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16th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Jansenism was a heresy which arose in the Roman Church around the end of the 16^th and the early 17^th centuries. The Jansenists depicted the crucifixion with Jesus' arms rigidly raised upwards, symbolizing a salvation reserved for a very limited number of people. In this way they betrayed a complete misunderstanding of the Spirit of God who invokes the boundless possibilities of divine love and charity. What a contrast with the Christ figures of the medieval church. Their arms are out-stretched, sometimes exaggeratedly so, in order to appear to be embracing the world. The authentic way of being Christian is to be open to the dimensions of all humanity, in the manner of these medieval figures. Our readings today have quite a lot to say about the living of the Christian life.


The Israelites during their wilderness wanderings were quite often not open to anything save their own perceived grievances. They had been hungry, and God had fed them. Now they were wailing deeply about the monotony of the diet. They were crying back the 'good old days' when they had been slaves in Egypt, which of course never had been good in any sense. Of course they were simply being human, as we all are, all too human on occasion. Don't we all complain unreasonably sometimes? We do not spend enough time thanking God for our blessings do we? The people of Israel at that time were in the process of being led and formed into being the people of God. And in some ways that is similar to the life of the Church, and our own lives as individuals. Those of us who think of ourselves as being Christian realize only too well our imperfections and shortcomings: we realize only too well that we have much in common with this weak-kneed, unstable, ungrateful, complaining lot that Moses had to deal with. We too are on a journey, and during the course of it God is trying to make us into his people, insofar as we co-operate with him. That is why we Christians are sometimes referred to as a 'Pilgrim People'. We are meant to be on a pilgrimage of life, and as such are meant to be travelling light with not too much of our self tied into the materialistic concerns of the world through which we journey. Our deepest priorities are meant to be outside of ourselves and our tiny lives. Frankly, the more we concentrate on ourselves and our own needs, the tinier that life becomes.


The Letter of James has lots of practical things to say about living the Christian life. He must have been a breath of fresh air sometimes in the Councils of the Church if they were anything like the Councils of the Church today. In the passage read today there are a number of short, sharp admonitions. In times of trouble or adversity prayer is a ready resource (just as when things go well we need to express praise and thanksgiving), for prayer can meet all needs. Sickness should be dealt with by sending for the elders of the Church so that by their prayers and the use of anointing oil the sufferers may be restored to health. This anointing is to promote recovery. For many centuries the Church lost sight of this and anointing was restricted almost solely to the anointing of those on the point of death, for the purpose of promoting the ultimate wholeness in the so-called 'Last Rites'. This trend has mercifully now been largely reversed and anointing, with the laying on of hands, is the usual means used by the Church in situations requiring God's healing power. S. James does not mention doctors, and perhaps in his day that was no bad thing. But today, healing in a Christian context should always be carried out in conjunction with healing professionals. As we sometimes say in our intercessions, all healing comes from God, and this must include the skills of doctors, surgeons, nurses and so on. If sin is a cause of the illness, as it often is, then that must be dealt with. Sin in this context includes the spiritual debilitation caused by guilt, by negative emotions such as hatred, anger and envy, by lack of forgiveness (both ways – either in not asking for forgiveness when we know we are in the wrong, or in not having forgiven others for their offenses, real or imagined, against ourselves). Our self-centredness often leads to self destructive emotions which can and do cause illness. For real healing these aspects have often to be dealt with before God first before real wholeness becomes a possibility. Prayer, if it comes from one who is in right relation-ship with God, has enormous power. In the OT there is the story of the prophet Elijah to which James refers. Elijah was no superman but a person such as ourselves. In response to his prayers the rain did not fall for over three years, and then again, in response to his earnest entreaty the heavens were opened and the earth was refreshed and productive once again. Well, whatever, those of us who do practice prayer can testify with S. James as to its efficacy.


I suppose if one were looking for a theme for the Gospel passage this morning, it could well be found in the word tolerance. It is important not to be exclusive in our attitude to ministry. Even a person who was not strictly a disciple of Jesus may have used his name in healings: Jesus was after all a notable and well-known performer of healing works. Such a person could be attracted to Jesus and his teaching, and would not be likely to turn against him or speak badly of him afterwards. It is important to realize that Jesus did not teach in such a way as to back people into a corner or demand an immediate decision. The parables are rather an indirect and suggestive method which allow one to go away and think about them, and then make a decision to change. There is a time for indirect teaching and a time for direct appeal. To the outsider the teaching of Jesus is often better given indirectly and subtly, after the manner of Jesus himself. However, once the point of decision is reached there can be no half-measures; a decision to be a disciple can only be whole-hearted (a word to think about, it has become somewhat undervalued).


The later part of the passage is concerned with stumbling blocks: those we place in the way of others, and those we set up for ourselves. A 'stumbling block' is a trap, something placed in order to trip someone. The Greek word is the root of the English word scandal. In the present context it refers to actions of ours which can cause others to stumble in their faith: careless words and actions, gossip, self-centred attitudes and styles of living, greed, intolerance, all this and much else can scandalize those watching and turn them away from faith, cause them to stumble. And people do watch us, and take note. In church congregations generally there are so many little ones, those new to the faith, those who have been poorly instructed, those whose attitudes we may consider poor or downright wrong. Nothing authorizes us to reject or despise them. Jesus accepted people as and where they were. Only through love and example can change be encouraged.


S. Mark then turns to the drastic action needed to avoid this scandalizing, both for our sakes and for others. Definite and costly action often needs to be taken. We are warned to cut ourselves off from occasions of temptation where this is possible, and to take definite and urgent action to avoid exclusion from the kingdom of God. The alternative is colourfully expressed with reference to the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem where the fires burning the rubbish of the city could be seen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Lord is suggesting that a way of life outside of the way of love, outside of the kingdom of God, makes us useless to the world: rubbish is useless, and the fate of rubbish awaits us. Drastic action is needed to avoid such a fate. The language is picture language, the warning is nevertheless real. I will repeat what I said at the beginning. The authentic way of living the Christian life is to be open to the dimensions of humanity, in the manner symbolized by the welcoming arms of the Lord on the cross of Calvary.



HOLY CROSS DAY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Numbers 21: 4 -9; Philippians 2: 6-11; John 3:13-17.


The cross, in various forms, has become the pre-eminent sign of Christianity. Sadly it has become trivialized and one sees all sorts of people who clearly have little or no sense of its significance wearing it as decoration. Once I would have thought it to be the world's most recognizable symbol – but TV advertisements tell me that the symbol of a hamburger chain has superseded it, at least amongst a younger group.


In the OT passage from the Book of Numbers we find God's people once again complaining about the conditions and the food. Then, to cap it all, a plague of snakes comes upon them. They are wise enough to see this as a punishment for their sin, and so they come to Moses asking him to pray for them in order that they may be released from this trial. Moses prays, and God commands him to set up a symbolic bronze snake to which they may turn for healing when bitten. The Book of Wisdom takes us a step further and tells us: ...he who turned toward it was saved, not by what he saw, but by thee, the Saviour of all (16: 7). A bronze snake is a bronze snake – a cross is two pieces of material fixed together at right angles. It is the power of God, and the faith of the viewer, that can make a symbol a focus for healing and salvation.


All religions have realized the significance and power of symbols, when combined with faith. Many have been frightened and suspicious of this influence. The Jews, Islam, many of the Reformers in Christianity, have banned images (that is, symbolic representations). As a result much of great beauty has been wantonly destroyed. The mainstream of the Church has always sought to make use of symbol. I believe it to be a gift of God, as was the bronze serpent and the cross of Christ. The Reformation and the Age of Reason have both told us we do not need symbol, but it is such a deep-seated part of human nature that we cannot ignore it – but many still try. Modern people erect mental barriers in order to deny the power of the symbolic and the mysterious in religion, and life in general. But the hamburger chain and the cola bottle are surely proof that symbols are both real and potent.


In the Letter to the Philippians, S. Paul quotes from an early Christian hymn which contains some really quite profound theology for such an early date. It is in two parts, the first stressing the humiliation of Christ, and then going on to his exaltation. Christ existed in God, with God, in the form of God. But this existence was not something to be retained at all costs. In fact, for the sake of God's creation, Christ gave up the form of God and took human form. He became human. He emptied himself in Paul's words. The technical term is kenosis. He renounced his rights, knowing the cost, knowing the abyss of humiliation which he faced. A human example perhaps is that of a member of the peerage renouncing his titles and privileges in order to serve the nation more effectively in the House of Commons. English people will know of the example of Sir Anthony Wedgewood-Benn. The Christ did not just take human form though – he came as one who serves (a slave in some translations). We are reminded of the Servant of the Lord in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. In fact Jesus often used this prophetic language of himself, referring to himself as one who serves. That service led him to the ultimate humiliation of a criminal's death on a Roman cross. But in consequence of this renunciation and shameful death, God exalted his Servant to the heights, the world of faith recognizing in him the sovereign Lord of all. As a hymn it is very moving. As a theological statement it represents a deep understanding of the nature of Christ as true man and true God. With such understanding at the heart of our belief from the very beginning it is hard to see how the heretical views about the nature of Christ which caused so much difficulty in the early centuries could have come about. And even today these arguments go on, reflected in Unitarianism and other familiar sects in Hungary.


After the first Easter and the Day of Pentecost, early Christians summed up their beliefs in a little creed. The first line went: Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. By scriptures they basically meant the OT prophets such as Isaiah, who said when describing the Suffering Servant: He bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors. It is not surprising, is it, that with this belief at the core of their faith, the NT writers place the cross and its consequences as the focal points of their gospels and letters? They all agree that Christ died to loose us from our sins, bore what we should have borne, did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Down the centuries Christians have striven to explain the meaning of the cross in ways to which people could relate. All agree that the cross reveals the love of God for his creation. As S. Paul writes: God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5: 8). We find similar sentiments in that great hymn of Isaac Watt – 'When I survey the wondrous cross'. But there is more to the story. Christ died, not only to reveal God's love, but also to do something for us which we are incapable of doing for ourselves. Christ himself, in the words of S. Peter, ...bore our sins in his own body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24). He did it by becoming human, by so identifying himself with humanity that he entered for us into the divine judgment that must inevitably be the price of sin. The cup which the Lord had to drink was the cup our sins had mingled, and in the agony in the garden, and in the cry of dereliction from the cross, he is seen drinking that cup to the dregs.


This action of Christ we call 'the Atonement'. When the word is broken down it becomes at-one-ment. He brought reconciliation between our holy God and fallen humanity by his death on the cross. There are a number of metaphors for what he did there. One of the most significant is that of sacrifice. On Jesus' way to the cross he gave his disciples hint upon hint of the necessity and purpose of this sacrifice. I suppose in the quite literal sense of the word, his crucifixion was not so much a sacrifice as a miscarriage of justice brought about by both Jews and Romans acting out of self-interest (which is after all the basis of most sin). But in the Bible generally the basic principle of sacrifice is that of a representative offering with which worshippers can identify in their approach to God. As John Ruskin said, “The great idea of sacrifice is that you cannot save men from death but by facing it for them, or from sin save by resisting it.” In this sense Christ's death was definitely sacrificial. It was his willingness to accept what was forced on him and see it as a sacrifice which he could offer to God which transformed these acts of human sin into an act of divine redemption. In the cross we see a supreme illustration of Joseph's words to his brothers: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many should be kept alive.


So, praying for his enemies, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, Christ died on the tree. The whole history of salvation takes place between two trees, the tree of forbidden fruit and the tree of life planted in the middle of the garden. If we wish to eat of the fruit of the tree of life, we identify with the sacrifice of Christ by partaking of his life in this Eucharist.



11th. AFTER TRINITY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Joshua 24: 1 -2a; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69.


The OT passage recounts the setting up of the confederacy of the twelve tribes of Israel at the completion of the occupation of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. The wording of the treaty seems to be based on the treaties used by the Hittites when making agreements with subject peoples. Of course some modifications were necessary when making an agreement with God! Unfortunately quite a lot of this document has been missed out by those who decide what is to read in church. The point is that the terms of the treaty set out the basis of the relationship of the Israelite tribes with each other, and the basis of their relationship of obedience and faithfulness to God. In a sense it establishes them as a nation, separate from those which are their neighbours. This was an agreement that they chose to make – they were given the option of going their own way apart from God. But having made the choice, they saw themselves as vassals of Yahweh. This reading marks the end of the book of Joshua, and a turning point in the history of the relationship of God with his people Israel.

Today too marks the end of the series of readings that we have been considering over recent weeks from the letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians. He has given us a stirring passage on Christian warfare – that is, spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is a concept that many do not wish to face, indeed do not believe that it exists in the cosmic sense in which S. Paul experienced it. But let us try seriously to take two steps forward for the kingdom of God, and we will encounter unseen forces which try to drag us back one step at least, sometimes three. And this applies in the life of the church community as well as in the personal life of the disciple. We have been supplied with weapons though for the battle. They are not spectacular, they are simple and sensible. Interestingly though, they are mainly defensive. The belt of truth, the breastplate of justice, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. The sole attacking weapon is the sword of the Spirit which is God's word. We can be reminded of how effectively Jesus used this latter in his time of temptation in the wilderness. The word of God put the powers of evil to flight. It points up the need to be familiar with the Bible, to read it and ponder it. Of course, again following the example of Jesus himself, all this surrounded by prayer. This just has to be our daily pattern of living if we are to grow in the faith.

In the Gospel passage we encounter another ending – the conclusion of Jesus' great discourse on the Bread of Life. It is another turning point for God's people too. The ministry of Jesus in Galilee is ended. It happens quite quietly, but from now on his teaching will take place in and around Jerusalem, and in the Jerusalem Temple. He goes up to Jerusalem without fanfare – in fact he goes secretly. But returning to the discourse: Jesus had said that eternal life depends on eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man – and this had caused murmuring, indeed it had caused outright offense. Even many of his disciples asked the question: Who can accept this teaching? The answer given by Jesus suggests that the teaching must be understood in relation to Jesus himself, who and what he really is. Jesus asks: If you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? The conditional is incomplete, and that incompleteness appears to be deliberate. Many translations, including the one read today, make it: What if....., but that is unnecessary. The Evangelist wants us to finish it for ourselves. There are two possibilities, and S. John wants us to remember that. To those of faith, the coming event, which we know as the Ascension, will show that Jesus is speaking in spiritual, albeit real, terms of his glorified body and blood. Accept this and there is no possible offense in the words. In the alternative case though, there will be those who still look at the whole process of the events as a scandal. Leading up to the Ascension is the Cross. For those without faith this remains a stumbling block. Jesus cannot be the claimed Saviour of the world from the position of an humiliating death as a criminal on a Roman cross. For those of no faith, the role of the Suffering Servant is an inexplicable position to take. Jesus calls for the disciples to choose – there are these two possibilities. The decision can only be made on the basis of faith. Like the people of God in Canaan at the time of Joshua, God's people still have to choose between their own way and God's way.

Jesus makes the point clearly.- the Ascension is the necessary step on the way to the gift of the Spirit. It is the Spirit whom we encounter and gives the reality of the presence of God in our walk of faith in daily life. It is the spirit which gives life; the flesh is useless.

Jesus knew that there were some who did not believe, even one among those closest to him. So he asks a sad question of the Twelve: Do you also wish to go away? A question he asks of us too as we come to realize the enormity of the life of faith. It is basically the same question that Joshua asked of the Israelites. Peter answers: Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. It sounds so confident, yet it reveals the fragility of faith. Was this not the same Peter who was to deny Jesus three times a little later in the story? But like Peter, we have made the choice of walking in the light of Christ, strengthened by the bread of his life which he gives in the Eucharist. Which of us does not suffer daily because of the gulf which exists between our profession of faith and our living out of that faith. But Sunday by Sunday, the bread of life is here. The life of him through whom the battle has been won.



9th. AFTER TRINITY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: 1 Kings 19: 4 -8; Ephesians 4:25 -5: 2; John 6:35, 41-51.


This episode from the life of the prophet Elijah follows on from his dramatic confrontation with the prophets of Baal in the preceding chapter. The result of that contest had been the complete defeat of the Baalists by the Lord God, enabled by the faith, obedience and courage of Elijah his prophet. Elijah's prayer, in contrast to the din raised by the prophets of Baal all through the day, was simple and brief. He prayed for Yahweh to act, and in faith made himself available as the channel for God's power. The result at the end of the day was the total destruction of these prophets of Baal. All these 400 prophets were there because Jezebel, the wife of Ahab the king, was a worshipper of Baal and had brought them, with her religion, at her marriage to Ahab. Jezebel was the real power in the land. Ahab, a weak charactered individual, was pretty much under her thumb. Needless to say Jezebel was furious at this turn of events and vowed vengeance on Elijah. He, very wisely, fled. Truth to tell he was terrified and travelled south to Beersheba. He left his servant there, and went on alone into an unsettled area where the only people were a few desert nomads. It is in this desert wilderness that our reading this morning finds him. He is seated under a broom tree and, in the Hebrew, requested his life to die. This slightly odd sounding phrase reflects the Hebrew belief that a persons life belongs to God, so that was as near to suicide as he could get. Suicide in fact was extremely uncommon in the Semitic world. Anyway, alone, afraid, cut off from the world, Elijah throws himself on God's mercy, prays for the deliverance of death, and goes to sleep.


Elijah, humanly speaking, was drained dry of all his resources. He really was at the end of his tether. But God's resources were not drained. There have been various explanations for what happened next, and any one of them could be true. The fact remains that God acted to save and sustain his servant in order that his work could continue. God did not abandon his servant Elijah in the hour of his need. God never leaves those who serve him to suffer the consequences alone. He is with us as we serve, as he was with Elijah the prophet in the wilderness. In one way or another God our Father gives us the necessary physical, mental and spiritual strength to enable us to follow through to the end. He will feed us, whether this means enabling us to cope or actually providing the necessary means. The goodness and power of God will never let us down. For Christian people the Eucharist is one of the main means which he provides for our life and nurture, physically, mentally and spiritually. This thought leads directly into the Gospel passage. Once again it is appropriate to leave the Epistle to the end.


I am the bread of life, declares Jesus. This claim resulted in muttering and complaints among his Jewish hearers. They missed the point. As people mostly do, they chose to think in material terms. But Jesus' words cannot be argued at a material level – no intellectual skill has ever been able to prove, or disprove for that matter, the good news of Jesus Christ. Christian experience is the only possible confirmation and proof of the Gospel. We have to commit to the way in order to find out if it is true. The bottom line is that it is a matter of faith. As Jesus says, no one can come to him unless the Father draws him. And people who live in the confidence of their own ability cannot be drawn. This of course is not to denigrate our intelligence or strengths of any kind; they are after all God's gifts to us which he expects us to use. But above and beyond is the ultimate reality, the spiritual values. Until we look above, beyond and outside ourselves there is no way God can draw us, no way that we can be fed by the bread of life. Salvation is the gift of God, we cannot achieve it by our own efforts. We have to be open enough to allow ourselves to be drawn. In terms of witness, we have to show Jesus to others by our personality, our behaviour and our words in such a way that God can draw them. It is Jesus who is the agent of salvation, we can only open the way. To come to Jesus is to come to God, being drawn by his love and the beauty of holiness. Only Jesus has seen God, so to be instructed by God is to hear the words of Jesus. As disciples in a post-apostolic age we are very dependent on the scriptures as the means by which we hear God's word to us. In this passage Jesus says that we shall be taught by God. To be taught by God will mean putting some effort into understanding the scriptures as best we can. This really is a basic Christian obligation which many try to by-pass. Hearing the Sunday readings is not enough! We need to read the Bible for ourselves on a daily basis.


The closing verses of the Gospel reading emphasize the significance of eating. If we eat the bread from heaven we will not die. Eating requires some effort on our part: the bread is there and is offered to us. But we have to take it, appropriate it for ourselves, and eat. This passage is a direct and deliberate reference to the Eucharist. S. John is saying that conversion and salvation need us to hear and appropriate for ourselves in our own lives the words of the scriptures, and eat of the bread of life in the Eucharist. The two go together.


In the Epistle passage there is a strong link with what I said earlier about our witness to others in order that they may be drawn to God. Attitudes, behaviour and words are part of life. If, however, we behave unacceptably, then others will not be drawn by us, but rather will be repelled. The aspects on which the reading focuses are what we do with out tongue and with our anger. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit in our baptism, therefore our speech should reflect that fact. The tongue which confesses the Lord, as for instance when we say the creed Sunday by Sunday, should not be profane, bitter or gossip prone. Bitterness is the unforgiving word that allows neither ourselves or others to forget a hurt. ....wrath and anger and wrangling and slander describe the noisy and unkind slanging matches that can so easily develop in human situations, even in the home. One thing leads to another when we let ourselves get angry. Sometimes anger is necessary and good, but not often. If we do allow ourselves to become angry, malice or getting even should never be the motivation.


There is another side to the coin S. Paul reminds us. We need to work on the positive virtues of kindness, compassion, and the forgiving spirit, after the example of the Lord himself. To be a child of God is to grow to be like God, to act as God does, as he has shown us in the selfless and sacrificial life of Jesus. Instead of being angry with each other, it could well be helpful to think of how angry God could be with us, how disappointed he could be with us too on occasions. But in fact what he offers is forgiveness – unlimited forgiveness and the opportunity of new life. This can help us towards a better attitude towards others. Then we will be in a position to open their way to being drawn to God, by God. In a sense, people have to see something of God in us. Anger, and a whole lot of other things certainly get in the way of that.


I want to finish with the words of the angel to the dispirited prophet Elijah: Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you. The bread of life is available here and now for the journey of life for us today.



8th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Exodus 16: 2 -4, 9-15; Ephesians 4: 1-16; John 6:24-35

The Israelites viewed the gifts of quail and manna as acts of a gracious God, in spite of the fact that they came as the result of their moaning and groaning. God is graciously generous in the face of our discontent. He doesn't grumble back – although mostly he would be quite justified in doing just that. He uses our self-centred misery as an opportunity to reveal his gifts. He shows us what our reaction should be to the grumbling complaints of others.

The flock of quail was the first part of God's gift. These birds winter in Africa and Arabia and then must migrate north in the spring in very large flocks. Some travel over the Sinai Peninsula. It is a long flight and they become very tired and are easily caught. Of course they are very good eating, and as the Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years I suppose they enjoyed this feast every spring. The manna too can be traced to a natural phenomenon. An insect which makes its home in the tamarisk excretes a sweet granular substance. The Arabs call it mann and use it like honey. The miracle consists in the wonderful providence of God occurring at the right time. God's people were fed. Of course there is more than that to the event. The gift of the manna is a sign of the way in which God is the source of all life – the life which he gives to the world. He is also the bread of the new covenant. The Christian Eucharist provides the ongoing access to that bread of life, that new life of the people of God, offered to and for the world.

This week too, like last week, the OT lesson and the Gospel are closely linked. So once again I will leave consideration of the Epistle to the last. The passage begins with the crowd being somewhat bewildered by Jesus' disappearance. But that only served to heighten the sense of mystery they felt about him. Also he had given them bread on the previous day – perhaps he would come up trumps again. So they go looking for him, and find him on the other side of the lake. When the talking begins again, Jesus does not answer their questions directly: rather he confronts them with the question as to why they are seeking him. They are not to look to him as a miracle worker whose basic aim is to satisfy their material needs. Rather, they must seek the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. This is the food that will lead them beyond their physical needs to the eternal realities. You will remember the Samaritan woman at the well in an earlier chapter of this Gospel. She had a similar misunderstanding. When Jesus offered her living water she thought it would save her from coming to the well to draw and carry each day. But the living water offered by Jesus has spiritual significance as the source of life which becomes a well of water springing up to eternal life. Both these passages show how bread and water have an eternal significance, they point the to Jesus as the Bread of Life, as the giver of life.

Having been told not to work for bread which perishes, the crowd misunderstand. They ask: What must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus' reply is that believing in him who he has sent is the work of God. The Jews believed that one had to work to please God, including working at the precepts of the Law. John never uses the word 'faith' in his Gospel – he replaces it by the word 'work'. Work in the sense of a faith that believes in the person of Jesus as the one sent from God: who reveals God and so lives a life conforming to God's will. The bread should lead the eaters to this kind of faith. But this can only happen when they learn to see through the material to the spiritual. The message is clear to us as we eat the bread of the Eucharist. However, the crowd miss the significance of all this, including the significance of the bread that they had eaten the day before. They want a sign like their forebears had in the manna in the wilderness, like their forebears they want food that they can eat. Jesus tells them it was not Moses who gave the manna, it was the gift of God. Now – right at that time – God offers them the true bread from heaven. And by 'true' John means 'real'. The manna was only a sign of God's real gift of life – God's true bread is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. There is one of those word plays here – that which comes down could equally well be translated as he who comes down. The ambiguity is deliberate. Those who can see beyond the material to the spiritual will catch the double meaning.

