13th Sunday after Pentecost - Br. Simeon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br Simeon at Winmalee

 on

Sunday 7^th September 2014:  

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

Gospel: Mt 18: 15-20

 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone . . . If he does not listen, take two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’  If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church . . .   “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

May the words I speak be those You want spoken, may the words we hear be those You want heard, may we live to Your glory.  Amen.

What's the best way to repair a damaged relationship? Jesus offers his disciples spiritual freedom and power for restoring broken or injured relationships. Jesus makes clear that his followers should not tolerate a breach in relationships among themselves. Sin must be confronted and help must be offered to restore a damaged relationship. When relationships between brothers and sisters in the Lord are damaged, then we must spare no effort to help the brother or sister at fault to see their error and to get things right again.

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on Jesus' instruction:

If someone has done you injury and you have suffered, what should be done? You have heard the answer already in today’s scripture: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” If you fail to do so, you are worse than he is. He has done someone harm, and by doing harm he has stricken himself with a grievous wound. Will you then completely disregard your brother’s wound? Will you simply watch him stumble and fall down? Will you disregard his predicament? If so, you are worse in your silence than he in his abuse. Therefore, when any one sins against us, let us take great care, but not merely for ourselves. For it is a glorious thing to forget injuries. Just set aside your own injury, but do not neglect your brother’s wound. Therefore “go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,” intent upon his amendment but sparing his sense of shame. For it might happen that through defensiveness he will begin to justify his sin, and so you will have inadvertently nudged him still closer toward the very behaviour you desire to amend. Therefore “tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother,” because he might have been lost, had you not spoken with him.

What can we learn from this passage about how to mend a damaged relationship? If you feel you have been wronged by someone, Jesus says the first step is to speak directly but privately to the individual who has done the harm. One of the worst things we can do is brood over our grievance. This can poison the mind and heart and make it more difficult to go directly to the person who caused the damage. If we truly want to settle a difference between someone, we need to do it face to face. If this fails in its purpose, then the second step is to bring another person or persons, someone who is wise and gracious rather than someone who is hot-tempered or judgemental.

The goal is not so much to put the offender on trial, but to persuade the offender to see the wrong and to be reconciled. And if this fails, then we must still not give up, but seek the help of the Christian community. Note the emphasis here is on restoring a broken relationship by seeking the help of other Christians who hopefully will pray and seek a solution for reconciliation based on Christian love and wisdom, rather than relying on force or threat of legal action, such as a lawsuit.

Lastly, if even the Christian community fails to bring about reconciliation, what must we do? Jesus seems to say that we have the right to abandon stubborn and obdurate offenders and treat them like social outcasts. The tax-collectors and Gentiles were regarded as "unclean" by the religious-minded Jews.  However we know from the gospel accounts that Jesus often had fellowship with tax-collectors, ate with them, and even praised them at times!

Jesus refuses no one who is ready to receive pardon, healing, and restoration. The call to accountability is inevitable and we can't escape it, both in this life and at the day of judgement when the Lord Jesus will return. But while we have the opportunity, we must not give up on stubborn offenders, but, instead make every effort to win them with the grace and power of God's healing love and wisdom.

As we leave this place today, I leave this with you to ponder; “do you tolerate broken relationships or do you seek to repair them as God gives you the opportunity to mend and restore what is broken”?

Amen.

8th Sunday after Pentecost - Br. Simeon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Simeon at Winmalee on  Sunday 3^rd August 2014:    

8TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.

Gospel:   Matthew 14: 13-21

Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself . . .
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, Jesus said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

This Gospel reading is one in which we can use our imaginations of this setting of the feeding of the five thousand. Can you possibly imagine, being in the midst of Jesus and his disciples and hearing Jesus say to them “ you feed them”! “Excuse me, you said what.... how, by what means Lord, we have nothing and certainly nothing that will feed this amount of people, all we have is five loaves and two fish”.  Just imagine as you read this passage, and through your imagination  see Jesus taking the five loaves and the two fish, and with  your own eyes, seeing the miracle that take place, that all these folk have been fed, awesome! Through this act of Jesus, we have the second act as the Eucharist, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

The multiplication of the loaves and fish is the only one of Jesus’ miracles recorded in all four Gospels. The early Christian community especially cherished this story because they saw this event as anticipating the Eucharist and the final banquet in the kingdom of God.

