Patrick Comerford
Next Sunday, 5 July 2020, is the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IV).
Many of us are planning to reopen our churches on Sunday next as move into the next stage of relaxing the Covid-19 lockdown.
Resources for special services on that day, including readings, hymns, sermon ideas and suggestions for prayers and intercession, are available HERE.
Others may wish to mark the return to normality by using the ‘normal’ resources for Sunday as the Fourth Sunday after Trinity.
The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, are in two sets, the Continuous readings and the Paired readings. These sets of readings are:
The Continuous readings: Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Psalm 45: 10-17; Romans 7: 15-25a; Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30.
There is a link to the Continuous readings HERE.
The Paired readings: Zechariah 9: 9-12; Psalm 145: 8-14; Romans 7: 15-25a; Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30.
There is a link to the paired readings HERE.
Introducing the readings:
If our parishes are missing out on the wedding season because of the pandemic lockdown for the past few months, then there is a surprising wedding theme running through most of our readings next Sunday.
God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah, which we read about on 14 June (the First Sunday after Trinity, Genesis 18: 1-15, 21: 1-7), continues to be lived out as Isaac and Rebekah are married.
In the Psalm (and, once again, please note the problems I highlight about the numbering of the verses), we hear a song about a joyful wedding, often read as the joy of the Messiah meeting the hopes of the people.
In the Gospel reading, Christ, who so often compares the promises of the Kingdom of God with the joys of a wedding banquet, responds to his critics by inviting those who feel burdened and weighed down to join him by sharing in the joys he promises.
Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67:
For the past three weeks, we have been reading the stories of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac, and Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael.
Sarah has since died in Hebron and Isaac is now grown up. Abraham wants his son to marry a woman of his own clan. He sends his head servant back to Haran or Aram-naharaim to find a wife for Isaac. When he reaches the well at Haran, this servant prays to God for a sign to identify the woman God has chosen.
Rebekah shows she is this woman by offering water to the servant and his camels. She says she is kin to Abraham, and she offers hospitality. She tells her brother Laban, who welcomes the servant and his party and offers them a meal. But first, the servant insists, he must explain the reasons for his visit. And this is where this reading begins.
Bethuel, the father of Rebekah and Laban, is Abraham’s nephew. The family worships Abraham’s God, although they also have their household gods. Bethuel and Laban recognise the servant’s mission as divinely inspired. They agree Rebekah shall become Isaac’s wife, but first they will ask for her consent. When she agrees, Laban and Bethuel bless her, praying that she may become the mother or ancestor of many people, who shall live in peace and security.
By now, Isaac has moved Beer-lahai-roi, the ‘well of the living one who sees me,’ the well named by Hagar when God appeared to her there. He now lives at an oasis in the Negev or Negeb Desert, in southern Canaan. It seems that Abraham has died during this time, for when the servant returns he calls Isaac ‘my master.’
Rebekah notices Isaac before she knows who he is, and this is seen as a sign that God has brought them together. Isaac welcomes her into his home, the same tent where his mother had died, and Isaac and Rebekah are married.
Psalm 45: 10-17:
Psalm 45 is sometimes known by its Latin name, Eructavit cor meum. It was composed by the sons of Korach on the shoshanim, a musical instrument shaped like a rose, or the tune to which the psalm should be sung.
The psalm has been interpreted as an epithalamium, or wedding song, written to a king on the day of his marriage to a foreign woman, and is one of the royal psalms. It is sometimes read as a Messianic psalm, singing of the Messiah and his relationship with the people.
Once again, a note of caution is needed when preparing this psalm for use next Sunday. The Revised Common Lectionary refers to Psalm 45: 11-18, but the tables of readings in the Book of Common Prayer (p 48), the Church of Ireland Directory and on the Church of Ireland website refer to Psalm 45: 10-17. This is because of the different ways of numbering the verses in different translations.
These notes follow the versification in the Book of Common Prayer (pp 643-644).
In the verses before this reading, the psalmist sings of the qualities of the king, who is fair (handsome), full of grace, blessed by God and glory, a champion ‘for the cause of truth’ (verse 4), humble and righteous. His robes are perfumed with myrrh, aloes and cassia, and there is sweet music in his palace which is decorated with ivory.
Now, in this portion, the psalmist sings to bride. She is blessed and beautiful, honoured with gifts from neighbouring lands, and dressed in robes embroidered with cloth of gold and fine needlework. When she enters the palace, she is glorious to see, followed by her bridesmaids. She and the king will be blessed with descendants so that they shall remembered ‘through all generations’ and praised ‘for ever and ever.’
