Lent 5 2024

Genesis 2.4b-8, John 19.25b-27

You might be wondering why, on this Mothering Sunday, I chose the passage from the book of Genesis we heard today for our first reading. It might not seem to have any obvious connection, but bear with me, because it seems to me it does contain a birth, of sorts. 

God reaches down into the soil of the earth he’s just made, scoops up some handfuls of it, and makes a mudpie in the shape of a human being, this new thing he’s just thought of. Then God breathes his own breath into it – the same Hebrew word used to describe the Holy Spirit – and the creature becomes a living being. 

I’ve given birth twice, and, I have to say, it was rather different from this serene description, but it had some things in common with it. Firstly, both experiences involved the arrival in the world of a new creature, a whole new person, with their own life to live, their own thoughts to think; and, secondly, both were very definitely physical experiences. Creation, whether it’s the creation of Adam from the earth, or the birth of a baby, is a physical business; mud, blood, water, sweat, tears, mess... And in the case of birth that’s just the beginning. Parenting goes on being a physical activity, to do with bodies; feeding them, washing them, changing them, holding them, carrying them. You can’t do parenting in a “hands off”, cerebral way, from afar. It has to be hands-on, sometimes quite exhaustingly so. 

And studies have shown that touch – the physicality of childcare - isn’t just important for practical reasons. It also creates a bond between parents and their children which helps them to develop emotionally and socially too. We can’t live disembodied lives. Matter matters. 

That word “matter” is an interesting one, and worth a little digression. Linguistic experts say that it comes, in a slightly convoluted way, from the same ancient root as the word “mother”. In Latin it’s more obvious. Mother is “mater”, matter is “materia”. It’s the single syllable “ma” that seems to be the link, a syllable which is part of the word for mother in an astonishingly wide range of languages; mum, maman, mutter, amma, majke, matka, makuahine. That last one is Hawaiian; this isn’t just a European thing. 

“Ma” is the easiest syllable to pronounce, and very often the first one babies babble when they are learning to make sounds. Through most of human history, mothers, breastfeeding their babies, would have been the first to hear and respond to those  “mama” sounds.  And because “ma” seemed to get a response from their mothers, it became the name their babies called them. And because mothers bring us into being physically, “ma” also came to mean the source or origin of physical life. We can’t become “matter” except through our “mater”.

Let’s follow that linguistic thread a bit further, though. We use the word “matter” not just as a noun, to describe physical stuff, the matter of the universe. We also use it as a verb, a doing word. I matter, you matter, it matters, we say of people and things that are significant to us. That’s not a coincidence. When we say that someone matters to us, we are saying that they are part of our life, our world, that we can’t ignore them or pretend they don’t exist. They aren’t just a face in the crowd, a name on a list, an idea in our heads, but a real physical being that occupies space in our heads and hearts.   

Mothers – maters - bring matter into being, and that matter matters, to them, and to the children they bear. Mothers and their children may have good or bad relationships. They may become estranged or lose one another through death. They may never know one another at all, but they can’t pretend they didn’t exist, even if only as a distant memory, or a question without answers, a gap that they wonder about. 

But of course, it isn’t just biological mothers and children who matter to one another, who occupy significant spaces in our lives, and that’s why it’s so important that this isn’t “Mother’s Day” as far as the Church is concerned; it’s Mothering Sunday. Biology isn’t the be all and end all of mothering – it’s not even close - and it never has been. TheHawaiian word for mother illustrates that, makuahine, can refer to any adult female who cares for you – aunts, grandmas, cousins, friends. They are all “ma”. That reflects the reality of mothering throughout human history. Death, disease and economic pressures have often meant that children didn’t have their biological mothers around or available. But other people could step in to help and be every bit as good as those lost mothers. Fathers can mother and often do. So can big brothers and sisters, friends, guardians, godparents, neighbours, church members, teachers, leaders of groups and clubs who encourage and care and support. It takes a village to raise a child, as they say. Blessed is the child who has many mothers.

That’s why the few verses we heard in our Gospel story are so good to hear today. Jesus hangs on the cross, close to death. According to John’s Gospel only a few of his followers have found the courage to stay with him – an unnamed disciple described as the “disciple Jesus loved”, often assumed to be John, and a small group of women, including his own mother, Mary. Jesus looks at Mary and he looks at John, and he sees a mother who will soon lose her child, and a man who will need love and support as he mourns the loss of his friend. And in a wonderfully tender and brave moment, this dying man entrusts them to each other – “Here is your son…Here is your mother… You need each other.” They may not be biologically related, but that doesn’t mean they can’t matter to one another just as if they were. Mary will matter to John. John will matter to Mary. 

