Category: Sermons

I hope that tradition and the Chaplain will forgive me if I take as my text this day a verse not from the Bible but from a poem by a member of this college. It reads as follows and I will talk about it later in this sermon:

Yet this inconstancy is such

          As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

          Loved I not Honour more.

This is Worcester’s year of remembrance. All year we have remembered and given thanks for the foundation of our college three hundred years ago, in 1714. We have welcomed back many of our Old Members; we have launched a Campaign to honour our past by securing our future; we have danced all night at our Tercentenary Commemoration Ball; we have remembered our benefactors in a special service in this Chapel. So it is fitting that on this Remembrance Sunday on the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War, we should remember with particular attention those members of our society who fell in that war.

          We remember them every year when I read their names, together with those who gave their lives a generation later in the fight to free the world of fascism, and after this short sermon I will read them again, and—as he has done each year during my time as Provost—Tomi will sound the Last Post and the Reveille in their honour. But for the special attention of the First World War centenary we must thank our archivist Emma Goodrum for the exhibition that is currently gracing the Chapel. Thanks, too, to Jessica Goodman, my fellow-editor of our tercentenary book, Worcester: Portrait of an Oxford College, for the chapter on Worcester at War, where you may read more of our college and its people during the two world wars.

          Let us remember the many who fell, but to stand in for the many here are some snapshots of a very few.

          An anniversary is always an occasion for a family reunion and an opportunity for reconciliation of old differences, so it is especially pleasing that we are joined in Chapel and Hall tonight by Wolfgang Ahrens, nephew of our alumnus Richard Hirschfeld, a member of the German Army who was killed fighting the Bolsheviks in 1918. Hirschfeld loved England, loved Oxford and his time at Worcester, so it was a great relief to him that he only ever fought on the Eastern Front, not the Western. He died, heroically, in the Ukraine, trying to retrieve his wounded comrades.

          Another Old Member recently sent me a memoir of the short life of Captain David Hirsch, the only Worcester man to have been awarded the British nation’s highest badge of honour, the Victoria Cross, conferred posthumously. The citation reads

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in attack. Having arrived at the first objective, Capt. Hirsch, although already twice wounded, returned over fire-swept slopes to satisfy himself that the defensive flank was being established. Machine gun fire was so intense that it was necessary for him to be continuously up and down the line encouraging his men to dig in and hold the position. He continued to encourage his men by standing on the parapet and steadying them in the face of machine gun fire and counterattack until he was killed. His conduct throughout was a magnificent example of the greatest devotion to duty.

The extraordinary thing about Hirsch is that he was so young that he never even matriculated. In December 1914, he was awarded a Scholarship to read History at Worcester the following Michaelmas. He was seventeen years old. But he joined the Yorkshire Regiment before coming up, so never began his degree. He had been Head Boy of his school, the best bowler in the First XI and the holder of the mile record. One cannot but help think of Henry Newbolt, ‘And England’s far and Honour a name, / But the voice of a schoolboy rallied the ranks / “Play up! Play up! And play the game!”’ We remember him.

          But that Worcester should have lost a Hirsch on one side and a Hirschfeld on the other is a mark of our kinship with the German people, and we should give thanks now and always for the unity of our two nations in the last sixty-five years. That unity perhaps began with the magnanimity of the Marshall Plan. I find it moving and symbolic that whereas one of my predecessors at Provost, J. C. Masterman, spent the First World War as a prisoner in Germany and the second as overseer of the XX Committee that succeeded in turning every Nazi spy in Britain into a double agent and deceiving the enemy into the belief that the D-Day landings would take place at Calais, another of our Provosts, Oliver Franks, was the man who oversaw the implementation of the Marshall Plan. He said that it was an easier job than chairing the Governing Body of an Oxford College.

          But to return to the First War. Let the few stand in for the many. Here is a typical obituary from the Oxford Magazine of 1916, remembering an undergraduate who took up residence as a freshman in the autumn of 1913, ensconced in rooms on staircase 16 in Pump Quad, which we renovated this summer:

Lieutenant Charles Fabian Saunders, Northamptonshire Regiment, youngest son of the late Edward Saunders F.R.S., and grandson of William Wilson Saunders F.R.S., was born on January 20, 1895.  As a boy he was very delicate and was therefore not sent to a Public School.  He matriculated at this College as a Commoner in 1913, and joined the O.T.C.  When War was declared he enlisted in the University and Public Schools Battalion, and a few months later he obtained a commission in the Northamptonshire Regiment.  Before joining he returned to Oxford for a course in the Officers’ Training School, and spent part of it in his own College.  In early life he had been obliged to avoid any great physical exertion; but he was well made, and while at Oxford he was found to be a fast and graceful runner, and during his training distinguished himself at two inter-regimental sports meetings and was spoken of in the newspapers as a “beautiful quarter-miler”.  On September 1, 1915, his regiment was ordered abroad, and on the 25th of that month, when it was taking part in the attack at Loos, he received shrapnel wounds in the head.  After three months’ sick leave he joined the Reserve Battalion for light duty.  On July 13, 1916, he rejoined his old regiment and took part in the attack at Guillemont on Friday, August 18.  He was slightly wounded on getting over the parapet, but remained on duty.  Later in the day he was hit again while holding his position in the Quarries exposed to heavy machine-gun fire from both flanks.  He was the only officer of his company left, and was encouraging his men, as a brother officer writes, “both by his word and example”.  He went back to have his wound dressed, but collapsed while returning after this to the remnant of his men.  Another officer wrote that he was “just about the straightest and best man God ever made”, and another “he was a capital fellow, always so awfully cheery; I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper with anyone”.

          He was rather shy at the beginning of his time at Oxford, feeling the disadvantage of not having shared like others in the life and activities of a big school; but he was much liked, and, as he was gaining strength and developing his powers, gave promise of a successful career here and in after life.

We remember him.

          And here is Willie Elmhirst—we thank his great-nephew Colonel Marcus Elmhirst for reading the Second Lesson tonight—writing to his mother just a week before his death at Serre in 1916:

Out here one becomes so used to the idea of death, and that in most unpleasant forms, that it comes to seem a very small thing indeed. I have seen some far from pleasant sights during the last few days, but it is astonishing how little it affects one.

In the memoir of Elmhirst that accompanies the diary of his Freshman year at Worcester, published half a century later with an introduction by Masterman, his brother writes that ‘the intimate and liberal freedoms of Worcester were, for him, without doubt a Paradise Regained.’ We remember him.

          The eternal sorrow of the war is the loss of friends who shared that paradise. Among those to whom Elmhirst was closest were Golightly, Rhodes Scholar, Senior Colonial student, killed in action July 1916, and Curran, Commoner, Military Cross and Croix de Guerre, killed in action, October 1916. We remember them as we remember the words of Jesus in the Gospel of St John that we heard in the second lesson: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

          Elmhirst’s very British understatement—the carnage of the Western Front merely described as ‘some far from pleasant sights’—and the youthful gallantry of such boys as Hirsch and Saunders were shaped by the public school code of honour that drew on classical ideals: the Dulce et decorum set pro patria mori of the Roman poet Horace. The idea of honour has a long history. Back in the seventeenth century, when our nation descended into civil war, people had to make choices: to retreat from the world of action and political engagement, or to do the honourable thing and engage. And, if they engaged, to do so on the part of the cause they thought was right. Richard Lovelace of Gloucester Hall—Worcester in its older incarnation—made the choice and signed up to fight on the royalist side. His celebrated poem ‘To Lucasta going to the Wars’ contrasts the bliss of love with the call of honour. But what he says to his beloved in the verse that I cited at the beginning of this sermon is that his ‘inconstancy’ to her in putting his military calling above his love for her should really make her love him more not less. He is giving up the easy life of lying in his lover’s arms for the tough choice of doing what he believes to be the right thing. Whether or not we believe that he fought on the politically correct side, we should honour the idea that it is worth making personal sacrifices in order to make your college, your community, your country, your world a better place. Even today we may say to our own loved ones, with our alumnus Lovelace, ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, / Loved I not Honour more.’

          The First World War shattered for ever the old classical and public school code of honour. Most famously:

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! …

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen.

          But even as we argue causes and question the meaning of nation, of patria, in a globalised world, we should continue to honour those who have the courage to say goodbye to their loved ones and answer the call to risk laying down their own lives in defence of the right of us all to dissent from any single faith or ideology, to risk laying down their lives in the fight against tyranny, be it that of Hitler or of Islamic State.

