Rogation prayers

Today is Rogation Sunday - ‘But what is this Rogation thing all about?’, I hear you ask.

The word ‘rogation’ comes from the Latin verb ‘rogare’, which means to ask. In the medieval church the 3 days before Ascension Day - that’s next Thursday this year - were called Rogation Days. They were kept as special days of prayer and fasting to ask for God’s blessing on the crops in the field – as so often, this was a case of the Church taking over – Christianising - an earlier Roman pagan festival, called Robigalia. The Gospel set in the old lectionaries for this Sunday included Christ’s words, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give to you”, so it was called Rogation Sunday.

All kinds of traditions grew up in different places in Western Europe about Rogation-tide, though I’m not aware of any particular Irish Rogation traditions. In many places entire congregations would march in procession around the fields to bless them. In some places this was combined with ‘beating the bounds’ - visiting all the landmarks on the boundaries of the parish, so that in the days before maps the young would come to know them, and they would continue to be remembered in immemorial tradition.

We don’t do that anymore, of course – though it would be rather fun, wouldn’t it!. But I do think it is important in our rural community to recognise our dependence on God’s blessing for our livelihoods and communities. At Harvest time we come together to give thanks for all he has blessed us with, and at Rogation we come together to pray that he will bless us in future – they are two sides of the same coin.

It’s been a long and difficult winter for many of us, hasn’t it?

After a bad summer last year, many farmers were feeding fodder early and were left with low stocks for the winter. And with Spring close to a month behind and late snows and frosts, there has been little grass growth. Animals have been on short rations, even starving. Farm organisations, Co-ops and Government have responded to the crisis by importing fodder from Britain – something quite unprecedented. Could we be starting to see the ill effects of climate change?

The Great Recession we have been living through since the housing bubble burst is a bit like a long and difficult winter too, it seems to me.

But we have turned the corner now – the grass is growing, the arable crops are starting to move forward, we are beginning to see calves and lambs and foals in the fields. Now, as the great on-rush of spring lifts our spirits, is a time to look forward not back, to ask God for the blessings we hope to receive in future, not dwell on past troubles.

Last Sunday I missed the large and joyful Confirmation party you had here in St Mary’s. I was sorry to miss it – but I was also part of large and joyful party at a long planned wedding in Co Clare. That lifted my spirits – but then they were raised to towering heights by an afternoon in the Burren with Marty.

I took a long walk on a green road that was new to me, up the Glen of Clab to the great circular sink-hole of Pol an Bhiain. Although the trees were barely budding, the Spring flowers were a sight to see. In sheltered grassland there were plenty of Spring Gentians with their blue eyes – I discovered they close again in the late afternoon – did you know that? Under the hazel and ash woodland canopy were sheets of golden saxifrage, carpets of primroses and violets. Up on the heights, I found cattle grazing, met a herd of donkeys and saw feral goats in the distance. And in Pol an Bhiain I found a badger’s set. Enough to make my heart sing, despite the blisters!

I hope your heart sang too this morning, as you heard Joel’s beautiful words (Joel 2:21-27)

“Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! 
Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green;
the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. 

children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God…

The threshing-floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 

I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten…

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God.”

So in that hopeful mood, trusting in God’s faithfulness, let us pray on this Rogation Sunday for a successful harvest to come, for an end to painful unemployment and austerity so that our communities will flourish, and for a sustainable future for us and for all God’s creatures.

Let us also reflect upon how our prayer can and will work.

Some people believe that by prayer you can somehow get on the right side of God. That if you have been good enough to worship him, to pay him attention and flatter him with a request, then he will reward you by giving you whatever it is that you want. But to seek to manipulate God like that is a travesty of Christian prayer. Rather we should understand prayer as a kind of conversation with God, a dialogue if you like, that opens us up to be transformed by God’s truth and love.

Our prayer, if it is genuine and sincere, expresses our most heartfelt desires. But we must recognise that it expresses our will, which may or may not be closely aligned to God’s will. The object of prayer is not to align God’s will with our will, but instead to align our will with God’s will.

And always, alongside us in this conversation with God, is the hard material reality of the natural world which God has also created and loves as he loves us.

As we express in prayer our deepest hopes and fears we must also seek to understand the real consequences of our actions, in order to discern how to align our will with God’s.

·        God cannot grant us a successful harvest unless we work hard and apply our God-given skills and ingenuity to achieve it.

·        God cannot grant us flourishing communities unless we make sure the economy works with God rather than against him.

