Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 15 August 2021, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven’ (John 6: 51) … a warm welcome and warm bread in the Pepi Hotel in Rethymnon

Patrick Comerford

Next Sunday, 15 August 2021, is the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI, Proper 15B).

The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted in the Church of Ireland, for next Sunday are:

The Continuous readings: I Kings 2: 10-12, 3: 3-14; Psalm 111; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58.

The Paired readings: Proverbs 9: 1-6; Psalm 34: 9-14; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58.

There is a link to the continuous readings HERE.

There is a link to the paired readings HERE.

In the Revised Common Lectionary and in Common Worship in the Church of England, there are provisions for a Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 15 August. Although these provisions do not extend to the Church of Ireland, there are separate notes at the end of this posting on this Festival and the lectionary and liturgical provisions that are available.

Holy Wisdom as the mother of Hope (left), Faith (centre) and Love (right) … a fresco in a church in Rethymnon, Crete, by the iconographer Alexandra Kaouki

Introduction:

In Sunday’s readings, we are asked to consider where we find wisdom, and we are reminded that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.’

But the purpose of wisdom, which Solomon asks for alone, is so that good and evil can be distinguished, especially when it comes to the needs of the people.

In the Gospel reading, Christ teaches and shows how he cares for the needs of the people, both spiritually and physically.

King David (left) and King Solomon (right) in a window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I Kings 2: 10-12, 3: 3-14:

This book (I Kings) begins when King David is an old and infirm man, his days as king are over, and a struggle for the throne breaks out between Adonijah, his oldest living son, and Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheba.

This reading begins where David dies and is buried in Jerusalem. Solomon firmly established his kingdom by killing or banishing Adonijah and his supporters, an account in the missing verses (2: 13-46). Solomon’s reign now begins.

God appears to Solomon in a dream. Solomon in a child-like way, realises he is dependent on God, and asks not for long life or riches, or the lives of his enemies, but for the gift of wisdom or an ‘understanding mind.’ God grants this request, but also adds riches and honour above other kings, which Solomon did not ask for.

Solomon is also promised that if he follows God’s ways, he will enjoy a long life.

Limited visiting hours at the Cave of Wisdom in Crete … but where do we find wisdom? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Proverbs 9: 1-6:

The Book of Proverbs consists of several collections. Some of the sayings may be pre-Exilic, but the book was edited in the post-Exilic period, and has acquired a legendary ascription to King Solomon.

The first part of the Book of Proverbs (1: 1 to 9: 18) contains mostly long poems, as opposed to short sayings, that serve as an introduction to the book. The person of Lady Wisdom stands in sharp contrast or opposition to Dame Folly and the ‘loose woman’ or ‘strange woman.’ These long wisdom poems in Chapters 1 to 9 differ from the short stacccato sayings that predominate in the rest of the book.

Chapters 1, 8 and 9 present a personification of Wisdom, a woman preaching to simple youth. She and her proclamation of life (8: 35) stand in sharp contrast to the ‘strange woman’ or prostitute (7: 10) and to Dame Folly (9: 13).

This reading is part of a public address by Lady Wisdom. Here, Lady Wisdom invites the unwise or ‘simple’ to her banquet (verses 1-6), while Dame Folly later in this chapter invites them to her ‘stolen water’ (verses 13-18).

Between these two invitations are aphorisms about scoffers and the wise (verses 7-18), some of which are included in this reading.

‘He provides food for those who fear him’ (Psalm 111: 5) … bread on a shop shelf in Powerscourt, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 111:

Psalm 111 is a hymn of praise, thanking God for his great deeds, especially for making and keeping his covenant with his people. The psalmist is a wise person, and for him holding the Lord in awe is the beginning of knowing God, for him wisdom comes from increasing knowledge of God.

He praises God for his works and deeds, his interventions in the world and his commandments. He is holy and awesome, and living by his commandments is the start to understanding him.

There is an opportunity too of linking the Psalm with the Gospel reading: ‘He provides food for those who fear him … The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Psalm 111: 5, 10).

‘Seek peace and pursue it’ (Psalm 34: 14) … ‘Shalom’ on the doors of the Peace Chapel in Saint Botolph without Adlgate, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Psalm 34: 9-14:

The readings from this psalm began last week in the paired readings, with verses 1-8. When King David was fleeing from King Saul, he took refuge in the Philistine city of Gath. There, however, he was recognised, and once again his life was in danger. Feigning insanity in order to appear harmless, he was dismissed by the king, and was able to escape (see I Samuel 21: 10-15).

Psalm 34 is written as an alphabetical acrostic. An extra verse was added at th end to avoid closing on a negative note.

Last week, we were told that when we bless the Lord, the humble hear and are glad (verses 1-2). We were invited to ‘taste and see that the Lord is gracious’ (verse 8). Religious experience precedes religious understanding.

The reading from this psalm cotinues in the paired readings this Sunday with verses 9-14. As the psalm continues, we are told that, as his ‘holy ones,’ we shall fear the Lord and lack nothing (verses 9-10), for God meets all our needs.

We are called to keep our tongues from evil, to keep our tongues from speaking deceit (verse 13), to depart from evil and to do good, and to seek peace and pursue it (verse 14).

‘Giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything’ (Ephesians 5: 20) … flowers in the grounds of the Basilica of Saint John in Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ephesians 5: 15-20:

Saint Paul has written to the Church in Ephesus, urging the new members of the Church there not to harbour anger, but to actively care for the poor, and to build up the community, forgiving and loving as Christ forgives and loves.

Now Saint Paul tells them that wisdom is a characteristic of Christian living, and we are privileged to share in God’s wisdom and insights through Christ. They are to live as wise people, not to be foolish, not to get drunk.

Before Christ comes again, we are to use this time wisely, effectively, to know the difference between wisdom and foolishness, to be filled with the Spirit instead of drunkenness, showing this joy among ourselves, and giving thanks to God at all times for the whole of creation.

‘Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever’ (John 6: 51) … bread on sale in a shop in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 51-58:

This Gospel reading continues the discourse after the feeding of the multitude, in which Christ describes himself as ‘the living bread’ (verse 51).

This key ‘I AM’ saying in Saint John’s Gospel reminds me of two great sayings.

This Gospel reading develops one of the great ‘I AM’ sayings in Saint John’s Gospel, the first of these seven sayings, which we heard the previous Sunday.

In the previous Sunday’s Gospel reading, Christ said to the multitude: ‘I am the bread of life’ (John 6: 35). And he emphasised it, not once but twice, when he said: ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven’ (verse 41) and again ‘I am the bread of life’ (verse 48).

Christ develops that theme in this Gospel reading when he says: ‘I am the living bread’ (verse 51).

These are emphatic declarations. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus says ‘I am’ 45 times. But he uses this particular way of saying ‘I am’ 24 times. He says ‘I AM,’ ἐγώ εἰμί (ego eimi), explicitly including the Greek pronoun ‘I’ (ἐγώ, ego) which is not necessary in Greek grammar at the time.

Why?

What is Christ saying?

I want to avoid being obscure about finer points of Greek and Greek grammar. But it is a point that was immediately obvious to the first readers of Saint John’s Gospel.