          The least that we can do is to honour their memory and to shed a tear for the way in which the brevity of their lives gives special poignancy to their time at Worcester. Let me end by quoting another poem by a Worcester man. In the penultimate line you might take the liberty of substituting the name of his college for that of his county.

          In 1914 Nowell Oxland was Captain of the College rugby team and Secretary of the Lovelace Club. In 1915, he wrote this poem on a ship bound for Gallipoli, where he fell at Suvla Bay:

We shall pass in summer weather,

We shall come at eventide,

When the fells stand up together

And all quiet things abide;

Mixed with cloud and wind and river,

Sun-distilled in dew and rain,

One with Cumberland for ever

We shall not go forth again.

Isaiah 65: 17-end; Hebrews 11: 32-12.2

All Saints Day 2014    Worcester College Oxford

 

Alan Bennett’s short story ‘The Laying on of hands’ tells of a memorial service in a central London church built by Inigo Jones. The great, the good and the heartbroken gather for Clive’s memorial. This memorial service like so many began with a well-known actress reading immaculately a piece about death not really being the end but just like popping next door followed by a reading from 1 Corinthians 12 in the rolling cadences of the Authorised Version, swiftly followed by a saxophone rendition of the Dusty Springfield standard, ‘You don’t have to say you love me’. It had been billed as a celebration, the marrying of the valedictory and the festive. Bennet writes ‘ To call it a celebration also allowed the congregation to dress up not down, so that though the millinery might be more muted, one could have been forgiven for thinking this was a wedding not a wake. But some did cry. Bennet comments ‘funeral tears seldom flow for anyone other than the person crying them. They cried for Clive, it is true, but they cried for themselves without Clive. His death meant that he had left them with nothing to remember him by’.

 

Our society increasingly can’t handle death. My Irish cultural heritage still keeps death within the domestic context with open coffins at home and children becoming familiar with dead bodies from a young age. Whilst many adults – even within this congregation – may not have been so up close with death – its colour, its smell, its cold feel. Yet death has not gone away and further attempts to legislate for its control are unlikely to disappear from public discourse but they are just as unlikely to deliver what many hope for – a way to manage death. We seek out new rituals to try to make sense of death in the modern era. Funerals now straddle the line between celebration and grief – the coffins of celebrities are applauded!

 

I find myself responsible for the re-interment of King Richard III. He is not a canonised Saint but an anointed child of God. This will take place in Leicester Cathedral next March with the principal service being broadcast live on television. I find myself looking back to the ritual of the 15^th century and recognising that it will not do both in terms of the particularities of this story and in the need to address our contemporary reality of death and the hope of resurrection. Note for example that unlike a funeral this is not exactly a ‘goodbye’ but more of a ‘hello’. What symbols or actions or ways of memorialising might cut through our cynical, fearful or technological reliant carapace to help us address our metaphysical wonderings?

 

We enter the month of November to celebrate All Saints Day and All Souls Day. This is the month of reckoning with the thought that we are indeed dust. The Hebrew word Adam comes from the word for mud or soil. We are people of the humus yet in faith we can also shine with the divine light which is eternal and which means that not even the sun or any scorching heat can strike. Shakespeare put it like this – ‘And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then’. This is the real power of All Sainstide – the proclamation of the death of death.

 

The poet Elizabeth Jennings puts it like this:

 

We are dust from our birth

But in that dust is wrought

A place for visions, a hope

That reaches beyond the stars,

Conjures and pauses the seas.                                    Elizabeth Jennings, from Dust

 

 

The early Christians worked out that they had to change their practice of dealing with the dead if they were to demonstrate what they believed and the practice itself also helped to shape their belief. I recently visited Rome and we went on a tour underneath the basilica of St Peter. There is an extraordinary underworld preserved because Emperor Constantine who colonised the site simply filled the existing architecture with rubble which has now been removed. The early Christians colonised the necropolis, the city of the dead which sat outside the many city of Rome. This was a place shrouded by mystery and far away from everyday life like shopping or eating or entertainment.

 

The early Christians did this to show a way of embracing death and making it a part of life. They wanted to emphasise the continuing role and place of their departed friends in their midst. The graves of the martyrs and those who have particularly exemplified the faith took on special significance. So churches got built on the sites of these graves and grave yards were built surrounding them. Leicester Cathedral was a medieval parish church with graves right up to the boundary of the building. We’ve found maps showing them to be buried 22 deep in the churchyard. And in the current building works inside the cathedral we’ve gone down five levels of burial in the chancel. We are literally surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. The theological belief reshaped the physical environment of the city.

 

Contrast that with the marking of physical space as we have dealt with mental illness up until fairly recently. You could work out the established ancient edge of a city by the sight of a psychiatric hospital or lunatic asylum. Mental illness regarded as alien is built on the edge of community.

 

Bringing in a new set of human remains into the middle of a modern multi-cultural city puts us back in touch with this radical Christian practice. King Richard’s tomb thus in addition to being marked with his biographical detail will not just so much celebrate him and his deeds but rather point also to the hope of resurrection. So he will have a human sized stone made of elegant fossil stone – that in itself speaking of transformation. It will rise slightly towards the east in hope of resurrection. And like the stone of Easter morning, cracked by the sacrificial love of the cross, so the tomb will be marked by a cross so that light flows in and through the stone.

 

John Inge, Bishop of Worcester describes place as ‘the seat of relations and of meeting and activity between God and the world’ (A Christian Theology of Place, Ashgate). He makes the distinction between space and place. Space being purely physical and neutral whereas place is relational and contains memories and embodies values. So Christians marked space to create place by using the iconography of the Saints, those who carry for us the imagery of the eternal life of heaven to differentiate from the purely ordinary and temporal. By doing this they wove the eternal in and around the temporal. We might do well to do likewise to try and reverse our inability to address death and live the hope spoken of in scripture that ….

 

‘We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, so that we lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,^* and run with perseverance the race that is set before us,‘ Hebrews 12:1

 

 

© The Very Revd David Monteith, Dean of Leicester, 2^nd November 2014

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

 

Some words from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. In Little Gidding he writes,

 

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

 

For many people the traditional time of new beginnings is when we mark the turning of another calendar year in January. Reflecting on all that has taken place in the last twelve months, it is then that we turn our faces like a confident Janus away from the dying days of December and take up the promises and challenges of the New Year. But for us who are still so governed by the structures and traditions of educational establishments, be it college or school, it is this time of year, the autumn or Michaelmas, that marks a beginning, a new start. I was struck, last weekend, when those who attended the Gaudy night dinner on Saturday – old members who seemed to have wealth, power and influence in their own worlds – left on the Sunday morning, the college scouts arrived, the beds were changed, rooms cleaned, and the college was made ready for a new generation of students to arrive. New life, new blood. It is one of my favourite times of year, because this college thrives on the new. Without it, we decay.

As Eliot’s words so wonderfully reflect, intermixed with this sense of a new chapter in the book of life is also the poignant sense of loss and something coming to an end. You don’t have to be embarking on a new course at university to experience it, for the world all around us is dying away as the golden days of summer slowly darken into the barren landscape of winter. All of us live with the constant mingling of beginnings and endings, of the new emerging from the old and an ending that is a dying back to reveal the new. I am sure that none of us that live on this seashore of undulating change underestimate how it can feel at various times. Thrown about in the flotsum and jetsum of life, new beginnings can at one moment bring the elation of change and possibility mixed with the fear and deep insecurity of letting go whilst at another the depths of sadness at an ending can drown out any sense of new life. We all in our different ways and at different times both swim and sink with the transience of our existence.

 

Our readings today do not so much give us a way out, as a rock on which to cling that will see us through both the times of new beginnings and endings, and so enable us to embrace them with that sense of trust and acceptance that Eliot manages to convey in his poem. For the Israelites, this rock comes in the form of advice, encouraging God’s people to remember and obey God’s way of living as set out on those two solid stone tablets on which are etched the Ten Commandments. In these literal stones God gives his people the words and tools of guidance on which they can construct their lives. They are not simply a list of rules which a dictator God gives to his chosen servants to ensure they uphold their covenant with him and become a successful, law-abiding nation, but, they are given as the ten best ways by which to live. If we are tempted to think of God’s commandments as out-dated forms of morality, ask any child about the impact of a broken marriage or wanting what others have, and we soon see that they have as much relevance today as it did thousands of years ago. The writer of the Proverbs, admonishes us to trust and honour God by our obedience

‘My child, do not forget my teaching,
   but let your heart keep my commandments;
for length of days and years of life
   and abundant welfare they will give you.

