01/06: 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Category: General
Posted by: tonycurrer
Matthew 7:21-27
What rains will come?
What floods will rise?
What gales will blow?
What slings and arrows of outrageous fortune will hurl themselves against your houses?
I was in my previous parish for three years. Towards the end of my time there I looked out across the sea of faces at mass and I remember thinking: This is a different crowd of people than the people I had seen here three years ago. They were the same people, of course, but what I saw was different because now I knew what the suffering of each one was.
There was the woman whose husband had died of a heart attack in the next room –only in his mid fifties- as she cooked his tea in the kitchen.
There is the family who lost their child in a road accident.
There are the elderly couple that worry about their mentally ill son and who will look after him when they die.
There is the family living with the shame and humiliation of bankruptcy.
There is the mother who never comes to communion because of a disastrous first marriage and now she brings up her family with a new partner.
There is the family that lives with addiction.
There is the family that lives with the bereavement of suicide.
I haven’t made any of those up. Some of those descriptions could equally well apply to people in this parish as to the people I’m thinking of back in Washington. I could keep going with the list. There were moments (admittedly not on a Sunday) when I would sit in church and think, “I know the great sadness in the life of every person here”. The shocking thing is that tragedy isn’t a rare occurrence. Our churches are packed with wounded people.
And look at you, so young and hopeful. The bad news is, guys, that if we bring you all back in thirty or forty years time, you’ll be a crowd of people like that. What rains will come? What floods will rise? What storms will hurl themselves, wrecking havoc, into your lives? The newspapers don’t report the same things that they used to: fewer ocean liners sink, there are no pit disasters, at least in this country, any more, people don’t die of all the old diseases, and yet we haven’t written tragedy out of the human story. The bad news is that tragedy will find its place in the lives of many of us here.
Our parish churches are filled with people who suffer, people whose lives have been marked by great and tragic sadness. But, the good news is this: our churches aren’t full of people who have been flattened, who’ve been defeated by life and its rains and floods and storms. Thank God, our churches are full of people who are alive, who still have the courage to have hope, who still find it in their hearts to love generously, even recklessly.
The people who fill our churches: when you first look at them they seem normal enough, an average crowd you might think. They don’t display publicly the scars that life has laid upon them. There’s little way of knowing what rains, what floods, what storms have thrown themselves at that crowd. And they look normal, they look all right, because they are still standing, because as well as the hidden scars there are also the hidden foundations. These are people who have faith. These are people who have found hope in the resurrection of Jesus. These are people who, despite the hurt, have found the strength to love again, and to love like Jesus, in a generous gift of themselves.
The great gift of being a priest is being given this insight into people’s lives. The thing I wish I could share with you is the love for God’s people which those insights give you. Sometimes I’m so moved by the people who are part of the life of our parish. You are growing into that people. You’ll have all the tragedies, I’m afraid, but you’ll also develop the foundations: faith, the strength to hope, and the courage to love.
What rains will come?
What floods will rise?
What gales will blow?
What slings and arrows of outrageous fortune will hurl themselves against your houses?
I was in my previous parish for three years. Towards the end of my time there I looked out across the sea of faces at mass and I remember thinking: This is a different crowd of people than the people I had seen here three years ago. They were the same people, of course, but what I saw was different because now I knew what the suffering of each one was.
There was the woman whose husband had died of a heart attack in the next room –only in his mid fifties- as she cooked his tea in the kitchen.
There is the family who lost their child in a road accident.
There are the elderly couple that worry about their mentally ill son and who will look after him when they die.
There is the family living with the shame and humiliation of bankruptcy.
There is the mother who never comes to communion because of a disastrous first marriage and now she brings up her family with a new partner.
There is the family that lives with addiction.
There is the family that lives with the bereavement of suicide.
I haven’t made any of those up. Some of those descriptions could equally well apply to people in this parish as to the people I’m thinking of back in Washington. I could keep going with the list. There were moments (admittedly not on a Sunday) when I would sit in church and think, “I know the great sadness in the life of every person here”. The shocking thing is that tragedy isn’t a rare occurrence. Our churches are packed with wounded people.
And look at you, so young and hopeful. The bad news is, guys, that if we bring you all back in thirty or forty years time, you’ll be a crowd of people like that. What rains will come? What floods will rise? What storms will hurl themselves, wrecking havoc, into your lives? The newspapers don’t report the same things that they used to: fewer ocean liners sink, there are no pit disasters, at least in this country, any more, people don’t die of all the old diseases, and yet we haven’t written tragedy out of the human story. The bad news is that tragedy will find its place in the lives of many of us here.