·        And God cannot grant us a sustainable future unless we restrain our greedy and acquisitive natures.

Saul or Paul?

Address given at Templederry, St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan on 14th April 2013, the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C.

Imagine for a moment that you are Saul, who we heard about in the 1^st Reading (Acts9:1-20).

You are approaching Damascus, one of the great cities of the Roman Empire. You are on business, important business. You carry letters from the High Priest himself, which give you the authority to round up the subversives who follow what they call the Way, both men and women, followers of that notorious criminal Jesus of Nazareth who was justly executed for inciting rebellion against lawful authority in Church and State.

Suddenly, a light flashes around you. You collapse in a heap on the ground. You hear a voice saying ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ Where is this voice coming from? ‘Who are you?’ you say. ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’ the reply comes. ‘But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what to do.’ Then you realise that you can see absolutely nothing, even with open eyes.

What a terrifying realisation – you have been struck blind, completely blind. Your travelling companions lead you by the hand into the city, and there you stay in a room for three days, sightless, neither eating nor drinking. Your mind races, returning again and again to the agonising question, ‘Why me? I am a good Jew, a Pharisee, punctilious in keeping the Law. Surely I don’t deserve this fate?’

Then at last a man called Ananias comes into your room. He is a Jew like you, living in Damascus, but he is also one of those subversive followers of the Way, against whom you have been breathing threats and murder. He simply touches you with his hands and says softly, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit’. And suddenly you can see again – it is as if something like a blindfold fell off your eyes.

What a surge of relief you feel! And as your strength returns you find that everything – the whole course of your life – is changed.

This is the bones of the story told us by Luke, the author of Acts. But let’s look a little closer at this man called Saul in Hebrew or Paul in Greek. He is worth studying because he - more than any other of the first generation of Christians - has profoundly shaped our Christian faith through his missionary activities and writings.

Saul’s background was that of a cosmopolitan Jew of the diaspora.

He was born in Tarsus, a major Mediterranean trading port in what is now South East Turkey, to a devout family - in his own words (Phil 3:5) he was ‘circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee’. He took great pride in his family, which must have been quite well to do for him to inherit Roman citizenship.

Saul could read and write fluently in the Greek common language of the Eastern Empire, as well as Aramaic and Hebrew no doubt, and he was sent to Jerusalem to complete his education in the famous rabbinical school of Gamaliel. He said of himself that he wrote words of wisdom, even though he had to confess he was not an impressive speaker – he was no orator.

He had learned the trade of tent making - he was proud he could support himself by it during his later missionary journeys. But he may have been trained for ownership or management of a family business. He knew how to use a secretary and dictate letters, and he displayed the managerial skills to plan, monitor and control missionary teams in the growing network of churches he founded.

It is clear from his letters that his was, shall we say, a disputatious personality. He was quite prepared to challenge the authority of Peter and James, the leaders of the growing Christian community in Jerusalem, when he thought they were wrong. As he did when he insisted that his gentile converts should not have to adopt the whole of the Jewish law. And he must have been a prickly individual, always certain that he was right, who was known to fall out with his co-workers.

Saul was also a zealot – he would throw himself body and soul into whatever project he believed to be right. This led him to prominence in a nasty pogrom against Jesus’s followers in Jerusalem, after he watched the stoning to death of Stephen, the first martyr. And it was following those who fled the pogrom that brought him on the road to Damascus to the religious experience that we now call the Conversion of St Paul.

Saul’s religious experience determined the rest of his life.

Religious experience is a strange thing. God seems to choose to reveal important things suddenly to a some people. Not just to Jews like Saul, or to Christians – many claim the experience of being ‘born again’ even today - but to individuals of other faiths – for instance the Buddha Gautama’s awakening under a Bo tree. But most of us discover religious truth and faith in a much gentler, gradual way, as I have, absorbed as if by osmosis in a process which takes a lifetime.

What exactly Saul experienced is uncertain. Acts says that he saw a bright light and heard a voice. Was it an epileptic fit or a kind of migraine perhaps? In his own letters he says only that ‘God revealed his Son to me’, and claimed he had seen the Risen Lord. He considered this to be a resurrection experience – which is why this reading is set for the Easter season. He used it to justify his claim to be the equal of the original apostles. And he believed he had been called not just to serve Christ but to accomplish a special task – to convert the gentiles. This is what he dedicated the rest of his life to.

