Advent 2: Some Thoughts on Prophets and Prophecy

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-11 2 Peter 3: 8-15 Mark 1:1-8 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

 Later this morning we will be singing the words, Long ago, prophets knew, Christ would come, born a Jew. But did they really know? Is prophecy just about foretelling the future, I prophesy I will have a cup of coffee after this service! Well, prophecy is not always just about predicting the future. Prophecy in the bible can be seen as falling into two categories, the prophesy that seems to predict the future and the prophesy that takes the form of speaking truth to power. 

As anyone who has read Harry Potter will know, understanding prophecy can be a tricky thing. We can read into the words what we expect to find there, which may not be how the original speaker or listeners would have understood the words. The words we heard from Isaiah this morning, have often been linked to Jesus, as the coming Lord who will make paths straight. However in Judaism prophecy is seen more as God declaring his current concerns to his people. The listeners at the time , might have interpreted it as referring to the coming of, the Persian King Cyrus who, when he defeated the Babylonians, allowed the Jews to return, from captivity in Babylon to their homeland. 

Down the centuries Jews and Christians when facing terror or hardship have reapplied these words to their own situation, situations the original writer could never have conceived off. 

Biblical prophecy shouldn’t be seen as prophecy in the fortune telling mystic meg sense of the word. We would maybe like to know what the future holds for us , as long as it is good, we may be less willing to know if it is bad. 

The problem with reading prophecy as fortune telling is that it can’t be true because the future is determined by our actions now, by choices that we are free to make. When we try to follow prophecy in a fortune telling way, we become enslaved to it and lose the freedom God gives us to choose our own path. 

What the prophets like Isaiah did do was give people, people that may feel they are waiting in the darkness, hope. It can still offer that hope today even as this advent the world around us may feel in a dark place. There is that hope that the light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not in the end overcome. 

Prophets of course aren’t just in the Old Testament. Mark starts his gospel by quoting our friend Isaiah, but then introduces a new prophet, a prophet of the New testament, John the Baptist. John is perhaps more the second type of prophet, who speaks truth to power. He goes around in his wild way, telling people look here is the truth. He dares to speak the truth to those in power, and loses his head for it. Whilst I hope we will not all be called to lose our heads like John, maybe we do need to have a little bit of John the Baptist in us. 

To call out those, anybody, but maybe especially those in positions of power or influence who do not stick to their promises. Those who present information in a misleading way in order to stir up hated and violence towards others. We need to show people there is a better way. It can be very easy in the heat of the moment when our emotions have been stirred up, by a post on social media to quickly hit the re post button, without checking the source of the information, and the message the original poster is trying to put across. 

Video and audio clips can be edited, to put across a certain viewpoint, that may not accurately reflect reality. We should pause before hitting the re-post button, check the source and if something is misinformation, then maybe still post about it, but point out the problem. 

Be like John the Baptist.

 Advent is also a time of waiting, and it can seem like we have been waiting a long time, over two thousand years. After waiting this long it can be easy to give up, to drift away, from living as God intends us to. Peter, in his letter today, reminds us that how we see time and how God sees time may not be the same. God is not slow, he just wants to give everyone time to find the right way. Some people might need help to find that way, and that is where we come in. Peter calls us to live lives of holiness and godliness whilst we wait for the coming of God. To be lights in the darkness ,and lead others to the hope and promise of God, through the prophetic way we live our lives as children of God. 

So, how should we interpret prophecy today? Well we can use the writings of the biblical prophets to comfort and to challenge us to repentance and a turning to a better way. The prophets are also though, calling us to follow their lead, to comfort where comfort is needed but also to challenge and live in a way that speaks of God. 

At this time of year church life can feel as if it’s operating on a different time zone to the rest of life. We are here in Advent waiting and thinking of prophets, of calls to repentance. The rest of the world out there, has already got their Christmas tree up and is eating mince pies. By the New Year, they will be pulling everything down, saying Christmas is over, our celebration of Christmas will still be going on. This can in itself be a prophetic act, a way of saying to people, look there is more to this than parties and turkey and presents, something which is deeper and longer lasting than a bit of tinsel on a tree. Come and see, come and hear the deeper truth and find the deeper joy, and we like the prophets of old must have the courage to speak out and deliver the message. Amen

Sermon for 8th October 2023

Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7 Philippians 3 4b-14 Matthew 21 33-end .

