A seasonal smile

Fig Monday

The next three days of Holy Week have traditional names, taken from incidents in the gospel accounts of Jesus' last week. Tuesday is known as Temple Tuesday, Wednesday as Spy Wednesday.

My favourite name, however, is tomorrow's. Holy Monday is also Fig Monday. The name comes from the account of Jesus cursing the fig tree. In Mark's account, the cursing of the fig tree 'frames' the story of Jesus' protest action in the Temple. Jesus attacks not the Temple as such - the sorry history of Christian anti-Semitism has sometimes led this point to be overlooked - nor even commercial transactions. Rather, this story needs to be read against the background of the Temple's role in the domination of Palestine under Roman occupation. Jesus' action (the context of which is unfolded brilliantly in Borg and Crossan's very readable The Last Week) is a statement against misusing the things of God to get power over other human beings. It is a statement that still needs to be heard today.

And figs? The sour figs are a symbol of an instituion (the Temple) which has become bitter, unfit for purpose. The cursing, and subsequent withering, of the fig tree are a warning to all of us trying to be the Church in the 21st century.


Now, why not have some figs for your pudding tomorrow? See here for a recipe.

Palm Sunday

Ride on, ride on, in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes Hosanna cry;
Thy Humble beast pursues its road
With palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on, ride on, in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die!
O Christ! Thy triumph now begin
Over captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on, ride on, in majesty!
The wingèd squadrons of the sky
Look down with sad and wondering eyes
To see the approaching sacrifice.

Ride on, ride on, in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
The Father, on His sapphire throne,
Expects His own anointed Son.

Ride on, ride on, in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain,
Then take, O God, Thy power, and reign.

The third and fourth verses of this hymn we sang today speak elegantly of what we will be celebrating in the coming week. Christ is truly our sacrifice. He enters Jerusalem to offer himself for us and for the whole world.

But we misunderstand sacrifice if we think it is all about destruction, death, and violence. Far too often the Cross is presented as the appeasing of a wrathful God by the violent death of an innocent victim. No, what matters is not how Jesus dies, but who it is who lives and dies. Jesus is the Father's 'own anointed Son'. Our Christ, our anointed one, is both God and a human being. As a human being, living and dying as one of us, he invites us into the offering of love that is at the heart of the life of God. This offering, lived out in a human life, was summed up on the Cross.

It is an offering we are invited to participate in, this week and every week.

St Joseph

Our observance of the feast of St Joseph begins at Evening Prayer today. Mass will be celebrated at St Matthias at 10am tomorrow.

God our Father,

who from the family of your servant David

raised up Joseph the carpenter

to be the guardian of your incarnate Son

and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

give us grace to follow him

in faithful obedience to your commands;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever

Amen

Reflection for Lent 5 (Passion Sunday)

John's account of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus' feet presents us with a profound contrast. On the one hand we have Mary - lavish, extravagent, out of control for the sake of love. On the other we have Judas who, whatever his motivations (on which the evangelist has a particular spin), is the voice of restrained, sensible, pragmatism - think of the consequences, we can imagine him saying, the resources used to anoint Jesus could have been put to better use, for lasting effect. The Judas whose voice we hear in this gospel reading is a familiar figure in our society, in our churches, and in our selves - he is present whenever love, which by its very nature always wants to exceed itself, is held back in a supposedly higher cause.

Mary, says Jesus chillingly, has anointed him for his burial.Today's gospel looks forward to the Cross, the point at which love comes into ultimate opposition with its opponents, what the evangelist calls 'the World'. The outcome of the ensuing struggle is made clear on Easter morning. As we participate sacramentally in Jesus' passion and resurrection in the next fortnight a question is addressed to us: which side are you on?

The demand of the gospel is clear. We have to side with love.

Pray with Archbishop Justin

Bishop Richard has sent a message to our diocese about a visit from our new archbishop:

As part of the preparation for his enthronement on 21st March, the Archbishop will be visiting five cities and six cathedrals in the Southern Province to meet with their bishops and to pray with all who wish to join him in their Cathedrals.

You will find the complete itinerary for this on the Archbishop's Journey in Prayer page. 

On Saturday 16th March the Archbishop will continue his journey through London and I very much hope that some of you will join him for as little or as much of the day as you are able. There will be various aids to prayer set up in both St Paul's and Southwark Cathedral.