And the Christ who chose to appear to Saul chose well. Saul was the right man in the right place at the right time. His personality and his skills made him outstandingly successful at the task of converting the gentiles. The book of Acts tells the dramatic story of his missionary trips throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. At some point he ceased to use the name Saul, so that in the latter part of Acts and in his letters only his Greek name Paul is used. He founded vibrant congregations, and nurtured them by writing letters to encourage and sometimes chastise them. He developed a Christology and a theology of salvation which continue to inspire and perplex us. And he bravely endured many hardships and punishments over some 30 years of work, culminating in two years of house arrest in Rome. There according to tradition he was beheaded as a martyr in the reign of Emperor Nero – he who allegedly fiddled while Rome burned.

In 70 AD, just a few years after Paul’s death, the Jews of Judea rebelled against Rome.

Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed – just as Jesus had predicted, according to St Matthew, though he may have been writing in hindsight. All the inhabitants of Jerusalem were dispersed as refugees. The fate of the Jewish Christians is uncertain, but most probably they merged into the Greek speaking gentile churches created by Paul. Without Paul’s churches the small, vulnerable Christian minority might well have been wiped out – and we would not be here today, as a Christian community in this place.

So let us give thanks to God for Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Let us give thanks for his mission to the gentiles which has led us to Christ. And let us give thanks for the inspiring and challenging words he has left us.

I will finish in prayer in the words of the collect for the Conversion of St Paul:

Almighty God, who caused the light of the gospel

to shine throughout the world

through the preaching of your servant St Paul:

Grant that we who celebrate his wonderful conversion

may follow him in bearing witness to your truth;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Prodigal sons (and daughters)

Mothering Sunday is such a lovely opportunity to make a fuss of our Mothers, isn’t it?

And if they are no longer with us, to remember them, and to recall how much we owe them.

We’ll all be thinking of our mothers today, I’m sure, and it is very right that we should.

Let me reflect a little on how much I owe my own mother, God bless her:

·        I owe her my very life, of course, as we all do our mothers. She carried me safe in her body for 9 months, and nurtured me, from the time when I was just a bundle of cells until I arrived squalling into the world. And she never held against me what I understand was a hard labour.

·        Then throughout my childhood she was there, to love me, to comfort me when I was hurt or frightened, to encourage me to be brave and to be ‘a useful engine’. When I was bold, as I often was, she was never cross for long. And she nurtured me – even when I was away at boarding school, she sent me a home made fruit cake in the post every fortnight.

·        As I grew to adulthood she let me go, to make my own way in the world. But she was still always there whenever I needed it, to love, to comfort, to encourage, to forgive me, and yes, to nurture me.

·        And it was she who taught me the first elements of her Christian faith. One of my earliest memories is of learning my first prayer at her knee: ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, bless the bed that I lie on’.

I am very blessed to have had such a mother, and I give thanks to God for her.

Most of us are similarly blessed. But we need to remember that not all children are. And also that some women yearn for children but cannot have them, and others mourn the loss or death of a child. So as we give honour to our mothers, let us also keep in mind and honour children without loving mothers and mothers without children to love.

In the OT reading from Exodus (Exodus 2:1-10), we heard the familiar tale of Moses in the Bulrushes.

The background to the story is that Pharaoh has decreed that Hebrew boys should be drowned at birth in the Nile. Why? Because he is afraid the Hebrew minority might become too strong in his kingdom. The girls are to be allowed to live: no doubt they will be married off to Egyptian men, and their children will be Egyptian. A rather nasty ancient case of ethnic cleansing.

Moses’ mother saves him from this fate by hiding him, until he is too big to hide any more. Then she makes a little boat for him from a basket, and leaves him to be found in the rushes by the river-bank. He is found by Pharaoh’s daughter, who takes pity on him, and decides to adopt him. Moses’ own mother is employed to nurse him, but when he is weaned, she has to give him up to Pharaoh’s daughter.

Two things strike me about this story:

·        First, how completely torn Moses’ natural mother must have been, at having to give away to another woman the child to whom she has given life, and whom she has saved and nurtured. But she knows that is the only way to show her love for him.

·        And second, how strong the love of Pharaoh’s daughter is for this little Hebrew boy. She no doubt risks the wrath of the state to save his little life, even though he belongs to a hated minority. The love of a foster mother or an adoptive mother is just as valuable in God’s eyes as the love of a natural mother.

·        The love of both these women was needed to raise and nurture the child Moses, who would become the Israelites’ greatest prophet and lead them out of slavery to the Promised Land.

The NT reading (Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32) is also familiar – the parable of the Prodigal Son.

