The young man in white linen – and the first Easter sermon

David Herbert2 Comments

This sermon was prepared for a group of churches coming together to celebrate Easter. The gospel is the ending of Mark’s gospel (16:1-8 (printed below))- the last spoken words being the first Easter sermon.

March 31st 2024

This is how Mark’s gospel ends – with three women (call them the spice girls!) fleeing from the tomb, seized by terror and amazement, saying nothing to anyone because they were afraid. There is nothing else. 

People have wondered about this ending. Some have said that we’ve lost the ending. Some have tried to change the ending: we can see when we look in the print versions of our Bibles. Those false endings attempt to correct what they see missing but are so out of character of Mark’s gospel that they have been dismissed by one commentator as “betrayals”. 

They’re also misleading – they take our eye off the ending of Mark’s gospel. Instead of seeing a line drawn under the fear of those three women, our eye is taken elsewhere. If only we could take scissors to those false endings, then our eyes would be taken by what’s there in Mark’s ending, not by what is missing.

What’s there for us to see? There are three women. Mark names them. They are Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Salome. And there’s a young man. He plays the lead part. I’ve never paid any attention to him before – my apologies to him. There is no one else.

(There is the usual power dynamic with the young mansplaining to the women – but let’s not get distracted by that, I say mansplainingly!). Mark wants us to see the interplay between them to finish the gospel. 

So, the young man. He’s wearing white linen. Seeing that gives us a smell. There is a perfume called White Linen – a costly fragrance. According to the Estee Lauder website, White Linen captures the very essence of a perfect day: early Spring breezes tinged with the fragrance of fresh flowers and endless blue sky. Blissful. It smells like Easter!

In my mind I’ve called this sermon White Linen because the threads of that white linen weave themselves through Mark’s gospel and on into our own lives. 

We’re going in deep this morning – we have to to bring this gospel to life. I hope you will bear with me in following the threads of this white linen worn by the young man.

The young man is the last person with anything to say in Mark’s gospel. (The women are too afraid to speak.) We’ll look at those words later.

I wonder where he got the linen from. Could it be the grave clothes left behind by Jesus? And where did Jesus get the white linen from? 

Mark tells us that Joseph of Aramathea (one of the ruling council and authorities responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion) bound Jesus’ body in linen refusing him the proper burial rites so that they could bury him in a hurry before the sabbath. Is the young man wearing the linen cloth abandoned by the risen Jesus who was no longer there?

And where did Joseph of Aramathea get the cloth from? Well, Mark tells us that when Jesus was arrested all his followers “deserted him and fled”. Mark singles out from among  them “a certain young man”. “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.”

Is this the same young man to whom Mark gives the last words of his gospel? Is this the same young man the women find? And if so, what happened to the linen cloth that he ran off naked without? Was that what the crowd, with their swords and clubs got hold of? And is that what they gave Joseph to bind Jesus in death when they sealed him in the tomb?

You might think rightly that this linen cloth would be anything but white. It would have been dirty with  dust and sweat – and it passed into the grubby hands of the authorities. But Mark tells us about Jesus’ transfiguration earlier in his gospel, when his own clothes became dazzling white such as noone on earth could bleach them. (9:3)

Do you see the connection? If Jesus’s clothes became dazzling white at his transfiguration, why not at his resurrection? 

So we see the young man in white linen in the intentional ending of Mark’s gospel. 

He is sat at the right hand of the empty tomb. That’s where Mark places him for our imagination to feast on – the seat at the right hand being the seat of power. He’s become the person of power for the church Mark is writing his gospel for. Even though, (even if), this is the same young man who three days earlier was last seen fleeing – deserting Jesus along with all the others, in this last scene of Mark’s gospel, he is highlighted as seated in the seat of power at the scene of glory.

He stands for all those who flee, including those who leave everything behind, even going naked. He stands for the disciples who failed and betrayed Jesus. He stands for those too frightened to speak. 

Mark gives his last spoken words to the young man. They are a challenge and invitation to the frightened, fleeing, failing friends of Jesus to follow again. He says: “Do not be alarmed: you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

And after that there is not a single word spoken. In spite of the young man’s instruction, “Go, tell”, all there is is a telling silence, and the only sound is the sound of fear. The women, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

The ending of Mark’s gospel is abrupt. The other gospel writers detail resurrection appearances in contrast to Mark, who in just a few words, the last words of the young man, promises his followers that they will see him if they follow him. He says “He is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him.” He is going ahead of those who follow. They will see him in Galilee – down to earth, not pie in the sky.

I wonder who the young man is. I wonder if the young man also stands for the church. When the church shares the young man’s words, identifying Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, who has been raised and who goes before us, who we follow and often fail. Is Mark picturing the church, in the form of the young man, at the right hand of the tomb as the power of God for as long as we say to one another, “Go. Tell. Follow.”

Is that the white linen churches are bedecked with? Is the dazzling white linen on the altar the cloth that draped the young man, that was first snatched from him when he fled naked, that was picked up by the powers that be and used to bind the body of Jesus?

Is what the young man said to the women also intended for us? Surely so. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him.” Galilee was their home. Galilee was where they had come from. Galilee was the place they were troubled, impoverished, exploited and where life was never easy. According to the young man that’s where Jesus headed – to their homes, to their work, to their villages, to their neighbours, to their enemies.  There they would see him if they followed him – not anywhere else.

Galilee isn’t our home. But if we trust the gospel which is Mark’s, we can surely trust that the risen Jesus goes before us to the places where we are troubled, impoverished and exploited, to our workplaces, to our street corners, to our shelters. We will see him there, only ever there, only ever down to earth.

The ending of Mark’s gospel raises so many questions. They’re glorious questions.