Like the woman at the well in Samaria, this crowd wants Jesus to give us this bread always. His reply is: I am the bread of life. If we wish to hunger and thirst no more it is to Jesus we must turn. It is not a question of what we do: eternal life cannot be achieved by works. God's life in us does not depend on some mechanical process or repetition of actions. It is a personal gift, the gift of the life of Jesus. The Eucharist form the backdrop to S. John's writing here. The Mass is not a mechanical repetition of some acts – it is the offering and reception of the bread of life, the life of Jesus.

The Epistle to the Ephesians divides into two more or less equal parts. Chapters 1 -3 which we have read over the past few weeks deal with belief. Chapters 4 -6 which begin today deal with the behaviour which is the outcome of that belief. The whole letter bears witness to the fact that belief and behaviour should go together. We are to walk worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Humble-mindedness and gentleness go together. We are reminded of the Beatitudes of Jesus, those sayings which memorably enshrine the basic Christian principles of behaviour. Poverty of spirit, gentleness, peace-making are prominent. To be humble-minded is to keep in check the tendency to blow ourselves up in our own eyes, and the eyes of others – to see ourselves as God sees us. It includes respect for others and the ability to see their achievements as well as our own. Gentleness is not meekness: it is reflected in a detachment from material wealth, and in a generous care for others. Jesus was gentle, as we see in the incident of the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 1-11). Gentleness goes with a sense of morality. Patience, putting up with one another in love, and the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace suggest the way we are meant to act and treat one another in every-day life. It is similar to the Beatitude which speaks of the peace-makers. Reconciliation is an essential part of the Christian life, as well as the avoidance of words and behaviour that cause disunity. Family life and daily life are the context of these virtues.

Church life too is meant to be characterized by unity. We are made one in baptism. We live by a common hope and in a common faith. The God whom we worship is One. Disunity is a denial of all our values and our theology. The tragedy is that disunity has been a major factor in the history of Christianity. Not just church divisions, but even within our churches the inability to accept different cultures, customs and ways of doing things – our inability to accept one another in love is what it comes down to. There is one body S. Paul tells us, but within that body there is room for different gifts and traditions. The virtues which S. Paul writes of in this passage are those to be exercised if unity is ever to be a reality. The unity of the Spirit depends on humble-mindedness, gentleness, reconciliation, acceptance and patience. They are ordinary virtues which we can pretty much take for granted, but if we examine ourselves we are likely to find that we are not all that good at exercising them. The gift of the bread of life in the Eucharist is also the gift of grace which enables us to live the moral life demanded by our Christian calling.



7th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: 2 Kings 4:42-end; Ephesians 3:14-end; John 6: 1-21.

In the little story about Elisha's feeding of the one hundred, the man whose offering was used came from Baalshalisha, inland from Joppa in the hill country of Samaria. It is close to Gilgal which was an important shrine and a centre of prophetic activity. It is likely that the gift was a personal one which he shared with the one hundred strong prophetic community. The servant could not see how this could possibly be shared with so many, but a word from the Lord overcame his objection. Not only was there sufficient, but there were left-overs. The link with the Gospel story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand is obvious. A crowd is miraculously fed; there is an abundance of food; barley loaves are common to both. Both the OT and the NT events are sacramentally suggestive. In both the communities in which the event occurs are drawn together by the experience of a common meal and the wonder of the more than ample provision. They experience awe at the power of God. Because of this quite direct link it makes sense to consider the Gospel passage next, and leave the Epistle aside for the moment.

Each of the four Gospels include this event in some form, indeed those of Matthew and Mark have it twice in different versions. S. John in this story highlights his personal theological views by the emphasis he places on the events. He shows that Jesus is the source of life and the Bread of life. The way that the discourse on Jesus as the Bread of life follows on from this passage makes that clear. In the same way that the manna in the desert for the Israelites was life-giving food from God (Exod. 16) so Jesus is the source of life-giving food for God's people. The Eucharist is his gift of his life for God's people. The Gospel does not tell us where all this happened, but for John that is irrelevant anyway – his purpose is purely theological. So he gives the event an appropriate physical situation and emphasis which makes it, and the discourse, both interesting and memorable. The time is just before Passover – a link with Jesus' Last Supper and the Eucharist, all of which can only be understood with the Passover as background. Jesus himself is the Paschal Lamb, and the Eucharist becomes the experience of his saving death for the believer, as well the means by which we can be spiritually incorporated into all of this. S. John does nor spell all of this out. It is suggested, and we are expected to make the connections for ourselves. One connection I will make – and that is the offering of the loaves and fishes. That is representative of our offering of what we have and are, the offertory of the Eucharist. It is the money which we earn by our work, it is symbolized by the bread and the wine, which the Lord transforms into the Bread of life – his body, his life, offered for us. This is the gift we receive at every Eucharist.

Jesus looks up and sees this large crowd climbing up to where he and his disciples were seated. And he says to Philip in effect: How on earth are we going to feed this lot? This was a test of Philip's faith – and indeed all of us as disciples have to learn of Jesus' care for the needs of his people, his compassion for the distressed. And disciples need to learn to respond, as Jesus did. Philip answers in a wholly material sense that a half years pay wouldn't be enough. But it wasn't really a material question. The answer lies in the person of Jesus himself. Jesus as the source of life: Jesus as the Bread of life. The food generously offered by one person will be multiplied by Jesus to feed the crowd. The people will see that act as a sign of his creative and life-giving power working through the obedient – that is, those who give of themselves. After all, these few loaves and fishes were all that the child had for himself. We can choose to live on the material plane if we wish – most people do. However, if we want to share in the life of God, the life which he has predetermined for us, we should be open to the spiritual dimension and to the creative power of God. As Christians in our tradition, Jesus has made that power available to us in and through the Holy Eucharist. Jesus is the Bread of life. The eucharistic suggestions in this story are clear. Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks, and distributes it – similarly with the fish. Everyone had as much as they wanted, and, when they were satisfied the disciples collected up that which was left. This meal was the real thing – it was sacramental, but there was no suggestion of it being a symbolic meal. The participants were filled physically as well as spiritually. It is not necessary to rationalize the event as some sort of sharing experience. However it happened, those there understood it to be a wonder, the work of God. They saw the creative power of God, the giver of life, in action. The same thing is what happens at every celebration of the Eucharist, if we care to see it in that light.

Two things can be noted. First, the bread in both the Gospel narrative and that in the OT reading was barley bread – the bread of the poor. And then the fact that all that remained was gathered up. That is a reflection on Jewish carefulness, but it is more than that. Today, when generally we waste what is left over, it is a reminder of a world with a different set of values – a world which was still alive and well when I was growing up. In our world of crying need it is worth thinking about these other values. The gift of God is precious. God gives in abundance, but his gifts should not be wasted. This is true of the bread multiplied in the Eucharist. It is true also of ourselves. We are given to each other. With all our faults (everyone of us can be criticized – and in the church often is) – but with all our faults we are precious and are given to one another. Children to their parents, brother to sister, friend to friend. Nothing of what the Lord gives should be allowed to be wasted. All, everyone, should be gathered around the Lord's table so that each shares with others what we have received. 'The gifts of God for the people of God' in the words of some of our Anglican liturgies – and the gifts of God never cease to multiply.

We have seen how impressed the people were by what Jesus had done among them. So impressed in fact that they wanted to hold him there for themselves and make him their king. Jesus however escapes from their misplaced enthusiasm. We cannot take him prisoner or hold him for ourselves. We can only accept his life as a freely given gift, which we can and must share, thus allowing it to multiply.

I promised to come back to the Epistle passage. Here S. Paul celebrates the gift of God's love. In the context of what we have been saying it is worth reading the last part again: Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever- Amen.


6th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY S.Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Jeremiah 23: 1 -6; Ephesians 2:11-end; Mark 6:30-34, 53-end.

Jerusalem was first besieged and overrun by the Babylonians in 598 BC.. Following that victory they installed Zedekiah as their puppet king. The only other major power in the region was Egypt. As always there were nationalists among the Hebrews. And their plan was to form an alliance with Egypt. Jeremiah the prophet was one of those who consistently urged a policy of non-resistance to Babylon. However the pro-rebellion nationalists dominated, leading ultimately to disaster for Judah. Jeremiah foretold the result of any uprising – and he was proved correct. The nationalists prodded Zedekiah into rebellion, and, consequently, the Babylonians returned, sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and exiled all the upper classes of Jewish society to Babylon. National, community and personal life was destroyed. Jeremiah's words: the shepherds who let the sheep of the flock scatter and be lost are to be linked to Zedekiah and the national leadership. The king of the time was always seen as God's anointed shepherd of his people. At this time Jeremiah preached that selfish and nationalistic interests were being put before the best interests of the people, consequently he threatens God's punishment on these false shepherds. However, his message is not completely without hope. He envisages the possibility of return when Yahweh will once again re-gather his scattered flock and appoint leaders who will indeed be shepherds to his people. The hope of restoration is held out, not just for the nation, but for an era of justice and security in which the Righteous Branch of David's line will be raised up. This phrase has messianic overtones which naturally were taken by the early Church to refer to Jesus as Saviour.

So, is there anything here relevant to us? Clearly, the warning to the unfaithful shepherds, those who have responsibility for the welfare of others must have that obligation as their motivation. This applies in both the material-political world as well as in the Church, where there is a spiritual dimension to the idea too. Sadly, and inevitably, not all our shepherds in either sphere are good carers of the flock. It is not only issues of hurt and injustice on the personal level that we need to be sensitive to. The need to create stability and security for the community, whether national or in the Body of Christ, is important too. Where there is rebellion and unrest, church, community and family life suffers. We cannot be utterly black and white in our judgments, but it is wise to err on the side of reconciliation and peace. The attitude of many NT writers was similar, they generally agreed that rebellion against Rome would lead to disaster, thus civil obedience was the best course for Christians (Rom. 13: 1 -7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17): indeed that was proved for Israel a few years later. But there is always hope: where there is hurt and pain, God is the great restorer. For ourselves, in our own sphere of interest, care for others, lack of self-centredness, and the creation of a sense of fairness and security, all grounded in faith and love, are good aims.

The Epistle brings us to the Ephesians and their Gentile (non-Jewish) context. Christian converts were said to have been brought near; part of the current language of conversion. Gentiles too are able to be part of the believing community – God's people. This is possible in Christ because Christ died to break down barriers between God and humans; barriers erected by self-will, sin and ignorance. Through Jesus' crucifixion, forgiveness becomes possible – and salvation can include the Gentiles. We are all incorporated into Christ himself; we share his life and his Spirit. We make this real for ourselves by our life of fellowship with each other, in our life pf prayer, and supremely, in the sacramental life of the Church, the Body of Christ. The description of this process of Christian spiritual formation as being brought near is a lovely way of describing the walk of faith, which is never complete in this life but becomes ever richer as we walk with the Lord and his people.

For S. Paul, Jesus is our peace because it is by him that we are brought into God's peace. The incorporation of the Gentiles into the Church though was not always peaceful. S. Paul was called more than once a disturber of the peace and a destroyer of the Mosaic Law. Here Paul emphasizes that God intends all Christians, Gentile and Jew, to be of the one Church. Unity with God must mean unity between believers. The dividing wall he writes of was not a metaphor – there was an actual barrier in the Jerusalem Temple beyond which Gentiles could not pass on pain of death. The accusation that he had taken Timothy beyond this point was what led to the riot and his arrest which we read about in Acts (21:27ff.). This wall was symbolic of the spiritual barrier which existed between Gentile and Jew. His point is that no such barrier is tolerable within the Church. The OT Law was the great problem: the question was, was it to be binding on new Gentile converts? S. Paul came to believe that it was not; and this was also the decision of the Council of the Church in Jerusalem. Jesus had proclaimed that he had not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil it. S. Paul too found permanent value in the Law and claimed that he was not a detractor of it (Rom. 3:31). Thank God, in Christ a way was found in time.

The passage tells us that renewal is the way forward. Forgiveness and the peace of Christ in our hearts makes us new people, able to accept the formerly impossible. That the reconciliation process took so long and was so painful only goes to show that conversion is a process, not an instant reversal. The result of Christ's work is that all have access to God: there is no insurmountable barrier; all have received the Spirit of God; the way of God is open to all. We are mostly Gentile Christians, we can be thankful for the positive affirmations of this letter to our Gentile forbears in the faith in Ephesus. Different questions today still make visible unity elusive. It is important that the Church, meaning we ourselves, continue to work and pray that Jesus' prayer for our unity may be answered sooner rather than later. The history of the Church shows that our hope is not utterly unfounded, in spite of the recent actions of Anglicans in the USA, reconciliation can happen and it does bring true blessings.

The Gospel passage from S. Mark refers to the Apostles – the only time in his Gospel where this word is used. It refers to those sent out on a particular mission. But by the time of the writing of this Gospel it had become the title of those Church leaders who had been with the Lord. It conveys the sense that they had authority from the One who had sent them. They are reporting back now, excited and enthusiastic. De-briefing it is called nowadays, and is an essential part of any mission if the participants are to learn from the experience. So Jesus takes them away, hoping that this can happen. They had hoped to get far enough away to be able to talk and pray undisturbed by the crowds, but it was not to be. They were seen, and the crowd was actually there waiting when they arrived. The compassion of Jesus cannot resist these spiritually deprived people. So he responds, and teaches them. Once again, as in the OT reading we see Israel as lost sheep without a shepherd, once again the religious leaders of the day were unconcerned for the flock. Jesus however was no disinterested shepherd: it was his concern to care for the sheep, to give them spiritual security, to bring them the message of peace with God; and, in the second part of the passage, to bring them healing of body mind and spirit. One message the Apostles no doubt learned then was the importance of being willing to have one's plans upset by the helpless and needy – sometimes we too need a reminder about this. And we too must learn the duty of compassion – the obligation and ability to provide hope, security and love to the lost whom the Lord sends to us. Help us to recognize need when we see it, and let us not pass by on the other side.

 
Sunday Next Before Lent (B) / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: 2 Kings 2: 1-12; 2 Corinthians 4: 3 -6; Mark 9: 2 -9.

Elijah the prophet knew in his heart that his end was near. Thus it was that he set out on farewell visits to the prophetic communities at Gilgal, Bethel and Jericho, accompanied by Elisha who was to succeed him. They crossed the Jordan as its waters were held back miraculously in order for them to pass over. Elisha asks from Elijah a double share of your spirit, i.e., of his prophetic power. This was similar to the portion of the inheritance of the first-born – in this case Elisha was wanting to be certain of his succession to Elijah. The fact that his request would only be granted if he had a vision of Elijah's passing implies that spiritual gifts can only be transmitted to those who are fit to receive them, or those who God wants to have them. As a seal of his inheritance he also received the cloak of Elijah. In the event Elisha did not prove to be a prophet of the greatness of Elijah. Elijah, who we meet again in the Gospel passage, was symbolic of the great prophets of Israel in the pre-Exilic period of her history especially. The stories we remember about him are those where he stood up to the weak-kneed King Ahab and his evil, foreign wife Jezebel, along with the large band of prophets that she had brought with her in order to introduce her own religion into Israel.


We do meet Elijah again in the Gospel, but first, what is the significance of this event which traditionally is known as the Transfiguration – this event which is thought to be so important that it has its own feast day? The Greek word used for transfigured is metamorphothe (which we use in the form of metamorphosis). It implies a change of form, which suggests that Jesus was seen by the disciples temporarily in the form of his post-ascension glory. But to set the story in context, we need to go back one step to the events of the preceding week. First, Peter, followed by the other disciples, had the astonishing revelation which led to his great, wondering confession: You are the Christ! Having reached this point of acceptance, Jesus immediately then begins to build on it and teach them what this statement really meant, both for them and for himself. Particularly in the area of his suffering which was to come quite soon. This though was one step too far for Peter at this stage. Still on a high after realizing the greatness of the Lord, he could not comprehend the way of suffering that Jesus was teaching – and so he protested – thus earning the rebuke of Jesus: Get behind me Satan! O dear, the highs and lows of life in quick succession – Peter experienced all that when he began to follow Jesus. But now on the mountain, traditionally believed to be Mount Tabor, but Hermon seems more likely geographically, two things happen. First, the truth of Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ is confirmed, for Jesus appears in a glory which can only be messianic. And, secondly, the teaching of Jesus that he must suffer is shown to be fully in line with the the will of God – the voice of God designates Jesus as the one whose teaching God wants all people to accept.


Thus it seems that what was granted to these three disciples was a glimpse of the future state of glory to which Jesus would be exalted. The presence of Elijah and Moses point to that. These two were the great representatives of the Law and the Prophets in the minds of faithful Jews at the time of Jesus. Their presence testifies to Jesus as being the true Christ of God. Moses was the first figure of salvation for the Jews. It was Moses who led God's people out of slavery in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land. It was Moses who was reputed to have written the first five books of the OT (the Pentateuch) which contains the Law. We have already seen the importance of Elijah as representative of the prophets of Israel. At the time of Jesus the Petateuch and the books of the various prophets were the authorized scriptures of the Jews. Just as we might say, Well, that's what it says in the Bible, Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets. The Psalms were well known and were read in the synagogues; indeed Jesus on several occasions quotes from them, even on the Cross. But they still at that time did not have the same authority as the Law and the Prophets. Thus Jesus is clearly shown to be in the line both of God's prophetic figures and his salvation figures.


But then, to avert any danger of his being misunderstood as merely being one among the others, a further prophet of the old order, the voice clearly singles Jesus out as the prophet of the last days whom Moses had foretold as superseding himself (Deut. 18:15,18-19). But Jesus is more even than this: he is actually God's only Son, the one to whom the world should listen. With his coming the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled, the old covenant with the Jews is superseded by a new covenant with a new people of God. The voice which makes this proclamation is described as coming from the cloud which overshadowed the event. For S. Mark, for the disciples, this would have meant that the voice was truly the voice of God. The cloud was par excellence the vehicle of God's Shekinah (the presence and glory, or dwelling of God). The cloud, all through Exodus for instance, is the medium in and through which God manifests himself, makes his presence with his people known. The early Christians saw the Second Coming of the Lord as being with clouds of glory.


It remains to explain the suggestion of Peter that the disciples should build three shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. It is probably a reminiscence of Peter himself. It looks like a slightly silly idea. But really what Peter wanted to do was prolong the experience. How good it is to be here! he is saying, let's build some shelter, you can talk, we can learn, we can bask in this wonderful glow. He was naturally overwhelmed by the experience and wanted it to last. But it was not to be. Suddenly it is all over. This was only a foreshadowing of what was to be. Before the end there remained much to be done, and much to be suffered by both Jesus and his disciples. The suffering must not be by-passed or evaded. I think some people, like Peter at that stage of his life, would rather avoid Lent and its message, would rather avoid Holy Week and the Crucifixion. Should not our religion be all about victory and happiness? Well no! Christianity is a religion of reality. We cannot avoid our conflict with evil; our own and that of others. Down from the mountain in the real world, Christianity, truly understood, is not some form of escapism.


Only three friends of Jesus had this experience of glory. Are other disciples, then and now, denied it? Perhaps we can let S. Paul in the epistle passage for today have the last word. For it is the God who said? 'Let light shine out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are living in the end-time: Christ has risen: we can experience to, in the here and now, something of the glory that shall be.


 
1st After Trinity (B) / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Ezekiel 17:22-end; 2 Corinthians 6: 6-10; Mark 4:26-34.

The passage read from the OT is part of a fable which Ezekiel used to show that it would be a mistake, indeed more than a mistake – more in the nature of evil – to rebel against Babylon and try to make an alliance with Egypt. The explanation of the fable, which concerns two eagles, a cedar tree and a vine, is in the verses just before those read today. The first eagle was Nebuchanezzar who in 597 BC took Jehoiakin of Judah (i.e. the top shoot of the cedar) captive and deported him to Babylon. In his place he set Zedekiah (a more lowly vine) as a puppet king. Later this vine leaned towards the second eagle (the Pharaoh of Egypt). The Lord did not approve of this arrangement – in the event Pharaoh proved to be a disappointment and Nebuchanezzar again took Jerusalem in 586 BC and this time destroyed it and the Temple. That is the background to the reading. In the passage for today Yahweh takes a shoot from the top of the tree (which represents the line of David) and plants it on the high mountain which represents Israel. There it will flourish and under it all kinds of birds will find a home and shelter. All the trees (i.e. the other nations) will look up to it and know that Yahweh is Lord. It is a message of warning and of hope.


It is interesting to see the political insights which the prophets were given. They were certainly nationalistic in the sense of knowing, and wanting all to acknowledge, the supremacy of God's people Israel, and thus the supremacy of Yahweh – but at the same time there was an element of realism. Perhaps it was better to see God's plan for his people as not involving futile rebellion, but to live and witness under the constraint of foreign domination for a time. There could well be lessons to be learned, and surely there was no future in leading the people into a conflict which could only result in suffering and disaster. Only God can deliver his people. We, as God's people, should not be looking towards political power and wealth in order to achieve God's ends. This is a common fault of our church among others. It is one reason that I personally favour disestablishment for the Church of England.


Brothers and sisters, we are always confident; ...... This follows on from the end of last week's passage where S. Paul asserts that our experience of the Holy Spirit of God now, gives us both a present foretaste of eternal life, and a guarantee for the future. Actually that largely explains his ambivalence about death. On the one hand he longs for death,knowing that it will bring him into that full communion with the Lord for which he yearns; on the other hand though he knows that God has work in the world still for him to do. But, he says, even though our walk is by faith for now, we do still have fellowship with the Lord. While our walk of faith now makes Christ real to us, through the Spirit, hereafter he will be so real as to be visible. In the meantime our aim must be to please the Lord, following the example set by Paul himself. The word he uses means to be acceptable. There is a sense of urgency about this, because judgment is real. Not only is it real, but it is necessary in order that each may receive recompense for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. This English sentence does not make clear what S. Paul actually says here. It is not a matter of judgment on each individual act, but on the life and character of the person taken as a whole. Probably just as well. S. Paul sees life as a pilgrimage in which we walk in faith, with the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, through this world towards our fulfilment in the next. So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!


S. Mark quite likely linked the two little parables in the Gospel passage for today because they both make a similar point. There is a contrast between the smallness and the hiddenness of the beginnings of the coming of God's kingdom, and the glory of its full consummation. Kingdom life began with a tiny helpless infant, born to a peasant girl from a remote backwater in Palestine. The ministry of Jesus will be fulfilled when all God's people gather at the Second Coming of the Lord. In Jesus' time people had no real understanding of how from the sowing of a tiny seed a plant could grow. It induced a sense of wonder – it still does of course even to us who can at least explain the actual process. The farmer planted the seed and went on with his normal life. He would sleep and rise night and day and the seed was left to its own devices to sprout and grow and come to bear fruit in its proper time. So the Kingdom is God's, and the seed having been planted will grow by his power. We can plant and we can water, and we must be faithful in both, but the growth comes from God. The mustard seed was known proverbially as the smallest of all seeds, and yet it grows into a plant large enough to provide shelter and space for the birds to nest in. possibly the story links back to Ezekiel and his fable of the messianic tree which attracts birds of every kind.


Jesus habitually used parables like these in his teaching – as they were able to hear – the Gospel says. Jesus did not back people into a corner and demand instant decisions for Christ. He did say memorable things – small memorable soundbites they might be called today, which would stick with one, and quite likely grow in the consciousness over time, helping one to grow in awareness and knowledge of the things of God. God's way is to plant the seed and the power of his Holy Spirit will allow it to develop, and grow, and bear fruit. Our personal walk in faith, our personal growth spiritually and morally, can itself be a parable of the kingdom of God and a witness to God's power. We can open our lives to respond to the challenge offered by the little parables of Jesus.


 
Pentecost (B) / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Acts 2: 1-21; John 15:26,27, 16:4b-15.

Today is Pentecost, one of the great joyful festivals of the Church. Joyful because today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit of God on the infant Church, enabling and empowering it to be Christ in the world. God's holy people set apart to continue and bring to completion the work begun by the Lord Jesus. You will have noticed that the Paschal Candle which was lit and present here in the chapel right through the Easter season is now gone. That is symbolic of the fact that the Lord has ascended to the Father and is now no longer with us in any human bodily form – he is now with us in a new way; he is with us in the Spirit of the living God.

The activity of the Holy Spirit has been a fact since the creation of the world. The creation stories of Genesis bear witness to the Hebrew concept of God's wind, breath or spirit – the same word is used for all three. So, from the very first words of the Bible we find the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of chaos, and later, God breathing life into the man, Adam. The renewing aspect of God's Spirit is dramatically expressed in Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. There is a lot in fact about the work of the Holy Spirit in the OT. But the early Christians experienced something which they felt to be new and exceptional following the resurrection and ascension of the Lord. In the primitive Christian community at Jerusalem there was a new articulateness among the Apostles, and the discipleship generally. Here they were, not a very educated or articulate group anyway, proclaiming the good news of the resurrection in a bold and coherent way which was in complete contrast to their previous state of depression and fear immediately after the crucifixion. There was bubbling expectation of great things, healings were taking place, there was inspired witness, and already there was the persecution and the martyrdom of S. Stephen.

