Lent 2, St Paul's Knightsbridge

Solemn High Mass (St Patrick's Day) - Reality & Ideals

Readings: Genesis 15.1–12,17–18; Philippians 3.17 – 4.1; Luke 13.31–35

You can listen to this sermon here.

“our citizenship, is in heaven.” (Phil 3.20)

Lent can sometimes be quite disappointing for us if we have been too ambitious in setting our disciplines of denial – what we’re going to give up; or engagement – what extra we’re going to give or do.

Those of us who know ourselves, know it is better to set modest goals that give us at least a little success; rather than to set goals which end in spectacular failure very early on in the 40 days.

It reminds me of the new priest in the village who started going into the pub opposite his church every evening after Evensong. He would order two Gin and Tonics, drink them both and then order another two.

After a few weeks of this the barman asked him why he always bought his drinks in pairs.

“Well its quite simple really” he said, “when my twin brother moved to work in Australia, we decided whenever we were having a drink we would always order two, as a reminder of each other.”

After a few months the priest came in and ordered just the one gin and tonic. The barman feared the worst about his twin brother.

“Is everything alright with your brother?” he asked.

“O yes” said the priest “it’s just that it’s lent, and personally I’ve given up alcohol but my brother hasn’t.”

So aim for modest success in lent.

Our three readings today, deal with this disappointment, this tension, between how things are in reality; and what we would like them to be; and the pain and sorrow which that can often cause.

The reading from Genesis tells us of Abram, who has just had a wonderful spiritual experience being blessed by the mysterious Melchizedek, King of Salem (the city that would become Jerusalem).

Yet here in his old age, no blessing or wealth could undo the reality that he and Sarai were childless and desperately unhappy and did not feel blessed.

Even in his vision he complains to God. “The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless…”

The reality was far from the longed- for ideal.

Then in today’s Epistle we saw how St Paul wanted the churches he had established, like the one in Philippi, to be Christlike in their love for one another and their compassion for those around.

He laments: “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.”

The reality was far from the longed-for ideal.

In the Gospel, Jesus rails at the self-serving and self-righteous political and religious leaders in Jerusalem. He cries out in disappointment: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

Luke later records how Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday: “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

The reality of Jerusalem was far from the longed-for ideal.

Well this is a common enough experience for all of us.

We know what we should be, what we can be, what our church should be, what our country should be, what our world should be – but the reality is far from the longed-for ideal. 

And it is in this context that Paul reminds the Philippians - who were not members of the EU, for Philippi had been a Roman Colony for nearly 400 years, named after Philip II of Macedon – no, like Paul, they were Roman citizens with all those privileges - but Paul reminded them that “our citizenship is in heaven.”

And for Christians this is the perspective from which we view the dissonance between what is and what should be.

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven” – our homeland.

There is always forgiveness, hope, trust in God and one another, new beginnings, and over all, and in all, sacrificial love.

We rejoice with our Welsh friends today on their great rugby victory yesterday. I am always fascinated but bewildered when I hear our Welsh-speaking parishioners chatting together. It is a wonderful and nuanced language.

The word hiraeth is not easy to translate into English.

It is a kind of homesickness, longing, nostalgia – a yearning for a home that you cannot return to, or perhaps no longer exists, or maybe never did exist.

It may include an element of grief or sadness for who or what you have lost, what you have become, losses which make your “home” not the same as the one you strive to remember.

It was something of this Welsh word hiraeth that perhaps  inspired the Irish writer CS Lewis who wrote much about our heavenly homeland:  “All the things that have deeply possessed your soul have been hints of it [he writes] – tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ears. It is the secret signature of each soul, the thing we desired before we met our wives, made our friends or chose our work, and which we still desire on our deathbeds.” (The Problem of Pain, edited paraphrase.)

This was the vision of the saints like Patrick, of the hymn writers like John Mason – we shall sing his hymn of heavenly perspective as we come to the end of the service. (How shall I sing that Majesty - listen here.)

And this is what can help carry us through all the circumstances of life - from disappointment and tears, to an unexpected hope and belief that all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. (Mother Julian of Norwich)

For “our citizenship, is in heaven.” (Phil 3.20)

Temptations of Christ, Lent 1

First Sunday of Lent: Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11; St Paul's Knightsbridge

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15

It was that great 20^th century commentator on the human condition, Mae West who remarked that “I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.”

