Jubilate Agno: the praise of creatures - a sermon on the singing of Britten's 'Rejoice in the Lamb'

'Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the

Lamb. Nations, and languages, and every creature in which is

the breath of Life. Let man and beast appear before him, and

magnify his name together'.

 

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There are two Hebrew words that come to mind when I hear

Britten's 'Rejoice in the Lamb' and that remarkable text of

Christopher Smart

 

I'll be honest that there aren't many more Hebrew words I know!

The words are 'hallel' meaning 'praise', from where we get the

word 'Hallel-ujah': praise (hallel) God (Jah).

 

'Rejoice in the Lamb' captures a sense of exuberant praise and

glorification of God by all creatures: it's an alleluia!

 

And that leads to my second Hebrew word which is 'nephesh'.

 

This word literally means 'breath' or even better 'life force', or, as

Smart refers to it, 'the breath of Life'.

 

This life force is the breath of life that suffuses all creatures,

animals as much as humans.

 

'Rejoice in the Lamb' is an assertion of the life force in all

creatures and so reminds we human beings that we share

creatureliness with all creatures.

 

Smart takes this as far, but no further, than the Creation

accounts of Genesis, in which of course God declares that 'it is

good'.

 

Again, Smart goes as far as, but no further, than the great matins

canticle the Benedicite, Omnia Opera, 'O all ye works of the

Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him for ever'.

 

The Benedicite suggests that 'angels', 'waters', 'sun and moon',

'stars of heaven', 'showers and dew', 'fire and heat', 'whales and

all that moves in the waters', 'fowls of the air', 'beasts and cattle'

in other words, all created things - animate and inanimate - are

created to bless, praise and magnify the Lord, their Creator.

 

Admittedly cats aren't named in the Benedicite, but there is no

reason why they shouldn't be!

 

The point is that all things in the cosmos are created things, as

am I, as are you, as was Jeoffry, Christopher Smart's cat.

 

Created things ultimately are created to worship and honour the

Creator.

 

This is where theology begins, and ends: God is not a thing, not

an element of creation, but the Creator, the originator, the

generator.

 

That is what Genesis 1 so carefully sets out: the sun and the

moon are creatures, not deities; the earth and trees and animals

of all descriptions are creatures not deities; last of all we

humans, we are creatures, not deities.

 

Even whilst sharing the image and likeness of the Creator, we

are creatures too who reflect the Creator's glory: in that way we

are like the moon which has no light of its own, but reflects the

light of the sun.

 

So, for Smart, for all his alleged madness, is touching deep and

important things.

 

In 'Rejoice int he Lamb' Smart names many weird and wonderful

creatures that praise their Creator, and is most evident in

Jeoffry, his cat. What Smart sees in Jeoffry is wonderful and to be celebrated: a

cat who 'at first glance of the glory of God in the East he

worships in his way'.

 

'Worships in his way' is not a statement of personal taste - in the

sort of way that people shop around for styles of worship, in a

consumerist, preference-based way - this is deeper: 'worships in

his way' means that Jeoffry is a cat who glorifies God in all that

it is to be a cat; to be feline.

 

It's what the second century African theologian Tertullian

recognised when he wrote that, 'birds, when they awake, rise

toward heaven and in place of hands lift their wings which they

open in the shape of the cross, chirping something that might

seem to be a prayer'.

 

In Smart's assertion of the feline nature of the cat and

Tertullian's of the avian nature of the birds is the question the

Scriptures insistently ask us: what is the worship and honour

due to God in the human nature of men and women?

 

In his 'elegant quickness' Jeoffry is inhabiting his creatureliness

in all its feline elegance. What Smart observes is a cat being

truly a cat.

 

Tertullian, even with his somewhat florid interpretation is

observing birds being birds, flying and chirping.

 

Our fellow creatures in God's creation inhabit their

creatureliness and who they are all made and called by God to

be.

