Shema Yisrael - Hear, O Israel

Preached at MCC North London, Camden Town, on Sunday 1st November 2009.

Ruth 1:1-18
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 
The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 
But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 
These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. 
Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that God had considered the people and given them food. 
So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. 
But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back each of you to your mother's house. May God deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 
God grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband." Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. 
They said to her, "No, we will return with you to your people." 
But Naomi said, "Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 
Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of God has turned against me." 
Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 
So she said, "See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law." 
But Ruth said, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 
Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May God do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" 
When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. 

Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"
Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Creator our God, theCreator is one; you shall love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'
The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'God is one, and besides God there is no other'; and 'to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbour as oneself,' --this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the Realm of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.

***

"Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May God do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" 

These are the well-known words spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law as she commits to joining her in her walk through life. Ruth, as we have heard, was a Moabite who married an Israelite man, Naomi’s son. When Naomi’s husband and sons die, she and her two daughters are left destitute. It is no exaggeration so say that widows were considered the least important people in Ancient Near Eastern society. Women’s purpose was as wives and mothers. Ruth and Naomi were no longer either. To add to that, Naomi was an outsider and knew that the right thing to do was to return to her homeland alone and live in Jerusalem amongst her people. Her two daughters-in-law respond very differently to this. After some initial objections, Orpah realises that it is sensible for her to return to Moab and she kisses Naomi goodbye and leaves. Ruth, on the other hand, refuses to hear of it. We are told that she “clings” to her mother-in-law. She will not be parted from someone she has come to love as part of her family. I honestly think that Ruth’s speech to Naomi is one of the most moving in the Old Testament. Think about what she was giving up in order to stay with her mother-in-law. Firstly, she had to leave the place she had grown up and been married, along with whatever family she had there. It was not common to travel, she had no idea what sort of land she was heading to, she took a chance to stay with someone she cared deeply about.

In the course of this life-changing decision she also acknowledges that she will make changes to her faith tradition. In the ancient near east there were many gods and traditions. There were many ways to worship each god. Even those who accepted Yahweh as God chose to worship in many different ways until the common acceptance and practice of Deuteronomical and Levitical law. The god worshipped by the Moabites was Chemosh, who Ruth turned her back on in order to embrace the God of Naomi’s people, the God we know as the one true God. This statement of faith and love is so profound that it continues to be used in wedding services across the world.

Ruth and Naomi committed their lives to each other. Ruth became known as “Naomi’s woman” when they were living together, and when Ruth was married to Boaz and had a child, that child was born not just to Ruth and Boaz but also to Naomi. The relationship they model is beautiful and profound. Whether it is a mother-daughter relationship, a romantic friendship or a sexual relationship honestly doesn’t matter to me. It is important to acknowledge that their relationship models so many types of love, that they had a profound affection for each other and lived as a family. It is important to acknowledge the possibility that they intentionally lived as a married couple. But this is not to say that Ruth and Naomi’s relationship validates LGBT relationships through history. This is not to say that our worth in relationship – friendly, sexual or romantic – comes entirely from Ruth and Naomi’s worth, from the fact that God blessed David and Jonathan or from the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch. All of these people have been looked to by the LGBT faith community as powerful and positive role models, and they are. But they do not provide the validation for us. All that provides validation for who we are is God’s love for us and our love for the people of God. To put our faith in anything else, whether it is Biblical or not – is a form of idolatry. Your worth in God’s eyes is neither enhanced nor diminished by our ancestors.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.

Hear O Israel Adonai our God Adonai is one. Adonai is the Hebrew word for God that we often translate as Lord, but it has a suggestion of possession and relationship in it, it means “my ruler”. Jesus instructs his followers in tonight’s gospel reading that there is one commandment that is the first of all and it is this one. The second is to love your neighbour – and we know from other readings that that means everyone; there is no one on this earth who is not my neighbour. This love is the love that Ruth had for Naomi, a love that values yourself and others equally, a love that accepts the God of Israel as our God and the One true God, because we can only love God by loving and cherishing each other.

