 Readings, Isaiah 56:1-8 and Matthew 15:10-28
Image, Michael Cook, “Crumbs of Love” There are a lot of overlapping themes and tensions across our last few readings from Matthew. Today, I want to lay them out to see how they might shape our approach to some of the prickly parts of today’s reading. But it is helpful to attend to our reading from Isaiah, which sets a helpful backdrop to all we are going to encounter. I’ve been teaching a class on the church at United Theological College this semester, and early on in the course we do a week on the doctrine of election. The aim of the course is to explore what makes the church the church, and that particular class introduces the idea that part of what makes the church the church is the action of God to choose and call a people to witness to the way of Christ. Of course, this idea of God’s electing activity is around long before the church. The story of Exodus is organised around the famous words I will be your God, and you will be my people. God chooses Israel and delivers them from Egypt, so they can witness to the reign of God in the world. Now, thinking about election leads to a number of tensions and issues – many more than we can do justice to today (I’m not sure I got through them all in a two-hour class), but one is the issue of universality vs particularity. Scripture attests that God is the God of all, the God of all the earth, the God of all creation, the Sovereign, Universal Singular. Yet, Scripture is also emphasising the particularity of God vis a vis Israel, or vis a vis Israel and the Church. Naturally, this can, and has, lead to superiority complexes of various kinds – with attendant justification of violence and dispossession not only in scripture but across history. Now, Scripture also has threads which undermine or trouble the particularity. God, for instance, makes a promise to Hagar to make a great nation from Ishmael (just as God had promised Abraham to make a great nation from Isaac). In the Book of Numbers, God speaks through the non-Israelite prophet Balaam. The Book of Ruth celebrates the determined faith of the foreigner, who becomes part of the Davidic line. And, in what we heard today, the prophet Isaiah reminds the people of the word of the Lord: the foreigner and the eunuch should not be kept separate, but those who love God and keeps the sabbath shall be brought to God’s holy mountain and made joyful in the house of prayer, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. Of course, this passage alone does not solve the tension of universality and particularity – importantly, the vision in Isaiah is still that of a situation where those on the outside are brought in to a kind of stable centre. But it does critique the hardlines we might want to draw between who are or aren’t the chosen, who or who don’t warrant the care of God. God is the one who will gather those besides those already gathered, God’s house shall be a house of prayer for all people. There is an expansive trajectory we might say, that the particular is not the be all and end all, but rather it is through the particular calling of Israel and the Church that God will bring about the universal salvation of the world. The chosen elect are thus those who are called to witness to what, someday, many more will know. Which, in my mind, makes all the more strange and troubling the rebuke of Jesus to the Canaanite woman, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Is not the promised Messiah the one who will gather others? Who will bring about the messianic age where all shall come to the holy mountain and pay homage to God’s glory? Why is Jesus insisting on such strident particularity? Why is he so determined to cast those of Israel as children, and the Canaanites as dogs?
