As Father Paul is preaching in church today, I thought I’d write about money. That may well mean that you stop reading here, but if you do so, you’ll never know if I’m talking about the need for it to look after our buildings, or if we are giving it out. We actually do give money out reasonably regularly – occasionally in cash or buying a product or service to give to someone in need, or in having the heating turned on, or having insurance, or one of a number of myriad ways that we pay out so that those who worship with us can do so without stress or worry. I hope that we would not have our tables turned over in our temple, as so often, the money seems to go another way entirely!Every week in churches throughout the world as we do here, baskets of money will be carried up the aisle. Sometimes they are presented to the priest who presides at mass, although I find this as toe curlingly embarrassing as when people bow or curtsey to me – I had a lot of curtseyers in London, and every time I would try and steady them and say ‘oh dear, is it your arthritis?’ until this habit ceased! There are many variations in the way this collecting and presenting of money is done but anyone who was completely ignorant of Christianity might think that money was, because of the way it is collected and processed, pretty central to Christian worship, and I think in some churches it probably is. Yet in today’s Gospel, Jesus overturns the money changers tables, and throws them out. Has something gone badly wrong with our liturgy? I don’t think it has. There is a difference between the offertory procession and the actions of the money changers, but it is a subtle one but one worth knowing. In the early Church, it would be easier to see the difference since the offertory procession would mean bringing up bread and wine for the Eucharist made in the homes of the people, as well as food for the poor. It would also include money and here we should be clear. There are plenty of verses which clearly look on money with a scornful eye. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. (1Timothy 6:10) If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? (Luke 16:11). Judas betrays Jesus for money. Still the fact that these works are uncomfortable with Judas having so banal a motive as a desire for money, shows that we all have an uneasiness about money. Really, the amount of money that Judas betrayed Jesus for was a small amount, tokenistic, you might say, of his decision to switch camps and work for the oppressor once he realised that the Messiah was not going to be quite what he was hoping for.We may hope for enough money to pay our bills, to feed us, to keep our church open, to have enough left over to help others do the same as well, and hope here is a virtue, as long as we also work towards that hoped for outcome. Hope without God as its object though is merely an emotion, and it can be a very destructive emotion. It is this emotional hope which makes people preoccupied with money for its own sake, which makes them compulsive gamblers, which makes them always look for a new partner, who will bring them happiness. The keynote of this hope is to look not at what we have but what we don’t have. Happiness is always around the corner, but there is always another corner. So Christ clears the temple of those who have lost sight even of the hope offered by the old covenant. They were in the temple of God and they were thinking of everything except God. In effect they weren’t really in the temple, because the Temple is the presence of God and they sought another idol.The virtue of hope this Lent is maybe based in the Cross, in the actions and reactions that led to it, and in the offering made upon it, for us and for all humanity. Love and hope became entwined on that tree and if we hope to keep our church open, and if we hope to have enough left to help others live as we live, then we do so out of love not of money but love of our neighbour, love of God. This is why we give to the church that gives to us, and why that money is set aside, taken into the Sanctuary, because unlike the Temple in those ancient days, we are using these offerings to bring hope to people out of love for each other, not out of love for money – however, if you do find yourself loving money, the best remedy is certainly to give it away!
