25th March 2007LENT V : Passion Sunday

Fr Julian Browning

Isaiah  43  :  16 – 21 ; Philippians  3  :  4b – 14 ; John  12  :  1 – 8

Christ Jesus has made me his own.     Philippians 3:12  

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? 

Today is Passion Sunday. Passion means an overpowering emotion, but Passion Sunday is about something different. The Latin word means suffering, and so the days from now until Good Friday have become known as Passiontide, the season of Jesus's suffering. Christianity does not have a manual, there's no programme from beginner, to intermediate, to advanced, and so on from ignorance to enlightenment. Instead, we live by the calendar, the annual cycle. Dates and seasons are important. If we miss out a section of the calendar, it is like skipping a chapter in a book. We miss the point of the story. Passiontide is a chapter which must not be missed.

Judas Iscariot was right. It was a shocking waste. Pouring all that ointment over Jesus was gross extravagance. Particularly if you are looking for a way of stealing the money. Judas Iscariot, the champion of the poor. Now this is just the start of it. Passiontide is quite frightening. All sorts of mixed motives, fears, hidden agendas, passions indeed, start to bubble up. It gets really messy. No wonder many of the disciples ran for cover. One way of coping, of seeing it through to the end, is to see the story of Our Lord's Passion as the beginning of something new in our own lives, the opening of a new dimension to life itself, God-filled not God-forsaken. Mary understood that. Mary, sister of Martha, not to be confused with all the other Marys. When Mary anoints Jesus' feet she is preparing Jesus for burial. Her brother Lazarus is there, a sign of resurrection. Mary uses her hair to wipe Jesus feet, just as He will wash his disciples' feet on Maundy Thursday. The expense of the ointment is horrendous, and that tells us she is giving everything, because this is her opportunity of doing so, now. What are we saving ourselves for? Most of us are trying to get from birth to death with minimum inconvenience. But now is our moment. So let's talk about now. Do you ever get fed up with the Church of England? I'll take that as a yes. Of course, we're right, aren't we, but then we always have been and always will be right. It's become a bit of a habit, I think, a sort of culture of grievance. Going into a sulk with Mother Church, because mother isn't giving us what we want and what we think we need. It is a very convenient stance to take, because it keeps us in our little world of opinions and likes and dislikes, and therefore prevents us seeing the worldwide Church as it really meant to be and is, the Body of Christ in which we die and rise again. We are like Judas, who is fixated on the waste and the expense (because it will mean less for him), and so fails to see the Body of Christ being anointed for burial in his presence. When we stop complaining about our lot, we can hear what God has to say. I don't quote much in sermons, because it distracts, but in the whirlwind of Passiontide my rules don't count for much, so here are just two lines of George Herbert, who is fed up with the restraints of priesthood, the boredom of country life, the hypocrisy, the cold disputes, and the self-righteousness of the church in about 1630, and it's time to join the human race again, so he's off on his own, going back to his old life. The poem is called The Collar, which is a neat title, and it ends: 'But as I rav'd and grew more fierce and wilde At very word, Me thoughts I heard one calling, Childe! And I reply'd, My Lord.

Something like that happened to St.Paul, and maybe something like that has happened to you. Following all St.Paul's arguments is beyond me right now, you will be relieved to hear, but there is a before and an after, a break with the past, and he can not go back to the old ways, any more than George Herbert can. What is this conversion, this insistent voice we hear, this call to return to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls?  It isn't hearing a gospel which is going to solve all our problems. That's the evangelical approach, attractive, but it has never worked for me. Rather we hear the opposite, a new voice which is disturbing, which calls us by name, which questions our own convenient answers, and which send us off in search of a new understanding of life, a radical reassessment of our past, present and future. It is a revolution in mind and heart. We saw an expensive ointment being wasted; now we see a body being prepared for burial. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. So wrote Paul to the Philippians.

I said that Christians live by the calendar, the Church's year. If we wander off, we miss out. What is the season of Christ's suffering going to mean to us? All our readings today point to a break with the past, and the start of something new, a new journey for us all, a forgiven people. That's what God tells the people of Israel and us through Isaiah today: I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. And we can stand aside judging and complaining, as Judas did, or we can join in, like Mary. For we are the people whom God has formed for himself, says Isaiah, or as Paul puts it, Christ Jesus has made me his own.