There will be an open air service at Burton at 10am. Please bring a chair. Then an indoor service at Barlavington 11.30 - please bring a facemask. The Gospel is once more from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 15.10-28. We shall concentrate on the second part of the reading (verses 21-28). This passage is challenging. Jesus is abroad (a topical Gospel for August?) with his disciples. He is once more trying to find time to be away from healing, teaching, miracle working, and he is confronted by a Canaanite mother, desperate to have her child healed. She shouts at him, and he doesn’t answer her. His disciples urge him to send her away. Jesus’ response is to stress that he has been send to the lost sheep of Israel, ie he is concentrating solely on his own people. This desperate mother comes and kneels before him. She begs for his help. Jesus’ reaction is one of the hard sayings. Is he calling her a dog? She is foreign and a woman, both reasons to have nothing to do with her. Is that a reason to be so harsh in his reply? But she doesn’t give up. She turns his rejection round and wins the argument. Her daughter is healed. It is her persistence and her humility that win through. We can learn from her. It is ironic that she comes from a part of the Middle East which is very much in the news at the moment.
0 Comments
One of the themes from last Sunday’s Gospel was the compassion of Our Lord.
This carries on this week. Jesus stays behind to make sure all these people get on their way safely. He is then able to do what he really wanted to in the first place - be alone with God and pray. But once again other people disturb his prayers. This time it is the disciples getting into difficulties in a storm on the lake that draw his attention. He breaks off his prayers and goes to save his friends. You can imagine their surprise to see him approaching them on the water. Some even think it must be a spirit they are seeing. Once again, we hear Jesus’ oft-repeated phrase: “Do not be afraid.” How we have needed to hear his voice say these words over the past months and how we may well need to hear them again and again over the coming months. In times of stress and danger we need his calm voice to reassure us. Peter now pipes up, asking to come to him on the water. Impetuous as ever, he then leaps out of the boat and starts to walk on the water, until his nerve fails and he starts to sink. Jesus saves him from the waves, and they both get into the boat. It is further proof for the Twelve that Jesus is the Son of God. However we understand the story, it is Jesus' compassion and understanding that we take away from it. He chides Peter, yes, but only for lack of faith. What could we all not do if only we were able to throw off our fears and trust him?! Gracious Father, revive your Church in our day, and make her holy, strong and faithful, for your glory's sake in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen We are once more in St John's in Sutton, socially distanced, and you will now see we are commanded to wear face masks! I look forward to seeing you on Sunday. NB The service will be at Coates, open air, at 10am. Please bring a chair. Some thoughts on the Gospel (Matthew 14.13-21) - The Feeding of the Five Thousand
This is one of Jesus’ most well-known miracles. It occurs in all four Gospels. It is very easy to get stuck on the question -“How did he do it?” - and forget the more important question -“Why did he do it?” On the human level the answer is “because they were hungry and he cared for them”. Time and again we come across Jesus’ compassion in the Gospels. Even on the cross he comforts the penitent thief and is concerned about his mother’s future. It is his compassion for the sick, even on the sabbath, that he is moved to heal them. There are many examples of this overflowing concern for others - withered hands, dead daughters and sons, women bend double, with a long illness, foreign servants, lepers, blind Bartimaeus, and so on. All receive his loving response. He meets people’s needs - he hauls Zacchaeus down from his tree and invites himself to dinner. He is only here in the first place because he has been disturbed by the death of John the Baptist. Love and compassion. His disciples are concerned that it is getting late and the crowd is hungry. Jesus issues a challenge - “You give them something to eat!” The disciples are aware of their inadequacy. They cannot do it. All they have is five loaves and two fish. Jesus orders the people to sit down. Something important is going to happen. The stage is set. Jesus is there, with his disciples and the congregation. What follows is a proto-communion. We remember that in the early church fish was often used with bread and wine. Jesus asks for fish to eat after his resurrection. The Greek word for fish (ichthus) was used as an early creed - Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour. Some people still have fish symbols on their car boots. Notice how Jesus blesses, breaks and gives the bread and the fish, just as is done today at the communion service. There is something Old Testament about the whole scene - five thousand men, besides women and children, sitting on the grass. We are reminded