The One who is to come

This is the text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral on Advent Sunday. The texts were: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-end; Matthew 24:36-44. It was one of those sermons which didn't seem to settle... the more I grappled with it and as I pondered the texted, it felt more mysterious and paradoxical. Our meeting for lectio before the service helped hugely - and I owe to Donald and Canon Andrew insights about beginning at the end and the consummation of love. Reading texts together is a powerful gift of time, attention and meaning; a good habit of Advent! Ultimately, words of a prayer attributed to St Augustine acted as a pulse to the sermon - Jesus, the one who was and is and is to come.

Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.

At this time of year, Black Friday has become a discomforting feature of retail trends.

Let’s name it as it is: something that plays to dark instincts of greed. It takes its place alongside other gloom-ridden, quasi-apocalyptic days.

Black Thursday: the first day of stock market crash of 1929, which led to the Great Depression.

Black Wednesday: Britain’s departure for the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.

Black Friday: the US import marking a day of frenzied discounted consumption; unplanned spending and bargain hunting; marketing hype, impulse buys and debt.

Some independent bookstores have chosen to shun to Black Friday; instead they embraced Civilised Saturday. For bibliophiles, it promises a more restful shopping experience with the added value of knowledgeable staff and special events.

We too are to dispel the darkness of Black Friday.  At the dawning of a new year, we are to embrace a live giving alternative.

At Advent, we begin at the end: we begin with the consummation of a promise in love.

Because love wins, we are called to a pattern of life which expresses gratitude rather than greed.

To begin at the end demands a change of heart; a shift in our attention towards God.

In Advent are invited to be.

To be still. To watch. To wait.

Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.

It would be understandable if on Advent Sunday we focused on political upheavals at home or abroad.  2016 has been marked by significant questions of truth, expertise, popularism and identity.

We live in times dominated by uprisings, terror, war, and rumours of war; we hear of famines, earthquakes and a changing climate. No wonder such events are read as ‘signs of the end times’.

To watch and wait might seem counter intuitive.

When events are alarming, unpredictable and destabilising, there is a time to lament and protest - our psalms and prayers give voice to that.  But Jesus calls us to a spirit of watchfulness which resists false expectations, which rests in the assurance that God will come.

Jesus urges us to be awake. To be attentive to God.

In the face of global disruption, we are challenged to look into our own hearts.

That’s why Advent is so alarming.

Are we ready? Have we prepared ourselves? Will we be caught unawares?

We confront the reality of the breaking in of God’s love: the Alpha and Omega, who was and is and is to come.

We pray with St Augustine:
Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.

We come to Jesus in the hope that he’ll rouse us from sleep: that our hearts might be directed to God in worship; that the Spirit might kindle in our hearts the fire of love; that our wills and desires might be directed to ways of peace.

We know not the hour of our own death nor the time of Christ’s return. Yet Paul does not despair as if we are living in uncertainty. Rather it’s the opposite; life has a greater clarity and meaning and purpose.  Jesus came to us in humility; he will come again in glory. In baptism, are caught up in that process of transformation. Christ brings the ultimate regime change from darkness to light; from night to day.

If we are alert to the nearness of God, we live in his light. To live in light means that we lay aside the stuff of Black Friday: the need to gratify temporal desires; jealously, quarrelling and the revelling are distractions.

The alternative is to walk in the light of the Lord: the hope of the prophet Isaiah has been fulfilled; live that reality.

As we open doors on our Advent Calendar, we are intentionally making space for God. As we walk in the light, pray that we might act with wisdom, embody hope and be alert to love.  That is certainly the aim of our cathedral calendar - inviting us to hear and respond to God’s story as we wait.

We continue to pray:  Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel both alarm us and give us hope. The task of disciple is to live by faith - that means refusing to live by fear and embracing life lived in loving obedience to God. Just like Isaiah and Paul, we are in this for the long haul.  We are to embody the love of God. By witnessing, in the power of the Spirit, to that love made manifest in the humility of Jesus.

But what of Jesus’ words about division, separation and the brutal disruption of daily life?

Jesus uses dramatic and apocalyptic language to convey the urgency of the situation and the demands of the challenge he presents to us.  We are called to be ready and prepared; we do not know how much time is left to us here on earth. We are to use the time that we have to an active waiting on God, which makes hope possible.

All this is summed up in the imperative: keep awake!

The Eucharist in which we share, restores our hope in God’s kingdom. We hear of God’s work of creation and redemption; of love which patiently reaches out to us in love. Here we come to the one who is to come; here we lament and repent; here we are forgiven and sent out.