 

The key items the writer wishes to stress are loyalty and faithfulness: ‘bind them round your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.’ Again the stone metaphor emphasises the permanent nature of these decrees, and further paraphrases of the ten commandments follow: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty.’

But these are not idle commands to be blindly obeyed to no purpose except obedience itself. To follow God’s will is to seek a path of true wisdom that brings true wealth.

 

‘Happy are those who find wisdom,
   and those who get understanding,
   for her income is better than silver,
   and her revenue better than gold.
   She is more precious than jewels,
   and nothing you desire can compare with her.
   Long life is in her right hand;
   in her left hand are riches and honour.
   Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
   and all her paths are peace.
   She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
   those who hold her fast are called happy.

 

Again I am reminded of those successful old members who returned for their Gaudy last week. When they arrived as students over twenty years ago, did they come to this university simply to obtain the means by which to gain a good job, or great wealth? My conversations with those I met convinced me otherwise. For their stories and their friendships spoke of a deeper wisdom, perhaps not fully realised in their lives, but acknowledged and aspired to. In this place we gather to ponder that deeper wisdom and seek to find it.

 

The story of Jesus and the rich man is well known and salutary. He wants eternal life, and so Jesus points him towards the Ten Commandments, no doubt knowing full well that the rich man had kept them since his youth and yet wanted a deeper reassurance. He is met with the challenge of giving up everything and it is a hard thing for him to do. The mystery is who will inherit eternal life is not solved by this meeting. Will it be some? Will it be all? We do not know, only the enigmatic ‘Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’ It is not for us to know or conjecture. Our task is to seek the wisdom of God, day by day, as we follow his ways and trust in him.

 

So as we reflect on this time of change all around us, of new beginnings and endings, let us once more seek to build our lives on the rock of Christ (and not to mistake him for the shifting sands of our own illusions and pride). I leave you with the words of T.S. Eliot once again:

With the drawing of his Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. Amen.

 

 

 

Worcester Chapel Oxford, Evensong. Sunday 25th May 2014

Job 19:6 – 27. Acts 8:26 – 39

“I wish I had your faith,” my husband Shaun was told yesterday, by a colleague

whose mother is dying. “But you can’t make yourself believe, can you?”

I wonder. I’ve often heard friends say they’d love to have faith. And if Christianity

is true, faith is infinitely more precious than wealth, health, happiness or any other

gift we might long for. So is it true that it really is only for the few, the elect, and

there’s nothing we can do about it? Or is faith available for anyone who wants it?

And if so, how?

There are so many examples of doubting disciples in the Bible that I found it hard

to choose our New Testament reading: most of Jesus’ followers at some point

struggled to believe. In the end I asked for the story of the Ethiopian ruler because

he goes from uncertainty to faith in five clear and simple steps. If he can, why not

the rest of us?

First, he does his research: we initially encounter him studying the scriptures. Contrary

to New Atheist propaganda, faith is not a blind leap of superstition, a matter

of shutting your eyes, jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best. It’s based on evidence,

as science is, as any decision is. So the obvious place to start is by weighing

that evidence. And by far the fullest, most detailed and most reliable history of the

life of Jesus of Nazareth is found in the Gospels. Ask any expert in ancient documents:

the four Gospels are far better verified, many times over, than any other

writings from the ancient world; and much more objective, for instance, than anything

we have on the life and achievements of Julius Caesar.

Mark is the shortest: you could read it in one sitting. Matthew is similarly accessible;

Luke too, with slightly more emphasis on the women in Jesus’ life. John is

finely laced with commentary.

You may feel you want more guidance. What’s the second step the Ethiopian takes?

Next he finds a teacher. “How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?”

He was fortunate: he came across someone who could. So are you. You have your

College Chapel, and your Chaplain; you have the University Christian Union; you

have a choice of good churches. If you want to know what Jesus’ taught and why, I

suggest you find a place of worship where Christianity is clearly explained. Attend

regularly for, say, as long as you set aside to study your degree? After a couple of

years or so you should have a fair idea of what Christianity is about, why Christians

believe and what difference it makes to them.

Thirdly, the Ethiopian asks questions. Always a good way to find out more. Test the

evidence. Challenge the thesis. Request more information.

Consider someone who has gone down in history for his scepticism, Jesus’ disciple

known as Doubting Thomas. The name Thomas means twin. I wonder what his

brother was called? Perhaps their parents couldn’t tell them apart, and called them

both Thomas. “Thomas, come here! Yes, Thomas, I mean both of you.” Twins are

used to mistaken identity. How often had Thomas been blamed for breaking his sister’s

toys, filching his father’s supper, flirting with a girl when he was miles away?

Overnight, the leader that Thomas had followed for years was executed and discredited.

Like all the disciples, he was plunged into doubt. Then his friends told

him some cock and bull story about their leader returning, alive, when Thomas

didn’t happen to be there. What would your reaction be? Especially if you were a

twin. Exactly. He insisted on evidence.

The critical thing about Thomas is that when he saw the evidence, he accepted it

instantly, and also acknowledged its implications. “My Lord and my God.” People

often say they won’t believe until they have evidence. Quite right too. But then

when they have the evidence, they sometimes capitulate and say it wasn’t the evidence

they wanted.

As Jesus pointed out to Thomas, most of us can’t have first hand evidence because

we’re not living at a time when first hand evidence is available. Do you believe in

the Holocaust? Of course you do. Why? Because there is good, reliable and credible

witness from the people who were alive at the time. And yet there are people who

deny it, so belief is not inevitable.

Almost all the decisions we make in life are based, not on absolute certainty, but on

reasonable probability. Shaun and I came here this evening by car: it was by no

means sure our car would get us here. I married Shaun because he told me he loved

me: was it guaranteed that he would go on doing so? When you leave here you’ll

make decisions about your future: will they be based on certainties?

Like any decision, faith requires evidence: but not inevitability. I can’t be sure Jesus

Christ is who He claimed to be. I can conclude that it is a reasonable deduction

from the facts. I believe, the most reasonable.

Fourthly, the Ethiopian took action: he asked to be baptised; he made a statement of

faith. Consider another doubting disciple, the father who brought his epileptic son

to Jesus. The boy’s fits threatened his life, often throwing him near fire or water.

“If you can,” the father said, “take pity on him and help us.”

“If you can?” Jesus echoed. “Everything is possible, if you believe.”

“Oh, I believe!” the desperate father responded. “Please, help my unbelief.”

Clearly he had doubts. But he was so keenly desirous to help his son that he put

them on one side and acted anyway. Faith is as much to do with behaviour as belief.

Behave as if you believe and belief usually follows.

Could you be sure that an unmanned rowing boat in an Arctic sea at midnight is

completely safe? Of course you couldn’t. But if you were going down on the Titanic

you’d get in it anyway. You’d be saved, not by any feeling of certainty, by but the

action you took.

The Ethiopian can’t have been sure about everything, still had questions, there was

lots he didn’t know. But he decided to give it a go anyway.

Finally, he rejoiced. He was happy with his decision and he let everyone know it.

If you want faith, I suggest you do what he did. Read the Bible. Find someone to

teach you. Ask questions. Make a commitment. Finally, celebrate!

And what do you do when doubts come again, as they almost certainly will?

I take great comfort from Job’s reaction in our Old Testament reading. The story of

Job is one full of uncertainty, agonising doubt and theological dilemma. Everything

goes wrong for him: he loses his vast wealth, all his children and finally his health.

Life could hardly get worse. His friends tell him it must be his fault. He can’t have

felt sure of anything, least of all the love of God.

But his statement of faith of nearly two and a half thousand years ago is perhaps

the most rousing in the Bible. He didn’t feel it, but he said it anyway. I know that

my Redeemer lives, that one day He will walk upon the earth and that after worms

destroy my body, in my own flesh I will see God.

Some years ago we were going through a very difficult time, here in Oxfordshire.

We lost our home, our health, our children’s prospects. Worse, it was the church

that was doing it to us. When you get that low, you don’t necessarily lose faith

because something convinces you it isn’t true. You lose faith because you haven’t

the heart to go on. Have you noticed that marriages often break in the face of tragedy,

I believe because couples just haven’t the energy any more.

One day, near despair, I said to Shaun, “What’s the point? God doesn’t answer

prayer. Christians behave worse than anyone. Why should we go on believing?”

“Look at the character of Jesus,” he replied. “Who else do you think He could be?”

I thought back to a vivid illustration in the Bible I’d had since childhood, of the

Good Shepherd gently carrying a lamb over His shoulders. I’d never felt less like it.

But I decided to keep going anyway.

Who else do you think he could be?

