This week’s blog draws on the Gospel readings for the 6 January (Matthew 2.1-12) and for 7 January, the Feast of the Baptism of Christ (Mark 1.4-11).

Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship; Clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

I have never been ‘efficient’ at taking down Christmas lights and decorations by Twelfth Night. I was relieved when some years ago I discovered that an alternative ‘tradition’ allowed them to remain up till February 2 and Candlemas. I do generally manage it by then!

So I have felt cheered (and justified!) by the fact that liturgical revisions over the last 30 years or so have encouraged us to see the whole period between 6 January and February 2 as an ‘Christmas/Epiphany season’, rather than considering Epiphany as a ‘pin-point moment’ concluding on January 6.

This also enables us to have a wider understanding of ‘Epiphany’, a word whose basic meaning is something like revelation/manifestation/shewing.

In Western Christianity traditionally Epiphany or Twelfth Night commemorates the arrival of the three wise men (later often described as ‘kings’) at Jesus’ crib. In parts of western Europe the day is at least as significant as Christmas Day itself – not least as a time for gift giving. As the chaplaincies in our diocese who are based in lands like Spain and France well know, the arrival of the ‘Three Kings’ is often accompanied by colourful street parades – during which sweets are thrown into the crowd which children have the excitement of gathering. 

Parade of the Magi in Madrid

Cologne Cathedral, known to some of us, not least because our Diocesan Synod takes place in this city, traditionally contains the bones of the Three Kings. The relics have been located there since the early Middle Ages. A book written by Johannes of Hildesheim in the 14^th century to mark the bicentenary of the relics’ translation to Cologne, includes the tradition that the first time the three wise men meet each other before the city of Jerusalem is on the hill of Calvary, where Christ would later be crucified. It is said that although they had never met before and did not speak the same language, they recognised and understood each other and their shared common goal.

The Shrine of the Magi in Cologne Cathedral.

It is however very different in the eastern lands encompassed by our diocese. In Orthodox countries, such as Greece or Russia, the focus of Epiphany is on the baptism of Christ. The day is marked by the blessing of the waters, which can take various forms – often a cross is thrown into the sea, or lake or river, and young men and boys are encouraged to dive in to retrieve it. The ritual not only remembers our own baptisms and the revelation of the Holy Trinity at Christ’s baptism  but also expresses the belief that the whole of creation is made holy through Christ.

The blessing of the waters in Greece

The Anglican Common Worship liturgies for the Epiphany season now mark both biblical links – the arrival of the wise men and the baptism of Christ – but they also recall a third ‘manifestation’ of Epiphany – the turning of the water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana.

So,  for example, the Eucharistic preface for this season celebrates this ‘glorious’ season in the following words:

All honour and praise be yours always and everywhere
mighty creator, ever-living God,
through Jesus Christ your only Son our Lord:
for at this time we celebrate your glory
made present in our midst.
In the coming of the magi
the King of all the world was revealed to the nations.
In the waters of baptism
Jesus was revealed as the Christ,
the Saviour sent to redeem us.
In the water made wine
the new creation was revealed at the wedding feast.
Poverty was turned to riches, sorrow into joy.
Therefore with all the angels of heaven

we lift our voices to proclaim the glory of your name
and sing our joyful hymn of praise…

I have used the word ‘glorious’ above deliberately. ‘Glory’ is of course explicitly referred to in the telling of that first sign at Cana, ‘Jesus did this, the beginning of his signs, in Cana in Galilee, and revealed his glory’. (John 2.11) ‘Glory’ in ‘bible speak’ is a way of talking about ‘the visible presence of God’. God is visibly present in all three manifestations of Epiphany: as the wise men ‘worship’ the baby Jesus (Matthew 2.11), as the boundaries between heaven and earth are torn apart at Jesus’ baptism in the presence of Father, Son and Spirit, as Jesus inaugurates God’s long-promised and joyful wedding feast with humanity. As the image in the lovely prayer-poem by Kate McIhagga below picks up, Epiphany is like a multi-faceted jewel, which ‘sparkles’ with God’s light shining towards us from different angles.

But there is something else. I have increasingly come to understand that it is important to see the Christian ‘mystery’ as a whole. Often, partly due to their personal or corporate theology and spirituality particular Christians focus on ‘incarnation’, or ‘cross’ or ‘resurrection’. It is sometimes said that Anglicans tend to concentrate particularly on ‘incarnation’, and that is probably true of some of us, but possibly not all.

The ‘jewel’ that is Epiphany certainly takes seriously the glory of the incarnation, of God being revealed through the human flesh and form of Jesus. But there are also hints in the three facets of Epiphany of what is come later in the story, through the wise men’s gift of myrrh, the traditional ointment used to honour the dead, and through the wedding gift of wine, the symbol of Jesus’ blood that will one day be shed and spilt and shared. Incarnation leads us towards passion and resurrection.

The traditional site of Jesus’ baptism: the lowest point on earth

And the baptism of Christ – which for me takes us to the very heart of what ‘Epiphany’ represents. Latin American theologians have referred to this moment as Jesus’ ‘solidarity dip’ with humanity. The heavens are split open and God comes down to meet with humanity … down… down  even into the waters. It is intriguing to realise that the traditional site of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan near Jericho is actually the lowest point on the surface of the earth (approximately 400 metres below the level of the Mediterranean Sea). But the movement of baptism is one in which submersion is followed by rising up, and it is clear that this down/up movement of baptism has been understood by Christians  as reflecting the submersion of Jesus’ passion, followed by the rising of his resurrection. (See for example Romans 6.4).

It is however clear also – not least from Romans 6.3-4 – that we as human beings who are disciples of Christ are also being invited to participate through our own baptisms in the ‘meaning’ of Jesus’ own: we are called to make God present even in the depths, and to share in the movement of passion and resurrection through which Jesus invites us to participate with him in renewing the life of the waters. I enjoy the tradition found in Orthodox iconography of Jesus’ baptism which shows a number of small figures at Jesus’ feet. They represent the ‘demons’ of the unruly waters, now being ‘cleansed’ through Jesus’ actions, to participate positively in their own enjoyment of this new creation.

Byzantine style Fresco of Jesus’ baptism at Rochester Cathedral

Epiphany is indeed a ‘jewel’ out of which the whole of the Christian mystery can sparkle its light, and invite us to share in its radiant spectrum.

Epiphany is a jewel.
Multi-faceted
Flashing colour and light.
Epiphany embraces
The nations of the world
Kneeling on a bare floor
Before a child.

Epiphany shows
a man
kneeling in the waters of baptism.
Epiphany reveals
The best is kept for last,
As water becomes wine
At the wedding feast.

O Holy One
To whom was given
The gifts of power and prayer,
The gift of suffering;
Help us to use
These same gifts
In your way
And in your name (Kate McIlhagga)

A contemporary Christmas crib in the Lutheran Church, Bethlehem, Photo: Munther Isaac

I am writing this week’s blog while in Malta, a country in which the tradition of nativity cribs is very much publicly  alive and flourishing – as indeed in other parts of southern Europe. It is one of the factors that has encouraged me to focus on Bethlehem. So this blog does not relate to a specific lectionary reading, but to a place – which will certainly feature in our worship over the coming days. The next blog will be written for Sunday 7 January and will appear a few days beforehand.

Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship, Diocese in Europe

Clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

We are well into the season of Christmas carol services in which each year we are traditionally exhorted ‘in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger’. This year, the situation in Gaza, Israel and Palestine makes this invitation – and challenge – to ‘go even unto Bethlehem’ particularly bitter-sweet, not least for the town’s Christian inhabitants, whose livelihoods have been devastated due to the war in Gaza Birthplace of Jesus empty for Christmas due to impact of war – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

What does it mean in such circumstances ‘in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem’?

One way of looking at the season of Advent is to think of it as a sort of pilgrimage, a journey being taken by both God and ourselves until the moment when we find ‘God with us, Emmanuel’.  

Macrina Wiederkehr defined pilgrimage as follows: A pilgrimage is a ritual journey with a hallowed purpose. Every step along the way has meaning. The pilgrim knows that life giving challenges will emerge. A pilgrimage is not a vacation; it is a transformational journey during which significant change takes place. New insights are given. Deeper understanding is attained. New and old places in the heart are visited. Blessings are received and healing takes place. On return from the pilgrimage, life is seen with different eyes. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.

