Tag: kings

The congregation is the point

David HerbertLeave a comment

I don’t think I have ever preached a sermon where the point has been the congregation before. The congregation seems to be the point of the readings set for the 8th Sunday after Trinity (year B). They are Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:11-end and Mark 6:30-34, 53-end (text below). I’m covering a long term “vacancy” in a group of churches. I’m hoping these congregations will find encouragement here.

July 21st 2024

The point of today’s readings is the gathering after the scattering – the scattering of people. I don’t think I have ever preached a sermon where the point has been the congregation before, but that seems to be the point that links the readings appointed for today. All four: the reading from Jeremiah, the Psalm, the reading from Ephesians and the gospel reading from Mark – they all build the point. The congregation is the point. The gathering after the scattering is the point.

Never has there been so many people on the move as now. By the end of last year 1 person out of every 69 was forcibly displaced, having been forced to flee persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order. That is double the number of a decade ago.

I in 69. 

Last year the global refugee population increased by 7% to over 43 million people. 73% of them came from just 5 countries: Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine and Sudan.

As well as those 43 million people another 63.3 million people who were forced to flee remain in their own countries. They are known as internally displaced people. Can you imagine this? Over 9 million people in Sudan, over 7 million people in Syria, 6.9 million people in Columbia, 6.3 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 4.5 million people in Yemen – all internally displaced, mostly due to conflict and violence, and some due to natural disasters.

1 in 69.

Every bomb dropped on a village or a housing block in Ukraine and Gaza displaces the families who live there. Every military push forces out those in its path.

I in 69 people displaced and scattered. Poet Warsan Shire, herself a British poet born to Somali parents in Kenya, begins her poem called Home with the lines:
No one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.

Home by Warsan Shire, read here by Sir Jonathan Pryce

1 in 69 people forcibly displaced – according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recent report on global trends. 1 in 69 – and it’s getting worse. 1 in 69 displaced and scattered because of the failure of governments to guarantee their peace and security.

This is the world we live in. Our scriptures reflect the same realities – the failure of government to secure peace and security. Our scriptures come from the heart of people displaced by persecution, oppression and exile – and those moved with compassion for them.

Jeremiah is one such person used to address the tragedy of his contemporaries being displaced in large number and scattered far and wide. Just as the UNHCR report puts the blame on the failure of governments to safeguard peace and security, so does Jeremiah all those centuries ago.

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of the pasture! Says the Lord. Shepherd was a term used to describe the king. Jeremiah’s “woe to the shepherds” is a judgement on the line of kings who have failed the people. 

In the previous chapter Jeremiah protests against the succession of rulers whose eyes and hearts have been set on “dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood and for practising oppression and violence” (22:17) in contrast to the good king (Josiah) who “judged the cause of the poor and needy” (22:16). 

It was the failure of the rulers to “execute justice and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed” which resulted in the scattering of people. The promise in Jeremiah is to gather the scattered, the ones lost, to raise up shepherds who will shepherd them, so that they shall fear no longer, nor be dismayed, nor go missing.

Similarly, in our gospel reading, Jesus sees the crowd coming to him. (Is Mark here seeing the fulfilment of the promise of Jeremiah?) Mark writes that Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd. 

The verses of today’s gospel immediately follows the beheading of John the Baptist in prison – the beheading of Jesus’s own cousin by Herod at the request of his dancing daughter and wife. Herod, as king, was supposed to shepherd the people, but left the people like sheep without a shepherd. Mark pictures Herod partying with his courtiers and the “leaders of Galilee” – the very ones who should have been keeping watch of the people. Another Partygate. Mark pictures Herod and his court getting fat at the expense of the poor. 

The lost and scattered, then as now, are always the victims of failed government, self-serving leaders (misleaders) and corrupt shepherds. The lost and scattered are always the people on whom God shows compassion, through the prophets, through Jesus and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

All we see in today’s gospel is people gathering and coming together around Jesus and the disciples. The intention was that Jesus and his disciples were going to find a deserted place so that they could get some rest. They went by boat. But they were spotted. Many saw them and recognised them, and they hurried on foot from the towns and got there before the boat landed. There were five thousand of them – an unimaginable number of people, like sheep without a shepherd.

Again, later, when they landed at Gennesaret in the second section of our gospel reading), people recognised Jesus and they rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.

Notice the rush people were in. Mark underlines their hurry. They rushed about that whole region bringing the sick to wherever he was. Wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak.

Jesus doesn’t let them go. He has compassion on them.
He heals them. He makes clean what the religious (mis)leaders had made unclean He restores them to their communities – no longer outcasts.