In fact a popular theological conundrum for students (from the 5th century onwards when this Gospel was adopted for the first Sunday in Lent) was usually expressed in this form:

Was Christ able not to sin?     ORWas Christ not able to sin?

The answer of course is ‘Yes’ to both questions!

If he had sinned, he would not have been the sinless God.

But if he had not been able to sin, then he would not have been fully human.

And Jesus has to be both fully God and fully human.

So does this mean that the temptations were in some way a sham - not real temptations?

Certainly not! In fact the opposite is true. Only the sinless can know the full intensity of the temptation to sin: the holier the life, the more severe the testing and temptation to sin.

One of the happy memories of my undergraduate engineering course was designing and building a model bridge out of aluminium and testing it to destruction - the Omega point. The better constructed the bridge, the greater the pressure needed before the Omega point was finally reached and the bridge buckled.

The life of our Lord was so coherent, so integrated, so well-constructed, that the pressure applied to break him was more than most of us can possibly understand.

We break far too easily, for our interior life is often ill-constructed. Oscar Wild’s dictum is the familiar pattern: “I can resist anything except temptation.”

Looking at the three temptations in today’s Gospel, Jewish readers would have picked up the parallels between Jesus and Adam, Jesus and Israel, and Jesus and Moses.

In today’s epistle Paul sees Jesus as the second Adam. The first Adam we read about in Genesis failed to resist the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit and followed the sensual in preference to the spiritual.

So he set the pattern of self-idolatry that we all follow.

Jesus succeeded where Adam failed and resisted the temptation to abuse his power to make and eat bread when he was famished.

Then secondly, Israel puts God to the proof at Meribah and Massah during their forty years of testing in the wilderness. They demand signs: water from the rock; bread in the desert.

Jesus, as the faithful Israel, demands no proof from God but is trusting and obedient. Satan has quoted Psalm 91 “He shall give his angels charge over thee.”

But Jesus has construed its meaning aright and in quiet trust and confidence he submits to the will of the Father. He is the living water, and the Bread of Life, that comes down from heaven.

And in the third parallel, Moses spends forty days on the mountain, in preparation for receiving the Law. Later he is taken up a high mountain to survey the Promised Land of God. So Jesus is set on a high mountain to survey the promised land of Satan. Moses never reaches the Promised Land - but Jesus, the new Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) - both mean 'Saviour' - succeeds and carries his people with him.

Notice how Christ, in his weakened state, falls back on familiar Scriptures. In fact the three quotations are from the early chapters of Deuteronomy which recount the wilderness experiences of the people of Israel. Christ would have been educated as a Jewish boy, by learning Hebrew Scriptures by heart. They were deeply embedded in his mind.

There is great value in having fixed in our memory, familiar scriptures, familiar prayers and hymns of the people of God. When we are physically and spiritually weak, they can be of great assistance to us. It’s a good Lenten discipline to try and learn some passage or prayer or Christian poetry, by heart.

The temptations themselves can be looked at in different ways. At one level, they were an appeal for Christ to misuse his divine powers to obtain the common human goals of Sustenance, Protection and Security. At another level, they are the common snares of Christian leaders to be selfish, to sensationalise and to compromise.

What of the temptations we face?

We are not tempted to turn stones into bread, but we may turn bread into stones for others by our selfish indulgence and the way we treat God’s world.

We are not likely to feel the urge to prove God’s care to sceptical friends – putting ourselves in physical danger perhaps by blatantly queue jumping for a Harrods Sale. But we may be tempted to care for ourselves and our own needs at the expense of others.

We are all likely to be offered much in order to gain very little.

The big temptations are not too difficult.

No, it’s the thousand subtle temptations that sneak in every day and like the gentle acid rain falling on the great cathedral, wear away our defences and ruin us.

The temptations to live as though God did not matter; to live as if “I” am the centre of the universe; to love things and use people, rather than use things and love people; to neglect responsibility; to wound others; to lack compassion.

