Letter of Jean Vanier Jan 2012

Jesus, taking a child in his arms, calls his disciples to become like that small child in order to enter into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of love. Let us learn to welcome this tenderness, these eyes that wonder, this openness, this trust and this love that are the gifts of children. Jesus adds, “Those who welcome a child in my name welcome me”. To welcome Estelle is to welcome God. This God of peace is hidden in the smallest and the most wounded. Let us not try to climb up in the heavens but let us descend, yes, let us descend to meet  ‘Estelle’ and people who have been rejected. It is about meeting them, heart to heart, person to person, with smiles in very gentle moments of communion; not to change them, but to meet them by making room in our hearts.

Read the whole letter.

Epiphany – Year B (January 8th)

Epiphany – Year B (January 8th)
Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72: 2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12
Next Sunday the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Epiphany. The name means, “showing forth”, and not surprisingly the readings for the feast speak of the light shining on the mystery of God’s plan.

The first reading urges a depressed Jerusalem, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of YHWH has shone upon you”. This is in contrast to the present situation, “Behold, darkness shall cover the earth and thick clouds the peoples”. Then we are given a vision of what will happen to the People of God (in decided contrast to what is going on at present), “Lift up your eyes round about and see”. And what do they see? A very cheering vision: “Your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters on their nurses’ shoulders”, which will have a (literally) splendid effect on Jerusalem, “Then you shall see and you will be radiant”, at the picture of the flow of wealth into Jerusalem, including “dromedaries of Midian and Ephah”. And the climax is “And they shall announce the praises of YHWH”. That is what it is all about.

The psalm is a song for a newly-crowned King of Judaea, “May he judge your people with justice, and your poor with uprightness”. There is the mystery of God’s subversive plan; the King is indeed to have a vast domain, “from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth”, and to accept the homage of other potentates, but only as long as he looks after the “poor…the needy and the helpless”. It would be good if all our Presidents and leaders were to make this their motto, and it would shed light on a darkened world.

The second reading for the solemnity also speaks of the mystery of God’s plan; and here it is revealed as the astonishing fact that “the Gentiles are to be co-heirs, and the same body, and co-sharers if the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel”. This is indeed a very hidden mystery, and one to which Paul knows himself to be called.

The mystery is acted out in the lovely story that is the gospel for next Sunday, the story of the arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem. These people are precisely Gentiles, and they have it right, even if they start their visit with a tactless enquiry, “Where is the one born King of the Jews?”. This is less than tactful, because there is a King of the Jews happily reigning, and his name is Herod; and he has a decidedly brisk way with anything that threatens his throne (including the murder of his wives and sons). Unsurprisingly, Herod and the Jerusalem establishment are “disturbed” at the tidings; but very surprisingly, they believe that the Magi have it right, because Herod actually asks his advisers where the Messiah is to be born. They press the buttons on their computer, and come up with the answer, “Bethlehem”, so the Magi set off in that direction, with a promise to return and tell Herod all about it, because he too wishes to “worship” the child (though the reader is uncomfortably aware that what Herod means by “worship” is probably rather different from what the Magi are proposing to do).

However God is in charge of this mystery of light, and they are now led by the light of a star; they perform their worship, and offer their gifts of “gold, frankincense and myrrh” (which is why you thought that there were three of them), symbolising Jesus’ kingship, priesthood, and the fact that he is going to die.

Then, as we worry about whether these dolts are going to go back and tell Herod how to find (and kill) the little child, we are reminded once more that God is in charge, for they were “warned in a dream”, and return home by another route. A new light shines in our world.

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God (January 1st)

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God (January 1st)
Readings: Numbers 6: 22-27
Psalm 67: 2-3, 5-6, 8
Galatians 4: 4-7
Luke 2: 16-21
New Year’s Day comes next, and as you face 2012, with whatever mixture of eagerness and anxiety is yours, you will find much to ponder on in the readings for the feast; and you will see that what matters is that God (we do not know how) is at work in our world.

