Alone and together in grief

Wisdom 3.1-9; Luke 24.13-16, 28-35

 

 

Over recent weeks I have been struck more than ever about the nature of grief and how different people and different communities and cultures deal with grief.

 

With our Bible readings this evening we can reflect on the personal and the shared nature of grief and bereavement.

 

I have been pondering how some people who are bereaved want to keep themselves to themselves; others need to gather people around them.

 

Some people want to steer well clear of a bereaved person and comfort themselves by saying grief is private and they don’t want to intrude.

 

Others, possibly out of their own needs, almost smother the bereaved with attention and don’t give space for grief and sadness.

 

Some grieving people don’t want the name of their loved one mentioned such is the pain, and others feel the inability of others to speak the name of the beloved more painful.

 

I think we can conclude that grief and bereavement is a complex business, because we human beings, in our living and loving, are complex too.

 

Perhaps you recognise something in what I have just been describing.

 

Anything I have just said could be said by any bereavement counsellor or close observer of human nature.

 

So what might the Church have to say about the subject of grief and bereavement?

 

I want to suggest that what we find throughout the Bible, and in the teaching and practice of the Church, is both reality about the pain and sadness of grief because of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, that is to say that he shared our human experience as one of us, and also the conviction of hope and purpose rooted in the resurrection of Christ, that he was raised from the dead, thus meaning that death can have no enduring grip on us.

 

So what this service of remembering our loved ones, in a service of hope and prayer, is recognising is both the pain of loss and the hope of looking forward.

 

Our first reading speaks of the conviction that those who have died are not abandoned into nothingness, but rest in the hands of God.

 

Their identity and personality, that was given to them before they were formed in their mother’s womb, is nurtured and sealed in God’s enduring love and presence.

Our second reading is more nuanced.

 

It speaks of two disciples of Jesus whose hearts are weighed down, drained out with grief, sadness and disappointment.

 

Yet their hearts are renewed and ‘set on fire’, as they put it, when they come to understand precisely the power and presence of Jesus Christ with them in their grief.

 

It is telling that there were two of them; there is nothing more painful than grief combined with loneliness, and nothing more comforting than knowing that you are not on this journey alone.

 

In this service we are able both to grieve quietly and personally, as we will enact in the lighting of individual candles, but also we come together to say that grief is a common experience, in the sense that, first, it is not rare and, second, it is a shared experience, one we have in common.

 

We will see that in the flames of the candles burning together.

 

‘No one’ the great priest and poet John Donne reminds us ‘is an lsland entire of itself’.

And he continues:

 

every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…

any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

(MEDITATION XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)

 

There is a close fellowship in life and death and grief.

 

The bonds of love forged in life are not broken by death, for love endures all things.

 

As we remember our loved ones in hope and prayer may they remain in our memories and hearts as we continue to entrust them into the loving hands of God who promises, through his Son, Jesus Christ, abundance of life today and in the life of the world to come.

You shall be holy

Leviticus 19.1-2, 15-18 Be holy as I am the Lord am holy

1 Thessalonians 2.1-8 Seek to please God who knows our hearts

Matthew 22.34-end The commandments of love

 

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. (Leviticus 19.2)

 

+

 

To a modern ear, including many contemporary Christian ears, the word ‘holiness’ is a bit of a taboo.

 

A cynical, jaded, disenchanted viewpoint twists what holiness is.

 

It’s an insult when you’re called ‘holier than thou’.

 

To talk about holiness and being holy sounds to many as if we are talking about something removed from reality or like we have a superiority complex over the messiness and mirk of the world.

 

If we think being holy is about being removed from the world or looking down our noses at others then we’re far from the teaching of Jesus Christ and the Bible.

 

The Bible’s view of holiness is clear: God is holy and he calls his people to be holy.

 

This is nowhere clearer than in the book of Leviticus, from which we heard a passage this  morning.

 

In a nutshell Leviticus, an underrated and all too often ignored book, is saying first encounter the holy God, then act as a holy person in the world.

 

We can, and should, aspire to be holy so as to engage with the world and transform it.

 

It’s a good moment to consider this because on Wednesday (1^st November) we celebrate All Saints’ Day.

 

Holiness is not threatened by the world, but the world is threatened by holiness.

 

That is why those who aspire to be holy are so often disdained by the world, why Christians who seek to reflect God’s holiness are mocked: saints are agents of transformation not simply content with the way the world works.