Lent is a time to take stock and make repairs; to remember that we have a flawed human nature. As Luther put it: “I’m more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals.”

And Lent is a time to strengthen our defences, by selfless giving, by disciplining our demanding bodies, by fortifying our minds with the truths of our faith, by reminding ourselves through our devotions that we are greatly loved by one who gave himself for us and longs for us to live full lives by following his example.

Lent can sometimes be quite hard for us if we set our disciplines too high. Better to have modest success than spectacular failure.

It reminds me of the priest who used to go into the Blue bar every evening after Evensong and order two Gin and Tonics. He would drink them both and then order another two.

After a few weeks of this the barman asked him why he always bought his drinks in pairs.

“Well its quite simple really” he said, “when my twin brother moved to work in Australia, we decided whenever we were out drinking we would always order two as a reminder of each other.”

After a few months the priest came in and ordered just the one gin and tonic. The barman feared the worst.

“Is everything alright with your brother?” he asked.

“O yes” said the priest “its just that its Lent and I personally have given up alcohol.”

So aim for modest success in lent.

And when at any time of the year and in your life, you are faced with big temptations, cry out to Jesus for help and remember

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15

Prayer in the City

Prayer in the Concrete Jungle
St George's Hanover Square, Lent 3

“Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.” Psalm 40.6

Two priests decide to get away from the concrete jungle. They’re determined to make this a real holiday by not wearing anything that would identify them as clergy. As soon as the plane lands, they buy some outrageous shorts, shirts, sandals & sunglasses.

The next morning sitting on the beach, enjoying a drink, a gorgeous blond in an imaginative bikini walks by. She smiles at them and says, "Good morning, Father, Good morning, Father."

They were both stunned. How in the world could she have known?

The next day, they bought even more outrageous outfits - so loud, you could hear them before you saw them. They even got rid of their Oxfords and black socks in favour of flip-flops. Well after a while, the same gorgeous blonde walks along the beach, turning heads as she passes.

As she approaches the two of them she nods and says "Good morning, Father, Good morning, Father."

Astonished one of the priests shouts out “How do you know we’re priests?”

The blonde turns with a puzzled look and says, "Father, it's me, Sister Monica!"

This is the third in the series of sermons looking at The Spiritual Life and Prayer. You have already reflected on With God in the Garden; and With God in the Wilderness; and now, With God in the Concrete Jungle.

And like those two priests, one way of nurturing our spiritual lives in the City, is to get out of it; to retreat to our country houses to recharge our spiritual batteries; or at the very least to find a quiet park or a quiet city church.

But that’s evading the issue. Is it possible to be nurtured in our spiritual life with God, while spending much of our life in the hurly burly of London surrounded on every side by the concrete, granite and glass jungle?

The Bible always has a slightly ambiguous attitude towards cities. They were seen as places where evil would thrive – what in the Epistle today Paul calls ‘the unfruitful works of darkness.’

Babel, where men built a tower up to reach up to heaven, is the archetype of assertive, thrusting, independent humanity, usurping for itself, the place of God. And so Babylon, both at the beginning and the end of the Bible, becomes the symbolic City of Satan.

Yet there is also in Scripture a love for Jerusalem, the City of God.

And the last book of the Bible, Revelation, looks forward to peace and light in the heavenly City, the New Jerusalem.

This morning I want us to think for a few moments about our attitude to prayer and our spiritual lives in general, because that is the key to our being with God in the concrete jungle.

So let us go back to our text.

“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.

I was teaching theology at that time, and one of my students wrote our text on the board when I arrived to deliver my next lecture, but he 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.”

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.

But how is this affected by our daily context: the busy and noisy city in which we live? Is it possible to listen deeply without being in a still, quiet and beautiful place?

Well, you know the answer as soon as we have posed the question. Of course it is possible, but it requires a different way of listening deeply.

In 2000, Wilkie Au wrote a book called The Enduring Heart: spirituality for the Long Haul. And in it he talks of 'crabgrass contemplation'. He’s a fascinating Roman Catholic writer and draws on the works of William Callahan, a former Jesuit, who describes this kind of contemplation as “noisy contemplation”.

It is a way of building habits of contemplative prayer that can flourish in the ordinary surroundings of our day, including situations of tension and conflict.