But one thing is for sure. That is that Jesus won’t be wearing white linen. He shed that at the tomb for the young man who had failed and fled, and for the women who failed to tell, for all of us who fail and yet still want to follow – and for the church – to pick up the threads. Jerusalem and the tomb was never Jesus’ final destination. He went ahead to Galilee inviting followers. His destination is our everyday. We will find him there, in the rest of our lives, if we follow. Promise.

Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

PS I am grateful for the insights of Ched Myers in his commentary on Mark’s gospel, Binding the Strong Man, and for insights from Alan, Jeanette, Karen and Lesley.

Seeing the wood for the trees – something for Palm Sunday

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Here’s a sermon with donkeys, trees and their glad hosannas for two churches in the heart of Warwickshire countryside. We used Mark 11:1-11 and Philippians 2:5-11 as our readings.

March 24th 2024

The Cubbington Pear, European Tree of the Year 2015

They announced the winner of the European Tree of the Year this week. The winner is a Polish Beech called Heart of the Garden. It’s the third year in a row that a Polish tree has won. The UK Tree of the Year is a Sweet Chestnut in Acton Park in Wrexham. The Cubbington Pear won the award in 2015.

The Heart of the Garden took me all the way back to the tree at the heart of the Garden of Eden to the pomegranate tree we know as the Tree of Life where we made the choice of listening to one another, making our own decisions, breaking free and breaking bad in the same moment. In Holy Week we follow a carpenter to a cross made from a broken tree – a tree they broke to break Jesus. That tree is for us the Tree of Life. That’s the tree we gather round. It is the Tree of the Year all our years. It is where we meet God, hear him, and learn the practice of obedience in following him.

We can trace the roots of the tree broken for Jesus to the tree grown for us, the tree at the heart of the garden. Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem traces that route.

It begins with temptation. When Jesus told his followers that he must go to Jerusalem and will face suffering, Peter took him aside and rebuked him suggesting that there was an easier way of life for Jesus. Jesus dismissed this temptation of Peter in the same way he’d dismissed the temptations he faced in the wilderness. He used the same words to Peter as he had to the other tempter – “get behind me Satan”.

The journey to Jerusalem goes from the tree at the heart of the garden, all the way to the tree that was broken, bruised and cut for the crucifixion of the one they wanted to break, bruise and cut. Trees play their part all the way. Branches from palm trees cheer him on his way to the olives of the Garden of Gethsemane to the greatest of all tests of obedience as he faced up to his betrayal, arrest and murder. The journey to Jerusalem takes us from the first sense of human shame all the way to the final sense of divine glory, when, in the words of Isaiah, the mountains and hills will burst into song and the trees of the field will clap their hands.

The journey to Jerusalem goes from the wilderness of temptation to the heart of power, to the religious and political capital. Jesus moves from the edge, from the margins to the centre. Hosannas ring in his ears. Palms are waving, clapping their hands.

We left last week’s gospel with the promise that “Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out”. (John 12:20-33) That is what the Hosannas are about. That’s the reason for the palm waving. That’s the point of the donkey.

Hosanna is a cry for help from those who need helping. It means “help, I pray”, or “save us, I pray”. It’s a cry as old as time, reverberating from the tree at the heart of the garden of Eden, that weeping pomegranate. It’s the sound of despair. But it’s also the sound of jubilation for those who realise that the one who is able to help and save is with them. They are seeing the ruler of this world being driven out. They have been the victims of those who have made them struggle, who have made them poor and who have made them suffer. They clap their hands. They wave their palms. Celebration is in the air. Their help is in the name of the one who comes riding a donkey.

How absurd.

How absurd to have a king on a donkey.

Donkeys are known as beasts of burden and carry those burdens with patient determination. This donkey carried the one who himself had burdened himself with the world and was bearing it with patient suffering. Those who waved their palms could see that. They could see in the absurdity a different sort of power – the power of humility which would drive out the ruler of this world.

They had a picture in their minds, drawn for them by Zechariah the prophet. Here’s what Zechariah envisaged:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See your king comes to you, righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.

Zechariah 9:9-10

You get the picture. It’s the one who rides the donkey against the riders of chariots and those who sit on their high horses – and the humble donkey wins. Jesus drew on the faith of the Psalms. He will have known Psalm 147 – where God’s delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner. The Lord takes pleasure in those who hope in his steadfast love, like those whgo shout “Hosanna!”

Many rulers of this world will have come and gone in Jerusalem invading with their war horses. The people of Jerusalem will have been used to the sight of the chariots used by their Roman occupiers and overrulers. And, here on a donkey, is the peasant teacher who walks alongside the poor as their helper and deliverer, driving out the rulers of their world. The donkey highlights Jesus’ affrontery and the scorn he pours on those who use their power to exploit and oppress others.

We may think that the way our gospel ends this morning is a bit of an anticlimax. Mark says, Jesus went into Jerusalem. He went into the temple, looked around at everything, as it was already late and then went away again. But he comes back later in the week with his disciples. While they are awestruck by the magnificence of the Temple, particularly the wonderful stonework (Mark 13:1-2), Jesus is condemning the Temple and its rulers for turning the house of prayer for all nations into a den of thieves. Not one stone would be left standing on another as the rulers of that world would be driven out.

The rulers Jesus has in his sights are not those who run their affairs with love and compassion. He would have been delighted if he had found the temple was being run so that it was truly of place of prayer for all nations.

The rulers he wants to drive out are the same ones all those who shout “Hosanna” want out. Those who are self-serving, cruel, exploitative and oppressive. They are the tyrants and dictators – not just those in government, or with empires, but all those who abuse their power becoming bullies in the playground, tyrants in the workplace and violent abusers in their homes.