He feeds them – yes, the crowd in today’s gospel is the crowd he feeds with just the five loaves and two fish.
And he began to teach them many things.

Here is the good shepherd doing what good shepherds do: gathering the scattered, the least, the lost, the sick and helpless – making right the people the bad shepherds and corrupt leaders had wronged.

This is the point: the gathering after the scattering. The crowding together is the point. 

And here we are – gathered, a congregation.
How do we see ourselves?
Do we see ourselves as among those on whom Jesus has compassion?
Do we see ourselves as held together by his love?
Do we see that without our gathering we would (in the words of the epistle) remain as strangers and aliens, hopeless and far off?
Do we see that we are brought to this point “by the blood of Christ”? 
Do we see that we are citizens with the saints and members of the household of God?
Do we see ourselves built together spiritually as a dwelling-place for God?
Do we see that Jesus feeds us – even as we walk together through the valley overshadowed by death?
Do we see that Jesus has begun to teach us many things?
Do we see this as the rule of heaven, his will on earth, as it is in heaven?
Do we see ourselves as the lucky ones, even as the ones the world counted least, or last or even lost, who by amazing grace have become among the first gathering of Jesus?
Do we see ourselves being joined by others, including some of the many others who make up the 1 in 69 people currently on the move, without a shepherd?
Do we see this as our place of belonging – after all our longing?

Is this not home, where we belong – counted, fed, healed, restored?
Do we see our congregation as the point that proves Jeremiah’s promise, the gathering that justifies our faith in the Lord our shepherd?

Mark 6:30-34, 53-end

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while’. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognised them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognised him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Redressing the power of kings – a sermon for coronation weekend

David Herbert6 Comments

A sermon for Easter 5 (A) for St Mark’s, Leamington. May 7th 2023.

The Gospel reading is John 14:1-14.

Who has seen the most coronations? (The maximum is going to be 3, dating back to 1936). I’ve seen two and remember just one. Like many families we got our first TV to watch Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.

Our scriptures are very sceptical about monarchy, probably because these scriptures come from the heart of a people who have been repeatedly traumatised by imperial power. There will be a whole range of positions on the monarchy represented here this morning, from those strongly in favour to those of you who would line up with the anti-monarchist protesters. That whole range of positions can be traced back as far as the time of the prophet Samuel.

The memory of the people of God always goes as far back as the time they were held in Egypt, to the prince known as Pharoah and the memory of how oppressed, exploited and persecuted they were by him. He was always demanding more from them. More bricks, more bricks, more bricks to build his pyramids of power. This Pharoah isn’t named but that doesn’t matter, because, as one wise scholar of these scriptures says, “when you’ve met one pharoah, you’ve met them all”.

The people of God remember injustice, their history of persecution, their repeated exile, their holocaust – and they/we rejoice that God joins them/us in their/our struggle.

There was a time when Israel was governed by prophecy. Israel wasn’t like the other nations, until the elders came to the prophet Samuel asking him to appoint a king because (and this sounds really childish) everyone else has one.

This is 1 Samuel 8: 

All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel saying: “you are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us then, a king to govern us, like other nations.’

Samuel prayed about this, and he heard God saying, “don’t take this personally, they have not rejected you, they have rejected me from being king over them.” Then God told Samuel to warn the people about kings and their ways.

So Samuel warned Israel about kings – basically saying that they’re always on the take. “He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and be his horsemen … he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, grain, vineyards and orchards. He’ll take 10% of your grain in tax. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys. He will always be on the take, and will always be taking the best.

“Never trust princes” says the psalmist in Psalm 146. Never trust princes, nor any human power, for there is no help in them, speaks the psalm. There are so many people across the world lost, displaced and hated by the powers that be who know the truth of the psalmist – who this morning, like us, on this 5th Sunday of Easter, will be breaking bread, defying their princes as they commit their lives, their trust and their hopes to God, simply because, in the words of Psalm 146, it is the Lord their God who:

  • gives justice to those who suffer wrong
  • Bread to those who hunger
  • Looses those who are bound
  • Opens the eyes of the blind
  • Lifts up those who are bowed down
  • Watches over the stranger in the land
  • Upholds the orphan and widow
  • Turns the way of the wicked upside down

These are all God’s people – those who suffer wrong, who are hungry, bound, blind, bowed down, strangers in the land, widows and orphans – learning from first hand experience, and guided by the wisdom of ages that princes can’t always be trusted even though they are often charming.