It’s not very easy to have a mental picture of the Disciples, or the Gospel stories. I suppose I would set them in the only hot, dusty place I know well, which is Cyprus in October, when the harvests have been taken in and the land is barren, maybe just some olive groves yet to harvest and turn those black, bitter pearls into rich, golden olive oil. Maybe I can picture Jesus and His disciples there, by the ‘Coca Cola’ sign advertising the Steni Taverna, the view from which is like nothing other than the opening scenes of the original Star Wars film, and you half expect Han Solo to come walking in, ordering a round of drinks. I can picture them in the Taverna as well, ordering food, eating and drinking – because they surely must have done – and the looks from the other customers – I wonder if as many wanted to sit near them as wanted to sit away form them? It would be easy to extend this mental fantasy to the time after the Ascension, before they went their own way, excitedly but reluctantly maybe breaking up the followship to take the Good News of what they had heard and seen all over the world, Thomas to quite different landscapes in India, Luke to Cyprus, John to his prison in Patmos. They may have laughed, teased each other, remembering the old days and by their words, beginning the long and complex process of the Gospels being written, woven from fragments of conversations, and lived shared experiences into these words that mean so much to us.Then, after the lamb and flatbreads are eaten, one of them looks at Peter and says, “So Peter, tell us about the day you rebuked Jesus!” Another joins in, “I wonder how did that work out for you?” Another, “What were you thinking about, Peter?” Peter begins to speak, “I just didn’t like the whole suffering and dying conversation. I didn’t get it. That’s not what I signed up for. That’s not who I thought the Messiah would be.” The others become quiet. They recall that day like it was yesterday. They begin to realize that Peter didn’t say anything they weren’t thinking and maybe Peter didn’t say anything we haven’t thought or even wanted to say. Jesus has a very different understanding of discipleship than what most of us probably want. If we are really honest haven’t we, at some point, disagreed with Jesus, asking why he doesn’t do what we want? Why won’t he see the world our way? It all seems so clear to us, with the sight that we have of the world that we live in and help to create.If he can cast out the demons surely he could silence the voices that drive people so deep into themselves that they cannot find the way back. If he can heal Peter’s mother-in-law why not those we love? If he can cleanse the leper why does our life sometimes leave us feeling unclean and isolated? If he can make the paralytic walk why are so many crippled by fear, dementia, or addiction? Yet they rage on, violence, war, poverty. If he can feed 5000 with a few fish and pieces of bread why does much of the world to go to bed hungry, crying at the end of the day?I have wondered about these things. I have been asked these kinds of questions. I know some who have lost faith and left the Church over these things. These are our rebukes of Jesus. Our echoes of Peter. He is not being or acting like we want either – and nor do we act like Him. Peter has an image of what the Messiah is supposed to do and who the Messiah is supposed to be and we like that image because it gives us what we want.Jesus will not, however, conform to our images of who we think he is or who we want him to be. We either choose ourselves and deny Jesus or we deny ourselves and choose Jesus. “If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” I suspect that is not what Peter had in mind when Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” The Messiah is supposed to offer security, protection, and put Israel back on top. Faith in Jesus, Peter is learning, is not about the elimination of risks, and the ability to control. Instead, Jesus asks us to risk it all and relinquish control to God. That is what Jesus is doing and it’s slightly terrifying.As long as we believe our life is about us, we will continue to exercise power over others, try to save ourselves, control our circumstances, and maybe even rebuke Jesus. Jesus rarely exercised power over others or tried to control circumstances. He simply made different choices. Discipleship is not about being out of control or powerless. It is about choosing a different, greater power.Jesus chose to give in a world that takes, to love in a world that hates, to heal in a world that injures, to give life in a world that kills. He offered mercy when others sought vengeance, forgiveness when others condemned, and compassion when others were indifferent. At some point those kinds of choices will catch the attention of and offend those who live and profit by power, control, and self-preservation They will not deny themselves. They will respond. Jesus said they would. He knew that he would be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes. It happens in every age for those who choose the path of self-denial. When it happened for Jesus, he made one last choice. He chose resurrection over survival. It’s a brave, difficult path we tread, and we tread it together because not one of us can manage it on our own.
