This
was first a sermon preached as Preached at the Cathedral Eucharist, Guildford,
24th January 2016. The key texts were 1 Corinthians 12.12-31a; Luke
4.14-21
‘The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me’
+ In nomine Patris…
The great prophet
Samuel set off one day
to anoint a new
king over Israel.
The first king,
Saul, had been an unmitigated disaster,
as the LORD had
warned,
and so a new king
was chosen.
Samuel’s task was
to find the one God had chosen
and to anoint him
king over Israel.
This was a
treacherous act.
Anointing a new
king, when the old one was not dead, implies regime change,
and rulers and
powers don’t like that.
Samuel filled a horn,
- possibly a ram’s
hollowed out horn -
with pure olive oil
and set out to
find the new king.
He didn’t use a
customary flask
so as to be
discreet,
just so that the
outgoing king, Saul, didn’t find out.
You can read the
detail in the first book of Samuel. (1 Samuel 16.1-13)
Suffice it to say
Samuel uncovered the least likely candidate,
as the LORD’s
chosen,
and that was
David, the youngest of eight sons.
Samuel anointed
David by pouring the oil over his head:
David was the
Anointed One,
in Hebrew, Meshach, in Greek Christos, in English, Messiah
or Christ.
The Sprit of the
Lord was upon him; and he was anointed as king.
Many years later the
prophet Isaiah
spoke of the
Spirit resting upon someone,
someone who will
spring from the stump or root,
the family tree,
if you prefer,
of Jesse.
And Jesse was the
father of David, the Anointed One (Isaiah 11.1).
The descending Spirit
would be one
of wisdom and
understanding,
of counsel and
might,
of knowledge and
fear of the Lord.
Then, in a later part
of Isaiah’s book
we read what
Jesus read
from the scroll in
the synagogue that day:
The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me,
because the LORD has anointed
me; (Isaiah 61.1a)
Isaiah describes
one who is anointed for a purpose.
Being anointed is
not an end in itself
or a cause for
self-satisfaction:
it is a
commission, a sending,
to proclaim
to bring
to liberate.
He has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor…release to the captives…recovery of sight to the
blind…release of the captives and proclamation of the year of the Lord’s
favour. (Luke 4.18-19)
This is the
messianic promise and challenge.
This is what
being anointed means.
Our first reading
shows that anointed life as being
in baptism and in
the Spirit:
‘For in the one Spirit we were
all baptised into one body
– Jews or Greeks, slaves or
free –
and we were all made to drink
of one Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 12.12)
These scriptures give
us
the empowering,
liberating theme of the anointing power of the Holy Spirit.
This gift is both
personal
to you and me,
and corporate,
to us as the
Church.
Baptism is the
possibility, promise and challenge
of being anointed
by the Holy Spirit.
One of the
beautiful actions at baptism is the act anointing with oil.
This very action
performed on prophets, priests and kings,
it draws us into
the royal priesthood of the Church (cf 1 Peter 2.1-10).
Oil is the
wonderful, sensual symbol of this,
and like all true
symbols it speaks beyond itself.
Oil
soothes.
If ever you have
dry, cracked or gnarled skin,
oil will soothe
it and relieve it.
The anointing
Spirit of the Lord
has the same
effect
on dry, cracked
and gnarled human hearts,
softening,
soothing and freeing them.
Oil
lubricates.
To undo an
overtightened screw just needs a drop of oil.
So oil releases
and eases things
that might not work otherwise.
The anointing
Spirit of the Lord releases.
She opens up apparently
intractable situations,
allows stony
hearts to flow with living water.
Anointing means
that possibilities open up for things to change.
Oil
gives light.
Before
electricity, oil was a fuel for lamps.
The anointing
Spirit literally in-spires us,
ignites, kindles,
fuels us,
to proclamation,
service and vision.
The anointed one
brings recovery of sight to the blind.
As the ancient
hymn Veni Creator Spiritus says,
‘Enable with perpetual light,
The dullness of our blinded
sight’
This is talking
about enlightened hearts.
Oil
heals.
You might recall
that the Good Samaritan
on finding the
man beaten and dying by the roadside
bound up his
wounds (Luke 10.34)
after first
pouring oil and wine into them.
Olive oil is
known for its healing properties.
And this is highly topical (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5VfZ307/is-olive-oil-really-good-for-me)
And this is highly topical (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5VfZ307/is-olive-oil-really-good-for-me)
So it’s little
wonder that the Holy Spirit is associated with anointing:
for the Spirit
soothes
and is balm to
the heart;
she lubricates
and releases;
enlightens, heals
and gladdens the
heart.
This is the Holy
Spirit that rests on and in the Anointed One,
Jesus Christ.
And what Jesus
declared at Nazareth
he bestows upon
us at baptism.
Through water and
the Spirit we are born again
and the Spirit
anoints us.
In the context of
baptism the anointing oil touches us
as prophets,
priests and kings.
In the words of
the Jesuit, James Quinn,
in his
contemporary translation of the Veni
Creator Spiritus,
that ancient hymn
used at ordination and confirmation,
As once on Christ the Servant’s
head
the oil of sevenfold grace you
shed,
so now anoint from love’s deep
springs
your chosen prophets, priests
and kings.
The Eucharist
draws us together,
and sends us out,
as a royal,
prophetic and priestly people.
Now, we draw down
this anointing power
as we gather at
the table of Jesus Christ.
Lord, send you
Holy Spirit
on this bread,
on this wine,
on your people.
The Church is
called to be bound together as one,
And so is human
society
Bound together
like the oil and flour
that bound together,
made small cakes for
the prophet Elijah,
and the widow of
Zarephath who hosted him.
The oil and flour
were inexhaustible,
carried on
feeding them him and her
and sustained them
beyond their expectations. (1 Kings 17.8-16)
In the Eucharist
we gather,
as God’s anointed
ones:
sharing in the
life of Christ;
drawing on the
life of Christ;
feeding on the
life of Christ
and anointed by
the inexhaustible Holy Spirit.
For she anoints
us and,
in the words of
the 23rd psalm,
we say,
You spread a table before me …
you have anointed me with oil,
and my cup shall be full.
(Psalm 23.5)
That day,
in the synagogue
in Nazareth,
the congregation
heard the scripture fulfilled in their hearing.
Today,
in this cathedral
church in Guildford,
reading this
blog,
may we in
Christ’s name and anointing power
find that we,
too, are the fulfilment of this scripture.
© Andrew Bishop,
2016
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