The early church treasured and preserved this story partly because many of them didn’t have families of their own to relate to. Sometimes following Christ had estranged them from their families. Some were enslaved, torn apart from their families. Some were vulnerable widows or orphans, or had fallen through the cracks of society. But they found in Christ a new place of belonging, with new sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers in their church families, people to whom they mattered and who mattered to them. Biological relationships, precious and important as they can be, don’t say everything there is to say about love. Love is bigger than biology.

When God creates that first mudpie creature, and breathes his own life into it, he declares that all matter matters to him, that all creatures are beloved . He reminds us that whatever the size and shape of our biological family, however happy – or not – it is, we are also part of a wider family, which is girded around with the love of God which is broader and higher and deeper than anything we can ask or imagine. 

This Mothering Sunday, then, let us give thanks for all who mother us or have ever mothered us, and all those whom we mother, and pray for the grace of God to see that in his eyes, everyone matters. 

Amen 

Mothering Sunday 2024

 Genesis 2.4b-8, John 19.25b-27

You might be wondering why, on this Mothering Sunday, I chose the passage from the book of Genesis we heard today for our first reading. It might not seem to have any obvious connection, but bear with me, because it seems to me it does contain a birth, of sorts. 

God reaches down into the soil of the earth he’s just made, scoops up some handfuls of it, and makes a mudpie in the shape of a human being, this new thing he’s just thought of. Then God breathes his own breath into it – the same Hebrew word used to describe the Holy Spirit – and the creature becomes a living being. 

I’ve given birth twice, and, I have to say, it was rather different from this serene description, but it had some things in common with it. Firstly, both experiences involved the arrival in the world of a new creature, a whole new person, with their own life to live, their own thoughts to think; and, secondly, both were very definitely physical experiences. Creation, whether it’s the creation of Adam from the earth, or the birth of a baby, is a physical business; mud, blood, water, sweat, tears, mess... And in the case of birth that’s just the beginning. Parenting goes on being a physical activity, to do with bodies; feeding them, washing them, changing them, holding them, carrying them. You can’t do parenting in a “hands off”, cerebral way, from afar. It has to be hands-on, sometimes quite exhaustingly so. 

And studies have shown that touch – the physicality of childcare - isn’t just important for practical reasons. It also creates a bond between parents and their children which helps them to develop emotionally and socially too. We can’t live disembodied lives. Matter matters. 

That word “matter” is an interesting one, and worth a little digression. Linguistic experts say that it comes, in a slightly convoluted way, from the same ancient root as the word “mother”. In Latin it’s more obvious. Mother is “mater”, matter is “materia”. It’s the single syllable “ma” that seems to be the link, a syllable which is part of the word for mother in an astonishingly wide range of languages; mum, maman, mutter, amma, majke, matka, makuahine. That last one is Hawaiian; this isn’t just a European thing. 

“Ma” is the easiest syllable to pronounce, and very often the first one babies babble when they are learning to make sounds. Through most of human history, mothers, breastfeeding their babies, would have been the first to hear and respond to those  “mama” sounds.  And because “ma” seemed to get a response from their mothers, it became the name their babies called them. And because mothers bring us into being physically, “ma” also came to mean the source or origin of physical life. We can’t become “matter” except through our “mater”.

Let’s follow that linguistic thread a bit further, though. We use the word “matter” not just as a noun, to describe physical stuff, the matter of the universe. We also use it as a verb, a doing word. I matter, you matter, it matters, we say of people and things that are significant to us. That’s not a coincidence. When we say that someone matters to us, we are saying that they are part of our life, our world, that we can’t ignore them or pretend they don’t exist. They aren’t just a face in the crowd, a name on a list, an idea in our heads, but a real physical being that occupies space in our heads and hearts.   

Mothers – maters - bring matter into being, and that matter matters, to them, and to the children they bear. Mothers and their children may have good or bad relationships. They may become estranged or lose one another through death. They may never know one another at all, but they can’t pretend they didn’t exist, even if only as a distant memory, or a question without answers, a gap that they wonder about. 