One of the key aspects of ‘pilgrimage’ is the importance of place. Rowan Williams once said: ‘Place works on the pilgrim . . . that’s what pilgrimage is for.’

Some years ago I designed a series of services for Advent, with the overall title ‘How far is it to Bethlehem?’ Picking up on the idea of pilgrimage, each week we focused on a particular ‘place’ that we needed to ‘journey through’ before – on Christmas Day we were able finally to ‘arrive’ at Bethlehem. The places we visited ‘on the way’ were all mentioned the weekly Advent Gospel readings:

• Advent Sunday: Jerusalem

• Advent 2 and 3: Wilderness and Jordan

• Advent 4: Nazareth

Why was it important that we visited each of these places on our journey to Bethlehem? And what did that mean for how does Bethlehem itself could ‘work on’ us?

Briefly, the focus on ‘Jerusalem’ on Advent Sunday, which each year draws for its Gospel on Christ’s speech on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) acts as a reminder to us that Christ is born not in the ‘expected places’ nor in the centre, but ‘on the edge’. Jerusalem has been throughout so much of its history a place where human beings have tried to ‘capture’ and control God: those ‘apocalyptic’ Gospel passages make it clear that the God who comes in Advent has his own timescale, and can appear when and where he is least expected.

Wilderness and Jordan were referred to in my previous blog. They are places ‘on the edge’, places of stripping, of letting go, of being submerged – which we need to do before we can enter the land of promise.

Nazareth speaks to me of God being present in the ‘ordinary’, of God coming in the every-day-ness of our human lives, of an angel who comes to a young woman as she is undertaking her regular task of drawing water from the well. (I think there is something very true about the Christian Orthodox tradition of locating the annunciation at a well!)

And Bethlehem? When I have the privilege of taking groups to this not-so-little-town I ask people if they know which is the first point in the Bible that Bethlehem gets a mention. This generally offers quite a challenge. People certainly move back from the New Testament into the Old – and come up with responses like, ‘the story of David’, or ‘the Book of Ruth’. But actually the first mention of Bethlehem in our Bibles (as they are now set out) occurs much earlier still. You can find it in Genesis 35.19. When Jacob returns from his 20 years of ‘exile’, bringing with him his two wives, Leah and Rachel, Rachel goes into labour and gives birth to her second son, Benjamin, ‘when they were still some distance from Ephrath’. Though Benjamin is born safely Rachel herself, dies in childbirth. And the text then reads, ‘So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar at her grave.’

When I first realised this, I found it an extraordinarily powerful ‘coincidence’ (if that is an appropriate word), that the first biblical mention of Bethlehem, a town that Christians so much associate with birth, should actually be in relation to a story about death – or rather a story about birth and death.  Indeed other mentions of Bethlehem in scripture, such as the story of Ruth or the achingly beautiful oracle of Jeremiah in 31.15 which tells of Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted ‘because they are no more’, remind us of how close birth and death were – and perhaps still are in many parts of our world. TS Eliot of course caught this in his poem ‘Journey of the Magi’…’Were we led all that way for Birth or Death’?

My own cherished pottery nativity set, made in Bethlehem c. 1975

I was powerfully reminded of Eliot’s words years ago, when I was living in Jerusalem and visited Bethlehem on a bitterly cold February day, to find a funeral going on inside the church, with the coffin placed directly above the Cave of the Nativity. Birth or death? A birth which foreshadows later suffering and death – yet it is only through such a death that new birth is made possible. Bethlehem is a place of paradox, a paradox wonderfully encapsulated in the door to the Church of the Nativity, which is an entrance so low that everyone needs to stoop down to pass through it. It was built in that way to stop people trying to ride into the church on the back of their horses. It expresses in stone the paradoxical truth of the incarnation – sung about more than 1500 years ago by St Ephrem in his Hymns on the Nativity:

‘Blessed be the Child who today delights Bethlehem…

Glory to the Living One whose Son became a mortal;

Glory to the Great One whose Son descended and became small.’

Many of the Christmas carols we sing which refer to Bethlehem I find too sweet – almost sickly – given the realities of today. But there is a lilting Christmas song by Elizabeth Poston which has always expressed for me the intermingling of glory and the tragedy of Bethlehem. It includes the lines, ‘O Bethlehem! Ancient of days, within thy story, heaven was laid. O Bethlehem! Anguish must be the price of glory, for us he paid.’

One of the ironies about Bethlehem is encapsulated in its very name. In semitic languages the word ‘Beth’ means ‘House.’ But the letters ‘Lehem’ can either be linked to a word which means ‘Bread/Food’ or another word which means ‘War’. So the name Bethlehem can mean either ‘House of Bread’ or ‘House of War’. The choice is for us, and for our world today:  do we come to Bethlehem to be fed, receiving the bread of life – or do we turn our backs on the ‘one of peace’ (see Micah 5.5) and follow the dangerous path which leads to war? That is a question too relevant to present days.

Is it far to Bethlehem? It is closer than our innermost being – and yet unless we have prepared ourselves to stoop low enough to allow the one who became ‘small’ to ‘enter in’, unless we can learn to cherish Bethlehem’s strange mixture of birth and death, weeping and joy, divinity and humanity, God with us – it is a pilgrimage that we will never finally make our own.

Thank you

Scandalous God,

For giving yourself to the world

Not in the powerful and the extraordinary

But in weakness and the familiar;

In a baby; in bread and wine.

Thank you for offering, at journey’s end, a new beginning;

The richest jewel of your love;

For revealing, in a particular place,

Your light for all nations…

Thank you

For bringing us to Bethlehem, House of Bread,

Where the empty are filled,

And the filled are emptied;

Where the poor find riches,

And the rich recognise their poverty;

Where all who kneel and hold out their hands

Are unstintingly fed. (©Kate Compston)

*****

Malcolm Guite’s beautiful sonnet, ‘Christmas sets the centre on the edge’ resonates with several of the thoughts expressed above and is well worth discovering. https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/christmas-on-the-edge/

An aerial photograph of the River Jordan taken in 1938 (wikimedia commons)

This week’s lectionary blog focuses on the lectionary Gospel reading Mark 1.1-8, and draws attention to one of the Bible studies offered at the recent Diocesan Racial Justice Conference.

Clare Amos, Director of Lay Discipleship

clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

One of the disturbing chants that has frequently been heard, both in the Middle East and in western cities, in the two months, since the events of October 7 is, ’From the river to the sea…’ How the sentence then ends depends on who is doing the chanting. If it is fairly radical pro-Palestinian voices it continues, ‘Palestine shall be free’. Increasingly though, ultra-right-wing Jewish voices are ‘echoing’ the chant with versions that speak of complete Israeli Jewish control of the land ‘between the river and the sea’.  In my view, if either side ever seriously decided to try and bring into reality their competing aspirations, the conflagration that would result, probably throughout the Middle East and beyond, could make the violence that we have seen to date feel mild by comparison.

‘The river’ being referred to of course is the River Jordan, from ancient times a ‘traditional’ boundary marker for the ‘land’. In the Book of Joshua (chapters 3-5) the crossing of the Jordan marks the end of the period in the wilderness and a new beginning. It is interesting how Joshua 4.21-24; 5.10-11 draws a parallel between the Exodus experience of crossing the Red Sea, and this experience of crossing the river. In one we are moving out into the wilderness, and in the other, a sort of ‘renewed Exodus’, we are moving in from it. The link between the two events is echoed in other parts of the Old Testament, most notably Psalm 114.  

The river Jordan also features in this week’s lectionary Gospel. It is no accident that the place where John the Baptist is exercising his ministry of change and repentance is at this boundary-marker. The choice of this location implicitly suggests that those who come to him for baptism in the waters of the Jordan are presenting themselves as willing to be part of a ‘New Exodus’ community.

Over the past couple of years as I have been working with colleagues on the diocesan lay learning course one thing that I have been fascinated to explore is the importance of the idea of a ‘new Exodus’ for the self understanding of Jesus and his earliest disciples. In particular as Anthony Bloom initially noted, and then Tom Wright picked up upon, one key way of looking at the Lord’s Prayer is to think of it as the ‘foundation prayer of the new Exodus community’.  There are links between each of the petitions in this prayer and the events described in the Book of Exodus: the link between ‘daily bread’ and the wilderness manna may be the most obvious, but it is not the only one.