of the Exodus. Jesus is a second Moses, with his twelve disciples representing the twelve tribes of Israel. This is emphasised by the number of baskets of scraps. It is, of course, twelve. The whole story is a proclamation of the generosity of God’s love and an encouragement to the disciples and us to show in what we do how God loves us all. Nobody in this scene is turned away. Nobody has to wear special clothes to gain entry. All are welcome and fed. Jesus is revealing his divine powers and making a prophetic gesture. On 2nd August we shall meet at 10 and we shall sit in our picnic chairs on the grass, ready to receive God’s word and to worship God. We shall, of course, keep an eye on the weather forecast and come appropriately dressed. The people in our gospel today didn’t do any such thing. So great was their need of Jesus that they came as they were, taking no thought for what they would eat or what they would wear, an example to us all, as we continue on our way through this pandemic. Lord God, your Son Jesus left the riches of heaven and became poor for our sake: when we prosper save us from pride, when we are needy save us from despair, that we may trust in you alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 31st July is the day we celebrate the memory of St Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish RC nobleman who founded the Society of Jesus in 1540, having won the support of the Pope to start an order of priests to bring the Gospel all around the world. He died in 1556. Both Reji and I studied for our MA with the Jesuits, as we know the Society of Jesus, in London and have benefitted from their rigorous and kindly teaching. NB: there will be a service of Holy Communion at Bignor at 10am How would you describe the wind or love? One could say the wind is like a feather’s touch or love is a journey. These literary devices are effective ways for giving colour, life, and meaning to concepts that would otherwise be difficult to understand. However, the tools are only effective if the person who hears them understands the references used. If I have never felt the touch of a feather I cannot know how the wind felt. Likewise, if I have never been on a journey, the comparison doesn’t help me better understand love. While the descriptions get us closer to the meaning, it is not the same as experiencing it. Specifically, it is the difference between knowing about something and actually knowing something. In this text, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to several concepts in order to enhance the crowd’s understanding of his teaching. Jesus ends his teaching in Matthew 13 by creating a more descriptive explanation of the kingdom of heaven. He explains it in five brief parables. After two detailed parables about the sower and ‘the seeds and weeds’, it is as if someone said to Jesus: “Tell us more about the kingdom of heaven? How would you describe it”? Jesus concludes his message to the crowd by saying the kingdom of heaven is like: a mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, a merchant who searches for and finds fine pearls, and finally a net. Each of these short descriptions expands our understanding of God’s kingdom. A mustard seed -- size really doesn’t matter The “smallest of all seeds,” the mustard seed grows into a tree (Matthew 13:32). Emphasising the size of the seed may refer to the modest beginning of the kingdom of heaven being realised on earth. Jesus marks the commencement of this era; he may be signifying to the crowd that from these very modest beginnings, great things will come. The next mention of the mustard seed in the gospel can be found in 17:20 where Jesus tells his disciples that the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains. Again, what is seemingly invisible can have an overwhelming impact. Like the seeds mentioned in the previous parables, the mustard seed, too, will produce a yield. Yeast -- transformed to rise above Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to yeast. When yeast is added to flour it causes the flour to rise. Yeast is a key ingredient for making bread because, without it, bread cannot be fluffy and light. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is transformative and uplifting. Without God’s reign, life would be flat and dull. It is the presence of God’s kingdom that empowers God’s people to rise above life’s circumstances. Hidden Treasure -- joy unspeakable The kingdom of heaven is like hidden treasure that has been found because it brings joy. In the parable Jesus speaks of a man who, “…in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field” (13:44). The man that Jesus describes is so filled with joy that he risks it all to obtain more. In exchange for the possibility of finding more treasure, and thusly joy, he sells it all! As such, the kingdom of heaven is not simply joy; it is a joy that is worth all that you have. A Merchant -- a valuable treasure The next parable teaches about a merchant who is searching for a pearl. Jesus states, “…on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:46). Like the man who finds a hidden treasure, the merchant who is searching for a pearl sells all that he has to purchase it. Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven is a treasure; it is valuable and something to be valued. Also, Jesus seems to underscore that the kingdom of heaven must be sought. It is not easily obtained or readily available. A Net -- all-inclusive In the final comparison, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a net. The net “caught fish of every kind, when it was full they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad” (Matthew 13:47-48). As in the parable of the weeds, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as diverse and inclusive. Again, the angels come to “separate the evil from the righteous” (13:49). However, the net contained various kinds of fish. Just as the fish exist together in the sea, we also must live together, exist peaceably, and leave the judgment to God. The Scribe There is one additional aspect of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus highlights and that is the role of the scribe. He concludes, “Therefore every scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). Scribes are often portrayed in a negative light in this gospel alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Yet, the role of the scribes was extremely important. They had authority over the law. They were trained, in this case, specifically for the kingdom of God. These scribes are leaders who are responsible for mining the wisdom of the law, both the old and the new, and teaching it to the people. In a modern context, the scribes would be those who have been trained in the gospel. Preachers out of the treasure of his or her knowledge of God’s kingdom must share the ancient context of the gospel (the old) and the contemporary application of it today (the new) with God’s people. In other words, those who are responsible for the law must make it relevant for God’s people today. Once again, Jesus’ focus on the crowd does not eclipse the training and preparation he provides for his disciples. These five parables have taught us more about the kingdom of heaven. While the parables about the sower and seeds and the weeds may have appealed to the farmers in the crowd, these parables would have been meaningful to fishermen, bakers, housewives, and merchants. Their wide appeal would have helped the crowd to have a better understanding of the kingdom of heaven. We must seek the kingdom of heaven in order to find it and, when we find it, we have found a treasure. This treasure will bring joy that empowers us to rise above life’s difficult circumstances. We experience the kingdom of God in community -- all are welcome at the table. The more we are taught, by the trained scribes, the more we will grow and become witnesses of God’s kingdom here on earth. Let us pray Generous God, you give us gifts and make them grow: though our faith is small as mustard-seed, make it grow to your glory and the flourishing of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Note: there will be an outdoor service at Coates at 10am (bring a chair) and an indoor service at Barlavington at 11.30
Sermon
Note: There will be a service in Coates churchyard on Sunday at 10am: please bring a chair (or email here if you would like one to be brought for you). The alternative below is for anyone who can't make it for any reason.
Today’s Gospel contains more of Jesus’ teaching of his disciples. It starts with a picture of children in the marketplace, ‘playing funerals’, or so it seems! The children cannot agree what their roles are to be. Jesus likens his contemporaries to squabbling children, unable to agree with one another, and he then goes on to talk about how people cannot agree with one another about John the Baptist, his cousin and forerunner, and Jesus himself. John, who does not drink and who fasts hard, is possessed by the Devil, according to them, while Jesus, who does drink wine and goes out to lunch and preaches the Kingdom of God to all and sundry, even the hated tax-collectors and sinners, is accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. One line from Jesus puts them firmly in their place - ‘Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’ You can hear the sigh as you read these words. These people will never learn, even though Jesus is clearly inspired by divine wisdom (Matthew 11.16-19). We then move on to verse 25. This passage is an actual prayer of Our Lord. There is a lot of evidence that Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer. Apart from the Lord’s Prayer we don’t have many actual prayers. This is one instance. It is a word of thanks to God that God has hidden the truth of the Kingdom from the so-called wise and intelligent and revealed it to infants (the simple, the marginalised, the poor, the disregarded, with whom Jesus always had a great affinity). He addresses God as Father and then turns to the disciples with words that seem to have come straight from John’s Gospel, stressing the closeness of Father and Son. It is through the Son that we come to know the Father and through the Father that we come to know the Son. Then comes a passage which is well known to those who love the BCP Holy Communion and Handel’s ‘Messiah’. If we look more closely at Jesus’ words he seems to be saying that those who are weighed down and weary will find rest by taking up his yoke, his burden. This is really encouraging for us in these challenging times. We lay aside our burdens of care and concern about the future and take up the way of life that Jesus shows us, and it is easy. We can rest in the love of God. We need to hear these words in these days. Lord God, the source of truth and love, keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, united in prayer and the breaking of bread, and one in joy and simplicity of heart, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
