tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91467250128077825682024-03-17T13:05:26.358+00:00Joakim's God TalkJoc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-33550356308317823102024-03-17T13:04:00.002+00:002024-03-17T13:04:47.825+00:00Remembering St Patrick<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhirgCvxmizwFdpaPkncY0xgtnjv1A-WF2D-CS80b51dZ2ZahExIHbqAHWToMFTgMtQiD8I7Ys3tQBiCQNiTawwgO_jGMleihCG-Z07SNOv-EHhL6QVTzlQoB2Fey8sTVSi3lLiRRzBgB9jw9AYNM6DFBC4yBsAonkfgFsDFo3anVI1QesormDyWrINgDRV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="283" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhirgCvxmizwFdpaPkncY0xgtnjv1A-WF2D-CS80b51dZ2ZahExIHbqAHWToMFTgMtQiD8I7Ys3tQBiCQNiTawwgO_jGMleihCG-Z07SNOv-EHhL6QVTzlQoB2Fey8sTVSi3lLiRRzBgB9jw9AYNM6DFBC4yBsAonkfgFsDFo3anVI1QesormDyWrINgDRV" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p><i>Address given at Borrisokane Church on Sunday 17th March 2024, the Feast of St Patrick</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Today we remember St Patrick, our patron saint,
whose feast day this is.</span></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In the secular world, this
is a day for us to celebrate all that is right and true and beautiful in our
communities and in the homeland we share, whatever else may divide us. Many of
us I’m sure, wear a shamrock with pride, take part in or attend St Patrick’s
Day parades, and raise a glass to toast our nation. It’s allowed, you know,
even if you’ve pledged to abstain during Lent - the Prayer Book marks only
weekdays in Lent as days of discipline and self-denial. Some no doubt will
over-indulge and get up to all sorts of ‘shamroguery’, but we shouldn’t be
afraid to join in decent, patriotic celebration.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But as Christians, I
suggest we should go further. We should seek to find the real St Patrick behind
all the picturesque and fanciful legends that have grown up about him over the last
1500 years.</span> <span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And we should reflect
on what St Patrick’s life and mission has to say to us in Ireland today.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Much of what I was told about St Patrick as a child
is not true – it is much later legend.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Patrick did <u>not</u>
teach about the Trinity using the trefoil leaf of a shamrock, charming though
the story is. It first appears in writing in 1726, though it may be somewhat older.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Patrick did <u>not</u>
banish all the snakes from Ireland. That story is first mentioned by Gerald of
Wales in the 13<sup>th</sup> Century, although he didn’t believe it himself. The
truth is that Ireland was separated from Britain by rising sea levels after the
last ice age, which prevented snakes from reaching Ireland from Britain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Patrick was <u>not</u>
the first to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The narrow seas between
Britain and Ireland, particularly between what is now northern Ireland and
southwest Scotland, were a trading highway in Roman times. Archeology shows
that many Irish settled on the west coasts of Britain, and no doubt British
Christians settled here. Irish chroniclers tell us that Pope Celestine
consecrated a Gaul named Palladius to be the first bishop for Irish Christians
in 431AD, a little before St Patrick. And there are traditions that there are
other Irish saints who preceded Patrick, including St Kieran of Seir Keiran, Co
Offaly, St Declan of Ardmore, Co Waterford and St Ailbe of Emly, Co Tipperary.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Most of what we know about the real St Patrick
comes from his own writings.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The main source is his
Confessio, or Confession, in which Patrick gives a short account of his life
and mission.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Patrick tells us, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘My father was
Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at
Bannavem Taburniae.’</span></i><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>We do not
know exactly where Bannavem Taburniae was, but it may have been in Cumbria in
England, or Strathclyde in southwest Scotland, or in Wales. So Patrick came
from a Christian family of Romano-British clergy. His native language would
have been primitive Welsh, and no doubt he was educated in Latin.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">He tells us he was
taken prisoner by an Irish raiding party, along with thousands of others, and
taken as a slave to Ireland, where he was put to work as a shepherd. Here his
love and awe of God grew, until after 6 years captivity a voice in a dream
urged him to run away and escape back to Britain, which he did.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">After his return to
Britain, Patrick heard a call to ordination. There is a tradition that he studied
in Europe, in particular Auxerre in modern France, where he was ordained by St
Germanus.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In another dream,
Patrick heard the voices of the Irish among whom he had lived calling to him, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘We appeal to
you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us</span></i>.’ Acting on this
vision he returned to Ireland as a missionary.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">He was aware of the
work of other Christian missionaries in the south and east – Patrick was not
alone. But his focus seems to have been in the north and west, where the
Christian faith had not yet penetrated.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Patrick gives little
detail of his work, but tells us that he baptised thousands of people, ordained
priests to lead the new Christian communities, converted wealthy women, some of
whom became nuns, and converted the sons of kings. No doubt those he
encountered were attracted by his distinctive spirituality, expressed in St
Patrick’s Breastplate, the famous hymn attributed to him. We shall pray a verse
of it, an invocation of Christ’ presence with us and around us, at the end of
the service.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">His mission was not always
easy, for he tells us he met opposition. He was, beaten, robbed, put in chains
and held captive. But Patrick is undaunted. He rejoices in the results of his
mission, declaring that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘the sons and daughters of the leaders of the Irish are
seen to be monks and virgins of Christ.’</span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Finally, Patrick was a
modest man. He finishes his Confessio with these words, addressed to us, to you
and me: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘I
pray for those who believe in and have reverence for God. Some of them may
happen to inspect or come upon this writing which Patrick, a sinner without
learning, wrote in Ireland. May none of them ever say that whatever little I
did or made known to please God was done through ignorance. Instead, you can
judge and believe in all truth that it was a gift of God. This is my confession
before I die.’</span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">What can we as Christians today take from the
life and mission of the real St Patrick?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">1<sup>st</sup>, St
Patrick was passionately dedicated to sharing his Christian faith with the
pagan Irish. He saw it as a blessing, a gift from God. He echoes the words of
Tobit in today’s 1<sup>st</sup> reading (Tobit 13:1b-7): <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Bless the Lord of righteousness, and exalt
the King of the ages. In the land of my exile I acknowledge him, and show his
power and majesty to a nation of sinners.’</span></i> We should be like him, eager
to share our faith in the public square in our own times, when so many find it
difficult to do so.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">2nd, St Patrick knew
all about economic and social oppression from an early age. He challenged these
evils and faced persecution for it. To quote from St Paul’s words in today’s epistle
(2 Corinthians 4:1-12), he was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but
not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not
destroyed’</span></i>. When we in our times see oppression, or suffer it
ourselves, we should confront it as St Patrick did, and persevere against those
who seek to perpetuate it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Lastly, in today’s
reading from John’s Gospel (John: 4:31-38), Jesus tells his disciples, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for
harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for
eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together … I sent you to
reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have
entered into their labour.’</span></i></b> St Patrick reaped a harvest sown by
others, as he was not the only, nor the first Christian missionary to come to
Ireland. In later times the Irish Church found unity around his bishopric of
Armagh. In the same way, Christians of different traditions in Ireland today
should surely rejoice in the truly important things that we have in common,
rather than cling to the little things that separate us. Only then can we ‘gather
in the fruit for eternal life’ that Jesus desires us to reap.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I shall finish in prayer.</span></b></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Hear us, most merciful God,<br /> </span><span style="color: #274e13;">for that part of the Church<br /> </span><span style="color: #274e13;">which through your servant Patrick you planted in our land;<br /> </span><span style="color: #274e13;">that it may hold fast the faith entrusted to the saints<br /> </span><span style="color: #274e13;">and in the end bear much fruit to eternal life:<br /> </span><span style="color: #274e13;">through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen</span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #538135; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-themecolor: accent6; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-38478597050761834882024-03-12T12:07:00.001+00:002024-03-12T12:07:29.476+00:00Wait for the Lord - Psalm 27<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUf-ezKBSnhUCv1dtJIPMIq_SC3tCrmLqLWH_oc3pdQPn_HCPgnh-B9GQhAgMxCx3BbVh3piEZvSYNTdssJuTXILDbYomrcTK-gTapOu-k5_v_DZsRnp1VRl6JuDPDhmcOLY11xMwKEH6eRYPvaS1_7JyehJmJ0kPJlglgkjoAfjdFALZkSENNpOsqJBSK/s1538/Psalm_26_(27);_Thomas_Becket_-_Luttrell_Psalter_(c.1325-1335),_f.51_-_BL_Add_MS_42130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1538" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUf-ezKBSnhUCv1dtJIPMIq_SC3tCrmLqLWH_oc3pdQPn_HCPgnh-B9GQhAgMxCx3BbVh3piEZvSYNTdssJuTXILDbYomrcTK-gTapOu-k5_v_DZsRnp1VRl6JuDPDhmcOLY11xMwKEH6eRYPvaS1_7JyehJmJ0kPJlglgkjoAfjdFALZkSENNpOsqJBSK/s320/Psalm_26_(27);_Thomas_Becket_-_Luttrell_Psalter_(c.1325-1335),_f.51_-_BL_Add_MS_42130.jpg" width="213" /></a></i></div><p></p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator, 12th March 2024</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In the book of Psalms we find
expressions of almost every human emotion we could possibly experience, from
joy and exaltation, through disappointment, to despair and depression. In this
psalm, Psalm 27, we encounter the emotions of someone who has been disappointed
in life, but who resolves to put it behind him or her, and trust in the
goodness of God. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The first 6 verses of Psalm 27 are
a triumphant song of confidence in the Lord our God. <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But the next 6 verses express the
pain of disappointment. <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Do not hide your face
from me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">Do
not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me
off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!’</span></i>. They are the cry of
someone disappointed and despairing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I am quite sure that every one of
us has experienced numbing disappointments at some time or another. I certainly
have. I can remember my feelings of inadequacy when a project I led was
cancelled, and I and my team were suspended for a while on administrative
leave. And I can recall my feelings of anger and bitterness when my first
marriage broke down, when I feared I was losing not just my wife, but my
children and my home. In my disappointment that life was not going to plan as I
wished, I was in danger of drowning in despair. Thank God, I sought treatment
for depression, and after a while it dissipated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Looking back on these experiences
now, this psalm tracks my emotional path dealing with disappointment, and
recovering from despair. My life resumed its course. My career moved forward on
new and satisfying lines. Eventually I found love, happiness, and a home with
the love of my life. And to my joy my children share in that too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The psalmist speaks for me when he
declares in the final 2 verses, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘I believe that
I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the
Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage.’</span></i>, because that has
been my lived experience.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">May this also be the experience of
any of us who suffer disappointment and despair.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-4426700027549246852024-02-12T13:28:00.006+00:002024-02-12T13:28:59.805+00:00Light dispels Darkness<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhMW0L1GfAIkmgoqTLvcDjyVaAQCu4jADZ8z6BOaJAnwuo4ieIKLZOkt0ctjOMQl9fSgDlVKbU2uCFzVezX1Jk4EzDrcdGWeOt3Mv_ohfSDFWFz8D-69SSl3REO8Aqo19SGWSByXhQEWQrGmrjl0XqVdVjq6GpyqsjYPv-8hX7rZXqBPU2eLsNUWPapdM/s606/Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="606" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhMW0L1GfAIkmgoqTLvcDjyVaAQCu4jADZ8z6BOaJAnwuo4ieIKLZOkt0ctjOMQl9fSgDlVKbU2uCFzVezX1Jk4EzDrcdGWeOt3Mv_ohfSDFWFz8D-69SSl3REO8Aqo19SGWSByXhQEWQrGmrjl0XqVdVjq6GpyqsjYPv-8hX7rZXqBPU2eLsNUWPapdM/s320/Van_Gogh_-_Starry_Night_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection at morning worship for the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 13the February 2024</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Sometimes, the human world seems so full of hatred, and so
empty of love, doesn’t it! If we turn on the news, read a newspaper, flip
through social media, we are assaulted by images of frustration and anger,
meanness and cruelty, death and destruction. Terrorist attacks, bombardment of
civilians, schools and hospitals, anti-immigrant and racist chants, arson
attacks on places of refuge. We must name all this hatred in the world for what
it is, wholesale evil and sin, at a different level to the retail sin of our
individual failures to be the people God wants us to be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In today’s reading (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=574743259" target="_blank">1 John 2:1-11</a>) St John calls on us as
individual Christians to reject such hateful sin and open ourselves to the love
of God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He begins by reminding us that we who call ourselves Christians
are not immune from sin. We can seek and find forgiveness through Jesus Christ,
not just for ourselves but for the whole world, on one condition. The condition
is that we obey Christ’s commandments.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What are these commandments? Jesus has summarised them for us
in words we hear at every communion service: <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘You
shall love the Lord your God’</span></i></b>, and <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’</span></i></b>. And he
teaches us that every person is our neighbour, even those we find difficult or do
not like. These are the commandments that Jesus lived by in his life on earth.
