Sermon: 7th Sunday of Easter

 Sermon: 7^th Sunday of Easter

16 May 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Acts 1:15-26; Psalm 1; and John 17:6-19; NRSV

Today we walk that liminal space between the Ascension that we celebrated this last Thursday and the gift of Pentecost that we will celebrate next Sunday. Ascension reminding us not of Jesus absence, but rather of Jesus filling all creation, permeating the Cosmos and contemporary to every moment of existence, of all that is – in the words of the Nicean Creed – seen and unseen; and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost a reminder of this Cosmic presence finding reality in the human experience. Today’s Gospel reading accompanies us in this transitional time between these two important celebrations of our Eastertide journey. What does this Gospel offer us?

Today’s Gospel[1] offers us the crucial reminder that faith is primarily about relationship, and we find Jesus in deep relational conversation with the Father, praying not for himself but for us that God would care for us and protect us in the complex intersection of faith and life. Jesus phrases this in terms of relationship and belonging and unity between himself and God, and our invitation into that unity; a unity in which we are drawn into and blessed by divine holiness, and ourselves carry the name God bestowed on Jesus. This name speaks of healing and wholeness, and is a mark of our belonging to all that is good, godly, creative and life-giving.

This name brings us into conflict with all that has disassociated itself from healing and wholeness, from all that embraces destruction and seeks to deface the image of God in our world. Jesus’ use of the word world here does not refer to the earth as we know it, but to a world of relationships that reject the wholeness of life that Faith calls us to, and that sees life purely in terms of power and control, a game to be played with little or no respect for the Other. It is a world Cláudio Carvalhaes, associate Professor of Worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York, describes as “… that part of our planet that lives in patriarchal structures, necropolitics, police violence, prisons, militarization, attacks on the poor, closing of borders, some rich people getting richer while everybody else becomes poorer, and the whole destruction of the earth.”[2] Just as this world rejected the light Jesus sought to shine into its darkness, so it rejects us, too. More subtly, it seeks to undermine our commitment by infiltrating our belief systems and disfiguring the love we seek to share; and thus our need as people of Faith to be committed to a penitential life-style that keeps us aware of our own fragility and need for God’s forgiveness and healing if we are to be effective agents of hope in our world.

Despite the challenges we experience at the intersection of faith and life, there is a wonderful affirmation of our obedience and belief in the opening verses of today’s Gospel reading, “… they have kept your word [,] … and they have believed that you sent me.”[3] Jesus’ reference here to our belief is again a relational statement and it is not one of institutionalised belief. Poet and philosopher, David Whyte,[4] reflects on what happens when belief loses its relational nature, and quite baldly states that, “The most tedious thing you can find out about another person is what they believe.” This specifically in the context of beliefs held in what David refers to as the strategic-competitive mind, which focuses on preservation and survival. The institutionalised Church all too often these days finds itself in this mindset, seeking to maintain itself in a world that all to often has the Church on the back foot; a Church seeking to survive and forgetful of its mission and purpose, offering a system of belief void of relationship and all to often caught up in abstract conversation. David Whyte speaks further of the need to move from this space into one he describes as the poetic mind, which focuses instead on a communal life of mutual celebration, a space where we can rest into the central tonality of the divine pattern, a constellation of belonging, a place of real conversation.

You’re quite possibly feeling a little overwhelmed by all of that. In essence, the more abstract we allow our belief systems to become, the more survivalist our actions, the more room we allow in our world for hurt and destruction; the more space we give for real conversation where our belief systems are moulded by our relational experience, the more room we allow in our world for healing and restoration. This requires us to be awake: awake to the world of destruction and awake to the call of God; awake to the nature of our conversations and awake to whether these conversations are destructive or creative; awake and willing to end all conversations that are not committed to healing and wholeness; and open to starting new and creative conversations that enable forgiveness, restoration and hope, and that are in every aspect life-giving.