THOUGHTS FOR TRINITY 4 Today’s Gospel (Matthew 10. 40-42) comes at the end of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples. We are living in a time where prophesy is needed. None of us know where our current situation will take us. We are called to trust that the way forward will be clear. What we say and do as Christians will be looked at. We have a responsibility to speak and act with care in accordance with what we understand to be the will of God. We can only find out what that is through prayer and meditation. The habits we have developed in the time of our lockdown will stand us in good stead now that we have greater freedom. We look forward to a time when we can meet again in our churches. We are waiting for our bishop to produce the guidelines we need to hold our first acts of public worship in three months safely and with due reverence. The expected date is 5th July. We look forward to that date. Hold that thought in your prayers. The second reward Jesus promises us is the reward of the righteous. We are called to be fair and God-fearing in our daily lives. I think we have all been challenged by the lockdown and have found it frustrating. Many of you have found it an opportunity to reach out to family and neighbours. I know many of you have been supported by generous neighbours with shopping and carrot cake and trips to the surgery to collect prescriptions and a myriad other ways of helping and supporting. Your dogs have all become much fitter with all the walks they have had. That all has to continue! we must go on supporting one another. We hold one another in our prayers, especially those who are still shielding. The threat is still there, but so is the light at the end of the tunnel. That light is a smile, the loving smile of our Lord, a reward for our loving support of others. Jesus lived his life for others. He died for others. He constantly refers to ‘the little ones’. By this he principally meant, of course, children, as children had even fewer rights than women in his day - we must call on our leaders to make sure that our children get back to school as swiftly and as smoothly as possible. The damage that is being done will take a long time to correct, and they deserve to have the same chances we had as children. But Jesus also refers to the weak and the sick, the disadvantaged and the disabled by ‘the little ones’. All those who cannot assert their rights against others. Our society is under strain. Don’t forget ‘the little ones’ in your prayers, and don’t forget our leaders in your prayers - that they may act and think prophetically and with total concern for all of society. Today is Trinity 4 but it is also the feast day of Irenaeus of Lyons. Born circa 130 in Asia Minor he heard Polycarp of Smyrna preach, who was himself a disciple of John the Apostle. Irenaeus was thus a link with the early days of our faith. In a long life he rose to become bishop of Lyons in Gaul. He wrote extensively (alas, his writings are mostly lost). He is best known for two works which combat heresy and set out the doctrines of the Catholic Church. He is the first great Catholic theologian, one who drew on the emerging traditions of East and West. He died about the year 200. He had the vision to give his life to Jesus in challenging times. He lived through the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius and the plagues and famines of the second century. He kept the faith. He is an example to us all nineteen centuries later. God our Saviour, look on this wounded world in pity and in power; hold fast to your promises of peace won for us by your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
REFLECTIONS FOR TRINITY 2 At first sight today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 10.24-39) seems very hard. Our Lord is moving around Galilee, healing, preaching, teaching, making disciples. This passage is a selection of some of his teachings, and yes, it does seem very hard. He instructs, he exhorts, he commands his disciples - and us - to follow him whatever the cost. He even goes as far as to say that if we love our family above Him we are in trouble! He also says He has not come to bring peace, but a sword, which seems completely contrary to what we understand by the Gospel! Our Lord seems to be rearing himself up for the coming conflict with the authorities in Jerusalem. But on the other hand He tells us God knows the number of hairs on our head and also knows when common little birds like sparrows fall to the ground. We are surely more important than sparrows. We find these ideas very challenging indeed. How are we to live this out in our daily lives? It