Tag: intercession

A final judgement: the parable of the sheep and goats

David Herbert4 Comments

The last Sunday of the Christian year (liturgically speaking, the celebration of Christ the King, the Sunday before Advent (Year A)). The readings from Ezekiel 34 and Matthew 25 (the parable of the sheep and goats) are printed below.

The liturgical year leads us to this. Today is the last Sunday before the new year starts next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, when we start a new round of readings, rediscovering the gospel for our dark times. The liturgical year with all its readings and reflections leads us to the kingdom of heaven, to the coronation of Christ the King and the admission that the love and mercy that makes his majesty should be the rule of our lives. It is our final judgement.

Jesus sees himself with those who are hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and in prison. They are his brothers and sisters. He calls them his family. “Just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me”. (Matt 25:40). 

Many of us will be starting to write Christmas cards – some may be of the “holy family” but this passage shakes up our preconceptions of the holy family. The holy family, (the royal family if we accept Christ the King), is made up of those who are hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and prisoner. Jesus is a king like no other, his kingdom is like none other, his royal family is like no other royal family.

It is just like us to idealise the nuclear family – Mum, Dad, baby (and the pet, the wee donkey!), but Jesus “extends” the family. Matthew has already told us of the time when Jesus’ mother and brothers stood waiting to speak to Jesus while he was talking to the crowd. He was told that his Mum and brothers were outside but he said “who is my mother, and where are my brothers?”, and pointing to the disciples he said “here are my mother and brothers”. 

So, here we are in this parable of the sheep and the goats with the family Jesus has extended – with his brothers and sisters, those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick and prisoner and our final judgement is based on whether we have sided with them or whether we have walked by on the other side joining with those who won’t be bothered, or who are too busy, or who think they have enough to bother about, or who join those who scoff at the last and the least pretending that their state is a “lifestyle choice”.

Our final judgement is about our kindness to the last and least who Jesus claims as members of his long lost family. Jesus identifies with them all and it’s his gratitude which places those who follow him and his family on his right hand. 

You gave me food when I was hungry. You gave me drink when I was thirsty. You welcomed me when I was a stranger. You gave me clothes when I had nothing. You took care of me when I was sick. You visited me when I was in prison. 

It’s acts of kindness such as these that sorts the sheep from the goats, that puts some on the right hand of God – the right hand being the the hand of God’s power, the hand of righteousness, the hand that puts things right – and puts some on the wrong hand of God, the dismissive hand, the hand that discards, the hand that says ‘to hell with you’.

(A note on prisons. They served a different purpose in Jesus’ day. It’s where they put people waiting for trial – as with Jesus before his trial, as with Paul, Stephen and John and so many of his brothers and sisters.)

It is about kindness. Kindness appreciates our kinship, that we are one of a kind, humankind. We could say that this final judgement in this parable of the sheep and goats is about the KINDOM extended by Jesus – the kindom (without the g) of the kingdom of heaven. The KINDOM (no G) of God rescues the vulnerable. In the language used by Ezekiel, these too are like sheep and the Lord is their shepherd, searching out those who have become lost, who have strayed, who are injured and who are too weak to withstand the cruelty of the “fat sheep” who “push with flank and shoulder, and butt at all the weak animals with their horns until they have scattered them far and wide.” The kindom of God centres around the victims of the powers that be and those who suffer from the way things are.

Timpsons, the cobblers, is a business that organises itself around kindness. 10% of their workforce is recruited directly from prisons. There are just two rules for staff members: “look the part” and “put the money in the till”. James Timpson is the company’s CEO. He tweets @jamestcobbler, last week listing random acts of kindness of Timpson staff members. It gives some food for thought for those who hunger for kindness.

  • Nigel at Solihull engraved a memorial plaque for a grieving mother
  • Thom at Cambridge cleaned a suit for a customer attending their child’s funeral
  • Raymond at Ponders End donated bone marrow to a stranger
  • Dave at Loudwater gave an elderly couple a lift home with some heavy curtains
  • Darren in Henley bought someone a coffee who was sitting in the middle of the road
  • Terri at Paddock Wood stopped whilst dropping garments back to a branch to help save a person from jumping off a bridge
  • Etc etc

Then the righteous will answer him, “when was it that we saw you?”. It’s as if this final judgement comes as a total surprise to those who are counted as sheep, to those who find themselves on the right side. Nigel, Thom, Raymond and the rest may also be totally surprised to find themselves on the “right side”. “Just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” What they did in kinship and kindness for the grieving mother, the parents who had lost their child, the stranger, the elderly couple, the one thinking of suicide, “you did it to me”, says Jesus.

I don’t know about you but the questions posed by the sheep (on the right side) and the goats (on the wrong side) weigh heavy with me. “When was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?” I struggle to remember when I ever did any of those things, but I can remember so many times when I have walked by on the wrong side, avoiding their troubles.

How do I justify myself in the final judgement? I can’t and perhaps you can’t. Part of it may be that we are pre-occupied with ourselves. And part of it may be that we just don’t know what to do in the midst of so much trouble.

So what do we do?