Many of our conversations at the moment revolve around the ongoing pandemic, our frustration with our curtailed lives, and the resultant irritations; this is certainly true of many of mine. The third wave of COVID-19 infections has started in Southern Africa, and we’re heading into winter. On a more primal level winter has always been and remains a time for hibernation, for slowing down, for stopping. It’s a time in which Creation itself embraces stillness, silence, and solitude. Let us, as our act of worship, as our act of obedience to God, join Creation on this journey. Let us stop our conversations, our busyness, our noise, our continuous desire for entertainment.

Let us embrace stillness, silence and solitude, and reflect through the course of this winter; and awaken to Spring ready for new and creative and hope-filled conversation. 

I close today with a brief poem by David Whyte,

Just beyond

yourself. 

It's where

you need

to be.

Half a step 

into 

self-forgetting

and the rest

restored

by what

you'll meet.[5]

---

[1] John 17:6-19; NRSV

[2] Cláudio Carvalhaes, Commentary on John 17:6-19, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-176-19-5

[3] John 17: 6b, 8b; NRSV

[4] David Whyte, Finding the new courageous conversation in times of uncertainty, https://soundcloud.com/coachesrising/54-david-whyte-embracing-the-unknown-times-of-uncertainty

[5] David Whyte, The Bell & The Blackbird and David Whyte: Essentials, https://davidwhyte.com/pages/writing

Sermon Notes: Ascension Day 2021

Sermon Notes: Archdeacon Mark R D Long

 

Address: Theological Dialogue & Practical Ethics

 LAUNCH OF PLATFORM FOR THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE & PRACTICAL ETHICS

Celebrating the Historical Meeting between His Grace Pope Francis & Grand Ayatullah Sestani on 6 March 2021

Ahlul Bait (AS) Foundation of South Africa

Address by the Venerable Mark Long, Chairperson of the WCRLF | 27 April 2021

 

Mowlana Haider, Archbishop Brislin, fellow guests and people of Faith

 

In my capacity as the Archbishop of Cape Town’s representative on the Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum (WCRLF) I bring you greetings from his Grace, Thabo Makgoba. Together with his Grace, Archbishop Brislin, they are both valued Patrons of the WCRLF. As Chairperson of the WCRLF I bring you all greetings this afternoon from the various religious groupings and organisations that we represent.

 

Thank you for the generous invitation to address this important gathering today as we celebrate 27 years since the advent of democracy in South Africa, and in the context of this gathering as we celebrate the historic meeting of the Grand Ayatullah Sestani and his Holiness Pope Francis earlier this year. I am thankful for their courage and their example of reaching out to each other, and for this opportunity on the tip of Southern Africa to begin our own journey of theological dialogue and practical ethics. Thank you, Mowlana Haider, for motivating this engagement and for your personal commitment to this journey.

 

We have been asked to consider the important document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and Mufti al-Tayyib of Al-Azhar University in February 2019, as a potential basis for our ongoing dialogue and practical implementation. I was struck in the introduction to this document by its focus on the safeguarding of creation, of the entire universe, of all persons (especially the poorest and those most in need); and its emphasis on seeking to attend to the issues of our times, the consequences of the arms race, social injustice, corruption, inequality, moral decline, terrorism, discrimination, and extremism; and that this is placed at the centre of inter-faith dialogue with an invitation to all people who have faith in God and in human kinship to work together in advancing a culture of mutual respect among all human beings based on the gift of divine grace. This focus is without doubt relevant to our Southern African context, the broader Western Cape, and the more specific challenges of Cape Town. The document itself goes on to commit to a culture of dialogue as the path, mutual cooperation as the code of conduct, reciprocal understanding as the method and standard.

 

We are here today to celebrate a wonderful and amazing willingness by the leaders of dominant world Faiths to set an example in reaching across the inter-faith divide for the greater good of humanity and the wider creation that sustains us. While this example is without doubt inspiring, it is meaningless if it doesn’t find traction at grassroots. My prayer is that today’s launch will give traction to a renewed commitment in our context, and that we will build on the evident openness of the religious sector in the Western Cape towards an increasing commitment to working together to address the common challenges we face, and through theological dialogue to identify the common principles of our divergent faith perspectives in ethically addressing the needs of the poorest in our society in practical and life-sustaining ways.

