Sermon on the 14th Sunday

Many centuries ago, Plato expressed a philosophical idea that has repercussions even to this day.  In Plato’s Phaedo, he tells us that the soul is imprisoned in the body.  

For Plato, and many people today, the human person has two separate parts and this concept is known as Plato’s dualism.  It states that our souls are noble and spiritual and lead us higher up.  Our bodies are material and sinful and drag us down.  

It is true that in daily life, we feel bodily temptations to overindulge in pleasures.  It certainly feels that our souls are weighed down by our bodies, and if we could just free ourselves from material needs, then at last, we would become a saint. 

While this may seem right, it is not.

We do not need to beat our bodies into submission to free ourselves more and more from what it means to be human. 

Our soul is not in a bodily prison, rather our bodies are “spiritualized” by our soul.  Consider the things that make us human:

o   We don’t just talk, we sing. 

o   We don’t just eat, we share delightful meals. 

o   We don’t just build shelters, we build homes and decorate them.

o   We love one another in sacrificial ways. 

o   We are romantics and poets, artisans and free-spirited adventurers. 

The people of Nazareth could not conceive of a Messiah that was as “human” as they were.   Thankfully, in God’s plan of salvation, our bodies are to come along with our souls on the journey of holiness.  One does not hinder the other, but both carry each other.  This is the miracle of being human and it is a gift from God.

Despite God’s omnipotence, there are a few things God has chosen not to be able to do:

·      God can’t force us to love him.

·      God can’t force us to trust him. 

These are two gifts that only we can give him.  And so often we refuse him these gifts!   Trust in God is the “Yes” God needs in order to perform his miracles in our modern world.

There are three special virtues that we as Christians can lay claim to. They are called theological virtues because they come from God himself (God = Theos). They are faith, hope, and love. 

Hope is often misunderstood. At first glance, it may not seem like something spiritual at all.  We hear people say all the time phrases such as: “I hope my team wins” or “I hope I win the lottery”. 

One way to understand hope is to recognize that it transforms and heals our past so that we can look towards the future with joy. 

We often may say that a person might have “baggage from the past”.  If you have baggage from the past, it means that something bad that happened yesterday is negatively conditioning your today and tomorrow. You see the future through the lens of the past hurts.

The people of Nazareth could not let go of the past. They knew Jesus too well and had to let go of what they thought they knew about him. They couldn’t see Jesus as the Messiah because of the false understanding they held onto about what the Messiah would look like and what he would do. As such, this inability to see their present and future through a different lens made them reject the Messiah!

Through baptism and by the sacrament of reconciliation, we receive an inpouring of transformative grace.  If we allow Christ to heal these past hurts, we are then freed from the past and able to look to the future now through a different lens: that of God! 

Hope is therefore being prophetic. Did not the prophets look to the future through the eyes of God, and then deliver these prophetic visions to their fellow man? 

If being a prophet means seeing the future through God’s eyes, then every baptized Christian who allows the theological virtue of hope to be operative in their life can hope to be in their own way and in their own circumstances, a true prophetic witness for Christ. 

If, like me, you were raised in the church and have always attended, you have the advantage of understanding and living a life of grace from the “cradle to the grave”. But there could be a few potential issues to deal with.

For example,  you have probably never had a moment of choosing on a personal level to make religion and faith a part of their life.   You may never have experienced being “far from the Father’s House”, and you might therefore undervalues what it means to “be in the Father’s house”.  You might have lots of church traditions that are the backdrop to your life but are not an intentional part of your life.  And you might not be “wowed” by learning about the faith because it always just seemed to make sense. 

So, what can a “cradle to grave Christian” do to avoid being “bored” or “overly familiar” with Jesus? Here are some practical things all of us should do:

Firstly, we have to meet Jesus anew each day.  Go to him in prayer as if you’ve never encountered him before.  

Secondly, we must routinely stand before God alone, with our individual uniqueness, and decide for ourselves that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour.

Thirdly, all of us should go on a retreat or pilgrimage so as to experience “something new” and finally, we should make sure to spread our faith, by talking about it, and sharing it. 

Fr Duncan's Sermon on Lent 1

Why was Jesus tempted?

In our Gospel reading today we have heard a passage which describes the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.   It is such an important passage that all three of the synoptic Gospels recount the story.