And if we are to live in God’s loving forgiveness, then we must imitate him by
doing our best to live up to them in our own lives, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘to
walk just as he walked’</span></i>, in John’s words.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John goes on to talk about light and darkness. Light, of
course, stands for goodness, truth, beauty, and all that radiates from the love
of God. It dispels darkness, evil, lies, ugliness, and all that conceals the love of God. Do not be deceived by
appearances, he tells us, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘The darkness is
passing away and the true light is already shining’</span></i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the Last Supper, Jesus gives his disciples a new
commandment (John 13:34-38), <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘I give you a
new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also
should love one another.’</span></i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John points out this ‘new commandment’ is not really new at
all. It is implied by the ‘old commandment’ to love your neighbour. But Jesus
is impressing on his disciples, and so on all who call themselves Christians,
that we are under a special obligation to love one another. John urges us as
Christians to love one another and walk in the light of the true love of God,
however difficult we may find it. The alternative is to stumble around in
darkness in a world filled with hatred.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We must live in faith and trust that love will overcome the
hatred we see in the human world about us, just as light dispels darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-18405278958269182722024-02-11T17:05:00.003+00:002024-02-11T17:05:48.149+00:00Transfiguration<p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3XCT2uKqeLObl5Duk0ahFd4iXbRppAJvdDFmwAgzdBhvXP-40SL-IWXCxZpujGAvQhU6YYPsGJzPVL8ANxtUjtzJmF2IHo_UiBqoqpPGilawgPJ4e0uBzahwy5LOtdUqKKc3Nf2RaXR0sOh3xAkh1Iy-ZV6hq4AUUZjhuhU4mgtsm3PQbMYyKFDhj5RRe" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="285" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3XCT2uKqeLObl5Duk0ahFd4iXbRppAJvdDFmwAgzdBhvXP-40SL-IWXCxZpujGAvQhU6YYPsGJzPVL8ANxtUjtzJmF2IHo_UiBqoqpPGilawgPJ4e0uBzahwy5LOtdUqKKc3Nf2RaXR0sOh3xAkh1Iy-ZV6hq4AUUZjhuhU4mgtsm3PQbMYyKFDhj5RRe" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Brocken Spectre – if you are interested in more of the physics <br />see https://atoptics.co.uk/blog/brocken-spectre/</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table></i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan on Transfiguration Sunday 11th February 2024, the last before Lent</i></span></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Mountain tops are special places, places where we feel awed by the
immensity of God’s creation.</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">When the weather is good, the distant views reveal how
puny we really are. When the clouds close in, we experience isolation from all
that is familiar. And when the wind blows rain or hail or snow in our face, we
understand our own frailty and vulnerability.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Like most of us, I suppose, I’ve loved walking and
climbing in mountains, though I’m less able for it nowadays, sadly. I have
vivid memories of many climbs. Climbing Keeper Hill as a child with my parents,
each time I thought I was near the top another ridge revealed itself, until at
the final summit half of Ireland was laid out in front of me. Climbing a peak
called Le Dent du Chat near Annecy in France as a teenager, Mont Blanc and the
snow peaks of the alps began to rise above the opposite ridge as I neared the
top. And climbing Lugnaquilla by myself in my 40s - on a whim, unsuitably
prepared – the cloud closed in after 5 minutes on the summit, and it grew cold,
very cold – I was lucky to fall in with a soldier with a compass walking from
the Glen of Imaal to Glenmalure, who showed me the right way down.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In today’s Gospel (Mark 9:2-9), Mark tells the story of Peter, James and
John’s very special mountain top experience with Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">High on the mountain, Peter, James and John see Jesus <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘transfigured
before them, and his clothes became dazzling white’</span></i> – his appearance
is changed: the Greek word translated as ‘transfigured’ is from the same root
as ‘metamorphosis’.</span> <span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Alongside him they see two figures talking to him,
whom they recognise as Moses and Elijah, the two preeminent figures of Judaism,
representing the Law and the Prophets.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Peter, always the impulsive one, says, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Rabbi, it is
good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for
Moses, and one for Elijah’</span></i>. Peter does not want this emotional
moment to end – such a human response!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Then the cloud closes in around them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are terrified. And they hear a voice
saying, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to
him!’</span></i></b> When the cloud clears, they look around, and they see only
Jesus, who orders them not to tell anyone what they have experienced, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘until the Son
of Man (has) risen from the dead’</span></i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Their experience, which we call the Transfiguration,
reveals Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God. It must have been very
important to them, because they remembered it and passed on their story after
the Resurrection, so that it could be told to us not just by Mark, but also by
Matthew and Luke.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">There is a possible scientific explanation for what Peter, James and
John saw.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">High on a mountain, with cloud around, is precisely
when we may encounter an optical effect called a ‘glory’.</span> <span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In this effect sunlight is scattered back from water droplets in a mist,
as a glowing halo - the technical term for it is Mie scattering.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The most famous example is the ‘Brocken Spectre’, so named
because of sightings on the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains in
Germany. This appears when a low sun is behind a climber who is looking
downwards into mist from a ridge or peak. The spectre is the shadow of the
observer projected onto the mist, and it is surrounded by the glowing halo of a
glory. On the sheet you should have you can see a photo of one, and if you’re
interested you can follow the web link to find out more.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">You might be lucky enough to see a glory yourselves,
as I have. I saw it when I looked down from a plane at the shadow it cast on a
cloud. The shadow was surrounded with a halo of light – this was the glory.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I imagine Peter and James and John close together on
the mountain, with Jesus praying a little bit away, as the clouds swirl around
them. Where Jesus has been standing, they each suddenly see a glowing figure –
it’s a shadow, their own shadow, cast on a cloud, wrapped in a glory. And the two
other shadows beside it are those of their companions, whom they take to be Moses
and Elijah.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This possible scientific explanation of the
Transfiguration should not disturb our faith. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I find that it helps me to believe that the
Transfiguration</span> <span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">really did take place. It was not invented by the
Gospel writers to serve their own artistic or theological needs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Their experience of hearing a voice from heaven also
rings very true to me. When human beings suddenly realise something of vital
importance, something which changes everything, we often talk of having a
‘flash of inspiration’ or ‘hearing a voice’. There are many such reports of deeply
emotional religious experiences, not only within our own Christian tradition,
but also from other faiths.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I believe that God is present in and works through the
laws of the universe he created. The disciples accurately reported what they
saw, even if they could not understand the physics. The true wonder and glory
of the Transfiguration is how the subtle working out of the natural laws of
God’s creation testify to its goodness, and God’s love for it, and for us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">If this physical explanation is correct, it should not change one whit
our awe and wonder at God’s power and glory.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">What matters, surely is what the Transfiguration
reveals to Peter, James and John - and to us too - about the nature of Jesus
and his relationship with God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">They saw Jesus transfigured, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God’</span></i>, in St Paul’s words from today’s 1<sup>st</sup>
reading (2 Corinthians 4:3-6). The voice they heard told them to listen to him,
and this they did. From then on Jesus intensified his teaching to them,
preparing them for their role as apostles after his death.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I believe the Transfiguration was the moment on their
long road when Peter, James and John realised their complete commitment to
Jesus and his teaching. Starting from their call in Galilee, this road led them
ultimately to Jerusalem, to the Cross, to the Resurrection, to the Ascension,
and on to Pentecost, where they started to blossom as Christ’s Church.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And as Christians it should inspire each one of us to
make our own commitment to follow Jesus as his disciples. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘For it is the God who said, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">‘Let light shine out of darkness’</b>, who
has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ’</span></i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I finish in prayer.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<span style="color: #38761d;"><b>Holy God, mighty and immortal,<br />you are beyond our knowing,<br />yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ,<br />whose compassion illumines the world.<br />Transform us into the likeness of the love of Christ,<br />who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity,<br />the same Jesus Christ, our Lord,<br />who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.</b></span>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-31619026053859531742024-01-14T17:26:00.016+00:002024-01-14T17:35:53.031+00:00Who does God want you to be?<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIRKqRFHOXqYC2uMICu0uad9J119wOQ2rfaA57O1ekzKgo6DiGwhuodg4Wm2-bE27lYn-ZuzKYCFSrQWnplm117QmQ-U36Ubm_rqBKs-h_x2QZTiD3Wvlu8nyC5ndUzO7-C8EBp-_Zf9XLsvCtFDRM_trG7fZBoo-j65Ce-c0VPwW3RRBsWYfvu93-57QP/s1093/Eli_and_Samuel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="869" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIRKqRFHOXqYC2uMICu0uad9J119wOQ2rfaA57O1ekzKgo6DiGwhuodg4Wm2-bE27lYn-ZuzKYCFSrQWnplm117QmQ-U36Ubm_rqBKs-h_x2QZTiD3Wvlu8nyC5ndUzO7-C8EBp-_Zf9XLsvCtFDRM_trG7fZBoo-j65Ce-c0VPwW3RRBsWYfvu93-57QP/s320/Eli_and_Samuel.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Eli and Samuel by John Singleton Copley, 1780</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 14th January 2024, the 2nd of Epiphany</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Today’s readings are mostly about people hearing God’s call and how they
respond to it.</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-size: 11pt;">I believe that God calls each and every one of us to be the
person he means us to be. But how can we be sure that a voice we hear is truly
God’s voice? And how can we be sure what he is calling us to be and to do? The
technical word for this is ‘discernment’, and discernment is difficult. Most of
the time, in our busyness, wrapped up in our own thoughts and desires, we may
not even hear God’s voice. If we do, it is often so much easier to ignore it.
And sometimes what he asks of us seems so difficult that we try to run away
from it.</span><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Today I’m going to reflect a little on the readings,
because I think they can help us get to grips with the problem of discernment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In the OT reading (1Samuel 3:1-10, 11-20) Samuel hears God calling to
him.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">You may remember that Samuel’s parents Hannah and Elkanah
had dedicated him to God as a child, and left him in the guardianship of Eli,
the priest at the pilgrimage shrine of Shiloh.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The boy Samuel is confused when he hears God’s call.
Three times he hears a voice calling his name. He thinks it is Eli calling for
him, but it is not. At last Eli realises the voice Samuel is hearing must be
from God. He prompts Samuel to respond, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’</span></i> –
only then can Samuel open himself to God and understand his vocation. He will
grow up to be a great prophet and a leader of Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Notice Eli’s role in the story, helping Samuel to understand
what is going on. When we are trying to discern what God is saying to us, we
often need someone else to encourage, support and guide us, to enable our discernment.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I have experienced this personally. I began to ask
myself whether I should offer myself to lead worship, at a time when otherwise
there would be no one to lead services. I had watched a diocesan reader I
admired and trusted do so. But it was not until a priest recognised that God
was calling me, and encouraged and guided me, that I could begin to understand my
call to diocesan reader ministry. Fostering discernment is an important role in
ministry.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Psalm 139 marvels at how completely God knows and understands us.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In beautiful poetry the psalmist tells us that God
comprehends us completely, we cannot escape him, even if we wish we could. This
is because God has made us: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘I thank you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made’</span></i>,
says the psalmist.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Indeed, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We have
been made as souls with conscience and intelligence, capable of love, able to
tell good from evil, truth from lies, beauty from ugliness. And it is these innate
capacities which enable us to hear God’s call and discern what it is he wants
of us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In the Gospel reading (John 1:43-51) Jesus calls Philip and Nathanael to
follow him.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Notice that Jesus calls Philip directly, but it is
Philip who then invites his friend Nathanael to meet Jesus. This is the way
that many disciples of Jesus were made at the very beginning, by one disciple
passing on Jesus’s call to follow him to another. And it is the way that
disciples have been made ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Notice also how Nathanael initially resists the call
from Jesus, passed on by Philip. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Can anything
good come out of Nazareth?’</span></i>, he asks cynically. I suppose the
rivalry between Bethsaida and Nazareth must have been a bit like that between
Tipperary and Kilkenny in the hurling! It is only when Nathanael accepts his
friend Philip’s invitation to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘come and see’</span></i>, and spends time in
conversation with Jesus, that he gives in, finally confessing, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Rabbi, you are
the Son of God’</span></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">How like the way that many of us try to evade God’s
call when it comes! But God does not give up on us – he knows us from the
inside out, and he will not let go of us easily if he wants us for a purpose.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Philip goes on to be a great apostle, the first
apostle to the gentiles, even before St Paul took on the role. Acts tells us
that he was the first to bring Samaritans into the Church, and he goes on to
baptise an Ethiopian court official. But what of Nathanael? We hear nothing
else about him in the Bible - though perhaps he is the same as Nathanael of
Cana to whom Jesus appeared at the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection. We do
know that Nathanael responded to Jesus’s call. As Jesus promised, he must have
seen <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and
descending’</span></i></b>. But God calls only a few to great things, and
Nathanael may not have been one of them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I said at the start, I believe God calls every one of us to be the
person he means us to be.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">There may be some here who are called to be priests, or
perhaps even bishops – maybe even prophets or apostles, God help us! But almost
all of us are called to much more modest things in ordinary places. Yet these too
are things which God needs us for in order to build his Kingdom of peace and
justice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">They may be official jobs in the church, jobs like
being a church warden, or serving on select vestry. Or they may be specific
ministries in the parish - there are so many, aren’t there? - reading, singing,
church cleaning, washing linen, helping with flowers or refreshments after
services – even volunteering for the Christmas tree festival! God calls
different people at different times to different ministries to build up
Christ’s body, the Church, to continue his ministry in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But just as important there are tasks of service to
others in the secular world. Tasks like being a carer, teaching children, healing
the sick as doctors or nurses. Tasks that build and protect community, or
conserve the beautiful planet we have been given. Tasks that feed the bodies
and nourish the spirits of our neighbours. God needs people who will carry out
all these tasks, and so many others, to build his Kingdom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I suggest that each and every one of us should ask
ourselves these questions: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #385623;">How has God called me?</span> and<span style="color: #385623;">
How have I responded?</span></i> We should do so often, because who it is God
wants us to be, and what he wants us to do, is ever changing through the course
of our lives. The beginning of a new year is a good time to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And we should pray that God’s Holy Spirit will help us
to discern what he wants of us. Because it is precisely when we respond to
God’s call, that like Nathanael we will see <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘heaven
opened and the angels of God ascending and descending’</span></i></b> and
experience the joy of his Kingdom.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let me finish in prayer with a Collect of the Word<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Eternal God,<br />whose Son, Jesus Christ, is now exalted as lord of all,<br />and pours out his gifts upon the Church:<br />grant it that unity which only your Spirit can give,<br />keep us in the bond of peace,<br />and bring all creation to worship before your throne;<br />through Jesus Christ our Redeemer,<br />who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,<br />one God, for ever and ever. Amen</span></blockquote>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-27583303272818166942024-01-08T16:43:00.000+00:002024-01-08T16:43:20.165+00:00Reflection for Epiphany on Matthew 2:1-12<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTvZVIbbcjmC33yS6MvPqEgBrvGWdtXLmRX4syL1xXBR9fMRhu93A69-KA3OHhKs0UKvcZe-89IFxtg_jdKznMzPlDVrY2FFtB4zNkE8WiDP9HL7pvvTfIbWhXZgvZEcRaUW2VGSK6suq-sR5yjbQGWnGvEtWS87yErgVSxjnF_2e-Qd1uYlFumVeGD1-/s2945/The%20Journey%20of%20the%20Magi%20-%20T.S.%20Eliot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2133" data-original-width="2945" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTvZVIbbcjmC33yS6MvPqEgBrvGWdtXLmRX4syL1xXBR9fMRhu93A69-KA3OHhKs0UKvcZe-89IFxtg_jdKznMzPlDVrY2FFtB4zNkE8WiDP9HL7pvvTfIbWhXZgvZEcRaUW2VGSK6suq-sR5yjbQGWnGvEtWS87yErgVSxjnF_2e-Qd1uYlFumVeGD1-/s320/The%20Journey%20of%20the%20Magi%20-%20T.S.%20Eliot.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 9th January 2024</i></span></p><p>Matthew’s Wise Men from the East
are on a quest, following a star. In a quest, heroes follow a long, hard and
dangerous journey to find an object of great value before returning home. The
Wise Men are learned astronomers, who have come to pay homage to the king of
the Jews, because they <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘observed his star at its
rising’</span></i>, we’re told. The learned chief priests and scribes of
Jerusalem direct them to Bethlehem. The star leads them there, to the
Christ-child with Mary his mother.</p><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">At the culmination of their
quest, they are overwhelmed with joy. They kneel in homage and present their
gifts, signifying that the royal king they seek is in fact this baby. Now
that’s amazing, isn’t it? They have travelled so far, suffered such hardships,
to find what? A tiny, vulnerable, human child, just like so many they could
have found without stirring from home!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">After finding what they seek,
the Wise Men return home – the proper end of any quest. Matthew does not tell
us what they made of it. But in his poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’, T S Eliot
imagines the response of one of them, years later in old age. I can do no
better for a reflection than read it to you.</p></div>
<div class="WordSection3">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Journey of the Magi, </span></i></b><a href="https://poets.org/poet/t-s-eliot"><b><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">T. S. Eliot</span></b></a><b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">‘A cold coming we had of
it,<br />
Just the worst time of the year<br />
For a journey, and such a long journey:<br />
The ways deep and the weather sharp,<br />
The very dead of winter.’<br />
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,<br />
Lying down in the melting snow.<br />
There were times we regretted<br />
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,<br />
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.<br />
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling<br />
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,<br />
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,<br />
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly<br />
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:<br />
A hard time we had of it.<br />
At the end we preferred to travel all night,<br />
Sleeping in snatches,<br />
With the voices singing in our ears, saying<br />
That this was all folly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">Then at dawn we came down
to a temperate valley,<br />
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;<br />
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,<br />
And three trees on the low sky,<br />
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.<br />
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,<br />
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,<br />
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,<br />
But there was no information, and so we continued<br />
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon<br />
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">All this was a long time
ago, I remember,<br />
And I would do it again, but set down<br />
This set down<br />
This: were we led all that way for<br />
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,<br />
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,<br />
But had thought they were different; this Birth was<br />
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.<br />
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,<br />
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,<br />
With an alien people clutching their gods.<br />
I should be glad of another death.</span></p></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">I am sure we are to take Matthew’s story
as fable, not history. The great truth buried in it is this, I believe - the
Wise Men’s quest is our quest too. The light of the star represents all that is
good and true and beautiful, all that is worthy of God. If we have the tenacity
they had, to follow the light of their star, like them we will find that baby,
who is, as St John puts it, ‘the true light, which enlightens everyone’. And
like the aged Wise Man, what we have found will change us, we will no longer be
at ease with the ways of the world we knew before, the old dispensation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-89636786488750471322023-12-31T15:40:00.002+00:002023-12-31T15:40:23.516+00:00Shepherds glorifying God<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROj9RiMwq2HeRgNzP3Kzq9deVKUyUIiAAucHEvSbj1pacQcgZa9TgkVZHmHIBV7Y4g2R1hh2tyz_yQqvkDpsPLRAo0uzWL85wm_d9-RVZ7SVEm1DgF5ZZrjkpqqEWJJZpBFVkxMrZ9xg4FwjJB9ZYVLLijIa1Gb1HEwY5QDPG2Wi4wjHrT5Le6l2dvamc/s480/Annibale_Carracci_Adorazione_dei_Pastori_Orleans%20(1).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="378" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjROj9RiMwq2HeRgNzP3Kzq9deVKUyUIiAAucHEvSbj1pacQcgZa9TgkVZHmHIBV7Y4g2R1hh2tyz_yQqvkDpsPLRAo0uzWL85wm_d9-RVZ7SVEm1DgF5ZZrjkpqqEWJJZpBFVkxMrZ9xg4FwjJB9ZYVLLijIa1Gb1HEwY5QDPG2Wi4wjHrT5Le6l2dvamc/s320/Annibale_Carracci_Adorazione_dei_Pastori_Orleans%20(1).png" width="252" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Adoration of the Shepherds, Annibale Carracci 1560-1609</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Address given at Killodiernan Church on Sunday 31st December 2023, the 1st of Christmas</span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this
thing which has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us”</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">.</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">So say the shepherds who were keeping watch over the flock in
fields close to the town, as St Luke tells us in the Gospel reading (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=571035432" target="_blank">Luke2:15-21</a>).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Luke’s is the only Gospel to tell us about the shepherds who
visited Mary and Joseph and their new-born son Jesus. His beautiful story, so
familiar to us, still resonates today. So let’s try to imagine ourselves in the
shoes of the shepherds that night 2000 years ago.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Some of you I’m sure know much more than I do about sheep.
Perhaps you’ve kept and tended them. But I doubt if any of you would call
yourselves shepherds. Shepherds are few and far between in Ireland these days -
but they would have been very familiar to Luke’s readers. The rugged Judean
uplands were a pastoral country. Flocks of sheep represented wealth. A shepherd
was paid to stay out night and day in all weathers to guard the sheep against
wild animals and robbers. It was a hard, dangerous job, but very responsible.
Jesus likens himself to the Good Shepherd, who would lay down his life for the
sheep.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Luke’s shepherds are ordinary people, much like you and me. They
are not self-important rulers or highly educated opinion formers, as Herod and
the Wise Men were, in Matthew’s alternative Christmas story. Luke chooses to
tell us about how ordinary people responded to the miracle of Christmas, not
the great and mighty. And we have much to learn from them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
shepherds had just experienced a miraculous vision, a vision of angels. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘The
glory of the Lord shone around them’</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"> – I
imagine shimmering light, like the Northern lights. An angel announces, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘To you is born this day in the
city of David’</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">
</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">– that is Bethlehem –<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘a Saviour, who is the Messiah,
the Lord.’</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are given a sign; they </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘will
find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger’</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">.
