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TRINITY 4, 2006
Fr Alan Moses

Over the last few weeks, in cathedrals and parish churches up and down the land, hundreds of people have been ordained as deacons or priests. Ordinations have been both joyful and serious occasions. There has been the affirmation by God and the Church of the calling to the ministry of word and sacrament, pastoral care and leadership in mission. The dominant note will have been positive, but I hope that in their training, in their ordination retreats, even in ordination sermons, there will have been some attention to that given to the reality they will face at some time in their ministry; the reality of opposition and rejection, disappointment and failure.

All three of our readings this morning speak of that reality.

Ezekiel is a priest who has a series of extraordinary visions; not in the Temple in Jerusalem, but in exile with the elite of Judah in Babylon where they had been deported by Nebuchadnezzar after they had rebelled against his rule once too often. Today we heard part of the initial vision in which he receives his calling, his prophetic commission. That commission is not to success in worldly terms, indeed quite the opposite. God sends him to “a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn.” They are, literally, “headstrong and hard-hearted.” He is to deliver God’s indictment to them, “Thus says the Lord”.
He is to be faithful to this message of God’s word - whether they listen or not.

Now all these shiny new curates are not being sent into parishes to denounce the people there. But it is important that they remember that they are commissioned to preach the word of God. It is that word to which they must be faithful, through thick and thin. They are to preach it “in season and out”. What they say may not always be popular or acceptable, but it is important. Their hearers may well reject it, but they should never be left with the sense that this is trivial and insignificant. They will one day “know that there has been a prophet among them.”

Ezekiel is sent to preach to a community of exiles, of people in shock and distress; wondering about their future as a people, as the people of God. Why has this happened to them; to God’s chosen? The message he is given is not one of gentle pastoral comfort but of stern judgement. It dismantles the traditional theology on which they had relied for their security. They had thought that they would be safe because God had made a covenant with them, he had given them the promised land, he had made a covenant witH David and his descendants to be his kingly representatives on earth; he had given them the Temple as the place of his abiding presence with them. Ezekiel is to say to them that while all this is true, they have not kept their side of the covenant; they have not obeyed the law, their kings have been faithless oppressors, they and their people have worshipped idols, even in the house of God. That is why they have been punished.

This hard message is not the end. God’s sending to them of a prophet is for their good; it is a signal that he still cares for them. But he demands of them change.
In fact, unless they change their ways, including the ways they think about God, things will only get worse. They might go on repeating the old theology in face of the facts but eventually they will realise its hollowness. Surrounded by the successful gods of their conquerors they will succumb to paganism and go the way of the northern tribes who disappeared from history after their exile. If they face up to the reality of what they had done in their spiritual self-satisfaction, then they might be hope for them.

That lesson was chosen of course because it complements our gospel passage today. Jesus’ fame as teacher and healer has been growing. Now he returns to his home town Nazareth. He is invited to teach in his local synagogue. At first, his hearers, people who would have known him all his life, were amazed at his wisdom. But soon they turn against him. Who does he think he is, standing up in the pulpit telling us what to do or to think? We know who he is; he’s just that carpenter from round the corner. Contempt for the familiar takes over. “Prophets”, says Jesus, “are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”

“And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

This unbelief in his home town does not stop Jesus in his tracks. He moves on elsewhere to continue his work. He sends out the disciples to share in that work. He warns them of the possibility of rejection and counsels them how to deal with it. That dramatic gesture of the shaking of the dust from their feet as a symbol of the import of what has been preached and the seriousness of their rejection of it.

Then in St. Paul, we come to one who has been called by God and commissioned as the apostle to the gentiles. He is writing to the troubled church at Corinth. Today’s reading is part of a sustained defence of his ministry there and an onslaught on his opponents who have been trying to undermine him.

Paul finds his apostolic ministry in Corinth being subverted by outsiders who claim to have more spectacular spiritual experiences and achievements that he has: something familiar in our own day. A genuine apostle, they say, would perform signs and wonders. He would look and sound and act the part.

He counters by fighting them on their own turf - even though he knows and repeatedly says, this is not the right thing to do. He speaks of his own spiritual experiences which can easily match many of theirs and then goes on to say that real authority is to be found elsewhere. He speaks of “a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up into the third heaven, …..into Paradise and heard things that are not to be said, that no man is permitted to repeat.” That man is clearly himself.