Here receive what we are, and become what we receive: the Body of Christ. And bodies live and move and breath and act in the world.  We are a body called to both hope and patience - in world which is often devoid of the former and which has no time for the latter.

As the Body of Christ, our lives are woven into the world in the ordinary and complex negotiations of our common life. Like the prophets, we are to be alert to the signs of the kingdom.

Living with hope and patience is to walk in the light: it is to keep our eyes fixed on God and to practice his acts of mercy. We are to show loving kindness and extend hospitality; in so doing we become a sign of God’s kingdom, walking in Jesus steps.

Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.
Our hearts are cold; Lord, warm them by your selfless love.
Our hearts are sinful; cleanse them with your precious blood.
Our hearts are weak; strengthen them with your joyous Spirit.
Our hearts are empty; fill them with your divine presence.
Come, Emmanuel: enter our lives, possess them always and only for yourself.

© Julie  Gittoes 2016 

In turbulent times

This is a sermon preached at Evensong on Remembrance Sunday: the texts were Daniel 6 and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23.  As I thought about Daniel's faithfulness in prayer, I also called to mind words by Leonard Cohen: 'prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered'.  So much of that language we share with Daniel and with our Lord Jesus Christ in the words of the psalms. That thought resonated during Evensong, if if I didn't preach on it!  And, as Cohen so famously sang, 'And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.'  

With a budget of £100 million, it's hardly surprising that the adjective 'lavish' is by almost every reviewer to describe The Crown: the New York Times describes the ten part series as 'an orgy of sumptuous scenes and rich performances'.

And yet, there's a fragility, edginess and humanity in every scene. Queen Mary bluntly tells her granddaughter: while you mourn your father, you must also mourn someone else. Elizabeth Mountbatten. For she has now been replaced by another person. Elizabeth Regina. The two Elizabeths will frequently be in conflict with one another. The fact is, the Crown must win. Must always win'.

There are conflicts between instinct and impartiality; marriage vows and coronation oaths; promises made to a sister and commitment to the church; the business of government and ensuring good governance. It's a world where too much character, personality and knowledge are seen as dangerous.

An ordinary, modest young woman is anointed queen and is adorned as a goddess; or in the bitter words on the lips of the Duke of Windsor: 'we are half-people. Ripped from the pages of some bizarre mythology, the two sides within us, human and crown engaged in a fearful civil war, which never ends. And which blights our every human transaction as brother, husband, sister, wife, mother'.

 The Crown

As the director Stephen Daldry says: 'it's not just the story of a family, it's the story of post-War Britain'. The glamour and possibility of this new Elizabethan age is fraught with catastrophe. Hospitals are at breaking point as a result of the smog; rationing is ongoing; the impact of the abdication looms large; post-War becomes Cold War; the Suez Canal brings crisis and controversy; both Churchill and Eden face loss of power and loss of heath.

Untimely elevation to high office vies with thwarted personal ambition; devotion to public service tests other human loves and loyalties.  What we thought were stable political realities jolt and shift like tectonic plates. We talk of metropolitan elites and those left behind; of experts and popular opinion; the will of the people and parliamentary representation.

This isn't just the stuff of The Crown - in reality or in lavish drama. It's the world as we know and experience it, locally, nationally and internationally.

This isn't just the stuff of Brexit and President-elect Trump. It permeates the life of the church as we grapple with authority, influence and faith in the public square.

This isn't just the stuff of 1918, 1947 and 2016.  It's also the stuff of the Book of Daniel.

The story of the lions' den is more than a dramatic imaginative tale; it takes to the heart of the questions of our time. Questions for church, state and for each on of us as disciples of Christ.

How do we seek stability and God's peaceable kingdom in the mess and compromise of life?

How, in the responsibilities entrusted to us, do we live with integrity and faithfulness as people called by God?

Daniel's working within a system designed to ensure stability - and the security of the king. His service is distinguished by his excellent spirit. His brilliance was a threat to others; his promotion aroused suspicion of corruption. He led a life which was consistent and centred on God; that very steadfastness becomes a means to ensnare him.

An irrevocable ordinance signed by the king would not disrupt his pattern of prayer. When human authority was elevated to serve as an idol, he prayed. Regularly, openly and faithfully. In the mess of life, that is where we find mercy.

In the face of uncertainty, our laments, petitions, and hopes are uttered on our knees; they rise like incense to our heavenly Father. As Daniel found, praying is the most risky thing we can do.  It changes us as we discern God's will and purpose for us; it changes the world as we, in Christ, commit ourselves afresh to love and service.