As a parable it is really misnamed, I think, because for Jesus the focus is less on the prodigality of the son than the loving forgiveness of his father – it should really be called the parable of the Loving Father.

While it is set for today, the 4^th Sunday of Lent, we don’t usually use it to celebrate Mothering Sunday. But I chose to do so today to remind us that it is not only mothers who display self-sacrificing love, but fathers too. As we give honour to our mothers, let us also honour all loving parents!

No doubt the father knew his younger son’s character. No doubt he feared he might make bad choices with the inheritance that was his due under Jewish law. While hoping his son would make good, I fancy the father knew that if the son was ever to learn he would have to do so the hard way. So I imagine it was with foreboding that he handed over the son’s share.

And the son was indeed prodigal – he ‘squandered his property in dissolute living’ and ended up destitute. How degrading the son must have found it to be reduced to herding pigs, unclean animals to an Israelite. But perhaps it was his very degradation that made him come to himself, to realise that he would be better off as his father’s hired hand. So he went back to his father in his ragged filthy clothes with his tail between his legs, to admit his foolishness: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son’.

But the father is a good father - he is filled with loving compassion when he sees his prodigal son coming towards him from afar off. He runs to him to hug and kiss him. He dresses him in the best clothes, and commands a feast to celebrate his return: ‘for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’  Every parent I’m sure has experienced the joy and relief of finding a lost child. But this welcome is so much more than the son could ever have expected.

Luke has Jesus tell this story in answer to the Pharisees and scribes who were criticising him for consorting with disreputable people – ‘tax collectors and sinners’ who ‘were coming near to listen to him.’ It is the last of three parables he tells about rejoicing at finding things that have been lost – the others were the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.

‘Just so’, Jesus declares, ‘there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance’.

Jesus is revealing the key insight of our Christian faith. God is like this loving Father! We are like prodigal sons – and prodigal daughters. We are foolish, weak people who walk away from God, who do what we ought not to do, and do not do what we ought to do. But if we come back to him and admit our foolishness and weakness, God will not only forgive us, but rejoice that he has found us again.

But what about the elder son, the one who did not leave and squander his inheritance?

We can all understand his human anger. He has been the good son. He has stayed at home and for years has done exactly what his father wants. Yet he has never been welcomed with rejoicing and feasting as his dissolute younger brother has been – ‘You have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends’, but ‘you killed the fatted calf for him!’

It can be very hard to be the dutiful child when the prodigal returns. And it can be very hard to see sinners repent and accept that they have been joyfully reconciled to God. But that is what faithful Christians must do in order to hear God, like a loving Father, say to them, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’

Shining Faces

The common thread between today’s readings is shining faces.

In the OT reading (Exodus 34:29-35) we heard how the Israelites saw the skin of Moses’ face shine when he came down from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets of the covenant – what we know as the Ten Commandments.

In the NT reading (Luke 9:28-36) Luke tells us how Peter and John and James saw Jesus’s face change – shining, as Matthew tells us - and his clothes become dazzling white, in the event we call the Transfiguration.

So today I want to reflect a little about shining faces and what they mean for us.

First, let’s think about Moses’ shining face.

The background to the story is that this is the second time that Moses came down from Mount Sinai with stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The first time, he discovered that the Israelites had broken their covenant with the Lord, the God they called YHWH – Moses found them worshipping a Golden Calf made by Aaron. In a fury Moses smashed the stone tablets on the ground and ordered a massacre of those responsible. After Moses pleaded with the Lord not to desert the Israelite people, the Lord had relented. So for a second time Moses climbed Mount Sinai and returned forty days and nights later with another pair of tablets, to a very different reception.

The Israelites were afraid to come near Moses because his face was shining, we are told. I wonder if what happened the first time might also have put them off. He put on a veil to cover his face, which he only took off when he went into the tent pitched a little away from the Israelite encampment where he went to meet the Lord alone, to pray.

What are we to make of Moses shining face? Is this a miraculous light, or had he perhaps got sunburned in the 40 days on the mountain? I prefer to look at it in another way.

Even today we talk about lovers or brides, pregnant women and new mothers looking ‘radiant’ – it is the light of joy in their faces which we recognise by tiny almost imperceptible clues – they don’t glow in the dark, but they do look somehow different to how they looked before their joy.

I think this is the meaning of the haloes that are used in many religious traditions – not just by Christians, but by Muslims and Buddhists for instance – to mark out holy people or saints. Haloes depict the light of joy that comes from a close encounter with the divine, a symbolic reflection of God’s love for his saints.