Instead of just reading the passage, I want to explain how those of us who are called to study, question and interpret scripture go about decoding the text and the challenges it presents.

The fact that all three synoptic writers recount the same event tells us of the particular importance the theme had at the time.  Remember that each gospel was written for a different audience: Matthew, whom we heard from today, was most likely writing for a Jewish audience who were in the process of converting to following Jesus Christ.

Mark was almost certainly written for an audience that was made up of gentiles.  How do we know this?  Well the texts have comparatively little reference to the Hebrew scriptures or the law.  This is in direct contrast to Matthew.

I bet if I was to ask you “what did Luke do?” many of you would be able to answer –“he was a doctor.”  Whilst this is true, the person who actually wrote the Gospel of Luke may well have been someone completely different. Luke had many supporters, he was an educated man, and he attracted educated men to him.  Many scholars believe Luke was written by a Syrian author based in Antioch.  This follows extensive textual analysis and consideration of the clues buried in the subtext.

So always remember that you are reading a Gospel written for a specific audience.  If a passage appears in all three Gospels we can assume it has a particular significance.  Our passage today deals with temptation.  But temptation to a Jewish audience had a different meaning to an audience of gentiles.  This is significant when we try to understand the text.

Next we need to consider the genre of the text.  In the case of this passage it isn’t as simple as you might think.  William Barclay was a prolific scholar.  When I was a child my mother always used his bible commentaries to help her understand the texts and I remember reading most of his commentaries as a teenager.  I still have many of them on my bookshelves and I use them regularly.  Barclay is particularly well known for his thoughts on this passage.

Barclay believed that this passage was a parable.  He did not believe it was not historical text, as most of the synoptics are considered to be, but instead considered it to be a story that Jesus told to an audience to explain the theological significance of temptation.  Barclay looked closely at the text and analyzed it.  He comments on a number of things that make him question the passage as a historical text.  One such comment is that the mountain description is unrealistic; Barclay reminds us that there is “no mountain high enough in all the world to see the world.”  But I have visited the Mount of Temptation and it looks over vast swathes of empty desert on one side, and down to the city of Jericho on the other.  It does rather feel like one is surveying the known world when one is up there!  Although the hawkers and beggars are a little off putting! 

William Barclay is of course correct; there is no mountain from which we can see the whole; there can be no arguing that.  What Barclay did was pick the text apart and cast a 20th century view on the passage.  He picked up on work that had been done in light of the reformation by Benson and Farmer who began the same debate.  But when we consider Barclay’s scholarship we must always consider the lens through which he looked.  Barclay was a minister in the Church of Scotland, a strongly protestant organization.

A catholic view of the text we read today would be that the temptation of Christ in the desert was a literal event.  Thomas Aquinas believed that the Temptation happened so that we might understand Christ’s humanity as sinless.  He is the High Priest who took human form yet did not succumb to human temptation. 

Lets look for a moment at how Christ was tempted.  Christ was taken to a place away from society.  The desert is barren and Jewish Law associated it with scapegoating.  In Leviticus we are told of Azazel.  He is a scapegoat on which the sins of the Jewish people were placed and then banished to the desert.  In Jewish, Christian and Islamic narratives the desert is a place for banishment, sacrifice and atonement for sin.

So Jesus’ temptation in the desert has very specific connotations. There is no doubt that anyone who read the Gospels in biblical times would understand the significance of the place and its meaning.  In our modern world, we really don’t have anything quite like it.  We tend to shun people  by social media these days, but back in Christ’s time, the desert was the equivalent!

Jesus’ first temptation was food.  The devil encourages Jesus to turn stones into bread.  The famous response Jesus gives, Man does not live by bread alone, is recorded more fully in Matthews Gospel.  He suggests Jesus actually said Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is a refence to Deuteronomy chapter 8.  This chapter of the Torah speaks to God’s reason for putting his chosen people through difficulty in the desert.  God did it to help them understand the fullness of his promised land.  First they suffered so they could fully realise the beauty of God’s creation.  So Christ does this for us in the wilderness.   He is the fulfillment of the new Covenant.  He is the promised land.

