Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2012 -
Day 7: Changed by Feeding -
John 21:15-17 Feed my sheep
An address by Revd Ray Anglesea
This year in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity we have been looking at
some words of St Paul who proclaimed “We shall be changed,” (by the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ -1 Corinthians 15 v57). The victory envisaged is
not the result of force but achieved by the Son of Man who came not to serve,
but to serve, as St. Mark tells us, was prepared to suffer for those whom he
served, as we read in the letter of Peter. Victory is not to be expectedly
immediately. Those who seek must wait patiently as Revd Vince Fenton reminded
us on Wednesday, it is to be a victory of good overcome by evil with good, as
Capt Mark Adamson reminded us on Wednesday, it is brought about by the peace of
the risen Lord and established by God’s steadfast love as Sister Lucy reminded
us yesterday. And it bears fruit in care for those in need, feed my lambs, feed
my sheep as I shall be reflecting today. This vision of Christ’s victory is not
brutal and coercive. There is no need to fear it as arrogant or threatening. On
the contrary it is rooted in service and the readiness to suffer, and in
patience, peace and love.
To feed. We can read that verb on various levels. There is some truth in the
English proverb that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I married a
beautiful wife who loves cooking, the kitchen is my wife’s province, now semi
retired I tread carefully in her territory, her roast beef and Yorkshire
puddings, trifles, Christmas puddings and chocolate cakes are beyond compare,
her sea food pasta, profiteroles and sticky toffee pudding make my mouth water.
With such a large and extended family, daily meals were prepared as for an
army, friends, family and student neighbours would gather around the table for
birthdays, celebrations and anniversaries, 19 I think we had in one famous
sitting. 30 or so years of married bliss tired of sitting on an assortment of
chairs and stools we have just acquired a new dining room table – it came with
10 matching chairs. My third son, Tom, has taken up cooking as a career, preparing
fancy meals in a variety of restaurants around the world, London, New York,
Toronto, Sydney, for such well known chefs, Heston Blumenthal, Gordon Ramsey,
Thomas Kellar. Last year he worked in the restaurant voted the best restaurant
in the world, Noma, Copenhagen. Pete my fourth son has too joined the catering
world, opening a cafe Flat White in Durham. When the Lord prepares a table
before me as we heard in that well loved psalm 23, I like to imagine that it
will be groaning with luscious and extravagant food, the heavenly banquet, like
the Harvest teas we had at St Andrew’s many years ago, but perhaps without a
whiff of autumnal Chrysanthemums.
Jesus instructs his disciples to feed and care for the world’s poor and
hungry, this we do in a variety of ways through many relief organisations. But
we can read this passage at a more profound and deeper level.
Three times at the lakeside Jesus asks the question ‘Simon, son of John, do
you love me?' There's a memory of the first time Peter set eyes on Jesus; how
he looked at him and said: ‘you are Simon, son of John'. Three times Peter
replies in the affirmative. Three times Jesus charges him to care for his
flock. Three times, for each of the three times Peter had denied him on the
night of the passion. Jesus in his gracious forgiveness gave Peter the chance
to wipe out the memory of the threefold denial by a threefold declaration of
love. Jesus reinstated Peter. If you love me, Jesus said, then give your life
to shepherding the sheep and the lambs of my flock. We can only prove that we
love Jesus by loving others. Love is the greatest privilege in the world, but
love also brings the greatest responsibility in the world. Love brought Peter a
cross – later Jesus goes on to predict that Peter too will lay down his life
for the sake of the Good Shepherd whom he follows. For where Jesus has gone is precisely
where Peter must also go for love of him. It will be the cost of discipleship
for Peter, of saying yes to the summons of the risen Lord, ‘follow me'.
‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?' ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I am your
friend'. To be a friend of Jesus means loving him personally, passionately, and
publicly, because that is the way he loves us. It means embracing the price of
friendship, not caring about my life so much that I wouldn't be prepared to
give it up for him. It means imitating the Good Shepherd not only in caring for
his people, feeding his flock, but in laying down his life for them.
