Month: August 2014

… I … hope that the cross – a symbol so often used to oppose and oppress others, a symbol so often felt as a burden to ourselves, is a symbol which can be transformed today. 

We have the opportunity now to strip away all the violence and oppression which history has loaded into the cross. We have the opportunity today to translate ‘taking up our cross’ back into its original meaning, in which Jesus proposes we walk with him a path which will lead us peaceably through our confrontations with enemies, learning to see people of other faiths not as infidels but as fellow-travellers.

In inviting us to take up our cross Jesus proposes we walk with him a path which will lead us graciously through our struggles for ourselves and alongside alongside the poorest and most reviled members of society, against the powers that be.  

In inviting us to take up our cross Jesus proposes we walk with him a path which will lead us patiently through our suffering, just as his loving Father led him patiently, graciously, through his. It is a path which Jesus will walk with us, and bring us out, beyond – into life. 

Jesus said, ‘Take up [your] cross and follow me’. Today I say, take off your cross – to examine it awhile.

 - from my talk today, Take off your cross – to examine it awhile.

Romans 12.9-21; Matthew 16.21-27

Trinity 11, 31 August 2014, West Camel w. Queen Camel, Sparkford w. Weston Bampfylde

Trinity 12, 3 September 2017, Queen Camel

Jesus said, ‘Take up [your] cross and follow me’. Today I say, take off your cross – to examine it awhile.

One story which well illustrates the lack of religious understanding in our post-Christian society is the story of the young woman who goes into a jewellers shop and tells the assistant that she’d like to buy a cross. ‘What sort of cross?’ asks the assistant. After giving this a bit of thought the girl replies, ‘I’d like one of those with the little man on it’.

Now before we too quickly dismiss this young woman in condemnation of her ignorance, let us ask ourselves – when was the last time I explained to someone of her generation the meaning and significance of the cross, for me?

Another story which we hear from time to time is that of the person banned from wearing a cross at work. One of these, NHS nurse Shirley Chaplin, was quoted as saying that ‘My Christian faith isn’t something that you put on and then take off to go to work. It is with you 24/7. It is my identity, it is who I am, I cannot chop and change it.’ But a Government lawyer James Eadie QC argued that wearing a cross was not a Christian ‘scriptural requirement’, so employers had no obligation to recognise it. [1]

Why indeed did nurse Chaplain regard the cross as essential to her Christian identity? Do we feel the same way about the cross ourselves?

Jesus said, ‘Take up [your] cross and follow me’. Today I say, take off your cross – to examine it awhile. Because the way we regard the cross reflects the way we think about God, and the way we act towards others.

The cross has come to mean so many different things that it’s hard for us to fix on what Jesus meant when he invited his followers to take up theirs. The cross has been misused in so many terrible ways that it’s hard for the world to see anything positive in it at all.

Notice that when Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,’ they didn’t have the hindsight we have; they hadn’t been through the trauma of Calvary or the delight of seeing the risen Christ ascend. To them the cross was the plain old Roman instrument of execution, by crucifixion, which ‘political and military leaders regarded […] as a chilling deterrent – brutal and bloody, yet cheap and effective. […] In Roman practice, the victims of crucifixion were nearly always dangerous criminals and members of the lowest classes’. [2]

So when Jesus told them to take up their cross, his disciples would have known this meant, position yourselves alongside the poorest and most reviled members of society; because of the gospel message that you bring, prepare yourselves to stand opposed to the powers that be, and to bear the punishment of their wrath against you when it comes.

‘For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’

How different a view of the cross this is, than that which Christians have taken over the centuries. It’s fascinating to look back in history to see how ‘the cross rarely appeared as a public symbol of Christianity until the fourth century; more typically, Jesus was represented as the good shepherd. The crucifixion does not appear earlier than the fifth century, and was relatively infrequent until the tenth century.’ [3] 

What changed in the fourth century was that Christianity became wedded to empire after the Roman Emperor Constantine, in the midst of a battle, saw a vision of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS. [4]

At first, Constantine did not know the meaning of the apparition, but on the following night, he had a dream in which Christ explained to him that he should use the sign of the cross against his enemies. [5]

From then on, the emperor ordered that the banner of the cross be carried at the head of each of his armies as it went into battle. Taking up one’s cross came to mean bearing your military standard; the cross, the Chi-Rho sign, meant that God was fighting on your side. Those determined  to save their lives at the expense of others, march as to war ‘with the cross of Jesus going on before’. [6]

The history of the cross then becomes the story of a symbol used to violently put down the enemies of Christ: in the Crusades, where the cross became a clarion call to liberate the ‘Holy Land’ from ‘infidels,’ i.e., the Muslims, and during which time crusaders also raped, and pillaged, and murdered ‘infidels’ closer to home, i.e., the Jews. From the earliest of times the Jews had been accused by Christians of the charge of deicide: that is, in crucifying Jesus the Jews have murdered God. This accusation took a fierce hold on the Christian imagination and ‘the cross, the symbol in which the massacres were perpetrated, acquired powerful negative associations for Jews that linger to this day.’ [7] A Holocaust survivor Naftali Lavie has spoken of ‘the presence of [an eight-metre high] cross at Auschwitz as a provocation directed at the Jewish people, and as a desecration of the Holocaust’ [8]

The songwriter Sydney Carter, best known for ‘Lord of the Dance’, also penned these lines:

The Devil wore a Crucifix, 

‘The Christians they are right,’ 

The Devil said, ‘So let us burn 

A heretic tonight . . .’ 