The first reading is the beautiful priestly blessing that is intended to accompany Israel in its desert wanderings. Each of the three parts of the blessing is longer than its predecessor. It moves from “YHWH bless you and keep you” to “YHWH lift up his face upon you and be gracious to you”, to “YHWH lift up his face upon you and give you peace”, with some untranslatable Hebrew puns on the way, all culminating in the great promise “and I shall bless them”. This happens, of course, not because of any merit on our part, not because the magic formula has been properly carried out, but simply because God is God.

The psalm picks up this idea of God’s generous blessing: “may God be gracious to us and bless us, and let his face shine upon us” is how it begins; and it ends also with blessing: “may God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him”. Here, of course, the idea is that the praise of God (in response to God’s blessing) goes out beyond Israel to all others who might learn about God from us. That is not a bad idea to take with us into the New Year, better than those dreadfully fragile resolutions made at midnight, and broken by midday.

The second reading for the great feast, coming just after some of the more difficult bits of argument in the Letter to the Galatians, and outlines what it is that God has done in Christ, labouring for our advantage in this broken world of ours. The phrase “the fullness of time” emphasises that God is in charge. The “right time” is when God says so, not when we think the time is ripe. Then Paul puts his finger on the central element of it: “God sent the Son of God”; but the argument is subtly done here, for it is qualified in two ways. First, Jesus is “born of a woman”, in other words a human being just like the rest of us, with all the limitations and ambiguities that implies. Secondly, Jesus is “under the Law”, which Paul in Galatians sees as a temporarily disadvantaged situation, a necessary preliminary if God in Christ is to move us from the status of “slave” to the status of “freeborn son or daughter”. How does this happen? Not through anything that we have achieved, but through the “Spirit of the Son”; and the function of that Spirit is “to cry out in our hearts, ‘Abba, Father’,” which of course is how Jesus began the prayer he taught his disciples, and how himself prayed in Gethsemane. The upshot is that we are “no longer slaves, but free-born sons and daughters, and therefore also heirs, through God”.

The gospel for the solemnity starts with the outsiders (shepherds) rushing off to witness the appearance of the baby which God’s messenger has told them about; and it ends with Jesus becoming an insider: “when the eight days had been fulfilled to circumcise him, his name was also called Jesus, which he had been called by the messenger before he had been conceived in the womb”. The reader is already aware, of course, that although Jesus and his parents belong firmly within Judaism, and Luke’s Gospel begins and ends in the Temple, by the end of the story of Acts there has been a sad divorce between Jesus’ followers and the Judaism from which they had emerged. So it is worth noticing what takes place between the beginning and the end of next Sunday’s gospel. First of all, the shepherds’ account causes “wonder”, a sure sign that God is at work. Secondly, Mary “kept all these words, comparing them in her heart”, inviting us likewise to reflect on “these words”. Thirdly the shepherds go off (not, apparently back to their unhappy sheep) “glorifying and praising God over all they had heard and seen, exactly as it was spoke to them”. God is at work here, and we shall best celebrate our new year if we learn to see the signs.

Feast of the Holy Family – Year B (Friday December 30th)

Feast of the Holy Family – Year B (Friday December 30th)
Alternative Readings: Genesis 15:1-6, 21:1-3
Psalm 105:1-6, 8-9
Hebrews 11:8, 11-12, 17-19
Luke 2:22-40
Families are important, but not easy; and so the Church shows immense wisdom in assigning the feast of the Holy Family to the first Sunday after Christmas, when all of us may have felt the strain of family life. The first reading for next Sunday indicates that our family, whatever you may feel from time to time, is the gift of God to us. Abram is married (and 75 years old!), but childless, and when God tells him, “Don’t be afraid; I am your shield”, he gently points out that he has no children, “You have given me no offspring”. Then comes the astonishing moment, when God takes Abram outside and says, “Now look at the heavens, and count the stars, if you can count them…that is how your descendants will be”. Then we hear the author’s comment, “And he trusted in YHWH, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness”. There now follows rather a long gap, and we pick up the story, six chapters later, when God finally delivers on his promise, “And YHWH visited Sarah as he had said”, and she gave Abraham a son, “and Abraham called the name of his son, whom Sarah had borne him, ‘Isaac’.” A happy conclusion to the tale, but thoughtful readers will recall that in the chapter immediately following this, Abraham is going to be asked to sacrifice the son thus given him. Family life is not easy.

