Category: Sermons

“His name was called Jesus”

What’s in a name? Everything. Something of the wonder and the mystery of words and names is startlingly before us on this Octave Day of Christmas. It is concentrated for us in Bethlehem. Strong words and names are proclaimed in the Scripture readings. Bethlehem is the place of words and names that speak beyond the confines of a stable and a manger. Bethlehem is the place where the Word made flesh is named and signified as Jesus. Such is the wonder and the mystery of this day.

The idea of the Word made flesh, it seems to me, challenges the all-too-easy nominalism and relativism of our culture, as if names were merely of our choosing and at our convenience and as if names and words convey no real meaning beyond what meaning we choose to give to them; in short, that words and names signify no reality. We are really only talking to ourselves.

Bethlehem shows us something more. It makes visible the astounding wonder of the unity of creation with the Creator and the unity of the whole of our humanity. Bethlehem speaks to the deep desires of human hearts and to the form of those desires in their contemporary complexity. What are our environmental concerns about except a yearning and a longing for some sort of connection with the world from which we have alienated ourselves by our technocratic exuberance and arrogance? What are our social and political concerns about except a yearning and a longing for peace and harmony, for true unity and respect for all the peoples of the world?

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“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is Christ the Lord”

Christmas is rich in images. Yet all of the many, many images that belong to the Christmas story circle around one place, little Bethlehem; little and yet great, a fitting place for the coming of “God’s great little one”. But it is only on Christmas morning that we first hear of Bethlehem in the Scripture readings in the Angels’ words to shepherds in their fields.

A place of insignificance, the place that is the least of the clans of Judah, as the prophet Micah, puts it; and yet the place that is not the least of the princes of Judah, as Matthew puts it. A contradiction in the Scriptures? A mistranslation by Matthew?  Probably. And, yet, by no means the only contradiction or error, if you will, in the Scriptures. What? How can that be and the Scriptures still be true? Or is all just a tale for a winter’s morning? A quaint and touching story that somehow touches human hearts?

That won’t suffice, I’m afraid, to account for the quiet wonders of Christmas morn. The apparent contradictions and errors of a factual nature often turn on a number of things; one source juxtaposed with another and yet placed side-by-side in the Scripture texts thereby defying the most prosaic of human minds; and then there are matters that can never be known with any degree of historical accuracy, such as the actual date of the birth of Christ, and, hence, of Christmas itself; and even more there are other details that simply admit of complementary interpretations. Micah is right about Bethlehem as the place of the least of the tribes of Judah; Matthew is right with respect to the honour belonging to Bethlehem as the place of Christ’s holy birth, and therefore, not the least. There is nothing new about this except our cultural and intellectual forgetfulness.

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“And the Word was made flesh”

Christmas parties ought to come with an advisory, a cautionary warning, not about the dangers of drinking and driving – but, of course, do be careful! – but about the Christian faith itself. Recently, I was at one such gathering at which Christmas carols were sung, quite lustily and in good cheer, in fact, but after one carol – I forget exactly which one – someone cried out, “Doesn’t sound very Christmassy!” Though perhaps a wee bit tipsy, he was right!

In a way. But here is the problem and, hence, the need for an advisory. Christmas carols are often quite direct and clear about the realities of the Christian faith, about the meaning of Christmas itself, we might say. And no, don’t worry! I am not going to go down that rather over-worn and obvious path about Jesus being “the reason for the season”! Of course, he is. It is Christmas, after all. And yet, it is the sad reality that in a recent survey among school children, Christmas is associated with everything except Jesus Christ and his birth. Santa Claus wins out. Not enough Christmas carols, it seems. The point is who is this Jesus whose birth we celebrate? Can we really ignore the rich images of this season and its profound message conveyed through music and song, through story and service, especially in worship and in all the rich trappings of this season? I don’t think so.

There is hardly a Christmas carol that doesn’t proclaim Jesus Christ as the Son of God become the son of man for us and for our redemption; hardly a carol that doesn’t allude to sacrifice and death, to sin and grace, to our darkness and the light of Christ, to God and man. They go to the very heart of Christmas, but if we think of Christmassy things as just being happy thoughts and bonhomie, then, of course, these things may seem, well, ‘unChristmassy’. They may even disquiet and disturb us.

That may be a true Christmas blessing. (more…)

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“As you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”

Matthew’s strong and disturbing words are apocalyptic. They are part of what is sometimes called the Matthaean apocalypse. The opposite of apocryphal, which is to say, the things that are hidden, apocalypse refers to what is unveiled, unhidden. As such it belongs to an important and fundamental feature of the season and of the Christian religion, namely, revelation. God makes something known to us about himself but also about ourselves. Apocalyptic writings especially belong to the revealing of things in this world as seen from the viewpoint of God, from a standpoint of ultimate judgment. This cannot not be disturbing; neither can it be ignored. It is powerful stuff.