Our parish churches are filled with people who suffer, people whose lives have been marked by great and tragic sadness. But, the good news is this: our churches aren’t full of people who have been flattened, who’ve been defeated by life and its rains and floods and storms. Thank God, our churches are full of people who are alive, who still have the courage to have hope, who still find it in their hearts to love generously, even recklessly.
The people who fill our churches: when you first look at them they seem normal enough, an average crowd you might think. They don’t display publicly the scars that life has laid upon them. There’s little way of knowing what rains, what floods, what storms have thrown themselves at that crowd. And they look normal, they look all right, because they are still standing, because as well as the hidden scars there are also the hidden foundations. These are people who have faith. These are people who have found hope in the resurrection of Jesus. These are people who, despite the hurt, have found the strength to love again, and to love like Jesus, in a generous gift of themselves.
The great gift of being a priest is being given this insight into people’s lives. The thing I wish I could share with you is the love for God’s people which those insights give you. Sometimes I’m so moved by the people who are part of the life of our parish. You are growing into that people. You’ll have all the tragedies, I’m afraid, but you’ll also develop the foundations: faith, the strength to hope, and the courage to love.
24/02: Samaritan Woman at the Well
Category: General
Posted by: tonycurrer
3rd Sunday of Lent
The backdrop to this gospel is the town. Now not all the manuscripts agree what the town is: the majority of the best manuscripts say Sychar (and that’s what we heard this morning), others say Shechem. So Shechem hasn’t an awful lot to recommend it other than the fact that there’s a well there which has been thought to be the well of the gospel since at least the fourth century which is about 70 yards out of the town.
So let’s at least imagine it like this: the well in the foreground, the town as the backdrop. That’s the way that John sets the scene. If it helps –and to be honest, it helps me- you can imagine it like one of those weather vanes with a little woman with a parasol, and a little man with an umbrella. That’s the Samaritan woman and the disciples. The Samaritan woman is out first and the disciples are in the town. Then they come out and she goes in.
We can keep this parallelism going: the disciples have gone into town to get food; the Samaritan woman has come out of town to fetch drink. And if we push a little further we realise that Jesus gives the woman a water metaphor and the disciples a food metaphor.
To the Samaritan Jesus offers Living Water,
Anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again: the water I shall give will turn into a spring inside him/ her, welling up to eternal life.
To the disciples he talks of the food that is doing the Father’s work. And there seems is an implied criticism of the disciples here. Jesus asks them to look up and see the harvest ready for reaping, the fields already white. Doubtless there were fields of crops, but, I think, also in Jesus view is the town of Sychar or Shechem, the town that the disciples have just visited for food, as blinkered as the woman coming for her water. They went into that town, but without seeing the crop ready for the harvest. Probably that has a lot to do with the town being Samaritan, they didn’t perceive it as a harvest.
And right on cue, out comes the Samaritan woman again with the harvest. [Stage direction: Disciples with umbrellas withdraw].
Let’s now go back to that first question: “Give me to drink”. In the first paragraph we hear that Jesus is tired after a journey, he’s sat right down, and the disciples have gone for food. “Give me to drink” seems like a very direct and straightforward question. If we’re honest, it appears that Jesus only goes all metaphorical when he doesn’t get his drink.
But, the woman, at the end of the narrative has become this fountain of water, welling up to eternal life that Jesus has spoken of. Her witness has reaped the harvest of the town that the disciples didn’t even see. Notice that the titles by which she addresses Jesus get progressively more exalted: You a Jew, Sir, Lord, I see you are a prophet, perhaps he is the Messiah, and the highest title is the collective judgement of the town she has harvested, Saviour of the world. Notice she leaves her water jar when she hurries back.
Maybe that first question is key, maybe it isn’t so straightforward after all. “Give me to drink” is a challenge and an invitation to be a completely different person. “Give me to drink”: be someone who gives life, be someone who overflows with life. Don’t be someone blinkered and confined within the perimeters of one’s own needs.
“Give me to drink”: Give the Life of knowing Jesus.
The backdrop to this gospel is the town. Now not all the manuscripts agree what the town is: the majority of the best manuscripts say Sychar (and that’s what we heard this morning), others say Shechem. So Shechem hasn’t an awful lot to recommend it other than the fact that there’s a well there which has been thought to be the well of the gospel since at least the fourth century which is about 70 yards out of the town.
So let’s at least imagine it like this: the well in the foreground, the town as the backdrop. That’s the way that John sets the scene. If it helps –and to be honest, it helps me- you can imagine it like one of those weather vanes with a little woman with a parasol, and a little man with an umbrella. That’s the Samaritan woman and the disciples. The Samaritan woman is out first and the disciples are in the town. Then they come out and she goes in.
