only ever be enjoined with a sense of humility, and with a recognition that those whom we attack are not all evil and we are not all good.

The little boy is standing up in the back seat of the car and his father keeps telling him to sit down.

At last the father stops the car and forcibly sits the boy down. As they continue the journey, the sulking boy in the back shouts: “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”

From childhood we experience the ‘divided self’, that in this story of Adam and Eve, is the result of their disobedience.

For Adam and Eve in the garden, the duality within immediately skewed three dominant areas of their life, and all our lives: sexuality, spirituality and society.

They were ashamed of their nakedness, and sexual companionship becomes an arena for struggle and not for pleasure and deepening intimacy; spiritually, they become afraid of God who only wishes the best for them; and as society, they turn on each other in blame and recrimination.

Genesis only hints at an answer to this war within. From Eve there is to come one who will strike the serpent’s heel. (Gen 3.15)

But the NT interprets the work of Jesus, the son of Eve, as the unifying factor in our lives, that may not end the war here and now, but that is able to give us sustained conquest over our dark side, and ultimate victory.

Our patron, Paul, further develops the solution to this civil war within us - the backcloth of so much human history, literature and art; the backcloth of our own experience of the messiness of life.

He points to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who helps us to be what we are in Christ; to grow into Christian maturity; to have that attitude towards others that was in Christ Jesus, as he tells the Philippians.

Paul lists the fruit of this Spirit of Christ in his letter to the Galatians. It is the ‘God side’ of our inner duality, the original image of God still present in every human.

These characteristics relate to God, Others and Self.

God - love, joy, peace - these should be the characteristics of our Christian life.

Others - patience, kindness, generosity - these are to be the marks of our Christian society.

Self - faithfulness, gentleness, self-control these are the way to tame the unruly heart.

To be led by the Spirit is to follow our desire for holiness: to pursue the good and the beautiful – but not just for its own sake. The Christian distinctive is in our motivation for the pursuit of beauty. Is it to worship the creature - or to worship the Creator, who is blessed forever?

And lest this should all sound like some long mediaeval struggle for impossible purity, our Lord uses a more vibrant and life-affirming metaphor – the Spirit as the breath in our lungs, the wind in our sails: it is like sailing - finding the wind - and the exhilaration of running before it.

All human beings are capable of this, and we must never forget that whatever else we justify in the war against terror, redemption is always possible, and there is rejoicing in heaven when the lost are found, not destroyed.

God’s challenge to us, as it was in the garden, is to live with him, following Christ and the way to life; or, to hide with Adam and rebel and follow the destructive inner path to death.

“But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"” Genesis 3.9

Angels Unawares & Pride

Angels Unawares & Pride

13th Sunday after Trinity
Ecclus 10.12-18 Heb 13.1-8, 15-16; Lk 14.1, 7-14

“Be not forgetful to show hospitality to strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Heb.13.2)

I remember how shocked I was when first I stayed with a vicar friend and his large family. I went into the bathroom to freshen up before preaching and he shouted up the stairs as I was going in - “Use any of the toothbrushes”.

Well, I suppose I had eaten other people’s apple cores, shared cutlery in college when I couldn’t be bothered to go and get another spoon, why not use someone else’s toothbrush? Well, a lot of reasons actually...

From his point of view, it was just being hospitable. Personally, I keep all those toothbrushes we get on transatlantic flights for guests. It makes me feel mildly better about my carbon footprint.

My guestroom is in constant use. It’s the laundry that gets me down most. I always smell the bed before visitors arrive to see whether I need to change the sheets - I find a squirt of aftershave gives the impression of recent laundering.

And visitors are like the number 74 buses: they always arrive in packs and never when you want one.

A lonely evening when you’ve finished the Times crossword and there is nothing but snooker on TV and such a mound of work in the office that it gives you vertigo just looking at it; and there isn’t a caller in sight.

But wait till you’re in a ‘work’ mood; or watching the Eurovision Song Contest with a group of friends and a bottle of Ribena, and the doorbell doesn’t stop. The definition of hospitality flashes through your mind: the art of making people feel at home when you wish they were!

Another problem is that I always seem to arrange for multiple guests to arrive when I am in Nottingham or some other far-flung corner of the Empire. This can be an advantage as the guests often entertain each other, make the beds, clean the flat, do the washing up, and have a meal ready for you when you get home.