 

There are a number of initiatives already taking place in identifying the issues various faith-groupings and organisations are already addressing in our communities, and opening opportunities for dialogue and support in addressing the multitude of issues that plague our communities and broader society. Housing, gangsterism, gender-based violence, the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines being a few of those concerns that all too easily come to mind, often exacerbated by corruption, inequality and injustice. These initiatives align with the purpose of today’s gathering and underline the importance of a platform such as this.

 

The Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum has no hesitancy in aligning itself with this important and critical initiative.

 

Again, thank you for the invitation to be present and for the opportunity to address this gathering. Please be assured of our support going forward as together we seek with God’s help to address the critical issues of our time. And in the words of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, “God loves you and so do I. Amen.”

Sermon: 4th Sunday of Easter

 Sermon: 4^th Sunday of Easter

25 April 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; and John 10:11-18; NRSV

What does love look like? I have had the joy of solemnising the marriage of three couples in the Parish over the last four weeks, and love has been physically visible in the body language and responses of the couples to one another. Despite the nervous excitement of the moment each couple have radiated a confidence in their shared love, and I was particularly struck by the breadth of the groom’s smile on Friday afternoon. The nature of love expressed so powerfully in marriage is is based on a firm faith by the couple in one another, and a concrete hope in the resurrection gift of possibility and potential.

What does love look like? Today’s Gospel reading expresses it in these words, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”[1] Love here is expressed in this image of Christ’s unending and unfailing care for all God’s people, just as shepherds in Jesus’ time would have cared for sheep out in the wilderness, facing down predators at the possible cost of their own lives.[2] Love is also visible in Jesus words that there are other sheep that belong, too, although they belong to another flock; and that a time will come when there will be an easy diversity in our belonging – one shepherd and one flock.[3]

What does love look like? Today’s reading from Acts expresses it in these words, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”[4] Love here is expressed in the sufficiency of Jesus’ name, and more specifically in the power of Jesus’ name, based in the reality of death and resurrection, in the possibility and potential for the renewal of our lives and relationships, and the healing of the brokenness and heartache we experience in our broader society.

What does love look like?  Today’s Psalm expresses it in these words, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”[5] A beautifully simple reminder that in the Hebrew understanding of God, Yahweh satisfies every need. And more than that, God’s love provides for us in every aspect of life, and is never conditional. We know and love this Psalm through the poetic beauty of the King James’s translation, and are often comforted by it in the context of death, embedded as Psalm 23 is in our funeral rite. A more accurate translation of some Hebrew phrases reminds us that this Psalm is about an active journey through life, one where the green pastures and still waters are a brief respite on a journey where we continually seek to return into God’s presence, pursued only by goodness and mercy along paths of righteousness that are more game tracks through dark valleys of difficulty than my imagined highways of righteousness leading to eternal bliss.[6] This is what love looks like: life’s journey with God ever present providing all that we need on the demanding and difficult rutted pathways we often find ourselves traversing.

This is what love looks like. And this is the love you and I are called to make visible. When we look with honesty in the mirror, when we look around us in the more intimate context of family and friendships, and when we gaze out on society our love lacks so much, and is a very muted expression of the love today’s Scriptures reflect. Our love is insipid in comparison to God’s, our lives and love often so self-focused and conditional, our desire to have others conform to our will so dominant, that God’s love is diminished and disfigured in our living of it. And yet this is the call of Eastertide: to sacrifice what we have made of love that it may die, truly die; that out of the devastation of death our love may be resurrected, embraced in the fullness of God, restored and transformed, renewed into the fullness of all that love and life has been created by God to be. This is the Easter love we are given freely without any strings attached, a love we are invited by God to live not in our own strength alone, but in the strength and resilience of the Holy Spirit of God.

