Christ Church

“He beheld the city, and wept over it”

“Jesus wept,” in sorrow for his friend, Lazarus, John tells us in his Gospel (Jn. 11. 35). It is sometimes said to be the shortest verse in the Scriptures and a phrase used colloquially to express a sense of sorrow and regret at something particularly sad and unfortunate. Here Luke, the Church’s spiritual director especially in the Trinity season, tells us about Jesus coming near and beholding the city of Jerusalem and weeping over it. Why does Jesus weep?

“Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation,” Jesus says. We are ignorant, it seems, “concerning spiritual gifts,” as Paul puts it in the Epistle and thus to the nature of our lives in community and in communion with God and with one another. What follows is equally important: the difficult scene of Christ’s cleansing of the temple, “cast[ing[ out them that sold therein and them that bought,” upbraiding them and us for the misuse of the house of prayer, “mak[ing[ it a den of thieves.” Why? So as to re-establish its proper use. “And he taught daily in the temple.” Prayer and teaching go together; they are about the pilgrimage of our souls into the knowing love of God for us, our itinerarium mentis ad deum, “The Journey of The Mind to God,” in Bonaventure’s famous treatise by that name. “Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,/God’s breath in man returning to his birth,/ the soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,” Herbert says in a wonderful collection of images drawn from scripture, from nature, from domestic life, from the exotic and the intimate but ultimately summed up as “something understood.” Prayer is “something understood”.

We know the story of Christ’s cleansing of the Temple because it is set before us in Matthew’s Gospel on the First Sunday of Advent and, of course, on Palm Sunday. But in both it has to do more with the troubling theme of the wrath or anger of Christ. Here it seems, it is more about the sorrow and sadness of Christ. Jesus weeps for us at what we have not learned or for what we have ignored despite its being present to us because God “hath visited, and redeemed his people” (Benedictus, BCP, p.9). We know but do not know.

The concept of visitation here is spiritually significant. It has very much to do with what God wants us to know, with what belongs to the good of our humanity over and against the things which diminish and destroy us. In the providence of God we are meant to be looking for the things of God, to find “the good in everything,” as Shakespeare puts it (As You Like It), “books in the running brooks, sermons in stone;” in short, reading the providence of God in our lives. It means being recalled to who we are in God, to “know even as also [we] are known” (1 Cor. 13.12). That is an essential aspect of our summer journeyings in the land of the Trinity.

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“Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God”

Perhaps you recognise this text, or perhaps not! Most of you enter Christ Church through the ramp entrance at the back though all of you, at some time or another, have entered through the main door into the narthex of the Church. And just perhaps (and not without a wee bit of irony), you may have looked up and noted the inscription above the second doors leading into Church itself. “ Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God.” You may not have noticed them, of course, because you may have been looking down rather than up!

But here we have yet another example of the dangers of being too literal. The text is taken from the most philosophical of all of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament, Ecclesiastes (5.1). What it means, I think, is fairly clear, especially because of the continuation of the passage: “be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools.” What it means is to enter into this holy place and this holy service intentionally and thoughtfully; in short, being attentive to the purpose of place and event. Okay, you might think. That’s interesting but what does it have to do with today’s readings, particularly this rather challenging Gospel story about the unrighteous steward? Or is this just a way of avoiding these readings?!

Well, no. The text complements, I think, these readings. Paul would not “that ye should be ignorant” and goes on to speak about what we should know and do, themes captured in the Collect. It is very much akin to what we have in the Gospel where the unrighteous steward having been called to account by his master and who is being fired, undertakes certain actions which are certainly unjust with respect to his master’s property, essentially defrauding him after having dissipated or wasted his master’s goods; and yet, he is praised by his master. Why? Not because of his unrighteousness but “because he acted with prudence.”

This is the key insight of the parable. Jesus uses the example of the unrighteous steward to point out a lack of wisdom or prudence in us; “for the children of this age are in their generation more prudent than the children of light.” Prudence is what matters. Prudence is practical wisdom, “deliberating rightly about what is good and advantageous for himself,” Aristotle says, though not in particular or merely physical respects such as “health and strength,” but in relation to “what is conducive to the good life generally”.

Jesus is telling us that we need to be more attentive and prudent with respect to the ultimate end or purpose of our lives, which is our life as ordered to God which means using the things of the world in relation to our end with God. Thus the Epistle reading ends on an explicitly sacramental note: “the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” This sacramental understanding is about how the things of the world are transformed into the vehicles of grace. We are meant to be prudent with respect to our life in Christ.

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