This miracle also has strong roots in the First Testament.  For the peoples of both the First and New Testament, the image of a great banquet was an important visualisation of the reign of God: the gifts of the land were unmistakable signs of their God’s great Providence; the Messiah’s coming was often portrayed as a great banquet with choice food and wines.

The miracle of the loaves and fishes is a clear affirmation in God's providence.  Just as the merciful God feeds the wandering Israelites with manna in the desert, Jesus, “his heart moved with pity,” feeds the crowds who have come to hear him.

In Matthew’s account, Jesus acts out of his great compassion on the crowds. First, he challenges the disciples to give what they have -- five loaves and two fish.  Then he performs the four-fold action that prefigures the Eucharist:

Jesus takes, blesses, breaks and gives the bread and fish to the assembled multitude, making of them a community of the Lord's banquet.

More astounding than Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand is Jesus’ transforming them into a community, a community who becomes one in their need, one in the bread they share, one in the love of Christ who has brought them together.

We, too, can perform wonders in our own time and place by imitating the four “Eucharistic verbs of Jesus: to take humbly and generously from what we have been given by God, to ask His blessing on it, to break by offering it to others in God’s love, to give with joy-filled gratitude to the God who has blessed us with so much.

The bread of the Eucharist, which we share together in charity and faith, today, is a prelude to the great banquet of the next world to which our loving Father invites us.

Christ calls us to become a Eucharistic people: to become the Eucharist we have received.

Amen.

Baptism of the Lord - 2nd sunday after Epiphany-Br Andrew

St- Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Holy Redeemer

In the care of the Ecumenical Franciscan Order

Homily, 12th January 2014 First Sunday after Epiphany

The Baptism of the Lord Year A, Rev Br. Andrew EFO

 Matthew 3:13-17

Jessica, on more than one occasion has told me the story of her grandfather taking a shower. In his old age he was a wily old man and didn’t often do what he didn’t want to do.

They would send him into the shower and hear the water running and after a suitable interval he would reappear dressed in his PJ’s ready for bed. Yet not really as freshly clean as one would hope after showering.

So one day you know who peered through the key hole to see good old granddad running the shower and standing safely out of the way of the water.

Henceforth he had to be supervised!

Though we find the record of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan in each of the Gospels, each are recorded differently according to the congregation to which they were addressed.

Matthew’s Gospel was addressed to a Congregation caught in the confusion of post Jerusalem Judaism, a group of Jewish Christians, in Northern Galilee or Syria who were feeling the oppression of the new Judaism controlled by the Rabbinic Pharisees.

Mostly Greek speaking Jewish Christians (it has been noted that Matthew quotes the Septuagint) with perhaps a few Syrian Christians, Matthew is at pains to place his community squarely within its Jewish heritage, everything he writes is to that end. Matthew is determined to obliterate the confusion generated by the cruel and overbearing Pharisees and their manner of keeping Torah and replace it with the softer middle road of Jesus, who came not to do away with the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them.

Matthew wanted to show them that Jesus is one of THEM!

In spite of what mainstream Church tells small communities like us; Jesus is one of US too!

This is the first time we meet the adult Jesus and he came, just as every penitent did, to the Jordan to be baptised by John for the remission of sins. Both Matthew and Mark indicate that Jesus came down from Galilee to be baptised, we might assume then, that many would recognise him as Joseph and Mary’s son and think nothing other than that he was joining them in turning his life around in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

Some, or many, would know him as John’s cousin – Jesus wasn’t the total stranger he is sometimes made out to be. John certainly recognised Jesus as you would hope he would, he also knew who Jesus was and tried to change his mind.

“But John would have hindered him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” (3:13, 14. WEB)

Listen to what Jesus says to John “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfil all righteousness.” V 15

So what does it mean to fulfil all righteousness and in the context of Matthew’s Community? In the context of our Community?

