‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth’ – The Very Reverend Dominic Barrington, Dean of York

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I was pondering this morning whether the editor of the BBC Sunday programme had been disregarding that instruction from the prophecy of Isaiah – the instruction to disregard ‘the former things’. There was a fascinating account of an important local story, as you may well have heard yourselves, or you may have read in the local press. The Bar Convent has unearthed a quite remarkable treasure: an Arma Christi scroll, dating from around 1475. A scroll – one of only eleven now of its kind extant in the modern world – that is in essence a meditation on the ‘instruments of the Passion’ – Christ’s ‘arms’, if you like. A meditation on the instruments of the Passion and of the true image of Christ, associated with Saint Veronica mopping his face on the way to his crucifixion.

On the report of this in the Sunday Programme, Sister Ann, the redoubtable Superior of the convent, remarked that, in today’s world, ‘the Passion is the last place people want to go, and yet,’ she said, ‘it is the place we need to go.’

Rather interestingly, in terms of a juxtaposition, this item on the programme was followed immediately by a report about a woman called Paula White-Cain, who is the Senior Adviser on Faith to the White House. We heard a report about a video that she has put out through her ‘Ministries’ (she’s a very successful evangelical preacher in the United States), which was talking (I thought, perhaps, rather strangely, to my ears as a Christian) about the fact that this is time for ‘God’s divine appointment with you’, because this is ‘Passover Season’.

And on offer to the faithful in Passover Season are seven ‘supernatural blessings’ that are available to us. Blessings including the assignation of a personal guardian angel, as well as also having an enemy to fight your own enemies; very predictably, giving you prosperity; taking away sickness; assurance of a long life of increase and plenty; and ensuring that it is going to be an all-round special year of blessing.

There was, of course, a slight catch to this. Quoting a verse from Exodus 23, she, and those who work with her, are very keen that you don’t appear, to use the Biblical term, ‘empty-handed’, and for donations of a minimum of at least $1,000, not only will you be in line for the seven supernatural blessings – you’ll also get a 10” Waterford Crystal cross!

I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth do you not perceive it?

Possibly those two extraordinary stories from the Sunday programme are old hat – medieval piety and Pentateuchal pre-Christian practice. But if we wanted to see something new ‘spring forth’ this past week, it has certainly been on offer in the world of global trade, in the big announcement of ‘Liberation Day’ by Mr Trump. He, at least in modern times, is up to something new with the introduction of tariffs, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that the whole world has perceived what he’s up to.

We all saw the great scoreboard. China hits us 67% – we’re hitting back with 34%. The European Union hits us with 39% – we’re hitting back with 20%. Japan hits us with 46%, we’re hitting back with 24%. He is nothing if not confident of the rightness of his course of action. If he were to paraphrase that prophecy from Second Isaiah that we just heard read, I’m certain that he believes that he will be giving ‘drink to his chosen people’…and doing so, quite possibly, ‘so that they might declare his praise.’

I was wondering, as I watched this news unfold and I looked at that poignant reading from the gospel, what Judas might have made of the economic blessings of Mr Trump’s tariffs, let alone the supernatural blessings on offer from Paula White-Cain’s ministries. I think he might have felt that he was in good company, because Judas, of course, is the ultimate ‘transactionalist’ (if that’s a word) – the ultimate transaction-maker of the New Testament narrative: Why was this perfume not sold and the money given to the poor?

Judas’s choice, Judas’ outlook is a ‘tariff outlook’. It’s framed with the language of economic value: ‘we could have done something better with this fruit of the work of 300 days labour – we could have done something better than squander it like this.’

‘We could,’ so he claims, ‘have done something more effective with the poor’. And, of course, as the evangelist allows us to understand in a side note, the real thing that’s going on for Judas isn’t so much the economic waste of the product, as the self-interest – the question of how you personally exact the best outcome. And, just possibly, that is something we can see in more modern-day transactionalist approaches.

Certainly, Judas’ outlook is in sharp contrast to that of Mary. She is not remotely interested in economic value or in what can be obtained by a transaction. If we ought to think about ‘doing a new thing’ and making sure we ‘perceive’ it, it is, I believe, Mary who is offering us the role model that is important as we enter the season of Passiontide. For she is, quite simply, giving a gift – an extraordinary, outlandish gift, if, indeed, that perfume was worth 300 denarii. And she’s giving it without any sense of receiving anything back in return.

That’s a gift that as, we enter Passiontide, is iconic – because it is a gift iconic of God’s relationship with the world. And the challenge, as we enter these last two weeks before Easter, is absolutely to make sure that we perceive it. So how, indeed, are we going to do that? How, indeed, do we manage to do this when we are surrounded by the world of transaction in so many ways, from global economics, to the self interest that we recognize when we look honestly in the mirror at ourselves.

How will we perceive anew what God is doing? What God has always been doing, and which is, in its way, always new? Well, I have a suggestion that those of us who claim to be disciples might want to take seriously in Passiontide. Next Sunday is, of course, Palm Sunday, and we enter then into Holy Week. And Holy Week is the crowning glory of Lent. And if Lent is the time to spring-clean our discipleship – our Christian commitment – our lives – then Holy Week is the absolute nub and focus of that.

With us next Sunday morning will be Canon James Walters, the Director of the Faith Centre of the LSE, and, to my mind, one of the best thinkers, writers and preachers in the Church of England today. Jim is with us not just on Palm Sunday, but throughout Holy Week, preaching for us day by day by day.

If you’ve looked at the notice sheet you’ll see that he is preaching on the title Bearing Fruit from the Seed that Dies – a reference to Galatians 5, and the fruits of the Spirit that are showered on the disciples of Jesus. The fruits of the Spirit that are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those fruits of the Spirit will be set in the context of the last days of Jesus’ life.

I want to suggest, and I hope that people won’t take this the wrong way, that it might be just a little bit transactionalist if we turn up on Palm Sunday and sing ‘Hosanna’, and then live out an ordinary, normal week, and the next time we set foot in church is Easter Sunday, when we sing ‘Alleluia’ and celebrate the Resurrection.

That feels to me sightly transactionalist, because it doesn’t give us the chance to take advantage of what the Church offers in Holy Week – it doesn’t give us the chance to walk alongside Jesus, to recognize what it really means to say God is doing something new, and give us the chance to perceive it. To perceive it in the little services on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week, and in the great dramas of the liturgies of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and when we strike the first light of Resurrection in the darkness not of Easter Sunday morning, but in the darkness of the Saturday night.

In the world in which we live today, when transactionalism is so much the guiding stuff of secular life, I want to suggest we need to get our eye in and refocus if we are indeed going to perceive what God is up to – what it means to focus again on God’s grace, and God’s generosity as we walk towards Easter.

Really, it is about choices – about the choices disciples make. Do we chose the Arma Christi and Sr Ann’s advice that, actually, the Passion is what we need – or do we choose the great supernatural blessings that can be ours, complete with the 10” Waterford cross, if you’ve got $1,000 to spare?

Judas and Mary, in the story we heard read just now, they both make their choice. The curious thing – the coincidental thing – is that both their choices lead to a death on Good Friday. And, in one case, that death is the final chapter in the book. Judas dies, having realised the emptiness of his transactional life; Judas dies despairing of that 300 denarii he could have got his hands on, and the lack of value of thirty pieces of silver.

Mary’s choice leads to someone else’s death, for she had, indeed, bought that precious ointment for the day of his burial – but in her act of grace, iconic of God’s act of grace, that story does not end on Good Friday. This Passiontide, as I look in the mirror, I urge myself and I urge each one of you to make the right choice and perceive anew all that God is doing. Amen.

‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near’ – The Reverend Canon Timothy Goode, Congregational Discipleship and Nurture

“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near”

May I speak in the name of the living God who is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. Amen

As we pass the 5^th anniversary of the first Covid 19 lockdown, it feels apt that one response to our readings might be to ask, ‘Why do bad things happen, and why does God seem so slow to act?’

For in today’s Gospel, Jesus is also confronted with suffering and tragedy. Some Galileans have been slaughtered by Pilate; a tower in Siloam has collapsed, killing eighteen. The crowd has come to Jesus with the same questions we ask today: Why? Why them? Why now? Was it their fault? Was it divine punishment?

Jesus offers neither easy nor glib answers. Rather, somewhat surprisingly he instead offers an uncompromising warning: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5) and follows his warning by sharing the parable of the barren fig tree.

His words are razor sharp, urgent, and deeply unsettling. Instead of blaming others, Jesus demands that we look at ourselves. The real question isn’t why suffering happens – it’s what we are doing with the time we have left.

There is a great myth that pervades each generation. We want to believe that we are in control, that good people get rewarded and bad people get what they deserve. But Jesus blows this myth apart. The victims of Pilate’s brutality and the fallen tower aren’t singled out for their sins. Actions have consequences, tragedy happens, we live interdependent lives and none of us are immune from the changes and chances of life.

And we are living in deeply unsettling times. The ground which we inhabit no longer feels stable. The post war consensus is falling apart. Once trusted allies are no longer reliable. The values of integrity, honesty and equity are ridiculed as woke, whilst popularism, isolationism and self-interest are lauded. Our society feels broken, ill at ease with itself. Within our contemporary culture, we are witnessing a new arena, a virtual colosseum, for the playing out of these culture wars.

I don’t know if any of us have managed to see the quite extraordinary and deeply challenging and affecting Netflix series Adolescence. I would highly recommend it. It is not an easy watch as it uncompromisingly lays bare how the distortions of social media, relentless online bullying, male rage, and the objectification of women, are shaping young lives in deeply destructive ways.

In one stark narrative, the simmering anger and dehumanisation that begins online escalates into a tragedy: a young boy, poisoned by a culture that glorifies dominance and aggression, is accused of stabbing a young girl.

It reminds us that our digital age, with its isolating echo chambers and relentless pressure to conform to harmful ideals, is just one more arena where sin takes root and flourishes.

This modern horror compels us to ask, just as we have asked over the ages: Why do bad things happen, and why does God seem so slow to act?

We are living at a time when the very tools that connect us also amplify our worst instincts. Social media often rewards cruelty and fuels anger, much like the mental tropes we repeatedly employ when disaster strikes. There is always the risk that we retreat, look outside of ourselves for someone to blame, and in doing so convince ourselves that if we cast the fault on others, we might be safe, that we might somehow shield ourselves from similar fates.

But as the series shows, and today’s Gospel reminds us, this temptation digs deep down into our very souls. When we allow rage, dehumanisation, and objectification to go unchecked, we risk a present and future where tragedy is not an anomaly but a symptom of a society which has turned away from empathy and compassion.

In responding to the suffering and tragedy all around us Jesus warns: Stop looking at others. Start looking at our own lives. Christian discipleship starts with us. It starts with how we relate to one another.

St. Augustine puts it bluntly: “God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” Suffering isn’t a divine scorecard – it’s a wake-up call. None of us have endless time. The question isn’t ‘Why do bad things happen?’, but ‘Are we are truly living as God calls us to live?’

Well, Lent is a season of repentance, where we seek to be attentive to God’s call on us.  Too often, we reduce repentance to a feeling of guilt or the words of a ritual. But biblical repentance – metanoia – means a complete reorientation of our hearts and minds towards God.

John Calvin – not someone I regularly quote – puts it this way: “Repentance is an inward matter, which has its seat in the heart and soul, but afterward yields its fruits in a change of life.”

C.S. Lewis, reflecting on repentance, wrote: “Fallen humanity is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.” True repentance is not a minor course correction – it is totally surrendering our ways to God’s ways.

The parable of the barren fig tree is call for urgency. Yes, the fig tree has been given time, but the window for fruitfulness is not indefinite. God is patient, but the focus of his patience is to lead us into action.

Isaiah in our first reading further draws us into the urgency of this call: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near”.

Our world is full of fig trees that bear no fruit. We see them all around us. We see them in all political systems that perpetuate injustice, violence and oppression, in churches that turn inward instead of outward, in our own lives when we delay doing what we know to be just and right. We assume we have endless time, but Jesus is telling us otherwise.

The barren fig tree in Jesus’s parable stands as a symbol for all that is unfulfilled, all those wasted opportunities to act in love, justice, and righteousness.

But this parable is not just about warning – it is also about hope. The gardener pleads for more time: “Sir, leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilise it”. Here is the grace of God at work in both word and deed. God does not give up on us. He nurtures, tends, and calls us to growth.

“Everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters” says Isaiah. God’s call is not one of condemnation but of invitation. He does not want us to remain barren; he longs for us to flourish. But flourishing requires a response.

Karl Barth once wrote, “God’s grace is not exhausted in merely forgiving sin, but is the power which transforms us and makes us new.” The delay of judgment in Jesus’ parable of the barren fig tree is not an invitation to complacency but a gift of time for transformation.

So, why does God seem slow to act? Perhaps the better question is, why are we so slow to respond? We wait for justice, we wait for peace, we wait for renewal – but all the time God is waiting for us to respond, to act.

Jesus’ words are clear: the time for repentance is now. The time to turn back is now. The time to bear fruit is now. Not out of fear, but because to live in step with God is to live in the fullness of God’s grace.

So, may this Lent be the time when we finally stop prevaricating and respond positively to God’s call. May we turn to God, not just in sorrow, but also confident in the hope and redeeming grace of God. And by doing so, may we, through God’s mercy, finally become the fig trees that produce the good fruit that God specifically created us to bear. Amen.

‘Going to the other side’ – Canon Peter Collier, Cathedral Reader

Now, we even give them names – the most recent was Eowyn, the next apparently will be Floris. And we colour code them – yellow and red. And they can cause much disruption to our North Yorkshire lives, with trains being delayed and cancelled, roads being blocked by fallen trees. And they are most dangerous along the seacoasts, with the risk of people being swept away and drowned.

I am talking of course about storms, of which we seem to have more of them than before, and when they come they seem to come with a greater severity than before. But today is not about climate change, it is about a storm on a lake 2000 years ago.

I wonder if like me you know the names of places in the New Testament but are not very good at locating them, and knowing where they are in relation to each other. Much of the time of Jesus’ ministry was spent around the Sea of Galilee. That sea is in the north of Israel, about 65 miles north of Jerusalem. As a lake it was about 13 miles north to south and 8 miles east to west. So quite a sizeable piece of water. Nazareth where Jesus grew up was about 15 miles to the west of the lake. And Capernaum where Jesus spent a lot of time with his disciples was on the top north-west shore of Galilee.

And it was thereabouts, that in the weeks preceding our gospel reading today, Jesus had been travelling, on foot of course, healing, and teaching, with large crowds gathered round him. The crowds came from all over the region – some from the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon some 40 to 50 miles away. They came to hear what he said and to be cured of their diseases.

