worshipping and doubting .... the intercese of faith ...... Jubilee ......
Today we stand at the ending of Matthews Gospel, the final four verses, and look forward to new beginnings, a new chapter, a new commission.
Here Matthew emphasises key themes, it has been said that these verses represent the acclamation of the whole Gospel.
Here we have a fresh beginning point even as we stand at the end in Galilee where the story began, disciples back in their home place, rooted in the story and the land where their own journeys of faith began.
Now they are commissioned, standing in that thin place, as George McCleod called Iona, their holy mountain or holy land, with Jesus on the mountain, but standing at the edge of a new world and a new time.
Just as we after Covid in both Church and society have lost sight of what is normal so we yearn for a 'new normal' hoping that after Covid there will be a new world and new time.
Trinity Sunday 2020 is my Golden Jubilee.
A Golden Jubilee is a time or season for rejoicing, a special anniversary, in the Roman Catholic Church it is a time when special indulgences are granted, in the Old Testament a Jubilee was an occasion when slaves were liberated and alienated property restored.
I especially like the Catholic view of an indulgence as set out in the Catechism which describes an indulgence as a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins committed.
But I am also reminded that the Old Testament has an altogether tougher and more socially just implication whereby as it says in Leviticus every man goes back to his heritage and his family to his patrimony.
The inscription in the Bible presented to me in Sheffield Cathedral on Trinity Sunday 50 years ago
reads:
Geoffrey Smith
admitted to the Holy Order of priests on Trinity Sunday 1970
by +G Vincent Gerard, Bishop
Now, fifty years later it seems that I can relax because the punishment for my sins has been reduced and the basic commitment to social justice, to Jubilee, which has informed my ministry over the past fifty years has been justified, at least by the dictionary.
There is little to be gained by returning to my heritage though. My Father was a Bus Driver and his final gift was a box containing the birth and death certificates of my Mother's family when he moved to Australia to marry his second wife.
My Grandfather presented me with his gold pocket watch before he died, a watch that I still have and which still tells the time and by which I can measure my own days passing.
As it says in Eucharistic Prayer A of Common Worship:
It is indeed right,
It is our duty and our joy
And it has been and it still is even if on occasion I have to remind myself of the truth that the Gospel for Trinity Sunday 2020 reminds us which is that life is usually lived in the interceses between worship and doubt.
My ministry has taken me on a fascinating, somewhat uneven and occasionally risky journey. I have been a Civil Servant twice, a Curate twice, a Canon twice, a Parish Priest, a Social Responsibility Officer, the Director of a Charity and a House for Duty Priest, a Carer and a House for Duty Priest again.
At my installation and Licensing as a Vicar in Manchester the Archdeacon, who had also been my Vicar described me as a 'true radical', that I would go to the roots of things and rebuild. I suspect that parishes who, having prayed for a new Vicar to be called may well, once I had been in post for a while, have prayed for me to be called away.
I have been called both 'ahead of my time' and, possibly my favourite insult which I still treasure, 'an irresponsible socialist'.
It has been a ministry in which, like so many of the disciples, there has been worship and doubt, as it says in verse 17 of Matthews Gospel, of the disciples on the mountain, some worshipped him; but some doubted' possibly like me, they each worshipped and doubted at the same time.
I have always remained suspicious of a certain type of evangelical expression of confident faith, such as HTB and the Alpha Course, because it represents something, a prosperity gospel, almost a cult leading toward religious hysteria, with the Toronto blessing and so on, that in my view pretty much takes anglicanism away from its admittedly pedestrian roots. Roots however that aim to reach out in compassion to the whole body of Christ living in the Parish, whether they are worshippers or doubters.
In verse 16, we are told that there were 11 disciples, a reminder of betrayal, here at this moment in the journey of the disciples, the victory has been won, Jesus has risen from the dead, but the mission continues until all nations have been made disciples.
Their own faith will be tested. They will be asked to face much, bear much, to suffer much with the only reassurance that Jesus will be with them until 'the close of the age'.
So we leave the disciples on the mountain with the risen Jesus, they are not perfect people, they worship and they doubt, they may worship whilst they doubt, yet they are entrusted by Jesus, as we are, standing at the edge of a world that is passing away facing a new world that is both here, because Jesus has risen and 'not yet' because it is still coming towards them.