One of the key markers of this ‘New Exodus’ community is the important place it gives to those ‘on the edge’ or in the wilderness – including of course John the Baptist himself. He is an ‘edgy’ person, as was Elijah – who he reflects in his clothing and location. His ministry at the Jordan river clearly located him as someone on the frontier.

At the recent diocesan Racial Justice conference held in Freiburg, Dr Sathianathan Clarke, the presenter of the Bible Studies, devoted his first study to John the Baptist, who he named as ‘the uncivilised outsider’ a person challenging ‘the system’. Sathi told a story against himself of a time when in Washington, USA, where he lives, he had been preaching on John the Baptist in a church many of whose members were themselves homeless. Afterwards one of the congregation came up to him and commented that he had not mentioned that John the Baptist is perhaps the biblical figure that himself can be most easily identified as ‘homeless’ – and that it was a pity that Dr Clarke had not referred to this as he was someone that Sathi’s homeless congregation could relate to. In your particular context who are the ‘outsiders’, the people who might find themselves identifying with John?  There is a powerful song of the hymn writer Brian Wren, ‘Welcome the wild one’, which focuses on John the Baptist. The words are available here Welcome the Wild One – Hope Publishing Company

Also worth drawing attention to is the illustration offered by the St John’s Bible for the beginning of the Gospel of Mark: note how, with the scene of Jesus’ baptism happening behind him, the brown clad figure of John is already striding out of the picture. Baptism of Jesus – The Saint John’s Bible: Virtual Tour – University Library at The University of Notre Dame Australia (nd.edu.au) 

Quite a few years ago now I designed a series of Sunday services around the theme ‘Is it far to Bethlehem?’. Over the weeks of Advent and running into Christmas Day and beyond, each week we focused on a particular ‘place’ which acted as a ‘station’ on the way to Bethlehem. Among the ‘stations’ were the River Jordan and the wilderness. We cannot arrive at Bethlehem too soon, if we are to be able to hear the message that the birth of Christ has to offer us,  it is vital that we ‘stop’ first in these ‘edgy’ places and discover what they have to say to us. Perhaps particularly this year above all years. This is brilliantly expressed in this prayer by Francis Brienen:

Wilderness is the place of Moses, 

a place no longer captive and not yet free, 

of letting go and learning new living. 

Wilderness is the place of Elijah, 

a place of silence and loneliness, 

of awaiting the voice of God and finding clarity. 

Wilderness is the place of John, 

a place of repenting, 

of taking first steps on the path of peace. 

Wilderness is the place of Jesus, 

a place of preparation, 

of getting ready for the reckless life of faith. 

We thank you, God, for the wilderness. 

Wilderness is our place. 

As we wait for the land of promise, 

teach us the ways of new living, 

lead us to where we hear your word most clearly, 

renew us and clear out the wastelands of our lives, 

prepare us for life in the awareness of Christ’s coming 

where the desert will sing 

and the wilderness will blossom as the rose. 

(© Francis Brienen, ‘A Restless Hope’, URC Prayer Handbook 1995) 

This week’s blog focuses on the Gospel reading Mark 13.24-37 to reflect on the ‘Advent time’.

Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship, Diocese in Europe

Clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

Christ Pantocrator, Toledo Cathedral, accessed via wikimedia commons

What exactly is the season of Advent? J Neil Alexander, a liturgical theologian from the United States poses the question, ‘Is Advent a preparatory fast in preparation for the liturgical commemoration of the historical birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or is Advent a season unto itself, a sacrament of the end of time begun in the incarnation and still waiting on its final consummation at the close of the present age?’

Traditional ‘Advent calendars’ with their doors opened one-by-one leading us gradually nearer to the stable in Bethlehem and the birth of a baby on December 25 provide one answer to this question.

The usual readings selected for Advent Sunday in the lectionaries of most Christian Churches suggest the other possibility – linking Advent to the end of time. In the Common Worship lectionary the suggested Gospel reading for Advent 1 is a section of the ‘apocalyptic’ chapter from whichever of the synoptic Gospels will be the ‘lead’ lectionary Gospel for the coming church year – which begins of course on Advent Sunday. Over the next 12 months that lead role is given over to the Gospel of Mark, and so it is Mark 13.24-37 which is chosen as the reading for this coming Sunday.

Apocalyptic is a kind of biblical writing in which themes like cosmic confusion and fear and judgement are prominent. Why do we begin the church’s new year – for that is what Advent Sunday is – with such a focus on the end? Why do we have to hear about stars falling from heaven (Mark 13.25);  why cannot we simply read about the friendly star that kindly stood over the manger to point the way for the wise men?

One of the fascinating features of Mark’s ‘apocalyptic’ chapter is the way that it concludes, with the words ‘Keep awake’ (Mark 13.37). The identical phrase ‘Keep awake’ appears in the following chapter, in Jesus’ instructions to his sleeping disciples in Gethsemane. Although Matthew and Luke also use similar phrases in their ‘apocalyptic chapters (Matthew 24; Luke 21) and accounts of Gethsemane the verbal link is not as close as it is with Mark.

So what is Mark’s Gospel seeking to say to us through this repeated ‘Keep awake’?

What I find in the Gospel of Mark to a greater degree than in either Matthew or Luke,  is that as Mark retells the story of Jesus’ ministry and passion, he is inviting his readers to share with the earliest disciples of all – Peter and the original followers of Jesus – in following the ‘way’ and joining the journey that Jesus and those first followers had made first in Galilee, and then in Jerusalem, We are not an ‘audience’: rather we are invited to become ‘participants’ in this journey. And though I am reading Mark’s story almost 2000 years after it was first written down, and though my own current context is not one of persecution, I too still find myself treading ‘in heart and mind’ that journey of Jesus which Mark sketched out so vividly for his very first readers – perhaps 35 years or so after Jesus’ earthly ministry .

But, I think, there is one point where Mark seems to break off briefly from telling the story of the ‘original’ ministry of Jesus, and somehow addresses his readers directly, in their own time and context. It is in this ‘apocalyptic’ chapter. Without necessarily denying that ideas expressed in this chapter may well go back to the earthly Jesus, I also ‘hear’ clearly expressed in this chapter the anxieties of Mark’s own contemporaries, his readers who may have found themselves standing ‘before governors and kings,’ and have been brought to trial because of their faithfulness to Jesus (Mark 13.9-11). The tension over the fate of the Temple – its destruction by the Roman army of Titus – whether this was still to happen at the time Mark wrote, or whether it had recently occurred also seems to be alluded to (Mark 13.1. 14).

The repeated ‘Keep Awake’  – uttered to Mark’s own contemporaries at the end of 13, and to Jesus’ first disciples in the following chapter has the effect of ‘bridging’ the thirty or so years between the experience of Jesus and his disciples in Gethsemane, and the experience of Mark’s contemporary readers.  Their suffering becomes in a sense a ‘new Gethsemane’.  The fact that Jesus’ own Gethsemane experience ultimately leads to life through death can in turn offer hope for Mark’s own contemporaries – and perhaps us too, readers of the Gospel two millennia later.

In turn that surely invites us to reflect on how we – or the New Testament writers think about ‘time’. ‘Time’ is certainly a key concept for Mark; he introduces the public ministry of Jesus with the words, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand’ (Mark 1.15) . The Greek word used here is Kairos = ‘a point in time’. It does not mean the same as the other Greek word for time, ‘Chronos’, which is used to refer to a period of time. JAT Robinson wrote an excellent little book ‘In the End God’, which deserves not to be forgotten, which explored the difference between these two different understandings of ‘time’ and their implications for us. Advent is certainly a ‘time’ to which time is central. Karl Barth once commented, ‘Whatever other time or season can or will the Church ever have but that of Advent?’

Time: sharp as a knife

In April there is going to be conference to mark the 60^th anniversary of the great Toronto Anglican Congress. I am hoping to prepare a paper for it, and so have been reading some of the contributions offered at the original Congress. In the opening sermon offered by Michael Ramsey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke powerfully about ‘time’. ‘Time: we remember that in the New Testament “time” is a terrible word, sharp as a knife. It is Kairos: time urgent in opportunity and in judgment. It is less often the year or the day than the hour or the minute, each hour, each minute being a time of visitation: evening, midnight, cockcrow, morning, the Lord may come. We may be leisurely studying an era, when the divine hour or moment passes and finds us asleep and does not come back again. Yes, it is in places and times that our love of God is tested. “O God, thou art my God: early will I seek thee”.’

