Trinity 9 - Crumbs and Dogs

The Gospel story of a conversation between a Gentile woman and Jesus for today is very challenging. We see a very human side to Jesus. Scholars argue over Jesus’ intention in his words to the woman. Most of us want to hold onto our image of Jesus, gentle, meek and mild. In a way, it doesn’t matter if on the one hand Jesus was consciously testing the woman to draw out faith from her desperation or whether he just as offensive and prejudiced as those of his culture, faith and time.

The woman’s desperation gave her both courage and wit. ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Matthew 15.27

What is perhaps significant is the ability of the woman to take the metaphors that Jesus uses and turn them around, metaphors that could be seen as diminutive, dismissive and offensive.

Crumbs no longer speak of what is lacking in life, what is mean in our human heart what is lacking in the decisions we take to show compassion and care. These crumbs are now a sign of great blessings, abundance and generosity as we see plainly in the feeding of the 5000 where the disciples are left with crumbs, 12 baskets full to be precise!

And dogs, among the unclean animals in the Jewish world of Jesus’ time become the metaphor for a small child who is made well, who is blessed by Jesus with health and wholeness where before there was only despair and impending death.

It is in the recording of this event that Matthew allows the woman of no importance to make the connections rather than Jesus himself, to shape and formulate an articulate word in the presence of the God’s eternal Word – Jesus Christ.

Indeed the whole passage is a juxtaposition of opposites . Jesus the hero is cast as the villain, his words were offensive albeit accepted then as they are today by so many when it come to identifying the other and the one who should be the villain of the piece, this troublesome woman who should have known better that trouble the great master, is praised for her faith.

All is not as it should be and in this we are reminded of that all important lesson in faith that all is not as it seems when we look with the eyes of faith at this world of disorder and death.

This woman’s great faith broke through the human-made barriers of discrimination. She knew that in the eyes of those present, she was seen as no better than a ‘dog, but she does not let this their view of her, their judgment, rob her of her humanity.

As we see in so many encounters between Jesus and those around him it is those who the world judge as of little importance or worse that become the center of attention, the attention of God through his son Jesus Christ.

In this one act Jesus revealed the truth of the kingdom that was to come. A kingdom open to all, we can come as we are and be welcomed and loved as we are and in that welcome and love be transformed in to all that God wants us to be!

This kind of realization did no just challenge the disciples who surround, protect and even attempt to control the outpouring of Gods love that is this Jesus of Nazareth: it should be a challenge to us also.

What do we see?

How do we judge others? How are we judged by others? Do we judge purely on appearance or do we try to see beyond and reach out to the ‘real’ person? Of course Jesus told us ‘not to judge’ but how easy is that?

There is more though, this encounter is so dense, so filled with the wonderful possibilities that are open to us if we are prepared to approach him and demand – yes demand his blessings, his attention. For this is what the woman does in recognizing the potency and potential for life that Jesus holds out to the world.

This woman is clear minded and direct, she is single minded as is anyone struggling with matters of life and death.  She is a mother whose child is terribly and possibly eternally damaged, hurt and lost.

This mother is not interested in having a place at the table, she is not seeking to challenge the injustice of her world, she only wants a crumb for she knows, she perceives that this is enough! “Please Mister” she cries out “just give me what I need for my daughter”.  Desperation not despair drive her and propels her through the crowd, through the closed ranks of the chosen disciples and into the direct gaze of Jesus.

But nothing is as it seems in this encounter for in demanding the crumbs of course she does challenge the injustice of her world and ours too. It comes from her understanding of what Jesus holds before her and what he offers us this morning in this Eucharist and what Jesus offers us is  crumbs, a small piece of bread, his very body, for the life of the world, for the healing of the nations, yes for the life of a small child and for yours and my life.

In this encounter something is changed for ever, and it is of course St Paul who understands this long before St Peter and the other disciples that in Christ we are made new, the old distinctions of the world no longer apply.

As re reflect on this encounter between a nameless woman and Jesus the Christ the question remains, Are there changes in us that need to happen so that the Kingdom of God is not limited by our narrow minded prejudices?

The Feast of the Assumption

The Feast of the Assumption begins this evening. We remember God's glorification of Mary's entire human reality at the moment of death - a sign of the new life that God promises us all through Jesus Christ.