But we will come back to that and return to Ezekiel. Ezekiel feels himself to be in the grip of Yahweh. In a trance he is brought to a wide plain, a vast battlefield, strewn as far as the eye can see with bones. As he wanders about it becomes clear that the bones are old and very dry, all vitality having long gone. To Yahweh's question: Can these bones live? he has no answer. On the face of it it is an impossibility. But then Yahweh commands him to prophesy, to address these bones and call upon them to hear. It is a wonderful reflection of the power of the prophetic word that even dry bones can be quickened into response. It is an encouragement to our own witness. Then comes the central line of the whole vision: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. As he heeds the divine command he hears a strange rattling. The bones are moving, assembling themselves into their original forms. Sinews, flesh and skin is added. But now Ezekiel must go further and prophecy again. This time to the breath, and command it to come from the four winds and breathe upon these dead. They come to life because it is the Spirit which gives life! The great renewed host represents Israel, the people of God. Israel is to rise from the death that has come upon it through disobedience and faithlessness. It will once again become a living community, a living body, living by those things that constitute true life. All this is the work of the Spirit of God.

Coming now to the events of Pentecost, as the new Christians experienced it, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, We find well established symbolism used to give expression to what occurred. We can learn a great deal about what S. Luke is trying to convey in the details of the story. We can come also to a better expectation of what God may do in us. Wind and fire regularly accompany divine manifestations and the activity of the Spirit of God. We have seen Ezekiel in the vision of the valley of dry bones. In the Gospel of John the same imagery of wind for the Spirit is used by Jesus when he speaks with Nicodemus. The Gospels of S. Matthew (3:11) and S. Luke (3:16) both associate fire with God's activity. So here in Acts, S. Luke is using standard imagery to convey the sense of God's active presence with his Church. His use of as though and as if should alert us to the fact that we are dealing with symbolic language. The tongues of fire rest on each one of them – i.e. the Spirit is to be understood as entering and remaining with each individual. They speak in other tongues – here a gift of languages seems to be understood rather than what we know as 'speaking in tongues'. This is a different gift. In this passage the emphasis is on the universal nature of the message, and, importantly, its clarity. The universality of the Gospel message proclaimed by these early Christians is seen in the list of languages of those who heard in their own tongue. The clarity is seen by the use of the Greek word apophthengesthai (translated as speak or address) which means a clear, articulate and inspired proclamation.

The Pentecost story indicates that God gives special power to his Church by his Spirit. This gift is infused into believers to enable mighty works to be done. The most significant of these is the clear and articulate proclamation of the Gospel, and especially of the importance of the resurrection. The 'Pentecost' gift is to enable the Church to address the world. We chop off this chapter at verse 11 in the lectionary, but the whole chapter should really be read as a whole. It would be a very good idea to go home after this service and read th whole of chapter 2 of Acts.

So, the day of Pentecost has arrived. Pentecost, formerly a Jewish harvest festival, the fiftieth day after Easter, is inseparable from Easter. It is the culmination of the Easter season because now the fruits of the victory that was won then are now available to us, with power. The Spirit of God. Poured out on the Apostles made them, who had been fearfully cowering indoors, into a great people, a great people of whom we are a part, jubilantly singing God's praises. Here indeed is the Church, of which we are a part, alive with new breath, the life of the Spirit breathed into us as it was on the dry bones of God's people in the vision of Ezekiel. A new humanity, witnessing to the world, as the disciples did at the first Pentecost, witnessing to a new joy, a new blessedness. Good news about the forgiveness of sin and the possibility of new beginnings as we live in the Spirit and are led into all truth by the Spirit. Outside the Church is the unbelieving world: this is the environment in which we live, work and play. One of the great temptations is to 'go with the flow'. The world leaves God out of account and follows its own standards – success, power, reputation, money, pleasure, self-indulgence. Not all of them evil in themselves, but all capable of becoming our gods. To live under the guidance of the Spirit is to share in the death and resurrection of the Lord. It is to be freed from a nature marked by sin and self-indulgence. It is to be led in a way of life in which Christ himself is the standard: it is no longer I who live, but he who lives in me, is the testimony of S. Paul.



LENT 4 (B) / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Numbers 21: 4 -9; Ephesians 2: 1-10; John 3:14-21.

The OT passage is the story of the bronze serpent to which Jesus refers in the Gospel reading. It takes place during the 40 years in the wilderness when the mixed bag of people, who had been led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses, were being forged by God into a cohesive whole – a people who were to become the 'people of God' – Israel. At this point in the saga they are finding the going tough. There are anxieties and some discomfort over the shortages of both food and water. To cap it all, they then find themselves coping with a plague of poisonous snakes. There were deaths because of this. The people though come to view this as a punishment for their previous grumblings and so they come to Moses asking him to intercede with God on their behalf. Moses prays to God and receives back a message to construct this bronze snake and set it up on a pole, with the promise that anyone who was bitten could look up at the serpent on the pole and be saved. Thus it became a symbol of God's saving power to his people. They had an early experience of the grace of God. As these Israelites were saved by the raising up of the brass serpent, through their faith in God's saving power mediated to them through this symbol, so we are saved by faith in the raising up on the Cross of Calvary of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The reading from Paul's letter to the Ephesians is full of descriptions of the varied nature of grace. It is shown in God's mercy in which he is rich. Mercy in turn is activated by his love towards us, even at our most undeserving while we are still in sin. But sin, in fact, must end in death – spiritual death now and total death at the time of judgment. However, accept forgiveness, accept the new beginning offered in Christ, and we find the effect of God's prior outgoing love in the gift of life. We are made alive together with Christ. The resurrection of the Lord is the guarantee of eternal life here and of the effectiveness of salvation. The statement by grace you have been saved sums up the whole operation of God's mercy and love in forgiveness and the gift of life here and hereafter. The Person and work of Christ is a gift from God to his creatures. By sin we had turned away from God and thus, really, sentenced ourselves to death: by God's gift in Christ we are saved and given life instead of death. Even more than this, we are given a share in Christ's own glory. We are not only raised, but are seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. By God's gift we can belong in heaven with him, heaven can become our natural home. The phrase thus becomes a beautiful description of our spiritual belonging, and helps us to keep this world in true perspective. .

S. Paul goes on to show that grace, by its very nature, can only be accepted – it cannot be earned. The response to God's generosity is faith: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Faith here is a willingness to accept what God offers and commit oneself to the implications of accepting this gift. The good works are the inseparable con-comitant of the gift of salvation. They are not a precondition as if we could earn salvation by 'being good'. It is gift. But, having accepted the gift, we are committed to the good works prepared by God for the saved to walk in. salvation has moral implications, but they are the result, not the cause, of the gift of salvation. There can be no boasting that we earned our reward. So, no one can save themselves: salvation is a gift which is received through faith. God saves by raising us up with Christ: we are already citizens of heaven.

The Epistle passage this morning can be read as a comment on the Gospel reading which follows. Both are about salvation. The Gospel opens with a reminder of the cost of God's gift: ..just as Moses lifted up the serpent .... so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him, may have eternal life. The actual necessity of the passion and crucifixion is emphasized. There is no easy way, there is no short cut, there is no salvation without costly suffering. The purpose clause which I have just read also contains the idea of the need for the response of faith. In Greek the noun for faith and the verb to believe both come from the same root – so faith and belief go together as two aspects of the same virtue. These verses then speak of the costly gift of salvation, the cost of the cross of Calvary in terms of the suffering of the Christ of God, and the human response of faith and belief. This costly gift though is motivated by love: For God so loved the world ... The purpose of all this suffering is salvation, not judgment. John goes on to point out that although judgment is not the purpose of God in Jesus, for those who do not respond it becomes inevitable: ... those who do not believe are condemned already ... The gift is offered, but where it is rejected there can be no salvation; there is no other way than faith in Christ. Light has come, but those who do not respond must love the darkness more. In the dark they may think their evil deeds hidden. Salvation demands moral change. Light must be allowed to shine in to every part of life.

This passage is part of the conversation that the Jewish leader and Pharisee, Nicodemus, had with Jesus. Coming in the darkness of night in order to avoid Jewish eyes, he comes into the light of the presence of Jesus. He is told that he must tear himself from the dark and open up fully by putting the truth into action. 'Doing the truth' Jesus calls it. Truth is what is real and permanent. God is the ultimate reality, so producing works in such ways and in accordance with such values as are acceptable to God, is doing the truth. To be saved one has to accept the gift; to accept the gift is to lead a life acceptable to God. Light and darkness are mutually exclusive. To receive Jesus in faith, even if only as a question mark, is to already have moved from darkness towards the light.

As well as being Mothering Sunday, today is also known as Refreshment Sunday. God offers a sabbath gift for our refreshment, but it is possible to be too greedy and self-centred to accept it. This gift is the gift of himself and his grace – grace which takes many forms but is characterized mainly by mercy and love. We can earn none of this by good works, we can only accept it, and the sign of our acceptance is the turning of our backs to the darkness and our face to the light, and opening up our lives to that light. It will not happen all at once, it is a life-long process and walk with the Lord, but where this walk is begun, there is no judgment. Here, in the middle of Lent, we are reminded of the need for moral effort and repentance on our part, and also the sheer selfless goodness of God in what he offers to us.



LENT 1 (B) / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Genesis 9: 8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-end; Mark 1: 9-15.

Ancient peoples found the explanations for natural phenomena in stories and mythical events. The rainbow is thus explained in the OT reading from Genesis this morning. As the story has it, God placed the rainbow in the sky as a reminder to himself of the promise he had made not to destroy the earth. Rather like tying a knot in the corner of a handkerchief in order to remind oneself of something. My personal belief is that God does not need to do anything like that. However, for Israel, the rainbow becomes a symbol of the permanence of the earth. It signifies that in the mind of God neither natural disaster, nor even the sin of humanity, will lead to the destruction of his creation – try as we will. This is the guarantee in the covenant with Noah. Usually there are obligations for both sides in a covenant. The covenant with Noah is a little different. When, for instance, God made a covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17) there is a response to God, it is an agreement between two parties. In this instance of the covenant with Noah there is no human response – God simply makes a unilateral decision to refrain from universal destruction. It is a self-imposed obligation by the Lord God. Human dominance and stewardship of the earth, and the survival of creation, are the gift of God alone. Biblical myth generally is the vehicle for important truth.

We are told the story from God's point of view. Noah, his sons, and creation generally, simply receive the word passively. When the rainbow appears in the sky it will remind the Lord God of his promise not to destroy the earth. This promise is repeated with minor variations. The cumulative poetic effect gives solemn emphasis to God's word. It seems from this that while the earth lasts we can rely on God not to arbitrarily destroy it: this promise is what makes life as we know it possible. The Genesis stories of course did not envisage a time when it would be possible for we humans our-selves to destroy the earth. It is a sobering thought that human creativity, together with pride and greed, can possibly circumvent God's goodness as the Bible understands it. But perhaps it is not possible. Maybe the story of the tower of Babel also has something to say to us.

There is an important connection between the Genesis stories of Creation and the Flood. Together they describe God's redemptive acts. Creation was spoiled by human disobedience – Adam and Eve took more than they were allowed. The Flood makes universal the 'fall' of the creation story. Universal sin brings universal punishment: there is such a thing as judgment and the end of the earth. God's covenant was operative he said, not eternally, but while the earth lasts. He will not destroy us, but there is no guarantee that we cannot destroy ourselves, as Adam and Eve destroyed their life in Eden, as the generation of the tower of Babel brought about their own destruction, as the generation of Noah brought about their own destruction also. These stories apply throughout the scriptures. The prophets were sent to warn of the destructiveness of sin. Throughout the OT we find a pattern of destruction as a result of human disobedience and sin – followed by renewal as a result of obedience by a faithful remnant. It is the function of God's people, mainly the faithful remnant in fact, to bring those who do not know God into a living relationship with him. It is God's purpose to choose people to be his servants, commissioning them to save others from themselves for God. There is a sense in which we can see Jesus as the faithful remnant of a faithless people, Israel. Through the ministry of Jesus the Church becomes the new chosen people of God, the new Israel of God, chosen not for themselves, but to bring about the redemption of God's creation. Just as God in the story of Noah judged, and punished by the universal flood, so he also renewed the earth through the obedience of one person, Noah. The stories of creation, fall and flood are symbolic of redemption, symbolic of the new life and salvation possible through Jesus. No wonder the early Church saw in the story of the Flood a symbol of baptism.

S. Peter is making one main point in the passage from the epistle read this morning. Christ died for our sin, vicariously (i.e., as our substitute or representative, acting on our behalf), and not just for us but for the salvation of all. It was a universal victory he won on the cross. The story of Noah and the Flood foreshadows the redemptive work of Christ and the Church. Baptism similarly represents judgment and salvation through water. We drown, we die, we rise from the water a new person in Christ. S. Peter shows that Christ's death is sacrificial – it fulfils the OT sacrificial system, thus making it irrelevant, of no consequence in the present age. Christ died, the righteous for the unrighteous. Jesus, the one without sin dies for the sins of others. That was the purpose of his death, to bring us to God. But as Christ lives – he was raised from the grave and taken to be at the right hand of God, the result of his sacrifice is not simply salvation, it is the experience of a living relationship with him possible in this life.

In the Gospel passage S. Mark gives us a remarkably bare version of Jesus' Temptation in the Wilderness. Jesus is driven out by the Spirit, which suggests a strong compulsion to face the powers of evil at the very beginning of his ministry. The wilderness traditionally was the place where evil spirits and influences were located, so it was here that Jesus was called to confront all the evil that he will face during his life and work. He had the victory here, as he had it too at the end when even death could not hold him. The temptations are directly linked with the events of his baptism when the Spirit of God descended on him with power. Our call, and our spiritual empowering, must issue in our personal battle with evil. The final verse of the passage summarizes Jesus' core message, his gospel, his good news: The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe .... The 'kingdom of God' means the sovereign rule of God in the hearts and minds of those who believe and are obedient. To confess Jesus as Lord and commit oneself to him is to acknowledge the rule of God in one's own life. So the kingdom, as Jesus pointed out to Pilate, is a state of being rather than a place. However, it does suggest a community, and to be a member of the kingdom means to be a member of the community of believers. To establish the rule of God is to establish a community of people who also believe and are committed to live by that standard. There is no place for evil where God's kingly rule is held as supreme.

Today's readings for this First Sunday of Lent together say to us that we need to take seriously the fact of punishment for wrong and, through God's grace, the establishment of righteousness. We are reminded that our place on this earth and the continuation of life are gifts given unilaterally by God. We recognize the need for forgiveness, and that through turning to God and accepting this blessing, we can participate in the renewal and new life which God offers. This was symbolized in the story of Noah, and was made real in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord. Through baptism we have entry into the kingdom. We remain in it by proclaiming it, witnessing to it, living under God's kingly rule in faith and obedience, and helping to build a community which reflects this Lordship of God over individuals and creation, and his love for them. The Lenten fast gives us the opportunity to focus on these ideals, and to work on areas of our lives which the Lord has shown us do not measure up.



PALM SUNDAY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index
Readings: Isaiah 50: 4 -9a; Philippians 2: 5-11; Matthew 27:11-54.

The OT passage is the fourth of the so-called Servant Songs of the prophet we know as Deutero (or Second) Isaiah. The figure of this 'Servant' was taken by Jesus as being highly significant in his conception of who and what the Messiah of God was meant to be. And, thus, what the Church, as the Body of Christ is meant to be in the world today. The opening verse of the reading presents the Prophet as a true teacher, who uses God's words to bring comfort to those suffering the Babylonian exile. But he, that is the prophet, can only bring God's word to his hearers insofar as he himself is hearing God. Thus he listens each morning for what God would have him say. What an important message for Christians, perhaps especially preachers and teachers. We all need to pray in a way that listens, each and every morning, because it is important that the message we bear, both in our words and in our lives, should be truly from God. Our listening prayer needs to be tied in with study of the Bible ? truly God's word to us. That is the way we can ensure that we are reflecting God's Word, in all the senses of that word, in our daily lives.

As the Prophet listened he learned an important lesson ? that he, as God's servant, must be willing to accept punishment and suffering without bitterness or complaint. The Bible has many examples of this attitude to life. S. Paul's letters show that he learned to accept insult along with physical and spiritual pain. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus came to the point of acceptance of the 'cup' of suffering in obedience to his Father's will. The suggestion has been made that Isaiah, prior to writing this passage, had been arrested by the Babylonians, and that the injuries described had been such as he had suffered at their hands. Be that as it may, the writers of our NT Gospels read into this passage a foreshadowing of Jesus' suffering. For us as Christians, the example of Jesus is one to be imitated in the face of rejection or suffering caused through our obedience to the will of God. It is not just the sufferings which are foreshadowed by this prophet, but our response to them as well.

This passage also is a clear statement of Isaiah's confidence that God will stand by him, enabling him to set my face like flint as he confronted his persecutors. He uses legal language to describe how God will vindicate him, and to challenge his opponents. There is a kind of confidence coupled with hopefulness, which is a product of faith, which will see us through this kind of adversity.

The Epistle reading from Philippians is important from several aspects. First from a Christological point of view it shows that Christ is eternally God. It shows too the self-denying nature of God's love. Also there is a moral aspect as it makes clear the importance in the Christian life of imitating the character of God in a similar life of self-denial. Religion should never be used to gain privilege. Denying oneself and obedience are the values being focused on here. Christ himself lived out these values, and thus was able to re-enter the heavenly places. God's nature is beautifully expressed by describing his action as self-giving ? he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. That is, he came to serve. This is the model for Christian life.

There is just so much in the narrative of the Passion of Our Lord that we have just heard. All I can hope to do is pick out a few important points. It begins with the treachery of Judas. There was an inevitability about the death of Jesus, however this cannot mitigate the responsibility of Judas. Even at the Last Supper Jesus seems to be appealing to him to reconsider what he was about to do. The death of Jesus was inevitable ? if not through the actions of Judas, his enemies would have found some other way. But it was his action which in fact facilitated their evil intent, and he must bear that burden. What were his motives? The Bible does not tell us. The Gospel of John suggests greed, but I think it was much more complicated than that. The facts though remain. Jesus almost certainly could have escaped, even at this last moment ? but he went voluntarily to his death.

The institution of the Eucharist is told with only the barest of detail ? after all by the time this Gospel was written the Eucharist was a well established part of Church life. The words of institution would have been as familiar to these early readers as they are to us. Participation in the Eucharist does not just link us to each other, it links us to all participants now, and in the time past through history, with every generation of Christians throughout these over two thousand years. The theme of 'servanthood' of course is central in this last supper of Jesus, with him as the breaker of bread and the passer of the cup for all.

The Agony in the Garden reveals the deep and painful internal struggle of Jesus. The disciples who had accompanied him were frankly not of much help at this time. His strength came from his own relationship with his heavenly Father, and his obedience to his will. 'Watch' ? the word of advice to his disciples became an important word in the Gospels. As disciples, it is important for us also. We need to watch for spiritual laziness in our lives, we need to watch for the subtlety of the tempter, we need to watch out for failure in love and support for our brothers and sisters in the faith. We remind ourselves of all this when we watch with Jesus for one hour following the Maundy Thursday service. The account of Jesus' agony is precious ? it indicates his understanding of our spiritual and moral struggles. At this time he faced the fulness of human suffering ? he did not take advantage of his divinity to avoid any part of the Passion.

The season of Lent ends this week ? the week beginning today. This is Holy Week, the most solemn week of the Christian Year, the most solemn week in the history of the world. The liturgy for the days of Holy Week does not mask the struggle ? it allows us to accompany Jesus through his last days and hours, even that Hour, at once both dark and glorious, for which he said he had come. We follow his every footstep, from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem today, acclaimed by the crowd, to the desperate loneliness of Golgotha where he is abandoned by almost everyone, even those he himself had chosen and for whom he was giving his life. The climax comes very quickly and all seems to collapse. Yet, even at the moment of utter dereliction ? My God,my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus with outstretched arms, attracts and gathers to himself humanity and the universe. All seemed ended, in fact all is about to begin. At the end of the passage is recorded the attempt to seal the tomb with a great stone, and with guards, with Jesus' body inside. It was a futile gesture ? the victory had been won on Calvary's cross.


EASTER 6 / S. Margaret's, Budapest.
Index

Readings: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-end; John 14:15-21.

What a gift to S. Paul, coming across this statue in Athens to an unknown God! It gave him the perfect opening with which to challenge the local philosophical and popular paganism. For the Epicureans, the gods existed in a far off state of bliss, not too interested in what went on the world. On the other hand the Stoics saw the world in an almost divine light, their job as humans was to get in touch with this divinity or life force. The ordinary folk believed in a variety of gods who had one thing in common ? it was important to keep these gods happy to stop them intervening in one's life in adverse ways. S. Paul's address acts like a searchlight, enabling him to target each position in turn, and then shoot it down. There is one God only. You both know him, and you don't know him, so you raise an altar to him, just in case. The fact is he is not far from the world, but nor is he identified with the world; he is the world's creator and provider. Humans, and not idols, are the beings with the closest affinity with this true and real God.

So far so good, any Jew could agree with this. But now comes the punchline. The true God has acted in history in the person of Jesus Christ. S. Paul has not only addressed and answered the various Athenian Greek positions, he has shown that philosophical systems are not where it is at. What matters is Jesus, Jesus, the focus of God's vision for Israel to be light to the world. Israel's prophets had claimed that Israel's God would deal with the ills of the world. The Epicureans when faced with evil simply shrugged it off as unimportant in the total scheme of things. The Stoics suggested suicide as a solution. Ordinary people assumed that more appeasement of the gods would solve the problem for them, so they offered more sacrifices at their local shrine. These are not viable solutions. S. Paul proclaims that the living God has provided the only viable solution to the problem of evil in the raising of Jesus, and in his return to initiate justice in the world at the last.

Our society reflects all of these attitudes doesn't it? Western European culture for a couple of centuries or more has been basically Epicurean: the word 'god' is taken to refer to an idea, or at best, an absentee landlord. Now, suddenly, Stoicism is making a comeback within the pantheism of New Age concepts. Ordinary paganism (making a god of money, success, power, sex, art, education, - often things worthy in themselves) is the norm. The message of S. Paul is as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago. We all have altars to unknown gods which need to be sought out and torn down. But perhaps though we do really know the name. Whatever, the solution offered by God in the Lord Jesus is still the only solution.

...in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. So says S. Peter in the Epistle. This is his advice for living the Christian life. By sanctify he means to reverence, to acknowledge the holiness of God in our hearts. What we say of him and the way we act should reflect this sense of reverence. To S. Peter it is important that we should always be ready to give a lucid account of the hope that is in you. Peter was good at this himself as we have seen from the accounts of his sermons in the Book of Acts. But then he had first hand knowledge and experience of the power of God's forgiving love in his own life. He could talk to people where they are at and address their need for forgiveness and a new beginning. Similarly S. Paul in Athens begins with the interests and questions of those listening. Our defence of our faith must of course be given with sensitivity; with respect for both the message and the hearers, and not in such a way that our behaviour can be used to criticize the message. And we must be prepared to accept rejection and suffering because of the message. The object must be to lead to God, to bring to Christ. The Lord met his death doing just that. For him, death was in respect of the flesh alone ? in the spirit he was made alive. The final thought of the passage directs us to the resurrection as that which makes our salvation possible, and to the exaltation of Christ. He is Lord of all ? his message is for all, his message is efficacious for all who ever lived ? the salvation offered by God is total, for all creation, for all time.

The Gospel tells us that God!s gift of salvation is not a remote or technical or magical experience. Baptism is the response to the message of love. Our need is to love God and to know that we are loved. Keeping the commandments is an expression of love. Jesus promises his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, designated here as the Advocate, but sometimes translated as the Paraclete or the Comforter. The sense is that the Holy Spirit is our strengthener and encourager. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God with us. He is also the Spirit of truth. That is, he is God's revealer of truth to the Body of Christ, in so far as we are open enough to receive it. The world in general is unable to receive the Spirit, simply because it does not know God and thus cannot recognize revelation. For believers too, the Spirit is the abiding presence of Jesus in our lives, enabling us daily to recognize love, and to be love to the world. In terms of witness it is important that those around us should see that abiding presence. We need to be able to communicate the need for all of this sense of fellow-ship with the living God, and that life is pointless without it.

The Lord assures us that we will not be left orphaned. The departure of the physical Jesus left the way clear for the all-pervading presence of God in the Spirit. I am coming to you, Jesus says. The present tense is important. It signifies a continuing presence. The Spirit is the Spirit of the living Christ, the risen Christ: because he lives we live too. This living presence, encouraging, guiding, cleansing, enlivening, is what is meant by the mutual abiding. 'We in Christ and Christ in us' to use S. Paul's phrase. We need to practice the presence of God in our lives, to open our hearts, our minds, our lives to his refining and forgiving love. To recall him as often as we can ? abiding in Christ through the Spirit. God loves us, and our response to love will be shown by our obedience. This in turn will enable God to manifest himself in us. The longer we love God, abide in him, share his life and obey his leading, the more we will come to understand him as he reveals himself to us. Our faith, Christianity, is a lifelong walk with the Lord towards the light.