Romans 7: 15-25a:
Although Saint Paul has told his readers that Baptism brings the promise of new life, and Christ’s death brings the promise of eternal life, we have not yet fully attained this new life and are still influenced by evil.
Now Saint Paul writes about the enduring conflict between what we do in our actions and what we want to do in our thoughts.
He turns to himself, and he confesses that he does not do what he truly wants to do, but he does the very thing he hates to do. While he wants to live by God’s law and God’s ways, what he does is not what he wants to do.
He wants to obey God, but he is caught up in sin. His body is at war with his mind. Yet, despite this wretched conflict, he knows that he will be rescued, not by his own actions or intentions, by ‘God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30:
This Gospel reading is divided into three parts, a parable, a wisdom saying, and an exhortation in a typical rabbinic style of teaching.
In the first part (verses 16-19), we read a parable in which the ‘children’ could be seen as Christ, whose critics see him as living a good life, and Saint John the Baptist, who is facing death in prison (see verses 2-15). The people ignore their message, whether it be told austerely, like Saint John at a funeral, or with joy by Christ as at a wedding banquet. Their critics can only see that John neither eats nor drinks, while Christ eats with tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is shown to be true in deeds and actions.
Wisdom here is Σοφία (Sophía), not merely human wisdom found in knowledge, intelligence, experience, and learning, but the personification of divine wisdom in the Wisdom of God (see Proverbs 1-9; Wisdom 7: 21 to 8: 1). From Patristic times, the feminine personification of Divine Wisdom as Holy Wisdom (Ἁγία Σοφία, Hagía Sophía) refers either to Christ the Word of God or to the Holy Spirit.
In the second part of this reading (verses 25-27), Christ thanks the Father for choosing the simple and uneducated (‘infants’) over ‘the wise and the intelligent.’ Christ is the Father’s representative, and those who know the Father know him because of Christ.
In the third part of this reading (verses 28-30), Christ invites the downtrodden and the oppressed, the weary and those with heavy burdens, to find their rest with him. In the Mishnah, the rabbis argued that those who accept the ‘yoke’ of studying the Torah are freed from governmental duties and worldly cares (see m. Avot 3: 5, m. Berakot 2:2). Christ says his way is easy and his burden is light, freeing them from those burdens and cares. What is his way? To love God and to love one another.
A reflection on the Gospel reading:
Our churches are reopening next Sunday after the pandemic lockdown has left us missing not just our usual round of Sunday services and church meetings, but also the social dimension of Church life, including the social dimension that we associate with baptisms, weddings and funerals.
We may joke about these being ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ occasions. But they are also the moments that draw the community and families together and that provide identity and shape to communities and families.
And I am also missing the full sporting calendar: the rugby internationals, the provincial championships … I can feel the frustration of teams whose hopes and dreams were stopped in mid-sentence … I still wonder what might have been for the Wexford hurlers, for Leinster rugby, or for Aston Villa …
Even if I never flew any flags, donned the scarves or sang the songs, in my mind I have been on the terraces, in the stands, or missing the show on television.
Entering into the spirit of a game moves us from being mere spectators to feeling we truly are participants … that every shout and every roar is a passionate response, is true encouragement, is wish fulfilment … the more passion the more we not only hope but believe that our team is going to win.
When we go to weddings and funerals, the attitude we go with makes a world of difference: do I go as a spectator or as a participant?
When we get back to normal life, imagine going to a funeral and failing to offer sympathy to those who are grieving and mourning.
Shortly after my ordination, I was asked to officiate at my first wedding. Initially, I declined the invitation to go to the reception afterwards, until someone chided me gently and asked me: are you at this wedding as a spectator or as a participant?
Perhaps, as a new curate, I was too worried about sending out the wrong signals. If I stood back, would I be reproached for not eating and drinking with the people I was there to serve (see Matthew 11: 18)? If I went, would I be seen as being too interested in eating and drinking (verse 19; cf Romans 7: 15-16)?
But it was never about me, surely. It was only ever about the couple getting married.
Some years ago, a student was telling me about her parish placement as an ordinand. Initially, she was uncomfortable with the style of worship and the theological emphasis of the parish she was placed in. But the parish reacted to her warmly and gently. And as the weeks rolled into months, she realised she had moved from being an observer on Sunday mornings, to being an engaged visitor, to being a participant.
When we join in waves and chants at matches, join in the dance at weddings, sing the hymns and enter into the prayers at another church, we are moving from being observers and spectators to being participants. And the great opportunity for this transformation is provided Sunday after Sunday in our own churches, not at the Liturgy but in the Liturgy.
If you have been to the Middle East, or have just seen Fiddler on the Roof, you know that dancing at Jewish weddings was traditionally a male celebration. I have seen at funerals in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean that the open mourning and weeping is usually expressed on behalf of the community by women in particular. In classical times, a man’s worth in life was counted by the number of women crying at his funeral.