We'll be celebrating tomorrow with a Sung Mass at St Matthias at 7:45pm. Fr Simon Maddison from St Alphage, Burnt Oak will be visiting us to preach. Our organist, Konstantin, is laying on some music. Mass will be followed by a party.

This event has been wonderful in recent years. Please support it, and bring your family and friends!

Above all, let's use the coming day to give thanks to God, who shows us in Mary his plan for each one of us.

Almighty ever-living God, who assumed the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of your Son, body and soul into heavenly glory, grant we pray, that, always attentive to the things that are above, we may merit to be sharers of her glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen

Day trip into London

We are all gathered at Hendon station and waiting for the train that will take us on a day of adventure and fun. First stop St Pancras station 

St Pancras was a 4th century boy of 14 years of age who was beheaded for his faith. His death was one of many in times of persecution. As we waited for the tube we rembered St Pancras and those who today are persecuted for their faith. 

At the Tower of London we saw the tribute to those who died 100 years ago in the First World War. Even with the sun shining and in the midst of our excitement to be above ground we and those around us became quiet as we stopped to consider the terrible loss and waste of war. One member of the public stifles a sob and dries her eyes. 

Now lunch beckons and we eat on the steps looking on the Tower of London

We are now flying across the Thames, it's very noisy in this carrage, good job it's only our group here!

   

An airplane takes off as we pass the end of the run way! 

8th Sunday of Trinity -

Elijah, a prophet living some 1000 years before Jesus’ birth, was at the lowest point of his life, it seemed that the world was against him and his very life was in danger.

Israel had forsaken their God and were following other gods. The prophets of the lord had given up their faith and even the King followed the ways of idols. Elijah had just won a great contest in which he killed 400 prophets of fertility god Baal and now he alone remained as a prophet of the Lord. The kings wife had put a contact out on him he was a hunted man. He was alone and frightened and felt abandoned by God.

Maybe there has been a time in your life what you too have felt alone and abandoned by God, or if not God certainly by those around you. When feeling this way we tend to retreat, to hide, to keep a low profile. This is what Elijah was doing by hiding in the cave.

Elijah just wished to curl up and die, for all this struggle in the name of an invisible and silent God, to just go away. But it is hard to flee from God. There would be others too who felt this – remember what happened to Jonah when he tried to run away!

God speaks to Elijah ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

Elijah needs to feel the presence of God, he needs to see that God really exists and his desire, his need is fulfilled as God tells him to wait. God  said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’

What then follows is a mighty wind and an earthquake: Here is a display of power, the ability to split mountains we are told. You can imagine Elijah thinking here is god Yes this is the kind of God I want, here is the evidence the world can sit up and take note of. But God is not in this display of power. Instead God is found in the  sound of sheer silence.

Here is Elijah at the lowest point in his life and his request to see God, to meet with God is – silence. Isn’t that just typical!

Not many of us are very comfortable with silence.

If we turn to our partner and ask “Tell me that you love me” and are met with silence we would probably be none to pleased. When we are on our own do we feel comfortable with silence or do we not put on the radio or TV so that we can have some company.

It seems that all too often God is silent in our lives. We sense that he is not listening to our prayer.

There is a wonderful poem entitled “folk tales” by RS Thomas that speaks of prayer and the silence of God. In the few verses we are given a picture of lover throwing stones up at a window in order to attract the attention of the beloved. The window is too high and then we are reminded of the childhood tale of a girl letting down her hair so that the brave knight can climb up and free her. But both these images seem futile, the window remains closed the hair is never let down so that we can climb up, And yet  we keep throwing pebbles up at the window trying to attract Gods attention:

Prayers like gravel

Flung at the sky’s Window,

Hoping to attract the loved one’s attention.

But without visible plaits to let down for the believer to climb up,

To what purpose open that far casement?

I would have refrained long since but that peering once through my locked fingers

I thought that I detected the movement of a curtain.

I thought I detected the movemement of a curtain – RS Thomas captures the beautiful truth that Thomas revealed that in our doubts in our uncertianity, in our disbelief God makes himself known.

Eilijah detects the movement of God, not in the display of power but in the sheer silence that followed. That still small voice of calm.

Whether we are at the lowest point in our lives or like Peter riding the storms of life we need to persevere and trust in God. In our prayer life we may feel that it is all a waste of time, that God is not really listening, but if we persevere, if we remain alert to the small movement of the curtain, in the poem, or the sheer silence outside the cave then we find God and he in turn will stretch out his hand to us and stop us from sinking into the waves of despair and be lost forever.