We heard in our reading that in the midst of all that, one day, he got into a boat with his disciples and told them that they were going over to the other side – that is to the east side of the sea – an area now known as the Transjordan – or then as the country of the Gerasenes or the Gadarenes. It had a predominantly Gentile population. To the Jews, the people who lived there were unclean, because as we know amongst other things they kept pigs, as the story was later to unfold and involve.

This was a significant moment because Jesus was now taking his message beyond Jewish communities. He had obviously had contact with Gentiles who came to him, such as the centurion whose son was ill, but now he is intentionally going into the territory of the Gentiles. He is going literally and metaphorically to the other side.

On the way, in the boat, Jesus fell asleep and I guess many of us know the story that follows quite well.

A gale swept down and they were all are in danger. The disciples woke him up in panic – “Master, Master, we are perishing” they cried out. Jesus woke up and stilled the wind and the waves, and there was calm. Jesus then turned to them and asked them “what happened to your faith?”

There is a fuller account of what was said in both Matthew and Mark. Mark records the disciples as saying: “Teacher don’t you care that we are perishing?” And Jesus replied: “Why are you afraid …”, literally: “Why are you so cowardly. Have you no faith?”

We think of a coward as a person who is not willing to face danger or difficulty. It is more than just being afraid, it is the mindset that always seeks to avoid difficulty. Jesus does not criticise them for being afraid, fear was natural in the circumstances, but he was touching on how they handled their fear. He is saying to them that fear and faith should go alongside each other.

Rather than “Lord – don’t you care?” the response might have been “Lord we are afraid, we could drown, but we know you can handle it!”

So how are we to apply this to our own lives and situations – after all the Bible is given to us not so that we can become theologians but so that we can become disciples.

There is a long-established tradition of looking at this story figuratively – seeing our circumstances as the storm around us, circumstances that could so easily overwhelm us and make shipwreck of our lives.

But there is a danger in that approach, if we simply say that if we cry out to God, whether without or with faith, God will still the storm and bring us back into calm waters.

Because we know it doesn’t work like that – Christ doesn’t always calm the storms in our lives; God doesn’t always intervene to take away our problems. Illnesses prevail. Family and close friends for whom we pray still die. The family fallout remains unresolved.

Yes, sometimes God does intervene and things do change unexpectedly and dramatically, but that in our day is the exception rather than the rule. It isn’t a matter of if we call on God to wake up and do what we ask to be done, God is sure to do what we ask.

After all, the route of our faith lies in that Lenten journey we are about to embark on, the journey to Calvary and the cross. Jesus himself with his sweat like drops of blood cried out that if it was possible the cup should pass from him. “Nevertheless, not my will but yours” is what he prayed. And so he journeyed to and through the cross.

So for us – we often have to go to the other side – to enter the unknown, the new. It might be moving to a new home, or a new job. But there are many lesser unknowns. And we are constantly facing the unknown. This next week, day by day, we don’t know what we might face.

There will be much that will be familiar and that we will know. And, of course, we prefer what is known because we have more control over it. But into the midst of the usual routine quite often there comes something different and unexpected. It might be an illness we contract. It could be the death of someone near to us. It might be something happening in our family that causes us difficulty and pain. It might be something in relation to our working life.

And as we go to the other side, and enter the new territory, the circumstances may suddenly seem overwhelming.

And we will find ourselves asking “where is God in all this?” We will identify with the disciples and their reaction as we ask – “Does God even know about it?” “Does God care?” “Is God asleep?” “Why is God letting this happen to me?”

And Jesus asks us whether in spite of our fear and whatever our feelings whether we will face into the danger or difficulty and trust him in and through the circumstances we are in.

He wants us day by day, whether in our usual territory or when we are going to the other side, whether we are facing the known or the unknown, increasingly to learn to trust in His overarching, undergirding, all surrounding love for us. It was for this reason that he came – to reveal to us the depth and length of God’s love for us. A love in which we can always find shelter and safety.

Amen.

‘The language of birth’ – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

May I speak in the name of the blessed and Holy Trinity, One God in three persons.

I’m not entirely sure that St Paul and I would have got on. He is a fascinating figure. All that fire and passion of persecution dramatically changed and redirected to establishing the early church. While he famously had his ‘Damascus road’ conversion, I’m not sure that it altered his personality. The skills he used to persecute Christians across Israel became the very same skills he used to empower a network of emerging churches. He brought the same intellect and debating skills to defend the Christian faith as he’s used to undermine it.

The reason I say that we might not have got on lies in his attitude towards women. While there’s the spectacular statement of equality – ‘in Christ there is neither male nor female’ – there is other stuff about wearing hats in church or, worse still, speaking in church. Today many men are wise enough to know that comparing any experience to childbirth is likely to get short shrift. I’m not sure whether St Paul had ever seen a child being born (perhaps he had) but he is happy to compare his role in birthing new churches with the travails of pregnancy.

In our second reading Paul writes to the Galatians:

My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, I wish I were present with you now and could change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Well, it’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure St Paul knew what it is actually like.

But I acknowledge that he did know something of the blood, sweat and tears involved in growing churches and the deep frustration that Christians often seem to have a hard time agreeing with one another.

There’s a reason that the time of giving birth is called ‘labour’ and, like other aspects of life, doing anything good can be costly and painful. St Paul certainly found it hard labour to form Christ in people so that their spiritual birth would lead to healthy growth. Sometimes I think that there are Christians so fixated on the birth bit that they forget that birth always leads to growth. Being ‘born again’ must mean that we embark on a journey to develop and change.

Despite my reservations about it, the metaphor of childbirth has merit. When we are born we enter a new community, and we share in the life of a new family and friends. Christ is formed in us as we learn what it means to be part of the church, and how we mature to serve God in one another. Perhaps the most exciting thing I find in the Gospels is that the Church often becomes the community for those who have been excluded elsewhere. Time and again Jesus welcomes the stranger; the wounded; the sick; the mad; and the maimed. The people pushed out into the wilderness and laden with the sins of others. It is for these – it is for us – that Jesus says ‘draw near with faith’.

Many years ago George McLoed, founder of the community on Iona in Scotland, is said to have written the following words of invitation to communion:

Come, not because you are strong, but because you are weak.

Come, not because of any goodness of your own, but because you need mercy and help.

Come, because you love the Lord a little, and would like to love him more.

Come, because he loves you, and gave himself for you.

This is the community into which St Paul and all apostles, ancient and modern, invite everyone to be born into – born into a new community of faith. Not because of virtue or strength, but because God already loves us and calls us.

The Catholic poet Elizabeth Jennings once wrote of seeing the “priest as midwife and as mother”, which is odd because the Catholic Church has an all male priesthood. Yet, as with St Paul, perhaps it is only the language of birth that can describe the radical power of what God in Christ creates in each of us.

If the church fulfils its calling, this is our great labour of love, to open our doors to all those in this life who, simply and solely, know their need of God.

‘The best has been saved for the last’ – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Evensong Epiphany: The best has been saved for the last.

One of the scariest, but also most beautiful, experiences in my life was meeting an elephant.

We were on safari in the Serengeti, safe in a vehicle, and I had every confidence that the driver and guide knew what they were doing. For a moment the jeep came to a halt. To my left, out of the undergrowth, emerged the biggest elephant I’ve ever seen. It was HUGE.

I could also see, down below it, two young elephant calves, and I knew that mummy elephant was going to be very protective of her offspring. So, as you might imagine, I was both impressed and afraid. We might have been in a modern and safe vehicle, but we were no match for this behemoth.