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 Reading, Matthew 14:22-33
The moment that puzzles me most in this reading is Peter’s response to hearing Jesus identify himself as the figure approaching them across the water. Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. The more I think about it the stranger it feels that Peter chooses this command unprompted. To recap, the disciples are out on the boat near dawn, the winds are against them and they have spent hours being battered by the waves. A figure approaches them in the darkness, seemingly walking on the water… understandably they are terrified of this approaching ghost, perhaps come to bring them down to a watery grave. Hearing their fear the figure responds, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid. Now what adds to my puzzlement, or exacerbates the strangeness of what Peter says next, is that it is unclear how sure the disciples are that it is Jesus. Perhaps in the crashing of waves and whooshing of wind it is hard to discern for certain the source of this voice? Perhaps the phantom is posing as a trusted voice so that they drop their guard? Perhaps it is Jesus and so their fears of immanent ghost attack are replaced by concern for what this storm will do to Jesus or their boat? The thing is, I’m not sure which of these scenarios best explains Peter’s request: Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.  Readings, Psalm 131 and Luke 12:22-34
Image, Claude Monet, Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny (1885) Let’s hold that gospel reading in mind for a moment, while I read these famous words from the letter of James: If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? Now I want us to consider if there any conflict between those words and the teaching of Jesus heard today? That is to ask, could James’ words be offered as a rebuff to Jesus’ encouragement: do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear, seemingly offered here without attending to the crowd’s bodily needs? No one panic! We’re not attacking Jesus. No one is saying Jesus did anything wrong. And yes, we might say, Jesus did feed people with the fish and the loaves, and we might say, that Jesus does note at the end of the passage that food and shelter and clothing will be given as well, as natural offshoot of striving for God’s kingdom. But if we want to be a little brazen, we could ask: what is the good of telling people not to worry about what they will eat or what they will wear without providing them with what they need to keep warm and full? Would we not critique a more common man for so casually teaching us not to worry about things so basic to our survival? What should we do about this tension? The great picture of what it looks like to strive for God’s kingdom and receive the basics needs as well comes in the early chapters of Acts. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Here we see the material needs being met, overflowing as an outcome of centring the communal life on striving after the kingdom. This is a community, we might say, that has organised itself in such a way as to make it easy not to worry about what you shall eat. If the apostles were to pass on the teaching of Jesus in the midst of a community holding all things in common, we would see no discrepancy. Indeed, it is the harmonious picture of faith and works in concert, where striving for God’s kingdom includes the meeting of earthly needs. What I want to offer, is that what Jesus says about considering the lilies is a bridge between the encouragement not to worry and the community of Acts. The teaching to consider the ravens and the lilies is not only key to observing the instruction do not worry but paves the path to that harmonious common life. Learning to consider the lilies is thus foundational to becoming not only a person able to lay aside the drive to strive for more and more worldly things, but also to becoming a people of God able to tend to one another’s needs. But to get to how, we need to consider a psalm and poem… for that is the series after all.  Readings, Acts 1:6-14 and John 17:1-18
Image, Bagong Kussudiardja, Ascension, 1983. I built a graph for today’s sermon – look at that, it’s got an x and y axis and everything… I’m way out over my comfort zone here. What we’re tracking here is something fairly simply, being left in charge of something (either of relatively high or low importance) – that’s on the x axis, and then on the y we’re charting our confidence in our capacity to handle the responsibility of being left in charge. So we all love the ones down the bottom left – easy tasks for which we are completely confident. The sweet spot, and by and large, we hope that these fill the bulk of our days. Now when we get around the middle, where our capacity/confidence is just a little below what is required, we might say this is a pretty good spot for learning and growing. We’re going to be stretched but not overwhelmed. And then way down here on the right, this is where we don’t want to be – this is the stuff nightmares are made of where we are pushed out onto stage in front of a full house to play Hamlet without having ever studied the script. We’ve just heard Luke’s account of the ascension, Jesus going ahead of the disciples and instructing them to wait until the coming of the Spirit so that they may carry on and expand his work. At this moment, as they look to the skies seemingly anticipating his immediate and dramatic return… where do you place the disciples on our little table? Fundamental to the Christian faith is this: Jesus didn’t take us with him, but sends us on in his name (and with his Spirit).  Reading, Psalm 23 and John 10:1-18
