03.06.2016
Archbishop Visits St Catherine’s, Thomas Street
Archbishop Michael Jackson visited St Catherine’s Church, Thomas Street, last Sunday (May 29). He spoke to them about their witness and the great gifts of hospitality and praise that they offer to God and neighbour. The Archbishop also wished them well in the discernment process as a Trustee Church as they seek, under God’s guidance, for a new minister.
Archbishop Jackson also preached at the service. The full text of the sermon is below.
St Catherine’s CORE, Diocese of Dublin
The First Sunday after Trinity, 29th June 2016
Readings: 1 Kings 18.20–21, 30–39; Galatians 1.1–12; St Luke 7.1–10
Sermon by the Archbishop of Dublin
St Luke 7.8: … I say to one, Go, and he goes; to another, Come here, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.
Those of us who have travelled with Jesus Christ in Holy Week into and through Jerusalem, who have travelled again with him in Easter Week from Jerusalem to Emmaus, have found ourselves in Jerusalem once again again for Pentecost and the Coming of the Holy Spirit. We now find ourselves in the Season of Trinity, that long and wonderful season of growth, out and about with him in Galilee. The timetable of Holy Scripture is something to which we need to grow accustomed; we need to get used to the fact that events in the life of Jesus that simply must have happened before the Resurrection are often told us in the period after the Resurrection. The Resurrection helps us to bed them in to a community of faith in the Resurrection – that is the church of today and tomorrow. The Season of Trinity illustrates and illuminates the life of Christ that we have marked and celebrated in the Season of Easter in particular and in the expression of God in Three Persons in The Trinity. We are met by stories of Jesus healing and teaching, of Jesus meeting and listening to people and, from time to time, of learning taking place in both directions. This, in many ways, is the most interesting part of the God who has become human. In such an interactive way, we as human beings live the Risen Life here on earth; and in this way our antennae are out and up for the signs of the Kingdom of God.
Today’s account of the healing of the slave of the centurion is one such occasion. The centurion in Capernaum might today be considered as one of The Righteous Among The Nations, as the Jewish people refer to those among the Gentiles who have been specially helpful to and supportive of them in times of difficulty and of devastation. If you go to Yad Vashem in the suburbs of Jerusalem itself, it is a chilling expression and exhibition of the effects of Holocaust, particularly in the ways in which your movement, scissors–like across the gently sloping museum, forces you to engage with everything (whether it makes you feel uncomfortable or not) if you want to get out into daylight at the end. Outside, you will see trees planted in honour of such people, The Righteous Among The Nations, many of them associated with generous and sacrificial assistance during The Holocaust, people who rescued and refuged Jewish people against the political will and against the prevailing culture of the time. If we consider the panic and the plight of refugees today, their degradation and their trafficking, across the Middle East, across Europe and Africa to name but a few parts of the world about which so many of us forget on a daily basis, we are asked very critical questions about our grasp of lived and loved humanity as such trafficking is a regular occurrence in our own country also.
Why do I use this phrase of the centurion? The centurion of St Luke chapter 7 we are told built the synagogue in Capernaum; the Jewish elders are his intermediaries to Jesus who, as he believes, can heal his slave although he feels that he cannot himself approach Jesus because of his personal and cultural unworthiness. We should notice that here in St Luke 7 there is none of the antagonism we so often find between the Jews and Jesus, and also the other way around between Jesus and the Jews, in the Gospels more generally. The word: believe here is to me an important one. And in many ways, it is the most significant part of the story. It is believing that pushes us forward and it connects us with the next stage and phase of the work of God through what we today call the church and yet the church of course is something which did not exist as such in the time of Jesus. The church points to and lives from these works because they point us to Jesus their source and inspiration for us today as yesterday. Believing is vital to healing, whether the healing itself has a physical manifestation in this world or not.
It is the believing as well as the healing that are important in this account. In fact, in the middle of it, a detailed consideration of the faith of the centurion seems to take over as the important story within the bigger story of healing. Jesus, as in the case of the Syro–Phoenician woman who elsewhere in The Scriptures begs for healing for her child, is impressed most by how the centurion explains his ‘day job’ to him. In an innocent and interesting way, the cneturion dares to draw a parallel between himself and Jesus and seems to draw Jesus close to himself. Just listen again: I know, for I myself am under orders, with soldiers under me. I say to one, Go and he goes; to another, Come here and he comes; and to my servant, Do this and he does this. (St Luke 7.8) Maybe this was the servant who is now ill and close to death on whom the centurion, in a busy life, relied so heavily. It is perhaps no wonder, therefore, that he wishes and believes that Jesus can heal him – and needs him to. This is a genuinely interesting and important moment. The centurion says what he says in explanation of his embarrassment that Jesus might feel the need to enter his house, the house of a Gentile, the house of the enemy and of the Occupying Force, Caesar’s Men. In his embarrassment and over–talkativeness, he nevertheless expresses his utter conviction in the power and the word of Jesus: But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. (St Luke 7.7) This seems indeed to be the moment when Jesus connects with him in a very direct and spiritual way.
Do we learn anything in particular from this miracle of healing?
First, I suggest we learn that belief in and of itself does not predicts or expect any specific, tangible outcome. It cannot do so, otherwise it is not belief. Belief is required to be open–ended to the point where we accept in faith that God’s outcome may not in fact be our preferred outcome. This is the true pain of believing. The centurion is humble, he is open–minded and he is open–hearted but we also sense that he accepts that it just might not happen for his servant.
Secondly, I also suggest we learn that having the courage to converse with Jesus and to compare our lives with him is a right and proper thing to do. I spoke about the centurion comparing notes with Jesus on his ‘day job.’ He ‘talks himself up’ in ways that we as Christians of today are slow to do. We have many convincing excuses and many good reasons. Some of them are personal, some of them derive from the hand that history has dealt us as an institution; and obviously in Ireland one of the most powerful and poignant of these has to be child abuse. But there are other reasons. Christianity is every bit as needed and actually desired by so many in today’s society; but it is also disliked as rarely have we known it in our lifetime; and we are not good at coming to terms with this. We talk of secularism, as if we ourselves do not need secularism to live from day to day and from hour to hour. We talk of post–modernism as if the very same post–modernism does not give us the wide–open opportunity to explore the riches and the depths of the past in a totally new context and new mode of communication. And there is a problem further down in our psychology which came home to me one day when someone asked me the direct question: Michael, can you explain to me why everyone in Ireland wants to be a victim? All of this we need to address urgently if we are to be children of Pentecost and children of The Trinity in our everyday lives. We live now in the time of the specific revelation of The Spirit and the general revealtion of The Trinity. This is the time for exploration and adventure, for inclusion and for engagement with God and with others.
Thirdly, I suggest we learn that the unconditional character of human believing meets the unconditional character of divine healing. There is giving in both directions and the human engagement is as important in this as is the divine condescension. We have seen a rare moment in the life of the earthly Jesus when he heals at a distance the slave of a hated foreigner. My question of us is this: Would our belief make it possible for us to do this sort of thing? It has not got to do with the strength of our belief as it is conventionally called, but with the breadth and depth of our belief. When push comes to shove, this miracle of healing asks of us: Do we want from God for others what we want for ourselves and for our own families? And then there would be the further question: How would we react were they granted it and we were not granted it? Would we still believe and how would we go about doing this? These are hard questions, perhaps even unwanted question, for a Sunday morning when we gather to praise God. They are, however, questions that do not solve themsleves without our engaging with them. And they are questions that do not and will not go away if, like 1 Timothy 6.7 and Job 1.21 we are to say, or have said of us:
We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.