3rd November 2024. All Saints Sunday
Prayer for today: Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that we may come to those inexpressible joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.
Among those who are sick we pray for Andrew McKendrick, Joan Nolan, Graeme Common , Kate Marris, Liam Marshall, Maureen Stevens, Prue Critchley, Ned Ryan, Daniel Bosman, Suzie Dent, Nick Cook, Christina Baldwin, Lorraine Dodd, Kathleen Lee, Carol McKendrick, Stuart Bell, Maggie Bennett, Hayley Gennery, Elizabeth Sambell, Katherine Patterson, Heather Loughead, Carol Allen, John and Gwyneth Wilde.
Among those whose year’s mind is about this time we remember Keith Herdman, Kathleen Baxter, Claire Fellowes and Carlie Duncan, and also Garth Parker, Charles and Ethel Harries, Jean Philpin, Patricia Evans, Mary Capes, Douglas and Jean Capes, Robyn Elizabeth McKendrick, John Gilbert Graham, Anthony Charlton Graham, Julia Graham, John William Lowdon, Lilian Lowdon, Frank Williams and all those for whom our prayers are asked this morning.
Readings
Revelation21 Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’
Psalm 24: 1-6
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;
the world, and they that dwell therein.
2 For he hath founded it upon the seas,
and established it upon the floods.
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
or who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive the blessing from the Lord,
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 This is the generation of them that seek him,
that seek thy face, O Jacob.
John 11: 32-44
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked.
‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’
37 But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 ‘Take away the stone,’ he said.
‘But, Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days.’
40 Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth round his face.
Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go.’
Thoughts on today’s readings
It has been said that history is written by the victors: for example, what we know of the lives and societies of the peoples of pre-conquest South and Central America was mostly written by the priests and others who followed the conquistadors on their campaigns of pillage and destruction. It has long been one of the aims of conquerors to silence for ever and indeed to wipe out any sign of those they destroyed.
Many years ago we travelled to Prague, capital of the Czech republic, for a winter break. There , where once Haydn and Mozart produced some of the world’s most sublime music, we visited one of the synagogues of the city’s vanished Jewish community. The walls were covered with names: names of Jews of Prague who had been murdered in the Holocaust. A museum there was filled with heartbreaking mementoes: schoolbooks of children among them, writing of their hopes for the future; programmes of entertainments created to provide encouragement for those persecuted people in those dark days. Using techniques perfected on the bodies of the defenceless and the disabled, in what was called euthanasia, the Nazis sought to wipe out an entire race, to create a new empire in which it would be as though the Jews had never existed, but yet those names and those records remain, a lasting witness to those lives.
In 70 AD the city of Jerusalem was captured and thoroughly destroyed by the Romans. Most of the Temple was razed to the ground, the population killed, enslaved or scattered.
Was the Revelation of John written on the island of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea? What is clear is that it was written by a Jew in exile, someone who knew and remembered and loved the city of Jerusalem, which the Romans had hoped to wipe off the face of the earth. It is clear the writer had no hope of seeing his city restored on earth. Rather the hope, expressed in his vision, was that God, his faithful God, the God of Abraham and Moses, the God of Jesus, would raise a new Jerusalem, immortal, where death and sorrow had passed away, and there God would dwell with his people, and they with him , for ever.
The little stone throne in Hexham Abbey, cathedra of Aidan and the bishops of the Anglo Saxon era who taught and proclaimed the gospel from that very place, reminds us that the worship of God has been offered there almost daily for over 1500 years, proclaiming the faith that Christ is present, who is the resurrection and the life. Though the services in today’s Abbey may not look or sound too much like those familiar to Aidan, yet it is the same gospel, the same psalms, and the same living Christ which is at the heart of the life of that Church. Here, there has been continuity and rebirth, in spite of invasions, destruction, wars of religion, but the commemoration of All Souls and celebration of All Saints are about not denying the reality of grief and loss, the reality that all must die, but doing so with hope and with faith, not alone in our loss but surrounded by a great community which none can number, who worshipped and lit the light of the gospel in this place before us, and who see face to face the God who loves us, and whom we know by faith alone, and see as in a reflection, ‘through glass, darkly’, as the King James Bible puts it.