 

So without an appreciation of the holiness of God we get nowhere.

 

It’s when people act holy without knowing the holiness of God that they become ‘holier than thou’. Ironically too this is when humanists and atheists trumpet their slogan ‘Good without God’.

 

When we act under our own steam and not God’s then we are transmitting our own egos and preferences not God’s: human goodness is rooted in God’s holiness

 

Holiness starts in humility before God, and the starting point of humility is kneeling before the holiness and majesty of God in worship and adoration.

 

That’s why effort goes into creating beautiful holy spaces, like this place, into beautiful dignified worship, as we do here, so that we cultivate a sense of the holiness of God.

 

So worship is as much about apprehension as comprehension; in other words, it is about catching a vision of the holiness of God, not reducing it to a social club worshipping a false god of community ideals or worthy acts.

 

In our liturgy we find this expressed in the words of the Sanctus and Benedictus, two short Biblical texts in the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer:

 

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus

 

Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

 

That text says that the holiness of God fills heaven and earth; God, whose holiness infuses our actions to be a blessing when we come in the name of the Holy God.

 

The prayer continues, ‘Lord, you are holy indeed, the source of all holiness…’

 

This holiness spills out from worship into our lives.

 

That is what Jesus says to the lawyer in their encounter in the gospel reading.

 

The lawyer asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is and he gets answers from the law; the Law of Moses.

 

First, Jesus answers by quoting from Deuteronomy, in the Old Testament, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

 

Then he answers by quoting from Leviticus, also the Old Testament, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

 

Holiness is worked out, and revealed, in living out the commandments, first – as Deuteronomy points us to - in adoration of God, that is in worship, and secondly – as Leviticus points us to - in love of neighbour.

 

The Biblical view is clear that worship and ethics are not separate but integrated so that, “holiness and purity are only achieved when right living and right worship are bound together.” (p116)

 

Right worship is worshipping God as revealed in the life of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in the wisdom of the Church we are given the means to do that, most supremely in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

 

Right living is shown in justice, integrity and love: in being just in our judgements; not badmouthing others; not hating them, even those who might be worthy of our hatred.

 

This teaching is embedded in the scriptures and Jesus Christ draws it out and lives it, for he is not just a gifted teacher or guru but the presence of the Holy God in the world.

 

In the life of Christ we see love and compassion that reaches even to those who mock him, betray him and would have him killed.

 

The call to holiness begins in humility and calls us to look beyond ourselves.

 

To look beyond ourselves - first to God and then to neighbour - means that we don’t become self-consumed by our own anxieties and obsessions.

 

Rabbi Julia Neuberger reminds us that the Hebrew of Leviticus 19.18 is best translated, ‘love your neighbour as you yourself would like to be loved’ (Address to the Legal Service 2017 at Southwark Cathedral).

 

In other words, love and appreciation of self begins in the loving of God and love shown to our neighbour not the other way round; give your neighbour the love you desire not the love you have for yourself.

 

It sounds on one level that we have moved from talk of holiness to talking about ethics.

 

But therein lies the point of today’s gospel, the two are bound together: love of neighbour that is always rooted in adoration of God; this is where holiness is to be found.

 

So let’s be bold about seeking to be holy!

 

Not because we are superior but because we are humble enough to acknowledge the holiness of God and to know that love of neighbour is not about us, but is our response, in love, to the holiness of God, whereby we are called ‘holy’.

 

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Wisdom will come into your heart

 

Wisdom will come into your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

prudence will watch over you;

and understanding will guard you.

(Proverbs 2.10-11)

 

+

 

Deep in the heart of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, is what is known as the ‘Wisdom Literature’ of the Bible.

 

These books include Job, the Psalms – recited at morning and evening prayer every day - Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs and the Book of Proverbs.

 

A name very much associated with this Wisdom tradition is King Solomon, and indeed the Book of Proverbs is attributed to him, as is the Song of Songs, known also as the Song of Solomon.

 

These books place the concept of wisdom front and centre.

 

In contemporary culture it often feels as if wisdom is too ponderous and not ‘with it’ enough to get a hearing.

 

In an information-based world what is the place of wisdom?

 

In a world that quantifies, measures and is empirical what is the place of wisdom?

 

This is an ancient question and in a world where Artificial Intelligence appears increasingly to be the source of all information and knowledge, what is the place of wisdom?