 

The stars and stripes or swastika 

The crescent or a star 

The Devil he will wear them all, 

no matter what they are. . . [9]

Jesus said, ‘Take up [your] cross and follow me’. Today I say, take off your cross – to examine it awhile.

The way we regard the cross reflects the way we think about God. And about others, especially those of other faiths, and how we treat them. The way we regard the cross reflects the way we understand ourselves. And how we deal with our differences. How do you regard the cross today? 

An often-used phrase is this one: ‘It’s the cross I have to bear’. 

What do I mean when I say this? Do I mean: It’s the burden loaded onto me by a gratuitous God who wants to let me suffer?  Or do I mean: It’s the predetermined path to self-improvement directed by a severe God who wants to make my journey hard? 

Or, when I say, ’It’s the cross I have to bear’, do I mean that I see it as a symbol of a gracious God who once suffered crucifixion out of sheer self-giving love for me, and who now stands with me in my suffering? Do I regard the cross as the sign that there will be something better at the other end of my struggle, a resurrection, if I hold on to my hope?

I suggest the latter. For let us remember that Jesus said, ‘For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’ He is saying that the cross leads to life. It leads through suffering, for sure, but it leads to life.

This gives us hope that the cross – a symbol so often used to oppose and oppress others, a symbol so often felt as a burden to ourselves, is a symbol which can be transformed today. 

We have the opportunity now to strip away all the violence and oppression which history has loaded into the cross. We have the opportunity today to translate ‘taking up our cross’ back into its original meaning, in which Jesus proposes we walk with him a path which will lead us peaceably through our confrontations with enemies, learning to see people of other faiths not as infidels but as fellow-travellers.

In inviting us to take up our cross Jesus proposes we walk with him a path which will lead us graciously through our struggles for ourselves and alongside alongside the poorest and most reviled members of society, against the powers that be.  

In inviting us to take up our cross Jesus proposes we walk with him a path which will lead us patiently through our suffering, just as his loving Father led him patiently, graciously, through his. It is a path which Jesus will walk with us, and bring us out, beyond – into life. 

Jesus said, ‘Take up [your] cross and follow me’. Today I say, take off your cross – to examine it awhile.

Notes

[1] Anil Dawar, No right to wear a cross at work, Daily Express, September 5, 2012

[2] Mary C. Boys, The Cross: Should a Symbol Betrayed be Reclaimed?, paper presented to the Christian Scholars Group on Jews and Judaism in Baltimore, March 28, 1992. I’m indebted to Paul Neuchterlein for providing the reference to this, in Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Year A, Proper17a, ‘Reflections and Questions’, note 6.

[3] Mary C. Boys, (n6.)

[4] Mary C. Boys

[5] Wikipedia: In hoc signo vinces.

[6] A line from Sabine Baring-Gould, Onward Christian Soldiers.

[7] Mary C. Boys, quoting Marc Saperstein, Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations, p.19. 

[8] Mary C. Boys carries a full account of Naftali Lavie’s reflections on the presence of a cross at Auschwitz.

[9] Sydney Carter, ‘The Devil wore a Crucifix’: sung by Franciscus Henri on YouTube.

… Four very different men had engaged with the deep stuff of what makes us human, in creative and honest ways.

Sydney Carter is best known for his school-assembly hymns "Lord of the Dance" and "When I Needed a Neighbour", but in "Get Carter" John Davies (re)introduced the audience to the other half of a career in protest-folk.

With help from Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies, who showcased the songs, Davies told of a man whose music was as provocative to adults as it was accessible to children.

In Carter's "The Devil" he sang "The Devil wore a Crucifix, 'The Christians they are right' The Devil said 'so let us burn A heretic tonight . . .' The stars and stripes or swastika The crescent or a star The Devil he will wear them all, no matter what they are. . ." Carter was subsequently banned from the American military hymn-book, leaving him to wonder why he had ever been included in the first place.

Describing himself as "an enthusiast, not an expert", Davies relocated the musician a long way from the school hall, and made a convincing case for reappraisal.

 - from the Church Times review of Greenbelt 2014.

I never imagined that at the age of 52 I'd be onstage at an arts festival alongside a popular folk act leading a tentfull of 200-plus people in a celebratory dance, in my wellies. But Greenbelt has always provided opportunities for me to surprise myself, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity they gave me this year to collaborate with the very wonderful and lovely Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies (that's them, pictured below) in an hour of appreciation and celebration of the songs of Sydney Carter. If you're keen to peruse the contents of that hour, you can download my notes here [pdf]; if I find that Greenbelt recorded the session and have made it available, I'll link here).

