Week 12 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Kings 25:1-12; Psalm 136 (137); Matthew 8:1-4

The destruction of Israel recounted in the first reading is comprehensive - everything is lost, destroyed or exiled: the leadership, the temple, the palace, the walls, the population, the army. The people of God, for whom these things were signs confirming God's presence and protection, God's special choice of them, is completely abandoned by God (so it seems) and is utterly powerless. The catastrophe is total and complete.

What are the implications for how they are to think now about God? Is God also impotent in this situation? Is God testing their faith in a way more severe than the way in which he tested the faith of Abraham? At least with Abraham God pulled back at the last minute. Is it because the people have sinned and God is angry that this disaster has come upon them? What depth of sin, what depth of anger, could have led to this?

The psalm is one of the most beautiful in the Bible, plaintive and poignant - sing to us, they said, one of Zion's songs. How could we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil, ask the people, when here we are sitting and weeping by the rivers of Babylon.

'The Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets' we say in the creed every Sunday, and the Spirit speaks more powerfully than anywhere else in what he inspires in the prophets of the Exile. Obliged to think things out again from the very beginning, the prophets of that time (Second Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel ...) saw that the faith of Israel obliged them to believe that God alone suffices . There is only one God, creator and lord of all. There is nowhere else to go. They have had human kings but it is the Lord who is their real king, the real guide and custodian of their lives. The loss of everything is a concrete way in which they were faced with the reality of their faith, its truth: do you really believe that God alone suffices?

Over and over again those of us who say 'Lord, Lord', and  who go on saying 'Lord, Lord', nevertheless continue to invest our hope and to find our security in things that are less than God. Again and again, therefore, we need to be weaned from our idols and learn to attach ourselves to God alone. Sometimes the experience is not so painful. Sometimes the experience is very painful indeed. Sometimes it dismantles us completely and is a kind of death.

The comprehensive disaster experienced by the people at the time of the Exile was experienced by individuals who contracted leprosy. The devastation of their personal, family and social life was as complete as the devastation of Jerusalem at the hands of the Assyrians. The very same questions arise in relation to that illness: Is God impotent? Is God angry? Is it a punishment for sin? For whose sin, my own, my family's, my ancestors? What is the state of my relationship with God now in this condition of leprosy? Is there any basis for hope? What sense would it have to hope in a God whose laws oblige me to be cast out in the way that I am? How can I learn what I need to learn about this, how am I to understand?

The leper in today's gospel gives us a lesson in humble prayer, coming straight from the heart of a needy person, piercing the clouds, and reaching directly to the throne of God's grace - 'if you want to, you can heal me'. To which Jesus reaches out and touches him - think of the power there is in that touch, reaching across the boundaries of loss, separation and exile, to restore the person not just to health but to family and to society. 'Of course I want to, be clean', is how the words of Jesus are sometimes translated. God alone suffices, the prayer of the humble person cannot fail to reach him, God is all tenderness and compassion so how could he not respond to the need of the person?

So we can make the leper's prayer our own, in whatever situations or circumstances we may find ourselves - 'if you want to, you can ...'. And the voice of Jesus will respond as quickly and as surely as he did to the leper - 'of course I want to, let it be ...' It is a revolutionary moment, an anticipation of the new dispensation being introduced by Jesus and of the new creation being inaugurated by him.

It does not mean that there will not be moments of loss, exile and death. It does not mean that there will not be moments in which we feel abandoned and cast aside. But even from the heart of such experiences - when we sit weeping by the rivers of whatever Babylon is our place of exile - even from there (especially from there) we must go on saying 'if you want to, you can ...'

Week 12 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Kings 24.8-17; Psalm 78/79; Matthew 7.21-29

The fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the excile of the people of Judah is a powerful illustration of what Jesus teaches in the gospel reading. A house built on sand will not stand in time of trouble.

The behaviour of the people and their unfaithfulness to the terms of the covenant had undermined the foundations of their relationship with God. People might continue to use the proper words, to call out 'Lord, Lord' in their prayers and devotions. But where is their heart, for that is where their real treasure is.

Even to. be the Mother of the Messiah, we are told elsewhere in the gospels, does not measure up to the condition of a person who hears the Word of God and acts on it (Matthew 12.50). Of course Mary had done that. Jesus is saying that this is how she built her house on rock, not simply by being the recipient of particular privileges of grace but  'blessed rather for being one who heard the Word of God and acted on it' (Luke 11.27-28). This is what it means to be great in the kingdom of Christ: not just hearing, not just believing what is heard, but actively putting it into practice.

