A sermon for Provoking Faith in a Time of Isolation,
the online gathering of Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
28th February 2021
Monday, 22 February 2021
Unless you repent, you will all perish
Saturday, 20 February 2021
God’s love, in Christ Jesus
A Sermon for the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Bill Somerville.
Romans 8.31-39
Occasions
such as this, when we gather in the face of human mortality,
are often occasions for asking
profound and troubling questions.
Death,
for all its brute reality, remains a mystery,
and quite rightly we find ourselves asking
the great existential questions of,
Why?
and What now? and How has this happened?
The
reading we had just now, read by Bill himself on an earlier occasion,
is a text packed full of just such questions.
But,
and I don’t know if you noticed,
Bill added short introduction to the
reading,
a brief statement of faith that prefaced
the questions that followed.
This
passage is, said Bill, about ‘God’s love, in Christ Jesus’.
This
is the absolute, the basic conviction of faith:
that God is love,
and that God’s love is made known to
us in Christ Jesus.
This
is the certainty that Bill himself lived by,
and it is offered to us today
in the face of the questions of this
day.
So
when the questions come tumbling,
we already have the beginnings of
the answer.
When
uncertainty beckons, and doubt descends,
when faith wavers, and grief overwhelms,
we
have this assurance of faith:
‘God’s love, in Christ Jesus’.
And
so the ancient apostle Paul leans out of the text of his letter to the Romans,
and asks of us, today, ‘What then
are we to say about these things?’
What
is there to say in the face of death?
What is there to say in the face of
loss, grief, and mourning?
Just
this: ‘God’s love, in Christ Jesus’.
But
Paul is not yet done,
and his next question explores this
conviction in greater depth:
He
asks, ‘If God is for us, who is against us?’
Despite
any evidence or feelings or convictions to the contrary,
Paul’s assurance is steadfastly that
God is for us.
And
if God is for us, will not God with Christ Jesus
give us everything we need at the
point of our deepest need?
If
God is for us, who can accuse us? Who can condemn us?
Who can separate us from the love of
Christ?
Let’s
see, says Paul…
Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
or sword?
No,
none of these, says Paul,
can separate us from ‘God’s love, in
Christ Jesus’.
But
what about death itself?
No, says Paul, not even death
can separate us from ‘God’s love, in
Christ Jesus’.
And
so we come to the final verse of the reading,
in which we encounter one of the
great articulations of the Christian faith.
After
all the questions, Paul circles back to God,
and to God’s faithfulness to all
that God has made,
and to God’s love that transcends
even death itself.
For
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, n
or angels, nor rulers,
nor
things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor
anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
Tuesday, 9 February 2021
Take off your mask!
Listen to this sermon here: https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2021-02-14-podcast
are not simply a COVID-19 phenomena;
and whist I must confess to finding the politicised reluctance
to wear a mask in the interests of public safety
as mystifying as the trend to wear masks on the chin or under the nose,
nonetheless, arguments about whether to cover one’s face
are nothing new.
which made it illegal to wear a face covering veil
or any other mask in public spaces
that France's ban disproportionately harmed the right of women
to manifest their religious beliefs,
and could have the effects of "confining them to their homes,
impeding their access to public services and marginalizing them."
Paris was one of the first places
to make wearing a face mask in public compulsory!
symbols of a patriarchy that excludes women
from functioning fully within society as equals.
the issue of whether or not to conceal one’s face
remains a contentious issue,
and frequently becomes indicative of clash
between the demands of religious practice or ideological position,
and the requirements of civic society.
to Moses coming down from
we are told that he had been talking with God:
face-to-face, as it were.
And then when he came down from the mountain
his face was shining with the glory of God.
Moses then put on a face-veil because, we are told,
the people were afraid.
at the very moment of the giving of the Law,
intended to show people
how to relate to one another and to God,
we find not unity but division.
the revelation of the law through Moses
instead brought social disruption
as Moses was veiled from his fellow Israelites;
and spiritual disruption
as the manifest presence of God
was veiled from the people of God.
but I think Victor Hugo gets close in the book Les Misérables,
where he describes the old bishop
Monseigneur Bienvenu with the words:
‘He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.’
and being dazzled by God
is helpful to us as we contrast the different responses
of Moses and the people of Israel.
which they made their object of study;
whilst Moses focussed on the brightness
of the revelation of the God who gave the law.
– religious people through the ages
have persisted in finding themselves much less troubled
when they have a law to keep and apply,
whilst those whose faces
reflect their encounter with the divine
are feared and segregated, veiled off from society.
it is often the case that things are originally declared taboo
because they are considered too holy,
but that those things declared taboo
eventually come to be reviled as unclean.
that those men who find that their study of religious law
requires them to enforce restrictive legislation on women
might believe they are acting out of a desire
for careful observance of the commands of God,
but the tragedy is
that the glory of the gift of fully equal humanity
becomes veiled as they do so,
and human society as God intends it
becomes segregated,
becoming in the process so much less than it could and should be.
which should have provided the mechanism
for genuine and open relationship
between people and God,
became instead the excuse
for segregation, division and distrust.
were placed in the Ark of the Covenant,
which was placed in the holy of holies
at the heart of the Jewish temple,
separated from the people by, of course, a veil
(Ex 26.31-35; 2 Chron 3.14).
into the holy of holies,
and only then once a year
on the day of atonement (Lev. 16; Heb 9.7).
became taboo because it was so holy;
and in time it became untouchable
and something to be avoided by almost everyone.
we come to another prophet
ascending a mountain
for a face to face encounter with the divine.
with three of his disciples,
and whilst there he has an experience
which is analogous to that of Moses.
