No Boundaries

 

They had been building a new palace in Jerusalem. It was a beautiful house, a gift from the king of Tyre to King David, made of cedar, and built by Tyrian carpenters and stone-masons. Then, in the course of a war against the Philistines, David had been able to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. The Ark lived in a highly-decorated tent, and you couldn’t actually look at it, it was the holiest thing of all and considered to be the place where God lived.

So, anyway, David had a sudden thought – here he was, living in this glorious and comfortable palace, but there was the Ark of God just in a tent. Admittedly a very nice tent, but still a tent. So maybe the time had come to build God a lovely house, too. Nathan, the prophet, originally said “Go for it”, but then God said that no, for now at any rate, a tent was where the Ark needed to be.

We know, of course, that Solomon later built a temple, and that temple, or its successors, remained until 70 AD, when it was destroyed forever. It was a very nice temple, but the trouble was, it excluded people. You had the court of the Gentiles, where anybody could go – that was where the traders sold so-called “flawless” doves and sheep and so on to sacrifice, or to have sacrificed, and where you could change your money for the coins that didn’t have pictures on them – at a premium, of course. That is where Jesus had a hissy-fit and drove them all out. I think there may have been a separate court for women, too. And a court where Jewish men could go, but nobody else. Only the priests could go inside the Temple proper, and as for the Holy of Holies, where the Ark resided (still covered in its ceremonial blankets so nobody could actually see it), only the High Priest could go in there, once a year, with blood.  So fewer and fewer people could actually get near to God, and, of course, the Ark was now static, it couldn’t be carried about – or not without great difficulty, anyway – to where God’s people needed it.

So the Jewish people grew up with the rules and regulations that hedged in their worship, and their lives in general. But after Jesus had been raised from death and the Holy Spirit came, it became increasingly clear that this new way was not just for Jewish people, but for everybody. And this led to trouble, because the Jewish converts, naturally, felt themselves still to be bound by the Jewish law, the law of Moses, but the Gentile ones, who had never known the Jewish law, didn’t see why they should have to learn it now and especially they didn’t see why they should have to be circumcised as their Jewish brothers were. The New Testament, and especially the Epistles, are full of little glimpses about that particular quarrel. In Acts we see how the Council of Jerusalem agreed, eventually, that believers need not be circumcised nor keep the Law of Moses, but merely “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.”

St Paul, you may remember, took this even further and said that you could eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols if, and only if, your conscience was quite clear about it – after all, if idols had no power, nor did meat that had been sacrificed to them – and, more importantly, you weren’t going to upset your friends and fellow-believers by doing so. And there are hints in the letter to the Galatian believers that he had a row with Peter about it when Peter suddenly developed scruples about eating with Gentiles. Peter did know, really, that his faith was for everybody, not just the Jews, but you know what it’s like – the things we learnt as children do die very hard!

And, in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul wrote:
“[Jesus] is our peace;  in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Jesus has broken down the wall. Both Jews and Gentiles are reconciled to God through the Cross. Both are being built into a temple, into the Body of Christ. They are set free to be who they are. Jesus is their peace, breaking down the walls of hostility.

And, dare I say it, breaking down the walls of hostility that kept God confined in the Temple for so long. You may remember that when Jesus was crucified, St Matthew tells us that the heavy curtain that screened off the Holy of Holies was torn in two. And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that “we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh).” We can enter into God’s presence. God is not bound by the curtain – it works both ways.

Well, yes, but these stories and letters were written long, long ago. Do they still have relevance for us today? We no longer have divisions between Jewish and Gentile Christians, and we no longer think God sits on a throne above a hugely-decorated box.

No, but we do have our divisions, and they have been thrown into stark relief again recently, with the decision by the Methodist conference to allow gay marriages on Methodist premises and by Methodist ministers. The statute on marriage now reads as follows: “The Methodist Church believes that marriage is given by God to be a particular channel of God’s grace, and that it is in accord with God’s purposes when a marriage is a life-long union in body, mind and spirit of two people who freely enter it. Within the Methodist Church this is understood in two ways: that marriage can only be between a man and a woman; that marriage can be between any two people. The Methodist Church affirms both understandings and makes provision in its Standing Orders for them.”

My daughter, who watched the conference debate, says that it was very moving and emotional. I expect it was, and I expect there was, and will be, a great deal of hurt and confusion.

But then, don’t you think there might have been a great deal of hurt and confusion among the Jewish believers when they were told that there was no longer any need to be circumcised, or to keep the law of Moses, and you could be a perfectly good Christian without? I bet there was! There will have been those who accepted the new provisions joyfully and wholeheartedly, and welcomed the Gentile believers fully into the lives of their congregations. Others, on the other hand, will have been very upset and perhaps unable to believe that God could possibly accept those who didn’t conform to the Jewish law. And there would have been those like Peter, who thought they had accepted the new provisions, but when push came to shove, had real trouble overcoming their old prejudices and actually sitting down to a meal with Gentile believers.