We hear of Daniel's fate through the words of a narrator attuned to the reaction of King Darius: he faces the implications of human attempts to manipulate and flatter.  Vanity turns to distress. As the ink dries on the page, his own signature leads to condemnation rather than rescue.  And yet, in fasting and sleeplessness he speaks of human faithfulness to God and of God's ability to deliver.  Against all the odds, the blameless is unharmed; the accusers are overpowered.

Daniel In The Lions Den: Briton Riviere

In turbulent times, we justice, peace and stability can seem like a mirage.
It is then that we need to be both steadfast and prophetic in making it real.

In turbulent times, prayer is the anchor of hope.
It is then, we need that anchor more than ever.

In turbulent times, we pray without ceasing.
It is then that our Remembrance is held in God .

President Obama has frequently quoted Martin Luther King's remark that 'the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice'. We speak of the arc of God's kingdom. A kingdom of justice and equity which we only glimpse in our fragile earthly polity.  In Jesus, that kingdom has come near; in his life, death and resurrection, he reveals the end of the story - that love wins. In his own teaching, he uses parables to explain how we are to live in the light of that truth.

So in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus isn't offering advice about how to sow seed effectively. Instead it is explained as a description of the impact of the proclamation of God's kingdom. We are good soil - we are in Christ. And yet, we too are subject to the cares of the world; the lure of prosperity chokes us; the cost of love disillusions us; the fear of lost status hardens authority.

Sower: Vincent van Gogh

In the face of those pressures, the Gospel is more than a story to give our lives meaning; it is to illumine our imaginations with new possibilities. In joy, sorrow or temptation, we are to seek God's mercy in prayer. Only then perhaps, we will act in the world as we should: for we cannot act on behalf of the marginalised if we ourselves are possessed by possessions; we cannot challenge the powerful if we ourselves are enslaved by a desire for power; we cannot serve the vulnerable if we ourselves mask of our own weakness.

For we are called to walk as disciples of Christ, the one in whom love divine  was made perfect in human weakness.

In a turbulent world we are to articulate a vision of God's loving mercy as we exercise the responsibilities entrusted to us. We do that, because in Jesus we see and hear God's 'yes' to us and all creation. May the Spirit strengthen us as we embody with integrity a narrative of fruitful, fearless and forgiving love. May God's radiance bright illumine our us and our world; may those bright beams refracted in us bring hope and joy; transforming church and transforming lives.

 © Julie  Gittoes 2016

Walking with Mary, from Magdala

Selwyn College, Cambridge is marking the 40th anniversary of women being admitted to read for degrees - including a sermon series on hearing women's voices from Scripture, through the lens of female preachers. It was a delight to be back in a place which was so formative for me as an ordinand and research student; it gave me pause for thought too, as 1976 was also the year of my birth!  I took Mary Magdalene as my chosen woman - drawing on the texts 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 and John 20:1-2, 1-18. Who is this Mary? In liberating her from our preoccupations with power and sex, might we rediscover a courageous and passionate woman who walked with Jesus? Might we walk with her from Galilee to Jerusalem, cross to tomb - walking into a life and light, letting go and discovering our calling?

Jesus said to her, 'Mary!'

Mary Magdalene: a woman so explicitly called and known by name; and yet a woman whose identity has often been shaped by our own preoccupations with power and sexuality; a woman whose own story has been conflated with nameless women; yet we remember her. The fragrance of ointment; the outpouring of tears; penitence, faith and peace. She's more than a feminist icon; she is a witness to the good news of reconciling love. Yet, myth, fantasy and speculation obscure that calling.

In the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown reduces Mary Magdalene to the matriarch carrying Jesus' secret blood-line. In Scorese's film The Last Temptation of Christ, we see her as the embodiment of the power sexual desire.  In the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, we glimpse a woman enthralled by Jesus; confused by the intensity of her passion and spiritual longing. She sings: I don't know how to love him... I've had so many men before.

Lady Gaga: Judas 

For Lady Gaga, Mary Magdalene is a woman in love with a man who betrayed her.  As the video for Judas opens, Jesus and the disciples roar into town on motorbikes; Gaga's Mary narrates her story: In the most biblical sense, I am beyond repentance, Fame hooker, prostitute wench... She's a holy fool. She wants to love Jesus. She's torn between her demons and her virtue.  And as waves break over her in slow motion, we hear the trickle of water poured over Jesus' feet, and over Judas' too.