 

It looks as though we live in a world where information is limitless, actual knowledge is thin and wisdom is absent.

 

Wisdom is to be sought not in the superficialities of the world but in its depth.

 

Wisdom enables us to use information and knowledge in a way that is measured and full of care, not fleeting and not cheapened.

 

All the information in the world can only get we human beings so far.

 

Knowledge, the means by which we know what to do with the information, will get us some of the way, but it is only wisdom that enables the art of human interaction and what really matters.

 

The task of philosophy – the love of wisdom, as it literally means – is a noble one that takes us on the journey to wisdom.

 

But much of philosophy has become introspective, inward looking, playing with linguistics more than the art of living the Good Life wisely.

 

Much philosophy has started consuming itself, much like the mythical Ouroboros, the serpent of ancient Egypt and Greece represented with its tail in its mouth, continually devouring itself.

 

What the Biblical witness present is the pursuit of wisdom that looks outwards, beyond itself.

 

It says that ‘human wisdom’ is an oxymoron, all wisdom is rooted in God and the human task is to discern it, uncover it, be attentive to it.

 

Wisdom is a treasure to be sought, not mined from within ourselves.

 

And the Biblical account of wisdom is practical.

 

Wisdom is about the art of living well, in relation to God and neighbour.

 

That’s why Proverbs speaks of wisdom leading to us understanding righteousness and justice and equity, every good path (Proverbs 2.9).

 

That wisdom AI cannot teach.

 

AI can inform you about, but not shape you in, the intimacy of human relationships - husband and wife, parent and child, friend to friend; AI cannot tell you why the sight of the stars at night gladdens your heart and prompts you to contemplate the mysteries of the universe and creation.

 

This is the wisdom we need, and it is a treasure to be sought from the ultimate source of wisdom, which is God.

 

Let us use the tools of information and knowledge of course: they open up our world and inform us: but let us never abandon the pursuit of God’s wisdom, which is deeper, high and broader than all our knowing.

 

Put another way, from our second reading, ‘the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live for ever’ (1 John 2.17).

A song of the vineyard

Isaiah 5.1-7 Against the Lord’s vineyard

Philippians 3.4b-14 I run towards the goal of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus

Matthew 21.33-43 This is the landlord’s heir: come, let us kill him

 

‘Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven;

behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted’

(Psalm 80.14)

 

+

 

 

The thread that connects our Old Testament and Gospel readings is the vineyard and in the scriptures the vineyard is an image of Israel.

 

And let’s be clear: this is not about the modern State of Israel or Jewish people today.

 

It is about the biblical, House of Israel, God’s first-called People.

 

As our first reading made clear: ‘for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel’ (Isaiah 5.1-7).

 

But all is not well in the vineyard.

 

The prophet Isaiah is issuing a warning to the house of Israel.

 

He is saying that the vineyard, that God gives out of love, is meant to be a fruitful place, because the Lord has cleared the stones from the soil, made it fertile and hewed out a wine vat.

 

The vineyard is ready to flourish and be fruitful.

 

All is not well in the vineyard.

 

The Lord, Israel’s lover, ‘expected [the vineyard] to yield grapes, but instead it yielded wild grapes’.

 

What’s going on?

 

The prophet says that Israel has not tended the vineyard as it should; the cultivated grapes have been neglected and gone wild, fertility has leached out of the soil.

 

It is a tale of the neglect of the gift that God has given; oh, so human.

 

You might see parallels with human care of the creation: neglect, exploitation and desolation is ruining the vineyard entrusted to humanity.

 

But this is more specific.

 

Israel, in Isaiah’s vision, is a sign to the nations of the One True God’s desire to be in relationship with a people which is faithful to him.

 

Israel is a microcosm of what the whole human race is to be: a sign of the faithfulness of God, that the people who walk in darkness can indeed see a great light: Israel is to be ‘the Galilee of the nations’ (Isaiah 9.1).

 

Israel awaits expansion, when the hems of its tents are stretched out, to embrace even the Gentiles (cf Isaiah 54.2).

 

Isaiah is asking if Israel is worthy to be the sole tenant of the vineyard?

 

It is this image that Jesus picks up in his parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard.

 

He is making the same point as Isaiah declares and describes the vineyard in the same way as Isaiah does.

