Posted by stpauls on July 25, 2010 under Sermons | 
[This sermon was written and delivered by The Reverend Dr. Yazeed Said on July 25, 2010, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost.]
Both of our first two readings reflect some sense of struggle and conflict, but also a word of hope. In Hosea, God is struggling with the unfaithful house of Israel. And it seems it is possible, just about, that God could be good enough to spare the house of Judah. Yet, at the end of the reading, we still have this verse in which we are told: “In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’” This anticipates the amazing verse later in Hosea 11: 8-9: “how can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?…my heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender…For I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” God is the way he is by giving away, forgiving, and loving, not by clinging and defending.
Paul’s struggling in Colossians is different: Here is the call to the Church to stay “rooted and built up in Christ and established in the faith…. see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit… for in Christ you have come to fullness.” Paul is at pains proclaiming that Christ is not someone who simply did spectacularly well in the past. He is the one “in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Paul speaks of Jesus as the one who is opened to the horizon of God’s own nature. In him, we are renewed. In him, we were buried in baptism. In him, we are forgiven. In him, we have come to fullness of life.
So as always, listening to the story of God and his dealing with us in the Bible is a time when the questions are turned round upon us to put to us the basic questions of conversion (even if we do not call ourselves Evangelical with a capital E): “What is the form in which you think of yourself?” You may understand yourself as someone who retains their security and freedom. You have the liberty to establish yourselves freely and fence around your self so that you have everything you need, well anchored in secure fences. Yet, the Bible shares with us the story, both in Old and New Testaments, of one who does not cling to defence, but has risked his life into our hands, and what a risk that was! Reflecting how good human beings are; and despite it all he has forgiven us for it. Which is the way that you and I want to choose?
When we come to prayer, as we do now, we are defining ourselves differently. We pray, simply because we acknowledge that we are in need. The legions of people around who do not pray, are simply saying: we are not in need. We come to pray, because we have taken the risk of putting our lives in the hands of the living God. We have come to empty ourselves like Jesus has done, and make room for God.
The disciples come to Jesus asking: “Lord teach us to pray.” We should be glad to know that this is not just a modern question! And the bottom line is that to pray is about growing into the humanity that Christ shows us. And so, just as Jesus calls God “Father,” we too, are called to stand where Jesus is, and learn that we are daughters and sons of God. The implications of Paul’s words in Colossians is simply that Jesus made it possible for us to talk to God in a different way. In other letters, like in Romans 8 and Galatians 4, Paul says that it is the Spirit that makes us call God “Abba, Father.” So to pray “Our Father” is simply to allow the Spirit pray in us, and to let the prayer of Jesus be our prayer. “Our Father” expresses that clearly. We begin where Jesus stands and pray what Jesus prays. Everything that we say, when we acknowledge that God is Father, reflects our willingness to see the world as transparent to God: “May your kingdom come, your will be done.” May what God wants shine through in our world and shape what we are called to be. Only after that, do we go on asking for what we need. We need sustenance, daily bread, mercy and forgiveness; we ask to be steered away from the tests we are not strong enough to bear.
And when we come to pray and acknowledge our need and dependence on God, we are not simply embarrassing ourselves as many think in our society who do not pray. Rather, in acknowledging that we are not self-sufficient, we are standing in a place of dignity. Failure does not belong to those who pray, but to those who think that they are self-sufficient. Prayer, therefore, shows the arrogance of those who think that they are not in need, and presents to us the treasure that the needy fully possess. And this treasure is something that we receive as part of our dignity not only in creation, but also in the active life of our relationship with one another: the father to his son, as Jesus says in the gospel today; we to our neighbours, friends, and even strangers around us. Such is the dignity that we have received, to the extent that we cannot keep it to ourselves, and cannot preserve it at the expense of others. It is rather a reminder that we remain vulnerable people, and to pray the prayer of Jesus is also to remind ourselves of how we so often destructively defend ourselves against others. How can we ask for bread when we think too highly of our self-righteousness? How can we ask for forgiveness, when we do not forgive others?
We shall in a moment pray Jesus’ prayer, as we literally stand where Jesus stands with us at the altar, and in his presence. He invites us all. There is no room for grudges in him. But, his generous invitation to all of us is a bit of a loaded invitation. It makes us ask ourselves: “Who do we really trust? Ourselves, or God? Who do we want to be? People full of the life in abundance in God? Or grudging people worried all the time to defend ourselves, thinking that we are safe and secure on our own.” In fact, we are too busy defending ourselves, to the extent that we forget to live on our soil, the soil that we are so eager to defend. Our prayer anchored in the crucified and risen Christ is our only security, reflecting our pilgrimage from glory to glory, trusting in God’s victory over all that hurts his world. We are reclaimed and recreated every time we stand at the altar.