The people are deeply impressed by the teaching of Jesus. He teaches with authority, knows what he is talking about. But even to reach that point is not yet where he wants his disciples to be. To be impressed by his teaching might be just another way of saying 'Lord, Lord'. What is needed is action. The compassion and inspiration generated. in us by Jesus's words and example must find their way from our guts to our heart and on to our hands. That is if we want to build our house on rock.

What Jesus teaches here is mirrored by Saint Paul in his great hymn to love (1 Corinthians 13). You may prophesy in my name, you may cast out demons in my name, you may work many miracles in my name but ... but what? If you are without love, Paul conclude it is all worth nothing. If you do not hear my words and act on them it is all to no avail.

Jesus taught with authority, not just for the knowledge he showed and the truth in his teaching but also because his teaching reached to the root, the foundation of a human life. It was authoritative because it was radical in this sense. What is your intention in how you live? What is your motivation? And do your intentions find their fulfilment in action? Is your being impressed by the teaching of Jesus such that you have the capacity not just to hear it and to approve but to act on what you hear, to allow it to form your thoughts, determine your words, and guide your actions? Do you have in you the love you need if your house is to be built on rock?

Birthday of John the Baptist - 24 June

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-6; Ps 139; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80

According to the gospel of Luke the annunciation to Mary took place ‘in the sixth month’ of the pregnancy of Elizabeth (Luke 1.26). So their two boys, John the Baptist and Jesus, are taken to have been born six months apart. We celebrate the birthday of Jesus on 25 December and so, by a certain kind of literal logic, we celebrate the birthday of John the Baptist on 24 June. (Why a day’s difference though?)

Of course we have no idea when either child was born. In the early Christian centuries the celebration of the birth of Christ came to replace the pagan celebration of the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year sees the sun turn around and begin its ascent northwards. The festival of ‘sol invictus’, the unconquered sun, was replaced in Christendom with the festival of the birth of ‘sol iustitiae’, the sun of justice, Christ the Lord.

It means also that the birthday of John the Baptist coincides, more or less, with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.  Celebrations of Saint John’s Night owe something to the natural instinct to mark these turning points in the earth’s year. Older pagan celebrations were baptised by Christianity, taken over and given a new meaning. Already in the Bible the Jewish festivals are combined celebrations of the events of salvation history and the seasonal changes of the year, sowing and springtime and harvest.

Can we take something, then, from the fact that we celebrate John’s birth at midsummer? At a time when the light in the northern hemisphere is at its strongest and brightest we celebrate the birth of one who ‘was not himself the light but came as a witness to the light’ (John 1.8). Just as the intense light of dawn can be confused with that of sunset, it was not immediately clear whether John might not be the light promised by God. Some of his followers and some of the Jewish leaders wondered whether John might be the Messiah.

But he is clear that there is someone greater coming after him, one of his own followers, one baptised by him and that this one is ‘the true light who was coming into the world’ (John 1.9). John is a ‘herald’ who announces the arrival of someone more important than himself and he points out Jesus to his disciples, recognising him as ‘the lamb of God’ (John 1.36). We see John, in the gospels, making Jesus known, pointing him out and sending others to him.

Jesus in turn says that John the Baptist is the greatest of human beings. There is no prophet as great as he is. John is so totally given to his mission that he is called simply ‘a voice’, crying in the wilderness, calling God’s people to repent, return and prepare for the coming of the Lord. Like all the prophets John excites opposition and criticism. Eventually he will be executed at the command of Herod but before that the religious leaders had campaigned against him, accusing him of being possessed by demons (Matthew 11.18). As well as being the voice of prophetic consolation, this new Elijah is a ‘troubler of Israel’ as much as he is her comforter.

The light that shines from John the Baptist is the grace and holiness of God’s people of the old covenant. Among all those just men and women who looked forward to the deliverance of Israel, John stands at the head. He straddles two epochs in the history of God’s relationship with human beings because the preaching of the Christian gospel begins with the preaching of John the Baptist. When John appeared in the wilderness, what Saint Paul calls ‘the fullness of time’ (Galatians 4.4; Ephesians 1.10) had arrived.

From now on the days will shorten and the sun decline in the northern hemisphere. But it remains midsummer in God’s relationship with his people. Winter is over and summer has come. Sin and death have been conquered by the one to whom John points. Christ our Saviour is always with us, shining even in the darkness. This is midsummer indeed, to see ‘the light of the glory of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4.5). The finger of John the Baptist points always to Him who is the Light that the darkness can never overcome (John 1.5).