It is always difficult when we move into a new way of being God’s people. Some will say we are following the spirit of the age; others that it is a genuine leading of God’s Spirit. Others won’t know what to think, and will be very confused.

Some authorities believe that the letter to the Ephesians was all or part of the now-vanished letter to the Laodiceans – why not send a copy to each? – and that it was taken for distribution, along with the letter to the Colossians, by Tychichus and Onesimus. Now, Onesimus, you may remember was, or had been, a slave belonging to a man called Philemon, although Paul hoped very much that Philemon would free him as they were both now Christians. Now, my point is this – we believe slavery is absolutely and utterly wrong, the worst thing people can do to each other. But in the Old Testament, slavery was the norm, although hedged around with all sorts of precautions to make sure the slaves were fairly treated, and given a chance to leave every seven years, and if a slave ran away it was to be assumed that their master had treated them badly and they were not to be returned. Sadly, in the Roman empire, there were no such precautions and slaves were just simply property, as they have been down the generations ever since. And this, too, was for many centuries considered quite normal, and we all know about the dreadful traffic from Africa over to the Caribbean and the United States.

And when that was finally abolished, there must still have been people who thought it was just the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist, and God’s Spirit would never lead people in such a terrible direction, and so on.

We have all, always, put boundaries on God. From the courtyards of the Temple saying who could, and who couldn’t go and see him, right down to the worries that we are following the zeitgeist and not God. We are all prejudiced and inclined to think that God would never do thus and so, whatever thus and so may be.

But – “he is our peace, in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Can we make room in our hearts for God to do a new thing? Can we believe God might be leading us in a new direction? We don’t have pillars of fire or cloud as the Israelites have; we no longer believe that God lives in a Temple. If God is leading us, dare we follow? Amen.

Come and Rest

I don’t know about you, but, especially at this time of year, when I greet people and say “How are you?” I tend, more and more, to get the response: “I’m really tired!” or “I’m exhausted!” or something stronger. People just seem to be tired all the time, have you found that? Perhaps you feel really tired all the time? I have several friends who have, or who have had, that most distressing syndrome called myalgic encephalitis, or ME, the main symptom of which is extreme exhaustion – and I mean, totally extreme, where you can’t even chop up vegetables for supper because your arms are so weak. And others, who don’t have that condition, but who are nevertheless frequently so tired they don’t know what to do with themselves. I get like that sometimes, I know!

Modern life is incredibly stressful and tiring. People are so scared of losing their jobs that they are working as many hours as they possibly can, arriving early and leaving late, as though by working longer hours they’re actually being more productive. Of course, what really happens is that they get more and more tired, and their work becomes less and less good, so they have to spend longer and longer doing it, and get more and more tired.... and so on.

And this has led to shops being open later and later, so the people who work in them don’t get to go home, either. Of course, supermarkets employ people on shifts, and many students and, perhaps, those who look after children all day, are glad of an evening shift or two to help the budget. But again, people end up really tired, mistakes get made, and tempers get frayed.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus and his disciples were really tired, too. The disciples had just been out on a mission, and were longing to tell him all about it. Jesus himself was tired and sad because his cousin John had just been put to death by the King. So they were in dire need of a rest and a breather. And Jesus said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Sadly, they couldn’t have as long a rest as they would have liked, because the crowds followed them and needed to be fed. And, in the bit of the story we didn’t read, Jesus feeds the five thousand, and then, absolutely desperate for a bit of time alone with his Father, to come to terms with what has been happening just lately, sends them on across the lake ahead of him, and then he comes to join them by walking across the lake.

Jesus himself would have been seriously in need of some time of quiet – if it was like Mark portrays it in his gospel, it was non-stop hustle, hustle, hustle. He was constantly on the move, healing people, performing miracles, and so on. And all his plans for a breather never seem to work out – when he went home for the weekend, the people of his home town were all, “well, who do you think you are, then?” and sneering at him, even, so Luke tells us, going so far as to throw stones at him. When he goes off with his disciples right outside Jewish territory, a woman comes to him to beg him to heal her daughter. When he goes off with them for a bit of quiet, as in this story, so that they can all rest and recharge their batteries after a busy mission, the crowds follow him, and, at the end of our reading we are told that wherever he went, sick people were brought out to touch him, and all who touched him were healed.

Whew! No wonder he badly needed time alone with his Father! And, I think, we could do a lot worse than follow his example. “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Yes, this is going to be one of those sermons, reminding us to use what Wesley calls “The means of grace” which God has placed at our disposal. And, heaven knows, I need to hear it just as much as you do! It’s one of those guilt-producers, isn’t it – no matter how great our prayer-life may be – and, trust me, mine isn’t! – we always feel that we ought to be able to do more.

