Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons 19 February 2023

Icon of Christ Pantocrator, St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. Wiki image

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

i) The inviting challenge

Great and Holy Lent beckons the Christian family onwards into a period of what we all hope will be a considered time of reflection and renewal. As if to put up a warning hand, to halt us, make us pause a moment and think hard, the readings of this Sunday take us to a very difficult place, all about our reactions and attitudes to others-especially those with whom we fundamentally disagree. I listened this past week to recordings of some extreme evangelical prophets and pastors of the various `Mega-Churches in the USA, nearly all of whom spent their time utterly condemning anybody who broke with the Law of God as they understood it, particularly transgender individuals, LGBTI persons, non-Christians and even some Christians, reserving their ire for people who were in their words 'demonic'. It was fascinatingly awful, I laughed a lot because most of it was just irrational, but I am also frightened because this form of biblical literalism and legal nastiness is never far away from any form of organised religion, especially when we are challenged in the views we hold dear and find we do not know much about our faith at all.

ii)An example from our past

As a welcome contrast, I had to research and write something about Ethelbert of Kent who welcomed St Augustine's mission to the English in the 6th century, and who was the first of the English rulers to convert to Christianity. What is so striking about him is the tolerance and hospitality shown to those whose belief systems were different to his own and his prepared ness to listen and learn. After his conversion to the faith of Christ, Ethelbert wrote a series of laws which are still foundational for us today, the contrasts with the 'burn in hell', 'condemn to death' preaching I heard on You tube could not be greater.! As an example note this law about various types of homicide and the punishment, remember this is what we often think of as a 'primitive time' when we might think death for any crime was a ready-made capital offence, except it was not!

"26. If a person slays a ceorl's domestic servant [OE hlaefæta], that one should compensate with 6 shillings. [A hlafæta, literally a 'loaf-eater', i.e. a dependent]
27. If a person slays a freed man [OE læt] of the highest rank, that one should pay with 80 shillings. [A læt was a freed slave, hence higher than a slave but lower than a ceorl; some læts may have originally been captured native Britons.][24]
27.1. If a person slays one of the second rank, one should pay with 60 shillings.
27.2. If of the third rank, one should pay with 40 shillings." (From The Laws of Ethelbert)

I can hear in the voice of those laws, not the vindictive rantings we often use against each other, nor the savagery of capital punishment, but something far greater, a compensatory set of punishments, which do not demand eye for eye or tooth for tooth or life for a life. We can see them as Ethelbert's acceptance of Christ's commands from the gospel of today: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. 'But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors* do the same?(Mt 5: 43-46)

iii) That one way !

Those of us tasked with preaching, celebrating, teaching or doing anything in a vocational way for our faith, ought to start learning the lessons of a history that often shakes us out of entrenched positions. How can we learn to actually love those who hate us and perhaps more poignantly, learn to love those we hate?

For us all, there is only one direct route, the gospel. In the end the way of Jesus is tough rather than hard, because it demands a type of self-giving, that goes without loss of our autonomy, by that I mean we consciously know what we are doing and trust (that is key) that by love's work, ' that source of Divine Love itself is ever in us and with us, working through us. So by giving and forgiving, we also as the gospel suggests receive and are forgiven, we regain our true-selves because we have become receptive to the open dialogue with God. Is this impossible? No! Difficult ? Yes! To empty our lives of all those elements we are given as measurements for success, money, wealth, position, power, requires disentanglement from sin. We cannot cherry pick scripture to suit our own ends, all we do must be done through the lens of Christ and with due understanding of the word of God. As an example this passage from the first reading has the hallmark of a divine utterance:

'Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your own people. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD" (Lv 19: 18)

Other sentences round about it do not carry that same weight, because they deal with circumstances of individual concern for a particular moment and time, here we can hear the echo of what Jesus teaches as primary, to love one another!. That is why the lens of the Great Commandment is an essential requisite for our discernment. What we do, how we act, does this measure up to the law of love?

iv) And so to Christ!

As we set out on our Lenten journey, hold fast to these words of Paul for they tell us where we are going, to be perfect is a journey of discovery of discovering the new beginning each day in Christ, to whom, in the most complete way we shall ever know, we truly belong!

'So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you,
Paul or Apollos or Cephas,
or the world or life or death,
or the present or the future:
all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God'. (I Cor 3:33)

Lectio Divina

Preparing for Great Lent

Amma Theodora

Amma Theodora said, "Let us strive to enter the narrow gate. Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter's storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; this present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven."

Excerpt from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers)

Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian for Lent

O Lord and Master of my life!

Take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity,
humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors
and not to judge my brother or sister,
for Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

John Chrysostom on fasting.

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor person, take pity on them. If you see a friend being honoured, do not envy them. Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies. Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice. Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin. Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful... Let the ear fast... by not listening to evil talk and gossip... Let the mouth fast from the foul words and unjust criticism. For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers and sisters?"

St John Chrysostom - "The Proof of Fasting"