Jesus plodded into Jerusalem, at the same pace as those he walked alongside, their hosannas ringing in his ears. Just being on the back of the donkey was like a parody sketch through which Jesus poured scorn on the rulers of this world. It is an insult to them high and mighty and an assault on their fortifications and defences. Of course, they are going to fight back, and they did get their own back. They were able to turn the weapons of betrayal and the force of empire on Jesus, manipulating the crowd into calling for his crucifixion.

This is how hope arrives. It plods alongside the slowest, the weakest, the last and the least. It is as David to Goliath. It is an absurd way. It is the way of the cross. It is the way of love. It is the way the rulers of this world are driven out and the just and gentle rule of God begins. It is the way the “Hosannas” of desparation become the “Hosannas” of joyous celebration. Our help is in the name of the Lord (Psalm 124:8). The Lord is here. His spirit is with us.

The fight goes on – not on horseback, but on donkeyback. With our palms we join the trees of the field as they clap their hands and we sing our hosannas.

Our second reading, Philippians 2:5-11 explains how we believe the just and gentle rule of God begins:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Mark 11:1-11

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately.”’

They went away and found a cold tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 

Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Inspired by love and anger – a sermon for Passion Sunday

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A reflection on our own passion (or lack of passion) for Passion Sunday. The readings (Jeremiah 31:31-34 and John 12:20-33) are below. It’s St Patrick’s Day, 2024, and we’re in two churches in the heart of England, in rural Warwickshire. The quotes from Cole Arthur Riley are from her book, Black Liturgies.

Today is known as Passion Sunday. 

I have given this sermon a title – Inspired by love and anger. They are words of a hymn from two members of the Iona Community, John Bell and Graham Maule. (Hear it sung here)

The author of our first reading, Jeremiah was inspired by love and anger to hope in hopeless times when his people had lost everything – their home, their land, their institutions and their identity. At great cost to himself, he reiterates the promise of God to make himself known in a way that people could relate to. They would know God by heart, not by head and teaching or by law and obedience. He promises to write his law (or rule) in the heart of his people – the rule of God, self-imposed by God, the only rule of God, that he will only love, and that we will only know him in his love – in his passion. From that point the relationship between God and his people becomes an affair of the heart – where all our passions stir.

Jesus has this rule of God in his heart, living his life with this rule, and passionate for this rule of God’s love to be the rule of life on earth, just as it is in heaven. He taught his followers to make that our constant prayer. Thy kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven.

And as he resisted the temptations of an easier life so he insisted that we who are his followers should follow him in similar all-consuming passion, resisting the temptations of an easier life, to passionately engage with the rule of God for our lives – that rule being, only love.

Normally, on Passion Sunday, we would focus on Jesus’s passion without questioning our own. Jesus’ passion is well known. 

But what of our own passion? Are we passionate? Are we inspired by love and anger? Are we passionate for the kingdom of God, in the way of Jesus? Are we passionate for, and compassionate with those who are always counted first in the kingdom of God who  as a rule in the world are counted last or least, or not counted at all and get lost and disappear? The rule of God is that they come first.

Or are we too preoccupied and too easily distracted? Or, are our passions just about our selves? Or, has our passion become too domesticated so that our passion stays at home never reaching beyond our front doors?

Or have we been worn down and out by a hopelessness leading us to believe that there is no point in our passion because we can’t make any difference or we can’t change anything? Has our experience embittered our hearts?

Have we become numb? The opposite of passion is apathy. Apathy literally means without feeling, without passion.

Or have we never been helped to direct our passions? Have we ever had friends to help us safely explore the things of our heart – both the love and the anger?

Or have we become too nice for that sort of thing becoming the sort of people who never get angry? I looked up the meaning of nice. Apparently it is from the Latin nescire. Nescire means not knowing or ignorant. Nice became a word in Middle English to mean stupid?

How do we help one another to be more than the nice people we undoubtedly are?

Jesus wasn’t nice. He was fiery, fierce and furious – as we see in what happened when he went to the temple in the last days of his life, turning the tables on the moneychangers and condemning the religious authorities for their exploitation of the poor – the very people who come first in the rule of God.

We only have to listen to what the spirit says to the churches to realise that nice doesn’t even cut the mustard.

Hear the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, to the church of Laodicea (revelation 3:14-22): “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.” You do not realise that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.”

We need to what what the spirit is saying to the churches.

Nothing good comes from being nice. Nothing changes if we remain apathetic. Nothing comes from being lukewarm, If we aren’t passionate and compassionate.

Passion is never served cold. It is heated by love and anger. Anger, rage and fury are part of our created order. They are very much part of ourselves. And they are very much part of our passionate selves. 

Those counted last and least as a rule, those usually discounted and lost need the anger, rage and fury of those who have taken the rule of God to their heart. They need that encouragement from fresh hearts.

It is anger, rage and fury which wins wars, defends the abused and bullied, defeats fascism, establishes justice, rights wrongs – it is never done cold and it is never done by being nice. It’s how the rulers of this world are driven out.

We have a problem. We are schooled to be nice. In the playground we were told to be nice, particularly to those who weren’t nice. We have demonised anger. Who wants us to be nice? Powers that be do. Controlling people do. They prefer us not to know. They don’t want to hear us. They don’t want our disruptions and protests. They want to keep us in the dark – the very place Jesus doesn’t want to keep us. His whole mission was to shed light in our darkness.

Cole Arthur Riley puts it like this: “Happiness and sadness and even fear are met with tenderness, understanding; they are permitted to speak without constant scrutiny. But anger we require to use the back door – to come and go quietly without attracting too much attention to itself… The oppressors of this world have told you to play nice, be civil. They tell you to control yourself. But by this they only mean they want you easy to be controlled.”

She confesses “We have exalted being nice and calm as a pinnacle of character, repressing that which stirs our souls so deeply we must shout” and she prays to God to “release us from the kind of niceness that only serves and protects the oppressor”. 