We closed our set with 'Shake and Shiver', Carter's other paean to the Shakers (besides the better-known 'Lord of the Dance') and on a wet Northamptonshire Monday morning our tentfull got Carter and his lightly complex dancing music … as he put it in Green Print for Song,

Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies: happy collaborators

"Shake and shiver. With terror or delight? With delight: I think of the quivering of leaves, of light on water, or the shiver of small bells on the wrist or ankle of a dancer. But perhaps there is a touch of terror too. Sudden beauty, sudden truth, can make you shiver."

In retrospect, 'terror and delight' might have been a good strap-line for the new-look  Greenbelt at Boughton House. The practicalities of getting people on and off a country estate dug deep into a hollow in the Northants countryside, were a terror to some, especially the less-mobile in the mud at the end of the weekend. But the site itself is delightful, with its quirky landscaping, green groves and wide open spaces… and its hiddenness. It's like being invited into a secret: the act of arriving there consists of turning one's back on the fast and furious world represented by the A14, and descending into another place altogether. It is hard work, physically, doing this. Especially if it's wet. But it's hard work like a pilgrimage or a retreat. Not an escape, though of course, for being Greenbelt, once you're there what you find is a community committed to getting straight back into the world and finding the most creative, gracious and beautiful ways, of living out here.

2015 marks the centenary of Sydney Carter’s birth. I’m hoping I might put together a publication to celebrate his work. If you have any particular insights to share about Sydney and his dancing carols, or suggestions about the content of that book, I’d be delighted to hear from you. 

Show them no mercy - have mercy on me. Joshua was merciless towards his enemies. But Jesus had mercy on this representative of his people’s bitterest enemies. …  I think it is critical for the future of Christianity that we rekindle our interest in properly understanding the scriptures, that we make ourselves open to correcting our misreading of them over the centuries, to unearth the Christ we have lost. We have to face the possibility that for centuries we have been following Joshua rather than Jesus, and that is why we have lost our way as Christians, that is why our faith has lost credibility in the eyes of the world. …

Dealing with your enemies: the Joshua way, or the Jesus way? my talk today.

Deuteronomy 7.1-4, Matthew 15.10-28

Aug 17, 2014,Trinity 9, Queen Camel w. West Camel, Corton Denham w. Sutton Montis

Determined to destroy all the inhabitants of their enemy land, the invading forces entered the first city, massacring every man and woman, young and old, and all their animals, in brutal fashion. They destroyed that city and all its contents with fire. In the next city, the forces killed 12,000 men and women and executed their head of state. The troops progressed in this way throughout the territory, utterly destroying everyone and everything in them. They justified their actions on religious grounds, on their conviction that God told them that this was the way that they should deal with their enemies. [1]

Do you recognise this description of a genocide? It might have easily been culled from news reports of events in Iraq or Palestine this week, but in fact it is a summary of the actions of the ancient Israelites against the Canaanites, and their neighbours, from the book of Joshua. According to that book, 1400 years before Christ, Joshua’s brutal forces wreaked havoc in a relentless drive to reclaim the so-called Promised Land for their own possession. This was vengeance against their enemies on a terrifying scale. The ruthless demolition of Jericho was just the start of it. And Joshua’s actions were directly inspired by the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 7, in which God orders his people to clear away their enemy nations – the Canaanites and others – saying ‘you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.’ 

This is the way that Joshua deals with his enemies – mercilessly.

If he could answer to us now, Joshua would probably say that the Canaanites had it coming; throughout the Old Testament these people stood in the way of his people, the Israelites. They occupied their land, and lived wickedly on it. Sodom and Gomorrah were Canaanite cities – need we say more? The Canaanites were very wicked and deserved what Joshua gave them; and today, those who assert Joshua’s status and follow his example as a man of God, unquestionably justify this Canaanite genocide, saying that punishing evildoers is not unloving; that God sometimes kills Israelites, too, when they do wrong; that this is all part of God’s mysterious ways and we shouldn’t question it. [2]

On his website recently the author and pastor John Piper responds to the vexing problem of God ordering the mass killing of every Canaanite man, woman, and child by stating that ‘It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.’ [3]  This is the Joshua way of dealing with our enemies. And it’s still prevalent today.

Now although the Canaanites feature prominently in the Old Testament, as enemies of God’s chosen people, by the time of Jesus, and the time of Matthew, the term Canaanite had dropped out of everyday usage. Although the Old Testament ‘makes frequent mention of ‘Canaan’ and ‘Canaanites’, [it does so only] as a land that had become something else, and as a people who had been annihilated.’ [4] 

1400 years after Joshua’s reported destruction of Jericho, it would have raised the eyebrows of Matthew’s contemporaries to read in his gospel that Jesus was met by ‘a Canaanite woman’. [5] Nowhere else in the entire New Testament does this phrase occur. It’s strange, and so it’s significant. It’s rather like a present-day writer describing a Norwegian woman as a Viking, and we must assume that Matthew’s reasons for describing that woman that way was to provoke his audience to recall the troubled relationships of the past, between the Canaanite people and the Israelites. The term Canaanite is to Matthew’s audience a sort of stereotypical expression, which to them would mean ‘an enemy of Israel’. [6]

When Matthew’s audience heard the word Canaanite, they would recall the words of Deuteronomy, God’s command to ’utterly destroy the Canaanites’, to  ‘show them no mercy’, they would recall the actions of Joshua and his troops in ruthlessly executing this order. And now Matthew’s audience picture this Canaanite woman confronting Jesus and shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.’