As we stand, possibly on the brink of war it is useful to remind ourselves that war is the ultimate arrogance, thinking that by violence we can overcome violence. True enough, our impaired humanity has to rely sometimes on force to counter the force practised by evil men. That is why civilised communities have police whose ultimate deterrent is force, but which is employed according to a law which is based on mutual benefit, but force is in no way a solution; it signals the breakdown of humanity. Sooner or later the broken pieces have to be mended if we are not to founder into total inhumanity, and in that foundering, in that rupture, we find ourselves at the start of Lent, a time which has elements of foundering and rupture within it. In this context, it is worth remembering that the sabbath is made for us, not us for the sabbath – so let’s not obsess about what we may or may not have given up or taken on for Lent. As I do every year, I would like to say that for some people, it is always Lent, for some, Lent cannot come soon enough and that a pork chop will not make you a bad person any more than a piece of haddock will make you a good person – take up, leave behind or put away whatever helps you to grow in love this Lent. If we go through Lent thinking ‘I wish I could have a milkshake’ then we infantilise ourselves and we trivialise our faith.For us to accept it or faith, the Bible must present to us, urgently, a recognisable picture of what our lives are like, by showing us what the problems are, how to deal with them and what happens if we make the wrong decisions. The Bible shows what life is like just as much as it shows what life should be like, It has been accepted as the reference book for Christianity because it best shows, not only what life should be like, but also what life is like, which is why it is so arresting to our senses. In the scriptural battle to keep order and chaos separate, we are shown what happens if chaos overtakes us, as well as what happens if we live in God’s perfect order – war or peace, humanity or inhumanity, love or hate, things are as simple as that and if Lent gives us one gift, it is the gift of perceiving this more clearly. We see war and chaos in the desert and the battle with the Devil, we see hate in the mob shouting for the death of Christ, and we see peace and humanity as the gifts of discipleship and we see love raising Lazarus and offering itself on the Cross.Today we hear the creation narrative, how God brought order to chaos, how the formless, watery dark, chaotic matter of earth became a regulated place of day and night, or water and land, light and darkness. In that creation of a place for us to live and our rejection of it is the promise of the Word made Flesh and the new covenant – but not until the chaos came back, in the waters of the flood, a product of the chaos of sin. I don’t mean sin like not liking someone sometimes, but sin like a deliberate decision to reject the light and turn to the darkness where the devil calls us, suggesting that we are the only one who matters, enabling the greed of financiers, the subjugation of the poor, the raising up of the rich and the march to war, all of which brings back universal chaos and darkness.God saved Noah, but this was not a new beginning, God did not start from scratch, he did not separate the waters again, but simply turned off the tap and we no longer had the same relationship with the earth which we had previously, we were not created anew, but He simply worked with the survivors to create the hope that things will turn out better this time. This Lent, lets give flesh to that hope. Eating a pork chop will not stop this happening, and eating fish will not make it happen. We are called to change ourselves, not to temporarily adopt a faddy diet. We are not making a fresh start, nor a new beginning, and we can’t because we are the same people. Whatever we do, we take ourselves with us and I find that the whole concept of fresh starts is wrong. In the Gospel we hear how John was baptising people in the River Jordan, trying to put some order back into their chaotic lives. Jesus joined them but having got some kind of order into his life from that, chaos soon returned when he was driven by the Spirit into the desert, that place of chaos where mankind doesn’t have control. Jesus emerges from this experience of life in all its chaotic complexity ready to proclaim the Good News – we are not trying to avoid the Devil, but to show that our faith is stronger than the devil is, and that the world is once again falling into chaos but our God reigns and we have a lot of work to do. At the danger of being an old hack, this has nothing to do with pork chops and haddock. The choice is between order and chaos, light and darkness, God and the Devil, salvation and damnation, not lamb leg or halibut.None of this will be easy and let us be honest and accept that we know we are going to fail, and God knows we are going to fail, yet the good news is that it doesn’t matter anymore than what we eat. So long as we keep trying as hard as we can, to always choose justice over oppression, to seek peace over war, to prefer light to darkness, to bind up the broken hearted and welcome the stranger in our land – then we shall come to Easter not as a new people, but as a people who have chosen to be who we were created to be, God’s chosen race, a holy nation, a people set apart to proclaim the mighty deeds of God in the desert, in the city and in our lives. If people know us for our love, rather than our diets, that is all that matters.