As a community, we stood together in a powerful display of love and faith on Friday night. As many of you will know, recorded instances of homophobic abuse and violence are rising year on year as other forms of hate crime are recorded less frequently. Whilst we hope and pray that this is due to the LGBT community having the courage to name our persecution, there is always a doubt in the backs of our minds. A month ago, on September 25th, a man named Ian Baynham was attacked by three young people. He was beaten so savagely that he was unable to survive and on the 13^th October he died. A week ago, just over a month later, a young trainee policeman named James Parkes was attacked in Liverpool. He remains in a critical condition. On Friday night we gathered in Trafalgar Square to honour Ian, James, and the other victims of homophobic hate crime. David Morley, who survived the Soho nail bomb attack ten years ago and was then murdered on the Embankment; Jody Dubrowski whose only crime was to be openly gay; 18-year-old Michael Causer who was beaten at a house party in Merseyside. None of these people needed or deserved to die. Not one of them died out of the sight of God, who weeps to see people in pain. Not one of them was forgotten or forsaken. We love them, and the number of people who showed up to honour their memories is a testament to that.

“Love your neighbour as yourself, there is no commandment greater.”

Love your neighbour as yourself, as Ruth loved Naomi, as Christ loved his disciples and continues to love us. Who is my neighbour? The Good Samaritan – who rescued a Jewish man who’d been beaten up and abandoned by those who should have cared for them – is certainly my neighbour. What of the men who beat up the Jewish traveller? Well, they are my neighbours also, and although their actions came from a place of ignorance and hate I care for them. The young woman who attacked Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square is also my neighbour. We are called not just to love the martyrs, or the people who stick up for us, that is not enough. Ruth loved Naomi, a foreigner. The Good Samaritan cared for a Jew, his enemy. We must love those who have persecuted us. We bless them, we know that they are called by name by the same God who called and loved us. What they have done, what they have said, what the world has taught them to believe in hate, none of that is who they are. They are called beloved just as we are. God will forgive them their sins when he forgives us ours. There is nothing – nothing – that we can do to separate ourselves from the love of our one God.

There is a story in Judaism about a learned Rabbi – Rabbi Hillel – who was once approached by a gentile. This gentile said to him, “Rabbi, I will convert to Judism here and now if you can teach the Torah to me standing on one leg”. Hillel did this. He stood on one leg and said very clearly, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow”, then putting his leg back down and standing as usual he faced the man and said, “this is the whole Law; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” As a community, we witness so much hate. From the antagonistic looks we get in the street to the people who call us dykes, poofs, queers and trannies. The people who spit at our feet and the people who use violence against us. The people who protest at Pride and the people who enter the parade to make trouble. They are mistaken, they are wrong, and we must correct them. And we correct them not with further violence, not with threats, not by suppressing their freedom to speak. We correct with love, we correct by living the gospel of Christ. To those who call us perverts, we show a pure love, the blessed love of our Biblical ancestors, and we remind them that the words of the marriage service are the words of one woman to another. We say that there is no fear in love, and that the first and greatest commandment is to love one another. We face them in love, proudly and boldly showing how we love our partners – whatever gender we and they are – and we embrace our persecutors. We stand facing them and say, we love you, you are our neighbours.

This is my challenge to you today; a challenge that comes from Jesus himself. Know your worth in God’s eyes. Know that it is not dependent on how the world sees you, it is not dependent on being able to find others like you who are loved by God, God, Adonai, Abba, loves you because you’re so special. You were created unique, every hair on your head and ridge in your fingerprint. Every mistake you have ever made is wiped out, every tear dried and every right move celebrated. When you hear the many names of God and bless them you are in turn blessed. You are called to then fulfil the second commandment Jesus gave and to pass that blessing on to others by showing them love. When someone calls you a name in the street, bless them. When someone tells you that something or other is “so gay”, correct them gently and lovingly as Christ would. Protest by all means – Christ would, Christ would not be letting his people suffer in silence – but never, ever forget to pray and to praise.

"You are not far from the Realm of God"

Truly, we are drawing near to God in this time of adversity. We are a people whose spirit will not be crushed, we are a people who refuse to be downtrodden. We are the army of God and we fight all forms of injustice. But we do not fight with the weapons used against us, instead we disarm and bring peace and love. That, truly, is our calling. That is what we must do to glorify God and in doing so we embody the love of Ruth and Naomi, we act out the commandments to love one another. When we do this and we are motivated by the love of God for all people, we are truly close to seeing the Realm of God.

Hear, all people, Adonai your God, Adonai is one. 
Alleluia! Amen.

