Embodying holiness

Preached as a sermon at Croydon Minster on Sunday 29 August. Readings: Deuteronomy 4.1-2, 6-9; James 1.17-end; Mark 7.1-8, 14,15, 21-23

Over the last few Sundays we have heard from the sixth chapter of St John’s gospel. That’s the chapter that opens with the Feeding of the Five Thousand, an event that is ‘unpacked’ as we receive Jesus’ teaching on how he is the Bread of Life and how we participate in his life as we consume the Bread of Life.

 

Eating and nourishing: it’s all very physical; of the body.

 

As Christians, we should know that bodies matter.

 

At the heart of our faith is the incarnation, which is the ultimate in saying that human bodies matter to their Maker, to God. The incarnation tells us that the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ, takes human flesh: that is; has a body, is a body. That’s what St John is saying when he declares ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1.14)

 

That divine body nestles and grows in the womb of the human body of Mary, which is why we honour her so highly as the Mother of God.

 

In John chapter six, and elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus is clear that to participate in his life we need to connect with his body in a physical way, the act of eating.

 

Christianity is not a religion of the mind or intellect disconnected from the body; that’s the way known as Gnosticism which is ultimately body hating. Indeed we declare, in the Creed, we believe in the Resurrection of the Body, in other words one’s soul and body are so intimately connected that God will raise both together.

 

In society today we see signs of body discomfort, to put it mildly. There’s the idolising of the body – think Love Island - and the loathing of the body when people speak of being trapped in a body, as if their body is not part of them.

 

There is a growing separation of body and mind in the Western outlook. It was put a long time ago by René  Descartes who said, ‘I think, therefore I am’. In other words, my thinking is what makes me, me. The limited body is apparently inconvenient to pure thought and reason.

 

The Olympic Games, and now the Paralympics, are fascinating because we see the human body pushed to the extremes of physical endurance, poise and power. But we also understand the intimate connection between body and mind. For the first time many athletes, such as Simone Biles, have spoken of the pressures on their minds as much as their bodies.

 

It rather gave the lie to the idea that if you want something enough, as an act of will of the mind, then you can have it. That is the route to deep frustration and malaise. Do you not want it enough? Or do you blame your body, as if it is something remote from you? ‘My body let me down’.

 

So the relationship between the body and the mind, let alone the body and the soul, is the stuff of philosophical and theological discussion and practical application.

 

That reflection on the body gives the backdrop to how we might handle this morning’s gospel. What is Jesus talking about as he condemns the Pharisees for their outward practices of holiness and cleanliness?

 

First, we should note that the Pharisees were a group within first century Judaism. Often the legalism of the Pharisees has been used to dismiss Judaism down the centuries. Not all Jews were Pharisees, and indeed some of the first followers of Jesus were themselves Pharisees.

 

Pharisees sought holiness in everyday life, what we might call ‘embodied holiness’. That in itself is laudable and good, but as we shall see there is a flaw in the application.

 

The Pharisees wanted to take the holiness codes of the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy that applied to temple priests and extend them to everyone. In so doing the practice became burdensome and, what Jesus really gets at, utterly hollow.

 

When Jesus comments on the practices of the Pharisees it was not the intention but the application that he takes issue with.

 

To hallow everyday life and action by infusing it with a vivid sense of God’s presence is a wonderful thing. Why not this week try and find small prompts in your day to spur you to the recollection of God’s presence so that you can embody holiness. That begins with cherishing the gift of the body God has given you and being at home in it.

 

For me, I wear a cross around my neck. As I put it on each morning I say the words of Jesus, ‘take up your cross daily and follow me’ (Luke 9.23). It is one small action I use to hallow the beginning of the day and intentionally commit myself again to the way of Jesus.

 

Saying grace before meals, a simple prayer of thanksgiving, is another great practice, whether eating alone or in company. It hallows the day and hallows the act of eating.

 

I could go on: prayer before bed, fish on Friday, saying the Angelus morning, noon and night, and such like, in these ‘little ways’, as St Therese of Lisieux called them, we can embody our desire for holiness.