Show them no mercy – have mercy on me. 

What happens next is crucial for anyone who is concerned to work out a faithful Christian response to the troubled relationships between peoples in our world today. For after reminding us of the way that Joshua deals with his enemies, Matthew then shows us how Jesus deals with them.

This is a remarkable passage, for in it we see Jesus seeming to struggle with the woman’s request for him to help her and her troubled daughter. It’s as if he’s finding it difficult to shake off the heavy weight of his faith tradition in the face of an enemy of his people. 

To the woman’s initial request for help Jesus ‘did not answer her at all’. Then, when his disciples urged him to send her away, he answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ This theme recurs throughout Matthew’s gospel, from the visit of the Magi to the Christ child, to the Great Commission at the end of the gospel – the question of, what is the scope of Christ’s mission? Is his gospel for Israel alone, or does it extend to the gentiles too? 

Here, Matthew stretches the theme further as Jesus struggles to see how his mercy should extend to a gentile enemy of his people. His protest couldn’t be starker: ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,’ he says. But when the woman persists, returning his insult with self-deprecating humour, saying,‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table,’ then Jesus acknowledges her great  faith, has mercy on her, and heals her daughter instantly.

There is no doubting how powerfully this story would have impacted on those who heard it first. For in it, Jesus turns the Canaanite genocide on its head. 

Show them no mercy – have mercy on me. Joshua was merciless towards his enemies. But Jesus had mercy on this representative of his people’s bitterest enemies. 

We might do well to reflect on what we should do with this revelation in these highly-conflicted times. For the question of how we deal with our enemies is surely one of the most critical ones we face. 

And it may be hard for those of us whose understanding of Christianity comes from Sunday School renditions of songs like ‘Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down!’, making the act of genocide sound like a walk in the park; for those of us who still sing hymns like ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and even the one we began with today, ‘For all the Saints…’, full of aggression against the enemy – it may be hard for us to come to terms with the tension in the scriptures between the actions of Joshua and a Jesus who deals with conflict in a very different way. 

But I think it is critical for the future of Christianity that we rekindle our interest in properly understanding the scriptures, that we make ourselves open to correcting our misreading of them over the centuries, to unearth the Christ we have lost. We have to face the possibility that for centuries we have been following Joshua rather than Jesus, and that is why we have lost our way as Christians, that is why our faith has lost credibility in the eyes of the world. 

It’s illuminating to remember that the bible isn’t a monolithic volume with one author and one voice, but that it’s a library of books written over many centuries by many different people, each with their own perspective on God and his ways; a library of books in conversation with each other, sometimes agreeing, sometimes provoking questions because they differ. It’s heartening to realise that just as we know that we can learn more about a story by reading different accounts of it between the BBC and Al-Jazeera, the Guardian and the Telegraph, so our understanding of Jesus is enriched by the four gospels with their quite different points of view. It’s helpful to read each bible book with an understanding of its historical context, as we would say, Shakespeare, or Wilfred Owen. Or the Book of Common Prayer.

So reading Deuteronomy, and Joshua, we acknowledge ‘that the Israelites were an ancient tribal people [who] thought of God the way other ancient tribal peoples did – as a fierce warrior who goes to battle with his people, assured of victory if they are on good terms with the deity but suffering defeat if not.’ [7] That takes us a long way towards understanding why they told the story of Jericho and the Canaanite genocide the way they did. It’s interesting to note that archaeologists now agree that the destruction of Jericho in 1400BC did not actually happen: it was a story told by Israel in later years to assert itself over its enemies, to show that God was on their side and they were on God’s. [8] Interestingly, other scriptures show that God did grant Israel the lands formerly occupied by Canaan; but did so in less confrontational ways, over longer periods of time. [9]

Reading Matthew, we sense that Jesus’s mission is to introduce to the people a new way of perceiving God, and thus a new way of living, with friends and enemies alike. This got him into trouble, of course, with those for whom the Joshua way was still the way. This trouble led to his execution – but this, as Brian D. McLaren says, was also ‘his most powerful lesson’:

By being crucified, Jesus exposed the heartless violence and illegitimacy of the whole top-down, fear-based dictatorship that nearly everyone assumed was humanity’s best or only option. He demonstrated the revolutionary truth that God’s kingdom wins not through shedding the blood of its enemies, but through gracious self-giving on behalf of its enemies. He taught that God’s kingdom grows through apparent weakness rather than conquest. It expands through reconciliation rather than humiliation and intimidation. It triumphs through a willingness to suffer rather than a readiness to inflict suffering. In short, on the cross Jesus demonstrated God’s non-violent non-compliance with the world’s brutal powers-that-be. He showed God to be a different kind of king, and God’s kingdom to be a different kind of kingdom. [10]

How do we deal with our enemies? By embracing the way of Jesus, as taught in the Sermon on the Mount – by loving our enemies. praying for those who persecute us. [11] This is a crucial insight for us today, especially as we decide whether to side with Joshua or walk with Jesus in our approach towards those of other religions.