The Jewish Christians in Matthews Community were very familiar with the concept of the liturgical use of water as in Ezekiel 36:25 where God says “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean.” In 2 Kings 5 we read of the use of total immersion in water to cure Naaman’s Leprosy so Matthew’s Jewish Christians understood the Baptism of John to bring both Spiritual and bodily healing.

Jesus, the Messiah of God began his ministry in the same manner as they began their lives as Christians through the waters of Baptism, in his case they were the waters of that change of heart which, for us, precedes the Baptism of Jesus that, for those early Christians, was yet to come.

Through the fulfilling of righteousness Jesus is acclaimed by his Father in Heaven and anointed by the Holy Spirit and proclaimed the beloved Son of God in whom God is most pleased.

In our context the fulfilling of Righteousness, is I believe to make Jesus known again as he really is someone who knew life as a human being, began life just as we did and lived his life for others, and ultimately died for them.

Unafraid of the injustices within society and the church we try to each of our ability to make Him alive and truly human once more, so that we might then show that he is also the beloved Son of God in whom God is well pleased.

One Body One Lord of All

St- Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Holy Redeemer

An ECCA Parish

In the care of the Ecumenical Franciscan Order

Homily, 19th January 2014 Second Sunday after Epiphany

Br. Andrew EFO

John 1:29-42

Jesus returns to the Jordan

It was just last week that we heard in Matthew’s gospel how Jesus came to the river Jordan to be baptised; how reluctant John was to baptize him; how the heavens opened and John saw the Spirit descend upon Jesus and remain upon him.

Another visit to the river Jordan introduces us to three of Jesus’ early disciples, including the Author of this Gospel and from the Reading from Isaiah and Psalm 40 we understand who this Jesus is that is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world.

Who is this Jesus?

Isaiah 49-

• He is one called from the womb, whose name was given in his mother’s womb.
• · His mouth is like a sharp sword dividing the marrow from the bone-
• · He is a sharpened arrow close in the quiver and is held safe in the palm of God’s hand.
• ·In the Lord’s eyes He is honourable and is called to gather the remnant of Jacob and the preserved of Israel, to be a light to the nations, that he may be the Salvation of the Lord to the end of the earth.

Why did he come?

To die for the individual and all Nations

Psalm 40, written by king David is one of the Messianic Psalms we Christians associate with the both the triumph and the suffering of Jesus, St Francis makes use of it in the Psalm he wrote for Compline of Maunday Thursday.

And so let it speak:
11 b Don’t withhold your tender mercies from me, LORD. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me.

12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.

13 Be pleased, LORD, to deliver me. Hurry to help me, LORD.

14 Let them be disappointed and confounded together who seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. (Psalm 40:11b-14 WEB)

Where do you live? Come and see!

At this the two leave the Baptizer to follow Jesus, they want to know where he lives.

Andrew, however is not ready just to come and see until he has gone to fetch his brother Simon to tell him that they had found the Messiah. As soon as Jesus sets eyes on Simon he says your name is Simon son of Jonah and you shall be called Peter or Cephas which means Rock.

As we journey through the life of Jesus we will come to realise that Jesus changes the names of those whom he has destined to do great or special things. Andrew, Peter and the other disciple stayed with Jesus until the 10^th hour, about 4.00pm. Then they left and the next day Jesus will go to find Phillip.

As we now know Peter was the rock upon which Jesus established the Church, so solidly that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. In these rocky times when so many of us have had to leave the mainstream Church to find succour in smaller Congregations  it is important to mark the experiences of the early church communities for now we are returned to be like them and.

Some twenty or so years after Jesus returned to heaven Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church who await Jesus return to earth, the subject is sectarianism, already the Church is beginning to fracture as groups rise up in favour of the human being who baptised them rather than to the one in whose name they were baptized.

In this new Community of Christ the Redeemer, a non-denominational Christian community seeking to have the courage to open the door to everyone and nurture the belief of everyone to seek the Jesus who was, whom we, too may come and see.

Br Andrew