Next the devil takes Jesus to the Holy City of Jerusalem.  Here Jesus is asked to prove his divinity by demonstrating his supernatural powers.  The Pinnacle of the Temple from which Jesus is asked to throw himself was probably the tower high above the sanctuary.  Jesus is having none of this and instructs the devil do not put the Lord you God to the test.

 Finally Jesus is taken to a mountain where he can see all of the world.  He is tempted by the suggestion that he can rule everything he sees if he just gives in and worships the devil.  Christ stands firm and instructs the devil by quoting the Law back to him:

“Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.”’

Once again Jesus speaks of the importance of the law.  He will not be tempted to act against it and act against God.  Jesus was tempted.  But he didn’t give in, he wouldn’t cooperate with the devil. 

I began this sermon by asking the question why?  Why was Jesus tempted?  Ultimately, Jesus was tempted because we face temptation.   In the Epistle to the Hebrews we hear this:

 Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. (2:17)

Jesus was tempted so he could be in every respect like us.  He had to know the world as we do and experience the challenges we experience.  He does this so he can understand our humanity, so that when we are in the depths of despair, when we have really messed up, he can be with us.  Jesus faced the most extreme temptation so that he can say I know how feel and really mean it.  Jesus didn’t resist temptation as a deity, he did so as a human being. 

This lent we should all consider how we respond to temptation.  We should consider our human frailties and know our own weakness.  We should pray to God for the strength to overcome our temptations, and give thanks that Christ modelled a life to which we can aspire.

Ash Wednesday 2023

Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.

One of the questions I often get asked is what is the point?  What is the point of all these signs and symbols we use in church?  Surely they are a bit unnecessary in our modern world?  Lots of churches do things differently, so why is it that we maintain rituals, customs and traditions?

The answer isn’t a simple one: On the one hand we observe certain traditions because they link us to the past.  On the other we may do them because they are beautiful, and we seek to offer God the very best.  Liturgy unites us with the church and it is our offering to God in great humility and thanks.

But today, as ashes are imposed, we are given a vital sign of our humanity.  We impose ashes, not because it’s what we have always done, not because it is pretty, but because it has significant meaning to us and our lives.  As we are ashed,  we are marked with our own death. We are reminded to consider it and we are asked look in that figurative mirror and explore our own consciousness.   This is the chance to put some things in order, before it’s too late.

Ash Wednesday is a day when we should take seriously the process of admitting our mistakes and considering our sins.  This is never easy and it can cause pain.  But without this exploration we can never truly face God and be reconciled to him.

You have heard me speak of this reconciliation before.  It is the at very heart of our faith.  We usually speak of the love we are called too, but today, on Ash Wednesday, I want each and every one of us to consider our mistakes, our sinful behaviours, and make a promise to actively turn to God and reconcile these things.

Reconciliation is an active process.  You can’t just sit back and let it happen around you or to you.  You have to participate.   Begin by making some time to consider carefully those things in your life which are problematic.  Examine yourself and consider where sin lies.  Are you living with the burden of sinful behaviours?  Are you unsure if something is sin or not?  Please ask for help, don’t be ashamed and understand that we are all sinful and we are all called to be reconciled.

But before we can be reconciled, we must repent.  Repentance is, in my experience, the easy part.  It is the identification of sin, the admittance of sin, that challenges people more.  Once it is admitted and embraced, the desire to move on is often a huge motivator.

So find some time to remove yourself from the public sphere, and remove yourself from your own self-interest; use the lens of righteousness and piety, explore your soul and seek God-centred actions, and words,  that bring reconciliation into the world: 

As ashes are imposed on us we are reminded that one day, it will all be too late.  One day, we will wake up as mortals for the last time.  When that day comes, I pray that each and every one of us is in a state of grace, ready to meet Our Lord and take our place alongside him.

This Lent there are many opportunities to make things right in your soul.

Take advantage of the extra liturgy on offer, study with others during Lent at our Lent Group.  Make an effort to attend Mass during the week.  Spend some time fasting and focussing on God.  Meditate and pray.  If you have not made your confession please consider it, and please seek to live your life in grace.

Please take time to really think about your life and your behaviours and the impact they have on other people.  Think about the last time you hurt someone with something you said, wrote or did.  How can you make that right?  How can you meet God when these things are in your consciousness?

Forgiveness is freely given, but reconciliation is something we have to actively seek.  Please ask for help if you find this challenging. 