No to Hate Crime vigil, Trafalgar Square, 30th October 2009
(c) Paul A. Brown

What's it all for?

So, in (yet another) bid to actually communicate with the world, I am stringing up my virtual baked bean tin once again to reach out to y'all.

I have been having a small existential crisis with my blog, and wondering what to use it for, and I realised that the main reason I never post anything is because I'm self-conscious. So I am going to throw caution to the wind and endeavour to take more time blogging. I have even searched through the depths of my hard-drive for an archive of sermons, preached at Trinity United Reform Church and MCC North London (both in Camden Town) and some reflections.

How's my drivelling? - Private Eye

Audio file: Not Ashamed?

A recording of a sermon originally preached at MCC North London on Sunday, 13th September 2009.

Sermon title: Not ashamed?

Preacher: Kate Rowley

Not ashamed 130909 sound bite  Sermon sound bites

Not ashamed?

Preached at MCC North London on Sunday, 13th September 2009.

James 3:1-12

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies.

Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!

And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.

For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With it we bless our God and Parent, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water?

Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?"

And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."

He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah."

And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

***

I want to start by looking at the reading from James this week, particularly the opening sentence. James says this; “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Fantastic. I’m sure the other preachers, clergy, PGCE students and NQTs in the room squirmed just as I did when I read that. I really had to think long and hard about it; what is this reading saying to me right now? What should I be thinking about in my relationship with God right now? Who should teach, and what gives us that authority?

In MCC, we believe that everyone is called to minister, and I do believe that wholeheartedly. I’ve preached before about the fact that whenever we do anything outside ourselves that is Christ-centred and others-centred, we are ministering. That could be helping someone cross the street or giving a friend a hand moving house, or you may do it day-to-day in your workplace. But we all do it differently. We are all made in the image of God but none of us can *be* God. We have different aspects to our personalities that reflect God’s glory and when we stand together as a church – ekklesia, assembly – we reflect a full range of talents. But I would like to respectfully correct the writer of James. Scholars think that James was from the Jewish teaching classes, and would have been eligible to become a teacher by virtue of his background and education. So his anthropology is very much that not everyone is called to be a teacher. He was also expressing concern at the sheer range and diversity of teachings and teachers around in the early church, which was a time of controversy and theological uncertainty. So I would just break his comments down a little further and say that not everyone is called to teach as a vocation. I do believe that each of us is empowered and called out to teach at different times in our lives, as group leaders, as parents and siblings and as friends.

But the challenge is to know when to teach, and what to say. To speak on the word of God is a tremendous privilege which we have all been granted, but it is not to be taken lightly. I find that I get asked about my faith a lot, particularly in the LGBT community. And those questions are not flippant, or unimportant. How we express our faith and how we talk about our faith is the very real way in which we introduce Christ to other people and that is not an easy thing to do. If we are disingenuous or ashamed of what we are saying, if we are conscious that it is not very cool at the moment to be Christian or scared that we are addressing someone who has a problem with faith, it’s too easy to stumble, oversimplify, or to try to adapt our faith to suit what they want to hear; we dilute the message to get people to listen to us or to come to our church and that is dangerous. We are judged harshly on how we teach because it shows what we think of God.

And Jesus won’t stand for false teaching, not from anyone. His dialogue with Peter in Mark is a fascinating example of this. Peter has come to recognise that Jesus is more than “another prophet”. Peter has come to the realisation that Jesus is the Messiah – the anointed one of God come to deliver the Jewish people – and rather than praising him for his insight, Jesus asks them to tell no one. He recognises that Peter does not yet have the insight to share this news, and that his understanding of Jesus’ nature will not be well-received by the majority whom he is teaching. Rather than allow misinformation to go out, Jesus asks him to keep quiet. In a few verses time we see why. Although Peter has understood that Jesus is the Messiah, he has not understood the full reality of that. Faced with the possibility of Jesus being put to death, Peter is scared. He doesn’t want to hear it so he tries to get Jesus to change his tune, not to talk about it. We don’t know what he said, or what his motivation was, but he was contradicting God. He was trying to say that he knew better. And in four words, Jesus knocks him back, “Get behind me, Satan!”. Peter confesses the messiah on one hand and then speaks false teaching on the other.