Image, Good Shepherd Sculpture, 280-290CE Today’s gospel reading is out of sequence. Since Easter we’ve been enjoying the post-resurrection accounts of Jesus gathering up his wayward disciples, but now we jump back to well before his death. Why is that the case? Why have we been taken here? I think we can approach it like a flashback at the end of a movie. One of those brilliant moments, when at the crescendo of the film, with the camera swirling and the music welling, we revisit an earlier, seemingly small moment in the plot, which is suddenly imbued with vibrant significance. All of a sudden a passing comment, an innocuous act takes on a new and greater meaning. The moment is plucked out from its sequence, and shown again, now in new light and clarity, demonstrated to relate palpably and personally to this moment in our protagonist’s life. Such is the nature of a well-executed flashback, and such is the power of today’s reading in this season of the church. We’re going to attempt then, to enter such a scene, to feel such a flashback, to encounter anew this teaching of Jesus in the light of the resurrection… Picture, the scene: early morning, green fields, a woman approaches rocky tombs. Her feet were drenched from the dew. She had trod this path three times already this morning; once walking solemnly, twice running bewildered. Now, as she inhaled the morning air, its crisp freshness felt coarse in her throat and lungs. Bending to look in the tomb, reeling with exhaustion, she grabbed her knees for balance. She wept long and loud, sweat and tears ran down her face, drops painted the dirt below. “Woman, why are you weeping?” came a voice from a stranger in the tomb. Her mind filled with all manner of horrors – Had the tomb been ransacked for valuables? Had Roman soldiers come by night, still giddy from the rush of power, to further violate the body of their victim? In desperation she exclaimed, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him!’ At that moment, still not having comprehended these figures occupying her Lord’s resting place, she heard footsteps and turned. She saw a gardener, sun rising behind his right shoulder. “Woman, why are you weeping?” she heard him say. Perhaps he had said it the first time too? Maybe the tomb was empty after all… “Who are you looking for?” For a split second she had a glimmer of hope, perhaps Jesus’ body just had been laid elsewhere, she asks the gardener if he moved her Lord, if so she will tend to the body. It is such a small request, surely if this man has any heart he will grant her this mercy. “Mary.”  Readings, Psalm 116 and Luke 24:13-35
Image, Maximino Cerezo Barredo (Spanish, 1932–), In the Breaking of Bread, 2001. I have four mini-sermons this morning, each of which will end with a question and a little time for silent reflection and collective sharing, about what this reading from the Gospel might mean for the Kirk. First, and carrying on from the message on Easter Sunday: the resurrection still on the move. I spoke on Easter that each of the resurrection appearances point to movement, Jesus is often already on the move ahead of the disciples, calling them to come find him. Here, we have another scene of resurrection appearance which is also on the move. What’s helpful to note is that this is not a departure but a continuation of the manner of Jesus’ ministry. For while we have records of Jesus’ preaching in synagogues, or his conversations in homes, the bulk of his teaching is on the go. Along the road, by lakeside, on hilltop and plain, Jesus expounded the kingdom of God, interpreted the Law, told parables, and proclaimed good news. And such movement was not incidental but ancillary to the message, as Jesus continually draws what is around him into his parables and lessons. And so it is with the life of the disciple of Jesus. While it is true that we gather, spending time in church services learning and worshipping, the vast bulk of our Christian life takes place on the road, on the move. And indeed our own acts of worship, evangelism, mercy, and justice, are, like Jesus’ often responding to the world around us – those things we see in our context that inspire us to thanks, lead us to wonder, draw us into action, sharpen our understanding. Like the scene on the way to and from Emmaus, our life with Jesus is marked by movement, by becoming, by living the way, on the way. The question then, for us as the Kirk, is how (and what) are we learning as we go? What are the practices and people that draw us near to Jesus as we go hither and thither?  Reading, John 20:1-18
Image, Kateryna Kuziv (Ukrainian, 1993–), Mary Magdalene Stood Crying, 2021. First, a poem, from one of the great post-WWII Jewish poets, Anthony Hecht: It out-Herod’s Herod. Pray you, avoid it. Tonight my children hunch Toward their Western, and are glad As, with a Sunday punch, The Good casts out the Bad. And in their fairy tales The warty giant and witch Get sealed in doorless jails And the match-girl strikes it rich. I’ve made myself a drink. The giant and witch are set To bust out of the clink When my children have gone to bed. - All frequencies are loud With signals of despair; In flash and morse they crowd The rondure of the air. For the wicked have grown strong, Their numbers mock at death, Their cow brings forth its young, Their bull engendereth. Their very fund of strength, Satan, bestrides the globe; He stalks its breadth and length And finds out even Job. - Yet by quite other laws My