Mark’s ‘Keep Awake’ breaks down the ‘normal’ barriers of time and links together as one the past, the present and the future, the experience of the first disciples of Jesus, of Mark’s original readers, and those who read his Gospel today and in the future. We find ourselves joined together in the one time, ‘urgent in opportunity and in judgement’.

As a friend of mine has recently commented, the word ‘Woke’ – which has gained a bad press in some circles – is actually a form of the word ‘Wake’ and is an injunction to stay awake enough to read ‘the signs of the times’ in which we are living!

One key aspect of that apocalyptic language such as we have in Mark 13 is that it offers us a vital reminder that our Christian faith is not just a private or individual affair. Our beliefs and actions can and do have consequences in the social realm, and even at the global dimension. We are not allowed the luxury of believing that the birth of Christ is simply a pretty tale to be celebrated in children’s nativity plays, for the cosmic language of apocalyptic insists that it can and should make a difference to our nations and our world. There is a profound interconnectedness of all things: expressed in part by the frequent use in apocalyptic of the idiom of the world groaning in travail with the birth-pangs of the new creation. Mary’s birth-pangs, Mary’s labour and that of our world (Mark 13.17; Romans 8.22) impinge upon each other.

Hope for a tree?

One of those ‘cosmic’ areas in which the language of apocalyptic can speak to us is that of the wellbeing of creation. This weekend, as I am sure you know, the international climate change conference is happening in Dubai. Increasingly we are becoming aware that this global concern cannot be separated from spiritual decision. Do we really believe that love and self-sacrifice are written into the fabric of the universe? Because that is what, I believe, is necessary if as Christians and as human beings we are going to make a real difference to the story of climate change.    The language of seas roaring and earth shifting – characteristic of apocalyptic – somehow constitutes a vital resource that can help us take this concern with appropriate seriousness.  And it is telling that in our Gospel passage we also hear about the flourishing of a fig tree (Mark 13.28ff). The tree is a biblical metaphor for hope and possibility in spite of unpropitious present circumstances. There is hope for a tree. The cutting down of trees, as in the world’s rainforests, has become a marker for human despoilment of our world, conversely the planting of trees acts as a sign of human commitment for the future. Do you know the tale from the Talmud?  A rabbi was walking down a road when he saw a man planting a tree. The rabbi asked him, ‘How many years will it take for this tree to bear fruit?  The man answered that it would take seventy years. The rabbi asked, ‘Are you so fit and strong that you expect to live that long and eat of its fruit?’ The man answered, ‘I found a fruitful world because my forefathers planted for me. So I will do the same for my children.’

On Advent Sunday we are called to wake, and wait, and watch, and wonder that the baby so shortly to come to us is not simply part of our world’s past but also of its future. We are called to make ready his way, but will his way find us ready? Will we find within the rhythms of nature at this time of the year, with its dying and hope of new life, and its radiant but sometimes hidden beauty, God’s word to us? Rowan Williams stunning poem ‘Advent Calendar’ accessible here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBPBhQCsxE offers us both hope and challenge.

I apologise for this rather long reflection for the Feast of Christ the King, drawing on Matthew 25.31-46 and the appointed Psalm, 95, but I found myself wanting to wrestle seriously this particular year with the biblical motif of kingship, which I believe is an important key to engaging with this feast.

Canon Dr Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship, Diocese in Europe

Clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

The west window of Holy Trinity Church, Geneva, depicting a ‘royal’ Christ holding the orb of the world in his hand. Used with permission.

It must have been almost exactly three years, during COVID times, when services were on line, the locum priest at the church my husband and I were ‘attending’ preached on ‘the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats’ (Matthew 25.31-46) at what was described as All Age worship for Christ the King Sunday. Well I say that he preached on the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats’, but actually it might have been called ‘the Parable of the Sheep’, because the priest in fact only read the Gospel as far as Matthew 25.40 – omitting the last six verses which focus on ‘the Goats’. And the goats and their fate didn’t get a mention in his sermon either. We got on well with our preacher, so afterwards we teased him about his choice to leave out ‘the nasty bits’. He justified his decision by saying that it was an All Age worship service – and that the fate of the goats was not an appropriate or helpful topic for those of tender years. I sort of understood his point of view, but it has still left me with some question-marks.

It is interesting that in their choice of the Psalm this week the lectionary compilers have opted for Psalm 95, for those of us old enough to remember Matins on a regular basis, the ‘classic’ opening psalm of the service referred to as the ‘Venite’. But they have not given us all of the psalm, verses 7b-11 are not included. It is of course precisely these verses in which a note of ‘judgement’ is sounded, ending with the sombre line, ‘Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest” which are omitted. It feels rather on a par with that leaving of ‘the goats’ out of the Gospel reading! I will return to the psalm in a moment.

I have commented in my previous blogs for Christ the King Sunday, ‘Kingship – not of this world (November 18, 2021) and ‘Stirring it Up: the challenging Kingship of Christ’ (November 19 2020) that I find ‘Christ the King Sunday’ which has come into our liturgical calendar largely as a result of developments that took place in the Roman Catholic Church in the 1920s and 1930s, quite problematic. I ‘purred’ when I discovered a couple of years ago that Bishop Tom Wright did so too! In his case it is partly because he feels that it usurps the traditional place of the Feast of the Ascension.  I personally would add my intrinsic unease about all the huge ‘Christ-Roi’ statues erected in parts of Roman Catholic Europe and in Latin America in the 1920s and 1930s, which, whether they are intended to or not, subliminally remind me of ‘fascism’. However I have promised myself that this is not going to turn into another ‘anti-Christ-the-King-festival’ piece!

One of the areas of biblical study that I have found increasingly fascinating in recent years is the development and ordering of the Book of Psalms – why certain psalms have been grouped together – and why one comes after another. A particular point of interest comes at the end of Book Three (of the Psalms, Psalms 73-89) and the beginning of Book Four (90-106). I think that these two books are wrestling with the immense challenges of faith that the exile offered to ‘Israel’, in particular Judah and Jerusalem. Psalm 89 begins by setting out the ‘traditional’ understanding of ‘kingship’ in the period of the pre-exilic monarchy, in which the king, as descendant of David, was lauded as ‘son of the Lord’ and all manner of extravagant promises and expectations were laid upon him, with his role seen as to ensure the destiny and prosperity of his people. The first half of Psalm 89 (up to verse 37) expresses such ideas powerfully. But then there is a dramatic shift. Verses 38-51 seem to be written in the consciousness of the dreadful fate that had befallen the last of Jerusalem’s kings at the time of the Babylonian conquest and the exile of the people. All those hopes, all that theology, just dead in the dust. What future could there be for this people in exile once ruled by those kings of David’s line?

The answer is offered us in the next psalm – 90 – and psalms 91-100 which follow it, which include this week’s psalm, 95. As a group this collection of Psalms are often referred to as ‘the Psalms of God’s Kingship’. In several of them the phrase ‘the Lord is King’ appears in a prominent place in the psalm. But even in those, such as Psalm 95, in which the phrase is not explicitly used the motif of God’s kingship over the world and over humanity is surely present.

These psalms are telling us that even if human kingship ‘fails’, – as those kings of David’s line seemed to have done, God’s kingship will endure, ‘from everlasting to everlasting you are God’ (Psalm 90.2). It is interesting that Psalm 90 is the one psalm in the whole psalter that has a link to Moses in its title, ‘A prayer of Moses, the main of God’. There were two covenant traditions in the history and story of the Old Testament, the Mosaic (Sinai) covenant tradition, and the Davidic covenant tradition. They seem to have existed in a sort of tension with each other, and one of their differences, was their contrasting attitude to the role of human kings. The placing of the reference to ‘Moses’ at precisely this point, when the traditions linked to ‘David’ seemed to have failed is surely significant. The Mosaic/Sinai tradition was frequently hostile to human kingship – seeing it as attempt by humanity to usurp God’s rightful role as king. The Davidic covenant tradition however (at its best!) viewed the king as acting as a mediator between God and the people. The king’s closeness to God, and his own human status, combined so that he could ‘represent’ God to the people, and he could also represent the people before God. And – the tradition also suggested – at times this representational and mediatorial role might involve the king in suffering on behalf of his people. We do seem to catch glimpses of this in some of the psalms, and perhaps the servant songs of Isaiah 40-55, which themselves may have been composed partly as a response to the ‘failure’ of human kingship at the time of the Babylonian exile.

