A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

 

In the first reading I used this afternoon, the prophet Malachi presented us with two great images - refiner’s fire, and fuller’s soap. Malachi was prophesying at a time when the worship offered in the temple had become lacklustre - a duty that had to be performed, rather than heartfelt praise offered by the people to their saviour god. God is going to change this, he told them; he is going to clean things up, make the temple pure again, begin a new age.

And it’s an important message to hear in Advent. It’s a busy time. The daylight hours shorten down to the winter solstice, and the fact that there’s so little daylight only serves to accentuate the sense we have of there being so much to do, getting ready for Christmas. But the getting ready of Advent isn’t just to do with buying turkeys and making mince pies and writing lists of presents and sending out cards. Not for Christians, anyway. We enter Advent not looking back but looking forward, to what God will do next, and to where God is leading us now.

Malachi speaks about something that will come suddenly, and will catch the unwary by surprise; that will be terrifying (“Who can endure it?” he asks), but will also be transformative - a new age is being brought in. As Christians we are living between the making of that new age on the cross and at the empty tomb, and its final fulfilment. As a response in the Anglican communion prayer puts it: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.”

So Malachi gives us these two great images of refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap. He uses them to describe how God’s faithful servant will purify and renew the worship of the temple. But the images he gives us can also be related to the challenge we have of living faithfully in the light of judgement. Think of the smith beating metal and thrusting it into the fire till it's white hot, then beating it again and thrusting it back into the fire - a repeated process of making the metal clean and pure.

I can certainly relate that to the practical business of living well in the world. And I can see how, just as I need to work hard to keep my body in good order, and to look after my physical self, so I also need to work just as hard at purifying my inward self, and making sure that in how I think, how I react, how I treat others, what I say, I am being the best version of myself I can be. Like the way a smith has to repeat the process of heat and hammer as he refines the metal, to refine myself is not a single task, it’s something I have to keep on working at. It’s easy to give up at the first hurdle; but perseverance is also a gift of the Spirit, and without perseverance we’ll only ever be half of what we could and should be. I should probably have over my desk a big sign just saying, “Don’t give up”. Not least because Advent is a time to remember how God never gives up on us.

So I can use this time to work at the things in my life that need purifying, need sorting through, need setting right. The Christian word for this is repentance; but repentance isn’t just to do with niceties of religion; it’s a hugely practical thing - it’s the practical process of working at being myself part of the positive change that can make the world around me a better place. Like the simple but profound prayer that goes, “Lord, let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” I shouldn’t wish for, or pray for, anything I’m not also prepared to work for.

And that leads me to reflect on the other image Malachi gives us here, to do with soap. Fuller’s soap. What exactly is fuller’s soap, I wondered. What does a fuller do? Now I do remember as a child my Granny saying to me: “You’d better wash your mouth out with soap and water.” I wonder what it was I’d said? I don’t think I would have said a rude word, because I don’t think I learned any swear words till I got to grammar school. But obviously it must have been something unkind, unfair and too quickly said. I don’t remember whether I actually did wash my mouth out with soap and water, either!

What does a fuller do? I looked that up, and I found that the job of the fuller was to take the raw, filthy wool sheared from the sheep, and to purify it using various techniques and materials, including a specially harsh and abrasive soap. They needed to do this so that the wool would be white and clean and ready for spinning. But it wasn’t a nice job; it was dirty and smelly work, and it had to be done away from other people - so outside the town walls, in a “fullers’ field” set aside for the purpose, with plenty of running water to hand. And like the refiner of metals, the fuller had to keep repeating the process. His job wasn’t finished until the wool had been made completely clean.

And the fuller’s soap he used was an alkaline substance made from the ashes of certain plants, mixed with salts and oils. I’m pretty sure I would not want to wash my mouth out with this stuff; in fact if anyone did swallow fuller’s soap they would be quite badly hurt by it, it might even prove fatal; this was pretty serious stuff, and it needed to be - but, worked with and repeated, it did the job that needed to be done; it purified the wool.