When we come to church, we confess Jesus as Messiah, as God and Lord. We sing hymns and praises in His name and we ask for intercession for those we love in His name. We say that to see the face of God we need to love one another, and we confess the times we have sinned against each other. We recognise Jesus in each other. We are like Peter at the moment of revelation, filled with knowledge of the nature of Jesus and the reality of the sacrifice of God in Christ. It is joyful and wonderful, and the last thing on our mind is to be ashamed of Christ, of the words of the Bible or of our faith. But something changes when we walk out of these doors. We almost immediately start to speak differently, we view each other differently. The same tongues we used to praise God’s name and to speak holy truths we use to speak ill of each other, to enter into games of one-upmanship and to gossip. We don’t see Christ in each other any more, we complain about the flaws in other people that we ourselves possess because they are what make us human. We presume to judge other people’s sins when we have not had the grace to recognise and fully confess our own.

And let’s be honest about the word sin, and the idea of sin. We are blessed, sitting here, because many of us have only been able to come to this place through years of prayer, reflection and theological study. We have examined the Bible and the claims of others critically as they concern human sexuality and come to the glorious revelation that a sexual identity – and the act of living it out, whatever it may be – is not sinful. It’s a “messiah” moment. A moment of pure, wonderful realisation. But do we, like Peter, sometimes take that revelation too far? Just as Peter thought that his understanding of Jesus’ nature meant that Christ wouldn’t have to die, do we sometimes think that because we are not judged and condemned on our sexual orientation that we don’t need to think about sin? But it is still present in our lives, it is a fact of our humanity and free will. Sin separates us from the love of God; it is anything that we do to ourselves or to other people that is for our own glory or our own fulfilment at the expense of expressing the love of Jesus. We sin against ourselves and God when we undervalue our lives, talents and deny God’s call. We sin against others – who are all made in the image of God – when we ignore them, speak badly of them or deliberately provoke conflict with other people. Even the times when we don’t do it consciously, when we, like Peter, think we are doing the right thing.

We come together every week before Communion to confess our sins to God, but do we ever truly think about the impact of what has happened in our lives in the week? Do we even acknowledge most of the sins we commit on a daily basis? When we laugh at someone to fit in, or tell a joke that alienates people, or refuse the chance to share the love of Jesus with someone else we have sinned against God. When we hear a call on our lives and we ignore it, for whatever reason, we have sinned against God. And when we sin against God by devaluing other people or by underselling our faith in Jesus we are harming our relationship with God and we are putting a stumbling block in the way of someone else’s faith. We are separating not only ourselves, but also another person whose faith and salvation should be as dear to us as our own, from the love of God and that is inexcusable. When we speak the words of God and confess our faith with our mouths but our actions reveal that our hearts and minds reject God’s law, we misrepresent Christ into the world. We become as Satan to them, that is, as the one who denies the words and works of God.

We were made in the glory of God but we do all tend towards what Paul calls the sinful nature. We can acknowledge this, but we need not – indeed, we should not – embrace it. Instead we need to take time and use our God-given spirit of discernment to understand from where our actions are coming. Are they of the world, are they from a desire to conform and to fit in? If they are, they are not from God. Christians can’t live our lives fitting in. We are not called to fit in; we are called to stand out. It’s a glorious calling but it isn’t easy. It is not a new thing, or a modern thing, for Christians to be rejected by our peers. We have always been seen as ignorant, or misguided, Richard Dawkins is hardly the first! These days it is popular to assume that Christians are incapable of rational thought, that we cannot be intelligent or show empathy to others. It takes great strength to stand up for God and for the gospel, and to recognise when we sin. It takes soul-searching and a deep dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. Then we can go out and shout the gospel of Jesus, and share the love, peace and grace of Christ. Then we can go out and live the gospel, and show the way of Christ. Then we can bring Christ to the world that doesn’t know him. Just as a badly-placed word can start a fire of unbelief and rejection, the right word can quench the fire and bring salvation to a world that needs the tangible love of Christ.

You are blessed people, go and shout forth the blessing into the world. Do not be ashamed of the gospel, but speak the truth of Jesus and praise Him to all the world. When you are called to speak, or to teach, do so in a spirit of discernment, not for your glory but for the glory of God. Confess your sins faithfully, and ask for the forgiveness that God wants to hand down. If there is something you are holding on to, that you feel is so bad you don’t think God will forgive you, let it go. Bring it to God tonight and start afresh. If you confess and accept the forgiveness freely given, you are free to go into the world and be not ashamed, be ashamed neither of yourself nor of the gospel of Christ; go into the streets and praise Him!