 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 Well, Isaiah seems a bit moody this morning. He starts of in a good mood. He tells us how God built the best, the most perfect vineyard. The owner of the vineyard has lavished it with love and attention. He found a good position on the hillside with good soil, he cleared out the stones, choose the best vines and built watch towers to guard over them. He built a good wine press ready to make the most perfect, delicious bottle of wine, mmmm, my mouth is starting to water just thinking about it. 

 Then comes the time for the harvest and want a disappointment. The grapes are rotten they smell awful and taste even worse. Why? Asks Isaiah why, when I did everything I could and gave the vines the perfect conditions to grow and produce good fruit, why have they produced this horrible, poisonous mess?

 Not surprisingly, Isaiah feels a bit annoyed with the vineyard and threatens to undo all his hard work and destroy it. He won’t care for it anymore, he will knock down the walls so any one that wants to can trample on his vines, wild animals can dig them up and destroy them. 

The people listening to Isaiah must have bee wondering where he was going. Isaiah doesn’t hold back, you he says, you are the bad vines. God gave you everything you needed to build a community where justice and righteousness were seen as the normal way of life and instead there is injustice and blood shed. The people have failed to live according to God plan and disaster is the result.

 Now, it’s would be quite easy and comforting to think Isaiah was written for the Israelites and they are about to get their punishment in the form of exile to Babylon. We’re not really a bad as the Israelites are we?

 A few hundred years or so later and we have another man preaching to a group of people on a hillside in Israel, and his teaching starts in a similar way. There is a vineyard, a good vineyard like the previous one and it also has defenses to protect it from damage. This vineyard however is been looked after by tenants whilst the owner is absent. It can take 2-3 years before the vines will start to produce a good crop of grapes. So, the tenants had possibly been living and working there for a few years without needing to pay. Then the owner suddenly decides the grapes should be producing a good harvest now, he wants his return. 

He sends his slaves to collect the payment due and the tenants decide they don’t want to pay and beat up and kill at least one of the slaves sent to collect payment. The owner sends some more slaves, the same thing happens. So then the owner sends his son. Now the tenants seem to lose all common sense at this point. I am not an expert in first century law, but I suspect that killing the son of your landlord is in no way going to lead to you inheriting any property, but the tenants seem to think that it will and kill the son. 

Now with the two thousand plus years of hindsight that we have, the meaning of this parable can seem fairly obvious. The vineyard is the earth, the pharisees are the tenants and the Son is Jesus. 

The pharisees clearly did not see it that way as when asked what the punishment for the tenants should be they suggest putting them to death and giving the vineyard to new tenants. Jesus makes it clear to them that they have got it wrong, and that they are the ones that are to lose. He then goes on to quote the psalms saying the one they have rejected will become the cornerstone, that is the one stone that is vital to hold everything else up. 

So where does all this talk of vineyards leave us? I would like it if it left us with a bottle or two of good wine, but I’m not sure that it does. If we are the vines in the vineyard, what is the fruit we are producing? A quick glance at the news headlines suggest that justice, righteousness and peace are not on the list. 

Closer to home there has been a thread on twitter this week which has called for people to be thrown out of the church for not agreeing with a certain theological viewpoint. I may not agree with the viewpoint in question but I can know, work with and respect those hold a different view. 

It could be argued that one of the greatest strengths and one of the greatest weaknesses of the Church of England is the variety of views that we try to hold in one organization. This however does also give us the chance to model to the world how we can live in peace and even respect those we may disagree with on some issues. 

However this can be easier said than done. It is so easy to be sure that we are right, they are wrong and they should change to agree with us and if not we must fight against them. St Paul in our reading from Philippians today admits that he might have been a bit like this. He was a zealous persecutor of the church, of those he disagreed with. Imagine what he would have been like on social media!

 But then he has his encounter with the risen Christ and suddenly, everything changes, the things it seemed important to be right on and to attack those who disagreed with you, their not important anymore. What is important is Christ, and knowing Christ. By knowing Christ and seeking to live like Christ righteousness will follow. 