As a parish we are very lucky to have 2 priests available for counsel and confession.  Please do use us.  Fr John and I would like nothing more that to see us all fulfill our Christian destiny and take our places in heaven.

Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.

Fr Duncan's Sermon 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

How do you meet God?

It’s a question we have been looking at in preparation classes for confirmation and it is a very relevant question for all of us. When was the last time you considered how and where you meet God?  When did you reflect on God’s calling to you and his impact on your life?  When did you explore ideas and concepts such as sin and evil, grace and forgiveness?

For those of us who are theologians we live and breathe this everyday but it’s not for everyone.  Yet the church intervenes at certain points in our lives and asks us to specifically consider some pretty complicated theological thinking.

Over the last couple of months, Darcy, Glenn, Marilyn and Josh have been mulling over these issues and they have been seeking to find out where and how they will meet God.

One way they will do this is through the sacraments of the church.  I hope that each of the candidates could explain what the sacraments are, they have all spent quite some considerable time considering them.  But more importantly, I hope they could explain what the sacraments mean to us as Christians.

In each sacrament there is something visible which is pointing beyond itself to God and a prayer accompanying that sign.  Shortly I will baptize Glenn, August and Chloe by pouring water over them.  This is the visible sign of God’s presence.  As I pour the water I will say “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  In this prayer, God will touch them and place a figurative mark deep within their souls as the Holy Spirit is poured out onto them.

In Confirmation, it is Bishop Jeremy who will anoint the candidates on the forehead with the oil of chrism and the prayer is, “Strengthen Lord your servant (n), with your Holy Spirit.”   As he lays his hands on their head an prayers for them the Holy Spirit will descend onto them and flood their very beings.

In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the visible is the bread and wine until the consecration (and afterwards the Body and Blood of Jesus) and the prayer is the words of the consecration.

For each of the seven sacraments—and the sacraments were instituted by Jesus—there is something visible pointing beyond itself and there is an accompanying prayer.

Each of the sacraments gives us grace.  During their preparation for confirmation, when I explained grace I likened it to petrol.  We need fuel in our tanks to run our cars.  We go to a petrol station and pay for the fuel.  But God’s grace is freely given to us, and his son died that we might receive it.  We need to be in a state of grace, and the sacraments of the church can help us exist in a closer relationship with God.

In Baptism, the church teaches that we are freed from the bonds of original sin.  More importantly our souls are united with Christ and we become children of God.  In confirmation we complete the cycle of grace that began at Baptism when we witness publicly to our faith in Christ.  We often associate confirmation with reaching Christian maturity, but I am still not sure I would call myself a mature Christian despite have been Confirmed some 39 years ago.

At the eucharist, we partake in the most wonderful of all the sacraments when we accept Our Lord into our very beings and draw ever closer to him.

But grace has to be used.  Not so long ago I had to empty fuel from an old motorcycle.  It had laid dormant for 3 years and the fuel had gone off.  It was immediately obvious that the fuel was unusable, it smelt wrong.

Grace has to be used.  We are called by God to share the grace we are blessed with.  We do this particularly in our actions towards others, but also in the way we try to live our lives with our families and work colleagues.  It is grace that gives us the strength to live out our faith and endure the challenges of life.

So, whilst today our candidates for Baptism and Confirmation will receive God’s grace deep within them, it would be very easy to let it lie dormant in the future.

And that is where we come in.  We the Body of Christ, the church of God, are called to nurture and support each other.  We were all baptized and most of us have been confirmed.  A couple of us have been ordained and one has even been consecrated.  But we are all completely dependent on each other.  Bishop Jeremy needs Priests and people.  Without them his role is void.   And just as we have a bishop in church who needs his people, so we have those to be baptized and confirmed who also need their people.  And we are those people, you and I.  So instead of looking to someone else, a warden or your priest, to support those who are new to the faith or growing in it, use some of that grace so freely given and reach out to those who are taking these steps today.

Talk to them about your journey.  Explain how and where you meet God. Share how you pray, share what frustrates you about the church, and share what you love about it.  Play your part in the life of the church and help to grow God’s holy people.

Fr Duncan's Sermon 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I want you to travel with me to the Mount of Olives.  It is a beautiful place, a place that sits immediately opposite the city of Jerusalem.  High on a hill side you look down to the Kedron Valley, the Garden of Gethsemane and the climb up to the old city gates.