"Noisy contemplation is prayer that resembles crabgrass, which ordinary people can grow in the noisy lowlands and hard-scrabble soil of their experiences. In our concrete jungle of urban streets, crabgrass springs up wherever a pavement crack offers the tiniest space.

And so in the same way, crabgrass contemplation is sustainable because it can take place anywhere there is the tiniest space along our daily path.

Being contemplative in the City is standing in wonder and awe at the routine miracles that keep our universe and our bodies functioning harmoniously.

Being contemplative in the City involves a constant willingness to be taken by surprise; it is not being jaded and cynical.

Being contemplative in the City requires being wide awake and fresh in our perceptions of people and things; it is not being distracted and filled with preoccupations and prejudices.

Being contemplative in the City is facing life in a genuinely undefended and open-eyed way.

Being contemplative in the City is being vulnerable, letting events and people impact us with their full resonance; it is not being controlling and manipulative."

With this attitude, and a conscious sense of God’s presence with us, we can listen deeply to God in the noisiest places.

I used to go clubbing a lot, and some of my most spiritual moments were when I was surrounded by hundreds of people with industrial techno ringing in my ears.

Even in the clamour and sometimes oppressiveness of the concrete jungle, God is with us, and when we learn to listen deeply and live openly, we can hear his still, small voice.

In a few minutes the choir will sing Psalm 42: “Like as the hart desireth the waterbrook, so longeth my soul after thee, O God.”

Where there is a desire for God, and a vulnerable openness in contemplating the City in which we live, then we will hear the voice of God, even in the concrete jungle.

“Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.” Psalm 40.6

Obedience, In Defense of +Rowan - Lent 1

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

The Temptations of Christ, Lent 1

The Temptations of Christ

Deuteronomy 26.1-11; Psalm 91; Romans 10.8-13; Luke 4.1-13

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15

It was that great 20th century commentator on the human condition, Mae West who remarked that “I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.”

In fact a popular theological conundrum for students (from the 5th century onwards when this Gospel was adopted for the first Sunday in Lent) was usually expressed in this form:

Was Christ: able not to sin?
OR : not able to sin?

The answer of course is ‘Yes’. If he had sinned, he would not have been the sinless God. But if he had not been able to sin, then he would not have been fully human. (I know that’s a bit hard for many of you, already weakened by much fasting and abstinence...)

So does this mean that the temptations were in some way a sham - not real temptations?

No! In fact the opposite is true. Only the sinless can know the full intensity of the temptation to sin. The holier the life, the more severe the testing.

One of my happy memories of my engineering course - apart from the week-long experiment Richard, my lab partner and I carried out on measuring the speed of ballbearings rolling down an inclined plane completely immersed in 20 gallons of golden syrup - cleaning up afterwards was such fun… one of my other happy memories, was designing and building a model bridge out of aluminium and testing it to destruction - the Omega point. The better constructed the bridge, the greater the pressure that needed to be applied before the Omega point was reached.

The life of our Lord was so coherent, so integrated, so well-constructed, that the pressure applied to break him was more than most of us can possibly understand.

We break far too easily, for our interior life is often ill-constructed. Oscar Wild’s dictum is the familiar pattern: “I can resist anything except temptation.”

And these temptations of Christ, recorded in the synoptic gospels, represent the continuous process of testing at every stage of the Son of God’s life, right up to the end. So in the garden, before the cross, he resists the allurement to let the cup of suffering pass from him, and sweats great drops of blood in his anguish and fight against temptation.

The film ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ for all its weaknesses, takes seriously the manhood of Christ, tempted in all points as we are.

Although this is a real account of the trials of our Lord, it is also stylized and symbolic in the way that Luke presents it. (Matthew gives a different order and slightly different detail; Mark gives only a summary.)

Jewish readers would have picked up the parallels between Jesus and Adam, Moses and Israel. Here is a recapitulation of history which Paul recounts in Romans and the OT lesson rehearses. Adam failed and followed the sensual in preference to the spiritual, laying down the foundation for idolatry which we all follow. Jesus succeeded where Adam failed and followed the path of obedience to his Father.