There is so much wrong, so many things are broken. There’s plenty to be furious about. How are things going to change without our fury, anger and passion? 

We can’t take it all on, but we can let love lead us. (Hatreds can also make us angry – they’re the furies we don’t want. They’re the furies we will fight with a passion).

I suspect that few of us are any good at being angry or furious. It often comes out wrong, doesn’t it? We often finish up only hurting those we love. This isn’t surprising because we have repressed anger. We’ve kept it hidden and not given it voice. We haven’t kept up our practice.

Here we can practice that love, among friends, through our prayer, learning all the time how to be angry better, how to balance anger with love, how to live passionately in the rule of God which is only love, how to live compassionately with those Jesus always counts first.

Can we help one another redirect our passion to join the passion of Jesus for the rule of God, and so that our whole lives are inspired by love and anger?

Jeremiah 31:31-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

John 12:20-33
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’. Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.
‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

On Anna, an old Old Testament prophet

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This is a contribution to a Lenten sermon series on Old Testament prophets. I chose to focus on Anna. Instead of using the gospel appointed for the day from John’s gospel we followed Mark’s version, reading both Mark 11:15-17 and 12:38-44 (texts below).

March 3rd 2024 – Lent 3B

Prophets speak the truth. The word prophet means interpreter/proclaimer/caller/speaker. They use body language, symbolic actions as well as words to make their points.

    They seem to come from nowhere. They don’t have credentials or pedigree because they are chosen and called by God. Paul noted long ago that when God goes choosing and calling he doesn’t choose and call those who are wise by human standards, nor those who are powerful, nor those of noble birth. “God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, he chooses the weak to shame the strong.” (1 Cor 1:27). 

    Those who are chosen and called to be prophets are no exception to this rule of heaven.

    There are many prophets (some false, some true) – and among them many women. Given the social, cultural and religious context this is staggering, given that the human institutions locked them out of so much. For example, there are no women priests. But when God does the calling and the choosing there is no distinction between male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave or free. God calls and chooses who he likes, male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free.

    And this means that truth comes to us in strange ways. It’s the proclaimers, the prophets who speak the truth and interpret the times.

    I have chosen to focus on one of the many women prophets mentioned in the Bible: Anna.

    We meet Anna in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. Even though we only meet her in the New Testament, our Christian brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox tradition celebrate her as one of the last of the Old Testament prophets (along with Simeon).

    Luke tells us that Anna was a “prophetess”, a daughter of Phanuel – a name which means the face of God. She’s from the tribe of Asher. 

    She was of a great age. 

    We have thought that she was 84 – but we might be mistaken in the translations we’ve used. The text might mean that she had been widowed for 84 years. If so, she would have been at least 105 – if she got married at 14. She was married for 7 years and widowed for 84. 14+7+84=105 – meaning that she was widowed as young as 21.

    Incidentally, Anna has inspired a recent initiative for developing Anna chaplaincy in local communities to support older people emotionally and spiritually. They use this prayer:

    Faithful God, you have promised in Christ to be with us to the end of time. Come close to those who have lived long and experienced much. Help them to continue to be faithful and, within the all-age kingdom of God, to find ways to go on giving and receiving your grace, day by day. For your glory and your kingdom.

    Luke tells us she spent all her time in the temple, praising God. God, in her scripture and ours, is the one who can’t be bribed and “executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing”. (Deuteronomy 10:18)

    Such daily devotion prepared her for the sight of Jesus when Mary and Joseph presented him in the temple (as was the custom) and gave her a ready tongue for talking about Jesus. 

    Luke doesn’t quote Anna but lets us imagine her speaking to all sorts of people gathered in the temple looking for redemption, freedom from exploitation, alienation and oppression. According to Luke Anna proclaimed the child to all who were looking for the redemption in Jerusalem.

    The gospel reading appointed for today was John’s account of the so-called cleansing of the temple. I asked to change that to Mark’s account – I couldn’t see why in the year we focus on Mark’s gospel we would switch to John’s gospel for this Sunday. I added the sequel – the so-called story of the widow’s mite which I know some of you were exploring in your small group on Wednesday night. (I say so-called because it’s so much more than the cleansing of the temple, and so much more than a story of generous giving).

    We are jumping from Jesus’ first visit to the temple when he was a toddler to his last visit to the temple in the week before his crucifixion. And we are jumping from one widow to another to highlight Anna’s proclamation.

    Anna’s proclamation is amongst those looking for redemption and she proclaims Jesus as the end of their longing. 

    What redemption looks like and feels like is answered by those who are bound and those who have been set free, but it is summed up well in the title of a commentary on Mark’s gospel. The title is Binding the Strong Man. That commentator, Ched Myers, sees the strong man as Satan, the temple authorities, the Roman empire and any other domineering forces. The “strong man” we see bound in today’s gospel stories is the temple authorities and their binding witnesses to the truth of Anna’s proclamation.

    Anna may have known the widow Jesus watched at the treasury, particularly if she too had been widowed for a long time. She might have been one of those Anna spoke to in her proclamation about Jesus. Jesus deliberately took his seat opposite the treasury. He watched the wealthy putting in large amounts and studies the contrast with this widow putting her two small copper coins, worth a penny. (Incidentally, I wonder whether this is where we get our expression “can I put my two penn’orth in?” Google disagrees!). Mark tells us “she put in everything she had, all that she had to live on”.

    The temple, the religious institution, “the strong man” had taken everything. There was nothing left. This isn’t the story of a widow’s generosity. This is the story of a widow’s tragic abuse. It’s a safeguarding scandal.

