Lent 1 - Obedience, In Defense of Rowan
Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7; Rom 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11
“Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.” Psalm 40.6
Last Sunday I was in the sunshine in Madeira, preaching for Fr Neil in the English Church. There were 220 in the congregation and Fr Neil is doing a splendid job. He sends his warmest greetings to you. Do go and visit.
As he drove me around we went up one of the many mountain sides and he explained to me that as the temperature drops quite rapidly the higher you get, you come to an imaginary line above which the banana trees are unable to be grown.
And so it is that the locals describe where people live as ‘above’ or ‘below’ the banana line.
There is no doubt in my mind, as I’ve listened to the news and read the press over these last few days, that we have been living above the banana line, indeed not far off the completely bonkers line!
An academic lecture to the Law Society by one of the most learned Archbishops in recent centuries, has prompted the press to ask Muslim shop girls in Bolton as well as Archbishops in Africa, whether they would like to live under Sharia law.
The answers are as predictable as they are irrelevant.
The Archbishop was rightly exploring the ways in which our ‘secular’, liberal state already takes into account religious sensibilities, of Christians and Jews, and how this may need to accommodate aspects of Muslim culture and Sharia law as well.
City banks have already worked out ways in which Muslims can borrow and invest money without falling into the sin of usury – charging or gaining interest. As Bishop Rowan well knows, this is not a straightforward issue, and the Bishop of Rochester has raised some important issues of principle in a sensible article that you can find on the Rochester website.
With hindsight, many would say that the Archbishop should probably have kept his thoughts to himself, and given a bland lecture.
But then what an intolerable straitjacket our media has imposed on such a god-gifted intellect.
And all this has occluded the real Anglican news this week. And I don’t mean the launch of the Absolution chocolate bar at Rococo’s – although hurry round to buy your guilt-free slab of chocolate and so contribute to our Lent appeal. We hope this will indeed be in the press over the next few days as they begin to journey back below the banana line…
No, I mean the remarkable article by James Jones, evangelical Bishop of Liverpool, published in a collection of essays last week: A Fallible Church (edited by Kenneth Stevenson, DLT, January 2008).
Sadly it was crowded out by all the thoughtful Rowan headlines: ‘What a Burkha’ and ‘Bash the Bishop’.
James Jones, as a conservative evangelical, has never championed the cause of Gay Christians. Indeed he was one of the nine Bishops who signed the letter publicly denouncing the proposed consecration of Dr Jeffrey John, now Dean of St Albans, as Bishop of Reading.
But listen to Bishop Jones now:
“I deeply regret this episode in our common life... I am sorry for the way I opposed it and I am sorry too for adding to the pain and distress of Dr John and his partner. I regret too that this particular controversy narrowed rather than enlarged the space for healthy debate within the church.”The Bishop looks at the biblical account of Jonathan and David’s friendship and at the relationship between Jesus and John, the beloved disciple. It is a breathtaking essay from a conservative evangelical. I’m sure the Archbishop would probably agree with James Jones, but had he written it last week, there would have been a lynching party battering down the gates of Lambeth Palace.
I commend the article to you – it is on the Diocese of Liverpool’s website if you don’t want to buy the book.
But it’s not the substance of his article that I wish to comment upon – that’s the subject of a future study. Rather it is the attitude that the Bishop of Liverpool admits to in his closing sentence:
“I know that many are pessimistic about the future but I find myself strangely and surprisingly optimistic that if we can maintain the space to listen to “the still small voice” there might emerge a new understanding and paradigm that none of us can yet imagine.”“If we can maintain the space to listen,” he writes.
And this brings us back to our text and our Lenten themes:
“Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.” Psalm 40.6
The Hebrew word at the end of this text is rather difficult to translate. When I had my mid-life crisis, rather precociously at the age of 38, I started sporting a couple of earrings.
One of my students wrote our text on the board when I arrived to deliver my next lecture, but translated it literally from the Hebrew: “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but my ear you have pierced.” Some translations use the more earthy image, ‘my ear you have dug’.
Most of the commentators agree that it carries the sense: ‘you have made me obedient’.
The word ‘obedience’ has a rather bad contemporary press. It smacks of subservience and blindly following rules and regulations.
The origins of the Latin word are to ‘listen towards’ or better, ‘to listen deeply’.
“Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear – you have allowed me to listen deeply.”
This is what the Bishop of Liverpool is advocating; and this is just what has not been happening over these last few days of media hysteria and bloodlust.
One of the chief disciplines of Lent, is listening deeply. Many of the other spiritual disciplines are designed to facilitate this.
As the weeks go by, and the services become more meditative with more silences and longer readings, we should be opening our ears to God. This is more valuable than any amount of self-sacrifice or lent offerings – good as they are.
For as we listen to God, through worship and study and listening deeply to each other; then true obedience follows – the ability to live a life pleasing to God and a life which releases our true potential in Christ.
The Bishop of Liverpool found that listening deeply was a transformative experience, which changed his attitude and actions.
Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, listening to God and wrestling with his own desires. His battles with the world, the flesh and the devil were informed by the Sciptures that he had stored in his heart, and by his Jewish faith.
Lent is an opportunity for us to retreat from the frenetic clamour of information overload; to come down to quietness below the banana line.
I pray for all of us, that not just in the public debates about the sort of society we want to live in and the sort of Church that is honouring to Christ; but in our relationships with one another, with our loved ones; and most importantly, in our deepening relationship with God, we will take the time to listen deeply.
It is a transforming experience.
“Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.” Psalm 40.6