Amen.

The importance of fellowship

For the MCC North London newsletter

I was lucky enough to visit the Greenbelt festival this weekend with a number of other members of the church. It was my first festival experience (and only second Christian holiday, the other was whilst I was still at school) and I was a little bit wary. I think I expected factional infighting, guilt-inducing discussions and sermons and lots of socks and sandals! I was looking forward to it, but with some nerves.

So it was a relief to arrive on Friday night and realise that I didn’t stand out like a complete freak, the talks and worship planned looked fantastic and there were loads of craft stalls to look at longingly! From Sixpence None the Richer on Friday to Athlete on Monday via talks by Bishop Gene Robinson, Sami Awad and worship from Tim Hughes to Taizé it was a complete whirlwind of a weekend. But the most important lesson I learned from the weekend didn’t come from a single talk, worship set or performance. Instead, it was an unspoken theme of the time I spent at Cheltenham.

Fractures in the church come from all sorts of places, and are nothing new. From the early councils (Nicea in 325 was convened to combat the heresy of Arianism) to the creation of Gafcon (the Global Anglican Future Conference / Federation of Confessing Anglicans) in the wake of Gene Robinson’s consecration as the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire. These factions and splits cause nothing but pain and heartache. Even when the grievances are genuine and deeply felt, both sides are hurt. Following Christ authentically means that we have to make sacrifices, but when doing this is causing pain to others as well as forcing us into sacrifices, is it authentic? It is Christ-like to build your own opinions and theology up to such an extent that others are destroyed?

By contrast, when we work together in faith amazing things happen. Conflict is part of life, and it is human nature to want life to be fair. We see what others have, how they are treated, and we want that. But life isn’t fair, and being Christian or spending time with Christians doesn’t change that. Church isn’t perfect, because we aren’t perfect. But we can learn to do the right thing. We need each other, we need to be in unity with other. It is important that we safeguard our own needs by asking for help when we need it and taking the support we are offered, and it is equally important that we offer help and support to other people in pain and not to turn your back on people or communities that need you. You don’t get back what you put in; life isn’t like that. You do get back what you need, by the grace of God and in the love of your community.

The peace and grace of Christ be with us all.

Cheltenham Race Course in the fog, GB09

Manna from Heaven

Preached at Trinity URC and MCC North London, both Camden Town, on Sunday 16th August 2009.

Ephesians 5:15-20

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

John 6:51-58

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Parent sent me, and I live because of the Parent, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

***
I have a small confession to make. It’s taken me a long time to learn to love the Bible. I grew up in a non-Christian household for most of my life (although we went to church when I was small, and I have never forgotten the most important lesson of Sunday School – how to make a palm tree out of a piece of old newspaper!), and became a Christian at the grand old age of fifteen.

Eight years later, I still sometimes wonder if I’ve quite got the hang of this Christianity malarkey. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear from a preacher so bear with me and I’ll try to make up for it! The thing is; I’m not always that keen on the Bible. I spent a lot of time having pretty negative encounters with Scripture. To paraphrase the fabulous Kit and the Widow, I was convinced that Leviticus was just written a bigot having a bit of a rant. I dismissed all of the writings of St. Paul, thinking that they fell into a broadly similar category. A lot of the Bible didn’t seem to agree with my view of, and experience of, God. So many of the rules seemed irrelevant – I don’t know anyone who seriously has concerns about wearing wool-linen mix, and it’s been a while since I saw anyone attempt to stone an adulterer or buy a slave. It seemed as though there was too much time given over to long lists of don’ts, discussions of out-moded gender models and contradiction.

