ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

A Sermon Preached at Evensong and Benediction on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, 9th May 2010 by Fr Gerald Beauchamp

Readings: Zephaniah 3. 14-end; Matthew 28. 1-10 & 16-end

So, on Thursday the nation spoke and when I looked at the news at 5.00 o'clock news just now the politicians were still trying to work out what collectively we had said. We have a hung parliament. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the smoke-free rooms as the deals are done! Everyone wants clarity. But clarity isn't always to be had in this life and (paradoxically) the life of faith shows that quite clearly. As we move towards the end of the Easter season we can reflect that the resurrection is far from clear cut.

If you were in church last Sunday evening you would have heard the original end to St Mark's Gospel. Mark records how the women who went to the tomb found it open. A young man tells them that Jesus isn't there. The women are to tell the disciples that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee. The women run away terrified saying nothing to anyone. That's where Mark originally ended: at Ch16 v8.

Ch 16 as we now have it has two further endings. The first is just a few more anodyne lines added to v 8. The longer ending (another 12 verses) has some helpful information among other things for snake handlers. Jesus says that among the signs accompanying those who believe is that 'they will pick up snakes in their hands' (v 18). This was possibly influenced by what happened to St Paul on Malta. After a shipwreck he and other survivors built a fire. As the wood crackled a viper was driven out by the heat and fastened itself to Paul's hand yet Paul was unharmed (Acts 28. 1-6).

John's Gospel fares better but isn't perfect. At the end of Ch 20 we read:

'Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name' (vv 30 & 31)

Well, Amen to that but then ... wait ... there's another chapter. Someone later added a lengthy piece recording how Peter caught a large catch of fish at the behest of the risen Christ and a complicated discussion about what Jesus thought would be the fate of the Apostle John. This probably reflected tensions in the early church about leadership.

Matthew and Luke present fewer problems because no one added to the end of their gospels but they do present very different accounts of what happens immediately prior to what we celebrate as the Ascension. According to Luke.

'Then (Jesus) led (the disciples) out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God' (24. 50-53) That's quite a different story to the one told by Matthew that we heard this evening. Leaving out the the bit about the scheming over whether or not the body of Jesus was stolen by his disciples while the soldiers were sleeping we heard the sum total of Matthew's account of the resurrection. It's an expanded version of Mark.

Women come to the tomb to find it empty. But instead of a mere young man we now have an angel of the Lord complete with lighting and sound effects. He rolls back the stone. Jesus, however doesn't emerge like Lazarus from the tomb. Instead the angel says that Jesus isn't there. So quite why the angel went to all that bother is a mystery. Anyway we move swiftly on to a mountain in Galilee where Jesus appears, gives the Great Commission ('baptize all nations') and departs. If Matthew had written the lectionary then we would have gone straight from Easter Day to Trinity Sunday.

But more disconcerting is the such different treatments of the pre-Ascension appearances in Matthew and Luke. Luke 'the Catholic' has the disciples go back to church in Jerusalem to worship. Matthew 'the Evangelical' has them set off from Galilee (80 miles to the north) for the mission field.

The very different outcomes at the end of Matthew and Luke reflect the very different beginnings. Only Matthew and Luke tell us about the birth and early days of Jesus. Luke's emphasis is on the temple. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist is a priest. Jesus is taken to the temple soon after his birth for his circumcision. Simeon sings his Nunc Dimittis. Anna prophecies.

Matthew's preoccupations are elsewhere. So Jewish in his desire to emphasize that Jesus is the Messiah who fulfills the Old Testament promises yet his purpose is to show that this is not a narrow or exclusive focus. The magi from far away testify that Jesus is the one who opens the way to the 'Galilee of the nations' as foretold by Isaiah (9. 1).

So we have four different gospels and four very different accounts of the resurrection but by and large I don't notice Christians getting too fired up about this. None of us came to church wringing our hands with post-Enlightenment angst. It was by and large only in 18C that people began to look at the bible critically. No, as we entered church we dipped our fingers in the holy water stoup, genuflected, found a seat and prayed as usual.

So, why 'no problem'? No problem, I suspect because these very significant differences in the gospels have been hallowed by tradition, mellowed by liturgy and made serene by silence. The 'ground base' of the church's life is contemplation: the Galilee experience. Galilee is the gateway to mission but true mission travels (again paradoxically) by stillness. If ever you've been go the Sea of Galilee you'll know what I mean.

For most visitors to the Holy Land Galilee is a highlight. After the razzmatazz of Jerusalem the cool vastness of the Sea of Galilee and the beauty of the surrounding hills offers a peace and serenity not found elsewhere. It provides a place to think; to get some distance; to create perspective. There's clarity. Its Galilee (literal and metaphorical) that offers the larger picture: one that encompasses difference.

Over hundreds of years as Christians have told the resurrection stories we've accepted that none of them contains the whole truth but that each offers insights and food for the journey. We've melded them together to create a whole: something holy. The divisions that we create rarely hold water for very long. Catholic churchiness and evangelical zeal may be opposed in our minds but on the ground the divisions disappear. Christians of all persuasions have always both worshipped and evangelize.

No, in the greater scheme of things the church draws together what can seem disparate. There is a degree of messiness that is essential to the church'e life and indeed all life. We should never forget the lessons of messy play at infants school. Groups and movements spring up from time to time in the church under charismatic leaders who want to put up the barriers but these usually wither once the first flush of enthusiasm has waned.

And that's perhaps the message and the Good News that we can offer our politicians today. For the last couple of decades our national life has been dominated by conviction politics. Politicians with convictions are essential (assuming, of course that these convictions don't include jail sentences). We want to hear politicians speak from the heart and be passionate about their causes. That's one of the things that draws politics and religion into the same frame. But the shadow side of conviction (political and religious) is that it can be unprincipled and lacking in reason and transparency.

All that is now set to change. Today we have the opportunity as perhaps never before to see the great issues of our day hammered out. But more than that: there is going to have to be a great deal of deep listening as politicians and public discern the signs of the times. This means that we all have to find our own Galilee. There the risen Christ meets us and blesses us including us all, church and nation in his divine embrace.