Ministry with Children

The boy Jesus in the Temple, Heinrich Hofmann, 1881

Address given at St Mary's Nenagh on Sunday 29th December 2024, the 1st Sunday of Christmas

Today’s readings are both about the presence of children in holy places.

In the OT reading (1 Samuel2:18-20,26) we heard about the child Samuel ministering before the Lord in the sanctuary at the pilgrimage shrine of Shiloh, where his parents had left him in the care of the priest Eli.

In the NT reading Luke (2:41-52) told us about the 12 year-old Jesus staying behind in the Temple at Jerusalem when his parents returned home to Nazareth. 

How did Samuel come to be with Eli in the shrine of Shiloh?

Shiloh was in what we now call the West Bank, about 30 km north of Jerusalem. After the Israelites conquered Canaan, it was one of the main centres of Israelite worship, until the Temple was built in Jerusalem. The Tabernacle which they had brought with them on their wanderings was kept there. At that time they were led by Judges, rather than Kings, and Eli was both a priest at Shiloh and a Judge.

Samuel’s parents Elkanah and Hannah made an annual trip to worship at the shrine at Shiloh. Hannah desperately wanted a child and prayed for one at the shrine, promising that if she had a boy, she would dedicate him to God. Her prayers were answered, she gave birth to Samuel, and when he was old enough, she brought him to Eli at Shiloh and left him there in his care. It is a very touching detail that when she came back on her annual trips to the shrine, she always brought him a little robe she had made.

It may seem strange to us that Hannah could give her child over to be fostered by Eli. But fostering of children was common among our ancient Irish ancestors, as it still is today among Nigerians, often causing real difficulties with immigration authorities. And posh folk still send their children off to boarding schools.

The fact is that by giving Samuel over to Eli, Hannah ensured he had a good education. He inherited Eli’s role as a Judge of Israel, the last one. And he would become a great prophet.

In today’s Gospel, Luke tells us the single thing we know about Jesus’s childhood from the canonical Gospels - we know nothing else from his birth until his baptism by John.

The boy Jesus goes AWOL - absent without leave, when his parents return home from his family’s annual Passover visit to the Temple in Jerusalem. ‘When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.’

When they found him, Mary chided him, saying ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ And Jesus replies, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’

Jesus was brought up as a Jew, in a devout Jewish family, attending the synagogue in Nazareth, where he would, no doubt, have become familiar with the Jewish scriptures, our OT. We believe Jesus to be the fully divine Son of God, the 2^nd person of the Trinity. But we also believe him to be fully human. 

Here we glimpse, I suggest, his humanity, as a 12 year old boy on the cusp of adolescence. He listens to and questions the teachers of his Jewish faith. He is slowly but surely feeling his way toward a mature understanding of the loving God he calls his Father. He is preparing himself for his adult ministry, in which he proclaims ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (Matthew 4:17).

As he matures, ‘Jesus increases in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour’, we are told. Mary treasures all these memories in her heart. Later she must have shared them with a disciple, so that Luke could pass her story on to us.

All this gets me thinking about the place of children in our Church today.

It is our corporate responsibility to raise them in a loving community of faith, so that they can, like Jesus, ‘increase in wisdom and years, and in divine and human favour’, to use Luke’s words. Our duty is to model for them what it means for the kingdom of heaven to come near.

We must never forget that our children, like ourselves, are spiritual beings. When they listen and question, as Jesus did among the teachers in the Temple, we must be attentive and answer them with complete honesty appropriate to their age. They are feeling their own way to understanding the God of love we believe in.

When the time is right, the church, with our support, offers them preparation for confirmation by wise priests and teachers. In this we can see a reflection of the 12 year-old Jesus among the teachers in the Temple.

We hope and pray that they will then feel able to affirm their faith publicly, before the bishop, in front of the congregation. But that must be their decision – no one has the right to force them to do so.

This is the ideal, but sadly we know that some children experience something quite different.

With great sorrow, we must recognise that within churches of all traditions, as in wider society, there are those who prey on and abuse children, causing them immense harm.

We all know about the child-abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, which damaged so many children, and turned so many away from that Church. But none of our Christian traditions is immune. Our sister Anglican church, the Church of England, is now in turmoil about past child-abuse scandals. Senior churchmen have covered them up for years to protect themselves, their friends, or the reputation of the Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury has recently been forced to resign for not taking timely action, and there are now calls for the Archbishop of York and others to resign too.