In the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of God’s name is closely related to the emphatic statement ‘I AM’ (see Exodus 3: 14; 6: 2; Deuteronomy 32: 39; Isaiah 43: 25; 48: 12; 51: 12; etc.). In the Greek translation, the Septuagint, most of these passages are translated with ‘I AM,’ ἐγώ εἰμί (ego eimi).

The ‘I AM’ of the Old Testament and the ‘I AM’ of Saint John’s Gospel is the God who creates us, who communicates to and with us, who gives himself to us.

But it is worth asking ourselves, what does it mean to acknowledge Christ as ‘the bread of life’?

I was at a wedding recently that was celebrated within the context of the Eucharist or the Holy Communion.

In his sermon, the priest compared God’s self-giving to us in Christ’s body as an expression of God’s deepest love for us with the way in which a couple getting married give themselves bodily to each other … the most intimate loving action to be shown to each other.

Of course, for the love of God and the love of one another are inseparable.

It could be argued that the sublime sacramental theology in this part of the discourse would not have been understood by a Galilean audience at that time. It has also been argued that this part of the discourse draws on Eucharistic material from the Last Supper to bring out the deeper sacramental meaning of the heavenly bread, which can only be grasped in the light of the institution of the Eucharist.

In a deeper sense, the life-giving and living bread is Christ’s own flesh.

Verse 51:

John gives us the words: ‘The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ This appears to be a variant of the words of the institution in the Eucharist (see Luke 22: 19; I Corinthians 11: 26).

For the Apostle Paul, the Eucharist proclaims the death of the Lord until he comes again. But for John, the emphasis is on the Word that has become flesh and that gives up his flesh and blood as the food of life.

There is profound sacramental theology here. If baptism gives us that life which the Father shares with the Son, then the Eucharist is the food nourishing it.

Three illustrations:

The Cappadocian Fathers (from left): Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian and Saint Basil the Great

1, ‘The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry’

I have spent some time in Cappadocia, in south-central Turkey. I was there because of my interest in sites associated with the three Cappadocian Fathers.

These were three key Patristic writers and saints: Saint Basil the Great (329-379), Bishop of Caesarea, his brother Saint Gregory (335-395), Bishop of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus (329-390), who became Patriarch of Constantinople.

They challenged heresies such as Arianism and their thinking was instrumental in formulating the phrases that shaped the Nicene Creed.

But their thinking was not about doctrine alone. It was also about living the Christian life.

So, for example, Saint Basil is also remembered for his challenging social values. He wrote: ‘The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.’

Sacramental practice must be related to the practice of Christianity, and doctrine and belief must be related to how we live our lives as Christians.

The memorial in Saint Matthew’s Church, Westminster, to the former curate, Bishop Frank Weston (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

2, The ‘folly and madness’ of Bishop Frank Weston

I have also stayed in Saint Matthew’s Vicarage in Westminster, where Bishop Frank Weston (1871-1924) is said to have written a key, influential speech just a year before he died.

Frank Weston, who was the Bishop of Zanzibar from 1908, held together in a creative combination his incarnational and sacramental theology with his radical social concerns formed the keynote of his address to the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923. He believed that the sacramental focus gave a reality to Christ’s presence and power that nothing else could. ‘The one thing England needs to learn is that Christ is in and amid matter, God in flesh, God in sacrament.’

And so he concluded: ‘But I say to you, and I say it with all the earnestness that I have, if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in His Blessed Sacrament, then, when you come out from before your tabernacles, you must walk with Christ, mystically present in you through the streets of this country, and find the same Christ in the peoples of your cities and villages. You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums … It is folly – it is madness – to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children.’

He told people at the congress: ‘Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet.’

Something similar was said in a letter in The Tablet three years ago [4 August 2018] by Father Derek P Reeve, a retired parish priest in Portsmouth: ‘The … Lord whom we receive at the Eucharist is the one whom we go out to serve, and, dare I say it, to adore in our neighbour …’

So sacramental life is meaningless unless it is lived out in our care for those who are hungry, suffering and marginalised.

The Clergy House and Saint Matthew’s Church, Westminster, where Bishop Frank Weston wrote his speech in 1923 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

3, Practical expression of Christian values in public action

Some years ago, the Anglican priest and former Guardian columnist Canon Giles Fraser visited the migrant camps in Calais and worshipped with them in a makeshift chapel served by Eritrean priests.

His visit stirred controversy in the red-top tabloids in England. There was speculation at the time in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and other papers that the BBC was going to film Songs of Praise in Calais, and this caused furtive but feigned panic about public money, the licence fees, being used to tell the migrants’ stories.

Giles Fraser replied to his tabloid critics, saying: ‘The right-wing press keeps banging on about this being a Christian nation. But they hate it when it behaves like one.’

The public consternation in Britain was not calmed by politicians deploying words like ‘swarm’ and ‘marauding.’ The language become alarmist and increasingly racist, to the point that the Sun columnist Katie Hopkins descended to using the language of the Third Reich when she referred to migrants as ‘cockroaches.’

Despite hyped-up talk long before the ‘Brexit’ referendum about the ‘swarms’ of migrants supposedly trying to reach British shores from Calais, only four per cent of Europe’s asylum seekers are applying to stay in the UK. In telling contrast, a report in the Guardian showed that unemployed Britons in Europe are drawing much more in benefits and allowances in the wealthier EU member states than their nationals are claiming in Britain, despite British government arguments about migrants flocking in to secure better welfare payments.

At least 30,000 British nationals are claiming unemployment benefit in countries around the EU, the Guardian reported at the time. Four times as many Britons claim unemployment benefits in Germany as Germans do in Britain, and the number of unemployed Britons receiving benefits in Ireland exceeds their Irish counterparts in the UK by a rate of five to one.

That debate in Britain was in sharp contrast to the humanitarian work of the Irish naval vessels on the high seas at the time, saving hundreds if not thousands of lives in the Mediterranean waters between Italy and North Africa.

The crews of those naval vessels are hallowed expressions of public values in this society … and a practical expression of Christian values in public action.

Appropriately, the Collect on Sunday prays: ‘O God, you declare your almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity …’

John 6: 51-58: the Sacramental theme in the Discourse on the Bread of Life … an image in Saint Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral, Orlando (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some conclusions

There are three points that might be drawn from Sunday’s Gospel reading:

1, God gives to us in Christ, and in the Sacrament, so too we must give lovingly.

2, Doctrine and belief must be related to discipleship, indeed they are meaningless unless they are reflected in how we live our lives, a point also made in the reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.

3, Our sacramental practice must always be related to how we live our lives every day so that we make Christ’s love visible.

To summarise, our doctrines and creedal expressions, our attention to Scripture and our attention to sacramental life, find their fullest meaning in how we reflect God’s love for each other and how we express God’s love for those who are left without loving care. For they too are made in God’s image and likeness, and in their faces we see the face of Christ.