And I think we should see in Moses’ shining face a mark of his joy at encountering the Lord, a reflection of God’s love for him and for his people Israel.

So what of Jesus’s Transfiguration?

The story is told by Matthew and Mark as well as Luke, in almost identical words – indeed scholars suggest that both Matthew and Luke made use of Mark’s earlier account.

The bones of the common story they tell are these. Jesus took Peter and John and James with him up a mountain. There Jesus was transfigured before them, with his face shining and his clothes dazzling white. And beside him the three disciples saw two other figures, which they identified with Elijah and Moses.  Peter said to Jesus, ‘It is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’. Then a cloud overshadowed them and they heard a voice saying, ‘This is my Son … listen to him’. And when the cloud cleared they saw only Jesus by himself.

Now a high mountain and clouds are just the circumstances where we can see an unusual optical effect called a ‘glory’. In a ‘glory’ sunlight is scattered back from water droplets in a mist, forming a glowing halo – the technical term is Mie scattering. An example is the ‘Brocken Spectre’, named for the highest peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany. This appears when a low sun is behind a climber looking downwards into mist from a ridge – the spectre is the shadow of the observer projected onto the mist and surrounded by the glowing halo of a glory. You might be lucky enough to see one yourself, as I did, looking down from a plane at the shadow it cast on a cloud, surrounded by a halo of light.

I imagine Peter and John and James close together on the mountain, with Jesus a little bit away, praying by himself as was his custom, as the clouds swirl around them. Suddenly, where Jesus has been standing, they each see a glowing figure – it’s their own shadow cast on a cloud, wrapped in a glory – and two other shadows beside it, which are those of their companions. Peter, always the impulsive one, identifies the three figures with Jesus, Moses and Elijah. When the cloud envelopes them they are terrified, and in a sudden flash of inspiration they understand, as if they had heard God say it, that they must listen to Jesus as God’s Son.

This is speculation, of course, and not just mine. But if it is true that we can understand the effects surrounding Transfiguration as physics and not as a miracle, it should not weaken our faith one jot,  in any sense. Rather it makes it easier to believe the event actually happened, and therefore it strengthens the case that the Gospels are reliable accounts. The Evangelists might not have understood the physics, as we can, but they did not just invent the story to serve their artistic and theological needs.

The real miracle, I suggest, is how the Transfiguration affected the disciples.

They did not tell anyone about their experience, Luke tells us – indeed Matthew and Mark both say Jesus forbade them to. But they remembered it, how important it seemed to them, for they passed their story on through Mark to Matthew and Luke, and so to us.

The voice that Peter, John and James heard told them to listen to Jesus. And that is just what they did. Jesus taught them as they travelled with him the road that lead to Jerusalem, to the Cross, to the Resurrection, to the Ascension, and on to Pentecost, when they began to blossom as Christ’s body, the Church.

I think the Transfiguration was the moment on their long road when their complete commitment to Jesus was confirmed.

And we are surely meant to understand that his shining face and the dazzling light are, in fact, a reflection of Jesus’s joy in his Father’s love, for himself, for all creation - and for us.

Do not fear

‘Be afraid. Be very afraid’

I’m sure you’ve heard this popular catch-phrase – it’s used to warn us that something dire is about to happen, in a menacing but slightly jokey way. But do you know where it comes from? It’s from the 1986 remake of the science-fiction horror movie The Fly, in which a mad scientist experimenting with a matter transporter mixes up his DNA with a fly’s, and gradually changes into a horrific creature, half-man and half-fly.

I’ve noticed that people seem to be using this catch phrase rather more often recently, perhaps because so many of us really are feeling afraid, very afraid, about what can seem like a threatening, dangerous future.

• Think unemployment, poverty and emigration for our children - due to economic collapse.
• Think rising sea levels, droughts, floods - due to catastrophic climate change.
• Think famine and wars - due to resource exhaustion and rising population.

It would be very easy to let ourselves be overwhelmed by pessimism, to feel the future is hopeless. But that would immobilise us. It would prevent us from responding to the real dangers we face. And it would make the bad outcomes we dread more likely.

That is not how we as Christians are called to behave. The future is not hopeless. God has given us a great gift of hope - hope for the coming of God’s kingdom. And surely we must share this gift of hope with others, who may not share our faith, but badly need our hope.

The ground of our hope is our conviction that God loves us.

