Thursday 30 June – Holy Communion

First Reading Genesis 22.1 - 19

Abraham Tested

¹ Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham! Here I am, he replied.

² Then God said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.

³ Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.

⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

⁵ He said to his servants, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.

⁶ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together,

⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, Father? Yes, my son? Abraham replied. The fire and wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

⁸ Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together.

⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

¹¹ But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, Abraham! Abraham! Here I am, he replied.

¹² Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

¹³ Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.

¹⁵ The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time

¹⁶ and said, I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,

¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,

¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.

¹⁹ Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.  

Gospel Matthew 9. 1 - 8

When the Gospel is announced the reader says
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus Heals a Paralytic

¹ Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.

² Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.

³ At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, This fellow is blaspheming!

⁴ Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?

⁵ Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?

⁶ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . . Then he said to the paralytic, Get up, take your mat and go home.

⁷ And the man got up and went home.

⁸ When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

Near sacrifice of Isaac same reading as Sunday. Quite a shocking incident, prompting us to ask whether God could possibly ask Abraham to kill his first born son – one he had waited for until old age, and the son in whom the promise given to Abraham he would be the father of many was to be fulfilled.

In the end, God provided the alternative in the form of a ram – an alternative that was not made available at the crucifixion – but the difference was that Isaac was an unwilling potential victim whereas Jesus was not.

The gospel reading however comes from just after the Sermon on the Mount. There are several miracle stories – cleansing of a leper, healing centurion’s servant, and stilling of the storm. Now Jesus leaves the neighbourhood of Gadara where he healed the man possessed of demons which entered a herd of swine, and crossed in a boat to his own town.

This is Capernaum – and the boat crossed the sea of Galilee from Gentile territory (hence the pigs). Immediately he sees a man suffering from paralysis being carried on a litter by friends of his. Presumably they are seeking out Jesus in the hope of a cure for their friend.

Jesus does not just heal the man, but pronounces forgiveness of his sins, to the consternation of the religious leaders who accuse him of blasphemy. To the scribes, Jesus has tried to do what only belongs to God.

Jesus does not at first tell the paralysed man to get up and walk. Does this mean he ascribes the cause of his infirmity to sin rather than any physical origin? It seems to indicate the suffering has a spiritual cause. We do not know, but after absolution, there is an exchange with the scribes where Jesus indicates it is as easy for him to forgive sins as to heal the man in any more conventional or expected manner.

Why does he say this? Not, I think, only because he is God incarnate and has God’s power to forgive. But more simply Jesus is saying that if he pronounces healing and the man gets up and walks, the result is easily verified. Everyone can see for themselves, and so this is a hard thing to do. Pronouncing forgiveness of sins is easy, because no one can tell whether the absolution is effective or not.

The story does remind us, though, that despite all our modern scientific knowledge, sickness is not just physical, but can have a complex web of causes and influences. Sin itself is a sickness from which we all need to be healed, and confessing our sins as we do at each and every church service is necessary and good for our souls, just as it is effective when we have wronged one another and offer contrition and restitution to them for the hurt we have caused.

Child Sacrifice? – the story of Isaac

Sunday 26 June 2011 – Trinity 1 – St Mary’s Mentmore

First Reading Genesis 22.1-14

God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

Gospel Matthew 10.40-42

When the Gospel is announced the reader says
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus said: “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

How many flinched as they heard the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham? It’s told in chilling detail, building frame by frame like a TV reality drama unfolding to our horror before our very eyes.

The long journey to make a burnt offering. The wood laid on the back of a donkey. The servants left waiting as father and son journeyed on. Isaac’s question about where was the animal to be killed. The slow motion as Abraham reaches out his hand to grasp the knife.

We know it’s just a test. We are told at the outset that God tested Abraham. God knows, and we know, but Abraham doesn’t.

You probably are aware of the background, but I’ll just remind you of it. Back in Genesis 15, God made a contract with Abram. He was childless, yet God promised to make him the father of many nations, as countless as the stars in the heavens.

Abraham and his wife Sarah were well advanced in years and had given up any hope of starting a family. They had waited decades for the birth of Isaac. In this young man rested the hope of the promise given to Abraham by God, yet he seemed quite willing to take instructions from God and sacrifice his only son.

Isaac had no choice. He had no idea what was happening to him, until the point he was tied up and placed on a bonfire with his father about to plunge a dagger into his heart.

Is this the sort of God we can believe in? One who will test us to this degree of cruelty? Wouldn’t we say nowadays the whole event would leave both father and son scarred for life?

Over many years, the narrative has been preached as teaching us about Abraham’s great faith and obedience against all odds, and God’s response which is to reward him by his provision at the last moment.