 

Their 'nephesh' issues in 'hallel'; their 'breath of life' issues in

praise.

 

The one creature that can't achieve - this is the one that sits in

an exalted place in the creation, declared to be made in the

image and likeness of God - and that's us.

 

So Smart sees in Jeffrey a cat that is truly a cat, just as a tree is

truly a tree, and is moved to contemplate his own nature.

Psalm 8 asks the question: 'What is man that thou art mindful of

him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? (Psalm 8.4)

 

This is where we can state that Jesus Christ is the true human,

hence why St Paul calls him the New Adam, the new humanity.

 

Christ Incarnate, shows how the human person should live to

glorify God and reflect his image and likeness. Christ

demonstrates humanity in all its human-ness as sons and

daughters of the Most High, rather than the distorted, violent,

envious, competitive, brittle way we live our lives: we spend too

much of our lives living lives that are not fully human, we are

diminished.

 

The fullness of humanity is when we bless, worship and magnify

our Creator in worship that sets our sights on the true 'hallel',

the praise that channels our nephesh, our 'breath of Life' to God.

 

Smart's cat, Jeoffry, points us to authentic praise, as do those

gathered in Bethlehem at the birth of Christ. Christ is

surrounded by representatives of the Creation: a star - creature

not deity; ox and ass - creatures not deities; and then the

devotion of people who become more themselves in worship

and adoration of Christ, and are in no way diminished.

 

'Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the

Lamb. Nations, and languages, and every creature in which is

the breath of Life. Let man and beast appear before him, and

magnify his name together'.

Apostolic Faith of Baptism - Peter, Paul & Nyrah-Shea

Acts 12.1-11 ‘Now I know the Lord really did save me from Herod

2 Timothy 4.6-8; 17-18 All there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me

Matthew 16.13-19 You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church

 

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Today we celebrate the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul.

 

Peter: companion of the Lord, one of The Twelve, chosen by Christ to be the rock on which his Church is to be built.

 

Paul: persecutor of the Church who met the risen and ascended Lord on the road to Damascus and was commissioned to be an apostle to the Gentiles.

 

Together they were the ultimate witnesses as martyrs for the faith in the city of Rome.

 

And also, today, we baptise Nyrah-Shea: known, named and loved by the Lord and today to become part of the Church, to be adopted as a Child of God.

 

What is this Church into which she is to be baptised?

 

The Church is the body of believers who call upon God as Father by living out the life of Jesus Christ, receiving him in the sacraments and scriptures, all empowered by the Holy Spirit.

 

The Church is the body of witness to the resurrection of Christ.

 

The Church is the divine body of Christ into which we are grafted, receiving the lifeblood of Christ through his beating, Sacred Heart of Love.

 

This Church is called into existence by Christ and he chose Peter, dear Peter, who shows the human flaws we all have: he wavers; flip-flops; misunderstands; is crass; disappoints; denies.

 

And yet Peter is desperate to be the person Christ saw in him, the true Peter, the essential Peter.

 

Our life in the Church should be that journey of discovery, with our companions in faith, of who we really are called to be:

 

living lives directed to God’s glory not our own glorification and gratification;

 

cherishing God’s love for us, not assuming we’re rivals with others in the Lord’s affections, but one in him;

 

presenting our bodies, ‘as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship’…not confirmed to this world, but transformed by the renewal of our minds to discern the will of God (Romans 12.1,2)

 

What an invitation: an enduring invitation!

 

I hope those of us who are long in the faith, who may be jaded, tired or switching off may be re-kindled in the vision set before us.

 

We owe it to ourselves, one another – to Jesus Christ! – to be renewed, day by day by day, in response to that invitation.

 

Nyrah-Shea joins us as fellow pilgrims in the way, the truth and the life of Christ; a path first walked by the apostles, trodden by saints throughout ages and the path we, in our day, navigate and explore.

