8th October 200617th Sunday after Trinity

Fr David Peebles

Genesis  2  :  18 – 24 ;  Hebrews  1  :  1 – 4  &  2  :  5 – 12 ; Mark  10  :  2 - 16

When I was first ordained, my 3 yr post-ordination training course was with a group of Anglican clergy of a distinctly evangelical flavour. We all got on very well, though I could be at the butt of jokes about dressing up, incense and the Virgin Mary…which as we all know are of the essence of the Christian faith.

I remember one meeting however when I was invited to introduce a talk on the authority of scripture. So I began by holding up a bible and saying in good evangelical style that here was to be encountered the Word of God, that through this Holy scripture one encountered the invitation of God in Christ to change ones life, that through the scriptures we could see the world and ourselves in a way which is life transforming. Lots of nods and smiles from my fellow clergy. So far so good.

So you might say that the equivalent in Christianity of The Prophet is the Virgin Mary and the equivalent of the Quran is Jesus.

*But then I said something like…even though we can say this is the word of the Lord…the bible at the end of the day is a text and I do not bow down to texts…and with that I let the bible fall out of my hands and onto the floor.
Well you can imagine the stony silence. And whilst I might not be so dramatic these days…I was young then and a bit of drama came naturally to me…..I would still say the same thing.

I suppose the sort of thing I was getting at is what was expressed in our New Testament reading:  “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son…”
In other words for the Christian community, in Christ God Himself has come amongst us. Jesus is the one where what it means to speak of God and what it means to speak of  a human being fully alive finds unity.

Let me get you to think of this from a slightly different angle.

In the popular imagination, if you were to put Christianity side by side with Islam, it would look pretty much the same but with different names and words.
So Islam…Allah…Christianity ..God
Islam…Mohammad…Christianity Jesus
Islam The Quran  Christianity the Bible.

It might be thought that each is giving different competing answers to the same questions.
But that would be to misinterpret both.
For it is indeed the case that in Islam, Allah, God, has sent his prophet Mohammed, who is the last and greatest of the prophets, to reveal his will, which can be found in the Quran. The Quran is the definitive and complete self-revelation of God. Muslims do not worship Mohammad…he is worthy of the highest human significance, but he is only the vehicle through which Gods will is revealed.

Now in Christianity, it is our faith and belief that God has revealed himself through the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures but that his supreme revelation of Himself is through a person, Jesus of Nazareth. For Jesus is God. He is both the Giver and the Gift. And the vehicle through which this revelation takes place is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So you might say that the equivalent in Christianity of The Prophet is the Virgin Mary and the equivalent of the Quran is Jesus.

The Bible for us is authoritative in so far as it decisively points to and participates in this revelation.

My apologies for what might sound more like a lecture than a sermon…but I think it is helpful for our own self-understanding.

What this means about the Christian faith is that at its heart is not a text, or texts, not scripture….but a person. A person who was condemned by the world to death but whom we believe and proclaim to be here with us now in word in sacrament in each other. Alive and resurrected.

Jesus for the Church is not one more competing text in a world full of texts, but is the meaning of meaning encountered in flesh and blood and discovered in crucifixion and resurrection.

Again let me come at this from a slightly different angle.

For the Church God was not once a mystery now solved by Jesus. Rather that mystery has deepened and become more scandalous in the particularity of this Man from Nazareth. In Christ something wonderful has been given to us….but it is a gift that has to be continually opened up…or I think to put it more truthfully, it is a gift which continually opens us up.

As Christians we always begin, if you like in the middle. The gift of Christ has been given and our scriptures show us this…..we do not have to make it up from the beginning…we stand in a tradition which gives us identity and meaning…..but it is an open text, it is a meaning which opens us up to the future, to new possibility, to fresh expression,

We often think of God’s relationship to the world as being one in which God is behind everything, gently and subtly manipulating all things in the shape which God desires. But perhaps it is better, or at least, it is as equally important to imagine God in Christ as being constantly in front, before everything, responding to all things in a way which allows us always to pick up the pieces, to start again, never allowing anything to be a total failure, resurrection in the midst of death.

God’s relationship to his creation, to you and to me, is one that is always characterised by humility; there is no coercion, no force, no hidden agenda. God does not shout. He comes to us in the must unassuming way and if you like takes our humanity and its fragility with the utmost seriousness, compassion and love.

It is no wonder then, that Our Lord in today’s Gospel, takes a child and puts her at the centre and says you must become as one of these if you are to know the Kingdom. The Gospels are partly stories of the failure of people to recognise the Truth in their midst, from the very beginning to the very end, the characters keep looking for God in the wrong place.  The disciples constantly fail to hear what Jesus preaches.

And  in the midst of the petty arguments of the disciples, their rivalry and desire for power and status, Jesus sweeps aside the competitive nature of human relating and says you must learn to see the world afresh….the philosopher Paul Ricouer would call it learning a second naiveté…Christ says  puts it more simply; you must be born again. To see the world and each other with the wonder, the excitement, the immediacy of a child. To unlearn the language of  power, to undo the grammar of violence and revenge, to break open the surface.

And such a faith, such a divine call, cannot be written as a text upon a page, but only upon the heart, in flesh and in blood.