Week 12 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Kings 19:9b-11,14-21,31-35a,36; Psalm 48; Matthew 7:6,12-14

The problem about giving what is holy to dogs, or casting pearls before swine, is that they will think it is food you are giving them. It is the first preoccupation of animals. They will be indifferent to the holiness of what you offer them and they will be disappointed if they try to eat pearls.

What about ourselves? Well we are animals too, are we not, and our first preoccupations are often at that level of our existence – food, shelter, sex, security. All kinds of problems follow when people forget that we are animals just as all kinds of problems follow when people forget that we are more than animals.

The challenge is in the communication of good things to us from God. Are we equipped to receive these good things and to value them for what they really are? Or are we more likely to translate them into terms more comprehensible to ourselves, to take them as meant to satisfy our needs and desires, to measure them by those needs and desires. It could mean we will be indifferent to some important aspects of God’s gifts and it could mean that we will be disappointed if we try to use on our terms gifts whose meaning is quite other than what we immediately think.

So there is a narrow path to be negotiated, there is a new language to be learned. It is never easy to learn a new language and the older one becomes the more difficult it is to learn a new language. This applies also to our life of faith and prayer. We settle into patterns of belief and practice from which it can be very  difficult to move us. We settle into patterns of sinning and indifference from which it can be very difficult to move us.

Being offered what is holy, being given pearls of great price: are we equipped to understand the gifts on offer, to appreciate the pearls held out to us? Jesus answers this question by referring us to one fundamental principle: always treat others as you would like them to treat you. This is not just a pragmatic recommendation, a kind of etiquette or strategy for getting on well in society. Jesus says it is the meaning of the Law and the Prophets.

This is a big claim, a bit surprising: the meaning of the Law and the Prophets is to be found in the principle always treat others as you would like them to treat you. The Law and the Prophets reveal to us how the Lord, the God of Israel, wants to be treated by His people. And so He treats them in that way.

This is the key that will open the narrow gate for us. If we want to understand the gifts God wants to share with us then we look not to our needs and desires because that would be to reduce God’s gifts to the measure of our concerns. We look to how God has treated His people across the centuries and we learn from that. It means learning the language of God’s grace and mercy. It means learning the language of God’s justice and persistence. It means learning the language of God’s friendship and love revealed first in the Law and the Prophets and brought to a climax in the work of Jesus Christ.

The holy things offered to us, the pearls set before us: we need to be taught how to appreciate this communication from God. We need to learn how to live in this new world of the divine friendship. It is the road that leads to life and we learn how to travel on that road by imitating God. We are to be perfect as the Father is perfect, merciful as the Father is merciful. We can only enter into such a way of living by looking beyond our immediate needs and desires. We do it by looking at God and by learning how to receive God’s communication of these holy things to us. That means looking at Jesus, the Son of the Eternal Father, drawing life from Him, learning the language He has come to teach us, living the communion He has established for us in the Father and the Spirit.

We share much of our DNA with dogs and pigs. The wonder of our faith is that such creatures as we are, animals full of basic needs and desires, are called to live on a new level, to live a life of mutual knowledge and love in friendship with God, the Creator and Lord of all things. How do we understand the holiness of that? How do we receive such a pearl, of such great price?

You can listen to his homily being preached here.

Week 12 Monday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Kings 17.5-8, 13-15a, 18; Psalm 59/60; Matthew 7.1-5

The image of a person with a plank in his eye is one of the most absurd in the Gospels. It is not the only place where Jesus uses surreal and exaggerated comparisons to make a point. the point here is to warn us about the ways in which our judgement of others is inevitably distorted.

So better to hold back altogether from judging others. Of course there are situations where we are obliged to discern, decide and execute judgement about things and people. The virtue of prudence is concerned with those. But it is a different kind of judgement to the one intended here.

Here the judgement involved is about the fundamental goodness or otherwise of another person, about the motivations of their behaviour, about their intentions in doing what they do. Best to leave that kind of judgement to God while ourselves seeking to be kind and merciful always towards others, as we want God to be kind and merciful towards ourselves.

That petition of the Our Father is a risky one, therefore, the one by which we ask that the Lord might forgive us as we forgive others. There's the rub, and the first thing to think about: how do I forgive others? do I forgive them?

God allows us to set the criterion: 'what you measure out is what you will be given'. If we do not understand forgiveness in relation to others neither will we appreciate the great gift it is when we ourselves receive God's mercy. It will be a foreign language to us, beyond our ken, as if we had a plank in our eyes.

Week 12 Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Jeremiah 20.10-13; Psalm 68/69; Romans 5.12-15; Matthew 10.26-33

"The free gift is not like the trespass". It is a statement of Saint Paul that really should be in lights over every place where the gospel is preached. It should be spoken in the light and proclaimed on the housetops.