SPIRITUAL EXERCIES / S. Margaret's, Budapest.
Index

I have written before about practising the Presence of God in daily life. What follows is a simple 'setting-up' exercise for the beginning of the day, to be said each morning one or more times. While performing the exercise try to breathe deeply and regularly.

Spiritual exercises such as this are helpful in building up our inner lives and in releasing the power of Holy Spirit.

This is a spiritual exercise encouraged by the Order of St. Luke the Physician.

1. You are God, in whom I have put my trust.

2. Your Presence is everywhere.

3. Your Presence surrounds me; in You I live and move and have my being.

4. Your Presence is within me, strengthening, inspiring, healing and perfecting me.

5. Your Presence banishes fear and worry and anxiety.

6. Your Presence gives me strength for all my needs.

7. Your Presence gives me confidence and courage in every situation.

8. Your Presence drives out resentment and hatred, and subdues anger.

9. The inspiration of Your Presence gives me understanding, that I man have clearness of vision, steadfastness of thought, and trueness of speech.

10. Your Presence enables me to overcome evil and disease in all forms.

11. Nothing cam separate me from Your Presence.

12. Praise be to You, O Lord, Who gives me the Victory, through Jesus Christ my Saviour.


PALM SUNDAY 6 / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Isaiah 50: 4 -9a; Philippians 2: 5-11; Matthew 27:11-54.

The OT passage is the fourth of the so-called Servant Songs of the prophet we know as Deutero (or Second) Isaiah. The figure of this 'Servant' was taken by Jesus as being highly significant in his conception of who and what the Messiah of God was meant to be. And, thus, what the Church, as the Body of Christ is meant to be in the world today. The opening verse of the reading presents the Prophet as a true teacher, who uses God's words to bring comfort to those suffering the Babylonian exile. But he, that is the prophet, can only bring God's word to his hearers insofar as he himself is hearing God. Thus he listens each morning for what God would have him say. What an important message for Christians, perhaps especially preachers and teachers. We all need to pray in a way that listens, each and every morning, because it is important that the message we bear, both in our words and in our lives, should be truly from God. Our listening prayer needs to be tied in with study of the Bible ? truly God's word to us. That is the way we can ensure that we are reflecting God's Word, in all the senses of that word, in our daily lives.

As the Prophet listened he learned an important lesson ? that he, as God's servant, must be willing to accept punishment and suffering without bitterness or complaint. The Bible has many examples of this attitude to life. S. Paul's letters show that he learned to accept insult along with physical and spiritual pain. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus came to the point of acceptance of the 'cup' of suffering in obedience to his Father's will. The suggestion has been made that Isaiah, prior to writing this passage, had been arrested by the Babylonians, and that the injuries described had been such as he had suffered at their hands. Be that as it may, the writers of our NT Gospels read into this passage a foreshadowing of Jesus' suffering. For us as Christians, the example of Jesus is one to be imitated in the face of rejection or suffering caused through our obedience to the will of God. It is not just the sufferings which are foreshadowed by this prophet, but our response to them as well.

This passage also is a clear statement of Isaiah's confidence that God will stand by him, enabling him to set my face like flint as he confronted his persecutors. He uses legal language to describe how God will vindicate him, and to challenge his opponents. There is a kind of confidence coupled with hopefulness, which is a product of faith, which will see us through this kind of adversity.

The Epistle reading from Philippians is important from several aspects. First from a Christological point of view it shows that Christ is eternally God. It shows too the self-denying nature of God's love. Also there is a moral aspect as it makes clear the importance in the Christian life of imitating the character of God in a similar life of self-denial. Religion should never be used to gain privilege. Denying oneself and obedience are the values being focused on here. Christ himself lived out these values, and thus was able to re-enter the heavenly places. God's nature is beautifully expressed by describing his action as self-giving ? he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. That is, he came to serve. This is the model for Christian life.

There is just so much in the narrative of the Passion of Our Lord that we have just heard. All I can hope to do is pick out a few important points. It begins with the treachery of Judas. There was an inevitability about the death of Jesus, however this cannot mitigate the responsibility of Judas. Even at the Last Supper Jesus seems to be appealing to him to reconsider what he was about to do. The death of Jesus was inevitable ? if not through the actions of Judas, his enemies would have found some other way. But it was his action which in fact facilitated their evil intent, and he must bear that burden. What were his motives? The Bible does not tell us. The Gospel of John suggests greed, but I think it was much more complicated than that. The facts though remain. Jesus almost certainly could have escaped, even at this last moment ? but he went voluntarily to his death.

The institution of the Eucharist is told with only the barest of detail ? after all by the time this Gospel was written the Eucharist was a well established part of Church life. The words of institution would have been as familiar to these early readers as they are to us. Participation in the Eucharist does not just link us to each other, it links us to all participants now, and in the time past through history, with every generation of Christians throughout these over two thousand years. The theme of 'servanthood' of course is central in this last supper of Jesus, with him as the breaker of bread and the passer of the cup for all.

The Agony in the Garden reveals the deep and painful internal struggle of Jesus. The disciples who had accompanied him were frankly not of much help at this time. His strength came from his own relationship with his heavenly Father, and his obedience to his will. 'Watch' ? the word of advice to his disciples became an important word in the Gospels. As disciples, it is important for us also. We need to watch for spiritual laziness in our lives, we need to watch for the subtlety of the tempter, we need to watch out for failure in love and support for our brothers and sisters in the faith. We remind ourselves of all this when we watch with Jesus for one hour following the Maundy Thursday service. The account of Jesus' agony is precious ? it indicates his understanding of our spiritual and moral struggles. At this time he faced the fulness of human suffering ? he did not take advantage of his divinity to avoid any part of the Passion.

The season of Lent ends this week ? the week beginning today. This is Holy Week, the most solemn week of the Christian Year, the most solemn week in the history of the world. The liturgy for the days of Holy Week does not mask the struggle ? it allows us to accompany Jesus through his last days and hours, even that Hour, at once both dark and glorious, for which he said he had come. We follow his every footstep, from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem today, acclaimed by the crowd, to the desperate loneliness of Golgotha where he is abandoned by almost everyone, even those he himself had chosen and for whom he was giving his life. The climax comes very quickly and all seems to collapse. Yet, even at the moment of utter dereliction ? My God,my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus with outstretched arms, attracts and gathers to himself humanity and the universe. All seemed ended, in fact all is about to begin. At the end of the passage is recorded the attempt to seal the tomb with a great stone, and with guards, with Jesus' body inside. It was a futile gesture ? the victory had been won on Calvary's cross.


EASTER 7 / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Acts 1: 6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5: 6-11; John 17: 1-11.

In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, S. Luke tells, without undue elaboration, of the event we know as the Ascension. As the disciples were talking with Jesus he was removed from their sight. A cloud hid him and they saw him no more. Two men in white appeared beside them telling them that he had gone, but would return. The messengers gave no details about the second coming, simply saying that he would come at some unspecified time. So the disciples return from the Mount of Olives to the upper room, and wait as Jesus had instructed. We are not told how the disciples felt or how they reacted to this abrupt removal of the presence of the Lord. S. Luke simply makes the point that the earthly appearances of Jesus are at an end. That is why the Paschal candle is no longer visible here. We are symbolically reliving the experience of those first disciples ? we now await the coming of the Holy Spirit with power at Pentecost next Sunday. On another level of course though the Spirit of course is with us, but these symbolic actions are valuable reminders of that fact.

Many in fact have questioned the veracity of the story of the Ascension. We should remember that the ancient world view was of a flat earth and a firmament as a sort of roof. Heaven was above this, and this was where one found God. The early chapters of Genesis reflect this same cosmology. We need to interpret the story with this in mind. If the story was being written today the same truths would be expressed differently. It is an interesting point as to how as 21^st century Christians we find ways of conveying the truths about God, and our faith, in language and images relevant to our world view. Neither denial of the facts, nor insisting on the literal words of scripture, are the way. Eminent theologians and churchmen both have been guilty of these approaches. We need first to understand the imagery and background of the accounts we have, and grasp the truths being conveyed by them. It is the frequent failure of Christians to do this that makes our witness often less than authentic. We need not doubt the truth of the Ascension ? that Jesus was separated from those who had been the eye-witnesses to his resurrection, and resurrection appearances, and that he would return. In his Spirit he will return, and it is to await this assurance that the disciples return in faith to Jerusalem. The distance of a sabbath-day's travel is a little under one kilometre -.it was the legal maximum. It marks the distance from the mount to the house in which the upper room was situated.

The upper room is traditionally a place to meet and pray, to find quietness with God. There is nothing to say that this was the upper room used by Jesus for the Last Supper, but it could well have been. It was a similar upper room to that at Troas where Eutychus went to sleep and fell out of the window while S. Paul was preaching (20: 8ff). Fortunately there are no windows here out which one can fall. Polycarp, the elderly Bishop of Smyrna (now Izmir), martyred in about 166 AD., was found 'sitting in an upper room' when he was arrested. His persecutors were amazed at his piety and constancy (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 7: 1ff.). The place of waiting to which the disciples went after the Ascension was consistent with their own need to reflect and pray together on their experience, and find a place of quiet security. This group was not just the Twelve, but included also the faithful women who were so important to the ministry of Jesus, along with members of Jesus' family whose previous opposition must have ceased. This diverse group was diligently, and in a unified way, engaged in prayer and reflecting on the meaning of the events they had witnessed and the revelation they had received in Jesus. They were together in faith awaiting guidance and strength. This group of people was the embryonic Church ? they represent the Church. I believe every church needs such a representative group to be doing just this as an ordinary, but necessary part of its life. These people met in the upper room too because it offered a degree of security in a situation which was not without danger to the followers of Jesus. Christian witness and commitment can never be entirely secure from the world: there is always the possibility of suffering. Jesus' words in the Gospel will witness to this.

S. Peter also reminds us that we participate in the sufferings of Jesus. The opening verses of the epistle reading say four things, directly or indirectly, about persecution: it is a characteristic of the life of Christians; it tests the reality of their faith; it is a sharing in the suffering of Christ; it is a reason for joy. It continues by asking that we serve one another humbly. We can recognize the hand of God in the things that humble us as well as in those which bring joy to life. Our troubles will in fact not last for ever; those who share in Christ's humiliation will at the last share too in his glory. It is a help to remember that we are not alone, our salvation is God's doing, our hope is in his strength and faithfulness, not our own. We easily forget all this in the comfort of our lives ? we need to ask ourselves from time to time if we are truly actually confronting evil in any real sense. We may think that persecution happens mainly in Moslem countries ? the fact is it can occur anywhere, as judges and politicians and police have found to their cost as they have confronted the evils of organized crime in the US, in Italy, in Ecuador, for instance. In the eyes of the world this is all very paradoxical, because the world finds glory not through weakness and suffering, but in what appears to be strong and successful by its own standards. This divide between the Church and the world is reflected in the prayer of Jesus, the first part of which is the Gospel reading for today.

This prayer is a commentary on the statement that Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should depart from the world to the Father, having loved his own who are in the world, he loved them totally (13: 1). Thus this prayer reflects the situation of Jesus at this time, and that of a person in relation to him, and also that of the Christian community in relation to God and his world.

Jesus prays first for a return to the glory from which he had come ? the glory which is of God the Father also, since Jesus and the Father are eternally one. In the person of Jesus, in his words and actions, we are faced with God. God's glory goes with the authority of Jesus because both imply judgment. We must either accept or reject the revelation of God in Jesus. The glorification of Jesus is the power of God in action; we cannot believe in God apart from his revelation in Jesus. Any other way to God is partial at best. The gift of God to those who do believe is eternal life, which is further defined as knowing God, i.e., acknowledging God as he was revealed in Jesus the Christ of God. In fact in our human condition, knowing Jesus is the only way that we can fully and truly know God.

Next, the prayer turns towards the Christian community. This is those who have kept your word, i.e., those who have accepted Jesus as the revealer of God, and also accepted his word in his teaching and commissioning. They have received the words, and know in truth, - i.e., in reality ? that Jesus came from God and was sent by him. It is for such believers that Jesus prays. Jesus will no longer be in the world, but the community will, and they will be without his presence. So, Jesus prays that Christians may be kept in his word, in belief in his revelation, and that they may be preserved from disunity. Disunity is not of God, it denies the unity which is in God and which should be in the relationship between God and man, and man and man within the fellowship of the Spirit.

Much of this may seem remote and complex. But what Jesus is saying above all is that we are loved in God. He knows us, and loves us in spite of that. We are under his protection, we are in his presence.


ASCENSION DAY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Acts 1:1 -11; Ephesians 1:15-end; Luke 24:44-end.

This major festival, the Ascension, cannot be considered in isolation, but should be seen as part of the whole transition period from Easter to Pentecost. It is here at the Ascension that the Risen Lord Jesus vanishes from the sight of his disciples, in order to open up a new way of relating to them ? a way in which his presence is not limited by human considerations of one person in a geographical locality, but the sole limitation being the faith of the individual or the church community. As if by way of a bridge crossing a river, the disciples now have to leave the known territory where they have been with the Lord as a human person, and cross to the other side ? as yet unknown and unexplored ? where they will experience him in a new way. Christ, now enthroned in glory, remains with his Church. Thanks to the presence of the Holy Spirit, this new way of knowing God is established for ever. The disciples now discerned him in their sacramental life, in his word, in prayer, in the fellowship of the Christian community.. And so too today, this is exactly where we as disciples will encounter him, or perhaps more accurately, where he will find us.

It is then now, for those disciples as for us, as the angelic messenger said, a question of not looking up into the sky, but of being witnesses to the Risen and Ascended Lord who is still present with us, of co-operating with him in the work of extending the Kingdom, of bringing justice and peace to God's world. We can find the joy that the first disciples experienced in his presence, we can find the power exercised in the early Church, through our walk with him in the Spirit. We have too the assurance that where he is, we shall also one day be.


TRINITY SUNDAY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Isaiah 40:12-17, 27-end; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-end; Matthew 28:16-20.

The OT passage this morning is the beginning of the oracles of that great prophet we call Deutero (or Second) Isaiah. The Book in the OT we know as Isaiah actually was written over several centuries by three, possibly four, different prophets. Their oracles were combined by an editor into one book. So we do not really know the name of the person whose prophecies we are reading. We do know that Second Isaiah was writing to the Exiles in Babylon, and here, in this powerful passage, he is laying out the basis of faith for a believer ? i.e., the absolute power of the God who created all that is created, the Lord our God. If someone were to ask who can achieve the impossible, the answer is: He who created the world before whom the idols and false Gods are nothing. The Spirit of the Lord is the prime mover in creation, as we see from the first verses of the in the Bible, the Book of Genesis. But he was not just the Creator, he was also the Counsellor who directs the course of history. The nations include the great and powerful, including Lebanon, whose mighty forests of cedar were world famous. Now, sadly, they have almost disappeared. These nations are symbolic of human power and pride. In fact they are all emptiness and nothingness in comparison with the only true reality, the ultimate reality, which we find in God. The problem was that the Exiles, with the event of the exile itself, and with the passage of time with no sign of rescue or change in their situation, were coming to believe that God had forgotten them. The prophet's answer is to make the first recorded connection of creation and eternity in respect of God. Thus, Yahweh is both Creator, in time, and also the Timeless God. That is, he is Lord of both the universe and of time. Which is more than claiming that he is eternal: it is proclaiming him as Lord of the Ages ? that he is active in history, active through all eternity. He is thus the source of strength and renewal for those who wait upon him. Age will not be a determinant, all may rise up like eagles with renewed strength, they shall be saved. The idea of the Trinity is not spelt out anywhere in the OT, but there are instances, as in this passage, where it is suggested. We see here also a strong sense of community and of corporate responsibility, as the people of God. The same sense of community should be seen as characteristic of the Christian Church. Here, that is our responsibility.

This sense of membership one with another can be seen in the Epistle also. S. Paul shows a deep sense of responsibility for the community at Corinth. There is no sense of resentment even against the people there who have opposed him. His greetings and farewells are addressed to everyone. There is no place in the Church for ongoing ill-will or division. However, he makes it clear that there is still some way to go in the healing process. After the farewell, the first imperative translates as mend your ways. The verb in the Greek has the sense of repairing that which is broken, of making progress to a complete whole. And indeed, Christian living is a becoming, a progression towards perfection. None of us is perfect yet, but we are coming closer as long as we are on the road and not turning aside. There was still a long way to go at Corinth before that church would be a fully integrated community: too many factions were pulling in different directions. In the Church there has to be an effort and intention on the part of all to find a way forward together.

The second imperative is a call from S. Paul for the Corinthians to concentrate on what he has said to them. The first letter contains much of his teaching. He warned of the danger of factionalism (chap. 1); and of the fruitless pursuit of human wisdom, he warns against the toleration of open immorality within the church community (chap. 5); he defended his own teaching and his own authority (chap. 9); he taught on the subject of spiritual gifts and of their use in and for the Church; he gave us that sublime treatise on love in chapter 13, and much else in addition. If our church communities were to live by the spirit of his precepts which closely echo the person and teaching of Jesus, then there would be no divisions, we would be making real progress towards perfection. The pleas to agree with one another and to live in peace are the logical outcomes of practicing what he preached. The result will be that the God of love and peace will be with you. The effect of division is to drive out God. Only as we come together in the Church, being of one mind, is God able to make his presence known. Human rivalry and resentment, so involves the ego that God is excluded.
The holy kiss is a sign of our love and commitment to one another. The kiss was widely used in the ancient world as a sign of membership within a group, and could signify a wide range of relation-ships. It still does in much of the world, including Hungary. There is evidence that the kiss was a part of the Eucharistic liturgy from the earliest times. Cyril of Jerusalem is reputed to have said: Think not that this kiss (i.e., the liturgical 'kiss of peace') ranks with that given in public by common friends. It is not such: this kiss blends souls with one another, and solicits for them entire forgiveness. Therefore, this kiss is the sign that our souls are mingled together and have banished all remembrance of wrong. The kiss therefore is reconciliation, and for this reason is holy. The Kiss is what we now call the 'Peace'. So try to think of Cyril's words as we shake hands or whatever this morning. The Peace is not simply a greeting. The sense of holy reconciliation should be present.

The grace in the last verse is the grace which comes from our Lord Jesus Christ, the love that comes from God, and inspires a similar love in believers; the sense of partnership which comes from sharing God's Spirit within the Church. The form is that of benediction, and the emphasis is on grace, love and partnership. There is no direct reference to God as Trinity, yet it is from such passages, and from the experience of our early brethren of the way God acted in their lives, that the doctrine of the Trinity arose. Good dogma comes out of experience ? it is not imposed by Church councils ? they simply reflect the reality of the experience of the Church.

So, the doctrine of the Trinity, which we celebrate today is an expression of human experience of God. We hold God to be the Creator. God has revealed himself in power and majesty; he is Almighty. At the same time he is merciful and loving. He has communicated this to his people from OT times onward by the activity of his Spirit in the minds of those who believe and are open to revelation. Most clearly and tangibly, Jesus has revealed God in his human life, which at the same time was divine. The Trinity helps us keep a balance in our view of God: balance which is often lost when people clutch hold of various enthusiasms for a particular type of revelation. It is into God in his totality that we are baptized, as the Gospel reminds us.

The Gospel passage is the concluding verses of the Gospel of Matthew. They are there to help make the transition from the earthly ministry of Jesus to that of the Church. The Church is to carry on the work of Jesus ? it is Jesus to the world in its day. We are Jesus in the world today. Obedience plays a large part in this reading. The disciples go to Jerusalem in obedience; discipleship itself implies obedience. We read of the disciples of Jesus, forgetting that today we are his disciples. They in turn are to make disciples ... by way of baptism, and teach obedience to those baptized. It is significant that moral obedience is the primary requirement for the baptized. This whole Gospel places a strong emphasis on ethics. It is to this Gospel alone that we owe the powerful moral teaching enshrined in the so-called Sermon on the Mount. That was teaching given to disciples for discipleship. It means renunciation of worldly ambition for its own sake and the denial of self and self-centred ways of acting. It demands the bearing of the cross; the following of Christ; the willingness to be a servant to all; and a commitment to living in obedience to the will of our Father God.

This Gospel passage leaves us in no doubt about the writer's view on the divinity of Jesus. He is given all authority in heaven and on earth. Such authority is God's alone. We are reminded that it is through Jesus and his teaching that we know what to believe and how to live. It is the Spirit promised by Jesus that is poured out on us at our baptism, and which gives us understanding of God through the revelation of Jesus. It is the Spirit which leads us into a contemporary application of his teaching. As Jesus spoke of worshipping his Father, so we worship God's totality according as we have received the revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.


AFTER TRINITY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Leviticus 19: 1 -2, 9-18; 1 Corinthians 1:10, 11, 16-end; Matthew 5:18-end

God is 'other' than us, he is 'other' than the whole of his creation. And that which sets him apart is his holiness. In the context of our OT reading from Leviticus the holiness of God is represented by his moral purity ? the opening verses make clear the need for holiness in those who want to approach God. That is, the standards of the world cannot be our standards. In the words of S. Paul, we must be in the world, but not of the world. The moral precepts are about the way we treat our neighbour, and interestingly, the alien. The alien would often be a refugee in the midst of the community We show charity to the less well off, we deal honestly, we do not lie or steal. We deal justly with our neighbour. In short, you shall love your neighbour as yourself. And the reason for all this: I am the Lord your God.

One of the big questions for Israel though was, Who is my neighbour? Generally in OT Law our neighbour is the fellow-Israelite, extended at its best to the stranger within the gate. I think we must admit that it is a question which, in a sense, we ask ourselves when we consider the limits of our giving to needs of the world. The plight of so many people looks far away and unrelated to us and our life situations. When we come to the teaching of Jesus though we find the question answered in an even wider way than Israel answered it. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus' answer to the question. His answer goes beyond even the original question in order to ask one of his ultimate questions: To whom can I become a neighbour? Israel sought to define and to set reasonable yet generous limits. The Christian, however, seeks not to limit obligation, in imitation of the limitless love of God.

....you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt yourself, ... That is, to allow wrong actions to continue within the community is in a sense to become part of it. Jesus has a similar saying, If your brother sins, go and reprove him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. Others should only be involved only if the warning goes unheeded. The emphasis in both Old and New Testaments is on avoiding a rift in the Body.

There are a number of other constraining rules in the passage relating to the taking of revenge, anger leading to violence, etc.. The OT law codes made provision for dealing with such matters in the community. In general they were fair and limiting, thus avoiding the risk of ongoing, never ending family feuds and the like. Here we see a further advance. The answer is to be seen in terms of love: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Love and the taking of revenge are mutually exclusive. Jesus went still further and added the Law of Love to the words by which Jews proclaimed their love for God daily: Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deut. 6: 4,5). Thus for us as Christians, love of God and love of neighbour are at the foundations of our spiritual and moral lives. And this love is not limited to our fellow Christians as the Jews limited love to their fellow Israelites. After all , we are reflecting the love of God which is boundless.

The idea of holiness comes forward also in the Epistle passage. S. Paul is still dealing with the question of factions which had been so disruptive of the Corinthian community. Divisiveness of this type leads to loss of the most important attribute of all Christians ? the awareness of the possession of the Holy Spirit. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? he asks. He is emphasizing an important aspect of being a Christian ? a Christian is the dwelling place of God. Nothing must be allowed to destroy this temple. That is, nothing must be allowed to disturb the indwelling of the Spirit. The Corinthian factions were having this destructive effect, and S. Paul believes that this will eventuate in God's avenging himself on them. Not in the sense of revenge, but rather that those who deny the Spirit, or leave no room for the operation of the Spirit, cut themselves off from God. The temple of God is holy. Christians are sanctified by the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. We are thus set apart for God, and desecration of this temple brings its own reward. As he says elsewhere ? the wages of sin is death. Some words of S. Ignatius of Antioch are appropriate here: Nothing escapes the Lord's notice, but even hidden things are near to Him. So let us do everything on the basis that He dwells in us, that we may be His temples and that our God Himself may be in us, which He is, and He will appear in our sight because we rightly love him.