The psalm, on the other hand, is full of what God has done, “Sing to YHWH, call upon his name, and sing his praises among the peoples”. And notice how the psalmist is reflecting on the way God has dealt with his people, especially in the patriarchs. It is appropriate, after our first reading, that precisely the names of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac are mentioned (though in a slightly unexpected order). Our families only work properly if God is recognised for who God is. And God, of course, can cope with every challenge that even our family throws at him.

If God is in charge, what response can families possibly make? The second reading makes a suggestion, once again mentioning that not entirely functional family of the first reading; and the suggestion is, simply, “faith”; “it was by faith that Abraham was called and obeyed, to go out to a place…and he went out, not knowing where he was going. Sarah is likewise listed as an example of faith, accepting the power to conceive, “because she thought the One who promised was faithful”. And the result? “From one man, and he more than half-dead, were born [offspring] like the stars of heaven in number, and like the sand by the sea-shore, which is uncountable”. And the passage refers, somewhat coyly, to Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, “for he calculated that God was able even to raise from the dead”. It is not easy, being family, unless we recognise God at work among the family members.

This is what Mary and Joseph manage in the gospel for next Sunday. They do exactly the right thing, bringing “him” (Jesus, of course) to Jerusalem “to offer him to the Lord, as it is written in the Law of the Lord”. But because God is in charge, something quite unexpected happens, and they encounter two other people who, like Mary and Joseph, and Elisabeth and Zachariah, step out of the pages of the Old Testament; and now they learn the significance of the family which they have just brought into the world. The first of these is Simeon, “just and pious, and waiting for the comfort of Israel”. He is now given to realise that here is “the Lord’s Messiah”; he sings to God “Lord, now dismiss your slave…in peace”, and interprets Jesus as “salvation…for all peoples, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel”. Mary (families are never easy) is also told, “a sword shall go through your soul”. Then we meet Hannah, who praises God, and identifies Jesus as “Jerusalem’s redemption”. After this the family returns to Nazareth, and, we are told, “the child grew and was strengthened, filled with wisdom. And God’s grace was on it”. This family’s offspring is evidently going to be remarkable.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day: Gospel Readings:
Midnight Mass: Luke 2: 1-14
Mass at Dawn: Luke 2: 15-20
Mass During the Day: John 1: 1-18
Christmas Day is upon us, and for this week I thought it might be worth reading with you the three gospels, at least one of which you will be hearing on that day. Take the three of them together, and they speak of the richness of the mystery that we celebrate at Christmas.

The first reading is Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. As so often, Luke plays his “three-card trick”, persuading us to look in one direction, while all the time the real business is elsewhere. So he starts by pointing to the most important people in the world, the Emperor Augustus in Rome, and Quirinius his local representative, who press buttons in their office in order to hold a census, “and everybody started journeying to get onto the census, each to their own city”; but actually Luke is not at all interested in this great historical event (which is in any case unknown to historians). His focus is not even on Joseph, whose details occupy most of the next sentence, but on Mary, “his fiancée, who was pregnant”. This comes as the most tremendous shock; but Luke is a gospel of shocks, and we had better get used to it. Now there follows another shock, for this baby, which has already been identified as “God’s salvation” and “Son of God” finds “no room at the inn, and is placed in a “feeding-trough”. Nor is Luke finished with the shocks, for the witnesses summoned by God have nothing to do with the upper echelons of polite Roman society: they are “shepherds” (think of cowboys – living right on the edge of society), to whom “the angel of the Lord” appears “and the glory of the Lord shone round about”. As the massed choirs of heaven praise God and sing “Glory in the highest to God, and on earth peace to those of good will”, we join, somewhat dazed, in the general applause, and learn that Christmas is rather a shocking time.