This is at the heart of the good news that Jesus preached. But its roots go back much further. The OT tells the story of how over hundreds of years the children of Israel gradually came to understand that God - the terrifying mighty creator - also loves his people. As Psalm 29 which we have just read puts it, the God whose voice ‘breaks the cedar trees’, ‘shakes the wilderness’ and ‘makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forest bare’, is also the God that ‘shall give strength to his people’ and ‘shall give his people the blessing of peace’.

Nowhere is this more beautifully expressed than in today’s 1^st reading from Isaiah (Isaiah 43:1-7). Scholars tell us that this passage was probably written around 540BC. The children of Israel are in captivity in Babylon. They are afraid for their future, on the verge of giving up hope that they would ever be able to return to their homeland. So the poet seeks to encourage them in these words:

‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’

And why should the captive children of Israel not fear?

‘Because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you.

…

Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’, and to the south, ‘Do not withhold.’’

These are beautiful, encouraging and reassuring words, aren’t they?

‘Do not fear … because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’.

The poet’s words were prophetic – some of the exiles did indeed return from Babylon.

500 years later the Jews of Jesus’s time were utterly convinced that God loved them and this gave them hope for the future, even though their country had been conquered and occupied by the Romans.

But they saw God’s love in exclusive terms: they felt God loved the Jewish people, the children of Israel, in a special way; they were God’s chosen people, with whom God had established a covenant; and they lived in hope for the coming of a promised Messiah, the anointed one of God, who would restore the fortunes of his chosen people. Other people really didn’t really count.

This is the background to Luke’s account of Jesus’s baptism by John in our 2^nd reading (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22), in which God marks Jesus out as the Messiah. God as a loving Father sends the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and says, ‘You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased’, in an echo of Isaiah’s words. It is the only place in the Bible where we encounter all 3 persons of the Trinity at the same time – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

The first Christians were Jews, and we have inherited their Jewish conviction that God loves us, and with it God’s gift of hope – thanks be to God for the insight of the Jewish people! But from the very start, with a fresh insight, Christians transformed the conviction of God’s love from being exclusive to Jews to being inclusive of all people. We believe as Christians that God loves all people created in his image, not just Jews but gentiles like you and me, not just white people but people of all colours and ethnic origins, not just those who are like us but those we find alien.

In this I feel sure we follow Jesus himself. But it is interesting to notice how Jesus’s own understanding developed over the course of his ministry. Matthew’s Gospel records him telling the Canaanite woman ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt 15:24); but by the end of the same Gospel he would say to his disciples, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19).

The Epiphany season is traditionally a time to reflect on how God reveals his nature to us.

So to finish, I invite you to ponder God’s loving nature, revealed in Isaiah’s beautiful poetry:

Thus says the Lord…, ‘Do not fear … because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you’.

Let us give thanks for the insight which we have inherited from the ancient Hebrews and the first Christians, that God loves all his people.

The implications are surely life-changing:

·        Because we believe that God loves us, we live in hope.

·        Because we live in hope, we do not fear the future, no matter how dangerous it may seem.

·        Because we do not fear the future, we have the confidence to work for God’s kingdom.

All this poses a great question to each one of us – and to us all as a body, Christ’s body, the Church. The question is this:

What am I - what are we - going to do to make God’s kingdom a living reality?

Reading the signs of the times

An address given in Templederry on the 1st Sunday of Advent, Year C, 2nd December.

We are living through ‘interesting times’ as the Chinese say – times of crisis.

Let me try to read some of the signs of the times:

·        We know that our Irish economy is banjaxed following the crash. Government expenditure exceeds receipts. The Troika dictates that services will be cut and taxes raised in the forthcoming budget. Meanwhile ordinary families struggle to pay the mortgage and energy bills and to put food on the table, carers are at their wits end, and our children leave because they cannot find work at home. And it is not just Ireland in trouble - overseas the Euro area and the entire global economy look to be faltering.

·        Scientists tell us that potentially catastrophic climate change is upon us, and that this is a result of human activity like burning fossil fuels and cutting down rainforests - recent reports show the ice caps are melting three times faster than they previously realised. And there is precious little evidence that the leaders of our world are able and willing to lead their peoples to make the changes necessary to avert disaster.

·        Advertising constantly urges us to consume more and more in an increasingly materialist society, encouraging us in fact to be self-centred and greedy, a sure path to disaster. The internet revolution is driving perhaps the biggest social changes since the invention of the printing press, so that we begin to feel that we live in a different world from our children. And as Christians we face increasing challenges, as churches struggle to respond to scandal and division, while both militant atheism and religious fundamentalism are on the rise

No wonder we worry about the future – our own, our children’s and our grandchildren’s. We are afraid, and I think we have reason to be afraid. We are living in apocalyptic times.