Through the centuries, religions have repeatedly divided people. Religions – including the Christian religion – have too often spread fear, prejudice, hate and violence in our world. But in [Jesus’ merciful treatment of the Canaanite woman] we can see a better way – a way Jesus himself embodied and taught as a man. [This story reminds us] that members of earth’s religions don’t need to see their counterparts as competitors or enemies. Instead, we can be open to learning from them and sharing with them. Instead of looking for faults and errors by which other religions can be discredited, insulted and excluded, we can ask other questions: What good can he discovered in this religion? Let us honour it. What treasures have they been given to share with us? Let us warmly welcome them. What dangers do they face? Let us protect them. What gifts do we have to share with them? Let us generously offer them. [12]

When they come to ask us for mercy, let us embrace them and heal them.

Notes

[1] A summary of Joshua’s actions against the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, from the book of Joshua, rewritten from an article which leads to a very different set of conclusions from my sermon: Eric Lyons, God’s Just Destruction of the Canaanites, Apologetics Press, 2012.

[2] Justifications from Lyons, above, and Peter Enns, The best way of getting out of the whole Canaanite genocide thing, and it comes right from the Bible (but you may not like it), Pantheos, October 18, 2013.

[3] Peter Enns, John Piper on Why “It’s Right for God to Slaughter Women and Children Anytime He Pleases” and Why I Have Some Major Problems with That, Pantheos, July 17, 2012.

[4] Wikipedia: Canaan, citing Drews, Robert (1998), “Canaanites and Philistines”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 81: 39–61.

[5] Matthew 15.22.

[6] Here, I become indebted to Paul Neuchterlein, in his Opening Comments on Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, PROPER 15 (August 14-20) – YEAR A / Ordinary Time 20, which point the reader towards Grant LeMarquand’s online essay, The Canaanite Conquest of Jesus. Neuchterlein writes that ‘Matthew’s Gospel story of the Canaanite woman has become one of the most important biblical stories to me, one that I raise often when seeking an example of how Jesus reinterprets his own Jewish faith’, and cites LeMarquand’s reading as being ‘groundbreaking’, as I now also do. Much of the following sections of this sermon, I owe to LeMarquand.

[7] Peter Enns, The best way of getting out of the whole Canaanite genocide thing, and it comes right from the Bible (but you may not like it), Pantheos, October 18, 2013.

[8] Wikipedia: Battle of Jericho.

[9] Eg, Exodus 23.30: ‘Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land’ – for this and other examples see Peter Enns, The best way of getting out of the whole Canaanite genocide thing, and it comes right from the Bible (but you may not like it), Pantheos, October 18, 2013.

[10] Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking, p.127.

[11] Matthew 5.44.

[12] Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking, p.102.

We usually focus on the subject of today’s gospel reading as the amazing feat of Jesus in walking on the water; we preach about what this tells us of God’s command of nature, or God’s oneness with creation. All of that is true and worthy of our praise. But every miracle of Jesus also has a human face. There’s as great a miracle in what Jesus did for Peter that day. 

This is the miracle told another way – Peter took a leap of faith – and though he fell, he did not drown. For Jesus held him. And Peter’s leap of faith illuminates our own Simon Peter moments.

– from today's talk, He took a leap of faith – and though he fell, he did not drown.

Romans 10.5-15, Matthew 14.22-33

Aug 10, 2014,Trinity 8, Sutton Montis w. Corton Denham, West Camel w. Queen Camel

She took a leap of faith, Christine, in starting a search for her long-lost mother. [1]

She had had a very happy upbringing with her adoptive parents, good Christian folk in a comfortable suburban home. She’d made a life for herself which now involved two grown-up children, flying the nest, and one grandchild on the way. It was the news about the forthcoming grandchild which reawoke in her a desire she’d always had – to trace her own birth mother. Her parents had always told her that this could be difficult – and could be painful – though they never expanded on that, wouldn’t say more. Christine prayed about it, talked it through with friends, with her vicar, and with their support, finally took the steps to begin her search.

What she eventually discovered was not good news. Her mother was dead, after living a relatively short and very hard life; estranged from her own parents as a teenager she had been in and out of care, on and off the streets; she had to give up Christine at birth to the care system, and died of a drug overdose at the age of 24. 

Christine took a leap of faith, but then she fell – into a depression, a time of questioning why her mother had had to live such a hard life, despair that she would never know her mother or be able to help her.