That is why what we saw in yesterday’s coronation was a redressing of the power of kings. We saw King Charles being undressed and then being dressed up with the regalia binding him to the kingship of God, and binding him (and us) to those who have been let down by kingdoms and empires.

Here’s how they hemmed him in, how they redressed his power with prayer.

First they gave him spurs, symbols of military honour and chivalry, praying that he may be a brave advocate for those in need.

Then they gave him the kingly sword that it be not a sign and symbol of judgement, but of justice, not of might but of mercy.

Then the bracelets of sincerity and truth, tokens of the Lord’s protection.

Then the robe, that he may be clothed in righteousness and garments of salvation.

Then the orb, set under the cross, that the kingdoms of the world may be seen under the rule of God in the cross.

Then the ring

Then the glove, praying that he will hold authority with gentleness and grace.

Then the royal sceptre

Then the crown that he may be crowned in gracious favour

The whole thing was a dressing prayer for the king, praying for the power of God in his life, so that he comes into his power not to be served but to serve.

The meaning of the word religion goes back to binding. Religion means to be bound. In the coronation service we saw the king being bound by those who are leaders of our religious communities. Our bishops and other faith leaders binded the monarch, as they have repeatedly done over the centuries.

I’m not a chess player but I know the rule of the game is that the king cis bound to only move one square at a time. In fact, he can’t even move as far as the lowly pawn. He relies on the defence of his queen, his castles, his knights, his pawns – and yes, his bishops. The game is set up with the bishops sandwiching the royal couple.

Bishops are anything but straightforward. The rule is that they move diagonally, criss-crossing the board. In yesterday’s service we didn’t see them moving diagonally, we saw them moving diaconally binding the king to the gospel, binding him and his kingdom to the broken hearted, captives, the bruised.

Today’s gospel hasn’t been chosen because it is coronation weekend, though it could well have been. It is the gospel appointed for this Sunday in Easter. In it Jesus addresses those troubled by the state of things and all that they are having to endure. He says, do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in me. He is not talking to the troublemakers. He’s talking to the troubled.

In my Father’s house, he says, there are many dwelling places. This he says to a people whose land is occupied and who have been continuously displaced by others who have wanted their lebensraum or living room. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

My Father’s house is the kingdom. It is the place of longing as we pray for the kingdom to come on earth, as it is in heaven, and it is the place where God longs for us, for our be-longing. Different versions of the Bible translate the many dwelling places as many rooms, or as many mansions. The meaning is the same – that there is so much room that has been prepared for the troubled in heart. It is positively palatial.

This is the metaphorical space we enter as soon as we submit to Jesus as the way, and the truth, and the life, when as his beloved disciples we lay ourselves close to his heart, when we join with him in communion. And this is the place we come to when we pray, when we are troubled by whatever is going on which has a different way, truth and life.

Just as they do in chess, so in yesterday’s service (and I presume in their daily prayer) the bishops were walking diaconally the many spaces, the many rooms, the many dwelling places made ready for us by Jesus for the broken-hearted, the wronged, the bruised.

Maybe one or two of you are more used to coronations then me but I admit to being very moved and surprised by the binding of the monarch, and I ask myself why I am so surprised.

Is it that we have neglected prayer for the queen or the king? Surely our scriptures teach us to pray for kings because their feet are feet of clay. It is because they can’t be trusted that we need to pray for them.

Have we neglected to pray for our bishops, to bind them to their diaconal ministry of gathering the prayers of the people, to hearing and resounding their cries?

Have we neglected to pray for others who have all the power in the world to ruin us? Have we become indifferent to the gross inequalities of this nation and kingdom, much of which is rather close to the home of our king and his family?

When we pray in Christ we pray in the dwelling places made ready for us by Christ. There we may know what is on the heart of the King of kings, what is the prayer of the King of kings. Surely it is this: that the only way, the only truth, the only life for any kingdom is the way of Jesus, and any other way, truth or life is a travesty of justice.

When we pray in Christ we build capacity and room for others to breathe. This is our service. When we serve one another we join with Christ who came to serve, not to be served. These are the very foundations of the royal house Jesus shows those who are troubled in today’s gospel: a palace fit for the King of kings and all those he loves, in which there is so much board, so many spaces, and more than enough room for everything except any other way, truth or life.

As in chess the king needs the binding protection of our prayer, so, for now and for as long as he reigns we pray for/with Charles, for/with his family, for/with his advisers and ministers, for/with those who suffer wrong, for /with those who go hungry, for/with those who are bowed down, for/with those who are refugees, that together we may be saved from the ways of the wicked and the wrongs of the kingdom.