Love beyond walls

In the first century, the standard expression of the Jewish faiths was strongly influenced by the Pharisees, the most populous of the many forms of Jewish sects that were active at the time. Unlike other groups which were often on the fringes of Jewish society or groups such as the Sadducees which were deeply embedded in the very narrow world of the Jerusalem temple and its rituals, the Pharisees were widespread and mainstream, and consequentially able to influence most pious followers of the kingdom of God.

One of the characteristics of the Pharisees, is that they firmly believed that the one thing that still needed to happen to bring the Messiah and the establishment of the reign of God - was a people to so perfectly fulfill the law of Moses by keeping themselves ritually pure and isolated - that there would finally be a people capable of being the image bearers of God that the original creation intended. It is very likely that Simon Peter and the other apostles would have been deeply influenced by such religious thought. Even though Jesus showed them that it was possible to break down this ritual wall that surrounded Israel (and the current Rabbi-proof fence that surrounds Israel is only a contemporary exemplification of this ancient ideology), sociologically we know that such massive paradigm shifts do not occur quickly.

We see this manifested at the beginning of Acts 10, when Peter is up on a roof praying, mid afternoon on perhaps a warm day. As he prays he begins to be conscious of his hunger. As a bloke he would no doubt have been pleased that his prayer then became actualised when he receives a vision of a cloth descending from heaven containing all manner of food, accompanied by the voice of the Lord addressing him and asking him to 'get up, kill and eat.' Perhaps it is only then that Peter is able to focus enough to realise that the cloth does not only contain the usual forms of clean animals that the law allowed to be consumed, but also animals that were declared by the same law to be unclean and ritually forbidden because they would render the eater to be outside of the kingdom of God. It takes the Lord three goes before it begins to dawn on Peter that the Lord was making an actual offer and beginning to expand Peter's mind and categories. God was not bound to the walls that the thinking of groups like the Pharisees created. 'God does not have favourites.'

This follows as a rather logical consequence of the realisation that St John brings us to in 1 John 4 - that it is not that God simply feels love, or that it is one of his attributes - no, God is love. Not sometimes; not when he feels like it - but it is the deepest reality of God. And it is into this love that the Lord Jesus invites us. 'You did not choose me; no I chose you, and I commissioned you to go forth and bear fruit - fruit that will last.'

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Recorded at St Paul's, Vigil Mass. (10'14")
E6B - Easter, Sixth Sunday B

Children of the Shepherd God

I am sure that if many parishioners ever bother to listen to the first line of the second reading today, they either choose to ignore it or doubt that it can actually be true. It is a rather extraordinary claim: 'think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called the children of God - for that is what we are.' If we imagine the love that God gives to us, I suspect that for many people 'lavished' is not the first descriptive word that would be chosen; perhaps 'grudgingly offered' would be closer. But this is something that John had experienced deeply in his life, so when he came to describe this reality, he wanted us to know how true the love of God was. To ask us to 'think' about it is not a great translation - because John uses a word that expresses that the love of God is something absolutely tangible - so much so that it could be seen and experienced directly - not just a concept to be thought about.
When we turn to the Gospel, we see the kind of shape that this love took on in the life and ministry of Jesus, when Jesus declares himself to be the Good Shepherd.

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Recorded at St Paul's, 8am (8'45")
E4B - Easter, Fourth Sunday B - Good Shepherd Sunday

Stations of the Cross Reflection

A brief reflection offered at the end of the Stations of the Cross, celebrated at St Paul's, Camden on Good Friday morning.

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Length: 2'15"

A full recording of the service (slightly edited to reduce some of the silences and not including the final multimedia)

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Length: 40'05"

Let them go up to worship in love

A Jew would recognise our first reading today as the very last passage in the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. English bibles have tended to reorganise the order of the books in the Old Testament, so that we no longer follow the three-part division of the Tanakh into Torah (the Law), Nevi'im (the Prophets) and Ketuvim (the Writings), and now conclude the Old Testament with Malachi in the minor prophets. Likewise, we are probably not all that familiar with the two books of Chronicles, since our reading today is the only one during the three-year cycle of readings, and include only eight verses from the 1764 verses of the two books. It was St Jerome in his Latin Vulgate translation of the scriptures who provided the title of the books, when he called it the 'Chronicle of the whole of sacred history' whereas in the Hebrew Bible it was called the 'events of the days' or the 'annals of the years' and in the Greek Bible (Septuagint) it was called 'the things omitted'.

Chapter 36 of 2 Chronicles begins with the reigns of the final four kings of Judah - Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah - who did what was evil in the sight of the Lord God. The infidelity extended to the priests and the people, even though because of the compassion that he felt for the people, the Lord sent them prophets. These messengers were mocked and ignored, until in the end there was no remedy available. The city of Jerusalem fell to the invaders from Babylon, and the house of God was burned; those who were spared death were taken into captivity and sent into exile. Although the account of these days is dark, there is a final hint of light, because after the Sabbath of years that Jeremiah had prophesised (Jer 25:11; 29:10) Cyrus, a pagan Persian king comes to the throne. Cyrus is seen as almost a Messianic figure, because he acts to restore the people to their land once again, and finances the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the temple. So the final words of the Hebrew Bible are given over to a pagan king - who invites anyone in the people of God to remember that God is with them and to go up to the city and the temple. Interesting, hey!

It is therefore only really in the coming of Jesus that the true Messiah arrives, and his love is shown to be so strong that it can conquer every division - and even death itself. St Paul understands this well and provides us with a powerful summary of the Christian gospel of grace and mercy (Eph 2:4-10) which reminds us that this is as the result of God's action - bot because of anything that we have done.

Finally, all of this is brought into focus by the all-too-familiar line in the Gospel of John that reminds us of the centrality of God's love for the world (John 3:16).

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Recorded at St Paul's, 6pm Vigil Mass (09'09")

Learning to love

There is nothing unusual in the question that Jesus is asked in our Gospel today (Matthew 22:34-40) - students would regularly ask visiting Rabbis this question - which is the greatest commandment. When there are 613 mitzva (commandments) to choose from in the books of Moses (the Torah or Pentateuch) it is no wonder that various people had attempted to rank and order them to make them more useful. So we see, for example, in Luke 10, that Jesus poses the question back to another lawyer who asks him what he must do to receive eternal life (which leads into the parable of the Good Samaritan) and we have a range of alternative answers available in the Rabbinic writings that support the choices of Jesus or offer alternatives.

The first commandment that Jesus calls upon is the most logical choice of any devout Jew who was called upon to recite the Shema at least twice daily - 'Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one' (Deut 6:4) which leads into the prescriptive commandment (rather than the proscriptive commandments like 'you shall not steal' or 'you shall not kill' - which comprised 365 of the laws - one for each day of the solar year; leaving 248 prescriptive commandments like 'honour your father and mother' - one for each of the organs in the human body) to 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul'. For the second commandment, Jesus jumps two books earlier to Leviticus, quoting from the end of Lev 19:18 to provide the missionary outcome of the first commandment - 'to love your neighbour as yourself'.

The first commandment then provides the basis of the first reason that the Church exists - to gather for worship and adoration of God as our expression of our love. The second commandment then addresses our need to share that love in works of compassion and evangelisation.

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Recorded at St Paul's, 6pm Vigil (10'30" - including final blessing)
Sunday 30, Year A.