Wivelsfield and Balcombe Trinity 15 (Wk 25A) 20 September 2020

We are God's children now says St John.  We have a 'sameness' to God, no less.

Yet, the scriptures go on to state the other side of the paradox - God-like we may be but we are also 'different' from God - or rather God is different from us.

We are like God, adopted sons and daughters - and yet we are called to purify ourselves as he is pure (1 John 3:3). We are like God but we are also not like God.

Christianity is full of mystery!  I love mystery and paradox and I feel sad to see its removal from life and even from the Church nowadays.

Christianity thrills with mystery and paradox.  

Look at that Gospel reading. What sense is there in paying all your workers the same however long or short their hours? Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? (Matthew 20:15)

When God comes among us into the world he wants to be the same as us - so he plumbs our human depths. He suffers.

Yet in coming to us as God, so very different to us, he is able to open up our humanity to generous, endless vistas in the revelation of resurrection glory!

Christianity is about the bursting out of resurrection glory from the Risen Christ as shafts of light so often diffract from the sun through dark clouds.

Have you seen that picture, often at sunset - those of us who have roots in the Caribbean know it better than us - the sun's glory bursting out through the clouds.

What a picture - darkness and light together showing each other off!

So God shows himself off to us in Christ crucified and risen! God shows himself off in full splendour and lifts our poor humanity in the process, making it a vehicle and instrument of divine glory.

I love paradox.  The dictionary states that a paradox occurs when two statements that are contradictory in logic must be held together in experience.

30 years ago I worked in Guyana, South America which is where Anne and I were married. Besides Cricket and Anglicanism there is a third binder between England and its former colonies - did you know?  Gilbert and Sullivan - yes it still goes on in Guyana and across the Commonwealth though a bit incorrect nowadays. As a youth I acted in the Pirates of Penzance where Frederick, apprenticed to the Pirates, prepares for freedom on his 21st birthday. Then Ruth, his fierce protectress breaks the news that he is not 21 but only 5 and 'a little bit over' since he was born on 29 February.  

They sing the great 'Paradox' duet, which marks the necessity for Frederick to remain a pirate until he is 84.  The chorus runs:

How quaint the ways of paradox, at common sense she gaily mocks…

Paradoxes are amusing mentally.  They 'mock common sense' by provoking us to look at things two ways at once and get different answers.

Christianity is famous for its paradoxes - God in Three yet One, Jesus is God yet Man, Christ has died, Christ is risen…  

Look at Paul in the second reading, to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. The apostle makes life and death into a paradox only Christian faith could entertain - living is Christ and dying is gain.

Some of us have been through some very dark periods in our lives not least over the months of this pandemic. Again and again sharing with Christian believers I catch vivid evidence of how the presence of faith allows dark clouds in life to diffract the glory of the Lord.  We need to hear more about this in our own Christian community so as to build us up in heart and soul.

When I was a student a group of pilgrims from my parish in Oxford went in a minibus to Walsingham.  Some of them made their first Confessions there.  It was a wonderful weekend spiritually.  On the way back the minibus crashed and some of them were killed.  The next Sunday was the Feast of the Transfiguration and I will never forget the parish priest preaching on a couple of verses from that story in  Luke 9:34-5 And as Jesus (brilliant in glory) spoke, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  And a voice came out the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

Sometimes the Church grows best and sinks her roots deepest into Christ when the clouds come and we have to listen for God's call - see, this is my Son…

Joy and Sorrow are our inseparable bedfellows in this mysterious Christianity of ours.

When you struggle with your faith - and we do struggle at times -  imagine a world without this mystery you struggle with.

It's not very hard to imagine it because such a world is all around us!

Misery or mystery is the choice, really.

Takes away one side of the paradox and where does it leave you - the mystery of life is reduced to a bare contradiction.

Make God the same as us.  Eat, drink and be merry - this is where God is, right with us, the same as us.  Where is hope in such materialism?  As if there were nothing beyond death?  Other religions like Buddhism also seem to make God the same as us - God is the self, he is the genie in our lamp, so to speak.  God is so much the same as us he is built in our image more than we are built in his!