Today of course, the mount is a tourist destination.  Everyday literally thousands of pilgrims and tourists arrive to look down on the beautiful views of Temple Mount and the city.  But it is interesting to turn around and look up the hill.  Because it was here that Jesus most likely delivered the most famous of all his lessons, the Beatitudes.  In biblical times, to climb a hill was significant.  Firstly, it drew one closer to God.  God is high above in heaven, and so a hill moves us physically closer to him.

But the other reason is that a hill was a natural classroom.  Standing above the crowds, his voice carried down and over them.  They could see him and hear him, and we just take that sort of thing for granted in our modern world.  Imaging just being there, watching and listening to the man who would change the world preaching what would become his most famous of passages.

The section of the Gospel we hear today comes immediately after the famous Beatitudes, the Blessed are the poor, Blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, etc.etc.  In this section Jesus focuses on the law.  There is a seeming juxtaposition in his words.  His gear has shifted from a message of love and blessings to a message about the rules.  Why does he do this?

Jesus was an observant Jew.  Remember that during his lifetime he not only kept the law, but he cherished and loved it in a Jewish way.  To an observant Jew, the Laws contained in the first 5 books of the Old Testament are Holy.  They are God’s laws and were handed down by him directly.  They should be studied, understood, cherished and passed down from one generation to the next.  They are the lifeblood of the Jewish faith.

So, when Jesus speaks in verse 18 and says:

18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

He is reminding his audience that his new message, his new way of living, is one that can co-exist within Jewish law.  This is really important for us to comprehend because so often we think of Jesus as a rebel, an exciting figure who challenged the authority of the Jewish leaders and turned so much of the world upside down.

But what happens next is even more interesting.  Jesus immediately teaches on specific laws.  He interprets the law and expands on it.  He demonstrates his rabbinical skills by making quite abstract links to the law.  Look at what he says on murder.

          21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[d] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

Jesus states the law.  It is simple and straightforward.   If you kill you will be subject to judgement.  But then he brings the law into the realm of the everyday.  He uses an Aramaic word which doesn’t translate too well, to describe anger – Raca.  It means something like “I hate you,” or “I have contempt for you.”  Jesus tells us that if we have these feeling towards others, we will be judged.  He tells us that if we call someone a fool, we will be in danger of the fires of Hell.

Now I don’t know about you, but there are plenty of people I get angry with.  And there are times when that anger is fierce.  I am judgemental and self-righteous, and I can be dismissive of those who I see as being in the wrong.  So, am I in danger of the Fires of Hell?

Well, on one reading of Jesus’ words I most definitely am, but when we look at what he says next it helps us understand why we are saved; Jesus warns against presenting sacrificial offerings at the temple when we are in a state of anger. 

Those who are to be confirmed next week have been learning how to live in a state of grace.  Hopefully they would all be able to speak about the cycle we seek to live in a Christians.

We accept that we are sinful, we seek forgiveness and repent, we receive the sacraments of the church, and grace is restored.

So here on the Mount of Olives, high above the city, with Golgotha, the place where he would die for us, Jesus explains why he has come to fulfill the law.  Put simply, no matter how hard we try to keep God’s law, we will always fail.  That is the nature of our humanity, and it is something Jesus was trying to explain to his Jewish audience.

So, when we speak of Jesus dying on a cross for our sins, it is for all of our sins.  This is the passage of text when he is looking to the cross, his journey is shifting towards its fulfillment.  Jesus must die so that the law can be fulfilled, because we can never do it on our own.

Whenever I stand on the Mount of Olives I am in awe.  It is understandably overwhelming to be in such a place.  But as I have drawn closer to Christ through my adult life, and particularly as I have morphed from a headteacher into a theologian, I have begun to understand the significance of Jesus’ teachings in a deeper and more personal way.

So don’t just believe that just died for you, live life in a way that proclaims it.  Understand what Jesus meant when he said he was the fulfillment of the law.  He fulfills it because we can’t, because try as we might we fail.  But that doesn’t mean we give up or don’t try because it’s too hard.