However, Paul makes the point that this is an on going process. He isn’t there yet and neither are we. Faith is an on going journey and like all journeys it will have it’s ups and downs. There will be the times when life is good, it’s easy to be nice to everyone and following Christ can seem relatively straight forward. Then there are the times when life is a struggle, nothing seems to be going the way we went. We may be stressed, tired, in pain, feeling hurt physically and or emotionally. Then being nice to others, especially when they annoy us or we disagree with them is a lot harder, trying to attain the ideals of Christ can seem impossible. Paul knew this and writes words of encouragement to keep going, to press on towards the goal. 

This is where we as a church community come in, to support and encourage each other in the tough times, even though we might disagree on some things. If we are to support and encourage each other it means we have to be honest with each other. Most of us here are British and when asked how are you British people tend to answer along the lines, I’m fine, can’t complain and other such things, even when we are on the edge of collapse, struggling to cope with arms and legs falling off! Maybe we need a change of perspective, rather than seeing being honest and open as to how we really are as in some way admitting to failure or weakness, we should consider it an opportunity for others to help us and in doing so grow in their quest to become more Christ like and for us to grow closer as a community of faith and become vines that produce the good fruit that the world so desperately needs right now. 

Amen

Some thoughts on Corpus Christi

 Corpus Christi Sermon 2023

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Corpus Christi is the day when we think about the Eucharist, and for the preacher it is the day they have to try and explain what is going on with bread and wine turning into body and blood.

Now I did consider taking the easy way out and saying it's a holy mystery that we can never understand, amen, and sitting down. 

Whilst some of you might have preferred, that I was recently reminded that only around twenty percent of our communication is done using words. So I decided to take a look at what the actions in the Mass communicate about what we believe.

Firstly we have a rather long introduction of prayers, readings and hymns. This helps get us in the right frame of mind to engage with something holy, it gets us focused on God.

The prayer of confession and the absolution are key. It is saying that what is coming up is something holy and we need to be cleansed of our sin before we can receive it. 

The peace is also important in expressing that we are at peace with our neighbour. 

In Matthew's gospel Jesus says that if you bring a sacrifice to the altar and remember that you have fallen out with someone, go and be reconciled with that person first. 

What we are doing at the altar is such a holy act that we need to be in a state of holiness, reconciled with God and each other. Sharing the peace reminds us of this.

Then the action, moves from the body of the church to the altar. The altar is traditionally seen as the most holy place in the church. Many of the first altars were the tombs of the martyred saints. 

Whilst the body of the church may be used for secular activities such as fairs, markets, concerts etc the altar is kept only for the most holy of activities. 

So the movement of action from the body of the church to the altar is a way of saying get ready, we're getting to the really important bit now.

When the bread and wine, the gifts of the people, are brought to the altar from the back of church they are escorted by the candle bearers with lighted candles. 

Now, back in the day, there may have been a practical reason for this, So people could see where they were walking. However it also shows that these gifts are something important, something to be honoured.

Once the bread and wine are on the altar, they are censed with the incense, as they are about to be transformed from everyday bread and wine into the most holy sacrament of the body and blood. 

The people are also censed as we will also become changed and become holy through receiving the sacrament.

In the eucharistic prayer we remember God's saving actions and give thanks for them. There are two parts of the eucharistic prayer that are especially significant. These are indicated by the ringing of the bell to make sure we are all paying attention.

These are, firstly, at the epiclesis where the Holy spirit is called down upon the gifts of the people. 

The second time is at the words of institution, when the priest elevates the bread and the chalice for all to see.

This is also the point at which the priest will genuflect, indicating that bread and wine is now transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Extra censing is also done which indicates that this is now something special and holy.

When we come to receive communion we kneel, if able to, to show our acknowledgement that this is something special.

Tonight because we are especially celebrating the sacrament we will go further in our adoration. 

After receiving communion the sacrament will be processed around the church before being placed back on the altar and acting as a focus for a time of prayer. 

This procession can sometimes take place outside where it can also act as a way of witnessing about our faith to the wider community.

The procession of the sacrament allows us to show our respect and adoration for God, and our belief that he is in some way truly present in the sacrament. 