We need to live intentionally, awake daily to the potential and opportunities for living life creatively and fully, vulnerable before God and one another, sufficiently courageous to acknowledge any failure and open to God’s forgiveness in such a manner that our lives and relationships are continuously formed, reformed, and transformed; embracing one another across the diversity of our religious, cultural, and gender differences. Jesus’ resurrection is a constant reminder of the potential for new beginnings for ourselves, for others, and for our world. Each new beginning requires us to take a step in faith, trusting in God being ever present in our lives, the Good Shepherd continuously caring for us, resourcing us, loving us. This is the love we are called to live. Let’s live it!

Let us pray,

Jesus,

You sought to seek love

in all you did:

your friendships, your critiques

of yourself, your critiques of

abusive power, your critiques of

halfhearted work. It was love

that you followed, and love

that you did.

 

Help us to remember that there is

no place where love cannot be sought.

And if we find such a place, remind us

that you, too, went there, seeking

for the love that was waiting there

to be found.

 

Amen.[7]

---

[1] John 10:11; NRSV

[2] Gennifer Benjamin Brooks, Commentary on John 10:11-18, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-1011-18-5

[3] John 10:16; NRSV

[4] Acts 4:12; NRSV

[5] Psalm 23:1; NRSV

[6] Joel LeMon, Commentary on Psalm 23, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-psalm-23-25

[7] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Fourth Sunday of Easter, https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/308_fourth-sunday-of-easter.pdf

Sermon: Easter Sunday

 Sermon: Easter Sunday

4 April 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; and Mark 16:1-8; NRSV

 “So [the two Mary’s and Salome] went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”[1] Do you join me in feeling a certain element of disappointment in these words? Perhaps the disappointment lies in the fact that we’ve been immersed in John’s Gospel over the last few weeks – a Gospel that speaks with deep certainty about the purposes of God – and a return to Mark’s Gospel with its deep connection to raw human emotion seems a let-down, especially as all our expectations are suddenly wrapped in terror, amazement and fear; and nothing is spoken of the glory and honour we were perhaps expecting in the telling of the resurrection narrative?

A year ago, as we were forced into an almost complete lockdown in response to the COVID-19 virus, I found this ending to Mark’s Gospel comforting in the context of the anxiety that had wrapped itself around me like a suffocating blanket, with all the fears and concerns it brought upon us as individuals, families, and communities. For the first time in my life I could fully relate to the experience of those early disciples and their complete loss of hope as their dreams and longings for liberation from the strictures of the Roman Empire were shattered by Jesus’ crucifixion and death. In that moment there was no victory on the cross, no hope for the future; just the raw trauma of the moment. And for these three women who had been close to Jesus, as they go about the duties death required, the missing body and the strange messenger at the gravesite was a demand too far, and they flee fearfully. It is one thing to believe in resurrection to this life; it is quite another to be faced with its reality; and completely another to explain this reality to others. I am not surprised they said nothing to anyone in the immediate aftermath of this experience. We all know how the death of someone close to us pulls the rug out from under our feet, and the time it takes to get in touch with the reality, and our hesitancy in speaking to others in the emotional chaos of the moment.

Preceding the disappointment of these closing words of Mark’s narrative there is a promise relayed by the angelic messenger, “tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him … .”[2] We can be thankful that these three women clearly overcame the terror of the moment and the fear that had seized them, and must have eventually shared this news. The promise, and subsequent meetings (recorded in other Gospels) gave reality to this news of Jesus’ resurrection to this life and energised the disciples, and has continued to energise the Church throughout the ages.

Rowan Williams[3], former Archbishop of Canterbury, points to the abrupt, confused, vivid and unpolished nature of resurrection stories such as this one in Mark’s Gospel as a sign of the veracity of Jesus’s resurrection to this life, and while we may easily conjecture that Lazarus – after being raised from the dead – died a second normal death, the Ascension narrative indicates that Jesus was resurrected to this life and remains alive, and is contemporary to the present moment. How do we respond to this? And do we believe it to the point where we are willing to proclaim it? Or like the women, do we say nothing to anyone? This, perhaps, is the essence of the Easter challenge.