And it seems that this is a lot of people’s view of the Bible. I recently read a fantastic memoir by a man named A.J. Jacobs. He is agnostic but was brought up in a Jewish household, decided to spend a year living “Biblically”. That is that he attempted to follow every commandment laid out in the Bible, beginning with the 613 mitzvot, or commandments, that are found in the Old Testament. He invited an orthodox man into his home to analyse the fibre content of all his clothing – apparently it’s only mixing wool and linen that’s forbidden, by the way – wore a white tunic, grew a beard so unruly that people avoided him in the street and painted scripture on his door frame. (Incidentally, there’s a picture here showing him on the last day of the project.) He even had his sons circumcised and approached an adulterer in Central Park to gently throw a couple of pebbles at him. All in the name of research. The response to his project from other people was fascinating. The beard and while robes – not to mention the wooden staff from eBay – made him look more religious. People avoided him on the subway, and every waking moment was spent wondering if he had accidentally broken any rules in the last five minutes. He spent so much time following rules it begins to look like he has no time to live. I’ll come back to him later.

Take tonight’s reading from Ephesians; it just reads as a telling-off, the author sounds like a kill-joy, something of a puritan. Don’t drink, don’t be stupid, don’t act up, don’t make a fool of yourself. It reads like one of the tedious etiquette guides from the last century that are endlessly reprinted as novelty gifts. It stands in sharp contract to tonight’s gospel reading. In Jesus’ teaching, there is nothing that sounds like traditional Jewish law. Nothing, in fact, that sounds like any contemporary law. Jesus’ world, an area of the middle east that is now, broadly, Jerusalem, the West Bank of Israel and Palestine, was ruled over by the Roman empire, under the jurisdiction of King Herod and the local Roman governor. Cultures converged on Jerusalem, Latin and Aramaic were spoken equally, and the learned were literate in Greek. But no religion, no philosophy, could ever prepare those present to hear what Jesus had to say. Listen to the words of Jesus again, imagine hearing this for the first time.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world…
Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

It’s just surreal. Firstly, there is someone who is very clearly flesh and blood claiming to be “living bread”. What does that mean? He also claims to be the Son of God, so who is God? Have we unknowingly eaten God every time we munch on a sandwich? Was the heavenly manna actually the flesh of God? More to the point, is he asking us to eat him? And drinking his blood? There must be a law against that – is Jesus kosher? Does he have self-renewing flesh or something? This is science-fiction stuff, really, the stuff of nightmares.

And if that’s what was perplexing those present who accepted Jesus’ divinity, what on earth must the people around have been thinking if they didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God. It is almost impossible to understand this from a modern perspective, but even today there are scores of polemical essays claiming that Christians validate cannibalism by the very act of Communion. But that’s not what’s going on here. Jesus in John’s gospel spends a lot of time discussing His nature and pointing to His death and the arrival of the Holy Spirit. This discussion is a clear precursor to the first communion at the Last Supper, the following Passover. It also begins to point to the idea that we call the trinity, Jesus is talking about taking in an aspect of God as today we call upon and take in the Holy Spirit.

So, to contrast the two texts again, we have two contrasting images of Christianity. The first is a traditional, almost puritanical view. The emphasis is on law, the laws of Moses in Leviticus, the book of Deuteronomy (Greek – the second law), the laws cited by St. Paul and by Jesus himself. But that is a very one-dimensional view of Christianity. If I could return for a moment to A.J. Jacobs and his tremendous beard, he set out only to follow the law. He was interested in the motivations of those who followed the laws, and unsure whether he would feel any spiritual connection. He was particularly challenged by the commandment to “love the Lord, Your God”. Loving your neighbour, yes, he could do that. Have no other gods, well, yes, being agnostic is helpful there. Not making graven images was a challenge on family holidays with his wife and a camera but on the whole it was fine. Until he discovered the commandment that makes the Bible more than just another rule book. The Bible points us to a connection to the divine; it leads us to Christ, to God and the Holy Spirit. Law is not distinct from a connection to God. It is an important part of our connection to God. Jesus, who brought the spirit, also re-affirmed the law. In the opening of John’s gospel, in the very first verse, Jesus is referred to as the logos, which is a wonderfully ambiguous Greek word. It means word, meaning and has even been translated as law (although we don’t ever see it used as a term for secular law).