A couple of days ago I noticed a young nurse in Hexham hospital turn away from a family who had been talking to her. I went to her and saw she was crying for her sense of their distress and for their mother, whom she had nursed and cared for. She did not want to upset them: it was their mother who had died, but I said to her better this than to be blasé or to be emotionally distant. People need to know that you care, that they matter to you.
When Jesus came to the grave of Lazarus his friend he knew that it was here that he must glorify his Father, he knew that he came as the resurrection and the life. But Martha, in her sorrow, said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’
She did not need a sermon, or an explanation, but compassion.
She needed her friend. And Jesus , knowing, feeling her sorrow, stood at the grave and wept.
The bible gives us a sense of the cost to Jesus of pouring out the power of God in raising Lazarus to life, as he groans within himself, and the Father is glorified in this man being restored to his sisters.
Today we remember those whose voices we yet hear, and whose faces we see, but week by week here in Church we remember many more who have no one else left to remember them.
Yet we do so in confidence that already their names are written on the pillars of that temple not built with hands, and that their voices swell the joyful chorus of the saints, along with those martyrs whom the agents of evil sought to wipe from the face of the earth.
For God who turned the horror of the cross into the means of his victory and our salvation is with us here in Jesus Christ, alive, compassionate. He is the way, the truth and the life.
27th October 2024. Last Sunday after Trinity
Prayer for today:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scripture to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, that through patience and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Among those who are sick we pray for Joan Nolan, Graeme Common , Kate Marris, Liam Marshall, Maureen Stevens, Prue Critchley, Ned Ryan, Daniel Bosman, Suzie Dent, Nick Cook, Christina Baldwin, Lorraine Dodd, Kathleen Lee, Carol McKendrick, Stuart Bell, Maggie Bennett, Hayley Gennery, Elizabeth Sambell, Katherine Patterson, Heather Loughead, Carol Allen, John and Gwyneth Wilde.
Among those whose year’s mind is about this time we remember Margaret Robson, Isla Baynes, Muriel Clark, James Henry Short, Millett Ridley, John Pickworth, Joyce Best, Kenneth Dodd, Douglas Ernest Capes and Keith Herdman.
Next Sunday we celebrate All Saints and All Souls, and will remember by name all those for whom you wish prayers to be said, and light candles in their memory.
Readings:
Jeremiah 31: 7-9
7 This is what the Lord says:
‘Sing with joy for Jacob;
shout for the foremost of the nations.
Make your praises heard, and say,
“Lord, save your people,
the remnant of Israel.”
8 See, I will bring them from the land of the north
and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame,
expectant mothers and women in labour;
a great throng will return.
9 They will come with weeping;
they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead them beside streams of water
on a level path where they will not stumble,
because I am Israel’s father,
and Ephraim is my firstborn son.
Psalm 126
When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion,
we were like them that dream.
2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
and our tongue with singing:
then said they among the heathen,
The Lord hath done great things for them.
3 The Lord hath done great things for us;
whereof we are glad.
4 Turn again our captivity, O Lord,
as the streams in the south.
5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him.
Mark 10: 45-52
46 Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means ‘son of Timaeus’), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’
48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’
49 Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him.’
So they called to the blind man, ‘Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.’ 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
51 ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’
52 ‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
Thoughts on today’s readings
Some days ago, during our holiday on the small Greek island of Kalymnos, we took an old wooden ferryboat across to the smaller island of Telendos, a place of high limestone rock faces much beloved of climbers. There we swam in the clear blue water of a sheltered bay, beyond the tombs of an early Christian cemetery, where autumn crocuses flower in the hard rocky ground, before returning to the village, and to the only restaurant that was open.
The young woman who served us had been with us on the ferry, and told us her story. Her parents were from the island, and had emigrated in search of a better life, settling in Pennsylvania. There she and her sister were born; she did well in her education, and qualified as an accountant.
However, she found that no matter how hard she worked , or how long the hours, it was never quite enough. There was no balance, no peace in her life. Her health began to suffer, a frightening prospect in the USA with its very different healthcare industry.