We can keep this parallelism going: the disciples have gone into town to get food; the Samaritan woman has come out of town to fetch drink. And if we push a little further we realise that Jesus gives the woman a water metaphor and the disciples a food metaphor.
To the Samaritan Jesus offers Living Water,
Anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again: the water I shall give will turn into a spring inside him/ her, welling up to eternal life.
To the disciples he talks of the food that is doing the Father’s work. And there seems is an implied criticism of the disciples here. Jesus asks them to look up and see the harvest ready for reaping, the fields already white. Doubtless there were fields of crops, but, I think, also in Jesus view is the town of Sychar or Shechem, the town that the disciples have just visited for food, as blinkered as the woman coming for her water. They went into that town, but without seeing the crop ready for the harvest. Probably that has a lot to do with the town being Samaritan, they didn’t perceive it as a harvest.
And right on cue, out comes the Samaritan woman again with the harvest. [Stage direction: Disciples with umbrellas withdraw].
Let’s now go back to that first question: “Give me to drink”. In the first paragraph we hear that Jesus is tired after a journey, he’s sat right down, and the disciples have gone for food. “Give me to drink” seems like a very direct and straightforward question. If we’re honest, it appears that Jesus only goes all metaphorical when he doesn’t get his drink.
But, the woman, at the end of the narrative has become this fountain of water, welling up to eternal life that Jesus has spoken of. Her witness has reaped the harvest of the town that the disciples didn’t even see. Notice that the titles by which she addresses Jesus get progressively more exalted: You a Jew, Sir, Lord, I see you are a prophet, perhaps he is the Messiah, and the highest title is the collective judgement of the town she has harvested, Saviour of the world. Notice she leaves her water jar when she hurries back.
Maybe that first question is key, maybe it isn’t so straightforward after all. “Give me to drink” is a challenge and an invitation to be a completely different person. “Give me to drink”: be someone who gives life, be someone who overflows with life. Don’t be someone blinkered and confined within the perimeters of one’s own needs.
“Give me to drink”: Give the Life of knowing Jesus.
Category: General
Posted by: tonycurrer
There is a word conspicuous by its absence from this Sunday’s Gospel. If you read the Transfiguration account in Mark’s gospel you’ll read Peter’s words, “Rabbi, it is wonderful for us to be here.” That’s not what we heard today. Peter says, “Lord it is wonderful for us to be here.”
We’re pretty sure that Matthew wrote his gospel with Mark in front of him. So what’s going on? Why does Matthew feel the need to edit Mark’s text and change “Rabbi” for “Lord”? Well, Matthew doesn’t like the word “Rabbi”. Matthew is both the most Jewish and anti-Jewish of the gospels. Matthew writes for a predominantly Jewish-Christian community, but one which has been expelled from the synagogue. It is very likely that “Rabbi” was a title used by synagogue leaders with whom Matthew’s community was in conflict. So in Matthew’s gospel and only here, Jesus teaches, call no one on earth “Teacher/ Rabbi”.
Why is that significant? Well, firstly, one of my tasks in preaching to you in Lent is to prepare you to celebrate Easter. On Palm Sunday you will hear the Passion from Matthew’s gospel, and you will hear hard words. You will hear the crowd shout to a man, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Remember when you hear those words that Matthew’s account is flavoured by the fact that his community has been expelled from the synagogue, and is in conflict with the local Jewish community. You’ll also hear the table talk of the last supper, and the disciples asking in turn, “Not I, Lord, surely?” All, that is, except Judas who asks, “Not I, Rabbi, surely?” Then I hope you recall that “Rabbi” is a dirty word in Matthew’s lexicon.
But there’s more to it than that. If “Rabbi” is a dirty word for Matthew, it certainly isn’t for other gospel writers. Mark, as we’ve seen, has Peter address Jesus as Rabbi. We have three gospels to go before Palm Sunday and all of them are from John, and guess what, in all of them Jesus is addressed as Rabbi. And on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene will recognise the Risen Lord with a simple word, “Rabbuni”. There are guest preachers for these next two Sunday’s so I want to alert you to this theme.
Rabbi, Teacher, is not an adequate title to describe Jesus. He is Lord, he is Saviour, he is the Christ, he is God’s beloved Son, but he is also still our teacher. This Lent the gospels invite us to come away with the Lord and to allow him to teach us. And in that private space he teaches us who he is and what he does for us.
