Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, year B - Br. Andrew

Homily preached by Br Andrew e.f.o. at Springwood on Sunday 23rd August 2015

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Just frivolity:

I shall share with you something my mate Fr Dave Smith of Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill mentioned in his sermon last week which might clarify things in the end.

He said “Now, in case you’re not familiar with the different understandings that exist between the different Christian denominations when it comes to the Eucharist, the best way of remembering the distinctions, I think, was that given to me by my old mate, Tony Campolo (the great Baptist evangelist) who put it this way:

• In the Catholic understanding, the bread mysteriously becomes the body of Jesus and the blood mysteriously becomes His blood

• In the Anglican understanding, the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine, but to the person who consumes them in faith they become the body and blood of Jesus.

• In the Baptist understanding, he points out, the bread remains bread, and the wine magically becomes grape juice!”

At any rate, if you’re a good Catholic, you may well make an immediate association between this dialogue and the Eucharist – a sacrament that had its origin, you’ll remember, in the ‘Last Supper’ between Jesus and His disciples”

In this the fifth and final interlude of John’s Gospel within this part of the Markan year I intend to state the Non-conformist-middle point of view concerning the understanding of Jesus discourse at Capernaum.

While most agree that the event of the Feeding of the 5000 itself was representative of the first Holy Communion that is where the agreement ends. Protestant Commentators and Theologians such as Matthew Henry and Calvin, agree that Jesus’ teaching in the Synagogue was not about the Sacrament or Ordinance of Holy Communion / Eucharist. Therefore the true meaning intended by his words “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him.” John 6:56 are of a Spiritual nature and the instruction concerning His Body and Blood is to be understood figuratively.

Note there is no mention of wine.

Calvin commented that this discourse doesn’t relate to the Lord's Supper, but to the perpetual communication of the flesh of Christ, ["De la chair de Christ."] which we obtain apart from the use of the Lord's Supper. Communion alone does not grant us the Eternal life Jesus speaks of unless those that do so also follow His Words. It has been said by the theologians that they are saved who do not receive the Holy Communion and they are lost with it because it is not in the slavish keeping of the Holy Communion by which we are saved but in participating in this perpetual Communication of the flesh of Christ.

Matthew Poole writes, quote  “Feeding is to be meant believing in him; only here is a clearer discovery than was there in John 3:16-18, of the true object of that faith which justifies, namely a Christ crucified, for that is signified by the flesh and blood mentioned.”, end quote. While Albert Barnes draws our attention to the meaning ‘dining together’, had among the Jews, it was expressive of sharing in or partaking of the privileges of friendship.  The happiness of heaven and all spiritual blessings are often represented under this image, see Luke 14:15, “One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!’”

Poole also comments on the terrible and awful notion that Jesus intended us to take his words literally and speaks disparagingly of the Council of Trent and goes on to comment that the situation demanded Jesus use the figure of eating and drinking because that was the subject of the  discourse; because the Jews were very proud of the fact that their fathers had eaten manna; and because, Jesus had said that he was the bread of life, it was natural and easy, especially in the language i.e. the specific words,  which he used, to carry out the illustration, and say that bread must be eaten in order to be of any use in supporting and saving men.

At the murmuring of his disciples  at such ‘hard sayings’ Jesus asks them “Does this cause you to stumble what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” John 6:62, a change of subject?

No, far from it, an illustration that points to the following year when Jesus would be crucified, dead and buried, rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. Meyer in his original language commentary uses these words “Will not this impending sight serve to offend you still more” for “Does this cause you to stumble” and says of it that he whom they believe to be mortal to Ascend into heaven is just as preposterous as literally and actually eating his flesh and drinking his blood. But for those future readers who have formed erroneous or heretical Eucharistic conceptions who are already aware that Jesus is God –They are to understand that their practices and understandings have gotten out of hand because the Son of Man has ascended in his flesh and is not here to be feasted upon.

The crux of this communication Jesus is making both to those in the Synagogue and to us is that Jesus intends all that he has taught them to be understood in the Spiritual context 6;63 “ It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.”

When we and John’s readers, contemplate the spirit we are drawn past the Ascension to Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is given but  John’s subjects remain ignorant indifferent or curious and eager to understand. When those who partake in the perpetual communicating of the flesh of Christ have received this Spirit they will be taught by the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father has sent in the name of Jesus, who will teach them all things and will remind them of everything Jesus had said to them. They will find a deeper meaning than the carnal one as they compare manna from heaven and the Ascension of the Son of Man and will know that Jesus did not intend that the Holy Communion or the Communicating of the Flesh of Christ to be carnal but spiritual.