If you are at the Dawn Mass next Sunday, the shock deepens. For our cowboys, once the angels retire into heaven, now think the unthinkable, and say to each other “let us go as far as Bethlehem, and let’s see this affair that the Lord has made known to us”. Not a hint, you see, of their prime responsibility, which is to look after the sheep in the face of all that threatens them, from wolves to rustlers to other shepherds. Luke’s readers would have seen the point immediately: the good news about Jesus is something that demands instant attention. What happens is that “they went in a hurry, and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the feeding-trough”. Once again, we notice that the one who matters most is mentioned last, and seems the least significant; Luke is a genius for this “three-card trick”. So the shepherds report “that had been spoken to them about this child”, evoking universal wonder (something that is very common in Luke’s gospel). Then Luke introduces an idea that will come again, “while Mary was keeping these things, comparing them in her heart”. This, I think, is Luke’s advice to the reader: as Mary does, so must we do, and meditate on what this story means in our life. Meanwhile the shepherds do what we also must do: “they returned, glorifying and praising God, for all that they had heard and seen, as it had been spoken to them”. That last phrase is used three times in the passage, and it carries an important Christmas message: what God says, comes true.

If you go to mass during the day next Sunday, you will find yourself breathing the very different air of the opening verses of John’s gospel. Not much happens here, but a stage is set; or rather, two stages: “up there” and “down here”. The “Word” belongs “up there” with God, and comes “down here”, risking the encounter with “the darkness” and with “his own who did not receive him”. What links these two “stages” is the astonishing proclamation that “the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us”. And the deep truth from which it springs is that “no one has ever seen God”. So how do we know God “up there”? Only because “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, that is the one who has made God known”. That is the message that should have us throwing our hats in the air, this Christmas Day.

4th Sunday of Advent – Year B (December 18th)

4th Sunday of Advent – Year B (December 18th)
Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14-16
Psalm 89:2-5, 27-29
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-28
What does God need for a Christmas present? In the first reading for next Sunday, the last before Christmas, David, abetted by Nathan, has conceived the bright idea that God might need a new house. David is in “a house of cedar, while the Ark of God is sitting in a tent!” Nathan is then very firmly instructed to tell David that it is God, and not David, who is in charge, “It was I who took you from the pasture, and from following the flock”, and that so far from David building a house for God, the Lord has already built David’s house, both in the sense of a building, and in the sense of someone to follow him on the throne. When God is in the equation, things are turned quite upside down.

That is the point of the psalm for next Sunday, which sings of “YHWH’s steadfast love forever…you have established your truth in the heavens”. Then we hear God’s side of things, “I have established a covenant with my chosen one”, and in a lovely picture of the relationship between God and God’s Messiah, or King, we hear “He shall call me ‘Father – you are my God, and the Rock of my Salvation’.” Then we are once more given the reminder that God is in charge of this relationship, “For ever I shall establish my steadfast love for him; and my covenant with him will stand firm.” Such a God has no need of our Christmas presents; our God is all gift, and all we can do by way of response is to gasp in admiration.

The second reading for next Sunday is precisely such a gasp of admiration. It is, as the manuscripts stand, the ending of the Letter to the Romans, a song of glory to this great God of ours, who needs no presents from us this Christmas, beyond the recognition that God is God. “To the one who can strengthen you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept in silence for the eternal ages…to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever. Amen”. We join our prayers to this admiring doxology; and that can be our Christmas present to God.

Or we could be like Mary in the gospel reading for next Sunday. Once again, God is very much in charge, as Luke indicates when he says that “the angel Gabriel was sent…”, and emphasises the unimportance of Mary and the tiny city from which she came. Gabriel’s greeting is a startling one (and it certainly startled Mary), “rejoice, grace-filled one – the Lord is with you”, so Mary has to be told “don’t be afraid”. Then she learns the enormity of the task, “behold – you are going to conceive in your womb; and you are going to bear a son; and you are going to call his name ‘Jesus’.” Nor does it stop there, “This one will be great, and will be called ‘Son of the Most High’, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David”. Now we are back in the world of that first reading, where God was unmistakably in charge, as we hear “He will be King over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his Kingdom, there will be no end.” Mary asks a cautious question, “How will this be, since I do not know a man?” As in all our readings for next Sunday, the answer is with God, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore what is being conceived is holy, and will be called ‘Son of God’”. If Mary required it, evidence is then offered, “Behold – Elisabeth your kinswoman, she too has conceived a son in her old age…”

Finally come the words that we have been longing to hear from Mary’s lips, “Behold, the Lord’s slave-girl; let it happen to me according to your word”. The story ends, “and the angel went away from her”; but we are left there, contemplating Mary, and the astonishing power of a God who needs no presents from us this Christmas beyond what we can give by saying, “Let it happen”.