The paradox is lost - one side of the mystery of being is denied.

Or to look at the other extreme there are people who go about excessively making God different to everyone else.  Zip him up in a Jehovah's Witness Bible, God so different and aloof.  Sometimes the Church zips God up and makes him so special people feel they can never reach him.

You lose the sameness of God in all of this.

I always thing that Christmas and Lent teach us the sameness of God in his birth, life and sufferings whilst Easter and Pentecost teach us his difference.  Christ is raised - there the difference between God and man shines out in the generosity beyond logic described in today’s Gospel.

So where does all of this talk of mystery and the sameness and difference of God leave us all this Sunday morning 20 September 2020?

We are gathered once again to make a heartfelt offering of our lives to God through Our Lord Jesus Christ!

In baptism you are made one with Jesus in his death.  Jesus in turn wants you to be one with him in his new way of living.  He wants you to be bold in offering yourself afresh to his praise and service!

He died in your place so that you might let him live in your place!  That is the truth of our lives as Christians and we have to let it be in your lives waiting patiently to see it working out for us.

There's a saying we all know: a leopard doesn't change his spots.

This wonderful Christianity of ours goes against that saying.  People do change in Christianity.  They do see old habits losing their grip on them and new attitudes of compassion and forgiveness coming to birth.

Christ who is the same as us has the capacity to empathise and to draw out our sin and fear and doubt.

Christ who is ever new and so different to us also has the capacity to refresh us with his Spirit.  Jesus Christ is able to plant new life in our spirits, new, imperishable life, opening us all up to the possibilities of God.

And is there an ending or conclusion or limitation upon the possibilities of God?

As the stone got rolled back on Easter Day so the same Lord is present in our lives to make a difference and roll back the stones that weigh us down - stones of grief and sorrow, of bitterness and unforgiveness, of confusion and doubt.

Our Lord brings mystery instead of misery - he fills out the picture of life for us - and he can fill out the picture of life for others as we share the good news.

Christ is risen!  God has come to be the same as us and to make a difference to us and to the whole world!

Alleluia Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed alleluia!

Trinity 17 Mark 9.30-37 Church of Ascension, Haywards Heath 23 September 2018

We’ve now reached the middle section of Mark’s gospel we’ve been following in Year B of the liturgical cycle since Advent. It’s a Gospel you can read in a hurry of a Jesus in a hurry – the shortest Gospel of a man with a mission! When you pick up Mark – here’s a copy – you see he’s no time for genealogies and birth narratives, angels, shepherds and wise men. For Mark on p1 its straight in – this is the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Repent and believe! It’s real and it matters.

Today engaging with that reality we’ve moved from p1 to p27, half way through the 52 pages of this paperback Mark’s Gospel, the ninth of the 16 Chapters and verse 30 which I will repeat:

After leaving the mountain 30 Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;

• Move forwards with Jesus from the Transfiguration to Calvary: Jesus the great trail blazer making human beings a joyful path to God.
• Crowd falls back to leave Jesus with disciples and the business of deepening their discipleship.
• Marcan secrecy: one commentator: humility to not wish a great fanfare about his obviously successful ministry. His directives to silence about his great accomplishments may be no more than an example to the faithful not to blow their own horns. It proves the reliability of the Gospel as it’s hard to imagine a made up story of Jesus with such emphasis.

31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

• First chapters show us who Jesus is. Now, moving into why God sent him and what it means to us as disciples we have a second prediction of the passion following last Sunday’s in Chapter 8.
• Paradoxes – things that contradict in logic to be held together in experience. Creation (out of nothing ), Trinity (Unity) founded on life (through death) = Son of Man (Son of God).
• Jesus not a physically compelling Messiah but a suffering servant and morally compelling Saviour. A sign of contradiction – I think of the courageous disabled people who speak out to counter attempts to introduce legislation for Assisted Dying which make shallow judgments about the quality and worthwhileness of life, implying disability is a grounds for killing yourself.
• 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’ Ann Voskamp ‘I wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the beauty of Christ’.