 

It is an invitation to each and every person to consider the question that lies at the heart of being a Christian, when Christ asks you, ‘who do you say that I am?’

 

We know Peter’s answer, ‘you are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God’.

 

Like Peter, we are blessed when that is our response: that confession of faith which forms the foundational rock of the Church, embodied in Peter.

 

The questions put to those being baptised – infants through their godparents, and adults for themselves – ask the same thing: ‘who do you say that I am?’

 

A baptism is a chance for each one of us to be renewed, refreshed in our response to Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God.

 

As we answer, we might also consider Jesus’ question the other way round: who does Jesus Christ say that you are?

 

He could have looked at Peter and said, ‘he’s not up to it. Peter’s no rock, he’s too flaky. I can’t build my Church on someone like that.’

 

He could have looked at Paul and said, ‘this man is murdering my followers, injuring my body. He wants to destroy what I died for’.

 

But no. Christ saw in them the potential and possibility of being witnesses to the ends of the earth, through the generations, to establish, build and feed the Church in Christ’s name.

 

Who does Jesus Christ say Nyrah-Shea is? Who does he say you are?

 

He says, in the prophet Isaiah’s words, ‘you are precious in my eyes, and honoured, and I love you’ (Isaiah 43.4)

 

You may hear it said, ‘no one is indispensable’, in other words no one is really needed, known, loved, no one really has a place: they can be disposed of, discarded.

 

Those are the values of the world.

 

What the feast of Peter and Paul, what the baptism of a new Christian, what every moment of receiving Holy Communion tells us is that, in Christ, no one is dispensable, disposable: Christ does not chuck you away, even if you can’t (yet) discern where you fit in.

 

Flaky Peter, driven Paul, little Nyrah-Shea, you and me, we all have a place in the life of the Church.

 

Even if we’re not called to be the rock like Peter, the missionary and sower of churches like Paul, we are called to grow in the image and likeness of Christ, to know ourselves to be ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven and proclaim the source of that life by our testimony and witness in all we think and speak and do.

 

What we see in the scriptures and history of the Church is that for God no one is dispensable: each person is cherished and valued because God made us, knows us by name and sent his Son to die for our sins to save our souls.

 

Today Nyrah-Shea finds that her place is in the life of Christ, in his Church.

 

Today we all are renewed in our hope in the faith once proclaimed by the Apostles and received through the ages.

 

Today let us savour the beauty of Christ’s Church, rejoice in the truth of our profession of faith and show the goodness of God, patiently, day by day by day.

 

And may the Holy Apostles pray for us to the Lord in all our endeavours.

Always to Jesus - The Birth of St John the Baptist

Isaiah 40.1-11 As voice cries out prepare the way of the Lord

Galatians 3.23-29 All are one in Christ Jesus

Luke 1.57-66, 80 What then will this child become?

 

 

‘And you will have joy and great gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth because he will be great before the Lord’. (Luke 1.15)

 

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Today we celebrate the festival of our patron saint, John the Baptist.

 

John’s principal feast is today – the day of his birth - and his lesser, but still significant, feast is the day of his death, his beheading at the hands of the tyrant Herod.

 

The span of John’s remarkable life and character is attested to in the Gospels.

 

The first we hear of John is before his conception, when an archangel - the same archangel as came to the Blessed Virgin Mary - comes to Zechariah, a priest ministering in the Temple. (cf Luke 1.5-25)

 

Zechariah poo-poos the angel’s message that his wife Elizabeth will be mother to a son.

 

She’s past it, was Zechariah’s reaction. (Luke 1.18)

 

The name of this child to be conceived was John, a name that means ‘God is gracious’.

 

God is indeed gracious.