But of course, it isn’t just biological mothers and children who matter to one another, who occupy significant spaces in our lives, and that’s why it’s so important that this isn’t “Mother’s Day” as far as the Church is concerned; it’s Mothering Sunday. Biology isn’t the be all and end all of mothering – it’s not even close - and it never has been. TheHawaiian word for mother illustrates that, makuahine, can refer to any adult female who cares for you – aunts, grandmas, cousins, friends. They are all “ma”. That reflects the reality of mothering throughout human history. Death, disease and economic pressures have often meant that children didn’t have their biological mothers around or available. But other people could step in to help and be every bit as good as those lost mothers. Fathers can mother and often do. So can big brothers and sisters, friends, guardians, godparents, neighbours, church members, teachers, leaders of groups and clubs who encourage and care and support. It takes a village to raise a child, as they say. Blessed is the child who has many mothers.

That’s why the few verses we heard in our Gospel story are so good to hear today. Jesus hangs on the cross, close to death. According to John’s Gospel only a few of his followers have found the courage to stay with him – an unnamed disciple described as the “disciple Jesus loved”, often assumed to be John, and a small group of women, including his own mother, Mary. Jesus looks at Mary and he looks at John, and he sees a mother who will soon lose her child, and a man who will need love and support as he mourns the loss of his friend. And in a wonderfully tender and brave moment, this dying man entrusts them to each other – “Here is your son…Here is your mother… You need each other.” They may not be biologically related, but that doesn’t mean they can’t matter to one another just as if they were. Mary will matter to John. John will matter to Mary. 

The early church treasured and preserved this story partly because many of them didn’t have families of their own to relate to. Sometimes following Christ had estranged them from their families. Some were enslaved, torn apart from their families. Some were vulnerable widows or orphans, or had fallen through the cracks of society. But they found in Christ a new place of belonging, with new sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers in their church families, people to whom they mattered and who mattered to them. Biological relationships, precious and important as they can be, don’t say everything there is to say about love. Love is bigger than biology.

When God creates that first mudpie creature, and breathes his own life into it, he declares that all matter matters to him, that all creatures are beloved . He reminds us that whatever the size and shape of our biological family, however happy – or not – it is, we are also part of a wider family, which is girded around with the love of God which is broader and higher and deeper than anything we can ask or imagine. 

This Mothering Sunday, then, let us give thanks for all who mother us or have ever mothered us, and all those whom we mother, and pray for the grace of God to see that in his eyes, everyone matters. 

Amen 

Lent 3 2024

Exodus 20.1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Cor 1.18-25, John 2.13-22

I wonder what rules your household lives by? Every household has rules, whether we realise it or not. Do you expect people to take their shoes off at the door, for example? And what happens at meal times – do you eat at the table, or on your laps, together or separately, tv on or off,? As a visitor you usually only discover household rules when you break them, when you realise everyone else is looking at you oddly, perhaps too polite to say “we don’t do that in our household”, but uncomfortable nonetheless. 

Household rules can be a huge source of tension. It’s always the small things, of course, the unwashed teaspoon left on the kitchen counter, the person who finishes the last of the milk and doesn’t do anything to replace it. But often the small things are the big things, or at least they are symbols of them, signs of peoples’ respect and care for one another, or their lack of it.  

How do we live together? That’s the central question. And it’s one we all have to answer, whatever the size, shape or nature of the community we call our household. To the people who wrote the Bible, household meant meant everyone who shared your life in some way; extended family, servants, close friends – anyone whom you supported or who supported you. That still seems to me to be a useful concept, because however small our personal households are – even just one person – we are all part of networks of relationships; neighbours, colleagues at work, friends, fellow church members… Our Lent course this year is looking at the household values of our church, what we do and how we do it here at Seal, as a help towards the next stage of the Churches life after I retire in July. We belong to, and relate to, many different groups of people. The Greek word for household is “oikos”; it gives us “economy”, and “ecology”, both words which remind us of the interlinking of our lives, and the way every living thing depends on and affects every other living thing in the end. Ultimately, we are all part of the community of this one world. We all have to share the same space, whether we like it or not.  “No man is an island”, said John Donne – and no woman either.

Today’s Gospel reading has a clash of household values at its heart. Jesus comes storming into the Temple in Jerusalem, driving out the traders and money-changers who have set up shop there. They were selling sacrificial animals to worshippers, and changing the coins they used in daily life, often decorated with images of emperors and pagan gods, into coins acceptable in this sacred space. So what was it that offended Jesus so much? Opinions differ. It might have been trading in this sacred space, but for Temple worship to happen at all it had to happen somewhere . It might have been that the traders were ripping off the worshippers – there will always be someone looking to turn a quick profit. But the most likely explanation is that it was where they were trading that was the problem, in the Court of the Gentiles, the only place where non-Jews could pray in this vast complex, squeezing them out of their place in the Temple. That would fit with Jesus’ wider message that all were welcome and should have equal access to God. Fundamentally, though, it seems to me that he was angry because these traders, and the Temple authorities who allowed them to be there, had forgotten whose Temple this was. “Stop making my Father’s house a market place”. If the Temple was a household, who was its head? The High Priest? The Temple authorities? No. It was God. 