Elephants have a long history in their contact with human beings.

You might know the parable of the blind people and the elephant. This story was first recorded about 500 years before the birth of Christ and features in several world religions.

In other accounts it is a group of sighted people who encounter an elephant at night.

Whatever the version of the tale, the message is the same. The people who find the elephant cannot see and each touch a different part of the beast. From the tail, to tusks, to toenails and the animal’s hide, each person gives an account of what they believe must be true for the whole of the creature. “It is a hard, bone-like animal, unyielding and sharp”. Or “it is made entirely of leather, rough to the touch but also soft and mobile”. And so the story goes on.

The people only begin to move towards the truth about the elephant when they have an ‘epiphany’. An insight, or moment of change, that leads them into greater understanding. The epiphany comes when they start listening to one another and piece the experience of each person into a tapestry of the whole.

Tonight, we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. In Christian theology it’s the time when the identity of Jesus begins to be revealed. From the Magi in their distant pilgrimage from the East, following a star, to the miracle of the water-become-wine. The stories of this season offer us glimpses of Jesus so that we might deepen our faith in him. Just as the disciples, the Magi, and the people around him began to grow in their understanding of Jesus, we are also called to make that journey.

The Epiphany for the people encountering the elephant was the dawning realisation that they didn’t have the full picture. It’s a humbling and complicated realisation. For us it means that we can’t go around haranguing other people about the Jesus we’ve found – because we only ever have a partial picture of who Jesus is. If we want to learn more, to expand our understanding and love of Christ, then we need to listen to other people.

There’s that lovely moment in the reading from John when the mother of Jesus tells the servants to ‘do whatever he tells you’. The only way they can do that is by listening to him. As the Church we listen to Jesus in many different ways, from prayer to reading the Bible. But we also hear Jesus speaking through those who are also trying to be faithful disciples, and for that reason, we need to listen to one another.

When the prophet Isaiah urges the people to ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’ it implies that new experiences, new epiphanies, should develop and renew the worship offered to God.

Isaiah invites the people to ‘Lift up your eyes and look around’. Forever looking inwards and to the past can limit our openness to new epiphanies. I appreciate that this can be frightening and unsettling. Hording our self-certainty can be far more appealing than setting off to a distant land; or listening to other people’s experience of God; or even saying in our prayers: ‘Lord, teach me new things’.

Part of the promise of Epiphany, thankfully, is that God doesn’t leave us alone. Isaiah says ‘yes’, there will be times when the land is darkened, and ‘thick darkness’ covers all the people. And this doesn’t sound very promising. But God always encourages us to lift up our hearts and have faith that beyond this darkness, beyond the difficulties in which we find ourselves, there is a wonderful future that we can hardly imagine. From empty bottles and a wedding party about to end in embarrassment, the situation won’t just be rescued – it will be transformed into more than the best we could ever imagine. The season of Epiphany invites us to ‘lift up our eyes’. To listen to the experiences of others who are on a journey of faith, and to grow in our understanding of God. And no matter how dark the days may seem, God promises that in this season, against all expectation and convention, the best has been saved for the last.

“Mary the first theologian of the Incarnation” – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Many of our Christmas cards might make birth in the first century seem a holy, simple and painless event. But, as we know, birth then – and birth in the Holy Land now – is far from safe or certain. Mary had a lot to think about.  

According to Matthew, Joseph wanted to dismiss her quietly; for her own good. I wonder how often down the ages, and still today, men have discarded their responsibilities, telling themselves: ‘it’s for her own good’.  

By contrast, in the Gospel reading we have just heard from Luke, Mary is portrayed as a confident young woman, travelling in haste to visit her also-pregnant cousin, Elizabeth.  

It is a meeting of great joy and affirmation when, in Elizabeth’s womb, John the Baptist leaps at the sound of Mary’s greeting. Theologically it’s as though John’s work has begun already, enlivened by the approach of Jesus – stirred into action in the presence of the one whose way he is destined to prepare.  

Of course, it is not uncommon in the later stages of pregnancy to feel the movement of a baby. For a mother it is a deep and somehow unexpected experience. A reminder of human life hidden within a human life. Almost 30 years ago, when I was pregnant, I would sometimes feel my child move while standing at the altar. I was aware of the life within in me, while I held in my hands the spiritual life Christ offers to each of us. 

We mustn’t think of Mary’s pregnancy as some sanitised and celestial form of an Air B&B for the Divine. It’s fine that the Orthodox churches often talk about Mary as ‘God-bearer’.  But if it is a Christian doctrine that the conception of Jesus was highly unusual, nothing suggests that Mary’s pregnancy was strange or unexpected. Consequently, I believe that Jesus wasn’t some divine spark sheltered in Mary’s womb. The incarnation includes the physical development of Jesus through all the usual stages of human change and growth. To put it more plainly – it means that Jesus was being co-created. 

It is this which brings God closer to us than we are to ourselves. Not an external, exterior, distant God – but God in Christ who has relinquished power in order to serve and to save.  

For that reason we must never forget the physicality of our faith at this season as the theologian John Bolland writes: “the Word becomes flesh so that the Word might be more easily – and literally – grasped: skin on skin, warm to the touch, pulsing with life”.   

Jesus is born as one of us. This is the starting point for the whole of the Christian faith. 

The saviour who passes through the broken waters and the blood of birth to bring new life to the world. It is painful and messy and traumatic – as many births are – but the Word made flesh is the spiritual life for all who put their faith in him.  

Our Gospel this morning ends just before Mary offers her magnificent, moving and revolutionary hymn of praise to God: the Magnificat. It is a song of reversed fortunes, where the proud are defeated in the imagination of their hearts, and the powerful are pulled from their thrones. But more than that, it is a triumphant declaration of a woman doing, and being, and speaking her own work of theology. Because of the outrageous hope that God has spoken into the life of Mary, Mary is liberated to praise a God who chooses what the world considers weak, in order to shame the strong. In recent weeks I have been moved by several examples of courageous women who have refused to be silent. Not least by the extraordinary, astonishing, and impressive Gisèle Pelicot. 

As we approach Christmas, we might be tempted to look upon Mary as the vessel of God’s salvation. The one chosen to carry Christ to birth. But Mary is so much more than that.  

She is the first theologian of the Incarnation. The first to perceive and understand the revolutionary change which God is bringing to the world. The first to worship and adore the child whose greatest desire is to lift up the lowly; to scatter the proud; and to empower the silenced to speak. 

‘The Upside-Down Kingdom’ – Canon Peter Collier, Cathedral Reader

May I speak in the name of the one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So we come again to the year’s end, the liturgical year, which means that today we are celebrating that Christ is King.

My first experience of monarchy was in 1957 – I was 8 years old, the Queen came to Hull and amongst the places she visited was a children’s home with which my father had some connection, and so we were there beside the steps as she went up into the building – almost touching distance. There was great excitement. Later in the day we went out to the village of Paull, beside the Humber estuary to watch as the royal yacht Britannia made its way out to sea to take the Queen on a state visit to Denmark. As you may gather it is a memory that has lived with me vividly ever since.

Some of you will have been here when the Queen visited York – perhaps in 1988 when she formally reopened the south transept after the fire, or perhaps when she distributed the Maundy money in 2012. Some of you I know were here on one or both of the King’s recent visits. Some of us had the privilege of being introduced to him. All these experiences shape our view of monarchy.

