This morning, as is customary on the First Sunday of Lent, our Gospel reading tells the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. St Mark’s account of this is very brief and doesn’t go into any detail about how Jesus was tempted, but what it does do, as does the gospel of St Matthew, is tell us that Jesus’ ministry began after John the Baptist had been arrested. This fits with John’s own words that he must decrease whilst Jesus increased, but why should this be? We know that John was sent to prepare the way for Jesus, but why couldn’t he have continued his ministry of baptism and sent people to Jesus as we’re told he did with some of his own disciples?

I think the answer to that lies in the similarity between John and Jesus. We’re told in the Gospels that many people thought John was the Messiah, and that after John’s death, many people thought that Jesus was John come back to life. So there must have been a great similarity between them to lead to this kind of confusion. But any confusion about who was the Messiah would have inevitably led to confusion amongst people about who to follow. And notwithstanding the similarities in the message that John and Jesus were proclaiming, any confusion about who to follow would also inevitably have led to some people following the wrong path and potentially being led astray. And so the reality seems to have been not so much a case that John had to decrease so that Jesus could increase, but that John’s ministry had to come to an end before Jesus’ ministry began so that the field would be left clear for Jesus to go about his work.

One of the great problems in the Church, and for the Church too, is just this kind of confusion. All Christians and all Churches proclaim the same Gospel, or they should do at least, but because there are so many different Churches, so many different denominations of the Church and so many different factions within the same Church, the same denomination, and even within individual congregations, people can be confused about who is right and who to listen to. In fact people can become so confused that they give up trying to listen to anyone and simply make their own mind up about what’s right and wrong, which makes the situation even worse because it creates yet another voice, within the Church, another ‘truth’ vying for attention with all the others, and even more confusion. And none of this helps the mission of the Church, in fact it can’t do anything other than hinder the Church’s mission to fulfil its Christ given Great Commission to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples of all people.

I think in many ways we can see the problem of disunity in the Church as stemming from the Church’s individual and collective failure to resist the very things Jesus himself was tempted with in the wilderness. A failure to live by God’s Word, a failure to resist putting God to the test, and a failure to serve God alone.

As I said earlier, St Mark doesn’t tell us how Jesus was tempted but I’m sure we all know the story. Jesus’ first temptation was to turn stones into bread to satisfy his hunger, and Jesus’ answer was,

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

How many people in the Church though, don’t live by every word that comes from the mouth of God? And by that, I don’t simply mean how many people in the Church sin because we’re all sinners. But how many people excuse their sins? How many people in the Church do things that God says we shouldn’t, or don’t do things that God says we should, but say that they haven’t done anything wrong and are doing what they should do as Christians? How many people teach their own values and pass those off as Christian values, or twist God’s Word to make God say what they want God to say, in effect wanting to make God live by their words rather than trying to live their own lives according to God’s Word? These things happen all the time in the Church and amongst Christians and when they do, aren’t we seeing people trying to turn stones into bread? Trying to turn the stones of their own words into the bread of God’s Word? And what does this do except set a bad example of how Christians should live, and confuse people because they don’t know who or what’s right and wrong and who or what to listen to?

Jesus’ second temptation was to throw himself from the top of the temple in order to prove that he was the Son of God. And this time Jesus’ answer was,

“‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 

But again, how many people in the Church give in to this temptation and do put God to the test? How many people have we all met who’ve left a church, a congregation, or changed denomination, or even left the Church completely and say they’ve lost their faith? And how many of these people have done these things simply because things haven’t gone the way they want them to?

People do this for all sorts of reasons, perhaps because they think their prayers haven’t been answered or because they don’t agree with what’s going on in a congregation or a denomination or even the Church itself. But in the vast majority of cases that I’ve come across, what the problem has really been, is that people haven’t got, or can’t get their own way. And this goes back to the first temptation, people thinking that their way is God’s way and that anyone who doesn’t agree with their way isn’t following God’s way. In this second temptation, the tempter, the devil, told Jesus to throw himself from the top of the temple to prove that he’s the Son of God by quoting from scripture:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you’, and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

But if people leave churches, or the Church, because they can’t get their own way, isn’t what they’re doing tantamount to saying, “I’m right, I’m on God’s side, and I expect God to uphold me by letting me have my own way. And if I can’t have my own way then I want nothing more to do with God?” But what is that if it’s not putting God to the test?