‘The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (John 6: 51) … bread being prepared for Communion in the Rectory in Askeaton on a recent Sunday morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 51-58 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 51 ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ 53 So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’

‘Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed’ (Proverbs 9: 5) … a table in Lemonokipos restaurant in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical resources:

Liturgical Colour: Green (Ordinary Time, Year B)

The Collect:

O God,
you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
Mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect of the Word:

Everliving God,
your Son, Jesus Christ, gave himself as living bread
for the life of the world:
give us such a knowledge of his presence
that we may be strengthened and sustained by his risen life
to serve you continually;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated
the memorial of that single sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace.
By our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘Be known to us in breaking bread’ (Hymn 401) … bread in a Greek baker’s window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Suggested Hymns:

I Kings 2: 10-12; 3: 3-14:

643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
533, God of grace and God of glory

Psalm 111:

84, Alleluia! raise the anthem
130, Jesus came, the heavens adoring
529, Thy hand, O God, has guided
373, To God be the glory! Great things he has done!

Proverbs 9: 1-6:

433, My God, your table here is spread

Psalm 34: 9-14:

507, Put peace into each other’s hands
372, Through all the changing scenes of life

Ephesians 5: 15-20:

346, Angel voices ever singing
454, Forth in the peace of Christ we go
92, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
356, I will sing, I will sing a song unto the Lord
360, Let all the world in every corner sing
362, O God beyond all praising
708, O praise ye the Lord! Praise him in the height
364, Praise him on the trumpet, the psaltery and harp
710, Sing to God new songs of worship
369, Songs of praise the angels sang
313, The Spirit came, as promise
d 374, When all thy mercies, O my God
458, When, in our music, God is glorified
344, When morning gilds the skies
376, Ye holy angels bright

John 6: 51-58:

398, Alleluia! sing to Jesus
401, Be known to us in breaking bread
403, Bread of the world in mercy broken
407, Christ is the heavenly food that gives
411, Draw near and take the body of the Lord
220, Glory be to Jesus
647, Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
420, ‘I am the bread of life’
581, I, the Lord of sea and sky
422, In the quiet consecration
425, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts
435, O God, unseen, yet ever near
624, Speak, Lord, in the stillness
449, Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee
451, We come as guests invited

An icon of the Dormition completed by Alexandra Kaouki for a church in the old town of Rethymnon in Crete

PART 2:

15 August and the Blessed Virgin Mary:

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship and the Revised Common Lectionaryalso marks 15 August as a Festival or one of the Principal Holy Days, with the simple designation ‘Blessed Virgin Mary.’

It is one of those days on which the Church of England recommends the liturgical provisions should not be displaced, although, ‘for pastoral reasons,’ the Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary may be celebrate instead on 8 September.

The readings provided in the Revised Common Lectionary and Common Worship are:

The Readings: Isaiah 61: 10-11 or Revelation 11: 19 to 12, 6, 10; Psalm 45: 10-17 (11-18); Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 1: 46-55.

There is a link to the readings and other resources HERE.

A fresco of the Dormition in Saint John’s Monastery in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Reflecting on the Dormition and the Assumption

The Orthodox Church celebrates the day as the Dormition of the Theotokos, and the Roman Catholic knows it as the Feast of the Assumption.

Although the Birth of the Virgin Mary is marked in the calendar of the Church of Ireland next month [8 September], many members of the Church of Ireland may be uncomfortable about commemorations on 15 August.

Traditionally, saints are named in the church calendar on the days they are said to have died. Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist are the only figures named in the calendar of the Church of Ireland on the days marking their birthday: Christmas Day or 25 December, 8 September and 25 June. We remember the death of Christ on Good Friday, but neither the death of Saint John the Baptist (29 August) nor the death of the Virgin Mary (15 August) appears in the Calendar of the Church of Ireland this month.

In the case of Saint John the Baptist, this may be because he is recalled each year in the Epiphany readings as well as on 25 June.

Perhaps this discomfort marking the death of the Virgin Mary on 15 August has less to do with post-Reformation debates about her and more to do with residual memories of how 15 August was used by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to counter-balance Orange celebrations a month earlier on 12 July.

The Orthodox Church marks this day as the Dormition, while the Roman Catholic Church refers to it as the Assumption. They are different names for the same event – the death of the Virgin Mary or her departure from earth – but the two feasts do not necessarily have an identical understanding of the event or sequence of events.

The Assumption is a recent doctrinal innovation in the Roman Catholic tradition, decreed in 1950. The tradition of the Dormition is much older in the Orthodox Church, where the day is a Great Feast and recalls the ‘falling asleep’ or death of the Virgin Mary.

The death or Dormition of Mary is not recorded in the New Testament. Hippolytus of Thebes, writing in the seventh or eighth century, claims in his partially preserved chronology to the New Testament that the Virgin Mary lived for 11 years after the death of Jesus and died in AD 41.

The term Dormition expresses the belief that the Virgin died without suffering, in a state of spiritual peace. This belief does not rest on any scriptural basis, but is affirmed by Orthodox tradition. It is testified to in some old Apocryphal writings, but neither the Orthodox Church nor other Christians regard these as possessing scriptural authority.

The tradition of the Dormition is associated with a number of places, including Jerusalem, Ephesus and Constantinople. In his guidebook, The Holy Land, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor points out that two places in Jerusalem are traditionally associated with the end of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life: a monastery on Mount Zion is the traditional site of her death or falling asleep; and the basilica in the Garden of Gethsemane is said to be the site of her tomb.

However, the first four Christian centuries are silent about the death of the Virgin Mary, and there is no documentary evidence to support claims that the feast of the Dormition was observed in Jerusalem around the time of the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Traditional Orthodox icons of the Dormition depicting the death of the Virgin Mary incorporate many apocryphal elements or details from writings known as pseudepigrapha. Many icons show the apostles and other saints, including four early Christian writers, gathered around her deathbed, with Christ and the angels waiting above.

In Greece, today is one of the biggest celebrations of the Orthodox Church, with people flocking to churches and monasteries to reverence icons of the Virgin Mary, with liturgical celebrations and processions, sometimes until late in the evening.

Some of the best-known celebrations in Greece are on the islands of Tinos, Patmos, Lesvos and Skiathos. It is not a day to mourn the death of the Virgin Mary, but a day of joy and dancing, celebrating the union of the mother with her beloved son.

The pilgrimage to the church on Tinos is probably the largest religious pilgrimage in Greece, and the festival there lasts until 23 August.

This is also the name day for Greeks with the names Maria (Mary), Marios, Panagiotis, Panagiota and Despina.

An icon depicting the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Aghiou Philippou in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Liturgical Resources:

Collect (Common Worship, Revised Common Lectionary):

Almighty God,
who looked upon the lowliness of the Blessed Virgin Mary
and chose her to be the mother of your only Son:
grant that we who are redeemed by his blood
may share with her in the glory of your eternal kingdom;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer (Common Worship, Revised Common Lectionary):

God most high,
whose handmaid bore the Word made flesh:
we thank you that in this sacrament of our redemption
you visit us with your Holy Spirit
and overshadow us by your power;
strengthen us to walk with Mary the joyful path of obedience
and so to bring forth the fruits of holiness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A fresco depicting the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in a church in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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 hymn 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.

‘Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed’ (Proverbs 9: 5) … a table in Lychnos restaurant in Piskopianó, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 23 August 2020, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Saint Peter receiving the keys … a stained-glass window in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday next, 23 August 2020, is the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XI).