Then the angel is joined by </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘a
multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying “Glory to God in the
highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours”’</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Wow! What an experience! What an exhilarating joy the shepherds
must have felt!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Have you ever heard the heavenly host? I have, I
think, and you may have too. I can remember my joy and exhilaration after the
births of my twin girls. I can remember literally skipping down the wet
deserted streets of Guildford at 4am in mid December, on the way back home from
the hospital. It was as if the whole universe was laughing and crying and
singing with me. And I shared my joy with everyone I met over the following
days. Angel voices, indeed – a memory to treasure!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Surely it is an experience of this same kind that
Isaiah speaks of in today’s OT reading (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=571035494" target="_blank">Isaiah 61:10-62:3</a>), when he says:</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">I will greatly rejoice in the <span class="sc">Lord</span>,<br />
my whole being shall exult in my God;<br />
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,<br />
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,<br />
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,<br />
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Most if not all of us, ordinary people, experience once in a
while that sudden rush of exhilarating joy, as both Isaiah and the shepherds
did. It is not just poets and the mad who experience visions of angels. We
should not be afraid of them, I think. Rather we should see it as God granting
us a glimpse, just a fleeting glimpse, of his loving power and majesty. We
should treasure such experiences when we return to the world of normality, and
ponder them in our hearts, as Mary did.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The shepherds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child
lying in a manger’</span>.<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">These shepherds are straight-forward, practical
people. They don’t stand around debating and philosophising about what their
extraordinary experience means. They go with haste to look with their own eyes.
And what they find confirms their experience – it is just as the angel had told
them. This little child is special, very special - a Saviour, a Messiah, the
Lord. And they can’t stop talking about it! Just as I couldn’t stop telling
everyone about the birth of my children.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The real miracle of Christmas is that through his
grace our loving Father God makes the first move towards us, to you and me, to
all people. He reveals himself to us as Mary and Joseph’s beautiful, helpless
baby, their first-born son. This baby grows up to be our Lord Jesus Christ – in
St John’s mystic vision, the Word of God, the true light that enlightens
everyone – through whose life and teaching, and death and resurrection, we are
shown the way to God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But God’s grace is of no use to us unless we respond
to it. We should learn from the shepherds how to respond to the miracle of
Christmas. They went with haste to find Jesus, and we must too. Like them, we
will not be disappointed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘The shepherds returned, glorifying and
praising God for all they had heard and seen.’<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">They don’t hang about. Once they have seen the child
Jesus lying in the manger – the Saviour, the Messiah, the Lord – and told their
story, they just go back to work, to tend their flocks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But something has changed - they are changed. They go
back<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <span style="color: #7030a0;">‘glorifying
and praising God for all that they had heard and seen.’</span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And this surely is what we must do too. We are not
meant to remain for ever in our visions, no matter how exhilarating they may
be. We must come back to earth. Our job is to bring our experience of the love
of God back into the everyday world. Let us pray that we too may go about the
world as changed people, glorifying and praising God for all we have heard and
seen.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So we have indeed a great deal to learn from Luke’s shepherds:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We should treasure the glimpses we are granted of the love and majesty of our loving Father God.</li><li>We should go with haste to find God’s grace in the Christmas miracle of the birth of Jesus.</li><li>And we should return as changed people to bring God’s loving Spirit out into the world.</li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let me finish in prayer with a Collect of the Word<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Saving God,<br />whose Son Jesus was presented in the temple<br />and was acclaimed the glory of Israel<br />and the light to the nations:<br />grant that in him we may be presented to you<br />and in the world may reflect his glory;<br />who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,<br />one God, now and for ever. Amen</span></blockquote>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-73851525064252167052023-12-12T13:55:00.002+00:002023-12-12T13:57:31.885+00:00The birth of the universal church<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVrXbv5dfQllVl04qxwOZfl05JnEHe56dR4alnlwRRun-KTX6CMSSPRBy_K_m-FuqTphPci7-zb49YhABclIBPhzo7cKI7DLupeNDXKEBPvT5txoGGtJjKicdenC1J5krRAYB4tPmYhXL7j4bWUHmcTSBuWiYC3J6JjT-sguuR_QhW5hXXQhkb7l0ozaw/s1465/Domenico_Fetti_-_Peter's_vision_of_a_sheet_with_animals_-_Kunsthistorisches_Museum_Wien.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1134" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVrXbv5dfQllVl04qxwOZfl05JnEHe56dR4alnlwRRun-KTX6CMSSPRBy_K_m-FuqTphPci7-zb49YhABclIBPhzo7cKI7DLupeNDXKEBPvT5txoGGtJjKicdenC1J5krRAYB4tPmYhXL7j4bWUHmcTSBuWiYC3J6JjT-sguuR_QhW5hXXQhkb7l0ozaw/s320/Domenico_Fetti_-_Peter's_vision_of_a_sheet_with_animals_-_Kunsthistorisches_Museum_Wien.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Peter's dream, by Domenico Fetti</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection at morning worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on 12th December 2023</i></span></p><p>Today’s reading (Acts 11:1-18)
records one of the most important moments in the life of the earliest church,
the moment when it began to move from being a purely Jewish sect to being a
church which accepted Gentiles as full members. In this moment we witness the
birth of the Church Catholic – the universal Church.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In the paragraphs before today’s
reading, the author of Acts tells us how Peter had come to associate with
Gentiles in Caesarea.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Peter had an extraordinary dream
while he was visiting disciples in Joppa, now a suburb of Tel Aviv in Israel.
He heard a voice commanding him to kill and eat animals which as a Jew he had
been taught to believe were unclean – they disgusted him, they were taboo. And a
voice from heaven declared to him, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘What God has
made clean, you must not call profane’</span></i>. We have our own food taboos
in Ireland today. Most people are horrified at the thought of eating horse-meat.
But I tried it once in the Netherlands, and I can confirm it is delicious.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Just as Peter was processing this
shocking dream, three men arrived at the door asking for him. They had been
sent by a Roman Centurion called Cornelius, a pious and God-fearing gentile,
who asked Peter to come with them to visit him in Caesarea, about a day’s walk
away. Peter felt the Holy Spirit urging him to agree, so the next day he went
to see Cornelius. But we should notice that he took the precaution of bringing
6 witnesses along too. Under Jewish tradition if seven people give the same
testimony it must be accepted as true.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">When Peter arrived at Cornelius’s
house, he tells him and the assembled household, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘You
yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a
Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.
So when I was sent for, I came without objection’</span></i>. Clearly Peter has
been reflecting on the meaning of his strange vision, as we walked to Caesarea.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Cornelius tells Peter<span style="color: #7030a0;">, ‘All of us are here in the presence of God to listen to
all that the Lord has commanded you to say’</span>. Peter replies, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in
every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him’</span></i>.
And he goes on to proclaim the Gospel to Cornelius’s household.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Cornelius and his household receive
Peter’s teaching with great joy. We are told that Peter and his 6 witnesses
were amazed at their response. They could see that these Gentiles had received
the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they had all received at Pentecost. Seizing
the moment, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘(Peter) ordered them to be baptised
in the name of Jesus Christ’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Now we pick up the story in
today’s reading.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">When Peter got back to Jerusalem, news
of his visit to Cornelius had arrived before him. The Jewish Christians were
outraged that Peter had consorted with gentiles, in breach of Jewish law and
tradition – and he had even gone so far as to have them baptised. <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Why’</span></i>, they ask him, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Peter then, in front of his 6
witnesses, tells them the whole story we have heard. He concludes saying, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘If then God gave (Cornelius and his household) the same
gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I
could hinder God?’</span></i>. The critics are silenced, and they praise God, saying,
<i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the
repentance that leads to life’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i>Let us praise God with the
Jewish Church in Jerusalem, because God has given to us as well, as Gentiles,
the repentance that leads to life!<o:p></o:p></i></b></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-72486471058879227372023-12-10T15:10:00.003+00:002023-12-10T15:19:53.488+00:00Make Straight the Way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdAl-O3aI6XuJ_E7KfYqcEpk0y3Gtd_4PrrDKsTLyqFKLxvDEExn2OTsACoBiYjgL82-pN13ybNDkdyp7RDCWArpU1PQXo2J3EYPUq2CXgGGMSBzNfRoOyp7NR5cflCKztx_yTaKTmYU5aJ8PPcKRjGcssaol1DbbNM3OZHxJPldyZb-I29kkI7okS2nWX/s696/road-works-696x365-696x365.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="696" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdAl-O3aI6XuJ_E7KfYqcEpk0y3Gtd_4PrrDKsTLyqFKLxvDEExn2OTsACoBiYjgL82-pN13ybNDkdyp7RDCWArpU1PQXo2J3EYPUq2CXgGGMSBzNfRoOyp7NR5cflCKztx_yTaKTmYU5aJ8PPcKRjGcssaol1DbbNM3OZHxJPldyZb-I29kkI7okS2nWX/s320/road-works-696x365-696x365.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><i style="font-size: small;">Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan on Sunday 10th December 2023, the 2nd of Advent</i></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let’s listen again to the prophet Isaiah’s beautiful, poetic words in
the 1<sup>st</sup> reading (Isaiah: 40:1-11):</span></b></p><span style="color: #800180;">A voice cries out:<br />In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,<br /> make straight in the desert a highway for our God.<br />Every valley shall be lifted up,<br /> and every mountain and hill be made low;<br />the uneven ground shall become level,<br /> and the rough places a plain.</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Now, we know a good deal about making highways around
here – just think of the building of the M7 motorway some years ago, and the building
today of the Killaloe bypass and the new Shannon bridge – I believe the first
span was completed in the last week. Isaiah’s words could almost be an anthem
for the National Roads Authority! Great cuttings have been blasted through the
hills. Giant machines have moved the spoil to make embankments. Bridges have
been built over rivers. All to make the road as gentle and smooth as possible.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Road building would not have been so vast in Isaiah’s
time, but it would still have been a gigantic community enterprise to make the
roads to allow farmers to transport their produce on pack-mules to market in
Jerusalem, and to allow pilgrims to travel to the temple on Mount Zion. The
roads knit together the Jewish people in the cities of Judah to their holy
mountain of Zion, not just in a material way, but also in metaphor as a
worshiping community. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I feel sure that for Isaiah the way of the Lord was not a
road for God to travel to his people on, but a road for his people to travel to
God on.</span></p><span style="color: #800180;">Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, <br />and all people shall see it together, <br />for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.</span><br />
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In our 3<sup>rd</sup> reading, in the very first words of his Gospel
(Mark:1:1-8), St Mark recycles this road building metaphor.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">John the Baptist is a wild man, wandering about the
Judean desert, clothed in camel’s hair, with only a leather bag at his waist,
who ate locusts and wild honey, we are told – the very image of an Old
Testament prophet! Mark quotes Isaiah to identify him as: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">The voice of one crying out in the
wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’</span></i> He
is the fulfilment of the hope expressed by Isaiah.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">John proclaims <span style="color: #7030a0;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness
of sins’</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>And he is very
successful to judge by the crowds he gathers. But John is also the self-effacing
herald of the coming of another. Claiming no special position for himself, he
says: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘The
one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop
down and untie the thong of his sandals.’</span> </i>He means Jesus of course.
And John continues <span style="color: #7030a0;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I have baptised you with water; but he will baptise you with the Holy
Spirit.’</i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">When preparing this address, I asked myself, ‘Why have
the compilers of the Lectionary chosen this reading for today?’. John’s message
of repentance and forgiveness for sin might seem at first sight out of place in
this Advent season. In Advent we look forward to Christmas and the great gift
that God has given us. God comes to us. He comes in the form of a little child.
His parents Mary and Joseph name him Jesus. We rejoice with them at the miracle
of his birth. With angels and shepherds and kings we adore him. And we believe
he grows up to lead us to God through his loving self-sacrifice. So why spoil all
the joy with dismal repentance for sin?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I think the answer lies in the metaphor of road
building. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Yes, God makes the first move. Yes, God comes to us in the person of
Jesus. But he does not force himself on us. He does not compel us to accept his
love. He made us with free will, and we are free to refuse him. But we cannot
share in his kingdom unless we make a move in response. That essential move is
like building a road to travel on towards God. Each one of us must <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘prepare the way
of the Lord’</span></i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘make his paths straight’</span></i>. And to do so we must
each accept John’s baptism for ourselves. We must admit our own sins, we must
seek God’s forgiveness, and we must undergo a change of heart to follow God’s
way in future. Because that is what repentance means.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So, to sum up:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk500084682"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">By the readings they
have chosen for us, the compilers of the Lectionary have tried to correct any
tendency we may have to be over sentimental in our anticipation of Christmas.</span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Yes of course we should look forward with joy to Christmas.