If I ask myself what has my 50 years of priesthood achieved I'm not sure that I could offer a very confident answer, I have worshipped, I have doubted, but I have stayed the course this far.
Here Matthew emphasises key themes, it has been said that these verses represent the acclamation of the whole Gospel.
Here we have a fresh beginning point even as we stand at the end in Galilee where the story began, disciples back in their home place, rooted in the story and the land where their own journeys of faith began.
Now they are commissioned, standing in that thin place, as George McCleod called Iona, their holy mountain or holy land, with Jesus on the mountain, but standing at the edge of a new world and a new time.
Just as we after Covid in both Church and society have lost sight of what is normal so we yearn for a 'new normal' hoping that after Covid there will be a new world and new time.
Trinity Sunday 2020 is my Golden Jubilee.
A Golden Jubilee is a time or season for rejoicing, a special anniversary, in the Roman Catholic Church it is a time when special indulgences are granted, in the Old Testament a Jubilee was an occasion when slaves were liberated and alienated property restored.
I especially like the Catholic view of an indulgence as set out in the Catechism which describes an indulgence as a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins committed.
But I am also reminded that the Old Testament has an altogether tougher and more socially just implication whereby as it says in Leviticus every man goes back to his heritage and his family to his patrimony.
The inscription in the Bible presented to me in Sheffield Cathedral on Trinity Sunday 50 years ago
reads:
Geoffrey Smith
admitted to the Holy Order of priests on Trinity Sunday 1970
by +G Vincent Gerard, Bishop
Now, fifty years later it seems that I can relax because the punishment for my sins has been reduced and the basic commitment to social justice, to Jubilee, which has informed my ministry over the past fifty years has been justified, at least by the dictionary.
There is little to be gained by returning to my heritage though. My Father was a Bus Driver and his final gift was a box containing the birth and death certificates of my Mother's family when he moved to Australia to marry his second wife.
My Grandfather presented me with his gold pocket watch before he died, a watch that I still have and which still tells the time and by which I can measure my own days passing.
As it says in Eucharistic Prayer A of Common Worship:
It is indeed right,
It is our duty and our joy
And it has been and it still is even if on occasion I have to remind myself of the truth that the Gospel for Trinity Sunday 2020 reminds us which is that life is usually lived in the interceses between worship and doubt.
My ministry has taken me on a fascinating, somewhat uneven and occasionally risky journey. I have been a Civil Servant twice, a Curate twice, a Canon twice, a Parish Priest, a Social Responsibility Officer, the Director of a Charity and a House for Duty Priest, a Carer and a House for Duty Priest again.
At my installation and Licensing as a Vicar in Manchester the Archdeacon, who had also been my Vicar described me as a 'true radical', that I would go to the roots of things and rebuild. I suspect that parishes who, having prayed for a new Vicar to be called may well, once I had been in post for a while, have prayed for me to be called away.
I have been called both 'ahead of my time' and, possibly my favourite insult which I still treasure, 'an irresponsible socialist'.
It has been a ministry in which, like so many of the disciples, there has been worship and doubt, as it says in verse 17 of Matthews Gospel, of the disciples on the mountain, some worshipped him; but some doubted' possibly like me, they each worshipped and doubted at the same time.
I have always remained suspicious of a certain type of evangelical expression of confident faith, such as HTB and the Alpha Course, because it represents something, a prosperity gospel, almost a cult leading toward religious hysteria, with the Toronto blessing and so on, that in my view pretty much takes anglicanism away from its admittedly pedestrian roots. Roots however that aim to reach out in compassion to the whole body of Christ living in the Parish, whether they are worshippers or doubters.
In verse 16, we are told that there were 11 disciples, a reminder of betrayal, here at this moment in the journey of the disciples, the victory has been won, Jesus has risen from the dead, but the mission continues until all nations have been made disciples.
Their own faith will be tested. They will be asked to face much, bear much, to suffer much with the only reassurance that Jesus will be with them until 'the close of the age'.
So we leave the disciples on the mountain with the risen Jesus, they are not perfect people, they worship and they doubt, they may worship whilst they doubt, yet they are entrusted by Jesus, as we are, standing at the edge of a world that is passing away facing a new world that is both here, because Jesus has risen and 'not yet' because it is still coming towards them.
If I ask myself what has my 50 years of priesthood achieved I'm not sure that I could offer a very confident answer, I have worshipped, I have doubted, but I have stayed the course this far.
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