I’m reminded by that, that to purify myself can also be a difficult and demanding and often unpleasant task. It’s likely to mean I have to do things I’m going to find uncomfortable at the very least. It may mean I have to admit to stuff I’d much rather stayed hidden. And it surely will mean cleaning up what I’ve made dirty, and repairing the things my words or deeds or neglect have damaged. Repentance isn’t just saying I’m sorry, it requires me to act as though I mean it. And that’s going to have to include working to make sure I no longer do whatever it was I was doing wrong before, so that I don’t cause the same hurt again.

So I can see how in the trials of our lives and the mistakes of our lives, and the greedy and thoughtless episodes of our lives - that’s when we need to use fuller's soap on ourselves. So what might that fuller's soap consist of in my life?

It might be that apology I need to make; it might be that broken relationship or friendship I need to help rekindle; it might be the price I need to pay, the work I need to do, the time I need to give, to help put right what is not right, because of something I’ve done, or because of my neglect or thoughtlessness. These are probably things I’ll not enjoy having to do; I may find that my fuller’s soap is just as tough, abrasive and painful as the stuff they used in those fields outside the town walls. But I know it’s also going to be necessary, and that I mustn’t be afraid to use it, and to persevere, if I’m going to serious about living with others in mind, and with God in mind; if I’m going to live as a disciple. And that my own healing and cleansing and empowering will depend on it too.

And so in Advent we hear the story of John the Baptist, who not only told the people in very practical terms just what they needed to put right in their lives, but also offered them the sign of water, baptism, to wash away what was wrong, and to mark a new beginning, a new offering of themselves to God. Like Malachi he was saying, “Get ready. God is about to do something new; and if you’re not ready, you’ll be caught out.” A highway in the desert was being prepared, for God’s chosen one to travel. In just a few weeks’ time we shall hail the birth of a baby in Bethlehem. The child who will return, as Lord and King and Judge. Will we be ready, will we be clean and pure, for that coming Day of the Lord? That is the Advent question.

A Sermon for Remembrance Sunday

 

 

As a Christian, and as a Franciscan, I am highly committed to the ideal of peace. I hate the thought of killing anything, though from time to time I find I have to, of course. You don’t clean a church without hoovering up a spider or two, and goodness known how many microbes you destroy, some harmful, but I guess some not as well, whenever you clean any work surface. Then there are the accidental killings, like what happened to the squirrel that darted straight under the wheels of my car the other day. There was nothing I could do, but I still felt really bad.

Franciscans follow the teachings of St Francis of Assisi; and Francis himself did his best to make peace between the Muslims and the Christians who were fighting in the Crusades of his time. In the year 1219 he crossed the battle lines to meet with the Sultan of Egypt, Malek al-Kamil, who was a nephew of the great Islamic leader Saladin. He didn’t succeed in brokering peace, but I greatly admire his courage and faith in trying - as indeed did the Sultan himself.

I hope that in a similar situation I might find the courage to do the same; and certainly I’m glad to honour those people in today’s world today, some of them my fellow Christians, who tirelessly work for peace, often in the most divisive and dispiriting of  circumstances. Those who persist in trying to build bridges of reconciliation where communities are divided, where one group rejects or refuses rights to another, and nations are tempted into war.

But what if I saw someone being attacked, and the only way I could save them would be to attack their assailant? And what if the only way I could stop them was to kill them? Would I do that? I really can’t answer that question, since I’ve never actually been placed in that situation. But I do think that if I failed to respond, then that failure would be something I’d have to live with, a burden I’d find myself bearing for the whole of the rest of my life.

A second question, though, is “Would I be justified in acting in that way - in attacking someone I saw harming someone else?” If there’s a peaceful way of halting the attack, or if I used more force and did more damage than was necessary, then I guess the answer would be no. But what if it really was the only way? Well, even then I think the answer there has to be both yes and no. The Church has in the past been prepared to declare a war to be just - in the sense that the intention of waging that war was to defeat something evil, and that couldn’t have been done in any other way. But to say a war is just doesn’t also make it “right” or “good”; no war can ever be described as that, for every war is going to cost precious and innocent lives, and modern warfare even more so.