seems that, in order to take up the cross and follow Him, we simply have to strip ourselves of our pride, our desires and our earthly concerns, even our human relationships, and centre our lives full square on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is so frightfully easy to say that, but it takes a life-time to achieve. This means of course that we must be aware where our true loyalties lie - to Jesus - each day of our lives and not be complacent. We are not complacent in this lockdown. It offers us ample opportunity to focus on Jesus our Lord through prayer, through reading the scriptures and strengthening our ties with our fellow-Christians, even through the dreaded Zoom! I really feel we have managed to make Jesus the centre of our lives in our parishes, but this is an issue we must all re-visit daily. At the end of the reading Our Lord brings the issues down to our personal relationships and eases the seriousness. The image of giving cool water to one of these little ones is the Jesus we know and love and want to follow. In our time of lockdown, even as it is eased, this acts as an encouragement to us to continue reaching out to others, because ‘truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’ PRAYER Lord Jesus, we thank You for the assurance we receive in scripture that we must not be afraid but simply follow You: deepen our faithfulness to You and inspire us with the good news of the Gospel; for You are alive and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thursday was Corpus Christi. It is a celebration of the Eucharist, which gets crowded out on Maundy Thursday, the natural time to celebrate the Eucharist. On Maundy Thursday we recall Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, renewal of vows as priests, deacons, readers, bishops etc, then Jesus’ agony in the garden and his arrest. Thomas Aquinas, in 1264 after the Miracle of the Mass at Bolsena, suggested the celebration of the most sacred body and blood. It has always been a good occasion to go to church and thank God for the gift of Holy Communion, which lies at the centre of many of our lives as Christians. One of the things that I have missed over the lockdown has been going to church and taking the bread and the wine with my brothers and sisters in Christ. This Thursday was like having a birthday party without presents or a cake! Our Gospel reading today comes from Matthew 9 v35 -10 v8. As you will hear in the video it starts with Jesus overwhelmed by his ministry of healing and driving out demons. Time in again in our scriptures we read of Jesus being moved with the very deepest compassion for the suffering of the sick and possessed in his ministry to the sick. Sometimes it seems his compassion boils over with real anger, as here where he sees the people ‘like sheep without a shepherd with all the very dangers that implies, open to attack from every side with nobody to shield them. Jesus also speaks of the harvest being ready to be brought in but also of a shortage of labourers. He then sends out his disciples to heal and bring relief - ‘to gather in the harvest’, to shield and shepherd the needy and the sick. We also have a list of the Twelve, the close disciples of Our Lord. We are their successors. They are sent out to carry on the ministry. Clearly twelve can do more than one can. During our time of lockdown we find it doubly frustrating that we cannot carry on our calling to follow the disciples in ministering to the sick and needy. We are called on to be conduits of Christ’s compassion to the world. How can we be conduits if we are locked up in our homes? Well, we have found ways to reach out to others, even in lockdown, haven’t we? By shopping for our neighbours, by calling our neighbours on our mobiles or by sending them emails and silly cartoons from Facebook, by holding alfresco drinks parties and coffee mornings, by checking up on others -in all these and so many other ways we have found ways to reach out - and in doing so have found our lives enriched too. Now that we are able to move around more freely and meet more people - still observing the safe distance of two metres, of course - or to form ‘support bubbles’ where we can at last touch our nearest and dearest, many more ways will be found. We cannot let this situation defeat us. So many off us have responded to Christ’s words: “You received without payment, give without payment.” It is enough to know we are doing the Lord’s work and sharing his compassion with others. Another coincidence of dates - Friday was St Barnabas’ Day. He was a Jew from Cyprus who joined the early church and sold land to give to the community in Jerusalem. He later went on to help Paul in his missionary journeys. His Jewish name was Joseph, but he was known as Barnabas. Barnabas means ‘son of encouragement’. Let us all be brothers and sisters of encouragement to those around us. Let others say of us when this is all over - “they cared, they loved, they encouraged”! Let us pray - O Christ, door of the sheepfold, may we enter your gates with praise and go from your courts to serve you in the poor, the lost and the wandering, this day and all our days. Amen
|
AuthorCanon John Green Archives
May 2021
Categories |