She spoke of the atmosphere of uncertainty and division; her own sister, a mother with young children, doesn’t go to the shops without carrying a handgun. The last straw was when she was told she might lose her sight: she persuaded her parents to return to the island, and came with them to find a home.
She will never be rich on the island, and I imagine it must be pretty quiet in the winter, but she has found her peace, her health has recovered, and she has a life.
Across the water in Kalymnos, we could hear the sound of dynamite exploding in celebration of a wedding. Life there is marked by family events and the festivals of the Church.
We heard other stories like hers, of women who had left the crushing pressures of life in England and Australia for something simpler, for a place where people feel at home, where they feel safe.
Our readings today are all about journeys.
Both in the reading from Jeremiah and in our psalm we hear the song of the exiles, who were displaced, unable to breathe the air of freedom in their captivity, singing for joy as they return to the place where they belong, where there is home, where God has brought them , where their Father is with them.
It is never too late, it is always the right time to turn to the Lord, the prophet tells us: the blind and the lame are coming, pregnant mothers and even those in labour are coming home.
Where once they wept as they laboured in captivity, they shed tears of joy as they bring home their harvest.
On the face of it, our gospel reading seems to be about a healing, but the last words give us the true sense of the passage: ‘he followed Jesus along the road’; this is a passage about discipleship.
The man had faith: he cried out to Jesus; he refused to be silenced but continued to call upon him.
Jesus stopped for him; he made them call him; he heard him, and granted his request.
The man had that sight we call faith: he believed that Jesus was his master, the son of David. Now, with the sight of his eyes restored, he had no wish to return to his former life, but followed Jesus along the road.
If you read on in St. Mark’s Gospel, you will know that road led to Jerusalem, and to the cross and passion, but for that man, Jesus was the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
We read how when Jesus told the people that he must fulfil his purpose by facing suffering and death, many ceased to follow him. But when he asked his disciples, ‘have you not gone off like the rest,‘ Peter replied, ‘To whom else shall we go? You have the words of life.’
Perhaps many of us have had that moment when the penny dropped, when we asked ourselves, ‘What am I doing here?’, when there was a moment of light and it became clear where life must take us.
Christ says to us all, ‘Come to me, all who are heavy-laden , and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’.
Sunday 20th October 2024 21st Sunday after Trinity
The service today is led by the Revd Canon Chris Simmons
Hymn 393 Brother, sister, let me serve you
Collect
Grant, we beseech you, merciful Lord, to your faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A reading from the letter to Hebrews, chapter 5, verses 1-10
Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness, and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honour but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest but was appointed by the one who said to him,
“You are my Son;
today I have begotten you”;
as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
according to the order of Melki-zedek.”
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melki-zedek.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Canticle: A Song of Christ the Servant
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,
that you should follow in his steps.
He committed no sin, no guile was found on his lips,
when he was reviled, he did not revile in turn.
When he suffered, he did not threaten,
but he trusted himself to God who judges justly.
Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
By his wounds, you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep,
but have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. 1 Peter 2.21b–25
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now and shall be for ever. Amen.
A reading from the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 10, verses 35-45
Glory to you, O Lord.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Sermon
Curiously, four weeks ago, when I was last standing here, the gospel reading was about Jesus giving the disciples a ticking off for arguing about status – about which of them was the greatest. And here we are again – James and John wanting to be very visibly the top dogs when the time came. Have they not been listening? One of the moderately interesting things about the intervening section of Mark’s Gospel is the number of times Jesus says something about little children – something I had never really noticed before starting to prepare this sermon. It set me thinking about the process of growing up, with particular reference to James and John.
At the end of May this year, Dorothy and I had a totally new experience. We went to the Bar-Mitzvah service of Elias, the youngest son of a Jewish friend. Naturally, it happened on a Sabbath. Very relaxed – a bit like here at St Helen’s, the service didn’t start on time. Being a liberal synagogue, men and women were not segregated, and women were able to take an active part in the service.
The service itself was amazing – like in church, a familiar mixture of singing, prayers, Bible readings, sermon. But also totally strange, being partly in Hebrew- the psalms chanted unaccompanied to traditional Hebrew melodies, and all the text running from right to left in books that started at the back. Of course, the Bible readings were from what we call the Old Testament, but when the scroll of the Law was taken from its special place and processed around the congregation, I was reminded of the ceremonial Gospel procession that is in many churches a feature of the eucharist.