Let us wonder at the miracle of Mary’s tiny helpless baby. Let us enjoy the
stories of the shepherds and the three kings. And let us sing our hearts out with
the angels in the beautiful carols we all love so much.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But let us also reflect on this. The love God shows us
at Christmas is no use to us - no use at all - unless we choose to act in
response, to build a good smooth road on which we may travel to God. John the
Baptist has shown us the way by proclaiming his baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins. All we need do is to commit ourselves to that baptism, and
to build the road.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I finish in prayer with a Collect of the Word:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="color: #38761d;">Merciful God, <br />you sent your messengers the prophets <br />to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation:<br />give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins,<br />that we may greet with joy<br />the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer,<br />who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,<br />one God, now and for ever. Amen </span><br /><br /> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i></i></span><p></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-14331286124899767122023-11-27T12:13:00.000+00:002023-11-27T12:13:14.031+00:00Of sheep and goats<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmUozhLSEp1rx1Gs-HU98MKDail5AEmOVEupvCHvRDlfokCStDVCyXPGb3U_kOgyOkdFSN6hdD6i9k-jOK9_MSfl44FXlIfp0fCmVxb7eF9s5MkmgBRA6dIJEFpYaI1dPWzQ3ExQvnUdI3362z7aR0Rn99kbP9NtdjRChTsm-pjiOTcbGB1oSm3TiEaVc7/s640/Ravenna%20Last%20Judgment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="640" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmUozhLSEp1rx1Gs-HU98MKDail5AEmOVEupvCHvRDlfokCStDVCyXPGb3U_kOgyOkdFSN6hdD6i9k-jOK9_MSfl44FXlIfp0fCmVxb7eF9s5MkmgBRA6dIJEFpYaI1dPWzQ3ExQvnUdI3362z7aR0Rn99kbP9NtdjRChTsm-pjiOTcbGB1oSm3TiEaVc7/s320/Ravenna%20Last%20Judgment.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Mozaic of the Last Judgement, Ravenna</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan church on Sunday 26th November 2023, Christ the King</i></span></p><p><b>Am I like a sheep or am I like a goat?</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We have just heard Jesus’s vivid and memorable parable of the sheep and
the goats from Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 25:31-46), told privately to his
disciples. It prompts me to ask myself this question, as it should each and
every one of us, I suggest.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The main message of
the parable is clear, isn’t it? God judges each one of us – me and you – according
to how we respond to the needs of others. Some will be found to be righteous
and go into eternal life. Others will not, and they will go into eternal
punishment. Let’s delve into it a bit.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>In NT times in the
Holy Land, sheep and goats were kept in mixed flocks, as they still are. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But it was sometimes
necessary to separate them into their kinds. At shearing time for instance. Or
at the approach of hard weather – sheep are hardier than goats and can be left
to graze over winter in the uplands, but goats must be brought down and folded
in the shelter of the valley. Or to manage grazing – sheep eat only low growing
herbs while goats will eat the leaves of bushes so that when forage of one kind
is running out the appropriate animals must be moved to other grazing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This image of
separating sheep and goats would have been very familiar to those Jesus was
talking to. He uses it as a metaphor for how people can be divided into two
kinds. <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory’</span></i></b>,
says Jesus, <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">‘… he will separate people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at
his right hand and the goats at the left’</span></i></b>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those that are righteous
will be blessed by God and receive everlasting life, and those that are not
will be accursed and receive eternal punishment. <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">‘Then
the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”</span></i></b>,
and <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">‘he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are
accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his
angels”’</span></i></b>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The test for whether a
person is righteous or not – to be blessed or accursed - is how he or she responds
to the needs of those they encounter. The king tells those who are blessed, <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked
and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison
and you visited me”</span></i></b>. He tells those who are accursed that they did
none of these things.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And when both kinds of
people express surprise because they did not recognise him, the king tells
them, <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to
one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me”</span></i></b>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jesus confronts those
who hear him, then and now, with this great truth. To help those in need is to help
him, the Son of Man. Not to help them is to deny him help.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And we can all do our
bit to help them. Notice that the help Jesus talks about is not in great world-changing
things, things that can only be done by those with great wealth and power. It
is in little everyday things we are all capable of – feeding the hungry and
thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the ill-clad, caring for the sick,
visiting those who are lonely.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We know we are made in
the image of God, our loving Father. And it is our duty to help our fellow
human beings who are his children too, when they are in trouble, need, sickness
or any other adversity. Why? Because, like us, they too are brothers and
sisters of Jesus Christ the King, the Son of God.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>There is also
something else we should take away from this reading.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The promise of eternal
life for the righteous is not reserved just for those of us who profess to be
followers of Jesus Christ.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #993366; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘<b>All
the nations will be gathered before (the Son of Man), and he will separate
people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.’</b></span></i>, says Jesus. That includes not just Christians,
but also Muslims and Jews, Sikhs and Hindus, people of other faiths, and people
with no faith at all. All of them are subject to the same judgement. Have they tended
to the needs of their fellow human beings, <b><i><span style="color: #993366;">‘the
least of those who are members of (God’s) family?’</span></i></b>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those that have,
whatever their faith or lack of it, are blessed. They will inherit eternal
life. We must recognise them for what they are, ‘people of good will’, with
whom we must work to make this world more like the world God wants it to be. We
must never see them as enemies.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And this should be a
comfort to those of us with children, family and friends who do not profess our
faith, but whom we love and know to be good, and caring people. They are just as
likely to be judged worthy of eternal life as we are.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>So, what of the
question I began with? Am I like a sheep or am I like a goat? <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I feel sure that I am a
bit of both – we all are, I suggest. Sometimes, helped by the example of Jesus
himself, I behave as I ought to behave and do my best to respond to the needs
of others. But I know that on other occasions I miss the opportunities I am
given to do so, I fail the test, and Jesus weeps.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I trust in God’s
fatherly lovingkindness. I believe that when I repent of my failures, he will
forgive me, as Jesus promises. And I pray in the words of today’s Collect of
the Word:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Eternal God,<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">you exalted Jesus Christ to rule over all things,<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">and have made us instruments of his kingdom:<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">by your Spirit empower us to love the unloved,<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">and to minister to all in need,<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">then at the last bring us to your eternal realm<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">where we may be welcomed into your everlasting joy<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">and may worship and adore you for ever:<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">through Jesus Christ our Lord,<br /> </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">who lives and reigns with you<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">in the unity of the Holy Spirit,<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">one God, for ever and ever. Amen</span></blockquote>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-13767397351364812362023-11-14T13:15:00.007+00:002023-11-14T13:19:04.916+00:00A reflection on mortality (Wisdom 2:23-3:9)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge82VB5Ki_22OQHTtYED1PUHTHwgjEiqmjtZX2SvbrVFz7iSayreGdyKtsDDk9_UnFz32B_J4Jx12mfWDPk8zReDFwgmOPU8Y1yOhqCqeY8V2-BTC5AGHO3WHXyrBjEWfdg4jGQIfr7T3MYgaN__4qrsKwtrn7kTXjdE_IhbA-0_j1IbvfEnsWovJP1N2x/s800/WhitePoppy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge82VB5Ki_22OQHTtYED1PUHTHwgjEiqmjtZX2SvbrVFz7iSayreGdyKtsDDk9_UnFz32B_J4Jx12mfWDPk8zReDFwgmOPU8Y1yOhqCqeY8V2-BTC5AGHO3WHXyrBjEWfdg4jGQIfr7T3MYgaN__4qrsKwtrn7kTXjdE_IhbA-0_j1IbvfEnsWovJP1N2x/s320/WhitePoppy2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection for Morning Worship withn the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 14th November 2023</i></span></p><p>In this season of remembrance, we remember those who have died – the saints who have gone before us, and our
loved ones departed. We also remember those who have suffered and died in cruel
wars. This year we see again the hatred and cruelty of war, as generations of
our ancestors did before us. We watch in horror the hideous death and
destruction in Israel and Gaza, and the continuing ugly, grinding conflict in
Ukraine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But we are also prompted to
reflect on our own death, which we know will come to us all.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The reading we have just heard
from Wisdom (2:23-3:9) contrasts the world-view of the foolish – those who do
not trust in God and his love for us – with the world-view of those of us who
do. It is a reading recommended in our BCP for funerals, but I think rarely
used.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">For the foolish, death is a
disaster. The dead are gone. They decompose. Their loves and their lives are
meaningless. Their sufferings are worthless afflictions, leading to
annihilation. Ultimately there is nothing for the foolish to look forward to.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But for we who trust in the love
of God, it is different. We perceive, as Wisdom has it, that <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no
torment will ever touch them’</span></i>. Even as they suffer, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘their hope is full of immortality’</span></i>. Their
trials, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘like gold in the furnace’</span></i><span style="color: #7030a0;"> </span>will become a blessing. The good they have done
in their lives, the love they have shown us, will reverberate after their
deaths - <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘in the time of their visitation they
will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble’</span></i>. We
understand the truth that at the end we will abide eternally with God, who will
watch over us in his grace and mercy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">When the foolish mock us, saying, <i><span style="color: #00b0f0;">‘How can you believe such ancient tosh in this age of
science and technology?’</span></i>, my answer is this: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">"We live our lives from birth to
death in Einstein’s 4-dimensional space-time, on lifelines weaving around and
touching each other for good and ill along the way. The God of love in whom I
trust exists in a higher dimension. He sees you and me and all his creation as
a whole, from start to finish. What pleases or displeases God is the quality of
the love that I show to those I encounter in my life as our lifelines interact,
and also to his good creation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">"God has made me to be an embodied
soul, made in his own image, with a conscience through which I can distinguish good
from evil, right from wrong, truth from lies, beauty from ugliness, as he does.
I know from experience that while I would like to do right, I often do wrong.
The good that I do throughout my life will propagate into the future, and so
will the evil.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">"But I trust in God’s Fatherly
lovingkindness, so perfectly embodied in Jesus Christ. Though I may burn with
shame for what I have done wrong, and for my failures to do what is right, this
is surely no more than God refining me, like gold in a furnace. I trust in God’s
grace and mercy, and my hope is to be found worthy when my time comes. I pray
for forgiveness so that I may <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘abide with him in
love’</span></i>."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-15511630119373670412023-10-15T22:46:00.010+01:002023-10-15T23:21:05.035+01:00The Parable of the Wedding Feast<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglak8OKX_4aGkjVw8375ukDZDfmnGpeNr9-Au3KUCS28eL8-OyT32zCUc-k6C9-m7tlllDG0C9GwGq8Mmqq9YEkR3Hr-7XXcMyoIExp-NbTaeNz8jkGGDt9SKom7QM2rTcQvmDvte0hkq-3HpiXCYkdS7ur6SFF0x4VJ0EDER_1zjzQkoUVZX-v8Qy7Qlq/s550/ParableOfTheWeddingFeast.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="550" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglak8OKX_4aGkjVw8375ukDZDfmnGpeNr9-Au3KUCS28eL8-OyT32zCUc-k6C9-m7tlllDG0C9GwGq8Mmqq9YEkR3Hr-7XXcMyoIExp-NbTaeNz8jkGGDt9SKom7QM2rTcQvmDvte0hkq-3HpiXCYkdS7ur6SFF0x4VJ0EDER_1zjzQkoUVZX-v8Qy7Qlq/s320/ParableOfTheWeddingFeast.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We all love a good wedding, don’t we!<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It’s such a privilege
to join the bride and groom and their families, to rejoice in their love for
each other, and to wish them joy in their new life together. It’s such fun to
join in their celebration feast and raise a glass to toast them. And it’s so
rewarding to meet and get to know the other half of their family. I never turn
down a wedding invitation if I can help it!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In today’s gospel
reading <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=564408429" target="_blank">Matthew (22:1-14)</a> records Jesus comparing the kingdom of heaven to a sumptuous
wedding reception prepared by a king for his son. But the guests the king
planned to invite would not come. They were asked twice, but they ignored the
invitation: some went on working on their farms and in their businesses; others
went so far as to mistreat and even kill the king’s messengers. The king quite
reasonably was enraged. He sent his army to destroy the murderers and their
city. He declared those who had been invited unworthy of the celebration, and
sent his servants out into the streets to gather all the people they could
find, good and bad, to fill the wedding hall and feast in their place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This is a parable, and
parables used by Jesus always have multiple meanings: one will be the meaning
understood by the people who first heard it; and there will also be at least
one, probably many, deeper spiritual meanings, revealed by reflection to
Christians over the ages and to ourselves. Let us tease out some of these
meanings.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This is one of several parables that Jesus addresses
to the chief priests and the elders of the people – in other words the Jewish
elite of the time. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">They understood his
meaning very well: he was talking about them, the rude and unworthy guests. He
was saying that they had ignored God’s invitation to the wedding banquet made first
through the prophets, and later by John the Baptist and himself. He was
promising the people that they, not the elite, would enjoy the kingdom of
heaven. The elite wanted to arrest him to shut him up, but they were afraid of
the crowds who followed him, we are told.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The early Christians interpreted
it this way too, including Matthew who was writing probably half a century
later between AD80 and 90. For them of course the king’s son was Jesus, God’s
own Son. And they saw themselves, a mixed Jewish and gentile church, as the
people chosen by God to replace the rotten Jewish elite at the banquet in the
kingdom of heaven.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">By this time Jerusalem
and the 2<sup>nd</sup> temple had been destroyed by the Romans following the
Jewish revolt around AD70. Did Matthew, with hindsight, add the passage about
the king’s troops destroying the murderers and burning their city, in order to
turn Jesus’s parable into a prophecy? Perhaps, or perhaps not; for Jesus
elsewhere is recorded using strong violent images in his teaching to ram his
point home.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But what is
certain, shamefully certain, is that later on many Christians identified not
the Jewish elite but all Jews, as a race and as a religious community, as the
unworthy, the Christ-killers. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In a sermon on this
parable, even the great reformer Luther could say that this is why ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there is not now </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">a poorer, a more miserable
and forsaken people on the earth than the Jews. Such is the end of the
despisers of God’s Word.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The mainstream churches no longer preach
this, though some fundamentalists still do. It is one of the roots of the
anti-Semitism that led to the horror of the Holocaust. It is a false and wicked
interpretation. By their fruits you shall know them, Jesus says of false
prophets. We must always test our interpretation of scripture against the
fruits it yields, and this interpretation has yielded evil fruit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We should instead see
the parable as good news for us all. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The OT prophets had
imagined God as a stern judge loving only the righteous, with a special
relationship with the children of Israel. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Here Jesus reveals a different image
of God to us, a king like a loving Father who invites every passer by on the
street, Jew and gentile, to join him in a heavenly kingdom as joyful as any
wedding feast. We do not even have to be particularly righteous, for both good
and bad are invited to fill the wedding hall. </p><p class="MsoNormal">We are all invited to rejoice
with him: as Christians we are to be joyful, not gloomy and depressed! All we
must do is to respond to the invitation, not behave like rude, unworthy guests!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But I have missed out the second half of the
parable. What are we to make of the man without a wedding robe thrown into the
outer darkness?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The first half teaches
us that by God’s grace the door to the kingdom is open to all of us. Christians
have traditionally seen the second half as teaching us that with that grace
comes a responsibility to amend our lives.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We all know that we
are by nature sinful creatures, inclined to do what we know is wrong, or not to
do what we know is right. To share in the banquet, the stains of our sins must
be washed from our garments to turn them into wedding robes. God will wash the
stains away by forgiving us when we truly repent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The man without a
wedding robe could make no answer when God challenged him: he could not repent,
so he could not be forgiven, and he was cast into the outer darkness and denied
a part in the banquet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Some people have seen
the outer darkness as a terrible thing, eternal damnation, forever cut off from
the joyful kingdom. But I can’t agree. That would not be the act of a loving
Father. And the king starts by calling the man ‘Friend’. I prefer to see the
outer darkness as the ‘naughty step’.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">All parents know about
the naughty step. When our children behave badly we tell them they must go and
sit on the naughty step, or go to their room, until they are ready to say sorry
and really mean it. It can be very difficult to bear a child’s wailing and
gnashing of teeth, but this is the way a loving parent teaches children how to
behave. When the children feel properly sorry we give them a kiss and let them
rejoin the family.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In just this way, I
think, God uses the outer darkness to teach us the self-discipline to recognise
when we have done wrong and to repent. When we have finished wailing and gnashing
our teeth, when we are truly contrite, he will forgive us, and he will allow us
to return to the joy of the banquet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So to conclude<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let us
give thanks for God’s graceful generosity revealed by Jesus in this parable to
all people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let us
accept God’s invitation to the wedding banquet of the kingdom of heaven with
joy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And let us
trust in God’s Fatherly goodness as he teaches us how we are to behave there.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-90199834458935626752023-10-10T11:20:00.007+01:002023-10-10T11:24:23.057+01:00Martha, Mary & Jesus<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6gcR14VH7-kzhtHWRRkcuSICJzoxvmsP6JuBgjyQtOp0_SufnkS5bXA7qIYaXPOzT26e1AslftFdGj4U6hiVRxOHlAoGMKkG_cI6SZ1T6I2UH_DsY-cGfb9tm2vAPjFk-erGrIlpjDrTiXLAsgSg1zEUzn4Z_DuXbxbqmytsVdfUNh6I1W0mJY5kozXI/s719/622px-Johannes_(Jan)_Vermeer_-_Christ_in_the_House_of_Martha_and_Mary_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="621" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6gcR14VH7-kzhtHWRRkcuSICJzoxvmsP6JuBgjyQtOp0_SufnkS5bXA7qIYaXPOzT26e1AslftFdGj4U6hiVRxOHlAoGMKkG_cI6SZ1T6I2UH_DsY-cGfb9tm2vAPjFk-erGrIlpjDrTiXLAsgSg1zEUzn4Z_DuXbxbqmytsVdfUNh6I1W0mJY5kozXI/s320/622px-Johannes_(Jan)_Vermeer_-_Christ_in_the_House_of_Martha_and_Mary_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Mary, Martha & Jesus, Jan Vermeer 1632 – 1675</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A reflection for Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator onTuesday 10th October 2023</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">Almost everyone remembers how
Martha is always busy with the chores, while her sister Mary sits and listens
to Jesus. I’m sure of this, because I sometimes say in joke ‘Every home should
have a Martha’, and most people laugh at the reference. Particularly if they
know my wife Marty was christened Martha…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">I know I am a very lucky man,
because my Martha does so much to make our home run smoothly, while I plan
services and pen sermons in my office. She tells me she doesn’t resent me, as
the other Martha resented her sister Mary. But I know I don’t tell her often
enough how much I value all she does for me.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">I like this story told by <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=563932920" target="_blank">Luke (10:38-42)</a> because
it reminds us of the human side of Jesus. We often neglect Jesus’s humanity in
favour of his divinity, I fear. Yet as Trinitarian Christians, we believe him
to be both fully human and fully divine.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">After a long journey, Jesus stops
to rest and relax awhile with Martha and Mary, sisters who are close friends of
his. What can be more human than to take a break from travelling and teaching to
enjoy the company of friends? We can see just how close Martha and Mary are to
Jesus, because John’s Gospel (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=563932979" target="_blank">John 11:1-44</a>) tells us they send word for Jesus
to come when their brother Lazarus is ill and dying. When Jesus arrives to find
Lazarus has died, he weeps, he consoles them, and he calls Lazarus out from the
tomb.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">In this story, Martha seems
flustered by the visit, making herself busy about the house, making it
presentable for visitors, I suppose – we are told she is <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘distracted by her many tasks’</span></i>. But Mary sits
at Jesus’s feet and listens to what he has to say. Martha resents her sister
leaving her to do all the work, and eventually she snaps. She asks Jesus to
intervene, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘(Jesus), do you not care that my
sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me’</span></i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">Jesus’s response is interesting. <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;
there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will
not be taken away from her’</span></i></b>. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">What Jesus needs of Martha just now is her company, not her
busy service.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Martha and Mary in this story display two opposite poles of
personality, I suggest: inclined to be active, or inclined to be contemplative
– a bit like being extrovert or introvert. Martha’s instinctive response to
Jesus is to make herself busy. Mary’s is to be still and listen. Jesus urges
Martha to let go of all her busyness and be more like Mary, just to be present
with him as his friend.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But on another occasion Mary is the doer. <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Mary was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume and
wiped his feet with her hair’</span></i>, John tells us. When Jesus’s disciples
object that the expensive perfume should have been sold and the money given to
the poor (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=563933054" target="_blank">Matthew 26:1-13</a>), Jesus rebukes them, saying, <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘She (Mary) has performed a good service for me. For you always
have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this
ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial.’</span></i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">All of us, I believe, are mixtures of Martha and Mary.
