LENT II 2014

Abraham Journeying to Canaan Gustave Dore

• Genesis 12:1-4a  • 
• Psalm 121  • 
• Romans 4:1-5, 13-17  • 
• John 3:1-17 or Matthew 17:1-9

This week’s Old Testament lesson is remarkably short – just four sentences. It records God’s call to Abram to leave his home country and set off on a journey – who knows where – solely on the strength of God’s promise that his descendants would become “a great nation”.  God’s promise could hardly have been more spectacularly fulfilled. Abraham (as he is later renamed) must have had many contemporaries about whom we now know nothing, in their own day leaders just like him, but leaving no discernible trace on the world they once inhabited. If -- as Paul insists – we include Christians amongst Abraham’s descendants, then the ‘great nation’ that grew from his obedience to God’s call numbers, in our day and age alone, well over two billion human beings.

St Paul  Jusepe di Ribera (1637)

“If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God”, Paul writes in this week’s Epistle. Abraham could rightly take pride in the fact that he had the strength of mind and will to set out into the unknown. Its ultimate significance, however, does not flow from this strength of character, but from the power and purposes of the God in whom he put his faith. Paul’s fundamental insight is that while God and Abraham enter into a mutual relationship from which the redemption of the world ultimately springs, this does not make them co-workers equally entitled to share the credit. The outcome of Abraham’s historic decision “depends on faith”, not on ingenuity or hard work, “in order that the promise may rest on grace”.

The Gospel passage highlights one crucial aspect of this insight – the necessity of God’s initiative. At the heart of human sinfulness lies hubris, or spiritual pride, the belief (despite all the evidence) that we can be the instruments of our own salvation -- that sufficient good will, political organization, scientific knowledge, technological ingenuity and time will enable us, eventually, to solve the age old problems of evil, suffering, destruction and death. On the contrary, Jesus tells us, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven”. We need divine initiative -- or we are lost. And the good news on this score is this: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”.

LENT I 2014

• Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7  • 
• Psalm 32  • 
• Romans 5:12-19  • 
• Matthew 4:1-11

The season of Lent is modeled on Christ’s retreat to the wilderness, after his baptism by John and before the start of this three year ministry. In this Year A of the three year Lectionary cycle, Matthew tells the story in much the same way that Luke does in Year B.  It is given a distinctive slant, though, by the lessons that accompany it. The Old Testament passage from Genesis, and the Epistle from Paul’s letter to the Romans, make the connection with the Garden of Eden and Adam’s original sin as plain as it can be. To understand the wilderness episode, they say, we must see Christ’s resisting temptation against the background of Adam and Eve’s yielding to it. What they originally put wrong, Christ finally put right.

The line of interpretation is clear enough, but its contemporary meaning is not so easy to grasp. How are we to understand references to Satan, and the doctrine of original sin? Can we believe in a Devil anymore? And mustn’t we reject the sheer injustice that seems to underlie the idea that the sins of generations long since dead can be visited on innocent descendents?

Chagall Adam and Eve

These are important questions. The scientific world view within which we operate today is radically different to the mindset of the Gospel authors. Yet if there is this gap, there is common ground too. Human nature and experience remain for us pretty much the same as they were in Biblical times. Hope and despair, honesty and deceitfulness, innocence and wickedness, sickness and health, calamity and blessing -- these make up the fabric of our lives as much as theirs. To believe in the Bible as Revelation, is to believe that it still speaks profoundly to the human condition.

So what on this occasion does it have to say? Temptation is a perpetual human hazard. Most of us are not positively inclined to cruelty or injustice. Our failings arise from a sort of weakness – the tendency to avert our eyes from wrongdoing by re-describing it in more acceptable, and even attractive terms. It was thus that the serpent spoke to the archetypes ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’. The Satanic voice is the opposite of Conscience, and can speak to Man and Woman still, always in alluring whispers that suggest ‘this really is for the best’. It is this voice that Jesus heard deep within himself in his isolation – a fact that shows him to be Human. At the same time, he could see that temptation invites us to do something deeply idolatrous --  put God’s patience and justice to the test. That is what showed him to be Divine.