What does it mean to proclaim this Easter message? This is an important question in a world that is increasingly consumed by an individualist tenor of our times that translates all to often into a message of personal salvation that allows for faith and life to become disconnected. What Easter does ask of us is that we look death in the face – something that the Covid-19 pandemic has also asked of us these past twelve months – and having looked death in the face to allow all the fears and anxieties of our lives to fall into perspective as variants of our fear of death[4]. Easter asks us to face our fear and move beyond it, finding the courage to undermine the pretence that death, evil, and our human brokenness require our acquiescence; by our attitudes and example, by our actions and our words to proclaim the resurrection reality that change, transformation, renewal is possible, and that we can live differently, creatively, life-givingly in our broader society.[5]

Easter invites us to engage our faith with the often tragic realities of life, and ensure that the promise proclaimed in today’s Isaiah reading becomes the lived reality of all our communities, that “[on] this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.”[6] While the Easter message will hopefully always be a source of personal comfort and courage, may it inspire and resource us as people of faith to engage creatively in the liberation of our society, and of creation itself.

May our Easter greeting, “Alleluia, Christ is risen” and the joyful response, “He is risen indeed, alleluia” be more than mere words: may they be a source of strength and hope for our times!

Let us pray,

Jesus

our dead and living friend,

We walk the ways of death and life

holding death in one hand

and courage in the other.

…

Come enliven us.

Come bless us with your peace.

Because you are the first day of creation

And all days of creation.

Amen.[7]

---

[1] Mark 16:8; NRSV

[2] Mark 16:7; NRSV

[3] Rowan Williams, God with Us: the meaning of the cross and resurrection, then and now, Chapter 4

[4] Rowan Williams, Ibid. Chapter 5

[5] Ibid

[6] Isaiah 25:6; NRSV

[7] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.

Sermon: 5th Sunday in Lent

 Sermon: 5th Sunday in Lent

21 March 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Hebrews 5:-10; Psalm 51:1-12; and John 12:20-33; NRSV

Welcome to this 5^th Sunday in Lent as we move rapidly towards Holy Week and Easter. I have spoken previously of the Sundays in Lent as touchstones on this journey, a journey in which we are called to “… repent, and believe in the good news.”[1] Each Sunday has been an invitation to reflect on this in different ways, to acknowledge the brokenness of our humanity while engaging with the unlimited nature of God’s love so evident in Jesus’ embrace of the call on his own life, which leads him to Jerusalem and the cross.

In today’s Gospel John has somewhat stolen the march on us, as Jesus is already in Jerusalem, having been welcomed by the crowds with palm branches and those rousing words, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord— the King of Israel!”[2] and we find Jesus already at the Temple preparing for the Passover. Today’s Gospel narrative importantly begins by reminding us of the cosmopolitan nature of those present in Jerusalem and also preparing for the Passover: some Greeks find Philip and ask to see Jesus;[3] and it is this request that acts as a catalyst causing Jesus’ declaration that “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,”[4] an hour that Jesus up to this point in John’s Gospel has regularly indicated has not yet come. We discover that the Greeks’ desire to see Jesus has substantial implications for any who would follow Jesus and serve the purposes of the kingdom, that it involves a very deep level of commitment and a willingness to put one’s life on the line. Yet this is balanced with the promise of God’s presence in Jesus and an acknowledgement that such commitment is highly cherished by God.

