The Second Sunday of Lent

This is the transcript of my sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent on March 8, 2020.

The Second Sunday of Lent, 2020

Readings:

Genesis 12:1-4a

Romans 4:1-5,13-17 

John 3:1-17

Our Gospel reading this week contains two very famous well-known and well-loved verses.

The first is in John 3:3. Jesus is in Jerusalem, and he has been making quite an impression on people, not all of it favourable.  Although it is still the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in John’s account of it, already Jesus is making enemies amongst the authorities there.

Not all, however, are against him, and one person, in particular, wants to find out more.  He is Nicodemus, who, John tells us, is a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews.  Nicodemus comes, therefore, to Jesus by night to find out more about him.

Some commentaries suggest Nicodemus came by night because he would have been too busy during the day, and this would have been a convenient time for him.  It is much more likely that it is because he doesn’t want to be seen!  But, in John’s Gospel, ‘night’ also has a symbolic significance.  Nicodemus comes by night, but it is clear that is he who is in darkness.

Nicodemus begins by complimenting Jesus:

‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ (John 3:2)

This is more than flattery.  He genuinely does believe that Jesus could not be doing what he is doing unless God is with him.  But he still doesn’t know what to make of it.

Jesus gets straight to the point.  He tells Nicodemus bluntly:

‘Unless a person is born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God.’  (John 3:3)

Nicodemus is shocked, he asks:

‘How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ (John 3:4)

This famous exchange has given rise to some Christians describing themselves as ‘born again Christians’ to distinguish themselves, apparently, from those Christians who have not.

It is true that many who claim to be Christians have not had a personal encounter with God, and there are many more who seem to be Christian in name only.  The use of the term ‘born again Christian’ is an attempt to describe the sort of experience that Jesus is talking of here.  Nevertheless, it is not a very happy distinction to make because it suggests that it is possible to be a follower of Christ and not be ‘born again’.

Jesus, however, is not seeking to distinguish between different types of Christians.  As far as our Lord is concerned, this is non-negotiable.  He says that to see the Kingdom of God you must be born again.  Or does he?

He certainly says something must happen, but you will see that in some translations what Jesus says must happen is that a person must be born ‘from above’ rather than ‘born again’.  The Greek word that John uses here is ‘anothen’, which can be translated either ‘again’ or ‘from above’.  So, which is it?

In one sense, it doesn’t matter.  If it is ‘born from above’, it would also imply, given that this is not how we are born naturally, that we would have also to be born again.  And if the right translation is ‘born again’, then that would beg the question as to how it is to happen.  This is something that Jesus goes on to talk about with his insistence on being ‘born of the Spirit’.  So each translation implies the other.

But, in any case, we probably don’t have to choose as St John likes these sort of ambiguities and probably intends us to understand the word he uses both ways.  He certainly makes clear that both are true.  Of course, having sorted that out we are still left with the question of how and why.

The ‘why’, Jesus tells Nicodemus, is because those born once from below are flesh.  Flesh here, refers not to the physical matter of which we are made, although it includes that.  It is all that we are in our natural state as human beings.  It is the way we are born.  But why should being naturally human not be good enough?  And how are we to be born again from above?

For the answer to these two questions, we need to move to the second famous verse in this passage:

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’ (John 3:16)

This has been described as the golden verse of the Bible, and it is one that we read here at Christ Church every time we celebrate the Eucharist.

The reason that God gave his only Son, it tells us, was so that we would not perish, so that we may be saved, and so we would not be condemned.  But if that’s the case, then it follows that, as things stand, we are perishing and are in need of saving, and that unless we are saved, we stand condemned.

This, then, is what Jesus means to be ‘flesh’.

St Paul describes us as being ‘dead in our trespasses and sins’ (Ephesians 2:1).  St John would not disagree.  He records Jesus as saying that he had come that people might ‘have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10).  In his first letter, he writes:

‘Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.’  (1 John 5:12)

Dead, perishing, condemned, and in need of saving; no wonder that we need nothing less than new birth.

The answer to the how question, then, is also clear.  The new birth we so desperately need, must, says Jesus, be from above.  For to be born again from above is for Jesus something that can only be accomplished by God himself.  Our new birth can only come by the work of the Spirit through faith in the One who God gave for us.  It is not something that we are able to accomplish ourselves.  We are too lost and far gone for that.  There’s nothing we can do to save ourselves.

And here’s the problem: we don’t like thinking of ourselves in this way.  We do like that Jesus promises us an abundant life.  We are happy to follow him as a Rabbi, a teacher who can act as our guide when we feel the need of one.  But having to write-off our existing life as quite literally a dead loss is not something that we are quite so keen on.

So, what to do?  Some just simply write Jesus off instead.  Sure, he says some things that sound good and which may even be worth exploring, if we had the time, but, after all, he’s just one teacher amongst many.  No need to confine ourselves just to him.

Many of us, however, for all sorts of reasons, don’t want to write Jesus off.  Like Nicodemus, we are attracted to him and like some of what he has to say.  We like, for example, what we see as his welcoming and inclusive approach to people; the way he reaches out to those in trouble and accepts people no matter how they may have failed in the past and regardless of who they are or where they have come from.

So, we do what Peter tried to do when Jesus said things he didn’t want to hear: we try to shut him up.  Or we just ignore them.  We take those things he says which we like, and which indeed have truth in them, and make them our Gospel.

We make as our Gospel what the Devil tried to get Jesus to make his Gospel in our reading from Matthew last week.  Jesus is the Son of God and, therefore, can make bread out of stone, so he will provide for us materially.  God does indeed promise, as the Devil points out, to look after his Son and keep him from harm, so he will look after us and keep us from harm if we follow him.  And the Kingdoms of this world together with their power and glory rightfully belong to Jesus, so why shouldn’t they belong to us who believe in him too?

The Devil tested Jesus by trying to persuade him to follow a way that was based on material satisfaction, well-being, and success.  One which put himself and his needs firmly at the centre.  The Devil failed with Jesus, but he has succeeded with us.

And so, this is increasingly the sort of Gospel on offer in many Churches.  As I said last week, it is the Devil’s Gospel.  Oh yes, we can appeal to Biblical texts in support of it just as the Devil did, but they are texts which are being used as a pretext to avoid what God wants of us.  It is a Gospel that appeals to those born of the flesh, but not yet born of the Spirit.

So maybe we need to distinguish between Christians after all.  For to be born again from above by the Spirit means believing in Jesus and following him in the way he opened up for us; a way that is narrow and hard and leads to the Cross.

Yesterday was the Feast Day of Perpetua and Felicity and their companions.  They were followers of Christ at the beginning of the third century who rejected the Devil’s Gospel and refused to take the easy way.  Followers who put Christ at the centre of their lives and who paid for it with their lives.

‘This is how much God loved the world’, St John writes, that he gave his only Son for us, and now he calls us to give ourselves to his Son.

Jesus told his followers that the only way to life was to ‘eat his flesh and drink his blood’ and that unless we did so we would ‘not have his life within us’ (John 6:53).  Only, in other words, by completely identifying with him and accepting his way will we find the way to life.  Only this way can we be born again from above by the Spirit.  No wonder that many of his disciples decided after he said this to stop following him.  Too much!  It was just too much.

After many had deserted him, Jesus asked his closest disciples, ‘Do you also want to go away?’ (John 6:67).  It is a question Jesus now asks us.  St Peter answered Jesus:

‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ (John 6:68)

It was the answer that Perpetua, Felicity, and their friends gave when they were asked to turn away from Christ.  They preferred instead death, a violent and bloody death, rather than even contemplate such a desertion.

And so today the choice is ours:

‘For this is how much God loved us that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’

Will we believe in him or will we, like so many, turn away?

May we respond like St Peter and like Sts Perpetua, Felicity, and their companions did:

‘Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life.’

In other words, may we show by our faith in Jesus that we are people who have been born again from above.

Amen.

The First Sunday of Lent

This is the transcript of my sermon for the First Sunday of Lent on March 1, 2020.