The thing is, though, that when we are very tired – and who isn’t, these days? – prayer can feel almost impossible. But Jesus shows us that it is just when we are tired that it’s most important. And the other thing is that there are plenty of resources around to help.

It is one of the things that I regret, that when I was a young Christian, that I was never really taught about different ways of prayer. They just told me I needed to pray and to read my Bible – as, indeed, I do need to – but they didn’t tell me about the different ways that this could be done. My model ended up being that of the public prayer meeting. Now, nothing wrong with that, of course – it’s an excellent way to pray, but it turned out not really to suit me. I was delighted – surprised, but delighted – when I found out that there were other ways of praying that could be used.

In fact, there are whole libraries of books out there explaining different ways of praying, from the “lectio divina” of the Benedictines, reading and meditating on a Bible passage, allowing God to speak to you through it, via the “sanctified imagination” of the Ignatians, where you imagine yourself into the scene, right up to just sitting and being in God’s presence. Not just letting your mind wander, but staying focussed, being aware of your body and your breathing, and of God’s presence. Contemplative prayer, they call it. And there are even Christians who practice what they call Christian meditation, which is basically like any other form of meditation, only using the word “Maranatha”, i.e. “Come, Lord Jesus”, to focus on, rather than a Hindu word. There is a group that meets each week at Clapham Methodist Church if you are interested in trying that out for yourself.

Or you can use a rosary – John Wesley did, so there is good precedent! While I was researching for this sermon, I discovered there is also something called Anglican prayer beads, which are four sets of seven beads, divided by four larger beads, with a cross on the end – the idea is you develop your own way of using these for prayer, perhaps praying a Bible verse on the larger beads, and then something like “Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, Saviour” on the smaller ones. Or a holding cross, which is wonderful when you are ill and tired and too weak to pray – you can just literally cling to the cross of Christ! But again, you can develop your own ways of praying with it. Talking of visual aids, many people light a candle at the start of their prayer time, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes I use a candle flame to help me focus in prayer, particularly in a quiet service with lots of space for private worship in it. Music helps some people, too – hymns, or choral music, or even plainsong.

The point is, prayer is a bit like exercise – one size doesn’t fit all. You know that the best exercise for you is the one you like and will actually do, and the same applies to spiritual exercises. It’s well worth spending some time researching different ways of prayer that different groups of Christians have found helpful. There are plenty of sites out there to help. My particular favourite is a site called Pray as you Go, which provides, for each day of the week, a 15-minute podcast that you can download on to your mp3 player and listen to when convenient. It starts with some music – usually a hymn or psalm, often from another culture – and then a guided introduction to prayer. Then there is a scripture reading, and a very brief meditation on the reading, which is then repeated, and a few moments more of the day’s music before the podcast finishes with the Grace. Rather good to listen to on public transport, I find.

But there are plenty of other resources out there. I recommend a New Zealand site called Liturgy – don’t worry, I’ve got all these written down if you want a copy to have an explore for yourself – which has links to daily readings and prayers, and to other sites such as Benedictine Nuns singing the Offices of Lauds and Vespers – again, rather wonderful to listen to. There are also links to morning, afternoon and night prayer if you are the kind of person who finds a written liturgy helpful – the prayers and psalms change from day to day.

Talking of listening, if you don’t go on-line much or at all, don’t forget the weekly Choral Evensong broadcast on Wednesday afternoons on BBC3 at 4:00 pm, and repeated on Sundays, also at 4:00. We listened last week, as it was from Winchester Cathedral, and a friend of my daughter’s is one of the professional choristers there. They call them Vicars Choral, which is rather grand.

The point is, it doesn’t actually matter how you pray! Whether you use your own words, or other people’s, or none at all; whether you prefer to listen to music or to sing yourself; whether you use a rosary or prayer beads or whether those do simply nothing for you. What matters is that we spend time with our Lord, that we go by ourselves with him to a quiet place and rest awhile. It’s worth trying out a different way of praying from time to time.

After all, as we grow and change – and I hope we are all growing and changing, and allowing God to mould us into the people He created us to be – a way of prayer that was perfect for us some years ago might well not be quite such a good fit now, and something that seemed not even to be prayer back then might turn out to be the exact thing your spirit has been craving! And if it doesn’t work for you, if you find that you can’t use a given method to get and stay in touch with God, that’s fine, too. There’s plenty of other ways! What matters is that we pray, not how! And may God the Holy Spirit help us and guide our prayers.

Resources

Pray As You Go – Daily prayer for your MP3 player.

Liturgy NZ "Virtual Chapel" – Collection of resources for daily prayers, including links to sung offices.

Oremus.org - More resources and links for daily prayer

Anglican prayer beads, with links to how to make them.

Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3 at 4:00 pm on Wednesdays, repeated 4:00 pm on Sundays.

Holding crosses - £4.99 each from here; you can also get them from the gift shop at Westminster Cathedral, but they are £6.99 there!

Rosaries can be bought in Brixton Market, among other places.