And what has this to do with growing up? Well, as you may already know, the term Bar Mitzvah means Son of the Covenant. It’s a rite of passage in which a Jewish boy moves on from being a child. There’s an equivalent rite for girls. Normally, rather like with many a Church of England confirmation, it happens when the child is around 12 years old, but as with so many things, Covid played havoc, and so Elias was in fact 14. Of course, no one would say that someone of that age instantly becomes a fully-formed and mature adult, but they do take their place as full members of the community. Elias is no longer a child – you’re a grown-up now!.
To demonstrate that fact, as a central feature of the service, the candidate must choose and speak about a passage of scripture. And that is what grown-up Elias did, very ably about a passage from the book of Nehemiah, saying what it meant to him, quoting the opinions of Jewish scholars past and present, and commenting on its relevance to the present day. It was surprising, amazing and very moving, and I ask you, in all seriousness, can you imagine anything like that happening in church when the bishop comes to conduct a confirmation?
Well now, to cut a story short that has already gone on too long, what about James and John, and their request for the best seats next to King Jesus? How do we picture them? Definitely not as 12-year-olds; but maybe at the top end of the teens or early twenties. On the threshold of everything life had to offer, sturdy lads, education long finished, working with dad in his fishing business, living at home with a Jewish momma who often complains that they don’t listen to a word she says and, like many a young lad or lass, not thinking too much about the consequences. At that age, you know it all, and are immortal. Yes? And significantly, like Jesus, not yet married, but unlike Peter who we know had a mother-in-law, and maybe quite a few of the other disciples too. So they were up for anything, these sons of thunder!
There is an extraordinary consistency in what the NT tells us about the mission of Jesus Christ. At the heart of all the great biblical accounts of why the Son of God comes among us and how he saves us is the Cross. No NT writer is tempted to underplay the suffering of Jesus and to concentrate only on his teaching or his resurrection. We remain deeply suspicious, though of this strange way in which God has chosen to operate. We long to jump straight into the joy and security that we think God is supposed to provide. Compare, for instance, the number of people in church on Good Friday and on Easter Day.
So James and John’s request to Jesus is a natural one, and has rather better motives than our desire for insurance. They are taking it for granted that Jesus will be reigning in glory one day soon, and they are aware that there may well be some kind of struggle, and they are happy to play their part in that. They answer with confidence that, yes, they can share Jesus’ cup and baptism. They’ll fight by him with the best. But their main focus is the future, when all the nasty stuff will be over, and they will be on the winning side. Their concept of “the winning side” has not been influenced at all by the conversation they have just had, in which Jesus tries to tell them what must happen to him.
The other disciples are indignant with James and John, so that Jesus has to sit them all, down and tell them, in very simple language, what the values of a Christian disciple are to be. So what James, John and any other Christian disciple asks of Jesus, if they ask to share in his glory, is a life of service and suffering. Even so, however plain Jesus’ language, you get the impression that they didn’t take it on board, but hurried on, saying: “Yes, yes, but after that we get the reward, right?”
Yet, according to the letter to the Hebrews, the service and the suffering are the reward. This is how God rewards his Son for his obedience: by putting him at the service of humans for ever. Hebrews takes us through this slowly and carefully, because it is a hard idea, and one we don’t like the idea of. “It’s like this”, explains the writer, “You know what high priests do, don’t you?”
A priest, according to Hebrews, is someone chosen – and the implication seems to be that the choice is made both by God and by us – to handle the relationship between God and people. The fact of being chosen is the main qualification, the other being that he (or she) is not essentially different from fellow human beings. His priestly work is as much on his own behalf as for others. So there is no particular merit in being chosen to be a mediator.
When Jesus takes on this role for us, Hebrews says, he knows this. He does not expect to be honoured for his priestly task, but simply responds in obedience to the call, as all human priests do. Jesus, like all priests, knows human need and human dependence on God for salvation, because he, like all others, knows weakness and human frailty. Hebrews is unequivocal about the fact that although, unlike all other human beings, including all priests, Jesus does not actually fall into sin, it is equally clear that he could have done.