This is not just the theme for the coming gospels. It is a theme, too, for this Sunday and for last. Matthew might not like the title, but he likes the idea. And the Church chooses gospels from Matthew that also invite us to come away to a private place with Jesus so that he might show us who he is.
When Jesus was baptised God’s voice spoke and announced, “This is my Son, the beloved, my favour rests on him.” The Gospel of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness explore and explain that identity: “If you are God’s Son …?” Satan asks. Peter identifies Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. Jesus then predicts his passion, his suffering and death. The transfiguration displays Jesus identity and makes clear just who it is who is offering his life for us.
Last week we were invited into the wilderness, into that private place of prayer with Jesus. This week, too, Jesus withdraws to a place of privacy. His public ministry in Galilee ended with the question on the road to Caesarea Philippi. Jesus withdraws with his disciples, and then again with a chosen few, just as he will on Gethsemane.
Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone.
Our faith has to be apostolic. It has to be a public thing, a thing put into action, it has to be a faith of moral choices and social conscience. But this Lent invites us to be the Lord’s disciples and allow him to teach us. He teaches us who he is, he teaches us that he loves us -“the disciples fall on their faces overcome with fear, but Jesus came up and touched them and touched them”- and he teaches us what this love promises: forgiveness, healing, sight and resurrection.
We’re pretty sure that Matthew wrote his gospel with Mark in front of him. So what’s going on? Why does Matthew feel the need to edit Mark’s text and change “Rabbi” for “Lord”? Well, Matthew doesn’t like the word “Rabbi”. Matthew is both the most Jewish and anti-Jewish of the gospels. Matthew writes for a predominantly Jewish-Christian community, but one which has been expelled from the synagogue. It is very likely that “Rabbi” was a title used by synagogue leaders with whom Matthew’s community was in conflict. So in Matthew’s gospel and only here, Jesus teaches, call no one on earth “Teacher/ Rabbi”.
Why is that significant? Well, firstly, one of my tasks in preaching to you in Lent is to prepare you to celebrate Easter. On Palm Sunday you will hear the Passion from Matthew’s gospel, and you will hear hard words. You will hear the crowd shout to a man, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Remember when you hear those words that Matthew’s account is flavoured by the fact that his community has been expelled from the synagogue, and is in conflict with the local Jewish community. You’ll also hear the table talk of the last supper, and the disciples asking in turn, “Not I, Lord, surely?” All, that is, except Judas who asks, “Not I, Rabbi, surely?” Then I hope you recall that “Rabbi” is a dirty word in Matthew’s lexicon.
But there’s more to it than that. If “Rabbi” is a dirty word for Matthew, it certainly isn’t for other gospel writers. Mark, as we’ve seen, has Peter address Jesus as Rabbi. We have three gospels to go before Palm Sunday and all of them are from John, and guess what, in all of them Jesus is addressed as Rabbi. And on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene will recognise the Risen Lord with a simple word, “Rabbuni”. There are guest preachers for these next two Sunday’s so I want to alert you to this theme.
Rabbi, Teacher, is not an adequate title to describe Jesus. He is Lord, he is Saviour, he is the Christ, he is God’s beloved Son, but he is also still our teacher. This Lent the gospels invite us to come away with the Lord and to allow him to teach us. And in that private space he teaches us who he is and what he does for us.
This is not just the theme for the coming gospels. It is a theme, too, for this Sunday and for last. Matthew might not like the title, but he likes the idea. And the Church chooses gospels from Matthew that also invite us to come away to a private place with Jesus so that he might show us who he is.
When Jesus was baptised God’s voice spoke and announced, “This is my Son, the beloved, my favour rests on him.” The Gospel of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness explore and explain that identity: “If you are God’s Son …?” Satan asks. Peter identifies Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. Jesus then predicts his passion, his suffering and death. The transfiguration displays Jesus identity and makes clear just who it is who is offering his life for us.
Last week we were invited into the wilderness, into that private place of prayer with Jesus. This week, too, Jesus withdraws to a place of privacy. His public ministry in Galilee ended with the question on the road to Caesarea Philippi. Jesus withdraws with his disciples, and then again with a chosen few, just as he will on Gethsemane.
Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone.
Our faith has to be apostolic. It has to be a public thing, a thing put into action, it has to be a faith of moral choices and social conscience. But this Lent invites us to be the Lord’s disciples and allow him to teach us. He teaches us who he is, he teaches us that he loves us -“the disciples fall on their faces overcome with fear, but Jesus came up and touched them and touched them”- and he teaches us what this love promises: forgiveness, healing, sight and resurrection.