Sometimes we need to act, and at other times to contemplate. Wisdom is to know
when each behaviour is appropriate</span>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-78159581289094885292023-10-08T17:29:00.025+01:002023-10-08T17:46:47.252+01:00Wicked Tenants<p style="text-align: left;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0h_T5E_LAwBM6lWvh-mFtou__JDxDBBjUSirL0YxG3LraFkxiI6pePu38BpPxe4vKC4tsK5JsDPDBCk2Fj_8FjlyjX3PcSBMbLo80i72kOA26W8mA3_TwfwvyqQw4ILBcMO-Huzk-F8zcz-rSCJ0C1MWnLZyMTZ-A2CRxmeoq-I30YdU9oj76R3kQ5gc/s640/Derelict_vineyard,_Wellow_-_geograph.org.uk_-_777762.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="640" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0h_T5E_LAwBM6lWvh-mFtou__JDxDBBjUSirL0YxG3LraFkxiI6pePu38BpPxe4vKC4tsK5JsDPDBCk2Fj_8FjlyjX3PcSBMbLo80i72kOA26W8mA3_TwfwvyqQw4ILBcMO-Huzk-F8zcz-rSCJ0C1MWnLZyMTZ-A2CRxmeoq-I30YdU9oj76R3kQ5gc/s320/Derelict_vineyard,_Wellow_-_geograph.org.uk_-_777762.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Derelict vineyard, Wellow (photo David Martin CC BY-SA 2.0)</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><i>Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan on Sunday 8th October 2023, the 18th after Trinity</i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The chief priests and elders were absolutely furious
when Jesus challenged their authority on their own ground, in the Temple.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">After he told them the
parable of the wicked tenants which we have just heard (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=563782267" target="_blank">Matthew 21:33-46</a>), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘They wanted to
arrest him, but they feared the crowds, (who) regarded him as a prophet’</span></i>,
we are told.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">To understand why they
were so angry we must delve a bit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">In today’s OT reading,
<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=563782371" target="_blank">Isaiah (5:1-7)</a> uses a vineyard as a metaphor for the Israelites as God’s
people. God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘dug
(his vineyard) and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines’</span></i>.
God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘built a
watchtower … and a wine vat in it’</span></i>. And God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘expected it to yield grapes, but it
yielded wild grapes’</span></i>. So, says Isaiah, God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘will make it a waste; it shall not be
pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is a thundering
prophecy designed to call the Israelite leaders in Isaiah’s time to repent for
exploiting the Israelite people.</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus begins his parable by referencing the opening lines
of Isaiah’s prophecy. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The chief priests and
elders would surely have understood that the landowner who plants the vineyard
stands for God. The wicked tenants mistreat and beat and kill the vineyard
owner’s slaves when they are sent to collect the harvest. And finally, when the
owner sends his own son and heir, they kill him too, in the hope of inheriting
the vineyard.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The author of
Matthew’s Gospel, writing a generation later, believes that Jesus is the Son of
God. He intends us to identify the son with Jesus. But notice that although
Jesus often refers to God as his Father in heaven, he himself never publicly
claims to be the Son of God. He leaves that identification for his disciples to
make, and he swears them to secrecy. The chief priests and elders, the Jewish
leaders of Jesus’s time, would never have suspected Jesus was claiming to be
the Son of God, because he didn’t do so. This is not what angered them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The chief priests and
elders felt utterly secure in being good people, quite unlike those Isaiah
prophesied against. Long after the days of Isaiah, Jerusalem was laid waste and
the Israelites had been carried off as captives to Babylon. But the Jewish
leaders traced their ancestry back to the faithful remnant of Israel that
returned from exile to Jerusalem. They were utterly confident that they yielded
good grapes, not wild grapes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus asks them, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘When the owner returns, what will he do to those
tenants?’</span></i></b>, and they reply, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and
lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the
harvest time’</span></i>. Just as, they believed, God had returned Jerusalem to
their ancestors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Nothing Jesus has said
so far would have upset them unduly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But Jesus then goes on to quote from Psalm 118:
22-23. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘The stone that the
builders rejected has become the cornerstone’</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">. And he addresses the chief priests and elders
directly, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God
will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of
the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it
will crush anyone on whom it falls’</span></i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus would have been
speaking in Hebrew or Aramaic. Notice that in both, the word for son - ‘ben’-
sounds like the word for stone – ‘eben’. With this pun Jesus identifies the Son
of God with the Cornerstone, which will break and crush anyone on whom it
falls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus is unmistakably
telling the chief priests and the elders to their faces that their behaviour is
unacceptable to God and that their place as leaders will be given to others – just
as Isaiah had to their predecessors. And Jesus has tricked them into
pronouncing their own sentence! No wonder they want to arrest him and shut him
up…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Over the centuries many Christians have seen this parable as a
story about Christianity supplanting Judaism.</span></b><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">In this story, the
vineyard’s owner is God. The tenants are the Jewish people. The vineyard
owner’s slaves are the prophets sent by God and so often rejected and killed.
The Son who came last is none other than Jesus himself, whom the Jews kill. So
God will rightly reject the Jews - all of them - and choose another people, Christians, the
followers of Jesus. The Jews will be broken and crushed by Christ, the Cornerstone.
It is a vivid story of the ultimate doom of the Jewish people. But it is a false and
very dangerous interpretation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This story is false because
Jesus - a Jew himself - focusses his criticism on the Jewish <u>leaders</u> in
the Jerusalem of his own time, not on the Jewish <u>people</u>. In fact, the Jewish
people’s belief that Jesus was a prophet prevented the leaders from arresting
him there and then. The Jewish leaders will indeed be broken and crushed, and
the Temple destroyed, a generation later, not by Christians, but by the might
of pagan Rome when they rise up in revolt. The Jewish people will survive as a
diaspora. As the Acts of the Apostles tells us, though the earliest church was
a Jewish church, it soon received gentiles into membership through the insights
of St Peter and St Paul – both themselves Jews. It is this mixed Jewish and
gentile church that Matthew was writing for.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This story is
dangerous because over nearly 2 millennia it has been used to justify Christian
persecution of the Jews, culminating in the Shoah, the Nazi genocide of
European Jews. By their fruits you shall know them, says Jesus of false
prophets. And the fruits of those who speak like this is the murder of millions
of men and women each made in the image of God. It is an evil blasphemy!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is better, surely, to reflect on what Jesus’s
parable tells us about the nature of God.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It tells us of God’s
generosity. The owner provided the tenants with all they could wish for in a
productive vineyard. In the same way, God by his grace has given us this
wonderful living planet to tend and care for.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It tells us about
God’s trust in us as human beings. The owner of the vineyard did not supervise
his tenants like a slave driver. He went away and left them with their task. In
the same way God entrusts us with his work, and he gives us the freedom to do
it however we think best.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It tells us of God’s
patience and mercy. The owner did not respond with sudden vengeance when his
first messengers are attacked, he sent others. He gave the tenants every chance
to respond, even sending his son and heir. In the same way God bears with all
our sinning and will forgive us, if we will only repent. We Christians are
assured of this by Jesus, God’s only Son, the corner stone once rejected by the
builders.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It tells us of God’s judgement.
When the tenants carried out their deliberate policy of rebellion and
disobedience, God eventually took the vineyard away and gave it to others. In
the same way if we continue to refuse God’s forgiveness and fail to repent, we
become useless to God. In the end God’s stern judgement on us will be to give
the job he made for us to someone else, and we will die of shame. Perish the
thought!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I shall finish in prayer with a Collect of the
Word:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">Almighty God,</b><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">your Son Jesus was the stone rejected by the builders,</b><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">and, by your doing, he has been made the chief cornerstone:</b><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">grant that, by the power of his Spirit working in us,</b><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">we may become living stones built up into your dwelling place,</b><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">a temple holy and acceptable to you;</b><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><b style="color: #2b00fe;">through Jesus Christ, our Lord,</b><br /><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen</b></span><div><br /></div>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-74370271918454570342023-09-12T11:15:00.005+01:002023-09-12T11:15:49.451+01:00Little children, love one another<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcjDQkSy_rMx8JM2mwoKFxbcGUSV_yGuxfOAByOaSJnrf1Rih8t9BxqVHWdKbxQQKljF7Q2HKXAZD9stKEidE-OSkSWYsZ4U3qBvlGQjrqvtByR5a4CO49SI87Pfb-jdUuU7TFvwsopYBUliOvZGrtwrnJ_uApT3E2OoPAQ-6mEnDCTgieVutXykQskUB/s1600/TombOfStJohnEphesus.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcjDQkSy_rMx8JM2mwoKFxbcGUSV_yGuxfOAByOaSJnrf1Rih8t9BxqVHWdKbxQQKljF7Q2HKXAZD9stKEidE-OSkSWYsZ4U3qBvlGQjrqvtByR5a4CO49SI87Pfb-jdUuU7TFvwsopYBUliOvZGrtwrnJ_uApT3E2OoPAQ-6mEnDCTgieVutXykQskUB/s320/TombOfStJohnEphesus.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The tomb of St John at Ephesus (photo Patrick Commerford)</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection at Morning Worship for the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 12th September 2023</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="color: #7030a0; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Owe no one anything, except to love one
another”</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, so says St
Paul to the Romans (13:8-14), echoing Jesus’s words in St John’s Gospel
(13:34), <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">“I give you a new commandment, that
you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”</span></i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This reminds me of a lovely story bequeathed to us by St Jerome,
who is best remembered as the man who first translated the whole Bible into
Latin in around 400AD. Known as the Vulgate, his translation was considered
authoritative by the undivided Western Church.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Jerome tells the story that St John, the beloved disciple,
continued to preach in Ephesus well into his 90s, even when he was so enfeebled
with old age that he had to be carried into the Church on a stretcher. When he
was no longer able to deliver a long discourse, his custom was to lean up on
one elbow on each occasion and to say simply: <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">“Little
children, love one another.”</span></i> This continued even when he was on his
deathbed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then he would lie back, and his friends would carry him out.
Every week in Ephesus, the same thing happened, again and again. And every week
it was the same short sermon, exactly the same message: <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">“Little children, love one another.”</span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One day, the story goes, someone asked him about it: <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">“John, why is it that every week you say exactly the same
thing, <a name="_Hlk144741763">‘Little children, love one another’</a>?”</span></i>
And John replied: <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">“Because it is enough.”</span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you want to know the basics of living as a Christian,
there it is in a nutshell. All you need to know is this: <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">“Little children, love one another.”</span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After John’s death in the year 100AD when he was about 94
years old, he was buried on a hillside above the city of Ephesus. Later a great
basilica was erected over the reputed site of his tomb. It has long been
ruined, and was deserted when I visited it many years ago, but someone had left
a fresh posy of wildflowers on the plaque marking the site of John’s last
resting place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">St Paul goes on to urge the Roman Christians to wake up: <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became
believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the
works of darkness and put on the armour of light’</span></i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paul does not only speak to the Romans - he speaks to each
one of us, I suggest. As an older person, I feel this ever more strongly, as I
realise the days left to me to earn my salvation are ever fewer. But I know
that I will not go far wrong if I follow the way of Christ, loving God and loving
my neighbour as myself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let us rejoice in God’s wisdom, the image of God’s goodness
in the holy soul of St John, and say with him, <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘Little
children, love one another’</span></i><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>–
because it is enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-90390789367794356832023-09-03T14:02:00.002+01:002023-09-03T14:02:49.131+01:00Finding life by losing it<p><i><span style="color: #7030a0;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Address given at Templederry & St Mary's Nenagh on Sunday 3rd September 2023, the 13th after Trinity</span></span></i></p><p><b><i><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘Get behind me,
Satan! You are a stumbling-block for me!’</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What a shock it must
have been for Peter to hear Jesus address him in these cutting words, as recorded
by <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=560746006" target="_blank">Matthew (16:21-28) </a>in the reading we have just heard.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Peter had been the
first to say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘You are the Messiah’</i>,
when Jesus had asked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Who do you say that I am?’</span></i> But now, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Jesus began</span></i><span style="color: #7030a0;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to show his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem … and be killed</i>’</span>. Peter is
shocked by Jesus’ words. Like most Jews of his day, he expected the promised
Messiah to come as a great conqueror to destroy the gentiles – including the hated
Romans - and to rule over a revived Kingdom of Israel. The Messiah would
vanquish his foes, not be killed by them! So Peter remonstrates with Jesus: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘Look here,
Jesus, that can’t be right!’</span></i> he says - or words to that effect. Then
Jesus turns on Peter and likens him to Satan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Why was Jesus so hard
on Peter, his great friend and disciple? Jesus knew that God’s way was not the
way of violent earthly conquest, but the way of self-sacrificing love. He
needed to teach Peter and the other disciples to change their thinking. I feel
sure Jesus didn’t want to die a painful death, but he must have realised this
was the inevitable outcome of what God called him to do. He was determined to
face it bravely. But Peter tries to argue him out of it, in an echo of Satan’s
tempting in the wilderness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Isn’t this often the
way it is? When we’ve made up our minds what is the right thing to do, even at
a cost to ourselves, our friends and loved ones may try to talk us out of it.
The tempter can be the very person dearest to us! Yet we must not allow even
the pleading voice of love to stop us from doing God’s will. This surely is
what Jesus felt that day – no wonder he responded as he did.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus immediately
seized the moment to show the disciples his way, the way of the cross, how to
find life by losing it. It is worth reflecting on his words, which go to the
very heart of our Christian faith.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If any want to become my followers’, </i></span><a name="_Hlk49674248"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">says
Jesus, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">‘</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">let them deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">’<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus’s honesty is startling,
isn’t it? No one can ever say Jesus lures his disciples to follow him on false
pretences! He does not offer them – he does not offer us - an easy life or a
comfortable way to God. Like other great leaders, he calls us as Churchill did to
‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’. But again like a real leader, he does not call
us to do anything more than he was prepared to do himself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">First Jesus calls us
to ‘deny ourselves’, to say no to our own selfish instincts. We must do God’s
will, not our own will, to the best of our ability, in all things.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But more than simply
practicing self-denial, Jesus tells us we must be prepared to take real risks –
even to risk our very lives – if that is what God, through our conscience,
tells us is right.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">For those who want to save their
life will lose it’,</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">
says Jesus, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">‘and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">’<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus focuses our
attention with this great paradox: to save life is to lose it, and vice-versa.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The very essence of
life is in risking it and spending it, not in saving it and hoarding it. If we
live selfishly, always thinking first of our own security, profit and comfort, not
of others, then we are losing life all the time. But if we spend life for
others, if we follow Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice, we are winning life
all the time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The truth is that the
only way we can find a life that matters is by losing it in the love of God and
the love of our neighbours. That is the way of Jesus, that is the way of God,
and that is the way of happiness too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">For what will it profit them’, </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">says Jesus, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">‘if
they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in
return for their life?</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I’m sure you, like me,
can think of people who are outwardly hugely successful, but who in another
sense are living a life that is not worth living. In business, they may have
sacrificed honour for profit. In politics, they may have sacrificed principle
for popularity. In their personal lives, they may have sacrificed their deepest
relationships for their own ambitions or desires. Whatever the reason, such
people are usually not comfortable inside their own skin. They often regret
their bad choices.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is a matter of
values really - Jesus is asking us where our values lie. As he says elsewhere,
you should store up your treasures in heaven, not on earth, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for where your treasure is, there your heart
will be also</i>’</span></b>. Our values should be God’s values, as Jesus
reveals them to us, not the false values of worldly success.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘For the Son of Man’,</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">says Jesus, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">‘</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">is to come with his angels in the
glory of the Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;">’</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #7030a0;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus knows that many
people do not like what he says and how he behaves. He stands up for the poor,
the despised, the rejected, and he befriends sinners. And the scribes and the
Pharisees – the pious and the respectable - attack him for it. With these words
Jesus warns his disciples that they will be judged for their actions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is a simple truth:
we cannot expect to share with Jesus the joy of shaping the world into the
place God means it to be, if we are not prepared to act on Jesus’s message of
loving self-sacrifice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So, to sum up, when I reflect on these words
recorded by Matthew, I hear Jesus’s voice calling me. Calling me down through
the ages:</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">t</span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">o be
ready to take risks to do God’s will, rather than my own;</span></li><li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">t</span>o find
true life and happiness by losing my life in the service of God and others;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: times;">t</span>o live my
life by God’s values, not the false values of worldly success.</li><li><span style="font-family: times;">t</span>o follow joyfully
Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice.</li></ul><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let us pray for the
grace to respond to Jesus’s voice:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">O God,<br /></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">whose Son has shown the way of the cross</span><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">to be the way of life:</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">transform and renew our minds</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">that we may not be conformed to this world</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">but may offer ourselves wholly to you</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">as a living sacrifice</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">through Jesus Christ our Saviour;</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">one God, now and for ever. Amen
</span></div></blockquote><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #002060; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-29082981804567312552023-08-08T10:59:00.000+01:002023-08-08T10:59:04.846+01:00Transfiguration<p> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A reflection at Morning Worship for the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th August 2023.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIdQBAhaiOPxkhgHuzpN_nKpfnQfKtzuPDpIxz03TnUhuYGa1cxNJoTUGELWixe3xLcTGOPlpJ1IDpaLbPiL5O_oMe6WmNzuZeLgZn_z1HCxjbEZlWMYTAQUhrCgjH0sP7MoGwgVldvjTDfhg76blwMNejsHZIkVl-ADxmWGDHSIOXN9YKRR00Xr8N71Ol/s630/BrockenSpectreCroaghPatrick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="630" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIdQBAhaiOPxkhgHuzpN_nKpfnQfKtzuPDpIxz03TnUhuYGa1cxNJoTUGELWixe3xLcTGOPlpJ1IDpaLbPiL5O_oMe6WmNzuZeLgZn_z1HCxjbEZlWMYTAQUhrCgjH0sP7MoGwgVldvjTDfhg76blwMNejsHZIkVl-ADxmWGDHSIOXN9YKRR00Xr8N71Ol/s320/BrockenSpectreCroaghPatrick.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A 'Brocken Spectre' captured on Croagh Patrick. <br />The spectre is the shadow of a climber cast onto a mist below, <br />wrapped in a glory formed by sun light scattered <br />from water droplets in the mist.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A reflection on Luke’s account of the
Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), Peter, James and John’s intense spiritual and
emotional experience, set for last Sunday, the Feast of the Transfiguration.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus has brought the
three disciples with him high on a mountain to pray. There they see Jesus
transfigured, in dazzling white clothing, his face changed, and alongside him
Elijah and Moses. As cloud envelopes them they hear a voice saying, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him’</span></i></b>.
