May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Good morning. I greet you today with a cheerful welcome and two
extracts from today’s reading and gospel.
From Jeremiah:
I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man
according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
From Luke
And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out
of him and healed them all.
There you have it, people of St. Mark’s, in two short verses, one from
the Old Testament and one from the New, how the arrival of the
upside-down kingdom of Jesus Christ changed forever our
relationship with God, ourselves, and each other.
Jeremiah’s Lord Almighty oversees his people and tests them to
know them. (Job is an extreme example). Luke’s incarnate Lord
attracts multitudes longing to touch him. Jeremiah’s Lord judges
first, then bestows grace or waste based on his findings. Yet never
are matters purely bleak–for his people Israel the future holds
fulfilment of his covenant with its restoration and triumph even as
tribulation, war, and exile fill its chronicles. Luke’s Lord radiates to
all people his healing power first and deferring his necessary
judgment until later. From the moment we come to him in faith and
repentance, seeking his forgiveness of sin, he keeps us as his own.
This is a big message to deliver, one so revolutionary it did then and
may now reorder the world, and certainly transform the lives of those
who hear him. This is the message Jesus voices in the sermon on the
plain, the full ‘who, what, when, where and why’ of moving to a Godcentred
life.
Recall that Luke’s stated intention is to record “those things that may
most surely be believed”, gathering reports from eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word,and interviewing key characters and their
successors. He tells us that at the outset of Jesus’ ministry, in a short
number of weeks since his baptism and parlay with Satan in the
wilderness, he begins to gather followers, turns water into wine at
Cana, preaches his first sermon with dramatic effect in Nazareth,
performs miracles of healing wheresoever he goes, even on the
Sabbath. The gospel writer sets out certain remarkable events within a
cosmic cascade leading from Bethlehem to Calvary, the empty tomb,
and institution of the Kingdom on earth.
In scripture, the plain or level place often symbolises a place of
judgment, disgrace, privation and death, although two of the prophets,
Isaiah and Ezekiel, add the hopeful belief that God can bring life from
death even in such hopeless places. Geographically, we meet today
on a plain in lower Galilee, most likely on a level between the
geological landmark called the Horns of Hattin, an extinct volcano with
two peaks…and spiritually, within the spiral of our life of shared
worship, on the Sunday of Septuagesima.
Historian Andrew Hughes in his definitive Medieval Manuscripts for
Mass and Office explains its Latin name: “Septuagesima Sunday is so
called because it falls within seventy days but more than sixty days
before Easter”. More fun with liturgical numbers is available: today is
the ninth Sunday before Easter and the third before Ash Wednesday; it
is also the day one may officially launch if not observe the first day of
a forty-day Lenten fast (that would start tomorrow) if the practice of
excluding such penitence on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays is
factored in. This stretches the observance over a 70-ish day period.
There is a rationale as Hughes notes: “for as the Jews were obliged to
do penance seventy years, that they might thereby merit to return into
the promised land, so Christians sought to regain the grace of God by
fasting for seventy days.” Observe the intrusion of judgment over
grace by the liturgical fathers at the end of this comment. As we read
in Jesus’ sermon for today, grace is the new given although the process
of realising it is freely on offer requires its own process of selfexamination,
repentance, and intention.
At St Mark’s we include the venerable Roman rite of the three Gesima
Sundays in our liturgical year as our meeting place on the plain, a pause
to hear again the Word of God and give thanks for his mercy and our
salvation, a time to pack our Lenten knapsacks with the faith essentials
needed for the journey through Holy Week. They are, as are the
Sundays of Lent, “little Easters”, times of respite, joy, and gratitude.
For we have seen the fulfilment of God’s promises to us and of the light
of our salvation in an infant. Like Zechariah. Like Simeon. We have
been raised up by God’s answer to prayer and presence in our life. Like
Elizabeth and Virgin Mary. We have marvelled as those from afar
acknowledged Israel’s anointed king. Like the Wise Ones from the
East. We have rejoiced in the presence of the living triune God as his
son is baptised in Jordan’s rivers. Like John the Baptist. We have
celebrated the wedding feast of the divine bridegroom and his beloved
church on earth with miraculous wine freely given. Like Mother Mary
and Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man.