Elijah leaves that cave emboldened and re-energised to continue the dangerous work of being the prophet of the Lord. Peter too once his life is in the hands of Jesus is able to continue the work he as called to  - to build his church.

But the readings of today teach us one other important insight. It is all very well to say that like Peter, we need only to fix our gaze and concentrate on Jesus for everything to be fine. But the truth we are shown is that there will be moments when we are made desperately aware of our vulnerability.

When we take the decision to follow Jesus we open ourselves to an environment were Jesus Christ is our only and our total security, the truth of our existence is that we are out on deep water without a boat, and of course it is at this moment of realisation that we begin to understand what faith is all about. Thankfully, when we are prepared to take that leap of faith Jesus is there to hold our hand and bring us back to where we feel safe. 

It is of course a learning process and we see a very different Peter a few years later, after the death and resurrection of Jesus when he is boldly preaching the gospel and being thrown into prison – we can see a dramatic growth of faith.

Let us therefore be alert to the voice of God calling us in the night to place our hand in his and be led into the morning light. Like Peter let us be ready to leap out of the boat of our certainties and securities in order to meet with Jesus and follow him.

Anyone for coffee?

Having a coffee in London just got a whole lot more fulfilling. I'm sitting in the Calm and refreshingly cool atmosphere of a beautiful gothic church on an unusually hot august afternoon. Yes church!! I've ordered my Jamaican dollars from the post office in St James church west hampstead and ordered a coffee and am now sitting on a stylish sofa speaking on the phone with my daughter to enquire about the purchase of a cot for her first born son. Small children are clambering around a bright coloured ball park under the careful gaze of Our Lady who knows something of the  demands on families with small children during the 6 week holiday. While I sit here a young woman approaches the sanctuary and lights a candle while on the table next to me a work meeting takes place. As I leave I see another member of the public come in with her dog and make a mental note that St James is also a dog friendly venue!

Fr Andrew beginning his shift at the coffee shop.

4th August 1914 remembered

Last night at St Paul's Cathedral our bishop reminded us that we cannot change the past but we are responsible for how the past is  remembered.

The focus of this commemoration of the outbreak of World War 1 was a beautiful alter frontal that was originally created 138 wounded soldiers from   that terrible war and used to commemorate the end of the war. Many of the congregation that gathered were direct descendants of those men some of whom had travelled from Australia, Canada and other parts of the world to join in the service. For 75 years it had laid in a chest, following damage to the Cathedral during the Second World War when the Cathedral was bombed and the altar for which the frontal was designed destroyed, and in preparation for this commemoration it has been carefully restored.

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God
and there shall no torment touch them.
In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die
And their departure is taken for misery
and their going from us to be utter destruction.
but they are in peace.
For though they be punished in the sight of men,
yet is their hope fill of immortality .
And having been a little chastised,
They shall be greatly rewarded:
For God proved them and found them worthy for himself
Wisdom 3.1-5

Service of praise and thanksgiving for the 52nd year of Jamaican independence

"Jamaica land of beauty

We promise faithfully

To serve thee with our talents 

And bring our gifts to thee. "

Words by A.L.Hendricks

In her address to the Jamaican diaspora Her Excellency Aloun Ndombet-Assamba  , high commissioner spoke of the contribution of Jamaicans over one hundred years to this island and a joint struggle against evil and tyranny in 1914 and 1944. 

Children of the staff & friends of the Jamaican High commission give the National Pledge. Jordan and Abigail take their place! 

A dancer of praise choreographed by jackie Guy MBE. 

Bishop Delroy Powell of The New Testament Assembly England exhorts us to live with Vision, Faith , Courage and Hope. To put the violence of this world away and beat our swords into pruning hooks. 

Saying happy retirement to Diane at Elmstead house

Staff, residents and their families gather to give thanks for 12 years of dedicated service from the manager of Elmstead house-a place of love, faith, care and joy. 

5th Sunday of Trinity

Last week we had the parable of the Sower as our gospel reading and this morning another parable is taken from the world of agriculture – the wheat and the tears.

Both parables are about us, the Kingdom of God, the church and both share a number of themes, generosity, growth and Harvest. This mornings parable touches on the question as to why there is evil in the world, in the kingdom of God yes in the church itself? and what should we do about it?