Luke records Jesus speaking in apocalyptic terms in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 21:25-36).

‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and waves’, Jesus says. ‘People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory.’

Jesus’s words are in an apocalyptic literary tradition reaching back into OT times - “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” is actually a quotation from the apocalyptic Book of Daniel. The tradition reaches forward to the NT book we call Revelation. And from there through medieval visions of the last judgement, to modern science fiction fantasies of disaster.

Is Jesus forecasting in these words that the world will end in apocalypse? There are Christian fundamentalists who look forward to the second coming of Christ amid awful battles and destruction in the end-time. They may believe so, but I don’t. They take scripture too literally, and I think they are deeply misguided. Instead I suggest that Jesus intended his words to apply to every time, not just to an end-time.

Perhaps his parable is a clue: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.’ Trees sprout new leaves every year – the image is of something that happens again and again, not just once at the end.

And it is true, isn’t it, that every generation faces its own apocalyptic fears. We may be terrified by the looming catastrophe of global warming. But my parents were haunted by the horror and destruction of total war and nuclear holocaust. Their parents suffered the horrors of the trenches followed by bloody rebellion and fratricidal civil war. And every previous generation has lived through its own nightmares – famines, plagues, wars and social collapse.

Jesus tells us to read the frightening signs of the times clearly. Otherwise we will be unable to respond to them in the way God wishes. But his message is surely one of hope as we confront our fears - hope for us and for every generation that hears his words. ‘So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.’ Even if these things are terrifying. ‘Stand up and raise your heads’, he tells us, ‘because your redemption is drawing near’.

The basis of our hope is the miracle of the Incarnation.

This is the first day of Advent, the time each year when we look forward to the Incarnation; the miracle that God has chosen to be part of the world he created, our world; the miracle that God has taken on our flesh in a stunning act of solidarity with us his creatures. We wait in expectation for the kingdom of God and our redemption to come near.

On Christmas day Jesus will be born as the helpless baby son of Mary and Joseph into a frightening world. A Roman imperial decree forces his parents to travel from their home to Bethlehem. There they find no shelter but a stable in which Mary gives birth. And soon they will be forced to flee as refugees from Herod’s violent wrath. Mary and Joseph have to confront their own fears just as we must.

But through the eyes of faith we will see this helpless child grow up to be ‘“the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory’, who announces the kingdom of God and promises us redemption. ‘Heaven and earth will pass away’, he says, ‘but my words will not pass away’.

Jesus urges us, ‘Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’ It is through praying that we will find the strength and confidence to endure, and even we may hope avert, the worst the future can bring, so that in the end we can stand fearlessly in front of God in his Kingdom.

I shall finish with a prayer:

Loving Father,

Who sent your Son Jesus Christ

to proclaim your kingdom

and restore the broken to fullness of life:

Look with compassion on the anguish of the world and of your people;

Give us the strength to overcome our fears

And to stand before the Son of Man;

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Redeemer.

Amen

2nd Chances

An address given at Templederry and Nenagh on Sunday 11th November 2012, the 3rd Before Advent.

‘Beware of the scribes’, Jesus says, ‘who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.’ (Mark 12:38-44)

·        Now, Jesus’s words make me feel rather uncomfortable. Here I am dressed up in a long cassock with a flowing surplice. Of course it’s just a uniform, based on the plain clothes of long ago, but perhaps it would be better if I wore a decent suit, not long robes, to lead worship. I like to be treated with respect too, just like everyone else. And you probably think that the prayers I lead are too long. Perhaps you should beware of me! I try not to devour widows’ houses though.

·         The scribes were the leaders of society in Jesus’s day. Today we might identify them with the professional classes – the lawyers, the doctors, and the business leaders; the developers, the bankers, and the politicians - as well as the church hierarchy. The widows, on the other hand, were among the most vulnerable and marginalised of the poor – in today’s terms they might be those trying to live on social welfare or the minimum wage.

·         Jesus is criticising the well-got for feathering their own nests at the expense of the poor and vulnerable – ‘they devour widows’ houses’, is the cutting way he puts it. What a contrast to the generosity of the poor widow who gave all she had – two small coins worth just a penny – to support worship in the Temple!