    The abusers are the scribes. Jesus has them taped. He says, “Watch out for the scribes who love to walk round in long robes, and be greeted with respect, who take the best seats in the congregation and places of honour at banquets. Keeping up appearances they say long prayers, grooming widows to trust them with their affairs. With their scams and extortionate schemes they devour widow’s houses, taking everything they had. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are the strong men.

    Their long prayers are supposedly addressed to God who is the one who is known for defending the orphan and the widow while in fact they attack the very people God defends and leave them with nothing. Jesus binds them with a “greater condemnation” for their heartless hypocrisy.

    Seeing the widow at the treasury in the temple was the last straw for Jesus. It was then that he left the temple. He didn’t cleanse the temple. He condemned the temple for being a den of thieves, full of dodgy dealers exploiting the poor when all the time it was supposed to have been a place of prayer for all the nations, for everyone on all sides of conflict a place of reconciliation.

    He binds the strong man and, according to Mark, people flock to him, and are spellbound by his teaching. Redemption is theirs, the strong man is condemned. “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” proclaimed Jesus.

    We live with the promise of Anna’s proclamation – Jesus the redeemer whose work

    Is always with us, to the end of time, redeeming his suffering servants.

    So, I give you Anna. There’s my two penn’orth – with a caution for us not to look for truth in the usual places amongst those who love long robes, who are widely respected, who get the best seats and are the guests of honour at banquets, but to look for truth amongst those God chooses and calls – those whose hearts are pure, those who hunger and thirst for the righting of wrongs, those who are poor in spirit, from the very young to the very old, these suffering servants prophesy, teach and evangelise – like Anna.

    Mark 11:15-17
    Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?

    Mark 12:38-44
    As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’
    He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

    Righteousness rights wrongs

    David Herbert3 Comments

    Not for ever in green pastures …….

    This simple reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent (B) is for a small group who gather once a month for worship following the Book of Common Prayer. Hymn singing is not part of what they do, except today when the focus is on the hymn Father, hear the prayer we offer as a way of a simple exploration of Jesus’s way of suffering in Mark 8:31-end.

    We have prayed this morning:

    Almighty God,
    you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
    that they may return to the way of righteousness:
    grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
    that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession,
    and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same

    We have prayed to God who shows to those in error the light of his truth that they may walk in the way of righteousness. God wants his people to walk the way of righteousness, and he gives us the means to do that.

    What is the way of righteousness?

    Righteousness is the translation of the Greek word in the New Testament which gives us also the word justice. In other words, that Greek word, is translated in two different ways: righteousness and justice – and can be summed up in the word rectification. So the way of righteousness is the way of rectification, the way of setting right what is wrong, the way of rectifying what is unjust. It is the way of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Another word we use is salvation. We, alongside many others, including many non-Christians lovingly long for this rectification and salvation.

    And we know it’s not an easy way.

    A song from the heart of the church is Father, hear the prayer we offer.
    Father, hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.

    In today’s gospel Peter again gets it wrong. Jesus was talking openly about how the Son of Man had to undergo great suffering, be reject and be killed, and Peter took him aside to rebuke Jesus about this. To which Jesus said to him what he’d already said to the tempter in the wilderness – “Get behind me Satan”. Peter was suggesting an easier way for Jesus. Father hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer shall be.

    We went to see the film about Nicholas Winton this week – One Life. He was a stockbroker who in 1938 went to Prague to witness the plight of refugees there – people fleeing for their lives. He took an enormous risk going there. His mother didn’t want him to go. She knew how dangerous it was. She wanted an easier way for her son. But he insisted, “I have to go”.

    He was horrified by what he found in Prague and immediately set about finding a way to rescue some of them. It was the plight of the children which most affected him. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to help them – nor did those who were with him. He just knew that he had to find a way – a way that would need visas, foster homes and money. Gradually he found the way and organised the trains that would rescue 669 children.

    Father, hear the prayer we offer:

    Not for ever in green pastures do we ask our way to be, but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly.

    Esther Rantzen’s programme, That’s Life, featured his story. They invited him as a guest and in great appreciation surprised him with an audience made up of the children he had saved back in 1938. The final credits of the film One Life suggested that over 6000 people owed their life to him – taking account of the families the children he rescued went on to have. He never talked about his work. His wife only discovered what he had done when she found a scrapbook in their home many years later.

    He is remembered in Israel and named as one of The Righteous among the Nations – they are non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. He is one of the righteous who followed the way of righteousness, righting wrongs in his small ways, the only ways he could.

    We have heard a lot this week about the former leader of opposition to Vladimir Putin. Alexei Navalny died in his cell in his prison inside the Arctic Circle – most likely he was killed. Alexei Navalny was a Christian. The Beatitudes were his inspiration. He called them his instruction book. He was particularly inspired by the blessing on those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. That is what he did. He hungered and thirsted after righteousness, all the while knowing the risks he was running, undergoing great suffering, getting rejected, and finally being killed ….

    We don’t live with the same extremes as Alexei Navalny. We are not victims of Russian imperialism, nor are we Jews facing persecution and extermination, nor are we living in Jesus’ context in Israel, where their life wasn’t their own because of the Roman occupation and the cruelty that went along with that.

    We could say that we live in quieter times in this rural setting of Warwickshire – but Christian prayer isn’t about having an easy time. There is a temptation to turn our backs on the suffering world, and we can do that because we might have built up protections. It is a temptation – to turn our back, to close our eyes and to not engage our hearts and minds. We have to resist the temptation to turn our back, to turn away from trouble, and instead we need to turn to face the realities of life and engage with the suffering of those who are the victims of wrongdoing. This is the way of righteousness – making things right, righting wrongs in our own small ways.

    Father, hear the prayer we offer:
    Not for ever, by still waters, would we idly rest and stay.