In the Gospel passage we again have to consider vengeance. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth had been one of the precepts intended to limit revenge and eliminate vendettas. The principle was one of strict justice which limited revenge to no more than had been suffered. Unsurprisingly, the teaching of Jesus goes far beyond this, excluding the whole principle of revenge. We are to turn the other cheek. We are meant to understand from this not necessarily a literal offering of the other cheek, but certainly a figure which would exclude retribution entirely. Non-retaliation is the principle which we must aspire to. It is for instance, he says, better to be wronged than to engage in litigation. Normal dress at the time consisted of a cloak worn over a sort of longish undershirt. Jesus emphasized the principle by saying that if anyone wishes to take your cloak in pledge, give him your undershirt too. This would leave you naked. He probably said that with a smile. It is the principle of non-retaliation that is important, not the literal details. Again a 'for instance': soldiers often forced ordinary people to carry their heavy gear. This is what lies behind the saying about the second mile. The principle is to accept unfair impositions and burdens, and not try to retaliate in some way. As for begging and borrowing, we should not refuse but should operate on the principle of generosity.

And then Jesus leads us back to the question of love of our neighbour. He is not into simply loving those who love us, or even into expanding this principle to include fellow church-members. In his view, God has showered his love and blessings on all and we are required to do likewise. Christian disciples should not allow themselves to have their reactions or attitudes be determined by what others may do to them: non-retaliation and love should dictate our attitudes always.

At the conclusion of the passage Jesus enunciates the overall principal of his discourse: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. We are to seek to imitate God. We will frequently fail, but God's perfection is the standard we must yearn to reach. Failure may be dispiriting, but there is always the possibility of new beginning in God's forgiving love.


2nd. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Deuteronomy 11:18-21, 26-28; Romans 1:16,17, 3:22b-31; Matthew 7:21-end.

The book Deuteronomy from which the OT passage was taken is the last of the five books which make up the section of the Bible we call the Pentateuch. They are the first five books in fact of the OT and comprise the Torah ? the so-called Law of Moses. Actually they were written centuries after the death of Moses, but they do encapsulate the early traditions of Israel and the role of Moses in the history and the formation of the religion of God's people, Israel. The 'discovery' of this book in the Temple led to the important reform of religious life in the reign of King Josiah in 621 BC.. Deuteronomy is important because it reinterpreted Moses' teaching in the light of contemporary 7^th century BC values. The prophet in the passage this morning proclaims that the words given to him by God are words vital for life and prosperity, and that Israel's obedience is the priority for the conquest of the land promised to their ancestors. Israel is called on to choose between God, obedience and blessing on the one hand, and other gods, idolatry and curse on the other. To observe God's law or not: it is not simply a question of faithfulness or disobedience, it is a question of life or death. It is the choice which always faces God's people ? it is ours to make also in the light of our knowledge of God, as we see his acts in history, as we hear and read of it in his word, as we see it in the lives of others, as we experience it in the worship and sacramental life of the Church, as we experience it in our own personal walk with the Lord and our own spiritual formation. We are being led into a land of promise, which will be either a land of blessing or of curse: the choice is ours.

S. Paul made his choice on the road to Damascus ? and he was faithful to it. The story of the mighty acts of God in history, and in his own walk of faith is a story he is proud to tell to anyone who will listen. He had discovered that the Jewish law was not the complete story of God's dealing with his people. Yes, God had given the law, but with it were promises of better things ? the creative goodness of God is now offered to everyone who puts their trust in Jesus Christ. The need is universal, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Thus the answer given by God is also universal and available to everyone who will receive. Jews believed that Adam's sin lost for him the glory that was his prior to the Fall ? and his descendants inherited the same loss. God provided the remedy by his sheer generosity, making the unacceptable acceptable by way of participation in Jesus Christ. Two things made this possible ? the utter obedience and self-sacrifice of Christ (the sacrifice of atonement ? i.e., at-one-ment, making one ? by his blood), and the faith of those who benefit from it, the believers. With Christ came the revelation that not only was God righteous in himself, but that he accepted those who are righteous too ? those who are in right relationship with him, the faithful believer. We are universally unacceptable, but through faith in Jesus Christ we become acceptable.

If we take this seriously we can see why S. Paul says that boasting is out of place here. The self-will that says, I have done my duty, therefore I am not afraid to meet my Maker, is irrelevant. Neither works nor lineal descent from Abraham are going to get us anywhere. In the kingdom of God the self-made man has no place, only those of faith can enter the kingdom of God. There is only one way of dealing with human sin, one way only for both Jews and Gentiles, one way only for everyone. That way is the way of faith. I am the way, the truth and the life.

The discourse we know as the Sermon on the Mount ends with Jesus warning his hearers of two evils. The first concerns false prophets: profession of faith is useless if one's life shows it to be a lie. The way we live must be consistent with what we say. The second: to hear but not do the word of God is to fool oneself and bring about condemnation. Jesus' preaching and teaching was not done solely verbally. Each of the five discourses in this Gospel of Matthew has a corresponding work of power which he carried out as a confirmation of his teaching. As S. Paul says, Faith without works is dead. And as we often say ourselves, actions speak louder than words. The final work done by Jesus in confirmation of his teaching was of course his giving of all that he is and was, his complete abandonment of self to God's truth, on the Cross of Calvary. And God, through this act of Jesus, gave us the ultimate expression of his love. By giving his life, Jesus has testified before the world to the truth, a truth which is not dogmatic so much as a living, tangible reality for those who under-stand the meaning, indeed the necessity, of deeds to follow on from faith. Many people, preachers, teachers, journalists, lawyers, and others, make our living from words. We are somewhat protected, insulated from reality, by our sermons, our lectures and our abstract concepts: we often hide from the practicalities of the necessity for a personal response to our faith, and the love we have received. We all believe ourselves to be disciples and followers of Jesus, we even number ourselves among his friends. Do we not eat at his table, drink his wine? - but what does it really mean.

Jesus is saying to us this morning ? let us put words in their proper perspective! Take care of this broken man abandoned to his fate by society; open our arms to the prodigal who wishes to return to the path of love; welcome this stranger. Our lives will be judged by such practical evidence of our much vaunted faith. God, and the world, are waiting for us to act. Or does the world have it right ? does our Christian lifestyle begin as we enter the church, and end as we leave it?

We conclude where we began. As was Israel, we are faced with a choice. We are being led into a land of promise, which can be either a land of blessing or of curse: the choice is ours.


3rd. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY (A - Proper 5) / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Hosea 5:15 ? 6: 6; Romans 4:13-end; Matthew 9: 9-13, 18-26.
Some of the OT prophets frequently acted out the messages from the Lord God to their audience ? or more properly, the people for whom the message was given. Jeremiah is well known for this sort of acted out messages to the people of Jerusalem. Much of it may seem hilarious to us, but they were in deadly earnest, and, more often than not, there is a message in it for us, in spite of the means of delivery. Jesus did it too, most notably perhaps when he deliberately acted out the prophecy of Zechariah that Messiah would enter Jerusalem riding on an ass. He was saying, to all who would see, that Messiah had come to God's people And that the coming was not in accordance with the hopes and expectations of many ? he was not mounted on a charger at the head of an army to deliver them from Rome. His kingdom was not of this world. The story of the prophet Hosea carries this approach to extremes. This sensitive prophet, obedient to his perceived call to take a prostitute for a wife, married a woman named Gomer. She bore three children, none of whom apparently had Hosea for a father, and then walked out on him. But Hosea searched her out and brought her back publicly as his wife. The whole thing is a sort of acted out allegory of how God dealt with his people Israel who had given themselves to foreign gods and strange practices, prostituting themselves to the religion of the Canaanites. But God's mercy is such that he seeks them out, and in his forgiving love takes them back to himself as his people. The whole book is dominated by this theme of divine compassion and the love that will not let Israel go. At the heart of Hosea's preaching is a gospel of redeeming love that we all need to hear. In the passage read this morning Hosea is saying that if Israel will but return to the Lord, he will heal her sickness and revive her as the showers late in the season bring fresh life back to the fields. What the Lord really wants is knowledge of him, and steadfast love. That had been Hosea's experience of God, the living God who is the same yesterday, today and forever. In his mercy he still seeks the return of his people. So this is a message of the possibility of forgiveness, reconciliation and healing for us, for the Church, and for the whole of God's creation.

God's healing is clearly a theme common to both the OT and the NT. There are two examples in the Gospel reading. So what do we understand by health and healing, what is health? According to a definition given by the Christian Medical Commission of the World Council of Churches, Health is a dynamic state of wellbeing of the individual and society of physical, mental, spiritual, economic, political and social wellbeing; of being in harmony with each other, with the material environment and with God. From thoughts such as this comes the realization that health and healing cannot be limited to one area of life, but relates to all areas where there is dis-ease, whether it be physical, mental, emotional,spiritual or social. Health and healing are therefore affected by such external things as war, poverty, prejudice and injustice; and by personal attitudes of anger, guilt, resentment and hopelessness.

In the OT health refers to all aspects of an individual's life, so each person is seen as an entity; as a whole; not made up of separate parts, such as body, mind or spirit, and so on. Health is not physical, mental or spiritual separately, but is all of these together. It is a state of wellbeing. This is described by the word Shalom, which usually is translated as Peace, but which in fact means wellbeing, harmony and completeness in the widest sense. It has both a personal and also a wider social sense, so it includes good relations between people and nations. This shalom is the gift of God and is found when God's will is done, resulting in harmony and peace. When we are living in harmony with God's will, ethically, in our lifestyle, in our relationships, then the condition is set for health. When these conditions are not right, then ill-health can be assured sooner or later. All the words used - wholeness, holiness, shalom, righteousness, are words that speak of relationships. So the healing of the whole person includes the healing of relationship, towards God, others, self, and the environment.

The NT builds on the OT. It uses a number of Greek words, only two of which I will talk about now. Both are used in the Marcan version of the story of the healing of the woman who touched the robe of Jesus. The first is eirene. It describes a state of peace, harmony and rest, as opposed to one of conflict, war and disturbance. It is the most common translation of shalom, and includes the idea of wholeness, and is especially applied to a person's relationship with God, which S. Paul describes as peace through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5: 1). It is expected that this harmonious relationship between God and man should be reflected in those between people. The second word is sozo which means safe and sound. It always refers to the whole person, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional. So, Jesus says to the woman, Daughter, your faith has healed you, it has made you sound and whole, go with my peace and be delivered from your suffering.

The ideas of both the OT and the NT can be summarized: (1) The meaning of health is to be in right relationship, of persons to God, to themselves, to their neighbours, and to the environment. If the first of these, to God, is right, all the rest will flow together from this. If it is wrong, broken or ignored, then all the other relationships will be imperfect and will be out of harmony, will lack shalom, and will lead to illness. (2) Health is God's will - he wants health for his people. (3) Health is the gift of God, it cannot be demanded, it is not a human right. The contemporary demand to recognize health as a basic right for everyone is good in that it seeks to care for general physical and mental wellbeing, but it is inadequate insofar as it ignores the basic relationship with God. (4) Health is of the whole person: spirit, soul and body belong together and need to be treated together. Cancer and heart disease are obvious examples of diseases which normally are part of a wider and deeper condition. Addiction to alcohol or nicotine is broken relationship and ultimately leads to other illnesses. Negative emotions, anger, greed, envy, distrust, guilt, grudge-bearing, etc. all in time lead to physical or mental illness - a person is an interlocked entity. We can thank God for medical skills and knowledge, but generally we go to the doctor to have our symptoms treated rather than seek healing for the whole person, and of course most doctors would not know where to begin if we did. (5) The basic condition for health rests in relationship - it is to be measured by the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a truly healthy person. Just consider his relationship with his Father God, with his mother and family, with his friends and disciples, with the sick and all whom he had dealings with, even with his enemies. It is this standard of relationship we must seek

All healing is from God, and healing is God's desire for his people in order that they may experience fellowship with him, fellowship in which all brokenness and alienation is overcome. We all need healing. We all know that our relationship with God has been fractured and broken by sin and disobedience. We all need restoration to wellbeing in body, mind and spirit, because as S. Paul reminds us, for all haven sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Healing is the concern of the Church - it is a major part of the concern of this Mass as we partake of the life of Christ in order to be restored and enabled to do his reconciling and healing work in the world. If health and healing, in the sense of wholeness and salvation, are God's purpose for humanity, then it is the task of the Church to be active in helping to achieve this purpose. The message of the Gospel is that healing and salvation are available in Jesus Christ. The Church is commissioned to share this Good News.

Christian healing can include medical and psychiatric healing, but is not limited by it. Christian healing can include various forms of natural healing, but are not limited to them. Bishop Morris Maddocks defined Christian healing as: ...Jesus Christ meeting you at your point of greatest need. Christian healing is, first and foremost, about Jesus Christ. It follows the pattern of compassion set by him in his own ministry, and the Commission he gave to his disciples. It is wholly the work of Christ, in a person's body, mind and spirit, designed to bring that person to that wholeness which is God's will for each of us.


SS. PETER & PAUL, APOSTLES / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Zechariah 4: 1 -6a, 10b-end; 2 Timothy 4: 6 -8,17,18; Matthew 16:13-19.

S. Peter and S. Paul have been recognized from the early days of the Christian community as the twin pillars of the Church. They clashed fiercely on occasion ? and even though they both were apparently in Rome for quite a period at the same time, they did not meet or even refer to one another in their correspondence. And yet, although such different people in nature and in back-ground, there was a complementarity, and a binding together through a common love of Jesus Christ. They are bound together too in the affections and respect of Christians by their martyrdom, both of them in Rome, probably in 64 AD.. Of course they had one other thing in common: they both knew the forgiving love of God: Peter, in his denial of his Lord immediately prior to his crucifixion; Paul in his zealous persecution of the infant Church. Both had forfeited in normal human terms any part of Christ's love. But such is the depth of the love of God that these two were restored to be, as we have said, the two essential elements in the formation of the Christian Church.

Simon, the fisherman disciple's confession of his belief in Jesus as the Christ of God earned for him the name of Peter: the symbolic rock of the Apostleship with Peter as its head, on which the Church of God was to be built. The responsibility for the guidance and the strengthening of his brothers and sisters in the faith fell on him. The surprising ways of God, in contrast to our expectations, are epitomized in this bestowing of such authority on a man of uneducated and uncultured background who in fact had at times let the Lord down so badly in the past. If S. Peter were to apply today for training for the sacred ministry, he most certainly would not survive the selection processes of the Church of England.

Saul of Tarsus, who also had a change of name in the service of his Lord, and thus became Paul, came late to Christian faith. On the face of it he was much better equipped than Peter for leadership, both by birth and by his intellectual formation. He was always alert, full of energy, and consumed by love of him whom he had once persecuted. He has become known as God's instrument for making known to the Gentile world the 'good news', the gospel of salvation. No trial, and he had more than his fair share of these, could ever separate S. Paul from the love of Christ, whom he will never deny.

Both Peter and Paul had his place in the development of the faith. S. Peter, the guide, by his role of direction and confirmation ? the voice of conservatism: S. Paul, the sower by his energy and zeal, and his mental adaptability, having a vision of the new possibilities in the circumstances. Their meetings at Antioch and Jerusalem show up their differences, but also a common inspiration, one in Christ. It is in Rome, where both were martyred, that they were united by death in that love which both had striven to promote. The interface between the Church as institution and charism, which these two represent, is an often troubled area; but this tension appears to be a necessary component of progress. The stagnation we see in churches, particularly the Orthodox Churches, which in other ways have so much to offer in terms of spirituality, is a result of the suppression of charism. The staggering fragmentation of Western Protestantism is the price which has to be paid when Church order is suppressed in favour of so-called inspiration. In order to avoid both extremes the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul must reconcile stability on the one hand, and the movement of the Spirit, which it was promised would lead us into all truth, which is necessary to relate to the world in which it exists, on the other.

Perhaps as Anglicans we are aware of that tension more than many others. With our Reformed Catholic traditions we have maintained the structures and faith of the Church which the Lord founded ? at the same time we try to be aware of the leading of the Spirit as we seek to be true to the Lord's vision of unity for his people. We seek to be inclusive, but not at any cost. We must be true to our Catholic principles ? sometimes this can lead to painful decisions and situations. But being true will lead, in God's good time, to that unity which many have seen our Church as being the focus of. We ourselves at the present time are experiencing more than the usual internal stresses. In a fast-changing world there are those within the Church who want the Church to reflect the world's values. In fact we are here to reflect eternal values rather than the world's values.

The basic sign of our unity is to be found in baptism. S. Paul was, if you like, the theologian of the early Church, but S. Peter also had things to say about the effects of baptism ? so we will briefly dip into what both had to say on the subject.

So, first for Paul, what is baptism all about? In his letter to the Colossians (3: 9,10) he writes about 'putting off the old nature and putting on the new, and being renewed in the image of the creator', i.e., starting out on the process of becoming what the Creator intended us to be. The 'new nature' put on by Christians is Christ himself ? he is the reflection or 'image' of God himself. So, once incorporated into the body of Christ, believers are progressively 'renewed' so as to become like the 'image'. In the same letter (2:11) he likens baptism to being 'buried' with Christ in order that we may 'be raised with him through faith in the working of God.' Similarly in the letter to the Romans (6:3ff.) he uses the same analogy and sees the purpose of being raised with Christ that we might walk with him in the new life in the Spirit which the Lord experienced following his resurrection. In a real sense in baptism we do become all part of a new family ? brothers and sisters with Christ himself, incorporated into the family of God our Father. Naturally for an infant this new beginning has to be nurtured by parents and god-parents, and the church family into which the baby has become a new member. Later, as a young person confirmation offers the opportunity to the baptized to answer for themselves. So, baptism is a death, and a new life, it is being 'born again'.

For S. Peter, the new life in Christ which baptism makes possible comes from above, the 'Holy Spirit sent from heaven' (1 Per. 1:12). He likens the baptized to living stones, specially chosen, to be built into a spiritual temple. He goes on to describe the new person, or rather the new person as part of the new community, in a passage which is profoundly encompassing and worthy of being considered in depth: 'But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God's people;'.

Once we were no people, but now, in Christ, we are God's people. These two incomparable heroes of our faith may have had their differences, but that sentence sums up their common experience of life in Christ ? it sums up so much of what they wanted the world to know. It sums up what they want the world today to know through us and the witness of our lives.


BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Isaiah 40: 1-11; Galatians 3:23-end; 1:57-66, 80.

The OT passage is the prologue to that part of Isaiah that we call Deutero (or Second) Isaiah. It was written later by a a different prophet from the earlier chapters. It movingly expresses this Isaiah's basic message which is the proclamation of an imminent restoration for exiled Israel. Thus we can date the writing as being about 550 BC.. It was meant to be an assurance to these exiles that God had not forgotten them, nor had he been overwhelmed by the gods of Babylon. The writer identifies himself with the exiles and his message reveals the concern of God for the people. Like many other prophets he is somewhat reluctant at the beginning. A voice says 'Cry out!' And I said, 'What shall I cry?' All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades ... surely the people are grass'. But then he realizes, ... but the word of our God will stand for ever. This foreshadows one of his most significant insights near the close of his part of the book at chapter 55: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, ... so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it. So, at the commencement of this prologue, God says: Comfort, O Comfort my people ... Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, .... her penalty is paid. ... In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight a way in the desert, a highway for our God. ... Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. When God speaks, it is as good as done! His word is a guarantee of action to follow.

God has come in many ways over the ages in deliverance of his people. The Exodus from Egypt in preparation for entry into the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses was one such. The return from exile in Babylon and the restoration of Jerusalem to which this OT passage today points was another. The coming of God himself in the person of Jesus Christ, to whom John the Baptist points was supremely the act of God. And again the words of this prophetic reading point towards this event also. Every time of God's coming is an act of his saving grace. But salvation involves judgment. Every act of God's forgiving love, or gift of love, in a personal sense too, is a coming of God, an act of God's grace. And there is a final coming, commonly referred to as the Second Coming, or the Parousia, or the Day of the Lord. The time of this event we do not know, indeed we are not meant to know. This will be the final judgment, and the establishment of God's kingdom, God's kingly rule, for which we pray every time we say 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.' The people of God are constantly trespassing, constantly forgiven. Constantly exiled to unknown lands, and constantly restored, sometimes by way of the desert, brought back to their own land, sometimes literally, certainly spiritually.

S. Paul tells us too that we have been saved and delivered ? delivered from the bondage of race, status and gender. Through baptism we are all equally one in Christ. In Christ we are all children of the one God and Father.

At the birth of John the Baptist the question was asked, What then shall this child become? It was of course a rhetorical question ? the sort of question we may well have asked ourselves as we gazed in awe and wonder at our new born offspring. The proud father sees his little baby boy kicking his feet in his pram and thinks perhaps that he could become an All Black, or in another country, that he may play for Manchester United. At 2.00 a.m. when he is crying loudly one wonders if he is developing the lungs of an opera singer. One never knows, although there are parents who try to push their children rather too hard in the direction of their own self-fulfilment. It was the circumstances surrounding this birth that led to the question being asked on this occasion. There had been an angelic proclamation, and the birth was unusual when one considers the age of the mother. And there was the father who was made speechless (and as he was a priest, that was unusual), and then the insistence on a name never before used in this family, and the father's regaining of the use of his voice at the naming of the child, and speaking out prophetic words. A child of promise indeed.

Of course all children are children of promise ? although not all fulfil it. We can increase the possibility by bringing up our children in homes where our faith is lived out in daily life, giving the children an example worthy of emulation. We can baptize them, and then live and worship together with them as part of the Lord's family. These are the values that count. They are more important than the school, the neighbourhood or the extent of the family finances. And even if we feel that perhaps we did not do as good a job as we should have ourselves, it is not too late to encourage others.

John's was in fact a strange destiny. On the one hand a fierce intolerance of the things of this world. He shall drink neither wine or any strong drink. And can you imagine a Christian conference centre receiving John's application form, and under the heading 'any special dietary requirements' reading, 'locusts, lightly grilled, with a side dish of wild honey.' ? But, hand in hand with this life of strict austerity, there existed an intense spiritual joy and excitement. Twice in his recorded life he trembled with joy: first while still in Elizabeth's womb when she met with her cousin Mary, the mother of the Lord; and then when as an adult during his prophetic ministry, he meets Jesus, and points to him as the Anointed of God. Until this dramatic point he had been simply, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, that region of spiritual warfare between a fallen world and the kingdom which is about to break in. In the harsh desert areas around the Jordan, John rose up in the power and spirit of Elijah as a powerful preacher of judgment. His fame grew rapidly; here was a message that was in tune with the hopes of the times. The crowds flocked to him in such numbers that the religious authorities became alarmed and sent out a deputation to see for themselves what was happening. With burning words and a form of baptism for repentance in the river Jordan, he was preparing God's people for a return to the Covenant and the 'Day of the Lord'. He was in fact the last in a great line of prophets who sought to restoration for God's people before the Lord's first coming.

But, over and above all that, John appears as the friend who brings the bride to the bridegroom, and then retires quietly. He led God's people to their destiny, he pointed them to Jesus, and then, in order to let Jesus increase, he chose to fade from the scene, his work accomplished. This is the holy passion which reveals the depth and extent of his faith and love for God. There was no hint of self-hood and self glory in this. Perhaps this, even more than his proclamation and his achievements, can be his example to us in our walk with God.


9th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
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Readings: Isaiah 44: 6 -8; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43.

In the opening words of the OT reading this morning we have an incomparable statement of the absoluteness of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Israel itself was monotheistic in its belief from the beginning ? that is for itself only at first. The gods of other nations were acknowledged as valid for them. Yahweh, the God of Israel, was considered to be far greater though than all the others, yet he existed alongside of them. The concept of one supreme God throughout the earth evolved slowly. But here in this passage it is enunciated clearly and unequivocally. I AM the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Lord of history. His word is revealed through the prophets and Israel, his people, are to witness to it by their life. This though is where Israel failed. They failed in their task of being light to the world. This failure is one which we, as the new people of God are in danger of repeating. Israel was proud of its position as God's chosen, Israel put a protective barrier around itself from the world (necessary in one way) but became self-absorbed, over-protective of the gift with which they had been entrusted. The following part of the chapter can usefully be read too. It is about the absurdity of idols. We should be impelled to search out our own idols ? we all have them. They are all centred on the self in some way!