We can only hope and pray that in our parishes, and in the wider Church of Ireland, our Safeguarding Trust processes are sufficiently robust to ensure that children and vulnerable adults are protected, and that appropriate, timely action is taken when incidents and risks are identified. Safeguarding is immensely important, and we must take it seriously. We owe a debt to those on our parish safeguarding panel, and to those working with children who undergo regular Safeguarding training. We should keep them in our prayers.

I shall finish in prayer with today’s Collect of the Word:

God of community,

whose call is more insistent

than ties of family or blood;

may we so respect and love

those whose lives are linked with ours

that we fail not in loyalty to you,

but make choices according to your will;

through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

Millstones and the Good Shepherd

 

Wall-size painting of Christ as Good Shepherd surrounded by multitudes of people, painted by Ruth Owen Pook and hanging in The Chapel of the Good Shepherd at The (Episcopal) Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Reflection for morning worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 10th December 2024

The Gospel reading set for tomorrow, Tuesday, is the much loved Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:12-14), but to place it in context I have chosen to start the reading at the beginning of the chapter.

The disciples come to Jesus and ask ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?’ They really want heavenly greatness for themselves. But Jesus knows that wanting to be great is not the way to greatness in the kingdom of heaven. So he calls a child to him and says, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’  Humble, weak, ordinary human beings, as trusting as this child, will be greater in the kingdom than those who push themselves forward.

Jesus is concerned that disciples who seek greatness will mislead ordinary folk, and be like a stumbling block to them, causing them to fall below God’s standards, in other words to sin. So he warns them, ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.’

If we look around Christ’s church today, we see all too many cases where leaders who want to be great have become stumbling blocks to ordinary Christians like you and me. A few have done evil things, and must dread the millstone. Others, from different Christian traditions, have sought to protect their positions, their friends and their churches by covering up the evil behaviour, of others. This has seriously damaged victims, and caused many good people to turn away from the church.

As we all know, the Roman Catholic Church has been seriously damaged by clerical abuse scandals and cover-ups, here and around the world. And our own Anglican Communion is not immune. Recently we have been shocked to learn of the appalling abuse of young men by John Smyth, a Reader in the Church of England. Senior clergy and leaders covered it up for many years, enabling him to move to Zimbabwe, and then South Africa, to continue his abuse. The Church of England is in turmoil. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been forced to resign for not taking timely action, and there are calls for other resignations.

We can only hope and pray that in the Church of Ireland our Safeguarding Trust processes are robust enough to prevent anything similar here.

Christian leaders of all traditions must beware of the dangers Jesus himself warned of, and choose the path of humility, the child-like humility of someone who knows the overwhelming power of God’s fatherly love for all his creatures. They must be open to give an account of themselves.

But what of the little, ordinary Christians? Jesus goes on to reassure us with his Parable of the Lost Sheep. He is our true and faithful shepherd. He does not rest until he has found any of us who is lost. And if he finds us, he rejoices, more than he rejoices over those that never went astray. When we see church leaders misbehaving, we should take comfort in this: ‘It is not the will of (our) Father in heaven that (even) one of these little ones should be lost.’

 

Make straight the Way

Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 8th December 2024, the 2nd of Advent Year C

As I dodge the potholes on North Tipperary boreens, I often pray that the County Council would take to heart the words of Isaiah we’ve just heard Luke quote in his Gospel:

"Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;”

Joking aside, today I want to focus on John the son of Zechariah, the subject of today’s gospel reading (Luke 3:1-6). He is the person we familiarly call John the Baptist. But Orthodox Christians call him John the Forerunner, which is quite as it should be, because the gospel writers and the early church saw him as the forerunner of the Messiah, foretold by Old Testament prophets including Isaiah.

There are 3 questions I shall try to answer:

1.                        Who was this John?

2.                        What was his teaching? and

3.                        How is it relevant for us today?

So, firstly, what do we know about John the son of Zechariah?

Quite a bit, in fact - and not just from the Gospels. Josephus the 1^st Cent Jewish historian is an independent source, who says more about John than he does about Jesus. John was a real person, not just an invented character in the gospel story. Notice how firmly Luke places John in his historical context.

Within the gospels, Luke tells us the most. He weaves the story of John’s birth in with that of Jesus. At the very beginning of his gospel, he tells us about John’s parents, a priest called Zechariah and Elizabeth his wife: both good, pious people, but getting on in years and childless. The angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah to tell him that Elizabeth will bear a son to be named John, who will be a great spiritual leader. Zechariah doesn’t believe Gabriel and is struck dumb, but Elizabeth does indeed conceive.