    There are two ways we can go. We can go the way of the tempter, or we can go the way of Jesus. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That’s the way of righteousness. It’s the harder way and the way that those who love us may prefer us not to follow.

    Mark 8:31 – end

    Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

    He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

    PS I am grateful for Fleming Rutledge’s work. She is the one who has pointed out the meaning of righteousness as rectification in her book The Crucifixion.

    We have nothing to prove and everything to love

    David HerbertLeave a comment

    Here’s a sermon for two rural churches in Warwickshire for the first Sunday in Lent. I’ve wondered whether Jesus only went into the wilderness for 40 days, or was his whole life there? Is wilderness a way to see “life”? The gospel for the day is Mark 1:9-15.

    Catching my eye this week were these words of a benediction by Cole Arthur Riley; “May you rest in the immanence of your own worth, knowing you have nothing to prove and everything to love.”

    Know you have nothing to prove and everything to love.

    It’s the first Sunday of Lent and we’re just getting started. The question is, do we begin with shame, or do we begin with love? When/if we choose to give up chocolate or social media is it because it’s a shame we eat too much chocolate or spend too much time on social media? Do we begin with shame or do we begin with love?

    Lent is the opportunity to intensify the awareness in our lives – our behaviours and the life around us. But do we begin with shame, or do we begin with love? Perhaps we begin with shame, and perhaps we begin again with love.

    We are fond of thinking that Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days – to be tempted by Satan. And that is what the gospels tell us. But were those 40 days an intensification of the wilderness experience which was to consume his whole life? The temptations didn’t stop after 40 days. The wild beasts didn’t go away – they bruised him, beat him and crucified him. They were hard times in a harsh and barren landscape – a lifetime in the wilderness. 

    His 40 days in the wilderness with the wild beasts were part of his whole life in a wilderness with the wild beasts of empire and religious authority baying for his blood.

    Our gospel tells us it began with love, not shame.

    Mark gives the sequence of events – and his sequence is his version of “in the beginning”. Beginning the gospel, beginning the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Mark gives this sequence of events:

    1. First, John appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and crowds came out to the wilderness to be baptised by him.
    2. Jesus, from a backwater village in Galilee was one of them. Just as he came out of the water he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him, and a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
    3. Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus deeper into the wilderness
    4. Then John was arrested

    The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. It began with love. “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” He was driven into the wilderness by love ringing in his ears, giving him the resilience for devilish temptation and for a life with the beasts. 

    And with love he walked the wilderness for the rest of his life, facing the wilder-ness of human nature and the be-wilderment of the victims of that wilder-ness and beastliness.

    Resounding above all the voices of that wilder-ness, the beasts baying for his blood, the crowds shouting “crucify him”, the mockery – above all that din is the voice of heaven: “you are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased”, and the sound of the angels who waited on him in the wilderness, whose only sound is the sound of heaven and their lyric, “do not be afraid”.

    The wilderness is our world too. We are in serious denial if we ignore the wilder-ness of our human nature and the beastliness that so many suffer: if we ignore the beasts that force themselves on us and the beasts that we entertain. 

    Lent is our opportunity to intensify our awareness of the wilderness of our lives, to take stock of the wars around us, the greed that threatens us, the environment we’ve neglected, the injustice that is suffered, the emptiness of so much of life, the distance between us, and the isolation which is so much a feature of life. 

    Life is wilderness. The wilderness is so much bigger than any of us can ever imagine – too big for our hearts and minds. We have a problem if we reduce Lent to a personal remedy for our over-use of social media or our over-indulgence of chocolate. Lent will have been a waste of time if all we do at the end is reach out for a Cadbury’s cream egg. The devil will have won big time then.

    Just as it was the love shown to Jesus in his baptism that drove him into the wilderness, to love in the wilderness, to do wonders in the wilderness, so it can be the love shown to us in our baptism that drives us into the wilderness, into these 40 days, into the rest of our lives.

    We’ve got nothing to prove and everything to love. The wilderness isn’t an easy place to be. Heaven knows we’ve suffered enough there already. The landscape is often bleak and unforgiving. We may be tested to our limits. We will take wrong turns. There will be complicated choices for which there are no easy answers. We will be be-wildered and bothered by the wilder-ness around us and within us

    The wilderness isn’t easy. But it’s the only place to be – or, the only place to be is where love drives us, where God’s Spirit takes us. Just don’t make it a guilt trip. Don’t let shame take you there these 40 days, and into the rest of your lives. Let love take you.

    From the beginning God brought love to the wilderness. That is clear to us when we open our scriptures. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” In other words there was nothing but wilderness and chaos – and a wind from God swept over the face of the waters, and he did wonders in that wilderness and chaos.

    Similarly, at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, there are all the signs of wilderness and chaos – that is why the crowds came to John, for his baptism of repentance as a way through the wilderness and chaos they were facing. It is the Spirit of God which drove Jesus into the wilderness and chaos which has never gone away. It’s our wilderness, our chaos – and he begins with love.

    When we are baptised, we are christened – becoming one in Christ, driven by love into wilderness. St Teresa of Avila gave us this blessing which will surely help us follow Jesus in his love into the wilderness, far from the easy life some of us may have been tempted to choose. It is the truth of our christening and being in Christ.

    Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
    Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world.
    Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
    Yours are the hands, with which he blesses the world.
    Yours are the hands.
    Yours are the feet.
    Yours are his eyes.
    You are his body.
    Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
    Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world.
    Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

    Jesus began with love in the wilderness. We don’t need to begin with anything other than love. We don’t have anything to prove but we have everything to love.

    Mark 1:9-15

    In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

    And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

    Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

    Cole Arthur Riley’s book from which the opening benediction is taken is Black Liturgies, published in 2024 by Hodder and Stoughton

    The sound of the genuine

    David HerbertLeave a comment

    From Howard Thurman‘s cummencement address at Spelman College:

    “There is something in every one of you that waits, listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself – and if you cannot hear it, you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching and if you hear it and then do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born … And if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else.”