3rd Sunday of Advent (December 11th)

3rd Sunday of Advent (December 11th)
Readings: Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11
Luke 1:46-50, 53-54
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
There is joy for us as Advent goes its way, but it is not the “Ho-ho-ho” of unduly “merry gentlemen” that is on offer. The joy that God will bring us at the end of Advent comes from a sense of mission, “The Spirit of the Lord YHWH is upon me, for YHWH has anointed me to preach the gospel of joy to the lowly…to proclaim a year of God’s favour”. And the joy comes from recognising what it is that God is doing in our lives, “He has clothed me in garments of triumph, wrapped me in the robe of victory, like a bridegroom…and like a bride”. This is all God’s doing “to make justice and praise spring up, in the presence of all the nations”.

There is joy, too, in the canticle for next Sunday, which is a part of Mary’s Magnificat. The joy comes from her quiet certainty that God is what matters, and so “my spirit has exulted in God my Saviour”; it follows that “the humiliation of his slave-girl” is a matter of no importance, and yet God has “looked upon it”. Our God, whom we await during Advent, is more interested in the “hungry” than in the “affluent”, even though it may not always feel like that, and although the Church may not always behave as though it were true. For God, as the canticle twice makes clear, is a God of “mercy”.

The second reading is from almost the end of Paul’s first epistle, the earliest document of the entire New Testament. He has done all the business of the letter, and now he is telling the Thessalonians (and us) how to soldier on in this Advent world. The first command, and one that we must take seriously, is “rejoice all the time”. The second, and it will do no harm if we observe it in as we wait for God’s coming, is “pray without ceasing”. The third, and if only we could do more about it we should be altogether more sane, is “in everything be grateful”. And why? “Because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”. This prompts Paul to mention the third person of the Trinity, “don’t quench the Spirit”, which he explains as, “Don’t despise prophecy”. He ends by reminding us once more of “the peace of God”, and then “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and offering the final reassurance to give us joy, “The One who calls you is faithful – he will do it”.

Joy as such is not mentioned in the gospel for next Sunday; instead, we hear the opening chapter of John’s Gospel pointing to Jesus. Notice how cleverly it achieves this aim, starting not with Jesus but with John the Baptist, and insisting that he was “sent from God…to bear witness about the light”, while at the same time roundly asserting, in case the Baptist’s disciples were disposed to contend the matter, that “he was not the light”. Then we move to a point, later in that first chapter of the gospel, where once again Jesus is beneath the surface of the text, as the religious authorities raise the question of who John is: “the Messiah?”, “Elijah?”, “the prophet?”. John’s answer, of course, is “none of the above”; he is one who points to Another, “the voice of one crying in the desert…”. The source of our joy, this Christmas, is that Other, “the one who is coming after me”, who does not baptise in water, and “of whom I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

Next Sunday is known as “Gaudete” Sunday, because we are supposed to rejoice on that day, and relax the austerity of our Advent fast; but our real joy comes from recognising what it is that God is doing in our darkened world.

2nd Sunday of Advent – December 4th

2nd Sunday of Advent – December 4th
Readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm 85:9-14
2 Peter 3:8-14
Mark 1:1-8
Christmas rushes towards us, and God demands to come into our lives; allowing him in is not easy, however, amidst the noise of the Christmas shopping and the clatter of a consumerist society. So sometimes God has to take us out into the desert to listen. That seems to be the message of next Sunday’s readings.