The short service of benediction that follows allows us to worship God and shows that we believe him to be really present in the sacrament, in a way that is different to how we sense his presence in our normal daily lives.

So whilst expressing what the real presence in the sacrament means in words can be quite hard, our worship helps us to express our belief in the real presence through our actions. 

Expressing our faith in this way can also be an important way of communicating with those who may not have the ability, for whatever reason, to understand the spoken word. 

Through the actions of our bodies, the use of movement, bells and incense to highlight important moments, all can gain some understanding of complex parts of our faith.

Amen

Why is it called Good Friday?

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Jesus said it is finished, but we all know with the benefit of hindsight, that there is an encore still to come. But what was Jesus doing while waiting for his final on stage appearance? If it really was finished, mission accomplished, you would think there would be a celebration dinner with the father and the spirit. 

There is a story on social media that a bishop once asked a group of children what they thought happened when Jesus died.  One child answered he went looking for his friend Judas.

Where would Jesus look for Judas, well in the apostles creed it states that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, he then descended to the dead. In Jewish belief the place of the dead was called Sheol. It was a place of torment because it was a place of complete separation from God. Man has separated himself from God by his actions. According to the gospel's Judas killed himself after Jesus' arrest. What man could be more separated from God than Judas? So Sheol the place of the dead, was where Jesus would have to look for Judas and it wasn't just Judas that was there. The souls of all the dead from Adam and Eve onwards would have been there, the good, the bad and the ugly.

One of the questions I have sometimes been asked about faith was what happens to people who died before Christ, they have never had the chance to know Christ so do they miss out on salvation? Christ's activity after death is what allows for their salvation. By descending into hell he carries salvation to all those that have been trapped there.

In orthodox iconography, icons for Easter often show Christ's descent into hell in order to lead the souls trapped there to freedom. In these icons the souls of the dead led by Adam and Eve are shown being led out of hell. Meanwhile satan is shown either crushed beneath the broken down gates of hell or chained up in his own fiery pit. 

So, Jesus' death on the cross allows him to descend into hell and let glory fill it and the souls of those who never had the chance to know Jesus can be redeemed and led to freedom and leave  Satan defeated.

However the harrowing of hell as it is called has further implications than just redeeming those already there who had never known Jesus. 

The child I quoted at the beginning said Jesus was looking for someone who had known him, his friend Judas. His friend who had also betrayed him. 

We are not Jesus, which means that at some point we also will all fail to act the way that Jesus would want us to and betray him. To an extent we are all Judas. However, The harrowing of hell tells us that Jesus will still keep looking for us in order to bring us to salvation despite our betrayals and failures. 

At the moment of Jesus's death in Matthew's  gospel account, the curtain in the temple was torn in two. The curtain was there to keep people out of the most holy place in the temple, the place that was seen as where God dwelt on earth. Only the most holy people, the priests could access God.  The splitting of the curtain changes that. Direct access to God is available for all, not restricted to the holy few. God no longer dwells in one specific place on earth. Rather he dwells within each of us. 

I have recently read the novel Grantchester, which is a prequel to the Grantchester novels that the TV show is based on about the crime solving vicar of Grantchester, Sidney Chambers. The novel opens with the 18th birthday celebrations of Sidney's best friend Robert. However within a few months they are in Italy fighting in the second world war. There is a priest attached to their regiment, Rev Nev as he is known. When asked how he manages to keep faith with the misery of the battlefield all around him he responds by saying Christ descended into hell, therefore Christ knows what suffering is. 

Whilst thankfully most of us have never had to fight in a war, we do all experience suffering of one sort or another. To be alive is to love and lose, to feel happiness but also pain and despair. Jesus has lived, suffered and died as a man. God is not some wonderful person sat on high who has never known what it is to feel hurt and pain and loss and despair. God in Jesus has known and felt all that and more for our sakes and so he can strengthen and support us to deal with it in our lives.

Why is it called Good Friday when the events are so bleak? Because by facing death and suffering Jesus brought about a new relationship between man and God.  It is the day when Satan thought he would celebrate victory dancing in the fires of hell and instead finds himself sitting in cold ashes and ruins.

Amen