18^th May 2014 Worcester College Evensong Zechariah 4 : 1 – 10 Luke 2 : 22 – 28  

Thank you very much for inviting me to preach this evening and enjoying the uplifting worship to our Heavenly Father . Worcester College is the patron of one of the 4 parishes where I’m vicar parish of St James the great Denchworth a small village of about 80 houses with roughly 200 people. There is a very nice pub Fox inn recommend the food and a sweet little church.

Average congregation increased last year by 50% 8 à 12 9(last week 19)   Thomas Hardy’s sister Mary used to play the organ there in fact she was the school teacher the old Schoolhouse right by the church unfortunately the school is no longer active but as one of the ladies said in our annual general meeting there are a lot more young people and children living in the village at the moment. And one of our concerns and projects the future is to see what we can do in terms of Christian teaching children the village

Neatly leads me onto looking at our second reading today where Jesus is dedicated presented in the Temple and I want to look at what we can learn about family life from this event

there is of course a lot of debate about what family is. To narrow down the definition of family as just illustrated by Mary and Joseph & the little baby Jesus is very restrictive . The family is broader + inclusive nature so it could include the more oddball characters such as Simeon & certainly should include the elderly such as Anna. ( It is good that society is re-examining its treatment and attitude towards the elderly or they are part of our family) They deserve respect

What connects a family? Common blood type? the church often calls itself a family and we are spiritually connected by the blood of Christ. I was an Army chaplain and some regiments like to think of themselves as family regiment again the blood that connects them is their fallen comrades.

Not true – family members have different blood typesI don’t even think of family should just be defined as being connected by blood. Thinking of someone like Simeon I remember my parents often invite rather eccentric folk to share in our family life – one such stayed with us borstal young offenders correctional institution was supposedly a member of Hells Angel gang è Robin BOB Banks

but ideally I think what defines a family is our shared values, our shared experiences, and shared traditions.

we have some younger people as well as more mature/with us tonight each one of us have been part of a family. I hope it has been a loving enjoyable comforting encouraging experience à

It is a place where we learn and grow where love is shared where we can be ourselves develop our full potential

and there are two aspects from this passage which I think we can learn and which if we take note of will enhance all family life all life so that we can deliver a loving secure and stimulating environment in which to live

living according to God’s guide lines

4 times at the end of chapter 2 is expression when Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the law of the Lord.

What sort of people did God want to be the parents of Jesus Christ? Mary was described as joyfully obedient; Joseph as righteous, they both followed Gods ways

of course some people adhere very rigidly to God’s commands, others are far more elastic in their approach but God’s guidelines are very good basis (the best in fact) for family life

ð   10 commandments can you list them? Miss out 2 respect , faithfulness, honesty,

Many organisations have Core Values Army CDRILS                        RFU    Teamwork  Respect     EnjoymentDiscipline          Sportsmanship

 

10 è summed up by Jesus as LOVE

If you follow God’s guidelines properly you are more lilely to produce a loving character

When in a loving family the joys and love help bring balance & comfort in pains of life

Focusing on Jesus Christ

The focus in this story is Jesus

family life is about relationships – these relationships will be enhanced when ahave relationship with Jesus

because when we focus on our personal trust in Christ we personally benefit not only we can be sure of our past sins forgiven, our present purposes guided by his love and the certainty of an eternal future in heaven

not only but also we will start thinking of others and their needs and e ven the needs of our enemies society benefits

the family is important because it is the stable yet flexible basis of community. And whether the government is serious or just play lip service to the structure of family life, the church certainly should be encouraging and supporting this strong yet versatile set of people. The family may be a small unit but as Zechariah says who despises the day small things?

also broadens our horizons to take on Xt’s values for the whole world

SONGnot just the redemption of Jerusalem and the glory of God’s people Israel but

salvation of all people                                     

revealing God’s truth to all the nations    justice and mercy            compassion & kindness to anybody           purpose peace constructive & positive hope

XN AID -> song Tuimbe let us pray à Kenya street Kids orphanages Radio prayer programme

So may I challenge you whether à personal benefits or because you want our society to improve/ because you actually want to help the whole world not despise the day of small things but learn from Christ

Follow God’s guidelines and

Focus on Jesus Christ

 

11 May 2014   (3^rd Sunday after Easter)

 

 

‘What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is often to make a beginning…’

 

These frequently cited words from Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ create a useful introduction for this sermon. I want us to reflect together on ‘beginnings and endings’ –   prompted in part because several here tonight are approaching one ‘ending’ and another ‘beginning’ after this term – whether as choir member, chorister, choir parent, graduate or undergraduate.   Our lives are punctuated by innumerable ‘beginnings’ and ‘endings’: our first and last days at school, beginnings and endings of significant friendships, the start and completion of tertiary education or of a particular job.

                In Chapel over the last two weeks we have also been made aware of beginnings and endings of two books in the Bible. In Week One it was the Gospel of Mark, when the Chaplain reminded us that Mark ends as it started – north of Jerusalem, in Galilee, first with the call then with the commissioning of the disciples. Last week the Vicar of St Mary’s reminded us that the beginning and ending of John’s Gospel offered a similar inclusio – the focus on Peter, especially on Jesus’ words to Peter at the beginning and the end of the Gospel: ‘Follow me’. The Gospel of Matthew has a different inclusio: at the beginning we read that Mary will name her newborn ‘Emmanuel’, ‘God with us’, and at the end the very last words are of Jesus telling his disciples ‘I will be with you always, to the end of time’.   Luke’s Gospel is perhaps the most appropriate of all for this sermon: it starts with the priest Zechariah, alone in the Temple, being promised a son, John the Baptist, and the Gospel also ends in the Temple: the last verse tells us that, after the final resurrection appearance of Jesus, the disciples returned to the Jerusalem Temple, where they were continually, ‘praising and blessing God’.

                Individual prayer like that of Zechariah and corporate praise like that of the disciples is a theme I want to focus on tonight. I want us to turn instead to the Book of Psalms, and to spend some time reflecting on the first and last psalms of the Hebrew Psalter. (You’ll see I’ve given each of you a card which illustrates by word and art what I hope we shall reflect on together.) We heard Psalm 1, in Coverdale’s translation, sung to us earlier, where the choir captured so well the thoughtful mood of those personal reflections. We have also just heard an anthem which echoed the themes of corporate praise found in Psalm 150: I am grateful to the choir for illustrating these contrasting themes.

                Let us look at each of these psalms. See first just how similar in length each psalm is. Both can be divided up into three stanzas with two verses in each; not many psalms have this particular structure, so they mirror each other very clearly. They each have an obvious beginning and end: Psalm 150 is the easiest to see, with its ‘Praise the Lord’ at the start of verse 1 and the end of verse 6: I’ve represented this from the Hebrew, where in each case the word is simply ‘Hallelyu’   – ‘Praise to Yah!’. Psalm 1 also has a clear beginning and ending, in the Hebrew: as those who have read this psalm in Hebrew will know, the very first letter of the first word, ‘Happy’, begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, an aleph, and the very first letter of the final word, ‘perish’ begins with the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, a taw. So two psalms at the beginning and ending of the Psalter each have their own clear inclusio.

But, you might well ask, what has all this to do with our prayers and our worship?   – A good deal, for these two psalms have been placed where they are in order to point to the two polarities of our faith in God. Let’s turn first to Psalm 1, which communicates a mode which is personal and individual. In a sense it is not even a prayer, because it doesn’t actually address God; the psalmist considers that an obedient believer can become close to God by quietly reading his word (here called ‘the law of the Lord’), but this also entails avoiding the influence of those who mock and deride their faith. (Look at how in the first verse, the verbs ‘walk/ stand/ sit’ suggest the increasing temptation to do so.) At the heart of the psalm the believers are compared to a fruitful tree by streams of living water; by contrast, the unbelievers are like the chaff after harvest time ‘which the wind blows clean away’. There are two destinies here: that of the faithful believer who is ‘known’ by God, and that of the faithless who do not seek to know God – and so are not known by him. Psalm 1 stands as a gateway to the Psalter, inviting us to explore, psalm by psalm, a life of faith lived out in this prayerful obedience: and as we journey through the Psalter we discover this is not actually a simple or easy process, for the life of faith is full of good and bad choices, resulting in difficult times as well as good ones. And although it is a journey which we share with thousands of others over thousands of years, it is also a journey, as Psalm 1 indicates, which each individual undertakes on their own.