He took a leaf of faith, William, in starting up a new charity. A devout Christian, he’d always been troubled by the church’s squeamishness about anything to do with sexuality, especially when in his daily work, as a police officer, he saw how many people were suffering as victims of sexual crimes – including many men. Knowing his scriptures William felt sure that if Jesus was in his position he’d be reaching out to people who were being abused, but suffering in silence because of the shame attached to their situation. William decided to set up a support group for male victims of sexual abuse – whose suffering was largely hidden from society, and never addressed by the church. 

After much research, some training and social work accreditation, William set up a small group, of people referred to him by a police support worker colleague, and those who came found it helpful, that is until the day that one of the group members phoned William to say that his uncle, who was his abuser, had discovered that he had been going to this group, and had badly beaten him. 

William took a leap of faith, but then he fell – feeling that he’d failed to put in enough protective measures for those he was trying to help, he went into a crisis of confidence in what he was doing. [2] 

You know, every Christian has our Simon Peter moments; those times in life which require a leap of faith. Be it the decision to be baptised – or confirmed – in later years, following a heightened sense of conviction about the rightness of making life a walk with Christ; or be it a decision about a marriage, a career change or a move of home. This goes on right through life, for the journey never stops, there are often stormy waters to manouevre, there are always challenging decisions to face, and if we spend our lives prayerfully attuning our senses to Christ, then over and over again we find ourselves in the same position as Simon Peter in that boat: listening for the voice of Christ, calling him to take the leap of faith to follow where he calls.

Consider those times in your life when this has been the case for you … Consider what is happening in your life now, and if the boat you’re in is currently rocking in choppy waters … Consider these moments your Simon Peter moments, an invitation for you to take a leap of faith.

We usually focus on the subject of today’s gospel reading as the amazing feat of Jesus in walking on the water; we preach about what this tells us of God’s command of nature, or God’s oneness with creation. All of that is true and worthy of our praise. But every miracle of Jesus also has a human face. There’s as great a miracle in what Jesus did for Peter that day. 

This is the miracle told another way – Peter took a leap of faith – and though he fell, he did not drown. For Jesus held him. And Peter’s leap of faith illuminates our own Simon Peter moments.

See what Peter does here. He says, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ At a time of testing and of questioning, Peter does what any Christian would do, in prayer, in conversation with others – he seeks to be sure that the next move he makes is going to be a move towards Christ, that it will be a move truly prompted by Jesus.

And Jesus said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. Here is Peter having a Christine moment, when she began that search for her mother, a William moment, when he first invited people to his survivors support group. A you moment, when you … stepped out in faith …

But now see what Peter does next. When he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and [began] to sink. Just as Christine began to sink, after the bad news she received of her mother; just as William’s hopes for the support group sank after he hit a difficult patch. Just as we, sometimes, in these situations, get that sinking feeling, when things get hard, hopes get dashed.

Now, we can be greatly encouraged by Peter – and Christine and William – because although we see them floundering in stormy waters just now, we admire the leap of faith which got them that far. A fear of failure stops many of us even leaving the boat, our sense of vulnerability is stronger than our faith in the Christ who is calling us, so we do not move at all.

But Peter – and Christine and William – did take a leap of faith. And though they fell, they did not drown.

Peter cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ – Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him. And we picture that sodden, shivering mess of a man held fast in the arms of the compassionate one who loves and saves him. 

And this is the miracle as Christine now sees it – for with the prayers and the support of her family and church friends she began to emerge from her depression and see her search for her mother in  a new light; she began to see her own life in a new light, and with a newly-kindled compassion for those children whose parents have had to give them up to care, she and her husband decided to open their home to foster children, and they currently care for two young teenagers in this way.

Jesus holding Peter fast, whilst all at sea, illuminates William’s Simon Peter moments too. For William was persuaded by the group members – and especially by the one who had been beaten up – not to give up at this first hurdle, but to tighten up their procedures and carry on. Which is what, after prayer and consultation, he did. And that one support group has now become a network of groups throughout their region.

‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame,’ wrote Paul to the Romans. [3] Jesus did not shame Peter for his lack of faith when he fell. Rather, when Peter fell, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. Only after that did Jesus say, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ A gentle reprimand, not a severe reproach, for Jesus is a kindly and compassionate leader of his people.

‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ Jesus did not shame Christine despite the darkness in her family history into which she stumbled; Jesus did not shame William despite the difficult episode which his fledgling support group faced. Rather, when they fell, Jesus reached out his hand and caught them. And increased their faith.

And so, here is the miracle-within-the-miracle we have learned today. That when we take a leap of faith, even if we fall, we will not drown. For Jesus, the kindly and compassionate leader of his people reaches out to catch us. Increases our faith, eliminates our doubts, leads us on. Remember this, in your Simon Peter moments, that:

 … ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ … For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ [4]

Prayer 

Lord, I recall when I heard your call and took a leap of faith … and when I fell, you held me.

