Sunday 22nd October 2006 TRINITY XIX

Fr David Cherry

Isaiah  53  :  4 – 12 ; Hebrews  5  :  1 – 10 ; Mark  10  :  35 – 45

“But so shall it not be among you.”   So how shall it be then ?

This week amid the emergency measures and replanning for our boiler – I can report now that it is at last underway and that a floor has at last been laid for its delivery and installation this week  - Elizabeth and I were wondering whether we get to wear hard-hats… amid all this I was wondering about today’s community meeting and what the readings would be.

“But so shall it not be among you.”   So how shall it be then ?

The gospel reveals to us how humans work – the disciples are vying for positions of importance, and they want to know what the future holds, what their rewards are likely to be. They are enacting what goes on in the human heart in a society which is based on competition and the survival of those best equipped to play the game.  The Devil wears Prada shows us how ridiculous this really is.

The project of God is something altogether subversive of this way of living and of being a person.  The disciples – which I take to mean you and me – are only just beginning to get.  The effect of Christ in our lives brings this about in us.

If it is not to be like this – competition and rivalry - among us, how then shall it be?

The lesson from the letter to the Hebrews talks of Christ being the High priest after the order of Melchizedek.  Melchi’zedek is a priest from outside the Levitical line, not of the traditional Judaic order of priests, not of our culture ‘who does not take the honour upon himself’, but is ‘called by God’.   (An important verse for those of us who share in the ordained priesthood of Christ).  This theme of Jesus being of a different order was developed by the early Christians, and here evident in Hebrews, but also in other writings.  

Isaiah tells us what this priesthood looks like.  Jesus exercises his priesthood as the Suffering Servant (the lesson from the Good Friday Liturgy).  In Jesus, the one who is despised and rejected God reveals himself as a Victim of all that is fractious and frantic in human relationships, our culture of rivalry.  And the theme is taken up by Jesus in the gospel as one who came to serve and not to be served.  

So from outside the human order of conflict and rivalry, comes a God of a different kind of priesthood, One who is utterly free of our culture and not in anyway in competition with us, who reveals himself as a Victim, and is willing to minister to rather than be ministered unto.

Now much of received Christianity can seem to be fundamentally anti-human as if God is in competition with us and opposed to us, telling us we ought not to be who we are.  We can end up thinking that any desire for oneself must be wrong.  The disciples come to Jesus and say : Master we want you to give us what we desire. Is Jesus saying to the disciples in today’s gospel? “You need to be like me and give up all desire for yourself then you will be a true Christian.”   Saints can be read as if they had no desire for themselves.

By now you can tell that I don’t think this is what it is about.  A gospel that is negative about human desire is not good news.  It is infantilising and merely moralistic.  To desire human comforts, to desire company and not be alone, to desire intimacy and to be understood, to want to be able to be oneself and accepted and appreciated is ….well – not just human, but what it means to be human.  We are created to desire and the human instinct is to want to prosper, find fulfilment, meaning – to flourish and develop.

The problem is that desiring even good things brings conflict in human relationships – between nations, any sorts of subgroups of society, conflicts in the church and it smoulders sometimes in families and small parish communities.  

The coming of God among us in Jesus is to bring you and I to a realisation of what it is we desire more than any thing else, more than anyone else.   

What does this look like?  A mother is offering an ice-cream to a child who is out in the street causing mayhem with the other kids on the block.  She doesn’t say: If you don’t come home now you won’t get this ice-cream. Rather, she stand in the street and takes out the ice-cream.  The child realises that what she wants is the ice-cream more than causing mayhem.  The child is drawn away to a better desire.   Saints are those who realise what their true heart’s desire was.

We come to Mass to allow God to do this to us.  To be weaned off smaller treasures to discover the true Treasure of himself; to be weaned off a culture of rivalry and vying for positions so that we can simply be without comparison with anyone else : ourselves; and as a Church, the Body of Christ.   

So we prayed in the Collect : O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts.  
We are asking that God may reveal to us our true desires and enable us to live from them and according to them.

Rivalry creates a ‘them’ – a me over against a them.   Recently, I heard about a Vicar in a rather well-off country village who was trying to keep everyone happy. (I’m not making this up!)  The village choir just wants to do its own thing and perform on a Sunday and the Music Director won’t come to PCC meetings and writes letters to the vicar complaining about what is happening.  Other people don’t want the service to get too high while others are dying for a bit of incense and whiff of mystery.  In the middle of all this is the Vicar trying to keep things together.  But people aren’t talking to one another and sabotage any effort on his part to bring them into conversation.  The Vicar is supposed to sort this out while parishioners fold their arms, intransigently sticking to their views, waiting to see his next move.    The kindly and saintly vicar is permanently on trial trying not offend Colonel Blip or he’ll stop his standing order; trying to keep on the right side of the choir or there’ll be no music.  When he leaves the parish, to some he will be a saint who moved the parish on, or at least the one who at last got the tower restored and the bells rehung; while to others, he will be the one that ruined everything.  Everyone can carry on in their own views, never having to listen to anyone else.
 
But so shall it not be among you – says Jesus

You know the old joke:  What’s the difference between an organist and a terrorist?  You can negotiate with a terrorist.  But instead of organist you could put liturgist, priest, treasurer, flower arranger and so on.  Yes we all need to be able to laugh at ourselves… and own that there is a bit of Hitler in all of us.

So how will it be among us?

The culture of God’s kingdom that you and I are invited to inhabit is a culture where we can have desires, and sometimes not even know why we like things a certain way; we are allowed to be fully human, our glorious selves and selves in relationship with others.  

And we are invited to be a people who listen to one another, listen to those who disagree with us and appreciate who they are: different from me, neither right nor wrong.  We can disagree.  That is what adults do because we all have different desires and wants and preferences.  We can disagree and love one another – and we can negotiate and all because we desire something greater than ourselves – the glory of God and that others may know and experience God’s love.  

We can afford to relax.  

It’s a pretty healthy sign when we have strong opinions.  It is unhealthy when we have to keep stum because the priest must have his way.  The answer to the questions ‘What must I do Fr?’ or ‘what do you want us to do?’ should always be ‘What shall we do about it?’ – an invitation to participation.

I find it amusing that the previous archbishop said :  Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?  Of course we normally part of the problem and the solution.

Elsewhere in Hebrews we read : let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God (Hebrews 12 : 1b-2)

So we pray in this mass that Communion may do this in us; inspire in us a desire to be God’s people in real and deepening communion of relationship of love for one another; sharing responsibility and in the ministry that is for all who are baptised into his Life.  May our conversation and our meetings be filled with charity and free of fear.

And so may it be among us.  Amen