The First Sunday of Lent

Readings:

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

One of our universities here in Hong Kong wrote this in an online communication recently:

‘Your health and safety are always our top priority.  Please stay vigilant and continue to make personal health your top priority.’
Similar statements have been issued by other universities, organizations, and employers during the present situation.

On Wednesday, we began Lent and today is the first Sunday in Lent.  Lent is modelled on our Lord’s 40 days in the wilderness.  Our Gospel reading this morning is St Matthew’s account of this time.  It is often described as Jesus’ ‘temptation in the wilderness’.  This, however, is a misunderstanding of what was, in fact, happening.

Immediately before his time in the wilderness, Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist.  As he was baptized a Voice from heaven had declared:

‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ (Matthew 3:17)

At the same time the Holy Spirit had descended on him in the form of a dove.

The first thing the Spirt does after descending on Jesus is to lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the Devil.  In other words, Jesus’ time in the wilderness and his encounter with the Devil is something that God wants to happen.  The purpose of this examination is not to tempt Jesus to see whether Jesus can resist sin, but to test him to find out whether he understands the true nature of what it means to be God’s Son.

Even at the age of 12, we are told by St Luke, Jesus knew he should be about his ‘Father’s business’, and he left his mother and father to spend time in the temple, his Father’s house.  After they found him, he went back with them to Nazareth where he stayed with them and where nothing is heard of him until his baptism by John.

During this time at Nazareth, he must have been reflecting on the business that God had for him.  His time in the wilderness then is like a final examination to test whether he is ready, and God has given the job of testing him to the toughest of examiners.

There are three tests.  They are all to do with what it means to be God’s Son and his readiness for the business God has for him.  Some translations give the wrong impression here.  The Devil doesn’t say, ‘If you are God’s Son …’ in the sense that there is some doubt about it.  A better translation would be, ‘As you are God’s Son …’  The Devil is picking up on what the Voice from heaven has said and asking Jesus if he understands what it means to be God’s Son.

As it happens, there is indeed a temptation here.  There is nothing the Devil can do about the fact that Jesus is God’s Son.  That’s a given.  What the Devil desperately wants is for Jesus to be a particular type of God’s Son; one who will ultimately serve him, the Devil, rather than God himself.

The first test is quite a straightforward one.  Jesus has been fasting, that is, not eating so he can concentrate on praying.  Naturally, he is hungry.  Very hungry.  There is, says the Devil, an obvious solution: turn the stone into bread.  You are God’s Son, the Devil is saying, you have the power to do so.

Jesus famously answers:

‘It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Matthew 4:4)

Jesus has passed the first test.

We need, however, to see the full significance of this test.  It is, of course, about Jesus’ hunger on a personal level.  But also, at the very beginning of the testing, it is a test that gets to the heart of what kind of Son Jesus is going to be.  Will he be one who will prioritize physical need?

By satisfying his hunger in the way the Devil suggested, Jesus would be showing where his priorities lay.  The Devil must have thought this was a good test to use.  After all, he had caught out the first man and woman by tempting them with something to eat.  The people of Israel, during their 40 years in the wilderness, had complained against God because they were hungry.

Jesus, however, shows right away where his priority lies.  It is not because he doesn’t care about physical need.  Much of his ministry will be about healing people and bringing people to health and wholeness.  He will have pity on those who are hungry, and he will perform an amazing miracle in the wilderness to feed five thousand hungry people at one time.  He will not, however, put physical need before hearing the Word of God.

For the second test in Matthew’s Gospel, the Devil suggests that Jesus should throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple.  The Devil points out that this would involve no real risk because God had promised to look after his Son so that he came to no harm.  There is then no real risk here and think of the benefit.  It would show everyone at a stroke that Jesus was indeed God’s Son.

Jesus replies, again quoting scripture:

‘Again, it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ (Matthew 4:7)

If Jesus had done as the Devil suggested, it would have been like a student going into an examination and rather than sitting the exam, instead questioning the examiner.  It would have been to miss the point.  And it would be to imply that Jesus’ personal safety is what counts and that God will preserve him from all harm.  It would be to put himself and his need for recognition and popularity at the centre of his mission.  This Jesus refuses to do.

And so to the final and most difficult test.

The Devil shows Jesus all the Kingdoms of the world and all their glory.  All Jesus has to do is worship the Devil and they will be his.  As God’s Son, he has come to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.  He will teach his disciples to pray for this very thing whenever they pray.  What the Devil will offer is a short cut.  One that does not involve the pain and suffering of the Cross.  The end the Devil offers is what the mission God has given Jesus is to achieve.  The means the Devil offers to Jesus to achieve it is not.

No-one would have blamed Jesus if he had taken the Devil’s way.  Later in his ministry, it is the way that his own disciples want him to take.  It is the way his Church and followers throughout history all too often were to take.  Popularity, power, and glory are sought by everyone from athletes to entertainers; from politicians to business leaders; from popes to preachers.  Television programmes gain massive audiences by offering contestants the path to glory.  The Devil offered Jesus the same and he refused.

But why?

‘Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ” (Matthew 4:10)

As God’s Son, he is not only to put God at the centre of his life and mission, he is to serve God in the way that God wants and that means to the exclusion of anything or anyone else that demands or desires worship or gets in the way of worshipping the One true God.

I love the way Jesus’ time of testing in the wilderness ends.  St Matthew tells us:

‘Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’ (Matthew 4:11)

I don’t know if you have seen how, at some universities, when the final exams are over, friends will gather and wait outside the examination hall to celebrate with the person who has been taking the examination.  The Devil has tested Jesus in the way the Holy Spirit wanted now for a moment there is a brief celebration.  Jesus truly does understand what it means to be God’s Son, and he knows not only what his mission is, but also how it must be achieved.

Its been a tough series of tests.  As God’s Son, he had an absolute right to food, protection, and power.  The question has been whether as God’s Son this is what he is going to prioritize and pursue and whether this is what he is going to offer his followers.  Now we have the answer.

But it is not necessarily the answer we want or like to hear.

We quite like the idea of a God who feeds us, who looks after us, and who makes us successful.  After all, what’s the point of believing in God and going to all the trouble of worshipping him if there is nothing in it for us?  We like a Gospel that promises us physical and material well-being.  And to a greater or lesser degree, this is exactly the sort of Gospel that all too often is what is on offer in our Churches.  The irony is that it is the Devil’s Gospel.  It is the one he offered Jesus in the wilderness and which Jesus so emphatically rejected.

It is one that would certainly have got Jesus more followers in the same way we believe it will get us more church members and, indeed, it often does.  Jesus speaks about how it is the only few who take the way he offers, precisely because his way is so hard and often painful.

So why make it so difficult?  Well here’s the thing: because ‘our health and safety are not God’s top priority’.  Saving us from our sin is.

Lent began on Wednesday with the words: ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’.  St Paul tells us in today’s second reading that from the time another son failed the test, human beings have been infected with a deadly virus that has a 100% fatality rate.  The problem is sin and the result is death.

This is simply something that we do not want to hear.  What we want to hear are soothing words about how important we are and how important our health and safety are.  We don’t want to be told we are ‘dust and to dust we shall return’.  And the life advice we want is to be told take ourselves seriously: ‘to stay vigilant and to continue to make our personal health and well-being our top priority’.

What instead we are told is that ‘we should turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’.  We are to worship the Lord our God and serve only him, even if serving and doing other things would bring power and success.  We are to trust God even if trusting him seems to put our physical health and safety at risk.  And we are to put our desire for God’s word and spiritual food before our desire for physical satisfaction.

When the friends of a man who could not walk lowered him down through the roof in front of Jesus, Jesus said to him:

‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.’ (Matthew 9:2)

What the man’s friends thought he needed was to be able to walk.  What Jesus thought he needed was for his sins to be forgiven.  It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t care about his physical suffering.  He healed him after all.  It was just that only healing the paralyzed man would simply have meant that he became a sinner who could walk as opposed to one who couldn’t.  The man’s need was to be forgiven so that he had the opportunity, if he wanted to take it, to walk with God.

So today, ‘please stay vigilant and make your relationship with God your top priority’.

‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’
‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

Amen.

Ash Wednesday

This is the transcript of my sermon for Ash Wednesday on February 26, 2020.