Something very beautiful is going on here, and it find its home in the Gospel reading today, of the Transfiguration. Like so much in our shared ecclesial life, it is not the obvious which moves us, but the oblique – the things that we only see because they are hidden, and we have, as people who seek for life in what looks like death and for blood in what looks like wine, and for fire in the water of a font, a certain ability, honed over two thousand years of the experience of the Christian people, to find these things.Many holy people seem to find this beauty all around them, and maybe we can be a little jealous of that apparent closeness to the divine, dwelling on the Holy Mountain, but as any of us who have spent any time in a Monastery will know, appearances can be deceptive and monks, I am sorry to say, harbour the same resentments and annoyances that we all do, but have to play them out in a much, much more confined world – maybe that does lead to a greater capacity for good? Many people also seem to live perpetually unaware of beauty and holiness and have little to no control of their resentments and annoyances and maybe people find that as attractive as the opposite, as online comments boxes and local newspaper articles suggest. Most of us live somewhere in-between. The in-between can be a place of hope, where we are held in the promises of Jesus Christ, or a place of despair, where we neither belong nor are strangers. There is the despair of metaphorical darkness where we are plunged into uncertainty which can result in enlightenment or perpetual fear, but there is also the despair that is just out of our field of vision, threatening homelessness, breakup, addiction, or serious illness – all of which can, terrifyingly, just happen to us.But something beautiful is going on here. Previously in the Scriptures, ‘A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: “If you want to” he said, “you can cure me.” The leper has been living in that place in-between which is so thoroughly defenestrated today in the Transfiguration, where there is either HERE or THERE or the Kingdom here with us. A leper cannot return to his home. Once you contracted leprosy, you were not allowed to return to your home but had to live in a place in between. People knew where you were, and food would be left for you, but you could not go near anyone else and of course you could never touch anyone else. Yet, this man has not lost his hope, because he believed that Jesus can cure him and he has courage still that he could live a full life again. In response to our call to Jesus to cure us, which may well at this time of year as we approach Lent be a call to cure us of our sins and to find mercy and rightness with Him again. In response to the call of any member of His body, He reaches out and touches us – and through our sins being forgiven He transfigures us.‘Reaching out’ is a phrase so commonly hear, but not ‘reaching out and touching’, for we live in a society where touching is, probably quite rightly, not encouraged. I don’t mean shaking hands, or among those familiar with each other, but if you were hugged by the cashier at Tesco you’d be rightly shocked and offering of charity does not give the donor any rights over the recipient, so why am I spending so much time looking at this physical action between Jesus and the leper before we look at the Transfiguration?There is a very good reason. Jesus touches the leper. Jesus touches the leper – this means that in reaching out and touching, he knows that he will no longer be able to return to his home, to his place in the community, for He has touched a leper and we are told that: ‘Jesus could no longer go openly into any town but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived.’ This self-imposed exile will be completed on the cross, his bodily wounds the reminders of the wounds of the leper and a reminder of our own lack of humanity, our failure to respond to the cries of those who suffer. But it is given a home here as well, on the Mount of the Transfiguration, when the Man who touched the leper and becomes an outcast is recognised by the Old Covenant and by the Father. Most of us live somewhere in between the leper and this mountain, although we long to reach out, instead we hover, aware of how much we might lose in this life and not quite sure about how much we will gain in the next. Just like Peter, we try and find a via media, a way to keep what we have and what we yearn for - a tent to contain Jesus, of our own making. But this is amusingly futile! Yet something beautiful is happening here because in the final twist of the story, we discover that we are not watching the transfiguration, we have a part to play in it, and our part is to become a witness to Jesus, in whose body we live, but we become Jesus by first of all being the Leper, then by being Peter, then by walking with Christ with Mary and John to the Cross, then by our baptism in water and fire and coming back to the faith of the leper and saying ‘you can save me’, and by His touch we are healed, and by our becoming part of His body, we are also become healers of others, through His power. And then we need not be scared of illness or death anymore, because something beautiful is happening here, and it is truly good, Lord, to be here.