Moses spends forty days on the mountain, in preparation for receiving the Law. Later he is taken up a high mountain to survey the Promised Land of God. Jesus is set on a high mountain to survey the promised land of Satan. Moses never reaches the Promised Land - but Jesus, the new Joshua - Saviour - succeeds and carries his people with him.

Israel puts God to the proof at Meribah and Massah during their forty years of testing in the wilderness. They demand signs: water from the rock; bread in the desert. Jesus, as the faithful Israel, demands no proof from God but is trusting and obedient. Satan has quoted Ps 91 (today's gradual & tract) “He shall give his angels charge over thee” but Jesus has construed its meaning aright: in quiet trust and confidence he submits to the will of the Father. He is the living water, the Bread of Life.

Notice how Christ, in his weakened state, falls back on familiar Scriptures. In fact the three quotations are from the early chapters of Deuteronomy which recount the wilderness experiences of the people of Israel. Christ would have been educated as a Jewish boy, by learning Hebrew scriptures by heart. They were deeply embedded in his mind.

There is great value in having fixed in our memory, familiar scriptures, familiar prayers and hymns of the people of God. When we are physically and spiritually weak, they can be of great assistance to us. It’s a good Lenten discipline to try and learn some passage or prayer by heart.

The temptations themselves can be looked at in different ways. At one level, they were an appeal for Christ to misuse his divine powers to obtain the common human goals of Sustenance, Protection and Security. At another level, they are the common snares of Christian leaders to be selfish, to sensationalise and to compromise.

What of the temptations we face? They are many and different according to our personality and the setting of our lives. We are not tempted to turn stones into bread, but we may turn bread into stones for others by our selfish indulgence and the demand for immediate gratification.

We are not likely to feel the urge to prove God’s physical care to sceptical friends – perhaps by standing at the front of the queue for a Harrod’s Sale. But we may be tempted to care for ourselves and our own needs at the expense of others.

We are all likely to be offered much in order to gain very little.

The big temptations are not too difficult. They are obvious and we either sin boldly, or flee from the situation, like Joseph, leaving our garment in the hands of Potiphar’s wife - often with a mind to go back for it later - for when we flee temptation, we usually leave a forwarding address.

No, it is the thousand subtle temptations that sneak in every day and like the gentle acid rain falling on the great cathedral, wear away our defences and ruin us.

The temptations to live as though God did not matter; to live as if “I” am the centre of the universe; to love things and use people, rather than use things and love people; to neglect responsibility; to wound others; to lack compassion.

Lent is a time to take stock and make repairs; to remember that we have a flawed human nature. As Luther put it: “I’m more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals.”

And Lent is a time to strengthen our defences, by selfless giving, by disciplining our demanding bodies, by fortifying our minds with the truths of our faith, by reminding ourselves through our devotions that we are greatly loved by one who gave himself for us and longs for us to live full lives by following his example. And in case we think this is an impossible dream, then we are urged to remember that

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb 4.15

Forgiveness, lent 3

Forgiveness

Readings: 1 Cor 1.18-25, John 2.13-22

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” 2 Cor 3.6

Religion has always been the enemy of Christianity. Sometimes I answer the question ‘are you religious?’ by ‘No, I’m a Christian’.

Now I know that such assertions as this are really playful ways of making a point, for Christianity is of course a religion. The word is almost certainly derived from religare – to bind. Religion is binding yourself to your God. I suspect St Paul, however, might have argued it’s meaning is returning to bondage!

And this is the point. There has always been a tendency in religions in general, and Christianity in particular to move from the freedom of the Spirit, with all its grown up responsibilities, to the slavery of the letter, with its infantile dependency on dogma and rules.

And it would be nice to say that religion is responsible for wars and crusades, for inquisitions and apartheid, for divisions in Northern Ireland and genocide in Serbia. But that would be an over-simplification.

Nonetheless, at a basic level, Our Lord’s cleansing of the temple, whip in hand, was a rant against religion; against the deadening effects of the letter of the law; against the cultural appropriation of faith in the living God, for commercial purposes.

St Paul may have had the etymology of religion in mind when he wrote to the Galatians: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (5.1,2)

Perhaps religion, this binding and stifling straightjacket on life, has been nowhere more successful than in identifying itself in the human mind with guilt. I only need to sit on the tube in my dog-collar, and I’m aware that half the carriage immediately feel guilty.