In the power of the resurrection Peter can now put Maundy Thursday behind
him, when he so dismally failed the test of friendship. Easter has transformed
and changed the coward of the courtyard into the loving friend of the lakeside.
And I dare say that of all the disciples, his journey is most like ours, for we
too need constantly to be enticed from the twilight of half-commitment into the
full day of loyal love, ‘out of darkness into his marvellous light' as a Letter
of Peter says. We need to be able to say: ‘yes Lord, we are your friends'. We
need conversion of life, we need to be transformed, turned round, not once but
each day we live.
Jesus asks us to live and die for him, just as he died and lives for us,
even if it takes us where we do not wish to go. Perhaps on good days we can
begin to wish to go there for his sake, for where the Master is, there will his
servant be. And whatever awaits us on that road, we know that we must embody
and express our love of Jesus by feeding his sheep. For Peter and for us, that
includes living within the circle of love we call the Christian community. But
love always looks beyond itself. To be friends of Jesus means being friends to
those he especially cherishes: the vulnerable and voiceless and poor, those
whom he calls his brothers and sisters, those to whom we are instructed to
feed.
Once Peter said, when Jesus asked if the disciples would abandon him: ‘Lord,
to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life'. Perhaps the words came
too easily. Sometimes they do in a fit of enthusiasm. ‘I will lay down my life
for you' he'd exclaimed in that moment of heightened intensity in the upper
room, hardly knowing what he was saying. But he knows now. At the lakeside
Jesus puts the test once more, and this time he rises to the challenge. ‘Lord,
you know that I am your friend. You know I could not love you more.' On the
other side of the passion he understands what this means, what it will cost
him. It is his greatest moment. I ask myself, and I ask you, whether ours is
yet to come, and how passionate we shall be when it does.
Paul may have been the great orator who voyaged and adventured far in the
mission of the gospel, John, theologian and writer it appears had great insight
into the mind of God, but it was to Peter who was given the role of the Great
Shepherd of Christ’s people. It was Peter who had the honour and the lovely
task of being the shepherd of the sheep of Christ. And here is where we too can
follow in the steps of Peter. We may not be able to think like John or go to
the ends of the earth like Paul. But each of us can guard someone from going
astray, and each one of us can feed the lambs of Christ with spiritual and
physical food.
Amen
A sermon preached by Revd Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook
and at Trinity Methodist Church, Spennymoor, Sunday 8th January 2012
Accordingly to church historians the pro-Roman King, Herod the Great, was a
nasty piece of work. King of a small Jewish state he was by all accounts an
insecure tyrant; he employed mercenaries and secret police to enforce order; a
madman he trusted no one, not even his wives (of which he had ten) or his many
sons – he executed one spouse and three of his boys because he feared they were
plotting against him. Encouraged by his Roman masters, Herod believed in
singling out individuals for public execution as well as the mass slaughter of
opponents; any threat of an uprising was put down with brutal and bloody
ferocity, so much so that his excessive brutality was condemned by the
rabbinical court of judges, the Sanhedrin. Herod's paranoia about keeping power
and his ruthless suppression of dissent earned him a well deserved place
alongside the great dictators of history. Not a name you would find in the
Jerusalem New Year’s Honours List. But like Herod the world is not immune or
unaffected by political tyrants.
The death of Kim Jon II of North Korea last month, self-styled superior and
dearest leader, great man who descended from heaven, saviour, Highest
Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comrades, Great Defender, Guiding Star of the
21st Century, just a few of his many titles, ended a dismal year for the
world’s tyrants and dictators. His 17 years of grotesque tyrannical misrule
ensured him the top place in most rankings of the word’s autocratic despots.