The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland, are in two pairs, the continuous readings and the paired readings.

Continuous Readings: Exodus 1: 8 to 2: 10; Psalm 124; Romans 12: 1-8; Matthew 16: 13-20.

There is a link to the Continuous Readings HERE

Paired readings: Isaiah 51: 1–6; Psalm 138; Romans 12: 1-8; Matthew 16: 13-20.

There is a link to the Paired Readings HERE

‘On this rock I will build my church’ (Matthew 16: 18) … the monastery of Simonopetra, built on a rocky clifftop on Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Introducing the Readings:

What’s in a name?

So often, a new name marks a new beginning in life or in ministry.

Think of how Saul becomes Paul, Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel. In the creation stories, Adam names all the created living things (Genesis 2: 20). Samuel’s ministry begins when God calls him by name. In some church traditions, people often took a new or additional name at Confirmation or on joining a monastic community.

In the first reading, the name given to Moses is a hint that we are about to read a dramatic story of people being drawn out of misery and oppression into liberation and participation in God’s promises. In the reading on the following Sunday, Moses asks God his name, and is told, ‘I am who I am’ (verse 14), ‘I am’ (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν).

In the Gospel reading, Simon becomes Peter, and a symbol of the rock or foundation of faith on which the Church is built.

As Saint Paul reminds his readers in the New Testament reading, we are being called to be ‘holy acceptable to God.’

Whenever I hear the Leonard Cohen song ‘Love calls you by your name,’ I am reminded of how the Prophet Isaiah quotes God addressing the people as both Jacob and Israel and then says: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine?’ (Isaiah 43: 1)

Is God calling you by name?

The Baby Moses … an illustration in the ‘Passover Haggadah’ by the Polish-American artist Arthur Szyk

Exodus 1: 8 to 2: 10:

We have spent some weeks reading through the stories in Genesis of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel), and, in recent weeks, the story of Joseph and how the people went down to Egypt.

We now turn to Exodus, in the time after Joseph has died (Exodus 1: 6). The people of Israel have multiplied, as God promised Abraham. Pharaoh stirs hope hatred against the descendants of these immigrants, and forces them slave labour, using them to build ‘supply cities’ (store houses) and as forced labour.

Despite all this, the people of Israel ‘multiplied and spread’ (1: 12). The Pharaoh then orders the Hebrew midwives to kill male new-borns. But the midwives are in awe of God, or feared God (1: 17) and explain their inability to obey these strictures, claiming the Hebrew women are so ‘vigorous’ (verse 19) that they give birth before the midwives arrive.

The people continue to grow in numbers, and Pharaoh next orders ‘all his people’ (1: 22) to throw all Hebrew boys into the Nile.

The story of Moses then begins in Exodus 2: 1, where he is born to parents who are both of the tribe of Levi. His mother sees he is ‘a fine baby,’ and hides him for three months. But when she can no longer hide him, she makes a basket, places him in the reeds in the river.

The Hebrew word translated ‘basket’ (2: 3) literally means ‘little ark.’ This looks back to the story of Noah and the salvation of all life through the ark; but it is telling us that in saving Noah, God saves the Children of Israel, foretelling of God’s presence with the Ark. The basket, made like a miniature Nile boat, is placed ‘among the reeds,’ foreshadowing the crossing of the Sea of Reeds or Red Sea.

The baby is found in the basket in the Nile by Pharaoh’s daughter while she is bathing in the river. She sees the baby is a Hebrew boy, but still she saves his life. Moses’ mother becomes the child’s nurse, and as he grows up Pharaoh’s daughter adopts him as her own son and names him Moses, ‘because I drew him up out of the water.’

How does Pharaoh’s daughter know that Moses is ‘one of the Hebrew children’ (verse 6)? We are not told that Moses was circumcised, but we are told that his mother ‘saw that he was a fine baby’ (verse 2). What did she see? One traditional rabbinical interpretation says that she saw that he was circumcised and knew that there was greatness in store for him. It was said that being born circumcised was an sign of other-worldly perfection that characterised someone who would speak face to face with God.

The Midrash lists Moses among seven special people who were born circumcised: Adam, Seth, Noah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Job (Midrash Tanchuma Noach 5). Another Midrashic source provides a longer list: Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Balaam, Samuel, David, Jeremiah, Zerubabel and Job.

We do not learn the name of his father Amram and his mother Jochebed until later (see Exodus 6: 20). Pharaoh’s daughter gives him the name Moshe to the infant thor Moses because she ‘drew from the water.’ The Hebrew word for ‘drew him (mishitihu) sounds like the word ‘Moshe.’ How did Pharaoh’s daughter give the child a Hebrew name? Did she speak Hebrew?

Rabbinical tradition gives Moses no less than ten names: Yered, Avigdor, Chever, Avi Socho, Yekutiel, Avi Zanoach, Toviah, Shemayah ben Nethanel, Ben Evyatar and Levi. But throughout the Bible he is referred to only as Moshe or Moses.

In Egyptian, Mose also means ‘son of,’ and it was often part of a name, as in Tut-mose, ‘son of Tut.’ So, Moses is to be brought up as an Egyptian prince.

‘Then would the waters have overwhelmed us and the torrent gone over our soul; over our soul would have swept the raging waters’ (Psalm 124: 4) … an illustration in the ‘Passover Haggadah’ by the Polish-American artist Arthur Szyk

Psalm 124:

Psalm 124 is a psalm of thanksgiving, using – as so often in the Psalms – a rapid succession of different images.

The people have been in danger of being swallowed up or swept away, as in a flood, a prey to the enemy’s teeth, captured in a hunter’s trap.

The images do not coalesce into one single metaphor. Rather, they combine to express a mood – in this case, the sense of sudden release from danger.

‘Do not be conformed to this world’ (Romans 12: 2) … a globe sculpture on the Quays in New Ross, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Romans 12: 1-8:

In this reading, the Apostle Paul reminds us that before God, in our worship and obedient discipleship, we are like a living sacrifice that is ‘holy and acceptable’ to God and perfect.

Saint Paul insists that we must now think of ourselves as better than anyone else, or think of others as the world thinks of them. All of us are members of the body of Christ, and each of us has particular gifts. Together we are ‘one body in Christ’ and each is dependent on every other.

For the benefit of the community, God gives us different gifts. They include ‘prophecy’ or inspired preaching, ‘ministry’ or serving the material needs of others, teaching, encouraging others in the faith, giving and generosity, diligent leadership, being compassionate, and being cheerful.

Do we recognise the gifts of others? Do we affirm them and encourage them to use those gifts within the church and within the community?

Do we recognise our own gifts, and accept and use them in humility and with gratitude and cheerfulness?

Saint Peter depicted in a stained-glass window in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Athlone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 16: 13-20:

This Gospel reading includes Christ’s words to the Apostle Peter: ‘I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church …’ (Matthew 16: 18, NRSVA). The debates about the interpretation of this one phrase and the following words have not only divided Christians in the past but have stopped us from discussing the full implications of a very rich passage, full of many meanings.

This Gospel reading is set in the district of Caesarea Philippi, then a new Hellenistic city west of Mount Hermon, on the slopes of what are known today as the Golan Heights. The city was built on the site of Paneas, which was known for its shrine to the god Pan.