Ash Wednesday

Readings:

Joel 2:1-2,12-17

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6.10 

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.’

These are the words that accompany the ‘imposition of ashes’ that takes place in churches on Ash Wednesday.  They are words that this year very few people in Hong Kong will hear.  This is, of course, because churches, unlike shops and supermarkets, are, at the moment, closed to the public.  However, it has to be said, that even had we been allowed to open today, our churches would not have exactly been full.

This is in contrast to how Lent was approached and observed in the past.  In the past, yesterday Shrove Tuesday, all the sweet and delicious food in our store cupboards would have been eaten.  We would have gone to church to be ‘shriven’, that is, to confess our sins and receive absolution from a priest in order to get ourselves ready for Lent.  Giving something up in Lent would not have been a token ‘giving up’, but a several week abstaining from meat and much else.

Lent in the past, in other words, was taken very seriously.  It was not simply about preparing for Easter, but about a specific way of preparing for Easter.  It was a time for self-examination and reflection on our mortality and spiritual need, designed to get us ready for the message we will celebrate at Easter.  Ash Wednesday, the day beginning Lent, is still, in the Anglican Church, a Principal Holy day, one that Christians are expected to take seriously.

So why don’t we?

Well doubtless the reasons are many, but certainly part of the reason is that we don’t want to hear how utterly weak and wretched we are.  You might have thought that the fact that whole cities are being brought to a standstill by a virus might have led us to think about our weakness and vulnerability, even if nothing else did, but human pride and arrogance being what they are, we have developed a natural immunity to such a message.

The truth is we have embraced instead the message of popular culture that tells us we are all wonderful really.  ‘There is nothing we can’t do, if we but believe in ourselves.’  ‘Our only limitation is our imagination.’  This would just be mildly amusing were it not for the fact that this is the message that children are being taught in schools and the philosophy they are being raised and encouraged to base their whole lives on.

No wonder then that they get such a shock when they find out by bitter experience just how false it is.  Of course, the world holds up as examples of its message those who have followed their dreams and have succeeded.  And it emphatically insists that we can be like them if we have the same faith in ourselves.  This isn’t just a lie; it is a cruel lie.  No wonder then that suicide, mental illness, depression, despair, and disillusionment are so common among even the youngest members of our society.

Instead of embracing this philosophy of human wonderfulness as have, to our shame, many Christians and churches, we as Christians should be telling people how we are the exact opposite of wonderfulness.  We should do this not because we enjoy wallowing in sin and humiliation in a kind of spiritual sado-masochism, as the world likes to suggest we do, but, quite simply, because it is the truth.

We really aren’t wonderful.  We can’t do anything we want if we just put our minds to it.  And believing in ourselves is more likely to lead to disappointment and failure than it is to success.

And we are all going to die.

And that is the one indisputable fact that none can escape, no matter how much we may try to ignore or forget it.  We try to ignore or forget it because it undermines everything we are being taught about how wonderful we are.

I stand before you as a dying man.

Just as you are a dying man or woman.  The issue is not whether we will die, only when.  The fact of our mortality should draw us up short.  It should make us think.  And it should lead us to God.

If we stop at our sin and mortality, then we will end our lives in despair.  But the good news that we will celebrate at Easter is that God has taken our sin, weakness, and wretchedness on himself.  He has even allowed himself to become subject to death itself that we may have life.  He did this not because of how wonderful we are, but because of how wonderful he is.

Lent, then, is not simply about reflecting on how terrible our sin and failure is.  It is seeing in the light of our sin and failure how amazing is what God has done for us.

It is also about seeing our sin and failure in the light of what God has done for us.  So serious is our sin and failure that Christ had to die for it.  His body and blood are at the centre of our worship as a permanent reminder to us of this seriousness.  Saint Paul wrote:

‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’ (1 Corinthians 11:26)

Our celebration of the Eucharist tells us both the bad news about ourselves and the good news of what Christ has done for us.

So today, as we begin Lent, we remember that we are ‘dust and to dust we shall return’.  And we do not come to this our Lord’s table trusting in ourselves and in own righteousness.  We come knowing that ‘we have no power of ourselves to save ourselves’, trusting only in his mercy.

We eat his body and drink his blood because we know that only they can save us.

We are not wonderful, but we do worship a wonderful Saviour.

As we reflect in Lent on our wretchedness and worthlessness, may God grant us a vision of the Lamb of God who alone is worthy and who saves those who, no matter how unworthy they may be, turn to him.

‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

Amen.

Sunday next before Lent

This is the transcript of my sermon for February 23, 2020.

The Sunday next before Lent:

Readings: 

Exodus 24:12-end

2 Peter 1:16-end

Matthew 17:1-9

Our Gospel reading today is Saint Matthew’s account of the transfiguration.  This was when our Lord took three of his closest disciples: Peter, James, and John and went up a mountain.  This is reminiscent of what Moses had done to receive the ten commandments from God.  Jesus is transfigured, that is, transformed, before them and becomes ‘dazzlingly’ white.  Saint Peter, reflecting on this after Jesus had been raised from the dead and had ascended to his father, wrote in our second reading:
‘We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.’ (2 Peter 1:16)

If we are to understand the significance of this for us today, we need to see the context of Jesus’ transfiguration in the Gospels.  Just before the transfiguration, at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus famously asked his disciples who people said that he was.  They reported that people thought he was one of the prophets.  ‘But who do you say that I am,’ Jesus asked them.  Peter replied, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God’.  Jesus told him that this insight had been given to him by God himself.

In what follows, however, Peter shows that he is not quite there yet.  When Jesus goes on to explain how being the Messiah means that he must suffer and die, Peter will have none of it, earning from Jesus the well-known reprimand, ‘Get behind me, Satan.’  Jesus continues to explain that not only must he suffer and die, but his disciples must expect the same.  What is more, dying to self is not to be a one-off event, it must be something that characterizes their daily lives.

Only those who lose their lives will save them, and any who seek to save their lives will lose them, Jesus warns.  He concludes:

‘For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?’ (Matthew 16:26)

Six days later, the transfiguration takes place.

Jesus is asking a lot of his followers.  He is asking that in this life they forget about themselves and what they want and concentrate instead on serving him.  We, as his followers today, are to turn our back on this world and its attitudes, values, and priorities and accept suffering as a consequence, looking to the future and not to the present.  If we are to do this, we need to know that it is worth it and that the One who asks this commitment of us is worth it and can deliver on his promises.  Otherwise, we are simply deluding ourselves.

Even if Jesus is the Messiah, why should we have to make such great sacrifices for him?  Why, indeed, should we take any notice of him?

After all, many would be leaders make promises before they come to power.  Politicians, for example, promise much before they are elected.  ‘Support me and I will give you this and that,’ they tell us to secure our allegiance to them and to their cause.  Many make such promises cynically with no intention of keeping them.  Others do so sincerely enough, but, once they gain power, it turns out that they are not in a position to deliver on what they have promised.  How do we know that Jesus the Messiah is able to keep his promises?

It is at this point that God steps in.  As Jesus and his three disciples are alone at the top of the mountain, Jesus is transfigured before them.  They see him now not simply as a prophet and teacher, or even as the hoped for Messiah.  He is all this, but more, much more.  Jesus is, the Voice from heaven tells them, God’s Beloved Son.  Not a son in the sense that special people in the past were God’s son, but in a far deeper sense.

This had been what the Voice had said at Jesus’ baptism before Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tested - as we shall be thinking about on Wednesday as we begin Lent.

Now, however, the Voice from heaven adds a command: LISTEN TO HIM!  Jesus is God’s very own Son sent by him and we are to listen to him.  Not listen to him and then get on with our lives as if he hasn’t spoken but listen to him and do as exactly as he says knowing that our very lives depend on it.

There are three things, in particular, for us to take away from this today.

1. We too need to see Jesus for who he really is

Many, including sadly, Christians, are happy to see Jesus as a prophet or a religious teacher, even the greatest religious teacher, but no more.  We are happy with a fully human Jesus, but we don’t want a fully divine Jesus.  We have gone in for a kind of ‘reverse transfiguration’ in which the divine Jesus of the Church’s faith has been transfigured into something more palatable to us.