We can put in plenty of practice. Practice seeing Christ at the heart of his extended family, a heavenly kin(g)dom on earth amongst brothers and sisters who, in the way of the world, are hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick or in prison. Practice seeing Christ not at the heart of a nuclear family, the so-called “holy family”, but at the heart of the family he has extended by his search and rescue as the good shepherd of those scattered, lost and bruised.

Put in the practice of prayer. Grow your prayer from the love of your own nuclear family to this kin(g)dom of God and let the people of his extended family populate our prayers. 

Pray for those who go hungry, depending on food banks. Pray for your brothers and sisters who are parched and who don’t have easy access to water. Pray for your brothers and sisters who come amongst us as strangers, newcomers and refugees, that we may welcome them and that they feel at home. Carry on praying for those who are sick and for your brothers and sisters in prison. 

These are the people to populate our prayers – the brothers and sisters of Christ the king – his royal family. And give thanks for all those who join them, on their side, the right side, in their various practical acts of kindness.

We can never do enough. We are not asked to do enough to save the world. The kingdom of God, with Christ as king, is the kingdom where the last and the least are prized. We may be surprised that Christ makes so much of the little we do, even a cup of water for the thirsty, or a knitted blanket for the poorly clad, or just a smile, a word, or a touch. They are the seeds that grow.

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

Therefore, says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prine among them; I, the Lord have spoken.

Matthew 25:31-end

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Then  the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”

And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison, and did not take care of you?”

Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I’m inviting prayer for those in their teens – particularly these days

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I’ve invited prayer in the Chester Diocesan Cycle of Prayer with a bit of science.

It is hard to be honoured by people who have seen us grow up. Jesus recognized that. “Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin.” (Mark 6:4). Is that partly because they have seen the difficulties we have had growing up?

So let’s pray for those in their teenage years.

There’s a lot happening in the teenage brain with the unused connections in the thinking and processing part of the brain being pruned away while other connections are being strengthened. The prefrontal cortex is still developing leaving teenagers to rely on the part of brain called the amygdala for their decision making.

The amygdala is all emotion, impulse, aggression and instinctive behaviour. This makes growing up through the teenage years very difficult and leads many to be ashamed and to self-harm. One way of reading Genesis 3 is to see Adam and Eve as teenagers, making impulsive decisions and growing in shame.

Growing up is difficult. Please pray for those living through their teenage years, including

  • those who are vulnerable, anxious or ashamed,
  • those who have made mistakes or are troubled or troubling,
  • those who have suffered mental health issues through the pandemic,
  • parents
  • and those in our communities who support and champion teenagers

St Brigid of Kildare and other patrons

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A Brigid cross

Today, February 1st, is the day St Brigid of Kildare is honoured and celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion (today because it is the day that she died in 523).There isn’t a great deal known about Brigid and in recent times there has been debate as to whether she existed at all. Some have suggested that the name and characteristics of the goddess Brigid were attached to the saint.

In a way her historicity is immaterial. What matters is what people have made of her life and what her life has come to mean. There are plenty of stories about her charity, her faith, her wisdom and her healing powers – the sort of stories that make a saint. For example, she is credited with founding a school of art, including metalwork and illumination. She is said to have been sold by her parents into slavery. It is easy to understand why she has become patron saint of babies, children with abusive parents and printers. But she is also patron saint for blacksmiths, boatmen, brewers, cattle, chicken farmers, dairy maids, fugitives, mariners, nuns, poets, poor, sailors, scholars, travellers, watermen and Ireland!

It is this reach of her legend which interests me. That long list of those to whom she is “patron” is a list of those who come under her care. They become the people she entertained with God’s blessing in her life, whether her actual life or the life as it has come to be in culture. That long list represents an enormous reach in prayer and practice and is a measure of the extent of God’s embrace.

The honouring and celebration of saints are spread liberally through our calendar. They help to make us a people of thanksgiving, and they help to make us a people of prayer. From what we have made of Brigid our prayers can stretch from children in abusive homes to midwives, from boatmen to brewers, from sailors to scholars, from fugitives to poets. All of them are taken in by God. Normally I wouldn’t give them a second thought and would pass them by. But today, thank Brigid, I think again and remember the reach of God’s love, his particular intentions and his call for us to love like him.

The photo is by Amanda Slater, showing what is known as a Brigid cross. These crosses are traditionally made on February 1st. They are made from rushes or straw and hang in many kitchens as protection from fire and evil.

PS. I asked John Bleazard, Rector of St Bridget’s West Kirby to contribute to this piece after being moved by what he was telling me about what is happening in his parish and other parishes he knows dedicated to St Bridget, or St Bride. I’m really grateful for this that he writes on how St Brigid’s tradition is kept alive. John writes:

Good to see you remembering Bridget on 1st February, David.

As rector of the 1,000 years-old St Bridget’s Church here in West Kirby, I find myself planning a patronal festival service each year and researching stories about her. Apparently she was once short of drink to offer proper hospitality to some guests, and so prayed over a bath full of dirty washing up water which happily then turned into beer. Hence Bridget becoming known as the patron saint of beer, and why of course, with that knowledge, we just had to organise a weekend beer festival here at St Bridget’s!