children make their case; Half God, half Santa Claus, But with my voice and face, A hero comes to save The poorman, beggarman, thief, And make the world behave And put an end to grief. And that their sleep be sound I say this childermas Who could not, at one time, Have saved them from the gas. Hecht knew well the horrors of his century. He fought in WWII, was present at the liberation of Flossenbürg concentration camp, and was charged with interviewing its prisoners. He was well acquainted with the 20th century as Leonard Bernstein described it: a century of death. And yet, despite the gap in time, works such as Hecht’s resonate with us still, because judging from these last 26 years, the C21st seems so determined to share that mantle. This might appear a peculiar place to begin the Easter Sunday message. And yet, the Day of Resurrection, as the gospel passage makes clear, begins in darkness: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. Mary begins her day in the grip of death and grief, the shadow of loss and mortality, of finitude and failure.  Readings, Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 and John 13:1-17, 31-35
Image, Christ on the Mount of Olives, Arent de Gelder (1715) We know from the synoptic gospels that Jesus and his disciples sing a psalm during this final Passover meal together. Perhaps, it could have been the one we heard tonight, which opens with: I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. Saint Augustine asked the immortal question: what do I love when I love my God? The response of these opening verses is: I love the one who heard me when I have called out in the past. And because of this, I will call on God as long as I live. If this was the psalm they sung, it certainly maps onto the experience of Jesus across his life. His life is marked by intimate communication with God his Father, whom he has called on across his ministry, receiving time and again what he needs to tend to his friends, serve the people, and reveal God’s glory. God has heard Jesus’ voice and supplication, God has inclined an ear to Jesus, and so knowing his hour is at hand, Jesus places his trust in God once more. As the trial awaits, Jesus affirms he shall die as he lived: calling on God.  Reading, Romans 12
Image, Joan Mitchell, Sunflower V Today we’re building off last week’s sermon on the confession that God’s good pleasure is the founding ‘why’ of the sending of Christ. Today the question is, what kind of community emerges in response to this delighting of God to adopt, elect, call and send a people in response to the loving good pleasure of our of God revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. At the risk of coming off like the supermarkets selling hot cross buns the moment it ticks over to Boxing Day, I am starting this January sermon at the Crucifixion. Specifically, the scene in John, where Jesus gives his mother and the beloved disciple to one another. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. We might say that in this tender scene the church is born. As one disciple is given to another, forged into a new family by faith of the Son. As Jesus has been preparing the disciples for his going ahead of them, to the day when they will no longer have him with them, he has urged their need to be with and for each other (just as he has been with and for them), to love one another (as he has loved them), and to be one (just as he has made them one with him). Jesus makes of these two disciples a new family in his name, and in so doing, begins the path toward the church.  Readings, Isaiah 7:10-16 and Matthew 1:18-25
Image, Elizabeth Catlett, Mother and Child, 1956. Matthew commences his gospel with a very intentional genealogy leading up to the birth of Jesus. Mirroring the kind found in Genesis, he tracks fourteen generations from Abraham to David, David to the Exile, Exile to the Messiah. It is, for the most part, a patrilineal line concerning fathers causing sons to be born, which is why it naturally comes to a close on Joseph. However, at this moment, something less natural happens. Listen to this little run up and see when you hear the pattern break: Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. There’s a common form of journalistic laziness or malpractice which will list couples where one (predominately the man) will be named, while the other (regardless of their own achievement) will be referred to simply as “and wife.” Strangely enough, it is the reverse that occurs here in Matthew’s account. When we get to Joseph the pattern of father to son breaks, for Joseph is the husband of Mary. Because it is of Mary, not of Joseph, that Jesus was born. As we heard: Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. But this insistent detail of whom Jesus was born, raises some perplexing questions. Because, while the genealogy Matthew provides seems to be intended to link Jesus to the line of David, and from David all the way back to Abraham, this ending wipes that lineage away. By insisting that Joseph makes no biological contribution, that he does not father the one to be called Jesus, Jesus is not the next link in the chain stretching back 42 generations. Jesus, indeed, Matthew’s account stresses, has no father’s father. Born instead, of Mary, who does not know Joseph, but was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. |
SermonsPlease enjoy a collection of sermons preached by Rev Liam at the Kirk. If you have questions about them, or attending a service reach out using the Contact Page. Categories
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