We are comfortable with the idea of Jesus the teacher who offers us good advice, but Jesus as God’s Son, who must be listened to and obeyed, is not something we are quite so keen on.

We are to follow Jesus not because we like what he says, nor for what he can do for us, we are to follow him because he is who he is.  For if he is who he claimed to be, then we would be mad not to follow him.

2. We need to be clear what he asks of us

Even though they had been given this amazing experience, Jesus’ disciples still didn’t get it, and it was only later that they realized the significance of what they had experienced and of what Jesus had taught them.  They had grasped that Jesus was special.  They now also had some insight into just how special, but they still could not accept what this meant for them in this life.

It was not long after the transfiguration that the disciples argued with one another over who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God.  To their credit, they believed now that the Kingdom of God was coming and Jesus was to be the One who would bring it, but they still thought of it in terms of what was in it for them.  Jesus will not, however, allow them to think like this.  The Kingdom will bring many benefits to those who enter it, but the benefits are of an entirely different kind to those offered to us in this world and to receive them we need to renounce all that this world values and holds so dear.

Not for Jesus’ followers wealth, power, and greatness, but instead, in this life, suffering, sacrifice, and service.  And this is something that as Jesus’ followers we have to take seriously, so seriously that we must deal ruthlessly with anything that gets in the way of it.  Jesus tells his disciples bluntly:

‘If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire.’ (Matthew 18:8-9)

3. We are, then, to do what he tells us to do

‘Listen to him’, said the Voice from heaven.

For if Jesus is who the Voice from heaven says he is, then listening to and obeying him is not just good advice, it is an instruction from God himself that we ignore at our peril.  Knowing who Jesus really is and what it is he requires of us, it is now left to us to just do it.

It will, however, not be easy, and it will mean going against all the advice that we receive from the teachers of this world.  It will mean losing ourselves instead of finding ourselves; it will mean self-denial rather than self-fulfilment; it will mean renouncing material wealth and ambition and acquiring instead ‘treasure in heaven’.  It will mean seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness rather than pursuing pleasure and success.

Jesus wants us to give our lives to him.  And as the saints and martyrs found, this may literally cost us our lives in this world.  For most of us, however, it won’t mean having physically to die for our faith, but it will mean taking our faith and commitment to Jesus seriously and that will involve taking risks.

Following Jesus will be tough and at times lonely.  In the Sermon on the Mount, which we have been reading for the past few Sundays, Jesus says:

‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.’ (Matthew 7:13-14)

For Saint John, looking back in his Gospel on the ministry of Jesus, the transfiguration was not the first or only time Jesus revealed his true glory.  Jesus did so with his first miracle when he turned water into wine.  On that occasion, the Blessed Virgin Mary said to the servants, ‘Whatever he tells you to do, do it.  As we prepare to enter Lent, she would say it to us.

Today, we too hear the Voice from heaven announce:

‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’

‘Whatever he tells you to do, do it.’

Amen.

The Second Sunday before Lent, 2020

The COVID-19 virus outbreak has led the Bishops of the Anglican Church here in Hong Kong to cancel all church services. To try to continue to offer spiritual and pastoral support to the congregation, we are recording a service together with a sermon and uploading it on YouTube.

This, then, is the transcript of a short sermon for February 16, 2020.

The Second Sunday before Lent:

Friday, as I am sure you know, was Saint Valentine’s Day. Not much is known about Saint Valentine. What is known is that he was probably a church leader in Rome in the third century. This was a time when the Church often had to face opposition and persecution, and Saint Valentine himself was murdered for his faith in Christ and became one of the martyrs of the Church. Quite how he became so closely associated with ‘romantic love’ is a bit of a mystery!

The Church throughout her history has often had to go through some testing times. It has been blessed by God with people like Saint Valentine who have shown faith and provided a witness to Christ in dark times.

In the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the martyrs are portrayed as being in heaven under the protection of God. St John, the writer of Revelation, writes that a loud voice in heaven says of those who have died for their faith that they have conquered and overcome the enemy that is against them:

‘by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.’ (Revelation 12:11)

This faith, shown by the saints, which results in them putting their commitment to God above even their own life and safety is not only something that is only required of the saints and martyrs, the heroes of the faith. 

In our reading this morning from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks to his disciples about their life in this world. He says to them:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?’ (Matthew 6:25)

It is not, Jesus tells them that these things are unimportant. Their Father knows that they need them, Jesus says. It is rather that their outlook and priorities are to be very different from those around them who do not share their faith in God. Instead, they are to strive, to work hard, to put all their energy and concern into seeking the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and leave all the other things they need to God.

Saint Paul writes in the second reading today:

‘I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.’ (Romans 8:18)

Never listen to anyone who tells you that suffering doesn’t matter who has never suffered greatly themselves. It is very easy to talk about suffering without ever having really experienced it. Saint Paul had experienced it. He not only had experienced the suffering that is common to us all: loneliness, serious illness, bereavement and the like; he had been imprisoned and tortured for his faith in Christ. He had been beaten, the victim of hate and abuse, and had to endure much physical hardship - all because of his faith.

Saint Paul didn’t see this as either particularly heroic or abnormal. He saw it as just doing what God wanted him to do. He knew that God had better things in store for him in the future and that hope in Christ enabled him to persevere and face danger and difficulty.

Jesus told his disciples:

‘Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.’ (Matthew 10:28)

Clearly, in the present situation, we are all concerned about physical health and the physical well-being of those we love and care for. Much has changed over this past year in Hong Kong, but for Christians in a very real sense nothing has changed. Our over-riding concern and priority is, or should be, to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

As the earthly life and ministry of our Lord vividly demonstrates, God is passionately concerned about our physical health and well-being. Disease, sickness, and even death itself, are all enemies belonging to the Devil himself. Even though we are faced with such powerful enemies, if we follow the example of Saint Valentine and the saints, then we too like them will overcome ‘by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony’.

So then, at this difficult time, may we look not to the present, but to the future and seek in our lives and in all we do to put the Kingdom of God first.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Here is the fifth of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme.

Talk Five: The Hopes and Fears of All the Years

They may be very familiar, and they may get a bit overdone at this time of the year, but I still love Christmas carols. Their very familiarity, however, can result, all too often, in us not really hearing them, or at least not hearing their words. This used to be the case for me with one popular carol that is much sung each Christmas, ‘O little town of Bethlehem’. I used to regard it as nice, but a bit too sentimental for my taste; good background music, but not much more. Then I was struck for the first time by the last two lines of the first verse: ‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.’ And I discovered that there was truth in the carol that went far deeper than I had imagined.

The carol was written by Phillips Brooks, an American clergyman, after journeying on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to assist in Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in 1865. He both describes and reflects on that experience in his carol. Tonight, we will mark the passing of another year, and look forward, if that’s the right way of putting it, to the year ahead. Brooks closes his carol with these words. ‘O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.’

Many balk at any mention of sin. They refuse to acknowledge any fault or blame. They are entire unto themselves and are happy to get on with their lives without any help – or so they think – from anyone else and certainly not from any divine being. Others are more realistic; they know only too well their need of help and answers; of what used to be called ‘salvation’.

Over Christmas, in various services in church, we have been thinking about the birth of Christ and the salvation he came to bring. People who know their need of salvation look for it in various places: in different creeds and lifestyles and not least in what they themselves need to do. But if our hope of salvation lies in believing the right things, then we are always going to be vulnerable to doubt and prone to changes in philosophical ideas and theological fashions. Or if our hope of salvation lies in our own ability to do the right things, then who can be saved? For all of us are mortal, inclined to sin and weakness. We are all failed human beings no matter how we try to disguise it.

But the good news of Christmas is that our salvation doesn’t depend on us at all. Our hope of salvation lies in a person and in the unrepeatable birth of Jesus being repeated in us. In other words, because the Christmas story really did happen, because Christ was born of Mary, the world can never be the same. And if we open our lives to him our world will never be the same again either. For Christianity is about an encounter with Mary’s child, an encounter which makes possible knowing Him in a way that transcends knowledge.