 

But Jesus transforms the metaphor of the vineyard, where all is not well, to tell us of himself.

 

It is not just that not all is well in the vineyard, but the vineyard is mistreated and neglected; instead of being fruitful it is filled with violence, covetousness and greed.

 

He develops Isaiah’s point that, ‘The Lord expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!’ (Isaiah 5.7)

 

Jesus is saying that the tenants of the vineyard have consistently mistreated it and tend to violence.

 

Who are the tenants? Well, the chief priests, elders of the people and Pharisees conclude, correctly, that they are the wicked tenants Jesus is talking about. (Matthew 21.45)

 

And they are about to lose the vineyard for good: ‘Therefore I tell you’ says Jesus, ‘the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ (Matthew 21.43)

 

This is where our Biblical antennae should be twitching.

 

Vineyards. They have vines. Who said, ‘I am the True Vine and my Father is the vinedresser’? Who said, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches?’ (John 15.1,5)

 

Of course! The True Vine growing in the vineyard is Christ, the only Son.

 

The son, thrown out of the vineyard and killed by the usurpers is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is sent to the vineyard and is crucified outside the city walls.

 

Yet this will fulfil the scriptures, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’ (Matthew 21.42 quoting Psalm 118.23)

 

God builds on the foundation of his Son who is despised and rejected, expelled from the vineyard.

 

And there our Biblical and ecclesial, that is things relating to the church, our Biblical and ecclesial antennae twitch further.

 

Jesus describes the Apostle Peter as the rock on which he will build his Church (Matthew 16.18)

 

This Church is the household of God, described in the St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians as being  ‘built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone’. (Ephesians 2.19,20)

 

We are now entrusted as the Church, the New Israel, with custody of the vineyard, as Jesus said to the Chief Priests and elders of the people, ‘‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ (Matthew 21.43).

 

The vineyard is redeemed, bought back, by the blood of Christ, the Son who is slain.

 

As the grape is crushed to make the juice from which comes the wine, so Christ’s blood is shed for the world and to give birth to the Church, his Body, to inhabit the vineyard and to make it fruitful.

 

The challenge now for us, in the vineyard of the Church, is to remain faithful to Christ: to be ‘a people who produce the fruits of the kingdom’; yearning to be holy; expanding our catholic vision; filled with apostolic zeal.

 

May our prayer be, in the words of the Psalm today, ‘Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted’ (Psalm 80.14)

On Beauty, Goodness & Truth

‘To them you are like a singer of love songs, one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes—and come it will!—then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.’ (Ezekiel 33.32,33)

 

What Ezekiel is clearly saying is that you can sing a beautiful song that pleases the ears but doesn’t touch the heart; but a day is coming when they will hear.

 

‘Beauty’, Dostoevsky says, ‘will save the world’.

 

That sounds naïve, but actually is rooted in a deep philosophical conviction, indeed when beauty, goodness and truth when served together they are attractive and compelling.

 

The beauty of which Dostoevsky speaks is beauty that transcends aesthetics, that is to say it’s not just a matter of taste.

 

This is beauty that is integrated complex and intricate.

 

It is beauty that is not dismembered. A labelled diagram of a rose may be accurate but it is not beautiful as beholding a rose is.

 

This is beauty that inspires the best in us, that touches our deep aspirations.

 

Beauty, goodness and truth are known in philosophy and theology as the Transcendentals, along with unity, which, as it were, binds them together.

 

These are a great value and are baptised in the Christian tradition, in other words given a new perspective and freshness.

 

As an illustration of this, on my recent visit to Romania I saw churches that were painted with frescoes both inside and outside.

 

A favourite scheme was one that looks very typical in Christian art: on the top row Christ and his Blessed Mother, on the row below, the apostles, below them other saints, below them the prophets of the Old Testament and below them, as a philosophical bedrock the pre-Christian philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras and such like.

 

They spoke of beauty, truth, goodness and unity, and these transcendentals are fulfilled in Christ.

 

This is what St Paul recognised when his life was flooded with the radiant light of the beauty, goodness, truth and unity of Christ on the road to Damascus (cf Acts 26.12-18).

 

That literally dazzled and blinded him; his eyes opened to a new appreciation of the realities of the world as seen through the lens of Christ and his Body the Church.

 

Ezekiel said, ‘To them you are like a singer of love songs, one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes—and come it will!—then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.’