      33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

• Post-Transfiguration jealousies set disciples against one another

• Jesus sees into their and our hearts - can show up what’s needful, especially they sin of pride
• Alexander Schmemann - the signs of pride are: the absence of joy, complexity and fear. Signs of humility: joy, simplicity, trust
• Those who serve others have a joy about them, they are the greatest
• How do we get there? ‘Know yourself, love yourself, forget yourself’ (the discipline of Christian meditation which takes us out of ourselves in contemplation – encouragement of last week’s Week of Guided Prayer)

36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

• Paradox of child centred society cf ancient culture and many other cultures which gave or give children no legal rights. Christian legacy.
• Striking act of Jesus to take the most powerless and exalt them
• Who are the powerless around us? Who are those most in need of our help? Those without money – FSW summer holiday scheme run by workers, 7 to 11 this autumn. Those who can’t leave room or home through age or disability. Refugees. The young struggling for a job….
• Last verse shows Jesus before us in the powerless: Whoever welcomes one such ....in my name welcomes me. Cf Matthew 25 Jesus ‘in the least ’
• To see this we need the insight, or spectacles of holy scripture: 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’
• We need the sense of Jesus before us that the eucharist schools us in.
• Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ upon his throne of glory, in the holy scriptures, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, in the hearts of the needy and in the hearts of all his faithful people.

Trinity 16 Mark 9.30-37 26th September 2012

·         Approach Scripture with prayer and penitence. St Athanasius ‘Whoever wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse and purify himself by holiness of life'. Heart seeing is vital, eg seeing the most important thing in life: what conquers death over against the pinch of financial constraints and job insecurity

After leaving the mountain 30Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;

·         Move forwards with Jesus from the Transfiguration to Calvary: Jesus the great trail blazer making human beings a joyful path to God.

·         Crowd falls back to leave Jesus with disciples: ’true discipleship’

·         Marcan secrecy: humility to not wish a great fanfare about his obviously successful ministry. His directives to silence about his great accomplishments may be no more than an example to the faithful not to blow their own horns. It proves the reliability of the Gospel as it’s hard to imagine a made up story of Jesus with such emphasis.

31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

·         First  chapters show us who Jesus is. Now, moving into why God sent him and what it means to us as disciples we have a second prediction of the passion following last Sunday’s in Chapter 8

·         Paradoxes – things that contradict in logic to be held together in experience. Creation (out of nothing ), Trinity (Unity) founded on life (through death) = Son of Man (Son of God).

·         Jesus not a physically compelling Messiah but a suffering servant morally compelling Saviour. A sign of contradiction – Olympians in wheelchairs on London Olympic triumph lorries; Downton Abbey plot

·         'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’ Ann Voskamp ‘I wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the beauty of Christ ‘

33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

·         Counter ‘big is beautiful’ – cf Horsted Keynes

·         Post-Transfiguration jealousies set disciples against one another

·         Jesus sees into their and our hearts- can show up what’s needful

·         Alexander Schmemann - the signs of pride are: the absence of joy, complexity and fear. Signs of humility: joy, simplicity, trust

·         Those who serve others have a joy about them, they are the greatest

·         How do we get there? ‘Know yourself, love yourself, forget yourself’ (the discipline of Christian meditation which takes us out of ourselves in contemplation – drop by Church and use new prayer sheet )

36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

·         Paradox of child centred society cf ancient culture and many other cultures which gave or give children no legal rights. Christian legacy.

·         Striking act of Jesus to take the most powerless and exalt him/her

·         Who are the powerless around us? Who are those most in need of our help? Those without money – no holidays (£500 raised by Anne for FSW’s Give a Child a Holiday). Those who can’t leave room or home through age or disability. The young struggling for a job.

·         Last verse shows Jesus before us in the powerless: Whoever welcomes one such ....in my name welcomes me.   Cf Matthew 25 Jesus ‘in the least ’

·         To see this we need the insight, or spectacles of holy scripture: 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’

·         We need the sense of Jesus before us that the eucharist schools us in.

·         Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ upon his throne of glory, in the holy scriptures, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, in the hearts of the needy and in the hearts of all his faithful people.