A while ago I spoke about the sacrament of confession.  I explained that it is about drawing closer to God and Jesus.  It is about reconciling those things that are so entrenched in our humanity that we cannot properly pit them away.  This is what Jesus is speaking of when he teaches about the Law.  Yes we know we shouldn’t kill people, that’s taken for granted.  But how do we deal with anger, bitterness, jealousy, rage, envy and the multitude of sins we all commit?  Yes, we pray to God and ask for forgiveness and we know it is freely givem.  But does that reconcile these actions?

When Helen Prejean wrote her book Dead Man Walking, she witnessed her work with death row offenders.  After one execution, she encountered a relative of a victim of the executed man standing outside the prison looking bereft.  She spoke gently to him and tried to help him make sense of the feeling he had.  He thought the death of the killer would bring closure, but he was wrong and was left with a complex set of feelings of guilt, anger and betrayal.

Asking for forgiveness is one thing, but when our lives are blighted by sinful feelings, they sit deep within us and often never go away.  The sacrament of confession is exactly what this is about.  It is about helping our souls to heal from the things which have deeply hurt us and affected our lives.

Next week we will witness a number of people who have made the decision to change their lives by drawing closer to God in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.  These are sacraments that can only be conferred once.  But confession, or reconciliation is always available, and lent is a good time to think about making yours.  If you haven’t done so before and would like some help, just ask me.  We have to play our part in letting our Lord be the fulfilment of the law and the prophets.  And this is one step you can all make on your journey.

Fr Duncan's Sermon on the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Matthew 5 13-20

How to be a good parish priest?  This is the question which lies at the heart of my ministry and no doubt the ministry of hundreds of faithful Christians who are called to this role.

It isn’t an easy life.  I get a bit fed up at times with the jokes from lay people about only working on Sundays and having 6 days off.  I am sure there are lazy priests, but I don’t think I know any personally.   And then there is the reality of the frustration and guilt I feel about people.  Wardens, altar servers, musicians, those who serve morning tea, the flower guild, the welcomers.  There are so many people in a church community that there is always someone I am worried about, and someone I forget about.  Someone I didn’t say hello to and someone who has said or done something I don’t agree with.

 When I read St Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians I think he experienced all these things.  He was so busily trying to bring people to Christ that his frustration and despair sometimes can be seen in his writings.  Look at the passage we hear this morning.  It is from his 1st letter to the Corinthians.

The church in Corinth was very important to St Paul.  Tradition holds that he founded the church there and he had a major epiphany here.  It was in Corinth that Paul decided to shift his teaching to be more focused to the gentiles.  He was fed up of the constant refusal by the Jewish leaders to accept him in the synagogues. 

And so he went on his missionary journeys. By the time he got to Ephesus word reached him that his church in Corinth was growing. But people were arguing and frustrated with each other.  They were looking for solutions to theological issues which were complex and needed leadership.  They was no doubt gossiping and in-fighting and Paul was fed up.  In Ephesus, whilst building the church we hear of in Ephesians, Paul writes to the church in Corinth and says,

2 When I came to you, brothers and sisters,[a] I did not come proclaiming the mystery[b] of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,[c] but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Just listen the frustration in this passage.  Read it carefully and you can hear Paul saying something like this.

Listen folks, when I came to you, I worked really hard to try and make this about Jesus.  Not about me, Paul, but about Jesus.  I didn’t use big words or try to make out I am better than you.  I looked for Jesus Christ in every one of you and I found him.  I found him in your brokenness and your beauty.

And you know what, it isn’t easy doing this stuff.  It scares me so much that I get the shakes and panic attacks.  But before I speak, I always pray to God that he might use me as a vessel.  I pray that his words might come through, not mine.  And when that happens, and I believe it does, you are building your faith, your church on God’s will not mine.

Now compare this to our modern church.  How often do we see and hear, at every level of the church, that people are disagreeing and arguing?  Throughout the generations tensions between Christians have featured time and time again resulting in schism after schism. 

This parish has seen its fair share of these kind of behaviours, and one has to ask the question, no matter how grave the situation is, is arguing, is defying, is fostering disagreement and disdain God’s will for us?  Does God want us to be so single minded that we do so to the exclusion of the rest of the church?

St Paul decided to know nothing among us except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  He came trembling in weakness and fear.