 

The moment Paul, soaked in the philosophical tradition as a Greek and the prophetic tradition as a Jew, now heard beauty, goodness and truth and Christ the one who binds all together and completes the whole.

 

May we all continue to hear that ‘new song’ that attracts, converts, renews and saves.

Harvest: Giving & Receiving

Deuteronomy 8:7-18 Lord God bringing us into a good land

2 Corinthians 9:6-15 God loves a cheerful giver

Luke 17:11-19 Christ heals ten lepers

 

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind,

not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

(2 Corinthians 9.7)

 

+

 

Why give? What motivates us to give? What makes us cheerful in giving?

 

Harvest festival is a time when many people are moved to give.

 

There is a close relationship between giving and receiving, because today we give special thanks for what we receive from the land and respond through giving harvest offerings.

 

St Francis of Assisi, in the classic prayer attributed to him, says that it is in ‘giving that we receive’.

 

That opens up the possibility that receiving prompts us to give.

 

Perhaps that is why giving is something that we tend to do instinctively at harvest time, because Intentionally reflecting on the abundance of creation – however much humanity seems hellbent on wrecking it – shows us that we are always the recipients of a gift in our lives.

 

*

 

Being aware that we are, first, recipients of a gift is at the heart of the spiritual life.

 

The existence of the world and universe is itself a gift to us; and a gift implies a Giver.

 

The point of all the language of creation in the Biblical witness is that all that we know, all that we have, is first and foremost, an unmerited gift that we have been given by the great Giver, that is God our creator.

 

Life itself is a gift.

 

Not one person here, nor ever has lived, has determined that they would be born outside the gift they are through their parents.

 

This is what we call ‘grace’.

 

Grace is an unmerited gift, a gift that you cannot work for or strive for, because it is the gift of the Giver: God.

 

Each of our readings today has opened up the theme of unmerited and freely given grace.

 

In Deuteronomy an abundant land, where there is no want or scarcity is described, which is God’s gift to his people.

 

It is a land that prefigures the abundance of the New Creation in Christ, life as the baptised in the Church.

 

And there is a trenchant reminder that reinforces this point about grace and the gift of God:

 

Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. (Deuteronomy 8.17-18)

 

Grace is not earned or worked for: it is a gift to be responded to.

 

The Second Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians takes this point further:

 

And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9.8)

 

That’s grace; a gift to be responded to, not under compulsion but willingly and cheerfully.

 

A pattern emerges: receiving prompts gratitude which frees us to give.

 

Or at least that’s the theory.

 

The Gospel reading today holds a mirror up to us all in our response to the blessing, healing and abundance of God.

 

Am I a person of gratitude? Do I willingly and joyfully respond to the gift of life, to the abundance of creation, to the grace I receive in my life day by day?

 

The gospel reading could be heard in a very moralistic way: remember to say thank you.

 

That’s not a bad message, but there’s something richer going on.

 

There were ten lepers and one came back to give thanks.

 

This is illustrating the Biblical principle of giving known as a tithe.

 

A tithe is the gift of a tenth of what is received: ten lepers, one responded with gratitude, that is the tithe.

 

Serious, sacrificial discipleship works on the principle of the tithe and is a feature of many churches to this day: giving a tenth of what I receive in my income or abundance.

 

Why might I give generously? Because I receive generously, not just things, trinkets to acquire, but the deepest most fundamental gift of life itself, sustained by grace and the abundance of creation.

 

But our giving is not just measurable in a tithe, it is even more it is surrendering our very selves to Christ.

 

The deepest gift is the gift of God’s life to us and us to God.

 

The Eucharist is the place of that divine exchange and makes sense of all we say about receiving and giving, for a gift is offered in the sacrament of the altar, itself a channel of grace, to which we are invited to respond: Christ himself.

 

*

 

We give items at harvest festival that we know will make a difference to others, which in itself is a reward to us; the art of the spiritual life is to give and, in the words of a prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola, ‘not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing God’s will’.

 

May this harvest thanksgiving prompt us to consider why we give, how we give and what we give, for the benefit of all people, for the mission and ministry of the Church and, with that, in response to the God, the Giver of all good things, who sustains us in life.

 

So to God the Blessed Trinity - our Maker, Redeemer and Sustainer - Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all honour, thanksgiving, adoration and praise to the end of the ages. Amen.