Easter 3: The Importance of Meals and Forgiveness

Readings: 

Acts 3:12-19 1 

John 3:1-7 

Luke24: 36b-48 

When I first looked at the gospel reading for this morning I was imagining the scene in my mind and it started to seem to me to have a bit of comedy about it. To set some context, the disciples from the road to Emmaus have just rushed back to Jerusalem. They have met up with some other disciples and are regaling them with the strange and wondrous tale of their encounter with the risen Jesus. Then suddenly up pops Jesus in the middle Hi guys, peace be with you! The disciples all seem to lose their heads and start screaming and shouting it’s a ghost (to be fair I think I might have reacted like that too.) Jesus manages to calm them all done and persuade them that it is really him. They then all stand about in joyful disbelief gazing at him in awe and wonder, also I think a perfectly natural reaction, Jesus, who hasn’t had a lot to eat for the past three days and is I assume starting to feel a bit peckish asks errm any chance of some food. In my imagination the scene then ends with Jesus and the disciples sharing a meal whilst Jesus inspires them and explains everything to them, again.

Luke sets a lot of Jesus’s teaching around meals, There are 19 meals in Luke, and they are used as settings for teaching,fellowship and celebration, healing and hospitality, forgiveness and reconciliation, and prophetic confrontation. Here we have been known as the church that loves to eat. 

Sharing meals can be a really great way to get to know one another and grow in our relationship as a community. They can be an opportunity to exchange ideas, we don’t and won’t always agree with each other, but somehow I feel it can be easier to discuss our different views without getting into a full blown argument if food is involved. 

Every Sunday we share in bread and wine, body and blood together at the mass. We all share in the one bread because we are one body, even if we might disagree on politics, or what the best hymn is, or which hymn we should never sing. Somehow, in the sharing of bread and wine, food and drink we are all drawn together as one, sharing as one body in the one bread, despite our differences. We are called to share in this meal by God the father because we are all children of God, and he calls and values us each as we are. 

When administering the chalice to someone I may have had a recent disagreement or argument with, I have often felt a sense of being pulled back together with that person through the shared chalice, the shared blood of Christ which redeems us both. 

 In John’s letter he calls us Children of God, and that is what we all are. However, like all families the children of God can have their arguments, their disagreements. This leads to fractured relationships within the family of God and the world. At the end of the gospel Jesus tells the disciples to go and declare forgiveness to all the nations. 

Forgiveness is one of those things that I think sounds nice and we should definitely do, but when you really start to look at it in depth and even try and do it, it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. I mean the small things are easy, if you accidentally step on my toe, that’s easy to forgive. If you eat my last bit of chocolate that might be a bit more difficult! And if you say or do something that causes me to feel hurt that can be very difficult. 

The problem is that whilst wrong actions might deserve a just punishment if we don’t forgive we can go on trying to punish that person or that group of people beyond what is just, until they start to punish us in return and so begins a cycle of violence, such as we see in the Holy Land and other places today. 

 John talks about sin being lawlessness. I think what he is getting at is the concept of God’s law, if we live within God’s law and that includes forgiving each other then we may find a peaceful way to live. But living in a way that breaks the laws God gives us can lead to a cycle of violence and community breakdown. 

As a church and as a community we can model to the world a different way of living. In a world that seems to be becoming ever more polarised and where a mentality is developing that if you don’t think like I do, I can’t possibly like you, we can give a glimpse of what a different kingdom, the kingdom of God might look like. To do this isn’t easy and we won’t always manage it, we may be children of God but we are still only fallible humans. 

However there are things that we can do that can help us. The first and possibly most difficult is to look at ourselves and see what we might need to ask forgiveness for. I know this is not something I find easy, I don't want to see myself as the bad person, but the reality is that I can and will do things that hurt others. 

We also need to nurture and grow our relationship with God, through prayer and receiving the sacraments. As well as relationship with God we need to form and grow relationships with each other. Next week after our 90th anniversary service we are having a bring and share lunch and I hope this will provide opportunities to help our relationships with each other grow and deepen. 