But he will not boast of these things lest they seem to be regarded as his own achievement, rather than a gift from God. What he will boast about, because it is truly important, is that in his ministry he has learned that it is not in success and results and popularity, but in weakness and failure that he has found God.

Indeed God had not let him bask in a warm spiritual glow but had given him a thorn in the flesh to torment him and keep him from being too elated. There has been endless speculation about what this was - something physical or psychological. Paul does not tell us. What he does say, and this is important for those who demand spectacular results - is that he asked God three times to take it away but God refused!

Those who have been ordained will find soon enough that there is usually at least one person in the communities to which they are sent who is convinced that they have a divine calling to be a thorn in the Vicar’s flesh!

No less than in the busy commercial centre which was Corinth, we live in a society in which people are judged by results. This is often as true in the Church as it is elsewhere. Clergy are judged by their box-office figures. In one sense, there is nothing wrong with this. We ought to be asking whether our mission is having an effect. If it isn’t, we should as congregations and as priests ask why not. If we can find reasons which we can do something about, then we should do it.

A couple of days ago, Ken Lay, the founder of Enron and the man behind the biggest corporate scandal in recent history, died after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced to prison. A recurring feature of such scandals seems to be that people begin to believe their own propaganda; the hype they engage in to persuade others that their business is a success. In the end it is all based not on substance – real work, real value - but on an elaborate structure of lies which eventually comes crashing down, taking people’s livelihoods and savings with it.

However, we also need to recognise that there is a spiritual danger in the kind of hype we come across in some Christian circles; an obsession with numbers and money and other worldly signs of success. We start believing our own propaganda; out own myth about ourselves, about a famous church like this. It can all come crashing down, taking peoples faith with it.

The danger is that it can take us a long way from following Jesus We are no longer able to see that God’s grace is sufficient for us, - indeed we no longer see the need for God’s grace, we can manage on our own. We cannot see that his power is made perfect in weakness. But if this was true of Jesus, and of St. Paul in their mission, there is no reason at all why we should think it will not be true of us.

	ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
	All Saints, Margaret Street, London, W1W 8JG, UK
Welcome Worship and visitor information Diary dates History and architecture Music The life of the church Sermons Support All Saints Get in touch	TRINITY 4, 2006 Fr Alan Moses Over the last few weeks, in cathedrals and parish churches up and down the land, hundreds of people have been ordained as deacons or priests. Ordinations have been both joyful and serious occasions. There has been the affirmation by God and the Church of the calling to the ministry of word and sacrament, pastoral care and leadership in mission. The dominant note will have been positive, but I hope that in their training, in their ordination retreats, even in ordination sermons, there will have been some attention to that given to the reality they will face at some time in their ministry; the reality of opposition and rejection, disappointment and failure. All three of our readings this morning speak of that reality. Ezekiel is a priest who has a series of extraordinary visions; not in the Temple in Jerusalem, but in exile with the elite of Judah in Babylon where they had been deported by Nebuchadnezzar after they had rebelled against his rule once too often. Today we heard part of the initial vision in which he receives his calling, his prophetic commission. That commission is not to success in worldly terms, indeed quite the opposite. God sends him to “a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn.” They are, literally, “headstrong and hard-hearted.” He is to deliver God’s indictment to them, “Thus says the Lord”. He is to be faithful to this message of God’s word - whether they listen or not. Now all these shiny new curates are not being sent into parishes to denounce the people there. But it is important that they remember that they are commissioned to preach the word of God. It is that word to which they must be faithful, through thick and thin. They are to preach it “in season and out”. What they say may not always be popular or acceptable, but it is important. Their hearers may well reject it, but they should never be left with the sense that this is trivial and insignificant. They will one day “know that there has been a prophet among them.” Ezekiel is sent to preach to a community of exiles, of people in shock and distress; wondering about their future as a people, as the people of God. Why has this happened to them; to God’s chosen? The message he is given is not one of gentle pastoral comfort but of stern judgement. It dismantles the traditional theology on which they had relied for their security. They had thought that they would be safe because God had made a covenant with them, he had given them the promised land, he had made a covenant witH David and his descendants to be his kingly representatives on earth; he had given them the Temple as the place of his abiding presence with them. Ezekiel is to say to them that while all this is true, they have not kept their side of the covenant; they have not obeyed the law, their kings have been faithless oppressors, they and their people have worshipped idols, even in the house of God. That is why they have been punished. This hard message is not the end. God’s sending to them of a prophet is for their good; it is a signal that he still cares for them. But he demands of them change. In fact, unless they change their ways, including the ways they think about God, things will only get worse. They might go on repeating the old theology in face of the facts but eventually they will realise its hollowness. Surrounded by the successful gods of their conquerors they will succumb to paganism and go the way of the northern tribes who disappeared from history after their exile. If they face up to the reality of what they had done in their spiritual self-satisfaction, then they might be hope for them. That lesson was chosen of course because it complements our gospel passage today. Jesus’ fame as teacher and healer has been growing. Now he returns to his home town Nazareth. He is invited to teach in his local synagogue. At first, his hearers, people who would have known him all his life, were amazed at his wisdom. But soon they turn against him. Who does he think he is, standing up in the pulpit telling us what to do or to think? We know who he is; he’s just that carpenter from round the corner. Contempt for the familiar takes over. “Prophets”, says Jesus, “are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” This unbelief in his home town does not stop Jesus in his tracks. He moves on elsewhere to continue his work. He sends out the disciples to share in that work. He warns them of the possibility of rejection and counsels them how to deal with it. That dramatic gesture of the shaking of the dust from their feet as a symbol of the import of what has been preached and the seriousness of their rejection of it. Then in St. Paul, we come to one who has been called by God and commissioned as the apostle to the gentiles. He is writing to the troubled church at Corinth. Today’s reading is part of a sustained defence of his ministry there and an onslaught on his opponents who have been trying to undermine him. Paul finds his apostolic ministry in Corinth being subverted by outsiders who claim to have more spectacular spiritual experiences and achievements that he has: something familiar in our own day. A genuine apostle, they say, would perform signs and wonders. He would look and sound and act the part. He counters by fighting them on their own turf - even though he knows and repeatedly says, this is not the right thing to do. He speaks of his own spiritual experiences which can easily match many of theirs and then goes on to say that real authority is to be found elsewhere. He speaks of “a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up into the third heaven, …..into Paradise and heard things that are not to be said, that no man is permitted to repeat.” That man is clearly himself. But he will not boast of these things lest they seem to be regarded as his own achievement, rather than a gift from God. What he will boast about, because it is truly important, is that in his ministry he has learned that it is not in success and results and popularity, but in weakness and failure that he has found God. Indeed God had not let him bask in a warm spiritual glow but had given him a thorn in the flesh to torment him and keep him from being too elated. There has been endless speculation about what this was - something physical or psychological. Paul does not tell us. What he does say, and this is important for those who demand spectacular results - is that he asked God three times to take it away but God refused! Those who have been ordained will find soon enough that there is usually at least one person in the communities to which they are sent who is convinced that they have a divine calling to be a thorn in the Vicar’s flesh! No less than in the busy commercial centre which was Corinth, we live in a society in which people are judged by results. This is often as true in the Church as it is elsewhere. Clergy are judged by their box-office figures. In one sense, there is nothing wrong with this. We ought to be asking whether our mission is having an effect. If it isn’t, we should as congregations and as priests ask why not. If we can find reasons which we can do something about, then we should do it. A couple of days ago, Ken Lay, the founder of Enron and the man behind the biggest corporate scandal in recent history, died after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced to prison. A recurring feature of such scandals seems to be that people begin to believe their own propaganda; the hype they engage in to persuade others that their business is a success. In the end it is all based not on substance – real work, real value - but on an elaborate structure of lies which eventually comes crashing down, taking people’s livelihoods and savings with it. However, we also need to recognise that there is a spiritual danger in the kind of hype we come across in some Christian circles; an obsession with numbers and money and other worldly signs of success. We start believing our own propaganda; out own myth about ourselves, about a famous church like this. It can all come crashing down, taking peoples faith with it. The danger is that it can take us a long way from following Jesus We are no longer able to see that God’s grace is sufficient for us, - indeed we no longer see the need for God’s grace, we can manage on our own. We cannot see that his power is made perfect in weakness. But if this was true of Jesus, and of St. Paul in their mission, there is no reason at all why we should think it will not be true of us.