As Paul reminds us: “Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.” We came to be nourished and held by him at the altar.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Luke 11:1-13 ~ Gospel Reading for July 25, 2010
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’
“I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything, because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Colossians 2:6-19 ~ Bible Reading for July 25, 2010
As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Hosea 1:2-10 ~ Bible Reading for July 25, 2010
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the LORD said to him, “Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”
She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the LORD said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.”
When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people and I am not your God.” Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
Posted by stpauls on July 18, 2010 under Sermons |
[This sermon was written and delivered by The Reverend Dr. Yazeed Said on July 18, 2010, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.]
This morning’s second reading from the letter to the Colossians gives the boldest and most unambiguous statement about what’s new and different about Jesus. Jesus is the one “in whom all fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.” “You were once estranged,” says Paul to the Church in Colossae. But, now you are reconciled. And this reconciliation was not done by mere information sent to you. It was achieved at a cost, the cost of the cross in him who is “the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation.” When all has been said and done by the Prophets, what appears to be at stake is that God is also interested in a personal relationship, which becomes manifest in Jesus. To know God really is a matter of relationship, a covenant between us and God: “he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.”
“Jesus is the first born of all creation,” says Paul. Yet, the eternal Son of God is not contained by the universe. He is the life giving principle of all reality (“in him was life,” said St. John’s gospel, 1:4). In other words, Paul is presenting to us in clear terms the paradox of the Christian faith. In the limited human life of Jesus in history, divine fullness is alive. In that little space of the babe of Bethlehem, there is fullness of life, the one “who fills all in all,” as Paul again said. He has reconciled all things to God by the cross we are reminded. The body that was tucked in the tomb was also God’s life. And before we respond with modern suspicion about the contradictory nature of such claims, let us remind ourselves that God remains totally unlike anything we can think about, totally different from the processes of human calculation, and this means that God can (not cannot be) be in relationship with us in a human life and death without ceasing to be God either. And what this means is that God’s way with us is not to overwhelm us with distant unapproachable majesty. Rather he lives his life in our limited space whilst still remaining the unimaginable God. That is how majestic he is. He speaks to us quiet words that call us to faith. His is a mellifluous Presence (I could not resist the use of the word mellifluous).
This is “the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints,” says St. Paul, adding that “God chose to make known how great…are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” And the question that we have for us today is the question: “how do we get to experience the riches of the glory of this mystery? How do we get to know the transformative power of God in our lives in practical terms? And I think the answer begins with being, like God, very quiet. Stand still in order to allow him some room in our busy life. As we are faced with the fullness of God in the babe of Bethlehem, the tired wanderer of Galilee, the body on the cross, we have to look at ourselves hard and ask what it is that makes us clumsy and massive to go into the quiet small space where we meet God in Jesus Christ. For Amos the Prophet in our first reading, it is the wealth of the greedy and their constant search for security against the needs of the poor in the land. But, it may be our images of ourselves as more virtuous, or more correct and more godly than others, as is the case with Martha in the Gospel today.
When I read such texts, I often feel like they written yesterday. For our world and our Church are full of people, like us, who have puffed-up ideas, be they conservative or liberal, our pictures of ourselves and claims that what we believe is truer than others does make room to others and push God away. We do need to remember what Christ says to Martha. She is troubled with the load of things she needs to do, and it is as if Jesus is saying you need to shed your great load of anxiety and fear, and he might round the argument against us who live in the comfortable West: you need to shed the great load of your arrogant self-reliance, your noisy fear of enemies. Things have become so familiar and so boring for you here in the West. It is time for you to hear some strangers. It is time for you to see the need of the strangers around you, and find your good in their good, pursue justice and abandon your fantasies of controlling the world.
And when we have set all of this aside, we find that it is only at sitting at the feet of Jesus, that limited space, like Mary has done, that we will find room enough for all of us, when we will discover that sitting at the feet of Jesus in Galilee, or at the cross, we are in that small space, as Paul said to us today, presented as “holy and blameless and irreproachable before him,” sharing in the divine fullness of life and joy that God shares with us. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, we find the infinity of mercy and love. We do not need to strain our eyes to see a distant God; but a God whose fullness dwells in the quiet little spaces, which we are not small and simple enough to enter.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Luke 10:38-42 ~ Gospel Reading on July 18, 2010
As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Colossians 1:15-28 ~ Bible Reading for July 18, 2010
Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him – provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel. I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Amos 8:1-12 ~ Bible Reading for July 18, 2010
This is what the Lord GOD showed me – a basket of summer fruit. He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me,
“The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by.
The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”
says the Lord GOD;
“the dead bodies shall be many,
cast out in every place. Be silent!”
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, “When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
On that day, says the Lord GOD,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.
Posted by stpauls on July 11, 2010 under Sermons |
[This sermon was written and delivered by The Reverend Dr. Yazeed Said on July 11, 2010, Seventh Sunday after Pentecost.]
“Love God and love your neighbour as yourself” is one of those texts used so often that it has almost become stale and abstract. It is a common text for us today; it was a common text for Jesus’ contemporaries as we heard, and it is a common text for people of other faiths. A few years ago, some Muslim leaders issued a call to Christian leaders in the world, using this text as what they called “a common word between you and us.”