    Reading through Lent with Cole Arthur Riley’s Black Liturgies.

    Beginnings and the meaning of life

    David Herbert1 Comment

    A sermon for the 2nd Sunday before Lent. Both epistle and gospel of the day are about beginnings and the meaning of life. This sermon was for a church in rural Warwickshire.

    In the beginning. In the beginning – such a lovely phrase. In the beginning – such a good place to start.

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. That’s how John prefaces his gospel.

    Our scriptures open at the beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

    Some of you will remember Maureen Lipman’s British Telecom adverts. In one she rings her grandson to see how he got on in his exams. He goes through all the exams he failed. She asks, “did you pass anything?”. “I got pottery” – to which grandma says “that’s good, people will always need plates”. “And I got Sociology”. To which Grandma says, “you got an ology and you said you failed!”.

    In the beginning was the Word. I’ve not got much in the way of an ology, but I’ve got enough of an “ology” to know that the Greek words for the Word is o-logos. O logos. It is from those two Greek words that we get all our ologies – whether sociology, psychology, geology, astrology, criminology – anyone awarded an ology can claim the credit of beginning to understand the meaning of an aspect of life. 

    Putting aside any clever, clever ologies we may have we could all say that we have an OLOGY because the Word became flesh and dwells amongst us, with us always, to the end of time. That’s an ology that God has gifted us. He has gifted us his Word, o logos, made flesh, embodying the meaning of God from the beginning. If we want to know the meaning and purpose of God we have to look no further than Jesus.

    The Word means meaning. O logos, the ology given to us, means meaning and purpose. From the beginning life has meaning and purpose. This is the viewpoint of faith, hope and trust.

    In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. That is such a beautiful opening for our scriptures. 

    Our generations, with all our ologies, have tended to scoff at this creation story. “It can’t have happened like that” we say, as if the inspired authors of this literature ever believed it happened like that. We are not looking at God’s first diary and to-do list. Inspired fiction sits alongside inspired history in our scriptures – what matters is not what happened, but what is true. In the beginnings described by the first chapter of Genesis, the openings of John’s gospel and our reading from Colossians – in all of them we have inspired theology that conveys truth.

    I am ever more conscious that our scriptures are the scriptures of the Jewish people, so frequently overpowered, conquered, enslaved, exiled, occupied, persecuted, oppressed, impoverished and hated, as well as being so often disobedient and misled (just like the rest of us). They become our scriptures as long as we open our hearts and minds to join those who suffer, redirecting the power and wealth we have for their sake, becoming poor in spirit.

    When we read scripture we are always looking through the eyes of a people (like Paul writing to the Colossians from prison) who suffered so much and yet dared to wonderfully imagine that from the very beginning God is working his purpose out, that there is meaning even in the midst of tragedy.

    The beginnings described in Genesis and in John’s gospel and in our reading from Colossians are profound theological reflections on the meaning of life in the midst of chaos, surrounded by so much diversity and difference, a wealth of creation – and the part we are called to play. 

    The “beginnings” of Genesis and John are not the start of things. It’s not a blank page. In the beginning described by John there was stuff going on. There was darkness, and the Word became the light of the world that darkness has never been able to overcome. There was darkness going on, and on and on.

    Likewise in Genesis, there was stuff going on. There was formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. In other words, it was chaos – and the creation story imagines what God does with chaos, ordering it and making so much of it for our delight.

    The beginnings described by Genesis, John and Paul are all of them in the midst of things. There is always something going on. These scriptures belong to people who are in the midst of things, and passed on to those going through so much. There has been so much love gone into them – their meaning is to inspire faith, hope and love – in us, in the midst of things.

    Sometimes life doesn’t seem to have any meaning – particularly when bad things overwhelm us. Sometimes that is about discovering that life doesn’t mean what we thought and that there is a new meaning we have not yet discovered. As we lose sight of the meaning of life we can often forget the meaning of God. We may have been misled into thinking of God in a way he just isn’t. 

    When we lose that sense of meaning for our lives, when we’re burnt out and exhausted by excessive busyness, or responsibility, or trauma, when we’ve lost our way in the forest, then we do need to retrace our steps, unwind to the beginning to the time when there was always meaning. 

    When we lose sight of the meaning of life we need to follow the sound of music and start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, the beginning when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – a down to earth meaning, embodied in our lives, in our times and in all we try to do.

    The meaning of God is the meaning of life. In our first reading, the letter to the Colossians, we have the phrase He is the beginning. Christ is the beginning for God. 

    The letter continues: “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross”.

    This is the meaning of God and the meaning of life.

    We are all “in the beginning” – we are part of the body of Christ who is the beginning. He is the beginning of the work of reconciliation ………. He is the beginning of the repair of broken and exploitative relationships. That is his work, his meaning and purpose. We are all “in the beginning”, in the beginning of a new creation, in the beginning of something new, in the beginning of something better as long as we listen to his word and love his meaning.

    In the midst of things, a lot of which we’d rather not be in the midst of, in the midst of things we have the beginnings of life, its meaning and purpose, and the beginnings of God, his meaning and purpose – to find our way where we might lose our way. In our beginning is the Word to inspire our faith, hope and love, the ology which means the world to us.

    Colossians 1:15-20

    He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. 

    John 1:1-14
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

    There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
    He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

    And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

    Discovering consolation with Simeon and Anna

    David Herbert3 Comments

    The weekend of Holocaust Memorial Day is the day we celebrate The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Here’s what I prepared for a small worship gathering in a Warwickshire village.