I ask you today, to keep calling me forward, to increase my faith, to help me take that step … in confidence that you again are there to catch me if I fall, and save me.

Amen.

Notes

[1] ‘Christine’ and her story are fictional but I think realistic, and illustrative for the purposes of this sermon.

[2] ‘William’ and his charity are fictional but illustrative for the purposes of this sermon. An entirely unrelated, but actual charity helping men who have been sexually violated and raising awareness of their needs, is SurvivorsUK. 

[3] Romans 10.11

[4] Romans 10.11,13

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, from the five thousand men and innumerable women and children Jesus fed on that Palestinian plain that day, the disciples were only able to extract a meagre five loaves and two fishes? Surely there was more food in the crowd than that. I suggest to you today that the reason why the crowd voluntereed so little to this mutual cause, was that this was a crowd in conflict, that Jesus’ audience were people at odds with each other, not inclined towards helping each other. The miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand was a miracle set in wartime. …

– opening salvo of my talk today which goes from the Somme to the Gaza strip by way of first century Palestine, The Feeding of the Five Thousand – a miracle set in wartime.

Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

Trinity 7, 3 August 2014, Queen Camel w. West Camel

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, from the five thousand men and innumerable women and children Jesus fed on that Palestinian plain that day, the disciples were only able to extract a meagre five loaves and two fishes? Surely there was more food in the crowd than that. I suggest to you today that the reason why the crowd voluntereed so little to this mutual cause, was that this was a crowd in conflict, that Jesus’ audience were people at odds with each other, not inclined towards helping each other. The miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand was a miracle set in wartime.

I will return to this theme very soon. But now, let us reel forward to the balcony of Buckingham Palace, on the night of 4th August 1914, the night that Britain declared war on Germany. There, King George V and Queen Mary were cheered for three hours by enormous crowds, united in support of those setting off for France.

After the initial bewilderment and incredulity gave way to determination, individuals and organisations threw themselves into supporting the war effort from the outset. Churches joined in this upsurge of enthusiasm: in many parishes, special collections were held for organisations such as the Prince of Wales’ National Relief Fund, the Order of St John of Jerusalem, the Red Cross, and other charities. Services of intercession for victory were held in cathedrals and churches, and from these evolved frequent services of intercession in many churches.

Some clergy became carried away by it all. The Revd Thomas Sadgrove, Vicar of Fairstead, [was said to have] “preached a horrifying sermon on the horrible scenes of the battlefield, and exhorted all the young men to join the Army. He had a big Union Jack hung in front of the pulpit, instead of the pulpit-hanging.”

But patriotic sermons of this sort seem to have been the exception rather than the rule, and attitudes appear to have been more nuanced. The poet and First World War soldier Geoffrey Dearmer, once said of his father, the Revd Percy Dearmer, Vicar of St Mary’s, Primrose Hill: “My father would have been very disappointed if [I and my brother Christopher] hadn’t joined up, [though] he took the general view of the tragedy of it all.” 

Percy Dearmer’s attitude replicated the attitude of a great many Anglicans. They were not blind to the destructive character of war, but they believed in the righteousness of their country’s cause in the face of German aggression. [1]

What is the role of the church in wartime? How should Christians respond in situations of conflict? Questions faced in the raw by our forebears a century ago; but questions we face ourselves today in a world which doesn’t seem to have learned much from the lessons of the so-called Great War, despite the now general agreement that ‘the war of 1914-1918 was not fought for the lofty motives that each side claimed, and that we all would be better off if it had not been fought at all.’ [2] Or as Harry Patch, the last surviving British veteran of the first World War, once said: “It was not worth even one life.”  Winston Churchill later described that war as

… a tale of the torture, mutilation or extinction of millions of men, and of the sacrifice of all that was best and noblest in an entire generation. The crippled world, in which we dwell today is the inheritor of these awful events. [3] 

If we stop to reflect, many of us now feel ourselves to be inheritors of that crippled world, our mental environment shell-shocked by the world’s conflicts, from the Somme to the Gaza Strip. But will we people of faith look to Jesus for our response to the conflicts of today? Can we followers of Christ hold to the hope that he, the truth, will set us free? [4] 

How do we think of ourselves in wartime? Are there questions we can ask of war beyond the usual one of, ‘Whose side are you on?’ Are there assumptions we make in war beyond the usual assumptions that we have to take a position on one side or another? 

Perhaps the key question of all is: how do we think of God in wartime? Do we really need to claim that our position is God’s position too, that God is on our side against the others? And why does God get the blame for the effects of conflicts caused by human rivalry and empire-building? [5]

How do we think of God in wartime? I think our answers to this question impact firmly on how we address all the others.

Here’s a suggestion. That when we remember God in wartime we go back to that image of Jesus, feeding a massive, hungry crowd, on a Palestinian plain. We go back to a miracle.