Herod the Great built a temple of white marble there in honour of Caesar in 20 BCE. Herod’s son Philip inherited the site 18 years later and named it Caesarea Philippi, honour Caesar as a living god and himself.

The cave at Caesarea Philippi was seen as a gate to the underworld, where fertility gods lived during the winter. The rock was filled with niches for these idols, and the water of the cave were seen as a symbol of the underworld through which the gods travelled from the world of death to the world of life.

Christ is alone with the disciples at Caesarea Philippi when he asks them who do people say that he is. Herod thinks that he is ‘John the Baptist’ (verse 14), although John had already been beheaded. Elijah was expected to return at the end of time. Jeremiah foretold rejection and suffering.

But Christ who does Herod say he is, or who do other people say he is, are less important questions than who do the disciples say he is. Is he a prophet, a spokesman for God, a harbinger of suffering and rejection? Or, is he something more than all these?

Simon Peter offers an insight and answer of his own: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’ (verse 16).

Christ acknowledges this vital insight. Peter is blessed (μακάριος makários), as people in the Beatitudes are singled out as being blessed (see Matthew 5: 3-11). This is an insight that comes not from human knowledge but through revelation from God the Father (verse 17).

Then, in word play, Christ tells Simon Peter he is Petros, his nickname Peter, and on this petra, rock, are the foundations of the Church (ἐκκλησία, ekklesía), the assembly in which all are equal.

In the past, Protestant theologians have put forward strained arguments about the meaning of the rock and the rock of faith in this Gospel passage. Some have tried to argue that the word used for Peter, Πητρος (petros), is the Greek for a small pebble, but that faith is described with a different Greek word, πητρα (petra), meaning a giant rock.

They were silly arguments. The distinction between these words existed in Attic Greek in the classical days, but not in the Greek spoken at the time of Christ or at the time Saint Matthew was writing his Gospel. Πητρος (Petros) was the male name derived from a rock, while πητρα (petra) was a rock, a massive rock like Petra in Jordan.

Other words related to these concepts include the word λιθος (lithos), used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble – it is the Greek word that gives us words like lithograph and megalithic, meaning Great Stone Age – and πάγος (pagos), which in Ancient Greek, means ‘big piece of rock.’

In classical Athens, the ekklesía (ἐκκλησία) was the assembly of the citizens in the democratic city-state in classical Athens. The Athens met as equals twice a year at the Theatre of Dionysus, on the southern slopes of the Acropolis. The Septuagint uses this word ekklesía for the Hebrew qahal or congregation (see Deuteronomy 4: 10, 9: 10, 18: 16, 31: 30; II Samuel 7; I Chronicles 17). Matthew is the only one of the four gospels to use this term.

Hades (ᾍδης or Ἅιδης) was the Greek god of the dead and his name had become synonymous with the underworld or the place of the dead. Death shall not destroy the Church, whether we see this as the death of Christ, the death of Peter and the other disciples, or our own, individual death.

Christ gives Peter the keys, the ability to unlock the mysteries of the Kingdom, or the symbol of authority in the Church. To ‘bind’ and ‘loose’ are rabbinical terms for forbidding and permitting in a juridical sense. They were used the previous week in the story of the Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman in the district of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15: 21-28).

The reading concludes with Christ sternly ordering the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah.

The Hill of the Areopagos and the Agora of Athens seen from the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Reading the Gospel reading:

There are only two places in all the four Gospels where Christ uses the word for the Church that is found in this Gospel reading, the word εκκλησία (ekklesia): the first use of this word is in this reading (Matthew 16: 18), when Christ relates the Church to a confession of faith by the Apostle Peter, the rock-solid foundational faith of Saint Peter.

His second use of this word is not once but twice in one verse two weeks later [6 September 2020], in Matthew 18: 17. It is a peculiar word for Christ to use, and yet he only speaks of the Church in these terms on these two occasions.

In total, the word εκκλησία appears 114 times in the New Testament (four verses in the Acts of the Apostles, 58 times by Saint Pauline in his epistles, twice in the Letter to the Hebrews, once in the Epistle of James, three times in III John, and in 19 verses in the Book of Revelation). But Christ only uses the word twice, in these incidents in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

The ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), the assembly of the citizens in the democratic city-state in classical Athens, met twice a year at the Theater of Dionysus, on the southern slopes of the Acropolis. The Acropolis is the highest point in Athens. It stands on an extremely rocky outcrop and on it the ancient Greeks built several significant buildings. The most famous of these is the Parthenon. This flat-topped rock rises 150 metres (490 ft) above sea level and has a surface area of about 3 hectares (7.4 acres).

Immediately north-west of the Acropolis is the Areopagus, another prominent, but relatively smaller, rocky outcrop. In classical Athens, this functioned as the court for trying deliberate homicide. It was said Ares (Mars) was put on trial here for deicide, the murder of the son of the god Poseidon. In the play The Eumenides (458 BC) by Aeschylus, the Areopagus is the site of the trial of Orestes for killing his mother.

Later, murderers would seek shelter here in the hope of a fair hearing. Here too the Athenians had an altar to the unknown god, and it was here the Apostle Paul delivered his most famous speech and sermon, in which he identified the ‘unknown god’ with ‘the God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth’ (Acts 17: 24), for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (verse 28).

This is the most dramatic and fullest reported sermon or speech by the Apostle Paul. He quotes the Greek philosopher Epimenides, and he must have known that the location of his speech had important cultural contexts, including associations with justice, deicide and the hidden God.

The origin of the name of the Areopagus is found in the ancient Greek, πάγος ( pagos), meaning a ‘big piece of rock.’

Another word, λιθος (lithos) was used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble – it is the Greek word that gives us words like lithograph and megalithic, meaning Great Stone Age.

When you see breathtaking sights like these, you understand how culturally relevant it was for Christ to talk about the wise man building his house on a rock rather than on sand (Matthew 7: 24-26) – a Gospel reading we have missed this year in the Lectionary readings that take us through Saint Matthew’s Gospel Sunday-by-Sunday.

Ordinary domestic buildings might have been built to last a generation or two, at most. But building on rock, building into rock, building into massive rock formations like the Acropolis, was laying the foundations for major works of cultural, political and religious significance that would last long after those who had built them had been forgotten.

And so, when Christ says to Peter in this Gospel reading that the Church is going to be built on a rock, he is talking about the foundations for a movement, an institution, an organisation, a community that is going to have lasting, everlasting significance.

In the past, Christians have got tied up in knots in silly arguments about this Gospel story. Some of us shy away from dealing with this story, knowing that in the past it was used to bolster not so much the claims of the Papacy, but all the packages that goes with those claims. In other words, it was argued by some in the past that the meaning of this passage was explicit: if you accepted this narrow meaning, you accepted the Papacy; if you accepted the Papacy, then you also accepted Papal infallibility, Papal claims to universal jurisdiction, and Papal teachings on celibacy, birth control, the immaculate conception and the assumption of the Virgin Mary.