‘while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed,
and his clothes became dazzling white’ (9.29).
Luke is clearly telling us that Jesus is a prophet like Moses.
In fact, he is telling us more than that:
The way Luke sees Jesus, he is the new Moses,
bringing into being a new covenant between God and humanity,
predicated not on the giving of stone tablets
inscribed with commandments of law,
but on the direct revelation of God himself,
revealed through the person of Christ.
we discover that Jesus is now mysteriously accompanied
on the mountain by none other than Moses himself,
together with the prophet Elijah.
of the Law and the Prophets,
accompanying Jesus
at his own moment of face to face encounter with God.
we have a cloud and a disembodied voice from the cloud.
will recognise the imagery:
the cloud is the cloudy fiery pillar
which led the people of Israel
from slavery to freedom through the wilderness of Sin,
and the voice is the same divine voice
that dictated the commands of the law to Moses.
the voice from heaven offers only one command:
‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ (9.35).
in fulfilment of the law and prophets of old.
This is the new law,
which will lead those who keep it
safely through the wilderness
from slavery to sin and death
and into the promised land of the dawning kingdom of God.
and this new law is written not on stone tablets,
but is embodied in the living person of Jesus Christ.
according the new law
need study no longer the words of the commandments,
instead they need to be dazzled
by an encounter with God in Christ.
the personification of the new law,
comes down from the mountain,
just as Moses came down from the mountain of Sinai.
because the people were afraid.
Jesus, on the other hand,
comes down the mountain to an encounter
with a terrifying spirit
which is causing a young child to shriek and convulse
and foam at the mouth.
closely match those of epilepsy,
and indeed in the parallel account in Matthew’s gospel
he is described as an epileptic.
Whilst modern medicine
may have a better understanding of this condition
and how it can be controlled,
the result of a violent epileptic fit
is as terrifying today as it has ever been,
and clearly this young man’s life
was subject to forces of chaos
beyond his or anyone else’s ability to control.
and have been trying unsuccessfully to heal the boy
by casting out the disruptive spirit.
The unspoken ‘Oh for goodness sake!’ is almost tangible,
as he mutters despairingly
‘you faithless and perverse generation,
how much longer must I be with you and bear with you’ (9.41)
before commanding the father to bring the young boy to him.
as Jesus rebukes the spirit
and brings peace to the convulsing child,
before restoring him back to his father.
had been unable to heal the child
was because they were part of this
‘faithless and perverse’ generation.
They belonged the latest of the many generations
which had encountered God with veiled minds.
They had not faced
the dazzling and transforming character of God
with unveiled faces,
but instead had been shaped
by a religion which focussed on the study of the law
and the application of its commandments.
like so many of the healing stories in the gospels,
is not primarily about the physical cure,
although there is certainly a physical element to what happens.
to his rightful place in society.
We are told that after his healing
he is restored back to his father.
as they were believed to be inhabited by demons
which caused their fits.
So they, and others with similar conditions,
were kept at the margins of society,
hidden away and out of sight,
veiled off from the rest of the population.
An epileptic was an all too real reminder
of the chaos that was believed to lurk
just below the surface of the world,
threatening to break through
and overwhelm people at any moment.
because their minds were still veiled,
and they were focussing simply
on a spiritual cause
for the physical manifestation of his sickness.
he encountered this new Moses with an unveiled face,
and rather than pity or fear, or a desire to problem-solve,
he met in Jesus
the God who brings equality between humans,
who brings healing to society
and restoration to those who are cast aside or curtained off.
it was not just a physical act,
it was a social act,
restoring him to his family;
and it was a political act,
as it challenged the structures of the society
that had acted to segregate him away.
we see the implications of what it means
to encounter God in Christ with unveiled faces.
is one which is beset by demons of all kinds,
which divide us one from another,
sowing seeds of chaos and confusion,
disorder and disruption.
I’m sure we could, if we wanted,
name some of the demons of our own culture.
and the evils of racism have been laid bare for us
over the course of the last year,
with the Black Lives Matter movement
calling us to a better vision of humanity.
the evils of exclusion and division are all around us
as God’s good creation becomes distorted
and humanity is disrupted.
looking for mechanistic solutions to presenting problems.
The faithless and perverse generation
can study the law ‘til kingdom come
and be none-the-wiser about the path to freedom.
with unveiled faces
are called to be those who bring holistic healing
to a world that remains frustratingly fragmented.
as we, with Christ, descend from the mountain of revelation.
which perpetuate an us-and-them mentality,
and which seek to veil person from person,
or to keep our own revelation of divine love veiled from others.
who is given to bring healing, restoration and renewal,
then our task is to allow that revelation to shine into the whole world,
to illuminate the darkest places
and bring healing to the most troubled and chaotic souls.
of dividing our own community one-from-another
along grounds of ethnicity, social standing, gender and sexuality
and when we do so, we not only divide the body of Christ,
we also place a veil over the whole church
in such a way as to conceal such light as we have
from those who most need its revelation.
are called to be those who see the structures and systems in society
which exclude the weak and the vulnerable,
which diminish and demean the oppressed,
which stigmatise the demented,
and segregate the unfamiliar.
are called to bring the healing, restoring, transforming presence of Christ
to those whom others have written off
as irredeemable.
was ripped in two at the moment of crucifixion,
the veil which lies over the hearts of humans
is swept aside in Christ.
‘all of us, with unveiled faces,
seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror,
are being transformed into the same image
from one degree of glory to another;
for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.’ (2 Cor 43.18).