• 10.30am - Gather by the blue plaque marking the birthplace of St Thomas À Becket (Archbishop of Canterbury 1161-1170) on the corner of 90 Cheapside and Ironmonger Lane.
• Journey to St. Paul's Cathedral.
• 10:45 to 12:15 - Prayer in the Cathedral. Please enter by the door in the North Transept of the Cathedral which takes you straight into the chapel of St Erkenwald and St Ethelburga with Holman Hunt's painting of the Light of the World.
• 12.30pm - Gather by the south end of the Millennium Bridge.
• Journey along the South Bank and through Borough Market to Southwark Cathedral.
• 13:15 to 17:30 - Prayer in Southwark Cathedral concluding with a short liturgy.

Whether you are able to share with him on this day or not, Archbishop Justin will be very grateful for our continuing prayers. His responsibilities are onerous and it is only by God's grace and supported by the prayers of all the faithful that he will be able fulfil his calling.

God our Father, Lord of all the world,
through your Son you have called us into the fellowship
of your universal Church:
hear our prayer for your faithful people
that in their vocation and ministry
each may be an instrument of your love,
and give to your servant Justin
the needful gifts of grace;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

As we are part of God's universal Church, so on this eve of the Conclave to elect a new pope let us continue to pray also for our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters as they invoke the guidance of God's Holy Spirit.

Lent 4 - Mothering Sunday

Today is also known as Mothering Sunday or refreshment Sunday, a brief respite from the rigours of lent are afforded us and so I hope many of you will be spoilt a little today, and indeed at the end of our service all of us will be given some flowers by the church as a reminder in the days ahead of the task that lies before us in our daily Christian living – to receive and give to those around us the love of Christ.

It may seem strange that on this day our gospel reading is not about Mothers and Children, but Fathers and sons! The parable that we have just heard read as our gospel reading is only found in Luke’s gospel but is one whose faint echo can still be heard, whose picture language is still cherished by a world that seems to have forgotten so much of the Christian scriptures.

But what do we call this parable – the parable of the lost son or the forgiving father?

I wonder which title finds greater resonance with you this morning?

Which of these two, in fact its three, characters do you emphasise with most – the Father or the Sons?

The parable of the lost son.

The youngest, foolish and selfish son who wishes his father dead so as to inherit his share of the family fortune.

The child, to be inclusive for a moment, who is given what they ask for, what they dream of, what they strive for only then to loose it through reckless and self centred living.

Is this the story of a man who has crashed to lowest point in life, not just their life, but LIFE, without a single person around them who notices them for anything other than slave, a pitiful individual doing a pitiful job – a job for which there are sadly too many others just as qualified.

A son who comes to his senses and seeks forgiveness, who dares to return, to turn again, to admit that they got is so terribly wrong, to put aside self pity and recrimination and simply ask for forgiveness. Except of course it is rarely simple and it is always costly.

Or is it a story of the Forgiving Father -  of a long suffering father who demonstrates the cost of that love which welled up in his chest as his son drew his first breath and yelled to the world that he had arrived. A forgiving parent, to be inclusive for a moment, who takes on the insults of their child who out of love makes the mistake of indulging that child, yes maybe spoiling the youngest to compensate for perceived strictness with the first born. A Parent, a Father, who nevertheless is prepared to watch, not just wait, but to actively wait and watch, who is prepared to reject the sound advice of fellow dads who say good riddance to their offspring when they become too much to handle, a Father who actively runs out, under the full and mocking gaze of the world to meet the dirty and disgraced figure who no one but HE can recognise as his son.

I guess the answer is probably tied up with what is preoccupying you and me on this particular day –this Mothering Sunday– what it is we need most in our lives right now so that we can go forward rather then remain in the rut that has become the familiar and frustrating in equal measure.

Our decision will probably be shaped by what it is that we seek most right now in our lives:

Is this a story about Repentance or Absolution?

Is it a story about the cost of admitting our need to repent/ change our lives and seek to restore/heal/reconcile all that is broken?

What ever your answer, and it can be either or and both! This parable is a story about costly living – the cost of asking for forgiveness and the cost of forgiving, of reaching out to the one who has hurt us like no other can and forgiving/loving in spite or and because of what they have done and who they are.