The first reading is the beginning of the prophecy to the exiles in Babylon that the time has come for them to return to their beloved Jerusalem, from which they have been separated for half a century. So “Comfort, comfort, my people” is the song, and “she has received double for all her sins”. The difficulty is that they are quite comfortably settled in Babylon, thank-you very much, and between them and Jerusalem lies a thousand miles of inhospitable desert; so couldn’t we stay where we are? No, you can’t, is the answer; and we hear the invitation “a voice in the desert: prepare a way for YHWH, a highway for our God”. When God is in charge, nothing is impossible, “Let every valley be raised, every mountain and hill be brought low”. And out there, in the desert (wherever your desert may be, this Advent-time), “YHWH’s glory will appear”. The prophet is addressed as “herald of joy to Zion”, and instructed to “climb a high mountain” (no one said it would be easy). Then comes a wonderful vision of the Lord’s coming, with all the gentleness and affection of a good shepherd; but it is in the desert.

What will it be like when the Lord comes? That is what the psalm is asking, “I shall hear what YHWH God will say; for he will speak peace to his people”. Now peace is better than just the absence of war. Peace, as the psalm makes clear, is all about making the world as God wants it to be; and that means that we have to build a society that has “faithfulness and truth…justice and peace”, which are God’s faithful escorts; but they are not qualities of a society that has forgotten the demands of God. There is an urgent invitation to us here as Advent goes its way.

The second reading is addressed to those who argue that it isn’t very urgent, after all. “God is not slow”, the author insists, “…but patient”. There will be a “Day of the Lord”, but it will come “like a thief” (a rather audacious image for God’s action, we may feel!), and we have to be ready and waiting for the “new heavens and the new earth”; and like the psalmist, the author insists, “Justice dwells there”.

The gospel reading is the opening lines of Mark’s extraordinary gospel, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Messiah”; and once again we are in the desert. Oddly Mark heralds a quotation from Isaiah, but the first lines that he utters are not from Isaiah at all, but from either Malachi or Exodus. Soon he recovers himself, though, and quotes the lines from our first reading, Isaiah indeed, about “a voice of one crying in the desert”. Then, still in the desert, we encounter the grim figure of John the Baptist, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. He is impressively successful, “the whole Judean region and all the Jerusalemites were coming out to him” (so presumably there was not a soul left in the city). Then we hear of his uncomfortable clothing (“camel’s hair”) and unattractive diet (“grass-hoppers and wild honey”). But this is not about John; the Baptist is pointing away from himself, towards “the one stronger than me, and I’m not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals”. Better still, the one John points to “will baptise you people with the Holy Spirit”. That is the one whom we must listen for, in the desert, this Advent.

1st Sunday of Advent – Year B (November 27th)

1st Sunday of Advent – Year B (November 27th)
Readings: Isaiah 63: 16-17, 64:1, 3-8
Psalm 80:2, 3, 15-16, 18-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:33-37
Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, and a new liturgical year is almost under way. The important thing that we have to remember is that Advent means “coming” or “arrival”. The Christmas displays have been in the shops for some months now, and you probably heard “book now for Christmas” for the first time back in August. But the feast has yet to come, and our task is to prepare for the Lord”s coming.

Part of that preparation will be to realise the extent to which we are utterly dependent on God. In the first reading for next Sunday, this is taken to extremes, and the prophet is complaining against God, asserting that “you are our Father, our redeemer”, but almost in the same breath demanding to know, “why do you make us stray from your ways? Why do you turn our hearts from reverencing you?” Just like us, all too often, the prophet demands a spectacular intervention, “Tear open the heavens, and come down, let the mountains tremble before you”, before lapsing into an appropriate recognition of guilt, “You are angry, and we have sinned…we are all withering like leaves”. And this leads in turn to the recollection, once more, that, “You, YHWH, are our Father; we are the clay and you are the potter”. That is where we have to start, as we wait for the Lord”s coming this Christmas.

The psalm is likewise written by someone utterly convinced of our dependence on God, “Shepherd of Israel, hear us…you who are enthroned on the cherubim”, and the psalmist even asks God to “come back” (the word can also mean “repent”!), “and look down from heaven”. Then comes a promise, which we shall do well to make our own, this Advent, “never again shall we stray from you”, and a recognition that we cannot do it on our own, “Give us life, and we shall call upon your name”.