Such a possibility is not ruled out in advance by Jesus’ divine and human nature, but is learned through struggle. “Take away this cup, Father” is his plea in the garden. He has to learn the will of God, just as we must. But while ordinary human priesthood learns where God keeps the sticking plaster, Jesus’ priesthood becomes the source of complete healing. It makes room not just for little trickles of divine mercy, but for the whole raging flood of his creative salvation.
All the little devices that we have thought of up till now thought of as “priestly” – our obsession, for instance with only allowing the “right kind of people” to occupy the role, our devices for keeping ourselves more or less in God’s favour without changing too much – all of these become obsolete. “Priesthood” tries to bring God and humanity close enough together to reach some kind of understanding. But Jesus the priest brings God and humanity together in a dynamic unity, so that God’s salvation can never be misunderstood again. This is Jesus’ “reward”, his “priesthood”, learned in suffering and obedience, learned on the cross, as must be the priesthood of us all – to be crucified with Christ.
What it means to be crucified with Christ is not something I can answer for another human being. I cannot say what it means for each of us here, called to be the priestly community within this community. I can only hope to discover what it means for me – what part of me, sinner that I am, must be put to death if I ask to share the glory and the kingdom of Jesus. None of us occupies the judgment seat. Each of us must come before it.
The Prayers of Intercession
We pray for the sick, and for their healing according to God’s will, among them Joan Nolan, Graeme Common , Kate Marris, Liam Marshall, Maureen Stevens, Prue Critchley, Ned Ryan, Daniel Bosman, Suzie Dent, Nick Cook, Christina Baldwin, Lorraine Dodd, Kathleen Lee, Carol McKendrick, Stuart Bell, Maggie Bennett, Hayley Gennery, Elizabeth Sambell, Katherine Patterson, Heather Loughead, Carol Allen, John and Gwyneth Wilde
We remember those who have died recently, and those whose year’s mind is about this time, among them Theresa Gibson, Philippa Jane Dodwell, Annie Parker, Kathleen Webber, Betty Common and Ivon Stanley Moore
Hymn 524 My God, I love thee, not because I hope for heaven thereby
Post-Communion Prayer
Father of light, in whom is no change or shadow of turning, you give us every good and perfect gift and have brought us to birth by your word of truth; may we be a living sign of that Kingdom where your whole creation will be made perfect in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymn 430 Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go
For the week ahead:
Alleluia, alleluia, give thanks to the risen Lord,
Alleluia, alleluia, give praise to his name.
Jesus is Lord of all the earth, he is the King of creation.
Spread the good news o’er all the earth: Jesus has died and is risen.
We have been crucified with Christ: now we shall live for ever.
God has proclaimed the just reward: new life for all, alleluia.
Come, let us praise the living God, joyfully sing to our Saviour.
Alleluia, alleluia, give thanks to the risen Lord,
Alleluia, alleluia, give praise to his name.
Next Sunday is the 22nd Sunday after Trinity
The Bible readings will be:
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Mark 10:46-52
6th October 2024. 19th Sunday after Trinity.
Prayer for today:
O Lord, forasmuch as without you we are not able to please you; mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.
Please pray for George Haywood-Smith, who is being baptised here this afternoon, for his family and godparents.
Among those who are sick we pray for Jillian Rutherford, Kate Marris, Liam Marshall, Maureen Stevens, Prue Critchley, Ned Ryan, Daniel Bosman, Suzie Dent, Nick Cook, Christina Baldwin, Lorraine Dodd, Kathleen Lee, Carol McKendrick, Stuart Bell, Maggie Bennett, Hayley Gennery, Elizabeth Sambell, Katherine Patterson, Heather Loughead, Carol Allen, John and Gwyneth Wilde.
Among those whose year’s mind is about this time we remember Tom Cowing, Harry Mould, Violet Henderson, James Beevor, William Henry Scott-Easton, Allan Hull, Dorothy Mabel Pinkney, Hendrik Nieuwland and Ann Rowsell
Readings:
Hebrews 1: 1-4, 2: 5-12
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:
‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
7 You made them a little[a] lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honour
8 and put everything under their feet.’[b][c]
In putting everything under them,[d] God left nothing that is not subject to them.[e] Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.[f] 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.[g] 12 He says,
‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly I will sing your praises.’