S. Paul writes of some of the practical consequences. The first requirement of us as Christian people is to embrace life in the Spirit, and reject the path of darkness. To put to death the deeds of the body simply means to reject thoughts and actions which we know to be wrong ? reject the idols in our lives, and turn back to God. Those who are led by the Spirit of God and those who have received a spirit of adoption are in fact the same group of people. They are those who have life because they live life in service, not to a master, owner or employer whom they fear, but to a father whom they love. Adoption for a Hebrew meant becoming an heir, having an inheritance, rather then the Roman concept of simply coming under the authority of a different father. S. Paul stresses this idea, as did Jesus who used the Aramaic Abba for Father in his prayers. Abba is a term which expresses deep trust and affection. There is no similar word in English. To equate it with Daddy as some do is a gross over-simplification, the Aramaic being far richer. For S. Paul the real sign of being Christian is that we are able to truly call God Father and Jesus Lord. Then the Holy Spirit is at work showing us that we are children of God our Father, thus brothers and sisters, and co-heirs of the kingdom with Christ. The proviso he makes is that we are prepared to suffer with him. As we have seen several times in our readings over the last weeks, suffering is an inescapable element of the out-working of our faith. But we may look forward to a sure and glorious inheritance, as S. Paul puts it. In fact we begin to enjoy it already. There is so much in the world around us that is not right, frankly rotten ? the aim of God's creation has not been fulfilled, held as it is in the bondage of decay. So he creates an image of the whole of creation looking for something better, stretching with eager longing for the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ. This 'eager expectation' was important to Paul, he invented a new word for it ? apokaradokia. It has never been found other than in the writings of S. Paul, and there only three times. For the fulfilment of this longing he says that the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; i.e., the redemption of the whole universe is dependent on us as the Christian believers. That is an awesome responsibility. It is not just talking about personal salvation, but includes the whole of creation. We must not see the world simply as a chattel to be used or abused for our own gratification. We owe our prayers and our support for those in the forefront of the fight to protect our world from the greedy and self-centred. I mean, those who are trying to save the rain forest, those who want to restrict carbon emissions, those who are engaged in animal welfare, and a whole host of other causes. It is a sacred trust. Personal respect and care for our environment, ecological responsibility, is a paramount Christian duty: because it all belongs to God and he needs us to restore it to what he intended.

In the midst of the pain and suffering caused by living in this unsatisfactory world, we must hold on to the virtue of hope. Hopelessness is a natural reaction, but the proclamation of hope, and the living out of hope in life is an essential element in Christian witness. It is the hope of redemption which makes suffering bearable. We must preserve hope in our hearts for those people and situations that we see daily around us, those in our families and in our community towards whom hopelessness is a natural response. It is right that Christians should look stupid sometimes in the eyes of the realistic, the natural response is often not the response we look for in Christian witness.

As was the case last week, again we have today in the Gospel passage, a parable of Jesus, which has an explanation offered in his name, but which in fact came from the experience of the early Christian Church. Another similarity is the fact that this one too is about seed and planting. Last Sunday good soil and bad soil were contrasted: today it is good seed and bad seed. The bad seed was most likely darnel which is a wheat-like grass, still often a problem to wheat farmers. In Biblical times it was not considered a dead loss: it was bundled up, dried and burnt as fuel. Perhaps we can take a message from that too! Anyway, in this parable the Lord's disciples are the good seed: just about everyone else, scribes, Pharisees, the crowds, unbelievers generally, are the weeds which are sown by Satan. Just as the farmer lets the weeds and the crop grow together until the harvest, so God will let the Church and the world co-exist until the end of the age. Jesus' emphasis was on the words of the farmer ? the disciples must wait until God brings this age to an end, and leave the judgment in his hands. It is much like the words of S. Paul to the Church in Corinth (1 Cor. 4: 5), ... do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.

There are two major elements to this parable. First is determination ? our determination to be counted as being among the good seed, to be disciples in the full sense of the word, pressing for-ward with eagerness as S. Paul would have it, towards our hope which is our inheritance as children of God, as brothers and sisters in the Lord. The second has more to do with our membership of a far from perfect world order, and a far from perfect Church. Being aware of our own imperfection, and yet in hope, daily striving to attain the ultimate goal. We do not help our own cause, or the cause of the Church, by stopping along the way in order spend time and energy being critical of others. The servants were in a state of hopelessness, they were depressed by the great amount of bad seed amongst the good. The master was hopeful, he was more concerned with saving and encouraging the good. As disciples we can become hopeless and depressed by the enormity of the task, but we must press forward with eager expectation, never ceasing to be encouragers, offering hope and love.


S. MARY MAGDALENE / S. Margaret's, Budapest
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S. MARY MAGDALENE S. Margaret's, Budapest

Readings: Song of Solomon 3: 1 -4; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; John 20: 1, 2, 11-18.

We have no idea when or how Jesus met Mary Magdalene. However she was one of the women who formed part of a group around Jesus during his Galilean ministry,and who provided support from their personal resources. She, and the others, appear to have been people of some wealth S. Luke names Mary (8: 1 -3) as having had seven demons cast out in her healing by Jesus. This gives some idea of the seriousness of her condition but gives no indication of what the actual problem was. There is no evidence that she was a prostitute, nor that the seven demons were connected with unchastity. Pope Gregory appears to have been responsible for this interpretation of Mary's character, calling her a sinful woman and identifying her with the adulteress brought before Jesus. But the Eastern Orthodox Church maintains that Mary Magdalene had been a woman of virtue. There is a tradition that she led so chaste a life that the devil thought that she might be the one to be the Christ-bearer, and for that reason he sent the seven demons to torment her. She was prominent among those who came to anoint the body of Jesus, and found and reported the fact of the empty tomb. Mary's role as a witness is interesting due to the fact that at the time women could not be witnesses in legal proceedings. Because of this, and because of her subsequent missionary activity, she is known by the title 'Equal of the Apostles'. She is frequently depicted on icons bearing a vessel of ointment because she was among those bringing ointments to Jesus' tomb. For this reason she is called a Myrrbearer. The story of Jesus' appearance to Mary after the resurrection forms the Gospel reading for today.

This all indicates a deep commitment and devotion on the part of Mary. It apparently continued from the time of her healing right up to the time of the crucifixion, and after. It included a financial commitment, a step which must have been difficult and risky for those women at the time, given the itinerant nature of Jesus' life and ministry, and the fact that he was not an establishment figure. It is clear that there was a bond of attachment between Jesus and Mary. Her first instinct on recognizing him after the resurrection was to reach out to touch him. Jesus warns her that this is not appropriate now. The fact that he appeared to her at all is a tribute to her faith.

The OT lesson picks up the idea of the bond of love between Jesus and Mary. It is from the Song of Songs, a book which caused much questioning even before it was included in the canon of Scripture. The Rabbis included it at the end of the 1^st C, AD, probably on the basis that its author-ship is ascribed to Solomon. Being in the OT canon it automatically became part of the Christian scriptures. It is basically a love poem and expresses the delight of lovers in each other. It is probably best to take the poetry at face value as a statement of the importance of love. It is after all love which binds a community together and which leads to the nurture of children. It is within the context of love and family life that people live and work and care for and enjoy the natural world. Imagery from all these areas is bound up in a subtle and beautiful expression of love. In applying this to S. Mary Magdalene we need not suppose that the Church is suggesting any sexual overtones in the relationship between Mary and Jesus. Rather a piece of love poetry is used to express the tender and loving relationship which exists between Jesus and those who love him. It can be noted that our Lord himself applies marriage imagery to his person (Matt. 9:15) and S. Paul does also on several occasions. Christians speak of loving God, loving Jesus, and by that we mean something more than simply obedience. We are suggesting a warm and personal relationship, a sharing of our lives with him. Mary exemplifies all this.

The Epistle picks up Mary's need to transfer her life relationship with Jesus to the spiritual realm. For a warm and demonstrative person this transition may have been difficult. From now on, there-fore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. The resurrection ushered in a new relationship; now those who love Jesus must live in Christ. By this phrase S. Paul indicates an intimate, spiritual relationship, which should be the norm for believers. It is quite different from travelling around with Jesus and the other disciples in the Galilean ministry times. Now the relationship is extended through time and space. The death of Jesus was his total self-giving in love. Those who have a relationship with him must also die to the world and live for God. By repentance our guilt is removed and in Christ we are united with God. 'In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.' The ministry of Jesus went far beyond what his disciples could have imagined during his lifetime. It took years, and the conversion of S. Paul with his immense spiritual understanding to systematize and articulate the significance of Jesus, his life and work, his death, resurrection and ascension. There had to be a period of transition from the earthly ministry to the ministry of the Spirit. Jesus' words to Mary, not to touch him, were a first stage in this transfer. S. Paul takes us though beyond these preliminaries to the stage where we become responsible for ministering God's reconciliation in Christ. We are ambassadors, Christ makes his appeal through us. It was Mary's privilege to know Jesus from a human point of view. She then had to make the transition to life in Christ, in the Spirit. Having learned the significance of Jesus' death, in company with the developing Church, she then had to become a pioneer of witnessing to the world as to how to deal with guilt and be reconciled to God. This reconciliation is the essence of our Christian message.

S. John's description of the scene in the garden suggests the depth of Mary's misery. She, with the other women, had been at the end. She had come to anoint the body, to do what she could ? but the body was gone. She would be now quite bereft. She certainly would not have expected to see Jesus, which is probably why she did not recognize him. But when he spoke her name, then she did. She addressed him with respect 'Teacher'. And then with a true sense of service she does what she is asked to do. There must have been a sense of security in Jesus' physical presence. This is now gone. For us too, the security is in the reality of the spiritual fellowship with the risen Lord through the Spirit, in faith. The sacramental life of the Church is a mainstay in this experience.

According to Eastern tradition, Mary retired to Ephesus with the Mother of the Lord and died there. Her relics were transferred to Constaninople (Istanbul) in 886 AD and are preserved there.


10th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: 1 Kings 3: 5-12; Romans 8:26-end; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52.

After the death of King David there ensued a period of struggle, intrigue and bloodshed from which Solomon emerged as the successor to David. Initially though he really did not possess the leader-ship qualities of his father David. The OT reading for today tells of how these deficiencies were rectified. Solomon went to the chief shrine of Gibeon, probably for the express purpose of receiving a dream revelation from God. Subsequently he came home, gathered his household including the servants, and after sacrificing with them, makes known the revelation he had been given.

In the world of the ancient Near East a king was seen as the channel of divine grace and revelation for his people. Thus, Solomon's actions in seeking revelation through dreams, divination, oracles and the like are not so strange for his time. Indeed there have been world leaders in quite recent times who have been influenced by such means, believe it or not. Ancient peoples exhibited a keen sense of their dependence on God, and of the need to be in right relationship with God, and for a recognizable channel of guidance and blessing. All characteristics which need to be recaptured by the people of God today. There are numerous instances of revelation by way of dreams in ancient writings, there are quite a few in the Bible in fact, and not just the OT.. We may see something of this in the assurance received by S. Paul when the Lord 'stood over him in the night' and told him to take courage because he was also to bear witness in Rome. There is nothing unusual or unlikely in Solomon's expectation of a revelation by way of a dream. Our scientific and sceptical environment makes us less likely to be open to such revelation. But God is willing to make his will known to us, and will use whatever means are likely to be effective. Of course all such revelations should be tested. Are they within the guidelines of scripture and the experience of God in the Church through the ages, are they consistent with the way God acts, particularly in the way God acted through Jesus Christ?

The passage also points out the importance of what we could call a holy place. The presence of God has always been associated with particular places, and it may well be that we need such places, as a church for instance, provides for our receptiveness. We may need to go to a place in order to hear God. The association, coupled with the effort of going, can help us to be open. We can all discover places where God is for us.

So God granted Solomon the discernment for which he asked, he equipped him for the task to which he aspired. Loyalty, righteousness and integrity were virtues of David which Solomon wisely sought for himself. David had acquired some of these the hard way, as some of us must also because of our self-will. But, because of his basic characteristic of obedience to God's will, he did acquire them. There is significance for us in this obedience, and in the need felt by Solomon to be a channel for the grace of God to God's people. All Christians have this function too, and the world looks to the Church to interpret God's will ? and is often disappointed. We need the same qualities sought by Solomon. We may need our own holy place so that we can receive them.

The OT writers were in no doubt that Solomon was king in accordance with God's plan; but God's plan extends to everyone who loves God. This is what S. Paul assures us of in the Epistle: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to is purpose. There is a great sense of hope and purpose here for as we live our life in and for God. It does not mean that God manipulates our lives or denies us freewill; on the contrary, those who love God will want him to work out his will in their lives. Loving God is being obedient. If you love me you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15). True freedom is found in living according to God's will. Our call is according to his plan and purpose. He has a divine plan for the world, and this is worked out in co-operation with those who love him. It is thus possible to say that God has a purpose for each of us individually. The passage takes us through the stages of our development as Christian people. First, God knows us, i.e., he gives us his personal attention. Then we are designated to be in conformity with his Son; i.e., we are to grow into the image of Jesus in our character. In this way Christ becomes the first-born in a large family. To be called by the Lord is to become a member of a family, the family of the redeemed, of those who have a share in the resurrection and have entered into new life. The entry is by way of baptism. It is hard to be a family member sometimes, so many of us come from such different backgrounds, the Lord has called us as sinners at many different stages of life and self-understanding to begin together this process, the walk to reconciliation and holiness. But it does make it easier when we realize that we are the called, we are all on the same road at least and that the shortcomings of others, although different from ours, are no greater. This process S. Paul calls justification, i.e., being gradually brought into a right relationship with God. The completion of the process is at the end of Christian life when we enter into the fulness of Christ's own glory and receive our share ? he will bring our lives to this conclusion in return for our our love.

The value of all this is expressed by the Gospel parables this morning. The kingdom of God is like treasure hidden in a field; this treasure is so valuable that it is worth selling up everything in order to possess it. Similarly, it is like a trader who finds a pearl of great price, and who sells all his other stock in order to purchase it. In both cases it is the value of the kingdom that is the point, there is nothing else that can compare. We all have a vocation in which we share in establishing God's king-dom; nothing must distract us from this because it is the most valuable possession there is. But we are not called to hug it to ourselves and protect it: we are called to offer it to others. The offer of the kingdom inevitably brings judgment: there will be those who reject the offer. For many the attractions of the world will take precedence. The parable of the dragnet carries a solemn warning. All the fish of the sea are in the same net ? but the time will come when a judgment will be made. Some fish are good for food and will be saved, others will be thrown back. There is a real sternness about the Gospel of Jesus which we have to set alongside the wonderful promises. Like that in the Epistle that 'all things work together for good' ? but that is only for those who love God and respond to his call. The mess and confusion of many Christian lives is simply because they are not on the path which God wants them to be on.

The final two verses of the reading are interesting. They indicate that the treasures of the kingdom are never exhausted; the Christian who perseveres will always be finding new truths and new meanings and applications for old truths. The Gospel of the Lord is really very simple, but it has depth and breadth and variety of application that make it spiritually and intellectually satisfying for the whole of our lives.


21th. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Isaiah 25: 1 -9; Philippians 4: 1 -9; Matthew22: 1-14.

The Jewish concept of world mission was that the nations would flock to Zion and acknowledge Yahweh as their god and ruler. They would come with gifts and tribute, the result of which would be the glorification of Zion. One finds this idea expressed fully later in Isaiah: ... ?The wealth of Egypt and the merchants of Ethiopia, and Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours, they shall follow you; they shall come over in chains (i.e., as slaves) and bow down to you. They will make supplications to you, saying: 'God is with you only, and there is no other, no god besides him.'? (Isaiah 45:14). In contrast to this extremely nationalistic view there was also an emphasis on what the nations will receive when they turn to Yahweh. They will have the benefit of Yahweh's teaching and will accept his guidance and rule; thus the world will be a place of peace. This is more the emphasis of our passage today. The nations will partake of table-fellowship with God: On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines. The veil of suffering will also be removed: And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all people, .... he will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears ....

This Jewish vision of mission is contrary to the Christian vision, at its best anyway: there are exceptions, where for some unity means coming under the rule of a monolithic structure with a minimum of local or cultural expression. For us Christian mission is determined by the Great Commission of Jesus, Go and make disciples of all nations .... (Matthew 28:16). This 'going out' reflects the going out of God in the person of Jesus Christ. We go out to take God's blessings to a spiritually hungry world ? a world of such variety that it could never be contained in a monolithic body. The Church will spread as it goes out, and its growth will be reflected in its variety.

The symbolic banquet is a frequent figure of speech in both the Old and New Testaments. Table-fellowship with God is a way of describing communion with God. It lies behind much of what we believe about the Eucharist. But ordinary table-fellowship is also important for Christians. When we share a meal our fellowship is not just at the human level, but includes fellowship with God. Grace before the meal is a reminder of this. A shared meal can be an act of mission towards those we would assist in their way to coming into a living relationship with God. In the same way it can be appropriate to invite those seeking a spiritual path to share in the Eucharist in order that they may sense something of the fellowship we enjoy with God and each other. The Eucharist can be something of our 'going out', rather than a something closed to outsiders until they have conformed.

S. Paul suffered frequently for his faith. His letter to the Church at Philippi is written from prison, and yet in the passage read this morning he is able to give us that beautiful advice: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. This passage is the conclusion of the section of his letter in which he has been giving moral advice ? particularly he urged Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. This phrase 'in the Lord' is one which he uses frequently. For S. Paul, being in the Lord is the context of Christian living ? it is the uniting factor for the Christian community. We should see that being in the Lord is far more important than any factors or disagreements which may work towards division among us. Our behaviour and priorities are what reflect our life in Christ to the world. Similarly, he says: The Lord is near. This was a strong motivating factor in the early Church, which believed in an imminent Parousia (or Second Coming). It gave a spiritual urgency to prayer Prayer, including both supplication with thanksgiving, is an essential component in life in the Lord. Prayer is a sharing of our life in all its dimensions with the Lord. It is our response to the life of Christ in us. It should exclude the nagging of worry and concern which is the characteristic of the life of the world. Characteristic too of life in the Lord is a sense of peace ? the peace of God, which surpasses all knowledge ... All of this emphasizes the personal relationship which exists between Christ and the believer.

The Gospel parable brings us back to the imagery of the heavenly banquet. S. Matthew has made of the parable of the Great Supper an allegory of the Church. Now it is a marriage feast, and we are reminded of the symbolism of Christ and his bride, which is the Church. The invitations have been sent out by the king for the marriage feast of his son, the feast has been prepared, but when it comes to the time all those invited refuse to attend. Again he sends out messengers to the invited, but some make light of it and others maltreat, and even kill, the messengers. It all seems an unlikely way to treat the invitation of the king to what is surely going to be a memorable event. Well, it is unnatural because we are not dealing with the supernatural in this story. We are dealing with salvation history, we are dealing with that feast of joy and fellowship to which first Israel was invited, and then when Israel failed to attend, the Church and humankind generally. We have described for us their differing fates: Israel's refusal to heed the prophets warnings, and then the rejection of Jesus' Gospel as proclaimed by him and by the Apostolic Church, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in AD 70, which lead to the going out of the Church to the pagans.

But ... many are called, but few are chosen. A place in the kingdom is not automatic. Thus Matthew adds the incident of the man without a wedding robe as a warning to the Church of the need for a personal response and renewal. It is not acceptable to bring the old pagan garb into the Church. The standards of the world, the attitudes of the world, are not to become the norm for the Church The blessings of the heavenly banquet are for those who are living in the Lord, who have put on the new garments of forgiveness and renewal.


LAST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
/ S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

LAST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY S. Margaret's, Budapest

Readings: Leviticus 19: 1,2,15-18; 1 Thessalonians 2: 1 -8; Matthew 22:34-end.

What is it that sets God apart from the world? Mostly I think we can say that it is his quality of absolute holiness. In Leviticus he claims this 'holiness' for himself, which is emphasized by his 'otherness' which we see in the refrain I am the Lord. And there is a wonderful promise of spiritual growth for ourselves here too if we allow him to work in and through us: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. This passage is about moral precepts, so in applying it to ourselves we should be aware of the imperative to be moving in our walk with the Lord towards conformity with God's holiness. God's people do not seek revenge, we love our neighbour. For Israel, for whom the words were originally intended, the neighbour was the fellow Israelite, and, importantly, though it doesn't figure in this passage ? the sojourner ? the stranger who lived within your gates. These were frequently refugees and other lost individuals. The question of who the neighbour really was, how far the net should be spread, was one which exercised the rabbinic mind for centuries. And Jesus had something to say on the matter too. When his questioners try to trip him up on legalities he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. In this all the previous limits were broken. He rephrased the question so that it then became: To whom can I become a neighbour? The OT law sets limits, the law of love does not allow of limits.

Jesus developed some of the teaching we find in Leviticus. Jesus too warns against anger, and he reinterprets and broadens the law on murder (Matt. 5). Leviticus is more limited ? it says: You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; ...... The inner feelings and attitudes do not remain hidden indefinitely. They come out in words and acts which hurt others, in the family, in the Church and in the community. They cause embarrassment and shame to ourselves. In fact, the Israelite is urged to reprove the wrong words and behaviour of the fellow Israelite. To let wrong go without an attempt to correct it is to be part of it! Jesus says the same thing: If your brother sins, go and reprove him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. (Matt. 18:15ff.). Others are only to be involved if the first approach is disregarded. In both the OT and NT examples, the aim is to avoid broken relationships within God's people. I know that in the Church we in leadership positions are often guilty of turning a blind eye to situations which we know to be wrong. Again, the desire for revenge is a highly destructive attitude. Leviticus links it with grudge-bearing. It is destructive to both the individual and the community. It is the antithesis of forgiveness.

The teachers and lawmakers of the OT era were aware that the answers to the problems of life lay in the law of love: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Love and hatred, love and grudge-bearing, love and envy, love and fear, love and revenge, are all mutually exclusive. Jesus added the words of the law of love to the phrase with which Jews daily stated their love for God (Deut. 6: 4 -9). So, for Christians, love of God and love of neighbour form the basis of moral and spiritual life. For S. Paul, love is the fulfilling of the law. He quotes and expounds the law of love on a number of occasions ? perhaps the notable being in Romans 13. It is on the basis of the law of love that we are required to treat everyone at all times. The Jews tried to set limits ? Jesus in so many ways said that there are no limits to love.

The epistle reading is contains something of S. Paul's attitude of love in a specific instance. He feels towards the Thessalonians as would perhaps a mother, tenderly nursing her children, cherishing them as he shares the Gospel with them. And not just the Gospel message, but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. Our Christian ministry involves not only the message, but also the life and self-giving of the minister. Those of us who are in Christ are ministers. We each have a ministry. We are disciples, and we must live the message, giving of our whole selves. And note, it is the Thessalonian Church community that has become dear to S. Paul ? not some members of it. The whole Body of Christ is important. We must not become partial in our church life. There are no factions along denominational lines, along ethnic lines, along nationalistic lines, there must be no factions whatsoever.

Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest? A fairly innocent sounding, straight-forward question one would think. In fact a minefield ? a trick question. But Jesus deals with it openly. He links up all scripture as moral value and a guide to life, the meeting place between the co-dependence on love of God and love of neighbour. For Jesus, the love of God and the love of one's neighbour sums up the Law of Love, which essentially is the whole of the law. OT Law made a distinction between them. Jesus makes no distinction ? together such love is the single command of the new covenant under which we live. Thus he destroyed with one telling blow centuries of clever talk by rabbis and Pharisees. The law of love is that which distinguishes Christianity from the other religions of the Book. There is much in both Islam and Judaism which is noble and from which we can learn. But the law of love is supreme, in spite of Crusades, the Inquisition, burnings and massacres and other horrors which litter the history of our faith.

And what can we say about our own faith in light of the law of love? There is a vertical aspect and a horizontal aspect which need to be in balance. The cross reminds us of this.

There are those worshippers of God for whom the Church, with her rules, regulations and dogma, is supremely important. They are insiders, they know all the technicalities and sometimes adopt a somewhat superior air to those not adept in the particular gobble-de-gook of their group within the church or sect. Their personal relationship with God is of prime importance, their concentration is on this vertical aspect. Their social concerns are conservative and are to a large extent limited to respect for law and order and the maintenance of the status quo.
Then there is the horizontal aspect. It consists of those whose concerns are primarily social. They used to march to Greenham Common, and attend anti-apartheid rallies in Trafalgar Square. Now I suppose they campaign against globalization, world poverty and the slaughter of whales. Those among them who believe in God do not care too much about exactly what they believe, but it is still a good thing to be able to loosely hang it on something Jesus is thought to have said. Their concerns are more to do with the development of humankind and political correctness.

I do not doubt the sincerity of either group for one moment.

But, sadly, both visions result in one-sided individuals ? people who are incomplete. Individuals who fail to perceive the full perspective of human relationships ? relationship to God above, to those around, to their own self. Unwittingly, they turn to a God who is limited by their limitations, unbalanced. That is, in contrast to the God presented by Jesus in the Gospels, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ? one God in three Persons, perfect in harmony and balance ? the God who is Love. It is because of this self-same love poured into our hearts by the Spirit that Christians are able to love God, love each other, and love themselves. It is by loving one's neighbour as oneself that God's love is shown.


ADVENT 2 / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Isaiah 40: 1-11; 2 Peter 3: 8-15a; Mark 1: 1 -8.

Last week the OT passage was from Third Isaiah and reflected the situation of those who had been considered worthless by the Babylonians and had thus been left behind in Jerusalem when the rest had been taken into exile in 587/586 BC.. The reading today is from Second Isaiah and this reflects the situation of the exiles themselves at roughly the same date. They were losing heart: it was beginning to appear as if the gods of Babylon were more powerful than Yahweh. Was this Exile going to become a permanent fact of life? Was there any realistic hope of ever being able to return home to Jerusalem? The prophet's message is one of reassurance:.Yahweh is in control of events, there will be a return to Jerusalem. See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; The time of exile will end: ..she has served her term. God has spoken and will fulfil his word. ..O comfort my people,...prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. .....the glory of the LORD shall be revealed .... for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. What God says is as good as done! His word guarantees it. This is the prophet's utter conviction. One of the major contributions of the experience of exile for Israel, due to the separation of the people from the religious life of the Jerusalem temple, was that they were thrown back on the word of God. In this was planted the seed which led to synagogue worship based on prayer and the word of God. The later destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD by the Romans completed the process. It was a little like the Reformation for Anglicans ? one of the good things it did for us was to restore the word of God to God's people, and restore a balance in worship between word and sacrament.