The words of Matthew are meant to challenge us and to make us reflect on our lives in relation to God and to one another. They are meant to make us think more deeply about the radical meaning of Christ’s coming, the Advent of Christ.

Advent signals the coming of God towards us in a variety of ways: his coming as Judge and Saviour; his coming in Word and Sacrament; his coming as the Babe of Bethlehem and the Christ of Calvary; his coming in the flesh and in the many acts of kindness, random or otherwise, in human lives. Judgment is inescapably part and parcel of the Advent, whether that judgment is looked at from the standpoint of the endtime, a kind of final or last judgment, or as an ever-present judgment. Indeed, the two are very closely intertwined. For this ‘last judgment’, as it were, sounds a very strong and convicting note of judgment for all of us right now. A kind of moral imperative arises out of this apocalyptic vision.

The challenge has to do with how we have acted towards one another, towards all the forms of humanity in our midst and in the larger world from which we cannot escape. We are all very much members one of another in the so-called global village, though that is but a small part of what it means to be “members one of another in the body of Christ”, which is cosmic and universal, embracing the multitudes of generations before us. We are inescapably neighbours to everyone in the whole of our suffering world. The question is not, it seems to me, what can we do so much as what do we do? Something or nothing? And what are the principles which animate our actions? These are the questions which occupy our imaginations, whether globally, as in Copenhagen this week, or locally, in our daily lives here in Windsor.

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“Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”

We have come full circle, it may seem. Today’s Gospel ends with where we began on The Sunday Next Before Advent. In a way, Advent captures the whole of our lives in faith.

It signals the coming of God towards us. That is the first note. It signals as well the heightened awareness on our part about the coming of God towards us. That is the second note. Advent is simply and entirely holy waiting and holy watching – our watching and our waiting upon God, upon the God who comes to us with grace and salvation, with healing and forgiveness. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” John the Baptist says in today’s Gospel.

Such is our beginning and our ending to which this week of the darkest night would bring us. It would bring us to Christ, the Lamb of God, the Word and Son of the Father who comes to us as the Son of Mary, the Word made flesh, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world whose birth marks the beginning of the way of sacrificial love. He is the light of the world in every sense.

We can only watch and wait. It is the hardest thing for us, I fear, and yet, as always, the hardest things are the things most worth doing. We watch and wait upon God. There is our heightened awareness, our heightened expectancy – all of which are concentrated for us on this day.

But what makes this watching and waiting so hard? Because it is a watching and a waiting upon God. Without that all our advent preparations for Christmas are but tinsel and wrap, sounding brass and clanging cymbal, empty show and vain illusion. We so easily get lost in the busyness of our Christmas preparations. We are, I am afraid, simply too much with ourselves and not enough with God.

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“This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”

He is a prophet and yet more than a prophet for he stands on the brink of the fulfillment of all prophecy and yet he, too, is a figure in the darkness of Advent. “Art thou he that should come or do we look for another?” Such is the question of John the Baptist to Jesus about Jesus.

A question that he asks from prison, it reminds us that the wilderness of human pride and presumption is greater than the wilderness of Judaea. He is in prison, Matthew later explains, because he had the temerity to upbraid Herod the tetrarch, one of the Roman rulers, for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias. Though Herod wanted to put John to death, he “feared the people,” and instead kept him in prison. But on Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias, unnamed in the Gospels but named by the Jewish historian, Josephus, as Salome, danced before her uncle and step-father so pleasingly that he “promised to give her whatever she might ask”. At her mother, Herodias’ prompting, she asked for “the head of John the Baptist on a platter”, which request Herod reluctantly granted to her on account of his promise. And so John was beheaded. There is a cost when truth speaks to power.

The scene has captured the imagination of artists, poets, playwrights and musicians. The fuller story gives added poignancy to Jesus’ remarks about John the Baptist. He is the forerunner of Jesus not only by his birth and ministry but also by his witness and death. In every way, he is the messenger sent to prepare the way of Christ. And his ministry becomes an essential feature of the Church’s ministry, signalled so clearly in Paul’s first Letter to the Corinthians and captured so beautifully in the Collect. “Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries” – referring to the mysteries of Christ – “may likewise” – after the example of John the Baptist, that is to say – “so prepare and make ready thy way.” How? “By turning the hearts of the disobedient,” my heart and yours, “to the wisdom of the just.” Tough, uncompromising stuff! And yet, it belongs precisely to the deep joys of the Advent preparation for Christmas.

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“My words shall not pass away”

What strong and disturbing words do we hear in this morning’s gospel! Almost as bad as the evening news or the weather report! “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring.” Nothing really new about that – same old, same old – other than being far more eloquent than, perhaps, either the news or the weather!

And yet, it must surely give us pause, “men’s hearts failing them for fear”, anxious and worried on account of “looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” There is a profoundly cosmic quality to these Scriptural warning notes which signal the Advent theme of judgment at once coming to us and ever present.