 If we do these things then we may indeed be able to follow Jesus command to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations and people may see something in us that leads them to listen and respond. We are to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins, repenting of our own sins can be difficult, so can forgiving those that have sinned against us but through receiving the body and blood of Christ in the mass we can be helped to achieve this. Through shared meals we can grow as a community and model what living in a way that takes repentance and forgiveness seriously means.

Easter 2024 An Impossible Truth

May I speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Christ is risen

He is risen indeed, Alleluia

 But is he really? People don’t  just rise from the dead, It’s impossible, yet this impossible truth is at the very heart of our faith, without it everything else falls apart. 

C S Lewis wrote that if Christianity is false it is of no importance but if it is true it is of infinite importance. 

So, can it be true? 

Let’s take a look at some evidence. Our gospel reading this morning features our very own patron saint, Mary Magdalen apostle to the apostles and the first witness to the resurrection. 

Hang on, this is the first century Roman Empire. A woman cannot be a reliable witness, that’s what the law says, her evidence wouldn’t be acceptable in court. 

If you want to convince people what you are saying is true, why do all four gospel writers have an unreliable woman as their first witness?  You wouldn’t write it like that, except, just maybe you would, because it’s the impossible truth.

Lets have a look at the rest of the apostles. On that first Easter day they are all hiding behind locked doors, too scared to go out, clearly believing Jesus is dead. 

Yet as we hear in the next few weeks, something changes for them. In forty days time at Pentecost they will be on the streets preaching the risen Christ, even at the risk of torture and death, and many of them will face torture and death for their belief in the risen Christ. What a massive, impossible change in attitude, unless the impossible is true. 

When Mary Magdalen first arrives at the tomb, she notices that the tomb was open. Archaeological evidence suggests that a typical tomb would have had a slope down to the entrance with a grove down which the stone disc to seal the entrance could easily be moved. 

It would be a lot more difficult to move the stone disc up the slope away from the entrance. We are also told that the linen wrappings from the body were still inside the tomb. 

Now some people have suggested that the body was moved by other people, but why would you go to all that effort to move the stone, then unwrap the dead and messy body before moving it? 

And if someone had moved the body, why did no one find it  and bring it out as evidence to stop this crazy new belief spreading? Or maybe the impossible is true and the tomb was empty because Jesus rose and a risen body doesn't need the grave clothes, so he left then behind.

I have one final piece of evidence for the impossible truth. In first century Judah there were quite a few itinerant preachers, going around claiming to perform miracles, even possibly claiming to be the messiah. 

Some may even have been crucified if the Romans thought they were a threat to the state. Yet 2000 years later, only one is not only remembered, but known around the world, why? Because of the impossible truth that he died and unlike the others rose again.

So we can believe in an impossible truth, but why is it needed in the first place?

The first Easter marked a crisis for the world. A crisis is a pivot point, where things could go one way or another, think about how we talk about the crisis point of an illness. The moment where the patient turns onto the path to recovery or not. 

A crisis is an event not a process, the decisive moment when something could go  either way. Easter marks a decisive moment for the world. 

Either the devil will win, and we are all doomed or  humanity will be redeemed, the mistakes of the garden of Eden will be reversed and we will be saved. 

The Whole future of humanity is at stake.  

Like a seed that has to be buried before it can bring forth new life, Christ has been buried but risen to new life. Because Christ is raised to new life, we can all be raised to new life. 

If Christ isn’t God and doesn’t rise again we are all doomed.  Through the cross and resurrection the world can be transformed, pushed onto a new life giving path and we can be transformed as well. 

Easter can be a chance to renew our faith, to bring fresh hope to ourselves and the world. As Liverpool football fans sing, we can walk on with hope in our heart.

The famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, once commented, that when you have eliminated all other options whatever remains however impossible must be true. The impossible is true, we have hope, the world is renewed, 

Christ Is risen! 