Before he wrote the words, ‘be born in us today’, Brooks wrote a verse that we normally leave out of the carol:

‘Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed Child,
Where misery cries out to Thee, Son of the Mother mild;
Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, 

        and Christmas comes once more.’ 

During the Christmas season, as we have in various ways retold the story of the first Christmas, we have attempted to travel back to Bethlehem, to visit the place where Jesus was born, and to hear again the message of the angels. But now, it is time for Bethlehem to travel back with us. It is time for the dark night to wake, the glory to break, and Christmas to come to each one of us once more.

To come not as a nice story to think about once a year as we indulge ourselves with food, drink, partying, and presents, but as the answer to all our hopes and fears as we enter a New Year. For the message of Christmas is not just for Christmas, but for the whole year. It is a message of hope and the answer to all our fears whatever 2020 may have in store for us.

As then we enter a New Year, may Christ enter our lives and live in them and through them in the year ahead.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Here is the fourth of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme.

Talk Four: The Light of the World

Tonight at 11.30pm at Christ Church, we will celebrate what is traditionally known as Midnight Mass. It is the first service of Christmas. It is one of my favourite services of the year. I know that theologically Easter is the main season of the Church’s year, but there is something special about Christmas, even if it has become commonplace for Christians to bemoan the sentimentalizing and commercialization of the season that undoubtedly goes on.

One of the moments I like the most is when, in the service, we light the final Advent Candle. Throughout Advent, in Church each Sunday, we have been counting the days to Christmas by lighting a candle to celebrate those who prepared the way for the coming of our Lord. The ancient patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the prophets of the Old Testament; John the Baptist; and, last Sunday, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord. Now tonight, we light the final candle of the Advent wreath as we celebrate the birth of our Saviour himself.

Historically, candles were simply a necessity as there was no other way of lighting the Church, but churches such as my own continue to light them, even though we now have very efficient modern lighting. There is something about candle-light, which is why candles are also so popular even with those who have no specific religious faith. But for Christians, such as myself, there is more to it than that: candles serve as a symbolic reminder of who Jesus is and what it is we are celebrating tonight.

Jesus said: ‘I am the light of the world’. St John in the Gospel reading for tonight wrote: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.’ What Christians all around the world will be celebrating tonight is not simply the birth of a baby, but that this baby was God sending his light into to a dark world. And even today after 2,000 years the darkness has not overcome it.

It is not though for want of trying. As we look around our world there is much darkness. Nation still goes to war against nation. Politicians increasingly use the politics of hate to advance their cause. And even in rich developed nations, social problems remain as intractable as ever. No sooner have we got on top of one problem than another takes it place. Fewer people today, for example, are dying from starvation then ever before, instead more and more people are dying from diseases caused by over-eating. Drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, despair, and loneliness are all too common in even the most materially well-off societies. And who would have thought that here in Hong Kong childhood suicide would be the issue it is?

For many this Christmas, it will feel as if darkness is all there is. Tragedy, sickness, bereavement and little to look forward to in life will for many people be a darkness that threatens to overwhelm them in the midst of all the celebration and partying.

We try to find a light in this darkness and turn to various sources in the hope of finding it, but the more we tell ourselves that we don’t need anyone or anything but ourselves and that the answer to life’s mysteries and problems lies within us, the more we discover an ancient truth: ‘we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves’.

It is into this dark world that Jesus was born and it is in this dark world that his light continues to shine. And it is into the lives of those who feel overwhelmed by the darkness of this world that that the light of Christ can bring hope and peace. Far from being a form of escape, a temporary break from the madness around us, the Light of Christ shows us a way out of the darkness and the way to life and peace.

St John, again, writes that ‘God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’ We can’t save ourselves, but the lighting of a candle reminds us that there is someone who can. And as I light the Candle tonight, I will thank God that he who is the Light of the world has saved me and pray that others may find and be saved by that Light too.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Here is the third of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme.

Talk Three: The Scream of the Lost

We like to think that there are no limits to what we are capable of as humans.  The Financial Times, for example, recently reported that Google had built the first 'quantum computer' that can carry out calculations beyond the ability of even today's most powerful supercomputers.  A calculation that would take the present most advanced computer 10,000 years to perform took the Google computer 3 minutes 20 seconds!  This sounds to me like the equivalent of the first-time scientists split the atom and the consequences will probably be as far-reaching.

Materially speaking, the generation growing up in the developed world at the moment has never had it so good.  Not so long ago, many would have died in childbirth and many more who didn’t would not have lived much beyond childhood.  And those who survived childhood could expect to die young from a whole range of diseases that can now be cured with a simple course of treatment available from the local pharmacy.  We live longer than ever and machines and a whole raft of discoveries and inventions make that life easier.

But before we over-reach ourselves in self-congratulation as a species, it is also worth reminding ourselves that our discoveries and inventions have also set our species on the path of self-destruction, and I am not only thinking of the nuclear bomb.  We have also seen this year protests around the globe over climate change with scientists warning that this same well-off generation growing up now could be the last unless something drastic is done soon. 

And it is not just nuclear destruction and climate change that threaten today’s generation.  A recent report has shown that rates of moderate to severe depression amongst American undergraduates have basically doubled in the past ten years or so.  It is the same in most developed societies.  Being better off materially has not, it seems, made us happier.

If you were to do a poll of people's favourite hymns, it is certain that 'Amazing Grace' would be one of the most popular - if not the most popular.  It is known and loved by people inside the Church and out.  It is frequently requested at both weddings and funerals and has been sung and recorded by many artists.  All of which is all a bit of a mystery.  For when you look at the words of the hymn, they completely go against how people want to think of and see their lives.  This is the first verse, for example:

‘Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.’

The last thing that people want to admit is that they are wretched, lost, and blind in need of someone else to save them, without them being able to do anything to help themselves.  But the word LOST is the word that best describes the human condition.  One of the most iconic pieces of modern art is Edvard Munch's the Scream.  It depicts a figure with hands to its head screaming.  Munch describes how he came to paint it:

‘I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.’

The Scream symbolizes the scream of all those separated from their Creator through their wretchedness and spiritual blindness. 
Sadly, while we don't mind singing about it, we don't want to admit it, and still less do anything about it.  There is a challenge to the Christian Church here, especially as we approach Christmas.  We really have as Christians got to stop worrying about making ourselves unpopular and start telling it as it is.  Human beings are lost.  And no scientific, political, social, or emotional response devised by humans is going to provide the answer except perhaps temporarily to dull the senses in the way a drug does for an addict.  We need someone who cares, even though we don't deserve caring for; someone to find us, and give us sight.

The Gospel message this Christmas is that this is what God has done for us and is what he offers us in Christ. 

And this is a message we urgently need to hear - and now especially here in Hong Kong.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Here is the second of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme.

Talk Two: None so blind as those who will not see

Until comparatively recently, human beings just took it for granted that the world they lived in had a spiritual dimension.  People in all cultures simply assumed that there was a spiritual dimension to their life.  This was expressed in all sorts of ways through religion, magic, spells, rituals, and belief in various kinds of spiritual beings from angels to demons.  We can still read about them in so-called 'fairy tales'.

Nowadays, in developed societies like our own, we regard these practices and beliefs as mere superstitions; part of the ignorance of the past that, thankfully, we have now left behind.  We dismiss such things with a knowing superiority.  And yet, these practices and beliefs were at least part of a realisation that there was more to reality than what we as humans can see, hear, touch, and taste with our physical senses.

This attitude to, and dismissal of, the spiritual practices and beliefs of previous generations contrasts dramatically with how we regard the 'physical' – or, if you prefer, ‘scientific’ - beliefs of the past.  In the course of our history, humans have believed many different things about the physical world around us.  In the history of science, these attempts to explain the physical world are normally regarded and hailed as part of humankind's quest for greater understanding, even when subsequent generations found previous scientific explanations wrong, inadequate, or lacking.

Rather than simply dismissing or making fun of early attempts to understand explain the physical world, we regard them instead as steps on the path of progress to greater scientific knowledge and insight.  We see primitive machines and inventions, for example, as a necessary part of our development of better, more efficient machines and acclaim their creators as pioneers and geniuses.