Combining absolute rule Kin Jon II achieved even greater catastrophe for North
Koreans than suppression and mass starvation; he has left a population of some
24 million people physically stunted owing to malnutrition, and emotionally and
intellectually impoverished. Close behind came another tyrant and oppressor, Gaddafi
of Libya, who was ousted in August and killed in October. Murbarak of Egypt was
ousted in February after 30 years in power and is on trial with his son, Gamal.
In January last year Tunisia’s President ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after a
mere 24 years of plundering and repression. Syria’s revolution is expected to
topple President Assad in the next 12 months ending four decades of tyranny
since 1971. It is estimated that three dozen dictatorial regimes still ensure
that nearly two billion people around the world are denied their basic human
rights. While Putin, the prime minister in Moscow has yet to earn the title of
dictator the phrase Russian democracy is in danger of becoming an oxymoron as
he prepares to return to the presidency next year.
And just when Herod the Great felt his great building projects were under
control, the temple in Jerusalem, his military fortifications at Herodias and
the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima news arrives of the coming of
a rival king who heralds a different kind of political reality. Wise men with
ostentatious and extravagant gifts led by a star come to his lavish fortress
palace at Herodium, they are Gentile astrologists/astronomers from outside the
Jewish tradition, clever, devious, complicated, nervous learned men, they are
late arrivals at the scene. They do not bring this year’s apple merchandise,
iPad 2, iphone 4S, iPad touch, but gold frankincense and myrrh. These wise ones
come with their scientific enquiry and enquiring minds and announce to Herod
that a new King is to be born; telling Herod about the Christ child they
provoke the massacre of the children in Bethlehem.
What Matthew is at pains to tell us is in the opening chapters of his gospel
is a story not written to satisfy astronomical curiosity or a kind of cosy
picture-book story we have created for ourselves; what he is telling us is
political dynamite. Jesus, Matthew is saying is the true King of the Jews.
Herod is the false one, a usurper, an impostor. Matthew introduces us to something
which Matthew wants us to be clear about from the start. If Jesus is in some
sense King of the Jews that doesn’t mean that his rule is limited to the Jewish
people. At the heart of many prophecies about the coming king, the Messiah,
there were predictions that his rule would bring God’s justice and peace to the
whole world.
But what is it about the resourceful and clever wise men with their supposed
wisdom, that they arrive at the wrong door and in so doing create confusion and
mayhem, havoc and destruction – the slaughter of the innocents. It’s as if the
wise, the devious, the resourceful, the political strategists can’t help making
the most immense mistakes of all. Here we are with our modern 21st century
minds and with our technology, knowing more and more, yet stepping deeper and
deeper into military, economic and political tragedy. Communications are more
effective than ever in human history, analysis of national international
situations become ever more subtle; intelligence and surveillance provides
theoretical perspectives on human behaviour, individual and collective. And
still the innocence are killed, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, Libya,
Congo.
And yet – here is the miracle – Christ is born in a country occupied by a
tyrant and a ruthless confused dictator, born in a humble feeding trough in
some Jewish backwater of a village. And here is another miracle - the three
wise men with their massive foolishness and thoughtlessness are welcomed at the
manger door. They are not turned away. Here amongst the tyrannies of the
world’s wise men, wise people are to be found, they do not turn away. They are,
as Matthew tells us, part of God’s justice and peace plan for the world. In the
suffering and political struggles, peaceful demonstrations one day and violent
suppression the next, and the massacres that we see daily on our screens, there
we find wise people who in their struggles against tyrannies search for the
truth, for liberation and freedom; in Lybia, in Syria, America and London where
our times are not quiet times of contentment and shared prosperity; there is a
deep sense that something has gone tragically wrong as we ponder with the
Occupy London protests the gross inequality and injustice throughout our world.
