Tugwell on the Apostolic Fathers

From 'Ways of Imperfection' by Simon Tugwell 

The church has known many different moods in the course of her history.  Sometimes she appears to be very confident of herself and of the value of her message, sometimes she seems rather to be a bit confused and unsure of herself;  sometimes she boldly tells everyone exactly what they ought to be doing, sometimes she gives the impression of groping in the darkness.  And it is not necessarily in her ‘'best' moments, when she is most confident and clear, that she is most true to herself.  There is a kind of unsatisfactoriness written into her very constitution, because she is only a transitional organisation, keeping people and preparing them for a new creation, in which God will be all and in all, and every tear will be wiped away. When she speaks too securely, she may obscure the fact that her essential business is with ‘'what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it entered the heart of man' . The blunt truth is, as St John says, that ‘'we have not yet been shown what we shall be’. A time of confusion like our own, when people become disillusioned with the church and with christianity, should be a salutary, educative time, when we face the facts.

Christianity has to be disappointing, precisely because it is not a mechanism for accomplishing all our human ambitions and aspirations, it is a mechanism for subjecting all things to the will of God. The first disciples were disappointed because Jesus turned out not to be the kind of Messiah they wanted. Even after the resurrection St Luke shows us how the apostles were still dreaming of a political restoration of the kingdom of lsrael. They had to be disappointed.  When people turn away from the church, because they find more satisfaction elsewhere, it is important not to assume that we, as christians, ought to be providing such satisfaction ourselves; it is much more urgent that we take yet another look at just what it is that we have genuinely been given in the church. We may indeed say that christianity does direct us towards the fulfilment of all our desires and hopes; but we shall only say this correctly if we understand it to mean that a great many of the desires and hopes we are conscious of will eventually turn out to be foolish and misconceived.

It is God who knows how to make us happy, better than we know ourselves. Christianity necessarily involves a remaking of our hopes. And our disappointments are an unavoidable part of the process.

Sermon Advent 2 King Sterndale

8/12/19              Holy Communion                      King Sterndale

Isaiah 11:1-9              Romans 15:4-13              Matthew 3:1-12

There is no question but that John the Baptist is a hero of faith. In our reading we see him living a spartan life as he preached in the desert of Judea - passionate about God, fiery in his denunciation of wrongdoing , ferocious if he suspected hypocrisy in his listeners. 

But John is much more than an angry voice.  From other passages we know of his courage - prison and the prospect of execution didn’t make him waver. We know of his humility - he is ready to take a step back when he sees God’s hand on his young unproven cousin Jesus. John is an admirable figure,  though not a comfortable one.

Now something unexpected. John must have known how he appeared to the  people who came to hear him, but he clearly thought he was a softer touch than Jesus - He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

Why was that? Was he right?  How does the ministry of Jesus follow on from that of John.

One of the minor sorrows of my life is that I never went to a Grateful Dead concert. However, I have heard quite a lot of recordings of their live shows and in some ways that gives me an advantage over someone who was actually there.

One of their characteristic approaches was to seamlessly run one song into the next so after you’d have been listening to China Cat Sunflower - as it might be - for really quite a long time - their concerts could last for hours - it would dawn on you  that what you were now hearing was I Know You Rider.

Listening later to the songs and the linking passages you can hear where the shift begins; where the ideas of the original song begin to fade out and the chords of the new tune start to be heard. It’s probably easier to do that whilst listening to a recording than it would have been at the actual concert.  

That’s our advantage with today’s gospel passage. It covers a shift moment. John knew it and so did Jesus, but the disciples needed a nudge and I expect we would have done if we had been there.

John is singing the old song and there seems no reason why it shouldn’t continue unchanged. Then Jesus arrives and we hear the first notes of something new.

What is John’s song? He says what the prophets have always said. God has a plan for His people. Hope and healing after the horror of exile. Everything will be set right. Justice and peace are coming. 

God's time is so close that there’s no avoiding the need for repentance and conversion - If God is going to come back then the people have to set their house in order. Words aren’t enough there needs to be action to show a real turning from sin. 

John calls Israel to repentance and they flock to hear him. Even the Pharisees and the Sadducees came along to hear and be baptised. John knows God is in what he is doing. He knows too that he is not the main event, but his expectations of the one who is to come, of Jesus, are that his ministry will be like his but more so. (You wait till the one who comes after me arrives, then you'll see what a pussy cat I've been.)

But..Jesus is different from his expectations. 

To begin with Jesus came to John to be baptised by him. 

John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?’ 

But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’ 

Jesus hasn’t come to take over John’s work. John is the last of the prophets and Jesus doesn’t identify with the prophets, he identifies with the crowd. 

This isn’t just a change of style. It’s the first notes of the new tune. 

The prophets stood separate from the people - so they could bring them God’s words of judgement and hope - but Jesus stood with them - shared their baptism, lived their life, died their death, so in the end his resurrection and ascension would have a place for them, for us too. 

John wasn’t disappointed by Jesus but he was bewildered by the change of emphasis that was coming in. The penny doesn’t drop for him at first. In next week’s gospel John’s disciples bring his plaintive query from prison - ‘are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?’ Jesus responds by talking of healings and good news being preached - look at the signs, remember Isaiah - yes I am the one. 

It is a new song but it grows out of the old. 

Jesus’s manner was very different from John's, but John was right Jesus isn’t the soft option - it's just his toughness comes in a different place. 

John pointed out the failings of the nation and the people in order to drive them towards repentance because living right would bring in the kingdom of God. 

It was a demanding approach, depending on discipline and application and dedication. And people recognised they would need God’s mercy but for all its hardness it offered a security and a comfort because it seemed within their grasp. Surely living well isn’t beyond us?  

The problem of course is that it is. We try it we find we are not good, kind, wise, holy, nice people.

It’s why we need Jesus song of forgiveness and new hearts - he knows we try and disguise the state of our soul behind an obedience to the law  - but he sees through us - Jesus is not the soft option.

‘It has been said that prayer is not primarily a matter of getting ourselves where we can see God so much as getting ourselves where God can see us - that is getting ourselves into the light of his presence, putting aside our defences and disguises, coming into silence and stillness so that what stands before God is not the performer, the mask, the habits of self-promotion and self-protection but the naked me. But that’s why the path of contemplation has always been seen as one of darkness as well as light. When we undertake to let go of most of what usually makes us feel safe or good.’ Rowan Williams ‘Tokens of Trust’

Jesus knows exactly what we are like - our self deceptions don’t throw dust in his eyes and yet still he welcomes us. 

His song is no soft option but it is life giving because though it insists on the truth of what we are like, it turns out that the truth of what we are like is where Jesus wants to meet us.

Jesus’ song means letting go of what makes us feel safe and trusting him to catch us. If John’s song is a road we must try to walk then Jesus’s way  is more like a trapeze. We have to let go of our pretensions to  self sufficiency and trust his arms will always catch us, trust his grace will always be sufficient.