 

But there is a disruption here because he is not to be given his paternal name Zechariah, as would be customary, and this literally leaves Zechariah speechless. (Luke 1.22)

 

Something new, something creative, is going on here, but Zechariah hadn’t clocked it, despite knowing, surely, of other great Biblical women who were said to be too old or unable to have children, yet who did so by God’s grace: Sarah was beyond child bearing age when she conceived Isaac; Rebecca, who was childless, was blessed with Jacob and Esau; Rachel with Joseph and Benjamin; the unnamed wife of Manoah with Samson; Hannah with Samuel.

 

God’s creative potential is not limited by human physiology!

 

So, Elizabeth, the mother of John stands in a great tradition of women, named and unnamed, who are empowered by God to be bearers of a child, a child who will, in turn, be a bearer of the promise of God.

 

So we know of John before his conception, and then as a baby in his mother’s womb it is the unborn John who leaps within her at the presence of Mary and her unborn child.

 

It won’t be their last encounter! John’s life is woven into the life of his cousin, Jesus.

 

A birth is a hinge moment: we are the same person in the womb and out of it, yet what life brings when we’re born is quite different.

 

John’s birth speaks of a hinge moment for God’s chosen people, for the adult John steps out into the wilderness to proclaim that a new birth is possible through the washing away of sin and the restitution of justice and liberation of captives.

 

John comes after the example of the prophets, as the psalm says, ‘That the generations to come might know, and the children yet unborn, that they in turn might tell it to their children (Psalm 78.6)

 

That message is entrusted to us too.

 

Earlier in that psalm it says,

 

We will not hide from our children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might, and the wonders he has done (Psalm 78.4)

 

That is what John is all about, and it is a message of renewal and hope.

 

How we need to hear that in the world, and our country, as it is today.

 

John is a bearer of renewal and hope because of who he proclaims.

 

To adopt something of the spirit of our patron saint we must frame our patronal festival as not about John, but about the Lord he came to proclaim: ‘Christ must increase’, said John, ‘but I must decrease’ (John 3.30).

 

At a public interrogation about who he is, John responds, ‘I am not the Christ’, I am simply the ‘one crying in the wilderness, “make straight the way of the Lord”’ (John 1.20,23).

 

What humility; a man graced by God.

 

It’s little wonder then that Jesus says of John ‘among those born of women’ – that’s all of us, by the way – ‘no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist’ but adds, mysteriously, ‘Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he’ (Matthew 11.11).

 

This must encourage us today.

 

You and I have the capacity to be greater even than John!

 

We can be greater than John by walking in the straight path into the kingdom of the one John came to proclaim: Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Saviour.

 

In other words, John the Baptist is the most remarkable of men, a great person to emulate in his proclamation of the coming messiah and his radical dependence on God – something even the tyrant Herod recognised.

 

And yet, our entry into the kingdom of heaven, our living the seven-day-a-week life of being a Christian, exalts you, me and the saints throughout the ages to be even more exalted than John, and, you know, that’s just how he’d want it.

 

So today, as the archangel said, ‘you will have joy and great gladness, and many will rejoice at John’s birth because he will be great before the Lord’. (Luke 1.15)

 

So let us have joy and gladness today, and with him be great before the Lord.

 

Growing to God's glory

Mark 6.26-34 The kingdom of God is a mustard seed growing into the biggest shrub of all

 

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The parables of Jesus, those pithy stories and illustrations that teach us primarily about the Kingdom of God and God’s purposes in the world, can be confusing but they are endlessly rewarding when you spend time with them.

 

In fact, our passage this morning concluded by telling us that, ‘With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to his disciples, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples’. (Mark 6.33-34)

 

One of this morning’s parables, the Parable of the Mustard Seed, is very familiar and speaks truths that are both universal and particular.

 

We can read parables on one level and then go deeper with them too.

 

So, the Parable of the Mustard Seed is a parable of a universal truth which many people share and agree with.

 

It speaks of the way something tiny can grow big and powerful: it connects with David and Goliath, never underestimate the little guy.

 

In an age that is less and less familiar with the Bible the illustration of this truth now is more likely to be of acorns growing into oak trees, as an example of the small beginnings of great things.