Why did the thief last week leave the beautiful leather holdall he had stolen from Frank in Hammersmith, outside of my vicarage door? Guilt! (He had of course removed from it anything of value, and it was only an overlooked business card that allowed me to track it down to Frank.) (Reminds me of the letter received by the Tax Inspector:“I feel so guilty, I can’t sleep; so here is £1000 of tax I owe you. If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the other £1000…”)

So what is at the heart of Christianity, or ‘pure religion’ as the Apostle James calls it, that distinguishes it from the bondage of false religion?

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”

The ministry of the Holy Spirit enables a work of grace in our hearts that draws us on to love God and others.

By the 16th Century, at a time when cloying religion was getting the upper hand in Christiandom, the Reformation and the Counter-reformation rediscovered this great liberating truth.

‘Sin boldly!’, Martin Luther once wrote to his friend Philipp Melanchthon. This sprang from Luther’s overwhelming conviction that we are saved by grace, and that the message of the cross of Christ is, as Paul writes in v18 of today’s epistle, the power of God to those of us who are being saved.

Of course Luther was not advocating deliberate sin, but he was reminding Melanchthon, who erred on the side of legalism, the letter, that living life is a messy business and we need not be so terrified of putting a foot wrong, that we never put a foot forward!

This is the outrage of grace. No wonder it was a stumbling block (the Greek word is ‘scandal’) to the law-driven Jews of the first century. They would not trust God unless they saw signs. As they say to Jesus, whip still in hand, standing in the chaos he had brought to the Temple court:

“What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” (John 2.18)

Or as Paul puts it in the epistle: “Jews demand miraculous signs.” (1 Cor 1.22)

This is walking by sight and not by faith; the very opposite of what Paul commended to the Corinthians in his second letter (2 Cor 5.7). Although we should pray to see evidence of God at work among us, we must not cross over the line and become those who only believe when we see God at work.

Paul also points out in the epistle that the message of the cross is foolishness to the Greeks and Gentiles. Not that Paul is being anti-intellectual here. This is the man who wrote the letter to the Romans!

He is pointing out another scandal of the Gospel, that it cannot be grasped by intellectual rigour alone.

You remember that verse in Luke’s Gospel:

“Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” (Luke 10.21)

The ‘wisdom’ that these worldly-wise Greeks and Gentiles desired, is probably the equivalent of today’s New Age pick ‘n mix; consumer religion, where you have a little bit of Christianity, a smidge of Sofi mysticism, a comforting hint of re-incarnation and an ethical shot of New Labour – and write on the form ‘Church of England’!

In the first century it was the ancient gnosticism: the speculative knowledge passed on sometimes through arcane ritual and sometimes just to those ‘wise’ enough to receive spiritual revelations and secrets. It’s instant religion. We heard lots about it through the Da Vinci Code and will no doubt hear more now the Gnostic Gospel of Judas is about to be published.

In contrast, the way of the cross is simply accepting the grace of God through the passion of Christ. It is of course at times painful and costly, as it was for Christ, involving a life of self-giving. But it is the self-giving that springs from love, and which results in deep inner peace and joy.

This is never very popular. Just as there were gnostic Jews in Corinth, there are always ‘quick fix’ Christians around, who want the gain without the pain. The super-apostles who were arriving in Corinth as Paul wrote, argued that Paul was weak and ineffectual. They preached the way of success and triumph. Paul gloried in following Christ in the way of suffering and hardship, weakness and dependency on God. (See 2 Corinthians 11.19ff)

Jesus’s anger against the temple-traders, leading to such uncharacteristic physical violence from our Lord, is another attack on easy religion: a religion that is all about doing the right things, rather than loving God with heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as our self.

The disciplines of lent are supposed to help us in our struggle against ‘the world, the flesh and the devil’ (today’s post-communion prayer). But we should not finish lent feeling pleased with ourselves and with what we have achieved – we’ve lost a few pounds and been to some improving studies. That would be religion.

The result of a good and holy lent will be a greater love for God and a deeper desire to serve others. Or in the words of the epistle, knowing ‘Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God’ better.(v24) This is Christianity.

