Saturday 27 March 2021

Palm Sunday Eyewitness

I would not usually have been there but my wife reminded me about the flour and herbs we needed for next week and how with so many visitors, the merchants could easily sell out so even though it was a hot afternoon I went out taking my boy Johannes with me.He was six years old and eager to come on the errand, so we cut through the narrow alleyways. I was holding him tightly by the hand for there were crowds from all over come to celebrate the Passover. We headed for the shop on the corner of the main road  where I knew the herbs would be fresh and of the finest quality, dodging the carts and the bundle carriers as we went. But when we reached the shop it was impossible to get in as it was surrounded  by people who were surging out of the city, the road was completely full and we soon got swallowed up in it all, I can tell you. I caught up Johannes and he climbed on piggy back style, his arms clasped tightly around my neck as the crowd sucked us out with it onto the Bethany road.  Outside the city gate it was marginally less of a crush and I could stand at the roadside able to breathe again. There was such excitement about and up ahead I could hear chanting. It was too far away for me to make it out but it seemed to be good natured, joyful and happy and coming toward us. Shortly we could see a small group coming down the hill in front of a crowd, they were all led by a man on a donkey. Now I could hear the chanting: “Hosanna”. 

Well I still did not know what was going on and I tugged at the man next to me

 “What’s happening?”  

“It's the man from Galilee, see he is coming - the one who raised Lazarus,, they say that Lazarus might be with him but look - there is the one they call Jesus - on a donkey.”

“Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord : The king of Israel.”

The enthusiasm was so infectious, the donkey and the man came closer, and I do not know why but I felt an urge to join in; I lifted my arms above my head and asked Johannes to hold the ends of some palm branches so I could  break them off - I had never done anything like this before but Johannes and I waved our fronds and we sang with the others “Hosanna ,Hosanna” and now the crowd around the gate moved out to meet the man and we continued to wave the palm  branches in his honour and then as he got closer, we threw them on the ground to make a sort of carpet for the donkey to walk on as the strange procession went through the gate into the city. The people had thinned out a little bit now so I could put Johannes back on the road, hold him by hand as we followed the stream of people, the chanting now ahead of us as the crowd at the front grew with more and more people coming out of the sidestreets. It looked as though they were heading to the Temple. 

“Daddy, who was that? Why are all these people here?”

To be truthful, I did not really know how to answer Johanes’ question - how do you speak to a small boy about Roman occupation, about the imprisonment of Palestine, which is his country but which he has only known this way. How to tell him of the freedom we crave and the hope that exploded with the coming of this miracle worker seated on a donkey riding into Jerusalem just as Zechararia had foretold? 

"Johannes,” I said “ this is a special person, come from God, a really good man, and I am so glad that you have been here today and that you have seen him.”

You know I forgot all about the shopping, the flour, the herbs, I forgot everything in those Hosannas.”


Saturday 20 March 2021

Melchizedek

You might like me be puzzled about MELCHIZEDEK and the comments in our reading from Hebrews. What is the order of Melchizedek and why is the writer of Hebrews (who most likely was not Paul) equating Jesus with him? What could this be about? A couple of weeks ago now we were speaking about Abram/Abraham and it is in the middle of this story that Melchizedek appears. Abram has successfully defeated a group of eastern kings who among other things had captured Lot (Abram’s nephew) and after this rescue, suddenly without previous mention we read in Genesis 14:18-20b:

And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God most high. He blessed him and said:

“Blessed be Abram by God most high maker of heaven and earth and blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand”

And Abram gave him one tenth of everything.” 

The first thing perhaps to notice is that he was priest and king - a sacral king therefore exercising authority in Salem later to become Israel’s holy capital and of course the place where Jesus would come to show that he was the Messiah. To understand why this comparison is being made, and the writer will make it more fully in chapter 7, we need to remind ourselves about the office of “High Priest.”

In the Jewish tradition the high priesthood is established (in the book of Exodus) when Moses ordains Aaron as the first high priest, the one charged with entering the Holy of Holies on the day of the atonement. All high priests were to be descendants of Aaron. Originally the high priest’s status was secondary to that of the king but gradually the authority of the high priest extended to the political arena. The important point is that Melchizedek of Salem is pre-Moses - he is not part of this hereditary lineage. He is both priest and king and even Abraham, the father of all Israel paid tithes to him and was blessed by him. 

The author of the Hebrews is determined to explain that Jesus is superior to all other beings, he is uncreated, immortal and permanent, superior to all biblical heroes including Abraham and Moses. His priesthood was divinely appointed:

“So Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest but was appointed.”

The letter to the Hebrews (although rather more like a sermon than a letter) stresses that the incarnation of Christ is a rupture with the past.The language of continuity between the covenants and laws of the Old Testament and the marriage of the New which we are used to is not found here. Rather it is overturned expressing the suppressionist view that Christianity replaces everything else, particularly Judaism. Hence this link was made to Melchizedek, drawing a line from Genesis directly to Christ bypassing everything else. Hebrews will explain that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the ultimate one, superseding all sacrifices made from Moses to to the end of the Temple period by any high priest, descending from Aaron. 

The purpose of this book then is to reinforce the new covenant to pass us from previous religious rules and to engage unhesitatingly in the spiritual cleansing and renewal that Jesus urges on us. A very suitable passage for the fifth Sunday of Lent.

Amen


Sunday 7 March 2021

The ten commandments are less popular now

 The ten commandments are less popular now. Although there is provision for them to be used in modern Common Worship services some churches like ours use a summary of the law and even  more usually go directly to the invitation to confession. The first 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, however did not use the commandments in the Communion service but began with a Psalm and then the nine verse form of the Kyrie:


Lorde have mercie upon us (three times)

Christ have mercie upon us (three times)

Lorde have mercie upon us (three times)


Ten years later in  1559 edition a new instruction was added at the beginning of the service:

“The shall the priest rehearse distinctly all the ten commandments”

The ninefold Kyrie was adapted to serve as responses to the individual commandments and this is what we see in our current editions of the Book of Common Prayer. In 1547, so a couple of years prior, during a general demolition of rood screens and images, churches were white lymed and commandments were written on the walls. This Protestant revolution, where images were replaced by words, was formalised under James 1st when it was required by Canon (1604:82) that the Ten Commandments were to be set on the east wall of every church. St. Clement’s Overy has a fine example of this and we can easily picture the faithful looking at these words as they were preparing to receive communion with them in their hearts.

But the ten commandments are less popular now. It may be that visitors to our churches and perhaps even those regularly in the pews do not notice, do not see the writing on the walls. Now, in this the season of Lent we are called to self examination and repentance, to positively take to heart the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the Gospels. But against what is this self examination to take place?  

I have been worried by the case of Anna Sacoolas, the driver of the car which collided with 19 year old Harry Dunn who died following the accident at RAF Croughton. The circumstances of Mrs. Sacoolas fleeing to the USclaiming diplomatic immunity are well known, extradition to attend a hearing in the UK was refused but last week news came that a civil  case could be brought even though Mr. Sacoola’s lawyers argued that it could not because the case should be heard in the UK where she will not go! What worries me is that our laws of social justice, our international courts and our basic government constructs have failed to find a place for the simple question “What happened?” to be asked and answered.

The ten commandments are less popular now - I am the Lord your God, make no graven images, do not take the Lord's name in vain, keep the sabbath, honour your parents, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not covet. It does seem that had they still been in the forefront of society’s thinking then the story of Harry Dunn would have read differently and that Mrs. Sacoolas would have been able to hear her conscience.

We need a sounding board for our reflection and meditation in Lent and indeed throughout our lives and I can think of no better than the decalogue.


Amen.