The joy of this passage in John, for me, is the connection between the spirit, the law / text of the Bible, and the body. Like the Law, the body is often separated from the spirit. Since the middle ages, we have been taught that the tangible, the ‘real world’ is base and ugly and distinct from the glorious realm of God. St Paul, in one of his other letters, complains that his body doesn’t do as his spirit wants to, that he is unable to live up to the way he wants to live. It is one of the perils of being human that we can’t live up to who we want to be, and being Christian doesn’t change that. We are used to associating the body with the Law, not the spirit. The desires of the body are associated with sinfulness, from overeating to sexual immorality. And the world confirms this. A glance at a television or at a magazine cover will tell you that your body is all wrong. That you aren’t eating the right things, aren’t exercising properly, aren’t the right shape for this season’s fashions. The body has become associated in the secular world with guilt and shame.

But we know that we are made in the image of God (Ps. 139 – “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made). Of all God’s creations, humans were made in the image of God. Everything about us is sacred and cared for. This gospel passage follows on directly from John’s telling of the feeding of the crowds – it is so important to be fed by the Word of God, but Jesus cares for our physical wellbeing and nourishes those present in a clear nod towards what was to come. Jesus also alludes to the Exodus, when the Jewish people were isolated in the desert, between Egypt and their promised land. During this time of isolation, when they were wandering in exile because they had turned against God, their bodies were still cared for when God sent manna from heaven. Not just a little bit of dry bread and water that would sustain them, but the most wonderful, sweet manna that tasted of honey and enough every 6th day to give us a feast. That’s not a God that sees out bodies as vehicles, or our earthly life as a base precursor for a glorious afterlife. That’s not a God that views desire and pleasure as sinful.

So the call to feed on Jesus’ body is fulfilling both a spiritual need and a physical one. In Communion, there is a spiritual experience that connects us to Jesus and also instantly to Christians throughout history and to the Jewish commemoration of the Exodus. The word Eucharist is from a Greek root and translates as “thanksgiving”. In taking the Eucharist we are giving thanks for the life of Christ, as well as reaffirming out commitment to giving our lives and spirits to Christ in the here and now. Communion is a time to take stock of our lives and a reminder that we have a shared humanity with each other and with Jesus. It is a reminder that our lives and our bodies belong to Christ, and that God is the one who protects and feeds our souls and our bodies. Jesus, the logos, fulfils the law, embodies human perfection and leads us to be one in the name of God who sustains us. So when you come to take Communion, stop and think about what you are doing. This is not an empty ritual, but the very embodiment of the Christian faith and a reminder of God’s love which is given lavishly to each of us.

Amen.

Response to the shooting in Tel Aviv

From the MCC North London newsletter

A lot of us were at Brighton Pride on Saturday, enjoying the rain and the carnival atmosphere. People like me, who had never been before, were marvelling at how open everything was, how people marched with their families and the whole town seemed to turn out. There was no visible counter-protest and it was incredibly liberating to be a part of something like that.

But then, when I came home, it was like a rude awakening. I turned my laptop on and saw the following: Two killed in shooting at Tel Aviv gay centre. It seemed unreal.

I flew to Tel Aviv in December, and spent 6 days travelling around Israel. I was struck by the atmosphere of Tel Aviv. Whereas Jerusalem was defined by boundaries and quarters, where you could tell the culture of an area by the language displayed on the buses travelling there, Tel Aviv felt more like a part of London. Languages mixed in the street, menus reflected cultures converging, and there is evidence of a small, but busy, gay scene. My friends who live and spend time in Israel talk about Tel Aviv as a haven for LGBT people who have suffered discrimination in the more religious areas of the country, and it felt like that to me as a visitor.

I was encouraged that by the time I found out, only a few hours after the shooting occurred, there were already people gathering to hold vigil outside the centre in memory of 26-year-old Nir Katz and 16-year-old Liz Tarboushi, and the 13 others who were injured. The man dressed in black, wearing a mask and carrying a gun, who inflicted all this terror on the community, seems to have acted alone in an act of violence. The community who were devastated, however, stood as one body of many parts amidst this violence to pray for peace and bless the memories of those they have lost.

And it is the image of the Israeli LGBT community and their allies standing together in peace that gives me hope. The responses of Israeli politicians, who unanimously condemn the shootings as hate crime, remind us that society is moving on. Individuals may hold on to their hate, and this can devastate us, but we have solidarity and we have our allies. Most of all, we have the strength of the God of Israel and of Jesus Christ, who called Israel His home. We pray for peace in Israel, for reconciliation of communities of different religious and cultural affiliations and for strength for the young people of Israel to be who they are and to continue to stand as one against hate in all its forms.