In their understanding of the spiritual world, previous generations may have got many things wrong, but they were in their own way, like the scientists of the past who were exploring the physical world, at least attempting to understand a spiritual world whose existence they were as sure of as we are of the physical.  Christianity rightly sought to show how these spiritual practices and beliefs were wrong as later generations of scientists sought to show the inadequacies of the understanding and explanations of those before them who sought to explain the physical world.

Instead, Christians tried as best they could to present the truth as it had been revealed to them in Christ and to convince people of it.  Just as scientists did not advance their understanding by suggesting that the physical world did not exist, so too Christians did not seek to show the error of superstition by arguing that the spiritual world itself did not exist.  In the same way as scientists built on the understanding and explanations of those who had gone before, so too Christians tried to show that what people were seeking in their spiritual practices and beliefs could be found only in Christ.

Ironically, Christianity's success in getting rid of what we now regard as the superstitions of the past has now been used against it.  Christianity (and other religious belief) is now itself seen as part of the superstitious nonsense which humankind must leave behind.  Rather than seeing the possibility that we may come to a right spiritual understanding in the same way as we can come to a better scientific understanding by learning from the past, we deny instead the existence of the spiritual world altogether.

As human beings, we are increasingly narrow in our vision and seem determined to narrow it still more.  Telling each other that the only reality that needs describing is the physical may comfort us in our blindness and ignorance, but it doesn't mean that other realities thereby cease to exist.  It just illustrates our foolishness all the more.

St Paul wrote: 'because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.' (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Human beings have undoubtedly achieved a great deal during their existence and some of our discoveries and inventions have been truly remarkable and life-changing.  We are, however, often so pleased with ourselves and our achievements that we fail to see how limited our knowledge really is.  There are many areas of knowledge that we are simply blind to, and not least amongst them is our knowledge of ourselves and of God.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

I am giving the talks in December for Minutes that Matter on RTHK Radio 4. The music for each talk is from the Sistine Chapel Choir's recording of music for Christmas and Advent with the mezz-soprano Cecilia Bartoli.

Talk One: Not as clever as we like to think we are

Humankind universally believes in the idea of human progress. At its simplest, this is the belief that things are constantly getting better and improving. There is evidence for this. You only have to look at the advances in science and technology, in medicine, and in human knowledge generally. It is true that these advances have had some negative side effects - climate change being one of the most dramatic - but people undoubtedly live longer today than they used to and diseases that were killers only a generation or two ago are so no more. Fewer people are living in absolute poverty and, incredibly, more people now die of over-eating than starvation.

It is no surprise, then, that we apply this idea of 'progress' more generally than simply to scientific knowledge and discoveries. We simply assume that because we have demonstrably progressed in some areas of human knowledge and endeavour that the same must be true in all areas. In social and moral attitudes, for example, it is taken as obvious that what we believe now must be superior to what was believed in the past. We see this particularly, but by no means exclusively, in the area of sexual ethics.

The idea that what we believe now must be an improvement on what was believed in the past is written into the DNA of developed societies, even if some living in them still mistakenly insist on clinging to the outdated attitudes of the past. Spiritually, therefore, what we believe now, must, we think, be an improvement on what past generations believed. As evidence we point to the fairy tales, superstitions, and myths of the past. Increasingly included in these fairy tales and myths of the past is any belief in a deity.

In the past, humans have believed in spirits inhabiting trees and plants, then in various gods of different kinds, and then, more generally, in one god of an organized religion. Now, in so-called developed and ‘educated’ societies, we increasingly believe in none. While we still - albeit somewhat reluctantly at times - acknowledge the right of people to believe and practise whatever religion they wish, religion is not seen as being about truth, but about personal choice and preference. Religion is kept out of the decision-making processes of society in a way that would have been inconceivable in the past, and still is in some societies at least today.

The message is clear, however: just as science has progressed, so too we as a species have, and are, progressing spiritually. As we progress, we will have less and less time for God and religion, even on a personal level. It is hard not to succumb to this understanding and even Christians are buying into it and reshaping their faith - if it can be called that - accordingly. The result is that religion is not seen as being about finding God and obeying him in this life so that we will live forever with him in the next, but about how we find fulfilment now and work to make this world an ever better place in which to live for the short time we are here.

The Bible’s view of human history, however, is not one of progress, but of decline; of an ever-increasing descent into darkness and ignorance. St Paul wrote: ‘For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse ... ' (Romans 1:19-20)

The wonder of the physical world in which we live that science has discovered and revealed to us was meant, St Paul believed, to lead us to seek God.

The incredible irony is that what was meant to lead us to God has only led us to move further from him. Rather than being amazed at the vastness and wonder of creation and worshipping the Creator, we have instead become amazed at our own cleverness in observing and describing it all.

The Bible’s message is that our only hope is for us to return to the One who made us. But to do that we need to abandon our pride and belief in ourselves. Until we find God, we will not find ourselves. We may tell ourselves that everything is getting better, that we are progressing well and advancing. The truth, however, is that without God, we are lost. What we all are in need of is not greater knowledge, but the forgiveness that can only come when we turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

But that means that we first need to admit that we are not nearly as clever as we like to think we are.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in December, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript for the fifth of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Five: Never Again

Jesus’ family were devout Jews.  Jesus and his first followers were all observant Jews.  The person credited in the Church with leading the Church in reaching out to non-Jews was the most observant Jew of all.  The writings the Church used as the basis for understanding their Lord, faith, and mission were all Jewish.  Our Bibles, as Christians, are predominantly made up of the Hebrew Scriptures, and even that part of it that we don’t share with the Jewish people was written by Jews.

We can understand there having been arguments between Christians and Jews as there always are in any family.  You would think, however, that, with such a background, it would have been impossible and inconceivable the Church could turn on people, simply because they were Jews.  Nevertheless, the unthinkable happened.

The story of the parting of the ways between Jew and Christian is a complicated one and more nuanced than it is often presented as being.  At the beginning, some Jews didn’t like Christians any more than some Christians liked Jews.  But this sort of mutual dislike is hardly a new phenomenon.  The systematic persecution of a people, however, solely because of their religion and ethnicity, and the attribution to them of crimes more imagined than real, is something else altogether.

This hatred of the Jewish people, and hatred is not too strong a word, was to be exploited in the twentieth century by the Nazis and was to reach its awful climax in the Holocaust.  This was an unprecedented event in which, tragically, many Christians at the time were complicit.

Six million lives were lost in the Holocaust.  As if that were not bad enough, also lost was a culture that was rich and which had much to offer a world that, in the mid-20th century, was entering a new age.  The music I have played during these talks was composed by Gideon Klein, a Czech Jewish composer.  He was sent to the Terezin concentration camp where he continued to compose until he was sent, first to Auschwitz, and then to the Fürstengrube labour camp where he died in 1945.

Many do not believe that anything like the Holocaust could ever happen again.  That, however, is not good enough.  It must never happen again.  And yet, despite all we know, antisemitism is still with us.  It is in the headlines every day.  It may be taking on new forms and disguises, but it is the same evil.  This time Christians must stand with the Jewish people against the antisemites and not with the antisemites against the Jews.

On my recent visit to Yad Vashem, I had the privilege of spending time with Jewish friends there studying more about the Holocaust and its causes.  While there, I wrote to Christian friends about what I was learning.  One of my Christian friends wrote an email back asking me if I had thought of being circumcised.  He meant that if this was how I felt, why didn’t I become a Jew.

I am a committed and convinced Christian.  I am a follower of Jesus whose message I believe is good news both for Jews and for all who will hear and respond in faith to it.  I am, however, deeply ashamed of the indifference of many in the Church to the suffering of the Jewish people, both past and present, suffering that we Christians must bear some of the responsibility for causing.

[Music:
Gideon Klein, Madrigal 1 pour soprano, Alto, Ténor and basse]

Christians too are children of Abraham.  Isaac and Jacob are our ancestors.  The Lord we worship and follow is of the tribe of Judah, the son of David; a Jewish child of a Jewish mother.  We call him by a Jewish title, Christ, the Messiah.  The privilege of belonging to the people of God is ours.  Nevertheless, as St Paul wrote, the gifts and calling of God to his ancient people, the Jews, are irrevocable.