Last week I asked the question, “What do we believe?” but we also need to ask, “What do we experience?” Trust is generally inherent in belief in terms of our faith, yet our ability to trust (or not trust) is most often determined by our experience. If we are to offer ourselves in service to the degree that Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel indicate, our levels of trust in God’s willingness to cherish our offered vulnerability become key to us embracing the journey we are called to. How do we know, how do we truly trust that God is present, especially when we know there are times we feel God to be absent despite the affirmation of Scripture and the testimony of Godly people down the ages that even when God appears absent God is in fact present? Too often in my own thinking I see presence and absence as polarities and ignore the possibility that presence and absence may exist on a continuum. Pádraig Ó Tuama helpfully speaks of the presence of the presence and the presence of the absence, and says, “At times in our spiritual life we feel alone, but are not afraid; at other times we are surrounded but are still undone. There is no conflict between these. We move back and forth, sometimes in the presence of consolation, other times in the presence of absence.”[5] Somewhat paradoxically Pádraig is reminding us that God is always present, that the continuum itself is presence, so that God is even present in absence (as tough as that may be to get our minds around).

On our Lenten journey I tend to see Palm Sunday as the point at which we shift from preparation to immersion in the events of Holy Week, but in John’s Gospel the fulcrum is this interaction in the Temple, probably in the court of the Gentiles, an important affirmation that what God is up to in and through Jesus is purposed for all humanity and not just for one group or nation. You and I are drawn into this story, invited to participate. As we grapple with our own issues of trust, with our often faltering awareness God’s presence, John shares an image of Jesus troubled in soul yet confident in his unity with the Father, able to embrace both this moment of awareness and the reality of the tussle with “the ruler of this world”[6] that lies ahead of him. Again in Pádraig Ó Tuama’s words, “[Jesus] is aware of being loved; he is troubled but not undone; he has assurance of the way forward; and he sees glory on the other side of despair. There are times in our lives, when, in the face of difficulties, we have a deep assuredness, and this assuredness keeps us steady.”[7]

Today, in the narrative from John’s Gospel, we are offered this assuredness. Let us trust God to be present with us even in the presence of absence as we face the challenges of life and relationship in these continuedly uncertain and extraordinary times.

Let us pray,

Mysterious Jesus

what we do not know

is what all this was like for you.

Your friends told stories

and their friends wrote them down.

And we wonder:

were you in the presence of great presence? or were you in the presence

of an absence.

In all our experiences of presence

and absence,

help us remember the story to which we are called. A story of love, of generosity,

of justice, of truth.

Knowing that presence will come and go, but the call to love

never fails.

Amen.[8]

---

[1] Mark 1:14; NRSV

[2] John 12:13; NRSV

[3] John 12:2-21; NRSV

[4] John12:23; NRSV

[5] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Fifth Sunday in Lent, https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/302_fifth-sunday-in-lent.pdf

[6] John 12:31; NRSV

[7] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Ibid.

[8] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Ibid.

Sermon: 4th Sunday in Lent

 Sermon: 4th Sunday in Lent

14 March 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; and John 3:14-21; NRSV

Welcome to this 4^th Sunday in Lent, which is also Mothering Sunday – and for those joining us from the UK, their Mothers’ Day celebration. Importantly for us in the context of our worship it is yet another touchstone on our Lenten journey, one that asks us to look upon the cross and ask, “What is it we believe?” It is a question asked in the context of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, one we enter half way through this morning. It may be helpful to recognise that although this conversation is with Nicodemus it has broader application, especially in the context of rebirth  (the use of the word “you” is plural[1]; an invitation perhaps for us to participate in the conversation?). We enter the conversation as Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of the necessity for the Son of Man to be lifted up in order for the eternal nature of life to be offered to those who believe.[2] The reference here is distinctly to the cross, although this early in John’s Gospel narrative the implications are unlikely to have been clear to Nicodemus. Today, as this passage invites us to look at the cross, what is it that we believe?

Our Lent course has helped us reflect on this question over the past three weeks as we have engaged with Rowan William’s[3] thinking and have been challenged to engage with what we believe, to see the Cross in a fresh light, and to see in the cross the victory alongside the sacrifice; and in the next couple of weeks to reflect on what this victory over death and evil looks like in the context of resurrection two millennia ago, and in our own time. Ultimately it is not about seeing the cross, it’s about seeing Jesus, and seeing the love of God active not only on the cross, but in the fullness of Jesus’ life and ministry and in his resurrection and ascension; and allowing what we believe to actively impact the course of our own lives: our attitudes and actions; our values and our legacy.

