ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass on the First Sunday of Advent, 29th November 2009
Readings: Jeremiah 33. 14-16; I Thessalonians 3. 9-end; Luke 21. 25-36
Last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King. The old year drew to a close with a festal shout. We celebrated the King of the Universe. The feast, as Fr Julian reminded us is recent gaining popularity in the 1920s: the 20's, when all sorts of dictatorships began to grow in Europe. The church sought to put the Pretenders' claims into perspective. Christ is king and no one else; and our king is all about truth. As Christ is arraigned before Pilate truth is at the heart of it. What is truth? asks Pilate. What indeed!
As Fr Julian went on to say the truth about who Christ is isn't separate from the truth of who we are. As I contemplated this later in the day I saw Christ the King wandering about my own soul. I'd like to think that he and his truth blaze out from within me in all his glory and that my life reflects this. In reality my soul looks more like Miss Havisham. Remember Dickens' famous character: the bride jilted at the altar who never recovers condemned to wander about her decaying house in her cobwebbed wedding dress? So my soul: so rarely wedded entirely to Christ the King. But unlike Miss Havisham my soul is not guiltless. Quite the opposite.
But the joy of the gospel is that this need not always be the case. There's always the chance of turning: change, repentance. And today, Advent Sunday, the beginning of another Christian Year we take a big breath and start all over again. We dust ourselves down, look boldly in the mirror, stick out our tongue, pin back our eyelids and smooth down our hair. Today is the first day of the New Christian Year.
In recent years this new start has been given a fillip by the revision of the lectionary (the readings we hear at mass). Those of us who grew up with the Prayer Book will remember that there were just two readings for every Sunday and Holy Day and that they were the same every year. With the Alternative Service Book (1980) we were introduced to a two-year cycle. There was more variety and it became the norm to have three readings not two. The Old Testament was given its rightful place. Now, with Common Worship we have a three-year cycle, each year concentrating in turn on Matthew, Mark or Luke with John being brought in to augment the fare as and when required.
This year we begin Year C which means that Luke will be our guide for the next twelve months. We've bid farewell to Mark. For most preachers this is a relief. The problem with Mark is that it's a short gospel and fairly fixated on spectacular miracles often involving the casting out of demons. So preaching can get a bit samey: either stretching the notion of healing to breaking-point or deconstructing the demonic so as not to frighten the horses in the modern world.
So, to the happy hunting grounds of Luke. There are two things of which I am certain about Luke: 1) he was an Anglican and 2) he was a reader of The Guardian. Luke must have been an Anglican because he invented Mattins and Evensong. Only in Luke do we find those glorious canticles without which Morning and Evening Prayer would be incomplete: the Benedictus, the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. Luke must also have been a Guardian reader because he's left-wing. We see that in the parables and events that Luke alone records: parables like the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. Then there are the Woes proclaimed against the rich. In his companion volume, the Acts of the Apostles Luke tells us that in the early church all things were held in common.
If humanity is to hang together, if we are to share a common space (planet earth), then we have to learn to make sacrifices but for Christians sacrifice is of a very particular kind. If you walk into the baptistery in this church at the back you'll see that the stained-glass window contains the symbols of the four Evangelists: Matthew's angel, Mark's lion, John's eagle and Luke's ox.
Luke is symbolised by the ox because in the ancient world the ox was the sacrificial animal of choice. It was expensive. It was the greatest gift. Christ, God's greatest gift to humanity embodies humanity itself. Christ's death is sacrificial. It is supreme. Luke's Gospel, like Matthew includes a genealogy of Jesus but unlike Matthew who traces Jesus back to David and then to Abraham, Luke traces Jesus back to Adam. Adam: the Hebrew word for 'man' (humanity). The title 'Son of Man' is especially dear to Luke. So this morning: Jesus gives an apocalyptic rallying-cry - Be alert at all times ... (that you may be able) to stand before the Son of Man.
What might it mean to stand before the Son of Man? I suspect if we're wearing our Miss Havisham outfits we stand before him in fear and trembling. If we're in tatters because of the past then we're certainly lost but that's surely not what the Son of Man desires. Jesus lived at a time when disaster threatened. Heaven and earth (was about to) pass away. The destruction of the Temple in 70AD to which Jesus pointed was an enormous shock. It left only a Wailing Wall and a grieving and disorientated people. But Jesus spoke to his generation and to all generations. He spoke of what will not pass away: his words, his meaning, his substance, his sacrificial way of life.
In Luke's Gospel generation is a loaded term. It's not just a unit of time (25 years or so). It carries the idea of what generates human culture: what makes or should make our way of life 'tick'. One of the mechanisms that underlie how we operate is the way in which we tend to victimise each other. We define ourselves in opposition to each other. We go on to regard 'others' as strange, alien and finally as the enemy. In the ancient world religious sacrifice was seen as a way of keeping the world turning, perpetuating a way of life. What was acted out in the temple was played out on the battlefield as tribe struggled against tribe to gain dominance. The relentless waste of sacrifice scars humanity and reduces it to tatters. We may not have the trappings of sacrifice now on every street corner but it certainly rumbles away in our psyche and goes a long way to explaining how we often behave.
Christ's way is not man's way. By being Son of Man Christ seeks to generate a new humanity, one that is at peace with itself and at peace with God. By finally drawing a line under the old sacrificial, sacrificing and sacrificed humanity Christ seeks to generate in every generation a way of living based on his timeless message. His words will never pass away. Unlike Miss Havisham's wedding garment they will never wear thin. Humanity and eternity are aligned. There's a communion, a cross-shaped communion that extends horizontally to our sisters and brothers and vertically to the heavens. There, Christ the King holds out his hands in welcome as here the Son of Man beckons us to stand before him and embrace those who share his flesh and his blood. Perhaps by the end of this year, this year in which Luke the Evangelist is our guide we'll finally stand before the Son of Man not in tatters but in tune with Our Lord and King. Amen.