Let us turn now to Psalm 150. This is a very public psalm, beginning in the Temple, or the ‘sanctuary of God’. Even without singing it ourselves we can almost hear the ‘trumpet sound’, the ‘lute and harp’, the ‘tambourine and cymbals’, and the ‘strings and pipe’. It is as noisy and jubilant as Psalm 1 is quiet and reflective. Ten times we are called upon to ‘praise God’; for the Hebrew worshipper would probably have reminded them of Genesis 1, and those ten calls by God as he brings creation into being.   If Psalm 1 focussed on the fragile fate of the individual, Psalm 150 emphasises the power and greatness of Israel’s God. If Psalm 1 looks inward as to how the suppliant might please God, Psalm 150 looks outward and sees the wider world beyond. Psalm 1 invites us, on a quiet and reflective note, to embrace the life of the faith for ourselves; Psalm 150 invites us, in exuberant tones, to focus no longer on ourselves but on the character of God: ‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!’

It is fascinating to see how these two polarities of faith have been captured in representations of each psalm in music and art. One of the oldest Christian illustrations is found in the ninth-century Utrecht Psalter, which comprises over 150 line drawings which interpret each psalm as literally as possible.   You’ll see the interpretation of Psalm 1 on your card.   In the top right we can just see the believer inside a ‘tempietto’, reflecting on God’s word ‘day and night’ (I hope you can make out the sun and moon in the sky above him). On the other side, top right, is, literally, the ‘seat of scoffers’.   Our eye is drawn to the middle of the picture where we might see a tree by running water; moving down to the bottom right variousdissolute individuals are being blown away by a strong wind which drives them into some sort of pit.  The imagery of the psalm is told as a story for the faithful: its message is about the significance of making good and bad choices in the journey of faith.

If you now turn to the front of the card, you’ll see Marc Chagall’s Jewish representation of Psalm 1, from the 1970s. Here the believer is actually in the tree, whilst the female figure at the foot of it hints at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. A protective angel hovers above, apparently encouraging the reading of the Law which is depicted as the fruit of another tree. Again, especially with the Eden theme, personal choices between good and evil seem to be at the heart of Chagall’s sketch of this psalm.

Let us now look at the way in which the Utrecht Psalter has represented Psalms 150. In its typical brown ink sketch, you can identify the ‘sanctuary’ in the middle at the bottom, and immediately above it God is seated on a throne in his heavenly sanctuary, with angels singing his praises to his right and left. On earth below, musicians and singers stand on small hillocks and offer their own earthly praise to the figure on the throne. Look out for the lutes and harps, the strings and pipes, the tambourines and the dancing. The clamour of praises echoes from the page.

Turn to the back of your card, where you can see Marc Chagall’s depiction of Psalm 150. Some of you will have seen this amazing stained glass window in Chichester Cathedral, created when Chagall was in his nineties: the exuberance of the music is now represented by the fiery red background which is broken up by greens and blues and yellows. Look at the small figures and animals playing musical instruments and joining in the fun and jubilation. At the top is David, sitting rather uncomfortably on a donkey, playing his harp, and right above him is the Torah, reminding us, perhaps, of Psalm 1.   Everywhere is movement, celebration, noise: ‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!’ is the caption for it.  

It seems Worcester Chapel is the right place to be in which to consider the differences between these two psalms. For Psalm 150, we have the frieze to my right with the angels (Uriel, with a psalms scroll, and Raphael, Gabriel and Michael); they are singing ‘to thee all Angels cry aloud’, and the angelic choir of eight respond with ‘Holy Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts’. (This is the ‘Te Deum’ we heard tonight.)   As for Psalm 1, all over the chapel, on the friezes and on the mosaic floor, we have the contrasting examples of individual saints who, like the psalmist in Psalm 1, have learnt the comfort and the cost of the choice of obedient faith.

I hesitate, in the company of so many skilled in music here tonight, to say anything about the musical representations of these two psalms. Let us briefly reflect on Psalm 1: as well as the interpretation of Coverdale’s Psalm sung by the choir earlier tonight, I am reminded of Thomas Tallis’s sustained and reflective version of Psalm 1, with its title ‘The first is meek: devout to see’.    We might contrast such versions of Psalm 1 with, for example, Anton Bruckner’s and Igor Stravinsky’s compositions of Psalm 150, where we celebrate our faith together rather than reflect on it alone. One of the most vital and vibrant interpretations of Psalm 150 is the one by Benjamin Britten, composed for children at Britten’s preparatory school in Aldeburgh. The performance lasts five minutes. It starts with a lively dance, based upon the praise of God to the sound of the trumpet; this merges into an animated round of children’s voices, and ends with that forceful march to the words ‘O Praise God’. The Gloria allows for the unselfconscious praise of children, using various musical instruments as guided by the conductor. Perhaps one day our choir might sing it?  We have an example here already – the praises of choir boys represented on the alabaster lectern in the centre of the chapel.

But again, you might ask, what difference does all this representation in music and art make to our understanding of our Christian faith here, tonight? Again, I will echo what I said before:    each psalm marks out the complementary polarities of our Christian faith. The two readings we heard also indicated this. The Old Testament passage from Chronicles reveals to us something of the vibrancy of worship, where music and praise brings to life the words of the psalms; the New Testament lesson from 1 John, by contrast, speaks of the importance of reflecting not only on the written words of God but also on the living word of Life – Christ Himself.

There is however more to these psalms than just the contrast between personal prayer and corporate praise. Psalm 1 is about a faith which looks inwards, excluding the unrighteous from the congregation, whilst Psalm 150 suggests a faith which looks outwards and includes ‘everything that breathes’ in the purposes of God. Some Christians will feel a greater affinity with the more private and defensive faith of Psalm 1; other Christians will feel more at home in the world of Psalm 150. Yet others may be somewhere in between. But both perspectives are important: we cannot be sustained only by a private faith on our own, nor can we be sustained only by the faith of others. And between Psalms 1 and 150 we find both approaches continuously presented throughout the other 148 psalms, as we move from the personal to the corporate, from prayer to praise, and from the corporate to the personal, from praise to prayer.   So from Psalm 1 we learn the importance of a works-orientated faith which quietly meditates on the Word of God; from Psalm 150, we see the importance of trust-orientated faith which goes beyond the medium of words alone and through the power of music is celebrated so all might know about it.

‘On his Law they meditate day and night.’

‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

 

Psalm 1

 

 

¹Happy are those

who do not walk after the advice of the wicked,

or stand in the way of sinners,

or sit in the seat of scoffers;

² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law they meditate day and night.

 

 

³They are like trees planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither

In all that they do, they prosper.

⁴Not so, the wicked!

they are like chaff

that the wind drives clean away.

 

 

⁵Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous

but the way of the wicked will perish.

 

Utrecht Psalter (ninth century) © University of Utrecht

^{Psalm 150}

 

 

¹Praise Yah!

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty firmament!

² Praise him for his mighty deeds;

praise him for his surpassing greatness!

 

 

 

³ Praise him with the trumpet sound;

praise him with lute and harp!

⁴ Praise him with tambourine and dance;

praise him with strings and pipe!

 

 

 

⁵ Praise him with clanging cymbals;

praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

⁶ Let everything that breathes

praise the LORD!

Praise Yah!

 

 

 

Sermon The Raising of Lazarus, Worcester College, 9^th March 2014.

Deuteronomy 6: 4-9, 16-end; John 11: 1-45

 

Jonathan Arnold

Some of you who were here for the Christmas carol service at the end of last term may remember that I had a special, and rather worldly, request for Christmas. I had told my children that I had asked Father Christmas for a new television to replace the scratched and old one that we had. Remarkably, the negotiations paid off and on Christmas morning we were all astonished to find a large parcel wrapped up in gold paper at the foot of the Christmas tree and inside there was indeed, a brand new television. What were the chances of that?

We are very pleased with the new TV but, as you remember from my talk, finding anything good to watch on it is another matter. However, the past few days have been an exception for I have greatly enjoyed the short series called ‘Thirty Seven Days’, a drama screened on three consecutive nights charting the days leading up to the First World War. I particularly enjoyed it, not just because one of my best friends was playing the part of Winston Churchill, but because it portrayed the response to the initial assassination and the subsequent diplomatic negotiations, manipulations, mishaps and tantrums that took place between Austria, Germany, Britain, Russia, France and Bosnia. These men, for they were all men (Kings, Tzars, Foreign Office Ministers and so on), acting with a variety of motivations moved the sequence of events closer to war by their conversations, letters, phone calls and telegrams. A traditional view of the war, I know, and certainly history ‘from above’, that is from the point of view of the potentates, but a narrative that, with our hindsight we know, led millions to their deaths, did these leaders but know it at the time.