    Presentation of Christ in the Temple – January 28th 2024

    I don’t know how many of you watch films, TV or read books. Charles Darwin read novels to relax. But he had one requirement. The book had to have a happy ending. If it didn’t he would fling it furiously on the fire.

    So says Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska in her poem called Consolation.

    The poem continues:

    Roaming in his mind over so many times and places
    looking back on all the extinct species,
    such triumphs of strong over weak,
    so many tests of survival,
    sooner or later all in vain,
    that at least in fiction
    and its micro-scale
    he had a right to expect a happy ending.

    I don’t know what you make of evolutionary theory, whether you agree with it or not, but I suppose that our usual viewpoint is that of the “survivor” and the “strong” and “fit”. The theory is about the “fittest” surviving. The theory is very good news for the strong as they continually score triumphs over the weak, but it’s very bad news for the forever beaten, weakened to extinction. The logic of natural selection and survival of the fittest was behind the Nazi death camps – their catastrophe we remember this weekend in Holocaust Memorial Day.

    Seeing life like that, it is understandable that Darwin looked for happy endings when he read to relax.

    Our gospel this morning is about the search for happy endings. Simeon, we are told, was “righteous and devout” and was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel”. His consolation was to take the child Jesus in his arms and to find in him the hope of salvation, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and for glory to the people Israel.

    The old lady in the gospel story, Anna, started speaking about the child “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” – in other words, those looking for consolation because of the state of Jerusalem.

    The poet continues her poem by listing all sorts of happy endings. Here they are, some of them:

    And so, necessarily: sunrays behind a cloud,
    lovers together again, kin reconciled,
    doubts dissolved, faith rewarded,
    fortunes recovered, treasures dug up.
    Neighbours regret their mulishness,
    good names restored, greed put to shame,
    old maids married to respectable ministers,
    schemers expelled to the other hemisphere,
    forgers of documents cast down the stairs,
    seducers of virgins hurrying to altars
    orphans taken in, widows embraced,
    pride humbled, wounds mended,
    prodigal sons invited to the table,
    the cup of bitterness poured into the sea,
    tissues wet with tears of reconciliation,
    universal singing and music-making,
    and the puppy Fido,
    lost already in the first chapter,
    let him run home again
    and bark joyfully.

    We’re here, not just because we are survivors. We may have survived many plots and lived through many twists and turns but it is because we love our neighbours as we love ourselves that we are here. Together we stand. We know those who are going through hell. We know those who are hanging on by a thread. We know those who are beaten, rejected and weakened by those who are stronger, wealthier and better connected. We know the plight of the poor, the refugee. We know the victims of hate crimes. We know people who aren’t allowed to be themselves. We cry for the children killed in war, for the families who go hungry. We’re here for them, to worship the God who brings consolation.

    Nicholas Winton saved the lives of many Jewish children. His life is featured in the film One Life now showing in cinemas.

    We all understand that fiction is fiction and that too often there are no happy endings. There is too much tragedy and that grieves us so. We live in the world where the strong rule over the weak, and where the weak, if they survive at all, continue to suffer. If only there could be a happy ending to all the unhappy endings.

    And so we pray – for those who are poor, those who are sick, those in prison, those who are vulnerable. In our prayers we are looking for consolation for those for whom we pray. We are with Simeon whose eyes were fixed on the consolation of Israel, and we are with Anna in her conversations with those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. We are with them looking for the happy ending for all those who have been wronged and for all those suffering in the state of things today.

    We will do all in our power to help those who need our help. We will fight for better lives, happier endings. We gather our energies to make sure that the vulnerable do survive. We know they deserve their happy-ever-after and we will do all in our power to stop those who don’t care for the way it ends for them, the heartless beasts, the wolves, the tyrants.

    Israel was suffering from heartless beasts. They were prey to wolves. Tyrants ruled them. They had a history of exile, persecution, oppression – a vast accumulation of trauma and tragedy. Simeon felt that. Anna felt that. And all those Anna spoke amongst felt that. That is why they were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem – a very different ending to the ignominious end which seemed to be their destiny.

    Simeon knows there is a happy ending. He has seen it with his own eyes. He has held it in his arms. He has embraced the ending which will see many “fall” and many “raised”. The poor will be blessed. They will rise up. The beasts will be slain. This is the consolation of weak, occupied, isolated Israel. The consolation of Israel is the survival of the least, the last and the lost. The consolation of Israel is the humiliation of the beastly strong. The consolation of Israel is the child. The consolation of Israel is the vulnerability God takes to heart.

    Not everyone knows that the Christmas season is a 40 day season in the liturgical year, just like Advent was and Lent is. The Christmas story ends with the presentation of Jesus in the temple. There is a Feast on February 2nd to celebrate this ending. That is the 40th day which churches keep on the Sunday before feb 2nd if they don’t keep weekday festivals. Our gospel reading is the reading for that 40th day.

    There are many twists and turns in the Christmas story. There is the danger Mary is in by getting pregnant outside of marriage, there is the discomfort of the journey, there not being any room for them in Bethlehem, the threat to Jesus’ life from Herod, having to take flight to Egypt as refugees. All this is part of the story, let alone the battle between light and dark. There is a happy ending. Simeon finds the consolation Israel was searching for and Anna names their redeemer.

    Musicals were playing in the background when I was finishing this sermon. The earworm was Love changes everything. It is love that changes everything. It is love that gives Charles Darwin and ourselves a happy ending. The happy ending is not the survival of the fittest. 

    The happy ending is the unhappy ending for the villains (often the fittest, strongest, riches and most powerful). The happy ending is the survival of the people God loves – those so easily lost and so often last and least.

    Luke 2:22-40
    When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’

    Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
    “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
    according to your word;
    for my eyes have seen your salvation,
    which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles
    and for glory to your people Israel.’

    And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own heart too.’

    There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

    When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.