This week the news from England is not great.  But it is not the strikes and poverty I am referring too.  The Church of England has returned after 6 years of debate and discovery with a landmark ruling which will permit a legalised form of words to bless those who are in same-sex relationship.  I was heavily involved in the process, and lead training in my own diocese which was attended by people from a wide range of backgrounds.  The church was wrestling with complicated issues of gender identity and sexuality.  At the heart of this was the idea that marriage can only be for a man and a woman for life.

We worked hard to explore the issues from every theological angle and do so in a respectful and honest way.  For the first time, those who had the loudest voices were expected to listen to those who had the quietest,  and all of us learnt to grow together.

I felt the process was productive and I was honoured to lead sessions.  The eventual outcome was predicted by many: no change to ecclesiastical law, marriage between a man and a woman remains, but a change to the subtext of the church and its teaching.  The Church of England will now formally bless those in a same sex relationship.  Of course, as a priest I have always been able to bless whomsoever I choose, but the fact that the Church of England is now formally acknowledging that same sex relationships can be blessed and creating a liturgy for it is challenging for many. 

Regardless of what you believe about this issue, the sad reality is that after 6 years of hard and committed work much of the rhetoric has degenerated into a bun fight, embarrassingly reported in the media and online.

So what would St Paul say to the Church of England this week?  Something like this perhaps.

            My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

When we began this process six years ago I spoke about the need to love each other and find a way to respect our differences.  I spoke carefully and used words that I had considered and prayed about.  I chose them so as not to cause hurt or offence.  I did not try to persuade you about anything other than my love for you in Christ Jesus.

So please stop hurting each other and understand that we are declaring God’s wisdom as it lives among his people.   Love one another even when it is hard to do so and focus on that which God has revealed to us, the Body of Christ.

Here in Australia things are different.  I choose to minister in a catholic parish in a liberal diocese.  It is an uneasy truce that has developed over the years, but it seems to have held well recently.

We are about to undergo some change in our Diocesan Leadership.  Archbishop Aspinall has gone, and the process to find a new Archbishop is beginning.  It could mean choppy waters for us in the future.  Or it could mean there are opportunities we have not had in a generation to build new bridges and tell a different story about All Saints’.  I wonder what St Paul would say to us?  I wonder what he we say to me? And to you?

Fr Duncan's Sermon 30th Sunday (c)

One of the great things about being in an Anglican is the fact that we have the use of a lectionary. This is the cycle of readings that cover every single day of the year and tell us what to read. It is so helpful because it usually themes readings and helps us make links between the Old and New Testaments. If you don’t have access to one and would like to give it a try then I would thoroughly recommend the one we use here; do ask for more details.

Sometimes it is hard to find the theme of the readings, and sometimes it is easy. Today is one of the easier days I am pleased to say. But before we speak about the meaning of the texts, I wonder how many of you noticed that our first reading was the source of great debate and controversy. Well, not the specific reading to be exact, but the book from which it is taken.

Ecclesiasticus is part of what we Anglicans call the Apocrypha. We don’t often hear readings from it at Mass, and I thought it might be interesting to explore why. You may remember a couple of weeks ago I spoke of the origins of our texts. There were hundreds of different texts being used in different churches throughout the Christian world.

Origen of Alexandria, commented on this in his writings. He was a great scholar and theologian who was born in Alexandria in Egypt, but travelled extensively through the area we now know as the Holy Land. He died in Tyre, which is in Lebanon, north of modern-day Palestine. Origen is an amazing character to learn about and there is much I could say here, but I don’t have time and must not stray from my point. If you don’t know who he is, please have a look at him and his life online, or come and read some of those books downstairs in the library next to my office! Points will be awarded to those of you who can tell me what Origen’s greatest contribution to the Christian faith is. It is a legacy that ultimately caused great debate and change.

Anyway, Origen noticed that some of the writings he encountered as he journeyed were of, as he put it, were of questionable value. He used the word ἀποκρύφοις apocrophois to describe these texts. One of the problems of course is understanding what he meant by this word. In Origen’s time, the word almost certainly meant “secret” or “hidden” and it was used to describe works that were considered so profoundly divine that they should be kept from those who were not holy enough to see them.