Some of these insights into the nature of Old Testament kingship, have come to the fore during this last year, especially around the time of the coronation of King Charles III. The coronation rite draws considerably from the Old Testament understanding of kingship. This is the first time that we have celebrated the Feast of ‘Christ the King’ since the coronation, so it is interesting to make such cross-references.

My ‘argument’ is that to understand the fullness of what it means to call ‘Christ the King’, we need to think of him holding together in his person these two competing Old Testament understandings of kingship: the one in which a human king of the Davidic line has a representative and mediatorial role, and the one in which the absolute supremacy of God as king is affirmed.  I believe that the New Testament writers make precisely that link. I would also suggest that the ‘Davidic’ perception of the king’s special relationship to God played a substantial part in the development of New Testament thinking about the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. For me, that is expressed not least by the way that the Gospel of Matthew calls Jesus, ‘Emmanuel’ (God with us) both directly and indirectly.

If we look at the word ‘E/Immanuel’ in its original context (Isaiah 7.14; 8.8) it seems to have been a title given initially to a child born to the Davidic house of kings in Judah. Indeed the suggestion is often made that it was referring to the birth of Hezekiah, the son of King Ahaz and Ahaz’s successor. ‘Emmanuel’ was an appropriate title to give to such a royal child, given God’s ‘withness’ vis-à-vis the king. But even Hezekiah, ‘good’ king though he may have been, did not live up to the hopes placed in him, and  so people looked towards the day that a child would be born who would truly reflect such a name and description!

And so to the Gospel of Matthew once again. In Matthew 1, immediately after a genealogy which has clearly linked Jesus to the family of David, as the  birth of Jesus is announced we are told ‘And his name will be called Emmanuel, God with us.’ (Matthew 1.23)  Then this assurance of God’s presence with human beings runs  like a gentle heartbeat through the pages of the Gospel until it rings out once again in Jesus’ final words ‘I am with you till the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28.20) ‘I am with you’, that deliberate recapitulation of the ‘Emmanuel of Matthew 1, is Jesus’ claim to fulfil all those expectations of kingship, human and divine, of which our Old Testament scriptures have sung the prelude.

And yet there is another surprise for us.  One final radical twist in Matthew’s tale – which leads us back to our Gospel reading for this coming Sunday:

Jesus, ‘Emmanuel’, promises to be with his disciples throughout all time. But where can we find and see him today? Matthew himself directly and explicitly provides the startling – and shocking? – answer. For in this Parable of the Sheep and the Goats we discover that we are being offered the opportunity to see Jesus with us in some very unlikely places – in the faces of the sick, the strangers, the hungry and thirsty, the imprisoned, whom the disciples of Jesus may choose – or refuse – to honour or minister to.  ‘Lord , when did we see you hungry, or naked or a stranger or in prison? ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did to the least of my brothers and sisters – so you did it to me.’

So back to the Feast of Christ the King. Where do we find ‘Christ the King’ in today’s Gospel reading? Perhaps the answer is both in the figure of the almighty judge who doles out reward and punishment and in the figures of those – poor, sick, hungry, homeless – in whom Jesus invites us to discover his presence?

And one last thing. I had never spotted it previously. I mentioned above that one of the roles of Old Testament kings might well be to suffer as a representative on behalf of his people. I do not think it an accident that our Gospel reading for ‘Christ the King’ – telling of the figure coming ‘in glory and all the angels with him’ (Matthew 25.31) – is then immediately followed by the final prediction of Jesus’ passion, and the machinations of the religious leaders to achieve his death. “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’(Matthew 26.1)

Window in All Saints Church, Beirut, Lebanon

Given that many churches in the Diocese in Europe, including the one with which I (Clare Amos) am most closely linked, will be marking All Saints and All Souls Day this coming weekend I felt it made sense to have a primary focus this week on the readings selected for All Saints Day.  (Revelation 7.9–17; 1 John 3.1–3; Matthew 5.1–12)

As it happens, though, the readings for the Fourth Sunday before Advent – the alternative liturgical possibly suggested by the Common Worship calendar – which are Micah 3.5–12; 1 Thessalonians 2.9–13; Matthew 24.1–14 enter into an intriguing dialogue with the themes and scripture readings for All Saints Day, so I have found myself drawing in this Gospel as well.

I would be remarkably surprised if any of our chaplaincies which celebrates All Saints on Sunday doesn’t find itself singing ‘For all the saints’ at some point in the service. Sung to Vaughan Williams wonderful tune ‘Sine Nomine’ (‘Nameless’ – referring to the multitude of saints without number or name!) it is as much a part of the celebration of All Saints Day as Hark the Herald Angels Sing is of Christmas. It is interesting though that the words of the hymn were written at least 40 years before ‘Sine Nomine’ was composed: I wonder what it felt like to sing the hymn to the tune that was originally used for it?

But ‘For all the saints’ is not totally unproblematic! In fact it is quite militaristic in its language. Indeed a couple of the verses of the hymn are sometimes omitted for that reason. The Anglican priest-poet Jim Cotter, who died in 2014, is well-known for his alternative versions of a number of hymns, and he did the same for ‘For All the Saints’.  You can find Cotter’s version in a number of places, including his book ‘Prayer in the Morning’. For copyright reasons I won’t include Cotter’s entire text in this blog… but to give you an idea of how he transposes the original words into a slightly different ‘key’, here is Cotter’s version of one of the latter verses:

And there will dawn a yet more glorious day,

The saints with laughter sing and dance and play

The Clown of glory tumbles in the Way: Alleluia!

I cherish the vivid images that spring to mind as I read or sing this!

‘For all the saints’ is not actually one of the ‘worst’ offenders when it comes to militaristic language in Christian songs and hymns. For me that particular accolade probably goes to either ‘Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the Cross’, or ‘Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war’.  Inevitably I have been personally affected by living in Lebanon during its civil war in which I encountered considerable numbers of ‘Christian soldiers’ or ‘soldiers of the Cross’ whose faith was expressed too readily via their sub-machine guns.  Since then I find it very difficult to sing either of the two hymns I have mentioned above, though I found it interesting that when, while working for the World Council of Churches, and travelling internationally, those songs were very popular choices in many parts of the world which I visited.

So it is interesting to set alongside this that one of the key ‘Beatitudes’ in the text from the Sermon on the Mount which is the lectionary Gospel for All Saints is the blessing offered to peace-makers. The pledge that is offered to them is that they ‘will be called children of God’. (Matthew 5.12). The promise of being named as ‘children of God’ is picked up in the Epistle for this day, ‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that we what we are…Beloved we are God’s children now ‘ (I John 3.1-2)

What is interesting however is that this reading from I John also includes a reference to ‘pure’ –  a word which appears in the Beatitude which comes just before that associated with the peace-makers, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’.

I John hints to me that we are supposed to see these four concepts peace-makers/pure in heart/seeing God/children of God as closely linked to each other. And in the process says something that feels only too relevant about peace-making. Namely that it is not simply an external process but requires of us – if we are to be ‘saints’ who follow the vocation of peace-makers – an inner transformation and purification.  

In my interreligious work at the World Council of Churches and since, one of the issues that I was (and am) working on is the question of religiously motivated violence. It is not simply an ‘interreligious’ question – religiously motivated violence can certainly be ‘intra-religious’ as well. But it is certainly a question that often does arise in interreligious contexts.

Over the years I have got rather ‘allergic’ to being told in the various ‘high-level’ dialogue meetings I have participated in, that ‘our’ religion (whatever particular religion the speaker may profess!) is an engine of peace – certainly not of violence. It is a shallow statement and often to a considerable degree not reflective of reality..

Back in 2002, I remember listening to a speaker who brought his wisdom from Northern Ireland and who said starkly, ‘Unless religion is willing to acknowledge that it is part of the problem (when it comes to violence) then it cannot also be part of the solution. That has been a guiding principle for me ever since, and it is the focus of a current writing project of mine.

In the context of these readings for All Saints Day, perhaps my linked ‘take-away’ – drawing together the readings from the Beatitudes and from I John – is that if we who are called to be ‘saints’ are indeed to be peace-makers that will entail a willingness to be changed (‘purified’) ourselves. One cannot help make a full or enduring peace without being willing to undergo a personal and perhaps even painful process of transformation.