Now, Elizabeth is a relative of Mary the mother of Jesus. Six months later, after Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her she will give birth to Jesus, Mary rushes off to visit Elizabeth. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, the baby John leaps for joy in her womb, and Mary responds in the words of the canticle we know as the Magnificat.

In due course, Elizabeth bears her son, whom Elizabeth and Zechariah duly name John. Zechariah’s speech returns, and he gives thanks in the beautiful canticle we know as the Benedictus, which we used as our psalm today. It echoes the OT prophesies:

And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest,

for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation unto his people,

for the remission of their sins.

All 4 of the gospel writers tell us how John, now grown up, goes out into the barren desert country by the Jordan. There he called on the crowds who followed him to repent, to change their ways, and baptised them as a sign of their repentance. The background to all this was a great popular religious revival: many people were convinced that the Messiah of prophesy was about to appear, and they were urgently looking for signs that this was so. As we all know, Jesus himself went to John to be baptised, and John recognised him - not surprisingly since they were cousins.

John was just as blunt and bold a preacher as any of the Old Testament prophets before him, always ready to speak truth to power. He was bound to run into trouble with the authorities. And he did: he upset Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch or King of Galilee, who ordered him to be arrested, and later beheaded. Josephus says Herod had John killed ‘to prevent any mischief he might cause’.

Let’s now turn to examine John the Baptist’s teaching.

In today’s gospel passage, Luke (3:1-6) says that John ‘proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. He goes on to outline John’s teaching. Three points stand out in it for me:

1^st, all the gospel writers are clear that John never claims to be the Messiah, but believes himself to be the forerunner. Luke puts these words in his mouth: ‘I baptise you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming: I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’.

2^nd, John is what we call a hellfire preacher. Luke quotes him saying: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. () Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’. John seeks to shock the crowds into repentance by terrifying them with the consequences if they don’t. Then John seals their repentance by immersing them in water to symbolise that they are washed clean of sin. His preaching must have been very effective, judging by the crowds he gathered.

3^rd, John’s message is about much more than just hell fire. He calls for social justice. Quoting Luke again, he says: ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise’. And he calls everybody, even tax collectors and soldiers, to do whatever work they do fairly, and not to extort more than their due. No price gouging!

So what relevance does John the Baptist and his teaching have for us today?

Luke saw John the Baptist as the hinge on which salvation history turns, the forerunner promised by the prophets, making straight the way for Jesus the Messiah. 

It is difficult for us to see the world as Luke and his contemporaries did, through the prism of scriptural prophecy. And I for one deeply distrust fundamentalists who see it that way today. But that world view empowered the early church to respond to Jesus’s message, no matter what the cost. Without it, the church would probably not have survived, and we would not be Christians today. The mysterious working of the Holy Spirit through prophecy is something we should celebrate, I suggest.

Few Christian preachers nowadays stir up hellfire in their sermons, as they once did - and not so very long ago. We have become uncomfortable with the idea of the wrath of God. Instead it is ecologists and scientists who have been leading denunciations of our foolish and wicked trashing of this beautiful, God-given planet from secular pulpits.

Now more and more people are hearing the call to protect our planet, and starting to act upon it. Christians are to the forefront. Our Anglican Communion has adopted as the 5^th mark of mission, ‘to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth’. Pope Francis has given us a clarion call in his encyclical Laudato ‘Si. Among the Eastern Orthodox, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been leading from the front to promote ecology and environmental protection. Here in Ireland, Eco Congregation Ireland is spearheading the movement.

I am not a prophet – certainly not in my own country and parish! But I prophesy this: we will hear more and more John-like hellfire preaching from our Christian pulpits, as the twin ecological catastrophes of climate change and bio-diversity loss intensify. Why? Because we should be terrified of the wrath to come predicted by the scientists. That should bring us to repentance. And we should seal that repentance by mending our ways!

And as we mend our ways, we must also try to live out John’s social gospel, to share the good things we have received with our neighbours of every faith and race, at home and abroad. Mé féin is a road to perdition in our shrinking, globalised world. We must do so because this is not only the gospel of John, but the Gospel of Jesus, who empowers us by baptism not with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire!

I shall finish in prayer with the Collect of the Word for today

Almighty God,
who sent your servant John the Baptist
to prepare your people to welcome the Messiah,
inspire us, the ministers and stewards of your truth,
to turn our disobedient hearts to you,
that when the Christ shall come again to be our judge,
we may stand with confidence before his glory;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

What are we looking forward to?