By the time of Jesus, the Temple had become a powerful symbol of the presence of God, and of the household of Israel, a place where people came to encounter God, and be reminded of their common identity as his people. But religious buildings can be a problem as well as a blessing. Ironically according to the Old Testament, God hadn’t ever really wanted a Temple in the first place; the danger was that people would see it not as a symbol of his presence in and among them, but as a box to contain him, separating him from the rest of their lives and giving those who controlled the building the idea that they could also control people’s access to God. And that’s what seems to be happening here. The small things are the big things; giving these traders permission to take up space which excluded others was a sign that the Temple authorities thought they were in charge. Jesus’ angry outburst challenges that. This is not their house; it is God’s. They are not the head of this household; God is. 

Our Old Testament reading today makes the same point. It comes from the book of Exodus the account of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt – out of the house of slavery, as the reading puts it - towards the Promised Land. As they trek across the desert this rather random bunch of people have to form a community. They will eventually become the nation of Israel, so they have to work out what their shared life might look like’

 

The Ten Commandments, as we call them, were intended to be a summary of their household rules and values, the way they would do things, their basic attitudes, and the way these commandments are structured makes it crystal clear that it all has to start with letting God be God. 

The first three commandments emphasize that; there is only one God, that they shouldn’t make or worship idols, they shouldn’t take God’s name in vain. This is the God who rescued them from Egypt, the God who has committed himself to them. He has shown his faithful love by the provision he’s made for them as they travelled, water from rocks, manna in the wilderness. He is a God who can be trusted.

The fourth commandment, to honour the Sabbath day, forms a bridge into the rest of them. It makes the vital link. They don’t have to labour ceaselessly, as they did when they were slaves, because God knows their need and meets it. There is enough. They don’t have to shore up anxiously their own place in the world, because God has their backs They don’t have to exploit others, either, making them labour without rest. Nor do they need to kill or steal or covet or bear false witness or neglect their commitments to parents and spouses, manipulating and cheating to make themselves feel secure, because they are secure, safe in the hands of God if only they will dare to trust that. 

The Ten commandments challenge us to ask ourselves where our faith, where our household values, are really rooted, whether that’s the household of our immediate family, our church, our nation or our world. Are they rooted in ourselves, our own achievements and anxious striving, or in God’s love. When he clears the Temple, Jesus makes the same challenge to the people of his own time. Ultimately, this Temple will be destroyed. In AD70, the Romans smash it to the ground. It provoked a huge crisis for Jews and Christians alike, and John’s Gospel was written with that traumatic event  very much in mind. Jesus’ promise to raise it up the Temple again in his own body is a reminder to us that God doesn’t need a “bricks and mortar” meeting place for us to encounter him. We meet him in Christ, in one another, in the eucharist, in the word of God, and in all his creation, which is his dwelling place, his household where all are welcome. 

Amen

Lent 2 2024

Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16, Mark 8. 31-end

Human beings are natural storytellers. We tell stories about where we’ve been, what we’ve done, who we’ve met and how we’ve felt about it all. We tell stories about what happened today – “the traffic was horrendous on the way here” . That’s a story – albeit a short and probably not very interesting one. We tell stories about what happened long ago – “And just after that photo was taken, I took a step back and fell in the duck pond”. We tell stories about things that never happened at all, made up stories, legends, jokes, lies. In a way, even our factual stories are made up, because we can’t tell everything in all its detail. It would take too long. So we shape our stories and select the bits we think will get our point across. The horrendous traffic explains why we are late. The childhood reminiscence conveys something about who we are and why. 

Sometimes people belittle stories – it’s just a story, they say, but stories are powerful. Witness the effect of the ITV drama “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”. The facts of the Horizon software scandal, and the wrongful convictions of those who’d had to use it were already in the public domain, but it was only after the story had been told, that it took hold of the public imagination and things really started to change.

Stories matter, but they aren’t straightforward collections of facts. They are shaped by the teller, and the hearers, by where, when and why they are told. 