May God grant then to those of us who are Christians not to be proud or arrogant, but grateful to God for his mercy.  And may all of us, as we remember the Holocaust, commit to making sure that it really will be ‘never again’.

Thought for the Week - August 4

I had the privilege of giving the 'Thought for the Week' on RTHK Radio 3 today. This is a transcript of the talk with a link to the broadcast in the Radio 3 archive.

Anne Frank

Many of you will know the story of Anne Frank.  Anne; her parents, Otto and Edith; and her sister, Margot; together with four others went into hiding in a secret annexe of a building in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War 2.

On her 13^th birthday, just before the family went into hiding, Anne was given a diary.  During her time in the annexe, she wrote about her life there describing her thoughts and feelings.  Those in the annexe kept in touch with what was going on in the outside world through those who were helping them and by listening to the radio.  One day on the radio, Anne heard the Dutch Minister of Education, who had escaped to England, appealing to people to keep hold of any diaries or documents they had for use after the war.  Anne was inspired to go over her diary and rewrite it into one running story of her life in captivity, hoping it would be read when the war was over.

Before Anne had completed her rewriting, however, on this day, August 4 in 1944, Anne and her family were discovered in a police raid on the building.  Anne was taken to prison and then transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration camp.  Otto was sent to the camp for men.  Anne, Margot, and her mother to the labour camp for women.  In 1944, Anne and Margot were deported to the Bergen-Belsen camp where they died.

Anne’s writings were discovered and looked after by those helping the Franks.  Her father, who alone survived, published an edited version of her diary after the war.  It was an immediate success.  Later a fuller version was also published.  The Diary has made Anne famous, and the house where they went into hiding is now a major tourist attraction.  A quote from Anne’s diary is well-known: ‘I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.’  This positive outlook in the face of adversity appeals to us and Anne’s story has been made into a universal story of youthful optimism and the triumph of the human spirit.  This, however, will not do.

We like to think of Anne in the annexe full of life and hope.  But hers is not a story of any girl, it is a story of a Jewish girl who suffered like millions of other Jews for no other reason than that they were Jews.  Anne’s final words in her diary were: ‘if only there were no other people in the world.’  But there were.  And many of them were anything but ‘good at heart’.  We pass over the awfulness of Anne’s death in our desire to read of her life, but as we read in her diary of her life, we need also to remember how it ended.  This is a description from an eye-witness at the Concentration camp:

‘I saw Anne and her sister Margot again in the barracks … It was winter and you didn’t have any clothes.  So all of the ingredients for illness were present.  They were in bad shape.  Day by day they got weaker … You could see that they were very sick.  The Frank girls were so emaciated.  They looked terrible.  They had little squabbles, caused by their illness, because it was clear that they had typhus … They had those hollowed-out faces, skin over bone.  They were terribly cold.  They had the least desirable places in the barracks, below, near the door, which was constantly opened and closed.  You heard them constantly screaming, “Close the door, close the door,” and the voices became weaker every day.  You could really see both of them dying …’

Anne and Margot may have died in the camp of typhus, but it was antisemitism that killed them.  As we see antisemitism on the rise again in our world, we need to read these words, heart-breaking though they are, and make a simple promise:

Never again.

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript for the fourth of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Four: A Wild Olive Tree

Jesus was a Jew. He interpreted his life and ministry in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures. His mother and followers all believed that he came in fulfilment of promises made to the significant figures in Israel’s history. So important were his own people to him that Jesus made no attempt to reach out to anyone else. ‘He came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ as he himself put it. All this should have made antisemitism inconceivable in the Church. As history shows us only too clearly however, it didn’t. So what went wrong?

The Church began as a grouping within Judaism. The apostles were all based in Jerusalem and continued to live as observant Jews, observing the Jewish times of prayer and going daily to the Temple to pray. The credit and the blame for the Church becoming more than a group within Judaism is given in equal measure to Saint Paul.

In popular histories of the Church, it is under the influence of St Paul that the Church reached out beyond the confines of Judaism and left behind its Jewish roots to become a universal faith and religion. There is no question that St Paul was an amazing evangelist for the Christian faith and no doubt either that he believed that the Gospel was not only for the Jews, but for the Gentiles also. St Paul, however, wouldn’t recognize himself from the descriptions of him and his teaching in many accounts of his life and theology.

Yes indeed, St Paul did believe the Gospel was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews, but as he himself puts it, it was for the Jews first. He was after all a devout, observant Jew himself. He describes himself in this way: ‘circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews’. And while he came to see his birth and upbringing in a new light when he became a follower of Christ, he didn’t stop being an observant Jew. He still understood both the Lord he followed and the Gospel message he preached in the light of the Hebrew Scriptures. He still went to the Temple when he was in Jerusalem and still believed that God’s promises to Israel stood. He says so explicitly in his most important letter to the Christians in Rome.

Ironically, it is also in his letter to the Romans that he has to combat an increasing tendency in the Church, a tendency which has now become the norm in the Church. As Gentiles came into the Church, and more and more of the Church’s members were ex-pagans rather than Jews, the Church became less and less Jewish in character. This led the non-Jewish majority in the Church to look down on the Jewish minority and take a superior attitude toward them.

St Paul is horrified at this attitude. Apart from the fact that such pride and arrogance should have no place in the Church whatever the reason, in this case it showed a complete lack of understanding of the Gospel itself and the role of the Jewish people. Describing the people of Israel as an ‘olive tree’ that the Gentiles have been grafted on to, he warns the Gentiles:

‘do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.’ He continues: ‘So do not become proud but stand in awe.’

We do not know whether the Roman Christians listened to St Paul’s warning, what is certain is that, tragically, the Church historically did not. It was not long before the Jewish roots of the Church were all but forgotten and the two faiths that St Paul saw as belonging to the same root had parted ways. 

[Music: 

Gideon Klein, Duo pour violon and alto en 1/4 de ton: Andante]

The parting of the ways between Jew and Christian was to have tragic consequences. Doubtless there were faults on both sides; there always are. But, as the saying has it: ‘to the victor the spoils’. With the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in the Jewish War of AD 66-70, Jewish Christianity was to lose all influence in the Church and, with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, Christianity was to become the dominant force in the Empire and, with its dominance, the pride and arrogance that St Paul warned against was given free rein.

The Church of today can’t put the clock back – would that we could! We can, however, work hard to make sure that never again is antisemitism allowed a place in the Church and that the warning of St Paul, unheard in his own day is, at long last, heard in ours.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Four Tuesdays in July, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript for the third of my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Three: Jesus the Jewish Rabbi

Christians will only be able to combat antisemitism both in the Church and the world if we better understand where we ourselves come from.  In my last talk at this time, I pointed to how our history as a Church begins with the promises of God to Abraham, promises which are repeated throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, culminating in the promise of a ‘son of David’, the great King of Israel.  Such an understanding may not prevent us falling into the sin of antisemitism, but it may at least make us pause for thought.

While we pause to contemplate where we have come from, we may also like to consider the example of the Lord we follow.  Nowadays, most of those of us who are Christians are Gentiles.  We are not Jews.  Most of the work we do as a Church is directed towards other Gentiles.  Jesus himself told his disciples to ‘go into all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’.  No matter what mistakes we may have made in the process, we have, as a Church, sought to do this.

In our attempts to bring people to believe in Christ, we have sought to make him as attractive to people as possible, and this has resulted in us leaving out those bits that we ourselves find unattractive or those bits that we think they will find unattractive.  So, for example, today we seek to show people how welcoming, inclusive, and forgiving Jesus was - which is true, he was - but we leave out the fact that he said that anyone who didn’t leave all that he had could not be one of his followers.

We also don’t tell them that he was a Jewish Rabbi who saw his ministry as being to the Jewish people in fulfilment of the Jewish Scriptures.  Instead, we make Jesus into a universal religious teacher whose teaching is for all people whatever their background.  This, apart from making Jesus’ teaching sound no more than pious platitudes of the kind that you might find in a self-help manual, also distorts who Jesus really was.