Joc Writes, in Grapevine December/January 2024/5

Christmas, John Betjeman, 1954

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true?  And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ?  For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

December is a month for looking forward, in expectation. But what are we looking forward to?

As I write, there are 4 weeks before the winter solstice, and 32 days before Christmas. You will likely read this around the 1st December, the 1st Sunday of Advent this year. That is also the start of a new Church year, liturgical Year C, when most of our Gospel readings will be from Luke. 

After the winter solstice, the days will become longer, but it will take a while before we begin to see the stretch in the evenings we so look forward to.

And then there is Christmas. We need to distinguish between the secular and the Christian festivals of Christmas. The secular Christmas is all about exchanging gifts and feasting with friends and families. It is not in any real sense Christian at all. It is a continuation of the ancient pagan festivals of Yule in the Germanic world, Meán Geimhridh in the Celtic, a very human celebration of life, warmth and relationships at the darkest time of the year in mid-winter. No wonder, in an increasingly post-Christian world, some now call it Winterval. But Christians should surely not behave like the Grinch, saying ‘Bah, humbug’ about this secular Christmas, as the 17th century puritans did when they tried to ban it. For most of us it is a time of joy as we renew relationships, and recall Christmases past together, though for some it will be a time of sadness, because of difficult memories or straitened circumstances. 

When I was a child, the secular Christmas traditions were Victorian, probably no more than 100 years old, greatly influenced by Charles Dickens’ book ‘A Christmas Carol. We began to look forward to Christmas at the start of Advent. My brother and I took turns opening the windows in the Advent calendar to reveal little pictures. We were asked what presents we hoped Father Christmas would bring. We sent off cards, and parcels with presents, to faraway family and friends. A few weeks later, singers started to go round the houses singing carols, and perhaps were offered a drink or a mince-pie. We made Christmas decorations at home from strips of coloured paper. We waited expectantly for the Christmas turkey to arrive by post, sent by my grandmother. Decorating the house would wait until the week before Christmas, when holly and ivy and the Christmas tree would be brought in, to last until 12th Night, Epiphany. Our Christmas feast was on Stephen’s Day, since Christmas Day was a working day for my father, a priest.

Things are different now. Christmas is much more commercial. As soon as Halloween is past, we are deluged with Christmas adverts, and the shops are decorated for Christmas. The Advent calendar contains sweets or toys. The decorations go up weeks before Christmas and are gone long before Twelfth Night. Father Christmas has turned into Santa. And turkeys no longer arrive by post. But I’m sure we will all plan to celebrate a secular Christmas with family and friends again this year, mixing old family traditions with the new, as is surely right. 

But as Christians, during Advent, we also look forward to a Christian Christmas. We prepare to celebrate the birth of our incarnate God, taking flesh as a helpless child 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. And at the same time we look forward to his second coming, the fulfilment of his kingdom, and the heavenly banquet. 

John Betjeman, a devout Anglican, got it right in his lovely poem.

Remembering

The white poppy of the Peace Pledge Union (www.ppu.org.uk)

A reflection on Remembance for morning worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on 12th November 2024

Here in the Northern hemisphere, November is an in between month. The joys of gathering in the harvest and celebrating its bounty are only a memory now. The leaves have mostly fallen, tender plants have collapsed, and the days are getting short. At twilight, as darkness falls, we light fires to warm us. We hope that there will be enough to keep us warm and fed through the cold and dark of winter. But it is too soon to look forward to lengthening days and the return of growth. Now is a time of reflection and remembering.

It is not an accident, I think, that the Church focuses on remembering in November. 

At the start of the month we celebrated the feasts of All Saints and All Souls. We remembered and gave thanks for those who have been as saints to us, pointing us along the Way of Christ, and those we love but see no longer.

Last Sunday, we marked as Remembrance Sunday. We remembered those on all sides, men, women and children, service personnel and civilians, who have suffered and died in the wars and conflicts of the last century, in our own times, right up to today. 

It is surely right that we should remember and mourn them, and in particular our own dead. It is powerfully symbolic to do so at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the exact time of the armistice which ended WW1, which so many vowed to be the ‘war to end war’. But we must never glorify our dead as offering a blood sacrifice for our nation. There is no such thing as a holy war. Jesus commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves. Our human species has been stained through the ages by a disposition to hate others not like us, to make enemies of them, to kill and destroy them in war, rather than treat them as neighbours we must love. Surely this disposition is a kind of original sin, something we need to guard against and repent.

