Category: Sermons

“A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another”

The love of the Son for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit is the moving force in the Passion of Jesus Christ. This divine love is the action which underlies the Passion of the whole life of Jesus Christ. John Donne reminds us:

The whole life of Christ was a continuall Passion, his birth and his death were but a continuall Act and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day.

The whole life of Christ is concentrated in the Passion. The Passion manifests the deep love of God – the love of God in himself and his love for us. Over and against this is our hatred and envy at the goodness of God and at God himself. For the Passion equally manifests the potentialities and actualities for evil in our hearts. We are on display in this week, too. Only the love of God makes it possible for us to contemplate this darkness within us and not be destroyed by what we see.

Were we to despair of the love of God, then we would be like Judas, whose remorse is not repentance and whose death, as a consequence, is simply the further denial of the love of God. We deny the truth that the love of God is greater than our hearts. But “if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.” It is the lesson of this night. The new commandment to love one another is only made possible by the love of God moving in us despite our betrayals of that love. His love alone can set our loves in order.

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“How readest thou?”

And so it begins, and ends. We begin today with the exultant cries of “Hosanna”. We will end on Easter with the joyous cries of “Alleluia,” the alleluias that shall never end. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of one long continuous service, going from strength to greater strength, from joy to greater joy. And in between?

Well, that is the point of Holy Week. And, indeed, it is not too much to say that there is no going from the beginning to the end without going through the middle; no Easter that has any meaning apart from the events of this week which we call Holy Week. In a way, there is no beginning either without, at least, a glimmer of an awareness that there must be a continuing in what we have begun today. How could there not be? The contrasts of this day are just so great.

We who cry “Hosanna” are those who cry “Crucify”. The alleluias of Easter will be but the empty words of the hollow culture of empty souls and empty churches without the moving, heart-rending and mind-blowing spectacles of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday; in short, the triduum Sacrum of Holy Week. Such is the intensity of the Passion of Christ. There is no greater joy than the alleluias of Easter, but it is a joy that is borne out of the sorrow and the grief of this week.

The contrasts of this day are the contradictions of our souls. More than the mere fickle nature of mob culture that swings from one moment to the next in the madness of unreason, we contemplate the depths and heights of human loves and human hates in all of their disorder and disarray. It is not too much to say that in the pageant of Holy Week there is little, if anything, that is good about ourselves. We confront the contradictions of our humanity. That is, really, the good of Holy Week.

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“Be it unto me according to thy word.”

If there is a test for catholic orthodoxy, it invariably centers on Mary. Only through her do we understand the mystery of our redemption in Christ. She is the theotokos, the God-bearer, the mother of God. To begin to understand that is to begin to understand the wonder and the joy of our redemption.

Anglican divinity is not without its cloud of witnesses to the role and place of the Virgin Mary in our salvation and nowhere does that become more abundantly clear than in the Feast of the Annunciation.

We forget that this was the actual beginning of the year for over a thousand years. March 25^th points us to December 25^th. The ancients and the medievals were not so uninformed about the mundane and yet miraculous prosody of human reproduction as we might suspect. England, as reluctant as ever to be drawn into anything that smacks of continental superiority, held out until 1752 with respect to the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar, adopted for the most part in most of Europe in 1582, which designated January 1^st as the beginning of the civil calendar year.

The older sensibility reflects the idea of our lives as marked spiritually by the doctrinal moments in the life of Christ. That sensibility still underlies the ecclesiastical calendar. In this case, the Annunciation marks the beginning of the year by way of the commemoration of the entrance into creation and humanity of God himself. In short, Mary’s Annunciation is Christ’s conception, humanly speaking, in the womb of Mary. He who is “God of God” and “Light of Light” becomes incarnate in the womb of Mary. The event is the Annunciation.

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“What wilt thou?”

What do you will? Not simply what do you want but what do you will? What are you committed to? It is the question of Passion Sunday.

The Cross is veiled. Present yet hidden, its shape is only dimly seen. “We see,” at best, but “in a glass darkly.” What does this veiling of the Cross mean? Should not the Cross be fully and visibly before us? What do we mean exactly by the Cross?

The paradox of Passiontide is that the Cross is veiled precisely so that we might come to learn more fully just what the Cross means in itself and for us. The journey of Lent is concentrated for us in Passiontide, deep Lent, and then is further concentrated in Holy Week and then, again, on Good Friday. It is all the way of the Cross. The paradox of the veiled Cross is that we do not know and do not see as clearly and fully as we should. What stands in the way is the disorder of our wills and our desires.