Why would we do that? Because this miracle took place in wartime. The situation in which these events took place was a situation of military and political conflict. This was in Israel, the place of the chosen people of God, ‘the Israelites’, as Paul wrote, ‘[to whom] belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; [of God] …’ [6]

Jesus was one of these Israelites, who despite their claims to be the chosen people of God, were at that time a traumatized and determined people, fighting for their identity and their land, a people suffering under the occupation of Rome, a people whose ruler Herod Antipas was focussed only on building his own empire and protecting his own interests, in the process exploiting the poor of the land; this was a people longing for a society where they would be free forever from the rule of tyrants and alien powers. [7]

So the Feeding of the Five Thousand took place, we might say, in Israel in wartime. Jesus had just heard that Herod, protecting his own interests as ever, had beheaded John the Baptist, the prophet who had challenged the king on his personal life, the zealot who had become another in a long line of victims of war. And now Jesus was followed by the crowds, each faction within them no doubt asking, of each other and of Jesus and his followers, ‘Whose side are you on?’, 

We can be sure that the crowds wanted Jesus on their side – but they were not united. Some would be the zealot followers of John taking the moral high ground against Herod whilst wanting to bring him down out of revenge, others were the religious leaders and Temple-goers wanting Jesus to cease his kingdom-of-God talk and accept their compromises with Rome, others still were the mothers and children who simply wanted respite from all the fighting, some peace amidst the trauma of their civil war. Within each group would be sub-groups, each with its own agenda to fix society, each unprepared to countenance the views of the others. This would be a crowd squabbling with each other as it came to Jesus to see how he would respond to John the Baptist’s death. 

So what did Jesus do in the clamour of this conflict? Matthew tells us that, hearing of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. Later, when he went ashore, seeing the great crowd waiting for him, he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 

And that evening, when his disciples came to him to ask him to send the crowds away so that they could find food to eat, Jesus told the disciples to feed the people. Despite their unwillingness to contribute much, he took the meagre five loaves and two fish which they offered, looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 

What is the role of the church in wartime? How should Christians respond in situations of conflict? 

What did Jesus do? Our answers are plentiful and powerful. 

Jesus did not take sides. This would have been a quarrelsome crowd but he did not enter into their arguments. He saw them all as one, and had compassion on them all.

And Jesus did not send the crowds away to their respective camps, to turn their backs on the others and find food for themselves. Despite their unwillingness to feed each other, Jesus held them together, this conflicted body of people, he healed their sick and found a way to help them feed each other indiscriminately. That was a miracle in itself.

What Jesus did in wartime was practical – he healed those who were sick; and seeing that the people needed feeding, he helped them feed each other.

And what Jesus did in wartime was symbolic – the bread and the fish precursors of that meal which he inaugurated and which all Christians still celebrate today – that eucharist which unites us with a God who does not take sides but is indiscriminately compassionate, that communion which unites us with each other, whatever side we are on.

This miracle in wartime demonstrated to the crowds that in the kingdom of God all are fed. They may not have volunteered the food to serve each other, but Jesus ensured that each received more than enough that day. And they stayed and ate together.

Today, on the very ground where Jesus stood to perform this miracle, people are taking sides, people are firing rockets and dropping shells, women and children are, as always, in the firing line. As we wonder what to pray for the people of Israel and Palestine, let us hold that picture of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in our hearts. We needn’t ask, whose side are we on; rather we should prayerfully ask for a compassionate heart:

– for the people of Israel, a traumatized and determined people who have suffered so much oppression through the centuries, at the hands of anti-Semitic Christians and others, culminating in the Holocaust, that they are determined to create a lasting homeland where the Jewish people will be safe forever.

– and for the people of Palestine, a desperate and determined people who have lived under varying degrees of occupation, oppression, and invasion, for decades, utterly out-gunned by Israel, sensing the international community is likely to tacitly allow their situation to continue to deteriorate, launching rocket attacks out of protest and desperation. [8]

If we imagine ourselves to be standing where Jesus once stood, before both these sides as a factious and warring crowd,we may begin to see them as one. Each with valid needs; each with much for which we ought to have compassion. Then our prayer might be that God will raise up compassionate ones there, who will respond practically, as Jesus did – go out among the people, healing their wounded, intent on feeding them. 

We might pray that God will raise up compassionate ones there, who will respond symbolically, as Jesus did – by finding ways to overcome divisions, to help the people feed each other; by working towards a communion which unites us firmly with each other, despite our differences.

With the aid agencies, the relief workers, the negotiators, the peacemakers, in what we even now call the Holy Land, we might still believe a miracle, and live and work towards it.

Notes

[1] Robert Beaken, Conflict on the home front, Church Times, 25 Jul 2014

[2] Adam Hochschild, First world war – a century on, time to hail the peacemakers, Guardian, 28 July 2014

[3] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p.293

[4] ‘So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”’ John 8.31-32

[5] Brian D. McLaren, Israel, Gaza, Insanity and Sanity (Part 1)

[6] Romans 9:4-5

[7] See my sermon Mark 6 – Herod the haunted for more on Antipas.

[8] Brian D. McLaren, Israel, Gaza, Sanity, and Insanity (Part 2)