The same story is also told by Matthew and Mark.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Luke gives us a clue as to what the disciples saw, I think. </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">They are high on a mountain, with cloud around.
These are just the circumstances where we may see an optical effect called a
‘Glory’. In this effect sunlight is scattered back from water droplets in a
mist, as a glowing halo. The technical term for this is Mie scattering.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Historically, the most
famous example is the ‘Brocken Spectre’, seen by climbers on the Brocken, the highest
peak of the Harz Mountains in Germany. This appears when a low sun is behind a
climber who is looking downwards into mist from a ridge or peak. The spectre is
the shadow of the observer projected onto the mist, and it is surrounded by the
glowing halo of a glory. You may be lucky enough to see one yourself, as I did when
I looked down from a plane at the shadow it cast on a cloud. The shadow was
surrounded with a halo of light – this was the glory.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I imagine Peter and
James and John close together on the mountain, with Jesus praying a little bit
away, as the clouds swirl around them. Where Jesus had stood, they each suddenly
see a glowing figure – it’s their <i>own</i> shadow cast on a cloud, wrapped in
a glory - and two other shadows beside it, those of their companions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This physical
explanation takes nothing away from the transfiguration story for me. Rather it
helps me believe in the reality of the Transfiguration, that it was not
invented by the Gospel writers to serve their own artistic or theological purposes.
I believe that God is present in and works through the laws of the universe he
created. Peter, James and John accurately reported what they saw, even if they
could not understand the physics. What matters surely is what this revealed to
them about the nature of Jesus and his relationship with God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">They are awed by what
they see. They identify the three figures with Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Peter, always
the impulsive one, calls out to Jesus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three
dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’</span></i>. Peter
didn’t want this emotional moment to end – such a human response!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Then the cloud closes
in around them. All three are terrified, and they hear a voice as if from
heaven, saying <a name="_Hlk141868961"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘This is my Son,
my Chosen; listen to him!’</span></i></b></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">This rings very true
to me. When people suddenly understand something truly important, something which
changes everything, they often talk of having a ‘flash of inspiration’ or
‘hearing a voice’. We may not have had such a religious experience ourselves, but
we may have felt something like it. For instance, in the moment we realise that
this very person I am with now is the one I want to spend the rest of my life
with.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I believe the Transfiguration
was the moment on their long road when Peter, James and John understood their
complete commitment to Jesus and his teaching. Starting from the call in Galilee,
this road led them ultimately to Jerusalem, to the Cross, to the Resurrection, to
the Ascension, and on to Pentecost, the birth of the Church. They told no one
about it at the time, but they never forgot this moment of insight, for they
passed the story on to Matthew, Mark and Luke, and so to ourselves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We too, in faith, can hear
the voice of God say to us from the cloud, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘This is my Son,
my Chosen; listen to him!’</span></i></b><o:p></o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-63915972707277702542023-07-23T15:04:00.001+01:002023-07-23T15:04:37.741+01:00Parable of the weeds<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiszpIzm6_pXmoj6QJLdp_Ulwxoe0r6CA4MNko0RKXvPUzP21gkp43A7VZquVGdJJGuPFaE5CJV2UUzSYai2YczmpgOD3d6yNv0oEoQnMYqsVI66aWcX-ivHqqIFG6qSd0DSaTxbr6MkXicntQGJj8u-tJiMUzguV1-wYTYcggO6OD0knp4OKP37xzeJG/s690/BurningTheTares.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="690" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiszpIzm6_pXmoj6QJLdp_Ulwxoe0r6CA4MNko0RKXvPUzP21gkp43A7VZquVGdJJGuPFaE5CJV2UUzSYai2YczmpgOD3d6yNv0oEoQnMYqsVI66aWcX-ivHqqIFG6qSd0DSaTxbr6MkXicntQGJj8u-tJiMUzguV1-wYTYcggO6OD0knp4OKP37xzeJG/s320/BurningTheTares.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Burning the tares<br /><br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Address given at St Cronan's Church, Tuamgraney on Sunday 23 July 2023, the 7th after Trinity<br /></span></i><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Have you heard the old joke about the hell-fire
preacher?</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">As he reaches the
climax of his sermon about the day of judgement, in ringing tones he declares
the fate of those who fail to meet the standards of God’s Kingdom: ‘They will
be thrown <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #993366;">into the furnace of fire, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth</span></i></b>’. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">At which point an old woman puts up her hand and says, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue;">“But
Rector, I have no teeth”</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">; to
which the hell-fire preacher replies, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue;">“Madam, teeth will be provided”</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Joking aside, it is
always worth pondering the parables Jesus uses to teach his followers. The
parable of the weeds of the field in today’s reading from <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=557119467" target="_blank">Matthew’s Gospel (13:24-30, 36-43)</a></span> is
no exception. So let’s look at it a little more closely.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The images Jesus uses in his parable would have
been very vivid and familiar to a Galilean audience. <span style="color: #993366;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Weeds were one of the
curses against which a farmer had to labour before the discovery of
weed-killers. In this parable the weed is no doubt bearded darnel, a kind of
rye-grass. In its early stages darnel is indistinguishable from wheat. Only
when they both produce seed-heads can they be told apart. But by then their
roots are so intertwined that the darnel can’t be weeded out without damaging
the roots of the wheat. Weeding would only reduce the yield.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The wheat and darnel
can’t be safely separated while they are growing, but in the end they must be,
because the grain of the darnel is slightly poisonous. In quantity it causes
dizziness and sickness. So the master in the parable gets the reapers to
separate them at harvest time. The darnel will be bundled up and burned, while
the wheat will be threshed and gathered into the barn.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The idea of an enemy
deliberately sowing weeds in someone else’s field would also have struck a
chord. It was a crime forbidden in Roman law, which prescribed a punishment for
it, so we can be sure it happened.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus tells the crowd
that the parable is about the kingdom of heaven, and Matthew records him later
explaining it to his disciples, to help them – and us – understand what he
meant by it. It is one of several parables recorded by Matthew in which Jesus
likens the kingdom of heaven to different things – others are a mustard seed
and yeast. Jesus is teaching by analogy, and I feel sure we should not take it
too literally, but rather look for the underlying messages.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is the devil, says Jesus, who sows the
weeds, the children of the evil one, in the field which is the world.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We all know
instinctively, don’t we, what is right and what is wrong. We have been created as
souls with consciences - in the image of God, to use the imagery of the Book of
Genesis. But we all also experience insistent little voices within us which
tempt us to do what our God-given conscience tells us is not right. Theologians
call it original sin, and Jesus personifies it as the work of the devil. But in
our culture it may be easier to think of it as the bad part of ourselves, that
part of own psyche which allows and encourages us to damage ourselves and
others.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">An example of this is
the way many advertising campaigns play on our innate greed by whispering, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">‘Because you’re
worth it’</span></i>. They tell women that they will look younger and more
beautiful if they buy this or that cosmetic product containing plastic microbeads
which are not biodegradable and pollute waterways and oceans. They tell men
that they will be more powerful and live more exciting lives if they buy a new
car which will pollute the air in cities and damage health. It is the thin end
of a very fat wedge. Further down that wedge we find unscrupulous interests that
seek to persuade us that we and our communities cannot afford to take the steps
needed to prevent catastrophic climate change.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As Christians we must
resist the insistent little voices that urge us to do wrong, to sin. For as St
Paul recognises (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=557119568" target="_blank">Romans 8:12-25</a>), we have been given the Spirit of God to help
us resist them. <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it
is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of
God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus warns us against pulling the weeds in
case we uproot the wheat.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">He is teaching us not
to be too quick in our judgements of others. We are all too liable to classify
and label people as good or bad without knowing all the facts. And people can
change. We can be redeemed from sin by the grace of God, and equally we can
disfigure a good life by a sudden collapse into sin. As Jesus says elsewhere, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #993366;">‘Let he that is without sin cast the first stone’</span></i></b>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We are not entitled to
make a final judgement about the righteousness of any other person – only God
has that right. It is God alone who can discern the good and the bad. It is God
alone who sees all of an individual and all of a person’s life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Of course we can’t
help forming opinions of others, using our reason which is also God-given. And
it is surely right that we should let such opinions guide our actions when
appropriate. But we must never forget we may be mistaken. And we would do well
to remember the Quaker maxim – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">‘There is something of God in every person’</span></i> – and
try to find it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We must leave judgement of others to God. But God
will judge each one of us eventually.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #993366; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘Just as the weeds
are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The
Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all
causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of
fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">When Jesus talks about
the ‘end of the age’, I don’t think we should take it literally as the end of
time. Rather I think we should see it as a time which will come to us all – as
certain as our own death – in which we see ourselves as God sees us, in one
piece from our conception to our death, how we have touched those we have met, all
the good in us, and all the bad too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">At this time we shall
see clearly. We will burn in the torment of shame for our sins and the evil we have done in our lives. We will weep and gnash our teeth. But
for the good we have done, we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #993366;">‘will shine like
the sun in the kingdom of the Father’</span></i></b>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I shall finish with the Collect of the Word for
today<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<span style="color: #2b00fe;">Saving God,<br />in Jesus Christ you opened for us<br />a new and living way into your presence:<br />give us pure and constant wills<br />to worship you in spirit and in truth;<br />through Jesus Christ our Lord,<br />who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,<br />one God, now and for ever. Amen</span>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-9809970408936905542023-07-16T15:00:00.009+01:002023-07-16T15:06:20.911+01:00Sowing the seed<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3BErws96mM47DqpIQGvaOXF3dlF-LgWB-T3FKYHfJzj8vEWOSyg2aZcisJ7k5aIVjU4_pU9qHlD4XsuhkKlH26-sKoPwROpir_OKYMf3gWe5cvzkxfX8c-0PPnZaRgbKcVv1IE_vjwjtHr6wJc2jEXtefqWXAEymGF0UdVMxYLh6iapakSj-1ZPwmfWDF/s1482/sower-1888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1482" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3BErws96mM47DqpIQGvaOXF3dlF-LgWB-T3FKYHfJzj8vEWOSyg2aZcisJ7k5aIVjU4_pU9qHlD4XsuhkKlH26-sKoPwROpir_OKYMf3gWe5cvzkxfX8c-0PPnZaRgbKcVv1IE_vjwjtHr6wJc2jEXtefqWXAEymGF0UdVMxYLh6iapakSj-1ZPwmfWDF/s320/sower-1888.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Address given at Templederry on Saturday 15 July 2023 & St Mary's Nenagh on Sunday 16 July 2023, the 6th after Trinity</i></span></p><p><b>Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel (13:1-9, 18-23) is commonly called
the Parable of the Sower.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But what is a parable? A parable is a story describing a scene from
everyday life, which conveys a deeper meaning. I think Jesus taught so often in
parables because they conjure up memorable images, which lead those who hear
them to reflect on their meanings, and to discover the truth in them for
themselves. However in this case, Jesus chooses to explain it to his disciples,
when they ask him why he speaks in parables. No lesson is better learned than
one you tease out for yourself! Parables are a bit like slow-release
fertilizer, gradually yielding up their truth to people who ponder them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;">The parable of the sower comes in Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels as well as
Matthew’s, and in startlingly similar words. Scholars believe the vivid image was
remembered and recorded, and an edited version was used by the Gospel writers
when they composed their texts years later. All three Gospels also contain the
same authoritative explanation by Jesus of what the story means.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So let us in our imaginations picture the scene, let us reflect on the
parable’s meaning, and let us tease out its relevance for us now, 2000 years
later.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let us enter into the parable in
our mind’s eye.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">So many people wanted to listen to Jesus that
he used a boat to address the crowd on the beach. </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The beach was on a lake, the Sea of Galilee.
I’ve never been there, but I see it as rather like Lough Derg. It’s about 40%
larger in area, and wider but not so long. Imagine the people crowded on the
beach at Dromineer, and Jesus in a lake boat talking to them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Did Jesus see a man sowing in a nearby field? Perhaps this prompted the
parable, and everyone could literally see what he was talking about.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The sower isn’t using a seed-drill; he is broadcasting the seed by hand,
just as our ancestors would have done only 150 years or so ago. The seed is in
a bag or a basket, and he walks steadily up and down the field, taking a
handful of seed and throwing it out as evenly as he can. Even at a distance it is
quite clear to everyone what he is doing: they have seen it hundreds of times
before, and many have done it themselves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Imagine a big field divided like allotments into strips belonging to one
family, with paths between them, tramped down hard by the passage of many feet.
The crowd can see the birds following the sower swooping down to gobble up the
seed that inevitably falls on the path, for all the sower’s skill.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Everyone would understand that different parts of the field are of
different quality.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"># Some parts are stony: don’t imagine small pebbles, imagine great
sheets of rock just under the surface, with just a few inches of soil on top,
like parts of the Burren, for instance. The soil above the rock warms early,
and the seeds germinate quickly, but without a depth of soil the young
seedlings will soon run out of nutrients and water and shrivel up in the sun.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"># Some parts of the field are infested with perennial weeds: imagine
scutch grass and creeping thistle, which will quickly outgrow the delicate
crop, choking it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"># But other parts of the field are good land, with a deep, clean soil.
Here the crop will have nutrients and water enough. It will flourish and produce
a harvest of thirty, or sixty, or a hundred times the grain sown on it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus said many other things to the crowd that day in parables, we’re
told. We don’t know what they were, but I think we can take it that Jesus was <span style="color: #7030a0;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">proclaiming the
good news of the kingdom’</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>as
Matthew tells us elsewhere (Mat 9:35). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><b><i><span style="color: #7030a0; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">‘Let anyone with ears listen!’</span></i></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"> Jesus finishes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jesus himself explains the parable in terms of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘the word of the
kingdom … sown in the heart’</span></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">When his disciples ask
him why he teaches in parables, Jesus interprets the parable for them, no doubt
to reassure them that they do indeed understand what he is getting at:</span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"># The seed sown on the path is the word heard, but not understood, which
the evil one snatches away, before it ever has the chance to sprout.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"># The seed sown on rocky ground is the word received with joy, but by a
person without roots, without character, whose initial enthusiasm cannot
withstand trouble or persecution.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">#The seed sown among thorns is the word heard by those who are so
trapped by worldly cares and the lure of wealth that they cannot act upon it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"># And the seed sown on good soil is the word heard by those who
understand it, and act upon it. Only such people will yield a harvest of good.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Like those who crowded to the lakeshore 2000 years ago, we are the soil
in which Jesus sows the seed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">On a personal level, the message of his parable remains what it was
then: we need to cultivate our characters so that as good soil we yield a rich
harvest. Each one of us must strive to develop the character traits of attention,
persistence, and detachment. Attention, so that we do not miss God’s call when
it comes. Persistence, so that we can withstand trouble or persecution when we answer
God’s call. And detachment, so that we are not distracted from acting on God’s
call by the cares of the world and the pursuit of wealth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">For Jesus, the sower is one who
proclaims <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘the
word of the kingdom’</span></i>. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">That is himself of course. But it is also his closest disciples, the
twelve apostles, whom he sent out saying <b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come
near”’ </span></i></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">(Mat 10:5-7)</span>.
No doubt the twelve took comfort from the parable that even when their teaching
seemed to show poor results, enough people would accept it to make it all
worthwhile.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Before his ascension Jesus commissioned the apostles to go out and make
disciples of all nations. Their commission was handed on to others in the
developing Church, which in all its varied denomination still proclaims Jesus’s
good news of the kingdom today. In Paul’s memorable words Christians are all
part of Christ’s body the Church. Today the Church is the sower. Is there then
a message for the Church in this parable? I believe there is.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The Church’s sowing of the seed may not seem to be producing a good
harvest these days. The fact is that here in Ireland and in Europe generally,
taking a broad view across all denominations, more and more people are losing
contact with Christ’s Church. We see falling Church attendance, fewer baptisms,
and insufficient ordinations to maintain the stock of full time clergy. We need
to understand why and do something about it, and for that we need the Holy
Spirit to guide us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But we should not despair. Jesus himself was completely realistic about
the prospects for his teaching, and so should we be as the Church. As Jesus
realised, no matter how good a job we do as sowers, the sad fact is that many people
will not become his disciples, and will not be led to the kingdom of heaven by his
or the Church’s teaching. Yet those who do, make up for those that don’t by the
rich harvest of good seed they yield – as Jesus put it, 30, 60 or 100 fold.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So to sum up, we can learn these
things today from the parable of the sower:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">As Christians we need to cultivate the soil of our own characters, to
develop the Christian virtues of attention, persistence, and detachment from
the world, so that we may yield a plentiful harvest of good grain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And we should not despair at the state of Christ’s Church today. Rather
we should rejoice in the rich harvest of Christian souls the Lord already has.