 

But Jesus’ concern is not about general truths but the particular truth of the Kingdom of God to be lived out in human lives.

 

The parable begins with a rhetorical question: ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? (Mark 6.30)

 

The kingdom of God.

 

That’s his priority.

 

And what’s it like?

 

That’s where we get the mustard seed. So yes, the kingdom of God has small beginnings but grows to encompass all times, places and people.

 

And the mustard seed, like the kingdom of God, grows to a purpose, that’s the particular point.

 

The purpose is to be a place of hospitality, so that the birds of the air can nest in its branches: might we read that as a challenge and promise that the extended branches of the Church should be able to host those who otherwise would circle around?

 

A branch is both a perch to land on and a springboard from which to take off.

 

In your flitting through life where do you land and where do you take off from?

 

I know beautiful testimonies, from this very church, of people who, in the last few months, have circled outside the church, like a flying bird, and who have nested here and received the hospitality and warmth of Christ and of his people: what a wonderful thing!

 

Jesus tells us that the deepest hospitality is life within the kingdom of God; a place where our rootless selves find a home and a place to rest, and from which we fly to the heavens and the glory of God.

 

So the parables are not the wisdom of the ‘Fortune Cookie’.

 

And that takes us to the opening parable of our gospel today which is perhaps less straightforward and harder, perhaps, to unpack.

 

‘This is what the kingdom of God is like.’ (Mark 6.26): Jesus is really rather clear about it.

 

The universal truth in this parable is probably around being patient; be patient and resilient and you’ll make it through.

 

But, again, as we saw in the parable of the sower, what we are being asked to contemplate is what the kingdom of God is like.

 

Fruitfulness – the sown seed; a man sleeping, and waking to a new reality; the harvest and completion of all things… this parable reconnects us with the second account of the creation of humanity in Genesis 2.

 

In that account God creates, there is the fruitfulness; Adam is placed into a deep sleep and wakes to the new reality of the woman present with him and, in male and female, humanity is completed: the man and the woman are fruitful in one another.

 

The kingdom of God is the New Creation and, as St Paul says, ‘if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation’ (2 Corinthians 5.17)

 

The kingdom of God is the renewed, renewing and renewal of God’s creation, all is being made new and fruitful in him: the bridegroom Christ is united with his bride, the Church to be fruitful and multiply.

 

The seed of the kingdom sprouts and grows and we don’t know how, by God’s grace, growth and life is all around us.

 

The growth of a seed is rooted in the earth: as the parable says, ‘Of itself the earth brings forth…’ (Mark 4.28)

 

And what do we read in Genesis 2?

 

then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2.7)

 

Our origins are in the dust of the ground: the earth brings forth… us!

 

So, then, the parable of the growing seed is about the kingdom of God growing and fruiting in human lives, a growth that is only fully realised in the New Adam, in Christ Jesus.

 

It is a parable of grace: of unmerited, undeserved, unasked for; sprouting and growing.

 

The harvest and outcomes are not in our control, they are gifts of grace, like the growth of seed in the ground.

 

That is when we become a harvest worthy of God: the seed grows into a plant to beget more seed; the human being grows to the greater glory of God – that’s what we’re made for.

 

What we need to pay attention to is the sowing and cultivating of the kingdom of God within us so that we can be heralds of the kingdom of God in the world.

 

As the poet TS Eliot puts it:

 

Take no thought of the harvest,

but only of the proper sowing. TS Eliot, The Rock

 

God sows; we grow; God harvests.

 

May we indeed be a new creation in him.

The One who satisfies all hunger: Corpus Christi

Exodus 24.3-8 This is the blood of the Covenant that the Lord has made with you

Hebrews 9.11-15 The blood of Christ can purify our inner self

Mark 14.12-16, 22-26 This is my body; this is my blood

 

 

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Our gospel reading for this celebration of Christ’s body and blood takes us to the heart of Jesus’ passion and cross, when his body is broken on the cross and his blood poured out.