I am conflicted by red poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Earl Haig began the poppy day appeal to raise money to support service men and women whose lives had been shattered in WW1, and the money it raises is still used for that good purpose. I remember as a child how my father wore a red poppy as he led remembrance commemorations alongside other veterans, as they silently mourned their fallen comrades, and remembered the dreadful things they had seen and been a part of. But I am dismayed at how the red poppy has come to be used as a symbol of British military glory, so that public figures who do not wear it are attacked for being unpatriotic, traitors even. I choose to wear the white poppy of the Peace Pledge Union instead, as a symbol of repentance, while I also contribute to the poppy day appeal.

For the rest of November, I suggest we should continue remembering. 

We should allow our spirits to be lifted by happy memories of the blessings we have received, and the good times we have had this year. The burgeoning growth of spring. The beauty of summer flowers. The bounty of autumn’s harvest. The holidays we returned refreshed from. The meals shared with friends and family. 

We should also remember the changes we have seen over the years. Fewer people live in poverty than when I was a child. People here in Ireland live longer, healthier lives. But we can also see the damage being done to the world around us, fewer insects, wild plants and birds, and increasingly frequent and intense droughts, floods and wildfires around the world. We must give thanks for the good, and mourn the bad. 

Then, when Advent arrives in December, when we look forward to Christ incarnate at Christmas, and the lengthening days after the winter solstice, we can start to consider our New Year resolutions, what we ought to do to make the world next year more like the kingdom of heaven.

Navigating the Eye of the Needle

The Jaffa Gate in the walls of Jerusalem
- is the 'Eye of the Needle' like the small door?

Address given in St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 13th October 2024, the twentieth after Trinity

Do you know how to catch a greedy monkey?

First take a jar with an opening a little larger than the monkey's hand. Attach the jar to something that can't be moved, like this pulpit. Then put something in the jar that the monkey wants – a sweet, perhaps. The monkey reaches in, grabs the treat, but with his hand full, he can't get his hand out of the opening. He's so greedy he won't let go – you have him trapped!

 

Forgive me if you have heard this trick from me before, but I think it vividly illustrates today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 10:17-31).

 

The man who ran up to Jesus and knelt before him is rather like that monkey, isn’t he? He had asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” - ‘Jesus, looking at him’, we are told, ‘loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

I think the man is a failed apostle. He received the same call to leave everything and follow Jesus that Peter and the rest of the Twelve did. Jesus loved him and must have seen his potential. But the man was trapped, trapped by all his possessions, and he could not respond to Jesus.

What should we learn from this man’s story?

Should we all, perhaps, do what this man couldn’t do – sell all our possessions, give the money to charity, and follow Jesus in holy poverty?

Just imagine what would happen if everybody did that. Prices would immediately crash. The economy would come to a grinding halt. And as ever the weak would suffer the worst consequences.

No, the fact is that Jesus calls each one of us uniquely, personally. He does not call us all to be or to do the same thing. He calls some to follow him in holy poverty, as he called his twelve apostles, as he called others through the centuries like St Francis of Assisi, and as perhaps he still calls some today. But very few are called to be apostles.

Rather each one of us should practice listening attentively for Jesus to reveal our personal call, through prayer, through our conscience and through the working of the Holy Spirit. And we should pray that when we hear Jesus call, we will be able to respond.

Jesus goes on to reflect on how wealth and possessions can cut us off from God.

“Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” he says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

What a knack Jesus has for vivid, humorous images! Once heard, no one ever forgets this image of a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle, as a metaphor for human impossibility. By the way, ‘the eye of the needle’ was probably a very short and narrow gate in the city walls of Jerusalem, which it would have been difficult to lead a loaded camel through, but perhaps not totally impossible.

Almost all of us here in Ireland are rich compared to most on the planet. Surely we must all sit up and take notice of these words of Jesus, whatever else our personal call might be.

The trouble, I think, is not wealth and possessions in themselves; it is how we use them - or how we allow them to use us. They are God’s good gifts, but it is all too easy for us to allow them to close our ears to Jesus’s call, preventing us from being the people God wants us to be – in other words preventing us from entering the kingdom of God. We must always be prepared to surrender wealth and possessions back to God, if that is necessary to do God’s will.

How often have we heard politicians and economists tell us our first priority must be economic growth!

And I dare say we will hear very many more voices saying this in the run up to the coming elections.

With economic growth, they say, we will become ever richer. Without it, we will become uncompetitive, we will be unable to afford the health, education and social services we all need, and we will all become impoverished. But the unthinking drive for economic growth is at the heart of the false values of our globalised consumer capitalist economies.