But there have been times when a punk friend, with more piercings than a colander, turns up at the same time as a professor from an American Bible College; or a sensitive, vegetarian, teetotaller has to let in your semi-drunk nephew who has bought a Bucket of Kentucky Fried with him. There's blood on the doormat when you arrive home and the prospect of a long and difficult evening.

Hospitality is a sort of antidote to pride, which is why the two themes run together in our readings today. Jesus upbraids his host by pointing out that table fellowship is a place for self-giving, not self-exaltation.

And he reminds the guests themselves that humility should be their guiding principle and not pride.

It is a difficult path to follow with sincerity. We all know how false humility grates. Like the Regius Professor who chose not to join in the Vice-Chancellor’s procession; and when asked by a proctor why he was sitting in a pew at the back replied: “Just a little ostentatious humility.”

Self-centredness and its outward display, pride, are the constant enemies of personal growth and maturity, but the angels are there to provoke us and to protect us from ourselves. “Be not forgetful to show hospitality to strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Heb.13.2)

Or as Peter puts it in his epistle: “Use hospitality one to another, without grudging.” (1 Pet 4.7)

In the context of the first century church, this was a very practical and necessary aspect of applied Christian love. Wayside inns were notorious throughout the Roman world and we are not talking Cotswold bed-&-breakfast here. Indeed it was incumbent on both Jews and Greeks to entertain strangers.

Zeus Xenios (Zeus patron of strangers) supposedly masqueraded as a wayfarer and then gave special blessings to those who entertained him – this was probably in the writer’s mind when he penned the verse. (The Greeks, by the way, listed humility amongst the vices!)

For the Jewish Christians to whom this letter was addressed, they would recall Abraham and the angels he entertained at the oaks of Mamre (remember Rubleyev’s famous icon); or Tobit or Gideon or Minoah.

But of course it’s a tricky thing, entertaining strangers, both now as it was then. So there were those who pretended to be Christians in order to receive free board and lodging. It was such a common practice that Lucian wrote a droll satire about it in The Death of Proteus Peregrinus.

The Didache was a first century Christian teaching manual and it gave some down to earth guidelines on offering hospitality: “Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord, but he must not stay more than one day, or two if it is absolutely necessary; if he stays three days he is a false prophet.”

This was also why our Lord told his disciples when they went on their preaching tours, to receive hospitality at the first house that offered it; not to move around the town when they found a house with a better cellar and a Jacuzzi.

Well how do we fulfil this injunction to offer hospitality, apart from the obvious way of never letting a priest pay for a drink?

In church on a Sunday it is straightforward but often neglected - we always have visitors and although the way to the church hall is an easy trip (at least on the way there), it is sometimes a daunting journey into the unknown and mildly threatening for a stranger.
And that’s true just in going to the back to pick up a glass – especially if they are on their own. Let’s not leave others to do it. And let’s not be afraid of saying welcome to someone who it turns out has been coming for longer than you have.

We must always strive to include others, even when they may not be those with whom we would choose to be stranded on a desert island.

Hospitality is a great gift. Hospitality to strangers is a greater gift, but one that tempers our pride and self-absorption.

So in our homes or wherever we entertain, we should not spend all our time with just our comfortable coterie. If we are fortunate enough to have the conviviality of friends, we must sometimes broaden our horizons to welcome, if not the stranger, then at least the relatively unknown. I find that although they are sometimes a burden, guests greatly enrich my own life and often the lives of their improbable fellow guests.

Our Lord himself shows us hospitality whenever we meet around this Table. Despite our unworthiness he deems us happy who are called to this supper. As we follow his example, his angels wait to surprise and bless us, and to take us further along the path of genuine humility.

“Be not forgetful to show hospitality to strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (Heb 13.2)

Peace & the Sword (Trinity 10)

Peace & Sword

10th Sunday after Trinity
Jer 23.23-29; Heb 11.29.12.2; Luke 12.49-56

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Isaiah 26.3

Was I the only one to notice that last Thursday, the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis, the appointed reading for the day began “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews in – wait for it – Memphis!” How much of a co-incidence was that? Or was God telling us that Elvis is not really dead?