Yet, who of us really loves God? And clergy are no better I hasten to assure you. My late father once said to me when he learned to his disapproval that I intended to seek ordination in the Church: “priests, because they love no one, they imagine that they love God.” In my innocence at the time, I went and reported the matter to my parish priest, and said to him: “Do you know of anyone who is like this?” Desperately, he replied: “Yes, myself.” He was joking, I think.
After all what is loving God apart from following the law, doing the right things, having the right disposition, avoiding doing sinful things etc etc etc…? If that is what loving God is, then most of us don’t. And if we seek to confess this in public, everybody might be happy except for ourselves, miserable sinners. For the lawyer who comes to Jesus, love of God is a matter of law, loyal following, keeping within the rules. Any different personal interpretation will not fit his profession, indeed might be considered a blasphemy. You cannot love God in that sort of way, as if it is about the greedy possessive human love. Love of God for this lawyer is an attitude and not a feeling. We cannot expect it to make any difference in our lives.
In confronting the question with this lawyer, Jesus typically does not give back straightforward answers. He does not say, “Oh yeah, God is a good man; you should love him.” He gives a story that creates further questions, reflecting on how love of God and love of neighbour are so intrinsically united and cannot be thought of separately. Something more can be learned from our second reading today. Paul is writing to the Church in Colossae, which was established as we heard by a Colossian man called Epaphras, who from the letter to Philemon we learn was a prisoner with Paul in Rome. Paul encourages the Church there to persevere in the face of certain heresies. He tells them: “Epaphras has made known to us your love in the Spirit,” and then prays that they may lead lives worthy of the Lord fully pleasing to him, “as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.”
So after all, being faithful to God DOES mean some kind of transformation, some kind of change, some kind of life worthy of the Lord, not just simply saying you are okay just as you are. And that comes as a result of our love of God. In other words, our call to obedience is not simply doing the right things with some sort of abstract general devotion to God. It is the heart’s love and offering to God, which can only be expressed in minute details to everything that we do as we become aware of that prior love of God. And this is not simply a matter of abstract choice, which does not affect our feelings. Our choice of doing this comes because we like it. Being creatures, we cannot avoid being moved by what we are attracted to. We may talk about faith and love for hours, but the basic truth is that we are not moved towards God except by means of his attractiveness.
So Paul goes on to say:
“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”
We love God, simply because we like what we see in him. We do not say only God is good, but also God is beautiful. He is utterly worthwhile, deserving my whole life, and even my death for the confession of his name. If this choice does not involve our desire and gives us pleasure, it is no choice at all, and we will not solve it by giving lectures about faith. What God wishes for us, does for us, as Paul explains, is relevant to our fulfilment. It is what we seek and desire, but cannot achieve on our own. There is also an arrogant matter indeed about the lawyer who meets Jesus assuming that he learned the law, and that love of God and neighbour is all about this pure loyalty. If we say we love God with no thought or effects in the way we behave with our neighbours, or feelings, are we not also suggesting that we do not need God? For we are saying that we do not need rewards except for being told that our motives our pure. Whether we like it or not, love cannot be separated from acknowledging that we are dependent human beings, that we need to find in another, human or divine, human and divine, the happiness and fulfilment we cannot find in ourselves. We are made by an “other,” remember.
And how does Jesus love the Father’s will? Not in fulfilling abstract commands of a dictator, but, in every situation and in every person that comes to him, and responding with wholeness of heart. The love of Jesus to his father is in seeing the need of the leper or the blind man, and today he tells the lawyer, by attending to the need of the stranger on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. This is the love of God. It is seeing the situation, seeing the call of the father’s will in it and being drawn into response. The same applies to Amos who stands prophesying against the corruptions of his own people. “I am no prophet”, says Amos “or a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees.” Prophets arise, when there is a real, hungry openness for the truth, and the healing power of God, when there is a real hunger for the love of God.
The question for us here is where are the prophets in this land today? When I walk down the road, and spend half an hour on the street outside, I cannot see that there is love of neighbour all that often. And that is because there is no love of God. Perhaps things have to be really dark enough before the human hunger for God can be felt. A great deal of society outside is ready to forget the real problems that arise. There is a loss of a sense of dignity and identity, which drives people into downward spirals and without the company of trustworthy people the spirals intensify, and people begin to feel excluded and lost. Tackling the many problems that people face does not only imply providing them with short-term solutions; but, it is more about building the kind of capacity that equips people to regain control of their lives and see how life becomes worthwhile when we find how worthwhile God is. We stand here today to say here we have more than a prophet, who has satisfied all our hungers, in whom as Paul said “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Let our gaze be upon his beauty, and come let us receive him.
Posted by stpauls on under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog |
Luke 10:25-37 ~ Gospel Reading for July 11, 2010
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