 

The meal he shares with his disciples is, ‘in the same night that he was betrayed’; it is the night we know as Maundy Thursday.

 

This meal is invested with significance beyond even the Israelites celebration of the Passover and their re-living God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.

 

The Passover meal heralds the deliverance from sin and death, a deliverance that will be realised in Jesus’ death the following day: after he is betrayed, has a sham trial and a hurried execution.

 

This Passover meal, the Last Supper, is the last meal of a condemned man.

 

And through this Passover meal Jesus - in the taking of bread and wine which he declares to be his body and blood - gives us the meal that is the Eucharist: a meal and more than a meal.

 

The Eucharist is a banquet for those who would otherwise be condemned, left in the cold, spiritually hungry, stuck in the misery of the worst side of being human.

 

The Eucharist is a sacrifice that fulfils the sacrifices of the First Covenant, which are described in our first reading and interpreted in the Letter to the Hebrews:

 

For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! (Hebrews 9.13,14)

 

Throughout the scriptures God simply wants to feed and satisfy the hunger of his people: this is both the physical hunger and the deep longings of spiritual hunger: as Jesus says in the Beatitudes, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.’ (Matthew 5.6)

 

Blessed Mary sees this in her beautiful song in praise of God, the Magnificat, when she declares, ‘He has filled the hungry with good things.’ (Luke 1.53)

 

The psalms describe how God fed his people in the wilderness after they had fled from the captivity of Egypt:

 

[God] rained down manna also upon them for to eat : and gave them food from heaven.

So man did eat angels' food : for he sent them meat enough. (Psalm 78.25, 26)

 

We are delivered from death and sin in Jesus Christ, and he gives us now the bread of angels: the panis angelicus.

 

Christ was even born in a place whose name – Bethlehem – literally means ‘house of bread’.

We are hungry people, in a hungry world: yet we know where to find the true food.

 

Let us tell the world where the food that satisfies is to be found!

 

Jesus Christ comes to satisfy your hunger, direct your desire, so that you are thirsty no more.

 

He teaches us to pray for this ‘daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer, to satisfy body and soul.

 

Jesus is this bread.

 

Jesus is the one who satisfies.

 

Jesus saves, because he gives himself for us, to take the weight of our sin, not place it on a bull or goat to be slaughtered, but on himself.

 

Note how St Mark’s Gospel connects the meal the disciples were to share with Jesus with the fact that it was the very day when the Passover lamb was sacrificed.

 

It tells us that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of God who is killed and whose blood is poured out to reconcile us totally to God.

 

O Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world,

grant us thy peace.

 

The Eucharist, then, takes us into the heart of darkness and of sacrifice and beyond, into the light of the of resurrection and glorification of Christ, when, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, our hearts burn within us in recognition of Christ in his word and sacrament, in the breaking of bread, the sign of his life-giving death.

 

Little wonder the crowds, at the feeding of the 5,000 who learn that Jesus gives way more than bread, say ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ (John 6.34)

 

This bread, Jesus teaches them and us, really is his body, the wine really is his blood.

 

Without eating and drinking we die; without eating and drinking Christ have no life in us (cf John 6.53).

 

That is why the last meal a Christian should ever desire before the end of our earthly life is this one, the one we share now.

 

We are no longer condemned eating this heavenly banquet, but are ‘ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven’.

 

The Eucharist is the sign and assurance of this spiritual and heavenly reality.

 

Today, as at every Eucharist, we receive Christ’s body into our bodies; his blood courses through our bloodstreams.

 

The Eucharist is not the last meal, or Last Supper, of a condemned person, but the banquet of life in all its abundance, the fulfilment of hope, the feast of love, the moment when we are at home, in company with one another and all the heavenly host, eating at the Lord’s table and knowing his joy made complete in us.