In my introductory notes for the patronal service order of service booklet this year, I wrote: “…it is said that Bridget was the keeper of a sacred flame in the church at Kildare that her nuns kept alight for 1,000 years. In the dark days of early February this notion of Bridget keeping an everlasting light has become entwined with that of Jesus being revealed as the light of all the nations at Candlemas, and also with the old Celtic festival of Imbolc that welcomes the return of light and warmth as Winter turns to Spring.

“Bridget is one of only a very few female saints from Celtic times, so her revered place is testimony to her outstanding leadership and holiness. It is said that when she was taking her vows as a nun a ring of fire appeared over her head. In awe of this, Bridget was ordained a bishop by mistake!”

Knowing this history, (or should I say, hagiography or is it legend?) about Bridget as a pioneer of women’s ministry in a man’s world, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that the present day St Bridget’s church congregation have signed up as members of Inclusive Church and campaign for full and equal treatment of everyone within the church regardless of sex, sexuality, or other forms of discrimination.

What is more striking is how many other churches dedicated to St Bridget are also involved in the Inclusive Church movement – indeed I’m going to a meeting of Inclusive Churches next Saturday – where? St Bride’s, Liverpool of course!

How exactly does this patronage or influence remain down the centuries? Robert Warren in Healthy Churches Handbook talks about the angel of the church – and how we might better understand decision making processes and the outlooks of churches if we discovered more about the personality and identity of the church’s angel (or patron?) as first described in the letter to the churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. The letters are addressed: “to the angel of the church in…”  Warren quotes from Walter Wink’s book, The Powers That Be, who says that “The angel of the church is the coincidence of what the church is – it’s personality – and what it is called to become – it’s vocation.” We at St Bridget’s need to look back at where we have come from, but also need to look forwards to what we are becoming.

I was very struck by what Revd Dr Peter McGrail of Liverpool Hope University said to us in his Patronal Festival sermon here at our service this year about the potential impact and legacy of St Bridget on how we make decisions in our church. Peter pointed out that Bridget is this ambiguous person with stories of the Christian Abbess of Kildare mingling with the Irish Goddess Briege. He asked: “Where does one stop and the other start?”

Maybe this ambiguous hagiography is one reason why St Bridget’s church was (and is) “…a melting pot of ideas, a liminal, threshold place where human thought and action is extended and broadened.” I would add, too, that maybe the influence of the parish dedication to St Bridget is why a whole range of different views on any given topic are represented among the congregation. If that is the case, then our decision making needs to recognise this diversity.

Peter McGrail concluded his sermon: “The challenge we face is how to engage with issues around … who is the “other” as we follow Jesus who … transgressed humanity’s deepest taboos with regard to the sacred, and who set in motion a radical refusal to be bound by the barriers that humans set against other humans. Perhaps a parish dedicated to St Bridget that in it’s origins straddled boundaries between peoples and traditions might offer some insights?”

What would Jesus do? What would Bridget say? What is St Bridget’s Church here in West Kirby call to be and become under the influence of our patron, Bridget?

John Bleazard, March 2017

 

Intercession

David HerbertLeave a comment

Praying Hands
Thank you C Jill Reed for this photo of Praying Hands: a 30 ton 60 ft tall bronze statue at Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The praying hands are just so huge that they make our own hands puny in comparison. Surely these are the hands of Christ, through whom our prayers are heard and minded by God.  He is the great High Priest whose love blesses the universe.

All Christians are called to be intercessors with responsibilities to pray for our enemies as well as our friends.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the importance of intercessory prayer in Life Together:

A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another, or the community will be destroyed.

I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they case me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others.

As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife that cannot be overcome by intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day.

The Church’s Lectionary prompts us to read two passages which talk about table manners. The passage from Hebrews (13:1-8) reminds us to entertain strangers (“for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it”) and to remember those in prison (“as though you were in prison with them”). The Gospel passage (Luke 14:7-14) Jesus turns the tables on our normal manners by telling us to “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind” when giving a banquet, rather than friends, family and people who do us good.

These are extraordinary and good table manners. What we are supposed to do at our tables we are also supposed to do in our prayers. In our prayers we are entertaining people in our hearts and minds. And we have to stretch our minds and hearts so that we pray for those who are at the margins of our consciousness – we prepare a place for the stranger, the poor, the prisoner.

In praying for them we bring them centre stage in an act of remembrance, as if we were in prison with them. We pray for those for whom life has gone wrong, for those who don’t know what peace is, or family is. We pray for the unlovely and the lost as if we are unlovely and lost with them. This is a sympathetic (or empathic) position, but it is not about identification, because, as Oswald Chambers reminds us, intercession also puts us in God’s place. He writes: “People describe intercession by saying, “It is putting yourself in someone else’s place.” That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having his mind and his perspective.”

These are deeply healing processes. When we pray for others we are at the very least remedying neglect and overcoming fears and divisions. And we are, at the very most, putting ourselves “in God’s place” of overcoming evil with far better table manners and prayer.