 

There’s a health warning about holiness: it’s what Jesus pointed out with the Pharisees. No one wants to be called ‘holier than thou’. Holiness is never about superiority; that’s where the Pharisees fell short. Holiness doesn’t look down on others but invites them to look up to the Holy God.

 

The pursuit of holiness is what we do! ‘O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness’ (Psalm 97).

 

Holiness connects body and soul. It’s about the inward movement of the heart as much as outward action. When the heart is right, holiness of thinking, speaking and acting will flow.

 

St Benedict counsels, ‘Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may be truly called so.’ (The Rule of St Benedict, Chapter IV, 62 my emphasis).

 

We come now before the Holy God, seeking the holiness that is his gift, so that as we taste the body of Christ, the Bread of Life, we may be one of body and soul and live our lives to his glory.

Standing on Holy Ground

Preached as a sermon at Croydon Minster at Choral Evensong on the Sunday next Before Lent, 3rd March 2019

Moses, remove the sandals from your feet,

for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

(Exodus 3.5)

+

In many cultures taking one’s shoes off before one enters somewhere

special, set aside and holy

- be it someone’s home, a burial ground or a place of worship -

is perfectly normal.

Perhaps it hasn’t caught on so much in the cooler climes of northern Europe

because having cold feet is a reality not just an expression.

This passage of Exodus isn’t about shoe etiquette

it’s about the awareness of standing on holy ground,

about not trampling on things that are holy (cf Matthew 7.6).

It also draws us to reflect on the

intimate

and yet distant

character of God.

On one hand there is a deep intimacy.

God speaks to Moses by name,

almost as a friend,

‘Moses, Moses’.

To which Moses answers,

‘Here I am’

            ‘Here I am’:

            the refrain of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mary, the Mother of the Lord,

when they respond to the intimate, holy, powerful call of God.

And there is distance:


‘Come no closer!’

And then the command to Moses

to remove his sandals.

This episode is prompted by Moses,

the shepherd,

leading the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro,

beyond

the wilderness to the mountain of God.

Moses leads the people of Israel

beyond

the figurative wilderness of slavery and

beyond

the actual wilderness of Sinai

into the Promised Land.

Our journey through Lent will take us

beyond the wilderness of fasting and discipline

into the Promised Land of Resurrection

in Christ, the Good Shepherd.

Lent begins in dust and ashes.

Ashes:

the fruit,

- if fruit is the right word –

the fruit of fire.

Moses came across a mystical bush,

on fire

but not turning into ashes.

Little wonder, then, that iconographers have portrayed the Burning Bush

as a type of Christ,

borne in his Mother’s arms.

In that icon is the distance and destructiveness of fire

and the intimacy of Jesus Christ

- in his Mother’s arms -

who comes to share our human experience,

more intimately than we can know ourselves.

For as the prophet Elijah knew

- when he met God on the self-same mountain, Horeb -

the mystery of God is not found in the elements:

not in the mighty wind;

not in the earthquake;

and not in the fire.

It was only the sound of sheer silence

in which Elijah apprehended the presence

of the Holy One, of God (1 Kings 19.11-13).

So we remove our footwear to tread gently in God’s presence.

We remove our footwear

so that we tread quietly, softly, gently,

in order to hear the sound of sheer silence.

We cannot hear God above the clatter of the busy footsteps of our lives.

We remove our footwear

so that we don’t trample on the holy ground of the lives of other people.

We remove our footwear

so that we are in touch with our journey

- sensing the soft and hard ground –

and journeying deeper into the mystery of God’s love.

This coming Lent may our hearts be set on fire

– yet not destroyed –

by the holiness and intimacy of deepening our journey with God.

On the Day of Resurrection two disciples

equally prosaically as Moses

encountered Jesus Christ,

and

having walked along with him,

broken bread within him

reflected,

‘were not our hearts burning within us while we were talking to him on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ (Luke 24.32).

Come, my Light, and illumine my darkness.

Come, my Life, and revive me from death.

Come, my Physician, and heal my wounds.

Come, Flame of divine love, and burn up the thorns of my sins,

Kindling my heart with the flame of your love.

Come, my King, sit upon the throne of my heart and reign there,

For you alone are my King and my Lord.