And we must pray for the Holy Spirit of God to guide his Church, and each one
of us, to be better sowers of the word in future, so that the Lord’s harvest may
be even greater.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><br /></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-216928847275159862023-07-11T11:47:00.000+01:002023-07-11T11:47:15.418+01:00Labouring in the Lord's harvest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtmfuaFZYjoMtpkuc5TXUjcGnu-Cuda5es6cEgNbObeTaiRINZrQYcYMkNSLf2eos1wDoTNhLMmOT3Oe4Y5-2_5IBdjD2sl06T3ws9qQvCl3_wKChpi0cuxFRCmQXh44hkbudk3EWEQA3x-mlQsmxKUcdq_L2G3vuooi65j1f394b82xnehNvnODf9KEu/s331/5Marks.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="331" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtmfuaFZYjoMtpkuc5TXUjcGnu-Cuda5es6cEgNbObeTaiRINZrQYcYMkNSLf2eos1wDoTNhLMmOT3Oe4Y5-2_5IBdjD2sl06T3ws9qQvCl3_wKChpi0cuxFRCmQXh44hkbudk3EWEQA3x-mlQsmxKUcdq_L2G3vuooi65j1f394b82xnehNvnODf9KEu/s320/5Marks.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection for Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 11 July 2023</i></span></p><p>Our reading (Matthew 9:32-38), set
for today in the Common Lectionary, tells us that <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Jesus
went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness’</span></i>. </p><p>Bear with me, as I imagine Jesus going about the cities and villages of Ireland
today, in 2023, as he went about Galilee 2000 years ago.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In my mind’s eye, I see Jesus speaking
to crowds wherever he finds them gathered together. He proclaims the good news
of the kingdom in Muintir na Tire halls, in theatres, in conference centres, in
hotel ballrooms, in dancehalls behind pubs, not just in churches.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jesus sees all too many people in distress,
in poverty, unable to pay all the bills and put food on the table. He sees
those who are homeless, in ill health, consumed by addiction. He sees those in
difficult or broken relationships. Through his words he gives them hope, and he
encourages others to help them. He has compassion for them, because he sees
them as <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘sheep without a shepherd’</span></i></b>,
unable by themselves to find a way out of their painful individual
circumstances.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jesus also sees, I am certain, the
damage being done to the beautiful planet his loving Father has placed us on. He
sees how we have disturbed the balance of gases in the atmosphere, causing
rising temperatures, extreme weather, and rising sea levels. He sees how climate
change and reckless use of land is reducing biodiversity, damaging the
intricate web of relationships between species on which all life on earth
depends, including our own. He hears the whole creation groaning together as if
in childbirth, to use St Paul’s vivid imagery (Romans 8:22). We now understand
that we human beings are the culprits, through our greedy over-exploitation of
earth’s finite resources. But we find it very difficult to see how together we
can change our ways to protect our planet. We are all like <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘sheep without a shepherd’</span></i></b>. But Jesus, our
Good Shepherd, surely has compassion for us all as we face these linked crises.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In his compassion, Jesus says to
his disciples, <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘The harvest is plentiful, but
the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out
labourers into his harvest.’</span></i></b> And he goes on to commission the
apostles to be such labourers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">What does it mean to labour in the
Lord’s harvest? It is surely to follow the model of Christ. As a church we
believe that our mission is the mission of Christ, and we have identified 5
marks of that mission.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>To proclaim the Good News of the
Kingdom.</li><li>To teach, baptise and nurture new
believers.</li><li>To respond to human need by loving
service.</li><li>To transform unjust structures of
society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and
reconciliation.</li><li><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;">To strive to safeguard the integrity of
creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.</span></span></li></ol><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Jesus asks us to pray for
labourers to be sent out into the harvest. I suggest we should do more than
that. I suggest each of us should ask ourselves whether he is calling me or you
in particular to be a labourer, and what he is asking of us. A good starting
place would be to focus on one or more of the 5 marks of mission. One or two is
probably quite enough, because none of us has the strength to tackle them all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Ask yourself, <i><span style="color: #38761d;">‘How can I
proclaim good news? How can I support others in the faith? How can I respond to
human need? How can I work for justice? How can I care for creation?’</span></i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="color: #385623; mso-themecolor: accent6; mso-themeshade: 128;"><br /></span></i></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-21371044875699460372023-06-13T11:25:00.002+01:002023-06-13T11:25:42.801+01:00<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8aWOzKQgGcxUsm_SMvr38PEcP95TnZ9j1TsNFM7IPIkjLiknWCuHf5-PdJHNWrcjc4OSBGdwyl_EeG6E90paUVYUXHoilgUhckOOKoXQF8Jbi5Kgwod-FlqluwEWw69ZRsc3d64SY71pwR8MOWGsGiKiGoZn9RfXLcTfmTyccq-J5B7PDUqBCaz0tGw/s600/FeastOfStBarnabas-June11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="600" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8aWOzKQgGcxUsm_SMvr38PEcP95TnZ9j1TsNFM7IPIkjLiknWCuHf5-PdJHNWrcjc4OSBGdwyl_EeG6E90paUVYUXHoilgUhckOOKoXQF8Jbi5Kgwod-FlqluwEWw69ZRsc3d64SY71pwR8MOWGsGiKiGoZn9RfXLcTfmTyccq-J5B7PDUqBCaz0tGw/s320/FeastOfStBarnabas-June11.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div><i><br /> </i><p></p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reflection on St Barnabas for the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 13th June 2023</span></i></p><p>Last Sunday was the feast day of St Barnabas, so today I take the opportunity to reflect on who he was, and why it is right to celebrate him as an early hero of our Christian faith.</p><p>He was a Jew from Cyprus, named Joseph by his parents, but the apostles in Jerusalem gave him the nickname Barnabas, which means ‘Son of Encouragement’. This tells us something about him, and how he was seen by the other early Christians. He was a committed and generous disciple from the very start of the church in Jerusalem. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that <i><span style="color: #674ea7;">‘He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet’</span></i> (Acts 4:37).</p><p>When St Paul came to Jerusalem after his conversion, the apostles were wary of him, because of his reputation as a persecutor. It was Barnabas who took Paul to meet the apostles, and calmed their fears. Some have speculated that Barnabas and Paul had been fellow students in the Jewish school of Gamaliel.</p><p>As we heard in today’s reading (Acts 11:19-30), the church in Jerusalem chose Barnabas to go on a mission to the great city of Antioch, now Antakya in Turkey, to investigate stories that had reached them about the great number of new disciples being made there by refugees from the persecution after St Stephen’s martyrdom. Indeed, we are told that it was in Antioch that disciples were first called Christians. </p><p>Barnabas rejoiced at the vigorous faith he found in Antioch. We are told that he ‘was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith’, and made many converts. But he realised that he needed help in his mission in Antioch, so he went to Tarsus to find Paul, at that time still called Saul. Returning to Antioch they worked together as evangelists for a year, before going back to Jerusalem with funds raised for famine relief.</p><p>As Acts tells us, Barnabas travelled with Paul on his first missionary journey through Cyprus and cities in Asia Minor, now modern Turkey. When Paul began his 2nd missionary journey, he wanted Barnabas to come with him. Barnabas wanted to bring his kinsman John Mark with them, but Paul disagreed. So Barnabas travelled with his kinsman John Mark to his home island of Cyprus, and Paul took Silas with him. Nothing is known about his later life, but an ancient tradition has it that he was martyred and buried in Cyprus, where he is venerated as the patron saint of the island.</p><p>Barnabas devoted his life to the early church, earning the trust of the leaders in Jerusalem. He travelled widely to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, with great success. With Paul, he played a key role founding and fostering Gentile churches, while maintaining good relations with the Jewish church in Jerusalem. </p><p>So it is very right for us to celebrate Barnabas today as a saint and hero of our Christian faith. He truly deserves his nickname, ‘Son of Encouragement’!</p><p>And in St Brendan, the patron of our community, I see echoes of the qualities of St Barnabas, in his generous devotion to the church, his travelling, and his foundation of so many Christian communities. </p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-85221147082551410192023-06-11T19:30:00.000+01:002023-06-11T19:30:17.474+01:00Grace, Law and Faith<p><b><i><br /></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNzXunBLp80Kre1nVjCWTIonIBNvSMOxVTMB52oP6AcS-A0s6bw7q3dmQ5ptmKRgm0EhQftJ8_TKRhAG1vnqxQuhPWUrAGPGtUXENaVxu_eghsnKSTiq7tENYwOGVg_8QJCB6uf4hMQ_RwUI12A3yn3PTHL8f0gWriLUzDa5bEkhspafBoYedlfHP1A/s768/Abraham&Sarah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="654" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimNzXunBLp80Kre1nVjCWTIonIBNvSMOxVTMB52oP6AcS-A0s6bw7q3dmQ5ptmKRgm0EhQftJ8_TKRhAG1vnqxQuhPWUrAGPGtUXENaVxu_eghsnKSTiq7tENYwOGVg_8QJCB6uf4hMQ_RwUI12A3yn3PTHL8f0gWriLUzDa5bEkhspafBoYedlfHP1A/s320/Abraham&Sarah.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 11th June 2023, the 1st after Trinity</i></span></div><p></p><p><b><i>‘Munster by the grace of God!’</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This slogan is claimed by Munster rugby fans,
particularly when they are winning - as they did against the Stormers in South
Africa a week or so ago, to win the United Rugby Championship. </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It makes me laugh, but it also gets me thinking
about the grace of God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In today’s epistle
reading (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=553504519" target="_blank">Romans 4:13-25</a>), St Paul argues that God’s promise to human beings,
that we will be justified through Jesus’s death and resurrection, depends only
on God’s grace and the faith in God it evokes in us, and not on our vain human attempts
to follow God’s law - in other words our trying to be good. And to make his
point Paul uses the old familiar Israelite story of how God blessed Abraham and
his wife Sarah, promising them <span style="color: #993366;"><b>‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I will make of you a great nation</i>’</b></span>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is rather difficult
stuff; at least I find it so. And Christians have often bitterly disputed the
relationship between God’s grace, God’s law and our faith in God. It was a
central theme of the Reformation, and it still causes disputes to this day. So
I think it might be useful to try and tease out Paul’s argument about grace,
law and faith.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">First let us refresh our memories about the story
of Abraham and Sarah<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is really the
foundation myth of the people of Israel. Most cultures have foundation myths of
some kind. We do too: the ancient Irish claimed descent from Milesius King of
Spain as the mythical founder of Celtic Ireland through his sons who invaded
and dispossessed the </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Tuatha
Dé Danann</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">. Through an O’Brien
ancestor I can claim descent from Milesius through Brian Boru through some very
dodgy genealogy. Most of you probably can too!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the small part of
the story we heard today (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=553504689" target="_blank">Genesis 12:1-9</a>), God tells Abraham <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #993366;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Go from your country and your kindred and
your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a<br />
great nation, and I will bless you.</i></span></b><span style="color: #993366;">’</span>
Abraham obeys, and when he gets to the land of Canaan, God tells him <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #993366;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To your offspring I will give this land.</i>’</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">You may have noticed
that in the passage Abraham was called Abram and his wife Sarah, Sarai – God renamed
them later on, when he made a covenant with Abraham, renewing his promise and
establishing male circumcision of Abraham and his descendents as a sign of it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">God tells Abraham that
his promise will be kept through Sarah. Through all this long saga, Abraham
never gives up his faith that God will fulfil his promises. At long last Sarah
conceives and gives birth when he is 99 and she is 90. Sarah expresses her
delight in beautiful words, saying <span style="color: #993366;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">God has brought laughter for me; everyone
who hears will laugh with me. Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah
would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.</i>’</span>
Her son Isaac is the father of Jacob, also called Israel, and the ancestor of
the Jewish people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Now I can’t for one
minute believe that Sarah was really 90 when she gave birth to Isaac. But then
I don’t think we should treat the story as if it were history. We have to
accept it for what it is, a myth. The nugget of truth within the myth is surely
that the Israelites looked back to founders who cultivated a strong
relationship with a God who promised them so much, and who believed whole
heartedly that God’s promises would be kept.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Now let us examine Paul’s argument.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Firstly, Paul argues
that the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham in the old story, through his descendants
the children of Israel, can have had absolutely nothing to do with obeying
God’s law – the Jewish law. After all, the law was given to the Israelites by
Moses, long after Abraham’s death. For Abraham there was no law, so there could
be no violation of the law, and no wrath, no punishment for breaking it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Religious Jews were
asking then, as religious people still do, ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How
can we get in God’s good books in order to inherit God’s promise?’</i> Their answer
was that they could only do this by obeying God’s law, in other words by being
good people and always doing the right thing. It is all up to us, they thought,
God will only fulfil his promise if we deserve it. Paul saw with great clarity
that this could not be true. No one could fully keep the law, so if God’s
promise depends on keeping the law, the promise can never be fulfilled.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So on what, then, did
the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham depend? Paul’s answer is that it
depended on Abraham’s faith, on his unshakeable belief and trust that God would
fulfil his promise. Abraham continued to believe in God’s promise, even when he
grew old, and even when Sarah was clearly unable to have children. His faith
was <span style="color: #993366;">‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reckoned
to him as righteousness</i>’</span>; that is, it was his faith that gave him
God’s favour.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">There are two ancient Greek
words for a promise. The first is a promise on condition: if you do this, I
will do that. Paul uses the other, Eppagelia, which is an unconditional promise
out of the goodness of one’s heart. This is the word a father or mother might use
when promising to love their children no matter what they do. Fulfilment of
God’s promise to Abraham was not earned by his good works, it was given freely
by God’s grace, it was unmerited, says Paul. All Abraham had to do was believe
it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And finally Paul
argues that this applies to us as Christians, in just the same way as it did
for Abraham. If we only have faith in the God who raises Jesus from the dead, he
will reckon us to be righteous. We will be justified by God’s grace through
Jesus’s death and resurrection. And we too will experience God fulfilling his
promise, just as Abraham did.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">That is what the grace
of God is: it is the favour that God has showered on all of us humankind
without our doing anything to earn it – the wonder of creation, our loving
relationships, our capacity for happiness, our very lives – and our salvation,
in the sense that God has shown us how to recover from our innate propensity to
sin, to receive forgiveness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">The Greek word translated
as grace is </span><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">charis</span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (<i>χαρις</i>), which literally means
"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that which affords joy, pleasure,
delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness</i>".</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">There’s the theology. But I suggest another way
to look at it is through the prism of psychology.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">When I was a child, I
was just as naughty as every other little boy or girl. I was wilful, I often
did not do as I was told. And I could be quite nasty, particularly to my baby
brother when he annoyed me. But rather than expecting more of me than I was
capable of, and punishing me when I did not live up to their hopes, my parents
always cherished me. They let me know they were sad when I was bad, but they
also let me know that I could rely on their loving me whatever I did. Their unconditional
love showed me how to love back, and as I grew up, I learned from their example
how to distinguish right from wrong.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I think this is the
way that God works with us. God does not expect more of us than we are capable
of. He does not punish us unmercifully when we break his law, when we do not
behave as we should. Rather he promises us unconditional love, which we
experience as God’s grace. And when we respond in faith, and learn from his
example, we become more like the people he wants us to be. God’s kingdom comes
that little bit closer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So let us pray that we may respond in faith to
God’s grace, receive the fullness of his promise, and be led by it to
understand and obey his loving law.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">And if you’re a
Munster supporter, and their victory affords you joy, pleasure and delight, you
can reckon it as yet another manifestation of God’s overwhelming grace!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-32085924276707541402023-06-04T16:05:00.011+01:002023-06-04T16:07:15.527+01:00The Trinity is something very natural<p><a name="_Hlk484717119"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></a></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiDnOggq2T1lkOZE1Dbg9evDJQjaOJy50BN0CAK8xGhq2ESONIHFxZFoZvcKuW0-eyHPXDe7peYiLN0e2BE5D_2zD7SVCV0EnzY1UF8_K8Dl721nlpLE_CTWp4VJAe5RFcxEteG-j3LY9Fa1bfpv4XKRfq_IaEtGN4gLtJ2qqlQc3KU3ss01K-PfkFg/s1600/Nicea.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiDnOggq2T1lkOZE1Dbg9evDJQjaOJy50BN0CAK8xGhq2ESONIHFxZFoZvcKuW0-eyHPXDe7peYiLN0e2BE5D_2zD7SVCV0EnzY1UF8_K8Dl721nlpLE_CTWp4VJAe5RFcxEteG-j3LY9Fa1bfpv4XKRfq_IaEtGN4gLtJ2qqlQc3KU3ss01K-PfkFg/w384-h255/Nicea.jpg" width="384" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Council of Nicea debating the Holy Trinity</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><a name="_Hlk484717119"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></a><p></p><p><a name="_Hlk484717119"></a><a name="_Hlk484717119"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Address given in St Mary's Nenagh on Trinity Sunday 4th June 2023</i></span></a></p><p><a name="_Hlk484717119"><b>This is Trinity Sunday, the day on which our Church celebrates
our understanding that the God we worship is one God, but three persons: Father,
Son and Holy Spirit.</b></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Jews and Muslims, our
fellow monotheist ‘peoples of the book’, vehemently reject the idea of God as
Trinity – they allege that Christians do not really believe in one God, but in
three Gods. Even some Christians find it puzzling. How can one God possibly be
divided into three persons? </span>Surely 1 + 1 + 1 = 3?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the centuries Christian
apologists have answered this question in different ways. We all know how St
Patrick illustrated the Trinity with the trefoil-leaf of a shamrock – three
leaflets within the one leaf. John Wesley said: <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘Tell me how it is that in this room there
are three candles and but one light, and I will explain to you the mode of
divine existence’</span></i>. And it is true in mathematics that if you add
three infinities the result is still infinity. But I personally don’t find such
arguments helpful. The Catechism of the RC Church says that <i><span style="color: #0070c0;">‘God’s inmost
being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone’</span></i>.