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” 2 Cor 3.6

Serpents & Symbols

The Serpent in the Wilderness

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
John 3.14,15

Typology has a long and quirky tradition. It is a theologically risky practice. Typology has nothing to do with amateur printers; nor computer nerds obsessed by fonts - and there are many of them - you know who you are…

It is a system of biblical interpretation which the New Testament often uses in treating the Old Testament. The word is derived from the Greek word tupos, meaning pattern or figure. So Paul says in Romans 5.14 that Adam was a ‘type (tupos) of the one to who was to come’, ie of Christ.

The NT also uses the word ‘antitupos’ antitype. The writer to the Hebrews, a letter full of typology, says that “Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only an antitype of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence.” (Hebrews 9.14) And in Hebrews we learn that the mysterious Melchizedech, King of Salem who appears to Abraham, is an antitype of Christ.

The type or antitype, prefigures or foreshadows some historical event, or person, or object.

The Passover and the Exodus from Egypt provide a rich vein of material for NT typology.

The Passover foreshadows this meal; the Exodus sets the pattern for Christian salvation and the life of a pilgrim disciple.

Wherever you look in the world around us there are symbols: things that carry meaning beyond what they actually are. Eg. The Union Flag; Big Ben; even colours like pillar box red, or ORANGE! And of course, rainbows!

Churches of our tradition are full of symbols: and this church more than most and certainly more than the tin tabernacles of my youth - although so deep is the urge in humans to find and use symbols, that even there there were unmistakable symbols: the table, the open Bible, the pictures of Jesus on the cradle roll, the brass plaques on the walls.

When I was young, I always thought the serpent on a pole was a curious Christian symbol. Somehow it looked as if it should be in the local Satanist Temple and not with the other sacred symbols around the altar.

I stared at it at mass each day on the cross in the Seven Sorrows chapel at St Mary’s Bourne Street. And Bishop Richard has two serpents intertwined on his pastoral staff.

This is the symbol that Jesus uses when he’s talking to Nicodemus, who came to him at night to find out some of the answers to his questions about faith.

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.””

So what did Nicodemus make of it? He was an intelligent Pharisee, member of the Sanhedrin and prominent teacher. He would certainly have known the story of the murmuring rebels who got fed up with Moses and God.

The basic imagery is clear. The Israelites had sinned by rejecting God’s chosen leader, Moses. They were condemned to death by the snake bites (literally the ‘burners’ - inflammation?). Moses is instructed by God to make a copper effigy of the serpent and to raise it aloft on a pole - a standard for all to see, and so to live and be healed.

(This is why it’s the symbol for a chemist’s shop - where you get medicine for healing - & sometimes for doctors (although cf Asclepius) - and Barbers - who were the surgeons).

The story as you can read it in Numbers 21 contains deeper levels of imagery as well. The fiery serpent on the pole didn’t stop the people from being bitten, but it stopped them from dying if they looked with the eyes of faith to the pole.

The writer uses two different Hebrew words for ‘see’ (vv 8,9), and although this may be just literary style, the words do have significantly different emphases.

The second word carries overtones of perceiving, paying attention, even, looking with spiritual insight.

So there is nothing automatic about the deliverance - no magic - there is a degree of intentionality about the action of looking.

Sin infects us all, as the opening act of penitence of this Mass remind us. We are all bitten.

But we need not die spiritually – we need not be separated from God. God loves us so much, the Bible tells us, that he did something about it – he sent Jesus into our world, to be our Saviour & Friend.

There is an antidote to the bite of sin. Jesus had to be lifted up - on the cross - and in this sacrament - when the priest says ‘this is my body’ & ‘Jesus is the lamb of God’.

But it’s not magic - this is not the wonderful world of Harry Potter, where you can wave a wand and make everything alright.

The Christian life is about growing in faith. When we see how much God loves us, and what he went through in Jesus to put things right between us and God, then we choose to believe and follow him - living for God and living for others. The disciplines of Lent are to reinforce this within us.

It’s not saying the right words or doing the right things in themselves that save us - although they are important - it’s simply trusting God as Abraham did.