Of course, it makes for gripping drama, as well as education, but as we remember, and commemorate, this year, the the First World War that began one hundred years ago, it leaves one sorrowful, once again, at humanity’s capacity for conflict. Focusing, as it did, upon the big names of diplomacy and politics, such as the Kaiser, Lloyd George, Edward Gray and so on, contrasts with another good series on the war, by Jeremy Paxman a few weeks ago.

Paxman’s series was characterized by ‘history from below’, that is, the story told from the point of view of ordinary people; people whose destiny had been sealed by the decisions of national leaders. Paxman revealed tale after tale of extraordinary courage, compassion, kindness and pride, as well as cowardice and corruption. Of course there are many stories of young men who could not wait to volunteer and serve their country, as Housman wrote, ‘The lads in their hundreds from Ludlow come into town … and there with the rest are the lads that will never be old’. One person who tried to help those who fought in the trenches was Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, a priest who, on the outbreak of World war I, volunteered as a chaplain to the army on the Western front, where he gained the nkcname ‘Woodbine Willie’ for handing out Woodbine cigarettes as he offered spiritual aid to the fighting and the dying. In 1917, he was awarded the Military corss at Messines Ridge after running into no man’s land to help the wounded during an attack on the German frontline. But despite the spiritual and practical help offered by such people, many a parent lost a child, and some parents were to lose four or five sons. That kind of loss and grief is not something any of us would wish to endure. And what consolation can there be?

As we come to the last of the seven signs in John’s Gospel, we find that it is Martha who is need of consolation as she rebukes Jesus,’ If you had been here, sir, my brother would not have died.’ And here is Jesus’ answer: ‘Your brother will rise again’. ‘Yes, I know’, she replies. But surely that is not the answer that brings her consolation now. Likewise, in the first world war priests increasingly offered prayers for the dead, not prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, but out of an acute pastoral need. It is just such a pastoral need that is presented to Jesus in this story, as Mary also pleads with Christ for a response, and Jesus shows great compassion. He weeps, and he performs the greatest of his miracles, reminding us, perhaps of the Epstein statue in the ante-chapel of New College in Oxford. The large disturbing figure of a deformed and bandaged Lazarus emerging upright, perhaps trying to walk. The sculpture leaves us wondering is his flesh is still decayed underneath the swaths of bandages. A gruesome rising.

What can we make of this last, and most dramatic of the seven signs, and how does it relate to the six others? Firstly, it is a remarkable contrast to the text with which we began this term. The first sign, the turning of water into wine at Cana, where Jesus’ wearily agrees to the request, rebuking his mother for putting him in that situation. But at the raising of Lazarus, we hear that Jesus considered Lazarus’s illness to be ‘for the glory of God, to bring glory to the Son of God.’ And Jesus even waits for two whole days before attending to the situation. Secondly, when Jesus does attend, he makes it clear that he is acting so that the people might believe that God sent him. The text is littered with this emphasis: Christ tells his disciples that Lazarus’s illness is an opportunity for God’ glory to be shown, and for Jesus to be recognized in glory as God’s Son. Martha acknowledges his as the Messiah and Jesus prays to God in order to show them that he is the Son.

We do not hear about Mary and Martha’s reaction to Lazarus’s return to life, but rather the reaction of others: some believe, some seek to condemn Jesus, as the narrative of the Gospel moves into the passover, the final discourses, and the passion narrative. Thus, the seven signs end, with their aim to convince the reader or hearer, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, he is the resurrection and the life, and whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Surely a consoling truth for those who believe, at least, in the long term – this is a God who has power over death and this final sign points towards the ultimate victory of the cross and resurrection.

I wonder how consoling this theology was to the grieving families of those who perished in the Great War. I hope it was. But I also wonder what help there might have been for them, and for those who now do not see their loved ones rise again? What is it that makes things better now? Hope in the eternal kingdom is one aspect of the Christian faith. Creating a new and better reality in the present is another. Faith in the risen Christ, which this seventh sign points to, is the means by which we can receive the strength of God’s grace to see a new future in this world, and although we may not have seen a world war since 1945, 2015 might be the first year that Britain has been not been formally engaged militarily in another country for 100 years. If, that is, we are not involved in Ukraine and Crimea.

I think the Old Testament reading tonight offers us a passion and a hope for our future, in the commands and promises of God. Moses tells the Israelites: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ^*5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem^* on your forehead, ⁹and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.’

Such a strong instruction is a response to a loving and supreme God, but the love of God towards us, and his command to love can be easily forgotten, unless it is accepted, practised and employed, unless we keep them it our hearts, teach it to our children in all situations, bind it to our hands, our heads, our houses or our gateposts. If we do this, and allow God’s grace to be absorbed into our beings, we have hope of changing ourselves and our world around us. By this, we ourselves become the signs of God’s presence in the world, and God’s work, his love, shines through us to become a sign of hope in the world. Forget it, and we open the possibility of hell on earth. If that happens, then we can only await a better future after death, where every tear shall be wiped away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John 6

 Jesus walking on water

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Jesus Walks on the Water

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles,[d] and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said to them, “It is I;[e] do not be afraid.” 21 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________________________________________________________________

It is very good to be here this evening and to have the challenge of preaching upon this extraordinary text from John’s Gospel, Jesus’ walking on water The event is recorded in Mtt  and Mark and here it is in John’s gospel : after feeding of the 5,000: Jesus had withdrawn from the crowds attention to pray and the disciples were dispatched back across the lake where they proceeded with great difficulty until Jesus came to them walking on water.

  Just the idea of walking on water catches the imagination  – who has not nursed some desire to do the same? Wouldn’t it be so amazing?  And with the floods you have experienced here in Oxford, how useful would it have been?  But I must say when Jonathan told me the text for this evening I took a deep breath.

Jesus the great teacher, yes! Jesus the compassionate one who heals, yes! And who feeds the hungry, yes! But Jesus the man who walks on water who walks on water?? Really? You can just imagine a credulous theology student being torn to shreds about this one, a sceptic laughing all the way to the library. Surely, if you will excuse the pun, this is one step too far.

 Indeed some scholars have argued that the disciples must have been mistaken: they were really near the shore all along and when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, this might also be translated by the sea . But this does not fit so well with the use of this particular phrase elsewhere in the NT nor with the narrative details:  – the fear of the disciples, recorded in more detail in Matthew and Mark, and the fact that these fishermen would have  been working the lake since childhood and would be well used to its geography would also need to be explained away.  The simple fact is that each of the 3 Gospel accounts record it as a miracle, an example of Jesus authority over natural forces that shook the disciples to the core.

 So what is the purpose of this miracle in John’s gospel?

 It is about revelation:   a revelation that both proclaims Jesus’ identity and provokes response , a recognition of God’s presence on earth. For John, Jesus’ walking on water was one of the seven signs   They were written, as he says in chapter 20,  that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ,  have life in his name” (John 20:30-31). Tucked in between the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’ consequent conference with the crowds who had flocked to him back in Capernaum the other side of the lake (v. 22-25), and then his discourse with his disciples, the miracle that unfolds acts as a prism which refracts the great themes of the chapter and of his whole Gospel.   John intends that this miracle should help us in turn recognize who Jesus is, and move us from ignorance and unbelief to faith

He notes, vs17 and it is never just by the by with John, that as the disciples embarked It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The event takes us from absence to presence, from darkness, when the disciples set off, to light the next morning and like each of the seven signs, the miracle is a foretaste of the resurrection, of the new spiritual reality of the Kingdom which is shaped by faith.

I want to draw out both the proclamatory and provocative and nature of this sign.

 Unlike Matthew’s Gospel which includes Peters tentative steps to meet Jesus,  John’s focus is primarily on the identity of Jesus.  When they saw Jesus coming towards them the disciples were frightened but  he said,  It is I, or literally in the Greek, I am: do not be afraid.

 It is these two words that ring out across the dark sea of uncertainty and fear.

This phrase I am was none other than the name of God, Jahweh, revealed to Moses

I am had seen the affliction of his people and sent Moses to lead them out to the promised land.  In this chapter, the season of Passover, the feeding of the 5000, the walking across the water , and the discourse about manna in the wilderness recall the Exodus and all point to one who was greater than Moses being amongst his people .  Jesus did not just part the waters but walked on them. This phrase I am echoes the other great I am statements of John’s Gospel but here it stands alone rather than predicating titles such as the bread of life, or the light of the world. It simply proclaims  Jesus as none other than God himself;  the one who is present,  who truly is, and who will be,  who is lord of all creation, who is with us even before we recognize him.