I know there will be different views amongst us today about monarchy. I wonder what is your image? According to Wikipedia there are 43 sovereign states that have a monarch as their head of state – most now have restricted powers, limited by their country’s constitutions, but there are still a few, a handful, where the monarch has absolute power. I expect many of you are enjoying the new series of Wolf Hall where we see the Henry VIII style of kingship wonderfully played out by Damian Lewis. Now there was a king. “off with her head”, meant the head rolled.

And Pilate had that sort of power – in his case it was power delegated from the emperor – but still power to decree life or death – no appeals, no stays, no convention on human rights there.

And he had all the other trappings of absolute power – a palace, wealth on display, all the resources he needed, and armed soldiers to enforce his bidding. That’s what kingship meant to Pilate.

And now he has been told that this man who is produced in front of him in chains claims that he too is a king.

And they have a discussion about kingship.

It is striking that the place in the gospels where this discussion about kingship takes place is not at the transfiguration, nor the resurrection nor the ascension, nor any other place where glory is on display. No, it is in the shadow of the cross. Jesus is a prisoner, accused of treason and facing a death sentence.  And there he has a discussion with Pilate about whether or not he is a king and, if so, what is the nature of his kingship.

What Jesus says about his kingdom – is that it is not from here; it is not of this world.

How can Pilate be assured of that? “Well” says Jesus “if it was a kingdom like the kingdoms of this world, like your kingdom Pilate – then my followers would be fighting to protect me from you because that is how kingdoms operate in this world”.

That was true then and it has been true ever since.

Earlier this year I read Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which takes us from the Roman conquest to the middle of the 8^th century. Covering the Anglo Saxon period when there were several kingdoms on this island. And I could not believe the number of battles that there were between various kings, often between people who were blood relatives.

Only last weekend we were remembering those who died in the two world wars of recent memory.

And in addition to the warring kingdoms of nations we now need to add the corporate kingdoms of business and enterprise. They also have real power in this world, power which they use to get yet more power, as they build their brands and their businesses in competition with one another.

So whether it is clans, tribes, nations, corporations – all under their kings wage war of one sort or another – it is all about conflict, about winners and losers.

Jesus says to Pilate – that is not what my kingdom is about. You want to know what it is about – well it is not about conflict but about truth. That’s what I came for – to testify to what is ultimately true. And my followers are those who listen to me to get that truth.

The truth which Jesus spoke about again and again is counterintuitive to the received ways of doing things – basically it is about turning the world upside down. In Acts 17 we read that when Paul and Silas went to Thessalonica it was said “these people who have been turning the world upside down have now come here”. And what lay at the root of that?” As the Thessalonian mob said “they are saying there is another king named Jesus”.

His mother Mary when told of his coming also spoke about things being turned upside down, about the God who looked upon her lowliness and who would thereafter scatter the proud, put down the mighty, send the rich away empty, and who would lift up the humble and meek and fill the hungry with good things.

Jesus himself often spoke in ways that were counterintuitive –

About greatness – he said whoever is humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

About leadership – he said it was about washing feet, and about service.

And as to how you should respond to being wronged – you should forgive – How much should we forgive each other – is it as much as 7 times? – “no” he said, “70 times 7’.

And so we could go on.

None of this makes sense by the standards of the kingdoms of this world, but it is what God’s kingdom is about. And when you hear it and hear about it and when you see it, you know it makes sense. You know it is the truth about how we should be living in this world.

But it is a challenge to all those received ways of working, and if you challenge the status quo of the powerful, they will try to silence you.

And for Jesus being true to that kind of kingship led to the cross.

Of course the ultimate truth is that it will not always be like this. One day he will reign in power. Daniel looked forward to that day as we heard in our first reading.

It spoke about one like a human being, or as some translations say “the Son of Man”, coming with the clouds of heaven, being presented to the Ancient of Days. “And to him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.”

Whilst that is then, that is not now.

Now we are still in this world, some of us have had and some of us do have positions of authority and so have power over other people; the expectation we have grown up with and that others have is that we can use that power to achieve what we want to achieve. And of course as we have been reminded in the last couple of weeks any abuse of power in the church can be so damaging. This morning, on this Feast of Christ the King, Jesus challenges us to live counterintuitively and counterculturally in his upside down kingdom.

Of course there will also be those here who have been on the wrong end of the exercise of power and authority. And for those there is real comfort in this gospel account too. We know that King Jesus has been there. And as his followers we are one with him – or you might say he is with us where we are – whether misunderstood, rejected, accused, powerless, or abused. He knows it, he gets it, and through his resurrection life and his transforming love can change our lives beyond measure.

Amen.

‘The Heart of Faith’ – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

When I am in the Minster, or just walking past it on the outside, I often hear words of admiration. “What an amazing building!”; “How did they build that without a single computer!”; “Look at the glass – it’s so beautiful!”. Perhaps those who have been coming here for several decades stop being awed by this magnificent structure – but I doubt it.

No matter how often you see it, it is always impressive. And no matter how well anyone thinks they know the Minster – every nook and cranny – we all, still, discover new things.

Big buildings, especially big churches and cathedrals, are designed to make us catch our breath. To speak in the materials of this world about another world and a different Kingdom.

To lead us to think beyond the materials from which they are made and to glimpse the glory, the peace, the splendour and the light of what is yet to come.

At the start of today’s Gospel, the disciples of Jesus are impressed by the Temple. Perhaps, like the Minster, the fact that people could bring together such a weight of things was almost beyond belief. “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings”. However, Jesus isn’t impressed. He knows that all kingdoms and empires come to an end. And, when they do, all their splendour turns to dust.

Later, from the Mount of Olives, the sight of the Temple still dominated the view of Jerusalem. A small group of the disciples are eager to know when this destruction will take place, and what will be the sign that it’s about to happen. Jesus answers that it will come, but not necessarily when we think it is due. The trouble we see around us in the world are the ‘birth pangs’ of what is to come.

As we know all too well, conflict and trouble have always been part of the sorry history of humanity. We long and pray for peace; but live alongside the reality of conflict. We all strive, as much as we can, to offer our small contribution to make the world a better and more loving place. That’s our calling and our mission, no matter how little we think we can achieve. We must “seek peace and pursue it”.

Today we will be baptising Ben into the faith at whose heart is the peace of Christ. It is this peace which we are called to seek, and to live out in our lives. This is partly why I love the heart that is depicted in stone and glass in the West window of the Minster. You can look round and look. In the vastness of this building something as human, and as hidden as a heart, is given pride of place. As if to say, no matter how impressive the building, God’s temple is found in the steady beat of a faithful heart. In lives which, even when these stones are turned to dust, are destined to dwell in immortality.

We have seen in the last few days how the Church can fail, all too easily, to put at its heart the love; care; compassion; and wisdom, the world should expect. This failure comes at a cost which is paid by the victims and survivors of abuse. Splendid buildings are not enough to safeguard the lives God loves, and that we – too often – have harmed. To change requires a determined heart, and the tenacity not to ignore the voices and signs of injury.

In a moment in this service Ben’s Parents and Godparents will be asked a very simple question:  ‘Do you turn to Christ?’. To turn means to set out in a new direction, and to follow Christ into all the mess and joy that life brings. We all know that life seldom unfolds in the ways we anticipate. We don’t know what the future will hold for Ben. What we do know, is that Christ promises to be there with us. In happy times and challenging times. To stir our hearts into life and know God’s love deep within our being. It is because God loves us that baptism is given as an unconditional sign of blessing. That through its waters we are born into a new community which has – and will – change the world for the better. It is this faith and hope which is the light carried in the heart of each and every person who comes to be baptised. It is the love which alone will last in both this world, and the next.