I will leave you, the readers, to draw out the implications of my comments for our difficult contemporary contexts.  I do however note that the alternative lectionary Gospel for the Fourth Sunday before Advent (Matthew 24.1-14) also, by implication, offers a reminder of the way that the preciousness of the city of Jerusalem to peoples of several different faiths (‘competitively loved’ as Bishop Kenneth Cragg put it) has, throughout history, been itself a major cause.of war. One day, we must hope and pray, as the prayer below puts it, the city will live up to ‘the peace embedded in its name’.

Jerusalem, ‘perfection of beauty’,

City cherished and squabbled over,

Where hopes have been crucified

And the colours of resurrection still await the dawn.

We pray for all who love,

That as well as passion they may learn patience,

That their longings may lead to life,

That their faith in you may bring forth fruit,

For the healing of the nations.

Though your stones still cry aloud with the pain of centuries,

Drenched with the tears of the one who wept over you,

May the God who called this place his home

Give all people wisdom and courage

To discover in you the peace embedded in your name,

So that you may truly become, ‘The joy of all the earth’. Amen.

clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

Part of a manuscript of the Book of Leviticus from the Dead Sea Scrolls

This week’s ‘Faith in Europe’ blog focuses on the Gospel reading Matthew 22.34-46, the lectionary Gospel for Sunday 29 October. Current events in the Middle East, as well as the history of religion in Europe, are in my mind as I write it.

Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship, Diocese in Europe

*****

There are two halves to this coming Sunday’s lectionary (Matthew 22.34-46) Gospel reading – each with a question in them.  I expect most congregations will concentrate on the first half, and the first question. So will this blog – although I will also draw out towards the end a possible implication of the second question.

The challenge that Jesus is posed with ‘Which is the great commandment in the Law?’ appears in all three Synoptic Gospels although there are minor differences between them. It is however only Matthew who after listing the two commandments – demanding first love of God and then love of neighbour,  suggests that Jesus went on to affirm ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’ – drawing a connection with the reference to ‘the law and the prophets’ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5.17).

I appreciate the tradition of classical Anglican liturgy of reciting these two commandments in the Communion service – as a kind of preparation for the act of confession. It is perhaps a pity that the practice is not quite as widespread as it used to be. Mind you – in the church I attended as a teenager the vicar considered that merely using these ‘two’ commandments was a concession to human weakness: whenever he had the opportunity he would replace them with the whole Ten Commandments as per the book of Exodus! On reflection I am not sure that he was right – properly observed it is arguable that these two commandments are far more demanding than the Ten. 

Over the last 25 years or so I have had the privilege of working in the field of inter faith dialogue and engagement. It is a field which I find fascinating, challenging, vital – and sometimes totally exasperating. Perhaps surprisingly, one of the results of working in this field is that I have discovered new insights into Christian scripture. And that is true in relation to this week’s Gospel reading.

One of the criticisms that is sometimes made of inter faith dialogue, is that it is largely Christians who make the running, and take the initiative in this area, rather than ‘other faiths’. That might have been true 25 years or so ago, but I think that in the last 20 years the picture has shifted. One of the inter faith initiatives that caught wide public imagination is A Common Word. Published in October 2007 A Common Word was an initiative of Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan working with a group of Muslim scholars from the Middle East and elsewhere. I have had the privilege of participating in several significant inter faith meetings in which A Common Word provided the basis for our discussion. The document was produced as a response to the critique of Islam that had been made a year earlier by Pope Benedict in a talk in Regensburg in Germany.  It takes the form of a letter addressed to Pope Benedict and other high profile Christian leaders. You can find a copy of it here. The ACW Letter | A Common Word Between Us and You The central thesis of A Common Word is that both Muslims and Christians hold in common two important guiding principles: that we are both called to the Love of God, and the Love of our Neighbour. In turn this can provide a basis for Muslims and Christians to work together for harmony in our world. A Common Word then seeks to illustrate this point from both Muslim scriptures (the Qur’an) and Christian scriptures (the New Testament). Not surprisingly, the primary Christian scriptural reference offered is this week’s lectionary Gospel about the two great commandments (and its parallel in the Gospel of Mark).

And the use of this passage in A Common Word led me to reflect more deeply on it, both in terms of our Christian self-understanding, and also what we bring to the table of dialogue with Muslims.

Briefly, I think there are two key points that I would want to make.

The first is that when Christians use the phrase ‘Love of God’ – our fundamental understanding is that love starts with God, not with us. Human beings are called to love God primarily because he first loved us. It may not be directly apparent from Matthew 22.34-46, but it is a profound underlying principle for Christian theology, spirituality and ethics.

Such a trajectory is clearly apparent in the Gospel of John and the letters of Paul. Take for example the Gospel of John, in which the word ‘love’ appears a great number of times, more than in the other three Gospels put together. The first time the word occurs is in the iconic passage, John 3.16, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’… Then beginning with chapter 11 (the story of Lazarus, Mary and Martha), the word ‘love’ splurges all over the pages of the Gospel. But it is made clear that the question Jesus ultimately addresses to Peter – and to the rest of us – ‘Do you love me?’ is posed on the basis that God has clearly demonstrated the sacrificial and costly nature of love in the life, ministry and death of Jesus Christ.  Gratitude therefore is the primary driver which must underly the demand ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22.37). I believe that in turn this will affect how we express such love.

The second point is that for Christians, the two commandments, ‘Love God’ and ‘Love our neighbour’ cannot ultimately be separated: the dialogue between them enriches both our understanding of God and of human beings. It is a framework linked to the Christian understanding of the importance of incarnation, of God ‘dwelling’ with humanity: we are required to see the face of God in our brother and sister and even our neighbour. The clearest expression of this comes in the First Letter of John, ‘Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen’ (I John 4.20). The love of God and the love of neighbour are not two separate and potentially competitive commandments, but complementary aspects of the one reality.

Why is this important? For several reasons, but certainly this, which feels all too relevant at the present time. Namely that so often those who commit acts of religiously based violence do so on the basis of their understanding of the ‘love of God’. They believe that the justification for their carrying out sometimes horrific acts lies in the fact that they are thereby demonstrating their love and obedience towards God.  All religions – including Christianity – have been guilty of this at various times in their history. It is a factor in current developments in the Middle East.  In such contexts it becomes even more vital to see Love of God and Love of neighbour as two parts of the one reality.

A brief note (as promised above!) about the second question in this week’s lectionary Gospel, a somewhat puzzling challenge offered by Jesus to those he was engaging with. ‘Whose son is the Messiah?’ – challenging as he does so the conventional understanding that the Messiah was ‘Son of David’. Though I am sure that there is more that could be said, perhaps one implication of Jesus’ question is that in Jesus’ understanding of messiahship the traditional ‘boundaries’ dividing God and humanity were being challenged and overcome. That, it would seem to me, has possible implications for any model of messiahship which is military or hierarchical in character.

Loving Father in heaven

Emmanuel, God with us,

Of your goodness

you have given us yourself,

The richest gift of all.

You invite us to seek for you,

In the face of your Son,

Where you have imprinted your likeness,

Made glorious with the wounds

Of suffering and passion. .

Grant us a spirit of generosity,

So that we may be enabled also to discern your features

In the changing kaleidoscope of this world’s need. Amen.

I am grateful to Revd Jonathan Halliwell for this interesting reflection on Matthew 22.15-22, the lectionary Gospel for Sunday 22 October 2023. Jonathan is a distinctive deacon serving his curacy in St John & St Philip, The Hague. As part of his ministry, he serves as a port chaplain for the Mission to Seafarers in Rotterdam.  If you want to contact Jonathan you can do so via deacon@stjohn-stphilip.org

Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship

Diocese in Europe

In preparing to preach about our relationship with money, I was interested to discover that Holland is the only country in the European Monetary Union that uses a religious inscription on its coins. There they are, inscribed on the edge of the coin (to prevent forgery and clipping) the words ‘(May) God be with us!’

The full quotation, “if God is with us who is against us?” (Romans 8.31), written in Latin (quis Deus nobiscum quis contra nos) appeared on coins of the Dutch Republic in 1581. They are part of the founding charter of the modern Netherlands. There is some irony in the fact that the text combines religion and money, the two chief causes of the Dutch secession from Spain. But history matters and people have long memories!

There is another irony that a country without a state religion should invoke the protection of God in this way. Yet the Reformed Political Party (SGP), who support the separation of church and state, campaigned for its inclusion. In their desire to outlaw false religions and dethrone deities, they uphold the words of Psalm 96:5, which declares, ‘for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.’ Our gospel today (Matthew 22.15-22) reminds us that Jesus had to confront the political and religious establishment of his time, not least the divine authority of Caesar.