Jesus’ final temptation in the wilderness was to worship the devil in return for  earthly power and glory. And in this case Jesus’ answer was,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

But how many people in the Church and how often does the Church itself succumb to the lure of earthly power and glory? How many people in congregations are given an office, a role in the Church that gives them some kind of status and authority, and then use that office and authority to throw their weight around? How many accusations and instances of bullying and abuse by those in authority in the Church have their been? And on a larger scale, what are the arguments between differing traditions in the Church and denominations of the Church other than attempts to pressure people into doing things in a certain way by saying what amounts to, “We’re right, they’re wrong, so ignore them and follow us because we know what God wants and anyone who disagrees with us doesn’t.” But aren’t arguments of that kind about influence over others and so, ultimately, about power? Aren’t they also examples of Christians doing, or at least trying to do the very thing that Jesus says Christians mustn’t do and ‘Lord it’ over others?

When I hear about these things I sometimes think of the words of a man not often noted for his religious tolerance, Oliver Cromwell. He once wrote to the Kirk, the Church in Scotland, saying,

“Is it infallibly according to the Word of God, everything that you say? I beseech you, in the very bowels of Christ, to consider the possibility that you may be mistaken.”

Why is it that so many people in the Church seem to think that everything they do say and do is infallibly according to the word of God, and that anyone who disagrees with what they say and do are the ones who are mistaken?

We’re called to worship God alone and to follow the teaching and example of Christ but so long as we try to turn the stones of our own words into the bread of God’s Word, so long as we put God to the test by insisting on having our own way in the Church, and so long as we play politics in the Church and with the Church for earthly power and status, we’ll neither worship God as we should nor follow Christ as we should. And so long as we do these things and play these games and fail to resist these temptations, we, the Church, will always struggle to fulfil our Great Commission to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples of all people because all our self-righteousness, and petty squabbling and lusting for influence and authority does is confuses people about who and what is right and wrong and about who they should listen to and follow.

John had to decrease so that Christ could increase and we, as individual Christians, as Churches and as a Church need to follow suit, we need to decrease so that Christ can increase. Perhaps a good, collective Lenten discipline for the Church and everyone in it would be to do that so that people will hear a lot less of our confused and confusing voices and a lot more of his voice.

Amen. 

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Propers for Lent 1, 18th February 2024

Entrance Antiphon
When he calls to me, I will answer; I will rescue him and give him honour.
Long life and contentment will be his.

The Collect
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)       
Genesis 9:8-15
Psalm 25:4-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:12-15

RCL (St Gabriel’s)          
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1 -9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

In just a few days’ time now, we’ll celebrate Ash Wednesday and begin the season of Lent. I don’t know how many of you have decided to take on a Lenten discipline this year, but for those who haven’t or who haven’t yet made up their minds what their Lenten discipline will be, there are still a few days left to decide. But whatever that Lenten discipline might be, whether it’s giving something up or taking something on, I hope everyone does at least try to take on and stick to some kind of discipline for Lent because it’s important that we do.

Lent is a penitential season, in other words, it’s a time of the year when we think about ourselves and our lives to see how closely those things conform to Christ’s teaching and example. It’s a time when we’re called to show repentance for our sins, for the ways and the times when we haven’t and don’t live up to Christ’s teaching and example, and whatever our Lenten discipline is, we take it on both to express our sorrow and repentance for our failures to live as Christ said we should and to discipline ourselves so that we can be more closely conformed to Christ in the future.

It’s often said in the Church and by the Church that the aim of Lent is to prepare for the greatest of all Christian celebrations, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ at Easter. But whilst that’s true, the purpose of a Lenten discipline isn’t only that. We don’t, or at least we shouldn’t, take on a Lenten discipline for the six weeks of Lent and then, once we’ve celebrated Easter, simply drop the discipline and go back to the way we were before. The purpose of a Lenten discipline is to be more closely conformed to Christ in the future, but not just the short-term future, not just the six weeks that the season of Lent lasts. The purpose of a Lenten discipline is to enable us to be more disciplined in conforming our lives to Christ permanently and that’s implied in the words we use at the imposition of ashes at the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday;

‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Turn from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

Those words don’t urge us to be faithful to Christ just for a few weeks, they imply a continuous, unswerving loyalty to Christ throughout our lives because, as those words remind us, this life will end for all of us and what happens to us then will depend on just how faithful we have been to Christ.

We know from Christ’s own words that he didn’t come into the world to condemn anyone. On the contrary, he came into the world to save everyone. But he also told us that we do have some influence over whether we are saved or not:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

And we also know from Christ himself that belief is not just a matter of paying lip service to his teaching and example, but living our own lives according to his teaching and example:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

God wants us to be saved and so does his Son, but we can’t leave it all in their hands. We have to join in with their plans; we have to make an effort and try to meet them part of the way and this is something we see in our Gospel readings this morning.