And, although it has to be admitted that the Bible is full of people going to war, I would always want to claim that every war offends against God. That includes even the war that defeated Hitler’s evil and murderous Third Reich, and the cruel imperialism of the Japan of Tojo and Hirohito. The 1960’s protest song “The Universal Soldier” claims that to deploy the fighting man is “not the way to put the end to war”, however much we may hope and believe it might be. And Jesus himself said, “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”

But I also recognise that in 1939 that was the only way it could be done, the only way a tremendous evil could be countered. We felt that was the case at the time, and - looking back through the lens of history - that’s how it still feels. And when war is the only way, the fighting man - and woman - does have to be deployed.

My grandfather served in the trenches towards the end of the First World War, and saw a friend from the same village killed alongside him, something he never forgot; as an old man he still told that story. He stayed on as a regular, serving in the Straits Settlements before coming home to marry and try his hand at farming. He always felt the burden of surviving when his friend did not.

“When it’s got your number on, then it’s your turn” they used to say in the trenches; but the reality is never that simple. War is a mess; the strategic decisions taken by the generals become a mess by the time they reach where you are. The enemy may be evil, but the lad you kill perhaps had no part in that evil himself; he’s just a kid like you, far from home and doing his bit.

So today isn’t a day to glorify war in any way; but we’re here to admit to the necessity of opposing evil by whatever means prove necessary; and we’re here to mark, praise and (yes) glorify the commitment and courage and comradeship of those who, when the chips were down, did what they had to do in the defence of our freedom and our realm and our allies.

And were here to mourn the loss of so many young lives, or mostly young. In the mess of the modern war, everyone is involved, and behind that weasel phrase “collateral damage” hide the many lives damaged, wrecked, and lost just because people got caught up in something not of their doing or their choosing.

And as we mark the fallen today in our keeping silence, and in the prayers we say, and with the poppies we wear and the wreaths we lay, I trust we’ll be reminded again of what peace is worth, and what the peace we have has cost. For it’s important we should be so reminded; it’s important that we should truly value the peace, freedom and justice for which those we remember today gave their lives. These were people who went into war hoping for peace, and dreaming of peace. The blood of the fallen says to us, I think: “We have done our part, and we have paid the price, and now it’s your turn to build the world we dreamed of.”

And we truly honour the sacrifice they made, when we long for and work for a world where all are valued, where all have their place, a world in which my rights and freedoms are balanced against the rights and freedoms of my neighbour; a world in which we do our duty in peace, as they, the fallen, did in the mess of war.

A short service and reflection for the Third Sunday before Advent

 

May the grace, mercy and love of God be with us all. Amen.

Collect

Heavenly Lord, you long for the world's salvation: stir us from apathy, restrain us from excess and revive in us new hope that all creation will one day be healed in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Confession

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith, firmly resolved to keep God’s commandments, and to live in love and peace together.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you through our own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what we have left undone. We are heartily sorry, and repent of all our sins. For your Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past, and grant that we may serve you in newness of life, to the glory of your name. Amen.

May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and grant us the grace and comfort of his Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

                Hebrews, chapter 9, verses 24 to the end :-

Christ has not entered a sanctuary made by human hands, which is only a pointer to the reality; he has entered heaven itself, to appear now before God on our behalf.  It was not his purpose to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the sanctuary year after year with blood not his own; for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the world was created. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the climax of history to abolish sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as it is our human lot to die once, with judgement to follow, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of mankind, and will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.

               Mark, chapter 1,  verses 14 to 20 :-

After John had been arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: ‘The time has arrived; the kingdom of God is upon you. Repent, and believe the gospel.’

Jesus was walking by the sea of Galilee when he saw Simon and his brother Andrew at work with casting-nets in the lake; for they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, ‘Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.

Going a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat mending their nets. At once he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Thanks be to God, for this his holy word. Amen.

Reflection on the Readings

What was it that was so compelling about Jesus that these first four of his disciples, Andrew and Simon Peter, James and John, were prepared to leave their work and their families, and follow him?  And what was it about them that led him to call them to do so?

They will have been among the first people to hear him preach. Perhaps by this point they’d heard him several times. They’d felt the challenge of his words, and perhaps they’d felt the call of those words too. But they were surely the wrong kind of stuff to be the bringers in of a new kingdom? They were fishermen, not learned scholars; and Galileans to boot, definitely from the wrong end of the country, with Samaritan land between them and Jerusalem. Though of course, that could be said of Jesus too, and was.