·         As we approach the budget in December, we hear a torrent of voices calling for cuts which will hit the poor and vulnerable hard, and we hear the same voices assert that the well off can’t afford to pay more in taxes. I think we too should ‘beware of the scribes’. The truth is that the rich - the 1% -  can afford to be generous in their support of the poor.

·         But that is not what I want to focus on today.

Instead let us reflect on the story in the 1^st reading (Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17) about Naomi, Ruth and Boaz.

·         First, what's the context of the story - just who are these three characters.

·         Naomi and her husband, with their two sons, had left their home in Bethlehem years before for the land of Moab to escape a famine. Naomi’s husband died there, and then her two sons who had married Moabite women died as well. Naomi had lost her whole family, and decided to go back to her home place, Bethlehem. But Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, insisted on going with her. She said, ‘Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God’. Ruth must have loved Naomi very much.

·         It was the time of the barley harvest when Naomi and Ruth got to Bethlehem. It was a Jewish tradition to leave the corn in the corners of the fields to be harvested by the poor – this was called gleaning. Ruth went out into the fields to glean to support both of them. There she met Boaz, the owner of a field, who was a relative of Naomi’s late husband – that’s important as we shall see. Boaz had heard about all that Ruth was doing to support Naomi, and praised her for it. And because he was a kind man, he made sure that Ruth was able to glean enough for two of them without being harassed by the young lads doing the harvesting. This is where today’s reading begins.

I found the reading rather odd when I first looked at it – perhaps you did too.

·         It sounds almost as if Naomi puts Ruth up to seducing Boaz, tricking him into marrying her. It sounds rather unsavoury. But that is only because the reading jumps from ch3 v5 to ch4 v13 - for some reason the good compilers of the lectionary have missed out an important piece of the story.

·         To understand what really happened we need to understand another Jewish tradition, called ‘levirate marriage’. In levirate marriage, if a married man died without leaving children, his next of kin - his brother or another close relative - could choose to marry his widow, and this was seen as a good and righteous thing to do. It kept the property in the family. It ensured the future of the widow. And any children of the marriage would be treated as children of the dead husband.

·         No doubt Naomi could see how Boaz was attracted to Ruth. So she sends Ruth to ask Boaz if he would marry her in this way, to provide her with security. Ruth does as Naomi suggests. She uncovers Boaz's feet and lies down beside him, and when he wakes she says to him, ‘Spread your coat over your servant, for you are next of kin’. Boaz wants to marry her, but he tells Ruth that there is another, closer relative who legally should have the first refusal - if that man does not wish to marry her, he, Boaz, will. And Boaz is careful to guard her reputation and sends her away with a present - 6 measures of barley she could hardly carry.

·         Boaz is entirely honourable by the standards of his society and he is as good as his word. The next day he goes to talk to the closer relative in front of the elders. He establishes that the closer relative does not want to marry Ruth – in fact he persuades him that he shouldn’t! And then Boaz says to the elders, ‘Today you are witnesses that I have acquired from Naomi all that belonged to (her husband and sons). I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite … to be my wife, to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance’.

·         In this way Ruth becomes Boaz’s wife, and with Naomi they live happily ever after. Their son whom Naomi nurses is the grandfather of King David, and an ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ, through his earthly father Joseph.

It’s a charming story - a love story really. But why should it have been included in our Bible, and why should we still read it in churches today?

·         I suggest it is because this very human tale illustrates how God works in individual human lives.

·         Naomi and Ruth had suffered terrible blows. Naomi had lost her husband and two sons. Ruth had lost her husband. Suddenly they had become impoverished widows dependent on charity. It must have seemed as if the very heavens had fallen in on them. It would have been so easy for them to give in to  depression, to become bitter and angry, people no body likes to be with. But they didn’t. Instead they make the best of their situation, showing their love for each other.

·         And then good things start to happen. They meet a good man, Boaz, who is attracted by the love Ruth shows Naomi. He wants to help them and sees how he can do so. New life and hope comes into all their lives. They are offered a second chance of happiness. And they take it.

·         This, surely, is how God works in our lives, if God forbid dreadful things happen to us. If we hold on to what is good and true and beautiful, even when it seems we have been abandoned, even when we find ourselves in the depths of depression, then suddenly we will notice good things starting to happen. Our spirits will rise and we will start to discern new life and happiness. This at least has been my experience.

·         This is redemption from evil. This is God redeeming us. This is God acting like our loving Father. In the words of the Benedictus, sung in the temple by Zechariah,

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

For he hath visited and redeemed his people,

And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us

In the house of his servant David.