Psalm 8
O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 what is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet:
7 all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Mark 10: 2-16
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’
3 ‘What did Moses command you?’ he replied.
4 They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’
5 ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. 6 ‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female”.[a] 7 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[b] 8 and the two will become one flesh.”[c] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’
10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.’
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
Thoughts on today’s readings
The principal of Queen’s College in Birmingham, where I went for training before ordination, Gordon Wakefield, was fond of saying that, whenever he was photographed, Archbishop Makarios was pictured with his hand raised in blessing. Of course he was being a bit mischievous about this: he was aware that we knew the archbishop was an intensely political figure, a wily campaigner against the British for the independence of Cyprus; a divisive figure whose legacy, sadly, was a divided island.
The point Gordon was making was that, as in icons in the eastern Church Jesus Christ is portrayed with is hand raised in blessing, so should we, who bear the image of Christ, be always be those who bless. The Christian disciple is not called to be a judge, but to be a witness to Christ, a messenger of the Good news, the one who, like Philip, says ‘Come and see.’
Therefore Jesus was angry when his disciples prevented the people from bringing their children to him. It was not for them to act as gatekeepers. Already in chapter 9 we read how Jesus had put a child before them and said, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name, welcomes me.’ Here he takes a child as an example of how we must be in order to enter the kingdom of God.
This is not about children being more pure or innocent; it is about power. There were among those to whom Jesus spoke those who imagined that the kingdom of God would be brought in by force of arms; those who imagined that it was a matter of earning your place by living a virtuous life, by reaching a certain level of maturity and understanding. But what have we to offer God, or to give to God, much less to bargain with God? Like children we come to God with nothing in our hands, and all that we receive from God has been freely given. Therefore we must understand that we come to God like children – and that we are not rejected, but accepted.
Therefore we, who have been signed with the cross of Jesus Christ, are called not to be judges or gatekeepers, but to bless and to be witnesses of the Good News.
When the pharisees questioned Jesus about divorce, they were hoping to trap him in a controversy about the Jewish Law.
However what this text makes clear is that the pharisees were interested in what was allowed: in other words what were their rights under the law.
Jesus responds by going back to the creation story in Genesis. What does this teach us about God’s purpose in creating us as man and woman? God’s purpose was that two might be united, might become one. Therefore it was God who had joined them together; it was not for man to separate those whom God had joined. The permission in the Jewish law was an acknowledgement of human failure and sin, not the working out of God’s purpose. Note that under this statute it was the man who wrote out the note of divorce to his wife; this is what Jesus is talking about, not the action of a judge. In Israel in the time of Jesus it was inconceivable that a woman would divorce her husband: that verse is thought to reflect the realities in the wider gentile world.
Seven times this year I have stood in church and joined together the hands of a couple, declaring that they are man and wife, and saying, ‘Those whom God has joined together, let no-one put asunder.’
Will every couple still be holding one another by the hand when they have come to old age? We do not know, but I have no doubt as to the sincerity with which they made their vows; I did not detect anyone joining hand with their fingers crossed.
And what of those 100 couples at Marylebone Town Hall. Did they doubt that they were joining themselves with their partner for life? I don’t think so. Did they marry, thinking that one day they would go through it all again with someone else. Of course not.
Marriage is not a contract, valid as long as all the conditions are satisfied. It is a covenant, an unconditional gift, which cannot be bought or earned any more than life itself can be bought or earned.
And in this it reflects the purpose of God and the nature of God. For God’s relationship with the world and with us is not some sort of legal agreement of contract. God’s relationship with the world and with us is experienced most clearly in the sacrifice and death of his son on the cross. There is no bargain here: it is unconditional, it is a covenant.
That is why the image of marriage is an image of God’s love, of God’s covenant with us, and with all creation.
That is why we receive this gift and invitation like children: we have not bought it or earned it.
And with the writer of Hebrews and the writer of the psalm we have read together we are invited to marvel at the wonder of what the universe teaches us of that creator, and that we are invited into a relationship like that of sisters and brothers with the one through whom all life came, and all things were made.
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