Last month two modern leaders died: Vaclav Havel, former president of the
Czech republic and Kim Jong II, the leader of North Korea. Kim Jong ruled by
fear, suppressed freedom, murdered dissidents and encouraged a cult of
personality. Vaclav Havel on the other hand inspired his contemporaries to
fight against totalitarian rule, against tyrants and though he too faced a
seemingly impregnable enemy, soviet communism, he knew that freedom is not won
by numbers but by courage, physical, intellectual and ultimately spiritual. He
once said: “As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest
meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its
human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.” In other words we have
to live for something greater than ourselves if we are to win the freedom to be
ourselves. Havel called his most famous essay “The Power of the
Powerless,”......... freedom can defeat ruthless power. It needs a few
dedicated people with the inextinguishable courage to light a candle of hope in
other people’s lives and together we can change the world.
And it was Mohamed Bouazizi, the humble Tunisian fruit seller whose fight
for justice created history and was named the 2011 Times Person of the Year.
His courage inspired the oppressed masses of the Arab world the right to
determine their own destiny. His self lit
oppressed masses of the Arab world the right to determine their own destiny.
His self lit candle of hope, his own body, burning himself to death, triggered
an Arab uprising. 2011 turned out to be a year of a million heroes of Arab men
and women who took to the streets demanding their liberty, dignity, economic
opportunity and the right to choose their own lives. Thousands paid for their
temerity with their lives, but with enormous courage these nameless and
faceless heroes have toppled some of the world’s dictators and autocrats, the
Herod’s of the world. Does the nature of Bouzazi’s immolation remind you of
another martyr?
As the wise men discovered on their long journey, coming to the Christ child
isn’t always simple. I guess we might share the same experience. For some
people, faith is difficult, hard, often God is remote, God appears on mute,
most of the time we live in dry deserts, we run out of spiritual fuel. Many
would admit they no longer have a vivid experience of God. What was bright and
shiny is now tarnished and dull. What gave life and purpose has been reduced to
disappointment and play acting. Christian people later in life quietly confide
that they have lost the fire of their faith, and even sophisticated believers
can lose their balance when faced with serious ill health. People journey late
and arrive by roundabout routes to the stable door, with complex histories, sin
and muddle, false expectations and perceptions and wrong starts. It’s no good
saying to them, “You must become simple and wholehearted,” as this could be
done just by wishing. The real question is “Can you take all your complicated
history with you on your journey to the manger? Can you stop hanging on to the
complex and the devious for their own sake, as a theatre for your own skills
and recognise where the map of heavens points.
In a world in turmoil, the economic forecast for the New Year looks bleak,
uncertain and frightening; particularly here in the North East which is
probably back in recession where an embittering growing class of have-nots is
beginning to emerge. Just look around the many private and public housing
estates in Crook and Willington where there is now severe unemployment. One of
my dreams this year is to set a soup kitchen here in church. On my daily walk
to the cathedral I pass men sleeping rough in cold wet shop door fronts,
graduates with 1st class honours degrees prepare sandwiches and serve at tables
at my son’s cafe because there are no jobs for them, qualified planning
students are returning to planning school because there has been no planning
jobs advertised in the North East for the last two years; I too know the trauma
and anger of being made redundant from a profession I loved. Journeying for me
for such people as I have mentioned may be a tedious, dreary, dull and
difficult journey to the truth. But on the way we must not deny the tangle and
the talents, the varied web of what has made us, what has happened to us and who
we are. Every step is part of the journey, even the false starts which move us
on towards the truth. But we come as we are; room is made for us, healing is
promised, even usefulness given to us if we are ready to make an offering of
what W H Auden called “our crooked heart.”
In the straw of the stable, the humble and the complicated are able to kneel
together, he is there in naked spirituality for the sophisticated and the
troubled, those who had long and journeys, cold comings, to the stable. Let
none think they are too tangled, too late and messy to be welcomed. Space has
been made in this world for the Christ child, who comes amongst us in the real
world of tyrants and dictators, politics and struggle, for God to make himself
at home and to welcome all of us and use whatever we bring to him.
Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson
Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit
Jesus instructs his disciples to feed and care for the world’s poor and
hungry, this we do in a variety of ways through many relief organisations. But
we can read this passage at a more profound and deeper level. 