It has not been an easy week has it.

There has been a renewal of violence between Israel and Palestine and a distinct desire for the violence to continue as neither side in this age long argument over land and God’s name refuse to find a peaceful solution to their situation.

Then following hard on the heals of the latest in a long line of child abuse cases we start to hear of rumours of documents siting Politicians, Doctors, teachers and voluntary workers whose evil deeds were allowed to go un challenged for decades.

Then on Thursday the terrible news that a commercial airliner was shot out of the sky killing 298 passengers.

This week we were able to draw small comfort in the fact that the Synod of the Church of England has at last after decades of arguing agreed that God does call both men and women into the work of his kingdom, as deacons priests and bishops to lend a hand in the task of sowing the seed and growing the church.

What do we do when we see that evil flourishes in God’s beautiful and generous creation?

^Verse 30 “Let both of them grow together until the harvest;” - leave it to me says Jesus and wait for the time that has been set for the harvest.

This is hard. It is hard to wait . it is hard to leave it to God to sort out . It is not right or fair it offends our sense of justice and a Loving God.

But the instruction in the parable to the workers who see evil flourish along side the good is not an injunction to do nothing.

There are some parts of the Church of England who now think that the word evil should be abandoned from the baptism liturgy. I am not sure why when it is clear to everyone, and especially those outside the church, what evil looks like and feels like. So pretending it does not exist ,wishing it does not exist is not what we are called to do in this parable. There is no doubt in the minds of the Master of the parable as to how the weeds have got in and amongst the wheat “An enemy has done this.”. nor it is the case that only the master sees the situation for what it is, the farm workers, the slaves, clearly identify the reality and growth of evil in direct contradiction to their own work and effort.

^Verse 30 “Let both of them grow together until the harvest;” - leave it to me says Jesus and wait for the time that has been set for the harvest.

It's hard to wait.  And it's hard to understand - especially when

we see such terrible things happening; but when it comes to

dealing with those around us both in the church and out of it. The parable tells us what we are to do in the face of this evil – to plant and not to pluck, and wait for the harvest time in which the Master will give the command for both wheat and tear to be taken up.

We are to resist evil of course  - in ourselves and in others -

through his power.

We are called to recognize evil and to name it - and to pray to

God that he will take care of it, much as the farmer told his

servants in the parable that  he would take of it.

Importantly we are told to do good instead of evil

   - to bless instead of curse

   - to praise instead of criticize

    - to forgive instead of resent

   - to tell truth instead of lies.

- to help instead of walk away

   - to love instead of hate

It seems that there is a plan, that God does have a system,

but still - when you look at it with only the dim light of human

wisdom, or the closed eyes of human doubt and human pride,

there is almost no explaining why God allows the devil to cast

his evil seed in his garden..

^Verse 30 “Let both of them grow together until the harvest;” - leave it to me says Jesus and wait for the time that has been set for the harvest.

This does not mean that we do nothing.

So what do we do?

Maybe instead of trying to weed out the evil in the world we should dedicate our lives to full-heartedly nourishing the good.

After all when confronted with darkness we can denounce it and we can curse it but the darkness will remain. It is by lighting one small candle that the darkness will be diminished.

Evil fades in the presence of goodness.

When we feel affirmed enough in our good points, our bad points will go into remission.

We need to remind ourselves that we live in a very imperfect world and our frustrations and powerlessness generally stem from our inflated expectations. Perfection is not part of human nature – imperfections are.

We can be assured that with all our imperfections God still finds us lovable, and if God finds us, in our weakness, in our imperfection, lovable then should we not accept one another and ourselves in the same way?

And in accepting one another, both weed and wheat, we can place the future in the hands of God by faith declaring, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”

Bishop Peter to retire

Yesterday Bishop Peter sent a letter to his clergy announcing his intention to retire at the end of this year.

We give thanks for the ministry of our pastor, a wonderful bishop who has been a great friend to these parishes, and pray for him as he prepares to retire, and as he continues to exercise his ministry with us in the meantime.

God, eternal shepherd, you tend your Church in many ways and rule us with love. You have chosen your servant Peter to be a shepherd of your flock. Give him a spirit of courage and right judgment, a spirit of knowledge and love. By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care, may he build your Church as a sign of salvation for the world. Amen.