Economic growth in economies like ours works like this. Advertising encourages us to want more and more stuff we don’t need. We run around chasing our tails to get the money to buy stuff, at the expense of our health, our families, and our communities. We consume the stuff, and finally we throw it away. In doing so we damage our environment, causing global warming and biodiversity loss. Yet we are no happier for doing so! Meanwhile, the rich, the owners of capital, increase their wealth, while the poor get even poorer.

We are on a treadmill. And this treadmill can only lead us to the despair so searingly expressed in Psalm 22 (1-15) which we read today.

‘I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint;
my heart has become like wax melting in the depths of my body.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd; my tongue cleaves to my gums;
you have laid me in the dust of death.’

We all know this kind of collective madness cannot go on - unless we are peculiarly deaf and blind. People made in God’s image are being hurt. Humanity’s greed is damaging the beautiful life filled planet God has placed us on. This cannot be God’s will. The Holy Spirit is speaking very clearly, and our consciences must tell us this is wrong.

Now, surely, we need as a society to discard the false values, to surrender our greedy dreams of riches. We must face the fact that our society, indeed our civilisation, is blighted by our collective greedy behaviour. Let us call it out for what it is: it is sin, collective sin.

Jesus tells us that it is almost impossible for us to enter God's kingdom while we hold on to our dreams of riches. But how hard it is to let them go! “Then who can be saved?” say the disciples to one another. “For mortals”, says Jesus – that is for men and women like you and me – “it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

The Epistle to the Hebrews (4:12-16), urges us to listen to the living, active word of God, and to trust in Jesus, the Son of God. ‘Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need’. Now is a time of great need, and we are badly in need of mercy and grace, I suggest.

This surely is what we must do to escape from the treadmill of riches. We must be bold in seeking out God’s will. We must pray that his Spirit will show us how to live more abundantly with less, how to heal our damaged earth, how to rekindle community, how to serve fundamental human need instead of worshiping greed. And we must change, change our ways to live by God’s values.

I shall finish with a Collect of the Word.

Merciful God,
in your Son you call not the righteous but sinners to repentance;
draw us away from the easy road that leads to destruction,
and guide us into paths that lead to life abundant,
that in seeking your truth, and obeying your will,
we may know the joy of being a disciple of Jesus our Saviour,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Celebrating Harvest

Reflection given at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th October 2024

Today, in this harvest season, we are celebrating and giving thanks for the bounty of good things we have received. God has given them to us because he loves us.

How has your harvest been this year? It’s been a bit mixed for me, as it may have been for you too. Plums and pears have been a disaster, due to a mixture of my bad husbandry and a late frost. I also lost most of the wild damsons in the hedge because I did not pick them in time, so there’ll be no damson jam this year.

But the apples have been excellent. I now have 4 supermarket trays of them in storage, which will last the winter, and I’ve been giving some away to visitors. I’ve made pickled walnuts for the first time, which are delicious with cream cheese. I’ve also had a good crop of cobnuts. Those that fell and the damsons on the ground have fed the badgers – they’ve been loving it, judging by the traces they leave. My wife Marty has grown delicious strawberries and blueberries for us, and the flowers in her labyrinth garden have given marvellous scent and colour all summer. My generous friend has left me a large container of honey he has extracted from the hive he keeps in our garden. And let us not forget the miracle of new life. I have a brand new grand-nephew Freddy this year - he’s a dote!

It is so very right that we should celebrate and give thanks in this harvest season for all the bounty we have received, even if we feel it could have been a bit better.

But not everyone has been so blessed with bounty. Think of the millions caught up in hellish wars. Think of those faced with rebuilding communities, homes and livelihoods after floods, storms or droughts. Think of the millions of refugees around the world seeking safety, but finding only distrust and hatred. How can they celebrate and give thanks?

It is hard not to worry that this beautiful and fruitful world God has placed us in is going to hell. But Jesus tells his disciples not to worry, in the reading from Matthew’s Gospel (6:25-33) we have just heard, set for Harvest this year. He tells them and us, ‘Do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” … For indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’

Worrying will do us no good, any more than it will help those who are suffering. It can only make us ill and miserable. Instead, Jesus calls us to action. He tells us to strive first for the kingdom of God; that is, to work hard to make this world a better place, more like God’s kingdom. Only then can we properly enjoy the fruits of the harvest.

So as we celebrate and give thanks for the harvest we receive, let us also rededicate ourselves to share it generously, and to fight the evil that disfigures God’s world, so that it may be filled with the peace and justice God wills for it.