But to call it a ‘mystery inaccessible to reason’ seems like a fudge to me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">So today let me
reflect on how we as Christians might seek to understand the Trinity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We must start, I think, with how the early
Christian community came to understand God.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">First, the community
had its roots in the Hebrew scriptures, our Old Testament. There they learned
that God created all that was and is and is to come, as reflected in today’s
reading from <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552889489" target="_blank">Genesis (1:1-2:4a)</a>. And God had created them in his own image. More
than that, God had an intimate relationship with them, as a parent, as a father
or a mother. Hence the OT stories where their God hears the cries of the
people, brings them out of bondage, cares for them as a hen cares for her
chicks. The first Christians did not see God as remote, but as a loving and gracious
God, like a parent, like the best possible Father. They followed Jesus’s lead
by praying to their Father in heaven.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Second, the early
Christian community also understood God through the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus. From the apostles
and disciples, they heard the story of Jesus - how in Jesus God lived and acted
in new and profound ways among people. Through them they encountered the risen
Christ, and heard him promise, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age’</span></i></b>, as we heard in today’s
Gospel reading (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552889678" target="_blank">Matthew 28:16-20</a>). They learned that God was made manifest in
Jesus, that God was not just out there somewhere, but had also lived as one of
them, as their brother, through his Son, Jesus, who had ascended to his Father
and would come again. The stories were written down in the Gospels to show that
God was not only their Creator, but also Jesus Christ their Lord and Saviour, through
whom they received eternal life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Third, the Christian
community came to understand God as the Holy Spirit. As promised by Jesus, the
gift of the Spirit came at Pentecost. It came to the whole community and not
just to a select few. It made them fearless. Responding to Jesus’s call, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations’</span></i></b>,
recorded in today’s Gospel reading, they proclaimed their faith to all who
would listen. And the same Spirit came to the gathered groups of new Christians,
just as it had to the apostles and first disciples. The Acts of the Apostles
reads like an adventure story as the Spirit spreads like a wildfire through the
Roman Empire. And the Epistles reveal for us how the Spirit formed the
self-understanding of the gathered groups that we can now call churches.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is clear that very
early on Christians came to believe that the one God they worshipped was
manifest in three different ways, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Today’s
Gospel reading shows this when Matthew records Jesus’s command to baptise ‘<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit</span></i></b>’. And the Epistle reading (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=552889571" target="_blank">2 Corinthians 13:11-13</a>) shows
it too, when Paul blesses the Corinthian church in the words we know as the
Grace, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you’</span></i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">By the 4<sup>th</sup>
century the Church had captured the imperial Roman state. Dogmatic theologians
argued over what the Trinity really meant, amid power struggles in the church.
These disputes were eventually settled at a Council of Bishops, convened in
Constantinople by the Emperor Theodosius in 381AD, which settled the doctrine
of the Trinity in the words of a creed, a statement of belief. We know it as
the Nicene Creed, and use it still in the Holy Communion service.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Most Christians today, including Roman Catholics,
Orthodox, and our own Anglican Communion, maintain that this is still the best
way to think about God. But w</span>e should not forget that the words of the creed were forged in bitter, political in-fighting between Christians. And even today Christians remain divided over the meaning of the words. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">It is not hard to understand the historical
reasons why Christians came to believe in God as Trinity.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">But I do not think that
our Trinitarian belief should rest only on the words of scripture and partisan
arguments at Church Councils more than 1600 years ago. I believe that divine
revelation did not cease when the last full stop was written in the last book
of scripture – God’s creation all around us is a continuing revelation, and in the
world around me I see signs of our Trinitarian God everywhere.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I see the Loving
Father in the beauty of the universe he created. He has precisely tuned it to
support the miraculous, evolving web of life on our planet. He has made it to
be a place where you and I and all creatures can flourish and be fed, if we
would only tend and care for it, and for our neighbours, as we ought.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I see the Saving Son in
the widespread altruism that exists in the natural world. And I see him in communities,
communities of people, but also of other organisms and ecosystems. I see him in
the worker bee’s dedication to raising a sister’s brood. I see him in the
three-cornered dance of pollinating insects, fruit trees and seed dispersing
animals. I see him in the cycles of death and resurrection that drive evolution.
And I see him in our human capacity to love our neighbours as ourselves – even
if we often fail to do so.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">I see the Holy Spirit
in the continual innovation of living creatures and ecosystems. I see him at
work creatively exploring new expressions of what is possible in the arts and
the sciences. And I see him in the way that human beings in all our variety,
with all our different gifts, come together to build communities with meaning
and purpose. The Church, the ‘body of Christ’ as St Paul called it, is one such
community.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">We should not, I
think, see the doctrine of the Trinity as very difficult or a great mystery. Rather
we should see it as something very natural. It is very simple really – but also
very profound.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;">Let us finish in prayer with the Collect of the
Word set for today:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<span style="color: #274e13;"><b>God of heaven and earth,<br />before the foundation of the universe<br />and the beginning of time<br />you are the triune God:<br />Author of creation,<br />eternal Word of salvation,<br />life-giving Spirit of wisdom.<br />Guide us to all truth by your Spirit,<br />that we may proclaim all that Christ has revealed<br />and rejoice in the glory he shares with us.<br />Glory and praise to you,<br />Father, Son and Holy Spirit,<br />now and for ever. Amen</b></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-56161141991972491342023-05-21T14:21:00.001+01:002023-05-21T14:43:27.167+01:00Making sense of Ascension<p> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Address given at St Mary's Nenagh on Sunday 21st May 2023, the 7th of Easter</i></span></p><p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxDILcUNbT_HQEWxhPJfxxw0xtPpxv0X1wg2AmU9_LeJjkHTZZdOhzJHV_74R1PDNc5gVxZayTuBDWYOiIQRNjU2VB1nvjWy3q4JAdKhuv3xR40LWPtIuwGWoCUG-pPaEHHHNBMpTSjZnFct54fCxsiWDmRzTRYRdEIVKul5PmwRdywtpX5b6NgK5iQ/s768/Jesus_ascending_to_heaven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="687" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLxDILcUNbT_HQEWxhPJfxxw0xtPpxv0X1wg2AmU9_LeJjkHTZZdOhzJHV_74R1PDNc5gVxZayTuBDWYOiIQRNjU2VB1nvjWy3q4JAdKhuv3xR40LWPtIuwGWoCUG-pPaEHHHNBMpTSjZnFct54fCxsiWDmRzTRYRdEIVKul5PmwRdywtpX5b6NgK5iQ/s320/Jesus_ascending_to_heaven.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Ascension, John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) </span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Today we are in an in-between
time in the Church’s calendar.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Behind us, last Thursday was the
Feast of the Ascension, when the apostles finally understood that Jesus their teacher
was no longer with them in the flesh, as they saw him ascend to his Father in
heaven. Before us, next Sunday will be the Feast of Pentecost, when the
apostles receive the promised gift of the Holy Spirit in tongues of flame, which
inspires them to continue Jesus’s ministry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It is appropriate, then, that today
we both look back on the Ascension and look forward to Pentecost, and what this
means for the apostles, and for us, his disciples.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Today’s 3<sup>rd</sup> reading
(<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=551675110" target="_blank">John 17:1-11</a>) is part of Jesus’s prayer on the night before he died.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Although Jesus prays it before the
Ascension, it is a post-Ascension prayer in its content, because Jesus’s
concern is for his disciples once he has left them. The apostles had been on
the road with him for three years. They had sat at his feet as disciples
listening to his teaching, observing his example, and imbibing his spirit. At
his Ascension, he leaves them, and they must continue his ministry without his
physical presence. He knows that will be challenging and therefore he prays for
them to be supported and strengthened in the challenges they will face.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jesus prays, <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have
given me, so that they may be one as we are one’</span></i></b>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jesus prays for his disciples to be protected. Our need for
protection is very physical and immediate, in a world we increasingly see to be
dangerous, isn’t it? Love and goodness is at the very heart of God. We must
embrace it so that it fills our hearts too, our emotions, our words, our
actions, so that we may live in love with each other, and with others who are
not disciples, at least not yet. That love will transform us, and it will
protect us from evil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">And Jesus prays that his disciples
may be one, as he and the Father are one, with the Holy Spirit. We need to
understand that the unity he prays for is rooted in the Trinity, in which there
is a constant exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Spirit.
Jesus prays that as disciples we may be united in an echo of that love. Unity
does not depend on articles of faith. It does not require us all to think or
believe the same things. It is to be found, instead, in our relationships, in a
constant, continuing exchange of love with others, even if we disagree with
them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>In the 1<sup>st</sup> reading
(<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=551675178" target="_blank">Acts 1:6-14</a>), we heard Luke’s account of the Ascension.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jesus tells the apostles that they
cannot know what the future will bring – it is in God’s hands. But he renews
his promise that the Holy Spirit will come upon them, and will empower them to
witness to him <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘to the ends of the earth’</span></i></b>.
Then we are told <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘he was lifted up, and a
cloud took him out of their sight’</span></i></b>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Should we imagine Jesus rising
into the sky like a rocket until the clouds hide him? Surely not! We have seen
rockets climb to launch space craft into orbit and beyond, and we have seen
images from telescopes revealing the immensity of the universe. But we have
found no sign of God in a heaven above. We can only make sense of the Ascension
as a metaphor, a shorthand for a deep spiritual truth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It was the conventional wisdom in
Luke’s day that the earth they walked on was suspended between hell beneath
their feet, and heaven in the skies beyond the clouds, so the Apostles, Luke
and his readers may have believed in a literal Ascension. Though I suspect they
too thought about it as a mystical shorthand for their lived experience.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Before his death, Jesus told the
apostles that he would leave them to go to his Father. In John’s words,<b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;"> ‘Little children, I am with you only a little longer… I
will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you
forever. This is the Spirit of truth… In a little while the world will no
longer see me, but you will see me.</span></i></b>’</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After his resurrection, the apostles and other disciples
continued to experience the presence of the resurrected body of Jesus in a
mysterious way. But they came to realise that they could not hold on to the
body of Jesus. That would confine the good news to their place and time. They realised they must await the gift of the Spirit of truth that
Jesus had promised them, the Spirit who would lead them to know that Jesus
remains with them in spirit, even though they cannot see him with their eyes, or
touch him with their hands.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The deep spiritual truth of the
Ascension is that Jesus in the flesh must leave, so that they - and us - may receive
the Spirit. And looking forward to Pentecost, the Spirit does come, to empower
them to continue Jesus’s ministry in his name, as the Spirit continues to come to his disciples up to this day.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>For me, perhaps the most
important element in the Ascension story is the two angels, who point us
forward to Pentecost.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">As the apostles gaze up to heaven,
hoping for a last glimpse of Jesus, two men in white robes tell them, <i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards
heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up into heaven, will come in the same
way as you saw him go into heaven.’</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">What I learn from this is that if
we look to the heavens to find Jesus, we are looking in the wrong direction. We
must look around us. Then we shall see, through the gift of the Spirit, that Jesus
is present in us, in our neighbours, and in creation, continuing his work for
the coming of God’s kingdom here on earth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jesus is quite clear that he must
go away in obedience to his Father’s will, so that his disciples can do the
work he is sending them to do. Why should this be? Perhaps Jesus needs more
hands, more arms, more feet, to establish God’s kingdom of peace and justice on
earth. Perhaps Jesus’s human body must be transformed into the body of Christ,
the Church, to heal the sick, to free the captives, to feed the hungry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This brings Jesus’s final words
into sharp focus, <b><i><span style="color: #7030a0;">‘You will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’</span></i></b>.
As his disciples, let us resolve to tell the world, and show it in action, that
God’s love and care extend to every human being, in every place, and to all
creation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>I shall finish with the Collect
of the Word set for today:<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">O God,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">whose Son, Jesus, prayed for
his disciples,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">and sent them into the world<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">to proclaim the coming of your
kingdom:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">by your Holy Spirit,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">hold the Church in unity,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">and keep it faithful to your
word,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">so that, breaking bread
together,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">we may be one with Christ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">in faith and love and service,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0;">now and for ever. Amen<o:p></o:p></span></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9146725012807782568.post-36427123013255974102023-05-09T11:15:00.001+01:002023-05-09T11:15:29.674+01:00Preparing a fertile seed-bed<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMX1TU82JwdS0Emdmq8lhXOjkGYJfu2lVS1JtgwxDp1mIZbmNA26rXezNumnpOdVp0knY8RyEB24EkBBP54n3dQiBjhXDpQqVfXpja3_R3aPXQloEdCiSq24tQXCQzggxqLg8y4wAu7PySAuuxXRaM949cJD5SjwVax93UJ23SdJ97ytnEOx_PkDuzrA/s1482/sower-1888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1482" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMX1TU82JwdS0Emdmq8lhXOjkGYJfu2lVS1JtgwxDp1mIZbmNA26rXezNumnpOdVp0knY8RyEB24EkBBP54n3dQiBjhXDpQqVfXpja3_R3aPXQloEdCiSq24tQXCQzggxqLg8y4wAu7PySAuuxXRaM949cJD5SjwVax93UJ23SdJ97ytnEOx_PkDuzrA/s320/sower-1888.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Sower,Vincent Van Gogh, Arles 1888</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Reflection for Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 9th May 2023</i></span></p><p>A brief reflection on the Gospel reading set for today in the lectionary (<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=550627290" target="_blank">Luke 8:1-15</a>), which is Luke’s account of Jesus’s Parable of the Sower. It is recorded in almost identical words by Matthew and Mark as well. </p><p>The scene is vivid, isn’t it? The sower, walking up and down broadcasting his seed by hand, would have been a familiar sight to the crowd, just as it would have been here in Ireland a couple of hundred years ago, before the introduction of the seed drill. All would understand that only seed which falls on good, fertile soil can produce a rich harvest of grain. Seed which falls on hard-trampled paths, or on poor thin soil, or among rampant weeds, can yield nothing worthwhile.</p><p>Many in the crowd must have been puzzled by why Jesus told them this story. Even his close disciples asked him what it meant. So Jesus explains that the quality of the seed-bed is a metaphor for the different way people respond to God’s word:</p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The seed sown on the path is the word heard, but not listened to. The word is the good news that God’s kingdom has come near, which Jesus offers everyone. But for some the good news is snatched away, before it ever has the chance to sprout in people’s hearts.</p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The seed sown on rocky ground is the good news received with joy, but by people with shallow roots - without character. Their initial enthusiasm cannot withstand trouble or persecution, and they fall away. </p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The seed sown among thorns is the good news heard by people who are so trapped by worldly cares and the lure of wealth that they cannot act upon it.</p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But the seed sown on good soil is the good news heard by those who understand it, and do act upon it. Only such people will yield a harvest of good.</p><p>Jesus is nothing if not brutally honest with his disciples. Not everyone who hears the good news he preaches will grow to maturity and yield a harvest of good, he tells them. Some, perhaps even many, will be lost - though I have no doubt that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will never stop searching for the lost. We need to hear Jesus’s honest words today. Ageing and dwindling congregations, in churches of all traditions, are not a reason to give up on our faith and our Christian hope.</p><p>The message, I suggest, is this. To become the good people God wants us to be, each of us must cultivate our own character, and help others to do so too, so that we become like good soil. In that good soil, the good news Jesus offers to all will flourish, and will yield a rich harvest of good. Each one of us needs God’s help to develop in ourselves the qualities of attention, of persistence, and of concentration. </p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Attention, so that we do not miss God’s call when it comes to us. </p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Persistence, so that we can withstand opposition and the mocking of others when we answer God’s call. </p><p>•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Concentration, so that the cares of the world and the pursuit of wealth do not distract us from acting on God’s call.</p><p>Then, by God’s grace, we will grow into maturity as Christians, bear good fruit, and at last enter into God’s kingdom.</p><p><br /></p>Joc Sandershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06290924194054115128noreply@blogger.com0