In her first blog of this new series, Clare Amos noted that there seems to be a common understanding among the New Testament writers that the ‘image of God’ was found with a particular fullness in the person of Jesus Christ. Now when Jesus asks, ‘In whose image (eikōn) is this coin?’, that is, ‘whose head is on it?’, Jesus was relativizing the authority of Caesar, putting him in his place, so to speak. Jesus had asked the Pharisees and the Herodians to bring him a denarius, a Roman coin which bore an image of the emperor’s head, containing the inscription in Latin, ‘Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus (‘Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus). He exposes the question of whether to pay taxes to Caesar or not as a false dilemma and answers ‘Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ In other words, pay your taxes to Caesar but remember that God has ultimate authority over all of his creation.

A Roman denarius showing the head of the Emperor Tiberius

Of course, such a bold claim did not come without a cost and Jesus would pay the ultimate price for dethroning Caesar. As Saint Augustine reflected,

He himself, the only-begotten, was created to be wisdom and justice and holiness for us, and he was counted among us, and he paid the reckoning, the tribute to Caesar. (Saint Augustine, Confessions)

In the light of our gospel today, it is significant that the charge against Jesus was also written on an inscription. The inscription placed above him on the cross bore the title ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’ (Mark 15.26). By suggesting that Jesus’ execution was made on the grounds of sedition against the emperor, it raises the question of authority again.

Coins and inscriptions are powerful symbols which raise questions about our allegiances and affect the way we live our lives. In laying down his body, Jesus spared usthe wages of sin (Romans 6.23), that we might have life, and life eternal. In allowing his body to be tortured, disfigured and abused, he restored the divine image in us. He reminds leaders that all human persons, even Caesar, bear the image of the living God (cf. Genesis 1.26-27).

So in expressing our allegiance to God, we make the words inscribed on the Dutch coin that God be with us into a pledge. The effect of ‘dethroning Mammon’ (to borrow the title of Archbishop Justin Welby’s Lent book), or any of the other contemporary forces which dominate our lives is to restore the image of God in us, enabling our relationships with one another to thrive. By restoring the authority of God, in whose image we were created, we can be remade in the image of God. As the monk Evagrius Ponticus argued, love of neighbour is love of God because it is love of the image of God.

Prayer of Confession

The following prayer of confession, one of the alternatives offered by Common Worship, reminds us that we are all created to bear the image of God:

Father eternal, giver of light and grace,

we have sinned against you and against our neighbour,

in what we have thought,

in what we have said and done,

through ignorance, through weakness,

through our own deliberate fault.

We have wounded your love,

and marred your image in us.

We are sorry and ashamed,

and repent of all our sins.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

who died for us,

forgive us all that is past;

and lead us out from darkness

to walk as children of light. Amen

Armenian pottery communion plate made in Jerusalem depicting the loaves and fishes mosaic at Tabgha, Galilee

This week’s blog engages with Isaiah 25.1-9; Philippians 4.1-9, Matthew 22.1-14,  three Common Worship lectionary readings suggested or Sunday October 15.

Clare Amos

Director of Lay Discipleship, Diocese in Europe

It feels quite a challenge to offer a reflection for this week’s blog, especially given the circumstances that the world, in particular the Middle East, finds itself in at the moment. My husband and I have long-standing links to several countries in the region and to the people that live in them. Current events inevitably reverberate in my memory with some of the horrors we ourselves lived through years ago. I once read the words of Donald Nicholl, a profound Roman Catholic theologian, who commented (in relation to the situation in the Holy Land), ‘the task of the Christian is not to be neutral, but to be torn in two.’ I can honestly say that ‘torn in two’ is how I personally feel at the moment.

In normal days, I cherish the focus on ‘joy’ and ‘rejoicing’ in the Letter to the Philippians, which reaches its zenith in this week’s selected passage Philippians 4.1–9, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice’. But I am having to work fairly hard on ‘joy’ just at the moment – it doesn’t seem quite a natural or appropriate emotion in the present days. So I remembered the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who himself reflected on ‘joy’ in the most appalling of personal circumstances:

‘Gratitude transforms the torment of memory of good things now gone into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.’

It is of course salutary to remember that it is likely that Paul penned his ‘joyful’ letter to the Philippians when he himself was in prison.

Back in the 1980s the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, reflecting on ‘joy’, suggested that it was experienced when we try to hold together realities that can be seen as paradoxical: life and death, weeping and laughter, sorrow and bliss. Something of this is expressed in a powerful extract from For the Life of the World a book written by the Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann:

‘From its very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth.  It rendered impossible all joy we usually think of as possible.  But within this impossibility, at the very bottom of this darkness, it announced and conveyed a new all-embracing joy, and with this joy it transformed the End into a Beginning.  Without the proclamation of this joy Christianity is incomprehensible.  It is only as joy that the Church was victorious in the world, and it lost the world when it lost that joy, and ceased to be a credible witness to it.  Of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said the Christians had no joy.’

It is therefore significant that the ‘traditional’ preface to our Eucharistic Prayer includes the word ‘joy’…’ It is indeed right, it is our duty and our joy…’, and then speaks of giving ‘thanks and praise’.  The pairing of the word ’joy’ with ‘duty’ should perhaps give us pause for thought.

I don’t find this week’s Gospel reading from Matthew 22.1-14 ‘easy’. It contains difficult ‘notes’ – not least the addition of the tale about the man without the wedding garment – that accentuate the frequent focus on judgement that appears in Matthew’s Gospel.  I have to confess to finding Luke’s parallel, in Luke 14.15ff a more congenial read.

But Matthew’s version, which describes the event as a ‘wedding feast’ encourages us towards an important insight. Throughout the Bible a ‘banquet’ is presented as the central image of human life as God wants it to be lived. To quote Alexander Schmemann again, ‘this image of the banquet remains, throughout the whole Bible, the central image of life. It is the image of life at its creation and also the image of life at its end and fulfillment: “… that you eat and drink at my table in the Kingdom.”

The New Testament seems to intensify the image into a ‘wedding feast’ as here in Matthew, or in John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2.1-11) or in Revelation’s reference to the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19.9).  As Isaiah 25.1-9 suggests this will be a time in the future when God will ‘wipe away the tears from all faces’ (Isaiah 25.8).

Over the years I have found it intriguing to notice how from earliest times the Christian understanding of the Eucharist, has not only looked back (to the Last Supper and the death of Jesus Christ), but has also had a ‘present’ and a ‘future’ focus. The present focus is linked to the building up of the Church community as ‘the Body of Christ’, the future focus sees the Eucharist precisely as being ‘a foretaste of the heavenly banquet prepared for all people’ – to which the biblical texts allude.

It is interesting that there is a first or second century Christian text closely associated with Syria in which the thrust of the Eucharist is future rather than past. That is the Didache. The relevant passage has been paraphrased into a fairly well known hymn beginning ‘Father we thank thee who hast planted’. In this Didache text there is no direct reference to the death of Christ but (as the paraphrased version puts it) it concludes:

‘As grain, once scattered on the hillsides,

Was in this broken bread made one,

So from all lands thy church be gathered

Into thy Kingdom by thy Son’.

Throughout much of Christian history this forward thrust of the Eucharist was lost or minimalised, at least in western Christianity. We owe a considerable debt to the Methodist liturgical scholar, Geoffrey Wainwright, who ‘rediscovered’ it and encouraged wider reflection on this aspect. Now, this forward gaze has rightly found its way back into our Anglican eucharistic liturgies. So, for example, at the service I attended at Worcester Cathedral last Sunday, the post-communion prayer concluded with the words:

‘and here a pledge of future glory is given,
when we shall feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.’

I think there are ‘hints’ in Matthew’s Gospel that the community for whom he wrote also ‘looked forward’ in their celebration of the Eucharist. It is of course interesting that Matthew’s Gospel may have itself originated in a part of Syria not far from where the Didache was probably written.