Amen.                                                                                             (Dimitri of Rostov)

Becoming Saints

Shaping the lives of the Saints - All Saints’ Reflections

Ephesians 1.11-23; Luke 6.20-31

Guildford Cathedral is flanked on the north and south by a series of statues. At first glance you might think they are a collection of saints; but they’re not. There are holy men and women on the West End, but the statues on the north and south sides are less obvious than that.  In the form of the human body, they seek to express the virtues, cardinal and theological, down the south side and down the north the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The virtues - Courage, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Faith, Hope and Love - may be regarded as a series of values, ideas to aspire to. Values are very fashionable. Businesses, churches, schools, hospitals all trumpet their values in prospectuses. Teachers, clergy, and others, have to do school assemblies based on the school’s values which often feels like an exercise in promoting the school’s propaganda or performing contortions to make an abstract value seem applicable in the children’s lives and connect to the gospel.

The virtues are not highly fashionable, not least as they seek to form moral character, which is usually is assumed to mean moralistic, self-righteous, pompous behaviour, which is the polar opposite of what they are meant to do. That sounds a little like the perception of saints. They could be seen as being holier-than-thou, unhealthily unworldly, stained glass wimps.

The purpose of virtues is in the forming of habits and ways of acting that lead to what we call a virtuous life. This means that they train us in the making of decisions. From classical times the virtues shaped moral living. So you could say that saints are those frail human beings who have responded to the call to be formed in the virtues, especially those of faith, hope and love. But also the saints, like you and me, have bestowed upon them the gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Fear of the Lord.

A rather grainy picture of 'Understanding' by Alan Collins
Guildford Cathedral

It’s the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding that has intrigued me recently as I have walked past. This depiction connects the gifts of the Spirit and the virtues with being shaped and formed in the ways of holiness in a slightly unlikely way. On it, the haloed figure holds an unfurled scroll with the Biblical reference Ephesians 1.18. It’s inviting us to read that verse:

“The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of [God’s] calling, and what [is] the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (AV)

This are significant words for what it means to be a saint: eyes seeing the light; knowing the hope of God’s calling; and knowing the riches of the glory of God’s promise to us in company with each other and those who go before us.

In this passage, which is a prayer being offered, an expansive and expanding vision of holiness is being stretched out before us. After all the prayer goes on to refer to ‘the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power’ (v19). And let’s be clear: holiness is not pie-in-the-sky, vague or wishy-washy.

To read this alongside Luke 6.20-31, as the lectionary asks us to, roots the blessedness of that vision of holiness firmly in lived, embodied, daily realities and offers a deeply stretching way to approach them. It does so in the language of blessings and woes. The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the excluded and reviled will all find blessing. Jesus beholds them and blessing falls upon them. 

Those who have life ‘sorted’ - the rich, the replete, the laughing ones – and who seem comfortable now will find that they need to rely more on God to know blessing, so that the rich will recognise their poverty, the replete their hungers, the laughing their pains. So you’re blessed now: seek further blessing from God.

This is the way to becoming more human not less, with the most stretching instruction of all, ‘do to others as you would have them do to you’. Do we even know what we really want others to do and be for us?

In his Rule St Benedict says, ‘Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy, that you may truly be called so’ (My italics). In other words don’t ask for the label of saint without first behaving like one.

Holiness is a life lived in the intensity of the awareness of God’s presence day by day and a life lived and shaped by that reality. The ecology of holiness is supported by the intensity of God-filled moments that we call the sacraments. The Eucharist is the supreme example of this where in word and sign we are pointed to the divine banquet gathered with all the saints. Bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood is the food of the saints.

Holiness is humanness in all its fullness and potential. Just as the virtues were named so as to shape habits and actions, so the call to be saints invites a transformed life. The call to holiness is the call to be a saint; one of the holy ones of God. The call to holiness is the call to be real, more real than you can possibly imagine. The call to holiness is the call to be part of a family that extends beyond biology, kinship and DNA.

So I pray for myself and for you: May the eyes of our understanding be enlightened; that we may know what is the hope of [God’s] calling, and what [is] the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Amen.