But Origen seems to use the word differently, he describes a body of texts which he believes are questionable in terms of authenticity and meaning. One of the most interesting legacies of Origen’s views on the Bible are the books that very nearly didn’t make it in. Songs of Songs, or the Wisdom of Solomon, which I think is the most stunningly beautiful text in the Bible, was actually nearly excluded because Origen considered it may be against the true faith. It is basically about love and sex, so it’s good to know that this caused as many arguments 2000 years ago as it does know!

Because of the work of scholars like Origen, and subsequently Tertullian and Clement who developed Origen’s ideas, the word apocrophois, or as we say, Apocrypha came to be re-defined as meaning of doubtful origin, or obscure in meaning. This mattered, because these were the times when there was great turmoil in the church as it began to develop doctrines based on scriptures. So, you can understand why agreement on which scriptures were holy and true was much debated.

Over time the word canon came into usage. It describes the body of the core texts which form the Bible. After Origen, Tertullian, Clement and others had wrestled with the issues; the Bishops of the early church weighed in and met to agree once and for all on what should be included. This was the Council of Rome, and it took place in 382. It agreed a list of books which formed the catholic, or universal Bible.

However, various schisms have occurred along the way and the one that affects us today is the Reformation. In the years leading up to the Reformation there was again much turmoil in the church and disagreement about which books should be considered as core texts. The bishops had another big meeting, this time The Council of Trent, in 1546 and re-affirmed the scriptures they considered to be canonical. And this was when things began to drift. The re-formers wanted change and rejected the texts they did not consider to be authentic. And that is when Protestant Bibles began to be published.

Nowadays, the Anglican church, famous for its desire to find a via media, a middle way, to bridge the gap if you like, chooses to identify these texts as being worthy of study and inspired by God. They do not form part of our core texts, but they occasionally appear in our lectionary. And that is what where we find our first lesson today which is from Ecclesiasticus. Just to confuse us, the Roman Church call this book Sirach, because the author of the text is accredited as Ben Sira, hence Sirach.

The book is very similar in its content and layout to the Book of Proverbs. It belongs to a body of work we refer to as the Wisdom texts. Wisdom is a very interesting concept in the Old Testament. Wisdom was often personified, and usually in the female form. This is fascinating as we so often think of women in Old Testament times as housewives and mothers, yet some of our greatest texts point to Wisdom as feminine, divinely inspired, and teaching on the issues of the day.

In our text from Ecclesiasticus we are told:

12 Give to the Most High as he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford. For the Lord is the one who repays, and he will repay you sevenfold.

Compare this to the message we hear in our Gospel. Last week in our reading, you may remember that Jesus used the image of the persistent widow to describe faith.

He goes straight on to teach the same group of people about their responsibility. 2 men, 1 a tax collector the other a Pharisee go to pray. The Pharisee is a pious man, he follows the law, takes care to maintain his ritual cleanliness and fasts twice a week. He gives thanks that he has possessions and money and gives a 10th of his income. But the tax collector is too ashamed to enter the temple. He beats his chest and tries to repent for his sinful behaviour.

Jesus tells his followers that it is the tax collector who is justified because

all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Compare these messages from Sirach and Luke. Do they say the same thing? The proverb tells us that when we give to God as he has given to us, God will repay us sevenfold. Surely that is what the Pharisee is doing? He tithes his income, he follows the law? Yet the sinful tax collector seems to come out better.

You see, none of us can live a truly pious life. We are all sinners, no matter how hard we try not to be. But the often overly simplistic message of the Old Testament times got the Jews into a lot of bother. God isn’t binary; it isn’t as simple as giving your money and doing good deeds or facing divine punishment. It is God’s will for us that we should follow him unconditionally and this begins with our hearts. When we open them to God, we realise that nothing is too difficult for him. The deep shame and pain so many of us feel, as well as the feelings of being better than the poor, the needy, the uneducated, the vanity of mind and body, the abuse of ourselves and others, these are the things that we need to face up to. The tax collector opened his heart to God humbly and honestly. He was so broken, he couldn’t even raise up his eyes to heaven.

We have the opportunity to meet God in a number of ways. But being open and honest about our failings and seeking God’s forgiveness is hard. If you are feeling happy and comfortable in your Christian faith, then you need to do a bit of work and examine your hearts. Try to live in a cycle of grace. Take time everyday to consider your actions and the impact you have on others. Be a little more humble, forgive as you are forgiven, and meet God in Word and Sacrament.