‘Seek him that maketh the seven stars’ – The Very Revd Dominic Barrington, Dean of York

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion and turneth the shadow of death into the morning.

Much of the gospel of Matthew depicts the growing tension between Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership of his time, especially in the person of the Pharisees. While this theme is not absent from any of the four gospels, it has a particular resonance in Matthew, the tone of which suggests that the context of this particular gospel may well have been set in a community of Jewish Christians which had separated very painfully from the synagogue, given how much opprobrium is directed at the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ nearer the end of the gospel.

The section of the gospel read as our second reading depicts the split with a painful and clear dichotomy – one that might have felt all the more poignant if we had heard the verses immediately preceding. For the very last verses of chapter eleven present us with Jesus at his most consoling, inviting all those who are ‘weary and carrying heavy burdens’ to come to him for rest. And then, so Matthew tells us, ‘At that time’  – at that very time – Jesus finds himself going through the cornfields, needing to satisfy the weary burden of human hunger – only to have the Pharisees accuse him of breaking God’s law.

And that’s not an accusation which plays well with Jesus, who has left behind the ‘gentle and humble’ persona depicted only a few verses earlier. As is often the case, when Jesus has an argument about the Law thrust at him, he gives back as good as he gets – indeed, he gives back rather better, throwing a line from Hosea at those who would condemn him, to top off a legal counter-argument in which he emerges as the victor.

Seek him that maketh the seven stars…

And that’s not enough. With a very clear sense of the growing division and enmity, Matthew tells us that Jesus then enters their synagogue (that possessive pronoun telling us all we need to know about the level of tension and division now in the air). And here the stakes are raised – raised from hunger to sickness and deformity. “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?”, they demand…. and, again, Jesus gives those who love to uphold the Law a lesson on what it might mean, properly, to do just that.

A lecture, and an action, that leave them conspiring ‘how to destroy him’. An attitude that simply encourages Jesus to cure ‘all’ of the ‘crowds’ that have begun to follow him, in the context of which Matthew aligns Jesus for us with that famous but shadowy figure from second Isaiah – the Suffering Servant – whose service and compassion for all people will enlighten the nations and bring justice to all.

Seek him that maketh the seven stars…

It is good – very good – this evening, to welcome members of York Medical Society to join us at this service, worshipping here at the Minster, as is their custom, on the Sunday following the feast day of St Luke, labeled in the New Testament as being the ‘beloved physician’.

Founded in 1832, the Society, so its website explains, exists to offer medical professionals ‘an environment removed from the workplace, and a rare opportunity to socialize across specialities in relaxed surroundings’. For those of us not privileged to belong to this wonderful body, I can reveal that in the coming weeks, they will be having a talk about the history of the universe; a talk on the state of nature in North Yorkshire; a Christmas wreath-making workshop; and – I am most envious to report – both a wine-tasting for the imminent festive season, and also (most dear to my heart) a whisky tasting.

One would have to be living with one’s head in the clouds not to be aware of the many pressures that the medical profession faces in the current climate. The extraordinary years of the pandemic (in which, so appropriately, we stood on the streets to applaud the NHS), and the challenging economic reality this nation faces does not, I suspect, make the working life of our guests this evening always feel a bundle of laughs. So it is good that they model for themselves and the rest of us, the need to find that bigger picture in which they can relax, they can form friendships beyond their immediate work environment, in which they can grow, and in which, perhaps, they can even Seek him that maketh the seven stars.

Our medics are not the only group gathered here this evening who meet together regularly for reasons that blend vocational activity with relaxation, and – at least in some cases – the chance to sample the odd alcoholic beverage. Some of you may be aware that our visiting choir this weekend is the choir which formed me both as a musician and as a Christian. In my school days the director of this choir was also the Director of Music at a nearby grammar school, and it was his rather heavy-handed suggestion that persuaded me to darken the doors of a church for the first time in my life, and I guess you could say that it ‘took’, and after a mere 18 years of singing in Kingston I found myself moving onwards to theological college, to do my own seeking of the one that maketh the seven stars, and here I am today.

Of course, when I joined All Saints choir back in 1975, Jonathan Dove’s uplifting anthem that we have just heard was still some twenty years in the future, for he is a mere three years older than I am. So it is not a work I have ever had the pleasure of singing myself, but I am deeply grateful that it was chosen to round off this weekend of choral excellence by my old friends. For, in Mr Dove’s choice of text, we have the challenge that is at the heart of our second reading, and – indeed – I think we have the challenge of how we live out our entire lives encapsulated in just two well-chosen verses of scripture – verses that tell us to Seek him that maketh the seven stars.

Conflict dogs and divides the communities of the world, and even those communities that strive to be religious, explicitly following God’s command and God’s call, are far from immune, as that portion of Matthew shows us so clearly. In about a month’s time, our politicians will be debating Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill to legalise assisted dying. In addition to the debate and division I imagine we will see on the floor of the House of Commons, I am quite certain that the rooms of the York Medical Society, and many other spaces occupied by healthcare professionals will be divided by this debate – as, most certainly, will be many parts of the church of God (only yesterday, the deans of England’s cathedrals, were being asked to sign a letter on this subject). People will not agree, and it is possible heated words will be exchanged as law, vocation and ethics mix together in a complex fashion.

And that is just one topical and clear instance of why it is important to hear the call of that glorious anthem to which we have just listened, which encourages us to emulate Jesus in working out properly and fully (by which I mean doing so much more than just quoting a particular legal formula) that God would have us do in the living out of our lives and the challenges we will face.

That is why it is, truly, so important to seek the maker of the seven stars and Orion, for it is only God who possesses the gift that ‘turneth the shadow of death into the morning’. That’s not always easy to do – far from it – for in truth, despite Matthew’s bitter depiction of them, I am sure the Pharisees were keen to obey and follow God, even though they disagreed so violently with Jesus. But it is only when, in fellowship with those around us, whether in societies, in choirs, or in any other walk of life into which God calls us – it is only when we respond to that call to seek the maker of those seven stars that we will find ourselves able to say (and perhaps even to sing) yea, the darkness shineth as the day, the night is light about me. Amen.

Sermon: Choral Evensong on the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

May I speak in the name of the blessed trinity, one God in three persons.

As I have recently been reminded, being ill isn’t fun. Not only is sickness painful and debilitating, it interrupts plans; brings work to a halt, and – perhaps – isolates us from others. It is why the people who have the skill and patience to care for the sick is so important. Important to particular individuals and also important to society as a whole. If we haven’t already drawn on the services of the NHS or St John’s Ambulance, we all know that such a time will come.

Recently I visited a member of the Minster congregation. A woman advancing in years, she shared with me an experience she had here in the Minster while singing the hymn that began our service this afternoon Immortal Invisible, which contains the words: ‘We blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree we wither and perish but nought changes me’

She had suddenly been struck by these words and said to me:

“I decided I was in the withering phase, not yet the perishing phase”. It made me laugh out loud but also prompted me to reflect on my own physical and mental phase of life – If you’re interested I think I’m mid-leaf!

I hope you had chance, before the service, to read the introductory notes. The Order of St John has a long and noble history. The values, character and commitments of the Order goes back a long, long way. You may also have reflected, as I did, how little seems to have changed in a thousand years. That we are still talking about, and doing what little we can to help, a situation that has at its heart the city of Jerusalem.