 

But then, as now, the miracle both provokes and polarizes people’s response to Jesus. We get this from where it is paced in the unfolding sequence of Jesus encounters and the way it heightens the contrast between those who did and did not receive him, between worldly and spiritual vision, between temporal and eternal concerns. (The words eternal and life appear repeatedly in the chapter. This is what is at stake.)

 Much of the discourse is about the crowd misunderstanding Jesus.  After he had fed them, they had wanted to take Jesus by force and make him king and he had been obliged to withdraw.  The miracle offers a deliberate contrast between the revelation to the disciples in the boat and to the crowds baffled by Jesus sudden arrival back in Capernaum. Intrigued, the crowds requested yet another sign, but objected to Jesus claiming himself to be the bread of life, their eternal spiritual sustenance.

 

Jesus rebuked his would be followers for seeking him, not because they had seen the signs and wonders, but because they wanted more bread. They were laboring for perishable things rather than eternal life. As Augustine observed, Jesus is usually sought after for something else, not for his own sake. They were missing the big picture.  Margaret Thatcher once said,

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.

If, like the crowd, we have our own agendas we can miss the point about Jesus.

 

Eventually, we read in vs 66 after considerable muttering, many of his followers drew back and wld not follow him. Jesus could hardly be accused of orchestrating a PR coup, of doing party tricks to win support.  

 And what about the disciples? What would they have been thinking out there on the water? –  5000 fed and now Jesus was not with them. As Corrie ten Boom, imprisoned a concentration camp in the war, in the  once said, that if this was how God treated his friends no wonder he had so few.

 

There are times when the Christian life is tough: the disciples caught in the storm for much of the night, had simply to keep on rowing , heading painfully,  as best they could in the right direction for, as  John puts it:  Jesus had not yet come to them. They were laboring hard in their own strength; they could not know that he was praying for them and how much they were on his heart.  But, as Archbishop Michael Ramsey once said, God wonderfully accepts the persevering  faith that knows God to be present yet feels him to be absent. The key thing was what would they do when they eventually saw Jesus coming towards them?  Would they recognize him and invite him into their boat or keep on rowing in fear, (listening to their own imaginings, that he could be a ghost as Matthew tells us). This is the provocation of the miracle.

 

 Do we recognize Jesus presence?

James Galway the brilliant flautist was due to play in a big concert in his native Belfast.  He decided to busk near the concert hall on the penny whistle on which he had learned to play as a boy. People hurried by to the box office to buy tickets and get their seats, recognizing  neither the man nor the consummate skill with which he was playing. How much of our life is spent hurrying past, ignoring the God is with us, because we are in pursuit of what we want him to give us?

 

 The disciples however were glad to take Jesus into their boat. I love that translation in the RSV – it sounds to me like a bit of an understatement. They wanted him with them.

 

That the disciples suddenly reached the shore seems to emphasize that they had found their spiritual destination. They were now with God. It was a foretaste of the abiding resurrection presence. The dwelling of god was with men and they beheld his glory. 

 

 So the purpose of this sign is to proclaim the presence of God in our midst and provoke faith and

(If you want an image that helps to expresses this Johannine mystery, think perhaps of

Piero Della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ: provoked by the gospel, some characters are scurrying away while others are preparing to be baptized for the message of John the Baptist had  polarized responses.  Christ, seemingly standing both in the Jordan and yet on solid ground, is still yet stepping forward to us. And if we could hear it, the voice proclaiming from heaven this is my beloved son listen to him.)

 

 At the end of the chapter Jesus asks his closest disciples: do you also wish to go away? Is it all just too much? Peter replies, Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and come to know you are the holy one of God. Yes, that is it. That is the point of this miraculous sign; this is the knowledge to which we too are invited this evening.

 

 

 

 J Chaffey 23.2.14

 

THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND

Jeremiah 6.9-21   John 6.5-14

Every Monday Marlene works her miracle for the tired and hungry in our part of Hereford. With a team of dedicated volunteers she feeds 25-30 people who look to various churches for daily food. Many are far from their homes in Poland, Romania, Portugal or Latvia. Some sleep rough others sofa hop. Now, your chaplain has promised dinner to the preacher and Choral Evensong in Oxford may not seem an obvious place to find a crowd of hungry people but it is part of human nature to know an emptiness that craves to be satisfied. Indeed excessive consumption only seems to sharpen the hunger of the soul.

Mathew and Mark tell us that when Jesus saw the crowds ‘he had compassion on them’. We might recall the words of God to Moses: ‘I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt…I have heard their cry, I know their suffering (Exodus 2.7). Under God, Moses would lead his people from their captivity through the wilderness, where he gave them bread from heaven, on to the Promised Land. This divine rescue came to be celebrated at the Festival of the Passover.  St John says; ‘Now the Passover was near’, when Jesus asked Philip how another great crowd might be fed. John adds; ‘Jesus himself knew what he was going to do’, because there is one greater than Moses here! John then unfolds this fourth sign, given to us like the whole gospel so that we ‘might believe that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God and…..through believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20.31).

Like all the works of Jesus, this sign points to something deeper than what he did to meet the immediate need of the crowd. It reveals God at work in the recreation of the world, ‘making all things new’ in Christ (Revelation 21.5). Each sign points us to the glory that will be proclaimed at the cross and sealed in his resurrection. For Christians, the first day of the week is the Day of Resurrection, marking the dawn of the new creation. The full rich human life, the fulfilment of God’s good purposes in creation, begins here. The Good News of Jesus Christ is about abundance and hope that overflows and, in being shared, brings new life. We are caught up in the boundless grace of God!

‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many?’

Inadequacy is a crippling experience and standing before Jesus it will grip us all! But Andrew’s timorous suggestion enabled Jesus to work his abundance. When we offer our gifts at a celebration of Holy Communion we often say; ‘all things come from you O Lord and of your own do we give you’. We offer the Lord’s gifts into the Lord’s hands. And he gives us of himself!  Our meagre gifts are charged with his glory!

Jesus accepted the offering of that small lad just as he welcomed the friendship and commitment of Andrew and Philip, James, John, Peter, and his other disciples who were all limited in their vision and unprepared for what lay ahead. That will be true of us all. Twice in my early life I had reason to be grateful to those who weighed me up, found me somewhat lacking and gave me the benefit of the doubt.  My wife fully understands the question asked of me by one of my teachers in 1965; ‘What are we going to do with you Reese?’ The important thing was that he kept persevering with me – as does my wife! The chairman of the Panel choosing candidates for training for ordination in 1972 took me to one side on the final day. He asked me a couple of questions because he said some doubt had been expressed about my suitability or readiness. When I next met him in 1993 I expressed my gratitude for his faith in me! God is always patient and merciful, seeing the abundance and richness of what can be.

We are here this evening because those inadequate disciples responded to the call of Jesus – and by the power of God who raised him from the dead, the few became many! And so it has been in every generation, when Christians have been trusting and faithful to Jesus. And yet, as I look back to the 1970’s when I was training for ordination up the road at Cuddesdon, it seems to me that the Church in the Western world had largely lost sight of this truth. Faith in the living God was hardly on fire when my generation were training for ordination. The theological air was filled with talk of ‘The Myth of God Incarnate’ and whatever the nuances of the book of that title and the theological liberalism of that time, there was a poverty of faith in Christ that was matched by a rich investment in human wisdom. So it was very good to receive the Ripon College Cuddesdon newsletter a couple of weeks ago and to read these comments by the Principal: ‘It is easy to get deflected from the main purpose of the Church…It exists to glorify God and to follow Jesus Christ. Martyn Percy goes on to quote Evelyn Underhill who, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1930’s said: ‘I desire to humbly suggest that the interesting thing about religion is God; and the people are hungry for God’.  

St John tells us that, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things came into being through him….What has come into being through him was life and the life was the light of all people’ (John 1.1-3). We are to trust in the sufficiency of Jesus! In a lonely spot the needs of a weary and hungry crowd were met by one whose understanding, compassion and power belong to another reality. Like Philip, it is easy for us to think only in terms of the immediate reality. But we are challenged by Jesus to meet the needs we see around us, and to strive for the justice that Jeremiah (in   our first reading) found lacking, while pointing beyond the immediate reality.

By feeding the hungry on a Monday in Hereford, by committing ourselves to those practical things, the bread and dried fish issues, we meet their immediate needs but we also point to the goodness and power of God. For example, Paul is a good listener. His years of experience as a parish priest and as a chaplain in a high security prison, have given him a warm heart for those with little or nothing. While Marlene works miracles with her kitchen team, Paul comes alongside the weary and the hungry. He shares the most precious things he can, his friendship and when it seems appropriate, his faith in Jesus. Paul knows from his own experience what it is to be empty with nowhere to go.