In the Gospel at St Mark’s, we read about a man with leprosy coming to Jesus and falling on his knees pleading to be cured. But when we read this story we have to remember that, in biblical times, leprosy wasn’t seen as simply a disease in the way that we see it today. In those days, illness, disability and misfortune were seen as punishment from God for sin, or perhaps as a way that God would test people’s faithfulness (this is what the Book of Job is about). So when this leper came to Jesus he came both in faith that Jesus could cure him, but also in humility as a sinner in need to forgiveness. And so he ‘came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees.’ We know, again from Christ himself that he came, 

“…to proclaim good news to the poor … liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed..”

so healing this man would certainly have fallen under thatremit. But it was the man who had to make the first move by coming to Jesus in faith. This is something we tend to find in the stories of Jesus’ miraculous healings: the one in need of healing had to come to Jesus in faith in order to be healed. And so if we want healing and forgiveness from Jesus, we have to come to him too. As we’re reminded each Ash Wednesday, we have to turn to Christ.

But having come to Christ, we then have to go with him where he leads, and this is something we see in the Gospel reading at St Gabriel’s this morning in the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

I’m sure we all know the story. Jesus takes Peter, James and John with him ‘up a high mountain’ where they see him transfigured and speaking with Moses and Elijah. Those disciples were privileged with a glimpse of Jesus’ true appearance and nature, dazzlingly bright, the fulfilment of the law and the prophets and as the very Son of God. There’s no doubt that this is what Jesus intended the disciples to see because he took them with him to the mountain. But in order to see it they had to go with Jesus. We’re told that the mountain they had to climb with him and to see this wonderful thing was a high one. And these things apply to us too.

There’s no doubt that Christ wants us too, to see what Peter, James and John saw on the mountain. He wants us to see him in glory, to see him as he really is, he must do because he wants us to be saved. But to do that we have to go with him up the mountain, no matter how high that mountain might seem to be or might actually be. And if we take on a Lenten discipline that we know is going to challenge us, one we know we’re going to find hard to stick to, the journey through Lent can seem like climbing a very high mountain. But if we can turn to Christ, come to Christ, and go with him up that mountain during Lent, we’ll be rewarded in so many ways. We’ll be rewarded with a sense of achievement that we have manged to keep to our Lenten discipline and come closer to Christ. We’ll be rewarded with a greater sense of celebration at our Lord’s Resurrection on Easter Day, knowing the hardships we’ve gone through to get there. And we’ll be rewarded with a sense of joy too through a deeper assurance that we will be saved and will see Christ in glory by sharing in his Resurrection.

But all that will count for nothing, if after we’ve climbed the mountain during Lent, we allow ourselves to fall back down it again after Easter. So our Lenten discipline isn’t just about being good, or being a bit better for a few weeks, it’s about being more closely conformed to Christ permanently. It’s not just about toughing it out for a few weeks until Easter so that we can go back to normal once we’ve celebrated the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, it’s about toughing it out until doing what we found tough during Lent becomes what’s normal for us. It’s about helping us to make that continuous turn away from sin and towards faithfulness to Christ so that we can celebrate Easter in the best way of all – by being more certain that Christ’s Resurrection is something that we will share in when we return to the dust at the end of our earthly lives.

Amen.

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Propers for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Next before Lent) 11th February 2024

Entrance Antiphon
Lord, be my rock of safety, the stronghold that saves me.
For the honour of your name, lead me and guide me.

The Collect
Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him,
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)        
Leviticus 13:1-2, 45-46
Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

RCL (St Gabriel’s)          
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9

A generation or two ago, it was very common if not actually the norm for Sunday services at an Anglican parish church to include Morning and Evening Prayer or, as they would probably have been called then, Mattins and Evensong. And at that time, if you’d have asked a member of an Anglican congregation to name a canticle, that’s a song from scripture, they would almost certainly have been able to give you one or more of three answers: the Benedictus, the Song of Zechariah which we use at Morning Prayer, and/or one of the two canticles we used to use at Evening Prayer, the Magnificat, the Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the one we heard in this morning’s Gospel, the Song of Simeon, which we know as the Nunc Dimitis, which is the Latin translation of the opening words of the canticle, ‘Now you let depart’.

The Nunc Dimitis is a canticle that works in a number of ways. It begins as a song of faith, and of praise and thanksgiving for faith vindicated. We’re told that the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he’d live to see the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, and the opening lines of the Nunc Dimitis express Simeon’s thanks and praise to God that this promise had been fulfilled. And not only the promise he’d been given, that he’d see the Messiah with his own eyes, but God’s promise to the people of Israel too, that they’d be given a saviour, the Messiah:

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples…”

But having begun as a song of faith, and of praise and thanksgiving, it then becomes a song of prophesy. We know from scripture that God had promised a Messiah to the people of Israel, but Simeon extends this promise to include all people of all nations:

“…for my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.”