The second reading likewise carries an invitation to focus on the Lord. It is from the opening verses of Paul’s first surviving letter to the church in Corinth; now these Corinthian Christians had been getting rather above themselves, thinking that they were enormously spiritual; and when that happens, you take your eyes off God and focus on yourself. That always leads to trouble. Gently, therefore, Paul invites them to concentrate on God, wishing them “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”. “Grace and peace” are God’s gift, not something that we can provide for ourselves; “grace” is God’s unconditional love, which, as Paul had become intensely aware, is lavished upon us regardless of how “good” we are. Then Paul starts to give thanks, and the complacent Corinthians will have expected him to show gratitude for how spiritual they had become; but not a bit of it! His thanksgiving is “for the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus”, and for the fact that “you have been enriched in all rhetoric and all knowledge”. The Corinthians had been thinking that this “rhetoric and knowledge”, two ideas that are constantly stressed in the letter, was all their doing, so they will not have been very impressed by Paul’s language. And so it goes on, Paul emphasising, with a touch of relish, one suspects, how the whole thing is the gift to them of God and of Christ; and that there is more to come. Our passage then ends with “God is faithful”, something that the Corinthians needed to hear.

The gospel for next Sunday is a very short one. It comes from Mark’s “Little Apocalypse”, which might be talking about the end-time, when Christ will come again, or about the Fall of Jerusalem; but either way the invitation to us is to concentrate on God, and that means to “stay awake”, and not be found sleeping. The point is that this world is God’s, not ours, and our task is to be ready to return it to him when he comes.

Christ the King – Year A (November 20th)

Christ the King – Year A (November 20th)
Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
Psalm 23:1-6
1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Matthew 25:31-46
Next Sunday is the feast of Christ the King, and the Church’s year comes to its sudden end. What kind of king do the readings offer us this week? Rather charmingly, it is a shepherd-king whom we are to celebrate, it seems.

The first reading is taken from a long polemic by Ezekiel on the leaders of Israel who have been behaving precisely as shepherds should not behave. And God’s reaction? “Look – I am going to look for my flock and tend them…and rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on the day of darkness and thick cloud…I shall shepherd my flock, and I shall make them lie down.” This is a beautiful picture of God; this one will not let go of his people, whatever the appointed shepherds may do. However, it is not open to the sheep to bleat complacently about the inadequacy of their shepherds, for they too have a judgement to face, “Look – I am judging between one animal and another”. That is a theme that will recur in next Sunday’s gospel reading.

Not surprisingly, the psalm is the lovely song of God as shepherd, who “makes me lie down by waters of repose”. Here too we notice that the sheep must look out, for God carries his “rod and your staff”, which can be used against recalcitrant animals. Nevertheless, they are promised a “banquet, in the sight of my enemies; you have anointed my head with oil, my cup is overflowing”. So we rejoice at this charming picture.

The second reading is from Paul, who, as always, is talking about his beloved Jesus, and his Resurrection from the dead, which some of the Corinthians had been unwise enough to contest. The point here is the subordination of everything to Christ, God in Christ reversing the disaster that had happened in Adam, “when he hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father”. Christ is a king (and that is why we have this reading for next Sunday), “for he must be king until he places all the enemies under his feet; and death is the last enemy to be cancelled out”. However, this king knows his place and “will be subordinated to [God] who subordinated everything to him, so that God might be all in all.” Our king, unlike those known to Ezekiel, does not play power-games, but knows his place.

The gospel starts with this king looking rather grand. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all his angels with him, then he will sit down on his throne of glory”. The focus, however, is not on him, but on “all the Gentiles”, who are going to be divided, like sheep and goats at the end of the day in the desert. And they are going to be divided on the grounds of their treatment of him. This does not mean, however, that we are dealing with a paranoid Jesus, who demands proper respect. It turns out that the “sheep” are absolutely baffled to be told that they are “blessed of my Father”, because “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in, naked and you put clothes on me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.” The “sheep” have absolutely no recollection of this, and ask when it could have happened. The answer is quite simple: “every time that you did it for any one of these utterly unimportant brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me”. Notice that he is not at all interested in the “goats”, who are not given many lines. The point is in the story’s final line, that “the just will go off to life everlasting”. The shepherd-king whom we celebrate next Sunday is one who is to be encountered with the poor and the marginalised, precisely the people with whom Jesus was always to be found. This is quite a challenge to end our liturgical year.

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