His mother pointed out that Jesus’ birth was in accordance with the promise made to her Jewish ancestors.  Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, the one who was to prepare the way for Jesus, was told that John would ‘turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.’  Rather than being a teacher of universal truths, Jesus’ teaching can only be understood in relation to the Hebrew Scriptures.  Jesus sought to explain and interpret them.  This may at times have been in a radical and shocking way, but he would have nothing to do with any suggestion that he had come to get rid of the Hebrew Scriptures:

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets;’ he said, ‘I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.’

When asked by a lawyer what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus replied that the lawyer must keep the ten commandments.  When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus recites the Shema, which was and is at the heart of Jewish prayer and worship.  Jesus dressed as an observant Jew, prayed as an observant Jew, and lived as an observant Jew.  He also avoided contact with Gentiles and confined his ministry to the historic boundaries of Israel.  For the avoidance of any doubt, on one occasion he specifically states: ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

[Music:
Gideon Klein, Duo pour violon and alto en 1/4 de ton: Lento]

Clearly Jesus’ life and ministry was to have significance for other than his own people.  But that was to come later.  First, he came to his own. 

After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus says to his disciples:

‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’

As Christians this is where we need to begin. We will only understand Jesus’ teaching and significance when we understand not only who he was, but also the people to whom he came. When St John in the Book of Revelation has a vision of the exalted Jesus in heaven, he sees: 

'the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David’

This is not only who Jesus was; it is who he still is.

Minutes that Matter: Talk Three Tuesdays in July, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

This is the transcript to the second talk in my talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.

Talk Two: Beginnings

How can Christians respond to the rise of antisemitism that we are witnessing at the present time?  How can we avoid being complicit in it as, to our shame, we were during the dark days of the third Reich?  How are we to avoid a repeat of the Shoah, the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered in concentration camps such as Auschwitz, while many endured unbearable pain and suffering?

Others are more competent than I am to describe the causes and events that led to the Holocaust.  The Yad Vashem website has many helpful resources for any who wish to know more.  Hopefully though, as a Christian leader, I am in a position to talk about the history of Christianity, and at least to express an opinion on how we should react to antisemitism today.  In what follows, then, I speak unashamedly as a Christian.  I am not a Jew, and I realize that my Jewish friends will not agree with some of what I have to say.  What I hope is that they will be able to see that in speaking about my faith, I am not speaking against theirs.  And, from the outset, I wish to distance myself as far as possible from the attitudes towards Judaism that have characterized many Christians in the past.

Ask most Christians to give a potted history of Christianity and they will, as likely as not, begin with Jesus’ baptism and his ministry in Galilee.  This is not unreasonable.  It is how St Mark, the first to write an account of Jesus’ life, begins his Gospel.  Others will perhaps go back to the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the announcement to her that she is to give birth.  Again, it is not an unreasonable place to begin.  However, it is the Blessed Virgin Mary herself who gives us a clue as to where we should begin.  In giving thanks to God for what has happened to her, she says:

‘He has helped his servant Israel,

    in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

    to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’

These words are part of what has become known as the Magnificat, a hymn which is said or sung in Church services all over the world as part of Christian daily worship.  We listen to many famous musical settings of it by the great composers here on Radio 4.  Of course, Christianity centres on Christ.  The clue is in the name.  But it doesn’t begin with Christ, at least not in the sense that this is normally understood.  Its specific earthly history at least begins with God’s promise to Abraham and with his dealings with Israel.

This, indeed, is how St Matthew explains it in his Gospel.  St Matthew’s opening words are: ‘An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.’  He identifies Jesus using a Jewish title that comes from the great King of Israel, David, and traces Jesus’ ancestry back to the father of the Jewish people, Abraham.

Once Summer is over, we will start to look forward to Christmas.  Christians believe that in the history of the Jewish people as recounted in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a looking forward to the coming of Christ.  This is why readings from the Hebrew Scriptures feature so prominently both in the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ birth and in the services that will take place in a few months’ time.

[Music: 

Gideon Klein, Divertimento: Tempo di marcia]

The Christian name for the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, is the Old Testament.  Most Bibles are divided using this title.  Fair enough.  Christians believe that God did something new when Christ came.  But old can also be understood in the sense of being no longer relevant, out of date, or even wrong.  That is not how the first Christians thought of these writings.  These were their Scriptures, they were all Jews themselves after all.  They believed that what God was doing in their midst, through the person in whom they believed, could only be understood by studying and learning from these Scriptures.

Christians can only hope to understand their history by going back to where it all began in what we may call the Old Testament, but which remains strangely new and relevant to us today.

Minutes that Matter: Talk 2 Tuesdays in July, 2019

Minutes that Matter: Tuesdays in July, 2019

I am giving the talks for RTHK Radio 4's Minutes that Matter programme on Tuesdays in July.  This is the transcript of the first talk with a link to the audio on the RTHK website.

Talk One: Antisemitism

Recently, I had the very great privilege of being invited to attend a Seminar organized by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.  Yad Vashem is the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem whose mission is not only to inform people about what happened in those terrible days of the Third Reich in Germany, but also, through education and outreach, to help people learn the lessons of the Holocaust and to combat the rise of antisemitism today.  There were 30 of us there, Christian leaders from 13 different nationalities, with the majority from America.  We all shared a commitment to Christ and a desire to learn more about what had led people, brought up in a Christian culture, to take part in such an unprecedented programme of hate and mass murder.

We all felt deep shame at our part as Christians in the horrors that we were studying, moved both to tears and, hopefully, repentance.  We also felt, I think, a sense of responsibility to join with our Jewish brothers and sisters to work together to make sure that it could never happen again, while seeing with horror that antisemitism refuses to go away.  Sadly, there seems to be truth in the saying that ‘the only thing history seems to teach us, is that history doesn’t teach us anything’.

Since returning from Jerusalem, I have read headlines reporting acts of violence against Jews in America, Nazi swastikas painted on photographs of Holocaust survivors in Vienna, and the toleration of antisemitism in one of the two major British political parties in the UK – the country I come from.  And this is to give just three examples from many.

One of the observations that has been made of Jeremy Corbyn, the present leader of the political party in the UK that I have referred to, is, that when asked to condemn antisemitism, he always replies that he condemns antisemitism and all other forms of racism.  At first, this seems entirely reasonable.  Christians, in particular, should surely be against all forms of discrimination.  The problem is that this response, while it cannot be faulted for what it affirms, gives the impression that the person responding in this way wants not so much to condemn racism as to minimize the seriousness of antisemitism.  It is, after all, just one form of racism.  That may be unfair, and not what is intended, but it remains an impression, nevertheless.

Friends in the Church I have shared my experience in Jerusalem with, interestingly, have had a similar reaction when I have talked with them about antisemitism.  Their first reaction hasn’t been to share my repulsion towards this specific evil and join in condemning it, but to ask me how I feel about other evils.  Why won’t we face up to this evil I wonder?  Could it be that we still don’t see how evil it is?  Could it be that the seeds of antisemitism still remain planted in the soil not only of Christianity, but of the culture of our own times?

I would like to think not.  But, if we want to avoid an enemy planting them there once more, we, and again particularly those of us who are Christians, have to face up to the reality of antisemitism and of the Church’s responsibility historically for it.  Bishop Otto Dibelius, who became the President of the World Council of Churches after the war, said in 1928:

‘Despite the evil ring that the word has acquired in many cases, I have always considered myself an antisemite.  It cannot be denied that Judaism plays a leading role in all the corruptive phenomena of modern civilization.’

[Music:

Gideon Klein, Mouvements pour quatuor à cordes, Op. 2: Largo]

Bishop Dibelius was by no means alone in thinking this way.  Thankfully, I know no Church leader or Christian who would say that today.  But, to quote Martin Niemoller, another Church leader from those dark days:

‘First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —

     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —

     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —

     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.’

It is not enough for us to be against antisemitism, we need both to speak and act.

Minutes that Matter: Talk 1 Tuesdays in July, 2019