It’s believing in Christ, and however often we fall and sin again, coming to say sorry and making a fresh start. That’s what this mass, and confession, is all about.

It’s interesting to reflect on what happened to the bronze serpent. It was around for a few hundred years and then good king Hezekiah when he came to the throne at the age of 25, smashed the bronze serpent of Moses. (2 Kings 18.4)

The people had turned to vain idols and superstition and now worshipped the bronze serpent as ‘Nehushtan’ - they weren’t trusting in God any more, but in the magic of the gods.

We must always remember that all the symbols, all the imagery, everything we do in devotion - is not magic, or worse still, superstition. It’s to point us to Christ, to bring home that simple fact, that God loved us so much, that he gave Christ to die for us, so that we could live with him in heaven.

The symbols which we can see and grasp point to the eternal verities which we cannot easily see or grasp. The night in which Nicodemus came to Christ is replaced by the light of Christ in our Lord’s final words to Nicodemus – “whoever lives by the truth, comes into the light.” v.21

Well, there was obviously a long conversation with Nicodemus that went on far into the night. John has only summarised it here and shaped it to suit his purposes of unfolding the mystery of Christ. He has been careful with his use of language also.

The phrase ‘lifted up’ is ambiguous in the way John uses it, for it can mean both exaltation (triumphant heroes on shoulders) and – crucifixion.

Christ was bitten for us by the Serpent (one of the symbols for the Devil) and so raised to the glory of heaven where we will also sit and reign with him. (Ephesians 2.4-6)

So in just these few words, John paints a picture rich in Jewish history and Biblical imagery.

As we look again today at the crucified, glorified Christ, lifted up before us in the Sacrifice of the Mass - so we are healed.

We are not worthy, but he speaks the word and we find salvation, that deep inner wholeness which will only be fully realised when we are lifted up, and share in his glory in heaven.

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
John 3.14,15

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

"You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58.11

What is the purpose of Ash Wednesday; or for that matter for Lent?

The symbolism is obvious. The ash reminds us of the dust from which we were made and to which we will return. However we exalt ourselves, we are but mere mortals.

And it associates us with those who weep over their sins in sackcloth and ashes.

But much more than this, it has become in the annual life of millions of Christians down through the centuries, the beginning of seven weeks when we can take stock of our spiritual life. When we can tune up our walk with God. When we can help to restore that delicate balance between our oh-so-demanding flesh, and our weak but willing spirits.

So rather than preach a traditional sermon on this first day of lent, I want to remind you of the spiritual disciplines which can become the exercises that tighten our flabby spiritual muscles.

Lent can of course, be like joining a gym. We pay our dues, get the membership card and special offers pack; even buy new trainers and a designer track suit. And then feel proud to be part of that great gym membership which is not troubled by actually attending gym, and certainly not by doing any exercise!

The spiritual disciplines are the exercises – the machines in the gym if you like.

So here are a selection of the spiritual disciplines with a few comments on them.

First the disciplines of Abstinence:

Traditionally, the fathers and mothers of the church have seen the disciplines of abstinence as controlling the normal desires: food, sleep, bodily activity, companionship, curiosity, sex; and also the subtler desires: convenience, comfort, material security, reputation, fame and variety.

These disciplines of the Via Negativa are usually:
Solitude Silence Fasting
Frugality Chastity Secrecy
Sacrifice Vigil (Suffering) Rest

Then there are the more positive Disciplines of Engagement; the Via Positiva:
Study Worship Celebration
Service Prayer Fellowship
Confession Writing Work

A balanced diet of these disciplines over the Lenten period, and beyond, will make us healthier spiritually and prepare us for a joyful Easter.

And more than this, the disciplines will nourish our inner life and give us inner resources. Then we will find God’s promise to Isaiah becomes increasingly true in our growth in godliness.

"You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58.11

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:

"You will disturb your development in a most violent manner if you expect answers from outside to questions which only the most secret feelings of your calmest hours can solve. I beg you to be patient with all the unsolved problems of your heart and to care for the questions themselves. Do not search for the answers to be given you; if given, they would be of no use, for you could not live them. For the present live in the questions and little by little and almost unconsciously you will enter the answers and live them also.”