He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

Transfiguration and St. Cademon

11/02/2024 – Sunday before Lent Readings

 2 Kings 2 1-12 2 Corinthians 4 3-6 Mark 9 2-9 

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

Today’s gospel reading is the somewhat odd story of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes three of his disciples of from the rest for a walk up a high mountain. At the top Jesus suddenly turns blazing white, whiter than even Daz will get your laundry. Next Moses and Elijah appear and Jesus has a chat with them. Then there is a voice from heaven declaring this is my son, the beloved, listen to him. Not surprisingly the disciples are terrified. 

So, what is going on here? Moses and Elijah are perhaps two of the most important prophets of the Old Testament, and between then represent both the prophets and the law. Here, they are bearing witness to who Christ is, the greatest prophet of them all, the fulfillment of the law, the Son of God. The transfiguration reveals, beyond doubt, his true identity. 

We have just finished the season of epiphany, and here we have one final reminder of exactly who Jesus is as we turn to face the cross and begin our Lenten journey. 

 Today, is also the feast day of one of the lesser known English saints, St Cademon and his story is also one that can be seen as a form of transfiguration that allows the glory of God to be shown. 

Cademon lived in the second half of the seventh century. He was a cowheard that worked caring for animals at Whitby abbey, which at the time was under the leadership of St. Hilda. One night after the days work there was some music and singing taking place, but Cademon feeling that he had no musical ability and couldn’t sing or offer any poetry crept away to settle down with his animals for the night. Cademon went to sleep and whilst he slept he dreamt that someone approached him and asked him to sing a song about the beginning of created things. At first he refused but then he sang a short poem praising God as the creator. Now, I normally forget most of my dreams as soon as I wake up, but Cademon the next morning could still remember the song he had created, and even added to it. He told his foreman about this strange dream and the new ability to compose songs and poetry that he now seemed to have. His foreman promptly sent him to see Abbess Hilda. 

The abbess and her advisers questioned Cademon and then set him a test to see if this really was a gift from god. He was to produce a new poem based on sacred scripture or doctrine. Caedmon came back the next day with a new composition and Hilda asked him to take monastic vows and gave orders that he was to be taught sacred history and doctrine. Each day Cademon would turn what he had learnt into poetry in his native old english tongue. According to the historian Bede “by his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world and to aspire to heaven.” Like the transfigured Jesus, Cademon was also showing the reality of who Jesus was to the people around him. 

Wednesday sees the start of lent, as Fr Edward has spoken about in previous sermons it can be a time to think about trying a new religious activity, a new way of praying or spending more time reading the bible, fasting or confession. Whilst these things may be good for our own spiritual lives may they also lead to other things? 

When I first started to think about this sermon the line from The hymn Love Divine, all loves excelling, that talks about us changing from glory into glory, kept coming into my mind. If by deepening our own relationship with God, can that impact on how others see us? 

In the second letter to the Corinthians Paul talks about how the God of this age has blinded people so they can’t see the glory of God. What things might be blinding people today so that they cannot see the glory of God? The idea that we are rational human beings who don’t need any sort of deity to guide us? Look at the world around us, that's working out so well… or not. 

Social media and TV shows tell us that the path to true happiness is about looking or acting a certain way, except as fashions change the path is never ending and can instead lead to people feeling as if they have somehow failed if they don’t have the latest whatever the latest thing is, or the ability to look a certain way. I know I often look at clothes and think that looks great on a skinny model, it’ll probably look terrible on me. 

Wellness retreats promise that we can find ourselves if only we pay them a large amount of money for someone to help us do so. St Augustine on the other hand said “our heart is restless until it rests in you.” True peace, truly knowing who we are and true wellness can only come from our relationship with God. So as we approach Ash Wednesday I have a question for us how can we seek to be transfigured this lent and better show God’s glory to the world and show people the true path to inner peace in relationship with God? Amen