These traditions were passed on through the generations by children learning from adults and by children teaching each other.
In this Gospel reading, we see how Christ has noticed this in the streets and the back alleys as he moves through the towns and cities, probably in Galilee and along the Mediterranean shore.
He sees the children playing, the boys playing wedding dances, and the girls playing funeral wailing and mourning.
He notices the ways in which children can reproach each other for not joining in their playfulness:
We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn. (verse 17)
Even as he speaks there is playfulness in the way Jesus phrases his observation poetically. There is humour in the way he uses Greek words that rhyme for dance and mourn at the end of each line of the children’s taunts:
Ηὐλήσαμεν ὑμῖν
καὶ οὐκ ὠρχήσασθε:
ἐθρηνήσαμεν
καὶ οὐκ ἐκόψασθε.
Perhaps he was repeating an everyday rebuke in Greek at the time for people who stand back from what others are doing. We might put poetic rhyme on his lips here:
A wedding song we played for you,
The dance you did but scorn.
A woeful dirge we chanted too,
But then you would not mourn.
The boys playing tin whistles and tin drums are learning to become adult men. The girls wailing and beating their breasts in mock weeping are learning to become adult women. Each group is growing into the roles and rituals that will be expected of them when they mature.
Like all good children’s games, the point is the game, not who wins.
The games we played as children now seem silly and pointless. But when we were children they mattered as a communal and community experience. The fun was not because there was anything to win. The fun was in taking part. And in taking part we were helped in the process of growing and maturing and making the transition from childhood to adolescence, and from adolescence to adulthood.
To and fro, back and forth, these boys and girls in the market place play the games of weddings and funerals. The music they play shifts and changes its tones and tunes. This endless, pointless, repetition is their inherited way of learning and socialising. Their playfulness ensures their tradition and culture is reinforced and is handed on to the next generation.
But if the boys make music and the girls do not dance, if the girls wail and the boys do not weep, how can they have a shared story, a shared adulthood, a shared culture, a shared future, a shared humanity?
When we refuse to take part in the game, in the ritual, we refuse to take part in the shaping of society, we are denying our shared culture.
When reciprocity collapses, we are denying our shared humanity.
We can become paralysed by our inability to enter into the game of others. And then the game turns from song and dance to what we might call ‘the blame game.’
It is so easy when I withdraw from the social activities of others to blame them.
Yes, there is a time for dancing and a time for mourning: each has its proper place, and they flow into each other, like the children’s game when it is working. But when vanity gets in the way, there is a break-down in our understanding of time and of humanity.
If I stand back detached, and remain a mere observer of the joys and sorrow in the lives of others, I am not sharing in their humanity.
And in not sharing in your humanity, I am failing to acknowledge that you too are made in the image and likeness of God.
But when we rejoice with people in their joys, and when we mourn with people in their sorrows, we are putting into practice what the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us about us being not only made in the image and likeness of God individually but communally and collectively too as humanity.
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
17 “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’
25 At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary time, Year A).
The Collect of the Day:
O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
Increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may so pass through things temporal
that we finally lose not the things eternal:
Grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord.
The Collect of the Word:
Almighty God,
your son Jesus Christ has taught us
that what we do for the least of his brothers and sisters
we do also for him:
give us the will to serve others as he was the servant of all,
who gave up his life and died for us;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope.
Teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Suggested Hymns:
Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67:
383, Lord, be thy word my rule
323, The God of Abraham praise
Psalm 45: 10-17:
528, The Church’s one foundation
142, Wake, O wake with tidings thrilling
Zechariah 9: 9-12:
217, All glory, laud, and honour
347, Children of Jerusalem
125, Hail to the Lord’s anointed
238, Ride on, ride on in majesty
Psalm 145: 8-15:
24, All creatures of our God and King
42, Good is the Lord, our heavenly King
80, Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father
125, Hail to the Lord’s anointed
321, Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty
73, The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended
492, Ye servants of God, your master proclaim
Romans 7: 15-25a:
51, Awake, my soul, and with the sun
572, How great the tale, that there should be
553, Jesu, lover of my soul
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30:
398, Alleluia! sing to Jesus
567, Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go
649, Happy are they, they that love God
127, Hark what a sound and too divine for hearing
418, Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face
92, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
576, I heard the voice of Jesus say
97, Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
587, Just as I am, without one plea
103, O Christ the same, through all our story’s pages
363, O Lord of heaven and earth and sea
451, We come as guests invited
627, What a friend we have in Jesus
22, You shall cross the barren desert
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
The hymns suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000)
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
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