So perhaps one way of engaging with this week’s rather difficult parable of the wedding feast is to see it as a reminder that in our worship/Eucharist/Holy Communion we are anticipating that joyous future in which God will invite all people to share in the feast that he has prepared for humanity. That will indeed be a time our duty has also become our joy and when, as the lovely Taize chant puts it, ‘The kingdom of God is justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dToFKnGplc

Yet once we begin to look at the Eucharist in those terms, which pull us from the present towards the future, then we need also to remember the salutary words of the former Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe, ‘Whenever in the world a person in hungry our Eucharist is incomplete’…

Pedro Arrupe

The contested vineyard 2

Given its three year cycle, in October 2020 the Common Worship lectionary readings Isaiah 5.1-7 ; Philippians 3.4b-14 ; Matthew 21.33-46. were the same as we will use this coming Sunday, I drew attention in 2020 to some significant questions the readings pose for many of us in Europe, and certainly for me. I revisit (and rework) what I said then, for the questions are not ones that have gone away in the interim, indeed in some ways may be even more pressing.  However as I noted at the time, it is also interesting that the biblical readings about the care of the vineyard should ‘fall’ so soon after the Season of Creation. Back in 2020 husband, Canon Alan Amos, the most gracious (yet challenging!) of theological conversation partners, wrote a powerful prayer that linked ‘creation’ with the main thematic focus of the blog. This time I  use Alan’s prayer to ‘introduce’ the blog.

Clare Amos, Director for Lay Discipleship, Diocese in Europe

clare.amos@europe.anglican.org

Lord,  you are our gracious landlord
we the tenants of your land-holding the earth
there is room for all of us as those
who care for your creation.
We like to think we own the plot,
as Christians we can dispense your salvation
to the world
and yet we cannot;
we can point in your direction
and then to our surprise
see many others,  from here and there
showing us their signs of faith;
The vineyard is yours, and ever shall be;
you have not turfed out others to bring us in;
for you are the generous host
and at the end of the day
the feast of plenty will provide for all
who wish to come. (Alan Amos)

In view of my own background and professional interests inevitably I read this week’s lectionary passages while reflecting on the topic of Jewish-Christian relations. The readings force us to address an issue that Christians in Europe simply cannot avoid, namely the relationship, both theologically and practically, between Christianity and Judaism. In fact at the present time we are in the most significant part of the Jewish religious year, what are called the ‘High Holy Days’, in which our Jewish brothers and sisters are now celebrating their harvest festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles/Booths) having recently kept both Rosh ha-shana (New Year), then Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)

The lectionary Gospel (Matthew 21.33-46) is Matthew’s version of what is generally called ‘the Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard’. It also appears in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, but if anything the version in Matthew feels harsher, in particular because of the comment, ‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom’ (Matthew 21.43) which does not appear in either of the other Gospels. The ‘you’, in that sentence appears to be the chief priests and Pharisees, in other words, key representatives of the institutional Judaism of Jesus’ day.

You cannot read the New Testament without realising that a key ‘puzzle’ in the minds of many Christian disciples in the half century following on the earthly life of Jesus was the question as to why many, indeed most, of Jesus’ fellow Jews had not also seen him as their Messiah and Saviour. The earliest disciples were themselves Jews of course, and for them that ‘puzzle’ was mixed up with their own loyalty and love for their Jewish heritage. Paul, in fact, seems to be wrestling with this issue, in the passage from Philippians selected for this week (Philippians 3.4b-14) – seeking to hold together his Jewish identity, of which he was clearly proud, alongside his knowledge of Jesus Christ. In Romans 9 – 11 he addresses the issue more extensively. Even though, fairly quickly, the majority of the Christian church became people of Gentile origin that fundamental question did not go away, though perhaps that earliest sense of acute personal wrestling and angst became less pronounced among Gentile Christians.

By the end of the first century AD what is often called ‘the parting of the ways’ between Christianity and Judaism was well in train. After the war between the Jews of Palestine and the Romans c 70 AD which led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Judaism too was seeking a renewed sense of self-understanding. The dating of the various Gospels is a matter of (considered) conjecture, but at least some of them probably date from the period after 70 AD when the attitudes of both the Jewish and Christianity communities towards each other were hardening.

The parable of the tenants in the vineyard, at least as it is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, seems to reflect this context.  It is easy to read it, and it may well be that the author of the Gospel intends us to, as suggesting that the role that ‘official’ Judaism had had in God’s purposes had been taken away from it, or ‘superseded’ – by Christianity. Perhaps it was sometimes too easily forgotten that, as is implied in Isaiah 5.1-7, ‘the Song of the Vineyard’, the Old Testament ‘thematic’ reading for this Sunday, God most chastises those whom God most loves.   The idea that Christianity had replaced Judaism, formally known as ‘supersessionism’ or sometimes ‘replacement theology’, became very wide-spread in Christian history, especially after the establishment of the Christian Empire under Constantine. For many – perhaps most – Christians until very recently, their affirmation that God had chosen the ‘Church’ for his purposes, became one side of a coin of which the other side was the assertion that the ‘Synagogue’ and the Jewish faith had no longer any part to play – it had been ‘superseded’.

In medieval Europe this was sometimes depicted in art by contrasting pictures or statues of a triumphant Ecclesia (Church) and a downcast Synagoga (Synagogue) – see below.  Such depictions hint at the dangerous practical consequence of this teaching of ‘supersessionism’, which proactively encouraged discrimination, mistreatment and all too often violence against individual Jews and particular Jewish communities. In many of our lands of Europe there are notorious examples of such attacks in the Middle Ages. But of course, as we know only too well, anti-Judaism and antisemitism in Europe did not die out several centuries ago. It deeply and horrifically scarred the twentieth century. In fact it still continues today. During the COVID period there were examples of antisemitic lies on social media which suggested that Jews bore responsibility for the spread of COVID-19. In response to the negative medieva portraya of synagoga and ecclesia, St Joseph’s university in Pennsylvania in the USA has produced a modern portrayal which depicts Judaism and Christianity as two euqal and loving sisters. This is used as the illustration at the head of this blog.

Medieval synagoga/ecclesia Notre Dame de Paris

Over the last 20 years in my interreligious work I have enjoyed engaging with Jewish friends and colleagues both professionally and personally. I have been privileged to be part of the working group that produced a fairly recent Church of England report ‘God’s Unfailing Word’ on Christian relations with Jews and Judaism https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/godsunfailingwordweb.pdf and I have been consulted about other reports. I know that many Jews with whom I engage in dialogue believe that it is vital that the Christians disown ‘supersessionism’, and indeed some churches have formally done so, although I suspect the ‘official’ view at the top may not always filter down throughout all the membership.

I have to say that I find myself torn. I am very aware that the question of Christian ‘supersessionism’ isn’t just an ‘academic’ one, either for Jews or for Christians. It does have practical consequences for how Christians behave towards their Jewish neighbours and fellow citizens. But equally I think that Jews need to acknowledge that asking Christians to disown supersessionism is a ‘big ask’. It is not easy because it is written very deeply into the DNA of our Christian theological structure and it has been the default Christian position for nearly 2000 years. So I react against a glib assumption that ‘ordinary’ Christians can easily jettison such attitudes towards Judaism, partly because I doubt that many of them really have. I see it for example whenever a congregation unthinkingly chooses ‘Lord of the Dance’ as a regular Sunday hymn! (Think about some of its words…!) Nonetheless the development of a mature, healthy and honest relationship between Jews and Christians has potentially positive consequences for the peace of the world, not least the Middle East.

And there are some things that it is helpful to point out. For example that it is important to read the Bible, or even particular books of the Bible as a whole. Take this week’s Old Testament reading, Isaiah 5.1-7, which tells of God’s anger with his vineyard, reinforcing its message with a powerful Hebrew pun: ‘I looked for justice (mishpat) but behold bloodshed (mispah), for righteousness (tzedeqah) but behold a cry (tza‘aqah). Read alongside the Gospel reading it feels as though it is reinforcing a message that the original tenants in the vineyard have been evicted. However the ‘song of the vineyard’ is clearly revisited in another part of the Book of Isaiah, chapter 27, and there the ‘song’ concludes with the promise,

‘In days to come Jacob shall take root,
   Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots,
   and fill the whole world with fruit’

which seems to suggest a very different picture, and it is right that this becomes part of the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 5 as well.

One last thing, which again reminds us of the ‘Season of Creation’. My husband’s prayer/poem astutely reminds us that when we are thinking about the ‘tenants in the vineyard’ it is possible to ‘read’ the parable in the light of the care by all humanity – or the lack of it – of the whole world in which we live. At the end of a northern summer in which several months have been the hottest on record ‘Gobsmackingly bananas’: scientists stunned by planet’s record September heat | Climate crisis | The Guardian that offers a different, but very important ‘take’ on the parable!