It was in this city that the Order of St John, known as the Hospitallers, began to care for pilgrims. As it says in the Order of Service, “their work was centred around the care of the sick and the poor of all faiths – treating Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike”.

The word ‘hospitaller’ still exists, remarkably, in at least one hospital in the UK. The chaplain at St Thomas’ in London still carries the title ‘hospitaller’. At the Reformation, when the old monastic hospitals were dissolved, their many different chaplains were pensioned off and retired. However, when the institutions were re-founded in 1546, out of all the clerical roles that once existed, it was the ‘hospitaller’ who survived. Perhaps it was because this was seen to be the most practical, and the one closest to meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of the sick.

Today, we see all too clearly that health is effected by many different things. In Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, conflict has led to homelessness, an increased risk of disease and the emotional strain of an uncertain future. This is also true of many other parts of our world, including Ukraine and Sudan. As the World Health Organisation declared in 1948, health is about more than the absence of disease. It is about effective and caring communities; about spiritual wellbeing; and the prospect of a safe and stable future.

It can be no surprise that this kind of definition came out of the ashes of the Second World War. A time when Europe and many other regions of the world had experienced the worst effects of destruction and deprivation. To care for the sick without discrimination or prejudice is one of the founding principles of all the professions that serve in health care. Like the Order of St John, this is a commitment built upon our sense of common humanity and compassion.

While it may seem – understandably – that religion is part of the problem and not the solution, that would be a rather partial view of history. Despite the difference between faiths there have been many places in which different faiths have lived together constructively. Six years after the founding of the Order of St John, in 1076, Al-Nasir, the Muslim Ruler of present day Algeria, wrote to the Pope asking him to appoint a bishop for the Christians living in his Islamic domain. Pope Gregory VII responded positively to the request, writing:

‘one should not do to others, what one does not want done to oneself. You and we owe this charity to ourselves especially because we believe in and confess one God, admittedly, in a different way, and daily praise and venerate him, the creator of the world and ruler of this world.’

It seems to me that today – and in any era – Pope Gregory’s phrase is an excellent one: “we owe this charity to ourselves”. Beyond war, disagreement or difference, the fruit of the Gospel is healing, in all its many forms. It is, if you like, even in our self-interest to care for people whose faith or identity is different from our own.

When Jesus tells the disciples ‘to cure every disease and every sickness’, he doesn’t say ‘of the Jews’ or ‘of the Samaritans’ or ‘of the Gentiles’. He simply says, ‘every disease and every sickness’ – regardless of who is experiencing it.

So, as we give thanks for the Order of St.John this day and all those involved in health care let us not  forget that we have a duty of care too to all our brothers and sisters of whatever faith, so that we can sing out with confidence ‘brother sister let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you’.

This is our individual and collective calling.

‘When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”’ – The Very Revd Dominic Barrington, Dean

When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

When I was interviewed for the position that I now hold as Dean of York, I was asked a question which rather surprised me. It was about misogyny – specifically, about what I would do if I were at a meeting or social event as the Dean of York, and someone were to make a manifestly misogynistic remark in front of me.

I think I must have raised my eyebrows when this was put to me (coming from a city like Chicago, it did feel a little surprising), because one of the panel, looking at me, added, “this is Yorkshire, you know…”

Well – I leave you to make up your own mind about whether or not the question identified a valid concern, but I will say that both Alison and I have occasionally been surprised by remarks that have been uttered either to us or in front of us that have reminded me of this moment in the interview. And it is particularly sad to note that sometimes such remarks have been about Dean Viv, who was, of course, the first woman to be the Dean of York, holding the post from 2012 to 2018.

All of which is to say that I realize that there may be some people around this great cathedral whose views on what roles are appropriate for women and what roles are appropriate for men might feel – shall we say – traditional. People, perhaps, who believe they understand exactly what the author of the Book of Proverbs was on about, when describing that figure that he calls a capable wife – the sort of wife who will be supportive of her (evidently more important and capable) husband – her husband who is busy being a mover and shaker at the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land.

But there will be others, I suspect, for whom this passage can feel a particularly blunt reminder of the patriarchal culture in which the books of the Bible were brought to birth, and who will be wondering why on earth, in today’s world, it can be a good or appropriate thing to legitimize these seemingly outdated words by reading them out loud and calling them ‘the Word of the Lord’?

Of course, we should take note that the words we heard translated as a ‘capable wife’ – the Hebrew phrase eshet Chayil – are also often rendered as ‘woman of valor’. And perhaps that helps a little – perhaps that enables us to give thanks that in today’s world most professions have seen women reach the very top ranks, even if society is still male-dominated.

Perhaps that enables us to give thanks that there are now 35 female bishops in the Church of England – even though I still regularly hear conversations in which people – well, men – mutter worriedly about whether we are ‘ready’ for a female archbishop, at the point when either of the current postholders might retire.

Perhaps it is good, though, to champion the idea of the ‘woman of valour’ and rejoice that we can, at least, uncouple such a notion from the distinctly ‘wifely’ feel of the translation which we heard read just now.

But actually even saying that is to miss the point, and, in my opinion, to fail to understand what the author of Proverbs is really pointing us to.

During the time we were living in Chicago, Alison and I were privileged to be invited to dinner one Friday evening at the home of a very distinguished orthodox rabbi. When we took our place at the table, I was surprised to discover that the weekly liturgy that heralds the arrival of the Jewish sabbath includes the recitation of those verses about the capable wife that we just heard from Proverbs.

Curious to know the relevance of this passage to the celebration of the arrival of the sabbath, I asked the rabbi why these particular words were read. And I suppose that – to my shame – I was anticipating a trite reply about the role of a good Jewish wife, and how she is there to support her husband and family. After all, my not very well-informed perception of orthodox Jews made me think that in a setting which seemed to traditional and conservative, it might be very natural to hear a remark or two along the lines of ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.

However, I was gently put in my place when the rabbi explained that this famous passage was read each sabbath in order to help Jews welcome the feminine presence of God into their home. For, as the rabbi reminded me, the attributes of the one God are both masculine and feminine, and neither should be ignored or prioritized at the expense of the other – rather, both should be welcomed into one’s home and one’s life.

Furthermore, he reminded me that this passage about the eshet Chayil is the last word – the climax of the book of Proverbs, and more than that, in the original Hebrew it is an acrostic, with each verse beginning with the next letter of the alphabet. A fact that suggests it might well have functioned as a liturgical or catechetical text – something which everyone in the community was encouraged to learn, to recite, to live by – women and men alike.

Certainly, in this early example of what we call Wisdom literature, after some thirty chapters of wise advice about how to live life – advice with something of a masculine feel to it – when, by way of climax, the author wants us to understand values and attributes that are exceptional, he presents us with a woman of such remarkable abilities and graces that we see in her nothing less than a feminine personification of the divine. A feminine personification of the divine to encourage us, to inspire us, and to challenge us.

And when we read today’s gospel passage, we are reminded, all too clearly, how much we need to be challenged – just as we need to be challenged when we find ourselves witnessing or hearing language or behaviour that is sexist, or racist, or ableist, or homophobic, of which in any other way disparages and denigrates some of God’s beloved children who are our siblings in Christ.

For throughout Mark, the depiction of the disciples cannot be said to be complimentary. Their almost constant failure to grasp even the most basic essentials of Jesus’ teaching permeates the entire gospel narrative, and this morning’s passage shows the Twelve as little more than grumpy and embarrassed teenagers caught out after an utterly inappropriate argument about greatness and importance.