Our passions, we might say, stand in the way of our understanding of the passion of Christ. “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” The gospel story suggests that there is an element of ambition and self-interest present even in the most holy of situations. Theologically, the point is simply that our motives are never pure and clear; they are always mixed. Why? Because we neither truly know what we want – “ye know not what ye ask” – nor do we fully will that which we do know, let alone do what we should do. “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” We are divided creatures, divided among ourselves and divided within ourselves. The veil is the fog of our desires.

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“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”

The Gospel says nothing about shillelaghs or about shamrocks or even about snakes. It does say something about places on a sea-coast, about the preaching of Christ seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about light to those in places of darkness, about repentance, about discipleship, and about healing and salvation; in short, about all the things that belong to the evangelium – the good news that is the meaning of the word, gospel. Something of that sensibility belongs to the Feast of St. Patrick, the outstanding Apostle to Ireland, the bearer of the light of the Gospel to the pagan darkness of the Gaels.

It was Chesterton’s great quip: “For the great Gaels of Ireland [meaning the gaelic],/Are the men that God made mad./For all their wars are merry,/ And all their songs are sad.” Much of that remains true but through the missionary zeal and pastoral patience and understanding of Patrick, happy songs, the songs that belong to the divine comedy of Christianity are also heard and sung, known and loved. In How the Irish saved Civilisation, the writer, Thomas Cahill, notes that Irish and civilization are words which are “seldom coupled,” but if there is any justice in making such a connection, and I think there is, then much of the credit must go to Patrick.

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“For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come”

Rare are the occasions when we have a reading at Holy Communion from one of the major writings of the New Testament, The Letter to the Hebrews, but when we do they are of the greatest significance. Once in the Sundays in Lent, next Sunday, Passion Sunday, for instance, and twice during Holy Week, the epistle reading is from Hebrews. And, of course, it provides the great epistle for Christmas, too, and on a few other occasions as well, such as in the Octave of All Saints’. How splendid, then, is the course of the readings at the Offices which allow us to savour somewhat more fully the richness of this almost impossibly rich and perplexing epistle. In a way, it is one of the most theologically demanding works of the entire New Testament. And that’s saying a lot!

This year at Morning Prayer, we have had the privilege of reading from Hebrews a little more extensively as well as the great joy of reading one of the most outstanding narrative sequences in The Book of Genesis, the story of Jacob or Israel. In a way, The Letter to the Hebrews provides the most wonderful Christian commentary on the whole of the Old Testament and, indeed, particularly with reference to Genesis.

“Let brotherly love continue”, our reading from the 13^th chapter begins. Indeed, “let brotherly love continue,” and should we ever be under any delusion about how hard that is, we have only to consider The Book of Genesis! In a way, it is about the antithesis of brotherly love! Cain kills Abel; that’s just for starters; Abram and Lot, who are kinsmen, get into tussles over land; and, then, there is the most extraordinary sequence of stories dealing first with Isaac, the promised son, and then Jacob and Esau, twin brothers but at odds with one another; and then, the story of Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery. Apart from Isaac, it might seem that it is altogether about brothers. Upon closer examination, of course, there is the curious business of Ishmael, a step-brother to Isaac by way of Sarah’s servant, Hagar. In short, it is all about brothers whose relation to one another exhibits the greatest confusion, ambiguity, tension, and animosity imaginable. You would almost think it was Hants County! Or anywhere, really!

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“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost”

The gathering up of the fragments, κλασματα, literally, the broken pieces, the left-overs of the picnic in the wilderness with Jesus, signals the nature of redemption itself. It is about the gathering up of the broken fragments of our lives. The gathering is about the coming together, literally, a συναγωγη, of our wounded and broken humanity in the wilderness of the world. But a gathering to what end? That nothing be lost. Such is the picture of redemption.

The gathering of the broken fragments of our lives is about our being gathered to God. Such are the Lenten mercies of Christ on this day which is known by various names. It is known as “Mothering Sunday” because of the Epistle reading from Galatians which identifies Jerusalem as “the mother of us all.” The nurturing, caring mother is the image of the Church that nurtures and cares for us with the things of heaven. It is known, too, as “Refreshment Sunday” because of the Gospel reading from John about the feeding of the multitude in the wilderness and the further provision for us in “the gathering up of the fragments that remain.” And, finally, it is known as “Laetare Sunday” because the Introit psalm for the day at Holy Communion, Psalm 122, which begins “Laetatus sum”, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘We will go unto the house of the Lord.’” That psalm belongs to what are called The Psalms of Ascent, the songs of the going up to Jerusalem. They are the songs of the pilgrimage of our lives.

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“For he himself knew what was in man”

Jesus “himself knew what was in man,” John tells us (John 2.25). It is a perplexing and yet an illuminating comment. What is in us? Not much, it might seem from this gospel story, other than the will to nothingness, that is, a disillusioning and destructive spirit. In a way, John’s insight complements the story which Luke tells. There is nothing in ourselves but the will to nothingness.