We know that the word ‘revelation’ means to show something that was previously hidden, and the word ’glory’ can mean to say or show something good and praiseworthy about who or what we’re speaking about. So if we take these two lines together, Simeon’s words express his faith and his prophesy that the Messiah, this child Jesus whom he’d just laid eyes on for the first time, this baby boy who wasn’t quite six weeks old at the time, would go on to show to the people of the world something good and praiseworthy about the people of Israel. And he’d do that so that along with the people of Israel, the people of all nations could receive salvation too. But what does all that mean? What does it mean to be God’s people, Israel, and what about that did the nations need to know so that they could receive salvation?

In the Book of Genesis we read that Israel is the name God gave to Jacob, and so Jacob’s descendants became the people of Israel. No one’s quite sure exactly what the name ‘Israel’ means. When God gives Jacob the name, he explains it this way;

“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

We know that ‘El’ is short for ‘Elohim’, which is a name for God, but what ‘Isra’ means, or meant, we’re not sure because it could have a lot of different meanings and connotations. It can be interpreted as having something to do with struggling and strength, it can be interpreted as ‘seeing’, and it can also be interpreted as standing firm, especially in the way a plant stem becomes firm after taking in water. So, whilst we can’t be entirely sure what ‘Israel’ meant, it’s generally thought that it has something to do with standing firm with God, perhaps especially after having seen God or becoming filled with God. And we could interpret that as becoming filled with the Holy Spirit or what Jesus called ‘living water,’ an abundance of goodness that flows into a person from God and flows out of a person to others.

But whatever the exact meaning of the name ‘Israel’ is, it clearly has something to do with knowing God, being filled with a desire to live as God wants us to live and standing firm in faith. This is what it means to be one of God’s people, Israel, and this is what Jesus came to reveal to all people. He came to be the glory of God’s people Israel, by showing what it means to be one of those people. He came to do that both to call the people of Israel back to what they were always supposed to be, and to show the nations, those who had not been God’s people, how to be his people so that they could receive salvation. As St Peter put it when writing to the Gentile Church in what’s now Turkey,

‘Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’

To be God’s people though involves a commitment to live as God wants us to live, and part of that commitment is to allow the abundance of goodness that we’ve received from God flow out to others. If we don’t do these things then we can call ourselves God’s people until we’re blue in the face, but we won’t  be his people, except in name only. And I think it’s very important to understand that in light of what’s happening in the world at this time.

To be one of God’s people, we’re called to keep the commandments. The people of Israel whom Simeon spoke about in the Nunc Dimitis had ten; Jesus summed them up for us in the Church in two;

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

And the Scriptures are full of examples of how God’s people should love God and their neighbour. Such this from Leviticus:

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt…”

And this from Isaiah:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow’s cause.

Or this, again from Isaiah and which Jesus himself quoted as the reason he had come into the world.

‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…’

One of the great problems genuine people of faith have is that there are so many people who claim to be people of faith but who act in ways that are contrary to the teachings of the faith they profess. These people are not God’s people but because they claim to be whilst at the same time acting in ways that scripture tells us are abhorrent to God, such as these which we find in Proverbs;

‘…haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.’

they give genuine people of faith, and faith itself, a bad name because we all become tarred with the same brush. But, even in the days when this country was regarded as a Christian country, it would have been ludicrous to have regarded all the people of this country as Christians and to have seen their often very un-Christian behaviour as Christian behaviour. And in the same way, it’s ludicrous to see all Muslims as terrorists and to see what the modern nation state of Israel does, and is doing, as the actions of what Simeon and scripture call God’s people Israel.

We have to be very clear to distinguish between people of genuine faith and those whose faith is only a name to hide behind whilst they carry out acts which the faith they profess quite clearly says are wrong. Jesus came to be the glory of God’s people Israel. So when we see him and hear his teaching, we’re seeing and hearing what God’s people should be. And if people don’t do these things, they’re not God’s people. So let’s not listen to them or do as they say and do. Jesus came to show us these things so that we could be God’s people too. So when we see him and hear his teaching we’re seeing and hearing what we should be. So when we don’t do these things, we’re not God’s people. Jesus came to show us these things so that we could receive salvation. So let’s not do anything that will make us God’s people in name only, but listen to Jesus and do what will make us God’s people in reality. 

Amen.

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Propers for the Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas) 4th February 2024

Entrance Antiphon
Within your temple, we ponder your loving kindness, O God.
As your name, so also your praise reaches to the ends of the earth;
your right hand is filled with justice.

The Collect
Almighty and ever-living God, clothed in majesty,
whose beloved Son was this day presented in the Temple, in substance of our flesh:
grant that we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts,
by your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)        
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

RCL (St Gabriel’s)          
Malachi 3:1-5
Psalm 24:1-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40