It’s amazing what people can get out of selectively reading the Bible. Scripture is very slippery at times and in today’s Gospel we have Jesus, the prince of peace, telling his disciples that he did not come to bring peace but division, or as Matthew puts it even more graphically, ‘not peace but the sword’. (Matt 10.34)

Similarly that same Isaiah who has just re-assured us about being kept in perfect peace, rails against the false prophets who cry ‘peace, peace’ when there is none.

And in today’s first reading, Jeremiah condemns those prophets who have comfortable dreams about the future of God’s people when all he sees is fire and destruction.

Perhaps we need to spend a few minutes re-evaluating the Christian teaching about inner peace?

Striving for peace of mind is not a modern obsession, although contemporary adverts play heavily on it to prize open our wallets. It appears to be a concern running through the millennia of human consciousness.

As soon as we developed the ability for self-reflection, we became anxious, or more importantly, we knew we were anxious. Animals appear to demonstrate anxiety, although presumably without reflecting on it.

The baboon pacing up and down in his cage and showing all the signs of worry is unlikely to be pondering universal angst and the pointlessness of existence without a fixed cosmic referent. Indeed that particular issue doesn’t keep many of us awake at night. It is more likely to be our family, our health or the gas bill.

The Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, constantly addresses the tendency of the human spirit to be anxious, to be troubled. And its message is consistent although expressed in different ways.

The changes and chances of living in a frail body, on a delicate planet, in an unpredictable society, are enough to make anyone anxious. And there is no fixed point in this earthly realm which can give us security.

But, as the Apostle Paul puts it, ‘our citizenship is in heaven’. (Phil 3.20) Our point of reference is heaven, which is why today’s epistle urges us to remember that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.”

Isaiah, in our text, expresses it in a different way - ‘whose mind is fixed on thee’ - our point of reference is the eternal and unchanging God. That is our fulcrum, our anchor.

And this is part of the mystery of faith, testified to by the lives of countless millions down through the ages; by the men and women of faith that the letter to the Hebrews catalogues: that such a seemingly ephemeral thing - belief in God - can provide so firm a foundation that it gives us peace of mind.

One of the purposes or liturgy and Bible reading, of mass and the daily offices, of priests and the religious; is to bring us back to that quiet centre; to recall us to the peace of God which passes all understanding.

But of course, nothing is ever as simple as that, and we come back to those apparent contradictions in Scripture which we pondered a few minutes ago.

There’s a dialogue between Lucy & Good Ol’ Charlie Brown which illustrates our dilemma.

Charlie Brown is irritable and restless and Lucy says to him: “I thought you had inner peace.” “I do” replies Charlie, “but I still have outer obnoxiousness”.

There is an inbuilt tension in our human make-up. The strength of that tension will vary with our personality and with the circumstances of our life. So even Jesus says in today’s Gospel “what stress I am under” – not a very good advert for being kept in perfect peace!

But this is because, the degree to which we can be at perfect peace and show it by our outward demeanour, is moderated by another, probably evolutionary force, which disturbs our equilibrium and leaves us dissatisfied with the cheap answers of religion.

It is most likely this creative tension which urges the human spirit to its greatest feats of love, beauty and creativity, as well as its depths of destruction and depravity.

This is the life force which we need constantly to temper by trying to reflect the goodness of the Giver of life.

George Herbert picks up this tension in the title of his poem The Pulley - will we be lifted up to God and peace, or drawn down to earth - to Pandora and chaos. - for there is also a Christian reworking of the Pandora myth in the poem. At risk of turning this sermon into an edition of Poetry Please let me read you The Pulley.

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by—
"Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span."

So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

"For if I should," said he,
"Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in nature, not the God of nature:
So both should losers be.

"Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.

George Herbert 1593 1632

Those words of Augustine readily spring to mind:

Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. (Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Chapter 1)

As we pursue God, and try our best to trust in him, we do indeed achieve a good measure of peace of mind. But in order to keep alive the divine spark within us, we will also experience a divine restlessness, even divisions, and, God forbid, at times, the sword.

For we cannot be disciples of Christ without provoking divisions. We cannot bring into being that prophetic vision of a just and compassionate world without facing dissent and fighting evil and injustice.