This is to speak in a kind of contemporary language, the language of despair. But, such a way of speaking, has its biblical basis in this remarkable and remarkably disturbing gospel story that speaks, on the one hand, so directly to the climate of disillusionment and despair in our contemporary culture, and yet, on the other hand, offers the real and true remedy to our fears and worries.

It is, to my mind, the darkest moment in the pageant of Lent before the darker realities of Holy Week. In a way, this gospel story for The Third Sunday in Lent corresponds to the darkness of Tenebrae on Wednesday in Holy Week. “How lonely sits the city that was full of people,” Jeremiah laments, even as we find ourselves in utter desolation here in Luke’s gospel.

The Lenten Sundays anticipate the grand and disturbing events of Holy Week. If the Third Sunday anticipates the shadows and darkness of Tenebrae, then the Fourth Sunday, with its story of the feeding of the crowd in the wilderness, anticipates Maundy Thursday when we are with Christ in the Upper Room and where he gives himself to us as bread and wine, anticipating his passion and resurrection.

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“For ye were sometimes darkness,
but now are ye light in the Lord”

It is, to my mind, the darkest moment in the journey of Lent, at least before the dark intensities of Holy Week. Not only are we still in the company of demons and devils but that sense of struggle against the spiritual forces of evil has become intensified in the strongest way possible. Jesus, who in the gospel performs a double healing, at once exorcising a devil and making one who was dumb to speak, is accused of being in cahoots with Beelzebul, the prince of the devils. No good deed goes unpunished, it seems. Doing good he is accused of being evil. He is accused, actually, of being demonically possessed.

What is good is called evil. It is the perfect picture of sin and evil really. Nothing in themselves, sin and evil are privations of what is good and true. The interchange between Jesus and his detractors here is most instructive. He reminds them about Beelzebul, an ancient name for the devil, a name which literally means “the Lord of the Dwelling” but which can also mean, “Lord of the Flies”, suggesting death and decay. Lord of the Flies, of course, is the title of a famous novel by William Golding, a novel written in the period of the cold war which examines “the darkness of man’s heart.”

Some accuse him; others want more signs and wonders from him, “tempting him,” as the gospel so tellingly puts it. Jesus’ “knowing their thoughts,” Luke tells us, points out the obvious contradiction. He plays upon the name of Beelzebul, with its suggested cognates of kingdom and house, to show the folly of their accusation and the consequences of their rejection. A kingdom, Baal or Beel, “divided against itself is brought to desolation”. A house, Zebul or Zebulon, “divided against itself falleth”. If Satan who is Beelzebul, the Lord of the house of rebellion, is divided against himself, how can he stand?

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“Your name shall no more be called Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed”

It is one of the most outstanding statements in the whole of the Jewish or Hebrew Scriptures, in what Christians know as the Old Testament. It marks and establishes the real meaning of Judaism and its further fulfillment, dare I say, in Christianity, or at least, in Jesus Christ in the Christian understanding. Nowhere does the striving with God and man appear more completely and more concentrated fashion than on the way of the Cross, the way of our Lenten pilgrimage.

The tragedy of our age lies in our ignorance, wilful and otherwise, of this understanding and perspective. We have become so accustomed and cynically inured to the endless posturing and manipulations of power politics, on the one hand, and the defeatist mentality of victim and entitlement politics, on the other hand, that we have little or no capacity to grasp the transcendent truths that the Scriptures constantly open out to us. We are, I fear, as dead to metaphor as we are to metaphysics (read God). And yet, these stories, by virtue of their being proclaimed, speak to our need and our situation.

Jacob is the deceiver, the trickster, the supplanter, a clever fellow, we might say, perhaps too clever by half and, no doubt, that view of things has influenced the whole tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment and bias which, in turn, issues in the hideous realities of anti-Semitism and racism signalled so graphically and so disturbingly in the unforgettable horrors of the Holocaust. The Jews of Europe, after all, were betrayed by the culture which betrayed itself. Such things are the very spectacle of deceit and betrayal. But that is not, ultimately, who he is.

This is, I think, what makes the story of Jacob so compelling. It is the picture of a soul who in his struggle persists in the quest to understand and be faithful to what is understood such that there is a remarkable transformation. Indeed the transformation of Jacob into Israel complements the Eucharistic gospel for this day, where the Canaanite woman shows herself to be a true Israelite, indeed, precisely because of her tenacity of intellectual spirit in holding on to what she has rightly perceived as the truth of God in Jesus Christ. She will not be put off and her struggle, akin to Jacob’s, is the great struggle, the great struggle of faith that reveals the true nature of Israel. It is accomplished in its fullness and truth on the Cross.

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