As we hear the opening words of today’s Gospel our minds are drawn to an occasion in the book of Numbers[4] (a memory helped by having just a heard it as our Old Testament reading today). The broader narrative context is that the Israelites have just won their first major victory over the Canaanites in the form of the king of Arad who controlled part of the Negev dessert south of the Promised Land. The mention of Mount Hor suggests a possible earlier narrative inserted at his point, but its placement here points to the Israelites’ fickleness, that despite a great God-given victory they are dissatisfied, and while this dissatisfaction is aimed at God and at Moses it quickly becomes clear that it fact they are bored with the daily provision of dessert manna (not surprisingly, perhaps) and desire a more varied diet. The detail of their complaint is less important than the “… narrative arc: sinful behaviour, followed by a negative divine response, then repentance, and finally, divine restoration.”[5] The divine response, the poisonous snakes whose bite kills, become the source of divine restoration when an image of a poisonous snake is raised up on a pole. The connection John is wanting his listeners to make is that the “… physical gift of healing in Numbers is transformed into the spiritual gift of salvation … .”[6]

We all too easily use phrases like eternal life and the spiritual gift of salvation (or just salvation), but what do we mean by them? In the context of the earlier part of Jesus conversation with Nicodemus Jesus speaks of rebirth,[7] and so I suggest when we speak of eternal life and salvation we are speaking of our awakening to the core of our humanity, that aspect that carries the image of God, and that when awoken enables us to reach beyond the brokenness of our humanity and increasingly embrace the love that is God. By gazing upon the cross and recognising it as a symbol of the very worst of our humanity, slowly awakening to the sacrifice of obedience that Jesus death on the cross is, then recognising the victory of love that the cross represents, we are healed as our brokenness is transformed by love. The cross, rather than being a reminder of the worst of our humanity is transformed into a symbol of the best of who we are when awake to love, forgiveness and freedom.[8] In this context John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”, a verse much quoted on its own (and a part of today’s Gospel reading), begins to make some sense. The sacrifice is not substitutional, but a gift of obedience. In Rowan Williams’ words:

“Obedience is not springing to attention and hastily doing what you are ordered. Obedience is a harmony of response to God so that God sees in the world a reflection of his own life … his selfless love reflected, … his beauty mirrored back to him … .

“In Jesus there is the divine action of love mirrored back to God through the medium of human life. … Our language about sacrifice has shown us a God who is giving and receiving and responding, … a God who is himself relationship.

“… it’s not about what I am doing here, but about what God is doing. … It is God’s act outside us, not up to us; something that God has accomplished.”[9]

I return to our touchstone for today: as we gaze on the cross, what is it that we believe? And how is our belief transforming our lives and our lived actions? How are our lives mirroring God’s beauty back to God? 

Let us pray,

Strange man of Nazareth

You poked and prodded people around you.

People who had power were provoked into questions,

people with curiosity, too; you scraped surfaces,

willing to risk irritation or aggression in the name

of truthful encounters.

In our lives — tired and under demand as they are in

this time of pandemic — enliven us by the kind of

conversation that is unforgettable. Meet us

with ourselves as you meet us.

Because this is the water of life. You

drank from it. You needed it.

So do we.

Amen[10]

---

[1] John 3:7; NRSV

[2] John 3:14-15; NRSV

[3] Roman Williams God with Us: The Meaning of the Cross and Resurrection – then and now

[4] Numbers 21:4-9; NRSV

[5] Henry T C Sun, Commentary on Numbers 21:4-9 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-numbers-214-9-5

[6] Ibid

[7] John 3:7; NRSV

[8] Roman Williams, Ibid

[9] Roman Williams, Ibid, Page 32-34, 38[10] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Fourth Sunday in Lent, https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/300_fourth-sunday-in-lent.pdf