But, if we don’t want the restlessness, the struggles within and strife without, to overwhelm us, then we must put in place those structures that enable our inner life to come back, again and again to the hope of the Gospel; to be stayed on God.

Let this Bread & Wine be such a recollection for you.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” Isaiah 26.3

Mary Magdalene, Sex & Spiritual desire

Feast of St Mary Magdalene, July 22nd

Song of Solomon 3.1-4; Psalm 42; 2 Corinthians 5. 14-17; John 20.1-2, 11-18 “I will seek him whom my soul loves.” Song of Solomon 3.2 Why do I have two songs going round in my head, one by Gershwin and one by Cole Porter, when I think of today’s saint? Well the first is the Ira & George Gershwin song “Let’s call the whole thing off” recorded by Fred Astair in 1937.

You like potato and I like potato, You like tomato and I like tomato; Potato, potato, tomato, tomato! Let's call the whole thing off!

Is it Magdalene (Magdalen), or Maudlin? The answer is relatively simple. If it’s an Oxford or Cambridge College, then it’s pronounced the tearfully sentimental way – maudlin, for that is how the name was pronounced in the 15th century when both colleges were founded, and indeed, the tearful Mary was the origin of the word maudlin. (There was a huge cult of Mary Magdalene in England in the 15th & 16th century and more churches were dedicated to her than to the Blessed Virgin Mary.) (The extra ‘e’, by the way, on the end of the Cambridge College name was probably a 19th century affectation, using the continental spelling to distinguish it for postal purposes from the Other Place.) Magdalene, is the pronunciation if it is today’s saint or a church dedicated to her, or a road named after her or a nearby church. Now Fr Anthony has outlined the biblical material we have about this Mary on the front of today’s Weekly Sheet, and I’m not going to repeat that. (See below) However, the church has a long tradition of conflating three, almost certainly different, women: this Mary Magdalene, exorcised of seven devils by Jesus and consequently, as a woman of means, a financial supporter, present at the Resurrection as we read in today’s Gospel; then there is Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus; and finally, the woman who was a great sinner and anointed our Lord’s feet and wiped them dry with her hair, often reputed to have been a prostitute, although there is no evidence of this. It is this woman who is so often pictured voluptuously by artists, as in the Titian on the front of today’s service booklet. And this takes us on to the second song that goes round in my head: Cole Porter’s 1928 hit, much bowdlerized since, “Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”

Birds do it, bees do it; Even educated fleas do it…

Which prompted me to add a verse:

In Knightsbridge bars, debutantes do it; In the Sloane Club maiden aunts do it…

Although I’m sure that can’t be true, because I was once told that in Knightsbridge, ‘sex’ were what the coalman delivered your coal in… The readings today have a theme running through them, that brings together the different aspects of Mary Magdalene as she is traditionally understood: the transformation of love, longing and lust, through penitence and tears, into the new creation of spiritual desire and thirst. Noli me tangere: ‘do not touch me’ says Jesus to Mary; look but do not touch. This is the erotic longing of the lover for the beloved, which we read in the Song of Songs. Or in today’s Psalm: “Like as the hart desireth the waterbrook, so longeth my soul after thee, O God.” (Ps 42.1) It is at once a physical and spiritual longing, which we hear caught in the very English restraint of Herbert Howell’s setting of the Psalm in the Offertory motet. Consider these two definitions of sexuality and spirituality for a moment.

Sexuality - of the essence of ‘being’ - knowing and being known – longing for connectedness, intimacy, absorption into the beloved.

And:

Spirituality - of the essence of ‘being’ - knowing and being known – longing for connectedness, intimacy, absorption into the beloved.

Looked at in this way, they are the same. It is hardly surprising then, that the Bible is full of graphic sexual imagery: in Genesis; the Song of Solomon; the Psalms; the Prophets; Jesus; Paul; the Revelation of St John… the sexual and the sensual run through the Bible, and the metaphor is taken up by many spiritual writers. But it is more than a metaphor. Human sexuality and intimacy are a reflection of the spiritual bond within the Trinity; a bond which we are drawn into through Christ’s passionate love for us. It is part of being made in the image of the triune God. Now in some centuries and in some parts of the church, this juxtaposition of sexuality and spirituality has all been too much, and so a sort of dualism has arisen, in which human sexuality has become the demon, and pure spiritual love the ideal. So the Virgin Mary becomes the pattern, and any life less virginal is regarded as second best. This sort of theology is deeply ingrained into many of us, and still produces inner tensions, and as we know, theological struggles in the wider church. It is a rich vein for the poetic. Here is John Donne wrestling with his feelings and longings, in Sonnet xiv:

Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee, and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. I, like an usurpt towne, to another due, Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end, Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend, But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue. Yet dearely I love you, and would be loved faine, But am betroth’d unto your enemie: Divorce mee, untie, or break that knot againe, Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free, Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

I used to say, to the alarm of some of my students in my spirituality classes, that you will never be at ease with your spirituality, until you are at ease with your sexuality. For some had naively thought that if they became more spiritual, it would sort out their turbulent inner struggle with the sexual. But as celibate monks and nuns have observed through the centuries, there is a terrible irony, that as spiritual desire grows, so does sexual desire. The old abbot was once asked by a young monk when he would be free from all these sexual thoughts. He pondered a moment and then replied: “About 5 minutes after you die.” It is not coincidental that the Song of Songs or Song of Solomon was written by a man that Scripture tells us had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And they were not all platonic, political alliances. At another level, it is not surprising that people turn to the church, to the spiritual, for hatches, matches and dispatches. These are times of heightened emotional and physical awareness: the intimacy of marriage which Scripture likens to the bond between Christ and his church; the mystery of a child springing from within; the wrench of death and physical parting. Only as we realise that the physical and sensual and emotional are part of our spiritual relationship with God, will we grow in our love and desire for more of God, the mysterious beloved, whom we long to hold, like Mary, but cannot. Jesus tells Mary not to touch him. It is not the touch itself that is inappropriate, for later he invites Thomas to touch him. But it is a signalling that the relationship has changed, for her and for us who follow. The human longing to touch and hold those whom we love is but a shadow of the new intimacy of Jesus with his people. He will send the Holy Spirit to dwell within us; there will be a deeper union of God with us which transcends the limitations of human relationships. Here, at this Table, our hunger and thirst for the beloved is both satisfied and yet still inadequate. We rightly continue to long for a physical presence of Jesus. There is a symbolic physical closeness as we take Christ into our own flesh in bread and wine. And yet we know, that until we are united with him in the life to come, our Christian pilgrimage, like that of Mary Magdalene, will always be driven by desire. Our spiritual life will be characterized by the quest of all the saints: “I will seek him whom my soul loves.” Song of Solomon 3.2 Weekly Sheet notes Mary Magdalene is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be a saint, with a feast day of 22nd July. Her name means ‘Mary of Magdala’, after a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. The life of the historical Mary is a subject of ongoing debate and popular interest in her was heightened in the book and film The Da Vinci Code, each loaded with dubious and inaccurate historical assertions. In Luke 8:2 Mary is mentioned as one of the women who ‘provided for Jesus and the twelve disciples out of their means.’ The book also tells the story of an exorcism on Mary that cast out seven demons. These women, who earlier ‘had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,’ later accompanied Jesus on his last journey to Jerusalem (Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:41; Luke 23:55) and were witnesses to the Crucifixion. Mary remained there until the body was taken down and laid in a tomb prepared for Joseph of Arimathea. In the early dawn of the first day of the week Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James, (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Gospel of Peter 12), came to the sepulchre with sweet spices to anoint the body. They found the sepulchre empty but saw the ‘vision of angels’ (Matthew 28:2-5). As the first witness to the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene went to tell Peter and John, (John 20:1-2), gaining her the epithet ‘apostle to the apostles’ and again immediately returned to the sepulchre. She remained there weeping at the door of the tomb. According to the New Testament, she was the first witness of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus, though at first she did not recognise him (John 20). One tradition concerning Mary Magdalene says that following the death and resurrection of Jesus, she used her position to gain an invitation to a banquet given by Emperor Tiberius Caesar. When she met him, she held a plain egg in her hand and exclaimed “Christ is risen!” Caesar laughed, and said that Christ rising from the dead was as likely as the egg in her hand turning red while she held it. Before he finished speaking, the egg in her hand turned a bright red, and she continued proclaiming the Gospel to the entire imperial house – hence, Easter Eggs!