An argument, moreover, set in the context of an even more awkward moment around a similar theme, which we heard one week ago as last Sunday’s gospel reading. For last Sunday, our gospel found Jesus and the disciples in Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus demands that his closest friends tell him who they think he really is. A moment which starts well – with Peter acknowledging that Jesus is the Messiah – but a moment which then ends badly, as Peter reacts negatively to Jesus predicting his Passion and death – which then ends so badly that Peter is addressed – and addressed very publicly – as Satan.

Well today, we are a little bit further on in Mark’s narrative, and we come to Jesus’ second prediction of his Passion and death… a prediction which proves to be a curtain-raiser for this egotistical dispute among the disciples. A dispute about – of all fatuous, ridiculous, and offensively irrelevant topics – a dispute about which of them was the greatest.

Jesus is attempting to show them that, despite being the Messiah, the Christ, his sense of ego is of such little relevance to him that he is prepared – that he is expecting to suffer and die to demonstrate the truth about God’s love to the wider world. But his closest friends and followers – they can only talk about their own egos – unaware (that at least for those of us who speak English), the word EGO should really be understood as an acronym for Edging God Out. And, of course, when Jesus demands to know what has been going on, they lapse into the sullen and embarrassed silence that is a particular gift of young men.

And the tragedy is that this was not what Jesus wanted of them. It was not what Jesus wanted of them and it was not what Jesus wanted for them. For Jesus wanted them and needed them to be the best versions of themselves that they possibly could be, for – strange to say – he needed them, truly, to become nothing less than what the author of Proverbs referred to as being a ‘capable wife’. For these men in whom Jesus – incredibly – believed so much, these men were to become the foundations of what you and I now call ‘the church’, that body which is also known as the bride of Christ.

Because, for the Christian, it is the Church of God that must, surely, be the real woman of valour. And that means, quite simply, that the virtues and attributes of which we heard read just now, those hallmarks of valour that are the very climax of this great book of Wisdom, they should be the aspiration of all God’s children that claim to be the church.

Because the capable wife is called to do her husband good and not harm, which is – or ought to be – the vocation of the Church. That capable wife is called to let her works praise her in the city gates. That is, or should, be the call of the Church of God – and therefore the call of each and every one of its members. It should not be worked out in the kind of petty arguments like the one where Jesus says to the embarrassed disciples, “What were you arguing about just now?”

Because whether male or female, young or old, gay or straight, our aspiration corporately and individually, needs to take us beyond the petty squabbles we just witnessed of Peter, James and John and all the rest of them. Jesus believed in them, nevertheless, and loved them, just as he believes in and loves each one of us, despite our own failings. And that is why Jesus calls us, as he called them, to be the best version of ourselves that we possibly can be. Because when we don’t then we end up – like the disciples in this morning’s gospel – we end up ‘arguing on the way’, and there is already, surely, too much argument in the world without us adding to it.

Just before the final blessing, as we are getting ready to be sent back out into that argumentative world, having been fed on the Body of Christ, and having been confirmed anew in the reality that our call is to be the Body of Christ, we’re going to sing the well-known words of the Victorian priest John Ernest Bode. Words he wrote to celebrate his three children being confirmed in 1869, when – doubtless – he hoped and prayed that his children would grow in the Christ-like vocation of being the best version of themselves that they could be.

I hope and pray that we, too, can lay aside the things over which we indulge in arguing about ‘on the way’, that we can hear again the call that we should all emulate the divine ‘woman of valour’, so that we can genuinely sing and pray:

O let me see thy footmarks,

and in them plant mine own;

my hope to follow duly

is in thy strength alone;

O guide me, call me, draw me,

uphold me to the end;

and then in heaven receive me,

my Saviour and my Friend. Amen.

Sermon: Choral Evensong with commemoration of the Battle of Britain – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

May I speak in the name of the Blessed Trinity, One God in three persons.

A few months ago I visited the town of Guernica, in northern Spain. It is a name that will be familiar to many, sadly, due to the destruction that fell upon it on one sunny day in 1936.

It was market day, and the town was packed. German and Italian planes began to bomb the town in support of General Franco’s attempts to gain control over an area renowned for a spirit of independence and resistance. Guernica is the spiritual centre of the Basque region.

The first target for the bombing was the town’s water supply. This meant that efforts to extinguish the fires that came as the result of bombing were futile. Anticipating that people would flee the town into the countryside plans were made for fighters to circle the main bombing zone, strafing the fields with machine gun fire. Those who planned the bombing knew that the town had no resources to defend itself from aerial attack. There is no doubt that the plans for that day had been made with every anticipation of what would take place, with the intention of causing the maximum level of destruction. As one of Franco’s generals put it the day after the attack:

“It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do.”

This is a very candid explanation of what was intended. To get rid of everyone who didn’t toe the line or see the world as General Franco believed it should be understood. Today Guernica is a living memorial to the disaster of war and the evil that sought to extinguish every independent thought and aspiration for freedom and peace. Of course, all these terrible events were a shadow of the global catastrophe which would unfold a few years’ later in the second world war.

Today we commemorate one of the most significant episodes of that war, the Battle of Britain. Had Britain lost that conflict there is no knowing what the consequences would have been. Certainly, if Britain had been beaten and occupied, freedom of speech and independence of thought would have been supressed with both violence and determination. As Churchill famously said after the moment when the RAF prevailed over the attacking forces: “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Those few taking part were not only British pilots but air crews from many countries, in fact one fifth of Fighter Command’s aircrew came from overseas and 16 nations were represented in its squadrons. A total of 126 New Zealanders, 98 Canadians, 33 Australians and 25 South Africans participated. They were joined by three from what is now Zimbabwe, a Jamaican, a Barbadian and a Newfoundlander. Though their countries were neutral, 10 Irish and 11 United States citizens also fought in the Battle of Britain. Many of these personnel made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting the United Kingdom.

At the same time, it is important to remember that all the efforts of the months in which the Battle of Britain took place required wide support. Both in the production of materials for the war effort, and the logistics of moving supplies to where they were needed, a great many people were required to support what the few could achieve. The list of supporting roles for the Battle of Britain is very extensive. They range from the Balloon Command to the Anti-Aircraft Command; from the Observer Corps to the Operations Staff. Often those taking part included women serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Without doubt, many tens of thousands of people stood behind the 3,000 pilots who took part in the Battle and ensured its success.

In a much earlier conflict, the Duke of Wellington said famously: “Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won”. War comes with a huge cost for all involved, whether ultimately victorious or not. It isn’t difficult to understand why so many people strive to achieve peace rather than face the alternative. Whether in Guernica, or on this Battle of Britain commemoration, contemplating the sacrifices of war should fuel our desire for peace.

While thinking about memorials to war the WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon composed the poem entitled ‘At the Cenotaph’. Here he imagines the Prince of Darkness standing, respectfully, at a war memorial and praying:  “Make them forget, O Lord, what this Memorial Means”. Sassoon’s point is that we must not forget. We mustn’t forget the cost; the sacrifice; or the shadow of war that stretches so far into the future. Because when we forget we risk repeating the tragic conflicts of the past. Commemoration honours the dead, but it must also remind us that the risk of war continues ……something we are seeing today, tragically, in various parts of the world.

In our second reading today we heard the succinct and striking summary of conduct which Jesus taught: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets’.

It is our task – the task of the living – to honour those who have lost their lives in service to their country, and to do to others as we would have them do to us. To take this moment of memorial and commemoration and aspire for a better world. A world that befits the sacrifice that others have made, so that we might live.