Does the fact Isaac’s life is saved make the horror of the narrative any more palatable? What if Abraham’s obedience had been tested to the ultimate, and Isaac had died? What is Abraham had misunderstood what God was seemingly asking of him?

It’s a rhetorical question, because Isaac did not die, and one might say God would have stayed Abraham’s hand to save him anyway. Still we ask ourselves, must we accept the story as a lesson in ultimate obedience and faith, or do we have permission to find the whole thing troubling, because it portrays God as capricious at the very least in the way he goes about testing his creation?

One of the most pressing questions of any age – something that is constantly asked by those who have suffered a tragedy – is why did God allow this to happen to me? Why did he not prevent it? What have I done to deserve this suffering when others do not? Why do these things always seem to happen to the best of people?

There is no ready answer – none that I know anyway. All one can do is offer support and a ready ear. It doesn’t even help to say the world is the way it is, and we don’t always understand it. We just don’t have any satisfactory answers.

There’s a song by Bob Dylan about Genesis 22 that makes an connection between fathers sacrificing their children and the countless young sons who were sent to fight and to die in Vietnam by the leaders of the United States. The song illustrates the helplessness we sometimes feel but it’s not a very good comparison because Isaac did not die as God provided an alternative. But grieving parents will quite rightly ask why God did not do so to save their sons and daughters.

There is so much we don’t understand, but still our questioning faith inhabits a space framed by our underlying belief in the goodness of God who does provide and does not desire the suffering of us, his children.

This event, occurring maybe 2,500 years ago, nevertheless speaks to us of redemption. Life coming into what seemed certain death. Faith in the midst of the loss of all hope. God’s goodness breaking into near despair.

Abraham’s faith was not blind faith. He still had to recognise the alternative to what he believed he had to do. He had to lift up his eyes and not only see the ram caught in the thicket, but perceive the provision made by God as a satisfactory substitute for his son.

That same God, who is himself outside of time, was the God who could have provided an alternative to the death of his own son on the cross, but did not do so. This time the sacrificial lamb was not bound. This time there was choice, but Jesus chose not to take it. This time, once for all time, the sacrifice was a self-sacrifice for the atonement of the whole human race.

If we find the near sacrifice of Isaac troubling, how much more should we grieve over the events of Easter, whilst marvelling at the abundant grace of the God who entered our realm, became like us, and consented to die for our redemption.

Corpus Christi

Thursday 23 June – Holy Communion at St Giles

Reading 1 Corinthians 11.23-26

I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Gospel John 6.51-58

Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord.
Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever.
Alleluia.

When the Gospel is announced the reader says
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you can eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live for ever.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

Corpus Christi – lit. Body of Christ – Day of Thanksgiving for Holy Communion. Held on Thursday after Trinity. Thursday – because of association with Last Supper and events of Maundy Thursday.

Many parts of Catholic world there are processions in the streets. Dates back to 13C when an Augustinian nun from Liege petitioned her bishop for a feast associated with veneration of blessed sacrament.

Last year, Vicky and I walked through part of Italy about 2 hrs. N of Rome. Came to place called Bolsena, where in 13C said to have been a miracle when bread used for Mass started to bleed. Association with this alleged miracle that Corpus Christi became firmly established.

Differs from Maundy Thursday, in that before Easter the liturgy commemorates Christ’s new commandment -"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you." John 13:34, also the washing of the disciples' feet, the Garden of Gethsemane. For this reason, the Feast of Corpus Christi was established to create a feast focused solely on the Eucharist.

Corpus Christi might be associated mainly with RC and Anglo - Catholic parishes, but to dismiss it for that reason would be a mistake. Our understanding of Holy Communion and what it means to us has always been a struggle for many of us. What is going on? Is it a commemoration of certain events commanded by Christ that we should re-enact and remember, or is it much more than that? The answer depends on your church tradition. The answer is probably all those things, but our outlook and background tends to make us lean in one direction rather than the other.

Whatever our tradition, Holy Communion has in recent decades moved from a monthly service to a liturgy that is central to our worship, so for that reason alone we should think about what we are doing, what it means to us, how we are changed by it, and why it is so special. If we don’t pause and think on these things, for example today, then attending a weekly communion risks becoming routine, a liturgy so familiar that we can cruise through it, like I was saying about the Lord’s Prayer last week – it’s import can be submerged by sheer familiarity.

So after our prayers, let’s try this week to experience afresh and anew the Eucharist, to find new meaning and significance in it, and to make it truly special once again. Amen