Here is your God! See the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; The power of God will bring about the deliverance of his people. However, power does not mean violence. God's intervention is more like that of a shepherd finding the easiest path and the best grazing for his flock and caring for each one as an individual. We have seen before this type of imagery being taken up by NT writers, and indeed by Jesus himself. The might and power of God is best shown in tender care and saving guidance.

There are many ways in which God has come with saving grace to his people in the past. The Exodus from Egypt was one; the return from Babylon was another. In each instance his coming was a saving act; and in each instance his coming involved judgment. Isaiah refers to the fact of Israel's sin as having contributed to their present situation ? there was an element of punishment, and the possibility of learning from past errors, in the Exile. The coming of Jesus was another coming of God with saving grace. There is a sense in which every grace we receive is a coming of God with salvation; and there is a final coming, and a final judgment,, and the final establishment of God's kingdom, the fulness of the kingly rule of God under which as Christians we already live, albeit incompletely.

There was an impatience, an eagerness, for the return of the Lord among early Christians. In 1989 I remember the eagerness, the sense of hope and expectancy, with which people were imbued as the inevitable change of regime in Hungary came closer. The air was full of it ? there was excitement about it and its possibilities. At the time of Jesus there was much the same excitement and sense of hope in Palestine about the coming of Messiah. Following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus there was the same sort of expectation and excitement about the Parousia, the Second (and final) Coming, in the Early Church community. They expected it any day, certainly in their lifetime. It seems as if those to whom the Second Epistle of Peter was written were becoming disillusioned over the delay. So he begins by quoting Psalm 89 to the effect that God's timing is not the same as ours. He has eternity to work in. he is not being slow ? but he is giving us time in which to repent. It is only human impatience which makes it seem slow. But come it will, with rushing fire, destruction of the physical elements, the laying bare of the secrets of nature. This is figurative language ? we have no way of knowing what the Day of the Lord will be like in its details.

Our response must be to make the best use of the present time, waiting for the end with a sense of expectancy and watchfulness. Thus we hasten the Day. If the Parousia means the coming of the kingly rule of God, the more we conform to that rule the more quickly God can establish it. God's intentions are clear: new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. As we seek righteousness, as we enter into a right relationship with God, as we seek justice for all, we are bringing forward the Parousia. This makes the Parousia sound like a process rather than a single event ? perhaps it is not such a bad idea to think of it terms of both event and process. Doctrine does not stand on its own ? doctrine evolves from the moral imperative and the experience of the Christian community. Belief in the Parousia is surrounded by uncertainty as to its timing and nature, but the moral precepts are those given by this Epistle ? while you are watching for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.

The introduction to the Gospel of S. Mark is quite abrupt. The Good News begins with the ministry of John the Baptizer, which has been foreshadowed in OT prophetic writing. We heard some of this in the OT passage from Isaiah. John is the messenger ... who will prepare your way, he is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. These quotes foreshadow and substantiate John's witness to the Lord. John is one who goes before; he offers a form of baptism as a sign of repentance and renewal; he calls people back to their spiritual and moral responsibilities. He provides a stepping off point for the ministry of Jesus. Some of his disciples become disciples of Jesus. What we know of John, including his renowned asceticism, suggest that he could have been a member of the sect called Essenes. Certainly he was absolutely loyal and could not be swayed from proclaiming the message he carried ? truly in the succession of the prophets of the living God.

So, S. Mark writes, The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Gospel is only the beginning; the response, the living of the 'good news', is ours to do. God has come to us, and spoken to us, once and for all. His present silence is a permanent delegation of his Word to his Church. We live the good news, and in that living we proclaim his return as judge. The Word has been delegated to us. The Lord lives! Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus! This has been the cry of the disciples in the liturgy of Holy Church for over 2,000 years. The living of the good news is what I called earlier the process of Parousia which will help bring it about. Christ needs prophets in the world of today as much as he needed them at the time of John and in the ages before him. For us there are roads to be made straight and valleys to be filled in, there are mountains to be laid low. They are in the world around us, and they are within us. We know what they are ? or we would if we listened to the voice of God in our hearts, the still, small voice of the Spirit. That needs some time to be given to stillness and quietness and listening. It means that we must put aside the various drugs and mechanisms we use for shutting out what could be painful. It means taking seriously the time the Church gives us at Lent and Advent to do just that. It means facing up to ourselves,seeing ourselves as the Lord sees us. It means realizing that he wants to make our path straight through the desert, that he wants to bring us home to our Jerusalem. Finally, as we point others to Jesus, as did John, we must decrease as he did, so that Jesus can increase ? he who is himself the 'good news', the Word of salvation for our time and for all time.


ADVENT 3 / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings:Isaiah 61: 1 -4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1: 6 -8, 19-28.

I have mentioned previously that the Book we know as Isaiah was written by three, possibly even four, different prophets at different times. The OT passage for this morning is from the third of these, Trito-Isaiah, who probably was a pupil of Second Isaiah. He is speaking about his calling. He knows that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him; he speaks of this as an anointing, a spiritual anointing. Only the king and the High Priest were physically anointed. They were anointed in order to set them apart for a holy office. So the prophet is telling us that he has been as it were anointed ? set apart ? for his holy task under God. That task is to proclaim liberty to the captives; for this he has been sent. His ministry is to be one of the word: the very act of proclaiming God's word brings forward God's work among the people to whom he has been sent ? the oppressed, the broken-hearted, those who mourn, and so on. This is important. The very act of the proclamation of God's word, the speaking out of the truth of what God is doing, has healing and saving power in itself. The prophet has been sent to bring good news, and by the announcement the broken-hearted are to be bound up and those who mourn are to be comforted. These are the people who have suffered and are disadvantaged, and who know their own powerlessness, and their utter dependence on God. These are the same sorts of people that Jesus speaks about in the Beatitudes. The prophet does raise public awareness of the problem by way of his preaching, and he also gives those who suffer an expectation of better times ahead ? there is healing and power in the word.

Jesus applied the familiar words of this OT passage to himself and his ministry (Luke 4:16ff.). They express his compassion and the hope which his message of Good News brings. For Jesus, the anointing with the Holy Spirit occurs at his baptism by John. This Isaiah passage is set though in the time of the difficulties encountered by the exiles in the rebuilding of the temple following their return from Babylon. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah provide a fascinating view of this period also. In this reading the prophet announces the intervention of God on behalf of the oppressed, the captives, etc., who will be the first to be relieved because of their helplessness, their openness, their complete dependence on the love and providence of their heavenly Father. They are set to become enthralled by God's gifts of peace, justice and salvation.

The words of S. Paul to the Thessalonians in today's reading are a wonderful continuation of the words of praise at the end of the OT passage. His experience of Thessalonica had not been pleasant ? in fact he had been chased out of town. But later he heard of difficulties in the Thessalonian Church. The fact is that all church communities which are truly on a quest to present the Good News of God's love in Jesus Christ will experience spiritual warfare. The Church though will always be the winner if the heart of the church stays close to God in prayer for each other, and in the study of God's word. We have been assaulted here in this community from time to time, both from inside and from outside. And we have overcome. But as the devil departed from attacking Jesus himself only for a time, so we must be ready for further attack. The difficulties at Thessalonica seem to have centred around people who have come to be known as the Idlers. These were those who rejected work because of the common belief that the Parousia was imminent. They had come to believe that a convenient prophetic insight made it possible for them to live off the earnings of those still working. Naturally the latter had come to resent this interpretation of the situation. It was problems such as this that caused Paul to write this letter. However, despite all the difficulties, he is able to exhort his readers to: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. He say, 'in all circumstances', and certainly he did just that. It was S. Paul who sang praises to God while in chains in prison. So, when the car breaks down on the motorway 20 miles from the nearest town, and the mobile phone card has just run out, that is the time to be praising. This should be the habitual mind-set of the disciple who is living in Christ.

It is sobering to reflect on how often problems arise from within the church itself. These are often more difficult to deal with than those from outside. At Thessalonica the questionable demands of the Idlers, based on prophecy in the Spirit, had led some to reject prophecy. S. Paul warns against this. He sees the Spirit in our lives as like a fire which must not be put out. Our life in Christ depends on the Spirit, even though manipulation is always possible. Prophecy is the proclaimed will of God; it is the act of interpreting and applying Christ's teaching and insights to the present life situation. The misuse of prophecy in some cases does not make prophecy as a practice invalid. We are meant to test everything. Prophecy must be consistent with the scriptures, it must be consistent with the Christian experience of the community, it must be consistent with the over-arching concept of love. And it must not be divisive. The prayer with which S. Paul ends, prays that there should be no division in the Christian life. There is to be consistency and integrity, a wholeness which reflects the integrity of Christ. This should be evident in the life of the Body as well as in the life of the individual Christian.

John the Baptizer appeared last week, and today again his name comes up in the Prologue to the Gospel of John. And this is natural ? he is an historical fix for the incarnation. The Word became flesh at a definite point in history and within an identifiable physical context. We do not know the exact date of Jesus' birth, but it is clear that he was born. He is not a Greek or Hindu mythological figure. He actually lived. God does not work in a vacuum, just as faith cannot exist in a vacuum. Our faith is placed in a particular Person, a Person connected with actual events and places. As Isaiah was sent in a previous age, so now John is sent to be a witness and with a message to proclaim. At the very spot where Israel had crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land, John was baptizing with water, using a rite of penitence quite different from other purificatory rites in use at the time. His purpose was to bring God's people to repentance and faith. He was so successful in this, so many people were flocking to hear him and were undergoing his baptism, that the Temple authorities sent out a commission of enquiry to find out exactly what all the excitement was about. Who is this person, and what is his significance? That was their brief.

John's answers must have appeared somewhat less than satisfactory. No, he is not the Christ. No, he is not Elijah. No. he is not the prophet for whom Israel awaits. Well, who are you then? Even a nobody has to be somebody. He is the one who goes before, a mere witness completely dependent on him to whom he witnesses, a voice for the Word of God. As a statement of identity it didn't really satisfy his questioners. The early Church too found this figure somewhat puzzling: this man so precious in the eyes of Jesus; this one who had been sent to point out the one you do not know, the one who is coming after me. John shows us that the questions, hopes, expectations of the coming Messiah had their fulfilment in Jesus. John's task of course has to be repeated from generation to generation. Jesus stands among us unrecognized today. We are also sent to point to him, the thong of whose sandals we are not worthy to untie.


BAPTISM OF CHRIST / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

There is an overarching background of the activity of the Holy Spirit to the three scripture passages for today. This activity consists of creativity and recreativity. It begins with the Spirit of God hovering, or brooding, or sweeping over (depending on which version one reads) over the waters of elemental chaos before creation. And behind the apparently effortless display of God's creativity, simply by his word, lies the symbolism of the divine victory over darkness and chaos.

At Ephesus S. Paul comes across a group of some twelve people who were to become the nucleus of the great Church at Ephesus for which he later laboured long and hard. Ephesus was the focal point of his whole missionary effort to the Gentiles. The number twelve was significant as that was the number of the original apostolate, who were often simply referred to as 'The Twelve'. Also, the state in which Paul found these people was not all that different from that of the Apostles before Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came with power on the infant Church. A person who appears several times as a sort of missionary, named Apollos, had preached in that area and these people were his converts. But the ministry of Apollos was incomplete in that he himself was able only to do a baptism of repentance similar to that given by John the Baptizer in former years in the Jordan. This group though were obviously considered Christian because S. Luke calls them disciples, and in his writings this always means practicing Christians. But they were lacking one thing ? the Holy Spirit had not come into their lives with power. So, S. Paul baptizes them, the one and only time he is recorded as having administered baptism in the NT. In this they clearly represent for us the state in which many of us existed for much of our lives, and the state in which many Christians still exist in our churches, simply because of inadequate teaching about the Holy Spirit and the power which we can claim as a result of our baptism into the Body of Christ.

The baptism of Jesus is understood in the Gospels as the public recognition by the Father of Jesus as the divine Son of God, and of his commissioning as God's Servant. The passage from S. Mark makes a direct allusion to Isaiah 42, and thus links Jesus with the concept of the Suffering Servant. Whatever the original intent of these Servant Songs of Isaiah, it is impossible for Christians not to see Jesus in them. Jesus is the Servant par excellence, and in his person and ministry all the highest aspirations of the people of God of the OT are fulfilled.

The Gospel of Mark begins with the mission of John the Baptizer rather than the birth of Jesus, and thus links the ministry of Jesus with that of John. We are introduced to Jesus, not as the Babe of Bethlehem, but as God's Servant appearing on the public scene, heralded by John. Thus the 'servant ministry' that Jesus came to perform, and which his baptism declared, is emphasized. As a herald, John proclaims the appearance of Jesus. He himself, and his message, are now to take second place to those of Jesus. John's baptism was a sign of repentance, those who were baptized confessed their sins and the baptism was a symbol of repentance and new life. But those who seek Jesus will find that they are immersed not only in water but in the Holy Spirit. So, John points to Jesus, and to the engulfing power which Jesus brings to those who believe. Jesus' baptism was a public declaration of his role and of his power. All recognized that God was at work in the ministry of John; Jesus identifies himself with God's own activity. God uses this occasion to proclaim that Jesus is his own beloved Son, and his pleasure in this. This is God's own doing: it is he who makes his servants worthy ? no one can do it for themselves.

In this account from the Gospel of S. Mark it appears that only Jesus actually saw the vision of the heavens being opened and the dove descending. We are in the realm of picture language here. The hovering dove symbolizes the hovering of God's Spirit at Creation, as pictured in the OT passage. In the ministry of Jesus we are meant to see a new act of creation, and this is suggested to us by the image of the hovering dove. Jesus in himself represents the new creation; his ministry brings it into effect in the lives of believers, disciples such as we ourselves are. This helps us to see all that Jesus does in its true light. The acts of Jesus, the acts of power, especially those of healing, are themselves .powerful signs of God's creative and recreative power. At the same time they show the inward, spiritual effect of the engulfing by the Spirit of God. Those so engulfed are renewed, recreated. The lives of believers are meant to be living proclamations of God's new creation. The responsibility is awesome ? only in the power of the Spirit is it possible.

The baptism of Jesus is an equivalent of the call which we receive to follow him. In his humanity it no doubt reinforced his own conviction of his divine role. It also speaks to us of the purpose of his ministry in the renewal and recreation, not just of humanity, but of the whole of the created order. The link with the 'Servant' of Isaiah gives a model of suffering, and of compassionate encourage-ment in a quiet and persistent way to those who receive the ministry. We have here a better under-standing of the person and ministry of Jesus, and a model for all Christian ministry. We are also reminded that nothing less than a new creation is the aim, and the strength, courage and energy needed for the task will be provided and experienced. This is why the Church reminds us of our baptismal vows this morning and allows us to be symbolically reimmersed in the waters of baptism, recreation and renewal.


EPIPHANY 2 / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index


Eli the priest lived in the 11^th cent. BC.. he was a great-grandson of Moses and was the priest of the holy place of Shiloh. This was in the region called Ephraim, north of Jerusalem, about half-way between Jerusalem and Samaria. It is close to Gilgal and Bethel where there were other important shrines, all of which we come across frequently in the OT narratives. Shechem in Samaria is the other well-known one. The Ark of the Covenant was first kept at Shechem, but by the time of Eli it had been transferred to Shiloh. The Ark was the most important symbol of ancient Israel's religious and national identity. It represented the presence of God with his people: it accompanied the armies of Israel into battle. But, sadly, we know very little about it. Shortly after the events in the reading this morning the Ark was lost to the Philistines. This of course was a disaster, a psychological and spiritual blow. King David eventually restored the Ark of the Covenant to Israel and gave it a place of prominence in Jerusalem.

By the time of Eli the sanctuary of Shiloh would no longer have been simply a stone altar in the wilderness. The usual pattern would have been a forecourt with storage areas and accommodation for the priests, Eli and his sons. Samuel was a sort of trainee priest at this time. There would have been an inner court where the Ark of the Covenant would be kept. By the time of these events the prestige of Eli was in decline. He himself was old and almost blind. His sons had not maintained the standards of integrity required of them as priests. They were using their office and position to benefit themselves at the expense of those they were there to serve. The Lord warned Eli of the consequences. The Philistines in fact brought an end to the false witness of Eli and his sons.

But, returning to the story. It is a little before dawn, the lamp is still alight, everyone was asleep; Eli in his room, Samuel in the sanctuary as a guard for the sacred objects. Samuel rouses, believing that he heard his name called. Naturally he assumed Eli was calling him so he ran to find out what he required. The old man thought Samuel was dreaming, so he sent him back to bed. Then the episode is repeated once again. But when Samuel heard the voice the third time it was clear to Eli that this was no dream, but probably the call of the Lord. We often need the help of others in recognizing the call of God to us. In this instance, Eli, in spite of his failings, acts with wisdom and sensitivity, with the result that Samuel is able to be receptive to the voice of the Lord ? Speak, for your servant is listening. Here we see a conscious opening of the mind, an inner listening, to the voice of God, made possible by the perceptive guidance of another person. Just think about this incident and see what we can learn about how we hear God, and the importance of other people who guide us in the process. I know that I am grateful for a number of people who have helped me to hear what God is saying to me.

The sudden change of direction which we find in the Epistle passage comes as a bit of a surprise. The theme is of sexual morality. Apparently in the Corinthian Church there were those who were making a real division between the body and the spirit. They set great store on their spiritual gifts, which no doubt were real. But they had a mistaken, and convenient, understanding in that what you did with your body didn't matter too much because it was to be destroyed at death anyway. So, eat, drink and be merry was OK. This is really quite a valuable passage in an age of so-called sexual freedom, which is not freedom anyway, but a form of bondage. Sexual images are all around us, and the media makes almost anything acceptable. But for Christians not everything is acceptable. We are taking pagan standards into Christian life without realizing it often. Because the world says some belief or behaviour is correct and acceptable, it does not mean that the Church must follow suit. Because our body as well as our soul is redeemed by Christ, everything we do which involves our body needs to be tested against the criterion of the Scriptures, and whether God is glorified by it.

The Gospel passage for today is set near the beginning of Jesus' public ministry soon after his baptism by John the Baptizer. Andrew, possibly John, and certainly Simon Peter have already been called. This small party moves in the direction of Galilee ? Bethsaida is at the northern end of the lake. And now we hear about both calling and witness. Philip comes from Bethsaida, as do also Simon Peter and Andrew. All three were probably in the region of the Jordan because they had been attracted like so many others by John the Baptizer. It is in fact more than likely that they were followers of John, that they had heeded his call to repentance, and were now in the process of beginning to see in Jesus the fulfilment of their hopes and the hopes of many in Israel at that time. So for Philip the simple call to Follow me is all that is needed. But now Philip goes and witnesses to his hope and growing belief in Jesus as the Messiah to his friend Nathanael, who is most likely the man known as Bartholomew in the other Gospels. In the face of Nathanael's cynical, semi-humourous retort, he simply issues the invitation, Come and see! And, ultimately isn't that all that anyone can say? We may know the Lord in our own life, we may experience a walk with him day by day, we may have experienced his acts of healing ? but we can prove nothing. It is a matter of faith and experience. Having witnessed, having said what we have to say, the bottom line is that we can only issue the invitation to come and see. Help us Lord not to miss the opportunity to do just that.


EASTER 3 / S. Margaret's, Budapest
Index

Readings: Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3: 1 -7; Luke 24:36b-48.

SS. Peter and John have just dealt with the crippled man who each day had sat begging at the gate of the Jerusalem Temple called the Gate Beautiful. The fact is that we do not now know for sure which gate that was. But anyway, through his acceptance of the healing power of the risen Lord the man had been healed. This healing shows how the helpless in their own strength may be raised to new life in the power of the name of Jesus. The address by S. Peter takes as its starting point the amazement of those who witnessed the event. It is meant to show that it is in and by the power of the name of Jesus alone that this man, previously crippled, can now walk. This is because Jesus, though rejected and killed, was vindicated, raised and glorified by God. Jesus' suffering was in accordance with God's plan, as it had been foretold by the prophets. Israel must now repent, so that the Messiah may return and fulfil all God's purposes for his people. These ancient promises of God have been, are being, and will be, fulfilled in Jesus. To the first covenant people, Israel, the blessing of repentance is being offered first. S. Luke is giving us here the early proclamation of the Gospel by the Church to Israel. This is the interpretation of the action of healing which accompanies the proclamation. The people of Israel are being challenged at the very heart of their religion, in the Temple itself. The healing has been brought about by the authority of the name of Jesus, added to which is the faith of the sufferer (which in fact also comes from the Lord), just as we see it in many the Gospel healings through Jesus' ministry also. There it was faith in Jesus in person, now for the early Church, and now for us also, it is faith in his name, i.e., his continuing and present power; the power which he gives through the Holy Spirit.

The Epistle passage shows that our faith in the risen Lord Jesus also makes us children of God. We really are God's children. Anyone who does not acknowledge God finds this difficult to understand. Naturally we ourselves do not yet experience the fullness of it: in this life that is not possible. Our hope is that we shall be fully like him when all is revealed. This though demands confrontation with the children of evil. There is a real sense in which we are meant to be separate from the world, 'in the world but not of the world' in the words of S. Paul.

The closing events recounted in the Gospel of S. Luke show Jesus appearing during the post-resurrection period in bodily form yet not subject to normal physical restrictions. At the same time his solidly corporeal nature was demonstrated. This was someone who ate and drank with his disciples – this was no ghost. S. Luke includes these events to ensure that his readers are sure that this risen Christ can be identified with the man Jesus of the pre-crucifixion and resurrection ministry. After all there were already, even at this early date, heretics who were denying the reality of Christ's human life, asserting that the divine Christ descended onto the human Jesus at the time of his baptism, and left again some time before the crucifixion. There really aren't any new heresies. All the clever ways of some modern theologians trying to explain away the reality of Jesus, his work, his resurrection, have already been explored, and defeated, by the Church, mostly in the first few hundred years of its existence. These new-age people have nothing new to offer, except perhaps the packaging. It is the reality of the Christ of the Gospels which the first disciples were commissioned to witness to as the Church, as the new people of God. And it is this real Christ of the Gospels to whom we also are to witness.

So Jesus allowed himself to be touched by them, to eat before their eyes, in order to convince them that it is indeed he himself. The one who clearly died on the cross is alive in their midst. He is present to them in a way that is completely different, and yet the same. His resurrection casts a light on the scriptures in such a way that the past is clarified and the future proclaimed. Repentance, essential for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached to the nations. Jesus said to these disciples: You are witnesses of these things. And we ourselves, sometimes torn between doubt and believe, as were they we read, can make the act of faith which allows us, today, to come into contact with the living Lord, whose presence is still quite different, and yet the same, as the historical Jesus of Nazareth. The Eucharist is the privileged place where the Church is able to recognize the 'Prince of Life' (Acts 3:15) who was offered up as a victim for the sins of the world, our sins included. The living signs of his resurrection are to seen when we meet together under his headship, recall his words and the words of scripture, recount the testimony of those who saw him, joyfully break bread together, and then return to the world where the tiny flame lit at the first Eastertide, is spread from person to person – like the symbolic light at the Easter Vigil. Life itself is its own sure proof, and that life lives in us.

It was typical of the earliest Christian faith that believers regarded the Holy Spirit, not as a part of a Trinitarian dogma to be believed, but as an access to power to be received. With this legacy in mind, we can ask ourselves: Does our encounter with the risen Lord Jesus in the Eucharist make us the enthused, power-filled witnesses to good-news with which the deepest levels of our hearts should resound?

 

EASTER 7
S. Margaret's, Budapest

Index

Readings:Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17,20-end; John 17:20-end.

'One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination ......' Notice the use of the word 'we'.This is one of the sections of this book, where S. Luke quotes directly from his own diary. Anyway, S. Paul and Silas, and those with them, were being bothered by this girl who for days had been following and calling out after them. 'Spirit of divination' is a translation of 'Python', a name derived from the serpent killed by Apollo at Delphi. As the Delphic priestess was inspired to give oracles a 'python spirit' meant a spirit of soothsaying. Paul, finally fed up with this carry-on, exorcized the evil spirit which was speaking through the girl, and he did it in the name of Jesus. This act of course infuriated the girl's owners who made money out of her as a fortune-teller. Paul and Silas were dragged off to the magistrates in the marketplace. Actually it was the forum because in Philippi the courts and the prison both faced on to it. Philippi was a Roman city – it had been developed by Augustus to settle the legions' veterans. As a Roman city it had no synagogue and a very small Jewish population – that is why S. Paul met Lydia the 'God-fearer' at this normal meeting place for the Jews and God-fearers outside the city gates in the reading from last week.