But exactly how, to use Cranmer’s words in his marvellous collect for this Sunday, do such disturbing warnings about judgment provide us with “patience and comfort of thy holy Word”, let alone “hope”? And yet that is precisely Jesus’ claim here. “My words shall not pass away.”

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“And when he was come into Jerusalem all the city was moved
saying, Who is this?”

Who is this? Indeed. For more than a thousand years, St. Matthew’s story of Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem has been read on The First Sunday in Advent. And for more than a thousand years that reading ended with the question and answer: “Who is this? … This is Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” It was in the sixteenth century that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer included the continuation of the story with Christ’s cleansing of the temple. Why?

Advent is the season of questions, it seems to me, questions which illuminate this season as the season of teaching. We are being taught by God’s Word shining like a light and a lantern into the darkness of our world and day. Questions, it seems to me, are an essential aspect of the teaching. Advent simply abounds with questions, questions upon questions that reach a crescendo of questioning on The Fourth Sunday in Advent. In a way, the questions of Advent recall us to the great questions that belong to the story of creation and redemption. Just consider.

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“Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them …” These familiar words belong to the Collect which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer composed for The Second Sunday in Advent (BCP, p. 97). Taken from the Scriptures, in this case Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the prayer captures an entire pattern of theological understanding that is at once formative and foundational for Anglican doctrine and devotion. Diarmaid MacCulloch, commenting on Gerlach Flicke’s 1545 portrait of Cranmer, which depicts him holding The Epistles of Paul but also with Augustine’s book De Fide et Operibus (“Of Faith and Works”), suggests that this signals Cranmer’s theological enterprise, namely, the recovery of the Scriptures understood through the best of the Fathers, principally Augustine.

The creedal or doctrinal understanding of the Scriptures is a distinctive feature of the Anglican Common Prayer tradition. The rich interplay of Scripture and Creed(s), for example, shapes the worship and liturgy of the Church. The Articles of Religion and the ordination vows of the clergy testify to the centrality of the Scriptures for the teaching and praying life of the Church and express a remarkably sophisticated approach to the reading of the Scriptures in the life of the Church. We place ourselves under the authority of God’s Word Written. But that means that we have to think the Scriptures. “What do the Scriptures say?” (Romans 10.8). Or, as Christ asks, “how do you read?” (Lk.10.26). There is a necessary engagement between God and our humanity through the witness of the Scriptures. Revelation is mediation and requires the fullest engagement of our minds with what the Scriptures proclaim.

The reformed principle of sola scriptura, “scripture alone”, admits of a range of applications but its most basic sense for Anglicans is the primacy of Scripture in determining doctrine, devotion and discipline. “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proven thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith,” as Article VI puts it. The same idea is required of the teaching of the clergy stated in their ordination vows. What are the things “necessary to salvation”? Those things which belong to the articles of the Faith; in short, the Creeds, which are the distillation of the Scriptures, and which speak to the nature of our spiritual identity with God in his self-relation as Trinity and in his relation to us as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Creedal and doctrinal principles exercise more than a merely formal role; they exercise a formative role in the life of the Church. They should have a definitive voice in the debates and issues of the day.

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“Thou art the man!”

Advent is the season of Revelation. It reminds us that Scripture, as the revealed Word of God, reveals something about our selves and something about God. “Thou art the man”, Nathan says. What does it mean? The story of David and Nathan suggests the interplay of two metaphors of understanding that belong to a theology of revelation. Scripture, we might say, is both a mirror and a window: a mirror in which we are allowed to see the truth of ourselves and a window through which we are privileged to glimpse something of the glory of God. A mirror and a window.

The story of David is not only one of the great narrative sequences in the Scriptures; it is also, as the poet and preacher John Donne suggests, the story of Everyman. “His Person includes all states, between a shepherd and a King”, a poet and a warrior, too, we might add, one who sings and one who acts. In a way, David epitomises the whole of Israel and by extension the whole of humanity. That is partly why the Davidic lineage of Jesus is so important in the New Testament. But David epitomises the whole of Israel and the whole of our humanity, not only in its truth but also in its untruth. “His sinne includes all sinne”, Donne remarks, “we need no other Example to discover to us the slippery wayes into sin, or the penitential wayes out of sin, than …. David”.

We do not have windows into one another’s souls, as that wise woman theologian, Queen Elizabeth the First, observed long ago. We hardly know ourselves. Those prerogatives belong to God and to God alone. “The Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart”, it is famously said. It is actually said about David. In the story of David we are given to see the heart of David which God sees and in it we are given to see something about ourselves. In the story of David we are given to see the mirror in which David confronts himself in his sinfulness and the window through which he sees God in his chastening mercy. The mirror which Nathan holds up is the parable which he tells the King, the parable which challenges and convicts. What has David done? Well, everything and more.

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