And that is more than just a leap and a jump from what is being taught in our Gospel reading this morning. But to counter those great leaps of logic, Protestant theologians in the past put forward contorted arguments about the meaning of the rock and the rock of faith in this passage. Some have tried to argue that the word used for Peter, Πητρος (Petros), is the word for a small pebble, but that faith is described with a different word, πητρα (petra), meaning a giant rock, the sort of rock on which the Greeks built the Acropolis or carved out the Areopagus.

But they were silly arguments. The distinction between these words existed in Attic Greek in the classical days, but not in the Greek spoken at the time of Christ or at the time Saint Matthew was writing his Gospel. Πητρος (Petros) was the male name derived from a rock, πητρα (petra) was a rock, a massive rock like Petra in Jordan or the rocks of the Acropolis or the Areopagus, and the word lithos (λιθος) was used for a small rock, a stone, or even a pebble.

And Saint Peter is a rock, his faith is a rock, a rock that is solid enough to provide the foundations for Christ’s great work that is the Church.

How could Saint Peter or his faith be so great? This is the same Peter who in the previous Sunday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 15: 21-28; 16 August 2020) wanted Christ to send away the desperate Canaanite woman because ‘she keeps shouting at us.’

This is the same Peter who two weeks before (Matthew 14: 22-33; 9 August 2020), tries to walk on water and almost drowns, and Christ said to the same Peter: ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ (verse 31).

This is the same Peter who, in the week before that (Matthew 14: 13-21, 2 August 2020), was among the disciples who wanted to send away the crowd and let them buy food for themselves (verse 15).

This is the same Peter who seems to get it wrong constantly. Later in this Gospel, he denies Christ three times at the Crucifixion (Matthew 26: 75, 6 April 2020). After the Resurrection, Christ has to put the question three times to Peter before Peter confesses that Christ knows everything, and Christ then calls him with the words: ‘Follow me’ (John 21: 15-19).

Saint Peter is so like me. He trips and stumbles constantly. He often gets it wrong, even later on in life. He gives the wrong answers, he comes up with silly ideas, he easily stumbles on the pebbles and stones that are strewn across the pathway of life.

But eventually, it is not his own judgment, his own failing judgment that marks him out as someone special. No. It is his faith, his rock solid faith.

Despite all his human failings, despite his often-tactless behaviour, despite all his weaknesses, he is able to say who Christ is for him. He has a simple but rock-solid faith, summarised in that simple, direct statement: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’ (verse 16).

How do you see Christ? Who is Christ for you? … a damaged Byzantine fresco in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Reflecting on the Gospel reading:

Who do you say Christ is?

Who is Christ for you?

I spend much of my time off in Lichfield, where I once worked and where I had a profoundly life-changing spiritual experience when I was in my late teens. George Fox, the founding Quaker, once walked barefoot through the streets of Lichfield. He also challenged his contemporaries with these words: ‘You may say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?’

Who is Christ for you?

Is he a personal saviour?

One who comforts you?

Or is he more than that for you?

Who do you say Christ is?

It is a question that challenges Saint Peter in this Gospel reading. Not who do others say he is … but who do you say Christ is?

Peter’s faith is a faith that proves to be so rock-solid that you could say it is blessed, it is foundational. Not gritty, pebbly, pain-on-the-foot sort of faith. But the foundational faith on which you could build a house, carve out a temple or monastery, or a place to seek justice and sanctuary, rock-solid faith that provides the foundation for the Church.

There are other people in the Bible and in Jewish tradition who are commended for their rock-solid faith, including Abraham and Sarah (see Isaiah 51: 1f).

It is the sort of faith that will bring people into the Church, and even the most cunning, ambitious, evil schemes, even death itself, will not be able to destroy this sort of faith (verse 18).

Throughout the Bible, as people set out on great journeys of faith, their new beginning in faith is marked by God giving them a new name: Abram becomes Abraham, Jacob becomes Israel, Saul becomes Paul, and Simon son of Jonah is blessed with a new name too as he becomes Cephas or Peter, the rock-solid, reliable guy, whose faith becomes a role model for the new community of faith, for each and every one of us.

Why would Christ pick me or you? Well, why would he pick a simple fisherman from a small provincial town?

It is not how others see us that matters. It is our faith and commitment to Christ that matters. God always sees us as he made us, in God’s own image and likeness, and loves us like that.

The faith that the Church must look to as its foundation, the faith that we must depend on, that we must live by, is not some self-determined, whimsical decision, but the faith that the Apostles had in the Christ who calls them, that rock-solid, spirit-filled faith in Christ, of which Saint Peter’s confession this morning is the most direct yet sublime and solid example.

Apostolic faith like Saint Peter’s is the foundation stone on which the Church is built, the foundation stone of the new Jerusalem, with Christ as the cornerstone (Ephesians 2: 20; Revelation 21: 14).

It does not matter that Saint Peter was capable of some dreadful gaffes and misjudgements. I am like that too … constantly.

But Christ calls us in our weaknesses. And in our weaknesses, he finds our strengths. So that, as the Apostle Paul reminds us in the Epistle reading, the Church is then built up by the gifts that each one of us has to offer, ‘each according to the measure of faith that Christ has assigned’ (Romans 12: 3).

Our weaknesses can be turned to strengths if we accept the unique gifts each of us has been given by God and joyfully use them, lovingly use them, in God’s service, for building up his kingdom.

Let us not be afraid of our weaknesses. Let us not be afraid of the mistakes we inevitably make. But let us accept the gifts God has given us. Let us use those to build up our faith, to build up the Church, and to serve Christ and the world.

Saint Peter (left) and Saint Flannan of KIllaloe on the reredos in the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Ennis, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Matthew 16: 13-20 (NRSVA):

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ 14 And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ 15 He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ 16 Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ 17 And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

‘On this rock I will build my church’ (Matthew 16: 18) … a monastery built on a rock top in Meteora, Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical Resources:

Liturgical Colour: Green (Year A, Ordinary Time)

The Collect of the Day:

O God,
you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
Mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect of the Word:

O God,
fountain of all wisdom,
in the humble witness of the apostle Peter
you have shown the foundation of our faith:
give us the light of your Spirit,
that, recognising in Jesus of Nazareth the Son of the living God,
we may be living stones
for the building up of your holy Church;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated
the memorial of that single sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace.
By our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘On this rock I will build my church’ (Matthew 16: 18) … the cathedral ruins on top of the Rock of Cashel, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Suggested Hymns:

Exodus 1: 8 to 2: 10:

13, God moves in a mysterious way
679, When Israel was in Egypt’s land

Psalm 124:

642, Amazing grace (how sweet the sound!)
553, Jesu, lover of my soul
537, O God, our help in ages past

Isaiah 51: 1-6:

512, From you all skill and science flow
481, God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year
102, Name of all majesty
136, On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
545, Sing of Eve and sing of Adam

Psalm 138:

250, All hail the power of Jesu’s name
358, King of glory, King of peace
21, The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want

Romans 12: 1-8:

517, Brother, sister, let me serve you
408, Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest
567, Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go
520, God is love, and where true love is, God himself is there
523, Help us to help each other, Lord
358, King of glory, King of peace
301, Let every Christian pray
438, O thou who at thy eucharist didst pray
639, O thou who camest from above
597, Take my life and let it be
313, The Spirit came, as promised
247, When I survey the wondrous cross
531, Where love and loving–kindness dwell

Matthew 16: 13-20:

460, For all your saints in glory, for all your saints at rest (verses 1, 2j, 3)
668, God is our fortress and our rock
659, Onward, Christian soldiers
528, The Church’s one foundation

Christ with Saint Peter and the Apostles at Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

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.

Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Peterborough (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Readings, hymns and sermon ideas for Sunday 12 August 2018, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

The Gospel reading on Sunday 12 August 2018 continues the readings from the ‘Bread of Life’ discourse in Saint John’s Gospel … bread in a restaurant in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Next Sunday [12 August 2018], is the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (Proper 14B).

The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, as adapted in the Church of Ireland, are:

Continuous readings: II Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33; Psalm 130; Ephesians 4: 25 to 5: 2; John 6: 35, 41-51.

Paired readings: I Kings 19: 4-8; Psalm 34: 1-8; Ephesians 4: 25 to 5: 2; John 6: 35, 41-51.

There is a link to the readings HERE.

David and Absalom (Marc Chagall, 1956)

II Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33

One of the reasons many people say they are turned off the Old Testament is the amount of violence they find in it.

People who seem to have no problems watching boxers punch each other around the head in the ring, or watching ‘mixed martial arts,’ have real problems when it comes to stories in the Old Testament of wars, murders and battles.

And we have them all here next Sunday morning in the Old Testament reading (II Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33).

It is a story of violence: father and son fighting each other after son has violated sister, mercenaries brought in, pitched battles with slaughter and overkill – in those days a battle force of 20,000 amounted to weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

Trying to find religious meaning in all of this, with our modern approaches to issues of justice and peace, becomes a difficult task.

So difficult, in fact, that it is not surprising to find some people find it difficult to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the loving God that Jesus addresses not just as Father, but in the simple and direct Aramaic of his day as Abba.

And yet we have a story that, as we wade through the horror and gore, allows us to catch a glimpse of the love of God as a perfect father.

David has never been a perfect husband, nor has he ever been a perfect father, never a perfect king.

All these failings are there to see in earlier stories in this book: David and Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah (II Samuel 11: 2-27), and then David’s failure to deal with Amnon’s violation of his own half-sister Tamar (II Samuel 13: 1-21).

In this story, David’s love for his first-born son and heir is great, but it prevents him from administering justice.

There is an old legal adage or maxim that justice delayed is justice denied. Frustrated by David’s inaction, his third but second surviving son, Absalom, takes the law into his own hands, and has Amnon killed. After time in exile, through Joab’s mediation, Absalom returns to the court of his father, King David.

But David’s refusal to see him for two years leads Absalom to hate his father. Absalom plans a coup d’état. He knows how to capitalise on festering resentment to the growth of David’s empire, court and bureaucracy, and to David’s inability to accept changing social patterns and values.

Absalom marches on Jerusalem. Fleeing the city, David escapes across the Jordan with his army and begins a military comeback. He divides his army into three groups, one each commanded by Joab, Abishai and Ittai (verse 5).

But David’s advisers keep the king away from any direct involvement in the decisions about what should happen to Absalom.

David orders his commanders to “deal gently” with his rebellious son. Despite his rebellion, David still loves Absalom, perhaps hoping against hope at this late stage to save his life.

The battle is fought in the ‘forest of Ephraim’ (verse 6), on the east bank of the River Jordan. But Absalom’s militia, ‘the men of Israel’ (verse 7), are no match for David’s army.

It is a cataclysmic battle. In the midst of the slaughter, in the killing of perhaps tens of thousands, we hear of the death of one individual, the wayward Absalom whose rebellion against his father began with good intent.

As he is riding through the forest, the handsome prince is caught by the ‘head,’ perhaps by his long, dangling hair, which he cut only once a year, and he is left dangling from the branches of a great oak tree (verse 9; see II Samuel 14: 25-26).

In his desperate plight, we are left hanging too, wondering what happens, for this morning’s reading hastens the pace as it skips over some verses (10-14), perhaps for the sake of abbreviation – not to make a long story longer on a Sunday morning. In those missing verses, a man tells Joab of the plight of the dangling Absalom. But he leaves it to Joab to make the politically-charged decision of whether to kill Absalom.

Ten young men are sent to take advantage of Absalom’s predicament. He is still hanging from the tree when he is killed.

Another missing verse tells us Absalom’s body was thrown into a ‘big pit in the forest’ (verse 17), despite the fact that he had already built himself an elegant, pillared tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Jerusalem so that he would not be forgotten (verse 18).

But the men who are brave enough to kill the prince when he is an easy target are not brave enough to tell David what they have done to his son. It is amazing how brave men can become so timorous.

And so, instead, they send a Cushite, an Ethiopian or Sudanese mercenary or slave (verse 21), to tell David the whole story, both the good news and the bad news, about the victory and about his son being slain (verses 31-32).

David is heartbroken, and his open grief makes him politically weak too. Instead of honouring the victors, he mourns the death of his son.

The cry of a grieving parent for the death of a son or daughter, no matter what age either of them is, is a cry that pierces the soul. Once you hear it, you can never forget it.

No parent expects to see a child grow to full adulthood, and then live to see that son or daughter die. It is an unnatural sequence or pairing of life events. It is one of the great injustices in life.

And David’s grieving, despite all that has happened before, despite his own role in bringing about these bitter and ugly events, is one of those truly authentic passages of reportage in the Bible:

‘O my son Absalom, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’

These truly are the words of a distressed Father’s love for his son, a parent’s love for the child.

No matter how wayward, how rebellious or how violent that child may be – and every parent has children who give problems – been there, done that – yet the love of a parent for a child is impossible to quench totally.

This was one of the readings chosen by Bishop John McDowell for the devotional reflections at the General Synod some years ago, and as he read it, I could feel my heart breaking.

Perhaps this is what it means when it is said David was ‘a man after God’s own heart’ (I Samuel 13: 13-14; Acts 13: 22). Despite David’s many faults, he had a heart like God’s, weeping over his wayward children, willing to die in their place, never allowing their rebellion and cruelty to harden his heart towards them.

Psalm 130:

David’s heart-breaking grief is echoed in our Psalm: ‘Out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice’ (Psalm 130: 1).

Psalm 130 is one of the Penitential psalms. The first verse is a call to God in deep sorrow, from ‘out of the depths’ (Out of the deep), as it is translated in the Authorised or King James Version of the Bible and in the Book of Common Prayer. The psalm is also known by its Latin incipit, De profundis.

David’s cry is a cry to God for deliverance from personal trouble, yet it ends with a message of hope for all. God is attentive to our pleas, despite everything that has gone wrong. God forgives, God is merciful, God offers unfailing ‘love,’ freedom from grievous sin.

Christ understands the difficulties created by the relationship between a parent and child, and between a parent who is grieved by the bickering and battling between two children.

That is why the story of the Prodigal Son rings so true. It is not just the story of a grieving father waiting for a wayward son, but it’s the story of a grieving father waiting for a son who may be his ruin, and the story of a grieving father who has two sons have fought so much with each other, that one refuses to welcome the other home. It has parallels with Absalom’s clashes with Amnon, and contrasts with David’s refusal to go out and meet Absalom when he returns home.