Paul and Silas are accused of disturbing public order, and particularly of advocating illegal customs. This is really meant, it seems, as a claim that they were proselytizing, which especially among Roman citizens, was illegal and not covered by the general toleration accorded to Jews and their worship by the Roman authorities. As a result, they are stripped, severely beaten and thrown into the 'inner prison'. This was probably underground and their feet would have been held in wooden stocks. In this situation, in the middle of the night, the two prisoners are praying and singing hymns. In answer to their prayers there is an earthquake. As a consequence of the severe shaking their stocks are broken and the doors spring open. The gaoler realizes that he has witnessed an act of God in response to the prayers of Paul and Silas in this remarkable event. He seeks to know more about this God who cares for his servants. Paul and Silas proclaim the Gospel of Jesus to him, and as a result, he and his whole household were baptized there and then. Thus the mission of SS. Paul and Silas to the Gentiles, as they entered into Europe, was blessed with very much the same sort of great liberating acts God as had been experienced by SS. Peter and John in Jerusalem. From S. Luke's point of view the triumph is all the greater because it involved liberation and deliverance through, and in spite of, suffering. The pattern of Christ's triumph through suffering and death is reproduced in the lives of his apostles and disciples. There is a message of course here for us as disciples here and now. Not least in the picture of these two disciples praying and praising God in the midst of persecution and suffering. The persecution and suffering which we are called to endure is generally of a rather lesser order than theirs.

The book we call Revelation, and Roman Catholics call Apocalypse, is not always easy to under-stand. It was in fact very nearly excluded from the New Testament when the final judgments were being made as to what was truly scriptural. But in spite of the difficulties, Revelation has contributed a great deal to our understanding of our faith, our worship and even our hymns. The fact remains though that it is often used out of context, particularly by various cults and fundamentalists. The final two chapters, from which the reading today is taken, evince a tone different from the earlier parts of the book which reflect the violence and drama of the battle between good and evil. We find wonderful symbols poetically expressed in words frequently used at funerals. A new heaven and a new earth are created and the new Jerusalem comes down as a bride adorned for her husband. This represents Holy Church in her perfection. God wipes away tears, death shall be no more, sorrow, mourning and pain have passed away for ever.

Perhaps all the horror and violence of the earlier sections of the book are a comment on our human rebelliousness, which finally becomes a thing of the past and God's goodness reigns. We need to have the darkness before we have light. Is it that in the providence of God that we are being shown how repeatedly the Church, like Israel of old, has gone backwards? In our own time we have seen sections of the churches blessing barbarous acts in the Balkans, we have seen sections of our own Church taking into itself the standards and beliefs of the world causing further disunity in the Body of Christ. Perhaps the final chapters of this book are saying to us: 'This is what God is really like.' The very end of the book warns Christians that when Jesus comes they will be rewarded for their behaviour: and the time is short. Surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. We need to act fast and drink of the waters of life.

The sacred prayer of Jesus after the Last Supper is a reminder to us that, now in glory, he intercedes for his Church, he intercedes for us, at the right hand of God we say. He is with God, he is in God, he is God, and he has taken us and our concerns with him. Only he, in his person, can bind together the various strands of the prayers of us all and bring about the unity of all believers, the unity which he won in the events of Holy Week and Easter, and is now slowly unfolding in the course of history.

At the Last Supper Jesus had given his Apostles the great commandment of love. In this prayer he asks his Father, on behalf of all Christians throughout time, for that grace of unity which is the reflection of his life of communion and unity in and with God. The Lord is seen here in his role as head of his Body, the Church, which can only reach perfection through a visible unity achieved in his faith and love. Visible unity does not mean that we all have to worship according to the same liturgy and style of worship, but it does mean that there must be one Body, presenting to the world, the one God as seen in the one Jesus. Born out of the divine love whose only concern is the salvation of the world (the world, not just humanity), the Church must become the visible sign of that same love handed over to mankind: handed over to us. In this way the process which began in the incarnation, the birth of the helpless infant named Jesus, will find completion: returning to his Father (the return we celebrated on Thursday at the Ascension), the Word, the Logos of God, who had come into the world now brings humanity back with him into the unity of the Trinity. His task was not simply to show us God and the glory of God: he in fact enables us to gaze on it, to live it, to bring us to live and grow in it.

 

PENTECOST (YEAR C)
S. Margaret's, Budapest

Index

Readings: Acts 2: 1-21; Romans 8:14-17; John 14: 8-17, 25-27.

Today we are celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first Christians, on the early Church in Jerusalem, with power, as the Lord had promised. Christ, the light of the world, has ascended back to the Father, and is now present in his Church by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not something new though. The presence of the Holy Spirit has been a fact since before the creation of the world. The creation stories of Genesis show us the Hebrew idea of God's wind, God's breath, or God's spirit – the same word ruach is used for all three. So at the very beginning of Genesis, almost the first words of the Bible, we find the Spirit of God hovering, moving or brooding, depending on which translation you are reading, over the waters of chaos. And in the second chapter of Genesis, God breathes life into the man – Adam. The same word is used for God's Spirit and God's breathing of life. God's activity in nature is joined with his role in history and his role in personal renewal in Isaiah 40. The renewing function of God's Spirit is dramatically expressed in Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones (chap. 37).

There is much more that one could say about the activity of God through his Holy Spirit in the OT. I think though that we have made it clear that since the beginning of creation this activity has been a fact. However, following the resurrection of the Lord, the first Church at Jerusalem, experienced something which they felt to be new and exceptional. The Apostles, and the community generally, were proclaiming the resurrection message with a boldness and clarity that was in sharp contrast to their fear and trembling at the crucifixion and immediately afterwards. Healings were taking place, and there was the remarkable incident in connection with Ananias and Sapphira, as well as the inspired witness of S. Stephen. The first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles make exciting reading. It was the Pentecost experience which made the difference.

The story of Pentecost, which was read from Acts this morning, makes use of well-established symbolism to express this experience of the first Christians at Jerusalem. We cam learn a great deal about the early Church's experience if we ask what S. Luke is conveying to us by the story and its details. We will also come to a better expectation of what God may do in us.

In the Bible wind and fire regularly accompany divine manifestations and the activity of God in his Spirit. So S. Luke here is using standard imagery to convey the idea of God's active presence with his people and in his Church. The use of the phrases as though and as if should alert us to the fact that we are dealing with symbolic language. The tongues rest on each of them – i.e. the Spirit is to be understood as entering and remaining with each person. They speak in other tongues – a gift of language is envisaged rather than the so-called 'speaking in tongues' as an ecstatic gift with which some of us are familiar, and S. Paul discusses in his first letter to the Corinthians. The emphasis in this passage is on both the universal nature of the message, and on is clarity. The universality is seen in the list of nations in vv.5ff.. so everyone ...heard them speaking in their own language. This list of nations is a standard type of list as used by Hellenistic historians when they are trying to convey universality. The emphasis is on the universal nature of the message, and on its clarity. The proclamation which takes up the remainder of the chapter is a clear, inspired and articulate message – the bringing of people of all sorts and races together in Christ. The good news in Christ is for everyone, no one is excluded.

So the Pentecost event indicates that God gives special power to his Church by way of his Spirit. This gift is infused into believers to enable mighty works to be done. And the most significant of these works is the clear and articulate proclamation of the Gospel to the world, with particular emphasis on the significance of the resurrection. The 'Pentecost' gift is to enable the Church to address the world. To confess Jesus as Lord is the work of the Spirit in believers. 'Jesus is Lord' is the believer's statement of personal conviction and commitment.

Of course the gift of the Spirit manifests itself in different ways in different people, i.e., God has differing gifts for each of us. But each of our gifts are given 'for the common good'. They are meant to be used for the benefit of each other within the Church. S. Paul gives lists of these. They include wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy (which indicates inspired preaching, not foretelling the future), discerning spirits, tongues and their interpretation. As I said before, these tongues are the ecstatic gifts which are more to do with the emotional and personal side of religious experience than proclaiming the Gospel (not that this makes them unimportant or irrelevant). This list is not of course exhaustive, and it is important to realize that the gifts are in God's hands and decision, and that, in part at least, implies the sanctification of the natural gifts with which we were born. We should not expect to find exactly the same list applied to the Church of today – God in his Spirit is always contemporary. And God, I believe, has given to us, and to each Body of Christ's people, such gifts as they require for their on-going spiritual development and growth.

At some time we are quite likely to be asked the question, particularly perhaps by people of a pentecostal bent, 'Have you received the Spirit?', to which each of us who have been baptized can emphatically answer 'yes'. Whether we have claimed the Spirit which we were given in our baptism is another question, the answer to which is not so clear. At a deeper level of answer we can look to our spiritual development and growth. To help us we have a sort of spiritual checklist given by S. Paul in Galatians 5. It consists of nine items: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, self-control. Being in the Spirit of God will mean that we are allowing him to transform our lives – and we will see progress in those directions as we are enabled to surrender more of our-selves, as we let our heart, mind and spirit, be ever more open to the Lord, the Holy Spirit. In the Christian life we grow, we change, we are transformed. The Christian life is a process of change and growth – the rate of which we control as we allow God's Spirit to work in us.

 

TRINITY SUNDAY (YEAR C)
S. Margaret's, Budapest

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The Trinity is one of the most difficult subjects on which to preach, and yet it is at the heart of our Christian faith. Jews and Muslims indeed claim to believe in the same God as ourselves, and yet both religions are unsatisfying in comparison simply because both are rigid in their conception of monotheism. Islam in particular misses the glory of the activity within the personality of God which makes relationship with him a possibility and a glory. The point is that God can be known by and through his actions. Last week we saw something of the activity of the Spirit of God in the OT. As the Israelites looked back on the mighty acts of God in creation, and in their delivery from slavery in Egypt, they came to know the God of Israel as a God who acts on behalf of his people.

I mentioned Proverbs 8 last week in this connection of the activity of God's Spirit in creation. Wisdom too can be seen in the Wisdom literature of the OT as a personality, not distinct from God, but as an aspect of God, metaphorically endowed with speech, and frequently referred to in the feminine form. It seems significant that in the Jewish scriptures, when God speaks he often refers to himself as we and us. Let us make man .... The prophetic visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel show God as having a myriad of companions and agents.

In the short reading from S. Paul's letter to the Romans we are given a quite complete theological statement concerning the meaning of the Trinity to us. Through the Son we have peace with the Father, i.e., reconciliation or a state of harmony with God. This requires of us an absolute reliance on God's grace alone, which has nothing to do with our own efforts. In the various trials we still have to undergo, we persevere in hope thanks to God's gift of the Holy Spirit – God's gift of love.

The Gospel reading comprises a brief summary of what the departure of the Lord will involve for his disciples. It means that he will be unable to tell them all that they will really need to know just because it will be too much for them to bear before his goes from them. But when the Spirit of truth comes he will guide the company of God's people into all the truth. This of course is still happening, both for the Church and for disciples as individuals. Without the Spirit's illumination Christ's death would be complete tragedy; but under the Spirit's guidance we will come to see it as the great victory of the Lord over the adversary, over death and evil – the decisive moment in the history of the universe. Personally I take comfort and reassurance from this statement about being led into the truth as one surveys the history of Holy Church. It is what gives me confidence as a Catholic Christian that that is the destiny of God's people, and that those Christians who reject the completeness of the Catholic faith are to some extent rejecting the fullness which the Lord has offered to all – the truth into which we are being led.

All theologians confess that the best language that can be found is inadequate when attempting to explain or define the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is based on fact and the experience of Christians as they live out their faith. It is not philosophical speculation. It is interesting that Trinity is the only major Church festival that does not relate to a specific point in time. All other festivals and seasons of the Church Year relate to events that have happened or will happen at some definite time: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost. Only Trinity relates to a reality that has no date. There has to be an answer to such questions as, in which year was Jesus crucified? We may not know the answer exactly, and it could well remain a mystery in this age, but the fact remains that it was an event which happened at a specific day and time. How-ever, it would be nonsense to ask, when did God become the Holy Spirit? That God is always Father, Son and Holy Spirit excludes the idea that at some time he became such.

One of our problems, as we all know only too well, is that frequent reference to God makes us over familiar with the idea of him in a way that can be dangerous, and perhaps even destructive. We have a desire to manage our own affairs, domestic, financial, recreational, and so on: and this desire is necessary for an ordered life. Can we not also manage the religious aspect of our lives? We assume we can, and therein lies our mistake.
Trinity Sunday is the annual reminder that we cannot manage God. Why we cannot even imagine him! A god that we can hold in our minds, in the way that we can hold on to any other piece of learned information, such as, for instance, some of the basic information from our schooldays – I can still recall the value of pi to five decimal places. Such a piece of information would not be God. All the statements we make about him are so inadequate, even the most profound such as the Athanasian Creed. Such deep religious truth, and yet so pathetically inadequate. All this we will be able to put away when finally we meet him face to face.

In the Church, in liturgy, in theology, in reading the Bible, in preaching, we are always dealing with more than we can cope with – we try to make it comprehensible to ourselves and to others. Again, we begin to sound as if we can manage God in ways similar to which we manage the rest of our life. In fact an important part of the religious life and attitude has to be: this is beyond me. We are dealing with things too wonderful for us to know, and we speak of things we do not understand.

In his account of the vision of God in the temple, Isaiah makes no attempt to describe God: he only says that he was sitting on a throne, and that his train filled the temple. What we learn about God we overhear from the seraphim. The same method is used in the Book of Revelation – we overhear what others say. In fact we catch the idea of God from other people too, who in their turn caught it from others. Hopefully people with whom we come into contact will also catch it from us. That is why we are here. Along with all the other ideas that we have, let people catch from us some of the sense of awe of the unknown and unknowable that this festival reminds us of. Let us keep silence before the face of the unimaginable Other whom we familiarly, and rightly, call Father, who came to show us the Father in the form of Jesus the Son, and whom we can know, in the Spirit, as friend.



S. JAMES THE APOSTLE S.Margaret's, Budapest
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Readings: Jeremiah 45: 1 -5; Acts 11:27- 12: 2; Matthew 20:20-28.

Jeremiah the prophet does not forget his friends. In this passage he is writing a word of support and encouragement to his faithful biographer, scribe and secretary Baruch who at this point is undergoing persecution at the hands of Jehoiakim. Baruch looks ahead and can see nothing but the certainty of more torture. Woe is me! Is this to be the reward for his years of faithful and honest service to the prophet? Like the disciples of Jesus he asks: What then shall we receive? (Mt. 19:27). Baruch doesn't go as far as James and John, but more of that later. Here he reveals his own soul, and here too Jeremiah reveals himself not just as a prophet to the nations, but also as a father-in-God, a guide and comforter to the tormented soul. It was a time of suffering for God himself who must destroy his own creation: ....for I am going to bring disaster upon all flesh. In the world we shall have tribulation, but God will keep and protect his own. Self-seeking must be renounced, but the way of sacrificial service will lead to the full life. That was the message to Baruch – God will watch over him and he will not lose his reward. A message which remains gloriously true.

In the passage from Acts we find S. James the Apostle, whose life and witness we celebrate today, being killed by Herod. This was at the same time as a collection was being taken up as a gift from the Church in Antioch to the Jerusalem Church because of the approaching widespread famine. The years AD 46-48 were years of severe famine so we can assume that the death of James was most likely in 45 AD.. And why was he murdered by Herod? No particularly deep reason – he found that it pleased the Jews, by which he probably meant the Sanhedrin and the leading Jewish businessmen. Many people today can easily be persuaded that unprincipled acts can be justified if it pleases the influential and wealthy.

And then we take a step back in time with the Gospel reading. The brothers, SS. James and John, with their mother Salome, approach Jesus. Salome kneels and asks Jesus to give these two disciples the most important places in the new kingdom. The sheer effrontery of it is surprising. But, was this a case of a mother's love and pride in her sons getting out of balance – because there has to be balance in family loyalties and relationships too? Or did John and James put her up to it – after all the Holy Tradition tells us that she was Jesus' aunt and so had some significance in the family: she would be listened to with due respect? This seems a little more likely because when Jesus responds he does not address her but James and John directly. But I do not want to deal with the rights and wrongs of the event, but rather let us see what this incident has to teach about prayer. When one thinks about this event it is clear that it is an illustration of prayer: a woman comes kneeling to ask Jesus for something. That is prayer. It is though the wrong kind of prayer – it is a lesson in what prayer is not.

First, prayer is not bringing pressure to bear on God. Far too often we think it is, as SS. James and John thought it was, until they learned better. We think that if we can bring a lot of people together, the size of the group will have a bearing on its effectiveness – like applying more prayer-pounds of pressure per square inch. And then there is what Jesus taught was a heathen approach to prayer. That is, thinking that God will be worn down to grant our wishes if we increase, not perhaps the number of people praying, but the length of time they pray. So we hear of prayers all night and chains of prayer. In Tibet they have the same thought in the use of 'prayer wheels', a mechanical device which it assumes will keep the prayers going. And there are those who think that they can exert some kind of psychological pressure if they 'claim' in their minds the answer to their prayers, falling back on the words of Jesus that when we pray we should believe we have the answers, and then we shall receive them. All this, however, amounts to a wrong conception of prayer. Prayer is never bringing pressure to bear on God. We can encourage numbers of people to pray on a particular subject, but that is so the sphere of God's activity in co-operating minds can be extended. If we do pray all night, it is in order that our minds and beings may be more open to the divine mind. And when we 'claim' answers, it is because we know that prayer is always answered, and we claim an answer that is in accordance with his will, and not ours. It really does not matter how we pray, standing up, kneeling, intoning our prayers on the note of G, saying them in a natural voice, or singing them to a musical arrangement. All that matters is that it shall be an effective means for keeping our hearts and minds open to the leading of God's Spirit. Then things happen.

Secondly, we need to be aware that prayer is not made from a position of strength. This too is where this family prayer group went wrong. They thought that because they were related to Jesus, and that Salome was a senior family member, that that put them in a strong position. But we are never in a strong position when it comes to praying. We are in a very weak position. A major reason for this is that our knowledge of God's will is severely limited. Here is a mother requesting Jesus for the seats of authority for her sons in the coming kingdom. Had they known then what they came to know later, that coming into the kingdom for Jesus meant crucifixion with a robber at his right and another at his left, they might have had second thoughts about asking for those two particular places! No wonder Jesus tells them: You do not know what you are asking. And nor do we in much of our specific prayer: prayer for success in this undertaking, prayer for recovery there. We do not know what we are asking – we always pray from positions of weakness. But God knows and God understands what is best, even though all things are possible. So what we should do when we come to pray is put our weakness in God's strength, and our limited wisdom in God's infinite wisdom.

Prayer has not failed when we receive the answer 'No'. Probably James and John and Salome thought that it had. There was not likely to be much lightness in their step as they retreated from this encounter with Jesus. But was it a failure? When S. Paul prayed that his thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, might be removed, had his prayer failed because he received a negative answer? I do not think so! He was a much greater Christian because he had to endure that trouble, because as he himself came to see, it tempered the self-glorying to which he could so easily become prone. When God says 'No' to our prayer, or sometimes 'not yet', these are answers. In the course of time it becomes clear to us that they are the right answers, even though it may have been bitterly disappointing at the time. We must remember that God guides with closed doors as well as with open doors. We must learn to take the answers that come, and not call prayer a failure because what we want does not always happen.

What then is prayer? We have been looking at some of the things it is not, but what is the positive answer? It is putting ourselves, putting some situation, putting someone else's need, into God's hands and leaving it there. If only Salome had come to Jesus with James and John saying: Here we are, do with us what you will... what rejoicing there would have been in the heart of the Lord that these willing channels for the flow of his grace were being made available. I am sure that they did learn this as they grew in the knowledge and love of God. S. James was martyred for his faith – on the whim of one who found that such actions pleased his constituency. Salome had to bear the pain of this, but no doubt borne up by her own faith, and the prayers and love and support of her own Church family. We of course too can support each other in our pains and sorrow as we learn to stand at the place of humility in prayer – the only worthwhile place to be.



ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY S.Margaret's, Budapest
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'And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

These were the words of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist when she was visited by her kinswoman, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And Mary went on to give us those lovely words that many of us miss singing at Evensong: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Today the Church encourages us too to greet Mary and welcome her as the Mother of God. From early in our Christian history it was decided that 'Theotokos' (Christ Bearer or Mother of God) should be the title of honour of Mary. It was in fact the third Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church at Ephesus in 431 AD which issued that pronouncement, giving form to a long-held belief and practice. It also was in order to counter the heresy which was gaining some credence which stressed the humanity of Jesus at the expense of his divinity. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Church, held under Pope John XXIII, reaffirmed the spirit of the Third Ecumenical Council by pronouncing in 1964 the title of 'Mother of the Church' as being the most appropriate for Mary. This was to counter the excessive and inappropriate veneration that had developed over the centuries.

The Reformers of Europe and England, long before Pope John, had also endeavoured to counter the excesses which had grown in the Roman Church by that time. In Europe generally the break with the past was complete and completely new churches were established. In England the continuity with the early Church and traditional Catholic orthodoxy was maintained with the careful continuation of Apostolic ministry. Thus the Church of England is able to claim both Catholic and Reformed heritages. She is able to stand as equal with the Roman and Orthodox Churches as truly Catholic in the fullest sense of the word. Unfortunately though in England there were excesses of reforming zeal with Protestant mobs being incited to tear down many of the magnificent treasures of our ancient heritage. Even in this time of chaos though, some managed to keep some sense of balance. They managed, as one can see in the Book of Common Prayer, sometimes in semi-concealed ways, to keep the true faith alive. Thus, some of the festivals of Mary were retained in the Prayer Books of 1549 and 1662. During the 19^th century some people began, initially in Oxford, to look in greater depth at what the Prayer Book actually said. Consequently what had been maintained by High Churchmen through the past centuries began to emerge into the public arena. Again there was violence initiated by the opposition. Indeed it was so great that there were those like John Henry Newman who finally came to believe that the forces of Protestantism were just too strong within Anglicanism and turned to Rome. Many others became discouraged and followed him. The Roman Church in the 19^th century gained a great impetus in theology and faith in action from the sheer number of great Christians and great theologians who came from the Church of England, and who by merit rose to positions of prominence in the Roman hierarchy – at least two cardinals for a start. But enough remained to develop and proclaim the reformed Catholicism that changed the face of worldwide Anglicanism. Once again today though we are under attack from those who wish to bring the world's values into the Church rather than take the Church's values into the world.

But perhaps enough of history. Why do we respect and honour S. Mary the Virgin as the greatest of the saints? The answer lies in the answer to another question – what makes a Christian? The answer has to be love of God and neighbour which issues in obedience to God's word and call. The word of God came to Mary through the lips of the angel. Mary's response was: Be it unto me according to thy word.

God's work is dome through people – God's work today here will be done through us. The simple conclusion must be that if Mary had refused God then Jesus Christ could not have been born at that time and in that place. We have our salvation only because Mary loved God and was obedient to the will of her Father God. Mary, as we know from the NT record, maintained that devotion to God throughout her whole life. She accompanied Jesus in much of his ministry. She was at the foot of the cross at the crucifixion. She was committed by Jesus into the care of the Church in the person of John, the Apostle and Evangelist. It is probable that she lived near him, or even in his house, at Ephesus until her death. There is a pious belief, which we celebrate today, that at her death she was taken directly to heaven. This belief has some Biblical basis in Revelation chapter 12. But as this passage, like much of the book of Revelation, is capable of more than one interpretation, the Assumption must remain for Anglicans simply a permissible pious belief.

When the story of Mary is viewed objectively we can see why even many Protestants, as well as Anglicans, are coming to honour and respect Mary. We can see why even a respected Protestant theologian such as Max Thurian can say: Instead of being a cause of division among us, Christian reflection on the role of the Virgin Mary should be cause for rejoicing and a source of prayer. It is both theologically essential and spiritually profitable to consider the vocation of Mary with some freedom.

The traditional prayer known as 'Ave Maria' goes as follows: Hail Mary full of grace, for the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Most would not have any difficulty so far, but the second half opens up a whole new question:
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
We are now talking about prayer to and for the departed.
For me, believing as I do in the Communion of Saints and accepting the word that says we are 'surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses', accepting our place in the cosmos, and the cosmic struggle talked about by S. Paul, I have no difficulty in believing in my essential unity with all that is, which therefore makes such communication available to me.

At the same time I am an Anglican, which means that I do not try to insist on such beliefs for others. My function is to introduce people to God's love, and to the great richness and potential of our reformed Catholic heritage – it is then over to the individual believer to decide how much of this richness of belief and expression they wish to claim for their personal worship of God and richness of living.