Perhaps you have been there too, at the end of the road with nowhere to go, or maybe you are there now? Well, go to St John chapter 6 verse 35. Jesus says; ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry’. Then in 6.51 we read; ‘whoever eats of this bread will live for ever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’. God sees our emptiness and meets it with the fullness of his grace. This great truth is proclaimed at the heart of Christian worship, in the Breaking of Bread with thanksgiving.

 

St John says that the crowd ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. In the Christian Eucharist or ‘Thanksgiving’ we come with hands outstretched, to him who gave himself for the whole world. Whoever we are, we come to him as beggars – but he accepts us just as we are and invites us to feast on him in broken bread – now charged with his glory and signifying his life given to save us all. This is no mere remembering but an encounter with Jesus the ‘bread of life’ (6.48). We come to him burdened, weary and with a hunger in our souls. The hymn writer William Bright offers us this prayer: ‘Look Father, look on his anointed face and only look on us as found in him……and by this food, so aweful and so sweet deliver us from every touch of ill; in thine own service make us glad and free, and grant us never more to part with thee’. In this meeting with Jesus, worship and life become a cycle of thanksgiving for there must always be consistency between our worship and our life, coherence between chapel or church and practical witness.

A small lad in a big crowd would never be forgotten because when Jesus saw the crowd he had compassion on them. He stirred Philip and Andrew to action and they drew the lad into the picture. Jesus knew what he was going to do. Jesus always sees the crowd and he sees the individual. He wants to feed you and to work his miracle of grace within you and through you. He wants to draw each one of us into the foreground, accepting us as we are. He will use what little you have, to his glory. We will soon run out of resources, but we can return to him again and again, trusting in his sufficiency. Along this path through the wilderness of our human searching, as manna falls he will lead us to the life that is eternal. He will bring us to the Promised Land and the celebration of our Passover.

Our need to trust in the sufficiency of Christ and to be fed by him is wonderfully summed up in one of our most beautiful and profound Anglican prayers when we pray: ‘in Christ you make all things new. Transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of or lives make known your heavenly glory’. Amen.

 

WORCHESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD

Sunday, 9^th February 2014

TEXT: ‘Jesus said, ‘’Do you want to be healed.’’

I vividly remember a cartoon in the New Yorker when I was living and working in America some years ago.

It showed a caterpillar crawling slowly along the ground, wistfully looking up and shouting to a passing butterfly. ‘’You’ll never catch me going up in one of those things.’’

But, back for a moment to the scene in tonight’s reading: the story of the healing of the paraplegic. I want to suggest tonight two totally unexpected turn-of events in that story. So first, that seemingly inappropriate question of Jesus: ‘’Do you want to be healed?’’ Inappropriate? You might even say that ‘cruel question’, seeing that in one way or another, we’re told Jesus actually knew that the man had been lying there a long time – thirty eight years apparently. And yet he still asks, “Do you want to be healed? WHY?

Well, did you notice the poor man’s reply? A bit like politicians, he doesn’t answer the question he’s asked, but simply repeats what he’s been saying – mainly to himself, probably – for thirty eight years: ‘’I’ve nobody to put me into the pool when there is moving of the waters for healing, and while I’m struggling to get myself into the pool, another steps down before me.’’

‘’I have nobody…’’ Surely you might think, in thirty-eight years there would have been somebody to help. Perhaps he had stopped looking for someone and so by way of a self-fulfilling prediction, there never was anyone. I wonder.

And then – ‘thirty-eight years?’ Yes, perhaps indeed there does come a point when, as Emily Dickinson – the America poet – says, – ‘’even prison can become a friend.’’ Yes, there comes a point when you don’t want, or even want to want to be healed, or take up a fresh start.

Elsewhere, in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, ‘’I have come that you might have life and have it in all its fullness.’’ (John 10:10) The good news of the gospel is that we don’t have to settle for life in the shadows. “With freedom has Christ set us free,” is the testimony of scripture. But then the responsible exercise of freedom requires maturity. Yet, the claim of the Bible, from cover to cover, is that most of us, most of the time are only half alive, like the title of the movie – ‘’Dead Men Walking.’’

‘’This is the judgement,” says Jesus in John’s Gospel, “that light has come into the world, and men and women prefer darkness.’’ Or at least the half-light. I think that’s what Eliot was on about when he said, ‘’Humankind cannot bear very much reality.’’

Yet, instinctively, most people know in their heart of hearts that we were made for something more than what even the best this world can give – call it transcendence, wonder, ecstasy (of the right kind); a life which insists on pushing back the boundaries both of knowledge and experience (that spark which motivates explorers and researchers at best). So little wonder that so many seek the short cuts and false promises of material wealth, stimulants, drugs, booze, erotamania or whatever. But at least, it’s a sign that there is still a spark of divine discontent in our hearts; at least we’re still seeking, still longing, still yearning…albeit after thirty eight years, or whatever, rather than throwing in the sponge and settling for second best.

In a word, I suppose, we’re talking about a quality of life and it’s this quality of life which the Bible calls eternal or better still, abundant or enriched – a life which is a life worth living or, if need be, worth dying for: a life lived in relation to the source of all life, as opposed to a kind of cut-flower existence.

The Bible speaks of this quality of life, as a life lived in relation to God, who in Jesus has come to draw us into a relationship with himself. “This is eternal life” – authentic, abundant, enriched life, says Jesus, ‘’to know (that is to be in relationship, connaitre knowledge), ‘’with the Father and him whom he sent.” Yes, indeed – true life, is life in relationship. Indeed I derive my identity from my relationship. Indeed I derive my identity from my network of relationships: the son of my father, the brother of my sister, the godfather of my godchildren and so it goes on.

Conversely, on the other hand, isolation or the much-trumpeted independence of individualism (‘doing my own thing’) is mere existence and not true life. Inter-dependence, not so much independence, is the name of the game.

But the second surprise in our story is somewhat more sinister. Surely to God, wouldn’t you expect that those observant, religious leaders (the Pharisees), would have rejoiced to see the dead raised, the lame walk, the blind see and the deaf hearing? But not a bit of it! The self-appointed religious police attack Jesus – notice on theological grounds, – theological knit-picking – namely, that he had broken Sabbath rules.

The new freedom of this formerly paralyzed man, infuriated those Pharisees, and the irony is, that they were totally blind to just how very paralyzed they were – they were in need of healing and liberation from the letter of the law and needing to recapture the spirit of the law-giver, standing right there in front of them!

You see, the perversion of religion is the most perverted power of all. We live in an age when religion – perverted religion in all the religions, including Christianity – is once again raising its ugly head. When religion goes wrong, it doesn’t go a little wrong – it becomes demonic. After all, as we say, the perversion of the best is the worst. Tillich said: ‘’Jesus came to save us from religion,’ and how very much all faiths need to hear those words in today’s world of religious fanaticism, control and power.

You see Christianity at its best is not a philosophy, an ideology or even a religion in the strict sense of the word. Christianity isn’t anything – it is essentially somebody : St. Paul summarizes the Christian experience as ‘Jesus and the Resurrection, – Jesus and the call to new and fuller life in him, which is what Jesus is offering that paralyzed man, in today’s story. And that is what he is offering everybody to this day, including that constrained caterpillar, rejecting the prospect of becoming a free-flying butterfly!

Christians believe, and not just because they’ve read it in the Bible, but better still from personal experience; Christians believe that this same Jesus, even today, is still seeking and searching for those whose lives, like that paralytic, are confined, for whatever reason to the shadows, – maimed, addicted or whatever; Christians believe, that this same Jesus, still meets each one of us at our particular point of need, like he met that paralyzed man, inviting us, challenging us or even sometimes commanding us in the name of love: “Take up your particular bed and walk; kick away the crutches; (whether it’s the bottle or the bed); open the eyes of your heart; (that ‘knowledge of the heart’ as Pascal calls its); ‘get a life’; walk free, leave the shadows; and drawn by Jesus, the Light of the world, who enlightens every man, woman and child – drawn by Jesus, the Light to the light, through the darkness, into that fullness of life, in the here and now – to that quality of life which is stronger than death and therefore incidentally eternal; seeking to respond freely to the perennial challenge from scripture in the words of Deuteronomy of old, ‘Thus says the Lord, “This day I put before you the way of life, and the way of death: Choose Life”

‘Jesus said.’ NO! ‘Jesus says’ and is still saying to each one of us, tonight: “Do YOU want to be healed?”

1309 words – 13minutes.