God’s love for us surpasses the love of any father or mother for their children.

God’s love is never petulant. God never goes into a corner and sulks.

And God’s bitter weeping and grieving when he sees our plight is expressed most perfectly in the life, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.

And Christ understands that so well. He asks in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?’ (Matthew 7: 9).

This Psalm is a prayer for deliverance from personal trouble, but it ends with a message to all people: wait in hope for God; he offers unfailing love.

Remains of the basilica in Ephesus … in his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul asks the people in the Church in Ephesus to love ‘one another’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ephesians 4: 25 to 5: 2:

In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul asks the people in the Church in Ephesus to love ‘one another’ (4: 32), expressing generously the same forgiveness that Christ shows us. In the way I forgive and I am loving, I should do so as God does (5: 1), for Christ loves us, even to the point of giving himself up to death for us.

This passage may also be addressed new converts, reminding them that they have been taught to put away their former ways of life, ‘your old self ... to be renewed ... and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God ...’ (verses 22-24).

Saint Paul now reminds them of the conduct expected of them as ‘members of one another’ (verse 25), of one body, the Church.

We must not harbour anger or live by stealing, we are to actively care for the poor and to speak to others in a way that affirms their goodness and builds the community. We are not to grieve the Spirit. We must cast aside all vices. And we are to love one another.

‘I am the bread of life ... This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die’ (John 6: 48-50) … an icon in a shop window in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 35, 41-51:

In the Gospel reading (John 6: 35, 41-51), after feeding the 5,000, Christ offers himself as ‘bread that came down from heaven’ (6: 41), and the promise that we are being brought into full union with God. If we believe in him (verse 45), who has ‘seen the Father’ (verse 46), then we have the offer of life ‘forever’ that comes from God the Father (verse 51).

Verse 35:

This is the first of the seven I AM (Ἐγώ εἰμι) sayings in Saint John’s Gospel, and is repeated in verse 48. These seven I AM sayings are traditionally listed as:

1, I am the Bread of Life (John 6: 35, 48);
2, I am the Light of the World (John 8: 12);
3, I am the gate (or the door) (John 10: 7);
4, I am the Good Shepherd (John 10: 11 and 14);
5, I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11: 25);
6, I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14: 6);
7, I am the true vine (John 15: 1, 5).

These I AM sayings are statements that give us a form of the divine name as revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai before to the first Passover (see Exodus 3: 14).

Jesus, in fact, says ‘I am’ (Ἐγώ εἰμι) 45 times in this Gospel, including those places where other characters quote Christ’s words. Of these, 24 are emphatic, explicitly including the pronoun ‘I’ (Ἐγώ), which would not be necessary in grammatically in Greek.

Verse 41:

In verse 41, the people start to murmur, just as the people murmured about the manna in the wilderness (see Exodus 16: 2, 8).

Verses 43:

Jesus reproves them and tells them to stop murmuring.

Verse 47:

Note yet another ‘Amen, amen’ saying, which is so characteristic of Saint John’s Gospel.

Verse 48:

This is a repetition, or echo, or reminder of the first of the seven ‘I AM’ (Ἐγώ εἰμι) sayings in verse 35.

Verses 49:

They are proud like their ancestors, but do not know his Father.

Verse 51:

It could be argued that the sublime sacramental theology in this part of the discourse would not have been understood by a Galilean audience at that time. It has also been argued that this part of the discourse draws on Eucharistic material from the Last Supper to bring out the deeper sacramental meaning of the heavenly bread, which can only be grasped in the light of the institution of the Eucharist.

In a deeper sense, the life-giving and living bread is Christ’s own flesh.

Saint John gives us the words: ‘The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ This appears to be a variant of the words of the institution in the Eucharist (see Luke 22: 19; I Corinthians 11: 26).

For the Apostle Paul, the Eucharist proclaims the death of the Lord until he comes again. But for John, the emphasis is on the Word that has become flesh and that gives up his flesh and blood as the food of life.

There is profound sacramental theology here. If baptism gives us that life which the Father shares with the Son, then the Eucharist is the food nourishing it.

I AM the bread of life (John 6: 35) is the first of the seven great I AM sayings in Saint John’s Gospel … breads in a shop window in Bray, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Conclusions:

Of course, we can all cite exceptions to what I say. We know only too well there are abusive parents and there are dysfunctional families. But we also know that with God that there are no exceptions, that in Christ there is no abuse, and that Christ calls us into a relationship with his Father that is free of any dysfunction that we may have known in the past.

God’s grief for us is more perfect that David’s grief for Abaslom. God does not refuse to meet us when we reach out to him. And the love of God the Father, offered to us through Christ his Son, knows no exceptions, knows no boundaries, when it comes to his children.

‘This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die’ (John 6: 50) … bread prepared on Saturday for the Sunday liturgy in Ouranoupoli, near Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

John 6: 35, 41-51:

35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ 42 They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ 43 Jesus answered them, ‘Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.48I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

Liturgical resources:

Liturgical Colour: Green.

Collect:

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
Mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated
the memorial of that single sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace.
By our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘Grant … that we, running the way of your commandments, may receive your gracious promises … the Ten Commandments seen on carved stone in a synagogue in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Suggested Hymns:

The hymns suggested for next Sunday in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling, include:

II Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33:

62, Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
590, My faith looks up to thee
592, O Love that wilt not let me go

Psalm 130:

564, Deus meus adiuva me (O my God, in help draw near)
620, O Lord, hear my prayer
9, There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
627, What a friend we have in Jesus

I Kings 19: 4-8:

563, Commit your ways to God

Psalm 34: 1-8:

86, Christ is the King! O friends, rejoice
99, Jesus, the name high over all
634, Love divine, all loves excelling
372, Through all the changing scenes of life
376, Ye holy angels bright

Ephesians 4: 25 to 5: 2

24, All creatures of our God and King
550, ‘Forgive our sins as we forgive’
496, For the healing of the nations
380, God has spoken to his people, alleluia
520, God is love, and where true love is, God himself is there
312, Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost
523, Help us to help each other, Lord
503, Make me a channel of your peace
636, May the mind of Christ my Saviour
106, O Jesus, King most wonderful
639, O thou who camest from above
526, Risen Lord, whose name we cherish
313, The Spirit came, as promised
597, Take my life and let it be
598, Take this moment, sign and space
244, There is a green hill far away
531, Where love and loving-kindness dwell

John 6: 35, 41-51

398, Alleluia! sing to Jesus
401, Be known to us in breaking bread
403, Bread of the world in mercy broken
379, Break thou the bread of life
407, Christ is the heavenly food that gives
406, Christians, lift your hearts and voices
408, Come, risen Lord, and deign to be our guest
413, Father, we thank thee who hast planted
647, Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
420, ‘I am the bread of life’
581, I, the Lord of sea and sky
422, In the quiet consecration
425, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts
588, Light of the minds that know him
431, Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour
435, O God, unseen, yet ever near
472, Sing we of the blessèd mother
445, Soul, array thyself with gladness
624, Speak, Lord, in the stillness
449, Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee
451, We come as guests invited

‘Break thou the bread of life’ (Hymn 379) … a variety of bread on a market stall in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.