Holy Spirit, Southsea, Sung Eucharist
Sunday 4th September, 2005, 10.00 a.m.
Readings: Ezek 33:7-9/Rom 13: 8-10/Mt 18:15-20
There are some Sundays when the set readings throw at us such a rich mixture of Gospel-truths that the result can be somewhat overwhelming. I am not suggesting that this should mean that the congregation here at Holy Spirit should be so filled with the Holy Spirit that we must all fall on the ground and foam at the mouth with spiritual delight. I am, in any case, a bit suspicious of such special manifestations, as you would probably guess. In any case, I was far too well brought up by Fr Lewis when I was his neighbour in Guildford days! But I do, nevertheless, think there is a case for treating this morning’s three-course meal of Scripture with some care, and even delight.
First, there is Ezekiel’s vision of the sentry, or, if you are less politically correct, the watchman. Ezekiel was an off-beat prophet, and the sort of person a bygone age would have described as ‘manic depressive’. He saw and did the strangest things, and the folk around him somehow coped. He even had a vision of a valley of dry bones, doubtless inspired by seeing some battlefield after the conflict had been fought out – and these bones come back to life, through the power of the Spirit of God. But we are not there yet; that’s in chapter 37, and we’re in chapter 33 this morning. For now, it’s this sentry character, this watchman, this observer of people, motives, deeds, innuendoes, quarrels, divisions, as well as fidelity, that Ezekiel somehow had to fulfil. It’s a passage that was often read in the ancient world when bishops were consecrated, because we have to be sentries, watchmen, too. The watchman’s life can be a lonely one, because it means keeping a look-out when everyone else seems to be asleep, whether spiritually, or just physically.
Ezekiel’s words about the sentry, the watchman, therefore, are no cop-out for us. One of the unending features of religious people is their ability to pass the buck. But, then, it all began in the Garden of Eden, with Adam blaming Eve, and Eve blaming the serpent! I wonder if anyone here this morning has had a sense of being watched; probably the answer is ‘yes’, but negatively so. The mind may go back to a time when a group of people start imagining that someone is present who is not there, and what they might think of what is being said or done: very funny in one way, perhaps not so funny in another. Ezekiel’s words are not just about his own role, as a lonely prophet, watching the People of Israel. They are about the rest of us, so that we might become aware that God is watching us – but not in order to catch us out, or to watch us trip up – that’s a game God leaves to us to play on each other. His watching is done out of love, mercy, truth, and forgiveness. And, just to connect this image with the eucharist, the old Scandinavian word for this service is ‘nattvard’ - ‘night-watch’, probably to do with fasting from the night before, but the ‘watching’ image is strong.
Then we come to the second course of the meal: Paul, right at the end of his great Letter to the Christians in Rome, who, just like any other age in the Church, are finding it a bit difficult to get on with each other. There are factions, mainly caused by friction between Jews and Gentiles, who behaved in different ways, and the Gentile Christians, who were only too aware of the Emperor’s policy of banishing prominent Jews from the city, were beginning to fall into the trap of what later grew into one of the darkest strands of Christian history – anti-semitism. That’s an important note to strike right now, for later this morning, the new rabbi is being installed in Southsea’s historic synagogue by the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks. As Christians, we can’t get rid of our origins in the Jewish faith, nor should we. And to crown all that Paul is telling the young Roman Christian community, he says that love is the fulfilling of the law – what devout Jews continue to see as God’s unique guidance to his chosen people. Love is the hall-mark of all that we are and all that we should be. And there is a eucharistic resonance here, as well, because there are some traditions that have referred to this service as a ‘love-feast’ – a ‘feast of love.’
Now we come to the third course, with Jesus, characteristically in Matthew’s Gospel, teaching the disciples. Chapter 18 begins with the disciples themselves asking who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and that gets Jesus really going: first he brings in a child, and tells us to be child-like; then tells us not to put barriers in front of children, barriers of our own making, preventing them from coming to him; then he goes further and warns us that it is better to enter eternal life maimed, than wrong but intact, a brutal truth; then he tells us about the shepherd spending so much time and energy searching for one single lost sheep out of one hundred, a use of resources that clearly goes right against the grain. All that is but a prelude for today’s gospel, which is about relationships with each other. He keeps using the expression ‘two or three’, just to make the point that however small the community or the group, they still matter. So we must try to sort each other out in the Lord.
What of two or three agreeing about anything, and two or three praying for something, in his Name? His hearers will have known that the Jewish ‘quorum’ for ensuring God’s presence in prayer was ten, as part of their teaching. Jesus, however, goes smaller – everyone matters. And you do not need me to tell you how ironical these words are. Disagreements in the Church never surprise me, because they have been happening all through history. A neighbour from my time in Manchester, a devout lady, who I think might have found the worship here too Low Church (!), once bemoaned the difficulties of the time, twenty years ago, and wished that ‘we could all be left in peace.’ But history shows that life has seldom been peaceful. What it does show us is that at least we can agree on what is most important, that God became a human being, who lived and died for us, and that the Holy Spirit, yes, here at Holy Spirit Southsea, the third member of the Trinity, dwells in us, and speaks to us – and enables us to go one step further from ‘agreeing’ and speaking together about the essentials of the Gospel…..which is to pray.
So this three-course meal provides us with a great deal, from the watchman, through the centrality of love, of God, neighbour, and ourselves (and self-love is important, and easily neglected), to the words of Jesus about our life together, in difficulty, in tension, as well as in a common sharing of the life of the gospel – and in prayer together. God has given us many gifts, and when we attend to his words, whether about how he watches us lovingly, or challenges us to love for real, or exhorts us to live more fully, in common, and in prayer, we can do a lot worse than give thanks to him for his gifts, in the bread and wine of the eucharist, gifts which are beyond words.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
