wilderness – Grits and Grains

Seeing the wood for the trees – something for Palm Sunday

March 24, 2024March 24, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

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

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.

We have nothing to prove and everything to love

February 18, 2024February 18, 2024 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:

First, John appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and crowds came out to the wilderness to be baptised by him.
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.”
Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus deeper into the wilderness
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

On our way to Lent – where Mark leads us

February 11, 2024February 11, 2024 David HerbertLeave a comment

This is a reflection on the transfiguration the Sunday before Lent (Year B). The text is Mark 9:2-9. I had a congregation in rural Warwickshire in mind as I prepared this (and learned so much in the process).

It is the last Sunday before Lent and already the gospel for the day leads us to a liminal space, taking our eyes, hearts and minds to a high mountain to be with Jesus, Peter, James and John and apart from the busyness of everyday life.

From Wednesday we come back to earth. We become ashen faced with our faces smeared with the ashes that remind us that we are but dust. From dust we came and to dust we return. We come back to the earth of the wilderness, where life is full of temptations, everyday life in which we are so often bothered and bewildered.

But for now, we are taken apart from all of that as Mark deliberately takes us, as disciples of Jesus, up a high mountain. We don’t just get the buzz of climbing high. This is a spiritual high that Mark leads us to, though not for long. For a few short verses we are there, and then we are gone.

Alongside Peter, James and John we see Jesus transfigured, his clothes becoming impossibly white. Moses and Elijah are there, one on either side of Jesus. It is quite the picture. We could perhaps imagine this as a stained glass window. Jesus central, Moses on one side, Elijah on the other. Moses being “the law”. Elijah being “the prophets”.

You can see it set in stone, as Peter did. He wanted to build three dwellings there so that they could stay in that moment, on the mountain, in their spiritual high.

How wrong Peter was. Mark explains that he didn’t really know what he was saying because they were terrified. There was no staying there. Just as there was not staying there for them, so there is no staying in our spiritual highs for us.

Jesus takes them down from the mountain top down to earth.
That’s where his love takes them,
away from the rapture and into the political realities of everyday life,
away from the tameness of the mountain top experience into the wilder-ness where it’s dog eat dog
down the mountain Jesus leads us into the valleys overshadowed with death.

That is where we find Jesus and his disciples, not separate, apart, high and mighty, down to earth as the dust of the way everyone walks, one with us in wilderness.

Peter may have had his designs on a stained glass window with its three panels – Jesus at the centre, flanked by Moses and Elijah, but Peter is used by Mark as the lead disciple who represents the misunderstandings of all Jesus’ disciples.

James and John seem to have had a similar design in mind. They pictured glory with Jesus enthroned in the centre with one of them on his right and the other one on his left.

Mark is the one who sees and understands Jesus’s design.

It is the way of the cross. It is the way through the heart of the people he loves. Mark’s gospel leaves us with Jesus crucified in the way criminals were then, with a criminal crucified on one side of him, and a criminal crucified on the other.

And that is Jesus’ design for us as he leads us from the safety of the spiritual high into the valleys overshadowed by death, as he leads us to politically engage in the conflicts of everyday life, showing us the way to live through them with love.

So, a very different stained glass window, a very different pattern to follow: Jesus cut, naked, bruised at the centre, flanked by two criminals on their crucifixes who join the mockery of Jesus.

This is what Mark wants us to fix in our minds. Not the three dwellings Peter wanted to build on the mountain top, but the picture of the three crosses as the way of salvation. How strange this picture is to us, how strange this hanging the church has been showing us down the centuries.

Christ on the Cross between Two Thieves by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), showing the power of empire and the plight of its victims.
This is where Mark leads us – from the mountain to the heart of suffering.

It’s strange because like Peter, James and John we have other ideas of what a messiah looks like. Collectively we have been led my many of them down the centuries – and misled by them – charismatic leaders, many of whom have been tyrants, many of whom have led their followers in ways of violence and retribution in pursuit of peace.

Peter, James and John grew up with the idea that the Messiah would come triumphantly to overthrow the political rulers who overruled them so cruelly and unjustly. Jesus chooses another path – that way of the cross. Not a triumphant way, but a loving way, as servant of all. Mark highlights the mistakes and misunderstandings of Peter, James and John. It is no wonder they got him so wrong.

But they are not judged for their mistakes. Instead, God talks to them, there on that mountain. Mark pictures those three. To them alone he points to Jesus. His voice comes from heaven, and he says “This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him”.

“This is my Son, the beloved. Listen to him.” This is the way to understand Jesus – by listening to him. This is God’s call to those disciples. Their vocation is to listen to Jesus. Another word we use for listening is following. Are you following me in what I am saying? Following Jesus is hearing what he says and acting on what he says.

We hear many people talking about what God is saying to them. I’m sorry – but a lot of what they say bears no resemblance to what Jesus says. We hear many people putting themselves in the roles of saviours, but what they do is often diametrically opposed to anything Jesus said. We see mighty leaders with their armies of followers but they are nothing more than tin-pot dictators dictating what they’re forcing their followers to hear.

We follow so many in so many ways. We are tricked, seduced and groomed. We are tempted to take the easy way, the heartless way, the violent short cut rather than the long road, the harder way less travelled, the braver way, the costlier way of patience and endurance.

This is the challenge when we come down to earth from our spiritual high. How are we going to make our way through the political realities of the here and now? Who are we going to follow? Who are we going to listen to?

There is so much noise around us – but through it all the church hangs on to the vocation – the call from heaven, to listen to Jesus’ words all the way to his crucifixion by the powers that be – one of three: Jesus flanked by those two thieves.

Mark 9:2-9

Six days later Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Feeding the Church

August 8, 2008 David HerbertLeave a comment

As Christians we gather at the table and remember what Jesus did with bread on that hillside. The words used by Matthew here are familiar from the Last Supper account and from our own celebration of the Eucharist as well: the verbs–take, bless, break and give–are simple but powerful, and apply to our lives just as they apply to the bread we share with one another and with the world. In fact, this work of the church goes on in every age and every wilderness. Thomas Long writes: “the church is always in the desert, the place where it cannot rely upon its own resources, which are few. The church is hungry itself and is surrounded by a world of deep cravings….”

from Kate Huey with reference to the Feeding of the 5000
Picture is by Eularia Clarke