That’s why Biblical scholars spend so much time and energy trying to pin down the context of Bible stories – who was the author, who were they writing for, when was it written, what might the original agenda have been?

Today’s readings are a case in point. The Old Testament story of Abraham, the founding father of the Jewish people was first written down in the form we have it today while they were in exile in Babylon. Jerusalem had been destroyed, and they exiles didn’t think they would ever go home. They thought it was all over for them as a nation. How could they recover from this?

So the writer of the book of Genesis took some stories that had been circulating orally and told them afresh so that people could hear God’s voice speaking through those stories into their own time. “You may think,” he is saying “that your situation is hopeless, that there is no way back from this cataclysm that we’ve suffered, that we’re too few in number to survive as a people, but listen to this story, the story of a very old, childless man, trekking across the desert with his almost equally old childless wife, on a promise from God that he would become the ‘father of a multitude’? How hopeless was that, and yet, here we are – his descendants. We’re only here at all, lamenting what we’ve lost, because of the faithfulness of God to that old man and woman, and their trust in him. We are the promised “multitude” that came from them. If God could bring so much into being through one man and woman, why should we assume it is all over for us?”   

That’s what this Old Testament storyteller wanted his hearers to grasp.

And just as we’ve put ourselves in their shoes to understand the story of Abraham, we need to do the same to hear the message of the Gospel story too. Mark’s Gospel was written between about 65 and 75 AD. Like the other Gospels it was written for the scattered groups of people across the Mediterranean who made up the early church, people who were living through times of great hardship.  The emperor Nero, who died in 68 AD had just brutally executed many Christians, probably including Peter and Paul, prominent leaders in the church. Nero’s successor, Vespasian destroyed Jerusalem in AD70 and exiled its inhabitants, both Jewish and Christian. If you had been one of those early Christians, with all this going on around you, you would surely be forgiven for wondering what hope this new movement had of surviving, never mind changing the world. We all need a bit of encouragement now and then to feel that we are on the right lines. We need to see some signs of success to keep us going, but everything around them screamed “failure” in worldly terms.

So, Mark, through his stories, called his community back to where it all started, to the ministry of Jesus. Forty years or so had passed since the crucifixion, but stories told about him by eyewitnesses had circulating orally ever since then, and Mark drew on these for his Gospel. “If you feel hopeless, he is sayings, just imagine how Jesus’ first friends felt when they saw him die on the cross, the death of an outcast criminal, surely a sign of failure and disgrace? Listen to this story. Jesus warned them that he would be killed – of course he would, because what he said and did brought him into conflict with the powers that ruled his land. But they couldn’t get their heads around it, just as you can’t get your heads around what is happening to Christians around you, and what might happen to you too. Even Peter, the great Peter, our first leader, couldn’t believe that a painful, humiliating death could be God’s plan for his Messiah, no matter how hard Jesus tried to persuade him. And yes, Jesus talked about resurrection, but who was going to believe that? But it all happened just as he had said. Jesus rose. And sceptical old Peter was so convinced of it that he was willing to stake his own life on it too.”

That was Mark’s message.

The stories of the Bible aren’t reportage or history in the modern sense, simply a record of what happened. They are expressions of the living faith of their tellers, intended to encourage a living faith in their hearers. They are told to help people look back and remember God’s presence with them in the past, so that they can open their eyes to the possibility that he is with them in the present, and will be with them in the future too, however bleak things look? And the stories worked. The exiles returned, and that tiny, battered early Christian Church wasn’t wiped out by the wrath of Rome; it survived and grew and spread to an extent that Mark’s hearers could never have imagined. We often fail to live up to our calling, but God doesn’t stop calling us. Whatever else has changed – our circumstances, the world around us – God has not changed. As God said  to Abraham, his covenant, his promise of love, is everlasting. 

That’s a message which is just as necessary for us as it was for those who first heard these ancient stories. We’re confronted daily with situations that seem hopeless, humanly speaking; climate change, war, the rise of extremism and conspiracy theories, the breakdown of common humanity, as well as the personal challenges which shake our confidence and drag us down. Our readings today, though, call us to look back – not just to Abraham and to Peter, but closer in time, to our own story. They call us to spot the presence of God in what we have been through, to remember the blessings as well as the disappointments, to acknowledge the love that has surrounded us, and the moments when we’ve been drawn beyond ourselves into the wonder of God. When we are swamped by the human things which lead us to despair, God calls us to see the divine things, the golden thread of his love which was, and is, and will be for ever.

Amen