Lady Gaga is a woman who has had tremendous success and courted controversy; her identity has been formed by Christian imagination and she talks about her fears of being ensnared by past choices; she's the epitome of re-invention, provocation and fluid self-expression, with an affinity to those who feel marginalised.  Why is she drawn to Mary, from a small village called Magdala? Is it because her story expresses a deeper longing for healing and hope?

In her words, the song, Judas is: 'a metaphor and an analogy about forgiveness and betrayal and things that haunt you in your life and how I believe that it's the darkness in your life that ultimately shines and illuminates the greater light that you have upon you... the song is about forgiving the demons from your past in order to move into the greatness of your future'.

Certainly, Mary Magdalene knows forgiveness. The greatness of her future refuses to be constrained by our interpretations.  When we reduce her to the archetype of dangerous seduction and sexual impropriety,  we discredit and disempower her.  Instead, her greatness, her future is in coming to the light of Christ and finding healing, wholeness and renewed purpose. 

Let's not elevate her to a role model of unobtainable piety or courage; for if we do, we miss the shadows of her fears and longing which echo ours.

It's her authenticity which is compelling: emotional intensity and faithfulness; mental anguish and deep conviction; a depth of love Jesus and a recognition of who he is, that in him God's love is made manifest. Yes, she sheds tears and pours out her heart; yes, she lets go of her own demons and allows forgiveness to fill her heart.

She walks. She walks with the one who is God with us - all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem.  And there she waits in agony at the cross and in sorrow at the tomb.   In exhaustion and grief, she has been utterly spent in love. 

 Mary Magdalene 

Chris Gollon

We can identify with Mary in a moment of heartbreak. Death wreaks havoc with our lives: the physical loss unleashes a rawness of emotion; grief silences us and yet cries out; relationships are disrupted; together we share stories; alone we crave intimacy.

Mary stands before an empty tomb and describes what she sees; what she fears and thinks she knows. Her words unleash in Peter and John fear and confusion - they run. They run away from her; they run to the tomb. There they find insight and bewilderment.

Mary doesn't run. She stands alone. Weeping

When questioned a second time, she repeats her conviction. This is death. This is emptiness.

Supposing her questioner to be a gardener, she meets his whys with her own ifs.

And into that space, that silence, is spoken one word:

Mary.

Named. Found. Recognised. Known.

Rabboni!

An instinct as powerful as grief overwhelms her.

In love she wants to reach out; to hold and be held.

It's such a human moment!

But the one she loves says: Do not cling on to me.

One of the reasons I think this story so affects me is that I recall hugging my father the night before major surgery and he said ‘don’t hold on to me too tightly, Ju’. And I thought how absurd because I wasn’t. Not physically.

But perhaps he had a better grasp of letting go than I did.  His human fatherly love was intensely real. Yet in the face of mortality, he could let go. He trusted in love divine in which we live and move and have our being; which meant for him death was the beginning of life, not the ending of love.

Embracing new life means letting go. It's a something that we all need to learn; and perhaps Mary can teach us how.  More than that, she points us to the risen Lord who loves us from loss to life, sorrow to peace.

In her grief, she is called by name; in her letting go she is sent. 

Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen (Noli me Tangere)

Graham Sutherland

She cannot cling on to her risen Lord; but she continues to walk in his light.

She is called to walk further than she imagined. To walk from despair to hope; to continue to love and live.  More abundantly; more intensely; more lightly.  It's a profoundly sacramental pattern of life; all that we are can become a means of grace and hope and good news to others.   She goes to her brothers to face their needs and expectations with  the words 'I have seen the Lord'. 

This woman, this Mary, is the passionate, committed, intense and faithful witness to resurrection. Her pain, tears, honesty and longing are gathered up in this moment. She shows us how to live, moment by moment. She embodies the conviction we hear in Corinthians: the love of Christ which urges us on; the death that overcomes death; risen life lived for others; the liberation of not being regarded from a human point of view.

We are a new creation. In the power of the Spirit, may we, like Mary, witness to the love of God made manifest in Christ Jesus. Love that forgives the past; love that transforms the present; love that enlightens hearts, minds; love that brings the life that is life. 

 © 2016 Julie Gittoes

In the course of preparing for this sermon, a friend mentioned the icon of Mary Magdalene at Grace Cathedral (in the image below):

You can read more about the artist's story and the legend behind the image here It's a story which recognises her social standing, her conviction about justice and her ongoing witness to the power of Jesus' risen life.