Now Jesus, after spending a night in solitary prayer with his Father,
commissions 12 apostles from amongst his many disciples. Note the
leaders-in-training of his inner circle match in number the tribes of
Israel formed by the old covenant, literally constituting a new nation at
the outset of his mission. Down the mountain slopes they come to the
plain, on a level, in the middle of the foundational stage of kingdom
mission, the saviour and Christ of God amidst a heaving multitude from
near and far, no longer a strictly local crowd but Jews of Jerusalem,
Judah and Galilee together with Gentiles. They pursue the next big
thing – the words, the healing, the contact with someone and something
significant perhaps wonderful, and – dare I say it–number 1 on recent
electoral placards from around the globe –a CHANGE?
Fortunately, the person they and we expect to deliver said change is
fully divine as well as fully human, the only being in time qualified as
the embodiment of radical, righteous change. He is not the go-to chap
for you if you are satisfied by current circumstances. He is the one you
want meet on the level and learn of a new life on offer from one who
both knows you AND still loves you.
The gospel portion today is the first section of the sermon, 6 verses
that set out 4 blessings followed by 4 woes in the tradition of
prophetic oracles as a revelation from God. Each blessing has a
correlative woe. Poverty is paired with richness. Hunger with
fullness. Tears with sorrow. Being outcast with being in favour. So
far, so logical. Their content, though, is more metaphysical, leading
with “Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God”. This
returns us to my opening comments, when I suggest the arrival of the
upside-down kingdom of Jesus Christ changes forever our
relationship with God, ourselves, and each other, a message
expressed within the sermon on the plain.
We do not need a great height to see our true nature. We need our
Lord Jesus Christ amongst us to remind us we are blessed and loved,
precious and known in God’s sight. We may be full of sin and
shortcomings that make us unholy in God’s righteous eyes, yet his
divine plan calls for the sacrifice by his Son and the ever-present
grace of the Holy Spirit, an unfathomable living God to deliver his
will to our fallen world for our salvation.
This sermon is a list of rules…for we need forgiving. Not
condemnation…for we need healing. We are blessed not because we
are special or fortunate or happy. We are blessed because he are his.
However, salvation is not a state of being but a way of life.
I have been humbled by reading the reflections of Elias Chacour, a
Palestinian Christian:
“Knowing Aramaic, the language of Jesus, has greatly enriched my
understanding of Jesus’ teachings. Because the Bible as we know it is
a translation of a translation, we sometimes get a wrong impression.
For example, we are used to hearing the Beatitudes expressed
passively: “Blessed” is the translation of the word MAKARIOI, used
in the Greek New Testament. However, when I look further back to
Jesus’ Aramaic, I find that the original word was ASHRAY, from the
verb YASHAR. ASHRAY does not have this passive quality to it at
all. Instead, it means “to set yourself on the right way for the right goal;
to turn around, repent; to become straight or righteous.”
To me this reflects Jesus’ words and teachings much more accurately.
I can hear him saying, “Get your hands dirty to build a human society
for human beings; otherwise, others will torture and murder the poor,
the voiceless, and the powerless.”
Christianity is not passive but active, creative and energetic, the only
antidote to anxiety and despair.
Why else would Jesus close the scriptures before verse 2 of Isaiah 61:2
was completed as he preached what T. L. Wright dubs “the Nazareth
Manifesto”? “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” was where
he ended his reading when the phrase ends …”and the day of vengeance
of our God”. Then the verse concludes with cold comfort for mourners!
Why? Because that is not the end for us. Jesus read Isaiah’s call to
“preach good tidings to the meek” as he studied Torah… heard his
mother’s joyful words in the womb “He hath filled the hungry with
good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away”; dozed to a lullaby
by angelic hosts praising God on high and blessing earth with peace
and good will.
We are blessed through him and by him for the glory of God.
This is the metaphysical state of blessing – to understand that despite
outward appearances, unfavourable or indeed, favourable, for God does
not wish misfortune upon his children nor does he engineer it – you are
saved. Thank God you do not have to settle for the things of the world,
that wealth and gratification, pleasure and popularity, power and
exclusive reliance on human capability results only in sin and death.
But every child of God is invited to his receive his spiritual healing, to
live day to day as part of his body on earth. A citizen of the Kingdom
now. And a permanent resident of the Kingdom to come. AMEN.