Why so? Because more often than not our real faith reaches only to something less than this. We fall back into thinking that the free gift meets the needs and desires of the ones who have trespassed. It is a gift, yes, and free, yes, but trimmed to the measure of our need. As if God is simply 'our god', the solution to our problems, the answer to our questions, the one to set things right for us.

So often we understand grace in the shadow of the trespass - of our sin and weakness, our need and desire - when the truth is that grace, as Paul goes on to say, bursts these bounds, it 'abounds for the many' ('many' meaning the generality, humanity, in other words all of us). Paul's hymn in exaggeration of grace (so we might think) continues: If the reign of sin means death for many through one man's disobedience, 'much more surely', 'much more surely' - he says it twice! - will the reign of grace mean life for the many through the obedience of the one man Jesus Christ.

The teaching of Jesus - his parables, miracles and discourses - is with a view to shocking us into an appreciation of the reality of grace, that in God's kingdom different standards apply. He speaks of different criteria of justice, reconciliation, community: the first will be last and the last first, more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, prostitutes and tax-collectors go in first - there are so many paradoxical sayings, to us often seeming simply contradictory.

We are more comfortable with an arrangement that fits into what we manage to establish as 'justice'. We are more comfortable, truth be told, with fearing God than with loving God. We know more about the first, arising from sin and its consequences, than we do about the second, coming to us as grace and a new creation. 'Fear no one', Jesus says in today's gospel, 'do not be afraid'. But we are afraid, preferring the familiar fear of sin and punishment to the awe and wonder that accompanies the unknown height and depth, length and breadth, of God's boundless love.

What might it mean for us, that love? What might it yet ask of us? Better the fear you know than the love that is mysterious, all-consuming, re-creating (which means first de-creating, undoing, requiring a new birth).

Jeremiah, in the first reading, is once again a 'type' of Christ anticipating in his experience what Jesus would undergo. The Lord proves himself to be a mighty champion, saving Jeremiah from his enemies. God did not spare his own son, however, but gave him up for us all. The most remarkable 'rescue' then takes place, the Resurrection, which is not just the restoration of life to what it was before but the initiation of a new creation. The free gift is not like the trespass. The risen life is not like death. The fear that so often holds us is not like the awe and wonder that fills the disciples as they encounter the Risen Lord, glimpsing thereby the glory of God's love.

"Every hair on your head is counted." How crazy is that? It is just one more indication of the criteria that prevail in the kingdom of God, a kingdom whose only law is the limitless love of this tremendous Lover for each one of his creatures.

Week 11 Saturday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Chronicles 24.17-25; Psalm 88/89; Matthew 6.24-34

The Davidic regime is really testing God's patience in the readings we hear these days. After the drama of ensuring that Joash would finally become king, he turned against the religion of Israel establishing the worship of idols and even murdering the prophet Zechariah for criticising him. Zechariah was the son of the man who had gone to so much trouble to establish Joash as the rightful king. It is difficult to imagine a deeper betrayal, a greater corruption.

But it is 'par for the course', as we might say, with the people once again doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. How often we come across that expression as we read through the historical books of the Bible. It all culminates in the disaster of the Exile, the Lord having tried other less radical ways of encouraging the people to be faithful to the terms of their covenant with him.

Once again the contrast with the teaching of Jesus in the gospel reading is very striking. He seems to have no interest in power or wealth, in the things that drive political life in the world. Cast yourselves on the providence of God is his message, for see how he has already showered his gifts on the world.

Is it romantic, unrealistic, irresponsible? Imagine saying to a poor person asking for help 'cast yourself on the providence of God'! Of course in that encounter it is I who am to be the instrument of God's providence for the poor person. But do I really believe in God's care for me, for us, or is my 'faith' in fact just another political strategy, keeping my options open while at the same time engaging in the worldly occupations of power and wealth with the jealousies and conflicts to which these occupations inevitably lead?

'You cannot serve God and mammon' is one of the clearest teachings of Jesus. Mammon is money. Elsewhere he says we are to use money, 'that tainted thing', but to do so wisely and carefully, remembering that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Only by God's grace, for whom nothing is impossible.

The requirements for citizenship in God's kingdom are clear and radical: to live with total trust in God's care and to live in the freedom and mutual generosity which that trust makes possible. It is to live in the condition of complete simplicity of which TS Eliot speaks, costing not less than everything. Only by God's grace can it be done as we see in the lives of great saints: Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Calcutta, for example. The rest of us look on with admiration and amazement hoping that we might, at least occasionally, glimpse that freedom and practise that generosity.