Any mother will tell you of the amazing experience of ‘quickening’ when she begins to know  her child is truly alive and developing.

This quickening by the Spirit is what brings us to Spiritual birth and keeps us alive in Christ if we “obey his word we will never see death." John 8:51

And "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” John 14:23

Next verse

But this is conditional on a person being called to perpetual communication of the flesh of Christ (to faith) by the Father for we do not choose God but he chooses us. For faith in Christ is the gift of God, and coming to him, is due to efficacious grace, and is not the practice of man's power and free will. It is truly the will of the Father that all who see Jesus and believe in him may have eternal life; and he will raise them up on the last day. John 6:40

From the pulpit commentary - Christ does not give the hunger, but the bread. From the beginning he saw the existence of the appetite after the bread which he came to bequeath. John 6:40

St Peter gives us the climax “We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  After declaring there is nowhere else to go.

This Jesus in whom we believe is the very Son of God without whom we can live and so we feed upon Him in our hearts and by this we mean the continual communication between Him and His Body of all he is and has been to us while in the flesh and all he is now in Heaven.

And we keep his Holy ordinance as the New Covenant in His Blood because he asked us to but before hand or certainly at some time we need to harken to the voice of the Father and be led by him through sanctifying Grace into the eternal communication of love between  ourselves and Christ, of the communication of his flesh. United to His Body through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost.Yr B.-Br. Simeon

Homily preached by Br. Simeon e.f.o. at Springwood on Sunday 12^th July 2015

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Yr. 

Gospel:  Mark 6: 14-29

The death of John the Baptiser:

"Herod had sent men who arrested John, bound him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.”

A man named Jack was walking along a steep cliff one day, when he accidentally got too close to the edge and fell. On the way down he grabbed a branch, which temporarily stopped his fall. He looked down and to his horror saw that the canyon fell straight down for more than a thousand feet.

He couldn't hang onto the branch forever, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep wall of the cliff. So Jack began yelling for help, hoping that someone passing by would hear him and lower a rope or something.

HELP! HELP! Is anyone up there? "HELP!"

He yelled for a long time, but no one heard him. He was about to give up when he heard a voice. Jack, Jack. Can you hear me?"   "Yes, yes! I can hear you. I'm down here!"

"I can see you, Jack. Are you all right?"  "Yes, but who are you, and where are you?

"I am the Lord, Jack. I'm everywhere."   "The Lord? You mean, GOD?"

"That's Me."
"God, please help me! I promise if, you'll get me down from here, I'll stop sinning. I'll be a really good person. I'll serve You for the rest of my life."

"Easy on the promises, Jack. Let's get you off from there; then we can talk."
 "Now, here's what I want you to do. Listen carefully."  "I'll do anything, Lord. Just tell me what to do."

"Okay. Let go of the branch.""What?" "I said, let go of the branch. Just trust Me. Let go."  There was a long silence.

Finally Jack yelled, "HELP! HELP! IS ANYONE ELSE UP THERE?"

In the Name of God, +Father, +Son and +Holy Spirit. Amen.

This  story of today's Gospel reading, is outside the account of Jesus’ own death, the most horrific stories in the Gospels.

Between Jesus’ sending off the Twelve on their first missionary journey and their return, Mark inserts the story of John the Baptiser’s death. At first, this narrative seems out of place – but the account of John’s death serves as an important benchmark for understanding the meaning of discipleship and the resurrection.

The works that Jesus and the Twelve are performing have reached the ears of King Herod himself.  Rumours have been circulating that the Baptiser has been raised from the dead.   Mark recounts the details of John’s martyrdom and burial which make clear that a new chapter of human history begins in Jesus, that God has set in motion a re-creation of humanity in his Son, that the long-awaited but little understood reign of God has begun.  John is the precursor of the Christ event, not the event himself.

In Mark’s Gospel, John’s death foreshadows the death of Jesus (just as John’s appearance at the beginning of the Gospel sets the stage for Jesus’ coming on the scene).  As John pays the ultimate price for “speaking truth to power,” Jesus will give his life for the Gospel he has preached.  A similar convergence of fear, cowardice, hatred and manipulation that leads to John's beheading will end in Jesus’ crucifixion.

Not lost in Mark’s narrative is the reality that discipleship/prophecy exacts a heavy price.  But God promises that he will raise up the life of his martyred prophet/disciple in the fullness of his reign.

Ridicule, isolation, rejection, even death, can be required of every one – even us – for taking seriously God's call to be his prophets and the work of discipleship.