ASH WEDNESDAY 2014

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12  • Psalm 51:1-17  • 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10  • Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

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  Albrecht Durer The Penitent (1510)

  Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent, is a very ancient observance. Originally Lent was a period of preparation for catechumens -- people who wished to become full members of the Christian church through the sacrament of Baptism. Baptism was a hugely significant spiritual step because it brought with it admission to the greatest sacrament of all – the Holy Eucharist. Those who had not been baptized were strictly limited in the ways that they could participate in the life of the Church, and could not receive communion. Since Baptism was regarded with such great solemnity, the six weeks of Lent were set aside for a rigorous program of study, prayer and fasting that would conclude with Baptism at the Great Vigil of Easter.

 The category of catechumens has long been abandoned. In most places infant baptism is the norm, and a more inclusive spirit has even led to ‘open’ communion, for which Baptism is no longer thought essential. Openness has much to commend it, but unhappily, since very little is now required of those who wish to attend church services, openness can foster casualness – a failure to receive the gifts of God in the right spirit. That is why it is worth focusing with greater concentration on the discipline of Lent.

The readings for Ash Wednesday are the same in all three years of the Lectionary’s cycle. Together they point us firmly to our deep need for God’s grace, while at the same time indicating the spiritual obstacles that lie in the way of our obtaining it. Through the prophet Joel, God pleads, "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning", adding immediately the warning that we should not confuse outward show with inward spirit --"rend your hearts and not your clothing". Isaiah issues the same warning even more firmly "Such fasting as you do today" he tells the Israelites, "will not make your voice heard on high". Why not?  Because it is self-serving and unaccompanied by the real repentance that reveals willingness to change the way they run their lives.

Emile Nolde Jesus and the Sinner (1926)

In the Gospel passage, Jesus expresses this same concern. He denounces the showy penitence of the righteous seeking to impress those who witness their zeal. In the light of this passage, which is always used on  Ash Wednesday, the ancient, and now very widespread practice of the Imposition of Ashes seems a little odd. Does it not conflict with Jesus' explicit  instruction to "wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others"? Imposition, though, is not meant as a sign of fasting. Rather, it is a tangible as well as visible acknowledgment of the truth that lies at the heart of all religion -- our mortality. "Remember, O Man, that thou art dust, and unto to dust thou shalt return" is the traditional version of the solemn sentence that is uttered as ashes are imposed in the shape of a cross.

  

We cannot put off dying, but we can put it out of mind. Yet it is a simple fact that there will come a day when we no longer exist. At that point, the story of our lives -- whether good, bad or trivial - is finalized forever. The trouble is that we do not know exactly when that day will be. This is why the readings for Ash Wednesday include the memorable urgency of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians "See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!" And so it is for us too. The sole hope of immortality is eternal life in God through Christ.

TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY 2014

Raphael The Transfiguration

• Exodus 24:12-18  • 
• Psalm 2 or Psalm 99  • 
• 2 Peter 1:16-21  • 
• Matthew 17:1-9

Depending upon the date of Easter, the season of Epiphany can vary in length by several weeks. But however long or short it is, the final Sunday in Epiphany always has the ‘Transfiguration’ as its theme. This year the Gospel reading comes from Mark; in the other two years of the cycle it comes from Matthew and Luke. There is an unusual degree of unity in all three accounts, however. Indeed, the Transfiguration is one of very few episodes in the life of Christ that gets substantial confirmation across different Gospels. In all three accounts, a key connection is revealed to the disciples between Jesus and two highly venerated prophetic figures – Moses and Elijah. It is this revelation that gives the event much of its significance. For the first time, perhaps, they understand the uniqueness of Jesus amongst the multitude of other ‘teachers’ of the law that were a common sight in Palestine.  

Another shared feature is the reference to dazzling light –a sign that the revelation that has been given to them is of divine origin. On the top of Mount Sinai, Moses alone experiences the fire-like glory of God, but when he descends with the Ten Commandments, the light that shines from his face is unbearable to those who witness it. So too, it is dazzling light that transfigures Jesus in the eyes of Peter, James and John.

Salvador Dali Angel of Light

There is one point, however, on which the accounts differ slightly. Luke tells us that the disciples resolved not to tell anyone about what happened on the mountain top. Like Mark, but even more emphatically, Matthew is clear that Jesus ordered them “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” From this we may infer that ‘transfiguration’ in the eyes of his followers is at best preparation for what really matters – the transformation of death to life in the Resurrection. The Epistle puts the point effectively. “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”