I think that what Jesus had seen in them was quite simply and straightforwardly that if he called, they would follow. He wasn’t looking for learning or status; he was looking for a heart open to what God was now doing, and a faith eager to prove itself in service. When Jesus called them, he wasn’t interested in ifs and buts and maybes; he demanded of them complete commitment - there were no openings for part time disciples.

But what had they seen in him? That’s maybe a more difficult question. Even in Galilee, it must still have felt obvious that the promised Messiah would come from Judaea, and from Jerusalem. Remember Nicodemus’ bemused reaction in the story told in John’s Gospel, when he was told about Jesus, and where he came from. “Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

But perhaps the fact that Jesus wasn’t like other teachers was a factor. The directness of his approach, the fact that his teaching wasn’t a commentary on existing texts, but something fresh and new and original, directed not at the mind but at the heart. The sense that he was talking to them.

Human charisma can be as much a negative as a positive, as much a recipe for disaster than for a movement forward. The Hitlers of this world also have the ability to hold a crowd spellbound and encourage new converts; as also have been the leaders of the various cults which so often end up holding people imprisoned or worse.

The influence fades of fake charismas, of course. Hitler’s thousand year reich hardly lasted ten, though the world was in turmoil - and in danger - for much of that time. I’m reminded of John Lennon’s words from his song “Sexy Sadie” on the Beatles’ White Album - a song originally written about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, at whose feet the Beatles briefly sat. Lennon sings of the so-called Sexy Sadie, “You’ll get yours yet, however big you think you are.” And yes, I do remember that Lennon also said at one time that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. They were good, but not that good; big, but not that big.

But there was more to Jesus than just great oratory or a charismatic pull, or even good ideas and a programme you could sign up to. Elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel we find people saying that “he spoke with authority, and not like one of the scribes.” That sense that this man had the authority himself to say what he did, to do what he did, is something we find again and again as we read the Gospels.

As someone has said: Other people may point the way, but Jesus is the way. In John 14 he tells his disciples, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one can come to the Father, except through me.” And in this morning’s first reading we find the writer to the Hebrews once again distinguishing between the temple priests making sacrifice again and again, within the sanctuary of the Temple, and Jesus who enters not a temple made with human hands, but the heaven itself.

Paul wrote that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,” and this surely is what drew Peter and the others to follow. It’s Peter who at one point says to Jesus, “Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the words of life.” And though they couldn’t know yet where following this man would take them - even though their hearts burned within them - they had found, and been found by, as this morning’s first reading puts it, the one who “has appeared once for all at the climax of history to abolish sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Church buildings may close, as some always have. The way the Church looks, sings, prays, organises itself may change too. And the world may from time to time ignore what Jesus tells us, and what he has done for us. But his is a sacrifice that is once and for all. His example and his words - and his call - continue to move hearts and change lives; for he is still saying, not to some but to all: follow me - you are precious in my sight. And some at least will always say, “Yes, Lord. I will come.”

Statement of faith - We believe in God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. We believe in God the Son, who lives in our hearts through faith, and fills us with his love. We believe in God the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us with power from on high. We believe in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayers - Pray we may make the best use of the gifts and talents that are entrusted to us, in service and mission. Today in the world Church, pray for Christians in New Zealand. Pray for our own Diocese, for bishop Richard and for all with whom our Diocese is linked, within the Anglican Church worldwide and ecumenically.

Pray for the world, and for all who are called and elected to high office, that they may govern with insight and vision, and with a desire for justice and peace. Pray for nations to commit to real progress in the campaign to reduce climate change, and also in the continuing fight against Covid. Pray for peace in the world, in this week of Armistice Day.

Pray for all who are ill today, and for those who care for them, and for our hospitals and health centres through this time of continued pressure and as winter ailments begin to grow. Pray too for all who are victims of the abusive or violent behaviour of others, and for all who offer refuge and support.

Pray for our families and friends, and for the life of our churches and communities. In the week of World Kindness Week, give thanks for the kindness of others, and for the opportunity to act with kindness ourselves. Pray we may continue to act with responsibility and care, looking out for each other, and keeping safe ourselves.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.  Amen.

Blessing - May the God of all grace, who calls us to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, establish, strengthen and settle us in the faith; and may the blessing of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore.  Amen.