We often react to the Baptisers in our midst as Herod does: We know in our deepest being that they speak wisdom and justice and we desperately want to embrace it in our lives — but when their words become too demanding and too challenging, when they require of us a conversion that is well beyond our comfort zone, when their call

subjects us to ridicule or isolation, then we find some way to justify doing away with them. Authentic faith, belief that means anything, requires the would-be disciple of Jesus to live the Word we have heard and seen, regardless of the cost.

Like Herodias, we hold grudges; we keep score; we remember who slights us and we wait for the right moment to get back at them.  The grudges we keep seldom have the tragic consequences of Herodias, who manipulates her own daughter’s charms and

her husband’s arrogant behaviour to destroy John the Baptist — but we’ve let our anger divide our families, we’ve refused to surrender our need for vengeance for the  

sake of reconciliation, we’ve held on to our resentments until we got our satisfaction.

But God’s grace enables us to put aside our disappointments and let go of our anger (however justified) in order to make reconciliation possible, to speak God’s Word of justice, to be the means of peace in our homes and communities.

God’s reign continues to be established in our own Jerusalem’s and Nazareth’s because of the prophetic proclamation of the Baptisers and Apostles and all who have taken on, with integrity and conviction, the role of prophet of the God of life and love in our own time and place.

Amen.

SUNDAY OF THE PASSION (Palm Sunday) Yr B. - Br. Simeon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Simeon at Blaxland on Sunday 29th March 2015

Sunday 29^th March 2015:  SUNDAY OF THE PASSION (Palm Sunday) Yr B.

Gospel:  Mark 14:1-15:27.

Lord, as we remember how Christ the King entered Jerusalem to the sound of joyful shouts, increase our faith and listen to our prayers, so that we may praise you every day, by living always in him. For he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

A young girl became lost in down town London, England. She was from Charing Cross, a section of that great metropolis. She came upon a London policeman, who asked her if she was lost. When he offered to help her find her way home, she replied, “If I can get to the Cross, I can make my way home.” The Cross is the way home to God.

Jesus’ entry into the holy city and his “cleansing” of the temple with the demand that it be a “house of prayer for all people” will bring his clash with the ruling class to a head. In his account of the Passion, Mark portrays the anguish of Jesus who has been totally abandoned by friends and disciples.  Mark’s Jesus is resigned to his fate. He makes no response to Judas when he betrays him nor to Pilate during his interrogation (and Pilate makes no effort to save him, as the procurator does in the other three Gospels).  As he does throughout his Gospel, Mark pointedly portrays the utter of failure of the disciples to provide any assistance or support to Jesus or to even understand what is happening.  The “last” disciple who flees naked into the night when Jesus is arrested is a powerful symbol in Mark’s Gospel of the disciples who left family and friends behind to follow Jesus now leave everything behind to get away from him.

There is a certain incongruity about today’s Palm Sunday liturgy.  In Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions  -- we carry palm branches and echo the Hosannas (from the Hebrew “God save [us]”) shouted by the people of Jerusalem as Jesus enters the city.  But Matthew’s account of the Passion confronts us with the cruelty, injustice and selfishness that lead to the crucifixion of Jesus.  We welcome the Christ of victory, the Christ of Palm Sunday -- but we turn away from the Christ of suffering and of the poor, the Christ of Good Friday.  These branches of palm are symbols of that incongruity that often exists between the faith we profess on our lips and the faith we profess in our lives.

In his account of the Passion, Mark portrays a Jesus who has been totally abandoned by his disciples and friends.  There is no one to defend him, to support him, to speak for him.  He endures such a cruel and unjust death alone.  Yet, amid the darkness, a  light glimmers:   The Passion of Jesus should be a reason for hope and a moment of grace for all of us as we seek the reign of God in our own lives -- however lonely and painful our search may be.

The Gospel calls us to take on what Paul calls the “attitude of Christ Jesus” (Reading 1) in his passion and death: to “empty” ourselves of our own interests, fears and needs for the sake of others; to realise how our actions affect them and how our moral and ethical decisions impact the common good; to reach out to heal the hurt and comfort the despairing around us despite our own betrayal; to carry on, with joy and in hope, despite rejection, humiliation and suffering.

In our remembering the events of Holy Week -- from the upper room to Gethsemani, from Pilate’s bench to Golgotha, from the cross to the empty tomb -- Jesus will turn our world and its value system upside down: true authority is found in dedicated service and generosity to others; greatness is centred in humility; the just and loving will be exalted by God in God's time.

Today’s liturgy confronts us with the reality of the cross of Christ:  By the cross, we are reconciled to God; by the cross, our lives are transformed in the perfect love of Christ; by the cross, Jesus’ spirit of humility and compassion become a force of hope and re-creation for our desperate world.

Amen.